How To Find Meaning In A Digital World - Kharma Medic
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Oh, by the way, before we get into this episode, I would love to tell you a little bit about Life Notes. Now, Life Notes is a weekly-ish email that I send completely for free to my subscribers, and it contains my notes from life. So notes from books that I've read, podcasts I'm listening to, conversations I'm having, and experiences I'm having in work and in life. And around once a week, I write these up and share them in an email with my subscribers. So if you would like to get an email from me that contains the stuff that I'm learning, almost in real time as I'm learning it, you might like to subscribe. There is a link down in the show notes or in the video description.

I am someone who

prides myself a lot on my time management. And I think that I balance a lot of things in my life really well. The sort of downside to that is that I'm constantly working. I'm constantly moving from one thing to the next, and it's really difficult to stay in the moment. If we were doing this pre therapy, I'd be thinking about, okay, as soon as I leave this podcast, I'm going to go home. I'm going to have a ten minute coffee break. Then I'm going to sit down for half an hour, and I'm going to work on my emails. And then I'm going to have a two hour study session with Kenji and Georgina. My parents are going to come. We're going to go for dinner.

I wouldn't be thinking about us in this moment right now. I would always be thinking about what's next, what's next, what's next. And I used to keep track of every single thing I did in my life. I was just very hyper focused on time. Through therapy, I've realized that I can still complete everything I want to do in my life without necessarily sort of working on the to do list up until I go to sleep at midnight or, you know, constantly squeezing in little bits of work on the bus, on the train, when I'm walking, things like that.

I've taken like a much more relaxed attitude towards life. Hey friends, welcome back to Deep Dive. My name is Ali and in each episode of the podcast, I chat to authors, entrepreneurs, creators, and other inspiring people about how they got to where they are and the strategies and tools that can help along our shared journey of living happier, healthier, more productive lives. And this episode is a discussion with Nasir Harma, who is a final year medical student at King's College London here in the UK, best known for his YouTube channel called Karma Medic,

where he talks about productivity, about education, about lifestyle, and teaches generally students and young people how to be more productive with their time. Nasser has been doing this for the past few years now, and he's a master following of over 1 million people, which is pretty sick. And so in this conversation, we talk about how he first started this YouTube thing. What was it that inspired him?

inspired him to start this YouTube channel and get it to a ridiculously successful point while being a full-time medical student. And then the conversation takes a bit of a turn and we talk a lot about what it means to live a meaningful life and some of the lessons that Nasser has learned from going to therapy, for example, and some of the ways that his thoughts and insights around productivity, around what it means to work hard and be effective have changed over time. Links to his YouTube channel and all his other stuff will be in the show notes and in the video description. And I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and Karma Medic.

We're sitting here today. You are fast approaching a million subscribers. You're a final year medical student at King's College London, and you've just gotten news that you're going to be working in North London. So congratulations on that front. Thank you very much. How did we end up here? What's the story of Karma Medic? What's the story of Karma Medic? We need to go pretty far back. Let's go back. I love going back. Okay, so...

How this kind of all started is that when I graduated high school in Greece, I wanted to go to medical school. And I applied to the four most prestigious universities that me and my father could come up with because my dad said, I'm only paying international fees for you to study abroad if you get accepted into one of the top, top, top unis.

And I said, you know what, fair enough, I guess that makes sense. So we did, I applied to them and I didn't end up getting accepted anywhere. So I did my plan B of going to study in Canada because that's where I was born, so I hold the Canadian citizenship and I did my undergraduate degree there. After my undergraduate degree, I still wanted to apply to medical school. It was always the goal from the time I was in high school and I eventually applied to both Canada and the UK. I got accepted in the UK and that's where I went.

Now, when I got accepted in the UK, I felt like it had been such a long journey of me trying to get accepted into medical school. Lots of like obstacles, ups and downs, you know, the whole shebang that a lot of people go through as well. And I kind of told myself that I want to help a couple other people get accepted to medical school, a handful of people.

And I wasn't really sure how to go about that. I started like a Reddit forum. Sorry, I put out a post on Reddit. I went on the student room forum and I put out a post there saying, hey, I just got accepted if you have any questions, blah, blah, blah. Got like zero traction, zero comments, whatever. And I was like, hey, well, this isn't helping me achieve my goal. So I started the YouTube channel. And that's kind of how it got started. So how old were you when you started the YouTube channel?

I was in my second year of medical school. So that would have made me 23, I think. Okay, so you were in your second year and were you doing undergrad medicine or grad medicine? So undergraduate medicine. Okay. I had made the conscious decision to apply to undergraduate because the graduate medicine was even more competitive for international graduates. And so yeah, I went for that. I see. Okay, so you did four years out of a Canadian college and

Like Canadian University. Canadian University. And now you're doing a second undergraduate degree. Yes. Because the aim was always medical school from day one. Exactly. Yeah. Interesting. What was the experience of Canadian University like?

compared to medical school because obviously i've only experienced medical school so i i always think like oh canada looks cool america looks well you get to do all these different subjects rather than just one thing like yeah what was that like for you there's there's a lot of differences between the two like studying systems and a lot of pros and cons on either side i think thinking back to my time in canada the one thing that really stands out for me is just how difficult it was i think um

The difficult part about being in the Canadian or the American system is that you have this GPA system. And so your final grade that you graduate university with is sort of a compilation of every single exam, essay, quiz, assignment that you take in every course in every year. And so there's this constant, really intense pressure to perform well throughout the four years. And so the standard degree length is four years there as opposed to like three years here. And so I guess in comparison to the UK where...

You have these big exams at the end of the year that you need to study really hard for and those are what count towards your degree. And a lot of times the first year and second year don't really count as much. But I'm happy you brought up the fact that you study loads of different subjects, not just the thing that you applied for. So for example, I wanted to do medicine, so I did life sciences, which is like this broad thing. And then you choose sort of underneath that your majors or your minors. And so I did two majors and a minor.

And you get to do all kinds of courses, not only in science, but also like I did Shakespeare for a whole year. I did computer science. I did physics, maths, chemistry, and what else? Ancient Egyptian. Like, you know, you can take a whole wide variety of courses, which I think is fantastic. It makes for a really interesting university experience. Okay.

And so I guess you had to maintain a pretty reasonable GPA as you were going through Canadian university to then even stand a chance of getting into medical school. Yeah. And, and even with the,

pretty decent GPA that I maintained. It was nowhere near close enough to the competitive GPAs for Canadian medical schools. Oh, wow. Yeah. And I'll die on this hill that I put every last blood, sweat and tear into maintaining my grades over the four years of my Canadian university. And I'm so happy with the grade that I finished with. But it's just not even close to the competitiveness that you need. Yeah.

um so yeah it's really really tough out there what are those what are the what are the people with the 4.0 gps doing like i don't know having no life well what's the deal with that did you have friends who got like amazing grades like what was their experience like yeah i had some friends who did really really well um and i think it's you know a combination of them you know probably just being smarter than me at the end of the day um maybe working a bit harder and um

maybe less of a social life, that kind of stuff. And you have to be really smart about what courses you take because you want to take the easier courses that will give you the better GPA, which I didn't know too much about back then. Yeah. It strikes me that there is kind of a game to it. And some people are very good at playing the game. Yeah, absolutely. And like, if I, if I look at like, so I've, I've got a friend, my old housemate who I used to live with, who consistently ranked in the top three in the year group. And like,

The the amount he worked was not radically different to the amount I worked and yet he just did so much better than I ever did Yeah, like what is going on there? Is it natural intelligence or is it just something about the way that he's working or studying or whatever that is? Resulting in a different a different outcome like now that you've sort of done this whole productivity study type stuff stuff on YouTube and

Have you come across any things that you sort of wish you'd known back in the day, study techniques, productivity hacks, stuff that would have made life a bit easier when you were going through like all these years of like 10 years of university? I think honestly, one of the biggest things that I needed to know earlier was studying smart, not just studying for long periods of time. Especially when I was in high school, I kind of had the impression and understanding that the more hours you spent sitting down at your desk, the better your exam score was going to be. And I do think there is a strong

a strong correlation there, but there's a balance and you

Or I found that it's better to focus on the high yield material, don't spend so much time going into the weeds, use past paper questions, group studying, whatever. There's all kinds of things that I just didn't know. I thought the best way to study was to take notes and sit at your desk, lock yourself in your room for hours and hours on end, which is a huge mistake. There's much better ways to do it for sure. Okay. Yeah. And we'll put links to our respective videos on the topic down below if people want to check them out.

Why were you so into medicine that you would go through all these hoops to get into med school? Like you would have made that decision when you were like 16 or something. So what's going on there?

Absolutely. I always say that when I made the decision to apply for medical school, I said that I want to be a doctor. And I put these air quotes around because I quite honestly had no idea what being a doctor was. The only thing I knew about being a doctor was what I saw in the movies, right? When I made that decision.

And so it was more the work experiences that I did over the coming years and speaking to people who are in research labs and academia, speaking to people who are working in the hospital, going and spending some time in the hospital, that I actually kind of understood what does the day-to-day of a doctor look like. And that's kind of what reinforced the idea that I want to be a doctor and now became I actually want to be a doctor. Yeah.

Yeah, it was more like the real life experiences that I had that pushed me towards it. Let's say you're speaking to someone who doesn't really know what to do with their career and they don't necessarily want to do medicine. What would you kind of advise them? Like how should they go about this? I think like work experience is by far the best way. If you don't do it, you're not going to know. I understand, you know, getting work experience is pretty hard for a lot of people, especially in different kinds of careers and whatnot.

But the only way to really know what it's going to be like is work experience. I think the second best thing to that, honestly, is watching people on YouTube talk about their job, talk about their career. It's funny, but like whenever I need to know anything, the first thing I do is search on YouTube and I look for someone who's gone through that experience and I just watch them. And that's like the most real way of understanding it. I think reading a blog or I don't know, some company talk about what their career is like isn't really the best way of getting that information across.

We're going to take a very quick break to introduce our sponsor for this episode, who is Brilliant. I've been using Brilliant for the last few years, and they're a fantastic interactive platform with online courses in maths, science and computer science. My personal favourites are the computer science courses. I think they're absolutely fantastic. And when I was initially applying to med school, I was actually torn between applying to medicine and applying to computer science. And I ended up going with medicine in the end, which I really don't regret. But

but there's a big part of me that really wanted to continue learning the stuff around computer science, continuing to understand how coding works. And the courses on Brilliant have given me that foundation in computer science, which I didn't have before. The courses are really fun, engaging and interactive. And the way they teach you stuff is based on very first principles thinking. Like they'll teach you a concept and then they'll take you through interactive exercises to actually help solidify your understanding of that concept.

