Anthony, Author at Anthony Lecturer

5 valuable tips to help you to speak English like a native speaker

To speak English like a native speaker, let “Being naked in your mind”.

This is one of the biggest lessons I learned after being multilingual.

One more language you can speak, ten more opportunities you can have in life.

This is what my dad taught me when I was a kid and encouraged me to be trilingual who can speak Vietnamese, English, and Chinese.

And in my country, most people believe that the ability to speak more than a language can be known as a talent.

Because it is around 40% of the population can speak only their mother language, while 43% can speak 2 languages; just only 13% can speak up to 3 languages.

Totally, it up to 96% of the world population who know less than 3 languages.

But globalization leads to a reality that the more languages a person can know, it will easier for this person to work in the global environment and have more chances to be successful.

But do you really need to have the talent to learn a new language and create more opportunities to be successful for yourself?

The answer is “NO”

You don’t need to have the talent to learn a new language.

What you really need is the right way to approach the language you want to learn.

And the following parts will include the strategies that I did to master my language skills in Chinese and English to become trilingual in less than 2 years.

1. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Being naked in your mind”.

“If you think you know everything; you know nothing. If you think you know nothing; you know something.” — Laozi

The mindset of knowing everything will kill your curiosity, the most important factor for learning a new language.

And this is what scientists call The Dunning Kruger Effect (DKE).

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills.

And it happens when your own incompetence prevents you from seeing your incompetence, following the study from Adi Jaffe Ph.D. that published on the Psychology Today.

So being naked in your mind means that you get your mind like a white new paper, even you already can learn this language for years in school as a compulsory subject, whenever you learn about it.

Because when you keep your mind “being naked”, it makes you feel more curious about everything related to this language, and give the motivation for you to learn and discover all the aspects of this language.

But when you think that you already master of the language itself, what you want is just about teaching others instead of learning and improving your language skill.

This is a big trap that many people fall into when approaching something new (and they know a little bit before but think that they know all), and language is not an exception.

2. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Making the learning process to be your hobby”

If you can make the new language you want to learn to be your hobby, you already win 50% of your learning game.

You shouldn’t feel the language as a subject, it should be your favorite activity instead.

This is a mistake that takes me years to recognize when I first learning English.

In the study of Srini Pillay M.D., he pointed out that

Hobbies bring people pleasure. And when they do, they not only make you feel better, but they improve your physiology too.

I still remember the first time I know about English is when I am in grade 3, and this is a compulsory subject in my school.

And be honest, I don’t like it for years. Because this is what I see as a “subject”. A thing that I need to learn to pass the exam and then will forget everything I learned in this English subject when I move to the next grade.

This is what happens in my mind for years when learning this language in school.

For me, it used to just a “score chart” that I need to have for going to the upper class.

But when I start to think about going abroad to study, I change the way how I think about English.

At that time, it becomes what I want to learn to connect with my international friends and used to discover the diversity of cultures of Melbourne (where I chose to study abroad).

I spent hours daily learning English and search online about the city, cultures, and activities in Melbourne and Australia. All of the activities I did to improve my English comes to me as a hobby to discover, not about the grade anymore.

With this changed mindset, I improved my English rapidly.

And in just 5 months, I make the IELTS test from 4.0 to 7.0, a massive achievement for me when I learned English for 10 years to get that 4.0 in IELTS and just in the next 5 months for the 7.0 in IELTS (no band under 6.5).

And now, when I’m learning Chinese to prepare for the highest test HSK 6 of this language, the same method of swift mindset be applied.

Making your learning process to be your hobby, not your stress of grades.

3. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Make friends with the native speakers”

If you want to be a real native speaker, you need to be in a native environment.

And this is what I applied when I first approach to Chinese.

To do it, I choose to meet and make a lot of conversations with Chinese people in Melbourne, where I live.

This is a great opportunity for me when I live in a city that having a lot of Chinese speakers and studied with many Chinese friends.

The environment where I have emerged in Chinese makes me have a lot of motivation for opportunities to speak with native speakers to improve my tones, pronunciation, and vocabulary.

And if you really want to be good at any language, let start to make more friends with the native speakers who speak this language in your area and you will see how fast your learning process being.

But if you are living in an environment where don’t have the native speakers of the language you want to learn, you still can do it effectively by using the Internet to make friends online or learning from Youtubers who are native speakers.

Or you can,

Using apps such as Hinative, Italki,… to make friends who you can practice a new language together.

…

Or joining the language events in your local area to meet with the people who have the same passion to learn new languages. It will be a great way for you to make real new friends and learn a language with native speakers easily.

…

Or using the Meetup or Eventbrite, these are 2 great apps that I use in Melbourne to join in hundreds of events in this city. Apart from experiences new things when I meet new people from these social activities, it also a great way that I did to master my English speaking skill to be more native.

Let check it out these apps (or websites) to see how many interesting events that are going on in your city right now that you can participate in to learn something new and improve your language as well.

4. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Writing Blogs and Essays”

Let practice writing in the language you want to learn and make your writing in this language even better than your mother language.

This is the reason why I choose to come up with writing my own blogs, where you can find a lot of blogs about Wiki Business, Wiki Media & Marketing, Wiki Personal Finance, Wiki Personal Development.

In the beginning, writing a blog or essay in another language is a terrible experience. When you don’t know what you should and shouldn’t do.

And even you are a famous artist who has a lot of great ideas and can easily make long writing stories in your mother language just on the fast track.

When it comes to writing for a new language, it normally impossible and hard to write that much, or even you can’t come up with the idea to write about.

This is what I experience so many times when I try to create a piece of long-form content in Chinese and English before.

But everything takes time to be excellent, and writing in another language is not an exception.

The more time you spend to practice on Writing, the better quality your blogs and essays will be.

The most important thing you need to concern about is just never giving up and make Writing be a new habit for you.

This is how I did, and you can too to make not only your Writing be better but also master your new language.

5. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Making video contents on the language you want to master”.

If you don’t feel enjoy practice your language in the Writing process, you can choose to replace by another way as making vlogs — Where you can easily show your character and speaking skill in the language you want to improve.

You can choose to be a writer or a speaker in your videos, these both will help to increase rapidly your language level.

For me, besides being a writer on Medium, I also choose to improve my English by making my own English Youtube channel that runs parallel with my Vietnamese channel.

This is my English Youtube Channel

And this is my Vietnamese Channel

Although it is really tough at the beginning to run both at the same time.

However, I really enjoy making these kinds of videos, it becomes my entertainment rather than the work I need to do to improve my language.

And there are so many platforms that you can choose to make your own videos such as Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, Youtube,…

Your videos not only can help you to be more confident and fluent in the language but also can help you to earn a good income if you get fame from it.

Final thoughts

I believe that the ability to speak multiple languages can be considered as a talent somehow.

But to speak like a native speaker will need more than having talent, what you really need is to have the right ways to approach the new language. And these are 5 things I did to be multilingual.

1. Being naked in your mind

2. Making the learning process to be your hobby

3. Make friends with the native speakers

4. Writing Blogs and Essays

5. Making video contents on the language you want to master

P/s:

Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel to share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can

Check my Youtube here!

In Personal Development

3 Simple But Effective Ways To Reduce Screen Time

No Comments In Personal Development

These simple but effective ways to reduce screen time will make your eyes to be healthier and get a better vision.

The eyes are the window of the soul.

This is a very popular idiom in my country when people talk about the beauty of the eyes.

And a person with beautiful eyes always is more attractive to others compared to others.

This person is also free to do more things compared to people who need to wear glasses all the time (such as drive a motorbike on rainy days or reading information from a far distance,…)

But we also can’t ignore the reality that there are more and more people who need to wear glasses and have weaker vision nowadays as a result of spending too much time in front of the screens.

From using the laptop for working to the phone for entertainment or communication,…

All these activities require us to spend hours per day interacting with screens and ask the eyes to work hardly and continuously.

In recent research, it shows that on average, a kid nowadays uses at least 4 hours and 44 minutes a day on the screen to check social media alone.

It is a massive number of hours per day when we think seriously about it. And it also leads to a lot of negative impacts on the health of kids’ eyes when we see the number of young people who need to wear glasses is growing every year.

So what we can do to protect our eyes’ health easily but effectively?

…

Method No.1 to reduce screen time: Take care of your surrounding environment

You can’t ask for losing weight when you surrounded by all sugar foods.

It is the same for wanting to reduce screen time but always locates your smartphone nearby you, open your computer or TV all the time.

If you really want to reduce the time to consume your electronic screens, you first really need to reduce their appearance time around you.

So how to do it effectively

In your company

You can reduce the time to use screens by trying to take the rule 50/10 (means 50 minutes to work on the computer, then 10 minutes to relax without using any electronic devices).

Or you can try to limit your using time by printing out the information you need to check on paper instead of reading Word or Excel files from your computer.

As in my company, the training materials, and business news all print to hard copies. Therefore, we can choose between using the hard copy or the online version.

And for me, the best option always is hard copy, except for the documents that still haven’t been printed out yet.

It helps me to save a lot of hours per week to use screens to read reports and papers.

And actually, printing it out make my work to be more effective when I can easily take note, scanning, and skim easier than when I use the computer.

