Shadowing Practice: Your Lack of Personal Purpose Is Causing Your Romantic Obsession - Learn English Speaking with Video
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When you have nothing of significant importance in your personal life, a purpose that you can get up and work towards every day,
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the byproduct is that you become romantically obsessed.
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It's almost like romantic obsession is the void that only exists when you just don't have anything going on for you.
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This isn't to say that romance is not important in one's life.
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I think it very much is.
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And there is so much value, perhaps some of the most value in your life will be from finding your romantic partner and,
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you know, pursuing and developing that relationship.
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This video will not be me dogging that by any means.
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Rather, my point is that the mind will naturally go to lustful thoughts,
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which oftentimes romantic obsession is just lust.
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and it will also go to this idea of oh the reason
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that i don't feel how i want to feel in life is
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because i haven't met my person i don't have my person um
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but none of this is true humans are actually largely self-sustaining
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and by self-sustaining i mean you are able to function fully properly without being in love um not not saying
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that you're not a social creature because all humans are social creatures, but when you have nothing else going on in your life, your brain's going to fixate.
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Okay.
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If your days are empty, uh, your mind is going to need something to occupy itself.
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And here's what you, what most people fail to recognize.
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If you're working a nine to five all day or, you know, whatever difficult job you're doing, where you're putting in a lot of effort, you could be doing that all day and solve a romantic obsession.
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Why?
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Because the work that you're doing is not fulfilling.
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So it's like you have a bank inside of you that needs to be filled.
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And you think that doing busy work for some company
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or corporation that doesn't care about you and just making sure the bills are paid is going to fill that bank.
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But this bank can really only be filled with purpose.
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And when it's empty, which for a lot of people, it's empty for much of their life, if not their entire life,
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they think for whatever reason, our brain tends to fixate on the concept or the idea
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that you need another person and no person you're more intimate with than a romantic partner.
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Okay.
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And this is where you begin to replay conversations.
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This is where you begin to analyze texts with that person that you're thinking of being with.
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Okay.
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You're checking that you're checking their social medias.
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You're imagining fake scenarios.
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You get real giddy and jitty about all these things that are going on.
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And it starts to consume your mind.
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It starts to consume, uh, it's front of mind because nothing that you are doing or
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that you are conscious about on a day-to-day basis matters deeply enough for you.
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When I started doing pursuing social media and I started my startup
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and was really like actively working towards what I was doing on a day-to-day basis to the point where like, I haven't had a day off in over a year,
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literally, because I'm just so focused on what I'm doing.
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It's like, it was funny before that time, I was really like, I really want a girlfriend.
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I really want to fall in love.
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I've never fallen in love before.
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Like I want to meet the one.
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Like, I think that would be such an amazing thing in life.
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And I still think all that's true, but guess what?
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It's not front of mind.
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And it honestly, it's not something that I think about often at all anymore.
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Whereas before it took up a pretty big percentage of my thought process.
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Anytime I would talk to a girl, I would like get excited about it, which is, is normal.
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And that's fine.
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But like, I would be like really excited about it.
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And now it's like, okay, if this goes good, awesome.
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But like the main priority in my life is what am I building?
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What message can I give to my audience?
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How can I impact other people
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on a day-to-day basis these are the things that matter to me
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and it's so funny because the other side of that is
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that you're also more likely to fall in love or uh actually
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have a romantic relationship as a byproduct of this
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because it's the law of attachment you're no longer
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so attached to it it's like
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when people care the least about something all of a sudden
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boom it just happens uh one of my co-founders um he
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like i don't want to say didn't care about getting romantic relationships at all
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but it's funny
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because we were talking we're like yeah we're literally this was
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like the end the last um part of college it was like you know the last month
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or so we're we're on the phone
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and we're talking yeah i don't think it makes
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that much sense to get into a relationship right now right
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when we're so focused on uh what we're building and stuff like
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that and with me i was like yeah i just like all
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that free time
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that i would have to give away to start hanging out
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with this person instead i could be doing on building my personal brand
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and making more videos online all this stuff it's like with my co-founder he felt the same way
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and then he meets this girl literally last week of college
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and boom now they're together and it's just kind of funny the way that that naturally works.
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It's like when you're so focused on your purpose, all of a sudden things start working for you.
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And here's what's really interesting.
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And this is true for both men and women, I believe.
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Humans are so attracted to someone that has a direction and clarity of like some place they're going.
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If you have a purpose and you know that that's your purpose, then you're going to have all the direction and clarity that you need in life.
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You might not know exactly what your path is going to look like, but you know what the core pursuit is going to be towards.
