We sit down with our 2nd guest Ali Abdaal discussing everything from dad life, raising kids to burn out and our upbringing.
Episode 17
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Gordon: [00:00:00] We have a very special guest on our podcast today with the I think you're only the third
guest.
we've actually had on the podcast, you know, Third, third
time Lucky.
video, wherever that is.
Yeah, definitely. Um, Mr. Ali Abdullah, you have to Mr. Why not? You know?
Ali: It's not my official title.
Gordon: Okay. Sorry. doctor. Sorry. Doctor Dr. Ali. I've dealt.
Ali: my mum might be watching this. I need her to like really?
Gordon: That that is fair. Um, Yes. Ali is, uh, I'll describe as various different things and you can nod approvingly. So if anyone's watching on YouTube. they can watch the video of it, but uh, you are a doctor and you still you're not registered anymore. Are you or
Ali: My license.
Gordon: paused
Ali: paying the membership dues. It's not canceled. That's what I was struck off just yet, but it's like paused.
Gordon: Technically you're
Neil: how much does it cost to be a doctor
Ali: Oh, it's about 150 quid a year. And then it kind of keeps on increasing. The more senior you get. Am I stayed at 150 quid a year.
Gordon: It gets more
Ali: Oh God. Yeah. The better you get, the more senior you get, [00:01:00] the more you have to pay for like membership fees and like, uh, indemnity fees and all of the things they're really racks
Gordon: What does it go up.
to?
Ali: Um, I think.
Yeah. And then on top of that several hundred to several thousand in indemnity fees, depending on what you do on top of that, several thousand for each exam, you have to take, as you become more senior. This is stuff that doctors complain about all the time,
Gordon: Wow. I'd never actually knew that. that's
Neil: I assumed NHS should be, oh,
Ali: and it's just, we haven't got any money.
Gordon: yeah, cause I was just I was under the assumption that doctors are just covered nurses. they're all covered and it's just, you know, you just crack on and You don't have to pay anything You're just,
paid to.
Ali: Yeah. So actually it's a technically, if you just worked for the NHS, the hospital will cover you.
But the theory goes that if you get embroiled in a case or something, the hospital is trying to protect themselves, not trying to protect you. And so, um, basically every doctor was recommended to have like in their own personal indemnity. And so they're at least don't have someone in their corner to represent them.
But why the hospitals, obviously just trying to save. [00:02:00] How's it work.
Gordon: And you were trained by the system that the doc, the
hospital.
was sort of founded on to a certain degree,
Ali: to a certain degree.
Gordon: Wow. Okay. Yeah. So that, that, sorry, We went off tangent there a little bit, but fair enough. Uh, yes.
Dr. A YouTuber podcast. Anything else I can add to that list
entrepreneur. philanthropist, super handsome. That number six. Um, yes, Allie is eat. You're probably
most famous for, I will be is a YouTube overall 2.8 million subscribers.
Now in the, you started off in this sort of productivity space fear, what was more education.
Ali: Yeah. I started off helping kids get into med school and then telling people what life and med school was like teaching people how to study for their exams and then helping generally people be more productive.
And now I don't really know what I do. I just make videos about stuff that interests me and it seems to interest some people as well. But
Gordon: a few. I mean, 2.9 million people.
Uh, if you bought something, I'm sure.
Ali: yeah, no, exactly. Like all the bots that like comment for a second, you know, that.
Gordon: Exactly.
Um, so
we, we [00:03:00] wanted to invite you on air because I worked for you and I get special privileges.
So here you are sat on the couch. Um, but also to ask you a few questions, we kind of talk a bit about like general dad, life life things. We talk about brothers sort of relationships. We talk about finances to some degree
and those kinds of
things.
So it would be, it would have been quite interesting to get, you on and talk about those rather than probably the usual creator podcasts that you jump on,
and talking about being super productive.
And whatnot. Um,
Ali: I'm not a dad as far as I know, so I'm not sure I can weigh in on that topic.
Gordon: No, no, but you obviously we've talked about your aspirations to become a father. at some
Ali: I would like to.
Gordon: And you also talked about quite a large family
Neil Neil my brother has three children. He has one seven year old and Two twin boys.
I have a seven month old and you've kind of expressed your wish to have anywhere between three or four.
children,
Ali: Uh, I mean three or four. Yeah,
Gordon: three,
Neil: you got three and four.
Ali: yeah,
Gordon: not seven.
Ali: yeah, Somewhere between three and four. [00:04:00]
Gordon: Um, you know, have you have you thought about the ramifications
of having
the three or four? children?
Ali: I think like when you're young and unencumbered, it's very easy to be like, oh, it would be cool.
Like, you know, I see friends of mine whose, who have like three, four siblings. And that seems just like a good vibe. They always have loads of like falling fallings out over Christmas and things like that. But other than that, it seems like a pretty good setup. Um, Given that I don't know what it's like to have kids in my mind.
I'm imagining, oh, it'd be cool to have these like four kids running around and then the road, oh, then we have like big family gatherings and go on family holidays and stuff. Um, I, you know, I do reserve the right to change my mind if new information comes to light as, and when I do have
Gordon: That is that's definitely fear. And, you know, I used to be of the kind of opinion we're at, you know, you kind of sit in a restaurant and there'd be federal children running around screaming and shouting. You're like for God's sake, I'm just trying to enjoy my dinner, but now having.
had a child
And I noticed it in that sort of slightly patronizing higher position as a dad. You're kind of like, yeah, they're just, they're just trying to get on with life and they don't know what they're doing and they're trying to do that thing.[00:05:00]
Um, but Neil definitely has more experience from, like a three, three children. things. So Neil, what is it? What is it like going from one to three in a very quick fashion? Like you did cause you had, you had ALA then you had just had twin boys. Would you say three's a good number would you say two's a good number? How you
Neil: yeah, I don't know what he like, obviously, but yeah, three it's chaotic and I think. Wait, when you say you want three or four, I think have your first one first and CCA go
Gordon: have your first one first, that's great advice.
Neil: But yeah, just there's a lot to juggle. It's not as, um, glamorous and, and nicest people make it, or people who seem to make it out to be on social media or like anything.
