What does it mean to fall in love with English?
This is how Elisa and I started our conversation that I'm about to share with you.
Elisa is one of my dear, dear students, and she has been learning with me for years.
And I had the privilege and honor to see her go from being So quiet and so timid to being the most expressive, creative and outgoing version of herself in English.
And you will see for yourself.
Her journey is truly inspiring because at every step of the way, she challenged herself and was able to break another glass ceiling and another glass ceiling that she has set for herself.
This conversation is going to be about fluency, about courage, about limiting beliefs, about perfectionism and how to overcome it, and about letting your voice be heard.
She will share it from her personal experience and also talk about the universal experience of speaking English as a second language.
I am so excited about this conversation and I can't wait to share it with you.
So let's go ahead and listen to it.
Hello.
Hello, Lisa.
How are you doing?
I'm great.
Thank you, Heather.
How are you?
I'm good.
I'm so, so happy to have you here.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story here on my channel.
And I'm excited for this conversation.
I've known you for so many years.
And I told you right before we started recording that it's time now. it's time for me to share you with the world so thank you thank you so much i didn't want to but now i have to so there there we go okay so um do you would you like to quickly introduce yourself for those who are not in our community and don't know you yeah so hi everyone i'm elisa and i'm italian and I live in Italy and I work in hospitality and I use English at work to communicate with international guests.
But that's actually not the main reason why I started working on my English because, And as far as I can remember, I've always been attracted to this language and to its sounds.
And if you ask me why, I don't really have an answer for that, because it's like when you love someone and people ask you why do you love this person?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you can list all the beautiful qualities that the person has, you know gentle caring kind, but at the end of the day, you know, you just love that person and that's it.
You love that person.
Yeah, exactly.
And I feel kind of the same about English.
Wait, so I have a question about this.
When was the first time maybe when you were a kid at least as a kid that you started developing emotions and feeling for English?
Yeah yeah, it was.
When I look back at when I was a little girl maybe in elementary school or even before that I feel like my very first English practice was counter-pronunciation practice.
Because, let me explain
Tell me.
Yeah, because I'm a millennial and, you know, back then we had these boombox.
I think, you know, I don't know if it's the proper name.
Those portable music players that include both a radio and a cassette player.
So I used to wait for my favorite English songs to be played on the radio and I would record them on my cassette tapes.
And I was creating my personal playlist. because there was no streaming back then.
So you had to wait if you wanted to listen to your favorite song.
Actually, you had to wait for many things back then, but that's another story.
Anyway, once I had this playlist And the interesting thing is that I couldn't understand a single word yet because I couldn't speak English, but I wanted to be able to sing the songs right away
So what I would do is something that I think that many millennials, or even older generations maybe, can relate to.
I would grab my cassette player and my cassette tape, I would press play for a very short part of the song, of a song, and then you know, press pause and write down what I could hear.
So not the real lyrics, of course, but the sounds that my ears could perceive.
And I would, you know, repeat this process until the end of the song and for each song.
So eventually i have my personal, uh versions of the lyrics and i, i was happy because i could uh, i could sing them.
So yeah uh, bottom line, what wouldn't i just have to say like what, what wouldn't i give to have these papers with songs transcribed?
I would pay a lot of money to see it right now.
So, if you find it I don't know if I still I don't know yeah, I should, but I don't know if I still have them somewhere.
Probably probably because yeah, but
We'd love to have them, to see them, because it's so interesting to see how you perceive certain words and what you like, because you know the brain.
If you don't know words, then all of a sudden you write these very different things that you hear, which sometimes we do that in our own language.
Okay, so this is the first...
Like when you had the infatuation with English, when you started falling in love with English and sounds and rhythm.
Now everything makes sense.
Good.
So this is why you wanted to explore more.
Yes, and I have to say that my relationship with English has been on and off over the years, because there were moments when I was really motivated and fully committed and moments when I felt I want to give up.
But you know, somehow English always found its way back into my life.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
So of course i study.
I started studying english um, at school.
But the english that you study at school, i think you know many people told you that um, you know it's for me, i think it's really I don't know how to say really scholastic.
So not really the way that I wanted to learn English.
And then there was a moment off.
