Secrets of Success. Business English Course

© Alexander Chumakov, 2022

ISBN 978-5-0056-8176-8

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

What is “The Secrets of Success” Business English Course?

Hello, this is Alex your English teacher. I want you to know that it is a great honor and an exclusive privilege for me to be your business English teacher.

Let me start with “Why”. The reason why I’ve created this course is just because many English learners, many superstar English learners have difficulties understanding and using real business English. By real business English I don’t mean common business phrases, businesslike dialogues or business articles that many business English courses offer. By real business English I mean: general understanding of a real business; what we need to do a business; what kind of games business people play; what it takes to be a business person and what a truly remarkable leader should be.

I myself have done many Business English courses. They all have been nicely designed, easy to use and well-organized. They have talked a great deal about companies of different kinds, products and structures, but one thing I have never been able to understand what real business actually means and what it takes to become a truly outstanding remarkable business person. That very fact made me do a lot of research to get to the bottom and once I discovered the secrets of business success, I sat down and I compiled this course for you. My “Secrets of Success” (SOS) Business English Course is opposite to everything you have learned about Business English before.

In this course I am going to not only teach you how to speak real business English, but I will also give you some tips about making your company a great place to work at. I’ll guide you and I’ll train you, and most of all, I will give you that confidence, that belief, that power, that secret weapon, if you like, and my undying love so that you can learn and speak excellent business English.

In this short article I am going to tell you how to succeed at the course faster and better and what you will have to do to become a great English speaker.

“The Secrets of Success” Business English course has 5 units and two months of audio lessons for you my VIP business people.

Each unit includes:

1st A short main talk – where I briefly tell you about the unit topic or I tell you a story or both of them.

2nd A vocabulary lesson – where I explain the meaning of the words you might not know. Where I am going to teach you some business words and business idioms in English, you can hear people use, when they talk about business and every day life situations.

And of course, 3rd you will have your favourite mini-story lessons. The mini-story lessons will help you understand business English in a simpler way and learn English grammar intuitively. I am sure you will have a lot of fun while doing this course. This course will give you some new, fantastic and awesome ideas on how to become a better business person, a truly remarkable leader, and a fantastic human being.

I wish you good luck and every success.

Your Business English teacher,

Alexander Chumakov

How to do the Secrets of Success (SOS) Business English Course

So how are we going to do this? How are we going to learn? Well, one of the things we have to do is create a daily English ritual. You probably didn’t feel very happy when you were sitting in your English classes. Now you are different and you are going to learn business English differently. When you are learning with my Secrets of Success Business English Course, it’s very important for you to feel happy. For your body to feel good, for your mind to feel good. For you to emotionally enjoy the process of learning English. Of course, it’s just more fun, you are going to like it a lot better. But the other benefit is that you actually will learn faster. You’ll improve your grammar faster. You’ll improve your pronunciation faster. You’ll remember vocabulary words better, longer and faster when you feel good. So there’s a very practical reason for doing this, too.

Just right now, let’s talk a little bit about a daily plan. Something you could do immediately, right now, today, to start improving your success with business English by changing your psychology. So here’s a little ritual, a little plan you can follow every day to start improving your business English.

The first thing you want to listen to is the main article, the main audio. So the first thing is listen to the main talk and the related story. And you can read this as well the first time if you cannot understand easily. You can read the transcript and listen at the same time. Do this perhaps two times per day, starting with the main story and reading. Use a dictionary if you need to – to look up new words.

Next, listen to the vocabulary. So in the vocabulary again I will discuss the meanings of some of the difficult words that I used. And again, you can read the transcript of that vocabulary lesson. There’s always a transcript you can read if you can’t understand my speaking, if I’m too fast, then read at the same time. It’s okay.

Next, you’ll listen to the mini-story and the mini-story is the most important lesson. The mini-story is designed for deep learning. In the mini-story I am going to ask a lot of very easy questions while I tell a story. In fact, I really ask the story, I don’t tell the story. Why am I doing this? Students ask me “Why are the questions so easy?” Well, the questions are supposed to be easy because I want you to answer fast and automatically. I want you to train your brain, teach your brain to answer very quickly.

I don’t want you to translate from your language to English or from English to your language. It’s a bad habit. It will make you speak very slowly. I want you to just answer quickly, automatically, very fast. So that is why I ask so many questions, like questions again, again, again, again and again… very easy. Your job… answer the questions quickly.

