Shadowing Practice: Imagine You Liked Yourself - Naval Ravikant - Learn English Speaking with Video
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the worst outcome in the world is not having self-esteem why yeah it's a tough one uh well
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i i i look at the people and i don't want to offend anybody
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but i look at the people who don't like themselves
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and that's the toughest slot because they're always wrestling with themselves
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and it's hard enough to face the outside world um
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and no one's going to like you more than you like yourself
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so if you're struggling with yourself then the outside world becomes an insurmountable challenge.
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And it's hard to say why people have low self-esteem.
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It might be genetic.
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It might just be circumstantial.
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A lot of times I think it's because they just weren't unconditionally loved as a child.
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And that sort of seeps in at a deep core level.
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But self-esteem issues can be the most limiting.
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One interesting thought is that, you know, to some extent, self-esteem is the reputation you have with yourself.
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You're watching yourself at all times.
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You know what you're doing and you have your own moral code.
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Everyone has a different moral code.
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But if you don't live up to your own moral code, the same code that you hold others to, it will damage your self-esteem.
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So perhaps one way to build up your self-esteem is to live up to your own code, very rigorously have one and then live up to it.
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Another way to raise your self-esteem might be to do things for others.
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If I look back on my life and, you know, what are the moments that I'm actually proud of?
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There's very far and few between and it's not
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that often it's not the things you would expect it's not the material success it's not having learned this thing
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or that it's when i made a sacrifice for somebody
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or something that i loved and uh that's
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when i'm actually ironically most proud now that's through an explicit mental exercise
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but i'll bet you at some level i'm recording that implicitly
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so that tells me that even
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if i am not being loved then the way to create
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love is to give love to to express love through sacrifice
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and through duty and so i think doing things like that can build up your self-esteem really fast.
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It's interesting when you talk about sacrifice because a lot of the time people say, I sacrifice so much for my job.
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It's like, yeah, but that was you sacrificing something
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that you wanted less for something that you wanted more as opposed to genuinely taking some sort of cost.
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And yeah, I wonder whether if self-esteem is you adhering to your internal,
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your actions and your values aligning even when it's difficult or perhaps even more so when it's difficult,
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I wonder whether there is a price that people who are more introspective, high integrity pay, because you think,
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well, you've got this heavier set of overheads that you need to pay in some way.
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Well, if being ethical were profitable, everybody would do it, right?
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So at some level, it does involve a sacrifice.
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But that sacrifice can also be thought of as you're thinking for the long term rather than the short term.
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For example, the virtues are the set of beliefs that if everybody in society followed them as individuals, it would lead to win-win outcomes for everybody.
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So if I am honest and you are honest, then we can do business more easily.
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We can interact more easily because we can trust each other.
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So even though there might be a few liars in the system, as long as there aren't too many liars and too many cheaters, a high trust society where everybody's honest is better off.
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And I think a lot of the virtues work this way, right?
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If I don't go around sleeping with your wife and you don't sleep with mine, and, you know, if I don't take all the food that's at the table first and so on, then we all get along better and we can play win-win games.
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in game theory the most famous game is prisoner's dilemma
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but that's all about everybody cheating
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and the Nash equilibrium the stable equilibrium there is everybody cheats
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and your fort the only way you can be you can play a win-win game is
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if you have long-term iterated moves
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but that's not actually the most common game played in society
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the most common game played is one called a stag's hunt where
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if we cooperate we can bring down a big stag
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and both have big dinners but
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if we don't cooperate then we have to go hunt like rabbits
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and we each have small dinners so most of uh and
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that game has two stable equilibriums
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and one could be where we're both hunting the rabbit
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and one could be where we're hunting the stag
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so the high trust society is a more most more virtuous
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society where i can trust you to come hunt the stag with me
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and show up on time and do the work
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and divide it up properly
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so you want to live in a system where everybody has their own set of virtues
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and follows them and then we all win.
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But I would argue you don't need to do that for sacrifice.
