Enthusiasm VIP - Audio Hi, this is A.J. Hoge and welcome to this month s lesson. This month I m going to teach you another meta-strategy, or you might call it a meta-value. What does that mean? In the past I ve talked to you about a meta-strategy or a meta-value called persistence. This time I m teaching you a meta-value or a meta-quality or a meta-strategy called enthusiasm. Let s first talk about what I mean by meta-value or meta-strategy. When we talk about a meta-strategy, meta has the idea of comprehensive or complete or this idea of something that is applicable or true in many different areas. We take this idea of big, complete and comprehensive a comprehensive strategy, a big strategy, a strategy that s applicable to many different areas. What that means is that we might have, for example, a very specific strategy. Maybe I want to teach you how to pronounce a certain word in English and I teach you a method or a strategy, maybe using your tongue or your mouth or something. That s a very specific strategy. That strategy will help you to pronounce that word. That strategy will not help you play golf better. That strategy will not help you develop more physical fitness. That strategy will not help you in your relationships. It s a very specific strategy. It s specific to one area, to one problem or to one goal. A meta-strategy is actually the opposite of that. A meta-strategy is a strategy that you can use in many, many different areas of life. In fact, in some cases in almost all areas of life, this one strategy will help you get more success, achieve more, be more happy or whatever it is in many different areas. That s what we re talking about this month enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a metastrategy. Enthusiasm will help you be more healthy. Enthusiasm will help you get stronger and be more fit. Enthusiasm will help you achieve business success at a higher level. Enthusiasm will help you speak English more powerfully, more confidently and more accurately. When you increase your enthusiasm, this value, this quality, this strategy affects everything else in your life. Everything else gets better, just like persistence, which I talked about in another lesson in the past. It s the same thing. When you apply enthusiasm, when you develop enthusiasm and it s something you can develop then all areas of your life go up. That s why it s powerful. That s why meta-strategies or meta-qualities or meta-values are very, very powerful. It s because they affect everything.

Let s talk about this one this enthusiasm or enthusiastic quality or strategy, why it s powerful and how you develop it. What is enthusiasm? You may know already but you may not. If you don t know, I ll define it now. Enthusiasm is a kind of energy or excitement, but it s more than just excitement. We all get excited about stuff. We see a cool new product and we say oh wow that s cool, or there s a movie that comes out and we get excited. Excitement is a passing emotion. Excitement comes and we feel really excited and then it goes and we kind of forget about it. Enthusiasm is much deeper and prolonged. Enthusiasm is really more like love, like a deep love for something. It could be something very general like life itself, or it could be for a certain field or area in your life. It just depends. It s kind of a deep love and excitement. It s a mix of those two love and excitement. When you mix those together at a deep level and they grow stronger and stronger, you get this kind of energy. I like to call it an energy tsunami. It s like this tsunami of energy that nothing can resist. It just crashes through everything. It destroys everything in its path, every problem and every obstacle. If you have enough enthusiasm, you can just crush right through it and keep on going. That s the power of enthusiasm. It s that sustained, deep excitement and love for something. It s very powerful. Let me contrast this with discipline just by giving you an example of some past students that I ve had. In my teaching career, I ve had a lot of serious disciplined students who did not have enthusiasm. I ve also been lucky to have a lot of enthusiastic students. Especially now with Effortless English, I have a lot of enthusiastic students, so I can compare the two. A disciplined student is someone who s very serious. They listen to the lessons every day. They study English for one hour, two hours or more every day. They have a very strong mind. They re very persistent. They don t quit. They keep going. They re intelligent, focused and determined and that does help them improve. They certainly improve with those qualities. However, I ve noticed something. They improve more slowly than my enthusiastic students and they enjoy it much less. Everything is more difficult and tougher for them. That s why they seem to go much more slowly. Discipline and that kind of attitude without enthusiasm usually there s a kind of fear in there. It s based on some kind of fear, a fear of failure usually. My very disciplined

students, although they re working hard and they re very focused, usually deeper down there s some fear motivation I ve got to pass this test and if I don t pass the test, then I fail. I won t get the job that I want or my parents will hate me, or I ll just be a stupid failure. There s some deep little negative thing back there usually with students who lack and do not have enthusiasm. I believe that s why they learn more slowly and improve more slowly. Number one, there s a fear or some kind of negative emotion in the back of all of that motivation, and number two, because of that they re not enjoying it. There s no fun, no excitement and no pleasure. On the other hand, my absolute best students and when I say best, I mean the best performing students, the students who learn the fastest, improve the fastest and ultimately speak the best they are almost always the most enthusiastic people, the most enthusiastic students. They start by being very enthusiastic about English, but I also notice that they tend to be enthusiastic about many things in their life. It s a meta-quality. It s a quality or a value or a strategy that they use in a lot of areas in their life. They may start by doing it with English and getting really excited and passionate and enthusiastic about English, but then this energy and enthusiasm start to affect lots of other areas in their lives too. They start feeling that, and the good thing about enthusiasm is that as it grows it gets stronger and stronger. It feeds itself and you get more enthusiastic, more excited, more enthusiastic and more excited. It s like a rocket. First they start off kind of slow and then they start improving faster, faster and faster, and then they just take off. We ve got a few superstar VIP members like this that you ll see on our social site. They re the ones who are writing all the time. They re the ones you see there week after week writing, and they re always so excited. When I talk to them in teleseminars, guess what. They have the best English. They didn t start that way. I remember talking to some of them several months ago or a couple years ago and their English wasn t quite as good. Now they re just fantastic, great pronunciation but more importantly great communication clear, accurate, powerful use of English. They re the most enthusiastic. Typically their improvement kind of starts slow and then it s like a rocket. That s what enthusiasm gives you. It s like that rocket ship power.

