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Becoming VIP - Audio

Hello this is A.J. Welcome my special VIP member. Now this month I’m going to talk about a topic that is important in every part of the world. In every part of the world people are trying to get this. They fight for it. They work for it. They struggle for it. They hurt other people for it.

This thing can make people crazy. This thing can cause people to destroy their lives, to neglect their families, to become extremely unhappy and, yet, they will continue trying to get this thing. This thing – trying to get it all the time. Now what is it?

You may be thinking it’s money and that’s close, because this thing is very closely connected to money; but, yet, still a bit different. The thing I’m talking about is status, status. Status means your ranking, right, your ranking in society, your ranking in your local group, your organization, your job, your country.

Now in different countries, different cultures, there are different ways to have high status, right? When you have high status, other people think you are successful, other people think you are important. Status – this idea of status.

Status can make people crazy and, of course, on TV, in the media, we’re constantly being pushed, especially in advertising, to try to have higher status, higher status or to worry about having low status. Very, very worried about what other people think and what our level is.

Now, historically, in different countries, different cultures, there have been very different ways to get status. In different times in history there were different ways, it wasn’t always just money. Of course, we know that family, the family title, titles, were a way that people got status in the past. You know if you were a duke or a queen or a Samaria or something then that could give you some level of status, even if you didn’t have a lot of money.

Sometimes education can give us status and, in some countries, education gives you a lot more status; in other countries it’s less important. Money, however, is the big one in our modern society, our modern capitalistic society, because even today in countries that say they are communist, their economic system is still fairly capitalist and in all of these countries, people use money to buy status or to buy status symbols. You see, it’s not just the money that creates the status. Let me give you an example of this.

Suppose you had $50 million. You had $50 million. The dollar is not so good right now, so imagine you have it in gold, a pile of gold worth $50 million. You’re very rich, but imagine that you told no one. You didn’t tell anybody about this secret money that you had and you didn’t go out and buy any big status symbols. What are status symbols today? Well, they’re things like very expensive cars, super huge houses, servants, super expensive clothes, jewelry especially, diamonds and things like that, gold jewelry.

All of those kinds of things are status symbols today. They don’t really give you very much. Most of us don’t need a house with 20 rooms in it, so why do people buy those things if they’re not useful? Well, they do it to show everybody else look at me, I’m so rich and important, therefore. But if you didn’t buy any of those things and you didn’t tell everybody that you were rich, you would not get the status. People would still think you were the same level that you are now, however you’re living now.

See, this is what happens when people do get a lot of money. Famous people you read about, they used to be poor. They get a lot of money and they go crazy buying status symbols. See, it’s not really the money that’s so important to them. What they want to do is they want to show everybody else that now they are successful, now they are important. So they buy 20 cars – Ferraris and BMWs – and they have a huge 20 car garage. They’re trying to impress everybody.

They buy these gigantic, enormous houses and, you know, its two people living in the house, three people, in this crazy huge house. Again, do they need that in any way?

Does it even really give them much happiness or anything that really makes their life much better? No, of course not, but what it does is it shows a lot of people look at me, I’m super rich, therefore, important; therefore, I have status. That’s the message they’re trying to send by buying those expensive things.

And it’s not only super rich people that do this; middle class people do it too. They go out, they buy their BMW. They buy their, you know, we call them McMansions, “Mc” and then mansion. “Mc” comes from McDonald’s. So McMansion, it’s a mansion. It’s a large house, but they all look the same. They look like they’re from a factory, boom.

You go to these neighborhoods in the United States in the suburbs and it’s just these McMansions. They all kind of look the same, like they were made out of plastic or something and they’re all in these neighborhoods together and these are kind of upper middleclass neighborhoods. Again, you might have a small family living in these and as soon as they get more money, what do they do?

What they used to do, our economy is bad now, so maybe not so much anymore, but what they used to do is they go out and they buy a bigger house immediately or a more expensive car or a newer car. And, again, do they really need any of these things? Are any of these things really enhancing their lives? Not usually, even though they may not realize it.

Sometimes it’s a very subconscious thing. It’s happening deep inside the brain from a lot of programming that we have that causes us to go out and do these things. And then if you ask them, why did you buy a bigger house? Well, they will give you a lot of rational reasons. Well, you know, it gives us more space and it’s better for the kids.

