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Live Stream - Tuesday Evening Hangout

2018-06-12 · Livestream or live hangout · Ali · recording, 1 h 9 min · watch on YouTube

Topic: Medicine and his doctor years (also: Learning and studying, Health, sleep and habits, Productivity and time, Mindset, motivation and happiness, Relationships and personal life, Tools, apps and tech, Books and reading, Business and entrepreneurship, YouTube, writing online and creators) · mode: Answering questions · tags: Aimed at students, His own numbers, Family, Lesson from a book

In an hour-long Tuesday livestream in his last days of medical school, Ali answers rapid-fire viewer questions: medicine is not that hard, prepare for medical school only by learning study techniques, cultivate a growth mindset, treat competition as a game, try to make money from a hobby, and do what you need to do whether or not you feel like it.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Opening the livestream and greeting viewers from around the world

00:02:50 — Love Island, the last days of the apprenticeship block, the Happy video, a maths exam tomorrow, his specialty, a college laptop

  • ★★ With his exams over, Ali is in the final three days of the apprenticeship block, the last days of medical school, learning how to be a junior doctor. — 00:03:22
  • ★★ Ali calls Derren Brown's Happy really, really good but will probably not make a video on it specifically; he wants to make a video on books that have changed his life, with Happy on the list. (hedged) — 00:04:02 · Derren Brown
  • ★★ The night before a maths exam, Ali advises just relaxing: little can be done by the next day to change the mark, so have a good time and a good night's sleep. — 00:04:29
  • ★★ Ali is planning to specialise in obstetrics and gynaecology, he reckons. (hedged) — 00:05:00 · Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★★ For a college laptop Ali says it depends on budget: he recommends the 13-inch MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar, and has heard the Microsoft Surface is pretty good. — 00:05:00 · MacBook
  • ★ Ali is 24 years old. — 00:05:00

00:05:36 — Anki for postgraduate exams, meeting That Medic, a freshers' meet-and-greet, the price of Anki

  • ★★★ Ali calls Anki really, really useful and plans to use it exclusively for his postgraduate exams, the exams after medical school, basing his whole tactic around it. — 00:05:36 · Anki
  • ★★ Ali has not met That Medic in person: they have chatted on Instagram and plan to hang out in July, when That Medic is free. — 00:06:04
  • ★★ Ali would do a meet-and-greet for Cambridge freshers, since he will be around, and will organise it closer to the time; on a junior doctor's pay he would buy everyone a coffee. — 00:06:04 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ The Anki iOS app costs £25, Ali says; AnkiWeb is free in Safari, but the £25 is very well spent. — 00:06:04 · Anki, Safari

00:06:46 — How much he sleeps, sleep hygiene and reading on the Kindle

  • ★★ Ali tends to sleep seven to eight hours a night, aiming for around seven; after five or six hours he does not feel good the next day. — 00:06:46
  • ★★ For better sleep Ali points to simple sleep hygiene: a wind-down routine before bed and no screens. — 00:06:46
  • ★★ To fall asleep Ali reads on his Kindle Paperwhite with the brightness low and the lights off until he cannot keep his eyes open; otherwise falling asleep takes ages and seems a waste of time. — 00:07:28 · Kindle

00:07:55 — Online lectures, A-level biology, work experience for Cambridge, the Grenada travel vlog, GCSEs

  • ★★ For online lectures Ali suggests Dr Najeeb's lecture series. — 00:07:55
  • ★★ A-level biology is lots of content, Ali says: first make sure you understand it, then use Anki and flashcards to memorise what needs memorising. — 00:08:19 · Anki
  • ★★ The amount of work experience is not really important for Cambridge, Ali says: Cambridge cares more about academics, though it depends on the college. — 00:08:19 · University of Cambridge, Work experience, Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali is editing a travel vlog of his trip to Grenada but finds it hard: there is so much footage, and he is unsure how long to make it, what story to tell, and how much should be music shots or explanation. — 00:08:50
  • ★★ Good GCSEs help for medical school but are not the be-all and end-all, Ali says: bad GCSEs can easily be made up for by good A-level, BMAT and interview performance. — 00:09:11 · BMAT
  • ★★ Nobody cares which subjects you take at GCSE to become a doctor, Ali says: only the grades matter. — 00:09:42

