The Daily Stoic - Ali Abdaal on the Keys to Productivity and Re-Defining Success | Take This Motto To Heart

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to YouTuber Ali Abdaal about his journey from going to medical school to become a doctor to becoming a full time YouTuber and entrepreneur, what the Stoic definition of success actually looks like, staying productive and getting your life organized, and more.Ali Abdaal is a YouTuber, Podcaster and co-founder of 6med, best known for his videos on his youtube channel surrounding studying/revision techniques and productivity related content. His YouTube videos have over 150 million views and he recently launched the part-time YouTuber Academy where he helps aspiring YouTubers start their channel. He is also the host of the Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal podcast.LMNT is the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. As a listener of this show, you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. If you don’t love it, they will refund your $5 no questions asked.Centered is a Mac and Windows app that helps you get into Flow and work faster...and healthier. Join thousands of users who have discovered their Flow States by running Centered in the background while they work. Download Centered today at centered.app/stoic and use the Promo Code “STOIC” by October 31st to get a free month of Premium, and also be entered to win a variety of prizes!List your product on AppSumo between September 15th - November 17th and the first 400 offers to go live will receive $1000, the next 2000 to list a product get $250. And everyone who lists gets entered to be one of 10 lucky winners of $10k! Go to https://appsumo.com/ryanholiday to list your product today and cash in on this amazing deal.DECKED truck bed tool boxes and cargo van storage systems revolutionize organization with a heavy-duty in-vehicle storage system featuring slide out toolboxes. DECKED makes organizing, accessing, protecting, and securing everything you need so much easier. Get your DECKED Drawer System at Decked.com/STOIC and get free shipping.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Ali Abdaal: Homepage, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first, we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Take this motto to heart. Of people who rise to position of power, there are two types. Those who think they can do it alone and those who know that is insane. This is as true today as it was when the ancient historian Cassius Dio was writing his Roman history in the early 200s AD. In it, Dio examines what differentiated Marcus Aurelius from Comedis.

Given Comedis's deranged reign, it might seem like he was destined to fail from the beginning. But Dio points out something fascinating about this young man. He was not naturally wicked, he says, but on the contrary, as guileless as any man that ever lived, when his father died, Dio continues. Marcus left him many guardians among whom were numbered the best men of the Senate. But their suggestions and counsels, comedists, rejected. This was the critical difference between father and son, Dio believed, even when he was emperor, he writes of Marcus,

Marcus showed no shame or hesitation about resorting to a teacher. Seneca's instructions were along the same lines. Here and take heart this useful and wholesome motto, he said, cherish some man of high character and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if you were watching you and ordering all your actions as if he beheld them.

Though Marcus never mentioned Seneca in his meditations, it is clear that he heard and took this motto to heart. The first 17 entries in meditations, 10% of the entire book, are spent reflecting on the men and women of high character. He kept before his eyes over his lifetime. From his deathbed, he was arranging the best and the brightest of them to advise his son. He knew he was nothing without Antoninus and Rousticus

and Herodus and Atticus and Fronto and Apolognes. Their greatness guided him to his greatness because he allowed them to because he wanted them to. And that's the question for you today. Are you living by this motto? Are your actions guided by someone of high character? Do you show no hesitation to resorting to a high teacher or do you think you can do it alone? And look, that's one of the reasons

I keep a bust of both Marcus Aurelis and Sennaka on desk. I want to put a man or a woman of high character up there for display to inspire me to act as if they are watching my actions as Marcus said to be as the ruler upon which we make crooked straight. As Senika said, and you can actually check out the statues I have. We sell them in the Daily Stoke store. Go to store.dailystoic.com. And you'll see them there on the front or just type in statues. Don't have to get these ones. Check out any, I do think the importance of statues is an underrated one. And it's why we talk about it here so much. Daily Stoic.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Today's guests actually someone that I encountered because he had reached out to me when we did a consult about a book. He is working on, you know, as you know, my day job is that I am a writer, I've become called Brass Check and we've worked with many, many authors and brands over the years and I don't do it as much anymore Either I have people on my team do it or I have transitioned on to other projects I really find that you only have so much time in the day where you're gonna spend that energy It's been an experience you know building this business up working on all sorts of cool projects and then having to say no right to, to lucrative opportunities,

interesting opportunities to focus on family, to focus on writing, to focus on this bookstore. And anyways, a couple years ago I did this talk with Ali Abdall, who is a very popular YouTuber and was thinking about writing a book. He also interviewed me about ego as the enemy. There's a video that you can check out. He's a fascinating guy. First and foremost, not just because he has this big YouTube channel, but he went to Cambridge. Then he went to medical school. He's a doctor. And yet he spends most of his time making these self-improvement videos on YouTube, which have done more than 150 million views. He is the host of the Deep Dive with Ali Abdall podcast, which you should also listen to.

He is Ali Abdall on all platforms, A-L-I-A-B-D-A-AAAL. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Ollie is that YouTube is something we're obviously doing a lot more of at Daily Stoic. And whenever I'm exploring something, a new platform, whether it's TikTok, which we're also doing, or whether it was getting into email lists, which we obviously did a long time ago when I was writing my first book, What I do is exactly what Ollie did to me when we connected, which is I try to find someone who is very successful at the thing who is doing a really good job. And I try to find a way to learn from them. I want to find out from a best in class person what the best in class practices are.

And so one of the reasons I want to talk to Ollie is learning about this platform that the person who got a lot of advice from his case, he's nice that. But the point is I always try to learn from the people who have done something well. As I talk about in ego as an enemy, if you think you're perfect, if you think you know everything, if you think you're just naturally good at stuff, you will not get better, you will not learn, and when you do learn, it will be the hard way through painful trial and error. So, as a way to skip that, that was one of the reasons I have been talking to Ali, and I feel like our relationship has been reciprocal, and I wanted to bring you a conversation with me and Ali. Anyways, enjoy this interview, and we'll talk soon. Enjoy this interview and we'll talk soon.

Well, it's good to talk. What time is it there? It is four o'clock in the afternoon. One time of the meal place. It is 10 o'clock in the morning. Nice. So, let's start with your somewhat unconventional path because I'm always interested. And there are a few well-known writers.

I think Michael Crichton was the doctor. There's a few people who do a thing that's really, really hard. Like, for instance, this is different than what I did, right? I dropped out of college to pursue what I'm pursuing. But I've got to imagine that once you spend the time to go through medical school, it is even scarier to leave that life, to focus on this other step because the immense sunk cost of the time and energy and money.

Yeah, it was pretty terrifying. So it was like six years of medical school and then two years of actually working as a doctor, and then when I took a break from it, I sort of in the back of my mind, I was thinking it's just a break, but I was also kind of thinking, if this internet career goes well, then maybe this is more than just a break. And in the last few months, I've had a lot of soul searching to do to try and figure out what the hell am I going to do with my life, because being a doctor was such a huge part of my identity that when people would ask me what I do, I'd say, oh, I'm a doctor and then on the side, I make YouTube videos and on the side, I'm writing this book.

