Shadowing Practice: Brutally Honest Advice About Social Media in 7 mins - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You're insecure.
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You don't like the feeling of having 313 followers when someone in your office has 50 000.
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Social media doesn't work for you because you're not taking it serious for a million reasons.
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It's free.
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Yes, you can run ads, but everyone here knows you can post content.
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It's free.
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People see it.
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I'm like, ChatGPT is better than you.
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My friends, this is happening.
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You're not in middle school anymore.
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We are now in code red.
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Anybody that is not making content every day on social media is disappearing.
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Whether you like it or not.
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Now, I don't need you to make video.
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I understand that a lot of people are insecure about making video.
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Not everyone can be so dramatically smart, handsome, and charismatic. Though...
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For everyone here who is scared to post videos.
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I'd like to just say one little side thing before I move on.
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You're not in middle school anymore.
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JohnnyPants49 coming on your post saying you're ugly should not stop you from selling houses.
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I understand you.
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I know that you should all be posting on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Snapchat.
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LinkedIn is a monster.
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This is extremely important.
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Here's why, I have spent, like I just told you, 20 years amassing 55 million followers
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And you can post on TikTok today with zero followers on a new handle you make up called Janet in Atlanta?
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"All right, Jana and Lynn, I see you." And that post with zero followers that you created today,
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if you make a good piece of content around asparagus, or golf.
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or a home has the ability to get more views than me with 15 million followers on TikTok.
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This level of democracy should me off because I've worked very hard for 20 years to amass what I have
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but there's no crying in baseball, and there's definitely no crying in real estate.
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And if that gentleman right there stands up at John in Denver, and it has zero followers, well, he would have gotten no views five years ago, because you had no followers.
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Now you can set up new accounts with no followers, and the first post could get hundreds of thousands of views.
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Many people are destined here, Gary, to start a new account on TikTok or YouTube shorts, it's gonna happen after this event.
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And the first video they make with no followers is gonna
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get more views than the count they have with 5 ,000 followers.
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These platforms are gauging the content based on the merit of the content, not how many followers you have.
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And the algorithms are sending it to people that might have interest in it.
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I don't even look at following count anymore for anything we do in our companies.
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Doesn't mean anything.
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It's views achieved organically.
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Social media doesn't work for you, 'cause you're not taking it serious.
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for a million reasons.
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The amount of people that flew here or drove here
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and think of themselves as business winners
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that come up with unlimited excuses to why they're not creating unlimited content to drive
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sales
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and transactions in the most underpriced opportunity of marketing in the
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history of the world baffles my mind on the hypocrisy in
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this room my friends every media of advertising for the last hundred years costs money Social.
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There's people in here being like, "I'm really mad at Mark Zuckerberg.
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My Instagram is not getting as many views as it did two years ago." It's free.
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It's free.
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Yes, you can run ads, but everyone here knows you can post content.
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It's free people see it, but I understand you when it comes to social media content and Because when it comes to business and content,
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I'm the most disciplined on earth.
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But when it comes to health and wellness, going to the gym every day and eating right and getting my protein right and not doing the chemicals, I am not.
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Some of you are incredibly disciplined at the health and wellness, but you are not on this content.
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You are lacking discipline for many different reasons.
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One.
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That big game you talk about being one of the best real estate agents, you're just talking.
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You're not living.
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You love hearing yourself talking that you're gonna build an empire, but you're not about that life.
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Two, you're not posting content because you're not educated about how to do it
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and you've literally convinced yourself that you can't spend 20 hours of homework to get good at this, the thumbnail, the thumbnail the hook, the copy that it takes to actually get views to sell homes.
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Three, and this is for a lot of you, and I want to get you out of this place so bad, I touched on it.
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You're insecure.
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You don't like the feeling of having 313 followers when someone in your office has 50 ,000.
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You don't like the feeling that you used to have 500 new followers a week, but for the last year you've slowed down.
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You don't realize that other platforms are getting more attention and that Instagram has hit its point, which is why the supply and demand works.
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You're not curious, you're not educated, you're not strategic.
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and you're blaming China.
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On the record, this is very important.
