Productivity Expert: How To Finally Stay Productive: Ali Abdaal | E93

Steven Bartlett 0:00 Ali Abdaal, he is a creator, he is a entrepreneur, he came first at Cambridge, and he is a productivity expert.

Ali Abdaal 0:08 The way that I define productivity is just kind of using my time well, and working on things that are meaningful to me, and optimizing for happiness. I feel unproductive when I know there is something I want to do and I am not doing the thing because I'm scrolling Instagram. Procrastination is a problem with getting started, and so the key to overcoming procrastination is that little nudge at the start towards actually getting started. There are a few- a few hacks, the- the one that I use all the time is the- the two-minute rule, two minutes is all you need to change your life. The way I try and remind myself of this point of, "I- I am enough," is thinking and- and really trying to internalize that the journey is more important than the destination. We do need a destination, but really, like, am I enjoying myself day-to-day, and am I kind of living the dream, as it were, day-to-day, and not- and not so much worrying about the goal at the end of it?

Narrator 1:01 (music)

Steven Bartlett 1:03 Productivity, procrastination, two things that all people aspiring to success, or really aspiring to get anything done, often struggle with. Today, we're gonna try and solve that problem. Today, I'm joined by Ali Abdaal. He is a creator on YouTube, he's got millions and millions of subscribers, he is a entrepreneur, he's a Cambridge graduate who came first at Cambridge, and he is a productivity expert. And honestly, he's read more books than anyone I think I've ever met on the subject, but generally about how to become the best version of yourself. This conversation isn't just about productivity and procrastination, it ends up twisting and turning through a bunch of different topics, like relationships and friendships, and the meaning of life and happiness, but what else would you expect from this podcast? You're gonna enjoy this conversation. Ali is an incredibly intelligent, intellectual, compassionate, self-aware individual, and he's able to talk in a way that simplifies complex ideas for people like me and you. So, without further ado, my name's Steven Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

Narrator 2:19 (music)

Steven Bartlett 2:23 I really start here with all my guests, because I think it's so foundation- foundational to everything that they then say thereafter, is getting a bit of context as to who you are, where you came from-

Ali Abdaal 2:32 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 2:33 ... and the environment in which Ali was created.

Ali Abdaal 2:36 Oh, interesting question. Okay, so, um, I was born in Karachi in Pakistan in 1994, so I'm 27 now. And when I was two years old, my mom and dad divorced and my mom moved us to Lesotho in Southern Africa. Uh, it's a country most people haven't heard of, it's surrounded by South Africa, like, landlocked by South Africa, and we were there for about five, six years growing up. Uh, at that point, you know, my mom really valued education, she was working as a doctor and she knew the educational opportunities in Southern Africa, in Lesotho, were not great, and so we made a plan to move to the UK. And so we came to the UK in 2003, she started working here as a doctor, and we moved around a little bit in different areas in the UK. And it was really in- in secondary school, uh, that I did, in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, where I discovered kind of entrepreneurship and the internet and computers and stuff. And basically, all throughout school, I'd be the kid getting, like, decent grades and everything like that, but the thing I, like, I would- I would look forward to going home so that I could do some more coding or tinker on some websites or try and shill my services as a freelance graphic designer or something for five dollars here and there. And I was making kind of, you know, a little bit of money, I- I lied about my age on PayPal, I pretended I was 18 when I was actually, like, 13 (laughs) , and I was getting, like, five, ten dollars from these small businesses, uh, here and there, and thinking, "Oh my God, I'm- I'm making money on the internet, this is incredible." And then as I went through school, uh, me and my friends, we were all quite interested in the entrepreneurship stuff. We were all, we were doing, like, well in school, and I was like, "Oh, it would be cool to go to Oxford or Cambridge, would be cool to do medicine," but really, my passion at the time (laughs) was going home and- and tinkering with websites. And so that was kind of the environment that I grew up in. Then when I went to university, you know, thankfully I got a place for medicine at Cambridge, which was great, awesome experience.

Steven Bartlett 4:24 Just on that point there-

Ali Abdaal 4:25 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 4:25 ... so you- you were tinkering on websites and loving it, that's the thing you were, like, running home from school to do?

Ali Abdaal 4:30 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 4:30 Um, but then you go for medicine.

Ali Abdaal 4:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 4:33 What was the driving force behind you deciding not to do the tinkering on websites for a living and going and doing medicine? I mean, I, you said there that your mother was a doctor.

Ali Abdaal 4:41 Yeah, so I think when you grow up in the sort of environment that I did, whereby parents are doctors, all of my mom's friends were doctors, everyone we knew had, like, doctor parents, there are so few viable careers where you think, you know, "What are my, what are my job options in life?" Well, it's either doctor or lawyer or engineer, like, it's literally just those three. You don't even realize that other jobs even exist. Not in, like, a- a way where the parents are telling you this consciously, but more like just the narrative that you absorb from the people you're around is that I could be a doctor or an engineer or a lawyer. Uh, and so that was always in the back of my mind that, "Oh, it would be cool to be a doctor one day." And when I was around 16, I-

Steven Bartlett 5:17 Can I ask why?

Ali Abdaal 5:18 Yeah. I think because doctor seemed like a prestigious thing, and I think, I- I- I remember even when I was, like, six and seven, when people used to ask me what I would want to be when I was older, I used to say either a neurosurgeon or a gastroenterologist, not even knowing what that meant, but it was just, like, a big word that would make me feel cool that, "Oh, yeah." And then the adults that I would speak to would be like, "Oh, hello, fancy."

Steven Bartlett 5:41 So that in and of itself-

Ali Abdaal 5:42 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 5:42 ... where does prestige exist? One would assume that it exists in the mind of others. Like, do you know what I mean?

Ali Abdaal 5:47 Yes.

Steven Bartlett 5:47 Like, so, that's why I was, I would, if you had said to me, "I really want to save people's lives," I would really, have a real, high desire to, like, save lives and to d- then I'd be like, "Okay, that's the voice inside." But when- when it's, like, status, then it's-

Ali Abdaal 6:00 It was very much status and prestige.

Steven Bartlett 6:02 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 6:02 And that's the thing that I think about, to this day, a lot about, like, now that I've taken a break from medicine...You know, often if I'm- (laughs) if I'm having conversations with my mum, the rea- she'll try and talk me back into doing medicine again.

Steven Bartlett 6:16 Really?

Ali Abdaal 6:17 And one of her kind of bargaining chips on that front is, "Oh, but think about the prestige." You know, medicine has a certain prestige around it that being a YouTuber doesn't. And that's always like, "Ooh," you know, it's that- that side of me that's like, "Well, I want to carve my own path." I don't- I don't care about status and- status and prestige. And then th- there's the other half where it's still like a- kind of a narrative going through my life that I need to optimize for pris- like this sort of old world prestige.

Steven Bartlett 6:42 Instead of happiness?

Ali Abdaal 6:43 Instead of happiness, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 6:44 Which is bizarre, isn't it?

Ali Abdaal 6:45 It's completely bizarre. Yeah, this is, uh... (laughs) I was-

Steven Bartlett 6:49 Some strange, like, cult- it's a cultural thing as well, largely, I think. With- I think with- m- you know, my mum dropped out of school when she was seven years old.

Ali Abdaal 6:55 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 6:56 So doctor, lawyer, anything with prestige was the correct answer.

Ali Abdaal 7:01 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 7:02 Um, maybe that's because, and this is me just guessing out loud, when you come from- when you're an immigrant family, one of the actual biggest predictors of hap- happiness-

Ali Abdaal 7:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 7:14 ... was financial security.

Ali Abdaal 7:16 Absolutely, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 7:16 And being a doctor, li- so it's like, maybe...

Ali Abdaal 7:18 Yeah, I think- I think that's a big part of it, where with my- with our- with our parents' generation, especially- especially as immigrants, seeing other people who are happy correlated with other people who had, like, a big house and, like, nice cars and were going on holidays, equa- equals financial success, equals, oh, those people did well in their traditional career of banking or medicine or engineering or- or law. And the narrative of, like, Someone Like You, entrepreneur, social media, big company, that g- it just didn't- it just wasn't really a thing in our parents' generation.

Steven Bartlett 7:49 And you said they're, like, going on holidays, da-da-da-da-da. But I think if- in- go back to my- like, the village in Nigeria where my- where my mum's from, having a good job was actually, like, survival. It was like being able to eat. It was, like, much more just much lower things on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

Ali Abdaal 8:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 8:07 It was just like being able to survive, and then not having a job and an education was like pain from food, no healthcare, no education. Um, whereas in- as you say, like, in the Western world when you grow up here, yeah, it means Lamborghini and holiday and stuff. But- so you take that- you take that decision anyway, driven by your- by an external narrative to go and become a doctor.

