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My Most Important Weekly Habit

2021-08-22 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 11:37 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Lesson from a book, His own products discussed, His own numbers

Ali says his most important weekly habit is showing his work, the key to building an audience online, which brings friendships, impact and a possible income; he advises starting niche, giving value for free and consistently, and moving followers from social media, where the platform owns the audience, onto an email newsletter of a paragraph and a few links on Substack, Revue or ConvertKit.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — His most important weekly habit, key to building an audience online

  • ★★★ Ali says his most important weekly habit, which he has kept for five years, has been key to building an audience online, which made things possible from financial independence to friendships with really cool people. — 00:00:00 · show your work
  • ★★★ Ali calls building an audience one of the best things you can do for your personal life and career; first, because relationships matter most and an audience lets you connect with infinitely more people. — 00:00:00

00:00:26 — Why building an audience is one of the best things you can do: relationships, impact, a thousand true fans

  • ★★ When you share your work online, Ali says, it resonates with people who care about the same things; they reach out, you may become friends on the internet and then meet in real life. — 00:00:38
  • ★★ Ali's second benefit of building an audience: if you care about having an impact, an audience magnifies the impact you can have as an individual. — 00:00:38
  • ★★ Ali enjoys teaching in person but can only teach so many people that way; teaching an audience on YouTube, his blog or email magnifies his impact as a teacher. — 00:01:07 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali's example: the surgeon Atul Gawande affects the patient he operates on, but by writing up his findings and checklists in books he reaches many more people, and has had an enormous impact on healthcare. — 00:01:07
  • ★★ Ali's third benefit of building an audience: you can monetise it, or "sell out", further down the line if you really want to. — 00:02:04
  • ★★ Kevin Kelly (quoted): Kevin Kelly's essay 1000 True Fans says a full-time living needs only 1,000 true fans, a true fan being someone who pays you on average $100 a year for what you do. — 00:02:04
  • ★★ Ali says that, mostly thanks to the internet, many more careers are possible than a decade or two ago, so you need not do a career you do not enjoy and can carve out your own. — 00:02:33
  • ★★ Ali first read Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work in 2016 and calls it one of the books that has most changed his life. — 00:03:03 · Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon, show your work

00:03:22 — How to build an audience: the habit of showing your work, with value, consistency and a niche

  • ★★★ Ali's weekly habit for building an audience, from Austin Kleon's book Show Your Work: show your work every week, documenting what you are working on and sharing it on the internet however you like. — 00:03:34 · show your work, Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon

    “the weekly habit is to show your work in some capacity”

  • ★★ Ali's first principle for showing your work is to provide value: as Austin Kleon says, a photo of your latte has none, but showing what you are working on and documenting how you learn it does. — 00:03:34 · Austin Kleon, show your work, Show Your Work!

  • ★★★ Ali says a common mistake is expecting payment for what you post: you build an audience by giving people value for free, and after a few years of doing it consistently people may start paying you. — 00:03:34
  • ★★ Ali's second principle for showing your work is to do it consistently if at all possible, because everything, including building an audience, is better done consistently. — 00:04:17 · show your work, Show Your Work!
  • ★★ Ali says a beginner sharing productivity hacks will not get much of an audience, since zillions do that, while showing your work on a very niche interest, such as the economics of StarCraft 2, is far more likely to. (hedged) — 00:04:46 · show your work, Show Your Work!
  • ★★ Ali started his YouTube channel helping people get into medical school at Cambridge University, a niche of a few thousand applicants a year; over time his audience expanded to productivity, tech, money and entrepreneurship. — 00:04:46 · University of Cambridge, YouTube

  • ★★★ Ali's third principle: start really niche and niche down as much as possible, showing your work on the quirky and weird things about you; if you think it is too niche, it is probably not niche enough. — 00:05:15 · show your work, Show Your Work!

