EP. 102 – Work As Hard As You Possibly Can On One Thing And See What Happens

Teacher Mike: Bem-vindo ao podcast "Para Aprender Inglês", o melhor podcast de inglês do Brasil e do mundo". Aqui é o Teacher Mike, professor de inglês e fundador daAccelerate Idiomas, a principal escola de inglês 100% digital do Brasil. Aproveite o episódio de hoje e vamos acelerar o seu inglês.

Teacher Mike: Lack of internal union also makes itself known in increased suffering, magnification of anxiety, absence of motivation and lack of pleasure that accompany indecision and uncertainty. The inability to decide among 10 things, even when they are desirable, is equivalent to torment by all of them. Without clear, well defined and non-contradictory goals, the sense of positive engagement that makes life worthwhile is very difficult to obtain. Clear goals, limit and simplify the world as well reducing uncertainty, anxiety, shame in the self-devouring physiological forces unleashed by stress. The poorly integrated person is this volatile and directionless, and this is only the beginning. Sufficient volatility and lack of direction can rapidly conspire to produce the helplessness and depression characteristic of prolonged futility. This is not merely a physiological state. The physical consequences of depression, often preceded by excess secretion of the stress hormone cortisol, are essentially indistinguishable from rapid aging, waking cardiovascular problems, diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer's. The social consequences are just as serious as the biological. A person who is not well put together overreacts to the slightest hint of frustration or failure. He cannot enter into productive negotiations even with himself, because he cannot tolerate the uncertainty of discussing potential alternative futures. He cannot be pleased because he cannot get what he wants and he cannot get what he wants because he will not choose one thing instead of another. He can also be brought to a halt by the weakest of arguments. One of his multiple warring supersmart allies will latch on to such arguments, often contrary to his best interest, and use them in the form of to buttress its contrarian position. A deeply conflicted person can, therefore, be stopped metaphorically with the pressure of a single finger exerted on his chest, even though he may lash out against such an obstacle. To move forward with resolve, it is necessary to be organized, to be directed towards something singular and identifiable. Aim. Point. All this is part of maturation and discipline and something to be properly valued. If you aim at nothing, you become plagued by everything.

Teacher Mike: If you aim at nothing, you have nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nothing of high value in your life, as value requires the ranking of options and sacrifice of the lower to the higher. Do you really want to be anything you could be? Is that not too much? Might it not be better to be something specific and then perhaps to add to that? Would that not come as a relief, even though it is also a sacrifice? Jordan Peterson, Chapter seven, pages one hundred and eighty two to one hundred and eighty four of the book "Twelve More Rules for Life". And, basically, the idea here is that you have to aim at something instead of trying to be everything at the same time, because, if you don't aim at something, you don't have a goal, a specific, identifiable, unique goal. You are going to be plagued by trying to navigate a world where you don't know where you're going. And he gives more arguments here, which come from the physiological aspect and also the social aspect of it. So, on the one hand, if you don't know how to aim and you don't have a specific goal and you are just wandering in life, that means that you have a lot of potential. So a lot of people... this is going to happen very ofte. A lot of people say: "Well, I have a lot of potential, I think I can be great at all these sorts of things". But then they don't choose one and they don't do one. They just say: "Oh, I can be good at all these things. I think I have all this potential that I can do and I can be good at". But they never choose one and they never stick to it. Therefore, they are always plagued by this idea that they can be everything, but yet they are nothing.

