درسنامه تفسیری

Begin With Why – Commentary

Hello and welcome to the commentary for this month’s lessons. Let’s begin.

Many years ago when I first started Effortless English, I was having great success. But in the first few years of Effortless English I launched my first course, which is now called ‘the original course’.

And the original course did very well. It sold very well. It was super popular. And Effortless English grew very fast in those first few years, especially.

And, of course, I was very happy. I was excited. It was an exciting, amazing time in my life, those early years of Effortless English with the original course selling well and all these new people finding Effortless English and it’s really what created the success of Effortless English worldwide.

After a few more years, however, I noticed that my energy and my motivation were dropping and gradually, little by little I became bored, just not as interested, not as excited about what I was doing.

And I didn’t know what was going on, at first I tried to ignore it, like I thought maybe I was just too busy. But I just pushed aside the thoughts and tried not to focus on them. I didn’t want to delve into those thoughts, those feelings of boredom.

I didn’t want to examine what was happening, because it was uncomfortable. But eventually it got worse and worse and I had to ask myself, what’s going on? What’s happening? And even looking at my thoughts and asking that question, what’s happening? It didn’t really help, I couldn’t quite figure it out.

And so then, I tried a different question. Instead of asking what’s happening, I asked why? I asked myself lots and lots and lots of why questions. I asked myself, why am I bored? And I didn’t get a good answer in the beginning.

Sometimes this happens when you ask this question why, sometimes you’re not sure and at that time I was not sure. So I started asking other why questions. I asked myself, why do I teach? Why am I teaching? First, I asked why am I teaching English?

Of course, the answer was, I’m teaching English because it’s my native language. I’m teaching English because it’s the International language. I’m teaching English because I enjoy it. I’m teaching English because I have experience and I’m good at it now.

All these different answers and I kept asking myself, okay but why? Why do I enjoy teaching English? Then I had to think about that why question. Okay, why do I enjoy it? What do I enjoy about it?

Well, I enjoy helping the students. I enjoy seeing the students’ success. I enjoy helping them. Ah, a deeper answer. So I realized all of those things meant contribution. I enjoyed contributing to other people, helping other people get success.

So I said, why do I enjoy contributing? Of course the answer was, well, I enjoy helping other people be happier. I enjoy helping other people get success in their life, get the success they want. Interesting.

Then I asked another question, another why question, instead of about myself I asked a question about my students, about the members of Effortless English. I asked, why do the students want to learn English? Why are they learning with me? Why are they buying my course?

Of course, the first obvious answer, well, they were buying the original course to improve their fluency. They wanted to speak English fluently. They wanted to speak English confidently. They wanted to improve their English listening and speaking, very obvious. Very obvious question, so I asked another why question.

Why do they want to improve their English? Why do they want to speak English fluently? And the next answer that came up, well, a lot of them want to improve their career. They want to use English to get a better job or to be better in their career, their job.

A lot of people want to use English for traveling, they want to speak fluently so they can travel around the world easily. And, a lot of people just want to make International friends. They love learning about other cultures. They love connecting with people from different countries and English is the best language for that. All good answers. All clear answers. All true.

But then I started asking why again. Why do they want to improve their careers? Why do they want to travel? Why do they want International friends?

And I arrived at a similar answer. Interesting. Well, they want to have more success and more opportunities in their lives. They want to be happier. In the end that’s why we want better jobs. That’s why we want to travel and make friends. We want to be happier. We want to have more success and more happiness in our lives.

So I realized wow, my deepest motivation helps students be happier and more successful and the students’ deepest motivation, be happier, be more successful, connected, they matched, they were the same.

Then I realized, well, these are really the deepest reasons why I love teaching and why my students, my members want to learn with me. So then I started asking more why questions. So, why am I teaching English this way?

It’s interesting, I was like well, because it’s effective, because it works.

But then I started asking how questions, which was the next step. Why questions, begin with why, means you have to get the reasons. You gotta get to the deepest most important reasons first. That’s how you get the most success in your life. That’s how you make the best decisions and it’s how you persuade people.

And, by the way, it’s also how you persuade yourself. If you want to do something you know you should do it, well, focus on the why first. But begin with why doesn’t mean you ignore how.

It’s two steps. You begin with why, that’s the first step to get yourself or to get another person to take action. But then you also have to figure out how to do it, the method, the action plan. First you understand why you’re doing something with the deepest reason. Then you create an action plan to satisfy that reason.

So then I began asking myself how questions. How can I teach in a way that will make my students more successful and happier? Interesting.

I thought more and more about that and I realized, I can teach English and also teach success strategies. I can also teach mental attitudes. I can also teach the psychology of success and the psychology of happiness. I can do that and English at the same time.

And, I can therefore, help my students, help my members improve their English, of course, but also get more success in all parts of their life not just with English. To get more happiness in all parts of their life, not just English.

When I realized that, I kept asking how questions. How can I do that? How can I do that? And that led me to create maybe my best course, probably my best course. Most people say it’s my best course. That’s Power English.

And if you get both the original course and Power English you will notice that there’s a change. Power English is a different kind of course. It uses the same teaching methods, but there’s a lot of psychology in there, a lot of success psychology.

All of the lessons in Power English, they teach you English but they also teach you success strategies for life, happiness strategies for life. And I’m sure you’ve noticed, as a VIP member, that the VIP program is also the same.

