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My one piece of advice for your 20s

2026-10-20 · Short · Ali · recording, 1:23 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books and reading · mode: Answering questions

Asked at a workshop in Hong Kong for one piece of advice for someone in their 20s, Ali says to listen to one audiobook a week for 52 weeks: a book holds far more effort per minute than short-form content, and reading is better but most people lack the time.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — One piece of advice for your 20s: one audiobook every week

  • ★★★ At a workshop in Hong Kong, a man who had just turned 20 asked Ali for one piece of advice; Ali told him to listen to one audiobook every week for the next 52 weeks and guaranteed his life would change. — 00:00:00 · Hong Kong
  • ★★ Ali says his book Feel-Good Productivity took three years of his work and much work from professional editors, two in the US and one in the UK, and an agent; he spent three whole days recording its audiobook. — 00:00:38 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)

  • ★★ The effort that goes into an audiobook per unit of time it takes to consume is astronomical compared with short-form social media, YouTube videos or podcasts, Ali says: listening is like getting a firmware update in your mind. — 00:00:38 · YouTube

    “you're sort of just getting a firmware update in your mind”

  • ★★ Reading is better than listening to audiobooks because you can take notes, Ali says, but most people do not have time to read that much and take notes from everything. — 00:01:07

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: audiobook

Also: Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Hong Kong · social media · YouTube

Also centred on audiobook: The habit to read 100 books a year

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