The comment about a doctor *only* saving 8 lives (this sounds difficult to measure in any meaningful way unless we think of 'saving lives' WRT emergency medicine/surgery etc, because most specialties - psychiatry, dermatology, obstetrics come to mind as less obvious examples (remember reading a post from an obstetrician saying it's one of the toughest specialties because there's often an expectation that childbirth will go according to plan in a way that isn't present in other fields) - involve saving lives but often in a much more gradual way) is particularly ironic given that iirc he captioned a lot of Instagram posts with #savinglives etc when he was a student/F1
His new video about going back to Medicine just highlighted his 'issues'. He doesn't want to be a 'cog in a wheel', he wouldn't be 'special' as just another doctor.
That isn't what public service is*. It isn't about you, it's about what you can do for other people, and trying to make your corner of the world a better place through hard work and acts of decency. You don't get to be a 'star'.
It just underlined that he either doesn't believe in what he is doing, or has no real sense of self.
(*Source: 20 years experience of running secondary schools in the most deprived areas of England).
I'm a junior doctor and no one cares what med school you went to, no one ever asks. You don't even put it on job applications! As long as you went to a UK medical school, you're viewed equally because all British med schools are regulated and up to a certain standard. Going for a med school based on prestige is so dumb to me, I chose mine based on the place I thought I'd be happy staying for 5+ years of my life!
This whole "Wife Quest" in his productive bucket list video is honestly to me, a really destructive way to think about relationships. I couldn't imagine anything worse than block-booking dates through calendar apps and ticking them off until someone sticks.
My most organic and fulfilling relationships have all been due to shared interests or fundamentals and then the ability to grow/learn together- started by conversations, or groups, or introductions from friends-of-friends. I appreciate the difficulty of dating with COVID but has he not experienced forming a really close organic friendship and then reflected on why this has worked? What about the other person involved in his method of dating? I really can see him being on a date and thinking about checklists, algorithms, does she meet this and that criteria. I think he is so far into this productivity thing that he can't let anything generate organically in his life.
He is so tone deaf, read the room Ali, NOONE cares how much you earned in 2021 when people lost their jobs and we are still in a pandemic trying to do as best as we can
Seek therapy Ali, there is more to life than therapy, you wont be able to take your money to the grave
In his "I'm quitting medicine" video he's once again saying a investment banker giving an hours salary to a soup kitchen is a better use of his time than volunteering at a soup kitchen himself/
Who does the investment banker make money of? Who fucking volunteers at these soup kitchens?
I used to be subscribed to Ali back when he was still at Cambridge, I thought that he was just a really knowledgeable passionate guy who loved medicine and knew some great tips about the medicine application process and studying. But over the past two years.... I just can't stand his content. Not just the fact that his company charges hundreds of pounds for courses that directly contribute to the classism in the medicine application process but oof... His most recent video? Hit the nail on the head.
The fact that he indirectly said; "a doctor in the NHS will only ever save around 8 lives in their lifetime and I can save more by donating at least £24,000 to this charity, hence why I wanted to stay on YouTube" just really disgusted me. I don't understand why if he wants to stay on YouTube and do his business thing why he has to lowkey attack medicine? Why does he have to use these BS reasons to justify why he wants to do something he's passionate about? Just own up to it! Also, the fact that money seems to be a huge thing in his life; showing that he has it, is worth it, while that's not a bad thing; why can't he just own who he is. I just couldn't believe that he tried to use the fact that because more people watch his YouTube videos than however many he may or may not be able to help on the wards as a reason why being a doctor wasn't worth it to him.
Not just that but also all that stuff about "oh, but there's locums and the hospitals will always find someone to fill the gap". Dude, just own what you did. The whole country knew that the NHS was struggling. It was an unprecedented pandemic.
I'm just so disappointed in someone that I had previously perceived as quite genuine.
i wonder why he never talks about how studying for the USMLE is going? Or literally anything regarding his future medical career? I'm starting my 6 year medical degree this autumn and I want to work in the U.S so I know just how difficult the USMLE is. Like it requires months of solid 8+ hour study days to get an impressive score. How does he even have time for that considering all he focuses on is his scammy courses and "hustling" and what not....it doesn't seem like he's even serious about being a doctor anymore. He should've gone for a business degree imo
I think he doesn't want to be a Doctor at all now. Read Adam Kay's book "This Is Going To Hurt" about being a Doctor/Junior Doctor in the UK. Hours are shit, pay is not amazing, it puts a lot of strain on your personal life, lots of hard work and you have to deal with some devastating things like death on a monthly basis.
Meanwhile as an influencer/business owner he's already building up property, working only a few hours a day, got a flash fancy car, calling himself a CEO and a boss, fucking about with all his tech stuff and hiring people he wants to spend time with to hang around with him all day. Pretty cushy life.
