Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / From Window Cleaner to Language CEO #0054

Transcript

From Window Cleaner to Language CEO #0054 · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:00
  Hello everyone, and thank you for choosing Verbal Stairs
• 0:04
  today. I hope you had a good day so
• 0:06
  far. Today we're diving deep into the
• 0:09
  fascinating world of languages with a true expert, Asran,
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  famously known as the Language Nut.
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  He might be surprised to hear how growing up with multiple
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  languages shaped him from a young age, leading him down an
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  incredible path from rural France to building a thriving
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  language business. We'll explore the intriguing
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  concept of pronunciation privilege, how subtle cultural
• 0:35
  nonsense impact our interactions, and even tackle
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  the big question. In an age of rapid AI
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  translation, will we still need to speak languages in 10 years?
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  Adrian shares his authentic journey, the lessons he learned
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  from starting his own adventure, and his unique philosophy on
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  reaching true fluency. Get ready for a captivating
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  conversation that will make you rethink how you see the world
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  and maybe even inspire you to pick up a new language yourself.
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  I'm Paul and this is whereabouts tells.
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  Enjoy Adrian. Welcome to the podcast.
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  Before the world knew you as the language note, who are you?
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  Well, before the language nerd, let's see, I've always been
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  interested in languages, frankly, almost almost my whole
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  life, languages have been a core part of my a core part of my
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  being. Growing up, I went to a friend's
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  school. I spoke Adrathi in the household
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  and English with my friends. So right, right from the get go,
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  there's 3 languages. My dad's side of the family
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  spoke Hindi as well. I didn't speak it, but they did
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  speak it. So that was another language
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  that was around me. So languages, I'd say have been,
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  I've been a part of my life for a very, very long time.
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  And I was 15 when I decided to make, when I consciously decided
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  to make languages essential pillar of my life.
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  I went to France and lived in a very, very rural town for three
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  months and loved it. Fell in love with French, came
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  back, fell in love with Spanish, had a great teacher in school.
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  I had friends in my class. It was super, super fun.
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  In university. I took a linguistics class,
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  didn't even know what linguistics was.
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  I never heard the word linguistics.
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  I was like, what the heck is linguistics?
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  Mom's like, it's like a language.
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  I was like, is it a specific language?
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  No, no, it's just language. Wait, do I learn all the
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  languages? No, no, no, you just learn about
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  language. I was like, what?
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  I went in love that. And I thought, aha, OK, I think
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  there's something here with languages.
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  And so that's, yeah, language is a very big part of my life and
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  has been for for ages, really. You, you said already that you,
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  you grew up speaking 3 languages.
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  How do you think that shaped the kid Asrin as a kid back then?
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  Well, I think I would say first and foremost that most at least
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  at least in my a lot, a lot of my friends circles growing up
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  with multiple different languages and was not always
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  common. If someone had a family from
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  another country, then fair enough.
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  They would also perhaps have multiple languages.
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  But I would say it's not necessarily a super common
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  upbringing for people. But for me, it was just, it was
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  normal. It was normal, It was normal.
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  Asking my mom like, oh, is the sound in this word pronounced
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  like this or is it like this or delete?
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  Oh my God, this letter and this language sounds like this letter
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  and that like it was just, it was just a normal thing.
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  It was absolutely, absolutely normal.
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  It's actually quite funny because a lot of parents, a lot
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  of parents, from what I've heard anyway, you know, they'll be
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  concerned about speaking another.
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  Like let's say they speak Spanish as their first language,
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  but they live in Canada. They'll be concerned about
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  speaking Spanish in the household because they think
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  it'll delay the child from learning English.
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  And at least from my personal experience, I could say
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  absolutely not. I grew up with three, 3 1/2
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  languages. Like that's not at all, not at
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  all what happened. And I know many, many people who
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  have families from another country and so they speak one
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  language at home and one language at school, and it's
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  just normal. The brain does a very good job
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  of segmenting the 2 languages. I I'm I'm raising a bilingual,
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  at least bilingual kid. My son is my son is my son is
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  ended up speaking English as his his fourth language.
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  Don't ask me how and why just happened.
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  He's learning, he's learning German in school now and or he's
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  speaking German in school and kindergarten.
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  And and then we try to get Romanian as well because we
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  don't want to miss the connection with our, with our
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  roots. And we think it's important for
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  him to speak a language because any extra language is, is a
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  benefit. And there's always mixed
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  opinions at at at the beginning because we had some people and
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  told us don't do it because it's going to be hard for him.
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  But I read an I read an interesting article after we
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  after he was already big and we already did the 2-3 languages
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  that actually is developing a part of the brain that is not
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  developed during maturity when you learn an additional
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  language, which I think it's quite interesting.
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  Do you think that drew to the fact that you spoke the three
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  languages already? Your brain somehow was open to
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  learn new languages? Was easy for you to understand
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  new languages. I don't think so per SE, because
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  I'll tell you the I'll tell you the following story.
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  So Mandarin was the 5th, the fifth language that I learned
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  and when I was learning Mandarin I was learning alongside someone
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  else who was also learning Mandarin and we are learning at
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  the same time. Now the biggest difference
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  between the two of us was Mandarin was my fifth language,
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  it was her second language. We are similar age, similar
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  everything, but she had no real experience with learning
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  languages and we learned basically using similar
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  approaches, classes, sub immersion, self study, very very
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  similar approaches, very similar amounts of time being spent.
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  And guess what we progressed at the same rate.
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  Like we would always be in the same classes, we would always
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  have roughly the same level. So I thought, I don't, I don't
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  think so. Now there are certain things
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  that to me don't come as natural, but there are other
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  things that come more naturally. Using the example of the
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  Mandarin, my Mandarin speaking friend, my Mandarin learning
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  learning friend, she for example, and seemed to have a
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  much, a much easier time. It was much more natural for her
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  to learn the reading and writing side.
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  It was much slower for me to learn that, but it's very
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  relatively, relatively quick, let's say, much easier for me,
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  let's say, to pick up the pronunciation side.
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  And, and I would say primarily because we have different
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  interests. She likes to sit there and write
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  characters and read them. I like to practice pronunciation
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  and try and sound as close to native as possible.
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  So even there, is it a natural talent?
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  No, I think that she prefers to do 1 type of studying.
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  I prefer to do another type of studying.
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  So lo and behold, she gets better at one aspect of the
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  language, I get better at another.
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  But at the end of the day, our levels are very similar, even
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  multiple years in. OK, that's, that's quite
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  interesting, really interesting. I've seen something in I worked
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  among a lot of people that are speaking 2 languages at least.
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  So Germany is the native language where I live and and
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  English is something that everyone mostly needs in the
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  area when I work where I work. Makes sense.
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  Yeah. In, and I have to say I see the
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  people are are transforming based on the language that they
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  speak. I have the feeling that they are
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  different persons when they speak different languages.
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  And I want to ask you the same. Do you do you have a different
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  personality when you speak a different language?
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  To some degree, to some degree yes, to some degree no.
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  And I think there's a few factors behind it.
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  One of them will definitely be 1's proficiency.
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  So if you're not very good at one language, you're limited as
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  to what kind of language you can use, which therefore limits how
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  you changes how you speak and which changes your personality
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  or at least help people perceive you.
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  At a bare minimum. I think that's one aspect.
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  But the bigger aspect, especially if you have a certain
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  level of proficiency, I think, at least for me, is the people
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  that I was around when I was learning were so influenced by
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  the people that were around that.
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  In French, for example, the type of people I was around, the
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  environment I was in was wildly different than, for example, in
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  Mandarin. Like the influences I've had in
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  each language were quite different.
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  And so I think that that is definitely a factor too, to how
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  what kind of personality someone might have.
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  It's also worth looking at cultural norms.
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  So if you're someone who's really trying to fit into a
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  certain culture and not just speak the language, you also
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  want to integrate the culture into yourself.
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  Well, there's cultural norms that are very, very different.
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  Sometimes they're even very minute.
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  They're not, You know, sometimes we, when we, when we talk about
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  cultural norms, we talk in generalities.
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  Oh, Canadians are polite. Who knows, right?
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  We have these general, general statements that we make about
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  different, different cultures. But sometimes it's in the that
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  the cultural difference show up in the tiny details.
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  Something as simple as when I was in France as a teenager, the
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  very first time I went, I was living in very rural France and
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  I was considered by, by some people as a little bit rude
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  because I didn't always say hello.
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  And to me I was like, what? There are circumstances where it
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  was required quote, UN quote by their cultural norms, at least
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  in my soul, at least in my social circles, at a bare
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  minimum to say hello. Where in my cultural upbringing,
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  in my what was normal for me would be in those situations
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  that I didn't didn't have to necessarily say hello.
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  And it's such a tiny little detail that makes huge
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  difference. I had this from the from a
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  French culture I had, I had someone from from the US who was
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  living in, in France and she said exactly this thing that one
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  of the biggest learnings that she had to do is to always start
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  not with, excuse me, like it's normal in the American culture,
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  but start with bonjour. And then after that to, to to
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  speak the question or to say whatever she wants to say.
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  But she said Everett there was the one of the biggest culture
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  shock that that she was expressing well.
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  It's one of the things that's really interesting is that, you
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  know, I I talked to a lot of people who might travel
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  somewhere and they'll say that the people in XYZ country are
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  insert statement could be rude, could be polite, could be
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  friendly, could be mean. We could be open, could be
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  closed, like they'll have their their statement.
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  And one of the things that's that's that I find very
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  interesting is that the experience that they have has to
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  do with the way that the culture you come from naturally blends
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  or doesn't end with that that country.
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  But it doesn't necessarily mean that if you think XYZ countries
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  closed as an example, it actually might not mean that
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  they are a very closed culture. It could just be that your
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  default way of being and their default way of being, they don't
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  mix all that well. And if you literally make 3
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  behavioral shifts about how you behave like the three, like you
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  say hello bourgeois and friends, for example, you make the
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  tiniest behavioral shift and all of a sudden someone goes from
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  closed to open. I actually have a story like
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  that from Germany. So I've been to Germany two
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  times, yes, two times in my life, maybe 2 or 3 * 2 times.
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  And both times that I've been the second time was definitely a
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  bit more memorable because a bit older and a little bit older.
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  But but anyway, both times I thought people were in a
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  remarkably friendly. People say, oh, Germans, at
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  least people I know will say Germans are very like this and
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  orderly and not as friendly is not the word that I generally
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  hear from people when they go to Germany.
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  Germany. That's not the adjective that
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  most people I know use. When I was in Germany, I
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  experienced Germans, almost every single person I met to be
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  actually remarkably friendly with me, very, very friendly and
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  polite. And I had a lovely experience
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  with people And I thought, wow, how like that's very, that's
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  very interesting. I wonder why my experience was
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  different. I was talking to my friend who
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  used to a Canadian friend who lived and worked in Germany.
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  His German is excellent. He lived there and for a long
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  time. His wife is German and he he's
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  like, I have a question, as in did you?
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  I don't speak German. He's like, did you, when you
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  approach people, what language did you start in?
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  I said, what do you mean? He's like, what language would
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  you address them? And I said, well, I'd always try
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  German. I don't speak German, but I try
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  really hard. I I had a book at home and I try
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  to read it. I, I had this videos.
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  And so if I want to get a coffee, I would, I would try so
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  hard to do it in German to the best of my ability.
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  And he said, yeah, if you do that with Germans and his
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  experience, he says if you do that with Germans, they, they do
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  treat, they'll they'll be very open and friendly with you
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  because they can. Which makes sense.
