Shadowing Practice: How Anyone Can Become a Masterful Communicator (The Speaker's Edge Podcast) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hey guys, welcome back to the Speaker's Edge podcast, the podcast dedicated to helping you to learn from some of the world's very best speakers

and communicators so that you can learn to master your message and inspire your audience every single time you speak.

I'm your host for this podcast, Roddy Galbraith, thrilled you've chosen to join us again this week.

We've got a great episode for you, giving you another insight as we focus on the International Maxwell Conference that's coming up at the end of August.

like to be in the room at an international Maxwell certification

and I want to share some of the great speakers

that we put up on stage with you today

but before we get into that

if you haven't downloaded the companion guide simply go to maxwellleadership

.com forward slash the speaker's edge download the companion guide and

if you enjoy the show we would love it if you rate

and review the show as well that would be awesome now

if you're interested in developing your speaking I say every every week on the show you're in the right place

because we are dedicated to one single get better because you can get better.

Communication is a learnable skill and it's worth developing

because it would do more for you than any other skill you can develop.

If you think about it, as social beings, we interact with other people all the time.

And those interactions, they are our life really, aren't we, to a very large extent.

And if we could get better at those interactions, we get better at life.

If we can get better at connecting and communicating and influencing other people, then we're literally getting better at life.

So any effort you invest in developing

see yourself as a speaker then there's never there's never wasted

it's only ever going to help you it's going to get help you get better in every area of life

so it's a great thing to do to work on your communication skills I think it's something

that everyone should do a lot of people don't

because of the myth of the natural speaker they kind of

fear speaking they fear standing up in front of people maybe

they fear being judged by other people negative evaluation from other people

and so they don't even try it which is a shame because it really is the secret to life, secret to happiness.

Maybe there's a little bit of a stretch, but not much.

It really is a great skill for you to develop.

So I want to show you some examples of this today of people who've worked hard.

See, the good news is...

You don't have to be good at everything when you're speaking, but you do need to be good at the most important things.

And if you can stand out, let's say you're a leader within your organization.

You're happy in your corporate role.

You're a leader.

If you can stand up and speak convincingly for just a few moments, people see you differently.

You look like a leader.

So you don't need to be able to do a three -day seminar to be able to gain influence, to stand out as a leader in the minds of the people who see you speak.

If you work on it.

If you work on it, and that's the key, you can work on it.

And if you can work on a good one minute, two minute, three minutes, simple leaving speech or a welcome speech, or from the stage, as I'm going to share some examples with you,

if you can do a good three minutes, then you can do a good 63 minutes.

It's the same process on repeat.

So it's a great skill to learn.

It is a learnable skill.

Anyone can do it.

Have a look at these examples, and then we'll talk about how you could be in Orlando with us in August,

and then we'll wrap up.

So first of all, here's Angela Brown.

Watch this.

You're going to love this.

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Such a great presentation, isn't it? So good.

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Just a few minutes she's speaking, but she's worked hard to make that three minutes a good use of your time.

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That's the key, isn't it?

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Always treasure the audience's time.

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Add the most value you can to the audience's time.

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Don't think about it as how much time should I think preparing.

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Think about it as how much time am I going to be consuming of theirs

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and how can I add value to that time?

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this journey doesn't she she very quickly paints the picture

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that she was a little girl from the other side of

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the tracks she was going to her friend's Valerie's house

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and she was on you know lived in a neighborhood

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that she'd never seen before so she does a great job of painting

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that contrast of two different worlds coming together

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and then the imagery she uses when she's peering through the spindles

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and sees this very attractive man coming I knew he was very important

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because he had a tie it's just such a great use

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of language she's thought very carefully about how to use

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that three minutes

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and she did an excellent job created a really powerful experience

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with a great message you know encourage people encourage people give out those golden keys all right

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so that's Andrew Brown let's look at Milton Gonzalez now this

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is another one from all about seven years ago I think

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this one was uh I'm not gonna I'm not gonna lead

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the witness I'm gonna let you watch it first of all

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and then we can talk about it afterwards so here's Milton enjoy Years ago, I sat right where you are at today

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and I remember hearing John say for the very first time

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that the number one word that every individual loves to hear is their very own name.

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I'm a school director of 300 students.

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And as I walk the walkways and the hallways, my children approach me and they They call me Mr. G and I call them by their name.

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David, Daniel, Sophia, Joshua, Hannah, how are you?

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With great big smiles they light up because I know their name.

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I call that the Christmas tree effect.

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I pride myself in knowing each and every one of their names.

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Every Thursday, visitors come on our campus and I give them the grand tour of the school.

