Ali Abdaal 0:00
Hey Friends and welcome back to deep dive. My name is Ali and in each episode I speak to entrepreneurs, authors, creators and other inspiring people about how they got to where they are and the strategies and tools that can help us along our show journey of living healthier, happier, more productive lives. My guest this week is Dr. Rupi odler, an NHS medical doctor, entrepreneur and podcaster, whose life changed when he suffered a serious heart condition at the age of 23. While working busy shifts as a hospital doctor, but with the power of nutritional changes and lifestyle, he was actually able to reverse his condition and because he was then keen to share the medicinal effects of eating well and living well rupee started an Instagram page called the doctors kitchen, which soon gained a tonne of popularity and evolved into a podcast into a website into a blog and app multiple best selling books, multiple TV appearances, the whole shebang in the conversation me and repeat talk about a lot of different things, including his early days working as a doctor and how he realised this thing around like how food is actually the ultimate form of medicine. Arguably, we talk about stuff like burnout and how to avoid it when you're working busy shifts and also trying to do stuff on the side we talk about rupees transition from Doctor through to entrepreneur what it's like being a celebrity, and we spend a bunch of time talking about food and how we can optimise our diet and our lifestyles for health and longevity. I absolutely love the conversation and we also did a second half of the conversation where repeat interviews me on his own podcasts that that will be linked down below in the show notes and in the video description if you want to check out his podcast so yeah, I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and Dr. rupee from the doctors kitchen. Alright rupee, thank you so much for coming on. Welcome to the show.
Rupy Aujla 1:23
My pleasure. My pleasure, man.
Ali Abdaal 1:24
So I mean, a question that I found myself starting a lot of these conversations with is like this, like, you know, you're, you're a GP, you're written a bunch of best selling cookbooks, you've got your face all over them. You've been interviewed on TV, you're kind of like a celebrity in the world of Doctor cooking kind of intersection. How the hell do we get here?
Rupy Aujla 1:43
It's weird, isn't it? That word celebrity that comes up? Some of my parents friends came around a couple of months ago, and they were like, you're a celebrity as I don't see myself like that at all. And it kind of conjured the question as to what is celebrity? And what is what's the new celebrity because I look at you and I think you're you're a celebrity,
Ali Abdaal 2:05
oh, I think of you as more of a celebrity because you're like on traditional media, traditional media books, and you have your face on books.
Rupy Aujla 2:11
Traditional media is dying, a very slow death, I think anyway, I don't think it's gonna be like radio, I think we're all going to be transitioning to things like YouTube and other paid sort of streams as well, especially now that YouTube has got a premium feature, which I think is great. Game Changer production.
Ali Abdaal 2:28
I don't have to sit through that. For someone else watching YouTube, like, why are you sitting through ads? Pay the ten dollars? But um, yes. How did we get here?
Rupy Aujla 2:40
Yeah, so by no fault of my own, it was never the intention to do traditional media was never my intention to write a book or anything, it just kind of all came at me. Rather than me being intentional and manifesting it myself, you know, I never wrote down, I want x y z to happen in the next three, four or five years, I literally came out this whole thing by trying to solve a problem that I had as a general practitioner, myself, and that was based on my own personal health story. But it was really trying to get my patients interested in healthy eating, and actually showing them how they can cook healthy meals at home themselves. And I thought, the easiest way to scale that is to start a social media account, start a YouTube account, where I put some recipes up there, and just instead of me writing down recipes for them, or scrambling at the end of my clinic to do that, and, you know, having clinics that are running late and running late, I just thought I'd just do that. And that was really the idea behind the doctor's kitchen. And when I started back in 2015, it was very rare for a doctor to get on and talk about nutritional medicine and the health benefits of food and talk about nutrition in general, because as you know, we're not really taught that
Ali Abdaal 3:58
medical school, you know, two lectures on it in first year, and nothing ever since.
Rupy Aujla 4:02
Exactly. And unfortunately, painful. It's very similar right now as well. But we're trying to change that. And within like six months, I think I got approached by an agent only had about three or 4000 followers on Instagram at that point. And then six months after that I had a book deal. Oh, well, and that's how quickly it occurred. It was it was a very strange period of my life. And it, it happened very, very fast. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 4:31
So I've got so many questions about that. Like, I want to put a bit of a bookmark there. And let's rewind back to for example, like school into medical school. Yeah. What were you like in school in medical school? And sort of looking back, are there any dots that you could connect to be like, oh, yeah, it was inevitable that I become a food celebrity. Or was it completely out of the blue? Yeah,
Rupy Aujla 4:53
yeah. So, so school wise, I grew up in East London. I was born in Barking. We move quite early to Essex, and that's why I had like most of my secondary education in Chigwell. So we moved to Redbridge and then we moved to Chigwell.
Ali Abdaal 5:07
No way, which school did you go to?
Rupy Aujla 5:09
I went to Bancroft,
Ali Abdaal 5:09
No way. Yeah, I've got a friend who went there. I taught a BMAT course there. And I went to West cliff because we live in Essex as well. Yeah. So we basically kind of grew up around the same area
Unknown Speaker 5:21
Yeah. So as you know, it's a I mean, how old are you, 27? Yeah, so I'm 36. So 10 years apart, it was, it was a bit different. There weren't as many Asians around now, I think it's a very brown area. But back then it was it was fairly sort of standard Caucasian English area. But I loved it. I thought it was great. You know, school was a real defining point. I think, for me, growing as a person, like I wasn't a very confident person during secondary school. It was into the latter years of the GCSE when I made the decision to go into medicine, that I grew in confidence a bit.
Rupy Aujla 5:26
How did you grow in confidence?
Unknown Speaker 5:34
I think it's because I kind of got some direction as to where I wanted to go up and to the point of age 15/16, I was just trying to get A's for the sake of getting A's.
Ali Abdaal 6:15
Yeah, that'll help at some point further down the line.
Rupy Aujla 6:17
Exactly. And I was it was ingrained in me from both my parents to like, you know, just do well at school and figure it out. And actually, my parents never wanted me to do medicine that she tried to dissuade me from doing it, which is very unusual for Asian parents. Both my parents are Punjabi, my dad spent most of his his life in Punjab. And my mum was grew up in England as well, in East London. So yeah, it was it was a bit unusual for them to dissuade me, but they had doctor friends themselves. And they were like, it's very hard. For long hours, you didn't get paid as much go start a business or do something in that sort of sphere.
Ali Abdaal 6:52
Quite a Punjabi way. From, from what I hear.
Rupy Aujla 6:55
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that entrepreneurial streak, for sure. So when I decided to go into medicine that was like, I have a direction in my life. And that's sort of like, got me through those formative years. Because I think up until that point, I didn't really have an idea of what I wanted to do. And I think having some direction is really important. Like that sense of purpose.
Ali Abdaal 7:18
Yeah. How did you figure out that you want us to do medicine?
Rupy Aujla 7:20
So it was actually my mum who got ill when I was 11, or 12. So she started suffering from random attacks of anaphylaxis, which, I mean, your audience knows, you know, worst form of allergy, throat closes, lose your blood pressure, etc, etc. So, when I was 11, she took me into the living room. And she gave me an EpiPen. And she said, I need you to take the lid off. And I need you to inject me with this EpiPen in my thigh right now. And I remember taking this EpiPen, I was like, Oh, my God, like, Alright, fine, I did it. And I pushed it, and you get the little clique, and the needle goes through and whatever. And that was a dummy epi pen. So my mom was actually giving me a task to do because she was like, if this ever happens, you know what to do in that scenario, you go into mommy's bag, you grab the EpiPen, and you inject the only if there's no one else around. And so that sort of memory was sort of in my head. And around 15/16, I went to do some work experience with some medic friends of ours. And that that's when I sort of connected the dots. And I was like, okay, that experience 11/12 years got me interested in science and medicine, and, you know, looking after people and that experience within work experience age 15/16. And that's sort of what gave me direction. That's what I want to do. That's where I'm heading. Yeah, yeah.
Ali Abdaal 8:46
Nice. So you then kind of have, it sounds like having having that direction of like, okay, I'm going to go for this medical school thing. Yeah. You said it kind of made you more confident, how did that happen?
Unknown Speaker 8:54
I think, having a direction as to where you want to go what you want to be, definitely gave me a lot more confidence, like I could see, I could crystallise that vision of what I will look like after I leave medicine. And what I saw when I did work experience was a friend of ours, who was a GP, he just had this lovely warm rapport with all of his patients. I was sat there you know, in the corner, typical sort of work experience kid not really saying much and stuff. And he was there like hugging his patients, and they're all like big smiles and stuff. And he was a Punjabi guy with a big turban and like a real big personality as well. And that, like, I wanted to be that guy. At that point in my life. Anyway, I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to, you know, instil that sort of love and connection with people. And that's, that's what gave me confidence as to why I was doing what I was doing, why I was studying medicine and working long hours and trying to go for the A's and A stars and all the rest of it. That's what gave me a lot more confidence and then, you know, speaking to other medics and going through the whole interview process, that as you know, they wanted you to be a well rounded individual they wanted you to be this you know, person that wasn't just someone who was a bookworm, but someone who actually did you know, Duke of Edinburgh and all these extracurricular activities and that kind of gave me a lot more confidence, something that I didn't really have before. I think I just grew as a person as well, you know, teenage years are a bit strange. And you didn't really have as an Asian kid, surrounded by a lot of kids that weren't didn't look like me, I kind of felt a bit lost. You know, I didn't speak Punjabi. I still don't speak Hindi. I spoke English, but then I wasn't like my English friends. And then I started listening to like Nitin Sawhney and Telvin saying, I was like, Okay, this is kind of who I am. I'm sort of lost in two generations, and I don't really have that. And so that was kind of what gave me a bit more confidence going forward that I felt a bit of connection. It was a I don't know if you're old enough to remember like, Jay Sean, when he came out with his music. Yeah. So it was around the same time. I was like, Asians can be cool. Yeah, you know, they can be like r&b singers, they can do all these other things. So that was yeah, that was kind of inspiring at that time as well. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 11:04
Like how much of the kind of desire to do medicine was part of the Asians can be cool thing do you reckon?
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Unknown Speaker 12:29
I think it was pretty genuine actually, because I didn't have that parental pressure, like you must do medicine or you must do Laura or this kind of stuff. For me, it came pretty intuitively that that was what I wanted to do. So I didn't really get that. I didn't get that push, like a like a lot of other Asian kids might have had. And so yeah, for me, at least it was like, this is what I really want to do. So it was quite comfortable going into medicine.
Ali Abdaal 12:55
Okay. And then so you got into med school, what was that like over that five, six year period?
Unknown Speaker 12:59
That was party. Great. I loved it. Because, you know, even though my parents were pretty relaxed and stuff, I don't think they were particularly stereotypically strict. Going and living in London, I went to Imperial College, lived on campus, met whole bunch of new friends, you know, going out middle of the week and stuff turning up late for lectures, learning all this really cool stuff getting involved in university. That was amazing. That was great. And I look at those years. And I just think that those really want me and I've got like some of my closest friends were still people that I met my first year of university, and they're still like, the tightest friends that I have. So that was a great experience. And it's sort of ingrained in everything.
Ali Abdaal 13:42
So, like, when I went when people asked about asked me about my university years, you know, I was doing the sort of entrepreneurial content thing from fairly early on. Yeah. It sounds like you had a more kind of normal university. Like, you weren't actively weird.
Unknown Speaker 13:58
No, I wouldn't go as far as to say you're weird. I would say that you were like, probably ahead of the game. But I don't think I had that entrepreneurial streak. In me from early on, I never really was like chasing the hustle. I was having deep meaningful conversations with my mates, I'd like to in the morning, I was being exposed to a different side of culture, like I never used to go like clubbing or anything like that. During my teens, like a lot of my other friends were doing, I was at home hitting the books. And so really, I had that freedom to explore what it was like being an independent individual living in London. And that's I really appreciate that because I think if I dove straight into, you know, working as hard outside of the lectures, as I was, you know, in lectures, then I probably wouldn't have enjoyed that experience as much and I would have felt like I would have lost out on something personally, you know, that was my, that would be my my intuition, but who knows?
Ali Abdaal 14:55
Hmm. Yeah, I think that's an experience that a few people I know have had who did really well and spent a lot of time working where they feel at the end of it like, what was the point? Almost? Yeah. Like, you're still in the same foundational hospital as everyone else. And everyone else seems to have had these like, you know, genuinely interesting experiences at university. Whereas if you're kind of continuing to hit the books, because that's a game you were playing in school. Yeah, then, you know, it can be unsatisfying for some people, obviously, not for everyone. Some people frickin love it, and that's fine. People living the best life.
