Why I Left Medicine... Forever - Ali Abdaal
dailymotion.com/arshian
How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y
My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4
My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty
My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78
My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2
If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm
The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y
How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6
How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42
How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm
Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252
How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8
How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78
dailymotion.com/arshian
How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y
My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4
My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty
My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78
My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2
If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm
The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y
How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6
How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42
How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm
Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252
How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8
How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00All right, so I have been agonizing about this
00:03for many, many months,
00:04but I think I'm finally at the point
00:06where I can comfortably admit to myself and to you guys
00:08that I'm gonna be leaving medicine for good.
00:10So in this video, we're gonna have a little bit of a chat
00:11around the thought process behind this decision.
00:14And we're gonna talk about some of the main factors
00:15that came into it,
00:16like the fear about leaving medicine
00:18in the middle of a pandemic,
00:19the fear of spending eight years going through medical
00:22and working as a doctor to then quit medicine,
00:24the fear around will anyone still continue to care
00:26about my YouTube videos
00:27if I lose this badge of prestige of being a doctor?
00:29We'll talk a bit about how I'm getting over
00:32the fact that I'm now a selfish twat
00:33for leaving the medical profession and saving lives
00:35for the sake of making these silly internet videos.
00:37And we'll talk a bit about how things like money,
00:39fame, fulfillment, status, and impact,
00:41and helping people,
00:42all of that kind of ties into this decision.
00:44So this is gonna be a quite long,
00:49a quite long and quite rambly video.
00:51It's probably not gonna be useful directly.
00:53It's not like a listicle
00:54of how to be more productive or things like that.
00:55But I'm hoping that if you're interested
00:57in the thought process behind the stuff,
00:58if you're at the crossroads
01:00of making a big career decision in your life as well,
01:02or maybe even a life decision,
01:03you might find some of the mental models
01:05that I've been going through,
01:06maybe helpful, maybe not.
01:08I don't know.
01:08Let me know in the comments,
01:09whatever you think, either way.
01:10All right, let's start with part one of the video,
01:11which I guess is taking a step back,
01:12zooming out a bit,
01:13and thinking about what is the purpose of work.
01:16And the way I see it,
01:17there's broadly five different things that we work
01:21for the sake of, the first one is money.
01:24We need to work to make money.
01:25The next one is having fun.
01:27The third one is helping people.
01:29The fourth one is some combination of like purpose
01:31and meaning and that kind of stuff.
01:33And the fifth one,
01:34which is a very sort of unsexy thing
01:35that we probably wouldn't admit to ourselves
01:37is social status associated with the job that we have.
01:42Okay, let's start by talking about the money thing.
01:44So obviously we all need money to survive.
01:46And money is a big part of why we go to work for things.
01:50Bear with me.
01:51I'm kind of going zoomed out here,
01:52but I wanna kind of keep these five things in mind
01:54as to the point of work
01:56as I talk about the decision to leave medicine ultimately.
01:59So we all need money to survive.
02:00And as Vicky Robbins would say in the book,
02:02"'Your Money or Your Life,"
02:03which is very good to people who read it,
02:05she would argue that actually the only thing
02:08we get from work is money.
02:10Yes, we get other things from work.
02:11We get these things that we're talking about,
02:12fun, helping people, purpose, meaning, social status,
02:14all that kind of stuff.
02:15But she argues that we can get all of these things
02:18if we just volunteer.
02:19Like you can get fun and purpose and meaning
02:21and social vibes and fulfillment
02:22and all that kind of stuff
02:23from volunteering at your local church
02:24or helping out with a charity without getting paid for it.
02:27And the only thing that makes it work
02:28is the fact that you are being paid for it.
02:30So that's like an interesting way of seeing the money thing.
02:34And obviously for some people in the world,
02:35like the only reason they are going to work
02:36is to make money and having fun, helping people,
02:39having meaning, having impact, that kind of stuff.
02:41It is all like a privilege once you've gotten to the point
02:43where you've ticked the box of,
02:44okay, I'm making enough money from my job to make ends meet.
02:46And so over the last few months,
02:48as I've been thinking,
02:48do I wanna continue to be a doctor?
02:50Money is not a factor for continuing to be a doctor
02:52because in the UK, doctors don't get paid very much.
02:55And the sort of money that I can make
02:56doing this YouTube thing is astronomically higher
02:58than the sort of money
02:59that I could feasibly be making as a doctor.
03:01Now, this is obviously a super privileged position to be in.
03:03Most people don't really have that option
03:05where they can just quit their job
03:06because they've got the option
03:07for making more money further down the line.
03:09But that is something that ties into it.
03:10But then people always say, well, okay,
03:11being a doctor isn't just about the money.
03:13It is also about the other stuff
03:15associated with being a doctor.
03:16And the reason we go to work is not just for money,
03:17it's also for fun, satisfaction,
03:19helping people, professional intellect, like learning,
03:22all of those kinds of reasons,
03:23which ties into these other four things
03:25that we're gonna talk about.
03:26So the next reason as to why we go to work
03:27or why we have careers,
03:28if we ignore the money thing, is to have fun.
03:31Maybe fun is too simplistic a word.
03:32Maybe you prefer the word satisfaction or enjoyment
03:34or pleasure or anything like that.
03:36I like the word fun because it really, I don't know,
03:38it's kind of simple, I like simple words.
03:39And there's a few different types of fun
03:40that we can get in the work.
03:42For some of us, the work that we do is genuinely fun.
03:44Like intrinsically, we enjoy the work so much
03:46that it is actually fun going to work.
03:48For some of us, the work itself may not be inherently fun,
03:50like going through a spreadsheet is not inherently fun,
03:52but the banter that we have with our coworkers
03:54and the good vibes and the fact
03:56that all our friends are at work, that's what makes it fun.
03:58For some of us, it's the fact
03:59that work is an intellectual challenge.
04:00This is a nice thing within medicine.
04:01It is quite an intellectual
04:02and there is some element of lifelong learning.
04:04You get to improve your skills, you get to be better,
04:06you get to have a sense of progression.
04:07All of these things add up in various ways
04:10to give this kind of concept of fun,
04:13that I enjoy my job, I enjoy my work.
04:15And honestly, when it came to my decision to leave medicine,
04:17the fun bit was like a pretty large one
04:20because I genuinely did enjoy the job.
04:22Like it was quite fun.
04:23I enjoy the banter with the coworkers.
04:24I enjoy talking to patients.
04:25I enjoy learning the science part.
04:27I enjoy taking blood.
04:27I enjoyed those aspects of the job.
04:30There were lots of aspects of the job that I didn't enjoy.
04:31Like I didn't enjoy, like the fact
04:33that it was a full-time job,
04:34the fact that you have to struggle to take time off
04:36when you wanna take time off,
04:37the lack of autonomy that you sometimes have
04:39as a junior doctor, but overall,
04:41I actually had a pretty good time working
04:43as a doctor for two years.
04:44And so for a while, I was genuinely thinking,
04:46okay, this YouTube thing is really cool.
04:47I love the entrepreneurship stuff.
04:48I love the teaching stuff,
04:50but I also really quite enjoy medicine.
04:51And so what if I just do the medicine thing part-time?
04:53And so I made a video earlier in March,
04:55in March this year, where I talked about
04:56how I'm going back into medicine part-time.
04:58And I did try it.
04:59I tried a few shifts.
