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2 Pleasure Hi, this is A.J. Welcome again VIP members to this month s lesson. This month we have another leadership lesson, the topic is leadership. The title is very nice, the title is Pleasure. Pleasure that sounds like a nice title. Pleasure means good feelings, oh yes. What does pleasure have to do with leadership? How are they connected? Here s the deal. What is leadership first of all? We should think about it, we should ask that question. What are we trying to do as leaders? Most people say well, we are trying to get people to do things. That s the usual answer, right? That s the usual gut answer. Gut means instinctive answer or quick answer. It comes out of your gut very fast. It s your gut answer. You re not really thinking deeply about it, it just comes out quickly. Let s not go with the gut answer. The gut answer is yes, a leader is someone who tries to get other people to do things. That s probably the most general basic understanding of what a leader is that most people have. Leaders get people to do things, yes that s true, that s part of it. We have a bigger, deeper, more inspiring vision of leadership. We have a kind of leadership here at Effortless English; you might call it contribution leadership. In other words, we don t just want people to do things like just to help us personally, or just to help the company; we want it to be good for everybody, especially for the people who are doing it, the people on our team or in our family. We want them to get outcomes or take decisions or make actions that will improve their lives and improve their happiness, and will contribute to other people too or the organization, whatever it is. We have to actually be careful about this thinking that oh, we re the leader and we just push people to do things. The first thing we should decide is, is it a good thing to do? Is it good for people? We see in lots of companies around the world people making lots of decisions and leading people to do things that are not very good. They re creating food that s poisonous and unhealthy and terrible for people, they re polluting and damaging our environment, poisoning our air, poisoning our water. There s some leader somewhere, who s pushing people to do those things, but they re not good things. We want to be sure, of course, first that we re doing good things, things that make people feel good and that are good for them, even if they re difficult in the

3 beginning. That we know we have everyone s best interest in mind, that we truly care about the people on our team and the people who might be impacted or affected by what we re doing. That s the first step. After you decide that, you re like how do I get people to do things? It s a hard thing sometimes, right? If you want people to do things but maybe they don t want to do it, how do you convince them to do it? We ve talked about different methods. Number one, you can just be decisive and you go and do it and they follow you, but sometimes you do want to convince people to do something. You know it s a good thing, you know it s the right thing and you know it s good for them, but it might require some extra work, it might require extra effort, it might be a little uncomfortable or maybe very uncomfortable. You start thinking; what can I do? How do I convince people? Of course what a lot of people do is they just badger people. To badger means to just harass, we also say bug; to badger someone or to bug someone. It means you just keep saying it again and again and you re kind of bothering them until they re kind of like okay I ll do it, stop bothering me. That s not the best way to convince people to do things. Let me give you an example. My mom has not been very healthy. She s kind of overweight she s not taken very good care of herself. A couple years ago she wasn t very happy either, she was quite unhappy. She was working this terrible, terrible job where she had to get up at like four in the morning or 3:30 in the morning and work these long hours. My sister was trying to convince her to retire. My sister would tell her; come on it ll be great, you ll like it, you should do it. My sister was bugging her about it, badgering her. Just saying it come on mom, you should do it, you should do it. My mom was uncomfortable and afraid, should I retire? I don t know what to do. I talked to my mom. I took a different tactic. What I wanted to do was find out what is pleasurable for my mom? Not what I think is a good idea, not what I think the benefits are; I want to find out from her what inspires her most, what sounds wonderful and great to her. I just started asking her questions. Well mom, do you want to retire? She said I don t know. Well, if you continued working, what would you enjoy about that? What s good about that and what s not so good? She told me some answers. I said okay mom, if you decide to retire, what might be good about that? She described a few things and also described some of her worries.

4 What I was doing is just trying to figure out what kind of things are important to my mom and will make her feel good, and what things will not. One of the things I discovered was that contribution is important to my mom. She didn t say this directly, she didn t say A.J. contribution is what s important to me I had to use my brain a little bit and ask a lot of questions like I m interviewing her. What I realized as I asked her questions was that what she liked about the job was the feeling of being on a team and helping out. There was this feeling that she did her job very well, because she really cared about her customers. Her customers were little children, she was a dental assistant. They clean these little children s teeth. They were helping poor children who could not afford to go to a dentist usually. They would go around and they would help and clean these children s teeth and give them exams and things like that. She felt she was helping these children, she was helping the dentist a lot and she was making a contribution. I started realizing oh everything she s talking about that she likes, it s about her helping or contributing to other people. I started to realize aha, she s probably worried that when she retires she won t be contributing anymore; she won t have that meaning anymore of helping people so much. I found the pleasure point for her, the thing that was giving her so much happiness. It wasn t being a dentist and cleaning teeth, it was contribution. The problem was she could continue working, but in this job she wasn t treated well. Her boss made her work these insane crazy long hours, she was exhausted. Physically she was in terrible shape. She wasn t getting much sleep, she was just eating fast food because she had no time to stay home and prepare some food for herself; it was destroying her health. It was not a good situation for her. Despite the fact that this job was so terrible, she still wasn t sure she wanted to retire and leave. My sister just couldn t understand it. Why? It s so terrible and she s tired. My sister would get very frustrated and badger her and bother her. You need to leave that job its killing you; you need to leave that job it s so unhealthy, you need to leave it. She was focusing on the pain, the pain, all the pain my mom was getting from the job. We do this a lot when we try to convince people don t we? We talk about the problem, the problem, the pain, oh my God. It s not so powerful it actually does not convince people so much. What convinces people is that incredible feeling of pleasure or happiness or something. If somebody is in a bad situation and they re staying, they re not leaving it or changing it, it means something in that situation is giving them pleasure, even if it seems very terrible.

