Modern Wisdom - #719 - Ali Abdaal - How To Stop Procrastinating For Good

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

Ali Abdaal is a YouTuber, podcaster, entrepreneur, and an author. What would life be like if you didn't get so distracted? If you actually did the things you wanted to do with your productive hours, rather than what you were distracted by. Ali has spent an entire career deconstructing the keys to productivity, and today we get to go through some of the most important. Expect to learn what feeling good has to do with productivity, Ali’s core foundation to what makes someone productive, what determines whether a content creator will succeed or fail, the biases running your life that you might not be aware of, why procrastination happens and how to overcome it, whether you need a bi plan to succeed in life and much more... Sponsors: Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://craftd.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Get 20% discount on Nomatic’s amazing luggage at https://nomatic.com/modernwisdom (use code MODERNWISDOM) Get $25 off a Manukora's best-selling honey, a travel pack of honey sticks, and more at https://manukora.com (no code required) Extra Stuff: Check out Ali's new book: https://www.feelgoodproductivity.com/?utm_campaign=podtour&utm_source=modernwisdom Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ Buy my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Ali Abdal, he's a YouTuber, podcaster, entrepreneur, and an author. What would life be like if you didn't get so easily distracted? If you actually did the things you wanted to do with your productive hours, rather than what you were distracted by, Ali has spent an entire career deconstructing the keys to productivity, and today we get to go through some of the most important ones. Expect to learn what feeling good has to do with productivity, Ali's core foundation to what makes someone productive, what determines whether a content creator will succeed or fail, the biases running your life that you might not be aware of,

why procrastination happens and how to overcome it, whether you need a big plan to succeed in life, and much more. This is me finally being back in Austin, Texas after being on tour for four and a half weeks around the UK, Ireland, Dubai, Canada, and the US. And I go back to the UK next week for Christmas. But for everyone that came out to see me at the live shows, thank you so much. It's been crazy and very life changing and surreal and flattering and all the rest of the things. We're kind of winding up toward the end of the year. I've got lessons from 2023 thing coming up. We've got a Christmas special with the boys, one and a half million subscriber Q&A and then we are getting ready for just the most insane

couple of months at the start of 24. So thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last couple of months. Next year is just gonna be so wild. I can't wait for it. This episode is brought to you by Crafted London. They are the number one men's jewelry company worldwide. If you have seen me on any of the cinema episodes on YouTube wearing a necklace,

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by going to bit.ly slash cdwisdom, using the code mw15, a checkout. That's bit.ly slash lettucey letter c letter d wisdom and MW15. A checkout. Nomatic is offering an exclusive 20% discount on your first purchase when you go to nomatic.com slash modern wisdom and use the code modern wisdom at checkout and for a limited time and get free expedited shipping on orders over 150 bucks in the US, but they also ship to the UK. That's nomadic.com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. I am a massive fan of sweet things, but also a fan of trying to be healthy, wherever I can,

which is why I've started using Manu Kora honey. Manu Kora comes from New Zealand, whether bees only feed on the nectar of the manu-kateri, making honey that's filled with three times more antioxidants and prebiotics than the typical honey you get at the supermarket. But most importantly, it tastes outrageous. It's got this sort of creamy caramel texture on oatmeal or oats in the morning. It is insane. If you put it on toast, if you put it in your coffee, all of these things, it tastes fantastic. The bottom line is that these nutrients support your optimal immune system and digestive

health. Plus, you can get $25 right now off their starter kit, which comes with their best selling honey, a free travel pack of honey sticks, a free wooden spoon, and a free guidebook by going to manucora.com slash MW to get $25 off that M-A-N-U-K-O-R-A.com slash MW to get $25 off your starter kit today. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Aliyab Dal. I'm going to be a little bit more of a fan of you. Alie Abdel, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.

It was going to be fun. And we've got your little drinks over here, which we can sip on throughout the episode. And we've got your mechanical keyboard in front of us as well. I feel like we're doing a lot of chilling here. We've got my book, the keyboard, your breaks. Yeah, it's kind of nice because we're also working with the same company to put this stuff together. It's cool that there is this sort of creator collaborationy stuff going on now with physical product. I think so. I like the fact, you know, having something that is my own that I spent so much time building is so nice.

So that's the brand new, right now when we're recording this, this tropicalize, which is the white one isn't out. So this is gonna be first taste test for you. It is ambient as well. So crack that open too. What does ambient mean? Warm. It's warm rather than chill.

Oh, I see. So have a crack of that and see what you think. Oh, it's very nice. That's a good, cheers. Cheers. Yeah, this is my favorite flavor. It's like a, it's a white monster killer. Yeah, I was weird.

So, when I tried this one for the first time, I was in LA and I didn't have much sleep for like two nights because I had to, I had like an ATM meeting with my team the next day and late nights and stuff because I because hanging out with people in LA. And I cracked up in one of these. I went to the local we work, had one of these, and I genuinely felt so focused. And my team was listening to me, they were commenting.

Yeah, my team were commenting, be like, how have you got so much done? Because I was just like, and I'm not sure I thought it was placebo, but I would just feel it. If it works, if it works, it works. So your new book, Feel Good Productivity, everyone needs to go and buy that right now.

I know you've spent an awful lot of time working on it for a long time. Why does feeling good have anything to do with productivity? That's two words that don't usually go together. They don't usually. But there is a large amount of evidence that suggests that they very much do go together. So one of the theories, have you come across this,

the Broaden and Build Theory? No, so this is the idea. There's a psychologist called Barbara Fredrickson, who in 2001 came up with this theory. It was based on studies that showed that if you get people into a lab and get them to do tasks of creativity, and then you split them into two groups, and you give one group a candy bar or something, and you give the other group nothing. For some reason, the group who gets a candy bar comes up with more creative solutions to whatever problem that they're trying to solve. And so the theory was, okay, there's something about, you know, priming someone with positive emotions that affects our creativity.

And then they did, you know, one of the theories around this is back in caveman times, if, for example, someone was experiencing positive emotions, that's usually a sign of safety. Things are pretty chill, things are good. And so when the cavemen are experiencing positive emotions when they're feeling good, they are more inclined to go out and explore. So they're going to see what's in that cave over there, what's in that forest over there. Let me build my friendships and stuff. And so, Professor Barbara Frederickson came up with this theory called Broaden and Build, which is that when you feel good, when you experience positive emotions, it broadens the amount of actions that are available to you, and it builds resources like social connections and actual physical resources and stuff. Whereas the converse negative emotions, if caveman human is feeling negative emotions, it's like, shit, I'm stressed, there is a tiger on the horizon, I need to,

I have a very small range of options to choose from, fight, flight, freeze, and I have to act within that range. And so the idea is that feeling good makes us more creative, more productive, less stressed, and boosts our energy levels, and there's so many studies that back all this up. And conversely, negative emotions have the opposite effect. So very few people can be creative and can perform productively when they are feeling negative emotions. What is the link between creativity and productivity? Because those two things don't necessarily sound synonymous to me.

In fact, some of the most creative people that I know, like my housemate, Zach, are really, really unproductive. The executive function and openness seem to be basically opposite ends of the same spectrum. How are you squaring this circle of creativity and productivity? Yeah, so for me, productivity, I'm defining as doing whatever matters to you

in a way that's intentional and effective and ideally enjoyable as well. So for some people, if you are an artist, then creativity is productivity. And the studies that they do on this stuff don't use the word productivity, they use the word performance. And so however you define performance, like studies in the workplace, performance is judged by evaluations from your manager. If you're a writer, performance is judged by word count. If you're in creative tasks, performance is judged by how creative you were.

So I kind of smuggled the two concepts in together because I actually think there is not that much of a difference between creativity and productivity, depending on, you know, for example, if you're an accountant, then creative accounting is probably unproductive because it's not what you're trying to do. But if you're a knowledge worker, if you're a writer, if you're a YouTuber, whatever, creativity is productivity because it's literally what you're trying to do. And there's often, I guess, power law multipliers available where

you come up with a solution that means that you can be more efficient, which requires you to probably be creative ahead of that. Like, if you come up with a solution that means that you can be more efficient, which requires you to probably be creative ahead of that. So if you come up with a creative solution to a productivity problem, exactly. Yeah. And I think in the world today, like especially people listening to this, most people do not have jobs where the goal is to just crank up more widgets per hour. There is, you know, who Mozie talks about this, you know, the people who are billionaires are not working any harder than you and me. They're just playing different chess moves. And often, you know, finding the right chess move to play means that you can get a 10x outcome without working anywhere near as hard as someone

who's trying to work 10 times harder. That was the Sean Puri insight. His is a bit more controversial where he says hard work is massively overrated. But the lesson is that it's more important about what you work on rather than how hard you work because of the correct decision. If you say that work done equals time times intensity,

but that's only within effectiveness, right? Like work done is time times intensity, but you can get different outcomes based on how much you leverage. So, all right, you and me have been friends for a long time, you've spent yours writing this book and even longer building up your corpus of productivity stuff on your YouTube channel. Given that you've written about productivity, why is it not filled

with Pomodoro technique and time blocking and how to build a good notion template? Why is it not just a tools guide? Why is it more fee-ly? Yeah, so initially when I started writing this, it was more of a toolsy type thing because as a productivity bro, I love learning about the tools and the templates and stuff. But I realized that in my own life, the thing that has made me most productive,

people would always ask, how were you able to build a YouTube channel in the business while working as a doctor and it's all demanding and stuff? And really, it was never because to build a YouTube channel in the business while working as a doctor and you know, that's all demanding and stuff. And really this, it was never because I had a magical to-do list. And when people look at my phone, they're like, oh, actually, it just looks like everyone else is a bit of a mess. My to-do list is always overflowing. It was never really about that. It was about the fact that I found, I consistently found ways to make whatever I was doing feel good. I found ways to make whatever I was doing energizing and enjoyable. And it wasn't always like that. So when I started off working as a junior doctor in the NHS, conditions were pretty bad and they still are. And I had

this sort of grindy mentality where I was, I was feeling drained every day at work, wasn't enjoying it. But my view was, you know, you just got to struggle through this because everyone says the first two years of the hardest and as long as you struggle for long enough, then on the other side of that, whatever that thing is, in my case, it was once I become a specialist, then once I become a consultant, once I hit some arbitrary milestone, then my life will be chill.

