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The Code VIP – Commentary

Hi, this is AJ and welcome to the commentary for ‘The Code’, The Code… So, I think in the commentary I want to talk about different ways to actually use the code in your own life. So, I explained in the main video what the code is and I talked about it in more detail and I talked a lot about how specifically it applies to us. So, in other words, how specifically we use it in the VIP Program. So now in the commentary I would like to talk about how you can use it in your own life.

This code is very useful and it’s something that can be used by you as well not just within our club. Certainly within our VIP Program we’re going to follow the code and it’s very important for us, but there are some good principles in that code that you can use in your own life, in your family, in your work and any time you’re dealing with a group of people, an organization. I’ll give you an example.

As a teacher, for example, if you are a teacher this is a great thing to use in your class, you have a code. In the main video I talked a lot about having lists of rules and why that is not such a good thing because, as we know, in most organizations, schools, companies, families, whatever, there’s this process that usually happens where a long list of rules are created. What happens is that the parent, the teacher, the leaders in the company, whatever, they focus on undesirable behavior and they then try to make a rule about every different kind of undesirable behavior.

So if someone comes late to work then they make a rule. Well, you must be on time to work. If you are more than 15 minutes late then you will lose some money or whatever.

Then somebody brings food to work or to the classroom and they’re making a lot of noise with the wrapper. They’re unwrapping it. They’re making a lot of noise and it’s very distracting to everybody, very distracting to the teacher and so then they make a rule no food in class. And then someone is drinking. They bring something to drink and they’re kind of noisy with it and they make noise with the can and maybe they spill it and so now no drinking in class. No drinking at the job.

Then this just continues forever and so you start with a few rules and then more and then more and then more and then more and then more and then more and then more.

Someone has a cell phone and they start texting on their cell phone during your class if you’re a teacher or during a business meeting. Okay, now the next rule, no cell phones.

It goes on forever.

The problem with this is that there are two problems. Problem number one is you’re totally focusing on negative things and we know that when we focus on something it tends to increase, even if it’s bad. So if you’re focusing on the negative behavior or problem or situation, even though you’re saying don’t do this, that’s what people start thinking about a lot and it tends to get worse.

Another thing that happens when you focus on these negative things is people become lawyers. Do you know what I mean? They start looking for ways to bend the rules. So somebody will, you know, try to be sneaky and they’ll try to break the rule a little bit when you’re not watching or they’ll try to do something that’s not quite the same as the rule, but it’s still annoying or still disruptive or still negative and then you’ve got to make a new rule to cover that.

So, for example, if you say no food then somebody will bring in a drink and then you say okay, now you’ve got a new rule. Now you’ve got to say no drinks. Then maybe someone will bring a water bottle and say well, this isn’t a drink it’s just a water bottle.

It’s not a Coke. You say okay, well no drinks of any kind including water bottles. Now you just keep adding to it. No this, no this, no this, no this and that’s all people get really focused on. Then you start getting in these little arguments with people about the different rules and their interpretation of the rules. So the whole focus becomes negative. It becomes very frustrating. You start to encourage lots of arguing.

Then the second big problem with this as these rules grow is that people just start forgetting them, right? You just have too many and they don’t even remember what the rules are anymore. You can only focus on a few things at a time. I mean that’s what ‘focus’ means. Focus means that you’re concentrating on just one or a few things. So if you have a lot of rules it’s impossible for people to focus on them all.

So principles are much better like with the code because, number one, they’re positive, right? They’re stated in a positive way. It’s not what we don’t do. We don’t do this. We don’t do this. No, no, no, no. We do the right thing. That is positive, right? It’s focusing on what positive focus do we want. We’re not focusing on something negative. We’re focusing on something positive. We’re doing the right thing, doing our best. We do our best, right? That’s to focus on something positive. We show each other we care. Again, it’s something positive.

The other great thing about this is it’s only a small number, it’s only three, and it’s very flexible. It’s more talking about the spirit of what you want in the organization, in the group. Instead of trying to come up with a long list of every specific little behavior, you’re talking about the spirit. Look, the spirit is that we show each other we care, that we do the right thing and we’re respectful. So if someone brings in food and they’re making a lot of noise instead of saying no food in the class, what I did as a teacher I would just say that’s very distracting. It’s making a lot of noise. It’s not respectful to me as a teacher or to the other students. So, remember, we show each other we care. We’re respectful of each other. So if you’re going to eat don’t bring a loud package.

Or I might even just ask them, what can you do to solve this problem? Then people understand ah, I’m annoying everybody. It’s not just some random rule for no reason.

It’s that they understand they’re not being respectful. That they’re annoying other people, that they’re distracting the teacher and the teacher can be very calm. Or if you’re in a business meeting it could be the speaker. You can be very calm and just say I’m sorry, that’s very distracting to me.

Then we can get focused on the positive thing, what do we want instead? Could you just open that up before you come in? Whatever, there are a lot of different solutions to that and people are smart, they can figure it out. They can figure out a way to be respectful and then I don’t become the rule enforcer. Or if you’re doing this with the code, you’re not some enforcer always trying to enforce all these rules. Instead, what you’re doing is you’re just reminding people to be respectful, to do their best, to show each other they care, do the right thing.

I think most people understand that being loud and distracting is not doing the right thing and if someone doesn’t understand that then maybe you need to get them out of your group. Now, if they’re your child you might have to be a little more forceful and help them to understand, but most people will understand these things and it lets you approach them in a much more positive way and change their focus to finding a positive solution that works for both of you.

