[00:00:00.370] - Shannon What surprised me, learning Brazilian Portuguese, because I think three languages ago, I said I'm done learning new languages. And then here I am, still picking up. [00:00:12.350] - Kerstin Last year. [00:00:16.710] - Shannon All true. I keep surprising myself. [00:00:19.980] - Kerstin I keep surprising myself by starting new life. Welcome to the Fluent Show podcast about learning languages and reaching your potential. Hello, hello. My name is Kristen Cable from fluentlanguage. Co. Uk. And I've got a very special guest here to Shannon Kennedy from Eurolinguist.com. And here on the show, we talk about languages, communication, curiosity and enriching our lives through the challenge of learning something new. Hey, Shannon. Good morning. [00:01:07.930] - Shannon Good morning. Hi, Kristen. [00:01:09.640] - Kerstin Hi. It's really nice to have you back on the show and to continue our tradition of going through and reviewing your previous year together. We don't really talk much about what happened in my year, which I think I'm quite grateful for. And I can't wait to talk to you about this. Actually. [00:01:31.930] - Shannon I'm excited to continue this tradition. [00:01:35.890] - Kerstin Yes. Now, listeners, before we review 2021 with Shannon. And like I said, it's a tradition. So I'm going to link to the other episodes that we've had about this as well. And in Shannon's guest profiles, you can see it, too. I think this might be the third or possibly fourth year even we are reviewing the previous year together. And yeah, that's what we're going to do. Now before I go into the interview, I don't want to miss out on letting you know that we have a sponsored episode today, and we are sponsored here by the language learning app ClozeMaster. ClozeMaster is fun, free and fantastic for expanding your vocab. And it's all based on a simple game where you see a sentence in your target language with something missing a word, maybe a phrase, and then it's your challenge to fill in the blanks correctly. They've got lots of fast fluency tracks. The Chinese one that I'm doing at the moment, it prepares you or expands your vocab or trains your vocab for the different HSK levels. So I'm kind of working my way through mastering the HSK one. Once again, just consolidating bit of Chinese. The exercises train you to understand context and use vocabulary, so it's very useful language learning skills. [00:02:51.510] - Kerstin And best of all, Closed Master is available in a massive range of languages. There's over 50, and it works on iOS, it works on Android, and it works directly in your browser, too. If you want to support Fluentshow today, please go and visit CloseMaster, C-L-O-Z-E or Zemaster.com Fluentshow, where you will find a bonus video of ClozeMaster tips that I've put together for you and a special voucher for a lifetime 10% off if you ever decide to take the Pro membership. But it's a free app so you can play to your heart's content before you make up your mind. That is clozemaster.com/fluentshow thank you, ClozeMaster, for sponsoring us for another year. It's just exciting to have ClozeMaster back. Now, Shannon, we were talking language learning apps before. What's been happening in your language learning app life? [00:03:46.750] - Shannon Really interesting question. So I've been changing around a lot of the apps that I do, but at the same time there's like a little bit of consistency. So two apps that I always really love using are Memorized and Link, and so I've continued using both of those throughout this year. I have a 600 something day streak for some of my languages in Memorized, and I think I have a 500 something day streak for Drops, which is another language learning app that I use, although I've been using that a little bit less than I had been in the past. But the one that's kind of new for me this year is Duolingo. So I use Duolingo once upon a time, a very long time ago, and I stopped using it because it wasn't really a good fit for me. But recently I decided to go back and try it because it's been several years and I know with the nature of apps and things, they do a lot of updates, they add new content, they fix things, they change stuff around. And so I decided to go back and use it again, and I realized that it is now so much better than it was when I originally used it. [00:04:55.850] - Shannon So I toggle between several different languages on the app, but I'm using Duolingo with a lot of consistency, and it's been kind of a nice little supplement and way to fit a little bit of extra language into my day each day. [00:05:10.990] - Kerstin You mentioned you've got very long streaks going, which is something that I don't pay attention to. Maybe if I tried I would have long streaks, too, but overall, I don't really focus on that at all. So tell me more about what having a longest streak or what keeping up streak means to you. [00:05:29.890] - Shannon So for me, I think we might have talked about this last year, but one of the things that I've discovered about myself fairly recently in the last year or two is that I'm very stats driven. So for me, one easy way I can stay motivated is by diving into stats, and it's gotten to the point where I'm keeping track of it in three different ways. I have an app that I use called Streaks, which I might have mentioned before as well. That is like my way to keep track of things across the board. So while I may not study Portuguese and Drops every single day, there's probably something that I'm doing with Portuguese, so I can count my streak for that language in Streaks and not rely on the app. I can rely on my own personal kind of data. And the other thing that I use is Notion. So I have a whole Notion template set up where I keep track of my habits across all aspects of my life. One of the things that I'm trying to do is get splits all three ways. And, like, right now, I can do it with my left leg in front, but I can't do it with my right, and I can't do center splits. [00:06:34.880] - Shannon So I have stretching as one of my daily goals that I'm trying to commit to. For my languages I have it so there's a simple yes or no check box for my languages. But then next to it, I write what I do. So I have Tags for like, Italki for memorize, for Kenzler, for some of the other tools that I use with a lot of consistency. So I can see exactly what I'm putting into each language. And then at the end of the year, I can look at that and say, okay, this is what was working. This is what wasn't working. This is what I was doing and the changes that I've made. This is like how frequently I've been doing eye talkie lessons. I can look at all of that data and start to analyze it and kind of make assessments on what I need to change, what I need to do, what's working, what's not across all areas of my life. It's also like my Journal and all sorts of things. Because of Notion, when you set up a table, you can open up each item on the table. And so I'm able to put my Journal entries into those and things like that. [00:07:27.700] - Shannon And so basically all of the things that I want to do to help improve myself overall, I use that Notion template. And so that's also like another little streak and another little data point that I have on the things that I'm doing. And for me, seeing that all basically grow because, like, what percentage I'm studying over the year, what percentage I'm completing workouts over the year, what kind of workouts I'm doing, what kind of study I'm doing. Seeing all of that come together and aggregate over the 365 days of the year is really motivating to me, and I don't want to miss putting something in. It's just a little trick that I use to keep myself learning and growing consistently. [00:08:06.590] - Kerstin Listen to you talk about this. It really strikes me that I'm not stats driven in the way that it's a sort of I want to make sure I do something every single day, but I'm very goal driven. I'm thinking, you mentioned your splits, and I'm thinking, well, something that I really wanted to achieve and that I'm always kind of aiming for is with park run. I don't care if I miss a week, but I don't typically miss a week because I want to get to a hundred and I want to get to 150 and I want to get to 200 park runs. So it's the sort of thing where the goal keeps me going back to it, but I'm not very good at them saying, I'm also going to be consistent and track what I