I'm A.J. Hogue, the author of Effortless English.
Learn to speak English like a native. Speak English fluently.
Speak English confidently. Speak English effortlessly.
Join my Power English and VIP programs at effortlessenglishclub.com effortless Englishclub.com.
Putting on my little audio recorder, attaching it to my belt.
And got a little water bottle here, take a drink.
Another hot, hot, hot summer day, August day in Indiana.
Today I'm hiding in the garage. My sister's giant garage.
It's a big three-car garage. It actually has a little bit of air con, a little bit of air conditioning.
Not much, but it's enough to keep me a little cool.
So you might hear a slight echo in the background as I talk.
There is an echo in here, which is why sometimes a lot of times I don't come in here to record, but it's just so hot.
In my last show, my last audio podcast, I recorded in the shed.
A lot of times I go to what we call the shed, the tool shed.
But it has zero air con at all, none. And I was pouring sweat yesterday when I was recording that. still better than being under the direct sun, but Maybe I'll try to start doing Some podcasts, recording some walk and talks while I do my walk.
And that's our topic today. Our topic today is... we'll call it grinding, the grinding mindset.
This is a little bit of slang, I guess. You'll see this word used a lot. by entrepreneurs, by athletes, by others grinding.
And what grinding means, it means that you just, you just...
Do the work. Make the effort. that is necessary every single day to get better, to get closer to your goals.
It kind of has the idea of grinding that the work you're doing maybe is not so fun and not so pleasant, right?
Grinding has this idea that you're like, you're doing some work that maybe it's a bit hard and you're not necessarily enjoying it a lot.
But you're doing it. Again and again and again.
So the example would be a golfer who's trying to improve at golfing.
They go out and they practice their golf swing and they hit 200
300 balls every single day. just on the range, just put a ball down, practice their swing, whack, hit it. and adjust, and then do it again, and then do it again, and do it every single day.
Is that super exciting? You know, a lot of people know, for most people say, oh, that's boring, they're just doing exactly the same thing. every day hundreds of times a day.
It's not as much fun as just going out and let's say playing a game of golf.
Which is much more fun, because you're playing a game, you're keeping a score.
Each time you hit the ball, it's a little different.
You're in a different position. But how the really good guys, the professionals, get better at the game is by grinding.
They go out to that and they just hit those balls hundreds.
I can't remember. I think Tiger Woods used to hit like 500 a day or something.
So grinding, it isn't seen. Most people don't think of it. as being exciting.
It's not seen as being exciting or cool.
We're dramatic. And in fact, too, in this idea of grinding, there is kind of an idea that there's not much emotion.
So you're doing the work, but you're not necessarily super excited. and you're not, maybe even sad or in pain, you're just...
They're just doing it like a runner, okay?
Same idea. for a runner. It means just every day you're putting in the miles.
You're going out there and you're putting in however many miles for your plan and you're out there every single day on the road. doing the miles.
And, you know, a lot of days they might not be very fast miles, you know.
Nothing much seems to happen. You're not trying to go as fast as you can or do anything extreme.
They're just out there grinding. Every day you put in whatever, four miles, five miles, six miles, the next day you do it again, the next day you do it again, you know? cyclists do this and swimmers.
Or if you're lifting weights, it's the same idea.
It means you're just getting to the gym every day. and you're just grinding, you're just lifting, you're doing your bench press.
You're not doing your maximum bench press every day or every week.
In fact, most of the time, you're not even close to your maximum.
You're just going in there grinding, getting in the reps, right? getting under the weight, pushing that weight and then a couple days later you do it again and then you do it again and then you do it again and just grind, grind, grind.
You're not really expecting a big improvement.
And when you're grinding, you're not trying to get yourself super hyped up.
So it's a little bit different than like in my VIP program when you first join.
I teach you a lot of rituals and methods for getting into a peak state and getting emotional and getting... you know, powerful before he listened to my lessons.
And that works, and that's great, but grinding has a little bit of a different idea, which it's more... of a calm mindset.
The idea of grinding is more like brushing your teeth, right?
You don't get all... excited about it. You don't need a lot of emotion to do it.
You don't need lot of motivation to do it.
It's just a habit that you do to take care of your teeth.
And you do it every single day, you know, before bed or when you wake up, whenever you do it.
And you just do it every day, every day.
Right? It's just this consistent. It's the foundation.
And this brings us to why grinding is important and why you need to do it.
It's an important part of your practice.
It's an important part of your English practice and your learning English.
It's an important part of getting into good shape in terms of fitness and health.
It's important for developing in any sport.
Really, anything in life, any skill. Because you know by now, that we do have these periods. when we're learning something, where we do make big jumps.
And if you're trying to get better at something, there are times when you need to make a maximum effort and really push yourself and go extreme.
