I Met Ali Abdaal - My Key Lessons

Hey guys, it’s Noah here.

Yesterday, I went to Harry Potter Studios in Watford. It was amazing. The fact I work for myself is great, it means I can do random stuff like that on a weekday. 😂

Anyway, the day before, I attended an exclusive event for creators. At this event, Ali Abdaal gave an interview live on stage to around 150, to celebrate his book launch. 👇

I have been a big fan of Ali for years, so hearing him live and meeting him in person afterwards felt like a big deal.

Ali was a huge help when I was a student in helping me learn revision techniques. Ali later helped me learn a lot about productivity. Now he is my go-to guy for business, lifestyle and personal growth advice.

1) Often, you don’t intend on becoming the person you end up becoming…

Ali talked in length about how he never intended to become the ‘world’s leading productivity expert’. In fact, when he started on YouTube, he intended to become a singer-songwriter YouTuber 😂

Yet somehow, Ali started making revision advice content for medical students. These videos took off. Ali then pivoted to also making tech content. Shortly after, he focused on ‘productivity content’ - this was what took him to the next level.

Ali mentioned various other people such as James Clear (who wrote ‘Atomic Habits’), and Ryan Holiday (who founded ‘Daily Stoic’). Both these people never intended to become the people they ended up being known as. They both started in completely different fields.

I can relate to this too. When I started on YouTube I made Minecraft videos. I then made short movies, then vlogs… the list goes on. 😂 I never would have predicted I would be making TikTok about personal finance and life advice as my career at 19 years old.

And who knows, in the future (just like all of the guys mentioned above) I might pivot to something completely new? The niche I make content about on social media may change significantly.

The main takeaway from this is to never limit yourself to doing “one thing”.

Always be open to change in your life and your career when the opportunity arises. Follow your passions and interests, explore new ideas, and see where you go.

The job you do now could be completely different in the next 1-5 years. Especially in today’s world. Nowadays, it’s so easy to change and pivot what you do as a career.

So don’t limit yourself, and keep your options open.

2) Be realistic

A lady asked Ali a question during the Q&A:

“I have a side legal consultancy business on the side but my passion is to help empower women. How can I make a full-time income from my mental health, and positivity for women's social media page?”

Ali replied, “How much do you make from your side business as a lawyer?”.

The woman replied, “$5-$10K per month”.

In a split second, Ali replied: “You need to keep on using that side ‘legal consultancy business’ to fund your life. Keep the social media side of things as a passion project”.

Ali explained how her niche would be very difficult to monetise and make a serious full-time income from. Ali said she would make a bigger impact through her social media by not putting pressure on herself to use social media to earn enough money for her to live on. Instead, she should just make the social media thing a fulfilling passion project.

This was honest advice that taught an important lesson…

In life, following a “passion” won’t always make you money. You have to be realistic and have a serious business plan that will make you money.

Having a goal like “helping people” or “getting views” is not sustainable in the long term. Without a realistic plan or way you can make money whilst doing these things, these goals will simply die as they are not practical and you will end up broke.

So if you start something, without asking the important question “How do I make money from this?”, you are starting something that will be unsustainable.

3) Don’t start a podcast… 😂

During the Q&A, another woman asked Ali.

“I am thinking of starting a podcast. What do you think about the future of podcasts?”.

For context, Ali has an uber-successful podcast where he interviews very successful people.

However, Ali’s response was (again) very realistic, honest and blunt.

“My advice with podcasts is to not start a podcast”.

He then went into great detail about how difficult podcasts are to grow and how expensive they are to produce in terms of money and time. He mentioned how they are one of the hardest things to grow organically, as (unless you already have a big profile) it’s almost impossible to get your show noticed.

Interestingly, Ali referenced Steven Bareltt’s podcast Diary of a CEO podcast (one of the world’s biggest podcasts). Ali explained how he thought Steven must be losing money on that podcast, as he saw no realistic way he could be making a return on all of the money he was putting into that podcast.

I get lots of my followers and friends telling me they are thinking of starting a podcast. But I agree with Ali. Unless this is a passion project where you won’t care how it performs, it’s not worth it. Start making videos on social media as the potential reach you can get is insanely faster and easier.

I hope you found my takeaways interesting!

• If you have any thoughts, please reply to this email. I reply to every single email reply this gets :)

• You can get Ali’s new book ‘Feel Good Productivity’ here.

See you next time!

Noah x