You can answer with only one or two words, it’s okay. Short answers are fine. You don’t need to answer with a big, long sentence. In fact, short is better. So that’s the order that you’re going to follow. You are going to listen to the main article first, one or two times. You can read as well if you need to. Then you’re going to listen to the vocabulary one or two times, each day. And then finally, you are going to listen to the mini-story, one or two times or more. You can also read the transcript for the mini-story in the beginning.

Now another important point, when you are listening to these lessons do not study them. Don’t struggle to memorize. Just relax and listen. If necessary, you can read as well, as I said if you need to. But relax, you’re not trying to memorize anything. Just let it come in. Let the English come into your ears and into your eyes. Don’t think about it. Don’t analyze it. Do not think about grammar. The mini-stories will help you learn grammar subconsciously, so don’t interrupt that process by trying to analyze it. Don’t think about grammar rules. You want to learn like a native speaker and that means you’re going to learn the patterns of English in these mini-stories. You might not be able to explain them, just like native speakers cannot explain grammar rules. But that’s okay. You want to be able to use them correctly. That’s the important part. So again, you want to relax. Do not study. Do not think about grammar rules. Do not try to translate. Just relax and listen.

Now another important point. You want to move your body while you’re listening to the lessons. This will keep your energy high. So, what do I mean by that? Well, a really easy way to do this is just to walk. You’ve got an iPod, you’ve got your earphones in, listen to the lessons while you go for a walk. You can do two things at one time. You exercise, you improve your body and you listen to English lessons and improve your mind at the same time.

If you’re sitting in a train, then maybe you just stretch your body a little bit. If you are in your car, you can move a little bit. You can move around in your seat. If you’re at your house you can go crazy, you can jump around. You can exercise very strongly. You can go to the gym. Do something with your body while you are listening to the lessons.

As I said, it will keep your energy high. It will keep you feeling better. You will actually learn faster by doing that.

And finally, a very, very important point. You need to use our deep learning method. That means you listen to each lesson set for one week or more. So for example, in the first Unit called “A Higher Purpose” there are three parts. There is a main lecture, a main talk or a story. There is a vocabulary section. And there is a mini-story. Well, those three, you want to listen to those three every day for seven days. You want that repetition.

Repetition is very important. You want it to go deeply into your brain. Just one time is not enough. Even if it is very easy for you, even if you listen you understand everything, it’s simple, still follow the deep learning method. Still listen to the whole set for one week or more. On the other hand, if it seems very difficult, listen longer. Two weeks is okay.

Doesn’t matter, the point is you want it to go very deeply into your brain which means you want it to be almost effortless. It’s going to just go into your brain and eventually just come out without you thinking and that requires deep learning. It requires a lot of repetition.

So that’s kind of your basic plan for using these lessons. Again, first you’re going to get into a peak state. You are going to get excited. You’re going to jump around. You’re going to listen to music. You’re going to feel great. Then you’re going to listen to the main lecture, the main audio, one or two times. Then you’re going to listen to the vocabulary, one or two times. Then you’re going to listen to the mini-story, one, two, three, four, five times… every day. And remember: relax, feel good and enjoy the lessons while you listen.

Okay, now you know what to do to learn business English faster and to speak business English more confidently. Next is the introduction. See you there.

Introduction

Hello, there! This is Alex. Hope, you are having a nice day today. My goal is to help you speak business English better than you are doing now.

I’ve got the great news for you. We are going to do some business English. We are going to do “The Secrets of Success” Business English Course.

What you learn in this course:

Let me tell what you’ll learn in this real, authentic, true Business English Course.

In “The Secrets of Success” (SOS) Business English Course you will learn:

– Why you do what you do? You will certainly have a better understanding why your organization or company exists;

– You will learn about the Cause, the Higher Purpose in business and about the importance of having the Cause, the Higher Purpose;

– How to create, how to build a great company and how to lead the company;

– The five most important ingredients, elements that each company must have and do to outlast in the world of business;

– You will also learn what kind of business games you can play to succeed faster and better while running your business or businesses.

– You will get a better picture of what a true and remarkable leader, business person and a fantastic human being should be.

The ideas I am going to use in this course are not my ideas. They belong to different people like: Tony Robbins, Simon Sinek, James Carse, Jim Rohn, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, Robert Kiyosaki, Maya Angelou, Alan Watts, Jordan B. Peterson and many others. They were or are all well-known, famous and outstanding business people, writers, scientists and public speakers.

