#295 Finding Your Dream Job with Megan Nicholls
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Hello everyone and welcome back to the Level Up English podcast. The best place to come to practice the English language, learn about the British accent and culture with me, your host, Michael Lavers.

Today, I am very happy to be joined by a guest. We're joined by fellow teacher from the UK, Megan Nichols. And we have a really good chat today, primarily about work and business English, of course. There's a lot that we do in this episode that's really fun, and I'm sure you'll find it useful as well.

I should mention, you might be able to tell, I didn't think it was obvious, but when we recorded this episode, it was really early in the morning for me. I had quite recently woken up. And

And you can hear by my voice and you can tell my brain is working much more slowly than normal. In the moment, I thought I was fine. But when I came to edit this podcast, I realised just how slow I was actually speaking. I think Megan really carried this episode. If we say someone carried something, it means they did most of the work on their own.

So I really appreciate Megan's help with giving definitions and helping with making the conversation more interesting. So that was really fun. And yeah, please excuse my slower than normal brain in this episode. But I do think it was a really fun chat. We spoke a little bit about our dream jobs.

how to find your dream job. Also a little bit about what we both wanted to be when we were children and whether that changed as we got older. We also spoke about what are the five most important things that you want out of a job. So Megan gives her advice on that. Like if you're looking for a job, what five things should you consider?

And then for the main part of the episode, we do a little bit of a quiz. And I didn't give Megan much preparation for this quiz. So, basically, what we do is I give some sentences. Megan has to choose from a list of expressions, kind of English work-related expressions, which one would fit best in the sentence.

And the great thing is you can play along at home too. So if you're listening, you will not have an idea of what the expressions are, but you can still learn as we talk about them and you get to see the simple sentence and the kind of more casual expression version as

Or, if you prefer to play along and join in with the quiz, I'm going to put the possible answers up on the screen on YouTube. So, if you don't normally watch on YouTube, you could consider just doing it for today and seeing if you can pass the quiz along with Megan as well.

And yeah, we learn a lot. So I think it's a lot of fun. And of course, the expressions we use are useful for the workplace, but also for general life as well. So you don't have to use it only for work. It's useful for anyone. And just a little bit more about our guest today. Megan is a teacher. She's been teaching in classroom and online now for some time. We talk about that today.

Her website is megalanguagecoach.com, megalanguagecoach. And you can also find Megan on Instagram, LinkedIn as well. And yeah, find out everything over there.

And I think that is basically it. As always, the conversation episodes might be a bit harder because we have different voices, different speaking speeds. I tend to talk a bit faster when talking with someone else. It's just harder to talk clearly, I suppose, when I'm under pressure with another person. So you may find it harder to listen to. If you're

If you are one of those people and you need some extra help, the podcast transcripts are a great way to do that, where if you become a member at Level Up English, you can follow the transcripts where it highlights the words while I'm saying them. Really, really nice way to practice your listening, reading skills and learn some vocabulary as well.

Because maybe you hear a word, but you don't quite know what we're saying. So if you look at the transcript, you can see the exact word that we're saying. If that is interesting for you, you can find out more. There's a link wherever you're listening down below. There should be a link that says become a member, join Level Up English members. Click on there, find out more, see if you're interested.

Okay, let's get into our episode and learn a little bit more about Megan. Hope you enjoy it. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm joined today by another teacher, Megan. Welcome. How are you doing? Hi, it's really nice to be here. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Fantastic. Thank you for being here. I'm a little bit curious because you mentioned it just before we started recording where you are at the moment. So would you mind telling us a bit about where you're from originally and where you are now and perhaps even

how you got there as well. Yeah, it's not a quick story, but I was born in Manchester in England and due to my love of travel and languages, I've lived in lots of different countries and worked in lots of places all over the world. I feel very grateful for these experiences that I've had and teaching has actually brought me a lot of that. Being able to teach English, I think is really international and

So right now I'm calling from Mexico, living five minutes from the beach and yeah, really enjoying a different area of my life while still being able to do a job that I love. Amazing. Nice. And I think you also speak Spanish, don't you? So maybe you're using that a lot there.