Ali: When you say a lot to juggle, what do you mean by that?
Neil: You've got, you've got three, three little things that don't really know how to look after themselves.
Ali: So you have to like change and vomit
Neil: Yeah. And just split of fights and make their lunch, make their breakfast just constant.
Gordon: because You're
in a slightly different place now because yours are like three and seven. [00:06:00] So they have, they have an element of, uh, freedom to a certain
Neil: but they think they can do something, but the camp,
Gordon: right.
Neil: they think they can make the breakfast, but not quite
Gordon: That seems so much more challenging than no, because Olivia is, she can't even get set up properly. Like I have to hold her to a certain degree. So.
you know,
Yes. She is entirely reliant on me helping change her and feed her and do all the things for her. But you've got
Neil: Yeah So a three-year-old wants to be independent, wants to do absolutely everything to the point where you have arguments because he's trying to spread butter on his toast.
Or a one that happened recently was it was bad. The om got really, really, really upset because he didn't think I'd put butter on his toast, but didn't realize that the butter melted. So he couldn't see any, any flips.
Yeah. It's like, I want butter. Like there's definitely a bar on
Gordon: you, then you want to drive the car.
at one stage and he
Neil: that was Louis. Yeah.
Gordon: leave So he's screaming in the back, cause he wasn't allowed to drive the car
Neil: Yes. He's in his car seat. Well, you tried to get into my front seat, but [00:07:00] Putin's car seat and he was going crazy saying I wanted to drive the car. Daddy, this is three years old.
Gordon: How'd you find the negotiation aspect. Cause last night, last
night I was trying to organize, uh, Aila, uh, to get to bed. And she's obviously come home She's very excited. My, My mom's down. So her grandma's down. She seeing all these new people, she wants to see baby Olivia that's what she's doing for, but it's pushing like half nine, 10 o'clock at night. right?
She's a seven year old She'll be in bed by then, and I've never had to negotiate
with someone.
so much. over cleaning their teeth.
Ali: Like what did the negotiations look like?
Gordon: It got to the point where I stormed out.
Ali: See you likely trying to reason with them. And they're just not.
Gordon: Yeah. So like you
brush your teeth, you know, why you brush your teeth.
I know, I, I know I brush my teeth cause I, you know, women tend to find me more attractive. when I have. teeth. Uh, Yeah. So, so it's kind of, you understand the benefits, but they don't care.
About the Long-term benefits
of brushing their teeth. They just think it's a task. that's stopping
them,
hang out with adults and do
what they want to
do. So I'm kind of like I'm trying to play a [00:08:00] game by, you know, oh, you can do that bit there and you get right there and you can do that a bit there and she's like, no,
And then, and then I was like, okay, well she cause I've I've I don't hang around with
seven year. olds very often for obvious reasons.
And I was like, she's she'll know that she needs to like spit out the toothpaste. Nana. She watched what she was like, she's like, I sold it. I'm like, yeah. But if you just go in the water and like put the water and then the mouth and then spit it that she's like, no, and this is I'm tired. Like I've had a long day.
Ali: why, why do you need her to brush her teeth? Like what does it matter if she skipped.
Gordon: Well, I felt I kind of compelled to be responsible responsible adult
and be
in front of my mom and Neil and be like, I can look after a
Ali: Oh, I see.
Neil: this
Gordon: rather than, rather than the whether or not she can, she needs to do, her hair needs to do your teeth
Neil: I think bribery comes into it quite a lot, especially, but especially at that
Gordon: Hey, let me see that is that cancelable,
Ali: bribery,
Gordon: bribing, a child
Okay.
Neil: know. It's not pancake, not parenting advice, but, um, it seems to work. It [00:09:00] depends with the level of, of thing. So I don't know an example might be, I want to add to tidy your room. She says, no. I say, well, if you tidy your room, you can maybe get a sweetie. Or I get, is that good or bad? No idea.
Ali: rewards and
punishments
Neil: exactly.
Exactly. There's there's, there's a book called my brain child or something about the brain and raising children and they can a friend upon the whole bribery thing.
And I have other friends. I've got kids, you kind of default to it because it seems easiest
Ali: Yeah, it works in the short time.
Neil: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I have no idea what the longterm effects are going to be.
If it, if it gets the thing done, then I'm happy.
Ali: Have you have you come across a book called unconditional parenting?
Neil: No,
Ali: Oh, it's sick.
We've got a copy in the office. We can lend you a copy. It's by the chap called Alfie Cohen. Who's disliked child cycle. And also a parent and his whole thing is that basically he here, he's also written a book called punished by rewards, which is around, and this is stuff that I'm researching for the book that I'm writing.
Because [00:10:00] the thing that I'm trying to write about is this idea that when we're kids, we do things for the intrinsic joy of doing them. And then as we grow.
We start doing things for the sake of the reward that they will get us like grades or, oh, do this thing, and then you'll get a good job one day or do this thing, and then you'll be happy.
And the extrinsic motivators crowd out the intrinsic motivators for doing stuff. And what Alfie basically says is that, uh, rewards and punishments by compliance in the short term, but they are counterproductive in the long-term. Uh, but then, well, every other parenting book will, would be like, or every other parent would say, okay, that's great in theory, but I need to get my kid to brush their teeth.
So like what do you do then?
Gordon: is, This is the thing
right? I'm sat here like a patronized parent going, you do it.
Ali: Yup.
Gordon: So, you know, I Have you thought about what you, what you have from an aspirational perspective for your children? Do you want them to become doctors? Do you want
them to go to university? age? you want them to become YouTubers? Do
you want them to become, like, have you ever thought about, you know, maybe in the future and what that looks like?
Ali: Um,[00:11:00]
not really. I think I just want them to be healthy, happy, productive, kind,
Neil: productive.
Ali: all the
Gordon: uh,
Ali: productive as in contributing to society.
Right. Um, you know, generating their own economic output. Um, now I think that's probably what every parent wants for their kid. Isn't it like, you know, healthy, happy kind,
Gordon: it, isn't, it kind of Defaults pretty quickly. Especially when you have, when you have a child you kind of, You're not really bothered about, you know, all of the things that happen in the future.