In your home

Don’t let your phone nearby your bed (and turn off the wifi when you go to sleep if you don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night because of notifications).

Replace your living room’s TV with a corner of books.

As I see many families have a BIG TV located at the central position in their living room and normally spend many hours in the evening watching TV programs.

If you don’t want to waste your time useless with just entertainment content and save your eyes (after a hard-working day that spent many hours on computers), replacing the TV with a bookshelf will encourage you to read more as well as relax your eyes with books(instead of watching TV).

Developing these kinds of daily good habits will help you to improve your quality of life a lot as well as protect your vision from the screen.

Method No.2 to reduce screen time: Set your own time to use screens at home

When you are in the workspace, it is hard for you to decide if you use or not use the computer or phone. Because nowadays, most of the business activities and tasks in companies require to use screens.

But at home, the choice is your own.

If you want it, you can do it. But if you don’t want, nobody can ask you to work on screens in your re-energy time in the evenings or weekends.

However, to make the best control of using screens at home, it requires you to have high discipline and a good plan to use it.

Because if you don’t, you will very easy to fall into a trap of consuming screens more than you expect, from answers to your comments on social media, watching your favorite movies, reading online news, to have video calls with your family members, or friends,…

These things will cost you a lot of hours every day if you don’t clear about the time you work on it.

For me, a limitation of 2 hours per night is what I set for myself to use electronic screen devices, from the computer, phone, to TV programs.

Normally, it will start from 6 p.m to 8 p.m when I can spend 30 minutes updating online news, an hour watching my favorite YouTubers on Youtube, and a half-hour chatting with friends on the messengers.

After that, I will use books and notepaper only or talk with my family members face-to-face and quit all the pieces of screen equipment until the next morning.

So how you can do it effectively

Set yourself a clear plan for what you need to do with screens

When you know what you need to use the phone, TV or computer for in the evening, it will help you to estimate better how many hours on average you really need to use it.

For me, if I need to complete my report in 2 hours, I will plan for myself to add 2 more hours in the evening for using screens for this report.

And don’t use screens for any further purpose.

This is how I maximize my 2 precious hours with screens in the evening. Choosing to focus on MITs (Most Important Tasks) firstly with it before doing anything else.

Never forget your rule

If you set 2 hours (after working time for screens/day) as I do. Let make yourself never quit this rule, and always make sure to use it for under 2 hours.

The big problem is we choose to do it all by ourselves, and if we don’t have a high discipline, we will lose it.

For instance, a movie like Avengers (for more than two and a half hours) can make you break your 2 hours rule. But if you give you the rule of 2 hours (you should choose not to watch it, until your weekend (when you can give you an hour more for relaxing purposes)).

This is how I did with my favorite movies.

But always keep in mind during the week that

If I can break the rule for the first time, it can happen for the second time.

Method No.3 to reduce screen time: Change the ways you entertain

You don’t need to have a good computer, high-tech phones to play games, or having a lot of online friends to chat with for entertainment purposes.

We all can do entertainment without using any electronic devices.

What really makes sense is just your choices. If you believe you must have electronic devices to entertain, you MUST HAVE.

But if you believe that entertainment can do in any way that makes you feel happy and relaxed, you are TOTALLY RIGHT.

Actually, it is all depend on yourself.

As I believe in “Entertainment doesn’t need to have electronic devices”.

I choose to make myself relax and enjoy life by hanging out with friends, taking care of my small garden, or reading my favorite books in my free time instead of spending hours chatting online or watching TV shows.

It is not always the main option for me. But it is ALMOST.

And this way of approach helps me to reduce the massive amount of hours spent on computers, TV, and phones every day.

If we just count in a simple way, every day I choose to do entertainment activities without using a screen for 1 hour only. So, after a year, I already can save my eyes from watching on screens for 365 hours.

In 10 years, it will be 3650 hours.

This will create a massive impact on your eyes’ health in the long term impacts when you review it back for years.

For instance, on the weekend, I normally quite my electric device for the whole day to enjoy the real-life experience instead, such as discovering this interesting Loki Lodge farm.

To conclusion

Wearing the glasses is not too bad, but if you can free your eyes without using it is so far better.

Especially if you are a sportsman who loves to play competitive sports like basketball, football as I do.

And the list of 3 simple things actually what I did for years, from when I was a kid and my parents taught me with these rules until now.

These are so far simple and easy to apply, but the most important thing is your patient with what you do.

1. Take care of your surrounding environment

2. Set your own time to use screens at home

3. Change the ways you entertain

These are all not hard to achieve. But the result in your eyes health will be massive.

P/s:

Check my Youtube here!

In Personal Development

3 Daily Good Habits to Develop Positive Thinking

No Comments In Personal Development

Your daily good habits will change your way of thinking dramatically.

If you have a good life with a lot of great things happening to you, it is not just because you are lucky but because of what you did as your daily good habits make this result.

Whatever you get in your life will come from your daily habit. — Anonymous

Let think if now you are having good health with a fit body, does it come from your wishes or it comes from months, even years of doing exercises?

Can you just drink coke and eat pizza daily and still keep fit and have a healthy body? The answer is NO!

It also happens the same for your mind, if you really want to develop positive thinking; what you need is practice the good habits daily to grow your positive mindset.

And in this story today, I will share with you 3 habits that I do daily and I also believe that these will help you to build up and boost your positive mind to the next level as I do.

No.1 Daily Good Habits: Consume positive contents

3 Daily Habits To Get A Positive Mind — Photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash

This is one of the first things I practice to do every morning when I wake up. I practice it by listening to some morning motivational videos during the time I do morning exercises from Tony Robbins, Jocko Willink, Joe Dispenza,…

You can easily do it by just searching on Youtube the term such as: “motivational speech”, “morning motivation”, “inspirational speech”,… Millions of results you can use.

The idea of this habit is to make your brain to be optimistic and feel the positive energy for your day. Because what you consume early in the morning can decide your mood on this day.

Therefore, instead of watching the news with a lot of negative information about crisis, pandemics, corruption,… I choose to spend my quality time in the morning to grow my mind with positive information from the leaders or inspired public speakers.

And you can choose many different kinds of content to consume, from newspapers, videos to podcasts, etc. You just need to make sure that the first thing you want to consume every single morning will be the positive information that helps you to grow, but not the negative one.

For example, if you want to know more about the methods to study effectively for your education journey, you can spend time reading this blog “6 Best Methods To Study Effectively, Study Smarter Not Harder” instead of reading the comic book.

…

No.2 Daily Good Habits: Daily Workout

A positive mind always go with a healthy body.

You can not ask your mind to be happy and positive if you have poor health with a tired body or need to use medicine often.

Therefore, let take care more of your health by doing exercise daily. Because when you do exercise, your body will release the hormone endorphins that help you to reduce depression and feel more positive and energetic.

Moreover, when you practice the habit of daily workouts, your body will become stronger and fitter. It makes you feel more confident when choosing clothes, meeting people. These benefits will impact a lot on your career and personal life.

A good body helps your mind to feel better about yourself and will help to increase more positive thoughts.

Or if you enjoy doing team sport or any individual sport, let join in it. For example, when I stay in Melbourne, I love to practice boat races and normally spend weekends practicing this sport. This is really fun and exciting when you get wet and can enjoy the wonderful views from the Yarra River.

No.3 Daily Good Habits: Schedule your day with clear goals

Don’t let your day go without your control. This is one of the biggest mistakes that many people are facing, especially when you don’t have your daily schedule.

Having a good schedule for your day will give you more motivation to achieve your daily goals. It helps you to clarify which one you should prioritize first, which one you can leave to the end of the day to work on.

And by having this good habit, you can easily achieve more things in your life as well as have a positive mindset.

Because it has been built up when you set the goal and put your time and effort to get it. The feeling of success to complete the small daily tasks will be the main factor to boost your confidence and positive feelings in your mind.

By practicing these 3 habits in your daily routine, you are creating a sustainable foundation for your mind to be more positive and energetic.

And your mindset is also similar to your muscles, if you really want to have abs or big muscles, you need to have a plan and practice it daily. Therefore, to achieve a positive mind, let build up good habits for yourself and let practice it from today.

Everything in your life, if you hungry enough to achieve it, you will get it!

P/s:

Check my Youtube here!

In Personal Development

4 Things to Remove If You Want to Achieve Success In Life

No Comments In Personal Development

If you really want to achieve success in life, you don’t need to add more to become a success, what you need is to remove more.

If you are in the age of 20s, probably you used to hear sentences like:

“You need to work more to achieve more”,

“Hard work pays off”,

“Make a to-do list and complete all of the things in your to-do list to achieve your goals”

I don’t want to say that these sentences are wrong, especially when you are in the age of 20s, this is the time you get the most energy and passion to pursue your goals. Or even if you are in the age of 30s, 40s, even 50s to start your new journey to achieve new life goals. These motivational sentences also nice to hear.

But it is not the right message all the time, and after years of experience many things happen in my life, I want to share with you that:

You don’t need to add more things to achieve more goals in your life, learning how to remove the unnecessary things helps you to achieve more!

Because when you decide to add somethings to do in your day, it means that you also reduce the time to do something else in a day. All of us have the same 24 hours per day, and the way you use it will decide what you will get as a result.

