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My Goals for 2023 - Life Update

2023-03-29 (said on 2023-03-13 — implied: date said in the video; uploaded 16 days later) · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 34:32 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Business and entrepreneurship (also: YouTube, writing online and creators, Health, sleep and habits, Relationships and personal life) · mode: Reflection and life update · tags: His own products discussed, His own numbers, His medical past, Sponsor segment present

In a March 2023 life update Ali sets out his goals for work, health and relationships: a lifestyle business optimised for freedom, fun and flexibility, the last live cohort of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, more social media, his book in editing and hardware and software side quests; kickboxing, a fitness coach and cooking; and goals framed as identities such as group adventure leader and dinner party chef.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — A life and business update: goals for work, health and relationships

00:00:58 — Why a lifestyle business: freedom, fun and flexibility, profit over revenue, index funds and impact

  • ★★★ Ali realised in 2022 that instead of a big business he wanted a lifestyle business: one that makes money but optimises above all for freedom, fun and flexibility. — 00:00:58 · lifestyle business

    “really the thing that you're optimizing for is freedom and fun and flexibility”

  • ★★ For now a lifestyle business optimising for freedom, fun and flexibility seems ideal to Ali, though one day he may decide to build a bigger company or go back to medicine. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · lifestyle business

  • ★★ A lifestyle business focuses on profit rather than revenue: unlike a venture-backed startup that grows revenue at a loss to sell or go public, it makes a healthy profit every month that can be banked. — 00:01:27 · lifestyle business
  • ★★ Ali generally puts the spare cash his business generates into index funds such as the S&P 500 and diversifies into investments de-correlated with his popularity on the internet, since a creator career's longevity is not guaranteed. — 00:02:17 · S&P 500
  • ★★ For most people, Ali says, the first point of a business is to make money, the second freedom, fun and flexibility, and the third impact. — 00:02:46
  • ★★ The impact Ali personally cares about having through his business is teaching and helping people build a life they love. — 00:03:11

00:04:09 — The team's sweet spot, the content-and-courses model and the final live cohort of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy

  • ★★ Ali does not want to be a solopreneur, as he enjoys working with people in real life, nor to have a huge team or a very big business; he feels his team is now at the sweet spot of size. — 00:04:09

  • ★★★ Ali's business runs as a flywheel he calls the 99-1-1 rule: he makes free content, some of the audience buys his paid courses, and that funds more free content. — 00:04:53

    “99% of the content is free, but 1% of the content is expensive for the 1%”

  • ★★ Ali's team is 14 people including him: about 10 work on the content side and about four on the courses side. — 00:05:22

  • ★★★ For Ali courses are a bit of a necessary evil: if he did not need to make money for the business he would make no courses at all and spend his time on videos, writing and learning. — 00:05:59
  • ★★★ The Part-Time YouTuber Academy, whose final cohort has done phenomenally well, runs as a live cohort for the final time in April 2023; after that it becomes an evergreen self-paced course. — 00:06:20 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ After two and a half years of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, repeating the same content has become a bit boring for Ali, and a live cohort course is a lot of stress and faff. — 00:07:03 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★★ Ali no longer wants to run live cohort courses because, in a lifestyle business, they take away freedom and autonomy: Zoom calls at set times several times a week, no travel then, and a lot of stress. — 00:07:34 · lifestyle business, Zoom
  • ★★ Ali suspects his business will make a lot less money through the Part-Time YouTuber Academy once it stops running live cohorts. (hedged) — 00:07:34 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

00:08:18 — Brilliant sponsor read

  • ★★★ Running a lifestyle business, Ali keeps asking when enough is enough and at what point to put the brakes on making more money and focus instead on freedom, fun, flexibility and impact. — 00:08:18 · lifestyle business

00:09:46 — Doubling down on YouTube: students, the explore, learn, share loop and the Deep Dive podcast

