 The first thing you have to sort of do is ask yourself why you're studying math. Why are you here? Now, in my experience, I've come across basically three groups of people when it comes to teaching mathematics to the people who've come to me to learn mathematics. And these three groups of people consist of people who hate mathematics, people who have figured out that they can't progress any further in their lives, in their careers if they don't know mathematics. And there's people who love mathematics and want to learn everything there is to know about mathematics. So in my experience, there's three groups of people that I've dealt with. The first group, by and large, it's the largest group that I've ever come across. And that's basically because majority of the people that I've taught mathematics to are in high school. And in high school, most people don't appreciate the power that mathematics gives you. So most people who are studying math in high school fall into this category, and that category is the people that hate math. Now this group is by far the largest group. They hate mathematics. They can't stand it. It takes them forever to do a problem because they procrastinate and their mind wanders and they get stuck in one location. And they can't go progress beyond that. They don't look back on their notes to be able to figure out how it is, what they need to do to go to the next step. And this group, by and large, is the largest group out there. And they're the group that hate math. There's another group that I've come across which they're usually in general older. They've already gone past high school and they're basically adult students. They're 19 or above or 18 or above, some in their 20s, some in their 30s, that have come across that they've hit a point in their lives, in their careers, where they realize that they can't progress any further in whatever it is that they're doing without knowing mathematics, without knowing certain amount of mathematics, because that's the way it works. Mathematics is one of the most important things you'll ever learn in your life. It's one of the most powerful tools that you can acquire in life to help you do whatever it is that you want to do in life. And this group is a lot smaller in this group and this group just says they may still hate mathematics, they may still dislike mathematics, but they've learned to appreciate certain aspects of mathematics and they sort of approach learning math as sort of whatever. It's something that they have to do and they actually do spend the time required to learn this language. And this group is the whatever group. And this group is a whatever group, whatever. They sort of say whatever, they don't really like doing what it is that they're doing but they do spend the time required to do it and they usually go through this really rapidly. This group will grade 12 math, it takes them again 10 months to do it. I've gone through people in this group that we do grade 12 mathematics in a matter of 2 months, in a matter of 3 months because they actually sit down and actually do the math. The third group that I've encountered is the group that loves mathematics. They've actually figured out what math is about, they appreciate mathematics and they end up loving mathematics. This group ends up loving mathematics. Now, numbers-wise, this group is huge. This group is a lot smaller and this group is the endangered species. There aren't too many people that actually love mathematics. These people love it, they appreciate it. These people do appreciate it but they don't necessarily love it. These people over here don't appreciate it and they don't love it and they wish they could do it. Now, again, this group in general is a lot younger. This group is a little bit older and this group is all ages. These people have figured out that math is a language and pretty important to learn the most important language in the world. These people haven't figured it out and these people are in a transition period. Now, your first tip, the first steady tip that I can give you, the first advice that I can give you is for you to figure out which group you belong to. Are you in this group, are you in this group or are you in this group? If you're in this group, the love group, the group that loves mathematics, some of the stuff that we're going to go through, some of the hints that I'm going to give you, some of the steady tips that I'm going to give you, they may help you out, but the odds are you really don't need any steady tips, any advice to do something that you love. For this group, the group that says whatever, it's math, I have to learn this to be able to get into this program. I have to learn it to be able to figure out my finances. I have to do it because mathematics is super important and I'm stuck. This group, for sure the videos that I'm going to be putting up on your steady tips, they will help you out and some of the stuff is not going to be relevant to you because some of the tips is basically just telling people that you really just need to sit down and do your mathematics and if you're in this group, you've already figured that out. You already sit down and actually do your work because you want to go beyond. You actually see something beyond what you're studying. This group over here, the videos that I'm going to go through, the tips that I'm going to give you, take them to heart. They will apply to some of the other courses that you're taking but I'm going to be basically specifically talking about mathematics and this group, hopefully the videos will help you figure out how to optimize your time to study because if you hate something, you're not going to end up doing it. Your first tip, your first advice, the first thing you need to figure out is which group you belong to. If you're in