This is an All Ears English podcast episode 1816.
Pull yourself together and put on your dry shampoo.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection.
With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglishcom.
Forward slash subscribe.
When you are struggling or super tired, sometimes there are moments when you have to deliver.
Today learn how to tell someone to get it together in natural English.
Do you ever feel like your English is good but not quite where you want it to be?
Maybe you can have conversations, but you still hesitate when expressing complex ideas.
Maybe you know what you want to say. but you can't always say it naturally.
If that sounds familiar, our B2 English fluency course was designed for you.
You'll learn how to speak more naturally, express yourself with confidence and finally stop feeling stuck at the intermediate level.
This week, you can save $50 on our basic plan or save $100 on our personal coach plan.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Hey, Michelle, how's everything going today?
Hey, Lindsay, I'm good.
How are you?
I am awesome.
I'm loving the summertime.
Everything's good.
How's your summer going?
It's good.
It's good.
You know what?
I'm feeling kind of tired today, but I'm just going to pull myself together and we'll record.
You know and record.
I'll get my energy.
Well, we were up early this morning, by the way, Michelle, doing a live stream.
So we were up early, but we are making it happen.
We're going to pull ourselves together, right?
Yeah, actually, I woke up at 420 for no reason.
That's always fun.
Did you go back to sleep?
I tried, but then like I didn't.
And then I knew we had our thing.
And like, by the time, like you know, then when you know you have to be up for something, then it's like oh, I don't know.
And then, of course, my son woke up an hour later.
And then so, you know, so I was like, whatever, just forget it.
So I don't know.
I'm just powering through.
I pulled myself together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I also didn't sleep much last night.
So we are this is very real for us today, this episode.
So let's get into it.
Do we have a great listener question today?
We do.
I love this one.
So this is about pull myself together.
So Lindsay, you want to read it for us?
All right, here we go.
So, dear All Ears English team, first of all please receive my deepest thanks for your amazing effort and work.
I've been listening to your podcast for almost a year.
I can proudly say it has helped my English learning journey tremendously.
Your podcast plays a major role in my life.
I think she meant role.
I never spent a day without listening to your show.
Funny thing is, sometimes I find myself speaking English with the same intonation as Lindsay.
Whoa.
I guess I've been imitating her pronunciation unconsciously.
Anyway, long story short, you guys have helped me.
Okay, so here's I'm so glad to hear that.
That is so good that our listeners are just subconsciously mimicking us, Michelle.
That's cool, Lindsay.
I would like to hear I would love to hear this listener speak.
I know.
Wouldn't it be interesting?
I love it.
But guys, this way, you know, you're getting real English, right?
I love it.
So here's the question.
I have heard or watched so many times people say, pull yourself together, get yourself together.
Or in your last episode, one of you even said, women always together.
So I've never understood what the meaning of this is and when to use it.
So thanks a lot in advance.
Greetings from Mongolia.
Sigi Jargal Saikhan.
Wow, that's so cool.
This question is from Mongolia, Michelle.
Wow, that is awesome.
Yeah, and this listener, yeah, asked two questions.
So we'll get to the second one another time.
Sorry, did you read that out loud?
Oh, no, no, no.
I didn't actually.
Okay, good.
I couldn't remember.
That would be hilarious.
I know I've done that before.
So, yeah, we didn't we didn't get we're going to get to the first question today.
But thank you for both of your questions.
And yeah, this is great.
So we are going to get into this.
This is very natural expression.
Pull yourself together.
So let's get into it in just a second.
Lindsay, we want to remind our listeners to go to allersenglish.com slash fluency score, right?
Yeah, this is our quiz, our Simple Fluency Score quiz.
We know that everyone in our community is going for 99% fluency.
That's our goal.
But the question is, where are you starting?
Are you at 50%, 65%, or 80% fluency?
So find out with our quiz, guys.
Go to allearsenglishcom.
Slash fluency score.
Okay, perfect stuff.
Yeah, so all right yeah, so i wasn't sure about the women always together thing.