Like doing that, certainly it helps you to get better, to go... beyond where you are now.
And that's what a lot of people talk about because it is dramatic, right?
You're putting in this big effort. You're doing a lot of intensity. let's say with english oh you're doing english 12 hours a day and you're doing shadowing and you're doing each lesson two times a day, and you're reading books and listening to audiobooks, and it's just all... in intense, and that is great, and that will get you a big jump in your English.
Right, or if you're a runner. Getting ready for a race season.
Looks like you're a serious runner and you do 5Ks and you're trying to You do 5K races and you're trying to, let's just say you're trying to win.
You want to get first place in your age group.
And so you do have periods where you're out there and you're doing speed work and you're doing like fast, hard miles. or half miles. or quarter miles and it's tough and at the end of those workouts you're breathing heavy and you're Your legs are on fire.
And you've got to push yourself mentally too to get through that pain and that difficulty.
It's dramatic. You're doing long runs, right?
You're doing a long run every week. It keeps getting longer and longer and longer.
And soon you're running three hours, four hours.
And as you get to the end of those long runs, again, your body aches, your legs are aching you feel like you're just gonna fall down because you know you're using up all your energy and It's a struggle just to keep putting another foot forward.
That's dramatic. Someone mentioned I forgot who, but someone mentioned on the our community site, they talked about the guy David Goggins.
He's sort of the perfect example of this. this extreme, all-out, intense effort all the time.
If you don't know who this guy is, David Goggins, you should look him up.
He's on all over social media, YouTube. I mean, one of his most famous stories is he was overweight, in bad shape, and he just suddenly decided You know, enough.
He didn't do it in a moderate way. He decided, I'm going to run this super difficult ultra-marathon.
I can't remember if it was 50 miles or 100 miles, you know.
So like, I don't know, 75K, 100K. 150K, I don't remember, but he was not even much of a runner. and he was overweight, and he just decided, and it was soon, it wasn't like a, two years away, he was going to do that in a few months.
So he just goes out and starts running and running and running and training like a maniac.
And he had to do, I think, one race, just finish one race, just so he could... qualify, in other words, get into the next race.
You have to prove that you could do it. But then, so he talks about his experiences.
He did it. The short version of the story is he did do the ultra marathon.
But the price. I mean, he sounds like he was almost going to die.
He's at the end of the race like he can barely walk.
His feet are all sweaty. I think he said he went to the toilet and he was peeing and when he was peeing there was blood in it.
I mean, he wrecked his body. He destroyed his body. to achieve this goal.
So yes, he did achieve fast results. He was super intense, but he also did terrible things to his body.
I don't think it's a great approach. long-term.
You can't keep doing that to your body or even your mind forever.
There will be a price later on. But he makes the point, and he's right, that it is good to push yourself to that extreme sometimes because it will mentally, psychologically, show you, prove to yourself that you can handle so much more than you think, that you are much tougher than you think.
So yes, I agree. That is a valuable lesson.
But you don't need to do it all the time.
Maybe you have an experience like that. You know. once every 10 years, in my opinion.
So that gets attention, right? Everybody knows.
David Goggins, and he's got lots of stories like this.
He's always doing this, going super extreme.
And, but you know it always, always there's some big price also. injuries and things like that.
But anyway, it is dramatic and so it gets a lot of attention.
What doesn't get attention is grinding. It's not impressive.
In grinding, these are the people. The people who are great at just grinding along These are the people who have long-term success and who don't quit. and who don't burn out and they don't get injured if it's something physical.
The people grinding, they just focus instead of that dramatic stuff, and those hard efforts, which you can do sometimes, they just focus on most days just putting in an amount of work as a big, deep, strong foundation for building their skill.
So many of our great, successful, effortless English members have this mindset.
They just do their two hours a day, or an hour a day, but usually about an hour to two hours a day. of Power English and the VIP program.
And they just do it every day, every day, every day.
They don't miss a day. and not doing, you know, 15 hours a day.
They're not doing 20 hours a day and only getting four hours of sleep.
They're not doing anything crazy like that.
Maybe occasionally they do a challenge and they do a lot of extra stuff.
But most of the time, they're just consistent, grinding. put in the two hours, put in the two hours, put in the two hours.
And they do 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at lunch and maybe an hour when they go for a walk.
And that's all they do. They don't get emotional about it.
They don't get all worried. It's like, oh my God, I haven't improved this week.
Oh my God, it's been one month, nothing's happening.
They don't freak out. They don't demand instant results.
They just keep doing it, two hours, two hours a day, every day, two hours, two hours.
And most of them focus on making it just a habit, just part of their life, which they enjoy, an enjoyable habit.
Just something they do each day. And by doing that, it does become part of their life.
And they don't need a huge amount of motivation.
