Shadowing Practice: The 10% Rule That Changes How People Remember Your Presentations Forever - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

We need to leverage the way our brains learn and focus to help make our messages more memorable.

⏸ Paused

Speed:

312 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

We need to leverage the way our brains learn and focus to help make our messages more memorable.

My name is Matt Abrahams,

and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this Quick Thinks episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

My interview with neuroscientist Carmen Simon was truly insightful and helpful.

Carmen provided so many tips and tools that we simply could not fit all of her wisdom into one episode.

So fasten your seatbelts and get ready to learn more ways to make your messages unforgettable.

Your work distinguishes between active and passive experiences.

Do you have any communication guidance for a leader who wants to turn a routine,

often boring experience, like a team meeting or an all-hands training of some sort,

into an experience that's more active and engaging and memorable so that people will collaborate more,

buy in more, and remember it more?

Yes, I like all those phrases that you're using.

And one of the hottest trends in neuroscience is embodied cognition.

Okay.

The reason it's one of the hottest trends is because we're recognizing that the way we come to know the world,

perceive it, and eventually build memories and eventually build decisions is not by building some abstract mental representations.

Yeah, sure, we do that.

But we come to know the world at the intersection of brain,

body, interacting with the environment.

Embodied cognition.

So the more you invite your audiences to interact with anything,

especially physically, then you are already impacting cognition.

So how can that happen in real life?

Some companies are lucky where they have an experiential center.

You can invite people in your offices.

Even this experience right now is memorable because we could have done this very easily virtually.

But now we are in a studio surrounded by excellent people and their skills and equipment.

Now more of our senses are involved.

We can kick it down a notch because not everybody has access to these kinds of spaces.

One thing

that I was able to show in a neuroscience study I conducted was the difference between what happens

when somebody views a presentation passively versus

when they're asked to type notes as they're listening to the speaker versus when they're asked to handwrite notes.

So, of course, that third condition,

people in that performed better in terms of attention and subsequent memory.

Because now think about how much is involved when you handwrite.

your fingers are in it the entire hand is in it

your entire arm your neck your shoulders you're contributing to this besides

when your handwriting versus typing you are synthesizing things a little bit more versus

when you're typing by the way you're typing more verbatim what the other person says

so it's not the processing is not so deep so

that could be the most benign way in which we engage the brain

and the body is simply asking people to take notes

tell your audience this is worthwhile this will serve you well write this down

so getting people to do something where they're connecting their physical experience with their mental experience exactly

so a technique i often recommend

that people do is is to put people in a physical place mentally

so i use descriptive language

so the room is dark it's cold outside do you have a similar Is there a similar effect

when it's not actually physical,

but you're getting people to envision some physicality?

It's a good proxy.

So in addition to the vision of it all,

can you apply some motion?

Like when you said, yeah,

it was a dark room and he kicked a wall in it.

Now you have the vision plus some movement that is happening

or the air was circulating so much that her hair became curlier in the moment.

You see now there is some action.

The brain has evolved to pay attention to movement.

Lately, even spaces have evolved.

Like, for instance, I was telling you about an international trip,

and I participated in a conference,

and it was held in a castle.

So sometimes the environment in itself contributes to making the experience a little extra special.

Another one that I just presented at recently was in a monastery.

So I've heard of events being held on a boat.

I've heard of business meetings happening in something that otherwise wouldn't have been considered your typical and predictable boardroom.

So one of the reasons they are extra special is because now the environment,

remember it's brain and body interacting with the environment.

So if the environment itself is unpredictable,

you increase the chances of attention and memory.

Super cool.

So if you really want to help your audience,

it's not just thinking about your message and what you ask them to do,

the space in which you do it can have impact.

I want to turn to two things that are very important in storytelling

and I'm curious to get your perspective on how they help us with attention and memory.

The value of intrigue and curiosity.

These are tools that get people to lean in.

I can make something intriguing or play on curiosity.

What are your thoughts on those?

Do you have some research and specific advice on how we can leverage those?

It's an interesting dimension, especially that of getting the brain curious.

and not an easier easy one to reach because are you noticing

that some people are so jaded where whatever you show them is like another one of those

so this is why I'm glad that you have the wonderful listeners

that you're talking about

because we need people like them to try a little bit harder to instigate

and get the brain to be just a little bit extra

excited obviously you often rely on intrinsic motivation like some people come to your content

and they're intrinsically motivated to listen and they're curious about about things

when they may not then you have the responsibility can you

create some tension in the brain what I'm noticing in my research time

and time again is that as we calculate emotions

and from a neuroscience perspective we have two variables

that are instrumental to emotion what are they

so picture this as quadrants now

100

so you have valence on a horizontal axis you have arousal

101

on a vertical axis at these quadrants you have these intersections

102

of you're really an empty happen you like something like I

103

don't know what it would be upper right for you like something

104

that you really like and now you're alert like you cannot possibly be nonchalant

105

that would immediately popped into my mind is listening to a

106

comedian tell jokes I guess yes yes do you have a favorite one oh I do

107

but I'm not gonna share

108

so a good stand-up comedian doesn't necessarily let you relax low

109

right now you can relax a little bit more maybe what do you think like reading a book