Yeah i i, maybe one of us said it, i don't know that it's necessarily an expression um yeah, so i don't really have the answer for that one.
I thought maybe it's like girl power, like the spice girls um Yes,
I don't remember saying that.
I don't feel like I think that this listener may have misheard us or something, because I don't think we would have said women always together, just alone.
We may have said that with you know, women always stick together, or something, but I don't remember it.
It's kind of strange.
Right.
Yeah.
I don't remember that one.
So sorry about that one.
But we are going to talk about pull yourself together and get yourself together.
Yes.
So these are really good.
Guys, we love these specific questions.
I love it.
So what does pull yourself together mean?
It kind of means when you're sort of, someone observes.
You know, usually this is said to someone else as a command.
Right.
Right.
Or you say it about yourself of something you're going to do.
But if you see someone who's kind of a mess and something important is happening right now, you might say to them pull yourself together, get ready, you know, brush your hair or something.
It is it needs to be done to perform at that moment.
You need to.
Right.
Right.
Right.
So like what we said, Oh, we, Lindsay and I were both up super early this morning.
Yes.
Um, so, but yeah, pull yourself together, get what needs to be done, done.
So we are going to do our recordings.
We're going to do it right.
We're pulling ourselves together.
Exactly.
So this could be about you know work or getting any tasks done, or even just handling your emotions right.
Maybe like somebody is really upset about something and you might say like pull yourself together, like you're going to be all right.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's true.
It's true.
It makes me think of you know, when you're in any kind of creative profession, like I consider our profession here.
Creative podcasting is very creative.
You can't just wait until the moment strikes of creativity, right?
We record we offer you guys four episodes a week.
So if we're tired today, for example, we have to pull ourselves together and get on the microphone and make it happen.
We have no choice, right?
It would be really weird if we were just like hey Lindsay, like yeah, I'm just really tired today.
All right, let's get to this listener question.
Like, we can't do that.
I mean, other podcast might sound like that, but that's not all there's English.
That's right.
No, that is not us.
That is not our style.
So, yeah, I mean, this is so let's do a few examples.
So here we go.
Wow, my hair is a mess.
Give me 20 minutes to wait.
Hold on.
To sorry, we didn't talk about get yourself together.
Well, yeah.
Okay, so let's go back then.
So actually, we did.
Yeah, we didn't quite teach that.
So guys, so far, we know pull yourself together, right, which is what the listener asked about.
And then get yourself together is the second one.
How is that different?
Michelle?
Is that any different?
So I thought about this.
I did some research.
And I mean, it can be used very – it can sometimes be used in the same way.
Like, oh, let's get ourselves together and we're going to do this, right?
But I think that get ourselves is also like kind of maybe about organizing, or maybe a little bit more fun physical, get it together, or oh, or get it together like so yeah sorry, go ahead michelle yeah no, but i mean um.
So it can be like pull yourself together.
But it can also be a little bit more physical, like just here's the example wow, my hair is a mess.
Give me 20 minutes to get myself together.
Now I could have said pull myself together, but I feel like get myself together gives a different feel to it.
What do you think?
Yeah, I see what you mean.
I think that they – probably for 90 of the situations – they could be used together, but there is an aspect of organizing your life by saying, get it together or get yourself together right,
More broad.
Okay.
Like oh you know, Get a job.
Like get organized, clean up your house, get yourself together versus pull yourself together.
That feels more in the instant, in that moment and about the physical presentation.
Okay, interesting, interesting.
Yeah, it's tough to kind of like... gave one exact rule for this.
But yeah, that's why we do a lot of examples.
So yeah, like, like gave that emotion example.
So if I could say pull yourself together, Lindsay, there's no point in crying, we can do this.
Now, I probably won't say get yourself together.
For some reason, that sounds weird.
But as you said, Lindsay, I might say get it together.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Right.
Why would we not say get yourself together in that moment?
So I think this kind of proves the pull yourself together is really good about.
OK, in this moment you know you need to brush your hair.
You need to like maybe put on some makeup or something.
