I Helped My Subscribers Fix Their Productivity - Arshian
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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
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel
00:01and to Not Life Advice, which is a new series
00:04where I'm gonna be giving not life advice
00:07to various subscribers and answering their questions.
00:10So, you know, I spend a lot of time on this channel
00:12talking about my own personal productivity,
00:13talking about general strategies for being more productive
00:16and doing more of what matters to you,
00:17hence the title, Feel Good Productivity,
00:19which you can check out.
00:20But I thought it would be fun to actually take in
00:23proper questions from real life people
00:25who follow this channel and see if I can give some
00:28not life advice to, you know, for whatever it's worth,
00:31trying to help people with their own productivity issues
00:33or with procrastination or distraction or focus
00:35or helping my subscribers achieve their goals
00:37in some way or another.
00:38So in this video, I'm gonna be responding
00:40to three of my subscribers who have sent in video questions.
00:43There'll be timestamps down below
00:45if you would like to skip around.
00:46Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this first episode
00:49of Not Life Advice.
00:51Hi, my name is Morgan
00:52and I run the YouTube channel Morgan EUA,
00:55but the challenge that I'm actually struggling
00:59to overcome is actually my PhD dissertation
01:01in theater studies.
01:03I have been working on it for almost seven years now
01:06and I'm really ready to be done,
01:07but it's really challenging deep work right now.
01:12And I'm struggling to get motivated to sit down
01:16and work on it for many hours at a time,
01:20especially because it's very difficult thought work.
01:24Doing it for four plus hours in one sitting
01:28is very exhausting and it's difficult to maintain my focus
01:33on this task for that long.
01:36The other part of this issue
01:38is that I also have a YouTube channel.
01:40I'm also a teacher.
01:42I also have a volunteer gig and a contract gig.
01:46And so all of those things are easier to do for my brain
01:51and have more pressing deadlines.
01:54So I find myself tending to more easily motivate myself
01:58to do those other things rather than my PhD.
02:03So if you could help me figure out how to get motivated
02:06and then like stay in it once I am in it,
02:10because I do enjoy the work after I start doing the work,
02:14but then I start to get tired or my mind wanders off,
02:17that would be awesome.
02:18And all of your recent videos have been very helpful
02:21in tackling this challenge and getting my PhD done.
02:24So thank you for even more help in this project.
02:28Alrighty, we have a wonderful question
02:29from our friend Morgan here.
02:30Now Morgan has identified, basically the issues are,
02:34she's struggling to get started.
02:36When she gets started, the work is enjoyable,
02:38but she struggles to focus for long periods of time.
02:40It's easier to work on YouTube,
02:42teach your volunteer contract stuff.
02:44Those things tend to have urgent deadlines.
02:45And so there's more of a sense of motivation
02:48in order to make progress on those things.
02:50Clearly Morgan is doing quite a lot of things.
02:52I suspect you, if you're watching this, wherever you are,
02:54you're also probably juggling quite a lot of things.
02:56And it can often be really hard to focus on the thing
02:58that is not urgent, but important and hard
03:02when we have all this other list of options to choose from
03:05that are more urgent, easier, and more fun.
03:07You know, I'm not generally in the business
03:08of advice giving because, you know, I don't know Morgan.
03:11I don't know Morgan's situation,
03:13but I can try and explain how I would approach this.
03:16So the way I would approach this is that
03:18this is kind of an activation energy type graph.
03:21And you can think of it almost like
03:23you're trying to push a boulder up the hill.
03:25Now, whenever you get started with a task,
03:28it always takes more energy to get started
03:30because you're pushing the boulder up the hill.
03:32We have to overcome the hump of procrastination
03:35in order to even get started with a task.
03:37Now Morgan has identified that one of the things
03:39she struggles with is to get started with the task.
03:42So when it comes to getting started,
03:44there's like a few different things that we can do.
03:46Basically, all of them involve lowering this hump.
03:49We want this hump to go down
03:51so that it's easier to get started.
03:52This is ironically, well, not ironically,
03:54but this is kind of what the middle three chapters
03:56of my book, chapters four, five, and six are about
03:59in terms of how do we essentially
04:00make it easier to get started?
04:03It's like, imagine you're trying to work out at the gym.
04:05Now imagine you're lifting like a really light weight.
04:07It's very easy to lie on the bench
04:09and lift a light weight, right?
04:11But imagine if you stacked it up with loads of weights,
04:13it's very hard to get started
04:15if you've stacked it up with loads of weights.
04:17Similarly, we wanna make it as easy as possible
04:20to get started with a task that we're working on.
04:23Now, how do we make things easy?
04:24Well, essentially it's about reducing two types of friction.
04:28Those are reducing environmental friction.
04:31And secondly, it's about reducing emotional friction.
04:33So environmental friction.
04:34If for example, I was struggling to make progress
04:37on my PhD, can I reduce as much friction
04:39to get started environmentally?
04:41So have I got my desk set up in a nice way
04:43that makes it super easy and obvious for me
04:46to sit down and get started working on the PhD?
04:48The night before, can I open up the relevant Google Doc
04:51or whatever Chrome tab that I need to have open
04:54to make sure that when I sit on my computer,
04:57it's easy for me to get started
04:58I've reduced the environmental friction.
