Why are we scared to put ourselves out there?

Ali Abdaal
 
Taimur Abdaal
 
24.Mar.2019

notes

Ali
Hello, and welcome back to the podcast. This is Episode 2 of Not Overthinking, massive thank you before we get started to everyone who downloaded and listened to Episode 1. It was pretty awesome that was that there was so many of you who seem to enjoy that episode of this new fledgling podcast that we have started.
Taimur
Yeah, and thank you so much to everyone who sent in responses, it's great to hear this, this idea resonates with you. Great to hear your personal experiences about trying to be correct in everyday life. We're going to put some of those responses in the show notes, So check them out at notoverthinking.com.
Ali
This episode is going to be about answering the question of why we find it so hard to put ourselves out there. So yeah, hope you enjoy the show. My name is Ali, I'm a doctor and YouTuber.
Taimur
I'm Taimur, I'm a data scientist and writer.
Ali
And you're listening to Not Overthinking.
Taimur
The weekly podcast where we think about happiness, creativity and the human condition.
Ali
I have a question for today's episode.
Taimur
All right.
Ali
Comes on the creativity and the human, actually it sort of relates to all three. And that is sort of a bit meta, because we are starting this podcast.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
And this is, I don't think you've had much experience with putting yourself out there sort of in terms of video you've done like writing and things.
Taimur
Yeah, nothing super personal really. My writing is also very impersonal for me.
Ali
Yeah, it's more like you know, Malcolm Gladwell's masterclass notes.
Taimur
Yeah, we're like, here's how Netflix makes money, kind of thing.
Ali
Yeah, so how do you feel about this idea that you're now officially putting yourself out there? Because I imagine a lot of people listening might be considering putting themselves out there in one domain or another, but might be feeling a bit hesitant about it.
Taimur
I think this is a real issue actually, I think this is like, I think this is one of the things that stops people in society doing so many things. So a few years ago, I would have definitely objected to it, a few years ago, I would have thought, "oh man, who is this person that thinks they're so interesting, that they should have their face on YouTube videos, and like, they think they're so interesting that they can vlog their life." Like how, you know what a pompous twit, you know?
Ali
pompous twit, yeah.
Taimur
This is outrageous. Like, why, this is not okay. But I think now, yeah, now I have some thoughts on this. And actually, now I'm fine with it.
Ali
Okay, why are you now fine with it? What's changed between a few years and now to make you fine with this idea of putting yourself out there and having the audacity to record a podcast where you're overthinking about life?
Taimur
Okay, so I think there's two things, I think the first thing is that I think these things do actually add value in general to like society and other people's lives. And I think if you're thinking of it from that point of view, that it's like, "Okay, I'm doing this thing, because it's like fun for me, and maybe it'll add value to someone else's life, I think that's great." And pretty much the only way to add value to other people's lives is to share things about yourself with them, or things that you've done with them. And so like, if everyone has this whole kind of uptight attitude of "how dare I share this thing about myself? Or how dare I put myself out there?" Then pretty much nothing will ever get done. I think it's interesting that people are happy to, but the general, people are generally happy to share themselves in certain ways. For example, you know, through like work and things, you know, if you have a job in which it requires you to do something vaguely in the public eye, like if you're a news reporter, or something. No one look at a news reporter and think, "ah, what what a pompous twit" or like, if you have like a politics column in the Guardian or something. No one look at that and think, "huh, what a twat, why does he think anyone would care about his video?"
Ali
Exactly, I think, in the realm of writing, and in the realm of work, it's a lot easier to do it. I have got a lot of friends who would be more than happy to write a little piece about, for example, how to get into medical school, but we'd be a lot more hesitant to talk about that on video. But even that, even that how to go into medical school thing where they're kind of offering their advice, people are would generally be okay with that. It's when you start getting more personal, that the real problems start to arise. And this podcast is sort of a lot more personal than any. So for example, you've written about how Netflix makes money, I can't imagine that took much of a, you know, a leap of internal fortitude that required you to write that.
Taimur
No really, I think like putting the first bit of thing out there on the internet. I think writing is quite an intimate thing, like fine you're not showing your face or anything, but you do feel kind of exposed when someone
Ali
When was the first time? Was that your medium post about how to code eads my writing, and I think the first time I did anything like that, I did feel kind of awkward about it. I w or something? Or was it before then?
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, that was probably actually, actually back then. Okay, I think this is an interesting thing. I think a few years ago back when I was in school, when I look back on like, yeah, towards the end of school. I didn't care at all I made ridiculous YouTube videos with myself in them and just posted them on Facebook for like my whole year to see. I'm surprised at how little I cared. But then I think when I started university, I started to care more. And then I my sort of like, I don't, I wonder how I'm coming across kind of radar started getting quite sensitive.
Ali
Wait, so you're saying that towards the end of secondary school..
Taimur
Towards the end of secondary school, I did not care at all.
Ali
Really?
Taimur
I'm surprised at how little I care.
