Shadowing Practice: Talk Back: Why Arguing With Yourself Can Help You Flourish - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
Arguing with yourself may be the best way to flourish.
2
My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
3
Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.
4
Today, I'm excited to speak with Martin Seligman.
5
Marty is a world-renowned psychologist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
6
He's the director of the Positive Psychology Center.
7
His groundbreaking research has fundamentally reshaped how science understands human well-being.
8
He has authored more than 30 books, including Flourish, Authentic Happiness, and his latest, Agency, The Psychological History of Human Progress.
9
Well, welcome, Martin.
10
I first learned of your work when I was an undergraduate.
11
The work you did in Learned Helplessness was really fascinating and actually helped me want to study more in psychology.
12
Thank you, and thank you for being here.
13
I'm pleased to be here, Matt.
14
I have to confess I'm intimidated by the title of your endeavor.
15
I used to be fast, and now I'm slow, and I used to be smart, and now the best I can do is be contemplative.
16
Well, I appreciate that, and we will have a lovely conversation that goes deep and contemplates lots of important things.
17
Shall we get started?
18
Okay.
19
Excellent.
20
So it is rare to get the opportunity to speak with somebody who started an entire field.
21
You started the field of wellness and wellbeing and happiness research and psychology.
22
We've had several guests on the show who've talked about things in this field, Sonia Lubomirsky, Laurie Santos, Arthur Brooks, and I'd love to get your take on it.
23
You across the studying you do have studied something called flourishing.
24
Can you share with us a bit about what flourishing is and what we can do to achieve it?
25
Well, my interest in flourishing started because it was a field that psychology wouldn't touch, the question of how to be happy.
26
And my experience, and probably yours, Matt, when you lie in bed at night, you're not thinking about how to go from minus eight to minus three.
27
You're thinking about how to go from plus three to plus eight in life.
28
Well, there was no psychology of that.
29
And that was my motive for founding when I was president of the American Psychological Association,
30
the field of positive psychology, which is about flourishing.
31
And for me, flourishing has five elements.
32
The acronym is PERMA.
33
P is positive emotion, subjective well-being.
34
E is engagement, how absorbed you are right now in our conversation.
35
R is relationships, good relationships.
36
M is one sense of meaning and mattering and a is accomplishment and achievement.
37
So for me, flourishing relies on five pillars I call PRMA.
38
It's very clear that each of those can help us all feel better in your work and in your research.
39
Do all five need to be in place for someone to feel that sense of wellbeing and flourishing?
40
Or, or is it just having one
41
or two areas where you really feel accomplished or passionate is
42
that enough not at all uh it's like a dashboard on an airplane
43
so there are lots of dials on an airplane but
44
if you want to get there as cheaply as possible it's the petrol dial
45
that matters if you want to get there as comfortably as possible it's the radar
46
that matters similarly with perma i'm a high meaning
47
and accomplishment person those are the two of the five
48
that really matter for me
49
so for me uh flourishing is knowing about the techniques of more meaning in my life
50
and the techniques of more accomplishment it's secondary to me the hedonics how much uh joy i feel
51
and how engaged i am so uh like the dashboard on an airplane it depends on what you care about Ah,
52
so each of us can reflect what's most important.
53
So as I look at PERMA, I feel that relationships and meaning are what's most important in my life.
54
And I can try to optimize for those as almost a
55
roadmap for how we can find our way to deeper fulfillment
56
and flourishing simply by thinking through these five variables and what's important for us and then how to optimize for them.
57
I appreciate that and challenge everybody listening to think about where you fall on passion, enjoyment, relationship, meaning, and accomplishment.
58
Some of your work talks about the internal conversations we have with ourselves, the monologue, that self-tape we have playing in our head.
59
How does this shape our worldview?
60
And if we're not happy with that chatter, are there things we can do to change it?
61
Well, I think the most important revolution in psychology in my lifetime was the cognitive revolution.
62
Before that came along, people believed that emotion was primary and what you said to yourself,
63
what you thought was a product of emotion well we now know at least
64
that what you think very often determines your emotion
65
and your action what you think is not gospel it's often
66
whispered to you by someone whose mission in life was to make you miserable
67
so it's very important to be on top of your internal dialogue
68
and then if you're finding it makes you depressed
69
and anxious to argue against it rationally
70
so a lot of what one does in flourishing and positive psychology
71
which came right out of cognitive therapy was to become very sensitive to what we're saying to ourselves
72
and learn how to argue against it when it was leading you places you didn't want to go.
73
This idea of listening to that chatter can be hard for many of us.
74
Are there techniques that you know of or perhaps use yourself that give us insight to it?
75
I mean, the voice in my head, I'm just so used to hearing.
76
I don't really sit and reflect on it.
