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2 Defy Conventional Wisdom - VIP Audio Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to this month s topic. Let s just get started right away. This is a fun topic. We ve had some heavy topics recently. You know some kind of serious ones, so this one is a little more fun. So our topic this month is Defy Conventional Wisdom. It s one of my favorite topics actually, conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom means kind of normal opinion. Conventional means normal. Basically, it means normal. Conventional, what s normal, what s usual and wisdom, in this case, wisdom just means belief. Wisdom has a maybe more deep meaning in other situations, but when we talk about conventional wisdom that s a phrase. Those two words go together. That phrase conventional wisdom just means the most common beliefs in a society, in a culture, whatever. So every culture, every society has its conventional wisdom. You know the beliefs that most people have about how to do things and what is good and what is bad, how to be successful and how to be, I don t know, healthy, about everything, right? We have all these ideas and increasingly now because we have such a global world with the Internet and, you know, satellite television and all this stuff, we have these kind of international beliefs now. So there s an international conventional wisdom, these sorts of beliefs and ideas about how to do things that are true in most places now and certainly most places with Internet, television and all of that. So what I m telling you is to defy conventional wisdom. To defy means to go against; to fight against; to rebel against; to reject. So I m saying reject what most people think. I m saying this is a very general principle because I ve found in my life and it s taken me many years to sort of adopt this, but I ve found that in almost every area of life if I had to choose one basic formula for success and happiness it would be to do something different than what most people do. That s like the real simple formula. Whenever everybody is saying do something this way, I almost always find that doing that will not make me happy and will not get me great results. Instead, by doing the opposite or something totally different that s the way to have success, that s the way to be happy, that s the way to have an interesting life, etc., etc. So if I had to make it a rule I d say all success or most, I should say most, most success and happiness comes from defying conventional wisdom, going against conventional wisdom. So let me give you one example of this. It s a really very, very, very practical example of this, job hunting, job hunting. So you re looking for a job. You need a job. I used to when I was young follow conventional wisdom. What is the conventional wisdom of finding a job? Well, in most countries there s kind of a really basic system. You go someplace and you fill out an application and some jobs maybe you send a resume and a cover letter.

3 Some people call it a CV in some countries, but same idea. CV and a cover letter and then maybe an application and you send that off to the jobs you want. You answer the ads in the papers. You see the ad help wanted and you send your letter, send your resume or go fill out the application. Then you look in the newspaper for the next one and oh, there s another one. Oh, that one sounds okay. You circle it and then you do the same thing. Then you sit around and you wait and if you re lucky one of them might call you for an interview. Then you d go there and you answer their questions. You know they ask you, what is your greatest strength and all these kind of weird questions. You try to give these answers, which are basically bullshit. Bullshit means it s kind of a lie. Not really a lie, but not true. It s just marketing, right? So, anyway, that s the conventional wisdom and really, honestly, that s how most job searching works and I used to do it all the time. If I needed a job I would do the same thing, I d circle. When I was a social worker I d do this. Oh, the hospital is hiring. I d go and I d fill out an application and then wait and wait and wait. If I got lucky one of them might call me for an interview and then I would go and they would ask me all these stupid questions and I would pretend like they were Well, my greatest strength? I m just so awesome, wow. That was it. The problem with it is it didn t work very well. It was a very super stressful process because I was following conventional wisdom. Conventional means normal, right? Well, guess what? That means that everybody else was doing exactly what I was doing. Because it s conventional, by the definition it means normal, it s what everybody does, which means here s what happens if you re the person doing the hiring. Now that I have a company I can tell you what it s like on the other side. So you have a job opening and you put an ad in the paper and suddenly you get hundreds of resumes and applications. They start piling up in a big stack and they all are kind of the same because everyone is following the same formula, everyone is following the same conventional wisdom. All the resumes look the same, right? Ah, education, bachelors degree in this, whatever. Here s kind of the list of their past jobs. It s no fun being on the other side either because it s just like it s all the same. So if you re in that pile it s really hard to even get an interview sometimes, even if you re great. So I always hated looking for jobs. It was like so stressful and because I traveled all the time I would always quit my jobs, go travel and then come back and then I d have to look for a job again. It was one of the most stressful parts of my life. I hated it. Well, finally one day, I don t know, after reading lots of books and thinking about it I decided I can t just keep doing this. This is too stressful. I m going to try a different approach. I was already starting to think about doing my own business, so I imagined

