00:00:00Okay, I would like to start off this video with a little story related to a video game.
00:00:04Bear with me for a second for the story because I promise it relates to making money.
00:00:07Now, as you may or may not know, I used to be addicted to a video game called World of Warcraft,
00:00:11which I've been playing on and off for the last, like, 15 years.
00:00:14And there is a guild in World of Warcraft called Team Liquid,
00:00:17which is, like, the best World of Warcraft team in the world,
00:00:20and they compete in, like, the competitive esports and all of those arenas.
00:00:23And the guy that leads this guild is his name is Maximum.
00:00:25I don't know what his real name is, but that's his, like, video game name.
00:00:28And he also happens to make YouTube videos.
00:00:29Now, I watch a lot of Liquid Maximum's YouTube videos because, as someone who's interested in this video game,
00:00:34and there's always been a part of me that's been like,
00:00:35"Huh, I wonder what it would be like to be a professional video game player."
00:00:38And so I was watching a video from Liquid Maximum where he was talking about what the difference is
00:00:42between, like, top 0.001% professional level players in this video game
00:00:47compared to even people who are in the top 1% or people in the top 10%.
00:00:51And one thing he was saying is that it is very hard for normal people like the average video gamer
00:00:56to even fathom just how much better, someone who's playing in the top guild in the world,
00:01:00just how much better that person is, like, compared to their own skill level.
00:01:04And then there was one thing he said in this video that made so many things click into place for me,
00:01:07and this is where it relates to the art of making money.
00:01:10He said that if you think about what it takes to get into this guild, Team Liquid,
00:01:14like, the top guild in the world for this video game,
00:01:16it was like basically every single person who is in the guild has spent the last 15 to 20 years of their life
00:01:22spending 8 to 12 hours a day every single day purely devoted to the task of trying to get good at this one specific video game.
00:01:29You know, he's not saying that that's a good thing or a bad thing or, like, they're morally better than you
00:01:33or morally worse than you because they've just spent loads of time devoted to this one thing.
00:01:36But the way he put it was like, hey, these guys have spent all this time just doing this one specific thing
00:01:40and you have spent the last 10 years of your life just doing something else.
00:01:44Instead of you spending the last 10 years of your life grinding away on World of Warcraft,
00:01:47you might instead have had a real job.
00:01:48You might have been playing sports, you might have been watching a bunch of TV,
00:01:51but you were doing something other than just single-minded devotion to this one specific video game.
00:01:55So what he's basically saying is that if you look at the people who are in this top guild in the world in World of Warcraft,
00:02:00they have just sunk way more hours than you can even fathom into this video game specifically.
00:02:07Of course, there are other factors, like, I'm sure there's, like, skill and talent and all that kind of stuff,
00:02:10but, like, if you wanted to be one of the world's best players at this very specific video game,
00:02:14you would have to sink loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of time into it,
00:02:18and then with the time that you're sinking into it, you would have to then actively try and actually improve at the game
00:02:22rather than just playing the game for playing the game's sake.
00:02:23Now, what does any of that have to do with making money?
00:02:25Well, there is a pattern that I've seen amongst people that I know who make a lot of money,
00:02:29and people in my audience and people who come up to me and ask questions in workshops and stuff,
00:02:32and friends of mine even who want to make money but are not really making as much money as they would like.
00:02:36The pattern is this.
00:02:37In general, all else being equal, the people who make more money are spending way more of their time actively trying to make money.
00:02:44The people who make less money are probably spending less of their discretionary time actively trying to make money.
00:02:50Now, in this video, I'm not going to get into the conversation about privilege and about, like, unfair advantages
00:02:54and about, like, all of that kind of stuff.
00:02:56All of that stuff is definitely important in terms of how rich you can get and also how easy it is for you to get rich.
00:03:01But the key point I want to make in this video is if you are trying to make more money,
00:03:04then you probably need to spend more time actually doing that.
