Pratica di Shadowing: These 8 Books Changed My Life (and they might just change yours too) - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Hey guys, so today I'm going to be talking about eight of the most life-changing books

⏸ In Pausa

Velocità:

371 frasi

Se le frasi sono troppo corte o troppo lunghe, clicca su Edit per modificarle.

Hey guys, so today I'm going to be talking about eight of the most life-changing books

that I've ever read in my life.

I've read over a thousand books in my lifetime so far,

but if I really had to whittle it down,

these are some of the top picks that genuinely changed the trajectory of my life during those eras where I read them.

So I'll be breaking this down in terms of four key eras of my life that I've gone through so far.

We'll get all the way back to my origins when I started on YouTube as a Cambridge medical student,

literally filming in my university student room,

to the next era of being a YouTuber and content creator,

the next era of being a founder,

CEO and business owner and the final most recent era

which is the era of being a wife and mother and balancing all of the business stuff as well.

Oh and also I've created a completely free guide with all of my top picks for books

and also a couple of bonus ones

that I didn't have time to include in this video to help you to pick

which books actually could be the thing that really bends the curve for you at this point in your life.

So if you'd like to check it out, it's totally free.

I'll leave a link down below in the description.

So without further ado, let's dive right in.

So let's start with the wife and motherhood era.

The first book that had the biggest impact on my relationship with my now husband is Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.

The core thesis that Rosenberg tries to get at is

that all human behavior stems from us trying to meet our core needs.

So things like connection, safety,

trust, love, meaning, fulfillment, autonomy,

freedom, these kinds of things.

Conflict between people doesn't arise because our needs are wrong,

because these are just very fundamental needs,

but rather because we don't communicate in ways that each other can understand,

and so we don't really understand what we're actually trying to get at.

And instead we communicate them through blame or judgment or anger or criticism.

And he calls all of these violent styles of communication.

Nonviolent communication walks you through a four-step framework to help you to translate your needs from some kind of reactive sentence like,

you never help around the house,

you never do the dishes on time,

into something where you actually understand your own underlying needs there and you communicate them with clarity,

vulnerability and kindness to the other person to avoid triggering defensiveness

and instead including a positive request to ask them to do things differently in the future.

The framework is observation, feeling, need and request.

And literally no joke, this has completely changed the way that my husband and I communicate,

especially in areas of conflict or where there's areas of tension or disagreement.

And so let's do a worked example together.

So before reading non-violent communication,

maybe I could have said something like,

you never help with bedtime,

you always just sit on your phone or your computer doing your own stuff

while I'm dealing with all the baby stuff day after day, night after night.

You clearly don't care.

So that would be violent communication.

And if we were to translate this step by step using the four-step framework,

it might go something like this,

this week I've done baby bedtime on my own every night and I feel a resentful,

upset and honestly exhausted and I don't want to feel this way about you.

I have a need to feel like we're in a partnership,

we're in a team here and we're sharing the load

and I also have a need to feel like you care about me

and our baby

and also I need some evenings for myself to just be able to take care of me

and have some me time every now and then.

And so could I request that next week you do baby bedtime three nights of the week?

And so in this scenario it's actually the same underlying need that's being expressed,

this wish for baby bedtime to be shared more equally.

But by framing it in this non-violent communication framework,

yes it takes a bit longer than saying you never do baby bedtime,

you don't care, I've realized that it's actually a much more effective

and clean way to communicate because it doesn't trigger any defensiveness in the other person,

because they see that you're sharing a genuine need,

vulnerably and with great sincerity.

The second book that completely changed the way that I viewed my own transition into motherhood is is Matrescence by Lucy Jones.

I read this during my pregnancy when I was feeling really confused and almost a sense of joy and also grief.

I had this deep knowing that life would never be the same again.

This deep feeling of like,

oh, something big is happening.

There's some big shift coming.

And I didn't have the words to explain it.

I just felt tearful.

I felt lost.

I felt unsure.

And honestly, I really struggled during this time until I read her book.

The core argument is that this transition to motherhood is a huge transition.

Mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, hormonal, everything.