So, let be clever in choosing what you should do and what you shouldn’t do in your day to make your day effective.

Although there is a long list about what you SHOULD and SHOULDN’T do that you can find on the Internet. In this story, I will share with you the 4 most important things that I learned to remove to help me get better results and can achieve more in my life.

And I believe in somehow, it also helps you to make your day becomes better and achieve more things in life.

1. To achieve success in life, let remove the negative thoughts.

If you want to achieve success in life, this is the first lesson you need to remember.

In our minds, we always have 2 characters “angel” and “evil”.

One is always encouraging us to think and work positively in all situations. While the other is always trying to find a reason to blame or to discourage us to pursue our dreams.

And to achieve more in our life, we need to limit the times “evil” character controls the mind and tries to make us have negative thoughts.

The reason is when your thoughts are just full of negative information, you can’t find a way to achieve your goals. This kind of thought is easy to have when you consume too much negative information such as corruption news, crisis information,… on the internet, and television.

We all know that negative thoughts are not good, but how to remove them from your mind is another story. It will not be easy if you don’t know the way how to do it.

Therefore, this is a list of several things I did personally and consider it as useful ways that you also get benefits when trying to apply for yourself, such as:

1. Stop watching negative news and gossip stories on the Internet.

2. Practice the habits of reading — “The more you learn, the more you earn” — Anonymous.

3. Make a list of what you are grateful for.

Or you can read more about my analysis in 3 daily habits that help to build a positive mind in this story.

2. To achieve success in life, let remove the “Overnight success” mindset

This is a mistake that many people are facing, especially with the young generations who be inspired by a lot of “overnight success” stories from social media and news.

The stories about the Millenials or Gen Z who can earn millions of dollars per year when they are just around 1x or 2x years old from social media or in their entrepreneurship journey make million people think that they can achieve the same level of success just by having a “big goal” and “a little bit lucky” such as having a viral piece of contents online to become successful.

This is a big mistake that I also faced when I start my journey as a content creator. But to be a real success and can achieve more in your life, what you need to do is “running the sprint, but not a marathon”.

To achieve success in life, you need to run the marathon with a clear goal.

You need to have clear goals in both short and long time periods. Then, step by step to achieve all of them. This is the way how you can achieve more in your life. Instead of just thinking about the long-term goal and ignoring the small steps that you need to do. Achieving small goals before you can come to the bigger picture is more important.

Therefore, let forget about “overnight success” stories, and be ready to work on yourself more as you prepare for your sprint to success, not the marathon one.

When you can switch your mindset into this way, you are making one more closer step to achieve the bigger success in your life.

3. To achieve success in life, don’t say YES to everything

Let spend 1 minute before keep reading to ask yourself this question

“Do you usually say YES with the things that don’t matter to your goals?”

Most of us have this same issue. The idea here is you spend too much time on the things you say “YES” that don’t bring any value for your recent goals because you consider that it will help you to achieve the bigger goal in the long term concept. But the reality is “You don’t need to”.

For example, if you are an entrepreneur who wants to build up your company to become the top 10 marketing agency in your country in the next 18 months. And your goal for the next 3 months is to get 2 pieces of keynote speeches to go viral on social media to attract angel investors.

But instead of working full time on your content creation with your team, you plan to spend half of the time having meetings with everyone who you think can interested to invest in your company in the next year.

This is the time when you MUST remind yourself of this sentence

Don’t say YES to everything!

Because the thought that you need to meet the neighbors (or someone else randomly) who maybe can invest in your company next year shouldn’t your priority at the moment. The thing that you really need to focus on is creating viral content instead.

It is your short-term goal to help you to achieve the bigger goal to be the top agency in the country. But when you say “YES” with spending more time for meetings, you are reducing the time and effort to make your good content go viral!

So, always carefully consider what is really makes sense for you in a short time, focus on it first before moving to the bigger pictures. Because

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” — Lao Tzu

And if you just overlook and don’t complete your first step, you will not get into your 1000 steps.

4. To achieve success in life, let remove your perfectionism belief

When starting my journey as a content creator, I always think about perfectionism. In my mind, I usually remind myself that

“You graduated from the Top University in the world, so whatever you do, you need to make it be perfect”.

This is one of the biggest mistakes that I did for nearly a year. Because within this mindset, I always want to spend more time creating a better piece of content, and instead of just spending 1 or 2 days to create and release a good piece of content, I can spend up to a week.

And in the content creation world, you need to create content and upload frequently instead of randomly if you really want to get attention.

Moreover,

The idea about perfectionism actually will not exist when you just consider it by yourself. Because there is nothing perfect. But if you want to make your products to be closer to perfection, what you really need to do is put them into the market and let the users/viewers decide it for you.

If they love it, it is great. But if they think that it is not good (while you think it is perfect), so you need to fix it again. With the feedbacks or recommendations from the users, you can find a better way to adjust your products to be more suitable for the demands of users.

And this is the time when you really reach closer to perfectionism.

“Life is a journey, it is not a destination” — Ralph Waldo Emerson.

And during this journey, we need to learn and adapt to a lot of lessons. Some will be really good to learn, some you need to pay off the “expensive price”.

But the more you learn, the more you know, and the better life you will have. Therefore, I hope that this story can help you in some ways on your life journey to learn how to figure out what you should remove to achieve more on your journey. And always keep it in mind

You don’t need to add more to become a success, what you need is remove more

………

P/s: Thank you for checking this blog, I am also running a Youtube Channel to share a lot of insights and stories related to Business, Media & Marketing, Personal Finance & Self Development that you can

Check my Youtube here!

In Personal Development

4 Saving Money Tips Help Me To Save 2,000$+ Each Month in Australia

No Comments In Personal Development

This is a blog to share about saving money tips when I’m an international student and stuck in Melbourne.

A small change in your spending can up to thousands in savings.

If you want to have more money in your bank account, you have two main 2 options:

Earning more
Saving more

For me, I believe that earning more is absolutely better compared to saving more. However, during the pandemic of Covid-19, earning more is not that easy for me.

Therefore, I start to consider saving more based on what I earned for the last couple of months. And I was shocked when knowing how much I can save by small adjustments in daily habits. I can save more than 2000$ for the last couple of months just by applying these simple saving money tips.

In this story, I will share with you all of them. Because I think that the things that work well for me can work for you as well. As all of them come from daily habits that most of us are having in common, but just a small adjustment, your financial game can change rapidly as I did.

Saving Money Tips No.1: Limited time to eat outside

This is the first habit I change completely from the time Covid-19 start in Australia. If you are in Melbourne CBD, you will find out that you can get whatever you want, from any country just at your street corners. All of them are very delicious and tasty to eat.

And this is an “issue” for us!

Stop eating outside to save money — Photo by Elevate on Unsplash

Before Covid-19, I really enjoy hanging out with friends to have dinner or lunch together all the time, and rarely cook at home as a hobby of a young boy. On average, the cheap meal on the street normally cost me 12$ while expensive like hot pot, buffet, BBQ,.. can up to 50–70$/pp. It is a lot of money when I think back now for just a meal a day!

But during the last three and a half months, when the situation of a pandemic be more serious in this city. I decide to cancel all the eating out with my friends, as all of us are so afraid and all the restaurants are just take-away. But bringing the take-away food to eat at home is not that interested as eating in the restaurant, and I feel more fun when I cook for myself instead.

Now, I feel so thankful for this decision, I save a lot of money from it. And I will make a quick calculation for you to show how much I can save when just eating at home.

Eating outside

Coffee: 5,5$/day. Monthly: 5,5 x 30 = 165$

2 meals/day = 24$ to 50$. Monthly: 24/50 x 30 = 720$/1500$

Eating at home

Coffee: 1 pack (21 serves) = 7$. Monthly: (7:21) x 30 = 10$

3 meals/day = 10$–15$*. Monthly: 10/15 x 30 = 300$/450$

Note: I can buy different kinds of meat, from beef, lamb, seafood, chicken. But most of the time I eat fresh seafood mix or fish from the supermarket.

Normally I have breakfast at home so I don’t want to calculate here. Because I didn’t change the money for this meal.

As you can see, I can save at least 575$ or up to 1205$ from changing the habit of eating outside only. This is a great deal, especially when you are a social person and facing financial hardship during the COVID-19.

Saving Money Tips No.2: Stop buying discount cloths

During this tough time, you can easily find the discount price from most brands. So this is a really good deal for you to shopping this period of time if you still have good money and really want to have some new clothes.

Saving-money-with-clothes — Photo by Parker Burchfield on Unsplash

But I have a quick notice for you that:

Don’t buy the stuff because it has a discount price, let buy the stuff if you really need it!

This is one of my biggest lessons for the last couple of years. I don’t say that I have a lot of money to buy whatever I want, but I love shopping, this is true. Especially when you are surrounded by all your friends who go to Uni in the morning and enjoy hanging out shopping in the afternoon.

This is fun but not good for your pocket, let be honest. And when you need to pay all the bills by yourself, this habit should be changed if you don’t want to be broke soon.

Before, whenever I see a new cloth or interesting pieces of stuff for me that have 30% or 50% discount. I will love to buy it. And believe that I’m the luckiest man in the world when I can buy the stuff at just half price.

But the reality is NOT!

