How to Build a Business that Lets you Quit your Job - Dickie Bush

1. 0:00 – 2:22

   The beginning

   1. AAAli Abdaal0:00

      At late 2018, you have that realization that like, "Oh, shit, this needs to be my-- That I need to sort my life out." You speak to Kehi. He says, "Write a, write a newsletter every week for 52 weeks."

   2. DBDickie Bush0:10

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AAAli Abdaal0:10

      So from Jan 2020, you're like weekly newsletter, nothing's happening, nothing's happening. You do this for nine months up until September, and you're like, "Literally nothing is happening."

   4. DBDickie Bush0:18

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AAAli Abdaal0:18

      I've got 100 subscribers on my weekly newsletter. I'm slaving away, away writing this thing. Man, Kehi's advice is not working. What the hell's going on here? While you're working full-time.

   6. DBDickie Bush0:26

      Mm-hmm.

   7. AAAli Abdaal0:27

      In September, you decide, "Screw it, I'm gonna do it on Twitter just to accelerate my feedback loop."

   8. DBDickie Bush0:31

      Mm-hmm.

   9. AAAli Abdaal0:32

      You do 27 days on Twitter, nothing really happens. You have small amounts of traction, but nothing major. Day 28, you're like, "Fuck it, I'm just gonna get to my 30 days." And your 28th day, something good happens. Your tweet thread about biology goes viral, and now there's all this traction, 500 subscribers, five X to your newsletter subscribers overnight. You've got more Twitter followers.

   10. DBDickie Bush0:51

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AAAli Abdaal0:52

       And you decide, "Shit, I need to capture this attention." So you m-make a $19 Notion template that summarizes podcasts, make $600 off that, which breaks your brain, and then a couple of days later, you make 5K for doing a copywriting client person, ghostwriting for that person, and that breaks your brain again 'cause you're like, "Shit, I've gone from making nothing for nine months to within the course of like two weeks, making $5,600 from literally just writing on the internet."

   12. DBDickie Bush1:15

       Mm-hmm.

   13. AAAli Abdaal1:15

       "What the actual fuck is going on?" Um, and then quickly after that, P- you start thinking, "Okay, what about a 30-day accountability thing?" You put it out on Twitter. 50 people sign up and pay you $49-

   14. DBDickie Bush1:25

       Mm-hmm

   15. AAAli Abdaal1:25

       ... to do this accountability thing, and then every day you're, you're like on Zoom calls and shit, like Slack groups and keeping people accountable, helping them do the thing. And at the end of that, you decide, "You know what? I'm gonna have 50 one-on-one Zoom calls with everyone in this group, understand the product here," and then that eventually, within a few months, becomes Ship 30 for 30, where you then start making 40K a month in addition to your day job, and that takes us to like 500K a year-ish. [chuckles]

   16. DBDickie Bush1:48

       Mm-hmm.

   17. AAAli Abdaal1:49

       Um, so we're halfway there to our kind of million dollars-

   18. DBDickie Bush1:51

       Yes

   19. AAAli Abdaal1:51

       ... million dollars goal. But zero to 500K is also just like a fucking huge journey.

   20. DBDickie Bush1:55

       Mm.

   21. AAAli Abdaal1:55

       And I imagine a lot of people listening to this are like, "Bloody hell."

   22. DBDickie Bush1:58

       Right.

   23. AAAli Abdaal1:58

       "If I get a five, you know, I'd be happy with 500K a year." [chuckles] Like that's also pretty good. I have lots of questions.

   24. DBDickie Bush2:03

       Yes.

   25. AAAli Abdaal2:03

       Um, so you've said a bunch of things throughout this whole, whole journey that I've been taking some notes on. I'd love to just riff on some of these with you.

   26. DBDickie Bush2:09

       Absolutely.

   27. AAAli Abdaal2:10

       So you said early on, um, if you wanna quit your job, don't quit your job. I wonder if you can expand on that a little bit.

   28. DBDickie Bush2:16

       Yes. So there are three types of ways to be compensated in

2. 2:22 – 3:20

   Types of Compensation

   1. DBDickie Bush2:22

      the world. You have jobs, careers, and businesses. So a job, you trade dollars for hours. So you show up, you're a Starbucks barista, you get paid $12, and you get... you give them some of your time. A career is similar, but you're trading performance for dollars. So you are in some way generating revenue for the business, whether that's through sales or whether that's through highly productive work that sh- legitimately, if they fired you, that business would make less money and you're harder to replace. And then you have a, a business, which is you're trading other people's time and performance for your own money. So in the beginning, you should only ever work a job where you're trading time for money if you are getting paid to learn. So you need to be learning skills during that time. A career you should stick with and try to get to as quickly as possible. So first step, don't quit your job,

3. 3:20 – 6:35

   The Importance of Not Quitting Your Job Too Soon

   1. DBDickie Bush3:20

      but try to get into a career versus a job. So if you're listening to this and it's, "Hey, I'm only trading dollars for hours," find a way to get into a career that has somewhere down the l-line where you're either gonna have some kind of ownership or aligned incentives. Now, why I say don't quit your job is because then, I said this at the beginning, you operate purely from scarcity rather than abundance. So if I had quit my job and I made that $400 selling podcasts, I would've said, "Oh man, I need to go make way more on this, so I gotta double down on it." But that was the wrong vehicle. That would not have gotten me to where I wanna go. So you end up-- I had to say no to that, and I had to say no to more ghostwriting clients that would've taken me to probably 5K a month with if I really doubled down on selling podcast summaries. If I really doubled down on ghostwriting, I probably could've gotten to 10 or 15 or 20. But I had to say no to both of those. Why? Because they weren't going to be enough to replace the full-time job income that I had, which was my whole goal at the end of the day. So I say don't quit your job. Instead, set a goal to make two times as much income from your side hustle than your full-time job-

   2. AAAli Abdaal4:30

      Ooh. Why two?

   3. DBDickie Bush4:31

      ... before you quit.

   4. AAAli Abdaal4:32

      That seems like a tall order.

   5. DBDickie Bush4:34

      Because it's going to force you to think a little bit bigger because you're not going to able... You're not gonna ever quit your job. If this is truly your goal, like you want full entrepreneurial ownership over your trajectory, that's not for everyone, and I don't-- I'm not someone who's like, "Everyone's an entrepreneur." Not everyone's an entrepreneur. Not everyone wants to have the risk and volatility that comes with it. Some people want to execute a roadmap and be a part of a team at, that has shared upside but less downside. Like you don't lose e- you don't lose the whole business. You could go get another job or another career just switching industry. So why two times? Two times is enough that due to the natural volatility of side hustles and internet income and things like that, there's going to be ups and downs. If you can prove to yourself that you can get to two times, which I think for most people, you set the goal of like 10 to 15K a month. I think for most people, it's like two times. For me, that was around, I wanted to get to like 15K a month, 15 or 20. And that forces you to say, "I'm not gonna quit until I get there," which is gonna force me to think different, and I'm going to leave from a place of security rather than scarcity.

   6. AAAli Abdaal5:43

      Mm.

   7. DBDickie Bush5:44

      So I, [chuckles] I left BlackRock, and my monthly income, this was... I didn't leave until May of 2022.

   8. AAAli Abdaal5:52

      Mm.

   9. DBDickie Bush5:52

      So the story we just told, where I was at 40K a month in January '21, I worked full-time remotely for another 15 months because I was still terrified. I was like, "This is all gonna go away. No way this, this thing is real." I had to really prove to myself, so I was like two or three times as much, where it was now more of, of a personal financial risk for me to stay rather than to leave. And I'm grateful for that because I patiently waited. I really built something sustainable rather than, "Hey, I just need to get to two times, and then I'm gonna squeeze all the juice out of this, and then I'm gonna quit my job," and then, then what? No. So it force you, forces you to think long term. And so I say two times as much sustainably for three to six months before you quit,

4. 6:35 – 10:20

   The Need for Intense Effort and Focus

   1. DBDickie Bush6:36

      which I think goes against most people's advice of like, "You gotta burn the ships and you gotta go all in on your passion." It's like, no, lean on that security a little bit of the job you have. Make sure you're still learning something, and then use the extra time because, to be honest, you have a lot more time than you think if you brought the level of intensity that I think is required to build something on the side.