5 I found out with my mom what it was after asking her a lot of questions and listening carefully, that it was the contribution. Then it was much easier to sort of influence her. I didn t convince her, she made her own decision, but what I did do is I tried to help her see that when she retired she could continue to contribute. What could she do? For example, my sister at that time had one little girl, a baby, now she has two children. I talked more and more about the fact that my mom could help my sister. She could spend more time with the children. She could help my sister or contribute to my sister by helping with the children. She could help raise those children and teach those children and give them love and happiness. She would be contributing to her grandchildren and to her daughter, my sister. Of course my sister had mentioned these things too, but I emphasized them and that s what I really focused on. I didn t focus on all the pain of the job, she knew that. What my mom wanted was to know that she would still get that great wonderful feeling of contribution, that she still had a purpose and a meaning. That s what I talked about and I emphasized it again. I painted a picture; how great it would be to spend time with her granddaughter, and how she could help teach her to read and play with her, and how my sister would get a break. She would be a better mom and be able to relax more because my mom was helping her. This was much more influential. My mom started to think of retirement in a much more positive way. Of course other things influenced her too, but the point is, as a leader I knew the way to convince her was not by talking about the problem a lot, and not just talking about the pain and all those difficulties. It was rather to talk about her pleasure point, we ll call it the one really important thing that was making her so happy or giving her that pleasure in the job, that was causing her to want to stay even though it was a bad situation. Once I found that I could talk about that and I could talk about the new action, the new decision, and really show her that hey you can still have that pleasure, you can still have that pleasure point. Do you see how this works? It s quite simple. It s simple but not always easy because people are not direct. Most people will not just tell you exactly what it is. For some people its contribution, helping people. For other people it might be something else. You have to find out. The first thing you should do as a leader is not talk but rather, ask a lot of questions. If you re trying to convince someone to do something, it might be your child, it might be a team of people at your job whatever it is the first thing you want to do is start asking

6 a lot of questions and figure out what it is they really love and enjoy, what gives them great pleasure? You re looking for something general, for example contribution. In different situations it could be learning I love learning. Some people love challenges. I m one of these people. I love challenges. If I think it s going to be something a bit difficult that will cause me to grow and learn and that excites me. Other people don t like that. Other people like comfort and certainty, and great security. If you re trying to get them to change, that can be difficult. What you have to do is find out what gives them security and then you have to show them, tell them, convince them that by making the decision in fact long term they will be much more secure. See how that works? You would not make that same argument with me. You have to really find out what motivates people. What s that pleasure point, the thing that makes them feel good and safe and wonderful? It s different for everyone, that s why there s not just a big formula. The way you find out is by asking lots of questions. Why do you like to do this? Why do you like to do that? What is it about this situation you enjoy? What is it about that situation that you don t like? You re constantly going to be asking them questions about what it is they like, what they enjoy, why they like certain things, why they don t like other things, what kinds of things make them really happy and excited, what kinds of things make them bored or scared or worried? It s like your interviewing them. If you have a team at work, you should do this with every individual on your team. Take notes, record it if you can. Really learn and when you find those points you re going to have to read through the answers, you re going to have to think about it sometimes but you ll start to see patterns and then you ll realize this is really a security person, this person loves security. Maybe like my mom this person is a contribution person. What they want most is the feeling that they are contributing and helping. Other people like status. Status means they re important, right? They like to have the title or be important, they re a winner. It s good to know. Don t judge it that it s bad or it s good, just know what it is. For the people on your team or in your family, know what it is that gives them the most pleasure. You re not going to talk to everyone the same way. If someone likes security you re going to emphasize the security benefits of what you want them to do. If someone likes challenge and growth like me, you re going to use a totally different way of talking and convincing.