00:10:03 — The "just one thing" tip for organising time

  • ★★★ Ali's tip for organising time is "just one thing": each morning ask which one thing you could do today that would make everything else in your life slightly easier, such as a stressful big project, and do it that day. — 00:10:03

    “what's the one thing that I could be doing today that will make everything else in my life slightly easier?”

00:10:33 — Oxford and Cambridge admissions, why medicine, medicine is not that hard, A-level requirements, grey T-shirts, the Cambridge bursary

  • ★★ Oxford and Cambridge admissions differ, Ali says: Oxford's is centralised, Cambridge's is done by each college, and Oxford tends to give more interviews. — 00:10:33 · University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali chose medicine over computer science because he thought coding as a degree and a job would become a bit boring; his plan is to combine the two somehow. — 00:10:59
  • ★★★ Studying medicine is really not that hard, Ali says: there is plenty of free time, and a bit of work every day and studying smart are enough; he is on a crusade to bust the myth that medical students have it so hard. — 00:11:26
  • ★★ Physics and maths at university are probably more difficult than medicine, Ali says: medicine needs little thinking, only a lot of content to memorise. (hedged) — 00:11:54
  • ★★ For medicine most universities require A-level chemistry and one more science, Ali says; each university's website gives its requirements. — 00:12:28
  • ★ Ali's favourite grey T-shirt comes in a pack of three from Abercrombie: it fits nicely and does not shrink in the wash; Abercrombie and All Saints make decent grey T-shirts. — 00:12:54
  • ★★ Cambridge supports students financially on a means-tested basis, Ali says: the Cambridge bursary gives low-income students a lot, while middling-income families who miss the criteria have to budget. — 00:13:21 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge

00:13:51 — The summer before medical school: study techniques, memory books, hobbies; hobbies at medical school

  • ★★ Asked what to do in the summer before medical school to be best prepared, Ali says do not try to prepare for medical school: there is no point. — 00:13:51
  • ★★★ To prepare for medical school, Ali advises only learning study techniques from his videos and from books such as Make It Stick and Tony Buzan's or Harry Lorayne's books on memory, since the hard part of medical school is the sheer volume of content. — 00:14:37 · Make It Stick
  • ★★ Apart from study techniques, Ali advises spending the summer before medical school getting better at a hobby or skill, such as an instrument, singing, coding, graphic design, rock climbing or cycling. — 00:15:04
  • ★★ Medical students do absolutely everything, Ali says, such as his friends on the university rugby and football teams; the idea that medical school leaves no time for anything else is unhealthy and untrue. — 00:15:46

00:16:09 — His F1 rotations, learning to code, Duolingo, the USMLE and med tech in the UK

  • ★★ Ali starts his first foundation year on cardiology at Addenbrooke's Hospital: about a month in A&E, then three months in cardiology. — 00:16:09 · Addenbrooke's Hospital, Foundation Programme
  • ★★ Ali's first-year foundation rotations are two in general medicine and one in general surgery. — 00:16:09
  • ★★ Asked how quickly one can learn to code, Ali says the question is how quickly you can make something you want to make: a weekend or a week, depending on the size of the project. — 00:16:36
  • ★★ For learning a language Ali calls Duolingo quite good. — 00:16:36
  • ★★ Ali thought about taking the USMLE, which his mother really wanted, but decided against it because he really likes the UK and because of medical technology. — 00:16:36 · USMLE, Ali Abdaal's mother, United Kingdom
  • ★★ Medical technology is less developed in the UK than in the US, Ali says, so med tech or education tech is easier to get into there: a bigger fish in a smaller pond, without America's competition. — 00:17:21 · United Kingdom, United States

