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Shadowing practice: How to Find Work You Love - Scott Dinsmore

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  1. Wow, what an honor.0:10
  2. I've always wondered what this would feel like.0:11
  3. So eight years ago, I got the worst career advice of my life.0:14
  4. I had a friend tell me, Scott, don't worry about how much you like the work you're doing right now.0:18
  5. It's all about just building your resume.0:22
  6. And I'd just come back from living in Spain for a while and I joined this Fortune 500 company.0:25
  7. I thought, this is fantastic.0:29
  8. I'm going to have this big impact on the world and all these ideas.0:30
  9. And within about two months, I noticed at about 10 a .m.0:34
  10. every morning, I had this strange urge to want to slam my head through the monitor of my computer.0:37
  11. I don't know if anyone's ever felt that.0:42
  12. And I noticed pretty soon after that that all the competitors in our space had already automated my job role.0:44
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  1. This is about right about when I got this sage advice to build up my resume.0:51
  2. Well, as I'm trying to figure out what, as I'm trying to figure out what, you know, two -story window I'm going to jump out of and change things up,0:54
  3. I read some altogether different advice from Warren Buffett.1:03
  4. And he said, taking jobs to build up your resume is the same as saving up sex for old age.1:06
  5. And I heard that and that was all I needed.1:14
  6. Within two weeks, I was out of there and I left with one intention to find something that I could screw up.1:17
  7. That's how tough it was.1:22
  8. I just wanted to have some type of an impact.1:22
  9. It didn't matter what it was.1:24
  10. And I found out pretty quickly after that that I wasn't alone.1:26
  11. It turns out over 80 % of the people around don't enjoy their work.1:29
  12. I'm guessing this room is different, but that's the average that Deloitte has done with their studies.1:33
  13. And so I wanted to find out what is it that sets these people apart, the people who do the passionate world -changing work, they wake up inspired every day.1:37
  14. And then these people, the other 80 % who lead these lives of quiet desperation.1:45
  15. So I started to interview all these people doing this inspiring work.1:48
  16. And I read books and did case studies and 300 books all together on purpose and career and all this.1:52
  17. Totally just self -immersion.1:57
  18. Really for the selfless reason of I wanted to find the work that I couldn't not do.1:59
  19. What that was for me.2:05
  20. But as I was doing this, more and more people started to ask me, Scott, you're into this career thing.2:06
  21. I don't really like my job.2:10
  22. Can we sit down for lunch and say sure, but I would have to warn them because at this point my quit rate was also 80%.2:11
  23. Of the people I'd sit down with for lunch, 80 % would quit their job within two months.2:17
  24. And this is something, I was damn proud of this.2:22
  25. And it wasn't that I had, it wasn't that I had anything special magic, it was that I would ask one simple question.2:24
  26. It was why are you doing the work that you're doing?2:29
  27. And so often their answer would be, well, because somebody told me I'm supposed to.2:31
  28. And I realized that so many people around us are climbing their way up this ladder that someone tells them to climb and ends up being leaned up against the2:36
  29. wrong wall or no wall at all.2:43
  30. And so the more time I spent around these people and saw this problem, I thought, what if we could create a community, a place where people could feel like2:45
  31. they belonged and that it was okay to do things differently, to take the road less travel, where that was encouraged and inspire people to change.2:52
  32. And that later became what I now call Live Your Legend, which I'll explain in a little bit.3:01
  33. But as we've done this, as I've made these discoveries, I noticed a framework of really three simple things that all these different passionate world changers have in common, whether3:05
  34. you're like a Steve Jobs or if you're just, the person has the bakery down the street, but you're doing work that embodies who you are.3:13
  35. I want to share those three with you so we can use them as a lens for the rest of today and hopefully the rest of our life.3:20
  36. The first part of this three -step passionate work framework is becoming a self -expert and understanding yourself.3:25
  37. Because if you don't know what you're looking for, you're never going to find it.3:32
  38. And the thing is that no one's going to do this for us.3:36
  39. There's no major in university on passion and purpose and career.3:38
  40. I don't know how that's not a required double major, but don't even get me started on that.3:42
  41. I mean, you spend more time picking out a dorm room TV set than you do picking your major in your area of study.3:46
  42. But the point is it's on us to figure that out.3:52
  43. And we need a framework.3:55
  44. We need a way to navigate through this.3:56
  45. And so the first step of our compass is finding what our unique strengths are.3:58
  46. What are the things that we wake up loving to do no matter what, whether paid or not paid, the things that people thank us for?4:02
  47. And Strengths Finder 2 .0 is a book and also an online tool highly recommended for sorting out what it is that you're naturally good at.4:08
  48. And then next, what's our framework or our hierarchy from making decisions?4:15
  49. You know, is it the people that are, do we care about, you know, the people, our family, health, or achievement, success, all this different stuff?4:20
  50. We have to figure out what it is to make these decisions so we know what our soul is made of so that we don't go selling it to some4:26
