That's what my friend had said to me after I'd already been living in Mexico for months and I still couldn't converse in Spanish.

And what was the result? Isolation and losing out on so many fun opportunities.

I just kept telling myself I lacked natural talent or that I'm too old and “I should have learned as a child”...

...until looking around and seeing every other foreigner effortlessly holding conversations in Spanish, making new friends and experiencing new things I had yet to experience, meanwhile all I could focus on was trying not to make mistakes while speaking, thus leading me to anxiety and choosing not to speak.

To say I was lonely is an understatement. The only thing I could do well was take walks and go to different cafés.

So I took a really long hard look at everything I was doing and understood exactly why Spanish seemed impossible for me...

And if you still believe just like I did that it does have to do with age or talent, then you need to change that belief right now or be open to changing it or you will NEVER improve.

Are you still with me?

The only reasons Spanish was so difficult for me and seemingly easy for everyone else, were that everyone else didn't care if they made mistakes, and I did, and they had a simple yet constructive method to guide them through their learning process that worked, and I didn't. 

So I decided to scrap everything I thought I knew about speaking Spanish - I scrapped Duolingo, dictionaries, and overpriced tutors that loved telling me how easy it is to learn Spanish yet couldn't teach it in a simple way.

Then I started doing my own research and teaching myself in a way that actually made sense for my five year old learning style, and putting myself out there.

And look, I am a slow learner that asks 100s of questions so if you had asked me back then how long I thought it would take to become fluent, I'd have said years (and perhaps so had I stayed the route I was on).

But it only took me six months.

It's incredible how fast I learn with a structured & compounding method, and not just have a bunch of jargon thrown at me from every direction and expect my brain to make sense of it all.

Not only do I now have the luxury of engaging in conversations, but so many doors have opened for me...doors I didn’t even know existed.

I've been able to make friends, find better deals, start a business, receive better service, find the most reliable tradespeople, talk my way in to (and sometimes out of) situations, negotiate, date, even be in an independent film!

It feels like I'm living a completely different life, and the only thing that changed was my ability to converse in Spanish.

Which means, when you learn to converse fluidly in Spanish, which you can learn at any time, you will step into a whole new world…

...and all for the price of a couple tutor sessions.