And then, you know, during my last year of university, I decided that I wanted to improve.
So I also enrolled in a private English school.
So I had a group classes and there was some space also for a conversation classes, but you know the conversation that you have in these, you know, when there are many people it's not that fluid because you know, maybe you get to answer a couple of questions briefly and then they need to move on to to another person, of course.
So i felt like um, i didn't really have the chance to speak in a natural and fluid way uh, and so, before coming across your, your programs, i also um, explored another english course online, Not for long actually, but I mean it was not bad.
It was really good.
But no, to keep a long story short, I felt like it was not the right fit for me.
Because what I was really craving again was, of course that a program that focuses on the English sounds, the melodies.
So when I finally found something like that, I said wow.
I felt like I was reconnecting with key delisa you know yes yes absolutely right like giving giving space and room for you as a kid and in your adult life before we continue with with the story chronologically tell me one thing that you're doing now regularly or that you can do that 10 years ago 10 lisa from 10 years ago would say impossible sitting here today with you that would be first of all this was um unthinkable unthinkable and uh i don't know many actually there are so many just one thing it's uh not enough because there are many things that i can do today that were not possible for me some some years ago i don't know i can i can now i can speak without overthinking every single word that I'm saying, or I can express myself fully and not giving just the basic answers, the safe answers, because when I had before, you before your program even when i had the chance to to answer a question in those english classes classes but also you know in general when i had a chance to to to answer a question i would always go for the basic answers, the safe answers.
Because I used to tell myself, I used to stop myself.
I used to tell myself, that's it, don't say more because if you say more, you're gonna make a mess.
I was limiting myself.
What a powerful limiting belief that is, right?
Before you're going to make a mess.
And I love because I think it makes so much sense for people who feel like they could be all over the place or get distracted or not be perfect or something like that.
And I think that when you have that thought, how limiting it is and how is it limiting you?
I was not speaking.
Period.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
So it was very, I was, I was stuck.
So the point is that I, you know, until that moment, I kept consuming and consuming English with podcasts, and watching videos, YouTube videos or movies in English, and listening to music and so on and so forth.
But I was afraid of speaking and it was something that I needed to overcome, because it was like a vicious circle, because I felt like no, I'm not ready to speak yet.
I'm not...
I don't know enough to speak.
I'm not prepared enough.
So I kept postponing this moment.
And of course, I felt stuck because if you don't do something, you cannot get better at something.
And it is like that for anything. kill in life.
So if you want to improve, you need to practice.
You've got to do the thing you want to do, right?
Like if you want to do something and you don't do that something.
Yeah.
It's not magic.
You have to do something.
And so yeah, but the moment the moment I realized that I needed to change that.
I mean, everything changed.
Yeah, and not overnight because no no, built it.
You know, like i've known you for many years and like you've built it it's kind of like layer by layer, by layer by layer.
Until now, you know you're you're, the things that you're doing are just yeah.
I think that you know you need to be willing to start uh, Speaking in a messy way.
Because at first it will be super messy sometimes.
And that's okay.
Because we are just starting something.
So that's okay.
You will make a lot of mistakes.
And that's okay too.
Because that was another uh, another issue uh, but you know uh, mistakes are the only the only way to improve.
Uh, mistakes are part of life.
So uh, it is how it is.
It's how it works.
So actually, i started with um, accent makeover you know my, my journey with you Because I realized, at a certain point, once I realized, that I was stuck and I wanted to do something.
I also realized that one of the things that was holding my speaking back was pronunciation.
Not only that, but also pronunciation, and since you know pronunciation, I have a thing for the sounds of it.
Yeah, and I decided that you know, instead of because I don't, I don't know, I didn't want to just speak.
You know English, I wanted to sound clear And I wanted people to understand me easily.
So, instead of trying everything at once, I decided I made a decision, and my decision was to start with pronunciation.
And that's when I joined. accent makeover that later became new sound.
Yeah.
And so I started with that.
And then beyond arrived, because in Accent Makeover and The New Sound I did all the job, all the work, sorry.
In Accent Makeover, I did all the work, but I was not ready to expose myself yet.
I did all that on my own, even if there was a community in AXE & MAKOVER, but you know, I didn't feel ready yet in this world.
