Shadowing Practice: a warning for high achievers - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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I did everything right.
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I tried every single sport until I found one that stuck.
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I grinded through my entire four years of high school so that I could get into a good college.
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I did a competitive internship in New York City.
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I posted every single week on YouTube for five years until I built a community of hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
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I did everything.
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I tried my absolute hardest.
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And it still wasn't enough to get me the success that I wanted.
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Because somehow, no matter how hard I try, I'll always feel like I'm falling behind.
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Like I'm failing.
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Does that sound like you?
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Because if so, then you're just like me.
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Someone who stacks up their external life achievements just to feel like they're enough.
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Someone who gives their 110%.
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Someone who, theoretically, should feel like enough.
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I've spent my entire life up until now putting one foot in front of the other, running as fast as I can towards the finish line without bothering to look up.
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And I wake up most mornings feeling like a lazy, worthless potato.
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Not even in a self -deprecating way, but in a genuine structural way.
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Like there is some internal meter that never moves and leaves me perpetually behind.
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And for a long time I thought that I was the problem.
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That there was something deeply wrong with me.
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Why was I never satisfied?
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Why was I always jealous of other people's achievements?
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yet unimpressed by my own.
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Why couldn't I for once just be satisfied?
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What I didn't know then
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and what I'm about to break down for you in this video is
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that this wasn't about me or about you or about any one of us individually.
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The chronic disappointment in ourselves isn't a character flaw.
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It's a design feature.
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We aren't failing the system.
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The system is working as intended.
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It's just working against us.
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We are all raised on the same story.
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Work hard, be smart, make the right choices, and the world will reward you.
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So as long as you do things right, follow the rules, and put of your effort into everything, there is no way that you won't succeed.
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And if you don't succeed, well that means that you didn't try your hardest.
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It also means that you're essentially a failure.
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The word meritocracy first appeared in print in 1956 in an article by British sociologist Alan Fox.
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Fox was trying to put a name to something he was observing in modern society.
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A new way of ranking people.
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One that was quietly replacing the old aristocratic ways of birth and class with something that felt more fair on the surface.
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A combination of ability, intelligence, and effort.
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Two years years later, British sociologist and politician Michael Young brought the term meritocracy to mainstream consciousness with his satirical dystopian novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy,
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written explicitly in the mold of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984.
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Young imagined a nightmare future society ruled by an educated, entitled elite who believed with complete sincerity that they deserved all of their power.
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The new hierarchy wasn't built on bloodlines or inheritance, it was built on IQ tests, on exam results and school credentials.
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Sound familiar?
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The new hierarchy It looked fair.
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Even now it probably sounds fair to you.
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Does it not?
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And that's precisely what makes it so cool.
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When the system seems fair, you can no longer point to the system for failure.
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You can only point to yourself.
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If you were curious, the book actually ends in revolt.
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The narrator, a true believer in the merit of meritocracy, is killed in the social unrest that he denied.
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Young delivers the news in a single dry footnote.
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Since the author of this essay was himself killed at Peterloo, the publishers regret that they were not able to submit to him the proofs of his manuscript.
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Young was giving us a warning about meritocracy.
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And what do we do with that warning?
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Oh, oh yeah, we turn it into the blueprint.
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Meritocracy is the foundational myth of our free, democracy -based society.
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The idea that everyone begins at the same starting line.
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And how far you get from there, your position in the race of life is determined by only one thing: your merit, how hard you work.
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It's the myth that success is earned, not inherited.
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That the playing field, while not perfectly level, is level enough to consider effort the first and primary variable.
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the right hustle and the right place and the right time, would get you to something called success.
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What we forgot though was what success actually looked like once you got there.
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We never asked when we could stop and be satisfied.
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There is a particular texture, a sour taste to being a high achiever in today's world.
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Someone your age has probably done extraordinary things.
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Things you can only ever dream of doing.
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Things you know that in this lifetime you could probably never do.
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And while that kind of makes you feel inspired, it mainly just makes you feel like shit.
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Like when measured against someone else's extraordinary things, your extraordinary things are pretty ordinary.
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Someone in the room has done it better, earlier, and with more credentials than you have.
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And with social media, it has never been easier to fact check that.
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Merit has become equivalent to our worth.
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And when merit becomes equivalent to worth, things get scary.
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Michael Sandel, a philosopher, professor at Harvard, and author of The Tyranny of Merit, can help us out with this.
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His core argument is this.
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Meritocracy becomes tyrannical when it stops being something like a hiring principle
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and starts looking more like a cosmic verdict on your worth as a person.
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winners and losers.
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We tell the losers that they deserved to lose.
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That their failure isn't a temporary outcome, it's a permanent character flaw.
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And that produces something genuinely terrifying.
