0:02 Now, it is a tough time to be a student
0:04 these days, right? Unemployment crisis,
0:06 cost of living crisis, AI taking over
0:08 the world. Who knows whether the job
0:10 that you thought you were going to get
0:11 after university is actually going to
0:12 still be around. There's all sorts of
0:14 uncertainty. And so, for whatever it's
0:15 worth, I'm going to be giving you my hot
0:17 take in this video about what I would do
0:19 if I were a student during these
0:20 troubling times. Oh, by the way, if you
0:21 don't know who I am, hello. My name is
0:23 Ali. I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur
0:25 and YouTuber and author of the New York
0:26 Times bestseller, Feelgood Productivity.
0:27 I was a medical student at Cambridge
0:30 University from 2012 through to 2018.
0:31 And I started this YouTube channel back
0:33 in 2017 giving advice to medical
0:34 students in particular and medical
0:36 applicants. And then I became like the
0:38 online study guy teaching students how
0:40 to study for their exams back in the
0:41 day. And now I'm an old codger. I'm 31
0:43 years old. I've got a wife and a child.
0:44 Oh man, I don't know where the time
0:46 went. And because I still make YouTube
0:47 videos opining about stuff, I'm going to
0:50 opine about life as a student. So being
0:52 a student is like playing an openw world
0:54 video game. Now, within this open world
0:56 video game of being a student, you've
0:58 kind of got like, let's say this is your
1:01 start point where you metriculate if
1:03 you're in a fancy place or you enroll if
1:05 you're in a less fancy place and you've
1:08 got like your main quest line that takes
1:16 As you know, with these sorts of open
1:19 world video games, there's a lot of like
1:22 branching off side quests that you could
1:25 do that branch off the main story line.
1:27 Either way, you know, the march of time
1:29 is still taking you towards graduation.
1:31 But while you are being a student, you
1:33 don't have to just follow the main story
1:35 line of study for the exams, take the
1:37 boxes, and end up graduating. You can in
1:40 fact run side quests. Now, what are some
1:41 examples of side quests that people do?
1:43 Sometimes people do the side quest of
1:45 sports. I had friends who were super
1:46 into rowing, so they joined the rowing
1:48 team. I played bon for my college team.
1:49 I had a friend who was played rugby for
1:51 the university team. You know, sports is
1:52 a very reasonable side quest that you
1:54 could embark on. If you wanted to, you
1:55 could embark on the side quest of
1:58 alcohol and or substances. Lots of
2:00 people do that. That wasn't really my
2:01 cup of tea, but you know, I knew a lot
2:02 of people who were super into the
2:04 alcohol and or substances thing. You
2:06 could run the side quest of clubs, by
2:09 which I mean nightclubs. You could run
2:10 the side quest of joining like the
2:12 debating society or joining groups or
2:13 you know I was part of an ac capella
2:17 group while I was at university. [Music]
2:18 [Music]
2:20 Oh my god. I also did the side quest of
2:21 being the director of the hospital
2:23 pantomime. It's like you know there's
2:24 random stuff like that that you can do.
2:27 You can do music, you can do theater. So
2:28 if I were a student and I knew that okay
2:30 there's the main quest that takes me to
2:31 graduation and there are all these
2:32 different side quests I could do. I
2:34 think it's firstly it's worth
2:35 approaching university or college life
2:37 as a video game in that sense. But
2:38 secondly, it's worth asking the
2:40 question, what is the point? Like what
2:42 are we actually trying to do here? One,
2:45 two, three. I would like to profer for
2:48 your consideration that there are four
2:50 kind of main objectives that we
2:53 implicitly have when we are students or
3:00 Objective number one is to enjoy the
3:02 experience. Right? If you ask any old
3:04 person for advice, you know, what they
3:05 wish, what advice they would have when
3:06 if they were a student, they were like,
3:07 "Oh man, I just wish I'd taken the time
3:08 to enjoy it more." They'll say, for
3:10 example, you know, this is the final
3:11 time in your life where you're going to
3:12 have freedom because then you're going
3:13 to graduate and you're going to get a
3:13 job, then you're going to get married
3:15 and have a child and like, "Oh my god,
3:16 like the next time you're free is when
3:17 you're retired, and by then you'll have
3:19 osteoarthritis in both of your knees."
