Full video

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welcome to the listening Time Podcast

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hey everybody this is Connor and you're

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listening to episode

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10027 of The Listening Time Podcast

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thank you all for listening today my

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voice is a little bit weak because I'm a

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little bit sick uh so I'm sorry about

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that I appreciate you bearing with me I

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appreciate your patience by the way

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speaking of patience patience uh this is

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the topic of today's episode patience so

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I want to talk about this today uh and

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talk about some different situations in

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which patience is

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required uh it's necessary so I think

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this will be a good topic for all of us

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because I think that pretty much

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everybody has room for improvement when

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it comes comes to Patience by the way we

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use that phrase room for improvement

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this just means that you have space to

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improve you are not perfect there are

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still improvements that you can make so

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we all have room for improvement when it

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comes to patience so this should be a

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good topic for today's episode and uh

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hopefully it will inspire all of us to

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be a little bit more patient in our

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everyday lives and uh hopefully that

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will help us out so that's what we'll

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talk about today remember that you can

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sign up for my us conversations podcast

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if you feel ready to start practicing

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with real conversations between native

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speakers in each episode I talk to

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someone from a different part of the

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country from the the us and we talk

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about a bunch of different topics and

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you get to learn a lot about the us our

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topics uh these conversations are really

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interesting and we speak naturally and I

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provide the transcript for you so you

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can follow along and you also have the

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definitions of new words and phrases

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that you might not know that we use

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during the conversation so if you're

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interested in that the link is in the

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want my Advanced podcast episodes uh if

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the description below if you become a

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listening Time family member you get two

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with anyone else you know who's learning

3:26

English all right let's get started our

3:29

are your ears ready you know what time

3:33

it is it's listening

3:36

time okay let's talk about patience so

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first of all I need to mention that I'm

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not the most patient person in the world

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uh this is an area in which I need to

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improve a lot uh I am willing to admit

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that uh because I'm not the most patient

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person and I really want to improve in

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this area I uh look at my wife for

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example she's more patient than I am and

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I try to learn from her because uh there

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are times when we're both dealing with

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the same

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situation and she is patient and calm

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and I'm more agitated uh the word

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agitated means that you are uh bothered

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and anxious uh for some reason so I

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might be agitated and yet she's

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perfectly fine and we're dealing with

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the same issue so uh I can see that

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other people uh have more patience than

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me sometimes s and I really want to

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improve in this regard I need to improve

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and I try to do so every day so I'm not

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talking uh from the perspective of

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someone who has tons and tons of

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patience uh I'm talking as someone who

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needs to improve in this area so what

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are some different situations in which

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we need to be patient the first one that

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comes to mind is when we're sitting in

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traffic by the way we use that phrase

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sitting in traffic uh when uh we talk

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about being in your car and you're in

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traffic it's moving very slowly or

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sometimes it's not moving at all we say

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that you're sitting in traffic so this

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is the first situation that comes to

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mind when I think of patience because

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it's a very common occurrence and for me

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it's one of the most frustrating

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situations I hate being in traffic it's

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uh one of the worst things I'm sure a

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lot of you agree with me about this so

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if we're not patient then traffic can

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really bother us it can really Annoy Us

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and sometimes it can ruin your day

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because you allow your mood to uh be

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negatively

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affected by the fact that you have to

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wait in traffic so this is something

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that we want to avoid because we can't

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control traffic it's completely outside

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of our control and if we get bothered uh

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by

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traffic this doesn't help us right we

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can't do anything to change the

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situation to make the traffic suddenly

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go away we have no control over that so

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I don't think it's worth it to uh lose

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our

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patience uh to lose our cool and get

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really angry when we're stuck in traffic

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there's no benefit to that by the way

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when we say that you lose your cool this

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means that you lose your patience and

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you snap you get mad you get really

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frustrated right so we don't want to

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lose our cool just because traffic is

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bad so that's the the first thing that

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comes to mind because I'm guilty of this

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sometimes when I'm stuck in traffic I uh

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get

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frustrated and uh I let it affect my

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mood but I definitely shouldn't do this

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so that's one that I need to work on

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another situation in which we need

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patience is when we're dealing with a

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difficult person we've all been there we

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all know how this is by the way when I

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say that we've all been there what I'm

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saying is we've all been in this

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situation so we've all been there we've

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all had to deal with a difficult person

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uh in some situation or another and uh

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sometimes we can lose our cool and we

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can allow this situation or this person

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to frustrate us to the point where we

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act uh differently we don't do what we

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should do or maybe we talk in a way uh

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that isn't the best so I'm sure you know

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what I'm talking about uh sometimes we

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have to deal with difficult people and

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it's important to not let them uh bring

9:30

us down to the level where we're getting

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really mad uh for no good reason right

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sometimes we get angry at another person

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uh for a legitimate reason obviously I'm

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not talking about that I'm not talking

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about being angry with a person because

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they've done some horrible thing they've

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committed some Wicked crime crime or

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something like that that's not what I'm

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referring to I'm referring to situations

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where a person is just hard to deal with