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The hubris of the winners and the humiliation of the losers creates a trap of believing
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that every failure and success is a reflection of who you are, rather than any external circumstances.
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Every metric that isn't actively growing is proof that you're not working hard enough, you're not smart enough, you're just not enough.
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Sandell calls this the tyranny of merit.
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And the worst part is that it never goes away.
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When you're failing, it's there to remind you that this is all your fault.
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And when you're succeeding, it makes you feel like you haven't actually arrived at success.
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It creates a deep fear of failure because at any time, your entire worth could be stripped from you.
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And you'll just become one of the losers.
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Let's take a quick step backwards.
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Why was this system created in the first place?
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How did we get here?
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Here is where we're gonna get deep in the political theory.
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Don't worry, I've written down all my notes.
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They're all here on Notability.
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Shout out Notability, by the way.
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This app genuinely saved my life this past semester, guys.
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I would not be here without it.
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Being able to handwrite all of my notes
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and have them automatically converted to text and be searchable is such a game changer.
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Also, the most amazing annotation and summarization capabilities for literally any PDF in the universe.
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And it came especially in clutch for this video where I'm pulling from not one, not two, not three, but four different PDFs.
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Four different books, girls.
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I did my research.
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most shocking and uncomfortable thing I've read in a long time and by far the most inspiring.
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His argument is that liberalism didn't fail.
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It wasn't implemented badly.
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Actually, it was implemented successfully.
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And this is what its success looks like.
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Okay, quick clarification before we go any further.
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When I say liberalism, I don't mean left -wing politics.
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Danine and I, yes my good friend Danine, mean something much older.
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The entire philosophical tradition going back hundreds of years that defines freedom as the absence of constraint on the
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AKA the right to pursue your own dreams, your desires, your own definition of the good life.
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It is the giant communal pool that both the left and the right, all of America, swims in.
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Dineen argues that when you build an entire civilization around the individual, around the idea that you should be free to do whatever you want, unbeholden to anyone, you don't actually get people who are free.
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Instead, you get isolated people.
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People with access to every right in the world and no idea what to do with all of it.
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a good life look like?
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The local community, your family, the traditions passed down through generations.
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When you take all of those preconceived notions away, you're liberating people from those constraints, but you're simultaneously locking them into a new kind of confinement.
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What does a good life actually look like?
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How do I know?
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What am I supposed to be working towards?
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And in this lostness and confusion, the only guiding light is the market.
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It provides a clean and simple answer to all of these questions.
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What does a good life actually look like?
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It looks like getting more.
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It looks like getting better.
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It looks like getting better than the people around you you always always wanting more
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because now success is something
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that you can buy as long as you have the money
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to pay the price of course nothing's for free in the meritocracy but what
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if you don't want to just buy your success you want something more satisfactory more nourishing where do we find that?
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We don't have an answer.
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So what we're running towards isn't success.
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We're just running towards a direction.
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Maybe the direction of money or status.
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But those directions don't have finish lines.
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We have been running for so long in those directions that we've forgotten where we're even going.
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Okay.
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Pause.
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So what does this mean for us now?
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You might be thinking to yourself, Deneen, Sandell, and Young are just really well -credentialed Debbie Downers who are telling me the game is rigged
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and that I should stop playing.
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Is that it?
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Does this mean that I should just not try at all in life?
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That we should all fight against the system and become unemployed chuds?
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Let me be clear, that is not what I'm trying to say.
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Don't use this as an excuse to just become an unemployed chud.
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Unless you really want to, then it's your free will.
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I'm also not saying that we need to tear all of society down right now
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and restructure it from the top to the bottom.
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What I am saying is this.
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The way that we think about and internalize success needs to change.
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Eventually we'll get to out there, but let's start with In Here.
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Dineen actually provides a super useful framework in his book Regime Change.
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He calls it bottom -up localism.
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The importance of rebuilding what he calls thick communities.
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Tightly knit, local -rooted networks of people who know each other, show up for each other, and define each other by something other than just what they've achieved on paper.
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The kind of community that meritocracy quietly destroys.
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Because when the goal is to constantly get somewhere better, you never invest in the place that you currently are.
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Think neighborhoods, local volunteer groups, recreational clubs, close family networks, long -time friendships, being present in the communities that are literally around you.
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We can't keep sacrificing the now for the later." Deneen calls this the "Tocqueville option" named after Alexei de Tocqueville,
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the 19th century French thinker who observed that what made American democracy actually work wasn't the federal government.
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It was ordinary citizens showing up for their community, their neighbors, their family.
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Deneen argues that because of meritocracy we've lost that, but we can get it back.
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However, getting it back requires effort.
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In the meritocracy way.
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It requires showing up consistently, giving support selflessly, and being present with the people and places that you already claim as yours.