05:00And the second thing is to reduce the emotional friction.
05:02So there's often a lot of emotional or cognitive friction
05:04if we feel that it's unclear.
05:06So if for example, I was Morgan,
05:08I'd be making a plan the night before.
05:10I'd be saying to myself, okay,
05:12I'm gonna figure out exactly what my plan is
05:15to work on the PhD the following day.
05:17I can't just say I'm gonna work on my PhD
05:19because that's a huge mountain.
05:20It's like, we've got to break it down
05:22into what specifically am I gonna get started with?
05:25So maybe it's like, I'm gonna write the first 100 words
05:28of my PhD thesis write-up of chapter four
05:31or paragraph eight.
05:33It's like, we're just trying to get really specific
05:34so that our brain doesn't have kind of,
05:36oh, I've got to figure out what I need to do.
05:38It's like figuring out what you have to do.
05:40It's a whole other ball game
05:42than actually doing the thing.
05:44So having a very clear plan of action.
05:46And then secondly, it's about lowering the bar.
05:49From Morgan's question,
05:51it sounds like Morgan is an overachiever
05:53given that she is doing a PhD,
05:55has been doing it for seven years,
05:57has a YouTube channel, is a teacher, is a volunteer,
05:59and also does contract work.
06:00That is the absolute hallmark of an overachiever.
06:02The problem with overachievers
06:04is that we tend to set very high standards for ourselves.
06:06And that can often make it really hard
06:07to get started with something.
06:08It adds a lot of emotional friction.
06:09If I feel I have to bench 100 kg,
06:12it's like, how do we make it easier to get started?
06:14How do we reduce the emotional friction?
06:16One thing I find really helpful is I tell myself,
06:19I'm just gonna do the thing for just five minutes.
06:21Or, hey, I just need to write 100 words.
06:23Because as Morgan has realized,
06:25when she gets started with it, she enjoys the process.
06:28And enjoying the process is how the hill goes down.
06:31But getting the boulder over the hump in the first place
06:33is like the cold start problem of trying to get started.
06:36So we reduce environmental friction
06:38by making it really obvious and really easy to start.
06:40We reduce emotional friction
06:41by making it really clear exactly what we have to do
06:43and lowering the bar so that, you know,
06:46even just working on it for five minutes is a win.
06:48Even just writing 50 words is a win.
06:50And then generally, when you get into the flow of it,
06:53you know, you start to enjoy the process,
06:54you start to feel good about the work.
06:55That's the whole point of the book, feel good productivity.
06:58Then it becomes a lot easier to keep going.
07:00By the way, if you're watching this
07:01before the 20th of April, 2024,
07:03I'm actually hosting a completely free online workshop.
07:06It's an alignment workshop,
07:08where the idea is that, you know,
07:09we're now nearly four months into the year.
07:11And so we're gonna reflect on our goals for 2024.
07:13We're gonna make a plan for what we're gonna do
07:15moving forward and figure out what kind of systems
07:17and habits we can put in place
07:19to stay disciplined and consistent
07:20on route to achieving the things that matter to us.
07:22It's completely free.
07:23Hopefully there'll be thousands of people online.
07:25It's gonna be sick, it's like two hours long.
07:26So you can join that completely for free, link down below.
07:28Another thing I would probably say to Morgan
07:30is it is a lot easier to do the hard thing
07:33first thing in the morning.
07:34So if, for example, I was Morgan
07:36and I was having to do work on my PhD thesis,
07:39this was sort of the position I was in
07:40when I was finishing up the edits for my book.
07:43It was hard, it was deep work,
07:44it required a lot of thought.
07:46And I had all these other things,
07:47other fun things I could have done,
07:48like make a video or hang out with my team
07:50or grow the business and work on a marketing asset,
07:52like loads of stuff that was way more fun
07:55than having to do the edits for the book.
07:56There were two occasions when I actually got the work done.
07:59Number one, where I just set a rule for myself
08:02that nine o'clock to 12 o'clock every morning,
08:04I'm not allowed to do anything other than work on the book.
08:07And even if I don't do anything,
08:09I have to just sit there for those three hours.
08:12And I'm not allowed to schedule anything,
08:13not allowed to do anything,
08:14it's just like had this as a rule for myself.
08:15And on the days where I stuck to the rule,
08:17then I made loads of progress in the edits for my book.
08:19So that would be like the consistency approach.
08:21Like imagine this is your weekly calendar,
08:22Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
08:25that sort of thing.
08:26And you wake up at seven,
08:28and then from nine till 12 each day,
08:30you're blocking off that purely to work on the PhD thesis
08:35or whatever the difficult thing is,
08:37maybe even on a Saturday and a Sunday.
08:38But like, you know,
08:39that's sort of a question mark because it's up to you.
08:42That would be like consistent progress over time.
08:44That often is a good way to get things done.
08:47But the other good way of getting things done
08:49is the intensity approach.
08:51Now, this is good for things
08:52that have a very specific outcome
08:53and a very specific thing that you have to do.
08:56This is not good for things
08:57you have to do over a very long time.