4 what if I was like a businessperson trying to sell something how would I do it? Well, businesspeople what they do is they don t just do like one ad, for example. If I m selling a car, let s say I m a car company. I don t just run one car ad one time and then never again, right? What do they do? No, they run ads and ads and ads all the time. It s a campaign. Campaign means a series of actions. So there s this big long campaign again and again and again. So the person sees the ad one time ah, they ignore it. They see it 50 times they re much more likely to say hum, maybe I ll buy a Ford or whatever. So I thought of this and I said well, why don t I take the same approach with job hunting? Forget the newspaper. I m not even going to look at the help wanted ads and I just started writing. I picked out which jobs I wanted. I called and I found out who the supervisors and managers were and then I like designed this series of 10 letters. They were basically the same letters, right? Letter number one, letter number two, up to number 10. Each letter was short and it talked about like one of my strengths and it talked about one of the needs of their company or organization that I thought I could help them with. So I sent letter number one to all these people. I customized it. I used their names and changed things a little, but more or less it was the same letter. So letter number one went out to let s say 10 of my top companies that I wanted to work for and nothing happened. Of course, one time nothing is gonna happen, but then I sent out letter number two and it was different. I tried to be a little bit, I won t say entertaining, but I tried to be more emotional in my letters so it wasn t just kind of a boring business letter. So boom, sent out number two, nothing happened. Number three, nothing happened. Number four, I started getting calls, number five, number six, number seven, number eight, number nine. By the time I d sent out all 10 letters I got a lot of interviews, much, much, much better result than using the conventional way. So I did it why? Just because it was different. They re used to getting resume, cover letter one time and that s it. So they started getting this series of letters. I can just imagine they get letter number five and they re like what? This guy again. What the hell, but eventually I got their attention. The point of all this is I defied conventional wisdom. You know people who told me oh, don t do that. You re going to annoy them. They re gonna get irritated and you re not gonna get an interview, but I though well so what. I m not getting interviews anyway so why not try it and it worked. It s the same with English. You already know this, right? You probably have your own story with conventional wisdom. What s conventional wisdom for learning to speak English? I ll go to school and learn from textbooks. Memorize tons and tons and tons, lots and lots and lots of grammar rules. Memorize individual vocabulary words and their translation. Memorize, memorize, memorize, take lots of tests, take the TOEFL exam

5 and, as you already know, what s the general result from that? The general result is you can read fairly well, but your speaking is not very good and your listening is pretty bad. That s the usual result. Again, if you follow conventional wisdom you get conventional results. We could look at health, we could look at any area of life and it s almost always the same. So what I m trying to encourage you to do this month is to become a little eccentric maybe is a good word. I like that word. Eccentric means different in a little bit, some people will say strange way, but it means that you follow your own path. You do your own thing. It s kind of the opposite of conventional. It means you re always doing things in your own little, weird, different way and I would like you to cultivate that, to develop that trait in yourself so that it becomes a habit so that any time you want to do something and accomplish something your first thought is I m going to do it differently than everybody else does it. Say yeah, I ll see how everybody else does it, but I know that that s probably not the best way to do it so I m going to look for something different. Constantly be looking for something that s not normal. How can you do this? Well, one way is you can look for other successful people who followed a different path. So, usually if you find someone who s been super good at business, for example, they ve done something different than most people or if someone is a great teacher or coach, then they re probably doing something different, probably a lot of things differently than normal teachers and coaches. If someone is a great artist, then they probably think differently or have a different way of doing their art than most people. The problem is that in school and in society and in our families and in so many ways we re pressured to be normal. You know do what everyone else does, do what everyone else does and we get this kind of conformity mindset. Again, in school especially I think of middle school and high school, this kind of pressure all the time from the school and then from other kids. The problem is this can become a way of thinking so that we re always afraid to be different because people will look at us differently and think we re weird. What I m saying is that being weird and different is actually a great success strategy and, in fact, it s probably the number one belief you should have. There are lots of other strategies you can have, but the first thing you should have is I m going to be different. I m going to do it differently. You ll only get different results if you do things differently. So how are we gonna do this? I just want you to think of some things in your life. We ll talk about this more in the commentary of things you want to accomplish and how can you do them differently, how can you defy conventional wisdom. So let s say as a first step in this activity I want you