Ali Abdaal 8:31 Uh, ex- external- I think, uh, there was also partly an internal narrative, and I'm not sure how much of this is me just bullshitting myself, but when I was 16, I decide- I- I made a conscious decision, do I wanna do computer science and do the tinkering with websites thing or do I wanna do medicine? And I think I- what I reasoned at the time was- was two things. Number one, medicine is six years at university, computer science is only three. Everyone says university is great. Ergo, six years is better than three years, therefore medicine makes sense. But the other thing that I thought was that it would be more interesting for my life to be a doctor who knows how to code than to be a coder who knows how to code. And it was, like, really that decision wh- where I realized, okay, why don't I do medicine, keep the coding website-y kind of stuff on the side so that I can eventually do some kind of tech startup thing related to medicine, and then medicine becomes a- a- a side hustle in a way before I had the terminology of- of the phrase side hustle. And so it ended up not quite working out that way, but- but certainly from my first year of med school onwards, I knew that I was not gonna be a doctor full-time. I was gonna do medicine for fun, and I was gonna make money on the side through a tech startup or- or something like that.

Steven Bartlett 9:38 And did you try tech startup?

Ali Abdaal 9:40 Uh, a little bit. So in my first year of uni, I s- uh, second year of uni, I started a company that helped other kids get into med school, and then so that was, like, in-person courses. But then eventually because me and my brother knew how to code, we turned this into a software online question bank for the different med school admissions programs. And so that would- that was it, sort of, like, you know, subscription billing, software as a service kind of product, uh, which was the closest I got to a tech startup. I- I dabbled with a few, like, medical tech things. I used to do freelance app design and web design for med tech startups while I was at- while I was at uni. But when the YouTube channel started and that really started taking off, I sort of realized that the thing I actually want to do is- is teaching rather than coding, um, and then something- something that you talk about in the book is kind of reflecting on your life and figuring out what are your values, what is the thing that you have that intrinsic motivation for, and for me, I always had that intrinsic motivation for business type stuff and also for teaching. Uh, I used to do tutoring when I was like- from the age of 13 up until now, and those were the times where I felt most alive in a way where I was teaching someone else. Um, and the nice thing about being a YouTuber is that it's just teaching at scale, and so I think I found that thing that drives me intrinsically, um, now. So now tech startup is sort of a, oh, backup option. If YouTube channel fails, if I get struck off the medical register, I can probably start a tech startup or- or words

Ali Abdaal 11:03 to that effect.

Steven Bartlett 11:03 I always find it a little bit weird that someone would just, like, go on YouTube and make a video. You know what I mean? Like, that fe- when you hear about the first time when these big YouTubers started, whether it's like True Geordie, who I've spoken to here, or Alfie Deyes, who I think became, like, the biggest- one of the biggest YouTubers in the country. Like, that first decision to record yourself, usually in your bedroom on a shit camera, talking to nobody-

Ali Abdaal 11:24 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 11:25 ... is a little bit weird. (laughs) Do you know what I mean?

Ali Abdaal 11:27 (laughs) It is very odd.

Steven Bartlett 11:28 How did- how did it start for you?

Ali Abdaal 11:30 It started for me, so I- I harbored dreams of being a YouTuber since about 2009.

Steven Bartlett 11:34 Why?

Ali Abdaal 11:35 Um, because I used to follow, uh, people like Kurt Schneider and Sam Tsui, who were kind of YouTube cover artists. They would produce covers of popular songs, and those covers were amazing. Like, they filmed them beautifully, arranged them beautifully, and I had a few friends who were really good at singing, and I fancied myself, so then I was quite into maths, I- I liked the idea of playing multiple musical instruments. So I thought, I wanna be the sort of YouTuber where I can play along to songs and my friends who are actually good at singing can sing along to those songs, and that's the sort of YouTuber I want to be. And so I sort of d- had a few, like, s- sort of stop starty moments over the- over those, like, next 10 years of kind of trying and failing at this.But ultimately, the reason I became a YouTuber was because it was content marketing for my medical school admissions business, where I was helping people get into med school, teaching them how to do well on these exams. And no one was really creating decent content for free on the internet about those exams. There was these kind of corporations creating boring corporate-looking stuff. Um, and I saw that gap in the market, I was like, "Great. If I can create these sort of tutorials on YouTube, content marketing, people will watch my tutorials for free. And if they like me enough, they'll sign up to the course." And that's y- why I started speaking to a camera (laughs) in my bedroom. It was like, "All right, guys. Here are some tips for section one of the BMAT. You know, section one is all about critical thinking, the 60 minutes and 35 questions and blahdy blah, and here's how you do it." And I was so familiar with that stuff, having taught it for five years, um, that that started to do reasonably okay early on, in the days where I had like 51 subscribers, 52 subscri- you know, refreshing the YouTube app every day to be like, "Oh my God, I've got another view." Um, and then it- it sort of morphed from there.

Steven Bartlett 13:10 Was there a tipping point where you thought, "Fuck, this is gonna be bigger than the- the thing that I intended this to support"?

Ali Abdaal 13:18 Yeah. That tipping point was my first video that went viral. Uh, and it was a video about how to study for exams. Um, and this was one of those weird- w- weird things that I l- I look back on where w- when I started YouTube, it was in June of 2017, I knew that I wanted to make this video, this sort of how to study for exams evidence-based tips at some point further down the line. It was a topic that I'd researched extensively. I w- like people would come to me asking for help on how to study for their exams. There's actually a whole body of, like, psychological research on this that we just don't get taught in school around what are the actually most effective ways to learn. And so, I knew I wanted to make a video about this, but I knew that I wanted that to be like my 100th video rather than my first video because I knew that I- I knew nothing about cameras or editing or anything, and I reasoned it would take me 100 videos of being bad at it before I could make a video that was actually good. And I thought to myse- to my- to myself, "Okay, I really wanna put all my- everything into this 100th video so that this video can potentially go big." And that's kinda what ended up happening. It- I think it was my 81st video or something rather than my 100th, but that video went viral. I- I had like 4,000 subscribers before, just sort of slowly building up, and then over the next few weeks it just exploded up to like 20,000, 25,000, um, and I was getting all these comments from people who knew me in real life being like, "Oh, I've- I've seen your video. I didn't realize you were a YouTuber." And that was the tipping point, um, which r- sort of started that exponential growth trajectory that kind of you talk about in the compounding chapter.

Steven Bartlett 14:45 Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, but then ag- I- I've- so there's two things there. The fir- the s- I'll just do them in the order in which-

Ali Abdaal 14:51 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 14:51 ... I- I thought of them. Um,

Steven Bartlett 14:54 ca- let's- 'cause you mentioned compounding there, what have you learnt from your experience on YouTube about the importance of- of consistency, um, and also from what you kind of- what typically happens with viral videos is just there's- it's so impossibly hard to predict the outcome, right? So, a lot of people say- y- that l- a lot of people on YouTube will make videos called How to Make a Viral Video, and in marketing it's all like, "Here are the secret sauce, here are the secret principles." But in reality, you can only- you can h- you can guess a couple of principles, but the outcome is hard to predict. So, what have you learnt about consistency, but then also being able to predict the outcome?

Ali Abdaal 15:30 Yeah. Uh, I- when I was listening to your con- your compounding chapter, I just found myself like nodding along like an absolute maniac to- to everything you were saying. I think th- it- it applies so much to YouTube. Uh, the- these days I- I teach people how to- how to be part-time YouTubers. And the- and the thing I say is that if you make one video every week for two years, then I 100% guarantee it will change your life. I can't put any numbers on it, I can't tell you you'll have 100,000 subscribers or how much money you'll be making, but I can 100% guarantee it will change your life. At the very least, in terms of the skills and the experience and the contact and the friends you're gonna make through that process. But you have to put out one video a week and you have to do it for at least two years. (laughs) Um, and yeah, but-

Steven Bartlett 16:07 Can I just ask on that then, on that point there, what is it that wou- would make someone do that? Because I mean, that's like fucking clean the floor every day for two years and I promise you it'll work out for you.

Ali Abdaal 16:22 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 16:22 It like... People don't seem to be able to do those kinds of things without some kind of intrinsic driver, so I'm- like, I'm curious 'cause you could say that to a million people, you could broadcast that through a tannoy, and 95% plus-

Ali Abdaal 16:36 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 16:36 ... will still fail. So, what is it that makes people from your- your experience, but also, yeah, from your own life, makes them do the work without guarantee of outcome?

Ali Abdaal 16:46 Yeah. I think, again, (laughs) I- I feel like this has been a bit of a copout because this is stuff that you talk about, uh, like en- enjoying the process, and this is kind of the theme of the book that I'm writing around how, you know, it's actually quite hard to show up week after week, not see any results, not see the views and the subscribers going up and- and stuff particularly quickly. But the thing that makes it bearable, the thing that makes it fun is actually enjoying the process and shifting away from outcome-oriented goals like a certain number of views, a certain number of subscribers, and more towards goals that are 100% within our control. Like, I just want to make two videos a week, and if I'm happy with the video then it goes out. And in fact, even if I'm not happy with the video, it goes out anyway. And everyone I know who has succeeded on YouTube has had that kind of attitude at some point, "I just have to get that video out every Tuesday without fail. It's not an option, it's gonna get done." And you know, like you say, and when we- when we talk- when we talk about compounding, th- that video on day one isn't gonna do anything, the video on day two or day three or day 24 is not gonna do anything. But you find when you're on day 300 and day 600, "Oh, actually all of this stuff has been compounding very, very slowly," and then the results happen really, really, really slowly and then all at once as soon as you just get that one video that- that goes viral.

Steven Bartlett 17:58 That is- I think it- that's the chapter where I talk about the eighth wonder of the world.