3:20 So really focus on enjoying the
3:22 experience. Kind of like playing a video
3:24 game. What's the ultimate point of a
3:26 video game? Well, the point is to enjoy
3:28 the experience. What in many ways is the
3:30 ultimate point of life? Arguably the
3:31 point of life is to enjoy the
3:33 experience. The philosopher Alan Watts
3:34 said something like, you know, life is
3:37 like a musical symphony. The point is to
3:39 enjoy the music. The point is not to
3:41 race to get to the end or to the climax
3:43 or the crescendo or anything like that.
3:45 The point is to enjoy the music as it's
3:47 playing 100%. We want to of course enjoy
3:48 the experience of playing the video game
3:49 or student life. We want to enjoy the
3:51 experience of being a student at college
3:53 or university. Fantastic. But we won't
3:55 pay all of this money uh and spend all
3:58 this time at university if the only goal
3:59 was to enjoy the experience. For some
4:00 people, the only goal is to enjoy the
4:02 experience. Fair enough. But I think for
4:04 you there are probably more goals than
4:05 simply to enjoy the experience. Of
4:06 course, we do want to enjoy the
4:08 experience. The second major goal of
4:09 doing a degree at a college or
4:12 university is to learn stuff, right?
4:14 Some combination of knowledge and
4:16 skills. So, for example, I did medicine
4:17 at Cambridge University. And therefore,
4:19 I have some knowledge about like how the
4:20 human body works and physiology and
4:21 anatomy and biochemistry and all of that
4:23 stuff that I've long since forgotten.
4:25 But I also learned skills during my
4:27 degree such as how to diagnose patients
4:29 and how to deal with an arhythmia and
4:31 how to do CPR and, you know, the
4:32 practical skills associated with the
4:34 stuff that you learn at university. So,
4:35 I think we can all agree that our goal
4:37 is to enjoy the experience and also to
4:39 learn stuff. Fantastic. We're enjoying
4:40 the experience and we are learning
4:41 stuff. The third point of going to
4:43 college or university is for a lot of
4:45 people to get the certificate. I'm not
4:47 saying this in a derogatory kind of way.
4:48 If for example you want to be a doctor,
4:50 you have to have the certificate that
4:51 says you've graduated medical school.
4:53 Otherwise, rightly they don't let you be
4:54 a doctor. And this really I think is the
4:56 key part of why people spend so much
4:57 money on university. Because if it was
4:59 just about enjoying the experience, you
5:01 could get it far more cheaply. If it was
5:02 just about learning knowledge and
5:04 skills, you know how to learn stuff on
5:06 YouTube, right? you could if you really
5:08 wanted to hire a private tutor to teach
5:09 you stuff and it would still be cheaper
5:10 than university. To be honest, I went to
5:12 one of the world's best medical schools
5:13 and most of what I learned in terms of
5:15 the knowledge I learned off of YouTube
5:17 videos because to be honest, YouTube
5:18 videos are easier to follow than
5:20 lectures even in Cambridge University.
5:21 And so there's definitely a component of
5:22 this that's about getting the
5:24 certificate, right? And the implicit
5:25 reason why we want the certificate is
5:27 not so that we can nail it to our wall.
5:30 The reason we want the certificate is so
5:32 that improves our job prospects. That is
5:34 the whole idea behind the certificate.