And it's pretty cool because they're always updating the library with new courses. For example, there's one they've just released called Everyday Maths, which is kind of like a visual exploration of the maths that we use in everyday life, like, for example, fractions and percentages and putting them in a context that makes it very understandable and certainly very different to the kind of boring way that I was taught maths when I was in school. The courses and lessons are particularly good if you have a busy life with lots of stuff going on because they really teach you the stuff in bite sized chunks. So you can always return to a course at a later date if you don't have time to do it in one sitting.

If any of that stands up your street, then do head over to brilliant.org forward slash deep dive. And the first 200 people to hit that link, which is also going to be in the video description and in the show notes, will get 20% off the annual premium subscription. So thank you so much to Brilliant for sponsoring this episode.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff on YouTube these days, like day in the life of almost any career that you could imagine. So it's relatively easy to get some level of information. Obviously, if someone's like a lawyer or a management consultant or even a doctor, there is a degree to which they are not going to give you the true honest vibe of exactly what's going on. Yeah, so I guess I want to come back to the medicine thing in a moment. But so in your second year, you decided you were going to start a YouTube channel. Yeah.

Most people I know who started YouTube channels have not started it with the altruistic intention of helping people get into uni. And there is always an element of like status, money, prestige, et cetera, et cetera. To what extent did the kind of more selfish motives for being a YouTuber kind of affect your decision in the past? And I guess now as well. Yeah. I remember we talked about this like the last time I saw you in Cambridge and after I gave you my answer, you were like, I don't believe you. There must be something selfish there. So, so

So the truth is, I think over time with the YouTube channel, the selfish reasons have grown larger and larger. When it first started, it genuinely was an altruistic thing. I remember when I got the email that I was accepted to medical school, I went down to this like huge grass field outside the library where I was and I called my mom and like she started crying. I started crying and I said to her on the phone, I said, I'm going to help a handful of other students have the same feeling that I have. Hmm.

And that really was the motivating driver behind me starting the YouTube channel. As time has gone on and sort of the very intense passion and spark and fire inside me that was creating a video every single week

Has sort of I wouldn't say died down but it's certainly not as strong as it used to be The more selfish reasons sort of kick in and you know, I feel like I already have this big platform Let me keep growing it this can open doors for me in the future, etc, etc But it definitely started as a fully altruistic thing. Oh interesting. I

And so what were your feelings in those early days when you put out a video and no one watches it? Like that sort of experience that we've all been through. Yeah, it was definitely tough. And I remember the first time I had a subscriber, I was visiting Alexia in Bristol and I was like jumping up and down. The first person who subscribed to my channel. Those early days, I think the hardest thing was that, as you mentioned, you know, no one watches the video and no one comments.

And so right at the beginning, how I was sort of spreading the word about these videos was I was going on the student room forum and I was going to the UCAT and BMAT sections of that page. And whenever people would ask questions, I would answer them and then say, hey, if you want some more help, DM me. They would DM me and I'd be like, I'd respond to their question again and then send a link to the YouTube channel. Because if you sent the link on the forum, you would get banned. And I got banned several times for doing that. So I had to find this workaround with the DM.

And so that's kind of how I started getting my first few viewers and followers. And even the one, two, three people who were watching at the time found the videos really helpful and found them really valuable. The feedback was so overwhelmingly positive that, you know, it gave me this real sense of I'm doing something meaningful here. And that made it easier to sort of continue pushing videos out every single week, you know, staying up late, like sacrificing sleep and whatever. I think it's because I got that positive feedback really early on.

Okay, so you went out there and hustled to get people to actually watch your videos. I hustled hard. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think a lot of people wouldn't do that. They would put the video up, hit publish, hope for the best, and then complain three videos later when no one's watching their videos. No, I put in a lot of work for sure. I was answering like comments and DMs and whatever for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And it was pure altruism at that point.

Like I said, I had this goal of helping don't remember what the number was now I think somewhere between like 10 and 50 people get accepted to medical school And so I was kind of just continuing to go until I had talked to 10 different people 50 different people whatever mmm Did you ever have to battle with like perfectionism? Like this video sucks and I wanted to be better and I'm therefore not gonna upload it anything any thoughts like that Yeah

I think that definitely I characterize myself, I think of myself as a perfectionist type person, but I draw a really strict line in the sand where perfectionism should not be so much to the point that it stops me from doing the thing that I actually want to do. And so when I would edit my videos and when I would film them, you know, I would work really hard to try and get things as best as they could.

But at the end of the day, I would have to upload it no matter what, even if it wasn't my best piece of work, because I recognized how much value there was in just learning one new thing every single time. I knew that I wasn't going to be making good videos overnight, and I knew that the first ones were going to be bad. And it's just part of the process. I didn't really care too much. I just wanted to learn, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's all great in theory. And I think anyone who starts on YouTube or putting themselves out there in writing or in anything knows intellectually that this is going to be crap.

But then there's a difference between knowing something intellectually and actually feeling it in your bones. And really, and I think one of the things, one of the reasons why my YouTube channel kind of continued going was because I just embraced the fact that my first 50 to 100 videos were just going to be awful. And I was like, as soon as I can get through those awful videos, the more then and kind of slowly improve over time, eventually I'll get actually good at making videos. So what I guess my question is, was there...

What was going on in your mind to take that from an intellectual knowledge that perfectionism is bad and shouldn't stop me from doing this to actual like actually making that guide your actions in actually uploading those videos? Because it's a pretty unusual thing to do. Like loads of people have the thought of I want to do X and very few of us actually do the thing. Basically like...

I don't think about it too much. I just, I tell myself I'm going to do the thing and then I do it. And I see you laughing and you know, my girlfriend, she always says to me, Nasser, you're a robot. Like you think like a robot in the sense that

You don't think about how this is gonna feel or how it's gonna turn out, you just do the thing. And so once I told myself I was going to make a video on the UCAP verbal reasoning section, I would just make it no matter how bad the video quality was or the audio wasn't perfect, there was a car outside or whatever, and I would just publish it, yeah.

I know it's super unrelatable and like I'm trying to better understand how I think about these things. But a lot of it really just is I told myself I would do it. And so then I did it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's how I think as well. When we started doing our YouTuber Academy, I would start getting, I would get questions, you know, in our first cohort. Like, how did you bring yourself to upload the videos? I was just like, huh?

I mean, it's, you know, I made it into something that was not an option. Like, yeah, exactly. Once a week, I was going to upload a video. Yeah. And when you decide that once a week, you're going to upload a video, then you just upload the video, right? Yeah. And people are like, well, no, because I still have all these feelings of like fear and perfectionism and anxiety and all this sort of stuff.

And it was very ideal that we had someone on the team who you also know who was my assistant at the time who now works for the YouTuber Academy, Elizabeth, who had much more of a

10 times more empathy than I did around like what it's actually like being a beginner and putting yourself out there. And she could relate to those struggles a lot more than I could. I was just like, "Look at my hand, just upload the goddamn video. "How hard can it be?" - I know, I know. And honestly, this process of sort of reflecting on why I make the decisions that I do and how I feel about uploading videos or making things is something I've really only started quite recently after in September, October time, I started going to therapy.

And I genuinely felt like for the first time in my life, I started thinking about why I'm doing the things that I'm doing and how I feel about them. Because before that, it was just, it was quite literally, you know, just do the thing because you said you were going to do it. And we can go into that a little bit later. But yeah, it's a process, I think, like learning to identify how you feel about it and why you feel that way and whatever. Okay.

Okay, I definitely want to come back to the therapy thing and I definitely want to come back to your sort of like why you're still keen on the medicine stuff, which I think will be interesting to talk about later. So you're in your second year, you're 23 years old. This is probably like four years ago-ish, three years ago? Yeah, four years ago. And you decide you're going to make YouTube videos and every week you bang out some stuff that helps people get into med school. What did the kind of trajectory of your channel look like in those early days? The trajectory was really slow.

but incredibly

sort of gratifying on a qualitative level. So quantitatively, there weren't very many views, there weren't very many comments or whatever. But qualitatively, how I felt about making the videos, the sort of creative fun that I had making them and the challenge for myself learning these new skills of editing, filming, recording, publishing, whatever. And then also the feedback I was getting from those small people who are watching the videos was amazing. I felt like the qualitative feedback was exponential. The quantitative growth was extremely slow.

And so for about a year and a half, I published a video every single week. And I would publish on Thursday at 8:30 in the morning, and I still do till this day. And so Wednesday nights, I'd be staying up late editing, whatever. And my girlfriend would always say to me, "Nasser, just upload the video on Friday. "Why do you have to do it on Thursday?" And I'd be like, "No, I said I'm gonna do it on Thursday, "so it has to go up on Thursday." And it goes back to that thing of you just said you were gonna do it, so just do it at that time. Anyways, I'm going on a tangent.

So I was uploading videos every single week for about a year and a half. And I think at that time I had 7,000 subscribers, 6,000 something. - For like after a year and a half. - After a year and a half, yeah. - After making like 75-ish videos, one a week for 18 months. - Yeah, a stupid amount of videos. - You had like 7,000, 6,000 subscribers, something like that. - Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then I posted a vlog about me studying for a medical school exam. And that really blew up at the time. And that got like 100,000 views.

hundreds of thousands of views within a couple of days and then weeks and brought I think like 30,000 subscribers to the channel or something like that and that's why I felt like I had my big break or whatever. Ah, okay. So it sounds like the, you know, I've been doing a lot of research on motivation these days for the book that I'm working on. A lot of

A lot of the research suggests that motivation is not a thing that you generate before doing an action. Motivation is the thing that comes after you do the action and you see some small level of success. And so for you, it's like, I'm going to make the video and

and then you're out there hustling trying to get an individual one at a time to watch that video that person is giving you feedback and being like this video was sick and then that that gives you the the kind of dopamine hit to continue making the videos yeah at the same time as you're making the videos you're personally having fun because just the act of creation i think is an inherently rewarding experience right for anything you know making a pottery

wheel thingy or making a YouTube video or writing anything. There's something about creation that really, I don't know, fulfills the soul in some capacity. You can say, look, I made that. I made that thing. Yeah. It was just like, it was nothing. And then I turned that footage into something good. And I guess those like more, yeah, qualitative markers of feedback, qualitative drivers kept you going even while the numbers weren't necessarily like incredibly high. For sure. And

The thing that I say to people is if you just make a video every week for two years and try and get a little bit better, I can 100% guarantee that your life will change. I can't tell you when it's going to happen. I can't tell you which video is going to go viral, how many views, how much revenue, how many subscribers you're going to get. But I can 100% guarantee it will change your life, whether it's in terms of the skills you learn or the people that you meet or potentially at some point a video might pop. And now we're talking.

