Benny Lewis: Recovery from bad times, Korean Mission, and the Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp

And, uh, today we talk about, uh, Benny's new language mission, which he hasn't done one in, in many years, and we'll get into why in the episode. And, uh, where he's learning Korean. We also get into what he actually does in these, uh, language missions. You know, what, what does it take to get at a solid level in three months, what does fluent in three months mean, like what kind of level are we looking at. And we also get into kind of his hard times of the last few years, struggling with things like divorce and debt, and how he's been able to recover, get out of that, and, uh, kind of set sail for, for better times, feeling better. And, uh, I know there's a lot of people struggling out there today after, you know, obviously we had the pandemic, and now we have the the wars, and the living crisis, and all kinds of things. So hopefully, if you're listening to this in the future, times are looking better, but, uh, you know, usually we can always use some encouragement on how to move on. So enjoy this episode with Benny, and, uh, myself, of course.

And if you have any suggestions for people who I should interview on the podcast, definitely send me an email, kris@actualfluency.com. Before we get into the episode, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to my bite-size language courses. These are listening practice courses for beginners, which is, uh, crucial because most listening practice materials are way too difficult for beginners, which means you don't get the useful benefits, like improving your pronunciation, improving your listening practice, and naturally expanding your vocabulary.

So I've got these six small courses for, uh, six different languages, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Danish, and French. And, uh, there's a hundred dialogues in each of kind of everyday practical language. And the idea is, they're very short, easy to do. They don't, they're not full of like tons of English, or other languages. It's just the target language. So you can literally put it on repeat, go over and over and over again. And once you've listened to all of them a hundred times, a thousand times, you'll feel all of your language skills, uh, improve drastically.

And, uh, even then after, you could go into the, the course area, and you can dive a little deeper with, we have translations, we have direct translations, which really help kind of discovering the, how the language works. And we also have cultural notes, so you can learn a little bit about the language, the, the, the country behind the language, and the customs, and kind of being polite and, and even things like food, and, and other things, traditions, and, and things like that. So it's, they're quite comprehensive. For to find out more, go to actualfluency.com and click the top button, or simply go bite-sizelanguages.com. Enjoy the episode.

So, um, one year ago, um, almost to the day as we're recording this, I wrapped up my time in the United States. So I had accumulated that other stuff, and furniture, and I was living in Texas. And ultimately, the America experiment was not for me, and I kind of knew this, because like people, a lot of people know of me, ironically not from my language learning, but from this one article I wrote about, uh, my cultural clashes with the United States. And ironically, I, I said in the article, this is why I will never live in America. But of course, I fell in love with an American, and that changed everything, and then that I did go to live in America. And it's just, uh, for a polyglot, it's difficult. If you're in somewhere like New York, you can actually have a very multilingual experience there. Uh, but New York is incredibly expensive, so I wasn't able to maintain that, and I had moved to Texas because it was, uh, cheaper. Um, but it just, it wasn't the right country for me, and that just didn't help matters that like the lifestyle, and what I'm known for, and my intensive language learning projects, and being able to practice my languages, it just didn't really work with the life I was living in America. So I am so relieved that I was able to gradually figure out how to kind of distance myself from that. Sell all my stuff. So I'm back to living out of a suitcase again.

And since, uh, the last, uh, for the last year, I have been moving pretty regularly. I started off with, um, three months in Brazil, then I was in Mexico for two months. And I, uh, started this year with three months in Indonesia, and now I'm spending three months in Korea. And in terms of the language side of things, I, I had been so rusty in all my languages, just living in an English-speaking country. Uh, I was kind of building up to potentially getting started with my travels again, and then the pandemic hit, and I had to cancel all of those plans. So I, I'd spent an extremely long time barely practicing my languages, outside of very limited situations, and I really wanted to change that. So I needed the win first, and that's why I spent the time in Brazil and Mexico, because I already knew that even though we're, they were a little rusty, my Spanish and my Portuguese were my best languages, so I'd get back into those quickest. And I had the best time ever in both countries, and starting to feel like myself again.