You do, you get your. But more So in the sense that they've got five, four fingers and one, one,
thumb,
and they have all their tools, and they're, you know, they're happy, and you know, they, they live a fulfilled life, I suppose, this is kind of where you want to go and whether they become rich or famous or do whatever else you just want them to be to meet someone or do whatever they want to do from that perspective.
Um, But yeah. did you ever think about, what do you ever think about now Cause now your children are starting to get.
into that independence phase. whereas
Olivia is kind of like, she's still pretty helpless. There's no way she's going to be climbing Mount Everest.
anytime soon. So
Neil: [00:12:00] Yeah. I mean, he definitely, you want to think about the future, but again, at the same time, you don't want to wish which the time to go away. So just. Yeah, dig each day as it comes and you can kind of guide them. So with ALA, she's tried Bali, she's tried different kind of dancing.
She dumped piano. There's like testing all these things and see what clicks and see what she really wants to go back to. And right now it's swimming and she obviously loves swimming, piano. She's she's okay with it. Um, but again, there's no kind of, she didn't every week, she didn't say, I want to go to piano.
I'm going to go to piano. So you just tested different things. Um, and I, I encourage any parent to. Yeah. Do different things often. So is that different dance lessons? Is that, I don't know. There's something called rainbows. You guys? Yeah. It's like a outdoor it's like Scouts. You heard Scouts, but it's like the female version. Um, so yeah, you could do something like that. Or you could put her into other musical classes or [00:13:00] acting classes, singing classes. Yeah. Just let them experience different things.
Gordon: Yeah,
Neil: And then they'll guide themselves.
Gordon: That variety is pretty, pretty important. Did you have much variety in your sort of childhood in terms of like, you know, where you just sat at the piano having to be Beethoven or were you, did you ever sort of a plethora of things that you were kind of experiencing from sport to?
arts and crafts
Ali: Yeah And I feel like I had a large amount of freedom to do stuff. Um, cause my mom's single. And so she wasn't really like a, sort of a helicopter parent of being like going from this to that, to this, to that. Um, and well, she was also because she was working and so me and my brother would get home from school.
Uh, our grandma was the one who raised us mostly when we were younger. Um, Yeah, just had the kind of freedom to do stuff. And it was only really when I think it was roundabout in 11 that I discovered the computer. And then that was what took up all of my time and led to the whole coding thing, the whole studying businesses thing.
But before then, you know, just running around, uh, we, we spent the first six years of our life in Southern Africa. And so was like playing, playing with kids in the playground and [00:14:00] stuff. There wasn't this concept in that school of like loads of clubs and activities. Then when we moved to the UK at the age of when I was eight years old, um, then I was like, oh, let's try the violin.
And then, you know, my brother tried the recorder and the piano, and there was like netball, which I was into. And then there was like football practice. So there was that, those, those sorts of things, which we didn't really have when we were in, in the C2.
Gordon: Yeah. Okay. And you, you, you've already covered part of this, I wanted to also go into sort of the business background of your, what you've been up to and what you do, and even from an educational Perspective
You've you've already set the stage. like
Neil was into computers when he was quite young. He was very much sort of, yeah. but at the same major you were sat kind of like in your computer,
doing your it was called Wiki hacks is what
Neil had whiz hacks.
Neil: my blog. Yeah.
Gordon: It's There's a, there's an episode. Um, You could probably do talk about it now, but yeah, Neil, um, Neil basically got banned from the internet for a little while by Google
because he was, he was doing something a bit naughty.
Neil: So I was, I was like 13 years, 13, 14 years old in high school. And, um, [00:15:00] and at that time, high school blocked a lot of websites.
Things like people may space. Um, I managed to find a way around it with my website. You could like it's called a proxy, even I've heard of a proxy. And, um, and yeah, so I hosted one, um, on my website for quite a long time, put ads all over. It made a small amount of money from Google, but it turns out that if you host a proxy in the UK, it's illegal.
Ali: Oh,
Neil: So I got shut down very, very quickly. Well, I it's, it, maybe it may be six months of cash from Google, so yeah. As a 13 year old,
Gordon: did you, when you were sort of starting at 11, did you start trying to go down the route of having a business or was there like an idea of trying to make money or you just kind of doing it Cause it was fun or?
Ali: Yeah, it was, uh, dig it because it was fun. And also the idea of trying to make.
Which then morphed into the idea of starting a business. So all of those, all of those things, which I think will 11 to 15 year old nerds do when they're on a computer being like, oh, I can make websites. I can learn to code. I [00:16:00] can try these like affiliate marketing scams. I can try these permits games. I can try these like, Ooh, can I make like a niche site that gives like StarCraft to build orders.
So then I can use Google ads and put them on the website and make money through that. Can I say. Trey dabbler and use affiliate links and all that, all that stuff that I think the kids of that generation we're trying to use to make money on the internet.
Gordon: If you can reflect on it, what what did money mean
to you then? Like what,
Cause obviously it was probably quite fun to do all these kinds of things. And you've talked about this with your book development aspect. and You've already just intimated to the idea of children and having fun, but there was also that, that kind of extrinsic motivator in the sense of cash,
you know, do you reflect upon what, why did you want to make money?
Why not just do it? Cause it was like kicking a ball into.
a goal or,
you know, hitting a cricket ball.
Ali: I mean, yeah, just the idea of making money. It was also, also seemed really fun. And, um, you know, I didn't, we didn't really believe in the concept of pocket money. And so I had money that would generate from birthdays and Eads and stuff. And I, there were always more gadgets that I wanted [00:17:00] like, oh, I really want a laptop one day or, oh, you know, I really want to buy the PlayStation game, but PlayStation games are like 30 pounds.
And like, how the hell you supposed to get 30 pounds other than once a year on your birthday?
When I think it was, it was one of my friends in year seven when I was like 11 years old, who kind of turned me on to the idea of being able to make money on the internet. It was like, oh yeah, you know, this is the thing you can make money online.
I was like, oh my God, if I could make money on a lot, I can Bible PlayStation games. So that was like my whole, my whole thing.
Gordon: so Do you do you think that the money aspect there wasn't necessarily reinvestment. It was more just to buy more toys
Ali: and gadgets
Gordon: but did those gadgets,
cause a laptop would then facilitate you to be able to move around and do other things.