5:36 Sometimes a job physically requires a
5:37 specific certificate like you can't be a
5:38 doctor without a medical degree
5:40 obviously. But sometimes the certificate
5:41 is kind of like an indicator of
5:44 credibility. Let's say you know McKenzie
5:45 only hires people with certain
5:47 certificates i.e. people who went to
5:48 fancy universities. They don't really
5:50 care what specifically you studied. They
5:51 don't really give a toss about the
5:52 knowledge and skills you acquired at
5:54 university at least not that much. what
5:55 they care about at least in the initial
5:57 screening process is that you have got
5:58 the certificate as a badge of
6:00 credibility so that it allows them to
6:02 sift through the 20,000 people who are
6:03 applying and give I don't know 200
6:05 people a job. So part of the point of
6:07 university and college is to get the
6:09 appropriate certificate such that it can
6:11 enhance a job prospects and then the
6:12 final point of college and university
6:14 for a lot of people is something that we
6:16 can call make friends if you're a normal
6:17 person and we can call it networking if
6:19 you are on LinkedIn. Good. So these are
6:20 the four points of university. We want
6:21 to enjoy the experience. We want to
6:22 learn stuff in the sense of knowledge
6:23 and skills. We want to get the
6:25 certificate so that it enhances our job
6:26 prospects and we want to make friends/n
6:27 network. Now I think these are all very
6:29 very very good reasons to go to college
6:30 or university. I sometimes get people
6:32 asking me like oh do you think college
6:33 university is still worth it and it's
6:36 like well it depends on what your goal
6:37 is and it depends on what you're
6:38 planning to do. So I'm going to assume
6:40 that if you're a student like yes of
6:41 course you want to do this stuff you
6:42 want to enjoy the experience learn
6:43 things improve your job prospects and
6:46 make friends and network. There is a
6:48 there is a goal, right? The main quest
6:49 the main quest the reason you're playing
6:51 this game from the start up up until
6:53 graduation is because you want college
6:55 or university to prepare you for real
6:57 life. In particular, you want college
7:00 and university to allow you to get a
7:02 job. All right, quick thing. I'm going
7:03 to interrupt the flow of this video to
7:06 tell you about an amazing AI study
7:07 bundle that is perfectly designed for
7:09 students. So essentially me and my team
7:10 have partnered up with various founders
7:13 of other AI apps for students and we
7:14 have come together to create the
7:16 ultimate AI bundle for students. This is
7:18 a collection of six AI tools that can
7:19 help you at different parts of your
7:21 university or college experience. We've
7:22 got Jenny AI which is amazing for
7:24 research and writing. We've got GPT0
7:25 which is an amazing way of like you know
7:27 if you've written stuff to make sure you
7:28 haven't accidentally plagiarized
7:29 something from from the internet.
7:30 There's Voice Pal the app that my team
7:32 and I have built to help you take notes
7:33 on the go and sort of conversational
7:35 writing and also to help you record your
7:36 lectures and turn those into notes.
7:38 There's Mathos AI that helps you, you
7:38 know, if you're working on maths
7:40 equations and problems and stuff, it
7:41 sort of talks you through how you can
7:43 solve them so that you can learn to do
7:44 them for yourself. There's not, which is
7:46 a smart AI note-taking assistant. And
7:48 there is Site Shore, which makes it
7:49 super easy to manage your bibliography
7:50 of references if you're writing essays
7:52 or dissitations or articles. Now, if you
7:53 were to buy all of these apps
7:54 individually, it would cost you more
7:56 than $1,000 a year for it. But because
7:57 we've put all of these into the ultimate
7:59 bundle for students, you can get them
8:01 all all together bundled for way, way,
8:02 way, way, way cheaper than that. So, if
8:04 you're interested, go to studybundle.com
8:06 or check out the link in the video
8:07 description. And this is available for a
8:09 limited time only if you are a student.
8:10 So, do please check that out. Anyway,
8:12 let's get back to the video. I know it
8:14 sounds unsexy to say this, but like
8:15 unless you have a trust fund, you're
8:17 going to need to have a way of making
8:18 money. You're going to need some sort of
8:21 economic engine because without money,
8:23 you ain't going to live. And so in a way
8:30 this sort of goal of we're being
8:32 students, we're doing a degree in
8:35 subject XYZ in order to be able to make
8:37 money as an adult in the real world,
8:38 which is why we need to get the
8:41 certificate. And of course along the
8:43 way, we're going to be learning stuff.
8:45 Learning stuff also helps us make money
8:46 as an adult in the real world. Of
8:48 course, we're going to make friends. Uh
8:50 that will just help us in life. And
8:51 also, you know, a professional network
8:53 can help you make money as an adult in
8:55 the real world. And of course, we want
8:56 to sort of enjoy the experience while
8:58 all of this stuff is happening. So, the
8:59 reason I'm doing all this exposition is
9:01 cuz I want to show you my working as to
9:03 why how we've landed on make money as an
9:05 adult in the real world is kind of like
9:07 a key factor here. And of course,
9:09 ideally, we would like the the method
9:10 that we use to make money as an adult in
9:12 the real world to be fun and fulfilling
9:15 and flexible, right? However, it's not
9:17 quite that simple anymore because yes,
9:20 there are certain degrees that pretty
9:23 much directly lead to a job. Medicine
9:25 still to this day is one of those things
9:27 sort of that directly leads to a job,
9:29 right? You graduate from medical school.