00:03:07So, if you're still with me at this point in the video and you haven't switched off yet,
00:03:10then I'm assuming you have the goal of making more money and I'm assuming you're not quite making as much money as you would like.
00:03:15So, I would like to pose a question to you.
00:03:16If you imagine how you've spent your time over the last 10 years,
00:03:20how much time would you say you have devoted on average every week to something related to trying to make more money?
00:03:25I'm not talking about your day job unless your vehicle for making money is specifically in your day job.
00:03:29Like, let's say you happen to be a super highly paid algorithmic day trader working at Jane Street or something like that,
00:03:34and that's your vehicle for getting super rich, then sure, okay, that counts.
00:03:37But if you're that, you're probably not watching this video.
00:03:39But like in general, of the 168 hours that you've had every week for the last 10 years,
00:03:42let's say you spent 56 of them sleeping, let's say you spent 12 of them like eating and going to the toilet and stuff,
00:03:47you've got 100 hours left.
00:03:48You've had 100 hours of time that you could play with every single week over the last 10 years.
00:03:52Now, whether you've had to go to school, whether you've had a job, maybe 40 to 60 to 80 of those hours disappear.
00:03:57Of course, if you've got responsibilities like kids and families and you're caring for people or any of that kind of stuff,
00:04:01again, some of those hours disappear as well.
00:04:03I'm just curious, of those 100 hours in the week, how many have you actively devoted to attempting to make more money?
00:04:09Whether that's improving in your job, whether that's learning new skills that lead to more income,
00:04:12whether that's starting or growing your own business, how many hours have you spent doing it?
00:04:16Now, as I mentioned, the main pattern that I've seen amongst the people I know, including myself,
00:04:19who are sort of wealthy or financially free or, you know, whatever you want to call it,
00:04:23is that they've just spent more of their time actively working on the thing.
00:04:26Another few examples to drive this home.
00:04:27You know, I go to the gym a few times a week and I see people who are way more jacked than I am.
00:04:31In general, all else being equal, assuming they haven't taken steroids or whatever,
00:04:34it's a pretty reasonable guess that if someone is more jacked than I am,
00:04:37it's because they've spent more time going to the gym and probably more time caring about their nutrition than I have.
00:04:42Right, that would be a pretty uncontroversial take.
00:04:43I have friends who are way better at cooking than I am.
00:04:45Probably fair to say that they've spent more time actively learning how to cook
00:04:48and improving their skills at cooking recipes and stuff.
00:04:50They just probably spend way more time cooking than I do.
00:04:52I'm a pretty basic amateur guitarist.
00:04:54I have a bunch of friends who are amazing at the guitar or amazing at the piano.
00:04:57Sure, there might be some level of, like, innate talent involved,
00:04:59but, like, for the most part, if someone is way better than me at the guitar or the piano,
00:05:02they've just spent way more time than I have working on the guitar and the piano.
00:05:05And the reason I'm making this video is because it sounds obvious,
00:05:08but I don't think it really is that obvious that if you want to make more money,
00:05:11you've got to spend more of your hours every week actively trying to make more money.
00:05:14It just doesn't happen on its own.
00:05:16It doesn't happen by default.
00:05:17In a video I made about how to get rich last year, I told the story of my friend Jane,
00:05:20who has been wanting to become a millionaire for the last ten years,
00:05:23and her key goal in life is to become a millionaire so that she can be financially free
00:05:26and so that she can retire her parents and, like, pay off the parents mortgage and all that kind of stuff.
00:05:30And outside of her day job, when I asked her,
00:05:32"How many hours a week do you actually spend actively trying to make money?"
00:05:35The answer is basically zero.
00:05:37She had never even thought about the question.
00:05:39She just had this goal of becoming financially free and becoming a millionaire.
00:05:41But for some reason, for a lot of people, like, the goal of making money doesn't feel like a goal like,
00:05:46I don't know, trying to get better at running or trying to get jacked
00:05:48or trying to become a professional video game player where, obviously, you have to put a lot of time into it.
