 What is going on guys luxury for an empty journey helping you succeed on your medical journey with less stress? I first want to say happy Thanksgiving to all of you guys I am so thankful for having each and every one of you as part of this community Even if it's your first time to this channel, welcome to take a sit back So there's gonna be a combination of like a tip video with the vlog As well as a pretty cool announcement and I am waiting for my dinner to be ready my dinner for any of you guys Curious my favorite food. I've had this every single day of the week so far. It is only Tuesday, but pizza and this thing is Yep, so let me grab that and then I'll talk to you guys in a second Let's fix you guys. All right, so hopefully your mouth is watering with the pizza I'm going to enjoy it while talking to you guys have another one of it. So forgive me if it beeps But like I said, this is going to be a vlog a tips video in announcements Let's do the announcement first cuz I'm super excited about this Last year I wrote my first book for the MD journey.com and I never imagined myself being a writer But the book was successful. So I wrote another one This has setting June now and did even better and I was wondering which Element of the medical journey. I had still missed on all my tips all the blogs on the post like who was I missing and helping out I realized the majority of the questions and emails and comments I usually get are for people who want to go into medical school, but still aren't there And so the pre-meds out there. I hear you guys I wanted to create something special for you and so for the last about month and half of the working on my third book and So the pre-med journey or this is the cover as of now is going to be released probably within the Next week on Amazon. So it's my first book on Amazon super excited And so my plan is while you're watching this video likely around Thanksgiving time To have the book out in about a week. So I'm gonna put it in the link in the description It's just like a waitlist info where you get to hear about the book as soon as it comes out Basically, I'm gonna try to give it to you guys for the lowest price that Amazon allows me to give it to you for And I just want you guys to let me know what you think That way I can fix it up and improve it and make it even better, but I'm super excited for the pre-med journey My third book so far and not my last but definitely one that I'm really proud of Just because I feel like I've been missing out on helping you pre-meds out for a while and Hopefully this book kind of covers that so once again if you're pre-med You just kind of want to see what tips I would give to myself as a pre-med from day one to you know Getting accepted to medical school. What I would have done differently throughout the process check out this book the pre-med journey Hopefully you guys like it super excited, but likely will come out within a week So link is in the description if you guys want info and kind of be the first ones to have a crack at it when the book comes out That's it for the announcement. I'm gonna take it as by this pizza real quick All right now that I have some food inside of me Let's get to the tips portion of this video and the tips I want to give are what six tips would I give? To create the most successful pre-med what tips would I give to myself from day one of college? to the very end My pizza is about to get ready. Sorry But what tips would I give to myself as a freshman in college to the person who got accepted medical school? What would I have done differently? And so I'm gonna give you some six different tips some of them are a little bit more details and others But hopefully each of them you can take a home with you and do something I have trouble if you feel like you can make some adjustments so number one Everyone wants to know how to study. That's the questions that I get all the time and what I tell everybody who sends me an email something about studying is that you need to worry about systems over methods For example, I teach a lot of my students different techniques on how to incorporate Active learning into their life from the start to the very finish and that way they can be more efficient with their time a lot of the kind of setback that I get is when the student takes those techniques uses it for a bit But then still kind of goes back to using the techniques that don't work and when it's combined It's not super efficient. It's not that the technique doesn't work. The system is broken You know you can improve your engine on a car for all you want But if the rest of the car doesn't work well together then the car is still not that great So you need to approach your studying in the same way Everything you do whether it's reading the syllabus for the first time going to lecture reviewing your notes Studying for your test taking practice questions taking the actual test Be critical of how you can be more productive more efficient ask yourself Is this something that I should be doing because it's actually helping me one and two How can I make this better? How can I be more efficient? Am I being distracted? If so, how can I improve it? Is this technique actually allowing me to retain info? If not, why am I still doing need to be critical because every time you are able to self-assess? Each kind of step along the way you're going to improve the system There's a reason that they come out with a new car of a year and ideally that car is a better car than the prior Year if they're improving on some aspect however small but then overall you have a better better car Along the way same thing goes for your pre-med journey Every step from your freshman year to your senior year in college You want to approach your studying your productivity like a system and ask yourself what type of things are making your system that function? Correctly improve on those and then don't be satisfied. Ask yourself What's the next step you could take to make it more efficient? I think if you approach a lot of your things in your life like systems instead of just methods and techniques Sure, you may get some success here and there, but it's very easy to be demotivated When things don't work, but if your system is in place then you're much less likely to have things kind of fall through So remember systems over methods So tip number two and this is something I give a lot of different variations throughout my videos But it's an importance of continuity