   2. AAAli Abdaal6:53

      Mm.

   3. DBDickie Bush6:53

      And you're gonna force yourself to be more efficient because you only have that many hours. Whereas if you were to quit, and I found this out the hard way when I did eventually quit, I thought, "Oh, I have all this time now. I'm gonna go make way more." It's like, no, you just find work that you probably shouldn't have been doing in the first place.

   4. AAAli Abdaal7:06

      Yeah.

   5. DBDickie Bush7:07

      So instead, take that Parkinson's law of I only have four hours a day, two hours before work, two hours after, and I have to get this thing to two times income. What does that look like? You immediately think differently than if you had all day.

   6. AAAli Abdaal7:20

      Yeah.

   7. DBDickie Bush7:20

      Which is a good forcing function to build an efficient, highly leveraged compounding business rather than something that isn't going to get you eventually where you want to go.

   8. AAAli Abdaal7:30

      Mm. Okay. Uh, I know a lot of people who are doing the side hustle thing on the side, and they say, "Oh, I get home from work and I just have no energy. I just cannot bring myself to like grind on the s- on the side hustle. Oh, but if I quit my job, I would have all this spare time, and I've got savings, and I can dip into my savings if I need to." And people say you should invest in business, right? So like-

   9. DBDickie Bush7:49

      Mm

   10. AAAli Abdaal7:49

       ... you could quit, and it's like all this, all this kind of stuff. What would you say to the person who says, "Man, I'm so knackered working my day job that I get home and I have no energy and I just have to flop in front of the TV and watch Netflix because that's the only thing I ha- I have the mental energy to do at that point"?

   11. DBDickie Bush8:03

       Time and money are similar in that most people think having more of it will change your behavior, but it's just going to expose and amplify your bad behaviors. So if you are inefficient and unable to be energized enough to work two hours before and two hours after work, more than likely when you have the full day to work on that thing, you're still not gonna be able to do what you think you're going to.

   12. AAAli Abdaal8:26

       Ooh, it's tough love.

   13. DBDickie Bush8:27

       It's true.

   14. AAAli Abdaal8:28

       Yeah.

   15. DBDickie Bush8:28

       And I recognize this. It's, it is tough love because that is usually an excuse of once I have this time, then I'll be able to do it. Once my job slows down, then I'll be able to do it. But I live by this simple thing that no one is coming to save you. Every outcome in your life is 100% your responsibility. So if you can't muster up the energy to take control of those extra two hours, if you're given your entire day to do it, you're still not going to. So why not start with taking control of the four extra hours you have before you try to take control of your whole day? Because it's way harder, and you're gonna find that you're not quite as efficient as you thought you were.

   16. AAAli Abdaal9:07

       Yeah.

   17. DBDickie Bush9:08

       So.

   18. AAAli Abdaal9:09

       Yeah. I like, I like the 2X rule. Um, for me, I... So I quit the job two years into it, but it's 'cause there was a natural break point two years into it, where in the UK at least, for people who aren't aware, it's like you, you do the first two years and then, and then your paths open up.

   19. DBDickie Bush9:25

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AAAli Abdaal9:25

       'Cause you have to do the first two years to unlock all the other paths. And so loads of people take a break at that point to like travel to Australia, and that was my plan.

   21. DBDickie Bush9:31

       Mm.

   22. AAAli Abdaal9:31

       But it was 2020, and so Australia closed all their borders. Um, but people, people are asking like, "Well, you know, you, you're making all this money. Why didn't you quit the job sooner?" And it was because I, I w- I wanted the security.

   23. DBDickie Bush9:42

       Mm.

   24. AAAli Abdaal9:42

       I was like, "Yeah, this is still a side hustle, this YouTube thing."

   25. DBDickie Bush9:45

       Mm-hmm.

   26. AAAli Abdaal9:45

       And I was making like 40K a year in the day job, and it was, it was only at the point where I was making 40K a month that I considered quitting. [chuckles]

   27. DBDickie Bush9:53

       Mm-hmm.

   28. AAAli Abdaal9:54

       Where I was, I mean, I was gonna quit anyway and stuff, but like that, it was, it's so nice having a solid backup option.

   29. DBDickie Bush10:00

       Yes.

   30. AAAli Abdaal10:00

       And yeah, operating from a place of security where it's like all the money I'm making with my side hustle is pure upside-
5. 10:20 – 26:16

   Creating Content

   1. DBDickie Bush10:20

      you're not going to make 10 times as much more, and that's where people go wrong, is they think, "Oh, if I had 10 times more time, I'd make 10 times as much money."

   2. AAAli Abdaal10:28

      Mm.

   3. DBDickie Bush10:28

      Not true. You have to be thinking, "How can I get the most out of those four hours? How can I deploy those in a high leverage way?" Where because you have less time, you're not going to do all the superfluous stuff that you end up doing when you have all day.

   4. AAAli Abdaal10:41

      Yeah.

   5. DBDickie Bush10:41

      So it's, I got four hours. What is the highest single usage of that time to move the business forward?

   6. AAAli Abdaal10:47

      Yeah.

   7. DBDickie Bush10:47

      It forces you to only address the bottleneck of your business at any given time.

   8. AAAli Abdaal10:50

      Yeah.

   9. DBDickie Bush10:51

      Not I need to go build a logo, and I need to have this perfectly optimized blog post page. It's like, no, I have three hours today before I gotta go sell my soul again. What am I gonna go work on that's gonna help me eventually escape this?

   10. AAAli Abdaal11:03

       Yeah.

   11. DBDickie Bush11:04

       There's no time for waste. There's no time for any of that. So this goes back to an overarching problem that if you don't have the energy to spend three hours working on a side hustle because you're tired from your full-time job, is exactly why you should go spend six hours working on your side hustle.

   12. AAAli Abdaal11:19

       Mm-hmm.

   13. DBDickie Bush11:19

       Because if your full-time job is tiring you out that much, you have to get out of there.

   14. AAAli Abdaal11:24

       Yeah.

   15. DBDickie Bush11:25

       But you can't just quit because then you're completely on your own. So it's e- even more important, so you should instead look at it like a indicator of if I am this tired, it means I'm spending eight hours of my day getting my energy zapped by this full-time job vampire. I need to do everything I can, which is going to take an un- uncomfortable amount of effort and intensity. If I looked back on the amount of work I did during 2021, I don't know if I could go do it again. If you'd told me, "This is what it's going to look like to really scale this thing while still working full-time," I'd probably say, "Eh, sounds kind of horrible." Like, that sounds definitely uncomfortable and a grind, but I'm on a completely different life trajectory because of short, just stuffing as much effort and ... intensity into that year as I possibly could, that then changes your entire opportunity set.

   16. AAAli Abdaal12:22

       Yeah. Like, one, one plug I'll, I'll do for this little book, Feel- Feel Good Productivity. It's basically about how to solve this problem of, like, feel like ... If you feel like you don't have... If you feel like you are completely drained from the end of your workday, the principles in this book are basically if you can find a way to make it feel good, generate positive emotions, positive emotions generate energy, then you end up being more productive in your day job, but you also end up having way more energy to give to your side hustle or your friends, your family, whatever the thing might be. Lots of science, lots of stuff. Check out the book link down below. Um, I've, I've interviewed so many mil- you know, millionaires on this podcast, and I always like to ask the question of, like, you know, they all talk about work-life balance once they're already a multimillionaire.

   17. DBDickie Bush13:00

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AAAli Abdaal13:00

       Um, and I always like to ask, you know, they, like, literally 100% of them had that grind intensity phase-

   19. DBDickie Bush13:05

       Hmm

   20. AAAli Abdaal13:05

       ... as they were building the thing up, and I like to ask, "Do you think you could have done the thing without the grind and the intensity? Could you have had work-life balance, taken care of your health, maintained your social relationships, slept eight to nine hours a day, gone to the day job, performed well-

   21. DBDickie Bush13:19

       Hmm

   22. AAAli Abdaal13:19

       ... done your hobbies, done your self-care and your yoga and your meditation and your journaling and your ice baths, and also built this business at the same time?"

   23. DBDickie Bush13:26

       No. And if you think you can, I think you are wrong.