05:00I tried working in medicine part-time,
05:01but I couldn't shake the feeling
05:03that every day I was in the hospital,
05:04I was thinking, okay, hour by hour,
05:06this is just nowhere near as fun as I would be having,
05:08as much fun as I'd be having
05:09if I were hanging out in the studio,
05:11hanging out with the team, doing this YouTube thing,
05:13doing the internet thing, reading, writing.
05:15I could imagine doing so many things
05:17other than being in a hospital,
05:19treating patients in the emergency department.
05:20And that's just me.
05:21Like maybe if you're a doctor watching this
05:23or a medical student, maybe you do genuinely find it fun.
05:25And if you won the lottery,
05:26you would still continue to work in the emergency department
05:28or whatever specialty you're doing.
05:29And if that's the position that you're in,
05:30then that's absolutely fantastic.
05:31The point of this video is not to convince anyone else
05:33to leave medicine.
05:34I'm just explaining the reasons
05:35why I personally leaving medicine
05:37and the fun aspect of it.
05:39Even though medicine is fun,
05:40the other things that I'm not doing on the internet
05:42are more fun.
05:43And so fun is now not a factor to stay in medicine.
05:46All right, so now we move on
05:47to big daddy number three, helping people.
05:49Helping people is for some people,
05:50a big part of why they do the work that they do allegedly.
05:53But when it comes to helping people,
05:54I like to separate it out into two factors
05:57that I think are actually going on here.
05:59So that's firstly the personal joy
06:03that I get from helping people,
06:06which is one part of it.
06:08And then there is the actual helping of the people.
06:12Now, what do I mean by this?
06:13So let's say I am an investment banker
06:16and I make, I don't know, $10,000 an hour.
06:18And let's say I volunteer at the local soup kitchen
06:22because I'm like, I wanna help people.
06:23For that particular investment banker,
06:25they're not actually helping that many people
06:26by volunteering at the soup kitchen.
06:28And if they wanted to genuinely help people,
06:30they could just put in an extra few hours at work,
06:32make $20,000 and then donate that money to the soup kitchen
06:36to allow the soup kitchen to hire a bunch more people,
06:38to help a bunch more people.
06:39The investment banker has far more actual impact
06:42if they just donate their money
06:43than if they donate their time
06:45because them ladling soup in a soup kitchen
06:47is actually not a very effective use of their time
06:48given that they could be making $10,000 an hour,
06:50hypothetically.
06:51But it doesn't feel as good.
06:52It feels pretty good to volunteer in a soup kitchen.
06:53It feels good to be able to help that person
06:55who's in front of you.
06:56And I think it's kind of the same thing in medicine.
06:58Same for me, same for basically every doctor I've spoken to.
07:01There is a personal joy that we get
07:02from helping the patient in front of us.
07:04But if we think about it,
07:05is it potentially the most impactful thing
07:08that we could be doing with our time?
07:09A friend of mine runs a charity, a public health charity,
07:12trying to eliminate lead poisoning from the developing world.
07:14She has quit being a doctor in terms of clinical medicine
07:17because she recognizes that the impact
07:18of helping an individual patient one at a time,
07:21it's all well and good.
07:21It's fantastic.
07:22And the impact on an individual is great.
07:24But if you care about moving the needle
07:26in terms of eliminating these things
07:28that cause huge problems like lead poisoning
07:30contributing 1% to the global burden of disease
07:32or massive things like malaria or schistosomiasis
07:35that kill thousands if not millions of people
07:37all around the world,
07:37an individual working on those things
07:39has far more real lives saved type of impact
07:43even though it doesn't feel as warm and fuzzy
07:44to donate money to the Against Malaria Foundation
07:46as it does to sit there in front of an actual patient
07:48or as it does to volunteer at a soup kitchen.
07:50And so for me, when it came to my decision
07:52for leaving medicine,
07:53I realized that the whole helping people thing,
07:56it's kind of a bit muddy in the water.
07:59Am I doing medicine
08:01because I enjoy the personal satisfaction
08:03of helping someone who's in front of me
08:04or am I doing medicine because I think
08:05the thing that I do actually has impact.
08:08And the way that I've become okay with this
08:09is recognizing that mostly actually
08:11it was the personal fulfillment
08:13because if I actually cared about impact,
08:15people have done studies that show how many lives
08:17an individual doctor saves in the course of their life.
08:19And depending on what estimates you look at,
08:20some say it's about seven lives.
08:21Some say it's about 28 lives, 30 lives,
08:23something like that.
08:24But it doesn't take into account the fact
08:25that if I were not a doctor,
08:27the next other, like someone else will take my place.
08:29It's not like I'm working in Sub-Saharan Africa
08:31where there's like one doctor for every 10,000 people.
08:34And so me leaving medicine
08:36means that these 10,000 people are without a doctor.
08:38In the UK, in most developed countries
08:40and things that even like the National Health Service
08:41in the UK, there are enough doctors going around
08:44in the specialties that I'd be interested in
08:45such as like emergency medicine,
08:46where if I wasn't a doctor,
08:47if I didn't get into training in emergency medicine,
08:49the next person would have done.
08:51And so the system overall does not lose a doctor.
08:54And also, even if it did,
08:55when it comes to a developed world system,
08:57it's really the system that saves lives
08:59rather than the amazing prowess of an individual doctor.
09:03Yes, maybe if you're the world expert
09:04on some niche condition
09:05and you're the only person in the world
09:06or one of the very few handful of experts
09:08who can solve the thing,
09:09then you are having counterfactual impact.
09:12You as an individual are genuinely making a difference.
09:13If you're a surgeon operating on this thing
09:15which is really difficult
09:16that maybe other surgeons couldn't operate on,
09:18you as an individual surgeon
09:19are actually making a difference.
09:19But in the place that I was as a junior doctor,
09:21two years fresh out of med school,
09:23there was nothing special
09:24that I was offering to the medical profession
09:25other than the fact that I was a doctor
09:28two years out of med school.
09:29I wasn't particularly special.
09:30And so maybe if I'd continued training for 20, 30 years,
09:32I'd have become special.
09:33But at this stage of my life,
09:35I felt I wasn't having any real impact
09:37that me as an individual could have working in medicine.
09:40And the real reason that I kept at it
09:41was because of this personal joy and satisfaction
09:43of helping people,
09:44which the way I kind of think of the world
09:46in a fairly utilitarian sense,
09:47it didn't really justify it.
09:49I would rather not have the feeling of satisfaction
09:52and cause more impact
09:54than I would have a feeling of satisfaction
09:56and not have that impact, if that makes sense.
09:58So we'll come back to this idea of helping people.
10:01The other reasons why people do work
10:03is beyond the money, beyond the helping people,
10:05beyond the fun,
10:06it's this idea of purpose and meaning
10:08that we get from our jobs.
10:10And in a lot of parts of the world,
10:11we identify a large amount of purpose and meaning
10:13from the thing that we do for our job.
10:15I think there's a few different elements of this.
10:17There's one, just the idea
10:18that it gives us something to do with our time.
10:19And there's a bunch of studies, a bunch of evidence
10:21that shows that when people retire
10:22or when people become unemployed,
10:23they're more likely to go into depression
10:24because now they have nothing to do.
10:26And sitting around at home all day
10:27is actually just not that fun.
10:28Secondly, there's the idea of progression and purpose
10:30and a sense of growth.
10:31And when you're in like a medical training thing,
10:33you have this like sense of progression.
10:34You're like, yep, I'm learning things all the time
10:36and I'm working towards something.
10:38And that contributes a profound sense of purpose
10:40and meaning to our lives.
10:41And this was another part
10:42of what kept me in medicine for so long.