But now, is that really the identity I want to hold on to? And so I've been leaning towards shedding the doctor thing. So now, I was at a wedding last night, people asked, oh, what are you doing these days? What do you do? And I said, well, I used to be a doctor, but then I quit to be a YouTuber. And that was a conversation starter. And that's now how I've started, at least internally,

identifying myself. But it was definitely very, very scary to even think in those ways, because I guess when something is so much a part of your identity, you don't want to, don't want to let it go. I have a bunch of questions about that, but I have to, I have to imagine that one of the benefits of saying I'm a doctor is that it's sort of a universally respected profession. And even beyond being respected, it's a very well understood profession. So like I found that like the transition between, oh, I'm in marketing and oh, I'm a writer was not just, you know, if I wanted to be left alone, if I want to be left alone, I just say, oh, I'm in marketing or something like that, right?

Because then people are like, okay, I'm in insurance. Let's talk about sports, right? And so when there's a curiosity gap or a lack of understanding, it can be both good and bad. But then it leads to a lot of, it can also plan your insecurities, right? Because then people go, well, are you a famous writer? Are you a well-known YouTuber? Do make a lot of money doing that, right? So it

kind of, when you, when you have an easily identifiable, identifiable profession, you can kind of hide behind that. Then when you go out in these, more on these limbs, then that insecurity can kind of play. Have you felt that? Yeah, a little bit. I know what you're saying. I think for me and you, I suspect for you when you started identifying yourself as a writer, you were already like phenomenally successful,

is that fair to say? Yeah, I was probably three or four books in before I started telling people that I was an author because you get this question. People go, well, have I read anything that you've done? And there's a joke, I forget who said it, but it's like, why don't you tell me you're most impressive accomplishment? And I'll let you know that I haven't heard of it, right? Like, because you can be successful at something and not be known to billions of people. So it's, I definitely waited before I talked about it just because I generally don't like having to explain myself.

Interesting. Yeah, so for me, it was, it wasn't until I've been doing YouTube for four years and I just, you know, basically just hit two million subscribers that I started identifying form, like as a, you know, I used to be a doctor and I quit to be a YouTuber. Because I feel like now, if now I kind of like it when people are a bit like, oh, wait, what? Yeah, you can read that makes money, but yeah. Just waiting for the follow-up questions.

I get a real kick out of it because now I've got that confidence that, okay, this is objectively doing well. Whereas if I'd quit medicine to do YouTube when I had 3000 subscribers, I probably would have felt a lot more weird about it. So now I actually, I enjoy that process of people not really knowing what's going on. And it also leads to more interesting conversations. It is illustrative though, not just parents or relatives or random strangers. When they hear someone does something,

they wanna know, one, do you make a lot of money at it? Two, are you famous at it? It's like 50th on the list would be like, are you good at it? Do you enjoy doing it? Like when we wanna, it's like instinctively, we wanna see where does this sit in the status hierarchy? Yeah.

You know, does it contribute positively to the world? Right. That's so true. Yeah. I mean, I find this in myself as well. So I've recently moved to London and a lot of people that I'm friends with now are internet friends who also don't have real jobs. I either creators or entrepreneurs, they run startups or they're writers.

And if I'm meeting someone new and I find that running a startup, I find my brain is automatically going into overdrive trying to figure out are they rich, are they successful? Are what stages to start up? Have they got funding? Series B, I wonder if they took any money off the table. Oh wow, that must mean the network there, at least like 5 million. I find my brain doing this and I'm just like, what the hell am I doing? Let's stop playing the status games. Let's take a step back and be like, oh, what's that like? Are you enjoying it? Are you having fun?

Are you fulfilled? How do you keep it interesting? I found myself going through this the other day because a friend of mine, not a close friend, but is running for public office. And so in America, when you run for public office, I don't know how it works in the UK. But you have to fill out all these insane financial disclosures that basically state like what you own,

what your net worth is, or whatever. So this was all public. And so I caught myself, and it was like, here's what he makes from this, here's what he makes from this. And you can find yourself, you know, it's to not compare yourself to others, even though we know it is the source, not just of misery, but often distracting us from what we want to do and what makes us happy. It is extremely hard to turn that part of your brain off. Yeah. Have you go any tips on how, like, if you find yourself doing it, how you then stop? I imagine this is quite a stosis in me type thing as well. Very much is. I mean, what I try to remind, what I try to think about is at the end of the day,

there are lots of very, very rich, successful people whose work is either garbage or worse than garbage, right? Like, in that they actively, like, you can make a lot of money doing terrible things. Not, I don't need just me in quality. I mean, you can make a lot of money doing terrible things. Not, I don't just mean quality. I mean, you can make a lot of money doing things that are actively harmful to the world. And so when you think about what you do, the idea that monetary success is success, like we already don't believe that, right? Like there's already things you could do

that would make you a lot more money that you choose not to do. So you choose to do what you do. And then it's just interesting that then we try to compare apples and oranges as far as financial outcomes at the end of it to see who's better, who's more successful. So when I was thinking about this person,

I just tried to remember and remind myself of first off, I wasn't waking up this morning thinking, I don't have enough, right? Like that wasn't even close to a thought in my mind. In fact, the opposite of the thought was in my mind. And then secondarily, do you actually respect this person's work? Like do you respect their contributions? And in this case, less so.

So like the fact that they have been compensated quite well for it, is it relevant to me because there's no amount of money that would make me do that thing? Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One thing that me and my brother tried to do when we're meeting new people is to not be the one to ask, what do you do? Yes. I think like whenever I find myself asking that question, I'm doing that subconscious status

hierarchy thing. I kind of have a conversation without that. I have another couple of rules that I do where I go. First off, I just assume everyone is mine. Most of the time, they fundamentally are. They just are lying. They're as part of the marketing. I want to talk to you about this a little bit.

As part of the marketing, people often want to talk to you about this a little bit, but as part of the marketing, people often show an unrepresentative picture. So I know you did this on a video recently, but people will talk about how much they make, but not how much they spend, to make the money that they make. So at the end of the day, it's all about margins, and someone could be making more than you,

but have really bad margins, and thus not actually be worthy of envy. But so first off, I just assume that it's all a lie. Like people are exaggerating, people are outright lying, or they're sort of hidden math there. So that sort of takes the edge off of it for me as well. And I just sort of go through the world that way. And it might not be true. They might be actually underestimating, you know, they could be making even more than they're saying.

