درسنامه تفسیری

Iron Sharpens Iron – Commentary

Hello this is AJ and welcome to the commentary for this months’ lesson. You know, of course, I started Effortless English to help people, to help you speak English, speak English well, communicate, learn the language. Of course, that is the central purpose of the VIP program and the lessons. It is the essential purpose of Power English in the original course and the pronunciation course and everything I do, of course, of course, of course.

But, the truth is, as you may know, that I have a much deeper mission and purpose because I

want to go beyond that, in addition to that. I want to help people, help you, help as many people as possible grow more confident and more happy.

See, what I figured out, what I learned, what I got a handle on, during my time teaching in schools, as I realized, I looked at my students and I realized so many of them, most of them suffered from a lack of confidence. They doubted themselves. They had fears. They were nervous. Some were shy. Most of them lacked confidence and because of that they were unhappy. A great many of them were unhappy. Some were actually depressed, severely unhappy in a long-term kind of way.

And I’ve realized that even outside of school, just socially meeting people throughout the world it’s a huge, huge, huge problem, and I realized that, well, if you learn to speak English but you’re still depressed, if you learn to speak English and you have no confidence, if you learn to speak English and you are unhappy most of the time and you feel weak and you don’t have the life you want, then it’s really not a big benefit. Okay, you speak English but your life still sucks that’s no good.

And so that’s why in these VIP lessons, that’s why in Power English, in everything I do I try to teach you more than just English. In addition to English I want you to feel confident, more happy. I want you to feel strong and I want to teach you the specific techniques to do that, because you can learn it, you can train it. Because, I also was weak, I also had times of depression, certainly I lacked confidence for most of my youth, and I mean right through my 20s and even into my 30s, I was not confident at all and I was very unhappy because of that.

And so I want you to feel strong and happy and confident and I want you to grow that as much as you can every month, every year, so that yes, of course, you’ll speak English but you’ll do it in a powerful way. You’ll feel confident when you speak English and that confidence will get into all the other parts of your life and that happiness will spread into all the other parts of your life as well.

Now, recently I have started Jiu Jitsu and I have found that Jiu Jitsu for me, is one of the most powerful ways of building strength and confidence and inner peace and happiness that I’ve ever found. It’s not the only way, of course not. It doesn’t mean you must do Jiu Jitsu, no, but you can learn from Jiu Jitsu and you can find other things that do the same for you. And in that essay in the Interactive A and B lessons, there were some really great points made about Jiu Jitsu that can help you find what works best for you. You could try Jiu Jitsu, I recommend it to anyone who might be interested in Jiu Jitsu, just go do it because you’re probably going to love it.

But maybe Jiu Jitsu’s not for you that’s okay, but let’s talk about those three main things mentioned in the Interactive lessons that lead to long-term happiness, inner peace and longterm happiness. Right, there were three things…

1. Number one was, elevating your heartrate, raising your heartrate.

Basically, exercise the body, the body. Getting your body stronger and more healthy.

Challenging your body. Raising your heartrate. Building more muscle. Losing excess fat. Getting more physical energy. The body is the first way, the first means of creating more inner peace, more long-term happiness, confidence, strength, all of those things; the body.

1. The second thing mentioned was, learning, constantly learning, constantly being challenged, facing tough challenges, constantly having to improve, constantly having to figure out new techniques, new methods, the mind. Constantly challenging your mind, improving your mind. The mind is the second means of creating long-term happiness.
2. 3.And then number three was community– friends, family, closer connections, greater respect between friends and family.

Contributing to friends and family in your community, a sense of, a feeling of strong connected community, the heart, love, connection, contribution, caring for each other. The heart is the third means of improving your inner peace, your long-term happiness, your strength, your confidence.

So let’s talk about now, how can you improve all three of those because really, if you truly want to feel more confident, more alive, more peaceful, stronger, happier in a deep way, in a longterm way, you need to do all three. Just one will help for sure, but for the best long-term results in your life, you gotta find things that will fill all three of those, that will feed your body and strengthen your body, that will feed your mind and strengthen your mind, that will feed your heart and strengthen your heart.

We need all three. If you drop one you’ll be missing something. So, how do we do this? I’m going to focus on, let’s imagine the worst case scenario. Probably you’re not the worst case, okay, but the worst would be someone who is just super depressed. Super depressed, they feel very, very weak, they feel nervous, no confidence at all, they’re deeply unhappy and they’re kind of lonely. That would be the worst scenario, the worst case. Now maybe you’re better than that, which is great, but we can always improve.

But let’s look at the worst case, like someone who is depressed. What should they do first? I believe of these three, the body, the mind and the heart, I believe the body is the easiest one and I’m glad that the author of that essay mentioned it first. Because I think the body is the simplest one to affect, to have an influence on. We can see the biggest improvement and the fastest improvement and the fastest results through our body. So the body is a great one to focus on first.

