Shadowing Practice: This 17th Century Learning System Will Make You Dangerous - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Over the last few weeks, I've been reading one of the most important books ever written, which is Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes.
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And on the surface, this is a book about politics and organizing a society and a world and a nation.
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But because the entire first part of the book is on the human mind and on the human being,
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there are actually so many great takeaways that you can take from this book about how to approach learning, about how to approach your own mind.
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And while there is a lot that I disagree with Hobbes about
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when it comes to the political structure and the way of viewing life, when it comes to how to approach the human mind,
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the book actually touches on some points I think we need to bring back into the modern world
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and the way that we approach learning and self -education in today's world.
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Because as the internet continues to boom, as social media continues to boom, more and more people are learning through the internet.
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They're learning through YouTube.
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It's hard for modern education systems to keep up with the very fast -paced world that we live in.
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With the increase in technology, the education system can't update itself enough to help you learn the skills
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you need to learn in order to stay valuable in society.
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And so people are turning to YouTube, people are turning to the internet, and that's great, but you also need a structure for how to learn.
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And I think there are three key lessons
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that we can take from this book in regards to the three principles of how to learn,
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which will really, really make a big impact in your life.
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And I have definitely noticed an impact in my life in
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just a few short weeks of trying to apply these three principles.
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And so, with that said, let's get into principle number one, which is how to approach confusion.
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And more importantly, how to use confusion.
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Now, in chapter three of Leviathan, Hobbes outlines two models of mental movement.
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One being unguided thought, which is distracted, which is abstract, which has no direction.
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And the other one being passionate intent.
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Now, when we think of learning, we have to think of it as mental movement.
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We are trying to learn something we don't know.
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We are trying to move in a specific direction.
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And because you're learning something you don't know, you're going to be confused.
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That's a good thing.
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But the problem here is that this is where most people fail the learning process from the moment they start.
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Because the second you enter into a confused state, the second something feels overwhelming and abstract and you don't know where to start,
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you don't know what questions to ask, you don't know what direction to move in, you can become so overwhelmed that the more you read,
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the more you study, the more data you put into your brain,
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the more overwhelmed you start to feel because you're not organizing that data in any way.
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But the key distinction here is that it's a good thing to feel confused
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and that it's in that confusion
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that you can find the direction you need to move in and you actually need to follow the direction of your confusion confusion.
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Because what you will do then is then look at where you're confused, look at what you don't know, look at where you're feeling overwhelmed,
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and then write out a list of questions where if you had the answer to those questions, you would no longer be confused,
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you would no longer be overwhelmed, and you would be moving in the direction you want to move in.
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And so Hobbes believed that it was right here where the genius is made and the average person is made as well,
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because he didn't believe that anyone was born with a brain that was naturally more talented and more capable than another brain.
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They just use their brain in a different way,
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and they just had a different approach to this initial confused state and this initial phase of being confused when learning something.
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Whereas if you have a clear reason for why you're learning, you can ask the questions, write down on a piece of paper,
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how you're going to implement this, what you need to know to implement this, how X correlates to Y,
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whatever the questions are that you need answers to in order to solve the problem you're trying to solve,
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in order to move in the direction you're trying to move in.
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Once you ask those questions, you can then go through and try and answer them.
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You now have a reason for why you're reading.
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You now have a compass for what you're reading, what you're learning, how you're approaching learning.
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You're constantly looking to answer these questions.
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And you need to work through these questions one by one
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so that you can approach learning with a very clear question you're trying to answer, and you can tick them off one by one.
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And once you've ticked them off, you're out of that confused state.
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Now, the good thing here is that you can only ask these questions if you're in a confused state,
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because you then look at where you're confused, what you don't know, what you need to know to move in that direction,
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you write out those questions.
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and then you can answer them.
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It's a really good way of being able to use what could be an overwhelming element of learning, what could be something that stunts your growth,
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turns into the very engine of your growth.
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It turns into the very engine of your learning.
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And this is where Hobbes believed the genius is made
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and the average mind is made because the genius knows how to use confusion, doesn't get overwhelmed by the confusion,
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and actually follows the thread of confusion to then find the answers to their specific problem.
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And so if I could put this into an example, it would be like a detective.
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When they have to solve a specific crime, they don't have any of the answers.
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They don't necessarily know where to start.
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This is a very overwhelming experience.
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This is very abstract.
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This isn't very direct.
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And so the first thing they do is always ask themselves, what do I need to know to solve the crime?
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Okay, from there, we can start to approach how we can question people, where we need to go, what we need to look at,
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what we need to read,
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what we need to think about in order to check off these questions one by one in order to solve the crime.
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This is something that is more of a meditative process
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and a more meditative approach to feeling overwhelmed rather than just getting confused and thinking, I need to read more books,
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I need to read more, watch more videos.
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And then you're throwing more information into your brain, you're throwing more data into your brain,
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but that only overwhelms you more because you're not streamlining that data into any direction.
