Shadowing Practice: How I Built My Dream Life (in 5 min) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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My parents ended up being divorced when I was like, I don't remember, eight or nine.

And so I essentially had to raise myself until I was 15.

So funny to say, he's like, I love my dad so much now and he's,

we're really close, but I didn't know him super well back then.

I don't know if I would have learned how to lead myself, learned how to manage myself, learned how to manage my emotions,

had I not been exposed to it young.

I was always overweight as a kid.

I let myself go.

My upper teens, it was bad.

I just drank a ton and then would eat out.

And I went from having some weight to like, I was fat

and i was like screw this i never wanted to be a victim of circumstance

i'm gonna use this i'm gonna make my life awesome started getting into fitness

i pursued figuring out food working out i started going to the gym

and like lifting by myself i ended up losing like 85 pounds

i think going through a fitness transformation is really similar to becoming someone who's successful in business and

so then i went to college for exercise science two years in i realized

this is not going to do anything for me i didn't take it serious i wasn't like a bad student

but i also wasn't like super good.

I just thought it was useless.

And I was like, I can learn more on my own.

It was in that moment that I was like, I want to invest in myself.

And I started looking at Tony Robbins and Monroe and all that stuff.

I lived in Michigan at that point in time.

It wasn't a lot of opportunity.

So I packed up my Prius.

It was two days after I graduated college.

I just drove out to California and got some disgusting apartment as cheap as I could find.

Oh, this is in the ghetto.

Great.

This is good for a single like 21 year old girl.

I moved there.

And then I was like, okay, I need to get a job within walking distance because I don't want to pay for gas too much.

So I went and I applied at every gym nearby.

And I was like, I'll just start working at a gym at first.

I'll learn sales for the gym.

And then eventually I'll learn more about business and have my own business.

I ended up getting a job at all the places I applied.

And I ended up staying with 24 hour fitness.

I really liked the manager there.

He was really encouraging.

And he was like, dude, I can train you so much.

There's 20 other people that they hired around the same time.

They're like, you need to go out and get referrals.

And I had no idea at the time that it was even hard to do that.

I just moved there.

I was like, I have nothing to lose.

These people don't know me i have no reputation here what am i gonna do fail

and that's there were two girls

that were like crying outside the building

i was like i went up to them like why are you crying

they're like i don't want to go talk to strangers i'm just gonna go up

and i'm just gonna be like hey my name's leila i'm new here i'm curious

if you have any friends that are interested in joining the gym

work to learn not to make money when you're young and

so i was like okay i have learned enough here

i get how this works i don't want to move up the corporate ladder

i heard about this guy who had this really great gym he's like a fantastic leader

and he really knows how to run a business i want to go learn from that guy.

And so I went and worked at his gym.

What it allowed me to see was that the same effort it takes to build a small business,

it's the same effort to take a big business.

It's almost harder to have small business even because there's less opportunity for people.

If people have a big vision for themselves, they don't want to work at a small business.

I'd been dating when I was in Michigan.

When I went to California, I was like, I just want to build up my career.

Like I want to be successful.

And that was all I really cared about.

I always knew I was like, I want someone that's equally as powerful.

In every relationship before I met Alex, I was always like the dominant one in the relationship.

And I realized I was like, I don't really want that.

I want someone who's almost more dominant than me or at least could be equally powerful.

I swiped on Alex.

I messaged him because it was Bumble and so the girl else messaged the guy first.

He called me and we talked for like 20 minutes and he was like, I consider this to be like our first date.

So then we went for Froyo the next day, which I tried to get out of and he was like,

no. I said I was sick or something.

I think I was hungover.

We didn't talk about like relationships at all.

We actually just talked about business the whole time.

So we like walked for four hours.

Basically on the first date, he's like, we should work together.

I want to start this new business.

You seem like you can sell and you understand business and you like all this you should do it with me.

And I was like, we just met.

I just feel like, like we both didn't have a ton of friends at that point in time.

So it was like, and we'd gone on three dates and might as well.

Basically we started gym launch six weeks into us knowing each other.

18 months in, we changed the model and then it just took off.

We realized that we have really great complimentary skill sets.

We wrote everything on a whiteboard that happens with the business.

And it was like marketing, sales, finance, HR, op, success.

And then one of our friends just circled marketing and like, this is Alex.

And then all the rest is Layla.

It's building the team, doing that and aligning it with the strategy of the business is something

that i feel really good at doing most people

that have very big businesses are just people of like elite character

i don't need to be the smartest person in the room

but i need to be competent enough

100

that the smartest person in the room wants to work for me

101

and that i've created a big enough vision

102

that their vision can fit within mine

103

and the culture is really just the mission and the vision

104

and the values of the founder nobody will work for you

105

that has better values than you they will go find somebody else has better values.

106

With acquisition .com, it's sincere candor, unimpeachable character, and then competitive greatness.

107

These are the principles that we use to make decisions for the company.

108

I want to be the CEO of acquisition .com when it hits a billion.

109

I have to become a different person in order to hit a billion or to hit 10 billion.

110

What propels me now is more of a desire to honestly just meet my future self and see what's possible.

111

I could do anything that anyone else's worth has done.

112

And I think that's really freaking cool.

113

Now it's more of a desire to see what that looks like

114

and to meet the person I have to become

115

when I put myself in situations where there's more pressure to become that kind of person.

116

Setting a goal so big that I am forced to change

117

and evolve in a positive way as a human in order to get there.

118

And that other people within it also have to do the same because that's what keeps people excited.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “How I Built My Dream Life”. This video has 118 sentences and 1363 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:53. 83% 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
fitness noun	/ˈfɪt.nəs/	The condition of being fit, suitable or appropriate.
equally adverb	/ˈiːkwəli/	In an equal manner; in equal shares or proportion; with equal and impartial justice; evenly
acquisition noun	/ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/	The act or process of acquiring.
dominant adjective	/ˈdɑmənənt/	Ruling; governing; prevailing
reputation noun	/ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/	What somebody or something is known for.
founder noun	/ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/	One who founds or establishes (a company, project, organisation, state, etc.).
curious adjective	/ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/	Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying.
encourage verb	/ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/	To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit.
essentially adverb	/ɪˈsɛnʃəli/	In essence: by nature.
skill noun	/skɪl/	A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate.
elite noun	/ɪˈlit/	A special group or social class of people who have a superior social or economic status and attendant power, advantages, or privileges in society; a member of…
hire verb	/ˈhaɪɹ/	To obtain the services of in return for fixed payment.
divorce noun	/dɪˈvɔːs/	The legal dissolution of a marriage.
principle noun	/ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/	A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief.
invest verb	/ɪnˈvɛst/	To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
end up verb	To bring to a conclusion.
build up verb	To erect; to construct.
figure out verb	To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
get out of verb	To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.
go out verb	To leave, especially a building.
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
go up verb	To move upwards.
move up verb	To promote, put onto a higher level.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have learned · i've created · has done
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being divorced · been exposed
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	friends that are · guy who had

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 37 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, gonna. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, transformation /ˌtɹæns.fɔɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: acquisition /ˌæk.wɪˈzɪʃ.ən/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, transformation /ˌtɹæns.fɔɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/, complimentary /ˌkɑmplɪˈmɛnt(ə)ɹi/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like fitness, equally, acquisition.

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 I Built My Dream Life (in 5 min) - 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

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?