Maybe in the beginning, The VIP program, you need to get hyped up and you do all that stuff because you're just starting.
You need that momentum. like I talked about yesterday.
But once you have the momentum, Once you're moving and you're building the habit and you've seen your first breakthrough, After that, all you need to do is just grind.
You just keep grinding. doing it every day, every day, every day.
You don't need tons of emotion. You don't need tons of motivation.
You just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it.
And then every now and then, you get another breakthrough.
And you're just patient, because you know it's going to come.
You know what's going to come. And this grinding mindset is... really what makes champions and what, is what makes lifelong success, long-term success.
And if you look in the area of fitness and health, for example, Take a little drink.
Yeah, you know, if you've let yourself become fat and lazy, like I did.
You might need a period where you're all out, all in.
Maximum effort just to get your butt moving again.
Get some momentum going because you've let yourself become a fat lazy pig.
But once you get going, you get the first breakthrough.
You get moving, you start feeling some of the benefits.
After that, you know what? You just switch to a grinding mindset.
You're just like, okay, this is now part of my life.
I'm just going to do it every day. It doesn't matter what you're doing.
Let's say you're cycling. You just say, I'm a cyclist.
I love it. riding my bike. I'm riding my bike an hour a day.
That might take a huge amount of motivation if you're a fat pig.
To use Cole Robinson's phrase. And hey, if you're a fat pig, don't be insulted because I'm a fat pig right now too.
So I'm insulting myself. But you got to be real.
You got to be honest with yourself. And if you let yourself become a lazy fat pig, say it.
Look in the mirror and say, yes, I'm a lazy fat pig, but I'm gonna change it.
So you make your maximum effort, but then after that you just grind, grind, grind.
It's part of your life. Let's say you decide on cycling.
You put in your hour every day, every day.
You just get on the bike and ride. And every ride doesn't need to be super fast or super long.
You just do it every day, every day. Now it's part of your life.
You're just grinding, grinding, grinding.
And believe me, just the habit of it, it builds something deep inside you.
It builds a foundation. of fitness and energy. that is long-term, that will give you long-term, powerful benefits.
And yes, Once you have that strong foundation from grinding for months and months and months and months Then if there's some point you want to improve your performance or make a big jump, Like if you're a cyclist, maybe you want to enter a race and really improve your time.
Okay, maybe if you go three, four, five months, on a more intense training schedule. that you've got that foundation of grinding every single day Your body, your legs, and your mind are ready to handle more. without injury and without burnout.
It's the same with effortless English and your English.
Just put in those two hours a day. Build up, you know, if you're just starting, do an hour a day.
Hour a day, but consistent. Don't miss a day, not even one day.
Every single day you listen to Power English, one hour, one hour, one hour. or one hour every single day.
And then, when that becomes part of your life, you can increase it.
Hour and a half, two hours. At that point, just keep doing it.
When you finish Power English, Get another one of my courses, join the VIP program, that's probably the best one after Power English, and again, Just do your lessons each day.
That's it. You don't need to get crazy about it.
You don't worry every month how much you're improving or not.
I promise you, this grinding is going to give you a deep, deep, deep feeling and understanding for English.
You're really going to acquire We get and keep English in a natural way when you have this approach.
And then, at some point, for any reason you have or want, you could decide to do a challenge and do a lot of extra stuff.
But you're not going to do it forever. you probably do it for maybe two months or three months.
I mean, maybe, for example, you want to take a trip.
You want to go travel in... I don't know, you want to go to England, travel around England, and you want to use English, great opportunity.
So three months before your trip, you decide, all right, I'm going to go really intense.
I'm going to do a big challenge with English. super intense for the next three months right before my trip and I'm going to listen five hours a day, and I'm going to... get on the community site, and I'm going to join a bunch of... speaking groups and conversation groups, and I'm going to speak and talk and practice real conversations. another hour, an extra hour every day And you do all that for three months, very intense.
It will require a lot of extra motivation and energy.
You're making a big change to your normal daily habits and you're challenging your brain to handle that much English every day.
But I guarantee you're going to make a nice big jump and then you reward yourself and you Enjoy the benefits.
You go off on your trip to England and just relax and talk to people as much as you can and have a great time.
Then what do you do when you get home? You just go back to grinding again. back to your hour or two hours. everyday, everyday, everyday, listening everyday, listening everyday, listening every day.
Just part of your life, like brushing your teeth, like your daily exercise.
Making your meals and eating, it's just the same mindset.
This is the phase I've now entered with my fitness.
As I mentioned yesterday in my podcast, for eight months, the last over the winter, basically, here, and into the spring.
I just let myself become a fat, lazy pig.
I just did not exercise at all. And I'm in America, so I was not disciplined enough with my food.