The fact of spending money on discount clothes

When I spend 210$ to buy a cloth 300$ (30% discount), it means that I lost 210$ instead of I am saving 30%.

I didn’t recognize it for a long time, and just realize for last year when I move house and recognize I have nearly 30 shirts that I just wear 1 or even not yet that cost me more than 100$ each.

So, when you also can change the mindset from you get a good price (X% discount) to the mindset that you are spending XXX $ to buy the stuff that you don’t sure if you need it or just because of the discount price, you will save more than you can imagine.

Saving Money Tips No.3: Buying groceries at a cheap price

There are several technics that I learned recently that help me to save a lot when buying groceries from the supermarket or the market in Melbourne.

First of all, let buying seasonal foods.

It will help you to save a lot when you buy the food based on the season. So, you can choose fresh foods at cheaper prices compared to normal.

How can I spend less money on food? — Photo by Jakub Kapusnak on Unsplash

For example, now in Melbourne in the season of apple, so you can buy a kg of apple for just 2 dollars while in September or October, the price can go double to 4$ or 5$ per kilo.

Check the half-price day of supermarket

In both Coles and Woolworths, they have the half-price day that switches together. Therefore, choosing to buy in the supermarket on a cheap day will help you to save a lot. For example, if Coles has a sale price on Monday and Wednesday, you can get a sale in Woolworth on Tuesday and Friday.

Buying the frozen veggies and supermarket brand’s food

After studying nutrition in my “master of trainer” program from the Australian Institution of Fitness, I recognize that frozen foods are still good and have enough nutrition compared to fresh ones. While the price is normally cheaper and you can keep it for a longer time.

So if you live by yourself, and lazy to cook complicated meals with veggies, just need to buy a pack of mixed veggies for 3$ to 5$. So you can eat for a week (in my case for 1 person). This is so far cheaper and more convenient compared to buying fresh veggies.

About the supermarket’s brand, there is a truth that it is always the cheapest compared to other brands. And maybe it is not good as the other brands, but I’m sure that it is 70% to 90% similar to the quality, not too much different but you can save half price or even more when choosing the products from supermarket’s brand.

Saving Money Tips No.4: Limited your weekly spending

how to spend less money — Photo by Melissa Walker Horn on Unsplash

When you know how much you spend, you know how much you should earn.

The definition of weekly spending has just been familiar to me for several months. Actually, before I didn’t have any idea about weekly spending — I just spend whenever I want without too much concern. I don’t say it is good and does not cover all the young people. But I know that this is a trap that many young people like me are facing.

Making money and spending without concern about savings.

But the pandemic changes everything. Because my income is dropping out rapidly, I have no choice to start to consider seriously about the financial situation. And one of the lessons that I learned is about “Making a spending limitation weekly”.

It helps me to control the amount of money that I’m going to spend every week. So, I can learn how to track my money, what I should spend on, and what is optional that I can choose to spend on it or not.

If you don’t have this habit before, let start to do it from today. You will recognize that you can save a lot of money by stopping buying unnecessary kinds of stuff in a week.

Let use your mind to buy instead of your heart.

To sum up,

These are 4 daily habits that I adjusted during this tough time and help me to save a lot and learn many valuable lessons about money. And I hope that these tips that I share here will give you the ideas to save more and help you get over this tough time better with a smarter financial plan.

And this is another story that I want to share with you about “4 things to remove if you want to achieve more in life” that gives you another aspect about the view “work less, get more”.

Check my Youtube here!

In Personal Development

6 Best Methods To Study Effectively, Study Smarter Not Harder.

No Comments In Personal Development

The Best Methods To Study Effectively, Tips To Study Smarter Not Harder — Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

6 Methods To Study Effectively that change my learning game as an international student at the No.1 University of Australia.

Before I share with you the “Best Methods To Study Effectively, Study Smarter Not Harder”, I want you to notice that “Everything comes with a price”.

If you plan to study master’s degree, you actually need to spend more hours (for me it is 10 hours daily) to master your skills and knowledge before you can gain any small success.

However, these “6 methods to study effectively” actually can apply to anyone who is studying and wants to have useful tips to “Study Smarter Not Harder”. Because these methods are what I figured out during my long-term studying journey and are cohesive after years.

….

How can you study for 10 hours every day? This is insane!

This is a sentence that I usually heard from my friends back in my country when I shared with them how many hours I need to learn per day. At the time, I studied for my master’s degree at the University of Melbourne, the №1 University in Australia, and stands at 33rd globally.

But the truth is

Yes, I did it.

And I feel it is normal at my university when most of the students are very hard-working. I also know some of my friends can study up to 15 hours per day.

But for me, I don’t want to study in this way and also don’t want to recommend you to do it.

And in this story, I want to share with you how I manage my day to optimize my study and not burn out. For me, studying more is good but letting yourself burn out because of study is not a good idea.

There are 6 tips that I did when I studied for my master’s degree to make sure that I can get the best results for my learning process in 10 hours.

Firstly, let ask yourself:

“Do you think that studying 10 hours a day is possible or not?”

The answer is “YES! It’s possible”.

Let’s make a simple calculation here. Every day, we all have 24 hours. So, let spend:

7 hours for sleep
2 hours for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
1 hour for doing exercise
1 hour for rest and shower
2 hours for social activities (meeting friends, chats,…)

So you still have 11 hours for free to use for what you want in a day. And let’s say, you are a student and the most important thing for you is studying. This is all the time you can spend here. I will figure out how I use my 11 hours to work on my study journey.

No.1 Methods To Study Effectively: Schedule daily goals

“Which goals do you want to achieve today?”

This is the question that I ask myself every evening before going to sleep. I can choose if today I want to complete 2 chapters of a book, or review 2 subjects for the test, or spend one more hour learning a language,…

The clearer goals that you can figure out to achieve in a day will make your daily goals easier to achieve. And it is also a great motivation for us to wake up early in the morning to do it.

Instead of having no goal, let make your own. If not, you won’t have the motivation to get out of your bed to work or study.

Create your own Things-To-Do List

Personally, I always have a “Things To Do Today” list that I will figure out what I want to achieve in a day, and put the 3 most important goals to the top to make sure I can complete them all in the morning.

I don’t try to do more than 3 important tasks a day, because it can easily make me feel overwhelmed.

And if you fail to plan for your day, you will feel sadness or have a down mood that leads to the next failure. And never require yourself to achieve so many things in a day. Because it is more possible for us to achieve less but quality goals rather than many goals at the same time.

No.2 Methods To Study Effectively: Take a break during studying time

The research of Swinburne University shows that our brain needs to take a rest around 15–20 minutes between doing the tasks or studying for a long time. And we can get peak productivity if we work from 30 to 50 minutes, less than that is not effective while more than can easily make you feel burned out.

Therefore, I always try to apply the time rule 50/10 for me when I study. It means that I will concentrate on the task for 50 minutes, then I will spend 10 minutes resting. Normally, I walk around the office to relax my eyes from the computer while listening to podcasts.

The tip here is when you are resting, try not to look at the screen. As I see many of my friends say that they have a rest by watching movies, scrolling news feeds on their smartphones.

Actually, this is not real “REST”. Your brain, eyes still work with the phone screen. This is not good for your eyes and doesn’t give your brain the time to recover effectively.

No.3 Methods To Study Effectively: Take care of your physical body daily

If you want to have a strong mindset, you need to have a strong body as well. You can’t work effectively if your body always feels sick or tired.

And as you can see, in the scheduled time that I mentioned above. I always spend at least 1 to 2 hours a day on my workout.

The exercise activities, especially cardio or H.I.I.T make me feel exhausted in the Gym. But it also makes me feel great and has more energy to focus on learning and working later.

One other tip: You can practice exercise during your 10 minutes rest time by just doing a couple of sets of push-ups or skipping rope. For me, I normally do around 30 push-ups or 200 jumping ropes when I’m resting.

how to study better — Photo by Fab Lentz on Unsplash

No.4 Methods To Study Effectively: Switch between your subjects.

It can be very boring if you need to study math or sciences all day long. Instead of just focusing on studying in one subject, I normally spend my time on two or three subjects a day.

Therefore, whenever I feel tired or lazy to keep learning a subject, I can switch to another.

It makes me feel more excited to learn about the new things in the 2nd subject rather than keep reading or doing tests on the first one for a couple of hours.

No.5 Methods To Study Effectively: Using a mind map to study

Are you a person who loves to use a mind map when studying?

Do you feel bored if you need to read a hundred pages of a book daily?

If you answer YES to any of them, a mind map is a thing that you need to be concerned about to use more frequently in your daily study.

Following the research on “The business”, the mind map method helps you to learn more and faster with a larger amount of information that can be consumed in your head.

And for me, when I use the mind map method, it helps me to remember longer with more information compared to just reading.

Because when you use a mindmap, it means that you are recreating what you learn to make it to another version of knowledge.

This process will help your brain to recognize what is good and what matters for you to note down in a mindmap, which is not necessary to write down after you read a hundred pages to study new knowledge.

No.6 Methods To Study Effectively: Change the method of study during a day

Studying all the time with your computer for 10 hours will destroy your eye vision in a short time. But studying all the time with paper books and a pen may not be suitable for the new modern learning system when the most information you need is to research online as well as write and submit essays online.

