Shadowing Practice: How to Start a Business - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Many of us want to start our own businesses.
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Public space is filled with reports of new ventures.
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But the reporting on entrepreneurship is heavily skewed in one particular direction:
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towards people who've started new kinds of businesses ; pioneers who've pushed the boundaries of commerce by creating a wholly new offering,
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usually through the help of some form of innovative piece of technology.
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The new entrepreneurs might, for example, have invented an app for measuring and controlling the humidity of clothes closets,
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or they might have come up with a tiny sensor that can detect hunger in domestic animals, or they've built a social platform to connect people planning a trip to Italy.
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This emphasis on novelty can leave us feeling that the chief
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and correct way to become an entrepreneur is invariably going to be through radical, technologically based innovation.
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We may therefore, as we contemplate an entrepreneurial future, ask ourselves, with increasing panic,
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what entirely unthought of idea we might ourselves come up with to propel us forwards.
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In our frenzy, the answers we arrive at may start to lean towards the implausible, the trite or the naive.
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But there is another path.
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Most of the economy is made up of businesses doing stuff that people have always been doing, or have been doing for a very long time.
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Making daily bread, or shirts, or trousers, teaching languages, or giving travellers a bed for the night, raising animals, or fixing teeth.
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In other words, most businesses operate in areas that economists call 'mature', sectors where it's rather hard to come in and make a surprising fortune.
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But that doesn't mean these sectors should be ignored.
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Far from it.
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There are a plethora of hugely meaningful possibilities hiding for us
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in plain sight on account of one perhaps surprising fact about the economy.
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A majority of businesses don't love what they do.
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we might make a basic distinction between two kinds of businesses: pragmatic businesses, and businesses of love.
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Pragmatic businesses are everywhere.
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They almost define for us what we think business is in its essence.
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They know how to make their product or service with a sound degree of competence.
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But there is a practical, unidealistic edge to the way they go about things.
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There isn't anything very powerful drawing them to their particular offering.
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They might easily have been doing something else.
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They don't care about the long term.
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The business is only a vehicle for an underlying financial purpose.
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One eye is always focused on how to sell up.
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didn't have to work, they almost certainly wouldn't.
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Such pragmatic businesses may do fine or even very well for a long time.
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But the motivations are easy enough to spot.
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A discerning eye can tell something crucial within minutes of walking through the door.
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This is not being done with or full love.
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pragmatic businesses dominate the economy.
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One might say that over 85 % of businesses fall into this category.
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But there are parts of the economy, and they are heavily in the minority, where things are being done rather differently.
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Businesses of love produce many varied things, but there are some underlying principles holding them together.
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Here, love means: a total commitment to excellence of a given product
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or service a desire to reinvest almost all profit into guaranteeing this excellence.
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a focus on the long term, because the business is, for its owners, the meaning of life.
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There is no interest in selling the firm right now or perhaps ever.
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The dearest wish might be to give it to someone you love, like your child.
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Love means you almost do it for free and don't only because you need to live.
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You need to pay your employees and you want the business to be able to last into the long term.
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The product or service is what you love and you love it inordinately.
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Businesses of love are the sort where the owner has scoured the world for the best kind of flour
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and wakes up excitedly at dawn to check on the progress of each of the loaves.
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Or the aircraft factory, where the workers think of every play in their building almost like a relative they will always care for.
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Or the stationery shop, where notebooks and paper are viewed as objects of beauty rather than utility.
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Or the travel agency that won't rest until it knows its clients have enjoyed their trips rather than just paid for them.
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Or the sandwich store that views a fine avocado and chicken roll as one of the authentic joys in a tricky life.
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Businesses run for love are not always successful in the standard financial sense of the term.
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Some might just be returning a little over 3 % a year.
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But for these enterprises, money is only ever a means to a greater, more purposeful end.
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There are huge opportunities to hand for any would -be entrepreneurs, because most of the economy is in the hands of people who don't love what they're doing.
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Most law firms, dentist offices, hotels and bakeries aren't in it for love.
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They may be efficient and canny, but they are ultimately just waiting to sell up.
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We don't need to be very original to succeed.
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We don't need to have invented anything very new.
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We just need to make sense of our lives and make an honest living along the way,
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to offer the world something we love a little more intensely than most people do.
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Thank you for commenting, liking and subscribing.
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Our book, A Job to Love, is a practical guide to finding fulfilling work.
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To find out more, follow the link on your screen now.
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What You'll Practice in This Lesson
This lesson helps you master conversational English while exploring practical business concepts. You'll practice understanding and reproducing nuanced explanations about entrepreneurship, from "pragmatic businesses" to "businesses of love." Ideal for English speaking practice and IELTS speaking practice, it focuses on clear, articulate communication—key for discussing professional topics.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Entrepreneurship: The activity of starting and running a business.
- Mature sectors: Industries with established practices (e.g., baking, teaching).
- Pragmatic businesses: Companies focused on profit over passion.
- Reinvest: To put profits back into a business for growth.
- Inordinately: To an unusually high degree (e.g., "loving a product inordinately").
Practice Tips for Shadowing Success
The video’s tone is conversational yet informative, with a moderate speed—perfect for shadowspeak practice. Here’s how to improve: 1. Break it down: Pause after 2-3 sentences and repeat, focusing on stress (e.g., "radical technologically based innovation"). 2. Mimic intonation: Notice how the speaker emphasizes "love" when describing passionate businesses—copy that warmth. 3. Use a shadowing site to record yourself; compare with the video to refine pacing. For IELTS speaking practice, practice explaining the difference between pragmatic and love-driven businesses aloud—this builds critical thinking and fluency. Remember: shadowing isn’t just about repetition; it’s about adopting natural rhythm and clarity. With consistent practice, you’ll speak with confidence, whether discussing business or everyday topics.
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 | have always been doing · have been doing |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is filled · is made · should be ignored |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | who've started · have invented · they've built |
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.