and uniqueness over just going with the flow If you're a pre-med you're likely a bio major you likely do a pre-med Organization you may probably volunteer a hospital You know if you're watching this video, maybe at least two of those three if not all three of those things apply to you And those are totally fine But a lot of times we do those activities because we see everyone else doing it So we're like well, you know, this is what I need to do to get into medical school But remember when people are looking at your application Your application is going to look exactly like the people around you because you're doing the exact same things that they are So to make yourself stand out to kind of get a second look you want eyeballs on your application when you turn it in you want Something to stick on your interview day when they interview you You want to have some type of uniqueness and the way you can build uniqueness is having a kind of a flow of continuity Instead of trying to do a lot of different things focus on a few things and do them well and try to progress Make a bigger impact along the way just make a bigger mark And that way your application can show kind of a little what I like to call cohesion everything is kind of makes sense You're an attractive applicant because you probably have something on your application that most people don't which is you step to something Regardless of not if it seemed to be the stereotypical pre-med thing to do So remember uniqueness and continuity are much more important than just going with the flow Yes, you can have the research as you can have the shadowing But you want to stand out if you want to take the typical pre-med approach On the activities that you do, you know by all means be my guest There's obviously plenty of people that do it each and every year that get into medical school But the problem is is that most people are very stressed during this application process because they realize the reality of it Which is it's hard to distinguish themselves from their peers Well on the other hand somebody who had a very unique application that focus more on continuity kind of felt out of Side of the box and followed their passions their whys and led to their activities versus finding activities And then trying to come up with a why that first person is going to have an application That's going to be much easier to sell and that's they're going to be much less stressed So continuity uniqueness over going with the flow So tip number three and it kind of goes with tip number two to another level which is create impact and change Remember we want to kind of have that wow factor in our application Doing the typical things everyone else does doesn't really allow you to do that So instead try to find something in your application where you can grow with a role You know if you start an organization for example be a member for a semester join a leadership position the next semester going Even within those leadership positions try to make true change versus just doing what that role entails Ask yourself how in this role can I make this organization better? This community service project better this research project better try to own your role If you do that's hard for the interviewer that mission board to look at application and not pay attention to the change you've made I'm gonna give you a quick example of my own experience. I'm applying to residency after medical school The most common question that I get about my application On my interview day is I'll let you see if you guys can guess It's this it's the YouTube channel. It's the blog. It's different. It's something I created It's something that's grown with me. It's something that I'm doing because I want to have an impact every time I'm talking to this camera I act like I'm talking to at least one person that needs these tips. It may not be you and that's totally fine But there is I hope there's somebody on the other side of this camera who takes his tips and realizes Okay, they can make some type of impactful change and if that's true these videos are completely worth it And so that's my create impact and change Kind of message and approach that I took for my medical school application Now I'm not saying obviously create a blog or a YouTube channel if that's not your thing don't do it But this was my venue to help a specific Community of individuals that I kind of was attracted to for you that may be somebody totally different You may be interested in helping for example the homeless population Habitat for Humanity is a great way to be involved in that you may be involved in a community to have no idea How you can help them but you may so find that community find that Kind of thing that attracts you it doesn't necessarily have to be in medicine But grow with it and have an impact It can be an organization. It can be a bigger project something smaller It can be something like a talent that you grow To something much bigger, but make sure you're showing that progression You're showing some change and ideally you're impacting the lives of other people So if you can do that on your application people just to be curious, you know I always get the question like tell me about this website like what are you doing? You know what's kind of come out of it and they love talking about it They love hearing about it so find what that would be for you where you put something on your application And they just can't resist but ask I feel like you're going to it's gonna be so much easier to sell yourself And it's going to be a much less stressful experience throughout your pre-mediter It's tip number four I give this a lot hopefully you guys can understand the benefit of it as I kind of give these tips to you Which is you need to focus on introspection This is something that I felt like a lot of my pre-med peers Struggle with because no one really tells you to really give a crap by introspecting Maybe you were told later when you know you hit Medical school burnout or residency burnout that you need to start kind of thinking about your thoughts I'm not telling you to go journal. I don't journal What I'm telling you to do is after each experience that you do when you volunteer when you do research when you shadow When you succeed and when you fail take 30 seconds 30 seconds ask yourself What can I take from this ask yourself? How can I apply this because if you take that? You're going to be asked about those experiences that you put on your