I'm A .J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English.
Learn to speak English like a native.
Welcome to the Effortless English show, the Effortless English podcast. And a walk and talk.
I am speaking to you today from Indiana.
in the Midwest part of the United States.
It's a rainy day. I have an umbrella right now.
So I'm walking in our big yard here, our big property.
Really, my sister's property.
I'm going to walk over to the shed here and get out of the rain so I can talk to you more there.
I won't need an umbrella.
I'm using a new microphone today, a little clip -on mic.
So my hands are free.
Which will make the walk and talks easier.
You know one exciting thing?
Our Effortless English community website.
Our community is open.
And it's active. And people are on there now.
And it's going really great.
I'm going to talk about that right now.
Just a second. First I've got to open the big shed door.
One second. We'll try to get...
Crikey, this thing's heavy.
I gotta use both my hands here.
Open! All right, there we go.
Now I'm out of the rain.
So our Effortless English Community website.
This is basically a...
I gotta tie my shoe also.
Tying my shoe. too.
Okay, our Effortless English community website is, it looks like a very simple, very, very simple, very basic Facebook.
It's kind of how it looks.
There's like a timeline in the middle where everybody's posts appear.
So anytime a member posts something, it'll show up on the it appears on the main timeline which is called the main feed FEED and then you know when each post there's a comment section so you can leave a comment and there's a little heart button like you say that you like or you love the post and that's basically it it's very simple we do have groups.
There's a... on the website on the community site on the left side...
it's called the sidebar, the left sidebar you'll see something called spaces, and these are just topic groups.
So we have a topic group for each course.
There's one for power English, there's one for the original course, there's one for business English there's one for pronunciation course so you can if you want to specifically ask questions about or discuss talk about one particular course one course that you're maybe the one that you're doing now then great you just go to that group and you can post in the group so then if you only want to to see posts, if you only want to see comments about just that course, you go into the little space, into the group, and you can see everybody discussing that course.
We also have groups for my podcast, my audio podcast, this podcast, and for my video shows.
Topics connected to those and that's it that's it is very simple which I like we don't need it to be complicated because the point is the purpose of our community site is for connecting with me directly personally and connecting with other members and And the key point is that it's our site, so I am the administrator.
That means we're not using Facebook, we're not using X or Twitter, we're not using Gab or anything else.
So we don't need to worry about all the problems on those sites.
because on our site on our effortless english community site it's only only only effortless english members nobody else can get in there the only people who can join our community site are people who have bought one of my courses that's all so you have to be a member and actually a paying member at some time to join the course so that means it's a protected site and that means that the site has some specific rules so that we have a nice international community without all the garbage you see on other social sites for example politics Politics.
I mean, so many of these sites, Facebook, well, Facebook X, or Twitter, and Gab, for sure, they're all just filled with politics, politics, politics.
And, you know, I don't know about you, but I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of, I don't want to just see politics all the time.
If politics are important to you, that's fine, but we don't need it in our lives all the time.
We don't need our lives to be dominated by all these political arguments.
And all it does is create a lot of arguments and, and bad will, bad feelings.
You know, I've lost so many, not really close friends, but I would say more acquaintances, but still people who were kind of friends, you know, on, on Facebook, people I know, only like face -to -face but you know their politics are different than my politics and so then you know they post stuff on Facebook and then maybe I post something or leave a comment and then there's an argument and then you know it's it just creates a bunch of bad feelings and boom they're not friends anymore this may have happened to many of us so So there's so much of that, so much politics, politics, politics on every
social media site and, of course, in the media, television, it's in movies, it's in everything now.
And I think it's good to have a community space where we can take a break from all that.
we're just not going to talk about politics on the site because there's nothing positive first of all it's pointless I got sucked into it a little bit a few years ago but now I realize it's all pointless it's all a show, it's all fake it's all this political stuff on social media too is just meant to suck us in and use up our energy and get us all upset about things things we have zero control over.
None. No power at all to do anything about this.
And it's all fake anyway.
It doesn't matter who your favorite politician is.
They're a liar and a pretender.
And it's the same for me.
Okay? And if they actually get any power, they're not gonna do anything.
They're not gonna actually do any of the things they promised to do.