Did you ever, ever think beyond that?
or was it just literally these are just,
Ali: It was just to cool, um, yeah, PlayStation games, but also a laptop would be really cool because then I don't know, a laptop was just cool when you were a computer kid and then, oh, I can get an external monitor for it. And then that would be cool. Cause now I've got two screens set up and now if you've got two screens, you might as well have three screens.
You know, it was that level of stuff. And I've talked about this with my brother as well, where, you know, the way we [00:18:00] would, uh, value money when we were growing up was how many new computer monitors screens can I get each year? And I was like, hang on. If you, if you've got a job. 5,000 pounds a year. That's like, you know, that's like five, like 10 extra monitors a year.
What? So just like that, that level of thinking.
Gordon: so it was almost like cause in Lucy too, I know in South Africa they have the whole wall thing, certainly in Johannesburg. I don't know if you know this, but they're like the taller, the wall, the richer you are, you're creating your own little fortress,
So It's like
a competition. with your brother was if I've got 10 monitors.
and he's got eight then I'm far more superior,
Ali: I don't think it was really a competition. I think it was more like, we both really love the idea of having like a sort of battle station type kind of desks set ups. Uh, so
Neil: And did, did your mum have any kind of boundaries to you using peers?
Was
Ali: uh, she tried, um, occasionally she'd be like half an hour a day and we'd be like, okay, mom, good luck with that one. I think this was actually one of the benefits of, um, mum being a single parent.
She [00:19:00] wasn't around in the evenings to police us very much. And I think if we'd had, like, I feel like, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to actually know the counterfactual, but like if we'd also had a dad around and we'd be, and you know, I'd go to the doctor as well.
Um, we'd have been, we'd have had a more comfortable, like middle-class upper middle-class lifestyle with two doctor parents that probably would have been more level of parental control. And so I wondered what. My, uh, my mind and my brother's entrepreneurial drive would have developed in that like environment of plenty, where we have friends who were like, just getting PlayStations and stuff cause of the parents wanting to buy them.
But like, for us, it was more like birthdays. It needs, it's like, oh yeah, I'm going to spend my own money on this thing. And it's not like, I'm almost like, Hey, I'm not going to buy you stuff. But there was very much this idea of like, I need to, I need to get my own money to be able to buy these gadgets that I don't, I don't really need.
And therefore, um, yeah, I think that really developed the entrepreneur.
Gordon: I've thought a lot about how, how can I do that for Olivia and how can I do that for any another kid who might have a [00:20:00] future? I've tried to think about, well,
if,
I just buy them things or if I just give them pocket money or whatever else, how much does that, then stop them wanting to do it for themselves and go out and do it for themselves.
And I've been trying to think of ways to facilitate that where perhaps they are like, Hey, I want to buy this bike and it's a hundred pounds and I'll say, look, I'll give you a. hundred pounds. But if you turn that into 200 pounds,
I'll then turn that into 400 pounds. So you can have the bike. And then another 300 I mean, Have you,
can you think of any, this may be off the cuff, a little bit, but can you think of any ways that perhaps you want to then instill that into your future children?
Ali: Mm that's a good question. I'm really thought about it. It's like.
Okay.
Occasionally on podcasts, people, people who are dads or both apparently will, we'll talk about this stuff.
And you know, the idea of anytime you get money, then like a third of it goes to savings. A third of it goes to your pot of money. A third of it goes to giving to charity or something to that effect. That feels quite cool. Um, I do like the idea of kind of giving kids a way of earning their own money, [00:21:00] but then if that earning their own money, as in return for things like doing the dishes.
Mowing the lawn. Well, that's kind of bad because they should be doing the dishes and mowing the lawn anyway. Cause it's part of, part of the household. So I don't really know. Um, if you come up with a method I'd love to, I'd love to know about it,
Neil: and w one of the challenges I find is that boundaries.
And this way I asked the question is, do I let Iola just to play on her iPad as much as you once, if it's an educational game, or if it's a programming game. And like we are, where do you do boundaries? Because when I was younger, when they didn't really set any boundaries for me, I had a computer in my room about a young age, and there was no kind of, you must only use it for an hour a day.
They just let me do it. Yeah, that inspired me to be where I am today in some ways. And with ALA, yeah. I just, you've got to have some boundaries, but then you don't want to be that parent who's.
Gordon: Because it's that 10,000 everything.
Neil: Yeah
Gordon: And when you're young, you've got so much more time, so much more freedom to be able to do that. And perhaps, you know, some of it could be better spent and it's not smart as you you've talked about, but you you fundamentally are just playing [00:22:00] and practicing and continually learning and doing this loop thing on your own and self sufficiently.
And that's, that's a really good trick. but it can also be seen from the outside world as if you're just sat there playing fortnight and you're wasting your life and
you're never going to
be able to do anything with it. It's kind of a funny, funny thing. how you can look at it like that.
Ali: Yeah.
Yeah. Sometimes I sometimes think about the whole iPad phone computer thing.
And like, to what extent it's actually useful to set, to set boundaries on kids with that kind of stuff. Cause I feel like.
Neil: if
Ali: Me and my brother, I had had a hard boundary on our computer usage, able to completely stunted our development
Neil: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And with Eila, we, I say no to just didn't get YouTube.
That YouTube is just a no for me. And we limit the amount of TV she watches on her iPad, but then she's got games that are creative. They're maybe problem-solving thinking. And I think that's absolutely fine. Yeah Yeah, but, but then you get judged. So like, if you're in a cafe and your daughter is looking at a screen, maybe being creative in drawing something or coloring something in, there's going to be parents in that cafe that are like, [00:23:00] look at that.
Ali: Yeah. So this is something that, um, I've I, yeah, I've come across this concept in a couple of these parenting parenting books about like parents feeling as if they're often feeling like the reason they're doing stuff is because they don't want to get judgment from other parents in the vicinity.
Like, do you guys, do you guys have that feeling of, I don't want other parents to judge me.
Gordon: I I'm kind of funny with it because I never, I try not to allow people's.
other judgment of
What I do to really affect me too much. I, I have like, a, a, probably a handful of people that would be like, yeah, that's important to me. Like if I do something that's agregious and they're upset, about me with it, then I should reflect on it and try and do better.