  • ★★ Ali's team is doubling down on his YouTube channel in 2023: it is the foundation of the business, and if it died the business would die too. — 00:09:46 · YouTube
  • ★★ Recent community posts showed that a very large share of Ali's audience is still students, so his channel is leaning into student, productivity and tech content. — 00:10:16
  • ★★ The point of Ali's YouTube channel is to share what he has learned and to explore new things: some, like study tips, he already knows; others, like recent health topics such as skincare and sleep, he is exploring. — 00:10:16 · YouTube

  • ★★★ Ali follows an explore, learn, share loop that many online educators use: they learn things and share them, build over time an audience that knows, likes and trusts them, sell a course to some of it and repeat. — 00:11:02

    “there's this sort of explore, learn, share loop”

  • ★★ Ali sees himself making videos about whatever he enjoys learning; if that stays sustainable over the long term, he says, he is living his best life and playing the infinite game. (hedged) — 00:11:59

  • ★★ The Deep Dive podcast has nearly reached 200,000 subscribers on YouTube, and in 2022 it was in the top 1% of podcasts on Spotify by shares and listens. — 00:11:59 · Deep Dive, Spotify, YouTube
  • ★★ The dream behind Ali's Deep Dive podcast is that it lets him share insights outside his own realm of expertise. — 00:12:43 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ Ali's podcast interview with Professor Russell Foster, a world expert on sleep and circadian science, became a YouTube video on sleep that has nearly 3 or 4 million views. (hedged) — 00:13:12 · Deep Dive, YouTube

00:13:35 — Other social platforms, a lower bar for sharing, imposter syndrome, Nick's course and the doctors' strike

  • ★★★ It is worth building an audience on other platforms too, Ali says, partly for diversification, since a whole business on YouTube is risky, and partly because many people spend their time on Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram and rarely watch YouTube. — 00:14:01 · Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube

    “building an entire business on the borrowed land of YouTube is a little bit risky”

  • ★★ Since his team produces content for the YouTube channel and the podcast anyway, Ali says it may as well chop it up and post it on other platforms in a way that suits each platform. — 00:14:27 · YouTube

  • ★★ The second YouTube channel Ali's team started in 2022, where he did a daily vlog, was fun but took a lot of time and effort and took traffic away from his main channel. — 00:14:54 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali now tries to post something on social media every day, sharing a lesson from a conversation, a session with his CEO coach or a book he has read. — 00:15:17
  • ★★ If he did not need to make money, Ali would want a lower bar for sharing: not worrying whether a video performs, he would make more, such as a quick lesson from rereading Austin Kleon's Show Your Work. — 00:15:46 · Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon
  • ★★ Ali feels he cannot share in that low-key way on his YouTube channel, but can on his Instagram story, LinkedIn, Twitter or his email newsletter, where he shares most of what he comes across week by week. — 00:16:10 · Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Sunday Snippets, YouTube
  • ★★ Ali says his six years of making content have been an exercise in getting over imposter syndrome: even for this life update, the thought in his mind all day was why anyone would care. — 00:16:34
  • ★★ Ali is trying to get over the fear of videos not performing well or not applying to everyone in his audience, and to share without fear. — 00:17:02

  • ★★ Aria (quoted): In a coaching session, Dr Aria, soon to appear on Ali's podcast, told Ali it is less about sharing without fear and more about sharing in the face of fear. — 00:17:25

    “it's less about sharing without fear. and more about sharing in the face of fear”

  • ★★★ Every creator Ali has spoken to feels the fear of "who am I to make this video" just before hitting publish or record; you feel the fear and do it anyway, because sharing online is great. — 00:17:25

  • ★★ Nick, who runs the course Linking Your Thinking, got into Obsidian in lockdown and helped people in its Discord community; with no audience or unfair advantages he made a course, giving the first 10 people free access. — 00:18:06 · unfair advantage
  • ★★ Nick iterated his Linking Your Thinking course over time, built a seven-figure business from it and quit his job to work on it full time. — 00:18:45
  • ★★ On Monday 13 March 2023 Ali's friends who are doctors are on strike because, he says, junior doctor pay has gone down to £14 an hour. — 00:18:45 · NHS
  • ★★ Ali finds it sad that his doctor friends have to strike, as they are far more valuable to society than he is making videos on the internet. — 00:18:45
  • ★★★ Ali 100% recommends becoming a creator: the internet lets you make a full-time job of learning about cool things, sharing them online and building a business around that. — 00:19:35

