Eustress VIP - Video/Audio

Hello my special VIP member, welcome to this month’s lesson. Now this month’s lesson
has a strange name. The name of the lesson this month is ‘Eustress’, Eustress. Now
this is not a super common word in English. You don’t hear this word a lot in normal
conversation and, yet, it’s an important word and something that we should really think
about that can really help our lives in a significant way.

Now almost everyone knows the word stress, right, stress. We all know about stress in
our lives. We can all think about stressful things in our lives, but did you know that there
are two kinds of stress and we have two different words in English to describe these
different kinds of stress. We have what you might call positive stress and then negative
stress.

Now, usually when you read the word stress, let’s say in a newspaper article or you hear
the word stress or someone is talking about stress in their life, usually they’re talking
about negative stress, right? It’s a negative thing. Oh, I’m so stressed because at my job
there’s so much work to do and I don’t know if I can finish it all and my boss is yelling at
me. That’s negative stress.

Now another word we have for negative stress is “distress”, distress. If you have
distress, if you are “in distress”, we sometimes say “in”, “in distress”, if you’re in distress
it means you need help; something is wrong.

Now the opposite word -- the title of our lesson this month -- is Eustress and Eustress is
positive stress. How can we have positive stress? What does that mean? Let me give
you some examples and a definition.

First of all, Eustress is related to the past VIP Lesson Comfort Zone’ Do you remember
that lesson Comfort Zone, where we talked about pushing our comfort zones? How do
you do that? Well, you do it with Eustress. See, risks that expand our comfort zone
that’s Eustress. Risks, risks that expand our comfort zone that’s what Eustress is.

Do you feel a little nervous? Do you feel a little uncomfortable when you’re trying to
push your comfort zone and make it bigger? In other words, when you’re trying new and
different things, things that in the past were not comfortable, does that give you a feeling
of a little bit of nervousness or stress? Sure it does, absolutely.

Another example, a very clear example that we all understand, is exercise or our
physical bodies. We all know that to get stronger we actually have to lift heavy weights,
right? Is that easy? No. If it’s easy, if you’re just gonna’ oh, this is easy, ahh, 112, 115,
600, you’re still going, it’s super easy, is that going to make your muscles stronger? No.
To make your body stronger, to make your muscles stronger, you actually must stress
your body; stress the muscles, right? You actually cause it some stress, some difficulty;
a little bit of pain, even.

However, that’s Eustress, the kind of stress that will cause your body to get stronger.
You’re challenging your body, but not too much. If you do too much then you hurt
yourself it becomes distress, right? The challenge is too difficult and you actually cause
yourself injury or harm.

We can do this emotionally too. Sometimes if we’re trying to, say, learn to be a public
speaker and let’s imagine that you are very afraid to stand in front of a lot of people, well
the first thing you do probably should not be to stand up in front of 1,000 people and
give a speech. That would be massive distress, because it’s too far above where you
are now.

The challenge is so big it’s probably gonna’ just make you ah, ah, ah. You’re going to be
like crying before you give the speech and you’re going to be terrified and you might ah,
ah, you know, have a horrible experience and you might not learn much and you might
not actually get any better. In fact, it might actually be so bad that you learn to feel even
more pain about speaking and, therefore, you might be even more afraid of it next time.
You don’t want that. That’s distress and we want to avoid distress. Distress is not good.

What would Eustress be in that example? Well, Eustress in that example might be you
take a public speaking course and the first time you stand up you stand up with a few
people. So maybe there are four of you in front of the class and each of you introduces
yourself. So the person next to you says hi, I’m John. I’m scared to speak and then it’s
your turn and you say hi, I’m A.J. I’m nervous about speaking and then the next person
and the next person.

You only have to say a couple things. You have a few other people up there with you, so
that makes you less nervous because everyone is not totally focused on you. So it’s a
little stressful, you’ll probably still feel a little bit nervous, but it’s a small step and after
you do it ha, you sit down and you think well that wasn’t too bad. I was nervous, but it
wasn’t terrible and your confidence would actually grow a little bit. You’d be a little more
comfortable standing in front of people saying something.

Actually, that example I just gave you is exactly what happened at my first public
speaking class. The first time I ever took a course for public speaking that was the first
thing we did. We came to the front of the class in groups of four or five and then we took
turns introducing ourselves and then we sat down. That’s all. It was a small step. It was
Eustress. Was there a little bit of stress? Yes. I was nervous, but it wasn’t too much.
So here’s a very easy secret to massive success in life and happiness. Try to get as
much Eustress in your life as possible. That’s right. Look for Eustress. Create Eustress.
Find it. At the same time, try to eliminate distress from your life.

So, these two are actually related. In fact, by getting more Eustress into your life, more
positive stress, positive difficult challenges, you actually will reduce the amount of
negative stress in your life. How does that work? Well, let me give you an example.
Let’s do the public speaking example again, because it’s such a simple example.

So let’s imagine again. We go back in time. I’m terrified to speak in front of people,
terrified. The problem is in different points in my life, different situations, I have times
when I actually need to speak to groups of people, not always standing in front of a
room, but you know, even at a party. I meet some new people, a group of five people,
oh, hi and I have to speak to them. That made me nervous in the past. It gave me
stress, negative stress, you know, I’m worrying. Or, maybe in my job situations,
sometimes I would need to give a talk to people or in school.

There were situations where this would come up and when these situations came up I
became really stressed, worried. I wanted to avoid the situation. It was terrible and then
afterwards I felt bad because I didn’t do a good job or I avoided the situation.

Then I would feel even more worry and stress and negativity, but when I tried to get
Eustress in my life, in other words, when I actually challenged myself with little
challenges in this area by taking a public speaking class. Each week we had to do a
little more, a little more, it was a little bit stressful, but we had coaches and teachers
there supporting us and encouraging us, all the students in the class were very positive
and encouraging, so it was a good environment, it was Eustress.

If they were criticizing us and yelling at us that would have been distress. It would have
been negative and painful, but because it was a positive environment, a positive
challenge, what happened was is I grew stronger and stronger and stronger during that
course. By the end of the course, I was very comfortable speaking to a room of 30-40-
50 people and I was pretty good at it. Not great, but I was good. I felt some confidence
and because I had that greater confidence, guess what, in my normal life situations now
I actually had less stress.