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and you need to be patient with them so

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that can happen in the workplace that

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can happen uh just in public at stores

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with employees at certain companies in a

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lot of

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situations so dealing with these people

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requires patience and it's good to uh

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act patiently in these situations

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because sometimes we are the difficult

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people sometimes I am the difficult

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person or you are the difficult person

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and other people have to deal with us so

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I think that we should uh be patient

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with people because sometimes we need

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people to be patient with us so it goes

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both ways and another situation in which

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we need to be patient is listening to

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people you might not think of this as a

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situation that requires patience but it

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does because people talk and we should

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try to listen and sometimes people talk

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a lot or their story that they're

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telling takes a long time and you can

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get bored or you can start to uh get

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distracted or you can stop listening for

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example and we sometimes lose patience

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uh when we have to listen to other

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people talk because everybody loves to

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uh talk about what they want to talk

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about people like to uh be the ones to

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share things and talk about things but

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not everybody likes to listen and that's

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a more important skill is being able to

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listen when other people talk to you and

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that's something that we should all uh

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try to improve on and make sure that

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we're patient and we are listening to

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people and we are genuinely caring about

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what other people are saying and if you

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do this if you demonstrate patience in

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this situation you're going to have

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better relationships people are going to

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like you more you're going to have

12:57

fewer uh argu arguments maybe uh the

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other person is going to feel more uh

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cared about for

13:08

example and you'll have better

13:10

communication overall so I think that we

13:14

should all practice uh with uh just

13:19

being able to shut our mouths and listen

13:23

to other people speak and not just

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immediately try to uh uh talk and

13:30

interrupt and say what we want to say we

13:34

should let the other person finish uh

13:37

before we uh start giving our opinion

13:41

about something for example so that's

13:44

another situation another time when we

13:47

need to be patient is when we're

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learning a language this is very

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relevant to all of you and to me because

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I'm a language learner learning a

13:59

language takes a long time I constantly

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get questions from people uh asking

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about their language learning

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process and usually they express

14:15

frustration that they aren't

14:19

improving uh fast or they feel stuck or

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they feel like their progress is uh not

14:30

what they want it to be they feel like

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they have a problem they ask me

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questions and they frame the question

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kind of like uh saying that there's

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something wrong with them why aren't I

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improving how I should be uh I have a

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problem with this what's wrong with me

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what should I be doing differently I

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constantly get questions like this and

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these are legitimate questions I'm not

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saying that these aren't good questions

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however what I want to say is the vast

15:13

majority of the time uh when people ask

15:17

me this

15:18

question uh it's not uh like these

15:22

people are uh studying in the complete

15:26

wrong way and they're wasting their time

15:28

time and they need to completely

15:32

change uh everything about their

15:34

language learning routine it's not that

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usually they are just uh advancing

15:43

slowly and they don't realize it and

15:46

they don't realize how long it takes to

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learn a language okay let me give you an

15:53

example of my language learning process

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I've been speaking Spanish

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for over a

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decade not a year or a couple years not

16:05

five years not eight years no I've been

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speaking Spanish for over 10 years over

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a decade now okay my wife is a Spanish

16:17

speaker uh she only speaks to me in

16:20

Spanish okay I lived in Mexico for six

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years my whole life was in Spanish for 6

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years and yet today over 10 years later

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I'm still in the process of learning

16:38

Spanish not actively I don't actively

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study Spanish however I'm constantly

16:46

learning new things new words there are

16:50

things that I don't understand uh there

16:53

are things that I

16:55

misunderstand there are things that I

16:57

need uh people to repeat because I

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didn't get it and I make mistakes all