I'm actually learning Spanish. I'm fluent in German and French. But yeah, the Spanish is progressing more and more as I eat the tacos. Every taco, it gets better and better. Exactly. Yeah, that's the plan. That's so cool. How long have you been in Mexico now?

I'm just over a month. So I can take my laptop anywhere in the world and yeah, I have the flexibility of that, which yeah, like I said, I'm really grateful for. And I'm excited to live and travel in more countries and be able to do a similar thing. Yeah. I think it's a common pattern I see among online teachers is that love of travel, isn't it? And I suppose that's why a lot of people get into the online world. That was a big factor for me as well.

Yeah, it actually happened to me by accident. I think like lots of teachers who were in the classroom, then when the pandemic hit and coronavirus, everything went online. And I know a lot of people missed the contact with the students. I actually really enjoy the flexibility. So yeah, it was not my choice, but it's kind of a happy coincidence. Yeah, sometimes it can work out really well.

And of course, if you're in the country, you're learning the language as well. That's probably going to reflect nicely on your classes because you're a learner as well as your own learners too. So you're in the same boat in that way.

Absolutely. I love it when my students are like, where are you today? And we connect over different travel stories and where they've been and where they would like to go. I think it's a really nice connection. Like you said, with people that learn languages, they generally have this love of travel, which is a good way to share stories and share memories. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And I wanted to talk with you a little bit today about work, jobs, career, in a fun way. I know for some people that can sound a bit dull, but I think we can make it fun today, right? Absolutely. Challenge accepted. I wanted to first ask you about how, it's quite a hard topic to start with, but how you can find a job that suits you. Maybe there are some people listening or watching out there who

haven't found a dream job for them, but they're looking and they don't know how to find it. And I guess, I'm not sure if you would say what you're doing now is your dream job. You don't have to answer, but I kind of am curious about how you got into what you're doing now, whether it was a conscious decision or it just happened by chance. And maybe there's something we can learn from that as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I'd love to start by answering that for me, reinvention and self-discovery and growth is a really important part of the process. I think the job that you have when you're a child, the dream job, what do you want to be when you grow up? It will naturally evolve as you get a career and you evolve.

find out the colleagues you enjoy working with and the industry. I think it's a good and healthy way that it changes and there isn't just one right answer for everybody. It's not one dream job that we're all aspiring for. So if you are struggling right now, I think that's a really part of a good part of the process to realize that there's not just one right answer and you're not messing up if you've not achieved it yet.

But yeah, like I was not really planning to become a teacher. I do love it. And yeah, it definitely ticks a lot of boxes for me. I did my TEFL qualification during my gap year when I was au pairing. And then I studied languages and business. And during my year abroad at university, I lived in Germany and I was teaching English there.

That was with young people and children. And then after graduating, I specialized in the financial and the business English. So that's when I really kind of found my niche and really enjoyed working with adults in a way that I hadn't before.

But it was definitely like a time of discovery, seeing what works, seeing what didn't work. I love working with kids and volunteering, for example, but I find that they're much more challenging to teach because they don't understand the grammar concepts or they don't have the concentration, whereas the motivation is there a lot more for adults, for example. So that was surprising for me. Yeah, I hope that answers your question. It's like building together piece by piece.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I think what stood out to me there is you're talking about trying different things and experimenting. And I think that's a key thing with finding a job you like, isn't it? Like not just knowing when you're 18 what job you're going to have for your life, but trying new things and seeing what feels right, maybe. Yeah.

I think we're fortunate that we're in a generation where we might have a job in the future that doesn't even exist yet. So we see with technology that it's constantly changing. But I didn't know that you could teach online, you know. It just didn't really happen. It was teaching was in the classroom and now it's evolved. So it's exciting to see what dream jobs people have in the future and how they develop.