Unknown Speaker 15:29
Yeah, yeah. I think I was always in that sort of like, bottom or second bottom quartile medicine throw out and like, that didn't faze me as much as it would have other people. I mean, I went to Imperial, and I'm sure the similar experience of the you're dealing with a lot of alpha type people who are just there to win. And I didn't have that drive medicine. I knew I just wanted to be a really good doctor. And if you think about my aspirations, going into medicine, it was inspired by a general practitioner, who, you know, isn't that sort of stereotypical alpha person, a surgeon, a neurosurgeon, or someone who you're trying to a tertiary hospital. It's, yeah, it was it was a very much relaxed opinion I had about medicine. And even so midway through medicine, I, my intercalated BSC was in management. So I think I must have had, I really thought about this too much. But I must have had some Inklings towards entrepreneurship at some point during medical school, because doing management, where we learn about marketing, accounting, all the different elements that make up our NHS health system that I really appreciated, because it gave me a much clearer understanding about the healthcare system that we work in, and how that compares to others. That was really pivotal for me. And that's when I started thinking about things outside medicine, but I didn't have the confidence to execute
Ali Abdaal 16:55
What do you mean you didn't have the confidence?
Unknown Speaker 16:57
So I didn't start a side hustle. I didn't start a you know, secondary company on the side. I didn't get into making my own website. I didn't, I might have had ideas. But I didn't have the confidence to go and chase them. Because I read I read the we're talking about a four hour, four hour workweek. So I read The Four Hour Workweek at the same time. And you know, armed with that knowledge, some people go into it straightaway, right? So someone like yourself, you read that book, you're inspired, boom, you execute on it. Me. I was inspired, but I was like me, not for me. Maybe I'll do this at some point in the future. Excuse. Excuse. Excuse. And so at that point in my life, I didn't have the drive to do that. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 17:42
Do you regret anything about your time in med school?
Unknown Speaker 17:46
The only thing I regret is not. Not, it sounds pretty fickle, but like not doing more sport. Because when you I mean, I did a little bit of sport, I played hockey and stuff. But I think we tend to do so much more. And when you're real adult, and you've got like a job and you got to go in and stuff. You can't do any of this stuff. Like you just can't. And so that opportunity of like having play and you know, having time to do all these things, that that's the only regret I really have about medicine. I don't regret like start my own side hustle. I don't regret like, not going out enough. Because I think I did a lot of that stuff. I had a really nice community of people that I loved. I lived out every year, you know, I did a intercalated degree that was aside from the norm. You know, it's a very diverse group of people that we had in that management course only about 30/40 people, and everyone's bouncing ideas off of each other. So there isn't an element that I really regret about medicine. No, do you do have any regrets about medicine?
Ali Abdaal 18:48
Not really. No. I mean, I had a great time, I thought was super fun. Yeah, I thought my balance of work versus other things was was pretty solid. The only things I regret was, you know, had a bit of a, a breakup with someone where I was I handled it in a way that I could have done better. It's, you know, things like that, where I was accidentally mean to someone without meaning to be mean to them. And then yeah, you know, just stuff like that. I think like listening to your story is interesting, because I think the impression I get amongst people who watch or listen to my stuff, is that I mean, and this is somewhat understandable, like people who have normal jobs, like someone who's working as a junior doctor, or you know, their first time job as a consultant or you know, any but someone in their 20s or even 30s Who has a normal job, who didn't do the hustle tech bro productivity entrepreneur thing from the age of 12, it's like, it can often seem as if Well, I guess if I want to have side hustles I had to do it from the age of 13. I had to have done something at university and you were very much not that person who just wanted to be a GP, have a good time, want to go to nightclubs at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah, and IP and at the time, I was like, I'm gonna make my website screw the nightclubs. But it's cool that you had such a kind of non entrepreneurial sort of early, early days. Yeah. So then you graduate medical, you become a junior doctor and then you kind of it sounded like you went through that and became a fully fledged GP at the end of it?
Unknown Speaker 20:12
Yeah, yeah. But a big thing that happened to me was I became a patient. So three months into the job. I was working at Basildon hospital. So big BDH is a wicked place to work. You know, I had loads of friends were living there as well on campus. But obviously, as you know, stressful job, night shifts, really long corridors, you know, running to cardiac arrest. And so it was, yeah, it was a nightmare. And I started suffering with atrial fibrillation episodes. So for the listeners, irregular heartbeat, up to 200 beats per minute, lasting anywhere between 12-48 hours at a time. And that was sort of the point of which I realised I was a lot more vulnerable to illness than my peers. And I don't want to give an impression that was a big drinker or anything like that it was a smoker didn't have a weight issue, and nothing like that. Definitely wasn't taking drugs no matter how many times I've asked by different cardiologists and physiologist. Do you take drugs? No, I don't do drugs. Because it's very unusual for 24 year olds, to have these episodes with no known triggers. And I would just flip into these episodes two or three times a week whilst I was working. And I remember the first time I had it, I was admitted to meu and I was wheeled along the corridor. And I had my shirt on and stuff, not sure I had a gown on, I was hooked up to a cardiac monitor and all the rest of it. And that point, when I was wheeled into the ward along that corridor, I felt so embarrassed. And I had no idea what it was like to experience that very simple action of just being wheeled from one ward to another ward. And I never forget that experience of being a patient. And that was really pivotal for me. Because we can all empathise with patients as much as possible. You know, we're taught communication skills and all this, you know, by psychosocial stuff. But at the end of it, if you haven't experienced that yourself, it's very hard to to understand what that was. And so that was a really big turning point for me. And then, and that's also I guess, what led me down the whole nutrition, lifestyle and health optimization path.
Ali Abdaal 22:18
How was that a turning point?
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Unknown Speaker 24:03
So I went and saw a number of different cardiologists, some of whom are best in Europe, if not the world. I had electrophysiology studies, I had all the investigations, you can imagine, I was going to have an ablation, which is a relatively simple procedure was sold to me as curative, although now we know it's not as effective as as we'd like it to be. But it's where you burn round the pulmonary vein to stop misfiring cells. I had all the studies to demonstrate that it was a if not something else, like a reentry pathway or a different type of svt. And I was going to have this ablation I was going to have Warfarin for a couple of months to preempt it and stuff.
Ali Abdaal 24:46
To thin the blood.
Rupy Aujla 24:48
Exactly. Yeah. There were some other procedures I think at the time like cryo version, which doesn't require authorization, but I was going to have warfarin. And I remember my girlfriend at the time, dragged me down because I was dragging my with this whole thing, and she dragged me down to the, the anechoic clinic and saying you're going to start Warfarin right today, and anyway, long story short, my mum was the person that said to me, you really should optimise your diet and lifestyle. Give it six months if you've got time, before you entertain doing something quite drastic, like an ablation and in her mind, you know, someone's going into her son's heart and burning a hole in it. That was literally how she described it. Which, you know, technically is what happens not quite as drastic as that. So anyway, to appease her I thought, Okay, I'll do this diet and lifestyle stuff, you know, I'll speak to my cardiologist first and make sure you know, I'm not putting myself at risk, but ultimately I'm going to have this ablation. This is what she's saying is so stupid. And so I was on flecainide, as and when which is an anti arrhythmic drug, I was on resupelo antihypertensive medication as well. And what happened over that six month 12 month period is I just started optimising very small things at a time so out when cereals in the morning and then in came like leftovers from like night before a little more greens
Ali Abdaal 26:14
So were you fat the time?
Unknown Speaker 26:14
No I wasn't fat or anything. I've always been fairly lean, okay, but I was eating a lot of refined sugars and carbohydrates. It was you can't when someone looks at my diet, back then they'll just say it's a normal diet for junior doctor, it's cereal with maybe a little bit of juice. If I'm feeling healthy, maybe some frozen berries on top will be like a soggy sandwich from the hospital canteen or whatever slot they were serving. It would be something probably taken like seven or 8pm on the way back from work because you know, we don't have any time to cook. It just was a normal way of eating. You know, that's pretty normal for a lot of people, and I don't want to demonise like what is normal for a lot of other people. But certainly for me, combined with the added stress of poor sleep with the added stress of learning new things in the job for the first time, the added pressure, you know, all that kind of stuff that compounded and resulted in me having a heart issue. That's the only way I can really conceptualise as to why this was happening. Because when I optimise all those different things, it went away. And I appreciate there's lots of other work.
Ali Abdaal 27:24
It just like went away?
Unknown Speaker 27:25
Yeah, yeah. After well, not immediately, after about a year of optimising things slowly, but slowly, so what I would be fastidious at would be tracking when I was having these AF episodes. And so you know, it'd be a Tuesday at work 3pm lasted X number of hours. And then the next day, I'd be like, Oh, Friday came in lasted about four hours. And I'd also look at triggers before what was I doing that morning? Had I had worked out? Had I gone for a run had I had any coffee? I didn't drink coffee at that time. You know, what things had I eaten before? What kind of state what was my sleep like all these different things, I was looking at it pretty, you know, vaguely to just get some accountability as to what might be going on. And so after looking at all these different things and changing a few things in my diet, bit by bit out when cereals out went like sandwiches at lunchtime in came like me bring in Tupperware I was labelled Tupperware boy by my consultant at the time of respiratory medicine who'd always take the piss out of me, which is great. You know, it was all like all banter. Yeah. And then yeah, just all those different elements. And then I started getting into like, stress reduction meditation, I'd been taught how to meditate by my parents when I was a teenager. And so that kind of came into play again. And then when I wasn't doing night shifts, I was trying to talk myself into bed a little bit earlier. Instead of just doing like running, I was a keen runner at the time, I would do things like yoga and mobility and flow and all these things that sound a bit woowoo. But I thought of sort of just started getting into it from the very little research that I did at the time. And yeah, after a year and a half. I noticed like AF so went from one a week, and one over two weeks, and then one a month. And then I remember vividly, I was like, It's been three months, I haven't had haven't had an episode I went to see my cardiologist, I was seeing two at the time. And they said, Look, sometimes AF can go through a period of like, where it just goes away, and it'll come back, but it's likely to come back. So just be aware of that. And then I went to a year and then a couple of years and then, you know, it's been over 10 years now. And I still I still see my cardiologist, I still have like checkups and all the rest of it, but it went away. And so that that was my introduction into a how on earth as as possible. Like a. why would that make a difference and b. why weren't we taught this kind of stuff if it is effective, even though it's anecdotal, we should really be looking further at this. And actually, when I did a bit of research, I realised like, you know, there's things that we can do for things like type two diabetes, the things that I'm seeing every day. Obesity obviously is the most obvious one cardiovascular disease, dementia. And then you know, the more research you do the bigger you realise that there's this huge amount of literature that we've just been sitting on, we haven't really been put into practice. And so that was, that was how I got into I guess.
Rupy Aujla 27:27
Oh wow, that sounds that sounds pretty magical, where you just sort of track your AF episodes and be like, Oh, it turns out that when I actually get good sleep, and when I meditate to get less stressed, I have fewer of these episodes. What the hell? Yeah. Because I guess to my mind, it's like, oh, yeah, sleep health. Yes, kind of stuff. It's all kind of a long term type thing. Yeah. All sorted out at some point. But yeah, we don't really. We were talking about this in the previous the previous interview as well, we don't really think into it like that long term about stuff. Yeah. So I guess for you, you had that very clear feedback loop of like, oh, shit, this, this stuff actually works?
Yeah, this is the thing we're talking about. Because a lot of the things that I talk about within the diet and lifestyle space, people thinking, Oh, that's to prevent me getting, you know, fat and overweight and type two diabetes, when I'm 4550 55. You know, you don't really have that immediate feedback as to I need to start doing this now to optimise my health, to improve my longevity, and also to perform my performance right now that we don't really have that sort of connection. And because I had that immediate feedback with my own condition and my threshold for illnesses a lot lower than other people of the same age group. That's kind of what propelled me forward. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 31:19
So I guess I'm trying to think of what the equivalent would be. It's like, if, for example, I could wear an Aura ring or something that could tell me your performance today was at 5%. Yeah. And I'd be like, Oh, it turns out that when I don't eat KFC, my performance goes to 90%. Yeah, that would be great. It's just we don't really have a metric like that. Yeah, unless you have a health condition where you've literally got a metric you can track
Rupy Aujla 31:38
Exactly. And what I was doing, I guess, back in 2009, now was pretty analogue, it was just me writing down things on my phone or notepad, what was happening and when it was happening, and what things had done before, and that was it. Whereas now, you know, we're moving into a space where it doesn't have to be as analogue as that, and everything can be automated. So you know, somewhere an Aura ring, I've actually worn one for about three years. I know, for example, that if I eat too late, I go to sleep straight after eating, it disrupts my deep sleep, and I have much lower deep sleep than I have REM sleep, and that will impact how I perform the next day.
