My Goals for 2023 - Life Update

Life and Business Goals for 2023

In this video, the speaker discusses their goals for their business and personal life in terms of work, health, and relationships. They talk about how they want to build a lifestyle business that prioritizes freedom, fun, and flexibility over revenue.

Building a Lifestyle Business

• The speaker realized that they wanted to build a lifestyle business instead of a big business.

• A lifestyle business is one where the focus is on optimizing for freedom, fun, and flexibility rather than trying to build a huge company or have a massive impact on the world.

• The objective of a lifestyle business is to make a healthy amount of profit every month that can be put into other things like index funds or other investments.

• A lifestyle business is broadly focused on profit rather than revenue.

Prioritizing Impact

• While making money is important, impact comes third after freedom, fun, and flexibility in terms of priorities for the speaker's business.

• The speaker believes that building a solid lifestyle business with these priorities will allow them to have an impact while also living their dream life.

Investing in Health

• The speaker wants to prioritize their health by focusing on exercise and nutrition.

• They plan to hire a personal trainer and nutritionist to help them achieve their fitness goals.

Fostering Relationships

• The speaker wants to prioritize relationships with family and friends.

• They plan to spend more time with loved ones and make an effort to strengthen those relationships.

Conclusion

• The speaker believes that building a lifestyle business that prioritizes freedom, fun, and flexibility will allow them to achieve their goals for work, health, and relationships.

The Philosophy and Business Model of a Lifestyle Business

In this section, the speaker discusses the philosophy behind his lifestyle business and its business model.

The Philosophy Behind the Business

• The goal of the business is to help people by creating content that is enjoyable and engaging.

• The speaker finds it fulfilling when people come up to him and say that his videos have helped them in some way.

• The lifestyle business is designed to be small, with a team of around 14 employees, including full-time and part-time staff.

The Business Model

• There are two pillars to the business: content creation and courses.

• The majority (99%) of the content is free, while 1% is expensive for those who can afford it.

• Courses are a necessary evil for monetizing some of the audience.

• A team of 10 people focuses on creating content, while four people work on courses.

• Part-time YouTuber Academy has done phenomenally well in monetizing their audience.

YouTuber Academy and Lifestyle Business

Ali discusses his experience running the YouTuber Academy for two and a half years, why he is ending live cohorts, and how he views his business as a lifestyle business.

Running the YouTuber Academy

• Ali has been running the YouTuber Academy for two and a half years.

• It has become repetitive and stressful to run live cohort courses.

• The final cohort will be ending with a bang.

Ending Live Cohorts

• Ali does not want to run live cohorts anymore because it removes some of his freedom and autonomy.

• He would have to be on Zoom calls at certain times multiple times a week, which limits his ability to travel or have flexibility in his schedule.

• Although he may make less money through the YouTuber Academy, he believes that having more freedom is worth it.

Lifestyle Business

• Ali views his business as a lifestyle business where the objective is to create freedom, fun, flexibility, and impact.

• He believes that there comes a point where making more money needs to take a backseat to having more freedom and flexibility in life.

Brilliant.org Sponsorship

Ali talks about Brilliant.org's sponsorship of the video and shares his personal experience using their platform.

Introduction to Brilliant.org

• Brilliant.org is sponsoring this video.

• It is an online learning platform for math, science, computer science, etc.

• They offer thousands of lessons across various subjects.

Personal Experience with Brilliant.org

• Ali personally enjoys their computer science courses, such as the introduction to algorithms and cryptocurrency series.

• He is currently going through their course on neural networks to gain a foundational understanding of AI tools.

• Ali encourages viewers to try Brilliant.org for themselves with a 30-day free trial.

Doubling Down on YouTube Channel

Ali discusses the importance of his YouTube channel and how he plans to focus more on it moving forward.

Importance of YouTube Channel

• The YouTube channel is the foundation of Ali's business.

• A large chunk of his audience are students who follow the channel regularly.

• Although there was a period where students were following less, recent community posts have shown that there is still a strong interest in the channel.