It makes sense, right, because situations that used to make me feel stress, like talking
to a small group at a party, well, no longer did it make me feel nervous. After taking that
class, after giving myself Eustress, giving myself challenges, I grew stronger, I grew
better, I grew more confident, so then situations in my life that used to be stressful no
longer were stressful and, therefore, the general stress level in my life went down. I had
less stress in my life, because my comfort zone was bigger, right? I was more
comfortable in more situations; therefore, in my day-to-day life, more relaxed more
often. You see how that works?

It’s true in every part of our life. It’s true physically too, right? If you’re weak physically,
you’re very weak, well then many times during the day you’re going to do things that,
ah, might cause you pain or problems. You try to pick up a heavy box and ah, you hurt
your back and then oh, then your back is hurting for a week, right? I know people like
this. You probably do too, hopefully, you’re not one of them, but if you workout you give
yourself Eustress, right? You cause yourself a little bit of discomfort, even a little bit of
pain, but small pain in a controlled way by working out, lifting weights, doing exercises,
right?

You’re giving yourself positive stress. You’re taking risks. You’re challenging your body
and in the moment it sometimes doesn’t feel really good. You’re sweating. You’re hot.
It’s a little bit painful. It’s not easy, but that little bit of Eustress will get rid of a large
amount of distress, because when you become stronger then you can pick up the heavy
box and no problem at all. You pick it up, you move it.

You pick up heavy stuff all day. You’re moving around throughout your day and you don’t
hurt yourself. You don’t injure yourself; therefore, much less negative stress in your life.
See how that works? Therefore, physically, you feel more comfortable. You can do
much more in your life, physically, without discomfort or pain. Life actually becomes
much, much easier and more relaxing and less stressful.

See, this is the little secret that so many people either don’t understand or don’t use.
Now you may say oh, A.J., I already know this, it’s obvious. Yeah, maybe, but are you
using it? What this means is if you have stress in some part of your life, just look at your
life and find an area you have stress, maybe your relationships, maybe job or money,
maybe physically.

A lot of physical problems, whatever it is whatever part of your life, we all have stress,
look at that part of your life and if you have stress it probably means you are not
creating enough Eustress.

You are not challenging yourself enough in that part of your life. You’re trying to avoid
the negative stress, but you’re not finding the positive stress. You’re not creating those
positive difficult challenges and because of that you’re not getting stronger, because of
that common situations are making you feel stressed, negatively. See how that works?

So, actually, the secret in life, when you’re feeling stress in some part of your life, you
actually have to go create more challenges in that area. You actually have to give
yourself more stress, but a certain kind. Not more negative stress, just worrying more
won’t help you, you actually have to give yourself more positive stress; positive
challenges that will make you grow. Does this make sense to you? Good.

You see, our goal in life is not to have a perfectly comfortable life, taking it easy, relaxed.
That will actually cause you more stress, because if you do that too long you get weaker
in all the different parts of your life. You get weaker socially. You get weaker physically. If
you’re just sitting watching TV, getting massages every day, totally, completely, relaxed
all the time, it will feel good for a short time, but the problem is you’ll get soft and weak
mentally, emotionally, socially, physically and because in life we always have difficult
situations, they always come to us, if you’ve been lazy that difficult situation is going to
seem super difficult, because you let yourself get too weak in some part of your life.

But if you’re always challenging yourself, pushing yourself to get smarter, to be stronger
emotionally, to get stronger physically, to have more energy, to confront your fears, if
you have something you’re afraid of then you try to do it a little bit and then again and
again try to do it a little bit, try to do it a little bit, until it becomes more comfortable and
less stressful, that is the secret of having a really great kind of relaxed life without much
negative stress.

You see, now, for me to speak in front of groups of people, no stress at all. I don’t care.
Two hundred, 500, 10,000, 50,000, I don’t care. I love it. So that is not a source of
stress in my life. In fact, that part of my life has now become a source of happiness and
excitement. What used to cause me negative stress now gives me happiness and
excitement. I want to do it a lot. It makes me feel better.

And you know people who exercise are like this, right, people who really love it. Now in
the past maybe they said oh, I hate exercising. Oh, it’s so difficult. Oh, oh, complain,
complain, but people who just do it regularly, eventually, they love it. They will tell you
oh, I must exercise today and when they exercise they feel great. Their heart is
pumping. Their body temperature goes up. They feel warmer. They get more energy.
They’re smiling. They feel good. They love it. What used to be painful and stressful
becomes a source of happiness and excitement.

So you gotta’ challenge yourself in life. You always gotta’ be pushing yourself. It’s so
easy to just stop and say ah well, things are okay, good enough, but if you ever worry
about anything, if you’re feeling nervous about anything, any kind of fears, rational or
irrational, that means you have negative stress in your life. It means you’re not
challenging yourself enough in that area.

If you have money worries and money fears it means you’re not learning enough. You’re
not growing enough. You’re not challenging yourself enough financially. Instead of being
afraid, instead of being nervous and worried, you need to go out there and learn. Maybe
you need to learn about investing. Maybe you need to learn about running a business
and starting your own business. Maybe you need to learn more about your own career,
your own profession and get better so that you’re one of the very best in that area.

There’s lots of positive challenges you can give yourself to grow stronger and, therefore,
eliminate the negative stress, but if you just sit around worrying, worrying, worrying, it’s
only gonna’ get worse. If you do nothing its just gonna’ be there constantly that negative
stress making you worry about money, making you worry about money.

So many people are like this. I used to be like this too. I used to think I’m not a
businessperson. Oh, I don’t care about money, but I was always worried about it. I was
always stressed about my money, until finally I realized okay, forget that. That’s crazy. I
have to learn about this. Even though I don’t know anything about it, I’m very
uncomfortable learning about investing or even talking about it, but I knew I could either
worry the rest of my life or learn and challenge myself to do something uncomfortable.
So I did.

I started reading books and books and books about investing. I took classes about
investing and money. Now I constantly read about it. I subscribe to lots of different
newsletters from experts about money and investing and now I’m not a super expert,
but now I’m comfortable. Now I know much, much more and I’m much less stressed
about money and finances and investing. I’m much more comfortable about it now, but
to be comfortable I first had to be uncomfortable.