I was eating... Too many unhealthy foods, so I gained 10 kilos. and not only gained 10 kilos of fat, but also just lost a lot of fitness.
I was starting to feel tired. and lazy, and of course heavy, and my clothes are all too tight.
So first thing happened, like I gotta change this.
And I needed some big efforts at first because I needed motivation to get out of this hole, get out of this.
Lazy habits. These lazy habits that I had.
So I pushed and pushed and pushed, just like I said yesterday, and for 10 weeks nothing seemed to be happening, and I was getting very, very frustrated.
Suddenly, as I said, about last week, boom, big breakthrough improvements.
I'm feeling really good now. and I jumped my daily walking up to two hours and I've decided that I'm going to grind now.
And that means I'm going to do it every single day.
No rest days. I'm not doing intense exercise.
I'm not lifting heavy weights. I'm not running.
I'm not even running at all, right? What I'm doing is relaxed and moderate enough that I don't need a rest day.
I just need maybe occasionally easy days, like after I did a I did some rucking and I was carrying my kids two days ago.
That definitely was harder. So I was feeling tired.
So I still walked the day for two hours, but I just walked a little slower.
And I'm using the hand weights, doing heavy hands.
And one great thing about that, it's easy to adjust it.
If you want an easy day, you just lift the weights less. instead of lifting them up to your eyes or the top of your head, really swinging them high, which is harder, you can just lift them up to your shoulder height.
Or even... just to your waist if you want to, right?
If you just need to make things easier, you need an easy day. and you can walk more slowly.
So that's what I do, I just adjust. I have easy days and then I have more challenging days.
Like two days ago was a tough day. A lot of extra. really went hard carrying my kids and doing the weights. and walk in for two hours, so after that I needed some easy time, and so, Now I'm doing a couple of easy days.
But it's every day, every day. This is so important.
In my experience, I don't think having a day off because people to say like in dieting have a cheat day or people will say and I
Have a full rest day where you do nothing.
I don't like that because it breaks... The grinding mindset.
It breaks the habit. It's like saying brushing your teeth.
Oh, well, one day don't brush your teeth.
Nobody, right? You brush your teeth every single day.
You don't need to have a rest day from brushing your teeth.
So it's the same thing. with any skill like this.
When you're in the grinding mindset, you're not doing intense stuff, You're just doing that habit every day.
I think there are big benefits, certainly for motivation and building the habit, and even just getting results of no rest days at all, that it's something you do every single day, even on a holiday. seven days a week, every single day.
Because when you do that, it kind of sends a message to your brain like, Okay, if you have to take a rest day or take a day off, it's kind of like you're saying to yourself, oh, you know, this is not enjoyable or I don't like this or this is, you know.
Instead, you just, like, have the mentality of this is just part of my life.
And if it's part of your life, you just do it every day.
You sleep every day, you brush your teeth every day, you make food every day, or you eat every day.
I think you can even do this with strength training, but you just have to do it intelligently.
You can't be lifting super heavy weights and burning down your muscles and then not have rest days.
You have to have rest days if you're going in more intense.
But if you go less intense, like let's say you're doing kettle bells, you can do those every single day.
For people who struggle with motivation, grinding mindset is really great because one of the benefits of the grinding mindset is you kind of just let go of results.
Of course, in the back of your mind, you wanna get results, right?
That's why you're doing it. You let go of any kind of short-term results.
You don't worry day to day or even month to month. about how much you're improving or how much things are better.
You just know that the benefits are coming.
You know that it's a good thing to do. So you just do it, you do it, you do it, you do it.
So many times, especially on my YouTube show, I get comments from people and questions.
People like freaking out. Oh my God, how do I make a huge improvement in two months?
Oh my God, I've been doing this for three months and nothing's happening.
All right, they get all freaked out. Oh, it's not happening fast enough.
And that's bad for motivation. because you know there are always plateaus, results are not instant, and when you sort of get too emotional about it.
It's just too easy to go up and down and up and down.
And sure, when you're up, you do a lot. But then what happens?
Then you crash out and come down if you don't see quick results. or immediate results, and then people quit.
It's better to be unemotional and just grind along, grind along, grind, grind.
This is helping me so much. For the first time, I'm losing weight actually.
I checked the scale today and I'm down one more pound.
That's like a half kilo. a long way to go but it's moving the right direction finally so I'm taking the same mindset now.
I'm like, I know this is working. I know this approach I'm using, heavy hands walking two hours every morning.
This is working. I'm losing weight. It's not super, super, super fast.
I could just... do some aggressive fasting and things. but that would require a lot more motivation.
It makes me tired, it can make me grumpy, Which makes me, I'm not such a good dad.
So instead I've decided, you know, I'm just going to have a grinding mindset.