77
How can I best dispassionately learn about as a pessimist
78
and a depressive Matt I've spent a lifetime inventing these techniques
79
and using them
80
and on the pessimistic depressive side the voices are always going
81
to occur to you they're not eliminated what happens is you can counter them
82
and so for example Matt before I came on the show with you I was quite anxious about it
83
when I was thinking good heavens I'm in my 80s can I really keep up with Matt
84
and talk fast and smart and I'm too old for this
85
and when we came on together indeed I was thinking something like
86
that but as the listener doesn't know we had three technical difficulties during the time you
87
and I made friends I argued against
88
that here I'm dealing with one of the experts on impromptu speech
89
and i'm doing great and so i essentially argued against i just can't be fast
90
and smart so i've become a an expert both at hearing what i say to myself
91
but at realistically marshalling evidence against depressive and pessimistic thoughts I really appreciate that.
92
And first, thank you for enduring the technical difficulties.
93
And second, I actually have enjoyed our conversation in between those very much.
94
And what I really like about what you have said is that the messages,
95
the voices, the words that we say to ourselves are merely arguments
96
that can be countered and they can be countered with evidence.
97
So in a lot of my coaching work and some of my teaching work, there are a lot of people who experience what I think would generally be defined as imposter syndrome.
98
The stories they're telling themselves is they don't deserve this or they're not up to the challenge.
99
And what I hear you saying is you can use evidence to counter that position.
100
You can say, look, you were invited to give this talk.
101
You were promoted to this position.
102
This is all evidence that runs counter to that story you're telling yourself.
103
And I can see how that would lead to more positive feeling, or at least a reduction of the negative feeling.
104
Do I have that right?
105
The two things to know about the imposter syndrome are first,
106
those voices that are telling you you're an imposter have nothing to do with reality.
107
They have to do with deep worries, with childhood, what your parents used to say to you.
108
That's part one.
109
They're not realistic.
110
So you should treat them as not realistic
111
and then marshal all the evidence about why you got here
112
and what your credentials were and that it's not an accident that you're sitting in this position now.
113
So the imposter syndrome can be dealt well with those two steps.
114
Absolutely.
115
And thank you for that.
116
And I think all of us can talk back to some of that chatter that we have in our head.
117
A lot of what you have shared with us so far in your work is about becoming aware of these patterns, habits, just inclinations we have.
118
With the realization of the future looms large in how we feel and what we do,
119
what are some things we can do to maximize wellness, relationships, communication with that knowledge?
120
Well, I think the most important thing from the pathological point of view is to be attentive to the voices
121
that are talking to you,
122
particularly talking about your deficits and the hopelessness of the future and becoming good at marshalling evidence against them.
123
From the point of view of happiness, I think the notion of agency becomes very important.
124
And indeed, agency is what my new book is about.
125
It's the culmination of 60 years of work.
126
And I think it's the most informative tool we have both about our futures and the human future.
127
Can you define what you mean by agency?
128
I found your book fascinating.
129
And what are some of the key components that make up our sense of agency?
130
I think there are three.
131
The first is efficacy.
132
And that's to what extent you believe
133
that you could achieve your goals in the here
134
and now the second is optimism to what extent do you
135
believe you're going to be able to achieve those goals in the future and far into the future
136
and the third is imagination and that is the range of goals that you can envision about your future.
137
So a complete sense of efficacy of agency has efficacy, optimism, and imagination.
138
You helped found the field of positive psychology.
139
You are the founder of that field.
140
I know from talking to people and having seen it develop that there were some naysayers, There was some resistance.
141
What advice do you have for people who are initiating new ideas,
142
new approaches, for helping be persuasive and influential to at least get people to consider a different approach?
143
Any insights from the experience you went through getting to where you are today?
144
Well, I think it's important to put yourself in the shoes of your critics
145
and to anticipate what's wrong uh to become comfortable with their arguments
146
and to make your best arguments against it uh
147
and i i'm just remembering late barbara erinreich who was one
148
of the critics of positive psychology she wrote a book called bright-sided which
149
compared me to the wizard of oz in the last few months of her life we got into a dialogue together
150
in in which she said something like well you probably have a very dim view of me marty
151
and you probably think my prospects are not very good
152
because i'm uh not a perma person
153
and i said well not at all Barb you're you're
154
so engaged in these issues of social justice that your engagement is enormous
155
and that is a health and optimism and life-preserving force
156
and I remember Barbara writing me shortly before her death telling me how meaningful that was in the face of this
157
merciless criticism that she had given me.
158
So owning and befriending your critics is important.
159
That reflection on what's important to them and where they're coming from can allow you to have a much more meaningful conversation.
160
Well, Marty, this has been a phenomenal conversation.
161
Thank you so much.
162
As you well know, we end with three questions.
163
One I will make up for you and two that I've been asking everybody.
164
We've spent a lot of time talking about the internal communication we have.