00:17:48 — Fixed and growth mindsets

  • ★★ People with a fixed mindset avoid answering questions in class in case they are wrong, Ali says, while people with a growth mindset love it, because a wrong answer lets them learn. — 00:19:02

  • ★★★ Asked which habit improves life most, Ali says cultivating a growth mindset, which treats a wrong answer or a failed cannula as a chance to learn, is one of the most important things you can do to improve your life and one of the most useful things he has ever done. — 00:19:02

    “cultivating a growth mindset is one of the most important things you can do to improve your life”

00:19:31 — Piano and music theory, why no podcast, video games, choosing Cambridge over Oxford

  • ★★ Ali is learning to read music and some music theory: since taking up the piano he has mostly played by ear, and his playing is now well ahead of his reading. — 00:19:31
  • ★★ Following Gary Vaynerchuk's idea of one main pillar of content, Ali makes YouTube his main pillar, with his email newsletter and blog as offshoots. — 00:20:07 · Gary Vaynerchuk
  • ★★ Ali does not think he can add anything with a podcast for now: a podcast would be a lot of work, and the world already has many podcasts, some really good. — 00:20:36
  • ★★ Unsure about video games in general, Ali thinks playing with friends you know in real life is really good: he made two close school friends, Chris and Omar, playing World of Warcraft together. — 00:21:23 · World of Warcraft
  • ★★ Ali did not much mind between Oxford and Cambridge; he chose Cambridge because he had high UMS marks at AS level, which Cambridge looked at then. — 00:21:46 · University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Cambridge

00:22:25 — His work experience, the UCL interview, typing speed, bad grades, being bad at maths, the preclinical and clinical split

  • ★★ Ali's work experience for medicine was a week at UCL Hospital, a week at Southend Hospital, and weekly volunteering at a special needs school and at a hospice. — 00:22:25 · Work experience, University College London
  • ★★ At his UCL interview Ali said silly things and came across as very arrogant; UCL gave no offer, and its feedback advised a year to develop his people skills and lose the touch of arrogance, which he calls fair. — 00:22:56 · University College London
  • ★★ To pick yourself up after failing or getting bad grades, Ali says realise that it is in the past, and dwelling on the past never helps anyone. — 00:23:44
  • ★★★ Ali calls "I'm just bad at maths" a myth he is on a mission to eliminate: no one is bad at maths, only not yet properly taught, just as no one is inherently bad at drawing; with work, anyone improves. — 00:23:44
  • ★★ You do not really need to be good at maths to be a doctor, Ali says: no one does calculations in their head any more, there are apps for that. — 00:24:19
  • ★★ Ali liked Cambridge's split between preclinical and clinical medicine, which breaks medical school into two distinct chunks of three years. — 00:24:19 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge

00:25:28 — Sixth form, working in the US, Osmosis videos, Google Sheets and shared mark schemes, the UK MLA date

  • ★ Ali went to Westcliff High School for Boys for both secondary school and sixth form. — 00:25:28
  • ★★ Ali's best typing speed is 154 words per minute. — 00:25:28
  • ★★ To work in medicine in the US after medical school in the UK you must take the USMLE, the biggest barrier, and have references, Ali says. — 00:25:28 · USMLE, United States, United Kingdom
  • ★★ Ali really loves Osmosis videos, which he calls absolute goals for medical education, with high production value that he says costs them about $1,000 a video. — 00:25:28
  • ★★ Ali thinks Osmosis videos would be better with a person's face explaining alongside the writing: he is not a fan of the interactive-whiteboard approach of Khan Academy. — 00:26:07
  • ★★ Ali prefers Google Sheets to Excel: it loads quickly in a browser on any device, and it is very easy to share, with people updating it live. — 00:26:55 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ Past papers in Ali's first and second years had no mark schemes, so his group made their own in a Google Sheet for each subject: one did a paper, another marked theirs against those answers and commented on disagreements. — 00:26:55 · Google Sheets
  • ★★★ A trick for getting through university, and medical school especially, is working together with other people in your university and college, Ali says, which Google Docs and Google Sheets really help with. — 00:27:38 · Google Sheets
  • ★★ The UK MLA is expected probably in 2022, Ali says, so students starting medical school in 2018 will probably take it. (hedged) — 00:27:38 · United Kingdom

