Shadowing Practice: How I Work: $77K/Month Solopreneur - Learn English Speaking with Video

So basically I work all days, all year long.

I love my day so much that I want to repeat it every single day.

I don't like Sundays because my phone is actually making stuff.

So I don't see why I would take a day off.

And when I go on holiday, usually I go mad.

I've met like hundreds of people who talked about their brilliant idea.

The idea is in their head or maybe on their computer, but they haven't shipped it.

And on the other side, I cannot recall a single person who told me like, hey, you know, I have tried 10 times and it never worked.

Just remember to keep shipping.

Hey, I'm Mark Liu.

I make $77,000 a month as a solo entrepreneur.

I have built 35 startups and people often ask me, how do I get so much done?

So today I'm excited to tell you about how I work.

My days might sound boring for some people, but I leave the exact same day almost every day, 365 days a year.

I always start the day with a coffee and breakfast with wife, and then I hit the gym right after.

We train at the gym together.

These days we're practicing for high rocks.

We did a little bit of a sled push and some squats and some running.

Then we go back home.

That's the moment where I start to put myself in work mode.

I don't check my phone, I don't do emails, I don't go online.

I stay completely offline at the beginning of the day.

I just want to have this big block of time that is usually four to six hours where I really deep work.

The reason that you don't check social media is because I feel like there is so much going on at the moment, especially with AI, that I get this fear of missing out, that I'm not fast enough,

that I should do more.

And then it's one hour later and I lost one hour of my day

and I feel like I like some motivation to go back to work and stuff.

The deep work is basically a moment of time that I protect because that's what got me here.

And I know that I need to get this deep work done if I want to go further.

So this little boy here is completely off because that's the worst enemy.

And then I open the computer here at this desk.

I open my code editor and I spend the next four or six hours coding stuff.

So I only create things.

I don't check my emails.

I don't check customer support.

Because sometimes you read an email that something is broken in my app and I have to fix it.

If that happens at the beginning of the day, then I'll fix this bug instead of actually working on what truly matters for me, which is creating more stuff.

I shipped about 35 startups and on those 35, 30 of them are nothing.

They don't work.

They barely don't make any money, they barely don't have any users.

So the hit rate is about 5%.

So if you want to roll the dice once and stick with that dice roll, nothing crazy will happen happen but if you keep playing you keep playing playing playing

and playing at some point one dice one roll of dice

will work you will have happy users you'll start to make

money you can leave your job you can roll the dice more often

when i was a student if you tell me

that my routine is waking up at 6 a.m

and working all day on my computer

and not playing video games i will think you know i'm crazy stupid

but the thing is at some point i started to see

people liking the work i started to see my apps having users were happy about the product

and then the the routine came in place as a part of like, oh, okay, so if you stick to a routine, then more of this will happen, so stick to it.

Now, I really try to think less about what would be the output.

I just try to think, what is the thing I want to exist?

So recently, I launched this little macOS app

that analyzes your posture with a webcam and tells me

if I'm sitting straight or if I'm just was slouching like a shrimp like this.

I did that because I spent so much time at my computer and I know it sucks to sit like a shrimp.

So I was like, oh, this app must exist.

And it's a new type of app for me.

It's like an electron app, it's macOS, so I'm not used to macOS apps.

So before I released it on that day, I wanted to do a last few checks, like is the licensing system works?

When people get a checkout, do they get the email?

3 p.m ish, I think I launched the app.

So it went live with the tweets.

I also shared on LinkedIn, Threads, and Reddit, and got the first customers.

It was amazing.

I think Thursday we did about a thousand in revenue.

Got also some good feedback.

People started to post stuff on Twitter.

I started to see my app, A News, in my users' hands, which is the ultimate happy moments for me.

There's the other type of apps that I like to make.

They spark my curiosity.

For instance, one of them was TrustMR.

And it started because I saw a tweet from Peter LaBelle that say that so many people are faking their revenue.

But I feel like, oh, you know, it's fun.

Like, what if I make a little board

that showcases all the verified revenues of all those people

so we can see who is a scammer and who is telling the truth.

And just like this was born an app that turned into a marketplace now that in itself, it makes like 35 plus K per month.

I have a big list of things I have to make.

So I have a few apps that are already running.

Among them, there are features, like important features I have to ship.

Initially, I didn't have many problems.

But as you start to make stuff, you will get feedback from people, you will discover problems, and that will give you ideals.

Now I have a to-do list that even if I leave 200 years, I wouldn't be able to make all my ideals real.

Every single day, at the end of the day, I have more stuff on my to-do list than I did at the beginning.

And then once I'm done with the cycle, so now I've released this macOS app, I can move I will just go over my list and there's this gut feeling of like among those features,

among those things, which one would have the most impact on the users, which one would make me the happiest.

I will just pick whatever comes next.

We're always afraid to show our new creation and your ideals to the world in the first time.

Just keep in mind that that's the biggest barrier to your success ever.

There's this little voice inside of your head telling you that it's too early or it's not good enough.

It's a bit like going to the gym for the first time.

You see people on Instagram, they live super heavy and then you enter the gym, you don't know the machines, you don't know how it works and all that.

But the moment you step in and you do one session, everything is not new.

It's like you've done it and then the next session is completely different.

So it's a one-time fear.

You kill 80% of it by doing it once, and then the remaining 20% will just kill it with more iterations, but it just becomes easier and easier.