00:05:52Because money is sort of, like, sort of, I don't know, woven into the fabric of society in some weird way,
00:05:57we treat monetary goals often not as in the same way that we treat other kinds of goals,
00:06:01which means for a lot of people, it's not actually obvious that if you want to make more money,
00:06:05you actually need to spend a bunch more time than you probably are currently actively trying to make more money.
00:06:10By the way, if you are enjoying this video so far and you are interested in making more money on the internet,
00:06:14which, you know, we all are these days,
00:06:16one service that I find super helpful that I've been recommending to everyone for ages now
00:06:19is called Stan, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
00:06:21Now, Stan is basically the dream toolkit for creators and solopreneurs.
00:06:25It lets you set up a beautiful storefront where you can sell courses and digital products and coaching calls,
00:06:30build an email list, and pretty much anything you like, and it's all in one place for just $29 a month.
00:06:34Now, what Stan does is that it replaces a bunch of other different tools
00:06:37that you would otherwise have to string together to get something like this,
00:06:40and it does it all for one super cheap subscription.
00:06:42Me and my team are huge fans of Stan,
00:06:43and we actually recommend Stan to all of our students who are taking our Lifestyle Business Academy,
00:06:46which is our online business school, and what I love most about Stan is how easy it is to get started.
00:06:50You don't need to know how to code, you can be a total noob to business,
00:06:53and even then, you can still launch your online store in under five minutes,
00:06:56and they also don't take a cut of your sales either, which feels pretty rare these days.
00:07:00So if you are thinking of turning your skills or your passions into a business,
00:07:03and you would like to get started in the simplest way possible,
00:07:06then Stan are offering a free 14-day trial.
00:07:08So if you go to join.stan.store/aliabdaal, you can redeem that to get the trial,
00:07:12or you can click the link in the video description, and that will get you the trial.
00:07:15So thank you so much, Stan, for sponsoring this video, and let's get back to it.
00:07:17Now, what counts as actively trying to make more money?
00:07:20If you're just starting out, honestly, anything can, even like reading books, even watching YouTube videos,
00:07:24even listening to podcasts, all that kind of stuff about money, about entrepreneurship.
00:07:27But the rule I would suggest is that that only counts for the first, let's say, three to six months.
00:07:32If you've been spending longer than about three to six months,
00:07:34where the only work you are doing on trying to make more money is reading books about it,
00:07:37or watching YouTube videos about it, including this one,
00:07:39then I would say that those hours stop counting after around about month six.
00:07:42Beyond the six-month point where content consumption perhaps counts,
00:07:46I would say what counts beyond that point is how many hours per week
00:07:48are you actively building either the skills, or a product,
00:07:52or a service that helps solve problems for other people who are willing to pay to have those problems solved.
00:07:56So either that's improving your own skills at your own job,
00:07:58and trying to get better at solving problems within the context of your job,
00:08:01so that you can negotiate for a raise,
00:08:03or more likely, if you're trying to get rich quicker rather than slower,
00:08:06it's about building some kind of product or service in the context of your own business.
00:08:10That product or service solves some kind of problem for people who are willing to pay to have that problem solved,
00:08:13and so you make money as a result of that trade.
00:08:15How many hours are you spending per week actively working on that?
00:08:18Now, I would like to show you some data here because for the last few months,
00:08:21I have been running an online business school called the Lifestyle Business Academy,
00:08:24and we've got a bunch of students that are currently in the program.
00:08:26Everyone who's in the program is basically a beginner entrepreneur who is like a working professional.
00:08:30They've got a job and everything, but they want to start their own business.
00:08:33And so this like online business school is sort of like me and my team and our team of coaches and mentors.
00:08:36We're like mentoring people on the journey to starting the first business.
00:08:39If you're interested in learning more, there'll be a link down below,
00:08:40but the reason I mention it is not to do that plug.