They're not gonna...
Because they all serve the same masters.
So it doesn't do us any good to get all caught up in all that.
Far more important is that we can have a nice international community in our Effortless English community where we connect with people around the world.
We're not going to discuss and argue about all that political stuff.
We're going to focus on English, of course.
English. Speaking speaking English well, using it.
And we're going to focus on the topics you find in my courses, Power English, VIP, the Business English course.
All of these courses, these very strong, positive psychology, practical philosophy topics.
Topics, how to live a better life, how to live a happier life, a more meaningful life, how to get what you want and achieve your goals, how to be healthier, more energetic, feel more alive, help people, have a good family.
These topics, these are the things that really we have influence over.
These are the things we can actually change in our lives.
If we use so much energy fighting about what, I don't know, what Donald Trump did or didn't do, it's crazy.
Because what I think about Donald Trump, or what you think about Donald Trump, it doesn't matter.
He's going to do whatever he's going to do, and I don't even think he has any power.
Honestly, I think he's just an actor playing his part, which is the same for every American president.
And probably around, I don't know other countries, but I'm guessing it's the same in other countries, too.
It's like professional wrestling.
You know, they pretend to be angry at each other and have these big fights.
But in fact, right, you get the idea.
So that's a lot of wasted energy when we pour so much energy getting so upset about these things.
But when we get upset or when we argue, does it change anything?
Has anything changed because of us getting really angry and upset about what some world leader is doing or government is doing or what's happening even in politics in our own countries?
It doesn't really do anything, right?
And we waste all this time and energy on that where we have no power, no influence.
Instead of focusing our energy and our actions and our emotions and our passions on our direct lives.
Now, of course, this connects to that book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
I did a book club about it on my YouTube channel.
Right? Because this is one of the big principles of that book that Stephen Covey wrote about.
He called it your circle of control, your circle of influence.
And then, of course, everything else that you have no control over.
So, to use a really basic example, the weather.
Do we have control over the weather?
No. So, it's crazy.
literally crazy to get too upset about the weather because getting upset about the weather and getting angry about the weather or whatever, focusing a lot on the weather is a lot of wasted emotion and energy because the weather will be whatever it's going to be.
It's raining today.
There's nothing I can do to stop the rain today.
So to be upset about it or to get to be too focused on it, is crazy.
I'm using up a lot of energy, using up my focus on something I have no influence over.
I can't even influence it.
It's totally out of my control.
I'm totally powerless.
And yet we do this all the time and I think this is what social media, the the big social media sites are designed for actually, is to in fact suck us into using up our energies on all these different things we cannot control or even influence and take away all our time and focus energy from our circle of influence, what Stephen Covey called the circle of influence.
Circle of influence and circle of control.
If you think of this a small circle we call it the circle of control and then a little bit bigger circle around it we call the circle of influence.
Circle of control is where you have the most power.
So let's say you have a strong control over what what you eat every day.
You can choose. You can eat eggs for breakfast or you could drink Coca -Cola for breakfast, right?
Or you could fast and not eat anything for breakfast. That's totally in your control.
You can decide that.
And there's nobody else involved, really.
So that's in your control.
The same thing, how much you exercise or move your body each day.
That's in your control.
You decide it. If you want to go out for a walk for an hour, you can do it.
It's in your control.
You don't need to ask anybody else.
There's no need to affect anyone else.
It's in your control.
You have great mastery and control over this.
So this is where we have the most power.
And in fact, it's these things, these areas of life where we have so much control and power, these are the areas that really change, really affect our happiness and our quality of life.
Who the president is, is not going to really, you know, we had Biden here and then now we have Trump.
Nothing much has changed in America.
It's the same, my life is pretty much exactly the same.
Okay, so it has no effect on my life or my happiness or anything.
Right? For example.
And then whoever the next president is, same thing.
But whether I exercise every day or not has a big effect on my energy levels, how I feel, on my mood.
And of course, that's just the short term.
Long term, after, you know, one month, three months, six months, one year, it's a big difference if I do one year of just no exercise, just sitting on my butt watching TV.
that at the end of the year, I will feel different, I'll have a very different life, compared to if I do one year and I exercise, let's say, an hour every single day, and I'm out and I'm active and I'm outside a lot, and I do that for a full year.
