Shadowing Practice: Watch this if you feel like you’re behind in life - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Increasingly, a lot of us seem to have this feeling that we are falling behind in life.

⏸ Paused

Speed:

455 sentences

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

Increasingly, a lot of us seem to have this feeling that we are falling behind in life.

There is this feeling that other people are already ahead of us,

like they figured out what to do with their lives,

they've got the perfect career,

they've started their business, they've got married,

started a family, and I am still not hitting those little milestones that I'd set for myself.

Now this feeling of feeling behind is often the result of something called mimetic desire,

which is what Luke Burgess talks about in this book,

wanting the power of mimetic desire in everyday life.

So we're going to be breaking down some of the insights from this book in this episode of Book Club,

the ongoing series where for the last five years I have been distilling

and discussing highlights and summaries from some of my favourite books.

Part 1.

Why we feel behind in life.

Alright, so broadly this feeling of feeling behind comes from,

let's say you are here at point A and you want to be at point B.

And point A could be anything.

This could be like, you're on a five-figure salary and you want to be on a six-figure salary,

or you're working a day job that you hate and you want to have your own business,

or you're not yet married with kids and you want to be married with kids,

or like whatever the thing is.

You are at point A and you want to be at point B.

Now that in itself does not result in the feeling of being behind.

That actually could just form the basis for setting a goal.

But specifically the feeling of feeling behind comes from the feeling of like,

I'm at point A, I wanna be at point B,

but actually I should already be at point B and I am not already at point B.

Therefore I feel behind, I feel bad, I feel uncomfortable.

I feel like I'm a loser.

I feel like I'm a failure because I am not already where I would like to be.

Now, a lot of the videos in this YouTube channel are about like,

okay, how do you get yourself from A to B?

How do you set a goal?

How do you break it down?

How do you be productive?

How do you be efficient?

But this video is going to be a little bit different

because the point of this book is not about how do we get more efficiently from A to B.

It's really about asking why do we want B in the first place?

And the whole shtick in this book,

the thing that Luke Burgess is arguing,

is that you want that thing that you want quite possibly because of mimetic desire.

And so in this video,

we're going to be breaking down exactly what mimetic desire is and where it comes from.

And then we're going to go over a bunch of actionable strategies from the book

that I found really helpful

that hopefully you will find helpful as well in terms of how to mitigate the effect

that mimetic desires have on our life and as a result hopefully start feeling a little bit less behind.

Part 2.

What is mimetic desire and where does it come from?

And here is a lovely story from the book that illustrates this.

My friend tells me about a promotion he's about to get.

He'll receive a $20,000 boost in salary and have a new title,

Managing Director of Something or Other That Sounds Important.

It comes with more vacation time too.

As I smile and tell him how exciting that is,

I feel some anxiety.

Shouldn't I be making an extra $20,000 too?

Will my friend and I still be able to plan vacations together

if he gets twice as much paid time off as I do?

And also, what the hell?

We graduated from the same university,

and I worked twice as hard as he did in school and after.

Am I falling behind?

Did I choose the right path in life?

Even though I used to say I could never be in his line of work,

now I'm second guessing myself.

My friend has become a model of desire to me.

We will never speak of it,

but an inner force has been activated in me that if left unchecked will cause conflict.

I'll start to make decisions based on what he wants.

If he moves to a certain neighborhood,

I'll start evaluating where I live accordingly.

If he reaches Delta SkyMiles Platinum status,

I won't be satisfied with gold." This is the theory of mimetic desire

that was first talked about by French philosopher René Girard.

And the whole book basically is like an exploration of Girard's theories on mimetic desire.

So where does this mimetic desire come from?

And in the book, Luke talks about it being from two distinct worlds,

and he labels these two worlds Celebristan and Freshmanistan.

Oh by the way

if you didn't know stan as the suffix in a lot of different countries like Pakistan

and Kazakhstan and Afghanistan it means place of or home of or land of.