Like I said, enthusiasm is a meta-quality. It s a meta-strategy. It affects so many areas. Yes, it will improve your learning speed certainly. Another key thing that enthusiasm gives you is influence. It s the ability to persuade people, to influence people, to lead people without any kind of technique, without any kind of leadership training at all. In fact, for most of my career in life, my leadership strategy and my leadership skill was basically enthusiasm. I was just so excited and enthusiastic about what I was doing, about my teaching, about my business, about Effortless English, about my class at the time or whatever I was doing. I was just so excited and so enthusiastic about it consistently all the time that it started to affect the people around me. They couldn t help it. They would start to feel more energetic and more enthusiastic too. It s contagious in a good way. It s like a cough or a sneeze. It spreads out and then other people catch it. That s not such a good thing when it s a disease, but it s a really great thing when it s enthusiasm. I didn t need to try to use some clever leadership psychological techniques to get people to do things. I don t generally need to do that. Mostly what I do is I m just excited and energetic and enthusiastic about my subject, about what I m talking about, and that energy gets into them and it convinces them, it persuades them and it influences them. This is a natural form of leadership that requires no kind of manipulation or anything like that. It s a very natural emotional kind of leadership. Enthusiasm dramatically and powerfully increases your ability to lead people, to influence people, to persuade people without even trying. It s very, very powerful. Again, this is a very powerful meta-strategy. It s something to develop. Let s talk about how you develop it now. If you re already enthusiastic, this will be very easy for you. All you need to do is focus in on English first and then make it stronger and stronger, but some people don t naturally have this enthusiasm. I think I ve been more of a naturally enthusiastic person my whole life. I ve always gotten excited about things, so it s been fairly easy for me but I know that for some people it s not. Yet, I also know that people can develop it, so I ve helped people develop this, students who started off with seemingly no enthusiasm. I ve helped them to develop it to a very high level. What can you do? Let s first talk practically about why you re here mostly, which is English. Let s focus first on developing more and more enthusiasm for English. Again,

you want to imagine this as a tsunami. A tsunami doesn t just happen immediately. It builds and builds and builds. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger. That s what you re going to do. You re going to build it step by step by step. First it feels like it s building slowly, but you keep working on it and then it creates this amazing tsunami of energy and power that nothing can stop. Focusing on English, what s the first step? 1. You must now eliminate all of your shoulds about English. What do I mean by that? I mean you probably have a list of shoulds I should study one hour a day or I should get a better score on the test. You might even have some musts I must pass the test. I must do this. I should have better grammar. I should improve my pronunciation. You re going to get rid of all of that. Enthusiastic people don t have a long list of things they should do because that word should feels like it s an obligation. It feels like something that you have to do and it has a negative feeling to it. It also has the feeling that you really don t want to. I don t need to say to myself I should go kitesurfing, I really should go out into the ocean and play in the water, I should do this, I ve got to do it, I really have to do that. I don t need to do that. I love doing it. It s fun. I want to do it. If I m near a beach or I m on the island of Maui, I m going to do it. I don t have to make a list to do it. I don t have to tell myself that I should do it. It s automatic. I want to do it. I love doing it. I m enthusiastic about it. You can t stop me from doing it. You don t need to say I really should spend time with this person that I really love. If you re really enthusiastic about them and you love them, then you want to see them. If you have this list of shoulds about English, it s kind of showing that you have some negative feelings about English. You re trying to force yourself to do it and eventually that just doesn t work. Get rid of all of that. 2. Focus only on the fun, the pleasure, the great things you will do with English. I don t mean passing some test. Who likes that? Nobody does. Think about the actual fun, interesting things. Let me tell you what our best students, our best members do. They focus on things like talking to other members in other countries and making international friends.

