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20 Podcasts That Changed My Life (and Business)

2022-01-31 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 17:08 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading (also: Mindset, motivation and happiness, Health, sleep and habits, Business and entrepreneurship, YouTube, writing online and creators, Money and investing) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: His own products discussed, Family, Sponsor segment present

Ali goes through the podcasts that shaped his life and business, mostly as ways to discover people: interview shows (The Tim Ferriss Show, The Knowledge Project, Deviate, Bookworm, The Diary of a CEO), Huberman Lab for health, business shows (My First Million, Indie Hackers, Noah Kagan Presents), creator podcasts (Video Creators, The GaryVee Audio Experience) and Smart Passive Income, and tells would-be founders to listen to podcasts to learn how.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Intro: about 500 episodes, podcasts as his biggest source of ideas after books

  • ★★ Ali says that from around 2019 to 2021 he listened to about 500 podcast episodes. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ After books, podcasts are the single biggest source of inspiration, ideas and learning Ali has had; starting his channel in 2017 knowing little about marketing, branding, filming or growing a business, he learned them through podcasts. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — The Tim Ferriss Show: Derek Sivers, Mr. Money Mustache and FIRE, crypto

  • ★★★ Ali calls The Tim Ferriss Show, which he started listening to around 2016, the podcast he has heard most episodes of and probably the one that most changed his life, though he has heard only a few dozen of several hundred episodes. — 00:00:29 · The Tim Ferriss Show
  • ★★ After enjoying Derek Sivers on The Tim Ferriss Show, Ali followed his work, read his blog posts and books and interviewed him on his own channel; they are now friends who talk occasionally. — 00:00:58 · Derek Sivers, The Tim Ferriss Show
  • ★★ A Tim Ferriss Show episode with Mr. Money Mustache introduced Ali to the FIRE movement; reading Mr. Money Mustache and other personal-finance bloggers made him take investing, budgeting and making more money more seriously. — 00:01:27 · The Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Ferriss
  • ★ More recently, Tim Ferriss's episodes interviewing crypto experts have taken Ali down the crypto rabbit hole. — 00:01:27 · The Tim Ferriss Show, Tim Ferriss
  • ★★★ Ali recommends The Tim Ferriss Show to everyone less for productivity tips or business advice than as a really cool way to discover interesting people, whose ideas you can then follow down rabbit holes. — 00:01:56 · The Tim Ferriss Show
  • ★★ Ali recommends The Knowledge Project, Shane Parrish's interview podcast from Farnam Street: more low-key than The Tim Ferriss Show, with really interesting guests. — 00:01:56 · The Tim Ferriss Show
  • ★★ Ali first heard of Naval Ravikant on The Knowledge Project, in an episode packed with value. — 00:01:56 · Naval Ravikant

00:02:12 — The Knowledge Project: Naval Ravikant and Esther Perel

  • ★★ Ali calls The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, which he bought after exploring Naval's tweets and podcast, very good: a distillation of Naval's life wisdom. — 00:02:26 · Naval Ravikant
  • ★ A mind-blowing Knowledge Project episode with relationships expert Esther Perel introduced Ali to her work. — 00:02:55
  • ★★ Ali has forgotten most insights from interview podcasts, having no good process for taking notes and revisiting them; for him they are mainly a way to find people whose content he then explores. — 00:02:55

00:03:15 — Deviate by Rolf Potts and the box of possibilities

  • ★★ Ali listens to Deviate, the podcast of Rolf Potts, whose book Vagabonding he read because Tim Ferriss said it had an impact on him: less business advice, more a generally interesting life podcast with guests into travelling. — 00:03:24 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★★★ Ali says the people around you define your box of possibilities in life: among doctors, medicine seems the thing to do; among tech founders or YouTubers, starting a startup or a channel seems normal and you are more likely to do it. — 00:03:55
  • ★★ Long-term travel was outside Ali's box of possibilities until listening to Rolf Potts and his guests showed him it is something people, and he, can do. — 00:04:24

00:04:54 — Bookworm, Make Time and John Zeratsky

  • ★★ Ali calls Bookworm, in which two men in America discuss a new book every week or two, a hidden treasure that has given him a lot of book recommendations he might have missed. — 00:05:02
  • ★★ Ali discovered Make Time through Bookworm, made a video about it and had its author John Zeratsky on his podcast; they are now internet friends, and on a recent Zoom call Zeratsky gave him advice on writing his book. — 00:05:02 · Zoom
  • ★★ Hearing Bookworm's two hosts discuss a book has decided Ali for or against reading it, which saves him time. — 00:05:32
  • ★★ Not Overthinking, Ali's weekly podcast with his brother Taimur, has been going for three years, with a YouTube channel and video episodes; they talk about life, happiness and anything in between. — 00:05:32 · Not Overthinking, Taimur Abdaal

