Practice

Muhammad Ali didn’t rise to greatness by luck or shortcuts—he earned every title through relentless effort, unwavering belief, and the patience to keep going day after day. His journey in the ring holds powerful lessons for anyone aiming to build fluency in English (or any skill). In the Confluent Speaker Framework (MKPF), we see that Mindset and Practiceare two pillars that mirror Ali’s path to mastery. Let’s dive into his secrets and discover how they apply to your own journey toward confident speaking. 1. Practice, Persistence, and Patience Ali spent countless hours training his body and mind. He shadow-boxed at dawn, ran miles in the evening, and visualized victory during quiet moments. Similarly, fluency grows not from one long session but from small, regular efforts. Speak a few sentences every day, review new words in your mind, and repeat phrases until they feel natural. Over time, that steady work shapes your skill. 2. “I Am the Greatest” – The Power of Belief Long before anyone crowned him champion, Ali declared, “I am the greatest.” This wasn’t empty bravado—it was a mindset that fueled his actions. In language learning, believing you can speak well shifts your brain into action. When you tell yourself, “I can do this,” you open doors to practice opportunities. That belief becomes the engine of your progress. 3. Suffering Now for a Champion’s Future Ali famously said, “I hate every minute of training, but I said don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.” Learning a language isn’t always fun—mistakes sting, and awkward pauses can frustrate. But every challenging moment is where real growth happens. Embrace the discomfort, push through it, and you’ll look back knowing those hard moments built your confidence. 4. Repetition: The Key to Mastery Talent alone didn’t make Ali great—discipline did. He repeated the same drills until each punch, each footwork pattern, felt automatic. In speaking, repetition builds muscle memory for your tongue and brain. Practice common phrases, drills, and tongue twisters until they flow without thinking. That repetition lays the foundation for fluent, natural speech. 5. Removing Small Obstacles “It’s not the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” Small doubts—“I might make a mistake,” “My accent isn’t perfect”—can slow you down more than big challenges. Identify those pebbles and remove them: replace “What if I mess up?” with “I will learn from every error.” Clear those tiny obstacles, and you’ll stride forward more easily. 6. Making Every Day Count “Don’t count the days; make the days count,” Ali urged. Waiting for the “perfect moment” to practice only delays your growth. Speak English in every chance you get—ordering food, chatting with a friend, or thinking aloud. Each moment you use the language moves you closer to fluency. 7. Adapting to Every Challenge Ali faced different opponents with unique styles and adjusted his tactics accordingly. In your learning, adapt to what you find tough—whether it’s pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary. Try new methods: shadowing podcasts, role-playing real conversations, or journaling short paragraphs. Flexibility keeps your practice fresh and effective. 8. Willpower Over Comfort Ali’s triumphs often came when others quit. His mental strength pushed him through pain. Fluency demands the same willpower: choose practice over comfort, speak up even when you’d rather stay silent, and persevere through setbacks. Your determination will outlast any obstacle. 9. Visualizing Success “If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it—then I can achieve it.” Ali pictured himself victorious before each fight. You can visualize fluent conversations: imagine yourself speaking confidently in a meeting, telling a story to friends, or asking for directions without hesitation. That mental rehearsal primes your brain to perform. 10. Willpower vs. Skill Ali believed, “The will must be stronger than the skill.” Even when his skill was tested, his will carried him through. In language learning, skill grows from practice, but your will to keep showing up—day after day—is what truly makes you fluent. 11. Consistency Creates a Legacy Ali didn’t become “The Greatest” overnight. Years of daily training, unwavering self-belief, and small victories built his legacy. Your fluency journey works the same way. Show up each day with purpose. Use MKPF to guide you: adopt a growth Mindset, build real-world Knowledge, engage in active Practice, and seek immediate Feedback. Over time, those consistent actions will make you a champion of confident speaking. Start Today: Choose one lesson from Ali’s life and apply it now—whether it’s a five-minute practice drill, a bold affirmation of belief, or adapting a new method. Every champion begins with that first step. Your fluency awaits.