I'm not in a hurry, you know. It took me eight months to add this weight, and if it takes me eight months or a year to take it off, and to get, you know, a nice peak shape, great shape again, that's okay.
I don't need to do anything super intense or amazing.
What I'm doing is... I know it's working and I know it will continue to work.
So now my mindset is just grind two hours a day, two hours a day.
It's just a habit. It's part of my morning routine now.
Get up. I have a little drink of water, put on my shoes, grab my weights and go walk.
And because I have this mindset now, I'm starting to just enjoy the process of it. without focusing on the results so much.
And this is where the real magic happens with grinding.
Maybe in the beginning when you're grinding, you're just doing this work day after day after day.
It doesn't seem very exciting. Maybe it requires some motivation.
Maybe you think it's kind of boring. But what happens is as you do it more and more and more, you begin to get into the moment more. and you actually begin to just enjoy it. just the process, just what you're doing, you just start to enjoy it. and get benefits from it that are not connected to some big result.
So for example, I'm beginning just to enjoy the walks in the morning because it's just a peaceful time for me.
It's kind of meditative. And it gives me time in the mornings and the day to just think about think about my upcoming day, think about my goals, think about My kids, what am I going to do with the kids today?
I can pray while I'm walking and I do that.
I can chant while I'm walking. I do that.
I can just calmly quiet my mind and look around and notice the birds and the trees and the beautiful nature around me, I do that.
So now this morning walk I'm doing with these weights is very pleasurable.
And I'm enjoying it just for the immediate pleasure of the activity itself.
I'm not thinking about, oh my god, I hope I'm I'm burning another 500 calories.
Oh, tomorrow I better see the scale go down again.
Oh, I better drop two pounds. Oh, no, I only...
Lost one pound this week. I'm not freaking out about all that stuff.
I'm not even thinking about it anymore. Yes, eventually, two months from now, I haven't lost any more weight.
I might have to make some changes. I'm not going to worry about it day to day.
And guess what? The more I enjoy just doing it, the more it becomes a stronger and stronger habit and part of my life. something that is just enjoyable for, that I just enjoy doing just because it has such a pleasant feeling for me.
And I know just from past experience and from the experience of others, that doing this two hours a day, two hours a day, two hours a day, even though if nothing happens, with my weight in one week or one month, I know that inside my body My heart's getting stronger.
My blood vessels are getting, more, you know, soft and relaxed, right?
My cardiovascular health. is getting better and better and better.
My aerobic health is getting better. I know there are amazing benefits for health and general fitness.
I know my overall just... Everyday energy is improving It's the same for a golfer.
Okay, maybe a beginner golfer starts out and they're, I'm going to hit 200 balls a day.
So they go out there and they hit 200 balls and the next day again and again.
And yeah, maybe for a while it feels boring to them. but I got to do it.
This is their mindset. I have to do it. Something I must do.
But there comes a point for any good golfer where just by doing it every day, every day, every day, First, it just becomes part of life.
So instead of saying, I have to do it, they just kind of automatically do it.
It's just again, like brushing your teeth.
It's just, well, no, this is what I do every day.
Oh, it's 10 o'clock, time to go hit 200 balls again.
So it becomes this kind of automatic activity.
But then the magic happens when They just keep doing it, keep doing it and then they reach a point where it starts to be enjoyable. or the grind, they start to miss it.
If they miss a day, they feel kind of...
Uh, uneasy, unhappy. Oh, God, I missed a day.
Ah, I missed a day today. Maybe they got... It was a holiday.
Maybe... something happened at work and they just had to do it.
They couldn't help it, but they kind of feel like, I've got to get back there tomorrow, right away. because it starts to become a pleasurable part of their life. and they get to a point where just that swing becomes like this feeling of grace. as their swing gets better and they just keep hitting every day, every day. they begin to just enjoy the thwack, that sound of the club hitting the ball just right.
The feeling of that swinging that club and it just feeling smooth and effortless.
And even they begin to enjoy when they get a bad shot. and trying to problem solve.
They hit it and it doesn't go straight. And like, ah, well, they start to, Enjoy the mental problem of, okay, what did I do wrong?
Just noticing their body. Oh, I turned my hips too much or I was distracted in my mind.
And so suddenly this thing that most people think is boring, oh, you're just hitting that ball again and again hundreds of times. but internally for the golfer.
They are in the moment, it's meditative.
It's a kind of, it becomes a kind of daily meditation. and becomes very pleasant and pleasurable and then they want to do it every day.
You will see with our most successful members, VIP members, whatever.
They also reached this level with English.
It's a similar process. So at first, oh, I've got to listen to my Power English lesson today.
Right? That's stage one. That's when you're all going to go all out or all in.
Massive effort. Get the momentum going. Great.