They get really excited about that. Oh I made a new friend. I have this friend now in Japan. Now I have a friend in Korea. Now I have a friend in France. Now I have a friend in Italy. Now I have a friend in Brazil. They get really excited about that. It s fun and they talk on Skype sometimes together, or maybe they just email or maybe just on our social site, but they get excited about learning from that other person, learning about different countries and having an international group of friends and connections. That s exciting for them and they re enthusiastic about it. Some of them get very excited and enthusiastic about learning certain things in English because English is an international language. Because there s kind of a certain culture in North America especially for self-help and psychology and these kinds of powerful positive topics, they can learn about things that maybe in their own language are less common. Maybe there aren t so many books about these topics, not so many audios about these topics or not so many speakers about these topics, but in English they can find a lot of them, so they get very enthusiastic and excited about learning about those things, listening to those things and using them in their lives. Again, they re focusing on something fun and pleasurable and amazing, and they get really excited about that. Then English just happens automatically. 3. Think about something in your life that you re already enthusiastic about. There must be something. I m sure there s something in your life that you re already enthusiastic about, something that you already love deeply, something that you feel excitement about. Maybe you re not like me and you don t jump around about it, but when you think about it or you do it, you feel this wonderful feeling of happiness and pleasure. It might be more relaxing instead of exciting, but it s that same pleasurable warm feeling. For example, for my dad it s golf. He loves golf. He s been playing golf his whole life. He just loves getting out on the course. He loves the sun and the trees and talking to people. He s very enthusiastic about it. If you start to talk to my dad about golf, he can talk about it for a long time. If you have something like this in your life, that s how you know because it s something that you love to talk about and love to do, and it s that feeling of love and energy that

comes up. You don t need to force yourself to do it. You love doing it. You want to do it. It s hard to stop doing it. That s enthusiasm. Find those things in your life and look at them. What s common about those things? Why are you so enthusiastic about them? For example, I m enthusiastic about teaching English. Why? Is it because I love verbs, grammar and vocabulary? No, it s because I m excited about connecting with people around the world. I love travel. I love visiting other countries. For me, English is the tool for connecting and communicating with other cultures and other people. Teaching English helps me to help other people do that thing, which I also love. I m hoping to help you do that too. That s why I m so enthusiastic about it. What are the things at a deeper level that you get excited about? Then find those things in English and focus on those things. 4. During the next year, do not focus on vocabulary. Do not think about or worry about grammar. Do not think about or worry about or focus on pronunciation, nor verbs, nor any other piece of the language, no other linguistic topics. I want you to just totally forget about all that. I mean totally. No more list of words, nothing. Put it all aside for one year. You can come back to it in a year if you really want to. You probably won t want to. Just push it all aside and you re kind of done with that. You ve already spent years doing that in school. Just push it aside. It s enough. Instead, focus on these pleasurable things and just get excited about them. Maybe for you it s travel. I don t know. Maybe it s international business for you. Maybe it s both. Maybe it s making international friends. Maybe it s learning certain cool interesting things that you can get in English that are harder to get in your own language. I don t know what it is, but find it and just focus only on that. That s it. Finally, the last thing, and you may notice that I ve been doing this the whole time: 5. As you think about English, and specifically as you think about these pleasurable and exciting things connected to English, start using your body to increase your physical energy too. That mental enthusiasm, that mental excitement and energy is connected to your physical energy, so when you move your body and you make excited energetic movements and then you think about what you re enthusiastic about, you think about

this topic and you get yourself mentally excited and then you move physically too, they make each other stronger. In other words, physically you start feeling more energetic, and then mentally you get more and more enthusiastic and excited. They feed each other, each one getting stronger and stronger and stronger. When I teach English, for example, I m thinking about connecting with my students. I m thinking about traveling to cool countries and talking to people there. I m thinking about having a teleseminar with VIP members and talking to these wonderful people. Many of them are now becoming my friends. I ve connected to them and they re in all these different countries. I m thinking about the exciting interesting topic that I m going to teach them. As I m doing that, I m usually standing up and moving my body. Maybe I m practicing my speech, so I m physically getting more and more and more energetic. That makes me mentally, psychologically and emotionally more and more and more enthusiastic, which then gives me even more physical energy and up and up it goes. When you do this habitually, when you train yourself in this daily, it becomes a habit. That s how you develop enthusiasm. Even it s quite small in the beginning, by doing these steps, by changing your focus, getting rid of all those shoulds, getting rid of all the vocabulary and grammar and that kind of stuff, focusing instead on things that are very exciting to you that you re enthusiastic about and then increasing your focus on those things, increasing your mental energy and excitement about those things and then using your body to get physically energized as you think about those things, and then doing it day by day, that energy starts growing and growing, building, building, building until you develop that tsunami of enthusiasm. When you get to that level, nothing can stop you. Get on our VIP site. It s very obvious who these people are that I m talking about. You re going to see it in them. They just can t be stopped. At this point in their English learning, they re just learning so much and they re so enthusiastic about. Now I can see it with many of them. It s affecting all areas of their life. They re starting to have more success in their businesses and in their lives in general. They re becoming more and more enthusiastic about everything, and that s getting them more and more and more achievement. You can see too they re the leaders in our group. They re the leaders in our program. It s all coming from their enthusiasm, so develop, focus on it, work on it, do the steps I just

said and build this enthusiasm step by step by step until you ve got this tsunami of energy that cannot be stopped. I ll see you next time. Have a great day. Bye-bye.