So, in my case, I try to adjust to using both methods in a day. It means that I can spend a few hours focusing on studying just by using paper books, pens, and a notebook without using my computer. In another few hours, I will use my computer to search for information and submit essays for my teacher online.

This makes the study process more fun, easier to concentrate, and still reduces the negative impacts of using electric devices so often in a day.

To sum up,

These 6 tips are from my personal experiences that were used for years in my university life for both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. It helps me to save more time while learning more compared to my friends without the “burnout” feelings.

I believe that these tips also can apply very effectively for you not only just in school but also in your future work when you need to solve a lot of issues during a long period of time.

The right mindset and good adjustment during the pressure-time will bring more enjoyment and benefits for yourself. And if you want to know more about the personal finance lessons that I learned during my time in Australia in Covid-19, you can find 4 effective ways that helped me to save more than 2000++ per month here.

P/s:

Check my Youtube here!

———————————————-

If you want to study Vietnamese or vice versa, these are several vocabulary that you can learn from this topic:

Burn out: Hội chứng gây ra bởi căng thẳng mãn tính không kiểm soát được ở nơi làm việc – Kiệt sức
Mind map: Sơ đồ tư duy
H.I.I.T (High-intensity interval training): (Luyện tập cường độ cao ngắt quãng)
recreating: tái tạo lại
the pressure-time: thời gian áp lực
This is insane!: Thật là điên rồ!
social activities: các hoạt động xã hội

In Personal Development

5 Public Speaking Tips To Be A Better Public Speaker

No Comments In Personal Development

5-things-help-to-become-a-better-public-speaker — *Photo by Matheus Bertelli from Pexels*

Nobody is born with great public speaking skills. But anyone can achieve it if they know useful public speaking tips.

Public Speaking is the fear of 77% population and is usually called the Glossophobia phenomenon.

But when we can get over this fear, a variety of opportunities will be opened.

Personally, I am not an extrovert person who wants to connect and talk in front of many people, however, after 27 years, life teaches me so many valuable lessons and one of them is being an extrovert person is something that I MUST BE.

At least for the people who want/work in the education and business fields as I am doing now.

Let’s think if you are a lecturer who wants to share your insights with thousands of students but you are afraid of public speaking!

Or if you have a great business plan and product that is ready for the funding round to raise million dollars but you are so afraid to stand on the stage to share your vision and strategies with the investors.

A good public speaking skill will help you a lot and give you a chance to go closer to your goals in these fields — being a great lecturer or giving a great speech in your funding round.

The following list is 5 things that I did and still practice for years to improve my public speaking skills. And I believe that in some ways it also can support you too when you can apply them to your life for a better speaking skill.

1. Public Speaking Tip 1: Raise your hand whenever you have a chance

In your class, in your office, or even in your networking events.

Anytime you have a chance, let practice showing your own opinions with others.

This is what I did a lot in my student’s life and until now, in the networking events that I have a chance to join in, I still keep this habit. The reason for this practice is it helps you to improve your confidence to share your own thoughts.

It doesn’t matter how great your thoughts are until you can share them properly with others and make them also feel “WOW!” about what you have in your mind.

I love to practice my speaking skill by raising my hand because it helps me to learn and practice how to structure my ideas and questions better through many times I stand up and share my views in the class or events.

Let’s think about yourself, have you ever experienced the feeling that you have a great idea/or you already have the answer to the question that the MC asked in your mind, but you are so shy and decide to observe others answer the questions instead of you?

How do you feel at that moment?

Did you feel regret or think like “This is what I already know and I also can answer…”.

Or how about you stand up and share the thoughts that make all the room feel WOW and give you big applause? Should we consider it as a better option?

… The right answer inside you!

2. Public Speaking Tip 2: Practice alone — Small Group — Your Big Stage

It means that you let yourself practice alone in front of the mirror/the walls many times to share your ideas properly. Then practice sharing your view in your small group — It can be your class group, company small team, or even your family members at the dinner table before standing on the stage to share with a hundred or even thousands of people.

So why should I do that?

This is the question that appears in my mind many times before and maybe in your mind now when you read this article.

The answer is “The COMPOUND EFFECT”.

Confidence and great public speaking skill can’t be gained just by thinking or coming overnight.

These all take time to improve and practice.

And the best way to help you reduce the number of mistakes that you can face when standing on the stage to share an important speech is by daily practice. So practice from self-talk in front of the mirror to sharing your points of view in a small group are valuable ways to help you improve this skill.

3. Public Speaking Tip 3: Don’t just READ, let SHARE

Let’s ask yourself, have you ever seen someone (or even yourself) who stands on the stage with a piece of paper and READ ALOUD the paper to the audience? I believe that all of us at least one time in life see this situation.

And should we call it “PUBLIC SPEAKING SKILL”?

My answer is NO!

Instead, it just means READING!

Public speaking skill is something else that is very different.

The famous people who are super good at public speaking skills can be named as Martin Luther King, Jr., Bill Clinton, Anthony Robbins, Winston Churchill,…who are usually engaged with audiences by sharing their own views on their speeches without using the paper to read.

And what makes them really different is they use their speeches to reach others’ emotions and insights rather than just reach their ears by the voice.

4. Public Speaking Tip 4: Your micro is your friend, not your enemy

And if you really want to be a good public speaker, you need to feel comfortable and familiar with talking through the microphone.

This is a big lesson that took me more than 3 years to figure out and can control.

Before that moment, I always think that the biggest problem comes from the microphone as it changes my voice to a different version that is heard terribly.

Because when you use a microphone, you can hear clearly how your voice is, and in most of the cases, when I asked my friends, they all believe that their natural voices are so good and get worse when they speak through a microphone.

But actually, it is not really the problem.

The problem here is you feel weird with your voice (when it becomes x10 times louder than normal) — It happens all the time, especially with the people who rarely use the microphone to share their thoughts.

As a lecturer in the University, I met a lot of students who have really good ideas and are happy to share their own points of view with the class, but with a requirement — DON’T USE THE MICROPHONE.

The reason for the denial to use the microphone is the feeling of having the wrong answer that can be heard by all the class or the thoughts about their voices on the micro is terrible.

But actually, as the lecturer and a person who has experience speaking many hours a day in front of hundreds of people, I recognize that the microphone is the best friend for all the public speakers. Because:

It helps you to save A LOT OF energy, especially on the big stage.
You can easily move around the class/stage but your voice is still stable and can be reached similarly between all the audiences in the room.

So, before wanting to be a better public speaker, let’s start to make friends and feel familiar with your microphone.

5. Public Speaking Tip 5: Never talk alone, engage with your audience.

Once upon a day,

….

In a class of…., while the lecturer is sharing his points of view for 10 minutes, all the class is concentrated and feels exciting….

…

1 hour later, more than half of the class fell asleep, while some left the class already…while the lecturer was still talking and talking…

Have you heard this kind of story before?

This is a real story that happens in many places, not only in schools but also in the conferences, seminars…where the speaker who just talks by himself and shares his powerpoints while the audiences are yawning and feel tired to listen.

This is one of the biggest mistakes for any public speaker.

And it doesn’t matter how big your stage is, but if you are on the micro but you can’t engage with others and make them fall asleep or want to leave.

YOU LOSE THE PUBLIC SPEAKING GAME.

Getting involved with the audience by asking them questions or giving them a chance to show their own points of view on your presentation topic will help your listeners feel more excited and really get into your speech.

The more your audience is involved in the speech, the more successful your presentation is.

To summarize, these are several key points that I believe you should master to be a better speaker.

Raise your hand more to practice your confidence and speaking skills.
Practice daily self-talk to speak in small groups. Master your speaking skills in small stages for the great wins on the bigger stages.
Don’t just read, let’s share your stories. Be a friend to share and touch the emotions of listeners rather than just read your paper on the stage.
Let the micro be your best friend on the stage, not something you are afraid to use.
Always engage with your audience, don’t let them feel separated in your speech, and don’t let yourself be the only one who wants to discuss the topic.

Vocabulary

Public speaking: Nghệ thuật nói trước công chúng
Funding round: vòng gọi vốn
Glossophobia phenomenon: hiện tượng Glossophobia, còn được gọi là chứng lo lắng khi nói trước đám đông
The compound effect: Hiệu ứng cộng hưởng
Your micro is your friend, not your enemy: Micro là người bạn của bạn, chứ không phải kẻ thù
Weird: kỳ lạ
Engage with your audience: Kết nối với khán giả của bạn
Self-talk: Tự nói chuyện
Fear: Nỗi sợ
Opportunity: cơ hội

In Personal Development

5 Smartest Ways to Invest Money for Your 20s

No Comments In Personal Development

5 Smartest Ways to Invest in Your Money in 2022 for your 20s — Ảnh của Andrea Piacquadio từ Pexels

When we think about the smartest ways to invest money, it isn’t stocks, real estate, or gold. The best investment for your 20s is yourself.

You can lose money when stock prices go down, or when the bubble of real estate explodes, or the government restricts the laws related to gold.

But nobody can take away what you invest in yourself.

As Warren Buffet says:

“The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself…The more you learn, the more you will earn”.

When you put the right methods and amount of time to improve yourself, the right track will come easier and faster for you to be successful.