    “If you think it's too niche, it's probably not niche enough”

00:05:37 — Where to show your work: borrowed social platforms versus an email newsletter, and which platform to use

  • ★★★ Ali says on a social media platform you do not own your audience, the platform does: he has 2 million YouTube subscribers but no way of contacting them, an audience borrowed from YouTube temporarily. — 00:05:45 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali says his YouTube videos barely reach his subscribers, the algorithm changes, and at any point YouTube could make a change that leaves his audience of 2 million worth not very much. — 00:06:15 · YouTube

  • ★★★ Building an audience on social media is fine, Ali says, but it is borrowed ground that belongs to the platform, so get those followers onto your email list as well as you can, since an email address is the only guaranteed way to contact someone. — 00:07:05

    “you're building an audience on borrowed ground”

  • ★★ Ali says Noah Kagan, Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday and James Clear all sing the praises of an email newsletter, because it is the only guaranteed way to contact your audience. — 00:07:05 · Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, James Clear

  • ★★★ Ali recommends creators of all sizes start an email list and collect emails now, even if it is not relevant yet or they rarely send a newsletter, because one day they will be glad of a direct line to their audience. — 00:07:34

    “the thing that I recommend to creators of all sizes is just start an email list and start collecting emails.”

  • ★★ People reply to Ali's email newsletter, and he has connected with many of its subscribers that way. — 00:07:34 · Sunday Snippets

  • ★★ Ali dislikes the word "newsletter", which sounds like something from 2002: it is just an email sent on a regular basis, weekly, fortnightly or monthly, with a few things in it. — 00:08:03
  • ★ Tim Ferriss sends his Five-Bullet Friday every week, a list of five things. — 00:08:03 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★ Ali's friend David Perell sends the newsletters Monday Musings and Friday Finds, with a few thoughts and links to articles he found useful. — 00:08:33
  • ★ Ali's friend Nat Eliason sends a newsletter, Monday Medley (as heard), with links to things he enjoyed that week: books, blog posts, music. (hedged) — 00:08:33
  • ★★ Ali calls curation a very good newsletter strategy, because we live in an era of abundance with so much material out there. — 00:08:33
  • ★★ Ali sends his newsletter Sunday Snippets mostly every week: a book he is reading, a blog post he enjoyed, music he listens to and general thoughts on his week; it does not take much effort to write. — 00:09:02 · Sunday Snippets
  • ★★★ To start a newsletter, Ali recommends writing a paragraph on something you learned or thought about that week, then a few links to interesting things you read, listened to or watched. — 00:09:28
  • ★★ Ali has used Revue for his newsletter for the last three years, and recently switched over to ConvertKit. — 00:09:57 · Revue, Sunday Snippets
  • ★★★ For a newsletter platform Ali recommends Substack, Revue or ConvertKit: take your pick, any of the three is fine and all are free to start. — 00:10:27 · Revue
  • ★★ Ali says ConvertKit is free for the first thousand subscribers, while Substack and Revue are free forever. — 00:10:27 · Revue
  • ★★ Ali says ConvertKit is more powerful and has more features than Substack or Revue. — 00:10:27 · Revue
  • ★★ Ali says a newsletter gets you into the habit of writing weekly, of reflecting on your week and what you learned, and of showing your work and sharing with people. — 00:10:27 · show your work, Show Your Work!

00:11:04 — Pointer to his video on writing online and sign-off

  • ★★★ Ali says you need no fancy camera or Instagram photos: one email a week or a month with two paragraphs and a few links is a great way to start building an audience online. — 00:11:04 · Instagram

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: show your work · YouTube

Also: People: Atul Gawande · Austin Kleon · David Perell · James Clear · Kevin Kelly · Kylie Jenner · Nat Eliason · Noah Kagan · Ryan Holiday · Tim Ferriss

Projects: Sunday Snippets

Works: 1000 True Fans · Five-Bullet Friday · Show Your Work! · StarCraft II

Organizations: Facebook · Instagram · LinkedIn · TikTok · University of Cambridge

Products: ConvertKit · Revue · Substack

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