So Celebristan is the land of the celebrities and Freshmanistan is the land of the people who are more like us.

And the idea here is that we model the desires of these two different groups of people.

We model the desires of celebrities and influencers and like movie stars and stuff.

We've never actually met these people but we still look up to them for inspiration.

Inspiration on what to do,

but also inspiration on what to want.

And so that's the stuff that a lot of us would be already familiar with.

But then you've got Freshmanistan,

which is the people who are like you,

the people that you went to school with,

your neighbours, your parents, your family members, your cousins.

We form models of mimetic desire based on what these people around us want.

And generally it's this category that causes us to feel behind.

Like you probably don't feel that behind because you're not as rich as Kim Kardashian.

I suspect Kim Kardashian's not someone that you're looking to as a model of like,

oh, I should be here.

100

But you might be feeling behind in life because your neighbor

101

or your friend or your cousin or that person you went to university with is making more money than you are,

102

or has a fancier business,

103

or seems to be more fulfilled,

104

or seems to have a more fulfilling marriage or whatever based on their social media feeds or whatever the thing might be.

105

And in a way, we are directly competing against the second group of people.

106

When they are doing things and we feel like,

107

oh, I should be there already and I'm not,

108

like everyone around me seemingly is getting that promotion at work.

109

That is a profound model for mimetic desire and and contributes to us feeling bad that we are behind.

110

And by the way, if you are enjoying this video,

111

then you might like to check out Brilliant,

112

who are very kindly sponsoring this video.

113

If you haven't heard, Brilliant is a wonderful learning platform,

114

which I've been using for the last five years,

115

and I absolutely love it.

116

Now, one of my gripes with the education system is that in general,

117

we are taught to passively consume stuff,

118

but there's actually a bunch of research studies that show that this is a very ineffective way to learn,

119

and what's much more effective is to learn by doing.

120

That is where Brilliant comes in.

121

They've got thousands of interactive lessons in maths,

122

in science, in programming, data analysis,

123

and AI, and the interactive nature of these lessons means that you're doing rather than just consuming,

124

which has been proven to be six times more effective than just watching lecture videos.

125

They've got a first principles approach to learning,

126

learning, which helps you build understanding from the ground up in all these various different subjects.

127

And it's crafted by an award-winning team of teachers,

128

researchers, and professionals from cool places like Stanford,

129

MIT, Caltech, Microsoft, Google, and many more.

130

Now, one thing that I've been personally loving is their courses on AI.

131

They have a series of courses on large language models and how they work.

132

And even though I feel like I have a solid grasp of how to actually use the AI tools,

133

it was super helpful to get the zoomed out perspective from

134

experts in the field about how they actually work behind the scenes.

135

And that's been really helpful in helping me understand what is actually going on when I prompt a large language model.

136

Brilliant, also helps you build a powerful daily learning habit.

137

And as we know,

138

learning new stuff a little bit every day is one of

139

the most important things we can do for our personal and professional growth,

140

which is the exact opposite of mindless scrolling on social media.

141

So to try Brilliant for free,

142

head over to brilliant.org slash Ali Abdaal,

143

or you can check out the link in the video description,

144

and that will also give you 20% off the annual premium subscription.

145

So thank you so much Brilliant for sponsoring this video.

146

Now I'm gonna put a few questions on screen

147

that I would love for you if you would like to pause the video and consider your answers to these questions.

148

Firstly, who are the people in your fresh manistan who influence what you want?

149

Secondly, what goals or possessions have you started wanting because someone else close to you wanted that thing?

150

And thirdly, what achievements or milestones contribute to you feeling behind if someone else gets there first?

151

Feel free to pause the video now and have a little think about this.

152

And by the way, these are just some of the various journaling prompts that I like collecting for myself over time.

153

I've put them all into a journaling hub,

154

which is a completely free list of all of my favorite journaling prompts.

155

That'll be linked down below if you wanna check it out.