This is a great life skill that I learned after 27 years of experience in this life.

After all, I believe that each of us, if we can make the right move with these 5 ways to invest our money at a young age. The grateful results will totally come.

1. The first smart way to invest your money is: Invest in your health seriously

“If you have a lot of money, you can ask for the best doctor to take care of your sickness. But you can’t ask cancer to leave you.

But if you have a healthy body, you can earn a lot of money later.”

People don’t want to work on the bed in the hospital. They work when they are healthy and perform the best when they have the best physical health.

As in the letter Samsung’s Lee Kun-hee sent to young generations before he died, he said that

“The most valuable thing in life is health. If you have it, you can get anything, if you don’t care for it, things don’t matter to you”.

After reading this letter last month, it makes me think a lot about the health of young generations nowadays.

In my hometown, I can see a lot of people go to the gym in the morning to do exercises (as I do too). But I also can see the trend of overnight parties and the use of too much alcohol in restaurants.

Before, I felt it was normal when to see people drink a lot of alcohol in my hometown, as I think it is the local culture.

Until recent years, when I see people around me who used to drink a lot in the last couple of years (at a young age). And now, they are facing many serious illnesses and even some people have already died because of health problems.

I know that a healthy life is far more important than fun nights with friends and alcohol.

And learning how to say “NO” with an unhealthy lifestyle is a very important life skill that each person needs to learn at a young age. In the real-life, we actually don’t need to use alcohol to have a fun party. If you are healthy and positive from the inside, you already can make the party time to be a good time without any bottle of wine.

2. The second smart way to invest your money is: Invest in books to gain more knowledge

Reading books is one of the best ways to absorb the intelligence of successful people in the world from ancient to the present.

But only trying to read a lot of books doesn’t really make a difference.

What actually can make the difference is what you choose to read. And how you can apply it in your life to make you a better life.

If someone tells me that he can read 100 books a year, but doesn’t remember what he learns from them, and never apply them to real life. I don’t value him that much as a person who only reads 20 books a year but can apply what he learns to improve his quality of life.

The value of books doesn’t stay at the quantity, it is about the quality.

The quality to improve your life from what you learned when reading these books.

As if you want to perform as the best marketer in the market, you can’t just read the history books and expect to be the top one in the marketing field.

What you need to read are more marketing books. It is the sources of information will help you to perform a marketing campaign better and understand more about the trend of marketing in the future.

This is the way you should invest when you approach the aspect of learning from books.

And this is also the way I did for myself in the last 3 years when I started to spend more time learning from the experts in my fields by reading the contents from them.

By doing this, now, I have a better understanding of the digital marketing market and perform great in my field.

So if you really want to invest your money in a more thoughtful way, decide carefully what kind of books you will buy and read as well; don’t just read everything you can grasp.

3. The third smart way to invest your money is: Invest in positive relationships

Broadening the relationships is a great way to build more valuable connections and grow yourself as you can learn many valuable life skills from others.

But having positive relationships is what you should actually focus on.

If you have more kinds of relationships who only want to ask you to join in the late-night parties, hang out for alcohol and drugs. Who do you think you can be?

This is the question that I ask myself anytime I want to start to build a strong connection with someone.

Do we make each other better or will we ruin each other?

If this is a positive relationship, I will try my best to maintain and grow it, but if it is not. I will consider again, even if this is a classmate or a neighbor who lives nearby.

As I believe, the most important is the quality of the relationship, not the quantity one.

Because if you want to be a positive and enthusiastic person, but what you choose is to spend most of the time in negative relationships, do you think it is possible for you to be the person you want to be?

Probably not!

Don’t let your relationships be toxic.

Choose based on what you want to learn from them, not from the distance alone.

Work hard and seriously on relationships as the way you work on your own business.

Because if you have the right connections, you will achieve a massive level of success that you never can imagine before.

4. The fourth smart way to invest your money is: Travelling

Life experience is a very important part of life. And traveling can let you gain more life experiences

It helps you to know more about the world you live in, understand different cultures, have a higher EQ as you have a chance to experience, and discover many aspects of life.

As I still remember when I was a kid, even though my family is just a lower-middle-class family, my parents always try to give me and my brother a chance to travel every year as a way to encourage us to discover new things in life.

At that time, I just felt happy when I had a chance to travel, but now, when I grow up, I understand that the value of traveling for me is even far more than just enjoyment.

Because when you have a chance to go to many different places and learn a lot of useful sources of experience. You have a tendency to be a more reasonable person, smarter but also be more sympathetic.

These are the things that if you just stay at home all the time, you will never feel and experience it

5. The fifth smart way to invest your money is: Your degree

Getting your degree, not compulsory but will make your life easier.

We can see a lot of examples from the media of people who quit college and become very successful.

But actually, it is not the case for everyone, and the chance for you to win the life game without a degree in today’s society is just 0,00000001%.

Because everywhere you want to apply for, especially the big corporations, all of them need to qualify your degree before giving you a chance to join their team (Except if you are the top performers in this field or have a very good relationship with the Chairman before.)

And if you want to be a person like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates who quit University and still being the top billionaires in the world, let ask yourself these questions first before going to quit college/University:

Do you already have in your mind an idea that can value millions of dollars and is already an executive part of this (AND ALREADY GAINS A PART OF SUCCESS) before you are going to quit your university degree yet?

If you fail, can your parents support you to live for a couple of months (or even years) before you really can get the level of success that you want?

Do you have the background to invest and earn money when you are a kid? Or if you want to start-up in the tech industry, did you learn about machine learning or computers for years in your childhood?

Do you enjoy the self-learning process in your life and are happy to spend hours reading the books related to the field you want to chase for years as a teenager?

If you quit college, will you quit from an Ivy League University or not?

These are 5 very common but valuable questions that you need to figure out for yourself if you have an idea to quit your degree and start your own track of success.

The reason is the majority of successful billionaires who quit college/University have these things in common.

Most of them come from mid-high class families where they don’t really need to worry too much about money if they fail. And they have a good education about self-learning and are given a chance to executive what they love to do from a young age.

Warren Buffet started to buy stocks at the age of 11 with the help of his father — a famous American businessman, investor, and politician.

Or Mark Zuckerberg learned about programming from the age of 10 from his father.

These are some examples but present how normally these successful billionaires start their success.

All come from a very early period of their life with a good education, hard-working and the right track to work on.

But if you don’t have that luck to be guided effectively from a young age, as for me too. A degree is a thing you should have, it will help you to have a chance to work in large companies and learn experiences from the top performance people who you admire.

And during the time you learn in colleges, it also gives opportunities for you to improve your social skills when working with others; learning the foundation of the field you want to work in later on in your career.

So don’t think a degree is just a paper, actually, it is a door for you to open the new world of a professional working environment and a place where you have “a free couple of years” to try and test yourself and your ideals before going to school life.

To sum up

To invest in yourself, we have dozens of methods and a lot of aspects to work on.

But for me, I believe that the list of 5 ways is the best because personally, it helps me to change the way I think and work on my life effectively and plays the majority role to lead me to the feeling of success.

You may find more than 5 ways to invest in yourself. Maybe your list can be 10, 20, 30 things that you think will bring the best outcome for you.

It is totally fine.

But if you are a person like me, who follows the minimalist trend, a list of 5 is enough for us if we can work well on it.

And when you approach these 5 smart ways in this list, it equals you are trying to apply investment in 5 different super important aspects in life.

It is not easy to make everything come true, but when you do it, you will see yourself as a different better version.

A version that can make you feel proud!

When you finish this blog, if you want to know more about your personal finance and things you didn’t learn from the school/University, this is the extra mile you must read “5 Basic Money Lessons Schools Don’t Teach You That Ruin Your Personal Finance”. I will see you there!

Vocabulary

Invest in your health seriously: Đầu tư cho sức khỏe của bạn một cách nghiêm túc
Reading the selective books: Đọc sách có sự chọn lọc
Invest in positive relationships: Đầu tư vào những mối quan hệ tích cực
Travelling more and let gain more life experiences: Đi du lịch nhiều hơn và để có thêm kinh nghiệm sống
Get your degree, not compulsory but will make your life easier: Lấy bằng cấp đầy đủ, không bắt buộc nhưng sẽ giúp cuộc sống của bạn dễ dàng hơn.
“The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself…The more you learn, the more you will earn”: “Khoản đầu tư tốt nhất mà bạn có thể thực hiện là đầu tư vào bản thân… Bạn càng học hỏi nhiều, bạn càng kiếm được nhiều tiền”.
Ivy League University: Những trường đại học Top đầu của Mỹ

In Personal Development

5 good ways to spend money wisely and how to do it

No Comments In Personal Development

To make your life to be SAFE and WEALTHY. You must know these 5 good ways to spend money and how to put it in when you receive your budget salary.

The way you work with your budget will decide who you are and how rich you can be.

Everyone wants to be good at budgeting and saving, but it doesn’t mean that anyone can be.

Nowadays, we hear people talk a lot about how to earn passive income; how to budget salary better, how to save and invest money, etc.

And after years learn and experience about earning money, I recognize that

If you are serious about money, it will be serious with you back.

But if you don’t care about it, it will never care about you.