Ali Abdaal 18:02 Eighth wonder of the world.

Steven Bartlett 18:02 Yeah, that's it, with Warren Buffett and my dog Pablo being the- the opposing investor. And I genuinely, I think I learnt that lesson when I wrote the book. When I look back on my life and I thought about all the things that compounded in my favor, whe- whether it was like my, honestly, if you want me to be com- keep it facts with you, my teeth, had some problems with my teeth and I thought, "Do you know why?And I, I t- I probably reference this-

Ali Abdaal 18:23 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 18:23 ... in the book. Like, I, I hadn't been brushing one of my teeth properly, and it never mattered today or tomorrow or the day after, but there I was in that dentist chair, having my teeth fucking pulled out. And then my Instagram was the same. Um, m- health and fitness at the moment, the same. My business was the same. And it just goes to show that it's not those key critical big decisions we make to drop out. It's that, like, yeah, it's the, the compounding small almost, uh, irrelevant decisions.

Ali Abdaal 18:49 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 18:49 Um, but people don't, they, uh, 'cause I heard you started working out.

Ali Abdaal 18:52 I did, yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 18:53 And then you stopped.

Ali Abdaal 18:54 Uh, I, so I've, I, I've had a personal trainer now for the last kind of eight months or so.

Steven Bartlett 18:57 There you go, amazing.

Ali Abdaal 18:58 Um, and, uh, you know, I've been, I've been going on and off with the workout thing since the age of 18 and never done it properly until I got a personal trainer, where now I'm having to show up, I'm paying someone £30 an hour to basically just be with me while I'm doing stuff. And that has been the thing that's given me the most results. Uh, so I think whatever, like, I, I find in my life for, for things, for things that I actually care about where I'm like, okay, I actually care about becoming a happy, sexy millionaire or whatever, let me try and figure out ways that will remove my own need for discipline and willpower from that equation. And instead, get an accountability buddy or get a coach, or pay a friend a £100 if I don't do the thing. This was what my brother and I did when we were trying to motivate ourselves. I was doing songwriting, he was doing standup comedy. Like, right, "If we don't do this every Thursday for half an hour, we're gonna pay each other £50." Um, things like that to remove the choice, the motivation, the willpower, the discipline. All... The, the more of that can be outsourced to someone else or removed completely, the more I find I actually get stuff done and then I don't have to worry about it 'cause I'm like, "Okay, this is taken care of. I just show up."

Steven Bartlett 20:03 I, I guess you're removing, you're moving the moti- As opposed to, like, removing it, you're moving it to another pact. Like, Nir Eyal refers to it as, what you've described there as a financial pact-

Ali Abdaal 20:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 20:12 ... where now your motivation is to not lose £50. (laughs) It's like, because that is, that's a greater motivating force than you have within yourself to work out.

Ali Abdaal 20:20 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 20:20 That's inter- Is that sustainable?

Ali Abdaal 20:22 No, it's not. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 20:23 It's not, okay. (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 20:26 Um ... (laughs) This is all the stuff that I'm researching for the, for, for, for the book at the moment. Um, and you, and you talk about this as well, like, in- intrinsic and, and extrinsic motivation. And the way that I th- I think of it when I, when I think back on my life is that everything that I've done sustainably has been because of intrinsic motivation. I've genuinely enjoyed the thing. But you can genuinely enjoy a thing and still find it really hard to get started, and I think that's where the biggest procrastination comes in for all of us, where it's actually just showing up to the gym. That's the hard part. Like, o- once you're there, it's kind of easy. It's writing those first 10 words, 'cause once you've started writing the first 10, it's kind of easier to enjoy the process of writing the rest of them. And so the, and so the way I think about it is t- to get over that, like, hump of procrastination, that activation energy to get started, at that point, I will use every tool that in my arsenal to just, just get me to do the thing for two minutes. 'Cause I think once, once you do the thing for two minutes, it becomes so much easier to actually enjoy the process and, and, and sustain it.

Steven Bartlett 21:19 And, and you're so right when it comes to procrastination, like, that getting started point. Um, I've again just learned this from podcast guests I've had, Nir Eyal, again, I'll refer to him. He, he said to me one day on this podcast, he was like, "People procrastinate usually because there's, um, a great deal of psychological discomfort surrounding starting the task." And a lot of the time, especially with the gym or even an essay, that psychological discomfort is like you don't have the answers. So, I don't know how to use the machines-

Ali Abdaal 21:46 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 21:46 ... at the gym, or I don't actually have, I don't feel competent enough to even write this essay, so I'm just gonna do the fucking dishes.

Ali Abdaal 21:52 Yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 21:52 It's like, I'm gonna hoover the, the whole house and anyone else's house that

Steven Bartlett 21:56 needs hoovering today.

Ali Abdaal 21:56 Exactly.

Steven Bartlett 21:57 Um, you, you wro- you made a video about procrastination, didn't you?

Ali Abdaal 22:00 Yeah, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 22:01 Break that down for me. What's in, what's in the video?

Ali Abdaal 22:03 Um-

Steven Bartlett 22:04 So the video is called The How To Stop Procrastinating, right?

Ali Abdaal 22:06 Yeah. Um, so the, the way I think about pro- procrastination, basically, procrastination is a problem with getting started. Um, kind of this, this law of inertia, uh, Newton's first law that if something is at rest, it will continue to stay at rest. But if something's moving, it will continue to move without needing an external force. And so the key to overcoming procrastination is that little, that, that little, that little nudge at the start towards actually getting started. And all of the techniques around that, like, in the whole, like, psy- psychology research or research around this, it's just around making, make, make it as easy as possible. Um, so reduce all of the friction to doing it. If you wanna learn the guitar, then have the guitar by your sofa rather than in the wardrobe where you're never gonna see it. And if it's out of sight, it's out of mind, you're never gonna do it. There's, like, the external environmental friction towards doing the thing, but then there's also the internal friction. It's like those narratives that we tell ourselves, the, oh, uh, the, the psychological discomfort of going to the gym, the I don't want to see how other people are gonna see me, the even, even having, having the wrong sort of goal. Like, if my goal in writing the book is, oh, I really wanna hit the New York Times bestseller list, then it's really, really hard to bring myself to write anything, because now every single word I have to write has to be a New York Times bestselling word. Whereas if the goal is, to be honest, I just wanna w- write a book I'm proud of that's fun to, fun to write, that's actually within my control. And it becomes so much easier to get started at doing the thing. Um, so to overcome procrastination, we need to eliminate external friction, i.e. the environmental stuff. We need to try our best to get rid of the internal friction, like the emotional side of it, the mindset, the perfectionism, the, the fear, the discomfort. And then if we still need help, there are a few, a few hacks. The, the one that I use all the time is the, the two-minute rule, which is where I will genuinely convince myself I'm only gonna do it for two minutes. Uh, and if I want, I'm allowed to stop after the two minutes 'cause two minutes is better than nothing. But, like, 95% of the time, I decide to continue because two minutes is all you need to change your life.

Steven Bartlett 23:59 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 24:00 I should, I should tweet that. That's good. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 24:01 It's so... Yeah, that's really good. I, and I, that two-minute thing is fascinating to me because I, one of the things that, um, I see as another psychological barrier to starting is people view it as, like, they view the challenge as Mount Everest, whereas if... And, like, they've got to... I'll say it in another way. They view the challenge as moving Mount Everest, and really, if they viewed it as just, like, moving one pebble at a time, it becomes such a simple task.

Ali Abdaal 24:21 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:21 And I get this a lot when entrepreneurs ask me, they say, "Steve, I wanna start a business. Where do I start?" And you can hear in the question that they see it as moving Mount Everest-

Ali Abdaal 24:29 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:30 ... and I'm like, "Well-"... today, all you have to do is think of a name. Just think of, like, 50 names. Make a short list of names-

Ali Abdaal 24:37 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:37 ... and then we'll, we'll revisit it tomorrow. And then tomorrow, maybe think of, you know, go and check if the website's available. And then we'll revisit it the day after.

Ali Abdaal 24:45 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 24:45 And when it becomes that, and when it becomes sort of really small itemized one small step at a time, and you not having to get from stair zero-

Ali Abdaal 24:53 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 24:53 ... to 1,000 immediately, it becomes so, you know, the psychological discomfort fades away. It feels achievable. And that, your two-minute rule is doing a similar thing where it's saying, "Well, today only, I've, I've only got to do just, just ... uh, if I can open the Word document and write the title-"

Ali Abdaal 25:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:07 "... and then we're done."

Ali Abdaal 25:08 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 25:08 You know? And ... So that's fascinating.

Ali Abdaal 25:10 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 25:10 What about re- re- You were going to say something else there.

Ali Abdaal 25:13 Yeah, I mean, uh, just, just to your point there. Um, have you, have you come across, uh, the blog, Wait But Why?

Steven Bartlett 25:18 No.

Ali Abdaal 25:18 Oh, it's incredible. You should definitely interview Tim Urban when you're in America.

Steven Bartlett 25:21 Oh, do you know what?

Ali Abdaal 25:22 He, he came over once.

Steven Bartlett 25:22 I literally yesterday went on his Instagram and sent him a DM.

