Shadowing Practice: How I'd Grow on Social Media If I Started Today - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you were starting from zero today, you have no audience, you have no nothing, no money, no audience, no reputation,
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no resources, what would you do?
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I'd make content on the internet.
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Either about things I know, if I still had my knowledge, I would talk about business, I'd be Johnny Pants Magoo,
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and I would talk about business and wine and sports.
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The greatest equalizer that the world has ever seen is social media.
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Literally, there's no gatekeeper.
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Oh, the man is keeping me down.
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The algorithm doesn't give a fuck.
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No, it doesn't.
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The algorithm doesn't give a fuck.
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And you can only really appreciate that and understand it.
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And I'll contextualize it because when you came up in the fashion industry, the keys to the kingdom were held by three people, right?
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It was like there were a finite amount of hair people and makeup artists and stylists and that was it.
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And unless you were in with those people, there was fucking nothing.
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Gatekeepers.
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Now it's completely democratized.
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Completely.
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Completely.
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At a scale that is insane.
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So what do you think that this generation have got going for them that like no other generation has had?
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Opportunity.
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Yeah.
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Again, this is what blows me away.
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One stupid piece of content that tells you
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that the boomers took all the opportunity away from the kids
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makes kids believe the complete opposite of what they see every day, which is unlimited people that look like them winning.
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When I was coming up the game, you had to eat shit for 15 years to begin the first days of opportunity.
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What's the content that you put out that gets the views?
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The content that gets views is the extremities of random ass shit.
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When I, in the green room of a talk, said blueberries were underrated and I loved them,
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that was one of my most successful videos of all time.
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I promise you that wasn't on my strategy sheet.
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So back to your point, sometimes it's the human stuff.
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And then there's other videos that are the emotional stuff.
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When that young woman came to me after a talk and she said, one day I'm going to be somebody and I'm like, you're somebody now.
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That works, the emotional.
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And then the third one, the tactical.
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So something of value.
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Now value comes in all shapes and sizes.
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Why does somebody that's unbelievably attractive, male or female, get a lot of likes?
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Because being attractive is value.
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Why does somebody who's a comedian get a lot of, because being funny is value.
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But mentorship, coaching, skillset learning, those things are value too.
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It's just value.
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The problem for almost everyone in this chat right now is when they get excited to make a piece of content,
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it's to tell somebody to buy a house from them.
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One of the most interesting debates that I've watched play out in the last decade is the concept of quantity versus quality.
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Let me be very blunt with this.
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Quantity is not debatable.
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You either make 800 pieces of content or you make one.
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Right, it's not subjective, it's objective.
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800 versus one is 800 versus one.
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Quality is subjective.
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What makes quality?
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Is it the production value?
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Is it the substance of your video?
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Is it the lighting?
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Is it the audio?
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I believe quantity is a meaningful competitive advantage.
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And I think the receipts have played out.
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If you look at the people that are winning, quantity is a very consistent variable in the brands and the people
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that have elevated over the last three years social media died four years ago
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and for the last four years we've been in interest media
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which means you no longer get the content on your feeds from the people you follow like your cousin
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or your best friend from middle school you get content based on what you've recently been into.
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It's super crazy where we are in social.
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Do you know that if you went outside right now
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and made a video of eating a banana and drinking a rum and coke and posted it,
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that people that have a high propensity of interest in bananas
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and rum and coke might be the first people that see that content?
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All you have to do is make organic social media content over
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and over and and over again in as many different ways as possible across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn,
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different thumbnails, different hooks, complete insane psycho discipline.
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Five years ago, the worst advice someone could give you is to create new handles.
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Today it's the best advice.
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Because we live in interest media, not social.
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What was your name again?
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I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
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Amber.
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At Amber in marketing with zero followers on TikTok, with your first post being something smart can get 500 ,000 views or five,
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but we can now all stand up net new handles and make content there if we're concerned about shocking our audience.
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Let me remind you a couple of things.
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Your audience, less than 5 % of their consumption for a massive influencer is happening on your grid.
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Yet, the amount of time you fuckers think about your grid and making sure it's aesthetically to your subjective pleasing,
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even though it's hurting you on getting views on your posts, blows my mind.
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Your content is gonna be posted in your Amber account or the people you work with.
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It's gonna get posted.
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It's going to be consumed in feed.
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Your audience is not your audience that follows you anymore.
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Your audience is the people interested in the content you just made.
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I would also argue that if someone follows you for fashion and you post a marketing video, they're just gonna skip through it.
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No one's gonna be like, fucking Amber.
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Like this concept that we've created for ourselves.
