7 Unhealthy Habits That Made Me Rich

TL;DR

Ali shares seven productivity-obsessed habits from his 20s that built his business but cost him presence, health, and relationships.

Key Points

• 1.Zero downtime and constant consumption were the foundation habits. Ali carried his laptop everywhere and filled every idle moment with work or business podcasts/audiobooks, squeezing productivity from commutes, toilet breaks, and any spare minute instead of scrolling or resting.
• 2.Constantly thinking about work boosted ideas but damaged relationships. Shower thoughts and commute brainstorming generated breakthroughs, but Ali was often physically present with friends and family while mentally absent, a habit he is now actively unlearning as a new father.
• 3.Shirking other responsibilities is a near-universal trait among outlier success stories. Ali half-assed six years of medical school and did the bare minimum in his doctor career to redirect all discretionary time to his business, acknowledging survivorship bias — it worked, but it left him behind in medicine.
• 4.Health was deliberately sacrificed to reclaim time. Living off takeaways and avoiding cooking throughout his 20s saved many hours weekly for the business, but left Ali in his 30s working with a personal trainer and physio to fix posture, glute activation, and cardiovascular damage.
• 5.Being okay with wasting money eliminated low-ROI research time. Ali would buy tech impulsively below a threshold price, discard 80% of it to charity or friends, and justified it as freeing hours for revenue-generating work — a habit his wife still clashes with him over.
• 6.The aspirational hourly rate lens is powerful but dangerous if overapplied. Calculating that returning a £25 item costs more in time than it saves justified hiring a cleaner early and skipping errands, but risks turning all time — including friendships and family — into a money calculation, a trap Ali warns requires active resistance.