You might have a nephew, for example, you don't see it for a few months and then you see him and
it's like, "Wow he's changed! He's a completely different person," you know?
Because they grow so fast, right? And kind of the same thing when you're learning a lot,
you kind of, you're too myopic, you're too close to your own self
and your learning you can't see your own improvement, right?
Unless you kind of step back and see those snapshots, right?
Welcome back to Beyond Borders! Today you will learn
three powerful habits for success with RealLife English CEO Justin Murray.
Justin, welcome to the show!
Aw yeah! What is up, Ethan? I've been really looking forward to this.
And if you would like to understand fast speech, be understood by
anyone and connect to the world just like RealLifer Steve who says that our lessons
help him to take his learning outside of the classroom and immerse himself in English.
Then I want to help you on your journey too, but I can only do that if you hit the Subscribe button
and the Bell down below, so that you don't miss any of our new lessons.
I was just curious if there's any way that you think that practice could be applied to learning
a language, so for example for English learners is there a way they can be more
meticulous with the data of their learning to see patterns and to to cultivate improvements.
Yeah, definitely I think it goes back to like you and I teaching you know, we had our students do
their learning logs, like what are you doing every day, just documenting it, like how much
you are you doing of each activity, how much you're listening, how much you're speaking,
how much you're writing, what are you doing every day, right?
Just that's really important for motivation first of all. I mean it just makes you do it. This is
part of your process makes you reflective, right? Setting goals it's kind of the same thing, you set
those goals, you plan ahead, you make sure it fits into your life, but I would say there is
that angle too, like being data driven in your learning, like how much are you listening and how
does this reflect and improve listening ability. How much you're speaking,
how does this reflect in your ability to speak better, more clearly, more confidently.
Because ultimately you need to do it every day. We know that, right? Like anything that you
want to be at your best at rather than just an amateur. I mean if you want to turn pro,
you want to make it a part of who you are, you need to do it every day.
And it doesn't need to be like speaking every day, that can be hard to find that opportunity,
unless you download the RealLife App, and go and press that button and connect with
partners from all around the world, right? But yeah, that's actually keeping it simple,
having a four minute conversation, you know? Having a four minute conversation,
that's once per day, really simple, write it down in your in your log.
But yeah, going back to just the main ideas is making sure that you're cultivating a nice mixture
of activities: listening to podcasts, watching TV series, talking with people, think really deeply
about what you want to accomplish and even imagine yourself at the end of your life, all the people,
your friends, your family, your workmates, the people from your spiritual community,
what are they going to say at your funeral? And to think really where are you going and so
that really puts things into perspective to write a mission, a clear mission, to really refine it
and then keep coming back to that and so that's one thing you can do when you're journaling.
You can refine that mission, you can come back to it.
Another thing they talk about in that book as well is breaking your life into dimensions,
right? So you think about your body, your mind, your spirit, your social life and so.
This is something I do, so I kind of like having each dimension,
like my spiritual practice: meditation. From there it's like my exercise, right?
So it's like my health and vitality and there's work as well, so it's like my craft
and calling and each of those areas I kind of clarify what I want for my life and of course
there's a social aspect of everything, and then there's the learning aspect of everything, right?
So it's like you constantly need to be learning to be curious, to be developing, and this is
where reading books comes in, but apart from that journaling is like really useful because,
I mean, first of all there's so much you can do in there,
and it's like each each page of your journal is a canvas. So you can do gratitude practice,
just sit down and think about, "Hmm, what am I grateful for in my life?"
There's a ton more for you to learn with Justin and other incredible teachers and experts.
You can get the full interviews from Beyond Borders anywhere where you listen to podcasts.
However I would recommend that you listen on the RealLife English App. It is the only place where
you can get a transcript for the full episode and learn all the most important vocabulary and more.
Plus, many learners like you tell me that they are frustrated that they don't have anyone to
practice what they are learning with. Well on the RealLife App you can have conversations in
English with people from all around the world at the touch of a button and discover new cultures.
So if you are ready to step outside the classroom and live your English then
download the app now by searching for RealLife English in the Apple App or Google Play Store
or simply click on the link up here or down the description below.
