Module 1: How to Cultivate a Mindset of Success & Defeat Imposter Syndrome

Welcome. This module focuses on how to cultivate the success mindset as an international medical student or foreign medical graduate. You've read the data. We've looked at the statistics year after year after According to the NRMP, 58% of international medical graduates in 2018 matched into residency, 52% in years prior. And when you look further back, that stat just keeps going lower and lower. But as of 2022, PGY-1 match rates for US IMGs rose 1.9% points to 61.4% for NON-US IMG citizens, the match rate increased 3.3%, up to 58.1%. this the stats may look like 50 50% match chance for but what is important is that you understand that you are. An individual. You're the common denominator in your life. Whatever happens to you is what you have created. What you have made and what you reap is the fruit of your A lot of what we experience in the physical and our lives start from within from the seat of our deepest emotions. I want to start off by teaching you in this module specifically how to cultivate a mindset that breeds success. In this section, you learn how to beat Impostor Syndrome. That's the first because Impostor Syndrome is that sensation where international medical students and graduates feel like a They feel like they're at the lower end of the spectrum. We feel unfortunate. We feel out of We feel like we've been passed over time after time after time We feel like we're begging for a position in a career where we once felt a calling. It makes us doubt our accomplishments. Why does this Because the truth is, the competition is stiff. The or so we think, are against We internalize the news, the the stats, the data. We make them define us instead of us defining our goals or a mission and creating our own vision. Today, I'm going to teach you the necessary to overcome Impostor You'll also learn a few I'll teach you how to distinguish between the subconscious mind and the conscious mind. This in particular will help you navigate the thoughts that form in your mind. You learn how to allow your mind to work for I'm going to help you see how you can change the way you think about your Because I can't change your mind. But I'm going to show you how you can stop self sabotage. How you can stop the negative self How despite how much life has given. Those curveballs, you can still change the way you process the experiences of your life. Now, this is especially true when it comes to processing the data and the statistics, because I just started off with that, right? But I want you to see through the lens of your own story. Because a lot of times we get caught up in what other people have done to We get caught up in other people's stories, their experiences, their testimony. But I want to teach you how you, as an individual can take your story and make it into something else. How you can ditch the negative self After coaching hundreds of IMGs, I know the number one thing that holds us back is self sabotage. The negative rhetoric that we as a community have in turn analyze has effectively reduced our rate of success. We've allowed static information to kill our dreams of becoming physicians of practice. You are going to need a mindset that's ready to score at 250, right? You're going to need a mindset that's ready to beat the competition, that's ready to go for what you want, that's ready to make yourself as competitive as an American graduate. You're going to need a new mindset that allows you to be bold and strong and confident so that you can network just like the person who went to school Yes, I am going to teach you all so rest assured, especially for my fellow non US IMGs like myself. As you know, I had a visa for my entire medical training. I only became a permanent resident in 2019. in this section, I'll teach you how I that mindset process that I'm teaching you today through every step of the way. While waiting for this final result, I want you to grab a paper and a pen, and I want you to take notes as you go through this section. I will be. Talking you through every step of the But I want you to internalize this information. I want you to feel it. I want you to embody it, to embrace I want you to flip the script of your to turn it all the way Turn it over. Whatever else has happened to you is in the From now, moving forward, I want you to be committed to your success. I want you to stop right now, to stop the daydreaming and get to work. Keep watching.