But then he'd be like, I just, I kind of take the blanket thing now
every parent is just trying to do their best. And you know, if they're, you know, hanging them upside down by their ankles walking them through. a restaurant, Like I have no idea what's happened. Like it could be, it literally could be anything. So there's, there's th there is, from my perspective, certainly looking out there is no judgment and I can't judge because I know how difficult it [00:24:00] is.
I know that that first time I took Olivia home and we're like, she's crying we've had absolutely no training. I see absolutely no training. We had like some baby and bump class, but that was just talking about nappy changing. You've got no trick. You're in, you're in the dirt. you're in the field, You're the enemy shooting at you really hard.
And you're like, what do I do? And then you just going off of instinct and you're also going off instinct when you're sore tired, you're exhausted because you've tried to support your wife and labor and you haven't slept very well. And you're just all this kind of thing. So I I guess
I hope that other parents have that type of attitude and probably they do it. Neil's probably got more experienced cause he's gone taken them to school, and there's the whole parent thing.
But I don't know. I just, I just try, I try not to judge. No. And just be like, you know what they're trying they're doing their best. They're just trying to they're just trying to raise their kids. and they don't, No one knows what they're doing really, but I don't know what Neil thinks
Neil: Yeah. Like social media has probably had an impact and I definitely in the early days of being a dad, you definitely feel like you're being judged and you kind of, [00:25:00] you're sitting in a restaurant and ILS kicking off.
The easy thing to do is give her a phone or a screen to play with. And then, but, but you don't want to, because other parents around that restaurant are going to judge you and yeah. It's.
I still
Ali: to judge you for being a bad parent, such that you need an iPad to abuse the child or
Neil: And, but I don't even know these people, like, and I'd probably never see them again, but for some weird reason, it
Gordon: someone in that restaurant is judging you for giving them the iPad. And wave and you giving them crayons, you know, to play with. And Why are you letting them eat chips? They should be eating salad Oh,
Neil: Where's that vegetable come on.
Gordon: it's like a, It's like a YouTube.
comment Section
but in a restaurant,
Neil: Yeah. I think going back to social media, like you've got all these repaired influencers who are, I think are, um, selling the children, um, in more ways than one in terms of appearing out there.
But yeah, they have this idea that life of like family food was, it looked perfect and everybody's dressed up and yeah, the Christmas card, but there's thousands and thousands of parents out there doing that. And I think as a parent, like you experienced [00:26:00] this and you obviously know social media quite regularly, the, um, when we get it now I've lost my train of thought
Gordon: something about parents being judgmental and Christmas carbs and the idyllic.
Neil: Yeah, the comparison and you see the perfect family and you, you say, why, why am I not like that? Why is my kid not like that?
Gordon: And you're sat there and your pants, all the kids are running around federal half
Neil: Yeah. And you haven't slept for days and you've had about 10 coffees and stuff like that. And it's, it's very hard and you can get yourself into a bit of a loop of like, am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? Is it me? That's the problem? Is it my child? That's a problem. Is there something wrong with it?
With my child? Is there
it's as
Gordon: Yeah, I do. I tried to not think that way or I definitely cause you know
She
when we, when we have a a problem and we fought for NHS 24 the old, hello, how are you doing Is everything okay? They generally all ask the same question? Does she seem okay
that kind of tells me that no one really knew what was going on.
Even Even medics and nurses that are done in the fall. And [00:27:00] they're just like, okay. we've got checklists, just to see if it's not like meningitis or all that. And I think in an absolutely severe, It's not choking, she's still breathing. Does she
seem okay? Like,
Neil: I wouldn't be on the phone.
Gordon: So, so it's kind of like, that, you know, if you're kind of like, you know, my kids, my kids seems really happy. She seems smiling. You know, pooing, Right. And, you know, sleeping right. And feeding. Okay. Yeah. I'm Probably doing all right.
Like everything's all right. Um,
There's there's a book. that I recommend it to Neil and that you recommended on to me, or you maybe recommend, at some point it was called David's zero.
And I thought it was absolutely fantastic. Especially at this stage in my. life being In my mid thirties and having a child and all this kind of thing and thinking about, well, maybe there is a five and 10 year plan, where I didn't necessarily have one. Yeah. have you thought about how you're going to die, with zero,
Ali: Um, yeah, not extensively.
So, um, yeah, when I read that book, basically for people who are not familiar with it, the concept is that you should.
Aimed to die with [00:28:00] $0 in your bank account. And if you die with anything less, any, anything more than that, then? Well, you've done something wrong because, well, what's the point and you know, the immediate objections to that, but like, what about the kids?
And what about charity? You selfish kind of vibes. Um, and his objection is that his answer to the, what about the kids thing is that, you know, your kids need the money when they're in their twenties and thirties, not when they're in their sixties, by the time you die. So if you want to give your kids money, give it to them.
What is actually useful. And similarly charities need money right now, rather than when you die. It does still need money when you do. You can do more good if you give money to charities earlier rather than later. Um, so once you've taken care of the kids and the charity thing, you should aim to die with zero.
And there's this big fear that people have of like, uh, running out of money in their retirement. And that leads people to hoard and hoard and hoard and save and save and save. And his point is that like the experiential value of money decreases over time. Like when. Young and unencumbered, you can actually do a lot with a small amount of money in terms of having a great life experience.
When you're older, maybe when you've got kids, suddenly you need more money to have the same experience because now you've got to bring a family along or it's just harder [00:29:00] to do. And when you get really old and you've got health problems, suddenly that money starts losing as well. And so the thing that that book changed for me is just being more okay.
With splashing out money on things like right now. So for example, I don't know, just going on weekend trips with the girlfriend or going on, like going to nice restaurants with friends and stuff. Whereas before I would have done some sort of calculation of like, Ooh, I don't know. I could put that money in an index fund or something.
Now I'm a bit more like, okay. You know, I think I'm doing okay in terms of savings, let's just. Remember to kind of enjoy life and his money as a tool.