08:58But that would be where, I don't know,
08:59let's say this is,
09:03this is let's say your monthly calendar,
09:05and you were to decide, you know what,
09:06on that day and to that day,
09:08and that day and to that day,
09:11based on what's available in your calendar
09:13and what you're doing
09:13and like not having any meetings and stuff,
09:15you can decide, I'm just gonna devote the entire day
09:18to just work on the PhD thesis.
09:20You might even decide, you know what,
09:21I need to get this fricking PhD out of the way.
09:23Therefore, I'm gonna take a one week holiday,
09:26and I'm gonna take myself to a random place
09:30that is away from all distractions and all friends,
09:31and I'm gonna spend Monday, Tuesday,
09:33Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,
09:35only working on the PhD
09:36and not allowing myself to do anything else.
09:38And I know that in those five days,
09:40I'm gonna make enormous progress.
09:41This is, I believe,
09:42what the writer Maya Angelou used to do.
09:44She would take herself to a boring ass hotel room,
09:48and she would just sit on the bed,
09:50and she would write in a legal pad.
09:51And that was how she got her writing done,
09:53in an environment where there were no other distractions.
09:55That's a bit like more hardcore,
09:57but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.
10:00Okay, so we've talked about
10:01how Morgan could potentially get started on this thing
10:03by lowering the bar,
10:04reducing the environmental and the emotional friction,
10:06making it easy to get started.
10:08Thankfully, Morgan already enjoys the process,
10:10so that makes it a lot easier to do.
10:11But the other problem Morgan is having
10:13is that the problem with
10:15not being able to focus for four hours.
10:17The thing here is that I can't focus for four hours.
10:21Very few people can actually focus for four hours.
10:23I think four hours is the absolute upper limit
10:26of being able to focus on a single task.
10:28If you're just doing it all day,
10:30then you'll generally get four hours of focused work
10:33in that whole day.
10:34But trying to do four hours of focused work
10:36and actually focus for all of those four hours,
10:38it's just really, really, really hard to do.
10:40The way I kind of think about this
10:42is I think about it in terms of just single hours.
10:45Let's say this is an hour, so 60 mins.
10:47In my head, the first five mins
10:49is sort of like prepare and plan,
10:52which is like, okay,
10:52let me figure out what I'm actually gonna do.
10:54Let me sort of prepare my space, get my cup of water,
10:56make sure I've gone for a wee, blah, blah, blah,
10:57make sure I've washed my hands, et cetera, et cetera.
10:59The next 45 mins is to focus slash just do the thing.
11:05It's worth focus for 45 minutes.
11:07And then the final 10 minutes is for recharge and reflect.
11:11And that's like, okay, cool,
11:13I'm gonna stretch my legs a little bit.
11:14I'm gonna reflect on how focused was I.
11:17You can give yourself a focus rating
11:18from like zero to 10 or how many stars.
11:20You're like, you know what?
11:21That was four stars of focus.
11:23And you can reflect on what do I wanna improve
11:26or do differently in my next focus session?
11:29Maybe it's like, oh, actually,
11:30I got pinged with a bunch of notifications.
11:33I should probably turn my notifications off
11:34for this focus hour.
11:35Or I found myself watching a YouTube video.
11:38Maybe I should download the app Opal, for example,
11:40which is very good, that blocks YouTube.
11:42So I don't allow myself to do that.
11:44And it's almost like we're running
11:45these intentionally focused hours
11:48as bit of like kind of mini experiments.
11:50This is a big part of what I talk about in the book.
11:52Thinking like a productivity scientist
11:54or productivity alchemist,
11:55as if you're running experiments.
11:57And then based on the data that you got from the experiment,
12:00you're kind of measuring your measurement output,
12:02which could be your focus rating,
12:04or it could be how many words you've written.
12:05You know, I like tracking word counts, for example.
12:08And you're just sort of running an experiment
12:09to say, okay, that worked.
12:10What if I try and focus in the local coffee shop downstairs
12:13with some headphones and a flat white?
12:14Like, what does that do to my focus levels
12:16and my word count?
12:17And now you're running these sorts of experiments,
12:19which means you're never actually trying
12:20to focus for four hours.
12:21Because I think trying to focus for four hours
12:22is a bit of a pipe dream.
12:24You're just trying to focus for one hour at a time.
12:26And if you can do three of these kind of blocks
12:28where you're doing 45 minutes,
12:3045 minutes of work, five minutes of planning,
12:3210 minutes of resting and reflecting.
12:34If you can do three of those,
12:36nine till 12 every morning,
12:37man, you'll get the PhD thesis done in no time at all.
12:39This is how I made progress on the book, more or less.
12:42This is what I would recommend
12:43when it comes to this sort of thing.
12:45The other thing I really liked, just as a final point,
12:47because I just have so much to say on the topic,
12:48having been through this a lot with my book
12:50and with my medical degree and with all of the things.
12:52Like I'm very familiar with like how the process goes.
12:54The other thing I find super helpful
12:55is something I talk about in chapter two,
12:57which is about power,
12:58which is essentially, can you make progress visible?
13:01So I really like, you know,
13:02like how video game designers
13:04have this sort of like level up meter,
13:05where as you kill the monsters and shit,
13:08then you like level up.
13:09And you see your experience bar
13:13kind of going up as you go along.
13:15And that feeling of progress is profoundly addictive.
