Shadowing Practice: Once You Get Money, Buy These 10 Things Immediately - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The hard part isn't always making money.
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It's knowing what to do with it and how to keep it.
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Most financial advice tells you what not to buy and what assets to invest in.
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I am going to do that in this video, but I'm also going to tell you the 10 things that you should actually upgrade today.
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Because if you make more money, you should be able to enjoy it.
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And also sometimes spending it makes you even more.
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And number three is the one almost nobody spends on, but I will never go back.
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But there is one thing we need to get straight first.
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Before you buy anything that feels like a lifestyle upgrade, ask one question.
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Does this buy back my life or does it try to make me look richer without a reason?
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To answer that, you need what I call your buyback rate.
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If I can actually pay someone less than half of what my hour is worth to take a task off my plate, I usually should.
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Here's why.
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If you take your net income and you divide it by the total number of hours worked, there are about 2,000 or so working hours in a year, which will give you your hourly income.
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Now I want you to take that and divide it by two.
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That's how you get your 50% margin.
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Any task you can give to somebody else, under that number is a let's go.
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So let's say you make $100,000.
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If we have 100K, what are we gonna do?
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Your hourly rate is about 50 bucks, which means if we cut it in half, your buyback rate is $25.
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So if you can pay somebody anything less, 10 bucks an hour, then you really should do that.
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So this is the first thing you should upgrade.
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Spend more on the things that make you more money.
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A lot of people say upgrade your wardrobe, get fancier.
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I actually don't buy into all of that at all.
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I think you need one expensive as shit thing to wear consistently.
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Why?
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You're signaling rich, especially if you do things like sell real estate
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or try to get people to invest in your company
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or even try to show your boss that you want to get promoted.
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I like having one super nice purse that I wear with every outfit.
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This one's called Chia Pirelli.
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It's an expensive brand.
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But the moral of the story is you don't need a ton of these.
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You need one.
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If you're a dude, you need one nice watch.
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It could be fake.
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Nobody needs to know.
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Not only that, if we have the rule of one, which is spend money on one nice thing because it'll actually make you more money,
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I think the next thing you got to do is the rule of three right now.
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get rid of three things in your closet that don't fit anymore
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and are kind of gnarly and replace them
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that way you're pulling in the wealthy things
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and getting rid of the things
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that actually keep you looking like you don't belong at this
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level of the game i like doing this on a weekly basis
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if i'm going to bring anything new i usually get rid
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of something else i think there's just like human psychology to
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that winning next i want to talk to you about why
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i made a million dollars before i I was 30 and one of my smarter, better co-workers didn't.
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It's actually one word and the word is proximity.
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If you want to get rich fast, you actually want to pay to have time back in your day because you are not commuting far.
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Why?
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When I was at Goldman Sachs back in the day, I had to be in the office at 7 30 every single day.
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I had a two minute walk from my office to Goldman Sachs.
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My best colleague, smarter than me, better than me, better pedigreed, better at cell well he had to be in the office at 7 30 as well
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but he hadn't saved as much money as i had
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so he had to be 45 minutes from the office he
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missed every single morning where i got there before him he missed all the times
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that he left
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and couldn't come back where i could proximity will make you
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more money in this case it might be actually the better gym where the classes are full of people
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that you might actually meet somebody who wants to invest in
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your business wants to hire you whatever my friend sahil bloom
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became very close with the former head of apple for
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that exact reason i also think joining a co-working space instead
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of your kitchen table it costs you money not to be
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in the room with other winners i think i joined three
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or four masterminds before i made all my cash
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because you're paying for who else paid to be in the exact same room
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and stealing their 10 000 hours this isn't just me a harvard economist studied millions of people
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and he basically mapped billions of friendships using Facebook data.
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You know what's crazy?
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If you think about it like this, the single strongest predictor of whether someone climbs out of their economic bracket wasn't their school, their neighborhood, or their income.
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In fact, if you thought about the clusters of what happened, it was actually, who did they know?
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They had a lot of money.
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It was whether their social circle actually touched people, not just at their same socioeconomic level, but did they climb a rung and another rung and another rung.
