Shadowing Practice: 12 little luxuries that cost $0 | live rich without being rich - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on luxury bags, cars, or jewelry to live in true luxury.
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That's just how the luxury industry markets to get people looking rich and feeling poor.
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But truly feeling luxurious is when your soul is rich and your body is healthy.
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You live with inner peace, with the freedom to chase status, but you choose not to because your life feels so good already.
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So here are 12 little luxuries that don't cost you a dollar, but that will feed your soul
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and ultimately your quality of life number one what do rich people actually spend their money on comment below
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if you know before i answer one two three the answer is time that's why millions
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and millions of dollars are being poured into research for anti-aging
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longevity research that's why rich women are going out to get procedures done the rich have realized
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that sure it's nice to spend money on fancy yachts whatever
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but at the end of the day time is the most valuable thing and And that's why they're holding onto youth.
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But here's the thing.
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You can literally pour into your health and longevity
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and time that you have on this earth right now by doing number one, daily exercise.
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Did you know that when you sit for a long period of time, your body feels like it's dying?
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Yes, there's actually signs behind this.
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That's why it's really bad to be sanitary.
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That's why I have a standing desk right now.
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And that is why I move my body, especially after meals, like going on daily walks.
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Taking time to slow down and to pour into this one vehicle
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that you have for your entire lifetime is a true sign of luxurious living.
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Related to that is the real fountain of youth, which is tip number two, it's lifting.
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Anything that is actually working on growing your muscles and maintaining them.
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As you get older, especially going into your mid-20s, 30s, your muscles will start to deteriorate if you do not use them.
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In fact, especially for women, you may experience bone thinning, which can lead to osteoporosis.
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But building muscle is one of the best things you can do for yourself because you're preventing those issues down the line, which by the way, would cost thousands of dollars in medical bills.
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So take care of your health now, invest in your body now, not later, because fixing is a lot more expensive and less effective than maintaining right now.
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And plus, especially for women, actually living rich is by putting yourself first rather than comparing yourself to people on social media
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or abiding by the toxic beauty standards of skinniness.
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At age 60, you're going to want to be mobile
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and be able to pick up your phone that you dropped on the ground.
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Exercise in general helps you release serotonin, which increases your quality of life and helps regulate your hormones.
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But you also need the right fuel, which is why number three is to consume whole foods.
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Think of food like medicine, not only for your health and internal organs, but for your soul.
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When you eat really sugary, oily, or processed foods, you will feel it.
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You will feel groggy.
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You'll feel tired.
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You may get brain fog, and this will not only affect your productivity, but also the energy and presence which you live your life.
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People may comment sometimes like, oh, well, I go and buy a $2 burger at McDonald's because it's cheaper.
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But again, this is only going to accumulate into a lot of health problems down the line like diabetes,
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medical bills you'll have to pay in thousands and thousands of dollars later.
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Not to mention eating these cheaper unhealthy things does not even feel good
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and anything for your health honestly is a small price to pay.
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But the reason this is on this list of no spend little luxuries is
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because you're going to eat anyway and so just choose the better foods for you.
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The fourth little luxury is is hanging out with the people you love in person.
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I feel incredibly, incredibly wealthy and rich because I spend time with my friends literally every other day.
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I have a friend who lives in the same building as me.
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We have proximity.
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And in general, I surround myself with people who have this excitement about life and we want to socialize.
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We want to share our ideas and go out and have adventures and to really just inspire each other.
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Feeling wealthy is in the love and the connections and the community
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that you have because social media makes it easier to cope with the fact that we're alone.
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That's why all those videos like, oh, why I have no friends and it's okay.
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How to be alone and not lonely those get millions of views.
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But at the end of the day, humans need love.
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And being with your friends in person is a higher quality
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way of catching up with them rather than just sending texts here and there.
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Because sending texts also creates a lot of context switching throughout your day.
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So you might as well just, you know, pick up the phone, FaceTime, or better yet, hang out in person.
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And that is the real abundance mindset when you feel like you always have time for the people who matter.
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Number five, we will spend approximately one third of our lives in bed.
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And that is not something to feel bad about that like, oh, it's wasted time.
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But we can make the most of it if we truly use the time we're sleeping as recharging.
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And the way to improve that quality of sleep, and thus the quality of our life when we're actually awake, is to have a wind down routine.
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For me, I try to not be on my devices for at least an hour before bed.
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Instead, I will listen to a fictional audiobook like I really love the full cast Harry Potter audiobooks
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and I'll stretch during it, maybe read a physical book.
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And a really important thing too is to turn off your bright lights
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and instead replace it with red lights because it also helps release melatonin.
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Our biology is not made to be under the bright lights all the time.
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When it gets dark toward nighttime, that is a signal for our body to start being in a resting mode.
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And we want to honor that circadian rhythm by having that peaceful time before actually going to bed.
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Another thing that will greatly improve your quality of life, number six, is spending time in nature.
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Just 20 to 30 minutes outdoors can significantly lower your blood pressure.