   24. AAAli Abdaal13:30

       [laughs]

   25. DBDickie Bush13:31

       Because the amount of effort and intensity it takes to take something from zero to enough to quit your full-time job is more than likely more than 10 times more than you currently think. And that is going to mean sacrificing things now for the ability to unlock them in the future. So, for example, I cut out a lot of... I didn't drink alcohol for two years during that time. I didn't party. I didn't do any really social events. Luckily, this was during 2021 where, you know, things were still kind of up in the air. But I sacrificed a lot during that time, but it's the single greatest sacrifice I've ever made. And so I like to think of work-life balance not through going through the middle, but purely operating at extremes. So I achieve balance from being at both ends of the barbell rather than this middle path, halfway on, halfway off, where I think all mediocrity comes from spending time in that gray scale of not fully working but not fully resting.

   26. AAAli Abdaal14:28

       Mm.

   27. DBDickie Bush14:28

       Not sprinting, but not, you know, fully recovering. It's I'm halfway in and I'm halfway out. Whereas instead it's I wanna bring full effort and intensity now, and then I'm gonna be fully relaxed when I want to. So, for example, it was during my 2021, it was 4:30 AM to 7:30 AM, I was building Ship 30. I'd work all day at BlackRock, and then 4:30 I'd stop working pretty early there. You know, just I was working on my computer in a different state, so for, for all intents and purposes, I was just logging off and then doing the side hustle. And then I did that pretty much every day for the entire year. If I hadn't have done that, I wouldn't have been able to shorten the eventual growth loop-

   28. AAAli Abdaal15:17

       Yeah

   29. DBDickie Bush15:17

       ... to hit that escape velocity, where things could change and you never know when opportunities are going to go away, so you have to bring all of that just effort into whatever opportunity you presently have because you don't know how that's going to change.

   30. AAAli Abdaal15:31

       Yeah. Yeah, like, one way of thinking about it that I like is that, you know, most normal people have a job. Like, it is unusual to be able to make enough money on the side to double your income, to be able to quit your job to do that. That is an, an audacious, outrageous out- outcome, and outrageous outcomes require outrageous inputs.
6. 26:16 – 35:49

   Continuing to Learn and Create

   1. AAAli Abdaal26:16

      Yeah

   2. DBDickie Bush26:16

      ... teaching it to people behind you. And that is the infinite, "I can continue to progress and play this forever while getting all the upside of learning, meeting people, building valuable things." And that's been my driving framework, where for two years, all I talked about was how to write on the internet. All I did. I wrote hundreds of threads, built hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers just talking about one thing. How do you write well? I studied all the people in front of me, distilled all those frameworks, and now I'm at a point where what's next for me? Well, I'm trying to get the business to this point. I'm gonna go learn from the people ahead of me. I'm gonna just distill that and then continue to kind of document this journey all the way to 100 million beyond.

   3. AAAli Abdaal26:55

      Yeah. Nice. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing with stuff. It's like starting off with studying, where it's documenting, looking back. Productivity was initially documenting looking forward because it was like I was having to learn the principles to apply to-

   4. DBDickie Bush27:06

      Yes

   5. AAAli Abdaal27:06

      ... do the stuff with my day job. But now I consider myself and people call me a productivity expert.

   6. DBDickie Bush27:12

      Yeah.

   7. AAAli Abdaal27:12

      And so I'm not really reading more productivity books, TBH.

   8. DBDickie Bush27:14

      Correct.

   9. AAAli Abdaal27:14

      But I'm reading books about business, health, fitness, and relationships.

   10. DBDickie Bush27:17

       Yes.

   11. AAAli Abdaal27:17

       And so that's the stuff that I'm documenting looking forward.

   12. DBDickie Bush27:19

       Mm-hmm.

   13. AAAli Abdaal27:19

       But I continue to make productivity study stuff looking back-

   14. DBDickie Bush27:22

       Yes

   15. AAAli Abdaal27:22

       ... some of the time and how to grow on YouTube stuff-

   16. DBDickie Bush27:24

       Mm-hmm

   17. AAAli Abdaal27:24

       ... looking back. And our products are about the stuff that's looking back that I have genuine expertise in.

   18. DBDickie Bush27:28

       Yes.

   19. AAAli Abdaal27:29

       And our future products and stuff is, I suspect will be the stuff looking forward-

   20. DBDickie Bush27:33

       Exactly

   21. AAAli Abdaal27:33

       ... where I'd love to make... I'd, I'd love to write a book on fitness, on relationships-

   22. DBDickie Bush27:36

       Mm-hmm

   23. AAAli Abdaal27:36

       ... based on the things I'm now learning about those things.

   24. DBDickie Bush27:38

       And so you're going to go learn them yourself, and then the eventual product that you sell will be the distillation of everything you've learned on that journey.

   25. AAAli Abdaal27:45

       Yeah.

   26. DBDickie Bush27:46

       And that's why you're gonna be able to scale forever-

   27. AAAli Abdaal27:48

       Yeah

   28. DBDickie Bush27:48

       ... because you're, you're eventually gonna have kids.

   29. AAAli Abdaal27:51

       Hmm.

   30. DBDickie Bush27:51

       And what are you gonna write about?
7. 35:49 – 36:45

   The Illusion of Busyness and Time Management

   1. AAAli Abdaal35:49

      I'm very rarely sit on, sitting around just twiddling my thumbs."

   2. DBDickie Bush35:51

      Yes.

   3. AAAli Abdaal35:52

      And everyone, every parent I've ever spoken to is like, "Oh my God, when you have a kid, you realize how much time young people have."

   4. DBDickie Bush35:56

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AAAli Abdaal35:57

      And youth is wasted on the young and all that kind of thing. [chuckles]

   6. DBDickie Bush35:59

      Exactly. And reminder to us-

   7. AAAli Abdaal36:01

      Yeah

   8. DBDickie Bush36:01

      ... we both don't have kids right now.

   9. AAAli Abdaal36:02

      Yeah.

   10. DBDickie Bush36:02

       And so the fact ... I think about that all the time of if, if I feel busy right now, I'm not.

   11. AAAli Abdaal36:09

       Yeah.

   12. DBDickie Bush36:09

       I'm not. Because five years in the future me, who hopefully has children and a wife and a great family and all that, it's like I still wanna be building things, so I'm gonna have to figure it out then. I look back, I know five year in the future me is laughing-

   13. AAAli Abdaal36:21

       Yep

   14. DBDickie Bush36:22

       ... at any time I feel stressed or busy. It's like, "Dude, you got no clue-

   15. AAAli Abdaal36:25

       Yeah

   16. DBDickie Bush36:25

       ... what you're getting into, so relax a little bit."

   17. AAAli Abdaal36:28

       Yeah. I kind of try ... It, it's like the experience everyone has. Like, you know, there's these high schoolers that complain about not having enough time, and you're like, "Oh, just you wait."

   18. DBDickie Bush36:35

       Right.

   19. AAAli Abdaal36:35

       There's college students, university kids that come complain about not having enough time, and you're like ... And I'm just like, "Bro, just wait until you start a real job." [chuckles]

   20. DBDickie Bush36:41

       Mm-hmm.

   21. AAAli Abdaal36:41

       And then you'll see that you had all that time. Similarly, the whole ... I think,

8. 36:45 – 39:38

   Exploring the Malleability of Time and Energy

   1. AAAli Abdaal36:45

      I think time is more malleable than we think it is, but I think energy is also more malleable than we think it is.

   2. DBDickie Bush36:49

      Mm-hmm.

   3. AAAli Abdaal36:49

      Like, if someone's listening to this right now and thinking, "Oh man, I really wanna quit my job and make a million dollars on the internet, but I don't have the energy," it's like that's actually just limiting belief.

   4. DBDickie Bush36:57

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AAAli Abdaal36:57

      Like, you're, if you're listening to this, you are probably not working to the point, like lifting physical things to the point that you physically are depleted of glycogen stores and you have no ATP left in you. That, that-

   6. DBDickie Bush37:07

      Yeah

   7. AAAli Abdaal37:07

      ... that's not what's going on.

   8. DBDickie Bush37:08

      Yeah.

   9. AAAli Abdaal37:09

      There is this other form of energy that is so psychological, where you have convinced yourself that when you get home from work, you don't have enough energy to do the thing, therefore all you can do is sit down and watch Netflix and TikTok.

