了解今日课堂：

【听力文段】mp3

(1-1)

How's everybody doing today? So for those of you who may not know who I am, which is probably the vast majority of you all. My name is Cordae. I'm 24 years old. I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but was raised majority in Suitland, Maryland, which made me who I am today. I'm a hip-hop artist. More specifically, a Grammy-nominated hip-hop artist. A quote unquote critically acclaimed, world-renowned B-list celebrity. But to be honest, more like B minus. But again, you all can just call me Cordae and assume that I'm almost kind of a big deal. Because I am here doing a TED Talk.

Now I know what you're thinking. What does a 24-year-old rapper possibly have to say during a TED Talk? Like, who cares what Ja Rule thinks, you know? But I'm here to talk about my mantra and my way of life that has gotten me this far and can hopefully take me a lot further on my journey, as I'm just getting started. And that's the Hi Level mindset.

The Hi Level mindset is a philosophy. It's a wavelength to apply to your everyday thoughts and regimen. The Hi Level mindset will be of great service to you, especially when things aren't going as planned. These trying times that I speak of, or life testers, if you may, are what truly make us man and woman. Actually scratch that. How we handle these lifetimes, these trying times, or life testers, is what decides a person's destiny.

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Which brings me to step one of the Hi Level mindset. And that's always remain positive, no matter what people or life may throw at you. Now I'm going to give you a little bit of background about myself. Funny enough, I was actually voted most likely to be famous in both middle school and high school. Now I know what you're thinking. I'm sorry. I haven't always been this good looking. It takes a little bit of time.

My goal was to graduate high school and to immediately blow up. But that didn't happen. So I went to college. And as soon as I went to college, boy, did life hit me hard. Within the first couple of weeks of school, one of my best friends that I called my brother had gotten sentenced to 24 years in prison. I had gotten detained for driving with a suspended license, amongst other things, like having a pound of weed in the car before it was legal. And my grandmother had passed. Not to mention I was already a terrible student with horrific grades and a broke teenager. And I wonder why my grades were so bad. Now that's just disrespectful. I wasn't even trying to hide it. But on top of all of these things, what was really the breaking point for me was that I had released a mixtape that I worked on the entire summer and it had only gotten 200 downloads. Now my previous two mixtapes got 2,000 downloads. So I was not happy with the regression, to say the least. Again, this almost pushed me to the brink of quitting and insanity. But the Hi Level mindset made me think: Man. These misfortunes are just going to make my triumph story a lot cooler.

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I used this as fuel to the fire, motivation, if you will. It made me think, you know, life is just a book. Not every chapter is going to be perfect. But it's about how it ends.

Which brings me to the second step of the Hi Level mindset. Always be intentional with your desires. Know exactly what you want. In 2018, I created a vision board, at the beginning of 2018, excuse me, I created a vision board. And I'm proud to say that with the Hi Level mindset, within one year I almost accomplished everything on here. Ya'll can clap for that.

So I encourage you to just write down your goals. Starting off your day with reading your goals and dreams aloud gives you a boost of positive energy. This energy can be transmuted into something we call faith. Faith in your ability, faith in yourself, faith in a higher power will take you to places you can't even imagine. Know exactly what you want. How can you be Hi Level if you don't know what Hi Level is to you?

【单词短语】

Grammy-nominated

quote unquote

B-list celebrity

mantra

mindset

wavelength

regimen

scratch

blow up

sentenced

mixtape

regression

boost

transmuted

【地道美语，长句精练】

1. I'm almost kind of a big deal.

2. I haven't always been this good looking.

3. These misfortunes are just going to make my triumph story a lot cooler.

【课堂纠音，上节连读】

1. They were often horrified at the prospect of taking home a copy.

2. These beliefs can even alter our perception of the physical world.

3. Sometimes our attachment to our things can go too far.