I think as oldest child he was pressued to go into one of the "traditional" career paths for people of his culture and ended up falling into doctor. In videos in why he decided he wanted to be a doctor he doesn't say he thinks medicine is interesting, or he wants to help people or improve their lives, he talks about how he thinks it would be more interesting to be a doctor that codes instead of a straight up coder. His passion is clearly in coding and building a business.
His younger brother was allowed to go and study software engineering and go into the start up work life and seems to be doing pretty well out of it, living in London and having his own start up business dealing with investments etc. Ali is clearly very insecure and wants to live that lifestyle so is going in on the London business side of things. In his latest video he says he's hiring 8 more people to get his staff up to 20 (why?) and looking at getting an office space in London (why?).
TLDR: was pushed into being a doctor by cultural expectations, wants to be a coder/entrepeneur and always has done, is insecure and jealous of his brother living the lifestyle he wants. Also being a doctor in the UK can be pretty shit at times.
Check out what kind of roles he is hiring. Doesn't seem very sustainable to me especially with London costs but who knows. Also paying £19k for Central London is pretty scummy. He seems absolutely idiotic to be searching for a Central London office location so more evidence that it's all about the lifestyle and feels for him rather than what is best for his employees.
i've been postponing this comment for so long, because there's too much to unravel
there's something odd in this relationship, yes, probably they seem mismatched as some of you have said, but izzy has been revealing weird things that i've found interesting
when she posted the video about her wedding with ali i already could tell that she felt lonely in that relationship. she mentions that she would ask ali about wedding stuff (the venue, the decorations, the menu, that kind of things) to just receive "i don't know" "do what you consider " sort of comments from her fiancé. i don't know why but i can really imagine him seeing the wedding as something to tick of the box (so he can compete with his brother) or as some sort of procedure one has to go through, without actually putting effort into it. i can also see him saying something like that is a woman thing and he doesn't know much about colour combination, flowers, so it's totally up to her and nothing to do with him. you can see on the video that because of that, izzy felt very very overwhelmed, trying to organise and prepare a wedding almost by herself while also working as a F1 or F2 doctor (i don't recall if it was year 1 or year 2). that anecdote made me a bit suspicious, but oh boy! the best was yet to come
on the video in which she talks about her pregnancy i was truly APPALLED. i'm going to give time stamps for this one, as i recall there were many more red flags around their relationship than in the other previous video
3:15-4:56 she says she got pregnant sooner than expected: as some of their friends had problems to conceive, (sometimes only conceiving after months or whole years of trying), they started looking for a baby right after they married and (literal words) "let nature take its course". however, she got surprised when nature took its course almost immediately and according to her, ideally she'd have waited a few more months to get pregnant, (to at least settle in their married life and in hong kong). ok, both of you are doctors. do still we have to go through the flowers and the bees and all that knowing that both of you are certified specialists in the human body? if you're having unprotected s*x, what were you expecting to happen??
6:18-6:50 now that the nomad life is not possible, let's pick up a place: oh, God. i wish my problems were as severe as theirs. anyway. they move to hong kong, izzy is newly pregnant, vomiting in the first hotel rooms and airbnbs they get in the city. i can't express how irresponsible is to move abroad during your pregnancy. how are you going to navigate a health care system that you are not familiar with? how are you going to rely on somebody else if all your family and friends (your safety net) are thousand of miles away? i think it was just a big stupid move for both of them. she felt so sick and nauseous she would spend days in bed.
7:28-8:04 ali can't cook: they settle into a flat, but according to her, it isn't equipped to cook, so they live on take aways, which made her even more nauseous and sick. umm your husband is a millionaire (and i'm pretty sure you are also well paid by youtube) and you can't afford restaurants every now and then and can only afford to order (according to you) "greasy takeaways"? not only that, but her mum had to flight ALL OVER FROM THE UK to cook for her because she was so ill. wait, what? didn't you just say that your house wasn't equipped for cooking? or maybe YOUR HUSBAND wasn't equipped for cooking? Jesus Christ that is so insane. so you are sick in bed, craving good, nourishing foods, and what your partner offers you are just shitty takeaways because he's (i guess) too busy and productive to cook (or just doesn't know to cook), so your mum has to take a plane to take care of you instead!?
9:18-11:12 human incubator: she starts having feelings of sadness due to the hormones. she starts to question her own worth and what is her "purpose", as she's too ill and dependant on others. she asks her mum and ali and they tell her: "what's more purposeful than growing a new being?". mmm don't get me wrong, i see what they meant, but i think it could have been more appropiate to say "you're loved. you're a creative, intelligent human that will get well soon. you're worthy". i feel as if they minimised her struggles and told her she's just a human incubator and that's what she has to do now.
