Shadowing Practice: Lust will destroy you... - Learn English Speaking with Video

the one thing that all humans are universally a slave to is lust.

The internet tries to make it seem like it's only an issue with men, but that's not true.

It's an issue with women too.

They just come in different forms.

So for men, it's stuff like the hub, it's stuff like, you know, going out and seeing a girl and then, you know, getting aroused by the fact that,

you know, maybe a girl is wearing tight clothing in the gym.

But for girls, a lot of it comes from literature.

That's a big thing for women.

Now, granted, I do think the issue overall is much larger for men, but the reason that it's so important

that you understand how to discipline yourself as it relates to lust is

because what lust does is it convinces your brain that short-term pleasure is more important than long-term fulfillment.

And then you create this cycle

that's reinforced by your habits of falling back into lust where you're getting fulfilled in terms of your biological desire to reproduce.

When in reality, that's not true.

It's a replacement, right?

It's a substitute for the actual thing.

And so what happens is this literally like completely restructures the neuroplasticity of your brain.

And it's why it's so important that you learn how to conquer it.

And I've made videos about this issue in the past, but hands down, the best advice that I've ever heard as it relates to lust,

especially for men, is you have to flee from it.

If you're religious in the Bible, it says lust is the only sin that you must flee from.

Because what happens is, imagine lust as like it's a giant hill and on the top of the hill stands a boulder.

Now, the way that lust works is it's pretty much like

if you're scrolling on Instagram and you see a random picture of a girl in a bikini, right?

That is still quote unquote porn, pornography, because it's arousing the same part of your brain.

So what happens is imagine now that boulder gets pushed a little bit, right?

And just, it gets pushed a little bit, but you can still stop it.

You can still stop it.

But the more that it gets pushed and the farther that it rolls, eventually it reaches a point of no return where

the slope is so steep that the boulder is just going to roll and it's going to crush you.

And there's no way to stop it.

Some of the most notoriously disciplined men in history have struggled with lust.

Some of the most religious men in history have struggled with lust.

Was it St. Thomas Aquinas?

Who was it?

But some big figure in the church

um in his autobiography he literally talked about how he like was

so devoted to god like completely devoted to god and yet he continuously was finding himself sneaking around with women and

i think that's the that's why it's so hard is

because you could be the most disciplined person on earth but

that urge in the the psychological wiring of humans brains is

so strong and it's so like biological to who we are it's ingrained in us

that you can't simply willpower your way out of it forever

you can will willpower your way out of it for a period of time you know

but eventually you will fall

and this is why oftentimes you also see you know some of the most successful men in the world

that have you know a ridiculous amount of wealth

and a wife they end up cheating on their wife with someone else

which is terrible for a multitude of reasons like you're destroying

the family you you're being disloyal to the one person you're supposed to be faithful to but

purely from a financial standpoint in

and of itself it's like why are you making it like

you're just like say goodbye to like a minimum of half

of your earnings in court you know what i mean and

so that's why it's very obvious the magnitude to which

that this is an issue

and once again i think the best way to to escape it is to flee from it

and pretty much what that means is you know maybe you are still connected on Instagram

or Snapchat with girls that you went to high school with.

And chances are you don't talk to them at all anymore.

The only stuff that you see of them is very is purely parasocial.

It's on, you know, Snapchat or Instagram.

But what do these people post?

They post highlight reels and a huge highlight reel that everyone loves to post is their body.

Right.

It's they're trying to show off.

Let's be honest.

and because of that especially with girls like they'll post that

and men get attached very visually whereas women get attached more with like words

and that's why there's like some famous quote

that says um men are attracted to what they see

and women are attracted to what they hear that's why girls wear makeup

and men lie but really if you pay attention to the most common genres of literature

that these girls read it is like it's beyond degenerate it's it's terrible like you go to the bookstore

and i like literally cringe at like some of like the popular with young woman like

that section it's just a bunch of like uh i don't

even know how to describe it it's like it's like animals

or like fairy tale characters that don't exist in real life and they're like it's very, it's very dark.

It's very dark, but it's all, you know, reestablished in this sort of, um, like, I hate to use this word,

but like sexual nature, like that's what it's doing.

That's what it's, it's meant to like arouse these girls.

And so you start to pay attention and the things that were fed and are targeted at us,

especially young people is like hyper-sexualized and it's meant to basically lead you down.

It's kind of like the gateway, like social media is sort of the gateway to you know slipping

and and starting to fall into this routine and it's

so readily available whereas like back in the day our parents

that generation like you had to have a literal magazine

and with that came the risk of you know you maybe your parents could catch

that you had that magazine and so it simply wasn't worth the risk

and then you would have to go out there in life

and like actually get that girl or get

that guy like you had to do the work to get it

and that's why it destroys your reward system guys

that are you know addicted to i hate to use the word

but it is a buzzword gooning guys that are addicted to

that oftentimes are less full of energy and they just

if they're super super addicted you'll start to see their their ability to like get up

and do the work that needs to get done is like much harder for them their focus sucks.

