Shadowing Practice: how to force yourself to be consistent and do hard things - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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There's a simple way you can force yourself to be consistent and do hard things.
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There's a simple way you can force yourself to be consistent and do hard things.
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And it's not about having more motivation or discipline,
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it's about building the right system.
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At 22, I was working 15-hour days,
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but I wasn't growing or getting things done.
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Fast forward to today, and I built four successful companies and a community of over 14 million people.
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In this video, I'll show you how to design a system that makes consistency automatic,
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so even on the hardest days,
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you're still able to follow through and get things done.
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To build this system, you'll need to master the three levels of consistency.
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Level one, design the system.
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Level two, become the system.
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And level three, scale the system.
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Each of these has its own set of habits that will set you up for success.
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The math to consistency is really simple, right?
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1% better every day is 37 times better in a year.
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Humans have a hard time really fathoming what compounding looks like.
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Because in any given day,
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it doesn't sound like you're really moving that much.
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But suddenly when you take a step back over 30 days,
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a year, you're amazed at how much you've accomplished.
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Most people aren't bad because of motivation.
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They're bad because of the math, right?
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When people go and see their small changes that they're making in the right direction,
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they get down on themselves because they feel like they should be so much further along in life.
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The truth is you're probably just riding out that long,
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boring, growing slope to gradually really hitting the compounding success you're after.
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You gotta embrace the gap,
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the gap between where you are now and the effort you're putting in and really hitting that inflection point.
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If you only remember one thing, it's this.
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Small daily efforts beat massive bursts of effort, right?
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It's those small daily wins that when you stack that up,
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will build you something you're proud of.
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Embrace those small wins that you can do now
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that are in your control and have trust that when you just stay consistent with that stuff,
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you'll accomplish great things.
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The second part of designing your system is engineering your environment.
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When I first started building my companies, my workspace was chaos.
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Slack notifications all over the place.
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My phone constantly buzzing, social media all sprinkled in throughout my day,
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answering emails five times a day.
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My desk was a mess.
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My life was a mess.
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I was using different substances to cope with the stress.
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The reality is, is your workplace and your environment is a mess?
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Well, your business is gonna be a mess.
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If your mind is a mess,
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you know, your life is a mess.
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And so you need to go and declutter all of your environment, right?
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Deletion equals simplification.
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Now, what I learned over time building businesses is the importance of creating frictionless focus.
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You want your environment to be incredibly conducive to you just being the best version of yourself.
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When you look at your bedroom,
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is it something that's conducive to an amazing sleep at night?
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And when you wake up,
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do you have your gym clothes packed and ready for
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that nice morning workout that sets your day off to that winning stride?
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We create our environments as humans,
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but those environments also create us.
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So create your environment intentionally.
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So here's how you do it.
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You got to audit your environment for friction.
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First things first, look around you.
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You know, there's probably different aspects on your workspace.
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They're a mess.
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Clean it up.
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Think about the core habits and the core things that you're trying to become.
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You know, maybe successful in business,
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you're trying to be well rested.
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You want to have good energy.
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You want a good health.
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What are the different things that you can do with your environment that would help make that success inevitable?
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Step three is to plan over your mood.
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Years ago, I'd wake up and just go with the day and see what the day was gonna bring me.
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I'd gradually go and make a plan in the morning,
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roughly what I wanted to do.
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And I started to wonder,
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why did the progress feel so slow?
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Many days, I'd wonder, did I even get anything done?
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You know, months would go by and I felt like my life was stalling.
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What I realized through just some trial and error was that you really win the day the night before.
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A lot of people think they need motivation to take action.
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But the truth is that action creates motivation.
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When you finally just start getting after something,
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gradually the momentum builds, right?
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And before you know it,
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you're hitting goals, you're making strides.
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Things start to all kind of fall into place.
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The key to executing your plan is really taking
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that minimum viable action that's going to move you forward to where you're looking to go.
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You know, I'll see sometimes someone go and say,
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oh, you know, I need to write an article tomorrow.
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Well, that article, as an example,
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could be broken down into figure out the headline,
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do the research, make an outline,
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begin writing the intro, finish the script, edit the script.
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If we can take a project and break it down into more subtasks,
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not only does it make it easier to get started,
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but it also will give you a feeling of momentum as you go through and you check off each of these things.
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Focus on tasks, not projects,
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and break things down to the minimum viable action.
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If you can handle all that,
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you've passed level one and you're ready for the next level.
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Level two, become the system.
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And you do this by strengthening the mind-body connection.
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When I was younger, I thought that working out was optional.
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You know, you do it a few times a week,
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you're good to go.
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The reality is though, I think we're all different,
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but for me at least,
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if I'm not going and breaking a sweat every day,
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I don't feel right.