At the end of the year, my life will be very different depending on those two choices.
and those choices are totally in my power and control it doesn't matter who the president is it doesn't matter what the politics are it doesn't matter what the economy is it doesn't matter what the weather is none of that matters that's in my strong circle of control and so this is what you'll see in my courses especially power English and VIP and business English too actually is is that I focus on these topics and these techniques and these methods to improve your life in these areas, in these areas that you actually have great power and can control.
You can completely and totally change your life when you focus on these areas in your circle of control.
And then of course the bigger circle is the circle of influence.
Influence. This is where you have less control, but you still, you know, your actions still have maybe a strong effect.
So, for example, in your own family, if you're married, if you have kids, do you control your wife or husband?
Do you control your kids?
No. They're their own people and they're going to make their own decisions about a lot of things, but you have a strong influence on them, right?
Because you're living together, you're close, you love one another, you're a family.
So what you do will have a strong influence on them.
It will affect them.
It will change them.
And of course what they do will affect you and influence you.
So this is your circle of influence.
This is where we also want to focus on topics like positive leadership.
Leadership, again, another topic that we focus a lot on in Power English and especially in the VIP program.
So, that circle of influence.
How do we have a positive effect on other people around us that we have relationships with?
Your family, of course.
Maybe your co -workers, people you work with.
Maybe friends, your extended family, like your brothers, your sisters, your parents, uncles, aunts, cousins.
This is all part of your circle of influence.
You don't totally control them, but if you have strong, positive leadership, if you show them by the way you live your life a strong, positive example, you can really help and influence in a good way a lot of people.
A lot of people. Contribution.
It's one of our values.
You look on our social community website.
You look on the community site, you'll see our values.
And one of them is contribution.
It means contributing.
It means helping people.
We have this kind of idea, helping people.
Of like, you know, I don't know, giving money to some poor person on the street.
But that's a very...
I'm not going to say it's bad.
It's nice if your heart is filled with generosity, if your heart is filled with compassion.
You want to help and you give somebody asking for money, you give them some money, okay, that's okay, but you're not really doing much. I think we all know, likely, that's not going to help them very much. If they're a drug addict or an alcoholic, they're just going to take that money and go use it to buy drugs or alcohol.
What we don't often think about is just how we live our lives can have a very strong and positive contribution effect on everyone around us.
I mean, I'll just, you know, I'll use my own example.
I'm going to talk about this a little bit later too.
too. But, uh, you know, as a father, I have two six -year -olds, my mood, my attitude each day has such a strong effect on my children.
And of course on my wife too.
So when I'm grumpy, when I'm tired, when I'm in a bad mood, it has a negative effect.
It's a bad contribution, right?
It's a, I have a negative effect on them.
It's like negative leadership, negative influence.
And I feel it. I see it because I'm not perfect.
And I do have those days.
And last week I had several of them in a row.
And it's terrible. And then when I see, and I, when I kind of can snap out of it, I realized, oh my God, you know, this is terrible.
I have a, you actually have a quite a strong power and responsibility to be a positive influence.
And sometimes your best contribution is just to live a great life, a positive, happy life.
To be cheerful, to be enthusiastic, to be encouraging.
You don't have to give a lot of money.
You don't have have to do any great thing.
You don't have to teach anybody anything.
You don't need any big leadership skills, nothing like that.
Just by being generally, every day, a good, kind, happy, joyful, enthusiastic, positive person, you can have such a great effect on on people around you, of course, especially the people who are closest to you.
And I think, day after day, long term, that is one of the greatest opportunities for contribution.
So it doesn't have to be dramatic.
You don't need to have great charisma.
You don't need super leadership skills just by focusing on your own attitude and emotions.
you can be a great positive leader.
And I see this with kids because kids focus on what you do less than on what you say.
What you do and how you act is so much more important.
My kids have taught me this very strongly.
And I feel it now. I feel it.
I see how my moods...