It's a necessary first stage for most of us.
Then they get to the point where it just becomes automatic.
Just a habit. Well, I'm on the bus going to work.
Put on the headphones, listen to my English lessons.
There's really no emotion there. It might not be pleasant, but it's not unpleasant.
It's just habit now. It's part of their life.
Stage two. But then they reach a point it starts to become pleasurable.
Hopefully you reached the point quickly. instead of worrying about their own performance and getting better, oh my God, I didn't improve today.
Instead, they just start focusing on the topics and learning from the different topics in the lessons.
They start to notice pronunciation. They start to enjoy and laugh at the funny, crazy stories and the mini stories.
They start to just enjoy the process of listening to English and figuring out the new words. when they start a new lesson, And they start to enjoy that feeling of after listening to a lesson today, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 times of starting to of understanding it more and more and more until it becomes automatic.
They can just play it. They don't need to pause.
They don't need to think. They understand every single word automatically, without effort.
And then they start a new lesson. And it starts again.
And just like that golfer. that process starts to become enjoyable.
And again, kind of meditative. concentration of really, really, really focusing in. on both the meaning of the lessons and what the topic and on the actual English language itself and the pronunciation and all of it and It all becomes meditative.
They're so focused on it. They're in the moment.
They're not thinking about whatever problems they have in the rest of their life. lives.
They're not thinking about the future. They're not thinking about the past.
They're in the moment. focused on those English lessons 100%.
And this is where you'll see then these members.
Say, oh, I really started enjoying English for the first time in my life.
My whole life it's been this. stressful thing.
In school, I always had to stress. I had to study and or memorize and there's always some tests coming up and then later, Oh my God, I had to perform and take TOEFL tests and all this other stuff.
Later, oh, my speaking's not good enough.
My listening's not good enough. always kind of stressed out about their performance.
But they hit a point where all that just fades away and disappears.
And then it's just like, I just enjoy English.
I'm just really starting to enjoy English now.
I like it. English is pleasant. It's like me with my morning walks.
There's a lot of people who would, if you told them to do it for the first time, that came out and joined me on my walk if they're not in good shape, if they have not very good fitness, if I give them some weights and they start following me and walking with me,
There's a lot of people who would hate it.
Especially in the heat, in the summer, even in the morning.
But after three months of doing it every single day, You grow to love it.
Same with English. And this is when you will make your giant breakthroughs.
This is one of those paradoxes in life, meaning it's is the opposite of what you think.
It doesn't seem to make sense logically.
But the more you let go and forget about... stressing about your performance all the time and how good you are, and instead you just... more and more and more little by little you grind and grind and you begin to enjoy the grind and the more you find pleasure in that daily grind, and in English itself, the more you really begin to improve at a deep level.
And your performance actually will. that's when you really start to experience those powerful, breakthroughs, those big improvements.
It's not every day, but every few months.
Right? It's weird, right? To make a big improvement.
It sometimes helps to just grind and not stress about your performance so much.
Because English, like so many skills, difficult. complicated skills that require a lot of time that are really, you need a long-term focus this grind mentality works best for that.
If you're trying to accomplish something in two months or three months or even six months, Maybe not.
But English is something you want for your whole life.
It's a lifelong skill. health and fitness you want for your whole life, not just the next few months, not just to look good at the beach, Right?
But you want it for your life now? And you want it for your life? when you're 70 and when you're 80.
So my message to you after you get through the beginner stage, after you Go through that period, that first phase where you have to really super motivate yourself.
I know that that's necessary. Once you get through that, relax, and grind, grind, grind get this grinding mindset And you're going to be much happier.
And you actually will get better long-term results.
And this is what will give you a lifetime of English. in a lifetime of enjoying English.
And many people go on to do other languages after this.
They discover that they love the process.
So they're like, well, hey, maybe I'll do another language too.
So grind, grind, grind. The grind mindset is gold.
The grinding mindset is gold. It's got a special magic.
And the great thing is most people don't have it.
It's not sexy. It's not cool. It's not dramatic.
It doesn't get much attention. but it's gold.
Grind grind grind. Okay, so that's... that's our topic.
Just a few, uh... Couple of small things to mention.
Number one, I already mentioned yesterday, but I want to remind you, Our next book club is called Hold On To Your Kids.
I will do it here on the audio podcast, not on the video YouTube channel, but here on the audio podcast we'll go through, I don't know, one or two or three chapters each time. and I'll go through and I'll teach you some key vocabulary that section of the book, and then I'll discuss the ideas of the book.
We'll see. Maybe occasionally I'll do a video since we can do live.
So you could ask questions and give comments if you like.
Certainly I can do that with members. I'll be doing, that's my next point.
Well, first let me finish this. So, hold on to your kids, and the writers are...