Yeah, that's crazy to think about. My electronics teacher in school said that to me once, like, a lot of you in this class will have jobs in the future that don't even exist now. And I was like, no, that's, I don't know, is that really true? That just sounds like science fiction. And I don't know if teaching online did exist in like 2005. I guess it did in a basic... Probably with like the old fashioned Skype, you know? Yeah.

In some, to some extent it did, but not to the extent where it is now. So I guess in some sense that was true for me and you, which is, which is really cool. Yeah. I'm curious though, if you, like, would you say with what you do, did you think about, I don't know, what was it like consciously you thought about what you wanted to do in life? Like you like travel and then you try to find a job.

that like fit around your interests or did it kind of just happen on its own? Really? I don't know if that question makes sense to you. Yeah, I do love making lists and I'm very organized and I have this kind of structured way of thinking. So I did kind of start off with a 10 year plan for my whole life, you know, um,

But I think life teaches us and it's definitely taught me that it's the constant like evolving and no experience is ever wasted. So even though I wasn't planning on teaching online in the pandemic, I've learned so much about it just from the experience that was accidental, for example.

I tried to think about five things that I would like from my dream job that are desirable. Travel is definitely one of them. For me, working with people is essential. I don't want to be stuck behind a screen, I say as I'm speaking to you behind a screen. But what I mean is I enjoy the interaction with people rather than just the tech.

I would like a job that's flexible. It's also really important for me to help people, whether that's through my job that's paid or also voluntary projects. And then the final thing, which...

I think easily gets forgotten when we talk about dream jobs. For me, it's important to continue learning. I don't want to do the same thing for 40 years. And it's just become so robotic that I don't even have to think about it anymore. I love to be challenged. I love to push myself outside my comfort zone and do new things and meet new people like you. So I think those are the five things that I would look for in a job, whatever it might be.

That's so cool. Okay, so it does sound somewhat conscious, like a conscious choice in that sense. And I love the things you mentioned there. So I guess to summarise, it could be really useful to think about your values, like what's important to you, what kind of life you want. And then maybe from that, you can figure out what jobs would be suitable for you.

based on your interests. That's a really nice tip. Similar to what I did in the past as well. As you said, we have the ability to do that now more and more with the internet and stuff like that.

Yeah, I think we're really lucky that even though we can't go back in time and change what we studied or changed what we did at university or learning, for example, there's so many opportunities, especially with the internet, to be able to continue that development and almost segue into a different career. Like we can learn outside the nine to five. We can teach ourselves these skills because so many of them are transferable anyway, that it's almost like,

If it's not working out, then that doesn't mean that that's forever. And I think that's a really amazing opportunity that a lot more people are finding, you know, doing the courses in the evenings or doing the weekend learning. And I think, yeah, that's really inspiring. Yeah. I was also thinking of that word as well, that transferable. I like the phrase transferable skills, which means skills that you can take from one area or one job and transfer them or move them to another area.

And yeah, I like the attitude that you haven't wasted time in a job because, you know, before this I was working, uh, several years ago, I worked in a toy shop, uh, selling stuff. I was like the sales assistant, uh, just for a few months. And, uh,

I think from that I got a lot of transferable skills about dealing with customers and not losing my temper if there's a really annoying customer. So you can pick up things like that that are useful for teaching as well and whatever job you do next.