But by just telling myself that it's not true, it allows me to just go back to what I'm doing. Hmm, nice. It's a good way of thinking about it. Yeah. But so, okay, so you leave medicine to go into YouTube, but I would be curious, obviously, although medicine can be a lucrative profession,

people tend to go into it because it's a calling or if they feel like they're being of service in some way. How did you, is that, did you wake up and realize that wasn't why you got into medicine, or has that been kind of a struggle for you, the difference between a sort of a more service-oriented profession, especially in the midst of a public health crisis, and then, you know, at a more artistic profession, which I also think is a calling, but there's just different columns. Yeah, so I think being honest, the reasons I went into medicine were not particularly We're not particularly sexy if that makes sense. You know the sexy reasons are going into medicine

It's a calling I really want to help people. I have friends who had cancer when they were younger and you know They're they have a real personal connection to the profession of medicine and they really want to get back and and so on It wasn't really like that for me. For me was it was to be honest It was two things. Number one, everyone says, universities the best time of your life. And medical school is six years at uni, rather than three years at uni.

So I thought, hey, twice as much of a best time of my life winning there. And secondly, the thing I was actually really into was coding. I had done a lot of web design type web development stuff when I was a kid. And tried my best to build my own tech startup before the word startup was even a thing. And so I was torn kid, and tried my best to build my own text order before the word start up was even a thing.

And so I was torn between, do I apply for computer science? And I reasoned at the time that being a doctor who codes is more interesting than being a random dude who codes. And so I thought, hey, medicine seems kind of interesting. I do like science. I do like the idea of helping people. I do like the idea of having a job that's not tied to a desk.

And there has variety. And I need people who are doctors, it seemed all right, but that really wasn't the core reason as to why I did it. And so I ended up getting into medical and having a great time and I still, even though I went away from it, I don't regret anything and I still think medicine is a fantastic degree to do at university, even if you don't want to practice medicine at the end of it. How much of it was pressure from other people? I know that that's like people are like, well, somebody said I should be a lawyer

or my parents really wanted me to be a doctor. Was that part of it for you? Not really. I mean, it's hard to say, at least not explicitly. So for example, my family was never like, hey, you should be a doctor. But having said that, my mom is a doctor, my dad's a doctor. Everyone we knew in our social circles were doctors. There was that implicit idea that there aren't there are no jobs out there other than

being a being a doctor, being a lawyer, being an engineer. Right. If someone had said you could go into marketing, I'd have been like, what the hell does that even mean? Sure. If someone says you could study history at university, I'd be like, what, to become a history teacher, you know, that was my thinking back then. Sure. And so the options I was choosing from were basically medicine, lawyer, engineer. It wasn't going to be lawyer because I've got a stutter. So it was between medicine and engineer, and I didn't really like maths that much, even though it's pretty good at it. So I was like, oh, medicine. Okay, cool. Let's go down that route.

And how did the people closest to you who I imagined supported you for long? How did they react to the idea of like, I'm throwing all of this away? Oh, it's still not well. So for example, almost every other conversation I have with my mom is her, you know, ends with her being like, hey, you know, have you thought about maybe going back

into training, maybe applying for residency, that kind of thing? And a few months ago, it was every conversation, not every other conversation. And I think she's now coming around to the fact that, especially once I started admitting it to myself, that to be honest, I'm probably never going to be a doctor. She slowly started to come around to it. Because I think I'd sort of strung her for a few years kicking the can down the road saying, I'm just taking a break, it's all good. These days, I think people in, like, weirdly, it's other doctors who I speak to

who are very supportive of the decision. They say, oh my God, you found a way to get out. Because in the UK, it's not particularly lucrative and the working conditions are quite hard. State funded system. And the NHS is fantastic for the people who benefit from it. But whenever doctors get together, there is a real sense of like, oh my god,

this is the system that we're working in compared to people in America and Australia is really not great for doctors. So a lot of doctors are actually like, oh my god, it's so good that you've got this YouTube thing going, definitely keep going with that. And you've always kind of got medicine as a backup option if you're really desperate.

I remember that was something Peter Teo told me, so he goes to Stanford, undergrad, Stanford Law School. It gets a job at one of the best law firms in the world. And he was amazed by the contrast of all the people in the world were trying to get into the thing he was in. And inside of it, all that everyone was talking about was how to get out of it. And so I think it takes a certain amount of courage because obviously everyone's more

less in agreement that this is not perfect, but it'd be wonderful to get out. But then something actually prevents people from doing it. Yeah. I mean, so this is such a standard, standard thing within medicine, where everyone is sort of talking about how to get out of it. Weirdly, a lot of people in medicine see management consulting and finance as their way out of medicine. And I've got a few friends who have done that and they got there and realized, oh my god, everyone's also getting a management consulting is trying to get out of that as well. And everyone wants to do a starter. And doing a starter seems to be the sort of infinite game that I haven't spoken to many people who are doing a starter who don't want to continue doing it.

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Download the Amazon Music app today. I can actually push back on that. So every successful person that I have met in the startup world, or this is also in the sports world, but whatever, at the end of it, what they all actually want to do is write books. They all want to have books, or be like an influencer type,

like they want to have a platform. I don't want to, famous isn't the right word. But I think, I think, I think what I see in all of those things is people gravitating towards the illusion of or deep down the desire for more autonomy over their lives. And those are three professions, management consulting, being a lawyer or medicine. Yeah, yeah. Where you have zero autonomy whatsoever. You are a slave to a system to clients to the grind. And yeah, it is

funny. You would leave one profession for the other. So on that, on that note, I do have, I do have a friend who just, you know, successful series, be $400 million startup type vibes, saying to me that, hey, I want to start a YouTube channel. And I was like, dude, why the hell do you want to start a YouTube channel? And he was like, well, once you've got a funded startup, like, surprisingly, your autonomy is limited because you're now beholden to investors. And so I really want my own thing that I can maybe make an online course off of. So I can have my own income without it being tied to anyone else.

But also on that note, I, I think this point you make about how everyone's trying to get more autonomy. I was at a YouTuber convention last week and it was a bunch of sort of YouTubers who are all fairly successful by YouTube metrics. And the vibe there was, let's try and figure out a way to build a brand that is distinct from our personal brand, like a merch company

or a coffee company or a stationary company so that we can use our brand to market the thing, but that the thing is not dependent on our own personal brand because even with creators like YouTube or as influencers, it is in a way you get into it because of the autonomy, but then you realize, oh crap, I'm continuing on this hamster wheel of content and I'm so entrenched in it now that I would love to build a brand that's actually outside of me. Yes, well, you want to be able to scale what you're doing. So it's not so dependent on you. But then you just built it as your name and you can't do that. Yeah. So I think everyone's kind of chasing that like next level of autonomy of like freedom of like, oh, once I hit that level, then, but I think, I think one thing I like about when I hear you on podcasts and read your stuff is that

you're not living the traditionally autonomous digital nomad lifestyle. You've got your farm, you've got your kids, you've got the wife, you've got a cool lifestyle, but it's not that you have pure autonomy and you can do whatever you want. You've chosen to get married and have kids. It's not that you have pure autonomy and you can do whatever you want. You've chosen to get married and have kids. So it's interesting how I think there's this sweet spot of autonomy. And then after you've done, after you've had your four hour work week, you realize actually there's, I imagine there is fulfillment, enjoy investing in a community and being part of something local and all that stuff.