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And that's getting better at achieving and giving what your purpose is on a day-to-day basis.
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And that makes other people attracted to you.
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like it like with me like do girls that are
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so um i don't know if this is the right way to phrase it
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but the girls that are like building something
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and um want to commit to something and like
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that is of great importance in their life where they actively make changes in their behavior to make sure
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that they're serving their purpose that's super attractive to me and i've also had And many, I've had many girls tell me before that,
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you know, reason why they might find me attractive is because I'm working really hard at like XYZ thing, whatever it was at that time of my life.
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And I've never worked as hard with anything as I'm doing right now and over really like the past year.
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And it's just, it's interesting how that works.
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You attract lower quality individuals when you don't have that thing going on.
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You don't have something that you think is really speaking to a higher level of spirituality,
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which I think purpose must satisfy in order for it to be qualified as purpose.
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um it's just almost unexplainable how true this is but you never are going to
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check that box of like being fully satisfied even romantically
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if you don't have a strong sense of self and something
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that is important to you to build your life off of on an individual 11 individual level,
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excuse me, um, separate from the dichotomy between you and your partner.
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Okay.
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You have to, you have to start getting traction and just start working towards something.
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Even if you're not seeing results, even if you are unsure, you just go.
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Because let me tell you something, fantasy thrives in an empty life.
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This is especially powerful, especially powerful when you're not actually dating the person that you're obsessed with.
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Because fantasy doesn't care or deal with reality.
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That's the whole concept of it, right?
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So you can imagine a person is perfect.
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You can imagine a relationship and how that would fix your loneliness.
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And really you can convince yourself that you'd be happy once they're yours, but all of this is in your head.
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It's not true.
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It doesn't exist in reality.
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You're in love with a life that you're going to, that you basically imagine that they'll give you, but it doesn't exist.
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And this only can thrive in the absence of purpose in life.
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The person who does have something that they're working towards
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and doesn't necessarily need a romantic relationship is the one
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that will receive the romantic relationship
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and to the highest degree it will be of the highest value it will be based in um genuine merit
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and uh mutual feelings
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whereas oftentimes other people sometimes there are relationships where both people don't actually like the other person they like
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that the other person likes them
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which makes them feel better about themselves of course a lot
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of this is subconscious they're not even aware of it themselves
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but that's why okay
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when you got no purpose you worship potential that's what these people do they think
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that everything is a uh is a game of pretend
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and you just you're like you're pretending oh yeah this person's capable of xyz thing relates to me
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but it's all fake the relationship becomes a substitute for your
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purpose the relationship becomes your purpose you tell yourself this person is why I'm here.
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But that's never healthy.
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I'll tell you that much.
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It's never healthy.
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A relationship is supposed to be part of your life.
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It's not the reason that your life exists.
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Okay.
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And here's the thing too, having a purpose doesn't mean you become emotionless or unavailable to anything else.
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It just means that thing is a big priority to you and it's how you can give back to the world.
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Wanting love is not mutually exclusive with that.
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Okay?
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Both can exist.
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Those are my thoughts.
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Thank you guys for watching.
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What You'll Learn from This Video
This clip is a goldmine for english speaking practice, helping you build two key skills: first, expressing complex ideas with clarity (like explaining the link between purpose and obsession), and second, using conversational fillers ("you know," "um") naturally to sound more fluent. These skills are perfect for applying the shadowing technique—repeating phrases aloud to mirror the speaker’s flow.
Listen For These Sounds
Pay attention to connected speech patterns. The speaker often links words, like "it's almost like" becoming "it's 'lmost like" and "a lot of effort" sounding like "a lotta effort." Reductions like "don't" → "dun't" and "you're" → "yer" are also common. These nuances are critical for mastering shadowspeak—speaking English with the rhythm of a native. Notice how "romantic obsession" is stressed on the first syllable of each word, creating a natural cadence.
Say It Like a Native
To mirror the speaker’s style, focus on rhythm and stress. He emphasizes key terms like "purpose," "void," and "self-sustaining" by pausing slightly before them and raising his pitch. Practice shadow speech by pausing the video after short phrases ("When you have nothing of significant importance...") and repeating them, mimicking the pace and tone. Don’t rush—let the conversational flow guide you. This technique trains your mouth to move like a native, making your speech sound more natural and confident.
By using this video for learn english with videos practice, you’ll not only improve your speaking but also gain insight into how native speakers connect ideas. Remember: the goal is to absorb the language’s music, not just the words. Keep shadowing, and you’ll notice a difference in your fluency in no time.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't met · haven't had · I've never fallen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be filled · are paid · will be based |
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.