The leap from being maiden to mother is as big a developmental transformation as adolescence,

which generally in our culture we accept adolescence as,

oh it's obviously something that is sometimes uncomfortable,

it's sometimes ugly, it's sometimes beautiful,

it's sometimes painful and awkward and you're figuring yourself out,

you're figuring out who you're becoming.

And of course you're going to feel ups

and downs as you go through the roller coaster of growing into this next version of yourself.

This book, I wept and wept when I read it because she weaves in ecology,

biology, neuroscience, psychology, sociology into this beautiful book that made me feel so seen at the time.

And I was like, oh wow,

I'm not the only person feeling this I'm not crazy

and insane for feeling like I'm wanting to burst into tears every other day

and it finally gave me a language to explain exactly what I was going through and why it was so profound.

There's actually a definition for matrescence and it was actually defined back in the 1970s by an anthropologist called Dana Raphael.

It can be defined as the physical,

psychological, hormonal and identity transformation that a woman undergoes when she becomes a mother.

It is the developmental passage into motherhood,

100

as distinct and disorienting as adolescence,

101

but almost entirely unacknowledged by science.

102

When you become a mother,

103

your brain actually observably reorganizes and changes literally in its structure permanently.

104

Your hormones shift dramatically and you go through the biggest hormonal shifts that a human being ever experiences.

105

So as you can already tell, I love this book.

106

It completely changed the way that I was approaching motherhood and this matrescence that I was going through.

107

So if either you're thinking of becoming a mum or you are a mum or you know somebody who is,

108

then this is a great book to read.

109

Moving on to the next era,

110

which is the CEO, founder, business owner era.

111

The book Radical Candor by Kim Scott completely changed the way that I communicate with my team.

112

The core thesis of the book is built around two key variables of how you communicate with your team.

113

The first variable is care personally and caring personally is about genuinely caring about the human being that you're working with,

114

seeing them as a whole complete human with their own life,

115

their own worries, their own wishes,

116

their whole family, everything going on for them.

117

The second variable is challenge directly

118

and this is about directly sharing upfront without beating around the bush or hiding indirectly what you think is going on,

119

what you think needs to be improved,

120

what you think was good,

121

what you think was bad,

122

what you think was okay.

123

And with these two variables she draws out a like two by two diagram.

124

On one axis is care personally the other axis is challenge directly and

125

if you only care personally without challenging directly you end up

126

in ruinous empathy where you're only just trying to take care of the feelings of the people

127

that you work with you don't want to upset anyone

128

so you're not going to tell them things straight

129

and you really do care about them

130

and also you're not going to challenge them directly

131

if you just challenge directly without caring personally

132

that ends up being obnoxious aggression think some of the tropes

133

of toxic tech teams where they just challenge each other really directly

134

and aggressively without necessarily caring deeply about the other human being on their team

135

and she describes the sweet spot as being a combination of caring personally

136

so deeply about your team while also challenging them directly

137

and not being afraid to challenge directly

138

because you know only through caring about them deeply

139

and challenging directly can you give them the opportunity to do the best work of their life

140

and to grow into the person that they're meant to be

141

and so for me what this book really unlocked was actually the challenge directly portion

142

because i I felt like it was easy,

143

it was always easy to care genuinely about my team.

144

But often I wouldn't want to upset anyone,

145

I'd be worried like, oh if I say that are they gonna feel like hurt by it?

146

But this book really like blew away all these people-pleasing tendencies

147

that I used to have and made me realise

148

that oh actually by not challenging directly

149

and saying exactly what I think was great and what I think needs to be improved,

150

I am denying them the opportunity to do the best work of their life and to really thrive in this role.

151

One thing I found especially challenging is

152

that I often have a way too many books on my to be read list

153

and the number of books I buy versus actually read is sometimes a little bit embarrassing

154

because I have such big dreams for wanting to read all of these books

155

but then not quite enough time to actually finish reading all of them anymore especially since becoming a mum

156

and also being CEO across Sparkle Studios

157

which is our venture studio my book wish list of things I want to read is genuinely in the hundreds

158

and so that's where I love to use short form who are very kindly sponsoring today's video

159

if you want to check out their super powered book guides

160

I'll leave a link down below in the description where you can get a free trial

161

and also fifty dollars off the annual plan.

