Skip to content

How Writing Online Made me a Millionaire

2021-02-04 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, David Perell, Austin Kleon · recording, 16:13 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Lesson from a book, His medical past, Sponsor segment present

Ali says starting his blog in 2016, after Austin Kleon's Show Your Work got him past his fears, changed his life in three ways: a serendipity vehicle (David Perell's term), clarity of thought, and a butterfly effect that led to his YouTube channel; he advises starting free on WordPress or Substack and writing about whatever interests you.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Ali's fears about writing online as a medical student

  • ★★ Ali started his personal blog around five years before this video, having known since his first year of university that he wanted to start some kind of blog. — 00:00:00 · aliabdaal.com
  • ★★ Before starting his blog, Ali feared he would have nothing to write about, that no one would read it, and that friends and family would make fun of him. — 00:00:29 · aliabdaal.com
  • ★★ Ali felt stuck on having to be original: he liked tech and productivity, but there were already a zillion tech and productivity blogs and YouTube channels. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali also feared his articles would be bad and that a future employer would hold the blog against him; for four or five years these fears stopped him starting a blog. — 00:00:58

00:01:27 — Show Your Work: documenting what you do, being a beginner, and nobody judging you

  • ★★★ On 2 January 2016 Ali discovered Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work, which he says single-handedly changed his life. — 00:01:27 · Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon, show your work
  • ★★★ Show Your Work is the book Ali has gifted most: he keeps several copies at home and gives one to anyone scared to put themselves out there, as it is short and easy to get through. — 00:01:27 · Show Your Work!, show your work

  • ★★★ Ali calls Show Your Work a guide to self-promotion for people who hate it: he used to think self-promotion dirty, but Austin Kleon frames it as showing your work. — 00:01:56 · Show Your Work!, show your work, Austin Kleon

    “it's not about self-promotion. It's about showing your work.”

  • ★★ Before the internet, Ali says, people could not get a behind-the-scenes look at others' work: a writer or an artist went into their cave and came out with the finished book or painting. — 00:02:26

  • ★★★ Starting a blog, Ali says, is not about coming up with something interesting to write: it is just documenting what you are already doing. — 00:02:56 · show your work
  • ★★ As a medical student Ali could easily have documented medical-student life, which he started doing on his YouTube channel about five years later, and the many books he was reading. — 00:02:56
  • ★★★ Asked for his one regret or the advice he would give himself ten years ago, Ali always answers that he wishes he had started a blog earlier and written reviews of the books he read. — 00:03:25
  • ★★ Ali does not know what he thought when he first read Show Your Work, or how The 4-Hour Workweek, read at 17, changed him, because he never documented it. — 00:03:25 · Show Your Work!, The 4-Hour Workweek, show your work
  • ★★ Austin Kleon (quoted): Chapter one of Show Your Work says you do not need to be a genius or an expert to share your process, document your work and show how you are learning. — 00:03:54 · Show Your Work!, show your work
  • ★★ Ali calls himself a beginner on YouTube who knows nothing about productivity: he just documents what he is learning and shares tips he found helpful. — 00:03:54
  • ★★★ To anyone who thinks they cannot write because they are not an expert, Ali says to embrace being a beginner: a beginner is often much better at teaching other beginners than an expert. — 00:04:24
  • ★★ Ali credits C. S. Lewis with the curse of knowledge: when you become very good at something, you forget what it was like to be a beginner at it. — 00:04:24
  • ★★ A total beginner at drawing, Ali is learning concept art, taking art lessons and, thanks to Show Your Work, documenting his process on Instagram and Twitter. — 00:04:24 · Show Your Work!, Instagram, Twitter, show your work
  • ★★ Ali plans a journey blog post on his website about learning art as a total beginner. — 00:04:53 · aliabdaal.com
  • ★★★ Ali calls his worry about what friends and family would think of his blog on aliabdaal.com stupid: no one actually cares, as everyone is worried about their own life. — 00:04:53 · aliabdaal.com
  • ★★★ Ali asks whether you would judge a friend or cousin who blogged about learning the piano: you probably would not, and would think it cool. — 00:05:30

00:06:00 — Firstly, the serendipity vehicle, with David Perell's robots

  • ★★★ The first way writing online changed Ali's life is the serendipity vehicle, a term coined by his friend David Perell. — 00:06:00

    “serendipity vehicle”

  • ★★★ Ali compares living only among the people of your village with visiting neighbouring towns and meeting people with your interests, which exponentially increases your surface area for serendipity. — 00:06:29

  • ★★ David Perell says ideas put on the internet are carried by little robots, like carrier pigeons, to people all over the world while you sleep or play tennis, at no charge. — 00:06:58