Ali Abdaal 32:17
Interesting. So yeah, I'd wear an Aura ring for about six months. Yep. And I would never act on the data. Because I would look at the number in the morning be like readiness level. 73. I mean, okay. 64 I'd be like yeah, well, I know, I only got three hours sleep last night. So that's obvious. The only things I've kind of anecdotally noticed are when I drink caffeine. Like if I find myself unable to sleep, I think. Did I have a coffee? Like at 5pm? Oh, crap. Yeah. Did Did I have a Diet Coke? Or like 10pm? Yes, I did. Okay, cool. Maybe that's the problem. Yeah, after doing that. But beyond that, I didn't I didn't really have other data points where I can track that number.
Rupy Aujla 32:50
Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting what you said about caffeine because I've just done a 30 day caffeine free sort of fast. I love coffee. I absolutely love coffee. I love the ritual, the aroma everything. So I take coffee out of my diet for probably once a year for 30 days. And I was tracking it was looking quite carefully at my aura ring this time around and my deep and REM sleep was so much more improved. And I usually only drink caffeine before 12pm as well. I'm not one of these people that has a 3pm so I'm pretty sensitive to caffeine, as I've realised and so now that I've gone back to drinking regular coffee again, I'm going to be having it even earlier and I know anecdotally over the last 10 days since I've started that again, my sleeps in a lot better so the thing is I'm of that way of like trying to optimise everything exactly tracking those different things and that that appeals to me but it might not appeal to a lot of other people listening or watching to this depends on like, what their intrinsic drivers are.
Ali Abdaal 33:54
I mean, it definitely appeals to me I actually was recently ordered the latest aura ring I haven't sent them my sizing. It's just been I've just been on the bedside table a lot like
Rupy Aujla 34:03
I've got the new ones. It's really good.
Ali Abdaal 34:05
It looks like the fancy one. Yeah. I went I went for the kind of like that black colour as well. But anytime my mum sees me with it, she like basically has a stroke. She's like, Oh my God, why are you wearing jewellery?
Rupy Aujla 34:15
Oh really, as you can tell, like I don't wear anything. I don't wear a watch, I don't wear a necklace or anything. I've joked with my fiance that what she needs to do. Instead of getting me a ring is just getting me an aura ring for my ring finger. Oh, yeah. She's not on board with it.
Ali Abdaal 34:32
So we were talking about our aura ring tracking stuff, having those metrics and then being able to sort of optimise your lifestyle based on that. Yeah. I want to ask you a lot more about those specific things. But let's if we go kind of back to the story. And so you had you realise the impact that these different health and like yoga meditation type changes were genuinely having on your life as evidenced by the fact that your atrial fibrillation episodes were reducing in frequency. So at that point, most people would be like, Alright, cool. It's a thing have sort of my diet out? Yeah, what happened next
Rupy Aujla 35:02
What happened next yeah. So I started having more open, honest conversations with patients about it. So I started GP training, I moved down to Brighton one of the best things I ever did. That was a mini failure, actually. So I was actually trying to stay in London, because my girlfriend at the time was living in London. And when I didn't get into London, I almost considered taking a full year out actually, and just doing something different. I'm really glad I didn't, but went to Brighton and started GP training. And I got known I got a bit of a reputation as being that GP who would talk to the patients about nutrition. And, and then like, my clinic started getting longer and longer. And as a trainee, you get like 20 or 25 minutes. And so I'd used the whole 25 minutes and then it would go over and then I started writing down recipes. I realised I didn't answer your question earlier about how I got into food and my whole family are all foodies, so we'd always had the Food Channel on the TV growing up and stuff, watched Saturday Kitchen for years, like I love Saturday Kitchen is like my favourite show. For the American audience, basically a cooking show. And it's really popular. I think Dave Grohl is going to be on this Saturday as well. Like, it's just one of those iconic BBC shows. So we've always had that. And when I was at med school, I lived in a house, which was really experimental with food and it wasn't necessarily healthy food. It was like, you know, barbecue, or pastas or steak sandwiches and herb blends and all that kind of stuff. So I've always been into food from from
Ali Abdaal 36:33
You already had that kind of background in food stuff. While I was doing coding you were doing cooking.
Rupy Aujla 36:38
Yeah. Yeah. So the same thing. Yeah. So yeah, no, I would always have that ability to reflect what someone wanted to eat with little tweaks and hacks that could make it slightly healthier for them. So I remember chatting to a guy about his breakfast routine. And he had, you know, it was on the verge of type two diabetes, it was classed as metabolic syndrome. And so we I started talking to him about oats and like, you know, changing up his oats and adding a few spices and pumpkin seeds and why those might be healthy. And he like he just eyes lit up. And remember that moment because I started having more conversations with people from different backgrounds, Jamaican background, Korean background, Sri Lankan background, all these different elements, and they would tell me about their food that they would eat a Sri Lankan garment, I learned about cashew curry for the first time from this guy who had IBD. And I was like, Okay, well, maybe we could tweak this and add some green peas or like, what kind of green vegetables you like? Or how do we get more fibre, all the different stuff. And again, like people just like, it wasn't me just saying, You need to eat better, you need to get saturated fat or your diet, you need to make sure to add too much sugar. Here's a healthy plate with a kale salad on it. It wasn't that it was like making it super interesting. And something they felt that they really wanted to try out themselves and give them an empowering them to do it. And that's sort of where I found my purpose. And that's where I got the idea for the doctor's kitchen. It was really early. It was like back in 2012, I think. But I didn't do anything about it.
Ali Abdaal 38:11
So at this point your GP trainee, you're having a 25 minute consultation which it's like two and a half times longer than a normal GP would have because they have 10 minutes and you're like you're finding yourself giving people lifestyle advice, but instead of just doing the thing that I would do in that case, which is be like hey, you know he's probably eat healthier. How? I don't know, I'll let you know when I find out? Maybe order a Poke bowl from Deliveroo rather than, fried chicken, you were actually like writing down recipes based on your previous sort of tacit knowledge of the cooking world from like, a decade of consuming Saturday night, Saturday morning kitchen, I think was, that's really cool.
Rupy Aujla 38:45
Yeah, it was like I mean, I've got like a huge collection of cookbooks I've learned from obviously the the greats like Jamie Oliver, Nigella and Nigel Slater, these guys like understand flavour super well. And I was able to apply that knowledge to what I was doing in clinic was it was a bit of a surreal feeling actually. And I mean get I guess now with with hindsight, you can say that I was moulding my passion with with work and I was turning my work into something that I found quite playful rather than just going through the, the algorithms and choosing okay, this is the medication you need. And you know, being a sort of robot that was kind of where I found a lot of like the colourful elements of medicine that
Ali Abdaal 39:29
was about feeding the referral to dermatology, but at the same time, you're like, Have you considered all the nutrition things you can do to skin? Yeah, absolutely. Like, No, I haven't really but if you tell me that, I'll figure it out.
Rupy Aujla 39:38
Yeah, absolutely. And like, you know, it was never sold as a panacea. It was never really like, oh, well, I could give you this drug but really you should be improving your diet. It was always like, no, it's an and not like, either. And I think that's really important whenever I speak to people, even on a public scale now about food because there is this sort of pervasive myth that it's like, oh, okay, well, you're either on the woowoo side where you're giving people nutraceuticals and green powders and all the rest of it. Yeah. And trying to cure cancer with like some erroneous Herbes, or you know, you're you're just doing pharmaceuticals and stuff, or actually, I think we need to take that real blended approach to nutritional medicine, which is now garnering a lot of sort of mainstream interest.
Ali Abdaal 40:23
Can we do a collab video on my channel where you teach me some weeknight recipes? That are healthy and productive so that I could because because my problem right now is like I go home. And I'm like, the paradox of choice. I could go to Tesco Waitrose on the way home, and then I have to figure out what the hell am I gonna buy? Broccoli? beans, carrots? All the vegetables like, what am I going to use as my card, just get some oven chips? Or should I get roast potatoes? fillings? Rice? I don't know. And then it's like the protein should I get the salmon? Should I get some kind of meat? And something like chicken? Like, what's the deal with that? And it's just like, you know, what, screw this. I value my time at X amount of dollars per hour. It's quicker and cheaper and easier to get a Deliveroo. Therefore, let me just do that. And I'll spend that time I don't know, in theory working on my book, but in fact, actually just watching YouTube videos. Yeah. And I end up just in the takeaway cycle, because it's just too hard to and I just, I don't have a system for it. I don't have a process. I think I'm quite a sort of default kind of guy that if I could just have the same recipe, and just have that on repeat every other day. Yeah, my life would be a lot better where I would know exactly what I need to have in my pantry. Exactly what to buy in the supermarket. Yeah, but I don't right now. And so just Deliveroo is the path of least resistance.
Rupy Aujla 41:30
Yeah, no, I gotcha. And you're not unique in that conundrum as well. I think a lot of people fall into that pattern of having not having a default and not having a backup plan. Actually, one of the things that I always talk about my talks is making sure you have a backup meal, because it happens to everyone, like when I'm coming back from a late shift at 8pm. Yeah, I'm there like scrolling through Deliveroo as well. And I'm thinking, you know, maybe I should just get one of these things. And to be fair to some of the delivery companies that do have healthy options, not that we go for them at that time. But I always say you got to have a backup meal, you got to have like a meal you can make in 10 minutes, which used to store cupboard ingredients, you don't have to go to a supermarket to go get it frozen items, a few spices, herbes pastes and some nutritional ingredients that you actually enjoy as well. Not something that you're forcing yourself down. For me, it's this like whole grain pesto pasta, which I have with peas and like a whole bunch of other like herbs and spices now, I can make it in 10 minutes, with my eyes closed. It's so easy. And I know that I've always got that as a backup when I'm feeling peckish and that kind of stuff. But yes, for a collab video, I'd love to do something that because I think instilling principles of healthy eating rather than specific recipes. I know that we're saying this for my cookbooks and stuff. But like, I think that's the way to get people out of the conundrum. The other thing I would say is, I'm not puritanical about this kind of stuff, I don't think that we need to necessarily in this lifestyle that we will have to be able to cook every single meal from scratch every day. I think there are lots of other healthier options. And I think if I forecast in the future, what I think's going to happen is we cook for pleasure. And hopefully I can demonstrate to people that cooking is like a meditative thing, and something that you can actually enjoy and it's pleasurable, you share with friends and all the rest of it. But also, in a world where we're trying to optimise every element of our lifestyle, we will have greenhouses that surround every city in the world growing optimised ingredients, which are you know, phytochemical rich, as well as nutrient rich, and then that will be delivered to a ghost kitchen, which is cooked probably using robots, and then that's delivered to us using automated delivery systems. And that's probably one of the ways in which we're going to dig ourselves out of the hole where we have a very unhealthy environment today. That's what I think is going to be the future. And I don't want to fight against that. Yeah, because I think I'd be a bit of a Luddite if I was trying to preach to everyone. You need to cook from home every single day. And you know, it's just against the pace of change. But I do think the art of cooking, the love of cooking should not really be lost in the same way. You know, we're surrounded by books right now, even though we have Kindles there is something about it, there's something intuitive, something that is hard coded in our evolution to love the art of cooking, and I don't think we should really lose that. So hopefully, I can do that for you.
Ali Abdaal 44:26
That'll be so fun. It's only recently that I've realised that cooking is actually fun. And weirdly the mental model for that I that made me realise this was I was playing horizon zero dawn on the PlayStation. And I was like, you know, to get some of the equipment to upgrade your satchels. You have to go out and like kill rabbits and stuff like in the wildlife. It's like you know, this robot a puppet apocalyptic type game, but you have to kill the occasional rabbit or get the boar skin or whatever. Yeah, I was like, hmm, this reminds me of back in the day when I was playing World of Warcraft where you would you would level up your cooking skill, and you'd build like campfire and you will turn your boar meat into this cool thing I was like that would that was kind of fun and kind of felt good to be cooking this virtual meat and virtual vedge in a game. I was like, Wait a minute. I could do this in real life. What the hell? Absolutely game changing. That was like a mind blowing moment for me that I had a few months ago when I had COVID and I was playing horizon zero dawn for like 10 days straight on Playstation. And then I was like, alright, you know what New Year's resolution let's take this cooking thing seriously. So that I went out and bought actually have them over here. You know, a lot Creuset, does this Harry Potter Signature Edition. I got know like two Dutch ovens and a cast iron pan, and like a bunch of spatulas and stuff. And then I got super excited about cooking because now I had the gear which had spent like stupid amount money on it because it had Harry Potter on it.