156

And these questions aren't easy to answer,

157

but they can reveal where our desires come from.

158

And I've seen this so much in my own life as well.

159

Back when I was in school,

160

the mimetic desire was around sort of the people around me,

161

like my friends, all wanting to get into the same universities,

162

like the fancy universities, to study fancy subjects like medicine.

163

Then when I actually got into med school,

164

it became about the prizes and the accolades and the publications and the points on the CV.

165

And I'd never before wanted these things,

166

but I was now in an environment where other people seemed to want those things.

167

And so I, without thinking about it, modeled their desires.

168

Like, oh, that person's going after those publications.

169

I should probably be going after those publications as well.

170

Even now, many years after I've left medicine,

171

I can still fall into that feeling of feeling behind.

172

Because now my team and I are building software,

173

and so we're like comparing our software growth rates for VoicePal,

174

our productivity writing app, against other AI apps in the industry and being like,

175

oh, wait a minute, but that app is growing faster,

176

and that app's gotten funded by that fancy investor,

177

and ours hasn't done that yet,

178

leading to that feeling of feeling behind.

179

And I never thought I would care about things like software growth rates,

180

but I've now started to find myself caring about it,

181

because I'm now in a group where other people around me care about the thing,

182

and therefore subconsciously, I have modeled their desires.

183

I've started to want or desire things that are maybe not my own intrinsic interests.

184

And so what René Girard talked about is

185

that we have this natural instinct to model the desires of the people around us.

186

And this isn't necessarily always a negative thing.

187

Our mimetic desires can be positive if,

188

for example, you are inspired by the goals of someone else,

189

or if those desires help you form social connections or get healthier or whatever,

190

which is generally good for your life.

191

And it does save some amount of mental energy

192

when you can just sort of model someone else's goal because you don't then have to figure it out entirely for yourself.

193

But it can become very problematic when we start chasing things that aren't actually meaningful to us,

194

and especially when we are chasing things that make us feel inadequate

195

or that we're constantly behind because we're not yet at

196

that level that we thought we should be based on what the people around us are getting at.

197

Now as Luke writes in the book,

198

the obsession we have with goal setting is misguided, even counterproductive.

199

Setting goals isn't bad, but

200

when the focus is on how to set goals rather than how to choose them in the first place,

201

goals can easily turn into instruments of self-flagellation.

202

And the important thing to recognize here is that the things that we want shape the goals that we aspire to,

203

which completely changes our actions and our feelings.

204

If, for example, I grew up in Palo Alto and I found myself chasing the desire to build a billion dollar company,

205

that desire to build a billion dollar company is going to shape the goals that I set for myself.

206

And the goals that I set for myself are going to shape literally my day-to-day actions and also my feelings.

207

Because if I'm 30 and haven't got a billion dollar company yet,

208

I will feel bad.

209

I will feel behind in that context.

210

The goals that we choose to set,

211

which form from the desires that we have are so incredibly important.

212

And so this idea that that goal selection is in many ways more important than goal achievement.

213

This is partly why I spend so much time journaling and really trying to get a sense of like,

214

what do I actually want?

215

And to what extent is what I want modeled with my own authentic desires versus just what other people around me want.

216

This is a big part of the vision component of LifeOS,

217

which is my productivity course,

218

more details down below if you wanna check it out.

219

But it's really the sense that if you change the destination that you're aiming towards,

220

it drastically changes the journey that you're on.

221

And our choice of goals is ultimately dictated by our desires.

222

And so that brings us onto part three,

223

how do we actually chase meaningful desires?

224

Now, strategy number one that I took away from the book is to identify thick versus thin desires.

225

So in the book, Luke talks about thick desires as being kind of like layers of rock.

226

So these are solid and they are enduring and they are deeply embedded in who you are.

227

These are the sorts of desires that you've probably had for a long time,

228

maybe even since childhood.

229

These desires don't change easily.

