My Obsession with English

Hi Zenith Catcher,

Back in 2023, on April 8th, I announced on my podcast that from now on I will publish podcast episodes in English and no longer in German, my native language.

Part of the reason was that I was running a small coaching business, where I would help high performers with ADD become more productive in their professional and personal lives.

This decision allowed me to not only target people in German-speaking countries but also people across the globe.

Moreover, I consumed most of the online content in English, had college courses in English, and had already taken many notes in English before the above decision. In other words, I consistently exposed myself to the English language in multiple life domains.

It was and still is real fun to get incrementally better in writing, talking, and thinking in English.

It became a real passion or obsession to learn English. Why? I’m quite hard on myself when it comes to the standards I’m holding myself up to.

When listening to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, Chris Williamson, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Derek from More Plates More Dates or a Jocko Willink playing with the English language and bending it as they would like to, this just shows me what I could be or what I could become if I continue to work hard on my English skills.

Put bluntly, knowing about my own insufficiency is a great propeller for me to improve my English.

Yet, I’m far away in any conceivable way (to say the least) from being on the level of literacy, conciseness, and fluency these Gentlemen possess. However, it drives and inspires me to continue exposing myself as much as possible to the English language through recording podcasts, reading books, having conversations, using language apps like Babbel, or watching YouTube videos.

Why this obsession?

I believe the better your speech, the more successful you become.

And I define success here as achieving above-average results in a specific life domain, whether business, family, or career-wise.

Many men (and women as well) who have achieved exceptional outcomes are pretty fluent and literate in their speech. They can convey their message in the most succinct, efficient, and effective manner. In other words, they use precise words while avoiding fillers like “um”, “like”, “you know”, or “actually”.

Moreover, they don’t mumble or talk too fast; they speak with a natural pace and take a short break to think before talking. Presumably, they got rid of so many empty words (or never used them in the first place), and now they can use the English language as their tool, which is fully under their control. They also don’t stutter or let others pressure them into increasing their language velocity.

Listening to someone exceptionally literate and good with words is just a pleasure.

Another person who comes to mind when talking about literate people is entrepreneur Alex Hormozi. He’s a top-notch entrepreneur on the one hand while also being superb in business education content (at least this is how I see it).

I’ve seen many entrepreneurs who made presumably good money running their business, and they’ve made some attempts to share what they’ve learned in business via podcasts, books, or YouTube videos. However, only a minority bridged the gap and became extraordinary in both disciplines (entrepreneurship and teaching).

With regards to Hormozi, this is perhaps also interesting. He had written three books. All of them have presumably better reviews than 99% of books out there.

Why? I believe his ability to convey the concepts at a 3rd-grade reading level, while being succinct to the point almost with no exception, makes the difference. And obviously, that takes a lot of editing.

Fun fact: For his third book, $100M Leads, he wrote 19 full rewrites and spent two years, the first six hours of the day, working on his book.

More words, better thinking

I’ve made the observation that becoming more proficient in a language (both writing and speaking) made me a clearer thinker because a rich vocabulary enables me to select the precise and appropriate words in most circumstances.

The benefits? I understand myself better while other people understand better what I wanna tell them. I can’t think of a domain of life where this is not useful.

I think this is a good theme to end this newsletter issue. Whenever I feel like I’ve cracked the nut and slayed the dragon metaphorically speaking, I become more aware of my own insufficiency in English.

There are so many more words to learn, so many connotations to understand, so many conversational expressions to memorize. A lifelong journey that perhaps gives enough meaning to life, among other things, to never stop struggling towards a higher good.

Greetings from Amsterdam,

Nicola

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Catch The Zenith Podcast

I do a podcast where I pretend to have a Swiss accent (wink). 200+ episodes online about high performance and business. You can subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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This week’s episode:

Episode 203: Is a university still the best place to learn? What does conservatism mean? The balance between progressivism and conservatism, and why have some people succeeded despite tremendous obstacles? This and more we will discuss in my conversation with Milos Jovanovic a consultant, master’s graduate, and one of my best friends. Click here.

Next week’s episode:

Episode 204: Bo Burlingham, a legendary business journalist, joins me to unpack why profit isn’t a dirty word, how to keep your company’s soul, what he learned from 55 years of marriage, and how his Tim Ferriss connection came about. Live tomorrow here.

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Inspiring Things This Week:

1. How Elon Musk achieves Hyper Productivity

I see Elon Musk, without a shadow of a doubt, as one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time — if not the greatest.

The fact that he remains insanely productive while running multiple large companies and being publicly active in politics begs the question: what makes him so productive?

Elon doesn’t work like a typical CEO. Each week, he finds the biggest problem in one of his companies and solves it himself—often side by side with engineers. He delegates everything else.

What makes him unique: he’s both a top-tier engineer and a master salesman. He can craft vision and strategy, but also jump in and fix technical problems for 48 hours straight.

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2. The Bar For Winning Is So Low

“90% of podcasts don’t get past episode 3. That’s 1.8 million who quit.

Of the 200,000 left, 90% will quit after 20 episodes. That’s another 180,000 gone.

To be in the top 1% of podcasts in the world you only need to publish 21 episodes.”

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Quote of the Week:

— Marc Andreesen

Video Recommendations:

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