17:05

the time all of this is uh what I deal

17:11

with and I've been speaking Spanish for

17:14

over a decade I've lived in the country

17:17

for many years my wife only speaks in

17:21

Spanish to me and yet I'm still

17:25

improving I still make mistakes I still

17:28

have an accent I still don't sound

17:31

anything like a native speaker Etc so

17:36

just know that learning a language takes

17:39

a really long time in terms of getting

17:43

to a very high level of course you can

17:46

reach an intermediate level uh in a

17:50

pretty short period of time if you

17:52

dedicate a lot of hours to it uh and you

17:55

can even reach an advanced level in a

17:59

relatively short period of time

18:02

depending on your motivation and how

18:05

many hours you're dedicating to it

18:08

however when uh your goal is to become

18:13

really good at a

18:15

language that is inevitably going to

18:19

take a long time when I say that

18:22

something is inevitable what I'm saying

18:25

is that it's unavoidable so there's no

18:29

way to avoid this if you want to reach a

18:32

really high level in English then that's

18:35

going to take a really long time okay

18:39

that's just how it is we need to be

18:43

patient and similarly another situation

18:47

in which we need to have patience is

18:50

when we are trying to achieve a goal uh

18:54

learning a language is one goal that's

18:57

one example

18:59

but when we want to achieve any goal we

19:03

need patience if you want to lose weight

19:08

that's not going to happen tomorrow

19:11

right uh you can't just expect that to

19:14

happen in 24 hours you need to stick

19:19

with it for a certain period of time

19:23

before uh you actually see these results

19:27

by the way the phrase stick with it just

19:30

means that you continue doing something

19:34

so you need to stick with it and be

19:37

patient and eventually you'll see

19:40

results but not

19:43

overnight the word overnight refers to

19:47

from one day to the next you're not

19:50

going to see results in just one day you

19:54

need to have a little more patience than

19:56

that or if your goal is to learn some

20:01

new skill maybe you want to learn a

20:05

programming language or something like

20:07

that that's not going to happen

20:10

overnight you need patience you need to

20:13

accept that this is going to take some

20:16

time and uh eventually you'll reach your

20:20

goal right if you stick with it but

20:23

patience is necessary when we set goals

20:27

and we want to to achieve these goals

20:30

and another situation that requires a

20:34

lot of patience is when we're going

20:37

through government

20:40

processes this is probably the worst one

20:44

for me this is the thing that is the

20:47

most frustrating and tests my patience

20:52

the most when I am going through a

20:56

government process

20:58

and the government takes a long time to

21:03

do the process and uh respond to me or

21:08

to do what they need to do this can be

21:12

really

21:13

frustrating I need to have more patience

21:16

when it comes to this because this is

21:20

inevitable we all deal with these

21:24

processes uh we all live in country

21:28

that have uh governments that are uh not

21:34

efficient and not very uh well-run and

21:41

are not uh the best institutions with

21:45

the best customer service and all of

21:49

that all of us are in this situation

21:53

regardless of uh which country you live

21:56

in so we need to have patience and know

22:01

that these processes are going to take a

22:04

while and uh we can't do that much to

22:10

influence this uh so when my wife was

22:13

going through the immigration process to

22:17

live in the US this took a long time

22:22

this took multiple years so this was

22:26

something that required a lot of

22:28

patience and at times it felt like it

22:33

was never going to end but of course it

22:36

did and we got through the process and

22:41

uh everything is okay now but during

22:45

that period it was hard to have patience

22:49

sometimes and that was something that

22:52

really taught me to uh just wait and to

22:58

not allow things that I can't control to

23:02

uh negatively impact my life and my uh

23:07

daily life and my my mood uh I needed to

23:14

kind of uh not focus on this process and

23:20

just live my life be patient and wait so

23:25

that was a big one and one more

23:28

situation that I wanted to mention

23:31

probably the most important one uh the

23:35

most important

23:37

situation in which we need patience is

23:41

when you are parenting when you have

23:45

kids when you have kids your level of

23:49

patience is tested uh in a way uh unlike

23:55

anything else so you're dealing with

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small people

24:03

humans that have not learned to act

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properly behave well communicate

24:13

effectively they don't know this yet

24:15

they don't have these skills especially

24:18

at Young ages so if you don't have

24:23

patience this is going to be very hard

24:26

for you you're going to deal with a lot

24:29

of situations in which you uh are

24:35

annoyed or irritated or you feel

24:39

desperate because you know uh how

24:44

something uh needs to be but your kid

24:48

doesn't they don't know this uh or they

24:53

do the opposite or they uh do a lot of

24:58

things that can possibly uh irritate us

25:03

and affect our mood and they can cause

25:07

us to uh lose our cool sometimes and we

25:12

need to be careful with this and we need

25:15

to exercise patience and to really

25:20

understand that kids need instruction

25:24

and discipline and they need time they

25:28

need time to learn these things and to

25:32

learn how to behave properly learn how

25:36

to communicate uh learn how to express

25:40

their feelings in a good and uh normal

25:45

way they need time before they can do

25:49

all of this effectively so we can't

25:53

expect them to just be born with the

25:57

these skills that's simply not reality

26:03

and as a parent uh patience is necessary

26:08

you need to understand that uh these

26:11

processes take a long time uh these kids

26:15

will need a long time before they really

26:20

learn all these lessons and uh they can

26:24

do things the way that you can do them

26:27

as an adult so for me that's uh probably

26:32

the most important situation in which

26:35

patients is uh definitely required so

26:40

those were some different situations but

26:42

there are plenty of others I hope this

26:45

episode was interesting for you and

26:48

hopefully it got you thinking a little

26:51

bit about your uh patience levels and

26:56

maybe it can and inspire all of us to be

26:59

a little more patient and if you feel

27:02

ready to practice with real

27:05

conversations between native speakers

27:08

then make sure to sign up for my us

27:10

conversations podcast the link is in the

27:13

description below this episode uh you'll

27:17

love this these conversations are really

27:20

interesting and it's great practice for

27:23

your listening so make sure to sign up

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that's patreon.com SL USC

27:29

conversations and if you want to join my

27:32

membership and get my specialized

27:34

training for your listening and your

27:37

pronunciation and my Advanced podcast

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episodes then make sure to join my

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27:46

listeningtime and if you're a Spanish or

27:48

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27:50

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27:56

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27:58

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28:02

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thank you for listening to this episode

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and I'll talk to you on the next episode

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28:17

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