Ali
I swear, I've never seen a YouTube video that has the actual you in it.
Taimur
There is one in which I'm holding a gar... It's completely bizarre, I'm holding a garden hose that ends up shooting lightning. It's like.. (laughs)
Ali
Oh, yeah, we'll link to it in the show notes. If you want to check that.
Taimur
Yeah, it was ridiculous. And then I like I made some Lego gun video and just put out there. It wasn't super personal. But I think back then I didn't care that much. But I think sort of around the start of university, I started becoming concerned about how I might be coming across.
Ali
Okay, so hang on. So you're saying there were two points to this, this sort of while you've changed your mind on the stance over the last few years? Number one being you now accept that you can add value. What was the second?
Taimur
So, I think the second, the second one has just come from a lot of thinking over the past, there's quite a recent thing I've been thinking about the past few months. I think it's that like, the main objection people have is that if you're putting yourself out there, for example, the people who play piano at St. Pancras station. Now I read some like, someone wrote some like opinion piece for some newspapers saying how like, people who play piano public pianos at train stations, are like pompous twits and..
Ali
Oh, yeah, this was an article in The Onion.
Taimur
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ali
A man playing piano does not realize he's a twat.
Taimur
Yeah. And I think like, I'm sure, like, the reason they wrote that sort of satire piece was because this is a sentiment that presumably some people will have. And I think, I think the sentiment actually comes from a problematic place. I think the sentiment comes from a place of seeing of like valuing human beings according to external things like how good they are at certain things. And so if in your head, your model of like people is, this person is more valuable, he's like good at this thing, or this person is more valuable because she's good at this thing. Then if you see someone exhibiting the fact that they're good at something, you think they're trying to signal value, they're trying to signal that, "Oh, I'm good at piano, look at me." And so if your reaction when someone is playing the piano at St. Pancras is, "Oh, look at this guy, he thinks he's so good" that actually reveals a problematic worldview in yourself, that you actually sort of ascribe value to human beings in that way. Do you understand what I mean?
Ali
So you're saying that when I see someone playing the piano, and my first response is, "wow, what a show off" as opposed to "Oh, this music is nice" and I'm thinking that that's his primary intention behind sitting there and playing the piano, then that actually speaks more to my worldview of human beings being deeply problematic than to his actual intentions.
Taimur
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Ali
Because for the most part when someone wants to play the piano, and at least when I sit down in St Pancras to play the piano, I'm not thinking, Oh, this is me showing off. Partly because I don't think I'm that good in piano, partly because I just think it's a bit of fun. And I think as well, it works on this muscle of putting yourself out there.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
And I think that's a muscle that the more like, the more you work it in different domains, the more general purpose it becomes. So for example, when you become okay with putting your hand up and asking a question in class that actually helps you, that works your sort of confidence level up, which then makes you okay to give a presentation, which then makes you okay to play piano in public, which then makes it okay to sing in public, which then makes you okay to make a video and all of this kind of builds on each other. So I treat it as almost an exercise.
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good way to look at it. So what's been your sort of gradin or your journey because I think back in school, I think a lot of people would be surprised looking at the way you put yourself out there now if they saw you back in school, I think you were a lot more like reserved in school.
Ali
Yeah, I was a massive nerd in school. I think I started putting myself out there like in school I always had this idea that "Oh, it would be really nice if I could for example, play piano in assembly" I was just never good enough and I tried you know auditioning with the Star Wars theme tune and Mr. Right, the music teacher said, "perhaps try again next year, once you've done a bit more practice"
Taimur
More like Mr. Wrong, am I right?
Ali
Very good. Very good. So that was my first attempt at this and then I would often fantasize about "Oh, it'd be really cool to give an assembly about you know, something that I'm interested in" at one point I got super into the Penn and Teller magic show and I was like planning this amazing assembly I could give and I liked the idea of doing that. I think it was only when I started doing close up magic that I started to actually work on this confidence muscle and it's it started off part like very much as an exercise in building confidence. Because as I tell all my students on the interview courses, when like post GCSEs, my mum and I had a meeting with the headmaster, and he asked why I wanted to do medicine and he said that and after having a bit of a chat about this. He said that he's going to give me some honest feedback. And that, while it was I had the grades and everything, he said, I was coming across as a bit of a robot, and I wasn't showing any enthusiasm. And that was something I needed to work on. So I kind of took that to heart, and I think that fed into this whole kind of wanting to show off with this whole magic thing, which was, which sort of came from a problematic place. I can see you squirming right now. But I think the fact that I was able to do that meant that muscle grew. And then throughout university, I sort of started putting myself out there a bit more and more.
Taimur
So the magic was sort of the gateway drug into all this stuff now.
Ali
Yeah, the magic was the gateway drug into attention seeking, for the most part.
Taimur
Okay, so I think that's interesting. So what point do you think, okay, so a lot of people would look at someone who vlogs himself as being like attention seeking.
Ali
Yes.
