English Listening Practice: Is Cloé Madanes' Viral Approach to Self-Help Any GOOD?
Tired of boring English listening practice lessons? Get ready for a laugh-out-loud journey to fluency! Discover how the "Habits of Highly Miserable People" can improve your English skills. This isn't your grandma's language class – it's a witty roller-coaster that'll speed up your vocabulary and comprehension.
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Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.
⭐ John Lennon
✔️ Lesson transcript: https://adeptenglish.com/lessons/english-listening-practice-habits-of-miserable-people/
You'll improve your English comprehension skills while engaging with humorous, thought-provoking content.
By exploring Cloé Madanes's "Habits of Highly Miserable People," you're not just learning language - you're absorbing cultural insights and idiomatic expressions.
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More About This Lesson
Explore the humor in Cloé Madanes's "The Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People." Listen and laugh to improve your vocabulary.
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
⭐ Elbert Hubbard
- Learn idioms and expressions in context for real-life use.
- Improve listening skills with clear, accessible material.
- Expand vocabulary through engaging storytelling.
- Practice pronunciation with natural speech patterns.
- Enhance your understanding of humour and irony.
- Gain insights into cultural nuances of English.
- Develop conversation skills with practical phrases.
- Strengthen comprehension by listening multiple times.
- Relate language learning to everyday experiences.
- Enjoy a fun and motivational approach to learning.
You'll learn how fear of money can actually help you get better at English. This lesson shows you how talking about fears can make you speak more fluently. You'll also find out that being bored isn't always bad. In fact, it can help you learn a new language. Finally, you'll understand why talking about misery in a funny way can be a great tool for learning English.
Humour is mankind's greatest blessing.
⭐ Mark Twain
Humour can help you remember things better. When you laugh, your brain remembers more. Also, understanding jokes and sarcasm makes you better at understanding English. It uses complex thinking skills, which are good for learning a language. Engaging content, like funny stories, helps your brain learn better. It keeps you interested and makes learning more fun.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- How can I use humour to improve my English fluency? Humour helps you remember new words and phrases better because it makes learning enjoyable. In our lessons, you'll encounter humorous content like Cloé Madanes's "The Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People," which makes it easier to engage with and retain English vocabulary and idioms.
- What is the "tongue in cheek" phrase, and how is it used in English? "Tongue in cheek" means saying something in a joking or ironic way. It’s often used to convey humour or sarcasm. In the lesson, Cloé Madanes uses this style to present serious topics humorously, making the content both entertaining and educational.
- How can I improve my English listening skills with Adept English? Listen to our lessons multiple times to help new words and phrases stick in your mind. Our clear and accessible English material is designed for repeated listening, which reinforces your understanding and retention, improving your fluency over time.
- What are some effective ways to expand my English vocabulary? Engage with diverse content such as podcasts, books, and articles. Our lessons recommend focusing on real-world examples and practical vocabulary. For instance, understanding and using phrases like "scarcity mindset" in context will enhance your conversational skills.
- How does Adept English help with speaking practice? Our lessons provide you with real-life examples and scenarios to practice. By listening to how words and phrases are used in context, you can mimic and practice speaking English more naturally. Repeating the lessons aloud will also help you improve your pronunciation and confidence.
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Most Unusual Words:
- Miserable: Very unhappy.
- Tongue in cheek: Saying something in a joking way.
- Scarcity: Not enough of something.
- Phobic: Very afraid of something.
- Tedious: Boring and repetitive.
- Enthused: Very excited or interested.
- Desperation: A feeling of hopelessness.
- Alienate: Make someone feel isolated or unwelcome.
- Sustained: Continuing for a long time without stopping.
- Doom scrolling: Spending a lot of time looking at negative news online.
