Hello.
My name's Ronnie.
I'm very confident, and I really like talking.
[Sighs] Oh, god.
[Laughs]
Do you think that one of the reasons why you don't like to speak English is because
you lack confidence maybe in speaking or in writing, or just in your daily life?
Confidence is the number one problem that you have while learning English.
So, a lot of people talk to me and say:
"Ronnie, I can't speak English. I'm terrible."
And I say:
"Oh, no. You can speak English. You are not terrible."
So, I want to help you and I want you to become more confident in your daily life, whatever
you do, not only English, for everything.
So, I'm going to teach you some tricks or some methods to become more confident.
Thumbs up.
Even if you're not, then just pretend.
Everyone pretends.
So, I'm going to go through things that are bad and the reasons why you and I are not
confident people.
First of all, we have a fear.
We have a fear of the unknown.
We have fear that we don't know what's going to happen.
Maybe you're going to go for a job interview, or you're starting a new class, or you're
going to go on a date, or you're meeting new people, you're going to a party - we have
no idea what's going to happen.
That's cool, let it happen.
We can't change the future.
We don't know about the future, so what we can do is we can prepare our self.
Now, if we're talking about doing something, like a presentation or standing up in front
of people, going to a party, especially if you're trying to speak English, what you can
do if you're worried about your English is you can practice speaking at home.
Now, this might sound a little crazy, but who cares?
What you can do is take your phone, you can record yourself speaking English.
Maybe you're doing a presentation, so record your presentation, listen to it.
[Gasps] You think it's terrible?
Do it again.
We have an expression: "Practice makes perfect."
It's not going to be perfect, but it'll be good.
So the more you practice something, the more comfortable you're going to feel, the more
confidence you're going to have, and you're going to rock that.
You're going to go to the party and be like: "Yeah! I'm the best party person ever."
Or you're going to go to your job interview and you're going to get the job.
I feel like I'm an infomercial.
Okay, the next one and probably one of the hardest is criticism.
Criticism means people tell you what you do wrong.
People tell you bad things about you.
People tell you your pronunciation is terrible, your work is awful.
How do you feel? You feel: "Oh my god. Why am I even alive?"
So people criticize you, and depending on how they do it...
For example, if you have a boss who only tells you bad things, this is not a very good boss.
But if you have a boss who criticizes you and tells you positive things, this is getting better.
But what we have to do is we have to learn from the criticism.
We have an expression: "Don't take it personally."
This means, for example, if your boss says:
"You know what? Your... Your presentation wasn't that good."
Instead of: "Oh my god", instead of feeling negative or feeling bad, just go:
"Okay. Well, please tell me how I can make it better."
Your boss is there maybe to help you, unless you have a terrible boss, but always try and
learn from the criticism.
If you've done something wrong, admit it and go: "Oh, do you know what?
You know...
You know, that was terrible, but I can do next time better."
So always try to improve from your criticism.
Critics are maybe your best friends because they tell you what's wrong and you have to listen to that.
Next one.
I'd like to inform everyone out there that you are not airbrushed models,
and I am sure far from being a model.
What happens is in magazines nowadays, we have these beautiful ladies.
They are simply perfect.
Look at her lips, and her nose, and her eyes...
Actually, she doesn't have a nose.
This woman has no nose.
Where's your nose?
I have eyebrows, by the way.
She does not have a nose.
So, if you...
Oh my god, Angelina Jolie, she's gorgeous.
Her life's a mess, but she's gorgeous.
This is airbrushed. This is not real.
These are not real p-...
Oh, hello.
I'll just be over here, okay.
These are not real people.
These are processed, Photoshopped just images of bodies.
And we cannot look at this and go:
"I don't look as pouty, as wonderful as she does in this Ralph Lauren jacket",
which is not Ralph Lauren at all because they're terrible.
Never, ever think that you are not beautiful and wonderful, because you don't look like
these pieces of...
I don't know, skeletons.
So, everyone has a problem with their personal appearance.
You've... We all have issues, what we don't like about yourself.
Hey, that's cool.
But what you have to do is you have to get over that and you have to think: "Do you know what?
I'm actually pretty good.
I have some things that I like about me."
Make a list.
"Well, I quite like my left eyelash, I think it's pretty long and cute.
My baby fingers are pretty cute, too."
So think about things that you like about yourself.
Another one that's really, really, really important especially at work or in a job interview
is lack of knowledge.
So, this is a doozy, which means it's important.
If you're going for a job interview and you don't know anything about the job, you're
not going to get it.
So what you have to do is you have to research.
Research the company, find out something about the company that you can talk about.
If it's English, watch my videos.
Watch www.engvid.com, and you can learn so that you have more knowledge about your topic.
This, again, is not only for English.
If you're doing...
Making a presentation at your work, research it.
Just get information.
The more information you have in your brain, the more confident you will be because you
know what you're going to say.
I'd like to show you guys something.
This is my notebook of what I do about five hours before I stand here.
This is my notebook of notes about what I'm going to teach you.
And sometimes I cross it off, and last night I couldn't really sleep too well because I thought:
"What am I going to do? What am I going to teach on the videos?"
So what I do is I have to prepare myself.
So at nighttime I lie awake at night and I think: "What can I do? What can I do?"
And then it gets better. So what I do is I prepare myself.
I know what I'm going to tell you.
I've written it down, it's in my brain.
This gives me the confidence to stand in front of you and teach you this.
Yeah, I'm doing pretty good.
