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Alright, it is a beautiful day, guys.
Barely any clouds, new hat, hope you
like it and I think it is time to go
into a bit of photography and maybe
also talk English and English
learning tips. Anyway, looking
forward to sunset, sunset is about an
hour and a half away. And, yeah,
hopefully I can get some good shots
of some birds, do a bit of study as
well and drop some knowledge bombs
for you, guys. See how we go.

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Alright, so I'm off to my old
stomping grounds, my old photography
stomping grounds. I'm going to go
down and check out Queenscliff, the
boat ramp, I might take these off
seeing that it's not too bright and I
want to see what animals are down
there. The good thing is, it's sunset
in an hour and a half, two hours, so
the light's going to be really good,
there's no clouds at the moment. The
sun, the sun, the skie is really open
and on top of that I just checked the
tides and the tide is currently lower
inside the bay at the moment. So,
Queenscliff is inside the bay near
Swan Bay, it's inside Port Phillip
Bay, in Victoria.

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The problem when I check the tides
for Ocean Grove, which is where I
live, is that quite often the tides
on one side of the bay, the sea side
of the bay, are one and two hours
ahead of the one day inside the bay
because, obviously, the water has to
go inside the bay, reach the certain
areas that it's, you know, going up
or down and then it has to go out of
the bay. So, quite often I check the
tides, but accidentally check Ocean
Grove and I'll go down there and be
like 'oh crap I'm two hours ahead of
time'.

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Anyway so, let's go down there, see
if I can get some good shots, but I
thought, as usual, we can have a bit
of a rant, a bit of a chat whilst I
drive down there because there's a
few things that I've been thinking
about and wanting to talk to you
about recently. So, I guess, first
and foremost, I want to talk about
your biggest enemy in English.

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Your biggest enemy in English and
I've been thinking about this for a
while because a lot of people ask me
'how do I become a more confident
English speaker?' , 'How do I speak
more fluently?', 'How do I improve my
English?' and especially like 'how do
I improve my English the most in the
shortest amount of time?'. So, there
are a lot of different things that I
just try and unpack and talk about,
but they're all kind of linked
together and they're all kind of
linked together, I think, through
ego, right?

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I think the biggest thing that holds
people back in English isn't
necessarily poor English, isn't
necessarily poor grammar, isn't
necessarily poor fluency, but I think
a step, a step back puts things, in
fact, yeah, a step back from those
things, it's all about ego and how
you view yourself and compare
yourself to other people. And that
that quite often is the reason your
English isn't doing as well as it
could be because you're self limiting
because of your ego and the fact that
you're still holding onto your ego so
much.

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So, this was a big problem when I was
doing Jiu Jitsu, when I was at the
gym. You would meet a lot of people
and it probably happens in any
endeavour, right? Any kind of
endeavour you're trying to improve
at, any, it could be tennis, could be
photography, could be English, could
be Jiu Jitsu, it could be
bodybuilding, could be learning
French, could be whatever it is,
something you're trying to improve
at, when you're doing this and you're
not alone, right? You're not doing it
by yourself and you're surrounded
with other people who are also doing
that thing, that endeavour, you know?
Whether it's you're surrounded by
other English speakers because you're
trying to improve your English or
you're at a gym and there are heaps
of other people working out and
trying to get fit as well or maybe
you're in a Jiu Jitsu class, and
there's a whole heap of people at
different grades, different skill
levels to whom you're comparing
yourself constantly and, obviously,
trying to keep improving yourself,
but judging yourself and your
abilities and your self-worth, you
know? Comparing your ego to those of
other people.

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Which isn't necessarily a fair
comparison and I think that happens
quite a lot in English. Because I
have a lot of students, I guess,
who...when they ask me about how they
can improve their confidence, quite
often it's all about ego and how they
see themselves, so it's an internal
thing more so than an external thing,
right? Which is a good thing because
you you've got control over it, more
or less. Or at least it's under your
control to try and solve, to try and
fix, to try and improve that
situation.

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So, quite often the biggest problem
with people trying to build that
confidence is they feel that they
lack confidence because they're
worried about making mistakes. That's
where most people tend to stop.
They're like 'oh, well, ok. I need to
get better not make any more mistakes
and I'll be more confident', but the
truth is it's a step deeper than
that, right? It's not about whether
or not you're making mistakes, that's
whether or not you're confident.
There are plenty of people who are
very confident at whatever it is,
learning English in this case, who
make loads of mistakes, so it's
deeper than that, it's not just about
your lack of errors in grammar, in
vocab, in fluency whatever it is.

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It's more about how you view yourself
when you make mistakes and so I
think, for me at least, when I was
doing Jiu Jitsu and when I was
learning Portuguese and French, the
moment that I started improving the
fastest, right? You can imagine
you've got like an improvement curve
Where there's a certain gradient on
that curve, right? The steepness of
that gradient, how quickly you're
improving.