165
But I'm curious to understand your perspective on the external communication.
166
How do we maximize our communication to help ourselves and help others?
167
Well, something happened 20 years ago, which turned this field around for me.
168
And that was, let's think about how people celebrate together, rather than how they fight together.
169
So the question is not how you go wrong,
170
but what do say to your spouse or your best friend when they come to you with a victory, with a triumph?
171
And that's something that people have not worked on.
172
If you can imagine a two-by-two, destructive, constructive, active, and passive,
173
the only one that really works is active, constructive.
174
so let me just give you an example of
175
that my wife mandy is a amateur black and white photographer
176
and a few years ago she came downstairs
177
and said to me marty uh the editor of black
178
and white magazine just called me and i won the international award for the best black and white photograph
179
okay what should i say to mandy when she comes down with
180
that well what i would have said until i had read
181
the revolutionary work on communication in marriage uh was uh congratulations
182
dear you deserve it you're a great photographer well that's called passive constructive it has no effect it's wallpaper
183
but i knew the literature on active constructive and
184
so here's what i said first i had to show mandy
185
that i really knew what she was talking about and
186
so i said was it the black and white picture of the swan
187
that you took in blenham last summer that won it and she said yes It was in fact.
188
I said, well, you know, Mandy, that's the most beautiful black and white picture of an animal I've ever seen.
189
So that was part one, showing that you really knew what the triumph was about
190
but here comes the part that's important and
191
and we neglect out of haste off it
192
and that's to put mandy in touch with this great victory she just had
193
so i said uh mandy tell me verbatim what what did the editor of black
194
and white say and
195
so she went through it i said well then what do you think it is about your photography
196
that could have snapped the prizes away from the new york times pull it surprise winners
197
and she said well i think i'm very good with gray
198
and i do a lot with nuances and then i I said, okay, well, we homeschool our children.
199
How can you teach kids this technique in their drawing and photography?
200
And so we talked about that.
201
Then I said, Mandy, let's go to the refrigerator and open
202
that bottle of Dom Perignon that's been sitting there for a decade.
203
That idea of being constructive and engaged in dialogue around that really, really insightful because most people just act in a very heuristic way.
204
Hey, you won an award.
205
Congratulations.
206
But this requires a bit more thought and presence.
207
It takes a lot of work.
208
And the reason we say things like what's for dinner
209
or congratulations is we're not used to doing that work and it doesn't come naturally.
210
But the other person knows that.
211
And that's why it's wallpaper.
212
So active constructive communication is a difficult technique and it takes practice and we get better at it.
213
The rewards for doing that are really deep, a deepening of the relationship.
214
And I appreciate that.
215
Question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why?
216
I'm thinking Ludwig Wittgenstein, actually, although I've never heard him in speech.
217
But I've read some of the impromptu things that he had to say.
218
And the one that's on my mind right now, because I've been thinking about the question of what is the meaning of life, and is that a good question at all?
219
Wittgenstein said, impromptu, I'm told, I don't know why we're here,
220
but I'm pretty sure it's not to be happy.
221
i i can see why
222
that somebody who founded uh positive psychology would be uh enamored with that
223
or are curious about it i have to ask you said
224
the qu the meaning of life is a bad question the reason i think it's bad is the is
225
that meaningless wears the pants here and so i think it's a yearning in
226
which what we understand is meaningless and empty and
227
that meaning means something like not empty and not meaningless
228
so that's kind of where i am about why it's not
229
a good question final question for you what are the first three ingredients
230
that go into a successful communication recipe well matt that's really difficult
231
because i've never prepared for speeches yeah and uh uh i've always wanted spontaneity
232
and so for me i don't go through any conscious ingredients.
233
And the older I've gotten, the more I've just hoped that the words would come.
234
And they have.
235
I think one of the key ingredients that you deploy, you just mentioned, is spontaneity.
236
And you've certainly talked about this notion of empathy or perspective taking as well.
237
And then being good at arguing or putting forth rational explanations.
238
So I think you do have some principles that you follow.
239
You might just not see them in the forefront.
240
This has been a fantastic conversation.
241
It's a bit of a fanboy moment for me to meet you.
242
Your work has always been meaningful to me.
243
It matters.
244
And the work that you have done really matters.
245
And this idea of agency and how we can all develop agency in ourselves and others.
246
Really, really significant to well-being in general.
247
Marty, thank you for your time and thank you for all the work you have done.
248
Well, thank you for the opportunity not to be fast and not to be smart.
249
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.
250
Speaking with Marty was a true pleasure.
251
Among the many ideas he shared, the one that stands out most to me is
252
that we can change our negative self-talk and feel better by providing logical arguments that counter our negative narratives.
253
To learn more about happiness and well-being, please listen to our special mini-series on the topic, including episodes 179 through 182.