Enthusiasm Mini-Story Hello, this is A. J. and welcome to the mini-story. Let s get started. * * * * * There was a spider. Was there a spider or was there a cat? There was a spider. What was the spider s name? His name was Elvis, aha. The spider s name was Elvis and Elvis the spider had a hobby. What did Elvis the spider have? A hobby. Elvis the spider had a hobby. Did Elvis the spider have a cat? No. Did Elvis the spider have a headache? No. What did Elvis the spider have? A hobby. Elvis the spider had a hobby. And his hobby was what? Swimming. He loved to swim. What did he love to do? Swim. Elvis the spider loved to swim.

One day Elvis was swimming and while he was swimming he looked down to the bottom of the ocean. When did he look down to the bottom of the ocean? Well, while he was swimming. Did he look down to the bottom of the ocean while he was playing tennis? No. Did he look down to the bottom of the ocean while he was reading? No. Did he look down to the bottom of the ocean while he was eating? No, no, no, no. When did he look down to the bottom of the ocean? He looked down to the bottom of the ocean while he was swimming. He looked down and he saw something. What did Elvis see? Elvis saw a black pearl. Did Elvis see a black rock? No, he didn t see a black rock. Did he see a green rock? No, he didn t see a green rock. Did he see a normal white pearl? No, he did not see a normal white pearl. What kind of pearl did Elvis see? Elvis saw a black pearl.

And where was the black pearl? At the bottom of the ocean. And when did Elvis see the black pearl? While swimming in the ocean. And when he saw the black pearl, how did he feel? Ooh, very excited! He felt super excited when he saw the black pearl and so he dove down to try to get the black pearl. Did he sink down or did he dive down? He dove down. He dove down to try to get the black pearl. What did he try to get as he dove down? He tried to get the black pearl as he dove down. But, unfortunately, a giant shark grabbed the black pearl and ate it and swam off, just before Elvis got it. Oh, no! So, what happened? What swam up? Well, a giant shark swam up to the pearl. What did the shark do after it swam up to the pearl? It grabbed the pearl with its mouth and ate it. Did the shark eat the black pearl? Yes, the shark ate the black pearl. Did the shark eat Elvis? No, thank God, he did not eat Elvis. What did the shark eat?

The black pearl. And after the shark ate the black pearl, what did it do? It swam away. The shark swam away. Did the shark swim away or did the shark stay? Well, he swam away. The shark swam away after doing what? The shark swam away after eating the black pearl. Did Elvis get the black pearl? No, he didn t get the black pearl because the shark ate it and then it swam away. Oh, no, poor Elvis. So Elvis was quite annoyed. Was he happy or was he annoyed? He was annoyed. He was irritated. Not angry really, but a little bit. How did Elvis feel when the shark took the black pearl? He felt annoyed, a little bit annoyed. But then he decided I will find another black pearl. So every day he swam and he swam and he swam and he dove and he dove and he dove and he searched and searched and searched, but he could never find a black pearl. One day he read a diving magazine and he read about a place called Manado, Bunaken Island. And where is Bunaken Island? It s in Indonesia. And in the article it said that there were black pearls near Bunaken Island. So, immediately, what did Elvis do?

Of course, he bought a plane ticket to Bunaken Island. Where did he buy a plane ticket to? Bunaken Island. Did he buy a plane ticket to Los Angeles? Of course not. Did he buy a plane ticket to Japan? Of course not. Where did he buy a plane ticket to? He bought a plane ticket to Bunaken Island. In which country? Indonesia. Bunaken is in Indonesia. So, which country did Elvis fly to? Indonesia. He flew to Bunaken Island in Indonesia. Soon, as he arrived at Bunaken Island, he went diving for black pearls. Every day he went diving. Every day he searched for black pearls. Until, finally, after searching 722 days, he saw a black pearl. He dove down to get the black pearl. Just as he was about to grab it what happened? What happened just as Elvis was about to grab the black pearl? Did he grab the black pearl? No, he didn t. Something happened. What happened just as he was about to grab the black pearl? Well, an octopus suddenly came, grabbed the black pearl and swam away. What grabbed the black pearl this time? An octopus. A little octopus grabbed the black pearl and then swam away.

How did Elvis feel after the little octopus grabbed the black pearl and swam away? Well, he was kind of pissed off. Of course, pissed off means angry. To be pissed off means to be angry. It s a casual way to say it, a little bit of slang kind of, but it s very common in the United States -- to be pissed off. This is American. I think it has a different meaning in other places like England and Canada. I m not sure about Canada. So, he was pissed off. Was Elvis happy or was he pissed off and angry? He was pissed off and angry. Why was he pissed off and angry? He was pissed off and angry because the octopus grabbed the pearl before he could get it. Did he want the pearl himself? Of course, he wanted the pearl for himself. But who got the black pearl instead? The little octopus instead grabbed the black pearl and swam away. Ooh, now he was really pissed off and upset, but he decided he would not quit. He said I will find a black pearl. I will find one! And so he began searching on the Internet. What did he begin to do after he lost the second black pearl? He began to search on the Internet and, of course, he looked for places with black pearls. Eventually, he found a website about black pearls and it said that the Island of Maui in Hawaii had lots and lots and lots of black pearls. So, of course, he immediately bought a ticket to Hawaii. To which island did he go? The Island of Maui.

