📕 Part 1: Dreams and ambitions

This episode's vocabulary

Ambitious (adj) – having a strong wish to be successful, powerful, or rich. → *It's good to be ambitious and want to do things with your life.*

Chilled out (adj) – relaxed and not worried about anything. → *I think I'm more chilled out about things these days.*

To achieve (v) – to succeed in finishing something or reaching an aim, especially after a lot of work or effort. → *I've pretty much achieved everything I wanted in my life.*

Grand designs (n. phr.) – very ambitious and complicated plans. → *Lots of people these days have really grand designs for being world-famous celebrities.*

To stick to something (phr. v.) – to continue with a plan, decision, or activity without changing it. → *If you stick to your dreams, you do a lot of things to achieve them.*

Task-oriented (adj) – giving a lot of attention to work and to achieving things. → *One of my old managers used to say I was very task-oriented.*

To get things done (idiom) – to complete tasks successfully. → *I like to get things done.*

To make a dream a reality (idiom) – to cause one's dreams to happen in real life. → *I enjoy making my dreams a reality.*

To pay the bills (idiom) – to earn enough money to support oneself. → *I just like doing something simple that helps people and pays my bills.*

Bucket list (n.) – a list of the things that a person would like to do or achieve before they die. → *A bucket list is a list of things to do before you die.*

To draw up a plan (phr. v.) – to prepare something in writing, especially a plan or formal document. → *Draw up a nice plan, maybe there are 50 points.*

Questions and Answers

Maria: Are you ambitious?

Rory: I don't know. I've pretty much achieved everything I wanted to in my life. So I think I'm more chilled out about things these days. Of course, in the past, I had to be more ambitious to get to this state, but it's not necessary now.

Maria: What was your childhood dream?

Rory: I actually always wanted to be a teacher, and a famous person, and an author, and I think I managed to get to all three. Just not in the way I'd intended.

Maria: What's your dream job?

Rory: Just being a teacher. Lots of people these days have really grand designs for being world-famous celebrities or leaders in their field, but I just like doing something simple that helps people and pays my bills. I think it's a lot less stressful that way.

Maria: Are you the kind of person who sticks to dreams?

Rory: Well, evidently if I achieved them all. One of my old managers used to say I was very task-oriented, which I think is a polite way of saying I like to get things done. And that includes making my dreams a reality, apparently.

Discussion

Maria: So, dear listener, ambitions. So ambitions. Is it a positive word or a negative word?

Rory: I think it's positive. It's good to be ambitious and want to do things with your life.

Maria: Ambitious, having a strong wish to be successful, powerful or rich, to be very ambitious, an ambitious young lawyer. I'm ambitious. I'm not really ambitious. You can have an ambitious plan to climb Everest, for example. That's quite ambitious. And if something, if your idea or a plan is ambitious, it needs a great amount of skill and effort for you to achieve it. Here, we talk about achievements. So you can say, I've achieved a lot of things in life. Rory says, I've pretty much achieved everything I wanted in my life. Okay, wow, well done you. But if you haven't, dear listener, you can say, well, I've achieved some things. I'm happy about. I have a lot of things to achieve in my life.

Rory: Or I have things that I still want to achieve.

Maria: Exactly. I have things I still want to achieve. I am proud of my achievements. Yeah, achieve achievements. I'm ambitious, I have my ambitions. And we use the present perfect about your achievements, because I've done this, I've been there, I've graduated, I've written, I've finished. Or I haven't done it yet. You can say, oh, I don't have many achievements. If you are 14 years old, 18 years old, you are taking IELTS to enter university. That's absolutely fine. I haven't achieved much in life. That's okay.

Rory: Or I haven't achieved much yet. Maybe you're very young.

Maria: Exactly. I haven't achieved much yet. But I'm planning to do. I'm quite ambitious. Now I'm more chilled out. I'm more relaxed about climbing Everest. I just want to go for a walk in the mountains. I don't need to climb K2, or some other 8000 meter mountain. I'm more chilled out. I'm more relaxed. I've always wanted to be a doctor. I've always wanted to be a teacher. My childhood dream was to be an author, a writer. You can lie, dear listener, just feel free to say anything. You can say, oh, I've always wanted to be a designer. I've always wanted to be a race driver, a football player. I've always wanted to be Messi.