  51. cause.4:32
  52. We don't give a shit about.4:33
  53. And then the next step is our experiences.4:35
  54. We have, all of us have these experiences.4:38
  55. We learn things every day, every minute about what we love, what we hate, what we're good at, what we're terrible at.4:40
  56. And if we don't spend time paying attention to that and assimilating that, that learning and applying it to the rest of our life, it's all for nothing.4:46
  57. It's like every week, actually every day, every week, every month, every year, I spend some time just reflecting on what went right, what went wrong, and what do I4:53
  58. want to repeat, what can I apply more to my life?5:00
  59. And even more so than that, as you see people, especially today, who inspire you, who are doing things where you say, oh God, what Jeff is doing, I want5:02
  60. to be like him.5:09
  61. Why are you saying that?5:11
  62. Open up a journal, write down what it is about them that inspires you.5:11
  63. It's not going to be everything about their life, but whatever it is, take note of that.5:14
  64. Because over time, we have this repository of things that we can use to apply to our life and have a more passionate existence and make a better impact.5:18
  65. Because when we start to do, put these things together, we can then define what it is success actually means to us.5:26
  66. And without these different parts of the compass, it's impossible.5:32
  67. We end up in this situation, we have that scripted life that everyone seems to be living, going up this ladder to nowhere.5:35
  68. It's kind of like in Wall Street too, if anyone saw that, the peon employee asked the big Wall Street banker CEO, hey man, what's your number?5:41
  69. Everyone's got a number, well if they make this amount of money, they'll leave it all.5:49
  70. He says, oh, simple, more.5:52
  71. He just smiles.5:56
  72. And it's the sad state of most of the people that haven't spent time understanding what actually matters to them.5:57
  73. We keep reaching for something that doesn't mean anything to us, but we're doing it because everyone said we're supposed to.6:01
  74. But once we have this framework together, we can start to identify the things that make us come alive.6:06
  75. Before this, a passion could come and hit you in the face, or maybe in your possible life work, and you might throw it to the side because you don't6:11
  76. have a way of identifying it.6:17
  77. But once you do, you can see something that's congruent with my strengths, my values, who I am as a person.6:19
  78. So I'm going to grab a hold of this, I'm going to do something with it, and I'm going to pursue it and try and make an impact with it.6:25
  79. And Liv Your Legend and the movement we built wouldn't exist if I didn't have this compass to identify, wow, this is something I want to pursue and make a6:31
  80. difference with.6:38
  81. So if we don't know what we're looking for, we're never going to find it.6:39
  82. But once we have this framework, this compass, then we can move on to what's next.6:42
  83. And that's not me up there.6:47
  84. But doing the impossible and pushing our limits.6:49
  85. Because there's two reasons why people don't do things.6:51
  86. One is because they tell themselves they can't do them, or the other is people around them tell them they can't do them.6:54
  87. Either way, we start to believe it, and either we give up or we never start in the first place.6:58
  88. The thing is, everything was impossible until somebody did it.7:02
  89. Every invention, every new thing in the world, people thought were crazy at first.7:05
  90. Roger Bannister in the four minute mile, it was a physical impossibility to break the four minute mile in a foot race.7:09
  91. And so Roger Bannister stood up and did it.7:15
  92. And then what happened?7:17
  93. Two months later, like 16 people broke the four minute mile.7:17
  94. The things that we have in our head that we think are impossible, often just milestones waiting to be accomplished.7:21
  95. And we can push those limits a bit.7:26
  96. And I think this starts with probably your physical body and physical fitness more than anything.7:27
  97. Because we can control that.7:31
  98. You know, if you show yourself, you don't think you can run a mile.7:33
  99. You show yourself you can run a mile or two, or even like a marathon or lose five pounds, whatever it is, you realize that can be transferred, that confidence,7:34
  100. compounds can be transferred into the rest of your world.7:42
  101. And I've actually gotten into the habit of this a little bit with my friends.7:45
  102. We had this little group, we kind of go on a physical adventures.7:48
  103. And recently I found myself in a kind of precarious spot.7:51
  104. I'm terrified of deep dark blue water.7:55
  105. I don't know if anyone's ever had that same fear ever since they watched Jaws one, two, three and four, like six times when I was a kid.7:57
  106. But anything above here, if it's murky, I can already feel it like right now.8:03
  107. I swear there's something in there.8:08
  108. Even it's Lake Tahoe, it's fresh water, totally unfounded fear, ridiculous, but it's there.8:10
  109. Anyway, three years ago, I find myself on this tugboat right down here in the San Francisco Bay.8:14
  110. It's a rainy, stormy, windy day.8:18
  111. And people are getting sick on the boat and I'm sitting there wearing a wetsuit.8:20
  112. And I'm looking out the window and pure terror and thinking I'm about to swim to my death.8:24
  113. I'm going to try and swim across the Golden Gate.8:29
  114. And my guess is some people in this room might have done that before.8:32
  115. And I'm sitting there and my buddy Jonathan would talk me into it.8:35
  116. He comes up to me and he could see the state I was in.8:38
  117. He comes up and says, Scott, hey man, he's like, what's the worst that can happen?8:40