Like I said, I had a bad week last week.
and you know just a quick explanation is just I was getting bad sleep I finally figured out what was wrong I was like what is wrong with me maybe you've had this sometimes where you just feel terrible and you feel terrible and you feel terrible and you have like several bad days and you're like what is going on and many times it's something physical maybe it's diet maybe it's who knows but for me it was sleep I realized ah you know what I've been getting bad sleep I've been staying up a little bit later I've just been going to bed a little bit late because I'm naturally a night person and I like
to stay up late generally but I'm going to bed a little later but my kids wake up early so I always get woken up in the morning and I realize, you know, I've been getting bad sleep for a few days and maybe one night of that is okay but after a few nights man, I start waking up really irritable really grumpy and in a terrible mood and just kind of all day long in a bad mood and trying to fight it but terrible and I finally realized ah it's just sleep so the last several days i just you know what i'm going to go to bed early i'll do whatever i have to do i'll take melatonin i'll drink some milk
or whatever i gotta do i'm going to bed early so i get plenty of sleep so when my kids wake up in the morning i'm feeling good and i've done that the last three days in a row and i have been a totally different person Listen, that one little thing, that's also leadership, it's also contribution.
Why? Because just that change, going to bed earlier or later, of course it's in my circle of control, so it affects me, I feel better, I'm happier, my quality of life is better, but it's also my circle of influence.
I've been happy and cheerful and feeling great the last few days, and my kids are so much happier now because dad's happy because dad's cheerful I'm patient now so now one of them gets upset one of them has a tantrum or is not cooperating or something now instead of being impatient and getting upset with them I can stay patient and be gentle so everybody's happier now now our whole family's happier, right?
I didn't need any leadership techniques.
I didn't need anything.
All I need to do is recognize the problem, make an adjustment that I can absolutely control, go to bed a little earlier, and now I'm not only happier myself, but I'm making a much better contribution.
I'm a better leader as a father.
so many times to contribute to be a good leader is just about being a better person yourself once again Hollywood movies, media we have this idea of the leader is like Steve Jobs or someone who's great at public speaking or Tony Robbins and you get up there and you've got your nice suit on or uniform and you're really clever and you have all these great persuasion techniques all that stuff's fine it can be useful but I think most of the time the most important things are really just being a good person living a good life and having a high quality of life and being, as much as you can, a positive,
joyful, patient, kind, enthusiastic person.
You know, being in a good mood most of the time.
Just do that! And you'll be surprised how much that affects everybody around you.
Most people are walking around kind of grumpy, happy, tired, stressed.
You can be a source, a light, a source of light just by being cheerful and happy and in a good mood and positive.
And you can control those things.
You can take care of your diet.
You can take care of your exercise.
You can pray. You can meditate.
You can get to bed earlier and make sure you're getting plenty of sleep.
You can focus on positive thoughts and using lots of the methods and techniques I teach you in Power English and especially in the VIP program and when you change yourself which you have the power to do you will have a positive effect on so many and it's fine if you're shy it doesn't matter if you don't want to be a big leader you still will be you'll be a light instead of a source of darkness so when I talk about leadership and positive leadership in our community that's what I'm talking about the great leaders on our social site our community site you'll start to notice they're the people who are just
positive and encouraging they leave an encouraging comment to somebody if somebody's a little discouraged or having they're feeling oh I'm not making improvements they leave a little comment saying hey don't worry you're going to improve they just keep that positive encouragement that positive mindset and they do it again and again every single day they become leaders everybody is attracted to that people need that in their lives be that positive person and on our community side it's a great way to practice that and to see that that.
So also on our community site there's no pornography, oh my god I'm so sick of that, so sick of seeing that garbage.
On Gab it was all over Gab, they kind of improved it but they would still get through sometimes and who wants to see that it's just nasty garbage, I don't want to see that.
And then on X, you know, supposedly this big multi -billion Millionaire owns the site, yet they can't keep off the pornography.
So you'll see it on there too, on X, on what used to be called Twitter.
Haven't seen it on Facebook, but Facebook is full of lots of other garbage.
So no porn, no politics, and no spam.
So these are kind of the three big ones for our community site.