That’s why, for example, in Power English I taught you to use your physiology, right, to use your body. Shoulders back, head up, strong loud voice, move your body. It’s why I still tell you as a VIP member, don’t just sit on your butt listening to these lessons, put on some headphones, go out for a walk, jump around, get active, get your heart moving and beating a little faster. Get that physical energy going it will help your confidence with English, it will make your brain more awake, it will help you to learn faster and improve faster. The body is such a simple and easy way to make a quick improvement in our confidence, in our energy, in our learning, in our happiness, in our mood.

So the body’s a great place to start. So yet you need to use these techniques with Effortless English yes, but you also need something in your life, something consistent, something you do several times a week, at least, hopefully every single day; something you do daily to help your body, to energize your body.

Now, there are many kinds of exercise and sports, so you find one that works for you. The simplest, the easiest, even for people who are weak and overweight, go out and walk. I talk about this in many, many, many lessons and I will continue to talk about it because walking is such a simple one that any age, any condition, people can go and walk. Even people in wheelchairs can get out and use their arms and go for a walk. So most people, unless they’re stuck in a bed and really can’t move at all, but most people can at least go for a walk and daily walking will get your heart beating a little more. It’ll start to affect everything, and make you stronger, make you happier.

So, that person, the worst case scenario, a depressed person, the first thing I would tell them is, get out and walk every day. They can start with 30 minutes a day, but try to rapidly increase to an hour a day, an hour and a half a day. I would push them to go up to two hours per day. Someone who is depressed, feeling weak, feeling no confidence. Just that would help a lot.

Now, I believe Jiu Jitsu is especially great, because it really challenges your body. Okay, so walking is the minimum, but really if you want to feel strong and confident and alive and happy, you really need to go beyond the minimum and push your body, challenge your body. We feel great when we’re challenged, when we do something difficult. So walking is a good start if you’re in a bad position, if you’re kind of weak, but eventually you need to go beyond just that. So, it depends on what you like. You could start jogging and running. You could start lifting weights. You could start doing body/weight calisthenics. We’ve talked about all of these in recent lessons.

Or, you could start a sport and I think sports have a unique advantage. I also exercise, I do pullups and I go for long walks almost every day, but a sport like Jiu Jitsu is even better because there’s a competition part of it and the great thing about competition is, those other people push you. They push you farther. They challenge you more then you will be challenged just by yourself. So, if I’m just doing pull-ups and push-ups, yeah I challenge myself. I try to push myself. I try to improve, but it’s not the same as Jiu Jitsu. When I go and I’m fighting against another person in Jiu Jitsu, they’re really trying to beat me. Okay, they are trying very, very hard to beat me and I have to try very, very, very hard to beat them.

If I relax a little, if I get a little lazy, boom they beat me; instantly I know. Instantly I’m punished, basically, for being a little tired, a little weak, for not being focused, for being a little lazy. I get instantly punished, it’s instant feedback that’s the great challenge of sports. That’s why I think they’re so great. That’s why I recommend doing some kind of competitive sport, even if you do exercise a lot, because that competitive sport it’ll push you. I’ve gotten stronger from Jiu Jitsu, my muscles stronger from Jiu Jitsu than from just doing push-ups and pull-ups only, and it’s because I’m constantly pushed.

My abs, I never used to do sit-ups. I still don’t do sit-ups. I don’t do crunches. I don’t do any work for my abs, but my abs have gotten super strong because of Jiu Jitsu. And it’s just because a lot of the techniques in Jiu Jitsu use the ab muscles, especially when you’re trying to defend and escape, and I’m always trying to defend and escape almost every class. So wow, I think just doing sit-ups I never would’ve gotten such strong abs, but now from Jiu Jitsu very strong.

So, if you do any sport, maybe Jiu Jitsu and martial arts is not for you so do tennis. Even something like golf is not bad if you enter tournaments, because again it’ll focus you to practice more, that competitive sport element is great. Maybe you prefer a team sport. Now I like one-onone because there’s no escape, right, it’s you against another person and it’s very challenging. But, you know, some people join a soccer league, some people join baseball or softball leagues, whatever. But just do some kind of sport once you’re physically in good shape.

So that pushes your body, it trains your body, it strengthens your body. This has such great effects on your confidence, your ability and everything.

Number two, the mind, you need to be learning constantly, being challenged constantly, constantly needing to improve.

This is the thing I hate about schools, because people they go through school and then they graduate and so many people have the mentality, the attitude that, oh well learning stops when you leave school. No, no, no! So you need to find things that mentally challenge you also, that push you to constantly be learning so that you can’t just become lazy, your mind can’t become lazy.