  118. He's like, you're wearing a wetsuit, you're not going to sink.8:43
  119. He's like, and if you can't make it, just hop in one of the 20 kayaks.8:45
  120. Plus if there's a shark attack, why are they going to pick you over the 80 people that are in the water?8:48
  121. So thanks, that helps.8:52
  122. He's like, no, but really, just have fun with this.8:53
  123. He's like, good luck.8:55
  124. And he dives in, swims off.8:55
  125. Okay, it turns out the pep talk totally worked.8:58
  126. I just felt this total feeling of calm.9:00
  127. And I think it was because Jonathan was 13 years old.9:03
  128. And of the 80 people swimming that day, 65 of them between the ages of 9 and 13.9:08
  129. Think for a second how you would have approached your world differently.9:14
  130. But 9 years old, you found out you could swim a mile and a half in 56 degree water from Aguachalza, San Francisco.9:16
  131. What would you have said yes to?9:23
  132. What would you have not given up on?9:24
  133. What would you have tried?9:25
  134. You know, as I'm finishing this swim, I get to a aquatic park and I'm getting out of the water and of course half the kids already finished.9:27
  135. So they're cheering me on and they're all excited.9:32
  136. And I got a total popsicle head of anyone's ever swam in the bay.9:35
  137. And I'm trying to just thaw my face out.9:38
  138. I'm watching people finish.9:40
  139. And I see this one kid, something didn't look right.9:42
  140. He's just flailing like this.9:45
  141. And he's barely able to sip some air before he slammed his head back down.9:46
  142. And I noticed other parents were watching too.9:50
  143. And I swear they were thinking the same thing I was.9:52
  144. This is why you don't let 9 year old swim from Alcatraz.9:54
  145. And I mean, this was not fatigue.9:58
  146. And all of a sudden two parents run up, they grab him, and they put him on their shoulders and they're dragging him.10:00
  147. He's just dragging like this.10:04
  148. And I mean, totally limp.10:06
  149. And then all of a sudden they walk a few more feet and they plop him down in his wheelchair.10:08
  150. And he puts his fists up in the most insane show of victory I've ever seen.10:12
  151. I can still feel the warmth and the energy on this guy when he made this accomplishment.10:16
  152. I think I had seen him earlier that day in his wheelchair.10:20
  153. I had no idea he was going to swim.10:23
  154. I mean, where is he going to be in 20 years?10:25
  155. How many people told him he couldn't do that, that he would die if he tried that?10:28
  156. You prove people wrong, you prove yourself wrong, that you can make these little incremental pushes of what you believe is possible for yourself.10:31
  157. You don't have to be the fastest marathon in the world, just your own impossibilities to accomplish those.10:37
  158. And it starts with little bitty steps.10:41
  159. And the best way to do this is to surround yourself with passionate people.10:44
  160. The fastest way to do things you don't think can be done is to surround yourself with people already doing them.10:49
  161. There's this quote by Jim Rohn.10:53
  162. And it says, you are the average of the five people you spend most time with.10:56
  163. And there is no bigger life hack in the history of the world from getting where you are today to where you want to be.11:00
  164. Then the people you choose to put in your corner, they change everything.11:06
  165. And it's a proven fact.11:10
  166. In 1898, Norman Triplett did this study with a bunch of cyclists.11:12
  167. And you would measure their times around a track in a group and also individually.11:16
  168. And he found that every time the cyclist in a group would cycle faster.11:20
  169. And it's been repeated on all kinds of walks of life since then.11:23
  170. And it proves the same thing over and over again, that the people around you matter.11:26
  171. And the environment is everything.11:29
  172. But it's on you to control it because it can go both ways.11:31
  173. With these 80 % of people who don't like the work they do, that means most people around us, not in this room, but around everywhere else, are encouraging complacency11:33
  174. and keeping us from pursuing the things that matter to us.11:40
  175. So we have to manage those surroundings.11:43
  176. I found myself in this situation, a personal example maybe a year ago, a couple years ago, has anyone ever had a hobby or a passion they pour their heart11:45
  177. and soul into?11:55
  178. Unbelievable amount of time.11:56
  179. And they so badly want to call it a business.11:58
  180. But no one's paying attention and it doesn't make a dime.12:00
  181. Okay, I was there for four years trying to build this Live Your Legend movement to help people do work that they generally cared about and inspired them.12:04
  182. I was doing all I could and there were only really three people paying attention.12:11
  183. And they're all right there.12:15
  184. My mother, father, and my wife, Chelsea.12:16
  185. Thank you guys for the support.12:18
  186. But I, and this is how badly I wanted to, it grew by 0 % for four years.12:19
  187. And I was about to shut it down.12:26
  188. And right about then, I met, I moved to San Francisco and started to meet some pretty interesting people that had these crazy lifestyles of adventure of businesses and websites12:28
  189. and blogs that surrounded their passions and helped people in a meaningful way.12:37
  190. One of my friends, now he has a family of eight and he supports his whole family with a blog that he writes for twice a week.12:41
  191. They just come back from a month in Europe, all of them together.12:49
  192. This has blew my mind.12:51
  193. It's like, how does this even exist?12:52
  194. And I got unbelievably inspired by seeing this.12:54