Ali Abdaal 25:25 Oh, great. Yeah, he's, he's awesome. Any, any podcast he's ever been on I've been like, "Oh, this is so sick." Uh, he has a great blog post series about overcoming procrastination. And the way he refers to that, th- that point you just made is that, um, there are lots of tasks that are very, like, vague and icky.

Steven Bartlett 25:39 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 25:39 And you have to be able to un-icky-fy a task. Uh, and something like start a business is icky. Something like learn to code is icky because, like, what the hell does that even mean? Like where do you even start? Whereas brainstorm 10 ideas for a name and pick one of them is a very clearly defined next action step. And so I get this with students all the time where people are like, "Oh, I don't have the motivation to study for my chemistry exam." It's like, "What's on your to-do list?" "Study for my chemistry exam." Pfft, that's never gonna happen. Read chapter one and answer questions four to five are a reasonable thing, a reasonably defined next action step.

Steven Bartlett 26:10 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 26:11 And so what I do is any time I find myself procrastinating from something, I think, "Okay, am I procrastinating because I actually ... the, the task is too icky? I, I don't know what I have to do?" 'Cause once I know what I have to do, I can then do it for two minutes and it gets done.

Steven Bartlett 26:24 Speaking about productivity. Um, as you guys know, I'm, I'm the biggest Huel consumer in the world and I have been for many, many, many years. And I always get asked what my favorite Huel products are. And I have them here in front of me. The first product that I fell in love with with Huel because it's nutritionally complete, it tastes amazing, I have no time in my life, but I also want, don't want my diet to be compromised when my life gets really, really busy as it always has, um, ended up being, um, is this berry flavor ready-to-drink Huel. That was where, th- that was where my journey with Huel began. The next product that I fell in love with, w- w- at Huel was the banana flavor ready-to-drink. For me, it just tastes better than the berry, and I al- I already think the berry tastes amazing. Funnily, from speaking to Huel, a lot of people's favorite flavor is the chocolate flavor. Um, I've never taken a huge liking to the chocolate flavor, but t- to be honest, I don't really eat much chocolate in any facet of my life, um, or drink it at all. And now, the product which I have every single day without fail and probably because I'm in that phase where I'm working out every day without exception and I want to make sure that my gains from working out, whether it's becoming more lean or becoming more strong, are captured is the protein, um, Huel which has just come out. And as you can see, if anyone thinks I'm bullshitting about how much I like Huel, this tub is basically empty. So Huel, if you're listening, please can I have a top-up? I will buy it, don't worry. Um, but honestly, and I say this with full honesty, 100% honesty, um, I genuinely didn't like protein powders before. Maybe I'm lazy. Not the type of guy that likes to mix things. And this is my favorite flavor protein ever, the salted caramel Huel which I talk about all the time. They also have a ton of other flavors. They're all actually t- on top of my fridge there. But I'm starting with this one. I've basically finished it and then I'll work my way through the others and give you a little bit of a review on those. I ... It's such, as I always say in this podcast, it's such an honor to be able to talk about a product that you use many times a day. I had a, like, the Huel ready-to-drink this morning. I'll have this after my workout, which is after this podcast. And in terms of productivity, optima- um, and operating at your best, then that is what Huel is all about.

Steven Bartlett 28:31 Y- you know, people talk about how they'll put on their to-do list, clean house. And it'll sit on a to-do list. And clean hou-... That's a b-

Ali Abdaal 28:38 That's a big thing. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 28:39 S- same thing. And it'll t- and that'll sit on your to-do list for, like, I don't know, two weeks (laughs) whatever. But if you do, if you time block and write in your... This is what I do on the weekends because ... So Monday to Friday, my schedule is ran by the, the meetings and things I have to do. So I'm a slave to the calendar. Saturday and Sunday come around. I wake up, I'm like, "Okay."

Ali Abdaal 29:00 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 29:00 (laughs) I'm like, "What the fuck? Th- how does this thing work?"

Ali Abdaal 29:02 The whole day (laughs) I mean.

Steven Bartlett 29:02 This life. Yeah. I'm like, "It's empty." I've got loads of things I know I could be doing right now-

Ali Abdaal 29:05 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:05 ... but nothing, no one telling me what to do in a, in a, in a life of mine where I'm told what to do every five minutes. Um, so I time block on the weekends, which means clean house would become at 11:00 till 12:00, I clean the kitchen. (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 29:20 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:20 'Cause then it's, like, time sensitive and, like, task specific.

Ali Abdaal 29:24 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:24 And that's, uh, that's been an absolute game changer for me. And I also think in the era of working from home-

Ali Abdaal 29:30 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 29:31 ... where, you know, people are sat at home, they have a, tasks they have to con-

Ali Abdaal 29:35 Oh. (laughs) It's like we've, we-

Steven Bartlett 29:37 People always ask the question.

Ali Abdaal 29:37 It's almost like we prepped for this 'cause, like, this is literally like the, the three-part structure of (laughs) of my book which I've been, like, h- just having in my head for the last, last few weeks.

Steven Bartlett 29:44 Perfect.

Ali Abdaal 29:44 Where, like, step one is how do we beat the procrastination, how do we s- get started with doing the thing. And part two of the book is how do we sustain, how do we actually keep on going doing the thing. And, uh, there's just, uh ... So in, in, in terms of mindset, the thing that I've found that actually moves the needle is focusing on trying to make it fun. And I really, I really l- like that word fun. Like, I think there's something about the word fun that is so, like, childish, but also fully speaks to ... Like, fun basically means in- intrinsic motivation. Like, something is sufficiently enjoyable that you do it for its own sake rather than for the fact that you've got a sponsor helping you or you've got a deadline or, or things like that. Um, there's one, there's one story in particular that I, I, I, I often come back to and that's, like, a-... sometime last year, I was, I was working at the hospital. It was pandemic season, et cetera, et cetera. And I'd, I'd gotten to the end of, like, a 13-hour-long shift, and I was just about to go home. Uh, and the nurse said to me, "Oh, Ali, can you put a cannula in this patient? Her, like, IV line has issued, and, and she needs fluids overnight." And my heart kind of sank. I was like, "Oh, no." Like, if, if the nurse wasn't able to put the cannula in, that means it's a patient with difficult veins. It means it's gonna be hard to put this in. And I sort of had this mindset of, like, "All right then, fine." And sort of, uh, grudgingly took out the cannula and got, got all the, the equipment in a tray. And I... Like, as, as I was doing this, I, there was a, a patient in the bay next door where they were just, like, talking to a family member or something and saying, "Oh, you know, the, this hospital has been amazing. Everyone is so nice, and what a pleasure it is, you know. Freaking love the NHS," kind of vibes. And I realized that in that moment, I was not being, like, a good model internally for what I want the NHS to be and what I want a good doctor to be. And there's something that Seth Godin, uh, who, uh, who I've been following for a while says, which is that it's the difference between have to and get to. And so I was considering it as, like, "Oh, I have to put in this cannula." And I remembered that blog post I read from Seth Godin where he said, "Instead of thinking of have to, think of it as get to." And I realized, "Oh, I get to put in this cannula. I get to make a difference in this patient's lives and, and life and give her fluids overnight so that she's not gonna dehydrate because of her morning sickness." And just that mindset shift immediately made me feel so much better about it, and I was like, "Oh, I get to do this. Who cares if I've been working for 13 hours? This is fun, this is a privilege, this is cool." And I put it in, and we had a nice chat, and I felt really great about it afterwards. And now, like, the... And so that's one of the mindset things that I just always come back to. If I'm finding myself not enjoying something, and therefore my focus goes, I get distracted and l- I procrastinate. Instead of thinking, "I have to do this," I think, "I get to do this."

Steven Bartlett 32:23 It's like a gratitude shift.

Ali Abdaal 32:24 Yeah. Yeah, it's like your Chapter 3 or whatever it was-

Steven Bartlett 32:27 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 32:27 ... that's talking about gratitude. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 32:29 And we so-

Ali Abdaal 32:29 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:29 ... quickly fall out of gratitude-

Ali Abdaal 32:31 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:32 ... when we become used to the-

Ali Abdaal 32:32 It's, it's so easy to do.

Steven Bartlett 32:33 Yeah. When we become that used to the privilege of our life, used to the privilege of our jobs, of our relationships, of our kids, of our dog. We, we think, "Well," you know, "We..." And because it... And the stoic people talk about this. I think I probably talk about this in the book as well, 'cause these are just, like, the-

Ali Abdaal 32:46 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:46 ... clearly the only ideas I have.

Ali Abdaal 32:47 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 32:48 I've put them all in there, um, about how they used to do that, like, hedonistic a- adaptation-

Ali Abdaal 32:51 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 32:52 ... um, exercises to literally take the things out of their life that they really value-

Ali Abdaal 32:56 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 32:56 ... just to remind themselves of what they had, and it kind of seems like, yeah, gratitude is a very important thing.

Ali Abdaal 33:03 Have you, have you got, like, a defined gratitude practice that you do, like, gratitude journaling or that kind of stuff? Or how do you do that?

Steven Bartlett 33:08 (sighs) So I... The gratitude journaling thing, um, takes place in the notes of my phone, where sometimes I feel the need to remind myself of what I'm really, really grateful for. I think I do have a, a bias towards feeling grateful all the time. I really just get overwhelmed sometimes with, like, I'll have, like, a little flash. You'll probably get this when you think, "What the fuck is this?"

