Shadowing Practice: ENGLISH SPEECH | ANAND MAHINDRA: Purpose in Life (English Subtitles) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
C2
If everyone's problems were like laundry,
222 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
If everyone's problems were like laundry,
2
hanging out to dry in an open field,
3
and you had the opportunity to go out into that field and exchange your laundry,
4
your problems, in other words,
5
with anyone else's, you would still choose your own problems.
6
I'm not the usual suspect class day speaker for sure.
7
I come from another profession,
8
the often undiplomatic world of commerce.
9
I come from halfway around the world, I'm not an alumnus.
10
But when I asked Dean Kite,
11
she said the reasons for which they invited me were,
12
in fact, all of the above.
13
But I'm not here to try and dispense any unique wisdom.
14
As the proverbial schoolgirl wrote,
15
Socrates was a wise Greek philosopher and he went around dispensing gratuitous advice. And they poisoned him.
16
I deeply fear that fate.
17
So what I will do is to just throw some ideas at you
18
based on my own life experience and my own world
19
that I hope will be relevant to any profession and to every life.
20
Now picture, if you will,
21
the world in 1946 when my father stood here.
22
The Second World War had just ended.
23
Independence for India was just around the corner, as Rachel mentioned.
24
The beginning of the end of colonialism was in sight
25
and details of the full extent of the death and the destruction and the horrors of the Holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
26
they were just emerging.
27
The problems of peace were every bit as convoluted as the problems of war.
28
And to my father in 1946,
29
the world must have looked hopeful but immensely complicated.
30
And yet I wonder what my father would say about the world as we see it today.
31
We are wrestling with climate change,
32
pandemics, terrorism, energy crises, social inequities,
33
to name just a few.
34
And because of their trans-border impact,
35
these issues too now fall within the ambit of diplomacy,
36
of international affairs, of international law.
37
And what would my father have made of the impact of technology?
38
In many cowboy movies, the appearance of the hero or villain is often preceded by his shadow.
39
We now have a new cowboy in town,
40
heralded by a lengthening shadow,
41
the shadow of the metaverse.
42
Entrepreneurs are buying up real estate on it.
43
Countries are opening up virtual embassies in it.
44
And through the metaverse, we can live not just a virtual second life,
45
but also a parallel life where the virtual intersects with reality and the boundaries between the two grow more and more blurred.
46
Now, in many ways, it may actually enhance the effectiveness of diplomacy.
47
virtual face-to-face negotiations may become as effective as in-person ones.
48
Global summits and indeed side conversations where you can interact virtually,
49
where you can smell the coffee almost,
50
can lead to both quicker responses and actually make a dent in climate change.
51
On the other hand, the metaverse is likely to turn out to be the new Wild West.
52
What laws will govern it?
53
Who will have jurisdiction and over what?
54
Who will own the new forms of data that the metaverse is going to generate?
55
Pupil dilation, heartbeat rates, biometric data.
56
What happens to free speech and to privacy?
57
The metaverse and indeed the technology-driven world of the future is going to be like the Force from Star Wars, of course.
58
But as all of you know,
59
by itself the Force is neither good nor bad.
60
It depends on who uses it and towards what end.
61
So these are all the portentous issues that your generation will have to grapple with.
62
But yours is not the usual graduating class.
63
You have all experienced the disruption caused by COVID.
64
You witness the absurdity of a brutal war taking place in the 21st century between affluent nations.
65
You're seeing a world where few leaders are true or permanent role models.
66
And in such a situation,
67
where there seems to be no certainty but only shades of grey,
68
how does it make sense for me to tell you to go out into the world holding fast to your ideals?
69
But my answer to that would be a resounding yes.
70
Because it may in fact be the only way to make sense of a world in
71
which the ground under your feet feels like quicksand.
72
and because all of you are in a unique position to apply those ideals to your work right away
73
because you've all taken a decision to follow a career path
74
that is going to have a wider impact on global issues than almost any other career.
75
So my first exhortation to you would be to embrace the ought, not the is.
76
Shape the world as it ought to be,
77
rather than accepting it as it is.
78
And human beings have never stopped aspiring to this ideal,
79
no matter how messy the reality may be.
80
And that's why the whole world loves it when David beats Goliath,
81
when the good guy wins and the bad guy gets his comeuppance.
82
It may not always work that way in real life,
83
but that's how we as human beings want it to be.
84
And we make heroes out of those who make that happen.
85
Yet in a jagged and a paradoxical,
86
often brutal world, how can you hold fast to that ideal, to the ought?
