Speaking Of Stories - Episode 7 - Lisa Wood

In this episode of Speaking of Stories, I’m joined by English coach Lisa Wood, creator of the Calm Way.

We explore what really holds people back from speaking English confidently and why it’s often not vocabulary or grammar.

Lisa shares her personal journey learning French and Spanish, and how it led her to develop a more human, brain-friendly approach to language learning focused on mindset, communication, and real-life use.

We talk about:

•  Why traditional language learning methods don’t prepare you for real conversations 
•  The role of mindset, confidence, and self-acceptance in speaking English 
•  How perfectionism and fear of judgement block communication 
•  Why native speakers also need better communication awareness
•  Practical strategies like paraphrasing and simplifying your message 
•  What it really means to feel like yourself in another language 

If you live or work in English in a global environment and still feel blocked, stuck, or unconfident - this conversation will resonate.

  🎁 Lisa shares a free masterclass for listeners of this podcast: 4 Essential Habits to Overcome Fear and Speak English Naturally (code: CALM)  

Find Lisa on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/your.english.self

Find me on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/englishcoachsukhi

Work with me: 

https://english-every-day.kit.com/9439715d75

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, I'm Sucky, and welcome to my podcast, Speaking of Stories. I'm fascinated by people's everyday stories, and this podcast is an exploration of how the languages we speak weave in and out of our identity, expression and lived experience. Today I speak to Lisa Wood, an English teacher and coach, and we talk of her own method called CAM and what that entails, what myths exist in the language learning industry and how they don't help people in real-world settings, and how acceptance of who you are goes a very long way when it comes to communicating in English. Sit back, relax, and enjoy a small part of Lisa's story. Hi Lisa, thank you for joining me on my podcast, Speaking of Stories.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Hi, thanks for having me. I've been waiting for this for a while.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

I think I've been asking you for about a year.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

I think it's been a long time, hasn't it? But life is busy and the things happen. But anyway, here I am.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

It's great to have you on. We recently did a live and we've just been joking about how we can chat and put the world to rights. So I'm gonna have quite the editing job afterwards, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Well, I just said to you, I think the problem is going to be shutting us up.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

So would you like to just give a little introduction to who you are for anyone who's listening in right now?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

As you said, my name's Lisa and I live in Spain. I've been here for 26 years. I actually worked out that next year I will have been in Spain for as long as I lived in the UK, which is where I'm originally from. So that's quite a moment for me, I think. So yeah, I'm originally from the north of England, uh, from a town called Bradford. It's quite close to where you are, Suki, I know. And I moved to Spain to teach English in 1999. And uh since then, I've been teaching English to adults, um, but I also work part-time in a secondary school teaching English to teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Now I know that we share synchronicity in the kind of things that we do, in the way that we approach our private coaching. And whenever we talk, I always feel that kind of alignment between the way that we approach that. You kind of have a brain-friendly approach, don't you? And this is something that resonates with me, and it kind of goes beyond the traditional way of teaching a language. Could you explain a little bit more about that approach?

