Hey friends,
🥳 Quick thing before we start – we’ve got some open spaces in our YouTube Accelerator program. If you’re a creator or business owner, and you’d like 1:1 support and consulting from me and my team to help grow your YouTube channel, you can find more details here.
Anyway, earlier this week, I took a quick trip back to London, mostly to say hello to my new niece and catch up with the family. I hopped on the 14-hour Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong, arrived at Heathrow Airport, and took the train straight into Paddington Station in central London.
Any time I fly to London, Paddington Station feels a bit… nostalgic. For me, Paddington will always be linked to one of the most formative (and, at the time, brutal) experiences of my life. When I was 18, standing right there in Paddington, I was scammed out of my life savings.
A bit of context: From age 15-18, I’d spent three years working after school at a Kumon study centre and doing private tutoring, walking or taking the train to various homes to teach kids maths and science. £15 here, £15 there, all carefully saved up with one goal in mind – buying my first Apple product before starting university. Every few weeks, I’d pop into the local Barclays bank branch, deposit the cash with the cashier, and watch the numbers on my account slowly inch up towards my goal.
In the summer holidays just before medical school was starting, I’d finally saved up the £1,000 I needed to buy a Macbook Air. But instead of getting the basic model from the Apple Store, I managed to find a high-end model for the same price on Gumtree, an online second-hand marketplace thingy. I contacted the seller, met the guy at Paddington station, handed over the cash (🤦♂️), and discovered on the way home that I’d been sold a defunct model that didn’t even work. I’d just been scammed out of every penny I’d saved.
At 18, this was the first real financial loss I’d had, and it felt personal. I lost sleep for weeks, lying awake at night running through all the what-ifs. What if I’d checked the laptop more carefully? What if I’d insisted on meeting somewhere else? What if I’d saved that money for another few months and bought from the Apple Store?
Every time I thought about it, I felt a physical… something… in my stomach. I’d never felt anything like it before. It wasn’t just about losing the money – it was about losing three years of work, of walking to those tutoring sessions in the rain, of giving up evenings and weekends. All gone in a moment of naivety.
I tried everything to track the guy down and get my money back, but I got nowhere. Eventually, my mum, bless her, stepped in and bought me a new Macbook Air herself, to free me from the sleepless nights trying to track this scammer down just before university was due to start. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of having been so stupid, of having let myself be duped so easily.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of just wallowing in that feeling, I created this Evernote document (I still have the screenshot) where I wrote: “Okay, how do I make this money back?” I listed out what I was good at: teaching, medical school admissions, making websites. I’d done really well on the BMAT (medical school admissions test), so why not create a course teaching that?
I remember thinking, “If I could turn this £1,000 loss into £10,000, that would be a pretty cool origin story.”
Well.
Within a year, I’d made about £10,000 from that courses business.
Within 2 years, it was £100,000. Within 5 years, it was £1,000,000.
And now, 12 years later, I’ve generated over £10m in online sales.
The £1,000 I lost back then has returned 10,000x the original amount.
But the money isn’t even the most interesting part. If I hadn’t built the BMAT course business, I’d never have started my YouTube channel. If I hadn’t started my YouTube channel, you wouldn’t be reading this email. I wouldn’t have met my now-wife. And I’d probably still be working as a doctor.
So now, whenever I arrive at Paddington, I think about my 18-year-old self standing in that same spot, feeling like his world had ended. I give myself a little pat on the back for having the wisdom (or maybe just the stubbornness) to try and turn that loss into a win.
I never could have predicted how the last 12 years would unfold. But that determination to transform the loss into something positive fuelled practically everything that came after.
If you’re dealing with a setback right now, here are three things that helped me turn the loss into a catalyst for change:
- Write it down – Get everything out of your head and onto paper (or Evernote). What happened? What are you good at? What opportunities might this open up?
- Set an ambitious goal – I wanted to 10x my loss. It seemed ridiculous at the time, but having that concrete number gave me something to work towards.
- Look for the edges – What skills or knowledge do you have that others might value? For me, it was BMAT prep, but it could be anything. The key is finding where your experiences (even the bad ones) might be valuable to others.
I’d love to hear from you – what’s a loss you’ve managed to turn into a win? Or what’s a recent setback you’re hoping to transform?
Have a great week!
Ali xx