100

The only way to validate an idea is to ship it with a buy button.

101

Now with AI that it's even easier to ship stuff, it's even more true.

102

I have a slightly controversial take on AI, is that there's a bunch of people who are obsessed with productivity and want to do more.

103

You know, they start to have their open-clothed teams of agents running in the background.

104

But I think the single KPI that matters hasn't changed in the AI era.

105

There's still the number of things you ship.

106

Right now, my setup is the most boring setup ever.

107

Like, I code, I see my same code editor, and on the right side, I have the chat.

108

Single-threaded, like, I talk to an AI, it makes a new feature, I release it, I move on to the next one.

109

I've shipped like 300 features on my marketplace in the last three months

110

and six new apps this year in 2026 with it.

111

And people fall for the productivity thing trick

112

when in fact you could do a lot of things with one of the first versions of ChatGPT

113

and a basic code editor.

114

Towards the end of the day, maybe 4pm, I'll go online, I'll check Twitter, I'll check my emails, I'll do the work that I find a little bit more boring, something that is less creative.

115

5.30 dinner, usually we spend way too much time eating

116

because we watched again Better Call Saul

117

and then usually we have a nice walk and that's the moment where I switch everything completely off, like very radical, so I turn my phone off,

118

I go offline, the computer is off, there's no talk about work.

119

Sometimes we watch a movie, sometimes we read a book before going to bed, and we go on bed at the exact same time every single day at 9pm.

120

It's a bit religious.

121

Before bed, we have a wind-down routine that lasts 30 minutes to one hour.

122

We start to dim the light at home, and then when you go to bed, you fall asleep instantly.

123

I never set up an alarm, and I would always wake up around 6 to 7.

124

Since I was a student, like the first 10 years, like 18 to 28 years old, I would always be sleepy.

125

Like I would be at my computer and as soon as I had to focus on some tasks, I would fall asleep.

126

With a good sleep, I feel like I'm so much more emotionally stable.

127

I have like super locked in focus.

128

Like I could spend like four hours on the same thing.

129

So I think sleep is really underrated.

130

I think it's so important.

131

One thing I see people making that mistake too often is they got this idea, this brilliant idea, they spent six months shipping it and once they ship it, they got a few users,

132

maybe they make a little bit of money online.

133

That is like become their very pet project.

134

It becomes very important for them that they're so emotionally attached to it

135

and they will still focus on something

136

that maybe it will take three years until it takes off and pays enough for you to quit your job.

137

But it's much easier to keep rolling the dice

138

and ship a new idea because

139

that idea might You can take off like 100x faster than the previous one and every time you ship something new, you learn more stuff, you share about it so you grow a lot of audience of people who discover your work.

140

So I really think that playing the game of launching stuff is the recipe to have something

141

that at some point will work out.

142

Shit.

143

Don't you dare give up.

144

Don't you dare give up.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How I Work: $77K/Month Solopreneur”. This video has 144 sentences and 1970 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:15. The speaker talks fast, about 192 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% 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

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
bore verb	/boɹ/	To inspire boredom in somebody.
offline adjective	/ɔfˈlaɪn/	Of a system, currently not connected (generally electrically) to a larger network. For example, a power plant which is not connected to the grid, or a computer…
shrimp noun	/ʃɹɪmp/	Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a…
marketplace noun		An open area in a town housing a public market.
startup noun	/ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/	The act or process of starting a process or machine.
emotionally adverb	/ɪˈməʊʃənəli/	In an emotional manner; displaying emotion.
productivity noun	/ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/	The state of being productive, fertile, or efficient.
tweet noun	/ˈtwiːt/	The sound of a bird; any short high-pitched sound or whistle.
clothe verb	/ˈkloʊð/	To adorn or cover with clothing; to dress; to supply clothes or clothing.
iteration noun	/ˌɪt.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/	A recital or a second performance; a repetition.
obsess verb	/əbˈsɛs/	To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion.
slouch noun	/ˈslaʊ̯t͡ʃ/	A hanging down of the head; a drooping posture; a limp appearance.
validate verb	/ˈvæl.ɪ.deɪt/	To render valid.
webcam noun	/ˈwɛbˌkæm/	A video camera whose output may be viewed in real time over a computer network, originally the World Wide Web.
underrated adjective	/ʌn.dɚˈɹeɪ.təd/	Not given enough recognition for its quality.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
give up verb		To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone).
take off verb		To remove.
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
go over verb		To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
miss out verb		To miss an experience or lose an opportunity, etc. that should not be missed.
set up verb	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	To make ready for use.
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

These days we're practicing for high rocks.
I don't check my emails.
I don't check customer support.
Initially, I didn't have many problems.
There's still the number of things you ship.

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	I've met · haven't shipped · have tried
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who talked · person who told · hands, which is
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is broken · was born · are obsessed

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 41 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, I'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shrimp /ʃɹɪmp/, emotionally /ɪˈməʊʃənəli/, iteration /ˌɪt.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, showcase /ˈʃoʊˌkeɪs/
Long words — get the stress right: emotionally /ɪˈməʊʃənəli/, productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, iteration /ˌɪt.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, underrated /ʌn.dɚˈɹeɪ.təd/, curiosity /ˌkjʊɹ.iˈɑ.sə.ti/

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 bore, offline, shrimp.

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 →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?