Angel Pretot, a French master’s degree holder, takes an unexpected and daring journey to challenge the status quo by founding FrenchFluency.Net, a French-learning coaching business and discovers the ultimate freedom of working online.
“If they can do it, I can too.”
Table of Contents
Starting an Online Business
Angel Pretot is a French native who specializes in teaching French as a foreign language. He has created an online business, Frenchfluency.Net, to help English speakers become fluent in French and work abroad.
Angel Pretot was working a full-time job that made him miserable in the tech industry.
When he realized the toll his job was taking on him, what he was missing out on in terms of living his life, Angel decided to take a leap of faith and create an online business to help people learn French.
Through trial and error, and a lot of hard work, Angel was able to make his business a success. He now lives a life of freedom, traveling and running his business from anywhere. His story of resilience and determination is an inspiration to many.
You can see his engaging demonstrations on his YouTube channel.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
1. How Angel Pretot’s career took a “circumvallated” path and eventually led to the founding of his French learning coaching business.
2. The importance of “selection, activation, immersion, and safe practice” when learning a foreign language, and
3. How meditation can help open one’s mind to learn a foreign language.
Chapter Summaries:
[00:02:25]
Angel: My master’s degree is in teaching French as a foreign language. After working in corporate America, he decided to start a French learning coaching business. “I learned what it looks like not to have a business, but to be in a business.”
[00:09:00]
You cannot have an online business if you’re not a lifelong learner. It’s really trial and error, and I don’t think there’s any other way to build a business. Just keep making it work and just keep growing it, basically.
[00:12:00]
What is something that you did early on when you started this business that you’re not doing today?
[00:18:12]
From an entrepreneurial perspective, what kind of freedoms do you see because of it? “I do what I want when I want. I could be a digital nomad if I wanted to” entrepreneurial life does pose some risk within the payoff.
[00:21:03]
Most language learning is subconscious. You learn the language because it’s around you. One of the important elements is immersion. If you don’t hear it around you, you have zero point in learning it.
[00:25:22]
How does meditation help open the brain up, the mind up to learn a language? For me, what is the most important is really being relaxed and focused at the same time. It’s a very incredible skill to be able to interpret one language into another. It can be done.
[00:33:22]
Angel: My motto is have fun now, don’t mortgage the future. It’s important if you want to learn something, you also need to have fun while you learn it. I recommend meditation not just the language, because it really helps.
Resources
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Other episodes and articles you’ll enjoy:
Freelance Your Way to Freedom with Vincent Pugliese – BtR 197
5 Steps to Launching a Six-Figure Consulting Business – BtR 331
The Sales Evangelist from Employee to Entrepreneur – BtR 324
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Transcript
Angel Pretot 00:00
My motto is have fun now, don’t mortgage the future. Welcome to Beyond
Jerry Dugan 00:06
the rut, the podcast that shares encouraging stories and practical tools to help pull you out of your rut into a life worth living. I’m your host, Jerry Dugan. And in this episode, we’re going to be joined by on JL Prieto. And we’re going to talk about how on gel went from being a dissatisfied employee, and instead created his online business to help clients get out of their own lot rut by learning French and becoming fluent so that they can work abroad as well. So today, on gel works wherever you want, whenever he wants, because his online business of helping people become fluent in French, has allowed him to do just that. It’s given him the freedom of mobility, the freedom of his income, growth, and so much more. So we’re really talking about two things. We’re gonna first talk about how his online business has given him the freedom he’s been looking for. And then we’re gonna plug in his holistic approach to learning a language. So grab a notebook, grab a pen, sit back, relax, and here we go. All right. Hey, on gel. Thanks for joining me you’re calling in from Vienna, Austria. I’m over here in Dallas, Texas, and we were just talking about timezone differences. But how are you doing? That’s the important question. How are you doing today?
Angel Pretot 01:20
I’m doing great. I’m actually coming back from a trip in the US. So Oh, wow. Jumping right back into work. And yeah, I love to be on the show. Thank you for having me. Yeah.