The YouTube game is honestly 100% consistency. I really think it's just about doing the same thing over and over again over a long enough period of time until something happens. Someone notes as your video, the algorithm notes as your video, whatever. But I just really think it's about repetition, repetition, repetition. Yeah. So, okay. On that note, we do often sometimes get students in our YouTuber academy who...

You know, take the consistency mantra to heart. All right, cool. I guess I'm just going to make videos. And they make videos about random topics, talking about things that they're interested in, filming it with crappy quality because it's like consistency and improvement over time. And one view that I've been thinking about a lot recently is that consistency alone is not the answer. Like there are like other ingredients that go into success. So for you, and I guess if you were giving advice to, I don't know, like,

people thinking of starting a YouTube channel or potentially like having started a Something to do with content on social media. What are the elements other than consistency that you think feed into the success equation? Yeah as it were Yeah, I think I should probably rephrase that consistency is a necessary requirement whilst you're also Constantly trying to evolve and learn and improve Consistency has to be there throughout but as you said you're right. It's not enough. I

I think the main things, I mean, YouTube is also partially a game. You need to make content that people are wanting to watch. You need to make content that you think is clickable, that might be shareable, the algorithm might pick up, et cetera. And also that is good to whatever the good standard is. And I think on YouTube, there definitely is this sort of minimum standard

There definitely is this sort of minimum threshold of good. And once you've ticked that box, it becomes less important how good the video is, right? The production quality, once it reaches a certain level, anything past that is just like, okay, well, this is nice, but it doesn't need to be here, you know? And

And so, yeah, the other things to kind of focus on for me, it was just with every video that I put out, I wanted to do something new and learn something different, whether that was a new transition, I don't know, adding music or a sound effect or, I don't know, learning how to crop in, add text, manipulate things. I just wanted to do something new. And, you know, part of that was what made it so intellectually stimulating to keep on going every single week because it was really fun, as we said before. Yeah.

But yeah, consistency and constantly trying to innovate and get better. Whatever get better means incrementally for you over time. How do you think about this question of what videos should I make next? Okay. So the videos that I make next are ones that I want to make, and then they need to appeal to who I think my niche is or my target audience.

So there's a lot of videos that I upload that I know from the get-go are going to tank in terms of numbers, comments, views, whatever. But they're videos that I think are important. And I think for the few people who do watch it, it is going to be valuable. And so if it meets that threshold, then the video is going to get made. And obviously, there's a long list. And we move them back and forth all the time. And there's a balance of what's going to go out next. But yeah, I need to...

Think that I'm gonna enjoy making this video and that there's gonna be some value for the people who watch it and then after that it becomes about It becomes more about how do we frame this in a way that's clickable that people will want to watch Etc as opposed to starting from what's the most clickable? What do people want to watch? It's a balance. It's not so black and white so

Okay, so let's say you decide you want to do a video exploring your menswear wardrobe because you think it's the sort of video that would appeal to someone like me. But it's not really within your core focus of your channel to be doing menswear content.

Would you do the menswear video following this formula of like, I think this will be valuable to some people like Ali who needs menswear advice? Or would you be like, oh, it's not sufficiently valuable to the people that I think are following my channel, i.e., maybe medics, maybe students, like whatever sort of pseudo avatar you have in your mind, and therefore I'm not going to do the menswear video? ALI AFSHAR: No, I don't think so. I would still do the menswear video. MARK MANDEL: Oh, interesting. ALI AFSHAR: If I thought it was going to be fun and it wasn't going to be the biggest lift, as you would say.

I mean, this is kind of like when I made a 20-minute video about coffee and I was just like drinking coffee from five or six different methods of like grinding the beans or whatever. I made a video about how to publish academic research, which like is pretty niche. What else have I done? How to take a patient history I did recently, which, you know, my channel is about medical school. My channel is about studying. It was a very medical educational video rather than a meta medicine video. Yeah. So, you know, I knew it wasn't going to do well in terms of like numbers and algorithm, but I was like...

this is a valuable video that I wish I had when I was in my first and second year. I think it'll be fun to make. Let me make it. So yeah, something like the wardrobe video I've actually wanted to do for a while and multiple sponsors have come and gone saying, make a video about, you know, your clothing. But it's always been in my head too big of a lift to do. And I also don't really think I'm that knowledgeable about clothes and fashion and menswear and things like that. I try my best, but.

but I don't think I'm knowledgeable enough to speak about it like in a video. - So it sounds like you're not limiting yourself based on who you think your target audience is, particularly? - No, not at all. Because the most important thing is that I make a video each week. What the video is on isn't as important as the fact that I just put one out. I just want to be creating content. - Why?

To be honest, I really, really enjoy it. And I feel like I've kind of reached this point where I'm on a hamster wheel. And we can talk about this more later. I think it's important as well. Where there's almost, there's so much less thought involved now than at the beginning. Now it's just like the wheel is turning, you know, inject all the different ingredients and components that go into making a video. And each week by Thursday, there will be one uploaded.

And so I've kind of been on this hamster wheel for about four years now of pumping out a video every single week, something that I plan to sort of scale back and change a little bit, probably in a couple of months when I graduate medical school.

But yeah, I forgot how we got into this hamster wheel. I kind of asked why, like, what's the point? Of being on the hamster wheel? Yeah. Like, why do you want to stick to this? Like, you've been doing it for four years now. Yeah, yeah. So at its core, it's fun. It's something that I enjoy. And evidently, it seems to provide value to other people. And I think that constant feedback of,

for me to know that it is somehow useful for others is the major driving point. And after that, it's fun. And after that, I told myself I was going to upload a video every single week. And so I do. Okay. What would happen if you didn't one day? Um...

Probably nothing. But I think I'm kind of so I'm a really goal oriented person, as you might imagine. And kind of the next goal that I have, the next big goals that I have in my life are to graduate medical school and to hit a million subscribers on this YouTube channel.

And so those are kind of the goals that I'm working towards before I make a big change or switch up this like once a week routine or the type of content that I'm making and things like that. I'm kind of like, let me just keep things as they are right now because I have a lot to focus on with medical school and whatever. And once we reach that big goal, I can like make a big change. Okay. I want to push back on this goal thing because so my issue with goals, I think we talked about this before, is that when you set a goal, then...

So, for example, if I imagine for you, if I was, I don't know, your YouTube growth coach or something, and you told me my goal is to hit a million subscribers, I'd be like, okay, cool. Let's figure out what your most viral videos are, the ones that have brought in the most subscribers. And then I'd be like, why are you making these like random videos that you're doing for fun? Why don't we just optimize? Like, imagine if you just made one viral video a month.

Instead of for non viral videos a month surely we'd get you to the million subscribers faster. Yeah, and then but this so If and and if I had a goal of a million subscribers and someone said that to me I think

"Oh, okay, but the million subscribers is not the point. There is something else going on here that the 'I just want to hit a million subscribers' does not quite embody." If you get what I mean? So I'm very much like you. I set what you describe as like input goals. So the actual goal isn't to reach a million subscribers. It's the idea that in a couple of months, somewhere here or there, I'm probably going to pass a million subscribers. At that point, I'm going to make a big change.

But in terms of how we get there, yes, I agree with you. If I just focused on making one viral video, then I might get there a lot faster. But then that doesn't sort of follow the rule of let me make the content that I actually want to make. For example, I know for example that vlogs will happen to perform better on my channel. Other videos about like hardcore focus and studying things like that. But then when I sit down like last week and I'm like, what video am I gonna make next week? That's not really what's at the forefront of my mind, what gets me excited to pick up a camera.

And so I won't make that video. Okay. Yeah. So it sounds like it's some combination of you have goals, but you also have standards. I have loads of goals. You have your own personal preferences of... I want to hit a million subscribers, but I want to do it on my terms. I don't want to just make vlogs that will pander to the audience or whatever you want. For sure. For sure. This whole YouTube thing is only still going because I still find it fun. And I think...

The more and more this becomes like a job, the more and more I start to focus on the numbers and trying to make videos that will perform well and things like that, the less and less fun this becomes. And I'm really scared of that happening. So I try to stay away from it and do that as little as possible. - Interesting.

Interesting. Like, yeah, this just gels so much with my own personal experience. And a bunch of research I've been doing into like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as well, where initially when we start doing stuff, like for example, when we're kids, we're doing things because they're fun for the pure joy of doing the thing. And then at some point grades come in and comes into the mix.

And we start doing things because it will get us a better grade. I think medics are particularly prone to this. I will only do the thing if it will get me the appropriate number of CV points and PubMed reference paper that will give me two extra points for my freaking FPAS application or my ST3 application eight years down the line, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like this very goal-oriented approach.

extrinsically motivated way of doing stuff. And a bunch of the research on motivation, as you probably know, says that when you add in extrinsic motivation, it does in fact tend to crowd out intrinsic motivation.

And so, you know, our mutual friend Jack, he and I were talking the other day. He's also a YouTuber. We're talking about how when he and I were making videos for fun, they were fun. But when you switch to making videos for your job, suddenly there's something about it where you're doing the same thing. But it just becomes not fun. And now you're like, I used to look forward to going home from work to make a video.

And now I look forward to doing anything else so I don't have to make a video. What the hell is going on there? What's been your experience with that? - It's when it stops being on your own terms. And like, this is part of the reason why we take on so few sponsorships. I mean, if you look on my channel, I really do sponsorships so rarely. And a really big driver for that is that as soon as a sponsor is attached to the video, it suddenly becomes this huge chore. - Yeah, it becomes work. - It becomes work. - It has a deadline. - And it has a deadline and they want to review it and they have their comments and this and that, and there's negotiation and back and forth.

And then it stops becoming about I'm making this video because I'm doing this for fun and hopefully other people are going to find value in it. It becomes like a job. And so, yeah, that's part of the reason we try and we just do them every single week and don't attach that many sponsors to the videos. Yeah. Practically speaking. Yes. When, for example, a channel of your size, you could be making $10,000 for a video. Sponsor says $10,000 for a video.