   10. DBDickie Bush37:19

       Mm-hmm.

   11. AAAli Abdaal37:21

       You know, here's another strategy, and it's, uh, it's in the book, um, that, that I, I like to do. So I like to just think, "What are the things that genuinely re-energize me? And then what are the things that I actually do when I am drained?"

   12. DBDickie Bush37:34

       Hmm.

   13. AAAli Abdaal37:34

       And the things I actually do when I'm drained are TikTok, scrolling Instagram, browsing Twitter for no reason, just lying on the couch doing nothing. What are the things that actually energize me? Going for a walk, playing guitar, hanging out with friends, calling my grandma. Like, the, the, the things are very different. And so if you're doing stuff that is ... If you're doing stuff because you are drained, because you think you can't do anything else, ask yourself, "Is this activity that I'm doing really bringing more energy into my life?"

   14. DBDickie Bush37:59

       Hmm.

   15. AAAli Abdaal37:59

       And if it's not, find a thing that's giving you energy, like going for a walk, then you'll be energized. And now you can sit down and, like, write a Twitter thread or whatever the thing is that you wanna do.

   16. DBDickie Bush38:07

       I think the behaviors you just mentioned, what do I do when I'm drained? I doomscroll. I eat worse foods, whatever it is. Those are actually the activities that are keeping you drained.

   17. AAAli Abdaal38:19

       Yeah. That's-

   18. DBDickie Bush38:19

       And so it's a vicious cycle, right? You get home from work, and it's, "I'm exhausted, so I'm gonna crack open a beer and watch Netflix." And then I wake up the next morning where I could've gotten up two hours earlier and worked on my side hustle. I didn't. Now I'm guilty throughout the day. I'm sitting through my workday. Now I'm even more tired when I get home. And that, for a lot of people, is 20 years of a hamster wheel. Too energ- t- low energy when they get home, activities that would drain their energy the next morning, wake up the next morning low energy, zombie their way through the day, get home, zombie with- their way through the night, on and on and on and on. And so if it's, "I don't have enough energy to build my side hustle," it's like, what are all the things you're doing that a high-energy person doesn't do?

   19. AAAli Abdaal38:58

       Hmm.

   20. DBDickie Bush38:58

       You don't have to do anything new. You just need to stop doing all the things you're doing that are leading to that state.

   21. AAAli Abdaal39:02

       Hmm. Yeah. I think the, the, the screen time thing on a phone is just so telling. It's just like-

   22. DBDickie Bush39:07

       Sickening.

   23. AAAli Abdaal39:08

       Yeah. Like-

   24. DBDickie Bush39:08

       Put it as your background. Put it as like-

   25. AAAli Abdaal39:10

       Yeah. [laughs]

   26. DBDickie Bush39:10

       ... a widget, and it's like, "I had six hours on Instagram today?" Like, what the heck?

   27. AAAli Abdaal39:14

       Yeah. [laughs]

   28. DBDickie Bush39:14

       What, what did I do? That's why I feel horrible. I'm comparing myself to people all day.

   29. AAAli Abdaal39:19

       Hmm.

   30. DBDickie Bush39:20

       Hmm.
9. 39:38 – 43:00

   Finding a Niche and Unique Angle

   1. AAAli Abdaal39:38

      Every Atomic hab- Atomic Habits has been summarized ad nauseam to the point where you don't even know what the, like [laughs] where, where the circle begins.

   2. DBDickie Bush39:45

      Right.

   3. AAAli Abdaal39:45

      Like, the stuff that a lot of people who vibe with us would lea- read, read or listen to is probably in a fairly sh- small group of things, that if they were to just summarize things, they would end up just recreating-

   4. DBDickie Bush39:59

      Mm-hmm

   5. AAAli Abdaal39:59

      ... what other people are also, also summarizing. Like, how, how do you think of, like, this idea of niche or, like, trying to get a unique angle or anything like that?

   6. DBDickie Bush40:07

      So there are a couple ways you could go with this. First, if you're creating content and you wanna niche down, the easiest way to do it is just use your personal credibility, apply to whate- whatever it is you're summarizing. So sure, Atomic Habits has been summarized by 1,000 people, but you're the only person who's applied it in the way that you've applied it. You're the only person who's listened to that Tim Ferriss episode and then ran the experiment like you did yourself. So rather than say, "Hey, I'm gonna go just summarize," I'm going to summarize the work and then how I used it, because that is 100% unique. And that's the same thing I did. I would learn, and then I'd say, "Here's how I'm applying it." And that was what people were actually the most interested in because-

   7. AAAli Abdaal40:46

      Yeah. Nice

   8. DBDickie Bush40:46

      ... they summarize it. It's like, great. Now what'd you do with it? Oh, that's what you did with it? Cool. Now I can go try that.

   9. AAAli Abdaal40:52

      Nice.

   10. DBDickie Bush40:52

       So that's the number one way to stand out is just recognize that your interpretation of anything that you would summarize is the niche itself. So that's on the content side. But then on the service side, I think you should niche down as specifically as possible where your ideal client or ideal target customer can 100% say with certainty, "This is for me," or, "This is not for me."

   11. AAAli Abdaal41:17

       Hmm. Okay.

   12. DBDickie Bush41:18

       So an example. If I were to go back for my ghostwriting services, I wouldn't just say, "Hey, I ghostwrite Twitter threads," because a lot of people probably saw that and were like, "Yeah." This was granted two and a half years ago, so this was very early in that stage. But I would've niched down and say, "I write worldview summary threads for CEOs of copywriting agencies," or something like that, something hyper, hyper specific where you go, "There's no way that there are enough people on Earth that would handle that service." But I'd say, "Well, first off, I don't need that many people 'cause I'm charging $5,000 for it. And then second, if 10 people, 10, knocked on my door and were like, 'Hey, could you do this for me?' I'd be overwhelmed." And so that broke my brain around how big of an audience do you actually need. When you're providing a high-value service, you do not need that many. You just need one or two or three or four. And that should change the way you think about creating content, where it's not how many people can I attract, but it's how many of the ideal person can I have come across my profile and my content or whatever it is I'm offering and say, "I don't know how you got so specific and really felt like you were creating this for me, but that's exactly what I need. Where do I wire the check?"

   13. AAAli Abdaal42:34

       Hmm. Hmm. Nice. I like that. I like the sort of, "And, and here's how I applied the, the thing" as well. That's, uh, that's really good. 'Cause I think a lot of people are worrying, like, "What about AI? What about AI summaries of stuff? Is that gonna put the thread boys out of business?" And I think the answer is yes, if the thread boys are just summarizing. But if the thread boys are summarizing and-

   14. DBDickie Bush42:55

       Mm-hmm

   15. AAAli Abdaal42:55

       ... applying and sharing insights from a human's life-

   16. DBDickie Bush42:58

       Mm-hmm

   17. AAAli Abdaal42:58

       ... then it's very difficult for AI to-

10. 43:00 – 45:54

    The Role of AI in Summarising and Creating Original Content

    1. DBDickie Bush43:00

       Yes

    2. AAAli Abdaal43:00

       ... kind of recreate that.

    3. DBDickie Bush43:01

       AI will not replace you, but someone using AI will replace you.

    4. AAAli Abdaal43:05

       Hmm. Can you fennel that?

    5. DBDickie Bush43:07

       So just like you said, are the thread boys going away because A- AI is going to summarize? No. The ones who are summarizing things faster and then using that extra time to run more experiments or ex- like, combine things in new and, and novel ways or just bring things into their own way of operating because of the amount of time saved That like if I could go back, instead of taking all the notes myself, I would use AI to summarize that podcast and then say, "Expand more on the personal side of how I applied it."

    6. AAAli Abdaal43:38

       Nice.

    7. DBDickie Bush43:38

       So I would've stood out even more versus competing with myself back then who had to spend five hours doing the summary on my own, and then so I would be able to create twice as much or run twice as many experiments, that kind of thing.

    8. AAAli Abdaal43:51

       Nice. What are your thoughts on summarizing/curating stuff versus creating original stuff?