do. Tracking, yes, but commit to doing it every single day. I guess more like here's a little hop towards the goal, here's a little hop, and it sounds like you are consistently striving, which I admire cannot replicate that's good because people are different. I think you should totally sell that notion template. I think that's all it sounds great. I love Notion too. [00:09:07.150] - Shannon I think it's like one of the things that's so important because we all have different things that motivate us and figuring out what that is for you and then basically, in a sense, manipulating it to become this really effective tool for you is so important. And so for me, the way that I figured out that stats were important for me was through working out. So I don't know if you know this, but I actually hate working out with a burning passion. If I could just sit and not do anything and still have a healthy body, I would, but I can't. So I've had to trick myself into finding types of exercise that I like doing and into even showing up for those. So one of the other things that really motivates me is actually having someone give me a hard time. If I show up for a workout and my karate teacher is harassing me and making fun of my efforts, it drives me to actually try a lot harder. So like finding a school where I get that from my karate teacher and from my dance teacher and then using stats to keep showing up. [00:10:15.430] - Shannon And it's funny because I love dance and I love martial arts, I do, but it's still don't like getting sweaty and I don't like jumping around necessarily. And I know it's going to be hard. I still have this mental block that I have to get over to show up, especially now that in the last year I've moved and it's a half an hour drive to my schools, whereas before it was a five minute walk, I need that little extra push to get out the door. And also because I'm introverted and I'm totally happy just staying at home again, I need that little extra push to go and do these things. There's some resistance there. So figuring out what sorts of tricks do to get out the door, I know when I go, I'm going to be happy to see my teachers, and I'm going to have fun with them razzing me the whole time I'm working out. And I know that after I can enter my stats and all of this kind of stuff, and it's like reminding myself of those things and using those things to get me to go keep me going. Otherwise, I'm like, perfectly happy to just sit at home and do nothing. [00:11:15.650] - Kerstin On a scale of one to 10, how well do you think you'd do and how comfortable do you think you'd feel in the Army, Shannon? [00:11:23.930] - Shannon Well, I'm a military kid. My dad was in the Marines, so probably more comfortable than I cared to admit. [00:11:32.690] - Kerstin It sounds like a ten out of ten. All the stereotypical army stuff. This is great. Okay, listeners, I found this question really helpful because now you all have an impression. If you've not heard from Shannon before, you get a sense of the kind of person Shannon is and the kind of motivations behind Shannon's experience. Shannon, give a quick introduction to new listeners who might have not heard from you before about your languages. [00:12:00.230] - Shannon Okay. So not about me, about my languages. I run a site called Eurolinguist, and it started out as this thing that I kind of used to keep track of my studies early on when I was doing my master's degree where I was focusing on French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and I was working on getting my CEFR certifications for those languages as a part of my degree. And then when I finished school, I realized that which, by the way, I'm a music major. So I studied music and the languages were just the side thing. So when I left school, I realized how much I actually enjoyed the process of learning new languages. So I kept it up as a hobby, and Eurolinguist evolved from there. So my foundation is in European languages, hence the name Euro Linguist. But after I graduated, I started to get into Croatian and Mandarin Chinese. So that was my first foray into Slavic languages and Asian languages, and it just grew from there. Just last year, I started learning my 16th language. And a lot of the languages that I choose are because I need them for work. Prior to the company that I'm currently at, which is an international company, I worked for a language company, and at both companies, I was often asked to learn certain languages. [00:13:14.290] - Shannon This last year, I was asked to learn Brazilian Portuguese. So I started to learn it, and that's how I picked my languages. It's hey, Shannon, we need you to travel to India to go give presentations in four cities. Can you learn Hindi? And I'm like, sure. So I study Hindi for a bit. And then once that project is done, I may be go and pick something else up. [00:13:30.410] - Kerstin Wow. Did you choose your work for the opportunities with languages, or was it the other way around that your work is giving you new opportunities and that just happens to happen? [00:13:44.810] - Shannon So it's kind of a funny story, I guess, with the language company, I did choose to do that because I wanted to be involved in language in some way, but with my current company. So finally, after many years after graduating, I've fallen into the industry that I intended to be in, and I'm back in the music industry, but I started working with Roland, which is a music company full time back in September. But prior to that, actually since around 2017, maybe even 2016. I already kind of worked with them freelance. And so I was demonstrating music products, doing music things, and it's a Japanese company. So at events, I was constantly working with the Japanese team and they would come and ask me questions and there was a bit of a language barrier. So I went, you know what? I'm just going to learn Japanese. So I seriously studied it for a while. And then the next event that I had, I showed up and everyone was like, oh, my goodness, you learned Japanese. And then they're like, If Shannon can learn Japanese, I bet she can learn other languages. So that's when they started asking me to learn other languages and they would send me to other countries to kind of act as a liaison between the different teams and the different languages. [00:14:56.330] - Shannon And when I started working for them in September, I came on in a marketing role, but they knew that I was able to speak all of these different languages and they wanted me to handle localization for the teams in the Americas, essentially. And like, I knew going in that I would get to do languagey things, but I'd also get to do musicy things and then marketing things, which are all things that I really love. So I think I probably still could have gone into the company even without the languages. But having the language skills became like this extra bonus fun thing that I get to do, and then also like a special skill that I have that the company could use. So it's both. I don't know if that answers your question. [00:15:41.370] - Kerstin Absolutely. So language is sort of it's something that you brought to your career as an individual, but that then also becomes an asset and as your company gets to know you more, it's one of the things that really makes you stand out in the workplace. Now, shall we get cracking on our six questions? So every year, this is not something I intended to become a tradition, but I enjoyed that it is a tradition. Every year on the show, I ask Shannon six questions about her previous year, and then we talk a little bit about Shannon's top language learning books and apps. I think we've done the apps thing already. So let's go into our questions. Shannon, question number one. How would you sum up the year 2021 in your languages? [00:16:29.650] - Shannon I would have to say for me, the summary of 2021 is Portuguese, because that's been kind of my focus since the second half of this year. And it's interesting because Portuguese, despite being a language very much related to Spanish and French and Italian, several languages that I know. It's unique in that at least for me, the pronunciation is never what I expect it to be. And so it plays tricks on me. So even as someone who's really experienced in language learning, I kind of have to take a step back and start over. So for me, it's new language, totally starting over. And sometimes it's just nice