13:18And one of the key drivers of intrinsic motivation,
13:21you know, this feeling of mastery,
13:22this feeling of progress,
13:23the feeling that we're moving forward, all of this stuff.
13:26So can you find a way to make progress more visible?
13:29This is why I personally really like word counts.
13:31I write, whenever I need to write anything,
13:33I write in the app Ulysses.
13:35You can do it in a word dog,
13:36you can do it in anything that tracks your word count.
13:38Because then it's sort of like,
13:40whenever I find myself like feeling a bit distracted
13:43or feeling a bit like low energy,
13:45I look at my timer to see,
13:46have I still got time in my 45 minute session?
13:48Okay, I still got 28 minutes, shit, okay.
13:51Then I look at the word count and I'm like,
13:53nice, we've already written 150 words, let's keep going.
13:56And it's like having that sense of being able
13:58to see the progress you're making and really feel it,
14:01really connect emotionally with the fact
14:03that you are doing the thing,
14:04makes you feel really good.
14:05And as we know, feeling good leads to more productivity,
14:07all of that fun stuff.
14:09So find a way to make your progress visible.
14:11Now I've been studying productivity for over 15 years,
14:13even wrote a book about it.
14:14But one resource that really helped me
14:17improve my own productivity,
14:18was actually my friend Thomas Frank's
14:20online course on productivity.
14:21Now in this course, he goes through task management,
14:23getting better at email and all of the things
14:25that mean that you're more organised,
14:26which free up time for you to focus
14:28on the more important things like working on your PhD
14:30or writing your book or whatever the thing might be.
14:32And this course is hosted on Skillshare
14:34who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
14:36Skillshare is the largest online learning community
14:38for creatives with thousands of classes
14:40led by industry pros across film, illustration,
14:43design, freelancing, and so much more.
14:45Now I've personally been teaching on Skillshare since 2019.
14:48So I've got around 10 classes on there myself,
14:50but sometimes it can be overwhelming to know where to start.
14:53So Skillshare have designed learning paths as well
14:55to help you go from beginner to pro
14:57in as short a time as possible.
14:58I've got a learning path there on the platform,
15:00which includes four classes all about productivity,
15:02which will help you do more of what matters to you.
15:04And there's a great learning path
15:05about building your own creative business as well.
15:07So if you're interested in checking out any of these classes
15:09or anything else that Skillshare has to offer,
15:11then check out the link in the video description.
15:13The first 500 people to use that special link
15:15will get a one month free trial to Skillshare
15:18where you can consume all the classes
15:20to your heart's content.
15:20So thank you so much Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
15:23Let's move on to question number two.
15:24Hey Ali, first of all, let me introduce myself.
15:27My name is Patrick and I'm from Switzerland.
15:29Around two years ago,
15:30I finished my bachelor's degree in business IT.
15:33And since then I've been really struggling
15:35to find something that I'm really passionate about.
15:39I'm interested in photography, finance and IT,
15:42but I'm currently working as a business analyst
15:44for a Swiss corporation.
15:46And my question for you would be,
15:49what can I do to find my true passion
15:51and earn money with it
15:53as you did with productivity and teaching?
15:56Hope this finds you well and see you soon.
15:58Alrighty, Patrick from Switzerland.
16:00How can I find my true passion and monetize it?
16:03Oh, this is a big one.
16:05This is a very big one.
16:07How do you find your true passion and monetize it?
16:09So the first thing I'm gonna say is that,
16:13that is probably the wrong question to be asking.
16:16I would recommend reading Cal Newport's book,
16:18So Good They Can't Ignore You.
16:20I actually have a video about it
16:21where I've summarized the book.
16:22But basically Cal's whole theory in this
16:24is that which I agree with.
16:25Generally, it's not the case that a passion
16:27is just something you just,
16:29oh, like, oh, I just need to uncover my passion.
16:31Like I have all these passions
16:32and I just need to find a way to monetize them.
16:34That's generally not how it works.
16:36Generally, you wanna try and aim to become
16:39so good they can't ignore you.
16:40You wanna pick something
16:42and you wanna get really good at the thing
16:44because getting really good at the thing
16:45helps you become passionate about the thing.
16:47As you develop career capital,
16:49you then have the ability to cash in that career capital
16:52for things like autonomy and flexibility and stuff.
16:55And then if you want, you can start your own thing,
16:56you can monetize it in a certain way.
16:58Essentially, your goal is to really run experiments.
17:00And so it's not about,
17:02hey, I'm passionate about, what'd you say?
17:04I'm passionate about photography, finance, and IT.
17:06Therefore, how can I find my true passion and monetize it?
17:09Firstly, you also don't wanna do that.
17:10So let's say you decide,
17:12you know, you've got a passion for photography.
17:15Okay, cool.
17:16The fastest way to kill your passion for photography
17:18will be to try and monetize it,
17:20especially if you have to make a living from it.
17:22Professional photographers don't spend most of their time
17:24taking nice photos.
17:25They spend most of their time doing admin
17:27and trying to actually get clients for their services.
17:30Similarly, if you were to start a business
17:32within finance and IT,
17:33you wouldn't be spending a lot of time
17:34doing finance and IT.
17:35Also, finance and IT are just absolutely huge,
17:37huge, huge topics.