Did he go to the Island of Oahu? No, he didn t go to Oahu. Did he go to Kauai? No, he didn t go to the Island of Kauai. Which Hawaiian Island did he go to? Maui. He went to the Hawaiian Island of Maui. And why did he go to Maui? To find a black pearl. Well, eventually, he found a dive shop and he talked to the dive master. What did he say to the dive master? He said I want to find a black pearl. Where can I find a black pearl near Maui? The dive master said You must go to Molokini Crater, out in the ocean near Maui. Where did the dive master tell him to go? Molokini Crater. A crater is like a hole, a hole in the earth. It s caused when a rock from space, an asteroid or a meteor comes from space down through the sky and then hits the earth and it makes a big hole. Or, a crater also can be caused by a volcano. When a volcano explodes, it explodes and then after there s a hole, a round hole in the ground. That s called a crater. The Molokini Crater was caused by a volcano. What was Molokini Crater caused by, a meteor from space or a volcano? Molokini Crater, the round hole, was caused by a volcano a long time ago. So, did Elvis the spider go to Molokini Crater?

Yes, indeed. He got his dive stuff and he went to Molokini Crater; swam out there by himself. Of course, what did he do once he got to Molokini Crater? Well, once he got to Molokini Crater, he dove down to find a black pearl. He searched and searched. Little by little he used his air and his air got lower and lower and lower, almost finished and then, finally, just as his air was almost gone, he saw one. When did he see a black pearl at Molokini Crater? Ah, just as his air was almost finished. Did he see one when his air was full? No, he didn t see one when his air was full. He saw a black pearl, just as his air was almost finished. His air was almost finished, but he saw it. So he swam to the pearl, just as his air finished completely. When did he swim to the pearl? Just as his air finished completely. And then he saw a moray eel and the moray eel tried to get the pearl. An eel is like a snake. It looks like a snake. They re not snakes, but they look like snakes and they live under the water at the bottom of the ocean, usually in rocks or coral. A moray eel is a common kind of eel. A moray eel is a big eel. They re kind of big and a little bit fat looking. They look like snakes. They re not really snakes, but they kind of look like that. Eel, e-e-l is how that is spelled. It s pronounced eel; e ul, eel. So he saw an eel and the eel saw the black pearl and it jumped and swam forward to get the black pearl. Then Elvis reached out with one of his eight legs to get the pearl. They both grabbed the pearl at the same time and they fought for the pearl. The eel pulled and pulled and pulled on the pearl. What pulled on the pearl first? The eel, the moray eel.

And Elvis pulled back on the pearl. They pulled and they pulled and, Elvis, his air was gone. And then Elvis remember he had seven more legs and so with another one of his legs he smacked the eel in the face. What did he do to the moray eel? He smacked the eel in the face. That s the sound. He smacked the eel in the face. What happened when Elvis smacked the eel in the face? The eel let go of the pearl. What let go of the pearl? The eel let go of the pearl. And why did the eel let go of the pearl? Because Elvis smacked him in the face. And after the eel let go, what did Elvis do? He swam quickly to the surface of the water. Surface is the top of the water. Did he swim deeper? No, he didn t swim deeper. He swam to the surface where the air was. Why did he swim to the surface with the pearl? Because he was out of air. He had to breathe, so he swam to the surface as fast as he could and he got to the top and he took a deep breath and another one and then he smiled because he finally had a black pearl. * * * * *

And that is the end of our mini story for this month. As usual, just listen to the story. You can answer the questions in your head or you can shout them out if you re alone in your room or something. That s fine, too. Enjoy it and I ll see you next time, bye-bye.