10:43Well, I say long, it was only two years,
10:45but what kept me in medicine
10:46and thinking about it for such a long time,
10:47because it does genuinely feel meaningful
10:49and feels like, yes, I'm working towards this thing
10:51and I have a sense of purpose.
10:52But then I started like really thinking about
10:54what do I actually wanna do with my life?
10:55What are the things that mean that value to me?
10:57What are my values?
10:58That kind of stuff.
10:59And I came across this exercise
11:00called the gravestone technique,
11:01which is to imagine what would you want written
11:03on your gravestone when you're dead, obviously,
11:05rather than when you're alive.
11:07And I thought about this for a while
11:08and I realised for me,
11:09I've mentioned this a couple of videos for me,
11:10the three things that I would want written on my gravestone
11:13are some combination of good father,
11:15good husband, and good teacher.
11:17Like I care more about being a decent teacher
11:20than I do about saving lives as a doctor.
11:22So like that was one thing
11:23that was kind of interesting for me.
11:24And it's a question that I'd encourage you
11:25to think about as well.
11:26What do you actually want written on your gravestone?
11:27I also did this exercise called the ideal ordinary week,
11:30where I imagined, okay,
11:30what does my ideal ordinary week look like
11:33a year from now, two years from now,
11:34five years from now, 10 years from now?
11:36And can I just fast forward in my Google calendar
11:37and just block in what, like in a dream world,
11:40what would I be doing with my time?
11:41And I realised I was spending a bunch of time reading,
11:43a bunch of time writing, a bunch of time teaching.
11:45I love the idea of maybe teaching in a medical school,
11:47maybe teaching entrepreneurship.
11:48I love the idea of continuing to make videos,
11:49maybe on YouTube, maybe not, who knows.
11:51I love the idea of spending time with my friends,
11:52playing board games,
11:53maybe even volunteering for some like charity stuff.
11:55And I did this exercise and I realised that
11:58working as a doctor does not fit into this
12:00kind of conception of my life at all.
12:02And I kind of realised that
12:03the things that give our lives meaning and purpose,
12:06they vary for different people.
12:07And certainly for some of my friends,
12:08they do get a large amount of meaning and purpose
12:09from being a doctor.
12:10But when I really stopped and thought about the question
12:12of like what would actually bring my life fulfilment
12:14and purpose and meaning,
12:15it was more about this idea of being a teacher.
12:17And the stuff that I'm doing right now involves teaching.
12:20Like I'm teaching my YouTuber Academy, that's really fun.
12:21It feels really fulfilling.
12:22Teaching things on YouTube, writing a book,
12:24it is all teaching at scale.
12:26I would like to incorporate more real life teaching
12:28at some point.
12:29So it'd be really cool to, for example,
12:30teach medical physiology at a university.
12:32I did some of that when I was at Cambridge.
12:34That was really fun.
12:35You don't need to be practising clinical medicine.
12:36You don't need to be a doctor working on the front lines
12:38to be able to teach basic sciences.
12:41That was the thing I had to admit to myself
12:42that for me, my passion and fulfilment comes from teaching
12:46rather than from necessarily, I don't know,
12:48saving lives as a doctor, for example.
12:49And so we're gonna come back to this idea
12:50of helping people in just a moment.
12:52But then the final thing around,
12:53I think why we do the things that we do
12:55is the more unsexy reason, which is for social status.
12:58And being a doctor, there is a large amount
13:00of social status and prestige
13:01associated with being a doctor.
13:02And similarly, if you're a hotshot lawyer
13:05or investment banker or anything like that,
13:07there is some level of status that we get from our peers
13:09for having that particular job title.
13:11It's not a thing I wanna talk about too much.
13:12It's not a thing that feeds massively into my life.
13:14But as I've been thinking about the decision,
13:16do I stay in medicine or do I leave?
13:17A big part of it has been like,
13:19ooh, I don't wanna lose that badge,
13:21that badge of honour, that badge of prestige
13:22that being a doctor gives you.
13:24But it's not really a particularly, I think,
13:26good reason to do something
13:27you're not necessarily fully passionate about.
13:30So we'll kind of put that aside for now.
13:32So if we go over this list and think about it
13:33in terms of like the leaving medicine thing,
13:35it's not about the money
13:36because I'm making more money on YouTube
13:38and doing this business stuff.
13:39It's not really about the fun
13:40because I'm actually having more fun
13:41doing the YouTube thing than I was doing medicine.
13:43Helping people, we'll come back to.
13:44It's not really about purpose and meaning
13:45because my purpose and meaning I get from teaching
13:47rather than from saving lives as a doctor.
13:49And it shouldn't really be about the social status
13:51because I wanna continue to be a doctor
13:54so that I can call myself a doctor is in my book.
13:56It's not the way I'd want to live.
13:57But to be honest, all of these were kind of things
13:59that I already knew.
14:00And I already sort of had these ideas
14:02floating around in my head,
14:03but I still kept clinging onto this identity of,
14:06oh, I wanna be a doctor, I'll just do it part time.
14:08And I kept clinging onto it for a few different reasons.
14:10And it's only in the last few months
14:11that I've actually thought about this
14:13and spoken to a bunch of people
14:14who've kind of basically helped me figure out
14:16what I was thinking about in these particular topics.
14:18So let's, oh my God, I need to stretch my hip flexors.
14:23Let's talk about those now.
14:24I think a big one was fear
14:26and kind of generally the idea of like risk aversion.
14:31So let's start with risk aversion
14:33because risk aversion is like a nicer way of,
14:36it's sort of, it sounds a bit fancier than fear.
14:38Like I was just scared.
14:39The risk aversion thing was as follows.
14:41It was, what if this YouTube thing dies?
14:44You know, there's very few YouTubers who are big today
14:46who were big 10 years ago.
14:47The internet is quite volatile, that kind of stuff.
14:50Therefore, why don't I be a doctor anyway?
14:52Because then at least I have a backup option to go back to.
14:57And at least I have like a solid and safe kind of career.
14:59And I hadn't really tested this assumption very much.
15:01I just sort of assumed, oh, it's useful to have medicine
15:02because it's a safe career.
15:04And then I was interviewed on a podcast
15:06called the School of Greatness, which is an amazing podcast
15:08by this guy called Lewis Hose, who is fantastic.
15:10And the podcast interview started off
15:12about like multiple streams of income
15:13and ended up being sort of a therapy session
15:15where Lewis was sort of coaching me
15:16through this problem that I was having
15:18around do I wanna stay in medicine?
15:20And here is a segment from that podcast
15:22when I said to him that, hey, I'm staying in medicine
15:25because I'm afraid that I'll need it to pay the bills.
15:28So you make 200 bucks a month right now.
15:32And you could make, if you went all in,
15:34if you obsessed, if you gave your life to this mission,
15:38you could make 50 grand, maybe 55,000 in a year.
15:41If you went 60, 80 hours a week
15:44for the hopes in 10 years of making $120,000, maybe.
15:48Yes.
15:49And you would save seven people's lives.
15:52Yes.
15:53As opposed to changing millions of people's lives
15:55through your content, which is the thing you love to do,
15:58which is teach.
15:59And you're holding onto it for the potential
16:00that maybe all these revenue streams run dry
16:03and you won't be able to figure it out
16:05if one thing goes down.
16:06If you had all the energy and thought and skill
16:08that you've developed with your time,
16:09you wouldn't be able to figure out
16:10how to launch a new revenue stream.
16:12Damn, you're right.
16:13And honestly, it was only really when Lewis pointed this out
16:15in those stock terms that I realized that,
16:18the skills that I've developed through this YouTube
16:20and internet and business thing
16:21over the last like five to 10 years
16:23that I've been doing this.