Ali Abdaal 33:28 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 33:28 Like, you know what I mean? (laughs) Like, "What the f-" Especially now that I'm on Dragons' Den, and that was a real vision of mine-

Ali Abdaal 33:33 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 33:34 ... from when I was, like, 12 years old. I'm like, "Oh, my Go-" This is, and I said this in my show the other day, I said, um, said on stage in the Diary of a CEO Life, I said that, um, I said to the audience, I said, like, "I think everybody in this room is living a life that you once dreamed of living, but you don't, you're not even happy about it because c- present you..." Well, yeah. Present you has told you that future you will be even happier when you get to somewhere else, but, like, this is it. This was the fucking dream, and look at you living it. Look at you as your, you know, doctors and lawyers, and you've got the job at that brand you always wanted to work for. This is it. Um, and I, I have to do that to myself sometimes because... Yeah, it, um, because if not, you'll never get there. If your happiness is always ex- as I say in the book, if, if it always lives somewhere in the future behind-

Ali Abdaal 34:21 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 34:21 ... some goal or its, the attainment of some task or whatever, it always will be there. And that was certainly the case for me, and I f- uh, from what I read about you, where, um, you were talking about, like, outcomes-

Ali Abdaal 34:34 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 34:34 ... and not being too attached to the outcomes. Sounds like it might have been similar.

Ali Abdaal 34:37 Yeah. Yeah, very much so. Um, I, I have to remind myself on a daily basis as well, um, to kind of be, be, be grateful for, for all of the things. Um, sometimes, like if I, if, if I'm in the habit of doing, like, a morning journal, I'll, like, write down a list of three things, and it's, it's often simple things like, you know, this cup of coffee in my hand or Angus or, like, my housemate, and it's just, like, you know, this nice chat that we had. And I think, like, like for me, if I, if I don't remind myself, I th- I always just think in kind of hustle mode of, like, "All right, cool. Onto the next thing, onto the next thing, onto the next thing." Um, but, like, it was, it was pretty cool yesterday. Like, we, we, we went on a tour of Gymshark HQ up north, and I was just thinking that I can't believe this is, this is my job. (laughs) Like, I, I get to do this for work. This is absolutely sick. And even now being here, like, this is, sitting here talking to you is what I get to do for work. And if, like, I don't know, 18-year-old me were to imagine being in this position now, I'd just been like, "Oh my God, this is, this is the dream." Have you come across a guy called Brandon Sanderson?

Steven Bartlett 35:38 Nope.

Ali Abdaal 35:39 Uh, he's an author. He w- he wro- writes... He's, he's my favorite author. Uh, he d- does these incredible, like, fantasy novels, The Stormlight Archive, huge, huge, uh, series. In it, there's, like, a qu- a phrase that I always come back to aro- a- around this point. There's this, like, um, order of knights. They're called the Knights Radiant, and they have, like, their, like, charter, their ideals. And their first ideal is life before death, strength before weakness-

Steven Bartlett 36:01 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 36:02 ... journey before destination. And it's that final bit of journey before destination that I remind myself of on a basically daily basis, where it's, it's kind of like Miley Cyrus's thing of it's the climb.

Steven Bartlett 36:13 Hmm.

Ali Abdaal 36:13 "It's not about how fast I get there. Ain't about what's waiting on the other side. It's the climb." And the way I try and, uh, g- I try and remind myself of this point of I, I am enough is thinking and, and really trying to internalize that the journey is more important than the destination.

Steven Bartlett 36:27 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 36:28 And I think we do need a destination. Like, y- you know, the fact that I want to, I don't know, r-... write this book or whatever. Like, that's, that's a destination. But now that I've got that destination of like, "Cool, this is the, the direction I want to go," at that point, in a dream world, I would, I would just forget about that. And now that I'm on the journey, I would enjoy the journey on its own merit.

Steven Bartlett 36:47 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 36:47 Because, you know, as you know, once you ... if you set a goal, you hit the goal, it's like, "Well, happiness started, uh, the, the, the joy from that lasts about five seconds and then it feels like nothing." Even like (laughs) sometimes it, it doesn't feel like anything at all, even, even for those five seconds.

Steven Bartlett 37:00 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 37:00 Um, and so what I've been realizing a lot recently is that, yes, we're, I don't know, expanding the team and moving to an office in London and, like, hiring people and blah-dee blah blah blah, but really, like, am I enjoying myself day to day?

Steven Bartlett 37:12 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 37:12 And am I kind of living the dream, as it were, day to day? And not, and not so much worrying about the goal at the end of it. One thing that you, that, that you talk about as well, um, is I think it was in either nine- chapter, chapter 19 or 20, it was around

Ali Abdaal 37:27 this thing of kind of, yeah, ambition versus insecurity, is this thing that you think you want to do, is it coming from within or is it coming from outside of you? And you talk about values, like living in alignment with your values. Do you have any, like how, how do you figure out what your values are? (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 37:45 It's a really interes- it's a really interesting, um, thing. Um, I think, I think one of the, the best indicators of what your values are, are from how you feel. That's maybe the most, um, fundamental human stimuli we have, which is how something makes us feel. Um, slight tangent, and I was talking to someone about this yesterday, in the world we live in, and as the social media connected from both generation, we don't understand what our actual true intrinsic values are very easily because even if... and this is kind of a controversial topic but who cares, even charity-

Ali Abdaal 38:24 Mm. Yep. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 38:24 ... we all think we're charitable human beings, we're not. And if you've only got to look back at h- uh, hu- human history to understand that our morals are highly influenced by what society is doing at the time, because if you go back 150 years, I would have been a slave p- potentially, right, and my m- family certainly would have in Africa, like they would have had a high p- chance of being slaves.

Ali Abdaal 38:45 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:45 And at the time, my slave master was not a bad person.

Ali Abdaal 38:49 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:49 He was a good person, you know, morally sound per- you know. And, and, and now obviously that's viewed as being a awful thing-

Ali Abdaal 38:56 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 38:56 ... and it's the same within, like, the LGBTQ comm- TQQ community that, you know, at one time, um, it, that was just everyone knew that, believed, that being in a same sex relationship was a terrible thing, an evil thing in some religious, um, writings. Now we all accept it to be m-... How can our morals have ch- Society has changed.

Ali Abdaal 39:20 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 39:20 The force that's telling us what's right and wrong, what's good and bad, what's valued and what v- you know, has changed, that's the only change that's happened. So I do believe deeply that a lot of our values, um, unavoidably come from our willingness to survive by taking up the values of the communities we live in. However, when it comes to your personal values, however they've been shaped, usually from your parents or early experiences, I- I just go on based on how things make me feel. And that seems to be the only indication I h- I, I have of what's, what's true for me and what's not. If I, if I'm alone and I watch a, a video of a baby, um, suffering or crying, and it makes me sad-

Ali Abdaal 39:58 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 40:00 ... when no one's around-

Ali Abdaal 40:01 Yep. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 40:02 (laughs) ... and I'm not having to tweet about my feelings-

Ali Abdaal 40:04 For sure. Yep.

Steven Bartlett 40:05 ... to the world, then I would assume that that is, you know... You said about learning and, sorry, teaching. Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 40:10 You've got enjoyment from that. You've always got... I would assume that's one of your sort of professional values or something you value professionally.

Steven Bartlett 40:16 Yeah. I've been on a whole, like, uh, quest across the internet over the last few months to tr- try and answer this question of how do you, how do you figure out what your values are. Um, there's this, like, program with a life coach that I even did, which is, like, just, just finishing up, where, um, one of the exercises was to, like, go back to your childhood and think about, kind of on a scale of kind of minus 10 to plus 10, uh, minus being really bad and plus being really good, like, what were the most salient experiences of your childhood? And I was like, "Okay, this sounds like BS, but all right, let me engage with this process." And then I, I made this list of all these things that, these salient memories from childhood, like, you know, that time when my brother new-gamed my Pokemon Blue and I lost my 146 Pokemon and that, how, how that felt, and that time when... whatever. Um, and the facilitator was like, "Okay, let's try and tease out, like, what th- this might tell you about some of your values." And I was kind of surprised that a lot of the stuff that came out of that, if I think about, "Is this a core value that I live by/I want to live by?" the answer was "Yes." Uh, and I was surprised by how much of those experiences where, when I was under 10 years old shaped maybe the values that I've got right now. And so when I think about my values, it's things like, I think primarily for me right now, it's, like, freedom and autonomy-

Ali Abdaal 41:31 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 41:31 ... which is why I think I've got this whole drive to be financially independent, to work medicine part-time rather than full-time, to ha- be in control of my own schedule. Things like togetherness and kind of working with other people has always been a really fun thing for me. Whether I was in school or university, studying with friends is just always more fun than studying on my own. And that wasn't true for everyone, but it was certainly true for me. Um, teaching on that list kind of, uh, hel- helping other people in a way, but, like, I've got, I've got friends, for example, who, who, who run charities and they genuinely feel in their hearts if there is suffering in the world. Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 42:06 And I don't genuinely feel in my heart when there's suffering in the world.

Steven Bartlett 42:09 Yeah.

