Shadowing Practice: How to Stop Caring What People Think | English Podcast | Easy English Conversation for Beginners - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello English learners and welcome back to English in Comfort, your cozy English podcast for learning English through easy conversation.

I'm Mark.

And I'm Leah.

It is so great to be back here.

It is.

You know, Mark, every day we make choices.

What clothes to wear, what job to take, where do we go?

But often we ask a bad question.

What will people think?

Yeah, that is a very bad question.

It really is.

And today, you know, it is time to stop living for other people.

It is time to stop caring what people think.

And it's time to start living for yourself because, well, this is our true mission today.

You know, it is very normal to want people to like us.

We are human beings, right?

Right.

We are human.

We want to be part of the group.

But when we care too much about other people's opinions, we stop living our own lives.

We really do.

You might be a student or you might have a job, you have responsibilities or bills to pay.

I mean, you have real stress.

It is time to protect your peace of mind.

I understand that.

I do.

But I have to push back a little bit.

Isn't it just human nature to want to fit in?

Like, I look at my own life and I want my co-workers to like me. Of course.

I want my family to accept me.

It feels very dangerous to be on the outside of the group.

You are right.

It feels dangerous.

And that is because our brains are very old.

Think about a long time ago.

People lived in small groups in the wild.

Right.

Like in the forest.

Yeah.

If the group did not like you, you were alone.

And if you were alone, you had no food, you had no fire.

You wouldn't survive.

Exactly.

So your old brain says, I must fit in or I will not survive.

When someone does not like you, your brain feels real physical pain.

It is just how we are built.

So wanting to fit in is like a way to stay alive.

Yes.

But there is a very big difference between fitting in and losing yourself.

Tell me about that difference.

Well, fitting in means you find people who like the real you.

Losing yourself means you wear a mask.

You change your words.

You change your choices.

You hide your true self just to keep people happy.

And that is a very bad way to live.

It sounds so tiring.

To stop caring what people think, we first need to understand why we care so much in the first place.

We have to look at how we grew up.

Yes.

Think back to when you were a small child.

When we were young, we really needed other people. Because we were small.

Exactly.

We needed our parents to give us food.

We needed a safe bed.

And we went to school and we needed the teacher to say, good job.

I remember wanting that gold star.

Yes, the gold star.

We learned that making big people happy kept us safe.

If the big people were happy, we got good things.

But you know, I noticed this in my own life today.

I still act like that small child.

How so?

Well, I wait for my boss to say, good job.

I wait for my friends to say my new shirt looks nice.

I am always waiting.

That is because old habits are hard to break.

But I want you to hear this clearly.

You are not a child anymore.

You can take care of yourself.

Think about your life today.

You work hard.

You pay your own rent for your house.

Yeah, I do.

You make your own food.

You make your own money.

You do not need a teacher or a parent to tell you that you are doing a good job.

You do not need everyone around you to agree with your choices.

You are safe.

I always get an image about this.

Caring about other people's opinions is like carrying a very heavy bag every single day.

A heavy bag.

I like that.

So every morning you wake up, you put this heavy bag on your back.

And inside the bag are heavy rocks.

Each rock is someone else's opinion.

So one rock is what your boss thinks.

100

That is a big rock.

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Yeah, a very big rock.

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And another rock is what your neighbor thinks or what your old friends think.

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You carry this heavy bag to work, you carry to the store, you carry it home.

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And what does this bag do to your body?

105

It makes you so tired.

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When you carry this heavy weight, you do not say what you really think.

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Let us look at a real situation.

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You sit in a big meeting at work.

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I hate big meetings.

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Me too.

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So you have a very good idea to solve a problem.

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But you feel the heavy bag.

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You think, what if they think my idea is stupid?

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Right.

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I worry about the boss.

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Yes.

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So what do you do?

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You stay quiet.

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I say nothing at all.

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Or maybe you want to practice speaking English at your job.

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You really want to try.

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But your heart beats fast because of the bag.

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You think, what if I use the wrong word?

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What if my co-workers laugh at me? So scary.

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So you just smile and say nothing.

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The heavy bag makes you small.

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Yes, you do the safe thing.

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You do what everyone else is doing and it makes you feel bad inside.

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You feel stressed.

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You feel sad.

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I think about it like a mobile phone battery.

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We only have 100% battery every day, right?

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We only have 24 hours.

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So when you spend hours worrying about what your co-worker thinks of your shoes, it is like running bad apps in the background of your phone.

