Shadowing Practice: Big Egos vs. Strong Egos: How To Spot A Weak One - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What's the difference between a big ego and a strong one?

That's what I'm talking about today.

I'm Dr. Tracy Marks, a psychiatrist, and I make mental health education videos.

The concept of the ego comes from psychoanalytic theory in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the mind.

With this model, the mind is divided into three structures, the id, the ego, and the superego.

The id is like your lizard brain.

It represents your instinctual drives, including sexual and aggressive urges.

These drives are unconscious and beyond your awareness.

On the other end of the spectrum is the superego.

Your superego represents your values and moral principles.

It's like your sense of right and wrong.

Your superego is completely conscious, and some people even equate it to your conscience.

So you have your id part of your mind that wants to run loose and do whatever it feels like doing,

and your superego that makes the judgments about whether what you really wanna do or think is acceptable.

The moderator between these two structures is your ego.

It does all the heavy lifting when it comes to making decisions and processing information that you get from your external world.

It interprets that information and takes action.

The stronger your ego, the more adaptive you are.

Your ego develops in the first three years of your life.

Your view of the world is formed by your early interactions.

You form a vibrant, healthy view of the world and yourself if you have early relationships that affirm you with acceptance, empathy, and validation.

These experiences don't come only from your mother.

A baby can feel affirmed by a doting babysitter.

Similarly, negative experiences in this stage of your life can chip away at your ego strength,

but the net result is the sum total of your experiences.

So one bad day stuck in a baby bouncer and ignored doesn't destroy your ego.

It's the general experience that you have with the people that you spend a lot of time with.

So you can think of your ego as your I or yourself because it's who you are at your core.

But the term has morphed into meaning having an overblown view of yourself and something negative that you need to leave behind,

like leave your ego at the door.

That meaning is what people think of as having a big ego, but a big ego is not strong.

It results from overcompensating to manage a weak ego.

Your ego strength is how well your mind is able to fulfill the normal ego functions

that help you self -regulate and adapt to prosperity, adversity, and change.

And here are some of the functions of the ego.

Abstract thinking, perception, and reality testing.

And this is knowing when what you think is logical and fits with reality.

Censorship, which is being able to determine when a thought or urge is appropriate.

Social judgment, affect tolerance.

This is how much you're able to tolerate strong emotions.

Impulse control, defense mechanisms for coping and internal conflict resolution.

If you have a strong ego, you have self -confidence, high frustration tolerance,

you can postpone gratification, you can compromise and forego your own desires

and wishes for the greater good when necessary and this is a measure of impulse control,

and you can resolve internal conflicts before they cause problems for you.

Here's an example of a conflict resolution issue.

Suppose you have trouble committing to things because you don't wanna make the wrong decision.

And this is an internal conflict that can manifest in any scenario of making daily decisions.

In this case, it affects your relationships.

You meet someone that you're attracted to and you start dating,

but you're hesitant to become exclusive because you fear you're gonna miss out on someone better.

A way to resolve this conflict is to accept

that you can't control the unknown and there's always the possibility of finding someone that you think is better.

They may be better in some ways, but not in others.

So you reason to yourself that you'll never know how good

or bad this person is going to be until you give it a full try.

If it feels like it's a good fit for you,

you remind yourself that no one is perfect and you could spend an eternity looking for someone better.

If you resolve the conflict, you agree to having a committed relationship and see where it takes you.

But if you get stuck on the conflict and don't resolve it, you push the person away, continue to have shallow relationships that don't lead anywhere,

and end up unhappy because you can't seem to find the right person.

Here are some signs of a weak ego.

Being impulsive and needing immediate gratification.

Emotional instability in the form of outbursts and explosions.

You may apologize for the explosions and wish you didn't do them, but you keep doing them because you don't have the control.

Feeling inferior and then needing to exert superiority over others in order to elevate yourself.

An example of this is needing to see other people lose to feel a win for yourself.

Another sign of a weak ego is having distorted reality perceptions.

This may manifest as intense paranoia, always feeling someone has ill intentions.

Another sign is having a fragile sense of self.

You need others to define who you are, what you believe, and what you should do.