Yeah, absolutely. I work with my clients that are doing interviews, for example. I know you did an episode on this as well with, I think, Natasha. And I also always tell them about the soft skills that even if it's not directly relevant to the job you're applying for, your dream job, like we're talking about, there's lots of soft transferable skills that will easily transition from one to another. There's very few occupations where it has to be set in stone, you know, like,

brain surgeon yeah for sure you need these skills but lots of the jobs that we see nowadays you can transfer the skills between one and the other so it's about having the confidence to be able to put it in a different situation and really sell yourself in that way absolutely yeah what was your one of your dream jobs when you were a child let's say did you have one that you really wanted to do that maybe is no longer feasible yeah

Yeah. So when I was little, I really wanted to be a plumber, which is completely out of the blue, you know, like a bit of crazy to think about now. But for years and years, I wanted to have the utility bill and I really wanted to

get involved in how things work and see the like technology behind it and yeah fix people's plumbing fix the pipes in people's bathrooms exactly so far from what i'm doing but wow you know i think we all have a funny story like that what what did you want to be when you were little i i when i was very young i wanted to be a baker because i loved the smell of bread and then as i got older i

I decided to aim for something more realistic and I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a teenager. Much more realistic, yeah. Which they both still appeal to me to some extent, but as we often do, we change and we get more realistic perhaps or we change our goals. I love the plumbing one though. I mean, you can still bake in your free time. Exactly, yeah. A lot of the things I think we can transfer them to hobbies even if we're not making money from it.

I always say that. That was the thing I realised that it was like an epiphany when I was about 10 years old. Like, oh, I don't have to be a baker to make bread. Oh, of course. And then the dream kind of died there. Yeah. I'm not quite sure about going to the moon, but maybe you can get those little stars that you stick on your bedroom, you know? Yeah, close enough.

There's also a phrase I wanted to run by you to talk about with you today, which is one that I love. And I think you could argue for both sides, but this is living to work or working to live. So it's just like an attitude shift, isn't it? Where are you, well, are you perhaps better explaining it than I am? Because I struggle with this. Like, how would you explain that phrase?

Give me an easy time. For me, it means where you're putting your priorities. So you're prioritizing your career and maybe the monetary gain from going to work. Often this leads to like extra hours and working evenings and weekends, you know, answering the emails at three in the morning.

because work has almost become your life and that's your whole identity for a lot of people. Whereas on the flip side, when we work to live, it's more about having time and feeling this fulfillment and

um which is the approach i try to take you know to have more carpe diem and maximize the enjoyment and see the um job almost as a means to an end to be able to fund the lifestyle or to be able to facilitate the other things that are important in my life yeah for sure carpe diem by the way listeners is latin right for seize the day so just enjoy the day

But yeah, so I think I would agree with you. So living to work kind of is like work is the main part of your life. Everything is about work. Working to live is, you know, you're enjoying your life and work just helps you enjoy your life more. It's more of a tool to be able to do other things. Yeah. Do you think it's always bad or it's always...

ideal to live to work the opposite of what you said? I think it's becoming increasingly difficult. We're seeing with economic situations and precarity all over the world that I think this like hustle culture, it's no longer enough to just have one job, even if it's a full-time job. And that's what worries me is that people are using all of their free time to maybe

have something on the side maybe they're doing food delivery or maybe they're monetizing a hobby just to be able to live that's what concerns me whether it's a choice or whether it's um

feeling forced to do that for their monetary value. But I don't think it's a negative thing if it's a choice. Some people are self-proclaimed workaholics and they're super passionate about their job and it's everything to them because they worked so hard to build it. And then I think it's different because they gain a lot of enjoyment. They gain a lot of personal fulfillment from their job and what they do and what they bring to a company.

I suppose it's like a balance you have to find. Like, you can really enjoy your job, but maybe if it's all you think about and it becomes part of who you are, perhaps that could be quite dangerous. Because if that ends one day, you might have a crisis. Like, who am I? What does life mean? Yeah.

