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Full Transcript

(00:00): We have a story today, and it's one that applies to language learners and instructors alike. So make sure that you're listening until the end. So when I started CULTIVATE, and this is when I was telling just anybody about the idea, friends, acquaintances, anybody that I chatted with just, Hey, I have this great idea that I want to test out. Do you know anyone who might be interested? So I spoke with an acquaintance at the time who told me about his brother, who was frustrated with his teachers, et cetera, but then eventually got to the point where he got a job in Switzerland and was able to kind of make do there. And I said, well, why don't you just give my contact information to your brother and let's see if we're a good fit. And this is where it gets interesting. He told me, no, Michelle, my brother is fine.

(00:48) My brother knows how to speak English. This is what I'm trying to talk about. This is the whole thing that we're missing here. Inside of language education, inside of the dialogue on language, we're forgetting the fact that even if people have advanced levels of a language, that does not mean that they know how to communicate effectively in the workplace. And I know that this is a problem simply because of the number of people that I have worked with who have told me nobody is able to work on this area. Or rather, there aren't many people who are able to address this gap. There aren't many people who are qualified or trained enough or even lucid enough to see that there is a gap. And why are you one of the only people that can understand what I'm actually going through? And I'll tell you why I understand it's because I had the privilege or the curse sometimes I'm not sure to have been raised inside of both native and non-native environments for this language.

(01:52) So my point is I saw it always from both sides. And when I entered the workforce myself, I noticed that, wow, this is something that we are having to deal with on top of the fact that we need to deal with the language and the saying that says that you can only meet someone as deeply as they've met themselves. Well, I would add onto that, that you can only as a person empathize to the level that you can recognize. And that doesn't mean that you needed to have gone through something to be able to recognize it. It means that without talking about this issue, without actually having conversations, without people who go and say, actually you know what? I might to you look like a straight up advanced speaker who's essentially native level fluency, but I still don't know what's going on. That is the stuff that I see every single day because that is the stuff that people bring to me.

(02:52) This is not me going out there to randomly find some niche to put myself into. I certainly don't need to be doing that. I didn't need to create this. I created this out of the present need. So how does this relate to you specifically? Well, this relates to how you choose your working partner, and that's from both sides. Whether you are on the learning side or on the instruction side or the coaching side or whatever term you want to say. How you work this out, this fit question is everything. It's everything. I don't take people who are looking for traditional classes because that's not going to be a good fit. And I don't need to convince people that this is a problem because those people who recognize what I'm saying, recognize the things that I'm starting to put out, recognize the fact that this is something they are going through.

(03:45) They find me. That's how this works. I think in the online language industry, we are met with so many people trying to convince you, trying to sell to you, trying to say You didn't see the best way to do this. That is a logic that I can't get behind. And that's something that I think if you are a customer, so you are a language learner, customer and user of all these different products and services, you are used to people trying to convince you why you need to go this way. Now, can I try to show you what I offer? Absolutely. But that's not the same as me selling to you. Whether you are a language learner or you are on the instruction side. Thinking about fit is also thinking about empathy and thinking about how someone can meet you, where you are, how someone can address the needs that you actually go through.

(04:44) It's the reason also why many times my consultations are not even consultations to feed into my products and services, they're consultations so that somebody can ask me, Hey, can you take a look at what I've gone through so far and can you make recommendations why I don't have any interest in creating a massive Instagram following? Because why? Because why If 99% of those people are going to be people who are not interested in hearing what I have to say, why I would rather go one person a week, which is essentially the way it's going now because the algorithm doesn't necessarily like this. And so this is why my business model does not rely on my social media. My social media is here to start finding those who actually can understand this message. I know my cat randomly appeared in this video. I had to cut because she jumped onto my lap. But alright, so just remember this. Remember this. It's not about needing to convince people, it's about knowing where you are and about how that other person is going to match up with you. That's like a life lesson, but it's really relevant for language. And we will see you next time. Say bye to the people.