It's not waking up every day and believing that loving what you're doing, because it's not always
fun, right? Sometimes it's difficult, it's hard, you know, just like running, waking up and going
for a long run and you're hurting and you don't want to and you failed, your body sore, right?
Kind of the same thing-- like lighting that fire, you know? Having that fire, keeping that lit,
keep staying passionate about it, um, there's a deliberate practice,
which is actually mastering the skills, and I felt like we didn't really give it a go.
We had a lot of things going for us at that time, right? But we were immature, like we had
too much going on, we were trying to do events, we were trying to do podcasts, we were trying to
do the, you know, YouTube videos, trying to do like blog posts and we were a small team, right?
So it's like, we're trying to do too much, there's so much we're trying to do and we just had so much
to learn, so I would say like just coming back and having that humility, looking at ourselves
taking responsibility for our own failures, right? And then experimenting, you know,
if something's not working, if Plan A doesn't workm try Plan B, if Plan B doesn't work try Plan
C, keep going. And if you keep doing, if you keep doing the same thing you get lost in that and that
becomes the path to failure because you're not experimenting, you're not changing, but if you're
changing and experimenting, that gives you hope. Because you start building, you start building new
strategies, you start discovering new paths, for example, like in that same time period
there was reason for hope because we we had started Learn English with TV
Series. Perseverance is the answer, right? So it's really hard to say, um you know,
when the right time to keep going isn't when the right time to quit is, but in our case there was
just a lot going well and I thought we really hadn't like learned and grown to the point where
we were really masters of our own craft. And that we needed to really give it an
honest chance before we could stop and say "Oh this didn't work out and feel good about it."
Yeah and we're always learning, it's not like we've figured it out now and
and we're just laying back and waiting for the the money to roll in, or the success to roll in,
or whatever the case is. It's like always an uphill battle but it's one, I think like,
you said it's the passion that we've cultivated, that passion that we're willing to keep rolling
the boulder up the hill in some sense, even when it's difficult we're willing to push.
And something else you said there, the focus too, at that in that moment that
was like about four and a half years ago or so that we stopped doing the podcast for a while,
dedicate yourself and focus yourself on something, even if it's maybe-- it's not the
absolute best thing, but just the fact that you're showing up every day or every week,
whatever the case is, and you're doing that, you know, you're continuing to do it, um like you said
until you've become a master of it in some sense.
I want to know are there any habits that you have found to help set you up for success.
Is there something you absolutely have to do every day like journaling or meditating?
Comment it down below for me and your fellow learners and see what other people have said.
Maybe you will discover an exciting new hobby.
Now let's see what Justin's final favorite habit is.
It's just so much to be grateful for and if you sit down and make a practice out of
actually just writing it down, even just a couple minutes a day, uh it's actually scientifically
proven that it's going to drastically change your general feeling of well-being in life.
It's kind of like, I've read that we're evolved for to feel fear, to look out for danger,
right? To constantly be kind of pessimistic. But gratitude kind of
trains your brain to be like velcro for the positive things, because normally
we're like velcro for the negative things, right? We have a built-in negativity, but we can train
our brain to be positive about things and to kind of deflect the negativity.
Yeah, most of our default program tends to be to complain about things when things aren't going
exactly how we want them to go. When we feel something is unfair a lot of us will default to
complaining or to feeling victimized and I think when you start practicing gratitude
it really helps you to flip that around, so that instead of complaining maybe if
you you start complaining about something you catch yourself you can turn that into, "Well,
what am I grateful for in this situation or this moment?" or whatever the case is, and if
you can-- I think having the concrete practice of doing it every single day, like writing it
in your journal or just taking a few minutes to reflect on it at the same time every day,
that can be really good to build a habit but then you can start to branch that out and
to try to think of it in other moments of your life, if you find yourself complaining or you
find that you feel something is unfair or whatever the case is even before a meal
like you can stop close your eyes and just like just connect to yourself, connect to the
moment connect to the food, the smells, the presence of the people that are around you.
I think it's very powerful if you can make that a practice, it's mindfulness in some sense, right?
I think you're right Ethan, and it's so true. I think it comes back to this idea that we have
total control over what we focus on in any given moment, so maybe they are judging you
but if you're not thinking about that, that doesn't have to hinder your connection with
them. It's about what you say, right? It's about what you do that opens the connection.