00:19:59 — The book in its editing stages and the goal of writing one he is proud of

  • ★★ James Clear (quoted): James Clear told Ali a couple of years earlier that his book Atomic Habits took about five years to come together. — 00:19:59 · James Clear, Atomic Habits
  • ★★★ After about two and a half years of work, Ali's book is in the editing stages: the third draft of about 110,000 words is being cut to about 70,000, and cover designs go back and forth with Penguin UK and Macmillan US. — 00:19:59 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ After a couple of rounds of editing, Ali thinks his book could at least be reasonable, and he is having more fun with it, finding writing a book quite fun. — 00:20:44 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★★ As with everything in his business, Ali focuses on the goal within his control for his book: all he wants is to write a book he is proud of. — 00:20:44 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali hopes his book will be released some time in the next 12 months but does not want to commit to a release date yet, as anything could change. (hedged) — 00:21:12 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali and his team would rather take longer and release a better book than release one quickly that is not very good. — 00:21:12 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Matthew Hussey (quoted): Matthew Hussey, asked for advice when Ali interviewed him on the podcast, told Ali his book will be with him for the rest of his life, so to take his time getting it right. — 00:21:56
  • ★★ Ali wants to write a book he is genuinely proud of and could hold up in his videos for the next five or ten years. — 00:22:22 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali's book journey is a segment of his email newsletter: about once a month he sends an email updating readers on his book. — 00:22:22 · Sunday Snippets, Feel-Good Productivity (book)

00:22:51 — Side quests: hardware, software, explore versus exploit and the end of the stationery line

  • ★★★ As a side hustle, Ali's team is building its own line of hardware with GenFlow (as heard), a company with factories and manufacturing relationships: tech accessories such as a mechanical keyboard, a laptop backpack, notebooks and phone cases. — 00:22:51
  • ★★ The following week Ali's team visits its manufacturing partner to see prototypes shipped from factories in China; Ali says they will release a keyboard only when it is the perfect mechanical keyboard he uses every day. — 00:23:20
  • ★★ Ali says his team will give updates as its hardware products progress and is documenting the whole behind-the-scenes process. — 00:23:20
  • ★★ Ali is also exploring software as a side hustle: having long wanted to build his own productivity app, such as a to-do list that really works for him, his team is starting to work with a developer. — 00:23:49
  • ★★ Ali's business does no hardware or software itself, so rather than line-extending into being good at everything it partners with people who are good at those things. — 00:24:17
  • ★★★ A business faces a trade-off between exploring and exploiting, Ali says: stay in your lane forever and it dies, because it must iterate and explore; explore all the time without committing and it also fails. — 00:24:17
  • ★★ Ali's business doubles down on content and courses, which it knows how to do, while hardware and software are side quests: if they work out, fantastic; if not, they have at least tried. — 00:24:59
  • ★★★ Ali's team has shut down its stationery side hustle of productivity planners and notebooks because it was not particularly profitable and was not that fun in the end. — 00:25:28
  • ★★ A few months into using his Part-Time Productivity Planner, Ali stopped because his workflow changed and a physical product was too much faff to adapt; he went back to a plain notebook. — 00:25:28
  • ★★ Ali likens his business to planting seeds in various areas and watering the ones that start growing, while maintaining the garden of content and courses. — 00:26:03

00:26:32 — Health: kickboxing, coaching with Dan Go, the cooking adventurer, longevity and 90 minutes a day