But when BEYOND arrived and I joined BEYOND, that was my game changer for me, because by that time, of course, i had already um, i had already done some inner work and i had already built some foundation with the pronunciation and intonation and you know the prosody, english prosody.
And so i was really, I really wanted to practice practice practice, and I was ready to take action.
And that's what I did from the very first moment that I joined Beyond.
I started to be very active very soon and started to make videos and I started to post them inside the community.
I started to interact with all the other members, and All of that had really a great effect on my improvements.
Yeah.
What do you think what has worked so well for you when it comes to making videos?
This is how I got to know you more kind of like deeply is just like really watching your videos when you first started, when it was years ago, right.
Like when you started posting daily or almost daily, your videos by the door, you know like perfect hiding, perfect angle.
And I'm curious how you think making videos helped you.
I mean, you know, I know it helped me.
Just creating content for YouTube has made me a much better speaker and communicator.
And I've seen it with my students.
But I want you to talk about your own personal experience how working with videos has helped your fluency and your confidence.
When I joined Beyond, I started to see that there were other members that were posting videos, you know, and then I said okay, I think that this can be a nice nice, an interesting way, an useful way to improve my speaking, because you need to speak.
You know, when you record a video, you do that because you want to you speak for like two or three minutes talking about something in English.
So you are practicing.
That's your goal.
You're practicing your speaking.
And it was helpful because.
Because I soon realized that there was other than you know the main challenge with videos.
For me there was like another challenge, a challenge within the challenge, because the main challenge was speaking in English for like two or three minutes.
And then I started to realize that, since I was not used to making videos, I was not used to seeing myself on camera, I realized that I didn't like what i was.
You know my face my my, my expressions, my movements, my hand gestures and i'm italian, so i move a lot and and my voice, so basically i didn't like anything and um.
So my goals was to overcome uh, all of these side struggles too.
So that's why I didn't give up, because I was really determined to overcome all of these side struggles other than the speaking one.
And I'm happy that I didn't give up because now I feel that I'm stronger And I am more confident.
I mean, I'm not just a more confident English speaker.
I'm more confident as a person in general because I worked on all of those side struggles that came up.
Yeah.
So talk to me about how developing in the language is intrinsically connected to developing personally.
Because I think a lot of people, when they come to learn a language, they think okay, I just need to learn the words and the grammar and then i'll be able to speak, but it's almost like you have to think about it.
I believe that you know this is my method and i think some people connect with it and some people don't.
You transform into someone new, someone new who speaks another language, and that language can carry who you are in your personality.
So i think that when you really your English, in our case, you also transform personally.
And I think that was the case for you.
So what do you think about that and how has that played out for you?
So I feel like the English language gives me the chance to show other aspects of who I am.
I mean, maybe aspects that in Italian are not so visible.
In English, they show up more.
Maybe there are some.
You know, in some context in English I might be more expressive or more outgoing.
Maybe in the exact same context in Italian I might be more, more reserved or more careful of the words that I'm using.
But not because I'm a different person, it's just because the expressiveness of the language.
Yeah, the expressiveness of the language gives me this chance, this opportunity, and i feel like it's um, it's a uh kind of a richness.
You know, it's not a limitation.
Um, i don't feel like i'm a different person.
I feel like i'm the same person.
It's just that, you know, english shows more some aspects of me that in italian are more, not so visible.
Yeah, but I think also that to be able to get to that place, you know, like being so incredibly expressive, even more in English than in your first language, you have made a lot of, you know, shifts in how you think, how you manage perfectionism.
We talked about it, right?
Like how you show up, like inner transformation in your confidence, limiting beliefs, thinking how you perceive yourself.
And I think that is an essential part of being able to get to that place, because it wasn't just Learning the pronunciation, it was really you showing up regularly, interacting with the community, challenging yourself, managing that voice that kept saying you're going to make a mess.
You've got to say it correctly.
You're too much.
You're not enough.
Right?
Like all these voices that we hear, it's like really learning how to manage them.
Yes.
And I mean it's a huge part of the journey because I think that the mindset work that we also have inside New Sound, it was really
That's important for me, because if you have all these again, if you have all these limiting beliefs and if you keep telling yourself, you know, if you keep limiting yourself with your own words uh, you're not gonna be able to to succeed.
