Shadowing Practice: How To Make Content That Forces People To Trust You - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Why is it that some personal brands are able to get trusted by millions, and others can't get a single person to become a diehard follower?
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It comes down to one thing, the art of influence.
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Over the last five years, I've generated 17 million followers and 10 billion views for clients, and today I'm breaking down the six traits of influence
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that work together to help you build a personal brand that give people no choice but to trust you.
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I created this framework because I noticed a difference between personal brands
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that had a cult -like following and personal brand that just had followers that didn't give a fuck about them.
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The ingredient that made the difference was influence.
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If you're trying to sell a product or service, which is what most people who are building a personal brand are trying to do, you need influence to do that.
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Hey guys, go buy my stuff.
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No one watching this is going to do that, unless I have that single ingredient of influence.
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But this framework does not just apply to content.
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It also applies in every domain in life.
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If you want to influence people to do something that they wouldn't normally do, this is how you do it.
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Which brings me to trait number one, you need to be the pioneer, which means you need to do the thing first.
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This pill right here, this could be dangerous, but I want you to take it.
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Let's play this out for a second I could tell you
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that this pill would give you the best out of your life It would unlock mental focus
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that you've never seen it would make you a genius This pill could have everything
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that you wanted within it But if I just told you to take it
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and I didn't take one first the chances of you taking
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it are very low building a personal brand Follows the same
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principles you could want your viewers to do something You could try to encourage them to do that thing.
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You could tell them outright do this thing But if you don't do the thing first, if you don't pioneer the path for them, there's no reason for them to follow you.
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Our industry, social media, is full of people that don't have the credibility to tell their audience what to do.
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And yet they tell their audience to do things.
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They give people unsolicited advice with no proof to back up what they're saying.
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Hypothetically speaking, let's say I'm about five years old.
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I'm able to now think and reason and talk to an extent.
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And my mom and dad tell me, hey, Ronnie, go clean your room but then I go to their room and I see that it's an absolute mess.
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The chances of me just listening to what they tell me is very low
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because they haven't done the thing that they're telling me to do first.
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They have not pioneered the way.
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I have a few important reasons that I started posting content recently, but one of the main ones is that I had been a creative director behind the scenes for four or five years.
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I had helped other people generate millions of followers, billions of views, but I knew
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that it was going to be hard for me to command a level of respect
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and have authority over people and influence them to do things, if I wasn't doing it first.
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And that's why I'm posting content now because I want to be a leader that leads by example.
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I want to pioneer the path for people and test things on my own account so that when I tell someone, hey, do this thing, they're like, okay, I've seen you do it.
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I trust you enough to do it.
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And this is why it's so important to audit the things you say and ask yourself, do I follow the things that I say?
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What makes someone influential isn't the amount of followers they have.
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What makes someone influential is what they've done.
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Jeff Bezos doesn't even post content frequently, but this guy lives rent -free in a lot of entrepreneurs' heads
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and everything that he says people listen to because he built Amazon.
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Like Elon Musk doesn't post content.
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He's been on podcasts, yeah.
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But people study the things he says because he's the world's first trillionaire.
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It isn't the volume of content that you post that makes you influential.
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That is a forcing function for getting in front of people, but it's the precursor.
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It's not the thing that makes you influential.
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The most important thing to build influence over people is to do things
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that other people aren't willing to do so that you can say things that other people can't.
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Hey, I did this shit.
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And you don't have to be a giga -rich billionaire
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or already have done something to start talking about the things that you're doing now.
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There was a guy that I was on a call with recently
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and he also does content and he put in his bio, not an expert, even though he has credibility enough to tell people what they should do.
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Instead, he is publicly testing content strategies on his own account and then sharing them with the world.
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I'm more likely to take that guy seriously because I know that he doesn't have an angle.
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He's not trying to influence me to do something.
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This is the question that I ask myself.
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What is something that other people in my space can't say?
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I personally don't know anyone that can say they have generated a billion followers for clients through social media.
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Guess what I'm spending the next 10 years of my life doing?
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Generating a billion followers for clients.
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I know that after I've generated a billion followers for clients, when I talk about content and give people advice, they're going to fucking listen to me.
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When Mr. Beast gets on a podcast and starts talking about content, do you think anyone has the ability to argue with him?
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No, because he's fucking Mr. Beast, the most famous motherfucker in the planet.
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And so that just gives a level of of impact to the words that he says.
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This is a call to accountability.
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I apply it to myself and I apply it to you.
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I want you to look at yourself and ask yourself the question, what do I need to do to get what I want out of social media?
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What outcome can my competitors not claim because they haven't done it?
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Go do cool shit.