00:05:48 — Not Overthinking, other interview podcasts, The Diary of a CEO and Deep Dive

  • ★★ Ali dips into other interview podcasts when they have a good guest: Invest Like the Best, which he calls very good, David Perell's North Star Podcast, The Art of Manliness Podcast, Impact Theory and The School of Greatness. — 00:06:01
  • ★★ Ali has recently started listening to The Diary of a CEO, Steven Bartlett's podcast, on which he was interviewed as a productivity expert. — 00:06:30
  • ★★★ The Diary of a CEO was the model for Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, the podcast Ali started a few months ago: a weekly long-form interview, with its own YouTube channel and on all podcast platforms. — 00:06:30 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ Ali calls his Deep Dive podcast the culmination of five years of listening to interview podcasts: he decided they were a cool way to connect with people and wanted to do one himself. — 00:06:59 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ Huberman Lab, by Andrew Huberman, a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine, is the only health podcast Ali listens to; he started it recently, when he decided to take more care of his health, and calls it amazing. — 00:06:59

00:07:18 — Huberman Lab and its sleep episode

  • ★★ Huberman Lab's three-hour episode on optimising sleep, which turns the evidence into actionable advice, has had an impact on Ali: he follows some of its recommendations and his team is working on a video about them. — 00:07:29

00:07:58 — Business podcasts: My First Million, Indie Hackers, Noah Kagan Presents, Online Marketing Made Easy, Naval

  • ★★ Business podcasts, focused on marketing, operations and growth, are probably the ones that most contributed to the business success of Ali's channel and the business around it. (hedged) — 00:07:58
  • ★★ Ali has listened to a few dozen episodes of My First Million, starting, he thinks, when it first came out; in it Shaan and Sam interviewed people about how they made their first million dollars. (hedged) — 00:07:58

  • ★★★ Ali's main takeaway from My First Million: making money on the internet through businesses is not that hard, with loads of people doing it and loads of models for it. — 00:08:27

    “making money on the internet through businesses is actually not that hard”

  • ★★★ The more business podcasts Ali hears, the more confident he is that if his YouTube channel died he could start again from scratch, build another business and enjoy the journey. (hedged) — 00:08:56

  • ★★ Friends, colleagues from his time as a doctor and people at his fan meetups have told Ali they want to start a business, yet do not listen to podcasts. — 00:09:25

  • ★★★ Since podcasts are free and full of knowledge from people who built million-dollar businesses, Ali tells anyone who wants to start an online business but does not know how to listen to podcasts and find out. — 00:09:47

    “dude, listen to podcasts and you will find out how”

  • ★★ Ali recommends the Indie Hackers podcast, in the vein of My First Million but a little less clickbaity, for its interviews with solo founders. — 00:09:47

  • ★★ Ali listened to Indie Hackers a lot when he coded and built software apps; it always gave him good business ideas. — 00:10:56
  • ★★ If he lost everything on his YouTube channel, Ali would probably make money again by coding a software product, binging the Indie Hackers back catalogue for ideas. (hypothetical, hedged) — 00:10:56
  • ★★ Around 2019 and 2020, working out how to market his business and grow his courses, Ali listened to 20 episodes of Noah Kagan Presents and 12 of Amy Porterfield's Online Marketing Made Easy, and found them super useful. — 00:11:26
  • ★★ Ali calls Naval Ravikant's irregular mini podcast, a set of episodes expanding on his ideas of how to get rich without getting lucky, really good. — 00:11:26 · Naval Ravikant

00:11:54 — Creator podcasts: Video Creators, The GaryVee Audio Experience and five podcasts of creator friends