There won't be no spam, so no selling of anything.
right so we don't let people get on there to promote their business or their specific religious group or their whatever something they want you to join or some marketing thing there's no marketing on the site other than my own courses and even then I'm not going to try to sell you my courses on the community site you're already logged in you've already bought from me if you're on that site so I'm not going to try to sell you anything on the community site I have a separate website for that so there's no marketing no spam there's no porn there's no politics the result of this is people can relax and just
connect with each other and talk about these great positive topics focusing on their own circle of influence their own circle of control being a very positive and enthusiastic person, and of course improving your English speaking.
And the result is you will make friends with people all around the world.
We've seen this before with Effortless English.
And now that we have this protected site, our own site, site, you'll see it again where people can connect and many, many times in the past members have visited each other, so they'll connect on our community site and you can relax and trust the people on our site because Effortless English members are all focused on being positive, being friendly, being good people.
They follow our code.
We do the best we can, we do the the right thing.
We show each other we care.
The three parts of our code.
So because of that, it's a great place to make friends with people around the world.
Of course, you can just start off by commenting on posts with other people.
And then if you like, on the site, you can organize a conversation group.
Either just Just find one other person and say, hey, let's talk.
Pick a time, pick an app.
And then you guys can connect with each other and just practice chatting with somebody who's also an Effortless English member.
You can discuss any of the topics in the courses or you can talk about anything you want on your own time.
Or, you know, some people form groups.
You know, I've mentioned Carol's group.
We've got several members of Carol's group already.
on the community site Fernando Diaz I saw just joined Ibrahim Ali, Carol herself is there so you could form your own group too and you could do your own book club maybe find 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 other Effortless English members from different places around the world and choose a time you guys could choose a book read one chapter and then get on zoom or get on an app, any app you want, and have a chat about the book.
Now for these groups, if you want to do a group, a group needs a leader.
It's just the way it is, this is human nature.
You know, Carol's group, Carol's the leader, she started it, she is kind of the organizer, she makes sure that, you know, there's a topic to talk about, there's a book, that there's a meeting scheduled.
so, you know, if you want a group you can just wait and see if somebody else makes a group and just try to join their group and participate and join it or you can just decide to create your own group just put a post on our community site and say, hey, I'm creating a group discussion group I'm looking for I think choose a specific number you say I'm looking for seven more people to join the group and when we get enough people we're going to discuss a certain topic and you can just pick any topic you want you can do a power english group where you just each time you meet you discuss a topic from power
english you can do a book club so you choose a book and then each time you meet you discuss one chapter of the book.
You know, there's many different things you could do.
It's up to you. And then the next step, which has happened many times with Effortless English members is actually meeting people, like taking trips.
So many of our members have taken vacations to other countries and they've met other effortless English members that they had you know first met on our community site, where they they meet on the community site.
So, you know like say maybe you're Italian and you make friends with someone in Romania, and then you have vacation time.
So, you take a you take a vacation to Romania and instead of just being a normal tourist in Romania, well now you have a local friend And your friend from Effortless English can, you know, show you around a little bit, and you get to, of course, connect with your friend, and then you also get to see Romania with a local person, which is very different than just being a tourist. We've had people do this so many times, where they make friends and then they go visit each other in different countries.
Really nice. It's really nice.
it's great it's a great way to make wonderful friends and it's a more enjoyable and meaningful way to travel and experience other countries and cultures and of course use English when you do it and then finally what we have done in the past and what we will do in the future eventually is have a gathering a gathering all right so in the past several times in the past I have had meetings gatherings with effortless English members in different places in the world now before my kids came I traveled a lot more I would travel every single year for a couple months so I was kind of frequently frequently
traveling around the world and wherever I would go, I would put information on the community site and I would meet up with people and we'd have a nice big meeting of Effortless English members and of course you get to meet me, but also meeting each other and they were wonderful.
Beautiful. Every single time I did that, I just was so impressed, so happy with how positive and friendly and enthusiastic the Effortless English members were when I met them face to face.
Just great. You know, we did a couple of those in Osaka, Japan.
Of course, I was living there for a while.
while. We did a few of them in Barcelona, Spain.
We did, I think, three times in Barcelona, Spain, and those were great.
Those were a little more organized, and we had people coming from all different countries to meet together in Barcelona.
Those were wonderful.
I've done done them in Thailand and Bangkok, Thailand, of course, Vietnam, working with PASL.
