Shadowing practice: From Game Theory to The Infinite Game
Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Full transcript
- There are many people in the world who have great theories.0:00
- Once in a generation, once in a hundred years, somebody will come along who is able to define a truth.0:03
- Jim Kars was one of those people.0:09
- And he defined these two types of games, finite games and infinite games.0:11
- A finite game is defined as known players, fixed rules, and an agreed upon objective, football, baseball.0:14
- If there's a winner necessarily, there have to be losers.0:20
- And more importantly, there's always a beginning, middle, and an end, always.0:23
- Then you have infinite games.0:27
- Infinite games are defined as known and unknown players, which means new players can join at any time.0:28
- The rules are changeable, which means every player can play however they want.0:35
- And the objective is to perpetuate the game, to stay in the game as long as possible.0:39
- One of the things I've learned since I learned Kars' work, which is when you play with a finite mindset in an infinite game, when you play to win at0:43
Show all 40 lines Show fewer lines
- a game that has no finish line, decline of trust, decline of cooperation, decline of innovation.0:49
- Right?0:54
- Okay.0:55
- Genius.0:56
- I got to meet Jim Kars, my hero.0:58
- Of course, the first question I sit down with him, the first question I ask him is, how did you come up with that?1:01
- Right?1:07
- He, in the 1970s, there were all these salons.1:09
- And the concept of game theory was all the rage in the 1970s.1:12
- It was like the AI of today.1:19
- It's all anybody was talking about.1:21
- And, you know, like the concept of the prisoner's dilemma, which some people may know, came out of one of these salons.1:23
- They would get all these smart people together and talk about game theory.1:30
- Everybody was talking about game theory.1:32
- And they would bring economists and mathematicians and all the, everybody was talking about game theory.1:34
- And Kars was invited to some of these salons.1:37
- And all of these very, very, very smart people, he recognized that they were all talking about winning and losing.1:40
- None of them were talking about playing.1:48
- And he had this incredible insight that when he goes home and his kids play ping -pong, there is always shouting and accusations of cheating.1:51
- When his kids draw, play Lego, they'll play for hours.2:08
- It's dead quiet the whole time.2:15
- Kids will come and go and join and leave and join and leave.2:17
- They started to realize that play, play, not winning, not losing, not competition, but play is the place where magic happens, innovation happens, cooperation happens, love happens, teamwork happens.2:21
- And so I think we undervalue play.2:37
- But I think the idea of these infinite games where there is no conclusion, where you just draw, you do Lego, I think is magical.2:41
- And I think there should be more of it.2:51
- I don't think there's enough play.2:52
- There's a lot of competition, but I think we need more play.2:54
English Listening Practice with a B1 Business Lecture from Simon Sinek
This clip gives you english listening practice with a real lecture, not a scripted dialogue. Simon Sinek explains Jim Kars' idea of finite and infinite games to a business audience, and the recording sits at CEFR level B1, so the vocabulary stays manageable even where the topic turns abstract.
The pace is 200 words per minute, faster than 62 percent of the catalogue, so your ear has to keep up with a speaker who talks in full paragraphs rather than short exchanges. His American accent is clear and even, closer to a keynote than a casual chat, which makes this clip useful for american accent training before you move on to faster, messier audio.
The subject itself helps too. Sinek walks through a real distinction, football as a finite game with a beginning, middle and end, against an infinite game with no finish line, so you are following an argument, not just listening to noise. That structure gives you something to predict, which makes speaking practice easier because you already know roughly where each sentence is going.
How to Pronounce English Words Like "Changeable" in This Game Theory Passage
Three lines from the transcript show different things worth saying out loud, from stacked lists to a single comparison.
- "A finite game is defined as known players, fixed rules, and an agreed upon objective, football, baseball." lists five items with almost no pause between them, then drops to two one word examples at the end. Say each noun phrase as its own beat and let your pitch fall on "baseball."
- "The rules are changeable, which means every player can play however they want." carries the rare word "changeable," stress falls on the first syllable, useful pronunciation practice on a word you might otherwise skip.
- "It was like the AI of today." breaks from the lecture register into a casual aside. The rhythm speeds up and stays flat until the last word, then lifts on "today".
Shadowing English Speaking Practice B1: Working Through the Game Theory Talk
Work the clip in the order below rather than front to back.
- Start with line 5, "A finite game is defined as known players, fixed rules, and an agreed upon objective, football, baseball." Its list structure makes a good first line to shadow this lecture before longer sentences arrive.
- Pair lines 9 and 10, the infinite game definition, and say them back to back so the contrast with line 5 lands in your own voice.
- Take line 20, "He, in the 1970s, there were all these salons." on its own. The false start plus the rare word "salons" is worth repeating until it comes out smooth.
- Use line 22, "It was like the AI of today." as a pace drill. It is short, so you can push closer to his 200 words per minute without losing the words.
- Finish on lines 29 to 31, where the sentence about the smart people at the salons runs long. Breaking it into the same breath groups he uses is the real test of whether the earlier lines stuck.
