This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 365, The Story of an Optimistic Student.
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With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
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In today's episode, you'll find out why what you perceive is what you get when it comes to learning English and life.
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Hey, Michelle, how are you doing today?
Welcome back.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
I am doing well today.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
I'm excited because today is one of my favorite days.
It's a Deep Thoughts Thursday and I have a deep thought to share today, Michelle.
You do?
Yeah, because I had the pleasure of working with a new student a few weeks ago.
And this guy is very cool.
He's an entrepreneur from Italy.
And I was really inspired by the way he sees the world.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Why?
How so?
Well, I mean, you know, we had been working together for two weeks and he came into our class on something like the eighth out of the tenth lesson.
So toward And he said, you know, I'm so happy with my improvement.
I really feel like I understand so much more now that I did even last week and I can understand people on the train and I just feel great.
That's what he said to me.
Right.
So, but it's really interesting Michelle, because I think that another student could have seen a completely different situation, right.
It's not that my classes are amazing or my material.
I'm sure they are though.
They are amazing.
But that's not the point.
The point is this student saw the positive things, right?
So he saw what was working.
Whereas I've worked with other students who have come to my class that last day and have said I don't feel like I've gotten any better.
I still don't understand this.
I still can't see this.
And what's the difference?
That student is seeing the negative things.
And that student is going to go into a downward spiral, whereas my student is going to create a positive feedback loop right,
Because he sees his improvement.
He sees the positive aspect.
Then he's going to keep working.
He's going to feel more motivated and he's actually going to get better.
Yeah.
Oh, that's interesting.
It's all about your mind.
Because different people notice different things.
It's not about what's actually happening.
If we measured his improvement, it could be the same as that other student who said oh, I haven't gotten any better.
Oh, I still can't understand grammar.
Oh, oh, my pronunciation is still bad.
It could be exactly the same improvement.
But this guy saw the good improvement and this other person saw the negative things.
Now, that's so interesting.
I'd be interested to see an actual study of each individual growth.
You know what I mean?
I know.
I've just been thinking about this a lot lately Michelle, just because this summer I'm really trying to push towards my personal growth in the way I see the world.
And it's just incredible how our mind can create our reality.
I mean, there's a quote that I found on this.
Do you want to hear it?
I mean, this is a great quote.
Absolutely.
So the quote says the quote is by Douglas Adams.
So he's an author and he said everything you see or hear or experience in any way at all is specific to you.
You create a universe by perceiving it.
So everything in the universe you perceive is specific to you.
So that means that you literally create your reality and you create your future based on what you see and what you notice.
If that's not a deep thought, I don't know what is.
That is so deep.
It's so deep.
Michelle, what do you think?
I mean, what about you?
Do you tend to see the positive things and like jump onto those and then use those to create a positive feedback loop and get more motivated?
Or do you tend to see the problems and dwell on those and then spiral downward?
I think the second one.
Lindsay, if I'm being totally honest with you, I'm very good at pretending that I'm super optimistic.
And especially with students, I'm like the happy teacher.
I always want to be... really happy and inspiring and everything.
But when it comes to myself, I could definitely use this quote, because I can be a bit of a.
I can be like oh, this is my problem today.
You can be a Debbie Downer?
I can... I mean, I'm not like...
I don't know.
In some ways, I guess.
I mean, it's not that I'm a Debbie Downer.
It's that I think I get anxious.
And so then instead of thinking like, oh, everything's going to work out, I can be a pessimist.
I'm fun to spend time with, but I can definitely see the problems more than the good.
So, yeah, you're skeptical.
You see the glass half empty.
I mean, there is some wisdom in being skeptical.
And one thing that I'm noticing as I'm starting to get older.
You know I think that some of our listeners could relate to this if you're in your mid 30s.
You know, mid 30s is a really important time because it's the time when, you know, we've been knocked down a few times.
I can tell you I've been knocked down by life a couple of times.
Right.
And I'm starting to see how I could become quite skeptical.
And I do have days where I am quite skeptical about life, about the future, about love, about all sorts of things.
But I have a choice now, right?
And I see this as kind of a pivotal time, the mid-30s, where you can either go become quite negative or you could choose to see the good things that are happening and kind of jump on those.
Yeah, absolutely.
No, I mean, that's great that you've done that.
I think that this is just so interesting.
It's not about what's actually reality.
It's what's your own reality.
So I...
I can definitely learn from this.
Yeah, because it's incredible.
