 I've been in school for 3 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and many more years of training on top of it, and just like any student, I struggled with self-discipline. But unfortunately, a lot of the advice out there on the internet was just very superficial. But recently I came across an interview from the definition of self-discipline from Elliot Kipchogge, who's currently the world record holder for the marathon time at a right at 2 hours and 1 minute, and for reference that is running a 434 mile for 26.2 miles straight. That happens to be 2 hours faster than my first ever marathon time. So yes, this dude is super impressive and for the feats that he's pulling off, self-discipline is required. And in this interview, he reveals his sweet pillars that he recommends to everybody. And so today we're going to break down each one of those and talk about how you can use it in your own marathon as a student. So number one, and by far my favorite, is that you have to have vitamin N. Now you may be thinking just like I was and frankly just like the interviewer, vitamin N. What is vitamin N? What does the N stand for? And he says no. You have to have a good dose of being able to say no and the power of no. I know this from personal experience as both a medical student and a college student is that you're always looking for as many things as possible that are going to help you succeed. But in fact, we start to add more fluff than anything and eventually cause a study system or resource overload to where we just don't know what we should prioritize, especially when the quizzes and tests are getting around. And again, speaking from personal experience, it's not just about the study. When I was a pre-man planning a medical school, I tried to do everything under the sun in addition to getting good grades. I wanted all of the extracurriculars, all of the research projects, all of all of the tier projects because I wanted that CV to be as full because that's that's what everyone else was doing. Right? But if there's one thing we can learn about self-discipline and from Elliot Kipchoge that it's much better to dig deep versus superficially wide. And a good test for this is to think about the students and your peers who impress you the most. A lot of them tend to have the most depth in one specific area saying dude, you're a total stud. You're a great athlete. You're a good researcher. You're amazing at this one specific topic, but the students who are doing exactly like we are who are involved in everything, but kind of loosely not as impressive. And going back to our study example, here's a way you can implement a vitamin end. A quick test you can do is imagine if the actual quiz or test was tomorrow. What is the one or two things that you would do to truly prepare for that exam? Take away all the fluff, all the resource and all the options. If the test is within 24 hours, you're going to make a lot of different decisions. Once you identify that this one or these two strategies are going to be my go-to, try to fill your weekly calendar with those about 90 to 95% of the time. This mini test for your extracurriculars, your community service projects, imagine that application for medical school, farm school, PhD, whatever it may be is coming up in like a month. What would you do differently? You'd probably just try to hone in on one experience that really matters to you and try to make it as best as possible by the time the application that goes live. Pillar number two is setting high priorities. Now this is different than just making priorities and having them. It's setting high priorities, meaning making the mark really high and understanding why you have those in the first place. For Elliot Kipchoge, it's about being the fastest runner for the longest consistent time possible. So he's not trying to become the fastest burner and he's not trying to be somebody who can run a hundred mile race. He's trying to be able to run a marathon at the fastest time without burning out compared to his competitors. And because he has a site set on such an ambitious goal, as well as as long as possible, he makes sure that everything that he's doing on a daily basis, his nutrition, his training specific, focused on that one thing. And so now I ask you, what is your highest priority? If you are somebody on the medical journey like I was, maybe you're asking yourself, I want to be a surgeon. For example, I don't, but maybe you do. Then you're asking yourself, what kind of surgeon do I want to be? If I'm looking at that version of myself in five, 10 years, wherever it may be for you, what does that surgeon look like? What do they do? How do they conduct themselves? What grades do they get? What extracurriculars do they truly actually care for? And that's what we'll get involved in. And once you have that vision of what that future version looks like, now you can set up the tiers of what your priorities will be. So for example, while most students make the mistake of thinking that I have to get the best grades, frankly, there are lots of top students that get good grades. I knew when I was in medical school that yes, I was smart. And if I worked hard, I would get the grades that I wanted, but so would my classmates. And so I had to do something to differentiate myself