Shadowing Practice: 10 Minutes to Start Your Day Right! - Motivational Speech By Matthew McConaughey - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Define success for yourself.
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Define success for yourself.
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Money is king today.
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It's what makes the world go round.
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It is success.
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The more we have, the more successful we are, right?
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Our cultural values have even been financialized.
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Humility is not in vogue anymore.
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It's too passive.
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It's a get-rich-quick-on-the-internet-richest 15 minutes of fame world that we live in, and we see it every day.
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But we all want to succeed, right?
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So the question that we've got to ask ourselves is what success is to us?
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What success is to you?
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Is it more money?
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That's fine.
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I got nothing against money.
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Maybe it's a healthy family.
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Maybe it's a happy marriage.
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Maybe it's to help others, to be famous, to be spiritually sound, to leave the world a little bit better place than you found it.
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Continue to ask yourself that question.
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Now, your answer may change over time and that's fine.
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But do yourself this favor.
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Whatever your answer is, don't choose anything that will jeopardize your soul.
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Prioritize who you are, who you want to be, and don't spend time with anything that antagonizes your character.
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Don't drink the Kool-Aid, man.
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It tastes sweet, but you will get cavities tomorrow.
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All right, life is not a popularity contest.
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Be brave, take the hill, but first answer that question, what's my hill?
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We have to define success for ourselves, and then we have to put in the work to maintain it, tend our garden, keep the things that are important to us in good shape.
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Process of elimination is the first step to our identity.
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Where you are not is as important as where you are.
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look the first step that leads to our identity in life is usually not i know who i am i
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know who i am that's not the first step the first step is usually i know who i am not process of elimination defining ourselves by what we are not is the first step that leads us to really knowing who we are
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You know that group of friends that you hang out with that they really might not bring out the best in you?
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You know, they gossip too much or they're kind of shady.
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They really aren't going to be there for you in a pinch.
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Or how about that bar that we keep going to that we always seem to have the worst hangover from?
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Or that computer screen, right?
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That computer screen that keeps giving us an excuse not to get out of the house and engage with the world and get some real human interaction.
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Or how about that food that we keep eating, the stuff that tastes so good going down, it makes us feel like crap the next week, we feel lethargic and we keep putting on weight.
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Well, those people, those places, those things, stop giving them your time and energy.
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Just don't go there.
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I mean, put them down.
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And when you do this, when you do put them down, when you quit going there and you quit giving them your time, you inadvertently find yourself spending more time and in more places that are healthy for you, that bring you more joy.
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Why?
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Because you just eliminated the who's, the where's, the what's and the when's that were keeping you from your identity.
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Like trust me, too many options, I promise you, too many options will make a tyrant of us all.
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All right, so get rid of the excess, the wasted time.
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Decrease your options.
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If you do this, you will have accidentally, almost innocently, put in front of you what is important to you by process of elimination.
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Knowing who we are is hard.
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It's hard.
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So give yourself a break.
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Eliminate who you are not first, and you're going to find yourself where you need to be.
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Dissect your successes and the reciprocity of gratitude.
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We so often focus on failure, don't we?
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We study failure.
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We obsess with failure.
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We dissect failure and our failures.
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We dissect them so much we end up intoxicated with them to the point of disillusion.
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I mean, when do we write in our diary?
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Usually when we're depressed.
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What do we gossip about?
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Other people's flaws and limitations.
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We can dissect ourselves into self-loathing if we're not careful.
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I find that most of the times our obsession with what is wrong just ends up breeding more wrong, more failure.
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Now, the easiest way to dissect success is through gratitude.
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Giving thanks for that which we do have, for what is working.
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Appreciating the simple things we sometimes take for granted.
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We give thanks for these things, and that gratitude reciprocates.
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Creating more to be thankful for.
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It's really simple, and it works.
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Now, I'm not saying be in denial of your failures.
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No, we can learn from them too, but only if we look at them constructively.
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As a means to reveal what we are good at, what we can get better at, what we do succeed at.
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Our life's a verb.
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We try our best.
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We don't always do our best.
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Well, architecture is a verb as well.
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Yes, it is.
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And since we are the architects of our own lives, let's study the habits, the practices, the routines that we have that lead to and feed our success, our joy, our honest pain, our laughter, our earned tears.
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Let's dissect that and give thanks for those things.
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And when we do that, guess what happens?
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We get better at them and we have more to dissect.
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Make voluntary obligations.
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All right, mom and dad, since we were young, they teach us things as children, teachers, mentors, the government, and on laws, they all give us guidelines for which to navigate this life, rules to abide by in the name of accountability.
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I'm not talking about those obligations.
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I'm talking about the ones that we make with ourselves, with our God, with our own consciousness.
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I'm talking about the you versus you obligations.
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We have to have them.
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Now again, these are not societal laws and expectations that we acknowledge and endow for anyone other than ourselves.
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These are faith-based obligations that we make on our own.
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And while nobody throws you a party when you abide by them, no one's going to arrest you when you break them either, except yourself.
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An honest man's pillow is his peace of mind.
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And when you lay down on that pillow at night, no matter who's in your bed, we all sleep alone.
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These are your personal Jiminy crickets, and there are not enough cops in the entire world to police them.
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It's on you.
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It's on you.
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Unbelievable is the stupidest word in the dictionary.
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Should never come out of our mouths.
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Think about it.
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To say, oh wow, what an unbelievable play.
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It was an unbelievable book, an unbelievable film, an unbelievable act of courage.
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It may be spectacular, it may be phenomenal, most excellent or outstanding.
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But unbelievable?
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Uh-uh.
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Give others and yourself more credit.
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It just happened.
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You witnessed it.
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You just did it.
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Believe it.
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What about the other side of unbelievable?
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You know, that side when we humans underperform or act out of our best character.
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Our best friends lie to us, and we lie to ourselves all the time.
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Unbelievable?
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I don't think so.
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Again, it just happens, and it happens every day.
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Nothing that we homo sapien earthlings do is unbelievable.
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And if there's one thing you can depend on people being, it's people.
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So we shouldn't be surprised.
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We, us, are the trickiest mammals walking the planet.
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So acknowledge the acts of greatness as real and do not be naive about mankind's capacity for evil, nor be in denial of our own shortcomings.
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Happiness is an emotional response to an outcome.
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If I win, I will be happy.
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If I don't, I won't.
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It's an if-then, cause-and-effect, quid pro quo standard that we cannot sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it.
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Happiness demands a certain outcome.
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It is result-reliant.
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And I say if happiness is what you're after, then you're going to be let down frequently and you're going to be unhappy much of your time.
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Joy, though.
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Joy is a different thing.
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It's something else.
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Joy is not a choice.
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It's not a response to some result.
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It's a constant.
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Joy is the feeling that we have from doing what we are fashioned to do, no matter the outcome.
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See, joy is always in process.
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It's under construction.
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It is in constant approach, alive and well, in the doing of what we're fashioned to do and enjoying it.
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Life is not easy.
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It is not.
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Don't try to make it that way.
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Life's not fair.
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It never was.
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It isn't now, and it won't ever be.
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Do not fall into the trap, the entitlement trap, of feeling like you're a victim.
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You are not.
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Get over it and get on with it.
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And yes, most things are more rewarding when you break a sweat to get them.
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Thank you.
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Context & Background

