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My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom

2024-04-23 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 43:30 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Business and entrepreneurship (also: Money and investing, Goals, purpose and life design, Productivity and time) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own numbers, Lesson from a book, His medical past, Sponsor segment present

Prompted by a dinner with a teacher he calls John, Ali gives his honest advice to anyone who wants financial freedom: ask why and how much, set a goal, plan and system and change either the goal or the plan, fix a knowledge problem with four business books and podcast interviews, then sort out your health, cut TV and scrolling, use your day job's downtime, surround yourself with like-minded people and enjoy the journey.

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 dinner with a teacher who wants financial freedom; Ali's path from doctor to entrepreneur

  • ★★ Over dinner, a school teacher in his thirties who had followed Ali for a few years told him he wanted to become financially free and asked for advice. — 00:00:00 · work optional
  • ★ Ali earned about £40,000 ($50,000) a year as a doctor in the NHS and after two years took a break from medicine to focus full-time on his YouTube channel and business. — 00:00:45 · NHS
  • ★★ Ali now runs his own business with a team of about 20 people and considers himself more or less financially free. — 00:01:14 · work optional

00:01:34 — Why do you want financial freedom? A feeling rather than a reality

  • ★★★ The first question for anyone who wants financial freedom, Ali says, is what specifically it would buy: money and financial freedom are both psychological and social constructs. — 00:01:42 · work optional
  • ★★ While working as a doctor, what Ali wanted from financial freedom was the ability to go part-time: the happiest doctors he knew worked three days a week rather than six. — 00:01:42
  • ★★ To Ali, financial freedom meant buying his free time; without it he felt he would be financially chained to something, for him his day job. — 00:02:24 · work optional
  • ★★ Being financially chained to a single employer is not necessarily terrible, Ali says: plenty of people he knows love their lives and are very fulfilled while working for one employer. — 00:02:53
  • ★★ How much financial freedom costs depends on where you live, Ali says: three or four thousand dollars a month feels financially free in Pakistan but close to the poverty line in New York City or central London. — 00:04:12 · Pakistan, London

  • ★★★ Ali's takeaway: financial freedom is a feeling rather than a reality. — 00:04:47 · work optional

    “financial freedom is a feeling rather than a reality”

  • ★★ Once you know what would give you the feeling of financial freedom, Ali advises reverse-engineering how much money you need; inner work matters too, as people with tens of millions in the bank can still feel unfree. — 00:05:09

00:06:03 — What is the dollar amount?

  • ★★★ After working out why you want financial freedom, Ali's next step is to name the monthly income you think you need now to feel financially free, knowing the number will change as you get closer. — 00:06:03
  • ★★ Ali's own number for financial freedom was once 5,000 a month in passive income, 60,000 a year. — 00:06:28 · passive income

00:06:51 — Trading 212 sponsor read

00:07:45 — Lawrence Yeo on moving goalposts; John's million in eight years reverse-engineered to 200,000 pounds a year

  • ★★ Lawrence Yeo (quoted): Lawrence Yeo writes that as you become someone able to make 5,000 a month in passive income, you learn new skills and your identity changes, so the goal moves on to 10,000 or more. — 00:07:47 · passive income
  • ★★ Ali says a money goal is less about the money than about the person you become on the way to earning it. — 00:07:47
  • ★★ The teacher, whom Ali calls John, said he would feel financially free with a million pounds in the bank within eight years. — 00:08:16
  • ★★ Reverse-engineering John's goal of a million pounds in eight years, Ali works out that he would need about 200,000 pounds a year in income. — 00:09:32
  • ★★ A clear goal is useful, Ali says, quoting a phrase he thinks is Warren Buffett's: you can do anything, but you can't do everything. — 00:09:32

00:10:06 — Goal, plan, system: change the goal or change the plan

  • ★★★ Ali's GPS framework stands for goal, plan, system: what the goal is, what the plan to reach it is, and what the system is for sticking to the plan. — 00:10:06 · GPS: goal, plan, system
  • ★★ Ali says he teaches his goal, plan and system framework in an upcoming productivity course in Productivity Lab, his new community for aspiring and ambitious entrepreneurs, creators and professionals. — 00:10:06
  • ★★★ When the plan you are actually following will not get you to the goal you say you want, Ali says you have to choose: change the goal or change the plan. — 00:11:30 · GPS: goal, plan, system
  • ★★ Changing your goal is a good outcome, Ali says, because nothing is sadder than working towards a goal and finding out near the end that it was not what you wanted. — 00:13:34
  • ★★★ The goals you choose shape your life, Ali says, because they drive your daily actions, and those actions, not hitting the goal, make up your day-to-day experience of life. — 00:14:02
  • ★★ Ali says the internet's talk of the first 10K or being a millionaire by 20 misses the point: not worrying about bills has value, but such numbers are arbitrary. — 00:15:05
  • ★★ Ali advises lowering the bar for a financial goal: an easier goal is more likely to be hit, and the journey to it more likely to be enjoyed. — 00:15:34