17:38I suspect you don't enjoy bookkeeping
17:40as much as you enjoy strategic financial operations.
17:43There's different aspects within finance.
17:45So it is worth getting clear on
17:46what specifically do you think you're passionate about.
17:48But you're gonna spend a large majority of your time
17:50trying to actually generate clients,
17:53trying to win the work rather than do the work.
17:55And generally, people enjoy doing the work
17:57rather than winning the work.
17:58But if you try and monetize your passion,
18:00you're gonna spend 90% of the time winning the work
18:01and 10% of the time actually doing the work.
18:04All that said, the way I would be thinking about this
18:06is kind of using a kind of life design
18:10experimental framework.
18:12And I would be thinking in terms of ideate,
18:15experiment, iterate, and back to ideate.
18:18So let's say I rate my job satisfaction
18:21of three out of 10.
18:22Can I start by generating 10 different ideas
18:24of how I might increase my job satisfaction
18:26to a five out of 10, from a three to a five out of 10?
18:29Now, let's say one of those ideas
18:30is I'm currently doing a job
18:32as a business analyst in my corporation,
18:34but actually I think I might enjoy
18:37sort of working in the product team instead.
18:39Okay, cool, we've generated an idea.
18:41Let's generate like 10 of those.
18:42One of them might be, I will be happier
18:44if I quit my job and become a professional photographer.
18:46One of them might be, I'll be happier
18:48if I just quit my job and start an IT services business,
18:50or if I quit my job
18:51and start a financial services business.
18:53And then you run experiments
18:55and you try and figure out
18:56what is the smallest experiment I can run
18:59to test this hypothesis.
19:00So for example, let's say I thought, you know what?
19:03I really like the idea
19:04of becoming a professional photographer.
19:07The bad experiment to run
19:08would be to quit my job and become a professional photographer
19:10because that's a very big experiment.
19:12I'm like doing a big thing to gather data.
19:15How else might I be able to experiment
19:17with is that likely to be true?
19:19Well, could I reach out to professional photographers
19:22in my local area and be like,
19:23hey man, you know, I'm thinking of quitting my corporate job
19:26to become a professional photographer.
19:27Would love to grab, treat you to a coffee or a lunch
19:29or a breakfast or a dinner just to talk about it.
19:31Cause I'm so curious as to how you're finding the career.
19:34You send ton of those messages,
19:36especially if it's local
19:37and especially if you're nice about it
19:38and you offer to meet in person and treat them to a coffee.
19:40Most people will say yes to that.
19:42And so you now talk to three professional photographers
19:44and you say, hey, so I've got a passion for photography
19:47and I'm thinking that maybe if I quit my job
19:49and become a pro, you know,
19:50it'll make me happier with life.
19:52And you might hear them say,
19:53man, I would totally recommend it.
19:54Being a professional photographer is sick.
19:56It's so easy, it's so fun.
19:58You're gonna love it.
19:59Or you might hear them say,
20:00actually, to be honest, dude,
20:01I thought I had a passion for photography
20:03and now the fact I'm a professional photographer,
20:05it makes me fricking hate photography
20:06and so I would not recommend it.
20:07Based on that, you've just gathered data
20:09without having to take a massive risk.
20:11Let's say you think that working in the product team
20:13at your local company is actually gonna be a better way
20:15of increasing your job satisfaction.
20:17Go speak to the people in the product team
20:18and say, what does your day-to-day look like?
20:21Often the happiness of a job
20:23doesn't come from the macro sense of,
20:27hey, I'm following my passion
20:28because I'm a professional photographer.
20:29It comes from the micro,
20:31what tasks am I actually doing day-to-day?
20:34So you look at these people's calendar and you say,
20:36what does a day in your life look like?
20:37Well, I get up at seven in the morning,
20:39I commute into work,
20:40straight onto four hours of Zoom meetings
20:42where I'm having to take copious notes.
20:44Then I have half an hour to work on some code
20:46for the product,
20:46and then I have to go on another meeting with a manager,
20:48and then I have to hop on a meeting with a client,
20:50which is another Zoom call.
20:50So on average, every single day,
20:52I have six hours of Zoom calls.
20:53You're like, damn,
20:54suddenly working in the product team at my company
20:56doesn't seem so appealing.
20:57Whereas, ooh, I'm working in the product team,
21:00seemed appealing in the macro,
21:02but it's very unappealing in the micro.
21:03And the micro is where job satisfaction comes from
21:05rather than the macro.
21:06Run a bunch of these different experiments.
21:08And then once you find one
21:09that you actually want to kind of devote
21:12some time and energy into,
21:13you then start thinking, okay,
21:15let's say the best experiment I came up with was,
21:20I don't know, quit my job
21:20to start a financial services company.
21:22And I spoke to three people
21:23who run a financial services company,
21:24and they'll recommend it,
21:25and they'll say it's sick.
21:26And I'm like,
21:27hopefully during those conversations, I asked them,
21:29hey, can I just like shadow you for three days
21:31in the day job just to see what it's like?
21:33Because I'm thinking I might want to go into this career.
21:35Over time, you can increase the amount of energy
21:39you're putting into these experiments
21:40and sort of strategically narrowing down your options
21:43into like, oh,
21:44this is the thing I'm actually really passionate about.
