Shadowing Practice: A Reminder Before The Year Ends, - Learn English Speaking with Video
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382 sentences
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If your life was a movie and people were watching up to this point,
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what would the audience be screaming at the screen telling you to do with your life?
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The man who waits for a perfect shot will die with his bow still drawn.
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You get one chance, one opportunity, one shot at life.
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Every time you miss a meal, every time you skip the gym, that shit adds up.
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You have to do what you say you're going to.
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Make the sacrifices you committed to.
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You had the opportunity to wake up today.
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Don't waste it.
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Called me at 7 .36 p .m.
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I remember the number.
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Hey, Pop.
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Hey, what's up, Monkey Man?
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I was listening.
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Can I talk to you about something?
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Sure.
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I said, Dad, I don't want to go to law school anymore.
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I want to go to film school.
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I said, listen.
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I'm like, a little beat of sweat starts to go down the back of my neck.
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I'm like, here it comes.
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You want what?
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I thought he was gonna go into all this stuff about, like, my ass, you think I'm paying for that?
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You know, that could be a hobby, but that's not a drill job.
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I thought all this was coming.
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And after about a five -second pause, he goes, I hear this.
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Are you sure that's what you want to do?
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Yes, sir.
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Another long pause.
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Then I hear, well, don't half -ass it.
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And the way he said don't half -ass it was also, okay.
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Let's go, big boy.
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Own that shit.
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Take the next three months and donate that time to your future self.
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Commit to something that you're going to thank yourself for doing a year from today.
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Just accept the fact right now
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that the next 90 days of your life do not belong to the current version of yourself.
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It belongs to the future version of yourself.
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Because all it takes is three months of consistent action to set yourself up for a successful year.
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This time next year, you don't want to look back and say to yourself, damn, I wish I spent my time doing this.
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I wish I spent my time doing that.
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Instead, you're going to look back and you're going to say, thank God I spent the first 90 days of the year doing that.
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Because that got the ball rolling.
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That created the momentum to achieve everything that I've achieved this year.
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I'm now where I want to be because I spent the first 90 days building momentum.
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So how are you going to spend the next three months?
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Are you going to set yourself up for success?
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Or is it just going to be another year?
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Believing yourself more than you have ever believed in your entire life.
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You can be iconic.
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You are great you are one of one and to stay consistent even
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when the road looks rough
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and you cannot see the hole at the end of the tunnel
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because that's something
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that most people usually jump off the railroad for they can't see the outcome once it gets kind of blurry
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and it's foggy and the nose
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or like like I said my car got repossessed most people quit that's the point most people quit you
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You know what I hear?
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I hear the clock ticking.
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That's what I hear and the end is nigh and time waits for no man.
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And you young guns out there, 18 years old, 20 years old, 24 years old, listen.
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Life goes by and it goes by quick.
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don't waste those years don't waste them live them see your problem is
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that you keep rushing the process
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you ain't trying to be patient good things come to those who wait
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this ain't a sprint this is a marathon
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and the more you keep worrying about the future the more
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you gonna get lost in the prison you got to get up
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and just put one foot in front of the other branches have
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that blind faith but what I will say is
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that we don't know when it's happening
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but we know what's coming we ain't putting this work in for no reason
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so for that I say keep grinding and I believe in you.
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The reason that you are not as great as you could be is because you can't take pain.
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The reason that you are a aborted is because you get frustrated
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and disappointed with the slow pace of the fulfillment of your desire.
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So you abort the process and wonder why you're a bum on life's highway.
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The three -step process of how to win.
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Number one realize no one is coming to save you
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Number two take responsibility for your current position
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Number three be willing to sacrifice who you are for who you want to be you will never
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Accomplish or achieve anything that you want out of life if you're not willing to take the risk
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What is your worst case scenario?
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Do not be afraid to take risk.