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You don't have a reason for why you're soaking in that information, and that's not going to help you learn at all.
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And this is the first step of learning, and this is also the most crucial step where most people go wrong.
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Which leads me into principle number two, which is to focus on formulas over facts.
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Now, Hobbes warns about the scientific approach to life and the experiential approach to life.
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And the difference here is that the scientific approach to life is trying to figure out what happened, why it happened, and how it happened,
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whereas the experiential approach to life is just knowing what happened and remembering what happened.
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Now, if you're trying to learn something.
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You need to always be focused on understanding why and how,
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and when taking notes, not just taking notes on information that you're reading and not just highlighting things you find interesting,
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but highlighting things where you're able to find a connection.
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It tells you why something's happened, how something happened.
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It gives you a formula for how to work out a specific problem in the future.
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You're always trying to find how it relates to something else, how a piece of information relates to what you're trying to achieve,
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how that can help you in your implementation of this knowledge,
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how that can help you understand where you're going to find roadblocks in the implementation of this knowledge.
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You're always looking for correlations.
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You're not just taking notes on the information,
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you're taking notes on how it connects with other bits of information to give you a more formulaic view, a more, I would say,
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in -depth view of what you're actually learning.
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And I think to simplify this, we can put this into an example when it comes to chess.
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The reason why a chess prodigy at 16 is going to
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be able to beat a well -seasoned 35 -year -old chess professional is
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because the chess prodigy has a better understanding of how the rules of chess work
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and why they work as opposed to what the rules of chess are.
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As opposed to knowing what a specific move is and then what the specific counter move is to that move,
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which I'm sure every professional chess player knows, basically every move and every counter to that move.
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The chess prodigy, by understanding how that move works and why that move works, they're able to then know where to break the rules,
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where not to do the standard counter move, but to do a different move, which changes the table in some way,
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but because they understand the formulas of chess, they understand why that move works in the first place,
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they can rearrange the board to bring confusion to the other player, and then they can start to implement their own game plan.
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It gives them that latitude, that creativity, because they understand why it works and how it works so
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that they can almost build new moves
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because they understand the principles of why the move works rather than just knowing what the move is
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and how to do it.
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See, if you're taking notes on something you're learning, it can be easy to take down information like this is the move you do
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when the other player does this specific move.
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But if you take a note where you do this move
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when another player does this move because it allows the board to rearrange in this way,
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because it then throws off this specific chest piece whatever the answer is That then gives you a reason as to why.
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So then in the future, you may know to slightly break that rule, to not do that exact move the way you're supposed to,
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because that will throw off the other player, that'll change the board in some way,
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and then you can be on the attack and you can start implementing another game plan.
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It's about understanding the formulas over understanding the facts.
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And then another example of that would be if a historian was learning about Alexander the Great.
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Now, the two historians we can compare here would be a hobby historian and a genius historian, a great historian, a respected historian.
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Now, the hobby historian might know all the facts about what happened in a specific battle with Alexander the Great,
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but the great historian won't just know the facts, but they will also look at how a specific move
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that Alexander the Great did may have led to a specific outcome that Alexander the Great achieved.
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And then when they go and research other figures throughout history, they can see where they did a similar play and got a similar outcome.
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All of a sudden, they understand that when you do a specific thing in battle or in politics or in society,
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another outcome is likely to happen.
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So now in the present time, they can write books contextualizing our contemporary age, saying that maybe we shouldn't do what we're currently doing,
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or maybe we should approach something
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we're doing at the moment in a different way in order to avoid a specific negative outcome.
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It allows them to build a better future because they have an understanding of the past,
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whereas the hobby historian just knows what happened in the past.
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They don't actually understand the past, and they don't actually understand how that may shape our future.
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They just know what happened.
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And that's the difference in learning.
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That's what separates being a good learner from just someone who can memorize.
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And that's what's going to give you the latitude
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and creativity to implement your learnings in life and actually move forward in a direction that you want to move in.
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And then the third principle, which I think is the most important principle here, it's less practical, but it is so,
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so important when it comes to keeping your mind fresh and sharp in order to approach learning and soak up information,
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and that is to avoid lifestyle pollution.
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Now, something that Hobbes warns about in The Leviathan is that the human brain, for the most part, is just in a state of reaction.
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It's in a state of cause and effect.
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It's taking in stimulus and then reacting to that stimulus.
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And this was proven in specific experiments where they took college students and played them classical music,
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which ordered their brain in a specific way, calmed their brain down.
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And then for 15 minutes after listening to classical music, they had a better perception of the room around them.
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They had a more ordered and logical perception of the room around them.
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Their spatial awareness was better.
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And that is because the stimulus they were bringing into their brain was ordering their brain
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and allowing their brain in a reactive state to react to that stimulus and become more ordered.