The... One of the things that is the worst thing you can do to yourself is have negative thinking.
So, so many people tell me this: "Ronnie, I can't speak English. My English is terrible."
Guess what? You've just said two wonderful sentences to me,
and I know you can speak English, but
your brain goes: "That was terrible. My pronunciation's awful."
Guess what?
Your pronunciation may not be perfect, but at least you're trying and you will do it.
The more you practice it, the more you record it, the better you will become.
You have to take these negative ideas and get them out of your head.
This also goes along with negative people.
Maybe you have people in your life who are always putting you down because you can't
say "pronunciation", like me.
[Laughs] Okay?
Maybe you have people who say:
"Oh, no, no. Your English is awful.
I can say 'pronunciation' and you can't."
What you have to do is you have to remove these people, or if you can't physically remove
them, don't listen to them.
Other people will always be jealous of your achievements, if they're bad people, and other
people will try to bring you down to make them look better.
So you know what we're doing to these people - ignore them, carry on.
Even if it's your boss or people around you all the time, your mom and your dad, your
brothers or sisters, ignore them.
They're not perfect, I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, but at least you're going to
try to do it.
What are they doing? Nothing.
Now, we get to the good things.
So, you've got all these bad things and I've told you how to get rid of them, but let's
focus on what you can do now to make you more confident.
First one is reward yourself.
So what does this mean?
This means if you do something well, you got a job at the job interview-woohoo-or you did...
You passed your presentation and you didn't die-amazing-or you got a promotion at work,
go out and celebrate.
Buy yourself something you want.
Grab some chocolate.
Do something that you like because you can celebrate doing something well.
The next thing...
[Laughs]
Is a fortune cookie.
If you do something well, you can get a fortune cookie.
It's free with every video that I do.
Good.
And I can't throw.
Next one: Don't compare yourself.
So, I've told you before that people will always say:
"Oh, Bobby's better than you are at this." That's great.
Bobby, suck it.
It doesn't matter if somebody's better than you are.
What matters is that you are yourself, you are unique, and that you're doing the best
you can do.
I know this might come as a surprise to some people, but I'm pretty strange and all through
my life people told me:
"Ronnie, you're weird. Ronnie, you're different."
Yeah. And, who cares? Rock it.
Okay?
Be unique.
Don't let other people bring you down.
Don't listen to them.
They want to make you bad.
You're better than that.
This is a really important thing that you can do every day in your life, job interviews,
at your job, at your school, at your work, on a date.
If there's a girl or a boy that you like, go get 'em, tigers.
Grr.
But body language is really important.
If you are standing...
We say slumped over like this...
Hi.
People might think that you have a problem with your back.
But the first thing that you have to do is stand tall.
When you stand tall or straight it makes the person think that you're confident.
If you're slouched over and walking like this, people aren't going to respect you, people
are not going to take you seriously.
One of the biggest and most amazing things that you can do is smile.
And I thought: "Ronnie, why? What...?
What are you talking about? Why do you...?
Why does smiling help you?"
It will instantly change someone's face from: "Oh, I'm going to kill you", to:
"Hey, this is kind of good".
So if you feel uncomfortable, or if you feel unconfident or not confident,
all you have to do is smile.
I know it's hard, but try it.
Go down the street tomorrow, next day, today, look at the people and smile at them.
You're going to see they will smile back at you, and you will get a really, really cool
feeling from that.
Social experiment number seven: Smile at people, see what happens.
It makes the other people feel very comfortable, very relaxed, and it makes them like you.
A very important thing, I've told you this before: You got to look the people in the eye.
If you don't look them in the eye, if you look down or if you're looking at the sky
or the ceiling, people aren't too sure what you're doing.
I was told a really, really awful story by someone that ladies in either Venezuela or
Colombia, if they're married or with someone who's a guy, they're not really allowed to
look at other men in the eye.
Are you absolutely joking?
So if I'm a married woman, I cannot look another man in the eyes?
Oh, Ronnie's not having that.
I'm coming to Colombia and Venezuela, and I'm looking at all of you guys in the eyes.
It's a form of respect.
Women, if you don't look men in the eyes or anyone in the eyes, it tells them that you
are not a strong person.
Lift up your eyes and look them straight in the eyes.
You got it, girl.
You go, girlfriend.
So eye contact is very important.
And speak slowly.
Ronnie's not very good at this.
But especially if English is not your first language, or you're doing a presentation,
in a job interview-I know you're nervous and you're like:
"La-la-la-la-la", you want to get this information out-try and speak slowly.
This is where you're going to record your voice and you're going to practice.
When I was a child and I had to do speeches, my parents would make me stand and recite
the speech or say the speech many times.
And my mom would always say: "Ronnie, slow down!"
I'd be like: "Ah-la-la-la."
So, speak slowly.
It'll just help with communication.
Last one and I want you to do this now.
Okay? Grab a pen, grab a pencil, I don't know.
Create a list of why you are great.
Why are you amazing?
What things do you actually like about yourself?
So maybe you're really good at playing tennis, or maybe you're a fantastic soufflé maker,
maybe you can make a mean margarita.
Write that down.
Anything that you like about yourself, write it down in the list.
If you're having a bad day or a hard time, or you just feel terrible, grab the list and
look at it, and go: "Oh, do you know what actually?
My left eyelash is quite cute and this is a damn cute finger."
I want you guys to be confident when you speak English
and I want you to be confident in your life,
so go out, grab life by the balls.
See ya.