110

or watching something on TV that's novel and exactly lower left that's negative valence

111

but you're not upset

112

so as you're seeing you're thinking about these quadrants know this lower left negative valence

113

and low arousal that's where boredom settles in

114

and that's where memories go to die some people might think

115

that oh should always have things that are positive either

116

that they amp you up or they keep you more relaxed

117

but positive nonetheless but that's not what I'm observing quite often attention

118

and memory are created at the intersection of negative valence

119

and high arousal now now I'm feeling it I'm a little anxious about this there is tension

120

and quite often that tension can provoke some curiosity

121

which is what you're asking about

122

so I remember we were doing a presentation about cybersecurity

123

and this vendor was saying

124

if you use us we will help you manage I information technology

125

and OT operational technology and in the presentation they were saying

126

if in IT some of your systems get hacked data get

127

stolen there's a breach people lose their jobs OT for physical object gets hacked people can lose their lives

128

because if you had an oil rig for instance people can really die

129

so we were just getting like really deep into this

130

and even the slides are turning dark

131

and you could see like a little cross with a little

132

bit of blood dripping off of it now you can like

133

physically see this lean in motion the brain is motivated to keep on going a little bit

134

so from a neuroscience perspective I think I would equate this dimension of motivation

135

and leaning into a system versus withdrawing as a sign of

136

curiosity now tell me a little bit more I'm willing to

137

stay with you for the next moment over until you get me to

138

that lower left you're always just a click away from lower left.

139

But a bit of tension and friction can help you there.

140

So as we think about the stories we tell,

141

the examples we use, the testimonials we provide,

142

we should actually, I think,

143

almost map them on your two by two matrix.

144

Yes.

145

Yes.

146

And see where do they fit.

147

And as long as they are arousing in some way,

148

and the valence isn't as important,

149

and we can think about how we can drop those in.

150

And we just have to,

151

I assume we can't have too many back-to-back of all the same kind because it can become almost overwhelming.

152

It's true.

153

It can become overwhelming, and you don't want people to be staying in

154

that upper left for too long because then it's just really draining.

155

Yes.

156

But a combination of the three,

157

so upper left, upper right,

158

and lower right, those are really good.

159

Every so often, the brain will go into a slight state of boredom.

160

We can't claim that all of a sudden just everything is going to be an epiphany.

161

You argue that we often over-deliver on content, which creates cognitive overload.

162

What are the key communication habits a person should break to reduce the load they put on their audience

163

and ensure that their core message is not only received, but understood?

164

So we say more than we need to, it sounds like.

165

Sometimes we say more than we need to.

166

And it's an intriguing concept to me because here's the good news for everybody,

167

especially as the world is getting more complex.

168

The brain actually synchronizes better with that which is complex than that which is simple.

169

Where does complexity and overload come in?

170

Well, it's not really complexity that gets us in trouble.

171

It's randomness.

172

So really when we talk about overload,

173

we're talking about some random bits and pieces that people go on in and out,

174

in and out, in and out,

175

without enabling somebody else's brain to see some patterns,

176

to see how all of these,

177

as difficult as they may be, components come together.

178

So one practical technique, especially if we have technical people who like to geek out for a moment,

179

is related to fractals.

180

So for those of you who may wonder what are fractals,

181

there are these objects or even parts of our bodies have those properties.

182

Options that have the same properties at any level of magnification.

183

So for instance, if you picture a tree,

184

you have the trunk, you have the branches.

185

And if you go to the smallest of the smallest of the smallest of the branch,

186

that little branch has the same properties as the entire big tree.

187

Or if you go to the grocery store,

188

you see a head of cauliflower.

189

The entire head of cauliflower is composed of these tiny baby heads of cauliflower.

190

And those baby heads have the same properties as the entire head.

191

So it's cauliflower all the way down.

192

So as a practical technique,

193

think about all your content,

194

anything that you want to share with an audience and as complex or seemingly overloading as it may be,

195

wonder what are just some core sets of properties.

196

That's what your 10% message would come in as well.

197

so that your entire content is being perceived as cauliflower all the way down.

198

Because if you have this core that never changes,

199

then you can elaborate, then you can add stories and you can add details,

200

you can add your analogies,

201

all of those beautiful things you mentioned,

202

but you won't feel overwhelming because you're coming back to the same core.

203

You're coming back to the same short set of rules.

204

So have a clear through line that you can connect things to rather than...

205

That's why when people go off on tangents,

206

it can be so frustrating and difficult to stay focused.

207

So we have to have a clear goal,

208

clear direction, help our audience see the patterns of the things we're saying.

209

It makes it easy.

210

See the patterns and just come back home.

211

So when you say control your 10%,

212

come back to that 10% message every so often to say,

213

yeah, we went over here and we went over here,

214

went over here, but overall,

215

everything just condenses down to this one handful of things.