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What's the translation here?
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Your network is a measurable input to your income.
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You know that saying, like your network is your net worth.
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It turns out that the data actually shows this is true.
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It's a lot easier to change your environment than it is to change your habits, so I would start here.
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Actually, I have something for you.
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Knowing how valuable proximity can be, I'm gonna do something I've never done before.
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I'm putting together one of the largest events ever for owners on September 18th.
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It's completely free.
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I'm giving away millions of dollars of prizes and you get to be online with owners looking to scale their businesses live.
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You can sign up here in the description.
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Like I said, completely free.
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I'm going to teach you everything I know about building profitable businesses.
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This is how you change your life.
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Research shows that how you take care of yourself and your presentation actually makes you more money.
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People who are rated as attractive actually earned, this shocked me, 20% more on average.
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So the way you look matters.
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I think like, don't hate the player, don't hate the game.
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Ridiculously expensive beauty things I do that are actually worth it.
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I'll start high, then we'll go low.
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First, like this is for chicks, but you can get it for your girl.
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PRP, this is like where they microneedle your own blood or now they actually microneedle crazy things in your face like salmon,
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semen and other stuff.
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So I think that's probably like 5k depending on what level if you do peptides inside of it.
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Next something called Halo.
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That's like 3 to 5k super intense lasers that laser your face but genuinely make you look five years younger.
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Then stuff like Sculptra.
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This basically pulls back your face kind of like fill in collagen.
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I'm not a doctor.
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I don't know.
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I'm just telling you the stuff I do to try to not look 40.
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Sculptra is going to run you a couple k
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and then like a facial
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which is basically on the cheaper side that's going to be a couple hundred
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but maybe the really inexpensive things that i do you can get these red lights
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that are amazing for your face this one's literally sits on my desk every day i also have one
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that i lay down with
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because most of what actually works isn't expensive at all like i use the red lights i highly recommend
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that i use a lot of organic products like osea i really like their stuff
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and all their oils pretty much across the board as much
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organic makeup as you can now for dudes you can actually these days do all these same things
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that chicks do
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and i think it's actually an underrated hack for men to
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look hotter don't look weird though don't do like shiny don't
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do fillers don't get crazy unless you're going for the rupaul look
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and then you know good for you most people at this point say
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that you should have a financial advisor i actually say no i think you should have a tax advisor
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so once you've made in In my opinion, at least a couple hundred K a year, you're probably overpaying in taxes.
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And especially if you're an employee, you need to figure out a way for the IRS to take less from you legally, because nobody looks good in orange.
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What's the difference between a tax advisor and a financial advisor?
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A financial advisor, well, they get paid differently.
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They usually take a percentage cut on every single dollar they have sitting with them that you go and invest with them.
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I don't actually love that.
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If I was you, I would just put it in a van.
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If I was me, I won't tell you what to do.
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I'd just put it in a Vanguard or a Fidelity, some sort of cheap structure, dollar cost averaged, continue to invest over the long time,
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allow it to compound.
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But that doesn't help you at all with your earned income.
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So a tax advisor will actually tell you, okay, why don't we structure this LLC,
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have these earnings go through it so that we can use that to decrease your actual cost basis, the amount of money that you give to the IRS each year.
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Tax sounds fancy, but it's actually just the way that most people stay rich.
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People actually have a fund for getting into things, like a down payment fund, a start the business fund.
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Almost nobody has a fund for getting out of it.
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This is important because the exit is almost always more expensive than the entry.
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And it's the one cost nobody budgets for until they're already trapped and paying it in a panic.
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For the exit fund, this is a separate account whose only job is buying your way out.
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This is how you break your lease.
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You eat a cancellation fee.
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You pay a kill fee to walk away from a client or vendor that's quietly draining you.
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You don't touch it for anything else.
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Why?
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The truth is most of us are too scared of the exit cost to admit things aren't working out.
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So we just stay and pay a slower, quieter price instead.
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Before you commit to anything, price out exactly what it costs to undo it, not just what it costs to start it.
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So before you sign that lease, that contract or that 12 month vendor agreement, ask what walking away costs in month six.
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Put that number aside before you sign.