12:37-13:53 ali's unable to check the appliances before moving to a flat: besides of the struggles of eating take aways everyday, they moved into an appartment where all the kitchen appliances were broken, moldy and dirty, which they didn't check before signing the contract because she was too exhausted and ill to check that stuff. and ali? why didn't he check all of that? is he really THAT busy? "when moving to a new country, make sure the living standards are reasonable" she says. i'm pretty sure that in hong kong there are many sublets above the living standards, it's just that your husband is too stingy to expend a little bit more comfortable for both of you. so they spent another whole month on takeaways<3
20:52-21:53 she has changed her relationship with productivity: that's what she says after feeling bad all her first trimester because she couldn't get up from bed. I truly hope her brain has made the shift into a more healthy vision of productivity and avoid the guilt of "not doing things"
23:48-24:45 unfortunate comment on femminism: "in a lot of liberal/femminist/girl boss cultures being a stay at home mum is seen as a negative thing". i think her wording here is very unfortunate. a true femminist would support another woman despite of her being a stay at home mum or not. the truth here, izzy, is that you're projecting your own insecurities and blaming femminism. you're a cambridge graduate in medicine, you have worked as a doctor in london, you have learned chinese after months and months of hard work. you are a very capable and intelligent person that was told all her life that should not strive for less. and now that you see yourself miles away from your family, being pregnant and isolated in a foreign country, you have to face the reality and accept that probably you'll have to raise that child by yourself because your useless husband is not able to make a proper meal or to look for other apartments to accommodate you
ok that was a very long post and english is not my first language, so i hope to have expressed my opinions properly without swearing too much but that marriage is for sure very crooked and one-sided from just what she's been telling through her videos
I just came across this thread today. I’ve read plenty of posts on here, but not read every single post of this thread. So glad I’m not the only one who sees through Ali’s BS.
What success has Ali really achieved in his life? Let me list it - he got through A levels, got selected and finished at a prestigious medical school and then slogged through F1 and F2. These are absolutely great achievements, and he did these by actually working hard. Going through the jobs even if he didn’t enjoy them whilst having the end-goal in mind, and he simply dedicated his time for studying and working. These are the achievements that really matter, and he should teach his young audience about how the time he took out to study and work was worth it. Hard work = success
After this, he has been lucky to get the YT views and money from his investments and skill-sharing businesses. He clearly worked really hard initially setting up his Youtube and dedicating time to it whilst studying and working. I agree with others on here that now it just feels like a soulless money-making gambit, and he’ll be really lucky if his YT success continues to build unless he revamps his style. He just seems to have a really formulaic approach to success. Reading 100 self-help books and applying all the tricks will mean more money and YT views, without really connecting any more to his audience who helped build his platform or really giving something of value to the world. Just teaching others to chase money isn't that great.
Ali is too early in his career to start shouting out about his success. YouTube is known for its peaks and troughs - you can be very successful one year with more than a million subscribers, and the next year struggle to even get 100k views. Given that he hasn’t got something particularly unique except his branding, I don’t think his shelf-life will be that long unless he starts giving something new and interesting. All the talk about studying and productivity has gotten boring, especially as he is living in his own bubble without the daily struggles of an employed life or study course. And don't get me started on talking about making money online ad infinitum as talking about it is the only way to keep making money.
It’s all about what energy we give out to the world. I prefer watching Graham Stephen who says he would rather make his coffee at home for 20 cents than pay $3 to Starbucks. Whereas for Ali, it’s like he comes across as “I’m too important to make my coffee”. It is just BS excuse for just saying “I can’t be asked, I’m too rich.” So if everyone lived like Ali, there would be so much wastage, and classes of people employed to use their time and energy to serve those who are too intellectual to waste their time to make food. (I believe there is a blessing in working hard and not being wasteful, and I much prefer Graham Stephen’s ethos to financial success.) Ali reminds me of those type A personalities who quickly make success but then end up having stress-related health problems once they reach 40 and they're lucky if their marriages last.
Anyway Ali will keep making videos about how successful he is and how to become successful. I think the reason he causes such strong emotions is that as a society we assume that doctors and Cambridge graduates are a step above us, as well as people with high net incomes. But we can all see from Ali’s videos that his life just seems depressing and there is a lot of negative energy being put into the world by the message he sends out.
Ali needs to sit back, relax and enjoy the things he has, value the relationships he has, and not see money-making as the be-all-and-end-all, or if it is for him, then he should come with a health warning for his young audience that continuing to live in such a way will likely mess with your health and future relationships.