I had to give myself Eustress in order to feel better. I had to challenge myself and take
risks and feel more discomfort in order to get rid of discomfort long term. You see how
that works? You have to actually do a little more in the beginning, feel a little more
uncomfortable in the beginning so that you can eliminate it later.

All right, I’ll talk more about this topic in the audio commentary. My main challenge to
you is challenge yourself. Pick an area in your life where you have stress and push
yourself in that area to grow and learn more. Challenge yourself in that area a little bit
every day to face your fears, to do what’s uncomfortable, to get a little stronger and
better.

All right, I’ll see you in the audio commentary.

Have a great day, bye-bye.

Eustress VIP – Mini Story

Hello my special VIP member and welcome to the mini story this month. Let’s begin.

*****
Sammy the sloth had an easy life. In fact, Sammy the sloth had absolutely no
stress in his life.

What kind of life did Sammy the sloth have?

Well, he had a stress-less life; an easy life.

Did Sammy the sloth have a difficult life?

Not at all difficult, no. He did have a difficult life.

He had what kind of life?

A stress-less life; a super relaxed life.

If we want to use slang, we can say he had a chilled out life. “Chilled out” means very,
very relaxed. You can say I’m feeling really chilled out right now. It means I’m feeling
super relaxed right now. You could use it as a verb too. You can say yeah, tonight I just
want to chill out. I’m going to chill out. That means I’m going to just be super relaxed.

So, was Sammy the sloth living a life that was chilled out?

Yeah, super chilled out. He was super chilled out; super, super relaxed all the time.

What did Sammy the sloth love to do?

To chill out. He loved to just chill out; relax, do nothing, no stress, no worries.

Now who had a super chilled out life?

Sammy the sloth. Sammy the sloth had a super chilled out life; a super easy, super
relaxed life.

How much stress did he have in his life?

None; absolutely no stress.

What time did he get up every day?

Noon. He got up at noon every single day. He woke up at noon. See, he was already
rich. He didn’t need a job.

So what kind of a job did Sammy the sloth have?

No job. He didn’t have a job.

Why didn’t he have a job?

Because he didn’t need one, he was already rich. You see, he inherited money from his
rich father.

To “inherit” money means to get money from usually a relative who has died. So,
unfortunately, Sammy the sloth’s father died when he was younger, but Sammy the
sloth inherited lots and lots of money from his father and so, therefore, Sammy the sloth
was super rich.

So did he need a job or did he not need a job?

He didn’t need a job.

So what time did he get up every morning to go to work?

Trick question. He didn’t get up to go to work. He didn’t have a job. He never worked,
but he got up at noon every day.

And what did he do all day after he got up at noon?

Well, nothing. He did nothing. He relaxed. He chilled out. He chilled out when he woke
up. He chilled out in the afternoon and he chilled out in the evening. He chilled out at
night. No stress, no worries, nothin’.

Now, he had no distress in his life at all. No negative stress.

Did he have any Eustress in his life? Any positive stress, any positive challenges?

No, he did not. He had neither. He had neither distress nor Eustress.

So did he have positive stress in his life?

No, he didn’t. He did not have any Eustress in his life.

Did he have any negative stress in his life?

No, he didn’t have any distress in his life either. He didn’t have any distress. He didn’t
have any Eustress. He had no stress of any kind; no challenges of any kind.

Now Sammy had a brother.

What was Sammy’s brother’s name?

Jeremiah. His brother’s name was Jeremiah, Jeremiah the sloth.

Now, did Jeremiah have distress in his life, negative stress in his life?

Yes, unfortunately, a lot. Jeremiah was always worrying about things. He was always
worrying about what would happen. He was always worried that something bad would
happen soon.

Now did Sammy the sloth worry about things?

Of course not. Sammy the sloth was always chilled out; relaxed. He didn’t worry about
anything.

So who worried all the time?

Jeremiah. Jeremiah, his brother, his younger brother, worried all the time.

Now was this rational worry or irrational worry?

It was irrational. You see, because Jeremiah was also rich. Jeremiah also had a nice life
and, yet, he was always worried something bad would happen. So he was constantly
under stress; distress, negative stress. He was stressed all the time.

So which brother was stressed all the time?

Jeremiah.

And which brother was chilled out all the time, relaxed all the time?

Sammy. Sammy was always chilled out and Jeremiah was always stressed and
worrying.

Now, did Sammy have Eustress in his life; positive stress, positive challenges?

No, he didn’t. He did not. He had none.

Did Jeremiah have Eustress in his life?

No, he also had none. He only had negative stress; worry. He didn’t have any
positive challenges or any positive stress. Neither brother had positive stress --
Eustress. So Jeremiah felt worried all the time, how did Sammy the sloth feel,
usually?

Bored. Sammy the sloth felt bored. Yeah, everything was great, sure, he had no
negative stress in his life, but there was nothing interesting, nothing challenging.

He felt how?

Bored. He felt bored. His life was boring. (Boring is the adjective.) He felt bored. (Bored
is the emotion.)

So did Sammy feel boring or did he feel bored?

He felt bored. Bored is the emotion.

Was his life bored or was his life boring?

Boring. Boring is the adjective that describes something. His life was boring. He felt
bored.

Yes, he was chilled out and relaxed all the time, but how did he feel all the time?

Bored. Bored. Constantly bored.

Well, eventually, he realized he needed a change, so one day he just decided to

wake up early every day. He decided “I’m going to wake up at 8:00 a.m. every day;
8:00 a.m. daily” and he did. From that point forward, he woke up at 8:00 a.m.
every day. He began to feel better. He had more energy throughout the day.

Now it was difficult in the beginning, but eventually he started feeling better and
then he started going on walks every day in the morning. He woke up at 8:00 a.m.
and then he went walking for a couple hours every single day.

What did he do at 8:00 a.m. every day?

He got up and he went walking.

Who got up and went walking at 8:00 a.m. every day?

Sammy. Sammy the sloth got up at 8:00 a.m. every day and went walking.

Did he go swimming at 8:00 a.m. every day?

No, he didn’t go swimming at 8:00 a.m. every day. He went walking at 8:00 a.m. every
day; 8:00 in the morning every day.