to be a beginner again. Do you know what I mean? [00:17:14.710] - Kerstin Yeah, I feel that way. The jumps of progress that you can make when you're newly starting out and also just the full sense of discovery that's for me, the beginner bonuses in a way. [00:17:31.730] - Shannon The other thing that's a bit tricky is because of my experience with related languages, I'm able to be, like better in Portuguese than I should be. But then it also makes me not as good as I should be because I rely on Spanish, especially as a crutch quite a bit. With Portuguese, a lot of people call it Portugal. So it's like when I'm using Portuguese, I often think, I don't know this word. I bet I can guess at it and then I end up pulling in Spanish quite a bit. And so that's been a fun habit to try and overcome. I think, too. [00:18:02.510] - Kerstin I find that in my languages when I pick up a new language now, actually in Chinese, it didn't happen so much. And I have to say, last year I didn't add anything new. I just basically did well, I actually did less than it did in 2020. But in Chinese, I didn't do the thing that I do in so many other languages where I sort of have this might be part of my lack of detail orientation. Part of my confidence that it's slightly misplaced is I basically half to three quarter understand the concept and then just assume that I know it and then just like run into conversations, especially in the B level. If I can 60% accuracy talk to you in the language, I will do so and I will pretend that I'm brilliant, which I think is possibly a bad habit. [00:18:51.290] - Shannon Well, I mean, it's the whole fake it until you make it. It's like a good way to give yourself a sense of confidence when you don't actually have it yet in a language. [00:19:01.670] - Kerstin I never make it because I don't feel like I'm making it. I actually think I'm really good. It's very embarrassing. But yeah, you're right. The fake till you make is a good strategy around. I think you might as well jump on conversations. Right. So would you say learning Brazilian Portuguese has because it's your 16th language and you say it's giving you a little bit of newness and a little bit of a thrill. Would you say that Brazilian Portuguese is evoking emotions in you and it's a language that you're sort of connecting with in a particular way? Among all of our languages, we've got a few bigger ones that we're closer to and then a few where you sort of been. Yeah, I'm doing that. So where on the scale of emotional connection does Brazilian Portuguese hold of you? [00:20:01.330] - Shannon Oh, my goodness. This is a question. Can I just say no, it's not. I think if it evokes any emotion in me, I have to say it's a bit of frustration and a bit of nostalgia. And I think I need to explain the nostalgia part of this. Like I said, I'm a musician. My first instrument is flute. So I started with flute, and I played that for several years before I picked up my next instrument. And that was saxophone. Within a few years, I had two instruments that I started from scratch learning and had gotten up to a pretty decent level before I picked up my next instrument, which was oboe, I believe. And when I went to pick up oboe at that point, I had already learned two instruments. And so I experienced this frustration that I already know how to read music. I already know how to do this. Why do I still suck so bad at this? I kept getting really frustrated that I wasn't getting better faster because oboe is a fairly difficult instrument. And then when I picked up clarinet, it was the same thing. And clarinet. It's kind of funny because it's almost like Portuguese to me because saxophone and flute, you could say they're like Spanish and French, and then clarinet is Portuguese. [00:21:15.190] - Shannon So it's like close enough related to Saxon phone and flute, but there's just like one little difference called the register key, which makes it not exactly the same. So it adds this challenge that Portuguese has compared to Spanish and French for me. So I have that same frustration with Portuguese. I should be getting better at this faster. And I'm not because I keep using Spanish as a crutch and the pronunciation is different enough that I really need to sit down, concentrate and focus on it. And I just don't want to do that because I've already been through the process of doing it with other languages. Like, I had already been through the process of learning the fingerings for flute and sacks, and I didn't want to sit down and really focus on the fingerings for oboe and clarinet. So it's kind of like this funny thing for me. I like it because it gives me this which I've had with other languages, which I've had with other aspects of my life, like music. And so I'm almost enjoying being stuck in this phase because its like awh I remember when I was at this age and doing these things and at this point with these languages. [00:22:19.570] - Shannon And so it's kind of like this fun thing that I don't really feel any serious need to kind of push through at this point. But at the same time, you still have that equal level of frustration where you're like, oh, just push through this, Shannon, seriously. But then I'm not. So I don't know. It's been a funny place, but I would have to say as far as languages that I'm close to, I don't think Portuguese is going to be one of them for me. I would have to say that Russian, Hungarian, Croatian and Chinese are those languages. And French, of course, are those languages for me. [00:22:50.420] - Kerstin I see. Yeah. It's really interesting to hear all these reflections from the point of view of somebody who is already very advanced in French. You're advanced in Spanish, and you may well have touched on Italian before or a different kind of Romance language, maybe a bit of Romanian. And to then go to Portuguese, which is another Romance language and does share a lot of, for lack of a better expression like DNA with the languages that you already know. But it's different enough to be different. That must be. Yeah. I can relate to that. The sort of feeling of if it's going to be this close, why is it just the same? But it's not. It is different. And it's kind of a unique challenge, like learning your, I don't know, fifth Romance language. It's one of the reasons why when I see language learning advice, that sort of category advises to learn loads of languages in one family, I think I wouldn't enjoy that. I would want to appreciate them for their differences as much as for their similarities. [00:23:50.170] - Shannon Absolutely. And I think there are two reasons for this. It's been a long time since I've learned a Latin language or a Romance language. Most of those were now, like more than a decade ago. I've been more in, like, the Slavic languages, Asian languages, and more recently, I forayed into Farsi Persian. It's been a while since I've had to sit and learn, like, Romance language rules and process that. And then also, I have been jumping around a lot between Chinese and then Japanese and then Russian and then Hebrew and then back to Korean and then to Persian. And so I'm constantly making these jumps that are drastically different. So I'm not having these sorts of overlaps. And then to suddenly jump back to something that's so similar to other languages that I've already learned has been a bit of a trip. [00:24:43.240] - Kerstin Yeah. Well, let's take it to our next question then. The next question is, what changed in your life and what changed in your languages in 2021? [00:24:53.750] - Shannon I think this year. I mean, what changed in my life? I bought a house, which is exciting and it's like a big adult milestone moment. Yes, you can relate. [00:25:04.210] - Kerstin Yes, I've had my kitchen tiled. I feel ten years older instantly. [00:25:11.830] - Shannon We have yet to do any remodeling, but it's definitely something that needs to be done. But, yeah, that's so weird. For so much of my life not owned anywhere that I've lived. So there's like a certain limitation where it's like, this thing bugs me, but I can't do anything about it because it's not my house or not my apartment. And then now this thing bugs me. Dang it. I have to do something about this. This is my house. You can't put those excuses off anymore. But as far as what's changed in my life in languages, adding Portuguese has changed. I put Korean aside for a little bit and then picked that back up. I