Secrets of Success. Business English Course. Alexander Chumakov

you there.

      Unit 1. A Higher Purpose

      This is Alex and this is your vocabulary lesson for “A Higher Purpose”.

      A Higher Purpose. Let me explain to you what it means again. Well, let’s start with a purpose. Everybody has a purpose or even purposes. And of course, it is great. It is great because if you do not have a purpose, you don’t have a life. Having a purpose is very important.

      It is important because if have a purpose, you exactly know what to do in your life or with your life. For example, you want to do something creative or you want to be someone like a doctor or a teacher. That is your purpose, your goal. That is something you want to do in your life. Something that motivates you to do what you wanna do.

      Now you may ask me, if, for example, I want to be rich. I want to have a lot of money. Is having a lot of money a purpose or a goal?

      As a matter of fact, it is. Money is fabulous, but money is not everything. By the way, money is a not a good motivator.

      Well, we all do things for money. In other words, we all need money to live, to buy food, clothes. But money is not a higher purpose.

      You have to have a bigger purpose, something that is bigger than you. The purpose why you do what you do. For example, my higher purpose is to build a bridge between two cultures, between people. My higher purpose is to help people to speak English easily and confidently. That is why I create my courses, I create my lessons. And I use them as a platform to enhance people, to inspire and encourage people, to help people to be more successful and happier. That is my higher purpose.

      What about you? What is your higher purpose in life? Oh, by the way, if you don’t have a higher purpose, it is not a big deal. Why? Because you can always create it. Promise? Okay, I know you are serious about it. Just do it.

      Now we are jumping into the vocabulary lesson.

      Our first word for today is to advance. You can see in the sentence: “A Higher Purpose is the cause, the reason that is so just that you would willingly sacrifice your own interests in order to advance this cause, this higher purpose”.

      To advance simply means to move forward. A Higher Purpose is the cause, the reason that moves you forward. You go, you move forward your cause. You advance this cause, this higher purpose.

      Next we have the verb to own. I used this word in the story. You probably know this word, but let’s just repeat it again, review it again, one more time. To own means to have as one’s possession. It is something that you possess, you have, not your brother or sister. Not whatever or whoever. No one but you. For example, you have a car or you own a car. You have a house or you own a house. You have a company or you own a company. It is only yours. So I think you’ve got the idea.

      Alright, next is the word a competitor. Here a competitor means a company that sells the same goods or services as your company does. Tony the tiger owned the company and he often said, “We’ve got to beat our competitors”.

      Of course, to beat a competitor means to overcome your competitor. To defeat someone in a game, competition, to win. That’s what it means.

      Next is the word an employee. You might already know this word, but again an employee. An employee is a person you hire to work for you or for another person or a business. A team of employees simply means a group of people who are paid regularly to work for another person or for an organization.

      The next we see the word frequent. Frequent. Frequent means constant or happening often. The people who worked for Tony didn’t want to go on constant business trips. They didn’t want to go on frequent business trips. In other words, they didn’t willingly sacrifice their lives to the company.