Ali Abdaal 42:09 Um, but I know intellectually that I should care about this thing and so I will act in a way that makes me care about the thing and, like, donate 10% of my money to charity every year and all this, all this stuff, but I won't actually feel it. Um, but when I think about how I feel, it's like, teach- teaching other people rather than saving, saving lives is the impact that I care about having. And when I realized this, I was like, "Oh, okay, this explains why I actually don't really care that much about medicine." Like, I'm, I prefer teaching medical students than actually practicing as a doctor.

Steven Bartlett 42:36 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 42:37 And realizing that teaching is more of a value for me than t-... saving lives-

Steven Bartlett 42:40 Mm.

Ali Abdaal 42:40 ... for example. I was like, "Okay, cool. This, this makes sense. I can now get on board with that and not feel bad about it."

Steven Bartlett 42:45 The other point is that I've never cared about... really, I've really never cared about finding out what my values are. Beca- And this is probably goes back to how I answered that question, because the stimuli that I have to decide all of these things is like, um, "How does it make me feel?"

Ali Abdaal 43:00 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 43:00 And I think if you have a good quitting framework, then you will quickly move in the direction of your values, um, much faster than others will.

Ali Abdaal 43:08 Quitting framework?

Steven Bartlett 43:08 Yeah. Like if you have a good, uh, a good, uh, like quitting framework-

Ali Abdaal 43:12 Oh, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 43:12 ... or you're, you're very good at quitting, then you'll, you'll actually, you'll... So if you're good at conducting experiments and then quitting, like just A, it's like rapid AB testing, right? And you can... I think, I think the answer really to finding out who you are and what your values are and getting your place to a life that you really love, is try something. I, I always say to young people, "E- increase the amount of experiments you're doing and quit faster."

Ali Abdaal 43:33 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 43:33 So you go and get a job, you're like, "Okay, um, I hate this. This boss is a dick because we don't have any freedom here or autonomy. I hate that part. I love the fashion part, but I just hate this environment because of this, this, and this." Quit. Go and find a job where you have the bit you liked and some new sort of, uh, ex- factors. And then you go, "Okay, well, I love that bit. I actually loved being a manager here. I'm gonna keep the fashion piece. I love the autonomy of being able to work from home or whatever."

Ali Abdaal 43:56 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 43:56 Duh-duh-duh, quit. Move on. The next job, you know. And I think that's what I've done in my life is, I never knew what my values were, but I went in the direction of, um... I started out in call centers, knew I loved building things, being an entrepreneur in sales, moved in that direction, quit the call center jobs, did about 15 of them, start my own business. Parts of business I really don't like.

Ali Abdaal 44:15 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 44:16 Don't wanna do those parts, don't do them. I still don't do them.

Ali Abdaal 44:19 Yep.

Steven Bartlett 44:20 And I'm like, "This is the part within this bit, wi- within business, that I love doing within this industry," and I never was intentional about that. There was no plan. It was this rapid... Increased experiments you're doing and quit as fast as you possibly can. Um, and then you end up, I think, in a life that you're... But quitting is easier said than done. I have to say, it would be remiss if I didn't say all of this is underpinned by huge confidence in self.

Ali Abdaal 44:45 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 44:46 And the fact when I do quit, I don't need a plan and that I'll, I'll be fine. A lot of people don't have that part, so they hold themselves in a miserable situation because it's a certain one.

Ali Abdaal 44:55 Yeah. You know, I like... Uh, it's like when I, when I read that bit of the book, the, the quitting framework, I was sort of retrospectively applying decisions I've made to quit to that, that thing of like, suck but end hard. I was like, "Oh, okay. This actually makes a lot of sense." Um, th- there was one decision that my mom still haunts me about (laughs) , uh, which was ab- uh, abou- about a year ago, I decided that, you know what, I want to take my medical career seriously and I want to move to America to do medicine. I had a few friends who were there, which seemed like an adventure and it seemed cool. But to move to America from the UK to do medicine, you have to take this like ridiculously hard exam called the USMLE and it's basically like relearning all of medical school, uh, but at like, you know, a ridiculous level of detail, more so than we have in the UK. And so I started off preparing for this, and I realized that this is actually really hard. And th- the thing that I reasoned in my mind was, "I could do this. It's, uh... But the reward is really not worth it." Like, you get to the end of it... I'd spoken to some doctors that were working in America, and were like, "Yeah, you make 400K a year and you're working a lot and you're going through this four years of grueling residency program." And in my mind it was like, "Okay, it's, it's hard and the outcome is not worth it."

Steven Bartlett 46:07 Yes.

Ali Abdaal 46:07 "Therefore I'm just gonna quit."

Steven Bartlett 46:09 That is the worst place to be in life.

Ali Abdaal 46:10 Yeah (laughs) .

Steven Bartlett 46:11 Doing hard sh- struggling for nothing.

Ali Abdaal 46:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 46:14 (laughs) .

Ali Abdaal 46:14 Um, but then when I have conversations with my mom, it's like, "Oh, well, y- you quit because you're a quitter." Or like, "The fact that you found it hard, mean- like, y- y- you only quit because it was hard." And it's like, "No, I, I didn't only quit because it was hard. I als- I also crucially quit because it was like, the, the reward was not gonna be worth it." But I, I didn't quite have the terminology to express that until I read it in your book, basically.

Steven Bartlett 46:35 Yeah. Well, I didn't either.

Ali Abdaal 46:36 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 46:36 And it was, again, that's why I have to specify that that's not the framework I've made my l- decisions through for my whole life. In hindsight, one, I'm a very logical sort of first principle thinker, and that's why I'm able to arrive at peace when I make these massive life decisions, because it's like, "Oh, logically there was no alternative. There was no alternative. I'm not gonna do something that's hard and not worth it. What the- who- what kind of insanity is that? I am someone that will do something that's hard and worth it."

Ali Abdaal 47:01 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 47:01 "I'm not... And I'm, I'm not someone that's going to quit every time something sucks."

Ali Abdaal 47:06 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 47:06 "I am someone that's gonna try and change it if it's worth it, and if I think it's possible to change." Me and my wife, you know, my girlfriend have an argument and I go, "This sucks," and fucking walk out the door. No, that's not who I am. I will try and fight for something if it's worth it, and if I believe it's changeable. And so logically, I think that framework is robust.

Ali Abdaal 47:24 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 47:24 I think it's solid. You talk a lot about time management.

Ali Abdaal 47:27 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 47:28 Managing one's time. You've made a lot of videos about the topic. What have, what have been some of the other sort of, um, tips or tricks that you've adopted that have helped you manage your time better? We talked about time blocking-

Ali Abdaal 47:37 Mm.

Steven Bartlett 47:38 ... and, um, breaking your vague to-do list tasks down into specific ones.

Ali Abdaal 47:43 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 47:43 Is there anything else that comes to mind?

Ali Abdaal 47:44 Yeah, there's one, um... I've, I've read a bunch of books around productivity and stuff. Uh, there's one called Make Time by these chaps called Jake and John. Uh, and there's a tip in there which I genuinely use every day. Uh, it's just, it's called the daily highlight where it's just similar to Gary Keller's thing of The One Thing, like what is the one thing you want to do today? And then it's like I define that in the morning, "Okay, what's the one thing I wanna do today? Record this podcast with you. What's the one thing I wanna do tomorrow? Finish sample chapter for the book proposal." And then I'll stick a slot in the calendar for it, and then the thing will get done. And on days where I actually do the daily highlight thing, I have about a 50% success rate with actually thinking about it in the morning.

Steven Bartlett 48:23 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 48:23 I always just get more done and I feel at the end of the day, "Oh, I've made progress because I've done that one thing that was most important." On, on the days where I don't, I find that like, "Oh, I've got these 18 things still on my to-do list. Oh, can't be bo... Got this MI- iMessage coming from this person who wants to intro, intro to that person..." (laughs) Whereas when, when I know what that one thing is, I'm like, "Okay, cool. All I have to do is just get that one thing done today."... and I sometimes think that if I did this more often, if for 365 days, I actually just did the one thing that's most important each day, I'd be making so much progress. (laughs) I'd be having so much fun. And then I think to myself, "Why, why don't I actually just do this every day?" Um, but that's, that's one of my main ones.

Steven Bartlett 48:58 That's life as well. Just... And you, you, when you talked about the tipping point in your career where you blew up-

Ali Abdaal 49:03 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:03 ... you were talking about made, you made that video about how to study.

Ali Abdaal 49:06 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:07 And, I guess, the premise of that video was teaching people how to learn better.

Ali Abdaal 49:10 Yup.

Steven Bartlett 49:10 You've read a lot of books.

Ali Abdaal 49:11 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 49:12 As it relates to learning-

Ali Abdaal 49:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:14 ... outside of studying-

Ali Abdaal 49:15 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 49:15 ... just more generally, what tools have you adopted? 'Cause you're some, you even, you know, you've read my book and you remember

Steven Bartlett 49:20 all, everything it seems. What trips, and tips, and tricks have you learned about how to learn better?

