The Productivity Expert: How to Make 2024 Your Most Productive & ABUNDANT Year Yet | Ali Abdaal

We often equate productivity with grueling hard work and relentless effort, but Ali Abdaal is about to flip that script. In Feel-Good Productivity, he reveals a refreshing and uplifting approach to success, one that's rooted in joy and well-being rather than stress and grind. Ali Abdaal is a former doctor turned YouTuber, podcaster, entrepreneur and author. He's been creating YouTube videos for over 7 years and has a following of almost 5 million. Ali became intrigued by the science of productivity while juggling the demands of medical training at Cambridge University with building his business. While working as a doctor in the UK's National Health Service, Ali started to document his journey towards living a healthier, happier, more productive life online. In the years since, Ali's evidence-based videos, podcasts and articles about the human mind have reached hundreds of millions of people all around the world. Buy his new book, Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to YouIn this episode you will learnA fun mindset shift to tackle stress and anxiety. How to maximize productivity while passive income streams work for you. The crucial distinction between true productivity and the trap of "hustle culture."How feeling good is essential for productivity, even when tackling draining tasks. The power of giving yourself permission to be distracted and its positive impact on productivity. At the beginning of this interview, Ali mentions the last time he was on the show, the discussion he had with Lewis forever changed his life and career trajectory. You can listen to that special interview here - https://link.chtbl.com/1158-podFor more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1557For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Alex Hormozi: https://link.chtbl.com/1522-podJaspreet Singh: https://link.chtbl.com/1411-podRory Vaden: https://link.chtbl.com/1148-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ali Abdaal?

  People feel that the more energy you give, the more drained you become. But it's actually not true. Similarly with work, it's like the more effort and engagement you give to your work, that doesn't deplete your energy. That actually renews your energy. The most draining thing in the world is coasting, looking at your clock, being like, oh God, when is this gonna end? No one is energized by that. No one

• 0:19Lewis Howes?

  Sucks the life out of you.

• 0:20Ali Abdaal?

  Sucks the life out of you. But if you're fully engaged, if you're like giving it your all, if you're showing up sincerely rather than seriously, if you're doing all the things, treating it like play, lightness at ease, having fun along the way, trying to help people out, you get home from the end of the day of work, feeling more energized than when you started, even though, counterintuitively, you've been putting a lot of energy into it.

• 0:37Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 1:01Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Ali Abdaal in the house, my man.

• 1:06Ali Abdaal?

  Hey man.

• 1:07Lewis Howes?

  Great to see you.

• 1:08Ali Abdaal?

  It's good to see you again.

• 1:09Lewis Howes?

  Very excited about this because two and a half years ago, we had a conversation on the internet that changed the course of your life.

• 1:17Ali Abdaal?

  Genuinely, that that one, that like half an hour segment of me being interviewed on your podcast, two and a half years ago, has literally, single-handedly changed my entire life.

• 1:25Lewis Howes?

  It's cool to see.

• 1:26Ali Abdaal?

  It's cool that like, I get to be here in person with you now.

• 1:29Lewis Howes?

  You're here, man.

• 1:30Ali Abdaal?

  Saying, so like, here we are.

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  It's fun. You've got a book out called Feel Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You. And this book is going to help a lot of people. And I want to dive into it around productivity, passive income, making money online, identity, and how we can also feel our emotions while also being a productive human being. And not just You know, push our emotions aside by being overproductive constantly.

• 1:59Ali Abdaal?

  Absolutely.

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  So I want to talk about all these things. The first thing is, is going into your story about deciding to leave medicine.

• 2:07Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 2:08Lewis Howes?

  Cause you started as a doctor and you were building YouTube content on the side, talking about how to be productive and how to optimize your day and your routine and things you were learning in medicine and all that stuff. But then you started making money online and realizing, oh, I'm actually making really good money online, more money online than I am as a doctor full time. And so you started pulling your time down as a doctor, from my memory. And two and a half years ago, when I had you on for the first time, you were still part time as a doctor, but making a ton of money, doing the online marketing, YouTube content, all that stuff.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  And so what made you decide and know that it was time to leave medicine, leave being a full time doctor or even a part time doctor to go all in on the side hustle, which was also, you know, making way more money than anything that became the full time thing.

• 3:02Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn to shift your identity to say, okay, this path that I've been on for eight years, I'm gonna let go of and go all in on this other thing that I've been doing on the side?

• 3:15Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 3:15Lewis Howes?

  Let's talk about that.

• 3:16Ali Abdaal?

  Mate, that conversation with you changed my life. The, before that conversation, I had been feeling a lot of money anxiety and security anxiety about, about my business and about my YouTube channel. And even though it was making like a load of money at the time, I thought to myself, okay, it's making money right now, but it's sort of like, I don't know, being an actor or being a, being an athlete or something like you've got maybe a year or two or three to really make money. And then at that point you become a has been and no one cares about you anymore. And like, you're sort of washed up and irrelevant and all of those fears were going, going on inside me. And so I had this real risk aversion, this real fear of like,

• 3:59Ali Abdaal?

  what if I, you know, if I leave medicine and go all in this YouTube stuff and it doesn't work out, what if I'll end up broken, homeless and alone and destitute? And I just had this narrative running in my mind that there's something about medicine that gives you security and I need a job for security. And I had never really questioned that until you were questioning me about it. And what you asked me, you were like, you know, we were actually just running the numbers. You were asking me, how much are you earning in medicine? And I was like, forty grand a year. And you were asking, okay. And then when you, when you, when you fully qualify, how much will you be earning? And in the UK, it's very different to the US. In the UK, the consultant would earn a hundred grand, a hundred thousand pounds, one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, something to that effect.

• 4:38Lewis Howes?

  That's like full time, that's like an expert.

• 4:41Ali Abdaal?

  Fully expert. And if in your fifties, you're doing private practice and you're really good, then maybe it goes up to three hundred, four hundred.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:47Ali Abdaal?

  Whereas in the US, it's very different. It's a different sort of, different sort of equation.

• 4:50Lewis Howes?

  And I was like, how much are you making a month right now on YouTube? And I think you were like, over fifty grand a month.

• 4:54Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, it was something absurd like that.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  More than that. I was like, wait, so monthly, you're making more than in a whole year if you busted your butt as a doctor in medicine? And this is just a side thing. And you were like, yeah, I never thought about that.

• 5:07Ali Abdaal?

  And one of the things I find so interesting, like I've listened to that conversation back again so many times, is that I think a lot of us have these stories about money and about security and the need for certainty. A lot of these stories that are actually completely disjointed from what the reality actually is. The reality was, I was making more money in a month than I was in a whole year working as a doctor. But in, in terms of how I felt about money and felt about security and certainty, I didn't feel that confident about it. And what it took was an outside perspective, you know, someone with a lot of love and a lot of care to just sort of challenge me on that, for me to realize, wait a minute. Actually, this story I've told myself, which is that, oh, I have all this insecurity around money, it's actually a bit of a bull story. And it took you challenging me to say, look, let's say you lost everything.

• 5:51Ali Abdaal?

  Let's say no one knew who you were, but you still had all the skills that you've got. How long would it take you to make a hundred grand? And I think I said something like, oh, I can do it within two years. You were like, oh, you can do it within three or six months. And I was like, that's probably true. Because in the course of building a YouTube channel, it's not just about the fact that, I don't know, I've got followers on the internet. Anytime anyone does anything entrepreneurial, you just build a ton of skills in that thing. And so even if it doesn't work out, worst case scenario, you just get another job. And now you have all these skills from entrepreneurship.

• 6:20Ali Abdaal?

  If it doesn't work out, best case scenario, you just start something else and you use the skills that you've already developed through the process. And that was something that you kind of challenged me on. Like before that conversation, I was so fearful about the money thing, about losing it all, about what if all of this comes crumbling down. Since that conversation, I have, I still feel weird about money. I think it's not a, it's like, I don't know, a long-term thing that's hard for one conversation to change. But speaking to so many people, there's so many people who've, who have met in real life and who've emailed me, having listened to that conversation that we had two and a half years ago, and something in that conversation resonated with them as well. Like even though it is, maybe they're not a YouTuber and maybe they're not making 10 times as much as they are from their side hustle as they are from their day job. I think everyone can relate to this idea of feeling insecure about money.

• 7:04Ali Abdaal?

  Like I don't quite have enough and I'm, I, oh, I should stick, I should stick at my job a bit longer because what if I get that next raise? What if I get that next promotion? Because then I'll feel safe. And I've spoken to people who are decade millionaires who also feel unsafe about money. So there's like some kind of emotion thing here that's disjointed from reality and I just.

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think that came from, that fear of money for you originally?

• 7:26Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 7:27Lewis Howes?

  Cause you're also making it. It's not me, you weren't afraid of making it because you were making it, right? On the side, you were making more in a month than you were in a year. But was it a fear of, I don't want to lose this? Was it something conditioned you early on that you saw that you were like, oh, this is scary thing?

• 7:45Ali Abdaal?

  I think it was a scarcity mindset growing up. I think, cause you know, my, my mom is a single mom, raised me and my brother and her mom like kind of single-handedly, we moved countries. As you know, immigrant families always have a bit of a scarcity approach about money that, hey, you know, money is this thing we have to hold on to. It doesn't grow on trees. You've got to work hard for it. You've got to save and all this kind of stuff. And so that was, that was an attitude that really served me because it gave me my entrepreneurial spirit of like wanting to make the money. But once I got there, there was a lot of this fear of losing it. As you said, a lot of this scarcity that like, yeah, money doesn't grow on trees. I got very lucky with this YouTube thing. What if it was just luck? What if, I don't know, a year from now, people stop following me anymore for whatever reason? Cause I've become irrelevant.

• 8:27Ali Abdaal?

  Like, oh my goodness, what if, what if I no longer make all this money and all of this stuff around that, that at least I've, at least I could be a doctor. At least that's a way that I can have value and make some money and support my family and things like that.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  So what was your identity like before YouTube? And then what was your identity like as you started making money on the side on YouTube? While you were also full time as a doctor?

• 8:53Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. So I think before before YouTube.

• 8:58Ali Abdaal?

  And when I was growing up, my identity was very tied to academic success. Because I was really good in school and I got good grades in. But I realized after a few, after sort of my teenage years of doing that, that I kind of wanted my identity to be different. So even in my school years, I was trying to make money on the side, trying to build businesses, trying to make money on the internet, passive income, all that crap. Then when I got to university and medical school, suddenly I did no, I no longer had the identity of being really good in school. Because everyone around me was really good in school and I was bang average. I was like middle of the class. I was like, oh, like, wow, okay, I no longer have that thing that's propping up my self-worth, the fact that I got really good grades. And so I think as we all do, I tried to find other ways of diversifying my identity.

• 9:43Ali Abdaal?

  I started a business that I finally succeeded and then I was like, oh, cool. You know, I'm the entrepreneurial guy. I get, you know, all these other, all these other students around me, some of them are really good at sports. Obviously, no one can be great at sports, but I've got a business, I'm making money. This is good. When I started the YouTube channel, I developed, I got that identity of being a YouTuber. When I became a doctor, I got that identity of being a doctor. There was something weird about the doctor identity that I clung to for so long. Because I think

• 10:09Ali Abdaal?

  if someone had asked me, what do I do? I wouldn't have said, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a YouTuber. Like, I would have said, I'm a medical student, I'm a doctor. That was the noun that I was using to describe myself. I've spoken to people since. When people ask, what do you do? Some people are like, oh, I enjoy saying that I'm a lawyer because that gives me, you know, people respect that. Even the people who work for me now don't like saying they work for a YouTuber. Because there's something low status about that. They prefer to say, oh, I work in marketing or, oh, I work in customer success or something like that. And it's taken a long time for the people in my team to be actually comfortable with, yeah, I work for a YouTuber. Because they realize that's actually more interesting. If you say you work in marketing, no one has any follow-up questions. If you say you work for a YouTuber, huh, that's interesting.

• 10:51Lewis Howes?

  What type of content?

• 10:51Ali Abdaal?

  It creates a more interesting conversation. But I find it so interesting how we're all, how a lot of us are so tied to the identity of the thing that we do for work. And I was so tied to that identity of being a doctor, yeah.

• 11:01Lewis Howes?

  And you like had pride in it, it gave you self-worth?

• 11:03Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Lewis Howes?

  What was it like when you were thinking about leaving being a doctor? And just going all in and being a YouTuber? Were you scared about how you would perceive your self-worth? Or how others would perceive your self-worth?

• 11:16Ali Abdaal?

  I was so scared about how others would perceive it.

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:18Ali Abdaal?

  I was so scared that like, I would be just a YouTuber. And I had this phrase in my mind that just a YouTuber is a terrible thing. I don't want to be just a YouTuber. I want to be the guy who's like a doctor and a YouTuber on the side, because that's what gives my content value. And I had this real fear that, hey, if I'm not a doctor anymore, I'm just a dude making videos in his bedroom about productivity. That doesn't, oh, hang on, that feels a bit like not nice. Or people won't like it. Or people will hate me for leaving medicine, which is an altruistic profession for the sake of making money on the internet. I had all these fears around it.