I just find ali abdaal a better person/youtuber than ruby/holly/grace who all suffer from EDs but have not gotten any help, pretend to be virtuous for attention/money and have not contributed positively to society in any meaningful way
at the very least, ali's money videos have helped me learn and think about money in a better way
but if you are looking for moral exemplars from studytubers, then you will be sorely disappointed...they arent good people, they just want your money/attention and some people like ali do a better job of it
if you want moral exemplars, look at some effective altruism/minimalism/ sustainable/vegan etc. YouTubers instead
I'm so glad that you think people who struggle with eating disorders and mental health issues are worse people than men who go to Cambridge and flog terrible study skills/productivity apps and tips. Get out of here and go back to your mum's basement with that bullshit. That's not the reason they're bad people, and even suggesting that is gross.
So disingenous to wear his scrubs top and a stethoscope despite not working as a Doctor currently (unless he has gone back to the hospital and I've missed it?)
@herathebeaver these comments are extremely weird and shortsighted which makes me question if you went to a grammar at all. I’m a lawyer and I went into the area I practise in because I care about and like working with people. I get to make a genuine and meaningful impact on people’s lives and yes, I’m also compensated well for it. These aren’t mutually exclusive and many of my friends from school wanted to do something that had some human impact as well as a good salary. People who want to be doctors clearly don’t go into it for the money on the whole as frankly there are far more lucrative careers that don’t involve a 5 year degree, a 22.5k starting salary (around the same as a nurse starts on) whilst working gruelling hours with weekends on call. The arrogant, money driven people at my grammar school went into fields like finance and banking, not medicine. And I don’t know why you’ve included charity workers on your bizarre list - big charities are notorious for paying their employees very well at the detriment of the actual causes they support? Unfounded nonsense.
yes. i think they're dating now because she's liking every comment on the new vlog about them dating. tbh she seems like a really awesome woman who is thoughtful, kind and strong willed so she deserves someone way way better than Ali only if she got out of the house more outside the oxbridge bubble, she'd find kinder and more sincere men/women (whatever floats her boat).
if you're reading this Sheen — DON'T SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRE DESI MEN. we were in a longass lockdown so obvs everyone's horny af and feels as if it's the end of the world but it's not!! at best it's infatuation, you'll get over it. don't settle.
I've been looking for a place to vent about Ali for two years and just discovered this site today. I'm so glad I did. I'm also in the medical field and I am so glad he left. I have been feeling negatively about him for years, but it wasn't until his video contemplating coming to America that really pissed me off. He clearly wanted to come to the US to vlog, not to take a prestigious program seriously. He was clearly the kind of doctor doing it for clout (either because he liked the sound of his own voice, the praise from family, the praise from everywhere else). These kind of people have some of the worst bedside manner which is why people feel so alienated and hurt by doctors. My biggest concern was that he cared so much more about YouTube than medicine, so who is to say he would've ever kept up with medical advances in the field? He could've seriously hurt people. Honestly, him leaving was the best thing for the medical field. His best decision, truly.
Sometimes I check in on him hoping he has found something that truly makes him passionate again. It's really sad watching him lose his soul to the productive hyper-capitalist machine that has him churning out useless content with no originality whatsoever. It feels like watching an MLM sometimes. It's just such a sad money grab. Like that book. Ali, if you don't have anything to say, why are you writing a book? He's writing one because all his productivity buddies do it and you want more ~passive income streams.~ He has no business writing a book.
Looking forward to posting here. As a fellow physician, his type of person is everywhere in the medical field and is the reason we struggle so much as a field with connecting to patients.
ladies and gentlemen, another productive day with me by ali abdaal himself
take a shot every time he calls himself a waste man and you'll be drunk in a minute
on a different note, i know he's being sarcastic, but i don't like how he calls himself "a failure in life" (at 3:45 on his last video), when he's a cambridge graduate, a doctor and very successful money-wise
tbh it makes me feel like sh*t
Am a doctor, can confirm you are an idiot if you do this job to get rich. 50+ years ago this may have been the case, but things are different now and we are underpaid and overworked. I work 48 hours a week and earn less than a train driver working 35 hours a week. I also have to do huge amounts of unpaid work taking exams, courses, volunteering with teaching and research etc because otherwise I can't progress in my career. But sure, I just wanted an easy way to make money
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" sort of comments from her fiancé. i don't know why but i can really imagine him seeing the wedding as something to tick of the box (so he can compete with his brother) or as some sort of procedure one has to go through, without actually putting effort into it. i can also see him saying something like that is a woman thing and he doesn't know much about colour combination, flowers, so it's totally up to her and nothing to do with him. you can see on the video that because of that, izzy felt very very overwhelmed, trying to organise and prepare a wedding almost by herself while also working as a F1 or F2 doctor (i don't recall if it was year 1 or year 2). that anecdote made me a bit suspicious, but oh boy! the best was yet to come