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  Which makes sense. Never thought of that.
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  But you know, here, here there are two, two kind of cultures in
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  Europe as well as trends. So if you talk about the
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  Italians or the Germans, if you go to Italian and you, you, you
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  try to say Mona espresso or something that that sounds
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  Italian. They are extremely happy.
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  They are talking to you, they are hugging you, They are, you
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  know that, that, that kind of Italian way.
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  But if you go in France and you pretend you speak the language,
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  they hate you. So that's quite interesting
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  because that's happened and it's again a cultural thing.
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  So it happened to me in Strasbourg.
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  I live by two hours, 1 1/2 hours away from Strasbourg.
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  And due to, I think that I'm not so proud of, I studied 11 years
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  of French in school, but I'm not able to actually speak.
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  I'm able to build some sentences, I'm able to say some
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  simple phrases, but that's it. And I tried to fake it.
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  I tried to order something, I think coffee or something.
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  And then they continue speaking with me like fluently and I, I
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  was out of the discussion. Then they like why they are even
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  trying. That's why I'm saying I think
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  it's different from country to country.
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  But going back to what you said regarding, regarding Germans, I
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  have, I have a interesting cultural thing, which I, I think
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  I haven't told until now. There's one thing which for me
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  was really hard at the beginning and had nothing to do with the
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  culture, but with the language. But somehow it has it had to do
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  with the let's say with the unspoken language like there is
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  a Germany has AI don't know how to call it the habit of shaking
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  hands. Whenever you meet you shake
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  hands and usually in the culture where where I come from, you
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  only shake hands to men. This how I grow up.
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  This what what I know here you shake heads to the woman as well
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  is the same thing. But you have to shake the hands
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  for the hand of the woman and then the hand of the man,
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  because that's the sign of respect.
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  If you don't do that, if you don't do that, the man, that's
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  whomever is a man in the round is refusing to shake your hand
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  until you shake the hand of the woman, which is extremely
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  interesting. And this together with a
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  handshake, you are mandatory to have an eye contact because if
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  you don't have an eye contact, it's a sign of disrespect.
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  This is something which I learned exactly connected to
• 15:31
  your story of being cold and not cold.
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  I do agree with you. I think we cannot.
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  You cannot just say X people are why or why people are are zit
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  because it doesn't make sense. There are no general.
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  Yeah. And you know how, you know, one
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  of the things that I've heard people talk about is a beauty
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  privilege where if you look very beautiful, then you get certain
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  privileges in life, both man and woman and in language.
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  I think the beauty, one of the beauty privileges, it's not a
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  beauty privilege, but I'm going to call it that.
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  I'm going to call it the pronunciation privilege.
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  If you sound like you have good pronunciation, in my experience,
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  that gets you very far. It it creates this instant and
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  because I'm an I'm a pronunciation nut, I love, I
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  love pronunciation. I've always liked it.
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  Although, you know, the inspiration behind it was
• 16:18
  interesting. You talked about France, for
• 16:20
  example. I don't know if this is true or
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  this is the connection my brain made.
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  I genuinely don't know. All I know is that it worked.
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  I remember feeling like when I was France, that the fact that I
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  wasn't hyper fluent in French, I, I remember feeling like that
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  was a barrier to friendship and a barrier to the relation to
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  the, to the, to the culture. I felt like I couldn't connect
• 16:43
  with them because I wasn't completely native, but I, I
• 16:46
  remember feeling that frequently.
• 16:48
  And so I made the conscious decision to be, I was to become
• 16:51
  so good at French while I was there that French people would
• 16:54
  think I was French. And that became the constant
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  thing I thought about for pronunciation, for grammar,
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  everything. I thought I will now become
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  French and, and so as a result, I had excellent pronunciation
• 17:07
  and etcetera, etcetera. But then because of that
• 17:10
  decision in every other language I've learned, you know, at least
• 17:14
  at least the pronunciation side of things, I want to make sure
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  it's really, really, really good.
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  And that's always served me very, very well.
• 17:21
  Or the second you talk to someone, they're so disarmed.
• 17:24
  They're so disarmed by just the fact.
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  Even if you're a beginner and you walk up to someone and you
• 17:29
  only know one sentence, all you know is whatever it is.
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  But you say it. Like, imagine if you only knew
• 17:33
  how to say, hey, where's the bathroom?
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  And he said, hey, man, where's the bathroom in here?
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  If that's the way you said it. And that's all you knew, right?
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  Like, And then it's just this very disarming factor.
• 17:44
  Now, some people say, like, oh, my God, yeah, that's so good.
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  But then they talk to you so fast, they think you're really
• 17:48
  fluent. And that doesn't bother me
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  personally. It doesn't, It doesn't, it
• 17:52
  doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me in the
• 17:54
  slightest because I still think the pronunciation gives you a
• 17:56
  Halo effect and and people I don't know.
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  It's just always been very positive for me when I've had
• 18:04
  that good or excellent pronunciation.
• 18:07
  Correct. I have to say it's it's 100%
• 18:09
  your story. So I have to say I was strict a
• 18:10
  few times. Again, fun fun fact from
• 18:14
  Germany, due to the way in which the German language is built,
• 18:17
  their pronunciation English is really, really good.
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  And even though they haven't seen the spoken language because
• 18:23
  everything in Germany is dubbed on TV.
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  So they only see German everywhere like they haven't
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  heard an English spoken language somewhere else except school and
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  they're most of them. I don't see that everyone but
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  most of people, most of the people they only know the a
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  small family of words, but their pronunciation make it like this
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  like you think Oh my God, these guys are good.
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  But at the end, it's just the way in saying things, you're
• 18:49
  absolutely right. One of the things about
• 18:52
  pronunciation too is pronunciation facilitates
• 18:54
  friendship. I've noticed this in myself, but
• 18:56
  also with with others that I've that I've seen in in Canada that
• 19:00
  speak English as another as their foreign language.
• 19:04
  And one things I've one of these I've noticed is that when they
• 19:06
  have good pronunciation, native speakers welcome them in so they
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  can make the native speaker friend.
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  And then they forgive the fact that there's things they don't
• 19:14
  know. So they'll talk to them.
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  They'll talk to them naturally because, oh, this guy sounds
• 19:17
  like me. Yeah, I can just talk to him.
• 19:19
  Then they talk. The non-native speaker says,
• 19:23
  wait, I didn't what does that word mean?
• 19:25
  They go, oh, you don't know. Oh, really?
• 19:27
  OK. And then they explain it to you
• 19:28
  in a very friendly fashion. Now, I'm sure if you didn't have
• 19:31
  excellent pronunciation, people might still do that too.
• 19:35
  All I'm saying is that for me, I've just seen it and felt it
• 19:38
  myself, that when you have good pronunciation, that is often a
• 19:41
  reaction you get from native speakers.
• 19:44
  It's pretty interesting. Just a little observation.
• 19:46
  Just an observation that I've made.
• 19:49
  Correct. Fully agree.
• 19:51
  As I would like to go a bit back in your story and ask you how do
• 19:54
  you did you end up in in rural France when you were 15
• 19:59
  originally from Canada? Oh nice.
• 20:02
  Yeah, it was an exchange trip. So the way it worked is you, you
• 20:05
  filled out a bunch of forms and then P someone in France fills
• 20:08
  out forms and they somehow pair you.
• 20:10
  And the person I lived with just happened to live in a very rural
• 20:14
  area. Just that's how it worked out.
• 20:17
  And the weirdest thing of all, not only did he live in a rural
• 20:20
  area, but somehow, some way, someone in that exact same rural
• 20:25
  area also applied. So someone in my high school and
• 20:30
  myself, we both ended up in the same high school in France.
• 20:33
  I was like we are in the middle of nowhere and we're in the same
• 20:37
  school. How does that make any sense?
• 20:40
  How was how was the experience between the the French learning
• 20:44
  language that you had learning in Canada and the real life in
• 20:49
  in rural France? So when I went there, the
• 20:55
  people, the family I was living with, they were quite impressed
• 20:57
  with my French overall. So they will, to this day, I'm
• 20:59
  still in touch with them and they will still say like, yeah,
• 21:02
  when you arrived you were already like at least pretty
• 21:05
  good in French. And so that's the comment that
• 21:08
  they made. Now my personal experience was
• 21:10
  that there were lots of things that I noticed on a day-to-day
• 21:13
  basis that were causing me problems.
• 21:15
  So there are words I use that were used more in Canada, but
• 21:18
  they don't use in France. My accent, I didn't have like a
• 21:22
  thick, really difficult to understand accent, but I had
• 21:25
  something like a like an English, like a English accent,
• 21:29
  Canadian accent, Quebecois accent, and then a bit of a
• 21:33
  random Indian thing mixed in as well.
• 21:35
  I'd like Indian Rs and so kind of this hybrid accent, but still
• 21:38
  very, very clear. Like there's no comprehension
• 21:40
  issues when I spoke to people at all.
• 21:43
  But again, it was something that I would notice.
• 21:45
  I'd say a word, they'd say, that's not the word we use here.
• 21:47
  I'd say something, they'd go, whoa, that's not how we
• 21:49
  pronounce that here. And so I, again, I, I made the
• 21:53
  conscious decision when I was in France to actually speak like,
• 21:57
  well, actually, I didn't know that what I was doing was not
• 22:00
  necessarily wrong. I just assumed I was wrong.
• 22:04
  Like some things maybe would have more Quebecois.
• 22:05
  I just didn't know. I thought, well, the native
• 22:07
  speakers are telling me that this is the word we use.
• 22:11
  Maybe I've maybe I learned it wrong, like I'm not a native
• 22:14
  speaker. So then I copied them, accent
• 22:17
  wise, pronunciation wise, grammar wise, vocabulary wise.
• 22:21
  Upon returning to Canada, slowly but surely I learned, oh, I
• 22:25
  could have kept saying that that's Quebecois.
• 22:28
  That thing I used to say actually was wrong.
• 22:30
  OK, But in the beginning I thought, everything is wrong.
• 22:33
  I didn't know. I mean, first of all, for a 15
• 22:39
  year old is an experience overall to leave his home
• 22:43
  country, to leave his home area, to leave his comfort zone of his
• 22:45
  family, his mum, Well, she's, she's cooking food for you and
• 22:49
  making the bed and everything to go out.
• 22:52
  And besides that, to do that in a foreign language and not, you
• 22:57
  know, there's this this impression that the round who
• 22:59
  speaks English, they have a kind of entitlement.
• 23:01
  Like I can go over and I and everyone speaks my language.
• 23:05
  So that's, that's the thing. And not having that like going
• 23:07
  there with the, with the natural wish to, to learn the language
• 23:11
  and speak the language like a French guy.
• 23:13
  I think that says something already about your future and,
• 23:18
  and how, how, how you are, how your upbringing went, because
• 23:26
  it's not easy to have this. You know for sure it helped that
• 23:28
  you'll, you spoke 3 languages already, but still you, you need
• 23:32
  to have a certain open mind to see the things like this when
• 23:37
  you go in a different country. You finished, you said you did,
• 23:43
  you did in visiting university. You finished university and you
• 23:47
  said, OK, I want to, I want to get the you got the first job.
• 23:51
  What are the first job that you got?
• 23:54
  Yeah, so actually, so in in university, I just took
• 23:57
  linguistics classes. My major is actually French and
• 23:59
  Spanish. So I didn't do a linguistics
• 24:00
  major. I just did a couple and it's
• 24:02
  quite a number. But my major is French and
• 24:04
  Spanish, a language and literature degree.