    9. DBDickie Bush43:57

       I think no one is creating truly original things right now. You're always looking back on someone dating back to philosophers. Everything at the end of the day is some kind of, some derivative of Socrates or Buddha or whatever brought all the way to the present moment. I mean, you look at like quotes from tens of thousands of years ago that are just all about being consistent and getting started.

    10. AAAli Abdaal44:18

        [laughs]

    11. DBDickie Bush44:18

        And like those are just repackaged. Like, I think like Rumi, I think has a quote of, uh, "The, the journey is not revealed." There's some... Like, "You do not see the full journey, but it reveals itself along the way," or something like that. I was like 5,000 years ago, people were still saying, "You should just get started and you should be consistent." So more or less everything is a remix of something in the past. Now, I think you need to go and inhale a lot of different worldviews to come up with your own frameworks. So for example, I studied Gary Halbert and David Ogilvy and Tim Ferriss and Brene Brown and all these great writers. Looked at the way that they, their writing habits and their routines and the way they constructed sentences and the way they came up with their own frameworks. I wrote Twitter threads summarizing all of those for an entire year and built up a couple hundred thousand followers on Twitter just doing that. I'd probably written 100 threads about other people's writing frameworks before I one time came up with my own. So you have to start with curation in some way-

    12. AAAli Abdaal45:22

        Yeah

    13. DBDickie Bush45:22

        ... and then use that to just kind of remix and say, "How do I actually apply these?"

    14. AAAli Abdaal45:28

        Yeah.

    15. DBDickie Bush45:28

        And then you can eventually get into creating your own things.

    16. AAAli Abdaal45:31

        Yeah.

    17. DBDickie Bush45:31

        So it's not an either... It's not an either/or. I'm still in a curation phase, but this goes back to looking back two years or looking ahead.

    18. AAAli Abdaal45:39

        Mm.

    19. DBDickie Bush45:40

        If you're looking back, you can create because you've done things through that personal credibility perspective that then you can repackage and say, "Here's my framework for X. Here's how I did it."

    20. AAAli Abdaal45:51

        Mm.

    21. DBDickie Bush45:52

        But if you're looking ahead, you don't know.

11. 45:54 – 50:11

    The Journey from Curation to Creation

    1. DBDickie Bush45:54

       Like for example, for you, you're going down the fitness rabbit hole. You could not write a thread of like, "Here's how to get jacked," or, "Here's how to do all these other things."

    2. AAAli Abdaal46:01

       No, but I will be able to eventually. [laughs]

    3. DBDickie Bush46:03

       Yes, exactly.

    4. AAAli Abdaal46:03

       That's the thing.

    5. DBDickie Bush46:03

       So for now you're gonna curate and distill the people ahead of you.

    6. AAAli Abdaal46:07

       Yeah, and apply them to my life.

    7. DBDickie Bush46:07

       And then in two years you're gonna write a book called-

    8. AAAli Abdaal46:08

       Two years, yeah. Two years once I'm jacked.

    9. DBDickie Bush46:10

       Yes.

    10. AAAli Abdaal46:11

        Then Feel Good Fitness is coming out.

    11. DBDickie Bush46:12

        Exactly.

    12. AAAli Abdaal46:12

        Yeah.

    13. DBDickie Bush46:12

        Right. And then it'll, it'll be Ali's framework for Feel Good Fitness.

    14. AAAli Abdaal46:17

        Yeah.

    15. DBDickie Bush46:17

        And that's the whole path.

    16. AAAli Abdaal46:19

        Yeah. Nice. Yeah, if I think back to the early days of the YouTube channel as well, it was literally just curation. It was like, well, here's a paper that explains all these study techniques.

    17. DBDickie Bush46:27

        Mm-hmm.

    18. AAAli Abdaal46:27

        Here they are. And productivity as well, like for this productivity book, that one-

    19. DBDickie Bush46:31

        Mm-hmm

    20. AAAli Abdaal46:31

        ... Make Time, Getting Things Done, all of these were just me summarizing and curating and saying, "And here's how I applied this to my life."

    21. DBDickie Bush46:36

        Yes.

    22. AAAli Abdaal46:37

        And then three years later, I now have enough knowledge-

    23. DBDickie Bush46:40

        Mm-hmm

    24. AAAli Abdaal46:40

        ... to be able to write my own book that has my own frameworks, which are heavily borrowed from other peoples and stuff-

    25. DBDickie Bush46:45

        Mm-hmm

    26. AAAli Abdaal46:45

        ... as everything is, but it's like my personal take on this thing.

    27. DBDickie Bush46:48

        Mm-hmm.

    28. AAAli Abdaal46:48

        Whereas even when I got, when I got the deal, I got the book deal three years ago, I was like, "I don't have any original thoughts about this."

    29. DBDickie Bush46:54

        Yes.

    30. AAAli Abdaal46:55

        But through immersing myself in that thing and I realized that, oh, actually, I've been reading about this for 10 years.
12. 50:11 – 58:51

    Brain-breaking moments and Leverage

    1. DBDickie Bush50:11

       forever now. I'm gonna always have that." And then we're just kinda stacking that as we go.

    2. AAAli Abdaal50:15

       This episode of Deep Dive is brought to you by Brilliant. Brilliant is an amazing learning resource that allows you to level up your skills and your knowledge and understanding in maths and data science and computer science. Now, what I like most about Brilliant is that it's a super fun and engaging way to learn. It's not based on dry lectures and dry theory. Instead, what it's based on is engaging and interactive quizzes and games and problems to solve. And so you try and solve a problem, and then they give you the information you need, and through the process of getting that information, you then learn enough to be able to solve the problem. And so it's a really engaging and dynamic way to learn that's actually really fun. Now, some of my favorite courses on Brilliant are the computer science ones. When I was applying to medical school back in the day, I was torn between medicine and computer science, and even though I went for med school, there was always a part of me that really wanted to learn more about computer science. And so thanks to the courses on Brilliant, I've been able to satisfy that curiosity, and I've been able to learn the fundamentals of computer science, like algorithms and programming with Python. And actually, recently they've added a bunch of AI-themed things, including a course on how large language models are built, which helps you understand a little bit more about how things like ChatGPT work, which is pretty cool. They've also got a really good course called Thinking in Code, which is like a sort of computer scientist's way of looking at the world, and it shows how you can apply thinking in code or, like, code-like thinking or programmer thinking to problems in real life. So even if you don't intend to become a computer scientist, there are things that you can take away from that course that can just help you level up in life. And with data skills getting more and more in demand, the data analysis courses are really good as well. So, for example, Data Analysis Fundamentals teaches you to draw fascinating conclusions from the data that you're given and could actually transform the way that you think. Whatever your interest or skill level, Brilliant is for you. It matches you up with the courses that best suit your ability. So whether you're a complete beginner or you're a pro when it comes to computers, for example, they'll definitely have something for you. If you're interested, then head over to brilliant.org/deepdive, and that will let you sign up to a completely free 30-day trial. And if you're one of the first 200 people to use that link, you'll also get 20% off the annual premium subscription. So thank you so much, Brilliant, for sponsoring this episode. There was one time in my third year of university, I was, like, 21. I was giving a talk for the Islamic Society, like, in the local prayer room for, like, seven people, called How to Study for Exams: An Evidence-Based Guide. This was when I was 21, four years before the YouTube channel.

    3. DBDickie Bush52:21

       Hmm.

    4. AAAli Abdaal52:22

       No, three years before yout- uh, before the YouTube channel. And we had a Facebook event for it, and that Facebook eve- e- event went viral, and, like, it had 30,000 impressions, the Facebook event, and, like, 300 people clicked attending on it because they were like, "What the... Shit, that's cool." And that was, like, a brain-breaking moment of like, "Wait a minute," like, this one talk that I was gonna give for, like, seven of my mates 'cause I'd researched this stuff and knew a little bit about it. Now, all of a sudden, 350 people have clicked attending, and we have to hire an, a big lecture theater for me to give this talk.

    5. DBDickie Bush52:50

       Mm-hmm.

    6. AAAli Abdaal52:51

       And seeing, like, 100 or so people show up to this talk and get value from me giving a Power- PowerPoint presentation talking about evidence-based study techniques, that was a moment that I, I kept on thinking back to as I started the YouTube channel.

    7. DBDickie Bush53:04

       Mm.

