hello aubry how are you today hi i'm great lindsay how are you awesome i'm excited
because today's episode is also on youtube guys and our youtube channel is growing fast
so check it out if you want to go over in youtube but you can also listen on the podcast
as always yes i think it's so fun to be able to watch a podcast recorded on youtube
i've started doing that and i love it i love seeing facial expressions and following that so
it's also fun just to listen to a podcast but for a lot of learners that are more visual
that might be a better option for you to watch the podcast on youtube right you could read our lips
and see how we move our mouths when we speak and our expressions and there's just so much
for you there guys aubrey what are we getting into today i'm excited to be on the mic
yes this is really fun we are going to share some idioms that are related to driving because we've
been thinking about where it's fall we want to be improving what we're doing right this is kind of
a chance to jump start whether it's our business deals and relationships our personal relationships
we don't want to wait for opportunities to come to us we want to seek them out and there are a
lot of idioms related to improving performance that come from driving i love that idea i love
that idea so aubry here's a question would you consider yourself kind of a driver when it comes
to business and you know new ideas and just kind of getting things done are you a driver i'm not
really it's funny i know you are lindsay you're such a good driver for our team but i'm the one in
the back seat kind of like following tell me what to do i have great support yeah probably because
i have four kids so i don't have the bandwidth sure to be driving anything but my kids schedules
right that makes you i mean you know honestly we can't be a driver in every aspect of our life nor
should we because we don't want to we just don't have the energy you know yes because i am a driver
when it comes to like making sure my kids are getting good grades and preparing to be ready for
college ready for the world i am a driver there right making sure they're eating healthy food and
brushing their teeth like i'm on it i love that yeah and it's good because in a partnership you
know usually one partner is a driver in one area and the other is a driver in another area but it's
really hard to do everything right so we got to give ourselves a little grace and just go with
what feels natural yeah yes for sure but because this you know it's really a good time to think
about jump starting getting ahead improving your business relationships yeah that's a good time
for us to mention we have a really special deal right now with our business course right lindsay
yeah the summer is a great time to get ready for again the fall that's coming
getting ready to drive you know weather's warm we are ready to get into it guys what is going
on what is the special deal i mean aubry where can they go to get this give us a few details
yes guys you can go to allersenglish.com start for 10 off our business course which is really amazing
it's live interviews with business professional professionals in every industry so it's really the
best way to learn business english and the most engaging and interesting way so if you oh my gosh
it out yes you're also going to get four live group classes for free this is exciting and
they're so fun i love these live group classes yeah we're starting to offer more of these live
group classes guys along with our courses and we love it because we want to meet you right we want
to meet you we want to help you live so guys go to allersenglish.com start that's s-t-a-r-t and get
started right there good stuff aubry awesome let's dive into these idioms right yeah so maybe you're
the driver at work yeah maybe a driver in your personal life but there are so many idioms that
come from driving about improving performance we know you want to improve your business performance
when you talk about that you want to have native idioms to use so let's dive into the first one
all right i love this first one guys go ahead and write this one down the idiom is to kick it
into high gear so kick it into high gear what does this mean aubry yeah so think about driving when
you have a gear shift and you shift to a higher gear so that you can go faster right now most
transmissions are automatic so your transmission is automatically shifting into that higher gear
but we use this idiomatically to talk about improving our performance kicking it or shifting
into a higher gear right for example go ahead no why do we say kicking it instead of again shifting
it or moving into a higher gear like kick it into high gear yeah i don't know because yeah that's
a good point you don't want to say i'm going to shift it into high gear i'm going to move it into
no the idiom is kick it into high gear and i'm not sure why because we don't kick a gear shift
that feeling i got to tell you driving a standard transmission and on a windy
road in the countryside and you shift into fifth gear there's nothing like it right it's the best
feeling so i wonder if that's where this kick because we do say that the transmission kicks
when we shift a gear especially on a standard transmission where we're shifting
yes and if we pop the clutch a little early and you feel the transmission kick right i do say
that that the car kind of kicks so that's why that came in box it kicks yeah that makes sense okay
so there we go we got our driving insight and aubrey you you drive stick shift right you
drive down i grew up driving okay just making sure just making sure about you can you drive a stick
of course my first car was a stick shift it was a 1984 volvo or listeners know uh and yeah so i