• 11:50Lewis Howes?

  How did you overcome that fear?

• 11:52Ali Abdaal?

  I sort of broke it down and I realized, you know, after our conversation, that was a bit catalyst. That was when I sort of, that was, I haven't practiced a day in medicine since that conversation.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow, really?

• 12:02Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, genuinely. That conversation changed everything.

• 12:05Lewis Howes?

  Do you regret leaving and not practicing anymore?

• 12:08Ali Abdaal?

  Absolutely not. Best decision I've ever made.

• 12:10Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 12:10Ali Abdaal?

  Because as you said, I think at the time, you said that, hey, what if you could, what if you devoted all your headspace to your business or to your YouTube channel or to teaching, which is the thing you want to do? Whereas before, even though I was only working like a few hours a week, half of my headspace was like, should I go back to medicine? Should I not? Like the uncertainty, something you talk about in Greatest Mindset is a meaningful mission. In the past, I didn't really have a meaningful mission. I was sort of torn in multiple directions. But now I have a meaningful mission. I feel like the thing that I'm here to do is to learn cool stuff, synthesize it and share it with other people in whatever format.

• 12:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:42Ali Abdaal?

  And that's just like so clear for me that that's what I want to do. And so when all my focus goes on that, that's what like the business completely skyrocketed.

• 12:49Lewis Howes?

  Where was the business, you know, two and a half years ago? How much were you making a year that year prior to then? You know, how much you make today in the business?

• 12:57Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, so in 2020.

• 13:02Ali Abdaal?

  We, I think, did just over a million in revenue.

• 13:05Lewis Howes?

  Is that when we had this conversation?

• 13:07Ali Abdaal?

  We, we, we have a conversation 2021. So this was, I was still doing part-time medicine and we did about a million.

• 13:11Lewis Howes?

  So you were making a million dollars a year?

• 13:13Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  And you were afraid of leaving, you know, being a doctor for five hours a week?

• 13:18Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. Well, I made a million dollars that year, but the year before it was like a hundred grand. So there was, it was so fluctuating that I was like, whoa, you know, I'm sure this was a fluke.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:25Ali Abdaal?

  And it was a pandemic and it's like everyone, so there was all these other stories I was telling myself.

• 13:31Ali Abdaal?

  But then 2021, we did four million, 2022, four point six. This year we'll do like five point three, something like that.

• 13:36Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man.

• 13:36Ali Abdaal?

  Which is pretty cool. So it's like.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be if you didn't decide to go all in? If you were like, I'm still gonna be a doctor part-time because I really want to hold on to that. I like the identity. I like the feeling it gives me. I like being able to help people in medicine, you know, a few hours a week. Where do you think your business would be?

• 13:51Ali Abdaal?

  I think the business would be a lot less successful than it currently is. Because it's like the thing, and like everyone, everyone finds this eventually, that the more you split your focus, the less progress you make in each, in each individual direction. I still probably would have had, would have had fun. But at, at least for me, once I tasted the freedom of entrepreneurship, you know, when I was, when I was working my five, five hours a week as a doctor, every half an hour I was thinking, why am I doing this? Why am I doing?

• 14:17Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 14:18Ali Abdaal?

  Why am I here? Why am I here? I could be in a really nice WeWork right now with my team. Free coffee on tap. You've got to pay for coffee when you're, when you're a doctor. You know, there's a table tennis table there. I could be just, you know, playing ping pong in my, in my, in my breaks. But instead I'm going to this sort of smelly doctor's office that smells of mold to have like really unhealthy food from the hospital canteen from Burger King. Every half an hour I was like, why am I here? Why am I here? Why am I here? And the answer was because, well, I have, I have to, I have to stay being a doctor because otherwise no one's going to follow my content. I have to have this identity.

• 14:46Lewis Howes?

  So that was a story you were telling yourself.

• 14:47Ali Abdaal?

  That was a story I was telling myself that I had to do this because otherwise I'm worthless if I'm not a doctor and a YouTuber at the same time.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 14:52Ali Abdaal?

  I'm, I'm worthless as a YouTuber and I have self-worth as a doctor plus YouTuber.

• 14:55Lewis Howes?

  Where was your self-worth at on a scale of one to 10 back then, when you were working part-time as a doctor and doing YouTube versus where's your self-worth today? So two and a half years ago.

• 15:06Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 15:07Lewis Howes?

  A scale of one to 10, 10 being I have incredible self-worth, not ego self-worth, but like I feel really confident about myself. I love and accept myself. I appreciate. Versus a zero being, I have zero self-worth. So where were you then, the week before we had that conversation?

• 15:23Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Lewis Howes?

  To two and a half years later today?

• 15:25Ali Abdaal?

  Great question. I was probably a seven then, and I'm probably a nine now.

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 15:30Ali Abdaal?

  I think back then, like,

• 15:33Ali Abdaal?

  yeah, back then I did a lot of questioning around like, why, why am I doing this? Like, what's the path I should really be on? And even like after that conversation, it's like for the first few months of like going full-time on YouTube, I had this like, oh, thing of like, oh, have I, have I made the right decision? Have I made the wrong decision? And that's been two and a half years, and I've so, so settled into that. And I realized after, you know, a lot, a lot of the journaling prompts in your book, and of writing your own obituary, I did a few months ago, um, as I was reading it. And just made me realize that no part of me wants to practice medicine. And every part of me wants to be a really good teacher, to be learning, synthesizing and sharing cool stuff.

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:14Ali Abdaal?

  And to, you know, be a family guy on the side and to take care of my health. And, you know, there's other things as well.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. That's inspiring, man, because you invested, what, six to eight years of your life becoming a doctor, right? So you put a lot of time, a quarter of your life

• 16:28Ali Abdaal?

  Yep.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  was invested in this identity.

• 16:30Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. And even before then, even in school, there's like, I knew I was gonna be a doctor. Thinking about it, planning for it, like working on it, doing the exams, all for the sake of getting into medical school.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So probably half of your life was involved in thinking about it, planning about it, working hard to get a medical school, being in medical school, training as a doctor, being a doctor.

• 16:45Ali Abdaal?

  Yep.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  And telling people, I'm a doctor.

• 16:48Ali Abdaal?

  Absolutely.

• 16:48Lewis Howes?

  Your parents being like, I have this proud, we're proud parents, and the son, who he's a doctor, he's made it.

• 16:53Ali Abdaal?

  Yep.

• 16:54Lewis Howes?

  We're safe, we have security. You know, he's gonna be safe for the rest of his life. And then you say, well, I'm gonna go be a YouTuber.

• 17:01Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  So half of your life was committed to this thing that then you said, I'm no longer to do. So I can only imagine the amount of fear that comes with letting go of a half of your life's time and work and around an identity. That's a big fear.

• 17:18Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  So I don't want to diminish the fear that, that comes with that and the questioning that might come with that. And a lot of people probably wouldn't have the courage, especially because they wouldn't be making the money on the side that you were making.

• 17:30Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Lewis Howes?

  It was hard for you, even though you were, you were making.

• 17:33Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, I was literally making a million on the side and I was still worried, which kind of says that it's not about the money. It's about something deeper, some kind of emotion, some kind of fear around there.

• 17:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:41Ali Abdaal?

  Cause if I, even if I was making five million on the side, that, that wouldn't have changed the story I was telling myself. Yeah, the story, cause I realized the story I was telling myself was this is all gonna go away. And I'm, I have no worth. I, I have no worth to the market. I have no worth to others unless I'm also a doctor. Cause that was such a narrative.

• 17:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:00Ali Abdaal?

  And what it took was like, you know, you to challenge me on that to help break.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  You were, you were, you were unwinding a lot of it. You weren't full time. You were already trying, you were thinking about it for a year or two. So I think I just was a mirror to what your higher self really wanted to do.

• 18:13Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Lewis Howes?

  And you just needed that extra push.

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it fascinating, the stories we tell ourselves around identity and how we make decisions based on identity? I think Tony Robbins says that identity is one of like the key factors of success in life is like choosing what identity you wanted to have.

• 18:30Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. And I was at one of his, his events the other day and one of the things that really stuck out was the strongest force in human personality is the need to stay consistent with your identity. And so if you have the identity of being a doctor, there, that is the strongest force in your life is causing you to stay consistent with that. If you have the identity of being an unfit person, then every, the strongest force in personality is keeping you in line with that. If you change your identity, as Jayden Clay talks about, to that of a healthy person, someone who's in shape, someone who takes care of themselves. Now the decisions become easier because now you're working with the identity that you actually want, rather than the identity of kind of pulling you back.

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So it's really important to decide what identity we want to live in. And, and daily doing this, there's this guy on TikTok and Instagram who just did 365 days in the ice tub. And he films it every day. So from day one, he, you could see the transformation. It's incredible. From day one, he's like, you know, I'm not in a good place mentally, physically, you can see he's got 30 pounds overweight, you know, he's, he's let life slip by.

• 19:34Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 19:35Lewis Howes?

  You know, he's got, he's married, he's got kids, he's got a job, but he, he doesn't have a positive identity. He's just kind of showing up. And he decided to do this challenge, this literally 365 days. Yesterday he completed it. And every single day, he shot a video of him getting into like one degrees Celsius ice tub. And he would say a message every day about what's coming up for him, you know? And he got better over time. You could see the first few months, he struggled.

• 20:00Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 20:00Lewis Howes?

  Then he became, you know, a pro and you started to see his body transform. He started to take notice in his health, his mindset, his decisions every day. He said, I'm the guy who's gonna do this every single day for three hundred and sixty five days. His entire life changed because of that commitment, that identity. And so we've got to be thinking about our identity around all things, relationships, health, money, career, all that stuff. And that's cool. What else did you learn that opened up from you from the event with Tony recently that stood out to you based on the reflection of the last couple of years?

• 20:35Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, yeah, just one point before on the ice, I think I really like that that idea, this idea that in order to change our identity, often all we need to do is commit to doing one small thing. For this guy was the ice tub. It's not small. It's kind of painful. The first time I went on was with you. It's painful as hell. The fingers feel like they're gonna freeze off.

• 20:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:57Ali Abdaal?

  And similarly, one of my friends and team members, Tintin, started doing cold showers recently and he's into this sort of stuff. So he was like, weirdly, when I start my day with a cold shower, it helps embody the identity that I am the sort of person who does hard things and that bleeds into other areas of your life.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 21:13Ali Abdaal?

  And some people, you know, make that point of like, oh, if you want to get in shape, it's not about exercise, it's about the diet. But, you know, as Peter Attia would say, actually, the exercise is the keystone habit that like all of everything else flows from that. Because if you are the sort of person that exercises every day, you are also the sort of person that starts doing these other healthy habits, just to stay consistent with that identity you've got.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 21:34Ali Abdaal?

  And so this is partly why, you know, when it comes to YouTube, I personally believe that like posting what something every week or with a blog or a newsletter, posting it every week, there's something about that where just the act of doing it every week helps you stay consistent with the identity that you want. Another big thing I learned from the Tony Robbins about was.

• 21:54Ali Abdaal?

  This, I think, one of, one of the exercises, essentially this event was just a lot of journaling prompts. This is what I realized, like on a meta level, all these Tony Robbins events are, or any of these like personal development seminars, because I've, I've seen a few videos of them, I've attended a few. It's, it's not someone telling you how to live your life. It's someone encouraging you to do the journaling and reflection to think about how you want to live your life. Yes. And so one of the prompts, you know, they do the thing, like lights down, eyes closed, inspiring background music. And he's like doing his little guided meditation. One of the most powerful ones for me was imagining, what is the story that you, what's been the story of your life so far? And, you know, the story of my life so far is a story about dot, dot, dot. What's the story?

• 22:36Ali Abdaal?

  And then from now, the story of my life will be a story about dot, dot, dot.

• 22:42Ali Abdaal?

  And I realized after doing this, that the story of my life so far has been a story about serving the self. It's been a story of, to use David Brooks metaphor, climbing the first mountain. The first mountain is the mountain of achievement, of success, of freedom, of optionality, of autonomy, of pride, of fame. I want all of these things, all of these options, I want all this freedom. Uh, I want to be able to quit my job, I want to have all this money so that I can, whatever. Travel the world, be flexible. All that, all that kind of stuff, the, the flexibility aspect of it. And, you know, David Brooks is, the, the second mountain is really good because what it talks about is that, well, as you're climbing this first mountain, usually, you know, in your twenties or whatever,

• 23:24Ali Abdaal?

  sometimes thirties, sometimes forties, sometimes teens, like depends on different people or different stages of the process. As you're climbing the mountain, one of three things will happen. Either you'll get to the top and realize, huh, okay. Or you'll get, yeah, or you'll get knocked off the mountain by either you having some sort of crisis or someone close to you having some sort of health crisis or like trauma or anything like that. And then you get into the valley. And in the valley was when you're like feeling a bit like meaningless, purposeless, aimless and all this kind of stuff. But in the valley is when you realize that there is a second mountain. And that's not the mountain of the self, that's the mountain of service. That's the mountain of commitment, of committing yourself to a spouse or a family or a community or a faith or a philosophy. Cause. Or a cause, yeah, or all of the above.