Taimur
At what point, and hopefully, you're not doing it for attention seeking anymore. So what point did you're putting yourself out there switch from attention seeking to value creating?
Ali
I think it was in 2016, in January 2016, when I first read Austin Kleon's "Show Your Work!" Because I've been toying, as I say, in this blog post with the idea of setting up a personal blog, but I could never previously get over this idea. I would be a pompous twit for having the audacity to have a personal blog. Yeah. And then when I read this book, the main thing that resonated with me was about how, you know, even if you're, even if what you have to say is going to be useful to at least one person in the world, then that is a strong indication for putting it out there. And that was, I was like, that was like a mind blowing moment for me. And then I started writing this blog. And like I said, you know, the first bit of putting yourself out there is always the hardest. And it sort of went from there.
Taimur
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I think part of the reason why the first bit is the hardest, so for example actually, if someone sort of looks at what you're up to now, you know, you've got a bunch of YouTube subscribers, you have all these fans and stuff. I think even.. Sorry?
Ali
Thank you.
Taimur
Ali asked me to say that.
Ali
I'll send you a check later.
Taimur
Even I think if someone who knows you, so you're doing this now, they would they would think okay, yeah, that's pretty cool. Like, that's pretty sick, look what he's up to. But if someone who knew you, saw you write the start, when you had basically no subscribers, you but I still remember this is a couple years ago, you're making these like vlogs. I think a lot among people who knew you the reaction would have been a lot more negative, they would have probably thought, "What's he doing? He's like trying to be attention seeking or something." Whereas now that it's more of a public thing people see in a completely different light. They don't see you as trying to be attention seeking for some, yeah, for some reason, the perception changes once you reach some level of scale. And I think that's why the first few things are the hardest, because it's like, "Oh, who is this? This dude in my class? What? Why does he think he can start a YouTube channel? This guy, really?"
Ali
Yeah, no, that's, that's very true. And it was partly because of that fear that I didn't post about, I didn't post any of my vlogs on Facebook, because Facebook was where everyone knew me. I didn't post anything on Facebook until like the final day of elective where I was like, "Hey, guys, you know, I've been making these vlogs about my elective." Because I think vlogging your elective is like, you know, "oh, I made a video about the holiday went on." It's so it's, it's sort of more acceptable. I just prior to that had sent other videos to friends and family on WhatsApp groups and things, keeping it very, very sort of close to the chest as it were.
Taimur
Okay, I want to explore it. Actually let if you hadn't gone on elective, do you think you would have still started vlogging? If it was just the start of sixth year, final year, whatever. You didn't have this elective thing, to kind of be an excuse to make like videos about your life, I guess, do you
Ali
I probably would have done, because vlogging life as a quote, think you would have done it? finally, a medical student at Cambridge University, is in some way valuable to society. Because it lets people who want to become medical students, Cambridge University, at the very least see, this is what life is like. And actually, there were the examples of the other Cambridge vloggers, people like Jake Wright, people like Ibz Mo, famously. Who made this a very acceptable thing. And no one was really doing it in medicine. I had a friend actually my year who was sort of doing it in medicine, as I discovered a bit later on. And she was also a reason to do it, because I saw that people had been doing it, and it was a good thing. So I never quite had to deal with that, "I'm just a random person putting my life on the internet thinking it has value" because I sort of knew it had some value.
Taimur
Okay, interesting. So now, you're sort of you still got the medical brand thing, but you're also doing other things like tech reviews, and just random lifestyle stuff. If you didn't have the Cambridge medical student excuse, basically, I've asked you like, yeah, how ballsy do you think you would have been like, would you have done this with absolutely no, like, plausible excuse of like, I'm doing this to like, provide value in this particular way. If it was purely like a personality thing, my name is Ali. I think, you know, I think my life itself is just valuable and I want to share it with the world.
Ali
I don't think I would have done that. But and I also wouldn't advise other people to do that. What I would have done is made videos about the BMAT and about interviews. So deliberately educational videos where I'm sitting in front of a camera and talking about topics that I'm very, very, very familiar with, and just being able to share them with a more so a wider audience, rather than people who just signed up to my classroom courses. I would have done that, and then from then, once I had some traction, the idea was, I would have then felt okay about vlogging about my life. Because this is, I think, the main strategy that new YouTubers should follow. You create educational content, and then people are going to start caring about what you're doing when you brush your teeth. Whereas just writing a blog on its own is completely pointless. I don't think would would have had value to even one person, unless you can make it entertaining. Or you can make it inspiring, which I don't think I would have been able to do at the start.
Taimur
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Ali
I want to come back to your point about how having some level of success lends legitimacy to your your thing. You know, how you said at the start, people who knew me would have been like, "oh, what the hell is this guy doing?" And then now people "Oh, that's really cool. When can I be in your video?"
Taimur
Yeah, exactly.