00:28:09 — GoodNotes and Notability, his college house, volunteering, the Pomodoro technique, programming languages

  • ★★ Ali has not tried GoodNotes: when he first got an iPad three years ago his research suggested Notability was more legit, so he went with it and has not looked back. — 00:28:09 · GoodNotes, Notability, iPad
  • ★★ Ali lives in a huge college-owned house at a really good price, a benefit of Cambridge colleges giving accommodation that he calls lucky and not a normal university experience. — 00:28:09 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ Asked about volunteering early for a medicine application, Ali says might as well: volunteering is good to do long-term, and the longer you do it the more impressive it sounds. — 00:28:50 · Work experience
  • ★★ Ali likes the Pomodoro technique in some cases: its 25 minutes can feel restrictive, but it helps when he must motivate himself to work and has not built the discipline. — 00:28:50 · Pomodoro technique
  • ★★ Ali is comfortable with HTML, CSS, vanilla JavaScript, jQuery and PHP, which he uses with the Laravel framework; he is only vaguely learning Node.js and feels no desire to. — 00:29:21

00:29:48 — Working for the NHS, smart-thinking book picks, doing YouTube forever

  • ★★ In the UK everyone works for the NHS at first, Ali says: private work starts only once you are a consultant, and consultants train in the NHS; he plans to work for the NHS and maybe go into private practice later. — 00:29:48 · NHS, United Kingdom
  • ★★★ Ali's smart-thinking book picks include Tim Ferriss's The 4-Hour Workweek, for insight into what productivity really means, and Derren Brown's Happy, on changing how you think to be happier and less reactive to negative events. — 00:29:48 · The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss, Derren Brown
  • ★★ Ali also recommends Derek Sivers's Anything You Want: lessons for entrepreneurs that he thinks are life lessons for everyone. — 00:30:35 · Derek Sivers
  • ★★ Ali will make a video at some point on the smart-thinking books he recommends. — 00:30:35 · also in: Life Advice - 50k subs Q&A
  • ★★ Ali expects to keep vlogging and doing YouTube forever: it is really fun and going quite well. (hedged) — 00:30:35

00:31:13 — Reading if you hate it, fiction and non-fiction, the morning before an exam, TV against books, rankings, his brother

  • ★★ If you hate reading, Ali says get a Kindle: hating reading means you have not read the right books. — 00:31:13 · Kindle
  • ★★ People read fiction because they enjoy it, Ali says; he puts reading fiction in the same category as watching TV or films, though slightly more worthwhile. — 00:31:13
  • ★★★ Reading non-fiction is not about loving reading, Ali says, but about getting insights from people who have spent years researching things that matter to you; if you want that, reading is not hard at all. — 00:31:40
  • ★★ Ali's morning routine before an exam: get up, have breakfast, do the exam; no extra work that morning will help, so chill and chat to your friends. — 00:32:08
  • ★★ Ali's favourite fiction includes Harry Potter, Mistborn and Noughts and Crosses; he is now on The Wise Man's Fear, the sequel to The Name of the Wind, listening to it as an audiobook. — 00:32:08 · Harry Potter (book series), Mistborn
  • ★★ Ali does not regret studying medicine at Cambridge: he loves Cambridge and wants to live there forever. — 00:32:33 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali used Anki a lot over the long term for his fifth-year exams but hardly at all for this year's (2018) sixth-year exams: he started revising properly late, so his spreadsheet worked better. — 00:32:59 · Anki
  • ★★ Ali has often debated TV against books with his brother, who backs watching TV while Ali leans to books; many TV shows do make you think, and he does not know the answer. (unsure) — 00:33:23 · Taimur Abdaal
  • ★★ Ali's favourite handbook for clinical medicine is the Oxford Handbook. — 00:33:23 · University of Oxford
  • ★★ Cambridge medical students were ranked as undergraduates but are no longer officially ranked: the top student knows, those with distinctions know they are in the top 15 to 18%, and the rest do not know their ranking. — 00:33:53 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali's brother studied maths at Oxford for four years, graduated last year (2017) and now works at a startup in London. — 00:33:53 · Taimur Abdaal, University of Oxford, London

