Shadowing Practice: Mel Robbins: The Simple Truth About Chasing Happiness - Learn English Speaking with Video
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What do you think is the hardest thing you're working on right now?
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Like what's the most challenging thing you're working on internally or externally?
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Could be creatively, it could be habit -wise.
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What is something that you're struggling with or grappling with that you're working through?
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Happiness.
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Wow, okay.
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Yeah, happiness.
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It's interesting.
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I was getting ready to come over here this morning.
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And so my daughter goes to school here at the Thornton School for music.
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She's a senior, and she spent the night with me last night.
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I'm going to tell you the story because it's relevant about both learning things the hard way and about happiness.
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So she slept in my bed with me last night, and it was so awesome.
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And I just love her, and she's 22, and she's about to, like, burst into the next chapter of her life.
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It is so exciting.
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And I miss her terribly, terribly. And I, oh, I'm going to get like totally choked up
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when I think about it because I live on the other side of the country.
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And I think one of the hardest things
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that you have to do in life if you really love somebody is to encourage them to leave, to encourage them to grow.
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And I can't believe how choked up I'm getting about this because,
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I mean, this just happened this morning and I was laying in bed and she's sound asleep, you know, like sprawled out,
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like those 22 year old sleep and sweating and just like this.
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And I thought, Oh, I want to take a picture of this moment.
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And then I thought, no, she's going to kill me because she looks terrible.
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And you know how that rolls when you're 20 years old.
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And so I closed my eyes to just capture the memory.
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And I thought, why is it that I am always gripping onto the thing that makes me unhappy.
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What is it about this campaign?
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I call it the campaign of misery.
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Like instead of focusing on the fact that here I am, first of all,
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lucky enough to be in Los Angeles to be able to have the means to go see her for Parents Weekend,
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that I have a relationship with her where she would want to come and just snuggle up and spend the night,
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that she is pursuing her passion and dream of being a singer -songwriter, that she is just killing it.
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She's happy.
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Why am I always defaulting to the loss?
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And so when I say that I'm working on happiness, what I've realized about myself,
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Jay, is that I have done a lot of things in life,
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but I've spent the vast majority of my life being so busy and keeping myself so busy as a means to outrun,
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I think, a deep -seated unhappiness.
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And that when the pandemic hit and I had to slow down and I had to truly say to myself, okay, you can't go anywhere.
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You cannot regulate your anxiety by running to Target.
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You can't catch a plane.
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Like, it's you and your, like, you and yourself right now, Mel and all the coping mechanisms
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that you used to have that distracted you from the fact that you're just not that happy, they're not there anymore.
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And unless I want to drink myself into the ground, which I don't, and numb it, or hit the vape pen or take a gun,
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like, unless I want to numb it, I got to deal with it.
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And so I've spent the last two years
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and I continue to focus right now on the number one goal that I have,
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which is to learn how to be happy and content content wherever I am.
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And so this morning is the perfect example of catching this profound sadness, which is part of the human experience.
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Deeply missing somebody is also about loving them, right?
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And noticing that I was going into the negative.
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And part of being content and being happy wherever I am is not trying to fix things.
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It's being okay with things.
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It's allowing the emotion to rise up and then noticing that there's a different way to feel.
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And so in that moment, I just am doing what I'm doing a lot of, which is just breathing through those deep moments where I'm like,
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why am I complaining about this?
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It's so stupid.
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Why am I obsessing about this thing tomorrow?
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And I'm not even here right now.
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And reframing things in a more positive way.
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And this might surprise people because I am a very positive person.
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I am a very optimistic person.
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But when I really slow down, my mind runs a million miles an hour and normally it's 15 steps ahead,
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which means I'm never content where I am.
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And so I've been doing a ton of work like in my nervous system,
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in my body, instead of going right up here and trying to wrestle with my thoughts, I've been going down into here to just.
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anchor in my body and slow things down and be physically where I am, where my feet are.
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And so then there was a second thing that happened.
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So again, I'm working on happiness.
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That's the thing I'm really like working on.
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It's like a muscle, right?
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I'm in the bathroom and I am terrible at doing my hair.
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I know it looks really decent today, but normally I look like a fricking labradoodle on a humid day.
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Like that's just me.
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I just have never figured out the hair situation.
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And so I finally said, that's it.
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I have got to figure out how to make my hair look halfway okay.
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Like I'm not even looking for amazing.
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I'm just looking for okay.
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And so I was watching YouTube.
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I'm learning the tutorials.
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I've got the right sprays.
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And so Kendall comes rolling in after she wakes up and I am sitting there trying to curl my hair, right?
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With this big fat curling.
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I'm terrible at it, Jay.
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And all of a sudden I hit my freaking ear and I'm like, oh, and I'm like, oh my God, I've just burned my ear.
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And Kendall casually goes, well, you got to learn somehow.