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Yeah. Um so as I said, I I came to Spain um to teach English, and when I first arrived, I was I was a typical English teacher in a traditional English classroom, and that was fine. I had lots of fun. But yeah, I'm the kind of person who I never sit still and and my mind is never still, and I'm always looking for ways to improve things or wondering why something isn't working. I love learning new things, and I love being curious and and and exploring things. And my approach has been a long time in the making because it's a result of I suppose how many years since I started learning French at school? I can't even add it up, it's such a long time ago. I think I started learning French when I was eleven or something like that. So I suppose you could say it started then the reflection, the experimenting, the trying things out, the realizing that things didn't work. And eventually I suppose three or four years ago was when I finally cracked the code, I think, and gave it a name. I realized what had been holding me back for many years learning languages, and I saw the same thing happening to my students. And I think it was when I trained as a neurolanguage coach that I put the final piece of the puzzle into place. So my my approach is called, I call it the calm way, and that was just um very lucky that the four pieces spell out calm. I'm going to work backwards actually. The final letter of calm, the M is was the final piece that I put into place that I realized I had been missing for so many years, and the people that I worked with were missing as well. And that's mindset. And it suddenly, it was like it was like a a hundred light bulb moments at once. Because I was very shy when I was young, when I was learning French at school. And I was a really good student, I got grade A's all the time in my exams. My teachers never complained about me, apart from on my school report, they would say it doesn't participate in class, should participate more. Yeah, but how tell me, help me. And nobody did because what I realized was it was a confidence problem. I was great on paper, but I don't think I ever had a French conversation at school, apart from the typical uh find your way to the tourist information office kind of dialogue that you're forced to do for an exam. So then I went on to university, but I loved languages. So I went on to study French at university, but the confidence thing didn't go away. But I hadn't realized at that point what it was why I couldn't feel comfortable in a conversation with my classmates at university. And it kind of just went on and on, and then I decided I wanted to be a French teacher, but I thought there's no way I can stand in front of a class and teach French. So I thought that the magic pill was to go and live in France for a year. So that's what I did. I even left my the love of my life at the time. That's how desperate I was. I had this handsome rock star boyfriend, kind of rock star, that I left in for a year and went to France. I was heartbroken, but I was desperate to get fluent in French, and I thought that was the answer, but it wasn't because I just did I went to classes there, I did more grammar, I learned more vocabulary, and I didn't get fluent. So I came home, I was a French teacher. Yeah, but it never really that feeling of not being enough in French never went away. I moved to Spain and had to learn Spanish because I decided to stay in Spain. That wasn't my plan. I came to do a course. I didn't really have a plan, but I ended up staying and I had to learn Spanish. I still hadn't realized that mindset was part of it. Obviously, the language, if we're learning a language, we have to learn the language, and that's the L of my approach to calm. So when I came to Spain, I knew I had to learn the language. I went to class, went to a couple of classes, and I just learned Spanish out on the street doing things that I needed to do. But again, I was writing down vocabulary in my notebook, I was doing grammar exercises, I had a book, I was going to some classes, but still I felt that there was something that was stopping me from having these conversations. Fast forward a couple of years, I had all these things going around my head about the language, and I was like, it's not working. I'm writing down the vocabulary, I'm studying the grammar rules, and it's not helping me have a conversation. So that was all going around my head. And then the A in my method is action plan. When I was like, we go to class, we have this textbook, everybody works their way through a textbook. I'm thinking about my adult learners who were all in very different situations. They all wanted to be fluent in English, but they were learning English for different reasons. Some of them wanted to use English in their jobs, some of them wanted to use English in their personal life. The people who were using it in their jobs had very different jobs and needed very different specific English. I was thinking, I'm just wasting their time. So they come to class tired after a long day at work and they're learning random vocabulary and studying grammar rules, and then going away and not being able to use English because one, it's not relevant, the English that they're learning, and two, the way that I'm teaching it isn't helping them to have a conversation. So then I started to think about language strategies and explore those. That's right. I trained as a neurolanguage coach, and it talked about how our brain likes to learn and how we learn more effectively and efficiently. And I realized that what I was doing as a teacher was making my students work harder than they needed to and not get the results. Because I was asking them to do things that their brain doesn't like. You know, we don't learn in a linear way, for example. And I was asking them to write lists of vocabulary and the translation, because that's how I'd been taught to teach. So the action plan was let's start with your situation and what is your goal? What is going to help you get there? What do you need and what is going to help you get there? And then we threw the course book out of the window and it was looking for activities, activities that they needed, that were useful, that were relevant, and that they enjoyed. So personalizing the experience rather than a one size fits all. And then finally, the C is for community. Having a safe space to do that, to practice, to experiment, to be with other people who get it, who understand what you're doing and to get inspired by them as well. Because when I realize that if we start with VMset and we're not in the right place, and we don't feel safe, then no matter how much language we have, we won't be able to access it because we'll just be blocked. That was rather a long-winded um way of telling me my approach.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

No, that was great. I totally resonate with this approach, and I'm glad that you've kind of gone into a bit more detail about the calm way, completely in line with what I do, actually, even though I might not use well, I do use mindset language, action plan I might call like refinement of goals or habit habits, um, and how you're gonna reach those goals. You're right. And community, yes. Community, oh my god, community for connection is beautiful for people who need something a little bit deeper than just the grammar and the vocab sessions. So you said so much that I resonated with, and took notes, and I'm like, oh my god, where do I start? Um there's more of your personal story that I want to go into, but this language-focused stuff or the teaching-focused stuff I'm really interested in as well, blockage as well, the stress, the anxiety. So the people who come to me almost tick off the L, the L a bit, which is like they come to me having done so many years of the same old shit again and again and again. And this is what I noticed as well: that little gap. There was a gap, and I was doing exactly the same as you, the C2, C1 level, not even students, they could already work and live in English, and I was still, because of how I'd been trained, focusing on okay, let's give you more vocabulary and we use this, let's use this phrasal verb that you're never going to use in your life. But can you use it now? And it would go away with a sense of overwhelm, maybe not at first, but eventually. And they'd still have these blockages, and it doesn't help them step into the real world, particularly at work. I noticed with lots of my clients who come to me now as well, they say, Okay, I've got what I need in in English, but I'm just so unconfident. So it's a completely different approach, you know. And I feel like that's what the training misses, it misses seeing humans beyond all the language learning. It's misses seeing humans as holistic, as full, round, whole-bodied people. And I think my approach has gone through the body-mind connection, and I'm getting trained in many different things currently because I know that there's this gap, and the people who come to me are starting to recognise that too. I do feel like the way that the language industry, and I refer to English because it's in my experience, but it's also because it's such a huge requirement for most people who want to elevate their career.