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Therefore, being better at understanding the room around them and reasoning around them.
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And so this is important because if you're ever going to learn something or you're about to read something,
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you're about to do research or you're about to do important work, you must always remember to not take in stimulus
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that is going to have your brain react in a bad way where it's going to be disordered and disorganized.
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It's why if you were to wake up in the morning
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and listen to specific music that you would probably hear more so at a nightclub,
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that's going to cause you to lose your sense of spatial awareness.
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It's why at a music festival, at a nightclub, people are losing a sense of themselves.
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They get lost in the moment.
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They're not thinking clearly.
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They're going a little bit – they're becoming a bit more reactive
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and in an animalistic state rather than a human state because the music is doing that to their brain.
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So you've got to make sure that you keep
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that kind of stimulus at a minimal
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if you want to be able to learn better and understand better and approach life better.
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Of course, you don't have to wipe it out of your life completely, but know that the more you listen to that kind of music,
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the more you watch those kind of films, the more you listen to podcasts that aren't ordered but are more
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so just like two comedians talking about whatever it is they want to talk about, that's going to increase brain fog.
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And we all know this.
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The more we spend time scrolling on social media, the more we feel our brain is scattered and foggy,
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the less we are at the less capable we are of organizing
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and streamlining our thoughts and speaking in a good cadence
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and organizing our thoughts in the way that we deliver them in our writing and our work and our reading.
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The more you scroll on social media, the less likely you will be able to sit down
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and read for 90 minutes or two hours straight because your brain is reacting in such a frantic, schizophrenic way.
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And so we all have an understanding of that, but this third principle is more so just understanding and reminding us
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that we do need to keep that at a minimum because it will put us in an emotional reactive state.
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And I think the difference between so much of the great work
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that was being able to be produced back in the 17th century
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and our world today is not necessarily because the human mind has gotten worse or less capable, but more so to do with the fact
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that we just have more stimulus today that can easily disorder your brain
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and lead your brain into chaos
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and disrepair at this point rather than keeping it ordered
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and streamlined mind and so that's less practical
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but it is no less important it might even be the most important
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because there's no way
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you're going to be able to order the chaos of confusion of starting to learn a new topic
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there's no way you're going to be able to understand the formulas
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and connections of a new topic
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if your brain is not ordered in the right way but with
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that said i hope you guys enjoyed this video i hope you guys got some value from it
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and until next time take care
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “This 17th Century Learning System Will Make You Dangerous”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: learning, brain, approach, specific. This video has 197 sentences and 2938 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:22. The speaker talks fast, about 180 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| confused adjective | /kənˈfjuːzd/ | unable to think clearly or understand |
| confusion noun | /kənˈfjuːʒən/ | A lack of clarity or order. |
| chess noun | /t͡ʃɛs/ | A board game for two players, each beginning with sixteen chess pieces moving according to fixed rules across a chessboard with the objective to checkmate the… |
| historian noun | /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ | A writer of history. |
| principle noun | /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/ | A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief. |
| stimulus noun | /ˈstɪm.jə.ləs/ | An external phenomenon that has an influence on a system, by triggering or modifying an internal phenomenon; for example, a spur or incentive that drives a… |
| formula noun | /ˈfɔː.mjʊ.lə/ | Any mathematical rule expressed symbolically. |
| solve verb | /sɒlv/ | To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out. |
| implement verb | /ˈɪmpləmənt/ | To bring about; to put into practice; to carry out. |
| outcome noun | /ˈaʊtkʌm/ | That which is produced or occurs as a result of an event or process. |
| genius noun | /ˈd͡ʒin.jəs/ | Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art… |
| react verb | /ɹiːˈækt/ | To act in response. |
| organize verb | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪz/ | To arrange in working order. |
| whereas | /(h)wɛɹˈæz/ | In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although. |
| abstract noun | /ˈæbˌstɹækt/ | An abridgement or summary of a longer publication. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| throw off verb | To confuse; especially, to lose a pursuer. |
| write out verb | To write at full length or in expanded form. |
| check off verb | To mark items on a list (with a checkmark or by crossing them out) that have been chosen for keeping or removal or that have been dealt with (for example… |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. |
| sit down verb | To assume a sitting position from a standing position. |
| take down verb | To remove something from a wall or similar vertical surface to which it is fixed. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We are trying to learn something we don't know.
- You now have a reason for why you're reading.
- You're constantly looking to answer these questions.
- It tells you why something's happened, how something happened.
- You're always looking for correlations.
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 | being unguided · be overwhelmed · is made |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | written, which is · one, which is · thought, which is |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have definitely noticed · you've ticked · has gotten |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 73 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: confusion /kənˈfjuːʒən/, implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/, perception /pɚˈsɛpʃ(ə)n/, spatial /ˈspeɪ.ʃəl/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/
- Long words — get the stress right: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/, creativity /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/
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 confused, confusion, chess.
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.