​English language is a must have skill for me to reach my goal. Not just conversational level but the level of professional. Recently I was stunned when I recognized what my goal really meant to me. But there was no going back. No excuse. I do have made a decision to become a professional speaker in English. Why English? To reach larger audience! I    am not interested in English itself. It is just a means to reach my audience. I just need English to communicate with my audience.

I wasn't a person who dedicated to English learning. I consider myself as an average level of English learner for a long time until I set my goal to be a speaker. After setting the goal in 2011, I got serious, took English classes and online courses, went to Hawaii for a one month ESL program, took a three months business course in Hawaii , joined Toastmasters, even went to attend a NSA convention. However, the progress was far behind from my expectation. I got frustrated by my slow learning.

In 2017, I made a decision to change my first language. The frustration I had been having about my language skills pushed me to do so. I declared that my first language was now English. Committed. No excuse. I thought I needed to give up something important. I needed to 'sacrifice' something to get what I really want. I heard it before from my mentor. And now I understand what it really means. It took almost four years for me to understand this one simple wisdom. Sacrifice was needed.

It's not easy to live with English in Japan because people uses a different language. Naturally, people expect me to speak in Japanese. Yet I need to train my mind to think in English even if I am surrounded by Japanese language. It sounds crazy. I know! But this is my choice. Do you have this kind of choice for you? Something people would call you crazy?

Even though I set my goal to be a speaker in 2011, I didn't get much progress until I met Bob Proctor. The impact of Bob Proctor's live event in 2014 was big. I changed my self-image. I changed my beliefs about the world. I started questioning everything I had been thinking to be true. Is borrowing money bad? Really? Is doing many things bad? Really? Is pursuing my dream bad? Is being selfish bad? How so?  

My decision making became very quick. Basically I fully followed my heart, not being worried about the consequences. Everything became much clear and I started taking actions in a wide variety of areas.

The obvious change for people around me was my appearance. I had been wearing glasses for 20 years and I took a laser operation to get rid of them. I put braces to get my teeth better aligned. I changed my attire to match my new self-image.

The changes were not limited to my appearance. I took seminars abroad frequently, started to take accent reduction training, hired translators to publish a book. I ordered my autograph for the book. I even practiced how to writing alphabets correctly.

The year of 2014 was for me a milestone, where I got clarity. Three years of engagement with my goal, I got the clarity. I started my transformation. By the way, here is a quote worth memorizing:

"Clarity comes from engagement, not from thought." - Marie Forleo

Just thinking about something doesn't give you clarity you need. For me, taking Bob's live event was the thing that gave me clarity. Are you also in the process of your transformation? Or just thinking about it?

Toastmasters was a good place to immerse myself with English. But it was not enough for me to close the gap between where I was and where I wanted to be. I needed to study the contents I would deliver as a speaker.

While watching many YouTube videos, I was fascinated by people such as Larry Winget, Dr. Wayne Dyer, Les Brown, and Bob Proctor. Especially, I was attracted by Bob Proctor, one of the stars of the movie The Secret.

In 2012 or so, I bought his audio program and listened it many times. I didn't understand very well but I felt that he was telling me something extremely important. I wanted to know more. I listened it again and again. I felt like it was not English that prevented me from understanding it. The difficulty came from the depth of the contents.

I checked his website and found his 13 months coaching program. I was interested but hesitated to buy it because I thought it was expensive, something like $6,000. A funny thing happened almost a year later. I visited his website again and signed up for another program, which was 6 days live event in Toronto where he lived. The price for the event was much higher than that of the coaching program I rejected a year before. Why? My desire to know more got much stronger at this point. I didn't want to waste my time anymore I thought.

In May 2014, I was in Westin Hotel in Toronto attending the event. I couldn't understand the program because of my lack of English ability. But I changed. I reinvented myself. I started believing something big in me. How could I transform myself even though I couldn't understand the language?

I cannot explain but Bob Proctor became my role model and my mentor at this point. Do you have your role models and mentors?