7 With me, you want to emphasize A.J., you re going to get to do these cool new things and you re going to learn new stuff and it s going to be difficult but I know you can do it. That s a great argument for me, I would get excited oh that sounds kind of cool. If you make that argument with someone who likes security and you tell them it s going to be difficult, no-no-no, then oh my God, difficult or challenging. Changes, I don t want that. They re not going to want to do it. Do you see what I mean? What you ve got to do is with them is say it s not going to be so difficult. Once we finish and we do this everything is going to be so much more safe and secure and easy. That s how you convince them. Safe and secure and easy that sounds good to me. You come talk to me and you would emphasize different parts. Do you see how this works? Do you see what you re doing? You re just treating people like individuals and you re taking the time to really know what motivates them. Picking that one thing that gives them so much pleasure, that general thing, and then you can show them how they can get that pleasure even more by taking the action you want, by making the decision you know they or the team needs to make. That s the point of this month s topic, and it s what I want you to do, become an interviewer. Start with your family and friends. You don t have to do this formally, do this in a relaxed casual way. You can do it over several days so they don t notice, but take little notes after you talk to them. Just start asking these types of questions; what do you like to do? If they re your friends or family, you already have a good idea. The next step is why do you like that? Keep following up say okay, you like that, why do you like that? Why does that make you feel good? Remember; ask the same question in different ways. It actually gets people to talk more and give you more information. When you say why do you like that, they ll give you some information. If you say why does that make you feel so good? It s the same basic question, the same meaning, but by asking a little differently now they re going to give you even more information. Keep doing that. Also ask about the negative side of things; what don t you like? Why don t you like that? What is it about that you don t like? Why does that make you feel so bad? Why does that make you feel so bored? Why does that make you feel so scared or whatever the emotion is? Why does that make you feel excited? Why does that make you feel happy? Why are you always doing these kinds of things? What is it that really motivates you?

8 You see the pattern, right? I want you to ask lots and lots of these questions and say them in many different ways and follow up, and do it over many days and take notes until you build a picture of this person and really get what gives them pleasure and excitement. In the future when you need them to do something and you re trying to convince them focus on that pleasure point and talk about that. Don t talk about the problems, don t talk about all the difficulties, don t talk about other things they may not like; talk about their pleasure point and how taking the action will give them that pleasure even more. You re going to become an interviewer this month and you re going to do it with your family, your friends and people at your job. Like I said do it in a relaxed way over a few days so they don t notice or if you re in a job you could just say I want to talk to you and really get to know you. I m your manager and I need to know what you love. I want you to be happy here. You could actually have a long two hour interview with each member of your team one by one. You could also do that but if you want to make it more casual just keep asking these kinds of questions in more casual conversations and do it over many days, even many weeks, and you ll still get the same effect and you ll learn what you need to learn. In the future when you know this it s so powerful, because then you can be really persuasive with that person. I can be more persuasive with my mom now that I know this. I mean I knew this was important for her, but I never knew it was the core super important thing. I also learned more. I also know that my mom values security, and that s probably number two for her, knowing that I can really be more influential with my mom. You can see that, right? That s what you re going to do. The people in your life who are important, if you want to be a leader I want you to interview them. Interview them, learn everything you can about what gives them pleasure, find their pleasure point. I ll talk more about this in the audio commentary. I hope you re having a great month, I ll see you again my special VIP. Bye-bye.

9 Pleasure Mini-Story Text Hello VIP, this is A.J. Welcome to the mini-story for Pleasure. Let s begin. * * * * * There were two twins named Dennis and Daryl. Were there brothers or were there sisters? There were brothers of course, there were two brothers. What kind of brothers were they? They were twin brothers. What were their names? Their names were Dennis and Daryl. Where their names Billy and Buckwheat? No, their names weren t Billy and Buckwheat their names were Dennis and Daryl. What kind of brothers were they? Twin brothers, that s right, they were twin brothers. They were twin brothers. They looked exactly, the same. However, they were quite different, their personalities were very different. What was the same? The way they looked. They looked the same. Were their personalities the same? No, their personalities were not the same. Their personalities were very, very different. Dennis, he was always adventurous, very adventurous, bold and adventurous. Daryl, really his whole life up until now he has always been timid. During his

10 whole life right up until now Dennis has always been adventurous, and Daryl has always been timid. One day, Dennis went rock climbing. Did Daryl go rock climbing? No, he didn t. Daryl did not go rock climbing. Why didn t Daryl go rock climbing? Daryl didn t go rock climbing because of course he was timid. He was too afraid to go rock climbing. Who went rock climbing? Dennis. That s right, Dennis went rock climbing. What did Dennis do? He went rock climbing. He climbed up a very difficult and dangerous Half Dome Mountain in Yosemite National Park. Which mountain did he climb? He climbed Half Dome. Half Dome is the name of the mountain. He climbed Half Dome. Was Half Dome a dangerous mountain to climb? Yes, it was, it was difficult and dangerous to climb. Daryl climbed Half Dome, right? No, not Daryl; Daryl has always been very timid Dennis is the adventurous one, right? Dennis was the adventurous one and still is the adventurous one. It was Dennis who climbed Half Dome. Unfortunately, while climbing Half Dome he had an accident. He broke his arm. Oh no. What did he break? He broke his arm. Who broke his arm? Dennis did, Dennis broke his arm.