We did huge seminars and events there with thousands of people and big, big, big events.
And man, their students are so great.
They're so, so, so excited and fun and positive and friendly and high energy.
so those were some great events those seminars in Vietnam so we will do these again San Francisco, I did a few in San Francisco actually when I was living in San Francisco we had kind of little small meetings with some people who lived in that area so I look forward to doing that again once my kids are just a little bit older so they're six now it's still a bit challenging to travel with them especially long trips so I would think probably in a couple years we should be able to have an easier time traveling and we'll do some effortless English member gatherings again in different parts of the world
I have thought about doing one somewhere in America.
So the nearest big city to me is Chicago.
Chicago has a lot of international flights, so probably easy to get into if someone wanted to travel.
The only problem is Chicago is a very expensive city, so I'm a little worried.
I did some research on the hotels in Chicago and they're, crikey, they're expensive.
Very expensive. So it would be a convenient place to do an Effortless English Gathering but unfortunately I think it might be kind of expensive.
Here, Indianapolis where I live, is significantly cheaper, much cheaper, but a little harder to get to.
You'd probably probably have to fly to Chicago first and then transfer and do, uh, it's only like a, it's less than an hour flight from Chicago.
Chicago to Indianapolis is maybe 30 minutes flying, but you would have to do a transfer.
It would be necessary.
So maybe, maybe we could do one in Indianapolis.
I don't know if anyone's interested.
Uh, Indianapolis is not a very exciting city, I'll be honest. So we'll see.
In a couple years we could maybe try to do a gathering.
I don't know I have to pick another city.
Maybe we could possibly do Atlanta, Georgia.
I could get down there easily or possibly Japan because we will definitely be going back to visit Japan for a while.
planning to spend a few months every year in Japan so we could do Japan or somewhere in East Asia is a possibility we'll see but I miss meeting you all I miss connecting with you all I miss doing those gatherings so I definitely plan to do them again so that's our community site I invite you if you are an effortless English remember I invite you to please log in to our courses site the site where you download your lessons and then you'll see a link at the top for community click it and join our community site and please introduce yourself say hello say where you're from if you want you could say
which course you joined or and when you joined and you know the this community site is open to anybody who ever got one of my courses.
So even if you bought my power English course 15 years ago back in 2010 or 2008 even you can still join the community site.
Of course if you bought recently that's fine great but even if you got one of my courses a long time ago the site is open to members for your whole lifetime.
Once you join one of my courses you are a member of the Effortless English community Effortless English family for life.
So, please, I'd love to see some of the old members.
I know that old members, really old members, meaning not your age, but people who were joined a long time ago, maybe you don't need lessons anymore.
Probably your English speaking is fluent now, and you don't need lessons anymore.
Good. That's the goal.
That's what I want.
But you can still come in and connect with people and make international friends and still be a part of our community.
I hope you will. Please do.
I'd love to see some of our older members as well.
All right. Just looking at my recorder here.
See how much battery time.
Okay, I've got a couple more minutes and then I'm going to end.
So please join our community site.
It's on our courses site.
Log in if you forgot your password, if you bought Power English, or you bought an original course a long time ago.
Maybe you don't even remember your password. No big deal.
Just go to the Effortless English Courses site and you can try to log in.
Put in your email and you'll see a little link.
you know forgot my passport password so you can just click on that all right what else for the walk and talk oh yeah I was going to talk a little more about this issue of sleep I've been humbled I've been humbled because I now have six six years of experience with twins.
And as most of you know, one of my children has had a lot of medical issues and three surgeries and other hospital tests and stays in the hospitals.
Very stressful six years, to be honest. Also wonderful.
I'm so happy with my kids.
but to be sure, lots of stress and worry.
And so looking back on it now and again, even just last week I can look back and I see the times when I feel I was a bad father the days where I was a bad father or the weeks when I was a bad father and then the times when I would feel like okay I was a good dad I've been a good dad I was a good dad then that's what I want to be that's the kind of father I want to be all the time and yikes you know it's we can learn all this psychology and NLP and all these different things and make it quite complicated but for me I realized the number one difference is sleep.