Wow. Absolutely. I think that's causing a lot of burnout. But also, I think a lot more people are recognizing this and kind of moving away from it, as you said, with the travel and the more online and flexible working. I think we've become a little bit more aware of the possible dangers of either way, to be honest. Yeah. But on the other hand as well, I do feel like

with online work it's easier to find a job that you really love uh not easy but maybe easier there's a lot of people online who have randomly found their dream job without even trying and maybe they're working all the time because they love their job so much because there is their own business or something like that i don't know if you would think that's unhealthy i'm kind of unsure i

I'll just speak from my own experience. So I'm making the transition from teaching for an agency to working for myself. And it is very all consuming, especially in the early days. You are doing everything for yourself and the entrepreneur lifestyle then becomes very much, you know, like work is your life because it's all you're thinking about because you're combining passion with money and income and,

So yeah, I think definitely being aware of that before you enter into it because yeah, it can be quite a slippery slope. I didn't realize that. So you've started working for yourself and yeah, I think a lot of people say that you might enjoy the work more when you work for yourself, but you do usually end up working much more than you did before. Partly because maybe it's more enjoyable because it's for you. It's not for a boss or a manager. Yeah.

but can I ask how long you've been on your own now in, in that sense? Yeah. Um, for probably since this year. So yeah, a couple of months. Um, mega language coach. So it's, yeah, it's exciting. Um, and it's enabling me to grow and learn new skills, but yeah, it's definitely the pressure of trying to juggle a lot of, um, balls at once as, um,

as you know absolutely yeah and you're open to classes now because maybe um some people listening might be interested yeah absolutely um i'm on instagram and you can find my website um and it'll be great to meet anybody that's looking to improve their english specifically business english but i also have conversational classes and i say we'll we'll mention it again at the end as well yeah sure but yeah yeah business english so that's kind of why partly why we're talking about this uh work related topic today uh

And I thought the next thing we could try, which is a little bit putting you on the spot, but I want to quiz you. So I've already sent you a list of some expressions, which the listeners don't know about, but you kind of have a preview. But I have some sentences that I want to read. And maybe in these sentences, you can figure out which expression would fit best.

So, in these sentences, I'm not using one of these expressions. So, you have to kind of replace some of the words with one of our work-related expressions. For sure. I'm not used to being on this side of the classroom, so it's going to be interesting. Let's see how it goes. You get the learner's experience now. Absolutely. Actually...

Perhaps what I might do is put these expressions on the screen if anyone's watching. So maybe they could join in more easily. That could be a good way to involve everyone. So I might do that. Okay, so I'll read the first one. And I think these are in... Oh no, they're not jumbled up. I've got to do it myself. Okay, so here's one at random. She has some great ideas to offer in the meeting. What expression can we use there?

um she has some great ideas to bring to the table yes fantastic yeah okay easy it sounds nice yeah i like it i imagine somebody like unpacking their backpack with all the ideas and laying them on the table for everybody to see yeah i think it's helpful to have like a visual uh image for a lot of these expressions yeah so maybe listeners could already guess by the by the sentence but

How would you explain, how would you define bring to the table? I could also help out. Yeah, I think it's something that you can contribute, something to offer. Normally it's intangible things like ideas or values that like we talk about relationship. What do you bring to the table in this relationship or what do you bring to the table to this business?

normally it's not a physical good that you're providing um i guess it could be if you're a picnic or something um but yeah it's something that you are offering of value yeah offering contributing yeah i like that um so yeah in a workplace it's quite a useful one isn't it like maybe in an interview think about what skills you're bringing to the table what how the company's going to benefit from from from your skills yeah

Yeah, absolutely. What would you say you bring to the table as a teacher for your students?

I think the passion for learning languages. I get super excited when I have a new grammar point to teach, for example, or a new idiom. I'm probably a proper grammar nerd. So I think the excitement that I can bring in the passion brings the enthusiasm from the students rather than it just being, you know, a textbook or something. I really try and bring it to life. Yeah, and I think that's what I bring to the table.

Nice. Yeah, I think a passionate teacher is a really good one because that can be absorbed into the students as well. Yeah, for sure. Nice. Okay. I don't know if we'll do all of these, but let's see. Here's another one. The project is proceeding according to plan or going according to plan. Hmm.