Rupy Aujla 45:40
I'm gonna show you how to make the most use of those pans for sure. Because those are similar pants to the ones that (they're not Harry Potter branded) but those are the same pants that I have. And I make so much use that. I feel like you're about to embark on like your own Four Hour Body book with like Tim Ferriss, like, you know how he like, I've read that book as well. I think it was for our body for our cook something like that. That's it. Yeah, I read that book. It is incredible. Like, the detail this guy goes into is amazing. And I feel like you're at the start of this journey. Like, people are probably gonna be watching asking how does this guy not know who you are, but I reckon, you know, give it like a year's time. Yeah, it's, yeah, I'm excited for you, man.
Ali Abdaal 46:22
Nice. Yeah, this is gonna be fun. So many questions on the Cooking front. I do also have in my bucket list that I want to do like a fishing weekend trip where we actually fish and cook and stuff. We should collaborate and blog as well. We can bring friends along. That'd be fun.
Rupy Aujla 46:35
If there's someone who does fishing trips
Ali Abdaal 46:39
If anyone listening to this, who hosts fishing trips and stuff in the UK, then drop us an email. Yeah, it'd be very, very interested. So loads of questions about the food thing, which I will put a bookmark in. Let's go back to your GP, you're doing the recipes. And then you go to Australia after GP training.
Rupy Aujla 46:55
I like leave. So I passed all my GP exams really early, because I was super keen. And then the GP surgery, I was working at was lovely but they were like, Oh, we pretty much got a salary GP now because he's done with the exam. So let's put them on 10 minute consults. And so I was basically working full time as a GP, pretty much four and a half, five days a week. A lot of people I don't think have an appreciation for GPS. And even within medicine, I think people who know know how difficult is being a GP, like one minute you're dealing with like a child's ear infection. Next minute, you're dealing with someone with depression. Next minute, you're breaking bad news about cancer diagnosis next minute, you're doing something here. It's just you're flipping gears all morning and all afternoon. And you're seeing anywhere between 20 patients in the morning plus the prescriptions plus the phone calls plus the home visits. And I was working in a rural area where in rural Britain, they just don't like numbers on houses, they just have like names like the farm and it's on like a two kilometre stretch of road and you're just driving up and down to find this lovely little old lady that needs a Warfarin check and all the rest of it. So it was a very stressful time, my life. And I really burnt out at the end of that. And so I just thought to myself, I need to just get out. And I had a few friends of mine that were living and working in Australia. And they were just raved about it. And I just I called up and I was like I want to do a&e job. I love a&e I don't want to do clinical at this point. And I just went out there and I absolutely loved it. It was really game changing for me and my clinical career. But also, it gave me the space to think a bit more about the doctors kitchen idea that I had years ago. And that's ultimately where I it launched as well when I was in Australia. Okay,
Ali Abdaal 48:41
Okay, if we just just wanted to pick up on something you say. So you said that the working the sort of GP lifestyle meant that you got quite burnt out? Yeah. What's that like being burnt out?
Rupy Aujla 48:54
It's where you go home at like, seven 7:30pm. And, you know, you've got friends who hadn't seen for a while and you just can't be bothered, and you're not excited about seeing them even though you really should be because you know, it's it's been weeks or whatever. It's where you don't you lose the empathy that is so required in medicine as well. And I felt that slipping away and that that wasn't a good position to be in, you know, sort of like what we were talking before when you've got to do something for a patient and instead of you having the mindset of this is a privilege to work for people in the most vulnerable state. It's like, I've got to do this, and this is my job and I have to do this. And there's another thing to take off the list. And that's never really the way I really wanted to feel within medicine. Obviously, you can't be happy Joy Joy the whole time in medicine, you're always going to have good and bad days and that's just normal. But when it becomes persistent and insidious throughout your whole week that was kind of like I need to take a break from this. And I had the sort of foresight, and the privilege and opportunity to even do that, you know, a lot of people don't have the opportunity. A lot of my friends, for example, were supporting families, and they had mortgages, and they had all these other, you know, pressures on them financially. I was independent, and I had the opportunity to go when I was like, I owe it to myself and owe it to my friends who can't do this to go out. And that's that's sort of what was the push for me to go abroad. But yeah, that the burnout was not nice place. I'm thankful. I don't think I've really had that, since in some ways, like, obviously, during the pandemic and stuff, but I think, because there was that sort of, like, collective energy from everyone being in the same bucket and kind of like, push you through. I think it's pandering out now. Which is why you're seeing loads of people leave in droves. But yeah, that was Yeah, wasn't a nice position to be in. Have you ever been in that?
Ali Abdaal 50:56
I don't think so. No. Like, because people do talk about burnout as like being a thing. And I'm always kind of curious, like, what does that feel like? Yeah, cuz I kind of said to a friend of mine one point, like, I don't think I've ever been burnt out. She was like, you probably have but you just don't realise it. Okay, fine. Yeah. What does it mean to be burnt out? Yeah. I don't think I have.
Rupy Aujla 51:16
Do have the ability to cop compartmentalise? Because there's a really good podcast called How to take over the world. You should definitely check it out. So they examine different leaders across time and history, it's usually people who have passed away. But you'll find more recent leaders like Steve Jobs, I think they do Putin as one and one of the recurrent themes that I've noticed, and actually the the host notices as well, is the ability to compartmentalise different issues. So Napoleon was able to put things in one drawer, shut it and then open another one without really thinking about the last drawer he's closed. I'm learning that skill now. But I definitely didn't have that when I was working as a GP. And I think perhaps that's maybe the reason why you haven't experienced it. But certainly, you know, my inability to focus on one thing at a time is probably why I got burnt out, and it kind of spilled out into my personal life, right?
Ali Abdaal 52:20
Spilt out into personal life meaning?
Rupy Aujla 52:21
So relationships, not really working out. Not being there for my friends. Not having the energy to do stuff at the doctor's kitchen, for example, putting things off not being there for my family, all those different pressures. I think that's kind of like, yeah, how it played out for me. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 52:42
Do you think that was inevitable, given the schedule you were on? Or do you think there's stuff that you could have done at the time to kind of mitigate those kind of personal spillover effects?
Rupy Aujla 52:51
Oh, yeah, definitely. I think certainly now, given what I do with all the different strands of the business and how I haven't really outsourced much, you know, running the podcasts, writing the books, doing the recipes, starting the app, running the tech team, doing the customer service, doing the charity stuff, all that kind of stuff. I'm able to flick, I'm still learning this as a skill, but I'm able to flick from different roles and positions relatively easier, easily compared to how it was before. And also having a partner who's pretty regimented about look, it's 6:30pm. You can't be on your computer that late at night. And you haven't spoken to me for eight hours. That kind of keeps me on the straight and narrow as well, so much, you're very thankful that I got someone who can understand the grind and the you know, the the sort of need to have to be there and hustle, but also knows when I need a bit of rigidity to like be like, You need to stop this need to pull your way.
Ali Abdaal 53:50
So at this point, when we're in Australia, you're working in the emergency department. Yeah. And you're sort of mulling over this idea of doctors kitchen. Like what is the idea in your mind and like the early days,
Rupy Aujla 54:01
The early days was literally to be that GP who was inspiring people to eat well, and giving a bit of the evidence base behind it. So using research fun, delicious recipes to get people changing their behaviour such that it looks after the health long term, okay? And so is that always that combination of flavour and function that I always want to instil in any video did and any recipe and all that kind of stuff. And so when I started I had in my mind that all those patients that I was seeing back in general practice and even ones that I was seeing in a&e as well because a lot of people don't realise people think of a&e is just like we see broken bones and heart attacks and the rest of it and once that does happen, you have a lot of time with patients who are coming in with with niggles and pains and lacerations or you know the the product of chronic conditions that are lifelong. And, you know, I'd be chatting to them about this kind of stuff as well. And I had the idea of like starting the Instagram at a wix.com website as well that I never published and like a whole bunch of YouTube videos that I had had up there, like ready to just press play. And it wasn't until I spoke to one of my senior consultants about it, and I was like, Look, I think I'm going to do this nutirtion thing. They were really forward thinking and I really respected her. And she was like, you just got to do it. That sounds like an awesome idea. You just got to do it. And so yeah, that was the that was the push for me to hit play and all that kind of stuff.
Ali Abdaal 55:35
So did you start filming these videos when you were in Australia? And where did the name doctor's kitchen come from?
Rupy Aujla 55:40
It just came out of nowhere. Yeah, the intention was never to build like a brand around it. It was just doctors kitchen. I just had this idea.
Ali Abdaal 55:47
I thought it'd be a website, Instagram page, YouTube channel. Was that what you were thinking at the time? Like, 2015 16?
Rupy Aujla 55:52
That was it. It was just a website, Instagram, I don't even know how to use hashtags. I remember, I posted my first picture. And I posted it to my personal Facebook profile as well. And immediately, I click play on it. And then I was taking a flight to Japan for six days, Sydney to Japan is very, very close, eight hours. And it's because I was running away from the reaction of my friends. I thought everyone was gonna think I'm so stupid, like, you know, this is it was like a real cringe worthy moment for me. Back then, I was so scared about what the reaction was gonna be. So I actually click play. And then I jumped on a plane to Japan. And then I got all these messages from people and like, that's amazing. That's so cool. I was just scared at the time dude, like, you know, a GP talking about food as medicine. Back then, when the wellness industry wasn't as established as it is now, like seven years later. It would have been seen I at least I thought it would have been interpreted as a bit Cavalier.
Ali Abdaal 56:55
Oh, like you aren't a qualified nutritionist, therefore, how do you talk about food, kind of?
Rupy Aujla 56:59
That kind of vibe, but also like, just generally like, getting in front of a camera and being a doctor on YouTube and Instagram and being that kind of person? Sometimes it does feel like that. I don't know if this was your experience when you first got on, because I remember hearing that I think you did, like 80 odd videos before the the one that really kicked everything off. But yeah, yeah, I was never really into social media at the time. I wasn't like, you know, someone who follow Joe Wicks and all these other people, I found out about them after I joined myself, I hadn't really done much research in that perspective. I just knew what I wanted to talk about. So it came came from a place of like, just genuinely wanting to put out good content out there.
Ali Abdaal 57:45
Were you worried about what your doctor friends would think, that you're peddling that I'm the doctor. And you're like, Oh, I'm just a recently qualified GP and like, What the hell do I know about anything?
Rupy Aujla 57:54
That was definitely and it's still to this day, there is a shred of that whenever I talk about what I do. And you know, despite completing a master's in nutritional medicine, doing all this analysis, having researchers on my team and all that kind of stuff, like I still get all that kind of, I still get that like little voice in my head, saying, you don't really know what you're talking about. Because I guess maybe you've experienced this as well, by doing so much research in your various domains. The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know. And that, you know, for someone who doesn't really want to be misleading people or anything, that the scary thing is like, what if people find out how much I how little I know, like always that in the back of my mind, I'm not a researcher that spends like, day in day out in a lab reading papers all day long. Like, I've got a whole bunch of other things to do. And you will never have, oh, never have I have to, I've got better working through this myself. I'm never gonna know enough to completely get rid of my imposter syndrome, I just have to sit well with how I am right now and do the things that I know are helping people as much as possible and just be happy with that. Because otherwise, it's you know, you just stop making content.
Ali Abdaal 59:17
Yeah. Yeah, this is the thing I hear from like, once, once my channel started to go, well, while I was still working, I had a friend who was an obstetrics registrar. And, you know, he and his, his wife had written recently gone through the whole process. And he was like, you know, there's a lot of misinformation out there. You know, it'd be cool to do a book as an obstetrics registrar about what it was like being sort of going through the process of the patient, educating young mothers about young mothers to be about what the process is going to be like. He was like, Oh, but I can't do it now. I need to wait until I'm a consultant because then I'll be qualified. I was like, when you're a consultant, are you really gonna think that or are you going to think, Oh, I'm a new consultant. I need to wait until I've got a diploma in reproductive medicine and I've been a professor for 20 years before I think that, and even in that position, I'm probably going to think I'm not the world's most qualified person to talk about this, therefore, I can't talk about it. And I think in medicine, there is a lot of credentialism that goes on where it's like, we feel this internally, we feel our friends are gonna judge us for it. Maybe some of them do notice for me like, How dare you talk about nutrition without a PhD in nutritional medicine? Masters? Anyone get a masters through that? It's just one year thing. I think PhD is where it's really at. We have this thing where we need another badge and other another certificate to be allowed to do a thing. And I just try my best to be like, Look, you don't need any qualifications. You're you're being a guide, you're not being a guru. Yeah, it's all good.