But then I would speak to people who were at those milestones and their lives were not chill either. They were also having a pretty terrible time at work. And this sort of many realized, wait a minute, I'm trying to juggle this full-time job and also build my YouTube channel, my business on the side. I don't have any energy to do this.

I do actually have time in the evenings because I was only working six hours a week and there's like another 50 hours to play with, but I just didn't have the energy. And it was when I started to actively find ways to make medicine, my day job, feel more energising and enjoyable. That was what really unlocked the energy to focus on my YouTube channel. And I was talking to you about this sometimes where you managed to unlocked the energy to focus on my YouTube channel. And I was talking to you about sometimes where you manage to hit the gym way more consistently than I do.

And you also manage to record podcasts way more consistently than I do. And it's a stupid rate of like three or four or five per week. But I suspect you don't need to grind. It doesn't feel like a grind to you. It feels like play. I suspect it feels good. I've had to do things to make it feel more like play. So especially when it comes to training, one of the things that I've had to do things to make it feel more like play. So especially when it comes to training, one of the things

that I've had to do is get a coach. So for a very long time, I trained on my own very hard and that was great. But I'm 35 now, and I've been training for a decade and a bit. And I just can't push myself as hard in the gym on my own as I used to. When I'm training with one of my boys, I can, if I'm training in a class, I can, if I've got my coach with me, I can, but on my own, I can't. And I was like, all right, well, this seems to be a change in my motivation setup.

So I need to account for it. So I got a coach. So I'm training with my trainer. Three times a week, I'm training in a class, twice a week, and I'm training with one of my boys once a week. That's a six day a week split. Wow.

The same goes for recording the podcast. If I was a YouTuber like you, it would be really difficult because I find sitting down, writing a script, getting in front of the camera, all of that quite hard. The accountability, I work very well with accountability and also working in groups, so working at least with someone. The podcast is always with someone. So I guess I've learned one of the quirks of me, which is that although I work well in solitude, I'm most accountable when there is someone waiting for it.

The same reason, if I was, my journaling for myself compliance is 50%, but my newsletter compliance weekly is 100%. Thousand words a week for three years now, right? Nice. Every single week without stop, rupture in Achilles, it's holiday, I'm in Guatemala, I'm getting my visa, whatever, like always done.

Wrote it on the plane from Peterson to the UK and uploaded it on plane Wi-Fi two days ago, right? Because I know that if I don't do it, people are gonna notice. So I've realized that that is a motivation for me. Training is on the field good side, the other stuff is a little bit more stick than carrot. I suppose at least it's motivator rather than encourager.

Yeah. But yeah, finding the quirks of you and then reverse engineering and environment that allows you to tweak the very specific knobs and levers that trigger your motivation. That's, I don't think that that's you being a, the David Goggins inside of you might say, you should just do this because you want,

like you should do hard things and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, but you can do hard things in an easier way. Yeah. And that's what that is. Absolutely. So the two things I would say to that. So firstly, that's an amazing example. The third chapter of this book is all about people.

And there is just stupid amounts of evidence that says that the way that we, whenever we work in a way that involves other people, it's just, it's more energizing, it's more enjoyable, it's more motivating. This is why people benefit from accountability buddies. The way I used to do it was at university. I found that if I was grinding away on my own, I'd be pretty miserable. I'd be effective because, you know, I can, I can use, I can employ discipline and will power to force myself to sit there on my own and do my, do my work. But if I go to the library with five other friends, we're all doing our work. Is it Pomsok that you used to do? Yeah, the Pomodoro Society. We were like, we would do Pomodoro's together. We would do 25 minutes of work. We were all in different subjects,

studying different things, and then five minutes of break. And there was something about doing it with friends. They just made the whole thing way more enjoyable, way more energizing, and it meant that I had energy in the evenings to hang out with friends or work on my websites back in the day. And I think this is something that people don't think about enough. There is this idea that like, oh, I focus better when I'm on my own. It's like, okay, you focus better when you're on your own.

And there are some small number of people that I just totally tell about that. They never struggle with procrastination, they never struggle with distraction. They're just able to grind it out on their own. If you're that person and you're also having fun, then great, this advice is not for you. But for the rest of us, for most of us, we humans are social creatures.

We benefit from the energy of the people around us. So finding a way to do anything with other people makes you way more effective and generally makes it way more fun as well. Yeah, it's a delicate balance. I remember I went to an office for the first time in a long time toward the back end of COVID and was reminded, I always used to think, I remember I went to an office for the first time in a long time toward the back end of COVID and

Was reminded I always used to think look at how Distracted I get when I said at the computer and that five minutes on YouTube or that ten minutes scrolling Instagram Or whatever like you see it from the front row seat, but I went into an office and saw One person go anybody want a coffee and then they go, oh, yeah Yeah, we've got any of that blonde roast left. It's like, no, we haven't, we need to get some in. Oh, okay, what about those Vietnamese world biscuits? And you realize that someone asking the whole room if they want a coffee or not, just sapped three minutes out of everybody.

The three minutes isn't much, but that's 40 times a day, right, that's just always happening over and over and over again. So yeah, I think the balance between not being around people and not working with people so that they distract you, but also realizing that it's a motivating force is important. It's all right, so people important, having accountability buddies also important,

what's power, what's that, what's that coming to? Yeah, power, chapter two. So power is one of the key factors that drives intrinsic motivation, or internal motivation. So for listeners who might not be familiar, there's broadly two types of motivation. There's extrinsic and intrinsic. So extrinsic motivation is when you are doing something

because of the external reward you're gonna get as a result or to avoid some sort of punishment. So kind of doing a thing because working a job for the money is extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is when you're doing it for its own sake. There is something about the process that's either enjoyable or that feels meaningful to you and therefore you are doing it for internal reasons,

for your own reasons. And basically all the evidence shows that internal or intrinsic motivation is way more powerful and durable than extrinsic motivation. And in fact, the more extrinsic motivation you have, even if you are intrinsically motivated to do something, extrinsic motiv you have, even if you are intrinsically motivated to do something, extrinsic motivators often crowd out intrinsic motivators.

How so? It's unclear, but I guess anecdotally from my life, I've really seen this. So back when my YouTube channel was a side hustle, I was intrinsically motivated to make videos. And it would be fun and I'd be sharing my message and making videos and I was having a great time. But weirdly, as soon as sponsors started paying lots of money for those videos and now

all of a sudden there's a deadline on the video and there is a large amount of money attached to it, you would think that, oh my God, I could make $20,000 by just filming this YouTube video, would make it way more fun. I get to do what I was doing before plus 20,000 hours. Exactly. But what it actually feels like is, this thing was once fun, but now I've got a deadline and now I've got a boss and now I've got an overlord. Turned your love into a labor.

Exactly. And this is one of the problems with monetizing your hobbies. In that, I thought, my view is that if you monetize your hobbies for pocket money, that's really fun. Back when I was a magician, I used to go around university, doing magic tricks and balls and shit. I was paid £100 here and there. That's fun. I'm not relying on the £100 to live.

But if I had to be a professional magician where I was relying on that income to live, now all of a sudden magic stops being fun. And you hear musicians struggle with this all the time, like Ed Sheeran used to enjoy music and now it's become work and he cannot relax. Like, in the evenings he has to paint because he has to find a creative outlet to recharge his energies because music has now worked. So part of the

problem, you know, I'm a big fan of monetizing your passions and like finding a way to make a living out of it, but there is this sort of fine line in that the motivation can sometimes become extrinsic, rather than intrinsic. But coming back to power, power is this idea of autonomy and competence. If you feel like you have autonomy control responsibility over the things that you're doing, and you feel like you are actually good at the things you are doing, that leads to this feeling of empowerment, this feeling of power, which is a huge factor of intrinsic motivation.

How can people make themselves feel more autonomous? A lot of people have got some sort of accountability, boss of some kind that they need to be reporting to, yeah, what's the solution. So, there's like a spectrum of autonomy. You can basically have control over three things. You can have control over the outcome. You can have control over the process, and you can have control over the mindset, outcome process and mindset. So a lot of people don't have control over the outcome. Like, when I was a doctor, I didn't have control over the mindset, outcome process and mindset. So a lot of people don't have control over the outcome. Like when I was a doctor, I didn't have control over the outcome. I had to do what I was told.