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And she walks out of the room.
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I think there is so much wisdom in that because that is how you learn.
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That is how you learn how close to hold a curling iron to your ear.
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You burn yourself.
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And then your whole body absorbs the lesson and you don't go that close to the fire next time.
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And I'm doing that dance with happiness and contentment that
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when I feel the fire of discontent or friction or complaining or looking for what's wrong,
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I pull the curling iron a little away from the ear and I go back into a safer, calmer place.
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That was a beautiful answer.
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I didn't know what to expect when I asked that question.
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I really appreciate you you know going that inward with it because you could have gone a number of ways i
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i fully understand and empathize what you're saying because my mom
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and my family do something similar so
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and i love my mom i have a great relation with my mom she's amazing
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and anything that's good about me is because of her
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but every time i go back to london the day
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i land my family will say well you're only here for 21 days
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i'm like 21 days like that's three weeks even
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if you added up all the hours weekly
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that you spend with time with someone it probably won't account for right 21 full days yeah with full presence
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and then a week will go
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and be like oh you've only got 40 14 days left
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or you've only got seven days left or you're leaving today
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and and that mindset just keeps forcing you to think that day 21 is day one,
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as in that day 21 days left is the same as one day left.
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And you're living all 21 days as there's only one day left.
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And I've taken time and I've sat with my mom so many times to have that conversation with her.
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And I said, mom, if you celebrate that we have 21 days, we're going to make the most of it.
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And we're going to create new memories and create new experiences, then you're going to be happier for these 21 days.
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And yes, you're going to miss me the same.
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It's not going to change that.
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And I'm going to miss you.
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So I have personal experience of that on the other end of it with having that conversation with my mom,
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where she's really grown in understanding how that thought hasn't served her.
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And she's so much happier for it now when I go back.
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So I definitely identify with that.
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What you touched on at the end there, though, was really interesting to me.
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When you talk about happiness, it sounds like you believe you deserve it
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and you sound like you believe
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it's yours for the taking like it's like it is a clear goal direction it's there yeah
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and i think what's happened is subconsciously or consciously
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so many of us don't feel we deserve happiness
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or we don't feel we're worthy of happiness
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or we actually think mediocrity is a safer place to live
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because then we don't have our expectations being unmet we don't have the fall of i wanted this
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but i got this right and
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so i've been i had a friend the other day who sent me a message
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and he said take a look at this
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and it was all about how really we shouldn't strive for happiness we should strive for mediocrity
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because mediocrity is where most people will end up so
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that was literally this is the message
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so my friend messaged me he goes what do you think of this i think
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it sucks that's right i think it's worst advice I've ever freaking heard.
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How about that?
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It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
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Here's the thing, Jay.
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So one of the things I also wanted to say is
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that I'm 54 and it's taken me a long time to figure out that I was actually not a happy person.
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And I don't think I, I really, truly understood what happiness is.
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And maybe I'm using the wrong word.
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Maybe the word is the problem because I always associated happiness with like parties and laughter and like, I'm just like full of joy.
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And I'm, and I just, you know, it's like this very positive thing.
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And again, I am a positive person.
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I'm a very optimistic person.
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But if you were to put a speaker on my head and broadcast the things I said to myself,
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you would literally check me in to the seventh floor at Mass General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts because it was a constant drumbeat of negativity.
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And as I, one by one by one, Jay, started to fix the problems in my marriage and my finances,
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with my anxiety, as I built a business, you know, a lot of people are surprised to learn
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that most of what you see that I've built has been built in the last six years, literally.
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And so I, as I started fixing things outside,
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that default drumbeat did not go away.
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It just was a situation where I no longer had anything outside of me that was rationally wrong.
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So I turned it back on me and just started hammering me in crazy ways.
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I'll give you an example.
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So this is where I started to have this breakthrough.
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So I was sitting, my husband and I have just bought a house in Vermont.
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And I know you guys, you know, are in your new home.
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It's an incredible thing to do.
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It is our dream house.
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It's the house that his parents built.
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It's the family house.
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We not only were able to purchase this thing, we have been able to completely renovate it, make it our own.
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This place is the closest place to God that I have ever been.
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We sit nestled between mountains with 140 -mile view straight down a valley with cascading.
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Like, it is just spectacular.
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When I would sit in therapy sessions eight years ago and my therapist would ask me to come up with like a,
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you know, like a totem or a spiritual guide or a vision, whatever, for truth or God or whatever, it's always this view.
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And so lo and behold, eight years later, we freaking live there.
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And I'm sitting on this covered deck looking down the valley.
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My daughter is sitting next to me, her other daughter who lives in Boston, who's 23.
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And it's Sunday.
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And normally on Sundays, I'm not even present on Sundays because I've now got the Sunday scaries.
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I'm now thinking about the week ahead.
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She is starting to now do that.