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Go do bigger shit.
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Shoot for the moon.
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Make bigger risks.
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Play to win.
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Don't just play not to lose.
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Which brings me to trait number two, inspiration.
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And I define inspiration as having something that other people want.
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Oh, bro, you inspired me.
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What does that mean?
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Like if I inspired you, it means that I did something that made you more likely to take action on something.
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But I also think that inspiration comes down to.. the things that you have that other people wish that they had.
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Not in an envious way, but in like a beneficial way, in an admiring way.
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If you do not have anything that other people want, it's going to be very hard for you to influence them.
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Let's say I can attribute all the success in my life to this pill.
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I've made billions of dollars and I have the best relationship ever, and I'm kind and I'm wealthy and I have a great lifestyle that you want, and I can attribute it all to this pill.
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Now, let's pretend that I am 300 pounds overweight.
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My beard is growing so large, I haven't taken a shower.
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I'm dressed in homeless clothes and you have heard rumors about my personal life
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and I am a virgin and I've never had a female interested in me in my life, right?
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And no one likes me.
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And then I said, take this pill.
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Like there's really a very low chance.
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I would reckon negative 1 billion percent chance that you take this pill
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because I have nothing that you want
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that would make me be able to influence you to take this thing that got me what I want.
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If you want to influence people, have a life they want.
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And I think in life, there are really just a core few domains.
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I think that there are relationships.
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I think that there is health and fitness.
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I think that there is finances.
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I think that there's lifestyle.
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I think there's like self -articulation and intelligence.
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If you want to influence people, you need to be able to inspire them.
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And to inspire them, I think you need to have success in many domains in your life.
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And what will happen when you end up getting all of these things in your life in order, this experience and competence will create a level of confidence that other people wish they had.
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People are very attracted to confidence, not arrogance, like, oh, this guy is high on his own supply, but confidence.
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Like, this guy says what he means.
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He does what he wants.
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He carries himself in a way that I wish I would carry himself.
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He's not afraid to say what's on his mind.
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When you have that, when you have confidence, when you have an aura about you, people want to be around you.
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And I think that's what attracts people.
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It's like people will see you and they're like, I don't know what that guy has that I want, but I want what he has.
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And to remove the blocker that will likely come up as a byproduct of being yourself, there are going to be people that dislike you.
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Being yourself will repel some people and it will attract others.
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And so I would rather deeply influence a few people than just casually impact thousands or millions.
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And I think the way that you deeply impact a core group of people is by truly being yourself.
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Okay.
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I know I need to inspire people, but how do I do that?
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There's no immediate fix to this.
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Building a life and becoming someone that other people admire takes time, years. And
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so the thing to do from here to make you more inspiring to other people is by picking some goals
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and committing to those goals and then achieving them.
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And that takes months and years.
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And you won't notice anything for the first couple of days, first couple of weeks, first couple of months.
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But over the span of a year, you'll look back and you'll be like, whoa, I don't even recognize that version of myself.
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And then give yourself another year.
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And you'll be like, holy shit, I am not the same person.
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And then that'll keep happening until until you slowly start hearing more people say, wow, you inspire me.
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I wish I was more like you in this way.
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And that's what you're going for.
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And zooming out from just content for a second, the people that are more likely to get what they want out of social media, they're able to build an audience and get followers, are the people that are able to be leaders in real life.
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Being successful on social media starts with what you do in real life.
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Which brings me to trait number three, which is similarity.
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So let's play this out.
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I am a man in my early 20s.
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I have dark hair and a beard.
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I like going to the gym.
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I like traveling.
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I like business a lot and I like content.
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So those are just a few variables about myself, which means that people that are also young, people that like going to the gym,
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people that like traveling and people that like business will pair themselves with me because they see themselves in me.
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I'm a mirror.
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It's like, hey, I embody the traits that you also embody.
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Let's be friends.
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That's really just how relationships work.
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I haven't been on a date in a really long time, but when I was on a date, what do you ask someone?
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Where are you from?
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What's your backstory?
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What do you do?
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What are your hobbies?
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Like you ask the person things about themselves to see
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if you relate with them and people bond over Relatability and
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so I think this is important with influence Like how does
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this like this is cool to know fun fact ronnie But how does this change what I do in my content?
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Well, I think it helps you understand
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that you have the highest likelihood of influencing people
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that are like you I wouldn't be the best fit to
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influence Women in korea to buy a specific skincare product
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because i'm not that demographic and they don't see themselves in me whatsoever
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And so why would I want to influence that group of people?