Rupy Aujla 1:00:31
Yeah, absolutely. Like what you've just described has happened to so many of my colleagues who haven't got to that consultancy status. And then when they get to that consultancy, I've spoken to so many different consultants, who some of whom have actually been on the podcast, and asked for, you know, the, you know, or I didn't really, I don't, I didn't think I said this, right, or I feel like I'm too young a consultant to say this thing. So I'd rather not do and that's fine. That's, you know, I'm not gonna push anything. But it's a story I hear very often. And it's not just for the medicine. So I'm actually going to call someone out. Here's one of my good friends, a guy called Jay, who is a serial entrepreneur, he's raised millions of pounds, he has a number of different tech companies under his belt. And he really wants to put out content about conscious entrepreneurship, right? He's super qualified to talk about it. He's been in the game for well over a decade, and he just can't get over the edge, he just can't start with his first piece of content to start the wheels in motion, because there's something holding him back. I'm not qualified enough. I've only been in the game for a couple of years, I haven't raised as much money as this person. So I think that sort of Credentialism saying that wrong. The word that we just made up that I think holds a lot of people back beyond medicine as well. You know.
Ali Abdaal 1:01:51
I remember when I was first starting my YouTube course, which, you know, we started sort of October 2020. And, you know, it has now become by far the, that has been a ridiculously profitable decision. But I remember having a zoom call with two internet friends of mine who also run courses and saying to them, you know, I don't really feel I can do a course to teach people how to how to be YouTubers. Like, I've only got 1.2 million subscribers. And they were just like, are you hearing us off right now? I was like, I mean, I've only got one particular subscribers like, why would anyone sign up to YouTube course for me? Like, what the hell do I know? Talk to the guys got 20 million subs. And they were like, You have no idea what you just said. Yeah.
Rupy Aujla 1:02:28
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it happens everywhere. It happens to the best of us. I think, you know, we downplay our own achievements. And it's like, if you don't, if you don't take a moment to actually reflect on what you've achieved, then you'll never really be happy always chasing that next thing. I actually wrote in the acknowledgments of my third book, I wrote something that might be perceived as narcissistic, but it's really trying to kick myself into the gear of like, taking pause, looking back at what I've achieved up to this point, even though on the day to day, I don't really think it's a big thing or whatever, I walk around, like, Oh, I'm Sunday Times bestseller, yada, yada. Like I wrote, like, take a moment to enjoy this, this present piece, just take, I can't remember exactly what I said. But it was along the lines of you're doing a good thing. Keep going and believe in yourself. And that's it. And I think I have to remind myself of that every day, I actually have an affirmation that I read every single day to that effect, because it's very easily lost in this world where we can consciously comparing ourselves to someone who has more followers or, you know, more achievements or whatever the accolades that we compare ourselves by. And it's become more prevalent, I guess, in this social media driven world.
Ali Abdaal 1:03:46
Do you find that affirmation helps?
Rupy Aujla 1:03:48
Yeah, massively. The affirmation is kind of based on a thread that I read from Melanie Perkins, the founder of Canva. So Canva is amazing. She's Australian. Yeah, she's Australian. Yeah. Their offices are in Sydney. And her founder story is amazing. She did it on how I built this. Oh, it's really, really good episode for anyone that's like, thinking about funding and the barriers that you need to get through, man she hustled for three years, trying to get funding. And now you know, obviously, you know, she's bringing the power of design to billions of people worldwide. But she wrote this thread on LinkedIn. And the thread was basically her entire journey, step by step of everything, I read the whole thing. And one of the elements was are all they got one of their rejections and she wrote a note to herself, which was Melanie, you're doing a really hard thing, you will get through it, and you will build a massively wealthy, productive company that you've always dreamed of yada yada, yada, yada. And I've basically written myself a version of that to keep myself in the straight and narrow, you know, reminding myself of, you're doing a hard thing, but you're going to get through it and it's about 95% persistence, and consistency is key to getting through anything. And so you're gonna have up and down days. But if you just remind yourself of that affirmation, it's been, it's been good for me thus far, I've only been doing it for about a year or so.
Ali Abdaal 1:05:13
That's quite a lot better for two days. A year, I'm thinking...
Rupy Aujla 1:05:19
Yeah, I do gratitude. I've done gratitude for a long time. That's been pretty game changing. For me. I just shared it on Instagram for 700 days every day. I would I've been doing for a lot longer than that. But I thought to inspire my audience, I would do 15 days of three things I'm grateful every single day. And it could be something like, you know, I got a beautiful coffee or someone smiled at me in the park or yada, yada. And then I work for 15 To 30 to 60 to 700 plus days. Yeah, yeah. Every single day. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 1:05:47
Um, one thing that strikes me is that like, so, from the outside, like, you seem to kind of have it all in that, you know, you got three, three cookbooks, Sunday Times best seller, like ridiculously cool, Instagram page, YouTube channel, you're doing this cool stuff. You've got the background of the GP, you've got the credentials to prove it. You've got more books on the way I'm sure you've got this new app that you've just launched? Like why do you need an affirmation, saying, bro, it's gonna be okay. You're doing a hard thing?
Rupy Aujla 1:06:13
I think it's, it's a good question. I think it's easy to look at the veneer of what we put out on social media, and not really let people into how much of a shit show the backside. You know, because if people saw my morning was like, you know, it's just like, constant pandemonium. Starting a tech company was is probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. Because it's bootstrapped. We're not funded, and creating a scalable product that is well designed and works functions well. And all that kind of stuff requires a lot of effort and a lot of quality assurance and all that kind of stuff. And I'm basically doing all that kind of stuff at the moment. And I'm, I'm learning to love it. And I've got that mindset. But man, it is, every day, there is a problem every day, there is something that I'm trying to figure out every day, I'm having pangs of anxiety about whether this is a good investment of well over 100k you know, all these different things are constantly chipping away at my confidence level. So what you might see on the outside as a guy with all the qualifications and books, and all this thing going well for him is actually just a sort of hologram or like a, a mirage of actually what the reality is. You know, I think there's different ways of describing to myself what and what my day is like, like, the very vernacular that we use about how we describe our day, like I'm busy, or it's a pandemonium, like I've just said, behind the scenes, I think, basically leads to what the reality becomes, in your mind at least. And so I have to get into the habit of actually telling myself, it's okay, it's okay. And that's where the affirmations come in.
Ali Abdaal 1:08:06
That resonates so much like, I have found myself using that kind of terminology. Like, anytime I find myself thinking of using the word busy, I have like a allergic reaction. Yeah, I don't do that. But still, like, and so I don't say it externally. But still, internally, I you know, sometimes get to the end of the day and be like, Damn, that was pretty mental day, but we're pretty cool. And then I think Hang on. Like, why, like, the reason I left medicine was to not to have like a fairly stress free free life where I don't have to worry about life and death decisions. And yet, sometimes it feels as if within the team within the business like, oh my god, we have to get this video. Otherwise, like the world's gonna end? Yeah, yeah, we can just relax. Take a step back, chill the fuck out. It's all good. Yeah, I have to remind myself of that. And when and then when I realised Oh, shit, I need to remind myself of that. I really need to remind the team of that. But yeah, they're just going to be going off of my energy, which if by default, it's like, you know, let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah, everyone is going to sort of fall into that fall into step with that. Yeah. And it takes a little bit of like, take a step back. This is actually pretty cool. It's pretty freakin weird that you can have a business that just makes videos makes silly internet videos, and, you know, does reasonably well like let's let's enjoy this.
Rupy Aujla 1:09:11
That's an interesting, I'd love to get your perspective on that actually. Because as someone with a large team or larger team to me anyway, how your energy is perceived by others is probably going to have ramifications on you know, how everyone's feeling in the culture as well within that, and I have to remind myself of that as well because even when I speak to Karen who runs my life she's always whenever we have a call like she always asked me this thing I've only just realised that now how are you doing? Like are you feeling okay? How was your it's always with the expectation that I'm super stressed and I'm really busy and like she's that she's very motherly she I can't do down she's like a like an anti anxiety pill for me every time I talk to her afterwards, I just feel so much lighter. But I think I have to remind myself that because I'm probably having a slightly negative impact on the way she perceives everything going as well as in reality, you're right, we're, you know, messing around with fruits and vegetables, talking about the health benefits and putting out some colourful content.
Ali Abdaal 1:10:10
I remember yesterday, you know, we were having discussion with one of the team members about, you know, we're launching a new cohort of our YouTuber Academy. And there was one specific, like, type of event we were running, but I was a bit like, why are we doing this? This seems like a bad idea. And I think just sort of my energy was, it was it was definitely just basically being a massive dick about it and just be like, What the hell's going on here? Kind of vibes. Yeah. And then it took another team member in the room to be like, hey, it's alright. You can be we can have the conversation. But it doesn't have to be like this, where it's just like my default way of I think communicating is very just like, kind of straight in. Yeah. And that's just really bad. And I was thinking about afterwards, they're like, Wow, that was just really bad. Yeah. Why was I Why were they talking like that? It's not the end of the world. Yeah, we still got a whole month to go. And even if we didn't like what the hell we're doing, we're bringing the Zoom course teaching people how to be YouTubers like this is this is not life and death. I don't need to be like about it. Yeah, it's just, I think that reminder, sometimes it needs a reminder from someone else that hey, the way that you're acting is having this impact on other people. Stop that. Yeah, yeah. cuz otherwise, it's just like, it's so easy to just be in our own heads and not realise the impact we're having on others, I think.
Rupy Aujla 1:11:12
Yeah, absolutely. I think so. And I think like our frenetic behaviour can definitely impact culture on a wider scale in an organisation. But it's good that you've got like some insight into that, because a lot of people don't get to that until like years and years later, when they realise, oh, I've been addicted everyone for like five years. And that's why no one sends me a Christmas card.
Ali Abdaal 1:11:30
Yeah. Yeah, I need to be reminded of that more often. It sort of feels like we're following the chronology, but then we're going off tangent. So right now you're on the flight to Japan. And you posted your first thing, where you're like, I am a doctor. And here is a recipe for how to be healthier. And you were really like, Oh my God, all my medic friends are gonna cringe at this. Yeah. And then you land in Japan, what happens next?
Rupy Aujla 1:11:54
So I immediately met up with some of my friends. It was like, I was basically there because I made the last minute decision to just get the hell out of Sydney whilst I just need to be out my head whilst I press play and everything. And the reaction was amazing. I got like, so many text messages from friends, and even a parody video of my introduction to the intro to the YouTube thing already within like, like 12 or 14 hours that already made a parody video some of my friends, and it was, if you've seen like one of the first videos ever put, it's the doctors kitchen on a on a blackboard. And then I add fruits and vegetables to it and stuff. So they did the same thing with a piece of paper, the doctors kitchen and putting like wine and like, you know, like burgers and all this kind of stuff. And then doing the theme tune, but they'd literally doing it miming it like that instead of actual, like the ukulele music. So, so yeah, it was a really good reaction. And it was, again, speaking to some my senior consultants when I got back, saying, I saw your video, and I was like, I was like, I really loved it. I think it's great. I think we're doing awesome. It's definitely continual, that kind of stuff. And it was that sort of early support that allowed me to really push on and carry on. And like, you know, I don't think I've ever had any viral moments or anything, but just the consistency of like getting good feedback from people and growing on this medium. And you know, that that instantaneous feedback, I think was was really pivotal for me continuing to do what I wanted to do. And I never thought about leaving medicine at that point. Or, you know, moving on from medicine. I mean, I really done that over the last month or so. But I never saw it as like a book or, you know, media career or anything like that. That was never really the intention early really was inserted, after things kind of came out me. And I was reacting to them, rather than being proactive about it. I'm learning to be more productive now. Because I've sort of been dragged along this journey. And only over the last year or so. Am I really trying to take it by? What's that analogy? Oh, yeah. By the horns. Yeah. I don't know if you'd had that as well. Like, when you started doing videos, I guess things would have like pulls you along in terms of like, brand deals or collaborations and all that kind of stuff. But now it seems that you've been quite intentional about what you want to do in terms of designing...