I think that's true, although I tend to find to go to your point about sort of YouTubers, is that the digital nomad lifestyle is actually not very fun. It's certainly, it's not fun. It's not well suited to my personality, but I do think that there is something abnormal as the only word I can think of, but a person is not supposed to be able

to keep all their possessions in a backpack and go from hotel room to hotel room, trip to trip, meeting sort of ephemeral friends or relationships as they, you know, go from one thing to another. I mean, part of, there is a nomadic part to the human species, but I also think there's a deeply rooted part of the human species.

And I think there is, Epicurus has this great line. He says, each every man flees himself. I think there is a part in that sort of like, I'm just going to travel the world, and I'm not going to own anything. And I'm just going to go from a vent to a vent that is just running away from yourself. And being an adult quite frankly.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I've kind of had those thoughts in the back of my mind that, ooh, what if I travel the world and stuff? Well, then recently I moved to London, got to lease on the studio space for a year. And now I'm like, it actually, to me, it feels more exciting to be based in London for a whole year where I can build a team and person and do all the stuff

than it does to be traveling and living in a different city every month. I like routine and structure and systems. And actually, I find that, I think it was Flobert who was saying that, you wanna be ordered and systematized in what you do, so then you can be chaotic in your work. So like if you're uprooted in,

your life is chaotic, I tend to find that the work actually suffers because you're a mess. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, I guess I'm not really done the approved, well, although, you know, since moving in the last last two, like two, three weeks, I feel like the work IE writing the book doing YouTube videos has taken a back seat in terms of like life in turmoil, but now I'm kind of setting into a routine, gym in the morning, studio in the afternoon. It's good vibes. So, as you, because you did both for a while,

you did sort of medicine and YouTube, was part of what drew you to it, the idea that like you were in charge of your own life, like you got to do what you wanted, say what you wanted, and unlike say, yeah, being a television presenter, like you have control of what you do and ownership of the audience. Yeah, yeah, I think really the thing I was chasing was freedom because, um, yeah, like ever since my first day of med school pretty much, I would always ask doctors that I'd see in the hospitals that if you if you won the lottery, would you you continue to do medicine and half of them would say they'd leave immediately and

the other half would say they'd go part-time. Yeah and when the follow-up question is like okay why don't you just leave or go part-time. The answer was always about money like oh I've got a mortgage of gold etc etc and so I knew from day one pretty much that okay this is not the future I want to where I am where my answer to that question is like I'm stuck doing this job that I don't necessarily enjoy, even though some do, kind of just for the money, or not just for the money, but because I need money to live. So I knew from when I first discovered the four-hour work week that the objective is going to be to build these sources of income on the side. So that when I do medicine, it's genuinely because I enjoy it and not because I need the money.

And so that was in my mind as I built like a business through Med School and then the YouTube channel started as a content marketing driver for the business that I had. Sure. And it was only when the YouTube channel started to take on a life of its own that I realized, oh, hello, this could be a thing. Yeah. And do you find, because this is something I've thought about as a creator, I think, and you talk a lot about this obviously on the channel, the idea of multiple

income streams or creating passive income or whatever you have. To me, that actually frees you up creatively because then you're not. Some people are slaves to the algorithm or slaves to the content treadmill, because that's if they don't make a video today, like their income suffers, right? And I think like one of the benefits for me when I was thinking about writing the Ops was the way, and I talked about this before, but my publisher offered me half what I got

for my first book for what was supposed to be my second book. But I was in a position to say yes to that because I had multiple income streams, right? So I didn't need to think, oh, well, if I accept this, it's a big step backwards for me, and I might not be able to afford my rent, it was, sure, it'll all work out in the end.

I'm not dependent on this. I do find having the sort of multiple income streams does create a form of creative autonomy that is important for doing good work. Yeah, that's interesting. So a few days ago, I was like a Saturday, I was here in the studio, and I was meant to film a video, and I thought, you know what, I need to spend like five hours journaling about what I want from my YouTube channel and the business and my life moving forward. And what I realized is that even though with these multiple income streams,

I can actually do what I want and sort of explore my creative life and all that kind of stuff. I found myself continuing to be a slave to the algorithm because I wanted the numbers to go up. Sure. I was thinking that what the hell is going on here? I'm beyond the point of income streams where I comfortably sustain a decent lifestyle for a few years. That's all great. If you told me a few years ago, I'd have had a stroke. And yet, I was still just my default mode was,

oh, well, two million subscribers is cool, but like, four million subscribers is even better. And this many income streams is good, but like, twice as many as even better. And I kept on thinking that, you know, if I had 10 million in the bank, then I would get to a point where I feel like I've got enough money and then I'm,

and I was just trying to reflect on this thing, this is just so absurd. And the conclusion that I came to, after all this like journaling was, I actually can just decide to not care about the numbers, to not worry about publishing videos on a consistent schedule, sticking to sponsorship deadlines,

because who cares? And I actually can now switch to only making videos that I feel authentic and that I'm proud of. And I just had never really had that realization before. I was only on Saturday, like two days ago, I remember where I felt like, oh my god, I can't just do this. I don't need to worry about the business growing and growing and growing. And who cares? It felt very freeing. Is that hard? I got to imagine that YouTube is difficult in that it is so quantifiable, right? Like you're shown in real time how everything is doing. People literally give you like you're a gladiator in the policy and the thumbs up or the thumbs

down. You know, like how do you not think about those numbers all the time, especially as you're deciding whether something's good or not? Yeah, I think it's this balance between not caring about the numbers on one hand, philosophically, but also caring about the numbers because if the numbers are trending upwards, then that's good. If the numbers are trending downwards, that feels like it's bad. I don't yet have a fully, a good answer to this. One way I'm thinking of it is, I'm trying to convince myself to be more like mission focused

rather than like numbers focused in that I've decided that my calling in life is ultimately teaching and YouTube and writing and doing courses and stuff It's all like just teaching at various scales and you know I came up with this like mission statement for a business which sounds very like cringe when I say it, but it's important. Yeah To help we exist to help people live their best life by creating inspiring educational content It's like, you know, that feels pretty good.

It feels very self-helpy, but oh well, that's fine. And we had a session with a business coach a couple of weeks ago where he was saying, okay, what's your tenure of vision? Like, where are we aiming? And he was encouraging me to put some numbers on it. Like, you know, are we aiming at 100 million people or a billion people?

And honestly, I was thinking about that and all like the stoicism-y type stuff that I've been drinking the Kool-Aid off ever since I discovered the obstacle-sick way. And I realized that my tenure and all like the stoses and me type stuff that I've been drinking the Kool-Aid off ever since I discovered the obstacle is the way. And I realized that my 10-year goal for the business is to be profitable while helping people and having fun. And I don't care about putting any numbers on it. Sure.