21:45I'm really enjoying this particular thing.
21:47So for me, what it looks like in the macro
21:49is Ali quit his job to follow his passion,
21:52which is teaching in YouTube.
21:55In reality, for the last like 17 years of my life,
21:57I've been tinkering around,
21:59trying to make money on the internet in different ways.
22:01Aged 13 to 18, I was trying to do websites online.
22:04I was doing private tutoring.
22:05Aged 18 through 23, I was running a company
22:07helping people get into med school.
22:08I was building websites and stuff.
22:10And all of this stuff was sort of fun.
22:12And then a lot of it became not fun.
22:13So I started delegating some of it,
22:14was shifting some of it.
22:15Aged 24, I decided to start my YouTube channel.
22:18And that was the thing that was fun.
22:20There were lots of periods of it that weren't fun.
22:22I wouldn't have said I was passionate about making videos,
22:24but I found that it worked
22:25and I developed a passion for making videos over time.
22:27So it's like, although at first glance,
22:31it might look like, oh, you just find a passion
22:33and then you do it as a career.
22:35In reality, it's a much more like squiggly,
22:38weirdy, windy kind of path that you can't really predict.
22:42But this general model of ideate, experiment, and iterate,
22:45it's just like, you know, come up with ideas,
22:47run experiments, improve on those experiments,
22:49come up with more ideas.
22:50And if you do this enough time,
22:51you sort of spiral into a job and a life
22:54and a career that you really love.
22:56Most people who earn money are not passionate
22:58about the way in which they're earning money.
23:00So it is rare to find someone who loves their job so much
23:04that they would choose to do it
23:05even if they weren't getting paid for it.
23:06That's probably the kind of career
23:08we all ultimately wanna end up in.
23:09Something that we're not doing just for the money,
23:11but we're doing for the passion, for the fulfillment,
23:13for the purpose, for the joy, all of that fun stuff.
23:15That's broadly why I do YouTube.
23:16I don't need the money anymore.
23:17I'm rich enough, but you know, it's the passion,
23:19the purpose, and all that jazz.
23:22It's a slow and windy process,
23:24but the fact that you're thinking about it, Patrick,
23:26means that you're thinking about the right things,
23:27you're asking the right questions.
23:28I would encourage you to read
23:29So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport.
23:32I would encourage you to check out the book
23:33Think Big, Take Small Steps by Professor Grace Lorden.
23:36I also have an interview with her on my podcast,
23:37and I think we've also, I'm pretty sure we've done a video
23:40about that book as well.
23:40And I guarantee in the next few years,
23:43you're probably gonna look back on this and think like,
23:44damn, you know, this process of idea, experiment,
23:47iterate, et cetera, et cetera, has gotten me to a place
23:49where I genuinely love what I'm doing.
23:52So I wish you all the best for that,
23:53and thank you for asking the question.
23:54I'm Alex, and among some of my goals this year,
23:57my most major one has been trying to get a full-time job.
24:00I'm 30 years old, and I've never had a full-time job before,
24:02so navigating that has been a little bit difficult for me.
24:05Currently, I've been working with children
24:07for the past four years,
24:08and while that was very fulfilling for me in the past,
24:11I'm now not finding that to be a very fulfilling occupation
24:15any longer, and my most recent wheel from March 2024,
24:20we can see career here, sorry that it's backwards,
24:22my alignment for money, mission, and growth
24:25are all at once.
24:27And I think one of the biggest struggles that I'm facing,
24:33I mean, other than trying to figure out
24:35what it is that I wanna do,
24:36I think I'm struggling with that.
24:38I don't know how to keep finding the motivation
24:41and the strive and avoiding the burnout
24:44when I feel like all I'm getting
24:46is rejection after rejection,
24:47and I'll tailor my resume for job postings,
24:52and I'll try to write cover letters
24:54specifically for the job,
24:56and I just get no after no after no,
24:58and it's so demoralizing,
25:00and I don't know what to do to keep my spirits up
25:03because I feel like I know what I can bring to the table,
25:07and it's just so difficult to want to keep trying
25:13when I feel like no one else is seeing it.
25:18This is not a position, I'll be honest,
25:20this is not a position I've ever been in,
25:22but I have lots of friends who are in this position
25:24where they're getting rejection
25:25after rejection after rejection,
25:27and as an employer,
25:29and having seen thousands of job applications
25:32for people trying to work for me,
25:34I think I have a good sense of what it takes to stand out.
25:37So the first thing to say
25:38is we've actually made a video about it,
25:40so the first thing to say
25:41is we've actually made a video about this,
25:43that will be linked up there and down here.
25:44Everything I mention in this video,
25:45I'm referring people to a lot of additional resources
25:48because I've made like 800 videos on this channel,
25:50and I'm probably one of the very few people
25:52who has a somewhat encyclopedic knowledge
25:53of what they actually are,
25:54so I'll link our video about resumes down below.
25:58Essentially, the key is,
26:01okay, so question one is what do I actually want to do?
26:03I think this is this ID8 experiment,
26:05iterate process that we talked about
26:06in the previous question,
26:07but question number two is how do I deal with rejection
26:09when it comes to job application?