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You don't need to do that for other people.
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You can do it just purely for yourself.
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You will have higher self-esteem.
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You will attract other high virtue people.
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Would I go on a stag hunt with me?
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Correct.
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Yeah, that's right.
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And if you're the kind of person, if you're the kind of person who long-term signals ethics and virtues,
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then you will attract other people who are ethical and virtuous.
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Whereas if you are a shark, you will eventually find yourself swimming entirely amongst sharks.
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And that's an unpleasant existence.
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But again, this goes back to the equivalent of the marshmallow test.
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And by the way, the marshmallow test does not replicate.
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It's fake science.
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I saw the replication crisis hard recently.
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But it is about trading off the short term for the long term.
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And so I think for a lot of these so-called virtues, there are long-term selfish reasons to be virtuous.
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Yeah.
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Did you deal with self-doubt in the past?
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Is that something that was a hurdle for you to overcome?
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Yes and no. I think I dealt with self-doubt in the sense that, oh, I don't know what I'm doing and I need to figure it out.
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But I didn't doubt myself in the way of somebody else knows better than me for me or that, you know, I'm an idiot or I'm not worthwhile or anything
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that i guess i had the benefit of i grew up
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with a lot of love like the people around me love me unconditionally
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and so that just gave me a lot of confidence uh not the kind of confidence
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that would say i have the answer but the kind of confidence
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that i will figure it out and i know what i want
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or only i am a good arbiter of what i want yeah
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that level of self-belief i suppose allows you to determine what is it
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that matters to me my self-esteem should i chase this thing or not, I can make a fair judgment on that as opposed to being so swayed.
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But it's such a good point about even if you think you're not consciously logging the stuff that you're doing, there is some that's in the back of your mind.
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Was it the daemon?
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Is that what the ancient Greeks or something used to talk about?
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Yeah.
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Also in computer science, there's a concept of a daemon, which is a program that's always running in the background.
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You can't see it.
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But yeah, it probably comes from the ancient Greek daemon.
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But yeah, what you know that you don't even know you know is far greater than what you know you know, right?
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You can't even articulate most of the things you know.
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There are feelings you have that have no words for them.
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There are thoughts you have that are felt within the body or subconsciously that you never articulate to yourself.
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You can't articulate the rules of grammar, yet you exercise them effortlessly when you speak.
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so i would argue that your implicit knowledge and your knowledge
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that is unknown to yourself is far greater than the knowledge you can articulate
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and that you can communicate and
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so at some level you're always watching yourself that's what your
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consciousness is right it's the thing that's watching everything including your mind including your body
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so if you want to uh have high self-esteem then earn your own self-respect i had this idea the internal golden rule.
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So the golden rule says treat others the way that you should be treated, you want to be treated.
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The internal golden rule says treat yourself like others should have treated you.
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And it was a riposte to maybe people that didn't grow up with unconditional love in that way.
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On the love thing, one of the interesting things about love is you can try to remember the feeling of being loved.
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So go back to when someone was in love with you or someone did love you and like, really remember that feeling, like really sit with it and try to recreate it within yourself.
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And then go to the feeling of you loving someone.
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And when you were in love, and I'm not even talking about romantic love necessarily.
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So be a little careful there.
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I'm talking more about like love for it.
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Sometimes get complex if you're talking about past romantic love.
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Right.
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A sibling or a child or something like that or a parent
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and think about when you felt love towards someone or something
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and now which is better and i would argue
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that the feeling of being in love is actually more exhilarating
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than the feeling of being loved being loved is a little
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cloying it's a little too sweet you kind of want to push the person away it's a little embarrassing
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and you know that if that person is too much into it
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that you feel constrained on the other hand the feeling of being in love is very expansive.
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It's very open.
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It actually makes you a better version of yourself.
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It makes you want to be a better person.
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And so you can create love anytime you want.
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It's just that craving to receive it.
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That's the problem.