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I remember being a fitness coach back in the day in a coaching community, and there were all of these young dudes that were like 18, 19, 20, 21, and they were fitness coaches, and they were trying to work with like 35 year old,
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40 year old moms, or they were trying to work with busy dads who were trying to lose their dad bod.
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And it was so dumb because if I'm a dad with kids and I work a career, and I'm trying to see this kid who's never paid rent in his life, tell me how to get fit,
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I'm not gonna pay attention to him.
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If I am that dad, I'm going to pay attention to the dad who's 50, who's a little bit older than me, and who has kids, and he's able to be super fit, right?
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And so I'm going to try to influence a specific demographic.
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You are not going to be able to influence everyone.
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You have the highest likelihood of influencing a specific type of person or people with commonalities.
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as you have.
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And so picking a demographic of people that you're trying to help and solve problems for is super important.
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There's an important distinction to make here.
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A lot of people are trying to build a personal brand, but what they're actually doing is advertising for their service.
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They are an information source.
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They maybe help business owners implement AI into their business and automate things.
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And so all they ever talk about is how to implement AI in a business.
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You could still argue that it's personal branding, but it's so heavy on being an information source, which makes the likelihood of people following you for a long period of time very low
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because once you help them implement AI into their business, they don't really need you anymore.
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Whereas what I think you should do instead is don't just be an information source on AI automation
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or fitness or business or whatever your domain is.
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That can be the majority of the content you provide so that you're still a subject matter expert and you have credibility, but sprinkle in outside interests.
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Sprinkle in your story and who you are so that people can relate with you, which gives you a higher likelihood of influencing them.
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Which brings me to the fourth trait of influence, safety.
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You need to make it safe for people to be influenced by you.
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Let's come back to this good old trusty pill.
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Let's imagine this pill helped you put on 60 pounds of muscle in a very short period of time.
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But you had heard that other people, bodybuilders maybe, that had taken this pill had died in their 30s.
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The benefit of gaining 60 pounds of muscle is not worth the risk of dying in your 30s.
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And so you are probably not going to take this pill despite the benefits that it would get you.
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However, if I could erase the people in their 30s that had died.
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I had led by example.
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I'd taken this pill.
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I had gained 60 pounds of muscle from it.
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You're inspired by my level of muscle tissue.
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You like who I am as a person because we have similarities and you relate with me.
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And I made you feel safe for taking this pill by saying, I've been taking this pill for years and I have never had any health issues.
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And my dad took it for years and he lived into his 80s.
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And then I pop it in front of you.
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You are so much more likely to take this pill because the benefits come with no risk.
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I am playing a game of likelihoods here.
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I want to make it more likely that you influence people.
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I think most of the time, you cannot guarantee that anything will happen, but you can make it likely.
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Now, how does this apply to content?
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Well, with people that are trying to build a personal brand, they're often trying to sell something.
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There's a lot of risk in buying something.
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You are asking people to pay you money in hopes that when they pay you money, they'll get an outcome that they want.
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That's pretty risky, especially online.
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And so you need to make it so, so obvious that every other person that has paid you money and gotten a good outcome is blasted on your social media.
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Hey, I helped this guy get an outcome
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and this girl get an outcome and dozens and dozens and hundreds of people get a good outcome.
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This is why if you follow me on Instagram and you watch my stories, I share social proof.
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I share account screenshots of people we've grown on social media.
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I heard some scientists somewhere say that people are super motivated by fear.
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Humans are greatly influenced by their amygdala and their amygdala is, I'm pretty sure it's the fear center of your brain.
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It's your fight or flight.
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So people are always looking for risks.
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Like what is a potential danger in doing this thing?
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Like we're very, very good at finding risks.
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There are two very practical things that you can do to make your audience feel safe enough to buy from you.
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The first is what I already mentioned.
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Share proof that other people work with you and they got a good outcome from doing so.
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The second thing is go through all of your sales conversations and find the most common objections that come up, the reasons that people don't buy, and then make content solving those objections because now you've explained away their concerns.
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Which brings me to the fifth trait of influence, likability.
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The best way to operationalize likability is to just look at all the things
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that you would have to do to make people dislike you.
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And then just don't do those things.
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Because I think it's super easy to spot someone you don't like immediately.
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And so the best thing you can do is to just not stain yourself.
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Don't stain your reputation by doing things that make you dislikable.
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What are things that would make you dislikable in real life?
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If you talk over people, or you always have to be the guy with the coolest story, or the greatest outcome, or like you have to brag the most.
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If you attack people in person, you like shout them out, or you say things about them that aren't nice you talk bad about them behind their back.
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Someone that tries to please everyone and they can't like pick a side.
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They can't, they can't choose what they believe.
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Like I don't, I don't fuck with that.
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Be someone with integrity.