You know, in what you want to become, in the english speaker, that you want to uh no, you're not gonna succeed.
You're not gonna succeed.
Um, and Working on my limiting beliefs was a huge part of my English journey, because when you work on that, everything else unlocks somehow.
Can you be more specific and say, for example, let's say, someone watching this right now has this fear of making mistakes, right?
And I know you've had it.
So what would you tell them?
What did you tell yourself to be able to overcome it?
So i think that uh, you need to stop.
You know, you need to shift the focus.
Uh, you don't when you are speaking, because usually, when We are afraid of making mistakes, because when we are communicating with the other person, you don't want to sound stupid.
You start overthinking all these Things like, oh my God, was it the right word?
Was it the right pronunciation?
Was it the right way to say it?
Or was it the most natural way to say it?
And if you don't shut down all these thoughts, all these voices in your head you're gonna you, you're gonna it will drive you crazy.
So you need to, you need to make that uh, make that shift.
And and the shift was, you know, instead of focusing on every single word that i was saying or the mistake that i might make while speaking, I decided that I needed to focus on the message that's it, on what I needed to communicate, because that's what it is important at the end of the day.
So the connection, the communication itself.
So it might seem like a subtle shift, a silly shift, but it's not.
It really changes everything in your speaking.
So just shift from thinking about your mistakes and editing your thoughts or your words.
Yeah, you just think about what is your message, what it is that you want to say, and exactly that's it.
Yeah yeah, i love that and that worked for you, it works for me.
Of course, you know, there are days where i feel yeah, i'm like yeah, it depends on the day too.
Yeah, i need to work on myself, I needed to work on myself.
Yeah.
And another limiting belief that I needed.
Another major shift happened when I stopped saying myself those limiting words.
Like, for example, when everything new, when I needed to try everything something new or a new challenge I used to say no, that's not.
I used to tell myself no, that's not for me.
That's not my thing.
Or, I don't know, I'm not able to do this.
I'm not going to do this.
But then I started thinking, wait a minute, do I have proof of that?
I mean, do I have real evidence that I'm not able to do this?
So let me try.
So I realized that before saying that I actually needed to try that something.
And when I started to say yes to new things And the new challenges, it was mind-blowing, because I noticed that I was capable of doing much more than I had imagined.
And that little shift again, that subtle shift, was from I cannot do that.
I'm not able to do that.
To let me try.
I mean, again, it seems subtle.
That's the compound effect, right?
Like it's small decisions, small changes that make a huge difference, that at the moment they don't see much.
But also you have made big decisions.
Not big decisions, but like you took risks and you know, like you had courage to do things.
What are some of the things that I mean?
I don't want to sound like oh yeah, I'm so brave because yeah, in a way I'm brave.
But I feel like my very first reaction was and I think will always be a little bit of resistance at first.
But the point is that now I know that I need to push through and you know, to get to step out of my comfort zone, but you know it's so good.
So that resistance that a lot of people use as intuition, as like a negative feeling that is associated as fear, maybe it's just testing you to see how willing you are to push through and to challenge yourself so you can actually grow.
And you said, like I'm accepting the challenge whenever, that whenever I feel that resistance yeah yeah, because usually it's a sign that you had to do that when you experience that resistance like it was for the video that first I was experiencing this resistance and that's how I felt that was the right thing to do.
Okay, do it.
Yeah.
I'm just going to name some of the things that I've seen you do in the community.
First of all, post regularly.
You host conversation groups.
You came to a meetup and I got to meet you twice already in real life.
You have a podcast in our community and beyond.
You are a very, very dominant supportive member of the community so you give a lot to other members of the community.
We did this crazy musical video from Chicago six women inside and beyond and that was very ambitious and incredible.
And super fun.
And super fun.
And super fun.
So it's like you like to experience the resistance and the challenge and to be able to achieve it.
What else do you feel like you're... I think you mentioned basically everything.
I mean, it's a lot already.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't know if I like to experience that first part.
You know the resistance and all these struggles, but for sure I, like you, know the following steps.
You know when you overcome all of that.
Yeah, that feeling is incredible.
The other side, exactly.