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These are prospective parents.

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And as I walk the campus and I call each child by their name, I hear them whisper behind me, He knows their name.

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He knows their name.

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I know that I'm impressing my prospective parents.

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So then I weave in and out of classrooms.

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And on a particular Thursday, as I had 10 adults with me for the very first time touring our school,

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we happened to walk into a kindergarten classroom full of six -year -olds.

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And as I walked into that classroom, the kids jumped up out of their chairs,

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And I said, Emery, Ezra, Bethany, Mateo, Nico, how are you?

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I called them by their name.

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They smiled and they lit up like Christmas trees.

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But it so happened that in that particular classroom was a little girl.

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Now this little girl had enrolled late in the school year.

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She'd only been with us for two weeks and guess what?

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I hadn't taken the time to memorize her her name, because I had nicknamed her the kid with the cute curly hair.

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And as you would have it, the little girl stood up in the middle of all the other classmates that I had called by their name,

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and she stood up and she approached me with a heart filled with expectation and hope, and she looked at me with these great big eyes and she said,

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Do you know my name?

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do you know my name and with a great big smile i looked at the kid

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and i thought to myself seriously Really?

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You're putting me on the spot in front of everyone?

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But you know what?

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I was intentional.

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I got down on one knee

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and I looked at the kid with a cute curly hair right in the eyes and I said sweetheart I

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Not only do I know your name, I know you're the cutest.

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"Smartest kid on this campus, and I've got some guests and I want to show them how smart our kids are.

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Would you help me do something today?

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I've heard that you're an amazing speller." She said, "Yes." I said, "I want to show them how smart our kids are.

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Would you help me?" She said, "Absolutely.

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What would you like for me to do?" I said, "Sweetheart, Spell something for us today.

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She says what would you like for me to spell?

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I? your name.

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Spell your name.

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She said I -S -A -B -E -L -L -A.

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I said Isabella, you did a great job.

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She said you did know my name.

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You did know my name.

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That's to show you that a person's name is the sweetest, most powerful word in the world in any language.

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Thank you.

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Oh, another great presentation.

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Again, just three minutes, slightly over three minutes.

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In fact, just before then, we actually had more time.

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And so I said to Milton, just relax with the time.

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You can go a little bit over the three minutes because normally it's a very hard stop at three minutes.

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But we had time just before a break.

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So he was able to go a little longer.

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But still, it wasn't that much longer than three minutes.

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And what a great experience.

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Very different energy to Angela's, wasn't it?

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Like upbeat right from the beginning.

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Now, Milton's are great.

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They're both great speakers, but different types of speakers.

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It's funny.

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It's engaging.

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His laughter is infectious.

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It's a great story that he shares as well.

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And he worked hard on it, though.

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Both of them sent me video after video beforehand,

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getting ready for the opportunity to earn the right to be on stage in front of thousands of people.

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I can't guess how many people...

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They were in front of thousands.

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have been in front of 3 ,000 people, something like that.

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They were big events.

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They were on stage in front of lots and lots of people.

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So they were using lots and lots of people minutes.

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But they really added value to it, didn't they?

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So they worked hard in order to do that.

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And you can too.

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You can get good at speaking.

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You can get good at a good one minute.

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You could play the role of a confident speaker, practice being courageous and do a good one -minute presentation, couldn't you?

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And if you can do a good one minute, you can do two, three, five, 60, etc., etc. If you want to do that, and I think you should,

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because as I said, it will help you in every area of life, then you're in the right place.

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You're in the right place.

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Now, the Maxwell Leadership Certified Team is the event that we do.

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It's the International Maxwell Conference.

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We do two a year in the US.

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I'm just back from Romania, where we had one once a year.

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We do one in Romania.

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I've been doing that since about 2014, 2015.

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They're great events.

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Maxwell Leadership Certified Team because there's no one better to model than John Maxwell.

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There's no better system than the Maxwell Method of Speaking

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and there's nowhere better to learn that than as a Maxwell Leadership Certified Team member.

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So if you want to find out what it means to be a team member, jump on a call with a program advisor.

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Just go to maxwellleadership .com forward slash speak.

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Ask them a few questions.

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Find out if it's a fit.

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If you want to be a speaker, I think it's going to be a good fit.

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Then you could join us.

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You can jump in and you could join us in Orlando

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the live sea all right that's it for this week don't

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forget to download the companion guide i look forward to seeing

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you again next week thanks for joining us today until then take care lots of love bye -bye god bless

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74 sentences

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: How Anyone Can Become a Masterful Communicator (The Speaker's Edge Podcast) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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