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Money, Relationships and Hair Loss - Answering your Assumptions

2019-08-16 · Q&A video · Ali · recording, 22:46 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Money and investing (also: Relationships and personal life, YouTube, writing online and creators, Learning and studying, Medicine and his doctor years, Mindset, motivation and happiness) · mode: Answering questions · tags: Family, His medical past, Lesson from a book

Answering assumptions viewers sent in on Instagram, Ali says he is rich by his own definition, mainly through his company SixMed, but credits a privileged start. He also answers questions on relationships, studying, arrogance, clickbait titles, stoic calm and imposter syndrome, and says he means to stay a doctor with YouTube on the side.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Assumptions read out; why this video is self-indulgent; the nine categories

  • ★ For videos that add value, Ali says viewers should watch anything by Matt D'Avella or Thomas Frank instead of this self-indulgent assumptions video. — 00:00:29 · Matt D'Avella, Thomas Frank

00:01:37 — Money: what being rich means, how SixMed made him rich, his privileged start, books for entrepreneurs

  • ★★ Ali says he will make a few more videos about money, how he makes money and personal finance. — 00:01:59
  • ★★ One way of looking at wealth is relative to your friends; Ali has heard that as people get richer and mix with richer people, they feel less rich and less happy with their money. (hedged) — 00:01:59

  • ★★★ Ali prefers to define a rich life by his own wants rather than others' earnings: he is rich once money no longer limits the experiences he wants or his happiness. — 00:02:43

    “money is not a limiting factor in the experience that I want or in my personal happiness”

  • ★★ Ali says he has everything he needs and a lot more, and does not really want any more stuff. — 00:03:12

  • ★★ Ali says evidence shows that beyond a certain income, which he thinks is sometimes put at about $50,000 in the US, more money stops bringing more happiness. (hedged) — 00:03:12
  • ★★ Ali says people should talk about money more, and he does not mind being the first among his friends to talk about it in public. — 00:03:48
  • ★★★ Ali says the most obvious thing that made him rich is SixMed, the company he set up six years ago, which has run ever since. — 00:03:48 · 6med
  • ★★ SixMed began in 2013 teaching BMAT courses to UK medical school applicants, then added UKCAT and interview courses and question banks; Ali has run it on the side as a Cambridge medical student and doctor. — 00:04:17 · 6med, BMAT, UKCAT
  • ★★ Ali takes no credit for what led to the business: he says he was dealt a very good hand at birth, with the genes and environment that gave him a reasonable IQ. — 00:04:17
  • ★★ Ali's mother valued education so much that she moved the family from Pakistan to Africa and then to the UK for it. — 00:05:06 · Ali Abdaal's mother, Pakistan
  • ★★ Ali's mother is a single mother and a doctor; the family had a reasonable standard of living, but not an extravagant one. — 00:05:06 · Ali Abdaal's mother
  • ★★ Ali thinks that upbringing gave him and his brother an entrepreneurial mindset: from about 12 he taught himself to code and made websites for businesses and individuals for money. — 00:05:35 · Taimur Abdaal
  • ★★ From about 13 Ali helped teach maths and English at a tutoring centre, which made him a bit of money. — 00:05:35
  • ★★★ Every year from about 13 to 18, Ali and his friend James tried to set up a new internet business; all five failed, making about 50 pounds in total. — 00:06:04
  • ★★ At 18 or 19 Ali took the lessons from those failed internet businesses into SixMed, which did very well. — 00:06:04 · 6med

  • ★★★ Ali does not think there is any such thing as a self-made man: he has led a very privileged life with a lucky set of circumstances. — 00:06:33

    “I don't think there is any such thing as a self-made man”

  • ★★ Ali says he will make a video in a couple of weeks with tips for entrepreneurs. — 00:07:13

