Ferate’s 5: Ali Abdaal Could Change Your Life. (030)

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First off, my last name is Ferate like karate with an F or kinda like, Ferrari.

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What’s up! Happy New Year! Starting week 2 of 2024 hot! Crazy we are in it, let’s do this thing! 2 of 52 with an extra day because it’s a leap year! LET’s GO!

The end and start of the year have me JUICED. No, no, not because of New Year Resolutions but because of my new Big A## Calendar from Jesse Itzler, end-of-the-year reviews by Sahil Bloom, planning out the best year yet with Mike Rich (Ghost Business Newsletter), connecting with friends and fam during the holidays.

The holidays are full of driving, which I LOVE because I can jam out to some podcasts. Typically I listen to podcasts like I listen to music, pick one person, and BINGE.

Recently I binged Ali Abdaal's episodes because he just dropped his first book “Feel Good Productivity”. The best sidekick to a book tour is podcast tours about the book, so we are in for a treat. Modern Wisdom, My First Million, How To Write, and Daily Stoic are a few I checked out.

Here are 5 things I can’t stop thinking about from Ali Abdaal.

What would this look like if it was fun?

Tim Ferriss has the famous thought-provoking question that makes you stop, “What would this look like if it was easy?” Ali Abdaal evolves it to “What would this look like if it was fun?”

Instant perspective shift and a software update for your approach to what you are working on. Doesn’t mean everything is fun, but you can evolve your response to challenges. Discover the fun in the “process” and take action towards improving your situation.

Ideal Week & Energy Investment Portfolio. (Modern Wisdom Podcast).

Oliver Burkeman wrote an incredible book 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Ali refers to that book in regards to our To-Do lists constantly being infinite and there being too much to do with not enough time.

When zooming out on his year he explained there are three things he does.

Ideal Week: Two separate calendars. Regular calendar and then another one is his ideal week of what he WANTS to be doing. Do they match up? Yes, where? If not, how can you improve that overlap? IF THERE IS ONE THING FROM THIS ENTIRE NEWSLETTER THIS IS IT. How many people do you know have defined and written their ideal week??? Exactly, let’s level up together.

Energy Investment Portfolio: Long list of everything that gives you energy, what you want to do, projects, podcasts, writing, YouTube Content, etc (Write Everything).

The Essential 3 to 5: Take your portfolio and write out the 3 to 5 things that you are going to invest in right now. BREAKING NEWS: You can’t do it all. These 3 to 5 are the primary emphasis of this season of your life. (Think just like a training block for your marathon prep.)

This will be a great opportunity to practice saying no and keeping your eyes on the “correct target”.

DO THE VERB (Keep Going by Austin Kleon)

This lesson is from one of my favorite books of all time, Keep Going by Austin Kleon. I was hyped that Ali Abdaal and David Perell brought up this idea of doing the verb. You are going to love it.

VERBS > nouns.

Think about that for a few moments. What does that mean?

Verbs are actions, nouns are titles. Actions get you closer to your desired outcomes and what you truly want. Nouns are external, they are a byproduct, not the main thing. Noah Cracknell always says, “Keep the main thing the main thing.” plus Chris Williamson always says “The only thing that is doing the thing is doing the thing.”

It comes down to the consistent actions you take not your title.

Bill Walsh, famous Head Coach for the 49ers always said the score will take care of itself. If you focus on the verbs, the “score” takes care of itself. He wasn’t focused on his title of head coach, the scoreboard, or distractions. He was locked in on doing the work, the habits that needed to be done at a high level, and what was within his control.

Ali and David had some HUGE points in their conversation.

David shared a story about when he wanted to be a “creative force”. One of his friends asked why he kept saying that and putting so much energy towards being a creative force. David replied “Well that’s what I want.” His friend asked, in the past when you were writing consistently and being a creative force delivering value to people did you walk around saying that? No? Then why are you focusing on a title now?

Ali had the same experience. He wanted to be a “thought leader”. Ok, what does a thought leader do exactly? Collecting thoughts, learning, reading, synthesizing, sharing publicly... So why don’t you do that? Doing those things vs. trying to be a noun.

Happiness Advantage

One of the most powerful lessons from this podcast conversation was when Ali shared this idea from the Happiness Advantage, “When you are happy in your job that makes you perform better, it’s not that performing better makes you happier at your job.”

HUGE!

The key lesson here is yes winning in sports or crushing those reports you needed to finish may make you “happy” in the moment but it can be fleeting because guess what is right around the corner? More games, more reports, more meetings, and more to-do lists.

I believe that the core lesson is having more genuine happiness leads to better performance. Imagine Kobe Bryant in his prime, hella pissed, angry, freaking out, and only happy if he wins because his soul is so tied to the result? That doesn’t sound great. Winning and the score were a result of his genuine LOVE for the work, the reps, and the moments between the moments.

Don’t tie your happiness to only results and the work you have to turn in by the end of this week because at some point you will realize you might be on the wrong “happiness treadmill.”

Two Holiday Dinner Table Questions

1. What do I want to be celebrating in 12 months?

2. What do you want to be HYPED to be sharing when you sit down at the table for Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve?

These two questions make you think and are self-explanatory. Enough said here instead of writing a bunch of extra hot takes I will spare you. Use that extra energy to just read those two a few more times and think.

Appreciate you taking time out of your day to check out my weekly newsletter! The goal is to cultivate curiosity and consistency in your life through exploring and sharing what I CAN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT!

1. “What would this look like if it was fun?”

2. Ideal Week & Energy Investment Portfolio

3. Do The Verb

4. Happiness Advantage

5. What will you celebrate in 12 months?

If you loved this reply let me know! If you haven’t subscribed it helps out a ton if you could take 3 seconds out of your day and type in your email. Solid trade. You type in your email once and I will keep consistently pumping out interesting ideas over and over again!

Keep stacking those daily deposits and making every day the best day of the year, until tomorrow…

Ferate