• 24:07Ali Abdaal?

  And that's where you realize that actually, freedom. Buys happiness, sure, in the short term, but he doesn't buy joy.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:14Ali Abdaal?

  Freedom actually kind of sucks because if you're just free, then you're like, well, I can do whatever. And then you feel that meaninglessness of like, well, so what should I do? I don't really know. But actually aligning with something you really care about, committing yourself to a spouse, a family, all this, all this kind of stuff. That's the, that's the second mountain and it's a harder mountain to climb. And it's not filled with so much dopamine and so much excitement, but it's filled with like lasting joy. And so I read, I read that book this year and this Tony Robbins event like really put that metaphor for me. Cause I, I realized that my story so far was about climbing the first mountain. And what I want my story to be moving forward is to work on the second.

• 24:50Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, man. I think, um, I saw some clip of like Dan Bilzerian, I think online. And I'm going to paraphrase it where he was like, you know, it seemed fun and exciting for a while to like be able to sleep with every woman in the world that you wanted to. And have all this money and just gamble all the time and like shoot guns and do it out, all these cool, exciting things. But then it becomes very empty, becomes very lonely, you know, kind of meaningless after you do all those things.

• 25:14Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  And, um, you know, it sounds a lot like this second mountain. You know, it's like, it's like, okay, climb the first mountain. You do these things. Sure. You can have a fun life, but is it fulfilling? And fun is not always meaningful. Like you said, it's like, yeah, you have freedom and I'm traveling the world and doing these things. But then you ask, what is the purpose of my life? Why am I here? And what do I want to be known for or remembered for, or, you know, who really cares about me? Who's in my corner? And I think it's kind of learning that balance of how do I enjoy and have fun in my life, but also have meaning at the same time. It sounds more of like the second mountain theory.

• 25:54Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  And going after that, we're both kind of in that same stage, I think, you know?

• 25:57Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. And you've gotten, you've gotten engaged recently. That's like removes optionality from your life.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  It does.

• 26:04Ali Abdaal?

  Freedom.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  And it's thinking of like, okay, what's our vision for the family we're creating? Okay. We want to have kids one day. We want to get married, all these different things. And what will life look at, look like? For the next ten, twenty years, it's kind of visioning in the future that far. If you're going to choose to get married with the intention of having kids, you've got to plan twenty years in the future, in a sense. And you have to realize, how can I continue to live a life that I want, knowing that I'm going to need to be, if I want to be a great human being, or a great man, or a great person, I also want to show up fully and presently for my partner, my kids, and the responsibilities that I have from there.

• 26:44Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Lewis Howes?

  So it's almost shedding an old identity and stepping into a new identity.

• 26:50Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 26:50Lewis Howes?

  Similar to you, you had to shed an old identity of I'm this doctor, and this is what I'm known for, to becoming a new identity.

• 26:56Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 26:57Lewis Howes?

  And that's interesting perspective. Are there more than two mountains in this book?

• 27:02Ali Abdaal?

  Uh, no, I think there are just two.

• 27:04Lewis Howes?

  The first mountain is like chasing success and fame and accomplishment and freedom and flexibility. The second one is really going after meaning, it sounds like.

• 27:13Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  Service.

• 27:14Ali Abdaal?

  Meaning and service.

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  That's my whole book about the greatest mindset, which is really about stepping into service.

• 27:19Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, yeah, that's one of the things about like when I was, I was, I read that, that I sort of slowly worked my way through it over the last like four months or so, to kind of doing it, it's quite a heavy book, it's like so many exercises. And initially I was like, oh, it's just a personal, I'm just, I, I read this for a living. I'm gonna blitz through it. And then I was like, oh, hang on, I need, I need to do my GPA. Okay, crap.

• 27:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:37Ali Abdaal?

  I should take better care of my health. Okay, cool. That's, you know, next one, it's like write your obituary. Oh, damn, that's, that's heavy. Figure out your three Ps.

• 27:44Lewis Howes?

  Have you never done the obituary? Have you ever done that exercise?

• 27:46Ali Abdaal?

  I'd thought about it, I thought about it from the context of what do I want written on my gravestone?

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 27:50Ali Abdaal?

  Which was, I, I was born as a good father, good husband, a good teacher. And so I had, I had a sense. But it, it took, when I wrote it out as like a three paragraph thing, there was something about writing it out in obituary style that made it land in like a, I think also when you do the exercise matters, because it's like if I'd done the exercise when I was in my early twenties, I'd have been like, uh, I, I'd have been, again, optimizing for freedom.

• 28:14Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 28:16Ali Abdaal?

  One of the other things that, that Tony talks about is, and it, this was just like a throwaway thing that he said, it wasn't even part of the event officially. It was around like core values, and he said that when he was young, freedom was his core value. And he realized that actually, the more you focus on trying to acquire freedom, the less free you are. And I was like, oh, that's interesting because that vibes exactly with my experience. I've been chasing freedom for my entire twenties, like the whole reason of starting this business, building the YouTube channel, all this stuff.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  Financial freedom, time freedom.

• 28:45Ali Abdaal?

  Location freedom, all that kind of stuff. But, you know, I would have like one thing on my calendar, like a few months ago, I'd have one thing on my calendar. I'd be thinking, oh, I'm not truly free because I've got one thing on my calendar. I'd be having like, um, you know, a meeting with my team and I'd be like, you know, I love hanging out with my team. It's great vibes, but I'd be thinking, oh, the fact that the fact it's on the calendar means I'm not truly free.

• 29:05Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 29:06Ali Abdaal?

  So by obsessing about freedom, I actually became a lot less free. Whereas what Tony Robbins was saying was like, when you spend, when you, when you instead of, instead of focusing on the self, you focus on service and like, how can I serve in the best way possible? You become free as a result of taking the focus away from the self and putting it onto others. And I was like, that's good.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it is.

• 29:26Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 29:27Lewis Howes?

  Now, for people watching or listening, thinking this all sounds great, but how do I make money?

• 29:32Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  And how do I stay productive without obsessing over hustle culture, you know, and burning myself out? How do I make money, create passive income without burnout and feeling like I'm exhausting myself?

• 29:46Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Lewis Howes?

  What is your thoughts on that?

• 29:49Ali Abdaal?

  My thoughts on that are that.

• 29:50Lewis Howes?

  And before you get into that, well, how did you start making money, I guess, passively? Do you remember like the first hundred dollars you made, when that was, what that was?

• 30:01Lewis Howes?

  And then how's your passive income journey evolves?

• 30:05Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. So over the last like 15 years of my life, I have tried so many attempts to make money on the internet.

• 30:13Ali Abdaal?

  When I was 13, I was a freelance web designer trying to do web development on the side. I started my own web design studio. I was a kid in his bedroom, but I called it studio because I thought it would be more legit. I tried making video games. I learned how to program. I emailed Nintendo and Blizzard Entertainment and authors that I liked being like, hey, can I turn your content into a video game?

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 30:30Ali Abdaal?

  They all said no, or they just ignored me. I built an affiliate marketing site where I was doing, there was a game Starcraft two that had just come out. Some guy was selling a guide. There was a 50% affiliate deal on that guide. And I was like, if I build a WordPress site, then people, I'll SEO rank for Protoss build orders. And then I'll be able to sell that affiliate site. I tried building a multi-level marketing pyramid schemey type. Website that would get people to sign up for free trials of stuff then cancel them so that they could get credit towards the games console. I tried building a forum that was helping kids learn martial arts and lockpicking so they could become spies because that was really cool when I was a teenager. I tried those like six or seven business ideas when I was in school and the one that finally succeeded was when I was 18, I was in my first year of med school and I'd lost

• 31:14Ali Abdaal?

  a bunch of money because some dude scammed me out of a MacBook Air. So I lost my life savings of a thousand dollars.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:21Ali Abdaal?

  And I decided I need to build a business to recoup these losses. And so I made a, I still have the Evernote file from 2012 where I was like, what am I good at? I'm good at teaching, I did well in the med school exams and I know how to make websites. I was like, how do I combine these three things to make a business? And so I made a business, teaching people courses on how to get into med school and made a nice website to go with it.

• 31:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:40Ali Abdaal?

  And then that business did 10K in year one, 100K in year two, 150K in year three. And that was when I, you know, initially I was doing all the work and then I realized that the way to get passive income once I read the four hour work week is to find a way to get other people to do that work. I think a lot of people try to go for passive income immediately. It's really hard to go for passive income immediately. Usually you have to go for very active income and then over time you passivity it a little bit.

• 32:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:04Ali Abdaal?

  So this was.

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  You still have to show up and do some work.

• 32:06Ali Abdaal?

  You have to do a lot of work to get the thing going. And then once it's going, it's like, okay, cool. Now you build systems and processes, operations, delegation, outsourcing, all of that fun stuff to make it a little bit more.

• 32:13Lewis Howes?

  Stuff for you, but not for everyone.

• 32:15Ali Abdaal?

  It's not for everyone, yeah.

• 32:16Lewis Howes?

  You love that stuff.

• 32:17Ali Abdaal?

  I love that stuff, but I also think, you know, part of the philosophy of feel good productivity is that whatever you're doing, find a way to make it fun because the things that you find fun are the things you will do for a long time. You just have to do this for a very long time. I think most people quit way too early.

• 32:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 32:31Ali Abdaal?

  Most people either don't get started because they're afraid or they get started and they quit too early. I was looking at some stats, like over 50% of podcasts don't make it past episode three. Another like 80% of podcasts don't make it past episode 20.

• 32:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:44Ali Abdaal?

  You've hit like your 1,000th episode or something?

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  Over 1,500.

• 32:46Ali Abdaal?

  1,500 now, bloody hell.

• 32:47Lewis Howes?

  10, 10 years, 1,500 episodes.

• 32:50Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  Every single week for 10 years.

• 32:52Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. And you just don't quit.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  Just consistently.

• 32:55Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Lewis Howes?

  And I'm not the smartest and I'm not the most talented and I'm not the, you know, most innovative, but it's like when you try to get a little bit better every single week and do your best to get a little bit better and you do it consistently. Either it's going to work, or maybe after a few years, you're in the wrong position, yeah, it's the wrong profession.

• 33:11Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 33:11Lewis Howes?

  It's like learning, okay, maybe this isn't working and I haven't figured it out yet after a few years. Okay, cool.

• 33:16Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, but I think actually, on that note, what I would say is either it works, or you realize it's not working and you change your plan.

• 33:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 33:23Ali Abdaal?

  So it's like, when, it's like the thing you talk about, a meaningful mission. When you know where you want to go, then that's like the most important thing. Like, where do I actually want to go? Let's say, I don't know, my goal is to make 10K a month in passive income. Okay, cool. That's a destination. Now, what are the different, what are the three to five chess moves that right now I think will get me there? There's something Hormozzi talked about in a recent video or a recent keynote or something. And I really, I really like this, this approach. It's like, you've got a destination in mind and you know where you are now. That creates potential energy, because now there's, you know, there's where you are and where you want to be. It's like, it's like going on a, on a voyage or whatever. Now, either you know how you're going to get there, or you don't know how you're going to get there. If you don't know how you're going to get there, you have an information problem. You need more information.

• 34:05Ali Abdaal?

  If I was like, oh damn, jeez, I really don't know how to build more muscle. I have an information problem. I should watch a couple of videos and I'll realize very quickly. Progressive overload, we're lifting three times a week.

• 34:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:16Ali Abdaal?

  That's about it.

• 34:17Lewis Howes?

  Eating more calories and protein.

• 34:19Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, all of that stuff. It's like, there are three to five things that if you just do, will probably get you to that destination. If you, so if you don't know the path to get to where you want to go, you just ask people, you read about it, you figure it out, it's the internet, anyone can figure it out. Information should not be the problem. But if you know what the path is, now you can figure out, okay, what's the most effective path to get there? And so.

• 34:38Lewis Howes?

  And what's holding me back? What's like the fear, the insecurity holding me back?

• 34:41Ali Abdaal?

  Exactly.

• 34:41Lewis Howes?

  What's the story that I'm talking about?

• 34:43Ali Abdaal?

  What are the obstacles that are getting in the way of that? What are the monsters, the leviathans that need to slay along, along, along with my journey? So if someone was like, listening to this and they're like, okay, I know I want to be a podcaster like Lewis, and I know 10 years from now, I want to say I've had 1500 episodes. It's like, okay, cool. How much money do you want to make? Like, let's like, really define the destination and figure out where we want to go. And then maybe they start off doing solo episodes, just talking to their phone in vertical. And they do that for like, a couple of months. And there's easier attraction. They're like, hmm, my plan, which was do solo episodes every single day and hope that that gets me to a School of Greatness podcast, that plan's not working. Let's change the plan, let's try something else. And then they'll try something, and let's try something else, let's try something else, let's try something else. And eventually, you know, this is something I think that Jeff Bezos wrote about this in one of his shareholder letters to Amazon. It was like, it was using the analogy of baseball. I don't do baseball because I'm from the UK, but I.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  You understand.