  • ★★★ For anyone interested in getting rich through entrepreneurship, Ali recommends reading The 4-Hour Workweek, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Show Your Work, The Third Door and Shoe Dog. — 00:07:13 · The 4-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ali says his entrepreneurship video will give his top 10 lessons for entrepreneurs, and he will make it sooner if viewers comment. — 00:07:42
  • ★ Ali has been reading books on setting up businesses for more than 10 years and applied their lessons to his own life. — 00:07:42
  • ★★ Ali says he does not have a girlfriend, is single and has barely been in any relationships. — 00:07:42
  • ★★ Ali has asked his mother to look for an arranged marriage for him, but she does not know many people. — 00:07:42 · Ali Abdaal's mother

00:08:00 — Relationships: single, an arranged marriage, Molly and Paul, profession, the friend zone

  • ★★ Ali and his housemate Molly are not dating; she is dating another friend of theirs. — 00:08:24 · Molly Hunt
  • ★★ Ali does not care about a partner's profession, though he thinks he will most likely get on with someone of a similar level of education. (hedged) — 00:08:24
  • ★ Ali says he likes brunettes more than blondes, if one can generalise to that extent. — 00:09:38
  • ★★ Ali has been friend-zoned about three times, which he says is fine. — 00:10:02
  • ★★ Ali dislikes the term "friend zone": it implies that being nice to someone should make them attracted to you, and no one is obliged to be. — 00:10:02

00:10:31 — Hair loss and bandanas

00:11:03 — Arrogance: confidence, not an expert, self-aggrandising humour, the brandable Cambridge doctor, clickbait titles

  • ★★ Ali sees a fine line between arrogance and confidence and thinks he sometimes skews too far into arrogance. — 00:11:03

  • ★★★ Ali says he gives advice not as an expert, but sharing techniques that have worked for him. — 00:11:03

    “I'm not coming from the place of an expert”

  • ★★ Ali sometimes uses self-aggrandising humour for banter, and calls Robert Downey Jr. a master of it. — 00:12:17

  • ★★ Among hundreds of other Cambridge medical students, Ali says, being one becomes much less a part of anyone's identity. — 00:12:44 · University of Cambridge
  • ★★ Being a doctor, or a medical student at a top university, is more brandable, Ali says, so a YouTube creator should use the brandable bits. — 00:13:10
  • ★★ Ali admits the title of his video How I Ranked First at Cambridge University is not strictly true: he says he actually ranked second in one year, in one subject. — 00:13:10 · University of Cambridge
  • ★★★ Ali does not feel bad about clickbait titles as long as the video provides value, since many people would not otherwise find a valuable video. — 00:13:40
  • ★★ Ali studied during his GCSEs and A-levels, but not ten hours a day; he says his IQ meant he did not need to study that hard for exams. — 00:14:02
  • ★★ In his first and second years at university Ali had a good balance; in his third year, the one he did really well in, he spent ten hours a day in the library. — 00:14:02

00:14:12 — Nerdiness: studying at school and university, nerdy friends, the lunchtimes that led to coding

  • ★★ In sixth form Ali and his nerdy friends spent lunchtimes in the music block singing songs while his friend James played the piano. — 00:14:42
  • ★★ Lunchtimes in the school computer room, playing an online text-based game, gave Ali his interest in learning to code, which he says has had so many positive effects on his life that he is really glad it happened. — 00:14:42
  • ★★ Ali confirms he got all A* grades at GCSE and A-level. — 00:15:24
  • ★★ Ali went to a selective state grammar school, entered by exam, not a private school. — 00:15:24

00:15:35 — Private school: a selective state grammar school

00:16:00 — Why he cannot reply to every message

  • ★★ Until he had about 10,000 YouTube subscribers, Ali replied to every Instagram DM, email and Facebook message he got. — 00:16:01 · Instagram
  • ★★ Replying to everyone would take Ali about four hours a day, which he cannot spare: he works full time, sometimes gets home at 7pm and still has to make videos. — 00:16:30
  • ★★ Ali's housemate Molly occasionally answers some of his Instagram DMs, since she knows the advice he would give. — 00:16:30 · Molly Hunt, Instagram
  • ★★ Ali's mother, a doctor, did not push him into medicine; she thought he would do something like maths. — 00:17:00 · Ali Abdaal's mother
  • ★★ Ali would not rather be an influencer than a doctor: being an influencer or content creator is probably quite short-lived. (hedged) — 00:17:00