26:11I think really the key thing for anyone listening to this
26:13is that if you're trying to get a job,
26:15the traditional ways of going about getting a job
26:17are absolutely terrible.
26:18Book recommendation,
26:19The Third Door by Alex Benayan.
26:22Amazing, amazing, amazing book.
26:24His whole thesis, you should read the book,
26:26especially Alex, if you're watching this,
26:27you should absolutely read that book.
26:28That book made me cry multiple times.
26:30Even the acknowledgement section of that book made me cry
26:32because it's just so good.
26:33I love Alex.
26:34The whole idea is that life and work and everything
26:38is kind of like a nightclub
26:39and that there are three entrances.
26:41The first entrance, the first door
26:43is where people are queuing up, right?
26:45For normal people, they're queuing up.
26:47The second door is the one for the billionaires
26:49and the celebrities,
26:50but there's always, what no one tells you
26:52is that in business and in life,
26:53there is always a third door.
26:55The third door is when you kind of sneak down the alley,
26:57you open up the window, you go into the kitchen,
26:59you make friends with the chef,
27:00you might be like, hey,
27:01I'm trying to get into the nightclub.
27:02Any chance you can help me out?
27:03And the chef's like, oh, you know, you're a cool guy.
27:04Yeah, sure, come on in.
27:05I'll let you in by the back door.
27:06There is always a third door.
27:08When you hear of most instances of very successful people,
27:11you find that they didn't queue up for the first door
27:14and they weren't already billionaires or celebrities.
27:16They took the third door.
27:17The way Steven Spielberg got his first Hollywood film.
27:19He like snuck onto the set
27:21in like Universal Studios or something.
27:22He jumped off the tour bus
27:23and tried to find his way onto like a movie set
27:26where they could offer him a job.
27:27It was like something weird like that
27:29or how Bill Gates landed his first software deal.
27:31And there's a bunch of different examples
27:32of how people went in via the third door.
27:36So the advice I would give for anyone
27:38who is trying to get a job anywhere
27:40is you cannot hope to get a job
27:43if you are applying via the first door.
27:45If you're applying via the first door,
27:47there are hundreds of people
27:48trying to apply for that same job.
27:49So unless you're like on paper, the absolute best candidate,
27:54you are just very unlikely to get through that screen.
27:56Instead, there is always a third door to get the job.
27:59The second door would be having a rich dad
28:01or having a mate who knows someone in nepotism stuff,
28:03but there is always a third door.
28:05So what might that third door look like?
28:07There are kind of two approaches.
28:09There is the scattergun approach
28:11and then there's the sniper approach.
28:12The scattergun approach is I need a job.
28:15I'm gonna apply to lots of things
28:17in the hope that one person will say yes to me
28:20or give me an interview.
28:21That is a recipe for rejection.
28:25This is a terrible way to get a job.
28:27It works for some people, maybe used to work in the past.
28:29Having hired a bunch of people,
28:30now for our team, we've got a team of like 23 people,
28:34this is not the way to do it.
28:36The way to do it is the sniper approach.
28:38Really decide of the jobs that seem to be available
28:40and even of the jobs that do not seem to be available
28:43because the best jobs are never advertised.
28:45This is also something no one tells you,
28:46the best jobs are never ever advertised.
28:48Find five or so companies in your local area
28:51where you think or not in your local area
28:53if you wanna work remotely
28:55and think I would fricking love to work for that company.
28:57That would be an absolute dream
28:59as part of your experiment, idea, iterate, process,
29:01all that fun stuff.
29:03Let's say for whatever reason,
29:05you wanna work remotely for me.
29:06You're like, oh man, Ali Abdaal's team seems really cool.
29:08I've been watching his vlogs and all this sort of stuff.
29:10I really wanna work for Ali Abdaal's team.
29:13You're very unlikely to get the job
29:15if you apply for one of our job postings.
29:17Hundreds of people apply for all of our job postings.
29:19We have a very stringent filtration process.
29:22We reject 90% people in the first round
29:24because we are looking at what we can see on paper.
29:27But how else do people get a job here?
29:29Well, what you could do is you could find the names
29:33of the people in my team
29:34and you could try and talk to them.
29:36You're never gonna be able to get access to me
29:37realistically unless you come to one of my events
29:39in which that could work as well.
29:41People have gotten jobs by coming up to me at events
29:43and striking a conversation and being cool about it.
29:44But it's pretty obvious who my team are.
29:47You can probably guess their email addresses
29:48based on what their first names are.
29:50You can watch all my vlogs and think,
29:51okay, how do I find the third door to work for Ali Abdaal?
29:54This is not just about working for me.
29:55This is about any company
29:56you could possibly wanna work for.
29:58There's always a third door.
29:59You figure out like, okay, how can I get in touch
30:01with the second in command, the third in command,
30:03the fourth in command?
30:04Like, I know that Ali always references Tintin
30:06as YouTube producer.
30:07I know he's just done an interview on Deep Dive
30:09with Tintin, the YouTube producer.
30:10I wonder if I reach out to Tintin,
30:12I'd be way more likely to get a response
30:14than if I reach out to Ali.
30:14Okay, cool.
30:15Let me reach out to Tintin.
30:17Oh, I see Tintin does freelance consulting.
30:18Can I just book, can I just pay a couple of hundred quid
30:21to book a call with Tintin?
