Procrastination, Money-making, Rejection etc - Answering your Questions - Podcast Highlights
This episode is a Life Advice Q&A that Taimur and Ali did as part of Ali's 300,000 YouTube subscriber milestone video. We answer questions about startups, procrastination, motivation, productivity, money-making, rejection, investments, imposter syndrome and hair loss.
Here is a transcript of our discussion:
Question: Any advice for starting an online business?
Ali: Iām going to make a video that breaks this down in-depth but point number one is that you should learn how to code and the basics of web design because being able to code and make stuff look pretty is an absolute superpower when it comes to starting an online business. Any other general tips?
Taimur: I might actually disagree with the learning how to code thing. A lot of people think there are a lot of barriers to entry in starting an online business, but now there are tools which allow you to do pretty much anything. If you want to start an e-commerce thing you donāt need to know a single line of code, you can use something like Shopify. Even if you want to make something a bit more custom there are now tools that let you do that without writing code so donāt worry too much about the code thing. I think developing design taste is really valuable because you can get really high production value in anything you do and thatās an immediate boost when you are getting started.
Ali: I want to disagree with that! I think the code thing is really important because knowing the basics of coding actually opens you up to a lot more business ideas than you wouldāve thought possible. The mistake that people make when deciding to start an online business is that they think, āIām going to sit down with my mates and brainstorm business ideasā but all the common advice in the entrepreneurial world says that the best way to get ideas is to identify problems in your own life that you can then solve using technology. Just knowing the basics of code, opens your mind up to the realms of possibility, even if youāre not going to be the one to fully custom-code your product, itās still useful to have that knowledge.
Taimur: Yeah, yeah I understand that, I just think that saying that in order to start an online business you need to know how to code, implies a higher barrier to entry than there is in reality.
Question: How do I motivate myself to study more?
Taimur: I was never particular good at this. I think environment actually helps ā it took me about four years to realise that my bedroom isnāt the most productive place for me to work. So think about really basic stuff like what environments you work best in.
Ali: Weāve done a podcast episode all about this too so people can go and listen to that if they want more information.
Question: How to balance reading books, listening to multiple podcasts etc?
Taimur: I listen to a lot of podcasts. I put them mainly into two categories. Thereās podcasts that I listen to for fun and entertainment, like Conan OāBrien Needs A Friend, but then I also listen to a lot of business/tech podcasts where Iām just trying to glean information. I should probably do more note takingā¦
Ali: I record Voice Notes about the key points from podcasts if Iām driving. For reading books, when it comes to fiction I read one at a time but when it comes to non-fiction, at the moment, Iām reading about six different non-fiction booksā¦
Taimur: One thing that helped me to read more is that I stopped thinking that I had to read a book cover-to-cover.
Question: How do you effectively deal with procrastination?
Taimur: There is a nice movement in certain Twitter spheres at the moment which is in favour of things like procrastination but the point is to guide your procrastination in the right ways. For instance, if you are avoiding one thing but end up doing something else which turns out to be equally valuable, procrastination can turn out to be quite useful. There is something to be said for doing the things you feel like doing ā if youāre really forcing yourself to do something youāre going to do it to as good a degree as if you were really into it at the time. Sometimes if you feel like procrastinating, think about something valuable you could be procrastinating with and it might actually be really good for.
Ali: This is something that I like to call productive procrastination ā so if I canāt be bothered to do work or something I might go and play the piano or browse web design inspiration. Therefore while Iām procrastinating Iām still doing things that add value to my life.
Question: Iāve just finished university, but I now want to study data science, any tips?
Taimur: My first job out of university was as a data scientist. It means a lot of different things nowadays ā the reason this title exists is because lots of companies now have lots of data coming in from lots of different departments and there are helpful things that you can do if you analyse this data. I worked at a company in the property space and we were trying to use data to figure out the value of a house so that we wouldnāt need someone to go and visit the house. In terms of getting into it, as a graduate its difficult because itās not as developed a field as software engineering or other such roles. The way I did it was to make sure I had a solid foundation in what I needed ā so I specialised in statistics whilst at university. I also knew how to code which is really important. So learn Python, learn statistics and try to reach out to smaller companies who are more likely to take a bet on a recent graduate.
Ali: So how do you go about learning Python and stats?
Taimur: I think in terms of Python, there are sites like Caggle where you can do data science challenges which can be good to practice your skills. In terms of learning stats, in my case, I just studied this stuff for four years and at some point things started to clickā¦
Ali: If you want to learn the basics of Python then Google it and online courses are all really good.
Question: How do you pull yourself up after something doesnāt go to plan like not getting into university?
Taimur: I think this is an internal battle that we all face. Youāre going to say no, āI read all these books on stoicism and there are actionable things you can do etcā and maybe there are but I think that itās mostly an internal battle.