Jerry Dugan 01:29
Well, part of the US. Were you visiting?
Angel Pretot 01:32
I was in Virginia. Okay. Because my friend and coworker works there. So lives there. Yeah. Yeah.
Jerry Dugan 01:39
Nice. Yeah. Rich. Well, as far as the United States goes, a lot of rich history in Virginia.
Angel Pretot 01:45
Absolutely. I visited colonial towns, and that was me. Yes.
Jerry Dugan 01:49
So yeah, we connected through a platform called pod match, which I told my wife I had just joined, and she’s like, what’s pod match? And, and I probably gave the worst description possible. Sorry, Alex Sanfilippo. But I basically told her, you know, it says, If you know, pod chaser, which is a directory of podcasts, and name, any dating site, got together and had a baby, and you’ve got pod match, which matches, hosts and guests, and based on, you know, topics and interest, and so on. And so we connected through that. And so it was just really neat. You’ve got this, this cool story about, you know, you had worked in corporate America, essentially, and you kind of hit this rut of your own. And so tell us about before you started a French fluency, and your business of teaching English speakers how to speak French. What was life like before you did that?
Angel Pretot 02:44
So yeah, my carrier was a bit like so convoluted, I think you don’t really expect this kind of like twists and turns because I did actually train to be a French teacher, oh, well as a foreign language. So that’s my, what I have my master’s degree in, I have degrees in languages in English, classical literature. And my master’s degree is in teaching French as a foreign language. So that’s what I specialize in. And then it’s a line of work that you have to work outside of France. So that’s when I decided to move abroad when I was 25. I lived in France until I was 25, and then moved abroad. And then, you know, I was just like, keep trying to basically find the jobs here and there. And eventually, I reached a point where I was living in Vienna at the time, and I was reaching a dead end where it was just not possible to make a full time job with my qualifications just because of being a foreigner. And you know, that role. Yeah. So I was like, okay, like, let’s try to do something new. And that’s when I joined the tech industry. And first, I joined the upper level support department of a tech company in Vienna. And then that company got bought and sold. And you know, the tech industry is just not the most stable things. But that, but that, sorry, by that time, I had met my ex wife, she was my girlfriend at the time. And she was from Berlin. And basically, when you said corporate America, it’s pretty true, because there’s a whole subset of Berlin, which is entirely occupied by tech startups that are American style. So they speak English and everything. And so I joined one of them. And I was the head of the support department at that point. And that’s really when I learned what it looks like to have not to have a business but to be in a business. And like, you know, the different parts of it, and how the internet and technology works really from the other side, not just as a user. And yeah, that entire experience lasted the whole of five months, until well, the tech industry being what it is, I had the problem again, and at this point, I was just okay. I’m fed up. And one thing that struck me in my last job is that the people running it were definitely not smarter than anyone else. And I was like, well, if they can do it, I can do yes. Now I was wrong, of course because that’s something into Thought they have millions in funding and they have zero. Okay, yeah, that was a different game. Yeah. And it’s a lot easier to run the business if it consists just like throwing money out and never bringing money in. Yeah. If it starts consisting in Oh, wait, I have zero and I have to feed myself. That’s a different story. So that’s when, you know, I had to take on the challenge and, and do it. And so yeah, long story short, I found it French considered net. It’s a French learning coaching business. So I offer services through online basically, same way that you record a podcast, you can also have a French learning coaching session. So I help English speakers from all over the world, but mostly US and Canada to learn French. And I also have I have one on one services. And I also have a group program where people come together and practice together. Yeah,
Jerry Dugan 05:50
yeah. To recap for everybody, because I may have missed it in the introduction, which of course gets recorded in post production, but we didn’t talk about it yet. But in case you’re wondering, on gel is French, everybody. And he lives in Vienna, Austria, and at some point, he met a girl. And that brought him to Berlin. Because that’s what typically gets us guys to move somewhere. I mean, it’s how I wound up in Corpus Christi, Texas, I met a girl got married to her and got to know her and her family really well. And that we all live up in Dallas. So, so already fluent in French, because you were born and raised in
Angel Pretot 06:26
my native language. Exactly. It’s my only native language, like English I learned and all the other languages. I know, I also learn them.