• 24:06
  But yeah, after after university, my first, so my
• 24:11
  first job, my first job actually started when I was in
• 24:14
  university. So the full time job that I did,
• 24:16
  I started in my first year of university.
• 24:19
  I owned a window cleaning franchise.
• 24:22
  So I was a business owner. Like it wasn't a job, it was my
• 24:26
  business, but with the franchise, and I started that
• 24:28
  when I was 18. I was the first year of
• 24:30
  university and upon graduation that became my full time, my
• 24:34
  full time pursuit. Why?
• 24:36
  That and nothing to do with languages.
• 24:40
  So when I was 7, when I was 17, when I was 17 years old.
• 24:44
  So before going to university, I ended up going to this business
• 24:49
  conference. Now it was a little bit how
• 24:55
  would I, you know, those very motivational conferences that
• 24:58
  some people say have no real content, It's just a bunch of
• 25:01
  motivation. They try and sell you $1000
• 25:03
  programs and. Typical that's.
• 25:05
  Why I went to one of those? Typical multi level marketing
• 25:09
  things. Right.
• 25:10
  Yeah, but they don't, they're not in multi level marketing
• 25:12
  because I did get involved in that as well, which is a whole
• 25:14
  other story. But they're not they're they're
• 25:15
  just like a like a personal development company basically.
• 25:19
  And and so I went to one because my mom, so my mom had gone to
• 25:25
  their one of their conferences or one of their events rather.
• 25:28
  And she told me that I could learn a lot from it.
• 25:31
  She warned me going in. She's like, hey, don't buy
• 25:34
  anything. You might want to buy stuff.
• 25:36
  They're a little weird sometimes and it's a bit hokey.
• 25:38
  Like just try and focus on the content because a lot of the
• 25:41
  stuff is the content is wrapped in some, you know, hype and
• 25:46
  things like that. She's like, just focus on the
• 25:48
  content. There's some really good stuff
• 25:49
  there. I think you'll like it.
• 25:50
  I didn't want to go. She's like you, you have to go,
• 25:52
  I'm making you go. I said, OK, fine.
• 25:54
  And so I went there and that was my first introduction to to
• 25:58
  business. And so that that was what really
• 26:02
  got things started. Fast forward about a year, when
• 26:04
  I was 18, I was sitting in one of my university lecture lecture
• 26:08
  theaters and this person stands up in front of the whole whole
• 26:11
  class and they said that they were recruiting for a, a
• 26:14
  franchise company and the franchise hired students and
• 26:17
  they not hired, but you become a franchise and they would train
• 26:20
  you in all business basics. I thought, well, I'll be kind of
• 26:24
  cool. I went to this conference.
• 26:25
  I like business. I know nothing about it, so this
• 26:27
  could be a way for me to learn. So I it passed out a form.
• 26:30
  I filled it out and then, you know, then they interviewed me
• 26:34
  so on and so forth. And that was what I did.
• 26:36
  For how long have you done that? Almost.
• 26:40
  So a little over 5 1/2 years. I used to say 5 1/2 years.
• 26:43
  I looked at my, I looked at it recently.
• 26:44
  It's actually almost six years. OK, what?
• 26:49
  What made you stop? What made you stop and say, OK,
• 26:51
  I'm done with this. I want to do languages.
• 26:54
  Two things. So first of all, when I started
• 26:57
  to work there, I in my head, I thought to myself, I will do
• 27:00
  this as a way to learn about how to run a business.
• 27:04
  Then I will leave and start my own business.
• 27:05
  That was always the plan from the age of 18.
• 27:07
  I just didn't know what kind of what kind of business I would
• 27:11
  run. I didn't know, right.
• 27:13
  And so I thought, well, this is the way to learn and then I'll
• 27:15
  leave and start my own things. That's, that's the first thing.
• 27:17
  Now, the second thing that happened was actually I was
• 27:20
  enjoying it quite a bit and I thought I would just make a
• 27:22
  career there. I thought, you know what, this
• 27:24
  is going really well. I'm getting good at this.
• 27:25
  I enjoyed this. Let's let's stick with this at
• 27:27
  least for, I don't know, a while, like a like a long while.
• 27:32
  But then a series of events happened #1A.
• 27:35
  So we have to take a step back. So I was AI was a franchise
• 27:38
  owner for four years. So I ran a like my own business
• 27:42
  for four years. Upon graduation, I was hired to
• 27:45
  be a general manager. So I was actually running a
• 27:47
  division as an employee. So it's like employee with a
• 27:49
  bunch of bonuses based on your divisional performance.
• 27:52
  So in that job I was laid off. Then I was rehired to run a very
• 27:58
  large franchise. They had a bunch of change
• 28:01
  management. So I was like, yeah, this is
• 28:02
  not, I don't enjoy this anymore. I always did this as a way to
• 28:05
  eventually leave and start my own business.
• 28:07
  I don't like this anymore. This is a good time to to leave
• 28:10
  and try. So very long winded answer, but
• 28:13
  that's that's the answer. The the experience in business
• 28:21
  helped from there I'm pretty sure still. 100%.
• 28:26
  But still, I think the start in anything that you do 100% on
• 28:30
  your own is hard. What that was that, that every
• 28:34
  moment at the beginning when you said, Oh my God, I think I've
• 28:38
  done a mistake. Not that I thought, I think I've
• 28:41
  done a mistake. No, not that.
• 28:43
  But the first three years I was definitely very anxious, quite
• 28:47
  quite nervous about it and very, very low confidence.
• 28:51
  Do you think that the the experience of working gave you
• 28:55
  the patience to build your business?
• 28:59
  I don't know if it makes sense what I'm asking.
• 29:02
  Yeah, like, basically, like the fact that I'd done it once
• 29:05
  before made me think I could do it again.
• 29:07
  You mean like that? Yeah, exactly.
• 29:09
  Partially, yeah, to a, to a certain degree, because I knew
• 29:12
  that I had done, I'd done something similar.
• 29:15
  So to a certain degree, yes. But I will admit that I was the
• 29:19
  first three years, the first three years I was very, very
• 29:24
  tentative. I was very cautious.
• 29:27
  You know, the thing I was cautious about was taking
• 29:29
  emotional risks, not financial risks, not like Omena, but no
• 29:32
  emotional risks. So I wouldn't even let myself
• 29:35
  set a big goal. So I was scared that I would set
• 29:39
  it and then fail. And what would that mean?
• 29:42
  That I spent almost six years learning about business.
• 29:45
  Now I go on my own thing and I'm, I'm unsuccessful.
• 29:48
  What does that mean about the past six years?
• 29:50
  So in order to protect my my ego or protect my emotional, maybe
• 29:56
  my ego is the best way to put it.
• 29:57
  To protect my ego. What I decided, what I would do
• 30:00
  is I would set very small goals that I was extremely confident
• 30:05
  that I could hit, or at least as confident as I possibly could be
• 30:09
  that I could hit them. Small steps, baby steps.
• 30:12
  Yes, but in my world, baby steps are not big enough.
• 30:15
  So one of the things that's one of the things that I that for me
• 30:18
  when I said when I make baby steps, I can have a tendency to
• 30:22
  make the baby steps actually too small.
• 30:25
  So as an example, if I made an extra, I don't know, I, I'm
• 30:29
  making a number up, but I, if I made an extra $100 in a year,
• 30:33
  $100 in a year, I might have told myself lots of baby stuff
• 30:35
  in the right direction. But then three years later
• 30:38
  you're making an extra $300. And, and if you're only making,
• 30:41
  you know, I wasn't making very much in those first three years.
• 30:44
  Let's just say that if I wasn't living at home with my mom,
• 30:47
  like, so I couldn't have done like that wouldn't have been
• 30:49
  possible, right? And but like, that's just not
• 30:54
  those baby steps are way too baby.
• 31:01
  How did how did Calgary language not started and how I have to
• 31:10
  rephrase the question. If you see, if you look now back
• 31:15
  back at the start and you think how it started like an idea, do
• 31:19
  you think now it's where you wanted to be back then or it the
• 31:23
  the development went in a bit different direction than you
• 31:26
  initially started? That's actually a good question.
• 31:29
  I, I didn't really have a clear vision of what it would look
• 31:35
  like from the beginning. So I remember vividly that.
• 31:38
  So when I, when I had a window cleaning franchise the way,
• 31:41
  especially in the last couple of years, my job looked like this.
• 31:44
  I had multiple different and lots of franchisees were in my
• 31:47
  division. They each had multiple employee,
• 31:50
  multiple employees. So there's lots of people that
• 31:52
  I'm responsible for across a very expansive region.
• 31:55
  So multiple different cities across different provinces and
• 31:58
  Canada's big. I think it's something like 17
• 32:00
  Frances fit just in my province and I had three, I think it was
• 32:05
  17 something like that. I can't remember the number, but
• 32:07
  it's something like that and I3 provinces, right?
• 32:11
  The the regions would change year by year, but roughly
• 32:13
  speaking is like central Canada ish.
• 32:15
  Let's say it's like that's a lot.
• 32:16
  That's a big area to cover. Like you're flying and you're
• 32:19
  driving and there's all these people and the stress every day
• 32:21
  you open your e-mail and there's like 17 things that make you go
• 32:26
  when your heart's like racing 1,000,000 beats a minute.
• 32:28
  Anyway, the point is when all that ended, I was like, I don't
• 32:33
  know if I ever want to run, like manage lots of people.
• 32:36
  Like I don't know if I want to do that.
• 32:39
  So I but I was like, but if I want to run a real business,
• 32:41
  I'll have to manage people. So I actually didn't know.
• 32:43
  I was like, I honestly don't know what this will look like,
• 32:46
  but I have to start. I have to start.
• 32:48
  So in the beginning I just tutored privately.
• 32:51
  I just taught private classes. I thought this is the way to
• 32:54
  start. Let me fill my schedule up and
• 32:56
  then I'll figure out what I want to do next.
• 32:58
  Like, I don't even know. So it's tough to answer your
• 33:00
  question because I didn't really have a vision for it.
• 33:03
  I didn't really have a vision for it in the beginning.
• 33:05
  I didn't have one. I just knew that I'm going to
• 33:07
  try this and let's figure it out as I go.
• 33:11
  And when to when? When you got the idea?
• 33:15
  Because now you have as based on the information that I found,
• 33:20
  you have about 20 tutors and you teach about 15 languages.
• 33:25
  When? That was previously, but yeah,
• 33:27
  at one point, yes. OK, but when this progress
• 33:30
  started? So I would say a lot of it
• 33:33
  triggered 3 years then. So I remember, so told me think
• 33:36
  2016. So about 20 after 2019, I want
• 33:41
  to say so about three years. And I started like late 2016.
• 33:44
  So roughly 3 years then because three years then I looked, I was
• 33:47
  like, wait a second, I'm not really making any money here.
• 33:50
  Like this is I'm being a little, I think three years is enough
• 33:53
  time to like try something and see if there's any kind of
• 33:58
  traction. And I was like year after year,
• 34:00
  nothing's really changing. So I'm going to give myself one
• 34:04
  more year. And then I can tell myself,
• 34:06
  listen, I gave it four years. Like I can go get a job, I can
• 34:09
  do something else. I can, I said, I'm going to give
• 34:11
  myself one more year. I'm really going to like pay
• 34:14
  attention, like really pay attention and try and make this
• 34:17
  work. So three years.