  • ★★ Ali has listened to 31 episodes of Tim Schmoyer's Video Creators Podcast in the last 12 to 18 months, not religiously, since its advice for YouTubers varies a lot. — 00:11:54
  • ★★ Ali adds Video Creators Podcast episodes that catch his fancy to his list; it is very easy to listen to and often gives him useful tips for growing his channel. — 00:12:24
  • ★★ Ali calls Gary Vaynerchuk of The GaryVee Audio Experience one of his internet guru idols: not everyone's cup of tea, but if you get past his brash way of talking, his advice and how he built his business while making loads of content stand out. — 00:12:24 · Gary Vaynerchuk
  • ★ Gary Vaynerchuk has built a billion-dollar business with a team of 1,500 people. — 00:12:24 · Gary Vaynerchuk
  • ★★ Ali says Gary Vaynerchuk is always at the forefront: he urged people onto TikTok and LinkedIn before they took off and has been pushing NFTs. — 00:12:53 · Gary Vaynerchuk, TikTok, LinkedIn
  • ★★ Had he listened to more of Gary Vaynerchuk's episodes over the last 12 months, Ali says, he would probably have got into NFTs a lot sooner than he did. (hedged) — 00:12:53 · Gary Vaynerchuk
  • ★★ Ali lists five podcasts run by creators: That Creative Life by Sarah Dietschy, The Stalman Podcast by Tyler Stalman, Matt D'Avella's Patreon-only Secret Podcast, The Matti and Pete Show of Peter McKinnon and Matti Haapoja, and Becky and Chris's Tuxedo Time Podcast. — 00:12:53 · Matt D'Avella, Peter McKinnon
  • ★★ The hosts of these five creator podcasts started as creators Ali admired online; he is now internet friends with most of them, though he has never met any in real life. — 00:13:22

00:13:51 — Finance: The Property Podcast and Smart Passive Income

  • ★★ The Property Podcast by Property Hub is a niche podcast for property investors in the UK; Ali says anyone who is not or does not want to be one will get no value from it. — 00:13:51
  • ★★ Ali has had enormous value from Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income, which he has listened to for years. — 00:13:51

00:14:20 — Pat Flynn and Azul, friends made as a creator, the earlier interview livestreams

  • ★★★ Ali and Pat Flynn are now internet friends: when Ali mentioned he was struggling to write his book, Flynn introduced him to Azul, the book-writing coach Ali now works with. — 00:14:20
  • ★★★ Many of Ali's serendipitous connections came from listening to someone's podcast, following them on Twitter or YouTube and becoming internet friends as his channel grew; he calls this one of the best parts of being a creator online. — 00:14:20 · Twitter
  • ★★ More than the audience, making videos or making money, Ali says the single best thing about being a creator is the friends you make along the way. — 00:14:50
  • ★★ During the pandemic, a year before starting his Deep Dive podcast, Ali did a few dozen remote interviews with people he admires online as YouTube livestreams; they are no longer on YouTube but are all on Nebula. (hedged) — 00:14:50 · Deep Dive

00:15:19 — Nebula and the CuriosityStream sponsor read

00:16:47 — Deep Dive interviews to watch; sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Bookworm · Deep Dive · Deviate · Gary Vaynerchuk · Huberman Lab · Indie Hackers podcast · My First Million · Not Overthinking · Smart Passive Income · The Diary of a CEO · The Knowledge Project · The Tim Ferriss Show · Video Creators Podcast

Also: People: Amy Porterfield · Andrew Huberman · Azul · David Perell · Derek Sivers · Esther Perel · John Zeratsky · Matt D'Avella · Matti Haapoja · Naval Ravikant · Noah Kagan · Pat Flynn · Peter McKinnon · Rolf Potts · Sam Parr · Sarah Dietschy · Shaan Puri · Shane Parrish · Steven Bartlett · Taimur Abdaal · Tim Ferriss · Tim Schmoyer · Tyler Stalman

Works: Impact Theory · Invest Like the Best · Make Time · Mr. Money Mustache · Noah Kagan Presents · Online Marketing Made Easy · School of Greatness · That Creative Life · The Almanack of Naval Ravikant · The Art of Manliness Podcast · The GaryVee Audio Experience · The Matti and Pete Show · The Naval Podcast · The North Star Podcast · The Property Podcast · The Secret Podcast · The Stalman Podcast · Tuxedo Time Podcast · Vagabonding

Organizations: Becky and Chris · Farnam Street · LinkedIn · Property Hub · Stanford University · TikTok · Twitter

Concepts: FIRE movement · NFT

Products: Patreon · Zoom

Also centred on Deviate: Monthly Favourites #10 - Ali Abdaal

Also centred on Indie Hackers podcast: Monthly Favourites #8 - Ali Abdaal

Also centred on My First Million: Ready Player One + 'My First Million' - Monthly Favourites #12

Also centred on Smart Passive Income: Smart Passive Income + The Third Door - Monthly Favourites #11

Also centred on The Diary of a CEO: I was an imposter for a day...here's what I learned.

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