• 35:28Ali Abdaal?

  I understand the principles, which is that in baseball. You either strike out or you hit a single or two or three or four. The most you can get is a homerun where it's like four points. But in the world of entrepreneurship, sure, you might strike out a few times. But actually, if you hit a homerun, that homerun can get you a million points. There is no cap to how many points you can get from the homerun.

• 35:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:46Ali Abdaal?

  And so if you figure, if you know where you want to go and you just keep on trying until you start making progress in that direction. There's like no world in which you're not going to be successful at the thing.

• 35:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 35:58Ali Abdaal?

  You know, yeah, fine. If you're like four foot eight and you're trying to go to the NBA, then okay, fine. Maybe, you know, some people will tell you that, bro, your strategy is just very unlikely to get you there.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  Maybe you need a coach. You can still be in the arena that you're wanting to get to.

• 36:11Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Lewis Howes?

  If you don't want to, if you can't be a player, maybe you can be a coach or an owner or a manager.

• 36:14Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  Still playing the game, you just got to shift the role you're playing.

• 36:18Ali Abdaal?

  Exactly. Yeah, there's a whole strategy I've got around this, which is not in the book, but I've sort of developed this over the last few months. And I was like, damn, I should have put it in the book. And it's GPS, goal, plan, system. What's a goal? What's a plan to get there? And what's the system to make sure you execute on the plan? And I think when it comes to building a business, making passive income, starting a podcast, like getting married, like all of this stuff. Fundamentally, you have a goal, you have a plan, i.e. the moves you think will get you there. And you have a system to make sure you follow it. And if you're struggling with any of these, it's either a problem with the goal. You don't know what you want, or it's wildly unrealistic and never going to happen. Or it's a problem with the plan, i.e. the strategy you're employing is actually not effective. Or it's a problem with the system. You know where you want to go and what you need to do, you're just not doing it. So let's figure out a way to help you, help you do it.

• 37:00Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. I was having a conversation actually right before you came here with Alexandra on my team about the idea of, you know, being an entrepreneur, passive income, hustle culture, all these different things. And I was telling her, you know, sometimes when people want to launch a side hustle or a side project or thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, they're really good at one skill. But the challenge is being an entrepreneur, you have to learn lots of skills. And that's usually what holds people back. Okay, I really like doing graphic design. And now I'm launching a business and I have to learn sales, customer support, refunding people. I need to learn how to build a website and checkout card and accounting and taxes and all these other things, manage employees. It's like you have to learn a plethora of skills around being an entrepreneur.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  And that I think sometimes is what holds people back from being consistent. That go in because they have one skill that they're really good at.

• 37:52Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  But you have to learn so many other things that you don't enjoy. So how do we learn to make productivity fun and enjoyable? When 90% of the time, you're doing things that aren't your number one skill set, the thing you're really good at as an entrepreneur.

• 38:08Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. Oh, great question. Okay.

• 38:10Lewis Howes?

  Because you were talking about this before, but how do we really make all the unenjoyable things enjoyable in order to keep going?

• 38:17Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. Okay, this is like the ultimate secret, like the secret to all productivity is to find a way to make the process feel enjoyable. If you can just do that, you know, you enjoy doing podcast episodes. This is why you've been able to continue doing it for literally 10 plus years and 1500 episodes. I enjoy making videos, making YouTube videos. Not every aspect of that is enjoyable, and certainly there are days where I don't enjoy it. You clearly enjoy working out more than I do, which is why you're in better shape than I am. You know, there's something, there's something about the process that you found a way to make fun. And so my whole journey of productivity is, has been to try and figure out what are the ways that we can make, make, that we have to do a little bit more fun. And I've pretty much boiled it down to three things. Play, power, and people. The three Ps, I call them the three energizers. Play, power, and people.

• 38:59Ali Abdaal?

  And if you can incorporate some, or you know, some of these into whatever you're doing. I guarantee it will be way more enjoyable and you'll have more fun along the way. It will be more sustainable, it'll be more energizing, you'll be more productive, you'll be more creative, you'll be less stressed, all of the good things will happen.

• 39:13Lewis Howes?

  Can you give an example of each one, what that looks like for something that you don't enjoy doing?

• 39:18Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  And how you incorporate these three energizers?

• 39:20Ali Abdaal?

  Sure. So let's use a business example because I know a lot of your audience wants to, wants to do business. When I started my first business, well, my first successful business, it was actually my eighth business.

• 39:31Ali Abdaal?

  This was sort of selling, selling real life seminars to get, help people get into med school. We would use Eventbrite for like the ticketing and then I would have to figure out how to get that into like a Google Sheet. And there was a lot of admin involved in like Google Sheet formulas. And like making sure the emails are being sent on time and making sure that like the logistics of ordering course booklets have been sent to the hotel in time for the event and that DHL doesn't up the delivery like they often do. One of the thing might be a lot of boring admin work that required just sending a lot of emails and being on the phone with hotels. This is not my skill set. I do not enjoy admin. I don't think, I think very few people, actually, there are some people I know who just love organizing things and love admin. I absolutely hated that stuff. So I was like, how do I find a way to make this a little bit more fun? So play, power and people.

• 40:15Ali Abdaal?

  Play is when we find a way to approach our work in the spirit of play. Unfortunately, these are only strategies that I discovered later. I wish I discovered them when I was in my first business as well, because that was a bit of a grind. But if I had, if I were to have that situation now, how might I approach that in the spirit of play? Sometimes even just asking that question is enough. But generally, play is where, one of the things that stops play from happening is when the stakes feel too high. So like Roger Federer is not feeling playful when he's playing Wimbledon finals, especially when he's defending his title. That's a high-stakes situation. They've done some really cool studies in rats where they, you know, rats like often play with each other

• 40:56Ali Abdaal?

  and they'll measure how many times they're playing with like, you know, biting the nape of the neck and like roaming around and doing all that. And then they will inject the rats with adrenaline or cortisol, like stress hormones. Or they'll like stress the rat out a little bit by putting them in a cage for a bit and then taking the cage off. And they'll see what happens to play behavior. And unsurprisingly, when a rat is stressed, the play behavior gets reduced. People don't play when they're stressed. It's like when you're stressed, you're like survival mode, like what? Yeah, you very much narrow your range of options. You get laser focused and you start taking things very seriously. And it tends to drain your energy and it's not fun. So one of the big things is like, how do we make this thing feel less stressful? How do we lower the stakes?

• 41:39Ali Abdaal?

  And one of my favorite phrases or mindset shifts is from the philosopher Alan Watts. And something that he says is be sincere, not serious. And I think a lot of us, when, you know, when I was doing my admin for this Google Sheets and like the, all this guy, I was taking it very seriously. I'm like, oh my God, if this email doesn't get sent out, then all these people are going to be unhappy. It's like, what's going to happen is going to happen either way. I can choose to approach it very seriously or I can approach it sincerely. Sincerely is where I recognize that this is an important thing, but I also recognize, huh, it's not the end of the world. I can, I can just choose to approach it with a bit more lightness and ease. Cause the thing is, what I've realized about productivity is that, and, and life, is that a lot of our experience

• 42:21Ali Abdaal?

  is about the story we tell ourselves and the thing that we focus on. If, if, if I'm telling myself the story that this thing I have to do is enormously important. Oh my God, I'm on this podcast, such high stakes, Luis has such a big audience. Oh my God, I haven't said the right thing.

• 42:35Ali Abdaal?

  I go into myself, it's less fun.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  You're not gonna be in flow.

• 42:38Ali Abdaal?

  I'm not gonna be in flow. But generally, if you know, anyone watching this or listening to this, if you think of the times where you've performed the best, it's probably been when you've been in flow, when you've been feeling good, when you've been feeling energized.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  I mean, what about when the stakes are high, though? Like, when there is life or death, when you are a doctor and you've got to deliver a baby or something happens where like, I can't just be like goofing around and playing the whole time. I've got to actually take my time seriously and show credibility and.

• 43:02Ali Abdaal?

  Even then, so I've been in operating theater quite a lot in life and death, open heart surgery, brain surgery, obstetrics, baby mum bleeding out, all that I was doing in med school, I was doing as a doctor. Even when life and death is in the balance, one thing that's interesting is in operating rooms, there's often upbeat background music playing. Because surgeons realize, and the staff in working in theater realize that actually, having background music and having that sense of like lightness and ease when it comes to, even when life and death is hanging in the balance, actually helps you perform better.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:32Ali Abdaal?

  It's like surgeons are cracking jokes when they're in the middle of lifesaving operations. They're sort of being sort of friendly and smile, like the good surgeons.

• 43:38Lewis Howes?

  They have to be. If you're like tense and rigid, you're gonna be, you're probably more prone to make a mistake.

• 43:43Ali Abdaal?

  I've worked with so many surgeons who are like that. And the, you know, there's a.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Screaming at you, give me this and give me that.

• 43:48Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, all that stuff. It's terrible. And then I think this was in the checklist manifesto by Atul Gawande, talking about like human factors, errors in hospitals, where like the surgeon's operating on the wrong leg, but no one wants to say anything because the environment is like a stressful and everyone, everyone's thinking, I'm pretty sure you were meant to amputate the right leg, not the left leg. But like, oh no, I can't say anything because it's the big boss. So it's when you have this atmosphere of like high stakes and pressure and stress and fear, it's mental. This is why now there's checklist in operations where it's like, mark the leg with a sharpie, are you operating on the right limb? Make sure the patient knows you're operating on that limb because they'll tell you if you're not.

• 44:29Ali Abdaal?

  A lot of it, there are so many instances where when we feel pressured and stressed, we actually don't perform very well and we don't raise concerns when concerns need to be raised. So having a light-hearted atmosphere, you know, some surgeons and scrub nurses will wear like a rainbow colored scrub cap because it just makes it lighten it up. So even when life and death is in the balance, lighting it up is actually the way to perform better.

• 44:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay. Be sincere, but not serious.

• 44:54Ali Abdaal?

  Exactly.

• 44:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 44:56Ali Abdaal?

  The other thing on play, you know, one thing I really loved, very practical thing. Back when, at the moment, I'm like digital nomading around the world and so I don't have a desk. But when I used to have a desk with a computer monitor on it, I had a post-it note on the bottom of my monitor and on that post-it note was written, what would this look like if it were fun? What would this look like if it were fun? Anyone can do this. If you are ever doing anything at all and you find yourself feeling stressed or feeling anxious or feeling like, ugh, the stakes are too high or like, oh, I want to be more productive in this thing, but it's really hard or procrastinating. You take a step back, you take a breath and you ask yourself, what would this look like if it were fun? And usually you can come up with some pretty good answers. Maybe I'd have some background music. Maybe I'd lighten up a bit. Maybe I'd, I don't know,

• 45:38Ali Abdaal?

  bring some of my friends along for the ride. Maybe I'll just choose to take it a little bit less seriously.

• 45:44Ali Abdaal?

  There's so much value in lowering the stakes. The other thing, again, on the playfront, like a really cool, there was a really cool thing that, there's a YouTuber called Mockrober. He used to work for NASA, then he used to work at Apple and now he does like science educational videos. He's amazing. He did a really fun experiment where he was, he did this experiment where he was trying to teach people how to code. And so he got 50,000 people in his audience, different ages, different walks of life, to do this online experiment, learning how to code. And they got this like robot maze that they had to program, to program a robot to go through the maze. And the trick was, this was an impossible task. There was no way to actually do this. But he split the groups up into two halves. Half the group, every time they failed,

• 46:27Ali Abdaal?

  they got an error message saying, you failed, please try again. The other half got an error message saying, you have failed, you have lost five points. You now have 195 points. Please try again. Everything else was the same. The puzzle was impossible. The only thing difference, the only difference was that group two lost five points. The points are arbitrary, completely made up. Like, no one cares what the points are. Like, they had no idea. But actually, if you looked at the number of attempts they made to solve the puzzle. Actually, I don't think it was an impossible puzzle. I think it was able to be solved. But if you look at the number of attempts they made, how many shots on goal they had. The group that got, that lost the five points had less than half as many attempts as the group that didn't lose any points at all.

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  Because they were afraid to lose more.

• 47:06Ali Abdaal?

  They were afraid to lose points. And so Mark Robert gave a really good TED Talk about this, where he explained this experiment. And he, and he says, like, if we could just, what if we reframed our, what if we reframed how we think about failure? What if we thought of it as a scientist does, as, oh, it's just an experiment. It didn't work this time, maybe it will work next time. Even if it didn't work, I'll get data. What if we just stopped worrying so much about the concept of failure? And what if we started to treat it, treat it more like an experiment? That's another thing that helps you play. If you are so worried about failure, yes, in some context, life and death. Okay, fine. But most, most people listening to this are not dealing with life and death every single day. They're probably not, realistically. In most contexts where it's not life and death, a fear of failure, it really holds you back from feeling good about the thing.