When you know the good ways to spend money appropriately, it can create a massive uplift for yourself. But when you don’t learn to put it at the right place and the right time, you will get in trouble with your money.

Understanding WHAT and WHY you should separate your money into different accounts will help you to master your ability to control the money and make the money itself create more income for you!

And here is the list of 5 good ways to spend money wisely that I figured out for myself after a couple of years of working.

Good ways to spend money No.1: Your Retirement Fund.

Take a part of your income into this fund even before you receive a salary. It will help you to save for your future life.

If you live in America, you will be familiar with the 401K fund. If you live in Vietnam, you will be familiar with the thing called “Retirement Fund” where your money will be saved for your retirement time monthly.

By doing this, when people reach the age of retirement, they don’t need to worry about financial issues anymore. Because these funds will pay “the salary for your retirement”.

As I see the area where my grandparents are living, both of them have retired salary packages while other elder people who live nearby don’t have this source of income.

The life of my grandparents is totally more enjoyable and comfortable than others.

The retirement salary helps my grandparents to live safely without worrying about financial issues and they can even save a little bit of money to travel by themselves. While the other elder neighbors still need to work to earn money daily.

And even many of them are younger than my grandfather, but their facial appearance is totally older, and have poorer health. As they have so much pressure about earning money and need to work at the old ages.

This is the reason why I started to save money for my retirement fund at a young age. Because I understand how valuable it is if you have a retirement salary.

In addition, if you can start to invest in your retirement fund from a young age, the higher amount of income you will receive when you retire.

Good ways to spend money No.2: Checking account

To pay for your direct payments.

And it helps you to control and separate the amount of money you need to pay monthly directly from your bank account.

For me, this account I use to pay for direct payment such as the internet, student debts, monthly subscriptions from the services I use such as Canvas, Medium, Adobe,…

The reason why you should have it is because

It helps you to track how much money you need to spend monthly directly.
Help you to avoid the penalty fees when you pay late. (As I used to forget about direct payment and let my account run out of money for just an hour. Then, I miss the direct payment deadline and lead to being charged 15% more for the delay fee).

It was just an hour but I paid 30 dollars more because I forgot to fill up my bank account.

This is really a waste of money and leads me to make a decision to separate my checking account from another one.

So, from there, every month, I always put enough money in this account and just serve for one purpose only — to pay for my debit.

But when you keep it in the same bank account, it can ruin your financial game. Because, sometimes, when you run out of your money and forgot to add money to it for the direct payment deadline, it wastes money unnecessarily.

Good ways to spend money No.3: – Necessity account

It helps you to control your spending a lot.

And first of all, you need to have the right mindset about the difference between what you need and what you want.

“What you need” are the things you need to have for a standard living, such as food, a place to live, healthcare, transportations, facilities,…

But “What you want” are the things that you want but aren’t really necessary for your daily life, if you don’t have it, your life still keeps going on normally.

For example, people want to own a luxury bag or a supercar, but these things are not compulsory to have for anyone to survive.

And the necessity account is an account that you use to track what you need to spend daily. By doing this, it helps you to control the amount of money spent and know if we need to adjust this amount of money to spend more effectively.

If you merge this account with your main account, it makes it harder for you to track your spending on necessary things. And normally will lead to the case that you spend more money than you expected, especially on what you want rather than what you really need.

This is the reason why I can come up with tips for saving more than 2000$ per month when I studied for my master’s degree.

Good ways to spend money No.4: – The emergency fund

It will save your life during the toughest times.

It is a fund where you should have from 3–6 months your income money in, follow the author Dave Ramsey recommend in his book “The Total Money Makeover”.

So if you face any urgent problems in life such as losing your jobs, being injured, or going to the hospital, you still have a fund to pay for these demands when you can’t work to earn money.

However, personally, I believe that this amount of money should be around one year of income. So it will save you better in the tough times.

This is becoming more accurate during the Covid 19 time when many countries were in lockdown for nearly a year and millions of people lost their jobs.

If you just have 3–6 months of the emergency fund, and the Covid in your country makes you lose your income for nearly a year, you will be very struggling!

So if you don’t have an emergency yet, let’s start to make it ASAP.

It will be your own angel when you face a struggle.

Some notes when starting your emergency fund

It needs to be easy to access
Should be at least 5% of your income (or 10%) depending on your choice.
The more you can earn, the more you can add to your emergency fund.

Good ways to spend money No.5: Investment Fund

This is what makes you really rich, not your wage.

When you want to earn a fortune, an investment fund is what you need to have.

Because the people who want to be rich need to invest. It is not just spending their time to earn a limited wage monthly from the company they work for.

When you invest in the right strategy, you can get a lot of money into your pocket in a short period of time.

Some potential ways that you can invest

Real estate

Bonds

Stock market

Etc,…

There are a lot of methods that you can invest your money in and get a high Return on Investment (ROI).

But the first step before getting the massive ROI is having your own investment fund.

If you don’t start to build your portfolio with an investment fund, how can you find the money to invest and get a massive outcome later on.

In the beginning, this amount of money can be just a small part of your income, around 5–10% as I recommend.

And when you start to invest with this small amount of money, it helps you to control money better and learn from investment mistakes before moving to the bigger investment.

In the investment market, you can earn more, but also can lose more. So let’s learn it carefully before doing it. But make sure to build your investment fund from now.

So when the opportunity comes, you can get it!

Final Thought

Having money is important, but knowing how to spend it effectively is even more important.

This is the reason why there are so many athletes who are millionaires just after a couple of retired years being broken.

Because the mindset about how to spend the money from them is limited.

They don’t actually know how to use their money to make their life safe, such as investing in real estate, or buying life insurance, or putting money in 401K,…

Instead, spending their massive assets on parties, having fun and luxurious things will make this person be broke even before he can recognize it.

To sum up, I hope that the list will help you to understand more about your money and the way how you can make it work for you effectively.

Wish you all the best with your financial game!

Vocabulary

Retirement fund: Quỹ hưu trí
Investment Fund: Quỹ đầu tư
Checking account: Tài khoản vãng lai – là một loại tài khoản tiền gửi được mở tại ngân hàng hoặc tổ chức tài chính nào đó với mục đích là cung ứng cho những nhu cầu cá nhân an toàn và nhanh chóng.
Necessity account: Tài khoản chi tiêu cần thiết, phục vụ cho nhu cầu thiết yếu mỗi ngày của bạn và gia đình, như chi phí ăn uống, xăng xe, điện thoại, tiền học…
The emergency fund: Quỹ khẩn cấp
ASAP: Nhanh nhất có thể (as soon as possible)

In Personal Development

5 Basic Money Lessons Schools Don’t Teach You

No Comments In Personal Development

One of the basic money lessons you must understand is:

Money doesn’t disappear. It just moves from one pocket to another.

And if you really want to master your business game in the future, a basic understanding of personal finance, money, and the economy is what you should learn during your 20s.

Unfortunately, this kind of knowledge is not always taught in University, except when you register for the specific class related to economy or finance (where you can learn about the concepts related to these fields), but for these 5 lessons, you must learn on your own way instead of from schooling.

However, there is a reality that many of us who are studying or graduated from Universities still can’t understand these basic lessons. That lead to:

“Student loan debt values $1.57 trillion and keeps going on”

This is the amount of money that just counts for students in America alone in 2020.

If students who join financial classes can really control their finances.

We won’t have this massive amount of debt.

“Money is the backbone of the economy. And the best way to earn a lot of money is to understand the way how the economy works and not only work hard but also smart to get a good payment in the future”

This is a memorable lesson that one of my favorite lecturers taught me when I studied at the University with my bachelor “Economics and Public Administration” at Vietnam National University.

And after several years of working, when I think back to what he taught me, I think that it is right but can be extended.

Actually, in real life, there are many things that we need to learn about money and how it works rather than just knowing the basic concepts from the University.

To get a better understanding of money for students, and make them feel less shocked when they come to real life. I believe that we should teach them at least 5 vital lessons to live in — the lessons that I learned from real life and gave me a lot of value a couple of years after I graduated.

No.1 Basic Money Lessons: Money is a tool, not the final purpose of life

It never should be your main goal in life.

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” — Ayn Rand

Money can be understood as the engine in your vehicle.

A good engine can drive you faster with a longer distance while a weak engine will make you feel annoyed and take more time to come to your destination.

When you have a lot of money, you can easily choose the best things you want to own, the healthiest foods to eat, or having the best moments in any place you want. While having less money, it is harder for you to choose between the limited options.

Therefore, having money to work for your life and live the way you want is very important.

But when you think money is your goal, you turn all things to be money-oriented, and this is a big problem.

Because if you are hungry, you use the money to exchange for food (you don’t eat money);

Or when you get sick, you use the money to find the best hospital, the best doctor to take care for your health (money itself can’t treat your disease);

….

These are the basic example to evidence for the lesson “Money is a tool, not the final purpose of life”

So, how much money is enough?

No one knows.

Even the richest person in the world still wants to have more money – As he can use it to achieve his bigger goals, such as discovering Mars,…the goals that require a lot of money – the flexible tool to help him solve various issues.

No.2 Basic Money Lessons: Having more money doesn’t make sure you can buy everything.

But if you don’t have money, you can’t buy anything.

