Shadowing Terri Trespicio

Summary

Terri Trespicio challenges the pressure to discover one defining passion before choosing a career or taking action. After losing her magazine and radio roles, she faced the uncertainty of rebuilding a working life without a clear calling. Looking back on administrative work, copywriting, editing, and jewelry sales, she argues that engagement often grows from doing useful work and becoming better at it. Waiting for certainty can close off the experiences through which interests and opportunities actually develop.

Key points, in order

1. Trespicio calls passion a changing feeling rather than a reliable life plan. Treating it as a single permanent destination makes ordinary uncertainty feel like personal failure.
2. As a young adult, she rejected jobs because she feared choosing the wrong future. Taking an assistant role gave her structure, income, and a way forward before she knew her long-term direction.
3. Selling jewelry began as a practical way to supplement her income. Improving at sales and meeting customers' needs sparked enthusiasm and revealed an entrepreneurial interest she had not anticipated.
4. She redefines passion as the attention and energy brought to present work. Her invitation is to solve worthwhile problems, contribute generously, and remain open to careers and relationships that can surprise us.

Five useful phrases to practise

Choose a caption line to open Repeat mode. Listen, then say it after the speaker.

1. 2:51 But one of them is that passion is not a plan, it’s a feeling.
2. 3:58 You don’t create your life first, and then live it.
3. 5:20 Adam says that in his life success fueled passion more than passion fueled success.
4. 8:44 It is the full force of your attention and energy that you give to whatever is right in front of you.
5. 9:50 Instead, spend your time and attention solving your favourite problems.

Based on the video’s captions. Original video: Stop searching for your passion | Terri Trespicio | TEDxKC · TEDx Talks.

Everyday phrases from this video

• that's okay

• Level: B2
• Accent: American
• Length: 11 min · 154 lines to practise
• Speed: about 191 words a minute (faster than most talks)
• Words: about 1,970; the talk asks 13 questions
• Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line

What to focus on in this talk

Fast and funny — practise at 0.75× first. The aside “Don’t you love it when that happens?” is quick and ironic; copy the tone as well as the words. “I got laid off” links into “got-laid-off”, with the stress on “off”.

What this talk trains

Terri Trespicio speaks for about 11 minutes: roughly 1,970 words in 154 caption lines. The pace eases off as the talk goes on, from about 200 words a minute in the first quarter to 172 in the last. Overall it is faster than 62 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 12.4 words, no longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 11.2% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 13 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy. Phrases that fast speech often shortens come up again and again: “going to” (9 times) and “want to” (5 times).

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

1. 2:05 After this, “Wow, the world's at your feet! What are you going to do now?”

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

2. 3:18 Anyway, I was such a mess when I was in my twenties, such a mess.

   Linking: say “when I”, “was in” without a break between the words. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.

3. 6:09 Now, I had no background in sales, unless you count Girl Scouts, and I was terrible.

   Linking: say “background in”, “and I” without a break between the words. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.

4. 9:16 And sometimes you don’t know what you're going to do next, right?

   “going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Terri Trespicio uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

• passion ×22
• passionate ×7
• supposed ×3
• honestly ×2
• pursue ×2
• singular ×2
• intimidating ×2
• compelling ×2

How the pace changes through the talk

The fastest minute starts at 6:58 (about 228 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 9:48 (about 134): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

1. 0:21 The day I got laid off from my job at Martha Stewart, I was relieved.
2. 0:27 I loved the job, I really did.
3. 0:29 But the relationship was over and I didn't know how to end it and then it broke up with me.
4. 0:33 Don’t you love it when that happens?
5. 0:35 At the time I’ve been also hosting a radio show for the Martha Stewart brand on Sirius XM.
6. 0:40 And then not long after that got cancelled, too.

How to practise this talk

1. Warm up on the slowest minute (from 9:48) or on the opening lines above.
2. Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: a shortened phrase, a question, linked words, a line said in chunks.
3. On each line, press Record and say it after Terri Trespicio (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
4. Save the fastest minute (from 6:58, about 228 words a minute) for last.
5. At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 11 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

More talks to practise

• Derek Sivers — Why You Need to Fail (B2 · 189 words a minute · same level)
• Adam Grant — Are You a Giver or a Taker? (B2 · 186 words a minute · same level)
• Dan Gilbert — Why We Make Bad Decisions (C1 · 195 words a minute · same accent)
• Derek Sivers — Keep Your Goals to Yourself (B1–B2 · 185 words a minute · same accent)

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