درسنامه صوتی

Black Sheep – Coaching Lesson

Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to this month’s topic, Black Sheep. The black sheep, the one who’s different, the one who’s weird maybe, the outcast in the worst cases, right? You can imagine a big herd, a big group of sheep. They’re all white and there’s one black one. The one that stands out, the one that’s different. Now in our conversation we discussed this in terms of family, which is the main meaning of the phrase.

And we realized that in most families there is a black sheep, somebody in the family who’s just not like everybody else. But the thing is most of us have experienced being the weird one, the different one, and in a way, the black sheep. In some situation in life, and if you haven’t already, you probably will. And it can be painful. You can feel disconnected. You can sometimes imagine that you’re being judged. Sometimes you are judged when you’re different from the group.

Maybe you’re the weird one, the different one in your family. Maybe in school you were. Maybe in a job. Maybe in some other situation in life, some other group. You just don’t fit in. You’re weird. You’re strange. You’re different. And that causes some pain, some discomfort. It’s normal. It’s normal. We’re social creatures by nature and so when we don’t mesh with the group, we don’t connect with the group, we don’t feel like we’re similar to the group, or part of it, it creates anxiety.

The first thing to realize is that’s normal and that we’re all going to experience that in our lives in some part. Nobody’s completely normal in every single area of their life. We all have some little areas of our life where we’re a little strange, sometimes very strange compared to the rest of the group. Now I’ve had this experience many times in life.

I remember, for example, as a teacher, before Effortless English, when I was just teaching in schools. I was teaching in Japan at a university near Hiroshima, in fact. And this was early in my career and I was very excited, very interested in new methods. At that point in my career I had already realized that the traditional methods, the normal methods, didn’t work. They were not effective.

I knew there had to be better ways of teaching but I wasn’t quite sure yet what the better ways were, how to do them, how to use them. What could I do to be a much better teacher? So at that time in my life I was just trying many different things. I was experimenting. I was looking for new ideas and then trying them in my classes.

For example, I was experimenting with this idea of high energy classes, like really getting my students moving and shouting and laughing and really entertaining them, to keep them awake, to keep them focused, to give them feelings of pleasure and enjoyment with English. So I did all kinds of crazy stuff in my classes, trying to do this.

I was also at that time experimenting with the idea of using stories to teach English. So instead of teaching from a text book in the normal way, grammar, vocabulary, exercises, instead I started telling stories and I told crazy stories. I didn’t just tell the stories, I acted them out, y’know, pretended I was a character and I was super, super strange. I would jump around, run around the class, all kinds of crazy stuff.

Now I was trying great stuff, great things, really interesting ideas. But these ideas were new to me. I really did not know what I was doing. I had no skill. So I was not skilled. I was telling stories but I really didn’t know how to use stories effectively to teach English. So in one way I was kind of entertaining but I wasn’t super effective as an English teacher, honestly.

And everybody thought I was crazy. The students in my classes thought I was crazy. The other teachers thought I was crazy. My bosses thought I was crazy. I was the weird one, the weird teacher, the one who did all these crazy, strange things that, y’know, sometimes they laughed, sometimes they looked at me and the students would be like wha? And look at each other like what is he doing, this guy, what is wrong with him?

I was the black sheep. I was the weirdo. A weirdo is a weird person. And I’ll admit at the time, even though I didn’t show it, that it bothered me. And I questioned myself again and again. Why am I doing this? Why am I trying all this weird stuff? It’s not really helping because they don’t seem to appreciate it. They don’t understand what I’m trying to do and I’m not skilled enough to do what I want to do yet.

So everybody’s laughing at me or they think I’m weird. They think I’m strange. I’m getting…having problems with my bosses and other teachers. It caused a lot of doubt in my mind, a lot of worry, a lot of anxiety being the weird one, the one that stood out that wasn’t doing things the normal way. And eventually I left the job.

Now, several years later after more experimenting, more being weird and strange, being different, I acquired skill. I got the skill. I learned how to use stories in a much more effective way to teach English. I learned how to use energy and physical movement and many of the other things we use, many of the other techniques that are part of our system.

I became quite good at it. Started my own business, several businesses, that became very, very, very successful. I became financially successful. I became well-respected as a teacher with over 40 million downloads of my videos online around the world. Corporations started hiring me and paying me large amounts of money to come do seminars and trainings and workshops at their company for their employees. Interesting.

This is not an accident. This is a common trend. You see, the successful, the most successful in any field, they’re usually different. In fact, by definition they’re different because most people don’t achieve a high level of success. It’s a rare thing. It’s an uncommon thing to become very successful, in anything, in any skill, in any business, in any part of life. The ones who succeed are different. Think about it.

In business, y’know, someone like Steve Jobs who created Apple. He was a different guy, not a normal guy. Read about him. He had some…a very strong personality, he did many things very differently. And for some parts of his life he got criticized a lot for it. People thought he was weird, something’s wrong with him. He’s not a normal CEO. He’s not a normal corporate leader. And, of course, he ended up being one of the most successful ever.

Richard Branson, same kind of thing, read any of his books. He’s not a normal business buy at all. He’s really different. Donald Trump, famous real estate developer, again, super successful but a very different buy. Many people think he’s weird and he still gets criticism for being strange, for looking strange. His hair’s weird. His personality’s strange but he’s super successful.