00:16:01 — Knowledge problem or execution problem: real estate, a tutoring company, a safeguarding course

  • ★★ For a teacher earning 50,000 with little free time and no millions to invest, real estate is probably not the way to add 150,000 a year, Ali says. (hedged) — 00:16:25
  • ★★★ Knowing the paths from where you are to your goal but not acting on them is an execution problem, Ali says; John, who could not name the paths, had a knowledge problem. — 00:16:49 · Alex Hormozi
  • ★★ Ali invokes the law of equal and opposite advice: advice that works for one person may be the exact opposite of what works for someone else. — 00:17:18
  • ★★★ Ali's test: if you can name ten viable paths to your goal, pick the one with the best chance of success and test it; if you cannot, you have a knowledge problem. — 00:18:05
  • ★★★ Starting and growing your own business is a reasonable default for financial freedom, Ali says: very few jobs get you there if the goal is high enough, but plenty of businesses can. — 00:18:47
  • ★★★ Ali thinks a tutoring company, the idea every smart graduate lands on, is bad business: it is hard to make a lot of money selling to consumers and very easy selling to businesses. — 00:19:37
  • ★★ Working through a tutoring centre at £10 an hour, Ali finds it would need hundreds of students and hired teachers eating into margins: a nightmare to run in spare time beside a job. — 00:20:54
  • ★★ When John suggested an online course on school safeguarding, another guest said no one would buy it, and Ali agrees: no one cares beyond people already trained in that job. — 00:21:21
  • ★★ Ali often sees people with the broad goal of financial freedom who have no idea what the map or the terrain to get there looks like. — 00:21:55

00:22:44 — Making money is a skill; four books and podcast interviews

  • ★★ Asked by Ali, John said he had read no books about making money or starting a business and listened to no podcasts about it. — 00:23:11
  • ★★ Ali says an income of 200,000 pounds a year would put someone in about the top 0.1% of earners (as heard) in the UK. (hedged) — 00:23:39

  • ★★★ Like being a doctor, which needs groundwork and years of learning before practice, entrepreneurship and making money is a skill that has to be learned, Ali says. — 00:24:34

    “Entrepreneurship and making money is a skill.”

  • ★★ Ali says he has the skills to earn 200,000 a year: if he lost everything overnight, he could almost guarantee making that within a year. — 00:25:00

  • ★★★ Ali's recommended reading list for getting started with entrepreneurship: The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco, Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan, $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi and DotCom Secrets by Russell Brunson. — 00:26:39 · Noah Kagan, Alex Hormozi
  • ★★★ A friend to whom Ali recommended these books nine months ago read them, acted on them and now makes 35,000 a month from a software business. — 00:27:54
  • ★★★ If he could recommend just one book to everyone it would be The Millionaire Fastlane, Ali says: long, but it gives a real sense of the map of how to get rich. — 00:27:54 · Audible
  • ★★ Ali also recommends his podcast interviews on making money: two with Daniel Priestley and one with Robin Waite, plus those with Nicolas Cole and Cody Sanchez. — 00:28:20

00:29:03 — Time for audiobooks, speed listening, reading for exploration, the levels of the game

  • ★★★ For someone who wants to make money online and does not know where to start, Ali asks not for action but only for reading the books and podcasts: the information gives you a map. — 00:29:03
  • ★★ Someone who has already read loads about starting a business without acting should skip more reading and just take action, Ali says, for example on what Noah Kagan's Million Dollar Weekend says. — 00:29:54 · Noah Kagan
  • ★★★ Everyone has time to listen to audiobooks, Ali says, and even a very busy person can find half an hour before bed, or wake half an hour earlier, to read, because books are game-changing. — 00:31:06
  • ★★ At recent talks at the London School of Economics and the How To Academy, each with about 300 people, only one person, a guest of Ali's who had built and sold businesses, considered himself financially free. — 00:31:29
  • ★★ Financial freedom is an extraordinary, atypical goal, Ali says: few people reach it, so anyone who will not even find an hour a day to take in the information will not get there. — 00:32:07
  • ★★★ Ali's business makes about half a million dollars a month; he is trying to get it to a million a month, 10 million a year. — 00:32:37
  • ★★★ Every day Ali takes in hours of videos, podcasts and audiobooks, usually at double speed, from people further ahead in business, such as the YouTube channels of Sam Ovens, Ravi Abuvala, Alex and Leila Hormozi, Russell Brunson and Dan Martell. — 00:32:37 · Alex Hormozi
  • ★★ Ali is currently listening to Blue Ocean Strategy and reading Ready, Fire, Aim, both business books. — 00:32:37
  • ★★ You can train your listening speed, Ali says: he started at normal speed and moved up to 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, and now an hour of listening gets him through two hours of audiobook. — 00:33:50
  • ★★ To fill in the map, Ali reads for exploration, quickly; when reading for exploitation, acting on one book such as $100M Offers, he slows down, takes notes and does it properly. — 00:33:50
  • ★★★ Making money through business has levels, Ali says: at zero income, read content from people who help you reach 10,000 a month, then switch to content for 100,000 a month, and so on. — 00:34:28

