← RealLife English: Learn and Speak Confident, Natural English
RealLife English: Learn and Speak Confident, Natural English
#402 What Most English Learners Don't Know: The Number 1 Reason to Learn English, Why It's Essential to Become a Global Citizen, and How You Can Create a Better World Through English
Loading summary
Transcript59 lines
- [00:00]
A
Oh, yeah. Boys and girls, citizens of the world, this is Ethan from RealLife English, where every single week, it is our mission to take you beyond the classroom, to speak English confidently and naturally, to connect to the world, and to actually use your English as a doorway to living your greatest life. So our purpose here at RealLife English is to create a world beyond borders. Now, this doesn't mean a world without borders. It means that no matter our differences, so race, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or political beliefs, no matter what divides us, that which unites us is far greater. It's also true what Wittgenstein said, that the limits of your language are the limits of your world. So that's why the way that we achieve this purpose of creating a world beyond borders is by connecting the world through English. So Izzy and I are hoping today to help give you an epiphany by sharing something near and dear to our hearts. So, Izzy, actually, what is an epiphany?
- [01:05]
B
It's like a sudden realization. Like a light bulb goes on. It's like, aha.
- [01:09]
A
Yeah. We actually also can call this an aha moment, because a lot of times when you have an epiphany, you're like, aha. Now I get it. Now I understand.
- [01:18]
B
Right, exactly.
- [01:19]
A
So let me quickly tell you guys a story. So, in 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft that was 6 billion kilometers away from Earth, which is more or less near the orbit of Pluto, the X planet Pluto, took a photograph of Earth that is now famously known as the Pale blue dot. And this photo made it blatantly clear how tiny and delicate our planet really is in the vastness of space.
- [01:48]
B
What is vastness?
- [01:50]
A
Vastness has to do with a very large empty area. So, for example, when. When Europeans first came to what is now the United States, they actually saw these really vast stretches of land that didn't really have anything. Like the prairies is what this is called. How about blatant? What does it mean if something is blatantly clear?
- [02:14]
B
If something's blatantly clear, it is openly clear. Like, there is no way that you cannot see it. It is just there for you to see it, and there is no arguing against it.
- [02:26]
A
So when he saw this image, just this really impactful image where we can see Earth just as a tiny point of blue light, American astronomer Carl Sagan wrote a beautiful and super impactful poem about this, which now I'm going to read for you. And there's tons of advanced vocab for you to learn in this, so pay attention to that. And, of course, I wanted to let you know that if you are new here, every single week we make new lessons like this one that help you to go from feeling like a lost, insecure English learner to being a confident, natural English speaker. And who knows, maybe even global citizen. So hit that subscribe button and the bell down below so you don't miss a single new lesson. And are you ready to listen to the poem now, Izzy?
- [03:06]
B
Let's dive into it.
- [03:19]
C
Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it, Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you have ever heard of, every human being who ever was lived out their lives, the aggregate of our joy and suffering. Thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species. Live there on a moat of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another. How fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this
- [04:57]
A
point of pale light.
- [05:02]
C
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit? Yes. Settle? Not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There's perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of of our tiny world. To me it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
- [06:01]
A
Wow, that gives me chills every time I hear that poem. Izzy, how do you feel when you hear that like what's going through your
- [06:09]
B
head right now, it's a mix of emotions, isn't it? Of joy and fear, frustration and maybe all emotions that all human beings can possibly feel because you can see the history of mankind. And we also feel happy about the same reasons. And I'm not talking about the more mundane things like food and stuff. I'm talking about, for example, fear of losing your parents or just making it in life, you know, and providing for your family, for the people you love.