Now did he feel better or worse after waking up early?

He felt better.

What happened to his energy?

It increased. His energy level increased.

And for how long did his energy increase?

All day. His energy increased for the entire day. All day long, he felt more energy. He
had more energy.

Why did he have more energy all day?

Well, because he woke up earlier and went walking immediately.

So what increased his energy level?

Getting up earlier and walking.

And whose energy level increased?

Sammy the sloth’s energy level increased.

Did Jeremiah’s energy level increase?

No, it did not, because Jeremiah just continued to worry and worry and worry every day.
His energy level stayed low.

Well, Sammy the sloth was so happy with the increased energy that he decided to
do something else; another challenge. He continued getting up at 8:00 a.m. every
day, then he signed up for a self-defense class; a martial arts self-defense class.

What did he register for?

A self-defense class.

Did he sign up for a cooking class?

No, he didn’t.

What kind of class did he sign up for?

A self-defense class, like Karate or Judo, something like that, a self-defense class.

Who signed up for a self-defense class? Who registered for a self-defense class?

Sammy the sloth signed up. (“Signed up” means register for or join.) He signed up for a
self-defense class.

Did Jeremiah sign up for a self-defense class?

Of course not. No, he didn’t.

What did he just continue to do every day?

That’s right, worry. He just continued to worry and worry and worry and worry every
single day.

But what did his brother Sammy do? He signed up for what?

A self-defense class.

So, first, he started waking up early and walking. Next, he signed up for a
selfdefense class and he went to the self-defense class every day. He worked
hard. He trained hard. He practiced hard and he felt great. His energy level
increased even more.

So what did the self-defense class do to his energy level?

Increased it. The self-defense class increased his energy level even more.

It increased whose energy level?

Sammy’s. It increased Sammy the sloth’s energy level even more.

And what did he learn how to do in the class?

He learned how to, wah, kick ass! He learned how to kick ass!
Now “kick ass” is slang. It has a few uses, a few different meanings, but when you talk
about competition or fighting, to kick ass means to beat another person; to defeat them
and to defeat them powerfully, to defeat them decisively.

So if you say I can kick ass, it means I can do an incredible job. I can beat other people
very decisively, very powerfully. So Sammy learned how to kick ass. He learned how to
fight and beat other guys; to win against them very powerfully and decisively.

So what did he learn how to do?

To kick ass.

And who learned how to kick ass?

Sammy the sloth.

Did Jeremiah learn how to kick ass?

No, Jeremiah was just busy worrying all the time.

So what did Sammy learn how to do?

To kick ass.

Where did he learn how to kick ass?

In self-defense school; in self-defense class.

He learned what?

How to kick ass.

So, woo, he was feeling really good and because his energy level was so much
higher and he was feeling so much more confident, he decided to try yet another
challenge, more Eustress, so, next, he went skydiving, skydiving.

And he was terrified in the airplane. Terrified to jump out of the airplane, but he
did it. He screamed all the way down. Aaaaahhhhhh! Aaaaahhhhhh!
Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! All the way to the bottom, pulled his parachute and landed
on the bottom -- on the ground -- and then he felt fantastic. He had faced his fear.
He felt a huge increase in confidence.

Who felt a huge increase in confidence?

Sammy did.

And what was Sammy? What kind of animal?

A sloth. He was a sloth.

And how did he feel after skydiving?

Very confident. His confidence increased tremendously.

Why did his confidence increase tremendously?

Because he faced his fear. He faced his fear of skydiving and he still did it.

And what did that do to him?

Increase his confidence. So now he had tons of energy and tons of confidence. He felt
amazing. His life was totally different and after all of this, he ruminated.

Ooh, what’s that word mean? “To ruminate” means to think deeply about something; to
think seriously about something and it’s usually about something in the past. I’m going
to ruminate about the past. I’m going to think about it deeply and think about it seriously.

So Sammy ruminated about his experiences -- getting up earlier, learning self

defense, and skydiving – and as he thought about these things, he said to himself
“Hum, if I had stayed comfortable, I never would have had these peak
experiences.” Hum.

Now, of course, a “peak” experience, “peak” means high. It’s like the top of a mountain;
highest. So it means an incredible experience. A peak experience is a very positive,
high, wonderful, amazing experience; a very good experience. So he said “If I had
stayed comfortable (if I had stayed comfortable) I never would have had these peak
experiences.”

So if he had stayed lazy, would he have experienced these amazing feelings?

No, he wouldn’t have. He would not have felt those things, if he had stayed comfortable.

But did he actually stay comfortable?

No, no, he did not. He actually challenged himself. He actually tried new things, but if he
had not tried new things then he would have remained bored.
When would he have remained bored?

Well, if he had stayed comfortable he would have remained bored, but of course,
instead, actually, he challenged himself and felt great energy and great confidence.
Because he sought out Eustress, his life was richer and more inspiring.

And here “richer” is not about money it’s about emotion. It means abundance of positive
emotion; abundance of positive experience. That’s what richer means in this sentence.
So because he sought out, -- “to sought out” means to look for; to look for and find and
get -- because he sought out Eustress, positive stress, positive challenges, his life was
richer and more inspiring.

That’s almost the end, but not totally the end, because see, Sammy was a good
guy and a good brother. His life was now amazing and inspiring and incredible,
but he knew that his brother Jeremiah was very worried and sad and so he helped
his brother Jeremiah to also find more challenges, positive challenges; to stop
worrying and start living.

And so both Sammy and Jeremiah had much more interesting, much more
challenging, much richer and much more inspiring lives. They were both much,
much happier.

*****

And that is the end of our mini story for this month.

As usual, just listen to it first for a few times, a few days. Then, after that, you can pause
and answer all of the questions. Just answer with a few words. That’s all you need to
do. You don’t need to answer in a full sentence. A few words, that’s fine. Then try to
make it a game a few days after that.

Listen every day, remember, to these mini stories for one full month. So when it
becomes easy pausing, then try to answer the questions without pausing. Of course,
you’ll know the story at that point, so it should be easier and then, finally, the final step
after you can do that easily, is to pause after every sentence and copy my
pronunciation.

