Shadowing Practice: The Best Leaders All Start with This One Thing - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Up until then, I was just doing a show and I was happy to have the job and I was excited about, I was still excited about the work,

but something shifted for me and I just wanted to use the show and not be used by the show.

I wanted to use the show as a force for good.

And so in that intention,

I told the producers, do not even bring me ideas unless I'm aligned with whatever your intention is

so that we all sync up and

so regardless of what the subject is we're all really saying the same thing

that we're using this story or this person's life

or whatever is happening in this experience as a as a force for good the golden circle

that you introduced uh in start with the why applies now

as it applied 16 years ago as it will apply 16

years from now can you explain the the golden circle for the 10 people who haven't heard it.

Very simply, every single one of us knows what we do.

It's the jobs we have, it's the things we do, right?

I'm a doctor, I'm a consultant, I'm a barista, like this is what I do.

Yeah.

Some people know how they do it.

These are the things that we think make us stand out

or make us better than somebody else who also does what we do.

But very, very few people can clearly articulate why they do what they do, that deep -seated purpose -causer belief.

And what I discovered is that the best leaders, everybody from Martin Luther King to Steve Jobs, every single one of them thinks,

acts, and communicates the exact same way, and it's the complete opposite to most other people, and every single one of them starts with why.

So if you say, what do you do?

They don't say, oh, I'm a speaker, I'm an author, I am a talk show host.

They say, I wake up every single morning to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

For me, the fun is finding all the ways in which I can do that.

And that's how you get to what you do.

Yes, it's interesting because Jim Collins just recently wrote a book and he says that people like that were encoded with that,

that there was an encoding for them to do that, that that's not something, just as you say, you don't require it out here.

You had it in here to begin with.

I think, so I agree and I would add on to it, which is it's not that some people are encoded like that.

All of us are encoded like that.

The question is, are we working in environments

and do we have a support structure that encourages and supports us to live by that code?

Very often, we are seduced by money or fame or to be an influencer.

We are pressured to be responsible, become an accountant, because that way you can provide for yourself even though you have no desire to be an accountant, etc. So, we give in to peer pressure,

we give in to societal pressure, we give in to family pressures.

And so, whether we're following the code is the big question.

And so you have truly changed the culture.

You've changed how the culture speaks about itself because we're now all familiar with the phrase of what is your why?

What do you think it is about your message that has resonated?

So first of all, were you surprised?

I was surprised at the speed and the scale that it took off, but I wasn't surprised that it resonated with people because it's a deeply human message.

And it was not something that I put together for any commercial or academic reason.

It was put together for me.

It was the solution that I found

when I lost my passion for my own work and it was only meant to help me.

And it did.

And I shared it with my friends and it helped my friends find renewed passion in their work.

So you were doing it for their friends?

Yeah, yeah.

That's how it started.

Which is the most organic.

Yeah, I was giving talks in my friends' living rooms to their friends

and helping people find their why for a hundred bucks on the side.

That's how it started.

So tell us where you were before you discovered it for yourself.

What was actually going on with you?

I was living in New York City, living the entrepreneurial dream.

I'd started a small business, had a little marketing consultancy.

And I knew the statistics that the vast majority, well into the 90th percentile of new businesses fail in the first three years.

And so if you're sort of like that kind of stress and that kind of competition, you know, entrepreneurship is a crazy fun game.

And we survived.

Like we survived three years in business and my fourth year in business was dark, to say the least, because I'd survived.

I now was a member of this small group of organizations that had beaten the three -year statistic.

But I was a victim of my own success because I didn't know how to build the structure for a company.

It was all my personality and force of personality.

And as things started to go well, I didn't know what to do.

And it sort of came crashing down on me, to be honest.

Not literally, but like the pressure was overwhelming.

and I went into what can only be described as depression

and being happy -go -lucky

and living what superficially looks like a good life I was very afraid

or embarrassed to tell people that I was struggling and so I kept it to myself.

You were struggling how?

I didn't want to go to work anymore.

Wow.

I didn't want to wake up and go to work and I was very very embarrassed.

Um, because superficially things were good, and so I sounded whiny, you know?

So if you've ever been in a dark place, if you keep it to yourself, it gets worse.

That's right.

And that's exactly what happened.

And it wasn't until a very dear friend of mine came to me and said, something's wrong, and that was the gate that opened up.

Okay, so what did uncertainty teach you about yourself?

So the single greatest lesson I learned in that whole experience, was that I don't have to know everything and I don't have to pretend that I do

and to ask for help and to say to people, I don't know what's happening and I don't need to find certainty.

I just need to feel not alone as I go through the journey.

That was the greatest gift.

Yeah, and I've discovered that too, that many times knowing what you don't want to do is

just equally as important as knowing what you do want to do.

And that's how you get closer to certainty.

So we were speaking earlier about the fact that you and I, it's a surprise that we haven't really connected over the years because we share the same worldview.

I remember when I found my why on the Oprah Winfrey show, it was around 1989.