6 to just think about what is the conventional wisdom in your country, in your culture. Pick two or three areas in your life. It might be something with education, health, relationships, social behavior. I don t care, whatever. Pick a few things, some area in life you want to improve and then before you think about how to improve I just want you to identify what is the conventional wisdom. What do most people say that you should do? What do most other people do? Just identify that, write it down. We ll talk more about the next step in the commentary. All right, I ll see you in a minute there. Bye.

7 Defy Conventional Wisdom - VIP Mini Story Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to the mini story this month. This mini story is about Chim-chim again. Oh, our old buddy Chim-chim. Chim-chim the monkey, the famous monkey, the rich monkey, the super rich monkey in fact. In fact, Chim-chim and Heva s company become so successful that he becomes a billionaire. Chim-chim becomes a billionaire, Heva too, but this story is about Chim-chim. * * * * * So Chim-chim becomes a billionaire and he s got tons of money and he gets news stories written about him. One day the media writes a story with the headline Chim-chim still lives in a tree! and in the article they criticize him for still living in the same, little, small, simple tree, even through he s rich and famous now. So Chim-chim becomes quite upset. In fact, Chim-chim feels very insecure about his humble life. Now, that word insecure, to feel insecure, it s kind of the opposite of confident, in fact. You understand the word confident. Confident, you feel strong and relaxed about yourself, about your ability, about your life. Well, the opposite of that is to have a lot of doubts and worries, to feel weak and stressed about it. That s insecure. So Chim-chim feels how? He feels insecure. And what does Chim-chim feel insecure about? Well, he feels insecure about his humble life. Does he feel secure and confident or does he feel insecure? He feels insecure. And what does he feel insecure about? About his humble life. He feels insecure about his humble life. So what kind of life does he have? He has a humble life.

8 There s a new word possibly, humble. What does humble mean? Humble really means simple. It s kind of this idea of simply. It s a positive word. It s a very positive word. Humble is this idea of simple and it s the opposite of arrogant. So arrogant means you think that you re great. Like I m awesome, I m perfect, I m wonderful and you re always talking about how great you are all the time. You re always telling everybody I m great. I m great. That s arrogant. Well, the opposite of that is humble. Humble is where you do not say great things about yourself and if you have a humble life it means you live a very simple life. You re not wearing super expensive clothes and trying to show everybody that you re awesome or that you re great. It s kind of the opposite. So does Chim-chim have a humble life or does he have a very we ll say extravagant life? He has a very humble life. Extravagant means rich. It means lots and lots and lots of stuff. It s the opposite of simple, opposite of humble. It has this idea of rich and full of amazing stuff. Like an extravagant life you d have lots of money and cars and jewelry and all that kind of stuff. So how does Chim-chim feel about his humble life? He feels insecure. Worried, doubtful, ashamed, those kind of things, that s what insecure means. He feels insecure about his humble life because he s very rich and famous. He s supposed to be rich and famous, but he lives in a simple tree. So Chim-chim decides to make a change. He says to himself I need to raise my status. So status, what is status? Status is like a social level in this situation. It really means like condition or situation, but when we re talking about socially it means your social level. That s a common phrase social status. So upper class would be one social status, middle class, that kind of thing. So what does Chim-chim say to himself? He says I need to raise my status. I need to raise my status. I can t live a humble life anymore. So why does he say this?

