Shadowing Practice: 02.a What Is Success? - Effortless Business English - Learn English Speaking with Video
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What is success?
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What is success?
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If we want to be successful, we must first be able to define success.
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What is success?
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What does it mean?
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Mainstream culture tells us that success equals money.
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Most people think that rich people are successful and poor people aren't.
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That, however, is a very shallow idea of success.
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If someone is miserable, angry, unhealthy, and lonely, are they successful even if they are rich?
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I don't think so.
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Most of us need to broaden our idea of success.
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I define success in terms of health, connection, and freedom.
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Without physical health, nothing else matters.
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We cannot enjoy life if we are constantly weak, tired, and sick.
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Mental health is also important.
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True success brings happiness, even ecstasy.
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does money automatically bring happiness
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and ecstasy obviously not in fact money often brings stress many
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people who suddenly become rich are very unhappy some even commit suicide
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connection is another vital part of success most human beings need to feel connected to other people.
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We suffer when we are lonely.
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To be successful, we must have friends, and we must know how to connect to other people.
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Kindness and compassion are important ingredients for true success.
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Finally, we need to be free to be successful.
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Of course, physical freedom is important.
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It's hard to be successful if you are locked in a prison somewhere.
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Financial freedom, however, is also important.
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Most people don't understand financial freedom.
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They think that if you have a lot of money, you must be financially free.
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This is not true.
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Financial freedom means you have many financial choices.
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It means you have excellent cash flow.
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It means you have total control over your finances.
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For example, many people who appear rich are not, in fact, financially free.
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Why not?
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Because they owe more money than they actually have.
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They have a big expensive house and thus a big expensive house loan.
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They have a big expensive car loan.
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They have a large amount of credit card debt they have many bills on the outside they appear rich
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but their situation is very dangerous they could easily lose everything if their income changed suddenly
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another problem these people don't have many financial options they are already spending more than they have
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so they have fewer options for investing in new opportunities it's
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much better to think of financial freedom in terms of cash flow cash flow simply means
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that you have more money coming in than is going out
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in other words you make more than you spend every month
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The bigger the difference between what you make and what you spend every month, the greater financial freedom you have.
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I call this building the positive gap.
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Building the gap.
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So, there are two steps to financial freedom.
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One, drastically reduce what you spend.
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In other words, simplify every part of your life.
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Number two, increase your income.
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In other words, make more money.
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Most people focus on number two, make more money.
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But number one is actually more important.
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And it's the first thing you should focus on.
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When I started Effortless English, I was making very little money.
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I started the business with only $200.
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Most people thought I would fail.
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However, I had a secret advantage.
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Even though I was making very little money at my job, I was spending even less.
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I had a big positive gap.
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I had financial flexibility.
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I could live for many months without money from the business.
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Also, I could take some of my extra money and invest it in the business.
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I lived in a tiny, one -room apartment with the cheapest rent in San Francisco.
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In fact, I still live in the same apartment, even though I could afford something much more expensive.
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Why?
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Because I want to maximize my financial freedom.
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I can take the money I save and reinvest it in Effortless English.
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This is what you must do, too.
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Your first step is to simplify your life until you are spending less than you make.
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Then, simplify even more so that you are spending much less than you make.
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Do not try to start a new business or invest until you accomplish this first.
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Speak English easily and fast.
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Get our complete, original, Effortless English lessons at www .effortlessenglishclub .com.
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The original lessons have over 40 lesson sets, each with vocabulary, audio articles,
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mini stories, point of view stories, and text.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “02.a What Is Success? - Effortless Business English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: success, financial, freedom, successful, rich. This video has 78 sentences and 743 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:47. The speaker talks at a steady 110 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| invest verb | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| connect verb | /kəˈnɛkt/ | To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. |
| define verb | /dɪˈfaɪn/ | To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly. |
| lonely adjective | /ˈloʊnli/ | Unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people. |
| financially adverb | In terms of finance or money. | |
| audio adjective | /ˈɔ.di.oʊ/ | Focused on audible sound, as opposed to sight. |
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| mini adjective | /ˈmɪn.i/ | Miniature, tiny, small. |
| vital adjective | /ˈvaɪtəl/ | Relating to or characteristic of life. |
| commit verb | /kəˈmɪt/ | To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto. |
| fewer | /ˈfjuː.ɚ/ | Less; a smaller amount of something non-integral commonly expressed as an integer |
| mainstream adjective | /ˈmeɪn.stɹiːm/ | Used or accepted broadly rather than by small portions of population, market, scientific community, etc. |
| miserable adjective | /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/ | In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
| have over verb | To host (a visiting guest) at one's house. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who suddenly · people who appear |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | was making |
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | must first · need to broaden · need to feel |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | are already spending · is going · are spending |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 4 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/, shallow /ˈʃæloʊ/, compassion /kəmˈpæʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: miserable /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/, flexibility /ˌflɛksɪˈbɪlɪti/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lesson, invest, happiness.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.