Ali
And it was in the first few weeks of final year, when I was going all in on this vlogging thing, and I bought the Sony A6500 with a microphone input. And I was literally carrying this vlogging rig to lectures. And that was kind of post elective. The first time when my year group were seeing this camera coming out. And by that time, a few of them knew like actually quite, I think quite a lot of people knew at least the ones who you know, had my Facebook feed come up that I was doing this thing on electric and it was okay, cool, whatever. But that was quite a few, quite a lot of negative comments around there. were like, "Oh, Ali, just put the camera away, Ali, what are you doing?" I think it was more from the people that I knew well enough. But I wasn't like super, super close to who felt that, you know, that plausibly could have been (unclear). A random stranger, wouldn't really said that because that's just rude. And my closest friends wouldn't really said that, because, you know, they know I don't care. But the people in the periphery in the middle zone would be quite negative about it. "Oh, Ali, have you got consent from everyone in this lecture theater?" You know, stuff like that. You know, the classic, the classic comments.
Taimur
Do you think the strangers would have been thinking it or not?
Ali
Probably? I hesitate to say yes. Because obviously, we all think that people think about us a lot more than they actually do, like, I doubt people would have cared. But like, you know, in undergrad, you know, we had a girl who would walk into our lectures late with like the Cambridge Uni lacrosse stash with her lacrosse stick on the thing and I'll be thiking that's kind of cool. But I imagine that would have been a few because everyone it would have caught everyone's attention. And I imagine that would have been at least some people think, "wow, what a twat for carrying your lacrosse stick and coming to lectures late." I imagine some people would have thought that rather than just oh, that's kind of cool. So I think there was some segment of the population that would have disliked me for doing so. And actually on a recent episode of The Stalman podcast, which is like a niche tech camera, videography podcast, he was talking about vlogging in airports. And the way he became okay with it was by just accepting that some people are gonna dislike you for doing it. And that's fine. And as soon as you become okay with the idea that some people will dislike you, then it just becomes so much easier, and I think that's what happened with me at the start of final year, when I started vlogging and sort of in public to people in my year who knew me. I was okay with these handful of people being like, "what the hell is he doing?" because I knew that what I was doing was actually pretty legit.
Taimur
Yeah, no, that makes sense. So like, the vlogging in lectures was the, I mean, you said you didn't want to post stuff on Facebook, because you're worried about what people think, is that accurate?
Ali
Probably, I don't know. I think by this point in my life, I'd stopped really caring what other people thought. I was quite happy, I was quite okay with being with yeah, with being weird. And I was completely okay with being foolish. And as had been for the last several years of my life, so it wasn't that it was more like, you know, I don't want this to be like an annoyance to people. I don't want to post every on Facebook every time I do a new vlog. I want to have like, you know, a library content, and I sort of knew that if I post you know, after 20 videos on Facebook, that will increase my subscribers a little bit more, then if I uploaded my first episode. But this is getting really deep into the, into the trenches. I kinda wanna explore why do you think this is such a struggle for people? Yeah.
Taimur
Yeah, why is society this way? I actually I'm sure it's very much a cultural thing. So for example, I think like in the UK, there was very much a culture of anti self promotion. And if, yeah, I think in general, the things that are valued are being like understated, and sort of, yeah, more like reserved and not putting yourself out there. And it's all yeah, it's always looked down upon to make a big deal out of anything, actually.
Ali
Yeah, very true yeah, the British humility, and all of that stuff.
Taimur
I think it's uptightness. I think humility makes it sound like a positive thing. I think it's actually uptightness in large part.
Ali
Yeah. I probably agree with that. But then for example, if someone sees Stephen Fry on a TV show, they're not thinking, "what a pompous twit."
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
At least not in that domain. However, if someone sees, someone that, I think the key thing is when it's someone you know, and when you know that this is a new thing that they're doing, it encourages you to think, "what the hell is going on?"
Taimur
Yeah. And that's such a bad reaction because like, yeah, actually, if, if any, if you see someone, you know, changing in any like, perceptible way, you'll everyone's very suspicious of it's like, "that's not him, what's he trying to do?" And I think people kind of look at each other, each other being like their friends and their sort of acquaintances and stuff, as having these like fixed identities. And if someone is trying to break out of their fixed identity in any way, yeah, people are suspicious. And they see it in a negative way, rather than being like, "Oh, you know, he's trying to, like, expand himself in this area, or like, improve himself in this way."
Ali
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is why so many people reinvent themselves when they start a new chapter, you know, like moving school to in order to escape something, or when they go to university, they're like, you know what, now I'm going to be that confident guy. Because you can't really make that kind of transformation in school around people who already know you.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
It's just not a thing.
Taimur
Yeah, maybe it's the school thing. I feel like, okay, imagine the same scenario in like, the adult world like you have, I know you're working in the hospital or something. And people kind of, let's say, you're kind of like you're in school, people think, you're a nerd kind of an introvert. And then you decide to like, stop playing guitar open mics or something. I think you'd be less reserved about that. Right? Because everyone's an adult, and everyone's kind of mature about it.