They give you a lot of logical reasons, but if you really look at it logically, you realize none of those things are really necessary. The house is very expensive, causing financial stress. And, let’s face it, usually when people do that it’s about status. It’s about showing social status. Now I am more important.

I used to see this teaching a lot. When I was a teacher in universities oh, my God, the professors were so, you know, focused on all their little titles. If you call them, you know, Mr. Smith, and they have a Ph.D., they would say “I am Dr. Smith. I am Dr. Smith, Ph.D.” Oh. Why do they get so upset about that? Again, it’s status. They have their little paper from school Ph.D. and they think that makes them more important.

Many people in education get Ph.D.s; get Masters Degrees, just for status, just to seem more important.

Now in some countries where I’ve been, this is especially true in Asia I’ve noticed, this is even a bigger deal. Like in America, you know, if people find out I have two Masters Degrees, nobody cares. Okay. It’s not so important. Sometimes in Asia people find out I have two Masters Degrees oh, you have two Masters Degrees. Wow! Right? People are impressed, which I find quite funny, because I didn’t do it for status. I usually don’t even tell people I have a Masters Degree.

I sometimes mention it in Asia, just become people almost feel like I must have an advanced degree to do what I’m doing, even though what I’m doing I didn’t really learn in school. You know, it’s about status, status.

So why am I talking about this so much? The reason is simple. Because as a VIP, I know you want success. I know you want confidence with your speaking. I know you want to use that confidence and that success to help other people and be a leader, but that is a very different choice, a different path, than status. You see, you can kind of do one or the other.

Status is a very selfish and shallow kind of life. When you’re always focused on status, status, status, buying more things to show other people that you’re important or doing things to show other people that you’re important like getting degrees just to show people you’re important, then you’re really focused on yourself constantly and you’re focused on what other people are thinking about you.

You’re conforming, in many ways, but that’s different than what I call real success, because real success is a feeling of having a lot of freedom in your life, a lot of abundance and happiness and it’s feeling confident, of course, and it’s using all of that to help the people in your life. For you that might mean your family, it might mean your friends, it might mean your coworkers, it could mean just anybody else, a few people or a lot of people and, of course, that’s what I encourage, because it’s a much happier kind of life and it’s a more interesting life.

So what we’re coming down to, what I want you to think about in your own life is have I been focused on having things, getting things, owning things and, if so, I want you to think about a different way to use your money and a different thing to focus on in your life. What I instead what I want you to focus on is what do you want to do. What do you want to be? It’s very important to have a clear vision of success for yourself. What is success for you, big, huge, amazing success?

See, when I was younger, when I was really young like maybe, I don’t know, 18, 20, 25, especially when I was maybe 25, 26, 27, I was poor. I had been very poor for a long time, so I used to imagine success as like, you know, having a huge sailboat. I would imagine all the things I wanted; the kind of house I wanted. And, no, I didn’t really want big mansions or anything like that, but still, I got focused on things. What did I want to have, what did I want to get and that made me unhappy.

I worked and worked and worked and then when I got some of those things and I have most of them now, I don’t have a sailboat, by the way, but I got those things or I can get them if I want them, but I find they don’t make me happy at all, not at all. It’s the things that I do and the person that I become that makes me happy.

So I have a very different idea about success and I have, actually, for a long time had a different idea about what is success. I especially focus on who do I become. Who am I?

I’m always looking to change who I am and become a better person and it never stops, because every time I think that I have achieved a level of success, for example, now I have Effortless English and we’re doing live events now and we had a live event with over 200 people in Kuala Lumpur and it was incredible, an incredible seminar and I thought well, that’s it, right? That’s success. I imagine that as like big success for me.

I loved it. I enjoyed it. I felt great, but then I realize I can still keep growing. There are still things in my life where I have weaknesses, still things that I don’t do well that I would like to do well. I would like to be able to help a lot more people. I would like to improve as a teacher. I’d to improve as a leader. There are so many things. It never ever, ever stops, but the great thing is that as you get these things, as you become more you get stronger. You feel happier, you’re life improves and you improve the life of the people around you.

When you just buy things and when you just get things that doesn’t happen. So many people think it will happen. If I just had money that would do it, that would solve my problems, but it’s not true. I’m telling you, it’s not true. Yes, it’s nice to have money to solve those money problems, but you don’t really need to be super rich for that.