Now, again, I like Jiu Jitsu because it also teaches… Jiu Jitsu’s a very mental activity. There’s so many techniques, so many strategies it’s like chess. Many Jiu Jitsu people describe Jiu Jitsu as martial arts chess, because you know, one guy tries a technique and then I know the defense to that technique, but he knows the defense to my defense and then I need to know the defense to his defense, to his defense and it’s a constant… it’s just like chess, right? Your opponent does an opening and then you have a defense to the opening and they have a defense to that defense and you’re always trying to think two, three, four, five steps ahead of your opponent.

So this is a great thing, Jiu Jitsu is super tough, physically. It’s also very, very challenging mentally. You constantly have to be learning new things, new techniques. It’s never-ending.

Again, maybe you don’t want to do Jiu Jitsu so find something else. I think it’s great if you can find one activity, one discipline, one sport, something that can do all three of these, the body, the mind and the heart. It’s great when you can do one thing that has all of those, because it feels very complete, it’s very powerful. But if not you can find separate things. So you could do tennis for your body and then play chess for your mind, for example.

And then finally number three, very, very, very important also, just as important, the heart; community, connection, friendships, family, respect, contributing to a group, being part of a group beyond just yourself. So powerful; this is one of the reasons I think so many people feel frustrated and lonely in the world and they feel that they’re unconnected, they don’t have this strong tight group, this strong tight family or community. And we need that as human beings to feel totally alive, and I understand that, I was suffering from that a bit in Japan, living in Japan.

I don’t speak the language much and didn’t really have any friends here. You know, I have some family through my wife, but was not feeling that connection and when I started Jiu Jitsu I suddenly had this great community at our gym, at our school and it’s just such a strong connection that’s created training in Jiu Jitsu. In Jiu Jitsu you’re grabbing each other, you’re smashing each other onto the group. You’re very close physically. You’re wrestling, you’re choking each other, you have to trust each other.

You have to trust the other guy that he’s not going to actually choke you to death. He has to trust you, because your safety is in their hands, their safety is in your hands. It creates a special connection and a special kind of respect too. When you train and you work hard, eventually the other guys they see that you’re trying hard, that you’re working hard, that you’re improving and then you gain, you earn that respect. It’s not just given to you, you earn it and that’s special. And, of course, I feel the same way about them, I see how hard they work. I see how tough they are, I know how difficult it is. So I respect their accomplishments. I respect their improvement. I respect their skill. That creates a very, very special connection.

We need this in life to feel stronger. You need a tribe. You need a group. Now, your immediate family of course is the best place to find that and to build that. Definitely, do whatever you can to improve your relationship with your family members, even if you have maybe some bad relationships in your family. Do what you can to improve them. Sometimes you can’t completely save them, you can’t make them super close. Maybe there’s some things that just can’t be repaired, but do your best whenever you can.

And the same is true for your very closest friends, but also, try to find some kind of community that’s very close. And, as in the Interactive lesson, certainly the worldwide Jiu Jitsu community is very close. I can’t explain it, but it’s special. Like you meet someone, you do Jiu Jitsu, they do Jiu Jitsu; automatically you have this kind of connection. It’s really cool. It’s powerful. And there are other activities like that and other groups like that, so find that too. Find something that will give you that community, that connection, the heart.

This is how you build super deep, long-term confidence; super deep, long-term happiness, right. There are lots of psychological techniques for short-term improvement. Those techniques are useful, we need them sometimes, especially when we aren’t feeling good. But, for that automatic, deep, long-term confidence and happiness, these are the things we need… the body, the mind, the heart… and the specific things I’ve taught you.

So, what I want you to do this month…

Number one, choose one activity. Research, find, think about but just choose one activity that will help your body, your mind and your heart, that seems to have all three. Choose something.

Number two, join that group. Maybe it’s a tennis league. Maybe it’s Jiu Jitsu or maybe it’s another martial art or maybe it’s something else, it’s not really a martial art, but it still needs to feed the body, the mind and the heart. Join it.

Number three, practice that activity that discipline, with intensity this month. Do your best. Work really hard. Challenge yourself. Push yourself.

Number four, test yourself against other people, if possible.

So, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, do some competition if it’s competitive. Enter a tournament. Just do some friendly competition, whatever you need to do to test yourself.

Finally, number five, enjoy the improvements and laugh about your losses. You’re gonna lose sometimes, you’re gonna fail sometimes, you’re gonna make mistakes sometimes, all of this is going to happen. Just laugh about it and enjoy your improvements.

All right, I’m on GAB now. Tell me about your experiment. Tell me about your experiences this month on GAB. It’s GAB.ai, GAB.ai. Follow me, AJHoge@AJHoge.

All right, see you next time .