  • ★★ Ali has started kickboxing lessons, three so far, for their mix of fitness, flexibility, mobility, cardio and some self-defence, and above all for the mobility of his very inflexible hips. — 00:26:32
  • ★★★ Dan Go is now Ali's remote fitness coach: he programs Ali's workouts in his app, and at the gym Ali follows the plan, slowly going up each time with progressive overload. — 00:27:44
  • ★★ For people without a personal trainer, Ali recommends the workout app Strong, which he used for years before his coach's app. — 00:28:14
  • ★★ Ali weighs about 72 kg and aims to cut to about 68 kg, around 15 to 17% body fat, then make slow lean gains. — 00:28:43
  • ★★★ Ali has no specific fitness goals: he prefers to set goals within his control, input goals rather than outcome goals. — 00:28:43
  • ★ Ali follows a beginners' series on flexibility and mobility on Alo Moves, by an instructor he thinks is Dylan Werner. (hedged) — 00:28:43
  • ★★ Ali tries to do something for his health every day, because for years work and business have taken priority and he is in danger of neglecting his health, fitness and relationships. — 00:29:12
  • ★★ Ali keeps a project called Cooking Adventurer in his to-do app Things to remind him of the identity he wants around cooking; most evenings he now cooks instead of ordering takeout. — 00:29:43 · Things 3
  • ★★★ Framing cooking as an adventure keeps Ali going: his old attitude of "I really should start cooking" made him coerce himself, while approaching it like an adventure helps him a lot. — 00:30:26
  • ★★ Ali wants to become an expert on longevity over the next year through books and podcasts, and is working with Everspan Life (as heard), a US longevity lab whose founder he met in Miami, on a regimen to maximise his health span at 28. — 00:30:55
  • ★★★ Ali sticks to his health goals by blocking at least 90 minutes in his calendar every day for exercise, such as the gym, kickboxing, a run, a walk or the treadmill desk, with an attitude of progress over perfection. — 00:31:36 · World of Warcraft

00:32:05 — Relationships: group adventure leader and dinner party chef

  • ★ Ali has goals for his romantic relationship with his girlfriend but is unsure how open to be about them. — 00:32:05
  • ★★★ To keep in touch with friends Ali wants to be a group adventure leader: his plan for 2023, not yet started, is a weekend or week away with friends about every three months, in the UK or abroad, organised by him. — 00:32:05
  • ★★★ In 2023 Ali frames many of his goals as identities he wants to have, such as cooking adventurer, group adventure leader and dinner party chef, because he wants to be that kind of person. — 00:32:51
  • ★★ To be a dinner party chef, Ali has blocked every Thursday evening for a social dinner where he cooks for friends, and for several weeks has had friends over most weeks. — 00:32:51
  • ★★ Ali recommends having friends over and cooking for them: it is more fun than all going to a restaurant, as the cooking becomes a shared group activity. — 00:33:30

00:33:59 — Newsletter plug and sign-off

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali Abdaal (channel): The channel says scholarships for the final live Part-Time YouTuber Academy cohort are closed, but there will be plenty once the course moves to an on-demand model. — creator comment · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: 99-1-1 rule · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · lifestyle business · Part-Time YouTuber Academy · YouTube

Also: People: Aria · Austin Kleon · Dan Go · Dylan Werner · Ethan Chlebowski · James Clear · Joshua Weissman · Matthew Hussey · Nick · Russell Foster

Projects: Deep Dive · Essentiali · Sunday Snippets

Works: Atomic Habits · Linking Your Thinking · Show Your Work!

Organizations: Alo Moves · Amazon · Binging with Babish · Facebook · Instagram · LinkedIn · Macmillan Publishers · NHS · Penguin UK · Pro Home Cooks · TikTok · Twitter

Concepts: 10,000 steps a day · 37 percent rule · cohort-based course · freedom profile · identity-based habits · imposter syndrome · index fund · infinite game · info product · process goals · unfair advantage

Places: China · Miami

Products: Discord · MyFitnessPal · Obsidian · Part-Time Productivity Planner · S&P 500 · Spotify · Strong · Things 3 · World of Warcraft · YouTube Shorts · Zoom

Also centred on 99-1-1 rule: How I Make $4 Million Per Year - The CBM Framework

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