9 Well, because he feels insecure. He feels insecure about his status. The newspaper criticizes him for living in a simple little tree, so he feels insecure about his humble life. And what does he say? He says I need to raise my? Status. I need to raise my status. So the first thing he does is he buys a mansion. Chim-chim buys a huge mansion with 120 acres of land. So a mansion is a super large expensive house. Now, in some parts of Asia, for example, they ll use this word to describe like an apartment building or something, but in the United States we do not use that word for apartment buildings or anything like that. In the United States a mansion is a single home that s very, very, very, very big. It has the idea of rich and expensive, big, all those ideas. So Chim-chim buys a mansion, a huge expensive house on 120 acres of land. We measure land in the United States with acres. I can t tell you exactly how big an acre is, but a normal house might have half an acre of land. In a normal kind of subdivision, a normal suburb, maybe half an acre. An acre would be a pretty good size of land, so 120 acres that s a lot. So he buys a mansion on 120 acres of land. What kind of house does he buy? A mansion. And who buys a mansion? Chim-chim. And why does he buy a mansion? Because he wants to raise his status and he feels insecure about his humble tree. So he buys a mansion on how many acres of land? One-hundred and twenty. He buys a mansion that is on top of, that is on 120 acres of land. So he gets a big house, plus 120 acres of land. So does he buy a very small humble house or a mansion? He buys a mansion. He buys a super huge expensive house on 120 acres of land.

10 And who buys the mansion, one more time? Chim-chim. Chim-chim buys the mansion on 120 acres of land. That s his first status symbol. That s a common phrase that you may know status symbol. Status symbol means exactly what you would think it means. It s a symbol of status. So what does that mean? Status means your kind of economic level or social level. A symbol is just something that shows it. So a status symbol is something that shows what your level is. We actually use it usually mostly for things which are expensive and which show like a high social status. It would show that you re wealthy, that you re rich. So a Ferrari, a very expensive car, that s a status symbol. A mansion is a status symbol. A huge house with 50 rooms or something, that s a status symbol. It s a symbol. It shows everybody that you are rich. So what is his first status symbol? A mansion. And what is his next status symbol? Hum Actually, his next status symbol is a trophy girlfriend. He gets a trophy girlfriend. So this is kind of slang phrase. Actually, a lot of times they ll say trophy wife and this is a common thing you ll see like in gossip newspapers or something. That somebody who is super rich they will get what they call a trophy wife, a trophy girlfriend, and I guess the opposite is possible too, a trophy boyfriend or a trophy husband. What that means, trophy is something that you win, right? Usually we use it for sports. If you win the championship game then your team gets the trophy. It s a symbol. The team that wins the World Cup they get that little trophy with the soccer ball on top. That s a trophy. So, again, it s a symbol of success. So a trophy girlfriend, it s a girlfriend who s just a symbol. The idea is that the person, the guy in this case, Chim-chim, does not really love this person, but just wants them because they look good. So a trophy girlfriend is usually much younger, super beautiful, like a model or something. They have them to show look, I m so rich I can have this super beautiful, super young girl. That s how it s used. That s the normal thing.

11 So what s his second status symbol? His second status symbol is a trophy girlfriend. So is this a real girlfriend that he loves deeply? No, no, no, no, it s not a real girlfriend that he loves deeply. This is a trophy girlfriend, just for show. Just to show everybody. His third status symbol is what? What does he get? Well, he gets a lot of bling. Chim-chim gets lots and lots of bling. Bling is another slang term. Basically it means jewelry, but it kind of has the idea of very big jewelry that everybody can see. So bling would not be like a tiny little diamond ring or a very simple ring. It would be like some huge ring with a massive diamond and huge necklaces with gold and silver and jewels. So he gets lots and lots of bling and he starts wearing lots of jewelry all the time everywhere. When he is out walking in public he shows everybody his diamond ring, then his necklaces. He has lots and lots of bling. So who gets a lot of bling? Chim-chim. Chim-chim buys a lot of bling. Does he wear the bling when he goes out? Yes, he wears it all the time. He wears the bling, the expensive showy jewelry all the time. Does he buy bling for his trophy girlfriend too? Yes, he does. He buys her lots of big, large pieces of jewelry as well. So they have lots and lots of bling. Who has lots of bling? Chim-chim. He buys a lot of bling, a lot of very big jewelry. So he has three status symbols, a mansion, a trophy girlfriend and lots and lots of bling. So does he become much happier? No, poor Chim-chim he doesn t.