16:23Longer if you count the fact
16:24that I've been making websites since the age of 13.
16:26I can easily use those skills to make more money
16:28if I need to in the future.
16:29And so holding onto medicine because I need the salary,
16:32potentially at some point in the future
16:34if these other businesses don't work,
16:35was just like completely irrational and dumb on my part.
16:38And I realized that I just hadn't really tested
16:39that assumption.
16:40So that was the risk aversion side of it.
16:42The other side of it was fear.
16:44And the fear kind of came in a few different forms.
16:47Number one was hate.
16:48What if people on the internet will hate on me
16:50for leaving medicine?
16:51I'm leaving medicine in the middle of a pandemic.
16:52If you leave being a lawyer or an engineer,
16:54no one cares, no one bats an eyelid.
16:55But medicine is a sacred hallowed profession
16:58in the eyes of some members of the general public.
17:00And so me quitting being a doctor feels like
17:03it's a bigger deal because now you're turning your back
17:05on potentially saving lives and people.
17:07So I was quite concerned about potentially
17:09getting some amount of dislike or hate on the internet.
17:11But another big part of it was the fact that to be honest,
17:14I have built my brand and this platform
17:15and this YouTube channel off the back
17:17of initially being a medical student
17:18and then being a doctor and saying,
17:20hey, look, I'm a doctor and I do this stuff on the side.
17:23I have a business, I have a YouTube channel.
17:24Therefore, you should listen to me
17:26about how to be more productive.
17:28And because of that, because I had that badge of,
17:31I don't know, that badge of being a doctor
17:32while doing stuff on the side,
17:33my productivity tips were kind of interesting,
17:35I guess, to some people.
17:36And the fact that I was a doctor doing the stuff
17:39is what probably made my channel grow in the early days
17:41and arguably is what is continuing
17:43to make my channel grow even now.
17:45And so I guess another part of the fear was like,
17:49will my channel and business die
17:53if I don't continue to masquerade as a doctor
17:59or continue to peddle the fact,
18:00hey, I'm a doctor and YouTuber as well
18:02and therefore you should listen to me.
18:03And so the solution that I actually had
18:04to all these problems,
18:05which I talked about in a video in March,
18:06was easy, go part-time.
18:10Yes, I love the idea of working part-time.
18:12I'm gonna consider myself a part-time YouTuber,
18:14a part-time doctor, a part-time podcaster,
18:15a part-time writer, that sounds amazing.
18:17Why don't I just be a doctor part-time?
18:19I can do that one or two days a week.
18:20I can continue to, with good conscience,
18:21call myself a doctor.
18:22It's still kind of fun, so that will be good.
18:24And then I'm a part-time doctor
18:25and I do this stuff on the side
18:26and then no one can complain that,
18:27hey, I've left medicine, I'm just doing it part-time.
18:28Hey, if you had the choice, you'd go part-time as well.
18:30People in maternity leave go part-time,
18:31no one bats an eye at it, it's all good.
18:33But then I was thinking about this.
18:34And as I said earlier, I did test that assumption.
18:36I tried working part-time and I did a few shifts
18:38in the emergency department here and there.
18:40And I realised that it actually wasn't that fun
18:42and it wasn't that fulfilling.
18:43And so the question that in my mind was,
18:48that my YouTube channel has this extra little flex thing
18:51that sets me apart
18:52from most of these other productivity YouTubers.
18:54And even when it came to this,
18:55the interview with Lewis really helped
18:56where he kind of called me out on this style of thinking.
19:00I wouldn't be concerned at all
19:01about not having an impact on people
19:02because I know that I'm not special as a doctor.
19:05Anyone in my position will do the same thing.
19:07You're not the best doctor in the world.
19:08You're not the most specialised expert in what you do.
19:11No, absolutely.
19:12Not that you're not talented,
19:13but there's tons of people that can do what you do.
19:16Exactly, yeah, I'm a junior doctor.
19:17I'm two years fresh out of med school.
19:18I follow guidelines, I follow the evidence.
19:21Anyone can do that, yeah.
19:22They could probably do it better than you
19:23because they obsess over it.
19:24Yeah, the people who obsess over it
19:26could probably do it better than me as well.
19:26They go all in on it.
19:27So in a sense, you're doing a disservice
19:29by giving 10% of your time and energy
19:31to helping people in an area
19:34as opposed to the people that really wanna do it full time.
19:37Is this the thing you love doing the most?
19:39Are you the top person in this?
19:40Or you care about being the best
19:42and like researching, obsessing this
19:43and masterminding with all the other doctors
19:46to make sure that this is the right decision
19:48for me as your patient.
19:50And you said, you know, well,
19:52I kind of just dabble in this like a little part-time
19:54and I just, you know,
19:55really I've got nine other revenue streams on the side
19:58that are my main thing.
19:59And this is just something that I kind of hold on to
20:01because I wanna feel good.
20:03So on this one, I don't 100% agree with Lewis's point.
20:05I think he makes a very good point
20:06that you generally wanna see a doctor
20:08who has their full heart in the profession
20:09rather than just like treating it as a bit of a side hustle.
20:12I think there are roles for different types of doctors
20:14working different amounts of hours
20:15in the medical profession.
20:16Yes, if you're the world expert on disease X
20:18and then as a patient,
20:20you wanna see the world expert in disease X,
20:22that makes sense.
20:23But if you're a junior doctor
20:24working in an emergency department,
20:25it doesn't matter too much
20:26if you're working one day a week or two days a week
20:27or three days a week or four days a week
20:29because it's all very kind of shift work-based.
20:30But that aside, I do see his overall point
20:33that in a way it is kind of doing a disservice to patients
20:36to be doing something for reasons
20:39other than that you're actually passionate about it.
20:41I think a lot of doctors kind of continue to work in medicine
20:43because they need the money.
20:44And most doctors that I know,
20:45if you made them win the lottery
20:47or have a YouTube channel that became successful,
20:49they would also quit medicine.
20:50And I don't think it's necessarily bad
20:52that people are treating it like a job.
20:53But in my case,
20:54when it came to deciding whether to leave medicine,
20:56I realized that this whole,
20:58hey, I'll just be a doctor part-time
21:00because then people won't hate me on the internet
21:02because at least I'm being a doctor part-time,
21:04all of those two main reasons,
21:05that's probably not a good enough reason
21:07to continue doing something that deep down,
21:10I know that I'm actually not that passionate about
21:12because the thing that I actually care about is teaching
21:13as we discussed earlier.
21:14All right, finally,
21:15let's talk about the helping people side of the equation.
21:17Let's go back to the idea of helping people.
21:19And then I will address a bunch of things
21:21that people on Twitter said
21:22that they wanted me to address in this video.
21:23So if you're still watching, then fantastic.
21:24Thank you very much.
21:25And I hope you continue to hopefully enjoy this,
21:27the helping people thing.
21:28And I think, again, this is tricky
21:30because it's hard to not sound like a twat
21:32when I talk about kind of the utilitarian,
21:36actual real world impact
21:37of being an individual doctor in a system
21:40where the system is what saves lives
21:41rather than the individual.
21:42The way I think of it
21:43is that there are different forms of impact.
21:45Yes, there is a form of impact,
21:46which is the impact you have by being nice to a patient
21:48when they're in there, like, you know,
21:50and they're in a bad state
21:51and you're the doctor who sees them
21:52and you are nice to them.
21:53What I would argue in there
21:53is that I am not the nicest doctor around.