I couldn't just choose that. I can now as an entrepreneur and stuff, but like, you know, most people are not like when a patient comes in to see you and instead of diagnosing them paint with them or something. Like I'm not allowed to do that. So I have to do the things that I'm told. Also, I was junior, I had to do with the seniors, wanted to eat all this kind of stuff. But even when you don't have control over what you're doing, you have enormous control over how you're doing it.

And so what I realized, you know, the first few months where I was working as a doctor, I made the mistake of thinking the way to conserve my energy is by doing the bare minimum. I made the mistake of thinking, you know what, I'm just going to do what I'm told, I'm going to grind it at least a couple of years, and let me just make sure I get home with enough energy to film my YouTube videos. But weirdly, approaching anything with that level of half-assness really drains our energy. It is not fun. Looking at the watch is not fun.

It's not a fun way to go through your work day when you're like, okay, I'm just going to do what I'm told, right, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to grind it out. And the realization for me was weirdly, on weekends, on weekend shifts, I felt weirdly more energized afterwards. I was just kind of weird, because weekend shifts as a doctor are more busy, because there's fewer staff, there's more patients, more emergencies, shit is going on, but I felt weirdly energized. And I realized it's because on weekend shifts, I was taking responsibility and I was taking more ownership of the things that I was doing.

The way I was approaching my patients was thinking, shit, the bug kind of ends with me because I don't want to ring up the consultant. So I'm going to chase up these blood results, I'm going to call radiology, I'm going to do the things. And so I was working harder, but because I felt like I owned the process of what I was doing, suddenly I had more energy and work became more fun and the shifts absolutely flew by to the point that I was like swapping with colleagues to be like, hey, can I work a weekend?

Because I was like, it's so much more fun to work a weekend. What about mindset? Mindset is, there's really good blog posts by Seth Godin that I've read years ago that I still think back to, which is there is an enormous difference between, I have to do this and I get to do this.

And whenever we find ourselves thinking, I have to do X, we can always do a reframe in our minds. I choose to do X, I get to do X, I am blessed to be able to do X. And even just that, like this is my single biggest practical takeaway for anyone listening to this. The next time you feel like, I have to do something, just change it up in your head. You don't actually have to do anything. Everything is a choice. Sure, there are consequences to all choices and all that crap. But fundamentally, you are choosing to do it. And if you take that

ownership and switch it around in the mind, the mind is a powerful device, the mind can, the way we think about something profoundly changes the way our physiology responds to it, the way our body reacts. There's a cool way that sociologists measure life satisfaction. I think we were talking about this on the IFS stage. For people unfamiliar, so one way of measuring life satisfaction is by giving someone a survey and being like, how satisfied are you with your life. But then people are not self-aware, they don't know what's going on. But the other way that sociologists do it is they have a little pager, or I think it's

an app these days, and they ping you a few times a day, and they ask you one question. They ask you, if you could, would you choose to fast forward the experience that you're currently having to get to the end of it? So for example, if you're at work, would you choose to fast forward to the end of your work day? If you're on a flight, would you choose to fast forward to the end of flight? If you're, I don't know, putting your kids to bed, would you choose to fast forward that so that they're already asleep? And they look at what proportion of your day would you choose to fast forward to the end of flight? If you're, I don't know, putting your kids to bed would you choose to fast forward that so that they're already asleep?

And they look at what proportion of your day would you choose to fast forward? And what they find is that like, you know, the people who would choose to fast forward a large proportion of their day, you know, that's a, that is an indicator that actually you're not that satisfied with life because you would rather not experience a big chunk of your time than experience. Seems like a great definition. And so what I've learned to do is I ask myself this question a lot. If I ever find myself waiting in line for something or I don't know, I'm in an Uber and I'm like, I just want to get to my destination, whatever the thing might be, or even doing work, then I don't quite enjoy. I think what I fast forward this. And if the answer is ever yes, I know that there is a mindset shift I need to make, because

I know that someone, you know, if Eckhart toll was in that position, he would be able to forget and enjoy the process. So why can't I? And I find switching from a half to two, I get to, is incredible for making me feel more like I have autonomy. Therefore, I have power. Therefore, I feel good. So much comes back to gratitude, man. It's like, it's so giving an answer that people

already feel like they know is way less pioneering and like revelatory. But yeah, gratitude just seems to be such a solution. It's a prophylactic against life not being the way that you wanted to. Yeah, switching the, it's also a treatment. Yes, yeah, true. Life five minutes of gratitude journaling has the same impact as doubling your income in terms of happiness levels. Wow.

And so, honestly, just being more grateful, I mean, like, yeah, what a time to be alive. What is that phrase from Kurt Vonnegut, which is something to the, something to the effect of, as you go through life, remind yourself of multiple occasions. If this isn't nice, I don't know what is. Navale, if you won't, if you can't be happy with a coffee, you won't be happy on a yacht. Yeah, just, and I like the fact that you know, you're thinking about, how can we find in the

mundane, how can we find ways to not only take control from a performance perspective, where I know that if I switch this mindset I will be happier, but also it's actually the way that you enjoy your life. Yeah. Moment to moment, forgetting the outcome that you're going to get on the other side of this from a productivity perspective. And as a side effect, you'll also be more productive. But kind of another point of the book really is that what I'm hoping people will do is that they will read it because they want to be more productive, but what they will find as a result of the, because most of the research in here is really from positive psychology rather than from, I don't know, organizational performance design and stuff, because what I found through doing all these research is, yes, I'm more productive when I feel good,

but also I am just happier and more satisfied. I feel good. I feel good, and that is actually an inherent good. Yeah, so the goal is not actually to get more done. The goal is to generally be more satisfied and fulfilled with life. Well, ultimately the reason I think that people want to be more productive

is that they presume on the other side of their increased productivity would be a life that they're going to enjoy more. I'm gonna have more fun. I'm gonna be more satisfied. I'm gonna be happier. Okay, well there is a shortcut to get there, which is just be happier in the moment.

Do the things that maximize happiness now and then the productivity can either come along for the ride or not. So funny, man, you set off to try and write this thing and begin this journey of productivity as a solution, first off to being a union, being a med student, and then being a doctor, and then being a doctor with a business, and then being a doctor with multiple businesses. And what you ended up doing was almost completely throwing productivity out the window and realizing that it's just one of multiple different triggers and levers that you can pull to get satisfied with life. Yeah. And that emotions are like the baseline of this whole thing. I think earlier on in my productivity broeness, I really underappreciated the importance of emotions. Because I was pretty, I mean, I start to, to this day,

pretty unsilf aware of my own emotions and like what was going on. Yeah, me too. But it was when I got punched in the face with this, like working for 60 hours a week in the NHS, where people are dying and where I'm potentially responsible for some people dying and like, oh, if you make a mistake, like you think about it all night, I was like, oh shit, you know,

all the stoses and that's not prepared me for this onslaught of negative emotions. Yeah. And the solution to that was finding a way to make everything feel good. Okay, what about play? Play is the first chapter. Play I think is really fun. So there's a lot of Nobel Prize winners who attribute their success to the idea of

play. The guys that invented graphene, Richard Feynman, who invented the atomic bomb, who helped with the atomic bomb and then won a Nobel Prize. Richard Feynman at one point was feeling totally burnt out in his career. He was a physics professor.

He got all the accolades. He ticked all the boxes, but he did not enjoy physics. He felt burned out by it. And this is really cool story in his autobiography where he talks about how at the Cornell University cafeteria, a student was chucking a plate up in the air and find noticed that the Cornell logo was like rotating at a slightly different rate

than like the center of the plate or some, like that. And he was like, wait a minute, why is the logo on the out of the plate rotating differently to the inside of the plate? And he was like, ah, I don't really care, I'm the professor, I invented the atomic bomb, this is not significant.

But then he kind of reminded himself that actually, why did I use to enjoy physics? I used to enjoy physics because I treated it like play. I did things just for the fun of them. And so he set out to model the equations of how this bloody plate would rotate. And his colleagues were like, dude, what the hell are you doing? You're supposed to be the great professor, Richard Feynman, and you're like writing equations about a frickin' wobbling plate. And he would respond with,

I'm just doing it for the fun of it. There is no use in it whatsoever. And actually, what happened is that A, he developed his love of physics back again, he cured his burnout and he ended up, the wobbling of that plate ended up leading to the equations that helped him win the Nobel Prize. Who's Alberto Lopez?

Alberto Lopez is this climbing. He was one of the Olympic climbers, and rock climbing in the Olympics is an interesting sport because if you watch on TV, you find that they're all, they all look really happy, which is in sharp contrast to like the sprinters who look like really stressed, they're focused on this one goal, whereas rock climbers seem to be having a laugh, having a joke, even though they're competing in the Olympics and competing against each other, they're like kind of pointing the roots out to each other, and they seem quite happy about the whole thing.

