English Listening - My Failed Dreams
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Well, after my 9 to 5 as an actress, I get in my Corolla and go to the studio for my 5 to 9, where I get to turn my feelings into songs. My hustles move me and inspire me. Hola, hustle. Hola, Corolla.

Thanks to IP.

Learn more at phrma.org/ipworkswonders. Welcome to the Listening Time podcast. Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 197 of the Listening Time podcast. Thank you all for being here, for listening today. I hope that this podcast has really helped your listening in English.

And I hope that you're getting better, you can see improvement, and that you enjoy these different episodes and the topics that I talk about. And in today's episode, I'm going to talk about my failed dreams. What I mean by this is I want to talk about

some different dreams, distant goals that I had when I was younger that I failed at. That did not come true. I've had plenty of dreams before.

throughout my life that I have abandoned. And I thought it would be fun to talk about this and kind of make fun of myself because it's kind of fun to look back and think about what goals I had and see that some of them were not that realistic. And

Now it's kind of fun to look back and make fun of myself, laugh at myself a little bit, and hopefully you'll enjoy hearing about all of this. And regardless, this episode will be good practice for your listening.

And if this podcast is starting to get a little bit easy for you, then it's time for you to move on to my advanced podcast episodes. You can get those by becoming a Listening Time family member. The link to sign up is in the description below this episode. And...

You can also check out my U.S. Conversations podcast in which I talk to many people from all over the country. I even talk to some of my own family members and we have just normal conversations at normal speed and

and I provide the transcript for you with the definitions of key words and phrases that we use. So this is great practice for your listening. If you want that, the link is also down below. All right, let's get started. Are your ears ready? You know what time it is. It's listening time.

Okay, let me talk about some of my failed dreams from the past. Some things that I dreamed about doing, I had the goal of doing one day, but I failed or I abandoned these dreams. So the first one I want to mention is my dream to become a filmmaker.

I have talked about this a few times throughout the years in different episodes, so some of you might remember this. But I went to film school when I was 18 years old. I moved out of my parents' house. I moved to Los Angeles. I lived there.

in the middle of LA and I went to a film school that was located at the Universal Studios campus. So every day I had to go onto the Universal Studios campus to attend my film school. So it was pretty cool actually. And

When I was a senior in high school, when I was in my last year of high school, this is really when my dream to become a filmmaker was at its strongest. And I spent so much time watching movies and getting inspired, trying to watch movies.

greatest movies from the past and learn from the story, the cinematography, the acting, all of that. And I had the goal, the distant goal of being a director one day. Now that I talk about this

It sounds ridiculous to me because there is no way that I ever would have been a film director. But for some reason, I had that dream. And so I thought that if I watched a ton of movies, I would learn a lot. And of course, I thought that if I went to this film school,

I would establish some connections in the film industry and I would learn to make movies well. And so I went to that film school. And I'll say that that film school was very good in the sense that you actually get a lot of experience making movies. It's not

Like completely about the theory of making movies. You're not just in a classroom for hours. You're actually making short films from like the first week on.

When we say the first week on, that word on there means from the first week and after that, like starting from the first week and continuing after that. So from the first week on, I was making short films. So it was...

Great experience in terms of actually making movies, learning how to do everything, because I learned everything. I filled every role, every position, every

on different film sets. Like sometimes I was, uh, the cinematographer. Sometimes I was just the person doing the lights, the sound, uh, person, uh, the director, the actor. So I did a lot. And so someone who really wants to be a filmmaker, uh, they would probably learn a lot, uh, and, uh,

get a lot of valuable experience there. However, I realized very quickly that filmmaking was not for me. I hated the film industry. I hated the culture of this industry.

I just knew, I think after a month or so, that I was not going to do this. I did not want to be there. I did not want to be in that world, in that environment. So I dropped out, meaning I abandoned film school.

After six months, it was supposed to be a one year program and I did half of it and said, I'm done. And I left. So.

That is one of my failed dreams. I don't even watch many movies nowadays, so I've completely abandoned everything about movies, filmmaking. The art form of making a movie is still pretty cool in my opinion, but it's not for me and I will never do it. So that's my first failed dream.