Everything sucks.

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And so what happens is it's one very small aspect of their life, but this aspect is like a seed and that seed starts to grow

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and it starts to infect other aspects of their life.

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For me personally, one thing that I always struggled with was, it was like people always more addicted to websites,

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but for me it was more, and it wasn't an addiction, but it was like, I would go to the gym a lot.

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And this started when I was in college and I would go to the gym a lot.

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And I wouldn't even like intentionally be like, oh, I want to go to the gym and see this or whatever.

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But I went to university of Arizona, my freshman year of college.

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And it's like, well, what, like the stereotypes are true.

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Like university of Arizona, like, what are you guys thinking?

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Like, it's a bunch of really attractive girls and they're wearing like, damn near nothing, leaving nothing up to your imagination.

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And I would go there and I had a workout and don't get me wrong.

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My main focus was always the workout and everything like that.

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But it's like, you're a guy at the end of the day, you're a human.

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And so naturally like, you, you know, I would just, you know, kind of like look around and I'd just be like, oh, and I would like every single time I'd have to tell myself, stop, stop, stop.

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And I would just pull myself in.

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I'd put my headphones on.

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I'd try to like close my eyes.

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Um, and it sucked because I kind of felt like, uh, like I was a creep when in reality, I can guarantee you every single other guy in the gym was doing that, but that doesn't take like,

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it just, I just kind of felt disgusting.

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And I was like, man, I want to, and for me, I had at least the discipline to be like, every time I would do it, I would like in my own head, my inner monologue would be like, stop, this is disgusting you shouldn't be doing this this is this

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and whatever but it's like once again that innate biology of who you are

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and those desires you can't just beat that

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and that's why you must flee from it so

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that was what i struggled with bro

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and it got to the point where it was

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so bad where it was like

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if i would talk to a girl in any facet

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or like setting it would be like my my my level

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of interest in talking to this girl would like directly be correlated to how attractive she was

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which even say like this video will be viewed by thousands of people.

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And that's like really embarrassing, but like, that's just the honest truth of where I was at at that point of time in my life.

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And that happened, that, that was a span of like three years that I think that that went on.

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And a lot of it also had to do with the fact that I was extremely, extremely isolated.

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The only time I would meet people was going to the gym or class.

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And then eventually I turned to online school.

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And at that point it was the only place I can meet people was the gym.

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And most of the time I'd go to the gym and mind my own business.

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So I want to talk to anyone but it's like that's what happens

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when um you start to let these things infect you

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and really the start of it for me was like i used to watch tv shows

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and you know i'd watch like these tv shows

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and it was like dude i just don't like the way on these tv shows

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that they would like they it's

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so unnecessarily explicit like they're always showing more skin than they need there's like a random sex scene

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that is literally not needed for the plot but like me, I was like, I kind of like wanted it to happen back then because I was like, it was such a, it was, it's like a drug.

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Like you're trying to get your fix.

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Right.

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And that's the way that it literally like destroys you, bro.

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And it was so embarrassing.

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I remember like, I would always shame myself and I think it's good.

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I think shaming and personal shaming is a good thing because it changes your behavior.

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But I'd always shame myself whenever I'd like do this stuff.

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And I'd be like, oh, you know, but here, like another thing that it destroys is your expectations.

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It's like, dude, a girl in a TV show, that's like one of the biggest TV shows in the world

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is obviously going to be like a top 1% good looking girl.

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Same with the guys.

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And I know girls do this all the time.

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Like, it seems like that's really popular.

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Dude, I stopped watching TV shows.

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I think the only TV show that I really watched, I'm trying to think, was Stranger Things in the past like year and a half or something.

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That was the only TV show that I watched.

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And it's like, because, and same with like movies, I watch movies here and there recently watched that obsession movie

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but even that obsession movie

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if you guys have paid attention online um the main girl in

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that movie her name's nikki i don't know what her name is in real life

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but she's like she's stunning she's gorgeous and she's really talented

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but it's like all these people online were like fantasizing about this girl

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and it's just like that's like why i don't like getting involved in

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that stuff is because it's

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so normalized in our society it's almost encouraged like oh yeah you could talk about like how pretty this

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and it's like you don't realize

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that like you're looking at you start to look at people differently uh

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because of this narrative and the way

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that it sort of takes over your own like it's pretty much conditioning you're conditioning yourself

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and the society is conditioning you to believe these things

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and don't think that you are immune to

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that trust me a lot of it happens subconsciously you don't even know what's going on

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but it's like dude you know i've talked to a lot of women about

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uh this concept it's like a lot of these girls really really get into tv shows

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and movies especially dramas

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and they're they start to believe whatever sort of um narrative is put onto these you know tv shows

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and a lot of times they do it through intimacy that's kind of a way

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that they that's a way that they show the messaging and it's so bad dude and it's like hookup culture is terrible.

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I'm completely against hookup culture.

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I think it really messes with people and it hurts people long-term, not just psychologically, but also it's like,

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you might have a marriage down the line and some issues arise because of stuff that someone did in their past.