Rory: But it could just be any job. I've always wanted to be is still quite a good kind of grammar to have.

Maria: I haven't managed to get all done. Or I didn't manage to do a lot of things. To do many things in my life. Or I managed to get something done. I managed to do it. I managed to do what I wanted. So it was difficult, but I did it. I managed to do it. Your dream job, dear listener. What's your dream job? On the internet, they sometimes advertise this position, a caretaker of an island. There's an island somewhere in the world, and you have to take care of it. It's small. And they need one person to live there and take care of the island.

Rory: And never talk to people ever again.

Maria: Google thinks that AI and machine learning specialists. So this is a dream career. Nurse practitioner. Cybersecurity engineer, cybersecurity is digital security engineer is a dream job. Yeah, you might want to work for Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nike, McDonald's, Gucci. So you can say my dream job is to be a doctor, or just being an IT manager. So being a doctor is my dream job. But you don't repeat dream job, you just give a short answer. So what's your dream job? Just being a teacher, just being a doctor, just being a nurse, a lawyer. Again, you can lie, and you can pick a strange profession.

Rory: Or you could say you have really grand designs, which is like very ambitious plans. And you can describe those plans by saying, like being world famous. If you're world famous, that just means people all over the world know who you are.

Maria: Yeah. Being a pet food taster is my dream job. You taste food for dogs and cats for money.

Rory: As you do.

Maria: Snake milker.

Rory: Oh, wow.

Maria: Okay, so there's a person who milks snakes.

Rory: This makes my dream of being a teacher for all those years seem not so bad by comparison.

Maria: Yeah, there you go. My dream job is to be a pet psychologist. Because we have a lot of psychologists for people. Therapists, psychologists. So to be a pet psychologist, if your dog is depressed and needs therapy. And potentially, you can earn $52,000 a month or a year, I don't know.

Rory: Probably a year, I think.

Maria: So you can say that this pays my bills. Bills like I have to pay electricity bills, have to pay for the internet. If you stick to something, you do it, you stick to your dreams. You have a dream to climb Everest. So you kind of you stick to your dream, you do a lot of things to achieve it. You try hard to do it.

Rory: And if you're a hard worker, and you're focused on completing a goal, you might be task-oriented.

Maria: Yeah. I'm task-oriented. I'm focused on the task at hand. So if I want to take IELTS and get an eight, I'm task-oriented. I focus on this particular task. I prefer to get things done. I like to get things done. I like to

Rory: Complete things.

Maria: Complete things. Yeah, I like to get things done. I'm a leader. I'm a task-oriented person. So I like to get things done. Well, not necessarily a leader, you may just be focused. I enjoy making my dreams a reality. So you have a dream. For example, you want to go to Paris. Okay. So I earn money, I book a holiday, I buy tickets, I find somebody to go with, for example, or go alone. So I make my dreams a reality. Don't say turn dreams into truth or something like make my dreams a reality. And one day I will make my dream a reality. Rory, have you got a bucket list?

Rory: No, not anymore. It's all done now.

Maria: Oh my god. Wow. Yeah, dear listener, a bucket list, a list of things to do before you die. Maybe have some travel plans there. I don't know, material things something you want to do. Uh, places you want to visit, things you want to buy. So it's called a bucket list. And there's a nice movie. Yeah, I recommend watching the movie. It's called The Bucket List. A great film. Your homework is going to be watch the film The Bucket List. Create your bucket list. Yeah, draw up a nice plan. Maybe there are 50 points, 100 points. Go wild and crazy or just write crazy things there. And not crazy things. Maybe you just want to buy a nice pair of shoes. You can put it down on your bucket list.

Rory: Perfect.

Maria: Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode.

Rory: Bye.

Maria: Bye.