Gordon Neufeld, in E U F E L D, And the second writer's name is Gabor Mate, M-A-T-E.
Brazilian, I believe. So hold on to your kids.
Get that book. You can just get an e-book version if you want. electronic version, but it's a great book.
Please get it and you can join in with the book club.
All right, so next thing. Community site.
I'll be doing... a member call again soon.
I had a couple things come up. First, my computer.
Got broken, the screen. So I couldn't do anything on my computer and I need my computer to do decent live streams and call Zoom calls.
And then I had my father visit, who I hadn't seen in a long time and the kids, so we had a nice family visit together.
So now all that's done, back to normal life.
Got a new computer. So I'll... I'll get on the community site in the next couple days and I'll post information for our next member call or next member meeting We can have a video call together and we can chat and talk with each other.
And I love doing that. It's so nice to talk to VIP members and Power English members, just members in general.
Our community is building and strengthening and growing again.
I know those calls are great. I know you guys love them too.
I'll be scheduling that very soon. Other things coming up.
Just personally, in a couple months, I think in October...
I'll be going to a national park. So the kids and I and my wife, our family, Had so much fun at the state park with my dad doing little nature center hikes that we've decided to start doing a lot of that.
Kids seem like they're now at a perfect age for that.
And we love it. They love it. So our next trip is going to be to a place called Mammoth National Park.
And the reason I'm telling you is that Some people like when I talk about cultural things or talk about the United States or about Japan when I'm there.
I think, I criticize America a lot, as you know, culturally and politically.
Excuse me, take another drink. But one of the great great great things about America compared to almost any other country I've been to.
I haven't been everywhere, but I've traveled a good amount.
And one of the things where America is especially good especially something that America does very well, is nature.
Because the country is so huge, there are so many Great hiking trails, nature trails, national parks, state parks.
If you love the outdoors, if you like camping or just hiking, seeing wildlife, birds, animals, bugs, plants, America's fantastic.
There's so much. I haven't seen most of the famous places.
There's a bunch of famous ones that are national parks. which you may have heard of, like the Grand Canyon.
My dad went there, and he's It's amazing.
Everybody who goes to the Grand Canyon says it's amazing.
I've never been there. There's Yellowstone, which I think is Wyoming and Montana.
Also famous, supposed to be gorgeous. They've got big grizzly bears roaming around.
They're huge animals. Again, I've seen pictures.
It looks amazing. I've never been there.
I've never been to any of them. The only national park.
America has so many national parks. The only one I've been to is Yosemite, which is stunningly beautiful.
Yosemite is in eastern California. And it is amazing.
It's beautiful. Big crowded, but beautiful.
And if you're into like, serious hiking, or even not serious hiking, just hiking and camping.
I mean, it's endless. There are three. Huge trails you could do if you want to hike for six months and camp, if you really want a big adventure.
I don't know if anywhere else in the world that has this kind of, there may be other places in the world that have this kind of trails, There's the Appalachian Trail, probably the most famous, the oldest one.
And it goes through the Appalachian Mountains.
It starts in the south in Georgia, where I grew up.
And then it goes all the way up to Maine, which is in the far northeast of the country.
I think it's 3,000 miles. Depending how fast you walk, it takes four to six months for most normal people to do it.
Some people can do it faster, but that's walking on trails and through mountains. four or five months, let's say, living in a tent, camping.
I mean, it's If you like that kind of thing it's amazing.
And that's called a through hike. That's if you want to hike all the way through, do the whole trail.
But of course you don't have to, because when I lived in Georgia, I just used to go. to the Appalachian Trail and I would just go for a weekend and I would just hike a little section of it.
So I'd hike for three, four days. I have such great memories from doing that.
I loved it. I had a dog that would go with me.
Just me and my dog. I'd just drive up toward the trail. you know, somewhere on the trail where it would cross a road and put on my backpack and hike into the mountains.
And there's another one called the Pacific Crest Trail. which is, as you might guess, over on the Pacific side.
That's in, it's mostly in California. No, no, I think it starts where?
New Mexico or Arizona? It starts down south.
Southwest, and then it goes up through the Sierra Nevada mountains, which are kind of they run along the eastern side of California.
And that's another big, I mean, basically goes south to north or north to south.
And it's another one that would take many months. to do and then there's one called the Continental Divide Trail and this one's I think the most wilderness one.
So probably the hardest one to do, and it goes up through the Rocky Mountains, like Colorado.
Um, I don't know as much about that one, but it's another one of those big giant long trails that you can do, or of course you can just do a section of it.
What some people do is they'll just do different sections like every year and gradually do the whole trail.
So like every year maybe they do one week.
And they start in Georgia. If they're doing the Appalachian Trail, they do one week on the Appalachian Trail.