The other side is incredible, yeah.
Talk to me about the importance of community in your journey and what it means for you in you know, as a Lisa, not as an English student, right?
Like personally, and just for context, we are in, uh, um, you're a part of, you've been in new sound, but you're also have been inside of beyond for many years beyond his or English fluency, um, community.
And, um, and yeah, so talk to me about what it has been for you to be a part of this community.
It was everything.
So I have to be honest.
At first I really underestimated the power of the community because, you know, when I joined Beyond, I was really focused on myself, on my English journey, on my improvements.
And somehow, when I joined, I was expecting the support of I mean your support and the support of all the coaches.
I mean, incredible coaches, I love them all.
And, for sure, you know, once I joined, joined uh beyond uh, the the support that i uh, that i experienced and i'm still experiencing today, is a lot more than the one that i was expecting, for sure, but i was expecting that somehow.
What i was not expecting was the impact of being surrounded by people who Have the same struggles, the same fears.
And you know these people when you feel like you don't I mean when you feel like you're tired, not motivated, when you feel like you want to give up, when you have these bad days, we all have these bad days and bad moments.
During these bad moments, the community can become your fuel.
I mean, in my case, it was like that, or at least this community.
I want to talk about, you know, I want to be specific.
I want to be specific.
There are communities that could suck your energy instead of offer you more.
Yeah.
Because these people, you know, are people who understand you, who push you, encourage you, who challenge you, who tell you that you can do it.
And even when you don't believe that, they make you believe that it's possible.
So it's a huge, like the biggest part, I would say, of my journey, of my English journey.
And I didn't just find English speaking partners in the community, I found real friendships.
And it was like, I didn't see that coming.
It was totally unexpected and it's so beautiful.
Because what I was not realizing at first, when I was focusing just on myself, is that growth becomes easier and faster and even not even most importantly more meaningful when you don't do it alone.
And an interesting thing is that one of my One of my dreams when I was a little girl was to be able to speak with people from all over the world.
And one of the things that helped me the most to achieve this goal, it was actually people.
So I think about Right.
You need people for, for, to be able, first of all, to be able to speak, right?
Like, you know, it's so important to get feedback and to see how your words land.
Like it's so, it's so incredibly important.
And I love it that that it wasn't about that.
It wasn't what you signed up for, but it it's what you received and it has you know like it was even better.
It was even better yeah, it was even better.
Yeah, our community is really really the most remarkable community ever.
I'm biased, but i'm also objective, so i think it is more objective.
What would you say?
Your goals are moving forward.
When it comes to English, when it comes to, yeah.
I don't know, right now I'm kind of, you know, I'm open to possibilities.
I don't really have right now a specific goal that I wanna achieve.
I mean right now, I feel like I need to keep consistent, keep improving because, of course, Especially with language, it's important to be consistent because, how they say, if you don't use it, you lose it, right.
So you need to do the work.
So I'd love to help people who now feel the same way that I did.
And I think you're already doing that by sharing.
First of all, like you're doing it right now, sharing your story, because you know people look at you and say okay, you know she's so expressive and so confident and they might feel so distant from that experience.
But this you know, you were like that before you were reserved.
You were quiet, not wanting to make a mess, you know, and this is no longer your reality.
And a lot of it, a lot has changed for you because of that, which is remarkable.
Yeah, I was just saying because I was thinking about what is possible for me, you know, other than the other things that I've already told you.
I think what is possible for me is freedom.
I mean, I'm not perfect because I still make mistakes.
I'm sure that I've made mistakes even during this interview.
But the point is that I don't let them stop me now, and it's not that i don't care, because of course i care if i make mistakes, but it's more important for me to to communicate.
So uh, what is possible for me now is this is the freedom to to connect it, to express myself, and the freedom to being perfect, But still speak.
I think that's key.
And I think freedom is so much more critical for the human experience and for us speaking in a second language, than perfection, than being accurate, than getting it right, than always saying the right thing, because when you don't feel freedom, then you probably use 10 or 20 of what you know and then you never show up.
First of all, make the language accessible in and of itself, right?
And also you never have the confidence to show up authentically because you're always in your head, you're always limiting, you're always stifling.