The next one is my dream to become a professional athlete. This one sounds maybe even more ridiculous than my first one because I was never nearly good enough in any sport to have that dream. But

When I was young, like many young kids, I think, I had the dream to become a professional athlete. And not just in one sport, believe it or not. It's not like I just chose the one sport I was good at and I made that my goal. No, I actually thought this way about more than one sport.

And I will say that I was decent at most of these sports. So I was a decent athlete growing up. I played a bunch of different sports. So I was always pretty decent. I was never like terrible at these sports. Well, at one of them, yes, I'll get to that in a minute.

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But first of all, let me mention basketball. So basketball,

Basketball was the one sport that I actually played kind of seriously. I never played on my high school varsity team, meaning the top level team, but I did play at the lower levels and

I actually was pretty good at basketball when I was younger. Like not when I was an older teenager, but when I was 8, 9, 10 years old.

I definitely was better than most kids. And one of the reasons was because I was tall. So the height that I am now, I was this height.

when I was 13. So I was fully grown at a young age. And so I had an advantage over other kids. But when I lost that height advantage, and the other kids caught up to me, meaning they, uh,

became taller and some of them passed me, then I kind of lost my height advantage. And I was always decent, but I definitely wasn't anywhere near as good as I needed to be in order to think about playing professionally. So that didn't work for a brief period of time.

I thought that I wanted to play football professionally.

this is never something I said out loud to anyone, but in my mind I thought I could do it. And it's funny because I never even played football on a team before. So I don't know where I got that goal from, but I thought that I would be really good. Uh, and I really liked watching football. Um,

But I realized very quickly that that was a ridiculous goal, and I never even ended up playing football on a team. So I failed with that one pretty quickly. And I also, for a brief period of time, wanted to be a baseball pitcher, the person who pitches the ball and throws it at the batter who hits the ball.

And I was pretty bad at baseball. This was the one sport that I just was not good at all.

I was not good at hitting the ball. I could never hit the ball well. But I thought that maybe I could be a pitcher. So I went through this phase where I would practice pitching to my dad or to my neighbor, and I loved trying to throw the different types of pitches.

My dad even built this net that we put in our side yard on the side of our house where I could pitch into the net and it would catch the ball for me.

I really liked doing that for a certain time period. And then just like the other sports, that kind of faded out and I dropped that goal. So that's another one. And then one more sport that I played and I would say that I didn't

ever really think that I would be a professional at this sport, but I thought that I was pretty good and that I could have become a professional if I had wanted to. And that is tennis. And I,

I don't think I could have become a professional now when I look back, but I will admit that I was pretty good at tennis, and that was probably my best sport. I was better at tennis than I was at these other sports, and I remember that I could serve really fast tennis.

serve in tennis this word refers to when you throw the ball up and you hit it to start that point that's serving so I was able to serve really fast compared to other kids and I think I could have gone pretty far with it like I might have been able to play in college maybe but

I stopped pretty early because I wanted to play other sports. So I didn't continue with tennis. So who knows how far I could have gotten with that sport, but I wouldn't have become a professional. Okay, another failed dream that I had was

was to be an author. And technically, I am an author because I have published a book. I published my short stories, my short mystery stories that are for English learners, specifically Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking English learners who want to read in English with a translation experience.

their language. So I actually did publish a book and you can still find that book. I don't usually link it down below anymore, but if you go back to some of my older episodes, you'll hear me talk about those short stories. So if you're a Spanish or a Portuguese speaker, that might be interesting for you. But I'm not talking about

that type of book. I wanted to be an author of a fiction book, specifically like literary fiction, really deep writing with significance, meaning, symbolism, the kind of books that we read in high school, right?

Right. I've always loved reading fiction. I've always loved classic literature. Those books that we read in high school. I actually have always loved that. And I had the goal of writing fiction.

books like this, at least one. And I started several different novels throughout the years, but I could never even get close to finishing one. I think the farthest I ever got

When writing a novel was probably writing one quarter of a book. So I never even got close to finishing one. And I love writing still today. I love creative writing. I don't do it nowadays anymore.

how I did it in the past, but I do still like writing songs and stuff like that. So I think I'll always love writing, but I don't know if I'll ever write a full length novel. Probably not. And that's why I'm including it here. I don't think I have it in me.

When we say you don't have it in you, it means that you just don't have that ability. You don't have the capability to do something. So...