    8. AAAli Abdaal53:04

       I was like, "If, if a talk for a local audience of students can have that impact-

    9. DBDickie Bush53:09

       Yeah

    10. AAAli Abdaal53:09

        ... what if I make a YouTube video about this?"

    11. DBDickie Bush53:11

        Mm.

    12. AAAli Abdaal53:11

        And I recognized it cannot be the first video or the 21st or the 51st. It has to be, like, the 101st video so that I get good enough at making videos before I release that banger.

    13. DBDickie Bush53:20

        Mm-hmm.

    14. AAAli Abdaal53:20

        And that was the first video on the channel that went viral. [chuckles]

    15. DBDickie Bush53:22

        Yes.

    16. AAAli Abdaal53:22

        Like, video number 90-something, 94 or something like that.

    17. DBDickie Bush53:24

        So it took you 94 videos to see success-

    18. AAAli Abdaal53:27

        Yeah

    19. DBDickie Bush53:27

        ... ish?

    20. AAAli Abdaal53:27

        It, it took 94 videos for me to think, "You know what? I'm now ready to do this."

    21. DBDickie Bush53:31

        Mm.

    22. AAAli Abdaal53:31

        And, like, the stars aligned, and I also had a collab with a bigger YouTuber, like, video number 91. So I was like, "I was gonna make this video as video n- video number 100, but hang on. I've got some eyeballs on the channel. Let me make this video right now."

    23. DBDickie Bush53:42

        Mm.

    24. AAAli Abdaal53:42

        And I poured so much editing effort and research effort into that one video knowing that this is my shot. This, this could be the thing.

    25. DBDickie Bush53:47

        Mm.

    26. AAAli Abdaal53:48

        And that was, like, yeah, the, the hi- unlo- unlocking the leverage and realizing I can give a talk, and 20,000 people can see the event, and 300 can click attending, and 100 can show up. Okay, there's something here.

    27. DBDickie Bush53:59

        Hmm. Then you seize that opportunity.

    28. AAAli Abdaal54:00

        Yeah. And then, and then the other one, like, yeah, I r- I r- remember this vividly, when I outsourced my video editing for the first time, and it's like I would film a video. I went to work. I came back home, and the video was edited.

    29. DBDickie Bush54:11

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    30. AAAli Abdaal54:12

        And I was just like, "Oh, my God. How the hell did this happen, and how the hell did I n- I not know this sooner?"
13. 58:51 – 1:09:26

    The Four Layers of Specificity for Success

    1. DBDickie Bush58:51

       how do you actually find out what to improve? At any time, there's one bottleneck in your business or in your product or in what ... in your life that is keeping you from achieving that next goal. All the other work that you could potentially do is a waste of time if you're not working on the most important bottleneck. So if-

    2. AAAli Abdaal59:11

       What do, what do you mean by bottleneck?

    3. DBDickie Bush59:12

       Okay. So picture ... The word bottleneck comes from ... Think about a beer bottle.

    4. AAAli Abdaal59:17

       Yeah.

    5. DBDickie Bush59:17

       The, how it gets thinner at the top. If you try to pour it out, it, like, kind of clogs up, and it can't pour out all at once because the amount that's in the top trying to pour all the way through the bottom can't get through fast enough. So even if you poured more on the top, the bottleneck is limiting the output. That make sense? So the bottleneck is-

    6. AAAli Abdaal59:36

       Sure

    7. DBDickie Bush59:37

       ... whatever ... I, I could do a better job explaining this, but the best book on this is, um, The Goal by Eliyahu Breuhm.

    8. AAAli Abdaal59:45

       Mm.

    9. DBDickie Bush59:45

       Totally go back to brain breaking moments when you realize what bottleneck thinking is of the way he tells the story is think about a factory. If every piece of equipment is humming, but there's one with a giant backlog that moves way slower than everything else, if you improve every other part of the system, it's still not going to have more output because that one machine is holding everyone else back.

    10. AAAli Abdaal1:00:12

        Mm.

    11. DBDickie Bush1:00:13

        And so he has a great, um, he's got a great example of this. He's walking with, like, a group of Cub Scouts going through ... They're on a hike, and there's this chubby kid. I can't remember his name, but it's, like, Hurley or something like that. And he is trying to keep everyone together, and Hurley is sitting in the back, and he's, like, sweating, and he can't keep up with everyone. And so all the kids are dispersed, and he can't keep track of all of them on this hike because he's trying to keep them all in a line. But, like, one keeps falling back, and then they fall back with him. So the bottleneck of the whole system is the chubby kid who's moving the slowest. So he moves him to the front of the line and makes everyone else fall behind him. So now you see everyone is not allowed to pass Hurley, and he's the bottleneck. And then they say, "How do we fix that?" Well, we should probably take his big backpack off and move it to everyone else behind so he can walk a little bit faster. So they do that. And then they get a little, like, trike and put Hurley on it, and then he's moving even faster and everyone else can continue to keep up. And so it's this w- idea that unless you're working on the thing that's limiting everything else, you're wasting your time.

    12. AAAli Abdaal1:01:21

        So that requires you to have a goal, right?

    13. DBDickie Bush1:01:23

        Yes.

    14. AAAli Abdaal1:01:24

        Because otherwise, how would you know what the bottleneck is?

    15. DBDickie Bush1:01:25

        It always starts with a goal.

    16. AAAli Abdaal1:01:27

        Ah, okay.

    17. DBDickie Bush1:01:28

        Yes. And then you ... So we call this identify, inhale, and iterate. First, you need to identify the goal and the bottleneck to achieving that goal. So let's just paint a-

    18. AAAli Abdaal1:01:39

        Like, like for my business, for example, like-

    19. DBDickie Bush1:01:41

        Correct. Let's do it.

    20. AAAli Abdaal1:01:42

        Yeah, sure.

    21. DBDickie Bush1:01:42

        So ... And this is where it gets a lot of fun.

    22. AAAli Abdaal1:01:45

        Yeah.

    23. DBDickie Bush1:01:46

        The bottleneck is gonna be in one of three places. Any way to improve a business, it's you can get more leads, better conversion of those leads, or tighter operations to fulfill the product or service.

    24. AAAli Abdaal1:01:57

        Okay. Nice.

    25. DBDickie Bush1:01:58

        So your bottleneck is going to lie in one of those three things.

    26. AAAli Abdaal1:02:00

        Sure.

    27. DBDickie Bush1:02:01

        So if you don't have enough people buying, you either can tell more people so you can get more leads, or you can convert them better.

    28. AAAli Abdaal1:02:07

        Hmm.

    29. DBDickie Bush1:02:08

        If people don't like your product, you need to improve the product before you go and get more leads or try to convert more people because that's the eventual bottleneck.

    30. AAAli Abdaal1:02:15

        Yeah.
14. 1:09:26 – 1:13:14

    Reverse Engineering to Achieve a Million Dollars a Year

    1. DBDickie Bush1:09:26

       a specific platform, a specific person, a specific problem, and a specific way. So four things. And I'm gonna use Ship 30 as the example for this. So specific platform is you need to market your product on one channel, one platform. That could be Facebook ads, could be Instagram ads, could be Twitter organic, it could be LinkedIn, it could be Threads, it could be YouTube. One pro- one platform. That's it. Until you get to a million dollars in a year. And people go, "But I need to be at..." No. One. Why? Because you concentrate all of that attention on getting good at that one platform that allows you to market the thing. So platform, pick a platform. Whatever you like to do. If you like to make videos, make YouTube videos. If you like to write, pick Twitter. If you like, you know, LinkedIn, whatever. Specific platform. Check. Got it. All right. Specific person. I actually think you sh- should start with problem and then go to person. So let's go problem. Ship 30 was ... So you need to pick a specific problem to solve, and people will exchange money for that problem. I'm gonna paint the full picture of Ship 30. We marketed on Twitter. That was the platform. The person was beginner writers who wanted to start writing on the internet. The problem was they didn't know how to get started, and the way was writing every day for 30 days, writing every day for 30 days. So Ship 30 helps beginner writers, person, start writing on the internet, problem, by writing every day for 30 days, specific way. We got all that. We marketed it on Twitter. That was it for all of 2021, and we got to over a million dollars. And that was the full solution. So I can look back and recognize that. So same with PTYA. It was we help aspiring YouTubers make YouTube channels by making ... You guys make four to eight videos or something like that?