I would say it's on track or on the right track. Perfect. Yeah. On track, on the right track, kind of the same, right? Uh, fantastic. So on track, uh, do you think we should take in turns defining them or are you happy to do them all? Or is that too much pressure for you? Yeah.

No, I don't mind. Like for me, it just means something to be on schedule. So I'm a visual learner. So for me, I think of a train on the track, you know, arriving on time and something, yeah, being with the plan and as it was predicted, as it was expected.

Yes, fantastic. I imagine that's where this expression came from, right? With trains on the train track. If it's on the track, it's where it should be. It's expected to be there. Yeah, so the project is going according to plan. The project is on track. It's just like we planned it. Yeah.

Yeah, thank you for defining it. It's still very early for me when we're recording. I know. Sorry for getting you out of bed. I'm always up early anyway, but it's nice that you're helping me when my brain's still warming up. For sure. Yeah, I think we're on track today. So looking at the time of our recording and what I wanted to talk about today, I could say we're on track to finish all of the things I wanted to ask you about. So there's one example. Amazing.

Okay, let's go to another one now. I think I'll do this one. So let's get the project. No, I read that wrong. Let's start. I've just given away the answer. I feel like that was a clue. We'll try anyway. Let's start the project tomorrow morning. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, to get the ball rolling, I think, which is an interesting one because I think this is used a lot in business to either hit the ground running or to get the ball rolling are two idioms that are used often to start something or to, yeah, to get it going.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, good definition. And I think, yeah, I mean, these are all really useful for workplace business kind of English, but I think probably they would all be fine in other contexts as well. So, for example, I can ask you what you think. What do you think is the best way to get the ball rolling at the start of a lesson?

Yeah. Do you want me to answer it? Yeah, if you have an idea of what you would normally do, maybe.

Yeah, I like to get students speaking straight away. Often they need a little bit of time to warm up. So get asking lots of questions, open ended questions, especially to get them thinking in English. They kind of have to make that switch in their brain from their native language. So, yeah, I think that's a great way to get the ball rolling and start immediately thinking and speaking in the target language.

Yeah, fantastic. Kind of like warm up, get something going. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, I always struggled with that. And for me, it was very British. It would always be about the weather. Yeah, the small talk. Yeah, and a lot of cultures don't really do small talk. But I felt like it was important for me to show them what British small talk is all about. So just talk about the weather. What is it like where you live? Oh, interesting. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Yeah, fantastic. For example, today we got the ball rolling by talking about where you live. That's another good option, right? Yeah. Okay, let's do another one. Okay, I'm enjoying this quiz more than I was expecting. Oh, good. Okay. I guess quiz sounds a bit boring, but hopefully this is okay. Here's one more. They keep setting higher standards with each new product.

Hmm. Okay. I would say that they keep raising the bar with their new standards or they raise the bar each time they make a new product. So this is like about the development and the improvements each time. We see this a lot with tech, you know, that's a new feature. We've really raised the bar with this new edition or this new version.

Yeah, perfect. Yeah, raise the bar. That's another really good one. As you said, set higher standards or expectations, go above what was expected. And yeah, really good for employees to raise the bar and do a really good job to impress their managers. And can you think of a question? I haven't prepared any questions. These are just on the fly in the moment. But any good topics? Like an interview question? Yeah.

Anything we could talk about, like raise the bar, how can we put it into context with a question to discuss? I don't want to just keep saying raise the bar in lessons because that's been my example every time. Um, how have you raised the bar in your previous jobs to go above and beyond? Maybe I guess that's two expressions in one, but, um, yeah. How have you raised the bar to exceed expectations and deliver great results? Hmm.

And I guess if I were to answer that...