• 47:48Ali Abdaal?

  It's hard to deal with, easier said than done, but if we can, I really like this idea of reframing it as an experiment, as a learning opportunity. People know this stuff, but I think the reminders often really help.

• 47:57Lewis Howes?

  It's such a good reminder, man. What about power? How do we use power in this situation of something you don't enjoy doing?

• 48:02Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. Okay, so we talked about how, you know, within entrepreneurship, you might be really good at design, but you might suck at sales and marketing and copywriting and accounting and legal and HR and all of that crap that you have to deal with as an entrepreneur. The, the concept of power is that when we feel powerful in doing anything, it makes it way, it makes it feel good. It makes it more intrinsically motivating when we do it for the sake of doing the thing. It makes it more rewarding, makes it more energizing. And you notice this in video games. In video games, there is, there's this sense of like an experience bar. And the more monsters you kill, the more XP you gain. And then you level up and then you get more power, you get more powerful. And then you can do more things.

• 48:40Lewis Howes?

  You get more confident and all these different things.

• 48:42Ali Abdaal?

  All of the different stuff. And so video game designers know that, like, a video game is kind of, kind of boring. You can't people just sit there on, and just like twiddle some things around and kill fake monsters on screen. But one of the ways they make it fun is by helping you feel powerful. This is partly why, you know. All of the good stories like Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker starts off as a kid racing drones in Tatooine and then over time you see his power gain, you see his journey of becoming a legend and then turning to the dark side and stuff. In the Mr. Born series by Brandon Sanderson, incredible series of books, you get these characters, they start off young, they start off inexperienced, they learn, they grow. Like, we love following stories where someone is becoming more powerful over time. If they're powerful to begin with, it's kind of like, you know, we need some kind of challenge. Like, most stories don't start with the main character being a legend already.

• 49:27Ali Abdaal?

  It's usually a, they're a bit of a dweeb, but over time, Mr. Miyagi comes along and teaches them the thing and then they learn and Rocky, like, doing all this training. You know, we love that. Similarly, it works for ourselves. When we can experience a sense of power with what we're doing, a sense that I'm getting better at the thing. Maybe it's like, I don't enjoy marketing right now because I suck at it, but let me try and read Dotcom Secrets by Russell Brunson, let me try and read Hundred Million Dollar Offers by Alex Formosi, let me just try and apply some of these methods. Oh, hang on, that thing actually worked. I now get how to build a funnel. Oh, that's fun. That's cool. Like, that sense of accomplishment and achievement is one of the things that makes us feel powerful, which drives us to feel intrinsically motivated to do stuff. And so you could, again, it's the same thing.

• 50:09Ali Abdaal?

  You could choose to approach creating a landing page with, oh, it's not my skill set. Oh, God, I have to write this landing page. Or you could approach writing a landing page with, wow, it's not my skill set. I get to learn this new thing. Let me figure out how I can do this. Let me get better at the thing.

• 50:24Lewis Howes?

  Man, it's so good you're saying this because for 20 years I've been trying to learn Spanish, on and off. Not like every day obsessed with it, but I'm like, okay, I'm gonna pick up a Spanish learning book or try an app or get a tutor or whatever it is, off and on for like 20 years, since high school, right? Just like, and I always felt like it was hard. And it wasn't until about six months ago where it started to shift, where Martha, my fiance, was like... You've got to look at it as an experiment more and play with it. Like really play the game of being fascinated by why it is that way. As opposed to saying, okay, in English, we have a structure of sentences and it's almost complete opposite sometimes in Spanish. And I'm always like, why do they do that?

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  Why don't they just make it the same way in English? So I can speak it in, in, I guess, in the same order. As opposed to have to flip flop everything.

• 51:16Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  And she goes, you've got to start looking at it like a game and just saying, wow, isn't that fascinating?

• 51:21Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  That they do this. It's so interesting and so fascinating and keep it more lighthearted. So she's been helping me play more. And we're doing games now and we're doing flashcards and making like games with points. And it's like interesting as opposed to, and I feel like I'm learning faster now. Because I'm not saying, why is it this way? I'm saying how, why, it's so fascinating that it is this way. Let me learn more about that. Let me learn why in an interesting way as opposed to a frustrating way.

• 51:47Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, it's exactly the same scenario, but just changing the way that you approach it changes everything.

• 51:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. That's cool.

• 51:53Ali Abdaal?

  The other cool thing about power, so but a part of power as well is the idea of, you know, we feel powerful when we have control over stuff. Uh, this is why we enjoy decorating our bedrooms when we're kids, decorating our houses. Like we, we, we don't like our autonomy being taken away. We like feeling, feeling empowered in that sense. And so a lot of people will say, well, I don't have control over what my boss is asking me to do. It's like, okay, you might not have control over what you're having to do, but you usually have control over how you're going to do it. You know, when I was working as a doctor, I used to have to write a lot of these discharge letters. These are kind of boring.

• 52:24Lewis Howes?

  Boring, it takes time.

• 52:25Ali Abdaal?

  Exactly. You have to troll, sometimes handwritten notes. Old school hospitals, no electronic record system, trolling through handwritten notes to be like, okay. What, trying to decipher the handwriting, you're in a doctor's office, it's tiny, the computers, there's no air conditioning because the NHS doesn't have any money.

• 52:39Lewis Howes?

  That lighting.

• 52:39Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, all of this kind of, okay, I'm just going to write this discharge letter again and again and again. Now.

• 52:45Lewis Howes?

  You're like, I didn't become a doctor to do this.

• 52:46Ali Abdaal?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 52:47Lewis Howes?

  That's not my skill set.

• 52:48Ali Abdaal?

  This is what burns a lot of people out. It's like the fact that you have to do this. Obviously, someone's got to write the discharge letter. As the junior doctor, you're going to be the one doing it, obviously. And so in just taking that scenario, I realized, I realized something really cool about writing discharge letters. It's just that I could just change the way I did it. I had no control over how, over what I had to do. Someone's got to write the discharge letter, but I had control over how I did it. So what I started to do is I brought a little Bluetooth speaker into the, into the office, taped it to the ceiling with like a little string type thing. And I would just play Pirates of the Caribbean or Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter movie soundtracks in the background while doing it. And initially I was like, oh, isn't this unprofessional? And then I realized, who cares? Forgiveness rather than permission. The seniors would come in and then they'd be like, huh, that's a cool idea.

• 53:32Ali Abdaal?

  And they'd walk out again. No one cares. It's like, it's fine. But just having concerning hobbits from the Lord of the Rings playing in the background while I'm writing a discharge letter makes it feel like I'm a hobbit on an adventure in the Shire. And that was cool. The other thing with discharge letters is I found a way to inject a little bit of humor into them. So these are technically legal documents. They could be called on in court by a coroner or anything like that. But there's no law saying that you have to be like boring with it. So occasionally I'd say things like, you know, I knew that the patient supported Manchester United, the football team. So I'd say, you know, at the end of the note, because these are discharge letters that you write to the doctor, their, their general practitioner on the other end. Say, PS, while, while, while we're delighted that Mr. Jones made a speedy recovery, we wish him commiserations for Chelsea's recent performance in the, in the exam. Something basic like that.

• 54:17Lewis Howes?

  But you know that some, at some moment, someone might read that and they might get a giggle.

• 54:21Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  So you're like, okay, what, how can I make someone else's day when they read this?

• 54:25Ali Abdaal?

  That's the one. And actually that, that point of how do I make someone? So there's kind of two things here. One is it makes it fun for me because I've created this challenge for myself. Challenge is another one of those things that makes stuff a bit more fun. Even if the thing is boring, if you can create some sort of arbitrary challenge, like, let me do this in, let me do this faster, let me do this slower, let me find a shortcut, let me challenge myself to... Dot, dot, dot. That makes it way more fun. But also if you can find a way to connect it to someone else, this is the third P, people. If you can find a way to help someone through the thing, even if it's in a really tiny way, whether it's making them laugh or whether it's in the middle of seeing a bunch of patients. You're spending 30 seconds just asking the nurses, can I make you a cup of tea? That makes their day. You feel the help is high because you feel good. Both parties feel energized. Life is good. You can always take 30 seconds to make someone a cup of tea.

• 55:09Ali Abdaal?

  One of my favorite stories from when I was doing interviews for the book. There's a guy called Matthew Dix, who is now an author and he's written some amazing books.

• 55:18Ali Abdaal?

  But back in the day, in his twenties, he used to work at McDonald's and he hated working McDonald's. He was working in Burger Flipper initially and then he graduated to the drive thru. And one thing he said, he was like, yeah, working at McDonald's was really boring. But I found a way to challenge myself to make it fun. So what he would do is he would try and upsell a different sauce every day of the week. So Monday was barbecue sauce day and every time someone would come through the drive thru. Would you like fries with that? And I'm like, yeah, no. How about some barbecue sauce? And then they'd be like, huh, no, I'm good, thanks. And then he'd be like, you know, it's a, it's really good barbecue sauce. You know, the last customer I had really loved the barbecue sauce. And then they sort of crack up. They're like, okay, fine, yeah, give me the barbecue. Why not? It's like, it breaks the pattern. People are not used to being asked, being upsold on barbecue sauce when they're in a McDonald's drive thru. It made it fun for the customer, it made it fun for him.

• 56:03Ali Abdaal?

  And he, he said that it just transformed the energy that he got from his days. Purely because he now gave himself a little bit of a challenge.

• 56:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:10Ali Abdaal?

  To make something that was boring become more fun.

• 56:12Lewis Howes?

  And yeah, whether you call it a challenge or some type of game. Every day, how can you make what you're doing a game? I remember, man, I've had some boring, you know, I guess, jobs before I got into this. I was a truck driver for six hours a day.

• 56:24Ali Abdaal?

  Oh, no way, I don't know.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  Driving from Columbus, Ohio to Cincinnati and back every day, driving car parts in the back of a truck. Every day, unloading it, putting in new car parts from Cincinnati, driving it back in rush hour. And I remember this was a time when there was no Bluetooth. Like Bluetooth was still, like, I didn't have a Bluetooth capability. It was like a CD player or something was in there. And it's like 2007, maybe, 2006, 2007. And this truck was like a massive U-Haul. So it was like the biggest U-Haul truck you could get before needing a truck license, right? So it wasn't a semi, but it was a big truck. You have to climb up, you know, multiple feet to get up in there. It's like a bucket seat, it just kind of bounces.

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  And it only went 55 miles an hour, the truck. Like the pedal, when you put it all the way to the end, that's as fast as it would go. So I was in the right lane the entire time. I guess that'd be the left lane in the UK. But I was in the slow lane the entire time for six hours a day. Watching people go by me. No, and, and in Ohio, at this location, it's like cornfields. It's all flat cornfields. So you're not looking at anything really like mountains and big cities, you're just driving through corn. And I remember after a week of this, I go, I'm gonna drive myself crazy if I don't find a way to have like some type of game or challenge from this. So I asked a friend, and at the time, I was really trying to learn salsa dancing. So I asked a friend to burn me a CD of the greatest hits of like the best salsa songs.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  And I started listening to the CD on repeat and imagining myself as I was learning salsa dancing. I would imagine myself dancing to the songs in my mind while I was driving. And that got me through these like long days. And it made it more interesting and fun to the point where I started to get excited about going to work. Because I was like, okay, even though I'm gonna drive six hours a day. I'm gonna listen to this music. I'm gonna practice salsa dancing in my mind. And it was just a game, you know, it was a game like I also did for three months. I was also, my aunt was a.

• 58:26Lewis Howes?

  What's it called when you work, when you're like a pharmacist, right? She was like a pharmacist specialist. And she had me essentially like filling, what is this? Filling medicine, filling like, you know, pills, I guess, right? For different things. But it was more like generic stuff. So it was like, okay, I needed to put like 20 in these like 100 bottles of whatever. You know, maybe it's Tylenol or something, filling it. And this was like very boring. It's like you're sitting in a small room, probably like a doctor's office, small room, bad lighting. And I was just like, okay. But I remember thinking like, I'm gonna create a game. I'm gonna see how fast I can do this and all these different things. And celebrate after I do 20 bottles. So it was like creating some type of game and scenario around that.

• 59:07Lewis Howes?

  And that made it more enjoyable. So, um, interesting. I love this. Play, power and people. I really like this concept of how can I make someone else's day with this activity that I'm doing? So that's a really cool one right there.

• 59:20Ali Abdaal?

  How can I find a way to help someone else doing this thing? Like we've all, we've all had the feeling of, you know, there are some people that you hang out with who, you know, you leave feeling really energized. I think you're one of those people. I always leave our conversations energized. I'm like, yeah. But we also probably know people that you leave conversations with them feeling a bit drained. They're like, uh. And there's this concept that psychologists call relational energy, which is exactly this, this, the sort of energy you get from relationships. And they've done studies in organizations where they'll do a relational energy map. Well, they'll like, ask everyone, who are the people that energize you and who are the people that drain you? And they'll do this for the whole organization. And they will find that there, there are usually a handful of people that are super energizers. That everyone loves them, people like, meet with them and they get energized as a result.