162

Essentially Shortform is a digital library of thousands of non-fiction book guides.

163

So let's say that you come across a book

164

that you'd like to check out first before committing to actually reading the whole thing

165

and honestly if you're a bit like me

166

and time is your most finite limited resource then this is such a good tip.

167

So what I like to do is simply search it up

168

and have a little scroll through what the book is actually about before committing and actually reading the full book.

169

Another thing I like to use it for is as a reminder of books I've read.

170

So for example here's the one for radical candor

171

so right off the bat there's a one pager

172

which gives you the big picture of the book in under 10 minutes

173

and then if you want more detail you can click in to go chapter by chapter with more context

174

and a bit that i really love is the commentary where they bring in literature

175

that surrounds this book either similar books or scientific articles

176

and they give a bit of commentary outside of just the source book

177

and even some exercises so that you can actually make sure

178

that the concepts really stick

179

and you're taking action i also find these exercises pretty useful in general

180

because they're a bit like journaling prompts honestly so

181

if you like to check out short form I've left a link in my description below.

182

That will also give you a free trial and $50 off the annual plan.

183

Now let's get back into the video.

184

The next book was 100 Million Dollar Offers by Alex Formozzi.

185

This book completely transformed the way that I view the core feature of a business which is value creation.

186

The core concept is the value equation

187

which can be summarized by perceived value of an offer is

188

the dream outcome multiplied by the likelihood of achievement divided by the time delay and the effort to actually achieve it.

189

And by understanding this equation

190

and how people really perceive value in a business you can make an offer

191

that is so good that people would literally feel silly saying no.

192

And the thing that really changed my mind with this book is this idea

193

that the offer is the core of the business a lot of businesses actually fail because the offer is not strong enough.

194

His approach to price points and charging more and then delivering more value with that was a game changer for me.

195

And genuinely we still go back to look at his book

196

and look at the value equation when we're building out and tweaking new offers.

197

Because fundamentally a business exists to deliver value to others

198

and in exchange for that value that you deliver people pay you money.

199

And so if you can crack this

200

and crack actually figuring out what do people value and how to actually give it to them,

201

that is the fundamental for a successful business.

202

And in my role as CEO of our venture studio across our content,

203

our courses, our software, understanding what kind of value

204

and what kind of offers we're actually providing across the different

205

things has given me a lot of practice in using and applying this actual framework.

206

The next era is my YouTuber and content creator era.

207

The surrender experiment by Michael Singer really changed the way that I view surrendering to the flow of life.

208

This book is almost in the format of a memoir but sharing a lot of spiritual philosophy along the way.

209

He talks about his life and his spiritual practice in meditation

210

and each time that the universe presented him with something to do he said yes and surrendered to the flow of life,

211

surrendered to what the universe was asking of him in that moment instead of consulting his own preferences and decisions.

212

And he calls this his surrender experiment

213

and surrendering to whatever the universe is asking for him to do and saying yes to it.

214

And in this memoir he traces how this practice of the

215

surrender experiment he was running took him from being literally a

216

hermit meditating in the woods to being the CEO of a

217

multi-billion dollar healthcare company all the way back to coming back to running a meditation center in the woods again.

218

One key idea that stood out to me is that that voice in your head,

219

the narrative that's going on that's talking about things

220

that are going on in your life that's criticizing you or telling you what you should do is not actually you.

221

You are actually the one who is noticing the voice

222

and one thing that I was thinking about

223

when I was starting to read the book it's like oh surrender

224

that sounds kind of passive but he actually reframes it entirely

225

and says that surrender is not actually about being passive it's about actively engaging

226

but removing your personal preferences and actively diving into what is being presented to you

227

and so in the course of creating these youtube videos

228

and then going on to build the business around it I

229

often ask myself this question of what is the universe asking from me right now

230

and how can I surrender to the e-myth revisited by Michael Gerber

231

I keep saying I keep saying completely changed my life for every single book

232

but they genuinely did anyway I guess this is a compilation of books

233

that have completely changed my life so fair enough

234

but yes the e-myth revisited by Michael Gerber completely changed the way

235

that I view systematization and also building out systems

236

and delegation in business the e-myth okay the entrepreneurial myth

237

that he talks about is the myth that small businesses are started by entrepreneurs but they actually usually aren't.

