Pratica di Shadowing: What makes for a dream job? (part 1) @ Cambridge University - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
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What actually is a fulfilling career?
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If you want a dream job that's really satisfying, what should you look for?
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The normal approach to this is to ask you to think about what types of things
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you found most fulfilling in the past and then help you try to figure out what jobs might involve those things.
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A bit like this.
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And I think it is useful to spend some time thinking about what really makes you happy, what your dream job might be,
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but there's a limit to how far this self -reflection can go.
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In the last few decades there's been a lot of research
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that shows that we're bad at predicting how happy different activities will make us.
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We're even bad at remembering how happy different experiences made us.
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One well -established bias is that we mainly judge the pleasure of an experience by how pleasurable it was at the end.
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Leading Dan Gilbert to remark, the fact that we often judge the pleasure and experience by its end can cause us to make some curious choices.
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This research is summarised by Professor Dan Gilbert at Harvard in this excellent book,
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Stumbling Upon Happiness, all about how we're bad at judging how happy different things will make us.
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More to the point, I think we can do better in this workshop than just doing lots of self -reflection.
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There's now been several decades of research into positive psychology, and the science of what causes well -being.
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And what I'm going to do in this talk is just summarize the key findings of
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that research and help you apply them to your own career.
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Let's start with what not to look for.
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We often imagine that a dream job is easy and well -paid.
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For instance, the most popular career ranking in the US uses the following four criteria.
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Tries to find jobs that are low in stress, not unpleasant in their working environment,
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have a high salary and there's a high growth rate of positions.
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Now, which career do you think came out on top based on those four factors?
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Well, actually, the answer is an actuary.
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That's someone who does statistical analysis for insurance companies.
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Who here wants to be an actuary?
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Okay, no one.
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And that shows that these traits are just wrong.
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I don't think you should be aiming for an especially high salary and rather than aiming for an easy job,
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I think you should be aiming for a challenging job.
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Okay, so why don't aim for money?
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It's a consensus in social science that the more money you have, the harder it is for more money to make you happier.
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The relationship is thought to look something like this.
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As your income increases, the amount your happiness increases by goes down and down with each extra bit of income.
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and this is now backed, this theoretical relationship is now backed by a lot of empirical studies.
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For instance this huge global survey of life satisfaction.
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Now on the side we have self -reported life satisfaction
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which is basically asking people on a scale of one to ten how satisfied are you with your life
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and then on the bottom we have household income.
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You can see these nice clear straight lines.
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These lines are straight rather than curved as the thing we just saw
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because on the bottom we've now got a log scale.
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Each increment is doubling rather than going up linearly.
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What this basically shows is
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that you have to double your income to just get an extra half point of happiness on a 1 to 10 scale.
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That's a lot of income for a very small increase in happiness.
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This becomes even more extreme if we look at some other outcomes besides life satisfaction.
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Here's another big survey by two
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Nobel Prize winning economists, Kahneman and Deaton.
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Again we've got a log scale on the bottom, in the middle we have a ladder which is just life satisfaction again
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and again that's showing roughly a straight line like we just saw.
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But now we've got three other outcomes.
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The top one is positive affect and for that it was basically people who did you feel happy yesterday?
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If you said yes then you were counted as a one.
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And then you can see on the left the fraction of people who answered yes.
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So about 70 % of people said yes I felt happy yesterday.
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Then you've got not blue which is you're asked were you unhappy yesterday and if you said no then you're counted here.
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And then finally stress free were you not stressed yesterday?
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What you can see is
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that all three of these things almost completely go flat at around the $50 ,000 of annual income mark
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and so what this is showing is that after $50 ,000 there was no relationship between how happy people felt,
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how much sadness they felt and whether they were stressed or not.
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And on the bottom this is actually household income and $50 ,000 of household income is actually just $25 ,000, about half of individual income.
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The people in this audience are all in a group where on average
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you're going to earn more like $70 ,000 per year over your career.
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And so you're all in the region where there's just very little relationship between extra income and being happier.
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You're all in the flat part of the curve.
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And this just means that income won't be a big driver of how satisfied you are with your life.
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Okay, the other thing that isn't fulfilling is a low stress job don't aim for an easy job, rather aim for a challenging job.
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Many studies have now found that the people who work hard
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and succeed and retire late and really conscientious end up happier and even living longer than those who drift around,
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don't succeed and retire early.
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This is despite the fact that the successful people actually work longer hours, get less sleep, have greater demands placed on them.
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The picture of stress in modern psychology is not the simple all stress is bad, it's more something like this.
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So on one side we have how many demands are placed on you
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and then on the bottom we have how much power you have to cope with those demands and deal with them.
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And you can see if you have few demands placed on you then it's more
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that you're actually going to be bored or drifting.
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Stress becomes bad when you have lots of demands but not much power to deal with it.
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This is the kind of boss from hell scenario where you have lots of targets,
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but you can't actually have freedom over figuring out what to do and taking action and succeeding on those.
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The right place to be, the best place to be, is having lots of demands, but also having lots of power to deal with those.