studied Norwegian for several months and then completely put that aside as well in 2021. And I have to say, not much has changed. I mean, at this point, at this stage of my learning, I have a system that really works for me. I have a routine that I really enjoy. And so, like, why reinvent the wheel? [00:26:07.090] - Kerstin You're not that person. I don't know who I'm talking about except me, but you're not that person who as soon as you've got a routine going, you kind of get itchy and you want to sort of go, okay, yeah, but that's boring. Let's do everything. Let's throw everything around and try something new and let's get creative. You're happy with where you are and finding freedom in discipline. [00:26:26.300] - Shannon Yes, I think so. And like, that shows in a lot of aspects of my life. Anyone who's a musician listening to this, one of the things that musicians love to talk about is their gear. And musicians are constantly changing their gear up to try and get a better sound or try and match the sound. And I am literally playing the exact same setups as far as my saxophones and stuff that I've been playing since high school. Essentially, I did get two new saxophones at some point around a little bit after College, but they're very similar to the saxophone I was playing prior. And the only reason I got them is because I work with the company. And so I haven't really changed anything. So people will message me and be like, oh, hey, what set up are you playing on now? And I'm like the same one because it's working for me. Why would I change it if it's not broken? I don't need to fix it. So I'm the same with my language learning routine. I found something that worked for me, and I may go out and try another tool, like experiment with it, but I almost always come back to what I was already doing. [00:27:33.530] - Kerstin Yes, earlier we talked about being stats oriented versus being goal oriented. And I guess there's another line that you listeners might want to consider. Where do you fall on that line? It's interesting to hear, Shannon, you and I were different in so many different ways. I appreciate that. I love that so much that the introversion, the extroversion and so much more. And I think I hear this, and there's this kind of freedom in a fixed routine. It's not necessarily discipline, but a real appreciation for discipline and sameness and simplicity. And I know you've talked about being a minimalist before, which is in contrast to on a spectrum where on the other side, you would be very novelty seeking. And I can see that, certainly for me, novelty is motivating. Novelty is like an energy source so I do look for new ways of changing it all up, and that's actually a spectrum that people can fall on. It's fascinating. [00:28:33.360] - Shannon I think for me, something that I realized about myself is that I thrive within structure and security. So basically you can take those two SS and combine them into sameness. So like knowing what to expect, using the same things, having a system and routine that work for me, having a set structure, having deadlines, having stats that I'm tracking and data to analyze with those, I find that's when I perform best. [00:29:11.970] - Kerstin I love it. And you're very right. Calling it structure and security is actually a lot nicer than calling it sameness and probably reflects the perspective there. Okay, this is interesting. I've got one more question for you about Shannon as a homeowner new Shannon, and the question that kind of came up in mind is what role or has anything changed in how the role your home plays in your language learning routine? [00:29:40.190] - Shannon To think about this one, I don't think so. I typically use my laptop or my phone for most things, so they just travel around with me wherever I am a lot of the time. Like when my husband and I sit down to watch TV, I'll be doing something on an app on my phone or if we're in the car and I'm not driving the same thing. So I do have a new job this year, and so my schedule changed quite a bit. And so when I was able to do language learning in the past, it's completely different than now because now I have this different schedule and both my kids are in school now. And so my schedule is also different in that respect. This year I've been having to revamp my schedule. So it's like now I have this 1 hour in the day between dropping the kids off at school and when work starts that I can do my language lessons and then it's just become a puzzle, almost like figuring out when I can fit things in with two now school age kids, a new work schedule, and different things like that. I can't say my home necessarily has impacted my learning, but definitely my new job and my new family schedule has. [00:30:43.770] - Kerstin Next question. What lessons do you think you learned from the year 2021? [00:30:48.670] - Shannon I think the biggest lesson this last year I learned was pre commitment. And this kind of goes back to the whole workout thing. So like I said, I don't necessarily like working out, but in order to get better at dance and martial arts, I need to do weight training and I have a lot of resistance towards doing that because I don't really enjoy. But it's just like one of those things I have to do to get better at the things that I do enjoy. So one of the things that I've taken to doing with that and a couple of the other habits that I'm trying to build around eating better, like taking my vitamins, eating a veggie with every meal is I pre commit. So what that means is on my habit trackers or on my food log, I'll enter what I intend to do before I actually do it. So I'll write down I'm going to eat a spinach salad with my lunch and I put my lunch in already like several hours before lunch. Or it means that I'm going to pre commit to taking a language lesson on this day. Or I'm going to pre commit to doing 26 links in link today for this language. [00:31:48.150] - Shannon And if I log that I've already done the habit before I do the habit, I'm more likely to do it because there's more resistance for me to go and unmark the habit than there is for me to not do it and not Mark it later, if that makes sense. [00:32:07.170] - Kerstin I like that. So it's a new lesson. It's a new trick, actually, to pre commit. You're making it not an option to do anything else. [00:32:20.250] - Shannon Exactly. I'm basically saying I've already done this even though I haven't. So that means I've got to go do it. [00:32:27.940] - Kerstin Yeah, I like that a lot. I like that a lot. This is a great tip to take out of today's interview and I think everybody can do with playing around with that a little bit. And it's, not even then how much you believe yourself when you say that you will. It's saying you've already done it takes it one step further. Something that doesn't work for me at all is putting things on my calendar. What we have in our house is a chores list. Just checking off when you've done the chore. And I'm just going to go and do my own thing. I've taken a lot of my chores off of the list because I end up just doing them anyway. And I'm like, well, if I do them anyway, I don't need them on the list and I'm just going to do whatever and the list can do one, I don't care. But saying I've already done this, like Friday night, I've already done this. I'm just going to write down that I've done it. It's like committing to your future. And I can see that I like that a lot. Good angle there. [00:33:28.930] - Shannon It's also a little bit like you let yourself down when you don't do the thing that you already pre committed to doing. So if I say, all right, I'm going to meditate for five minutes today and I've already marked it as done and it's getting to the end of the day and I still haven't done it. If I didn't already Mark it down as done, I'd probably be like, whatever, I'm not going to try and squeeze it in tonight. But when I've already marked it down, I'm like, I already marked this as done. Like now I have to go back and undo having marked it, I'm just going to do it. It's just five minutes. It reframes the way that I think about the task. [00:34:01.930] - Kerstin And do you find that after you've done it, you always feel better for it? [00:34:06.610] - Shannon Absolutely. [00:34:08.890] - Kerstin This is fascinating to think through. Something that, you know, I do is I go sea swimming and I go swimming even when the water is quite cold. So on Sunday