I am implementing their information; I am focusing on their ideas so that you can have a general picture of a real business. So that you can have a better understanding of how to build businesses and how to lead people, and of course, how to maintain your businesses, organizations or any company, in fact.

We are also going to focus on human nature of people. That is, unfortunately, are not taught in business schools a lot.

So let’s get down to business.

Speaking about business we have to start with what we think about business. How we view business and what game we are playing in business. The reason why we are going to focus on this first, because many business organizations and many leaders they don’t know and therefore they don’t understand what game they are playing in, running their businesses.

According to James Carse there are two types of games in business: finite and infinite. Finite means limited and infinite means unlimited.

Let’s talk about finite game first.

Finite game is the game where players are known, rules are fixed and the object is agreed upon.

For example: A football. We all know the players. We all know the rules, they cannot be changed. And we all know the object of the game is to beat the competitor. In other words, the players are playing to win the game.

Now let’s talk about infinite game. In infinite game there are known and unknown players. The rules are changeable and the object is to perpetuate the game. In other words, the players are playing to continue to play. There cannot be a winner and there cannot be a loser.

If two finite-minded players are competing against each other, the system is stable.

If two infinite-minded payers are playing against each other, the system is also stable.

The problem arises when a finite-minded player starts playing versus an infinite-minded player.

Because one is playing to beat the competitor, the other is playing to play.

Take for example, the war in Vietnam. The Americans were trying to beat the Vietnamese people. The Vietnamese people were fighting to survive.

If you are in business, you realize that the game of business is an infinite game. Business is an infinite game because players come and leave, but the game continues with them or without them.

The companies that are playing the infinite game will frustrate their competitors. The goal is not to beat your competitor. The goal is to outlast your competitor.

Of course, we want to create and develop the mindset of an infinite player. The infinite players don’t actually compete against their competitors, they compete against themselves. Every single day they try to become better versions of themselves than they were yesterday.

There are five things that have to happen to really become a leader for infinite game.

1. You have to have a higher purpose.

2. You have to have a trusting team.

3. You have to have worthy rivals.

4. You have to have the capacity for existential flexibility.

5. You have to have the courage to lead.

This is the end of the course introduction. You know what to do, right? Listen to this introduction a few times a day. Follow your basic plan and use your body to help you understand the material better and remember it faster and longer. Next is the first unit which is called “A Higher Purpose”. See you there.

Unit 1. A Higher Purpose

Hello, there! This is Alex. Hope, you are having a nice day today. My goal is to help you speak business English like never before. My ultimate goal is to help you become a better human being. Okay, welcome to the main audio for “A Higher Purpose”.

There is a fantastic man, named Simon Sinek. He is a best-selling author, writer and a brilliant public speaker, the man with a rare intellect. And he wrote a fantastic, wonderful, great book called “Start with why?”

The reason I am going to use his book first is that many people they know what they do in life. They know how they do it. But just a few know why they do it. If you ask someone, “Why do you go to work every day?” Ninety five percent of them will answer, “I go to work, become everybody goes to work”. You see, they don’t know why they are doing it.

As Simon Sinek says, “Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, one hundred percent – these are the products you sell, or the services you offer. Some of them know how they do it, it’s how you differ from others, or what makes you special, but very very few people and very very few organizations can clearly state, articulate or say why they do what they do. By “Why” I don’t mean to make money. It is not a secret that we all work for money. But the money you make that is the result of what you do. It’s always the result.

By “Why” I mean what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your company exist? Why did you get out of bed in the morning? Why should anyone care?

This is the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate. We all start with what we do, then we say how we do it and only then we say why we do it.

That’s how most of marketing is done. That’s how most sales are done. And that’s how most of us communicate interpersonally. We say what we do, we say how we are different or how we are better and we expect some sort of behavior and purchases from other people.

But if you look and hear how great, huge and really successful leaders communicate, you will notice that they all do it in reverse. They all start with “Why” they do what they do. Then they say how they do it and then and only then they say what they do.

Now let’s look at the way Apple Company actually communicates their ideas selling their products to us.

“Everything we do we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our product beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly. We just happened to make great computers. Wanna buy one?” Totally different, right? No tricks, no manipulations, no celebrity endorsement (approvals).