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Having a community and a support network that sees you as a person rather than a portfolio, produces something that meritocracy cannot prevent: the feeling of unconditional worth.
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The people who love you are completely immune to the metrics.
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They love you regardless of if you're succeeding or failing, regardless of whether you think you're enough.
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They love you just because, and they won't stop.
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So lean into them.
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And I mean actually lean in.
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Respond to your texts, make those plans, actually show up to those plans, don't bail.
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Do the volunteer work, sign up for that club, invest in the neighborhood where you live.
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As a way of reminding yourself that you exist outside of your output.
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The community piece is only half of it
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because you can have all of that publicly
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and still be suffering privately beyond
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and before showing care to others You have to learn how to show care to yourself loving yourself wholeheartedly
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and unconditionally is the greatest achievement It is the biggest Success of life
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and we should all be actively working towards it every single day
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because at the end of the day the only person who will be spending each
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and Every moment of your life with you every high
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and low every win and loss every failure
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and every success is you I'm saying that when you fail
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and you will we all will it's inevitable in the way
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that we talk to ourselves when it's two in the Morning
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and we feel like we're not doing enough in the jealousy
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that we feel towards others when they succeed at something in the way that we
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We're told that the antidote to all of this is just working harder, achieving more, being smarter, but it's none of those.
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It's learning to actually be on your own side, to dispel thoughts that don't serve you, to do away with needless comparison because not everyone needs to be an Olympian, okay?
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Learn to be as patient with yourself as you would be with someone that you love, to look at your own life and tell yourself that you can work with this, that you are enough.
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Not because you've earned it, not because you've done everything right, just because you are.
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that with every fiber of your being and you act upon that, you are going to be able to achieve anything you want.
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And if you do fail, you will never be too scared to get up and try again, because you know that you're already enough.
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Okay, everyone, that's all that I got today.
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Thank you so much for staying until the end.
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If you enjoyed this video essay, please give it a like and subscribe and stick around.
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Let me know what topics you want to see me talk about next.
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I love you all so, so, so much.
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See you in the next one.
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Bye bye!
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Bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “a warning for high achievers”. This video has 214 sentences and 2520 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:17. The speaker talks fast, about 205 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| meritocracy noun | /mɛɹəˈtɑkɹəsi/ | Rule by merit and talent. |
| merit noun | /ˈmɛɹɪt/ | A claim to commendation or a reward. |
| loser noun | /luzɚ/ | A person who loses; one who fails to win or thrive. |
| credential noun | /kɹɪˈdɛnʃəl/ | documentary or electronic evidence that a person has certain status or privileges |
| satisfy verb | /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/ | To be enough (for) |
| constraint noun | /kənˈstɹeɪnt/ | Something that constrains; a restriction. |
| sociologist noun | A scientist studying the field of sociology; a social scientist. | |
| liberalism noun | /ˈlɪ.b(ə.)ɹə.lɪz.əm/ | The quality of being liberal. |
| tyranny noun | /ˈtɪəɹəni/ | A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power, or this system of government; especially, one that acts cruelly and unjustly. |
| flaw noun | /flɔ/ | A crack or breach, a gap or fissure; a defect of continuity or cohesion. |
| hierarchy noun | /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/ | A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks. |
| metric adjective | /ˈmɛt.ɹɪk/ | Of or relating to the metric system of measurement. |
| unemployed adjective | /ˌʌnɪmˈplɔɪd/ | Having no job despite being able and willing to work. |
| observe verb | /əbˈzɜːv/ | To notice or view, especially carefully or with attention to detail. |
| myth noun | /mɪθ/ | A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| do away with verb | To abolish; to put an end to; to eliminate. | |
| fall behind verb | To be late (for a regular event) | |
| get up verb | To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb. | |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| look up verb | /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ | To have better prospects. |
| pass down verb | To hand over, pass through or transfer to a lower level, next generation, etc. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Does that sound like you?
- Why was I never satisfied?
- Why was I always jealous of other people's achievements?
- Why couldn't I for once just be satisfied?
- How did we get here?
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 spent · has probably done · has done |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be satisfied · wasn't built · is killed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Someone who stacks · Someone who gives · people who are |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 67 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: myth /mɪθ/, worthless /ˈwɜːθ.ləs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: credential /kɹɪˈdɛnʃəl/, annotation /ˌæn.əˈteɪ.ʃən/, foundational /faʊnˈdeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, nourish /ˈnʌɹ.ɪʃ/, clarification /ˌklæɹɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: meritocracy /mɛɹəˈtɑkɹəsi/, liberalism /ˈlɪ.b(ə.)ɹə.lɪz.əm/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, annotation /ˌæn.əˈteɪ.ʃən/, aristocratic /ˌæɹɪstəˈkɹætɪk/
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 meritocracy, merit, loser.
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.