11 After he went to the hospital and then he came home, Daryl saw his broken arm. Daryl said, You re crazy Dennis, I never would have done that. I never would have climbed that mountain and I never would have broken my arm. Would Daryl have climbed the mountain? No, he never would have done that. He said; I never would have climbed the mountain. Of course, he did not climb the mountain, but he s saying there s no possibility, that it s not something he would have done. Who said I would never have done that? Daryl said that. Daryl said I never would have climbed the mountain, I never would have done that. Not a possibility. He s saying that if he went in the past and it was a choice, he would never do it. Does that make sense? Let s keep going. Did Dennis climb the mountain? Yes he did, Dennis climbed the mountain. Who did not climb the mountain? Daryl did not climb the mountain. Would Daryl ever climb the mountain? Is it possible? Would he ever consider climbing a mountain? Would he ever climb a mountain? No, Daryl would never do that. He would never have done that in the past, and he will never do it in the future. He would never ever climb a mountain, it s not a possibility. Daryl said, Dennis you re crazy, I never would have done that. Dennis just laughed, ha-ha. He laughed and he smiled. After his arm healed, Dennis went whitewater rafting. Whitewater rafting is when you have a boat on a very fast river, it s a little bit dangerous. Dennis went whitewater rafting. He was in a raft, a flat boat, going down this river big water coming everywhere. Unfortunately, he had an accident. He had a great time, he had a lot of fun, but he had an accident at the end of the whitewater rafting trip and he got a concussion.

12 Who got a concussion? Dennis, of course, Dennis the adventurous one. Dennis got a concussion. A concussion is when you hit your head and you cause a little bit of damage. You get a really bad headache and you hurt your head. It s usually not permanent, but it s kind of painful in the beginning when it happens and sometimes you can even go unconscious, we say get knocked out. To get knocked out means to become unconscious. The medical term for this is a concussion. What did Dennis get? He got a concussion, he hurt his head. Did Daryl get a concussion? No, Daryl did not get a concussion. Why not? Daryl is too timid. Daryl did not go whitewater rafting so he did not get a concussion. Who got a concussion? Dennis got a concussion. When did Dennis get a concussion? When he was whitewater rafting. Of course, Dennis went to the hospital, they checked him and said don t worry, you re okay. Just be careful for a few weeks. He came home and he told Daryl, Daryl I hit my head, I have a concussion. Daryl said, You re out of your mind! That means you re crazy, you re out of your mind. Out of your mind means to be crazy. You are out of your mind means you are crazy. Daryl said, You re out of your mind, stop being a dare devil!

13 A dare devil is someone who takes a lot of risks. A dare devil is someone who does dangerous things. Daryl says, You re out of your mind! You re crazy! Stop being a dare devil! I never would have done that. I never would have gone whitewater rafting, that s why I don t have a concussion. Dennis just shook his head and laughed. Would Daryl, in the past, have ever gone whitewater rafting? Would he have considered it? No never, he never would have done that in the past. Never would Daryl have gone whitewater rafting, he would never have done anything dangerous. What about now? Would he go whitewater rafting now? No he wouldn t. He still would never do that. It s not a possibility for Daryl, Daryl would never go whitewater rafting now, and in the past he never would have gone whitewater rafting. In fact, Daryl never would have done anything dangerous in the past, and now still he would never consider doing something dangerous. He said, I would never have done that. I would never have gone whitewater rafting and that s why I would never have gotten hurt. Dennis, stop being a dare devil. You re out of your mind. Dennis just laughed. A few months later, Dennis and Daryl went to eat at a restaurant. On the other side of the restaurant they saw a beautiful woman, a beautiful Japanese woman in fact. Dennis said, Wow, she s gorgeous. She s amazing, so beautiful. Daryl said, Yes, wow; she s amazing. So beautiful, she s gorgeous. Dennis said, I m going to go talk to her and get her number. Daryl said, Don t do it, you re crazy don t do it! She s not going to give you her phone number, she s too beautiful. She s out of your league. That s an idiom- To be out of your league means too good for you, too beautiful for you, too something for you. If men are talking and they say that woman is out of my league, it means she s much more beautiful than I am; she s too beautiful for me.