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When I post about collectibles and all of you want me for business advice,
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you don't stop in the feed where you could see Gary's about to talk about comic books, you could give a fuck about that.
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But when my next post is about live shopping strategy to grow your personal brand, you stop.
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You understand?
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Do some people unfollow?
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Now, if you go into politics, be prepared to get unfollowed.
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If you go into certain areas, sure.
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But if I'm talking about, especially things that I think a lot of you could really,
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really go to, which is like little niche fun things that just round out your personality.
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Like you love to make clothes by hand, yarn, or like, you know, just little certain, maybe you can hacky sack.
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By the way, a lot of you are so precious and on a pedestal, showing some humanity would really help you.
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A lot of you in this room are a little too perfect, AKA fake.
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You showing something that's a little bit dorkier or silly could do a lot of you a lot.
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The first thing you have to do strategically is understand
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that every one of your companies are a media company that happens to be selling a product.
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That's number one.
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And when that becomes the case, you know, people are always like, oh Gary, easy for you, you know, oh, you know,
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especially when I say something like I just said, oh, easy for you, like you have a full team.
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I'm like, fuck you.
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And the reason I say that is I made my own content for eight
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and a half years before I hired my first person.
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Like, the receipts are out there.
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February 21st, 2006, Wine Library TV, no lighting, no mic.
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I look like I'm a hostage in Afghanistan.
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And I'm just reviewing wine from the bottom of my little heart in a world that nobody was watching.
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Nobody was on YouTube.
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You guys are so fortunate.
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The world's attention is on that phone and you can post for free.
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So no money, respect, but again, no one here is actually at $0 ,000.
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They're not in their kitchen.
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Like, they're somewhere.
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Where do they spend their money? For what?
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Two, I don't want to hear time
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because if you have the audacity that you're trying to build something
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and you're gonna tell me that you do not have time to create content, to build brand, and to grow your business,
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I don't even know what you're doing.
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What are you doing?
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What could you possibly be doing that's more important than letting the world know why they should buy your thing?
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How I'd Grow on Social Media If I Started Today”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: content, audience, value. This video has 132 sentences and 1428 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:28. The speaker talks at a natural 169 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| quantity noun | /ˈkwɑn(t)ɪti/ | A fundamental, generic term used when referring to the measurement (count, amount) of a scalar, vector, number of items or to some other way of denominating… |
| versus | /ˈvɝsəs/ | Against; in opposition to. |
| subjective adjective | /səbˈd͡ʒɛktɪv/ | Formed, as in opinions, based upon a person's feelings or intuition, rather than upon observation or purely logical reasoning; coming more from within the… |
| insane adjective | /ɪnˈseɪn/ | Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; utterly mad. |
| grid noun | /ɡɹɪd/ | A rectangular array of squares or rectangles of equal size, such as in a crossword puzzle. |
| coke noun | /koʊk/ | Solid residue from roasting coal in a coke oven; used principally as a fuel and in the production of steel and formerly as a domestic fuel. |
| algorithm noun | /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/ | A collection of ordered steps that solve a mathematical problem. A precise step-by-step plan for a computational procedure that possibly begins with an input… |
| banana noun | /bəˈnænə/ | An elongated curved tropical fruit of a banana plant, which grows in bunches and has a creamy flesh and a smooth skin. |
| receipt noun | /ɹɪˈsiːt/ | The act of receiving, or the fact of having been received. |
| consistent adjective | /kənˈsɪs.tənt/ | Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature. |
| audio adjective | /ˈɔ.di.oʊ/ | Focused on audible sound, as opposed to sight. |
| reputation noun | /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/ | What somebody or something is known for. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| shock noun | /ʃɔk/ | A sudden, heavy impact. |
| comic noun | /ˈkɑmɪk/ | A comedian. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. |
| play out verb | To play (a game etc.) to its conclusion. |
| put out verb | To blind (eyes). |
| stand up verb | To rise from a lying or sitting position. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I'd make content on the internet.
- What's the content that you put out that gets the views?
- I promise you that wasn't on my strategy sheet.
- Is it the substance of your video?
- What was your name again?
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 | has ever seen · has had · I've watched |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were held · were underrated · be posted |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | day, which is · people that are · people that have |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 35 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, gonna, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: algorithm /ˈælɡəɹɪðm̩/, cloth /klɒθ/, thumbnail /ˈθʌm.neɪl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, shock /ʃɔk/, sheet /ʃit/, consumption /kənˈsʌmp.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/, unlimited /ʌnˈlɪm.ɪ.tɪd/, comedian /kəˈmiː.di.ən/, underrated /ʌn.dɚˈɹeɪ.təd/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like quantity, versus, subjective.
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.