Humility | Walk n Talk
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Hi, this is AJ Hoag, the author of Effortless English. Learn to speak English like a native. EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Get my courses there. Power English course is the best one to start with if you don't know which one, if you're intermediate level. For more advanced, do the VIP program. I also have specialty courses for business English and pronunciation.

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Sorry, there's nothing we can do if you go to a pirate site. So we get people asking and there's nothing we can do. So go to the official site and then it's always guaranteed. You're always safe. EffortlessEnglishClub.com and you will speak English fluently and automatically and powerfully. Okay, another walk and talk. Although today is a sit and talk.

Still talking to you from Indiana at my sister's country estate, the countryside home. Another week in the country. We've had a very nice week, kind of cool weather, so the hot, hot summer weather has cooled off and the kids are adjusting even more to being here, having a great time every day. They

So excited to play with their cousins. And in general, the kids are having a good time and seem to be, you know, very happy here. And we've all recovered from jet lag finally. So that's nice. We've seen some animals. We've seen raccoons now coming. Lots of birds. A skunk came by near the little guest house where we're staying. Vultures. I saw deer driving. I saw some deer crossing the road very close.

So quite nice to be out just seeing animals and surrounded by trees and all that's still great. Doing great. I am training Jiu Jitsu again here. Found a gym here with some very friendly people, you know, kind of friendly, relaxed, kind of a family gym. So it's not a super serious competition gym or school or academy. People call different things Jiu Jitsu Academy, dojo, gym. But in Jiu Jitsu...

There are just all different kinds of gyms. And there are kind of ones that are for regular people like me. People who are working. And people who are not great athletes. Might be older. Just a whole variety of people. And there are also what are called competition gyms. And these are for people who are athletes. Or who want to be athletes. And they want to compete. They want to compete in jiu-jitsu tournaments.

Or possibly in mixed martial arts or something. Grappling tournaments and competitions. So these are... They're very serious. They... People at the competition gyms tend to train like five, six days a week. Sometimes twice a day. And they have to be younger because your body just can't handle that when you're 50, for example. So...

And you got to be very tough physically and mentally to handle that. It's not for everybody. So I certainly cannot handle that at age 56 with two young children and a business to run and lots of other things. So just regular gym, hobby, hobby gym. They call it hobbyist. That's where I'm going. But still, I have to say it's been a tough adjustment training in America. And this just goes to show that...

I guess it gets to show the wisdom of humility as I've gotten older. In many different areas of my life, I have become more humble and can see the wisdom of humility. Not like a fake modesty. Modesty and humility mean about the same thing, right? It's when you... It's the opposite of arrogance.

So arrogance is when you think you're great, right? And when you tell people you're great. I'm the greatest. I'm awesome. You know, like Muhammad Ali. I'm the greatest. I'm the greatest. That's arrogance, right? I'm the greatest. I'm the best. I'm fantastic. And the opposite of that is humility, modesty, humility. When you say, I'm not that great. I'm not very good. Or even I'm nothing at all. And...

I think when you're younger, it's easier to fool yourself, maybe. To think you're greater than you are. Even as a kind of defense. I think some people are insecure. Like I think I was. I don't think a lot of young people are. And sometimes to hide that, or because that's uncomfortable, you try to go the other direction and try to convince yourself that you're really special and great at a bunch of things. But as you get older...

Hopefully, you can begin to see things as they are because you have more experience. And you also become a little more confident but humble. And I think it's the perfect combination. You're confident because you just know who you are and you don't feel the need to pretend to be more than you are, better than you are. You know, you're like,

Like, you know, this is my feeling now at this age, at 56. Like, you know, I'm good enough. I'm not great in most areas. I'm good enough. Good enough. I have a good life. I'm happy with my life. And I'm trying to be better. But, yeah, I'm not great. So in jiu-jitsu, for example, very humbling because I've come here from Japan and people are bigger and stronger here in America. Much bigger and stronger.

And I realized that my jiu-jitsu... I thought my jiu-jitsu was getting, you know, pretty good for a hobbyist. I was... I certainly had improved a lot and I was doing well at the gym in Japan. You know, decent. I thought, oh, I'm getting pretty good. Oh, maybe I'm getting kind of good. Not great. But then I came here and people are kicking my butt and I'm realizing that a lot of stuff I did in Japan doesn't work here. And I realized, oh, in Japan I was using my size and my strength because in Japan...

I was fairly big and fairly strong compared to the Japanese. Japanese people are smaller. I was one of the bigger guys at the gym. Here in America, and especially here in Indiana, it's the land of giants. Everybody is huge. A lot of people are huge because they're big and fat, which is not good.

But also just big, like tall and big wide shoulders and large legs and arms. And there's just some guys at this gym that are... For example, I went... Yesterday, I sparred a guy. You know, did a little practice fight against a guy. I mean, gigantic. Like, I don't know if he's a powerlifter, but I guess he's a powerlifter. His arms were as big as my legs.