And rock climbing was how Mihaj checks out Mihaj, who discovered the concept of flow back in the 1970s, you know, this idea of flow state. He noticed that, you know, rock climbers get into the weird flow state where they feel like they're fully engaged, but they view the stakes as being low. And that combination of full engagement with sufficiently low stakes is what creates that feeling of play and can often what creates, and often what creates that feeling of flow. And so this gets at the idea of how do we experience more play in our work in our lives. One of the big answers is just lower the stakes. So for example, Roger Federer, when he's playing the Wimbledon final, especially when

he's defending his title, he probably is not feeling that playful about it, because the stakes are too high. It's really serious. The stakes are too high. Whereas most of us are not in that kind of situation a lot of the time, and most of us when it comes to our work, if we can find a way to just dial down the seriousness, approach it with a bit more sincerity, as Alan Watts would say,

you know, lower the stakes, lower the bar, think of it not as, this is a big thing I'm trying to do. Instead think of it as, I'm just having fun here. That is often how people perform way better and feel more playful about their work. From a tactical perspective,

how do you feel less serious about your work, especially if you care about it. If you're the sort of person that can listen to me and you waffle on for a couple of hours about productivity, you probably care about the outcomes that you're getting in your life, which means that you might apply due or un-due pressure to the outcomes that you're going to get.

How can someone tactically lower the stakes? Okay, good question. I have three strategies. Number one is to There's a great phrase from Alan Watts. He calls it sincere not serious No one wants to play a board game with someone who's too serious about it It's just not fun like they take you know, the stickler for the rules. It kind of drains everyone's energy

But you also don't want to play a board game with someone who's completely uncaring. Because it's like, well, what's the fun in that? Like, they're not even trying. You want to play with someone to play sincerely. And so, I think that phrase itself, sincere, not serious. If we find ourselves feeling a bit stressed, feeling like the stakes are too high, often that's where procrastination and distraction kicks in where like, oh, there's this emotional hurdle of like,

this thing is writing a book. It's like a hard thing because it's a book and a book is a big deal. And that's where we find ourselves getting distracted and looking for the dopamine hit on TikTok hurdle of like, this thing is writing a book is like a hard thing because it's a book and a book is a big deal. That's where we find ourselves getting distracted and looking for the dopamine head on TikTok or whatever the thing might be. Thinking, let me just genuinely approach this with sincerity rather than seriousness, is tactic number one that I find super helpful.

Attack number two is by, you know, the start of each day, I ask myself one simple question, and that question is, what is today's adventure going to be? Now this speaks to the idea, you know, it's a fairly common principle in psychology and performance research that making a plan at the start of the day is a very useful thing to do. Some people do the night before, most people do it in the morning. If you can figure out what is your most important task, you know, Brian Tracy calls it, eat that frog. What's the one thing that if you got that thing done today, today would be a win? The adventure question is basically that, but framed in the language of adventure. Because if you think of anything as an adventure,

you can ask yourself the question, what would this look like if it were fun? This is so similar to Tim Ferriss's question of what would it look like if it were easy, but I reframe it, I literally have a post-it note on my computer monitor, what would this look like if it were fun, but I reframe it, I literally have a post-it note on my computer monitor. What would this look like if it were fun? Because if you frame something as an adventure and just genuinely ask yourself, how can I make this fun?

The mind will inevitably come up with loads of different ways to make this fun. So that's another tangible thing, what would this look like if it were fun? For me personally, what I've found is that everything becomes more fun when I have background music, preferably from Lord of the the Rings concerning Hobbits, the Shire theme tune, that kind of the fact that you have a girlfriend continues to amaze me. So when I had all these realizations where I feel good productivity, I realized part of why working in a doctor's office

is a bit grim is because the environment is not nice. It's like the NHS doesn't have much money. I got this 20-quit Bluetooth speaker from Amazon. I attached it to the light on the ceiling and I would just play movie soundtracks while I was writing my discharge letters. And initially the consultants would come in and be like, what the hell's going on here?

But then they would be like, oh, I get it. Yeah. It's Harry Potter, it's Lord of the Ring, parts of the Caribbean. They would recognize some of the songs, you know, a bit of, I don't know, Hans Zimmer, every now and then. And even just having music in the background makes it feel more playful, just makes it more fun. And so what I'm trying to do here is encourage people, we can all, like, yes, not everything has to be fun all the time. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, we can always find ways to make everything we're doing just a little bit more fun. I approach it with a little bit more play. And yes, that means we'll be more productive, but that's also not the point. The point is,

we'll just feel better about life. Yeah, it's, I'd love to get you to sit down with Hall-Mozzi. At some point, maybe over the next year, I'll manage to get a round table between us for dinner or something, because Alex seems to deprioritize. He finds fun in the grind, but it's his executive function and grind muscle is so hypertrophy that he's just prepared to continue to smash that lever. But I would be interested to know what would happen

if you took an inventory of his or an MOT of his particular productivity work setup and said, Hey, why don't we try like giving you a window or why don't we try like this or that or the other? I'd be very interested to know just how robust whether there's people for whom this doesn't apply quite so much. Something tells me that we need to be careful taking global advice from people that are absolute outliers within their performance. It seems like this is a much more like normie middle of the balker robust like Salisha, you know what I mean? Like,

you know, lots and lots of the people that we know that are outliers would still benefit from this. Yeah. I think this is where, you know, I've listened to your interview with David Goggins, I've read both, listened to both his books, the great, I think this is where, you know, I've listened to your interview with David Goggins, I've read both, listened to both his books, the great, I love the guy. But David Goggins' thing, I think, is that he's an outlier there, where everything is about discipline. You know, he's been understanding that story about how Goggins work up at three in the morning and just genuinely going for a run because that's the sort of guy he is.

And what I worry about is that normal people who are not David Goggins will then think, oh, fuck, I'm just not disciplined enough. I just need to get more discipline. I just need to grind harder. I just need to wake up earlier and all that, all that stuff. And for a very small subset of people, that works. But for most people, you know, human psychology is not geared towards continuing to push yourself and, you know, wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning just so you can go for a run and continue to cause pain to yourself. Like, Goggins freaking runs Iron Man with broken legs. Human psychology is not geared for that. And it's literally trying to play life on hard mode. And I think I love the message that David Goggins shares, but it's also not realistic for a lot

for a lot of people. Like, a lot of us, broadly, if you ask people why they do what they do, they do the things that feel good. No one struggles with discipline or motivation to watch Netflix or to play video games or to hang out with friends, because it just freaking feels good. You probably don't struggle with discipline or motivation to do podcasts because it feels good to you. Correct. I, most of the time, don't struggle with discipline or motivation to make YouTube videos or to write because it feels good to me. I actually do struggle with podcasts, especially over Zoom, and I find that drains my energy, and which is why I'm less motivated by that. I struggle with the gym because I've yet to find a way to make it feel good consistently,

especially while traveling. We do the things that feel good. And so if we care about work, we can find ways of making whatever matters to us feel good. Well, you can see... A more robust way of, yeah. Yeah, you could imagine feeling good as a force multiplier to your discipline. Like, you have this tank of it and you can get either one mile per gallon or a hundred miles per gallon based on, are you driving uphill, are you not enjoying it, or are you driving downhill, are you, this is enjoyable to me. Absolutely. I think this is where discipline comes.

So, this is how I square the side of discipline, because I do value discipline. I think with any task, it's exactly this hill analogy that you're talking about that I think of it. If you enjoy the process, it feels like going downhill. If you don't enjoy the process, it feels like going uphill. Going uphill obviously requires you to exert will exert will power and discipline over the long term. But the key thing is before anything, there's a bit of a hump. Even before something is before anything, there's a bit of a hump. Even before something that feels good, there's a bit of a hump. Like for you, going to the gym feels good,

but still a bit of a hump to actually just get there, because maybe you're feeling the tide. Waking up on the morning. Yep, exactly. It's always cold, I go away for the Uber. And as long as we are employing discipline to just get over the hump, that is a great use of discipline,

because that is very sustainable. Like just using discipline in small doses to get started with a thing that you wanna do. But to use discipline and well doses to get started with a thing that you wanna do. But to use discipline and willpower to keep going with a thing that you wanna do. Oh, that's so draining, that's so taxing. Yeah, we definitely need to be careful. Dude, I've contributed to this.

I've sat down and nodded at David Goggins and Homozi and Jocco as they've said things that are similar to this. But we do need to be careful about the heroic narrative that discipline in face of misery and suffering gives, right? Because it is a heroic narrative, and there will be days when life comes and smashes you in the face, and when you need to have built up that discipline muscle sufficiently. But finding the balance between that not being so atrophy that it can't be deployed,

but you're not using it unnecessarily when there is a simpler, more enjoyable route toward achieving the outcome that you want, is very, very difficult. And it can't be synthesized into do hard things, even when you, or especially when you don't feel like it, right? Like it's, I can't hamza this into a meme. But it is. It's holding two relatively conflicting views in your mind at the same time. Discipline is important and I should continue to use it so it doesn't evaporate. And I should use discipline as little as possible in my day-to-day life by trying to design the things that I do to be as enjoyable as possible so that discipline is not something I rely on.

It just happens easily and naturally to me. Absolutely. I think there's, you know, I'd be interested to get Homozi's take on this, but one thing that he said that really struck with me is when I was 20, I wanted to be a millionaire, when I was a millionaire, I wanted to be 20. And, you know, I'm a millionaire now, and I actually don't want to be 20, because I feel like I enjoyed the process of getting there. And I would love to live my life, not wanting to go back because actually, I have just enjoyed every step of the journey. Probably means I'm not gonna be as successful

as Formosius financially. But I mean, it depends on what the criteria is. That's not my goal, it's true. It depends absolutely depends on what the criteria of success is. I'm sure Alex will have a morning on stake on this, but obviously I get that, you know, it's a nice quote, it's a nice sound bite.

