Shadowing Practice: 5 Practical Ways to Take Control of Your Life | Jim VandeHei | TED - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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I want you to spend the next 10 minutes being absurdly self-indulgent,
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I want you to spend the next 10 minutes being absurdly self-indulgent,
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which is advice I would almost never otherwise give people.
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I want you to not think about the things you can't control.
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AI, politics, your parents, your social media feed, your Tinder alerts.
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By locking in on you for the next 600 seconds,
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I'm very confident that you're going to walk away with what I think is the single best hack for longevity,
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purpose, and living the type of lives that we want to live.
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First, who is this middle-aged dude preaching a gospel of self-indulgence?
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Well, the 20-year-old version of me,
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I'm very confident, was a much less impressive version of you.
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Three years into college, I had a 1.491 grade point average that I was dragging around.
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I was smoking a pack of Camelites a day.
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I was drinking prolifically.
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At night, I was delivering pizzas in my diesel VW Rabbit.
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I was remarkably unhealthy, and I was remarkably unremarkable.
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Within a decade, I'm interviewing presidents.
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I'm covering the White House for the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.
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Post, soon after I'm starting and running companies, First Politico, then Axios.
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So what the hell happened?
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In those dark times and in now some very good times,
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I really tried to become a student of what does it take to be successful and what makes great people great.
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What brings them real success?
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And there is a commonality to all of them.
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that all of them maniacally focus on controlling life's variables that you can control.
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You control you.
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That became my mantra, and that became my map for life.
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When I watched these people,
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whether they were teachers, doctors,
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entrepreneurs, every day they were maniacal about constructing their success in constructing their greatness piece by piece,
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day by day, on their terms.
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If we're being honest, a lot of us just surrender to others or to other things.
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We say, well, we can't do that because of my parents,
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my childhood, my circumstances, my DNA, my crappy luck.
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We just can't do it because we're under control of others or other things.
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And it's just BS.
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And it's just not a good way to live.
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You control you.
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It's just a much better, brighter way to live.
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And so I want to walk you through five different things that you can do,
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that are free, that you can start today,
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and that are available to every single person in this room.
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You control today.
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From the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed,
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you have scores of decisions to make that only you make.
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Do you doom scroll or do you meditate?
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Do you eat Lucky Charms or do you eat a healthy breakfast?
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When someone snaps at you,
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do you snap back or do you show a little bit of grace?
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At night, do you get hammered or do you get some sleep?
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You make each one of those decisions,
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and every one either leads to happiness and feeling better about yourself about yourself or sadness and feeling like crap.
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Nobody wants to feel like crap.
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So how did I get from the DC or from Oshkosh and my 1.491 to DC and then having some success?
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It was studying other people who were smarter than me,
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who were better than me,
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who were more talented than me,
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who were better read than me,
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who just knew a lot more than me,
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who were healthier than me.
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And then I tried to copy them.
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If they read a book I hadn't read, I read it.
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Or if they used a word I'd never heard an oshkosh,
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I wrote it down on a piece of paper,
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and I would work it into my vocabulary.
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If they were fitter than I were,
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I'd try to copy their habits.
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I started to take control of what we can control.
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You control you.
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You control your reactions.
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The best advice I ever got was five words.
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Do the next right thing.
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Do the next right thing.
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It's really hard to be a good person.
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It's hard to be moral.
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It's hard to do all the things right.
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It's pretty easy to do the next right thing.
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And if you do that,
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if you do things that would make you proud,
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your parents proud, your kids proud,
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your friends proud, you do that and then do it again,
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suddenly you're a pretty good person.
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And then if you do it in bad times,
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you can become a great person.
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My personal motto the last 15 years is when shit happens, shine.
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meaning in the worst of times when really bad things happen that's
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when I really want to do the next right thing
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that helped me through one of the hardest periods of my
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professional life I had started Politica was my baby it's emotional
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and you know like a lot of these startups it was a success
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and then there was turmoil and I felt like I had to leave
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and it's emotional and I could I would have said and done things that would come back to haunt me.
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And every minute of every day during that period,
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I thought, I'm going to do the next right thing.
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I'm not going to do things that are going to come back and hurt me or haunt me.
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And it helped me get there.
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Three, you control your reality.
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That might sound weird, but you do.
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What you read, what you watch,
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what you listen to, that forms your reality.
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Your podcasts, your YouTube channels,
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your newsletters, your friends, it's all a reality-shaping machine.
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The inputs affect your outputs.
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If you're inputting a lot of misery,
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a lot of doom and gloom,
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a lot of trivial stuff,
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you might be a doomy and gloomy kind of person and kind of trivial.
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But change that.
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If you control your reality,
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all you've got to do is realize,
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listen, There's more good, high-quality information available to everybody in this room than at any point in humanity.
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It's all free, and it's not even close.
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If there's something you're curious about,
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you can Google it or chat.
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If you want to know what Elon Musk thinks,
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or Mel Robbins would advise,
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or Taylor Swift feels, there's probably a podcast,
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or a video, or an interview with them.
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You can search that.
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You can change the inputs.
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You can put healthy, edifying content into your mind,
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have a better reality that you then share with other people.
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Four, you control how you're seen.
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This one might seem a little too absurdly self-indulgent,
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but it's actually a magic trick.
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You control how you're seen.
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When you're in a group setting,
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especially if it's tense or it's emotional,
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Think about how other people are experiencing you.
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The way I do it is I almost envision myself having this out-of-body experience,
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watching me through the eyes of others.
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Our own eyes deceive.
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Our own eyes lie.
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But if you look at how other people feel and experience you,
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then you know the impression that you're leaving,
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that you want to leave.
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And it really helps you,
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I think, be the person you want to be
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and have other people experience you as the person that you want to be.
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This technique helped me through what was probably the hardest period of my life,
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but the most wondrous period of my life.
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It was about seven years ago,
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and we adopted a teenage boy.
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And I had two teenagers already at home.
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And he had lost his parents.
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He was a rough part of his life.
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And he's a young guy doing what you do when you have a rough period of life.
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And I remember thinking, you know what?
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He's going to be watching me.
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My kids are going to be watching me.
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My wife's going to be watching me.
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If I show love, if I show forgiveness,
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if I show persistence, if I show grit,
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that's going to echo through how they experience what we're going through.
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And if I'm rattled or I'm pessimistic,
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it would have an opposite consequence.
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And that process, I really believe,
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had a very small part in turning my son into this amazing,
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thriving, grateful college athlete today.
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And I think that applies to all of us.
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The fifth thing that you control is you control your destiny.
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You control where you're going.
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One of the things I hate the most is
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when I run into people and they just feel like a bobber or a log on a river,
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and you just have to go with the current.
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It's not true.
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You get to control where you go.
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You can control if you want to go against the current,
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if you want to go upstream.
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That is fully in your control.
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And I want to end today with a writing assignment,
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not that you need to do right now,
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but maybe do it later today or later this week.
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I want you to imagine yourself on your deathbed, thinking about your life.
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And did you live a life that you were proud of?
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Did you live a life that you could feel,
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you know what, I did it my way.
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I did it the right way.
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And write down the three things that it would take for that answer to be,
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yes, that was it.
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I lived the life I wanted to live.
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Then write down the three things that it would take to do that between now and then,
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to actually achieve the life that you want to achieve.
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That's your North Star.
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That puts you ahead of 95% on Earth in terms of
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taking ownership of what you want to do with your own life.
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Man, I'm blessed.
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I grew up with, I had four grandparents who lived in my hometown.
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I have two parents who are still alive.
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I have an amazing wife,
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three wondrous children, and tons of really great friends
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and colleagues who've poured a lot of knowledge and a lot of love into my life.
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Richard Powers, in his book Bewilderment,
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says, maybe the purpose of life is about leaving little pieces of ourselves behind in others.
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And I hope today that I've left a little piece of what all those people poured into me with you,
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and that you can leave little pieces of yourself in many others.
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And you can do it because you control you.
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So get it done.