In the motivational speech by Matthew McConaughey, the focus is on defining personal success and understanding one's identity. McConaughey emphasizes that success is subjective and varies from person to person. His thought-provoking insights challenge listeners to prioritize what truly matters to them while shedding influences that may undermine their character. This message is invaluable for anyone looking to navigate personal growth, including English learners seeking to enhance their communication skills. By mastering the language, they can better express their own definitions of success.

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

  • “Define success for yourself.” – This encourages individual reflection on personal goals.
  • “What’s my hill?” – A metaphor for understanding the challenges one chooses to face.
  • “Process of elimination is the first step to our identity.” – Highlights the importance of identifying what does not serve us.
  • “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.” – A warning against blindly following detrimental trends.
  • “Be brave, take the hill.” – A call to action for pursuing one's goals fearlessly.

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

To effectively tackle this motivational speech and enhance your English speaking skills, follow these steps:

  1. Listen Actively: Start by watching the video in its entirety without distractions. Focus on understanding the core message.
  2. Break It Down: Split the transcript into smaller segments. Tackle one phrase at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
  3. Repeat and Shadow: Use shadow speech techniques. Play a short segment of the speech and pause after each sentence. Mimic McConaughey's intonation and pronunciation. This method, also known as shadowspeaks, will help improve your English pronunciation.
  4. Record Yourself: Speak into your device while following along with the transcript. Compare your recording with the original speech to identify areas for improvement.
  5. Practice Regularly: Make this shadow speak practice a daily habit. The more you engage with the material, the more natural your speaking will become.

With dedication to this shadow speak method, you will not only enhance your pronunciation but also gain confidence in expressing your thoughts, much like McConaughey inspires us to define our unique paths to success. Remember, learning a language is a journey, and consistent practice leads to improvement.

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.

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