I do vibe with the sentiment behind it, but I think enjoying the journey, while also striving towards whatever goals you have, is literally the point. Yeah, what are you optimizing for? It's just such a great question. My newsletter a couple of weeks ago, I had Morgan Hauser on the show,

and the guy's just fucking phenomenal, right? This quote that I've been playing with for a long time from Sapolsky, Heuberman shared it, dopamine is not about the pursuit of happiness, it is about the happiness of pursuit. Oh, nice. So much of life and enjoyment is about the anticipation of things coming. In fact, the anticipation is often actually more enjoyable than the experience itself. Tim Ferriss used to book week long holidays, years and years in advance so that he could get as much enjoyment out of the anticipation as he could. This put you new perspective on, it's not the journey, it's the destination. There actually is no destination. Each arrival at the destination simply marks the beginning

of another journey toward the next destination. Morgan Housel told me on the show the other week. He planned this big holiday with his family for a long time, they've got kids, they finally did it after booking time off from collaborative funding from his writing and wife and children and travel and all the rest of it. He arrives at this hotel, and on the first night that he arrives, he steps out onto the balcony if this place has been planning for ages,

and the first thought in his mind was, it'd be so good if we came back here next year. Like this place would be so good to come back to next year. So literally during the experience of the destination, he was artificially creating another journey already. I had a really stark realization of this in a really trivial way recently. One of the, okay, there's a few different reasons. So one of the questions I think about a lot is,

what would I do for money when I object? And if money when I object, how would I change how I spend my time? And one of the things that I often land on is I'd actually probably play more video games. You know, I really enjoyed video games when I was kid. I'd love to have a bit more time to play video games. And I was mentioning this to my team

who were traveling with me. And they were like, yeah, but you don't play video games that much, like what's going on there? But I spend a lot of time anticipating the joy of playing video games. And I get so much joy out of like, you know what, I wanna buy the highest-end gaming laptop, imaginable, is it the Razer Blade 18 inch

or the Alienware 18 inch? I can afford that now, because I've got merch guys by my book, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in the past, I was salivating over like a 5,000 pound gaming PC and the anticipation of six months of doing the research and watching the videos was so joyful. And then I got it and I was like, I mean, I'm never going to try this thing on because I actually have more fun in my work.

So there's something profound about, like, even now, I know that if I buy this laptop, I actually won't use the enjoyment. All the enjoyment goes away. And like, well, even now, I know that if I buy this laptop, I actually won't use it. All the enjoyment goes away. I'm like, well, I guess I'll play video games now. But the anticipation of, like, I could buy it whenever I want, is a thing I'm holding onto. Because it's just free happiness points for literally zero cost. Yeah. Well, that Tim Ferris hack of booking holidays, years and years in advance. So good, you know? There was a study done on, I think it was British

clubbers. So the same way that they pinged people's phones in your earlier example asking what's your level of, oh, would you fast forward? This one was how happy are you? You'd think throughout the entirety of the day, leading up to the night out, then the night out, you know, it might be 12 midnight before they're so drunk, they can't remember anything, but just as the DJ starts to really ramp the set up and the lights are going and the bottle services in or whatever it might be, but it wasn't. The time that they had the most fun throughout the entirety of their day and night of a night out was when they were getting ready together in the house.

It was in anticipation of the event. It was not the event itself. And just continuing to remind myself, dopamine is not about the happiness, it's not about the pursuit of happiness, it's about the happiness of pursuit. You have to find enjoyment in the journey because there is no destination. Every single time that you reach a destination,

it's just the way marker of the next journey that you're going to do. And even in the sort of people often say that like, oh, you know, you shifted the goalpost when you got there, but you actually become a totally different person on route to the destination. Like if someone is trying to, I don't know, make money on the side, and they're like, oh my God, like, if only I could make $2,000 a month of passive income, that would completely change my life. It's like, yeah, it would. But by the time you get to $1,500 a month of passive income,

you have become a fundamentally different person. You have a new set of skills, you have a new set of hopes, believes, expectations, you have way more self-confidence. And now suddenly 2K doesn't seem like much. You're like, 10K. I know people are 10K a month passive income. And by the time you get there, you're like,

well, you know, that's not 100K. And the goal post keeps shifting. And actually, I don't think there is anything wrong with that. We just need to recognize it for what it is and recognize that, as you say, fundamentally, That's not 100k. Yeah. And the goalpost keeps on shifting. And actually, I don't think there is anything wrong with that. We just need to recognize it for what it is and recognize that, as you say, fundamentally, the journey is the destination. Yeah. So, all right.

What about seek clarity? Why is clarity important? Priorities. So, the first, third of the book is about how do we find ways to energize us and make things feel more enjoyable, so play power in people. The second third is about how do we beat procrastination. And there are basically three core blockers that cause us to procrastinate from stuff.

Uncertainty, fear, and inertia. And so seeking clarity is really about that first step. If someone has the goal of, I wanna get fit, what the hell does that mean? They're gonna procrastinate on that for their entire life because they have no idea what get fit actually means. Who knows how do you break that down? Students, if they have a goal of light on a revised for my chemistry exam, it's like, okay, what does that mean? Are you reading a textbook? Are you doing some practice papers? There's a lot

of mental cognitive friction involved in trying to figure out what the hell you're actually trying to do. The point around clarity is that if you're ever struggling with procrastination, just ask yourself, am I actually clear on what I need to do here? Am I clear on why I'm doing it? And am I clear on when I'm going to do it? What, why, and when? And if we can just get clear on those three things, that will cure procrastination for the vast majority of people. What's a goal? Why is that a goal? And okay, cool. What's the next action? And when, you know, when I'm gonna do it, which is why I'm so bullish, I'm just putting a thing in the calendar.

Because once it's in the calendar, at least then you have sorted the clarity point. And now if you're still procrastinating from it, now there's probably some emotional issues that we have to deal with, but like, at least let's just get in the calendar and define what the task actually is. So that's the first step from a tactical perspective

for you to, yeah. It's, it's gotta be in the calendar. I think one of the best time management strategies I've ever found is something called the ideal week, where a lot of people say that they don't have time, they're never running to do list. The ideal week is basically where you create a blank Google calendar, you call it your ideal week,

and you just block out what does your ideal week look like? When would you like to wake up? When would you like to sleep? When are your gym times? When are your date nights? When are you at work? And you realize by doing this, that A, you have more time than you realize, and also you have less time than you realize, because if you wanted to do those 18 projects on your to-do list and someone listening to this is probably a, you know, product somewhat

productivity minded wants to get a lot of things done at a very high level, realize there are simply not enough hours in the day. And that's okay. That means you can now eliminate the things that really don't matter in focus of the things that really do. And so the ideal week is a way of figuring out, do I actually have a manageral number of things on my plate? And once you do, putting them in your actual calendar is a way of making sure you've made

the time for the thing. Have you thought about how people can learn to say no more effectively? Yeah, we've got some stuff in the book around us. This is something I really struggle with. I love Derek's ever thing of hell yeah or no. If it's an all a hell yeah, then it's an incident to know. I love the idea of never saying yes over the phone

or in person and always being like, that's Daniel Kahneman's thing, right? It is, yeah, he never says yes over the phone. Let me check my Kahneman and get back to you. I love to offload things to be like, you know what, let me just check with my team because they manage my calendar, because then I'm not the bad guy

and saying no to the thing. Do you think you're a people, please? Absolutely. Yeah, me too. Oh, really? Yeah, it's so bad. I've only just realized this recently. I started doing therapy for the first time

properly in person in Austin. The lady that I've started working with worked with a friend who is way, way, way more of a bastard than I am. And I figured if she can deal with his shit, she can definitely deal with my shit. So he was the canary in the coal mine. And yeah, I just, I don't know, I think, I think I probably, if I'd done enough self-assessment I would have realized that was a people pleaser. But I think it felt a bit emasculating to realize it felt like I'd know, cooked or agreeable or feminine or something that I just didn't like the idea of.

And there's still a lot with me of a vestigial, like, compensatory mechanisms from feeling weak in school, from being fragile and bullied and stuff in school. So I don't want to show that, like, new, the vulnerabilities that I already have, I'm happy to accept. But new ones, no, to show that, like, new, the vulnerabilities that I already have, I'm happy to accept, but new ones, well, no, no, no, no, no, no, because that's just another piece on the pile of,

you might be a fragile weak piece of shit, right? But this was a new one, and it stared me in the face for long enough during sessions, whereas I, right, okay, I can't, I can't fucking, I can't escape this, I hate telling people bad news, I hate disappointing people, I somehow managed to find a way to be able to blame myself for something which was evidently somebody else's fault. Let's say that someone in the team messes up

and gets something wrong, and it was completely on them. I feel bad about telling them that they did something bad because it's gonna make them feel bad and I don't want them to feel bad. Even though it is their fucking fault. Right, I mean, mate, I have exactly the same. Like, how are you dealing with this? Any tips?

A couple of things that have helped a lot for me. I don't even mean it may, I have exactly the same. How are you dealing with this? Any tips? A couple of the things that have helped a lot for me, the big productions that I've done in person are sufficiently high stakes that they've pushed the boundary of what I'm prepared to expect from people. So for instance, we did seven episodes in three days in London a couple of weeks ago. I need the guys to be on the ball for that.