230

You've had them for a long time and they probably give you a sense of deep fulfillment when you're pursuing them.

231

And we can contrast that with thin desires.

232

These are more like the surface layer desires that we find ourselves wanting,

233

primarily because someone else around us that we respect or who's like our neighbor in some capacity,

234

because that person wants that thing.

235

So we find ourselves wanting that thing as well.

236

The easy example I see for this in my own life is

237

that I've always had a thick desire to be interested in teaching.

238

I always liked teaching when I was,

239

even when I was like seven years old,

240

I'd be helping kids who were like six with their homework and kids in my class and all that stuff.

241

Then when I was 13,

242

I started teaching at this like maths and English study center,

243

and that was really fun.

244

And then when I was 16,

245

I started doing private tutoring.

246

And then when I was in med school,

247

I was helping our younger medical students and I started a business all about teaching.

248

And ultimately, when I created this YouTube channel,

249

like the thing that brings me fulfillment from it is the fact

250

that I can read a book and share my insights from it and just,

251

you know, share it with people.

252

And that's kind of teaching and that's kind of fun.

253

And so for me, the desire to teach in

254

that sense is probably a thick desire

255

because it's been with me for a very long time and it hasn't changed very much.

256

But then there are all these other thin desires that get painted over the top.

257

For example, I often go to the US to take part in these like entrepreneurship conferences

258

and to give talks and to go to these masterminds.

259

And when I go to these events,

260

I often feel like the brokest person there

261

because there's all these people around me who have way bigger businesses and I'm making way more money.

262

And then I find myself having this desire to be like,

263

oh, you know, I want to get our business to $10 million in revenue.

264

And I want to do this.

265

And I want to do that.

266

And my team knows that whenever I come back from the US

267

and like start making plans for the business to basically ignore everything I say for a full 72 hours,

268

because generally within about three days,

269

that desire to have a bigger business and like make more money and have a bigger team,

270

all of that kind of stuff,

271

those desires generally fade because they are thin desires

272

that were modeled off of these other people I was hanging out with rather than a thick intrinsic desire.

273

And so if you're finding yourself feeling behind because you're chasing some kind of desire,

274

it might be worth asking yourself a few little journaling prompts around,

275

has this desire been with me for a long time?

276

Does pursuing this desire energize me,

277

or does it actually drain me?

278

And here's one of my favorite ones,

279

would I still want this thing,

280

even if no one could ever know that I had achieved that thing?

281

And if you want to do these exercises by speaking them rather than writing them,

282

then with VoicePal, the app that my team and I are building,

283

we've just released a new frameworks feature.

284

And so we've got a few guided frameworks for helping you figure out thick versus thin desires.

285

And so the app is going to be linked down below.

286

You can try it out for free on iOS and Android.

287

And within the free trial,

288

you can try out these journaling frameworks and you can see

289

if it helps you get any more clarity on what your own desires are.

290

The other fun way to identify thick desires is based on what Luke calls stories of fulfillment.

291

And so a story of fulfillment has three things.

292

Firstly, you took some kind of action.

293

Secondly, you believe you did that thing kind of well.

294

And thirdly, that thing gave you a lasting sense of accomplishment.

295

And so the question you can ask yourself is what is a time in my life

296

when I took action and it made me feel genuinely fulfilled?

297

For me, the example that often comes to mind is that in my fifth year,

298

I was one of the directors of the medical school pantomime.

299

And this was like a huge amount of investment in terms of like our spend

300

and like hours commuting to and from like hospital placements to do rehearsals and things like that and organizing stuff.

301

No one got paid for it.

302

It was fully a charity thing,

303

but we brought like a hundred plus medical students together who were all insanely talented.

304

And we created this production that was way bigger than ourselves.

305

And I remember that that as being like one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done.

306

And so it's like, huh,

307

you know, I was contributing towards this thing,

308

working with a group of really talented people.

309

We were creating something bigger than us.

310

That's interesting.