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Some of the most disciplined companies on earth, they're going to pay people to quit on purpose, which is wild.
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Like Amazon offers warehouse employees an actual cash payment to leave.
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In Jeff's own words, the goal is making people stop and think about what they really want.
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Because an employee who stays somewhere they don't want to be, that's unhealthy for you or the business.
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If a big company is willing to pay five figures just to buy back the option of a clean exit, that tells you something about what staying trapped costs you.
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So before the end of the day, Write a list of your three to five expenses you want to kill.
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Name it something that keeps you honest.
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I like exit fund.
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I also like the fuck you fund, meaning you can walk out at any point if you don't like them and say, you know what?
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Every time you sign something recurring, basically add its kill fee to the total you're saving towards.
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So I wanna talk about the food.
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I don't think clean eating is just like a signal.
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This stuff really matters, like actual food.
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The stuff a plant or an animal would recognize repaired by a human instead of a drive through a window.
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There's so many studies on this, you guys.
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Young adults and older adults show the same pattern.
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Every meaningful increase in ultra processed food tracks to worse memory and concentration.
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You cannot make a ton of money, negotiate a deal, or show up for your kid's game right on a brain that's been running on gas station calories all day forever.
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There's a bunch of studies that also show people spend an average of seven hours a week cooking.
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So I don't know, like maybe use a healthy meal prep service.
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I use one, it gets delivered to your door every week.
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You can skip the expensive shopping trip.
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Like also interesting, there are all these prepared food companies like Factor Meals or Tempo, they're like 200, 300 bucks a week for 21 meals.
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So for some people, this is a no brainer.
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Others, the buyback rate doesn't work out.
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Do the math, see what works for you.
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We have a chef that cooks for us.
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Costs about $60 an hour.
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And in about three hours, they can cook enough food for us for three days.
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So actually when you look at that cost, it's sort of a no brainer.
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People assume eating well is really expensive automatically.
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And two fast food meals a day for a household actually adds up faster than a grocery run.
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For the end of the day, what's your one action?
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Throw out that old stuff that's in your desk drawer
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that you probably shouldn't be eating anyway restock it with something that's gonna go bad
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if you don't eat it today this is really unpopular advice
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i will not invest in a founder unless they already have an assistant people hate this advice
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but i got it given to me by a billionaire and
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when i saw the data i was actually like pretty shocked on this harvard business found
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that execs who work with a skilled assistant have 20 to 30 percent higher productivity
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and make more money a good assistant actually doesn't cost you money in the long term they make you money
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because of all the hours you waste on your own admin
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previously okay i have two things i want you to tattoo on your forehead
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if you want to make more money first is what's called
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kato i think i originally stole this from tim ferris
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and i might have updated it slightly myself what does this mean cut automate delegate outsource
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so what i do first is i obsess on all the things
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that i should not do obviously netflix and chill
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but other things like do i really need to be organizing my email list?
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Like, should I just not do that?
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So those are my kill items.
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Second, automate.
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Hey, I have to read email.
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Okay.
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Well, can I use something like Superhuman, which is the software I use that automates all of my email inbox management better?
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Great.
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Okay.
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If Superhuman isn't sufficient, this is when I bring in usually a virtual assistant.
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They can cost you like a couple hundred bucks to a couple thousand bucks a month, and they will actually do anything that you want to delegate.
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And fully outsourcing might mean hiring an EA or another member of your team to do this job entirely.
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They're not even reporting back to you.
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They're just executing on it.
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You start with the lowest level tasks from a dollar perspective
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and you climb to the highest level tasks from a dollar perspective.
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Now let's say that you're listening to me and you're like, Cody, I want to make more money and I need more time to focus on selling things.
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Let me show you how to scale up the assistant ladder.
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The assistant ladder essentially has three rungs on it.
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Rung one is a virtual assistant.
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This is part-time overseas cheap.
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You can basically get this for $200 to $3,000 a month. $3,000 is full-time, by the way.
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You use this for any inbox scheduling, repetitive tasks.
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This clears the buyback rate for almost everybody watching.
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Rung two is actually an assistant.