group, you're sitting fine. If you're in group, in this group, the more math you learn, the more you're going to go towards this group over here, the more you're going to start appreciating mathematics, the more you're going to start loving mathematics because it is extremely powerful and it's going to allow you to do whatever it is that you want to do. This group over here, the advice that I can give you is see this word over here, hate. If you hate mathematics, the first thing you need to do is get this word out of your head because if you hate something, you're not going to study for it. You're going to constantly procrastinate. You're going to tell yourself that you hate it and it's going to be pulling teeth for you to sit down to do ten minutes of mathematics. It's going to feel like two hours of mathematics. So start getting this word out of your head whenever you're asked to do math, don't sit there and go, I hate math, I hate math. All you're doing when you're doing that is reinforcing your belief that you hate mathematics and the only reason that you actually are in this group, are in the group that actually says that they hate mathematics is because you're illiterate. You do not speak the language of mathematics. You don't know how to use the mathematics. That's why you hate it. It's something you don't understand and human nature is. If we don't understand something, we end up hating it. I'm being a little harsh right now but this is basically just of it. The reason that you hate mathematics is because you don't understand it. You're illiterate in this language and human nature, if you don't understand something, you end up hating it. Just take a look at human history and see what we've done with things that we do not understand. So what you need to do is get this word out of your head even if you do hate it, slowly tell yourself that it's something that you need to do. Get yourself in this group. Because as soon as you get yourself in this group, that'll help you to do more of the problems, spend more time doing problems and slowly what's going to happen is you're going to go into this group. And the way it works is this is a one directional thing. Very few people that love mathematics end up hating mathematics. Very few people that have figured out that they need mathematics to progress into their lives, go further in their lives, will actually end up coming back to this group and going to hate mathematics and stop doing their math. They figured out that they need to do it, they need to learn it and they start doing it and as soon as they start learning the language, as soon as they start becoming literate in the language of mathematics, they go closer to this group. So this is by and large a one directional thing. So by and large, people who start off in this group, when you start learning language of mathematics, when you start figuring out how to do math, you start slowly progressing in this direction and the more math you learn, the more you learn to appreciate it and hopefully at some point in your life, you're going to go into this category that loves mathematics or at worse you're going to be sort of in the boundary here and this isn't a distinct boundary, this isn't a sharp boundary, it's a gradual transition. You gradually move along this way, the more math you learn and hopefully you end up somewhere around here like, you know, math is important, I need to know so you're in the water category and some of the aspects of mathematics you end up loving because they help you out in life. So your first tip, your first advice, your first assignment, figure out where you belong. If you belong here, you're doing fine. If you belong here, keep on doing your math because slowly I can promise you that you're going to start going in this direction. If you're over here, get yourself out of here. Get this word out of your head, do your math and just slowly tell yourself that you don't mind mathematics. Get this hate out of your head, because the more you tell yourself that you hate mathematics, the more you enforce that belief that you hate mathematics. Just tell yourself that math is something you need to learn, you need to learn this language, you need to speak it, you need to be able to use it. It's just like learning any other language. If you're here, ask yourself this, do you hate reading and writing? Do you hate your ability to be able to read this word or read this word or read this word? Do you hate that the power you've acquired to read books, to read signs, to be able to write your name down? You don't, right? Do you love reading? I do, some people do. Some people consider reading to be whatever, right? They don't hate reading and writing. How many people do you know that hate reading and writing? The only people that hate reading and writing are people who are just learning how to read and write, which is exactly the same way it works with mathematics. The only people that really hate mathematics are people that are just learning how to do mathematics, right? They're only just basically learning the language of mathematics. So understand that if you're in this group you're still illiterate in the language of mathematics. What you're doing is just at the beginning stages of learning the language of mathematics, okay? So first advice, first tip, figure out where you are, get yourself out of here and slowly progress in this direction, right? Because as soon as you start progressing in this direction mathematics becomes easier. You start to appreciate all the things you can do with mathematics. You start actually, you know, being able to progress to wherever you want to be in life, right? What may it be, you know, to get into politics, to get into economics, to get into art, to create music, to create, you know, to do whatever you want to do.