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If you don't like something, don't do it.
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If you like something, do it no matter who's in the room.
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And so it's not that you need to please everyone.
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I'm not trying to get you to people please.
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It's just don't do the super obvious things that would make you dislikeable to most people.
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There's a lot of people on social media that do these things.
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And I'm like, you have hit a cap with your personal brand because people don't like you and they don't trust you.
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And so I think being likable is something that you should actually strive for in content, which is kind of funny because we live in this personal development world where everyone's like, I don't give a fuck what other people think.
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You know, if you don't like me, it's your fault.
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It's like, how does that actually serve you?
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How does that serve you?
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It doesn't, it doesn't serve you.
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You know what serves you is being likable because the more likable you are, the more people you have the likelihood of impacting and the more people you impact, the more you get out of life.
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Which brings me to the sixth trait of influence, which is leverage.
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Let's say I'm that five -year -old kid again, and my mom wants me to do my chores, which is her trying to influence me to do something, but I don't want to do my chores.
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And I say, mom, I'm not doing my chores.
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In that moment, she has four options to get me to do my chores.
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She can say, if you don't do your chores, you won't get to watch a movie tonight, which is removing a good thing.
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Or she could say, if you don't do your chores, I'll give you a spanking, which is adding a bad thing.
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Or she could say, if you don't do your chores, you don't have to do your homework tonight.
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This is removing a bad thing.
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And lastly, she could say, if you do your chores, you'll get a cookie tonight, which is adding a good thing.
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This is operant conditioning.
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It's the quadrant of reinforcing behavior.
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You can add a good thing, remove a bad thing, or add a bad thing and remove a good thing.
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That's in the situation that there is someone over top of your head telling you to do something.
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Like I can't really be in front of my followers and say, if you post content, I'll give you a cookie.
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You know, like I can't do that.
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But what I can do is make you aware of the consequences and benefits of doing and not doing certain things.
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And that's how you apply leverage and content.
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So like, for example, if you're a fitness coach and you help people lose weight, you can make a video talking about the likelihood that you will die early by being overweight.
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I know that sounds morbid, but like that's an example.
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Or you could talk about the likelihood of you living into your nineties.
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If you have an extra 50 pounds of muscle tissue, you as the expert need to understand the costs and benefits
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that your viewers will experience in life based off of whether they do
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or don't implement the things that you tell them to do.
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Coming back to this little yellow pill.
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Again, let's roll with the gain muscle example.
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If I take the pill first and I get a good outcome from it, if I inspire you by the life that I live, if you want to live a life like me, you want to be like me,
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if you relate to me because of the similarities that we have, if I remove the risk and I make you feel safe for taking this pill, I am a likable person in your life
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and I show you the cost versus benefits of taking or not taking this pill, the chances of you taking this pill are very, very high.
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These six traits work whether I'm trying to get you to take this pill
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or whether I'm trying to build a personal brand that gives you no choice but to trust what I say.
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And if you like this video, then you'll like this video where I talk about how to build a cult -like personal brand.
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Who Is This Video For?
This video is perfect for intermediate to advanced English learners aiming to boost their speaking skills and understand real-world communication. Whether you’re building confidence in professional settings or want to sound more natural in casual conversations, the content’s focus on influence and credibility provides rich material for english speaking practice. The speaker’s clear, conversational tone makes it ideal for shadowing—repeating phrases aloud to mimic rhythm and intonation.
Words & Idioms Worth Stealing
- Diehard follower: A loyal supporter who sticks with someone no matter what. Example: "She’s a diehard follower of that author, buying every new book."
- Lives rent-free in (someone’s) head: Someone or something that’s constantly on your mind. Example: "That song lives rent-free in my head—I can’t stop humming it."
- Forcing function: A tool or action that makes you do something. Example: "Setting a daily alarm is a forcing function to exercise."
How to Get the Accent Right
The speaker uses a relaxed, authoritative tone with natural pauses—key for sounding confident. Focus on stressing content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) like "influence," "pioneer," and "trust" to emphasize meaning. For shadowing technique practice, pause the video after short phrases ("It comes down to one thing, the art of influence") and repeat, matching the pace and intonation. Use a shadowing app or shadowing site to record yourself and compare. Notice how the speaker shortens "didn’t give a fuck" to "didn’t give a fuhk"—a common casual contraction. Mastering these nuances will make your shadow speech sound more natural. Practice daily for 10 minutes to build fluency and confidence.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you don't do your chores, I'll give · if you do your chores, you'll get · if you post content, I'll give |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've generated · you've never seen · haven't done |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | service, which is · pioneer, which means · three, which is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be influenced · is blasted |
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.