You sit up straight and just try to present a physical presentation that's going to work.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
I can see that for sure.
Don't you hate it when you're trying to buy something online and when you finally make all of your selections and get ready to check out, your credit card is nowhere to be found. when this happens i love seeing the purple pay button at the top of the checkout because i know i won't have to dig for my card this simple purple button is one of the best features in all of the online shopping world and can make a huge difference in sales for your online business Shopify is the e-commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US.
From household names like Skims and Thrive Cosmetics to brands just getting started.
Get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you.
Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling.
Best yet.
Shopify is your e-commerce expert, with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping, to processing returns and beyond.
See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales go... with Shopify and their Shop Pay button.
Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash A-E-E.
Go to Shopify.com slash A-E-E.
That's S-H-O-P-I-F-Y.com slash A-E-E.
All right, let's do another example.
It's down here.
Okay, this is kind of challenging for us today, isn't it, Michelle?
It's really interesting.
It is challenging.
This is very nuanced.
Yeah, it's very nuanced, but I love challenging our listeners.
So here's another example.
Okay, we're getting distracted.
Let's pull ourselves together and focus on the task at hand.
Okay, so this one, Michelle is not about physical presentation of oneself, right?
What's it about?
This one is about just kind of focusing.
Yeah, exactly.
So refocus, right?
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
For sure.
So that's kind of the overarching theme.
Yeah.
I mean Lindsay, do you ever have trouble pulling yourself or getting yourself together, like emotionally physically mental, like what?
Like what is the hardest?
Do you think?
Probably emotionally, when i'm upset, i can't hide it, i will cry.
And if i, if i'm upset and i'm, you know, maybe i'm crying in public and whoever's with me is like get pull yourself together, stop crying.
Everyone's seeing you like it's embarrassing, right?
Um, i just can't, i can't.
No, I'm also very emotional.
And yeah, that's why it's sometimes good to have sunglasses with you.
Oh, I see.
I see.
Okay, got it.
But they also look cool at the same time, Michelle.
Your sunglasses do look cool.
Exactly.
I mean but Lindsay, this kind of comes back to like this thing about.
You know, we talk about cultural law and American culture.
And I mean, this feeling of like, pull yourself together, get it together.
Do you think there's too much of a focus on pulling yourself together in our culture, in American culture, and not dealing with the problems?
These are such commonly used expressions.
Why do we always need to get it together?
Pull yourself together.
Come on.
It's so true.
I mean, some of this depends on where you decide to spend your time, right?
What industry are you working in?
You know, what comes to mind actually is the movie The Devil Wears Prada, where she just doesn't fit in at Vogue.
I think it's Vogue or some magazine like that.
And she's you know she's feeling disturbed a lot, but she's always being told like, pull yourself together, you know, put on some makeup and sit up straight and put on your heels and just stuff it down.
Right.
Emotional stuffing.
Right.
And yeah, I think we do do too much of that.
I mean, in some ways, I think we have to gauge what's healthy.
And if we're working in an environment like that, where we're constantly told to do that, we know when it feels wrong, right.
Exactly.
And then there's also like we can't be on the couch all day every day.
Yeah.
Like at some point it's almost better because I know for me, when I'm not feeling great, I will go out for a walk, and that always makes me feel better.
And it makes me see the broad perspective.
If I stayed home on the couch, it would actually let me sit in that and stew in that, and it makes it worse.
So we need to know when to push ourselves.
Yeah.
That's true.
And when to actually like kind of coddle ourselves in a way.
That's a really good point.
Yeah.
Sometimes you need that change of scenery, that change of environment.
And like, if you don't kind of push yourself or pull yourself together, you know you're just going to sit in it.
Like I like how you said that.
Exactly.
Do you know?
What else I thought about when it comes to the physical aspect of pull yourself together is dry shampoo.
We've talked about dry shampoo on the show.
I see women using this a lot, because if there's no time for a shower, you've just gotten out of bed and you have a meeting in 10 minutes.
Putting on that dry shampoo gives you a glossy look, gives you that pulled together look, doesn't it?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
It's good for, you know, after you work out like because I don't wash my hair every day.