Ali Abdaal 1:14:21
Yeah I think because I had run a business previously, made loads of mistakes running that and read other books about it. I mean, like, I would really wish I'd read this five years ago, but it wouldn't have applied to me five years ago because, like, you know, a book called The E Myth revisited. I don't if you've come across that it will change your life. It will change your life. Okay, it changed my life in 2019 when I read it being like, oh my god, it's basically about delegation and why it's so hard. Yeah, it's just like sounds like a simple thing. And I know that when I started 6med the courses company, I was not ready to receive that message. Because I was in the mind of I'll do everything myself. I do a better job than anyone else of doing the thing that yeah, because ABCDE and then Six years later, I was like, damn, I really wish I delegated more.
Rupy Aujla 1:15:02
Oh my God, that sounds like I need to read that book right now
Ali Abdaal 1:15:06
Do you have a business coach?
Rupy Aujla 1:15:07
I do in and out actually. Yeah. So she's had a bit of a break. But I had one at the start of last year, monthly for about six or seven months. Nice. really pivotal. Yeah, it was just like, milestone driven. You know, like we already checked in once a month. Everything was yeah, that was really good. That was kind of what led me to building the app and actually sticking to a schedule because of her.
Ali Abdaal 1:15:33
Yeah having a coach is game changing. Yeah, I just covered the whole coaching thing in like, 2020. And so I had a bunch of different coaches, like weekly. So if you're in the market for another one, I can recommend you to a guy I know who's also medicine. Yeah, really come from the UK. He was Cambridge medic a few years ago, who now does business coaching stuff. Really helps out. I'll do I'll do an intro afterwards. But yeah, it was so I think when I was approaching the YouTube channel stuff, I already had the experience of failing, but like, you know, failing, failing upwards and building a business and sort of making shit up as I went along, yeah, with the courses company, to the point that when the YouTube channel started to do well, and I started to think in terms of it being a business, yeah, I still had loads to learn, like reading the E Myth, reading books, like traction, like half the books, here are business books that are just sort of books about leadership and management and things like that, where it felt like, every time I was reading a new book, I was like, Oh, my God, like, it's as if this person has been inside my soul that knows what problems I'm currently having. Yeah, I'm like, This is not surprising, because like business has been solving these problems for like, 200 years. Yeah, there is like literature on this. And like, I'm a frickin medic, like, I should know that there is literature and guidelines about all of the things I'm struggling with. Yeah, it's like we hired 15 people before I first before I read a book about hiring, I was like, damn, I wish I'd read that and day one. Oh, I was like, yeah, why am I making shit up? Like, there is BMJ best practice there is up to date. Like, this is a thing.
Rupy Aujla 1:16:53
I definitely need to read that book. Because I I'm in that position right now where I feel like I can't delegate because I know how to do customer service. I really want to, you know, instil like, confidence in them and all that kind of stuff. You know, yeah, that that sounds Pivotal, because I think that's gonna be a massive blocker to scaling. If you can't delegate appropriately. Yeah, learning that the hard way. So I'm definitely going to take the take you up on that.
Ali Abdaal 1:17:16
So you started posting sort of videos on Instagram and YouTube under this doctor's kitchen thing? Yeah. And it sounds like you sort of thought about the branding and music and stuff in the early days. Yeah, what happened next?
Rupy Aujla 1:17:28
So I was working alongside doing all that kind of stuff. So it was like, you know, ad hoc posting all that kind of stuff. I did like a few restaurant reviews and all that. And you know, just enjoy it and Instagram are all in Instagram, pretty much. Yeah, mostly the YouTube stuff was like tutorials and a few recipe videos and stuff. But I found even early on even today, the the need to constantly video and then Edit and then put it out, I was never able to hit a consistent posting schedule, even today. The only things that consistently posted on now are things like Facebook, Instagram, a bit of Twitter, but my podcast as well as probably the most rigorous in terms of putting something out every single month.
Ali Abdaal 1:18:11
Mostly like Instagram, like how much effort we're putting into these Instagram, like, videos?
Rupy Aujla 1:18:16
Probably putting quite a bit of effort, because I would make a new recipe every time I would like write it down. I would also add it to the website, okay, like there was a big collection of like, janky looking videos on the old website, they've now been taken down, got them professionally shot, as we have for the app and stuff. But yeah, it was a lot of that in the early days, it was pretty analogue.
Ali Abdaal 1:18:36
And so like, so you, you'd be working in emergency department, then in the evenings and weekends, you'd be hustling to get recipes out
Rupy Aujla 1:18:42
Yeah yeah, and the good thing about working in Australia is that they have different working arrangements than they do in the UK. Right. So I was working like four days on four days off, which sounds like the dream for a lot of people over here in the UK. And anytime you did overtime, that should pay you overtime as well. It's just like the thing, it's just very normal over there. And that gave me a lot of time to to actually put into the Instagram stuff. And so if I didn't have that opportunity, and I didn't have that time, I probably wouldn't have been able to consistently post and build up that audience and interact with the community and all that kind of stuff. And I think also there is some like, as you might have found as well, there is some value in being the doc who also does the doc stuff, and then does recipes as well, that's always been like, you know, the intrinsic proposition. So, yeah, that was that was really useful in the early days.
Ali Abdaal 1:19:35
Okay. And so like normally in the early days of stuff, there's you know, it's you're putting a lot of stuff out there and you're not getting like immediate traction. What was that experience like for you like putting all this effort into stuff like was it was it like going viral immediately or like what the numbers looking like?
Rupy Aujla 1:19:51
Pretty slow so like, I think only hit 1000 subscribers like three or four months in?
Ali Abdaal 1:19:58
Like four months on Instagram.
Rupy Aujla 1:20:00
No, no, no, it wasn't immediate tool. I was posting probably once every two or three days, it was pretty ad hoc. And to be fair, like, even now, it's not as consistent as it should be like, Yeah, I'm really bad at social media. So I was in Sydney until March 2016. And then when I got back, I almost immediately got approached by a literary agent.
Ali Abdaal 1:20:35
Off the back of a few thousand Instagram followers?
Rupy Aujla 1:20:37
3 or 4000. That was, yeah, that was it at that time. And when I got my book deal, I think I was literally on five or 6000. I wasn't a big influencer. Yeah, no way. So they saw something beyond the the number of followers, they saw the value, they saw that, you know, the proposition of a doctor who knows what he's talking about, about nutrition has got an interesting personal story they saw, there's different bits. The brand was like, also, I guess attractive to them. But now actually, in future books, we're moving a bit away from the brand and moving more towards Dr. rupee as a sort of cooking personality. Rather than and that's like an intentional decision. Because, as we might talk about later with cookbooks, most people buy into personal brands when it comes to cooking
Ali Abdaal 1:21:23
Rather than like Nigella and stuff. Exactly. Other than a brand brand.
Rupy Aujla 1:21:27
Yeah exactly. So you you'll notice that Jamie moved away from the naked chef, which is how he actually started, he was known as the naked chef. Now he's Jamie Oliver. And the same thing can be said of a few other people. YoTam has always been like, Yotam Ottolenghi, that's always been the brand, but that's very much personally him. So yeah, that's sort of the direction that we're going in as well. We've got true I'm still gonna keep doctors kitchen for the other stuff as well. So I think that's like, it means that I can express what the doctor's kitchen stands for different ambassadors and personalities across different geographical locations. So I'm not inherently tied to it. That's the way I look at it is what I'm trying to create is like, what Andy Puddicombe has done for headspace. Andy Puddicombe is the founder of headspace and the guy who started in the guy who narrates all of it. But people know headspace more than that.
Ali Abdaal 1:22:15
Yeah. I never heard of him.
Rupy Aujla 1:22:17
Yeah. And that's kind of what I want to do with the doctors kitchen. Yeah, the people in the UK and parts of Australia in America might no doctor rupee. Yeah. But I want them to know doctors kitchen a bit more interesting. Yeah,
Ali Abdaal 1:22:29
I think yeah, this is something that I I've heard from a lot of creators. There's this sort of like progression in terms of autonomy. So when you're working as a doctor, you have basically no autonomy. You're kind of been told what to do, especially when, especially as a junior, and so then the next step is to kind of do your own thing under your own brand. So someone like me, yeah, where it's like, oh, now I have the autonomy to do kind of do what I want. But then you realise when you're at the stage where you can do what you want. The problem is that it's so tied tied to my personal brand. And that actually removes autonomy, because now I can't just well, I could, but like, I feel like I can't just like fly to, I don't know, wherever, wherever and just hang out with friends. Because we have a video event deadline in my personal channel. It needs to have stuff. Yeah. So then the next level of autonomy up is building a brand. Like the part time brand. Yeah, it does not have my name in it. Yeah, where my name pushes it initially, but it's not so intrinsically tied to it that it becomes impossible to sort of separate the two things out. Yeah, yeah, it sounds like you kind of started out with the brand. Yeah. And now you're branching out into the personal thing, but still benefiting from the benefit of the brand, ie the autonomy and the fact that you don't have to be front and centre all the time.
Rupy Aujla 1:23:38
Exactly. Yeah. Because what I've realised is that it is as great as it is. And as amazing is to have this feedback and like interaction with with people. And it can detract from the grander vision of what I'm trying to do, which is scale up, you know, healthy eating for millions of people around the world. You know, I can't be a singular person doing that it has to be under an umbrella. I'm happy doing all the other stuff, like, you know, with cookbooks and stuff, because that's not necessarily me having to post every single week and you know, the podcast I do, really out of like the love of doing the podcast, I really enjoy that. But I don't want to be tied to it where it becomes something that you you have to work toward, and you're doing it because you have to do rather than you want to. You see what I mean. I know. It's an interesting conundrum that creators are and I think that I've come from a personal brand and branching out going forward, isn't it?
Ali Abdaal 1:24:32
Definitely. So you had 6000 followers on Instagram. You got your your a literary agent approaching it for a book deal. Yeah. What What was that like?
Rupy Aujla 1:24:40
That was really surreal. When I got back into the UK, it was like literally I started working as a salary doctor. So regular GP surgery, doing a bit of hours on the side as well doing a few courses and all that kind of stuff, still keeping the medic medical side of things going and then literally coming out of nowhere, who, you know was referred to me probably because someone who was a big fitness influencer, referred them to me and said, I followed this guy was really good content, you should check it out, they checked it out, they saw this is pretty cool. And, you know, I see the trajectory of where this is going. And that's where we had the initial conversation, it was just over coffee. And I was kind of like blown away, because I was, I was literally going to a late shift that day. And I just had a coffee and he was like, soho house or somewhere, I was like, This is fancy. And, you know, it's a different world to what I'm used to. And also it's kind of, you know, I've only been doing it for like six or seven months at the time. What Why would they, you know, 5000 followers or whatever I was on? It was it was very Yeah, it was it was surreal that time. And then, you know, the conversations with with different publishers. And what happened was something called a preempt. So the, the publisher basically preempted it going to auction where, you know, there's a proposal that's delivered, and then like, whatever. So the proposal actually went to them initially. And they bid on it. And yeah, the rest is history really was published with Harper Collins. It was Thornton's imprint. And it was her name is Carolyn, she has since moved from Harper, but she was right really forward thinking she really saw it. And it was, it was so strange, because I went to the News UK building, one of the 15th or 16th floor, all glass building, looking out into the shard there's little old me walking in. And on the big TV screen, they've got images of me and my YouTube channel, and like my Instagram and some of the recipes and all that kind of stuff. And it was they were trying to sell them to me, yeah, themselves to me. And I was like, this should be the, you know, this is so weird, like, why you try big office, you know, Harper Collins, whatever. That yeah, that was very strange. But they really saw they really painted out this vision of what the brand should be in what they could do with the recipes and the type of people that wanted involved and that kind of stuff. They really had a vision for it. And so when I talk about like, I was dragged in this, this direction, I wasn't dragged kicking the street, obviously, I was loving the journey. But I never really had thought about what the next milestones are after book one, Book Two, etc. It's only until recently that I've actually figured that out.
Ali Abdaal 1:27:24
That must've been like a really cool experience.
Rupy Aujla 1:27:26
It was a very cool experience. very surreal. And at the same time, I don't know if you had experience with your mom. But my parents were like, Yeah, okay, this is cool. But like, you know, stick to medicine. Yeah. Even today, like, you know, my dad's always asking about how work was I mean, they know I'm on a sabbatical now. But like, you know, like, when you're going when you're going back to the hospital? I'm not going back straightaway. I'm taking some time what to focus on these things first, you know, it's it is kind of jarring every time I get that.
