Your pulse quickens, palms are sweaty, and your hands are shaking. You’re about to speak a foreign language for the first time, in a strange land. gulp….
People tell me all the time that they really wish they could learn another language — but they just don’t have the knack for it. I call b@!!$^%# on that one. Just the same as I call BS on all the excuses that we all conjure up for not creating our Dream Business. Why do we do that?
Simple — it’s SCARY! But there actually are very good reasons why it’s scary. There’s some biology involved, and a little bit of psychology. So hang in there with me while I get technical. It’s our lizard brain, as Seth Godin calls it. Aka — the Dragon of Resistance. It’s that primitive part of our brain that nature gave us to protect us from big hairy monsters. If it can eat us, we need to be able to run. Fast. No time to think.
The trouble with that is that there aren’t very many T-Rexes lurking around the corner these days. So that little left-over piece of our brain shoots us danger signals where there’s really not any.
Learning another language is a big change. It kicks in the lizard brain and stops us dead in our tracks. Just like doing our Dream Work or creating the life we always wanted. But there’s more to it than that. There’s also that “I’m smart” mindset. Us Grown Ups don’t like to look stupid. We don’t want to risk saying “Donde esta el baño” that we practiced for 3 weeks before our vacation, because guess what? Some well-meaning local will grin broadly and… REPLY! Oh crap! What did they say? I think I caught a word or two. Quick! Grin, nod, and RUN!
Our belief, even though we aren’t really aware of it, is that if we were really smart, we would learn the language super fast and never make a mistake. It takes an enormous amount of guts and stick-to-it-iveness for an adult to learn a foreign language. You have to be willing to fall down, get back up, and smile when people laugh at your mistakes. It’s HARD!
And guess what? That fear of failure and embarrassment, and a mindset that we’re smart and we should know everything is exactly the same reason that more people don’t do their Dream Work. There are real, proven reasons. Now you know. So what are ya gonna do about it?
Parlez Vous Entrepreneur?