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We don't have time
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There's not a lot of time and it does seem like we're gonna live forever, but we're not don't be afraid to take a risk
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Don't be the guy sitting home alone at whatever his age was at that point in your fucking apartment thinking,
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I could have done more than this.
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I could have been bigger than this.
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I could have been better than this.
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If you really want to be great at something, it definitely doesn't happen overnight.
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It's not going to happen in a year or two.
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And even if you're having a great season or you're having a career year, there's still so much more room to continue to improve.
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You know, it's still much more room for you to continue with the process of becoming great where it's sustainable.
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Hey, bro, look, good days, bad days, keep going.
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See look, me and you both know life is unpredictable.
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But the one thing that you should be able to predict is the fact
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that you're going to show up the next day.
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You should be able to count on yourself and know that when in doubt, you got you.
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Keep it going, bruh.
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I believe in you.
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Someone said to me the reason you want it so badly is
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because the version of you in the future already has it.
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Someone also said to me God would never put anything in your head he didn't think you could achieve.
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all those beliefs you have all those thoughts you have of the dreams you could achieve
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they're there for a reason it's not just a thought it's a reality of the future
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and it's your duty to single -handedly take the steps to get there the question is are you willing to
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because it's there it's real
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and it's happening what are you going to do about it it's just hard
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when you're growing when you're when you're not where you want to be in life
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and If you're listening to this and you're just not satisfied with your position in life, it's hard to think that way.
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All you want is that thing.
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But you've got to somewhere along the line figure out how to enjoy yourself.
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Somewhere along the line figure out how to just go as hard as you can, but also enjoy it.
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Try to enjoy it because that changes the whole tone of the experience.
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And I think that makes you more successful.
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I really do because I think you have more energy you have more focus
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and you collect better energy around you from other people
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They they feel your energy
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They they they they're inspired by the way you live your life and how you treat people and what you do
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And how you do things and they want to do a similar thing
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They want to do something that makes them feel that way and they want other people to feel that way as well
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And it's got the butterfly effect
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It just goes through all the people that are around.
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But the truth is, I'm really in pursuit of greatness.
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I know people don't usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats.
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I'm inspired by the greats.
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One day, my time will come.
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Dreams are something you have to believe in.
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I almost gave up on mine.
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To all of you out there, please keep your dreams alive stop trying to control everything
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and just let go let go stop living your life like you can do it again quit man
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I'm telling you guys how you gonna knock somebody in the world for actually trying to do something trying since
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when has it become not cool to try two forms of pain pain
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that breaks you and the pain
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that changes you that's the pain of a change right there that's a pain of progress the pain
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that destroys you isn't this it's later in life knowing you could have been more
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and all that's left is you and the fear and tears of a possibility left that you allow to die
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own your life guys some of the most successful people in
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the world are the ones who've had the most failures michael jordan was cut from his high school basketball team
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he lost hundreds of games and misses thousands of shots during his career
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when you're suffering you give up on the very things
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that you wanted the most
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when i was going through pararescue i wanted to be a pararescue man
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so bad but that water haunted me so when the suffering got too much my dream died
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and pretty much i almost died with it can you negotiate with your body to find more strength
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but don't you give up on me brock you keep going
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you hear me you keep going you're doing good
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you keep going do not quit on me you keep going
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i know it hurts you keep going you keep going
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it's all art from here there is a period in everybody's journey where they are
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so different because they've started to do new things that they no longer fit in with their old set of friends
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but they're not sufficiently developed that they've gained their new set of friends
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and they're unsure should i go back should i lean back
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into getting a bag in with the boys on a weekend is
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that the highest you know way that I can live my life passion forward
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because that's what everybody else does and
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that lonely chapter that's in the middle is something
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that I would say almost nobody
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that I've ever met who has gone from a place where
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they are to a place where they want to be hasn't gone through don't rely on social media put
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it down turn it off shut up be quiet learn, read, relax, get better.