Listen to me say a sentence, then you pause, then you say the same sentence. Use my
same tone. Use my same emotion. If I get loud, you get loud. When I go up, you go up.
Try to copy my pronunciation exactly. This is a powerful way to improve your
pronunciation. So you’ve got all these different games you can play with the mini-story
lessons and that should keep you occupied and learning and improving for one full
month.
Okay, I will see you again soon.

Have a great day, a great week and a great month, bye-bye.

Eustress VIP – Point of View
Hello this is A.J. Welcome to the point-of-view stories for this month’s VIP Lesson. Let’s
start with now, as if it’s happening right now. We’re going along with Sammy, as its
happening.

*****

So there is a sloth named Sammy and he has an easy life. He has absolutely no stress
in his life. He’s always chilled out. That’s all he does every day, he just chills out. He
chills out, relaxes. Hey, what’s up? I’m relaxed. Absolutely no stress in his life.

He gets up at noon every single day. He’s got no stress of any kind. Certainly no
negative distress, but also no positive Eustress, no challenges, and because of this he’s
extremely bored. (Remember, bored is the emotion. He feels bored and his life is
boring. Boring describes something. You’d say he’s a boring person, his life is boring,
but you feel bored and Sammy certainly feels bored with his life.)

One day, he just decides to change something. He’s sick of being bored, so he just
decides to wake up early every day. He decides to wake up at 8:00 a.m. daily every
single day. Not only just wake up, but wake up and then go for a walk, a two-hour walk
every single morning.

Now, he worries this will make him feel tired, but in fact it has the opposite affect. He
feels more energy. His energy increases because of getting up early and walking every
day. He feels great, so he decides to add another challenge. He signs up for a
selfdefense class. He works hard every day. He practices hard every day and he feels
great. He feels even more energy and he learns how to kick ass!

Well, he’s feeling so great, he decides on an even bigger challenge. He goes skydiving
and he’s terrified. He feels terrified in that airplane going up knowing he’s gonna’ have
to jump out. He feels totally terrified, but he does it anyway. He jumps out and he
screams on the way down, aaaaahhhhhh, but then he pulls his parachute and he lands
and he feels an incredible feeling of confidence, because he felt fear, but he did it
anyway. He acted anyway and this gives him an incredible feeling of confidence.

So he has this incredible confidence, this incredible energy. His whole life is different
and he stops and he ruminates about these experiences. He thinks deeply about them
and he thinks “You know if I had stayed comfortable, I never would have had those peak
experiences.”
But instead, of course, he sought out Eustress. He sought out challenge and his life
became richer and more inspiring and, of course, once his life became that way he had
to help his brother Jeremiah. And so he went to his brother Jeremiah and taught him
how to seek out positive challenges and together they both changed their lives and
were very happy.

*****

And that’s the end of our first version. Now the second one begins with since.

*****

Since he was a baby, since he was a baby Sammy the sloth has had an easy life. You
see, he had wonderful parents. Yes, his father died when he was younger, but his mom
was wonderful and his father was wonderful while he was alive. So he has had an
amazing easy life his whole life.

His whole life he has chilled out. He has chilled out since he was a baby, since he was a
child, right up until recently. During that whole time period, he has just chilled out every
day. Every single day of his life he has chilled out. Every day of his life he has relaxed.
He has never had any stress in his life since he was born. He didn’t even cry when he
was born. The doctor did not spank him. Even from the first moment he has had a
relaxed, chilled out life.

Now every day of his life he has woken up late and he has been super relaxed. In fact,
he has woken up at noon every day of his life. You see, he didn’t go to normal school.
His mom taught him at home and she let him wake up at noon every day. He has been
the most relaxed sloth in all of the world.

Now his brother Jeremiah has also had an amazing life since he was a baby, but his
brother Jeremiah has been different. You see, he has worried all the time. He has
always been a worrier. He has always worried about something happening, something
going wrong. Oh, my God, everything is great now, but something might happen that’s
bad! So he has been a big worrier all of his life, but Sammy has never been a worrier.
He has always been chilled out, super relaxed all the time.

Now the problem is that Sammy has been bored with his life. Starting at a young age
until recently, he has felt bored. His life has been boring and, to be honest, Sammy
himself has been boring, a boring sloth. But, you know, this continued a long time, until
finally one day he decided to change. He decided to get up at 8:00 a.m. every day and
walk two hours a day and his energy increased.
Then he decided to sign up for a self-defense class. He joined the self-defense class.
He worked hard. He practiced hard. He felt great. He felt even more energy and he
learned how to kick ass and that gave him confidence too, but he didn’t want to stop
there so, next, he went skydiving. He was terrified going up in that airplane, but he
jumped out anyway. He screamed all the way down, but once he reached the ground he
felt incredible confidence.

His whole life changed because of these challenges and then one day he ruminated
about these challenges. He thought about them and he said to himself “If I had stayed
comfortable, I never would have had these peak experiences.” Instead, because he
sought out Eustress, because he sought out challenges, his life was richer and more
inspiring and, of course, once that happened he had to help his brother Jeremiah and
he taught his brother Jeremiah, also, how to seek out challenges – how to build an
incredible life – and together they had very happy, wonderful lives.

*****

And that’s the end of our second version. Now, you know, in the third version we almost
always go into the future. We imagine. Maybe we’re dreaming it, maybe we’re imaging
it; something that’s going to happen in the future.

*****

In the future there’s going to be a sloth named Sammy. Sammy’s gonna’ be a sloth.
(Now for those new VIP members, “gonna’ means going to. We use it for the future and
it’s very, very common in spoken English. Not written English, but spoken English we
say gonna’ very frequently, more than going to, in fact.)

So Sammy’s gonna’ be a sloth and he’s gonna’ have a very, very easy life. No stress at
all in his life, he’s just gonna’ chill out every day. In fact, he’s gonna’ wake up at noon
every single day and he’s just gonna’ chill out all day long. No stress, no negative
stress, certainly no distress, but also no Eustress; no challenge. No positive stress
either and because of that he’ll be bored. He’ll feel bored with his life. His life will be
boring.

Well, this is gonna’ continue for quite a while, until, finally, he just wants a change. And
so one day he’s gonna’ decide to do something different. He’s gonna’ decide to wake up
at 8:00 a.m. every single day and he’s gonna’ do it. Every day he’ll wake up at 8:00 a.m.
He won’t just wake up at 8:00 a.m. he’ll go for a two-hour walk every single morning.

