It’s a beautiful day here in Shanghai.  I’m feeling pretty good today and I wanted to share some simple, but good advice with you.

Give yourself a break!  What do I mean?  I’m not talking about a holiday (although, going on a holiday is pretty sweet).

I’m just talking about giving yourself a break from any feelings you have of guilt.  We all have things that we’re feeling guilty about, maybe not super guilty, but even just a little.

Maybe your diet hasn’t been great lately.  Maybe you haven’t been the greatest boyfriend or girlfriend in your relationship lately.  Maybe you aren’t happy with how little you’ve been exercising or studying.  Maybe you have been doing as well as you’d like in business or at work.  I don’t know.  But I am guessing there is probably at least one thing in your life where you feel like you are kind of  blaming or even hating yourself in some way.

My advice today is simple:  Take a break from any self-hate, guilt, or worry that you have for at least today.  Just take a moment to realize that this worry and guilt you feel isn’t helping you.

I’m not saying that you should just do whatever you want and not care anymore.  I’m just suggesting that you take one day to completely forgive yourself 100% for anything that you are blaming yourself for.  Forget about what you did or didn’t do.  The blame isn’t helping the situation.  You should also stop blaming other people or outside events.  Just accept whatever situation you are in, at least for today.  See how you feel.

Just smile, relax, and enjoy being you.  None of us are perfect and we all have things we are blaming ourselves for.  It sucks our energy and makes us feel less confident, less happy, and just worse in pretty much every way.  This self blame, even if it is pretty small, isn’t helping the people around you either.

So just let go of any pain from the past that you are holding onto.  Today is a new day and you can change anything in your life starting now.  It will be a lot easier to do this if you can stop dragging the pain from the past into each and every day.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.   Your responses to the last blog were absolutely amazing by the way!

Have a great day

I’m pretty excited for today’s blog.  I love the topic.  I’m even more excited to read your comments!  I really want to let you guys know that even if you don’t realize it, it’s your comments that make me continue writing this blog.  Trust me, I read them all and I think about them all.  They make a big difference.

Ok….. Today’s topic is about “being yourself”.  This phrase is used all the time in spoken English.  It’s supposed to be good advice.

In most western countries (maybe other countries too), if you ask you parents for advice on how to act when you are on your first date, most of them will just tell you to “be yourself”.  Everyone seems to agree with this idea of “being yourself”, but I honestly wonder if they are even thinking about it AT ALL when they give this kind of advice.  I often think people just say things without really thinking about what they are saying.  It drives me insane!

What does “be yourself” mean anyway?  Basically it just means “don’t be fake” and “do and act the way that you feel is natural to you”.

Well, that sounds great, but what if the “real you” doesn’t work?  What if people don’t like “the real you”?  What if they are offended by your jokes or your personality?  Should you change? or should you just keep “being yourself” and seeing what happens?

I’ve thought about this question a lot actually.  I’ve thought about it for my entire life.  Sometimes I even think about it when I make lessons for this website.  I don’t want to offend or upset other people, but I still want to be my REAL self.

The reason this question is so important to me is because “the real me” doesn’t always work; not even close!  Bosses and teachers often HATE the real me.  They get embarrassed by my sense of humour, etc.  (The truth is that I don’t like them either, but that’s another story)…..

After thinking about this question for years and years, I think I believe that I should try really hard to be myself.  It’s too important.  The truth is that I might miss out on certain opportunities because I’m not always obsessed with doing what society thinks is normal, but if I am not myself, I will end up feeling completely sick.  And who wants to feel sick?  That’s horrible.

The truth is that I never want to offend anyone.  It’s never my goal.  It’s also true that I don’t always have the same opinions as other people.  We are all different to some extent.

So what should I do?  Do I have to keep all my thoughts and opinions inside?  Should I be afraid of accidentally offending someone who is overly sensitive in my opinion?  I hope not…

It’s kind of a weird feeling when you make podcasts and videos.  Trust me, I totally know 100% that I’m not some super famous person.  But, over the years, millions of people have downloaded our podcasts and/or watched our videos.  (It’s a lot more of the podcasts but the videos on learnenglish232.com will catch up fast).  The point is that Add and I have seen tons of comments about our work.  We know that we have fans, but we also know that thousands of people probably listen to 30 seconds of one podcast or watch a few seconds of one video and think “I hate these guys”, “This is boring”, “This sucks”, or WORSE.  It’s only natural that this happens, it’s just a weird feeling when you experience it personally.

At the end of the day, I think Add and I have to keep on being ourselves and just being happy with it, no matter what happens.  We certainly have to try to keep getting better and to be the absolute best we can, but we need to just be careful not to “change” anything about our fundamental “core” beliefs.  We want to make the best stuff in the world for our REAL fans, and just forget about anyone who doesn’t really understand the whole point of the 232.  Let’s face it, some people don’t get it.

Large companies have no personality because they are too worried about trying to make everyone happy.  That’s not really our job.  That seems too boring.  I was talking to another popular online teacher about this the other day.  He told me he has decided not to share his real thoughts and feelings with the world because he doesn’t want to “get into politics” or have to deal with all the emails from people he offends.

I totally understand his perspective, but Add and I have a different opinion on this.  We want you guys to know the real us.  We think it will make for much better lessons, and a much more interesting environment for real discussion and real English learning.

What do you guys think?  Should we keep being ourselves?  Should we worry about accidentally offending people with some of our jokes?  Should we be even MORE like the real us?

We’d love to know your thoughts on this.  One thing Add and I both love is brutal honesty; you know, the real truth.  If you totally agree, please say so and why.  If you totally disagree and think something we say or do is retarded or ridiculous, please say that too.  Not just with this blog, but always.  No matter what the feedback is, we love hearing the real truth.  It makes everyone better and it makes the world more interesting.

