Shadowing Practice: L’erreur qui t’empêche d’être pris au sérieux | EP80 - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hello friends, I hope you are well.

Welcome to a new episode of the podcast.

Today I will talk about the importance of stop being too gentle.

If you want to be more charismatic, more confident, be affirming auprès of others and stop minimizing you in situations social,

professional or even personal, this episode is made for you.

For those who don't know, I'm Mariam Gaderi, I'm coach and I'm entrepreneurs who have a passion,

a expertise, and something that they anime deeply to do a business of coaching impact, to touch more people, all being aligned with their values.

Before we start, if the podcast episode you liked, you inspired or you pushed to move on to action, I would be very grateful

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It helps me to take a look at the podcast

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I thank you and I hope you have a very good listen.

So why is it important to stop being too gentle and what is it that we hear by too gentle?

Before we start, I would really want to give you a definition of what it is to be too gentle

because I know that it's a subject

that causes a lot of people who think that being too gentle is something that is great, that it is very good and that it brings a very good thing.

When I talk about being too gentle, I'm going to be very clear on what I hear from there.

Being too gentle, it's not being empathic, it's not being well, it's not being a good person,

it's not being not to be a good friend, a good friend, a good friend,

a good friend, a good friend, a good mother.

To be too gentle, it's a traumatic response.

Why is it a traumatic response?

Because it's a compulsory to be able to be very happy for others.

It's to say that you have so internalized the belief that if you are uncomfortable for others, if you take place, if you prioritize your needs,

if you think about yourself, if you say no to others, then you will be in danger, then you will be rejected, then you will not be loved.

And so you have created this unconscious mechanism to protect yourself from facing situations of rejection,

of rejection, of humiliating or whatever the type of situation you would have lived in the past.

this mechanism has allowed you to avoid facing this danger again.

So what do you do when you grow up?

You learn to be very nice to everyone, to say yes to everything,

to really make everyone very comfortable at the cost of your comfort, at the cost of what you feel for you,

at the cost of what you feel and what you need to do.

And what will happen is that little by little, you will build a sentiment in the others and in the same way,

because you will arrive at this stage where you will realize that you do a lot of things to plaire to others, without really plaire to you.

So being too gentle, it's not being empathic, it's not being to think to others, to take care of others, to be a good person.

Being too gentle, it's really a mechanism of survival that we developed when we were faced with situations

where we realized that it was dangerous for us to think about ourselves, to prioritize ourselves.

And it's really important to understand that every human being has needs, has limits.

Every human being has a desire to say yes and a desire to say no in other contexts.

No one at all the time has a desire to say yes.

No one at all the time has the resources to help others.

So, no one is always in the way to be present for others.

That doesn't exist, okay?

It's really important to understand and accept it because very often we are in this thing of saying, well, I don't accept it,

I want to be here for everyone.

Well, you can't be here for everyone and it's completely normal.

It means that you're an human human, you're not a robot.

And even if we take the example of robots, there's no robot today who is in order to H24,

to have all the time resources to serve humans.

It doesn't exist.

Why do you imagine you are able to serve others, to say yes to others, to be servible, comfortable, and comfortable for everyone?

A computer needs to be charged to be able to work.

And yet it's a machine.

And you who is a human being, you think you don't need to charge your batteries, you think that you have the ability to be human, to be all the time agréable and to say yes to everyone.

So it's really important to understand that being too gentle, it's not a sign of inner beauty, it's simply a mechanism of survival.

And when I say that, there's no judgment.

I've suffered from the syndrome of the person agréable practically all my life.

I just barely have to go, and it's still a good job.

Because I was the person who had to have compulsively, to plair to everyone, to be agressive for everyone.

You have a problem, I will solve it.

You have a problem, I will save it.

You don't want to worry about it.

You don't want to give me service, I don't need help.

I don't want to cause an uncomfortable person.

And I was the queen of that for years.

And what I want you to understand here is that it is very important

to observe and observe this conclusion that you have to go all the time to say yes, all the time to try to make your needs, to put it together.

Because in fact, what happens often is that we do not really do for the other.

We do it before because it is uncomfortable for us to confront this non that we would really say to the other.

And so I would really want you to understand that you can be a good person, you can be a empathic person,

You can be very sensitive, very good, very good in the other, and in the same time, have a desire to say no, and in the same time,

have a desire to send the people to the other, and in the same time, have a desire to put limits in your relationship.

It doesn't make you a bad person.

What is nocive, is to confuse gentleness and goodwill.

La gentillesse excessive, ce n'est pas de la bienveillance.

Une question que je t'invite à te poser et qui est vraiment importante, et c'est pour ça que je voulais vraiment faire ce podcast,

parce qu'on a vraiment tendance à croire que pour être aimé des autres, il faut qu'on soit très gentil.

En réalité, c'est tout l'inverse qui se produit, et c'est vraiment important de le reconnaître.

Il y a beaucoup de gens qui ne seront pas d'accord avec ça, but I can guarantee you that if you observe well the situations in

which you have suffered or in which you have felt abused, it's often a situation where you want to be too gentle,

arrange everyone, to be a problem of what you are doing.

And so in fact, what happens when you are too gentle, is that people, unfortunately or heureusement, will perceive this excess gentleness as a fax.

And it's a real fail, and that's something I want to say openly.

I really recognize it for myself, this fail.

This fail to really want to play, to want to be able to play well.

And it's really something that I've had a lot of trouble to recognize.

Because for me, I was thinking, it's important to be a good person, etc. Because I had this definition of gentleness which was wrong.

So when you are too gentle, you show to others how much you need their validation.