SPEAKER_02 14:51

You're absolutely right. And I think the way we as teachers were trained, and then we go away and do what we've been taught to do. What I find is that as learners, we do that as well. So, you know, you learn a language the way you've been shown how to learn a language, which is usually at school, especially if it's English, and you learn the vocabulary, you learn the rules. Maybe you focus on pronunciation a little bit, if you're lucky. We don't know anything else as learners. Who knows so and quite often people who come to work with me will say, I've been studying in English for years. I really need to use it at work, but I just don't feel confident. I just can't do it. I just can't have a conversation. I need more grammar and I need more vocabulary. And it's understandable that that's what they feel they need, because we've only ever been told that there's one piece to the fluency puzzle, which is language. The vocabulary, the grammar, and the pronunciation. Not many people who come to work with me have stopped to think that it might be something else that is holding them back, not the language that actually they have enough language. Maybe what they don't have, and this is what they generally discover, is they don't have a system, which goes back to the action plan. So they may just be pulling out an old grammar book, uh, you know, working through that and doing the exercises and expecting to then miraculously use that language in conversations. They may not be consistent, and I get that because I've been trying to learn Swedish since lockdown, and I'm still like probably a false beginner. Because I'm not being consistent, because it's just life gets in the way, and I haven't created any habits. That's what I help people with to create habits in their lifestyle. And I may have four people on my program at any one time, but they're not all doing the same things every day, and they're not all dedicating the same amount of time every day to their English. They're doing what they can, which is realistic and doesn't create overwhelm and stress because that's what we want to avoid. So, you know, some people that's that's what that's all they need is a system and to be consistent and to create habits or the mindset. I know, I mean, we're we're we're gonna constantly go back to the mindset, I know, because that that's one thing that you know, it's it's it's so huge. You know that, Suki, I know that. But you know, not everybody does know that, and when you start to delve into it and you see people going, my God, it was that simple. That's all I needed to do was to work my way through that, and that's why I didn't feel confident, because I'm a perfectionist, uh that's why I didn't feel confident because I'm so scared of people judging me, because that's what my teacher did at school, you know, and when you see those kind of aha moments happening, it's just so it's it's just amazing. Amazing for the people that you're working with, but amazing as well for me as a coach to see that I finally found the way to help people to be able to use language for what it's for, which is communique.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Totally get you. I'm clicking my fingers in celebration for anyone who's listening and not watching, but yeah, totally, totally with you. And a few things came up. It's interesting how much past experiences show up in people's English communication. And I noticed that, you know, the perfectionism and the fear of judgment or the holding back from speaking up, these are really real concerns that people who come to me and you have. And it's true what you said that one size doesn't fit all. Everybody's got a different life, different habits, different lifestyle. And the way that I'm going, the route that I'm going down, is everyone has a different body and brain as well. I'm super sensitive, and I fully embrace that. My body is constantly talking, which is why I do a lot of bodywork. So some of the people who come to me are highly sensitive individuals, and they resonate with that aspect of me where I have to really see the link between the body and mind, and that's what came from my mindfulness accreditation. That was the start of this whole learning journey where I can now piece together fluency and powerful communication, you know, standing grounded on your feet when you speak to someone despite flaws, because there are gonna be flaws, even people in their first language have flaws. It's not about the flaws, that's what make people interesting and human and unique and individual. It's about embracing them. I think the work that the approach that we have is a lot of it comes to acceptance and standing tall in your own unique voice, you know. That's powerful and that's the kind of people who come to me. So I totally hear you. I feel like the system is old-fashioned and it's stuck. And that's okay because it would take an overhaul to start including mindset work and body work, you know, even though in the East mindfulness practices are already integrated in some places. This isn't anything new that I'm doing anyway when it comes to the mind-body link. But thoughts, like you said, the fear of judgment, yeah, it can it can exist in the body too, and that's something I have to be very detailed with in the people who come to me with their needs. I need to figure out is it a body thing, is it a mind thing, are you more cerebral or are you in your body, you know, is there a mixture of both? I have to really, really go deep into that. But yeah, one size fits all, old-fashioned, it's not even the way anymore. How can we be so generic in even in the classroom? I I think back now when I used to teach advanced general classes at a school, and they'd all just be learning the same thing, but they're all going off in different places of their life. Like, how does that work, except for might be a bit of a truth bomb, but making money? You know what I mean? Like, how does that really truly help people?