That's a that's a that's a decent chunk of money and How do you decide? No, I'm gonna say no to $10,000 because I want to not have a deadline. I want to not have fun I don't want to bother sending a few emails. Well, what's what's going on in your mind? It's a very good question And it's something that I do struggle with and think about kind of often. I think the thing is

These YouTube videos that I make every single week, at the end of the day, this is a hobby for me. This is something that I do for fun. My main priority in life and what I'm working towards my end goals is a career in medicine. And that is where the majority of my focus is and where I want my future to go. The fact that I make these videos and I find them fun and that they make money as well, it's like an incredible bonus.

it is very hard to do that where you turn down money when you know you could so easily, right? But then there's also so many prerequisites to taking on a sponsor, which is like, it needs to be valuable for me. It needs to be valuable to my audience. It needs to fit in with the content. And those don't come around very often either. There's definitely enough to fill the videos, but turning down a sponsor,

because you want to keep this as a fun hobby and keep the longevity of it. It's kind of like a long term thinking of if I was to accept a bunch of sponsors, yeah, I'd probably make a lot of money right now, but I'd burn out more quickly and I wouldn't find this fun in like six months time.

But if I sort of take it at my own pace, then there's probably more longevity in it and I can keep this online presence wherever it takes me and whatever use it has in the future for longer. And that's kind of the tradeoff that I'm in. That's a large amount of self-awareness to recognize that for you taking a 10K sponsorship will be more likely to lead to burnout, etc. further down the line. How did you arrive at that? This is...

This is where you're at. Well, I've experienced how much it sucks the fun out of this whole YouTube thing to have sponsors involved. And, you know, even when we've tried moving to agencies that are supposed to, you know, take off a lot of the heavy lifting around sponsors and things like that. At the end of the day, a lot of it comes down to you at the end. You know, you need to put in the work. You need to write the script for you. You need to film it. You need to edit it, whatever. Yeah.

So it just sucks the life out of the thing. And this is not my job. This is quite literally something I do part time for fun. And so if I was to make it my full time job, that's a separate story. But it's not kind of where I want my future to go. My future is still set on medicine. Oh, OK. I think that segues us very nicely. Why is your future still set on medicine? OK, so I'll just say it kind of.

The bare case for medicine, as it were, to use the sort of finance investing cryptology, is that long hours, large, like long amount of training, NHS is understaffed, life as a doctor is not that amazing. If you speak to a lot of doctors and you ask them, would you rather be a YouTuber? At least when I do, they would often say, hell, I'd rather do anything rather than medicine, et cetera, et cetera.

Bull case for being a youtuber is you'd make more money. You'd have more autonomy. You'd possibly have more fun You'd spend a lot less time working How how do you so I balance those factors and it led me to the conclusion of quit medicine Be a full-time youtuber for now slash entrepreneur slash content creator slash internet, whatever. I

What is it about medicine that makes you so like, yeah, this is me? - Yeah, I think, let me preface this with something that one of my really close friends says, which is I reserve the right to change my opinion and change my mind in light of new evidence. So having said that, yeah, I completely agree with everything you said. When I think of my future job working as a doctor and when I talk to doctors on the wards,

everything is negative and that's really soul crushing, it's heart crushing. It sounds, it doesn't sound like fun, you know, based on the long hours, understaffed, overworked, stressed, you know, barely getting sleep, whatever.

And so I'm not looking forward to that side of it very much The truth is I don't think I could do anything else that would provide me with the same amount of Satisfaction and gratification as I would being a doctor and I think even if I was to be a full-time youtuber or have my own business or work in some other industry I wouldn't get that same level of satisfaction that I'm sort of chasing and craving in my life the

The sort of goals that I have for my professional career are to be doing something that I enjoy, that I think brings value to other people. And obviously there's tons of jobs you can do that bring value to other people. What you're doing is bringing tons of value to other people and you're not a doctor anymore. But, you know, it's a personal thing, obviously, at the end of the day. But I think that I wouldn't find anything more satisfying or more gratifying than caring for patients and working in a hospital. Okay.

But you reserve the right to change your mind, of course. Yeah, absolutely. Because I always say, right, this is all fine and well while I'm a medical student. Being a medical student is, you know, down here in terms of responsibilities and work. Being down here in terms of responsibility and work. And being an actual doctor is an entire other ballgame, right?

So only when I start working am I gonna be able to say yes I'm happy doing this even with all the negatives that are going on and that's where the I reserve the right to change my opinion comes in because I don't know what it's gonna be like when I start working hmm, but I have hope I have faith that It's all gonna go. Well, what is it about being so I yeah sort of take a fully fully accept the caveat that I

You're a medical student. The levels of idealism of a medical student are four orders of magnitude compared to the levels of idealism once you actually start working as a doctor. Yeah. But I'm curious, what is it that you think would be satisfying about the medicine thing compared to, for example, being a teacher or running a business or continuing to do your YouTube thing? Yeah.

I think like being a teacher or being in education, whether that's in person or sort of in an online way, like you kind of do now, has a lot of the same sort of satisfying parts of being a doctor in that you're educating your patients, you're empowering them and informing them about their own health and other people's health and things like that.

I think a big part of it that kind of attracts me is the like high stakes aspect or like the intensity aspect of it. So, you know, teaching someone about a certain topic is, you know, it's going to be gratifying and satisfying and whatever. But changing someone's health or helping them in a time of like pain or need or something like that.

They're both very good, but one of them I think is like a lot more intense. And I think that intensity, I don't think it necessarily makes it better or worse than the other one, but it comes along with a different set of like emotions and satisfaction, I think. Yes, that's very true. That was one of the things that kept me in thinking more about medicine for longer because like for the last many years, people have been saying, hey, quit this medicine thing, do the YouTube thing.

And there was something about like I'm I thrived off of the intensity of like a cardiac arrest or like, you know, these high octane specialties where there's a lot going on and did enjoyed a lot less the more chill specialties like audit psychiatry, for example, where or like GP to an extent where it's like broadly clinic based and it's yeah, it's a bit less adrenaline field. And it sounds like you're of a similar category.

a cut from a summer cloth. Yeah, exactly. I think I want to push away from like clinical specialties and be a bit more involved in the hospital. Um,

I'm not the biggest fan of word-based medicine, how it is for junior doctors. It seems like we're glorified administrators or admins at the end of the day, from what I've heard and seen. But yeah, I think it's what you said. Like there's a level of sort of, this is serious. You need to be at the top of your game when you're doing it that I don't think necessarily exists in other professions that also involve teaching and helping people. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, yeah, that's very much a personal choice of like,

do you thrive on the stress or do you fold under the stress as an individual? And yeah, in fairness, if I haven't thought in these terms for a while, but if I think of my friends who seem to genuinely enjoy medicine, they are all the thrivers under stress type people.

And if I think of my friends who will occasionally say, hey, are you looking to hire someone? They tend to be the not a fan of stress kind of people. Part of it is also like this deeply ingrained sort of thinking that is in my head and I guess of people in my generation as well, that like in order to have success, in order to have happiness, in order to whatever, you need to be working hard. You need to be in a high stress environment. You need to be pushing yourself, which is probably

probably not true at all but it's kind of like an intrinsic feeling of like you want to be doing something that's intense not necessarily stressful but like get your blood going yeah there's definitely like i've been doing a bunch of reading into this as well this uh culture of or this narrative that hard work is itself a virtue um and i think this is a very it's a very like pervasive um thing and it's it's not necessarily always bad all the time

But I've begun to think harder about where this comes from, the whole 1500s, the Protestant work ethic, the idea that working hard is itself a virtue that brings you closer to God. And it's not just about the fruits of your labor. It's also about how hard you work for it. And there's this really good book by Paul Millard. Ooh.

i've got a lot of copies there gives you a copy of this it's sick the pathless path imagining a new story for work in life where he used to be like a management consultant new york etc etc and then ended up uh leaving his job after a few years and kind of massively cutting down his salary just doing a little bit freelance stuff here and there and just doing the whole slow living exploring the world yeah and he writes a lot about this kind of uh history of workism and where the idea that hard work is a virtue

comes from and I think it's all very interesting and it's something that I'm grappling with as well. Because, yeah. - I think it's definitely something that's ingrained in us to some extent, maybe not so much in people who are like five years or so younger than us, but certainly for me and a lot of my friend group and how my parents raised me, it's like, you need to work hard. Why do you need to work hard? Well, just because. That's what you do. You go to uni, then you work hard and you support your family and that's how you thrive.

And so a lot of like sitting down and studying or going to work is just this is what I'm supposed to do It's this natural drive that's kind of within us I think if we all took a step back and think about it a little bit more we'd realize this is probably isn't the case and we shouldn't think of it like that But I just feel like it's something deeply ingrained inside. Um, you mentioned that maybe not for people five years younger than us. What I

Like you probably speak to students who are like in their late teens, early twenties. What's their vibe? - Huge generalization incoming, but people of my parents' age and maybe our grandparents' age, their whole sort of life goals was go to university, get a good job, and then you've made it in life. You are successful. You have your career, you have your family. You're good. That's what you're supposed to do, right?

Whereas I feel like for a lot of people our age now and younger, that isn't where the primary source of happiness is coming from. I think people want to have a wider impact. They want to focus a lot more on their social life, on their personal life. And then their job is just kind of something that they do to sustain themselves. Whereas in the past, the job was the one thing that you did, kind of. Mental health wasn't important. Social life wasn't important. It was all about sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Big generalization.

And so, yeah, I think people who are a bit younger than us place a bigger importance on mental health and having fun and balance in their life than maybe someone who has come, like myself, who's come from a migrant family and thinks, you know, I need to get my education, need to get a good job, need to have a family, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Yeah, one of the things that Paul Miller talks about in the book, and he's got a tweet thread about this, is the accidental... You love tweet threads. Oh, they're so good. There's like a good condensation of what sometimes is a book. The accidental meaning hypothesis is...

The idea there is that for our parents' generation, going to university, getting that good job, staying with IBM for 50 years, working your way up, getting the company car and the health insurance was in fact a recipe for a meaningful life. Back when we lived in the suburbs, the people were very involved in the community. Controversial point, but like the traditional family unit was a bit more of a thing. You would go to church on Sundays. You would know who your neighbors are.

And if you followed that path, just by virtue of the fact that that was your life setup, life felt pretty meaningful. Like you have community, you have family, you have a social life by default.

Nowadays, where we live in a big sprawling apartment buildings, we have no idea who the hell our neighbors are. Fewer and fewer people are, for example, living with their families and living in their local communities and getting involved with the local communities. And it's all about like, how do I get ahead in my career, et cetera, et cetera. Now the model of, oh, I'll just work at the same job for 40 years, no longer leads to accidental success.

