Hello and welcome to English with Languissimo®, the podcast in English where I share stories of my week with you.

My name is Vanessa. I’m the founder and CEO of Languissimo®. 

Let’s go!

The Voice of Attraction (La voix de l’attraction)

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen”.

Let me tell you what happened last Saturday, the day of the audition.

It started at 11:45 am but we had to wait for the coaches to be ready.

During that time, Pete Vargas, the organizer of the event mentioned that there was going to be an in-person workshop in Florida at the end of February.

Since I knew that I wouldn’t qualify for the semi finals because I’m Canadian (the contest is for American citizens only), I decided to be strategic.

I know that I attract people with my energy and enthusiasm so, since my goal is to get noticed by Grant or his team, I decided to register.

Who knows? Grant might show up to the workshop for it is two days before the semi finals.

We’ll see.

The contest started and I gave my one-minute speech.

I was happy and proud of myself for having done it in my second language.

It was a victory in itself.

When they posted the names of the contestants who were going to the second round, I didn’t see mine.

It was a huge disappointment.

I swallowed my pride, stayed connected until the end and participated in the virtual meeting that was reserved for the golden ticket winners and those who had registered to the workshop.

That’s when, much to my surprise, I realized that not only did I have one chance, but I had two to make it to the semi finals: one in the coming weeks via Zoom and another one during the workshop.

Isn’t it incredible?

And I thought I was done…

In fact, it is even better for I will be able to give my speech directly in front of Pete Vargas or Pat Quinn, the two organizers of the event! It’s fantastic!

Since I had no idea as to the reason why I hadn’t qualified to the second round, I decided to watch the online course that you can access once you register to the workshop.

I couldn’t believe it! On the second video, Pat Quinn says that extraordinary stories are not as powerful as ordinary ones. It was very clear. My one-minute speech about how I had made it to the Olympics was too extraordinary.

It is not what they were looking for.

No problem. I will prepare an ordinary story.

To be continued.

Some Study Points

-          “Once” means “dès que”. It is a synonym of “as soon as”. A well-known phrase with “once” is “once upon a time” (il était une fois).

-          “Let me + verb” means “laissez-moi + inf”.

-          “To wait for someone to do something” means “attendre que quelqu’un fasse quelque chose”. “We had to wait for the coaches to be ready” (Il a fallu attendre que les coachs soient prêts). 

-          “Since” in that context means “comme/étant donné que”. It’s a synonym of “as”.

-          “For” means “car”. It is a synonym of “because”.

-          “It was a victory in itself” means “c’était une victoire en soi”.

-          “I swallowed my pride” means “j’ai ravalé ma fierté”.

-          “Much to my surprise” means “à ma grande surprise”

-          “And I thought it was over” means “et moi qui pensais que c’était fini”.

-          “As + adjective + as” is translated by “aussi + adjective + que/qu’”. For example, “extraordinary stories are not as powerful as ordinary ones” (les histoires extraordinaires ne sont pas aussi fortes que les histoires ordinaires).

-          “It’s not what they were looking for” means “ce n’est pas ce qu’ils recherchaient”.

Some Practice Questions

-          What decision have you made?

-          Do you believe in the law of attraction?

Tada! That’s it for today! I hope you enjoyed this podcast. Subscribe to English with Languissimo®, practice, take care and have a great weekend! Big hugs 😊