- [06:46]
A
It's kind of like those core human principles of wanting to have a great life. Right. Wanting to attain your dreams, wanting to good things for your family, wanting to take care of your children, wanting to play a meaningful part in whatever community you form a part of, wanting to feel purpose. And that's why we say a lot like no matter what divides us, that which unites us is far greater. And what you were saying, there's almost, almost like a sorrow to it. Sorrow is like a. It's almost like a mourning, like a deep sadness or pain. When we see we all share this planet and yet we tend to bicker or we tend to fight over things that are quite superficial compared to everything that unites us as being this human race. Right. What I was trying to say before that and that Carl Sagan puts so beautifully, we take for granted and not enough of us are paying attention to that fact. And we're choosing to pay attention to other things that separate us. Right. And even obsess over those things.
- [07:55]
B
Yeah.
- [07:55]
A
I wanted to ask, before we go a little bit deeper, were there any advanced words or expressions that you think most intermediate learners might have had trouble understanding from that poem?
- [08:07]
B
There's a moment there that he talks about our posturings and our imagined self importance. What is it talking about there?
- [08:15]
A
Posture is literally like how you hold yourself. So people who are watching, they see that I kind of like straightened my posture. But you can imagine that you can be slumped over. That's another word. Like when you curve your chest in, your shoulders in. And if you have good posture, it's kind of like your chest goes out, your back is straight, you. You form like a line right from your feet all the way up to the tip of your head. And posturings. Because we often use having good posture as maybe a symbol of superiority. So posturings, I think it's posturing yourself or thinking of yourself in a position as being superior to other people. When it comes down to it, we're all the same organism. Right. We're all the Same carbon and water beings. So no one is inherently better than anyone else. Right. I think what that's saying is that we like to posture ourselves as being better. But you know, some of it's just that we've been given better opportunities. Some of it is just where we were born into or the experiences that we've been fortunate or unfortunate enough to have in our life.
- [09:22]
B
And he also says our imagined self importance, meaning exactly that. Like we just imagine that we're more important than other people. And you're just attributing all this greatness to yourself.
- [09:37]
A
Another great word here is righteousness, which is like, I even don't know how to say this in other languages. I think it's like one of those words that there's not a good substitution in the languages I speak, at least. But righteousness is this thinking that you are more right or more correct or more just in what you believe than other people are.
- [09:59]
B
This makes me think that this kind of behavior is very similar to if you think of a body. There's a metaphor that I like a lot, that our bodies have cells, right? And you can imagine that the Earth is like a body, like a human body. And we, the individual people, are like the little cells. Cells, they work together to create bigger tissues and organs. So you can imagine that's like nations and different organizations that exist on Earth. And we work together, we work interdependently. We are individual, independent beings, but we collaborate to create something bigger than ourselves, which is the organs and then also the body as a whole. So as cells of this organism, I think we can all work together to be part of a healthy organism as a whole.
- [10:50]
A
Yeah, it's almost, almost interesting to think of the Earth as that organism. And all of us need to work together to take care of it. Because as it says in the poem that it's just this tiny blue ball that's floating in the vast emptiness of space. And if we leave space, I mean, if we leave Earth and go out into space, we can't survive, right? We can't survive on our own. So, like, this is the only home that we have for the time being. And we're not right now working together so fervently to take good care of it.
- [11:20]
B
It's common for us to think of the people who are making wars, you know, in the countries that are in wars right now. But I don't think it's about that only I think it's about, for example, things are more common in society, like stereotyping when we Think about even people from the same country that you're from, but from another region. And you're already having all those stereotypes before you go there. You're like, ah, it's gonna suck. Because, you know, they speak a different way there or they have that habit of doing that thing that I don't like. I remember when I went to Sao Paulo When I was 18, I moved there by myself to start a band. I can talk about, I can share the story, the full story, another day. But people from Sao Paulo, they are known for being just fast paced. You know, they move fast and they're not very patient. And once you're there, you can.
- [12:11]
A
Like New Yorkers, New York.
- [12:13]
B
Exactly. And in Brazil, that's just a stereotype and it's true to some extent. But once you're there, you kind of understand why. You know, it's a very large city and it takes so long for it to go from one place to another. So you also start to feel some empathy because life is not easy there for that reason. Maybe life's not easy in your city for other reasons, but for them, they're born in this place where everything moves so fast. So they're just used to that culture.