• 1:00:03Ali Abdaal?

  And they also find that these people have higher ratings, they perform better, they're more productive, they're more creative, they're less stressed, they're happier. They're getting more promotions, getting more money. All of the good things happen to the people who are energizers. Whereas the people who are drainers in an organization, no one really wants to talk to them. It's like, no one really wants to promote them, they're a bit of a drain in energy. And so what we can take away from this is, A, we should strive to become energizers ourself. If someone is sharing good news with us, we respond in a active, in a constructive way, like, oh my goodness, that's so good, tell me more about that. Rather than, ah, cool. You know, there's stuff that we can do to make ourselves a little bit more energizing for others. But the other thing that it does is that it tells us that, you know, the the profound power of being able to try and find people who energize us, who lift up our energy.

• 1:00:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes, surrounding yourself with those individuals.

• 1:00:49Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. And then some people are like, oh, but like, every single person in my team is a total, my, is totally miserable. It's like, okay, find a way to get outside of that group. Find a way to bring the energy yourself. Generally, if you're the one bringing energy and helping other people, they will respond in kind. Most people are, most people have good intentions most of the time. And often what it takes is one person to be the person to be like, hey, guys, you know, instead of going to the local cafeteria for lunch, should we just go to this, this other coffee shop and we can have a bit more of a lively conversation? Or should we go for a walk in the park? And there are things that you can do to add more energy to your interactions.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:22Ali Abdaal?

  And it's, it's kind of weird, it's like, one of the nice things about energy, I think this is a misconception people have. People feel that the more energy you give, the more drained you become. But it's actually not true. Similarly with work, it's like, the more effort and engagement you give to your work, that doesn't deplete your energy. That actually renews your energy. The most draining thing in the, in the world is coasting, looking at your clock, being like, oh god, when is this gonna end?

• 1:01:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Ali Abdaal?

  No one is energized by that, no one.

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  Sucks the life out of you.

• 1:01:48Ali Abdaal?

  Sucks the life out of you. But if you're fully engaged, if you're like, giving it your all, if you're showing up sincerely rather than seriously, if you're doing all the things, treating it like play, lightness at ease, having fun along the way, trying to help people out. You get home from the end of the day of work, feeling more energized than when you started.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:02:02Ali Abdaal?

  Even though, counterintuitively, you've been putting a lot of energy into it.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  That was, that was a challenge for me in school, growing up. Every day I was looking at the clock, being like, it's six hours until the end of the day, like, just struggling. It was hard for me to find, you know, play in just reading a book that I struggle to reading a book or memorizing or things like that. And so I procrastinated a lot.

• 1:02:22Ali Abdaal?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:02:22Lewis Howes?

  I procrastinated to the very last minute to get something done. I bet you were the person that just got everything done early.

• 1:02:27Ali Abdaal?

  Oh, no, I wish. I would also leave everything at the last minute. I didn't know these strategies back in the day.

• 1:02:31Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. But procrastination is a massive struggle for so many people. Why do you think people procrastinate so much? And what are three key things people can do to overcome procrastination?

• 1:02:44Ali Abdaal?

  Hmm, okay. So procrastination, if we really boil it down, is usually a problem with getting started. I think people think of procrastination as like, I'm leaving things to the last minute or like whatever. Usually, people find that once you get started with something, generally, you can keep it going. This is the law of inertia. It takes a bit of a push to get started once you're there. You know, for me, once I'm at the gym and I've lifted the first weight, it's like, I'll complete most of the workout.

• 1:03:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Ali Abdaal?

  I might skip the final set just because I'm a bit soft. But it's getting to the gym that's the hardest part. So if we recognize that procrastination is a problem with getting started, then all we need to do is optimize for how do I start, not how do I finish? Because the finish will take care of itself, as it were. So how do we optimize for getting started? There are basically three things. See, I'll top three. So usually, the first blocker that causes us to procrastinate is uncertainty. If you don't know what you actually need to do. So in students, for example, I'll hear people be like, oh, today I'm gonna study chemistry. It's like, okay, but what does that, what does that mean? What does study chemistry mean? And they don't know.

• 1:03:53Ali Abdaal?

  They're like, I'm just gonna study chemistry. It's never gonna happen. If you, if your plan is to study chemistry, it's never gonna happen because you don't know what it actually means. Does it mean I'm gonna read the textbook? Does it mean I'm gonna do a practice test? Does it mean I'm gonna do questions eight to fifteen of the work that the teacher gave me? Does it mean I'm working on this assignment or that or reading about this? Unless you know specifically what you're gonna do, it's very hard to actually do the thing. There's like, when I try and go to the gym without a plan, now I have to spend half my brain power figuring out what am I gonna do?

• 1:04:17Lewis Howes?

  What am I gonna do?

• 1:04:17Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, what am I gonna do? And then I'm like, oh, this is just too much friction. I'm just not gonna bother. Like, there is always an activation energy to doing anything. And having clarity on what the thing is actually is, and crucially, when you're actually gonna do it, makes an enormous difference.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes. So getting clarity first.

• 1:04:32Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah. Clarity is like one of the big, one of the big solutions to procrastination. What are you doing? And when are you gonna do it? I have a little journaling reminder every morning. I fill out this thing. I call it the AM five because it's sort of like five AM. But like AM five means first five minutes of the morning when I sit down to work. It asks me three questions. It asks me, what is the diet plan for today? This is the only thing I've started doing because I've realized this is super helpful. What's the diet plan for today? Because I realized if I, if I think about it in the morning for 30 seconds, I'll get my protein and I'll get the calories and I'll eat healthily. But if I don't think about it, now the first meal I have is lunch and I have to decide. I'll just decide in the morning, protein shake for lunch, mid morning snack, protein shake again. And then chicken breast and veg for dinner, whatever thing.

• 1:05:16Ali Abdaal?

  Just spending 20 seconds making a plan. The next question is, what's the exercise plan for today? Where I'm like, oh, that's a good question. Um, okay, cool. So I think, yeah, so today's workout day. So I'm going to do a workout, um, straight after my next zoom call. And the final question is, is it in the calendar? Then I'm like, good point. Let me just put it in the calendar. Because often all it takes is for us to know what we're doing and when we're doing it, for us to just not procrastinate. A lot of people are like, oh, I don't have time to go to the gym. It's like, it's not in the calendar.

• 1:05:45Lewis Howes?

  You didn't schedule it.

• 1:05:46Ali Abdaal?

  If it's not scheduled, it's not going to happen. Schedule, schedule the bloody thing, treat it like you were at a work appointment. And automatically you solve about 50% of people's procrastination problems by just putting it in the calendar.

• 1:05:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:05:55Ali Abdaal?

  So that's clarity. That's the way you get clarity.

• 1:05:57Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Okay, cool. So once you get clarity and you answer those three questions, is there anything else that holds us back from procrastinating?

• 1:06:03Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, the other big thing is fear. Fear is a massive one. Uh, the fear of starting, the fear of continuing, the fear of failure, the fear of rejection.

• 1:06:10Lewis Howes?

  This is what I hear from a lot of people. There's a lot of smart people in my community. And I used to do a lot of webinars and coaching and do Q and A sessions. And I would hear this all the time. I mean, these are individuals that are extremely intelligent, super smart, got, you know, master's degrees, PhDs, whatever it might be. They've been working 10, 15, 20 years and they've got a lot of skills, a lot of talent. And they're like, I've got these, these three or four different big ideas, these dreams I've had that I really wanna get started on, or I really wanna launch this book. And I'll think, I'll say, how long have you been thinking about this? And let's say like, seven years. Like, I've just been thinking about this book for seven years. And I'm like, seven years? I'm like, how much time and energy is that taking you?

• 1:06:56Lewis Howes?

  From actually just getting started on it, or creating a game plan, finding out when you're gonna do it, how you're gonna do it, and when you wanna complete it by? It doesn't have to be perfect, but one of the biggest things that people have is this fear, like you talked about.

• 1:07:08Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Lewis Howes?

  Why is fear such a huge procrastinator? Procrastination, this thing that holds people back?

• 1:07:15Ali Abdaal?

  Oh, man. Like, fear, fear is everything. I, I spent seven years thinking about starting a YouTube channel before I started a YouTube channel. Twenty ten, twenty seventeen.

• 1:07:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:07:26Ali Abdaal?

  Our, our brain is a survival machine. We're so attuned to see any kind of threat as being like a terrible thing that could impact our survival. You know, this is part of the brain called the amygdala, which is sort of the fear center of the brain. And a lot of the time, you know, back in the day, we were afraid of the lion. Obviously, the lion's gonna kill us. But back in the day, we were also afraid of social disapproval. Because if you lose the respect of the alpha male in the tribe, you're gonna get kicked out of the tribe. And then that's gonna be terrible for your survival, because the lion's gonna kill you. So you have to kind of go around with these tribes and stuff. And so the brain, the mind became very attuned to viewing any decrease in our social status as being a profound threat to our survival.

• 1:08:09Ali Abdaal?

  And usually, when people are scared of doing something, it's not because the thing's gonna kill them. People are usually not, oh, man, I've been thinking of skydiving for seven years, and I've not done it because I'm scared of dying. It's usually not that. It's usually, man, I've been thinking of writing a book for seven years, but I've been a bit afraid to start because what will people think of me?

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  What if I fail?

• 1:08:29Ali Abdaal?

  What if I fail? What if it doesn't work? What if I never get a deal? What if I don't manage to do it? What if I judge myself? There's a lot of this, this sort of stuff. It's usually not survival. It's usually... Threats to our social status or our standing with people with other people and stuff. And so because the brain is designed to do this, is designed to protect us from these threats. That's why it's so easy to let fear get in the way of us living our best life. You know, I wanted to start a blog for like six years, 2010 to 2016. I was like, you know what, I want to start a personal blog. I was, I was reading people's personal blogs. This was in the era of blogging, Mark Manson stuff in 2010, back in the day. Before he went back when it was post masculine.net. It was about how to, how to be a man and how to get girls and stuff. It was like, damn, personal blogs are really, I want to start a personal blog. And I was like, no, I can't, I can't do that. Who am I to start a personal blog? Who am I to have my domain Aliamdal.com?

• 1:09:14Ali Abdaal?

  I bought the domain, I just kept it inactive for six years because I was afraid. I was afraid, will people think less of me if I have the arrogance to think that me, a 15 year old kid, has the right to start a personal blog? And then I read Austin Kleon's amazing book, Show Your Work. That book, that one book, 20 minutes long, it's so easy to read. Helped me realize, ah, I don't, I don't need to be so scared of this. I'm not like, you know, showing myself, I'm just showing my work.

• 1:09:41Lewis Howes?

  What I'm learning in the process.

• 1:09:42Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:09:43Lewis Howes?

  I'm not the expert, I'm, I'm learning how to become better.

• 1:09:45Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, exactly. I'm the guide, not the guru. I'm like, hey, I've just tried this thing out and here's what I learned along the way. So my first blog post was how I overcome, overcame the fear of starting a blog. Where I talked about exactly this in 2016.

• 1:09:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow, really?

• 1:09:56Ali Abdaal?

  And it took me six years to overcome that fear. And it was just the right book at the right time that helped me realize, no one gives a. Like, I was like, oh my God, all my friends and family are going to think, none of my friends and family even know that I have a personal blog. They just like, why, why would they know? Why would they care? And like, the only people that see it are like now people who know my stuff. And because I got over that fear of starting a website and a personal blog in 2016, that's what allowed me to start a YouTube channel in 2017. Cause I was like, man.

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  If you didn't start that blog.

• 1:10:24Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:24Lewis Howes?

  Where would you be today?

• 1:10:25Ali Abdaal?

  If I didn't start that blog, I would never have started the YouTube channel. I would have had a failing business trying to still, still running at the age of like nearly 30, helping people get into med school. I'd have been like trying to grind to get more leads for that because it's becoming more competitive. I'd be working as a doctor right now, freezing my bum off in like a random doctor's office in the middle of nowhere in England. Cause I would have been shipped off to some random location to do my specialty training. What it took was getting over the fear.

• 1:10:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:47Ali Abdaal?

  Starting that blog, which led to the YouTube channel, which led to all of the good things in my life.

• 1:10:50Lewis Howes?

  What was the secret of you overcoming that fear of getting started?

• 1:10:53Ali Abdaal?

  Oh, great question. It was two things. It was firstly, realizing that no one actually cares. Realizing that, I think at the time, I hadn't heard of this, the thing of the spotlight effect. We all walk around thinking that we have the spotlight trained on us and that anything that we do, people are scrutinizing and judging and shit. No one's thinking about you. No one's thinking about me. You know, people are busy with their own lives. So recognizing that was a big step. And the other thing was getting out of myself and recognizing that the point of my blog is to help someone else. When we, when we.