12 Instead, he feels really lonely, poor Chim-chim. In his new mansion which is super huge with just his trophy girlfriend that he doesn t really love wearing all his jewelry he becomes lonely. He feels much more lonely and so, finally, Chim-chim realizes his mistake and he says to himself I m going back to the old hood. So hood is a little bit of slang. It means neighborhood. It s just a short version of the word neighborhood. So it means he s going to go back to his old neighborhood, back to living in his tree. So he sells his mansion, he breaks up with his girlfriend, he gives away his jewelry and he moves back to his old hood. Where does he move back to? He moves back to his old hood, his old neighborhood. So where will you hear this word? You ll hear this word in movies now sometimes. You know people say the hood, the hood, going to my old hood. It just means neighborhood. So does he move back to his old neighborhood or does he stay in the mansion? He moves back to his old hood, back to his old neighborhood. Does he move back to his humble life, his humble tree, his simple little tree? Yes, he does. He moves back to his simple humble tree, his simple humble neighborhood and his good true friends and he s much happier. * * * * * And that is the end of our mini story. See you again, bye-bye.

13 Defy Conventional Wisdom - VIP POV Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to the POV, the point-of-view story. Let s do the first one. * * * * * Chim-chim felt insecure about his humble life. A newspaper wrote a story about him criticizing him for living in a tree and so he felt very insecure about his humble life and he said to himself I need to raise my status. I can t live a humble life anymore. So the first thing he did was he bought a mansion. He bought a mansion on 120 acres of land. This was his first status symbol. Next, he got a trophy girlfriend. He went and found a beautiful, super young trophy girlfriend and then finally he went and he bought a lot of bling. He bought a lot of expensive jewelry, big huge pieces of diamonds and jewels and gold, but of course he wasn t happy. Even though he had all of these status symbols he was not happy and so he realized that this was not the key to happiness. He realized that he did not need to raise his status symbol. So he sold his mansion, he broke up with his trophy girlfriend and he gave away his bling and he moved back to his simple tree and he was much happier. * * * * * And that s the end of version number one. That was, of course, looking back to the past. The next version will start with since, okay? So, again, we re talking about time periods. We re looking back at something that happened for a while. * * * * * Really since he was young Chim-chim has felt insecure about his humble life. See, he has always lived a humble life. From childhood until recently he has lived a humble life. His parents did not have a lot of money and even after he became rich he kept a humble life. So he has lived a humble life all the time, this whole time and he has always felt insecure about it. He has always worried about not having enough, about not having a high enough status and so, finally, one day when a newspaper publishes an article about his humble life and criticizes him, well on that day he feels really bad. He feels terrible and so he decides to change. He decides to buy status symbols and raise his social status. The first status symbol he buys is a mansion. He buys a big mansion on 120 acres of land. The second status symbol he buys well, not buys, kind of buys -- is a trophy

14 girlfriend. He gets a trophy girlfriend and the third status symbol he buys is bling. He buys lots of bling, lots of jewelry. But, of course, even after he gets all of these status symbols he s still not happy and so he sells his mansion, he breaks up with his trophy girlfriend, he gets rid of his bling and he moves back to his humble life in his humble tree and he is happy. * * * * * And, finally, our third version we go to the future. So we imagine this is happening in the future. Just a little practice using the future, talking about the future. * * * * * So in the future Chim-chim will feel insecure about his humble life because in the future a newspaper they re gonna publish a story about him. They re going to criticize him for living a humble life, for living in just a little simple tree. ( Gonna means going to. I have to remind the new members that gonna means going to.) So he s gonna feel insecure about his humble life already and then in the future when they publish this story about him criticizing him then he ll really, really feel insecure about it and he ll say to himself I need to raise my social status. So what s the first thing he ll do? Well, first, he ll go out and he ll buy a huge mansion on 120 acres of land and then he s gonna get a trophy girlfriend and then, finally, he s gonna buy a bunch of bling. He s gonna buy lots and lots of jewelry. And after doing all of this he ll feel lonely. He won t feel happy. He will not, he won t feel happy and he ll realize that the status symbols are not important and so he s gonna sell his mansion, he s gonna break up with his trophy girlfriend and he ll get rid of all his bling and he ll move back to his simple tree and his humble life and be much happier. * * * * * And that s the end of our point-of-view stories. As always, just listen to these. Don t think about the grammar. Don t analyze it. Just listen again and again and again. Notice how the words change. Notice the little changes. That s all you need to do. All right, I will see you again next time. Have a great day, great week, great month, byebye.