It's hard for me to answer because I always found it very tough working for other people, which is why I don't anymore. Because I would think I was raising the bar and setting things to a really high standard. But in many workplaces, that's not what people want. So for example, I did one job where we were like, it's grounds maintenance, like cutting grass and that kind of stuff. And we were set

We were allocated time to complete these tasks. And if I did it really quickly one day and came back quickly, the next time we did it, we would be given less time because the manager would know it doesn't take that much time. So I found it really hard to raise the bar because what I had to do to keep my co-workers happy was just go really slow and not work as hard as I wanted. Yeah.

Yeah, I think like the incentive to raise the bar is not always in the right place. It's not always with the employee aligned with the expectations of the employer. So, yeah, I think that's a good example. Yeah. You don't want to make your co-workers look bad by working too hard, do you? So, yeah. Or set yourself impossible standards for next time. Yes. Oh, you did it like this last year. So now you need to do the same again. Yeah.

yeah i wonder if there's anything like that for teaching as well like if you do one class where you you know you give so much homework and bonus materials and it's maybe not possible to keep up with that level of uh uh you know stuff to to provide and it might set a bad expectation for the student in the next one so you have to kind of you know pace yourself and not not do too much maybe

Yeah, manage those expectations to be realistic and realise that we're all human as well. Yeah, for sure. Well, I think we can finish. We're getting easier because there's not so many to choose from now. So let me read you this one. I'll ask for his opinion before we move forward. Run it by someone? Yes, perfect. Ask for his opinion, run it by him. What would you say that means?

It always makes me think of two people running together and having a conversation, like, let me just check about this before we go into the meeting. But it's just to get somebody's opinion or to have a discussion about it, I guess, so that it's not completely...

uh unprepared it's not new material that both parties are aware of what's going to be discussed or what is upcoming before the actual discussion or actual meeting yeah yeah fantastic good definition i would say yeah to ask for someone's opinion or maybe their approval on something yeah and yeah i don't i don't know why we say run here because you know it's not really about running but to run it by yeah to

I can't think of a better analogy than what you said, you know, running to someone and seeing if they agree. I don't know. Let me just get your opinion quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe there's an element of being doing it quickly, which you can think about with running, but I guess maybe a lot of listeners already know this, that you can't take these expressions too literally. They often don't make sense. Yeah. Yeah.

So about, let's say about the podcast today, is there anything that you want to run by me before I publish this episode? Maybe you want to make sure, I don't know, something's done correctly or anything I should know.

I don't think so. I was preparing about living to work and I was looking at Ikigai. Probably I pronounced that wrong, but I know you're learning Japanese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I just wanted to run it by you and see what your thoughts were about how it involves finding a suitable job and things that bring you fulfillment in your life. That's a great example. My question was so badly worded and you still had a great answer.

Yeah, we could talk about that too. So ikigai, you pronounced perfectly, I think, is the, it's a Japanese word. It's a very kind of deep word, but it kind of just means like your reason to live. Is that how you understand it?

Yeah, I saw it visually represented with like four circles, like kind of Venn diagrams. And the thing in the middle is the ideal to reach. So it's about finding something for your income, for your skill, something that brings you joy and something that's useful to the world, I think. I mean, I don't speak Japanese, so probably you can explain it better. But I just thought it was an interesting approach to looking at dream jobs. So, yeah, that's just something I wanted to run by.

Yeah. Yeah. Good example. Um, yeah, it's very deep. I don't, I don't know if I have an answer for that personally. Um, do you have one? Do you have an answer or is it still, uh,

Still, we don't have an expression to use on that. No, not really. I think it's like finding, we talked about finding values and things that are important to you. So if you can combine any of these elements together, then it's better than just striving for one on its own. Trying to find that balance, I think, is going to optimize the output and the outcome. Yeah.

Perhaps I can also put that diagram on the screen again for YouTube watchers if they want to think about what that would be for them as well. Could be interesting. And yeah, of course, after I publish this episode, I'm going to make sure you stay informed about any changes that might happen when I edit it.