• 1:11:23Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, so good.

• 1:11:23Ali Abdaal?

  When we move from the self to service, you know, a lot of, I speak to somebody, but the, the average age of people in my YouTube course is 36. We have a lot of people who are parents. They would, they struggle so much to start to make their first YouTube video.

• 1:11:37Lewis Howes?

  So making it about them.

• 1:11:38Ali Abdaal?

  They're making about them. But if you ask them, would you do anything for your kids? You answer, of course I'd do anything. Like, we're so much more likely to do things for other people than we are for ourselves. And so finding a way to shift the reason you're doing something, it's not about me, it's about helping someone else. So the thing I would tell myself and what Austin Kleon says in his book, Show Your Work, is, does this thing that you're thinking of sharing have the potential to help at least one person in any small way? If it's a photo of your coffee, probably not. Therefore, don't post it. But if it's a little, small, little write-up of like, hey, I read Lewis Howes's book, The Great Mindset. Here are three things I've learned from it. That has the potential to help someone.

• 1:12:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:15Ali Abdaal?

  Great. Make it about them, don't make it about you.

• 1:12:17Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:12:18Ali Abdaal?

  And so every blog post that I wrote, I was like, it's not about me. I'm writing for someone else and I'm just trying to help them with something that I've learned recently. No ego involved, purely in the spirit of service.

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:12:27Ali Abdaal?

  And that attitude has served me so much in the last 10 years of YouTube as well.

• 1:12:30Lewis Howes?

  I think that's one of the reasons why I've been able to make it sustainable for me with the School of Greatness. It's because when I started it, I remember a lot of people telling me, oh, you should make, because I kind of had like a little, you know, personal brand and like online marketing and LinkedIn and webinars. And I was like the online marketing guy or whatever, one in a sea of many people, but I had my own lane. And when I was thinking about doing the podcast and I was calling a few different friends, they're like, why don't you just make it like your name, you know? And I go, I could, but I don't want to make it about me. I want to make it about others. That's what I made it was like the school of greatness with Lewis Howes. Cause I want to be on the journey of learning from other smart people like yourself and like learning these lessons.

• 1:13:11Lewis Howes?

  And that has allowed me to take a lot of pressure off me. It's, I don't have to be as serious of like, everything needs to be perfect. Although I want things to be perfect and great. It's allowed me to kind of let go of that pressure. And it's made me to think about like, if I can help one person from this conversation, then it's worth it. And I think about those things. It's not about me. It's about serving, learning from others and serving others who are listening. And that has allowed me to be consistent. I think one of the things that has allowed me, but I think going from self to services is a key message. A lot of people need to step into because fear holds so many people back on taking action. Mark Manson actually created a video recently called the spotlight effect.

• 1:13:53Lewis Howes?

  It's of him walking in a chicken suit, like he has a full chicken suit on and he's walking down in Santa Monica. Uh, where you're staying. He's walking down the boardwalk where everyone's kind of going by and bikes and roller blades or whatever, walking around. And he's walking by them, shooting the video, saying, there's this concept called the spotlight effect. And um, he's put himself in this chicken suit. He's wearing a chicken hat. He's got a whole chicken thing on and he's talking about it and he goes, to be honest, most people don't care. Like I'm walking down the street right now in a chicken suit. And most people aren't watching me. And they had another camera showing the reactions of people walking by or riding by. And maybe he'd get like a glance of someone being like, huh, what is this guy doing with a camera and a chicken suit?

• 1:14:35Lewis Howes?

  And then he would make a point of like, okay, even if they are looking for a second, they're turning around and they're going towards their destination and they're probably not going to remember this. They're not going to sit there and like point a finger and laugh at you all day and all year long. Even if it's for a moment of like humiliation. They're on thinking about their own lives. So let it go. Keep focusing on your own thing was kind of the premise of it, which I thought was interesting. Um, okay. So you're talking about getting clarity would be the first one. Learning to overcome fear. Would there be one other way to overcome procrastination in your mind?

• 1:15:07Ali Abdaal?

  One other way is um, just getting over that first, that hurdle of inertia. And my favorite thing for this is uh, this is, you know, the, the five minute rule. Just convince yourself you're only going to do the thing for five minutes. So back, back when I had a, an actual desk, um, I would have a five minute hourglass on my desk at all times. And when I found myself procrastinating from something, I'd think, you know what? I'll just turn the hourglass over and just do it for five minutes. And usually I, I forgot that I even had, had an hourglass because the time would just go and I'd be doing the thing. Sometimes I'd be like, okay, I'm really not feeling it. And then I would give myself permission to just not do it.

• 1:15:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I don't want to do it. Yeah, I did five minutes, I'm done.

• 1:15:44Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, five minutes is a win. That's good. It's like finding the win in, and the, and as easy a way as possible. But like eighty-five percent of the time, probably I would just continue doing the thing. And I found the five minute rule to be really good in beating procrastination. This is also why I, this is kind of random, but um, I like finding songs that are exactly five minutes. Bohemian Rhapsody is a song that is basically exactly five minutes. So you can even put on Bohemian Rhapsody and you could be like, for the duration of this song, I'm going to do this thing. I often think in terms of like song length, like um, I, you know, most songs like three, three minutes, three and a half minutes. Sometimes I'll tell themselves, I'll, I'll tell myself, you know what? My room's a bit of a mess right now. My desk is a bit right now. I'm just going to give myself a song and in that song, I'm going to save as much as I can.

• 1:16:26Ali Abdaal?

  And I would put on like my favorite, like Rule the World by Take That or like The Greatest Day or like something by OneRepublic. It's like upbeat and uplifting. As soon as the song's over, I'm done. But you can make so much progress with tidying your desk in three minutes.

• 1:16:37Lewis Howes?

  So much.

• 1:16:38Ali Abdaal?

  And it becomes a game. It becomes fun. It becomes less of a chore.

• 1:16:41Lewis Howes?

  And you might also feel like, okay, I'm, I'm halfway done. Let me finish this.

• 1:16:44Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, sometimes I'd be like, yeah, I would go on to the next song, Spotify autoplay. It's like, it knows the vibe that you're going for with one song, so move on to the next one. Yeah.

• 1:16:52Lewis Howes?

  One of the things I, I really respect about you is that you've read a ton of books in the last fifteen, twenty years. And I think you have like a photographic memory. You memorize like almost all the key insights from every book you've ever read, I think is what I, is that something like that?

• 1:17:06Ali Abdaal?

  I, I wish I had a photographic memory, but.

• 1:17:08Lewis Howes?

  But you were, you have a great memory.

• 1:17:09Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:10Lewis Howes?

  And you remember a lot of things. Like you could, you could recall like three things from probably most books you've read.

• 1:17:15Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, it's also because I make videos about them. I think this is the thing, it's like when like.

• 1:17:21Ali Abdaal?

  In 2016, when I started my blog, I was like, huh, I've read a lot of these books and I remember all from what I've read. So why don't I just make these little articles where I write some lessons that I've learned from the things?

• 1:17:30Lewis Howes?

  That helps you remember them.

• 1:17:31Ali Abdaal?

  Helps me remember. Yeah, it means that I'm thinking greatness mindset. What was the lessons? GPA, meaningful mission, the three Ps. That was the thing that you said. What was it? It was, that was a really good Seth Godin quote. I'm like, oh, I need to go back and find this Seth Godin quote. I think it was about like the process and like doing things for 7,500 times or something like that. I was like, that was some good. And then there were the five Ps, priority, I can't remember the five P. Okay, I need to go back and look at that. It's like, as I'm reminding myself of these things, because I'm making a video about the book or writing a newsletter about the book or whatever, like sharing something makes you way more likely to learn it yourself. And so even if it's just sharing it on Facebook or sharing it on Instagram, like one of the things I'm very bullish on is just people sharing the things they've learned purely selfishly because it helps you remember it yourself.

• 1:18:14Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah, of course. That's cool. So sharing these things. You have a video that a lot of people loved, which is about what really makes people successful. I'm curious, from all the studies, all the research, the interviews you've done, the videos you've made, the books you've read, your own personal experience, what do you think really makes people successful?

• 1:18:35Ali Abdaal?

  My answer to this has actually changed over time.

• 1:18:39Ali Abdaal?

  My answer to this now, like,

• 1:18:44Ali Abdaal?

  when I started, when I started this process of like doing these videos and stuff,

• 1:18:49Ali Abdaal?

  I wouldn't have had a good answer for this. I would have said like, oh, success is all like very personal and like, who knows? Who's to say that money success is actual, actual success and things like that? And I don't know, someone just doing what they want maybe is what makes them successful? And my answer is still that, but it's a bit more refined. It's the thing that makes people successful is knowing what they want and actually just working towards it. Knowing what they want and working towards it and adjusting course along the way. And it's just that thing of like GPS and goal plan system. If you have a goal, you have a plan, you have a system to follow the plan, and you just change the plan if it's not working, you're going to be successful. And

• 1:19:24Ali Abdaal?

  This is not successful in terms of like you have to make all this money or you have to whatever, get a six pack abs. It's success in terms of whatever you want it to be. That's why the subtitle of the book is how to do more of what matters to you. To me, success is knowing what matters to you and then just doing the thing.

• 1:19:37Lewis Howes?

  Doing more of it.

• 1:19:37Ali Abdaal?

  Doing more of it or like working towards it. And there's this thing, I think Huberman's been talking about this recently. It's, it's not the pursuit of happiness. It's the happiness of pursuit. When you're pursuing something that you actually enjoy and that's meaningful to you, that is, that's, that's literally the pinnacle of life.

• 1:19:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Ali Abdaal?

  I know people, I'm sure you know people who've sold companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. They're miserable once they sell the company. They were happier working towards the goal. And they all start new companies because they're like, either they start companies or they start podcasts. That's their thing or they write self-help books.

• 1:20:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:08Ali Abdaal?

  Cause it's like.

• 1:20:08Lewis Howes?

  They need some new pursuit.

• 1:20:10Ali Abdaal?

  They need some new pursuit. The pursuit is what creates happiness. The pursuit is what creates that feeling of, I'm, I'm, a feeling of success.

• 1:20:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, before I used to be a type of guy that always wanted to achieve my goals. And I achieved a lot of them, you know, from sports to business to whatever it might be. Different milestones that I had from my teens and twenties and thirties. And I would accomplish a lot of them. And I realized that wasn't the thing that made me feel peaceful and fulfilled. Accomplishing it was fun. It was cool, but it wasn't like now I feel better about myself. It increased some confidence, but it also made me realize, oh, I still have sadness and pain and suffering inside. So this isn't the answer to being peaceful and joyful and fulfilled and happy.

• 1:20:57Lewis Howes?

  And I started to, when I, and I started to go on my healing journey and really kind of like dissecting the past and creating different stories about my past and finding meaning from the past and having harmony around it. I started to set different goals and actually realize it doesn't matter if I accomplish this goal. What matters is what I do every day on the pursuit in the past. Like, did I show up doing what I said I was going to do for myself and for others? Was I consistent in my ways of being? Did I respond well, you know, my majority of the times, I'm not a perfect human being, but did I respond well in situations that were frustrating or triggering? Did I care about other peoples? Did I, did I want other people to succeed?

• 1:21:39Lewis Howes?

  And did I do my best to empower them and give them tools and trainings to succeed? Did I show up with good attitude, good energy, you know, majority of the time? Did I? Did I make it about others and not about me, all these different things? And if I accomplish the goal, cool. But if I don't accomplish the goal, can I still be proud of who I was and how I showed up every single day? And that makes me feel good. Now, part of my ego wants to say, ah, but if you don't accomplish the goal, you're a loser. Right? Part of me wants to think that. And that's part of the reason why I've created such big goals, because I'm like, it might take me 10 years. I don't know.

• 1:22:18Lewis Howes?

  But what I can create in the, in the path and who I've become in that path is going to be so much greater than the actual accomplishment. And I think if we start thinking that way about who we're becoming.

• 1:22:30Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:30Lewis Howes?

  And how we're showing up and how we're being on a day to day basis, we'll be a lot happier with who we are. So that's what I think about. Like, I want to accomplish all my goals. I want to hit my financial numbers. I want our team to grow. I want, you know, all these things. I want to have, be healthy, but it's also like, if it doesn't happen, you know, what can I control? And how can I just be consistent with that every day?

• 1:22:52Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, I think people, people think that success makes you feel good, but it's actually that feeling good makes you successful.

• 1:22:59Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:00Ali Abdaal?

  You can feel good every day of the thing. And like, crucially, like, I think, again, this is.

• 1:23:07Lewis Howes?

  Because there's no point in being super successful, rich and famous, if you don't feel good.

• 1:23:11Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:12Lewis Howes?

  Like.

• 1:23:12Ali Abdaal?

  What's the point?

• 1:23:12Lewis Howes?

  What is the point of working that hard to get those things if you still don't feel good about you?