You show how much you are in need of this validation,

how much you are in their confirmation,

their approbation, a bit like an infant who needs to approve his parents.

And in doing that, you give a huge power to those who are in front of you, whether you want it or not.

So what is important is to ask you what you really want.

Do you want to be appreciated people or do you want to be respected people?

And attention, when I ask this question, it's a question that I always ask myself, and the answer is that I want to be respected.

It doesn't mean that we're going to the other side.

So you see, if you were a specter, if you were a specter in front of you, being too gentle is really in the opposite of the specter.

being too hard, too sick, too weak it's the opposite of the opposite and what happens often is

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that people too gentile will have a tendency at a moment to explode

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to go to the other side of the spectrum

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and to suffer the consequences of the other side because in the two extremes there are very very difficult consequences

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so the goal is to arrive at a center at an internal balance where you feel

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that you are faithful to your values that you are faithful to your empathic, to your love that you have in you, to your love that you have for others, and in the same time,

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that you are faithful to your own person, to your needs, to your resources,

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to your capacities, and that you make this dance between the two that allows you to be in your center.

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So it's really important to ask you this question.

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And then you will see that when you talk about being too gentle, there are really three categories of people who will tell you

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non mais qu'est ce que tu racontes c'est important d'être gentil c'est important d'être hyper gentil avec les gens

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en fait la première catégorie de personnes c'est ceux qui ne

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comprennent pas ce que c'est exactement qu'être trop gentil ils ont

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une définition d'être trop gentil qui n'est pas la vraie définition en tout cas qui n'est pas ma définition

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ils voient l'excès de gentillesse, de politesse comme une forme d'empathie, de bienveillance ce qui n'est pas le cas du tout ok You can be empathic,

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you can be well-being, and not necessarily be in the excess of gentillesse, the excess of politesse.

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Then the second category is those who benefit from your excesses, because it makes them arrange.

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It makes you want to arrange them.

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It makes them in a very comfortable position.

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And then the third category of people are those who are

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because you are holding a mirror and they don't want to put in question their own excès gentile.

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They have a problem to put in question.

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And that's really the three categories of people who will convince you to be too gentle.

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So if you want to change the image that you will be able to get to the other, you will need to, little by little,

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in your behavior and in what you send to others and what you send to you, you get to get away from this need of excessive validation.

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It's a bit, you see, the gentile, it comes a bit of this thing inside of us where

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it's like if we didn't eat for a week and we were facing people who could give us to eat.

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We are so tired, so we are so afraid, so we are so afraid to play all the others.

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And in fact, what I feel personally, I feel very much in the Exceed Gentillesse, it was, I'm in danger, I'm afraid, I need to validate,

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I need to be confident, I need to be confident.

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And so if you want to send an image more charismatic, more confident and really start to put in your relationship,

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and to affirm that you will need to send an image different.

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And how do you do that?

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You need to make an inventive of what I send as image to others.

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Whether in my language verbal or non-verbally, what I send as image as an image to others?

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Is it that I'm excusing all the time, excessively?

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Excessive politeness.

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Is it that I say thank you all the time?

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It's a huge sign of need of validation.

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When we say thank you all the time, thank you, thank you, thank you.

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What does that mean?

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It shows that we are not at all because someone has done something for us.

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What does it show that we are not at all because this person has done something for us?

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It shows that we are not at all and dignified of what this person has done.

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So it's an important point.

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The third point is how do you position yourself?

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What is your posture?

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Are you looking at the people right in the eyes?

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Are you open your eyes?

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Are you holding your eyes open? is it you are trying to hide and minimize your posture or adopt your posture

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and Amy Cuddy is an American research research at Harvard she

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talks great well she did a TED talk there on power poses she says

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that it is extraordinary how our posture influences

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our state of being inside and what we refer to others

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and that is something that I experienced but in direct

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when I was doing a hard work at school I was

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referring to this image to you can do everything you can

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do everything you can do everything with me I will stay there

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and when I started changing my body corporel it was one of the most powerful transformations

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that I have been in my life.

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Then what do you say what do you think what do you position

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is it a tendency to have a lot to be a head, a lot to be a head, a lot to be a head, a lot to be a head, a lot to be a head, when we are a head of a head,

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we show to others that we need to be able to be able to be able to be.

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It's also simple as that.

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So I would really like to take the time to think about that

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and to remind you that it's ok to be uncomfortable for people, it's ok to not always smile, not always say thank you, not always say thank you,

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it's okay to take place, it's okay to be uncomfortable, to be uncomfortable for certain people,

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because it's completely okay to be you-même and to be able to be yourself.

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And if I can add something,

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I would also say that your traumas and your past make you think it's dangerous for you to be uncomfortable for others, that you will be less loved,

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less accepted, but I can I want to guarantee you something,

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you can't be really loved by being always nice for others.

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If you want to be really loved, be really loved to be really loved.

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Otherwise, you will do it to create the illusion

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that others are loved for what you are

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when in reality you feel forced to play a role for those who are loved

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And so you bring them to appreciate a false version of you Which,

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in the end, they don't really appreciate it Because no one really appreciates someone who is really all the time

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Agreeable It doesn't exist

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When I think of the people I think of the most

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It's not people who are all the time agreeable It's not

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people who have no reface It's not people who are perfect Who are all the time gentile, all the time excessivement polies But no, it's people who are real,

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who can be sometimes, who have their faults.

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And it's the same with you.

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It will be the same thing.

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So, I hope this podcast has liked.

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I hope this podcast has liked and we'll see you very very soon.

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I send you love 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: L’erreur qui t’empêche d’être pris au sérieux | EP80 - Learn English Speaking with Video

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

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What is the Shadowing Technique?