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Monthly Favourites #8 - Ali Abdaal

2019-05-02 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 14:25 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time (also: Mindset, motivation and happiness, Business and entrepreneurship, Learning and studying) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: Lesson from a book, Feel-Good Productivity thesis, Family

In Monthly Favourites for April 2019, Ali recommends Derren Brown's book Happy as the philosophy behind his contentment, the Indie Hackers podcast's interviews with AJ of Carrd and Jason Cohen of WP Engine, Seth Godin's post on the gap between "have to" and "get to", which he now applies to his discharge letters, and learning the guitar with JustinGuitar.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Monthly Favourites for April 2019 and the winner of last month's book giveaway

  • ★★ The winner of Ali's giveaway of The Courage to Be Disliked is Carmen Calzon (as heard), a medical student at the University of Barcelona; Ali will get his address on Instagram and mail the book. — 00:00:00 · Instagram
  • ★★★ Ali calls Derren Brown's book Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine one of his favourite nonfiction books of all time. — 00:00:00 · Derren Brown

00:00:44 — Book: Happy by Derren Brown, an introduction to Stoicism, and a new giveaway

  • ★ Ali, who has idolised Derren Brown for about ten years, calls him a famous psychological illusionist, magician and hypnotist known to nearly everyone in the UK, now making it big internationally with Netflix specials and a US tour. (hedged) — 00:00:48 · Derren Brown, Netflix
  • ★★ Ali says Derren Brown's Happy is a book about philosophy, not magic, and a fantastic introduction to the Stoic school of philosophy. — 00:00:48 · stoicism, Derren Brown
  • ★★ Derren Brown (quoted): The cover text of Happy says Derren Brown traces ideas of happiness from the Stoics and Epicureans to today's self-help industry, and shows that its routes such as positive thinking, self-belief and setting goals can be disastrous and cause anxiety. — 00:01:46 · stoicism, Derren Brown
  • ★★ Happy is by far Ali's most highlighted book on his Kindle, with Atomic Habits second, he thinks; he first read it in 2016 when it came out and gains new insights about happiness every time he rereads it. (hedged) — 00:02:15 · Kindle, Atomic Habits
  • ★★ Ali will talk about James Clear's Atomic Habits in another Monthly Favourites video. — 00:02:15 · Atomic Habits, James Clear
  • ★★★ When people ask how he seems so carefree, unstressed and content, Ali points them to Derren Brown's Happy, which he says explains the philosophy that makes him happy and content most of the time. — 00:02:15 · stoicism, Derren Brown
  • ★ Ali reads books on his Kindle and no longer uses physical books; the paper copy of Happy he shows was bought only to show on camera. — 00:02:45 · Kindle
  • ★★ Ali gives away a copy of Derren Brown's Happy with a message from him at the front: viewers who comment with their Instagram username enter, and one winner receives it. — 00:02:45 · Instagram, Derren Brown

00:03:11 — Podcast: Indie Hackers, with AJ of Carrd and Jason Cohen of WP Engine

  • ★★★ Ali calls the Indie Hackers podcast absolutely incredible for anyone interested in the idea of making money on the internet. — 00:03:11
  • ★★ Indie Hackers started as a website posting interviews with founders of profitable internet businesses about how they got there, their revenue and their tips. — 00:03:11
  • ★★ Ali has browsed Indie Hackers since about its launch, which he puts at about two years ago, and finds its podcast particularly good. (hedged) — 00:03:41
  • ★★ AJ makes about $30,000 a month from Carrd, an easy one-page website builder with its own niche beside Squarespace, Wix and WordPress, which he started by himself, pretty much in his bedroom. — 00:04:10 · Squarespace
  • ★★ Ali likes that on the Indie Hackers podcast AJ of Carrd tells how he got where he is in a self-aware way, fully appreciating the role of luck, good timing and good fortune in his success. — 00:04:10
  • ★★ Jason Cohen, interviewed on the Indie Hackers podcast, founded WP Engine, which has about 600 employees and $130 million a year in recurring revenue and is the host Ali has used for his SixMed website. — 00:04:39 · 6med
  • ★★ Ali has run his own company for the last six years, very much as a small-scale operation of him and his friends. — 00:05:38 · 6med
  • ★★ Ali had always thought the product is the most important part of making an app; Jason Cohen of WP Engine says other parts of a company play a part as well, and runs his company on frameworks and models. — 00:05:38
  • ★★ Seth Godin has taught entrepreneurship, marketing, writing and setting up businesses for 30 years, has written about 19 bestselling books, and has written a daily blog post for over a decade. (hedged) — 00:06:07

