Shadowing Practice: How The Top 1% Handle Hard Conversations - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Most people think if you avoid a hard conversation, it means you're just afraid or anxious.

But the truth is, it just means that you're lacking a few communication skills

that top performers and communicators use every single day.

I've co -founded a company doing over a quarter billion dollars of revenue per year, and I've hired, trained, and even fired over a thousand people.

Trust me, I've had to be really hard on some of them, and they sometimes hated me for it.

And still, the conversation I regret the most is the one I didn't have soon enough.

It cost us a business deal worth millions, but worst of all it eroded the confidence my team had in me

but here's the thing every hard conversation starts small a tiny water leak

and every week you stay quiet the pressure builds

and one day it bursts and floods everything you were trying to protect

so the only way out is to act early

and this is the four -stage framework i use to know exactly how

and when to say the hard thing

so the first thing you have to understand is

that every hard conversation has a price and it goes up every single week, you don't have it.

Which means the one you're thinking about right now is already the cheapest it will ever be.

We had a senior exec who worked for us for about two years.

He was critical to a multimillion dollar investment, but more often than I'd like to admit,

he would pop off at the team and even curse at them.

I remember the first time this happened to me.

I was on an airplane with him.

We were flying across the country

and we had about a seven hour flight in front of us

and we were going through what should have been very benign project updates

but he kept inserting himself in such an aggressive way at first he got aggressive then it turned into anger

and at the end it was a full -blown meltdown

and i already worked with this person for about a year

and i saw little tiny signs of this type of behavior with other people

but this was the first time i experienced it

because initially i wrote off all of his behavior as stress we're working on a lot of international projects

so he was doing back and forth travel working late hours and taking really early morning meetings to accommodate all of it.

What I should have said in that moment is you are not allowed to communicate like this.

And if you ever do this again, you no longer have the opportunity to work here.

Instead of saying that I made sense of his behavior.

I said, let's just sleep it off.

I'm sure you're in a high pressure situation.

I know you haven't slept very much.

Let's just tone this down and revisit this tomorrow.

For far too long, I told myself that I was being patient, that it wasn't the right time, that I was protecting the project.

But what I was actually doing was just protecting myself from the discomfort of having the conversation

and having to back up the conversation with action.

And here's why I missed it.

Every reason I had for staying quiet that day was true.

He really was traveling.

It really had been a brutal week.

It was an excuse, but it wasn't a lie.

And that's what makes it so hard to argue with.

I waited and the next week had a huge event.

So I waited again.

And that's how six months turns into a year because it's never one moment.

It's never one decision.

It's excuse after excuse and becoming more and more reasonable, which allows the whole thing to start to crumble.

So if there's a conversation you've been putting off for more than two weeks, the only person who thinks it's okay is you.

Everybody around you already knows the problem.

So try swapping the sentence you keep repeating to yourself.

Instead of, it's not the right time, say the honest version.

I've decided not to do it because that's what's actually happening.

These are two different sentences and most people just use the first to justify the second it.

And that's what I was doing, deciding not to do it.

Because in my mind, I was doing the math on whether it was worth it at each point.

But my math was completely off.

That's the second thing nobody tells you.

You're waiting for the right moment because in your head, you price how uncomfortable the conversation will be.

But you never price what waiting costs.

Almost every hard conversation you're avoiding comes down to three things.

First one, you don't say the hard thing because you need the person.

That's the senior employee I was talking about before.

90 % of his job really wasn't being done correctly but

that 10 % that multi -million dollar project is really what was holding me hostage

and keeping him on the team but here's the funny thing he actually tricked me

because I didn't at the time realize

that 90 % of the job wasn't getting done it's only after

he left where I got to see all of the pieces out of place where I realized

I was only holding on to him because I was thinking

that this one thing was working

and I was willing to not look at these other pieces don't do this to yourself

because you will start to feel like you've compromised your ability to hold your team accountable

if you know that one project is so important

and you're letting everything else slip learn from my mistake reorganize the activity

so you're not expecting one person to make this thing happen

while also realizing that this other side of the business is being dropped

that can't happen so reorganize the work how do you bring somebody in to handle this side of the situation.