I didn't call it the why, I called it intention.

So I'm wondering if the why and the intention are the same.

I mean, depending on how you define them, probably, yes.

Yeah.

You know, the way I define why is this, it's this deep seated purpose, cause, or belief.

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It's the reason why you're doing it.

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It's the reason behind the reason.

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It's the reason behind the reason.

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It's the thing that inspires.

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It's not a goal.

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Yeah.

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It's not some thing you're trying to obtain.

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It's not based on the job you do.

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Right.

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But it's the thing that inspires you to get out of bed in the morning.

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And if that thing is there, no matter how hard the work is, it feels worth it.

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Yeah.

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And that's, so in the way you're defining intention, the way I define the why they sound very similar.

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So for me, the intention became in 89, up until then, I was just doing a show and I was happy to have the job and I was excited about, I was still excited about the work,

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but something shifted for me and I just wanted to use the show and not be used by the show.

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I wanted to use the show as a force for good.

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And so in that intention,

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I told the producers, do not even bring me ideas unless I'm aligned with whatever your intention is

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so that we all sync up.

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And so regardless of what the subject is, we're all really saying the same thing,

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that we're using this story or this person's life or whatever is happening in this experience as a force for good.

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How do you define the intention?

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How do you define the why outside of the show?

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Because the show is one of the things that you do, one of the things that you did to bring your cause to life.

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This podcast is one of the things that you do to bring your cause to life.

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How would you define the intention?

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What's the string that connects absolutely everything?

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Being a light in the world.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Wherever you go, you're bringing a light in the world.

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And that's a why.

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Yeah.

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That's a why.

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You're bringing enlightenment in the world.

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You're bringing light to the person who you're picking up your laundry from today.

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Being a light in the world and helping people to see themselves differently, absolutely in the best light.

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And this is one of the reasons you have passion and love for what you do, which is it has purpose.

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And as you said, when you put that filter up and say, make sure that everything we do, and sometimes we'll get it wrong,

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make sure that as many times as possible with intention that we pass through this filter, that it does this, it brings light.

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And the thing that I love, and this is what a good why is, people forget that a why is actually an act of service.

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It's something we give to the world it's not something we take absolutely 100

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and and and the fact

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that you say to bring light in the world you know

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it's it's it's it's not just you you are one of the things

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that brings light to this world

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but your work will inspire others to bring light this world

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absolutely your your your work will inspire others to bring light to this world

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and they in turn will bring light to other people i like it's magic i like it is magic

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and i like the fact that you use the term thread what is the thread

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that connects everything because i think

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that is true for most people there is a thread that connects the dots of their lives, that if they were to look back at that thread, you would see that your life has,

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you've already defined some sense of purpose for yourself.

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This is how I find, this is how I help people find their why, which is I look at the past.

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It's not a vision board we do cutting up magazines.

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That's not what it is.

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I look at the past and I look through their personal lives and their professional lives.

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And I find the times where for whatever reason, and they were in flow, where things just naturally were incredible.

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They loved what they were doing, no matter how hard it was, even if it wasn't a commercial success.

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And I find that when you look at all of the things, when they just naturally go well, there's a pattern that emerges and we can actually define.

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We can see that pattern and that is the why.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 160 sentences and 2025 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:13. The speaker talks fast, about 198 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
intention noun	/ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/	A course of action that a person intends to follow.
define verb	/dɪˈfaɪn/	To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
inspire verb	/ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/	To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by…
thread noun	/ˈθɹɛd/	A cord formed by spinning or twisting together textile fibers or filaments into one or more continuous strands, typically used in needlework.
connect verb	/kəˈnɛkt/	To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object.
passion noun	/ˈpæʃən/	A true desire sustained or prolonged.
discover verb	/dɪˈskʌvə/	To find or learn something for the first time.
naturally adverb	/ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/	In a natural manner.
regardless adverb	/ɹɪˈɡɑɹd.lɪs/	Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences.
belief noun	/bɪˈliːf/	Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
producer noun	/pɹəˈdjuːsə/	An individual or organization that creates goods and services.
filter noun	/ˈfɪltɚ/	A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from…
embarrassed adjective	/ɪmˈbæɹ.əst/	Having a feeling of shameful discomfort.
sync noun	/sɪŋk/	Harmony.
certainty noun	/ˈsɝtn̩ti/	The state of being certain.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.
cut up verb		To cut upward.
get out of verb		To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
look through verb		To take a view of the contents of; search in, either with the eyes or by hand.
open up verb		To open.
pass through verb		To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another.
pick up verb		To lift; to grasp and raise.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were encoded · are encoded · are seduced
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	haven't heard · You've changed · has resonated
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who haven · person who you · why, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 46 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intention /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, entrepreneurship /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ.ʃɪp/
Long words — get the stress right: naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, statistical /stəˈtɪs.tɪ.kəl/, uncertainty /ʌnˈsɜːtənti/

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 intention, define, inspire.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: The Best Leaders All Start with This One Thing - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?