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And then that is a fulfilling challenge.
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If we look at it a bit more broadly, I think the picture now is that stress, whether it's good or bad,
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really depends on the context.
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If you have lots of stress but you have freedom in how you deal with it,
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you have power to get stuff done and you feel like your work is meaningful and you're socially supported, you have people helping you out,
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then stress could be neutral or perhaps even good.
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It encourages personal growth, it's a fulfilling challenge.
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stress only becomes bad when it's in the context of not having any freedom, being isolated, feeling like your work is meaningless.
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So looking at all this I think the message is much more
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that you shouldn't seek out an easy job rather seek out these supportive conditions and then challenge yourself.
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Okay so that's what not to look for, what actually matters, what should you be looking for in a fulfilling career. In the book
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Flourish, one of the founders of positive psychology, Professor Martin Seligman summarises the key factors
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that cause human well -being discovered in the last two decades of positive psychology research as the following five factors.
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The first is positive emotion.
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This is feeling happy, feeling cheerful, optimistic day to day.
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The second is engagement.
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This is work that you find really absorbing and it gives you sense of flow.
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Then relationships is another crucial ingredient, supportive, good relationships.
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Meaning is the fourth one, this is contributing to a purpose beyond just your own satisfaction.
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And then there's accomplishments, which is being good at what you do.
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There's an academic debate about whether these factors really constitute the fundamental elements of well -being or not,
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but everyone agrees that they're at least important parts of it or they correlate with it.
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Okay so what does this mean for choosing what work to do?
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I'm going to apply these factors to job selection
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and combine it with the literature specifically about job satisfaction to come up with a list of factors
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that you can use to choose between careers.
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So the first is engaging work.
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This corresponds to engagement from Seligman's five factors.
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Engaging work is the most well empirically supported predictor of job satisfaction that's been discovered so far.
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It breaks down into these four criteria,
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these four factors, each of which has been shown in large meta -analyses to correlate around 0 .4 with job satisfaction.
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So autonomy is how much freedom you have over how the work is done, clear tasks is pretty self -explanatory,
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feedback is how easy is it to know how well you're doing in the work,
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and then variety is do you get to do lots of different types of things in the work.
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If you want a picture of something super engaging, then think of a computer game.
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These are designed to be optimally engaging.
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You have control of what's going on, clear aims, you know how well you're doing, and a variety of tasks.
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If you want to picture something unengaging, then think of this, office admin.
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You've got little control over your hours, what the work processes are, you We have endless similar tasks, no clear effects on important outcomes.
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So that's engaging work, the first factor.
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But just engagingness isn't enough.
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These jobs all have high engagingness, but aren't seen by the people pursuing them as meaningful.
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And as we also saw, meaning was one of the other five factors.
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It's really important for being fulfilled.
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Which jobs are actually meaningful?
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Well, I think the easiest route to a meaningful job is to do one that helps others.
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If we compare these jobs, These are all things that the people doing them almost all find meaningful,
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and they're also among the jobs that people find most satisfying.
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So this leads to the second factor, do work that helps others.
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And then there's also much other research that shows
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that acts of altruism in your life are strongly related to a sense of happiness and fulfillment.
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Here's just one example of many.
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this really large survey across the world over 150 countries
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they looked at the relationship between giving to charity in the last month
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and subjective well -being
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which is just how satisfied people said
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they are with their lives on a scale of one to ten they found
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that donating to charity had a similar relationship to subjective well -being as a doubling of household income
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and this is just one result from a large literature on the benefits of altruism
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which is not just confined to giving to charity.
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It also applies to helping people you know, volunteering and just doing anything where you have a sense of purpose.
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So the first two factors were engaging work and work that helps others.
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Now we're going to fill in a couple of other factors a bit faster.
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The third one is being good at your work.
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That corresponds to achievement in Seligman's five factors.
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Here it's particularly important to do something that you're good at that uses your unique strengths.
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Fourth is having good relationships with your colleagues.
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Social support is highly correlated to job satisfaction.
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Then we have hygiene factors.
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These are basically an absence of something that is making you actively unhappy, like having a really long commute,
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excessively long hours, or pay that you think is unfair.
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And then finally, fit with the rest of life.
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Don't think that you have to get all of Seligman's five factors out of your work.
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Another option is to seek a job that gives you enough time to get fulfilling relationships or achievements in your spare time.
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One thing to note about this list is that none of it is particularly related to the subject matter of the work.
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When we think of a fulfilling career, one common thought is to think in terms of finding the
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career where you're most interested in the subject matter of the work.
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So for instance, if you really love sports, then work on something involving sports and that's how to be fulfilled.
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But there's not much support for this idea in these factors.
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All these factors are much more about the circumstances of the work, not the subject matter.
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If you work in sport but with people you hate, or doing something that you find meaningless, then you're going to end up unhappy.
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Whereas if you have these six things, then you'll become interested, you'll become fulfilled by new areas.
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So doing what you're interested in isn't as important as people most often think.
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So if you want to be fulfilled in your work, how would I sum it up?