Ali: Fair point and I agree that itās an internal battle but I think itās an internal battle of diversifying your identity. The reason we feel down about things that donāt go our way is because our hopes and expectations are tied up in that thing and our identities are somehow tied up in that thing. For example, if I tried really hard to get into a particular university and set my whole identity on becoming a medical student at Oxford and then I didnāt end up getting in, I would feel absolutely crushed and there is not much anyone can do about that because all of the previous time that has led up to that moment has created the space for this disappointment. So what many people suggest is to diversify your identity. In an ideal world, our identity and our sense of self-esteem wouldnāt come from anything external at all, it would be all internally generated but thatās ideal but in real life we all have our identity tied up in different things. Iāve found it really helpful to hang my identity off various different things has been really helpful for me as it means that if any one thing doesnāt go my way it means that Iāve got these other things that I can make myself feel good about.
Question: How has reading books helped you in any aspects of life?
Taimur: I havenāt read many books but I read a lot online about tech and business which has helped me to become more clued up about the things that Iām interested in. I canāt point to a single thing that I thought āthat was really usefulā but just accumulating a wide range of knowledge form reading a range of stuff.
Ali: One of the new trends in reading books is to start to think of books as if they were blog posts so there is no prestige associated with reading a book cover to cover. Instead you can sort of skim it, draw out the lessons you need from it and move on. Iāve found that helpful and secondly, Iāve got a video called ā3 Books that changed my lifeā including 4 Hour Work Week, Anything You Want and Show Your Work, which are all good starting points if youāre looking for book recommendations.
Taimur: I would add one recommendation too ā that is āThe Courage to be Dislikedā. I was surprised how much of an impact this one book had one me.
Question: Do you have any advice for earning money during school/university period?
Taimur: Using your summers productively. Obviously weāre into the whole online business thing so Iād recommend trying to set up some sort of online business that gets you some sort of passive income.
Ali: For earning money during school, I worked at this tutoring agency and made about Ā£6/hour which was pretty good because I was earning Ā£24/week which was Ā£96/month and at the time I felt really satisfied with that. When you are starting out and you donāt have any extra skills I would recommend doing something like tutoring. But quite early on once Iād learnt to code, I started to do some freelance work making a few websites etc.
Taimur: I used to do psychic readings online.
Question: What has been the single most worthwhile investment for personal development?
Ali: Thatās easy. Getting a Kindle. It completely the game for reading books ā you can immediately buy a book, you can read wherever you are ā it just changes the game. There are studies that show that people who read e-readers read about 50% more than those who donāt so Kindle is always something Iād recommend.
Taimur: Learning design and learning how to code. Exploring your own interests has been really valuable for me. I didnāt know I would end up trying to do this as a job. I was exploring my own interests in design which happened to lead somewhere good. I think itās really valuable to cultivate your own interests and explore things on your own. Most of the valuable things Iāve learnt has not come from school or university.
Question: What is the most valuable thing youāve learnt in your life so far?
Ali: One thing that Iāve learnt to appreciate that everyone is making it up as you go along and no-one has all the answers.
Taimur: These are all clichĆ©s and at various points in your life some of them will actually click but I donāt think there is any value in saying these things in videos like thisā¦
Ali: I think that there is because the objective here is not that you would say these things and then 30 seconds later someoneās life has changed, the objective is to be again one of those people who are hammering these clichĆ©s home. There is another saying that is the secrets of life are hidden behind the word clichĆ© ā there is a reason that these phrases are clichĆ©s. Saying the phrase is still helpful ā for example, money doesnāt buy happiness. For some people this is going to click early on but for other people they might think āeasy for you to sayā and they would try to chase money and eventually they would realise for themselves that it doesnāt buy happiness. The clichĆ© is still helpful.
Question: Does hard work always lead to success?
Ali: It depends how we define success and it depends how you define success.
Taimur: Ugh, another clichƩ!
Question: If you had a spare Ā£1000 what would you do with it?
Ali: I would take us on a cruise for two weeks. Iāve been reading this thing about cruise ships as being the best place to get work done because everything is done for you. If you find a good deal, it can cost as little as Ā£50/day to live on a cruise ship and you can use that time to bash out a load of work.
Taimur: Sounds like a novel cultural experience. Cruises are weird though right?! Letās get a massive ship and get a load of people to come and travel around on it.
Question: Did either of you ever suffer from imposter syndrome?
Taimur: I think I had this for a while in tech stuff. Hearing enough people talk about imposter syndrome, it eventually sunk in that Iām not the only one.
Ali: I had imposter syndrome when I was co-directing the clinical school pantomime. The other co-director had loads of theatre and acting experience, I had zero acting or theatre experience so he knew what he was doing and I had no idea. So I was thinking thatās what everyone else was thinking but very quickly I realised that people donāt care about what Iām feeling or whether Iām doing a good job. People are going to be so tied up in their own selves that no-one is thinking about me at all.
L