238

Most small businesses are started by technicians who are artists,

239

the great at their craft,

240

who then turn that into a business.

241

And through having this entrepreneurial seizure and turning it into a business,

242

they then create a job that they can't leave,

243

they can't take holiday from,

244

and that they're basically working every single day,

245

burning out and running themselves into the ground.

246

He gives the example of a woman called Sarah,

247

who is incredible at baking delicious pies.

248

And everyone's like, oh my goodness,

249

you should totally start a pie shop,

250

your pies are so good,

251

she loves baking, it's her passion.

252

And so she thinks, you know what,

253

I'll have this entrepreneurial seizure and decide I'm gonna start my pie shop business and it's gonna be so fun,

254

I get to bake pies every day and have people enjoy my delicious pies every day.

255

But then fast forward however many months and Sarah finds herself working every single day from dawn till dusk,

256

scrubbing floors, doing bills and accounting and barely even baking pies most of the time

257

and finding herself exhausted in a job that she kind of hates and can't quit and can't take holiday from.

258

And so Gerber talks about how three personalities need to live in every single business owner.

259

There's the technician who is the person who is good at the craft,

260

so in Sarah's case this is her pie baking ability.

261

Then there is the manager who organizes everything and makes sure that the trains are running on time,

262

hires people, does all of the operational work.

263

And finally there's the entrepreneur who sets the vision,

264

imagines the future for where the business is going and has those big dreams.

265

And a business needs all of these three functions to work well.

266

And so his suggested solution to this is to instead view your business as something

267

that you're trying to systematize as if you were going to turn it into a franchise.

268

And so if you were to imagine your franchising

269

and building out all the SOPs to the standard operating procedures

270

and systems so that literally anybody off the street could come in,

271

read your documents, be onboarded and then do your job just as well as you,

272

that is what is going to give you the ability to build out those skills of being the manager

273

and the entrepreneur and to actually create a business that you love rather than one that you are a slave to.

274

And this is a quote from the book that I love and I find quite funny.

275

It goes like this, if your business depends on you,

276

you don't own a business, you have a job.

277

And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic.

278

And I think anybody who has maybe had an entrepreneurial seizure

279

and started a business has kind of had this experience where

280

actually working for yourself can be quite a horrible job because you're working for a lunatic,

281

because the way that you treat yourself and the expectations you set for yourself are often unbelievably high.

282

The next era is the Cambridge medical student and doctor era.

283

So for some context, I studied medicine at Cambridge and then I worked as a doctor in the NHS in London.

284

And in this era, the key books were ones that changed my worldview in some deep way.

285

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle was a book that I read relatively early in my spiritual and meditation journey.

286

And it gave me an entirely new lens through which to view life.

287

A whole perspective that I hadn't even imagined was possible.

288

The core concept is that the only time there ever is, is now.

289

And that by leaning into being and presence,

290

we can actually free ourselves from a lot of the illusions and social constructs that we often bind ourselves with.

291

And ultimately free ourselves from the illusions of the thinking mind and actually settle into this more fundamental place of consciousness.

292

This book was an experience to read and it's actually hard to summarize

293

because a lot of the insights are experiential from reading the words.

294

And so I'll read out a couple of my favorite highlights from this book.

295

Honestly, this book was one of my most highlighted books of all time,

296

but I highly recommend that you actually read it

297

because it's an experience to actually read it

298

and to actually have the words land directly and direct your consciousness in a certain way.

299

This quote changed the way that I view suffering and discomfort.

300

If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy,

301

you have three options remove yourself from the situation,

302

change it, or accept it totally.

303

Accept, then act.

304

Whatever the present moment contains,

305

accept it as if you had chosen it.