So he was probably 130 to 140 kilograms, right? And he said he'd lost weight, that he used to be 305 pounds, which is like, I don't know. I can't convert the kilograms in my head off the moment, but it's big and it's muscle. And I'm sparring, and he's a purple belt, so he also had skill. So I'm sparring this guy. I'm like, what can I do against this guy?

I'm nothing. There's not a thing I can do against this guy. Sometimes smaller guys in jiu-jitsu can beat bigger guys by being, well, first of all, very, very good with technique, but also speed. You know, they can move around quickly and they're very flexible. Sometimes they can beat the bigger guys using that. But I have no flexibility and I'm super slow.

You know, for an athlete or for jiu-jitsu, I'm old. And this guy's young and just super strong and huge. And, you know, so this is humility where I have to admit, like, you know, I'll never be able to beat this guy. I cannot even challenge this guy. He was very nice. He didn't kill me or anything. He wasn't...

his strength really that much. But still, I just, you know, this is where real humility comes in and you just admit like, and in general, against so many of these guys, you know, I'm adjusting. I'm starting to get a little better with it and against, fighting against the bigger guys. So I'm not like a total white belt. At first, I felt like a white belt, but now I'm realizing, okay, I do still have some technique. I just remembering things. I got to be more careful

I gotta be better with my techniques. I'm doing a little better, but still, you know, just not as good as I was in Japan because I'm... I can't use strength. I'm not stronger than these guys. They're all stronger than me. And I just have to admit, I'm not that good. And I'm not so strong. And that's just the truth. Right? And I don't know, I think sometimes when we're young, it's hard, we're afraid to admit this kind of thing, but it actually gives you a lot of freedom and peace of mind.

Real humility. Not pretending. There's a lot of pretend humility where people do it for social reasons. Like in Japan, you're not supposed to say you're great. You're supposed to say, oh, I'm not very good. And so everybody says, oh, I'm terrible. Even if they don't mean it, they just say it because that's what's socially expected. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when really deep in your heart and your mind, you know your limitations.

And I know I'm not a great man. I'm not, you know, I'm okay as a father. I'm not a great father. I'm just struggling to get better. But, you know, I get impatient and I get tired and I get stressed out by things. And as a devotee, you know, as a Sanatana Dharma, you know, in terms of my, you know, spiritually, you know, it's the same thing. I'm struggling, struggling to be a better person, to be more virtuous, right?

But I think to do that and to make any progress, you have to first really be honest with yourself and not try to, you know, there's the whole self-esteem idea that, oh, we're supposed to build ourselves up. Like, oh, I'm so great. I'm so awesome. But if it's not true, you always know it's kind of a lie and I don't think it works. I think it's better to be really, truly humble and admit, you know, all your various weaknesses and...

and who you really are and where you really are. Because, you know, in the big universe, I am a small person and most of us are. So humility. Don't be afraid of humility. It will give you a great peace of mind and calm when you just can accept that. And you can be humble and accept it. You don't have to be good or great at everything. And what it leads to, I think, I hope...

What I wish it to lead to is surrender. Surrender to God. Right? There's this great passage from Bhagavad Gita, chapter 2, verse 48, I believe it is. It says, perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure. So this is the ideal. This is what, like the, let's say, like the perfectly enlightened person would do.

The Buddha, right? Perform your duty, right? Do what is right. Do what is good. Do what you should do. Do your best. And, but the second part, and abandon all attachment to success or failure. So it doesn't mean you don't try. You try to succeed, meaning you try to do your best, but you're not attached to the result. If you fail, you don't get upset.

If you succeed, you don't get all crazy excited either, right? Because you're not doing this for the results, you're doing it for what's good or what's right because it's good and right. Prabhupada has a commentary in Bhagavad Gita as it is, he says, gain or victory is God's concern. One has to become the servant of God and give up the sense of ownership, right? So this idea of surrendering to God's will, meaning you...

You do your best. You do what you believe is right and correct. We have to act. There's no way you cannot act if you're alive. You have to do things. So you do what you think is best. And you do your best. But ultimately, the gain or victory is, like you said, God's concern, right? The outcome. You cannot control things. I cannot control things. We cannot control the world. We can barely control our own bodies. Most of us, including me, cannot fully control our own minds.

You know, we do things we know are wrong because we have all these urges and emotions and bad habits. So most things are totally out of our control. So we do our best and we have to surrender the result. Give up the sense of ownership, right? Meaning we don't own the results. And in Buddhism, there's a similar idea of non-attachment, non-attachment to pain or pleasure. It doesn't mean there's no pain and there's no pleasure. There is pain. There is pleasure, but

None of us want pain. But the idea is that you don't be attached to it. You don't cling to it. You don't hold on to it and focus on it. Right? That you just try to keep a clear and calm mind when things are good and when things are bad. Up and down. And it just so happens that this is actually...

a way to get better results in life in many areas. You will see this, like some of the greatest sports coaches, certainly in America, have taught their players this exact approach. John Wooden, the greatest college basketball coach in America, you read his books, he talks exactly about this. This is what he told his players. He told his players, do not focus on winning or losing the game. And he taught his players, don't,

If we win, I don't want to see you going crazy and too excited. And if we lose, I don't want you to have your heads down and upset. He says, I want you to stay calm. If we win, calm if we lose. He said, I want you to focus on just your performance. He said, I also don't want you to focus on the other team too much and what they're doing. You focus on doing your best. And sometimes you do your best and you lose because the other team's just better or luckier sometimes.