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It will reduce stress, restore your mental focus, and can even boost your immune system.
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I love killing two birds with one stone.
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LOL, talking about nature and then saying I'm killing birds.
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But I like multitasking, getting my exercise in and being in nature by going on walks with my husband next to the water,
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because water is also scientifically proven to improve your mental health.
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That's why rich people will spend a lot of time near bodies of water, you know, think the beach on a yacht, etc. Number seven,
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do you ever feel like your life is a constant series
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of obligations jumping from one place to another you look at your calendar
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and the immediate feeling is overwhelmed well we actually have more control over
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that than we think
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and especially as someone who used to be a people pleaser
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i would want to just help people in any circumstance the moment someone texts me
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and be like yes i'll do that for you
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but the thing is that the most important person in your life is you
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and that's why tip number seven is to say more no's
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i used to have a lot more of a scarcity mindset of
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if someone asked me to go hang out or go to a club or something and I didn't want to, that they wouldn't ask me again.
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But if I actually don't want to go to that party or go out on a Saturday night, I don't have to because one of the most luxurious feelings is having the freedom of choice
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and to just sit home and enjoy time with yourself.
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And there's nothing more freeing also than the feeling of an empty calendar that you feel like you have ownership over.
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Similarly, that's why little luxury number eight is to express love for yourself.
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So you might have heard of the different love languages.
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It's like touch, gift giving, quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation.
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Yeah, I got it on the first try.
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And did you know that you can also express those love languages to yourself?
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So if it's acts of service, the night before a big day, lay out your outfit the night before and clean up your space
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so that your future self will feel really happy the next morning, waking up, having everything prepared for her or him.
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If your love language is words of affirmation, maybe journal all the things you're proud of recently.
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Over time, this is going to create a really positive feedback loop of building your own confidence,
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and importantly, the happiness that you have by default.
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Because I truly think that happiness is the real success
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because any other material things you cannot take with you after you pass from this world.
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But what matters is how well you spent the time while you were on this earth.
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Number nine, but what
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if you're tempted to spend money on those luxury things I mentioned in the beginning
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because of what other people are doing around you?
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Well, that is why this tip is to have conviction over what you want, what you care about, and what you believe in.
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So for example, I truly genuinely do not care about luxury things or the logos or the brands.
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That might change in a few years if I really have the disposable income, but it's just not really important and a priority.
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Like I'd rather use that to be like saving up for a house or my future kids' college funds, or honestly, just for more peace of mind,
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because who knows where the world is going on right now.
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It's very unstable.
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So this is my everyday bag.
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I got this for, I think, eight to 10 USD in China, and it holds plenty of things.
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It has great compartments, convenient, two shoulders, because that's actually better for your back and your body in general.
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I couldn't care less about the logos on my clothes.
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I just care if they're cute.
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Oh, and also actually will last me a long time, be relatively timeless and out of good materials.
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Like this is made with linen.
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So I do have conviction over certain things like my health and how I feel, which is why I will be willing to spend a little more money on materials
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that are good for me because your skin is your body's largest organ and the things you put on it are absorbed.
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So fun fact, I recommend watching the documentary on Netflix called The Plastic Detox,
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where so many of the polyester clothing or heating foods and plastics,
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this causes microplastics to enter your bloodstream and even hurt your ability to get pregnant.
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So it's really interesting.
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A bunch of the couples there were infertile, but by removing plastics completely, they were able to get pregnant, which is really exciting and a part of life too, if you want that.
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But yeah, a little bit of a detour there.
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So onto number 10, which is meditation.
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You might see
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that there's a bit of a theme here where it's just really having the mental space
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and clarity and luxury of slowing down.
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In this grind set culture, we might feel like if we're not doing anything, we're just not being valuable to society and to ourselves.
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Like we're literally useless if we're doing nothing.
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So how cool it is to sit with yourself and just know that you are worthy inherently and to do nothing.
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You can escape into your own body, into your own mind without the distractions and simulations that the world is throwing at you.
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But when people unplug or they do nothing, they might feel FOMO.
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They might be like, oh, but I want to see what a celebrity or person is doing on social media.
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And that's why tip number 11 is to have JOMO on the internet.
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The joy of missing out on the internet.
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There is no need to see what other people are doing on vacation because it literally just doesn't matter.
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In fact, if anything, it's a negative value add to your life.
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Instead of just forcing yourself to be unbothered and telling yourself that,
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you can reframe it and actually get excited about missing out on what celebrities are doing and be like,
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you know what, I'm so cool for not knowing what strangers are doing on a daily basis.
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Find a satisfaction that you are instead pouring those precious limited time, effort, resources into your own life.
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And that is how you actually have emotional detachment from social media.
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And only then is how you will be able to decrease your screen time.
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It's not just surface level fixes like app blockers turning on grayscale,
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because the real reason that we get addicted to these devices is the emotions behind it.
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So even though humans are emotional creatures, regardless, we can use emotions to our advantage by having excitement over not being on social media instead.