9:30 Whether you're the top of the year or
9:31 whether you're the bottom of the year,
9:32 they still call you doctor and now you
9:35 have graduated and for the most part
9:37 there is a job for you. This is not
9:39 entirely true depending on what country
9:40 you're in and what the state of the
9:41 country is this that the other. Like in
9:43 the UK, the system that I'm quite
9:44 familiar with, actually a lot of people
9:46 graduated medical school last year and
9:48 there actually weren't enough jobs.
9:50 Shock, horror. These people joined med
9:52 school like six years ago and they were
9:53 told that if you become a doctor, you
9:55 have a job for life. You have a way and
9:56 a job for life basically means you have
9:58 a reliable, secure way of making money
10:00 in the real world in a way that's
10:01 ideally fun and fulfilling. These
10:03 people, these poor medical students who
10:05 joined back in like 7 years ago were
10:06 told this and then they graduate and
10:08 there are actually not enough jobs. That
10:10 is a tricky position to be in. And
10:12 that's medicine. Think about non-medical
10:13 degrees. I was reading a thing on
10:15 Substack yesterday from some girl in LA
10:17 who was lamenting the fact that she did
10:19 an English literature degree and she was
10:22 finding it impossible to get a job. Most
10:23 degrees, I suspect the degree that you
10:26 are doing statistically is not a
10:27 vocational degree like medicine that
10:29 directly leads to a job. It's probably a
10:30 degree in something that's a bit more
10:32 broad where actually it's not just
10:34 degree X equals job Y. It's not that
10:36 sort of onetoone connection. It's a bit
10:37 more like maybe let's say you do a
10:39 degree in accounting and finance. Now
10:40 that could unlock a job within
10:41 accounting and finance as an accountant
10:44 or as a investment banker or as a uh
10:46 analyst or as an associate or as a this
10:46 that and the other. You could do a
10:48 whatever GDL to convert to law. You
10:52 could like most degrees don't constrain
10:53 very much your choices in the future job
10:55 market. So this is a video about what I
10:56 would do if I were a student. I would
10:59 recognize that merely completing the
11:01 main story line, the main quest of
11:04 starting and then graduating, just doing
11:07 that is actually not enough to set me up
11:09 for life in the real world in the
11:12 current state of society with AI and
11:14 economics that we are currently living
11:16 in. Just doing the main story line is
11:18 not enough to prepare you for the real
11:20 world. Now, this is kind of like, again,
11:22 it's sort of like a video game. Let's
11:23 say you're playing a video game and you
11:26 ignore all of the side quests and you
11:28 just do the main story line. Now, as
11:30 you're playing your video game, your
11:31 character is leveling up. Now, I want
11:32 you to at this point, I want you to
11:34 imagine two different video game
11:36 characters. We've got character A and
11:38 we've got character B. Character A just
11:40 runs the main story line and ends up at
11:43 graduation. But character B runs the
11:46 main story line, but she does side quest
11:47 A, side quest B, side quest there, side
11:49 quest there, side quest there, side
11:50 quest there, and also ends up at
11:52 graduation. Which of these two
11:53 characters is going to have a higher
11:55 level? Maybe this character might be at
11:58 level 30 by the time they arrive at a a
12:00 graduation, but maybe this this person
12:01 would be at level 50 by the time they
12:03 arrive at graduation. Because by doing
12:04 side quests in the video games, you
12:06 generally gain more experience, you get
12:07 more loot, you get more gear, you level
12:08 up your skill trees, all of that kind of
12:10 stuff. you are a higher level when you
12:12 get to graduation compared to someone
12:14 who just exclusively followed the main
12:16 story line. Now, why does this level
12:18 matter? Well, I think the level matters
12:21 because much like in a video game, the
12:23 job market is kind of based on what is
12:26 your level and what are your skills. So,
12:28 if you went through the video game only
12:29 following the main story line, i.e. just
12:31 doing your exams and taking the boxes
12:32 and going going up until until
12:34 graduation, but you never did any side
12:36 quests and you never actually worked on
12:38 your skill trees. You never leveled up
12:39 your fishing or your alchemy or your
12:41 cooking or your leather working or your
12:43 witchcrafting or whatever. Now you are
12:44 underleveled by the time you get to
12:46 graduation. A, you have less experience
12:48 because you didn't do the side quests.
