Shadowing Practice: 3 ways smart people stay stuck in failing patterns | Anne-Laure Le Cunff - Learn English Speaking with Video
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- A cognitive script is an internalized behavioral pattern that tells us how we're supposed or at least how we think we're supposed to act in certain situations.
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They can be very helpful for routine tasks and decisions in everyday life.
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Cognitive scripts were first discovered in a seminal 1979 study, where researchers found that people are following very similar scripts in similar situations, such as going to the doctor or going to the restaurant.
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And since then, they have found those cognitive scripts in all areas of your life.
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For routine everyday decisions, cognitive scripts are actually very practical and useful.
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For example, you know that when you're going to go to the doctor, you're supposed to wait in the waiting room and then someone is going to call your name.
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And then, you're going to go into doctor's office and this is where you're going to start telling them about whatever the issue is, right?
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And you know in which order you're supposed to do all of those different actions.
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Great, useful, and it's a pretty good thing that you don't have to overthink it every time you go to the doctor.
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The problem with cognitive scripts is when we use them to make more important decisions in our lives, in our careers, in our relationships, instead of asking ourselves, is that really what I want to do, is that my decision, we let our choices being driven by those stories that we have internalized by those scripts that tell us how we're supposed to behave in a certain situation.
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One of these scripts is the Sequel Script.
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That's the script where we feel like we've always behaved in a certain way, so we're going to keep on behaving in the same way.
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We feel like the narrative needs to make sense.
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This is the script that makes people choose careers that are aligned with whatever they studied at university.
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That is the script that makes people keep on dating the same kind of people they've been dating before.
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And this is in general the script that makes us repeat the exact same behaviors and patterns that we've had in the past.
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In relationships in particular, what's very interesting is that we want the Sequel to connect to whatever the previous experience was.
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So, that might mean dating the exact same type of person or choosing the next person in response to whoever we were dating before.
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And they might look like the complete opposite, but the truth is we still pick this person based on the sense of continuity with whatever the previous experience was before.
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With the Sequel Script, it's quite obvious why it limits the possibilities that we might explore in life, because we feel like whatever decision we're making next needs to make sense in relation to the decisions we made in the past.
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We ignore a lot of more left field, unexpected type of decisions that might be opportunities for growth, and exploration, and self discovery.
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Another cognitive script that rules our life is the Crowdpleaser Script.
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This is the script where we make decisions based on whatever is going to please people around us the most.
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Quite often, those are the people are our parents.
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We might make decisions based on whatever is going to make them feel like you're safe and successful.
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But the audience for the Crowdpleaser Script can also be your friends, can be your partner, can be your colleagues.
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And what you don't realize when you follow the Crowdpleaser Script is that you're not making decisions based on what you want and what would make you happy, but based on what will make others around you happy.
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Finally, there's the Epic Script, and this one is very insidious because it's actually celebrated in our society.
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It's the script that says that whatever you do, it needs to be big, it needs to be very ambitious, it needs to be impactful.
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Anything less than that is failure.
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The Epic Script is an extreme version of the idea of following your dreams.
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And because of that, it has created a form of stigma around having a small, simple life.
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A life that is focused on just being happy in the moment, being present, being connected, and exploring your curiosity.
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Because if you don't have those external signs of success, if you're not following your grant passion, then are you really living a meaningful life?
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This is the anxiety inducing question that is created by the Epic Script.
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When you think about it, this is a very myopic definition of success where we try to put all of our eggs in the same basket.
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We choose this one thing and we say, "If I succeed to this, then I'm successful in life." The problem with this is that if we fail at this particular project, this particular goal, we feel like we have failed at life entirely.
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And the other problem with putting all of our eggs in the same basket is that then sometimes the basket just becomes too heavy and we drop it all together.
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Our modern hyperconnected online world has made the Epic Script, unfortunately, very, very popular with people.
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We have become overly obsessed with finding our purpose.
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Mentions in books of the phrase, "find your purpose," have surged 700% in the past two decades only.
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We see all of those stories of success of people who have found their passion and who are very happy as a result of this.
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We see the entrepreneur that followed their passion and was very successful, but we don't see all of the thousands of other ones that have tried the exact same thing and failed.
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This is called survivorship bias, and it's very unfortunate how nowadays we are basing all of our decisions and even our self-worth based on that incomplete information.
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Once you have identified the cognitive scripts that rule your life, you can actually break free from them, and it really starts by seeing them as stories we tell ourselves rather than truth that we need to follow blindly.
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A really good way to do this is to stop for a second every time you hear yourself saying, "I should do this." This word should is actually a really good signal that there might be a cognitive script at play somewhere here.
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And once you've identified the places in your life and the situations in your life where you are using that word, should, you can then decide to replace that word with another word, might.
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What might I want to do instead of what should I do.
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What might I want to explore?
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What might I want to experiment with?
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If you wanna start writing your own scripts in life, there are three questions that you can ask yourself while designing your next experiment.
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The first one is am I following my past or discovering my path?
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The second one is am I following the crowd or am I discovering my tribe?
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And then finally, am I following my passion or am I discovering my curiosity?
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Those three questions together allow you to embrace the liminal space we're all in, to make friends with uncertainty, to start experimenting more, and very importantly, to deal with those three powerful cognitive scripts that underlie a lot of our decisions on an unconscious level.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “3 ways smart people stay stuck in failing patterns”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: script, decision, cognitive, whatever, supposed. This video has 57 sentences and 1252 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:04. The speaker talks at a natural 177 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| cognitive adjective | /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/ | Relating to the part of mental functions that deals with logic, as opposed to affective which deals with emotions. |
| behave verb | /bɪˈheɪv/ | To conduct (oneself) well, or in a given way; to conform. |
| basket noun | /ˈbæskɪt/ | A lightweight woven container, generally round, open at the top, and tapering toward the bottom. |
| internalize verb | /ɪnˈtɝnəlaɪz/ | To make something internal; to incorporate it in oneself. |
| curiosity noun | /ˌkjʊɹ.iˈɑ.sə.ti/ | Inquisitiveness; the tendency to ask and learn about things by asking questions, investigating, or exploring. |
| blindly adverb | /ˈblaɪndli/ | In a blind manner; without sight. |
| hyperconnected adjective | That is not the union of two proper closed sets; such that every open set is dense. | |
| impactful adjective | /ˈɪmpæktfəl/ | Having impact. |
| insidious adjective | /ɪnˈsɪdi.əs/ | Causing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner. |
| liminal adjective | /ˈlɪmən(ə)l/ | Of or pertaining to an entrance or threshold. |
| myopic adjective | /maɪˈoʊpɪk/ | Near-sighted; unable to see distant objects unaided. |
| obsess verb | /əbˈsɛs/ | To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion. |
| overthink verb | To think or analyze too much. | |
| seminal adjective | /ˈsɛmɪnəl/ | Of or relating to seed or semen. |
| survivorship noun | The state of being a survivor. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have found · have internalized · we've always behaved |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being driven · are aligned · being connected |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who have · ones that have |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 25 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: unconscious /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/, ambitious /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/, exploration /ˌɛkspləˈɹeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: internalize /ɪnˈtɝnəlaɪz/, curiosity /ˌkjʊɹ.iˈɑ.sə.ti/, insidious /ɪnˈsɪdi.əs/, continuity /ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ti/, behavioral /bɪˈheɪvjəɹəl/
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 cognitive, behave, basket.
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.