And just admitting that to myself made me realize, okay, actually this is fine. I can just choose to not care about the numbers. And so moving forward, like now when a video goes up on the channel, I actually don't look at the analytics. I find myself my thumb going on the YouTube studio app, and as it's loading, I swipe it down and go on Instagram and start or something, knowing that whatever the numbers say is not actually going to change the way I feel about this video. And as long as internally, I thought this was a good video to put out, then the numbers are irrelevant. At least that's the theory. It remains to be seen whether this will actually work out in practice, but it's what I'm trying

to go for. It's really hard. It almost requires more self control to not have a goal than to have a goal and stick to it, right? Like, at least as far as these sort of easily measurable quantifiable goals, like whenever I talk to an author who's telling me they want to sell a very specific number of copies, to me that's a red flag because first off, it seems arbitrary and it almost is always like a number they picked because someone else did a similar number, you know.

It's not like a million views is objectively a good number. It's just that seems to be a nice bar, right? But also like on the 10 year thing, like I think about this, it's like, I mean, isn't the main goal to still be doing this in 10 years, right? Like isn't that a harder thing to do? Like most people are just not even around. They just completely fall off. Are they quit or they get burned out or whatever. Like for me, like the idea of being an author

is like being in the NBA or the NFL. Like if you're not cutting it, you get cut, right? And so instead of thinking about like, here's how many touchdowns I wanna score. Here's what I want my batting averages. I think the more basic goal is like, I just wanna still be elite level at what I'm doing. I don't wanna have fallen off.

And whatever it takes to get there is what I'm interested in as opposed to some number I pulled out of my ass. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. There's there's two things that you said last time we spoke, which have kind of stayed with me that I think about Fetty regularly. One was we talked about, I think you had a blog post where you wrote about what it feels to hit the New York Times list and you said that it feels like nothing.

Yes. And I was like, oh, that really stuck with me because as I was embarking on the journey of writing my book as we talked about, I had in my mind, it would be really cool to hit the New York Times list. And then I was like, okay, no, this is a dumb ass goal to have because,

it's outside of my control and And all of those stuff, stuff. So that's something I often think about whenever I find myself leaning in that direction of caring too much about that particular prestigious metric, I think about that thing that you said. And the other thing that you said, which was really interesting, was that how I think you mentioned at one point you were thinking of dabbling in real estate, and then you'd speak to your real estate friends and they'd all want to become self-help authors and you realised that you were living the dream. And I often think of this and I'm like, yeah, you know, if I speak to all my friends who

are also quote successful, they love the idea of being a YouTuber where you can just make videos about what you want. And that's literally the life I'm living so I should actually, you know, optimize for playing that infinite game rather than thinking, oh, it'd be cool to have a startup, you know, that kind of stuff. What are to give up control of the YouTube channel? So, you know, the goal is, it would be cool to have a YouTube channel and make whatever you want.

And then you have a YouTube channel, but you're not making whatever you want. You're making what other, you think other people want you to want, and that sucks. So speaking of which like, is your, are your most viewed videos the ones that you think are your best? Oh, good question.

Yeah, actually a large chunk of my most viewed videos are the videos that I felt. Okay, this is a bang a video. There's very few videos I've done that have done well where I didn't think internally that this was a really good video. There's very few videos I've done that have done well where I didn't think internally that this was a really good video. But what about the opposite? Yeah, the opposite. I have had yeah videos that I thought were bad have done badly. Where did our videos you thought were good that haven't that didn't do well? Oh yeah, there's plenty of those as well like quite often I put

out a video where I think oh yeah I think, I think this is a genuinely good video, and it doesn't do well, and I'm like, cool, that's fine. In some ways, YouTube does break down the metrics a little bit, so you've got the view count, which is how many people clicked on it, and then you've got the average view duration, which is how well did this hold people's attention. Usually, the videos where I felt good about it, were the ones that have the higher average

view duration. And usually that means actually videos that are a bit more in depth, exploring something with a little bit more niche than what I normally talk about. I'm just trying to lean more into that feeling of me, my internal compass deciding that something is good or authentic or decent and not worrying about what the view or the number says. Well, I was asking because I was talking to the guy who edits my videos, who's great.

And I could tell he was a little discouraged because like three or four videos in a row hadn't done super well. What is well, right, is again, a made up number. But it was interesting to me too. Like, and I've had to sort of say this to my team, which is like, I'm not making a YouTube channel, I'm making videos, right?

So like, I actually don't care where they get the views. And I also don't care, like I'm also not interested in getting the maximum number of views. I'm interested in teaching things that, you know, if 1,000 people really got it versus a million people watched it and only 1,000 people got it, versus a million people watched it and only 1,000 people got it, that would be the exact same thing to me, except ego, right? Ego is the thing that makes us go.

A lot of views is obviously better. That's success. Yeah, yeah, definitely. That's a good way of thinking about it. That's one of the things I really like about your videos. Like, they're not very YouTube or YouTubey. They're more like kind of getting a peek inside your mind. And actually, this is your I think you had like one that was like half an hour long about your note taking process. And I loved it. I was like, Oh my god, this is like incredible stuff. Getting to see inside

the mind of run holiday, which is a video that's so niche that probably probably not to do particularly well on YouTube. But I'm glad to put it out anyway. Well, no, that's the other thing that I think we overlook, which is like sort of who are you trying to appeal to? I remember Tim Ferris said this to me once. He was like, look, would you rather be famous to five million people, or would you rather be famous or well respected by the five thousand people that attend the Ted Conference every year.

And the idea that there are different rooms that you can be well known in is an interesting thing that I have found in my career. So there are certainly people. I know are people whose books, here's a weird experience. I've written books for other people that have sold better than my own books, right? So it's a weird experience where you do something that's genuinely you that's got your name on it. And it does less well than something you don't put your name on that you care less about. But if I had to pick which one I wanted to be myself or that other person. I would pick myself because I know the rooms that my work has resonated in.

And so the idea that like something could do 10,000 views to the right 10,000 people or something could do 10 million views, but not include the 10,000 right people. That's an interesting thing. So I love that you like the note card video. Like that's who I was making it for, not for people who are not interested in that. Nice. But your system's nerd, right? That's what some of your best videos are you like, and I remember I asked you like sort of how do you do this? How do you do something about a video? And you were like, here's my 30 item checklist for how I think about a video. So is that is that always how you thought or is that a skill set you've had to develop for YouTube? No, I think, I think it is always how I thought. I think when I was,

when I was younger, I was very interested in teaching. And I would find that it's a lot easier to teach something if you can boil it down to some sort of system, like three steps or four, four parts to the framework. And so as I was going throughout school, when I was helping younger, younger students and also through med school, when I was teaching younger med students, I was always book coming up with sort of one system or another to explain something. And I realized like once I started the YouTube thing that hang on, this can actually be systemized. And then I read a few business books like the EMA3 visited and things like that, which

talked about the power of building a system. So then I was like, all right, cool, this isn't just me making stuff up as I go along. Systems design is actually a thing. So let's lean into that. So now we try and convert everything into a system. And weirdly, actually, I find that when I do a video, if I've got a few ideas in my head of like, OK, I want to cover these like four points.