Future Plans

• Ali plans to double down on his YouTube channel moving forward.

• He believes that interesting things are happening this year and wants to focus more on creating content for his audience.

Introduction

In this section, the speaker introduces the purpose of the video and explains how they plan to share their knowledge with their audience.

Sharing Knowledge

• The speaker shares tips on various topics, including study tips, health topics like skincare and sleep, and fitness.

• They explain that they follow a model of "explore, learn, share" in which they explore new topics, learn about them, and then share their knowledge with their audience.

• The speaker notes that this model is common among educators who create educational content online.

Creator Preneur Educational Model

In this section, the speaker discusses the creator preneur educational model and how it differs from other types of content creation.

Creator Preneur Model

• The creator preneur model involves learning about new topics and sharing that knowledge with an audience over time.

• As creators build an audience that trusts them, they may sell courses or other products to a percentage of that audience.

• Over time, creators may shift their focus to different topic areas as their interests change.

Deep Dive Podcast

In this section, the speaker discusses their podcast and how it allows them to share insights outside of their personal expertise.

Podcast Insights

• The Deep Dive podcast has nearly 200k subscribers on YouTube and was in the top 1% of podcasts on Spotify last year.

• Through interviews with experts from various fields, such as gut health or sleep science, the speaker learns about new topics and shares those insights with their audience for free.

• The podcast also allows for collaboration between experts in different fields to create informative videos for YouTube.

Diversifying Social Media Platforms

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of diversifying their social media platforms to reach a wider audience.

Diversification

• Building an entire business on YouTube is risky, so it's important to build an audience across different social media platforms.

• Different people spend time on different platforms, so it's important to have a presence on all of them.

• The speaker plans to take Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Facebook more seriously in order to reach a wider audience.

Using Social Media Platforms to Share Content

In this section, the speaker discusses how they are using various social media platforms to share content and reach a wider audience. They also talk about the benefits of sharing content in a less high production value way.

Sharing on Different Platforms

• The speaker talks about producing content for YouTube and podcasts.

• They mention that they started a second YouTube channel last year but it was taking traffic away from the main channel.

• The speaker now posts something on social media every day, sharing things they have learned from conversations or books.

• They discuss how they can share things more easily on other platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or their email newsletter.

Objectives for Social Media Platforms

• The objective is to share more stuff without fear of videos not performing well or being applicable to everyone in the audience.

• The speaker wants to have more of an attitude of sharing without fear and just putting stuff out there.

• They mention that Dr. Arya said it's less about sharing without fear and more about sharing in the face of fear.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

In this section, the speaker talks about their journey over the last six years and how it has been an exercise in trying to get over imposter syndrome.

Fear of Sharing Content

• The speaker discusses their fear of making videos and wondering why anyone would care about what's going on in their life.

• They mention that people actually enjoy watching their life update videos because it helps them with their creative business.

• The objective is to get over the fear of videos not performing well or not being applicable to everyone in the audience.

Sharing Online is Great

• Sharing stuff online is pretty great according to the speaker.

• They mention that people can make a full-time living or even a part-time living from sharing content online.

Building a Business by Sharing Your Passion

In this section, the speaker talks about how someone built a successful business by sharing their passion and expertise online. He also discusses the advantages of being able to build a business around something you love.

Building a Business Around Your Passion

• The speaker shares how someone built a seven-figure business by sharing their passion for note-taking using Obsidian.

• The person started by being helpful in the Obsidian Discord community and iterated on his course over time.

• The speaker highlights the power of the internet to build a business around something you love and be as helpful as possible to people.

Writing a Book You're Proud Of

In this section, the speaker talks about his experience writing a book and what he's learned from it.

Writing Process

• The speaker is currently working on his book, which has been in progress for about two and a half years.

• They are now in the editing stages, trying to cut down from 110,000 words to 70,000 words.

• They are also working with publishers on cover designs.