Gordon: Because I did ask you that question, because there's always like a while ago, were coming back from a team social thing where I was curious, I think every person has something that the indulgent and they spend a bit more in and most people are
kind of relatively secretive about
it. they're quite quiet.
about it. And I asked you, I was like, you know, what, what's your thing? What do you spend money on? And it was still quite convenient. It was about convenience.
And, but
that's, that, That felt very, um, what was uh, what did I say It was. it felt very functional.
it's
a very functional thing. [00:30:00]
Uh it's like business class flights, or, you know, having to get you an Uber or delivery. because they are they're for the luxury expenses.
Ali: Convenience and comfort, I think.
Yeah. Cause I'm softer.
Gordon: And I was really fascinated by if, You know, if there's literally the only return on investment is a good feeling, you know, what would those things be?
Uh, you know, cause you can, you can, like you say, you already donate to charity. like 10%.
of your
current earnings. Um, you've talked about buying a house for your mum, which I think is incredible.
Uh, you bought your mama car, like all these kind of things. that It's, it's really honorable and really good that you're doing those, but what are you doing for yourself? and How you spending that money? And I suppose restaurants and weekend trips away.
Ali: Yeah, basically that, yeah. Um, I, yeah, I don't really have a lot of things that I spend money on, but it's weird.
Um, I think restaurant, we can trips. Uh, I want to do more like adventure holiday type things. Uh, one thing I've realized actually that that's really good is actually being able to spend money on things like, uh, like private coaching. So for [00:31:00] example, when I wanted to get better, better at tennis, it took me a while to realize I could just get a tennis.
At tennis coach. And then I had a tennis coach and you know, twice a week and Cambridge in the mornings, we'd play tennis. And it's so great playing with a coach because they can reliably hit the ball back to you. But playing with friends, it's like, okay, you know, this, like half the time it spent picking up the balls, he's got his own like little barrel of balls because so good.
And it's like, it's great because you're paying someone and then both of our objectives are aligned and helping me have a good time.
Gordon: yes.
Ali: And so yeah, tennis coach
Gordon: personal training,
Ali: exactly, it's so good. Um, and so I think that's an area in which I would spend, I would spend money.
Gordon: on
Ali: You know, like going to Cornwall or something, like get a one-on-one surfing lesson, wanting, wanting to get back to singing, start singing lessons, you know, that kind of stuff.
And that was the way just, I hadn't really been thinking before I had cash to be able to spend on this sort of stuff.
Gordon: Neil, you, you obviously have all the children
the house,
Neil: I no money.
Gordon: the household, the household bills to cover. So do you, um, what are you trying spend your money on or do you, do you try and indulge in things at times when
you can, because you
can't, [00:32:00] you have to think about them more. now, don't you?
Neil: Is, it includes the family as well. So is going away with those weekends is, um, I don't know, taking them to a safari park or just something that includes everybody. And I think it did that before I read zero, because I don't know where I got it from. I'm always about experiences. Um, but th th there's a happy medium.
You've got to obviously have cash in the bank for the rainy day and that kind of thing, but then live a little.
Gordon: Do you feel do you feel selfish when you spend money on yourself.
Neil: No, I don't think so. I don't do it often. I do it often.
Ali: Yeah. That's a very fancy what you've got there at first glance.
Neil: I was, um, yeah, no, no, no wife, girlfriend, Rebecca and no kids, new house, oil price.
Gordon: So we're kind of, I suppose we're delving into a little bit of money aspects and numbers and all this kind of thing. And Neil Neil was one of the first, [00:33:00] you were one of the first.
thousand people on Twitter or something silly.
Ali: Oh, nice. Wait, have you got that at Neal handle? Oh,
Neil: I'm sad. I
Ali: oh, I wish if I had the earlier handle levels. Why, why, why couldn't I have been on Twitter earlier?
Neil: The
number is 426
Gordon: yeah. Number 426. That's amazing. So Neils Neils kind of, dabbled with social media. And we had like a chat on a podcast about social media. and trying to like build a following and all that kind of thing. And you know, I had the whole self promotion aspect, Facebook 8,000 subscribers.
or whatever else.
And I'm curious, I'm curious about what the numbers feel
because it's kind of, you know, everyone looks at that and goes, oh wow, you've got so many friends who follow you.
And I'm curious how it went from, you know, a hundred people subscribing to your YouTube channel. or following you to a hundred thousand to a million, to 2.7 million. And that then turns into $4.5 million.
in a year. You know, what,
What do these numbers feel like?
Ali: So bill before 5,000 subscribers, it felt [00:34:00] like, you know, I can, I can, I can visualize that.
Uh, and so whenever I'd get new subscribers, I I'd be refreshing my phone, like multiple times a day. It'd be like, yeah, I'm down 64 subscribers. Yeah. Right on 68. Oh my God. I go to subscribers yesterday, incredible day. And then beyond the 5,000 mark, um, at that point. I think that that was the peak, um, and everything else was just sort of plateaued on that point because at 5,000 and I was like, okay, cool.
Now, if I want to do a Q and a video, people would ask questions at 5,000. I was thinking that if I run a video ideas, I can just ask the audience and someone will give a suggestion. Well, give me the next video idea. And then in the numbers, just keep going up and up and up, and then the numbers themselves stop meaning anything directly, um, especially cause you kind of know what the, what the trajectory is.
You can see on like the analytics that, okay. You know, this month we've gained 84,000 subscribers in the last month. Cool. Fair enough. If we keep this up, we'll be at three and a half million in the next, however many months. Cool. That's fine. Whatever. And the numbers just stopped me and ended meaning, meaning anything at all.
Uh, but. [00:35:00] Like, for example, we were in Dubai last week and meeting real life, people who are like, oh, I got to watch all your videos. I'd love it. If it let us video about that, it kind of makes you remember that, oh crap. This is like, you know, 250,000 views on a video would make me think, oh, it's not a very good video.
That's think quarter of a million people who watched that video, like what the hell is real people. Um, so
Gordon: that was a big part of
Dubai that I really,
really enjoyed seeing you do like witnessed people coming up to you and literally saying I quit medicine because that video you made, I know now I'm going full into YouTube,
You changed my life.
And to me,
That's where it almost like comes full circle again.