This is the way our brain actually works and communicates. If you reverse the order of the information, you will prove that people don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it.

If you talk about what you believe, you will attract those people who believe what you believe.

Why when we start with “what” it doesn’t work very well, but when we start with “why” it certainly does.

It doesn’t work very well because when we start with what, we are talking directly to the part of the brain that is responsible for rational and analytical thought and language.

The next two, I mean: “how” and “why”. They are responsible for all our feelings like: trust and loyalty. It is also responsible for all human behavior, all decision-making that has no capacity for language.

In other words, when we communicate with “what”, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like: facts, figures and benefits. But it doesn’t drive behavior. It doesn’t make them take actions. It doesn’t help them buy better from you.

When we communicate from “why”, we are talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things (something we can touch and feel) we say and do”.

That’s why we absolutely must know why we do what we do, how we do it and what we do. Because if you don’t, how will you make people buy something from you or more importantly how you will make people be loyal to you and be a part of what you do.

So what is A Higher Purpose?

A Higher Purpose is the cause, the reason that is so just that you would willingly sacrifice your own interests in order to advance this cause, this higher purpose.

You must give your people the higher purpose. You have to tell why they do what they do.

It is important because if you have a purpose, you exactly know what to do in your life or with your life. For example, you want to do something creative or you want to be someone like a doctor or a teacher. That is your purpose, your goal. That is something you want to do in your life. Something that motivates you to do what you wanna do.

Remember: People don’t buy what you do. People buy why you do it. And what you do simply serves the tangible prove of what you believe.

This is the reason why every single person is perfectly comfortable buying a computer from Apple. And we are also perfectly comfortable buying an MP3 player from Apple, or a phone from Apple.

For this little idea to work you have to have three things:

One – you have to know why you what you do. If you don’t know why you do what you. How will anyone else?

Two – you have to have disciple of how. You have to hold yourself and have people who are responsible to your values and your guiding principles.

And three – you have to have consistency of what.

Everything you say and everything you do. Everything must prove what you believe. At the end of the day – “why” is just a belief. It’s all what it is.

“Hows” are the actions we take to realize that beliefs and “whats” are the results of those actions.

And if what you say and what you do – doesn’t show what you believe then no one will know what you believe.

As Simon Sinek likes to say “The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have. The goal is not to beat the competitor. The goal is to outlast the competitor. And you can only do it when you do business with people who believe what you believe. People who believe what you believe will work for you with blood, sweat and tears. People who don’t believe what you believe will work for your money. The same is true for customers. Whose who believe what you believe will go out of their way to do business with you. Whose who don’t believe what you believe wanna cheaper”.

What about you? What is your higher purpose in life? Oh, by the way, if you don’t have a higher purpose, it is not a big deal. Why? Because you can always create it. Promise? Okay, I know you are serious about it. Just do it.

So that’s it for the main article here of “A Higher Purpose.” Now you are going to listen to the related story for “A Higher Purpose”.

Tony the tiger owned a computer company. He wanted his company to be the best in the world.

He often said, “We’ve got to be the number one in the world. We’ve got to be the best. We’ve got to beat our competitors.”

But Tony the tiger had a problem. What was his problem?

He had a bad team of employees. The people didn’t want to stay late in the office. They didn’t want to go on frequent business trips. They didn’t want to be away from their families. In other words, they didn’t willingly sacrifice their lives to the company.

Every time when they got better job offers, without thinking, they agreed and left Tony’s company immediately. Tony the tiger didn’t know what to do. Tony was frustrated.

One day he was invited to a dinner party. At the party there was a special guest – Simon Sinek. Simon gave a brilliant speech. From the speech Tony the tiger learned that to have a great team, the company has to have the Higher Purpose. In other words, the reason why the company exists.

Tony the tiger decided to follow Simon’s advice. He said to his people, “My goal was to beat the competitors, but I was wrong. Now our goal is to outlast the competition and to become a better company than we were just yesterday. Our goal is to produce the best computers to help people in their jobs” This is our Higher Purpose.

Everybody liked the idea of having the Higher Purpose. Everybody agreed to contribute to the company. Everybody wanted to be valuable to other people. Tony the tiger was happy and so were his people.

This is the end of the story for “A Higher Purpose”. Next is the vocabulary lesson. See you there.

Unit 1. A Higher Purpose

This is Alex and this is your vocabulary lesson for “A Higher Purpose”.