Anish Vij
I think most of us have debated the idea of starting a YouTube channel at one point or another after seeing how much people can make on the platform.
And no one exemplifies that more than content creator Ali Abdaal.
The former doctor started sharing productivity and finance videos on the video-sharing website in 2017 and is now on 6.13 million subscribers.
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But the success hasn't come without 'playing the long game', the YouTuber says.
He didn't earn a penny until 'roughly 85 videos and nine months in'.
"If I'd quit 84 videos in, the last five years would have never happened," he said in a video from 2022.
In the clip, he then went on to reveal just how much money he made after racking up almost 9.8 million views with his most-watched video.
Titled, '9 Passive Income Ideas', the clip is now on 13 million views and it's about how he 'makes $27k (£22k) per week'.
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Well, back in 2022, that video alone earned him an estimated revenue of $191,258.16 (£154,787.20).
"There's two points that I want to make from this video," he said.
"The first one is that we can kind of treat these sorts of YouTube videos as digital assets.
"They are investments. An investment is something that puts money in our pocket, and so the fact that I've put the time and the effort into making this video, and sticking it on YouTube, means that this video is generating money, it's generating passive income, it is making me money even when I'm sleeping, which is kind of the definition of an investment."
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The YouTuber explained: "Now, when we think of investment, we often think of things like real estate or crypto and stuff.
"But like right now, my crypto has lost me a lot of money and real estate investments i've made in properties and stuff have generated way less than $191,258."
His second most popular video 'How to Invest for Beginners' got around 5.2 million views as of July 2022 and earned him $87,200.08 (£70,571.92).
Initially, it underperformed, ranking among his worst in the first few weeks. This experience taught him not to stress over factors beyond his control, a lesson he applied to both YouTube and life in general.
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"It's one of the highest performing videos on the channel and the lesson I've learned from this is to not worry about things that are outside of my control," he said.