- [12:42]
A
I did want to point out before we move on that we've used a lot of advanced words. We haven't defined them all. Also, there was a lot of advanced words in the the pale blue dot poem that you might want to learn and be able to use in your own speaking and English writing. So if that sounds like something that you want to do, you should definitely check out the RealLife English app because you can listen to this podcast and hundreds of other ones with interactive transcript and you get vocabulary flashcard for all of the most important advanced words and expressions. These use an intelligent, innovative technology that help you to never forget them. So you'll never be in that position again where you get into a conversation and you freeze breeze up because that word that you know that you've learned won't come to your mouth. So if you've ever struggled with that, then definitely check out this very episode on the RealLife English app by clicking the link down in the description below or search for RealLife English in your favorite app store. Izzy, I wanted to comment on something that you were saying. So because you mentioned about Sao Paulo versus other places you had lived in Brazil, it even brought to my mind and I felt this very strong when I was in high school is I didn't identify with American patriotism. There's a very strong Sense of American patriotism, of sort of a posturing, like we saw, like superior superiority, some people think, to the rest of the world. But it comes out of an ignorance of not actually having gotten to know the rest of the world. So there's a strong culture of this. There can be benefits to that. But at the same time, it can also cause just like a lot of discrimination, a lot of xenophobia, like fear of. Of what's foreign, fear of outsiders. And this, of course, it comes out of our history. We had a large period where we actually politically had a stance of isolation. So I think that started to create more of like a inward focus. But I think the other, let's say, like the other side of that coin of patriotism is curiosity. Curiosity is a value we talk about a lot. It's a core part of our real life way. Methodology for learning English can be applied very much to learning a language, but it's also just to how we interact with each other. So you were talking about when you go to Sao Paulo, for example, actually living there, you started to be able to put two and two together, which means you were able to make sense of why is there this stereotype of Paulistas, people from Sao Paulo? And there's some truth to that, and why is that true? And it comes out of the culture, right? But if you're actually curious about the culture, you can start to understand why people do things this way. And usually it's out of a thing of survival or out of a thing of adaptation to things that happened historically or to maybe where they're actually located geographically.
- [15:30]
B
That's totally true. And in my experience in the United States, I would say that I would also understand why people would feel this way, because it was just part of the culture too. I think in school, you can tell me, but I think you learned a lot about American history in a way that was framed that maybe you are the best in the world or the most important nation. And it's subtle. A lot of times that's not intended, but it ends up being something that's transmitted in school. And I'm not against the idea of feeling patriotic. I actually love the fact that I'm a Brazilian, and I love Brazil. I also think there's a lot to value here. But at the same time, I think the curiosity you mentioned is important too. Otherwise you all are gonna be thinking that you are the protagonist on earth, you know, and we're all protagonists, not just as countries, but as individuals. We're all protagonists of our own lives. And just having a curiosity to see, like, how is that person a protagonist of their lives, of their own lives? What kind of struggles do they go through? And I even think this is a mindset that you could use for just being successful professionally. You pay attention to people. You know what they go through, their pains. You can help them. And that's just creating value for the world. So it is so productive, actually, to have this mindset.
- [16:59]
A
It makes me think of. I think you've heard this, too, from Rodrigo, who is the head developer on the RealLife English app, that he's brought this value of. I'm another you, which I forget exactly where it comes from. I think it comes from some indigenous culture, but I could be making that up. But in a lot of ways, it is that. That, okay, maybe we come from different corners of the world, but maybe if I'd been born to the same family as you in the same corner of the world, growing up with the same beliefs, the same nationality, the same government and so on, I probably would have the same or a very similar experience to the one you have in life. So it's kind of holding yourself, holding your thoughts lightly in that sense, being humble.
- [17:42]
B
Mm.