And I also need to be able to get people to do things that I can't do. Like if I'm hungry and I need a sandwich, I need to shout, yo, can someone get me a sandwich? Like that previously would have been like, who the fuck am I to ask for a sandwich? What is this? Like, can you come and feed me grapes

and fan me with a leaf? But like just formative experiences where you need to make commands and demands of other people, that's one. Another one has been more of a realization that the standards that you hold yourself to are the minimum standard that you should hold everybody else to as well, right?

Like, I know that I work hard for all that there's a current trend on the internet of laying all of my success at the feet of either love island or the way that I look. Given that this is yeah, I did a trigonometry episode and they decided to call it like the truth about confidence and it triggered some people on the internet, which was hilarious. Given, especially given the fact that this is a podcast which is bigger on audio, literally where my face doesn't exist than on YouTube, where it does. Anyway, YouTube banner is like you doing that.

That's true, but that's not on Spotify. It's my fucking head. Anyway, that insight around... I know that I work really, really hard. I know that the standard that I hold myself to are very high. So saying, okay, I should expect other people to at least be in the same universe as me shouldn't be something that you feel guilty about.

It's like, look, if the guy that's a one component within a team, whether you're the top of the tree, or you know, at the bottom of the tree, it doesn't matter. But if you're working hard, you can quite happily expect other people to be like, hey, I did it. My stuff was done on time, right? So setting an example, I think, as a people pleaser is good.

If you're a people pleaser who also doesn't work hard, that's gonna be a tough circle to square. Because you're not going to be able to set an example and to say, hey, I did it. My stuff was done on time, right? Um, helping other people understand why you're doing it. So as a good example, there was a couple of, a couple of times where Dean had booked to go away, like bad times of the, uh, not through any fault of his own. And then we'd started to apply a lot more work to him. And I was like,

hey, dude, um, me and Chase got us stuff done. You didn't get your stuff done. Right? Like this is this is just fact and he was like man I do not want to be the bottleneck. I'll fix it. I was like, ah that was a nice way to get past it. So using yourself not in a like mate, I've already got my you know, not sort of making people feel belittled. But starting feel belittled, but starting 10 toes forward in like, I am doing my things. Everybody else needs to follow along behind that. That seems to be a good, a good route to, but it's hard, man. The people pleasing thing for me is like, I find it hard to upset people on the podcast. I find it hard to tell people in my personal life things that they don't want to hear. All of the, you, you, it looks like it's resonating with your soul. Made 100%.

Yeah, this is literally a, I'm in the midst of some like family drama that's literally a result of me wanting to, you know, if someone is upset with me, then my default is like, shit, let me try and do whatever I can to fix it. Not, hey, you're in the wrong. Yeah, I'm not supposed to fucking apologize for this. Yeah, it's rough, man. I've got Dr. Robert Glover. more Mr. Nice guy. I love that book

I've read it I read it every few years and I'll keep highlighting the shit out of it and doing the exercise I've got him coming on in January. Um, so yeah, I'm looking forward to speaking to him Maybe he'll be the answer, but as with most things man, you know You become aware of something about yourself that you're maybe not that happy with. And then you obsess about it and you think, oh my God, this is like one of the defining characteristics of my pathology as a human. And then you realize, oh no, this is just one ingredient in the entire meal of the things that are wrong with me. But yeah, I was also okay because people love you for you.

Of all of the different maladies and stuff that you could have being a people pleaser isn't the worst, but I do think that it'll be interesting for me to check in in a couple of years time and be like, hey, how's the people pleasing thing going? You definitely get, you know, you look at older people, and they're a bit more grumpy sometimes, and they seem to be less people pleasy. So maybe it's just going to come along for the ride as a byproduct of getting older, I don't know. One point on the therapy thing. So our mutual friend Bill Perkins, when we were a hung out with him in Austin, when we tried to teach you to wake up. Yeah, that was a real fail. I don't know. I think if I do it the second time around, the muscle memory will take it.

We'll take it. But I was asking him, you know, because obviously I love Diwadero, I made a video about it, etc, etc. I loved your interview with him by the way. But actually that interview with him was the direct result of why I'm currently like digital nomadding around the world. Because before that interview I was like, oh, I'll just rent a homey's in London and be based in London. After that interview I was like, I need to freaking go for it. Like, it was the last time.

I was like, yeah, I love that. Yeah, I mean, the only reason that you came on the podcast is because of your video about him. Oh, no way. I learned about the book from your YouTube channel, brought Bill on the show, Bill smashed it, Bill then changed your digital nomad thing, and there's a part of your digital nomad thing

you came to Austin where I introduced you to Bill Burkin. And then when we were in Austin, and on his freaking boat, I asked him, what are the biggest ROI purchases of his life? And he sat hands down, couple of therapy. Relationship coach. And so I have now started,

like literally the following week, I started working with a couple of therapists, I, I, such relationships coach, it has been absolutely phenomenally game game changing. I cannot recommend it highly enough to literally anyone. If you're in a relationship, then doing relationship coaching with someone who's a professional who's experienced the full gamut of all of the shit the couples talk about and struggle with, it's just incredibly helpful. What's it done for you? Why is it so useful? It's really useful because it's given me tools to

have conversations that I just didn't really have before. I think there are some people who are really, there are some couples who are just amazing at communication by default. Very few. Like, most couples do not say, oh my god, we communicate so much. Like, we're just so good at communication. Literally every couple says, like, yeah, man, relationships are hard, communications are the main thing. And so one of those things is like, you know, it's going to sound potentially simple, but listening out for the, listening out for the needs behind what the other person is feeling. Like if the other person is upset with anything or sad or angry or frustrated or hurt, any of these emotions, there is always a core need that they have that is not being met. And instead of talking at the level of, is the fridge door left open or closed, or

is, well, are we going here or there? It's like, what's the core need? Does she, oh, she has a need for feeling empowered when it comes to decision-making? Ah, okay. So now that we know what the need is, and then usually if you describe a need to someone, they're like, yeah, that's it. Like I have a need for fairness and contribution in the relationship. And when we kind of landed on those two needs, that was that really, yeah, that's literally it. Like those two needs

explain a lot of my behaviors in relationships and outside of relationships. Without the other person's perspective, presumably you would just get caught up at what the problems are at the top, not what the subtext is that sits below. And this is where I think, you know, I would say my IQ is reasonable, but my EQ is probably lower than I would like it to be. So the thing I think I'm working on. And so when my girlfriend and I would have issues around like, I don't know, planning a trip, I would get caught up in the level of like, okay, but you know, I've got my book coming out

and you know, it's important for me that we go to LA to do this podcast or you know, all this sort of stuff. But when I realized that, she has a need to feel empowered in decision making. I'm like, oh, I can just get her involved in the decision making about this. How do you want to go?

I'll find a podcast that's in that system. Yeah, but also like, hey, let's approach this as a team as a conversation, rather than me doing the work in my head. And coming, so this was another big realization. If someone were to say to me, if my partner were to say to me, I'll wait, you know, for the next three months, I've got everything planned.

Don't you worry about it. Like, just come along for the ride and, you know, life's gonna be great. We're gonna go Southeast Asia. I would think, thank the Lord, that's incredible. I love that someone else is making the decisions here. I can focus on my work, which is, I care about life is good.

Whereas for my girlfriend, that same arrangement makes her feel disempowered and is therefore terrible. And so a lot of the couple's therapy and relationship coaching is recognizing that the patterns of thought that we think are so natural to us are absolutely not necessarily natural for the other person and just understanding that. It's like, oh, okay, you have a need for connection and that is solved by having a cuddle in the morning for a minute.

Great, that's easy enough. Or like, you know, hugging when we greet each other. It's not a thing that I wouldn't have to do. It's not in the calendar. Not yet. Cuddled in the morning. It's in the habit tracker. So it's just been super, super helpful in that, and on that front, just as a way of us being better at communicating. We'd recommend. What about sustaining? So what we've spoken about, finding a way to make things more enjoyable, overcoming

procrastination, but then doing this along a long period of time, the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years of your working life, your creative life is what really matters. I think I heard you say on a podcast recently, the reason that you'd been successful was a combination of a tiny little bit of talent, mostly luck and good timing with consistency. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, this is the thing.

So anyone can be super productive or super disciplined for a short amount of time. January. much, yeah. Yeah, this is the thing. So anyone can be super productive or super disciplined for a short amount of time. January. Yeah, January. Like the first two weeks of January. Very few of us can actually sustain that unless we really put effort into what does consistency and sustainable sustainability look like.

One of my favorite Morgan Housen co-op, Morgan Housel quotes is, I'm not going to do anything unless I can do it forever. That's a really good way of thinking about it. And so, we kind of board it down to three things, three tools that help combat burnout and let lead to more sustainability and productivity, and conserve recharge and align. And each of these three strategies tackles a different aspect of burnout. So broadly, three different types of burnout. There is over exertion burnout, just trying to do too much it. Depletion burnout, where your energy levels are solo

and you're not giving yourself the chance to replenish your energy levels, and then misalignment burnout, which is sometimes the hardest one to deal with, which is where everything seems to be going well, but actually what the actions you are taking in the here and now are not aligned with the future that you actually intrinsically want for yourself. Maybe it's something other people are expecting of you or whatever the thing might be. And so those three things really stop stuff from being sustainable. Conserv how do we do that? Conserv is basically about recognizing that we need to limit the amount of things that we're doing

because one of the issues with to-do lists is that they are infinite. And you can always keep adding stuff to a to-do list. And so a lot of people who want to be high performers and productivity, bros and stuff will just keep adding things to their to-do list and think, you know what, I've got to jog all these balls in the air.