How will this make him feel? It will actually give him more energy. He’ll feel more
energized by waking up early and exercising in the morning. He’ll feel a big increase in
his energy; a surge in his energy. (A “surge” is a sudden increase.) He’ll feel a surge of
energy and he’ll want to build on that positive energy.
So, next, he’s gonna’ sign up for a self-defense class and learn how to fight and he’s
gonna’ work hard and he’s gonna’ practice hard and he’s gonna’ feel fantastic. He’ll feel
great. He’ll have even more energy and, in addition to that, he’s gonna’ learn how to
kick ass -- how to fight, how to beat other guys.

Now he’s a nice guy. He’s not gonna’ actually fight anybody, but being able to – having
the knowledge, having the skill – will give him a lot of confidence. So he’ll have greater
energy and now, also, greater confidence. Well, his life will be going so good that he’s
gonna’ want even more challenges and so, next, he’ll try a big one, skydiving.

He’ll go skydiving next and he’s gonna’ be terrified in that airplane going up and up and
up. He’s gonna’ feel terrified, very frightened, but he’s still gonna’ do it. He’s still gonna’
jump out of that plane and he’s gonna’ scream all the way down aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!
But when he gets to the ground, he’ll feel this incredible strength, this incredible
confidence and why? Because he faced his fears. He felt the fear, but he acted anyway.

So he’ll have all this extra energy from the past challenges and then he’ll have this
incredible confidence from facing this big fear. His whole life will be different. He’s
gonna’ feel great and one day he’s gonna’ ruminate about these experiences. He’s
gonna’ think deeply about them and he’ll say to himself “If I’d stayed comfortable, I
never would have had these peak experiences.”

At that moment he’ll realize that Eustress, that challenges, positive challenges are the
key to an inspiring life. Because he sought out Eustress, because he sought out
challenges, his life will be richer and more inspiring, but, of course, he’s a wonderful guy
– sloth – he’s a wonderful brother, so he won’t stop there. No, he’ll want to help his
brother.

So, he’ll go back to his worrying brother Jeremiah. He’ll help his worrying brother
Jeremiah also find positive challenges, positive stress and stop worrying, stop the
negative stress and then together they’ll grow and they’ll have rich, amazing, wonderful,
inspiring lives and they’ll be very happy.

*****

And that is the end of our third and final version of the story.

Now, how do you use these point-of-view stories? I know you know, but I repeat it every
month to remind you. Number one, listen to them every single day for one full month
and also the regular mini-story lesson too. Both of these, you have to listen to them
every single day.
Now with the point-of-view stories, mostly what I want you to do is just listen. Listen
carefully, though. You know, be concentrating and focused. Notice the changes, the little
changes that happen in the verbs and notice the little words I use like since or in the
future.

You don’t need to think about the actual grammar rules, I don’t want you to. I don’t want
you to think about present perfect or past perfect or, you know, simple future blah- blah-
blah. Don’t think about that stuff, just notice the changes.

In these stories I’m using the most common points of view, the most common
timeframes and the most common verb structures in English, in spoken English. This is
what we use constantly, all the time, every single day nearly every single conversation.
That’s why I repeat these same ones again and again and again nearly every month,
because I want them to go deep. I want you to learn them totally and completely,
automatically.

I don’t want you thinking about the grammar rules. I don’t want you thinking at all. I want
you, first, to understand it totally and automatically and then just start using it
automatically. It does take some time, but all you need to do is listen to these stories
every single day in an energetic way, focused and concentrated. That’s all.

All right, you have a great day and a great month and I will see you again soon. I love
teaching you.

Thank you so much for being my student. It’s my honor to teach you.

Thank you, bye-bye.

Eustress VIP - Commentary

Hello my special VIP member and welcome to the commentary for ‘Eustress.’ Now in
the video I talked about the very general idea of Eustress. I can talk a little more now in
the commentary here about what this means to you.

You see, I believe that far too many people in life are trying to avoid stress and they
have this dream of an easy life. Oh, if life was just easy then I’d be happy, then
everything would be great. That’s not true. It’s just not true. We know this, because we
can look at so many people who have achieved an easy life. In other words, they got a
lot of money or fame or both and all the things they wanted happened. What usually
happens to those people afterwards is that they get depressed. They become
depressed. It doesn’t make sense, does it? Logically, we think well, that doesn’t make
sense. They achieve all their goals and they become depressed.
I’m sure you’ve had this happen in your life, where you achieve something that you
wanted for so long and finally the problem was solved. The problem was gone and, yet,
you might have felt happy in the beginning, but a few weeks or months later either you
feel a bit depressed or you just feel like nothing. What you thought would be so great,
you don’t even think about it anymore. You don’t really care anymore.

You may have even noticed this when you buy something, right? You want something
new. Oh, I want that new TV -- maybe some guy is like this, right -- that new incredible
TV. You think about it and you think about it and then you get it and you’re happy when
you buy it, but then three months later you never even think about that TV. It’s nothing
special at all. It gives you no happiness at all. Maybe it’s a car or a house, whatever.

You see, what makes us feel excited and happy is not getting everything we want
exactly when we want it. That’s what spoiled children want. What makes us feel
incredible and happy, a deep feeling of happiness and excitement about our life, is
growth. It’s the feeling that we are growing better, stronger, more as human beings. It’s
who we’re becoming. It’s not the problems we solve.

The problems we solve, the problems we get in our life, they’re there for a reason.
They’re there to challenge us and to help us rise up and become more than we are now,
because all of us, if we really think about it, if we really take time and I don’t mean one
hour, I mean days and days and days and weeks and months and even years really
looking inside ourselves about who we really want to be, we have a vision in our head of
a better, greater person than we are now.
We all have this. We can all imagine being better friends, husbands, wives, girlfriends,
boyfriends. We all know that inside -- that we could be much more in that area of our
life, that social relationship area in our life and if we really let ourselves think about it a
long time, we could probably even describe exactly the kind of person we’d love to be in
that part of our life.