Enthusiasm POV Hello, this is A. J. and welcome to the point-of-view stories for this month s VIP lessons. Let s talk more about Elvis the spider. * * * * * So, of course, what was Elvis doing? What was Elvis doing at the beginning of the story? Elvis was swimming. At the beginning of the story, Elvis was swimming. At that specific time in the past, he was swimming, exact time, and as he was swimming, what was he also doing? Well, as he was swimming, he was also looking at the bottom of the ocean. So, he was swimming and at the same time what was he doing? Looking at the bottom of the ocean. So, he was swimming and he was looking at the bottom of the ocean. And, of course, while he was swimming and while he was looking at the bottom of the ocean, he saw something. What did he see? He saw a black pearl and swam down to get it. But as he was swimming down to get it, what happened at that same moment? A shark came, right? So, when did the shark come? Well, the shark came just as he was swimming to get the black pearl. Just as who was swimming to get the black pearl? Just as Elvis the spider was swimming to get the black pearl. So, as he was swimming to get the black pearl, the shark came, got the pearl, ate it and swam off. And so, next, what happened? Well, next, he read a diving magazine, right? He read a diving magazine. As he was reading the diving magazine, right, right as he was doing it, during that same time, what happened? Well, as he was reading the diving magazine, he read about black pearls near Bunaken Island. When did he read about black pearls near Bunaken Island? What else was he doing at that time? He was reading a magazine. He was reading a diving magazine. So, he was reading a diving magazine and then he found this information. So, was he taking a nap? Was he sleeping when he found the information? No, he wasn t sleeping. He was reading a diving magazine and so, next, of course, he went to Bunaken and he went diving again and this time, as he was diving, as he was swimming to get another black pearl, what happened? A little octopus grabbed it and swam away, swam off. Ah! So, the octopus grabbed it after, before or at the same time? Well, at the same time, at the same time he was swimming, at the same time that Elvis was trying to get the black pearl, at the same time, during the same time he was doing that, the octopus grabbed it and swam away.

Then, finally, of course, Elvis went to Maui. Which is what kind of island? Where is it at? Hawaii. It s a Hawaiian Island, part of the Hawaiian Islands, Maui, and he went to the area called Molokini Crater and this time he saw, of course, another pearl and as he was reaching for it what happened at the same time? Well, as he was reaching, as he was trying to get this black pearl, a moray eel also tried to get it and they grabbed it at the same time. And, of course, they were fighting and fighting and fighting for it until, finally, Elvis slapped the moray eel in the face and he got the black pearl and he swam to the top. That s the end.. * * * * * All right, that s good; very nice. So, we re talking about the past in that story, in that version, and we re talking about things happening at the same time in the past. We re talking in the very, very, very exact moment things are occurring in the past. So, it s called I m not going to tell you what it s called because I don t want you thinking about the grammar. That s when we use things like was doing, was going, was swimming, was grabbing. You don t need to think about it too much, just listen and listen. Understand the story situation and then you ll start to understand the grammar more and more. This one is pretty easy. Okay, let s do the next version of the story. * * * * * Now, in the next version of the story, Elvis has been swimming for many, many years, in fact. He has been swimming for many years. Now, has he been swimming a short time or has he been swimming for many, many years? Well, he has been swimming for many years. You know a range of years. Not just one particular time, but for a while in the past. He has been swimming for many years already when this story starts. Now, who has been swimming for many years? Elvis the spider has been swimming for many years, before the story even starts. And, you know, he s been looking at the bottom of the ocean for many years, too, in fact. In fact, that s what he usually has done when he has been swimming. So again, this is something that s been going on. It s been happening many times, over a range of time. He has been swimming for many years and, usually, when he has swum or swam he has also looked at the bottom. So, he has been swimming for many years and he has been looking at the bottom of the ocean for many years.

Now, has he been climbing mountains for many years? No, he hasn t been climbing mountains for many years when the story starts. What has he been doing for many years when the story starts? He has been swimming and he has been looking at the bottom, but he has never seen before a black pearl. Before the story, before the event in the story, he has never seen a black pearl before. But, of course, during the story, finally, he has been swimming for many years, he has been looking at the bottom for many years, but this one time, finally, he sees a black pearl. He finally sees a black pearl and when he sees the black pearl he swims down to the bottom and he tries to get it. But, of course, as he is swimming to get the black pearl a big shark comes, grabs the black pearl, eats it and swims off, swims away. Swims away, swims off, either one, same meaning. So then what does he do? Well, then he starts searching. He gets obsessed, right? Obsessed means he thinks about it all the time. He can t stop thinking about it. Black pearls, black pearls, I must find a black pearl. So, he reads lots of diving magazines and then, finally, one day he reads about Bunaken Island. The article says that Bunaken has a lot of black pearls. So where does he go next, of course? Well, next, he goes to Bunaken Island. And where is Bunaken Island? It s in Indonesia. Bunaken Island is in Indonesia. It s a famous diving spot in Indonesia. So, he flies to Bunaken Island and, of course, he immediately goes diving looking for black pearls. And, you know, he searches and searches and searches and searches and dives and dives and swims until, finally, he sees another one. Of course, he swims down to get it, but what happens just as he s about to get it? A little octopus steals it. A little octopus takes it and swims off, swims away and, once again, poor Elvis the spider is without a black pearl. So, what does he do next? Well, next, he gets on the Internet and starts searching around again, even more obsessed. I must find one! And, of course, how is he feeling as he s doing that? Well, as he is searching online, on the Internet, he s kind of annoyed, right? He s annoyed that that little octopus got his black pearl. So, finally, he discovers that Maui Island, Maui in Hawaii, is supposed to have black pearls also. So, of course, he flies to Maui next. He flies to Maui and when he gets to Maui he talks to a dive master and the dive master says Oh, you must go to Molokini Crater. That s where the black pearls are. So, which part of Maui does he go to? Molokini Crater. It s a crater out in the ocean, in fact, near Maui, next to Maui. So, he goes out there, of course, with his diving equipment and he dives and he dives and he looks and he looks and his air is almost gone when he sees another black pearl. But, of course, a moray eel sees it at the same time and they both go for it. They both try to grab it at the same time and they do. They both grab it at the exact same time and then they re both pulling it, right? They both pull and they pull and they pull and they pull and, finally, Elvis with one of his extra seven legs smacks the moray eel in the face. I