Sometimes your dream is sooooooo big that it becomes overwhelming for you. You want to learn English but you are dreaming the end goal when you are super fluent and extremely confident. That’s the image that your mind has created. There is a problem though. Now, speaking at a lower level makes you feel uncomfortable. You want everything to be easy, perfect and smooth. You are dreaming big. The very goal of the dream is stopping you from achieving the dream. You know that you don’t have to do it today because you will do it when you have good amount of free time. You will do it once everything is settled. Things will never be settled. Life keeps on flowing like rivers, like oceans, like mountains, like trees and flowers. “Dream small” As a coach I have two choices every day. I can dream big and visualize how one day I will be a world class coach and how there will be millions of followers on my social media and how I will speak at so many events. But these things put me in competition with all the top coaches in the market. These things overwhelm me and scare me because the dream is too big that I will stop functioning only.  I have another way also to look at it. I keep it small. instead of worrying about massive followers, huge workshops, and big events, I plan my day around who I can serve today. I focus on how many sessions I have to conduct TODAY. I focus on how I can interact with my online community  through quizzes and content TODAY. My everything is about today. And I do it every day. I will still reach the goal. James Clear, the author of Atomic habits, has an article on his website that talks about “Foucussing on systems instead of goals”. It’s an amazing article. It talks about importance of building every day habits and systems that help you move ahead in life. He says you can achieve the goal without even worrying about the goal.  This suddenly becomes easier. I keep things small. Achievable. Instead of dreaming about how one day I will have hundreds of blogs on my website, I focus on the blog that I can write today. Rather than planning a series of videos for my instagram, I create videos as and when needed. Wherever there’s a common query from my students, I answer it in a video. This way I don’t have to worry about hiring a video company or a huge to do list. I just have to make a small video today and share. That’s it. Keeping it small.  Just take care of your today. I read somewhere “take care of days and your years will take care of themselves”

Confidence is the result of your efforts. You can’t wait to become a confident speaker first and perform later. You get to perform first and once you perform and practice enough, confidence comes automatically. Confidence in your communication is the result of your practice and speaking experience. I am a spoken English coach for many years now. And I think I am very confident. How did I become so confident? Was I born with it? No. I boosted my confidence little by little, day by day, opportunity by opportunity. My father used to take me to Mumbai’s famous, Tata literature festival and Times literature festival every year. There we used to listen to many authors, artists, and performers. We, as an audience, almost always had an opportunity to ask questions to our favorite authors and artists after or during their panel discussion. There, my father always pushed me to raise my hand and ask questions to those panelists. I used to hate it sometimes. I used to be scared of standing in a hall packed with people and asking question on a mic. Forget asking questions, I used to be scared of even raising my hand asking for the mic from the volunteers. But I did anyway. And after doing it a few times, I realized that no one laughs at you (even if they do, it doesn’t matter). No one cares about your poor English (they have better things to worry about). No one gives a damn about your poor pronunciations (we are Indians and English is not our mother tongue. It’s totally OK to not know it perfectly). And the best part, the authors and artists always responded to my questions with respect irrespective of my communication skills. And learning that lesson, I never avoided any speaking opportunity because of fear. I am not saying I am not scared of public speaking. I am. But I do it anyway. And the more I do it, more confident I become. (My father and I at Mehboob studio. Times literature festival. Some years back.) When I took my first few sessions as a language teacher, I was so scared of my presentation and content and explanation and so many other things. But I never quit my job because of that fear and nervousness. I rather conducted the sessions anyway. And today after so many years of teaching and training, it has become very easy. Now I can conduct hours-long sessions without preparation also. Even if you wake me up in the middle of the night, I will brush my teeth, wash my face and teach you communication skills for hours and hours without preparation. It was not always like this, I got better and better at my job by doing it more and more. I focused less on perfection and more on consistency. and that’s what I want my learners to understand today. You gotta focus on the journey rather than the destination. Let’s understand this with an example. Two friends – Aman and Hasan – want to become more confident speakers. (Assume both are at the same level now) Both start working on their confidence and communication skills. Aman is someone who wants perfection. Aman wants some quick tips and techniques to become confident. He is waiting for the day he becomes confident and impresses everyone. He keeps dreaming of how one day he will communicate so powerfully and confidently that everyone will love him. He regularly reads blogs and watches YouTube videos on tips and tricks on becoming a confident speaker. During this learning period, he avoids speaking opportunities from his office and social circle because he thinks first he will improve his confidence and then he will soon take on speaking opportunities once he is ready. You know what? He will never be ready. On the other hand we have Hasan. Hasan is someone who learns by doing. Hasan says yes to even tiny opportunities he gets to speak and communicate. He enjoys the process of it. He doesn’t worry so much about his reputation. His goal is not speak without mistakes. His goal is to speak even if he’s making a few mistakes here and there. He knows this is part of the process. He knows that confidence is the result not the requirement. And because his attitude towards learning is more journey-focused and less destination-focused, he sees good results soon. He sees that his confidence increases a little every time he tries. Day after day, Hasan realizes that his communication skills are not as bad as he had imagined them to be. He realizes that his fears were over-exaggerated. He learns that learning any skills requires regular practice, feedback and the right mindset. Both friends, Aman and Hasan see different results although they started at the same level. How did this happen? It happened because both had different lenses to view the world. Where Aman’s attitude towards learning was perfection and goal-oriented, Hasan’s attitude was practice and process-oriented. While Aman dreamt of future successes, Hasan lived in reality and focused on improving a little every day. It’s like Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. The distance covered by this yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir was around 4,000 kilometers. This is huge. Such huge goal can scare anyone. But there is another way also to look at it. If you see 4,000 kms, it can be scary but if I tell you that you just have to walk around 25 kms daily? It becomes easier and less scary. This is Hasan’s approach. He doesn’t worry about walking 4000 kms in 150 days. He works on walking 25 kms ever day. Similarly, what if you too, rather than dreaming of becoming a confident and fluent speaker one day, focused on practicing a little every day? You will still reach the same destination but you will enjoy the journey every day rather than dreaming of the future and the fun you will have after reaching there. Stop living

