A shout-out to remote workers here. Can relate?

JFYI: Slack is a #1 corporate messenger. If you work with the US market, you know
Reference: IG corporatenatalie

Glossary:
🫧House chores - Small jobs you do to keep your house clean and organized
Example: Cleaning, washing dishes, and making your bed are all house chores

🫧Third load of laundry - This is the third time you are washing clothes
Example: I washed my dark clothes (1st load), then my light clothes (2nd load). Now these towels are the third load of laundry

🫧Squeeze house chores around calls - do household maintenance during your work time when you're not on a call

💷 Quick tip: in SEA, it's super affordable to get your laundry done for you. Anyone reading from this region?

Your turn
🗑️ - squeezing laundry and house chores around calls is efficiency
😇 - squeezing laundry and house chores around calls is disrespect and lack of professionalism
🌼 - I have a housekeeper

💷 The Price and Value of Education

This week's topic for S2S users was inspired by a story of my friend Daniil Scherbakov (LinkedIn) who spent his life savings ($190K) on Camridge MBA at the peak of his career, hasn't earned it back yet, and has 0 regrets. All for the love of high quality experience

Daniil shared his life story with a member of our PitchUp club Dmitry. After watching their interview in Russian, @ybeymlina was so moved that we came up with a text, phrases, and questions to explore the topic of advancing your education in adulthood with you

Related Glossary
🫧entire savings - All the money you saved for the future
"After the car repair, my entire savings were gone"
🫧to put your money where your mouth is - To show by your actions that you really believe what you say
"Daniil’s story is about putting his money where his mouth is. He paid the high price of education, gave up financial security, and still feels it was worth it"
🫧to stay true to (your values) - To continue to believe in your dreams, promises, or yourself
"Even through challenges, Daniil stayed true to his goal of getting world class education"

💓Want to learn to share your views with nuance in English, surrounded by like-minded ambitious people?
Text Wednesday to @ybeymlina and she'll sign you up for our open Zoom meeting, Wednesday 6-7PM MSC time

What ANYONE can learn from Stripe's product updates to get heard IRL

Perk up your ears* if you often get frustrated by people (co-workers, friends, family) not getting your ideas. The answer comes from an unxpected source: tech giants' product updates

If you think this has nothing to do with you because you're not a tech founder, you're wrong. There's 1 thing that successful product owners have mastered and you can too: to get heard and trusted by their audience. Companies like Stripe, Tinder, TikTok have changed user behaviour, which is not an easy task to accomplish. You know that if you're a manager or a parent

As you deconstruct tech giants' product releases, you shape your speech to have... impact

Take Stripe Connect's Product Release Transcript

Creating a business that needs to accept and pay out money between different parties is challenging. You could stitch together numerous third-party solutions to support all the things you need, like verifying recipients, whether they are sellers or service providers, routing payments and reconciliation and you'd still need to dedicate engineers to successfully integrate everything.

But that might not be the best use of precious resources. And let's not even get into how painful it is to go international. What you want is to focus on building your product and solving for what your customers need, not on payments infrastructure.

That's why we built Stripe Connect. Connect is software that makes it easy for businesses to accept and pay out money to various parties. Get your recipients verified and signed up quickly and easily, you control the experience from end to end. We deal with local compliance requirements for your business model to make routing payments easy. Want to allow same-day payouts or set them up automatically every week? You choose when and how often your recipients get paid, and Connect takes care of the rest; no paper checks or manual processes. It's easy to manage everything straight from the Stripe dashboard.

Growing your business internationally has never been easier. Expand in any of the 25 plus countries where Stripe operates, right out of the box, with one easy integration. No need to spend time or money establishing local subsidiaries. Take advantage of local payment methods and accept more than 100 currencies.

Whether you're connecting drivers with riders, babysitters with parents, contractors with homeowners, or virtually any business model that you can dream up, let Stripe Connect handle your payment infrastructure so you can focus on building products for your users.

Now, see the framework Stripe followed

1. Acknoledge listener wants something and it's hard to get
2. Show you understand the annoying things your listener wants to do to get what they want
3. List your listener's goals and constraints — show again you get them
4. Introduce your idea (STripe Connect, in this case)
5. Show the listener can get what they want by taking your idea on board*

Now, you get the attention and can change behaviour. You can even apply this framework to talking to a 5-year old - encourage you to try and share results! Will be happy to fine-tune them to your context

*Glossary
🫧to take an idea on board - to believe the idea and start using it
🫧perk up your ears - to pay attention closely

🪴 Like and stay tuned for more tools towards world-class English speech that gets you heard internationally. Let's grow together

I had so much fun yesterday despite finishing at 11PM my local time!

Thank you for the meeting:
💓5 amazing, ambitious, high English level people
💓3 countries (Russia, Chile, Vietnam)
💓11 phrases incorporated into your active speech

🪴 What the guys did:
🫧articulatory warm up for pronunciation: intonation & flow
🫧vocabulary warm up: checking the meaning & use of 11 high level phrases
🫧3 rounds of a controversial story summaries with a rising level of challenges & interaction
🫧chat in break-out rooms

🪴 Outcomes for the participnats:
🫧can express views on a complex professional topic with nuance, details and confidence
🫧a 60-minute dynamic speaking boost with like-minded, selected peers (this channel requires a higher level of cognitive processing so we attract the best)
🫧a serious energy boost

A sneak peek into 7 phrases we actively used
1. Eventually: After some time; in the end.
"I was lost for an hour, but eventually I found the station."

2. To hold a diploma: To have finished a special course of study and have the official paper that proves it.
"He holds a diploma in computer science from the local college."

3. To enrol in: To put your name on a list to join a class or course.
"I want to enrol in a Spanish class this autumn."

4. To complete a degree: To finish all the studies at a university or college.
"She worked hard to complete her degree in biology."

5. Severe /sɪˈvɪər/ depression: A very serious illness that makes a person feel extremely sad and hopeless for a long time.
"After his friend moved away, he suffered from severe depression."

6. The bare minimum: The least possible amount of work or effort needed.
"He only does the bare minimum at his job, so he never gets a promotion."

7. Connections flourish: Relationships with people become stronger and more successful.
"When she moved to the new city, her connections flourished and she made many friends."

PS: a sneak peek - an exclusive limited preview

💅 Want to give it a try next Wednesday? Text Wednesday to @ybeymlina to sign up

3 Challenging to Pronounce B2/C1 Level Adjectives

As S2S users were discussing spending entire savings on education, 3 words consistently tripped their tongues over. Our assessors corrected the errors and included them in personal feedback reports. Now sharing the pronunciation tips with all of you, so you don't repeat others' mistakes!

🫧Severe - very bad & serious, grave, or very strict
/səˈvɪe/
"The professor had severe grading standards, so few students received an A on the final exam."

🫧Austere - Simple, plain, and without luxury
/ɔːˈstɪe/
"The company's austere budget meant there was no money for new hires or team lunches."

🫧Serene - Very calm and peaceful
/səˈriːn/
"Before making her final decision on the merger, the CEO remained serene and focused, despite the pressure."

🎧 Start the video to listen, repeat, and nail the prnunciation. Feeling ambitious? Drop a voice message saying these words
💓Like & share to motivate us not to abandon the channel