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I think for me, at least,
subjectively, the moment I realized
that I was improving the fastest, was
when I learned to embrace making
mistakes, or at the very least not
necessarily embrace them, but not use
them as something against which I
measure my abilities or I measure my
self worth, ok? A big a big thing is
getting your ego in check and and
controlling the fact that...and
controlling how you view the mistakes
that you make, right? Changing the
way you view those mistakes, whether
you make a few or you make a lot, if
you can stop viewing them as a
reflection upon your ability in
whatever it is, English, Learning
English, all of a sudden your
confidence is going to get a massive
boost because you're no longer going
to be worried about making not making
errors, right?

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It's going to leave your
consciousness, you're going to at
least slowly over time you're going
to become less and less worried, less
and less concentrated on mistakes
that you make because you know
they're going to fix themselves over
time and, ultimately, anyone who's
using a language or learning a
language isn't...the objective isn't
to use the language with the fewest
amount of errors, the objective is to
be understood and communicate, right?
To pass on messages.

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So, I think people's biggest
enemies... So, I think people's
biggest enemy when it comes to
improving at anything tends to be the
ego, it tends to be their ego that's
holding them back, you know, they
won't try new things because they are
worried they'll make a mistake or it
won't be perfect and they'll be
embarrassed by it, when in actual
fact if they did try something, they
would learn from that thing, right?
Even if they got it wrong, even if it
wasn't perfect. The very fact that
they've done it, it gives them more
experience and puts them forward, so
it goes to show that the fact that
they've made errors is actually
propelling them forward in whatever
skill that they're trying to improve
on.

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And, so yeah, I guess that's my real
rant today about how to build
confidence and how to improve fast,
as fast as possible in English. I
think the way to improve as quickly
as possible and to build your
confidence as quickly as possible is
really thinking about your ego.

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And, I guess, I need to try and think
of some constructive ways to, you
know,  constructive advice to give
you on how to do so, but I think the
biggest thing would just be get over
yourself, you know, ultimately you're
the obstacle or the biggest obstacle
in your way when it comes to
improvement in say English, your view
of yourself and holding yourself back
because you're worried about making
mistakes because you're worried about
looking stupid, because you're
worried about not sounding like a
native, not sounding perfect, because
you're worried about not being
understood.

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All of those fears are the real
thing, are the real things that are
going to be holding you back a lot
more than say your lack of knowledge
of grammar or your lack of vocab or
your less than perfect pronunciation,
and the good thing is that's
something that you can change on the
spot, effectively, you know?
Obviously, it takes time you have to
work at it, but it's the kind of
thing that you have absolute control
over, but have to put in the time,
have to put in the effort and remind
yourself on a daily basis to let go,
to relax, to not use your, I guess,
lack of perfection, number of errors,
as a measurement for your worth or
for your level in English, right?

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So, I guess bring it back to two
stories. This happened with me in
Portuguese. I remember moving into
this house in Canberra where there
were five Portuguese speakers, five
Brazilians living there and I moved
in with Kel, and I remember I decided
that moment when we moved in I'm like
'you know what? I'm just going to
speak Portuguese here'. I mean,
obviously, if they ask me something
in English or they use English we can
speak in English, but I'm going to do
my darndest, I'm ever going to try as
hard as I can to only speak
Portuguese, so that my Portuguese
improves. And that meant forcing
myself to make mistakes all the time
because I wasn't allowed to fall back
on English and used English to ask
about how to say certain things or
use English words when I couldn't
think of them in Portuguese, I forced
myself to communicate, to at all
costs use Portuguese to get messages
across and not use English.

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This was really embarrassing for me,
if I'm being honest, for the first
week, maybe even less, for the first
few days. The sentence, as I told you
guys in a previous video, the most
useful sentence in English is 'how do
you say this?' Or 'how can I say this
more naturally?', right. It's not
necessarily one sentence, but it's
having that idea or having that
attitude that you're going to ask for
feedback and doing it on a regular
basis, doing it all the time.

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And, so the moment that I got over
myself and the moment that I realized
people weren't really fazed with me
making mistakes, they didn't care,
was me that cared. It was all in my
head, right?'It was me that was like
'I'm an idiot, I suck', you know, 'my
Portuguese is embarrassing'. All the
Brazilians could still communicate
with me. They could still speak with
me and it wasn't really on their end,
they weren't judging me because of
mistakes I was making, it was all my
ego.

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And, so within the first week I kind
of got over making mistakes and it
just became normal. So, I'd sort of
put my ego in check and taken up the
position of hey these guys and native
speakers of this language I'm not
expected to be a native speaker of
this language, I am in the position,
in this case, of a student and these
guys are the teachers. So, there's no
need to be embarrassed about whatever
happens, right? And so I think if you
take that view on your English
anytime you come into a conversation,
one; you're not going to come off as
arrogant, right? Because you don't
trying to show off, you're not trying
to prove your worth, you know? You
have worth outside of English,
anyway. So, it's kind of irrelevant
how good your English is attached to
your worth as a person and your ego.