Jerry Dugan 06:33
Yeah. And, you know, in the US, we, like I know a lot of Spanish speaking, people, you know, they’re friends of mine family grew up around Spanish. And then of course, when they have the chance to take an elective language in high school, they choose Spanish, because for them, it’s the easy a, you know, they, you know, some will even go on and take on Spanish to learn to teach it or the history of Spanish like, is that cheating, because you already know it and like, hey, it’s the papers, the paper, man. But now you’ve taken that. So you grew up learning French, you got a degree in teaching French kiss. Now teaching is a different skill set than speaking it. And that’s something that I really wanted to point out to folks. So that was kind of a roundabout way to let folks know, you know, teaching is a skill set in itself, you can know a language really well, you can know anything really well. But if you don’t know how to convey that information, to help the learner learn it, then they’re not. They’re not gonna learn it no matter what. No, no, yeah,
Angel Pretot 07:33
that’s actually the first mistake that most language schools around the world make, they tend to believe that because someone is a native, they will just automatically be able to teach. It’s also one of the things that frustrated me where I was trying to make a full time job as a teacher before I worked online. Because I was mostly incapable of getting a job teaching English, despite the fact that half a degree to teach English as well, from the French university, and I have been teaching English here and there. And I’ve been doing it a lot. And arguably, it could be easier to learn from someone who has actually learned the language than from someone who just has it natively and does not understand that is so hard, basically, yeah. But then, you know, with French, I have the best of both worlds in the sense that it’s my native language. I know it very, very well, but it was to have learned how to teach it and also how to coach because teaching and coaching is two different skill sets. Yes,
Jerry Dugan 08:26
yeah. And I love what you had done where you took a shot at the tech world. But then this point, you when you started French fluency dotnet, you realized, okay, I needed I need money. Yes. And so then you seem to have married together the skill set you’ve got. So you learned a little bit about the tech industry industry. So that allows you to deliver your training online, you tapped into where you already have degrees and skills. And so I guess the question I have is really around, what was it that helped you realize that these were the things that would come together, and this was the need that you can meet, and be able to sustain yourself and have the freedom that you wanted?
Angel Pretot 09:14
It’s really a lot of trial and error and twists and pivot to find what will work like, first find what will work and then find what will be comfortable. And maybe if I was to do it again, with what I know, now, I would do it the other way around, where I would first look at for what’s comfortable, and then what works, because that would probably cut off a lot of the hardship. But it’s really it’s trial and error. And I don’t think there’s any other way to build an online business, especially if it’s your first one. You have you have to learn so much the learning curve. It’s insane. I’ve been in it for almost seven years now. And I still have to learn new things just you know, keep making it work and just keep growing it basically. But I love learning so it’s not the end This lifelong learner, right? Yes, yes. I mean, well, you cannot, like, the internet just changes so fast. You cannot have an online business if you’re not a lifelong learner. It’s not gonna happen. Yeah. And yeah, it’s a lot of you know, finding the right product market fit or service market fit. Like for me, it wouldn’t it make sense to try and work with people other than English speakers, because I will have to write in their language and it will just be a whole nother like, it will be so much more difficult to do it. And they’re also typically not as interested in learning French as English speakers can be because if you’re not an English speaker, and you want to learn the language, then you want to learn English, so And for me, because I speak English. So well, if I may say so myself, you do so a lot easier, of course, to things to work with English speakers and teach them French because I messed up the ins and outs of both languages really well. Yeah, they can show the patterns and that comes, I
Jerry Dugan 10:53
think helps me shut you down as well. Like, you’re not trying to hit every single person in the world, like 7 billion people. I can teach all you French, it’s like, no, if you speak English, I can help you also learn the french fry. I told him I was like an old man. Now I hated the internet. Well, that is called the the social media. There we go. The social media, Facebook, put the in front of everything now. And so let’s see here. So that that helps me understand like, why specifically you say, I hope English speakers learn French? Because I mean, you learn how to teach English, you know, English, and so that you can do that crosswalk in a sense. And so that that is something for us to keep in mind is that we don’t have to be everything for everybody. You know, again, look at your skill sets, what are the specific superpowers you’ve got? That can help that person as well. There’s, you know, again, 7 billion people on the planet, there’s a good grouping of whatever your it is, you are not just you on shell, but I mean, yes, those of us listening as well. Now, what is something that you you did early on, when you started this business that you’re not doing today? Like you realized, Oh, that was not that important. But seven years ago, you thought that was the most important thing you had to do?