00:08:43The reason I mention it is because every single week,
00:08:45we ask every single one of our students to fill out a spreadsheet.
00:08:48This spreadsheet is their weekly scorecard
00:08:50and actually most of the students have been actually filling in most of the weeks for the last like many months.
00:08:54Now, this is one of the scorecards. I've anonymized the data for one of our students.
00:08:58Let's call her Hermione, but the numbers in here are actually real numbers.
00:09:01Now, there are various different metrics that we ask our students to put in their scorecards every single week,
00:09:05and you can feel free to copy this if you would like. We ask them hours intended to work.
00:09:09How many hours are you intending to work in your lifestyle business this week?
00:09:11We ask them hours actually worked. How many hours did you actually spend working on your lifestyle business this week?
00:09:16Content posted. How many pieces of content have you posted?
00:09:18How many followers have you gotten as a result of the content you've posted?
00:09:21How many DMs have you started like direct messages that you've been initiated with people that you know,
00:09:24or people commented on your stuff? How many calls and discovery calls or sales calls have you booked?
00:09:29How many calls have you actually taken?
00:09:30And then how much money have you made amongst other things?
00:09:33But this is sort of like a simplified version.
00:09:34So in this context on Hermione's scorecard, I would like to draw your attention to the hours worked column.
00:09:39So in week one, she works zero hours because I think she was on holiday and started a bit late.
00:09:43But in week two, nine hours spent working on her business trying to actively make money.
00:09:47Now, Hermione actually has a full-time job.
00:09:48It is a fairly demanding full-time job and Hermione also has two kids.
00:09:52But on top of that, Hermione is actively finding the time to work on her business every single week.
00:09:56So we can see nine hours this week, 11 hours, 10 hours, 9 hours, 11 hours, 6 hours.
00:10:00Then it was the Christmas holidays or something when she went on holiday, whatever.
00:10:02Then 13 hours, 15 hours, 15 hours. And you can see how that time spent,
00:10:06you know, she's posting five to seven pieces of content pretty much every week.
00:10:09She's getting a few dozen followers pretty much every week.
00:10:11Took her a while to start DMs, but now she started doing DMs.
00:10:13And now in particular for the last three or four weeks, she's done quite a lot of DMs.
00:10:16She's been booking in quite a lot of calls, increasingly more the more DMs she was sending.
00:10:19And we can see she's actually closing quite a lot of revenue for her lifestyle business.
00:10:23Now in Hermione's case, she has a great offer.
00:10:25She has good experience. She knows what she's doing.
00:10:27She's like a very impressive student all around.
00:10:28But crucially, none of this would be happening if she wasn't investing somewhere between 10 and 15 hours per week on average into actively working on the business.
00:10:36Next up, I would like to show you the example of another student.
00:10:38Let's call him Harry. Harry has been in the program for the last like 12 weeks.
00:10:42Now, Harry hasn't actually made any sales yet. He's not actually made any money, but I think it's only a matter of time.
00:10:47Why do I think it's a matter of time? Because Harry is very good at actually doing the work.
00:10:50Look at how many hours he is investing into his business every single week.
00:10:53Harry also has a full time job. 20 hours, 18 hours, 20, 20, 21, 20, 15 hours, 10 hours, 17 hours, 12 hours, 12 hours, 16.25 hours.
00:11:00Harry is going with the strategy of like cold outreach for the most part, a combination of cold outreach and content.
00:11:05So he's sending lots and lots of DMS. 70 DMS, 50, 69, more than one. 77, 7, 23, 23.
00:11:10Harry's posting a bunch of content to try and get leads towards his business.
00:11:12He's getting small numbers of followers, but he's very, very new to the whole thing.
00:11:15This stuff takes time and gets better with time. And he's slowly booking in some calls to sort of pitch his offer to people and try and refine his offer.
00:11:22Harry is entering a market where he doesn't have much experience.
00:11:24And so it's unlike Hermione, where Hermione was sort of making money from day one.