During my four months stay in Hawaii, I saw a flyer on a window of the business school, which was by a NPO called Toastmasters. The flyer said that Toastmasters was a place for people to improve their speaking and leadership skills and their meeting was held in the school regularly and they welcomed guests.

I googled it for further information and found it helpful for me. I asked my classmates about it and some of them knew it already. One of classmates from Taiwan was actually a member of the organization. So, I attended a meeting with him as a guest.

The meeting was very well organized and the atmosphere was very friendly and nurturing. Most of the members were native speakers of English and I couldn't understand much of them because of my lack of English skills. Yet, I felt being welcomed! The day I attended the meeting for the first time, I decided to sign up for the club and I became a member officially. During my stay in Hawaii, I attended meetings regularly and at the last meeting I did my first speech myself in the meeting, which was called 'Ice Breaker'. I wrote my script, practiced it, and delivered it. It was a very new experience for me and I really enjoyed it. 

I transferred my membership in 2012 when I came back home in Japan. I like the organization because it gives me opportunities to immerse myself with English, which is precious especially in my place. My curiosity about the organization brought me to it's biggest event, an annual international convention. In 2012, I went to Orlando, FL to attend one. I just wanted to see everything so that I could decide whether I wanted to fully commit to it or not.

The Toastmasters International Convention I attended for the first time was great. Around 2,000 participants gathered from literally all over the world. An amazing thing was that they all spoke the same language, English. I was very fascinated with the situation. Many people had strong accent including me but at least they used English as a common language. If you attend some type of international event like this, translation service would be available. But not for Toastmasters. I felt like I saw the future of the planet, where people can communicate much effectively and easily by using the same language. "This is it!" I thought.

​Since I joined Toastmasters in 2011, I attend the international convention every year. Orlando in 2012, Cincinnati in 2013, Kuala Lumpur in 2014, Las Vegas in 2015, Washington DC in 2016, Vancouver in 2017. And I will be going to Chicago this year for sure. Actually, I've booked the hotel already! 

Toastmasters surely opened a new door for me to get global, to go outside of my county. Interesting thing is that Toastmasters has been for 90 years. I found it only because I set my goal to be a speaker. The law of attraction! "Everything is already here." You just cannot see it unless you are ready.

To get the language skills, I planned to take a four months business course in Hawaii in 2011 so that I could improve my English skills and get business knowledge at the same time. It also helps maintain my green card status. I aimed three birds with one stone.

The half of the participants were from Japan and other half were from other Asian countries. So, the only common language was English and we were told to use only English during the program. It made sense and it was frustrating too. Not be able to say what you want to say is VERY frustrating. Anyways, we talked only in English. That was a part of the training.

Before moving to Hawaii, I had been immersing myself with English daily basis, mainly by listening to audio programs. They were very helpful in two ways. One was that I could immerse myself whenever and wherever I was. Thanks to ipod! The other was that I could shut out unnecessary information from environment outside to some extent. Most information out there can be just distractions. I just needed to focus on my journey so to speak without being distracted by environment. 

Not only taking the business course in Hawaii, I challenged myself by taking daily Yoga class too. Yoga was something I had been doing for five years at this point and I wanted to experience more advanced practice. Thanks for the Internet, I found a great Yoga studio in Honolulu area.

To participate the yoga classes, I needed a car. Instead of renting a car, I decided to buy a car in Hawaii for my four months stay. It was much easier to rent a car but I wanted to do something challenging, something I had never done before. I found something called Craigslist, where people could buy and sell such like a second-hand car. I contacted a guy who were selling Toyota Corolla for $2500 on the list and we made a deal. Now I was the owner of the car.

My daily life was like this: I would get up at 5:00 everyday except Saturday and make my lunch box, then drive to the Yoga studio located in Honolulu. Then after the Yoga session, I would drive back to Hawaii Kai, where the business school was located. I also did my business there.

End of the four months, I sold my car for $1700 by using Craigslist again. It was fun to do this kind of thing because it was challenging. Everything I did for this four months was valuable for me.

How much was my English improved? It got much better for sure and I was happy. But I was very much frustrated at the same time. Because my goal was so high that my English progress looked so slow.

FRUSTRATED!  Indeed.