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Hi everybody. Today I want to talk about a really important topic. It’s concerning the question of an attitude towards life and study. You’ll know that in life there are really two types of people. There are people who put all their attention onto mistakes, and they’re noticing when things go wrong, they’re noticing when things are not perfect, they’re criticising all the time and just pulling you down. And then there are people with a positive attitude, where they pay attention to where you’re improving, to where you’re getting better. They notice where your strengths are, they notice where there have been increases in skill and improvements in what you’re doing. And they don’t put their attention onto issues and problems that haven’t yet been solved.

I want to give you an example; just yesterday there was a student of Kung-Fu English who gave ma a call, and this person had some questions and difficulties about their learning. What you really need to understand is that this person was beginning from an absolute zero base, they spoke absolutely no English whatsoever when they started. Now, when they called me, this particular young man, he was really unhappy with himself. He said he had no improvement whatsoever, he was criticizing his memory, saying he had a terrible memory, and that he absolutely wasn’t anywhere near a native speaker, and he was so unhappy about this. And so, you’ve got to ask yourself objectively, what was actually the situation with his English. Well, to test this I used English a few times to say something to him, and each time I said something o him in English, he actually understood it. And he could respond, and he knew inside him what it meant. Now, his English pronunciation, clearly, wasn’t perfect, but it was understandable, and he had some phrases that he already knew, that he understood, even though he did not recognise that fact himself. So, clearly, for someone who was beginning at a zero base, he had already made significant improvement in just a few short weeks.

So, when you’re facing this sort of situation, especially as a learner, you have a choice. You can notice the things that you’ve already improved at, the gains that you have made, and be happy about that and encourage yourself. Or you can put your attention onto all of the holes that you still have, all of the problems that you still have with what you’re learning, and you can use this to prove that you’re really unlucky and it’s not working for you. As a result, your confidence is going to get weaker and weaker, and finally you’re going to give up.

Many years ago when I first arrived in Hong Kong, I’d been here just a short time, I was invited by Amway to go and deliver a presentation, in Cantonese, to several thousand people about some of the experiences I had had on expeditions to the North Pole. Now, what you have to understand is that at that time my Cantonese was okay, but I had an accent, my choice of words was fairly limited, I certainly wasn’t very, very fluent, or very flexible in the way I used Cantonese, I certainly couldn’t compare with a Cantonese Master of Ceremonies, who uses the language beautifully and humourously. But, as a foreigner speaking Cantonese in front of an audience of several thousand people, it certainly wasn’t a bad effort. It was pretty good. Did I have areas where I needed to improve? Of course I did, but when you’re learning language, really there are only two criteria that matter. First of all, are you improving every day? Are you seeing some improvement, some gain every day. That’s one. And the second is, are you able to communicate your meaning? Because language is about communication. Well, on that particular day, I was clearly able to communicate my meaning, so it was a successful story.

Just recently in China, I’ve come across something very, very similar. There’s a Chinese person who decided to use English to do a broadcast presentation. And after this broadcast, there were people on the web who were saying that this presenter hadn’t passed, that they had “failed in their oral English.” And it makes us really wonder, what does this idea mean? What do we mean by a pass or a fail?

Well clearly, this presenter did not have native level English, there was an accent, this person spoke English quite slowly, but this does not mean that they “didn’t pass.” I went to try and understand this person’s background and it turned out that originally she had no English and had learned it on her own over just a few months. So, given that as a background, her English was already very, very good. Now, if you bring a negative attitude to try and assess the English, then clearly you could find lots of areas for improvement. But, if you listened to what this particular person was saying in the broadcast, the content was excellent; it was really good. This person was, courageous to actually go out there and use English to do a broadcast, and even more importantly; she was able to communicate her meaning very, very clearly. So, like my situation speaking Cantonese at the Amway event, she communicated her messages very, very clearly. And that, ultimately, is really the most important thing.

So, how do we sum all this up? If you use a really positive attitude towards learning in life, then there are going to be lots of people who support you, and there are going to be people who criticise you for not being at the level you “should be at.” But you need to understand that when you’re learning anything, there are many, many levels you can get to; there’s not just one. For instance; when you’re starting English and you have a zero base, then being able to understand and speak a few phrases is already significant achievement. If you already speak a lot, very, very well, then maybe mastering a New York accent is the goal that you’re shooting for, or possibly you want to be able to use English to tell jokes and do humour; and that’s another level that you’re going to. What really matters is that in your heart you know what is the next level that you’re shooting for; and you need to support yourself and encourage yourself, and work to improve step by step every day. And when you do this, then no goal is too high for you, no challenge is too big. You’re going to be able to overcome them all over time. But what’s important is that this really positive, proactive attitude is the main issue that you need to master; it’s the main skill that you need to have, and when you have this, then every other challenge, every other difficultly that you come across, you are going to overcome, you will win. You’re going to get more and more confident, your skills are going to get stronger and stronger and your self-assessment is going to get more and more positive over time.

Now, a lot of psychological research has been done, over time, into this sort of communication, and what we know is that if you encourage people, if you give them positive feedback, if you notice where they’re good and support them, then they get better and better over time. So, when you’re learning something, especially if it’s English, or anything else for that matter, and you want to improve very, very quickly, then you absolutely have to have gratitude for the things that you’ve already achieved. You need to encourage yourself, reward yourself, support yourself. You don’t want to criticise yourself and look for where you still have problems, that’s not productive. And you should do this to other people as well. You should really support and encourage them for the things that they have already achieved. And this is important, because it trains you to start paying attention to the positives, to notice all of the positive information and examples around you, and to notice all of the value in your life, and other peoples’ lives. And this will give your life a lot of success and a lot of happiness.

So, wishing you all the best in your English learning.