21:57You know, there are people
21:58who are far more empathetic than I am,
21:59people who are far better at medicine than I am.
22:01And if they were to see one of my colleagues,
22:03my colleague can be equally nice to them, right?
22:04So the fact that I am the one
22:06there being nice to the patient
22:07and holding their hand and stuff,
22:08that alone probably shouldn't be a reason
22:10for me to continue to do the thing.
22:12And really, if I were doing that,
22:13the reason I'd be doing it
22:13is because I wanna feel good
22:15rather than because I want the patient to feel good.
22:16Because like I said, the patient would feel good anyway,
22:18because if you put me out of the system,
22:20another doctor would take my place
22:21and they would be the one holding the patient's hand.
22:23And I think when it comes to other sorts of impact,
22:24like, it's really hard to,
22:26like, I'm not trying to compare here,
22:28but for example, a teacher has some impact, right?
22:31It's a different sort of impact
22:33than someone has saving someone's life.
22:35But if, for example,
22:36you can think back to one of the teachers
22:38that inspired you when you were younger,
22:39and maybe that put you on a career trajectory
22:42to follow your passion, follow your dreams
22:43in a way that you didn't really know before,
22:45that is impact of a sort.
22:47And I've realized that that's the sort of impact
22:49that I care about,
22:50rather than the impact of saving individual lives.
22:53I do care about saving lives,
22:54and I will come to that in just a moment,
22:56which relates to the idea
22:57of kind of effective altruism and stuff.
22:59But really, if I think about
23:00what's gonna bring me personal joy and satisfaction,
23:02it's the idea that people would consider me a good teacher,
23:06an inspiration in their lives,
23:07and the sorts of emails and messages I get.
23:09I think I've had like two messages from patients
23:11when I was working as a doctor,
23:12saying, hey, you were really nice,
23:14and you really helped me in my time of need, et cetera.
23:16But I've had literally thousands of messages
23:18from people saying, your stuff has inspired me,
23:20your stuff, when you taught me
23:22how to study better for my exams,
23:23that helped me get through school a little bit better,
23:24it helped me be less stressed.
23:25I've had messages from people saying
23:27that you saved me from the brink of suicide
23:29because I saw your videos
23:29and I was super inspired by the life that you live,
23:31and I realized I wanna do that myself.
23:32I've had messages from people saying that you,
23:34like your tips when it came to starting a YouTube channel,
23:36or your tips when it came to making passive income,
23:38those have helped me afford IVF,
23:40so now that I can have kits.
23:42It's like, that is a different sort of impact
23:44to the impact you have saving lives as a doctor.
23:46But to me, that kind of impact feels more fulfilling,
23:50more purposeful, more meaningful.
23:51And so the way I'm trying to think of it
23:52is that yes, I'm not helping people by holding their hand,
23:54or by taking a decent history,
23:56or by arranging a scan for them as a junior doctor would,
23:58but I'm hopefully helping people in that other sort of way.
24:01And I can't really compare it to saving lives
24:03because it's a different kind of scale,
24:04but hey, it's a different sort of helping people.
24:06When it comes to the saving lives thing,
24:08this is an area in which I am quite passionate
24:10because I think the way we value lives, it's a bit weird.
24:14Because generally, we value the lives of people close to us
24:18far more than we value the lives of people not close to us.
24:21And there's a thought experiment here,
24:23which is from a book called
24:24The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer.
24:26And if you haven't heard it, then bear with me
24:27because it's kind of interesting.
24:28But imagine you are walking down a park
24:31and you see a child drowning in a pond in front of you.
24:33Would you jump in to save the child?
24:35Yes, of course you would.
24:37Because you wanna save the child,
24:37like the drowning in the pond literally in front of you.
24:39Then the next question is, okay,
24:40what if you were wearing a really expensive suit?
24:42Would you still jump in and save the child
24:44knowing that your suit is gonna get ruined?
24:45The answer is, of course you would.
24:46Who wouldn't?
24:47It's just dumb, like, who cares about the suit?
24:49Even if it's like 5,000 pound suit,
24:51you would still jump in and save the child
24:52because you're literally saving the life of a child.
24:54Great, we can all agree with that.
24:55Even if you have your phone in your pocket,
24:56even if you have your laptop in your bag,
24:57you would still jump in
24:58because you know the value of that life
25:00is greater than the value of your 5,000 pound suit.
25:01The next question becomes,
25:02what if you were walking the border of a different country
25:05and you saw the pond across the border?
25:08Let's say you're in, I don't know, France to Germany
25:09and you can walk across the border to Germany
25:11to save the kid's life, would you still do it?
25:13Even though they're technically in a different country.
25:15You're like, of course you would.
25:16I can see the child.
25:17Who cares if I go across the country border,
25:19I'm still gonna save the child.
25:20Bear with me, this is going somewhere.
25:22Then you're thinking, okay, what if there was a wall?
25:24What if you actually couldn't see the child
25:25but you could just hear them?
25:26What if you could hear them drowning
25:27and you know there's a pond on the other side of the wall,
25:29would you jump over the wall and jump in to save the child?
25:32Yes, most people would.
25:33I know the child is dying.
25:34I know the child's drowning.
25:35Maybe I can't see them, but at least I know they're there
25:36and I can jump in and save that child's life.
25:38Now, then the question becomes,
25:39what if by donating $3,000,
25:41you actually could literally save a life
25:43of a child in Africa who would otherwise die of malaria
25:46or schistosomiasis or some other parasitic disease?
25:47What if you could just donate money
25:49and you know that you would save that life?
25:51Would you still do it?
25:52And then the answer starts to become,
25:53ooh, I don't know, man.
25:55If I see the child dying in front of me,
25:57then of course I'm gonna give 2,000 pounds to save them.
25:59But if the child's in a different country,
26:01does their life really have that much value?
26:03That's the unsexy thing
26:05that feels really uncomfortable to talk about
26:08because we genuinely do value the lives of people
26:10that we can see and people in our community
26:11and people around us far more than we value the lives
26:14of random kids dying on the other side of the world.
26:16And so how does this come into the idea of saving lives?
26:18Well, the way that I'm kind of thinking of stuff,
26:20it's that I don't want to value the life
26:24of someone who's living in the UK
26:26who happens to be my patient
26:27more than I would value the life
26:28of a child dying in Africa, for example.
26:30I think all lives are kind of equal.
26:32And if I would be willing to pay five grand
26:34to save the life of someone in front of me,
26:36I should be willing to pay five grand
26:38to save the life of a child in Africa.
26:39That's at least how I think about it.
26:40And that's like kind of ties into this idea
26:42of effective altruism,
26:44which is a community that's based around
26:45how do we find the most cost-effective ways
26:47to donate money to help improve the world?
26:49Because normally when we donate money to charity,
26:51we're doing it because it feels good.
26:52We're doing it because someone on the streets
26:54has come up to us and said,
26:55hey, make a donation to save the children.
26:57Save the children is a great charity.
26:58But if you look at the stats
27:00and there's a charity evaluator called GiveWell
27:02that analyzes the cost-effectiveness
27:04of dozens of different charities all around the world,
27:06you find that like if you donated $3,000
27:08to save the children, it would not save a life.
27:10If you donated $3,000 to the Against Malaria Foundation,
27:12it would literally save a life.
27:13Therefore, like the concept behind effective altruism
27:16is that we're evidence-based in everything else that we do.
27:19Why don't we be evidence-based
27:20in the way that we spend our money as well
27:21to make more of an impact on the world?
27:22So within this world of effective altruism,
27:25there is something called Giving What We Can.