00:35:19 — Sort your life out, stop wasting time, use your day job, surround yourself with like-minded people

  • ★★★ Ali advises aspiring entrepreneurs to sort their life out like athletes: do not sacrifice your life for the business, but look after your health, relationships, hobbies and relaxation. — 00:35:19
  • ★★ If you are not looking after your health, Ali says make it a priority: waking half an hour early to run, or an hour early to work out, is not that hard. — 00:35:48
  • ★ Sahil Bloom (quoted): Sahil Bloom's phrase, as Ali cites it: there is no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5 a.m. and works out. — 00:35:48 · first in: 2024-03-19, Why You’re Always Distracted - 5 Mistakes Ruining Your Focus
  • ★★★ Ali tells anyone with a day job who is trying to become an entrepreneur to stop wasting time watching TV and scrolling social media. — 00:36:16
  • ★★ To people who call cutting TV and scrolling toxic productivity or hustle culture, Ali says their goal is probably not financial freedom, and that is okay. (hedged) — 00:36:40

  • ★★ Ali's summary of the case against hours of TV and scrolling for anyone chasing financial freedom: extraordinary goals require extraordinary inputs. — 00:37:07

    “Extraordinary goals require extraordinary inputs.”

  • ★★ As a doctor, Ali used quiet moments in the day to plan his next video in Notion, sketch a database or design thumbnails on his iPad while others scrolled. — 00:38:05 · Notion, iPad

  • ★★ At medical school Ali built his first business between lectures and some evenings, coding instead of going clubbing while keeping a social life. — 00:38:05
  • ★★★ Use your day job to your advantage, Ali says: a full-time job has lots of downtime that you can use for a side hustle. — 00:38:42
  • ★★★ Surround yourself with people doing similar things, Ali says: the idea that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with is 100% true. — 00:38:42
  • ★★ Ali has noticed that anyone who spends a lot of time with him ends up getting rich: everyone who has lived with him has started their own thing on the side. — 00:39:21
  • ★★ If he lived in Austin and spent every day with his friend, the podcaster Chris Williamson, Ali says he would take the gym more seriously and be jacked. (hypothetical) — 00:40:11
  • ★★ To find like-minded people, Ali suggests hosting entrepreneur dinners for people at the same level; the content you consume also counts as company. — 00:40:35

00:41:10 — Enjoy the journey: financial freedom as a video game; sign-off

  • ★★★ On the long journey to financial freedom, Ali advises making the process feel good and not neglecting health and relationships, which matter more than financial freedom. — 00:41:16 · feel-good productivity (concept)
  • ★ Alan Watts (quoted): Alan Watts, as Ali cites him: the goal of a symphony is not the climax but to enjoy the symphony. — 00:41:16

  • ★★★ The goal of financial freedom, Ali concludes, is not financial freedom itself but choosing a worthwhile goal and working towards it while enjoying the journey. — 00:41:40 · work optional

    “the goal of financial freedom, if you've gotten to the end of this video, is not in fact financial freedom.”

  • ★★ Ali's reason for growing his business from 5 million to 10 million is "why not": like playing Horizon Forbidden West on very hard, it is the next level of the game. — 00:42:02

  • ★★ Entrepreneurs Ali knows who make hundreds of millions a year do much the same daily work as he does; only the level of the game changes. — 00:42:29

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Answering a viewer who doubts he consumed no entertainment while building his business, Ali says he watched plenty of YouTube, just not TV shows. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: GPS: goal, plan, system · knowledge and execution problems · The Millionaire Fastlane · work optional

Also: People: Alan Watts · Alex Hormozi · Chris Williamson · Cody Sanchez · Dan Martell · Daniel Priestley · Lawrence Yeo · Leila Hormozi · MJ DeMarco · Nicolas Cole · Noah Kagan · Ravi Abuvala · Robin Waite · Russell Brunson · Sahil Bloom · Sam Ovens · Warren Buffett

Projects: Deep Dive · Productivity Lab

Works: $100M Offers · Blue Ocean Strategy · DotCom Secrets · Dragons' Den · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Million Dollar Weekend · Ready, Fire, Aim · Shark Tank · The Apprentice

Organizations: How To Academy · London School of Economics · NHS · The Walt Disney Company

Concepts: average of five people · feel-good productivity (concept) · hustle culture · law of equal and opposite advice · passive income · reading for exploration and exploitation · speed listening

Places: Austin · London · New York · Pakistan

Products: Audible · Horizon Forbidden West · iPad · Notion

Also centred on The Millionaire Fastlane: The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money · 15 Books To Read to Change Your Life · How to Invest as a Teenager · What happened to these two brothers? #shorts · 4 Books You Should Read in 2023 · The 4 Best Books About Money - Part 3 📚

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