DDeep Dive with Ali Abdaal
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Season 3 Round Up15 September 2022

Lessons in Happiness, Side Hustles, Self-Care, Productivity, Luck and Business - Season 3 Round Up

5Frameworks
14Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Myth Buster· 1

Myth Buster18:30

Self-care isn't always running a bath — sometimes it's meeting the deadline

sometimes self-care is working harder because you're currently not working in line with what you want to make happen

Guest · 19:00

I refuse to believe that self-care is running a bath

Guest · 19:30

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take09:00

The modern world got it backwards: success does not lead to happiness

your mom told you success is more important than happiness go thrive in life success leads to happiness

Guest · 09:00

success doesn't always lead to happiness

Guest · 09:30
Hot Take11:00

Side hustles aren't toxic — the way they're marketed is

I think that it can both be true that you can make lots through that and create a great life for yourself through that

Guest · 11:30

I think that it's marketed very toxically

Guest · 12:30
Hot Take45:00

Why he won't go all-in on TikTok despite a 35-million-view clip

when I'm going to search for the new iPhone comes out where do I go look for that video I go to YouTube dot com

Guest · 45:30

if I wanted the eyeballs I would be all over Tick Tock

Guest · 46:00

Explainer· 4

Explainer00:30

Your brain is a survival machine that defaults to hunting for what's wrong

if you leave it uncontrolled its tendency its instinct is to look for what's wrong

Guest · 00:30

it is there for the simple reason of detecting if there is a tiger so it can protect you

Guest · 01:00
Explainer02:00

Ask for nine other good things when your brain flags a problem

the Baseline of life is okay

Guest · 02:00

I ask for nine other good things about the situation

Guest · 02:30
Explainer16:30

Why most productivity and wellbeing books stop working after two weeks

you get really inspired by and stick to for about two weeks after and then you're like you completely burn out because it's not sustainable

Guest · 17:00

the whole idea was to create a productivity blueprint for this generation that actually acknowledged the reality of social media the 24-hour news cycle

Guest · 17:30
Explainer35:00

How you actually run a controlled experiment on something like luck

in our studies we would take groups of people that didn't consider themselves lucky or unlucky we'd ask them to do something

Guest · 35:00

we often have a third Group which is that we say here's a lucky mascot or a lucky charm carry that

Guest · 35:30

Story· 3

Story10:00

Asking doctors whether they'd still practise medicine if they won the lottery

would you still do medicine and half of them were like I would quit immediately and the other half were like I'd go part-time

Ali Abdaal · 10:30

I want to be able to do medicine for fun and I want to have enough streams of passive income on the side

Ali Abdaal · 10:30
Story30:00

How one interviewee's stray comment turned luck into a research career

this guy came in and just described himself as really lucky he said I got this chance occurrences they always work out for me

Guest · 30:00

once you lock into that the problem is you then miss opportunities or other ways of thinking and doing

Guest · 30:30
Story38:00

The banknote in the corridor: lucky people spotted it, unlucky people didn't

and so the question is did they spot it and the lucky people tended to spot it in The Unlucky ones didn't

Guest · 38:00

the study was finished there is no interview it was just whether you spotted the five or ten pound note

Guest · 38:30

Q&A· 1

Q&A06:30

Does this mean we should just have low expectations for everything?

does that therefore mean that we should just have low expectations for everything in life

Ali Abdaal · 06:30

if your Target in life is to be happy yeah okay honestly then yeah lower expectations will make you happier

Guest · 07:00

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway39:30

Luck compounds socially: self-perception changes how others treat you

so we forget that we give off a certain you know self identity Vibe

Guest · 39:30

the lucky people tended to be happier they had a bigger social network which meant they got more opportunities

Guest · 40:00
Takeaway46:30

Selling is the meta-skill nobody teaches you, in any career

the number one skill that helped me be a straw founder especially in the early days of building our business is the ability to sell

Guest · 46:30

you find yourself selling yourself far more times than you realize

Guest · 47:00