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A quick aside.
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In fact, you might be thinking for sake, Chris, will you shut up about element?
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And the answer is no, I won't.
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Because when I take it, I genuinely feel the difference.
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I genuinely believe that proper hydration makes a massive difference to your performance
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so I'm going to keep talking about it until you start drinking it.
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every single day for over three years now.
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And I genuinely feel the difference versus when I don't.
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And if you don't like it for any reason, they'll just give you your money back.
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That's how confident they are that you'll love it.
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all eight flavors with your first box by going to the link in the description below
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or heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom.
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That's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom.
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Thank you very much for tuning in.
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If you enjoyed that clip with Naval, just a mere taster, the full length episode is available right here.
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Go on, watch it.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Imagine You Liked Yourself - Naval Ravikant”. This video has 167 sentences and 2111 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:23. The speaker talks fast, about 203 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| esteem verb | /ɪˈstiːm/ | To set a high value on; to regard with respect or reverence. |
| virtue noun | /ˈvɝt͡ʃu/ | The idea of all that is good or excellent (in every sense of those terms) in a human being, collectively instantiated by a varying number of human traits known… |
| stag noun | /stæɡ/ | An adult male deer, especially a red deer and especially one in high adulthood versus a young adult. |
| articulate verb | /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/ | To make clear or effective. |
| genuinely adverb | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/ | In a genuine manner; truthfully, truly. |
| daemon noun | /ˈdiː.mən/ | A process (a running program) that does not have a controlling terminal. |
| virtuous adjective | /ˈvɝt͡ʃuəs/ | Full of virtue; having excellent moral character. |
| equilibrium noun | /ɛkwɪˈlɪbɹɪəm/ | The condition of a system in which competing influences are balanced, resulting in no net change. |
| electrolyte noun | /ɪˈlɛk.tɹəˌlaɪt/ | A substance that, in solution or when molten, ionizes and conducts electricity. |
| marshmallow noun | /ˈmɑɹʃˌmɛl.oʊ/ | Marsh mallow, a species of mallow, Althaea officinalis, that grows in marshy terrain. |
| unconditionally adverb | Without condition, absolutely. | |
| craving noun | /ˈkɹeɪ.vɪŋ/ | A strong desire; yearning. |
| cooperate verb | /kəʊˈɒp.ə.ɹeɪt/ | To work or act together, especially for a common purpose or benefit. |
| oppose verb | /əˈpoʊz/ | To attempt to stop the progression of; to resist or antagonize by physical means, or by arguments, etc.; to contend against. |
| liar noun | /ˈlaɪ.ɚ/ | Someone who tells a lie; especially, a person who frequently lies. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| bring down verb | To make (a ruler or government) lose their position of power. |
| get along verb | To interact or coexist well, without argument or trouble. |
| go around verb | To move or spread from person to person. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You're watching yourself at all times.
- You don't need to do that for other people.
- Would I go on a stag hunt with me?
- Did you deal with self-doubt in the past?
- Is that something that was a hurdle for you to overcome?
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 being ethical were profitable, everybody would do · if you are a shark, you will eventually |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being loved · be thought · are felt |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who don · people who are · person who long |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | You've probably heard · I've started |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 51 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: ethical /ˈɛθɪkəl/, worthwhile /ˌwɜː(ɹ)θˈwaɪl/, ethics /ˈɛθ.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: marshmallow /ˈmɑɹʃˌmɛl.oʊ/, circumstantial /səɹ.kəmˈstænʃəl/, hydration /haɪˈdɹeɪʃən/, replication /ɹɛplɪˈkeɪʃən/, unconditional /ˌʌnkənˈdɪʃənəl/
- Long words — get the stress right: articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, equilibrium /ɛkwɪˈlɪbɹɪəm/, electrolyte /ɪˈlɛk.tɹəˌlaɪt/, cooperate /kəʊˈɒp.ə.ɹeɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like esteem, virtue, stag.
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.