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It drains your battery.

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Exactly.

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You have zero energy left to build your own dreams.

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This heavy bag steals your joy.

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It steals your time. But wait.

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I have a question.

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If I put the heavy bag down and I do exactly what I want, won't people leave me?

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Will I be all alone?

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That is the biggest fear.

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But here is the deep truth about life.

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True friends will not leave you.

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True friends respect your choices, even if they do not agree.

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Let us say you tell a friend, I am going to leave my safe job and start a new business.

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A big choice?

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Yes.

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A true friend will say, I'm a little worried for you, but I support you.

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If someone leaves your life because you stop wearing a mask, well, they were never a true friend.

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They only like the mask.

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That hurts to hear, but it makes sense.

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We keep carrying this heavy bag because we think everyone is looking at us all day long.

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But you know, we have a very big secret to tell you today.

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Listen to this secret very carefully.

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People do not think about you very much.

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That is almost hard to believe.

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It is true.

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People are busy.

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Think about your own brain.

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From the time you wake up, what do you think about?

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I think about my coffee.

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Right?

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You think about your own money.

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You think about your own health.

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You think about what to eat for dinner.

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Other people are doing the exact same thing.

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So, they are not thinking about my shoes?

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No, they're busy with their own adult problems.

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They do not have time to look at you.

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I like to call this the five-minute rule.

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Imagine you are at the office.

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You are wearing a new pair of glasses.

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A co-worker looks at you and says, those glasses look strange on your face, and it hurts your feelings.

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Yes, it hurts.

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But what happens next? That is the point.

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The co-worker will walk away.

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In five minutes, they will forget what they said.

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They will go back to their desk.

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They will worry about their own emails.

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Later, they will go home, watch television, and go to sleep.

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They completely forgot.

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They forgot.

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But you, because of the heavy bag, you will think about it all day.

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You will look in the mirror ten times.

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You will feel bad all night.

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You are giving them your time and they are not even thinking about you.

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Let us use another picture.

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Everyone is the star of their own movie.

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In your life, the movie camera is always pointing at you, but here's the trick.

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Your co-worker is the star of their movie.

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The camera in their head is pointing at them.

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It is not pointing at you, they are only looking at themselves.

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I want you to just really think about this for a moment.

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No one is watching your movie.

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The camera is not on you.

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How does that make you feel?

199

For me, it feels like a big breath of fresh air.

200

Exactly.

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When you understand that no one is watching, you feel a deep peace.

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You are free to make a mistake at work.

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You are free to speak English and say the wrong word.

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Yes.

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You are free to wear a color no one else wears.

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You are free to just be you.

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Okay.

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So, we know people are not watching our movie.

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We know the bag is heavy and we want to put it down.

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But how do we actually start?

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Because, I mean, if I wake up tomorrow morning, I cannot just magically change my whole mind.

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It takes time.

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That's right, you cannot change overnight.

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We must take small steps.

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And step one is this.

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You must know what you actually want.

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Many of us have worn the mask for so long, we don't even know what we like anymore.

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So what do we do?

219

Take a piece of paper today.

220

Find a quiet room in your house, sit down, and write down what is important to you.

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Not what your friend wants.

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Not what your boss wants.

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What do you want?

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Is it spending quiet time with your family?

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Is it playing games?

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Is it saving money to travel?

227

Write it down.

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If you do not have a plan for your own life, other people will make a plan for you.

229

You must be the boss of your paper.

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I have done this, because if I do not plan my weekend, my friends will say, let's go to this expensive dinner.

231

Or my boss will say, can you work on Saturday?

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If I do not know what I want, I just say yes to them.

233

Yes.

234

Knowing what you want makes you strong.

235

Once you have your paper, you move to step two, which is small practice.

236

You cannot start with big life choices.

237

You must start small.

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Tomorrow morning, go to your closet.

239

Pick the clothes you really love, even if they're a little different.

240

Wear them.

241

Look in the mirror and say, I chose this and I like it.

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I love that.

243

I will give another example.

244

Lunchtime at work.

245

Everyone is ordering a small healthy salad because they want to look good for the boss.

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But you are very hungry.

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You want the big hot sandwich.

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Order the big sandwich.

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Eat it.

250

Enjoy it.

251

Do not look around the room.

252

these sound like silly things, but they are very important.

253

It is practice for the big things.

254

In a meeting, raise your hand.

255

Speak your mind.

256

Just say one sentence.