Another thing is, one year ago, I weighed 125 kilograms. And I have since then already lost 25 kilograms. And I'm on the road to continuing to lose more pretty consistently. Um, and part of that is just the different lifestyle you have when you are not living in the United States, and you're living in countries like, like Brazil, where you're eating more, you're walking more, all that kind of stuff. Uh, so everything's been working out a lot better, and after I got the momentum with the new languages, or the, uh, old familiar languages, then I felt I was finally ready to take on a new language again. And I, I, when I look at the list of languages I could learn, and the places I could go, the choice was very, very easy. It had to be Korean, because I've been to a lot of the other obvious places you could talk about, and Korean is just such a big language nowadays, with K-Pop and K-Drama taking over the world. I had never been to South Korea, and I was just so curious about it. So I had my first in 10 years, my first Fluent in 3 Months project, because I wasn't doing any Fluent in 3 Months projects while writing the Language Hacking guides. So this is the first true project in 10 years. And I spent the three months in Indonesia intensively learning the language, ahead of coming here to Korea. And now I'm back in travel mode, and I, I'm, uh, easing myself back into the life that I had before. Not necessarily at the exact same pace and, uh, level of energy that I had 10 years ago, but I am infinitely better than I was five years ago, and that's way more important.

Um, but first I'd also really wanted to talk to you about the, uh, the challenge, because I remember watching all the challenges back in the day. You know, you were doing with, uh, you were doing Hungarian with Balint. I, I remember the, the Chinese one was very funny. You were talking to some girls at some anime convention or something. Uh, or maybe that was Japanese. But, uh, in any case, it's good to see those back.

And, and what do you think has changed, uh, on your approach to that from, you know, it's been a decade since you did this. So have you, have are you doing anything differently, or is anything changed significantly, or is it basically just, you know, vintage Benny back in action?

So the main thing, I think, is the loss of momentum, because in the years that you would have been following me, where I was doing one mission after the other, not necessarily consecutively, I'd have a six-month break or whatever between them. But effectively, I had that momentum. And I've lost 10 years of momentum. So it's very difficult to get back into language learning. And it's, it's interesting, because Korean itself, I, I have nothing negative to say about the language, and especially since I've done a varied amount of, of languages that would have their own difficult aspects to them, their own different ways of forming sentences. Uh, like when you ask me, what's the hardest part of learning Korean? I, I would draw a blank, because I'm going in with the same positive attitude that I've had in many of my language projects. I don't care why it's hard, I want to know why it's easy, and I'm trying to find evidence that can encourage me. So that aspect of my classical learning style of the positive way, the positive mentality that, that really drives me to not lose my motivation, that is definitely survived, um, through all of the difficult years. So I definitely really have been enjoying Korean, and I don't have any negative experiences about it.

But at the same time, just from losing that momentum, I have this block in my head that like I, right now, I know a lot of Korean words, I know a lot of Korean grammar, and I still don't have the level of confidence that I would have had, had I done this 10 years ago, when I'm here in Seoul now, and there's so many times I'm ready to speak Korean, and I'm stopping myself, and I'm second-guessing myself, when I really shouldn't be doing that. So and, and it's not for any good reason. I'm, I'm not telling myself your Korean isn't good enough, they're going to laugh at you, because I, I've already gotten all of those ideas out of my system through the many years of learning I, I did before this. Uh, but it's still, it's a block just from the, the motivation, not the motivation, the, uh, momentum that I have lost. And then a little bit lingering of the negative aspects of the life that I just went through, that, you know, I would definitely say I have recovered from clinical depression. But you can never say that you're 100% like completely over something. There are always some lingering aspects, and those lingering aspects are like stopping me and sucking a little bit of confidence for no good reason.

Um, now the good thing I will say is that the whole aspect of this project has been me working through these things. And I am not going hard on myself. I'm not saying I'm a failure because of this. I'm telling myself, this is just a necessary part of the process, that I need to get this momentum back. So in the process of getting the momentum back, I'm going to have a learning process that is not exactly the way I wish it would have been, but that is going to be just me returning to the, the old Benny stages, so that future projects can be even better.

Um, and I, and I guess we can, we have to kind of address the quick elephant in the room like, Benny, nobody can learn a language in three months to a B1 level. It's impossible. I, I've seen on Reddit, they say it's all fake, it's all made up. You know, but, but tell us are you still, when you do the challenge back then, I remember one of the things that kind of surprised me was the amount of time you would spend per day.

So how, how many hours just on a kind of average basis, do you think you'd spend for this Korean challenge? And is it more or less than, than the kind of last challenges you did?