00:34:19 — Scholarships at Cambridge, typing, the AFP video, the Duke of Edinburgh award, moving from St Andrews, state schools

  • ★★★ Many applicants, especially from India and Pakistan, dream of a scholarship to study medicine at Cambridge, but Ali says that for the most part there is no such thing: very few scholarships exist. — 00:34:19 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Pakistan
  • ★★ The few scholarships to Cambridge come from private organisations or governments, not the university, Ali says: the Singaporean government funds many students, and two of his friends from Pakistan won a private company's engineering scholarship that about 400 people applied for. — 00:35:00 · University of Cambridge, Singapore, Pakistan, Cambridge
  • ★★ International students must find a scholarship in their own country, Ali says: Cambridge offers none to them, a scholarship is not simply there for the good, and studying there is otherwise really expensive. — 00:35:00 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali never did a typing course: he has spent at least eight hours a day at a computer since he was 11, and the more time you spend at a computer, the faster you type. — 00:36:04
  • ★★ A video on the Academic Foundation Programme is coming out: Ali filmed it with someone who has written a book about the AFP, for release in July, when people start thinking about AFPs. — 00:36:42 · Academic Foundation Programme, Foundation Programme
  • ★★ Ali did the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award but left it out of his personal statement, as it was not worth mentioning. — 00:36:42 · Personal statement
  • ★★ A friend who moved from St Andrews to Cambridge fitted in well, Ali says: undergraduates stick to their own college and dissection table, so at clinical school in fourth year everyone meets new people, and an outsider fits in easily. — 00:37:30 · Cambridge
  • ★★ Cambridge admits about 60% of its students from state schools, Ali says, though that includes grammar schools; he went to a state grammar school. — 00:38:00 · University of Cambridge, Cambridge

00:38:32 — The UK MLA, squash, diversity, studying in Eastern Europe, working together at Emmanuel, what he is reading

  • ★★ Ali will make a video about the UK MLA: at the Cambridge Faculty Day a few weeks ago, which he vlogged, it was discussed, as several Cambridge faculty members sit on the board writing its questions. — 00:38:32 · United Kingdom, Cambridge
  • ★★ The UK MLA will be like the USMLE, Ali says: an exam every final-year medical student takes, probably written and multiple choice, which might set national rankings; the full details are not known yet. (hedged) — 00:38:54 · USMLE, United Kingdom
  • ★★ Ali's favourite sport these days is squash, which he plays regularly with his friend Jake: it is so dynamic, and the hospital and his college both have courts. — 00:38:54 · Jake
  • ★★ Cambridge medicine is less diverse than Imperial, UCL or King's, Ali says: there are lots of brown, Chinese, Malaysian and Singaporean students, about three Black students in his year, and it is still predominantly white. (hedged) — 00:40:12 · Imperial College London, University College London, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
  • ★★ For UK students who do not get into medicine in the UK and can afford it, Ali says studying in Eastern Europe seems legit; friends who did it seem to enjoy it. — 00:40:45 · United Kingdom
  • ★★ Ali's year group of medics at Emmanuel works together nicely and shares things; being techy, he organises shared Google Docs and spreadsheets, and there is little competition within the college. — 00:41:50 · Emmanuel College
  • ★★ Ali reads a Stephen King book he thinks is called On Writing on his Kindle in bed, and listens to Patrick Rothfuss's The Wise Man's Fear at the gym. — 00:42:18 · Kindle