I went to swim and the water was 4.6 centigrade, whatever that is in Fahrenheit. So maybe 40 fairly cold. And there's a huge resistance, of course, to going in. But I now know and I completely and utterly believe that every single time I go in, I'm going to come out and I'm never, ever going to regret it. I'll always be pleased I went in. And so far it's been true 100% of the time. Every time I go in, even though maybe my hand hurts, I can't move it or whatever, even though it's really cold and takes you out of your comfort zone, you come back out and you're like, oh, I'm really pleased I did that. [00:34:56.080] - Shannon Yeah. I think it's a lot of the same feeling. And you also set yourself, I guess it depends. So you and I love the whole Gretchen Rubin four tenancies thing. And you're a questioner. I'm an upholder. And I think for me it's a way to trick my upholder system. I guess my takeaway for this year is I need to trick myself constantly. But for me, I'm pre committing. I'm saying I'm going to do my meditation today, I'm going to do my stretching today, I'm going to do my weight lifting today I am going to study my seven active languages and I pre commit to doing them. And so it's like in my upholder thing, which an upholder is someone that you're intrinsically motivated, so you do things because you commit to doing them. Well, in this case, I'm like doubling that because I'm pretty committing. I'm not just saying I'm going to do this. I'm saying I've already done it. So I better do it at this point. [00:35:47.710] - Kerstin Yeah. It's like your upholder strategy works for you, which I think is a good description. It's actually a really good summary because it's called the question. But one of the big things is everything has to make sense to me. Like if there's an external structure, even if I said I've already done it and then I don't do it, I'd be like, well, it's because I didn't want to. Whatever. I've just got this. It has to make sense to me. It has to make sense. Like I have to somehow internally want to do it. Otherwise, if it's just an external structure, I can't get myself to care. I find it really tricky, but something like knowing and trusting and learning and telling myself, you're going to love this afterwards. You're doing this because you're going to love it. You're doing this because it's such an achievement. You really want to as soon as I get myself to want to do something, I always do it. [00:36:42.790] - Shannon Yeah, exactly. [00:36:44.120] - Kerstin Now next question is I love this one. What surprised you? [00:36:51.890] - Shannon What surprised me? Learning Brazilian Portuguese, because I think few languages ago, I said I'm done learning new languages. And then here I am still picking up. [00:37:08.250] - Kerstin Still true. [00:37:09.990] - Shannon I keep surprising myself. [00:37:18.830] - Kerstin You know what? That actually makes more like upholder sense to me as well. Like, this is the Gretchen Rubin reflection there. When you said that if your work says Shannon, we'd love it, if you could pick up a bit of Brazilian Portuguese, it would make so much sense. But it's this sort of external structure, and I think responding to that is another good structure for you to have, right? [00:37:42.230] - Shannon Yeah. It's funny because I say I'm surprised at the same time I talk about structure and security and consistency and it's consistent for me to keep learning languages after I say that I'm not going to at this point become the new consistent. [00:37:57.950] - Kerstin Yes, absolutely. So if in 2022 you don't add a new language, I'm going to be very surprised. And I think that's going to surprise all of us. [00:38:06.650] - Shannon I think that'll be our surprise. I didn't add a new language in 2022. [00:38:11.150] - Kerstin You didn't log what you're doing. You didn't do any apps. Wherever you go, there you are. [00:38:20.250] - Shannon I stopped tracking stats. That's a big surprise. Yeah. [00:38:25.380] - Kerstin Oh, my God. Can you imagine? You were like, oh, what did I do last week? I don't know. That's how Kirsten does it. I don't know. I know I did something. I know it adds up. I can't remember when I did it or what it was. It just happened. Now the next question is interesting. Then from that point of view, is there anything what will you change going forward? Is there anything you want to change going forward? [00:38:54.130] - Shannon So we'll get to this when we talk about what I've read, but I've been thinking a lot about reducing again, I guess this plays into the minimalist in me. But like I said a moment ago, I'm currently actively maintaining seven languages and I'm desiring going back to focusing like hardcore on just for a short time. So I don't know for sure yet because it's this idea that I've just been throwing around in my head. But I think I may in this year spend some time focusing on just a couple of languages rather than trying to constantly maintain all of them. It means I'm going to lose my streak, which I think is the biggest barrier for me. [00:39:40.250] - Kerstin Yeah, maybe you can pre commit to losing a streak or precommit to having a streak that is one language only. Yeah, you can keep your streak, but you can only do it with one language. And that's a challenge. [00:39:56.450] - Shannon Maybe one of the ways that I can trick myself is the app that I use to keep track of my streak. There's three options. I didn't do it. There's an I did it. And if I didn't need to do it, you don't lose your streak. So it carries over, but it doesn't count new days towards your streak. So if I say, okay, I'm just going to focus on Korean for the next three months, I can essentially pause my other streaks so that they'll be there when I'm ready to pick those languages back up. So maybe that's what I do. [00:40:27.630] - Kerstin What if your challenge was to have a streak of not doing something in a language? I'm going to not do anything in Russian for 100 days. [00:40:46.030] - Shannon One of my really good friends, she tells me that I have this problem, and I do I have it across all aspects of my life where basically when something's handed to me or I take something on, I don't let anything else go. So I just keep amassing new tasks and new things without letting go of any of the other things that I was doing. And maybe for me in 2022, one of the skills that I need to learn is delegation or letting go in some ways. [00:41:17.650] - Kerstin Yes, it's a big challenge. I think that's why it's a character trait or a personality aspect that serves you extremely well for learning lots and lots of different languages and maintaining them all, because that's a huge, huge achievement. But of course, if you're going to wear yourself out or always feel like you're short changing all of them, then that's the price to pay. And it's a fun kind of thinking exercise to work through. What would it be like if you drop this and also think of it as testing your memory? I'm a very good coach for getting people to not do stuff, I think. But think of it as testing. [00:41:54.970] - Shannon I was just saying I feel like this is turning into a coaching call. [00:42:00.850] - Kerstin I'm just curious. You could test your memory as in, if you don't do anything in Russian for 100 days, how much are you going to retain? Like, how good are you going to be coming back? And I tell you, I didn't touch Mandirin Chinese for pretty much the best of the year, and a lot more has stopped than I thought. A lot more. [00:42:20.280] - Shannon Yes, I think it would be a good experiment. I mean, I've done that with several other languages, so I guess it's a dry run. I could do it with one of the other languages that I've set aside, German. [00:42:30.490] - Kerstin Oh, my heart just broke. It's fine. But yes, absolutely. [00:42:38.620] - Kerstin It's how interesting. Yes. I promise I'm not going to hold you to it. I'm not going to chase you. I'm not going to ask you anymore about it. This is not an actual coaching call. It's a really interesting conversation to have and fascinating. Okay. We can lead that right into the next question, which is looking forward, what are your language learning goals for 2022? [00:43:00.710] - Shannon Oh, goodness. Master all my languages. No, I'm just kidding. That's horrible goal. So for me, I think my goals are always like about what I'm doing daily. Is it weird that my goal is to just keep doing what I'm