• 34:18
  And that's when a lot of that started.
• 34:20
  And thank goodness, the 4th year was a lot, was a lot was a lot
• 34:23
  better. And I in my mind, what I used to
• 34:25
  do after those first three years, what I told myself is
• 34:28
  every year bought me another year.
• 34:31
  So if I saw enough progress, I was like, OK, that's, that's,
• 34:34
  that's real meaningful progress now.
• 34:37
  So the 4th year is the first year I ever made a living wage,
• 34:39
  like a wage that someone could live on.
• 34:41
  Like, OK, like this is a wage that people make.
• 34:43
  This is the wage of people can pay their bills and have a life
• 34:46
  and like, do their life and just, you know, be normal, be a
• 34:48
  normal human. Not if you're the parents.
• 34:51
  Not if you survive. And be happy, right?
• 34:53
  And I was like, cool, that's the first year, fifth year, same
• 34:56
  thing. And then just kind of growing
• 34:58
  little by little and every year that it was growing a bit or the
• 35:02
  big indications are positive, I thought, well, I bought myself
• 35:04
  another year. Well, I bought myself another
• 35:06
  year. I bought myself another year, or
• 35:08
  I kept buying myself another year or two years.
• 35:13
  What's 1 of the biggest mistakes that you made at the beginning
• 35:15
  that thought you were a big lesson?
• 35:24
  Couple of things. I'd say one of them was just one
• 35:26
  of the things that really held me back in the beginning was the
• 35:28
  fact that I was scared to let my ego get hurt.
• 35:34
  Really, you can't. I wouldn't set even the remotely
• 35:36
  big goal, even remotely, not even like a reasonable goal.
• 35:40
  I was scared to do that because that could hurt my feelings if I
• 35:43
  don't hit it. That was definitely one of them.
• 35:46
  Isn't it interesting that one of the one of the big, one of the
• 35:51
  biggest impact that that something has on our life is the
• 35:53
  ego And, and it's nothing that actually somebody gives a crap.
• 35:58
  Sorry for saying this, but it's something that you have with
• 36:01
  with yourself and it stop you from doing doing a lot of a lot
• 36:05
  of a lot of. Big things, yeah.
• 36:08
  And it's not even like setting a like, you know how some people,
• 36:11
  especially if you're in an entrepreneurial world, like the
• 36:13
  stereotypical entrepreneur says, I'm going to run this business
• 36:16
  that changes the world. I'm going to start the Uber of
• 36:19
  this and the the McDonald's of that and whatever.
• 36:23
  Like for me, I wasn't even setting anything remote.
• 36:25
  That's not what I mean by big goals.
• 36:27
  I just mean like something that's reasonable, like
• 36:29
  reasonable. Like so right now I'm in a four
• 36:32
  year, what's called a four year life transformation course.
• 36:35
  Essentially, it's kind of like a university degree.
• 36:38
  And like the one of the goals in it is to double my double my
• 36:44
  annual, like what I earn in a four year period.
• 36:48
  That's very reasonable. If someone actually pays
• 36:51
  attention, like that's huge like that.
• 36:53
  Think about whatever your salaries and you double it in
• 36:54
  four years. Hey, that's that's pretty darn
• 36:58
  like that's that's really good. Could you imagine?
• 37:01
  That's crazy. But it's also it's it's it's
• 37:03
  absolutely something that is in the realm of possibility.
• 37:07
  And if you don't double it, let's say you, you get, you
• 37:09
  know, 25% more pay in four years or whatever, right?
• 37:13
  You're still happy. You're like, well, I'm still
• 37:16
  happy. Like it's a very, it's a, it's a
• 37:17
  reasonable goal to aim for. It's not like something, it's
• 37:20
  not like I'm going to make $50 million a year and four.
• 37:23
  No, it's nothing stupid like that, right?
• 37:25
  It's just like, hey, I'm going to try and double my, my salary.
• 37:28
  I'm going to try and do it strategically, right?
• 37:31
  That is reasonable difficult, not easy, but possible.
• 37:35
  And if you fail, you're still happy.
• 37:38
  Correct because you still have more and even if you don't have
• 37:41
  and even if you don't have more, you make the same and it's still
• 37:44
  you should be happy. So it's not like something is
• 37:47
  should have is affecting your the quality of your life.
• 37:49
  Well, here's. The thing about me, like I, I
• 37:51
  love progress, so I'm obsessed. So I've learned this about
• 37:54
  myself. I love progress.
• 37:55
  So for four years I was saying no progress like nothing.
• 37:58
  It would be an indication to me that I'm not on the right track.
• 38:01
  Like clearly my my what I think the way I think reality works.
• 38:07
  It's not how reality works. I thought I could do XYZ and
• 38:10
  work and it didn't work. But still it's something that
• 38:13
  you learn in the last four years that you you have tried
• 38:15
  something that didn't work and you know what to change now.
• 38:19
  And I think, I think that's. A benefit for the four years I
• 38:21
  would for sure. Yeah, for sure.
• 38:22
  But still it's a benefit. So I think still something that
• 38:25
  you learn from. I don't consider necessary
• 38:27
  mistake or consider something wrong.
• 38:29
  I just think that it's a it's a learning path on which we all.
• 38:32
  Are definitely learning path, yeah.
• 38:34
  I love the book I most probably know it the the book Ego is the
• 38:38
  Enemy from Ryan Holiday. Oh, I haven't read it now.
• 38:42
  Oh, I know, and I haven't read it.
• 38:43
  I can not recommend it enough. OK, cool.
• 38:47
  Really, really good book and for everyone who has a problem and
• 38:51
  he got married with his ego, that's the perfect book for it.
• 38:58
  Can you say a few words about about CLN, about the Calgary
• 39:04
  language nerds? What's the philosophy?
• 39:08
  What's what's your philosophy in in teaching the languages?
• 39:12
  Sure, absolutely. So for the first seven years it
• 39:15
  was a what I would call a traditional, traditional
• 39:18
  language teaching business, private classes, tutors trying
• 39:21
  to make sure it's a positive experience like does anything
• 39:24
  what you would get here, you would get an other reputable
• 39:27
  good companies for the most part.
• 39:29
  I would say that's, that's a pretty fair, it's a pretty fair
• 39:31
  statement. For the past couple of years
• 39:33
  it's been a little bit different.
• 39:34
  In the past couple of years, the the focus has been on providing
• 39:37
  a reliable pathway to fluency. So someone signs up, they can.
• 39:41
  They can feel confident that OK, there is a reliable pathway that
• 39:44
  actually does lead to fluency in XYZ language.
• 39:48
  OK, now you have you have tutors that you have on the of
• 39:55
  different languages. Yes.
• 39:58
  How do you choose someone who will represent your philosophy
• 40:01
  in in teaching the language? Yeah, that's a good question.
• 40:10
  It's a tough question because I actually don't have a good
• 40:12
  answer for you. I used to have a good answer.
• 40:15
  I used to, but I don't have one anymore because the first seven
• 40:18
  years I had a system for hiring people I knew I was looking for.
• 40:22
  Now, I'm not 100% sure. I really actually have a tough
• 40:25
  time speaking to it as of right now.
• 40:26
  Is it the? Is it the gut feeling?
• 40:29
  No, no, no, no. It's a process.
• 40:33
  It's a process. I have a process.
• 40:35
  Yeah, I have processes that I follow that generally lead to
• 40:38
  the right outcome. So I'll give you an example.
• 40:39
  In the first seven years, some of the things that I was looking
• 40:43
  for would have been AI looked for, punctuality.
• 40:49
  I looked for I looked for someone who when they said
• 40:53
  something will happen, doesn't happen.
• 40:55
  So I would purposely I, what I used to do in the interview
• 40:57
  process, I'd purposely give you certain like small tasks
• 41:01
  throughout the interview process and I'd ask you to do it by a
• 41:04
  certain time or I'd ask you when you want to do it by.
• 41:07
  I'd say, so when you want, I'll be like, Hey, I need you to fill
• 41:09
  out XYZ. When can you send that to me and
• 41:11
  say, oh, I can do it by Thursday.
• 41:12
  OK, cool. And I would see if you sent it
• 41:14
  on Thursday or if you sent it on Wednesday or we sent it on
• 41:16
  Friday, or I would just see what happened.
• 41:19
  So anyone who all those like mini, little mini promises they
• 41:22
  made if they hit them all the time, that was a big, big plus.
• 41:25
  I look for things like Internet connection.
• 41:27
  If it's an online teacher, like do they have a good Internet
• 41:29
  connection? Do they, is it, is it clean?
• 41:31
  Is it smooth? In, in the in the window
• 41:35
  cleaning franchise, we were, we had a lot of training on
• 41:39
  recruiting and interviewing. So there were a whole bunch of
• 41:42
  things. Their behavioral traits,
• 41:44
  actually their behavioral traits, we look for that.
• 41:46
  We used to call them, Oh, they had a word for it.
• 41:50
  I forgot the word. It'd basically be like good
• 41:54
  people skills basically, but they had a specific word for it,
• 41:56
  but I can't remember. And then it'd be a list of
• 41:59
  behaviors that you look for. If someone had those behaviors,
• 42:02
  that was a very positive sign. If someone likes their tutor,
• 42:07
  even if they never taught a day in their lives, that's 75% of
• 42:10
  the equation. At least that was that was the,
• 42:14
  that was what I had back then. I was like at 75% I can teach
• 42:17
  you the 25 see in the window cleaning franchise that I ran.
• 42:20
  The the most most peculiar thing about that business that I've
• 42:24
  the older I've gotten, the more I've realized how odd it is.
• 42:28
  And it's it really has influenced how I personally hire
• 42:32
  and train and how I make my decisions.
• 42:34
  The thing about and also my upbringing too, which is a whole
• 42:37
  other story. My upbringing also reinforces
• 42:39
  this, which I actually only realized yesterday funnily
• 42:42
  enough. But The thing is, in that
• 42:45
  franchise, every single position they hired for from a window
• 42:51
  cleaner, like on the lowest level all the way up to some
• 42:54
  high level manager, every single position, they did not expect
• 42:59
  you to know how to do the job before they hire you for the
• 43:02
  job. You can have no experience in
• 43:05
  that job and they will teach you everything.
• 43:07
  So what? Yeah, go ahead.
• 43:09
  They were only looking for the human quality.
• 43:12
  They looked for they, they knew what they wanted in a human and
• 43:15
  they knew what type of person would be required to do that job
• 43:20
  and how they would work with them.
• 43:21
  So that's how I, that was just normal.
• 43:23
  That's how, that's how to hire in my brain.
• 43:26
  I thought that's how you hire people.
• 43:27
  So when I hired tutors, I didn't care if you taught before.
• 43:29
  I would look for the type of person I knew I would need to be
• 43:33
  able to teach you. So the people skills, I had a
• 43:36
  whole list of things I'd look for.
• 43:37
  The people skills were important because I knew that if I tell a
• 43:42
  student, hey, your tutor is a new tutor, but you'll have a
• 43:45
  good experience, they won't care that they're a new tutor because
• 43:48
  they'll like them as a human and they'll trust them as a human.
• 43:50
  Which makes a lot of sense. Which makes a lot of sense
• 43:53
  because at the end they know the language.
• 43:55
  Like you have a multi language multilingual team anyhow, they
• 43:59
  speak the language and they know that that tutoring is something
• 44:03
  that you can learn. But being a good human is not
• 44:05
  something that you. Can nowadays it's a bit
• 44:07
  different, which is I don't have a good, that's what I used to do
• 44:09
  and I don't have a good answer for you anymore and I don't have
• 44:12
  one for you because now the way we teach is complete.