If I just turn them into a system, like the FLOW method or whatever, people resonate with that so much more when you can name something and say that this is a system rather than the reality, which is, this is just a few ideas that I've kind of coupled together and I hope they work for you. So it's weird, because I'm both a systems person

and not a systems person. Like so I have my no card thing that I do, but which is very methodical. But then people often ask me, like sort of what tech tools do you use? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm, I'm sort of very rudimentary in that sense. Yeah. Do you think, do you think there's, I've always wondered, or I guess, been suspicious

if part of why people obsess about systems or tools is that it is a substitute for actually sitting down and doing the hard part, like coming up with what it is that you have to say or that it's just a way to get distracted with all this sort of setup and not just putting your ass in the chair and doing the thing. Yeah, I think that is actually a big part of it. I see this in myself,

probably a year ago, a year or so ago, when I was deep down the rabbit hole of researching productivity apps and note-taking systems and the settle-custom and all this fancy stuff. And realizing that, as a nerd, I enjoy reading about systems and I enjoy the feeling that, you know, and probably why I watched your video was like, oh, what's a secret source? Yeah, it's fine at Ryan's secret source. Like, what's the system that if I adopt the system, suddenly, suddenly I'll become a magical best-selling author. And the system is just like a whole load of hard work

with that just happens to be on flashcards in your little boxes. I was like, okay, fine. There's not getting around the fact that this actually takes a large amount of work. And so actually, I've found myself gravitating more towards simplicity on the tech front as well. Like these days, the only real note taking app I use is Apple Notes. I had dabbled with Rome, dabbled with the Zephyl Cast and stuff. We use Notion for like team stuff because it works

honestly for that. But I find that if I just want to open up something and start writing, even when it's like chapters of my book, I'll just start them off in Apple Notes, because I just know it works. And notes are plus plus plus, no it's easy. And I feel almost embarrassed screenshotting it and sharing it on YouTube, because people, I'm supposed to be some kind of productivity note who has all these ridiculously elaborate systems.

And actually, Apple notes all the way. What's sort of like people set up these sort of Rube Goldberg machines instead of just like getting to the fastest thing, which is just sitting down and doing the work. We don't, the writing sucks or whatever, making the video or coming up with the idea, that's the hard part. So I think sometimes we, it's like we add all this stuff on top.

I don't know why, but we do. Ooh, I have an example about this. So recently we put out a video on the YouTube channel that we had to delete because it was just like objectively bad clickbait title, bad content, not authentic. And that led me on a whole thing of like figuring out, okay, how do we get to this point where we made a video that was just so bad

that the comments were like 50% dislikes and had to be taken down. And I realized that what my issue was is that ever since I discovered the power of like being able to hire people and delegate and outsource aspects of creation, I went too far in the direction of thinking, oh, let me build a system and hire people to fill the system such that I never have to think about a video idea ever again. And like, I imagined my dream scenario was one where I could sit down on my desk, speak to a teleprompter, and just turn out content.

Yeah, I was like, all right, cool. Let's work towards that future. It's behind writers and like researchers and all this kind of stuff. And I realized that, you know, we had like, the team staged an intervention Zoom call a few weeks ago saying that, okay, Ali, we've got a problem. The content is starting to lose its charm because you're not showing up. You're not sitting down and doing the work in coming up with ideas in sort of kind of forming, forming them into videos because that is the work of that is the hard part. And I thought I could outsource and automate and systemize the hard part.

And I realized, oh my god, like this is actually just what was so misguided. So now we've kind of done a whole 180 on that. And I'm now getting so actively involved back in the content. And actually, I'm leaving the management side of the team and stuff to other people in the team who are better at that stuff. So I can just focus on actually sitting down

and doing the work of doing the content thing. So I think that really resonates that even researching systems, even kind of building human systems hiring and delegating is often a substitute, at least for me, for actually sitting down and doing the work. Well, and it kind of goes back to like, you didn't leave medicine to have a YouTube channel that you don't work on. Like, you left medicine because you liked coming up with and making videos more than doing the other thing. So, what kind of life it is, is it where you've also outsourced that, right? I mean, you could call it retirement, which might be something you do at some point, but like, it is a weird thing. I mean,

with writing, you get successful at it, and then you can fill up your whole life with lucrative things that are not that thing. Or you can even pay people to do that thing for you. But I just, I always try to remember like, but that's the thing I like doing. And by the way, that's the thing that I'm, if not the best at, I'm at least world class at, or we wouldn't be here, right? Like we wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to hire people to do it for me if I wasn't like if I hadn't done something new or original and how I do it. And what's, yeah, what's the point of succeeding at a thing if the reward for that thing is you don't

do that thing anymore. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true, especially in the like in terms of the whole like, you know, retirement thing, I, you know, what, what that ended up looking like was back to back to Zoom meetings every single day. Right. Okay. This is not, this is not fun. Cause you're still, you're still working. You're just not working on the thing you actually love doing. Yeah. Yeah. But hey, we've, we've, we've now blocked up a blocked out large amounts of time in the calendar for deep work that no one has allowed to book meetings and

having all the meetings on Mondays. Like it's a, trying to's trying to work towards the system. Similar to I think what you've got, like I'm in the morning, do a few hours of, like four hours of whatever it was, writing, hang out at the farm, go for a walk. That seems like a good life. Well, yeah, I mean, I think about it as like,

what do you want your life to look like work being a part of that life? The idea that you would have a really unhappy life for a large period of time and then go do the thing you actually like seems to me to be a risky bet. Yeah, the third lifetime. Yeah, yeah. So speaking of productivity, I mean obviously you do get a lot done. If you had to think about like what are the biggest tools for you as far as being more productive? Like if someone's like, I'm just a mess. Like my life's just a mess.

Where would you start? Oh, okay. So there's like one underlying theme and then a few tools that help. The underlying theme is for me, I found that actually just optimizing for what's fun has been the single biggest hack for my productivity ever. And finding like that, a party that's like choosing to do a thing which I happen to find fun, you know, whole follow your passion stuff.

Sure. But it's only recently that I've had the freedom to be able to do that. For the rest of my life, it was doing things other people slash the schooling system was telling me to do. But even in those finding ways to make them fun. And so now my advice for most people if they're struggling with productivity is find a way to make them fun. And so now my advice for most people if they're struggling with productivity is find a way to make it fun. That's all, you know, all easier, a lot easier said than done. In terms of specific tools for getting more done, single biggest step I found is something I came across in a book called Make Time by Jack Knapp and John Zoratsky. They're called

the Daily Highlight. I think similar to Gary Ketter's idea of the one thing, like what's the one across in a book called Make Time by Jack Knapp and John Zoratsky. They call it the daily highlight. I think similar to Gary Ketter's idea of the one thing, like, what's the one thing I actually want to do today? Sure. And I ask myself this every morning, I want the one thing, all right, cool. Write that down. And honestly, if I could actually just do that one thing that's most important to me every single day for 365 days, that would completely move the needle on my productivity.