But one of the things I love about all of a Bergman's philosophy from 4,000 weeks is there is simply too much it to do, and you will never have enough time for any of it, for all of it, therefore you have to make some sacrifices. The way I personally do this is, you know, this ideal week method, if it doesn't fit in the ideal week, I don't have time for it. But also something that I call the energy investment portfolio, which is basically, I have a long bucket list in a sort of Kanban board, but you can do it however you want.

I have a long bucket list of things I would like to do, and then I have a very short list of the three to five things I'm actually putting, I'm actually investing energy in two right now. So back in the day, I made the mistake and locked down of like, yeah, I've got so much time. I'm gonna have guitar lessons and singing lessons and piano lessons and art lessons,

because I want to learn all this stuff. I mean, try and learn some Japanese on the side, just doing too much stuff. Making focus progress in a few smaller, in a few small number of things is way more effective than trying to make a thousand, one mile of progress in a thousand different directions. So a big part of conservatism is actually just this thing of learning to say no. And getting things off our plate. I really like a strategy that's called the six-week trap, which is if you imagine yourself someone's asking you to do a thing, it's more than six weeks out. Look at your calendar. One in six weeks out. It's pretty chill, right? The calendar is looking pretty blank. Oh, glorious. Yeah, I'm around. I could totally do that thing.

And obviously, the time rolls around, the Canada's gotten full up again. You're completely overwhelmed and you're like, fuck, I shouldn't have said yes to that. If you wouldn't do it tomorrow, don't say yes for in six months' time. Exactly. And so, Conserv is really a about kind of limiting the number of things that we're doing. And B, also kind of, on a micro level, actually just focusing on one thing at a time. This is, again, the classic stuff that everyone knows, but the idea of kind of switching costs and attention residues, switching between multiple tasks means you're just less efficient at each of them.

And you're wasting a lot of energy by not doing things one at a time. And so the basic stuff that people know, but like, you know, I was reading the Ooty book for this a couple weeks ago, and it was really the final three chapters where I was like, oh my god, I need to take my own advice. Because I was feeling overwhelmed. I had too much stuff on my calendar. I felt all of it was important, but it really wasn't.

And as I was narrating the Ooty book for those chapters, I was like, okay, action point there, action point there, let me actually do this. So it's strange. I mean, even just that insight, that the guy who wrote the book doesn't always necessarily take the advice that he wrote down, I think is good for people to know. It's important for people to know,

because one of the problems that some people that listen to this podcast tell me about is, I hear all of these great strategies and I get overwhelmed with how many of the different things there are that I could do that I could apply to my own life. And it seems like everybody else has got that shit together. It's like, look, let me promise you, I've been around some of the most famous successful, high status people on the planet and its idiots all the way up. It's people who do not know what they're doing,

they haven't gotten, everyone is trying their best and failing. That's the one. I was listening to Mark Manson's interview with Morgan Housewell yesterday on a run because part of my thing is like, I wanna do it 30 minutes, I exercise each day. One of the things that Mark said was,

once he became rich and had all these problems around likes, status, and money and things like that, boohoo, he read his book and he realized, oh shit, all of the principles in the subtle art of not giving a fuck apply to this exact situation that I'm currently in, I just didn't realize it, and so took his own advice. So the book that made him famous and successful

contained in it the answers to the problems of his fame and success. Exactly. And he didn't realize that until like a couple of years after suffering through the suffering. Yeah, the application of stuff, the application of these ideas of everything that we go through. This is why I love Tim Ferriss' idea, the good shit sticks. It's like the most robust way, I think, to get over the guilt of your external brain, ever not being perfectly optimized or, you know, you're fucking

ebbing house, forgetting curve, anky, space repetition thing, not reminding you of all of the quotes that you want to say, look, if there's something from one podcast a week or one book per month that you can't stop thinking about, that's the thing, right? That is the thing. It's self-selected for it. Like, memetic evolution inside of your own mind, that's the thing. That is the thing. It's self-selected for it. Mimetic evolution inside of your own mind. That's the thing that you need to work on. What can you not stop telling people about screen recording, it's sending in group chats, it's written on a post, it's not like,

that's the thing. The good shit will stick and everything else can fall away. Again, this is like, it's like, feel good productivity. It's like feel resonance, like progression. What is the thing that you can't stop thinking about? That's the thing that you can focus on. It's the easiest thing for you to not stop thinking about. I think this point around, like, you know, in this book initially, it was twice at long

and there were twice as many strategies and our editor was like, bro, we need to cut them down. And even now, there are nine chapters, you know, 54 actionable experiments that people can apply in their life. But the whole thing that I'm trying to get across in this book is that the goal is not to apply all 54 at once. The goal is to apply them one at a time and see what vibes, see what problem you are having in your life right now. I mean, there's nothing other problem,

but like what situation you're trying to deal with, what is a strategy that might help? Try it out for yourself, does it work? Does it not? Cool, either way, it's an experiment, you've gained data, and you can see how to make it work for you. For some people, they realize the way to be consistent as the gym is to do it first thing in the morning.

For some people, they do it, they realize it's in the afternoon. For some people, it's an accountability buddy, for some people, they're doing CrossFit, for some people, it's tracking their workouts, using an app. It's a different things for different people, but the point is, as long as you are finding the things that work for you

and not trying to overload your brain by doing all of them at once, that is kind of this path of continuous and never-ending improvement. Recharge, recharge. There's a fun experiment that I like to ask people when they say that they're struggling or like burned out or anything like that,

which is what are the things you find yourself doing when you are drained of energy? And then separately, what are the things that actually recharge your energy? Yeah, your energy. So for example, when I find myself drained of energy, I will default to scrolling on Twitter or Instagram or whatever, randomly opening YouTube for no reason, randomly refreshing my YouTube analysis. Okay. But what are the things that actually recharge your energy? Do any of those things? Have I ever left a scrolling session from TikTok feeling, whoa, wow, I feel so refreshed.

Absolutely not. I don't know anyone who's left a scrolling session on TikTok feeling really refreshed. Again, I'm not saying TikTok is bad, but like, you know, broadly, I'm all, I'm in favor of people doing things intentionally. If for you scrolling Instagram and watching cooking videos, whatever the thing is, in fact,

recharges your energy, and great, you are in the very small minority of people. For most of us, it does not. And so part of recharging is to recognize that, hey, I care about my energy levels. My energy levels affect my entire life, because when we are feeling high energy, we feel happier, more fulfilled, more productive, sure.

So let me actually just do the things and incorporate things into my life that genuinely recharge my energy. Unfortunately, this is the basic shit, sleeping well, doing some exercise, having a nap, spending some time in nature. Creative hobbies are very recharging. You know, this is why painting is a great hobby that a lot of people land on is being a thing, knitting, cross-sitting, anything like that that like gives us that feeling that we are making progress, that we have autonomy. These are low stakes.

Low stakes. Yeah, you're not trying to monetize it too much. All of that stuff, it's important to have creative hobbies, generally, recharge your energy way more than watching Netflix or scrolling TikTok. So there's a vicious cycle here. I came up with this idea of productivity purgatory, I think I told you about this before,

but productivity purgatory is when the things that you do to enjoy life and recharge are only done in order to facilitate your productivity when you stop doing them. Right. So you don't go for a walk in nature because you want to enjoy your time in nature. You do it because you want to listen to an Andrew Huberman podcast that said 15 minutes of sunlight in the eyes improves your dopamine, ergic response,

which means that you can be 5% more productive that day. Right. Productivity purgatory, describes an environment in which nothing that you do is not for productivity. And it's dangerous, right? And this is something, it's like, recharge is both a productivity strategy, but also a life piece of advice, right?

You need to do things that are not just the thing that involves work. Even if you absolutely love work, you can't keep doing it. Your work will benefit from this, but it can't be in service of the work. I also end up in productivity purgatory. This is the thing. I've been rereading the power of now, and it's just such a good advice. Do the thing for the sake of the thing itself.

The way that I'm trying to apply this is in the shower each morning, because in the shower is like a clear place where if, you know, like I look forward to Mondays, I love hanging out with my team and like doing the work stuff. And I'll sometimes find myself thinking, oh, I just want to get to the end of the shower so that I can like get involved with the team. I'm like, no, what the fuck am I doing? Like I'm having a hot shower. The present moment is literally all there is. And I just need to remind myself, okay, I'm having a shower to have a shower. Not so that I can then do my hair and stuff and film that next video.

I'm going for a walk, to simply go for a walk. Not so that I can actually get my steps in while also consuming the audiobook at three times speed. And that is a, again, it comes back to this idea of holding, holding seemingly conflicting ideas in mind at the same time. One idea, which is that, you know, the happiness of pursuit, it's like pursuing stuff feels very dopaminergic, but also enjoying the present moment and focusing on it is a very contented place to be. Yeah, so this George Mac has this idea of dopamine George and serotonin George. Oh, yeah.

And he says, I won't spend as much time in serotonin George as I can. And he says, I won't spend as much time in serotonin George as I can. Dopamine George looks after himself. Like dopamine George is a cocaine addict. Serotonin George is a quiet guitar player. And spending more time in serotonin. Now there's a third one that I want to start talking about

with him soon, which is cortisol George. And cortisol George is somewhere between, like, he's even further down the line than dopamine George is. It's frantic, it's kind of like tense and uncomfortable. But yeah, man, a lot of the people that say toast in George.