Angel Pretot 12:13
That’s a tough question. Because man, I can think top of my head of so many things that I just like,
Jerry Dugan 12:18
the list of side.
Angel Pretot 12:21
Well, first, what I did at first, I used a platform called I talkie. At the time, actually, because I was so early to the platform, it was even possible to make a full time income from it didn’t last very long. I actually didn’t notice like early on that. Yeah, like, the way that the platform was growing, it would quickly become impossible for me to make a living, because then I got competitions from people who are sitting in, you know, much poorer countries where they have a lower cost of living. And, you know, if you’re sitting in Western Europe, you cannot compete with someone who’s in Africa. Yeah. Thank you. They’re equally French speaker as me, you know, and it’s just like, the only point of comparison we have is the price. I’m not gonna survive, right? Yeah. So the platforms were just not the solution long term. So then I decided to learn online marketing, and, you know, started an email list, which I still have, and, you know, offer free gifts for people to join my email list, like my French fancy starter kit, which I have still available, and a bunch of other stuff you can find on our website, YouTube, you know, social media in general. One thing that I’m still not sure if I should give it up completely, but I think it should, is all the social media that does not include a search engine feature, or where the search engine feature is very poor, like, like Instagram or Tiktok. Because for me, I find that almost everybody who has ever worked with me as formerly if it was some search engine, typically Pinterest, but sometimes YouTube or Google. Yeah. And it’s what turns out to work better for me.
Jerry Dugan 13:55
Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard overall. I mean, the podcasting space is, you know, you hear a lot of people talking about, you know, be on this platform be on that platform. But eventually, those platforms either change or they get saturated. Yeah. And without a good search function, because people are searching for how do I do blank? How do I learn French and why, you know, increase my productivity in the office, whatever it is, people are searching for solutions, and need a good search function to be able to pull that off. So that’s,
Angel Pretot 14:21
yeah, and people who are searching are in the mindset of trying to solve their problem is completely different from being on social media and just do miss calling. Yeah. And if you’re just crawling on social media, you want to be entertained, and I’m gonna be honest, is something I just completely suck at. I’m, I think I’m good at teaching and coaching and I’m good at adding value and just, you know, shortcutting your way to learn French, but if all you want is entertainment, there are plenty of people even in the so called French learning space that are so much better at it than me. Yeah. It’s just not nice, Frank.
Jerry Dugan 14:55
Now, I will say having watched some of your YouTube videos, they they could fall in the category of edutainment, because you talk about some modern things that are kind of known around the world like, like you did one episode recently, where you taught how to pronounce vowel sounds using name brands like Louie baton, and which is not the French pronunciation everybody. It’s what us Americans try to say to sound like we know French, but we don’t, I saw the video. And so that was like a neat thing because you, it’s like, wow, I know that brand. Oh, that’s how it’s really sad. Oh, I know that brand. Oh, that’s how that’s really sad. And at the same time, from an educational standpoint, you gave us something we are already familiar with. So you recalling prior knowledge, and you add this new information to it. And it gives us a chance to let that stew in our brains in a sense. So I found it entertaining. And then there was one where it was Anthony Blinken did an interview in France. And, you know, we don’t typically think of American politicians being able to carry on conversation in a language other than English, but or needing a translator. And here’s this guy, without
Angel Pretot 16:05
any good at it. Yeah. And he’s also really sneaky, because as I pointed out in that video, pretty much everything he uses is actually simple. Yeah, you know how to break it down. Yeah, I love making that video. Because it’s really the essence of what I do in coaching. It’s like, okay, look at this, it looks complicated. But if you know there is this pattern that you can use, and you know, and these real friends, like these words are always the same in English and in French, if you just know how to transform them a little bit, and that kind of things. And it’s really, it’s what I do all day, every day with my clients. And I love doing that. It’s also one reason for me to work with English speakers, specifically, because English and French sounds really different if you don’t know how to look at it, but if you know how to look at it, it’s a lot easier to almost like extra different from the English. It’s not 100%. I mean, there are still things that you should learn. But you can shortcut your way spectacularly if you understand that half of English comes for free from French, because at some point my ancestors colonized the people. Sorry, but it’s not one advantage. In French, so you know, take the good sides. Yeah.