- [17:43]
A
That maybe your experience isn't the right one. It's certainly not the only one. And there can be good things about both. What I was saying about two of the States is I went through a rebellious stage of being, like, very anti American. The first time I went to live abroad especially, it just gave me this anti American sentimentality. But as I got older and I lived in more places and I would go back to the States to visit and so on, I can start to see, like, actually, like, you know, I'm very blessed. I'm very lucky to have gotten to grow up in the United States. There are a lot of really great things about the United States. There's also many things that aren't so great in the United States and many things that the United States needs to improve upon. That's true of everywhere, Right. Like, I hear Brazilians, many Brazilians that will talk about how bad Brazil is. But then, like, when I lived there, they'd be like, why do you want to live here? Like, you. America's so much better. And it's like, why don't you go and live in the States? Because there's people who had the means to go do that if they really want to. They're like, oh, no, I would never want to leave here.
- [18:45]
B
They actually love it here. So. Yeah. And I don't even think that's just like a comfort zone that you don't want to leave. It's really because we love our countries and we love our cultures, and it's okay. As I was saying, I really believe that loving our own culture in a way that's not with that whole idea of self importance is thinking it's superior to other cultures. It's one way that you can value other cultures too, because you see it as one of the thousands of cultures that exist. And you start to get curious when you go to other places and you travel, especially internationally, instead of being annoyed by different customs, different habits that people have, you'll be curious and be like, huh, why did they do that? That's annoying. But why did they even do that in the first place? So do you remember anything like that when you first went to Spain, for example?
- [19:39]
A
I mean, it's not necessarily just negative things. So I think of the first time. One of the first epiphanies that I had was the first time I went to Germany and that was my first time living abroad, just sitting around with my classmates. It was a random day that we were sitting around and laughing about something. And it just occurred to me, like, oh my God, I could be having this exact same conversation in the States with my American friends laughing about the same thing. It's like there's no difference between American high school students and German high school students. You know, we're all teenagers. We have the same problems, the same, like teenagers everywhere. Right. Kind of suffer from the same. Being very self conscious and starting to discover, you know, who. Who they like, who they have a crush on and everything. And like all, all the things. Right. That we, we deal with at that age, it's just so similar. I think no matter what country you live in, what culture you come out of. And it's kind of probably the older you get to the more these stereotypes or the more these posturings are pounded into you. But I was wanting to ask as well how this pale blue dot poem, how it connects to your personal purpose or your personal why?
- [20:51]
B
Yeah, so you mentioned earlier that our purpose here at RealLife is to create a world beyond borders, which is a world where we see through our differences, these barriers. And even though there are differences, we value these and we recognize that what unites us is much greater, as you said. And this is very similar to the statement that I use for myself for defining my personal purpose, which is to help people truly understand each other. So there's the level of the language, obviously, if we speak the same Language that helps a lot. But then even a level above that, you can live in a house where there's two people who live together, that they don't understand each other in another way. Right. So that's what I fight for and what I try to do here and
- [21:41]
A
everywhere I go, I love that it goes. I think the whole quote is just about starting to recognize ourselves as one human family. 1. You kind of said like cells and a body, you know, one body with a common goal. That basically, like. I brought a clip, actually. I think that will connect really well to that. That's all about kindness. We've talked about some different principles, maybe like curiosity, humility, kindness. I think these are all values of a global citizen. Someone who embodies this pale blue dot sort of mentality really is a global citizen. And there are certain values that global citizens need to. It's not necessarily like you have. I think it's something that you're working at all the time. You're cultivating in yourself because they're difficult. It's difficult to maintain a curious mindset, to not be quick to judge. It's difficult to be humble, to not posture yourself, to not be righteous about your beliefs. It's really difficult to turn the other cheek, to be kind to people, even though they're different from you, even though maybe they're not being kind to you. Right. To be the bigger. The bigger person, as we say, to rise above. But before we watch that clip, Izzy, maybe it'd be nice to give a shout out to our learner of the week.