application And if you gave 30 seconds to that Experience just to think about it You probably gave 30 more seconds than most of your peers that also have those same experiences put down 30 seconds can give some brilliant thoughts and usually your brain can't resist so if you give 30 seconds It's going to take two minutes But you're going to have some very rich Connections between your experiences and you're going to be able to give advice as well as to just share your story In a very authentic way, but you can't do that Realistically, if you don't introspect enough 30 seconds is nothing guys, but I feel like sometimes we tell ourselves No, it's not that big of an experience. It's not that big of a deal It's hard to tell what's a big deal if you don't give it much thought So I plead with you just take 30 seconds after everything you do Maybe after every video you watch after every book you read after every encounter you have and to say what What did I take from that? What did I learn about myself? We're learned by others. What was good and what was bad? You get to learn so much about yourself people around you And just how you approach things if you take just a couple of seconds. All right So I feel like we're getting in this like motivational Groove, but I want to finish off with two tips that are a little bit more practical as well as motivational So tip number five is you need to go from the how to's and just start doing the how I mentioned this in the previous video that I recorded I'll link it down below of how we sometimes eat without digesting Sometimes we gain so much info. You're probably watching this video trying to get some type of leg up as a pre-med And maybe you just wanted to see me eat pizza. I don't know But every time we try to gain some information we we have a lot of oh, this is a something I could be doing This is a new way to study. This is a cool way to do well in MCAT, whatever maybe How often do we actually apply everything maybe we apply it like day one and then day two We try to look for another technique But we're not really consistent nor do we actually apply what we learn We just try to learn things that hope that one day will become helpful So get out of this mindset of finding the how to start doing the house Find one thing that you want to learn Or improve on learn one way to do it apply it for a few days before you start going back to the drawing board And try to understand a different way to do it You're just gonna have a lot more results Sometimes the best thing to learn from guys is your failures and not the other how's not these YouTube videos So take these how's take these tips see how they will work for you if they don't then if you understand that You know that tip isn't for you, but at least you know So remember going from the how tos to the house super important in the last tip I want to kind of end on a happy note Just because I feel like this has been a pretty uplifting video at least I feel pumped up Hopefully you do too, which is your happiness is controlled by only you The pre-med journey guys is super stressful. You have the MCAT you have a lot of hard classes You know you have to worry about your GPAs when some of your colleagues can just say p equals degree You can't do that You know there's a lot of stressors that are involved in trying to get into medical school and I get it I was part of it But as we go through the process the grind you know working hard is his own thing But sometimes we tend to look around we try to see what everyone else is doing We try to compare ourselves to our peers and that starts to get the ball rolling where we become demotivated burnt out And honestly just stressed more than we should be but just remember that the person who controls your emotions is you So if you feel bummed out, it's probably because you're giving things too much thought probably more than they Deserve things may not have gone your way. You feel like it's into the world remember, you know You're going to get through it like you've always had So understand that the pre-med journey can be an enjoyable experience I remember my three years in college and my four years in med school It's a very positive experience because I have a lot of cool memories. I have experiences like this vlog As well as the blog that have been created during this time And I can look back at those three to four years in a very positive light So understand that your emotions your attitudes are controlled by you and not by the things that happen to you So but those are my six tips. I know some of them are more motivational I know some of them are a little more application-based But take those with you guys because I feel like the students that I coach the ones who get it the ones who do well in med school the ones who Remain to be successful and then just don't just get into med school The successful med students are the ones that have these six tips They introspect they're focused on being out of the box and creating a versus just going with the flow they have systems and They control their emotions and they choose to be happy when they can't So take that with you. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this video Enjoyed making it for you guys. I still have another slice of pizza. So I need to finish this So I'm gonna let you guys go but remember that the pre-med journey Book is coming out on Amazon ideally in a week So link is in the description if you guys want to just be on the email list to know when the book goes out again I will try to give it to the cheapest price that Amazon allows me to give And I'd love to hear you guys y'all's reviews on the book If you guys have any questions about the pre-med journey at all and not just the book But just your own pre-med journey Comment down below and I'd love to hear from you guys on your questions your Experiences your inspirations again in the honor of Thanksgiving. I want to once again say thank you so much For being part of my journey allow me to be a small part in yours Thank you for watching this video if you did enjoy it give it a like if you aren't a part of the community yet consider subscribing and seeing Weekly videos on tips on being successful as both the pre-med as well as a medical student and the next year as a resident So that's it for this video guys make sure you give it a like subscribe to the channel comment down below with any of your questions I will see you guys in the next one. Happy Thanksgiving my friends