30:22And in that call, I can find out if he's cool.
30:24I'm gonna say, Tintin, you know, what are your problems?
30:25Anything I can help you out with.
30:27Can I find a way to add value to Tintin's life,
30:29one of Ali's team members,
30:30so that I can then, you know,
30:32add lots and lots of value for free.
30:34And then eventually I can say to Tintin,
30:36hey man, I'd actually really love to work for you guys.
30:38Like, it seems like the absolute dream company to work at.
30:40Like, any chance I could kind of work for you for free,
30:43for a month, just try me out.
30:45You don't even have to pay me.
30:45I'll literally do anything.
30:47I'm this, this, this, this, this.
30:49I think you'll be absolutely sick.
30:50Try me out for a month.
30:51If you don't like it, you don't have to pay me.
30:52Tintin would probably be like, you know what?
30:54Sure.
30:55A growing startup, a growing companies
30:57always has more jobs that need doing
30:59than there are people to do them.
31:01But the traditional hiring process for most companies
31:03is such a fricking ball ache,
31:05such an absolute nightmare,
31:06that like, they're just not going to do it.
31:08If it's a bigger company,
31:09they've got entire HR departments
31:10dealing with the whole thing.
31:12You probably want to get a more interesting job
31:14at a much smaller company,
31:15maybe a company like mine, maybe a startup.
31:17There is always a third door.
31:18Watch my interview that I did with Nicholas Cole
31:20on the Deep Dive podcast.
31:22We talk in that interview about the power,
31:24the ROI of free,
31:25the absolute incredible power
31:27of doing free work for someone
31:28to be able to then land job.
31:30Most of the people who I now have in my team
31:32have gone there through a third door
31:34in some way or another,
31:35rather than by the traditional job application route.
31:38Some of my team have gone through
31:39the traditional job application route,
31:41but like the majority I would say
31:42have gotten in through the third door.
31:44There is always a third door
31:45to find whatever job you want to do.
31:47It is the sniper mentality.
31:48It's identifying like three companies
31:50that you would love to work for
31:52and then third dooring your way into them
31:54by showing up, by providing value,
31:56by being good, by being competent,
31:57by doing stuff for free.
31:59And then they will be delighted to hire you
32:01because they can guarantee
32:02that if a company is growing,
32:03if a company is like,
32:04then they're gonna have so much stuff
32:07that they need done
32:08and not enough people to do it,
32:09not enough competent people to do it.
32:10They probably won't have time
32:11to go through a proper hiring process.
32:13And that's why the third door is the way forward.
32:15And one final thing on the rejection point,
32:17you know, it's clear from your question, Alex,
32:19that you're feeling pretty down
32:20about this whole rejection stuff.
32:22And, you know, I've not been in this situation,
32:24but I've been rejected by girls many times
32:26and I can imagine how the, you know,
32:28how it feels to be rejected for jobs.
32:30It can often feel as if it's a rejection
32:31of you as a person.
32:33You feel, you know, you said in your question,
32:36this thing of like,
32:37I know I have the value to provide,
32:39but they're not seeing it.
32:41And that is a really sort of disempowering
32:45and sort of this like feeling of powerlessness
32:48that like, look, I'm trying here.
32:49I'm trying to show the value I can bring,
32:51but like, oh, the other person isn't seeing it.
32:54I get it, man.
32:55Like it's a tough place to be.
33:00The way I've always approached it
33:01when dealing with rejection with,
33:03from like girls or in anything else
33:05is to recognize that it's almost certainly
33:08not a rejection of me as an individual.
33:10Like the fact that you're getting rejected
33:11from these jobs is not because you're a bad person
33:13or because you suck.
33:14It is because your application sucks
33:16and your method sucks.
33:17Like if I lose a game of chess,
33:19that's not because I suck as a human being.
33:21It's just that my strategy was bad.
33:23Cool.
33:24So let's focus on the strategy,
33:25which is a problem out there,
33:26rather than focusing on like myself and my self esteem,
33:29which is a problem in here,
33:30which is a lot harder to fix
33:31and a lot more likely to lead to these feelings
33:33of demoralization and stuff.
33:35Anyway, that brings us to the end of this video.
33:37I hope you guys got some value from it.
33:38I will put a link to the video thing
33:40because if you enjoyed this video,
33:41if you'd like to ask us more questions,
33:43anyone to respond in a later video,
33:46this was fun.
33:47I like doing this sort of thing.
33:48It's nice to see people in real life
33:50to ask me questions and stuff
33:51because I feel like, yeah, this is good shit.
33:52So if you enjoyed this video
33:53and you'd like to ask a question,
33:54check out the link down in the video description.
33:56And if you've gotten to this point in the video,
33:58you are gonna probably love
33:59and probably vibe with my
34:01why you feel lost in life series.
34:03This is not me trying to call you out.
34:04It's just that this is a good series
34:05on figuring out a life and work vision and goals and stuff.
34:07And basically everyone who has been,
34:10who's asked all these three people who've asked questions
34:12would benefit from doing
34:13that sort of life vision work design exercise
34:16that I talk about in this playlist right over here.
34:18So thank you so much for watching
34:19and I'll see you in the next video.
34:20Bye-bye.