Skip to content

I didn't want to make this video…

2025-07-11 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 33:54 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Mindset, motivation and happiness · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own products discussed, Lesson from a book, Family, His medical past, Sponsor segment present, Feel-Good Productivity thesis

Ali admits he does not want to film about 95% of his videos and argues that thoughts and feelings need not dictate actions: like two hands that can move independently, you can act without feeling like it and without forcing yourself, using the five-minute rule to get over the hump at the start.

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 confesses he did not want to film this video, as with 19 of every 20 videos

  • ★★ About 19 out of 20 times, Ali does not feel like filming a video for his channel, which he has filmed once or twice a week for eight years since 2017, yet he hits record anyway. — 00:01:32

00:02:00 — Discipline versus forcing yourself; questions at his Hong Kong events; why the resistance never goes away

  • ★★ Ali has been reading Jocko Willink's Discipline Equals Freedom and calls it a wonderful, really good book. — 00:02:00
  • ★★★ Ali thinks discipline, usually seen as forcing yourself to do something you don't feel like doing, need not involve forcing: he did not feel he forced himself to hit record on this video. — 00:02:00
  • ★★ After marrying and recently moving to Hong Kong with his wife, Ali has been holding in-person events in Hong Kong for people in his audience. — 00:02:29 · Hong Kong, Izzy Sealey

  • ★★★ Asked at one of his events how to stay consistent when you don't feel like it, Ali answered that grappling with imposter syndrome and overthinking is the work, the hard part, and he doesn't think it ever goes away. — 00:05:37 · imposter syndrome

    “all of that like grappling with imposter syndrome and overthinking and all of this shit, like that is the work.”

  • ★★ Ali makes videos, gives talks and writes books because he enjoys sharing knowledge in a way that could help people; being relentlessly consistent on YouTube for eight years gave him financial and time freedom. — 00:05:37 · time freedom, work optional

00:06:17 — Sponsor read for a free side hustle ebook

00:07:16 — YouTubers and writers who don't feel like it; the voice in your head and the feelings in your body

  • ★★ Every YouTuber Ali knows, even those who have done it for a very long time, struggles to sit down and hit record, held back by imposter syndrome, overthinking and fear of what others will think. — 00:07:52 · imposter syndrome
  • ★★ Since writing his book, Ali has met many writers, most of whom say they don't really enjoy writing but enjoy the feeling of having written. — 00:07:52 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali used to think he had no voice in his head until an in-person course with Joe Hudson, where an exercise of writing down what the voice says showed him he had one all along. — 00:09:31
  • ★ Ali believes Michael Singer talks about the voice in your head in his book The Untethered Soul. (hedged) — 00:09:31
  • ★★ For Ali the voice in his head is a clear impression rather than a sound, and it is the voice that says his video is not good enough. — 00:10:19
  • ★★★ Besides the voice in your head, which is your thoughts, Ali says you are held back by your feelings: not feeling like doing the thing, a general discomfort or fear. — 00:11:16
  • ★★★ Ali used to think he didn't feel feelings; books, Joe Hudson's work, the Art of Accomplishment podcast and an ayahuasca retreat showed him he had felt them all his life and let them dictate his behaviour. — 00:12:49

00:13:30 — The forcing method versus thoughts and feelings as one hand and actions as the other

  • ★★ Ali describes the forcing method as clenching and going through the fire of resistance, which is unpleasant and has to be repeated every time the resistance comes back. — 00:13:55
  • ★★★ Coaching many people in his Part-Time YouTuber Academy on staying consistent with a YouTube channel, Ali has found that those who try the forcing method burn out very quickly. — 00:14:23 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali says you cannot force yourself to push through the pain every week for years, except maybe if you are David Goggins. — 00:14:50

  • ★★★ Ali pictures his thoughts and feelings as one hand and his actions as the other: they can move in synchrony, but like two hands they can also move independently. — 00:15:43

    “my thoughts and feelings are one hand and my actions are the other.”