12:49 B, you didn't bother leveling up your
12:51 skill trees. And C, you probably had a
12:52 worse time of it because actually quite
12:54 of the fun of video games is like in
12:56 kind of doing the side quests and stuff
12:57 and not just single-mindedly following
12:59 the main story line. So if I was a
13:01 student again, obviously I would not
13:03 follow path A. I would not get to
13:06 graduation being underleveled. I would
13:08 follow path B where I would figure out
13:10 what are the side quests that I can do
13:12 because yes, of course, I still want to
13:13 learn stuff, make friends, get the
13:15 certificate, and enjoy the experience,
13:18 but I also want to level up. Now, let's
13:19 imagine that these are five different
13:21 skills. Let's say this is the skill of
13:23 the guitar. So if you wanted to, you
13:24 could level up the skill of the guitar
13:26 while you're at university. I learned
13:27 how to play the guitar when I was in my
13:28 second year of med school and I would
13:30 sing a couple of songs and I did a bit
13:31 of busking and so I was doing some
13:33 amount of, you know, leveling up the
13:36 skill of guitar. Now, when it comes to
13:39 the goal of being able to reliably make
13:41 money as an adult in the real world in
13:43 order to have financial security, what
13:45 is the value of leveling up the trade
13:47 skill of playing the guitar? Well, you
13:49 could be a professional musician, but
13:50 the chances of you succeeding as a
13:52 professional musician are very low. And
13:53 if you're just picking up the guitar for
13:54 the first time while you're at
13:56 university, man, good luck making it as
13:57 a professional musician because everyone
13:58 who's making it probably started when
14:00 they were a kid. Secondly, you could be
14:02 a guitar teacher. Like, okay. But like,
14:03 for the most part, you and I would
14:04 probably agree that learning how to play
14:06 the guitar, unless you're like freaking
14:08 worldclass John Mayer levels, learning
14:10 to play the guitar, like the basics of
14:12 being a campfire guitarist, is um sort
14:15 of a lowinccome skill. That's not to say
14:17 it's low value. You know, I love playing
14:18 the guitar. It's a great hobby. I enjoy
14:20 it. It's good for my fun and
14:22 fulfillment, but it does not help me
14:23 make money as an adult in the real
14:25 world, which we've established as being
14:27 one of the points of university. Another
14:28 optional side quest that you could do is
14:30 you could decide when you get to
14:32 university, you know what, I want to
14:35 pick up chess, right? And so, I'm going
14:38 to level up my trade skill of being a
14:39 chess player. And so, I'm going to go on
14:41 my phone and go on chess.com in the
14:42 evenings. And I'm going to stay up way
14:43 too late just playing stuff on
14:45 chess.com. I'm going to watch Gotham
14:46 Chess. I'm going to watch these chess
14:48 Twitch streamers and chess whatever. and
14:49 maybe I'll join the university's chess
14:52 club and maybe I'll get my rating up to
14:53 I don't know 1500 or 1,600 or even
14:55 2,000. Now again, unless you become
14:57 grandmaster level at chess. Chess is
15:00 also a relatively low income skill.
15:02 Unless you are Magnus Carlson or a
15:04 grandmaster, you're probably not making
15:06 that much money from chess. It is not
15:08 helping you to make money as an adult in
15:09 the real world. Maybe if you're an
15:11 attractive girl and you are streaming
15:12 chess and you're sufficiently good and
15:14 also sufficiently attractive and also
15:16 like good on camera and stuff, then you
15:18 can combine the skill of chess with the
15:20 skill of being good on camera. And now
15:21 maybe you can make a career out of being
15:23 a chess streamer. But again, if I had my
15:25 time at university and I was a beginner
15:27 to chess, I would not be banking on
15:28 becoming a chess streamer as being my
15:30 method for making money as an adult in
15:31 the real world. That would just be a
15:33 generally not sensible decision to make
15:34 because it relies a lot on luck. Maybe
15:36 you know where I'm going with this, but
15:37 what's another skill that you could
15:40 choose to learn? Well, let's say this is
15:42 like a laptop and this is the skill of
15:44 coding. Let's say you decide, even if
15:45 you're not doing a computer science
15:47 degree, let's say you're doing a
15:48 accounting degree or a medicine degree
15:50 or a law degree, whatever. Let's say you
15:52 decide, you know what, on the side, I'm
15:54 going to learn the skill of coding. I'm
15:56 going to learn how to build a website,
15:58 how to build a web app. I'm going to I'm
16:00 going to learn how to AI vibe code
16:02 stuff. I'm going to figure out what it
16:03 takes to build an app on Swift or on
16:05 Android. I'm going to figure out what
16:06 deployment is and what production is and
16:08 how to fix bugs and what unit tests are.