27:27And that is an organization that encourages people
27:28to take a pledge called Giving What We Can,
27:30which is to donate 10% of your income
27:33to cost-effective charities for the rest of your life.
27:35Again, $3,000 literally saves a life.
27:37And so I've taken this pledge.
27:38I took it way back in 2019.
27:39I have a video on the channel linked below,
27:40which no one watched.
27:41Like it was a terribly performing video
27:43because people don't care about this kind of stuff.
27:44Naturally, because people care about being more productive
27:46or like being healthier, being happier,
27:48but not about actually saving lives.
27:49I donate 10% of my income every single year
27:51to cost-effective charities.
27:52And so me making a few million a year from YouTube
27:55saves more statistical lives by virtue of the fact
27:57that I donate 10% of it to charity,
27:58then I would save in my entire career working as a doctor.
28:02And so to me, the saving,
28:04like this is not how everyone thinks,
28:05and that's totally fine.
28:06And I'm not trying to preach that this is the way
28:07that you have to think about saving lives as well.
28:09But in my mind, the lives that I'm saving as a doctor
28:12are so small in number
28:14compared to the amount of lives that I can save
28:16by just donating large amounts of money to charity
28:18over the course of my lifetime,
28:20which is what I plan to do having taken this pledge.
28:22If you're interested, link below,
28:23givingwhatwecan.com, take the pledge, 10%.
28:2510% usually doesn't make a meaningful difference
28:27in happiness in most people's lives,
28:29unless you're literally on the cusp of poverty,
28:30which if you're watching this, you're probably not,
28:31but it can make an enormous impact
28:33to other people around the world.
28:34As long as you think about valuing the life
28:36of a kid in Africa, as much as you value the child,
28:40the life of a patient that you're treating
28:41in your local hospital, for example.
28:42So that's kind of how I think about helping people.
28:44To me, being a doctor and helping people is not special.
28:48Maybe it is for you, if you love it,
28:49maybe for your doctor and you're amazing,
28:50that's fantastic.
28:51But for me, honestly, I'm not that great a doctor.
28:52I'm pretty standard, I'm pretty average,
28:54pretty average across the board.
28:55If I leave the medical profession,
28:56someone else will take my place.
28:57I can become a YouTuber,
28:59which is the thing that only I can do
29:00because no one is taking my place.
29:01I can make large amounts of money on the internet,
29:03which I talk about in depth on this channel,
29:05and I can donate 10% or even more of it to charity
29:07and end up saving more lives
29:09than I would ever save working as a doctor.
29:11So that is why the helping people thing
29:12does not really factor much into my decision.
29:15That is broadly why I'm leaving.
29:16I did like our first principles analysis.
29:18Why do we work?
29:19Money, fun, helping people,
29:20purpose, meaning, and social status.
29:22And in all five of those,
29:24me being a doctor does not tie in
29:26with the kind of life that I wanna lead
29:28for the reasons that I've already talked about.
29:30Now, there are a few other things to talk about.
29:31And so earlier today, I put out a tweet
29:34asking people to tell me
29:36what they wanted me to address in this video.
29:38And there are a few quite interesting things
29:39that some people said.
29:40So the first one, Roberto Blake,
29:42how do you deal with the critics
29:43from people who invalidate the worthiness
29:45of being a content creator
29:46and spending more energy on that than being a doctor?
29:48This was a big one.
29:49Being a doctor is like worthwhile and valuable to society.
29:52Being a content creator,
29:53you're just making videos on the internet.
29:54But I've kind of discussed this point around impact.
29:56And if the messages that I get are to be believed,
29:58the amount of impact I can have
30:00making silly videos on the internet
30:02is a different sort of impact
30:03than I can have being a doctor.
30:04But I don't think it's any less valuable
30:06depending kind of based on the magnitude.
30:08We've got Callum who says,
30:09are you actually really seriously going to quit medicine
30:11or are you going to change your mind in three months?
30:13This idea of changing your mind
30:15is really, really interesting.
30:16I'm kind of mates with Callum.
30:17So I know he's kind of asking this
30:18like not as like a dig against me,
30:19which is totally fine.
30:20Welcome digs,
30:21because we can talk about them.
30:22The whole thing about changing your mind.
30:23I want to include an excerpt
30:24from a conversation I had with Professor Grace Lorden,
30:26who's a professor of behavioral economics,
30:28behavioral sciences at the London School of Economics.
30:30Here's what she said about this.
30:31If I was to think about leaders of the future, actually,
30:33their ability to stand up and say, I don't know,
30:36I got it wrong, or I've changed my mind.
30:37Those three things are really in the forefront of my mind.
30:40Because when you're navigating through uncertainty,
30:43you're going to get it wrong sometimes, and that's okay.
30:45But it's the deliberate part.
30:46Have you sat down and deliberately now changed your mind?
30:49Or is it something you used to wear willy-nilly?
30:52Is it a willy-nilly kind of reflex action,
30:54and then it might be worth revisiting?
30:55I think changing your mind is actually a good thing.
30:58Two years ago, I decided, a year ago, two years ago,
31:00I decided I was going to move to America,
31:01take the USMLE and become a doctor in America.
31:04And then I tried it out.
31:05I tried some of the exams, I tried preparing for it.
31:08I realized this is a large amount of work.
31:10And then the YouTube channel and the business
31:11started going really well.
31:12And then the equation changed.
31:13So I made a plan that I'm going to go to America
31:15and be a doctor.
31:16But then over time, as I got more information,
31:18I realized maybe this is not worth it anymore.
31:20I realized this is not fun.
31:21And I think there is value in quitting,
31:23and there is so little value in clinging to a decision
31:25that you made some time ago.
31:27Even if you have, like I have, announced it to the internet.
31:29Loads of people still ask me,
31:30oh, aren't you going to America?
31:31Wasn't that a thing?
31:32And I was like, oh, ha ha, you know, I decided against it.
31:34And I really like, for example,
31:35Stephen Bartlett's quitting framework.
31:37He talks about this in his fantastic book,
31:39Happy Sexy Millionaire.
31:40Are you thinking about quitting?
31:42Yes.
31:42Why are you thinking about quitting?
31:43Either it's just hard or it sucks.
31:46If it's just hard,
31:47is the challenge worth the potential reward?
31:49Yes or no?
31:50Cool.
31:51And if it sucks, do you believe you could make it not suck?
31:54And do you believe is the effort it would take
31:55to make it not suck worthwhile?
31:57And if so, do it.
31:58And if not, then quit.
32:00I really like this idea of the quitting framework
32:01because this was sort of the thought process
32:02that went through my head as I decided,
32:04do I want to continue working
32:06towards these American medical exams
32:07so that I can potentially move to America and be a doctor?
32:10And it was hard and it kind of sucked.
32:12It was more that it was hard,
32:14but the payoff wasn't worth it
32:15because I'm having more fun, making more money,
32:17probably having more impact working as a YouTuber
32:19than I am working as a doctor in America, for example.
32:22Okay, we have Armour who says,
32:23what if YouTube dies down?
32:24Social media doesn't work out.
32:26Isn't medicine good for the long run?
32:28And I think this again is what I was thinking.
32:30I was thinking that, oh,
32:31this social media thing has a shelf life.
32:32Like no one's a YouTuber forever.
32:34If I'm in my fifties, am I going to be a YouTuber still?
32:36Then I kind of realised after the chat with Lewis Hose
32:39and a few other people that I don't need to have a plan.
32:42Like I'm pretty sure I won't be making YouTube videos
32:45at the age of 50.