00:42:43 — Personal statements, what top students do differently, the Kindle, his camera gear

  • ★★★ Ali's one piece of advice for a medicine personal statement: do not start with the introduction; he points to his video in which about ten of his friends give tips. — 00:42:43 · Personal statement
  • ★★★ Ali sees exam performance as a function of natural intelligence, exam technique and practice, with your knowledge base overlapping all three. — 00:43:06
  • ★★★ Ali tells himself he puts less time into medicine than he could because he wants to do other things, such as websites and YouTube, and that if he really put in the hours he could probably do quite well. (hedged) — 00:43:45
  • ★★★ Among the top 50 or 100 of a year in medicine, Ali says, results depend on how much smart work you put in, while in understanding-based subjects such as maths, physics or engineering natural geniuses can come top with little work. — 00:44:25
  • ★★ Ali says the Kindle is absolutely worth it: one of the best purchases he has ever made. — 00:44:57 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali prefers the Kindle to the Kindle app on the iPad: it is easy to read in bed, more like paper and easier on the eyes, while the iPad's strong backlight keeps him from falling asleep even with Night Shift on. — 00:46:02 · Kindle, iPad
  • ★★ Ali's livestream setup is a Sony a6500 with a Sigma 16mm f/1.4 lens and a Rode VideoMic Pro Plus, connected through an Elgato Cam Link to a 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro. — 00:46:02 · MacBook

00:46:47 — Cambridge or Oxford, hopes and fears as a junior doctor, natural intelligence, buying recommended books

  • ★★ Ali guesses that Cambridge is slightly easier to get into for medicine than Oxford, because it has twice as many students and Oxford has a slightly bigger brand name. (speculative) — 00:46:47 · University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Cambridge
  • ★★ What Ali most looks forward to as a junior doctor is helping people: thank-you messages from viewers on Instagram and by email have given him a taste of it and make his work feel worthwhile. — 00:48:08
  • ★★ Ali is not really dreading anything about being a junior doctor: everyone in the country does it, so it is probably not a big deal. — 00:48:43
  • ★★★ Ali believes in natural intelligence: he studied intelligence in his psychology intercalated degree, has read a lot of the research, and thinks it has a very strong genetic component. — 00:49:07
  • ★★ During the livestream Ali buys two books viewers recommended: Moonwalking with Einstein, £4.99 on Kindle, and an Elon Musk biography, £5.49. — 00:49:50 · Kindle, Amazon

00:50:31 — A productive summer: make money from a hobby; close-up magic and the Magic Circle

  • ★★★ For a productive summer Ali advises finding a hobby you enjoy, getting better at it and working towards making money from it, which he calls the absolute key to everything. — 00:50:31

    “It is all about finding stuff you enjoy doing and trying to work out how to make money from it.”

  • ★★ Trying to make money from a hobby, Ali says, means putting your work out there, which builds confidence and skills, and makes you improve it until someone values it enough to pay for it. — 00:51:03

  • ★★ Ali's example from close-up magic, which he did a lot of: many magicians only practise tricks at home, but aiming to make money from magic gets you offering your services to restaurants, volunteering and seeking bookings, which develops you as a magician and builds confidence in public speaking. — 00:51:32
  • ★★ Ali never joined the Magic Circle, though he went to its lectures and once meant to audition; he has let magic slide recently, wants to get back into it and might do a little show on YouTube. — 00:52:00

00:52:31 — Changing career to medicine in your 30s, competition at Cambridge, Deep Work, extracurriculars, deciles