SPEAKER_02 21:56

No, I know, I know. It doesn't, it doesn't help. People and it's like you said, it's actually treating people as the humans that they are and accepting that, you know, every individual brings to the language learning experience so many different things. And as you said, one of the first things you do is like working out what is it, what kind of person that are they? What do they need from you? Is it a body thing? What is it that they what is it that they need? What they don't need is to be constantly told that's incorrect, that's and to then live with the fear of making those mistakes in conversation. I think when people are given permission to speak imperfectly and realize that what is this about? It's about communication, it's about connecting with people to communicate. Learning a language is about connection, it's not about correction. Okay, yes, we need to give feedback. We all want to improve our our language. I've lived in Spain for 26 years and I still learn things every day every day, and I love that. But what has changed for me is that I don't allow my imperfect Spanish to hold me back anymore. I fully engage with it and happily make mistakes because I know that if I don't, that's just going to keep me small and I'm going to be I'm going to be a restricted version of myself. I'm going to be a safe version of myself that I used to be. And that safe version stopped me connecting with people, stopped me making friends. I wrote a post actually on Instagram which resonated with a lot of people, and I was talking about how it took me years to make friends with someone who is now one of my best friends because we have so much in common. And I knew that from the beginning when I started work, but I was so afraid of judgment of making mistakes that it just kept quiet. And I nodded my head, and this person who is one of my best friends now didn't get to see the real me for many years, and I'm talking four or five years, I think it took until she realized that we shared so much in common, and we we have a great time together, and we laugh at the same things, we joke at the same things now. But I never felt I was able to show the true me because I didn't feel safe. And that all goes back to my past experiences learning learning languages. I was never given permission by any teacher to make mistakes, quite the opposite.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Totally, totally. That's it. The permission to accept who you are in this very moment, flaws and all. We need the flaws. We need them, especially in the world of AI, where everything's so perfectly constructed. We need the humanness, come back, come back to humanness. This is something which will resonate with the people you and I work with, the fact that you held yourself back from making connections, and it stemmed from either fear and all the other things that we keep in our mind, which are beliefs, which are just stories that we tell ourselves, that we've learnt. And there's for me and my clients, there's an awareness thing. I think what happens when clients come to me is they first start to become well, maybe it's not like they first start to become aware, but some of them are first starting to become aware of their thought patterns and how that might be influencing or impacting on the way that they show up at work. So if, for example, they consistently tell themselves, this happened with a client of mine recently, and her English is amazing, but she was like, Yeah, I had a call in English the other day, and there were some misunderstandings, and it was because of my pronunciation. I was like, ah, we talked about this again and again and again, but it's gonna keep showing up until there's like an embodiment of what you were saying, this kind of acceptance of imperfection and even truth in those thoughts. Thoughts are little liars sometimes and can stem from that belief, and that just keeps circulating until you challenge it. So the first step for me, a lot of the times, is awareness and then challenging those thoughts. Are they true? Is there any evidence?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Evidence. You've just said something that this is a word my clients hear a lot, because I'm constantly saying, it's like you said, these stories, they that's what they are. They're stories. And our stories come from they come from so many places, you know, they come from our experiences of learning languages in the past, as we said, they come from our culture, they come from our family. Things that our parents say to us, um, our relationships with our siblings, they come from society in general, what society expects from us. And we've just done this um exercise in in a coaching session on my program, which is to change our fear stories into or reframe them into growth stories. So to identify the stories which are not helpful. Because some of the stories we we have, they're good stories and they're helpful. They help us keep moving forward. So it's about sorting out which stories are helpful, which stories are not helpful. And if you're telling yourself a story, your English isn't good enough because you know it's not as good as Sarah's in accounts or whatever, then that's not a helpful story. But it's no good, it's no good just telling yourself, okay, stop saying my English is not good enough. Start saying it's good enough. That's not going to help you if you don't really believe it and you don't understand where it comes from. So you have to go deeper. You know, people talk about peeling away the layers of an onion, don't they? You've got to get to the root cause. When I started, when I realized what was holding me back, when I started peeling away those layers, why have I probably never had a comfortable conversation in French? Because I don't think I ever have. Why wasn't I able to do that in Spanish, but now I am? Because I got to the root cause and I was able to change it from there. I worked out that what was holding me back was perfectionism, one of the things. I worked out that one of the things that was holding my back was my belief that I wasn't good enough because of my background. Because I came from a working class background. I was the first person to go to university in my family. And I arrived at university, and on my French course, I was with lots of people who were from a very different background to me, who maybe had second homes in France, and you know, had spent all their childhood spending summer vacations in France. And I was like, I shouldn't be here. This is not for me. I don't deserve to be here. I should be doing something different. But when you get to the root cause, when you realize what it is, then you can start to work on changing it. But if you don't know what it is, then it's impossible to change.