15 Defy Conventional Wisdom - VIP Commentary Hi, this is AJ. Welcome to the commentary. So let s talk more about this idea of defying conventional wisdom. So, again, to defy really means to like break a rule on purpose. It means to willfully break a rule, to go against something. Usually it has the idea of going against authority, going against rules, that kind of thing. I don t know. I just like that word. I like that idea. But you can think of this in another way, which is just, be creative. Another way to say this that is maybe more positive or might sound better to you if you re not anti authority is just think of being creative. Because conventional wisdom, this idea of convention and conventional wisdom, conventional beliefs, conventional ways of doing things, they re often just kind of habits that are not necessarily good anymore just because a lot of people do it. A lot of times things that are conventional are chosen or they happen simply because they are we use the phrase lowest common denominator, which comes from math oddly, but lowest common denominator. It s the idea that it s sort of the lowest most basic idea that everyone can accept. It doesn t mean it s the best idea, it just means it s the one that we can all agree on. So, usually the beliefs and the methods and the strategies that everybody can agree on or most people can agree on are not necessarily the best ones. The best ones are usually maybe more bold. They re riskier. They require more energy. They require more motivation and so a lot of people are scared of them or don t like them and so, therefore, those do not become the conventional wisdom. Instead, conventional wisdom is really more about what most people agree on. We can see this in politics all the time, right? The people who get elected they re probably not the brightest, smartest, most honest people. We all know this, it s true in every single country, but they re like the least worst is the way to think about it. They re the ones who manage to say nothing honest at all and basically say nothing at all. They re really careful about the way they talk and they try to avoid making anyone angry. This is what most politicians do, right? So they may get elected, but it s not because they re the smartest, boldest, most incredible people in the world. No, because the smart people, the bold people, those kinds of people they make a lot of people angry sometimes. Some people love them and other people hate them and this is kind of the same idea. Let s say in your job or business, that job search idea, most people when I tell them that strategy a lot of people will say no, I don t want to do that because they re worried that they ll make the employers upset, that they ll bother them, that they ll get annoyed. They ll get upset because they re receiving all these letters, especially if there s no job