• 44:15
  The way that the program works is so wildly different from
• 44:18
  anything that exists that just hiring someone who has the
• 44:21
  personality and then training them in the back end.
• 44:24
  I'm not 100% sure that's a good idea and I don't have a good
• 44:27
  answer anymore, and I also haven't hired anyone in a little
• 44:30
  while so I don't actually have a good answer for it right now.
• 44:33
  I had managed in the past multi language multinationalities
• 44:37
  team. So I don't say multi language
• 44:39
  because we basically spoke German, English and even though
• 44:43
  it was limited to languages, the multi.
• 44:48
  So the interculturality of the team was amazing.
• 44:52
  The fact that you had people come from different backgrounds
• 44:55
  doing different things, meeting every once in a while, doing
• 44:58
  some exchanges about culture. We had from I don't know if we
• 45:02
  talk geographically from India, Kazakhstan up to I think Brazil
• 45:07
  was on the on the left side of the map.
• 45:10
  If we put it like this. What do you think is the biggest
• 45:15
  challenge in managing multilingual team?
• 45:20
  I actually don't know. Never done it before.
• 45:22
  OK, I don't know. I can guess, but I don't
• 45:25
  actually know. I know, I don't know.
• 45:30
  Like, I mean, my tutors are multilingual, I suppose, but it
• 45:32
  doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like a multinational like where
• 45:35
  they're it doesn't feel that way at all in the slightest.
• 45:37
  I've never had a. Is it because it's all cheaper?
• 45:40
  Is it because I speak their languages?
• 45:41
  I feel. Comfortable.
• 45:42
  Yeah. I don't know.
• 45:43
  It's never. I've never I can understand the
• 45:45
  feeling behind your question of like, Oh my God, you've got all
• 45:47
  these different cultures trying to.
• 45:49
  Mix exactly. I can I can totally see it.
• 45:51
  I've just it's never it's it's been such a non issue that
• 45:55
  literally my first thought when you asked me the question was
• 45:57
  I've never done that before. What do you mean the multi?
• 46:00
  I've never managed multilingual multinational, like wait a
• 46:03
  second, that that's what I do. Oh yeah, that's how little of a
• 46:06
  problem it is in my it's not even AI think.
• 46:10
  I honestly think humans are human.
• 46:12
  They're human and we have like we have different, like we all
• 46:18
  have a different. So if you look at culture,
• 46:19
  culture is like a mask. It's the mask.
• 46:22
  You know, like you're Mexican, you got your little Mexican
• 46:24
  mask, you're Canadian, a little Canadian mask.
• 46:26
  You've got a mask. You just put the mask down.
• 46:28
  It's not a human being. Like it's just a mask.
• 46:29
  It's not correct. It's not different.
• 46:31
  Correct. But I think it's important to
• 46:32
  understand the different, the different culture, the small
• 46:35
  culture differences. I'll give you some some
• 46:37
  examples. I don't think it's nice to talk
• 46:40
  about. OK, I'll do it.
• 46:41
  You know, for example, that the guys from Portugal are never on
• 46:45
  time because the cultural thing, they are always at least 15
• 46:50
  minutes too late. You know that you never set up
• 46:52
  meetings for someone in Spain at 8:00 AM in Spain because they
• 46:57
  are not in the office. You know that you don't set up a
• 47:01
  meeting for someone in Romania, for example, after 7:00 PM
• 47:05
  because there's no one in the office.
• 47:06
  Like the small things I'm talking about, I'm not talking.
• 47:09
  About for me. Go ahead.
• 47:11
  I'm not talking about the, the how you handle people because
• 47:14
  that's not what I mean. I, I'm fully with you.
• 47:17
  Everyone is a human and we handle each other, but you just
• 47:20
  have to have that understanding of coming from different
• 47:23
  backgrounds and having different habits in your country.
• 47:28
  Yeah. I think for me, one of the ways
• 47:29
  that I think one of the reasons why it, I'm guessing here, I
• 47:34
  don't actually know, but I think one of the reasons why I'm, it's
• 47:37
  not been a huge problem as I'm very clear with expectations.
• 47:40
  I don't care what country you're from, this is what we have.
• 47:42
  This is like, these are the expectations.
• 47:44
  If this is a job you want actually two things, actually
• 47:46
  two things. Now that I'm, now that I'm
• 47:48
  thinking of it, there's two big things.
• 47:50
  One is expectations. Like, hey, in this job, these
• 47:54
  are the things that are expected.
• 47:56
  But the other thing in the past, I, I don't have a good hiring
• 48:00
  philosophy now, unfortunately. So I'm not, I, I need to make a
• 48:03
  new one that works for how I run the business.
• 48:06
  But I can say for the first seven years there were strange
• 48:13
  interviews. There were very unusual
• 48:15
  interviews. I let that, I let them pick a
• 48:17
  lot about their job. There'd be like 3 things I cared
• 48:21
  about and the rest was up to them.
• 48:23
  And so they, they would find it very odd.
• 48:25
  Like what, What do you mean I can make my own schedule.
• 48:29
  It's like, well, there are certain there are certain things
• 48:31
  about scheduling that won't work for sure, but you have a lot of
• 48:35
  flexibility in how that works. What, how much vacation time do
• 48:37
  I get? How much do you want?
• 48:39
  Like there's some stuff, like there's some stuff that would be
• 48:41
  completely unreasonable. Like like it'd be very, there'd
• 48:46
  be many things or as be very focused on the human and that
• 48:49
  could be why I didn't really have any issues.
• 48:53
  It could be, I actually don't know.
• 48:54
  I honestly don't know but. You actually have a Home Office
• 48:57
  policy, right, Because everyone is working from their own home.
• 49:01
  Interestingly, not for the first.
• 49:05
  Let me think, I'd have to remember not initially like to
• 49:07
  say that I can't remember exactly because it used to be
• 49:08
  all in person. Really.
• 49:11
  And now it's all online because we that's what we get requests
• 49:14
  for. It was all.
• 49:14
  I was like 99% in person before. That's.
• 49:18
  Like it was Calgary. It was like it's called Calgary
• 49:20
  language nerds. Why it was Calgary?
• 49:22
  Like we were like I had, I had, I had social events for like I
• 49:27
  ran a language learning club basically.
• 49:29
  And now we had private classes and stuff too.
• 49:30
  But I ran a club like we had pub nights, barbecues, game nights,
• 49:34
  coffee shop events, drop in classes.
• 49:36
  Like we there were probably 500 people a month coming through
• 49:39
  different events, something like that.
• 49:41
  Like hundreds of people a month all in person.
• 49:44
  All in person. We had a coffee shop that every
• 49:46
  single Saturday was our coffee shop all day from 10:00 AM to
• 49:50
  6:00 PM or whatever. It was like all day it was us
• 49:53
  and not coffee shop and no one really else.
• 49:55
  People coming in and out saying hello, saying hi, playing this
• 49:58
  game, practicing this language. Then we go have dinner.
• 50:00
  Then the then a lot of sounds stereotypical, but the Chinese
• 50:04
  people would then go do karaoke and I go karaoke with them.
• 50:06
  And it was the Chinese group really that was, it was a
• 50:10
  Chinese learning group that would go karaoke.
• 50:12
  And then I would go and like I'd leave my house at 9:30 in the
• 50:14
  morning or 10:00 in the morning or whatever and be home at like
• 50:16
  1:00 AM sometimes. Like it was like all day like it
• 50:20
  was. It was a huge corona.
• 50:22
  Did Corona change everything? That's when it started, yeah,
• 50:28
  Yeah. It's good on one side because
• 50:31
  it's expanded your your market through the to the whole world,
• 50:36
  but it's bad on the other side because I'm kind of guy who was
• 50:39
  missing the social social connection.
• 50:42
  But interesting about that is like it.
• 50:43
  It's so so it was like online for a few years, like during
• 50:47
  lockdowns and all that stuff. I went back to one person is
• 50:50
  very unpopular. Like I couldn't get traction at
• 50:53
  all. And I was like, this is weird.
• 50:56
  So then I went all online and I was like, people are not coming
• 50:58
  in person. No one's asking for a person.
• 51:00
  Nobody wants to do in person. And then recently, I'd say the
• 51:03
  past year, maybe year and a half in person is I can feel that I
• 51:09
  can see the difference again. So I run AI run like like a pub
• 51:12
  night and like it's packed every time.
• 51:16
  And like now I was like, OK, now there's I can feel the in person
• 51:18
  swing happening again. So now I'm doing some more in
• 51:20
  person stuff again. It's, I think it's coming back.
• 51:24
  That's my feeling. I think people are.
• 51:26
  So I honestly think that that Home Office is, is there to stay
• 51:31
  in a kind of way. If it's going to be two days a
• 51:34
  week, three days a week, doesn't matter.
• 51:35
  But I think people are missing the social interaction.
• 51:38
  And by social interaction, I don't necessarily mean the work
• 51:41
  social interaction. I really mean the social social
• 51:43
  interaction exactly. Yeah, socializing.
• 51:45
  Exactly Asrin, if I would come to your school today, I will
• 51:50
  tell you I want to learn Mandarin.
• 51:53
  Sure. What would be the the first
• 51:57
  steps that I would take? And what would be the, let's
• 52:01
  say, if you can, of course, you cannot give me a full cost, but
• 52:03
  you can give me a like like, let's say a starting, starting
• 52:06
  package. Yeah, for sure.
• 52:08
  So usually for starting package won't be very expensive.
• 52:10
  Like right now I have a, the deal of the week right now is
• 52:12
  you have three lessons for $39.00 and you get to get the
• 52:15
  ball rolling and then, yeah, in terms of what to expect.
• 52:20
  So there's a few different things that matter.
• 52:21
  First and foremost, we focus on fluency.
• 52:24
  Now, whether that means conversational, whether that
• 52:26
  means functional, whether it means completely bilingual, it
• 52:29
  doesn't matter. People have different goals, but
• 52:31
  we're really trying to aim for some actual level of fluency
• 52:33
  here, not just learning some basics.
• 52:35
  That's the first. That's the first thing.
• 52:37
  The second thing worth knowing is if someone is aiming for
• 52:39
  fluency. Almost certainly there's a
• 52:42
  couple of rare exceptions, but almost certainly a very
• 52:47
  comprehensive self study plan will be required.
• 52:49
  A self study plan is going to be a part of the process.
• 52:53
  Then most of the time, if you sign up for a group class, a
• 52:57
  private class, any kind of class, the self study that
• 52:59
  you're given, the homework. If we use more basic language,
• 53:02
  the homework that's given is actually insufficient.
• 53:04
  It's insufficient in many different ways.
• 53:06
  It could be insufficient in variety, It could be
• 53:09
  insufficient in quantity, or it could be insufficient in
• 53:13
  instructions. Like they might say, look, I
• 53:15
  want you to do. I'll give you an example.
• 53:17
  I've been told before, Hey, do pages XXYZ in your textbook or
• 53:22
  workbook. And if I say anything else I
• 53:25
  should do, Yeah, just maybe watch some TV.
• 53:29
  And that's the it's that's the extent.
• 53:31
  Yeah. I love this show.
• 53:32
  Go check it out. OK, cool.
• 53:35
  But you're not told how much time to spend.
• 53:37
  You're not told how long it takes to reach a certain level.