It’s the same with money and finances. A lot of people want to avoid that topic, because
it’s very stressful or it seems very complex. I used to do that in my life. Then you make
excuses oh, I’m not a businessperson. Oh, I don’t care about money. Oh, money is evil.
It’s bad da- da. You make all these excuses; yet, you’re feeling stress constantly about it
and, yet, if you look deep inside, you know that financially you would like to be better.
You’d like to feel some confidence and mastery in this area of your life.

You probably have a pretty good idea of what success financially is for you. We don’t all
want to be multimillionaires, but you probably have an idea of the kind of financial
security you would like to have and you probably have an idea of the kind of fun and
adventures and things that you would love to do if you had the money and the time to
do them.
So it’s not about just avoiding all stress in our life so everything is super easy all the
time. That doesn’t cause us to grow. That, eventually, just creates boredom, boredom
and boredom is dying. If you’re bored with your life you’re already half dead. Now,
luckily, you can come back to life and this is the way to do it, by the way, Eustress;
challenge.

See, positive challenges that inspire us, that what gives us so much motivation, energy,
passion, happiness and growth. Growth is the key. You feel like you’re growing in
different parts of your life. You feel great. It doesn’t matter if you have a lot of problems.

I mean I have constant problems with the business all the time, computer problems.
Stuffs always going wrong and happening and it makes me crazy, but I’m growing as a
teacher, growing as a businessperson. And, so, while I don’t celebrate the problems,
yeah, you know, they annoy me, yes, but generally in this area of my life I feel great,
because I know I’m challenging myself, pushing myself, growing. That’s the key –
growing as a person. So how do you do this? Let’s get more specific.

How do we, you know, figure out what’s negative stress and what’s Eustress? What’s
positive stress and how do you create that positive stress in a way that causes growth,
because this is really the trick. The reason people think they want to avoid problems and
they want to avoid stress is that, for most people, stress does not cause growth, right? A
lot of the stress in your life is probably not causing you to grow. It’s just making you feel
sick and tired and unhappy. Obviously, that’s no good.

So stress is things like, for example, worry. Worry, that’s just negative stress. Worry
never helps you in any way. It weakens you. It’s extremely negative. Worrying about
something or feeling guilty about something in the past is also useless. Yes, I do it.
Everybody does it, but you gotta’ minimize that, because guilt does not help you.

What helps you is saying yes, I was wrong, apologizing, if possible, doing something to
make the situation better, if possible and, if not, then at least learning and saying I’m not
gonna’ do it again and growing from that. Just worrying and saying oh, I’m terrible or
worrying about what might happen in the future, it’s just stress. It will not help you.

Another thing that’s negative stress is destructive criticism. Now this might come from
other people if you’ve got somebody criticizing you all the time, telling you you’re doing
a bad job. Oh, you’re stupid. Oh, you’re wrong. You can’t do that. That’s not good. No,
you made a mistake here. Maybe you’ve had teachers like this, unfortunately, in the
past.

Well that constant criticism is very destructive. It destroys your confidence. It creates a
massive amount of negative stress, which will prevent you from trying to challenge
yourself more in the future. It will prevent you from learning. This is why at Effortless
English and our forums we never correct mistakes. We never criticize people or even
point out mistakes. You improve by getting more correct input, not by having your
mistakes pointed out constantly. There’s lots of research about this. Pointing out
mistakes, criticizing, does not help, it hurts.

Fear of failing is another kind of negative stress, right? Worrying about oh, my God, I’ll
fail. I’ll fail, oh and then imaging all the terrible possible consequences that might
happen. That’s just negative stress.

Another thing is doing too much is negative stress, right? Like workaholics, people who
work 60 hours a week or something at their job, that’s negative stress. There’s just a
point where working too much, the quality of your focus, the quality of your
concentration is gonna’ go down and you’re not gonna’ grow. You’re not gonna’ get
better. You’re just gonna’ make yourself tired and you’re gonna’ be mediocre, so-so.
You’re not gonna’ be very great.

See, part of Eustress -- positive stress -- is also having built in rest periods, right? If you
just lift weight five hours a day every single day, you’re not going to get stronger. You’re
going to get weaker and, eventually, you’re probably going to get sick and you’re gonna’
hurt yourself. Anyone who lifts weights knows that you gotta’ rest the muscles too or if
you’re a runner. You gotta’ have rest. You can’t just be constantly pushing yourself under
stress and challenge. Too much and you’re gonna’ hurt yourself.

People forget this; at work, especially. They let their boss or they let their company push
them into working too much and then what happens, they become tired, burned out.
“Burned out” means you have no motivation. Do they become better workers? No, they
become worse; less productive, less creative.

Now positive stress involves a few principles. Number one, as I just said, is rest. You
challenge yourself, but then you rest too. You got a day or two to rest, think about it,
then you challenge yourself again. Then you rest. Then you challenge yourself again.
Then you rest.

This works with exercise, but it also works for anything like public speaking. I gave that
example in the video. Well, I wasn’t standing in front of a group every single day several
hours in the beginning. That would have been too much. No, I had a weekly class. So I
stood up in front of the class once a week and then the rest of the week I kind of rested
and phew, recovered from that little bit of stress. I thought about it and then I practiced
and I improved. Then I challenged myself again the next week and every week I
challenged myself, but I also had rest. So rest is an important part of positive stress.

Another part of positive stress is support, positive support. It’s the opposite of criticism.
Now, where can you get positive support? You can give it to yourself by writing in a
journal. You can write down the things that are going well. Focus on the positive. If
you’re trying to become a public speaker and you took a class you could say okay well,
my speech wasn’t perfect, but I had a lot of energy. I made some mistakes yes, but I
had a lot of energy. That was good.

So you find the positive things and you give yourself some support, emotional support.
In fact, that’s an example from my own public speaking class. In the beginning I wasn’t a
great speaker, but the one thing that I was really good at is I had a lot of energy. You
probably never would have guessed that.

Another source of support can be other people. Getting a positive coach or even a
positive friend to encourage you, someone to encourage you, someone who’s going to
focus on your strengths, on what you’re doing well, who’s going to cheer you and say
yes, good job, that’s so important. That’s how you can create positive stress instead of
negative.