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Part of your life you learn, second part of your life you earn, third part of your life you return.
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Today I'm no longer being a loser.
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Today I'm going to change my path.
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I'm going to get on the path of success.
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I don't care how long that road is.
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I'm going to see it through no matter what.
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Because you know what?
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I've been living enough years in this hole and I don't want to be here anymore.
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I'm not happy with this.
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I'm tired of making excuses.
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I'm tired of going through the same search of emotion as shit.
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Set up a schedule and just do the work.
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You wake up one day you feel this way, you wake up the next day you feel another way
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and it's just not helpful to base your structure or your goal on how you feel.
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You stick to what you put there on paper.
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Every morning, every day of our lives we have choices to make.
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You have the choice to stay in bed, to say, forget it, I'm not going to work out today,
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or forget it, I'm not going to work hard today.
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You always have a choice every single day of your life.
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So it's a very different video because yesterday I made the choice to get up early and run, but today's another day.
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Today's another day that I'm faced with another choice to make.
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So I'm making a choice again to put my shoes on early in the morning and get after it again.
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So, make the right decision.
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Why not believe in it?
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What's the other option?
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There is no other option.
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It's a life forgotten, man.
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In the acting world, if I go to the audition, I have a chance of getting a part.
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If I don't go to the audition, I'm out of the game.
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I know the outcome.
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Nothing.
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Show up.
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Even if you get knocked on your ass, show up.
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At least you have a possibility, you have a chance, you have a voice of doing something with your life.
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No matter how big your dreams, you're gonna die.
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Everyone will move on.
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Do what you want.
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It sucks to not be liked, but it sucks more to not be yourself.
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If you just sacrificed this summer, these next three months of your life,
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you could change the entire trajectory of your entire life.
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Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship.
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You have to let it all go, Neil.
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Fear, doubt, and disbelief.
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Free your mind.
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You see, the underdog story is the realest story there is.
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Because when you come from nothing, you appreciate everything.
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You hustle different, you love different, and you lead different.
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No matter how bad it is going to be.
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When there is a challenge.
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And by a challenge I mean anything in life.
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Any challenge.
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Anything that you're facing.
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The only way to overcome the challenges that you face. Is to start walking.
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Take that step.
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If you aren't naturally tired at night and excited in the morning, then you probably haven't found something meaningful to work on.
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You are not stressed from doing too much.
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You are stressed from doing too little of what you care about.
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I say be happy with what you got.
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You be happy.
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Me are one what's coming to me.
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What's coming to you?
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The world, Chico. and everything in it.
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He said, I want what all other men want.
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He said, I guarantee you when I line up and they line up, I want what all other men want.
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I guarantee you when you line up in your one -on -one battles, you want what all other men want.
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The same way you want the victory, they want the victory.
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I want what all other men want.
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He said, but when the pressure hits, when the opposition hits, when the challenge hits, when the pain creeps in, when the uncertainty creeps in,
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when the cuts, when the scars, when the bruises come.
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I want what all other men want.
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He said when the opposition and adversity shows up I just want a little bit more than they wanted.
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And so that's how I conquer and that's how nobody has ever beaten me yet.
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I just want one thing from you.
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As great as you are, as skilled as you are, as talented as you are, I just want one thing from you.
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Never allow life to make you forget why you do what you do.
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People don't burn out, people don't quit, people don't underachieve, people don't settle because of what they do.
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People burn out, people quit, people underachieve, and people settle because life makes them forget why they do it.
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Stay humble.
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Never forget where you came from.
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Stay hungry.
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Keep that fire in your soul.
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And stay true.
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Always be real with yourself and the world.
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Because the world don't need no more copies.
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It need originals.
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And trust me, ain't nobody else who can do what you do like you do.
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Let him.
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You're a man.
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You are a man.
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Let him.
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All right?
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Don't let them.
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You're a man.
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You are a man.
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Stand up and be a man.
