Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey English learners.
This is Connor and you're listening to episode 245 of the Listening Time podcast.
I hope you're doing well today and that your English learning is going great.
I'm sure that your English listening comprehension has improved as you've been listening to these episodes.
I'm gonna talk a little bit about myself.
I'm gonna talk about what kind of person I am.
Specifically, I'll describe some of my characteristics, my traits, my qualities.
These are all words that mean the same thing, basically.
I'll talk about my strengths and weaknesses.
And I think that a lot of you might already know some of my strengths and weaknesses.
But I'll talk in detail about these different things.
And by the end of the episode, I think you'll know more about me and know what type of person I
I am.
So I'm sure you'll enjoy this episode.
And I want to challenge you to start to listen to my advanced podcast episodes, if you haven't done so already.
In order to understand native speakers when they speak fast, you need to start to practice with that type of content.
So you can do that by signing up for my advanced podcast.
The link is in the description below this episode.
You'll learn a lot about the U.S., about the different regions of the country.
It's really educational.
And you can take classes with these teachers if you want.
And so check that out.
That link is also down below.
All right, let's talk about what kind of person I am.
Let me talk about some different characteristics of mine, and you'll see that there are some strengths and weaknesses, some positives and and negatives when it comes to me and my personality.
So the first thing I wanted to mention is that I'm pretty independent.
So you might already know this about me just by the fact that I don't have a traditional job and I just create content for English learners by myself.
By the way, some of you might not know this, but I don't have a team of people working for me.
I sometimes get messages referring to my team.
Can someone from your team tell me?
And I always laugh because I don't have anyone working for me.
I don't have a single employee.
I've never hired anyone to do any work for me.
So I work on my own.
I don't have a boss. and I don't have employees and I love this.
I love working on my own.
There's nothing wrong with being an employee and having a boss.
I'm not saying that.
That's perfectly fine and good.
I'm just saying that I'm an independent person, and so I'm able to work on my own without much difficulty.
Some people would have a little bit of difficulty doing what they need to do, fulfilling their duties and the tasks that they need to complete.
And Staying on schedule and all of that.
Sometimes it can be hard for people to do that.
I'm pretty independent, and so I can... do these things on my own pretty easily.
And not just in my work, I'm also a pretty independent person in general.
I enjoy solitude.
I've talked about this before.
It was like a couple of years ago almost, but I forget if I made a normal episode.
I think it was an advanced episode.
Actually, I made that episode about solitude. and how I actually enjoy being alone sometimes.
Solitude refers to being alone, but not necessarily lonely, like when you feel lonely You want other people around you because you feel like you have no one.
You're alone.
I'm not talking about that.
I actually just enjoy being alone, having solitude and Being by myself not all the time, of course, but I
I can spend a lot of time alone and be perfectly happy.
So I'm independent in that way as well.
And I just like to be responsible for myself.
I value this in a person when they're responsible for And they can do things on their own.
And I haven't always been like this, but now I try to be responsible and do things for myself and not need to rely on a lot of people to do things for me or whatever.
So I'm not saying this is good or bad.
This is just something I personally like, and so that's just a reflection of my independent character.
The next thing i wanted to talk about regarding my personality, my character, this one is a strength of mine, i believe and don't worry, i'll talk about some negatives in just a minute, but let me talk about this strength.
I'm a critical thinker.
What does this mean?
I try to think deeply about things.
I like to think critically.
So that means that I challenge assumptions.
We all have assumptions, things that we just assume are true, even though we haven't proved it.
And we hear people tell us things all the time.
And they tell us those things as if those things were true and everyone knows it.
I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
People might even talk about a very personal opinion about of theirs, but they talk about it as if it were a scientific fact.
So we are constantly confronted with assumptions things people think are true.
They assume that they're true.
We develop our own assumptions or we adopt these assumptions from our family, our culture.
I like to challenge those assumptions.
I don't like to just accept what people tell me is true and just not think about it and say okay, that person said this is true and so I guess it's true.
I like to challenge assumptions and think critically about things.
I like to learn from people.
I really like learning things from other people, but I like to form my own thoughts and not just assume that everything that people tell me is true.
But I don't take this too far either.
I don't just say that everything is a lie.
Everyone is deceiving me.
I need to find the truth.
I don't go too far with that.
I'm just saying that I like to examine things on my own, challenge assumptions, see if they're true and think deeply about these things.
And I'm willing to change my mind.
So if I believe something and then I am proven to be wrong about that thing, I change my mind.
I've changed my mind so Many times.
I've changed my mind about many things because I don't think that we just know everything.
I think that there are always things that we can learn and maybe we assume things are true and we need to challenge those things we believe in.
And if we see that something else is true, then we should change our minds.
So I think this is something that we should all be okay with.
We shouldn't just be stuck in our ways as we say like you're super stubborn and unwilling to change.
I think that it's good to change your mind first.
When you realize that what you believed before is not true or what you supported before is not right or whatever.
Okay.
The next thing I wanted to say is that I'm someone who has very high highs and low lows.
I'll explain what I mean and. this can definitely be a weakness.
So when I say I have high highs and low lows, that means that when I experience happiness, I feel an intense happiness.
That emotion is very powerful for me and I feel extremely joyful and happy because However, the opposite is also true when I am feeling a negative feeling, that can sometimes be really negative.
I can feel an intense negative emotion as well.
I know people whose range of emotions is not so extreme and I admire this.
I admire their calmness when they are happy or or sad, they're not as extreme about it.