Meaningful fulfilling life. Yeah, and now is and therefore we have to think harder about what are the elements of a meaningful and fulfilling life that we just don't have by default and Incorporating them actively into our life rather than passively by default. Yeah Yeah, I think our parents and grandparents had the right idea because as you said, you know, that's how society was That's how the world was if you wanted a meaningful life, that is what you had to do I'm not saying they were wrong I just think now if you follow that same recipe then you won't necessarily achieve the same things. Um

Definitely. Definitely. So how do you think that, how do you think about that for yourself when it comes to medicine? How do you think your future career in medicine, hypothesizing will lead into this idea of a meaningful life? What does that, what does that mean to you?

I think, to be honest, a lot of it is I've set this goal for myself or I'm on this path of becoming a doctor. And hence, I'm just on the treadmill until I become a doctor. And then I'm going to think about the next steps. You know, I mean, like if I think about it too hard, everything becomes everything becomes stressful and it becomes too much. It becomes too much to handle. You know, let me just focus on one thing at a time. Yeah. So, you know, after I graduate medicine, I just really want to see what the job is actually like for the first two years. This is my sort of big goal.

goal for the next two years is to find out what does it mean to actually be a doctor working day in and day out? How am I going to feel? Am I going to have the impact that I think I'm going to have right now? Is it going to be as satisfying and fulfilling as I think it's going to be? And then after that, I can make decisions on, you know, what I want to do next or if I want to change. But until then, I think it would be very hard and just really speculative more than anything. Um,

How do I think medicine is going to fit into my life in terms of providing me with happiness and accomplishment? Again, it's about what I think it's going to give me. You know, I don't actually know because I haven't worked it. I've talked to people and I've been there, but I don't know. I hope that it will give me all those things. And I have faith that it will. Touch wood. Yeah, I think this is a really healthy way of looking at things. Like, in a way, you're not, you know, the whole like Simon Sinek, stop with why stuff. Like, why are you really doing that?

I've always kind of felt that, especially for making decisions about career and about life and these sort of big decisions, especially when you're young, it's actually very hard to start with why and be like, why am I actually doing this? What's my goal? What's my broader purpose? What's the point? And it gets you into this mode of thinking, huh,

I really don't want to think about this right now. I just want to definitely not let's let's worry about this a little bit later. And so I think some level of introspection is good to be. But I think I think the way you're approaching it is absolutely sick where you're like, OK, my hypothesis is that working in medicine will lead to a meaningful life because of ABCD and E. And I'm going to test the hypothesis over the next two years. Exactly. And then I'll focus on that and then I'll worry about it further and further down the line. Exactly. You're not like up in arm. Oh, my God. Like.

I had a bad day on the wards today as a fourth year medical student or whatever. Therefore, I'm ready for me. Like never, never, never. There's this there's this idea of not being results oriented. So I don't mean results as in like getting good grades or things like that. I mean, not being outcome oriented. So this is a term that comes from poker. And when you play poker and you make a.

So when you're playing poker and you make a call or you raise or you fold or whatever, you are making an action. Now that action, you don't know whether it was the right action or the wrong action until the cards come out and you know whether you won or lost. But at the time when you made that decision, there is a mathematically correct response for you to make. So you make the response that is best, and then there's variance and there's luck involved as to whether that actually results in you winning or losing, right?

So if you make that correct decision at the beginning, I think the outcome is absolutely irrelevant. And this is a huge philosophy that I live my life by. I just tell myself, make the best decision that you can with the information that you have right now. Whatever happens after that could be good, could be bad based on that decision. But you did the right thing at the time.

That lifts all this weight off my shoulders of did I make the right decision should I have done this should I have done that? There's no questioning involved I just I just made the decision that I did with the information I had at the time and I can't ask myself of anything else, you know, yeah, that's so good. I love that though the quote that I found myself thinking about a lot which relates to that is

I think it's a quote from like Buddhism or something, uh, or some other Eastern tradition, uh, which is a total commitment to the process, total equanimity about the outcome. Um, and it's like, I'm going to do what I can. I'm going to make the best decision I can. I'm going to put the effort into it that I can while having fun. And who cares what the outcome is?

And I remember this sort of when I, you know, working on the book, part of me wants it to be a New York Times bestseller and all that stuff, obviously. But that's an outcome. And that's an outcome that I have no control over. So I'm going to commit to the process. I'm going to show up and do my best. And the outcome is in God's hands. And so it's all good. Like, I suddenly don't need to worry about this shit anymore. I can do what I can. Yeah, it's glorious. 100%. It sounds strange to say this out loud, but I make as few decisions as I can in my day. I don't really think about things. I just...

tell myself what I'm gonna do based on what I think is the best action and then I go do it. Because if I think about it too hard, then you start thinking about should I have done this? Should I have done that? Why am I doing this? How do I feel about it, et cetera. I think it really impedes the process and takes away from whatever your end goal is.

And being introspective and reflective as you were talking about before is something that I really admire in people 'cause it's something that I haven't been able to do for pretty much all my life. And now I'm doing it a little bit more recently. But to a certain extent, I think it's good. Too much of it and overthinking is also bad. You need a good balance.

So, yeah. So this segues nicely into therapy. Yeah, let's do it. Tell me more. Tell me more. So what happened? I was at the end of my fourth year of medical school. I kind of did summer and then came back to medical school.

And kind of before I knew it, I just found myself like not wanting to get out of bed, right? Which is something I've never experienced before. And I really pride myself on being a consistently happy person. Nothing gets me down. Like everything is water under the bridge, brush things off my shoulder, whatever. Like, as we said, like, I don't think about things too hard. Whatever the outcome is, the outcome is I made the best decision. So, you know, like I'm constantly happy pretty much like touch wood. Anyways, we got to this point where I kind of was like...

Yeah, just like feeling like I wasn't enjoying my day as much as I should and suddenly I wasn't getting up on my first alarm ringing and I was getting up on my like third or fifth and I was like what's going on here by an absolute stroke of luck at the same time a company that provides Mental counseling and therapy services had reached out to me and said we want to sponsor a video on the channel So I said, okay cool. That's great. I'm making a video about burnout That's a great fit. Why don't you give me access to the platform so I can test it out and use it and

And these two things were happening at the same time. I hadn't, this is all in retrospect that I realized, you know, I wasn't feeling that good. So we set up like the first therapy session. And I remember before going, I was on the phone to my girlfriend and I was like, babe, like, what am I going to say? Like, what am I going to talk about to this person? Like, they're just a random person. They don't know me. I don't have anything to say. Like, life is good. And we start the call.

And before I knew it, I was just rambling, rambling, rambling about all these things that I was getting off of my chest that I had been feeling all of these years and all this time that I had literally not just taken the time to stop and think about.

And I was thinking to myself, like, Nasser, you're doing all of these things in your life, keeping yourself busy, like trying to make others happy and trying to help other people. And you didn't take a second to think about this stuff. Like, why did you wait so long? And it was kind of this place where I was living in, like, ignorance is bliss. Just don't think about the why. Don't think about how you're feeling about it. X, Y, and Z. Just get the thing done. And I wasn't reflecting on kind of anything that was happening in my life.

And through the course of like a couple of therapy sessions, I felt like I was reflecting a lot more on how I was feeling about medical school, about the YouTube channel, about my family, about life, my girlfriend, you know, everything. And it kind of opened up this part of my brain that I had never used before or thought about before, which is, you know, you can think about the things that you're doing and you can acknowledge how it makes you feel. And yeah, it's been it's been really fantastic.

I kind of think as the last year as pre-therapy and post-therapy in terms of like how I live my life. Interesting. Yeah, sorry. Big ramble. Thank you for being so open about this. This is fantastic stuff. Yeah, for sure. You know, I've been saying all this time to like to friends, to family, to patients, like, you know, like seek mental health services, do this, do that. And so, you know, if I'm advocating for people to go to this, like I should be talking about it quite openly as well. And yeah. So what have been some of the changes that,

in your life pre and post therapy? - I think kind of the biggest one is I'm trying to be a bit less of a robot in terms of thinking and my actions, but most importantly, time management. So I am someone who prides myself a lot on my time management and I think that I balance a lot of things in my life really well. And it all kind of comes naturally to me and it all goes well. The sort of downside to that is that

I'm constantly working, you know, I'm constantly like moving from one thing to the next and it's really difficult to stay in the moment You know if we were doing this pre therapy I'd be thinking about okay as soon as I leave this this podcast I'm gonna go home I'm gonna have a 10-minute coffee break then I'm gonna sit down for half an hour and I'm gonna work on my emails and then I'm gonna have a two-hour study stress with Kenji and Georgina my parents are gonna come we're gonna go for dinner I wouldn't be thinking about us in this moment right now. I would always be thinking about what's next what's next what's next and I used to keep track of

every single thing I did in my life. I could tell you how long it takes for me to do any task, walk from here to there, go to the bathroom, make a tea versus a coffee, make this food versus that food. I was just very hyper-focused on time.

And kind of through therapy, I've realized that I can still complete everything I want to do in my life without necessarily sort of working on the to-do list up until I go to sleep at midnight or, you know, constantly squeezing in little bits of work on the bus, on the train, when I'm walking, things like that. I've taken like a much more relaxed attitude towards life, which has been amazing. Would highly recommend for anyone who thinks they might benefit from therapy to give it a try. Okay. Wow.

Wow. Sorry, that was a lot. No, no, this is great. That's all very interesting. Okay. I have heard people say things to that effect of like, for example, he did an interview with Julian Hearn, the founder of Huel. Yes. And...

Similarly with James Hoffman, the coffee shop who you're probably familiar with. And one thing I'm always intrigued by is to what extent is it that the hustle mind, the kind of I'm going to have coffee rather than tea because tea takes an extra three minutes to brew and I can't be asked to wait three minutes because I have to do work on my to-do list.

To what extent was that a thought process that served you when you were young and quote, not successful? Or is it that now that you're a little bit more enlightened around the whole work-life balance, hustle culture, not amazing type thing, is that a kind of privileged position to have to be able to be like, oh, actually I can smell the roses. Whereas back in the day when you were struggling to make ends meet, or whatever that looked like for you, smelling the roses was a luxury you couldn't afford.

Yeah, so really good point to make is that like I largely attribute the success of my YouTube channel and my success in medical school and in my relationships and whatever. Obviously, there's a lot of luck involved and a lot of things have gone my way. I'm extremely privileged to begin with and with everything that's happened so far.

But a lot of that is because of that really hard work. So had I not been so obsessed about my time management and working in every little pocket that I had, staying up late, sacrificing sleep, sacrificing social life, meetings with friends, whatever, I really don't think I could have ended up in the position that I'm in.

