09 Kaizen VOCAB

Welcome to the vocabulary lesson for “The Kaizen Way.” Are you smiling? Big smile, remember. Body up, shoulders back. Big smile, make it bigger, come on, a huge grin. Look stupid. Look silly. What about your body? Start moving it.  If you’re sitting in a car, if you’re sitting in a train, you know you can just move your legs around a little bit. People look at you and think you’re strange, it’s okay. Hopefully you have a chance, you’re out walking. Get that iPod in your ears. Move your body. Energy, get some energy in your body. We’re going to learn some English. Are you ready? Let’s go.

Vocabulary for “The Kaizen Way.”

Our first word from this article from this lesson is zinger, a zinger. Now a zinger is a surprise or a shock. So in the article, it came from the phrase “You want to come up with a zinger of a solution to an office problem.” So a zinger of a solution means a surprise or a shock of a solution. It means a solution that is surprising, in a good way here, of course, it can be negative. Zingers can sometimes be a little bit negative, but it has this idea of something that is surprising or something that is shocking. Something that is sudden, a zinger.

Alright, our next word after zinger, our next word is summon. To summon or to summon up, sometimes we’ll say summon up, sometimes we just say summon.  And in the article we had the phrase “Kaizen can help you summon your powers of inspiration.” Summon your power, to summon means to call, call something to you, right? Like “Come here, come to me now.” Or to arouse, to arouse is another similar word to summon. Or to conjure, all of these have similar meanings. So to summon your power means to call your power “Power come to me now!” That’s the idea. So kaizen, this method, this way of thinking, this way of improving, little small improvements, asking little small questions, it can summon your power. It calls your power to you. It gives you power. So again, to summon means to call someone or something to you. It’s kind of like saying “Come to me. Come now.” To summon, to summon.

Next we have the phrase to cough up, to cough up. Now cough up has a very direct meaning, a very physical meaning. But then it also has more of a mental idea meaning. And let me read the phrase, in the phrase it says “Although you can’t force your brain to cough up creative ideas, you can program it.” Okay, to cough up means to give or to produce quickly, right? To make something happen quickly, to give quickly, this idea of calling up actually. And it comes from, physically, it means if we cough we would say “cough, cough, cough”, right, so if you cough something up, imagine you eat something and then “cough” you cough it up, it comes from your stomach, up and out your mouth again. So that’s the direct physical meaning.  This idea that something is inside and then you bleah, you cough it out. It comes out of your mouth. So if you have that idea in your mind you can see that picture. Well, imagine you’re doing that with an idea. You have an idea in your brain. If you cough it up it means, it kind of, it’s in your brain and bleah, it comes out, out of your mouth or out of your body or writing it.

So it’s deep in your brain and then, bleah, you force it to come out. So that’s that idea, coughing up, this idea of forcing something to come out of you, come out of your brain, come out of your body. So if we cough up an idea it means “I need an idea, I need an idea,” bleah, argh, got it, right? And suddenly a great idea comes out of you. That’s this idea of coughing up. So in this section Robert Maurer is saying you cannot force, you cannot make your brain cough up ideas, right?  You say “I want an idea.  I want an idea.” Well, you can’t make it come out, right? Ideas come out when they want to it seems. But he says kaizen will help the ideas come out.

Alright, next we have the word harsh, harsh. In the article we had the phrase “When you use a harsh tone with yourself, fear will clog the entire creative process.” We’ll talk about clog in a minute, but let’s talk about harsh first. Harsh means very rough, too strong, very bitter. It’s really the opposite of gentle. So if you use a harsh tone, it’s like “Get me an idea now!” That’s a very harsh tone. I’m speaking in a harsh way. Now the opposite would be gentle. I would say “Give me an idea now please.” That’s a very gentle tone. So again, harsh is the opposite of gentle when we’re talking about speaking or emotions. Harsh, arrr, very rough.

Alright, and in that same sentence we have the word clog, to clog. Now to clog means to block or to hinder, right? You stop something from happening. You block it. You prevent it. So fear will clog the creative process. It means fear will stop creativity. Fear will block it, right? If you’re harsh with yourself, if you’re too rough, then you kind of get afraid and then the creativity is blocked. It’s clogged.

Alright, next we have the word fulfill. One of the questions we asked, one of the small questions we asked was what type of work would excite and fulfill me? What would fulfill me? Now fulfill means to satisfy, right? To fulfill means make you feel good, make you feel happy, make you feel satisfied. If you fulfill someone, you satisfy them. If you fulfill yourself, then you satisfy yourself.

Alright, our next phrase is over the course of, over the course of. We had the big sentence “If you repeat the question over the course of several days or weeks, you will find an answer.” Okay, if you repeat the question over the course of several days, over the course of several days. Well, really that just means for or during. It’s just saying a length of time, during the time of several days, for several days. So if you repeat the question for several days, if you repeat the question during the time of several days, if you repeated the question over the course of several days, same meaning, all of them. Just means during this time, over the course of. It means you’re doing this thing during seven days, for seven days or eight days or several days, whatever, any time period.

Okay? So over the course of just talks about a time period that you’re doing something.

Alright, next is the word hippocampus. Now, this is not a really common word, you’re not going to hear it in conversation a lot. It’s a part of the brain that stores information. It’s kind of like your memory. In a computer, for example, you have a hard disc and a hard disc stores information long‑term, for a long time. Well, this part of your brain, the hippocampus is basically like your brain’s hard disc. So you’ve got a little hard disc in your brain, a little part of your brain. That’s where the information is stored. That’s where you remember stuff. So right now you’re putting vocabulary into that part of your brain. You’re storing that information. You are remembering it. You’re keeping it.

Alright so if you’re a scientist or something, maybe you need that word but most of us don’t use that word a lot.

Finally, we have the verb to address, to address something. Now address is also a noun, it has a totally different meaning. So we’re going to talk about the verb. In the article it said “Your brain will have no choice but to address the question.” Now here to address means to concentrate on, to focus on, to think about, do something about.  But I like this idea of to concentrate on or to focus on. So your brain must address the problem. It must focus on the problem.  It must concentrate on the problem.  To address, used as a verb. Now address also has other meanings, even when it’s used as a verb. But we’re not going to talk about all the meanings, you just need to know this meaning right now because that’s the meaning we find in this article. Alright, so to address, to focus on, to concentrate on.

Now that is all of the vocabulary for “The Kaizen Way.” Listen to it several times and then go and listen to the mini‑story. As always, in every single lesson, you better be smiling! I’m going to come and check on you. I want to see that big smile. I want to see that body moving. I want to see those shoulders back, feeling strong. Strong physiology is so important with the Effortless English system. You’ve got to do it. It is the core. It is the fundamental most important part of this learning system. Use it every single time you listen to English.

Alright, that is the end of “The Kaizen Way” vocabulary lesson.