When you were on that refresh page at 64 subscribers uh, you know, at 20, like a hundred subscribers, 5,000 crabbers you almost came all the way back from 2.2 0.8 million back to that individual person. Who's who's subscribed, who, who buys into your philosophies, who likes you who you are. Not what necessarily what you're doing, maybe to some extent what you're doing, but the and this was great for a long time and they took action on their life based on the words that you used and the philosophies that you're following.
I thought that was
Ali: [00:36:00] Yeah that's pretty cool. I should think about that more often.
Gordon: Yeah, cause there were, so it was really cool. It was like
I,
uh, it was stressful don't get me wrong. I was born a boy food boy lunch boy, camera guy, uh, therapist batter offer PA admin, assistant, whatever, but it was really cool. Like we had this like oh, kind of thing. You were sort of sat in the corridor and like talking to all the individuals and they were just all like,
because the camera's just saw vacant, Isn't it to a certain degree.
Like you have team members, you have me behind the camera,
you got people that'll chip in a bit videos, but fundamentally.
It doesn't the only response you get is a YouTube. comments and they're horrific as it is.
but if you literally have someone, who's your audience member I thought it was
Ali: Yeah, no, that's a really nice, really nice thing. And I think definitely over time, the hedonic adaptation means that, you know, big YouTubers will feel bad about getting a hundred thousand views or 200,000 views because it's not a million views.
It's not like.
And then you started looking at things like velocity, you start thinking, but like, you know, back when I had 1 million subscribers, I was getting 20% of my view count in sub [00:37:00] account and views, but now it's only 15%. So what's going on as my channel dying, et cetera, et cetera. And these are all the thoughts that every, every leadership I've ever spoken to also has.
So yeah, it kind of does feel like a bit of a hamster wheel, but I think, yeah, just grounding ourselves in, you know, the present moment as you were talking about and just remembering the real people in the end.
I
Gordon: And it's
Ali: very healthy
Gordon: it's that pandemic
thing that happened. when we couldn't see each other and we all had to do this weird interaction via zoom and all that kind of thing.
It's kind of similar to that. Where now, now you're able to go to conferences and whatnot and meet the people that actually subscribed to you and ask them questions and get some really tactile feedback, you know, we're social creatures. Aren't we, at the end of the day we're hunter gatherers try or in trades, And we're not used to having 2.8 million people subscribing to us.
Um, I'm conscious that we we have.
meetings and things to get
on with and, and bits
and pieces, but I kind of wanted to finish on
one question and I think I'm gonna also, ask Neil this question, so I've never actually asked him that yet, but fresh view alleys, you know, what makes you happy?
Ali: Um, [00:38:00] I think the freedom from having to do things that I don't like and the freedom to learn and teach on my own terms. Yeah. I figured it out with like a coach of mine, like two days ago.
Neil: Um, what makes me happy? So knowing I can knowing I can give things to my family and what's the word, support them.
I myself, I can work. I can put food on the table. I can pay the mortgage on my family. Go place a live. There'll healthy. Yeah. That makes me happy.
Ali: What about you
Gordon: ah, I'm trying to think about it now. is probably a plethora of things. that make me happy. It's the simple.
things. The simple
cause there's, there's, there's so much that we can, you know, financially both me and Neil feel quite comfortable to a certain degree, so we can buy generally what we want and all the materialistic items.
and all that kind of stuff,
But [00:39:00] like, yeah, baby bath time, you know, things like that, or just a nice meal, like with, with Laura,
just the small things
Neil: go for a coffee,
Gordon: Yeah. Going for a coffee with a friend like having a chat. No, you know, um, I have any pressures. that kind of stuff. Just to simple things. I think what's making me happy.
I guess.
Yeah, I thought so. Um, I think it, Neil, do you have any other questions you can think of anything you'd like to
add?
Neil: You had quite a lot of questions and your notes.
Gordon: have loads Neil, but we also have a meeting at 9:00 AM.
Neil: I know we've got, we've got 10 minutes.
Gordon: Oh right.
Deals dictate.
Neil: Um, whereas
Gordon: W what we had, we, every single podcast. We've had something that comes up like. the last one we recorded that. we did in the office on um, when was it Wednesday Uh, Neil's wife, Rebecca. decided to start calling him in the middle of it. So we we've Definitely.
got a bit of an amateur streak going on this professional.
podcast.
Ali: You know, you're several episodes ahead. You have to have an episodes deep in publishing.
This is pretty good.
Gordon: Yeah. Yeah, we do it all right.
Ali: all about keeping it sustainable. Unlike health and fitness.
Gordon: I'm [00:40:00] like health and
Ali: Am I right?
Neil: I've got a good question and it kind of popped into my head when you're in Dubai and stuff like that. And it's around the theme of burnout. So you obviously do a lot in a day. Sometimes it can be one or two podcasts. You can be filming you YouTube academy, you can be doing other things and you could be interviewing people.
How do you deal with all that and not get burned or have you been burnt out and how did you deal with
Ali: Yeah, I don't, I don't think I have been buttoned house, but maybe I'm just not self-aware enough to realize that, but again, I don't, I don't, I don't think I have. I think what I do is that if, so I think burnout comes from being in a sort of state of kind of, for very. For a sort of extended period of time.
And I think for me, it's more like I have some days like yesterday where we were filming this creative preneur stuff all day and then was straight into three hours of YouTube academy stuff.
If that was like every day [00:41:00] then, and that happened for about a few weeks or a month, I'd probably get burnt out, but it's not every day.
It's like once in a while. And so like, Fridays are pretty chill. Today's going to be super fun because we've got a quarterly meeting weekend. I'm going to Rome. Monday's generally chill because we've got, you know, a team brainstorm Tuesdays, like a day where I can just focus on my book. So it's
Neil: Yeah. You makes it up. He makes it up.
Cause I guess the impression I got from social media rightly or wrongly is that you're just constantly recording. Constantly interviewing people. Go, go, go
Ali: Uh, yeah, I mean, it's more like once a week we record and then we batch film stuff and then it comes up over the next month. I was
Gordon: are you, are you looking at burnout as more of a physical
thing.