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And I think that's freaking terrible.

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And I think about my grandparents because one of my grandparents on my dad's side, they grew up together in the same hometown

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and my grandfather proposed to my grandmother on prom night this is like some like og like basic american story

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but it's true he proposed to my grandma on prom night

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and then they got married a year later

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when they were 19 after they graduated and then they lived a happy marriage for their whole life

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i don't know how long that was but that's quite some time

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if they were married at 19 and they died in their 80s

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and i remember when i would ask my grandma

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and grandpa they were like oh yeah like Like the way that it worked with us was,

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you know, everybody kind of like had like their one person that they would start dating.

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And like for the majority of their friend group for like their all, like I'm pretty sure everyone in their friend group,

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they all married that one person and none of them got divorced and they were committed.

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And it's like now with social media, you can just go online and you can, you can have access to whatever you want at any time.

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And so it's like infinitely harder for us.

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And the discipline needs to be there.

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Where back in the day, they didn't even have the options.

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So they were so much more loyal.

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But they were also so much more fulfilled and happy, bro.

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Like have you ever talked to an old person about relationships?

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They seem to be so happy.

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You talk to our generation and everyone's like, oh, yeah, it sucks.

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Like dating sucks nowadays.

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And it's like, yeah, because, dude, it's just, I don't know.

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It's so messed up, I feel like.

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Um, but at the end of the day, willpower, once again, I want to reiterate this willpower can only take you so far.

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You're just going to relapse.

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It's inevitable.

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The only way you can actually beat it is flee from it.

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But number two, and I talked about this in previous videos as well, get something going for you in your life.

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And when I say going for you, it doesn't mean you need to have public recognition or money or like the business objectively doing well,

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having something going for you in your life to me, it's just, is there a path that you're starting to develop for yourself by work?

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So if you can work and then you start to see a path open

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and you can still be a bum by society terms, not have all this money and things going for you, but it's part of your journey.

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If you have something going for you, then that becomes the priority.

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And your brain is very basic in the terms of it just does what a priority is in any given situation?

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Is your priority comfort?

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Is your priority sleep?

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Is your priority, I need to make money right now?

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Is your priority romance?

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Whatever it is, it's just going to do whatever the top priority is every single time.

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And so if you have something going for you, you become so focused on that.

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And once you get results, this is what a Harvard study showed,

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is that the number one factor for motivation in people is actually seen tiny progress throughout your work

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so the second you start to see results you'll get

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so addicted and highly motivated that you'll forget about everything dude

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when i started doing social media and started posting

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and actually was able to see growth it's like why in

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the world would i ever you know spend some put some time aside to go goon

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or whatever they say uh when i could just make a video

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and maybe that video gets me a hundred thousand views

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and just completely changes the trajectory of my life like maybe someone famous sees

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that video and then they reach out to me and then I have a whole new opportunity.

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Like the ROI is just so much higher and I'm

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so much more focused on what I'm doing that it's really become a no brainer for me.

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And I'm not saying you have to do social media, but you can do whatever you want.

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And I promise you, it's like, if you dial in on that and you start to see wins or you see the possibility of wins, oh my gosh, it's over.

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It's over.

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It becomes so easy that way.

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And you know, what's funny is once you start doing that, like once you start having something go for you, girls are going to find you so much more attractive.

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so much more attractive.

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I think like the, honestly, like, yeah, it looks matter and all that.

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I'm not saying they don't.

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And that's probably the first thing that a girl looks at.

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But the second thing is your overall ambition and like your personality.

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Like, do, are you working towards something?

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Like, do you have like another buzzword, but do you have motion?

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Like, that's what girls are really into.

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So if you actually want a girlfriend in real life, it's like, get something going for you, bro.

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And I'm saying that in an encouraging way, not like a patronizing way, but yeah, just like get something going for you.

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Because what happens is if you have nothing going for you, like lust will take over when you do get in a relationship

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and then you can overlook red flags because you're just

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so infatuated with that person physically

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and all the chemicals in your body are literally designed to make you feel so attached and connected with that person.

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But it's really for the sake of reproduction.

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It's not for the sake of there actually being a legitimate connection.

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And, you know, I told this story before, but I had a friend who got like really addicted to, to, you know, going to these websites and everything.

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And when he finally got a shot with a girl, he wasn't able to perform.

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I think you might know what I mean by that, if you're following, but he was like super embarrassed.

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And I remember he told me that story and that story alone, like scared the crap out of me.

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I was like, oh, if I was ever in that position with my wife or it's like, you know, you're waiting

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and then you know you absolutely destroy it with the one

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person it's supposed to be the most special with like how embarrassing

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and just terrible would that be that'd be miserable and

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that enough should be all the motivation

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that you need to dial in start delaying gratification further down

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the line i promise you bro i promise you you won't regret it thank you guys for watching

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: Lust will destroy you... - Learn English Speaking with Video

Why practice speaking with this video?

Grammar & Expressions in Context

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What is the Shadowing Technique?