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Okay, I got to get going.
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I got to pack the car.
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I got to get going.
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I got a big week of work this week.
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And it's 7 .30 in the morning on a spectacular day, and the energy is starting.
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And I recognize the energy because that is the campaign of misery that I have lived with for 50 years.
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And I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking, oh, this is interesting.
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That's me.
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And then I stopped in that moment, Jay, and I thought, I don't feel that right now.
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I just feel that exactly where I am,
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looking at this view, is exactly where I'm supposed to be.
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And it was so profound.
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It's almost like that moment where Eckhart Tolle has on the bench in the beginning of The Power of Now,
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where I have this profound experience where I think, wait a minute, is this what happiness is?
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that I'm not 15 steps ahead.
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I'm just able to be right here without the anxiety, without the stress.
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I mean, that is like a revolutionary experience for me.
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I don't think I had ever not felt the default of a revved up nervous system,
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an anxious mind, or a to -do list that was a mile long.
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And I don't want to go back to that sort of frenetic busyness that creates chronic stress.
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And, you know, the challenge for me right now is how do I stay in a space that's happy
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because I love the game of building a business.
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I love pushing myself.
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I love, like, and I realized, oh, wait, you actually need both.
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You need deep, spiritual, quiet time, and you need the busyness of Los Angeles or Boston
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or New York in small sprints but that can't be your default anymore woman
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and that's a that's such a great realization and reflection i think
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when you come to that and it it takes a lot of self -acceptance to come to that because
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I think we think of life as binary, like you have to make a choice.
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You're either going to be a hustler or you're going to be peaceful.
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You're either going to be a winner or you're going to be a loser.
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You're either going to be wisdom and zen or you're going to be money and materialistic, right?
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And it's almost like you feel you have to make those choices early in life.
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And I think when you came in here, we were talking about something and I really,
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really think it's something that a lot of our listeners will resonate with the idea that so many of us
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experience pain of not going after what we want or what we need or what we feel is our calling
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because of the pain that comes with that yeah and
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so we settle for the pain of where we are yeah
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and i think those two ideas are related
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because again we think there's this choice
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you have to make at any point in time where it's
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like i'm either going to live the life of my dreams
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or i'm going to be stuck forever
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and then we're like okay well i'll be stuck forever
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because my dreams seem so far away i remember being there
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and it's always hard to help everyone who's listening realize how much i felt that way
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so how old were you i this was six years ago for me oh my god
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that's right you like have this crazy parallel yeah six years ago
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so six years ago
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i was working a safe corporate job six months from now i was about to be married to radhi
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and i was making
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31 500 pounds a year and that was my salary at this company
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and i was doing extremely well at the company
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so i had a good track to to progress there
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and i'm sitting there going i've been there for two years
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and I'm like I don't think
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this is where I'm meant to be I was looking at people who'd been at the company for decades
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I was I've always said to people look 10 20 years ahead of you
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and look at that person in the company and go is
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that where I want to be and I was like well even
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if they paid me as much as that person's paid even if I got all the benefits that person got
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I don't think I want to do that in my 50s
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and so I thought to myself okay well then I have to take a risk.
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So, and obviously that was like a two -year journey of even convincing myself.
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Let's talk about that.
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If someone's sitting there right now, passionate about something, wanting to get inspired,
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wanting to do something, but they're settling for the pain of where they are.
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And that's why I asked that mediocrity and happiness question.
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Yeah.
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It is really that dance between I'm going to settle for where I'm at, or I'm going to be where I want to be.
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How do you think about that journey?
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How do you start?
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You know what just popped into my mind, in a weird way, cancer.
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If you got diagnosed with a cancer that was treatable, would you try to treat your cancer?
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Yes.
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Of course you would, because otherwise it would kill you.
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When you feel this call or this burning desire, and I feel like we all have this flame inside of us.
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We are not like a boiler where the pilot light can blow out.
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That is not how a human being is wired.
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You, whether you're stuck, whether you're in pain, whether you're suffering, you still have this flame inside you that is burning.
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And when you actively engage in your own campaign of misery,
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and you actively tell yourself the reasons why it's not going to work, or the reasons why you can't do it,
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or the reasons why now is not the time, or you're never going to make it happen,
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or it was great for Jay or great for Mel, but nothing ever works out for me.
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When you engage in your own campaign of misery, you are creating literally a cancer inside of you that eats at you.
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And we don't realize that by engaging in this campaign of misery,
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because it's active, that flame is burning inside you and you are actively convincing yourself not to do anything.
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It is an active, engaged, and that's why I call it a campaign, because that flame is going to keep on burning,
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which is why the campaign has to get louder and the excuses have to get louder.
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And you know what starts to happen is you start to listen to
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that campaign and you start to feel pain because there's something burning inside of you.
