Shadowing Practice: KILL THAT WEAK VERSION OF YOURSELF IN 2026 - Powerful Motivational Speech | David Goggins - Learn English Speaking with Video

I was not always this strong guy you see.

I went through a lot of hard times in my life to get here today.

All I wanted to be was an uncommon man.

In my whole life I was not that.

I was six foot one and 300 pounds.

I walked in the recruiter's office and he looked at me and he said you're fat and you're black.

He said I basically had to lose 106 pounds in less than three months.

I came back three months later, 106 pounds lighter.

Thank you.

You have to wake up and you have to give yourself belief.

It's about gaining control of your mind, putting things back in the proper perspective,

and then saying, I really do want to be here.

With every obstacle, I look at as friction now without friction.

There is no growth You have to have friction your life to grow

So I start looking at all these different things versus the one was me mentality

that oh my god Look at my life my life so up.

I come from this family.

I'm being beaten.

I'm being abused mentally physically

I Start looking at it as a as the perfect trial ground Try to flip it upside down.

It's okay.

I'm suffering tremendously mentally Use this to your advantage versus your disadvantage.

So that's what I did.

Versus looking at it as like, oh my God, what was me?

I'm never going to get out of here.

I looked at it as, okay, hang on a second.

If I can overcome this, if I can find some power in this, some way to get through this,

that right there would be the fuel for the rest of my life.

And so I found great strength in suffering.

It showed me even more of what we have as humans.

If we're willing to go there and we're willing to push that extra step A lot of people say, man, how do you do what you do?

At the end of the day, I ask myself one question, can I take one more step?

And usually the answer is yes.

So if you can answer that question and not take another step, that is real failure.

That is real quitting.

A lot of people can take one more step, but they choose not to.

I don't know if you can take two steps.

You gotta answer that question after you take the first step.

But I can always take one more step so if I choose not to that's on me.

I gotta live with that.

There's a lot of people in graves who have lived a hundred years and have never started their real journey.

Your real journey starts when you go outside that box.

And you start climbing mountains.

You start climbing mountains.

And it goes on.

And just when you're getting ready to quit, you crest that final mountain.

You get down and you look.

And there you are.

But you cannot find your peace you're looking for in yourself until you've overcome yourself.

It seems like, especially with confidence, right, or self-esteem, there's a relationship between confidence and competence.

So what you're looking to do is try and have what you believe

that you can do be ahead of what you can do.

Now you're not looking for it to be delusional, you don't want it to be able to believe that you can do something like fly, right?

But you need to have a relationship between the two.

What people are asking for is for their confidence to be

so far ahead of their competence without having even been competent at anything in the beginning.

And that's just delusion, that's fantasy.

Right.

Well, I believe that you have to build belief.

Belief is like, there's an after school special belief where the mom says, believe in yourself and that's all great,

but there's also a built belief.

And the built belief is one, like for me,

I came from a bad place how I build belief is through the the daunting tasks I put myself through

so that's proof positive that I can so it correlates

and that's how this piece of shit kid I once thought

I was built belief by saying hmm I was in three hell weeks.

I went to Ranger school.

I tried out for Delta Selection.

Undeniable stack of proof.

That is proof mother f*.

So whenever you think, whenever you think you can't, the confidence comes from the thing that you built.

You must build belief.

You must build confidence.

It can't be like, hey, I'm gonna go knock that st out.

You gotta look over here and say I can knock

that shit out because a lot of people will say

when you wake up in the morning pound your chest you know

and look at yourself in the mirror

and do all this bullshit I hope it works what works for me is

that everyday resume the things I know I've accomplished the things

I know I've done real hard work the real calluses on

my mind the real calluses on my hands that's that's it

that you don't need to pound your chest in the mirror anymore

if you have that it's belief

and it's built on what you put in to yourself i

came from a small town in indiana where there was a handful of black families

and a lot of people in that town when you come from a town of 8,000 people,

it's like we had a local plant, Great Dane.

You're like, you know what?

I want to work at Great Dane and get a house next to my mom.

That's what you know.

So many of us come from these small places in our mind

that we're not willing to think outside only what we've seen.

Our mind works in such a small compartment.

And one thing I was able to do was to dream.

But I was able to dream outside those four walls of that small town.

Until you're able to really put yourself into that dream, but don't make dreams your master,

that's where you truly become what you're destined to become.

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A lot of people sit back and they dream about being a sports figure, or dream about being a seal, or dream about being an astronaut,

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and all it is is a motherfucking dream.

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They don't put the work behind the dream.

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When you become the master of your dream is when you say, I want to go be a Navy SEAL and you say, okay, I'm going to lose 106 pounds in less than three months.

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The dream was the one thing I thought about and the dream was now gone.

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The dream goes away and the laundry list of details and tasks come up.

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That's when you become the master of your dream.

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Ryan Holiday says, Talking about the thing and doing the thing, vie for the same resources, allocate yours appropriately.

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That's it.

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That's it.

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That's the way it works as well.

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That's the way that the brain works.

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You can actually get these kicks of dopamine by telling your friends about I'm gonna be a Navy SEAL, I'm gonna start my training next week, it's gonna be great, I'm gonna feel like this.

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Feels good.

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It feels good to talk about that shit, man.

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It actually makes you feel good, makes you feel proud, all that shit.

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But guess what happens?

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That alarm clock goes off at 4 a.m to train.

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I don't want to be a seal today, or I don't want to be whatever today.

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I'll start tomorrow.