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Why practice speaking with this video?

Engaging with Jim VandeHei's TED talk, "5 Practical Ways to Take Control of Your Life," offers a rich context for English learners to enhance their speaking skills. The video encourages introspection and self-empowerment, making it a powerful resource for practicing conversational English. By focusing on personal experiences and choices, learners can improve their ability to articulate thoughts and feelings, which is essential for effective communication.

Using this video as a shadowing site, learners can mimic VandeHei’s delivery, enhancing their fluency and confidence in real-life conversations. The relatable themes of control and decision-making pave the way for deeper discussions, allowing learners to practice speaking in meaningful contexts. Whether preparing for the IELTS speaking practice or simply aiming to communicate more effectively, shadowing this video can bolster learner confidence and articulation.

Grammar & Expressions in Context

The video presents several important structures and expressions that are beneficial for English learners:

  • Imperatives: Phrases like "Do the next right thing" are direct commands that not only provide clarity but also emphasize personal agency. Using imperatives can help learners express strong suggestions or instructions.
  • Comparatives: VandeHei contrasts his past self with his present achievements (e.g., "a much less impressive version of you"). Understanding and using comparatives can enrich learners' descriptive skills.
  • Conditional Statements: VandeHei discusses choices and consequences, implicitly using conditional forms (e.g., "If they read a book..."). This structure is crucial for discussing hypothetical situations in everyday conversations.
  • Present Continuous Tense: Expressions like “I am walking you through” highlight ongoing actions, which are valuable in expressing current routines or activities.

Common Pronunciation Traps

As you practice your speaking skills, pay attention to a few tricky words and pronunciation nuances present in the video:

  • Acronyms: Terms like "AI" and "Tinder" can be pronounced differently based on regional accents. Make sure to practice these to enhance your clarity.
  • Contrast between "you" and "your": VandeHei emphasizes "you" when he speaks, which can be hard to distinguish in fast speech. This is essential for improving English pronunciation.
  • Intonation Patterns: Notice how VandeHei uses rising and falling intonations, particularly when posing rhetorical questions. Mimicking these patterns will help you sound more natural in conversations.

Incorporating the shadowing technique with this talk not only sharpens pronunciation but also boosts overall speaking proficiency, equipping learners with the skills they need in various social contexts.

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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