32:46Maybe I will, maybe I won't, who knows.
32:47But I trust that I have enough of a safety net
32:50with decent amounts of money in the bank
32:52and investments in real estate and crypto and stuff.
32:54So I've got a solid safety net of money.
32:56So I can literally go 10 years
32:57without making any money at all
32:58until I figure something else out.
33:00And I also have a decent skillset.
33:01So if I need to, I can get a job at a startup.
33:03I can do marketing.
33:04I can do videography.
33:05I can do photography.
33:06I can build another business.
33:07I can start another company.
33:08I can write books.
33:09I'm in the process of writing a book.
33:10I'd like to write more books.
33:11It's kind of fun.
33:12There are all these other things that I could do.
33:14And when I thought, when Lewis really laid out that like,
33:17really, medicine, is that what you do?
33:18Where you can, after 15 years of effort,
33:21you can make 100K a year.
33:22Lewis basically said that with my skills,
33:24I could probably make 100K within a few months
33:26if I lost everything
33:27and had to come build completely from scratch.
33:29And I hadn't really quite realized that before.
33:30I hadn't really realized the value of the skills
33:32that I have.
33:33But genuinely, if I were to lose everything,
33:35I'm pretty sure I would find a way
33:36to build another business or startup or YouTube channel
33:38or whatever media thing
33:39and be able to make more money than I'm making as a doctor
33:42and also have more fun,
33:43potentially have more of an impact
33:44and that kind of gets to those five points
33:45we were discussing earlier.
33:46We've got Ahmed Khalifa who says,
33:47do you feel like you've wasted your time
33:49studying medicine for all those years?
33:51And what are the transferable skills
33:52that you learned in medicine
33:53that applies to what you're gonna do next?
33:54So I don't feel like I've wasted any time at all.
33:56I think studying medicine was like really fun.
33:58Working as a doctor was really fun.
33:59You know, it's gotten me to the point where,
34:00yes, that's now not what I'm doing,
34:02but it's about the journey.
34:04It's not about the destination.
34:05And I really enjoyed
34:06and got a lot of value and fulfillment and skills
34:08and joy from the journey of going through med school
34:11and the journey of being a doctor for those two years.
34:13So it's not at all in my mind, a waste of time.
34:15I think it would be a waste of time
34:16if I thought in terms of outcomes,
34:17if I thought, oh, the only point of medical school
34:19is to become a doctor at the end of it.
34:21It's like, no, journey, journey before destination.
34:23The journey is what matters.
34:24It's all about the climb.
34:24And as long as that's fun and that's been fulfilling
34:27and that's maybe helped people along the way,
34:28then that's the thing that matters
34:30rather than whether or not
34:31I ultimately decide to be a doctor at the end of it.
34:33And similarly, Neville says,
34:34the value of having gone through the whole arduous process
34:36of becoming a doctor,
34:37even though you eventually made the decision.
34:38If you'd never gone to med school,
34:39would there still be an Ali Abdaal on YouTube?
34:41Probably not.
34:42Like I kind of needed to go through that journey
34:44of like having something to talk about,
34:46setting up a company in 2013
34:49where I was helping people get into med school,
34:50using that to then launch this YouTube channel,
34:52starting off helping people to get into med school,
34:54using that to realize people are asking me
34:56about how to study and how to be more productive
34:57and how to take notes on an iPad.
34:58And then that led to the more videos
35:00and then that led to this YouTube channel.
35:01And now that's led to us getting to this point
35:04where you're watching this video,
35:05probably like really, really long into the video.
35:08I now have a studio, have a team of 17 people.
35:10None of this probably would have happened
35:12the same way if I hadn't gone to med school,
35:13if I hadn't started a business
35:14that helps people get into med school.
35:15And the fact that I'm not a doctor right now,
35:16I don't think takes away from the fact
35:18that that journey was like still a thing.
35:20And so I don't really worry that there's a lot of sunk cost
35:23and it feels like time and effort wasted
35:24because I think it was all great.
35:26It was a fantastic life experience along the way.
35:28Oh, here's a good question.
35:28Fully support you Ali,
35:29but I think this is an interesting question, I agree.
35:31Do you feel any element of guilt or regret
35:33that you have the skills that you have to help people
35:35and you're choosing not to use them?
35:36So this is interesting.
35:37This comes back to that question
35:39of helping people and impact.
35:41The skills that I have as a doctor,
35:43two years fresh out of med school,
35:44not particularly interesting.
35:45I haven't trained as a surgeon for 30 years
35:47to become like the world expert on something.
35:49I'm a very, very, very, very, very bog standard doctor.
35:51Does a teacher feel guilty
35:53that they're not instead volunteering at a soup kitchen?
35:55Does an investment banker feel guilty
35:56that they're not volunteering as a doctor?
35:57Like, I don't really know how it goes,
35:58but I think there are different sorts of impact
36:00and I don't feel any sort of guilt that,
36:01ooh, I have the ability to put in a cannula.
36:03I have the ability to prescribe fluids
36:05and I'm currently not using that
36:07because I think I have more of an impact defined by me.
36:11Like the things that matter to me
36:12by doing this kind of stuff on the internet.
36:13Pokhraj asks, what is your advice
36:15to those who want to switch careers?
36:16And I'll say, I don't know.
36:17I don't really have any advice for this
36:18other than test your assumptions, write them down,
36:20talk to them about it with people
36:21because it's very easy to bullshit yourself,
36:22which is what I was doing for so long
36:24until people like my brother, people like Lewis Hose,
36:26people like other friends pointed out to me
36:27that the way that I was thinking about this
36:29was kind of flawed.
36:30I think it's like Richard Feynman says that
36:31the first person you must not fool is yourself
36:34because you are the easiest person to fool.
36:35Ooh, interesting question from Justin.
36:37People thought I was nuts for leaving my medical device job
36:40seven years ago to go full-time on YouTube.
36:42Can you talk about the planning and prep that you've done
36:43to financially feel empowered to make this jump?
36:45Gotta imagine you did financial forecasting
36:47for your business.
36:48Yeah, basically it was that, you know,
36:50we have large amounts of money
36:52chilling in the business bank account now
36:53so that even if like, you know,
36:55we have several years of runway for the whole team
36:58and if needed, then, you know,
37:01we can downsize everyone in the team,
37:02me and a video editor, for example,
37:04me and Christian or me and Dan, for example,
37:06we could just strike off on our own
37:08and continue to make content for 10 years
37:10before we run out of money.
37:11And I'm sure in that 10 years we could find something to do
37:13that would make the money back again.
37:15And so there is an element of like,
37:18we've got enough of a safety net in the business.
37:19And actually I kind of recognized this from day one
37:22where whenever we were becoming too reliant
37:24on a single line of revenue,
37:26I was like, okay, cool, this is bad.
37:27We now need to diversify and build these other
37:30kind of foundational pillars of the business
37:32so that it's not so reliant on the YouTube channel,
37:34it's not so reliant on Skillshare,
37:35it's not so reliant on our courses.
37:37So now I'm pretty confident that whatever happens,
37:40we'll find a way to make it work.
37:41Here's a fun one.
37:42So Artemis says, I'm a med student myself
37:43and the only reason your productivity tips
37:45were interesting for me was because you were balancing
37:46both med school and running a business alongside,
37:49which are both very demanding.
37:50If you quit medicine,
37:51you will become just like another guy on YouTube.
37:53And I completely agree with this.
37:54This was like my biggest fear in quitting medicine
37:56that will I just be another productivity guy on YouTube?