00:11:27It's going to take Harry a bit longer to make money because he has to develop the experience first and the credibility and all that kind of stuff, which is totally fine.
00:11:32But the key column that I look at when I see like who's actually going to make it in terms of their lifestyle business is kind of this one.
00:11:37Like how many hours are they actually putting in every single week?
00:11:40Yes, of course. It's not just about the hours. It's also about what you do with that time.
00:11:42So, you know, how good your content is, how good your offer is, how good your strategy is, all that kind of stuff.
00:11:46But like the prerequisite is putting in the hours in the first place.
00:11:50And so I think Harry is in a few years going to become a very successful business person and it's going to have a six figure lifestyle business because I've seen the amount of dedication that Harry puts in in terms of just the sheer number of hours that he's willing to work each week.
00:11:59Now, if you are at this point in the video and you're interested in making more money, maybe even through starting a business or maybe in just like leveling up in your existing job, have a look at some of these numbers.
00:12:07Like these are people who are taking the art of making money seriously.
00:12:09They are beginners, probably just like you. They're not like established entrepreneurs.
00:12:12And you can see how much time every single week is being dedicated to this specific goal of trying to make more money.
00:12:19Now, again, I just want to say it is obviously not just about the number of hours we do.
00:12:23Full disclosure, we do have some students. Thankfully, they're in the minority.
00:12:26We have some students who are putting in a lot of hours, but those hours are not actually translating to meaningful actions often because they're sort of stuck in their head and they're overthinking their stuff.
00:12:34And they're spending like eight hours on a LinkedIn post rather than 20 minutes on a LinkedIn post.
00:12:38And so, like, if they do 16 hours of work, it results in two pieces of content rather than like way more stuff than that.
00:12:42But, you know, as coaches and mentors, we are working with those students to help guide them through so that they can use their time more efficiently to translate into actions and outputs and outcomes.
00:12:50But the key thing is, is they're still putting in the time, right?
00:12:52Like that's the primary domino. If you're not putting in the time, then all of the other dominoes, like it's a lot harder for them to fall over as well, especially when you're a beginner.
00:12:59When you become more experienced, when you're a pro entrepreneur, you actually don't need as many hours.
00:13:03If you are, for example, Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, you can make a ton of money without putting in a lot of hours because you've already built up so much leverage and so many skills and so much of a network and connections and pre-existing wealth over the decades.
00:13:13So then your requirement to put in loads and loads and loads of time kind of goes down.
00:13:17But especially when you're a beginner and you haven't yet built up the skills, the credibility, the experience, the leverage, the team, the money, the network, all of the things, especially in that case, you kind of just have to put in a lot of time.
00:13:28And there aren't really any shortcuts other than putting in quite a lot of time and then getting better at the thing over time.
00:13:33Now, the way I think about this and the way we've designed it, it's sort of like a funnel in our scorecards.
00:13:36So ultimately, the thing that we want is money. That is like the end result of this equation.
00:13:40In order to make that money, we need certain outcomes. For example, a sale being closed or a proposal being accepted or followers increasing or like email subscribers or all of these are outcomes like results that we are trying to affect in the world that are upstream of the money arriving in our bank account.
00:13:55So then how do we get to the outcomes? Well, to go one step upstream of that, we have outputs.
00:14:00So, for example, in the scorecard, we ask how many pieces of content did you publish? That is an output.
00:14:04How many followers did you gain as a result of the content you published is an outcome.
00:14:08The output is broadly under your control because you can control how much stuff you're making, but the outcome is a little bit less under your control.
00:14:13It's still partially under your control, but it's not fully under your control. It's an outcome that's out there in the real world.
00:14:18So you got money. Money comes from outcomes. Outcomes tend to come from outputs. Now, outputs tend to come from actions.
00:14:23You have to take the action of creating the content in order to get the output of the content having been created and having been published.
00:14:29And then the thing that is upstream from actions is the primary point of this video, which is time.