Ali
Yeah, I agree. I think as an adult, people are more supportive of weirdness, and more actively accepting of it. Whereas the sort of environment in school was very much, you know? What's that, that song in High School Musical? Have you ever seen a High School Musical 1?
Taimur
Long time ago.
Ali
Where it's like, Zac Efron wants to break out and do singing, And they're like..
No, no, no, it's not we're breaking free, it's like, everyone in the
Taimur
We're breaking free? basketball team is telling him to like stay the course and just be a jock, and then, you know, they're in the school cafe and there's one girl is like, "but I like sowing and then her maths note table is like, "No, you must do maths." and the whole song is about kind of like, keep stick to the status quo.
Yeah..
Ali
[Ali singing]
Taimur
Yeah, that's genius.
Ali
That's like, super like..
Taimur
That's a really good movie. Yeah, I think that's spot on. Yeah, I feel like a lot of it is school baggage that everyone's still dealing with. Yeah, I think school baggage in general is a really interesting thing, I think, to some extent, for the rest of everyone's lives. A lot of the things we do because we're trying to grapple with school baggage.
Ali
But I think that'll be its own separate podcast in some point. On the note of school baggage, I've had a few messages from people who are in their final years of school, saying, "hey, I've been thinking of starting a blog about, you know, law because I want to do law or about medicine or whatever. But I'm really worried about what my classmates will think firstly, and secondly, I'm not sure what to name it, because I don't want to use my name on the internet." So what are your thoughts on the "I'm worried about what my classmates would will think if I start a blog about medicine."
Taimur
Okay, so I think there's a real mismatch between what your classmates will actually think and what you think they'll think here. So for example, one thing I've noticed is that, I think, Okay, I think, at least like at our age and stuff, and certainly, with the kind of people I know, I think people do compare themselves to one another a lot. And so for example, I was catching up with a friend, this is, I guess, like a techie kind of friend interested in startups and things. And he'd heard that one of our other like, techie friends, you know, was trying to, like, start something and got like, some interview for Y Combinator this thing, he'd heard about this. And his reaction was like, an immediate reaction of comparison, his reaction was immediately "Oh, wow, at least someone's doing something with their lives" you know, so he sort of sees himself as just doing the normal thing, having like a, you know, a good job and stuff. But he's not like doing a startup or whatever. And so his immediate reaction was to compare this other person to him. And I think if we see, if people see others in their peer group, doing something like starting a blog, or starting a YouTube channel, there might be a little bit of like, "oh, who does this person think they are?" But I think there's also a lot of like, "oh, man, this person is doing something. What am I doing?" "Where is my blog?"
Ali
"Scrolling Instagram in my spare time."
Taimur
Yeah, so I think often in our heads, it seems like the reaction is almost all of what who does this person think they are? But I think to a large extent, their reaction is also like, Oh, damn, other people are doing stuff, like what am I doing?
Ali
So one question that I like, if I'm having a face to face conversation with someone about this, and they're expressing something like, "Oh, I'm worried about what my classmates are going to think about anything." The question I always ask is, okay, imagine if one of your classmates were starting their blog, how would you feel about it? And the response is, "oh, I mean, it's cool, I don't really care." Good. So why do you think everyone else is thinking differently about you? Like why are you thinking so like lowly of everyone else that you think they're not going to have your exact views right now?
Taimur
Yeah, that's spot on actually. Well, okay, it depends. I think I'm all about being charitable. If there's anything about my brands these days, it's that I think you know, being charitable about other people's intentions is good. In school people are mean man, kid like kids are mean. I can vary like, our school okay, so we went to like a boys grammar school. It was like a good school by all standards. But people were still mean like, if someone. Yeah, if someone was trying to put themselves out there, I imagine other people would actually think that of them.
Ali
I don't know, I really can't think of any examples. Like, the classic example I can think of is our friend [unclear], who is an absolute incredible singer. And he would occasionally kind of burst into song when he's doing assemblies because he was just confident and okay with being okay with being a bit weird. And our whole year like massively encouraged it, I think, almost to the level of bullying where they've kind [unclear]
Taimur
What age was this, though?
Ali
This was sort of..
Taimur
Six form.
Ali
This was GCC in sixth form, yeah.
Taimur
Okay, that's not too bad, yeah.
Ali
I think earlier on, maybe people would have been like, I suppose in the lower school year 7 to 10. Being clever was looked down upon and I think around about he attended that kind of switched.
Taimur
Yeah, I think that there was a real turning point in like maturity from everyone around sort of GCSE time. And everyone sort of became more sort of on each other's sides rather than, you know, warring factions and that kind of thing. But I think school definitely plays a part in it.
Ali
How do we go into this? Oh, people worried about what the their classmates are going to think, that was point one. Point number two is fear of using a full name online.