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Make the hard decisions.
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Make the sacrifices.
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Make the unpopular decisions.
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And become comfortable in your own skin.
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And if you are not a person that you are comfortable being alone with,
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that is the one person in this universe that you have full power, full right, and full responsibility to change.
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Okay?
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I don't have the right, I don't have the desire to,
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and I do not have the right to try to change my wife's personality and who she is.
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I don't have the right to change anybody except myself.
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Now there's people out there I don't like and if I don't like them I just walk away.
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I'm 55 years old.
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I've done without that person my whole dang life.
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I don't need them now.
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And I don't have the right or the desire to try to change them.
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But if I don't like me, if I don't like...
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If you can barely decide to take any action at all
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and peel your eyes away from your phone for just a moment,
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it's so much easier to beat everyone else because in a world where it's never been easier to do nothing.
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Doing something becomes extraordinary.
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Be the now of what you want to be later.
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Everyone's like, oh, later in life, I want to do this.
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Later in life, I want to do that.
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Later in life is turning around, looking in the mirror right now.
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That's later in life.
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Unless that turnaround is something in progression, later in life ain't going to be anything different.
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I'm comfortable falling short of big goals.
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And I would rather fall short of a big goal
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and consider myself a failure than lower the goals to the level
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which I can accomplish all of them just so I can feel like I'm a success.
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It's less about the goal setting and it's more about the mindset of being okay being the failure.
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Because what it does is it frees you to imagine bigger,
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take risks like you never imagined you could before because failure is not the thing you're afraid of.
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You got 24 hours in a day.
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Eight hours you sleep.
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And most people work at 9 to 5.
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So eight hours you work.
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Okay, so we had 16 hours.
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We got breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So we had 19.
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Take you an hour to get ready.
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So we had 20 hours.
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So you guys cannot spend four hours going to my arm.
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Hey, Lion.
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Oh, I like this odor.
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Oh, they fake it sending photos to other people.
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Y 'all got to get focused.
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I'm where I'm at because I'm focused.
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Some of you just don't understand.
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Some of you have been average for so damn long.
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You don't know what it is to do hard work.
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There's a lot of you out there who want to be much more than average
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but just don't know how to do it every single day, the grind.
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You need to find someone to oil those gears up.
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So check it out.
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But there's a mother out there who wants what you have who wants the position
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you are who wants the job you have who wants the wife
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that you have or the husband there's someone out there hungry
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and wants everything you have you gotta work your time is gonna happen you're here for a reason um
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but you gotta be ready because
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if you're not it's on you you get out of high school you don't know what to do
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and then you start playing video games
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and you're on social media a day can slip by like that yeah A day becomes a week, becomes a month, becomes a year,
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and before you know it, you're 30.
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Yeah, right.
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And you haven't done shit.
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Yeah.
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And that's really common.
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One thing that I've discovered is the black sheep of the family always, if they keep getting back up again, turns out to be the goat.
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Stop taking constructive criticism from people that have never constructed anything that you've walked through.
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There's no excuse not to be the hardest motherfucker worker in the room.
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In all your endeavors, schoolwork, the gym, your career, your relationship.
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Your name's attached to it.
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It's got to mean more than anything.
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Lock in.
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Believe in what you believe in.
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Nobody else matters.
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You have to hold yourself accountable.
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You have to hold yourself to your truth.
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You have to hold yourself to your beliefs.
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And always believe in the power of the man above.
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Because nobody in the history of life has been able to do it by themselves.
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Amen.
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Nobody.
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Hustle, hustle, hustle.
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Sleep was sin in my household.
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If it was daylight, you couldn't be inside.
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Mom would always say, why are you going to watch someone doing something
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when you can go out in the world and do it yourself?
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Turn that damn thing off.
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Get outside.
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Had to be outside.
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Get out in the world.
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Go hustle.
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Figure it out.
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Be home at dark.
