👀 I Quit My Job (Again)

The Sunday Night Review #170

Hello old friend.

If you’re struggling to remember who I am, or have subscribed to this email in the past few months, my name is Tintin (I know, my parents were feeling bold).

I’m a 28 year old dude in London, and it’s great to be writing to you again.

This is my weekly email The Sunday Night Review where I share lessons I’ve learned and document my life. I last emailed you in May this year, when I decided to pause it for a while.

But today, I’m making a grand return with a fun announcement.

I quit my job!

For the last 2.5 years, I’ve been working for a YouTuber called Ali Abdaal. I’ve been his Head of YouTube (I made up that job title) which meant running the production from start to finish for every video we posted.

I did this while it grew from 3m to 6m subscribers.

Everything from coming up with video ideas, working with editors and writers, to pretending I know how to use a camera.

They’ve been the best and most transformative years of my life.

So much has happened it’s hard to fathom.

For most of it, I’ve been working with Ali and the team in person. We hustled in London, while occasionally travelling to places like Turkey, Morocco, Portugal and the US for team trips.

It’s been nothing short of a dream job.

When I quit my consulting job at 25, I had no idea where I was going. But after getting started with YouTube, I somehow ended up working for Ali.

It’s had the excitement of working in a startup, but even better because the business has always been profitable.

Because of that, for a long time it felt extremely hard to look beyond the job.

I had a great life, with great prospects, and the idea of working with Ali blew my mind less than 2 years ago.

I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, and was committed to working there for a long time.

Surely this is enough?

But over the course of the job and this year, some things have changed.

My learning in the role had started to plateau. Ali got married and moved to Hong Kong. And I started to want a new challenge.

For the past 4 years that I’ve had full time jobs, I’ve also always had side hustles.

I’ve used the mornings, evenings, weekends and holidays to pursue exciting projects and learn as much as possible.

I didn’t really know what I was working towards, but over time the new dream became clearer. The dream of running my own business became more concrete.

I’m 28 now, and I feel ready for it.

I would say that now is the time for taking risks, which it is, but honestly it doesn’t feel like a risk at this point.

The risk would be staying where I am.

Not continuing to challenge myself and grow. Not leaning into discomfort. Not doing what my gut is telling me to do.

That’s the real risk.

My business has made enough money this year that it also now feels like a financial risk to stay too (I’ll talk about this more in future emails).

I learned an important lesson when I quit my consulting job 3 years ago.

100% certainty doesn’t exist.

I’ve written many times in the past about the idea that you can make big decisions with only 51% certainty. And most of the time you have 70-80% certainty anyway, but you’re waiting for that final 20-30%.

Over the course of the last few months, I’d say I’ve actually reached 95% certainty that this is the right decision for me.

But I’ll never feel 100% certain.

I’ll still remain great friends with Ali and the team. And if my business implodes then I’m sure I can find a way to add value to the team again too.

For a long time, the dream was being part of this team and business. And it’s been amazing.

So it’s taken me a while to accept the idea of giving up my dream job. But I’ve realised that dreaming is a continuous process, and I want to pursue a new challenge.

Dream. Take action. Repeat.

Or something like that.

This is the moment I spoke to Ali about leaving the business, while we were on a team trip in Porto a couple months ago.

Taken by Aditya Bhaiya 📸

Ali himself has been nothing short of a life changing employer, mentor and friend. I couldn’t be more grateful for his presence in my life.

I’ll write more about what the plans are next year, but in short I’ll be continuing to help educational YouTubers grow their channels and businesses. The underlying mission has always been to help educate the world, it’s why I left consulting for YouTube in the first place.

I can’t wait.

And I’m going to be writing these weekly emails on Sunday to document the journey.

May you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and I’ll see you in 2025.

Tintin 🫡

P.s.

Almost exactly 3 years ago I wrote another issue of this newsletter titled “I quit my job” when I was leaving consulting.

It was a very stressful time for me, but my reason for quitting was sound. You might enjoy reflecting on some of the principles I laid out in there too.

Here’s a link.

Thanks for reading The Sunday Night Review!