And I'm not saying that it's wrong to have high highs and low lows, but it can be a weakness, honestly.
It can feel like a roller coaster sometimes.
I'm like this.
I feel sometimes like I experience life as like a roller coaster.
And it might just be one individual day where I have a high, high, and then a low, low.
And this is something that I would like to change personally.
Again, you might not agree.
You might think this is good, and that's fine.
But just for myself, I
I want to be a little bit calmer even if that means that my highs aren't quite as high.
That's okay.
I just want to be a little calmer, less intense in how I feel maybe.
I kind of want to be a little more like the people I know who aren't as extreme and their emotions aren't as intense.
I think that that would serve me well maybe.
The next thing I want to say about myself is that I dream and romanticize a lot.
This can also be negative.
It's positive in some ways and also negative.
So I'm super interested and curious about many things and places.
And I tend to romanticize certain ideas.
Like I remember when I was younger.
I romanticized rural life.
So I grew up in a suburban type environment, residential environment in big cities, not in the middle of the downtown of those cities, but in big cities.
And I thought that it would be really amazing to have this rural lifestyle away from the big city.
I was really interested in the image of rugged individualism, as we might say.
This just refers to being self-sufficient, on your own, dealing with problems and the harsh environment, but being responsible for yourself and your life and being in a difficult environment but enjoying that and enjoying being responsible for myself.
I was really interested in that idea, so I romanticized rural life in general, of course individualism, being on your own, but really just the idea of growing up and living in the countryside, in a rural environment, on a farm maybe.
I really romanticized that when I was younger.
And in reality, this is a harder life than I was imagining.
It's not as romantic in most cases as I was thinking, but this is how I thought about that lifestyle.
This is just one example.
I tend to dream about and romanticize different places and things, and I just have that tendency.
I don't know why.
And, because of this, a positive is that I'm very curious.
I want to learn about these things that seem so cool or awesome, but the negative is that I can sometimes view the grass as being greener elsewhere.
You might have heard that phrase before where we say the grass is always greener.
I forget the end of the phrase.
But the grass is always greener on the other side or somewhere, somewhere else.
It just means that the other place that you're thinking about or looking at seems better to you than your current location or your current situation.
So when you romanticize things and daydream about things the way I do, you can get in the habit of thinking that those things matter so much cooler than your place, your things, whatever.
You can have this false notion a notion is an idea, this false idea or feeling that the grass is greener over there and that's not the right attitude.
I have a fantastic life.
I'm extremely grateful.
And I know I tend to romanticize too much.
And it's something that I shouldn't do if it's making me think that the grass is greener over there.
Because I have a great life and I need to just focus on my grass and be thankful for what I have.
One other thing I wanted to mention about myself is that I'm very aware of my weaknesses and my faults.
So this might sound like a positive, and it is, but it's also a negative.
I'll tell you why in just a minute.
So i'm very aware of the negative things, let's say my weaknesses and my faults, the things that i don't do well, the things i do wrong, the things that i tend to mess up or the mistakes i make.
I'm very aware of this.
I know what I'm good at.
I know what I'm not good at.
I know what mistakes I tend to make.
I know the negative parts of my character because there are some negative things.
And I usually know when I have done something that I shouldn't have done.
I'm very aware of this, and some people are unaware of their weaknesses, their bad habits, their destructive habits, the negative effects of their decisions and actions.
I'm sure you might know someone that is like this, like they're unaware of the negative things about their personality or their lifestyle or whatever.
They don't even realize what is wrong about the things they do or whatever.
I'm very aware of this.
So the good thing is that I admit these things.
I don't try to pretend that I don't have words weaknesses.
I don't try to ignore my faults, my negatives.
And so that might help me try to correct certain things in my life, do things better if I can.
I apologize a lot because I know when I've done something that isn't right.
So I tend to apologize a lot, but I sometimes focus too much on my weaknesses and my faults.
And that's the negative here.
I tend to dwell on things that i've done wrong, things i shouldn't have done the negative things about me.
By the way, when we say you dwell on something, it means that you constantly think about it and you don't just get over it and move on and forget about it.
So i tend to dwell on these things and i sometimes think too negatively about myself, and all of this causes me to lack confidence.
In many situations, i think that uh, i'm not good, but others are good, they're better than me.
This can cause me to lack confidence in different situations.
I question myself too much.
I think too negatively about me and my value, my ability, things like that, and so that's not good.
Right, i need to have a balance.
I think it's good that I'm aware of the negative things about me, but I shouldn't dwell on these things.
I should strive to improve these things.
When you strive to do something, it means that you make a great effort to accomplish something.
You make it your goal and put all your effort towards that thing.
So I think I should strive to improve in these areas, but I shouldn't go overboard and just feel so bad about myself and underestimate myself and not have confidence and not be sure of myself like that's not good.
So I need to have a balance and not be too extreme here.
So those are some of the things I wanted to mention about myself, and I could go on and on.
Of course, there are many other aspects of my personality, but I just wanted to talk a little bit about some of my traits, my strengths and weaknesses.
Hopefully you enjoyed this episode and I'm sure it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that if you want to actually understand native speakers when they speak fast, you have to use content in which the person is speaking fast.
So if you want that, you can listen to my advanced podcast episodes.
So the link is down below if you're interested in those.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast to listen to my conversations with other English teachers.
It's so much fun.
It's really educational and you can find an English teacher to take classes with there.
So that link is also down below.
All right.
Thank you all for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