unknown 30:20

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 30:24

I really love speaking to you because the things you say validate the things that I do in my work. Honestly, they do. I absolutely love speaking to you, and this is why, and you know, this this approach, I believe, is going to become more widespread, I think. I think that's the way it has to go. We can't keep doing the same things again and again in the English language industry. I'm talking specifically about the English language industry. It's similar for all language industries, but it's even more crucial for English because it's growing as the language for global business, professional, travel, everything.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

You just need to stop treating people like idiots because they're not. And we're doing them a disservice by feeding them more vocabulary, feeding them more grammar rules, and then sending them off into the world to fall flat on their faces.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Yeah. Absolutely. Ain't nobody listening for your perfect conditional. They just want to know what you're saying and what your meaning is, and they want in professional settings, they just need the message delivered and they want it done quickly, concisely, simply as well. So it's quite interesting because the clients who come to me have this beautiful range of English, even though they say they don't, they do. And then they'll go into the workplace with all of this beautiful language, but they'll have to simplify. Unfortunately for them, it's almost like reducing their English to the most common phrases that we have, and to be able to actually overcome miscommunication rather than it being an immediate reflex of your worthiness. You know what I mean? I just wanted to say as well, like I'm really pleased that you shared your experience because something was holding you back, you know, from making those connections, and you went deeper and you found out what it was. And it takes time to do that. And I did something similarly while while I was speaking in my main language, English, I would make connections and I'd be a social creature, and it was part of my journalistic background, and I would just always be living in culture, conversation, interviewing people and writing for magazines and things like that. But I was so scared of being myself, and that stems not because of my communication, not because of my language skills, but due to what had happened in my past. And it was I found out while you found out your reasoning was the perfectionism. Mine was like a fear of being rejected in in the sense of belonging, because I didn't feel like I belonged for loads of my life, but that showed up in my communication. So I would enter situations, nobody would see it because the facade was calm. But internally, the mind was going, Oh, what did I say that for? Why am I not making them laugh? Oh God, I I don't know what what that person said. How am I going to respond? Sweating, leaving social events early. None of my friends knew that. I have good friends, but none of them knew that. They do now, but they didn't then. And it was going deeper. So it was nothing to do with my communication, although I have refined communication skills in the past few years because I want to transmit that to my clients because that's what they need: communication skills, not new vocab. I just felt like I didn't belong in the situation that I was in. I wasn't worthy of people's attention and connection. And now I do, and that's what's made my communication better. So that's hopefully that can be passed down onto the clients. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally. I agree. We kind of make it all about ourselves as well. The focus is is is all on us and you know, inward. And that's one of the things that I work on with with my clients is like is shifting the focus. So, you know, realizing that it's not about us. And I don't say people are not going to judge us because they will. I judge people sometimes. I can't help it. We're human, we that's what we do. But it's about realizing that even though people might judge you, they don't necessarily mean to judge you, most people. And quite often, what other people are worried about are themselves, gradually not worried about you, they're worried about themselves. And it's like you said earlier, all they want is to receive the message. They want the information that you need to give them to be able to do their job, or they want the help that you've got to give them in the training or in the presentation. They don't care about the words you use as long as they understand them. And it's like you said, sometimes that means making communication simpler. And I think that is our responsibility. You're not um, and actually, I'm just writing a post about this. This is my next post. You are not an actor there to perform. You're there to communicate and to connect with people and to give them a message. And it's your responsibility to do that in the most effective way possible. And you know, the most effective way possible is not necessarily using fancy language just so that you can prove what a great level of English you've got and you're definitely C1 level. If you're working with people who aren't at that level in a global context, you need to keep your message simple. You need to take into consideration and respect your audience. How are they best going to understand your message? And I think once you take the focus off yourself and focus on the message and your listener or your audience, that's like a massive weight off your shoulders. And it's so liberating. You agree? Absolutely, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