Jerry Dugan 17:10
My last name Dugan is Irish, in, in turns out used to be a family of chieftains in the Irish Ireland area. Ireland area cheese, Jerry. But yeah, some some group called the Saxons came along and nearly wiped them out. Right? Oh, fortunately, they didn’t wipe everybody out because otherwise there wouldn’t be a Dugan or a Dugan line. So anyway, yeah, but yeah, that the influences on the English language makes sense in that respect, because, yeah, just that they only got invaded a lot. I mean, there’s Latin words in there because the Roman Empire was there. So exactly their Spanish words in there, because I guess at some point, the the Spaniards and the British decide to fight each other to and pick up words.
Angel Pretot 17:56
The Invincible Armada. And that story, yeah.
Jerry Dugan 17:58
Oh, yes. Yeah, that’s cliffs. So let’s see. Now, I guess before I transition to the next piece I want to talk about which is the subconscious part. From an entrepreneurial perspective, though, you know, being in business for yourself, what kind of freedoms DSC because of it, because you’re running French fluency? What, what has been the payoff for you for the last seven years?
Angel Pretot 18:24
Well, essentially, I do what I want when I want. So for example, I told you that I moved to Berlin because of a girl and also because of the tech industry. I actually didn’t like it there. So one day after I was divorced, I just took my business, I put it in the suitcase, and I came back to Vienna. Yeah. And I was able to do that. And I did not need to find a job. In Vienna prior to moving or anything. I just, I had my business. Yeah, I just spent three weeks in the US because I can, and I was working during those three weeks, like not as much as usual, but still, you know, like, I can work from anywhere. I barely have to adjust my working times if I change time zones. Yeah, I mean, it’s really close enough to ultimate freedom. I could be a digital nomad, if I wanted to. I don’t really love it, I find that I like having a home and you know, staying with for a little bit. But if it’s your thing, that’s something you can do. Yeah, so I definitely can’t complain about the working conditions.
Jerry Dugan 19:21
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s, and that was the thing I wanted folks to catch is like, you know, especially in the United States, there’s this desire to have this freedom, this geographic mobility or time mobility or just work mobility and, you know, when you’re dedicated to a company that requires you to come in, physically to a location and they, they say, if you want to get paid, you got to be here from this time to this time, Monday through Friday. A lot of that goes out the window. Even, you know, those of us who are parents, you know, many countries, especially in the Western world, have compulsory education and I know in the United states, it’s set up that the schools are paid based on number of heads in the classroom for the day. And so there’s a lot of like supporting laws that say like, if your kid misses X number of days, the parents get to show up in court, you know, it’s like, explain the truancy of your child, it’s like, doesn’t matter if you took your child out, and went on a two week educational tour of the world, in some states in the US, you are neglecting your child by doing that, and you’re like, What? No, they got a better education, seeing the world than reading about it in a book. So in some ways, we’re kind of like, I don’t want to use the word, we’re stuck in a system that we’ve placed ourselves in like, almost like The Matrix, we’re plugged in, and we’re scared to unplug. And entrepreneurial life does pose some risks, but then the payoff when you keep making an adjustment, you keep learning like Honesdale has, you get that freedom that you’ve been wanting for years. So I love that part of your story. And I’m glad you brought that up. So now, one thing that you’d mentioned to me is that, you know, when it comes to learning language, you know, the approach that we tend to take is, you know, learn a bunch of words, learn these rules. But you mentioned there’s like this subconscious element to it. Tell, tell us a bit more about that.