Ali Abdaal 49:25 Yeah, um, so essentially, the main one is that we learn by testing ourselves rather than by consuming more stuff. Uh, like we, like in, in, which is a bit counterintuitive, like when it comes to if we, if we think about, like, studying and then we can kind of broaden it out. Like, if it comes to studying, we think that to, to learn more stuff, I need to get more information into my brain, but what, what, what all the evidence says is that, no, to learn more stuff, you actually just need to read it once, and then you have to try your best to get it out of your brain. And that feels hard, and it feels tough, and it feels like, "Ugh, I'm, I'm an idiot. I don't know enough." But that, that, like, desirable difficulty is what allegedly creates the neuronal connections in our brain to make us actually learn something. Um, and so it's similar to working out, like progressive overload. When it's heavy and when it feels hard is when your muscles are actually growing because you've got the stimulus for growth. Equally, when it comes to learning anything, when it feels hard is when there is a stimulus for the neurons to grow or words to that effect. And so when it comes to studying, if anyone is sort of l- listening to this, has exams coming up, and they are worried about their grades, the, th- the answer is that they're just not testing themselves enough. The more you test yourself, the better grades you'll get. And this, therefore, applies also to every other thing that we're trying to learn. So, you know, if I'm learning, I was learning how to play You've Got a Friend in Me on the guitar the other day, and if I'm just playing through the first two verses of it that I know already, I'm not learning anything, but as soon as I try doing the thing that feels hard, at that point it's like it, the, the harder it feels, the more I'm learning. And then, and then we sleep and then the connections get solidified. Um, so it's that, that's kind of the main concept. Basically, test yourself more, whatever that thing is. Um, and second big one in the research is spaced repetition, that anything we learn, whether it's a fact for an exam or a song on the guitar, our memory for it will exponentially decay over time, and the way to make it go into our long-term memory, whatever the skill is, is to interrupt the forgetting curve, uh, at spaced intervals. So, maybe you would le- you would practice the song on day one, you'd practice it again on day two, then on day five, then on day 25, and then on day 105. And as the intervals lengthen, that is the sort of thing that gets this, how to play the song or this fact about medicine or whatever into our long-term memory. And most things around learning can basically be summed up by those two things, active recall, i.e. test yourself, and spaced repetition, i.e. space it out over time.

Steven Bartlett 51:44 Interesting. People are really fascinated by productivity, aren't they?

Ali Abdaal 51:47 They are, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:48 I think I heard you

Steven Bartlett 51:49 say about, like, when you put the word productivity in your content-

Ali Abdaal 51:51 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 51:51 ... it seems to perform better.

Ali Abdaal 51:53 Yeah. Uh, I, uh, I often think about this. Like, so t- so to me, productivity, I think, I think to a lot of people, productivity just means efficiency and creating economic output. The way that I define productivity is just kind of using my time well and working on things that are meaningful to me and optimizing for happiness. And so to me, this conversation is, is productive, hanging out with friends is productive. I was playing PlayStation last night for a couple of hours. That, to me, was productive because I was, like, intentionally doing it because I wanted to take a break from writing. Um, it's when I feel, it's, uh, I, I feel unproductive when I know there is something I want to do, and I'm not doing the thing because I'm scrolling Instagram. That, to me, is unproductive.

Steven Bartlett 52:33 You're not being intentional with your time.

Ali Abdaal 52:34 Exactly, yeah. But I think on the internet these days, people use productive as economic output and the whole, like, "Oh, I want to be more productive," it's a, I think partly it's a-

Steven Bartlett 52:47 Virtue signaling thing to some degree as well.

Ali Abdaal 52:49 Yeah. Yeah. Partly it's a, it's a, it's a virtue, v- v- virtue signaling thing. I think, I think partly or it's also like a self-flagellating thing in a way, whereby I al- I often see comments on my videos where it's like, "Oh, productive day in my life," which I'm kind of doing tongue-in-cheek just 'cause it's funny, where people are like, "Oh my God, I watch these videos just to make myself feel bad."

Steven Bartlett 53:08 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 53:08 And I'm like, "Oh, wow. Okay." Uh, A, this is a, this is mostly a joke. Like, I hope you realize this, but, (laughs) but, but also, it's like that, that's kind of sad that that comment has got so many upvotes, where, "Oh, I feel so, I feel like such a wasteman when I watch one of Ali Abdaal's videos." And I think there is that, like, perverse sense of people getting pleasure out of the story they're telling themselves that they are non-productive or that they are a chronic procrastinator, and to see someone who doesn't, who is on the surface seemingly so productive makes you kind of feel bad about yourself. Um, I wonder if it's similar to, like, if I look at my Instagram explore page, about a year ago, it used to be bikini models. These days are the dudes with six-pack abs. (laughs) And I look at that, and there is a part of me that gets pleasure out of, like, flagellating myself and that, like, "Why, why don't I look like that yet?" And I wonder to what extent that's like a thing in the world of productivity.

Steven Bartlett 53:59 That is fascinating 'cause, I mean, that would be driven by the antithesis of that. That's gonna be driven by a culture where productivity and, "I'm getting so much done so I'm gonna be successful and rich and a millionaire, and this is, I'm in stealth mode building this massive business."

Ali Abdaal 54:15 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 54:15 "And I've been up all night. Look at me, it's 4:00 AM and I'm still working."

Ali Abdaal 54:18 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:19 That's driving one end of the spectrum, which is making productivity and being productive an aspiration for this generation.

Ali Abdaal 54:26 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:26 And on the other end, that's, I mean, that's why, again, the desire to be productive is dr- so high and your videos do so well on that topic.

Ali Abdaal 54:34 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 54:34 And then you have the, the counter movement-

Ali Abdaal 54:36 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:36 ... as you always do, where it's like, "I'm such a procrastinator." And then all the memes-

Ali Abdaal 54:40 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:40 ... which bang just as hard because there's been this desire created in culture to be-... you know, super productive. Or ev- as it relates to, like, weight and fitness, like, everyone wants to look so good and then the memes of people sat there with a Pot Noodle in their belly, like, resting, like-

Ali Abdaal 54:55 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 54:55 ... with their, like, running shoes on (laughs) will also bang just as hard.

Ali Abdaal 54:58 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 54:59 But yeah, it's just a very relevant thing in our culture, which is quite, quite strange, the, the, this incessant desire to be productive. I think there's actually, there is a rise in counterculture which is about being okay with not being productive.

Ali Abdaal 55:11 Yeah. No, exactly.

Steven Bartlett 55:12 (laughs)

Ali Abdaal 55:12 (laughs) I'm, I'm, I'm having to pepper in, uh, pepper that into my videos a lot more these days.

Steven Bartlett 55:17 Nice.

Ali Abdaal 55:17 Um, because I kind of thought it was, it was so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated, that obviously, you know, (laughs) don't be, don't be d- don't seek economic output and productivity at the expense of other things that are more important, like health and relationships. Uh, but clearly that's not a thing that is obvious (laughs) , and so I'm now having to caveat a lot of my productivity advice with like a, "Look, guys. Let's just define productivity as, you know, meaning and fulfillment and stuff (laughs) ," rather than pure economic output.

Steven Bartlett 55:45 And it's okay to be intentional and say, "I don't want to do anything today," if that was your intention. "I want to just do fuck all." Like, and I think that's, um, that's the nuance that's required in all of that. Psst. Speaking of productivity, one more company I wanted to tell you about, fiverr.com. I mean, if there was a company that's predicated on increasing your productivity, it is fiverr.com, where you can outsource some of the tasks in your life that you do not want to do professionally, whether it's designing a website, making a thumbnail, um, editing a video, anything, you can get it done on fiverr.com cost-effectively. And sometimes, if we're talking about increasing productivity, using someone who's on another time zone, which means work is still happening when you are asleep, which extends the bandwidth of the amount of hours you have towards your goals. Um, this month, we are using Fiverr to, to redesign the thumbnails on our second YouTube channel, a graphic designer we found there. And I always use it whenever I have professional tasks that I need handling. That is Fiverr, with two Rs, .com/ceo.

Steven Bartlett 56:49 You talked about relationships at the start of this podcast.

Ali Abdaal 56:51 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:51 You said, you said you, you... I think you alluded to the fact that you hadn't had much luck there-

Ali Abdaal 56:55 Hmm.

Steven Bartlett 56:56 ... when we were talking about knowing you enough.

Ali Abdaal 56:58 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 57:00 What's going on?

Ali Abdaal 57:02 Yeah, this is a real problem. Um, so there's a few, like, narratives that I've bought into, um, subconsciously. One of those narratives is that I am like a weedy nerd kid. The, sort of, the, the kid that I was when I was th- 12 years old and getting slightly bullied in school and getting grades and stuff. But like, not really having anything, anything, uh, not being valuable as a human being beyond the fact that I was generating A stars in exams.

Steven Bartlett 57:27 Sure.

Ali Abdaal 57:27 That's like one side of it. There's, there's another side, but I'd, I'd, I'd love to hear your take on, on that.

Steven Bartlett 57:31 What's the other side?

Ali Abdaal 57:33 The other side is, um, if we're, if we're keeping it real, it's like, I think it's around masculinity-

Steven Bartlett 57:40 Mm-hmm.