- [22:55]
B
Oh, yeah. All right. So this comes from Ehab Marin, and they say that this was the first time that they used our app, and it is beautiful and exposes you to many cultures and horizons that you could not have imagined. It's interesting because it's very similar to traveling, I would say, when you use Global Speak and you get to speak with people from other cultures, and in a matter of 20 minutes, you may get to speak with three, four different people from different places on Earth. You start to have that feeling of like, these people are very different, but they're very similar, too.
- [23:33]
A
It's a great way to hit that pale blue dot effect. That overview effect, as it's also called the overview effect, is what astronauts feel when they go to space and they, you know, get to see Earth from outer space and can see it as one living organism. It's not so easy to get that down here on Earth, but we are attempting to create an experience that's a little bit Similar to that, because you can connect with people anytime, anywhere and meet many different people from all sorts of different countries. And as we mentioned also earlier, you can also get digital transcripts vocabulary for every podcast lesson. So definitely check that out. You can click the link down in the description below or look for RealLife English in your favorite app store. All right, so Izzy, the clip I have, it actually comes from a conference that Lady Gaga participated in with the Dalai Lama. They seem like kind of random pairing, right? But it's actually really inspirational, the different quotes and so on that came out of this conference. So I chose a couple of short parts from it that we can watch. Where she is talking about this principle of kindness.
- [24:42]
D
The really fantastic thing about kindness is that it's free. It's the best resource that we have because you can give and give and receive kindness. And the well of it inside of you will never dry up and it can't hurt you or anybody else. It is the thing that brings us all together. Please do not forget that hatred or evil, whatever you want to call it. It's intelligent, it's smart, and it's invisible. It doesn't have a color, it doesn't have a race, it doesn't have a religion. It has no politics. It's an invisible snake that while it is planning to make its attack, it is thinking to itself, I am going to divide my enemy into smaller, less strong groups, and then I am going to make them hate each other so that it is easier to take them down. And as we are all yelling at each other, trying to figure out which which group it is that's causing the problem, evil's winning all around us. So we have to get rid of those labels, these different factions. Gay, straight, rich, poor, mentally ill, not mentally ill, gun owner, not gun owner. None of this can matter anymore. We are unified in our humanity, and the only thing that we all know, we all appreciate in one another is kindness. So this has to come before all things. And you must operate relentlessly this way with everything you have. Forget about the money. When you talk to the people, go out and talk to the people. Look them in the eye, speak to them, mobilize the kids. They're smart.
- [27:12]
B
I like the practical piece of advice there. Just go out there and talk to people. Travel whenever you're feeling disconnected from everything we're talking about here. Because right now, maybe you, listener, viewer, you're thinking like, this is amazing. How can I keep feeling this way? Like every day there is that daily effort that you mentioned, Ethan. It's not gonna feel this way every. Yeah, every day. But you can seek it, you can go after it by leaving and talking to people. Traveling. Traveling helps a lot because if you just stay where you are in your local default environment, maybe you'll get stuck in the same way of viewing the world and viewing people. So it's very practical. Just go out there and talk to people.
- [28:04]
A
Obviously, we know not all of you have the means or the availability to travel. So the great thing about the Internet is it's easier than ever to join different online communities. You can meet people on the global speak, but of course you can seek out communities that have to do with interests that you have. You can meet people who are interested in the same things you have, but are from different countries. I think it's really amazing how there's different ways. Like people who play video games, but they have friends from all around the world that love the same video game. It's able to give them this global perspective through shared love of a certain game. And there's tons and tons of versions of communities like this, right? I really liked something that she said, that there's an endless well of kindness. What's a well?
- [28:50]
B
It's a hole that has water in it. And you can, with the help of a bucket or a pail, you can grab water from it, right? With a rope. You just reel it in and then you reel it out.