That way, at least you know that the reason that this person is there is to get one thing done.

And if they don't do it, you have good reason to just move on.

If they do do it, fantastic.

They'd move the business forward.

But you didn't ignore this other component that the business needed to have attention on.

Now, the second one is guilt.

And guilt can be heavier because the people that you feel guilt about haven't done anything wrong.

Everyone knows you should cut toxics people.

But the uncomfortable truth is that neutral people, even lifelong friends, are also quietly costing you success.

When I think back to the early Cardo Ventures team, our first eight hires were people that Fran and I already knew.

People I had worked with before.

Some of them I had close personal relationships with.

And they stayed for a very long time.

But as Cardo Ventures grew, we also outgrew their skill sets.

And these are the people who helped build the thing.

But the thing became bigger than their abilities.

I'm specifically thinking about one team member we'll call her sarah early on she saw one of our largest departments

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and she did a phenomenal job of getting us to 100 clients

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but then it started to break and we were never able to scale past

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that 100 mark and

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so i had to have a very difficult conversation with someone i had worked with for almost a decade

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and tell her

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that she was no longer the right person to grow this department that's the hard truth

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that the person

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that got you from zero to 10 million is likely not the same person

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that's going to get you from 10 million to 100 million the third reason people delay hard conversations is fear,

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especially when the person that you need has power over you.

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People think speaking up to someone with power is about having courage.

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It has nothing to do with courage.

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It's about deciding that the outcome of staying quiet is worse than the outcome of them being upset.

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When you stay quiet, you think that you're being patient and measured, giving someone the benefit of the doubt.

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But people around you don't see patience.

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They see permission.

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The leaders that you have around you, the team you have around you is a direct reflection of you.

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And the people who are truly pulling their weight notice when others aren't.

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And they also notice when you let it slide.

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So they start to wonder, why does this person get special treatment?

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And does the standard really even matter?

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When I waited to have the conversation with my toxic senior employee for six months, my team started to second guess my judgment.

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I had countless phone calls late at night, early in the morning, working through these problematic situations

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that the senior leader was causing because my team knew that I saw the problem and yet I wasn't actively doing anything.

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But me not handling it was an actual choice I made and they judged it based off of that decision.

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See the thing is you don't lose your team's respect the day you fire someone.

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You lose it every single day you don't fire someone who's wrong for the company.

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This is the toughest thing I've had to learn about hard conversations.

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The confrontation you're avoiding doesn't disappear while you wait.

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It compounds.

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You think you're being kind by staying quiet but the longer you wait, the more that hard conversation feels like an ambush when it finally happens.

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Early on in my career, I was leading a team of developers and they were a bunch of dudes who had a very technical skill set.

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I did not have that technical skill set.

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I was responsible for the product and their output that was servicing our clients.

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So I already had a difficult time managing them because they were older, they were dudes, they had more experience,

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and they had a very specialized technical skill set.

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And two of them in particular would show up in a way where they would just bounce back

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and forth about all the problems.

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This is never going to work.

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Here are all the problems I ran into.

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And every daily stand -up sounded like this.

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It was just a sounding board of the two of them going back

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and forth ping -ponging about all the problems and why this was never going to work.

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So after a handful of months of being frustrated that they weren't looking at how it could work,

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I finally made the decision to fire both of them.

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And when I fired both of them, it came as a complete surprise to them.

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Because it was a surprise.

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I had never given them any feedback.

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I didn't tell them that I didn't appreciate their negativity.

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I didn't tell them that it was no longer tolerated for them to communicate like this.

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I didn't even tell them that they should come up with solutions.

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I just would listen because I didn't know what else to do in these meetings.

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I felt like they were the experts and because they couldn't figure it out,

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I was just going to let go of them and find other experts who could.

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This is the wrong way to handle any hard conversation

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because the person that you need to have the hard conversation with might not know what they're doing.

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So they just keep doing it and then it gets worse.

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And when you finally do say something, it is way bigger than it needed to be.

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You've been carrying months of frustration and it feels like an ambush to them.

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Silence is not kindness.

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This is comfort disguised as caring.