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You know, I've done studies at Harvard showing
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that breaking a sweat is like better than Zoloft at fighting things like depression and anxiety.
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And so, you know, getting a nice jog in,
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a good run, a row,
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you know, some yoga, whatever, is great to do.
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Not sometimes, but doing something every day of the week.
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At the end of the day,
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a lot of life is about your energy, right?
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It takes energy to get things done,
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takes energy to take action,
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takes energy to become the best version of yourself.
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And if your energy is low,
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well, your momentum's probably gonna be low in life as well.
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So if you wanna be consistent with your work, start with your body.
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You start to feel good,
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you look good, you're feeling more confident,
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your self-esteem goes up, and people can tell because your energy in a room is more captivating.
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You feel confident, right?
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You're not shying away in a corner.
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You're totally fine getting in front of a group of people
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and getting after it because the truth is
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that the same muscles you're kind of working in the gym psychologically are oftentimes those same muscles
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that you need to work to be consistent.
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The same thing that's telling you to give up when you're on
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that eighth rep with a really heavy set of weights
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is that same sort of voice in your head that's telling you to stop
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when you've done a couple of hard tasks and telling you to not do that third one.
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Really, more than just working your body, you're working your mind.
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The next step is an absolute requirement after the last one,
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and it's to recharge like a pro.
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Early in my career, I thought that rest was a weakness.
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In fact, I thought it was like a badge of honor if I was pulling all-nighters,
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working 18 hours a day.
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I thought this was the way.
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I was finally living like a successful entrepreneur.
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What I've learned is that's actually the opposite of what it should look like.
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Taking time to rest, to recharge, is much needed.
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Now, for me, I know one of the most important activities
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that I can take is every six weeks doing a soul trip.
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You know, doing some kind of four or seven day little retreat in nature,
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going for a hike, going snowboarding,
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going downhill mountain biking, whether it's in the Dolomites,
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Sequoia, Yosemite, wherever, doesn't matter,
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but just getting out into nature.
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You know, most founders and creators that I know,
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they treat rest as optional and they self-sabotage themselves.
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That founder that allows themselves to go and work so hard that they become really hard to be around.
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You know, they start kind of making a mess in their company for employees to quit.
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Suddenly now they're finding themselves,
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trying to dig themselves out of a hole,
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but just constantly kind of digging their own grave.
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You know, I know this because I've been there, right?
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I've been that founder that was burning the midnight oil,
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difficult to be around, and slowly was causing my company to collapse.
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You know, it's rest that brings clarity.
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The last part of becoming your system is remembering that your friends are your future.
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In my early 20s, I wasted a ton of time surrounded by a group of people that weren't great influences.
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You know, I found myself partying on substances,
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doing dumb shit, and I realized that I needed to do a bit of a friend audit,
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Start to cut the people that were bad influences,
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remove those people that were energy vampires just bringing me down,
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and start to get much more curated about the people
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that I really wanted to be around so that I could become the ultimate version of myself.
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You need to make sure that you're surrounding yourself with people that reflect those dreams because at the end of the day,
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the five people you surround yourself with are gonna largely dictate your own success.
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So choose wisely.
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Level three, scale the system.
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Up until this point, I've shown you how to become more and more consistent,
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but these next three steps are gonna help you become super successful,
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starting with setting up accountability.
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A year and a half ago,
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I decided I was gonna write a book
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and one of the first actions that I took was to announce it to everyone I knew.
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The reason that I did it is
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because I knew all these people around me were gonna hold me accountable to actually writing this damn book.
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This sort of way of doing kind of a public accountability exercise of actually announcing to people like,
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hey, I'm doing this thing has become incredibly motivating
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because now I gotta fulfill on that promise that I've given so many people.
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Most people avoid accountability because they fear embarrassment,
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but that's the whole thing.
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Your fear of embarrassment is gonna cause you to actually do the thing.
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The moment you make a promise in public,
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you're putting your reputation on the line.
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And at that point, you will do anything to actually do what you committed to.
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That's not pressure to avoid, that's pressure to leverage.
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So if you wanna be consistent,
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set up your accountability in three steps.
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Number one, publicly announce that you're going to do the thing.
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Number two, go and update those group of people every single week.
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And number three, start building an audience of these kind of people that you've committed to now.
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Use this as the momentum you need to stay after it.
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This is what's holding most people back from achieving their goals.
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When I launched FounderOS, actually it was called Soulful Entrepreneur.
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Yeah, it basically sounded like a yoga studio.
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You know, this thing was messy.
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The site was janked together on Kajabi.
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The branding was all over the place.
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The color scheme was ugly as hell, but guess what?
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I just launched it.