And like, uh, that's what I think a lot of people miss when they initially might hear of me, and then jump to conclusions after reading four words of just the domain I, I registered, that they imagine I'm, I'm saying, you know, I'm preaching about learning a language quickly and easily. And ultimately, it's not about either of those things. I'm not even about the quickness. I'm more about the specificity. I want people to have specific goals and specific timelines. If that looks different to you and you want to learn in a year, so be it. That, that's going to work with your lifestyle. My lifestyle, my brain is such that I have ADHD, so I need to accept that I am not the kind of person who can have a side learning project. I understand for a lot of people, that's going to work. I've talked to many other polyglots who have a very, very different learning style to me. And I appreciate that, and I would never tell them you're wrong, you should learn like I do. But the way my brain works is I can only do things intensively if I want to make any significant progress with them. So I'm just never going to learn a language part-time for an hour a day, because that's just not how I work. So I, I have to do it intensively. So if people want to follow along and see how I do it intensively, that's what ultimately, um, I try to share with them.

For me, the C levels are more about mastery, and I've got C, C2, I got a C2 diploma in the likes of Spanish. And ultimately, that helps me to work as an electronic engineer. But it doesn't really enrich my life in useful ways beyond that. Like the things I really need to do, at least for me, because I'm an outgoing guy, I need to be social in the language. For other people, they're going to want to maybe work in the language, and they're going to want to fill their taxes in the language, or they're going to want to debate Kantian epistemology in the language. If that's, if that's what floats their boat. That's not something I care too much about. So being social is the B2 level of where, like you said, it's flowing. If I can go to the pub and function effectively the same as I would in English, I don't even drink, but I use the pub as an example, just because it's a good social atmosphere. It's noisy, which is, uh, which is that extra challenge. Then I would consider myself fluent.

And it's effectively based off the concept of what, what was so popular about my missions in those first few months, where you're openly sharing your project. It has this 90-day deadline. Uh, you have to post video updates to kind of showcase your milestones. And that, that public accountability is a big part of it. And that's why Brian Kwong was so inspired by this that he created the Add1Challenge very, very long time ago. And he, he grew a decent community from that, but it was inspired by my missions. And ultimately, when he decided he wanted to step away from it, he passed the torch to me, and I took over, uh, his Add1Challenge, which ultimately became the, uh, Fluent in 3 Months Bootcamp.

So, um, yeah, I'm very pleased because it's a more direct way that I get to help people with their language projects, and really emphasize this three-month push. And, like, we don't try to get people necessarily to fluency, we do guarantee they will have a conversation. And having a conversation by the end of three months is a lot more realistic for people who are maybe, you know, very busy, they're working a full-time job, they have a family to support. They don't have more than that one hour a day. So there is a bit more that they can do with that.

And there's a bunch of other things. Like we, uh, I have so much material. I try to just say, here's like a, a thousand things I think that could help you with learning your language. And I thought that was probably the best thing to do, but ultimately people complained, and they said, you know, it's great to have all this stuff, but I don't really know where to start. So we restructured it into a plan of action of, here's what you should be looking at in the first week. So it's a bit more hand-holding, because a lot of people who might try it, it's the first time they're ever learning a language. So we really want to give them a bit more guidance. And all of that was based on the feedback that people gave us last year, and it took us a very long time to completely relaunch the whole system in its new form. So, um, yeah, it's great to, um, very proud of how it is right now.

So, Benny, let's get into the juicy stuff. We've, uh, we've, we've went through the language stuff. Let's talk about this, um, kind of mindset, mental health mindset. So you've already described how you've kind of improved, and, and you're on the way to, on the, on the path to, wouldn't say recovery, but definitely improvement, positivity you mentioned.

Can you just share with us some of those things that, that, that gave you that initial boost to even start that process? Because I remember you made a video at some point on your channel, which I'll also link. I thought it was a really brave video talking about, you know, it just seemed like everything was just bad at that time. Like you were talking about finances, you were talking about your relationship, you were talking about your, even where you were living, you know. Everything just seemed really bad. So how did you start kind of even begin that process to dig you yourself out of that, uh, position?

So the first thing I did was I tried to get on top of my finances. And while I was doing that, I wasn't really working on my health. I wasn't really, um, trying to be like active socially, which would have helped my mental health. Obviously, you should try to do that if you can, but I decided I'm, I'm going to at least put my focus into this one thing, and I made a lot of sacrifices, um, that I wouldn't have to spend as much money, and I got to a better place, and it did take a long time.

