I turned 45 yesterday.
I am currently in Greece attempting to master Greek. No language yet has challenged me the way this language has. I just don’t feel like I am winning.
Yesterday, one of my girls bought a birthday present from a Greek newsstand. It was a Donald Duck comic book… in Greek. Tim Ferris, author of the Four Hour Work Week, recommends reading comic books when learning a new language.
I used to do this when I lived in Germany years ago.
As I spend most of my time studying ancient Latin and ancient Greek, I had forgotten about this technique. After all, there aren’t many comic books in ancient Latin and Greek.
A few years ago, I discovered that studying modern Greek actually helped with ancient Greek. Modern Greek shed light on the ancient language, and, best of all, modern Greek provided a definitive pronunciation I could imitate and apply to ancient Greek.
For the very same reasons, I am studying Italian. Italian sheds light on ancient Latin and Italian gives me a pronunciation to imitate and apply to Latin. When I head to Italy next month, I intend to pick up an Italian comic book, or two.
But, even with comic books, I have a problem. I am now 45 years old. It is just not as easy to pick languages up as it once was.
Years ago, thanks to Brian Tracy, I discovered this technique. It helped me then, and it is helping me now. I am applying Kaizen to my study of Greek and Italian.
Author James Altucher calls this the 1% rule.
“Every day try to get a tiny bit better in physical health, emotional health, creativity, and spirituality. 1% a day compounds to 3,800% per year. It’s amazing what this means. What this has done for my own life.” (James Altucher)
Kaizen has helped me achieve my own goals. Perhaps it will help you hit your goals as well.