  • ★★ Ali gives the example of assisting at an emergency caesarean section as a doctor: he could fancy a coffee but would keep holding the retractor, because the action does not have to follow the thought and the feeling. — 00:16:59

  • ★★ Acting against your feelings is much harder at home with your phone, but having the thought and feeling of wanting to scroll Instagram does not mean you have to scroll Instagram, Ali says. — 00:17:37 · Instagram
  • ★★★ A feeling, Ali says, is an internal bodily sensation usually accompanied by some kind of story. — 00:18:57
  • ★★ Ali says feelings and thoughts such as fear and anxiety evolved to protect us and keep us safe in an environment we no longer live in. — 00:19:58

00:20:22 — Freedom lives on the other side of discomfort; work feels like work; the five-minute rule and accountability

  • ★★★ Ali feels no discomfort writing in his private journal but feels very uncomfortable writing a blog post, a Substack or an email to his audience, or making a YouTube video, because it is out in public. — 00:20:51
  • ★★ After filming every YouTube video, Ali finds himself drenched in sweat. — 00:21:27
  • ★★ Twenty-nine minutes into filming this video Ali is having fun, though he did not feel like filming it: a lot of the resistance, he says, is in just getting started. — 00:22:11

  • ★★★ Ali says pretty much all of the freedom to live life on your own terms is on the other side of doing hard things that make you a little uncomfortable. — 00:22:37

    “Pretty much all of that is on the other side of doing hard things.”

  • ★★ Ali suspects that Ed Sheeran or Taylor Swift feel the fear before going on stage every time, even after hundreds to thousands of shows. (hedged) — 00:23:06

  • ★★★ To someone at his event who wanted to start a business but feared not being passionate enough about the ideas, Ali said any work, even making YouTube videos, always feels like work after a while. — 00:24:19
  • ★★★ Ali filmed no videos the previous week because he let the feeling of not wanting to film hold him back; if that happens too often, he says, you end up inconsistent, and consistency with uncomfortable things builds the engine to freedom. — 00:25:13
  • ★★ Ali says seventy-something percent of his audience want to start a business or a side hustle to reach financial freedom. — 00:25:13 · work optional
  • ★★★ Ali recommends the five-minute rule from his book: set a timer and tell yourself you will do the thing for just five minutes. — 00:25:56 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ When Ali starts filming telling himself he will record for only five minutes, about 85 to 90% of the time he blows through the five minutes and enjoys the process. — 00:26:21
  • ★★ For the gym Ali sometimes tells himself he will go for just five minutes, and sometimes stays the whole hour; he also hires a personal trainer as his accountability and commitment device. — 00:26:21
  • ★★ The key value of friends doing the same thing is a nudge when you don't feel like it, Ali says: no one needs accountability or discipline for things they feel like doing or enjoy. — 00:27:02

00:27:23 — Vulnerability in marriage, the hump of inertia, and loving actions without the feeling

  • ★★★ Making YouTube videos is enjoyable for Ali, but as an act of creation that puts his heart out for people to criticise, it still feels scary. — 00:27:23
  • ★ Married about a year, Ali has been reading books about what makes for a thriving marriage. — 00:27:23 · Izzy Sealey
  • ★★★ However much you enjoy a task, Ali says, anything that needs you to be vulnerable or leave your comfort zone has a hump at the start, the hump of inertia, that is very hard to reduce. — 00:29:29
  • ★★★ Ali says that if he were loving to his wife only when he felt it, his marriage would already have fallen apart: the trick, as many relationship books say, is to be loving even when you don't feel like it, such as buying flowers after an argument. — 00:31:27 · Izzy Sealey

00:33:23 — Pointer to the animated chapter five of his book and sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: discipline · five-minute rule · hump of inertia · imposter syndrome

Also: People: David Goggins · Ed Sheeran · Izzy Sealey · Jocko Willink · Joe Hudson · Michael Singer · Taylor Swift

Projects: Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Works: Discipline Equals Freedom · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Good Morning America · The Untethered Soul

Organizations: Instagram · The Art of Accomplishment

Concepts: accountability buddy · hedonic adaptation · time freedom · work optional

Places: Hong Kong

Also centred on discipline: First Live Hangout + Rapid-fire Q&A · How to Be Effortlessly Disciplined: 5 Mindset Shifts · Is discipline always the answer? 🤔 · How to actually be disciplined 😕 · 5 Easy Ways to Become More Self-Disciplined · Discipline is Overrated 🤔

Also centred on five-minute rule: How to Stop Procrastinating · 7 Habits that Save Me 3+ Hours a Day · The 5 Minute Rule ⏳ · A trick to beat procrastination ⏳ · 3 Things I Do to Stop Procrastinating 🤔 · The 5-Minute Rule to Stop Procrastinating

← Previous: One Book to Kickstart Your Dream · Next → The Butterfly Effect