Optimizing for Personal Goals

• The speaker's goal is simply to write a book that he's proud of and learn something interesting along the way.

• He acknowledges that negative reviews may come but focuses on optimizing for personal goals rather than external validation.

Writing a Book and Building Products

In this section, the speaker talks about his book writing journey and building hardware and software products.

Writing a Book

• The speaker is taking his time to write a book that he will be proud of for the next 5-10 years.

• He updates people on his book journey through a segment of his email newsletter.

Building Hardware Products

• The speaker is partnering with a company called Genflow to build cool tech accessories like mechanical keyboards, backpacks, notebooks, phone cases, etc.

• They are meeting with Genflow next week to see some prototypes shipped from factories in China.

Building Software Products

• The speaker has an idea to build his own productivity app and is working with a developer to explore it.

• There's always a bit of tension between exploring new avenues versus focusing on what you know. The speaker's business competency is content and courses but they are also exploring hardware and software as side hustles.

Reflection on Paper Planners

In this section, the speaker reflects on their experience with paper planners and how it did not work for them.

Paper Planners

• The speaker initially found paper planners exciting but stopped using them after a few months because their workflow changed.

• It was difficult to change a physical product to fit their workflow.

• Exploring different avenues is important for business growth.

Kickboxing and Fitness Coaching

In this section, the speaker talks about their decision to start taking kickboxing lessons and working with a fitness coach.

Kickboxing

• The speaker decided to take up kickboxing as it combines fitness, flexibility, mobility, cardio, and self-defense.

• They noticed more people in their life taking up kickboxing and decided to try it out.

• The speaker loves kickboxing so far and plans to continue with it.

Fitness Coaching

• The speaker is working with a remote fitness coach who programs their workouts through an app called Trainerize.

• They track progress photos and measurements of body parts like biceps through the app.

• The app links with MyFitnessPal for tracking macros.

Setting Fitness Goals

In this section, the speaker discusses their current fitness goals.

Current Objective

• The objective is to cut down from 72 kg to 68 kg in order to achieve visible abs at around 15% -17% body fat.

• After achieving this goal, they plan on slow bulking for lean gains.

General Approach

• The speaker prefers setting goals that are within their control rather than specific ones.

Health and Relationships Goals

In this section, the speaker discusses his goals for health and relationships. He talks about how he wants to prioritize his health and fitness, focus on nutrition, become an expert in longevity, and make more of an effort to keep in touch with friends.

Prioritizing Health

• The speaker wants to actively focus on his health and fitness.

• He plans to take more interest in cooking and has decided that he wants to embody the identity of a "cooking adventurer."

• Instead of ordering takeout, he will cook something most evenings.

• By framing cooking as an adventure, it encourages him to keep going with it.

• The speaker also wants to take longevity seriously by becoming an expert on anti-aging field.

Exercise Routine

• The speaker blocks out at least 90 minutes every day for some sort of exercise.

• This can be a gym workout, kickboxing session, run or walk while playing World of Warcraft or doing a stretch thing.

• His attitude towards health is progress over perfection.

Relationship Goals

• The speaker has various goals for the romantic relationship in his life with his girlfriend but is unsure about how open he should be about it.

• He also wants to make more of an effort to keep in touch with friends by arranging group holidays.

Goals for the Year

In this section, the speaker talks about their goals for the year and how they want to frame them as part of their identity.

Becoming a Dinner Party Chef

• The speaker wants to become a dinner party chef and has blocked out every Thursday evening in their calendar for hosting dinners with friends.

• They have been cooking for friends regularly and find it more enjoyable than going out to restaurants because it becomes a shared experience.

• Cooking for friends is also a way for the speaker to learn how to cook sustainably and enjoyably.

Other Goals

• The speaker also wants to bring different friendship groups together through group adventures.

• They invite viewers to subscribe to their email newsletter for updates on their progress towards these goals.

Conclusion

The speaker concludes by thanking viewers for watching and invites them to check out another video on their business.

Thank You

• The speaker thanks viewers for watching.