Conversations are everywhere. You are born. A few days old. You don’t understand the world and the world doesn’t understand you. Then you grow a little more and you start creating and imitating sounds and small words. Slowly you get better at uttering words and then a cluster of words and then over time you learn to create sentences. You actually start understanding the world when you start having conversations with people around you. As a child, you start learning through conversations with your mom and dad and sister and brother and relatives and neighbors and teachers and classmates. Your childhood is all about meaningful experiences and meaningless conversations. Meaningless that time. Now you know how meaningful those conversations were and how they shaped you into the person you are today. Similarly, your most thoughts and beliefs are created directly or indirectly through conversations. The books you read are also a conversation between the writer and the reader. One might say it’s not a conversation but it is. It is a different kind of conversation. It is a conversation where the writer speaks at the time of writing and the reader speaks while he is reading. Whenever you are reading something, in your mind you are analyzing, scrutinizing and assessing what you are reading. You are in conversation. Even a job interview is eventually a conversation between an HR and a candidate. A marriage proposal? A conversation between a lover and a potential lover. Rishte ki baat? Conversation between Ladki wale and Ladke wale. A lawyer fighting a case in the court? A conversation between judge and the lawyer. Friendship? Friendship I feel is based deeply on the conversations we have with our friends. A comedy show? A conversation between a comedian and their audience. A coaching session? A conversation between you and I. More than half of what happens in your life is decided by the conversations you are having. Your relationship with people depends on your conversation with people. You must work to become a better conversationalist. I can help you. Would you like to explore your mindset, talk about beliefs that are holding you from becoming a confident speaker, discuss topics like time management, book reading, stress management, arts, films and literature. We can talk about so many things and I can take you deeper into your thoughts, your beliefs and your mindset. And the best part is that the main focus of all the sessions of my conversation club is to give you regular talking practice and regular feedback on your grammar, vocabulary, pronunciations and speaking skills. The goal is to improve your fluency and increase your confidence. How do I do it? I do it by challenging your beliefs, by giving you opportunities to practice, by sharing detailed feedback on your speaking skills and by asking you lots of thought-provoking questions. 
I invite you to join my conversation club. Your coach,Ziaur Rehman 


I want you to live day to day basis. I have a friend named Hasan. He lives one day at a time. He tells me I was born today and I will die today. New day, new life. When he doesn’t feel like going to gym, he tells himself “aaj hi to bas gym jana hai”. He breaks his goals into daily bytes. English learners can also apply this. Just focus on what you can do to improve your English today. Talk to someone today. Use a new word today. Read something small today. Listen to something in English today. And that’s it. You just have to do it today. Every day. “Becoming a confident and fluent speaker should not be your goal, it should be your way of being.”