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And that's the usual pattern of people's lives.

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That's why I talk about clearing out the mind.

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Until you really want to do something, you always get to be a talker.

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You always get to run your mouth.

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So if you wake up in the morning and you don't want to do something, you don't care enough about yourself.

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And that's what you need to really research is, man, why am I not doing that's for myself.

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That is the number one purpose in life, is to better oneself.

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So that's the only purpose I need.

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So the reason I get up every day, even though there's no race or there's no school, there's nothing in front of me, is because I have pride in myself.

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But where do you go to?

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You wake up on a morning, it's cold, it's wet, it's dark, you've got no cartilage in your knee, you've got shitty shorts, whatever it is that's the issue today.

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Keep talking.

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You've got these problems, right?

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I need you to keep talking about what you were just saying.

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It's warm on the couch, your missus says stay in bed, it's comfy, it's cozy, you've got work later on, you had an argument last night, you're slightly hungover.

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I know every mother f*er ain't gonna do what I'm gonna do.

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So this is how you level up.

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That's how you level up.

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I know there's a whole bunch of people With that right there, that fires me up.

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That makes me happy, what you just said.

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That brings joy to my life right there.

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Why?

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Because I know there's so many people that have the ability and just refuse to get off that couch, refuse to study a few more hours,

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refuse to go deeper, to go further.

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And that's where I gain the advantage.

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It's so easy to be great nowadays, my friend, because most people are weak.

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Most people don't want to go to that extra mile.

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Most people don't want to find that extra because it sucks.

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It's miserable.

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It's lonely.

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A lot of people wonder, how did you become this?

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How did you become so vulnerable?

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How are you doing a podcast now when you were this kid?

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You overcame things.

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You fought them.

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And now this is what happens.

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This is on the other side of overcoming.

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You become very, very powerful when you overcome yourself.

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All those things you once cowered from, you were afraid of, when you face them eye to eye every day, you now become exactly who you are.

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You've faced your demons.

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You were able to hear all your past traumas.

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When you go to war with yourself, you find a lot of peace.

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Because you know exactly who you are.

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And that is where the peace is really found for me.

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Talk to me about what it takes to be on one side of a door in Iraq or anywhere, knowing on the other side of the door people who are not afraid of you.

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They're ready for you to come in and they have guns and you still have to breach that door.

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That's a great question.

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That's a very scary situation when you are on one side of the door

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and your mind is racing because on the other side of that door it could be no one, it could be four guys with four AK-47s,

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that door you're about to open could be booby trapped, so once you open it boom your legs are gone.

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So there's a thousand things you think about when you're the first guy, second guy, third guy, getting ready to go in a room and flooding.

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And that's why I talk about the warrior mentality and that's why so many people are lost when When I start talking,

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you have the right.

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You're lucky that you don't have to think like warriors think.

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You're very privileged.

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I chose this world to be a warrior and I would choose it again if I came back to this world.

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But the mentality of a warrior is very different than the normal mentality.

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You must be that person on that door, get ready to open it, thinking to yourself,

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if I die so be it the only way you can go in that door

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is knowing there's a great chance you're going to die it's like being a SEAL you train with live ammo

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you jump out of an airplane everything you do

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you could die so to be a warrior why people don't understand me I'm glad you don't understand me Merry Christmas,

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good on you because being a warrior takes a whole different mindset

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a whole different mindset to know

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that there's a great chance i may not be in a

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middle like i was in for 21 years i'm lucky i'm very lucky

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that i'm alive able to talk to you able to still run

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but when you sign up on

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that dial line to be a set like a seal your mentality changes i may not live you gotta accept

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that and that's the mentality you have and that's what makes you a warrior

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if you're scared to die you're a bad warrior I'm also looking at the guys to my left and to my right,

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realizing that we're here together, man.

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And I have to be strong for them.

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And they got to be strong for me.

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A lot of people, either you like me or don't, even in the SEAL teams.

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But when you get to that door or you get on that mission or you get in that op, all that shit's out the door, man.

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You know, you do it honestly.

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I mean people say all the time in these movies you you really out there fighting for

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that guy beside you and you can't be a coward

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because you know what this I look at everything I do now in life

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and this sums it up I hated jumping out of airplanes

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I hated shooting guns I hated the job as a Navy SEAL

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but I did it

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because I wanted to change myself everything I do I'm not really comfortable doing

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but if you choose to go

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that route to go be a Navy SEAL you might as well go be the hardest mother in the world

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because if you're choosing to do something you have two routes you can go there

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and be low a little weak person and get through barely

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and that's your reputation or you can go through the hardest guy you can possibly be

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and that's your reputation so my whole thing is

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if you're gonna choose to open that door in Iraq or Afghanistan open the mother Go in hard

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Because they're gonna remember you

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By slowly opening it and peeking in

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So if you're gonna open it

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and you made the mind open it don't crack it open open door go in that's with life

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If you choose to do if you choose to do something attack it Because they're gonna remember you As not attacking it,

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so I want to be remembered you can hate me there's one thing you can't say about me I

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Didn't attack it So that's the mentality you have.

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If you're gonna do something you might as well attack it because you do it anyway.

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Right.

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Who on this earth would still be going right now?

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You are.

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You are.

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you

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: KILL THAT WEAK VERSION OF YOURSELF IN 2026 - Powerful Motivational Speech | David Goggins - Learn English Speaking with Video

Why practice speaking with this video?

Grammar & Expressions in Context

Common Pronunciation Traps

What is the Shadowing Technique?