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Now, if you've cut your screen time significantly, you will definitely have a lot more time on your hands.
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And so that's when you can do number 12.
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It's to create for the pursuit of mastery.
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Let me ask you a question, and I want you to think of the answer in your head
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or feel free to share down in the comments to inspire other people.
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But when you retire, what will you do?
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What is the one thing that you want to just spend your time on?
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Maybe you love golf and you would love nothing more to spend every day playing golf.
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Maybe you love painting, but you're always like, oh, I don't have time for this or it's not making me money, so I will just paint later down the line.
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Maybe it's learning a new language.
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Maybe it's learning to play an instrument.
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But see, the thing is, you can do that right now as your hobby.
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And when I say create, no, you don't have to be an artist.
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I really like this book by my friend called The Inner Compass.
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And he writes in here that creativity is an avenue to knowing yourself.
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And because it is aligned with your true curiosities, you approach it with the agency required to imbue that challenge with meaning.
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And whenever a pursuit is meaningful, you ensure that you show up each day as the best version of yourself.
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That's why getting lost in an activity where you don't even know how much time passes, you get in flow state, deep work, whatever you want to call it,
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that feels like you've entered a new dimension.
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For me, even though speaking on camera is partly my job, I like just talking to myself in journaling and crystallizing my thoughts in video journals.
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And these are not things that I'm posting for the world to see is just something that I like myself.
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Creativity could also be refining your skill in a sport because it might not be artistic, creative in the stereotypical sense,
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but that is still pursuing something for the pure art
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and joy and passion of it and to consider mastery instead of validation.
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Life is short and long at the same time, so I promise you have time to do that thing you've always wanted to,
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and that is a huge luxury that is incredibly underrated.
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Living rich for the soul and having good health is really all about having high agency
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and realizing that you have a lot more control over your life than you think.
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And in whatever circumstances you're in, financial, global, like geological, etc. Until we go out and control everything we can in our lives,
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don't say that you just can't do it.
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That a rich life is not in the cards for you.
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Until you try everything that was in this video today, do not give up on your dreams of living a rich life
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because it is possible to build life while already living rich.
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And if you like this video, comment down below what you like the most about it, what you'd like to see next.
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Please give it a like and hit that subscribe if you would like to learn more ways of how I live rich, especially in my 20s.
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For example, I actually have flown first class and business class internationally multiple times, but by just paying like five US dollars each time,
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no, it's not a scam.
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No, it's not like some weird loophole thing.
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It's with credit card points and explain how to in this video.
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So check that out next time.
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Thanks and see you next time.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “12 little luxuries that cost $0”. This video has 196 sentences and 2924 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:35. The speaker talks fast, about 188 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pour verb | /poɹ/ | To cause (liquid, or liquid-like substance) to flow in a stream, either out of a container or into it. |
| luxurious adjective | /lʌɡˈʒʊəɹi.əs/ | Very fine in quality and comfortable. |
| affirmation noun | /æfɝˈmeɪʃn/ | That which is affirmed; a declaration that something is true. |
| audiobook noun | /ˈɔdi.oʊbʊk/ | A recording, usually made available for sale, of a reading of the full text or of an abridgement of a book. |
| longevity noun | /lɒnˈd͡ʒɛv.ɪ.ti/ | The quality of being long-lasting, especially of life. |
| mastery noun | /ˈmæs.tɚ.i/ | The position or authority of a master; dominion; command; supremacy; superiority. |
| yacht noun | /jɑt/ | A slick and light ship for making pleasure trips or racing on water, having sails but often motor-powered. At times used as a residence offshore on a dock. |
| mindset noun | /ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/ | A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one. |
| inspire verb | /ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ | To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by… |
| creativity noun | /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/ | The ability to use imagination to produce a novel idea or product. |
| pursuit noun | /pɝˈsut/ | The act of pursuing. |
| organ noun | /ˈɔːɡən/ | The larger part of an organism, composed of tissues that perform similar functions. |
| conviction noun | /kənˈvɪkʃən/ | A firmly held belief. |
| excitement noun | /ɪkˈsaɪtmənt/ | The state of being excited (emotionally aroused). |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| slow down verb | To decelerate. | |
| clean up verb | To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy. | |
| lay out verb | /ˌleɪ ˈaʊt/ | To expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| turn off verb | To power down, to switch off, to put out of operation, to deactivate (an appliance, light, mechanism, functionality etc.). | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be · used to have |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | youth, which is · thinning, which can · fuel, which is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being poured · is not made · is made |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have realized · you've cut · you've entered |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 41 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: luxurious /lʌɡˈʒʊəɹi.əs/, affirmation /æfɝˈmeɪʃn/, conviction /kənˈvɪkʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, socialize /ˈsoʊʃəlaɪz/
- Long words — get the stress right: luxurious /lʌɡˈʒʊəɹi.əs/, audiobook /ˈɔdi.oʊbʊk/, longevity /lɒnˈd͡ʒɛv.ɪ.ti/, creativity /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/, accumulate /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like pour, luxurious, affirmation.
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.