So you feel tired and exhausted. I'm curious if you have felt burnout from a board and perspective. So I don't know which podcasts I was listening to or what, which creator it was but they were kind of talking about the idea where they enjoyed the thing for so long.
Casey Neistat, I think was probably an example of this. He
clearly loved what he was doing and he did it for a long time, but he did it so much to the point where he got probably [00:42:00]
and it
became all consuming. So
you have, the physical burnout like
you're young man, you're relatively fit and healthy, even though you've got a beats per minute of 80. And I love her and I love her of KFC. Um, you know, you have all of that. So you have the physical capacity to be able to put up with it. And You you, you can.
but
Is there a point from a, an intrinsic perspective where you're like, I've done so much of this. I'm actually bored of it now. and that's burnout, boredom, burnout, I suppose.
Ali: okay. Yeah. Um, yeah, to an extent. So I think I was thinking about this this week, um, at the start of my youth journey, there was something very.
Uh, something very nice about like the hustle mode of, I need to productivity as a week and there's no other options it's gonna, it's gonna be too busy this week. And I don't care how crap they are, but used to be two videos a week. Now,
now these days I've gotten, I feel like I've gone beyond that. And now the [00:43:00] videos that I want to put out are the ones that I personally think are good.
But, um, when we have sponsored deadlines, like then we have to put out a sponsored video every week. That then means that we have to put out stuff for the sake of appeasing, a sponsor, which I think is not good. And I realized like literally two days ago through a conversation with, with, with my word, with one of my new coaches that we actually could just get rid of the sponsors and just not have any sponsors that required deadlines.
And there was something about that as I was just describing it and thinking about it, that just felt like an enormous weight being lifted off my shoulders. Like, oh my God, I didn't realize that I was carrying this like level.
Pressure around trying to create decent quality content, trying to keep the audience happy, trying to have fun with it.
And also trying to appeal a piece sponsored deadlines, and actually don't need to worry about the deadlines because thankfully we're in a place with the business where it's, it's not, it's not a huge deal. So now I feel more like excited, like, oh yeah. Now I'm actually looking forward to making YouTube videos because now I can do the thing that I want to do, which is, [00:44:00] you know, freedom to learn and teach on my own terms.
Um,
I wouldn't have described that as burnout, but I think it probably come like if, somewhere along that spectrum of that feeling of like realizing, oh yeah, I've actually been doing this thing, which is not necessarily fully fun, but then there's the other side of it, which is like, like, you know, life isn't fun all the time.
And I think optimizing for just having fun all the time, probably isn't the right thing. But I think just that feeling of relief, I felt it just not having to deal with like putting out one video a week definitely showed that I was probably beyond to that.
Um, but I guess sometimes you do have to go beyond the point to realize you've got to be on the point and then pull
Gordon: Of course, of course, but you're and you also had the foundation, you know, I think we don't look at, w we, I think evaluating risk is kind of an interesting, um, thing for a lot of people and stops them from actually pursuing what they want. You know, for you, you, you have 2.8 million subscribers, even if you only did one video once, and it was a banger, it would still get like half a million views.
You'd still get decent, add sentence from it.
You'd still get Pty people signing up, We still get fulfillment in our jobs in our lives and what we're doing from a work perspective, you know, [00:45:00] and evaluating that risk is a similar kind of thing that I did in you know, with that finish. that you have same thing of coming from Scotland to London. you know? Yeah. sure. It was a big move It's moving countries, moving entire cities, but what was the worst that could happen?
You know, if you cut out these sponsors? and You stop
them And you go all right. You know, we'll lose 400, 500 K a year, but then we can promote our own courses that have no deadlines that have no things that probably make more money and more of a return. So it's all about that. valuation of risk. aspect
Ali: Yeah. And I think often I think it, like, for me, at least it's taking the time to actually address those assumptions that okay.
And I think that's why we like having, for example, a business coach or whatever, because there's that time carved out to have these sorts of conversations and to actually think about it. Whereas in day-to-day life, it feels like, oh, I'm spending an hour thinking about the business. Who's got time for that.
Gordon: and the guide you don't they, the coaches
gauge you through that, that process and that discussion process. And that's, that.
is
Ali: Yeah. And then ask you the questions that you wouldn't be like, you know, like for example, yeah. Why do you have.
Oh shit. You're right. Why do we have sponsors, I guess, cause this episode needs to be brought to you by brilliant. Like why, why does it, [00:46:00] you know,
Gordon: hashtag not sponsored podcasts, but you've really want to sponsor the green horn podcast then please by all means join us, right? No, I definitely have to cut time. Neil. I think this has been a great, uh, great. uh, great.
podcast. And I I have, I have a plethora of more questions. So maybe when Neil comes down, we could do a part two. and, and bring you on.
Neil: Okay. You're dead.
Ali: Oh, that'd be fun. Yeah.
Neil: Have you been to Edinburgh?
Ali: I have a couple of times, um, one of my friends is getting married there.
So I'll be going up,
Gordon: The rocketry run the, uh, the sunny sites of Dunfermline
Ali: is done from the Edinburgh
Neil: across the bridge.
Ali: Oh, I remember once we were playing, have you played the board game? Articulate? It's like a board game at UC UCLA. These little words on the card. And you have to describe the word to the people in your team without saying the word. And I was like, oh, it's like, it's like that, you know, that, that body that manages football and all I got FIFA, I was like, yeah.
But it sort of sounds like that it's like a place where like I was like, I was like, where the hell is Fifi and everyone was, everyone was cracked up. They were like, well, so yeah, I'd never heard of five before though,
Gordon: [00:47:00] Classic classic classic way to end.
Um, Ali, Thanks very much for joining us on the podcast. It was a very enjoyable, I had a great conversation, about dad, life and investments in dying with zero and all
Ali: Thanks for having me. And I'll be messaging. You guys hasn't want to become a dad for tips.
Gordon: We'll all be awake at 4:00 AM.
Taking selfies, Um, Neil. Thanks very much for a great podcast as again. Um, if you would like to subscribe, we have a YouTube channel just type in green horn podcast. I'm pretty sure
you'll find it. We have Instagram green horn podcast and any questions, any queries about the episode? I hope you enjoyed it and yeah, we'll see you.
in the Next one.