Beliefs Mini-Story

 

Hello, this is AJ Hoge, and this is the mini‑story for “Beliefs.”
Are you feeling good? Good posture? Deep breathing? Big smile? Moving? I hope so. I’m not going to start this story until you are. Alright, let’s do it.
* * * * *
There was a guy.
Was there a girl or was there a guy?
A guy, I just said it. There was a guy.
And what was his name? Was his name Bill?
No, no, no, no, no.
What was his name? Well, come on, what was his name?
His name was George.
There was a guy and his name was George. And George, of course, had a problem. 
What was his problem?
Well in fact, George had two problems.
Oh no.
Not just one problem, George had two problems.
How many problems did he have?
Two, George had two problems.
What was his first problem?
Well, his first problem was that girls always laughed at him.
Oh, that’s not a good problem.
Who always laughed at George?
Girls, all girls, all women, they all laughed at George.
How often did girls laugh at George?
Well, always. Every time he talked to them, they always laughed at him. 
What did they always do?
They laughed at him, they always laughed at him.
They always laughed at…
…George, that’s right. Girls always laughed at George. So that was his first problem.
What was his second problem?
Well, his second problem was that he loved, loved Angela. And, of course, Angela was a girl.
So girls always laughed at George and George loved Angela. So that was a problem. Who did George love?
Angela, he loved Angela.
He wanted to impress Angela.
Did he want Angela to like him?
Yes, he wanted to impress her. He wanted Angela to like him. He wanted Angela to think good things about him. He wanted to impress her.
Who wanted to impress Angela?
George, George wanted to impress Angela. 
What did he want to do?
Well, he wanted to impress her, make her think good things about him. 
But, of course, girls always laughed at him. Oh no, big problem for George. In fact, George had dating trauma.
What did he have?
Dating trauma.
Dating what?
Trauma, George had dating trauma, dating pain, dating injury. 
Why did George have dating trauma?
Well, because girls always laughed at him when he asked them for a date.
They always laughed at him when?
When he asked them for a date. 
When he asked them for a what they always laughed at him?
For a date, when he asked them for a date they always laughed at him.
So what did he have?
Dating trauma, George had dating trauma, dating pain, deep dating pain.
Was Angela a girl?
Yes, she was, she was a girl.
What kind of girl?
A gorgeous girl, a beautiful girl.
Now was this good or bad?
Of course, it was terrible.
Beautiful girls laughed even more at George.
Did beautiful girls laugh more or less at George?
More, they laughed more. Poor George, beautiful girls laughed even more at him. 
With beautiful girls he had super dating trauma. So George had some very big 
problems. But one day he decided “I will develop new empowering beliefs.”
What did he say?
Well, he said “I will develop new empowering beliefs.”
What kind of beliefs was he going to get?
Empowering beliefs, he was going to get empowering beliefs. He was going to develop empowering beliefs. 
Was he going to develop old empowering beliefs?
No, not old, his old beliefs were negative. His old beliefs were limiting. He was going to develop new empowering beliefs.
New empowering what? Beliefs.
What was he going to heal with his empowering beliefs?
He was going to heal his dating trauma. He was going to heal his dating trauma with new empowering beliefs.
So every day he said an incantation.
Who said an incantation every day?
George, George said a new incantation every day.
When did he do it? How often?
Every day, every day he said a new incantation. 
What was the incantation? Do you know? Well, I’ll tell you.
His incantation was “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” Every day George looked in the mirror and he said “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” It was his incantation. He said it all the time. He was eating breakfast, he said “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” When he was walking to work he said “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” 
During lunch he said “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” Going home from work he said “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” Eating dinner, watching TV, all the time, every day, he said the same incantation “I’m handsome and I’m cool.”
What was his incantation?
His incantation was “I’m handsome and I’m cool.”
He repeated it again and again and again and again. It was an incantation. He started to believe it. So he started to go to the gym. He went to the gym every day. At the gym he worked out. He lifted weights. He exercised. 
What did he say when he was exercising?
He said his incantation, of course. He said “I’m handsome and I’m cool” and he exercised “I’m handsome and I’m cool.” 
And he exercised “I’m handsome and I’m cool” and he exercised. He got stronger. Then he went to a public speaking class. He learned how to speak to people. 
And before every speech, what did he say?
You know, he said his incantation. 
He said “Hi, I’m George and I’m handsome and I’m cool” and then he gave his speech. And when he finished he said “Thank you, I’m George and I’m handsome and I’m cool.” He became stronger. His speaking got better and better and better. And one day, amazingly, he was handsome. And one day, amazingly, he was cool. He walked over to Angela’s apartment. He knocked on the door. She answered. He said “Hi, I’m George. I’m handsome and I’m cool and I want you.” 
Of course, she yelled “You bet, you’re hot, I love you!”
What did she say?
She said “You bet.” You bet means of course, definitely, I agree. If you say you bet it means you’re awesome, I agree with you. So she said I agree, definitely. She said “You bet.” And she said “You’re hot.” She said to George you’re hot, hot means sexy. 
Hot means handsome and sexy, or for a woman, beautiful and sexy. So she said I agree, you’re sexy, she said “You bet, you’re hot.”
George was very happy. And of course, he was handsome and cool.
* * * * *
Alright, that is the end of the mini‑story for “Beliefs.” As always, listen to it many times. When you listen, strong posture, big smile. Deep breaths and move, and if you want to, you can be like George. You can say “I’m a great English speaker” in the morning. 
During lunch you can say “I’m a great English speaker.” At work you can say “Hi, how you doing? I’m a great English speaker.” When you answer the phone you can say “Hello? I’m a great English speaker.” When you go home on the train, tell everybody on the train “Hi, I’m a great English speaker, how are you?” And when you get home, jump around your house, tell your girlfriend, tell your wife, tell your husband, tell your kids “I’m a great English speaker.” 