14 She s out of my league; she s too good for me. I can never date her, she would never date me. Daryl says, Dennis that woman is out of your league. Dennis said, I don t care. He stood up and walked across the room and he sat down next to the Japanese girl. He said, Hi, what s your name? She looked at him and said, Yoshino, why? Dennis started talking to her and he said, You re so beautiful, I would like to get your phone number. Yoshino stood up and threw her drink into his face and said, Leave me alone, go back to your table. Daryl across the room watched and shook his head. And so Dennis walked back to the table and sat down, he wiped off his face and laughed. Daryl said, You re crazy Dennis, I never would have done that. What would Daryl never have done? Daryl never would have walked across the room to talk to this super gorgeous woman, he never would have done that. What about Dennis? Yes, Dennis did do it, he did it. Dennis actually stood up, he walked across the room, and he tried to get the phone number of this beautiful woman. Which brother is adventurous? Dennis is the adventurous one, Dennis is the bold one. Which brother is timid? Daryl is very timid. Daryl has always been very timid since he was very young until now, and Dennis has always been very adventurous since he was young, until now. Dennis stood up and walked across the restaurant and tried to talk to the beautiful woman and she threw her drink into his face. He came back and Daryl said, You re crazy I never would have done that.

15 In the past, would he have ever walked across a room to talk to a strange beautiful woman? No, he never would have done that in the past. What about now? Would Daryl ever walk across a room to talk to a beautiful woman? No, he would never do that. It s not a possibility. He would never, ever, ever do that. Would Dennis still again walk across the room to talk to a beautiful woman? Yes he would. He still would do it even though this time it wasn t successful, still he would do it. They finished their dinner and went home. The next day Dennis was shopping at the grocery store and he saw the beautiful woman, Yoshino, again. He thought, I m going to try again. He walked up to her in the grocery store and said, Hi, remember me from the restaurant last night? I think you re beautiful and I would love to have your phone number and just go out to dinner with you. She slapped him in the face and said, Go away, leave me alone. Dennis walked away, but he did not quit. He saw this woman again, and again, and again. He would see her at coffee shops, he would see her at restaurants, he would see her at the grocery store sometimes. Every time he saw her he tried to talk to her, and every time she insulted him. When he came home he told his brother Daryl, and Daryl always shook his head and said, Dennis, why do you do this? I never would have done that. Dennis, I never would have done that. She never would have slapped me, not a possibility; it would never be a possibility in the past because I never would have tried to talk to her. He said, Stop doing this Dennis. I never would have done that, that s why I m okay. Dennis just laughed. Finally one day at a coffee shop he saw Yoshino again, and he sat down and tried one more time. He said, You ve insulted me, you ve slapped me, you ve thrown water in my face. All I want to do is just talk to you because I think you are wonderful and beautiful. I wish you would just change your mind and talk to me.

16 Suddenly something changed and Yoshino saw him differently. She felt something inside and she said, Okay. She gave Dennis her phone number. In fact, they began to see each other and to date and Yoshino fell madly in love with Dennis, and Dennis of course was already madly in love with Yoshino. One day they got married. At their wedding Daryl said, I can t believe it, I never would have done that. Dennis said, Daryl, that s why you never succeed. That s why you re never happy. Would Dennis walk up and talk to beautiful women? Yes he would. In general, past present or future, he would do that, it s a possibility, its something he definitely would do. Would Daryl walk across the room to talk to a beautiful woman? No he wouldn t, not in the past, not in the present, not in the future. He would never do it, it s not a possibility. He would never consider doing it. Would Yoshino have ever dated Daryl? No, not a possibility. Yoshino never would have dated Daryl because Daryl never would have talked to her. Who did Yoshino date? Dennis, the adventurous one. Who did she finally marry? Dennis, the adventurous one. * * * * * And that is the end of our mini story for this month. I hope you enjoyed it. There was a little message in there too. Enjoy it as always, listen to it every day and shout out your answers with strong emotion. You can pause your ipod when you do that if you need to, or try to make it a game and answer faster. Remember, speed is important with the mini stories. Don t get stressed about it, just relax and have fun and make it a game. If you listen to it every day you will naturally get faster over time. Just relax, enjoy the story, and answer the questions. All right, I ll see you on our VIP site. Have a great day, bye-bye.