In my public speaking course the coaches were very good. The main coach was
excellent. He never criticized. He only focused on positive things. So with me he was
always saying A.J., you have so much enthusiasm. A.J., you’re so energetic. I love that.
What was he doing? He made me feel more confident. I said oh, I’m not terrible. I’m not
horrible, I’m energetic. He probably encouraged me to become even more so when I
speak, which is why I’m such a crazy man now, but see, he was helping me grow.

So finding support -- giving it to yourself by focusing on the strengths and the positive
and what’s working, getting other people who will do that for you -- that’s also very
important. So we’ve got rest and we’ve got positive support.

Now the final one is the most powerful. The final element is to pursue a big, but scary
dream. That’s right. Make your challenges part of something much bigger. You know,
you may be trying to do something small, but make it part of a much bigger picture; a
much bigger dream.

For example, I was trying to be a public speaker. Now if I just said I want to feel better
about public speaking that would have been okay, so-so, kind of mediocre level of
motivation, but instead I imagined myself speaking to large groups of people. I knew I
wanted to be a leader. I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to help a lot of people. I had a
much bigger dream than just finishing the class. Finishing the class was one step to a
much bigger dream.

So whenever possible -- it’s not always possible, but whenever possible -- make your
challenge part of an even bigger dream because then you will realize why you’re doing
it. You’ll have a strong reason; a strong why. Here’s my rule for picking a dream.
You know you have picked a good dream for your life when it makes you feel super
excited about doing it and at the same time you feel scared about it because it’s
challenging. It’s difficult; it will require you to grow a lot. You should feel both emotions at
the same time whenever you think about your dream.

You should feel super excitement about it like oh, yes, that’s the kind of person I want to
be. That’s what I want to do. Oh, my God, it would be so amazing if I did that and at the
same time you’re also feeling and thinking oh, my God, that’s scary. That seems like it
would be very difficult. I don’t know if I can do that! Oh, that seems impossible. Oh, that
scares me to try that. Perfect. That’s the perfect thing. That’s when you know you have
found an excellent dream to pursue.

If you only feel excited about it but no fear, it means it’s too easy. It’s not gonna’ push
you to grow. Now you could still do it. I’m not saying don’t do it, but it’s not the kind of
dream that‘s going to make you grow as a human being and, therefore, give you
incredible happiness and confidence.

On the other hand, if you just feel fear only, there’s no feeling of excitement about
accomplishing this thing, then, you know, maybe it’s just something that doesn’t inspire
you – that it’s not really your dream. Maybe you’re trying to do something to impress
other people. You think you should do it for some reason, but if there’s no feeling of
excitement and enthusiasm and happiness about competing this dream, about getting it,
attaining it, then I suggest you keep looking.

And, again, sometimes in life we do have to do difficult, scary things, just ‘cause they’re
necessary maybe at our job or some situation and we just gotta’ do it. That’s fine too,
but I’m talking about picking big, inspiring, challenging dreams and going after them a
little bit every day, a little bit every day. Constantly pushing yourself to feel a little bit of
positive stress that’s how you grow.

You only grow when you feel some positive stress. You only grow when you’re feeling
uncomfortable, as I mentioned in a past lesson. If you’re feeling totally, completely,
100% comfortable, everything is great and easy, that’s fine, nothing wrong with it, but
you’re not growing. That’s fine for parts of your life, but you have to find times every day
where you’re also pushing yourself, challenging yourself, feeling a bit of that stress;
feeling that excitement mixed with fear.

See, the best goals are seemingly impossible goals that simultaneously excite and
frighten you and that push you to be more – to be more courageous, to be more fit and
healthy, to be more generous, to be more open, to be more trusting, to be more flexible,
to be more intelligent. That’s what all of this is about is growing as a human being.
So you know what your homework is this month. Your homework this month is, number
one, choose a dream. In any area of your life, choose one dream; something that
simultaneously excites and frightens you. Don’t make it a wimpy small one, make it a
big one; a big dream that excites and frightens you when you think about doing it, trying
it, accomplishing it.

Step two, challenge yourself at least once a week in this area. In other words, pursue
this dream. Challenge yourself. Do something a little bit uncomfortable to push yourself
towards that dream.

Step three, find support. Find some coaches in this area who are good at this thing that
you want, but they have to be positive coaches. If they’re gonna’ yell at you and say bad
things to you not good, find a different one. Find coaches that are gonna’ encourage you
and say positive things and support you. If you can’t find those get a friend who will do it
or a family member or, if you must, just write in your journal and every day focus on the
positive, good things you’re doing and congratulate yourself constantly for pushing
yourself, for trying, for challenging yourself.

You’re gonna’ do this every single week. Not just for one month, but for six months. This
is a six-month challenge and really, to be honest, it’s a life-long challenge. I say six
months, because I want you to get in the habit. I think if you do this for six months it will
become part of you and you’ll never stop.

So for six months, every single week you’re gonna’ challenge yourself to do something
uncomfortable and somewhat difficult and that uncomfortable difficult thing will be
connected to a big dream, an exciting and frightening dream. Okay, you got it? Pretty
simple; very, very simple, but so powerful.
If you’re serious about this, you’ll do it three times a week; three times a week. You’ll do
it one day then you’ll rest. Do it another day, rest. Do it another day. You could do
Monday, Wednesday, Friday, rest two days on the weekend. That’s what I’d really like
you to do. I’m saying once a week, because it sounds easy.

So after you do this a few times, you get a little more comfortable, increase it to three
times a week. Challenge yourself in this area of your life three times a week. Have
some support. Give it to yourself or other people or both, but just keep pushing. Keep
pushing a little bit and then get onto our social site for VIPs and share your challenges.

Now, see, some VIPs don’t get onto the social site. They don’t share this stuff, maybe
because they’re not actually trying it, but I know you’re different. I know you don’t just
want to learn this. I know you don’t just want to improve your English, even though I
know that’s important too. I know you want both. You want great, confident English
speaking, but you also want incredible success and happiness in your life, for you and
your friends and your family, for everyone.
I know you want to be the kind of person who’s a leader, who helps people get success
and happiness in their life, but to do that you’ve gotta’ have it first. That means taking
action. Not just listening to these lessons every month, but doing the homework. All
right, you know it’s important. I know. You’re gonna’ do it. I know. So, I’m very excited
about this. I’m excited to hear about your progress and your success.

Have a great day and a great month and I’ll see you again soon, bye-bye.