16 advertised. I just picked places. I didn t even know if they had a job opening. I just ah, I d like to work for them so I m going to start writing them letters. I tell people this and a lot of people say no, no, no, I don t want to do that. I don t want to make someone angry, but the truth is that most people don t get angry. In fact, the first time I used this was in South Carolina where I was living. I was unemployed, I had no money and I was really desperate. I was getting really desperate and I needed a job. I was a social worker and I just couldn t find any jobs so I started this approach and one of the people I was writing all the time they didn t have a job, but because I kept writing them they were like wow. Well, this guy is different. He seems quite motivated and so the place I was writing told someone else. Basically what it was is it was one department of a hospital I was writing. I think it was the cancer department because I thought they needed social workers and I thought that would be an interesting job. They didn t have a job, but the supervisor of the cancer department gave my letters to the emergency room social worker, the guy who was the boss of the emergency room social workers. He said well, I don t have a job, but he gave it to this guy. He said you should look at this guy. He s been writing me letters. He seems like he s motivated. I know you need somebody. So that s another advantage of having this kind of different approach. You get noticed and people will maybe share your letters with other people. It s just one small example of the benefit of doing things in a different way, in a creative way. We re often scared to be different because we think we ll be criticized, we think we ll upset people, but as long as you are basically kind and you re honest most people will not be upset and, in fact, by taking a different strategy you really will help your chances to succeed. So, go ahead, steal my idea. If you need a job, try it. I promise you it works really well. Try it in other areas of your life too, that s going to be step two. So in step one I said think about a couple areas of your life where you want to improve something or accomplish something. I said the first step was just to identify what is the normal way of doing it. What are the normal beliefs about it? What s the conventional way? So, again, the first step if we looked at job hunting we d say okay. Well, the conventional wisdom is that, first of all, be careful. Don t make any mistakes. Be kind of conservative. That s a usual belief, at least in the United States, that you only apply for jobs when there s an opening, so you only look for advertised jobs. Like in my example you might go to the hospital and you only apply for jobs for where they actually have an opening. You don t contact people where they haven t advertised an opening. That s another conventional idea. Another conventional idea is if it s a big company that you always apply to the human resource department. Human resource that means people, but it s kind of the hiring department. I didn t do that either. I sent letters directly to the bosses of the departments

17 because I knew they were the ones who would interview me and I knew they would be the ones who would actually eventually hire me. Human resources, they just do the paperwork. So I thought well, they don t know anything about social work specifically so why should I talk to them, but that s conventional wisdom. What I used to do, I would go to the human resource department and fill out applications and then never hear again. What is some more conventional wisdom? The conventional thing is, you know, resume, cover letter, all those things I mentioned already. So that s the first thing I just kind of identified. Ah, I realized well that s the conventional way and then the second step now is to think, what could I do differently and just have fun with it? It doesn t matter. No one is going to chop off your hand if you make a mistake or something. Just deliberate break those rules and deliberately try out different beliefs and ideas related to those things. So for me with the job hunt I specifically broke those rules. I said okay, I m not going to go to human resources. I m going to contact the individual supervisors in the hospital. I m going to go around human resources. Human resources hates that, but it worked. I decided I was not going to just write one boring cover letter and a resume. I would write a series of letters like an ad campaign. I actually did lots of other things that were different too, which I m not going to talk about, but in every way I tried to be different in a positive way, in a way that would be helpful and beneficial to the company or to the person who might hire me and, like I said, it worked very well. I m sure it still would work well, so if you re doing a job search do it. If you re not focused on job searching then, whatever it is, think about what is the conventional wisdom and then step two I really want you to think deeply. Start writing out, just brainstorm. Just think of any crazy idea you can. Crazy, not crazy, it doesn t matter. Just think of different ways of doing it. Don t even think about will it be successful or not. In the beginning, right now, I just want you to think of how I can do it differently. You re trying to, I don t know, get stronger and healthier. Look at what s the normal conventional wisdom and then start looking at other things you might try instead that are very different. The same is true in business. The same is true in relationships, lots of different things. So, step two, just start looking at different ways. You can, as I mentioned in the main lesson, look for other people who have succeeded at a high level and try to see how are they breaking the conventional wisdom? What are they doing that s different from most people? Because anyone who s got a lot of success in some area, most of the time they re doing something quite different, several things quite different than the usual, than the average person is. So look at that and then you could maybe try some of those things as well and then, as always, get onto our website and share your ideas. This one could be really fun

18 because I would love to see how you are breaking the rules and I d love to hear about the different approaches you are taking to problems and goals that you have and I m sure other members would love to hear that too. It will be fun to read what other people are doing. We can all kind of trade ideas and help each other out. You can steal my idea for job hunting and maybe you have some great health idea that I might try that will work for me or that other people might try. Maybe you have some cool different way of remembering English or speaking better that you could share. I don t know. What I want you to do though is to just share your ideas and share your experiences on our website and then we can all encourage each other to break the rules and to do things in a creative way. That s it. It should be fun. Have fun with it. It s not so serious. Smile and have fun while you re doing it. All right, I will see you again. Have a great day, bye-bye.