Dr. Barbara Oakley: Chat about "Mindshift" interest changes & better learning 

Gracias Marta - es una verdad que no enseñan en muchos lugares. Barbara y yo, intentamos cambiar eso :D

Gracias a ti Javier!

Ever since I implemented this strategy, I've been able to get the one task done for hours, whereas before I'd run out of patience after an hour max. I can highly recommend it!

You're more than welcome ;)

Always happy to share inspirational people we can all learn a lot from with the world!

+Paul Howlett The stories in it are really inspiring - I'm sure you'll find it useful!

Glad others got a good takeaway from that point that was new to me too! The mic was pointed at her actually, but she's quite soft spoken. On top of this, I've had hearing issues for years that have gotten worse recently (I'm going for surgery on Tuesday), and one result of that is that I simply project my voice a lot because I feel like compensating, presuming others hear me as bad as I hear them. I am never aware I'm doing it. In future interviews I'll either try to consciously talk softer, or I can actually use a sound editing technique in Adobe Audition that will equalise the volume digitally. But don't worry, I know. People love to tell you to talk softer and I hear it a lot...

Oh! The VERY best luck for the operation, and getting back on track!

Sure thing! I do appreciate the feedback & reminder, so I promise I'll try to take it into account in future interview videos. Little changes like this can make a great video excellent, and I do want to keep improving them ;) Thanks again!

lol, hilarious way of looking at that word :D

Then I call BS on your interpretation ;) Learning another language gives you the ability to communicate with more people, and can help you understand your own language better to even appreciate other words. I was always pretty weak at picking the right word, but since I learned romance languages, I've known what a lot more *English* words mean as a result. You are going to get better at communicating period - your other traits may remain the same, but this fact is hard to argue against. What you are talking about is social skills, which is an entirely different issue. Learning a new language won't necessarily change that at all. In my case, it happened to force me to be more outgoing as I travelled and had to make friends with locals, since I was avoiding English, and being OK with making mistakes to boost my confidence as I interacted with people, but that's more a case that lifestyle choices led to better social skills, with language learning simply being the catalyst. In that sense, if you are using "better communicator" to mean "more outgoing", then sure, I'd agree that an actual correlation is harder to argue. People skills have aspects to them that need to be worked on directly, and learning vocabulary and practising basic phrases won't really achieve that. But it will open the doors to allow you to improve your people skills with way more people, and other cultures that may be less intimidating if your current environment makes it a little harder.

It's also worth keeping in mind that to a certain extent, social skills are structured in the same way that a language's grammar is. You may never be the best conversationalist in the world, but there are certainly tangible elements of conversation that can be learned regardless of how you naturally speak to someone (i.e. asking somebody where they work and, depending on their answer, asking how long they've been doing it, do they find it difficult or fun? Was it always their dream, or do they plan to do something else in the future?). A lot of conversations actually follow a very structured formula, and with some practise, the right questions and answers can be learned, and the ability to improvise will just get better with time. Then learn to do it in Chinese.