311

It's interesting that I found that very fulfilling.

312

What can I learn from that about what my own thick desires are

313

and how can I incorporate that more into what I'm doing with my work, for example?

314

And then we come to tip number two,

315

which is to identify your Michelin stars.

316

Now there is a powerful story in the book that Luke talks about.

317

And it's kind of a contrast between these two Michelin starred chefs.

318

So in 2003, there was a chef called Bernard Loisseur who was one of France's most celebrated chefs.

319

And one of his restaurants had three Michelin stars,

320

which is very prestigious in the world of food.

321

But then this chef heard from the Michelin inspectors

322

that he might be losing one of his Michelin stars

323

because the inspectors didn't like the lack of inventiveness or the artistic direction of his restaurant.

324

At the same time,

325

this chef got downgraded from 19 out of 20 points to

326

17 out of 20 points in some other restaurant rating system in France.

327

And he ended up taking his own life shortly thereafter.

328

And it's interesting to contrast this with another chef that he talks about in the book,

329

Marco Pierre White.

330

At age 32, Marco was the youngest chef to ever get three Michelin stars.

331

But then in 1999, at the height of his success,

332

he decided to opt out of the Michelin star game and he decided to retire.

333

And what he said was,

334

I gave Michelin inspectors too much respect and I belittled myself.

335

I had three options.

336

I could be a prisoner of my world and continue to work six days a week.

337

I could live a lie and charge high prices and not be behind the stove.

338

Or I could give my stars back,

339

spend time with my children and reinvent myself.

340

And he was the first three-star chef in history to shut down and walk away.

341

And what Luke writes in the book is that each of us has our own version of a Michelin star system.

342

We can easily find ourselves like a French chef wanting stars,

343

marks of status and prestige, badges of honor.

344

Naming the mimetic forces at work in the systems in

345

which we operate is an important first step towards making more intentional choices.

346

Like for me, my own Michelin stars have evolved a lot through my life.

347

In school, it was like exam scores and like the year group rankings

348

and like university admissions and all that kind of crap.

349

In medical school, it was academic achievements and like first class degrees and like publications.

350

Then it became like YouTube followers and views and like ad revenue

351

and like New York Times bestseller list status and you know,

352

all that kind of stuff.

353

And so once we've identified what are our own personal Michelin stars

354

that we are chasing after and feeling behind that we're not,

355

that we haven't acquired yet,

356

we can ask ourselves a few questions.

357

Are these measures actually aligned with my thick desires?

358

Which ones am I pursuing because others value them, not because I do?

359

And which ones would I happily give up if they conflicted with what truly matters to me?

360

Now, this exercise isn't about rejecting all external measures

361

because some of them might align perfectly with whatever your own authentic goals are,

362

but it's really about having more of an awareness of the hidden scorecards

363

that we often use to measure our life and to make ourselves feel like we are behind.

364

All right, now, once we've identified by these thick and thin desires and our own Michelin stars,

365

we come to tip number three,

366

which is to set boundaries with unhealthy mimetic models.

367

Now there are various ways of doing this boundary setting thing.

368

You could set digital boundaries.

369

So you could unfollow or mute people on social media who trigger these unhealthy feelings of inadequacy or unhealthy comparison.

370

There are various people, for example,

371

who I used to follow in the world of entrepreneurs who show off flashy cars and flashy watches.

372

But after reading this book,

373

I decided to unfollow a bunch of them because I know it is not good for my soul

374

and for my life for me to start wanting fancier cars or fancier watches.

375

I'm perfectly content with my Apple watch and my Wook band.

376

And I really do not need to even see any content about the world of like 10,000, $100,000 watches.

377

I have friends, for example,

378

who follow this content around cars and watches.

379

And because they follow the content,

380

they're interested in the thing,

381

they desire, I don't know,

382

the latest Porsche, whatever the thing is,

383

or the latest Lamborghini, whatever the thing is,

384

or the latest Patek, whatever the thing is.