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I don't want luck in the equation because I don't need it.
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You start seeing terms like that.
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Man, you're someone that believes it.
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You got confidence.
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I don't give a shit what the endeavor is.
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You're gonna find a way to do it.
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That's the differential right there.
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That's the confidence that no matter what's in front of you, the never -say -die attitude.
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When they hit rock bottom, hit the bottom of the barrel, they got nothing left.
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Everyone's giving up on them.
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They've lost all their worldly possessions.
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They're dead broken on their back.
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It's at that point, guys, when everything's lost, that everything can be gained.
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There's no more ego there, is there?
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They let go of, you know, what if I fail?
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What if it doesn't work?
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What if I don't like?
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What if this person rejects me? the animosity, the pressures of society, they let it all go because they've lost it all.
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They're just now left with the intestinal fortitude, the pride within.
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Do I want to stay on the bottom of this barrel
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or do I want to climb the fuck out of this hole?
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And that is a spark of what it turns out to be their greatest moment, their greatest hour.
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We can live that way, guys.
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Imagine the life you can live when you let go of the thought of failure.
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When the fear doesn't resonate inside of you to paralyze yourself in a self -paralleled state.
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When that's gone, the freedom.
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When you judge yourself on your own measure, you're not worried about other people's opinions.
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Because when you don't worry about anyone else, and you're just worried about what's in here saying, the pride of confidence, funny,
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all this is taken care of too.
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With one comes the other in a positive way.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “A Reminder Before The Year Ends,”. This video has 382 sentences and 3862 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:29. The speaker talks fast, about 180 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 90% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| hustle verb | /ˈhʌsəl/ | To push someone roughly; to crowd; to jostle. |
| sacrifice noun | /ˈsæk.ɹɪ.faɪs/ | Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity. |
| consistent adjective | /kənˈsɪs.tənt/ | Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| hungry adjective | /ˈhʌŋ.ɡɹi/ | Affected by hunger; having the physical need for food. |
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| guarantee noun | /ˌɡæɹ.ənˈtiː/ | Anything that assures a certain outcome. |
| suck verb | /sʌk/ | To use the mouth and lips to pull in (a liquid, especially milk from the breast). |
| belong verb | /bɪˈlɒŋ/ | To have its proper place. |
| settle verb | /ˈsɛtəl/ | To determine (something which was exposed to doubt or question); to resolve conclusively; to set or fix (a time, an order of succession, etc). |
| knock verb | /nɑk/ | To rap one's knuckles against something, especially wood. |
| outcome noun | /ˈaʊtkʌm/ | That which is produced or occurs as a result of an event or process. |
| commit verb | /kəˈmɪt/ | To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto. |
| barrel noun | /ˈbæɹəl/ | A round (cylindrical) vessel, such as a cask, of greater length than breadth, and bulging in the middle, made of staves bound with hoops, and having flat ends… |
| momentum noun | /ˌmə(ʊ)ˈmɛntəm/ | Of a body in motion: the tendency of a body to maintain its inertial motion; the product of its mass and velocity, or the vector sum of the products of its… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| burn out verb | To destroy by fire. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| get up verb | To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb. | |
| line up verb | /laɪnˈʌp/ | To align; to put in alignment; to put in correct adjustment for smooth running. |
| look back verb | To think of (past events) in retrospect (in hindsight). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Can I talk to you about something?
- Are you sure that's what you want to do?
- Are you going to set yourself up for success?
- You know what I hear?
- What if I don't like?
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 | I've achieved · have ever believed · has it become |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was cut · be liked · can be gained |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | man who waits · those who wait |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 141 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/, audition /ɑˈdɪʃən/, rush /ɹʌʃ/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, possession /pəˈzɛʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: momentum /ˌmə(ʊ)ˈmɛntəm/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, disappointed /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, sustainable /səˈsteɪnəbəl/
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 hustle, sacrifice, consistent.
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.