And then the next one was, um, in the last, in the first six months of my travels, when I wasn't going to learn a new language, I was just going to use the languages that I'd already was confident in. I decided, okay, the biggest problem I want to solve is my, the fact that I'm extremely unhealthily overweight. So for those six months, that was effectively the biggest thing in my life was, how can I get to a, a healthier weight? And I did, in, in kind of Benny style, I did it intensively. And the, uh, it's not something I would recommend to other people, but the way I did it was, um, something inspired by, uh, I think it's called Monk Fasting, where it's not like intermittent fasting, where you're only eating for an eight-hour window each day. You're actually taking 48 to 36 hours every single week of not eating. So for six months, I was only eating for five days a week. And I would not recommend that other people try that, unless you see you can definitely handle it. Um, there's a lot of physical, uh, challenges I've tried to put myself through that I've failed miserably, that I can't handle. There's a lot of diets I've attempted that I just can't maintain. But for whatever reason, I, I had the endurance to be able to go for two days without eating, and to be able to do that every single week. And that was just just completely game-changing. And it helped me lose, because 25 kilograms over six months is very fast, it's very fast progress. Yeah.

And I needed that because, uh, you know, when you're at the weight that I was, you're, you're, there's just so many problems you have in your life. I already had all the problems I mentioned, but just by being overweight, you're already naturally going to be, um, and it's not even overweight, like obese, like overweight is a different category. When you're at that level of obesity, you have less energy, so that's going to make you suffer in everything else. Um, you know, like I, I love dancing for instance, and for this big stretch of my life for like seven years, I, I just couldn't dance, because if I tried to dance, after 20 seconds, my heart rate would be so high, I would need to sit down and, and have at least a 10 or 20-minute break. After like 20 seconds. And that, that's just for somebody who likes dancing, that, that's just so disheartening, you know. So, uh, there's so many aspects of my life that that was already completely consuming. So it had to be my priority.

And, and like each of the things, each of the aspects of my life, I've been trying to work on them one at a time. And in terms of like now the theme might be more mental health, in terms of I'm trying to be my old self again. And I had to accept, for several years, this, this concept of the old Benny who tries to learn a language in three months, I cannot do that while I'm in the state of life that I'm currently in. I can't be intensively learning a language when I'm constantly checking my bank balance, and I'm stressed about getting another overdraft. When I have, I'm so out of energy that I can't even go for a walk, without my heart rate going super high. I, I can't deal with that and take on a language at the same time. So I had to accept there's several years where this concept of the old Benny, it's not going to happen right now, but maybe I can put the pieces of the puzzle in place, so that in some future day, I may be ready for that. So that's kind of what I've been working on these last years, is very gradually looking at all the parts of my life that were completely messed up, and seeing how can I work on one of them at a time to get them to a better place.

And it all kind of adds on top of itself. So like right now, even though I'm in the mental health stage, and I'm enjoying Korea, I have the energy to continue with my fitness. So it doesn't have to be the one and only priority in my life. But I can go to the gym, and I can be more careful in what I eat, because I, I have the energy for it now that I just did not have before. And it's, it's very, it was very frustrating for me that I was in the place in my life where people would say, you know, do you know what you should do? You should eat less and go to the gym. Like this is some big, huge revelation I'd never thought of. And it's very hard to explain to people that as easy as that sounds, it's not that easy. When you're in a place in your life where you have zero motivation, and you're feeling miserable, like right now, I can go to the gym. I'm in a place in my life where it's easy. It's fine for me to start my day and go to the gym. But, and, and so I can get that somebody who hasn't been through what I've been through can be like, you know, what's the problem? Just like walk around the corner, the gym's right there. It's so easy. And like, when you have so many internal problems holding you back, it's not easy. So I just had to accept, I'm going to work on things very slowly and gradually, until I'm at a place where maybe someday they can be easy again. And that's somewhat where I'm getting to right now.

And, and I, it's funny how the personality again comes into it, because you, you you're saying like, one thing at a time, but intensively. Rather than, oh, I'll add one gym day a week. I will, uh, you know, do one good meal a week or something, you know. It's not a, a small consistency, it's more like that. You need that big push.

Um, and and then once you get into that better state, uh, do you then, how do you then start to do that balanced, uh, lifestyle? Or, or, you know, when you got the big push, you said you were, you weren't eating two days a week. So how do you maintain kind of a, and this goes for everything, I assume, not just the food. Uh, how do you maintain that going forward when you know your, your personality is a little bit more all or nothing, rather than like the consistent maybe calorie deficit or,