385

And they have more of a sense of feeling behind because they have not yet acquired these symbols.

386

And so in many ways,

387

you can curate your own social media feeds.

388

If we take it as given that the people we follow on social media are gonna be models of desire,

389

whether we like it or not,

390

we can just choose to unfollow the people that are prompting us to have unhealthy or unwholesome desires.

391

You could create a mental boundary.

392

So for example, when you find yourself feeling behind,

393

you can ask yourself, you know,

394

take a little bit of a pause to ask yourself,

395

maybe journal on this, why am I feeling behind right now?

396

Is it because I'm chasing a desire that is authentically mine?

397

Or is it because I'm chasing a desire that belongs to someone else?

398

You can even set physical boundaries.

399

Like you can actually get physical distance from hanging out with the sorts of people

400

that inspire this sort of envy or jealousy or like desires that you don't wanna have.

401

The other thing he talks about is

402

that we often think a lot about experts and we kind of trust the opinion of experts,

403

but there's a fun little quote for your consideration.

404

Experts play an increasingly prominent role in our society,

405

but what makes an expert?

406

A degree, a podcast?

407

Increasingly, experts are crowned mimetically like fashion.

408

Find sources that have stood the test of time.

409

Be wary of self-proclaimed and crowd-proclaimed experts.

410

And here we go, here's a real kicker.

411

It's less likely that experts will be mimetically chosen in the hard sciences,

412

physics, maths, chemistry, because people have to show their work.

413

But it's easy for someone to become an overnight expert on productivity merely because they got published in the right place.

414

Oh, Luke, love it.

415

Love that.

416

And then finally, after that bombshell,

417

we come to tip number four,

418

which is to create positive flywheels of desire.

419

And this is one of my favorite ideas in the book,

420

the idea that we can intentionally create momentum around whatever our own authentic desires are.

421

And what he says in the book is that the choices we make today affect the things we'll want tomorrow.

422

So the example in the book is that you could say,

423

for example, I want to start working out because my friend started a new program and looks great.

424

That makes me want to eat better so I don't negate my hard work in the gym.

425

That makes me want to turn down social invites involving late nights and alcohol and unhealthy food.

426

Therefore, I want to go to the gym in the morning instead of feeling hungover.

427

And that means I want to spend more time doing productive work, for example.

428

In this sense, you're taking a mimetic desire,

429

like I want to look good like my mate does,

430

but because the flywheel that you can create around it is positive,

431

it will improve your life rather than worsen your life.

432

Now, understanding mimetic desire doesn't mean that you will never again feel like you're falling behind,

433

but it does hopefully give us the awareness to pause and ask ourselves,

434

am I really running my own race or am I just feeling behind in someone else's race?

435

And the main thing I've really taken away from the book is that when we focus on our thick desires,

436

like the ones that have been with us for years and the ones that energize rather than drain us,

437

then that feeling of falling behind starts to go away

438

because we're no longer measuring our life against external models and external other people's definition of success,

439

but we are measuring it against the things that truly matter to us.

440

And then hopefully we can use those desires as a way of setting positive goals

441

and patting ourselves on the back for how far we've come rather than choosing to feel bad

442

because like we're not quite there yet.

443

If you liked this video,

444

you will definitely enjoy reading the book.

445

I'll put a link to it down below.

446

And related to the feeling of feeling behind is the feeling of feeling lost,

447

which it seems like a big chunk of people who watch this channel sometimes feel.

448

And so if you're interested,

449

I have another book club episode where we break down the feeling of why you might feel lost in life

450

and what to do about that,

451

which is somewhat related to the idea of feeling behind,

452

but a little bit different.

453

So check that video out over there if you are interested.

454

Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you hopefully in the next one.

455

Bye-bye.

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: Watch this if you feel like you’re behind in life - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Popular

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing Practice: Watch this if you feel like you’re behind in life - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Download App

About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?