00:17:14 — Being a doctor: his mother's view, doctor versus content creator

  • ★★ Medicine, Ali says, is a long-term career: you can be a doctor for the rest of your life, work your way up and do many different things within it. — 00:17:43
  • ★★★ Ali wants to keep being a doctor because it is fun and interesting, with content creation on the side. — 00:17:43
  • ★★ Ali does not think Apple does sponsorships: he thinks it only sends review units to reviewers and does not pay people to promote its products. (hedged) — 00:18:12 · Apple
  • ★★ Ali says he does not easily get angry and cannot remember the last time he was. — 00:18:12

00:18:14 — Miscellaneous: Apple sponsorship, anger and stoicism, cheating on a test, study priority, imposter syndrome, helping friends, climate change

  • ★★★ Ali credits his calm partly to stoicism, whose main idea he gives as: events do not make us angry or sad, the story we tell ourselves about them does. — 00:18:44 · stoicism
  • ★★ As introductions to stoicism Ali recommends Derren Brown's Happy and William Irvine's A Guide to the Good Life. — 00:18:44 · Derren Brown, stoicism
  • ★★ Ali sees no point in getting angry: if he can control or change something he acts on it, and if not he lets it be. — 00:19:14
  • ★★ At 10 or 11, in his last year of primary school, Ali and a classmate called Rory shared answers on a maths test by unspoken agreement. — 00:19:14

  • ★★★ Ali's theory for getting through university: studying is the default, done only when there is nothing better to do; social events, sport and friends come first, and spare time goes to study rather than Netflix. — 00:19:49

    “studying is the default thing that you do, but only when you have nothing better to do”

  • ★★ Ali felt imposter syndrome when he started his YouTube channel; reading Austin Kleon's Show Your Work completely eliminated it. — 00:20:18

  • ★★ Ali thinks he would get bad imposter syndrome if he presented himself as an expert; instead he shares what works for him. — 00:20:18
  • ★★ At medical school Ali started a shared Google Drive of essay plans and a Google Sheet of past papers on which he and about 16 college friends crowdsourced mark schemes. — 00:20:55 · Google Drive, Google Sheets
  • ★★★ Ali says he does not really care about climate change: he knows he probably should, but it does not affect him emotionally. — 00:21:54
  • ★★ Ali says his recycling makes no real difference: climate change will move only through change at an industrial level, and he thinks it will not be solved at all. — 00:21:54

00:22:23 — Sign-off

Humor (significant)

  • Asked whether he has a secret crush on his friend Paul, Ali plays along — 00:08:24

    “I have a crush on Paul. It's not that secret. Everyone knows it.”

  • Told he believes in polygamous relationships for men — 00:08:24

    “I actually believe in polygamous relationships for everyone, not just men.”

  • Told he became the romantic interest of brown teenage girls — 00:09:10

    “I mean, if I am a romantic interest of brown teenage girls, I don't really have much to show for it.”

  • Told he wears a bandana to hide his hair loss — 00:10:31

    “The only reason I sometimes wear a bandana is to hide my rapidly receding hairline.”

  • Told he will be bald by 30, five years away — 00:10:31

    “I think it might even be sooner than that.”

  • Told he worries about his hair loss and hides it — 00:10:31

    “Lock me up, Your Honor. 100% true.”

  • Told he is low-key trying to get an Apple sponsorship — 00:18:12

    “It's not very low key. I think I'm pretty obvious about trying to secure an Apple sponsorship.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 6med

Also: People: Alex Banayan · Ali Abdaal's mother · Austin Kleon · Derren Brown · Jonathan Ross · Matt D'Avella · Molly Hunt · Paul · Phil Knight · Ramit Sethi · Robert Downey Jr. · Taimur Abdaal · Thomas Frank · Tim Ferriss · William Irvine

Works: A Guide to the Good Life · BMAT · Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine · I Will Teach You To Be Rich · Shoe Dog · Show Your Work! · The 4-Hour Workweek · The Third Door (book) · UKCAT

Organizations: Apple · Instagram · University of Cambridge

Concepts: privilege · stoicism

Places: Pakistan

Products: Google Drive · Google Sheets

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