Taimur
Okay. Okay. So I guess I think this one depends on like the online subcultures that you frequent, so like in tech, for example, it's very normal and very encouraged, and definitely a good thing to, for example, be active on Twitter or have like a personal website, personal website with your name on it, and a bunch of things you did. So that if someone comes across you online, they can immediately see "Oh, what's this person like? What have they been up to?" So in tect atleast it is very acceptable, what's it like in med
Ali
In medicine? It's different. So I've spoken to a few people about this, because I was curious, I think it's good to be active on Twitter. A lot of research and stuff is shared on Twitter, a lot of the conversations between different specialties, you know, you follow people on Twitter, and you get to meet people across the world, blah, blah, blah, all this sort of stuff. Having a personal website, though, I think is still looked down upon. It's the the impression I get is that it's more the realm of people putting themselves out there for private practice, and, "ah, okay, he's doing private practice, I see." in a way selling out. Partly, I think that comes from jealousy from from everyone else ever, like, "oh, wow, he's got his private practice." Partly, I think within medicine, there is still this culture of you should stick to the status quo. And sort of putting yourself out there. You know, unless it's already in line with what everyone believes is completely is a bit more unacceptable. I don't know how this actually translates in real life, because these conversations will be happening amongst consultants and people who would have a personal website, you don't get many juniors having their own personal website, because, you know, most people in medicine don't do stuff outside of medicine. Once their career starts to take hold of them. Yeah, it's not quite as welcoming as tech for having a personal brand.
Taimur
Is it a generational thing? Because like, I'm guessing the gatekeepers in medicine are middle aged dudes, probably actually, the gender balance, maybe a bit more balanced in the middle aged people in general. Whereas in tech, maybe it's a bit younger and like personal websites and stuff or very techie, but like, thinking about people who are maybe 12 or 13 years old now, where like the def in Instagram, the definitely like, TikTok, I don't know, that one stuff I don't know about, but like they are very much. Yeah, exactly. They're very much like grown up with this stuff. They've pretty much grown up putting themselves out there in some way, shape, or form. I don't think it'd be weird for them to do it.
Ali
I don't know, I think someone even someone who has grown up with this sort of stuff would still find it weird to make their first name last name .com and start writing on a website. It's very different to do it on Instagram, where you've got your handle, and you've got your fake account and you've got what's called like finstagram?
Taimur
Finstagram, yeah.
Ali
Yeah. I think that's very different to you know, starting a blog where are you putting up I don't know, is blogging still a thing?
Taimur
I don't know if the kids are blogging. A lot of people in tech are like heralding the comeback of the personal blog and one saying like, "yeah, 2019 is gonna be the year of the personal blog,"
Ali
I though blog with the B.
Taimur
Yeah, exactly to all you under fifteen. (laughs)
Ali
How do we get onto this? Yes. first name last name .com having a personal brand putting yourself out there. I think a lot of the fear of that also comes from the sort of socialization from parents, like for example, if I told our mom that I was going to make my aliabdaal.com, a few years ago before like it was more acceptable. it would have been like a that's unsafe, is it safe to put yourself on the internet?
Yeah.
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a bit of that. But I think we're
I saw like this kid, trying to learn how to skateboard, there was definitely past that, that like, even like, parents whose kids are young nowadays. I don't know if they care about it. But the question is still there of like, why does, why have we ended up this way as a society where people are a few kids standing around, this kid was trying to learn how to skateboard, and like, scared to do it? Actually, today, when we're walking around that random French town. What was it Aungier or something? I watched him. And like he, he only started very recently, I think. But he was still doing it, and I think skateboarding is super interesting, and that actually got me thinking because at various points in my sort of teenage years, I was still skateboarding was cool. And like, I know we had a skateboard, we got like skateboarders are present, so we had a couple of skateboards laying around. And inevitably, like every summer, I would think, "oh, man, okay, this is the summer that I'm gonna like, learn skateboarding." And I'd go outside, like into our cul-de-sac, you know, where we didn't really know anyone, we kind of knew the neighbors and stuff. And there were people around, they could have seen it. And I'd feel like super self conscious about like,
Ali
Trying an Ollie.
Taimur
Yeah, trying to learn how to do an Ollie, which is like the most basic skateboard trick, it's when you basically sort of jump in the air with a skateboard sort of attached your feet. I'd be like super self conscious about trying to do this thing. And on multiple occasions, I'd go outside, do it for about five minutes, and then just go back inside because I was here first. And always certainly, no one was watching. I guarantee no one was watching this.
Ali
Yeah. And if they're watching, they want would be like, "Oh, it's a cute little 11 year old" Whereas at the time you were thinking, "Oh, my God, this is such a big deal."
Taimur
Yeah, this is ridiculous, "how can I do this?" And so when I saw this guy skateboarding, I thought, "Man, that's really profound, good on this guy." That's I know that's no easy to do multiple times I've tried to do that and decided not to do it.