doing, maintain my consistency that I've maintained for the last 600 odd days? It feels unambitious saying that, but at the same time, it's like that daily consistency over 365 days adds up to be quite a bit. [00:43:29.650] - Kerstin Oh, yes, absolutely it does. I think it's almost like does it still feel like a challenge, like a growth? [00:43:38.370] - Shannon I think so. Because really when you get down to it, fitting in language every single day is not easy. And there are some days that I'm crunching before midnight to try and get it in, but I get it in. And I think craving that consistency keeps me going because I think we've discussed it in this call before. There was a period where I took a pretty significant break from languages and basically wasn't doing anything at all. So rebuilding to this consistency that I have today has been a process. So I think continuing to show up for it is a good goal. When you commit to something like just doing something daily, it just feels less profound than saying by the end of 2022, I'm going to do this one big thing in this language and this one big thing in this language. [00:44:31.710] - Kerstin Yes. But it's a goal where it's much easier to stick with it and to see how you achieve it. So the only question there would be the only risk really that you have in that perspective would be what would happen if your streak was to drop. But I think that's not worry about it. Worry about it if it ever happens. But the whole idea is this isn't going to happen anyway. [00:44:57.100] - Shannon Well, I mean, you just have to aim for averages, right? So let's say something happens and I do take a day or two off if I pick it back up, when it's the time to pick it back up. Granted, yes, I lost my streaks, but I still got 98% of the year, let's say, and I think you have to think of it that way. So even though there may have been like a couple of bleeps on the radar, for the most part, it was consistent across the board. [00:45:25.950] - Kerstin I do have one area in my life where again, it's like because I've got a number to aim for. So for me, I don't care what happens day to day and if it's a yes or no. But last year for Christmas, I got that torture instrument of torture instruments that is an Apple Watch. And it gives you goals to aim for how many move goal and how many move minutes and stand and all that stuff. And I always hit that goal, I might have one day a month where I'm like, sorry, I'm so tired. But every single day I hit that move goal and there is something really cool about it. I don't think ahead. I just decide every morning like, Yep, go for it today. Go for it again. Go for it again. [00:46:13.740] - Kerstin But if I was to think about it, yes, thinking about it as a fact. Just a fact. Like, yes, this is what I do. This is who I am that works for me. But thinking about it as, oh, yes, I'm going to have to do this every day for the next month. Then it starts feeling like claustrophobic. Isn't that weird? If I take the perspective of and I'm really reflecting on the four tendencies, because this is a strategy advice for the rebel, which is somebody who resists everything and is a sort of resisting expectation strategy, you can counter that by going, well, yeah. But that's just the kind of person I am. And it's just part of how I roll. And for me, I think about language learning that way as well. Yeah. It's just what I do. There is no question in this that there's no I don't need to think about how and when and whether I'm going to do it as much because I am looking for inside of me just this confirmation that this is just how I roll. It's just what I do. It's precommitting, but different. Precommitting. But it's both precommitting fascinating. [00:47:17.860] - Kerstin Right. Okay, let's talk about these books because you've been teasing to me about the top three books of 2021. So I would love to hear from you. What were your top three books of 2021? [00:47:30.990] - Shannon Okay, I'm going to start with one, because Women in language is coming up. And the book is called all the Rage and it's by Darcy Lockman. There's another similar book that I also read this year called Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. And essentially, these talk about the gender gap, the gender divide, and how the expectations in the household and the workforce and just the reality around those things for men and women still aren't necessarily equal. And even when we live with partners who aim for equality, there's just still so much there's just a lot still kind of indoctrinated in us that make things just inequal. And I have a couple of quotes written down from the book if you want to discuss them. [00:48:22.970] - Kerstin Oh, yeah. [00:48:25.030] - Shannon Okay. So the first one is, in all honesty, life would be easier if I were single. I wouldn't be expecting anyone to help me and I wouldn't be upset if they didn't. What do you think about that? [00:48:37.870] - Kerstin This reminds me of there's a statistic maybe two or three years ago. They do a global happiness survey, don't they? And they found that for men, on the whole, obviously, this is across populations. Men are happier when they are in married relationships, whereas women on the whole, when they are married again over the population, they aren't as happy. So marriage does demand a little bit more than it does a woman over the statistical average of the population. And it makes me think of that as the sort of household chores, life responsibilities, life admin, all that stuff comes with so many expectations. And even if you have to really work towards a massive amount of clarity, if you're going to divide it up equally. And I think at least I found, like, the way I'm brought up, I feel the guilt of not doing it, even if I know something isn't really my job. And I've gotten a lot better at that. [00:49:50.490] - Shannon All right, so here's two more for you. The first is research shows that the transition between thinking about family and thinking about work can lead to difficulty concentrating, as well as negative self appraisals that make people, mothers in particular, feel that they are failing at both roles at the same time, at all times. And the second one is for a woman having insufficient time to attend to her family is associated with a greater likelihood of depression, which epidemiologists say may explain why employed women are more likely than employed men become depressed. [00:50:26.830] - Kerstin What do you make of that? [00:50:29.470] - Shannon It's interesting because I do see this. I do work at the same time, like a lot. My husband also works. I work from home, he goes into an office. So a lot of the household admin and things with the kids do fall on me, even though I work as many hours, if not more hours than my husband. It's just the way that looks is different. I have different flexibility, but at the same time, there is a lot of toggling back and forth between doing work tasks, doing kids tasks, and because I'm constantly having to multitask and switch, there is a certain degree where I do feel like I'm failing at both at times and it's hard. And I don't think I can say that my husband feels the same way. I mean, there's a bit of an assumption there, but it's definitely something I've talked about with him, like feeling that way. So I definitely think it's a thing. And it's not just family. Like, as far as kids, it's also family. And as far as, like, mother, my parents having the time to go and spend time with them, or even just like my husband, a lot of the time when the kids aren't here, we find ourselves trying to catch up on work projects rather than spending quality time with each other. [00:51:32.860] - Shannon He's family, too. So it's interesting. What about you? [00:51:37.690] - Kerstin I think what that brings up in me is sort of the I relate to, like I said, the guilt factor. And the thing that comes into my mind is that, again, it's just I don't know if this is true across populations or if it's even 100% true in my own lives, but I often feel like for any task that needs to be done as a woman, it can feel like the standard expected from you is higher. And often you see that in childcare, you see that reflected like this often said when you have, say, you've got a man dropping off a child at the school gates, it's still a sort of, oh, look at him. Oh, father here doing the fathering. How amazing. Whereas if it's