16:10 I'm going to figure out what CSRF means
16:11 and I'm going to see if I can build
16:13 these little projects and I'm going to
16:14 learn those things from YouTube
16:15 tutorials. Maybe I'll go on code academy
16:17 or code school. Maybe I'll join my
16:19 college or university's coding club or
16:20 coding camp or maybe I'll join the
16:22 entrepreneurship society and get
16:24 together with other people. And maybe oh
16:25 you know I saw that my university is
16:27 holding a hackathon for like next
16:28 weekend. Why don't I get together with
16:30 some friends and join go to the
16:31 hackathon next weekend and we can see if
16:33 we can build something cool in 24 hours.
16:35 You are this person might be choosing to
16:37 level up the trade skill of coding. Now,
16:40 does having the skill of coding improve
16:42 your odds of making money as an adult in
16:43 the real world? Yes, it absolutely
16:46 freaking does, right? Of course it does.
16:47 Like, if you learn how to code, you
16:49 could, if you wanted to, you suddenly
16:50 unlock the ability to get a job as a
16:52 developer working in tech. Tech salaries
16:54 are huge, especially in places like the
16:56 US. Working as a remote developer allows
16:57 you to get a remote job. Back in the
17:00 day, in the 2010s, you could just learn
17:01 how to code and you could walk into one
17:02 of these jobs. These days, of course,
17:05 it's more competitive, but learning how
17:08 to code unlocks quite a lot of income
17:10 earning potential for you. Whether it's
17:11 working for someone else, i.e. a job, or
17:13 whether it's working for yourself, i.e.
17:15 a business. If you learn how to code and
17:16 you choose to start your own business,
17:18 you have the ability, you suddenly
17:20 magically unlock the ability to build a
17:21 business where you're building an app or
17:23 building a website. That unlocks the
17:24 business model of software as a service.
17:25 I have a friend, we have a whole case
17:27 study video about him. He learned to
17:28 code. He leveled up his trade skill of
17:30 coding while he was at university. Even
17:31 though he wasn't taught coding in his
17:33 degree, he did some side projects. He
17:35 and I attended a couple of hackathons
17:36 and he got okay at coding. He worked in
17:38 management consulting for 5 years and
17:39 then decided to quit and then decided to
17:41 build an app. It's a video editing app
17:43 called Fire Cut that helps video editors
17:44 save time. The only reason he could
17:45 build that is because he knew the basics
17:47 of coding. And within a within like 2
17:49 months, he was making $10,000 a month
17:51 from his app. And now 2 years later,
17:53 he's making like $1.2 million a year
17:55 from his app. and it's recurring revenue
17:56 because they've got thousands of
17:57 customers all around the world and he's
17:59 making way more money than he was even
18:00 working at a fancy consulting firm
18:02 because he had spent some time at
18:04 university as a student learning to
18:06 level up his coding skill. There's
18:08 another skill tree you could develop.
18:08 Let's say you were like, you know what,
18:10 I'm really going to learn how to design
18:12 stuff in particular, how to design tech
18:14 products, uh probably digital products
18:16 like apps and websites and like web apps
18:18 and user interface and user experience.