    2. AAAli Abdaal1:11:13

       Yeah, like six videos-

    3. DBDickie Bush1:11:14

       Right

    4. AAAli Abdaal1:11:14

       ... in a six-week course, blah, blah, blah.

    5. DBDickie Bush1:11:14

       Exactly.

    6. AAAli Abdaal1:11:15

       Yeah.

    7. DBDickie Bush1:11:15

       Right? In a specific way.

    8. AAAli Abdaal1:11:16

       Yeah.

    9. DBDickie Bush1:11:17

       How'd you market it? YouTube. To start.

    10. AAAli Abdaal1:11:20

        Yeah.

    11. DBDickie Bush1:11:20

        Right?

    12. AAAli Abdaal1:11:21

        Actually, it was, uh, Twitter initially. [laughs]

    13. DBDickie Bush1:11:22

        Tw- Okay. So Twitter initially. Exactly.

    14. AAAli Abdaal1:11:24

        I didn't wanna post it on YouTube 'cause I was scared.

    15. DBDickie Bush1:11:25

        That's right. That's, that's-

    16. AAAli Abdaal1:11:25

        I was like, "Uh-oh, I didn't want-

    17. DBDickie Bush1:11:25

        That's right. That's right. That's right

    18. AAAli Abdaal1:11:26

        ... I didn't wanna tell people I'm selling something."

    19. DBDickie Bush1:11:27

        Exactly.

    20. AAAli Abdaal1:11:28

        [laughs]

    21. DBDickie Bush1:11:28

        So-

    22. AAAli Abdaal1:11:29

        It was Twitter first, and then it was like, cool, that's fine. That worked

    23. DBDickie Bush1:11:31

        ... and then you got there, and now you can talk about it on YouTube-

    24. AAAli Abdaal1:11:33

        No, and now we talk about it on YouTube

    25. DBDickie Bush1:11:33

        ... or Instagram or LinkedIn-

    26. AAAli Abdaal1:11:34

        Newsletter and stuff

    27. DBDickie Bush1:11:34

        ... or other places, right?

    28. AAAli Abdaal1:11:36

        Yeah. Yeah.

    29. DBDickie Bush1:11:36

        So when you have this framework, you can go, "All right, how can I apply the bottleneck thinking to that?" Well, the bottleneck is I don't know the specific person, so I need to launch the product and then figure out who had the most success, and then niche it down to only talk to that person. Or it's I don't know the platform. Well, you should just pick one and figure out which one you like and run an experiment.

    30. AAAli Abdaal1:11:55

        Yeah.
15. 1:13:14 – 1:14:12

    Scaling to a Million Dollars a Month

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:13:14

       Sure.

    2. DBDickie Bush1:13:14

       So instead you have to think, "Okay, how could I launch a more valuable product or a more scalable version?"

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:13:19

       Yep.

    4. DBDickie Bush1:13:19

       So you just kinda sit there and say, "How do I get to this number?" And what I don't want do is people listen to this and go, "All right, a million a month. Now I need to go think about that." It's like, no, start with 1,000 or 100 or... and do the bottleneck analysis that way, because you have to get to here-

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:13:34

       Yeah

    6. DBDickie Bush1:13:34

       ... to do it.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:13:35

       Yep.

    8. DBDickie Bush1:13:35

       But that's the whole game right now is figuring out, okay, what is that bottleneck?

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:13:39

       Nice.

    10. DBDickie Bush1:13:39

        And if I had the answer ... The frustrating part is most of the time I know what the answer is, I'm just not doing it.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:13:45

        Hmm. Do you know what the answer is for you guys?

    12. DBDickie Bush1:13:48

        It's launching a higher value service on the back of our, our ghostwriting coaching program

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:13:53

        Hmm. Okay

    14. DBDickie Bush1:13:54

        Because when you do that, you double the customer LTV.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:13:56

        Yeah

    16. DBDickie Bush1:13:56

        Then we know exactly we don't have to do anything new. We just provide more value to the people we're already servicing-

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:14:00

        Yep

    18. DBDickie Bush1:14:01

        ... and then we'll get there.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:14:02

        Okay. Interesting. That's good shit, man. That's good stuff. Um, yeah, at some point, like... I was, I was talking to the team about this yesterday. At some point,

16. 1:14:12 – 1:15:44

    Continuous Learning and Investing in Oneself

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:14:12

       the business becomes less about doing creative things and more about just doing the maths.

    2. DBDickie Bush1:14:19

       Mm-hmm.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:14:20

       Like even now, we have these products. We're doing a few million a year. But like if anyone sat me... If I was speaking to Brendan Burchard or someone who just makes more money than we do, like 10X, he'd be like, "What, what are your funnels and what are your percentage conversions?"

    4. DBDickie Bush1:14:35

       Yeah.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:14:35

       And I'd be like, "I have no clue."

    6. DBDickie Bush1:14:36

       Yeah.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:14:37

       I've just... Have we installed Google Analytics? Who knows? Have we..." Like [laughs] what? It's just, it's obvious. It's like-

    8. DBDickie Bush1:14:43

       We've kind of made the whole thing up as we go

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:14:44

       ... why do we know the numbers? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

    10. DBDickie Bush1:14:45

        And, and that's the thing. Like, I hope that makes other people who hear this, like we do not have it all figured out, certainly.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:14:53

        Yeah.

    12. DBDickie Bush1:14:53

        Like, you kind of just go day by day and make it all up as you go, and then you kind of end up in a place of like, okay, maybe we should look backwards and clean up some of this mess.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:15:01

        Yes.

    14. DBDickie Bush1:15:01

        And the way we think about this is like three months you can get to a new level, and then you really spend six months getting comfortable at that level and fixing everything that just broke to get to that new.

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:15:11

        Nice.

    16. DBDickie Bush1:15:12

        So when you... Every time the business triples, all your infrastructure is gonna break.

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:15:16

        Hmm.

    18. DBDickie Bush1:15:17

        And that has happened to us every single new level.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:15:19

        Yeah. Happened to us, yeah. Absolutely.

    20. DBDickie Bush1:15:20

        Right. So you can get to a new level with like three months of intense effort.

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:15:24

        Yeah.

    22. DBDickie Bush1:15:24

        And then all the things you left behind and overlooked, you need to go fix, and then you keep doing that.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:15:28

        Yeah. And I think this is... This speaks to, like, again, the power of like a coach or a mentor who's done the thing before.

    24. DBDickie Bush1:15:32

        Mm-hmm.

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:15:33

        Because like if you were advising yourself three years ago-

    26. DBDickie Bush1:15:36

        Mm.

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:15:37

        .. you, you probably would've saved a lot of time.

    28. DBDickie Bush1:15:38

        Yep.

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:15:38

        You'd be like, "Okay, here, here's what you do. This, this, and this. Just do those things."

    30. DBDickie Bush1:15:42

        Mm-hmm.
17. 1:15:44 – 1:23:44

    Seeking Guidance from Mentors and Coaches

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:15:44

       and done it.

    2. DBDickie Bush1:15:44

       Yes.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:15:45

       And I still undervalue the value of that because I'm always like, "Oh, but our business is unique," and it's like, eh, it's really not.

    4. DBDickie Bush1:15:51

       No.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:15:51

       Like people are making, been making tens of millions doing content equals info product or ads equals info product businesses for decades.

    6. DBDickie Bush1:15:57

       Yeah.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:15:57

       Like it's not that hard. Like pe- people have done it.

    8. DBDickie Bush1:15:59

       Yes.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:15:59

       And it's now at... When you get to a certain size, it's not that hard to get in front of those people.

    10. DBDickie Bush1:16:04

        Mm-hmm.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:16:04

        It's not that expensive to, to get in front of those people. [laughs]

    12. DBDickie Bush1:16:06

        Yes.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:16:06

        And so why don't I just do it? [laughs]

    14. DBDickie Bush1:16:07

        And it go-

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:16:08

        [laughs]

    16. DBDickie Bush1:16:08

        To be honest-

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:16:09

        Yeah

    18. DBDickie Bush1:16:09

        ... it goes back to personal money beliefs.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:16:12

        Mm.