  • ★★★ David Perell says you can make something once and the robots will work for you for life: as they deliver your ideas, people reach out with money, help or consulting projects. — 00:07:41

    “you can make something once and the robots will work for you for the rest of your life”

  • ★★ David Perell says the things a serendipity vehicle brings into your life are beyond what you could have imagined before. — 00:08:11

  • ★★★ Putting your ideas into the world, Ali says, opens you up to connections: friends, business associates, even the person you marry, as your network grows from a tiny village to the whole world. — 00:08:11

00:08:40 — Secondly, clarity over his own thoughts: the SixMed blog post and Austin Kleon on writing every day

  • ★★★ The second way writing online changed Ali's life is that it helped him get clarity over his own thoughts. — 00:08:40
  • ★★★ In 2016, after a few very good years, the growth of Ali's company SixMed stagnated, and he had a crisis over what he was doing with his life and the company. — 00:08:40 · 6med
  • ★★ Writing and publishing a blog post on the balance between time and money, the crux of his SixMed crisis, helped Ali solidify and clarify his thinking. — 00:09:09 · 6med
  • ★★ Ali emailed Austin Kleon to thank him for Show Your Work, and Kleon came on an interview on Ali's YouTube channel a few months before this video. — 00:09:09 · Austin Kleon, Show Your Work!, show your work

  • ★★★ Austin Kleon says that with a blog or any daily project, such as one Instagram post a day, you find out that it is not that you have something to say: you find out what you have to say. — 00:09:38 · Austin Kleon, Instagram

    “it's not that you have something to say, it's that you find out what you have to say”

  • ★★ Austin Kleon calls writing a way of communicating with yourself: sitting at a keyboard for 45 minutes or a notebook for half an hour makes space to find out what you really feel and think. — 00:09:38 · Austin Kleon

  • ★★ Austin Kleon says a beginner blogger must quickly get over the feeling of having nothing to say: the routine of blogging every day means you will get to something every day. — 00:10:26 · Austin Kleon

00:10:55 — The third, the butterfly effect: from the blog to the YouTube channel

  • ★ The third way writing online changed Ali's life is the butterfly effect: a seemingly small thing you do can have a huge effect further down the line. — 00:10:55
  • ★★★ Writing a few blog posts in 2016 made Ali okay with putting himself out there, so 18 months later, in 2017, he had no fear of starting a YouTube channel. — 00:11:25 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Without the blog, Ali thinks he probably would not have started his YouTube channel, paralysed by fear of putting himself out there. (hedged) — 00:11:25 · YouTube

00:12:09 — A Zoom date, then how to start writing online and what to write about

  • ★★ After 18 months of writing online showed him his friends and family did not care, Ali realised he could start a YouTube channel, vlog his medical school elective and make videos on getting into medical school. — 00:12:09
  • ★★ On 3 February 2021 Ali went on a Zoom date with someone he met online who watched his videos; if they marry, he says, that too will be down to his blog. — 00:12:09 · Zoom, aliabdaal.com
  • ★★★ To start writing online, Ali says to Google "free website" and make an account on WordPress or Substack, both completely free, or use Ghost, the platform he uses. — 00:12:09 · Ghost
  • ★★ Ghost costs a bit of money, but Ali says it is very much worth investing in for anyone serious about a blog that changes their life. — 00:12:55 · Ghost
  • ★★★ David Perell advises new writers not to think about what the world will be interested in but to write about what interests them, down to super niche topics. — 00:12:55
  • ★★ David Perell says the lesson of the internet is that you are not the only person interested in what interests you, and niche topics bring the most cool people and interesting things. — 00:13:24
  • ★★ Ali sums up: start with the smallest thing you can, write about whatever interests you and document your work and learning, and you will connect with people interested in the same things. — 00:13:24 · show your work
  • ★ Ali says he will talk another time about being active on Twitter. — 00:13:24 · Twitter

00:14:03 — The extended version on Nebula and the CuriosityStream sponsor read

  • ★★ An extended version of this video, about 35 to 40 minutes long, with more writing tips from Ali and the authors he has interviewed, is on Nebula, the streaming platform he built with other creators. — 00:14:03 · Nebula

00:15:46 — Pointer to his imposter syndrome video and sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Austin Kleon · butterfly effect · David Perell · serendipity vehicle · show your work · Show Your Work!

Also: People: C. S. Lewis

Projects: aliabdaal.com

Works: The 4-Hour Workweek

Organizations: 6med · Instagram · Twitter

Concepts: luck surface area

Products: Ghost · Substack · WordPress · Zoom

Only in the description or credits: Write of Passage

Replies to

Replied to by

← Previous: How To Beat Imposter Syndrome · Next → How I Learnt To Play Piano and Sing