Most Frequently Used Words:
| Word | Count |
|---|---|
| About | 21 |
| Yourself | 12 |
| These | 11 |
| English | 9 |
| Habits | 8 |
| People | 8 |
| Miserable | 7 |
| Means | 6 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
Transcript: Highly Unhappy English Learners Have These 14 Habits-Cloé Madanes
The Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People
Hi there. Join us in today's English lesson where we explore Cloé Madanes's witty take on "The Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People." ‘Miserable’, MISERABLE just means ‘very unhappy’.This lesson isn't just about learning English; it's about seeing how humour can teach valuable life lessons. We'll cover three of these habits today, which are described by Cloé Madanes in a way that’s amusing, but invites us to look at truths about ourselves. Perhaps uncomfortable truths. In my work as a psychotherapist, I often make recommendations. Books to read, podcasts to listen to, websites to visit. It’s good to know what to recommend my clients read or listen to to help them. But sometimes clients make recommendations to me - and sometimes these are gifts! So this is a great recommendation that I received. Have you heard of 'The Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People' by Cloé Madanes? That’s MADANES if you want to look her up. It’s too much for one podcast so I’ll cover 3 of them today and save the rest for another time. It’s a ‘tongue in cheek’ piece of writing - that’s an English phrase that we use. And ‘tongue in cheek’ means that we’re saying something that we don’t really believe. We’re saying it to be funny and amusing, but it’s also a way of getting a message across. So ‘tongue in cheek’ means ‘we’re making a joke’ in other words. Sometimes it’s a much more effective way to get a message across, with humour. And there are some brilliant observations in these ‘Fourteen Habits’ from Cloé Madanes - about life and how we manage ourselves and these observations have value for everyone. I hope you enjoy this.
Hello, I’m Hilary, and you’re listening to Adept English. We will help you to speak English fluently. All you have to do is listen. So start listening now and find out how it works.
First don’t forget - Adept English is here primarily to help you learn English, but we do it by giving you accessible, clear to understand English material to practise on. So don’t forget, if you want this material to do language learning, then listen a number of times. It gives new words and phrases have a chance to stick in your mind. So listen multiple times to fully grasp and remember the content and the vocabulary.
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The Seven Rules of Adept English - our free course. Check out how we’ve improved at video!
Also have you checked out our free course, The Seven Rules of Adept English? It's been a while since I've mentioned this one, but it's still a valuable resource. This free course shares with you the secrets of language learning that the Adept English approach is based on. I still recommend this course because the content is valuable. But here's something interesting - can you believe how far we've come in the quality of our videos? So you can watch these old videos ‘tongue in cheek’ also just to see just how much we’ve improved. They will be updated at some point - it’s a matter of time. But catch the old, but still very relevant version of the Seven Rules while you still can! That’s all at our website adeptenglish.com.
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A confident person, with hidden doubts. Enjoy a lesson that mixes language learning with life insights
Are you sabotaging your own happiness?
So Cloé Madanes is a psychiatrist, that’s PSYCHIATRIST. A ‘doctor of the mind’ in other words and one who specialises in Family Therapy, working with families. Originally from Argentina, Cloé Madanes has worked for many years with Tony Robbins, the well-known coach and motivational speaker. Anyway the Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People is a brilliant, ‘tongue in cheek’ response to the famous book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People’, by Stephen R Covey. This is a very well known book which you may have heard of. It’s often recommended in Management training. But Cloé Madanes has turned this title around - so ‘The Fourteen Habits of Highly Miserable People’ - or in other words, advice on ‘how to make yourself miserable’! Imagine becoming an expert on making yourself miserable—sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Yet, you may recognise some of what I am about to describe in yourself. I recognise some of it in myself! In this piece of writing, Cloé Madanes is making the really good point that while there are many approaches to life that we take that can make us successful, there are also many approaches to life, attitudes and beliefs, that mean that we handle life badly. We feel bad, stay stuck and we aren’t successful. The amusing and funny and tongue-in-cheek element of her ‘Fourteen Habits’ is she writes ‘how to be miserable’ as a recommendation and even gives you exercise in ‘achieving being miserable’. The point is that a lot of what she recommends - we’re already doing some of it! We behave in that way as though we’re following her recommendations. So let’s look at some of three of these fourteen habits today - and if you like this, I’ll do some more on it.
So the first one - of Cloé Madanes’s recommendations on how to be miserable, she says:-
Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss.
Be afraid, be very afraid, of economic loss. So this recommendation, is for those people who worry about ‘having enough money’, but who aren’t actually facing difficult circumstances. If you are struggling genuinely in the world with money, perhaps you don’t have enough work, then skip this recommendation. But there are many people who spend their lives afraid of losing their jobs or their savings, even when they don’t need to be! This way of messing up your life consists of being extremely fearful about ‘not having enough money’ even when this is a small risk. Sometimes we refer to this as ‘the scarcity mindset’. That’s SCARCITY. And it can make you timid about big decisions, keep you doing the same old thing in life, even though you don’t enjoy it, because you fear that your bank balance may be affected if you take any risks! The ‘scarcity mindset’ means you’re always worrying that there’s ‘not going to be enough’, when in fact, there’s plenty! Cloé Madanes says, tongue in cheek ‘Concentrate on this fear, make it a priority in your life, moan continuously that you could go broke any day now. Complain about how much everything costs, particularly when someone else is buying.’ She says also try to start arguments with other people about their spending habits. And suggest that these people are responsible for the economic difficulties in our countries.