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This person is in-house, more trustworthy.
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They could still be remote, but they know more about you and they can be used to filter out unimportant daily life tasks.
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Then we've got the chief of staff.
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This runs projects end-to-end, makes the calls you'd make, walks into a room and can actually brief them on it and say, Cody's not going to like that.
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Cody is going to like this.
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You know, this, I like to train them up to my do-look at.
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This is the top of the ladder.
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Most of you aren't there yet, but you don't know where you're going to go unless you start here.
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So let's say this one costs $2,000 to $3,000.
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Let's say this one costs $50,000 a year, all the way up to $250,000 a year.
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And let's say a chief of staff probably costs somewhere around $125,000.
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These people can earn a lot.
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They can earn $300,000 a year being a chief of staff.
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This is really important because you need to let go of the 10 hours you're white knuckling
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because it's faster if you just do it.
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That line, it's faster if you just do it, is probably why you're not where you want to be at monetarily.
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And it's usually why most people stay broke.
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Yeah, everybody's faster once.
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I'm 100 times faster than most of my employees.
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But you're not faster the 51st time.
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So the upgrade here is more free time doing the things that make you more money.
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My action for you is pretty simple.
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Before the end of the day, write down the three tasks eating your week that don't require you specifically using Kato.
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That list is your job for getting to rung one.
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All right, the next one I want to talk about is sleep.
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So this economist actually found that the more sleep you have, it's associated with higher earnings.
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And that kind of makes sense, right?
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Because tired people make expensive decisions.
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So like if you really zoom out, chronic short-term sleep costs the U.S economy $411 billion a year in lost productivity.
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That is wild.
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It's basically a giant liability.
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So what do I do to improve my sleep?
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Really, really simple.
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One, a hard mattress.
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There's a lot of studies that show these are better and not like an old mattress.
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And if you have an old mattress, you really need to replace it every five to ten years.
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Two, I hyper believe in this one, but it is expensive.
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Eight sleep.
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I got a discount code for you guys.
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You can click the link below.
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I don't even think I make money on this anymore
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So you guys just take the 600 bucks
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or whatever it is off this This has been a game changer for my sleep.
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You want to go way cheaper than this earplugs
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and a face mask This is the whole list like you don't need an aura ring.
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You don't need a whoop.
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You don't need sleep tracking You don't really need the eight sleep.
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It's just sick if you have a couple thousand bucks to spend on it
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So let's run the buyback rate on this if eight sleep is about 5k
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for instance to get the whole thing plus like de minimis
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like let's call it like a hundred bucks for everything else
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that i just mentioned the face mask the earplugs maybe a
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little bit better of a pillow what are you looking at
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at 2500 hours a year that's like a two dollar buyback right
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so that's kind of a no-brainer if you've ever underslept and that decision has cost you in a negotiation, in your business, or in your life.
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Next, I want to think about lap.
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And my favorite thing to upgrade is always Y-O-U, but I have a really particular way to do it.
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I call this the repeat rule.
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And here's how I like to think about it.
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How many times, if you acquire this skill, will you repeat its use?
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So if it's sales, that's probably a thousand times it's going to keep showing up in your paycheck.
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If it's negotiation, that's probably at least a hundred times.
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So the higher the number of times you're going to repeat it, the more you're going to want it.
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Sometimes I also think about something called the tattoo rule.
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Like if I could take this skill, tattoo it on my body or my brain so I would never forget it, would I rather have that or the money back to learn it?
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Pretty quickly you're going to realize the things that you'd use again and again and again, you wish that you could tattoo on your brain.
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And that's when you decide the skills that stick.
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My most important skills ever, negotiation.
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That's why I obsess on people learning how to buy businesses.
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Sales, because CEO is chief sales officer.
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Operations and processes.
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That's why we actually run an entire event learning how to run a business.
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Because even if you're the best salesperson, if you don't understand profitability, you're gonna go out of business, which is actually what we're teaching live at our event on
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September 18th it will be every single step I've used to buy a business.
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I can promise you, if you learn the game of business, which is really the game of money, it's really hard to go broke.
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The most important thing to upgrade going forward, we've talked about it before, is your time.