And before you go to bed, look in the mirror and say “Hi, I’m a great English speaker.” You might actually believe it. It might come true.

Alright I’ll see you next time.

Beliefs Vocabulary

 

Hello, this AJ Hoge again. Time for the vocabulary lesson for “Beliefs.” As always, be sure you’re standing strong. Good posture, big smile. Deep breath, move your body. Let’s begin.

In this lesson I used a few difficult words. Maybe difficult, maybe not, I don’t know. Let’s talk about them. Number one is the word trauma. Now trauma is a noun. Trauma means an injury or a deep hurt. Now it can be physical, for example, if you break your leg that is a physical trauma. It’s a physical injury. It’s a deep physical hurt. Trauma can also mean a deep emotional hurt. 

So something very painful in your life, you feel very, very sad, for example. Very, very angry, that is also a trauma, a very painful experience. A painful, emotional hurt, trauma. So again, that’s trauma. So we have emotional trauma and we also have physical trauma. 

So, of course, in this lesson we’re talking about emotional traumas, hopefully nobody hit you when you’re learning your English, so probably it was emotional trauma. You felt a lot of stress perhaps when you were learning English in the past or maybe just boredom. But for some students, I’d say probably for most students, there are a lot of negative emotional feelings and beliefs about English learning and altogether I call these English trauma, English pain, English hurt. And so really what this entire lesson pack, all of this power English lesson pack is about is healing your English trauma. 

Okay, another word we talked about in this lesson, incantation. Incantation. Incantation is a phrase or a sentence that you repeat again and again and again. So, for example, “Every day my English speaking is better and better. Every day my English speaking is better and better. Every day my English speaking is better and better.” That’s an incantation. You saying it again and again and again. And it has a little bit of a magical idea, that these words are magical. And you know, actually they kind of are magical because they change your emotion. They change your feelings about English, in this case.

So saying that again and again, every day, saying it with emotion, saying it strongly, “Every day my English speaking is better and better. Every day my English speaking is better and better. Every day my English speaking is better and better.” That actually is a little bit magical because it changes your feelings. Your feelings about English will improve. You will start to believe this. You will believe your English is getting better. 

And when you believe it, it will be true. You will be getting better and better. So there is kind of a magical idea about incantations. By repeating these things again and again with power, that you are changing your mind and you’re changing the situation. Almost like magic. So that’s incantation. It’s the actual sentence that you say again and again.

Another word we use a lot in this lesson is empowering. The verb is to empower, to empower. So, of course, power is the basic word, power, strength, right? Power, but to empower, empower means to give power to someone or to cause power to grow in someone. For example, maybe you have a child, a small child, and every day you tell the child “You are so smart. You are intelligent.” You tell them again “You’re intelligent, you’re smart, you’re intelligent, you’re smart.” You tell this again and again and again, every day for years and years and years. 

You are empowering the child. You’re giving them power. Because they will believe it, after some time they will believe it. They’ll think “Oh, wow, I am intelligent. I am very smart.” Right? So you’re giving them power. You’re making them feel more powerful. You are empowering the child. You’re giving power to the child. So to empower is to give power or cause power in someone else. So in this way, these beliefs empower you. The beliefs give power to you. They cause power in you. So we call them empowering beliefs. We add the “ing” it becomes an adjective. Empowering beliefs. 

And the opposite of an empowering belief is a limiting belief. And in the lesson I talked about, limiting means stopping. A limit is something that stops you. It’s kind of like a border, a boundary. You can’t go past it. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you. It prevents you from doing something. So in this case limiting beliefs prevent you, stop you, from speaking excellent English. The belief stops you. You could speak excellent English but you have these negative beliefs, you have these limiting beliefs, and so you are stopped, you are prevented. You cannot do it. So it’s limiting, limiting beliefs. 

Our next word is complicated. Pretty common word, complicated. It’s similar to complex, complex and complicated, very close in meaning, very similar. And they are the opposite of simple. So simple and complicated are opposites. Complicated means not simple. It means there’s a lot of little pieces, alright? If something is simple maybe there’s just one piece. It’s very easy to understand. But if something is complicated, there are many little pieces to it, part of it. It’s difficult to understand all of them. 

So some people think English is complicated. Oh my god, nouns and verbs and the past progressive and the future tense and past perfect progressive and all these grammar terms and they “Oh my god, it’s so complicated.” And it is complicated if you learn that way. If you try to memorize, if you try to think about all these little grammar rules then absolutely, yes, it will feel complicated. But luckily it’s not necessary. You don’t need to do that. English can feel simple. 

Finally, we have the word reference. Reference or references. A reference is an example. It can have different meanings in different situations, but here it means an example, a specific example of something. So you have this belief “English is painful.” And then you have references, you have examples, that prove it. For example, “In middle school my teacher made me feel stupid.” Right? That’s the reference, that is the example, the specific reference, the specific example. And then you have another reference, “I failed my high school English test.” So now you have two references, your middle school teacher made you feel stupid and you failed your high school test. Two references, two examples of the belief “English is painful.” So most beliefs have all these little references, these little examples. You use the references to prove the belief. 

So if you question the references you can destroy the belief. So again a reference is, in this case, a reference is an example, a specific example of something. And references support beliefs, references create beliefs.Okay, that is all, a very short and easy vocabulary lesson for this one. That is all of the vocabulary lesson for “Beliefs.” Listen to it a few times. Read the transcript, if necessary. But focus most of your energy on the main speech and on the mini‑story. 

Those are the two most important lessons. Those are the ones you need to listen to very often, repeatedly, and learn them deeply.

Okay, I will see you next time.