• 1:23:17Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:17Lewis Howes?

  But feeling good will just make you successful in terms of, it doesn't matter if you have those things or not, because you feel good about you.

• 1:23:24Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, 100%.

• 1:23:25Lewis Howes?

  And people, you usually will attract good people around you.

• 1:23:28Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, and you're also more likely to be productive and creative and less stressed, feel, feel good.

• 1:23:32Lewis Howes?

  And more financially successful, whatever it is.

• 1:23:34Ali Abdaal?

  Like, all the good things happen when you can just focus on the process and focus on enjoying it.

• 1:23:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:23:38Ali Abdaal?

  And, you know, it's, it's useful to have an idea of what you want. Like, you know, as you said, you have these goals, but the way I think of goals is it's not about the goal. The point of the goal is to set your direction. It's like, I'm, I'm not fixated on the destination, but at least I know what direction I'm heading in. Because otherwise, you know, we all have so many options. Anyone listening to this has a ton of options in their life, even if you feel like you don't have any options right now. Compared to someone who's not able to listen to this podcast, you have a ton of options objectively.

• 1:24:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:24:04Ali Abdaal?

  But, and a lot of uncertainty and anxiety comes from this thing of like, I could go in this direction or that direction or this direction or that direction. But one of the best pieces of advice I got in medical school was from one of my, one of the senior colleagues who I really looked up to. And he said, this was around the time, I think it was like four years in out of the six year course. And around that time, people started asking you, what do you want to specialize in? What specialty you want to go for? And you don't need to decide until like six years later, but people, people, people, people kept asking. And this guy asked me, Dr. Adcock, Chris, so Chris, so Chris asked me, what specialty do you want to go into? And I was like, oh, I'm not sure, like, you know, I've got some time to decide. And it was like, okay, but one piece of advice is that it's much easier to steer a moving ship than a stationary ship. So what he said was, I'd recommend you just pick a specialty and start working towards it.

• 1:24:49Ali Abdaal?

  And you can always change your mind.

• 1:24:50Lewis Howes?

  If you don't like it, then you can steer it in the direction.

• 1:24:52Ali Abdaal?

  And I was like, huh, okay, Chris, sure, I'll do that. So I picked plastic surgery and I just started working towards it. And tons of good shit starting happening in my life when I started working towards that. Now I got connected with these cool plastic surgeons. I became the web designer for this really cool like charity that does like reconstructive surgery in developing countries. I joined these hackathons where my skills with computer programming, combined with this plastic surgery stuff, I made friends along the way. And ultimately realized, actually, now I've met a lot of plastic surgeons, don't think it's a life for me. But what I really like is I, I, I love the, I love the emergency side of things. I mean, maybe I want to go into anesthesiology, anesthetics, as we call it. And it's like moving in that direction allowed me to steer the ship. And I think that's the point of goals. The point of goals is it just gives you a direction to head in and it gives you a path. And you can ask yourself, is this the right path?

• 1:25:36Ali Abdaal?

  Am I, am I on the path towards the goal? And do I want to be on the path towards the goal? And either which way, it's okay. If you're not on the path to the goal and you want to be, it's like, cool, you changed something.

• 1:25:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:25:46Ali Abdaal?

  If you are on the path and you realize the goal is not what you want, you change the goal.

• 1:25:48Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:25:49Ali Abdaal?

  But either way, you're, you're making progress, you're moving. And it's, it's kind of weird. It's like, I have all the freedom in the world now. I can literally do whatever I want. I could not work a day in my life if I didn't want to and just live on a beach in Bali. But when I've been, when I've taken an extended break, it's kind of weird. When I've taken an extended break from not making YouTube videos, there's part of me that feels unfulfilled.

• 1:26:06Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 1:26:06Ali Abdaal?

  Because right now, my meaningful mission is to be able to learn, synthesize, share and teach.

• 1:26:10Lewis Howes?

  I love that.

• 1:26:10Ali Abdaal?

  And to me, right now, right now, that's in the format of YouTube videos, in the format of the book, in the format of the podcast. But the main thing is YouTube videos. That's the, that's the practice. That's the thing that I show up and I do every week. Where if I read something, I'll figure out a way to share it. If I blend something, I'll figure out a way to share it. If I, someone's asked a question, I'm like, hmm, I actually have a take on goal setting. You know, I'd find a way to share it in video. And I don't have to make a video every week. But there's something like when I'm, when I'm, it's like working out. When you're showing up to the gym regularly, you just feel better about yourself.

• 1:26:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:26:39Ali Abdaal?

  There's something about it of like, you're acting in a way that's consistent with your meaningful mission, with your identity, with, with who you want to be. You know, freedom ain't all that it's cracked up to be.

• 1:26:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:26:48Ali Abdaal?

  The point of freedom is to be able to do, do things that matter to you. And so you realize, I should just do the things that matter to me. And I would just feel way better.

• 1:26:56Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just having endless options.

• 1:26:58Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Ali Abdaal?

  Options, options are not that fun. Yeah, they're fun for a bit.

• 1:27:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not meaningful after a while.

• 1:27:03Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:04Lewis Howes?

  And feel good productivity, how to do more of what matters to you. Make sure you guys get a copy of this book. When you dropped the video of announcing it, I pre-ordered it right away. And there's so much wisdom in here, so much great information that people can use on how to be more productive, feel more productive, and have more fun doing it.

• 1:27:25Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:25Lewis Howes?

  And that's really the key. I don't think it's about like grinding and working so hard and hustling to where you feel exhausted, drained and burnt out. That's not what people want. They want to feel productive. They want to feel like they're maximizing time and that they're enjoying their time while doing it. So that's what feel good productivity teaches you and shows you how to do by Ali Abdaal, the world's most followed productivity expert. So make sure you guys check out a copy of this book. I would say get a couple of copies for your friends, family members, people that maybe feel stressed out and overwhelmed right now. Give them this so they have some tools and frameworks on how to apply their time differently to their life and their work and feel good about it.

• 1:28:06Lewis Howes?

  What else do we need to know about burnout, productivity, hustle culture, making money online? What else is on your heart and mind right now that you feel like if people knew this one thing, if they truly knew this one thing, their life would be better, more meaningful, and they would feel abundant versus overwhelmed and stressed?

• 1:28:30Ali Abdaal?

  I would say, when it comes to making money.

• 1:28:35Ali Abdaal?

  If you can get to a point, and this is accessible to literally anyone. If you can get to a point where the money you're making on the side covers your expenses, that unlocks a ridiculous amount of freedom for you. It gives you the freedom to quit your job if you want. It gives you the freedom to cut down your hours on your job if you want. A lot of people enjoy their jobs, but maybe you don't enjoy it for 60 hours a week. Maybe you'd enjoy it for 20 hours a week. Gives you the option to go part-time, gives the option to go freelance, gives you many, many, many options. Getting to the point where the money you make on the side covers your expenses. I think that should be a goal for everyone in life because it just changes your life. It gives you so much freedom. It means you're more anti-fragile. It means that if a pandemic strikes and people are losing their jobs, you're not that concerned because you're making the money on the side.

• 1:29:16Ali Abdaal?

  It teaches you so many skills because to become the sort of person who makes 2 or 3K on the side requires you to have so many, to develop so many skills that are going to change your life and they're going to make you more valuable to employers in the future. If that's what you care about, they'll give you more self-esteem because now you've learned all these new skills and literally anyone can do it with the power of the internet and the powers of reading a couple of books. That is incredible. Beyond that point, beyond the point where you're making enough money to buy your freedom, I would say don't fixate so much on the money. You know, you and I are rich objectively. We also know people who are way richer than us. Yes. It doesn't really buy more happiness beyond the freedom that it buys initially. Maybe you get a slightly nicer house in a slightly nicer area of LA for an extra 5 million or whatever the thing might be.

• 1:29:59Ali Abdaal?

  But I think beyond the point, if I had my time again, I'd be doing whatever I could to get to, you know, Noah Kagan calls it the freedom number. Oh, you're about to interview him. He calls it the freedom number. Get to the point where you're making enough money to feel free. At that point, stop worrying so much about the money and focus on doing a process consistently that provides value to others that you enjoy and you can find a way to enjoy because then the money will take care of itself. Yes. That first hurdle, that freedom number that Noah talks about, that's so important. It will change your life to have enough money coming in on the side to pay your expenses. I love this. And it seems out of touch for some people. People can be like, oh, you don't know my circumstances. Okay, fine, I don't know your circumstances. I know plenty of people who have been from terrible circumstances who have managed to find that and find and make it happen. There's no shortage of stories on the internet and podcasts and books of people who have done it.

• 1:30:43Ali Abdaal?

  If someone else can do it, you can as well. There's always a way if you decide it's a priority for you.

• 1:30:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:30:48Ali Abdaal?

  If you don't, that's okay. But personally, you and I can attest to it. It's so nice having enough money to not worry about paying bills.

• 1:30:53Lewis Howes?

  It's really nice.

• 1:30:54Ali Abdaal?

  It's so nice to be able to do what you love rather than drive trucks for six hours or for six years or be kind of be a doctor in a way that's not.

• 1:31:02Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Yeah, not that being, you know, being a doctor, if that's meaningful for you, then that's a great life.

• 1:31:07Ali Abdaal?

  Exactly.

• 1:31:07Lewis Howes?

  Driving a truck is meaningful to you. That's a great life. It wasn't the path that I felt called to do at that time. Same with you. It was originally, but then the path shifted.

• 1:31:16Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah, and that's okay.

• 1:31:16Lewis Howes?

  And that's okay, too.

• 1:31:19Lewis Howes?

  And also, again, we both know a lot of people who have way more money than us, who are way more stressed out, overwhelmed, exhausted, unhealthy, have horrible relationships.

• 1:31:28Ali Abdaal?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:29Lewis Howes?

  And so it is nice to have more money than I did before. You know, it's nice to have money where I can pay for my own things as opposed to my sister. You know, sleeping on my sister's couch for a year and a half for free and living at my brother's place for $250 a month for six months and feeling like I couldn't take care of myself. So it is nice to be able to provide for self and others in different ways. But it doesn't mean there aren't other challenges and complications that you have to learn how to overcome with money. So we've both seen that as well. This is powerful, man. I want people to get the book, feel good productivity. Make sure you guys get a couple of copies. I asked you this question before, two and a half years ago, but I'm going to ask you again. Your three truths. So hypothetical question, imagining you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day.

• 1:32:15Lewis Howes?

  You've extended your life as long as you could go physically, but you got to turn the lights off. And you're out of this physical world and you get to create everything you want for your life. All your dreams come true. You feel good every day. You do meaningful work. You have beautiful life, relationships. Everything you want happens. But for whatever reason, you have to take all of your work with you. All your content, book, video, everything you make from here on out has to go with you to another place. No one has access to it anymore. But you get to leave behind three lessons. Everything you've learned from your existence, what I call three truths. What would be those three truths that you would want people to have access to?

• 1:32:56Ali Abdaal?

  Okay, the first one would be,

• 1:32:59Ali Abdaal?

  success comes to those who figure out where they want to go and keep moving in that direction.

• 1:33:08Ali Abdaal?

  Number two would be,

• 1:33:11Ali Abdaal?

  on the route to success,

• 1:33:14Ali Abdaal?

  remember to take care of your health and relationships because they matter far more than your work. And number three would be,

• 1:33:23Ali Abdaal?

  and whatever you do, remember to enjoy the journey along the way.

• 1:33:27Lewis Howes?

  I love those. I feel like there's been a big shift in you over the last few years, you know, and you're, I think a lot of people might look at you and see this analytical, really intelligent, productive master. But I've noticed, getting to know you, you know, you tap into emotions and feelings and reflecting on these things. And I think it's really beautiful to see that transition of kind of blending both, like the analytical mind and like the the genius in you that's like creative and productive and launching and building with someone who's also reflecting and taking time to

• 1:34:06Lewis Howes?

  go to a retreat or, you know, journal and really, you know, our therapy or coaching or whatever it might be and start reflecting inward as well. As opposed to just thinking of like, how can I be as hyper productive as possible? So I want to acknowledge you, Ali, for the journey you've been on since I've gotten to know you in the last couple of years, for tapping into your, your heart, your emotions, not letting them consume or control you, but allowing you to feel and experience the beauty and the wonder and the awe of life as well. As well as being, you know, productive and creative and and building what you're building. So I really acknowledge you for the journey, man. It's fun to watch you evolve. And I acknowledge you for everything that's happening in your life. And all the beautiful things

• 1:34:50Lewis Howes?

  behind the scenes that I'll, that I'll keep private between us that I know are happening as well, man. So I want to acknowledge you for that. And again, I want people to get the book, Feel Good Productivity. Final question for you, Ali, is what is your definition of greatness?

• 1:35:04Ali Abdaal?

  The thing for me, the definition of greatness is working towards what truly matters to you and having fun along the way.

• 1:35:12Lewis Howes?

  I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend, leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter

• 1:35:55Lewis Howes?

  and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.