I can't believe it! We made 400, 000 subscribers! Thank you guys so much
I'm so grateful to each and every one of you and I hope you guys are learning a ton
so today I'm doing a special q a and thanks to all of you who submitted questions on
the youtube community on Instagram and I'm gonna try to get through as many as I can.
So I'm gonna start off with a question from ruth ceram she asked for a brief introduction my age my
hobbies and family background so i'm 36 years old i am indian heritage and i enjoy doing things like
hiking with my family i love dancing north indian dance called bhangra
and i also really enjoy kind of personal growth so i spend a lot of time reading and watching videos
or listening to podcasts that all help me improve myself personally and i'm happy to share those
with you if that's something you're interested in so comment below if you want to learn more about
that okay so john swallow asked what drew you to urology versus something else so i do have
a whole video on why urology but briefly i think urology is the most diverse subspecialty we get
to do both surgical procedures procedures in the office and take care of patients over an extended
period of time i also feel very comfortable talking about intimate problems with people
and i think that it's it's really a special opportunity to be a urologist i'm so grateful
that i went into this field so j2 asked what other jobs have i had so when i've had a handful of jobs
i think my first job was at the mall and i worked in a store called express which still exists uh
you know for clothing in retail and it was really fun because i got to buy a bunch of new clothes
and at that time that was something that i was really into i also worked at target and that was
also actually a really fun job i got to interact with customers and i worked in the fitting room
and on the floor and it was fine it was totally reasonable in medical school i did some data entry
work some kind of research work that i got paid for and then i think that was all the big jobs i
had and then of course i went to medical school and residency and that took up all my time so
there was really no time for jobs after that so th asked what made you get into youtube i suppose you
have a successful practice as well i wonder how big of a team you have to help with this social
media endeavor your audio and video are really clean thank you so much i really appreciate
that because a lot of this i do alone i have a fantastic editor who helps me with my editing
so i have kind of a interesting setup i have a desk here and i have my camera mounted and my
audio mounted above so i do it all myself with a little remote control and i got into youtube
because i really wanted to help people understand things that i felt like i was repeating over and
over again in my clinic and i said you know what you don't need to come see me to learn these basic
things and it's a waste of your time and energy and so i wanted to be able to make education
publicly available and also help people overcome a lot of the common fears that they have or
misconceptions about things related to urology and medicine and so i found youtube as a really great
way to do that theo 786 asked what's your favorite youtube channel and what's your favorite food
my favorite youtube channel is actually uh lily sings youtube channel i started watching her many
years ago and it was just kind of fun to watch her as a south asian woman go from someone making
videos in her house to becoming this mainstream celebrity and i'm really proud of all the work
she's done so it's been really exciting to watch her as far as my favorite food i love a lot of
different kinds of foods i enjoy pizza like most people i love indian food the spicier the better
but i wouldn't say i have one favorite i really enjoy things that are spicy and vibrant and unique
in their flavor jeff v also had a similar question and asked have you ever tried intermittent fasting
so in fact i have tried intermittent fasting i do it pretty regularly i usually start eating around
lunchtime 11 12 o'clock and finish around seven eight o'clock pretty much routinely unless i've
really exercised a lot the day before and then i wake up really hungry but for the most part i
do it routinely and i found it to be nice to have that break from eating and it's been helpful for
maintaining a healthy weight and and all those things so i actually do it and i find it really
useful grog had some interesting questions he asked what is your most positive influential
person from your teenage years and that has to be my mom she is an amazing woman she worked
full time as a registered nurse and also took care of me and my dad after moving from india
when she was very young she moved with my dad and they didn't have any family here and there
was only like four indian families in the entire city of buffalo when they moved here and she tells
me stories about how they came here and they would go to the grocery store and not even know how to
go grocery shopping because it was so different from india and how many times they struggled and
felt lonely and away from their family and actually they came here with debt they came
here with like 1500 of debt and then grew their wealth through working hard and saving and really
were just amazing role models for me both of my parents but especially my mom because she's just
such a hard worker and anything she does she does it completely fully and she's always a woman that
i aspire to be more and more like love you mom if you're watching so there was a lot of questions
about my family life i am married i've been married for over 11 years and i have two children
uh two boys eight and five years old uh i i'm very happily married so sorry to disappoint anybody but
i got a couple questions about what books i like to read and what are my favorite books
i enjoy both non-fiction and fiction books but as i mentioned earlier my non-fiction books i
enjoy are really about personal growth and one of my favorite ones is atomic habits by james clear
and fiction books i really enjoy a wide variety of types of fiction books a recent one that i'm
looking forward to reading is the unlikely adventures of the chergil sisters i read uh
the first book written by balikore justwall which was erotic stories for punjabi widows um as i'm
south asian i love supporting other south asian authors and i enjoy reading stories that have
you know portray kind of what's what it's like growing up as a south asian all right so now on
to instagram questions aunt man said do you also speak hindi and yes i speak hindi and punjabi
advice for a younger dr malik this is by rudimus maximus thanks for your question
so my advice to my younger self would be not to worry about what other people think about you and
really just focus on your own journey and your own path in the indian culture there's a lot of like
oh what will people think kind of conversations that go back and forth and i wish i had never
listened to that and just lived my authentic self even earlier on than i did start growing into that
because that that's really something that i wish all people would stop worrying about what anyone
else thinks what's your worst habit well one of my worst habits is actually when i wake up
in the morning i tend to scroll on my social media instead of getting out of bed and that's
something i'm really working on trying to stop doing because it's not the best way to wake up
in the morning so i'm trying to start a meditation practice and just try to do 10 minutes of movement
every day no matter what so that's currently what i'm working on and hopefully i'll get rid of that
horrible habit as well so this question is how do you manage to get your work done so productively
this is one of the things that i'm actually really interested in is how to be more productive
and how to maximize your efficiency and i really work at that each and every single day i use um
kind of a modified bullet journal where i keep track of my plans for the week and i try to use
that each and every day to make sure i get certain tasks done i think the really key about it is not
overwhelming myself there's always things to do but there's certainly times when i can only do one
thing or i won't get anything done at all at least once a week i spend the whole day doing no work
because i need it i need to recharge spend time with my family and so i'm okay with that and
that's totally fine and so you got to find your own way so that you can maximize your efficiency
when you need to and then really take that time off and be present with your family and your
friends or whatever it is you're doing all right I went through my dms as well I found a question
what is your secret for staying so positive well i would say that you know i think everyone normally
has lots of negative moments and in fact half of our lives are full of negative thoughts and but i
tell my kids and i tell myself all the time that it's your choice and you can choose to be happy
there's always going to be things out of your control and you can only change the way you
react to them and so that's how i look at it i also really try to put in things that bring me
joy into my life whether that's movement exercise spending quality time with my kids reading doing
those things that really fill my cup and make me feel happier alright guys well i really hope you
enjoyed that q a if you like it let me know i can always do more of them but thank you guys
again so much for being a part of my audience you guys are amazing and i am so thankful and
grateful for all of you as always remember to take care of yourself because you're worth it