I was thinking, when we see a certain thing in the world of what's happening, then we actually absorb that and then we spit that back out in our body chemistry.
So in our body language, in our tone of voice, the way we approach situations and the way we talk to people, we actually tell them that we have a certain expectation of the world.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, definitely.
In the way that we show up.
And that actually creates the reality of what happens.
So for my student who saw all this improvement, he kind of is showing the world that he expects that improvement.
That's what he expects.
And that's what he deserves is to have that improvement.
And therefore, he's going to get more of that.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
It's like if you believe it, you know, that if you believe it's true, then it's true.
Yeah.
I mean, it's true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll see you next time.
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Yeah.
And I took this course.
Our listeners know I took this course called Awakening Joy a few years ago.
And one of the assignments in the course.
It's actually kind of a spiritual course, but not just spiritual.
It's really actually quite scientific.
In fact, one of the assignments in the course is to notice moments of joy in your daily life and absorb them.
Literally keep them in your mind for about 10 to 15 seconds every time you see them.
And you can actually change the neural pathways in your mind.
Oh, wow.
Right.
So that's neuroplasticity.
And we know that that's true because that's been proved in scientific studies.
Okay.
So I think that this is really the same thing.
Yeah.
Whatever we focus on will expand.
Yeah, very interesting.
Very interesting.
A lot for me to wrap my head around, but I definitely like the idea.
Yeah, I think that sometimes, you know, I'll be like really busy or something like that, and I'll be like, oh no, I have to do this and I have to do this, and oh, I'm nervous because I have to do this and everything kind of just piles on.
So I think if I had this sort of I feel like this is like a therapy session for me.
Well, you know, everyone needs a good therapy session sometimes.
And you know the reason I'm saying this is not because I do this every day, or I'm sure my student doesn't do this every day.
I'm just saying this is what we want to aspire to.
I think, for our listeners who are learning English and we know that English is not an easy language to learn, but we we know that our goals are clear.
If you guys are members of the all ears english community, your goal is connection, not perfection.
And if you're going after connection, why don't we focus on that?
Focus on the moments when you were able to successfully connect and then try to build more of those moments.
Yeah, definitely.
I think that our listeners can learn a lot from this, because I mean, I have students like who will say they come in and they say, oh well, my English isn't, I don't have like good English.
And I'm like, and I'm listening to them and I'm thinking, what?
Like, these are like really, you know, super students who I can understand very well.
And I'm like surprised that they think that they don't speak well.
And so...
I always try and give a big confidence boost because it's totally not a reality that they aren't a good English speaker, you know.
Yeah, that's right.
And I think some of this might be cultural.
Right.
Right.
So our brains are wired to.
If there are 10 things that are great and one thing that's a problem, you're going to focus in on that problem to stay alive, literally.
But we don't need to do that anymore.
Right.
Right.
So that's.
I think it's just that our brains have not evolved in the way that our lives have evolved, our daily life, and what's needed now to succeed in life is not what was needed to succeed in the caveman days.
Wow.
Yeah, so it's just interesting.
I mean, I would encourage any student that walks into a class or is listening to this podcast right now.
You may be honing in right, honing in on what you think you don't do.
Well,
Instead, take out a piece of paper and write down what you can do well in English or what you did well today in your business meeting in English, right?
You have to be your own best advocate.
No one else is going to do it for you.
That's right.
No, I really do think that there's something to learn from this.
You just really have to see the positive in everything.
I mean, I think...
Just focusing on everything that's good.
I mean, we talked about this recently, about like I think I told a story about my health teacher who used to make us write pennies, like writing the good things.
Right.
So it kind of reminds me of that.
Like, you know, there are certain exercises you can do to actually practice becoming better at this.
Absolutely.
It's very similar to the gratitude practice that you mentioned and that I do with my friend.
We text every day and we try to say what we're grateful for.
So guys, the point from today's episode is just understand that your perception is is reality, creates reality.
Reality is kind of subjective, right?
It's how you see it.
And what you see is what you're going to get more of.
So just know that the impact that that can have on your English learning and also on your lives, because it's not just about English.
It's about our lives, living a better life.
That's what we want to work towards here.
All right.
All right, Michelle.
This has been a deep thought.
Let's cut it off for today.
And let's take a weekend break.
And we'll see you on All Ears English next week.
For sure.
All right.
Thanks for hanging out.
Thanks, Lindsay.
Have a good one.
Okay, bye.
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