00:14:33The time that you are putting in every single week, the discretionary time outside of all of the things you have to do,
00:14:39outside of your job, outside of the fact that you're sleeping, outside of all your responsibilities.
00:14:42For the most part, the more time you are able to devote to this equation, this goal of making money,
00:14:48whether it's through your own career, whether it's through your own business or through some other shady mechanism that doesn't fit into those two categories,
00:14:53the more time you are putting in. Generally, the more actions, hopefully, hopefully the more actions you're able to take.
00:14:59Those actions lead to outputs. As you get better at strategizing and improving your skills of those outputs, they result in more outcomes.
00:15:05And those outcomes, if your business model and your business strategy makes sense, leads to money.
00:15:09We're going to be doing more videos on the channel in the future in the sort of Freedom Friday series.
00:15:12And we've got a bunch on the channel already about more aspects of this equation.
00:15:15But the primary thing I would like to leave you with is this question.
00:15:18How many discretionary hours are you spending every week devoted to the goal of making more money?
00:15:22Now, if you're at this point in the video and you actually don't have the goal of making money and you're just like,
00:15:26I hate watching an Ali Dha video because I don't like I don't know why that would be weird.
00:15:29You don't have to do any of this. All of this is just if you want the goal of making more money.
00:15:32If I wanted the goal of becoming a professional World of Warcraft video game player,
00:15:36I would have to devote a lot of time to getting better at the craft of playing World of Warcraft.
00:15:41Currently in my life, I do not want that goal. So, you know, I'm not fussed about it.
00:15:45But when I was in my 20s, I had the goal of becoming financially free.
00:15:47I had the goal of making more money. And so to that end,
00:15:50I was putting in somewhere between 10 and 15 hours in addition to like my full-time day job as a medical student and a doctor from like 2013 onwards,
00:15:58where I was like actively trying to build a business alongside my medical school career.
00:16:01And this requires sacrifices. It does require trade-offs. Like, you know, there are only 168 hours in the week.
00:16:05As we talked about, you sleep for 56 of them. You're eating and toileting for 12 of them.
00:16:09You have a hundred hours-ish. In that time, you've got to do all the things you have to do.
00:16:13So your day job, your school, whatever the thing is, and all of your other responsibilities.
00:16:16And so for a lot of people, they simply don't have the extra 10 to 15 hours to actually invest into the goal of making money.
00:16:21If that's you, then one question might be where can you find the time?
00:16:24Is there anything you can cut out from your life if you have the goal of making money?
00:16:26Have a look at your screen time. Is your screen time more than about 10 to 15 hours a week?
00:16:29If so, maybe that's some time that's just materialized out of nowhere that you could use if you wanted to, to the goal of making money.
00:16:35I'm not saying it's morally good or morally bad to make money. Money is a morally neutral thing.
00:16:38But I know a lot of people who follow my stuff, who watch the videos on this channel, do actually care about making money.
00:16:42So if that is you and there is one thing that you take away from this video,
00:16:45I would love for you to consider tracking how many hours you are spending every single week actively trying to make money.
00:16:49And that will be a very, very good starting point.
00:16:51And then once you're putting in 10 to 15 hours a week of that, then we can talk about the other things like what specifically you're doing,
00:16:55what your business strategy is, what skills you're learning, what content you're doing, what your offer is, what your packaging is, all of the stuff.
00:17:00But it all comes downstream of putting in more time.
00:17:02Now, if you're interested in figuring out ways to actually find more of that time to devote potentially to the goal of making more money,
00:17:08there is a video right over here which includes my 168 hours spreadsheet.
00:17:11And this is a spreadsheet that's completely free. I explain it in the video.
00:17:14You can download and you can see where your time is going
00:17:16and you can figure out where you want to be able to carve out additional time to work on your business or to work on your money making schemes.
00:17:22So I hope you enjoyed this video. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you hopefully in the next one.
00:17:25Bye bye.