Lesson#2 based on TED talks by ELIZABETH GILBERT

Lesson#2 based on TED talks "ELIZABETH GILBERT: Success, failure and the drive to keep creating"

This lesson is second part of the following lesson#1. As the text is pretty big in this lesson we are going to work only with a part of it.

After watching and listening ELIZABETH GILBERT's talk and reading the script, then working with words to comprehend the text entirely, let's talk 🎤.

Step 1 : Discussion

• What small successes do you have every day?
• Is success a journey or a destination?
• What part does luck play in success?
• Woody Allen said: "Eighty percent of success is showing up.” Do you agree with him?
• Albert Einstein said: "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." What do you think of this?

Step 2: Watch and follow the text till 02:53 then pause the video. Complete the sentences with CORRECT VERB FORM (Part 1).

Part 1 {00:12 to 02:53 }
00:12 So, a few years ago I _______ (be) at JFK Airport about to get on a flight, when I_____ (be approched) by two women who I _______ (not think) would be insulted to hear themselves described as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads.
00:26 The taller one, who _______ (be) like up here, she _______ (come) marching up to me, and she _______ (go), "Honey, I gotta ask you something. You _______ (get) something to do with that whole 'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that _______ (go on) lately?"
00:38 And I said, "Yes, I did."
00:40 And she _________(smack) her friend and she goes, "See, I _______ (tell) you, I _______ (say), that's that girl. That's that girl who _______ (write) that book based on that movie." (Laughter)
00:50 So that's who I am. And believe me, I'm extremely grateful to be that person, because that whole "Eat, Pray, Love" thing _______ (be) a huge break for me. But it also _______ (leave) me in a really tricky position moving forward as an author trying to figure out how in the world I was ever going to write a book again that would ever please anybody, because I _______ (know) well in advance that all of those people who _______ (adore) "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I _______ (write) next because it wasn't going to be "Eat, Pray, Love," and all of those people who _______ (hate) "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I _______ (write) next because it would provide evidence that I still _______ (live). So I _______ (know) that I _______ (have) no way to win, and knowing that I _______ (have) no way to win _______ (make) me seriously consider for a while just quitting the game and moving to the country to raise corgis. But if I _______ (do) that, if I _______ (give up) writing, I would _______ (lose) my beloved vocation, so I _______ (know) that the task was that I _______ (have) to find some way to gin up the inspiration to write the next book regardless of its inevitable /ɪnˈevɪtəbl/ negative outcome. In other words, I _______ (have) to find a way to make sure that my creativity _______ (survive) its own success. And I _______ (do), in the end, find that inspiration, but I _______ (find) it in the most unlikely and unexpected place. I _______ (find) it in lessons that I _______ (learn) earlier in life about how creativity can survive its own failure.
02:07 So just to back up and explain, the only thing I _______ (ever, want) to be for my whole life was a writer. I _______ (write) all through childhood, all through adolescence by the time I was a teenager I _______ (send) my very bad stories to The New Yorker, hoping to be discovered. After college, I _______ (get) a job as a diner waitress, kept working, kept writing, kept trying really hard to get published, and failing at it. I _______ (fail) at getting published for almost six years. So for almost six years, every single day, I _______ (have) nothing but rejection letters waiting for me in my mailbox. And it _______ (be) devastating every single time, and every single time, I _______ (have) to ask myself if I should just quit while I _______ (be) behind and _______ (give up) and spare myself this pain. But then I would _______ (find) my resolve, and always in the same way, by saying, "I'm not going to quit, I'm going home."

🚀 Next lesson with the rest of the text iis coing out soon...

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Created by @irina.olsen

Materials used:

1. TED talks
2. esldiscussions.com
3. Previous lesson#1 and next lesson#2.