Ali Abdaal 1:28:01
Yeah. I mean, I've been having those conversations multiple times a week for the last like four years. So you're in good company.
Rupy Aujla 1:28:07
Yeah, exactly. I think it's an Asian thing as well, you know, the status that's, that's inherent in being a doctor in the community is very hard to beat
Ali Abdaal 1:28:19
like, I think, I wonder if it's less about the status and like, my, my theory on this is like, you know, with my mom, for example, she doesn't actually care about status. And I'm sure your parents don't directly either, but it's like, in their generation medicine and solid job is the part of the good life. Yeah, were actually in for even people working in tech right now. Like, it's such a different thing than it was in our parents generation. Yeah. And so, you know, working at IBM and working your way up for 40 years, and getting the company car in the health insurance and stuff was the path to the good life. That is not the part of the good life anymore. Yeah. So I think our parents are probably still in that mindset, where the solid job is actually the thing to optimise for. Because they have our own best interests out.
Rupy Aujla 1:28:59
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, yeah, you're right. I think it's like, they wouldn't label it as status. Yeah. But it's, it's definitely connected to happiness, I guess, you know, you got stability and consistency, and you're doing ultimately a good thing. You know, not many vocations can really say that about their day to day.
Ali Abdaal 1:29:26
Do you get the sense that from your, from, from from, from your parents, or from other people that you have left behind the noble thing of saving lives to be just another one of those influencers that writes cookbooks, kind of vibes?
Rupy Aujla 1:29:40
In a small way, I think probably not as harsh. But, but yeah, I think there is an element of that. However, I've I've obviously done a lot of thinking around this in terms of what is the amount of Effective Altruism, I guess you You could call it that you can conjure up using your profession. And I think, on a one to one basis, it's a lot more literal. And it's a lot more. It's tangible in that I'm having a direct impact on this person by giving them my time prescribing, giving them a plan, etc, etc. Whereas when you're doing something across the screen, you don't really understand what the tangible impacts are. And how do you measure that impact? One of the reasons why I'm starting in the tech world, because I want to be able to actually measure the impact that we're having tangibly on people's health using different metrics eventually. And unless you get those lovely emails and texts and voice notes from from fans, like your recipes, it really helped me out. This is my story. And I've had, I'm blessed to have had many of those. You don't really get that one on one connection, you don't get that like thank you card, you know. So I think that that's definitely one of the elements of it. But I, my family, my parents are pretty understanding about the magnitude of the impact. And the reason why is because some of the friends have started benefiting from it. And they're calling them as though Yeah, they're Ruby's stuff and like, you know, my sugar levels are improved and like my cholesterol is that I've lost weight and like all our friends are losing weight. You know, the there are tangible impacts that they're seeing like he hasn't met them. And that is not amazing. The fact that you can have an impact on people that you never even met. Weird.
Ali Abdaal 1:31:30
Yeah, if if someone told you kind of when you were doing GP training, for example, this was going to be how it would end up?
Rupy Aujla 1:31:36
Yeah, definitely not, I would have thought I would have left medicine along before I did any of this kind of stuff. Actually, I, when I was doing management, I had a buddy of mine who actually left straight after doing f2 and worked for a bunch of biotech companies, San Fran now moved to New York, and he's loving life. And so I was amongst a community of people that were already thinking about what life was like after medicine. But yeah, no, I wouldn't have thought I would have been doing this when I was GP training. No way. This definitely not. That wasn't that it wasn't the intention to TV and programmes and all that kind of jazz.
Ali Abdaal 1:32:15
So what what, when you when you're getting kind of approached by a publisher like this to do to do a cookbook? Yeah. What does that what does that look like? Like, what what dream? Are they selling you?
Rupy Aujla 1:32:25
So it was a one book deal, my initial book deal. They're selling, positioning, when they're going to be launching, what the competitor titles are, what their aspirations are, for the brand going forward, how they're investing in you, in more than just one book, even though they're only giving you one book deal, because they want to de risk it to themselves, but also the resources that they're throwing at you as well. So photography, props, stylists, copy editing, testing, all this different stuff. There's a whole army of people that never get really seen in the cookbook making process. That costs a lot of money as well. So it's, it's no wonder people don't do more self published professional cookbooks anyway. Loads ebooks and that kind of stuff.
Ali Abdaal 1:33:20
So to my mind, it seems that recipe decent photos, 85, millimetre zoom lens for sorted. Yeah, there's more to it than that?
Rupy Aujla 1:33:28
Yeah a lot. Yeah. So I mean, even like, right, where we're sitting right now, you know, we're surrounded by certain lights and cables and cameras and all that kind of stuff. We have on a cookbook shoot, you have not just a food stylist, but you have a prop stylist as well, food stylist, you have a food stylist and a prop stylist, and a sous chef, and a camera person and then their hand as well. You have all different types of angles that you shoot from, okay, there's like a story to be told. And there are very subtle things that I only learned about when I actually went to the food shoot, about how the whole book has a particular aesthetic. And, you know, I used to think this is just like you said, like, top down, you know, that's about it. But you know, in the first couple of books, there were little edges like little stylistic elements that tell the story the whole thing on the on the book that you're looking through at the moment, I was very much get trying to give the impression of simplicity. So that's why most so nice. Yeah, most of the recipes I want to top down and show you the indulgent aspects of eating and also like you know, they minimise the clutter so if you look at the the first couple of books, there's loads of like soda water on the side, there's like scattering of parsley everywhere. I've got like no folding napkins, I was like, No, I want I want to get rid of all that. And I want to tell this kind of story. So yeah, that the Persian style brown lentils is sort of that The way I wanted the whole book to appear. So yeah,
Ali Abdaal 1:35:06
This is so good.
Rupy Aujla 1:35:07
Yeah. And it's weird because even that's a paper back. Yeah, the hardback books are more expensive. And then they also have an image per recipe, this has got 80 images, I believe, whereas the hard backs will have like, hopefully an image per recipe, and that's like the dream. That costs a lot, because you're gonna get printing costs, you're gonna get paid, because you're gonna get all these different things. So everything kind of everything is like, compounded into to one everything that goes into making that book. It's, it's super expensive.
Ali Abdaal 1:35:43
Okay, so for example, I'm just curious here. So you've got this image. Yeah. Which is like the super sick looking sorry for people on the audio. If you'd watch it on YouTube. Yeah, you'll, you'll see that, is this like, a real dish that you cooked? Or like a flat food or? Okay, like, yeah,
Rupy Aujla 1:35:58
No. So when you see like, an image of like an m&s chocolate cake, or a McDonald's, a lot of that is staged, a lot of that is fake. Everything that we've shot and all the books is always real, it's cooked there. I oversee everything.
Ali Abdaal 1:36:14
Yourself?
Rupy Aujla 1:36:15
No, I don't cook anything. Yeah, there's not professional cooks cooking, because they have to be like an assembly line, because we're doing like sometimes eight, nine recipes in a day. Okay. And, you know, they're like professional chefs, and they're following your recipe, on wire SP letter to the like, the detail, they're falling every single recipe. And what, what people don't realise is that I'm so busy, like, involved in like how it's being shot, and looking at the the draft image, and like, maybe getting my hand in there, like that. The food's being cooked at the same time. Okay, so this is literally like an assembly that happens over the course of about a week as well. So these things are like, I couldn't really,
Ali Abdaal 1:36:56
I guess they're also like testing the recipes to make sure that the like, it's actually one tablespoon of olive oil around 18, or whatever.
Rupy Aujla 1:37:02
Yeah, so usually, ideally, what should happen is you create the recipes. And then I work with a recipe tester, who then tests all the recipes. And then they go back to me, and I review the changes and make sure you know, they're in line with my nutrition principles, and all the rest of it. What we've done on the next book, actually, which I haven't talked about yet, is we actually crowdsourced loads of recipe testers from my newsletter list. So I went to I looked at on MailChimp, you can look at your like most engaged subscribers, so looks at my most engaged subscribers. And there are about 10,000 people who open it like, you know, more than four or five times in the last like three months, let's say so engaged subscriber. And so I sent an email to them saying, Look, I need some pretty testers, here's Google form, if you're interested, then fill out this form. And then we'll send you a single recipe for you to test in your own time, you fill out a questionnaire, you take images of it, we might use the images in the back of the book to you know, make a nice collage and stuff. And your name is where if you want to be in the acknowledgments, and we got something like 1500 responses to that nice, yeah, and then we ended up sending so so we also had to take their dietries as well, as you can imagine, this is an organisational nightmare. So we got all the dietries, we had to match all the 100 recipes that I'd created, and also gone through the test and then give each recipe to specific people based on their dietary needs, and likes and dislikes. And then they feel like that. And then I read over 900 responses in a big Excel form of all the pain points or the issues that they might have had or their feedback rating, would they make this recipe again, all these questions, and that's going to go into the next book. So each recipe has been tested in a real, actual kitchen 10 times. And from all over the world, dude, we had people from like, Nepal, Australia, rule France, Canada, America, like everywhere, like people, because obviously the newsletter isn't you know, they get it everywhere. So yeah, it was it was insane. Yeah, it's it's amazing.
Ali Abdaal 1:39:03
What so I'm not sure if you're allowed to share your numbers. But like, what, what are the economics generally of cookbook publishing? Yeah. What sort of ballpark advances to people get like, how much they sell for what are the royalties? Like? I'm very curious to understand what this process is.
Rupy Aujla 1:39:17
Yeah. So I'll give you an example of my first book. And I don't usually talk about this stuff. So I'm happy to talk candidly about it. So the ballpark for advances for cookbooks range anywhere between 20 grand to over 200-250 grand well, it can be huge for my first book I got a really good offer it was 75 grand considering that not much social media following really good yeah, not my social media following no traction and book books nothing like that
Ali Abdaal 1:39:49
Was that like international or just UK or...?
Rupy Aujla 1:39:51
That was worldwide, yeah, so worldwide rights so for people listening, you know, that you can separate the markets into UK and Australasia. And America and Europe and other concepts that was worldwide rights. And then also you can separate it further out into like TV rights as well. So whether they have TV rights as well. So let's say that someone picked up the doctor's kitchen and then turned it into a TV show that was tied to the book very much like what Jamie Oliver does or Nigella? You know, are those going to be separate? Do you have a royalty bonus when you get a TV show? And that that bonus, I'm not actually too sure, it could be probably in the 10s of 1000s, if not more, and then there's the royalty share as well. And so that can be like 10%. But that depends on a threshold, and that threshold can be up and down. My threshold was super high, it was like 80,000 copies. And so mine hasn't started paying until like, from the first book until like two years ago, because we've since sold over 100,000 copies of book one. But, you know, obviously, the 80,000 threshold was super high. So they're like de risking it to themselves. Because creating a book like that costs, like a tonne of money. So yeah, that's the basic economics of a cookbook.
Ali Abdaal 1:41:08
So the idea is that, you know, the you would get the advance and then you earn out of the advanced through royalty payments. And then at some point, you start getting royalty checks once you've earned out your advance. Exactly. That sounds like you've now earned your advance. Yeah, so you get quarterly royalty checks.
Rupy Aujla 1:41:22
Yeah I get quarterly royalty checks from Harper. Okay. And yeah, yeah, the funny thing is, I've since become VAT registered, and I want to go to the business. But yeah, that's basically how it works.
Ali Abdaal 1:41:34
And so is it a sustainable full time living to be a cookbook author? Very important question?
Rupy Aujla 1:41:39
Yeah, very important question. It depends on what your standard of living is. Okay. So I think if you're the kind of person that can churn out and has the opportunity to churn out a cookbook, a year, and can, it's a lot a lot of work and can demonstrate sales of a cookbook a year, then yes, I think it could be if you're happy with something around 60k a year, let's say, Wow, yes.
Ali Abdaal 1:42:09
That's tiny compared to what you're saying every year. Yeah. Make make a cookbook from scratch, and demonstrate the ability to sell it. Yeah. Are we talking like hundreds of copies? 1000s of copies? 10s of 1000s.
Rupy Aujla 1:42:19
Like, oh, what I would say like a good. A good performing cookbook would be 30 to 40,000 copies. Yeah. I would say that. Yeah, it's a lot a lot. And so it's, it's no wonder you see the same chefs in the sort of top sellers list, right. You have great chefs Jamie Nigella Nardia, Rick Stein, these are really tried and tested chefs that people will love and adore. And so breaking into that market is very hard. So if you look at what Joe Wicks has done, or who are the slimming the two people who slimming pinch of nom, they've done phenomenally well, they sell hundreds, if not millions of books. You got Rukmini Iyer, who sold the roasting to another really good.