There's a lot of things involved. Luck is most certainly very involved, but without that kind of hard work, I wouldn't be able to be here. And so I don't regret doing any of those things. And I think they were a necessary ingredient in the concoction that puts me in the place that I am today. But it's kind of what I talked about before. I feel like I've been on this hamster wheel for so, so long and I've reached the level of success infinitely bigger than I thought I would ever have, right? To think I'm going to hit a million subscribers soon is absolutely ridiculous, right?

When I reached 10,000, the numbers stopped making sense. And then you get your silver plaque and you're like, oh, okay, this symbolizes 100,000. Like, I'm more successful in terms of YouTube numbers and whatever than I would ever hope to be. I've made it, right? If I quit today, I would be happy. Like, I'm good. And so I've reached that level of success where I feel like more success in terms of this.

where i feel like i can take that step back now and say to myself you know when i said like you did the hard work you did the thing yeah um now you can realize maybe you can take a step back and sort of live a little bit more slow and relaxed interesting if you had your time again would you have wanted to live more slow and relaxed maybe at the expense of some quote growth or

Would you do it all again and sort of treat your early 20s as like, okay, this is hustle season and now I'm in chill season kind of vibe? I think I would definitely do everything the same. The reason is that I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. I wasn't going through that time, you know, like I said, sleepless nights and this and that. I wasn't going through all of that wishing that I had more sleep or wishing that I was staying up late because I was excited about posting the video the next day, you know?

And so I really enjoyed that whole process and I wouldn't change it going back. The only thing I would do really is study less for my university in the earlier years, like first and second year in both degrees because I just overworked during that time when I didn't really necessarily need to. But otherwise, no, like the hard, the work ethic and the discipline I think is necessary. Yeah, I like that. So it's like there's this other quote that I came across, which was along the lines of

insofar as you enjoy it, there is nothing wrong with working really hard. And it's when you start finding yourself not enjoying it that you can reassess and be like, okay, hang on. It's a bit weird that I don't want to get out of bed now. Like I'm supposed to be the guy that's like freaking having an amazing time doing all the things, winning on all the fronts.

Now something has changed. Whoops. Something has changed and therefore I don't really enjoy anymore Let me examine that and in a way it's like let's go go go and Sometimes you do have to push yourself a little bit too far to recognize why that limit where that line is Then you take a step back. You're like, okay cool. That's that's reasonable. Yeah, I am

I really think to sort of achieve a level of success, whatever that means in any field that you're in, you do have to put in that extra work harder than the person who's sitting next to you. You know, a lot of luck and privilege is involved, obviously. But I do think that at the end of the day, without the hard work, no matter how much luck and privilege you have, you're not going to get to that point. And so I recently made a video about toxic productivity because I

I came to the conclusion that a lot of the videos on my channel would fall under the toxic productivity category. So long study sessions. Yeah, how I study 40 hours a day. Yeah, I mean, all I talk about is like time management and studying and productivity, right? And in that video, the case that I try to make is that, first of all, this is what I'm actually doing. I'm not actually sleeping all day and just making these videos. This is what I'm actually doing. And the only reason that I'm doing it is because I'm enjoying it. No one's sitting here with a gun to my head saying, that's for work harder and being

and be more aware of your time management. These are things that I do because I enjoy them and I'm sharing them because I think that other people might find value in them. And if you do, then that's fantastic. And if you don't, you don't have to watch this video. You don't have to take part in this. If this content is something that you don't want to consume, then like that's completely fair enough. I understand where you're coming from. This really isn't for everyone. And so, yeah, like it should be okay as long as you enjoy it, right?

Yeah, there's like this balance between, you know, on the internet, people want you to be authentic, but only authentic insofar as it ticks the boxes that society has decided in that given season is an appropriate amount of work and life to have. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah.

But today, most people feel like, actually, no, this is negative. This is bad. And that's fair enough. People are entitled to feel that way. But it doesn't mean that there's something inherently wrong with the videos that we're making. That's the point that I'm trying to make. Yeah, it's a good place to be. So are you still going on going with the therapy thing? Or was it like a few sessions? So yeah, so it was an eight week thing. And I kind of treated it like,

essay or an assignment or a game or something throughout the whole therapy session I would just be taking notes like frantically on all the important points and at the end I would make myself an action plan and then during the week I would work on the action plan and make sure that I was actually doing the things that were gonna help me in some way shape or form so let's say in therapy session one we would identify X or Y problem I would think about how can I fix X or Y problem work on it during the week and then report back I fixed X I haven't I

haven't quite fixed why let's work on that a little bit more. Yeah. It's very productivity bro way of dealing with therapy. It is, it is, it is. But I can't imagine doing it any other way. And I think, I think half of therapy is talking to someone else, listening to them, um, having them, you know, tell you things. The other half is you need to put in some amount of work to try and change the things that you're unhappy with or, um, or, you know, whatever it is that you need to do. Um, so I think you need a little bit of both for sure.

So we were talking about like your pre and post therapy self. And you said one of the things definitely is that you've taken the foot off the gas a little bit, shall we say. That reminded me of a story that Derek Sivers writes about in his book. I think it's in Anything You Want, where he talks about how he would always go for a cycle every day.

and it would take him 40 minutes to go and he'd be sweating at the end of it and he'd be like, cool, I need to make my time, it's 40 minutes. And then one day he decided, you know what? I'm just gonna enjoy the cycle ride. And it's like, oh, cool, like, oh, I'm smelling the roses on the way and picking up a little pebble and like, you know, just like actually enjoying the cycle ride. And he gets back, he looks at the clock and it's 42 minutes. And he's like, damn, was I really huffing and puffing and wearing myself out for the sake of two extra minutes? That seems a bit weird. - That's a really excellent analogy of how I feel pre and post therapy.

I'm still achieving the same things. I'm just taking it a little bit more relaxed and enjoying myself a little bit more and really the amount of output that I'm losing is minimal and that's the realization that I've had which I didn't have before. I was under the assumption that

you know, I just have to continue working up until the point that I go to sleep because every night when I go to sleep, I look at my to-do list and there's 10 items on there. And I'm like, well, I could probably bang out two of these right now before I go to bed or I can leave them all tomorrow. The obvious choice is to bang two of these before I go to bed. Let's get that done. Nowadays, so...

Post therapy right or during therapy for the first time in my life I sat down in bed and I watched a movie on Netflix by myself up until that point. Yeah. Yeah, right which which sounds crazy, right? I mean, you know, my girlfriend's been telling me to do this forever my friends have been telling me to do this forever and I would always think to myself like Why would I do that when I could work on my to-do list like it's not about being unproductive It's just I wanted to do the other things like I have this to-do list of things that I genuinely enjoy Let me get some of them done. Yeah, and so now

I just watch a movie before I go to bed and I do those two tasks in the morning instead of the night before. And I just relax at the end of the day and unwind. Like, why do I need to be on this constant hamster wheel of running, running, running, doing all this time management stuff? I can just take a bit of a step back. And like you said, it'll take me 42 minutes instead of 40. And it's not the end of the world. And that's kind of the change that I'm going through now. Have you come across 4,000 Weeks by Oliver Berkman?

You would enjoy it. It's, uh, we've got it here somewhere. Uh, it's great. It's like a sort of 2022 slash 2021, uh, productivity book inverted commas, but it's, it's not really about productivity. It's, it's, it's more, it's more like a philosophical approach to time management, recognizing that 4,000 weeks is roughly the amount of time we have on this earth. And, uh,

Once we accept the finitude of existence and our own mortality we stop trying to cram all these things and juggle all these balls and we recognize that there genuinely isn't enough time for all the important things and therefore something they're just gonna have to be put in the bin for now and It's a very liberating an interesting read would recommend and for anyone listening We have an interview with Oliver Berkman, which will also be linked in the in the show notes down below shameless plug very nice and

But yeah, so I found myself having similar realizations where I used to feel bad about not replying to people. And now I don't feel bad about not replying to people, unlike WhatsApp or emails and stuff. Like friends or people on the internet who watch your stuff? Both to an extent. Like friends, I still feel a little bit bad because it's a friendship to maintain and I try not to apply productivity bro lens to friendships.

But even friends to an extent to be honest like I used to feel guilty that I have these 80 unread whatsapps and it's all people friends of mine even like friends who I should be replying to and I know I want to reply to them but like I just can't bring myself to make the time to do this thing and Now I guess what I've accepted is just like yeah, I'm just that's okay like

Maybe I will lose out on one or two friendships because I was not sufficiently good at replying to WhatsApp messages. But actually, that's okay. That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. And the amount of extra stress it adds to my life to feel the need to maintain a, I don't know, two-hour response time to WhatsApps does not justify... Yeah, it's just not worth it. Similarly with emails, similarly with...

What I found as well is random items on my to-do list. Whereas I used to think of my to-do list as I have to get all these things done. Now I think of it as, as long as I just get the most important things done each day, it really does not matter if all the other stuff does not get done forever. Like indefinitely. It doesn't matter in the slightest. It's actually all good. And unless like a tax bill comes along, which is too easy to put off or something like that, there are very few things that...

that are genuinely necessary and important on the to-do list. And there's certainly not going to be like 10 to 100 of them like I used to have. If I can just do my most important task each day and maybe one or two other things, and I do that every day for a whole year, then I'll make so much more progress than if I think of my to-do list as a series of items that need checking off. Definitely. I think there's also a thinking switch that you make where

My to-do list used to be something that anytime I'd strict one thing off, I would immediately think, "Oh, okay, what do I want to do next?" Well, I want to start making merch. I want to start a Patreon. I want to upload a new video. I want to write a script for this, blah, blah, blah. So there was always things to add. There was a never ending incoming stream of things that I could potentially put on my to-do list. And it's like you said, what you need to realize is like, let me just focus on the most important things that I want to do right now. Once those are done, I can think about adding on a new project. It doesn't all have to get done before I go to sleep at midnight or whatever.