So, and he's like, you know, if, and if, if you don't do your best and you win, that's nothing to celebrate. Cause maybe it's just because the other team was much weaker. You didn't really deserve it. You didn't try hard. So, you know, and he had like, he, I think he had the most college basketball champions, championship teams that he coached, uh, I think in American basketball history. And one of the best professional football coaches in the United States, uh,

Coach of the Bill Belichick of the Patriots.

has a similar approach. Like, they're just... His idea is not a lot of American football coaches. A lot, a lot, a lot. And a lot of teams, they focus on getting super emotional, getting really, really aggressive and excited before the games and try to make, like, almost hate the other team. Like, they want the player so angry and energized before the game that they hate the other team and want to destroy them. But Belichick does not do that. Quite the opposite. He wants...

and has taught his players the same idea. Just stay calm. Whatever happens, we're winning, we're losing. You're the same. You're emotionally the same. You're calm and you're focused on playing with excellence, right? Being excellent and doing your best. And you're not focused on...

the ups and downs. And if you lose, we lose a game, we just forget it and we move to the next game and focus on the next game, getting ready for it. And if we win a game, like same thing, don't get too excited. And he also, I think he has the most championships of any, uh, professional football coach in America. So this is a spiritual principle that is also extremely practical. And I think when you find these kinds of principles that, uh,

you find them in ancient spiritual teachings, and then you can also find them working in sports and all other aspects of life, then you know there's something deep there and something powerful. And I think it's connected to humility, where you can't control everything, like with me in jiu-jitsu. Most things I can't control. I'm older than almost everybody I'm training with. And here in America, I'm smaller and weaker.

I've got a back injury now, so I probably actually can't train for a week or two now. So I can focus on all this stuff and get upset, or I can just let go of the results and just, you know what, when I can, when my injury's better, I can just go to practice and do my best and whatever happens, happens.

And this is a good way, again, like to have peace of mind. And I encourage you to do this, for example, with your English learning too. You know, you do your best. You follow the effortless English principles. Follow the seven rules. You know, listen to your courses every day. Do extra reading and extra listening when you can, when you have the time. You do your best. And then when you have the chance, speak English to somebody.

You know, or take a trip somewhere, or if you have to take some test like TOEFL, you take the test, and you don't be attached to the result. Don't be attached to the result. Just enjoy, like if you're talking to someone in English, if you're talking on Skype to someone, or you take a trip and you use English, just focus on doing your best. Just focus on communicating, and don't get attached to performing, right?

Don't get too worried about, oh, you know, am I using the right grammar? How's my pronunciation? You know, vocabulary? Do they understand me 100% or not? Just talk. And, you know, afterwards, just stay calm and just be happy that you used English.

You did it. Great. Maybe you made some mistakes. Maybe they didn't understand everything you said. Just stay calm. It doesn't matter. There's no reason to get upset about it. Or maybe you just spoke perfectly. Again, you don't have to go crazy, super excited about it because next time you might make a mistake. I make mistakes in English still, you know. So just stay humble and realize you're never going to be super perfect in English because nobody is, not even me.

Right? So you just do your best and focus on enjoying the process. Focus on communicating, connecting with other people using English, getting the results in life you want, maybe jobs or things like that. And just relax about it. Just relax about the results. Do your best and then don't worry about the results. If you did your best, you did your best and that's all you need to worry about. Everything else is out of your control. And that's good. All right. Well, I'm going to get going. This is going to be somewhat short.

sit and talk because number one, my back is in terrible pain. I hurt my back actually in Japan, uh, back before this trip began. And then it's gotten a little better, a little worse, a little better, a little worse. And then suddenly, uh, yesterday, just terrible. So I can't twist or turn at all and a lot of pain. So I'm going to try to go and just lie down and go to bed and hope that in a few days it'll get better. The other reason is that, uh,

Even though I have slow internet at my sister's house, I rented a conference room, a room with high-speed internet, at a hotel. Tonight, I gave a speech to the International Sanatana Dharma Society, Acharya Ji's group. I did a live video stream with them, and I needed fast internet. So I still have the fast internet tomorrow morning. So I think I'm going to go back to the room tomorrow morning and do a video show, a live show,

So I'm going to go ahead and get rested so I can get up early in the morning and do a live show for you all. So that's it. Again, Effortless English Club is the website. EffortlessEnglishClub.com

My only official sales website. And lots of love to you. I look forward tomorrow, hopefully, to doing a live stream with some of you on video. And I will continue to do these audio shows. So, love from Indiana in America. And see you next time. Bye for now.