Ali Abdaal 1:43:03
Oh, I would love that. That's great. But yeah, yeah. A friend gave it to me.
Rupy Aujla 1:43:08
Rukmini's books are fantastic. She sold over a million copies across a series of books. And with good reason. They're amazing. She was actually on my BBC show as well. Yeah, if you can get that there's only a few people who actually go into that level of of, you know, scale. Yeah, most people will do a cookbook and then they'll never do another one because they either didn't sell as much or you know, just just didn't work out for them.
Ali Abdaal 1:43:33
So is just the publishing business enough to be a full time living No, no side hustling things.
Rupy Aujla 1:43:39
Oh, yeah. All the I think like having a cookbook is a really nice business card. Because it allows you to do other things like you know, you get to do a bit of TV shows you do some of the live cooking events. It has opened the doors for me doing like collaborations with catering companies where I design a lot of the menus for buildings across the UK. So I've got a collaboration with a company called Gather and Gather. And they do all the professional catering for over 200 buildings in the UK, including like sky, Lloyds TSB Vodafone, so they've got big, big kitchens. And they have my recipes, like every single week that I've designed quarterly for them, that are like, you know, nutritionally balanced and have the story and all the rest of it and I'll do some like corporate speaking events for them as well. So I think it's a really good business card to get your foot in the door and it demonstrates a bit of authority. But if you can demonstrate like sales of like more than 40,50, 60,000 that gets you a lot more, I believe.
Ali Abdaal 1:44:43
Okay, so I guess like yeah, this is similar to like I've spoken to a bunch of other like nonfiction authors like generally, nonfiction self help, such as yours, who are like, Yeah, it's really hard to survive just off the back of royalties on and advances from books unless you are a James clear or Mark Manson who's million copies plus and that point you're in the sort of upper echelons. Exactly. And kind of a kind of until that point, you still need to hustle and do courses and you're speaking and this that and the other totally similar in the in the food genre.
Rupy Aujla 1:45:11
Yeah, absolutely. And people like, again have this idea of like, he's got a cookbook and his Sunday Times bestseller and like, he gets to go on TV and stuff. And they equate that with, with wealth.
Ali Abdaal 1:45:21
Yeah, like in my head, you making millions without doing anything, because you get all passive income from the book sales. No, but presumably, a little bit off with that.
Rupy Aujla 1:45:29
You're off with that massively off, but I think what it's allowed me to do is build a foundation, a trustworthy foundation to jump off into loads of other activities that actually I really want to do. Like, I love doing books, don't get me wrong, I love the feel of cookbooks, myself. And the whole process. And like, that week is amazing. And you know, we're about to do like a photo shoot, with one of Jamie Oliver's photographers and stuff. So like, the opportunity that cookbooks has given me is amazing. And I know they're being used. You can like read the Amazon reviews and stuff, people love them. But it's not a sustainable income unless you're willing to, you know, live on quite well, I wouldn't say it's a small salary, but it's like, you know, with everything else that you have to do to maintain this brand. It goes very, very quickly and haven't even talked about agency fees as well, because that full advance is cut
Ali Abdaal 1:46:24
By like 20%. Yeah, yeah.
Rupy Aujla 1:46:28
Industry standard. Yeah.
Ali Abdaal 1:46:30
Let's say I wanted to make a cookbook. Yeah. And I got a deal for making a cookbook. And then let's say I'm gonna do like, oh, Ali's kitchen. The cookbook is on is on Saturday kitchen. Yeah, whatever the show is called. Yeah. Would they pay me for appearing on Saturday kitchen? So how does that work?
Rupy Aujla 1:46:45
If you're doing a appearance, I've done appearances and like this morning, if you're so when you're doing an appearance, they don't pay you for a guest contributor. But if you are being a guest contributor, I mean, it's minimal. It's like 200 400 pounds, and like that to just appear. I mean, you think about the logistics of it, you know, it's like quite a few hours every time it's like half a day. So, you know, all that stuff that it doesn't really make ends meet. And unless you're going there, and you're promoting your book, you know, when I when I did like, this morning, promotion, I think for the first time, we must have sold like three or 4000 books in like half a day, just by appearing
Ali Abdaal 1:47:24
Interesting. Yeah, like in the in the sort of business non self help genre. terrestrial TV is pointless. And it's all about podcast appearances. Yeah. And I guess in the cooking genre, that's actually an area in which people do translate into convert into sales.
Rupy Aujla 1:47:37
Yeah, yeah, I guess it depends on the audience. So like, what same thing, when I did Saturday Kitchen again, and went straight to number one on Amazon, because that's a book buying audience. They're super engaged, they see the recipes, they immediately go and buy it. Whereas if you're listening to me on a podcast, unless you're like, unless I've described so beautifully, the the recipes that you can make from my book, it's not really going to translate into something.
Ali Abdaal 1:48:02
Whereas if you were to do a thing about how you sort of how to how to build a part time brand, while being a doctor and stuff, yeah, and you tell the story of that on a podcast on podcast, listen, that's interesting. Yeah,
Rupy Aujla 1:48:12
Exactly. Yeah, the number of like business books that I've bought immediately on Audible or something, like, you know, often listen to what I oppose that all like, I listened to my first million I love that podcast, I've actually had to take a break from it.
Ali Abdaal 1:48:26
Too many episodes. I can't listen to these 100 episodes.
Rupy Aujla 1:48:31
I know. Yeah, totally. I started listening to the backlog over Christmas because I run out. But actually, what I've realised is because they give so many ideas, it's actually detracting from what I need to focus on right now, which is the business, my status side hustle, or hustle, whatever you want to call it. And so I've actually had to take a break from my first million because it's just too much content. But multiple times I've listened to that. And like some pause, like Name Check, Robert Greene, obviously, you know, 48 pounds or 50 pounds, or whatever it's called. And a whole bunch of other books have paused. And that clicks on like one click by yeah, I've definitely got a more audible listen to,
Ali Abdaal 1:49:07
I find that podcast, there's almost like, peaks, peaks and troughs. So like, for example, in 2019, I was listening to hundreds of podcasts that year, especially while I was travelling back and forth. an hour each way to work. Yeah, you have to. And then it was like all of those ideas from the podcasts in a way then there was a two year period of putting them into practice. Yeah. And now I'm getting like literally getting back into podcasts in the last week. So I was I've been listening to my first million in a couple of episodes of having not heard a load of podcast for like a year or two at this point. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Like I went completely off podcasts as the business was growing. And as I was like, actually, business audiobooks are the thing I need in my life right now. Yeah. Whereas now the podcast, I find that the conversational is really great. And you get a lot of ideas. But yeah, when you're in execution mode needs to executing and learning about the specific thing, and then it sort of like divergence and convergence. Yeah, like divergence of ideas that you get from podcast and then convergence when you're like, right, this is my angle. I know I'm making an app. I'm To listen to all of the audiobooks around how to build an app, and how to scale a tech startup.
Rupy Aujla 1:50:03
Yeah, that's a that's a really good point. That's basically the situation that I'm in. In fact, the last audio book I read, I listened to was inspired. And that's basically all about product teams, and what the structure that looks like because there's a non tech founder, I need to know, what does an engineer do? What does the designers do? How do you create coherent systems such that you can actually scale a company and know who you're hiring as well? So yeah, taking a break from podcast has actually been pretty good for me, because I was an avid podcasters. I still am but I will come back to it at some point.
Ali Abdaal 1:50:36
Why the app? What is the deal with the app? I've just downloaded the app. And I'm gonna start following the recipes on the app. But yeah, what's, what's the rationale there?
Rupy Aujla 1:50:44
I've wanted to do an app for years, right? So ever since two years ago, brought in a bunch of followers to investigate what the barriers to healthy eating were for them, I had this idea of creating a an application or a web based platform where I could teach people how to cook well every single day and keep them on the straight and narrow. And that has kind of morphed into a recipe planning app that you can download on your phone and links with supermarkets. So you can actually order the ingredients with one click Yeah, you can't do that right now. Okay, one day at, but that's sort of a product roadmap, okay. And I've got a whole bunch of other ideas as well, that I'll chat about very, very briefly. But the the app has been in the back of my mind the whole time, because I really wanted to create the headspace for healthy eating, and really enable the brand to span beyond what I can do in the UK and actually have an impact that going forward. And so yeah, the process of building it has been crazy, because we're not just another recipe app, we enable people to filter the recipes according to health goals. And so me and the research team, look through a whole bunch of research. And you can find out all process for finding all this research on the website. And we look at the dietary patterns and the ingredients that align with things like skin health, mental health, in terms of nutritional psychiatry, brain health, like a whole bunch of different health goals, and even inflammation using the dietary inflammatory index as well. And then you're allowed to filter according to your dietary preferences, as well as your allergens and intolerances, dislikes. And then you get a library of all these different ingredients such that you don't have to think about what you need to do with the box of spouts that you see in Tesco or whatever you have loads of ideas with step by step images of everything. So you can cook well every day. The product roadmap is really to create something like a Spotify playlist that delivers you in delivers you recipes, that actually you want to intuitively cook based on your preferences and what you've liked before. And then also that one click ability to get the ingredients. But also, I think in the future, which is what I think I discovered on this podcast, I can't remember is the other one that we recorded, but basically where you have ghost kitchens, creating the recipes for you and delivering it such as nutritionally balanced for you. We also want to have wearables indicating what you should be eating as well based on things like ordering data, exercise data, continuous glucose monitoring data microbiota data, as well. So that's all stuff in the future. But we're starting with a very simple recipe app, which is the doctor's kitchen that you can get on an Apple store. And it's just an Apple store at the moment because I'm bootstrapping it. And that I mean, that is a whole podcast in itself. I guess in terms of like how you fund everything. Because everything that I've channelled from the books that led to the podcast that's led to corporate speaking events, all that has been channelled into creating this app. So I'm basically putting everything on red.
Ali Abdaal 1:53:40
Oh, yeah, I think definitely not part two, when explore the economics of building an app. Yeah. And what it's like building out the product team, what it's like outsourcing stuff, or it's like working with agencies. I think that's so interesting. Yeah. I think a lot of people have this dream of like, Oh, I'd like to build an app someday. And like, I get so many medics that come to me, like, hey, you know, I really want to build an app. And I'm always like, Oh, he thought about that. Yeah. Especially like non technical founders. Oh, it's fine. I can come up with the idea. I can do the mock ups. I'll just, I'll just hire someone be like, yeah, how much does it cost to hire someone? A lot of money. But surely, you know, a few $1,000. I can hire someone Bangladesh, like, have you ever tried? It's not that easy? Yeah. All this stuff around building an app that I'm sure you're not familiar with?
Rupy Aujla 1:54:19
Totally. Yeah. And if you skimp out on the cost as well, it will come back to bite you as well. So I learned that and then yeah, it is a whole podcast episode. I'd love to hear your opinions on that as much. As a non tech founder. I'm learning a lot of things the hard way, but I feel like I'm going along this educational process where I could perhaps teach other people as well.
Ali Abdaal 1:54:39
The hard thing about hard things. No amazing audio book is by Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz. Yes. Ben Horowitz Yeah, it was all about the struggles of building a tech company. It's sick. So listen to so the E Myth revisited. You change your life, how think about hard things quite nicely won't change your life. Are you are you thinking of hiring anything? people full time recently. near future.
Rupy Aujla 1:55:01
Yeah, yeah, very much so. Okay.
Ali Abdaal 1:55:04
I have tonnes of recommendation. Okay. It's gonna be great. And I'll increase my business coach as well.
Rupy Aujla 1:55:10
Definitely, man. I feel it's been like a business therapy session.
Ali Abdaal 1:55:13
Yeah, well, coming on. We're gonna we're gonna do a collab we're gonna teach me healthy weeknight meals. 100% out of the app, the episode, we'll put links to the books, the apps and thank you for gifting us this little lovely kitchen three to one book. And yeah, it's been great having you appreciate it, man. Yeah, my pleasure. Alright, so that's it for this week's episode of Deep Dive. Thank you so much for watching or listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned in the podcast are gonna be linked down in the video description or in the show notes depending on where you're watching or listening to this if you're listening to this on a podcast platform and do please leave us a review on the iTunes store. It really helps other people discover the podcast or if you're watching this in full HD or 4k on YouTube then you can leave a comment down below and ask any questions or any insights or any thoughts about the episode that'd be awesome. And if you enjoyed this episode, you might like to check out this episode here as well which links in with some of the stuff that we talked about in the episode. So thanks for watching. Do hit the subscribe button if you don't already and I'll see you next time. Bye
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