And, another thing is like, as I'm adding new, um, new smaller challenges, um, like, like I said, I really love dancing, and I really want to get back into dancing, but it can't necessarily be the biggest priority in my life right now, because I'm, I'm trying to explore Korea. Um, so, what I've accepted, uh, which has been very helpful for me to take on new things that can integrate into my life, is I accept, I will be the worst person in the class. I go in, and I'm telling myself that. Every, every other person is going to be in better shape than me. They're going to dance better than me. They're probably all going to be younger than me, because dance classes typically have people in their twenties and thirties, and I'm 40. So I, I accept all of that. And I think this is, uh, a big game-changer, because a lot of people when they want to start with new habits, they get so bogged down with perfectionism and comparison. And they see all these other people, and they think to themselves, man, this sucks, I'm the worst in the class. Whereas I, I don't think like that, I think I am the worst in the class. That is just my reality. I'm okay with that. And I, I don't need to be the best in the class, because my purpose is to use this as a form of exercise, and I enjoy doing it anyway, even if I'm the worst. And I, I, like this has been so helpful to me to, uh, and it's the same I, I've had this concept in language learning for the longest time, that I embrace being an idiot, I embrace making mistakes, because I'm okay with being the worst speaker in the space at that time. And that really, really helps me with other aspects of my life as well, that I, I am not interested in being the best. I just want to suck a little less every day. You know.

And having gone through the worst years of my life, like by far, I've had just in, things I can't even talk about, that were just so horrible happened to me. It's also given me, it has given me a fresh perspective, that like right now, the comparison that I'm making is comparing myself to Benny from five years ago. And no matter what happens, I, I'm never, I'm hopefully, never going to be that low again. So it's a lot easier for me to be like, you know, I don't care if this person is like, uh, you know, outwardly looks like they're so much happier than I am, and they have so much more success in life, because I have so much more success than I did five years ago. I'm in such a better place right now, that I, like I can't know anything about every, anyone else's life to the full level of detail to be able to make a true comparison. But I do know absolutely everything about Benny from five years ago, and when I make a comparison with that guy, I am absolutely better off in so many ways. And that's an easier way for me to, to think of it. Uh, but I understand when people suffer from anxiety, you can't really just say, hey, don't think about it and the thoughts will go away. So I do, I do, uh, acknowledge, it is easier for me to be able to put those thoughts aside. I am the kind of person who is okay with looking like an idiot, and I appreciate that about myself. It's helped me to achieve so many things. It's helped me to take risks, that I'm okay with, with failing. And, uh, I'm really glad that that survived through all of these difficult years, because there are things that people lose in their personality when they go through hard times.

And when I was very dark and in my worst, uh, situation, I still tried to be like, yeah, my life sucks, and I have a lot of problems. But I have a roof over my head, and I do have, I was eating terribly, but I did have food that I wasn't starving. Um, and Fluent in 3 Months did survive, and I have a successful business. Even though my personal finances were suffering, at least the business finances were doing okay. And these are things to be appreciative of. And I understand when you're at the low points, it's very hard to see what is positive in your life, because you just see all of these terrible things that happened to you. And I had so many terrible things happened to me, but I still try to remember that at least in all my travels, I've met a lot of people from a lot of walks of life, and a lot of them would still have given anything to be in my place, even in the terrible moments I was living through. There's people who are suffering in so many unimaginable ways, who would give anything to, to be in your place, even if you're in the worst place you could possibly imagine.

But after taking on the Language Hacking books, I, like in terms of very big projects, I'm definitely going to go easy on myself. Like I'm, I this year, taking on Korean, and then that's pretty much it for me for 2023. Like after my, after I've traveled Korea, I'm going to have other travel projects. I, I've got lots of fun travels that I want to do. But I'm not going to take on any necessarily big project, because I took on too much, and I've learned the lesson of saying yes to everything, and, uh, like pushing yourself to the absolute limit. I wish I didn't have to have learned that lesson, but I have learned it. So I'm saying no to a lot more now. I'm accepting that means I'm going to miss out on a lot of opportunities, but that's okay. Because there's a, a level of contentment I have in my life, which I'm very appreciative for right now. I am extraordinarily lucky that I am in the place that I am, despite everything that's happened to me. So the, what that means is I, I have a certain level of peace that I don't need more. I don't need a crazy other project. I don't need another best-selling book. I don't need like, uh, my YouTube channel to be 5 million subscribers. There's a certain level of contentment I have, and as long as I'm still pushing myself, trying to expand on things, then some opportunity will naturally come my way eventually, that will, uh, I may be in a place where I do want to put my time and energy into it. But yeah, like you were saying, for the moment, running Bootcamp is, is something I'm very passionate about, so I'm going to continue to be pushing on that, and then I will take on more languages in the future. But probably not, uh, this year. This year, I just need to reactivate the languages I'd already learned, and that'll be my main like side project as it were, once I leave Korea.