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Looking back on that experience four years ago,
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I don't regret a thing because it's going and putting yourself out there
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and launching at 80% that allows you to go and make progress,
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to learn and learn and then figure it out.
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That's what allowed me to create the 180 powerful systems that we now offer inside of FounderOS,
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which is the community of high growth founders that I've created.
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None of that would have been possible though,
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if I hadn't have just launched the messy first draft.
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And so in your own life,
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what does that look like?
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What's that thing that, you know,
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you've had it, you know,
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sitting there in your folders or on your desktop or,
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you know, in draft mode for far too long.
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You know, this is your sign to just launch the damn thing.
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What matters the most is your velocity of learning.
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Are you putting things out there,
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getting feedback, incorporating that feedback into what you're doing,
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learning from it, doubling down,
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stopping the things that aren't working,
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and keeping that cycle going?
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It's the fastest learners that are the biggest winners.
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Now that you're consistent, well,
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what do you do with it?
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You compound it.
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Over seven years ago, I struggled with alcohol,
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you know, drinking at least four nights a week,
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and it had become a pattern in my life,
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a rhythm that I knew needed to stop.
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And so sure enough, I got some help.
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I got a coach, got a therapist and stacked up seven days of sobriety,
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30 days of sobriety.
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And then now seven years along that journey.
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I also started stacking different habits.
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I started to then journal just a half a page every morning that then led to three pages every morning.
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And then led me to sharing some of
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that work onto platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn
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that gradually led up to building an audience of over 3.2 million people around my personal brand.
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And that then led to the creation of FounderOS.
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I tell you all this,
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and I'm definitely skipping some of the details just to show you
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that sometimes it's those most innocent little changes that we make
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that stack up to create some of the biggest impacts in our lives.
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And so when I think about going and building leverage these days,
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one of the most important things that I do is four hours of Founder flow every single morning.
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Now, for you, what you wanna think of is,
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what's that big thing that you're trying to get done in your life
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and then break it down to what you need to do today to get there.
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The biggest mistake that a lot of founders make though is that they view consistency as a daily grind
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when it is the consistent actions that you take daily that really create the person you're trying to become.
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Discipline builds momentum, but leverage builds freedom.
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And when you combine both,
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you stop working for your consistency and your consistency starts working for you.
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I went and created a comprehensive guide called Consistency OS.
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So in the next 30 days,
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you could go and master consistency in your life and business.
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If you're interested in going and checking that out,
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go get it for free via the link in the description.
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It's a free guide that's going to help you,
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your team become way more consistent day after day.
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If you like this video,
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don't forget to like and subscribe and go and watch this video,
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which is how I build a business that runs without me.
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Context & Background
In the enlightening video titled "How to Force Yourself to be Consistent and Do Hard Things," the speaker shares valuable insights drawn from personal experiences of building successful companies. At just 22 years old, they were overwhelmed by lengthy workdays without achieving significant growth. Today, they manage multiple businesses and a thriving community, emphasizing that true progress comes from establishing the right systems instead of relying solely on motivation or discipline. The conversation centers on the importance of consistency and the structured approach to develop habits that facilitate success.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "Embrace the gap": Understanding this phrase encourages you to accept the distance between your current situation and your goals.
- "Small daily efforts beat massive bursts of effort": This emphasizes the value of consistency over occasional intense effort.
- "Design your system": This phrase highlights the need for a structured approach to achieving your goals.
- "Engineering your environment": This encourages you to create a supportive space that fosters productivity.
- "1% better every day": A reminder that small, incremental improvements lead to remarkable growth over time.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
The shadowing technique is a powerful method to improve your spoken English by mimicking native speakers. Here's how to effectively incorporate the insights from the video into your shadowing practice:
- Choose a Clip: Start by selecting the YouTube video mentioned earlier. It's a remarkable resource for both motivation and practical speaking examples.
- Listen Actively: Play the video, focusing on the speaker's tone and intonation. Notice how they emphasize key phrases like "embrace the gap" and "design your system."
- Shadow the Speaker: Rewind and repeat each phrase aloud, mimicking the speaker's rhythm and pronunciation. Use a shadowing app to slow down the audio if needed.
- Focus on Context: While shadowing, pay attention to how the phrases apply in different contexts. Practice using these phrases in your daily conversation to reinforce learning.
- Reflect and Adjust: After practicing, review your shadowing sessions. Identify areas for improvement and celebrate your small wins!
Through consistent use of this shadowing technique, you not only enhance your speaking skills but also develop a deeper understanding of the language. Just like the speaker suggests, remember that each small effort compounds over time, leading to substantial improvement. Utilize this approach on your shadowing site or with your daily practice, and watch your confidence in English speaking grow steadily.
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.
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