00:06:26 — Blog: Seth Godin's "The gap between have to and get to" and Ali's discharge letters

  • ★ Ali struggles to write a blog post and his email newsletter every week, while Seth Godin writes a blog post every day. — 00:06:57 · Sunday Snippets
  • ★★ Seth Godin (quoted): In his blog post "The gap between have to and get to", Seth Godin says deadlines work because they focus the mind and create urgency: they are an external lever for the work we have to do. — 00:06:57
  • ★★ Seth Godin (quoted): In "The gap between have to and get to", Seth Godin says you can follow the most productive and happy people you know by redefining the work you have chosen as something you get to do. — 00:07:26 · identified motivation
  • ★★ Ali says the simple shift in language from "have to" to "get to" completely changes how we feel about the things we have to do. — 00:07:55 · identified motivation
  • ★★ Ali and his brother Taimur discussed the gap between "have to" and "get to" for about 40 minutes in an episode of their podcast Not Overthinking on whether they enjoy their jobs and how to enjoy them more. — 00:07:55 · Not Overthinking, Taimur Abdaal, identified motivation
  • ★★ Ali says doctors like him and his friends love to complain to each other about having to do discharge paperwork or review an unwell patient in the middle of the night, as students complain about essays, homework and revision. — 00:08:22
  • ★★ In the week since he found Seth Godin's post, Ali, a junior doctor, has thought "I get to do this discharge letter" at work instead of "I have to". — 00:08:52 · identified motivation
  • ★★ Ali calls thinking "I get to" rather than "I have to" about his discharge letters a genuine paradigm shift: sometimes it does not work, but more often than not he appreciates the letter's value. — 00:09:14 · identified motivation
  • ★★★ Ali says the sense of inner gratitude that he gets to write a discharge letter, rather than has to, completely changes the game and makes him happier at work. — 00:09:44 · identified motivation
  • ★★ Ali calls Seth Godin's blog a fantastic one to follow: it is one of the very few email newsletters he subscribes to, and he reads it every day because the advice is generally really valuable. — 00:09:44

00:10:11 — Physical product: the guitar, learned with JustinGuitar

  • ★★★ Ali thinks everyone should get a guitar, saying it has absolutely changed his life since he bought one. — 00:10:11
  • ★★ Ali bought his first guitar in about February 2015, in his second year of university, never having played; he had always been into singing. — 00:10:11
  • ★★ At the Pakistan Society Ball a friend of Ali's, a medical student at UCL, played an amazing rendition of Tears in Heaven on the guitar, and Ali fell in love with it and wanted to do the same. — 00:10:11 · University College London
  • ★★ Ali bought a guitar for about £30 at a charity shop and over the next few months taught himself with justinguitar.com, a free online video course, practising only about 10 to 20 minutes a day. — 00:10:40
  • ★★ A few months after starting the guitar, Ali accompanied friends on stage before about a thousand people at a Hindu society event, with no musical background beyond a year of violin lessons at 11. — 00:11:09
  • ★★ Ali now jams on the guitar with friends who enjoy singing, posts videos of his playing on his Instagram story, and has busked in Cambridge town centre a few times with friends, raising money for the local homeless shelter. — 00:11:09 · Instagram, Cambridge
  • ★★★ Ali says the guitar is not that hard to learn: about 15 minutes of practice a day for about a month, following justinguitar.com, makes you pretty reasonable at it. — 00:11:51
  • ★★ Ali tells viewers who think they cannot sing that if they can hold a tune they are probably a lot better than they think. (hedged) — 00:11:51

00:12:30 — Ali sings a song to his guitar

00:13:39 — What a month of guitar practice gets you; sign-off

  • ★★ Ali says he is not amazing at the guitar but can play chords and accompany himself well enough to play on stage, and that a guitar adds a lot of joy to your life and the lives of people around you. — 00:13:39

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Derren Brown · Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine · identified motivation · Indie Hackers podcast · JustinGuitar · Seth Godin · The Gap Between 'Have To' and 'Get To'

Also: People: AJ · James Clear · Jason Cohen · Taimur Abdaal

Projects: Not Overthinking · Sunday Snippets

Works: Atomic Habits · Seth's Blog · Tears in Heaven · The Courage to Be Disliked

Organizations: 6med · Instagram · Netflix · University College London · WP Engine

Concepts: stoicism

Places: Cambridge

Events: Pakistan Society Ball

Products: Carrd · Kindle · Squarespace · Wix · WordPress

Also centred on Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine: Live Q&A + Hangout - Bank Holiday vibes - Ali Abdaal, Cambridge medical student

Also centred on Seth Godin: Monthly Favourites #5 - Ali Abdaal

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