37:58Not that that's a bad thing
37:59because I'm mates with a lot of them,
38:01but it's like, it's more interesting being a doctor
38:03and also a productivity guy on YouTube.
38:04And I realized that yes,
38:06I run the risk of losing that audience.
38:07And if now medical students stop following me
38:09because they're like, oh, I don't care.
38:10You're not a doctor anymore.
38:11That's totally fine.
38:12I'll be sad to miss them.
38:13If you're a medical student or a doctor watching this
38:15and you want to unsubscribe, that's totally cool.
38:17All the best, no hard feelings.
38:18I get it.
38:19But keeping you here as a subscriber
38:21is not a good enough reason for me to live my life
38:24doing something that I'm not entirely passionate about
38:26that doesn't really bring me joy and fulfillment.
38:28And it felt like a very fear-based thing to think,
38:31oh, the medics in my audience are gonna be pissed off
38:34that I'm leaving medicine
38:35and they're gonna stop following my content.
38:37That's totally cool.
38:38There's plenty of other doctors
38:39who are also doing YouTube on the side.
38:40I would encourage you to watch all of their stuff.
38:42Ooh, Dr. Jones says, why for good?
38:44How about for now?
38:45Your ability to teach and communicate
38:46could make a world of difference in our profession.
38:48Do not squander that potential.
38:49Just my honest opinion.
38:50Oh, thank you.
38:51That's a very good point, actually.
38:52Like for good is a kind of click-baity, not really.
38:55But really for good is a decision
38:57is something that I had to kind of admit to myself.
39:00Realistically, it is actually for now.
39:02Like I could always go back to medicine
39:04if I really wanted to.
39:05It's there as a backup option.
39:06I've got my medical license.
39:08I've got my full registration
39:09with the General Medical Council.
39:10I could go back if I wanted to.
39:11And maybe some years down the line, I will.
39:14But I think for the last year,
39:15I've sort of been half in and half out.
39:17I've been thinking, ooh, I'm a part-time doctor,
39:19part-time YouTuber.
39:20And after that chat with Lewis Hose,
39:21I realized that, you know what?
39:22For the next season of my life,
39:23let me go all in on the thing
39:24that I currently care about the most,
39:26which is the YouTube stuff, the business stuff,
39:27the writing stuff.
39:29And then maybe if my values and preferences change over time,
39:31I might go back into medicine.
39:33Realistically, probably not
39:34because I'd have to do a lot of training, et cetera, et cetera
39:37and the lifestyle you have being a YouTuber
39:39with freedom and large amounts of money
39:40and status and prestige and all that kind of stuff,
39:43it trumps what being a junior doctor is like,
39:45at least for me, but you know, never say never.
39:47Tribute to a point in my life says,
39:48do you really think YouTube is a forever thing?
39:50Believe me, it's not.
39:51Every channel eventually falls.
39:52I agree.
39:53If my business was entirely YouTube channel,
39:56I would feel very uncomfortable making this decision.
39:58But we've got enough lines of revenue.
40:00We've got enough projects going on.
40:01We've got enough money in the bank
40:02that I feel really comfortable
40:04that even if YouTube completely dies,
40:06like tonight, overnight,
40:08as soon as you're watching this video,
40:09I'm still pretty sure we'll be all right.
40:10Saswat says, if it's true, then you've lost your appeal.
40:12Without it, you're just a guy who makes tons of money
40:14selling productivity courses.
40:16We don't see the real world evidence of your tips.
40:18I'm sure it makes more economical sense for you,
40:20but no longer a fan.
40:21Yep, totally get it.
40:22That is the risk.
40:23Again, if we lose people like Saswat, all the best.
40:27You're probably not watching this, but sure, all the best.
40:29Chris says, clickbait.
40:29I doubt you will quit medicine for good, to be honest.
40:31Your previous goal was to work part-time.
40:32Why the change then?
40:34Cause I tried it.
40:35I think the thing with goals is that you, we,
40:37like I set the goal of, hmm,
40:39I think life would be good if as a part-time doctor,
40:41and then I tried it, I tested that assumption,
40:43and I realised that, hmm, actually, this is not the one.
40:46So then I had to change my mind.
40:47And that's a good thing.
40:48I think changing your mind is a sign of growth
40:50rather than a sign of, I don't know,
40:52I don't know, clickbait or whatever.
40:53So finally, let's talk about what is next.
40:55And honestly, the answer is, I don't know.
40:58I think in the past, I felt like I needed to have a plan.
41:02I needed to have like a five-year plan of like,
41:04this is what my life is gonna look like.
41:05And then I felt like secure in myself,
41:08knowing that I had a plan.
41:09But I think over time,
41:10I've kind of become more comfortable with uncertainty.
41:12And there's a nice quote,
41:13which is that often we prefer misery over uncertainty.
41:17And I'm not saying I was miserable in medicine,
41:18cause I wasn't, it was genuinely quite fun.
41:21And in fact, I was probably one of the,
41:23probably one of the few people I know
41:25who actually, who enjoyed medicine most of all,
41:27cause it was like genuinely quite fun.
41:29But I think being more comfortable with uncertainty
41:33and being able to answer the question of,
41:34what's your plan son?
41:35With, I don't know, but I'll figure it out along the way.
41:37That's something that I'm trying to become more okay with.
41:40So what's next?
41:41I don't know, writing a book.
41:42Hopefully that'll be good.
41:43Working on continuing to grow this YouTube channel.
41:45We're building a second YouTube channel,
41:47doing more stuff on the website,
41:48on the newsletter, across social media.
41:50And just generally trying to live a healthy, happy,
41:53fulfilled, live my best life kind of thing.
41:55Yeah, I don't know.
41:56I'm sure I'll figure it out over time.
41:58And medicine is always there as an option
42:00if I wanna go back to it,
42:01which is quite a nice privileged position to be in.
42:03So thank you very much for watching.
42:04I do apologize that this video is ridiculously long.
42:06If you got this far,
42:07I would love for you to leave a clover emoji in the comments
42:10as usual for these long rambly videos.
42:11If you wanna unsubscribe from the channel,
42:13that's totally cool, I get it.
42:14I'm not a doctor anymore.
42:16So if that was the appeal, then sorry.
42:18Have a great day.
42:19If you'll continue to subscribe to the channel
42:21and watch the stuff, then thank you.
42:22Thank you very much from the bottom of my heart
42:23for being here and for making this sort
42:25of career change possible.
42:26And really without this YouTube channel,
42:29I would not be in a position to actually be able
42:31to kind of follow my dreams and do the thing
42:33that I want to do, which is teaching and writing,
42:35rather than the thing I kind of guess I felt
42:37like I had to do, which was being a doctor.
42:39So again, thank you.
42:40If you've been a viewer for any length of time,
42:42you have contributed to my ability to leave medicine
42:45and hopefully follow something
42:47that I am genuinely more passionate about
42:49than the thing that I made a decision to do when I was 16.
42:51So yeah, thank you so much for watching.
42:52If you got this far and you're interested
42:54in more rambly videos about this,
42:55and you wanna see the evolution of my thought processes
42:57to see how much I was bullshitting myself back in the day,
42:59this little short playlist has my video where I talked
43:02about my last day as a doctor
43:03and also why moving to America and then not,
43:06and also why in March I decided I was gonna go back
43:08to medicine part-time.
43:09So you can kind of see the evolution of the thinking.
43:11Maybe it'll be helpful, maybe not.
43:12Either way, have a great day
43:13and I'll see you in the next video, hopefully.
43:15Bye-bye.