17 Pleasure POV Text Hello VIP, how are you today? Let s do the point of view story now, for this Pleasure lesson. It s the same story again; we re just going to change the time. Let s do it as if it s happening right now. * * * * * There are two brothers, named Dennis and Daryl. There are two brothers. One brother is very adventurous, his name is Dennis. Dennis is very adventurous. His brother Daryl is very timid. One day Dennis decides to go rock climbing. He goes to Yosemite National Park in California and he climbs the dangerous mountain named Half Dome. He has a great time being up in the air, up on the mountain climbing, but at the end of the climb he has an accident and he breaks his arm. He comes home after going to the hospital and he shows his brother Daryl. He says, Oh, I broke my arm climbing the mountain. Daryl says, You re crazy! I never would have done that! Remember, he s talking about something that already happened so he says I never would have done that. Dennis of course, he just laughs. Then Dennis says, Well, I m actually planning to climb again in the future after my arm heals. Would you like to go with me? Daryl says, No, I will never climb. There is no way I would ever go rock climbing. I would never do that. Dennis laughs, and says, Okay. A few months later Dennis the adventurous one goes whitewater rafting and he has a great time whitewater rafting, but at the end of the trip he gets a concussion. He whacks his head against a rock. To whack means to hit, so he hits his head against a rock. He goes to the hospital and they say don t worry, it s not serious, but you have a bit of a concussion. Dennis comes home again and he says, I got a concussion while I was whitewater rafting. Daryl says, Oh my God, you re out of your mind. Stop being a dare devil. I never would have done that.

18 Dennis again shakes his head and laughs. A few months later, awhile later, they both go to a restaurant. On the other side of the restaurant they see a beautiful, stunning, gorgeous woman, a Japanese woman in fact, named Yoshino. We just know her name is Yoshino. Dennis says, Wow, she s gorgeous, she s amazing. Daryl says, Yes, she s amazing. Dennis says, I m going to go talk to her. Daryl says, Don t do it, you re crazy. She s out of your league. Dennis stands up anyway, he goes across the room, sits down, and he tries to talk to Yoshino. Yoshino throws her drink in his face and says get away from me, leave me alone. Yoshino isn t bad; it s just that men are always bothering her because she s so beautiful. Now anytime a man bothers her, she s kind of rude. Dennis doesn t know this and Daryl doesn t know this. Dennis walks back to the table and Daryl says, You re crazy, I never would have done that. Of course the next day Dennis sees Yoshino in the grocery store and he tries again, and again she rejects him. She slaps him in the face this time, terrible. Yet he continues to see her around town again and again, in coffee shops and restaurants and grocery stores, and he keeps trying again and again, until finally one time he just sits down with her very calmly, and says, I think you re beautiful, I wish you would just talk to me. I m not trying to bother you. Something changes in Yoshino and she sees him differently. Of course they begin to date and then finally they get married. At the marriage Daryl says, I can t believe it. Dennis says, That s why you never succeed. That sounds like Yoda from Star Wars, doesn t it? That s why you never succeed, because you don t believe. * * * * *

19 That s the end of version one of our story. Alright, shall we do another version? Let s start with since they were children. * * * * * Since they were children, Dennis and Daryl have been very different. They have been different for a long time. They have always looked the same of course, they re twins, but they have always been very different in personality. Dennis has always been the adventurous one. He has always been adventurous, since very young until now. Daryl has always been the timid one, he has always been very timid, kind of afraid, kind of shy; since he was very young until now. This whole range of time Dennis has been adventurous, and Daryl has always been timid. Dennis has always wanted to do cool, fun, adventurous things. He has had a lot of ideas about adventures. One thing he has always wanted to do is rock climbing. He has always wanted to go rock climbing. Finally one day he went rock climbing. He went climbing on Half Dome in Yosemite Park. He went to Half Dome, and he climbed Half Dome. Unfortunately he had an accident and he broke his arm while climbing. Of course he came home and Daryl said, You re crazy, I never would have done that. Dennis just laughed. In a few months he healed and he started thinking again about more adventures. He remembered that he has also always wanted to go whitewater rafting, he has always wanted to go whitewater rafting. For a long time he has wanted to do that and so he decided it s time, I m going to do that too. Again one day he went whitewater rafting, but he got hurt again at the end of the trip. He got a concussion while whitewater rafting. He came home and once again Daryl said, You re out of your mind. Stop being a dare devil. I never would have done that. Once again Dennis just shook his head and laughed. Something else that Dennis has always wanted was a partner, a wife, and eventually a family. He has always wanted this and he has always imagined who his perfect woman would be. Of course one day while sitting in a restaurant with Daryl, he saw his perfect woman. It was just as he d dreamed. He saw her and so he stood up and he walked across the room and he talked to her. She threw her drink in his face.