And I think this is huge, what you just shared, telling yourself freedom and self-expression is more important to me than making mistakes.
And even when you make mistakes, it doesn't destroy you, right?
Like, and I think that when you understand that, When you feel horrible horrified embarrassed ashamed, when you make a mistake, first of all it's probably from some past trauma that you were.
You know like you saw someone being humiliated or embarrassed or you experienced it, whether it has to do with English or something else.
And then that feeling right, that feeling of shame.
We try to avoid it so much badly, like we don't want to experience shame so we would do everything, including eliminating our voice, so that we wouldn't feel it.
But when you're willing to feel those feelings and say wait, actually it doesn't, doesn't mean anything, you know, then you're able to manage it.
It's like you said about resistance It will come up.
Fear will come up.
Shame will come up.
Right.
But it's how you let it manage you and direct you.
That's the question.
And this is like how we grow as individuals, where we don't let those things, you know, when we don't operate from these emotions but from where we want to be and who we want to become.
Sometimes.
English learners might feel frustrated because they don't know some words in English.
Because when you've been studying English for many years, for a long time, Maybe people around you start asking questions like what's this word in English?
Or how do you express that in English?
And if you don't know the answer, you might feel like, oh my God, I've been studying all these years and I don't know the answer to that.
What's wrong with me?
You might you know, you might feel like you might think that you know the other person.
Oh my god, now the other person will think that I'm stupid, that I'm wasting my time, you know, and all that jazz, but I think that it's completely normal not to know everything in in a language, even even in our, in our own language because, for example, when you uh you know, if somebody uh asked me um about, you know a specific term, a specific Yeah, a technical term for us in a certain job, for example, let's say, for carpenters.
Maybe I know the names of some of the tools that the carpenters use in their job, but I'm sure that I don't know all of them, the names of all of them, and that's okay for me.
Honestly, I don't feel bad.
If something like that happens in our native language and we don't feel that bad, why we have to feel like that if something like that happens in English?
So I think we need to stop doubting yourself when something like that happens, because that doesn't mean that we're not able to speak English or that we are stupid.
It just means that we are human, no?
That's it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And no one's perfect.
And perfection is overrated anyway.
It's boring, you know?
So it really is like You know, I'm so passionate when I say this because I used to feel like that, when you know, people would ask me something like that and I didn't know the answer.
Oh my God.
So, yeah.
How has pronunciation helped you?
What was the thing you did?
Talk about your love for sounds, but what was it about learning it?
That, um that helped you change something or understand something?
Okay, so when i started this uh, deep work on on um, the sounds of English,
First of all, the first thing that helped me was becoming aware of some sounds.
Because many times I think that When we don't have some English sounds in our native language, I think we tend to replace them when we speak to the closest sounds that we have in our own language.
I used to do that.
And so, but, you know, doing this deep, deep work helped me to be aware of all the sounds.
And then we also, you know, during the program you also learn how to really recognize these sounds and to perceive them.
You learn how to perceive these sounds.
And then you learn how to reproduce them.
And then you practice them.
You drill the sounds in isolation and in words, phrases and sentences, and then in speeches, and then the connected speech and then prosody um, focal intonation is stress and i love that.
But good student, i'm like, i love, i love listening to every word and how you build it.
Yes, and i think that uh, you know, when you um go deep uh, on the the sounds, on the pronunciation.
Let me rephrase that
When you learn about the prosody of English, everything changes, because I think that prosody carries the meaning and the emotions of what you are saying.
And that can change everything, because maybe you say something you want to sound super confident, 100 sure but because your intonation maybe is a little bit off, you end up sounding insecure, maybe even that you are searching for validation in the other person.
So the other person might feel confused.
What's the message here?
And that's not good when you are communicating.
So I think that's important, because the way you say Words, you know your words.
It makes a difference.
You know, because the same words may sound like you are excited or annoyed, or that you are sure insecure super yeah yes, depending on your intonation.
So, and that's when you know, when you are aware of that, that's huge, that that changes the way you you communicate uh yeah, and i love that.
And i think, another thing, another i just want to mention, to just say what i say, another thing about prosody uh, because you know For sure, prosody helps you to be clear and to sound confident.
But I think, most of all, it helps you be in control of your message, of the message you want to convey.