That's my next sentence. What can we say for that? That was a smooth segue. I like it. So you'll keep me in the loop, I would say. Fantastic. Yeah. Keep you in the loop. Do you have a visual idea for this one in the loop? I feel like this is harder.

It makes me think of a circle. And so if everybody's in the circle, they're all involved. If somebody is outside the loop, they're not in the circle. They're not in this like moment together. So they're not up to date with information.

Very creative. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Yeah. You have to be in the circle and be up to date. So, yeah, as you said, in the loop means kind of up to date with the current knowledge, current stuff. I see this all the time. I think this is a really useful one. I see it on posters and signs and websites. Or if you're signing up to a newsletter, an email newsletter, it will say, like, stay in the loop with what we're doing.

Uh, if you don't know the expression, you would never guess what that means. So it's a really good one to know. Yeah, I guess we can use it with keep and stay. So keep me in the loop or I want to stay in the loop. Um, I think you could use it with both verbs, which is interesting. Yeah. Or be as well, be in the loop, but keep stay. Definitely. Uh, that's a, that's a good thing to mention. Is there anything that you like to stay in the loop with?

with like maybe you're subscribed to some newsletters or you're following someone on social media something like that um i really try and avoid it because i'm using so much for my job so i try and avoid it um

in my personal life. I stay in the loop with my yoga classes, for example. We have a WhatsApp group, so we keep informed with the changes to classes or any events that are happening. Keeping in touch, staying in the loop with what's going on in the community.

Yeah, great example. Yeah. And I get that too. I think it's nice to take a step back from social media. You can't stay in the loop of everything. For me, I've got quite addicted perhaps to, it's not quite social media perhaps, but it's Strava, which you might know, which is, what would you say? It's like a exercise tracking. Like a fitness tracking. Yeah, fitness tracking. Yeah.

And I like to stay in the loop and watch my friends to see what my friends are doing all around the world and see, oh, he's gone on this walk today or she's doing this yoga thing today. And it's kind of cool to see what activities my friends are doing. So that's where I stay in the loop with my friends' fitness stuff. Is it because you are competitive or because you are intrigued?

I think both, both. If someone is in where I am. I understand that. Yeah. If someone's here and I see them running around some lake, then I think, oh, I want to do that. I'm going to do it faster than them. And I feel motivated to do it more. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Amazing. Is there anything before we go that you think we didn't touch on or anything you wanted to run by me before we finish up?

I think when we're looking at the world of work, it's really interesting to look how it changes over generations and the expectations that different generations have towards whether we're living or whether we're working and finding this balance. That was something I was thinking about before I spoke to you today. But yeah, I think we covered most of the topic. So yeah, thank you so much. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good point. Like my grandparents probably...

I don't know if they had many jobs in their younger days, but I know at least from sometime in their 20s until they retired, they had the same one job. I think there was more living to work back then, more of that feeling of like work is the main part of your life. Whereas now it's much more reversed than it used to be in many cultures anyway. Yeah. It's nice that we have a bit more of a choice, I guess. Yeah. Hopefully more and more people are getting that choice as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, before we say goodbye, would you like to share again where people can find you, any social media, website, that kind of stuff?

Yeah, for sure. I'm on LinkedIn, Megan Nichols. And I also have my website, megalanguagecoach.com. And then I'm also on Instagram. So I'm sharing content there, maybe about some of these idioms. That'd be a great inspiration. And it's also megalanguagecoach. You'll find it. It's all pink and teaching about English. So yeah, it'd be great to connect with some people. Awesome. Is that a pun as well in your website name?

yeah so I um wanted to be amazing with mega and meg is uh how I'm known to my family and friends so absolutely nice I didn't realize I thought it said Megan because I read it very quickly and now now I realize it's mega nice yeah cool well thank you so much it's been so nice chatting with you I really enjoyed it and uh yeah me too thank you for having me keep in touch thank you

Thanks for listening.