Teacher Mike: So they live with the idea that they can, but they never are. And this is very dangerous. So the physiological aspect of it is that being in that state of just wandering around and not having a clear, definite goal, it brings about a lot of stress and depression. And then the physiological aspect of it is that you become tired, you become... there's a lot of cortisol in your blood, the stress hormone, so you become anxious, you gain weight, you lose hair, you age more often and faster. And these are physiological consequences of basically not being able to decide and aim for something rather than everything, because if you aim at everything, you actually aim at nothing. And then he also mentions here the social consequences of it, which is the fact that you can and you will be easily discouraged, because you have all these things that you are thinking about doing and now it's very easy for your brain and for yourself, for your voice inside of your head to put doubt on you and to make you insecure and to make you second guess yourself. And then eventually you don't do anything because, again, you're afraid of doing it. So the name of this chapter is "Work as hard as you possibly can on one thing and see what happens". That's the chapter seven of this book. So, chapter seven, "Work as hard as you possibly can on one thing and see what happens". And the idea of this... so in this part of the chapter that I read, he's talking about the clear importance, the sheer importance of having a goal and something that you aspire for and that you're going after. That gives you meaning, that gives you a sense of purpose, that gives you the thrill of living, which is something that is intertwined in the human brain and you cannot remove it. There's no way of removing it. So you need it. But at the same time, the whole chapter, the idea of the whole chapter is this, listen: instead of thinking of all the things that you could be, choose one thing that you're going to work as hard as you possibly can and let it simmer and see what happens. And I, I feel like the best example I have for this is whatever I have started in 2017, when I posted my first Instagram video teaching English, because, at that moment, I made a commitment of working really hard on it, for as long as I could and for as long as possible. And here we are now. So now there's a podcast, now there's over 800 students and there's a business around it which makes my living. So it is really interesting to see that this rule played out very well. And there were many moments in that journey that I had the option and I could have done many different things, but for some reason - and here I think it's a lot of luck - I decided to stay in the one thing. I wanted to stay here doing this. And I'm not going to lie. There were many moments in which I thought about doing other things. I thought about maybe doing some other types of work, especially when this was not profitable enough to the point that I could sustain myself and support my family and myself. There were no family back then. And, in those moments, I was really thinking: "Maybe I should do something else, maybe I should just go get a job, because that's going to be a full time rate". But, thankfullu, we did not do it, because that would be me not aiming at one thing, I would be aiming at many things at the same time. So I aimed at one thing. I'm working as hard as I can, as hard as I possibly can on this one thing, and then I see what happens. And I really think that you that are listening to this podcast right now, you definitely have many ideas of things that you can do, many things, many potential things that you could do in the future. And what happens very often is that you don't do any of them, because you have potential. However, you haven't put it to work. So the idea is: find one of those things and work as hard as you possibly can in one of them and just see what happens. Imagine how far you could go if you did one thing for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years. And I've just started jiu-jitsu. I'm just a white belt. Started barely, barely three months ago, barely two months ago. And what I've realized is that if the only difference between me and, say, a black belt is years of practice. And it's not one or two or three or four years, it's like 10, 11, 12, right? So the difference between someone like me, who sucks at jiu-jitsu, and someone who, now, is a black belt is years of practice. So they worked as hard as they possibly could on that one, let's call it martial art, on that one flight category, and because they worked as hard as they possibly could on that, they became a master at it. A lot of people will get to the blue belt and they give up and hopefully I don't do that. And when they do that, they are saying: "well, here I am not working as hard as I possibly can on this". And again, I'm just talking about jiu-jitsu because that's a tangible example I have of my life right now, but it doesn't mean you cannot use any other example you have. It can be work, it can be hobbies, it can be professional. It can be your relationships. Work as hard as you possibly can on your relationships. I think that's a good analogy. But, anyways, the point of this podcast today of "The Journey" is this: I think, very often, we forget that we have to choose one thing that we're going to do. And all the potential that we had when we were younger, when we were 17, 18, 19, that phase doesn't exist anymore. When you were 17, people would tell you: "You can be anything, you know, you can do whatever you want". And you have all this potential, unrealized potential. But as you grow older, this potential has to become something and, therefore, you have to pick the things that you're going to do. And, at the same time, at the moment you pick the things you're going to do, you also pick the things you're not going to do. So the moment you want to be something, you give up being the other things. And this is nice, right? Because that means that you live a life that is the result of all the other lives that you are not living. And that is quite scary sometimes, because you think of all these other different options you've had, however, living a life that is the result of all the lives that could have been is better because it is what it is. You're living a life that is. You can't live on could have been or could be. Therefore, as you get older, as you mature, I know a lot of people listening are very young, to this podcast, but also some people are older. As you mature, you have to choose, pick a damn thing and then pick the things that you're not going to do as well, because you have to pick the sacrifices that you have to make. But the good thing is you get to choose. So that's why I think this chapter of "Twelve More Rules for Life" from Jordan Peterson is very nice. Chapter seven. I just read to you pages one hundred eighty two to one hundred eighty four. And I believe that that is a very, very valuable book in chapter. So here's my book recommendation for today. Read this book and also pick your damn sacrifices. Pick the things that you're not going to do by picking the one thing that you're going to work as hard as you possibly can and see what happens. And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you next time.