guess it would be six because he would need two to grab the pearl, right? Think about it. So, he s grabbing it with two and then uses another one and smacks the moray eel in the face. The moray eel lets go and Elvis the spider goes to the top, takes a deep breath and celebrates. He s very happy because he got a black pearl, finally! * * * * * Now, of course, you notice in that story we talk about what had been happening in the past, right, kind of things that were going on before the story started. And then when we started to tell the actual story, this time we used more of the present when we were talking because it gives it more of a feeling that it s happening now. It s a little more exciting. * * * * * Okay, finally, let s go to the future, as usual. So, let s imagine that we re imaging this, that we know it s all going to happen somehow and it hasn t happened yet. * * * * * So, in the future, what will there be or who will there be? Well, there ll be a guy in this story. Not really a guy, but a spider, a male spider. And what will his name be in the story? Well, his name is gonna be Elvis, Elvis the spider. Gonna means going to. All the old VIP members already know that. But if you re new, gonna means going to. It s very commonly used for the future. So, there s gonna be this spider named Elvis and he s going to be swimming one day and as he s swimming he ll see a black pearl. Then what will he do? He ll, he ll, hear the ul sound? That makes it the future. He ll swim down and he ll try to get it and as he s trying to get it what will happen? As he s trying to get it, a big shark will come, eat it and swim away. So, as he s trying to get it, a shark will come and swim away and get the black pearl. So, next, he gets a lot of diving magazines. You know, he ll really read and read and read and read and search and search and search and he ll finally find information about Bunaken Island that it has black pearls. So, he s going to go there immediately, of course. So, he goes there and then what s going to happen? Well, then he ll go diving again, right? He ll go diving again and he ll dive and dive and dive and search and he ll see another one, finally, but this time, what s going to steal it this time? This time a little octopus is going to take it.

Once again, he ll lose the black pearl and he ll be really upset. He s going to be upset. So, next, he s going to get on the Internet and search and search and search where to get black pearls and he ll find that they are in Maui. So, he ll go to Maui. He ll fly to Maui, he ll talk to the dive master and then he ll go to Molokini and he ll dive down off of Molokini off of Molokini means next to, in this case. So, off of Molokini, just off of Molokini, just next to Molokini, he ll dive and he ll dive and he ll look and he ll look and then he ll see another one and so what does he do? He swims down. He swims down and he grabs it, but just as he s grabbing it a moray eel also grabs it and then they get in a big struggle, right? They fight for it. Gimmie, me, me, me! And then, finally, Elvis uses one of his extra legs, smacks the moray eel in the face and the moray eel, of course, is going to let go. And then Elvis will swim to the top and he ll celebrate. Yeah! And that s the end of the story. * * * * * Now, in this one you ll notice that in the future sometimes we ll switch to the present. It happens a lot, actually. It s very rare. It s not common to tell a big long story or to have a big long conversation using the future all the time. It feels a little strange to native speakers, Americans, Canadians, so quite often we will start in the future. Everyone knows we re talking about the future and then sometimes we might just switch to the present or we might mix the present and the future. That s also common. And sometimes we ll just only use the present, but it s understood that we re talking about the future. So, there you go. Don t think about all that too much; just listen to the versions again and again. You ll get used to it. You ll learn it more and more deeply. You ll start to understand it more automatic. No need to think about the grammar. All right, I will see you next time. Have a great day, a great month, bye-bye.