Ali
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's start wrapping this up. So our question, in a way was, why is it so hard? Why do people find it hard to put themselves out there? Why do we find it hard to put ourselves out there? And I suppose the answers are because we're worried about what other people are going to think, we're worried about what we have to say doesn't haven't actually had any value. And, you know, a lot of this school baggage of, you know, people are gonna judge me for doing this. And then in terms of solutions, so the reason I became okay with it was because of this thing about being adding value, but also, you know, being completely okay with being thought foolish. Like, now, I would be more happy than before to get with a camera and vlog in public, even though the fear is still there. I think that's probably the most scared I would be putting myself out there. But like, you're actually vlogging in public, I don't know if you've got any equivalent..
Taimur
Vlogging in public? I definitely feel embarrassed. vlogging in public.
Ali
Yeah.
Taimur
I don't think I do anything like that. By I think, you know I think a solid reason is also because, I think we're socialized to sort of view people in their view other human beings as like having value dependent on the things they do or the things they can do. And I think like, if you have this sort of comparison view of people, then if you think, yeah, if you see the guy playing piano at St. Pancras, and you think he's showing off, that's because you'd like to see the world in a slightly warped way, where people's value is according to these things. I think that's actually a lot, I said, that's maybe like half of it. And then the other half is like, caring what people think or actually, I guess the caring what people think, comes from believing everyone has that sort of worldview, you know? It all comes from that worldview,
Ali
that worldview that, hang on, I don't understand how you get from playing piano to people's value is dependent on what they're able to do.
Taimur
Okay okay. So for example, let's say, okay, let's say singing, because I think that's a bit more personal. If someone is like singing somewhere, let's say singing in the streets, you know, no one's asked him to do this. Let's say they're not even busking, they don't need the money, they just singing in the streets. Now, I think there's two things you could think, there's one thing you can think is, you know, this is, this is my fellow man, woman, you know, this is my fellow human being, sharing a part of themselves with the rest of society. And this is like, you know, this is nice, they are showing a part of themselves that they're being part of this general thing that we're doing.
Ali
The human condition.
Taimur
the human condition, part of the human condition. There's some creativity in there too, maybe there's some happiness.
Ali
Very good.
Taimur
The other thing you could think is like, yeah, the much more negative kind of thing of like, this person thinks they're good at singing. This person thinks that other people care about how good they are singing. And yeah, ascribing some kind of negative intentions, like this person wants to show off and like increases value in other people's eyes. You know, and I think like, people think, in general, that everyone has the second point of view, and there's no, do you get what I'm saying? Is that making sense?
Ali
I get what you're saying so we think that other people have more of a point of view where they feel like we would be showing off. Whereas we would see someone singing and think, "Oh, that's cool."
Taimur
Oh, no, I think a lot of people would see it as some kind of showing off thing.
Ali
Okay.
Taimur
And so they think the person is trying to show off, and then they're like, actually, I don't know. It depends who the person is, it depends whether you know the person. That's like the crucial thing. If you don't know the person and they sing in the street, you're like, "cool" if you know the person..
Ali
And they sing on the street..
Taimur
I think a lot of people would think their trying to show off.
Ali
Yeah, I think you're still dealing with a lot of school baggage here. (laughter) So for example, I've been busking in Cambridge, and I had people who I know come past me and kind of be like, think, oh, that's amazing, incredible, a few messaged me on facebook afterwards being like hey I saw you singing, didn't want to interrupt you but it's really awesome that you're doing that. I think by the time you get to university level, that's less of a thing. But then again, it depends on the people because essentially, that's equivalent to vlogging in lectures and people being unhappy about that. I don't know.
Taimur
Do you get what I'm trying to get out with the worldview thing, though. That like if your mind if the thought even crosses your mind that this person is trying to show off? Like why does that happen? There's no reason that should happen. Why does it you know, why do we have a bias towards that?
Ali
Oh, and you're saying that. And you're saying that ergo people's view is that the value of another human being is based on what they can do? And therefore someone is trying to inflate their own value by showing off.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
Okay.
Taimur
Is that far fetched?
Ali
I'm not still not quite convinced of how this logic works. But we can visit it another time, I think.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
Yeah.
Taimur
I'll have to think about that.
Ali
Yeah, have a think about. We'll talk about it at some other point. So yeah, that's this second episode wrapped up. We have talked a little bit about why it's hard to put yourselves out there. The two of us are not putting ourselves out there with this podcast. This is more new for you than it is for me. And I don't think I have any qualms about it.
Taimur
I don't really care at this point. I think I've just like internalized the whole it doesn't matter thing too much now, I didn't really care.
Ali
Yeah. And even if people don't like it, it's fine. And to be honest, I don't think anyone's gonna be like, "Oh, these guys are starting a podcast, what a bunch of twits." I honestly don't think..
Taimur
I don't think anyone would actually do it.
Ali
Yeah. So I feel like a lot of the fear of this comes from, you know, maybe not having experience of it. And when once you have a bit of experience of putting yourself out there, you've realized actually no one's thinking about you. No one cares. You know, ascribing good intentions to humanity as it were.