I love what you just said. Yeah, shifting the focus, shifting awareness from going inwards to outwards. And I think that's beautifully put on the message, and also something that I can tie into that is on the other person when you're listening to, because a lot of the time, this is a communication skill that comes up again and again in my sessions is actively listening. How? How do you actively listen so that you can be engaged and connected with the person in front of you? I will say what you brought to mind was that I get this feeling as well that there is so much pressure placed on second plus English speakers of English in, let's say, a native, not fond of that word, but a native environment. So someone living and working in the UK in an office, there's so much pressure I've heard from clients through their lived experience placed on their shoulders to make communication work. And this is something that I'm opening up to recently, even more so, is that if miscommunication or misunderstanding happens, the reflex is to blame the South with my clients anyway. They're just like, oh, this went wrong. It must have been me. I need to learn more English, I need more vocab. I need to sort my pronunciation because I can see their faces isn't misunderstanding. Now I don't want to uh reduce what my clients are feeling because some of that is intuitive and some of it may be true. I'm not there standing watching. But native speakers need to take responsibility too, honestly. The thing about second plus English speakers is they learn English brilliantly. They have this array and diversity in their expression when they get to a high level, and it's beautiful to hear. And sometimes I'm like taken aback because when I'm speaking to my native speaking, if native English speaking friends, and it's not as like flowery, it's not as beautiful, it's just very simple. Yeah, we we do have the cultural aspect as well, and it's very different because we learn differently, but I'm just so impressed by my my clients, but a lot of the times they they come back to themselves as the problem. But native speakers need training, they need to know that communication is two-way. We were talking, or I heard you say earlier, how am I best gonna deliver my message to the person in front of me, to my audience? That's brilliant, that's what needs to happen. There needs to be concision and clarity and simplicity. But how is the person receiving the message negotiating the meaning with the person whose first language is not English? There needs to be better training for natives too. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Yeah, totally, totally. And that's um that's what a lot of um a lot of my clients say is that when they're in a global context, nine times out of ten, the reason for miscommunication is when there's a native speaker press of English native speaker press.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. Speak too fast, really strong accent, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Yeah, and it's like you say not considering your audience, not moderating your speech. And it takes two to tango. It's not just about you speaking, you don't have all the responsibility. There are two people in the conversation minimum: a speaker and a listener. And a listener has just as much responsibility as the speaker. And I'm thinking of a personal situation. Um, and and you'll know, I'm sure, Suki, as well, that sometimes you just feel more comfortable speaking to some people more than others. And that's when the language flows as well. It's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you feel uncomfortable speaking to somebody, then the language that the language either doesn't come out or what comes out, you know, you trip, you trip over your tongue, and you're not as capable as you know you can be. And this happens to me with um a couple of people in Spanish. And I've these people know that I'm not Spanish, they're Spanish speakers, but they live in my village, it's a very small village. I've lived here now for 23 years. But when I walk into that office, before I even open my mouth, there's a look of confusion on this person's face. Because they know, they know that I'm not Spanish, and they're instantly assuming that they're not going to understand me as easily as they're going to understand, you know, somebody else who who is from the village who walks in. And then obviously, there are two things going on here. So that blocks them from understanding me, because they've instantly put up a barrier, and it also blocks me because then I see the look of confusion on their face, and I'm like, oh my god, they're not going to understand me. So then I can't get my words out, I can't access them because I don't feel calm. And you know, it's not, it's not about my Spanish. My Spanish is the same because then I can walk outside of that office, bump into somebody in the street, and have a conversation where I'm in total flow and I can't stop speaking, and I'm not looking for my words at all. And in the space of two minutes, nothing has changed about my Spanish. The level is exactly the same. But um, so you're definitely right, and this is part of my program. I do put this into my program. It's not just about how well you speak, and it goes back to that thing. It's not about you performing, it's about a conversation happening, it's about a connection, it's about, you know, making sure that your message is understood and that the listener feels comfortable. And that's what native speakers are not good at. And other non-native speakers are generally much better at being aware of who they're speaking to and what they need to do to modify their speech so that their message is is understood.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