  195. And instead of shutting it down, I decided, let's take it seriously.12:57
  196. I did everything I could to spend my time around, like every waking hour possible, trying to hang out with, hanging out and having beers and workouts, whatever it was.13:00
  197. And after four years of zero growth, within six months of hanging around these people, the community at Libby and Legend grew by ten times.13:08
  198. In another 12 months, it grew by 160 times.13:15
  199. And today, over 30 ,000 people from 158 countries use our career and connection tools on a monthly basis.13:19
  200. And those people have made up that community of passionate folks who inspire that possibility that I dreamed of for Libby and Legend so many years back.13:24
  201. The people change everything.13:34
  202. And this is why, you ask what was going on?13:36
  203. Well, for four years, I knew nobody in this space.13:39
  204. And I didn't even know it existed, that people could do this stuff and you could have movements like this.13:42
  205. And then all of a sudden, I'm over here in San Francisco and everyone around me is doing it.13:46
  206. It became normal.13:50
  207. So my thinking went from how could I possibly do this to how could I possibly not?13:51
  208. And right then, when that happens, that switch goes on in your head.13:57
  209. It ripples across your whole world.14:00
  210. And without even trying, your standards go from here to here.14:02
  211. You don't need to change your goals or anything.14:05
  212. You just need to change your surroundings.14:06
  213. That's it.14:08
  214. And that's why I love being around this whole group of people.14:09
  215. Why I go to every TED event I can and watch them on my iPad on the way to work, whatever it is, because this is the group of people14:13
  216. that inspires possibility.14:18
  217. We have a whole day to spend together and plenty more.14:20
  218. Some things up in terms of these three pillars.14:24
  219. They all have one thing in common, more than anything else.14:28
  220. They're 100 % in our control.14:31
  221. No one can tell you you can't learn about yourself.14:34
  222. No one can tell you you can't push your limits and learn your own impossible and push that.14:37
  223. No one can tell you you can't surround yourself with inspiring people or get away from the people who bring you down.14:41
  224. You can't control a recession.14:46
  225. You can't control getting fired or getting a car accident.14:48
  226. Most things are totally out of our hands.14:51
  227. These three things are totally on us.14:53
  228. And they can change our whole world if we decide to do something about it.14:57
  229. The thing is it's starting to happen on a widespread level.15:02
  230. I just read in Forbes, the US government reported for the first time in a month where more people had quit their jobs than had been laid off.15:05
  231. And they thought this was an anomaly, but then it's happened three months straight.15:13
  232. In a time where people claim it's kind of a tough environment, people are pretty much giving a middle finger to this scripted life.15:16
  233. The things that people say you're supposed to do in exchange for things that matter to them and do the things that inspire them.15:21
  234. And the thing is, people are waking up to this possibility that really the only thing that limits the possibility now is imagination.15:27
  235. That's not a cliche anymore.15:36
  236. Like, I don't care what it is that you're into, what passion, what hobby.15:37
  237. If you're into knitting, you can find someone who is killing it knitting.15:41
  238. And you can learn from them.15:44
  239. It's wild.15:46
  240. And that's what this whole day is about, to learn from the folks speaking and what we profile these people and live your legend every day.15:47
  241. Because it shows people, when ordinary people are doing the extraordinary, when you can be around that, it becomes normal.15:54
  242. And this isn't about being, you know, Gandhi or Steve Jobs doing something crazy.16:00
  243. It's just about doing something that matters to you and makes an impact that only you can make.16:04
  244. As we speak of Gandhi, he was a recovering lawyer.16:10
  245. As I've heard the term.16:14
  246. And he was called to a greater cause.16:16
  247. Something that mattered to him, he could not do.16:17
  248. And he has this quote that I absolutely live by.16:20
  249. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.16:22
  250. Everything was impossible until somebody did it.16:28
  251. You can either hang around the people who tell you it can't be done until you're stupid for trying, or surround yourself with the people who inspire possibility.16:31
  252. The people who were in this room.16:39
  253. Because I see it as our responsibility to show the world that what's seen as impossible can become that new normal.16:42
  254. And that's already starting to happen.16:50
  255. First to do the things that inspire us, so we can inspire other people to do the things that inspire them.16:52
  256. But we can't find that unless we know what we're looking for.16:58
  257. We have to do our work on ourself, be intentional about that, and make those discoveries.17:03
  258. Because I imagine a world where 80 % of people love the work they do.17:08
  259. What would that look like?17:11
  260. What would the innovation be like?17:13
  261. How would you treat the people around you?17:14
  262. Things would start to change.17:16
  263. And as we finish up, I have just one question to ask you guys, and I think it's the only question that matters.17:19
  264. It's what is the work you can't not do?17:25
  265. Discover that, live it, not just for you, but for everybody around you.17:29
  266. Because that is what starts to change the world.17:35
  267. What is the work you can't not do?17:38
  268. Thank you guys.17:41