  • ★★★ To people in their 30s thinking of changing career to become a doctor, Ali says go for it: graduate-entry medics in his year in their early 30s love it, and are more clued up, more socially skilled and more experienced. — 00:52:31
  • ★★ Ali thinks joining medicine older gives an interesting perspective and probably makes you a better doctor, whereas undergraduates decided at 16 and followed the yellow brick road laid out for them. (hedged) — 00:52:57
  • ★★ Whether Cambridge feels competitive depends on how you view competition, Ali says: aim to come top of the year and it is hostile; aim to do your best without caring what others do and it is less so. — 00:53:39 · Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali read only the first half of Cal Newport's Deep Work before losing interest and means to read it again, but fully agrees with its general concepts: flow states and deep work. — 00:54:06
  • ★★ Cambridge does not really care about applicants' extracurricular activities, Ali says, while UCL does. — 00:54:29 · University of Cambridge, University College London, Cambridge
  • ★★★ Ali says do extracurricular activities for skills that help the rest of your life, not to look rounded on a personal statement: school gives so much free time that you could get really good at coding within a year. — 00:54:29 · Personal statement
  • ★★ In foundation job applications, Ali says, all that matters is your decile within your own year group, so the top of a less competitive university ranks above someone lower down at a higher-ranked one. — 00:55:16 · Foundation Programme

00:55:50 — Competition as a game

  • ★★★ Ali treats competition as a fun game: friends who work harder deserve kudos for better marks, while losing to someone of similar work ethic only disappoints him, like losing a close board game. — 00:55:50
  • ★★ Ali does not get stressed by competition at all, because he does not regard it as stress-worthy: it is just a game, and then what everyone else gets does not matter. — 00:56:36

00:57:05 — Starting YouTube in a saturated market, and why money was never the aim

  • ★★★ Ali did not think too hard about starting on YouTube: had he dwelt on the 2018 opportunity and how saturated the market is, he thinks it would have stopped him, so he just went for it. — 00:57:05
  • ★★★ When Ali first thought about YouTube in July 2017, That Medic was probably the biggest UK medical YouTuber, his friend Chidera was an inspiration, and he had never seen a junior doctor vlogger; his idea was to become a legit junior doctor vlogger in the UK. — 00:57:35 · Chidera, United Kingdom
  • ★★ Ali's aim on YouTube was never to make money: he did not expect to earn anything and did not turn ads on for about eight months, until someone pointed out he might as well. — 00:57:59

00:58:24 — Intelligence, and coping with stress and pressure

  • ★★★ Ali hardly feels stress or pressure, partly from a growth mindset and partly from knowing he will be all right whatever happens in exams; he regards failures as learning opportunities and has always done enough work to pass. — 00:58:51

00:59:23 — Pre-med, other specialties, study time, personal statement drafts, notes from textbooks, starting a medical channel, the F1 rota

  • ★★ If you like the idea of medicine, Ali says, go for medicine straight away: people he knows who did pre-med say it is not amazingly useful. — 00:59:23
  • ★★ If Ali does not go into obstetrics and gynaecology, he might reconsider plastic surgery, his first idea, or A&E or general practice. (hedged) — 01:00:25 · Obstetrics and gynaecology
  • ★★ Ali would not want to go into psychiatry: his mother is a psychiatrist, and his psychiatry placement was all right, but he does not see himself doing it. — 01:01:05 · Ali Abdaal's mother
  • ★★ Ali has no set amount of study time: it varies with exams and essays, and in general he works only in the run-up to exams. — 01:01:35
  • ★★ Ali's personal statement took absolutely ages: he went through about 16 drafts. — 01:02:04 · Personal statement
  • ★★ To a student taking notes from a textbook, Ali asks why take notes at all rather than write questions for yourself, though it depends on the subject. — 01:02:04
  • ★★★ For starting a medical YouTube channel, Ali says not to worry about quality, cameras or microphones: that can come later, if you find you enjoy it. — 01:02:44