And wherever they stop, the next year they start at that point and they keep going.
But those are just the big three. super famous ones.
There are countless, countless, I mean so many in every state almost in the country. great nature trails some of them are just really short you know like 5k or even less Some of them are quite long.
They would take five days or a week. or a month, anything you want, any range, in all different environments, desert, mountains, woods, flat plains.
And in these state parks and these national parks, also there's a range of accommodation.
So you can, if you like it, to go like wilderness style and carry everything in your backpack and live in a tent or a tarp. and cook all your own food?
You can do that in so many places in America. stunningly beautiful natural environments.
Or, like me right now, I have two six-year-old kids.
My wife is not, she's great, she's active, she loves the outdoors, but she's not quite the wilderness type, like camping in tents.
So if that's more your situation... There are also so many cabins you can stay in.
We did that with my father in the state park here in Indiana.
So it's just like a little wooden house basically. a little kitchen.
So, you know, you still have air counter heat.
You've got like a little kitchen and a fridge.
You know, it's basic, it's simple. Not a luxury hotel, but it's certainly much more comfortable than just camping in a tent.
And there's again countless places like that in America that you can stay. if you prefer that.
It's amazing. Other people, what other people do is they do like RVs.
You can rent these. They're kind of expensive. but you can get like camper vans.
Or there's also the big giant ones, which are like houses on wheels, which are very expensive.
But some people do that. They do huge road trips.
And they'll, let's say, have a van that has a couple beds in it.
And they just drive around to different state parks and national parks and sleep in the van.
I mean, there's so much. If you're a nature lover, yeah, America is a great place for that. just in terms of how big some of the national and state parks are, how long many of the trails are, and you still get you know, pretty much true wilderness, you know, wild animals and stuff.
It's not like a zoo or anything. It's not like you're just walking through farms.
You're in the wilderness. Right? with bears and I think Yosemite, I mean Yellowstone has wolves.
It's amazing. It's great. So... Of course, because the kids now seem to really be enjoying nature and they love it, and we love it.
And we're now in America. I realized, well, this is the perfect time.
This is what we're going to do. Let's get out and see all of this.
And it's exciting for me because I get to do it with my children and my wife.
And it's all new to me. Like I said, I was in Georgia and I did a lot of camping in Georgia. and the nearby states, Tennessee and North Carolina.
But I didn't do hardly any, I haven't done any national parks except for Yosemite one time, I haven't done you know, hardly any camping or anything in the rest of the country.
So it's a chance for me to explore with my family And these environments are healing.
There is something that... The Japanese call it forest bathing, I believe. but it's this idea that getting out in nature, getting in trees.
It's also just mountains, beaches. They all have the similar effect. it heals you, it quiets your mind.
And if you're in an urban, like a city environment especially, Everything's so busy and noisy and you know, you don't even realize it sometimes.
There's kind of just a A little bit of too much energy and stress.
You get far out into nature where it's quiet.
And it's healing. After a few days you just find you feel much more peaceful and rested.
It's great. So there you go. There's my tourist... pitch, my tourist speech for America.
This is the... Other things in America I'm not as impressed with, but the nature is absolutely Incredible, and really, especially thanks to some people in america's past especially like teddy roosevelt who was a president and really he created the national park system There are some wonderful places.
So we're gonna go, the point of all this In October, we're going to go to a national park down in Kentucky, which is next to us in Indiana.
And it's caves, underground caves, giant, huge underground caves.
The name is Mammoth. National Park Mammoth Cave National Park and it's all these huge caves under the ground, natural caves, and you can go down there and walk around and do tours And it's kid-friendly.
Some caving is a bit dangerous. But this is all big and well established and they have guides So it's kind of perfect for our kids and us right now.
So we're going to go down and see that. And I think in general, we're going to start doing more national parks when we go through California. in the winter, going back for a Japan visit this year, or I guess next year after New Year.
We also plan to go to a few state and national parks in California around San Francisco.
So I'll give you my reviews and my updates on those.
And if you ever do come to the United States, I recommend, don't just go to the cities.
A lot of people, they come and they just see New York or New York and Boston and LA or something.
That's okay. But honestly, I think European cities are far nicer. than uh i think japanese cities are nicer too than most american cities but that Get out in nature if you like it.
I know not everybody likes it, but if you like it, rent a car if you can afford it. and get out, even if you just stay in a cabin or something, and get out to some of these great state and national parks.
I think you'll really enjoy it. Okay, that's all for now.
Lots of love to you. I will see you next time.
As always, go to my website EffortlessEnglishClub.com We've got a member meeting coming up soon.
I'll put it in the community site. So join and One of my courses, get Power English and VIP at EffortlessEnglishClub.com and join our call and I'll talk to you then.
Bye for now. Lots of love to you.