So if I only could choose one thing, that would be what I would suggest. If I could choose two things, it would be deciding what that one thing is and then putting it on the calendar because when it's on the calendar, it's gonna get done. And if it's not on the calendar, it's not gonna get done.

Do you think about, I guess this connects to the idea of the one thing, which I think about is like, and this also goes to the point about delegating, which is like, what is the thing that only you can do? Like to me, a great organization exploits the law of comparative advantage, which is that everyone should do the thing

that they are best at, right? And then we all come together and then we're the super human or super organization where you have a bunch of people doing the best at. This is how a sports team works, right? Not everyone plays whatever position they just assign people randomly. It's like you have the best quarterback, you have the best linebackers, you have the best safety, you have the best the best player. So, but I think that's really important in especially if you're in charge of the

team, which is like what is your thing? The thing that only you can do. And then, as you said, make time for that, block it out in the calendar, and conversely, how do you hire people to support or take off your plate all the things that are not that thing? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I did one of those matrix exercises where it's like things I love to do and I'm great at, things I like to do and I'm good at, things I don't like to do and I'm good at and things I can't.

What's that called? I can't remember. It was within a book called Attraction by Dino Someone. Yeah, this is what I was reading. And I did that exercise. I was like, oh, okay, there's a lot of things in this, in the bottom two quadrants, i.e. things I don't like to do, that I am good at slash not good at. And I realized I actually could just write all of those down. And this was how I ended up finding a personal assistant. And,

anyway, I feel like these days, anytime I speak to a sort of creator or entrepreneur, and they don't have a personal assistant, I try and sell them on the idea of just getting a part-time personal assistant. But I think if you can offload those bits that you don't like that someone else could do, it just gives more of your time to do the stuff you enjoy. Yeah, and I'm actually the opposite is for a scheduling. Like the way I think about it is the calendar, if it's empty, I know exactly what I'm going to do. I'm going to wake up and I'm going to write and I'm going to read

and I'm going to spend time with my family. So the way I have a different relationship with the calendar, which is that anytime there's something in the calendar, I feel imposed on like it's violating that space. So this helps me and that it makes me reluctant to agree to do things. Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking in that direction more recently, the whole hell yeah or no thing.

I think that was a great book I was reading. It's called A Minute to Think by Juliet Front, a very recent book. And she's got this thing in it, which the six week trap was something like that. Where, if you look at your calendar, six weeks out, it's like surprising empty anything cool. Hello. So if a commitment comes along, someone says,

Hey, can you give a talk to medical students at this university? You know what? Yeah. My calendar's empty. I'll do it. And then I get to there. I'm like, I realize, oh my god, why the hell did I great to this? Who calendar is now full again? And so I'm trying to get better at saying, saying no to that sort of stuff, even though it is fun. That's how October was for me because October or this fall was kind of for the last six or seven or eight months was like people saying, we'll be out of the pandemic by then. So people started doing events coming up with stuff in the fall and I had agreed to, not a ton,

but more than I usually do, because I think part of me said it's so far in the future, part of me assumed it'll get canceled anyway. And then it didn't. And then it was like, it was like I cashed, it was like I'd written a check that then my body had to cash like months later. And it seemed like it was financially worth it at the time, but then actually doing it, I'm like, I'm much more aware of the opportunity costs because in the present, you're actually aware of what you're trading off.

But when you agree to do something 10 months from now, you think, well, there's nothing I would have wanted to do then. But maybe you just would have wanted to sleep in a little bit and go for a walk and read a book while you have breakfast, right? Like, you don't really realize what you're saying no to when you're saying yes to things. Yeah, yeah, definitely. This is an area that I've started to do some digging around in researching my book, which is this idea that when we think of our future selves, we endow our future selves with superhuman abilities like, oh, I'm feeling a bit tired right now, but tomorrow, my

tomorrow self is not going to feel tired at the same time and therefore I'll do this thing tomorrow. Or eight months from now, you know what? Of course, I'll be able to do all these things. How can it be? It's just a talk. I've done these a lot. And that is a big part of what causes kind of procrastination

for people who suffer from it. Oh, this idea that tomorrow me is Superman, whereas today me is normal and therefore I will put this thing off. But I think it also, at least I find that for myself, it manifests in terms of booking things in the future. I'll future me, we'll have loads of time for this, even though current meet doesn't. Yeah, Stephen Pressfield says that nobody says I'm never going to write my symphony. They say I'm going to write it tomorrow. Yeah. And Mark is really, as ironically,

says the same thing. He says you could be good today instead. You choose tomorrow. And that sort of procrastination, or a lie that we tell ourselves about, not only do we think we're gonna have superhuman skills in the future, we think we'll have unlimited time in the future, but in fact, we'll be just as constrained eight months from now as we are today.

Nothing ever clears off with your play. Oh, I wonder if I could take it on a quick tangent based on this thing, I just said. You seem to be able to cite a lot of quotes from memory. Yeah. Um, and you also have an this sort of fancy ass note taking system on your cards and flash cards and things like that. One thing I was wondering is do you find that your note taking system creates connections between stuff that your brain did not do. Always your brain doing the work and then not taking system not. Like I think some people think like I may have a photographic memory or I have a really good memory because of because I do quote stuff from memory. People that

know me would very much disagree with that. Like in practice, that's not how it is. I have two advantages. One, I actually like this stuff or it. I have two advantages. One, I actually like the stuff, or it's a couple of events, one, I really like the stuff. So I'm really interested in it, whereas stuff I'm less interested about, I have less recall, like people's names, like I do that thing all the time where people will tell me their name, and I'll be like, oh, sorry, what was your name again? And as they're telling me the second time, not listening then either. So if I'm interested in it, I have some recall if I'm not, I don't. But it's not just the note card system. And I think people sometimes think that's what it is. The note card system is the process by which I identify or I first recognize the information. But it's the fact that I

have written a daily email every day for six years. It's the fact that I have written a daily email every day for six years. It's the fact that I've blogged every day for almost 15 years. It's the fact that I've written 12 books and it's the fact that I talk about this stuff in videos and interviews and pockets all the time. So, so I think to someone, it's like, I'm just pulling this quote out of thin air for memory that I read six months ago or something or seven years ago. It's more that I'm constantly interacting with the material and the ideas in lots of different forms and formats. And that's what creates the memory. Although I was just going through something, this is, I was, the no card system is not perfect, right? Like at all.

So I kind of have the no card system, I have the books that I read, and then I kind of have, usually I have a research assistant who I referred to as my second brain the other day. But I'm working on this chapter in my new book and I knew there was a section in this book, in this series on Winston Churchill that I wanted to reference. And I couldn't find it

in my note cards. And I couldn't, I was, I was skimming the book, I couldn't find it. But I, so I called them and I was like, look, here's, here's an exchange that I'm looking for. It's an exchange between Hitler and Stalin. And they're talking about this thing. I don't remember what conference it was at or when they were talking, but I was like, there's some part of me that remembers that they were talking about 50,000 soldiers.