20 He came back to the table with Daryl, and Daryl said; You re crazy, I never would have done that. Dennis didn t give up, because he saw Yoshino many times then. He saw her in the grocery store, in coffee shops and walking around, and every time he saw her he tried to talk to her. Every time she rejected him until finally one time he just sat down with her, and with total sincerity he told her how he felt and something changed. They started to date and finally they got married. Dennis got exactly what he wanted. At the wedding Daryl, his brother said, I can t believe it. Dennis said to him, That s why you never succeed. * * * * * That s the end of version two of the story. For the last version we usually go into the future. This is going to be a little different and fun, let s try it. * * * * * In the future there will be two brothers. Their names will be Dennis and Daryl. If we can imagine in the future, Dennis will be the one who has always been adventurous. He will always have been adventurous. Daryl will always have been the timid one. One day Dennis is going to go rock climbing. He is gonna go rock climbing. Gonna means going to of course, it s future. Dennis is gonna go rock climbing. He s going to go climb on the dangerous mountain called Half Dome, and he s going to have an accident and he s going to break his arm. He ll break his arm, but he ll be okay. He ll go to the hospital and everything is okay, and then he ll come home. When his brother sees him, Daryl is going to say, You re crazy, I never would have done that. Dennis is just going to laugh. He s going to laugh. In a few months later he s going to be healed, and he s gonna do something else crazy and fun and adventurous; he s going to go whitewater rafting. He ll have a great time, but he s going to get a concussion on that trip. He ll be fine, but of course he s going to go home and Daryl is going to say, You re out of your mind. Stop being a dare devil, I never would have done that.

21 Once again, Dennis will just laugh. He will just laugh. Again of course into the future more, they ll be eating in a restaurant, Dennis and Daryl together, and across the room they ll see a gorgeous magnificent woman. Dennis is going to stand up, walk across the room, sit down and he s going to talk to her. Unfortunately she s going to reject him. She s going to throw her drink into his face, very embarrassing. Poor Dennis, he ll walk back to the table with Daryl and Daryl will be shaking his head and saying, You re crazy. Why do you do these things? I never would have done that. Then the next day Dennis will see Yoshino again. He ll see her, he ll try again, and again she ll reject him. He s going to keep doing this. He ll see her again and again and again, and he ll keep seeing her. He ll continue to see her and he ll keep trying, and she ll of course continue to reject him until finally one day in the future, she s going to see him differently. He s going to look into her eyes and talk to her, soulfully, sincerely and powerfully and she ll see him differently. Then they ll start to date, and finally of course they re going to get married. At their wedding Daryl will say, I can t believe it. I can t believe you re marrying this woman. Dennis will say, Daryl that s why you never succeed, because you don t believe. * * * * * That s the end of our point of view stories for this lesson set, I hope you enjoyed them. As always, just listen to them many, many times, each version. Don t think about it too much, don t grab your grammar book, forget about that stuff. Just think about it, relax, and enjoy the stories. All right, see you again next time, see you on our site. Bye-bye.

22 Pleasure Commentary Hello my special VIP member and welcome to the Pleasure or Pleasure Point lesson for this month. Are you ready? This is a great leadership topic it s a really fantastic leadership topic. One of the reasons I like it is that it fits our philosophy. We have a contribution leadership focus at Effortless English. It means we re leading in order to contribute to people, in order to help people, not just in order to help ourselves, not just in order to get status or money or whatever. We genuinely want to help people, especially the people we are leading. We want our team or our family, whoever it is, to be happy. By focusing on the pleasure points of each person we can number one be more effective leaders, meaning we can be more influential, more persuasive, but we can also be happier, more positive leaders. When we inspire people by focusing on what gives them the most pleasure, they are happier. They are much happier than if we tried to threaten them or tried to scare them with all the bad things that will happen if they don t change, or if we try to point out and emphasize all the bad negative stuff that s already happening. That just makes people feel more bad. When people feel bad they don t feel confident. When people feel bad they don t want to take risks. When people feel bad they usually kind of freeze up, it means they don t want to do anything new or different. When they re excited, when they re feeling really good, then they re more open to change. They re more open to new ideas. That s how you always want to present your ideas, you want to talk about the pleasure points. Yes, you can mention the pain, but then you quickly want to move to their pleasure points. Let me give you an example. Let s say you as a student or any of my students. If I want to convince you that you should learn English more, you should study English more, that English is an important international language and it will be very helpful to you, the goal that I want as the leader is I want to get you to study more and use my method. That s what I m trying to do as the leader. I could just focus on only the pain, and some people do this. I could really focus on the fact that you have studied a lot using traditional methods, and you re still not able to speak very confidently, and you probably feel nervous and shy a lot, and other people especially native speakers, can t understand you very well. I could talk about those things.