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And the only cure for this is to stop listening to that campaign and simply start taking small steps,
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just one every day toward the thing that you want.
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I talk to my daughter about this all the time.
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So she dreams, absolutely dreams of being a singer songwriter,
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solo artist with a successful career, literally stadium tours.
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And if I'm being perfectly honest, this kid has all of the talent and all of that,
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like she's one of those five tool players and she is a great person.
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kind and just awesome.
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And she's even in a program for it, the best in the country.
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She has everything.
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She just has to do the work.
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What is the work?
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Well, the work is simply writing crappy songs every day.
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The work is not listening to the campaign of misery, because all around you, you're going to see evidence of this person's better,
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or that person this, or this one's that, Uh -uh.
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When you listen to that campaign in your head, it is like a cancer inside.
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It causes pain because you can feel when you are giving up on your own potential.
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And that is the worst kind of life to live.
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You are either in the stands commenting about the game or you're on the court playing it.
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And right now, I want you to think about that flame inside you, that dream that you have.
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And I'm going to go back to my daughter who is on the court, but she will be the first to say that for many years,
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she was engaged in her own campaign of misery, sitting in the stands, telling herself why she can't get on the court right now.
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And so I like that visual because at any moment, it literally like cuts right to the truth.
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Are you in the stands criticizing who the people who are playing the game
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or being jealous of them or in the stands telling yourself it's not time to jump in?
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Or are you on the freaking court?
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There's only two places to be in life.
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That's it.
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There is no middle ground here.
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And so what I want to say also is that being in the stands, it is loud.
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It is an active thing that you're doing.
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This is not a passive thing that we do to ourselves.
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We actively argue against our dream and our potential.
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And that is a thousand percent tied to your happiness, to your confidence.
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Because if you are arguing against your own God -given potential, you are actively destroying your confidence.
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You're actively destroying possibility in your life.
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And here's the thing, you freaking know it.
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People know when they have imposter syndrome.
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They know it.
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They talk about it openly.
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And I also hate the term fake it till you make it.
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And here's why.
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When you say, I'm just going to fake it till you make it, you are calling yourself a fake.
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It amplifies your self -doubt.
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Instead, say this, I'm going to get on the court and try until I make it.
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Because the pain of sitting in the stands and never getting down there is way greater than tripping on the court.
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Way greater.
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And this is the thing I want people to understand.
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You are causing yourself so much pain by laughing off and making jokes about how it's never going to happen.
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You're causing yourself so much pain by thinking about it.
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Get out of the freaking stands and get back on the court in your life.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Mel Robbins: The Simple Truth About Chasing Happiness”. This video has 324 sentences and 3922 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:46. The speaker talks at a natural 172 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| misery noun | /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹi/ | Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe. |
| actively adverb | /ˈæktɪvli/ | In an active manner. |
| engage verb | /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied. |
| flame noun | /fleɪm/ | The visible part of fire; a stream of burning vapour or gas, emitting light and heat. |
| default noun | /dɪˈfɔlt/ | The condition of failing to meet an obligation. |
| curl noun | /kɜɹl/ | A curving piece or lock of hair; a ringlet. |
| anxiety noun | /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/ | An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event. |
| settle verb | /ˈsɛtəl/ | To determine (something which was exposed to doubt or question); to resolve conclusively; to set or fix (a time, an order of succession, etc). |
| profound adjective | /pɹəˈfaʊnd/ | Descending far below the surface; opening or reaching to great depth; deep. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| encourage verb | /ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ | To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit. |
| spiritual adjective | /ˈspɪɹɪt͡ʃuəl/ | Of or pertaining to the spirit or the soul. |
| wisdom noun | /ˈwɪzdəm/ | An element of personal character that enables one to distinguish the wise from the unwise. |
| wherever | /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/ | Regardless of the place in, at or to which. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| slow down verb | To decelerate. |
| add up verb | To take the sum of; to total. |
| blow out verb | To extinguish something, especially a flame, especially by means of a strong current of air or another gas. |
| come over verb | To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Why am I always defaulting to the loss?
- You can't catch a plane.
- Why am I obsessing about this thing tomorrow?
- That's the thing I'm really like working on.
- How do you think about that journey?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been doing · I've been going |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've realized · have done · I've spent |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | has been built · be stuck · is wired |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | sadness, which is · people who are |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 122 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, breathe /bɹiːð/, seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/, therapist /ˈθɛɹəpɪst/, breakthrough /ˈbɹeɪk.θɹuː/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: passion /ˈpæʃən/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, relation /ɹɪˈleɪʃ(ə)n/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, spectacular /spɛkˈtæk.jə.lɚ/, optimistic /ˌɒptɪˈmɪstɪk/, mechanism /ˈmɛk.ə.nɪ.zəm/, revolutionary /ˌɹɛvəˈluʃənɛɹi/
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 happiness, misery, actively.
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.