So if I do exercise and it's not a day I was planning on washing my hair that dry shampoo is going to help me a lot.
Absolutely.
Although I don't know if it works for curly hair.
I don't know if it's just for, but you have kind of wavy hair, right?
I have curly hair.
Curly hair, yeah.
Maybe it's a little known fact, but my hair is, it's not as curly as, well, I have ringlets.
Do you know that?
Yeah, okay.
So, okay.
Yeah, I guess it's true, right?
So maybe it's not just for straight hair, but that's kind of a hot tip for our listeners.
If you ever need to roll out of bed and get to a meeting, especially convenient if we're working online, right.
We could just do that dry shampoo thing.
And that's a perfect example of pulling yourself together for a professional thing.
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
All right.
So, Lindsay, could you use this in the workplace?
Yeah, for sure.
I think you could.
You know, I could imagine this.
Let's say you and I are colleagues and we're doing a presentation.
Oh, my God.
That's actually the role play.
I can't believe it.
Oh, that's funny.
I didn't even see your notes here.
Let's just go.
We are just one mind.
It's so funny, but that's what I imagined, right?
Where, you know, one of us is kind of faltering and nervous or just can't handle it.
The other one says, pull yourself together.
We have to deliver this presentation and it has to be good right uh-huh right right right exactly, exactly.
Well, so should we do?
Yeah, let's just do it yeah.
So what's happening here again?
Well, we are preparing for a work presentation.
Here we go.
All right oh, i'm so, so nervous.
Oh, it will be fine.
Oh gosh, i can't remember anything.
I was going to say Michelle, pull yourself together.
Take deep breaths.
We can do this.
We've practiced so much.
We know this.
You're right.
Okay.
Okay.
I'll get myself together.
I have my suit jacket in the other room.
Nice.
It's always kind of there is something to putting on a suit jacket, I think, and maybe putting on a nice pair of like, whether it's heels or professional shoes.
There's something to putting on the right clothes that kind of snaps you into that state of being together.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And I feel like that I'm working from home sometimes.
You know that now that so many people work from home, I feel like we're like we like lose that a little bit, you know.
No, it's interesting, right?
We could do another episode on how our clothing makes us feel and how we present ourselves.
But Let's go back through this real quick for our listeners before we finish up today.
So I said, you're kind of floundering and you're nervous, right?
And I say to you, pull yourself together, Michelle.
I was kind of spiraling.
That's a good, that's a good key word for today.
What does that mean?
I was spiraling.
Imagine like you're going down, like like a drain, a spiral and a drain coming down into the drain, the water right.
That's that feeling yeah yeah, because i said i'm nervous and you're like it's gonna be fine.
I'm like, oh gosh, i can't remember what i was gonna say.
It's like, it's like i'm getting myself.
You know, when you start to get like anxious, you know you get yourself worked up.
So yeah, you should pull yourself together.
And then um, you said uh, we know this.
I said okay okay, i'll get myself together.
I have my suit jacket in the other room, so i'm gonna put on my jacket and we'll get started.
And I don't think that's very weird to say that in the same sentence, right?
But this could work.
You know sometimes guys, in the role plays we use many of the similar, similar words in a role play.
But this in this case, you could pull yourself together.
Okay, I'll get myself together.
Perfect.
Now we're ready to knock it out of the park on our presentation.
Right, Michelle?
Absolutely.
Let's do this.
All right.
What's the takeaway for our listeners?
Guys, these are very useful.
We talked about pull yourself together, get yourself together and get it together, which was one that we hadn't I hadn't planned on.
But Lindsay brought it up.
So that was good.
But, you know, we also talked about collaboration. culture today.
So many things.
So use these expressions and yeah, you guys are, you're going to be great in whatever you do.
Yeah, absolutely.
Good stuff, Michelle.
Thanks for hanging out today and I'll see you in the next one.
All right.
Bye, Lindsay.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to all ears English.
Would you like to know your English level?
Take our two minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