23 If I just talk about that only, you re just going to feel bad, aren t you? Yes, that s true; I ve used all these textbooks and they were boring, I ve gone to these schools and they didn t help very much, and your English isn t very good and you really feel bad, so then I try to tell you that you should do this, you should use my method Effortless English for example. You might listen to me but you re not going to feel very good about it. You probably won t continue to study more and continue to use my method for days and days and weeks and weeks and months and months if you feel bad. You might take a small action but quickly you ll probably quit because you don t feel good. People don t like to feel bad. If I do something different, if I mention those painful things sure, but then I start talking about your pleasure points if I don t know you individually then I would need to use pleasure points I know most students have, just because I have experience and I ve known a lot of students. I might start talking instead of imagine the pleasure of traveling to other countries, whatever country you can imagine and dream of that you always wanted to travel to, and that when you travel you communicate very easily in English. It s no problem getting your hotel and food and restaurants and flying and buses and stuff easy. More than that, you start meeting other people while you travel. Because you speak English well you can start meeting people from all different countries who also speak English, and you re going to make lots of great new friends. Imagine all the cool new contacts and friends you ll make from all different countries. Imagine what you ll learn from them, an incredible new life. That s what I would talk to someone about who I know has the pleasure point of being very social or loves friends or loves the idea of travel. That s a good one for me, for example. For other people that s not important, they don t care about that stuff so much. Other people are focused on English because of business or their job. If I m talking to those people and I know that s their pleasure point I might talk about again the negative stuff but quickly I want to really focus on that pleasure point. I m going to talk about it and paint this incredible picture, get them to imagine it and feel it, but focused on their specific pleasure point. I would say with great English speaking you will have so many more job opportunities. Imagine; you could move into different departments with your company where you

24 would be dealing with international customers, where you would be doing international deals. You might get a lot of cool business travel where your business would pay for you to go to all these different countries and give presentations or talk to customers, or do incredibly cool projects. You re going to make a lot more money as a great English speaker, because there are not a lot of great English speakers. A lot of people, most people use traditional methods and therefore their English speaking is so-so, it s mediocre, it s not great, and in many cases it s just terrible. As a great fantastic confident English speaker you are going to be above most of your other coworkers or competitors, and that s going to give you an incredible advantage both in the short-term and the long-term. You re going to be able to buy a bigger house and have new cars and get bigger and better promotions and get a higher title in your company. That s how I would persuade somebody who I know is more focused on business or status or money. Here s the cool thing. If someone is focused more on contribution let s say, say they re really focused on contributing to their family. I could use similar arguments, right? I could say you re going to make a lot of money in order to help your family. You could get a bigger house for your family. It s a different argument. In fact, it s a different method of persuasion. If someone is focused on contribution, if that s their pleasure point just talking about houses and cars and better jobs won t convince them. You have to link those things for example to their family. You have to show them how those things will help other people because their pleasure point is helping other people, contribution. If you just talk about oh, you ll get a big house, big cars and lots of money, they might not be so excited about that until you make the connection in their mind and that will be so great for you family, imagine how happy they will be to be in this cool new house whatever it is for them. The thing about this topic is, it really does require a little extra work and you really have to learn about people. Show other people you care. Remember that s the code of Effortless English, that s number three show other people you care. When you do this you really become a leader. It s important that word show. It s not just care about other people, that s not our code. The third code is not care about other people. Most people do care about other people, at least their friends and family, but a lot of people don t show it enough. They don t take actions to show that they care. They care, but they don t do anything.

25 To be a leader you show other people you care. One of the best ways to do that is to really learn what s important to them, what is their pleasure point? To do that, you do have to take a little time. You do have to sit down with them. You ve got to ask questions, not just normal small talk, but actually ask some important questions about what they enjoy, what they don t like, why they like it, what gives them pleasure. Use different words and say the questions different ways, but you re basically, trying to understand them and what makes them happy. Isn t that important to know for your family members and people on your team? Anybody you re trying to lead, shouldn t you know what makes them most happy? If you re going to really be a true leader, really contribute to them, you must know what makes them happy. What makes them feel good? What are their pleasure points, especially the top one? In that way they will love you. You will lead them and they will love you because you re making them happier. Many times they do want to try something new. Many times they do want to make a decision but they re afraid, and they re focused on the pain of failing. That s what a lot of times happens, people want to do something, they know it s the right thing to do, they know they should do it but they re too focused on the pain of failing, the pain of rejection. What if I try it and I fail? What if I try it and its worse? They don t take action and they don t do anything. You as the leader, you change their focus. You get them to focus on the pleasure of succeeding. Not just any pleasure, their specific number one pleasure. Then you talk about that again and again and again in a passionate excited way, and you get them to see the success and feel that pleasure as if it s happening already. You make it stronger and the more you learn about them the more you talk about that pleasure point and how by taking these actions they re going to get more and more and more of that pleasure, much more than they have right now. You show them how that s going to happen. You tell them how that s going to happen. You can only do that if you know what their individual pleasure point is. That s the number one point here, digging a little bit like an interviewer, a psychologist. Really learn more deeply what makes the people on your team, family, friends whatever - what makes them the most happy? Not just a little bit, the most. It s not always obvious, and very rarely will they tell you directly. Almost never will they tell you directly because sometimes they don t even realize it themselves, that s why it s a little tricky. It would be great if you could just say what gives you the most pleasure, and they would just say contributing and helping other people. Many times if you ask