- [29:05]
A
Or nowadays I think you tend to have a pump that would suck the water out of it. But that's probably the old fashioned kind of well people think of. And here she's talking about a well of kindness, right? So she's using it figuratively, that it's the same as like a source or
- [29:22]
B
a fountain and it never runs out of well kindness. So it is endless. You can always get kindness out of this well. And I completely agree. And there's a. There's a little story that I like a lot from. I think they attribute it to Buddha, but I don't know. There was a wise man who was just sitting with a friend and another person came by and started just to shout at the wise men and say very bad things to them. And he just stood there smiling, the wise men, and didn't say anything back. And then that person went away. He left. And his friend turned to him and asked to the wise men and asked, why didn't you say anything? How could you keep her cool like that? And the wise men responded, well, they came here with a gift. I didn't accept the gift. So they left with it. And I'm here just feeling the same, just being myself.
- [30:25]
A
That's amazing.
- [30:26]
B
And I think kindness is about just exactly what you were saying before. Like sometimes just turning the. On the cheek in the sense that you're not responding at the same level, or you're not. You're just returning the gifts and like, that's okay. I don't need to give you the gift of hatred back to you.
- [30:45]
A
That's a really nice expression, turn the other cheek, which means to, it's again like be the bigger person, rise above it, in a sense, ignore it. So rather than there's another expression that's eye for an eye, which has to do with revenge. Someone does something bad to you, so you do the same or worse to them, but that just leads to an endless cycle. It's what Lady Gaga was talking there about. Just hate. Like, it's like this serpent, this snake that it's kind of insidious. It has poor intentions to break us apart and to have us fighting each other and so on. But we can choose to not participate, we can choose to not accept that gift. Right? And to turn the other cheek is a really nice expression for this. There's very nice practice of being non judgmental. So it's like Stephen Covey talks about both of us really, like seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He gives a really nice example of being on the subway. And there's this man walks in, his kids are very disruptive, they're running all over the train and stuff. And he's just like, this guy is a really bad father, letting his kids just run around like that. And he tries to be polite and say like, you know, can you get your children under control? But then the man who seems like he's just been waking up from, you know, being in a dreamlike state or something, says like, oh, I'm really sorry, I hadn't even noticed. Like, we just came from the hospital, their mother just passed away. And I'm sure that they're just not sure how to deal with it. I'm not sure how to deal with it. And it's this thing that when we jump to the first conclusion, it's almost never true. Our first judgment is almost never true. And it's always good to this phrase in English to give people the benefit of the doubt. Which means that rather than making an assumption, rather than taking your assumption as being the truth, you kind of step away from it. I guess it comes back to curiosity. You ask questions, you try to understand their point of view. You Try to even come up in your head. If you don't even talk to them, you try to come up in your head like, oh, maybe they've had a really hard day. Maybe something's happened to them that I'm not aware of. So it's good for us to. It's difficult, but it's good for us to try to cultivate that rather than jumping to our first conclusion, trying to think in our head, what else could this be? What could I not be seeing?
- [33:05]
B
Yeah. And I think once you realize what's actually happening, just compassion will run freely and you'll be like, huh, how can I actually help this person? And you won't have to actually make an effort to act like a helpful person, like somebody who actually cares, because you do care. And if you don't care, it's probably because you don't know. And for us, it's something biological. We have these empathic neurons or mirror neurons. I think it's something like that that makes us feel just like the other person is feeling. But in order for us to actually go through that, we need to know, we need to seek that. So one of the habits of the books, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is exactly that. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. And once you do that, you'll go through a paradigm shift. By the way, what's a paradigm shift?
- [34:04]
A
Paradigm shift. We've talked about this on the recent episode, I believe. But it's when you change your worldview or you change your way of viewing something. It's almost like if you wear glasses and you take them off or. Or if you put on someone else's glasses, you suddenly see the world quite literally in a different way. And we're all carrying around these sorts of glasses that are our worldview. But it's good to question our worldview. It's good to question the beliefs that we have in our part of the world. Even, you know, be that religion, be that, you know, the like, nationality, be that your form of politics, government, just to step back from it and say, you know what if that's not the whole truth? Yeah.