English Speaking Practice with a Fast American TED Talk (B1)

This clip is a lecture, a TED talk by Scott Dinsmore, delivered in an American accent at 255 words per minute, faster than 96% of the catalogue. That speed is exactly why it earns a place in your english speaking practice: at this pace you cannot mumble through a line, you have to commit to every syllable while the sentence is still moving. The level is marked B1, so the words themselves are ordinary, career, resume, advice, but the speed is what makes it a stretch.

The opening minutes are closer to storytelling than a formal talk. Dinsmore describes getting bad career advice eight years earlier, joining a Fortune 500 company after living in Spain, and a daily urge to escape the job at exactly 10 a.m. That conversational register, plus the pace, makes it good english listening practice before you try to reproduce it out loud.

The Language in This Clip: A Hook, a Run On Sentence, a Punchline

Three lines in the opening carry the shape of the whole story, and each rewards a different kind of attention when you shadow this line for pronunciation practice.

  • "So eight years ago, I got the worst career advice of my life." This is the hook. The stress lands on "worst" and "life", the two words the sentence is built around, and at this pace you have to hit both without slowing down.
  • "every morning, I had this strange urge to want to slam my head through the monitor of my computer." A long, unbroken run of clauses with no pause built in. Practising it trains breath control as much as pronunciation.
  • "And he said, taking jobs to build up your resume is the same as saving up sex for old age." A quoted line inside the story, delivered with a small pause before "old age" so the comparison lands as a punchline rather than a flat statement.

How to Shadow This TED Talk Line by Line

Work through the opening in the order it was spoken rather than jumping around. Each step below points at a specific line from this recording.

  • Start with lines 1 and 2, "Wow, what an honor." and "I've always wondered what this would feel like." Short, low pressure, a good warm up for your mouth before the pace picks up.
  • Shadow line 3, "So eight years ago, I got the worst career advice of my life.", five times in a row before moving on. It sets the rhythm for the rest of the talk, so getting comfortable with it early pays off later.
  • Take line 10, the run on sentence about the monitor, and read it twice: once slowly to make sure every word is clear, once at full speed to match Dinsmore's pace.
  • Finish on line 16, the Warren Buffett quote. Practise the pause before "old age" until the timing sits where his does. Getting a single punchline right is a concrete way to improve your english accent, more useful than repeating easy lines you already say well.
  • This clip suits shadowing english speaking practice at B1 because the sentences are short enough to hold in memory but fast enough to force real time production, not recitation.
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