Enthusiasm VIP - Commentary Hello, this is A.J. and welcome to the Commentary for this month s lesson. The subject, enthusiasm, is a favorite topic of mine and I kind of think of it as a very old topic for me, meaning that when I look at my own life and whatever I ve learned and however I ve grown and whatever successes I ve had, I can go back and I can find the root in the far, far past in my life in enthusiasm. I think way, way back to when I was young before I was even out of school, and I can see the roots of a lot of the successes I ve had all the way back then. The roots of that really were from enthusiasm because I ve always been very enthusiastic in my life. I ve always had things in my life that I ve been excited about. I ve always been curious about trying new things, but more than just curious. Curious means that you like to investigate things, you like to learn things, you re interested in new things. Certainly that s been true for me, but enthusiasm is much more than that because it s possible to be curious about something but not enthusiastic, meaning you just look at it, you play with it a little bit and then you go to something else and then something else. In my life, I have gotten enthusiastic about certain things. Always in my life I ve had a few things that I m really enthusiastic about at the moment. I can think way, way, way back when I was a kid and I was super enthusiastic about sports, like playing baseball and football when I was a little kid. Riding my bike and certain things like that. Then when I got older, I got really enthusiastic about martial arts for many years, and I really poured a lot of energy into it. I loved it. I just had so much fun and really focused on it for a long time. I got really into science fiction and fantasy and gaming at a certain point in my life also when I was young. This is still when I was a kid. When we talk about enthusiasm, what we re talking about is this sustained excitement. That s maybe the way you could think about it. We can get excited about something in a moment. Right now I could say oh you won a million dollars, yay, and you d get excited but enthusiasm is more than excitement. Excitement is fleeting. Fleeting means that it leaves quickly. It does not last long. Excitement can come and it can be very strong even, but the problem with excitement is that if it comes and goes quickly, you can t build success, you can t build much learning on it, you certainly can t build mastery on it. Enthusiasm, however, is this kind of sustained excitement for something, the passionate interest in something that is sustained. It keeps going and going and going and in fact in many ways it builds and gets stronger and stronger and stronger.

There are so many things we talk about that are important, but I think enthusiasm is really, really, really deep meaning it s at the root of so much success in so many parts of life for so many people. Another reason I say it s at the root is because it s often the very first thing you need. It s often the thing that starts you on the path to great success, great mastery in some area. Of course when we start something, anything, we don t have skill. In fact, we re not good at whatever it is. So, if we don t have enthusiasm for it, this kind of sustained interest and excitement for it, then typically we re not going to get much better, or we may force ourselves and push ourselves for a while but it s unlikely we will achieve a very high level of success in that area. I ve experienced this in my own life with music, for example. I really enjoy listening to music. At points in my life, I ve gotten the idea that I wanted to play some instrument. When I was kid, I played the trumpet for a couple years. I joined the little school band and I played the trumpet, and I was excited about it. See, this is the difference here. I was excited about it at the beginning. I don t know why. I saw the band playing and I thought it would be cool. So, I got excited about the trumpet and then I practiced and practiced for a while, but then the excitement got less and less because it started feeling more like work. It was something that had to be done indoors. You had to practice it alone indoors most of the time at home to get better. As a kid, I hated to be indoors. I wanted to be running around outside. My parents punished me by locking me in the house. That s all they had to do. They didn t have to hit me, just keep me in the house and I was miserable. So, I kind of lost my excitement for the trumpet quite quickly. I kept doing it for a while longer, I think almost two years, but more and more my parents had to force me to practice, and eventually I didn t hate the trumpet but I hated being indoors practicing by myself and never developed that enthusiasm to keep myself going. Then later on when I was in high school, I thought it would be cool to play the drums because that s a very physical thing. I still think that the drums out of any instrument probably would fit me the best for my personality. Banging away on drums, it would really fit me, but unfortunately drums are really, really, really loud, so my parents said no, you can t play the drums. Then I tried guitar instead, and it was basically the same pattern as the trumpet. I started off with excitement but then more and more and more I had to force myself to practice. I never got that enthusiasm.

More recently, maybe a year or two ago, I thought I ll learn the bass and it was basically the same pattern again. Interesting. This is what happens typically if there s not enthusiasm. On the other hand, with traveling I immediately had an intense enthusiasm. Certainly I was very excited about my first trip abroad, but it s something that just kept growing and growing and growing, this genuine enthusiasm, this love, this deep passion for it. That has been the case for writing. I enjoy writing and I ve had a passion and enthusiasm for it for a long time. Teaching and speaking and being an entrepreneur all the things that are connected to Effortless English I ve had this enthusiasm for that, that has only gotten stronger and stronger and stronger. That s often the pattern of enthusiasm. You start off excited and if it grows then, that s where you really get enthusiasm for something. It s the most powerful thing. Enthusiasm is really the fuel, the energy for persistence. They really go together. You could think of two kinds of persistence. They re both useful. One kind of persistence comes from just toughness and determination and willpower. That s where you must accomplish something. It s really tough and difficult and maybe it s unpleasant and maybe even miserable. Sometimes there are these things in life but we have to do them anyway, and we ve got to just keep going and going and pushing ourselves and not quit. That s a certain kind of persistence, a kind of tough persistence. It is useful in life to have that in certain situations. That kind of toughness, usually it gets you through difficult times. It gets you through difficult problems, but that kind of persistence which is more willpower, toughness it does not usually lead to mastery of something or fantastic success. The other kind of persistence is the persistence that comes from truly loving something, having this incredible enthusiasm and passion for it. That s the kind of persistence that really leads to amazing successes. When you have that enthusiasm, when you truly, truly just love something and you just love doing it, you love getting better at it, you love learning it but you also love right now. You just love it, love it, love it so much and you re just so excited about it, and the excitement just grows and grows and grows. That gives you this kind of amazing fuel or gasoline for persistence. Enthusiasm lets you just crash through obstacles and walls and problems and just keep going. You keep