Angel Pretot 21:20
Well, to be honest, most of it is subconscious. And think about it when you learned your native language as a child, say you’re not English, if you’re a native English speaker, you weren’t, you know, walking around with a little notebook or something to like, write down the world, the words or anything, you couldn’t do that. And just it all happens, subconsciously, you probably don’t remember doing it. And one thing to keep in mind is that children up until the age of seven, their brain is most of the time in the theta level, Brainwave. Which is, corresponds basically to what we as adults think of as the subconscious because we, most adults only access it when they are sleeping, unless you’re very good at meditation, which is one of the reasons why I recommend meditation as part of your, or any practice, to be honest, but also language learning. But like, basically, children are always in the subconscious. And there was never a child. Well, not never, you have exceptions. But the vast majority of children do learn their native language without problem. Yeah, but then you grew up, and you want to learn a foreign language. And it’s so incredibly hard. And then you ascribe to the belief that oil but for children is easy. It’s not that it’s easier, it’s that they don’t put so much pressure on themselves. And also their brain works differently. But, and also, there’s immersion, like immersion is really a very important element, you learn the language, because it’s around you. If you adopt a child, say, from China, and you bring that child to the US, like, as a baby, the child will never speak Chinese. Yeah, unless you know, a Chinese school or something. But the language you learn it, because it’s around you. And you’re not pre programmed for learning a particular language. So one of the important elements is immersion. It’s like, I have this method that I say, which is in four steps, it’s selection, activation, immersion and safe practice. Immersion is really an important step because you have to have the language around you, otherwise, your brain just never gonna buy it. Language is something that you’re using to communicate with others. If you don’t hear it around you, you have zero point in learning it, it doesn’t matter how much you say, I want to learn it, I want to learn it, I want to learn it, your brain is like no, not gonna learn that it’s not here. It’s not something important. So by putting the language around you, and you can do that very easily. There are so many YouTube channels and Netflix series and podcasts are in French. Even if you know zero French right now, if you have a desire to learn it, you can just start by having it play around or just music if you want it. Sometimes music is easier to ease into there’s so much French music, just have it around. This gives your brain a hint that okay, now you have another language, and it would be a good idea for your subconscious to stop learning. Yeah,
Jerry Dugan 24:04
I think that’d be kind of cool. If like the only way you could speak French is by wrapping it
Angel Pretot 24:10
sure that you can put together a method where you just wrap it Yeah, another rapper myself, but a rapper to do it. That would be really great.
Jerry Dugan 24:20
Like, What songs did you listen to what you learned French.
Angel Pretot 24:25
There is a lot of French rap music that’s most listened to by French people. So yeah, it’s it’s really catching on, I’m sure.