You're dependent, but you don't wanna be.

You look to others for direction, but then resent them for controlling you and making you feel like a child.

A last sign that I'll mention is using primitive defenses.

I talk about defense mechanisms in this video.

Ego weakness doesn't have to be all of these things.

It can affect certain aspects of your personality.

How do you strengthen your ego?

Here are two ways.

First, engage in activities that increase your insight like therapy or journaling.

There are many ways to journal and some types are gratitude journaling, developing affirming self -talk, or writing out daily observations for self -reflection.

Writing these thoughts out rather than just thinking about them makes them more concrete and helps you consider other points of view.

Opening your mind to other points of view of a situation increases your psychological flexibility.

A second suggestion is to engage in self -care activities such as setting limits with people.

Say no to activities and requests that don't serve you even if it's something that someone else wants.

Eliminate negative people and situations from your life.

Take care of your body with proper rest, exercise, and diet.

Make time to be intentional in these areas.

For example, make having a regular bedtime a priority.

You don't wanna fall asleep only when everything is finished or when you feel tired, because if you stay up working on something,

you may not feel tired at your ideal bedtime, and your body will allow

you to stay awake for as long as it can until it gives up on you

and turns the lights out for you.

But that time may not be until 2 a .m.

instead of 10 p .m.

In your mind, you can think, I wasn't sleepy at 10, but you could have fallen asleep had you prepared for it and gotten in bed.

But since you were up, your mind and body allowed you to keep going.

And it's easy for busy people to sacrifice sleep in order to get things done.

But all that does is subtract from your capacity to self -regulate and adapt.

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A third approach to strengthening your ego is to recognize if you use primitive defenses and change them to more mature ones.

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Watch this video on defense mechanisms and this one on psychological flexibility.

102

Thanks for watching.

103

See you next time.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Big Egos vs. Strong Egos: How To Spot A Weak One”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: ego, conflict, self, superego, defense. This video has 103 sentences and 1311 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:31. The speaker talks at a natural 175 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% 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

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
resolve verb	/ɹɪˈzɑlv/	To find a solution to (a problem).
mechanism noun	/ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/	Any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or control of power.
asleep adjective	/əˈsliːp/	In a state of sleep; also, broadly, resting.
engage verb	/ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/	To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied.
commit verb	/kəˈmɪt/	To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto.
judgment noun	/ˈd͡ʒʌd͡ʒ.mənt/	The act of judging.
psychological adjective	/ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/	Of or pertaining to psychology.
explosion noun	/ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/	A violent release of energy (sometimes mechanical, nuclear, or chemical); an act or instance of exploding.
perception noun	/pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/	The organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information.
urge verb	/ɜːd͡ʒ/	To press; to push; to drive; to impel; to force onward.
tolerance noun	/ˈtɑ.lə.ɹəns/	The ability or practice of tolerating; an acceptance of or patience with the beliefs, opinions or practices of others; a lack of bigotry.
strengthen verb	/ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/	To make strong or stronger; to add strength to; to increase the strength of; to fortify.
flexibility noun	/ˌflɛksɪˈbɪlɪti/	The quality of being flexible, whether physically or metaphorically.
adapt verb	/əˈdæpt/	To make suitable; to make to correspond; to fit or suit.
regulate verb	/ˈɹɛɡ.jə.leɪt/	To dictate policy.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
end up verb	To bring to a conclusion.
leave behind verb	To abandon.
stay up verb	To remain awake; to not go to bed.
write out verb	To write at full length or in expanded form.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

That's what I'm talking about today.
It's like your sense of right and wrong.
These experiences don't come only from your mother.
You're dependent, but you don't wanna be.
How do you strengthen your ego?

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 28 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, wanna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: strengthen /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/, empathy /ˈɛmpəθi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: explosion /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/, perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, interaction /ˌɪn.təˈɹæk.ʃən/, suggestion /səˈd͡ʒɛst.ʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, psychological /ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/, flexibility /ˌflɛksɪˈbɪlɪti/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/, similarly /ˈsɪm.ə.lə.li/

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 resolve, mechanism, asleep.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Big Egos vs. Strong Egos: How To Spot A Weak One - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?