216

One of the other things that strikes me that that 90% does is,

217

even though you might not remember the content,

218

you might remember the feeling, right?

219

And so even if I only remember 10% of what you say,

220

I might leave saying, she was really on her game and competent,

221

and that can help me as well.

222

Strong emotions will definitely help in a competitive space,

223

challenge yourself to combine emotion with some verbatim phrases.

224

You cannot afford to only operate on emotions just because other companies will also have their messages and their emotions.

225

So ideally, it's your combination that makes it through.

226

I have seen your books,

227

I've seen your book covers,

228

I've seen presentations that you've done.

229

Visuals play very strongly in what you do.

230

Can you give us some best practices and advice when using visuals to help with memory and engagement?

231

Yes, that is one of my favorite topics to talk about

232

because with neuroscience we can debunk some myths

233

and i'm sure you've heard this many times before same for our listeners

234

that some people are visual learners some people are auditory learners

235

some are kinesthetic i hope nobody ever repeats those sentences ever again

236

because primarily we are visually we are visual beings 60 to 70 percent of our body receptors

237

which is how we take in the world and we start

238

perceiving things and building memories are visual we have visual people assuming of course you're visually able even

239

when you're not you're still seeing inwards

240

so you have to take care of your visuals you can do them by showing people some pictures

241

or by doing what you're recommending earlier

242

which i really like enabling the brain to see inwards like building mental images

243

so don't put

244

so much pressure on yourselves like suddenly you have to come up with some amazing graphics

245

and you don't have a graphics degree.

246

If you do have some sort of inclination towards the images,

247

what I'm doing a lot of research on is cliche images and cliche phrases.

248

I'm noticing that the brain,

249

especially the global brain, I did a study on this,

250

has some comfort with the written cliche.

251

So for instance, if you say phrases like such and such is a game changer,

252

or this is a win-win situation,

253

or data-driven anything these days,

254

I was noticing that as I included people from the US,

255

people from Asia, people from Europe,

256

we have a certain amount of comfort with the cliche.

257

It's almost like it's a universal language.

258

People kind of like come home.

259

It's like, I got it.

260

As long as you don't overdo it.

261

The cliches in that study,

262

they're only 5% of the entire communication.

263

However, the global brain doesn't have any energy for cliche images.

264

And what are those?

265

You want to take a guess what's the most.. cliche image in business content?

266

The first thing that came to mind was like a sun rising or something.

267

You're not far.

268

So the mountain, climbing mountains,

269

and especially usually at a sunrise or a sunset,

270

you can picture it, yes.

271

I have to say this,

272

by the way, I was listening to this incredible keynote speaker and he was a mountaineer.

273

And he said, you know what?

274

Visualizing business success by showing a business person on top of the mountain is like the worst thing that you can do.

275

Not only is it cliche,

276

but most accidents in mountaineering happen when you go down the mountain.

277

You don't want to be in fancy shoes.

278

Just to show that you've made it there at the top,

279

you haven't made it at the top.

280

You make it when you come back down at the bottom unscathed.

281

That's success.

282

That's success.

283

But removing the technicalities, then if we talk about visuals,

284

then we have to ask how is it that we avoid the cliches,

285

the mountain of it all,

286

and the chess strategies, and the golf.

287

The iceberg metaphor.

288

So here, we did something with the iceberg metaphor because I was reflecting on that and I was thinking,

289

you know, the iceberg metaphor has a good story in it.

290

It tells us that at the top you see something small,

291

but really what's important is underneath it.

292

So I was challenging our designers to say,

293

how would you visualize there is more to the story?

294

So we had three versions in that presentation.

295

One was you're seeing what would appear as a shark fin on top of the water,

296

but then

297

when you really zoom in under the water is just a

298

regular goldfish in the other one we were showing a person climbing the mountain

299

so you see it's not like you'd never use a cliche

300

but you twist it so there's person climbing a mountain

301

that looks like it's covered in snow

302

but then on click the whole thing rises

303

and that's actually the top of an ice cream cone oh

304

so because now you didn't expect that you see there's more to the story

305

and that unexpected piece was a little bit unusual

306

or you take any kind of stone structure like let's just say Stonehenge

307

and on click you raise it up

308

and you see a few aliens right underneath there in the

309

dirt there's more to the story depends on where you want to take it

310

but see you can challenge yourself to say look at a familiar visual

311

and play off of it jolt the brain out of its habituation

312

so visuals play in a very important role and there are things we can do through visuals to stimulate interest and attention.

TRENDING

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.

☕ Buy us a coffee

ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏

Donate via PayPal

ShadowingEnglish.com – English Shadowing Practice

Speak English fluently using the Shadowing technique. Listen to native YouTube videos, repeat sentence by sentence, and build real pronunciation and fluency — used by IELTS learners worldwide.

Shadowing Practice: The 10% Rule That Changes How People Remember Your Presentations Forever - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Popular

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing Practice: The 10% Rule That Changes How People Remember Your Presentations Forever - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Download App

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?