Ali Abdaal 57:40 ... and what it means to be a man. And if one, if one were to hypothetically read WikiHow articles on how to get girls or even the vast literature on the topic, um, there is a big thing of women are attracted to men, like, you know, people who are so- so- so someone who is a man, someone who leads, someone who's like alpha, those sorts of, those, those sorts of things. And I think my kind of default way of being is very not that. And like, my idea of fun is singing Disney songs and playing board games, uh, until 2:00 in the morning with a pizza takeaway, rather than something that a more like macho alpha type person, person would be. And so, on the one hand, there's that thing of just be yourself, uh, of be your authentic self, et cetera, et cetera, and a girl will like that for who you are. And on the other side, it's the, the thing of you will objectively get more success with women, in inverted commas, if you sort of are more of that alpha type personality. And there's-

Steven Bartlett 58:41 Well, here's, here's the problem you have.

Ali Abdaal 58:42 Yeah, please.

Steven Bartlett 58:43 On the, on the, that, that particular point before we move on, 'cause I'd love to hear what, what you're going on to say-

Ali Abdaal 58:47 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 58:47 ... but, um, you were, you, it sounded like you were saying, "Do I be myself and dance around listening to Disney, um, even though it might return a, a lower quantity-"

Ali Abdaal 58:57 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 58:57 "... of smoking hot potential partners?"

Ali Abdaal 58:59 Correct.

Steven Bartlett 59:00 Um, or the alternative to that is, "Do I be a masculine, um, guy and like act outside of self-"

Ali Abdaal 59:07 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 59:07 "... to generate more smoking hot partners?"

Ali Abdaal 59:10 (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 59:10 The issue you have is you just gotta zoom out-

Ali Abdaal 59:13 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 59:13 ... and you've got to think about the outcome of bo- both approaches and how sustainable both pro- approaches are.

Ali Abdaal 59:17 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 59:17 All you can be is yourself for a long period of time.

Ali Abdaal 59:20 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 59:21 And if you want long, long-term results, that's the only option you have. Of course, you can act as something you're not and pretend you don't like Disney and not listen, play board games and stuff.

Ali Abdaal 59:32 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 59:32 And you might meet the wrong person for a short amount of time.

Ali Abdaal 59:35 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 59:36 Because, and it will be a short amount of time, because that relationship will-

Ali Abdaal 59:40 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 59:40 ... capitulate the minute they find out who you actually are. And this is, there's, you know... Um, yeah. This is, this is always, for me, the answer is you have to be yourself, you have no choice in that. You do have a choice in being able to kill some of those confidence issues which might be self-sabotaging at key points in the relationship where it turns into insecurity and results in jealousy and, we know, if you're coming into a relationship thinking, "Why the fuck is this person with me?"

Ali Abdaal 1:00:06 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:06 ... the chance of you exhibiting jealous behavior and controlling behavior and manipulative behavior and insecure behavior and, "Where are you? Why aren't you here? Why haven't you texted me back fast enough?" And-

Ali Abdaal 1:00:14 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:15 ... is, is high. And for me, that will put undue pressure on something that might have worked otherwise.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:19 Mm-hmm.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:19 So go ahead and work on the, the confidence issues.

Ali Abdaal 1:00:23 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:00:23 But never ever dare change who you are. Like the things you intrinsic, do not change those. Do not try and act outside of those because that is, that will lead to really short term results and you don't actually want to be with anyone for 50 years that doesn't want to dance and listen to Disney movies with you. You don't actually want to. Society is telling you, you want smoking hot? But you don't actually want that. You'll, you won't return joy on that. You'll, like, you'll return status from walking in with a smoking hot m- m- model that has no brain-... but you won't return joy in the long term, and that is the goal. That's the North Star. Does that make sense?

Ali Abdaal 1:01:00 It does, yeah. Um, on the note of being yourself, the thing that, uh, the, the thing that I feel, I feel, uh, I feel a contradiction is that, on the one side, there's- there's kind of be yourself and on the other side there's like choose yourself. And what I, what I worry about is what if this person who I am, i.e. the kind of nice guy who like enjoys Dis- Disney and board games and stuff, that's a result of accidental experiences that I haven't really chosen for myself. And should I instead be thinking, okay, who's the sort of person I want to be? Although having- having said that, I don't want to be anyone who doesn't sing along to Disney songs 'cause they're just great.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:43 There you go.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:43 Um, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:44 And you sing along to Disney songs not because you're now being forced, because you enjoy it.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:48 Yeah. No. Yeah, it's just genuinely fun.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:49 It makes you feel good.

Ali Abdaal 1:01:50 I freaking love it. Yeah, it's so good.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:51 There you go. So that's- that's part of the answer to a lot of the things we've discussed before-

Ali Abdaal 1:01:54 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:01:54 ... which is going in the direction of the things that make you feel good. Don't suppress the things that make you feel good 'cause then you'll feel shit. So if that makes you feel good, that is in- as far as I'm concerned, you've explored and exploited, as you say.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:05 Yeah. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:02:05 And you've- and you've- and you found something you enjoy and don't sacrifice that for what?

Ali Abdaal 1:02:09 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:10 For a pretty woman to be st- stood next to you.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:12 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:12 That's not enj- that- that, trust me, will not be enjoyment. That'll be status.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:17 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:17 That'll be extrinsic approval.

Ali Abdaal 1:02:18 Right.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:19 Which is very different from internal fulfillment. So I would never disregard those things. However, you can, as I've done over the last year and a half, say, "Do you know what? It- when I look at my values and who I- I actually want to be internally, my health," this is what I've done, "is so foundational to everything. And I really manage to almost like hypnotize myself somehow, um, into knowing that me being in good shape and me being someone that goes to the gym every day and prioritizes that, my health is my first foundation-"

Ali Abdaal 1:02:48 Yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:02:49 "... is in line with my happiness." The change in my life, the thing that's put me in the best shape of my life ever was before, as I said in this podcast, me working out was all about women.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:00 Yep. (laughs)

Steven Bartlett 1:03:01 The minute it became not about women, it stuck.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:04 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:04 Because- because, um, yeah, for so many reasons. I mean, I- I enjoyed the process and I removed wanting six pack and I- I basically don't have any gym goals now whatsoever. My goal is to go every day. It stuck. It became intrinsic. It was for me. Um, and now I go every single day, and the minute we finish this conversation, my PT's waiting for me. And I was going yesterday, the day before, I'll go the day tomorrow, every day.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:27 Okay.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:28 I don't care. I'm not doing it for anyone else. So it sticks.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:32 Interesting.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:33 That's why your relationship will fail if you're with a, uh, someone that you- you're with for external reasons. It won't stick.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:37 Okay. Yeah, this makes a lot of sense.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:40 Content.

Ali Abdaal 1:03:41 Content.

Steven Bartlett 1:03:41 Yeah, you make a lot of content and you've- must have come to learn a lot about humans and psychology from all these videos you make. You tinker around with the titles and the thumbnails and, um, uh, and you've become such a big YouTuber. You've got millions of subscribers from a very iterative process of, I guess really understanding what humans will respond to and what they want, what their desires are. What would you give me as an advice for how to make, if I'm a listener, a really great content that people will care about? It's a broad question, but there you go.

Ali Abdaal 1:04:19 I think it's about hooking them in with the promise of something simple and quick and then... And- and if you stop at that point, that is, I think where, uh, s- kind of, uh, sort of course scammers and, um, marketing gurus and stuff were maybe 20 years ago. It's hooking them in with a simple and quick promise but then delivering on the nuance of it that I think people are caring about more than ever now. And so, like, one thing that we've iterated with over time is, you know, often the success of a video will depend on how clickbait the title is, and there's no getting around that. We've never found that a title that's less clickbait, uh, does better. I- I- I did a video called How Writing Online Changed My Life. It absolutely bombed. Just changed the title, How Writing Online Made Me A Millionaire. Suddenly absolutely exploded. People love that like, "Oh, this is a quick solution. Uh, this is a quick path to this, um, this- the- this goal that I want." Hence your title of Happy Sexy Millionaire. Um, but we've also found that on videos where I think, "Oh, let's- let's dumb the message down. Let's just kind of do a quick five-point listicle without any examples," because people just want the dopamine hit of advice that sounds reasonable but they- they can't action. Those videos haven't done as well. Like, people click on them, but then they don't stay watching. And the videos we found that do the best is you make a promise at the start, and then you deliver on the nuance throughout the whole thing. And actually, people, at lea- at least in my audience, and I suspect in yours and anyone listening, actually do want depth and nuance, not just a sort of surface level two-minute-long thing that you would have seen on YouTube circa 2005. Um, and I think you did a pretty great job of that as... (laughs) Um, yeah.

Steven Bartlett 1:06:03 Yeah, I'm learning. I'm cont- you know, continue to learn. YouTube's a bit of a new medium for me, so it was good, it's good to- to get that, um, that perspective. You- you also, um, you're very in- in sort of self-aware and honest. I- I- You wrote something about, um, why you're failing which is, uh,

Steven Bartlett 1:06:22 I- I think you wro- wrote a piece which was detailing why you think you're failing in life.

Ali Abdaal 1:06:27 I think I have this issue where I often feel like what I'm currently doing is not "good enough" because, you know, we're leaving money on the table or because our team is inexperienced or because I suck at being a manager or I suck at being a leader, and although I'm learning to improve in- in all those things, I sometimes feel that, oh, but it's- it's- it's not fast enough.