Another great thing about using this is that it really creates a good spirit, a very positive spirit in your group. So, again, when you present this, these are our group’s code, I mean everyone who’s a decent human being who’s not a sociopath or something can agree that wow, these are good principles for all of us to follow. I mean, doing your best, everyone understands that, especially when you explain that it means they don’t have to be perfect, they don’t have to worry about mistakes, that you’re just looking for their best effort to improve. Their best effort to improve, that’s all you’re looking for.

That’s very motivating for people. It’s a very positive thing. It takes a lot of pressure off of them and it inspires them and when they know that you really believe it and that really truly is the code that you’re following, it really, really helps. I think you probably know this from the VIP Program. If you’ve been in it a while you know that it’s a very motivating experience to not worry about mistakes so much, to just focus on improving only, just to give your best effort to improve and that’s all. So having a code like this is a very positive thing. It gets people into a more positive cooperative state of mind and focus and it’s very flexible. It really creates a spirit of teamwork in your group.

So what I encourage you to do this month and beyond is to use this code somewhere in your life. If you’re a teacher then you could do it in a classroom. You could even just pick one of your classes and start using the code. Say okay class, this is our code now.

Explain it to them. Explain each point and what it means. You know we do our best, what does that mean? Explain it means giving their best effort to improve, improve, improve, improve and let them know what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean perfection. It doesn’t mean that they have to always be perfect. Then you explain each of the three parts of the code and then you could even put it on a poster or something in the room.

If you’re not a teacher of any kind then you could do this at home if you have a family, especially if you kids. You could make this sort of the family code and, again, you could explain it to your children and what you mean by each one of those. You might mean something a little different than I do and that’s okay, adapt it to your own group or your own approach, but anyway, you would use the code in your family and, again, only three points. That’s it.

You would explain it to them and then you’d start using it. So if your child did something that was disrespectful, if they talked to you in a certain way, for example, instead of saying don’t speak to me in that way, you could just say are you doing the right thing right now. Were you being respectful? Okay, well we have this code. I will be respectful to you. I’m talking respectfully to you right now. You need to do the same with me. Of course, that would be for an older child. For a younger child you might have to be a little more direct or correct them in a different way, but with older children you could certainly do that.

If you don’t have children or you don’t have children now in the house then maybe you could try this at a work situation, at a job, in your department or if you have a small team that you’re working with at work then you could try that. You could suggest it to them. If you’re already the leader of the group you could suggest hey, let’s make this our code.

You know instead of having a bunch or rules and regulations, let’s just make this our code and let’s follow this. Then when problems come up you can connect them to the code instead.

Like if someone is late all the time you could say well, you know, you’re not really doing your best effort to improve. It’s okay if someone is late sometimes, it happens, but if someone is constantly late and causing problems or their work isn’t quite as good as it needs to be and it’s not because they don’t know how it’s because they’re being lazy, well then you can point out, again, code number one. So pick an area of your life where you’re working with other people.

If you have nothing else then you could try to do this with Effortless English. You could go to our general forums and you could try to work with people on our general forums practicing the code, reminding them of the code. This is a difficult thing. On our general forums now we have a lot of people who are using pirated copies of Effortless English.

They didn’t buy them. A lot of these people they’re kind of young or even if they’re not young they’re immature and their attitudes can be kind of, what’s the word I want to use, a bit negative, a bit suspicious and a bit aggressive and kind of selfish.

We also have a group of people who are sometimes trying to promote their own religion and they’re constantly trying to find sneaky ways to do that. We have a group of people, actually the same religious group, who have a problem with gay and lesbian people and they try to find little sneaky ways to criticize that and it’s very difficult to manage because these are people that we don’t see face to face. They’re not really even members of our group because they just found some pirated copy of the lessons for free.

So we’ve had a lot of challenges on the general forums, but the good news about that is that it’s good practice. It’s good practice for you if you want to go and try to keep reminding people of the code when you’re on the general forums. You know you can actually just do the three points and put it on your post and if you feel someone is not following that code you can remind them of one or more points of the code. Yeah, that’s the best way to practice using the code on our general forums.

And, of course you can do this on the VIP forums. We don’t have any problems with our wonderful VIP members, but you can certainly just keep showing each other that you care. Maybe make an extra effort this month and beyond to give more sincere powerful compliments to other VIP members, to encourage them in some way, to boost them up.

Or maybe you want to focus on doing your best and maybe you can focus on how could I actually focus a little more, do a little more to improve more as an English speaker or as a leader or in some other area of your life where you want more success or better results.

So there’s lots of ways you can use the code this month. The main thing is I encourage you to pick one or more areas, one is fine, and to really try to use the code in real life, in your own real life. Apply the code. Use it. Use it as a leadership tool. Use it as a teamwork tool. Use it for yourself to push yourself to get more success and better results in some part of your life and then please get onto our VIP social site and tell us about your experience. Tell us your experience of using the code.

We have a lot of great members on the VIP social site now. It really has become very active and everybody is super, super, super positive and supportive. So if you have not participated on that social site yet, maybe this is the month you should. I suggest that it is. No one is going to criticize your mistakes. If your English writing is not great no one is going to say anything bad about that because our VIP members are very serious about the code. Instead, they’re going to encourage you. This is a great way to make international friends.

Many of our VIP members, especially on the social site, are quite advanced. They are at a very high level of English already and leadership, so you can really learn a lot from them. You could probably make some appointments and have some Skype

conversations with them, maybe even create your own little group of VIP members and you could meet once a week or once a month and chat on Skype together. All of these things are already happening on our VIP social site and our very best members, the ones who are getting the very best results, are also very active on that social site.

So, I encourage you, go to that social site and see how the code is used by our other members and use it yourself when you’re on that site and use it in your own life. I will see you there. Have a great day, a great week, a great month. I’ll talk to you again soon, bye-bye.