And it's kind of humbling because, you know, I struggle with all these things of meditation and emotional control and willpower and this and that.
But I realized that sleep is the number one thing that has made the difference between when I was a bad father, meaning not patient, grumpy, irritable, okay, yelling at the kids, over stuff you know about things that I shouldn't yell at them about I don't even like to yell about them I don't want to yell at them at all quite honestly they're very sweet kids they don't need to be yelled at for anything when I've just been let's say feeling very like having no hope or despairing really so so worried and negative about like let's say my son and his medical problems so that's when I Those things I
considered being a bad father.
And then, on the other hand, being a good father, being patient, being loving, even when they're having some problems or screaming or having a tantrum, having hope, being a good strong leader, being positive.
And man, the number one thing is sleep.
I've really figured it out.
It's sad. I look back and I see okay when I have had bad sleep for two three four five days in a row I turn into a bad dad and when I've had great sleep plenty of rest for two three four days in a row I've become wonderful dad I mean it's Sometimes in life, you know, we make things so complicated.
But when we take time to really look at things, it can come down to something very simple.
And in this case, I really see that because, of course, I love my children.
Of course, I know exactly what I want to do and how I want to be as a dad.
Right. So many times we know what we want to do.
We know what we need to do to be healthy, to be successful, to have a good life.
We know I should do this, this, and this, right?
You have a clear plan, you know, but then you don't do it.
You don't do it. You don't do what you know you should do.
Why not? And then it usually is because not enough energy, or you're grumpy, or you're tired, or maybe your health's bad, or, you know, you have a bunch of negative beliefs, but, you know, there's something stopping you from doing what you need to do.
and you don't really need a lot more knowledge.
You already know what to do, but you just need to do it.
People do this all the time with exercise.
They know they need to get off their butt, go out for a long walk every day.
Go out and walk an hour a day.
It's not complicated.
Just do it. But people don't do it.
Why? Because they get to sit on the couch and then their energy drops.
They're feeling tired.
Maybe they're stressed.
But many times there's something.
Maybe it's more than one thing, but sometimes it really is pretty simple and it's something is stopping you if you figure out what that is and correct it, change it then you'll find you'll start doing what you need to do what you know you should do and I've realized for me as a dad after six years I finally figured out that the number one thing for me is sleep because I realize that I've been kind of hypersensitive to sleep very sensitive to sleep my whole life so this is an act of contribution this is an act of leadership it's an act of responsibility and even sacred duty duty as a father for me
to be sure I get enough sleep.
Because when I get enough sleep, I feel great, and then I'm the dad I know I should be and I want to be.
I'm patient. I'm kind.
I do more activities with them.
I'm a good teacher.
All those things. In jujitsu, there's a saying in jiu -jitsu.
You'll see it if you, people who do jiu -jitsu.
It says fatigue makes cowards of us all, and you could say it in different ways.
Fatigue means tiredness, and cowards means you're afraid.
You could think of it as, you know, fatigue makes losers of us all, but the idea is this, that when you're tired, you're not at your best, and when you're tired, you will do stupid things foolish things bad things that you normally would not do so in jujitsu right this means that there one guy might be a much better fighter but if he's really really tired suddenly he can't do all the stuff he knows how to do and he'll start just doing foolish stuff or he did makes lots lots of mistakes and will lose and also can become kind of afraid, afraid to take risks, afraid to try things, afraid to attack,
afraid to be aggressive because just tired, right?
That would happen to me in jiu -jitsu.
I felt that many times where I would be a better fighter.
I knew, like, oh, I know how to do all these things, but man, I'm just too tired to do them.
I'm just going to lie on my back and do nothing thing and just try to defend myself because I'm too tired to try all this other stuff.
It made me a much worse fighter.
And this is a general life principle.
If you're tired or unhealthy, low energy is the good way to say it.
If you have low energy for whatever reason, not enough sleep, bad diet, not enough exercise, negative emotions, tons of stress.
if your energy is low it will make you a loser meaning you won't succeed and you won't be happy and you won't do what you know you should do you won't do what you want to do you'll have a clear idea in your mind this is what I want to do doesn't matter in any area of life starting your business working on your business, relationships with your husband or wife, being a good dad or a good mom, getting outside, exercising, getting healthy, good fitness, studying English two hours a day, three hours a day or more.