If you want to travel the world and live the way I do, you do not have to be super rich, because I did it when I was a poor student, I did it when I was a poor social worker and, of course, now I’m still doing it today. You can find a way. So what I want you to focus on, then, is not on what you get, but on what you become and do. I want you to think about your ideal lifestyle this month.

That’s where all this is going, that’s really the deep focus this month, what is your ideal lifestyle. It means, you know, what is it when you dream big, what do you want to be doing every month? How do you want to be living? What kind of person do you want to be? That’s the most important one.

See, when you think of goals, a lot people will write down I want to, you know, pass the TOEFL. I want to get a certain score on the TOEFL or be good at English. What does that mean? I don’t know, exactly. Instead, you need to focus on what kind of person do you want to be. I want to be a strong, confident English speaker. I want to be the kind of person who walks up to Americans, Canadians, British people, smile, shakes their hand and says hello and immediately starts talking to them in a confident, fun, friendly way, not shy, not intimidated, not worried.

See the difference between that image, that idea of who you want to be, instead of just what you want to get, a high test score or something like that? And it’s the same in all parts of your life. Who do you want to be in your family? Not what do you want your family to do, but who do you want to be?

If you’re a father, what kind of father do you want to be? You want to see yourself being that every day. I want to come home and be the kind of father who’s strong and warm and who loves being with his children and who teaches his children to be good, to be fair and to be strong. You want to imagine yourself actually doing these things constantly, consistently every day. See the person you want to become and imagine it every day. That’s what you need to focus on. Not what you want to get, not what you want to have, but who you want to become, the kind of person.

In your spiritual life, imagine the kind of person you want to become. See it clearly, feel it; for example, me. One of my challenges emotionally or spiritually is patience. I’ve got a lot of energy and I love to take action and do things. I’m always going around the world and doing live events and making lessons. I’m very busy and active and I love that, but sometimes I’m not so patient. It’s a little bit of a problem. I get impatient.

When I have a problem in front of me it’s stopping me from what I want to do. Initially, in the beginning, I get really kind of ere, irritated and upset and that’s not good. It doesn’t help me at all; in fact, it makes me go even slower and eventually I realize I have to calm down and calmly deal with the problem, but I would like to do that faster. I would like to be the kind of person who deals with the problem immediately in a calm, clear, patient and effective way every time.

That’s who I want to become and, of course, to become that kind of person I’m going to have to practice a lot of different things. I’m going to have to learn things. I’m going to have to keep trying to change the way I react to problems and difficulties and sometimes I’ll do a bad job and sometimes I’ll get better. It will be a continuous process of getting better, but I have a vision in my head of the kind of person I want to become.

I can see myself in my mind handling problems in a calm, clear, strong way, patiently and so I just keep moving towards that. Maybe it takes me three years, maybe it takes me 20 years, but as long as I’m moving in that direction I feel good. I feel happy. I feel fulfilled. I feel successful. It’s not about how much money I have in my bank account.

That’s not what makes me feel more successful.

Now I’m much richer, but that doesn’t make me feel more successful, but who I have become does. The fact that now I’m very comfortable standing in front of 200 people and doing a great job with lots of energy and teaching, that I’ve become the kind of teacher I always wanted to be, that makes me feel successful and happy and nothing can take it away. I can lose money, I can gain money, but I will not lose what I have become.

So this month and I’ll talk about this more in the audio commentary, this month’s focus for you is to start imagining the different areas of your life and to get a clear picture, not of what you want, but of who you want to be. See yourself in different situations acting, talking, moving, speaking, interacting in a way that you want to be; the ideal person you want to become in your family, in your work, physically, mentally, emotionally, all of those things.

You’re not going to focus on what you get. You’re not going to focus on money, not on status, not on what other people think about you. It’s just about your own vision of who you want to be. The ideal person, you know it. If you just think deeply, you can see it and feel it. This is who I really want to be. That’s who you really are.

So that’s what you’re going to do. I’ll talk more specifically about what you need to do this month in the audio commentary. All right, so think about this idea and then listen to our audio commentary for more information about it.

Have a great month. I’ll see you again soon, bye-bye.