And that's it.
Yes.
And in how the message is going to be received too, right?
Like not just the message you want to convey, and also what they are going to feel when they receive it.
Yes, exactly.
People think about I just need to use the right words and grammar and vocabulary, and then they say something and the other person feels like they're angry with them.
I've had so much experience in that because the way they use their intonation and their voice, which was extremely friendly in their native language, for example in the US where they were living.
Now, like it was, it sounded a little kind of like, you know, aggressive or angry.
So I think that understanding that is not just about changing how you sound.
It's really about understanding what others expecting.
And because, at the end of the day, you want your message to be clear, because it serves you and you get what you want and you say what you think.
And then you're also communicating well for the other person to you know, to get what they need.
Yeah, that's such a good point.
What is something that you are excited about that has nothing to do with English?
Oh boy, my niece and my nephew.
I knew you were going to say that.
Tell me about them.
I don't know.
I just, again, it's like, you know, it's like the question, why do you love them?
I just love them.
They are so cute.
I don't know.
We spend a lot of quality time together.
Yes, a lot.
I mean, sometimes can be...
Tiring.
I can be tiring, but I mean, I don't complain.
I'm lucky that I can do that.
What is one piece of advice you would give someone listening to us right now?
And maybe they are insecure.
They don't know what their next step is.
They want to experience a breakthrough and they don't know what to do.
What would you recommend for them?
Let's say if I could go back in time and tell myself and give myself a piece of advice.
I think the first one that I would say would be just do it.
I mean, just start. uh i would i would say don't i would say don't wait until you feel like it's uh the the right if until you feel ready don't wait until you know more don't wait until you are more prepared don't don't wait until you feel like it's the right moment because we know that the right moment that moment will never come So you just need to jump in and start.
And if that resonates with you, don't try to find excuses to postpone this moment, out of fears maybe.
You just need to take a little, a small step.
That's it.
Just a small step and then another one and then another one.
And, you know, all those small steps will take you, will take you further than you think.
So, if that resonates with you, don't waste your time.
Just uh, start now.
I mean, not not tomorrow, not later.
Start this very second now, something that you've been thinking about doing that scares you, that maybe, even if it's just like spend 10 minutes a day practicing something.
Start yes, I mean, because the key is to be consistent.
You don't have to practice for hours and hours and hours a day, first of all because it is not sustainable.
Because, you know, life doesn't allow us to do that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so just 10 minutes a day.
They they will make a huge difference, because those 10 minutes a day will become your results.
But of course, it has to be 10 minutes every single day.
I mean, not 10 minutes. every once in a while because that won't take you anywhere.
So be consistent, small steps.
This is such golden advice and even if it doesn't resonate with you because you said if it resonates with you but I'm saying even if it doesn't resonate with you, that advice, because this is the key to success with everything, and I've experienced that with everything in my life start before you're ready, start now, start small, just start and Don't let your brain talk you out of not doing the things that you want to do.
That's the most important thing.
Stop limiting yourself because most of the times we are our own obstacles.
So change that.
That's so beautiful to end it with that.
So before we go, I'm just going to say we talked about two programs.
I'm going to put the links below.
We talked about Beyond, which is our English fluency community.
And we talked about New Sound, which is our structured pronunciation program.
So if you're curious about this, I'm going to link it below and uh, and that's it.
And eliza, i love you so much.
I appreciate you i, i really I'm in awe by all the things that you do.
I'm in awe by your transformation from you know, from accent makeover and the first few months of beyond.
And I'm grateful for all that you bring to the community and to my life.
And thank you, thank you, thank you for everything.
Thank you.
Same here.
So that was some half advice I used in here.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
And thank you for sharing your story with us.
Thank you for the invitation.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for staying all the way to the end and thank you Aliza, for this beautiful conversation.
And I want to reiterate and repeat what Aliza said.
The most important thing is to start before you're ready.
Don't wait to be ready.
Don't wait for something to happen to do the thing that you want to do.
Do it today.
It has worked for her.
It has worked for so many people who had a goal and they did what it took to get to that goal.
And I'm inviting you to do that today.
Thank you so much.
Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day.
And I will see you next week in the next video.
Bye.
