Hey friends,

Firstly, thank you for the wonderful feedback on the LifeNotes rebrand – we had 250+ replies to last week’s issue, mostly saying very positive things 😊

This week, I wanted to share some insights I had from a coaching conversation with Danny Miranda. Danny and I connected a few years ago when he interviewed me on his podcast, and we’ve hung out IRL a few times since. A few months ago, I saw Danny tweet out that he was starting a coaching programme, and because the conversations I’ve had with Danny have always felt quite transformative, I signed myself up.

Our first session tackled some private stuff, maybe I’ll share that at some point. But we had our second session this week, and I wanted to share my LifeNotes from the session.

The conversation started with Danny asking me about any areas in my life where I wasn’t feeling a sense of equanimity. I mentioned that I’d been feeling a bit lost when it comes to the business – questioning the point of making videos, feeling like they can be a bit repetitive: after all, there’s only so much advice I can feasibly give about how to stay more focused before it becomes same-y.

This isn’t a new feeling for me. It comes up about once a quarter, and I’ve gotten used to it after seven years in the game. But this time, the conversation with Danny took an interesting turn.

We started exploring what truly motivates me, and I had a bit of an epiphany. For years, I’ve been holding to this identity of wanting to be a ‘teacher’. Not in the traditional school-sense of course, but more in the sense of wanting to share ideas that people can apply to help build a life they love. I landed on the ‘teacher’ identity after asking myself the question: “What would I want written on my gravestone?”. For years, my answer has been “something along the lines of *good father, good husband, inspirational teacher”*.

But as Danny and I dug deeper into this idea, I started to realise something: while teaching is certainly a part of what I do and enjoy, it doesn’t fully capture what drives me. There’s something broader, something more fundamental that gets me excited to wake up each morning.

That something is creation.

When I think about the aspects of my work that truly light me up, it’s not just about teaching knowledge or skills. It’s about bringing new things into existence. Whether that’s a video, a course, a book, or even a new business idea – the common thread is creation.

This might sound obvious, but as I thought about the shift in identity from “teacher” to “creator”, it felt pretty profound. When I see myself primarily as a teacher, I feel this constant pressure to have new lessons to share, new frameworks, or principles, or ideas to share in videos, emails, podcasts, books. If my main role is “teacher”, then either I keep coming up with new stuff to teach, or I “teach” the same stuff again and again, which feels repetitive.

But when I reframe my role as a “creator” instead, suddenly the world opens up. Creating encompasses so much more than just teaching. It includes building new products, designing websites, coming up with businesses ideas, even things like revamping our existing product offerings. All of these activities are (a) really fun for me, and (b) still align with my goal of helping people build lives they love, but they do it in a broader way.

This realisation was liberating. It helped me understand why I sometimes feel demotivated about making repetitive content, but get really excited about projects like revamping our Part-Time YouTuber Academy, or building up Productivity Lab, or developing new software tools like VoicePal. It’s not just about teaching anymore – it’s about creating something new, something that didn’t exist before.

Reflecting on the conversation with Danny got me thinking about the labels we give ourselves and how they can sometimes box us in. Whether you think of yourself as a teacher, a doctor, an accountant, or whatever – it might be worth stopping every now and then to ask yourself: “Is this label still serving me? Or is there a broader way I could think about what I do?”

Of course, I’d love to get to the point where I’m so enlightened that I don’t attach my identity to any labels at all… if anyone has any tips on how to get there, my replies are open 😉

Ultimately, this shift from ‘teacher’ to ‘creator’ doesn’t change my ultimate goal. I still want to help people build lives they love. I still want to be remembered as someone who inspired others. But now, I see many more paths to achieving that goal.

So if you’re up for it, here’s a challenge I’d love for you to try this week: take a moment to reflect on the labels you’ve given yourself. Are they still accurate? Are they serving you? Or could broadening your perspective potentially unlock new levels of creativity and fulfilment? I’d love to hear what you come up with 😊

Have a great week!

Ali xx

❤️ My Favourite Things this Week

🎧 Audiobook – I’ve just finished listening to the biography of Jony Ive by Leander Kahney. The book dives into Jony’s life, from his early days to becoming Apple’s Head of Design. It explores his contributions to some of Apple’s most iconic products like the iMac, iPhone, and iPad. I feel like the book’s given me a whole new appreciation for industrial design and made me more aware of the thought and creativity that goes into the man-made world around us. If you’re into design, tech, or just love Apple products like I do, I’d definitely recommend checking it out (although the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson will probably be more interesting if you haven’t read/listened to it yet). Next on my list: Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson 🙂

🎵 Music Video – This is an absolute banger cover of Traitor by Olivia Rodrigo, sung by Amber (who’s incidentally one of my team members). Amber’s one of the best singers I’ve ever heard IRL – she busted out some songs at a recent karaoke thing we did on a team off-site (vlog here if you’re interested) and we were all absolutely amazed at her voice. If you’re into incredible covers of popular songs, you should check out her channel.

🎙️ Podcast – I absolutely loved David Perell’s interview with copywriter Harry Dry on the How I Write podcast. I took so many notes, and had so many moments where I felt like my mind was having a real-time firmware update around advertising, marketing and writing. If you’re into selling stuff in any capacity, you should definitely check it out.