18:22 So, let's say I do UI and UX design. And
18:23 I'm like, you know what, that seems kind
18:24 of interesting. I' I've been intrigued
18:26 by, you know, why are Apple products
18:27 designed the way that they are? Like,
18:30 how does the Airbnb website have such a
18:31 nice user experience? Why does Amazon
18:33 just look so bad? But like, obviously,
18:34 it still works. You know, you might be
18:36 interested in that kind of stuff. You
18:37 can watch some YouTube videos about UI
18:39 and UX design. And now you can dabble
18:41 with a few different projects and you
18:43 could level up your trade skill of user
18:45 interface and user experience design. Is
18:47 that a lowinccome trade skill or a high
18:49 income trade skill? That is a very high
18:52 income trade skill because again these
18:53 rich tech companies are always looking
18:56 for UI and UX designers. I have a lot of
18:57 friends who are running tech startups
18:58 who are funded to the tune of tens of
19:00 millions of dollars and one thing they
19:03 constantly lament is how few good UI and
19:05 UX designers there are in the market. So
19:06 whether or not you're doing a degree in
19:07 design, you could be doing a degree in
19:09 law or medicine for all anyone cares,
19:10 but you can choose to level up your
19:12 trade skill by doing side quests related
19:15 to design. And now you get to graduation
19:16 and you have leveled up the trade skill
19:18 of design. Maybe you've even leveled up
19:19 the trade skill of coding. And having
19:21 the trade skill of coding plus design,
19:23 man, there's a word for that. They call
19:24 it a full stack engineer or a full stack
19:26 developer because you're able to
19:28 understand the design side and you're
19:29 also able to understand the software and
19:31 the architecture side. And those people
19:32 are like unicorns. There's not that many
19:33 of them out there that are actually
19:35 good. And so if you are actually good
19:37 and you're a coder who knows design or a
19:38 designer who knows who knows code and
19:40 will become like a product engineer
19:42 again your market value increases
19:43 substantially because there's a lot of
19:44 startups and a lot of established tech
19:46 companies that would be willing to hire
19:48 you remotely on your own terms for
19:50 pretty large salaries again allowing us
19:52 to complete or to fulfill our objective
19:54 of make money as an adult in the real
19:56 world. Don't just do these kind of side
19:57 quests because like yeah going to
19:59 nightclubs is good. What does it level
20:01 up? It levels up, which is sort of it
20:04 makes you lose stats on your liver. Um,
20:06 it makes you lose points on like your
20:09 eardrums. It probably helps you make
20:11 more friends. I mean, although in
20:12 fairness, a lot of the friends you make
20:14 in nightclubs generally tend not to be
20:15 friends that stick around for very long
20:16 after the whole like drinking and
20:18 clubbing scene evaporates. Like, just
20:19 focusing on the side quest of doing
20:21 nightclubs is unlikely to help improve
20:22 your odds of making money as an adult in
20:23 the real world. If that's something that
20:25 you care about, it's unlikely to teach
20:27 you relevant skills. Just doing alcohol
20:29 and substances is probably unlikely to
20:30 help you make money as an adult in the
20:32 real world. Doing sports, unless you're
20:34 professional standard, is very unlikely
20:35 to help you make money as an adult in
20:37 the real world. These are all very fun
20:38 to do. I'm not saying you shouldn't do
20:39 these things. I'm saying in addition to
20:43 these things, think about doing high
20:47 income side to level. Yeah, we're going
20:50 to call these side quests to level up
20:54 high income skills. Side quests to level
20:58 up high income skills. SQ T L U H I S.
20:59 I'm sure there is a better way of
21:01 branding this. I did not learn the skill
21:03 of branding and I'm just making this up
21:06 as I go along. So, I would say please do
21:08 some side quest to level up high- income
21:09 skills. What are those high- income
21:10 skills? Well, we talked about coding.
21:11 Coding is a high- income skill.
21:14 Copywriting. Uh the ability to write
21:15 stuff that persuades people to take
21:18 action is a high- income skill. If you
21:20 can as a good copywriter, for example,
21:22 increase the conversion rate on a
21:24 website or in a store or something, the
21:25 company makes more money and then
21:27 therefore you've made them more money
21:28 and making money is like the engine that
21:30 drives capitalism and so you then have
21:31 higher value because you've helped
21:32 someone else make money. Another high
21:34 income skill you could learn is sales.
21:36 If you know how to sell things, then
21:38 that works in almost any career you're
21:39 in that interfaces with like the free
21:41 market. So for example, if even if you
21:43 become a lawyer, you might not think
21:45 sales is useful as a lawyer. But when
21:46 you become partner and your job becomes
21:48 not doing the law but to win new
21:50 clients, you can bet your ass that like
21:51 sales as a skill is going to be super
21:53 helpful in that. Learning how to use AI
21:54 really well, learning how to build AI
21:56 systems and AI agents and learning how
21:58 to use AI automations and build AI
21:59 automations for other people. That's a
22:00 really really really valuable
22:02 highinccome skill that will become more
22:04 relevant as we progress through time.