    20. DBDickie Bush1:16:12

        Because if someone came to you and was like, "Hey, I'm gonna charge you $100,000 for one day of coaching, but it's gonna remove the bottleneck to help you guys make 200,000 tomorrow," it would still be extremely uncomfortable-

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:16:24

        Yeah

    22. DBDickie Bush1:16:24

        ... to put that 100,000 out there.

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:16:26

        Yep.

    24. DBDickie Bush1:16:26

        But at a certain point, the only way you get to the next level in business is by spending that. So I saw like Alex Hormozi pay Grant Cardone $200,000 for an hour of consulting-

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:16:36

        Mm

    26. DBDickie Bush1:16:36

        ... just to hear about the way he thinks about like branding and whatever. And that was, to everyone else, would not be a high financial return.

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:16:45

        Hmm.

    28. DBDickie Bush1:16:46

        But the only way to unlock that next level is to pay that amount because of the return you're going to get on it.

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:16:51

        Hmm.

    30. DBDickie Bush1:16:52

        Right? So in the beginning, it might be a $19 product that you need to go buy, and that's the only thing you need to buy to get to the next level.
18. 1:23:44 – 1:39:00

    Identifying and Overcoming Bottlenecks in Growth

    1. DBDickie Bush1:23:44

       So you just keep doing this, like, why bottleneck analysis until I realize, well, first I need to find a diet that allows me to not be hungry all the time and eat less than I burn. Pretty simple solution. What does that look like? I had to go iterate and try a bunch of different ones. I tried every single thing out there, keto, carnivore, high carb, low carb, vegan, everything, until I found I lost like 75 pounds on the ketogenic diet. Why? Because I could eat steak and eggs and feel very full and still eat fewer calories than I burned.

    2. AAAli Abdaal1:24:14

       Hmm.

    3. DBDickie Bush1:24:15

       Very simple. So that was how I applied it to that. If you apply it to lifting weights in the gym-

    4. AAAli Abdaal1:24:21

       Yeah

    5. DBDickie Bush1:24:22

       ... it's like, I wanna put muscle on. How do I do that? Well, I need to do a certain... First I need to find out how. So almost always the first bottleneck is an ignorance tax. It's you don't know what to do.

    6. AAAli Abdaal1:24:33

       Hmm.

    7. DBDickie Bush1:24:34

       And okay, so I, I do a, a framework for overall improvement. You either don't know what to do, you're not doing what you need to do, or that... Those are pretty much the only two things.

    8. AAAli Abdaal1:24:48

       Yeah. Either you don't know it or you know it-

    9. DBDickie Bush1:24:49

       You're not-

    10. AAAli Abdaal1:24:49

        ... but you're not doing it.

    11. DBDickie Bush1:24:50

        Yes, exactly.

    12. AAAli Abdaal1:24:51

        Yeah. Yeah.

    13. DBDickie Bush1:24:51

        So first you need to figure out what to do.

    14. AAAli Abdaal1:24:53

        Hmm.

    15. DBDickie Bush1:24:53

        If you don't know what to do, figure out what to do, and then figure out why you aren't doing that thing.

    16. AAAli Abdaal1:24:57

        Yeah.

    17. DBDickie Bush1:24:57

        And if the bottleneck for personal improvement is one of those two.

    18. AAAli Abdaal1:25:00

        Yeah.

    19. DBDickie Bush1:25:01

        So we've talked about it for business, it's more conversion or more leads, better conversion, tighter operations.

    20. AAAli Abdaal1:25:05

        Sure.

    21. DBDickie Bush1:25:05

        For personal improvement, it's what to do, why aren't you doing it?

    22. AAAli Abdaal1:25:09

        Okay.

    23. DBDickie Bush1:25:09

        Repeat, repeat, repeat.

    24. AAAli Abdaal1:25:11

        Nice.

    25. DBDickie Bush1:25:11

        And then inhale the information or do the self-development work, reflection, journaling-

    26. AAAli Abdaal1:25:15

        Yeah

    27. DBDickie Bush1:25:15

        ... necessary to go and do that.

    28. AAAli Abdaal1:25:17

        Yeah. I think that's like peop- people, like, a lo- a lot of times will ask me, like, "Hey, you spend all this time journaling. Like, what the hell do you journal about?"

    29. DBDickie Bush1:25:22

        Mm-hmm.

    30. AAAli Abdaal1:25:23

        And so actually if you just ask yourself that question of like, what do I need to do and why am I not doing it?
19. 1:39:00 – 1:50:11

    Finding a Balance Between Financial Success and Other Aspects of Life

    1. AAAli Abdaal1:39:00

       like, on this, on this point, you know, I was at... Flew, flew a couple weeks ago from can't remember where. Uh, LA? Yeah. Um, and there was a family of five, like mom, dad, three kids, all flying business.

    2. DBDickie Bush1:39:12

       Mm.

    3. AAAli Abdaal1:39:12

       And I was like, "Huh."

    4. DBDickie Bush1:39:14

       Hmm.

    5. AAAli Abdaal1:39:14

       "That's interesting. I wonder how they could afford that. I wonder how..." Like, and I, and, and then I was thinking, "I wonder when I have kids, would I like to fly business every time I go on holiday?"

    6. DBDickie Bush1:39:24

       Ah.

    7. AAAli Abdaal1:39:25

       Yeah, of course I would.

    8. DBDickie Bush1:39:26

       Right.

    9. AAAli Abdaal1:39:26

       That'd be sick. I'm like, "Huh. I'm actually, I actually don't... Our business is not so successful that I c- I can just do that without thinking about it." And then it got me thinking, is it not easier to curb my own desire and I'm going on holiday with the family, who cares if we fly economy or business?

    10. DBDickie Bush1:39:45

        Hmm.

    11. AAAli Abdaal1:39:45

        And sort of, of, like, tied up in, tied up in the questions of, like, you know, we're, we're not yet at a million a year or a million a month.

    12. DBDickie Bush1:39:54

        Mm-hmm.

    13. AAAli Abdaal1:39:54

        But do I really need to get there? Like, do I really want to get there? Is that, is that really what I want? Like-

    14. DBDickie Bush1:39:58

        Right

    15. AAAli Abdaal1:39:58

        ... business growth and make more money because I've got enough money and everyone says there's, like, a cap with happiness and, like, do I really wanna spend more time doing this thing? And I'm like, but it's, it's really fun. I enjoy it, and I like learning new, new things. But also, in my life, money is not a bottleneck.

    16. DBDickie Bush1:40:11

        Mm-hmm.

    17. AAAli Abdaal1:40:12

        Probably what I see the bottleneck being is relationships and health, time spent on relationships, time spent on health. Time spent on money will always, like, it'll always take care of itself because I just love working.

    18. DBDickie Bush1:40:21

        Mm.

    19. AAAli Abdaal1:40:21

        And so I'm just, I'm, I'm trying to disentangle that for myself to think, do I actually sh- should I be trying to go for a mi- a, a million a month for the sake of being able to fly business with, with the wife and kids without-

    20. DBDickie Bush1:40:33

        Mm

    21. AAAli Abdaal1:40:33

        ... having to worry about it? Or should I be content with 100K a month, which is still a fucking absurd amount of money-

    22. DBDickie Bush1:40:38

        Right

    23. AAAli Abdaal1:40:38

        ... uh, and actually spend the time on health and relationships if the, if it, if it's a tr- and if it's a trade-off, like, where do I wanna spend my time?

    24. DBDickie Bush1:40:45

        Hmm. Okay.

    25. AAAli Abdaal1:40:46

        I don't know if you think about that at all.

    26. DBDickie Bush1:40:47

        Yeah, let's talk, let's talk through this. So I'll start, I think a lot about crafting a personal ethos, which I think about as your life mission, your values, the character traits you wanna embody, and kind of the principles you live by.

    27. AAAli Abdaal1:41:01

        Mm.

    28. DBDickie Bush1:41:02

        And I read that every morning in the first, like, two or three minutes of being awake where I try to just remind myself. And my current life mission that I think I could play forever is to relentlessly pursue a life of abundance, harmony, and gratitude.

    29. AAAli Abdaal1:41:15

        Okay.

    30. DBDickie Bush1:41:15

        So abundance is having more than you need of anything. So there's two ways to create abundance. You can have more or need less.

Episode duration: 1:50:11