The VIP program came after Power English, because what happened was, people loved Power English. Oh my God this is so great. You know it’s so much more, it’s more than just English.

But then people said, but I finished Power English, now what? I want more lessons like Power English. I love this combination of English with success and happiness strategies. And so that’s when I created the VIP program so that you can get these kind of special lessons. Every single month you can get new ones.

But all of that happened because I began with why. Because I was in a stuck situation in my teaching, in my business, in my career. I was stuck. I didn’t know what to do. And I started asking myself those why questions again and again and again.

I began with why, and once I figured out the deeper why. Why I was teaching. Why my students were learning with me and why they were learning. Then I figured out what and how I wanted to move forward, but the why was the first step.

So, what’s the point, huh? Well the point is we all get stuck in life sometimes. It’s kind of like Joe Rogan said, we all know this, we all get problems, this is life. We will get stuck in our life sometimes. It might be our family life. It might be with our health and fitness. It might be with our job. It could be anything.

But we’re all going to hit points where we get stuck, where we get frustrated, where it feels like we can’t get out. And we can sometimes get confused and don’t really know why we’re stuck.

And that’s the hard thing about being stuck is that you’re like, I don’t even know what to do, right? Because when you’re stuck, when you’re confused in your life and you’re frustrated it’s hard to know where to go.

So this month’s strategy is a very good way to get yourself unstuck. Begin with why. Start with the reasons. Why, why, why? Why am I doing this in my life? Why am I living this way? Ask yourself.

Those are tough questions sometimes. Sometimes we won’t like the answers, because you gotta be honest when you ask why questions to yourself. You gotta be honest.

Because sometimes, in fact a lot of times, when we ask the question, why am I living this way? If you’re honest a lot of times the reason is, because I’m lazy, because I’m being lazy. Because I’m too comfortable. Because I’m afraid of failing. Because I’m afraid that other people will criticize me.

That’s usually why we’re stuck. We’re afraid or we’re too comfortable. Those are two of the big reasons, so you have to be honest when you ask these questions.

Like Joe Rogan talks about, you gotta really be honest and really look at your own feelings and thoughts and your own actions. You gotta delve into, you gotta go into and examine your weaknesses and your mistakes in life.

In my case, I was bored and my mistake was I got too comfortable. I was just doing the same thing again and again and again. There was a lot of success, the business was doing great. So I got really comfortable, a little bit lazy and comfortable.

I probably was afraid at some deeper level to try something different, because I might have failed. Power English was quite different and at that time I didn’t know if it would be successful or if I would fail. And happily it was a success.

Other things I’ve tried with Effortless English or in my life have failed, and it’s not fun when things fail but it happens and we have to be honest with ourselves about why we’re doing things.

So, like in your own job or career, if you hate your job, if you’re unhappy in your job or career start asking those why questions. You can just start with a direct problem, why am I so unhappy? And you’ll get good answers to that.

Then you’ll say, well, why am I still working here? If I’m so unhappy why am I still working here? And those are probably uncomfortable answers.

And you can do this about your own daily habits, things that you’re doing day after day that maybe aren’t so good. You know they’re bad, but you still do them anyway, why? Ask yourself why, why am I doing this? Why am I still doing this?

And the same for your goals and dreams.. You probably have some goals in your life, right, things you want. It’s good sometimes to examine those because maybe they’re not what you really want, maybe they’re not your deepest desires.

You might say, why do I want this? Like if your goal is, okay, I want to get a promotion and get a much higher level job at my company. Ask yourself why, why do I want that? Well, so I’ll get more money. So I’ll get more status.

Why do I want more money? Why do I want more status? Well, there could be many reasons. On the good side, maybe it’s because you love your career and you wanna have more influence. So that would be a very positive reason.

But you might answer in a negative way. You might realize, oh well, it’s because I want to impress other people, because my parents pushed me to do this.

And you keep asking, why, why, why am I doing it and sometimes you might discover that actually this desire, this goal is really not what you want, that it’s what other people expect of you. But only you can answer that, right?

Because, in the same job one person might be doing it because they love it, but another person’s doing it because they were pushed to do it or they think it’s expected or because they’re comfortable or because they’re afraid. We’re all different, so you have to find your own answers to this.

And that’s what I want you to do this month. Here’s the action plan for you, and we shouldn’t call it homework it’s your action plan. This is what I want you to do.

I want you to find out some whys in your own life. I want you to think about three areas of your life.

1. Work, your job, your career. If you’re a student, it’s your student life, what you’re studying. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, then it’s doing that.

Whatever it is, I want you to start asking yourself why, why am I doing that? Why did I choose this job? Why did I choose this career? Why am I working at this place? Why, why, why, why, why? Just keep asking yourself why and going deeper and deeper and deeper.

1. I want you to look at your daily habits.

Why do I do this every day? Why do I do this every day? Why do I get up at this time every day? Why do I always eat this kind of food every day? Asking yourself why, why, why, why.

1. And finally, your goals, your main goals in life, what you’re trying to do for the future.

Ask yourself why is this a goal? Why am I really doing this? Add the word really and you get better answers sometimes. Why am I really doing this?

Then, just be honest with yourself. That’s the key. That’s the hardest part of it. Asking the questions is easy, being honest with your answers is not as easy. But be honest about it and if you’re really brave, share your answers, both your comfortable and your uncomfortable answers on our social site.

And that’s it. Just be honest with yourself. It’s your life, so be the architect of your own life.

I’ll see you next time. Bye for now.