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I'd sum it up as do what contributes.
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Get good at something that helps others.
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How does this work?
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Well firstly I think
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if you get good at your work then you're going to be able to take care of the other factors.
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You're going to be able to make sure you're doing something engaging, you're going to be able to work with people you like,
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you're going to be able to fit it with the rest of your life.
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You can be really good at your work, get these other factors but nevertheless still find the work meaningless
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and that's why you add in you also have to do something
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that helps others and that's the way to also then be truly fulfilled.
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Why else should you focus on doing what contributes?
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Well another reason is that I think
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if you focus on helping others you'll actually be more successful
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and that's because people will want to help you back and they want to help you succeed because it's helping the world.
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And there's now a great book that summarizes surprising amount of actual empirical evidence for this idea.
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Give and take by Professor Adam Grant, which argues that people with a giving mindset often end up being more successful than average.
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And also I think focusing on helping others is the morally right thing to do.
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We're some of the most privileged people in the world.
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Here's a graph of world income.
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On the bottom you have the percentage of people at different income levels
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and on the side you have how much income their earning.
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As we just saw, you're all going to be earning around an average of $70 ,000
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over your career per year and that means you're all right in the very peak of that distribution.
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In fact, many of you will be way off this graph.
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The rest of the world, by contrast, barely registers.
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They're just far, far poorer than you will be.
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This means you have an extraordinary opportunity to help people, and in my view, a duty to do so.
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The idea that you should focus on helping others in order to be fulfilled is hardly a new idea.
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Even the Buddha agrees with me.
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It's a theme from many major spiritual and moral traditions.
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If you want to be fulfilled in your career, do what contributes.
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In the next talk, we'll cover how.
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Thank you.
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Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questa lezione di conversazione si basa sul video “What makes for a dream job? (part 1) @ Cambridge University”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: factor, income, career. Questo video contiene 200 frasi e 2680 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 15:26. Chi parla ha un ritmo naturale di circa 174 parole al minuto, vicino a una conversazione quotidiana. Il 88% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è facile da seguire.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
15 parole del video che vale la pena imparare, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| fulfill verbo | /fʊlˈfɪl/ | completare |
| distress sostantivo | /dɪˈstɹɛs/ | angoscia, pena |
| satisfaction sostantivo | /sætɪsˈfækʃən/ | soddisfazione |
| engage verbo | /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | attirare, convergere |
| happiness sostantivo | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | felicità, gioia |
| meaningful aggettivo | /ˈmiː.nɪŋ.fl̩/ | significativo, sensato |
| satisfy verbo | /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/ | soddisfare, accontentare |
| household aggettivo | /ˈhaʊshoʊld/ | domestico, casalinghi |
| contribute verbo | /kənˈtɹɪb.jut/ | contribuire |
| psychology sostantivo | /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | psicologia |
| earn verbo | /ɝn/ | guadagnare |
| charity sostantivo | /ˈtʃæɹɪti/ | ente di beneficenza, organizzazione benefica |
| outcome sostantivo | /ˈaʊtkʌm/ | risultato |
| unhappy aggettivo | /ʌnˈhæpi/ | triste, rattristato |
| meaningless aggettivo | /ˈmiː.nɪŋ.ləs/ | senza senso, privo di significato |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Significato |
|---|---|
| end up verbo | andare a finire, finire |
| figure out verbo | scoprire, rendersi conto |
| come up with verbo | ideare, escogitare |
| go up verbo | salire |
Frasi da ripetere
Frasi brevi e complete del video che puoi riutilizzare nella conversazione di tutti i giorni:
- Let's start with what not to look for.
- You're all in the flat part of the curve.
- I'd sum it up as do what contributes.
- Why else should you focus on doing what contributes?
- They're just far, far poorer than you will be.
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Frasi condizionali if + frase, will/would + verbo — una condizione e il suo risultato | if you focus on helping others you'll actually |
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | is summarised · is thought · is now backed |
| Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosa | someone who does · ladder which is · people who did |
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | there's been · There's now been · have now found |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
Chi parla usa 52 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come you're, don't, we're. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.
- I suoni “th”: nevertheless /ˌnɛvɚðəˈlɛs/, theoretical /ˌθi.əˈɹɛt.ɪ.kəl/
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/, contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/, crucial /ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, empirical /ɪmˈpɪɹɪkəl/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, fundamental /ˌfʌn.dəˈmɛn.təl/
I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:
- /h/ — va soffiata, non è muta: happiness /ˈhæpinɪs/, household /ˈhaʊshoʊld/, unhappy /ʌnˈhæpi/, whereas /(h)wɛɹˈæz/, hygiene /ˈhaɪˌd͡ʒiːn/
- Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: distress /dɪˈstɹɛs/, engage /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/, happiness /ˈhæpinɪs/, household /ˈhaʊshoʊld/, contribute /kənˈtɹɪb.jut/
- /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, happiness /ˈhæpinɪs/, satisfy /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/, charity /ˈtʃæɹɪti/, unhappy /ʌnˈhæpi/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come fulfill, distress, satisfaction.
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.