Oxytocin, that's cuddling. True, I guess that's on the other side of Saratown in George. But yeah, man, everyone spends way too much time in dopamine whoever they are. You know, it's using the power of progression and targets and achievement and money and extrinsic motivation and all of that sort of stuff. And even intrinsic motivation of,

oh, I got better at that thing, like that's fantastic. But how many hours this year did you spend lying underneath the tree? Like that's a good metric for serotonin Ali or serotonin Chris or serotonin, Ali or serotonin chris or serotonin George. Yeah, I think this is why, but also why I love the, you know, honestly, the main thing that I take away from writing this book is just the title, feel good productivity, because it's seemingly contradictory because productivity is always about pursuit and feeling good is about enjoying the moment

and both of those things are okay. And we just, you know, if we're doing both, we are really, really winning, working towards a fulfilling life, enjoying the death of me and also enjoying the serotonin along the way. We spoke about this on stage in front of maybe a thousand people in Brighton a couple of months ago and you kind of reveal the end of the book,

which is what a lot of people might have thought would have been at the start of it, which is to do with what are you actually working on? What are the goals that you're choosing to do? Why put that at the end of the book? Yeah, so initially when I did the first draft of the book, the first chapter was about figuring out your direction in life. Because my whole idea was like,

productivity fine, but there's no point in driving 100 miles in a particular direction. If you find out it was the wrong direction to drive in. And so a big part of productivity is really asking yourself the question of what are the things I'm working on and why am I working on them. It was a bit heavy for chapter one and I didn't want the conclusion to be hey I don't enjoy my job. Therefore, Ali Abbal is telling me the only thing I can do is quit my job and follow my passion. Like that's not the vibe. It's the final chapter because, and it's called a line because it's about aligning your actions in the here and now with where you actually want to go.

It's a final chapter because even if you're not there yet, most people listening to this are probably, probably, don't have the level of autonomy and freedom that you and I do having granted this shit while entering the process for a very long time. If you have a day job and you don't enjoy the day job, the solution is not, the way to get to feel good productivity is not too simple quit the day job. It's to try all the other things first. Find a way to approach it with play and power, get a way to get people involved, make sure you're not procrastinating, make sure you're doing the right thing to recharge your energy.

Once you have done all of those things, if you are still feeling that, you know, the things I'm doing don't feel aligned, I'm still getting this misalignment burnout. At that point, it's now time for us to start thinking about the big questions. So one strategy I really enjoy that I think is super helpful for everyone to do is to just write their own obituary. I did this a couple months ago. It was pretty eye opening. And it's this idea that Stephen Covey talks about as well, begin with the end in mind. There is something about imagining yourself on your deathbed surrounded by loved ones and imagining what would they say at my funeral?

What are they saying around me? What would my obituary read that really helps get rid of the bullshit of like what doesn't matter and helps us focus on what really does? Which is often relationships rather than work. So that's one useful strategy. He always answered his emails on time and he was really great at keeping the notion template up to date.

And he drove seven percent returns for our hedge fund every year. It's like, no one gives a shit. It's like, you know, he was humble. He enjoyed spending time with people around him. He energized the people around him. He was always there for us. He was supportive. He was kind. He was warm., Darren Brown and his book Happy,

which is about Stoicism, has a really good idea that I often come back to, which is we think people want impressive, but actually what they want is just warm. And warmth is way more important than impressiveness. And in like networking events when meeting people, there's like people often try and present some sort of, I'm impressive because XYZ. And actually, a lot of people just want more, want warmth. And so beginning with the end in mind, thinking, what would I want people to say on my deathbed?

What would I want written on my gravestone? Can be a really helpful way of thinking, is the way that I'm currently living aligned with what I would like that to be? One of the things that I've always struggled with and I felt, you know, I came up through the trenches of productivity, you know, seven or eight years ago because I was adamant that the solution, there's more there. I think I was adamant that the solution was, if only I had a perfectly designed notion template, all of my problems would go away. And one of the tools that's often in there is begin with the end of mind, you know, start with a 25-year-long outcome broken down into five-year, like, marathons, broken down into one-year medicals, broken down in a 90-day

sprint, broken down in a daily action, broken down in a micro-discipline. Right, okay, fantastic. Like, I understand, I understand why that sort of stuff works. 25-year goals. I understand, I understand why that sort of stuff works. 25-year goals, five-year goals, one-year goals. One-year goals just about is on the very, very brink of what I can do. I'm so bad at long-term planning. I'm so bad at knowing what I want to do over the long-term. I appreciate the fact that you say not putting the goals

thing at the beginning was a strategy done to try and help people get moving because there's easier steps that you can go along that path because I'm very much that sort of a person. A lot of the, uh, strategy planning and goal, like productivity planning systems that I came across, I fell at the first hurdle because that goal setting thing for me just really, really struggled to resonate. What is better about the obituary solution, I suppose, is it's not about what are the outcomes that you want. It's about what is the feeling and the sense

that you want to have left behind. It's not saying what's your net worth going to be at age 80, how many YouTube videos will you have created? What is the sort of setup of the company that you want? It's much more vibe-y, right? Exactly. All about the vibe. I think I also tried the whole figure out a 50-year plan and break it down into five-year chunks method. And I was just like, come on.

My life is so different now than it was even two or three years ago. There's no way in hell I could even vaguely begin to predict what the future looks like. But the way I found to square this is to recognize that the further out we go, the fuzz found to square this is to recognize that the further out we go, the fuzzier the destination becomes, but that's okay because the point of the destination is to give us a direction. It's not actually the destination itself. And you can check in and

continue to readjust. Absolutely. But I mean the vibe is very unlikely to change, right? I want want people to feel understood, seen, warm, less fearful, comfortable in my presence. I want to leave the world in a better place than I arrived at it in a way that is enlightening and hopefully not too serious. Like, okay, and that's the same across my friends, my family, the people that I talked to on the internet, all of that stuff. All right. None of those things really have any, none of it comes to bear on the business organization that I have, or the revenue, or the videos, or any of that sort of stuff. Or, you know, it's, do I arrive on time for dinner with my friends, right?

Do I have enough respect for my friends that I'm going to make sure that I set off early and arrive on time? It's like little decisions like that. Those are really what I think ultimately are going to define the kind of memories that you leave behind. Mm. Yeah. I also vibe with what you said around one-year plans.

Well, one-year plan is also the longest time horizon that I can feasibly plan in. And even then, you know, the way I think of it is in each different domain of life, and there are like nine of them, three in health, work and relationships, you splurdle the pie however you want. In each of those different domains, what am I celebrating 12 months from now? So in my work life around like learning, I'd love to celebrate actually becoming really good at understanding the longevity stuff, but wanting to do it for a while. It's like, cool. I'd like to

celebrate that in my romantic life. You know, I'd like to celebrate getting married. Cool, easy. In my friendships, I'd like to celebrate the fact that every quarter we went on like a little or a Lads Road trip. Okay, cool. Now, those are my goals. And now I can employ all my productivity strategies of like, you know, putting in the ideal week, making sure I've got time, writing it down to my project list, to just remind myself that this is a thing that I actually care about. Because otherwise, we get caught up in the day to day of life and we forget that, oh yeah, I was meant,

I did intend to organize a trip with my friends every few months. Haven't done that in a while. You know, I've got a spare half an hour now. Why don't I just do some research on A, B and B? And just those little reminders is where I think productivity strategies are super, super helpful, but becoming obsessed with the systems then kind of detract from everything else in life. It's turning the bar stool upside down, right?

Productivity is there to facilitate the outcomes that you want to achieve. And those should be downstream from the vibe and the sort of life that you want, right? It shouldn't be, I'm going to employ productivity strategies and allow the vibe of my life to occur out of those. It doesn't grow out of the productivity strategies. So this is going to be out December 26th, right? In the US, December 28th worldwide. Okay, this episode is going to drop like December 19th, so people can go and pre-buy it now on Amazon, Ali Abdahl, Philgid, productivity. What's this keyboard?

Oh, this keyboard. This is a tech brand called Light Mode that we are in the process of launching. It will have launched by the time this is out. Oh, yeah. We're trying to do productivity, desk accessories, stuff in your bag, all that kind of stuff, but not aimed at gamers, aimed at people who like the apple aesthetic a little bit, who want things to be a little bit more light and free and playful and stuff. So this is our mechanical keyboard. How long have you been working on that?

Mate, this is like a blade two year long process to try and find the perfect click and the perfect switch and the perfect amount of loop to put on the keys. OK. And the perfect weight of the metal plate and all of that. When I think of you, I think about loop research, actually, that is the first place that I go to. Yeah, man. So people can check that out.

I think one, if you're interested in a clacky sounding mechanical cable, that's a bit like light mode.com. Light mode.com. Exactly. Hell yeah. Ali, I appreciate you. I look forward to seeing how this book gets on.

You know that you're gonna smash it. It's very much needed, I think, and given that we're about to go into the New Year and people are going to be thinking, right, I need to get myself together, New Year, New May, New Productivity Strategy. That's the book. Yeah.

Hopefully it's helpful for some people. How are you? I'm good luck with your drink as well. It's super nice. Thank you, my one. Good shit. That's actually really nice. Yeah, I'm fed.