have more respect when people can drive a standard transmission it's so weird that they don't come
in standard anymore i know and a lot of like my daughter isn't even learning to drive a switch
shift because most cars don't have it but i'm the same it's sort of a mark of a badge of pride
that i know how to drive a stick shift that's kind of silly it really is that's so funny i love it
so let's give our listeners some examples here yes exactly so i might say if i've been slacking right
if i haven't been working the best i could my performance is down a little i might say i've been
slacking lately i need to kick it into high gear and that means i need to improve my performance
in some way yeah and we're talking about you know kicking it into high gear in the summer but what
is typically for you aubrey your best season for kicking it into high gear work wise i mean do you
for me it's more the fall or like the winter when it's cold out so i'm not tempted to be outside
yeah same right once the school year starts in the fall and we're getting more serious about you know
kids are in school a lot of things going on for me at work that's when i kick it into high gear
is in the fall you want to end the year on a good note you want to feel like you've got a lot done
that year yeah sure exactly so if you guys lock in this course right now you will have access
in the fall right in september october and so lock it in join the course with the deal and then get
started if you want a little bit later and that works too right yeah so you can kick it into high
gear at work in business english i love it i love it here's the next example my sales numbers are
low i need to kick it into high gear and aubry just want to recognize for our listeners here
the prepositions kick it into right into high gear tricky there combination of words yeah yes
and because it's an idiom you can't replace these right it will sound very strange if you say for
example i need to kick it to hide high gear yes or i need to respond on to high gear right anything
else is going to sound strange these idioms really have to be memorized word for word with the
the correct preposition yes i love it should we move on to the next one what do you think
yes this is fun to put the pedal to the metal and so that's pushing down the accelerator pedal to go
faster right i don't know why i guess to the metal because the floorboard is the car is metal right
so you're pushing the pedal down to the metal part of the floor of the car now this one's fun because
this will you can use it literally as well as figuratively right yeah i mean you could say
hey you're going so slow come on put the pedal to the metal let's go the speed limit is 80.
yes right if someone's just driving and you want them to speed up you can say this literally
good point but we also use it figuratively when we talk about wanting to do anything faster or better
right yes all right what's our sample sentence yeah so i might say uh i've been dragging today
meaning this is kind of fun to say you're dragging maybe a little tired doing things a little slowly
okay i need to put the pedal to the metal yeah i need to
speed up whatever i'm working on i need to get a little more serious and improve my performance i
got i love it and then another one guys i have so much to get done before today's meeting uh meeting
time to put the pedal to the metal right so it's just kind of a fun way to talk about hitting that
accelerator and getting going getting yourself motivated right aubry yes exactly i've had
that feeling i'm like oh no i have so much to do before recording at two i gotta put the pedal to
the metal i've gotta pick some themes on my to-do list i need to get them done exactly i love that
just like you jump start a car if the battery dies and you hook up the jumper cables we say you jump
start a car we also use this in business in our lives to talk about giving that boost of energy
to someone or something like you could say i need to jump start my team they're lacking motivation
right or i need okay now guys the other way we can use it again here uh we can use it as a noun
as another option right i need a jump start i'm having trouble waking up early in the morning
have you ever had to have i guess when it comes to the car itself you would say i need a jump right
is that what you would say aubry typically we shorten it to just a jump right it's a jump start
and some people i do hear say i need a jump start but often you're right lindsay you shorten it we
just say i need a jump have you ever needed a jump from another car or had to give a jump to another
car i used to have really old cars like your old volvo i had it was like a 1980 toyota starlet
they don't even make them anymore no then i had a volkswagen sirocco these were all very old cars
never even heard of that car and i had a datsun f10 oh my gosh i had a friend in high school at
a datsun that is such an old car i love it so old and every one of those at some point needed a jump
i i remember the first time i had to give someone a jump i didn't know what i was doing so i'm like
hopefully you know which one to put on the thing yeah i don't know i don't know i've never given
anyone or received a job but i don't know if i would know how to do it because you have
the two wires that come out and where do they go what happens if you do it you just end up
frying their car hopefully they know what they're doing so guys you can see today's episodes are
today's uh vocabulary is fun because it you can apply it literally and figuratively so
not every vocabulary phrase can we can do that right this is so good okay that noun saying a jump
start i hear people use that a lot when they're talking about coffee in the morning they're like
