Shadowing Practice: Mark Manson: Self-control is a complete illusion - Learn English Speaking with Video
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My name is Mark Manson.
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I'm the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, as well as some other works.
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I'm a YouTuber, podcaster, and my work focuses primarily on the importance of values.
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Developing a healthy sense of hope.
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So there's something I call the uncomfortable truth of life, and it's not fun to hear or think about.
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And that is basically that you and everyone you know are going to die
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and that basically nothing we do is going to matter in the grand scheme of things.
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That in the infinite expanse of the universe,
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we're just insignificant microscopic dust milling about and none of this matters.
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And while that sounds very dark and fatalistic, I do think there is an optimistic view of that.
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And that we get to create and construct meaning for ourselves.
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We get to decide what matters in our lives and they sustain us through hardship and challenges and when things go wrong,
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our hope keeps us getting up in the morning and moving forward.
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But there's a dangerous side of hope as well, which most people don't think about.
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And that is that we defend our hopes often violently.
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that we cling to our hope because it sustains us so much emotionally.
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And so if we hope for the wrong things, or if we hope for things that are unrealistic,
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we can end up painting ourselves into a corner where living a fulfilling life is simply impossible.
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So I break our hopes down into three component parts.
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And these component parts are largely based on self-determination theory, which is the predominant framework for understanding motivation and psychology.
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So the first one is, do you have a sense of autonomy?
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Do you feel like you control your future?
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Do you feel like you're able to make decisions for yourself?
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The second component is, do you have something that you feel like is more important than yourself?
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Is there something in your life that you're willing to struggle for or sacrifice for?
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And then the third is, do you feel like you belong to something?
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Do you feel like you have a tribe of people around you who share your values
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or support your values as you pursue them?
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And if you have all three of those things, then you can develop a healthy sense of hope.
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But as we'll see, each one of those three things gets very complicated.
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So the first complication comes around autonomy and self-control.
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And that is essentially that self-control is an illusion.
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What psychology shows us is that we are fundamentally irrational actors.
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We are very emotionally driven, and then we rationalize our emotional decisions after the fact.
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And so a lot of what we think about in terms of self-discipline,
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habits, goal-setting, self-control, these are largely dictated by our emotional impulses.
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And so paradoxically, the way to develop more control
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and discipline in your life is not to implement rigid structures and just brute force everything with willpower.
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It's actually to develop a better relationship with your own emotions.
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because once you get in touch with your emotional impulses, you can start directing them in more productive directions.
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Plato characterized it as a chariot and a horse.
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And the rational thinking part of ourselves is the chariot with the whip
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and the reins trying to control the horses of our instincts
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and making sure that we go where we actually want to go.
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So imagine that we have two brains.
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We have the thinking brain and the feeling brain.
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And imagine that our consciousness is a car.
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Most of us assume that the thinking brain is driving the car
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and the feeling brain is in the passenger seat being this kind of noisy child, you know, screaming, looking at stuff out the window,
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getting excited or upset about various things.
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But the truth is, is that it's actually the opposite.
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The feeling brain is driving the car
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and the thinking brain is sitting in the passenger your seat and trying to act as the navigator.
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So the job of the thinking brain is to effectively communicate
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to the feeling brain to kind of almost like a dog tame the feeling brain into going where it should go.
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Because if you don't, then the feeling brain is just going to drive over the median into oncoming traffic,
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follow whatever shiny object that it wants to chase after.
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And so this struggle and tension between our thoughts and emotions is ever present.
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And really what it boils down to is developing a healthier relationship with ourselves,
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an understanding of our emotions without suppressing them,
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a comfort experiencing various emotions without overindulging them,
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and learning how to direct some of our impulses and cravings without overdoing them.
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In my book, Everything is Fucked, a book about hope, I write a full chapter about Isaac Newton as kind of an allegory of understanding how our emotions
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and our identity interact with each other.
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In that story, I create Newton's three laws of emotion.
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The first one is that for every action, there will be an equal and opposite emotional reaction.
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So every action that we take in our life or every experience that we have in our life, whatever its impact on our identity,
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how we identify ourselves, there will be an emotional reaction that is proportional
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to how we perceive that experience to interact with our identity.
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So let's say I have a large identity as an author and I run into somebody on the street who says like, wow, you're a terrible hand model.
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Well, I don't identify as a hand model.
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It's not a core part of how I see myself.
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So I'll probably just kind of laugh and be like, wow, that's really weird.
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But if I run into somebody on the street who like stops me and says, oh, wow, I read your books.
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You're a terrible author.
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Since that's such a core part of my identity, I will probably have a proportional emotional response to that experience.
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And I'll probably get very upset, embarrassed, confused, angry, whatever it is.
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But the emotional response will be directly proportional to how much the action is taking effect on my identity.
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Newton's second law of emotion is that your identity is the sum of all of your emotional experiences throughout your life.
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So if you have consistently felt bad around yourself, you will start to develop an identity of somebody who is bad.
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Somebody who's just fails at things, is incapable of doing things.
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Nobody's ever going to like you and so on.
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Whereas if you experience a large sum of positive experiences through your life, you'll develop an identity around those positive experiences.
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And ultimately this is why we adopt certain identities.
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I adopt an identity as an author because I have intense positive experiences trying to be an author.