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Kindness is telling someone the truth

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while the truth is still small enough to act on before it becomes a firing

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or a breakup or the conversation

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that you should have had a year ago in a work environment

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there's usually a clear process for talking to a team member

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who can no longer contribute in the way the business needs

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but in your personal life it can feel easier to let toxic people stick around

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because the cost isn't as obvious

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or as measurable as it is with a bad employee

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i had a close friend of mine who couldn't be happy for my success

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i would have these breakthroughs in our business

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and these breakthroughs in servicing our clients and instead of being interested and asking questions about what i was doing, what my thought process was,

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even the toll that the pressure had on me.

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It was always about her and her life and what she was doing.

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And I loved listening to what she was doing and I loved talking about her life, but there was never any real interest in mine.

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And it made me feel like when I did share something with her, she just wasn't interested.

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So I really felt like my accomplishments were diminished.

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I was doing such cool things and she couldn't be happy for me about them.

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And this made me realize the toll that this relationship was taking on me.

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I felt like I had to keep selling myself on being interested in her life because she wasn't actually interested in mine,

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which made me pause and think about the life that I wanted for myself and the people that I wanted around me.

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I started asking myself, if somebody doesn't fit the picture of where I see myself going in the next two years,

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three years, five years, Are they really gonna add value to help me get there?

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And this didn't mean having some big blow -up conversation with her.

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It just allowed me to put space in the relationship.

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So I was able to continue to pursue the things I wanted to without feeling the negativity and the lack of support.

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Which brings me to the last stage.

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The skill was never courage.

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The skill is speed.

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Here's what happens when you say the hard thing right away instead of waiting six months.

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With end -of -year promotions right around the corner, this is my one solid data that I always hold onto when making this decision.

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I never promote somebody who isn't actually ready.

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This person was my senior director of HR and she wanted to be a vice president.

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Four years with us, she'd moved her entire life from New York to Scottsdale for this job

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and no one ever questioned the hours she put in.

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On paper, the case made itself.

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What I could see and what she couldn't was that in meetings with executives, she went quiet.

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She was the youngest person in the room and often the only woman in the room.

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And she had decided that meant that she had the least to say.

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She was excellent at the work, but she wasn't showing up with the authority that the title needed.

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So I could have just given her the promotion.

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Plenty of people would have.

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Or I could have said nothing about why she wasn't getting it and let her work it out on her own,

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which is the version most people pick.

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Instead, I told her the hard thing.

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And it was not easy for me.

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What if she became so frustrated about not getting a VP that she just left entirely?

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It felt very risky.

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But I told her anyway in her one -on -one.

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I told her that if she wanted to be a VP,

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she needed to start acting like one and I wasn't gonna promote her until I actually saw the behavior shift.

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You see, it's so key to have a place where hard things like this can surface on a regular basis,

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which is why every leader should have regular one -on -ones with the people that report to them.

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The one -on -one framework that I use is linked below

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and I've used this across the hundreds of team members

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that work inside my organization to give them a structure for how to have a conversation with their manager

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and equally for the manager to hold the team member accountable to what they should be developing.

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What are their goals?

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How do their metrics align to those things?

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What are the key initiatives that need to be talked about this week to move that role forward?

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You see, the only reason that this piece of feedback with her worked was because of when it happened.

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It happened as soon as the subject was on the table.

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The exact same words six months later, waiting for a performance review, wouldn't have been helpful.

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But this was the small feedback

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that I could give her on her recurring one -on -ones

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that allowed her to feel like I was actually working with her.

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I was advocating for her.

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I wanted this for her so that she could start making actual improvements

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She was upset because she expected a promotion and she felt like she deserved it

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But she took the feedback and it made her better

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She thanked me for it later and told me that

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if I hadn't been able to have the conversation with her She wouldn't have improved and from my standpoint

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What's incredible about this is today

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She's my chief of staff

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and she can handle any conversation in any room I don't care

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if it's a business owner with a hundred million dollar business

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or if it's a brand new team member who's being welcomed inside our organization.

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She has the executive presence of a chief of staff.

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So what's helpful is when you ask yourself, what is the worst realistic outcome if I say the hard thing?

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Not the catastrophic fantasy, the realistic one.