01:03:09 — Motivation against discipline, video editing, plastic surgery

  • ★★ Ali's F1 rota, received last week (week of 4 June 2018), averages about 47 hours a week, about 10 hours a day for five days, which he calls quite doable. — 01:03:09 · Foundation Programme
  • ★★★ Ali does not really agree with motivation as a concept: if you need or want to revise, you will; try to make yourself want to, by making revision fun as a game of testing yourself. — 01:03:09
  • ★★ Ali learned video editing by doing: after 100 videos you naturally get better, especially if you also watch other people's vlogs and editing tutorials on YouTube. — 01:03:54
  • ★★ Ali's second newsletter email, Motivation is a myth, gives his thoughts on motivation with links to articles he returns to, including one called "Screw motivation, what you need is discipline". (hedged) — 01:04:38

  • ★★★ For revising, the gym or any unpleasant thing we should do, Ali says the ideal is to eliminate feelings: do it because we need to, not because we feel like it, since motivation is only a temporary rush. — 01:05:30

    “We do it because we need to do it. We don't do it because we feel like doing it.”

  • ★★ Plastic surgery in the UK is mostly reconstructive, Ali says, such as breast reconstruction or hand trauma, not just cosmetic surgery; he likes that side, giving people their organs back. — 01:05:53 · United Kingdom

01:06:25 — Preparing for first-year anatomy with study techniques; starting a company

  • ★★★ To a student anxious to revise anatomy before first year, Ali says specific knowledge in advance makes no difference; develop learning techniques instead, such as getting familiar with Anki and planning how to make Anki decks for anatomy. — 01:06:25 · Anki

  • ★★★ Ali calls getting good at effective study techniques, such as active recall, spaced repetition and categorisation, as found in his videos and in Make It Stick, the single biggest thing that will help in medical school. — 01:06:47 · active recall, spaced repetition, interleaving, Make It Stick

    “Getting good at effective study techniques is gonna be the single biggest thing that will help you in medical school.”

  • ★★ To a Year 13 student wanting to start a UKCAT course company, Ali says just make a course, register the company and make a website: nothing fancy and no team needed, you can do it all yourself. — 01:07:12 · UKCAT

01:07:47 — Wrap-up, another livestream next Tuesday, the newsletter, piano

  • ★★ Ali thinks he will maybe do another livestream next Tuesday (19 June 2018) and might make it a regular Tuesday thing, because it is fun to do. (hedged) — 01:07:47

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Anki · growth mindset · Kindle

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's mother · Cal Newport · Chidera · Derek Sivers · Derren Brown · Dr Najeeb · Elon Musk · Gary Vaynerchuk · Harry Lorayne · Jake · Patrick Rothfuss · Paul · Sam Kolder · Stephen King · Taimur Abdaal · That Medic · Tim Ferriss · Tony Buzan

Works: Anything You Want · BMAT · Deep Work (book) · Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine · Harry Potter (book series) · Make It Stick · Mistborn · Moonwalking with Einstein · Noughts and Crosses · On Writing · Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine · The 4-Hour Workweek · The Name of the Wind · The Wise Man's Fear · UK Medical Licensing Assessment · UKCAT · USMLE

Organizations: Addenbrooke's Hospital · Amazon · Duke of Edinburgh's Award · Emmanuel College · Imperial College London · Khan Academy · King's College London · Nested · NHS · Osmosis · The Magic Circle · University College London · University of Cambridge · University of Oxford · University of St Andrews · Westcliff High School for Boys

Concepts: Academic Foundation Programme · active recall · Cardiology · deep work (concept) · Foundation Programme · General internal medicine · General practice · General surgery · Intercalated degree · interleaving · Obstetrics and gynaecology · Personal statement · Plastic surgery · Pomodoro technique · Psychiatry · spaced repetition · Work experience

Places: Cambridge · Grenada · London · Pakistan · Singapore · Southend-on-Sea · United Kingdom · United States

Products: Duolingo · GoodNotes · Google Sheets · iPad · MacBook · Microsoft Excel · Microsoft Surface · Night Shift · Notability · Safari · Sony A6500 · World of Warcraft

Also centred on growth mindset: The confidence to speak up in class - A podcast experiment · What Makes People Successful?

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