I believe non-native speakers of English have had to go through a different process in order to be understood. So, along their journey, particularly when they've reached an advanced level, they're actually learning soft skills, communication skills along the way, which native speakers, you know, it's a generic statement, but generally lack unless they're in the industry where they've been trained in that. But the people who come to me, that's exactly what they need. They need like this grounded presence, they need To be able to hold empathy for others, people who are in leadership positions or executives, they really don't want to be overcome by their thoughts of imperfection, basically. I mean, that's again generic, but yeah. I think we mentioned this before, but one thing that comes to mind is how do I overcome these moments while maintaining self-compassion? That's that's like for me the key point. It's like, okay, so something was misunderstood. Cool. How do I keep it fluid and flowing without making it a massive deal in my head, without going sweaty, without going home and thinking about it all night, you know, that's where people come to me. That's where they're currently at is that moment because they still haven't overcome that moment yet. So that's a bit of the training, which is mindset as well. It's mindset plus language plus communication, all of that piece together really does make for a better experience, don't you think?

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's like you said, when you have the strategies in your pocket, be those, the mindset strategies to stop it spiraling out of control, you know, when you're like going to panic mode and survival mode. If you can pull out some of those mindset strategies to help you keep calm and grounded, great. Or language strategies in my approach, I said, you know, language is part of it. But when I talk about that, I'm talking about language strategies, not just lists of vocabulary, not grammar rules, things like paraphrasing. So, you know, getting really good at paraphrasing so that if you can't find that word, it doesn't, it doesn't paralyze you. You just instantly go into paraphrasing mode. Because that's what we do in our first language as well. So, you know, a language strategy like that, paraphrasing, work on it, get really good at it, because then it's not going to block you when you can't recall the word, the exact word that you need. Because at the end of the day, what do you need? Do you need the exact word? Do you need to be precise, or do you just need the idea? Maybe you just need the idea, and that's enough to communicate your message. So, you know, little strategies like this, you know, filler words to buy yourself time. Rather than learning lists of vocabulary, random words from a textbook that you're never going to use, and we know that it's that old expression, use it or lose it, um, they're just taking up space in a notebook. And quite often I've done it myself. I'll write down lists and I never look at my notebook again. But um working on useful strategies language strategies, mindset strategies, anything that helps you to keep the conversation flowing.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Totally. I'm I'm with you in that. And you kind of made me think about how you know once you learn these strategies and tools, it's not something that is a constant, then. You know, if you feel more confident, it's probably not gonna be a constant. It's something that you can tap into. So you you have these tools at the ready, like you said. Um with my clients, perhaps it's a sense of groundedness because they're in their head, so then they'll they'll leave my sessions after some time, knowing how to ground themselves and knowing how to come back into their body, which can then make them more connected to their to the clarity of their thoughts and you know, things like that. So it's not a constant. You can learn English to a C2 level and feel confident for a couple of months after your exam, but that'll drop if you're not using it. So then it's about, oh, how can I access that again? How can I reaccess that? How can I reaccess my mindset tips that I learned from Lisa? What can I do? How can I keep them present?

SPEAKER_02 48:00

You're right. It's it is that is um it's like you said, you know, you can you can pass your C1 exam, get your piece of paper, but that's not a guarantee that then you can go into every conversation feeling comfortable. It's about having those tools, like you said, to keep yourself in the conversation rather than hiding from it because you suddenly panic because you can't remember that word that you needed, or you can't remember the rule that you need for the third conditional to then translate into a sentence to then get your message across. And you know, you're you're you're instantly in survival mode. If you feel threatened, then you can't access anything, you can't access all that great vocabulary, that C1 level vocabulary. You won't be able to access it, it just won't come because you're blocked. You need to repeat your brain, you need to retrain your brain to keep calm. And then that's what allows, I think, to it allows you to access the language, which allows you to access your personality. I mean, we haven't really talked much about that, but um, when I was sort of thinking about this conversation with you, I know we've talked about um like identity.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Identity. I've got that word here.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Yeah. And that it wasn't because I didn't change my identity in Spanish. I just couldn't access my full personality. So I was hiding away, and I was like um a safe, restricted version of myself. I didn't take risks. I just nodded my head. I agreed with people, I didn't express my opinion, I didn't try to sort of use my humour because I think I, you know, I'm quite um I'm not saying I'm really funny or anything, I'm not a comedian, but I I like to think I've got a sense of humour. And I think my I think you know my clients would agree that humour is a big part of it. And that was something that I couldn't access in Spanish for a long time. And I remember, I remember one time when I said something and I made people laugh in Spanish, my Spanish colleagues, and I thought, say it, I correct it. I can make people laugh. I found myself, I found myself in Spanish. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