- [34:52]
B
Because I think most people, they don't realize that they are. We are all wearing these glasses, right? Like, we just need to put them. Put them away. Like, huh. Analyze the stories you tell yourself. And finally, what I was thinking about this. If you just try to feel the way other people are feeling by learning about what they're going through and experience this paradigm shift, you have that epiphany, which is a word we used here before. It's that aha moment of wait a second. I went through that as well. And maybe I can help because I know what to do about it. And as I said before, it is just productive, I think, for everybody to just think like this because then we'll be better as countries, as organizations. So what evil is trying to do or hatred as this entity is just divide. So beware and just try and notice whenever you see a movement where people are like us versus them, there's none of that. Think of that cells again, right? As the earth as one organisms and us as the cells of this body.
- [36:03]
A
That I think will segue really well into the last thing I was wanting to share as we're wrapping up the podcast. This no matter what divides us, that which unites us far greater. It actually comes from this really great essay or article that was written by William Ury, I believe that's how you say his name. He is a really famous negotiator. Like he. He participated in important negotiations between different countries, governments that are at war, and so on. So he knows a lot about helping people to come to see eye to eye. And this is just like such a beautiful article. So I highly recommend that you guys. You know, we can share it in the description so you can go and read the full thing. But that no matter what divides us, that which unites us far greater. It actually came from something that he says here. And in that article he also shares a fable that I thought would be really nice. So this fable on conflict. So I'll read that really quickly. One of my favorite negotiation stories is about a man who leaves his herd of 17 camels to his three sons as their inheritance. To the first son, he leaves half the camels. To the middle son, he leaves a third of the camels, and to the youngest son, he leaves a ninth of the camels. The three sons get into an intense negotiation over who should get how many, because 17 doesn't divide by two or three or by nine. Tempers become strained, so in desperation they consult a wise old woman. She listens to their problem and says, well, I don't know if I can help you, but if you want, at least you can have my camel. Now they have 18 camels. So the first son takes half of them or nine camels. The middle son takes his third or six camels, and the youngest son takes his ninth or two camels. Nine plus six plus two adds up to a total of 17 camels. There's one camel left over, so the brothers Give it back to the woman. So it's really interesting because it's almost like a riddle even. Right. Doing the math there.
- [38:05]
B
And it kind of goes full circle. What is going full circle, by the way?
- [38:09]
A
Something goes full circle when it comes back to the beginning. Sometimes there's a movie or a story like this that it sort of comes back to where it started.
- [38:20]
B
Yeah. In this case, what I mean is the answer is there all along. They knew the answer or they had it, they had the solve, the solution with them. This is really interesting.
- [38:29]
A
It was right under their nose. That's another expression.
- [38:32]
B
And all it takes is just like not really for just one second, not being so self centered.