We have all at least one time in life heard that “Money can’t buy anything in our life”.

It can be from your friends, colleagues, family members, or neighbors,…when we have a discussion about the money topic.

And I would like to admit that I used to fully believe in this point of view.

But after working for a couple of years, I recognize that actually, the point is just that 80% should be trusted. And the other 20% need to be explained in another way.

Firstly, I agree that having more money can’t buy anything (as in my 80% list).

Even if you have a lot of money like Steve Jobs or the Samsung president, you still can’t protect your life from serious diseases.

Or if you have a lot of money, you still can’t buy a happy family if you just spend all of the time on meetings and no time for your children and wife.

…

There are so many things in life that we can’t estimate or achieve just by spending a lot of money on it.

Because these things basically don’t count by the money.

However, it doesn’t mean that money does not play an important role in our life. I believe money is a crucial thing for us, but in life, what we really need to do is:

“Not only learn how to make a lot of money but also need to know how to use it wisely.”

For example, if you have a serious illness as Steve Jobs had, and you don’t have money to ask for the top doctors to do treatments for you, and have the best healthcare condition during your treatment process, do you think you can really deal with the serious illness for such a long period of time?

The answer is NO!

You need to have more money if you want to experience the best services in your life, to choose the best foods, visit the most beautiful places on the planet with your family, etc.

All of these things require you to spend a lot of money, and if you don’t have one, how can you achieve it?

Therefore, having a lot of money is very important, but the way you use your money to create your best life experiences is so far more important.

No.3 Basic Money Lessons: Your spending depends on your budget.

If you have 10,000 dollars in your pocket and you spend 100 dollars on a meal. It doesn’t mean expensive.

But if you just have 100 dollars and you spend 50 dollars on a meal, this is a waste.

In this life, the meaning of cheap and expensive is actually very hard to identify. A Gucci or Louis Vuitton bag that costs 10,000$ is not expensive if you have a million dollars in your bank account.

But a meal costs 500$ while your bank account just has 1,000$ is really expensive.

And the game of cheap or expensive based on the percentage, not the amount of money itself.

When you understand this lesson, you will learn to change your concern from thinking “how expensive this stuff is” to “how much money you need to earn” to make the “expensive Gucci bag” to be “a cheap and normal item” for yourself.

You will see how you approach money and personal income totally differently.

No.4 Basic Money Lessons: Money doesn’t disappear. It just moves from one pocket to another.

If one day you wake up and be broke. Actually, your money doesn’t disappear but it just moves to another person’s account who can use it better than you.

This is a lesson you need to keep in mind all the time.

Because when you start to work to earn money or invest, you will recognize that your money is actually just a piece of paper or a number in your bank account. Then, anyone can keep it.

Therefore, if you don’t know how to keep it carefully and make it to benefit you, someone will take it from you and make it work for them.

But at the University, we don’t have a subject to teach you about this.

They just tell you that if you do the wrong thing, your money will leave. But nobody tells you where your money actually goes.

And the reality is your money doesn’t lose, it is transferred.

It means that if you can do better than others — you can gain the money back or even more (from others).

In the simple understanding, the University focuses on teaching you about

“MAKE & LOST”

But the real-life will teach you that your money actually can

“MAKE — LOST — TURN BACK (EVEN MORE)”.

The reality is: Money is never lost forever, but when you keep the mindset that once you lost it, you lost it forever, you will never have the ability to earn more money and get rich.

It is all about the game of mindset about money.

No.5 Basic Money Lessons: The relationship between your money and your values.

Your values aren’t calculated by how much money you have. But the kind of stuff you use will depend on how much money you have in your pocket.

I know a lot of people who can bring a lot of value to society but still don’t have enough money to serve their life.

This is because the kind of value they bring to society is not a kind of commercial value, instead, it is something else.

For example, I know a man who works for an environmental company. His daily job is to keep the streets clean and the garden in my nearby park is always colorful and beautiful.

I and most of the people who normally exercise in this park always feel thankful for his job that maintains a great space for us.

But the reality is his income is quite low that he can’t afford his life in this expensive city — Melbourne, and he also works at the part-time security in the supermarket for a living.

So when you can bring a lot of value to society, it doesn’t mean that you can earn a lot of money — especially when it isn’t really related to the financial factor.

But if what you want is to use the luxury stuff, earning a lot of money, you need to find a job related to the financial area, so this is a place where you can earn a lot of money for yourself.

Then you can feel free to choose the kinds of stuff to use in your life.

To sum up,

These are the 5 biggest lessons that I learned after 5 years since I graduated from University-related to money.

Money doesn’t disappear. It just moves from one pocket to another.
Having more money doesn’t make sure you can buy everything.
Your spending depends on your budget.
Money is a tool.
The relationship between your money and your values.

I learned these basic money lessons at an expensive price, but at least, I learned it.

Personally, I don’t wish you to go through all the tough times to learn these lessons. I wish you can learn all these lessons as soon as possible to avoid the tough times and live a better and happier life instead.

And finally, these are what I learned, how about you?

Do you have any valuable lessons that you learn during your growing up the journey that values you and wants to share? I love to hear it too.

If you want to know more about how to achieve more in life, I recommend you to check out this article “4 Things to Remove If You Want to Achieve More in Life” where I share four valuable insights about self-development.

P/s:

Check my Youtube here!

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In Personal Development
These are 5 things I learned to deal with pressure and manage stress.
November 29, 2021
About Me

Hi, I’m Anthony Le, a dedicated lecturer with a Master’s degree in Global Media Communication from Melbourne University.

Welcome to a hub where the fields of Media & Communication, Advertising, and Digital Marketing come together.

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Anthony

The answer is “NO”

1. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Being naked in your mind”.

2. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Making the learning process to be your hobby”

With this changed mindset, I improved my English rapidly.

3. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Make friends with the native speakers”

Or you can,

4. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Writing Blogs and Essays”

5. To speak English like a native speaker, let “Making video contents on the language you want to master”.

Final thoughts

P/s:

…

Method No.1 to reduce screen time: Take care of your surrounding environment

So how to do it effectively

In your company

In your home

Method No.2 to reduce screen time: Set your own time to use screens at home

So how you can do it effectively

Set yourself a clear plan for what you need to do with screens

Never forget your rule

Method No.3 to reduce screen time: Change the ways you entertain

To conclusion

P/s:

Your daily good habits will change your way of thinking dramatically.

No.1 Daily Good Habits: Consume positive contents

No.2 Daily Good Habits: Daily Workout

No.3 Daily Good Habits: Schedule your day with clear goals

P/s:

You don’t need to add more things to achieve more goals in your life, learning how to remove the unnecessary things helps you to achieve more!

1. To achieve success in life, let remove the negative thoughts.

If you want to achieve success in life, this is the first lesson you need to remember.

Therefore, this is a list of several things I did personally and consider it as useful ways that you also get benefits when trying to apply for yourself, such as:

2. To achieve success in life, let remove the “Overnight success” mindset

To achieve success in life, you need to run the marathon with a clear goal.

3. To achieve success in life, don’t say YES to everything

This is the time when you MUST remind yourself of this sentence

4. To achieve success in life, let remove your perfectionism belief

Moreover,

And this is the time when you really reach closer to perfectionism.

This is a blog to share about saving money tips when I’m an international student and stuck in Melbourne.

A small change in your spending can up to thousands in savings.

Saving Money Tips No.1: Limited time to eat outside

Eating outside

Eating at home

Saving Money Tips No.2: Stop buying discount cloths

But I have a quick notice for you that:

The fact of spending money on discount clothes

Saving Money Tips No.3: Buying groceries at a cheap price

First of all, let buying seasonal foods.

Check the half-price day of supermarket

Buying the frozen veggies and supermarket brand’s food

Saving Money Tips No.4: Limited your weekly spending

To sum up,

Firstly, let ask yourself:

No.1 Methods To Study Effectively: Schedule daily goals

“Which goals do you want to achieve today?”

Create your own Things-To-Do List

No.2 Methods To Study Effectively: Take a break during studying time

No.3 Methods To Study Effectively: Take care of your physical body daily

No.4 Methods To Study Effectively: Switch between your subjects.

No.5 Methods To Study Effectively: Using a mind map to study

No.6 Methods To Study Effectively: Change the method of study during a day

To sum up,

P/s:

If you want to study Vietnamese or vice versa, these are several vocabulary that you can learn from this topic:

1. Public Speaking Tip 1: Raise your hand whenever you have a chance

How do you feel at that moment?

2. Public Speaking Tip 2: Practice alone — Small Group — Your Big Stage

So why should I do that?

3. Public Speaking Tip 3: Don’t just READ, let SHARE

4. Public Speaking Tip 4: Your micro is your friend, not your enemy

But actually, it is not really the problem.

5. Public Speaking Tip 5: Never talk alone, engage with your audience.

To summarize, these are several key points that I believe you should master to be a better speaker.

But nobody can take away what you invest in yourself.

1. The first smart way to invest your money is: Invest in your health seriously

After reading this letter last month, it makes me think a lot about the health of young generations nowadays.

I know that a healthy life is far more important than fun nights with friends and alcohol.

2. The second smart way to invest your money is: Invest in books to gain more knowledge

The value of books doesn’t stay at the quantity, it is about the quality.