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I've adopted an identity as bad at cooking
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because I have pretty much nothing but negative experiences every time I try to cook.
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And in Newton's third law is that there's an inertia to your identity,
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that your identity will continue to be your identity until some force acts against it and redirects it.
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And so when you're trying to change who you are or try to change your understanding of yourself, the only way you can actually do that is to go have contrary experiences.
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Go out into the world and do things that act against the identity that prove your self-definition wrong in some way.
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Now, the lesson to take in all of this is that ultimately you want to identify with things that are beyond yourself.
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As long as your emotional stability is based on how you perceive yourself and others perceive you,
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it's going to fluctuate wildly and you're going to lose control of your own actions.
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But if you have something outside of yourself that you identify with, that you really give yourself to,
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then that grants you a certain amount of stability in your life because it's no longer about you, right?
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It's like if you give your life to raising a family,
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then you no longer care if people criticize you for being a bad author or a bad cook.
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It doesn't matter to you.
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There's this more important thing outside of yourself
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that you can tether your hopes to that provides more emotional stability and a greater amount of self-control.
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And finally, the third complication comes around community.
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So when we find something outside of ourselves, we develop like an emotional gravity in that we attract people with similar values as our own,
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and we repel people with opposite values of our own.
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So when you start to value something outside of yourself, you will naturally start to coalesce with other people around similar shared values.
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And eventually you develop a community.
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Now, communities are amazing.
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They're great.
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They're absolutely fundamental to our mental health.
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We're very much wired as social creatures.
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Our relationships are probably the highest correlated thing to our happiness and well-being out of everything that we've ever measured in psychology.
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So developing a community around shared values is amazing.
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It's incredible.
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The problem is, is that humans have a tendency to not just create a benign community and celebrate something.
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Once they've got the community, they like to play politics.
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They like to start thinking, you know what?
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Our little community is better than that community.
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I think our community should have more access than that community.
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I think our community should maybe be in charge of that community over there.
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And this is where hope can turn dangerous,
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because if your hopes hinge completely on your community having more access or power or resources over that community,
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then your hope essentially hinges on gaining power and gaining control over others.
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it starts to hinge on something that is by definition exclusionary and antagonistic to the rest of the world around it.
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And I think an unintended side effect of the modern world,
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by making it so accessible and possible for people to form communities around shared values,
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we've unintentionally amplified the ability to create strife and conflict around each other's hopes.
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All of these perspectives and ideas that I've been talking about, they're not fun.
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They're not exciting, but they're good for you.
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And they make you a better functioning human being.
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So in this sense, I think of them like psychological vegetables.
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Nobody likes eating vegetables, but we all know we need to eat our vegetables.
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And vegetables are boring.
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They're everywhere.
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They're ever present.
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They're in every meal, but they're always the least exciting part of the meal.
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But the thing is, is that when we have a diet that's predominantly vegetables, we end up becoming healthier, we're more energized, we have more ability to focus,
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we have more ability to act in the world.
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It's ultimately what's good for us.
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Whereas chasing the highs of happiness, believing that everybody should like you all the time, believing that you're special and you deserve special treatment,
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these are like the sugar and desserts of our psychological diet.
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they feel good for a brief moment, but they always come with a hangover, and they always make us deeply unhealthy in the long run.
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Why This Video Is Perfect for English Speaking Practice
This video features Mark Manson’s conversational yet articulate style, making it ideal for improving English pronunciation and fluency. His pacing is natural—neither too fast nor too slow—and he uses relatable examples, which helps learners grasp complex ideas while practicing shadowing. The mix of casual phrases and deeper concepts ensures you’ll build both everyday and academic vocabulary, all while honing your ability to follow a structured argument.
Breaking Down Natural Speech Patterns
Let’s look at key lines that sound authentic. First, “So, there's something I call the uncomfortable truth of life, and it's not fun to hear or think about” uses filler words like “so” and “and” to connect ideas, mimicking real-world speech. This shows how native speakers pause and transition smoothly. Second, “What psychology shows us is that we are fundamentally irrational actors” uses a clear subject-verb structure with emphasis on “fundamentally,” teaching stress patterns. Third, “It's like if you give your life to raising a family, then it's you no longer care” includes a casual contraction (“it's”) and a slight rephrasing (“then it's you no longer care”), which is common in spoken English. These examples prove that natural speech isn’t about perfection—it’s about flow and authenticity.
A Simple Shadowing Routine to Try
To practice, use a shadowing app or site and follow this loop: 1) Watch a 30-second clip of the video, focusing on Manson’s intonation and stress. 2) Pause and repeat the clip aloud, mimicking his rhythm—this is called shadow speech. 3) Record yourself and compare it to the original, noting differences in pronunciation. 4) Repeat until your delivery matches his natural pace. For extra practice, try “shadowspeak” by speaking along with the video in real time, even if you stumble. This trains your brain to process and reproduce English quickly. Over time, this routine will boost your self-control over pronunciation and fluency, turning awkward pauses into smooth transitions.
By using this video with a shadowing tool, you’ll not only improve English pronunciation but also learn to think like a native speaker. Remember: the goal isn’t to memorize—it’s to internalize how ideas are expressed naturally. Start small, stay consistent, and you’ll see progress in no time.
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.