257

Do not worry if your English is perfect.

258

Do not worry if the idea is the best idea in the world.

259

Just practice letting your true voice out of your mouth.

260

I think one of the biggest practices is saying no. This is very hard for adults.

261

We get an invitation to a party

262

or a co-worker asks us to do their work and we do not want to do it.

263

But our heart beats fast and we say yes.

264

Saying no is the best practice.

265

You must learn to say no to a meeting or a dinner you do not want to go to.

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It feels bad at first, but when you say no to something you hate, you are saying yes to your own life.

267

Every time you choose yourself, your mind gets stronger.

268

You're putting the heavy bag down one small rock at a time.

269

But let us talk about what happens when we start making these new choices.

270

Because when I say no to a friend, my first thought is to start talking a lot.

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I explain everything.

272

Ah, yes.

273

We feel bad, we feel guilty.

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So we talk and talk.

275

We need to stop doing this immediately.

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This is step three.

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Stop talking.

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Imagine it is Friday night.

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You worked 40 hours this week.

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You are so tired.

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Your phone rings.

282

It is your friend.

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They want you to go to a loud, busy place.

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You want to stay home, read a book, and sleep.

285

But you feel bad saying no. So you say, oh, I'm so sorry.

286

I think I have a bad cold.

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My head hurts.

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And I have to clean my kitchen.

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And my car is broken.

290

Yes, we make long stories.

291

We make big excuses.

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Basically, we want the friend to understand.

293

We want them to say, oh, you are a good person.

294

It is okay.

295

But that is the heavy bag again.

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You do not need to give a reason for your life.

297

If you want to stay home on a Friday night, just stay home.

298

So how do I say it?

299

What are the exact words?

300

No, thank you.

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I am staying home tonight.

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And if they ask why you aren't coming, then you give them the best excuse in the world,

303

which is, because I want to. Because I want to.

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That feels so dangerous to say.

305

It feels dangerous, but it is true freedom.

306

Because I want to is a very good reason.

307

You only need to answer to yourself.

308

You are the adult.

309

You are the boss of your time.

310

But I have to ask the hard question.

311

If I stop explaining myself and I start saying no, and I use the words because I want to, well, some people will get mad at me.

312

Some people will not like me anymore.

313

That is true.

314

And this brings us to step four.

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It is a hard truth, but it will set you free.

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You cannot make everyone like you.

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It is not possible.

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Even the kindest, nicest people in the history of the world had enemies.

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You can be the nicest person in your office.

320

You always bring coffee.

321

You always smile.

322

and someone somewhere in that office will still not like you.

323

They will say she smiles too much.

324

Exactly.

325

So if someone is always going to be angry, let them be angry.

326

Let them dislike you.

327

If they do not like your clothes or your choices or your quiet Friday night, it is their problem, not your problem.

328

You cannot please everyone.

329

Do not try.

330

You must keep your circle small.

331

Focus your time on the people who love the real you.

332

The people who like me without the mask?

333

Yes.

334

When you take off the mask, the people who stay are your true friends.

335

Give your love to them.

336

And what about the angry people?

337

Let the other people think what they want to think.

338

They are in their own movie.

339

Let them watch their own movie. That is so freeing.

340

We have talked about so many important things today.

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I want to put all these simple rules together for you.

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This is how you walk through the door to freedom.

343

First, you must see the heavy bag of opinions.

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Feel how tired it makes you.

345

Second, you must learn the big secret.

346

People are busy and no one is watching your movie.

347

Third, take a piece of paper, write down what you want, and take small steps every day.

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Eat the big sandwich.

349

Fourth, stop explaining your choices.

350

Stop talking so much.

351

Just say no. And fifth, accept the hard truth that some people will not like you. So, how about you?

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Make one small choice right now.

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The moment this talk ends, go do one thing for yourself.

354

Make your coffee exactly the way you like it.

355

Say no to a text message you do not want to answer.

356

Just practice.

357

Friends will come and go.

358

Jobs will change.

359

The money in your bank will go up and down.

360

But you are the only person who will be with you for your entire life.

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From the day you are born to the very end, you are always with you.

362

Thanks for spending time with us today.

363

For more English listening and speaking practice, interesting topics, and more, subscribe to English in Comfort.

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Keep practicing, keep improving, and take care, everyone!

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 Practice: How to Stop Caring What People Think | English Podcast | Easy English Conversation for Beginners - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What is the Shadowing Technique?