a woman, it's like, well, it's your child's birthday and it's also Halloween. And where are the costumes and where are the cakes? And where is all this? And the standards expected are higher. And I think that's not necessarily just external pressure. That's also internalized pressure that we put on us. So we start wondering if we're doing the job well enough, even if nobody else is paying attention. [00:52:40.990] - Shannon So here's another similar one. There was a headline in Harvard Business Review a few years back that says Why women volunteer for Tasks that Don't Lead to Promotion. [00:52:52.730] - Kerstin Do you find yourself volunteering for tasks that don't lead to promotion? [00:52:55.820] - Shannon I think so. I think for me, I volunteered to do things just because I want to be helpful and valuable, but they don't necessarily equate to moving ahead. [00:53:05.350] - Kerstin I know that when I was in my old job and I don't know if this is a gender perspective or if I just had, I don't know, the wrong idea about the workplace. I felt like I certainly went above and beyond. I worked very hard and I expected the rewards. And I've heard this said about a particular thing about women. I expected the rewards to be proportionate to how much effort and heart and soul I put in a way that I didn't experience was truth at all. That's not the results I got. So I was giving it more and more. I don't know whether I was evaluating I would have ever been able to evaluate the task on whether it might lead to promotion or not. At that point, you necessarily as likely for some people to come into career and always think about promotion. I guess there's also an implication in there that promotion is always what you're going to have to want. [00:54:11.590] - Shannon All right, one more from this book, and then I'll move on to my other two. [00:54:14.280] - Kerstin Thank you for interviewing me. I'm very pleased to be on the Fluent Show today. [00:54:20.330] - Shannon When not explicitly encouraged to give themselves a break, mothers don't always sign up for one. [00:54:28.010] - Kerstin And signing up for a break is in what context? [00:54:31.100] - Shannon So let's say if a husband doesn't say, hey, let me watch the kids for the next hour. You go take like a bath or something, or you go shopping or you go out and enjoy a walk by yourself. If it's not offered to women, essentially, or mothers, mothers won't often ask for a break or like they won't opt in for a break. And I think for me, a lot of this has to do with mom guilt. To feel that you need a break from your kids makes you feel super guilty, I think, and even for me, too, if my husband or someone offers me help, I will often still turn it down because of mom guilt. [00:55:11.850] - Kerstin Do you think your husband feels in a similar way? I don't know if there is a dad guilt. I feel like Googling dad guilt because I've never heard of it in my life. It feels like you didn't baseball enough on a Sunday kind of a thing. The expectations I feel like the social expectations that we have here is so different. [00:55:33.200] - Shannon I think that there might be dad guilt, but I think the way that we treat men and the way that we treat like men's relationships with the kids, we almost don't let them admit that they feel it. Does that make sense? I'm sure there are dads who do feel guilty for working 12 hours a day, but they feel that there's an expectation that they work for those 12 hours. So they actually feel like they're not letting down their families by working those 12 hours because they're expected to be like the providers. So if they feel guilty for being away from their kids, maybe it's not the social norm to discuss that or let them feel that the same way a lot of the time, boys aren't supposed to cry and we make them feel and this gets into like a conversation from the book by Glenn and Doyle where it's like when a guy starts to cry, a lot of even though you don't want to feel that way, like women sometimes feel like man up or other men feel like man up if a man starts crying. [00:56:27.010] - Kerstin And I think it's an expression as well, we've been socialized that men are strong and men have got a job to do. And also being in this position where if you look through history, the oppression has been on the female side, then I think if you've got a man crying, you don't feel like you've got a lot of space to give as well, I think. And it's a way where because you feel like there isn't a lot of sympathy being given to you in this whole bloody system, then you don't feel like you've got a lot of sympathy left. And I think it makes it harder to feel like, why should I have any compassionate sympathy right now when there's so many occasions on which I've had to do things that I don't agree with? Gosh. So I have a theory around language learning and around particularly language learning in sort of your 30s and 40s maybe into your 50s ages when you're most likely to have small children around. And I don't know if it is a child care thing. I don't know if it's a work thing but my theory is that what I observed is that I think the numbers of men who are in those ages really stick with language learning as a sort of hobby. [00:57:41.770] - Kerstin And the kind of mastery thing is a little bit higher. And I think that there is something about the guilt factor making it harder to prioritize this hobby unless you find something that you can attach it to. That feels significant because it's sort of me time to learn a language. Do you feel guilty ever for doing a language stuff, or do you feel like now it's important and it has to be done pre committed? [00:58:11.010] - Shannon I think I feel guilty for doing almost anything that's for me. When I go to my dance classes, the kids can't come because there's nowhere for them to wait for me. Whereas, like for karate, they can sit on the side and the seats where the parents normally sit when the kids classes are happening. So whenever I take away time to go do those things, I try not to. But my lizard brain does still feel guilty for taking time. And even still, my husband has come to terms with the fact that if we're watching TV, I'm going to be on my phone studying languages and it still kind of bugs them. And I still do feel guilty that I'm not, like, engaging with him more during that time. But it's like the only time that I can do it. I do, but I try and not let it consume me. [00:58:56.800] - Kerstin Yeah. There's a certain reaction to the level of sacrifice or like, how much are you willing to sacrifice when not just for family but as a mother? Maybe you're expected to sacrifice a little more than you are as a father. And that doesn't just come from external, that comes from internal because it's what we've been learning all our lives. Welcome to the feminist corner of the Fluent Show, but thank you so much for the book Is All the Rage by Darcy Lockman [00:59:35.260] - Shannon And then Fair Play by Eve Rodsky. [00:59:39.570] - Kerstin Okay, I'm going to pop those in the show notes for you listeners as well. And I think you might be here thinking, what is this got to do with language learning? But I think it does have to do a lot with language learning because it is just this thing that we prioritize that doesn't instantly, I don't know, feed the kids or look like it earns money, etc. For but like Shannon said, you're tying it to your career, for example. And I think it'd be interesting as well to look at the extent to which mothers who are language learners engage with their kids in the target languages, and that being part of the justification. It's a good thing to do. So that's a different show, which we will cover at some point in the future. Does that count as one book? [01:00:19.500] - Shannon That's one book for me. I've got two, and neither of them are language books as well, because I think one of the other things that I've taken away this year just really quickly is a more holistic language learning approach and looking at how other aspects of my life are affecting my language learning. If I eat certain foods for lunch, I'm more likely to want to take a nap, then continue working because my body is converting so much of its energy to digesting those heavier foods and all of these different things. So like looking at stuff not necessarily that is created for language learning, but created for other aspects that do in some ways affect how my