So yeah, this thinking shift in time management from having to get everything done as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible, to just

Taking a little bit less time, but enjoying it exponentially more is something that I've been going through and that I think is really important. I wish I'd known it earlier. I wish I'd experienced it earlier. And yeah, it's kind of a change that I'm trying to make now. Yeah, it reminds me of something that I heard an emergency medicine consultant say once on one of my shifts, which is that

don't worry about the list. The list is never ending. The patients are going to keep coming in and there's nothing you can do about that. So just embrace the fact that there's nothing you can do about the list and just focus on the patient in front of you and try and make that patient have a great time and then focus on the next one in terms of priority order, in terms of triage, and then the next one and then the next one and stop.

and stop worrying about the list it's all good if we breach four hours who cares like you know we'll be all right we'll be all right we got this yeah it's that exact point that there's a never-ending list of patients and each one of them is going to come with their sub sub list of tasks that need to get done um so yeah so yeah just one at a time in triage priority order one at a time and one day at a time trust trust in the process the ones that don't need to be there will just leave

The drunk people will just wake up and leave. And as long as you have addressed the most pressing people as and when and given them a good experience and everyone else is doing the same, the system will sort itself out. Yeah, exactly. Whereas I find that kind of on days, this was in my early few days when I had like A&E shifts, it would be like, oh my God, we have all these eight patients under medicine that need to be seen as like,

I don't need to worry about that. That's way beyond my pay grade. You just didn't see the one. Let the consultant worry about that. I'm just going to see the one in front of me. Yeah. Would you recommend therapy? Because I tried it for a few weeks. I had a therapist from the School of Life. Okay.

And after a few weeks, I found that I was really struggling to come up with things to say. But it was like over Zoom and people are like, oh, it's better in real life. Like, yeah. What was yours? So I did it over Zoom. And there's definitely a little bit of a disconnect there. Was your therapist male or female? Female.

Cool. I just think, well, I'll speak for myself, but like, as a like man, I found it easier to open up to a woman because of the biases of like being a man and holding all your emotions in. And this is not, which I shouldn't be experiencing anyway, blah, blah, blah. Anyways. So I wouldn't say if that wasn't working, but also a lot of people don't vibe with the first therapist that they see. It's like super common to change therapists and like try different ones out until you meet someone who you kind of connect with. And yeah,

All this to say, like, it's genuinely changed how I think and why I do on a day-to-day basis. I'm a much more relaxed person than I was before. And it kind of just took someone to, like, tap me on the shoulder and be like, hey, man, like, are you thinking about what you're doing right now? Like, do you feel okay? Like, how's it going? And I hadn't thought about it. I was literally running on this infinite treadmill that was never going to run out. And I was just going, going, going, going, going, not thinking about things too much. And, yeah, it kind of...

like I said, tapped me on the shoulder and gave me a step back. - And I guess final question on the therapy front. Okay, so I'm sold, I'm gonna give it a go. I do sometimes think that so few of my business coaches end up being therapists because a lot of their stuff is around like, why are we doing this? What are the goals here? Like, have you already thought about this? - Fair enough. - What are some, as you were going through the therapy stuff, were there any particular questions that the therapist asked that made you think, oh, that's a good question?

that you could, that would maybe be good as like a journaling prompt for someone who's maybe listening to this, who doesn't want to slash can't afford to see a therapist. I think one of the things she said to me was, um, like, who are you doing this for? Um, and if the answer isn't that you're doing it for yourself, then, you know, you, you might want to rethink about whether you should be doing it in the first place. One of the things that we talked about was that, um,

I felt that there were a lot of people surrounding me in my life that were going through difficult times and they wanted to talk about X, Y, or Z with me. And I would never turn away someone like that. And so that was taking quite a big toll on me, both emotionally and mentally and things like that.

And she was saying to me, you know, like, to what benefit is this for you? There comes a point where you're giving away too much of yourself and you're not, you're giving away too much of yourself and it's only going to be to your detriment. And so she was talking about, you know, how maybe you control those boundaries or those lines, things like that. This might be a bad example because the conclusion that I came to in the end was that

I would never say no if it was a close friend or family because I think even if I was to make that sacrifice and be under more emotional stress, it's more important that I try and help the person who's come to me. Any final comments on the therapy front? You would have told yourself earlier or you would recommend for me? The honest thing I would say is that

Never in a million years thought that I was someone who might benefit from therapy or that I wouldn't need therapy I would find it useful or anything along those lines and I was very very shocked just how much I gained from it And so really what I want to say is that if you think there's even a small chance you could benefit from ever find it useful Then give it a go And yes, you see what happens. All right, I'm sold it's gonna happen. I

uh changing gears a little bit can we talk about your relationship yes um so how long have you and alexia been together no so we've been together now for nine years oh yes yeah long long time so you met in canada or uh we met uh when we were in high school we went to high school together oh that's cute yeah um okay so i have a bunch of questions um sure i'm curious what it's like

Being public somewhat public about your relationship and what it's like the fact that she is a youtuber as well and How you balance the whole like public life versus private life side of things? I think let's start with the public versus private life. Yeah, I think I

The most important thing that we do, that I do both for myself on my channel and that we do in videos that we're together, is everything that we show in these videos is really carefully selected. And what I mean by that is that I want exactly zero input from people who I've never met before on the internet into what to do in my relationship.

A relationship is difficult enough as it is. There's a lot of things to balance, you know. And to have other people's opinions or comment on the smile that you did at 1.31 or how you put your arm on their shoulder at 6.52 is like just things I don't need in my life, right? So a lot of the videos where Alexia is involved are really travel vlogs and

And Alexia is in those in different clips of us just having fun and going out and drinking coffee and things like that. But we've been really careful not to sort of sit down in front of a camera and be like, hey, guys, this is our life and our relationship. And this is what we like. This is what we don't like, because we don't want to have an online relationship. We don't want it to be in the public eye. And so that's kind of how we handle that. We don't really, at least I don't think we put that much of ourselves out there. Yeah, I've had it a few times with like,

Generally when filming videos with a woman,

So either Sheen or Elizabeth or like Unjaded Jade or doing a podcast with Ruby Granger. It's like... Are you dating? Yeah, it's always the things of are you dating? And there's like large amounts of like at 17 minutes and 34 seconds, you know that look that came into his eye? It really shows that he's in love with her. You see? That smile that she gave him at 19 minutes and 24 seconds really suggests that she's in love with him or like... Exactly. That look he had made him look like, oh God, that was so rude. That's like, dude... Exactly. I was looking up...

I didn't even know what I was doing at the time, but I had like, I might notion in front of me on the iPad to figure out where the conversation is going next. And it's like, when you're doing a live stream with someone, you can't look at the camera, but you have, you want to look at them and like all of this stuff and the amount of like random shit in the comments of being sort of people having, having an opinion on everything. Oh my God, this video, this, this made me realize that Ali, uh,

Ali has no like emotional capacity because he did not make eye contact with her when she was sitting next to him. He was looking at the camera instead. It's like, bro, have you ever tried speaking to a camera? You're supposed to look at the camera. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess like, how did you decide that the, how did, do you actively decide that you wanted to go down the path

Occasional cameos in travel vlogs route rather than in the hey guys, let's ask, you know answering date questions You are yeah dating Q&A. What he's like as a person kind of content I think from from the very first post I ever made online I had a really conscious decision to separate my private life and my online life Yeah, and I have this huge fear that one day everyone's gonna know everything about me on the internet and

And so I work really hard to try and separate those two things. You know, I made a separate Instagram page. I have my own private one. I made a separate YouTube channel. I have my own private one. And what I post and what I share online, and I talked about this in a recent video as well, is like, you know, I only share the things that I want to put online, right?

I go through the footage, I hold the camera and I film myself. I decide when I want to film and what I want to show. And it is all carefully selected because this is an online impression that I'm giving to other people. Now it is true that what I do show on camera is like 99% true to real life, but I wouldn't choose to pick up the camera when I'm really bothered or upset or angry or something like that. I think that makes logical sense.

But I think what people sometimes who are watching videos don't understand is that you don't know the person who you're watching. You don't really know them in a deep capacity more than what they're choosing to show you online.

And so when someone says, you know, Ali doesn't have the emotional capacity because he doesn't look at X, Y, and Z, like you're getting such a small snapshot of this person in this video that they've chosen to upload. How they act or be off camera could be completely different, you know? And like, I don't know. I mean, we've met a couple of times. Hopefully you think that I'm the same on camera and off camera. But,

But it is really a selective thing that goes out. We don't just show everything. Do you show everything about your life? No. Not really, right? Because you want to have your own private life as well. And so, yeah, that's where we were.

So from the very beginning with my own channel I made this huge distinction between private and public and I think even more so with the relationship because there's just this natural fascination that people have with relationships and people being couples online and whatever I think we've tried to keep that up of keeping it offline not offline but keeping it as private as we can mmm And how does how do things work with the fact that Alexia has her own YouTube channel as well? What do you mean as in? Do I guess?

do you get like

So your channel is significantly bigger than hers. So do you get your army of fanboys and fangirls going over to her channel and commenting on her videos and wanting to, I don't know, be part of that? Yeah, how does that work? Yeah, I mean, I'm so incredibly proud of every video she puts out because her first 20 videos are the same as my, I don't know, 50th to 70th video or something. They're so much better than how I started. And so pretty much every video she puts out, I post it on my Instagram story and I'm like, please,

Please, everyone go watch it if you're interested. It might be really fun. Yeah, no, I'm really proud of her. I think she makes really great content and she is the queen of reflection and introspection and things like that. And so I think she does that quite well on camera, something that I'm struggling to do and I'm working on. And so, yeah, I really love her videos and I promote them as much as I can. I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean by like, how does it work?

Yeah, I guess does she get weird comments on her videos from like your fans type thing or do you get like, I don't know, girls on the internet who are in love with you who are annoyed that you have a girlfriend? I guess I'm just sort of thinking about like weird people on the internet. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

I get all kinds of weird DMs. I'm sure you get the same, like, you know, there's the full on marriage proposals. There's the, like the nudes, the like, you know, people asking you out to coffee and things like that. And I've never gone to any nudes. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's just me. Um, and, and yeah, it's, it's kind of one of those things that you see and you're like, like,

like why am I seeing this right now? You know, I'm not interested in this. - This is lying in bed, man. - This is not why I'm on Instagram. Exactly, like I'm here to respond. - Why are you sending me this? - I'm here to respond to like UCAT advice and like studying motivation. Anyway, so yeah, you know, I get all kinds of weird messages and stuff, but just don't give them attention, delete, block, whatever. The thing is like, I'm not interested in that type of thing at all, right? You know, I'm in this long-term relationship that I'm really happy in and I'm, you know, I'm not gonna be distracted by some stupid DM on Instagram.

Would you ever consider making a couples channel? That's a bit more like Q&A about a relationship. Absolutely not. No, no. Again, like...

You're in a relationship now, right? So, you know, think about how much like time, effort, emotion, thinking, ups and downs go on in a relationship. And then just add the added pressure of hundreds or thousands of people having an opinion on how you guys interact online or how you appear to be with each other or things like that. It's just all this added stress that we really don't need, you know? So, yeah, I don't think we would ever go down that route. Okay.