I don't think I have it in me to write a full novel, to be honest. I might write more short stories in the future. I've written several short stories, and that's fun, and it's a lot easier than writing a novel. But I don't know if I'll ever...

realize that goal of writing a full-length novel? Probably not. So it's a lot harder than I thought it would be when I was younger. And I don't think I'm super talented at that type of writing. I think that in the past, I thought I was talented. But now, if I'm being honest with myself, I'm

I'm talented at writing, but in other forms, not online.

the form of a full-length novel. So I'm including that here in this failed dreams episode. And one other failed dream that I wanted to mention is opening a language school. So in the past, I actually wanted to open a physical school where many languages were taught.

like Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, French, et cetera. And I have studied at a couple language schools before and I liked that environment.

I always thought of it as a language learners paradise where language learners can go and learn all these different languages and interact with other language learners and teachers. And that was a goal that I had in the past. But now I'm glad that I didn't end up pursuing that goal because I

I probably would have run into all the problems that people run into with language schools in the sense that it might have become too much of a classroom experience where it's not optimal, where there are too many learners in the class and only one teacher and so

The learners aren't able to talk a lot. And, you know, if you've been to that type of language school before, there are a lot of downsides to it. I still think they're great. And I will always kind of have a soft spot for language schools, which means that I'll always have some positive feelings about

about language schools. I met my wife at a language school. So, uh, I'm not here to talk bad about language schools, but I don't know if I would be able to, uh, really apply my philosophy regarding language learning. Uh,

100% if I were running a language school. There would be some complications, I would say. But at least this goal kind of led me to my current career. I pursued languages and teaching languages and I...

eventually came up with the idea of doing the different things I do now. So that original goal kind of led me to my current career. So that's great. It wasn't a complete waste, right?

And lastly, let me include one bonus dream. I call it a bonus dream because I still kind of have it, but it's a very distant dream that I don't think I'll ever accomplish, but I still think about how cool it would be to do this in the future. So I won't say that the chances are zero. I might say

at some point in my life somehow find the opportunity to do this, but I doubt it. And that unrealistic distant dream that I don't really plan on accomplishing is opening a breakfast restaurant. I love breakfast. It's my favorite meal of the day.

love eating breakfast out at restaurants. I don't really do it nowadays in the U.S., unfortunately, because it's so expensive. But when I was in Mexico, I ate breakfast at restaurants all the time. And I think that my taste in breakfast is pretty good. I think I

I could put together an amazing breakfast menu by taking different ideas from my favorite restaurants, taking ideas from my favorite dishes I've had, and I would need to hire an amazing chef who could transform those ideas into breakfast.

a reality, of course. I cannot cook. But I think that I could give a very good chef the ideas to work on. And I think I could also make

really cool environment for a breakfast restaurant. I have a lot of experience eating breakfast at restaurants. So that's why I say that I think that I

I could be successful in that and I'm passionate about good breakfast food. So that's a distant dream that I talk about with my wife sometimes, but I don't think it'll ever happen. But maybe I would say there's maybe a 1% chance that this one happens. So it's not failed yet.

Well, I hope that you enjoyed hearing about all my failed dreams, and I hope that this episode was good practice for your listening. Remember to check out my advanced podcast episodes in which I speak fast.

That's the next step for you. So go down and click on the link below to check those out and check out my U.S. Conversations podcast in which I talk to people from all over the U.S. It's a lot of fun and it's great practice for your listening. That link is also down below.

And please give this podcast a five-star rating if you haven't done so yet. And if you can, write a review. All right. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.

I'm not going to lie, you're slacking. You're slacking on starting that business you've been holding off on. It's just living in your head. And if you don't act now, that idea is going to leave or maybe someone's going to take that idea. And there's a tool that I personally use, and that is Shopify. You don't need to be a web designer. You can just start

Moving, zooming in, adding the text you need, adding pictures you need. And Shopify has so many templates you can use from. Get it out of your head and onto a website with Shopify. Shopify makes it simple to create your brand, open for business, and get your first sale. They make it easy to manage growing your business. They help with details like shipping, taxes, and payments from one single dashboard, allowing you to focus on all the important stuff like growing your business. With Shopify, your first sale is closer than you think.

Established in 2025 has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash sonoro, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash sonoro to start selling with Shopify today. Shopify.com slash sonoro.