language learning goes, if that makes sense. [01:00:55.480] - Kerstin Absolutely. I'm a strong believer that our lives have such an impact on our language learning, you can't divorce the two. [01:01:02.690] - Shannon So my next book, on a related note, is called The One Thing by Gary Keller. And here's a quote for you. People do not decide their futures. They decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures. [01:01:16.240] - Kerstin It's precommitting. It's the precommitting book. [01:01:18.640] - Shannon And then another quote is none of us knows our limits. Borders and boundaries may be clear on a map, but when we apply them to our lives, the lines aren't so apparent. I was once asked if I thought thinking big was realistic. I paused to reflect on this and then said, Let me ask you a question first. Do you know what your limits are? No, was the reply. So I said that it seems the question was irrelevant. No one knows their ultimate ceiling for achievement, so worrying about it is a waste of time. What if someone told you that you could never achieve above a certain level, that you were required to pick an upper limit which you could never exceed? What would you pick? A low one or a high one? [01:01:58.910] - Kerstin This is going deep. This is some life philosophy stuff. And what did you take? What did you find the most useful from that? [01:02:06.210] - Shannon We put caps on ourselves, right? So we say, I'm probably only going to get this good, or I'm probably only going to get to here. I'm probably only going to be able to commit this time. I'm probably not going to learn any new languages this year because 16 is enough. We put these caps on ourselves and we almost like self restrict. So what if we stop thinking about what our limitations are and just go with what we can do and not aim? Not necessarily aim for more, but don't aim for less. [01:02:37.610] - Kerstin Yes. And not talk yourself out of things. And really just say you might as well. If the outcome is that you might fail at something, then you might as well try. Because if you don't try, then you already fail. It's that thing about the missing all the shots that you don't take. I used to say that a lot when I was in Germany, and I think I had a student shout out to Brandi who brought it to me first. So when I was a German tutor, we've said that a lot. You might as well just say a sentence to me now because if you don't say a sentence, then you definitely haven't said one. A good one. [01:03:13.100] - Shannon I love it. [01:03:13.540] - Kerstin Okay, so that is the one thing the motivational listeners. I'm putting that on my list. That sounds really good. Who's the author? Shannon. [01:03:23.040] - Shannon Gary Keller. [01:03:23.870] - Kerstin Gary Keller. Shout out to Gary and your last book. [01:03:27.140] - Shannon It's Indestructible by Indestructible by Nir Eyal. [01:03:32.930] - Kerstin Okay. [01:03:35.330] - Shannon Yes. So this one kind of really resonated with me because I'm huge on to do list. So we need to make a schedule. But where do we begin? The common approach is to make a to do list. We write down all the things we want to do and hope we'll find the time throughout the day to do them. Unfortunately, this method has some serious flaws. Anyone who has tried keeping such a list knows that many tasks tend to get pushed from one day to the next and the next. Instead of starting with what we are going to do, we should begin with why we're going to do it. And to do that, we must begin with our values. [01:04:06.950] - Kerstin What is the most useful thing that you get out of that book? [01:04:10.250] - Shannon I would have to say this is actually where Pre commitment came from for me was this book. So that was the most useful thing that I got. But also he has this whole approach to distractions and how we think about them and we need to think about them as triggers. And then by thinking of them in that way, we can change basically how we react to them as well. [01:04:34.370] - Kerstin What does that mean? Triggers. [01:04:36.200] - Shannon So basically a trigger is something. It's like a queue. So when we can talk about in all sorts of ways, like a trauma trigger. So if someone says a certain thing to you or approaches you in a certain way, it may trigger a trauma reaction because of a history that you have with that particular trigger. So as a parent, your kids can trigger you. Like certain behaviors can trigger you as a parent, certain things with your spouse from your past experience can trigger you certain. Like your phone dinging with a notification. That's a trigger. It's a trigger for you to look at your phone. So thinking about things as triggers and not distractions. So your phone isn't a distraction. Your phone, the notification is a trigger. So basically, re evaluating the way that we assess things that distract us from what we're trying to do or what tasks we're on allows us to approach them slightly differently so that we can fix our trigger responses. [01:05:26.670] - Kerstin Overall, it sounds to me like you have been doing some incredibly deep work this year and some real introspective stuff when it comes to not just it's more than just am I going to get fluent in French or whatever, or am I going to learn Brazilian Portuguese? It's really about what matters here. And how do you intend to live your life? Do you feel like this was a year where you did more of that than usual? [01:05:53.170] - Shannon I think I've definitely done a lot more self reflection and personal growing this last year than in the past. [01:06:00.920] - Kerstin I think that's really amazing, actually. And I'm really grateful that you came and shared so much of it with me. And I want to have a lot of conversations about it with you, grab a beer, stop recording, and then have more of these conversations. Because this is really important stuff. And it's weird, right? Because language learning can be. I resist the calls again, maybe the question I resist sort of external pressures for constant self optimization and self measuring for the sake of just mindlessly improving yourself. But like you say, you have to start with your values and you have to start with what matters to you. And you have to I love what you brought with reflecting on the one thing and the quote that you brought, which is all about allowing yourself to not think bigger or think whatever, but allowing yourself to really accept the fact that you are a person who has potential and that your potential can actually take you to wherever you want to be. But it could take you further. It's almost inconceivable. And for you, it sounds to me like everything all those actions you're taking are the steps that you're taking to take you there without thinking so much about the end goal and the end result. [01:07:21.350] - Kerstin So, Shannon, is there anything else looking ahead to the year 2022 that you want to share with me or you want to share with the Fluent Show audience anything you want to be held to in a year? [01:07:32.990] - Shannon I want to have a great Women in Language 2022. And I hope to see all of you there in the chat. [01:07:38.910] - Kerstin Absolutely. Women in Language is coming up. Women in Language is running this year on the fourth to the 6 March. So as this episode is out, I believe that you'll be able to get your tickets. And as every year our tickets are $29 for over 25 brilliant speakers and we've got a panel, we've got speakeasies. We're going to run a raffle. There's so much going on every year. Women in Language, we so love to invite you and you'll be so welcome to join us for Women in Language 2022. And that is it from me. So this is traditional sign up for the traditional episode, Big Reflections on 2021. It is Goodbye from Me and goodbye from Shannon Kennedy. [01:08:23.050] - Speaker 3 Thank you for listening to the Fluent Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please support the show by subscribing for new episodes and leaving a rating and review in your podcast app. You can visit us at fluentlanguage.co.uk anytime don't forget that you can send us your questions and feedback to hello at fluentlanguage.co.uk or you can find the show on Twitter. [01:08:45.620] - Kerstin Say hello over there. [01:08:46.870] - Speaker 3 It's @thefluentshow and on Instagram. It's hashtag #lovefluentshow. We're always happy to hear from you and we read every message and review. See you next episode.