Shadowing Practice: Elon Musk: Advice for Young People | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

C1
Shadowing Controls
0% completed (0/115 sentences)
You, like I mentioned with SpaceX,
⏸ Paused
All Sentences115 sentences
1
You, like I mentioned with SpaceX,
2
you give a lot of people hope.
3
And a lot of people look up to you.
4
Millions of people look up to you.
5
If we think about young people in high school,
6
maybe in college, what advice would you give to them about
7
if they want to try to do something big in this world,
8
they want to really have a big positive impact,
9
what advice would you give them about their career,
10
maybe about life in general?
11
try to be useful um you do things
12
that are useful to your fellow human beings to the world it's very hard to be useful um
13
very hard um you know are you contributing more than you consume you know like uh like can you
14
try to have a positive net contribution to society.
15
I think that's the thing to aim for.
16
Not to try to be a leader for the sake of being a leader or whatever.
17
A lot of the time,
18
the people you want as leaders are the people who don't want to be leaders.
19
so if you can live a useful life that is a good life a life worth having lived
20
you know like I said I would encourage people to
21
use the mental tools of physics and apply them broadly in life
22
they are the best tools when you think about education and self education what do you recommend?
23
So there's the university, there's self-study,
24
there is hands-on sort of finding a company or a place
25
or a set of people that do the thing you're passionate about and joining them as early as possible.
26
There's taking a road trip across Europe for a few years and writing some poetry,
27
which trajectory do you suggest in terms of learning about how you can become useful,
28
as you mentioned, how you can have the most positive impact?
29
i encourage people to read a lot of books just read
30
like basically try to ingest as much information as you can uh
31
and try to also just develop a good general knowledge um
32
so so you at least have like a rough lay of the land of the the knowledge landscape
33
like try to learn a little bit about a lot of things because you might not know what you're really interested in.
34
How would you know what you're really interested in
35
if you at least aren't like doing a peripheral exploration or broadly of the knowledge landscape?
36
And talk to people from different walks of life and different industries and professions and skills and occupations.
37
Just try to learn as much as possible.
38
Man, search for meaning.
39
Isn't the whole thing a search for meaning?
40
Yeah, what's the meaning of life and all.
41
But just generally, like I said,
42
I would encourage people to read broadly in many different subject areas.
43
And then try to find something where there's an overlap of your talents and what you're interested in.
44
So people may be good at something,
45
or they may have skill at a particular thing,
46
but they don't like doing it.
47
So you want to try to find a thing where that's a good combination of the things that you're inherently good at,
48
but you also like doing.
49
And reading is a super fast shortcut to figure out where are you.
50
You're both good at it,
51
you like doing it, and it will actually have positive impact.
52
Well, you gotta learn about things somehow.
53
So reading a broad range, just really read it.
54
One point when I was a kid,
55
I read through the encyclopedia.
56
So that was pretty helpful.
57
And there are also things I didn't even know existed, a lot, obviously.
58
It's like as broad as it gets.
59
Encyclopedias were digestible, I think,
60
you know, whatever, 40 years ago.
61
So, you know, maybe read through the condensed version of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
62
I'd recommend that.
63
You can always, like, skip subjects where you read a few paragraphs and you know you're not interested,
64
just jump to the next one.
65
So, read the encyclopedia or skim through it.
66
and um but i you know put a lot of stock and certainly have a lot of respect for
67
someone who puts in an honest day's work uh to do useful things
68
and and just generally to have like not a zero-sum mindset um
69
or like have have more of a grow the pie mindset like the
70
if you sort of say like when we see people like perhaps including some very smart people
71
kind of taking an attitude of like doing things
72
that seem like morally questionable it's often
73
because they have at a base sort of axiomatic level a zero-sum mindset
74
and they without realizing it they don't realize they have a zero-sum mindset or at least that they don't realize it consciously.
75
And so if you have a zero sum mindset,
76
then the only way to get ahead is by taking things from others.
77
If it's like, if the pie is fixed,
78
then the only way to have more pie is to take someone else's pie.
79
But this is false.
80
Like obviously the pie has grown dramatically over time, the economic pie.
81
So in reality, you can have,
82
I don't know, I'm sorry, overuse this analogy.
83
We have a lot of,
84
there's a lot of pie.
85
Yeah.
86
Pie is not fixed.
87
Yes.
88
So you really want to make sure you're not operating
89
without realizing it from a zero sum mindset where the only
90
way to get ahead is to take things from others then
91
that's going to result in you trying to take things from others,
92
which is not good.
93
It's much better to work on adding to the economic pie.
94
So, like I said, creating more than you consume,
95
doing more than you, yeah.
96
So that's a big deal.
97
I think there's a fair number of people in finance that do have a bit of a zero-sum mindset.
98
I mean, it's all walks of life.
99
I've seen that.
100
One of the reasons Rogan inspires me is he celebrates others a lot.
101
There's not creating a constant competition.
102
Like, there's a scarcity of resources.
103
What happens when you celebrate others and you promote others,
104
the ideas of others, it actually grows that pie.
105
I mean, like, the resources become less scarce.
106
And that applies in a lot of kinds of domains.
107
It applies in academia where a lot of people are very,
108
see some funding for academic research is zero sum.
109
It is not.
110
If you celebrate each other,
111
if you make, if you get everybody to be excited about AI,
112
about physics, about mathematics, I think there'd be more and more funding and I think everybody wins.
113
Yeah, that applies I think broadly.
114
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
115
Thank you.
4.9/5 on App Store & Google Play