Jerry Dugan 24:32
Yeah, yeah. There was an episode of a show called The Amazing Race. And that was one of the challenges that the contestants had to do was they had to learn to do a rap that was in French because it’s popular. It’s not just in Compton, y’all, y’all I can’t believe I said y’all are the other part that is just in Compton. So that is really, I mean immersion though. It does make sense because you know from a learning perspective, you know, learning theory Um, he got to have that relevance. You know, it’s not interesting to me unless there’s relevance. Well, if I’m surrounded by it, I’ve just created that environment of where am I? What am I listening to? What? How does this make sense? And, you know, so emerging that it creates that environment where you have to, it’s that necessity is the mother of invention. Yes. Nice. And you mentioned meditation. So how does meditation help open the brain up the mind up to learn a language,
Angel Pretot 25:29
I think there are different ways that it that it helps. For me, what I think is the most important is really being relaxed and focused at the same time. I think it’s comparable to driving, when you drive, you’re you’re not being stressed out, but you’re also not sleeping. So it’s this like feeling of being relaxed and focused, actually, it can be a good idea to also listen to French while you’re driving, even if you’re not paying attention to the French, just because your brain is more in a receptive state. And so when you meditate, it’s the same. So you can use meditation tracks that are entirely in French, or I have some on my YouTube channel, I have one that’s called open your mind to French. In fact, you can also download it as part of the Frenchman starter kit. And it has the beginning is in English, you know, when you have like the induction, when you relax the body, it’s just like getting into the meditation. And then there is a whole part where I’m speaking French, and I’m putting in some subconscious statement to just help you open your mind to French. And it’s it’s really interesting, the feedback I get from people that are like, Oh, wow, it actually works. Like I understood everything you said in French. And when I’m not meditating, I understand nothing. Right? Yeah, because you’re just blocking it out, because you’re being so connected to your identity as an English speaker. And for some people, many people have a lot of mind chatter. When you have mind chatter, it’s in English, and you can’t do both languages at once. It’s a very incredible skill to be able to, for example, interpret one language into another like, in the people who do that get exhausted after even half an hour, even if they’re professionals, because it’s extremely hard to do not to say it cannot be done. But it cannot be done by a regular person. Right. And especially not if you’re a learner. So if you put yourself in a state where you’re more relaxed, you’re definitely going to be more receptive. And then you’re going to be more open to learning. And also, you’re going to be more about able to speak the language because every body potentially everybody in the world knows more French than they’re able to speech. Because it’s always like that when you learn the language, there is a lot more in your brain and you’re able to speak out. And my goal as a coach is more often than not to help people speak things out more than get things in.
Jerry Dugan 27:42
Yeah, that makes sense. And I mean, I’ve come across so many people, though, that they’ll shoot themselves down, they’ll before they even try like, oh, I can ever learn that language. It’s so hard. Have you heard the the letter R how they say that? And I’ve never learned, you know, whatever it is, yeah, they’re already telling themselves, they can’t do it. And I think Henry Ford had that famous quote, whether believe you can or you can’t, you’re right. And that’s a very important piece that get rid of that. Can’t turn it into a Can I can speak French, I can learn French. It doesn’t matter what age you are. It can be done if you’re willing to to let that barrier go and quit holding on to that rat, quit, quit keeping yourself in it and just say, you know, let’s let’s make this new path and go this way. The relaxation part really stands out to me because I used to tell my my friends that, you know, I have this firm belief that German was a language that was created while people were drinking beer, or meat or whatever. Because I took two years of it in high school, and I was stationed in Germany when I was in the army. And I knew some broken English. But there was one conversation where we were out, a group of friends were out and there’s this girl was trying to impress and the tavern owner, his name is Oscar loved. You know, the United States wanted to come to the United States someday. And he walked up to me, he goes, Ah, love is in the air, isn’t it, but he said it in German. So nobody at the table understood. And I remember just having this full on conversation with him. And everybody just was looking at us like what is going on here? And Oscar leaves comes back with more beer. And I had like two beers on me at that point, to get liters of half of Eisen and it was kind of like when Harry Potter learnt realize that he was a parcel tongue, and he could speak it without realizing he was doing it. It was just like that, like apparently I had this full on conversation with Oscar all in German, about the girl who was next to me. And now my wife’s gonna be like, what was that mean? Like, I’m sorry, it was six months before I met you. Because I went on deployment after that, but that but it was that relaxed state though. Like I was not thinking about am I saying this right? Is this the right wording to use? It was just like I knew the words I knew the way to use them and Boom, it just came out. And he didn’t let me off the hook. Like he knew I took German in high school. So he just kept the whole conversation in German. And so that’s, it’s amazing though, what you can do when you let those barriers down
Angel Pretot 30:12
what you can do when you’re drunk.