87
And that's where I think the centrality of purpose comes in.
88
Cynics scoff at phrases like the power of purpose,
89
but I have to tell you,
90
in my experience, it works.
91
Let me share the story of my own business.
92
Mahendra and Mahendra was founded by two brothers,
93
as Rachel mentioned, around the time of independence.
94
It was a time when Indian industry was practically non-existent,
95
and many people, most notably Winston Churchill,
96
did not expect India to survive or to be able to mould itself into a viable country.
97
And we Indians begged to disagree.
98
Our founders started the company with a high sense of idealism,
99
setting out to prove that Indians could,
100
in fact, build a new nation.
101
And, in fact, when the company commenced business,
102
the first advertisement they came out with in 1945 had nothing to do with products or services.
103
They only articulated their dreams for India,
104
a set of principles and ideals with which they were starting business.
105
And that was in 1945.
106
Over the years, obviously India has confounded the naysayers and shaped itself into the world's largest democracy.
107
And the Mahindra group of companies initially flourished as well,
108
since in a bid for self-sufficiency,
109
much of Indian industry was protected from external competition.
110
However, in the early 90s,
111
India and Indian industry were both in crisis.
112
Faced with the prospect of running out of foreign exchange reserves,
113
India took the radical step of liberalizing its closed economy,
114
and after decades of being protected,
115
suddenly the world's most powerful companies were at our doorstep,
116
anxious to get a temptingly large piece of the Indian pie pie for all the economy companies like ours,
117
which had prospered under a protectionist regime and had forgotten really how to compete.
118
The opening up of the Indian economy was like the grim reaper knocking at the door.
119
And seriously, there were people around large consultancy firms who were busy writing our epitaph
120
and yet three decades later here we are a multi-billion dollar group still chugging along
121
and earning goodwill while we do so
122
so how did we do it well obviously there were many ingredients
123
but to my mind the most important one was to harness the power of purpose
124
We found ourselves in a very strange back to the future kind of situation,
125
where once again we had to prove that we as an Indian company could do it.
126
That we could not just survive,
127
but thrive in the changed economic landscape.
128
And drawing upon an Indian narrative and upon our corporate history,
129
we first elucidated a core purpose that would galvanize people to come to work in the morning and give off their best.
130
Now that co-purpose was simply to say Indians are second to none
131
and we will make products that will prove that to the world.
132
I know that sounds terribly parochial,
133
but please understand, at that time it was a cry to shed the most invisible,
134
pernicious and lingering feelings of inferiority and a lack of self-belief,
135
which was the bequest of colonialism.
136
And that really had an electrifying effect on our people.
137
It triggered the David versus Goliath sentiment.
138
It tapped into our collective memories of our founding days where we had succeeded against all odds
139
because we had something to prove.
140
And it fueled our self-belief.
141
I know that sounds warm and fuzzy,
142
but it contributed to concrete results.
143
Between 2002 and 2013, our profits went up 33 times three times.
144
Our stock price went up 72 times.
145
That took a lot of hard work,
146
but that hard work came about because people were motivated by a sense of purpose.
147
Today, our core purpose has changed.
148
We recognize that as we became transnational,
149
we needed a more global and a more inclusive rallying cry.
150
Now, our core purpose is almost as compact.
151
It is to drive positive change in the lives of our communities to enable them to rise.
152
And we often encapsulate that in just the one single word, rise.
153
Now how that credo precisely evolved is a longer story,
154
but let me tell you that
155
if you ask any one of our 250,000 strong global family what it is that differentiates our company,
156
what it is that gets them to come into work every day,
157
they will say it's our purpose.
158
There's extraordinary alignment around that credo.
159
And I want to underscore the fact that we adapted our purpose to new realities.
160
I believe it's important to accept that purpose can evolve and it can transform
161
because many of the problems of the world that I alluded to earlier simply arose out of rigid and immutable mindsets.
162
Now, I'm a hard-headed businessman,
163
not an armchair philosopher, but personal experience has taught me never to underestimate the power of purpose in business or in life.
164
And there's no shortage of role models.
165
But I'm not talking about larger-than-life cliched icons.
166
And even before you set out to change the world,
167
which Fletcher no doubt has prepared you to do,
168
I urge you all to take small steps to change the world around you.
169
Perhaps your purpose, like Mahindra's,
170
will also evolve over the course of your life.
171
But one of the privileges of attending an institution like this
172
is the opportunity to step outside the familiarity of your lived experiences,
173
make sense of the bigger picture and of the space that you occupy within it.
