 If you're on a mission to becoming a doctor and going into medical school, you're going to have your share of competition. I remember learning my first week of medical school that my classmates included college athletes who had tried out for the Olympics, former investment bankers, and those who had gotten the 99% tile on all of their board exams. At that point, I had no idea how I was going to set myself apart for the next four years if this was my competition. Luckily for you today, we're going to talk about how you can get ahead of your medical journey by doing what your classmates aren't. I'll also talk about a strategy I used to double my study retentions to stay tuned. Now first is the optimization framework. Now, most students, including myself, are too obsessed with just staying above water. It initially would make sense that going to medical school and going through all those lectures and topics that the natural state of things would just be to survive. This is a common analogy in medical school of feeling like you're drinking from a fire hydrant because whether you're ready or not, more information is always coming. But from my experience, I feel like medical school is actually like eating a plate and a pancake, so if you want to learn more, check out this episode on how hard medical school actually was for me, I'll link it down below. And so for those reasons, most medical students will try just to stay above water. But if you're trying to stay ahead, this is the wrong approach. The very best students are setting themselves apart by always optimizing how they do literally everything. For instance, on a weekly basis, you can ask yourself how you studied, how you planned and used your time, how you focused on your priorities, and ask, well, now what are one to two small adjustments that I can make going into this next week? If you truly instill this optimization framework on a weekly basis, eventually you'll start to find things that work and begin to double down. Compare this to the rest of your classmates who, again, are just trying to stay above water. You will find that medical school will become easier, not because it is, but because you know the right moves that you need to make to allow it to be a little bit more smooth. Next is the principle of effective CV stacking. Now, if you're on the medical journey or any competitive feel for that, then you know the typical notion to become or look competitive is to simply do what everyone else is doing. When I was applying to medical school and college, I was doing the same extracurriculars that my classmates were simply because I thought that that was the right move. But if you do the same categories and types of experiences as everyone else, when it's time for you to submit your applications for residencies, scholarships, and a job, you look like everyone else. So here's how you set yourself apart through the idea of CV stacking. Instead of looking at what everyone else is doing, simply look at your personal experiences that you've already gone through and ask, which ones have I truly enjoyed experiencing? Once you find these experiences that truly gave you enjoyment, now begin to ask how you can do more of those or something similar. And each time you do a new experience, take a second to reflect on what you liked and what you didn't to help identify new experiences that you can now seek out. For instance, in personal experience, I thought initially I was going to become a cancer doctor or an oncologist early in med school. And over the span of two to three years, I did research in shadowing in the field of radiation oncology, which helped me experience that I actually enjoyed oncology the more than the radiation aspect, which again, eventually told me that I enjoyed the field of internal medicine than just the field of oncology. Ultimately, that led me down the field of cardiology, which is exactly where I am now. If you want to see a full breakdown of why I picked the field of cardiology or what my life looks like as a cardiologist, I will link that down below. In a similar boat, when I created this YouTube channel and blog, I did it because I enjoyed sharing my experience. But through the experience, I've also reflected and realized that I just enjoy teaching. So as I went through medical school and residency, I seeked out more opportunities that allowed me to teach and identify what elements of teaching I actually enjoyed. Ultimately, that helped me create a CPU or a resume that looked much more complete and one could easily see how I leap from one experience to another. Next, let's talk about studying and improving your retention. This is actually one of my favorite techniques that I use to help improve my grades without studying as much as my classmates were. And this is the idea of learning with limitation. Now, in a prior episode, I talked about the principle of Parkinson's optimization. I'll link that video down below in case you're interested. But as a quick overview, first, let's talk about the principle of Parkinson's law, which states that work will fit the time that you allocate to it. So the more time you give, that's how much time it's going to likely take. If you reduce that time, you likely will still finish that task, taking away some inefficiency. And so the idea of Parkinson's optimization is if you're aware that there are inefficiencies in everything you do, including your studying, then you can definitely make some improvements on a weekly basis. For instance, in the evenings, if you're finding that you're studying for a class for four hours, ask yourself what you would do differently if you only had three. You'll begin to realize the study methods that you probably would just depend on, the study techniques or resources you may not use at all. And thus, you can continue to ask this question and double down on, again, what's more effective and begin to optimize. When I did this in medical school, I found two techniques that if I stacked together, I could give my learning and my retention nailed down. And if at this point, you're asking fine spilled beans, what are techniques did you use? For personal experience, the first thing that I used was a space repetition tool using flashcards with an added advanced step. If you're interested in that entire breakdown, I'll link that down below in a video. And then after my flashcard method, I would pair it with a free recall session on a whiteboard, where I would try to recreate that lecture for memory after going through those flashcards. During this free recall session, I would be able to identify places where I'd felt uncomfortable writing things on the board, which meant that I convinced myself that I knew it, but I couldn't put pen to paper. And thus, it was still a gap and something that I needed to improve on. Combining just these two methods over and over again, I could then learn both the details as well as the connections of the entire lecture and be able to go into test day while studying less hours than my classmates. And if you're interested in getting all of our study tips that I share with thousands of medical students, good access to our free newsletter as well as our free medical success handbook, which I'll link down below. Next, if you're truly interested in getting ahead, make sure you're focused on an idea of reps over resources. Especially in medicine and medical school, students are so hyper-focused on finding the best resources and study methods. While in reality, two to three of them will probably work the same, the real question is how much time you're dedicating to them. And while your classmates are spending hours thinking about which resources and techniques to use, you can focus on just choosing one, optimizing over and over again, and just doing the reps. And yes, with the principle of FOMO, you may be worried that they'll find an efficient way to study that you'll never hear about, but you'll probably do the same through gradual optimization with the study method that you start out with and probably get more reps in without the unnecessary stress. And these are just a few principles that you can apply to become a top medical student if you're interested in getting all of our tips plus our weekly tips that we give to thousands of medical students. Again, go down below to see how you can access our free Med School Success Handbook. If you're interested in learning more about how you can work with us one-on-one through our coaching program, I'll link down below a link so you can see all the results for all the students that we worked with over the past two years. And if you enjoyed this episode, then make sure you support this video and the channel by hitting that like and subscribe button and notification bell, drop your comments and questions down below. If you're listed on a podcast, then go ahead and hit that like and follow on your favorite listening platform. And if you want more tips and strategies to become a top student, check out this episode we made right here on the seven habits of how to become a highly successful student, as well as this episode where I break down that flashcard method that I talked about that I used in medical school. As always, my friends, thank you so much for joining me on my journey. Hopefully we were a little helped to you guys on yours. Catch you guys in the next one, peace.