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I spent 8 years training to be a doctor. Then I quit

2026-10-05 · Short · Ali · recording, 1:35 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Medicine and his doctor years · mode: Personal story · tags: His medical past

Ali recalls quitting medicine after eight years of training as his YouTube channel and business took off: regret minimisation made the choice clear, and Lewis Howes, interviewing him on The School of Greatness, helped him see that fear of losing status held him back.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Eight years of medical training, the family's worries, regret minimisation, Lewis Howes's nudge and the step into full-time entrepreneurship

  • ★★ Ali spent eight years training to be a doctor, six at medical school and two working full-time in the NHS, including during the pandemic, then quit medicine as his YouTube channel and online business took off. — 00:00:00 · NHS
  • ★★ Many of Ali's friends and family members were very concerned that he was giving up a stable, prestigious career in medicine for an internet venture that might fail. — 00:00:14
  • ★★ Ali used Jeff Bezos's regret minimisation framework to decide: medicine was a solid backup he could always return to, even with his licence frozen, so the decision to quit was fairly straightforward. — 00:00:27
  • ★★★ Interviewed by Lewis Howes on The School of Greatness while he was a part-time doctor, Ali was helped to see that fear of losing status and prestige was what held him back from going full-time as an entrepreneur. — 00:00:44
  • ★★ Because the reasons built up slowly, Ali says, leaving medicine did not feel like much of a plunge, just a step in a different direction. — 00:01:27

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Lewis Howes · regret minimization

Also: Jeff Bezos · NHS · School of Greatness

Also centred on Lewis Howes: Everything's Changing - Life Update · Why I Left Medicine... Forever · 6 Steps to Unlock Your Full Potential

Also centred on regret minimization: My Regrets about Quitting Medicine · Jeff's Regret Minimisation Framework 💭

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