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I want you to think about the most unhinged things you could do right now to buy back your time.
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For me, that's like my nail lady comes to my office every single time I get it done.
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I never go to the nail salon.
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By the way, so does my hair and makeup artist.
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So does the person who even dyes my hair comes into the office.
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So does my stylist who brings me clothes.
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Oh, by the way, so does my chef who drops off my food here.
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I know I sound like a really high maintenance broad, but how else do you build a nine figure company, plus have a husband that you love and hang out with,
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plus be pregnant, plus like wanna have friends and family and travel around?
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Like this is where I buy back all my time from all the nonsense.
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And I swear to God, you guys, somebody is going to tell you, this is so dumb, must be nice.
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And I'm gonna tell you, That's why that person will never be as successful as you wanna be.
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I know a lot of people don't like to hear this, but you are the biggest reason why you aren't successful, and it is typically because you are not valuing your time properly.
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And the second you break through that, and you get out of your head what I used to think too, which is this is so elitist, having all this stuff.
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Like this is kind of gross buying all of that.
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Can't you do anything for yourself?
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It's like the fire movement infected our brains and made us think that in order to have a good life, We had to be minimal and be in the fire movement and save every penny.
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No, no, guys, the world's hugely abundant.
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There's more money and opportunity and wealth than you can ever imagine out here.
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And the best thing is, at a certain point, it doesn't have to cost you more time to do it all.
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In fact, you can work less, have more fun, and make more once you learn this thing that only rich people do.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Once You Get Money, Buy These 10 Things Immediately”. This video has 323 sentences and 4065 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:32. The speaker talks fast, about 208 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| buck noun | /ˈbʌk/ | A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad, skunk and kangaroo. |
| buyback noun | /ˈbaɪˌbæk/ | The repurchase of something previously sold, especially of stock by the company that issued it. |
| advisor noun | /ædˈvaɪ.zə(ɹ)/ | One who offers advice. |
| tattoo noun | /tæˈtuː/ | An image made on a body part, usually the skin with ink and a needle. |
| automate verb | /ˈɔ.təˌmeɪt/ | To replace or enhance human labor with machines. |
| brainer noun | /bɹeɪ.nə(ɹ)/ | someone with a certain type of brain |
| mattress noun | /ˈmætɹɪs/ | A pad on which a person can recline and sleep, usually having an inner section of coiled springs covered with foam or other cushioning material then enclosed… |
| negotiation noun | /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The process of achieving agreement through discussion. |
| proximity noun | /pɹɒkˈsɪm.ɪ.ti/ | Closeness; the state of being near in space, time, or relationship. |
| ladder noun | /ˈlæd.ɚ/ | A frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened rungs (cross strips or… |
| earplug noun | /ˈɪəplʌɡ/ | A piece of protective gear meant to be inserted in the ear canal to protect the wearer's hearing from loud noises or the intrusion of water. |
| microneedle noun | A very fine needle | |
| obsess verb | /əbˈsɛs/ | To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion. |
| inbox noun | /ˈɪnbɑks/ | A container in which papers to be dealt with are put. |
| delegate noun | /ˈdɛlɪɡət/ | A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| buy back verb | To purchase (something already sold, misplaced, destroyed, or given away). | |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| add up verb | To take the sum of; to total. | |
| break through verb | To gain popularity. | |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| drop off verb | To fall asleep. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- If you're a dude, you need one nice watch.
- You know what's crazy?
- I'll start high, then we'll go low.
- For the end of the day, what's your one action?
- Can't you do anything for yourself?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If I was you, I would just · If I was me, I won't tell · if you acquire this skill, will you |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | year, which will · bucks, which means · one, which is |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've never done · you've made · has been |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 101 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: trustworthy /ˈtɹʌst.wɜː.ði/, unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/, measurable /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/, cancellation /kænsəˈleɪʃən/, negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/
- Long words — get the stress right: negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/, proximity /pɹɒkˈsɪm.ɪ.ti/, economist /iˈkɑ.nə.mɪst/, productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, measurable /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/
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 buck, buyback, advisor.
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.