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So, that was one thing that happened
with Portuguese and my Portuguese
rapidly improved because, all of a
sudden, I wasn't afraid of making
mistakes and I was focussed much more
on being able to communicate And I
found that I found every time I made
a mistake, it was refreshing because
it was like oh, ok, another thing
that I need to fix, another thing
that I need to fix and for sure there
were a shitload of mistakes in the
beginning.

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And, so you know in every
conversation there were some
questions about 'how do I say this?',
'how do I say that?', 'how do I say
this?', 'what's the word for this
again?', 'I want to say this thing...
It's kind of like this, is there a
word for this?'.

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So, I was saying that all the time
and I still say that all the time, to
be honest, that's probably the
question I ask Kel the most at the
moment, my wife, Kel, who is a
Brazilian. I am I'm constantly asking
her 'como eu posso dizer isso?',
'como eu posso dizer?', 'qual é a
palavra para isso?', Comment passages
they use can we apologize a quality
beloved about our youth so you know
how do I say this. What's the word
for this etc.. In terms of Jiu Jitsu
it was the same thing.

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So, I remember working my ass off for
six months when I first started
because I really wanted to improve as
fast as possible, but I'd come from a
gym background where I'd been working
out a lot and I was really focussed
on strength and, you know, trying to
use my strength to win whe competing
in Jiu Jitsu or fighting in jujitsu
with other people and any of you guys
who know about the martial art of
jujitsu will know that strength is
useful, but it's quite often kind of
like a two edged blade, right? A
double edged sword.

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You tie yourself out really quickly
and good technique beats strength any
day of the week. The more strength to
use the time you get. And quite often
it's inefficient and you don't
achieve the thing you're trying to
do, right? Whatever position you're
trying to win or whatever submission
you're trying to get on your
opponent. So, I learned pretty
quickly that I had to get over my ego
in terms of strength, take a humble
position, look, I'm a beginner, these
people aren't expecting me to be a
black belt world champion when I'm
wearing a white belt and I've come to
the gym and, you know, like 50 times
in the first few months.

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And, so I had to check my ego there,
but on top of that, I noticed in
myself as well that the moment I
started improving the most is when I
started asking for feedback and, you
know, I would finish a fight with
someone when training and I would say
to them ok, I know that even if I
dominated the person, even if I won,
even if I was really good, I would
still try and ask 'what could I have
done better?'

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Where did I go wrong? What did you
think of how I was rolling? Are there
things that you saw that I could
improve? So, it was really... It took
a long time, a few months to really
get my ego under control and start to
benefit, start to really improve at a
much faster pace as a result of that
humility, checking my ego and just
trying to get feedback constantly, so
that I could use that and shortcut,
you know? Just just going in
headfirst every single time and not
getting feedback and you would see
those people, you would see people
come into the gym all the time who
were meat heads, we call them, you
know, like I was when I first
started, they were very, you know,
I'm big and strong, technique is just
a waste of time, I'll just smash
people and they were the kinds of
people that would either become
humbled because smaller people with
good technique would destroy them or
they would be the kind of people who
would leave the gym because they
would be sick of getting defeated by
small people or ultimately that would
be the kind of people that just
wouldn't improve, if they kept that
attitude up and it was always this
kind of...this moment you would say
that someone's ability would really
shoot up the moment that their ego
took a back seat and they embraced
humility, embraced being a beginner
and really, really paid attention to
all of their mistakes and all the
things that even if they weren't
necessarily mistakes that could be
cleaned up that can be done better.

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So, it's been a bit of a long chat,
guys. I hope it helps. I hope it
gives you something to think about,
right? I like these chats where it's
just off the cuff. I'm just talking
to you, giving you my opinions, I
haven't really, obviously, written
anything out. I don't have my
computer in front of me here to tick
off some notes, but hopefully gives
you some stuff to think about and
yeah hopefully if you're the kind of
person who's worried about your rate
of improvement in English and you're
worried that your confidence in
English and when you're speaking
isn't where it should be, quite often
it's something you can change really
quickly. It's just a matter of
assessing your ego and trying to come
up with ways of reducing its control
on your English, right? On your value
as a person as you see yourself.

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So, yeah, I hope... There's some big
concepts in here. I hope they've been
useful and I'm probably gonna stop
and go take some photos and I'll let
you guys soon. Anyway, peace out.
Thanks for joining me and I'll see
you next time.

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I think we're done for the day.
Sunset it's about to happen, it's
looking beautiful. Tons of birds
hanging around, took a few thousand
shots. Mostly the Pelicans, actually,
because they were interacting with
the people quite a lot. Yeah it's
been really nice. It's kind of
meditative coming down these
evenings. This seagull's got a bung
leg and it can't stand up on this one
here, one of them is broken.

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00:18:47,580 --> 00:19:16,079
But yeah, it's really funny watching
these pelicans here. Boats come in
like this and there's one here,
there's a whole bunch behind and
you'll see they all come in following
the boats looking for food and the
seagulls as well, so this boat will
come in here and then go up the boat
ramp just here, and this the pelicans
all come in, you'll see him rush in,
see them down here? Here they come,
here they come. See if we can get
some action, get some videos of them
flying around.