Jerry Dugan 30:16
And when you want to impress the girl next to you know,
Angel Pretot 30:19
that to be honest, it’s not just you, I personally, I don’t drink. So I don’t often have this experience. But there is a popular saying or, you know, idea in the polyglot community that if you have one or two drinks in you, you’ll be able to speak much more language or even languages, then if you don’t, but it’s also because you stopped caring. When you were, you know, circling back to the idea that you can’t, when you think like, I can’t, you’re just like, really closed up. And probably if you take a drink or two, it opens up the possibility just because you’re not going to be so controlling of your own energy, so to speak. Yeah. Now, I have to put a caveat there, you don’t really know what will happen. Drunk might speak better, but because I work with relatively serious people, you know, like diplomats and like people who are running international businesses or, or charities or that kind of things. I don’t know that getting drunk prior to an important conversation is the right strategy. I think meditation is probably maybe not more efficient, but that is safer.
Jerry Dugan 31:28
More professionally appropriate. Yes. Now if folks want to sign up, they’re like, Okay, I’m sold. I want on shell to help me learn French. If for anything to impress their Mrs. Next Mrs. Smith or whatever. How do they find you and how do they get I know you have a starter kit. So tell us about the starter kit and how they can find you and learn French.
Angel Pretot 31:54
So you can find me on my website, French messy dotnet, you will find all the information there if you especially want the free starter kit is French with French Francie dotnet slash starter kit, one word. And then if you’re interested in working with me directly, so I have both a one on one program and a blue program. not mutually exclusive. If you work one on one with me, you’ll also be invited to the group program. So all of the recorded material and the group classes will be open to you. We also have a Discord server where we can get in touch every day. And everyone can share resources to learn French and share their journey. It’s it’s really community driven this way, then you can always find the information on the website. There’s French word net slash accelerator is the link for the group and fantasy that net slash coaching is the link to the one on one coaching. But as I told you, it’s very, you know, it’s very fluid in between the two. And you can always actually speak to me directly, you can book a, we call it a coaching application call. It’s basically a call that’s completely free. We will take 40 minutes for ourselves, just so you can tell me about what is your project, why you are learning French? And so I can, you know, recommend to you what will be the best way and then if you want to work with me, I am happy to work with you.
Jerry Dugan 33:16
Nice, awesome. Yep. Anja, it was great to have you on the show and have this conversation with you. Any final words of wisdom though, before we go?
Angel Pretot 33:25
Okay, I’ll tell you, my, my moto, my moto is have fun now, don’t mortgage the future. And I purposely have no connecting words in between those two things. Because it can be perceived as have fun now, but don’t mortgage the future. Or it will also be perceived as like, you know, like don’t don’t take on debt or get drunk too much so that you bankrupt your health just to have fun now, right? But it also can be perceived as half now. So you don’t mortgage the future with the idea that it’s important to live in the now to have the to have the best moment that you can, because then you will set yourself up for a future that looks just like it. While if you take on the idea that oh, I have to suffer now. So I have a better future, the better future might never happen for many possible reasons. One of them being that once your brain is used to suffering, you probably will continue. So yeah, have fun. Now it’s important. If you want to learn something, you also need to have fun while you learn it. It will make things so much easier. So we are happy to help you learn French if that’s your thing. And you I recommend meditation if you want to learn anything, not just the language, because it really helps. I love
Jerry Dugan 34:36
that. I’m Shel, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. And yeah, we’ll have to keep in touch.
Angel Pretot 34:43
Yes, absolutely. JERRY I look forward to hearing from you anytime.
Jerry Dugan 34:49
Now I hope you got a lot out of that episode just like I did. took some notes. You thought about your online business that you want to create or maybe you want to learn French and I move abroad or not move abroad just, I don’t know, keep up with Emily and Paris, whatever the case may be. Now, you could check out the show notes at beyond the rut.com slash 349. There you’ll find more information from on shell, how you can reach out to him on French fluency, dotnet, and so much more. Also check out my book, it’s on Amazon now. It’s called Beyond the rut, creating a life worth living in your faith, family and career. It just launched this month and it’s available as a Kindle ebook, it will be available as a paperback and it will also be out there as an audio book, more to come as it grows. Grab a copy, give it a read, all that good stuff. Now I’m glad you joined me this week and I look forward to joining you again next week. But until next time, go live life beyond the rut. Take care