In life what is valuable is usually also rare. Gold, if gold was everywhere, if our houses were made of gold and gold grew on trees and it was just…you could just pick it up off the ground anywhere, people probably wouldn’t even value gold anymore. It wouldn’t be worth anything. No one would even care about it. But gold is not common. It’s rare and valued. Diamonds, same thing. And in some ways, with people, too, especially people who contribute in some way, they’re a rarity, their strangeness. By being black sheep, in some ways, makes them more valuable, more successful than if they were more normal.

Now you can’t just be different and incompetent. Incompetent means that you’re not skilled, you can’t do what you want to do. But if you’re competent, if you’re good at what you do and you’re strange and you’re different, that is one powerful combination because then you become a very rare uncommon person and you’ll get attention. First, maybe some criticism but eventually it can lead to a lot of positive attention, too. And so this path of being a black sheep can lead to great success, to greater success.

Now, I hear some objections from people. In Japan they have this idea of the exposed nail gets hammered. Imagine a board and you have nails, and all the little nails are down but then there’s one that’s popped up. And so the saying in Japan is that if there’s a nail popped up then someone’s going to hammer it down. It’s a metaphor for people who stand out, people who are different. They’re standing out and in Japanese society that means they’re going to get hit, criticized, whatever.

And maybe 100 or more years ago in Japan and traditional Japanese society, maybe that was very true. Although I can still think of some exceptions from Japanese history. But certainly nowadays it’s much less true in Japan. Now the truth is, yes, when you stand out in the beginning people think you’re weird, right? When you’re the black sheep, you’re the weirdo. Y’know, just as I was.

The point is you have to endure. It’s like you’re being tested. Y’know, first when you’re weird or strange you will be tested. People will criticize you. People will want to hammer that nail and if the nail’s you, you’re the one who’s different, standing out, it’s painful. People start hammering you, criticizing you, trying to make you be the same as everyone else.

You’ve got to have some strength to endure that and keep going, keep having faith in yourself and being different, being yourself. Just as I did as a teacher, I had doubts but I just kept going, being myself. I stayed strong. And life will reward you when you do that. By staying strong when you’re getting hammered, eventually people start to change.

I’ve seen it myself with me and my own career and my own life. I’ve seen it with many other people as well that as you endure being different and you stay true to yourself, all those…they get tired of hammering you. They just get tired of doing it and suddenly you gain a deep respect. People will say, wow, y’know, he stood strong, she stood strong, even while they’re getting hammered and people trying to change them, they stayed strong to it. They stayed true to themselves. They became skilled and then you get this tremendous respect.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve seen that happen in my own teaching career. It’s gone from…I’ve gone from being the weird one, the crazy one, to now an innovator, to the world’s number one English teacher, to all these things that people say about me. I’ve earned the respect by staying strong, staying different, staying myself, staying confident over many years. And now all that criticism has mostly turned to respect. This will happen with you, too.

People also say, oh, being weird is painful and depending on the society it’s less or more tolerated. But it’s always painful, even for Americans. People think Americans are, oh, you’re such crazy individuals and everyone can be different. That’s not true. It’s the same here. There’s some ways people can be different but there are ways that you’re expected to be the same and if you’re not, y’know, you get criticized. You get rejected just like anywhere else. So it’s painful here, too.

But once again, when you endure you will earn people’s respect by staying true to yourself and not changing to be like everybody else. It’s worth it. It takes time. It is painful but it’s worth it because that respect, it’s based on who you really are. It’s a true respect instead of…you don’t want respect that

comes from being the same as everyone, from pretending. That’s fake respect. You want respect for who you really are. So stay strong.

When you’re different, stay strong. When you’re the same, that’s fine, you don’t have to change but in some areas of life you’re going to be different. Stay strong, be yourself. You will earn people’s respect with time.

Alright, so what’s your assignment for this month? Number one, identify where in your life you are weird. Where in your life are you weird? Maybe secretly so. Some people are weird in their mind, they have weird ideas, weird beliefs, weird desires, but they don’t tell people about them. They don’t show it, right? It’s their little secret weirdness. They pretend to be normal to everybody else but inside they’re not. So I want you to be honest with yourself and really identify clearly where in life are you really different than most people?

Number two, in that area of life, instead of hiding it this month I want you to show it, not just to show it but to proclaim it, meaning to display it, to talk about it, to let everyone see it very loudly, very openly, very clearly. Be who you are. Be that weird person in that one area of life. Let everybody know about it. Don’t apologize for it. Don’t pretend. Be who you are. Expect some people not to like it. Just be strong and be proud of who you really are.

If criticism comes your way, you’re just going to smile through it. Push it aside, smile, and keep on showing who you really are. Be the weirdo. Be proud to be weird. And tell us about it on our social site. Share your weirdness. We’re quite tolerant of weirdness here, so in our community we welcome weirdness.

So come on and share it with us. We’ll all be weird, strange, black sheep together. By doing so we will earn real respect, not fake, pretend respect. And we’ll also become leaders and innovators in this area of our life, because it’s the weird ones, it’s the black sheep, who are the true leaders, the true innovators. Stop pretending. Be real. Be weird. See you next time. Bye for now.