• 53:39
  You're not like, it's just very vague in the sound.
• 53:42
  So for us, it's really about specificity to say, look, here's
• 53:47
  what you need to do and here's what we'll do in class.
• 53:48
  Here's what we'll do outside of class.
• 53:50
  Here's what to expect every step of the way.
• 53:53
  I will link everything down in the show notes captions because
• 53:56
  I think it's it's important for everyone who wants to do it.
• 54:00
  I think it's a nice way to start and you don't have to do it for
• 54:04
  something. You just have to want to do
• 54:06
  something new this year or maybe next year at the beginning of
• 54:09
  next year to say, OK, I'm I want to learn Mandarin.
• 54:13
  Fun fact you said about shows and I have to tell you again,
• 54:17
  coming from Romania, I grow up watching TVA lot because we
• 54:21
  discovered the TV after revolution.
• 54:22
  So we got a lot of Spanish telenovelas, not Spanish Mexican
• 54:29
  telenovelas. South American.
• 54:31
  I will. My wife will kill me because I
• 54:33
  don't know exactly the country, but it's South American.
• 54:38
  Due to that fact, most of the people my age are able to
• 54:42
  understand Spanish at a really good level, and some of the
• 54:47
  girls who watch more than the boys are able to speak the
• 54:50
  language as well. Cool, which I find extremely
• 54:53
  interesting and it's it was a generation in Romania this was
• 54:56
  that was raised by Natalia Guerrero and Thalia.
• 55:00
  So just a fun fact Azran, I have I have let's say a daily a daily
• 55:09
  topic that I want to discuss with you.
• 55:10
  I think AIAI translation is getting crazy at the moment.
• 55:15
  OK. Yeah, I think the features that
• 55:18
  the new airports have are insane.
• 55:22
  And if you ask me for five years ago, I would say that's not
• 55:26
  never possible, and now it's done.
• 55:29
  So let me ask you in the most direct way, do you think in 10
• 55:33
  years we still need to speak languages?
• 55:36
  I have no idea. Do you think?
• 55:41
  I know. I mean, I don't know, like
• 55:42
  maybe, maybe probably at some point if some earpod and you
• 55:46
  don't have to, no, probably. Not.
• 55:47
  Do you think that the you are missing the culture if you don't
• 55:50
  speak the if you don't if you only use the iPod for Airpods
• 55:53
  for translation? I honestly don't know, Maybe I,
• 55:59
  I feel like my gut reaction is something like this.
• 56:03
  Initially we're I think that we'll demonize it because we
• 56:05
  like to demonize new technology. But I think in very, I think we
• 56:08
  demonize that. We say, oh, something is lost,
• 56:10
  but we don't, we don't complain about the calculator.
• 56:13
  We don't say, Oh, something's lost.
• 56:14
  You're not understanding the real math.
• 56:15
  And not my grandpa can do any math in his head, for example,
• 56:18
  he just doesn't need a calculator.
• 56:19
  He just does it. And we're like, wow, grandpa can
• 56:22
  do math in his head. Wow, this is amazing.
• 56:26
  Whereas like for him it's like, no, like my friends all do math
• 56:30
  in their head. Like he's, he is actually very
• 56:31
  good at math as well. So he can do more complex math,
• 56:34
  but like anyone he knows can do at least basic math.
• 56:37
  Like we go like, hey, what's 159 * 52?
• 56:41
  Then be like, Oh yeah, OK, got it.
• 56:43
  They can just like think of it, they can just do it right.
• 56:46
  You're taught. And whereas me is like 159 to
• 56:49
  52. OK, so 150 then 155 * 10 is this
• 56:53
  times five. OK, give me like half an hour at
• 56:57
  all. Right?
• 56:59
  So like, but it's not, it's times of change.
• 57:01
  And we don't demonize the calculator.
• 57:02
  So I think initially we'll say, oh, my God, we're losing
• 57:04
  something because we feel like something's being taken from us.
• 57:07
  But at the end of the day, no, I think you'd probably fight to
• 57:10
  guess, I don't know, fight to guess.
• 57:11
  It'd be something that would just become normal after time.
• 57:14
  And people just the same way that if I'm 92, they might say,
• 57:17
  well, Azrin just speaks the language.
• 57:19
  He doesn't need the earphone. He just understands.
• 57:21
  Oh my God, this is crazy. But all the young people
• 57:23
  probably will have something in their ear, who knows what, where
• 57:26
  it's not necessary anymore. Do you think in in 2035 when we
• 57:32
  would have this discussion again and you will still run, you'll
• 57:34
  still run Calgary language nerds sure.
• 57:38
  Would you think would be a more like a culture training than a
• 57:43
  language training? I don't know, but it wouldn't
• 57:46
  shock me if it's language training.
• 57:50
  I like I like that statement. No, I'll tell you why I have a
• 57:53
  very practical reason for it. Because if, let's say right now
• 57:57
  I've thought about this, it's like, OK, what if right now the
• 57:59
  Earpods are like mainstream, like everyone used to like
• 58:03
  everyone, everyone right now use them.
• 58:06
  I'd be like the card I would play is you want to, I'd be
• 58:11
  like, you want to use your Earpod watch this.
• 58:15
  I don't need it like I that's the card I'd play like and I'd
• 58:17
  be like, don't you want to be like, don't you want to be
• 58:20
  someone? Don't you want to be team human?
• 58:22
  Are you, what are you team, your team, your team AI dude.
• 58:27
  And then you'd be like, you can charge an absolute premium
• 58:29
  because it'd be like this premium special thing that only
• 58:32
  the rare people that like, Oh my God, like that's, that's a card
• 58:35
  you can play like. We don't.
• 58:37
  Here's a good example. Here's a really good example.
• 58:39
  We don't ride horses anymore to get around.
• 58:43
  We drive cars. We go on buses.
• 58:45
  People still ride horses, people still teach you how to ride when
• 58:48
  there's still a business there that we don't.
• 58:50
  Horses are not all vanished in the they're not all in the wild,
• 58:53
  running around free. I still think, I still think
• 58:57
  that you still need to be able to read the map even though you
• 59:01
  have Google Maps or any kind of maps that drive everywhere.
• 59:04
  Because if your phone doesn't have battery, you are completely
• 59:08
  done and you still at you still need to be able to read the map.
• 59:12
  You still have places where you don't have coverage because all
• 59:15
  these AI cool things need coverage and you still have
• 59:19
  place in which you have to come along to to have.
• 59:21
  So I don't think that the business will die.
• 59:24
  I'm just trying to to make an understanding exactly.
• 59:29
  I'm trying to understand for myself how the market will
• 59:31
  change. That's the only thing I.
• 59:32
  Think a good way to think of it as a yin and Yang symbol is a
• 59:35
  nice like visual. So in the yin and Yang, you've
• 59:37
  got the two at the black side and the white side.
• 59:39
  In the black, you've got the white circle in the in the in
• 59:42
  the white, you got the black circle.
• 59:44
  And a way to think of it is like, no matter what, there's
• 59:48
  always a small pocket of something.
• 59:50
  So right now the small pocket, like I'm someone who, for
• 59:53
  example, in my personal life and very comfortable using a flip
• 59:56
  phone. I wouldn't care about a flip
• 59:59
  phone. No, no smartphone, no nothing,
• 1:00:01
  no maps. I had a flip phone in my
• 1:00:03
  personal life. I'm I'd actually thought very
• 1:00:06
  seriously about doing that. I was like, do I want to just go
• 1:00:08
  in that direction? I'm very comfortable with it for
• 1:00:10
  work and like, yeah, the social media and I need everything for
• 1:00:13
  work, but like for personal life, Hey, give me no cell
• 1:00:17
  phone. I'm actually very, I'm very
• 1:00:18
  comfortable with it. I'm very comfortable.
• 1:00:20
  But that's a very rare perspective.
• 1:00:22
  That's not what most people do. But when you look at personally,
• 1:00:27
  when I start to talk to, when I look at some of the younger
• 1:00:30
  folk, like younger than me teenagers and such, that's not
• 1:00:33
  so uncommon because it's starting to go like, wait a SEC.
• 1:00:35
  This is getting way too tacky for us.
• 1:00:37
  And there are some, it's not everyone, it's not the majority,
• 1:00:39
  but there are people already in the younger generations who from
• 1:00:42
  what I can tell anyway, like they, they obviously use the
• 1:00:48
  tech a lot. I'm thinking of two people in
• 1:00:50
  particular that I know they do use.
• 1:00:53
  It's a you know, we human, human behavior is a pendulum in swing,
• 1:00:57
  right? Are they are we using the
• 1:01:00
  technology or is the technology using US I.
• 1:01:03
  Don't know. Because that's, that's, that's,
• 1:01:06
  that's exactly my biggest problem because I, I, I'm, I do
• 1:01:12
  get in the same direction of using a flip phone.
• 1:01:15
  And I'm, I'm still, because I'm still struggling with myself not
• 1:01:19
  to use the technology that much, But you, you end up getting the
• 1:01:22
  phone in the head anyhow. And I think one of the solutions
• 1:01:26
  that that I thought for myself is to have that option of flip
• 1:01:29
  phone for the weekend at least because that's my, my, my
• 1:01:32
  private time, let's say, when I don't need to do anything.
• 1:01:36
  Well, I think it'll be like, you know, who was I hearing I just
• 1:01:39
  maybe a week ago and I don't remember who it was.
• 1:01:42
  I was listening to someone, I wish I remember who and they
• 1:01:45
  were talking about the first. Who was that anyway?
• 1:01:49
  It's not important. I was listening to someone on
• 1:01:51
  some podcast and they're talking about the first generation that
• 1:01:55
  would get, for example, alcohol. Oh, like if the Native
• 1:01:58
  Americans, for example, here, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in North
• 1:02:01
  America. So when the, when the indigenous
• 1:02:03
  people have alcohol, when you're first introduced to it, Oh, I
• 1:02:08
  can ravage you. It rap because you're not used
• 1:02:09
  to it. So we're the first generation
• 1:02:11
  with all this, we're the first generations, I suppose, with all
• 1:02:15
  this tech, right? We're the first one that have
• 1:02:18
  it. But over time we're going to
• 1:02:20
  find I, I would not be surprised if we figure out the right, the
• 1:02:23
  right balance as to how do we how do we use this?
• 1:02:27
  I know tons of people, like a lot of people across pretty
• 1:02:32
  because I talked to hundreds of people a month, at least
• 1:02:35
  hundreds a month. And that's been my life since
• 1:02:38
  since I was 18. Actually, just the nature of
• 1:02:40
  work I've been around and my personality.
• 1:02:42
  So I talked to a lot of people and one of the things that I
• 1:02:44
  notice is that across all ages, it is extremely common for
• 1:02:49
  people to stop using social media right now or to limit it.
• 1:02:52
  They're like, you know what I realized Instagram was like not
• 1:02:55
  for me. So I just undownload all the
• 1:02:57
  apps. The only one, I they'll always
• 1:02:59
  say this. The only one I still use is this
• 1:03:01
  because, and they'll be like, my friend is there my mice.
• 1:03:03
  It's to talk to my mom. It's talk to my son.
• 1:03:05
  It's to talk to look at this. I use WhatsApp only, but I've no
• 1:03:09
  like they limit it because they learn that this is awful for
• 1:03:12
  them when they get sucked into it.
• 1:03:14
  You know one of the things for for smartphone usage, right,
• 1:03:17
  that I tell language learners all the time because it's super
• 1:03:20
  effective and it's the one way to start using.