22:05 learning the skill of statistics and
22:07 data analysis, not in the sense of like,
22:09 you know, just doing it for a degree,
22:11 but being able to sort of go into a
22:13 business or a workplace, be able to
22:14 understand the data that they've got in
22:16 their data warehousing, being able to
22:18 figure out like what queries and like
22:20 SQL queries and databases and that
22:21 you have to have to use to be able to
22:23 turn that data into insights that can
22:24 allow that business to make more money
22:26 or to help more customers. That is a
22:28 high income skill because very few
22:29 people have that specific skill set. Or
22:31 just ask Claude or Chad GPT, say, "Hey,
22:32 I'm looking for some high income skills
22:34 to learn. Uh, I'd like to do some side
22:35 quests while I'm a student at
22:36 university, while I have all this
22:38 copious amount of free time. In many
22:41 ways, the point of university is not the
22:43 degree. The point is not graduation. The
22:45 point of university and college is that
22:48 it's a scaffolding. It is a very nice
22:51 period of your life where all you have
22:53 to do is hang out and learn stuff. You
22:55 just got to hang out and learn stuff.
22:56 Now, if you are someone who hangs out
22:59 and learns stuff that results in
23:01 leveling up high income skills, you're
23:02 never going to be broke, right? You're
23:03 always going to have a job. You'll be
23:04 able to start your own business because
23:06 you you will have had high income
23:08 skills. You you will have developed
23:10 skills that are valued in the free
23:11 market in this capitalist world that we
23:13 live in. If you are someone who spent
23:14 your time at university just hanging out
23:16 thinking that, oh man, if I just do my
23:17 degree, it'll help me make money as an
23:19 adult in the real world. You'll get to
23:20 graduation and you'll be like, crap,
23:22 it's really hard to find a job probably
23:24 because you didn't spend the time
23:25 leveling up your character, leveling up
23:27 your high income skills. That is the one
23:28 piece of advice that I would have for
23:30 students. Think of university as a video
23:32 game where the goal is not simply to
23:34 speedrun the main story line. The goal
23:37 is to also level up high income skills
23:38 so that by the time you get to
23:40 graduation, you're an absolute weapon of
23:42 a character. You have leveled up beyond
23:44 level 50. You've got your trade skills.
23:45 You've got the skill of, I don't know,
23:46 coding or design or video editing. You
23:48 know how to speak to a camera. Maybe you
23:49 know public speaking. Maybe you know
23:51 statistics. You've dabbled in all these
23:53 different arts. So that now when you are
23:55 applying for jobs or maybe thinking of
23:57 starting your own business, you have the
24:00 ability to add value to the marketplace.
24:01 Because adding value to the marketplace,
24:03 if you are in a profession that
24:04 interacts with the free market, so not
24:06 doctors in a state funed healthare
24:07 system, but pretty much everyone else.
24:08 If you have a job that interacts with
24:10 the free market, then your ability to
24:12 make money as an adult in the real world
24:14 directly correlates with your ability to
24:16 add value to the market, i.e. to develop
24:18 valuable skills that solve problems in
24:19 people's lives that they are willing to
24:21 pay for. So, please don't waste your
24:23 time at university. Please, I beg you,
24:24 recognize that you have an incredible
24:26 opportunity right now because you're a
24:27 student and you have so much free time
24:28 on your hands. Like, if you think you
24:30 don't have free time as a student, just
24:32 wait till you get a job. Man, then it's
24:33 really going to hit you. You have
24:34 copious amounts of free time as a
24:36 student. I would really recommend you
24:38 please use that time to develop high-
24:40 income skills, learn stuff, get the
24:41 certificate, make friends, and network.
24:43 Obviously, um obviously enjoying the
24:45 experience is super super important, but
24:46 I don't need to tell you that because,
24:47 you know, hopefully you know that
24:48 already. But while enjoying the
24:50 experience, we can level up a high-
24:52 income skills and that will help you be
24:53 way more attractive in the job market so
24:55 that you can actually make money as an
24:57 adult in the real world unlike all the
24:58 people who are struggling with
24:59 employment and then have to go on
25:00 welfare. And if you enjoyed this video
25:01 and you're interested in this thing of
25:03 making money as an adult in the real
25:05 world, I have this video over here which
25:07 talks about how getting rich is a again
25:09 kind of like a game. I I use less of a
25:10 video game analogy than that, but it's
25:12 more like getting rich is a game. And if
25:14 you care about making money as an adult
25:15 in the real world, understanding how
25:17 money actually works and understanding
25:18 the language of business will be
25:19 incredibly helpful. So, I really