Tell me about your relationship. Yeah, we've not gone public with it just yet. Okay. It feels like a very big move to go public with it. It is, yeah. And so given that it's still like early days, it's been like six months, we've decided that let's like, you know, take it slow in terms of like,

bringing things into the public domain. One idea that I really like the idea of, in theory anyway, is the idea of, for example, having a couples channel, which is why I was asking you about it, because I do follow a bunch of couples, vloggy, lifestyle-y channels.

And I think, oh, this is really nice. It's really wholesome. And it's cute how they did Cuisinage together. And it's cute how, I don't know, those videos of like a guy asking girls questions that guys are afraid to ask girls and vice versa. Yeah, yeah. It just makes for interesting content. But I guess it does require a large amount of

Thinking about and I guess what you see is definitely not what is necessarily happening behind the scenes Yeah, and what they're doing is what they're putting out is like an airbrushed image of what's actually going on. Yeah, definitely I think another thing to think about like definitely in my case as counterintuitive as it might be I

Have never been comfortable just pulling out a camera in group settings with my friends or you know I mean in the studio I would never pull out the camera and start talking uh vlogging because it's just not something that i'm comfortable with And so a lot of my youtube channel is me talking to myself in my bedroom or me With the camera one-on-one vlogging walking around or whatever And so being on camera in front of another person even my girlfriend is a dynamic that I don't I don't necessarily want to do and it's something that I don't think i'd be very comfortable with okay, it's um

You know, at least for like a couple's channel type thing. I think if you're one off here and they're doing things together, it's whatever. But like in terms of an official channel, I think I would struggle with it. But, you know, some people find it really fun and easy. So it's I think it's a personal thing as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think I should I should treat it with the same spirit.

sort of scientific method that you do for your uh what i enjoy medicine thing of i have a hypothesis that this will be fun let's try it out maybe even like make some videos and not publish them and see what the vibe is maybe make make like five or ten videos and if we decide after that point to not publish them then that's fine they're interesting memories and if we decide to publish them great we're 10 weeks ahead in terms of content yeah uh

I think like it also depends on how comfortable you are in the relationship. If you guys both feel very secure and you're happy with each other, then those types of online comments are not going to play as big of a role. You're not going to think about them that much or, you know, I mean, you know, if you were to put out

a video with your girlfriend tomorrow, that would be a significant event for the Ali Abdaal community. You know, like this would be a huge... Fireworks, like the comments would be absolutely insane. Exactly. Through the roof. You're going to get a lot of like comments and whatever. A lot of it is probably going to be really positive. Um...

But, yeah, I don't know. It's just added pressure. It's added pressure. And I think I'm trying to reduce pressure in my life. I don't want any more things to do. You've got medicine coming up anyway. Exactly, yeah. So I guess it's not something I'm interested in exploring at the moment. Okay, nice.

So you've been together for nine years. What's the secret to a long-term relationship? If any. I think in one word is communication for me. Like when we were in our first degrees, I was in Toronto in Canada and she was here in Bath studying for her university and I was in Canada for mine.

And no joke, we would have the Skype call open for like 32 hours at a time, you know, like 18 hours, 24 hours, whatever. Like the Skype call was just a permanent object on both of our desks. It was open while we slept, while we woke up, went to breakfast, whatever, you know? And I think that level of communication, that level of feeling together, even when we were apart is kind of what helped us through then. And also just generally, I think if you don't,

Well, it's hard to give general advice because everyone's really different. But I'll say for myself, like I'm one of those people who wants to talk to my partner quite often, wants to be involved, wants to be, you know, filled in. And so for us, talking and communicating quite often helps a lot, I think, for sure. Nice.

That's all very useful. I have more questions to ask you offline, which we'll take on after this recording. Changing directions finally to the other element of like, other than like relationships and work that make for a meaningful life, generally health. Sure. You take care of your health. Like I've seen some of your vlogs, the six pack abs and all that. How do you do it? Like what's going on there? Yeah.

Flash, give me advice. If you were to be my health coach, what would you suggest for me? Sure. I eat Deliveroo twice a day and I don't really exercise. Yeah. The Deliveroo twice a day is tough, man, because you can't sit here and look me in the eyes and tell me that the Deliveroo food feels and tastes like real food that you would cook at home.

I don't really cook. I've only started cooking home in the last like two or three weeks. I got like the whole like Le Creuset Harry Potter collection, like cast iron skillet. Nice, nice. I made a steak three times so far. Excellent. I made some lamb chops. Loads of salmon. Salmon is so easy. Yeah, yeah. Salmon's very easy. I'm sure on the big baking trays as well. Yeah. You can just throw in tons of vegetables and potatoes. Glorious. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I think exercise is something that I just genuinely enjoy fundamentally. If I hated exercise, I think this would be a separate conversation. At its core, I enjoy going for a run. I enjoy going to the gym and I find it very helpful.

kind of tied to the fact that for a very long time I've been like not thinking about things, not being introspective and reflective. A huge way for me to sort of offload stress or like clear my mind and move on to the next thing was just go for a run, go to the gym. Not the healthiest coping mechanism, but it served me for a really long time. And kind of now it's just routine that I need

If I don't exercise every like two days or so, I'm like, I'm itching in my chair. You know, I feel like I have to get out of this room and just push something, pull something, like run. I honestly almost feel more like my body pulls me towards the exercise as opposed to it's a decision that I make. Let me go to the gym right now. But that might also be because it's become a habit at this point and it's like just part of normal routine. Okay. When you're at the gym, what do you do? Oh, I do a lot of stuff. So currently I'm not in my like,

peak physique, like gym going four or five times a week. Um, so what I'm doing is about three days a week and I generalize into like a push day, which is a chest and triceps, a pull day, which is back and biceps and then legs and cardio legs. So I do do legs for everyone, for everyone always commenting on how skinny my legs are. I'm fully aware. Um,

Yeah, no, I do do legs and I actually enjoy it now. Believe it or not, it's been a good sort of break from like push and pull days. But it's just infinitely like harder to train them. I'm a naturally pretty lanky and skinny guy. And do you like track macros and like all that crap? No. See, that's another one of those things that's just like added stress that I don't want in my life. I feel like

So I'm okay with eyeballing, guessing if I'm like eating too much or too little. But actually, to be honest, I don't think about whether I eat too much or too little. In fact, I try and throw as much food on my plate as I can because I find it very difficult to like put on mass and to grow muscle mass. And so, yeah, I don't really track any of that stuff, no. Okay. So what would be like your...

kind of recommendation for me for things I should do to my lifestyle to become a bit more hench. If we take aside the question of why I want to become hench in the first place, because then that takes it down the therapy rabbit hole, which we can... Sure. I think honestly the most important thing is to just find a form of exercise that you actually enjoy. At the end of the day, if you don't enjoy what you're doing and you're forcing yourself to go, you're not going to keep it up for a long time. And that makes perfect sense. And so whether you like swimming, running, walking, gym...

I don't know what other activities can you do. Tennis, squash, yeah, for example. Exactly. Whatever the form of exercise is that you want to,

just focus on that um i think doing those types of sports activities is different than getting hench in the gym yeah and you can't just do those sports and expect to get hench because it's not going to happen but you can certainly be like healthy and fit and active and whatever um the gym is its own thing the gym is its own thing yeah i need to figure out a way for making the gym more fun um gordon is going to help with that because gordon used to be a personal yeah personal trainer yeah it's gonna happen we're gonna make it fun yeah yeah definitely um and yeah the the eating stuff

I don't know. How do you find ordering so often? If I order for like two days in a row, I feel like, you know, I feel a bit sick. I tend to order like either chipotle chicken salad or like poke bowls. Okay. And so I have like a few healthy defaults. Okay.

And I will very rarely order like a KFC or equivalent. You know what's changed my life? Those like not meal prep companies, but ingredient delivery companies like HelloFresh and Gusto. Have you heard of them? Yeah, I use HelloFresh for a few weeks and then stopped. So very similar to HelloFresh. We use a UK-based company, I think, called Gusto.

And those boxes have completely changed our life. Like we don't shop anymore at the supermarket. We just get those boxes delivered to the house. We buy the meals that are for four people and we're only two. So we just cook them and then we have leftover food for like the next day's lunch or dinner or whatever. And that's completely changed like how much time it takes for us to prep, to cook. Yeah, because I do find that shopping for the ingredients is the hard part. It's the worst. And cooking food is quite fun. Shopping is such an inefficient use of time. Like I hate shopping. I despise it.

Same with making breakfast in the morning. I think it's like the most inefficient way to start my day. Like having this obstacle of eating breakfast in the morning, it bothers me so much. And so I'm thinking of like trying out Huel or something like that to sort of speed up the process.

Although I've now been on a whole, like for the last three days, going into a deep diver on all the anti-aging longevity stuff, which is often in favor of- With metformin. Yeah, metformin, one of the things, but like in favor of calorie restriction, intermittent fasting, eating less meat, not ordering from delivery twice a day. So there's all these things associated with like longevity that I'm now-

diving into in terms of like what are the mechanisms behind this and how does it work and can I make a video about it and can I apply it to my own life. So I feel like next time we meet I'll be a new man. I have been plant based for the last two days so that's good. We'll see how that goes. Easy starts, easy starts. And if you ever fancy going for a run like hit me up. I go running pretty often yeah. Running is amazing. I was playing squash. Do you play squash or badminton? I don't but I can learn. Why do you enjoy running? It's just a repetitive motion right?

There's nothing like running. You know, you sweat out like all your stress. What stress? What stress? Yeah. I think like it's so great because...

You're just outdoors, like experiencing, you know, scenery, different shops, people running by the street. You know, if you go to the parks, you have all that greenery there as well. I just think it's so great for getting out of the house and doing something that's like fun and makes you feel good. What do you listen to while running, if anything? Only music.

no any music not like podcast 3x speed or audiobooks at 2.5 no no i need the high energy like to keep me going once the music turns off i like i'll stop you know i can't keep going it's all about the music yeah interesting all right i think this is a good place to end this charismatic thank you very much for joining the podcast my pleasure and uh yeah it's been great

And people can find you on all the links down below, YouTube channel, podcast, all that shebang. I look forward to being a guest on your podcast at some point. Yes, absolutely. You're my guest number 10. Yeah, sick.

All right, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes, depending on where you're watching or listening to this. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, then do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast. Or if you're watching this in full HD or 4K on YouTube, then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode. That would be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well, which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode.

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