if I wanted those ambitious goals for my future. And so using our example of wanting to be a future surgeon. Yes, you have to get good grades, but that's not the biggest priority because if you have good grades, but a crappy CV doesn't really matter. But on the flip side, if you're somebody that says, I really want to be a plastic surgeon for X, Y, Z reason, you have a solid Y, which you're going to continue to build. That's one priority. And you're going to continue to add to your experiences. That's priority number two, while you're studying and making sure you're showing up for your board exams and your classes. That's priority number three. You're studying, your Y, your experience. Now you understand what those high priorities are, you show up. And that means just like we talked about with vitamin N, you ask yourself, is everything that I'm doing contributing to the priorities that I want? But instead, if you're finding that a maturity of the time, you're procrastinating, parting, falling behind, is that consistent with the version of yourself that you want to be? You wanted to be that future surgeon? Are the actions that I'm doing today going to allow me to be that person? If that answer is no, that that may be that goal is actually not something you care for, or two, you may be very unlikely to achieve it unless you fix your priorities. And pillar number three, and probably tied for my favorite, stop complaining. Now this is obviously easier said than done, and I don't want to be harsh because frankly, there are many times in my own journey that I have to tell myself, you need to just stop complaining and just get to work. The true part is that the world is hard. If you're on the medical journey, for example, everyone is going to tell you that the medical school is going to be the hardest thing you do until you get a residency and then become attending, the whole journey is hard. But frankly, if I had to do law school, I would find that much harder than whatever I did in medical school, because I don't like any of that reading. But I had to do computer science that probably wouldn't be the career path that I would be good at. There is always going to be hard. You pick your heart. But that also means that once you pick your heart, once you align it with the goals that you want, shut it and get to work. And I witnessed this on my medical journey, especially when people have been in medical school for three or four years, and they just complain about how much it sucks. And they're looking for sympathy from other medical students. And frankly, in my head, I'm saying, why don't you just quit? Why don't you just do something else? You know, you're in your early mid-20s. It's not the worst thing in your world to do. And if I had that same perception for a complete stranger, the people around you that you're a support system are probably going to think the same thing. If you're complaining so much about whatever journey you're on, maybe stop. In reality, when we're complaining, we just want our support system to say, I understand how it can be hard. That's tough. I feel for you. But if you do it enough times, your support system is going to be like, dude, just like, stop. Go do something else. Like, this is not what I need to hear. So if you want that self-discipline, understand that yes, the world is hard, pick your hard, and then shut it and show up to work. Three simple pillars, but if these can work for the world's fastest man in the marathon, an elder Kiptoge, they can definitely work for you and for me on whatever journey we're on in school and in life. If you're watching this on YouTube, I'm going to throw out a question because I am very curious what you guys have to say. What is one thing after these three pillars that you wish and want to commit to having more self-discipline towards? Make sure you guys comment down below. Personally, for me, it's to stay as disciplined and to show up consistently for my family, to make sure that I show up consistently for you guys and content that I make here or through emails or through blogs. And then finally, to make sure that I consistently show up for my patients by learning more and becoming a better doctor, ideally learning more through the medical journey, and again, coming back and sharing with you guys what I've learned. Now, if you enjoyed this breakdown and you're a newbie to our channel, or if you're a veteran, all we really ask is that you hit that like button if you're listening to our podcast, go ahead and review and leave that subscribe and follow on your favorite listening platform. And of course, I want to highlight all of the different resources that we have to help you on your medical journey and your studying journey. Some of them are free, some of them are paid. Make sure you guys check out those links down below. But as always, my friends, if you did enjoy this video, you guys will also enjoy this video right here on what type of things Elon Musk would do in medical school, as well as this video right here on all the study strategies that I use to get a 3.9 GPA in medical school, how you can do the same. As always, thank you so much for being a part of my journey. Hopefully, that was just a little help to you guys on yours and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.