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You see, in my experience, the realistic one is just a hard 10 -minute conversation, whereas the cost of not saying it is months of resentment.

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This is my hiring philosophy.

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The unteachable thing is curiosity.

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I've hired thousands of people across my companies and the pattern holds true every time.

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You can hire someone at a $3 million accounting level and they're already the expert.

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That's fine, even if they don't have the $10 million skill yet.

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But the moment they think that being an expert means that they know everything, they become their own lid.

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I need you to be hungry, not comfortable.

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And you can't just focus on what you already know

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because you have to ask what there is to learn in order for any business to grow.

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The person who can be realigned is still hungry.

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And when I tell them that something isn't where it needs to be, they lean in but the person who's done growing they think

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that they already know everything and they defend their position instead of listening

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if you want the interview process that i've used to interview thousands of people

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and build my team across hundreds of team members find me on instagram

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and dm me the word interview and i will send you my exact interview process

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that has three steps right in your box

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so think about the person you've been protecting from the truth

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now imagine them hearing it from someone else in six months

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or figuring out on their own and realizing

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that you knew the whole time

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which version do you want to be in on monday write down the one thing

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that you need to say to that person not the softened version the real one

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and then say it today not a list not everything

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you've been only on to just the one thing the person you're thinking about right now already knows this

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so say it while it's relevant now knowing

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when to have these hard conversations is something

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that the top 0 .1 percent do effortlessly do you want to find out what else

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i've learned from being around the top one percent go watch this video next i think you'll like it.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “How The Top 1% Handle Hard Conversations”. This video has 269 sentences and 3361 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:18. The speaker talks fast, about 220 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
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.
hire verb	/ˈhaɪɹ/	To obtain the services of in return for fixed payment.
feedback noun	/ˈfiːdˌbæk/	Critical assessment of a process or activity or of their results.
promotion noun	/pɹəˈmoʊʃn̩/	An advancement in rank or position.
outcome noun	/ˈaʊtkʌm/	That which is produced or occurs as a result of an event or process.
courage noun	/ˈkʌ.ɹɪd͡ʒ/	The quality of being confident, not afraid or easily intimidated, but without being incautious or inconsiderate.
realistic adjective	/ˌɹɪəˈlɪs.tɪk/	Expressed or represented as being accurate, practicable, or not idealistic.
guilt noun	/ɡɪlt/	Responsibility for wrongdoing.
hungry adjective	/ˈhʌŋ.ɡɹi/	Affected by hunger; having the physical need for food.
helpful adjective	/ˈhɛlp.fl̩/	Furnishing help; giving aid; useful.
aggressive adjective	/əˈɡɹɛs.ɪv/	Characterized by aggression; highly combative; prone to behave in a way that involves attacking (especially if unjustly) or arguing.
framework noun	/ˈfɹeɪm.wɜːk/	A support structure comprising joined parts or conglomerated particles and intervening open spaces of similar or larger size.
toxic adjective	/ˈtɒk.sɪk/	Having a chemical nature that is harmful to health or lethal if consumed or otherwise entering into the body in sufficient quantities.
communicate verb	/kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/	To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell.
uncomfortable adjective	/ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/	Not comfortable; causing discomfort.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
back up verb		To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so.
blow up verb		To explode or be destroyed by explosion.
come down to verb		To reach by moving down or reducing.
come up with verb		To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
do over verb	/ˈduˌoʊvɚ/	To cover with; to smear or spread on to.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.

Sentences worth repeating

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

I said, let's just sleep it off.
I'm sure you're in a high pressure situation.
I know you haven't slept very much.
Let's just tone this down and revisit this tomorrow.
That's the second thing nobody tells you.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	you've been putting · You've been carrying · you've been protecting
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've hired · I've had · haven't slept
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are not allowed · being done · being dropped
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	person who thinks · people who helped · people who are

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 84 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, wasn't, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, breakthrough /ˈbɹeɪk.θɹuː/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: promotion /pɹəˈmoʊʃn̩/, ambush /ˈæm.bʊʃ/, initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, patience /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, developer /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/

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 skill, hire, feedback.

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 The Top 1% Handle Hard Conversations - 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

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?