You'll have a clear idea, you know, this is what I want to do.
This is exactly what I need to do.
This This will create the life I want.
But then you won't do it just because you don't have the energy.
Instead, you'll sit in the chair and you'll just play around on social media.
You'll scroll through Instagram or Facebook or something.
You'll watch a video, a movie.
You'll just sit around and waste away the day.
And then also, when you're low energy, you'll have a hard time controlling what you should be able to control, yourself, right?
Your emotions. You won't have the same emotional control.
Maybe you'll get, some people get depressed more easily and you just have a hard time.
You'll just start finding yourself being negative all the time, or kind of depressed, kind of sad.
Or maybe other people, they get more irritable, more grumpy, more kind of angry.
Everything annoys them.
That's me when I'm low energy.
But either way, that low energy will lead to negative emotions, negative attitudes, attitudes, a negative mentality, and then once again, you won't do what you know you should do.
You know, you should be patient with your child and keep a calm voice, even if they're being a little naughty, but you won't do it.
Instead, you'll go, and you get all upset and crazy, and then later you feel bad.
Believe me, I've done this many times.
but it's because you didn't have the energy you need energy physical and mental and emotional energy to control your emotions you need energy to take actions especially new actions building new habits so this is so important fatigue makes losers of us all that's how I would say it now for all of life So this topic of energy, having enough energy, feeling energetic every day.
It's not just about jumping around and being excited all the time.
It affects every single part of your life, you know.
It's just like a car.
If it has no energy, it has no gas, it's not going anywhere.
It doesn't matter how nice the car is.
You can have a F1, formula one car.
If it has no gas, it will not go.
It's going nowhere.
So you can have a great plan, you can have a great vision, you can have great values, you can do all of this.
If you have no energy, you're not going to do any of them.
So you've got to figure it out.
sleep is a big part of it you know I've been working on my kind of my diet and eating I've been started exercising again and these have helped in my I could feel my energy going up but then my sleep was bad I finally figured out oh no like if you exercise more you actually need more time for rest more time for sleep so in some way I was having this up and down I was going up up and down where I would start exercising, start to feel better for a few days, but then crash out and start feeling worse again.
Actually feeling much worse.
Why? I wasn't giving myself enough rest, not enough sleep.
My bad habit of wanting to stay up late.
So sleep is a big one.
You have to give yourself rest. You've got to manage your energy.
Energy, energy, energy is central to everything.
Yes, you have to use the energy in a positive way, But I think you, as an Effortless English member, I know you're already a positive person.
I know you already have good values.
You're a good person.
I know you probably know what to do in most areas of your life.
You probably have a good plan for having good health, for good fitness, for being a good father or good mother, for being a good husband or wife.
You probably have a good plan if you want to start your own business.
okay, you have good plans, you have good ideas, you're smart.
Same thing with your English, you know what to do, listen to your effortless English lessons every day, do it an hour a day, do it two hours a day or more, do some shadowing, get on the community site, connect with other people and chat with them in English.
You know what to do in all these different areas of your life, you have a good plan, you're smart and you're a good person.
But what's probably stopping stopping you in some areas of life is you just don't have the energy to actually do these things.
That when you think of actually doing them each day, uh, it's like, like, you just don't do it.
You don't do it, and instead, you get on your phone.
Instead, you watch a movie.
Instead, you just sit around doing nothing.
Instead, you, you know, eat some unhealthy food.
so focus focus focus on this topic of energy because it is so important it's why I talk about it a lot because I see in my own life how important it is and I just got another lesson last week alright I'm gonna end now get on our community site and say hello lots of love to you get energetic because if fatigue makes losers of us all guess what, energy makes winners of us all when you have tons and tons of energy every day because you're healthy, you're fit you're getting plenty of sleep and rest you're focusing on good positive psychology you're managing your stress when you're full of energy every
day, you become a winner it becomes easier and easier to do these things you know you should do and then you find your money's getting better your job and career is getting better your relationships get better your family life gets better your health gets better everything gets better and better and better energy energy energy lots of love to you see you next time bye for now