I was like, find that for me. So I gave them enough clues, and he came back and it turned out he was talking about 49,000 soldiers. So I was like enough clues and he came back and it turned out to you was talking about 49,000 soldiers. So I was like right in the ballpark and it was like, you know, chapter four of the third book or whatever. So I, the only one place my system breaks down and why I have staff is that I'll have a vague sense of something that's sort of loosely there and then I'll find it. But now, now I could recite that, that story, not only because I'm writing about it, but because of the work that went into it. Now that's like imprinted inside my mind.

So it's kind of a combination of all those things that creates the recall. And how important for your process is, if you scrapped the note-cut thing, and you didn't take notes and stuff as you were reading, would that completely destroy your process? Or like, well, I think it's the act of taking, first of it's the reading, folding pages, marking things, but I could probably just stop there, and then it would just all be there. Like, there's definitely, there was a story in the courage book

that I knew was in a book that I had read before I'd started the No Part System. So this would have been like, I'd read it in like 2005. And so I did manage to find it. And it was in the book. And I'd taken the notes. So the reading and the marking in the books is probably 60% of it. But then it's the writing and the organizing and having 60% of it, but then it's the writing and the organizing and having to interact with it multiple times that is the last mile that's so much more important. Okay, go ahead.

That's what, and that's, that's to me the problem with a lot of the digital systems is that you're not interacting with it deeply enough, the first time to create much in the way of a relationship. If it's just something you're copying and pasting and is going in this thing, you might as well, you have no idea. Yeah, it's the same with creating flashcards and meds school where, as much as all the digital systems have advantages, it's just too easy to create a digital flashcard. And the fact that it's a nightmare to create a physical flashcard with a diagram is what helps you

remember the fact that you've got stuff on a physical flashcard and remember the diagram. It may be that making the flashcard is more important than going through the flashcards. Do you know what I mean? You can have almost a tactile memory because you wrote it down, and that's why I do it by hand. I mean, sometimes with a really long passage, I'll type it out, but even then I type it out, print it, cut it up, and paste it on the thing. Because again, it's the multiple touch points thing. Yeah, that way. So as we wrap up, tell us about the book.

Obviously, I know about it, but I'm sure listeners would be interested in knowing what you're working on and tell us how the process has been because to me that's the most interesting part. Yeah, so the book currently does not have a title. The working title is the productivity game, which I'm lucky to find off, because I think the word productivity is quite tired and actually California brought it up

in the New Yorker, I think recently, like two weeks ago about this. But the vibe of the book is that the secret to productivity is to enjoy the process, to have fun. And the book is still up into three parts. Part one is the procrastination part. How do we beat procrastination? Part two is how do we beat distraction? And part three is how do we be burnout? And the solutions are to part one is make it easy. Part two, make it fun, and part three, make it last. So those are like the three parts, make it easy,

make it fun, make it last. We actually landed a, depending on when this comes out, a deal with an unnamed publisher in the US like very recently, papers are still being signed in the process. Exciting. Yeah, so that was cool. And we had to deal with Penguin UK for a while.

But then there was a whole process of like getting the proposal together and sending, getting the US involved. And now finally, as of like last week, we now have deals on the table. So now the actual writing is starting. And I keep, I think back, there was a podcast you did with Cal where you said that so many young writers come to you for advice about writing books and they just take too long

doing it and actually you should get a first draft out in six months. Or worse, to that effect. And I was like, all right, cool. I've got six months from today to get out a first draft. So that's how the process has started. That's fantastic. Yeah, I think if I was giving you feedback on the title, the problem with the productivity game is,

I have found, and this is increasingly more so, as both the market has evolved than just the more experience I have. People, there's a certain percentage of people who are be interested in learning about the productivity game. Most people want to learn how to be more productive, right? So like, I think if a Malcolm Gladwell book came out today, like the tipping point came out today,

I think it would not sell 5 million copies because now people would want to know specifically how to create tipping points, right? Whereas the sort of intellectual, like, you have to signal that this is not an intellectual discussion of an idea, but this is a set of lessons on how to apply a certain idea. So, so I would I would sort of go, um, promise first in the title. Like, what is the promise? What are you giving me, um, that will allow me to justify not just the purchase of the item, but the time spent reading it. And that also makes it easier for me to tell other people about it. Right? Is that makes sense? Yeah, interesting. And you don't think the subtitle, because usually the subtitle of

a book does that, like the tipping point, and then from short, the subtitle was more descriptive and stuff. So I thought about this on my first book. I wanted to call it Confessions of Medium Inipulator. My publisher wanted to call it Trust Me I'm Lying. And I asked Robert Green, I said Robert, I want to call it Confessions of Medium Inipulator. But the publisher has all this data that says Trust Me I'm Lying is better.

And he said, he's like, have you ever noticed that none of my books have subtitles? And I was like, no, I never noticed that. And I was like, why? And he's like, can you name the subtitles of any of your favorite books? And I was like, no, I can't. I mean, you really can't. I then proceeded to listen to my publisher instead of Robert, to not to my eternal regret, but to regret.

And for the most part, I don't think about subtitles anymore. Some of my books have them, some of them don't, but my view is that the title has to sell and the subtitle can provide keywords or context, but for the most part, the title has to justify it because nobody remembers the subtitle. Yeah. What do you think of the title, Make It Fun? It's good. It's good. It could work.

I think the question is, who, what audience are you trying to reach? And does that make it fun might signal the right message to a percentage of the audience, but it may signal the opposite of what you're trying. Like, it may signal to serious people that this book is not for me, even though it is. And so you have to come up with a title that accomplishes a bunch of things all at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm hoping at some point

in the next six to nine months that something will might be a title will a title will emerge, although I do tend to find that the books are better when the title is discovered early because then you can write around the title. You know, um, uh, you know, the black swan wasn't a book about, and then he just slaps on this title. I mean, it's built around the story, but you can do it a lot of different ways. So, okay, so when are you, if six months is when you're writing it,

do they have they given you a proposed release date? When can proposed that your birthday is the middle of 2023? All right. All right. But, yes, it's an exercise in delayed gratification that is very different than the YouTube world. Yeah, very different. Feels like it's a lot more pressured as well. But I'm trying not to think partly trying to think that way to take it more seriously than I would a YouTube video, but also not trying to take it so seriously to the point

that the pressure becomes crippling. Yeah, Yeah, it's just a different kind of endurance in that you have to work on something every day, even though the out this goes to the point about procrastination. Work on it every day, even though the outcome is very far away, and work on it every day, even though it feels like you're making very little progress every day. And that's why most people don't do it, you know? That's why most people can't do it, you know? That's why most people can't cut it. Yeah, well, thank you for the advice. I will, I'm sure I'll keep them modding you with emails, close it at the time to be like, bro, and I need a title. You got it. Man, this was, this was so awesome. I'm glad we connected and, uh, however,

I can help with the book, just sent me out. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.