254
You'll hear from guests like Laurie Santos and Arthur Brooks.
255
This episode was produced by Katherine Reid, Ryan Campos, Alex McCarthy, and me, Matt Abrahams.
256
Our music is from Floyd Wonder with special thanks to Podium Podcast Company.
257
Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
258
Be sure to subscribe and rate us.
259
Also, follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram.
📺 Same Channel
B21
Quick Thinks: Network Smarter and Make Better Connections
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Communication Has An INVISIBLE Layer And It Is Hiding In Plain Sight!
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
Trust the Process: How to Design Teams That Actually Work
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Want To Make Your Ideas Stick? Make It Into A Meme!
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B1What 300 Episodes Has Taught Us
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
REPLACED BY RETHINKS How to Pitch Anything: 10-20-30 Rule by Guy Kawasaki
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B2Small Talk Tips From a Matchmaker: Start Your Story in the MIDDLE!
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C12
Directness with Respect: How to Make the Hard Conversations Easy
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
Why Every Question Is A Gift
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B23
Shark Tank's Daniel Lubetzky: The Pitch Mistake That Loses Investors
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C11
A Matter of Meaning: What Other People Teach You About Your Communication
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Don't Lose the Room: How to Make Ideas Stick
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B2Quick Thinks: A CLEAR Way Through Conflict
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
The First 5 Seconds: How to Start a Speech the Moment All Eyes Suddenly Turn to You | AMA
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C14
The Respect Effect: What Stereotype Threat Teaches Us About Communication
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
Ask Matt Anything: Don’t Let Your Communication Fizzle at the Finish
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B27
3 Techniques for Managing Speaking Anxiety
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B23
Message Market Fit: Turning Great Ideas Into Communication That Lands
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Quick Thinks: How to Have Better Conversations About Aging
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C115
Future You: Unconventional Ways in which Your Future Self Benefits You
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recommend Video
B23
96 sentences
Think faster and speak 🗣️
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
141 sentences
Mark Manson: Self-control is a complete illusion
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
845 sentences
How to Stop Being Overlooked & Start Getting What You Want With Top Business School Professor
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
B2359 sentences
The Traits That Make You Strange Are The Gifts That Make You Special | Robin Sharma
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
230 sentences
Self-Sabotage, Self-Forgiveness & Why the Way You Talk to Yourself Is Everything
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
781 sentences
How Do I Reverse Brain Rot?
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
305 sentences
The Secret to Finding Perfect Timing | Daniel Pink
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
88 sentences
Why Knowing Better Doesn’t Help in the Moment
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
93 sentences
Think Again Summary (Animated) — How to Become Smarter and More Likable With a Few Simple Tips
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
325 sentences
You can progress more in 6 minutes than you would in a month | Daniel Coyle
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 259 sentences and 3205 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:31. The speaker talks at a steady 142 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 83% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| flourish verb | /ˈflʊ̈ɹ.ɪʃ/ | To thrive or grow well. |
| psychology noun | /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | The study of the human mind. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| constructive adjective | /kənˈstɹʌktɪv/ | Relating to or causing construction. |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| accomplishment noun | /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/ | The act of accomplishing; completion; fulfilment. |
| congratulations | /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/ | Expressing praise and approval, expressing approbation. |
| dialogue noun | /ˈdaɪəˌlɑɡ/ | A conversation or other form of discourse between two or more individuals. |
| syndrome noun | /ˈsɪndɹoʊm/ | A recognizable pattern of signs, symptoms and/or behaviours, especially of a disease or medical or psychological condition. |
| podcast noun | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on… |
| meaningful adjective | /ˈmiː.nɪŋ.fl̩/ | Having meaning, significant. |
| critic noun | /ˈkɹɪt.ɪk/ | A person who appraises the works of others. |
| airplane noun | /ˈɛɹˌpleɪ̯n/ | A powered heavier-than-air aircraft with fixed wings: a fixed-wing aircraft with at least one engine or electric motor. |
| marshal noun | /ˈmɑɹʃəl/ | A military officer of the highest rank in several countries, including France and the former Soviet Union; equivalent to a general of the army in the United… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| come along verb | To accompany. | |
| come down with verb | To develop symptoms or signs of (an illness). | |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| stand out verb | To jut out, protrude (from a surface etc.). | |
| think through verb | To fully consider, so as to understand all the consequences of. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be · used to hearing · used to say |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been asking · I've been thinking |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has authored · who've talked · have studied |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | can be countered · be defined · were invited |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 62 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I've, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: flourish /ˈflʊ̈ɹ.ɪʃ/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, accomplishment /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, marshal /ˈmɑɹʃəl/
- Long words — get the stress right: psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, accomplishment /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ.mənt/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, efficacy /ˈɛf.ɪ.kə.si/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like flourish, psychology, argue.
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.