174
I myself am inspired almost every single day by people who possess this understanding,
175
who are committed every day to living with empathy and possibly without ever knowing how impactful they have been.
176
So let me share with you one more personal story.
177
Decades ago, we were in a taxi,
178
rushing to get my then one-year-old daughter to surgery for a hand injury that she had suffered.
179
And my wife and I were beside ourselves with anxiety.
180
My daughter was throwing a tantrum,
181
and the taxi driver clearly picked up on our anxious and tense state.
182
May I share an old saying with you, he quietly asked us.
183
And he said, if everyone's problems were like laundry,
184
hanging out to dry in an open field,
185
and you had the opportunity to go out into that field and exchange your laundry,
186
your problems, in other words,
187
with anyone else's, you would still choose your own problems.
188
And he paused and he just said quietly,
189
don't worry, I'll get you there safe and sound and in time.
190
And at that moment, it was precisely the perspective that I needed.
191
The surgery was a success and to this day,
192
I look gratefully to that cab driver's wise act of comfort.
193
A man who has no idea that he provided me with a view
194
and a resilience that has helped me throughout my career to deal with the rollercoaster ride of business fortunes.
195
You will similarly have no difficulty in finding such inspirational people.
196
You may look around this room
197
and recognize a fellow student who stayed up with you all night to support you when life seemed overwhelming,
198
a professor who postponed an exam when COVID anxiety was at its peak,
199
parents who have worked tirelessly and sacrificed much to enable you to celebrate today.
200
These are people who commit themselves to helping others rise in small but meaningful ways every single day.
201
People who have come to understand the significance of empathy.
202
They find ways to shape their world into what it ought to be.
203
And I ask you, why can't the next individual who brings the is closer to the ought be you?
204
So in closing, let me come back to my father.
205
And I've often asked myself,
206
why did he come to Fletcher?
207
He had already been away from his family and home for four years as an undergraduate at Harvard.
208
Why didn't he simply choose to go home after such a long absence?
209
And if I were to guess what went through his mind,
210
I would say he stayed on because he saw a new world in the making.
211
He wanted to understand that world and he wanted to be part of the solution.
212
He came as the original pilgrim seeking answers.
213
In a way, so are you all,
214
pilgrims in search of answers.
215
All pilgrims in search of a better world.
216
I once read the perfect definition of a pilgrim,
217
which says that a pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose.
218
And I think that pretty much sums up your present and your future.
219
You are all pilgrims who in the course of your careers will wander through an uncharted world.
220
May you wander through it with purpose.
221
Thank you and congratulations.
222
Thanks for your support.
Download App
AI scoring for every sentence you speak
TRENDING
Popular
Why practice speaking with this video?
Practicing speaking through this engaging video featuring Anand Mahindra provides a unique opportunity to explore complex topics while enhancing your English language skills. The context of Mahindra's speech touches on essential life lessons and societal challenges, making it relatable for learners. By using the shadowing technique, you can closely mimic his intonation and delivery, which will significantly improve your overall fluency. Not only will you learn to express ideas clearly, but you'll also build confidence in discussing various themes, such as technology's impact on society, climate change, and international relationships.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
This speech employs several advanced grammar structures and expressions that are vital for fluent English. Here are a few key examples:
- Conditional Statements: Mahindra uses conditional expressions like "If everyone's problems were like laundry..." This structure is effective for discussing hypothetical scenarios and encourages learners to practice forming their own conditional sentences.
- Past Perfect Tense: Phrases like "my father stood here in 1946" illustrate the use of the past perfect tense, which is essential for discussing past events with a context. Mastering this tense will help you articulate your thoughts more clearly.
- Descriptive Language: Words such as "hopeful" and "complicated" add depth and nuance to the speech. Learning to use adjectives effectively can enrich your vocabulary and help convey emotions more powerfully.
Common Pronunciation Traps
In this video, Mahindra articulates several words and phrases that learners may find challenging. Here are some common pronunciation traps to watch out for:
- "Complicated": Pay attention to the subtle vowel sounds and stress on the second syllable. Practicing this word can enhance your English pronunciation.
- "Virtual": Note the clear distinction between the "v" and "t" sounds. This word is frequently used in discussions about technology and online platforms.
- "Diplomacy": This term may be tricky due to its length and the placement of stress on the third syllable. Mastering its pronunciation will enable you to engage more effectively in conversations about international relations.
By integrating these elements into your practice sessions through the shadowing technique, you will not only learn English with YouTube but also significantly improve English pronunciation. Embrace the challenge, and allow Anand Mahindra's insights to enrich your learning journey.
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
ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