• 1:03:22
  It's one way to start using technology and to stop it from
• 1:03:25
  using you. So easy to do and it's a win
• 1:03:28
  win. The tech is happy, they're happy
• 1:03:30
  for you, they're happy to be using you, but you're but you
• 1:03:32
  also think you're using them. It's a mutual symbiotic
• 1:03:34
  relationship where you you switch, you make a separate,
• 1:03:38
  let's say Instagram, a separate Instagram account where you only
• 1:03:41
  follow people in the language you're learning and you scroll
• 1:03:44
  to your heart's content. You're equally addicted as
• 1:03:46
  before, but you're the more you scroll and there you're addicted
• 1:03:48
  because that's how the algorithm is designed.
• 1:03:50
  It's designed to get you addicted.
• 1:03:52
  Now you're addicted to like Russian content or Spanish
• 1:03:55
  content or Mandarin content, and now you're learning.
• 1:03:59
  The more you scroll, the more you learn.
• 1:04:00
  It's like you're thrilled to get sucked in.
• 1:04:03
  Correct, Correct. That's a.
• 1:04:04
  That's a big advantage. You're right.
• 1:04:06
  You are absolutely right. You don't come.
• 1:04:09
  I I want to make a small remark based on the connected to what
• 1:04:15
  you said before that we are the first generation doing this.
• 1:04:19
  That's why I'm thinking a lot about the way in which I'm
• 1:04:24
  handling my kids relationship with the devices because I'm
• 1:04:28
  judging with my mind as a fourth generation having them and
• 1:04:32
  seeing the negatives out of it. But maybe for him, if I let him
• 1:04:37
  get used to them from the beginning, you will not have
• 1:04:40
  this negative impact that we have.
• 1:04:43
  Of course you have you need a lot of time.
• 1:04:44
  You have you need to act like a censorship in the back.
• 1:04:47
  But I still think it's it could be something good or it could be
• 1:04:53
  something that it can help, but we never know.
• 1:04:55
  It's it's always a a lucky guess.
• 1:04:58
  I would say it like this Azrin with we want to come back to the
• 1:05:05
  to the purpose of the discussion because we were too much in the
• 1:05:08
  devices topic with all the languages and cultures in your
• 1:05:13
  life. The typical questions in the
• 1:05:16
  whereabouts status podcast. Where is home for you today?
• 1:05:20
  Calgary. It's 100%.
• 1:05:23
  You can say that's home. Calgary's home.
• 1:05:26
  There are. Yeah, Calgary's home.
• 1:05:30
  Do you see home as a place, as a culture, as a relationship, as a
• 1:05:34
  feeling? I probably view it.
• 1:05:41
  I probably view it more practical lens like it's
• 1:05:44
  practically home every, like my life is set up here, It's set up
• 1:05:47
  in Calgary. I think it's more practical for
• 1:05:49
  me. OK, I set my life up in another
• 1:05:52
  place that would become home. OK, that's an interesting,
• 1:05:56
  that's an interesting approach. So you don't connect it to
• 1:05:59
  anything, you connect to your setup.
• 1:06:02
  I think so, Yeah, I think that's right.
• 1:06:03
  There are certain places that feel like I feel at home in, but
• 1:06:09
  they're not my home. Like I can feel at home in
• 1:06:13
  France because I have lived. I've spent quite a bit of time
• 1:06:16
  there and I, I, I've learned their culture and I've learned
• 1:06:20
  like when I'm there, the second I arrive, I'm like, Oh yeah.
• 1:06:22
  Like I remember how to beef my French Azure.
• 1:06:25
  And I know how to, I know how to make this place feel like it
• 1:06:28
  does feel like home. The other place I can feel like
• 1:06:32
  home is probably Taipei specifically.
• 1:06:35
  Taipei can also feel a lot like home because I've had routines
• 1:06:39
  that I've lived, I've spent a lot of time there and there's a
• 1:06:42
  homely feeling to it. But but home?
• 1:06:44
  Where is home? Calgary.
• 1:06:47
  But it's a it's a question of setup.
• 1:06:49
  That's interesting because I never.
• 1:06:51
  Mostly I think so. And makes a lot of sense Asrin
• 1:06:55
  the the discussion with you was a pleasure before.
• 1:06:58
  Before we wrap this up, I have AI have a small set of of rapid
• 1:07:02
  fire questions that I have for every tailored based on the
• 1:07:06
  guest one language you'd master instantly.
• 1:07:11
  Sorry, one language. One new language you'd master
• 1:07:14
  instantly. You're dropping.
• 1:07:24
  How different is based on the languages that we know, Like
• 1:07:29
  I'm, I'm, I'm, I know the Europe exactly, yeah.
• 1:07:32
  Quite varied, quite different. There's some similarities but
• 1:07:36
  but different. Weirdly similar to Spanish
• 1:07:38
  actually. Interesting, really.
• 1:07:41
  Weirdly not not like vocabulary wise person, nothing like that,
• 1:07:44
  not even but oddly. But if you're going to teach,
• 1:07:48
  like if you're whenever I've taught it, if the person speaks
• 1:07:50
  Spanish or even French for that matter, Although yeah, I've been
• 1:07:53
  French for that matter, could work too if they speak it.
• 1:07:57
  It's easier to compare the grammar to Spanish or French
• 1:08:00
  than it is to English, for example.
• 1:08:02
  Interesting. I don't know if you know, but
• 1:08:04
  there is a there is an, a country which is doesn't from
• 1:08:08
  the language perspective doesn't belong in the Eastern Europe
• 1:08:11
  part where I come from, and that's Hungary.
• 1:08:13
  I don't know if you know the story of them, but do you know?
• 1:08:16
  I don't know the story, but I know that it's completely
• 1:08:18
  different. Exactly.
• 1:08:19
  So they're Spanish, the language is something close to the
• 1:08:21
  Finnish language, which makes absolutely zero sense because
• 1:08:25
  they are in a completely two different ways parts of Europe.
• 1:08:28
  But it's an anomaly for the the geographical position.
• 1:08:32
  It's completely doesn't make sense because you know you speak
• 1:08:35
  a bit of the neighbour's language, but in this case it's
• 1:08:39
  like far and away 1 country that changed you.
• 1:08:47
  France, India as well. One belief about languages you
• 1:08:55
  no longer believe. Immersion instantly leads to
• 1:09:02
  fluency. Nice.
• 1:09:09
  One book that shaped your worldview.
• 1:09:13
  Hannah's suitcase. I don't know that one.
• 1:09:16
  Kids. Actually kids.
• 1:09:18
  Book It's for kids, for kids to teach, to teach them at the
• 1:09:20
  Holocaust. OK, thank you.
• 1:09:23
  I will take this a tip for my son.
• 1:09:27
  One small victory from last month.
• 1:09:32
  I had a 90 minute Ukrainian conversation.
• 1:09:37
  Shampoo one sentence you'd tell your 18 year old self.
• 1:09:46
  Just keep going. You're doing the right thing.
• 1:09:51
  What's the language that you talk to yourself in?
• 1:09:54
  English. Always.
• 1:09:59
  Unless I'm specifically practicing a language, yes.
• 1:10:03
  That's so interesting, as in the last question, if someone
• 1:10:08
  listening now feel stuck like you maybe felt on different
• 1:10:15
  stages of your of your path, what would you tell them?
• 1:10:22
  You know, recently, recently I, I posted something on my on my
• 1:10:24
  Facebook and my actually Facebook and blog and LinkedIn
• 1:10:27
  everywhere I posted everywhere, there's like a semi long post
• 1:10:31
  about walking through, explaining an emotion that I
• 1:10:35
  don't have the words. I don't know if the English
• 1:10:36
  language has the words for it. Frankly, I actually don't know
• 1:10:38
  if it does. It's something close to
• 1:10:40
  gratitude, but it's, I don't think it's the right word.
• 1:10:42
  And so my life, if you're to look at the story of my life and
• 1:10:48
  how it's been structured, my life has been structured like
• 1:10:50
  this. Live, live, live, live, live,
• 1:10:52
  live, live, live day-to-day. Something happens that, that
• 1:10:57
  that shocks you to your core. And then you get gratitude times
• 1:11:02
  a million. And that's been the, that's been
• 1:11:05
  how my life has unfold. So I'll give you, I'll give you
• 1:11:08
  some examples. I've known a ton of people
• 1:11:09
  who've died in very horrific ways, as an example.
• 1:11:13
  And so every time it has happened from a very young age
• 1:11:15
  actually, where it's like, huh, someone died, like that person
• 1:11:18
  died. Whoa, That's like weird.
• 1:11:20
  Hannah Suitcase did that to me actually as well.
• 1:11:22
  Learning about the Holocaust did that to me.
• 1:11:24
  Learning about like, you know, even going to India the first
• 1:11:27
  time did that to me as well. When you come back to Canada and
• 1:11:29
  you're like, this is different, like my life is no longer the
• 1:11:34
  same anymore. This happened to me time and
• 1:11:36
  time and time and time and time and time and time.
• 1:11:39
  I thought it wasn't human trafficked at one point.
• 1:11:42
  I didn't thank God. Time and time.
• 1:11:44
  So it's like gratitude because it doesn't happen.
• 1:11:46
  So like it almost happens. It's like if you have a near
• 1:11:48
  death experience, but then you don't die, imagine that
• 1:11:51
  happening like all the time in your life.
• 1:11:53
  Something like that. Is that gratitude that you're
• 1:11:55
  alive? I don't know.
• 1:11:56
  It's something else. It's something, it's not
• 1:11:57
  gratitude anymore, something deeper.
• 1:12:00
  So I suppose I don't really know what the lesson is that I don't
• 1:12:05
  really know why I felt compelled to share that.
• 1:12:08
  But it's something like, I don't know, Like it's something like
• 1:12:13
  going through hard stuff is actually very good.
• 1:12:15
  Maybe I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:12:20
  I heard the an interesting thing that going through hard stuff in
• 1:12:23
  life is not a bug is a feature. Yeah.
• 1:12:27
  And I liked it because I think that's what makes you appreciate
• 1:12:31
  everything that you have is make you appreciate the fact that you
• 1:12:36
  that the police guy that stopped you did forgive you today.
• 1:12:40
  And I think that, you know, there's this burnt toast spread
• 1:12:45
  theory. Do you know that?
• 1:12:47
  Maybe. Like when you're.
• 1:12:50
  I think it burnt toast. I think it's strokes, right when
• 1:12:52
  you have a stroke, don't you? Don't you smell burnt toast?
• 1:12:54
  No, no, no, no, no, no. It's.
• 1:12:56
  Not. OK, but you want that that
• 1:12:59
  escalated, that escalated fast. No.
• 1:13:03
  Is that theory that whenever you are attracted to something and
• 1:13:07
  you don't do something that you are meant to be doing to you're
• 1:13:11
  meant to do is because of a reason?
• 1:13:14
  So like when your bread is burning and you spend an extra
• 1:13:18
  amount of time there to clean the things to open the window
• 1:13:20
  and so on, and you don't do the things that you are planned to
• 1:13:24
  do that day is because the universe somehow drag you in
• 1:13:28
  that direction. Of course, it went skills a lot
• 1:13:31
  with faith and so on. But I want to say that I think
• 1:13:35
  all the, all the big things that we go through in life, I think
• 1:13:39
  there are lessons that we are learning from.