- [38:38]
A
So, William Murray, the name of this article is called There are three sides to every argument. And I believe he has a TED Talk of the same name. And it's called that because usually we have an expression actually that there's two sides to every argument, meaning that, you know, your friend is sharing with you why they had this fight with their partner and how they're. Right. Right. But if you haven't heard the, the partner, like the partner also probably has some reason. It's never 100%. This person's 100% right. This person is zero percent right. Right. It's always maybe 50, 50 or 30, 70 or 60, 40. Right. And that's why he says that there's three sides to every argument because you know, there's always like one person's argument and another. And those are never just like the two, the two solutions or the two ways of seeing things. When you bring in someone else, they can often help to offer a third perspective that might be better than either the other ones. It might actually allow them to come together. So obviously that's what he tries to do in negotiation. And what he was saying here is that they had the exact number of camels to divide up all along. But it wasn't until this old woman came along and she gave them another camel. She gave them like this little extra piece of information that they could actually figure out the problem. Right. So it's oftentimes we just need someone to come or even we can practice this ourselves, maybe through reflection, through understanding different perspectives, through trying to think outside of the box or be creative. We can see that the, as I was saying, like the solutions under our nose, this, it's there, you know, it's not. It doesn't just need to be A or B. Sometimes there's a C or even a D and E. Maybe we could come back full circle Easy to the pale blue dot. We've talked about curiosity, we've talked about humility, we've talked about kindness. Now we've talked about in a sense, looking for a third way, looking for the third side. All these things. Dear Learner there practices their values, their principles that you can try to adopt and just, you know, engage with more in your life. To all of us want to grow. There's a quote that we really like here at Real Life English because we have a value of be the learner, that when you stop learning, you start dying. So that growth is really important. That actually seeing yourself as moldable, as being able to become something that you're not yet, that's really crucial. We teach English here, that's one of the things that we do. But why is this becoming a global citizen so important for people? Hopefully they came to learn English, but now we're kind of calling you all to action to adopt this global citizen mindset.
- [41:24]
B
Well, first of all, I think it helps you learn English because it gives you more opportunities to have meaningful conversations with other people, which is great for practicing your English. And you, I believe you want to do something with your English. You want to live it in a way that it will help you live your best life and achieve your goals in life. So in order to actually do that, if you really think about what other people are going through and you practice the ideas that we are talking about here, I think it'll really help you get there faster. So for one, there is that. But I think mostly the reason why this matters is because we are in a situation right now in the world where we just need more people like this. And it's kind of infectious in a good way. It spreads when you act like this. Even if you're just like one single person in your company. Well, you can be the person setting the example. You can be the change that you wish to see in the world.
- [42:24]
A
Yeah, that's a nice place for us to end, I think. So. We say a lot using your English as the doorway to your greatest life. And that can sound a little bit egocentric, a little bit self centered, but I think part of living your greatest life is also how you're affecting the people around you. Whether it's very locally, just in your family or whether it's through the impact that you're using your English to make on the world. And this is exactly why at the core of our Real Life Way methodology, we have global consciousness because we see English as being so much more than just the language you learn, but really as being something that you can use to make your unique impact on the world. So we really hope that this episode has been useful for you, that you've learned something, that you've taken some sort of piece of inspiration and we would really love to hear from you guys. I asked Izzy earlier about his purpose in life and it'd be really great to hear you guys. What's your personal why? What gets you out of bed in the morning? What do you believe that English can help you to do to make your unique impact in the world? So Izzy and I would love to read those down in the comments below or shoot us an email@hello.com and if you're finding these lessons helpful, a free way that you can support us is by leaving us a five star review wherever you're listening to this in Spotify, Apple Podcast or anywhere else. If you're watching on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button and bell down below as well as give this video a like it really does help these videos reach more people and we would really love for this message to reach as many people as possible. So we would really adore your support. And remember that no matter what divides us, that which unites us is far greater. 1, 2, 3. Ah yeah. Hey guys, this is Ethan again. Just one more thing before you leave and that is the RealLife newsletter. Would you enjoy getting a short email from your fluency coach, Izzy, Ksenia or myself every Friday to help you in less than 5 minutes make English a fun, natural part of your Life? More than 150,000 learners subscribe to our newsletter. It is easy to join, easy to cancel, but most importantly, easy to read. In each edition we share three things. One inspiring idea for you to think about, one fun thing that we've discovered recently like a new TV series, YouTube clip or song, etc. And one idea of an activity you could try for you to actually use your English in real life. What's more, right? In our newsletter we teach you useful everyday vocabulary and more and it's a place where we ask you all questions and for feedback. So it's a way for you to get in touch with us. If you'd like to try it out, just go to reallifeglobal.com Friday or you can simply click the link in the description of this podcast. Then you'll just type in your name and email and you'll get the very next Real Life newsletter. Aw yeah,