Also, what about this question in YOUR own life?  Are you your real self all the time?  When, if ever, do you think it’s useful to be “fake”?

I hope this blog made sense, and I hope you found it at least somewhat interesting.

Ok……….          I’m waiting for those comments guys!  And girls

Oh ya… If you have ANY blog topic requests or video lesson requests, please write them in the comments and I’ll do my best to make that asap!

Andy

I just read a really great article about how successful people lower or reduce their stress levels.

I naturally get stressed all the time so I often find myself reading these kinds of things.  Most of the articles I find online aren’t really that good, but this one was one of the better ones I’ve seen.  It’s from the Harvard Business school.

I wanted to share it with you for 2 reasons.  The first reason is that I’m sure you’ll find it interesting and helpful.  Even if you aren’t a stress case, I’m sure that you’ve had times in your life where stress was annoying and you wanted a healthy way to get rid of it.  This article will help you for that.  It’s enjoyable to read and think about.

The second reason I wanted to share it with you is that it is a perfect level of English for us to discuss together.  I’m sure you’ll learn some great English in here.  This will help improve your reading comprehension.  (“Reading comprehension” means how well you understand what you read).

I want you to read it first and try to get the main idea.  Don’t use a dictionary.  Then read it one more time and write down any words or phrases that you don’t understand 100%.  Even if you almost understand them but not quite perfectly, write them down and share them in the comments section.  After I get about 20 good comments, I’ll write a free lesson which explains all these words.

I hope this is quite useful and I think it will be.  Enjoy the article and remember to comment.  Don’t be shy!  Thanks gusy:)

Here is the article:  How to Lower Stress

I spend about 20% of my “waking hours” reading stuff.  I absolutely love learning new things on a variety of topics.  I want to include more educational or inspirational material in these blogs.  Ideas which can hopefully benefit you guys in different ways.

You probably already guessed the meaning of the term “waking hours”.  It is a common expression to refer to the time a person is awake in a normal day.   Here is an example:

He spends almost all of his “waking hours” thinking about ways to earn more money.

Ok, I’m starting to get off topic and I want to start writing about what I originally planned on.

I recently read a scientific study about optimists and pessimists.  ”Optimists” are optimistic people, people who tend to look at things positively.  ”Pessimists” are the opposite.

I think everyone already knows that optimists are more likely to succeed than pessimists.  This part is nothing new.

Here is the interesting thing I learned:  Optimists are much LESS accurate in their predictions than pessimists.  Basically, optimists are more “wrong” in their guesses.

Pessimists are much more realistic.  They aren’t just more “negative” than optimists, they are also more likely to make a reasonable guess.

So optimists have crazy and unrealistic beliefs about how good their future is going to be, and this helps them in life big time!

Think about what this means.  Optimists are willing to try new things.  They don’t fear failure as much as pessimists do because they think everything is going to be awesome for them.  They are more likely to learn English faster, they are more likely to get better jobs, they are more likely to get a perfect body if they go to the gym, they are more likely to date who they most want to date.

Pessimists are more likely to quit things before they really start trying.  This is sad.  They can already see the negative things that might happen if they try.  They might think, “What if I fail”?  ”What if I lose my money”?  ”What if she or he says no when I ask them on a date”?  ”What if it takes me 1 year to learn great English instead of only 1 week”?

The truth is that pessimists are often very intelligent people.  They think a lot.  They often think too much.  This can be a problem.  It can make them afraid to try.  The truth is that neither optimists nor pessimists knows exactly what the future will be like, but at least optimists will try things and take active steps to get the better life they want.  It is this positive action that makes them more likely to succeed than pessimists.  This is why being smart isn’t always enough.

So, if you are a pessimist, which we all are sometimes, you should seriously learn from this.  I’m often a pessimist in my own life.  The thing to learn is that it’s better to just try things instead of focussing and worrying what could go wrong.   Stop being afraid, failure isn’t as bad as you think.  It’s not trying that is the real failure in life.

Here is an example.  If you are a pessimist and are thinking about joining the VIP membership, but you are a little worried that it won’t help much, I understand how you feel.  I’ll make you a deal.  If you try it and you don’t like the results after 3 months, I’ll give you all your money back.  I’m really not saying you should buy the VIP membership if you don’t want to, but I hope that it’s not your pessimistic side speaking to you.   My point is, don’t let your fears or doubts get in the way of your success.  You can apply this to many or even most areas of your life.

For other things you are considering, I encourage you to take more chances and risks.  Learn from the optimists.  Your life will be better for it.  Look for a better job.  Ask that guy or girl you like on a date.  Try more things that could possibly help you.  If you keep doing this, your life will be better for it; A LOT better.  Even if you are kind of sceptical or a bit afraid of something, just remember that taking more chances is a great thing.

There is a very famous saying in English that says, “Life with no risk is no life at all“.  Think about it.

Some questions for you:

Are you generally an optimist or a pessimist?

Did you learn anything about yourself from this blog?

After reading this post, are you planning on making any changes in your own life?  What changes?

Thanks guys!  I can’t wait to read your comments

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about instincts.   I hate agonizing (too much thinking) over decisions I have to make.  Over thinking is a terrible habit but I don’t know what to do about it.  It gives me a headache and I waste a lot of time in the decision making process.  I wish I could give my brain a vacation and just do whatever “feels” like a good idea.  I wish I could “trust my instincts” and blindly believe that they will naturally make the right decisions for me.  There is only one problem.  My instincts often suck!

I don’t know about you, but my instincts often tell me to stay up super late, eat a lot of junk food, drink too much beer, and watch countless hours of hilarious TV.   I “know” it’s stupid but it “feels” like a good idea.  That’s why it’s so tempting.  Our logical brain is always arguing with our emotions and desires.

Continue reading…