Apparently, she says that living in fear of not having enough money ‘has several advantages’. It will keep you working in that job that you hate! It will help you become obsessed about money and make every time you spend a painful experience, even if it’s a tiny amount. And it’s great if you want to alienate your friends and family and become anxious, depressed, and possibly even ill from your money worries, especially if you’re quite well-off!
She suggests: ‘Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, think about all the things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings. And then imagine yourself living in a homeless shelter or homeless under a bridge! How many of us actually do this?! It’s a set of thoughts which come in quick succession - ‘Oh, my job is at risk. What if I lose it and can’t find another? And you imagine all the money in your bank account disappearing - and the desperation of having to give up the place that you live in and move into less and less good accommodation, ending in visions of you being homeless. Torture yourself thinking about that homeless shelter. Nothing like this type of thinking to make you feel anxious and to cling on to the job you hate!
Practise sustained boredom and make yourself really popular!
Cloé Madane’s 2nd recommendation for making yourself miserable - ‘Practise sustained boredom’. She suggests - and here’s chance to practise more difficult English with a quotation - have the feeling that ‘everything is predictable, life holds no excitement, no possibility for adventure, that an inherently fascinating person like yourself has been deposited into a completely tedious and pointless life, through no fault of your own’. She suggests complaining a lot to people about how bored you are, which has the benefit of making them feel you’re boring. You could even make a crisis happen to relieve your boredom! Ooh what a good idea! Perhaps start an argument with the people who’re important to you in your life, just so that you can complain some more about how bad life is!
To get really good at this habit, Cloé Madanes recommends that you watch hours of mindless television, read trashy novels or news content. Avoid art and literature and stimulating discussions about current affairs, because they may might you feel enthused. We can’t have that! I think I would add in there - spend hours on social media, ‘doom scrolling’ as we say and envying other people’s lives!
CHANGE Your Relationship with Self-Doubt | English Listening Practice
Give yourself a negative identity
The third recommendation that Cloé Madanes makes to help us feel miserable - ‘Give yourself a negative identity’. By this, she means an identity around an emotional difficulty that you have - and then define yourself by this. So if you feel a bit down, style yourself as ‘a depressed person’, rather than someone who feels depressed. Become a ‘Phobic person’ or become ‘an anxious person’. If you define yourself like this, it makes it feel ‘fixed, stuck, difficult to change’. So define yourself by your problems. And if you have a diagnosis, even better! You can make that condition the focus of your life, talk endlessly about it and read lots on the internet about the problem! Ensure that the difficulty you have interferes with your regular activities and relationships. Focus on it and refuse to go places or try new things because of it. ‘It’s important to show that you don’t enjoy these states or behaviours, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Practise this negative identity.
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And sort of exercise that Cloé Madanes suggests to help here - ‘Write down the 10 situations that make you anxious or depressed. Once a week, focus on one of these situations. If it’s a situation that makes you feel anxious, use it to work yourself up into a panic for at least 15 minutes. Or focus on a situation which makes you feel depressed. Take 15 minutes and spend it imagining the worst it can be, until you feel really down.
I’m sure that’s an exercise we’ve all done at some time of other!
Can you recognise irony in English?
Well, that’s the first three. I hope you can see the ‘tongue in cheek’ nature of it? Who amongst us hasn’t done these exercises at some time or other? As we say in English ‘Many a true word is said in jest’ - where ‘in jest’, JEST means ‘in fun, not seriously’. So humour to make a point.
I’m interested in what you think about this podcast - there’s a lot of use of irony here - IRONY. Cloé Madanes is using irony to make a point, humour in other words, but in the hope of helping people to help themselves. She’s appealing to all of us, who take the trouble to know ourselves and to look at our thinking habits and question whether they’re doing us good or doing us harm.
Let me know whether you’d like me to cover more of these ideas - the ones from Cloé Madanes in easier to understand English! Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
Goodbye
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