Shadowing English On Mobile

Learn English anytime, anywhere with the Shadowing English app. Improve your communication skills today!

Track your learning progress
AI grading and error correction
Rich video library
Download on theApp Store
GET IT ONGoogle Play
Shadowing English Mobile App

About This Lesson

In this lesson, you will practice your English speaking skills by engaging with insights from Elon Musk as shared in the Lex Fridman Podcast. This lesson focuses on the significance of being useful in society, cultivating a broad knowledge base, and exploring one’s passions. You will gain a deeper understanding of how to integrate these concepts into your life while enhancing your pronunciation and fluency through the effective use of the shadowing technique. By the end of this session, you’ll be better equipped to express your thoughts on personal development and career exploration in English.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Usefulness - the quality of being helpful or valuable to others.
  • Positive impact - a beneficial effect on people or the environment.
  • Contribute - to give (something, such as money or time) along with others.
  • Knowledge landscape - a metaphor for the wide range of information available in various subjects.
  • Self-education - the process of learning something by oneself without formal guidance.
  • Overlap - the area where two things share similarities or commonality.
  • Search for meaning - the quest to understand one’s purpose or significance in life.
  • Peripherally explore - to examine or consider something in a non-focused manner, discovering new interests.

Practice Tips

To effectively use the shadowspeak technique with this video, focus on matching the tone and speed of Elon Musk's speech. He speaks thoughtfully but with enthusiasm, so pay close attention to the rhythm of his sentences. Here are some practical tips:

  • Start Slowly - Initially, play the video at a slower speed to catch every word clearly. This will help improve your English pronunciation and ensure you’re picking up the nuances of the language.
  • Repeat Aloud - Use the shadow speech method where you repeat phrases just after hearing them. This method enhances your listening and speaking skills simultaneously.
  • Focus on Intonation - Notice the way Musk emphasizes certain words or phrases. Mimic these patterns to make your speech more natural.
  • Incorporate Vocabulary - Try to incorporate the key vocabulary into your sentences after watching. This will help solidify your understanding and give you practical usage examples.
  • Use a Shadowing App - If available, use a shadowing app to record your voice as you practice. Listening to your own pronunciation can offer valuable feedback.

By integrating these techniques into your practice, you'll significantly enhance your speaking skills and confidence in English! Remember, the journey of self-education is continuous; keep exploring different subjects and practices to find your unique voice.

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.

☕ Buy us a coffee