oh man i need a jump start i gotta have a cup of coffee because it gives you that boost of energy
yes i love it all right we have one more good one for our listeners today what is it yes this is a
phrasal verb ramp up so imagine a car driving up onto a ramp for more clearance like the ramp
they use when they're going to fix a car they have to get under the car to fix something yeah
so we use this verb also ramp up to talk about increasing or building up something yes i love it
to ramp up so you're kind of scaling up you're gradually going up right so for example guys
we need to ramp up our sales numbers does anyone have any ideas right yeah good example exactly
right i could imagine hearing this in a meeting like okay guys we gotta ramp up sales numbers
let's get some ideas on the table yes i love it what would be another example yeah we might say
it's vital that we ramp up efforts if we're going to finish in time yes so good so good
these are so authentic and real i couldn't imagine using them anytime myself aubrey what about you
yes same i do use these all the time and i hear them all the time they're very native natural
it's crazy how many idioms have to do with driving actually absolutely we have a real driving
culture you know i mean we talk about that in our connected communicator course we love our cars in
the us we love driving we love the countryside so yes for sure okay let's do a role play okay
i'm gonna do a role play where lindsay and i have started a dog walking business how fun would that
be i love it and we're discussing how we can improve in performance this fall okay start us
out interesting yes we definitely have time to add a few customers how can we ramp up yeah i agree we
need to get the word out maybe we could put up flyers that would jump start us good idea and we
could put the pedal to the metal on social media too maybe post in neighborhood groups on facebook
okay let's do it if we kick it into high gear we could have several new customers by next week
oh my gosh it makes it sound so easy i know right let's throw them into conversation you guys
it doesn't even feel unnatural to me to use all of those in this one conversation right actually
absolutely this made total sense so let's go back through it here for our listeners so i said we
definitely have time to add a few customers and i'm asking you audrey how can we ramp up how can
we gradually but steadily increase our customers exactly yeah right and then i say putting flyers
up might jump start us yeah that might give a boost to you know what we've got going on yeah
for sure and actually probably we just need to be on rover or something you know right not putting
flyers up but you know i'm thinking of my kid these two kids in our neighborhood just started a
pooper scooping company for dogs it's adorable and that's what they did they put flyers up on like
trees and post boxes and they got a bunch of customers so it's still a thing putting up flyers
around the neighborhood are they going after the dogs and picking up people's dogs poop no they're
doing it in people's backyards so they for like five dollars a week they go every day and clean up
any poop in your yard pretty good deal it's a good deal because i've seen in different couples like
friends of mine you know often it is the you know one of the partners is saying oh he didn't pick
up the poop in the backyard and you know she's so angry at him for not doing it it makes sense for
five dollars a week oh right it's a good deal but they're also making a fortune because it adds up
absolutely and you can scale that work you can hire new people i love it so good
all right and then i said good idea and we could put the pedal to the metal on
social media meaning we could really go hard and heavy on social media yeah right that would mean
posting on more groups and more places yeah for sure and then i said let's do it if we kick it
into high gear we could have several new customers by next week so that means like if we you know but
put in more effort maybe double our efforts kick it into high gear yeah new customers i love it i
love i love hearing about kids starting businesses because i like it when kids are thinking about how
to solve a problem it's actually i think it's so constructive it's such a good lesson you know yes
way better than like putting up a lemonade stand to you know um see a problem find a solution and
do something that's actually really helpful for your neighbors it's so good it's so good so what's
our takeaway for our listeners today aubry yeah so you guys might be feeling a need for a little
bit of an injection of motivation maybe feeling like you need to improve performance and these
idioms are all about increasing output getting that jump start that you're needing for the fall
so to kick your business english into high gear be sure to sign up for our business course you
can go to ellersenglish.com start yeah and i think today's episode is also really good for
reflection you know where in your life are you a driver right we talked about that today right we
said you know for your kids you're a driver for me it's business yo think about it yourself guys
and think about your partner and you know who is driving what in your life it's good to know
and if you're not driving anything think about what you want to drive in your life right aubry
what a good thing to reflect about right i think we're all happier we feel more successful if we
are driving something that feels useful for us i think so i think this is a key part of
having a satisfied life right so what are you driving what are you doing what are your goals
what are you going after guys good stuff all right aubrey thanks for being on the
show today this has been great i'll see you next time awesome thanks lindsay bye care bye