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I need you to stick with me here.
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China does not give a about you.
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Your audacity is very high.
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My friends, this is a warfare of personal brand.
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Your reputation, if you don't like that term, is now everything.
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People knowing you exist is going to be the battleground for real estate agents of the next decade.
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Reputation and experience will continue to decline.
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Experience matters, but all the great things you know, AI is commoditizing in your face, it's commoditized now.
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Zoning and inspections and everything you bring to the table in your interview
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when you're convincing me you're the right person and you've been doing this for 32 years and you're like, I'll never make a mistake.
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I'm like, ChatGPT is better than you.
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My friends, this is happening.
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this is binary now i've been yelling about this for 20 years
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and you know it we are now in code red anybody
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that is not making content every day on social media is disappearing whether you like it
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or not you think i'm happy
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that substat came out i had this figured out 20 years ago
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when it was email and search i'm not happy
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that social came along i hate when new platforms come
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and i have to spend 400 hours of research to get
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good at it i just don't know how to live in a fantasy world so my question to you is
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Are you ready to wake up this Sunday morning Has this church sermon done good?
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Or, Are you just gonna be hyped for a couple of minutes right now?
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Be like, "Yeah, I'm gonna do it." And then next Thursday, Eat the gummy bears.
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How many people here sell a physical item?
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Raise your hands.
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So for everyone who just raised their hand, TikTok shop and whatnot, are very important because live shopping is here.
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I believe that attention is disproportionately the most important asset in the world.
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Money is printed every day without any logic, but attention is finite.
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I wish people understood.
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I don't love social media.
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I love customers attention so that I can do what I want to get done.
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And right now, the underpriced attention is clearly in social, but that tactics They must become unbelievably adaptable.
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I did not grow up being the social media guy.
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I was the direct mail, newspaper, Google AdWords, email marketing guy.
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Then I became the social media guy and guess what?
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You and I will be sitting here in 10 years and I'll be talking about AR, VR, some sort of new technology that you and I don't even know exists yet.
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Friends, listen to me.
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I'm gonna say it slow.
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We have another five to seven years, maybe more, maybe less.
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This is my guess.
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of the golden era of attention arbitrage for free.
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We have five to seven more years of the golden era of attention arbitrage for free.
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Real-Life Social Media Talk: What People Are Actually Saying
Ever listened to a straight-talking video about social media and thought, “I wish I could follow along and speak like that?” The video we’re focusing on does just that—diving into honest, no-nonsense advice about growing online, dealing with insecurities, and why consistency matters. It’s the kind of casual, energetic conversation you’d hear in a workshop or a friend’s living room, making it perfect for practicing real-world English.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Boost Your Fluency
Let’s break down 5 key phrases from the dialogue that native speakers use all the time. Memorize these, and you’ll sound more natural in conversations about social media (and beyond!):
- Amass followers: “She amassed 55 million followers over 20 years.” (To collect or build up a large amount)
- Organic views: “It’s all about views achieved organically.” (Views from real people, not paid ads)
- Make content: “You need to make content every day.” (A casual way to say “create content”)
- Underpriced opportunity: “It’s the most underpriced opportunity in marketing.” (Something valuable that costs little)
- Code red: “We’re in code red—start posting!” (A urgent situation that needs action)
Your Shadowing Challenge: Speak Like a Native, Now!
Ready to practice? The shadowing technique is one of the best ways to improve your pronunciation, rhythm, and fluency. Here’s your task: Pick a 30-second clip from the video (try the part where he talks about “code red” or “organic views”). Play the clip, pause, and repeat it out loud—mimicking the tone, speed, and emphasis. Do this 5 times. Then, try it without pausing: speak at the same time as the speaker (this is called “shadowspeak” or “shadow speak”). It might feel tricky at first, but keep going! This is how you train your brain to think and speak in English. For more practice, check out a shadowing site or use YouTube—learning English with YouTube is a fun, free way to master real conversations. You’ve got this!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | you've been doing · i've been yelling |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have spent · I've worked · you've slowed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are destined · be hyped · is printed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | point, which is · everyone who just |
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.