• 1:13:41
  And they, I think I, I honestly think that they are not box,
• 1:13:44
  they are features. And as soon as we learn to see
• 1:13:48
  them as features, not as bugs, I think the our our happiness
• 1:13:51
  level could increase. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:56
  I wish I had like, I wish I could be like really concise,
• 1:13:59
  like what I would say in that situation.
• 1:14:01
  All I know is one of these I've I've probably since I was about
• 1:14:04
  17, one thing I've been trying, one thing I've been really
• 1:14:08
  trying to understand about myself.
• 1:14:09
  I think it'd be very helpful for people like I'm in, I'm in I,
• 1:14:14
  you know, like I'm people have mental health challenges.
• 1:14:16
  Like that's like a thing. I don't have that like I never
• 1:14:21
  have. Like I've been like good for a
• 1:14:23
  lot like a long time. Like I was good.
• 1:14:28
  Like I, I cut my father out of my life at a very young age and
• 1:14:31
  like I was good like the next like, like days, like I was
• 1:14:35
  good. I was actually very happy about
• 1:14:37
  it. It was like, like I've had this
• 1:14:39
  my whole life. I'm, I'm in like pretty much
• 1:14:41
  good pretty much all the time. I get sad, of course, of course,
• 1:14:45
  I'm not like a robot. It's not what I mean, but but
• 1:14:47
  like pretty much I'm in a good mental state most of the time.
• 1:14:52
  And I was about 17 when I started to think about that.
• 1:14:55
  And I was like, wait a SEC, like there's something different
• 1:14:57
  here. And I've been trying to since I
• 1:14:59
  was 17 in some way to figure out like what what am I doing?
• 1:15:04
  And like, how is that replicatable?
• 1:15:06
  Because I'll be really helpful for people, I think.
• 1:15:08
  And I don't, I'm not saying that it makes me very like, Oh my
• 1:15:11
  God, I'm better than I don't. I've never, I think it's a bunch
• 1:15:14
  of circumstances, DNA circumstances and DNA frankly.
• 1:15:20
  And I think a lot about that. So when you asked me like, what
• 1:15:22
  would I tell someone who's kind of stuck or struggling,
• 1:15:24
  whatever. The first thing I thought about
• 1:15:25
  was that post where I told you I thought about all these
• 1:15:28
  circumstances, because that was something that was unique in my
• 1:15:30
  life, where thing and I didn't have a tragic life.
• 1:15:33
  To be fair, It wasn't like, Oh my God, my mom died, then my dad
• 1:15:36
  died, then my brother. No, it wasn't like that.
• 1:15:37
  It wasn't like, Oh, then I got cancer and didn't it wasn't like
• 1:15:40
  a tragic story. It wasn't like, Oh my God, that
• 1:15:42
  guy's had no, absolutely not the complete opposite.
• 1:15:45
  But I can think back to things that really like, like struck me
• 1:15:52
  emotionally and like, I, I, I think for me, a lot of, you
• 1:15:59
  know, the, I think a lot of it has to do with perspective.
• 1:16:01
  Because when you've had a lot of things like that, it's always
• 1:16:03
  easy to compare like, OK, well, this sucks.
• 1:16:05
  But I remember when I thought I was almost human trafficked.
• 1:16:09
  I mean, that's not happening. That's pretty damn good.
• 1:16:10
  That was amazing. I really like, there's like a
• 1:16:12
  year I didn't sleep basically because we're having some family
• 1:16:15
  things that we're trying to deal with and it was very, very
• 1:16:18
  difficult. And, and like every night we're
• 1:16:20
  just waking up every hour. Like think about that for a
• 1:16:22
  whole year. You basically don't sleep.
• 1:16:24
  That's, that's pretty rough. That's not that sucks like
• 1:16:28
  anyone who's gone through sleep training of babies and such,
• 1:16:30
  like anyone who's gone through that, they know what that how
• 1:16:32
  about that life is right? It's not pleasant.
• 1:16:35
  And then you think, well, at least I'm sleeping every night.
• 1:16:37
  That's pretty good. Like it's I'm pretty happy about
• 1:16:39
  that. I remember like this and that.
• 1:16:42
  And then I also think it has to do with like something with like
• 1:16:46
  I was thinking about this last night with like accomplishment.
• 1:16:50
  Like, I was thinking about, I was thinking about like I was
• 1:16:53
  watching this video about like online haters and I've had this
• 1:16:57
  like mental experiment. I was like, what if everyone on
• 1:16:59
  the Internet, like I woke up one day, like everyone's like
• 1:17:02
  sending me all these nasty messages for whatever reason,
• 1:17:06
  someone made some AI video and like I was like a celebrity and
• 1:17:09
  everyone hated me. Now my first thought was like,
• 1:17:12
  well, my sister loves me. I love my sister.
• 1:17:14
  Like I just turned my phone off. Be like, all right, it's done.
• 1:17:17
  I'll just talk my mom, talk to my sister.
• 1:17:19
  I like my one friend. He's a good guy to hang out
• 1:17:21
  with. He'd we'd kind of laugh about
• 1:17:22
  it. Be like, Oh my God, that's
• 1:17:23
  pretty freaking crazy, isn't it? Like, I know it is pretty crazy.
• 1:17:26
  What a weird Internet this is. And it would be like, I wouldn't
• 1:17:29
  like it, but I'd be OK. I'd be like, well, at least at
• 1:17:32
  least I speak all these languages.
• 1:17:33
  That's pretty. That's a real accomplishment.
• 1:17:35
  I'm a kind person. I know.
• 1:17:37
  I can say I'm kind. I know that I looked after my
• 1:17:39
  sister. She sees special needs.
• 1:17:41
  I'm I'm in a guardian cells 18. I was like, well, I did that.
• 1:17:43
  I definitely did that. I'm not the worst human on earth
• 1:17:46
  because they looked after something.
• 1:17:48
  Having real hard evidence for me is quite helpful.
• 1:17:50
  I can look back like I know that's true and I know that's
• 1:17:54
  good. Therefore, I'm not a complete
• 1:17:56
  shitface. I'm not.
• 1:17:58
  I might suck, I might be a really bad human, but I'm
• 1:18:00
  clearly not. My soul is not irredeemable
• 1:18:03
  because I did this one thing that's clearly very good.
• 1:18:06
  So I think having like some of that evidence for me is quite
• 1:18:09
  helpful, very grounding. I, I want to say a lot, but I
• 1:18:15
  didn't want to interrupt you and because, because, because that
• 1:18:20
  that made sense. Everything what you say.
• 1:18:22
  And I think the, the, as long as we can take our happiness from
• 1:18:27
  the small things, like you said, to see the, to see everything in
• 1:18:31
  perspective. So think about this like I'm
• 1:18:33
  sleeping every night in comparison to, I don't know,
• 1:18:35
  five years ago when I was not able to sleep.
• 1:18:38
  I have food that I can fit to my family in comparison to when I
• 1:18:42
  was a kid and we didn't had something like I'm I'm not
• 1:18:44
  saying this is my example, but I'm just saying that this when
• 1:18:47
  you start seeing things in perspective, I think that's
• 1:18:49
  that's really helpful and I think.
• 1:18:51
  And I think that The thing is like, so I've heard people who
• 1:18:53
  who will say like, you have a how do you feel grateful about
• 1:18:56
  the tea or the the sleep? Like how do you like that's it
• 1:18:59
  sounds very like, Oh, it sounds like.
• 1:19:00
  Oh yeah, sounds. So what's that word?
• 1:19:03
  Cliche? And I'd say like for me, it's, I
• 1:19:07
  think it's real because if I say like, man, I could sleep, it's
• 1:19:10
  like I remember when I wasn't like I remember not sleeping or
• 1:19:14
  like when I'm like, man, at least I don't have mosquito
• 1:19:16
  bites on my body. I remember waking up with 50 new
• 1:19:19
  mosquito bites, like actually having counting, like I think I
• 1:19:22
  got 33 new mosquito bites that night.
• 1:19:24
  I remember, I remember being in China and not being able to wash
• 1:19:30
  my clothes because of a weird language barrier.
• 1:19:33
  And I was actually stuck and I was like, I don't, I can't do
• 1:19:35
  laundry. This is, I actually don't know
• 1:19:38
  what to do. I remember like I'm like, I
• 1:19:40
  remember in like I remember not being able to eat in China
• 1:19:44
  actually for the first like 5 days.
• 1:19:45
  That was really tricky. It was really tricky to eat,
• 1:19:47
  which was my own fault. But still, it was quite hard,
• 1:19:50
  the weird set of circumstances. But like, there's been a number
• 1:19:54
  of things like when I say, oh, at least I have a nice cup of
• 1:19:57
  tea. And I, I mean, it's not like a
• 1:20:00
  thing where I go like I'm making it up.
• 1:20:01
  It's like, no, no, no, like I've lived, I've lived something
• 1:20:05
  where it's like, I remember when I remember being, I remember
• 1:20:12
  having that. I remember being in the hospital
• 1:20:15
  at 7 and having like a, like a heart, like a actual disease
• 1:20:18
  that could have very well killed me or or at least given me heart
• 1:20:24
  complications for the rest of my life that I don't have a heart.
• 1:20:26
  I played very competitive soccer.
• 1:20:28
  Jesus like that's. Man, I, I really dodged a bullet
• 1:20:31
  there. Like wow, like I've had many.
• 1:20:35
  I didn't die in a motorcycle accident.
• 1:20:36
  I know someone who did. I, I didn't just right by my
• 1:20:39
  house, there's a, there's a traffic light where someone who
• 1:20:42
  bullied me in high school, the only person who had any level of
• 1:20:45
  success bullied me because most of the time I, I'm not bothered
• 1:20:48
  by them. Only person who kind of had a
• 1:20:49
  certain level of success. He was hit by a car right by the
• 1:20:52
  house and like his family put up a whole like flower thing and
• 1:20:55
  like it was like, whoa, someone I didn't like has died and I'm
• 1:20:59
  sad for him like that. That moved me.
• 1:21:02
  His friend who bullied me too, he then became friendly.
• 1:21:04
  That was weird as well. Like it's time and thing thing
• 1:21:07
  and thing after thing after thing after thing.
• 1:21:10
  What I can read between the lines of what you said as is
• 1:21:14
  that you don't take things for granted.
• 1:21:17
  Sure. Yeah.
• 1:21:18
  And I think that's extremely important.
• 1:21:21
  I think entitlement is something which is a big danger in our
• 1:21:24
  society. So everything that we, we take
• 1:21:26
  as, as as being always there, like health, like being alive,
• 1:21:32
  like being, having no problem with the justice, I don't know,
• 1:21:36
  being not bullied and so on. Everything is something, It's
• 1:21:39
  everything that we take for granted.
• 1:21:41
  I think that's what what makes us a bit of unhappy.
• 1:21:46
  Sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:49
  Other than I can, I can tell you you're a, you're a fantastic
• 1:21:51
  human being. I I enjoy the hell out of this
• 1:21:54
  conversation. Thank you, I enjoyed it too.
• 1:21:58
  And I hope we get to do to do it again one day.
• 1:22:02
  Thanks. Thanks so much for your time.
• 1:22:04
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:22:05
  For having me on. Everything that you said will be
• 1:22:07
  linked will be LinkedIn the in the show notes caption.
• 1:22:10
  I'll try to link your social media accounts as well so that
• 1:22:13
  everyone that wants to reach you, they can reach you.
• 1:22:18
  Sure, sounds good. Thank you, Adrian.
• 1:22:20
  Have a nice one. Bye, bye, bye bye.