306

Always work with it, not against it.

307

Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy.

308

This will miraculously transform your whole life.

309

The great Zen master Rinzai,

310

in order to take his students' attention away from time,

311

would often raise his finger and slowly ask,

312

what, at this moment, is lacking?

313

A powerful question that does not require an answer on the level of the mind.

314

It is designed to take your attention deeply into the now.

315

A similar question in the zen tradition is this, if not now, when?

316

And there was one specific example that he gave in the book of imagine you ask an eagle soaring over,

317

let's say, back in the dinosaur age,

318

a jungle with dinosaurs and you ask,

319

oh eagle, what time is it?

320

The eagle will obviously say,

321

well now silly, like there's no other time but now obviously.

322

And so even this idea of time became crystal clear that time is a social construct.

323

And the last book on this list is the top five regrets of the dying by Bronnie Ware.

324

Bronnie Ware was a palliative care nurse

325

and she wrote a book distilling the regrets that people most often shared at the end of their life.

326

And I'll read out the five regrets.

327

First one was, I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself,

328

not the life others expected of me.

329

I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

330

I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

331

I wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends.

332

I wish I had let myself be happier.

333

And in the years since first reading it,

334

there is another one that I strongly believe will be on the list for our generation

335

which is I wish I hadn't spent so much time on my phone.

336

This book really grounded me in what is important in the end.

337

What are the things that are really going to count?

338

At the end of the day after everything is said

339

and done what will you look back on and think oh that was a life well lived?

340

And so I often think about what would my 80 year old self advise me to do?

341

What would my 80 year old self say about this?

342

And she usually has an answer that is very different from the answer that my present self has.

343

And I'm not saying

344

that you should only base your decisions in the now on what you think you might prioritize

345

or regret in the future but it's an interesting different lens and perspective

346

that helps to take me out of getting stuck in the

347

day to day in the business as usual all the stuff that's going on all the worries

348

and stresses that are happening

349

and actually realize oh there's something bigger than this this is actually just a moment in time

350

so those are my four eras from being a mom

351

and wife to now being ceo across our venture studio and a business owner,

352

YouTuber and content creator and Cambridge trained doctor.

353

Honestly there were so many books I had to leave off this list

354

but hopefully this gave you a taste and

355

if you enjoyed this kind of format let me know in the comments below

356

and I can do more of these because I read so many books.

357

And at the end of every video on this channel I love to invite you to do two action points

358

that you're actually going to take action on and execute.

359

And some people have said

360

that they are struggling to pick action points at the end of the video so here are two suggested action points.

361

The first one is to choose one book of the eight that you're interested in checking out and actually buying it.

362

And the second thing is to start reading it the very day that you receive the book.

363

You can even use the totally free guide to all of these books to help you to pick the one

364

that might be the most impactful for you right now.

365

If you like this video,

366

I think you might like this video over here,

367

which is eight game-changing journal habits.

368

As always, thank you so much for watching.

369

Take care of yourself and remember that the journey is the destination.

370

I'll see you in the next video.

371

Bye!

TRENDING

Popolari

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

☕ Offrici un caffè

ShadowingEnglish rimane gratuito al 100% grazie al tuo supporto. I costi del server e IA sono elevati — il tuo caffè ci aiuta ad andare avanti! 🙏

Dona via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – Pratica di Shadowing in Inglese

Parla inglese fluentemente usando la tecnica dello Shadowing. Ascolta video di YouTube con madrelingua, ripeti frase per frase e costruisci una pronuncia e fluidità reale — usata da studenti IELTS in tutto il mondo.

Pratica di Shadowing: These 8 Books Changed My Life (and they might just change yours too) - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Popolari

Perché praticare il parlato con questo video?

Grammatica ed espressioni nel contesto

Trappole di pronuncia comuni

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Pratica di Shadowing: These 8 Books Changed My Life (and they might just change yours too) - Impara a parlare inglese con YouTube

Scarica l'app

Perché praticare il parlato con questo video?

Grammatica ed espressioni nel contesto

Trappole di pronuncia comuni

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?