It makes complete sense. Humor is one of those tricky things in any second plus language to finally get it to land, whether understanding or whether delivering. And this is something that I love happening in my sessions is the enjoyment of using the language beyond all of the structures, actually giving space or creating space that allows the nervous system to feel calm enough for the clients' personality to shine, and every person's voice and personality is needed in this world. And I feel like that's a brilliant thing that you do, and hopefully that's what I do with my clients too. It's just opening this door to enjoyment and stop taking it. I know it is a serious thing these days because the external pressure to use English really well is huge, it's rife and it's only growing. So trying to get people to enjoy that process, to enjoy letting their personality shine, I think is one of the greatest results that I like to see from this new way of doing things for me. And I I love that you mentioned identity. It's a really tricky word to use in marketing, uh, what we do perhaps, because how do people resonate with this word identity? What I feel like is happening in my work is bridging the gap between fluency and belonging in your identity, and what is identity to you, and what beliefs are shaping your identity in English that aren't shaping you in your main language when they could cross over. So there's so much deep work going on, I think.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

I think for me, fluency is about it's not about what you know. Obviously, you need to know things, but it's about being able to access everything you know. And being able to access your personality. So not you know, allowing the language or your beliefs about the language, you and the language, not allowing those to to hold you back. As you said, that's not something that happens overnight. There's a lot of deep work that goes into it. Uh, and that's something that we, you know, we totally agree on. If you don't get that right, if you don't, if you can't peel away those layers and work out what it is that is happening, then you can't then work out what you need. And if you can't work out what you need, then nothing changes and you just carry on doing the same thing and hoping that it will just get better. So I'll just study harder, I'll just study for more hours, but you're doing the same thing that's not getting you the results. And that's frustrating, and that's why I think that we're doing people a disservice if we don't help them work out what they really need.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Brilliant. There were some killer lines in there that was beautifully articulated, and you know, I resonate with so much of what you say and what you do, and it's great to see you on Instagram and to connect with you constantly. So, yeah, I mean, your clients, I feel people who work with you are very lucky because they get to bridge this gap between language and confidence through your own unique method, and I think it's brilliant, and we need more of it out there. And I just hope people see your approach as being something that can actually change the way they live their life, because that's actually what happens, and it's crazy to think that it happens through language, but it it really does. People come to us with those worries, concerns, fears, and it's shone through the lens of language. So, yeah, I really do hope people see more of your work because I feel like you can heal them into better versions of themselves through the use of English. So, yeah. I did have you know so many more questions, and I know I knew this was gonna happen with you. We could have like a two-hour-long episode, but I do have to edit it down because you know, people's attention spans these days and things like that. But yeah, I had more to ask about your own personal life, but I think we've spoken so in depth about what we do and the approach and what can actually help English speakers integrate communication into their real-world setting, and it takes more than a list of words. Do you have any final words or advice or tips or comments or anything you want to say?

SPEAKER_02 56:06

I just want people to be kinder to themselves. I just want people to know that it's not all on their shoulders. I would like the listeners to go away with with one thing. Give yourself give yourself permission. Give yourself permission to enjoy using English, to use it imperfectly and go away and connect with as many people as possible using your English as the superpower that it is. That's the beautiful thing about it. Oh, enjoy it. Enjoy using imperfect English.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

And before we go, Lisa's got something very special for you listeners. Lisa created a master class with a workbook, and for listening today, she's going to offer you this masterclass for free using this code. Do you want to say the code, Lisa?

SPEAKER_02 57:15

Yeah, so the code obviously is calm. And yeah, the masterclass is um is called Four Essential Habits to Overcome Fear and Speak English Naturally.

SPEAKER_00 57:29

Lisa, I want to thank you so much for coming on today and waiting and being patient for probably over a year for this episode to happen. I'm always grateful to speak to you and for feeling so validated and great after speaking to you.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Yeah, I know. It's the same here, Suki. I think we're definitely on the same page. And I know just as you said before, um about the people that work with me, um, the people who work with you are are very, very lucky. I I would love to come along to one of your sessions, actually, myself, and um and get some expert tips for keeping me grounded with my Spanish.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

No worries, you can you can join in, don't worry. I thank you very much. Thanks for listening and for your presence. I really appreciate it. If you liked this episode or my series, speaking of stories, feel free to share it with someone who may appreciate it or on your socials. It really helps. If you live or work in English in a global setting or in the UK, and you feel like you need some support with your communication, or feeling calmer and coming from a more grounded place when you speak English, then my work might be for you. You can find the links in the episode description. Thanks again for joining, and I'll see you in the next episode.