Taimur
Cool. All right.
Ali
Let's leave it there.
Taimur
Have a good week.
Ali
Have a good week, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Taimur
Alright, that's it. Thanks a lot for listening. We hope you enjoyed the show.
Ali
And please, if you enjoyed the show, please, could you leave a comment rating review wherever you happen to get your podcasts, I think Apple podcasts, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever. It really, really helps, especially with a brand new podcast, the more ratings and reviews it gets within the first however many days of its launch, the better the podcast does overall. Oh, yeah, I would really, really appreciate it. If you could please leave a rating. Have a great week, and we'll see you in the next episode. Okay, how do we think that one?
Taimur
I don't know.,I feel like I had a profound point that wasn't coming across.
Ali
I feel, yeah, I really didn't understand how you went from your yeah, how you arrived at this thing of, "I think the deeply problematic version of this is that we ascribe value to human beings based on what they can bring to the table."
Taimur
Okay, so the thing. The reason people care about what other people that people are worried about what other people will think, is because other people, they think other people will think they're showing off, right?
Ali
They think other people will think they're showing off? Yes, 100%
Taimur
People don't want to come across as showing off.
Ali
Yeah, people don't want to be a show off.
Taimur
And the only reason they think other people would think that showing off is if they have this problematic worldview, where value comes from ability, and achievements and all this kind of stuff. And then they see this act of putting yourself out there as an act of showcasing your achievements or abilities, i.e. value, as an act showcasing your value, rather than like sharing yourself with society.
Ali
Okay. So when I am busking in public, the reason I'm doing it is because I want to showcase my value to that segment of the population that "hey, I'm good at singing."
Taimur
I mean, I hope not. But if you were worried that people would think you're a show off. Yeah. It would be because probably because you hold a problematic worldview that people even think in that way
Ali
Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, no, that makes perfect sense. So like when I'm busking now I have a like, it doesn't even cross my mind that people are gonna think I'm a show off. Because I guess, in a way, my worldview is not that people's human beings, although I feel like your ultimate thing is close to my worldview. But I just don't worry about it as a thing. I think this all ultimately comes down to the fear of being foolish. As in, for example, if someone is is good at singing, they would be happy to sing in the school talent show.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
If someone is not good at singing, or things are not good at singing, and we find less happy to sing in the school talent show.
Taimur
Okay, yeah, I agree with that. But the thing is, for example, if someone is, a talent shows, like an excuse, you know? If someone is singing, and just putting the videos of themselves singing on YouTube or something like that, I do think people, I do think a large portion of population would think if they knew the person, they think, why are they doing this? And like, if you ask the person, why are you doing this? It's hard to articulate. I think if they haven't been, I mean, it's, if they're not familiar with the language, we've been speaking right now. They wouldn't think to say something like, "Oh, you know, maybe someone of the world will find it valuable, and that's all I care about."
Ali
Yeah, that's quite I think that's a profound insight that you wouldn't get to from first principles, unless you really, really, really thought about it.
Taimur
Yeah. I think like people would feel the urge, like, Ah, yeah, you know, I like singing. I feel like I'm okay at singing. I want to put myself out there. But if you ask them, I don't know if they'd be able to articulate a valid reason why that's an okay thing for them to do.
Ali
Yeah, "oh I just kind of like doing it." And the problem is like, I've often tried having this conversation with people who I don't know very well. And it's hard to get people to engage with this level of overthinking this particular thing. Like, "oh, you know, I'll just, you know, probably wanting to do it equally." When I've got friends who do not want to be on camera. I'm like, okay, that's interesting. That's it for a while, I don't wanna be on camera, they, you know, they're not comfortable with even going down that road. I think they realize that it's problematic, and that it's them. Having the fear of looking foolish, I think this is a thing in the back of their minds that they don't want to engage with that.
Taimur
Yeah, yeah, I had this like, a couple of months ago, I was with some friends in Mexico, I had a great idea for a viral video challenge that was gonna take the internet by storm. And my friend didn't want to be in the video, he said he was happy to film, he didn't want to be in it, like four of us had an hour long discussion about this in the pool. And yeah, the guy just refuse to engage pretty much, completely shut off.
Ali
Interesting. So this sort of happens with my housemate who, you know, where she would be okay with being in certain types of videos. But again, I, there's a very strong component of, sort of, of curating the image. For example, "Ali, you're not posting videos of me that haven't got me with makeup on." Or you're allowed to post any videos that showcase the fact that have some kind of disability, you know, things like that. Whereas when I think she's more open to engaging on this topic, and I've kind of slowly kind of the war of attrition over time to realize that actually, you're quite an inspiring individual you're doing medicine despite against all the odds, bla bla bla. You can provide a lot more value to the world by being more by being more public, yeah. But she still has a this like huge, this is why we need like a third party. Because you and I can go back and forth about this all day.
Taimur
Yeah.
Ali
Yeah. I'll get her thought in the next year.
Taimur
Yeah, that'd be good.