Welcome back. You are still here, and for that, I thank you. It takes a lot to stay seated taking a program like this with So today you will learn about the conscious mind and how you can make it work for you as an IMG. But before I start teaching you, I want to tell you about the growth versus the fixed mindset and how that has worked within the IMG community. I would like to share feedback from one of our prior members of the IMG Roadmap program. This is a message that the student sent to me on match We'll call her Dr. Her message "Dr. Lum, I'm still in God is too good. I first time applicant NON US. IMG. Failed Step 1 years ago. 140 applications. Only one interview for pathology did not even have a specialty LoR." the end of her And she goes. She matched into a university residency program, by the way, with only four spots available. She continued on to say, "Thank you so much for the help, the encouragement, the advice on the IMG Roadmap One thing I remember her telling me was the mindset portion of this course transformed her thinking. It transformed her life and transformed the way she approached even that one interview. The rest of her message went on to give a blessing and to thank God for all the things happening in her The reason I share this story is because as we go through this section, I want you to think of yourself. I want you to think about all the things that you've told yourself and limitations. I want you to bring to surface all those limiting beliefs that you about maybe a failure in the past on Step 1. Step 2, all the reasons why you can't do this, why you can't afford how any of this could be possible for you, because you have a visa, because you have all these other red flags on your application, I want you to be open and frank with yourself. Because at the end of this session, you're going to have some homework assignment that you must do. I want you to stop right here and commit to completing that assignment with All right? You're still so you'll have to write out your assignment because it's meant to be a transformative exercise. During that process, I would like for you to be thinking about the things that you have considered that are working against you and the things that you've started. You're going to start to say to what's transforming your mindset. Now, before you try to transform your mindset, it's important to identify where we are at right now. Right? We should first understand what the perceived barriers to success. What are the perceived barriers to success within the IMG community? I know a few. Prior failure. So failure on an exam. Negative self talk because of maybe blogs, forums, internet opinions that are meant to scare you from trying. Lack of family support. So many of us are far away from home. Lack of institutional support. So we don't have structured programs within our schools to guide us such as this Lack of a financial investment, so we don't have the time or the financial resources. Lack of economic resources uncertainty. Lack of stability. Constantly moving. So when you put all this together let's take prior failure as an example. When a person has failed a test before, they usually have this issue with overcoming that They continue to look at themselves as the person that failed an exam as opposed to the person who may have experienced a failure before. Do you see the gap Experiencing failure in one area does not translate into every other area of your life unless you allow for it Yet why don't we put up a gate in our Why don't we open and begin to define our lives by what our lives really is made of, as opposed to one or two negative experiences. What does that mean for Like with the story I shared, what that clearly means is you can fail an exam and still I just presented to you an IMG who has been there and done exactly There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to transfer failing at one thing into an eternal failure that defines the rest of your career and your This is why I created the IMG Roadmap podcast, which some of you listen You can tell that there are several other doctors out there that are, in practice, that experience failure at one point or the It's not about what you do when you fail. It's about how you handle yourself after the failure. I really want you to keep this in mind as go through this entire There's a quote that I really like, and it goes as the psychology of your approach to this process is the most valuable thing. And I use that through so many different parts of my life. But what that means for us today is that when you choose to approach this application season, the way you choose to approach it is going to change everything. If you choose to say, "Hey, I'm not where I've been in the past, it's my first time around, maybe it's my second time applying. I did not put in as much effort last time, or maybe I put in way too much effort. And I also invested everything I knew how to, and nothing happened. But then again, I'll rise, yet I'll try again. Yes, I'm committed to being persistent. I'm committed to changing one or two things on my application in order to make myself more competitive. I'm committed to improving myself." When you say these things to yourself, this is what really brings about change. And that's what this course is meant to do for you. I'm here to help you change your mindset and your approach to past failures, your approach to your limiting I'm here to help you identify the areas that you have not even explored yet. The possibilities that I want you to start with the mindset section. This section. Because what's between your ears is the most important aspect that will lead to your success. Stay with me. I'll hold your hand and I'll teach you every single step of the way. Just keep watching.

Today we're going to talk about the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset. Remember, guys, difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. And this statement stays true when it comes to residency and the path into residency as an international medical student or for a medical graduate. A lot of times we see all the data, the stats. You talk to people and they want to tell you how low your chances are, Every person that you meet wants to tell you what is working against you. They want to bring to your mind what is impossible for you to accomplish as opposed to what could be working for you. So in today's session, I want us to sort of reframe this rhetoric that has been going around in the IMG community that we've internalized over the last few years or months. Whether it's from family members, whether it's from friends, whether it's from people who've doubted us, people who've questioned our pathway, whoever it may be. In your life, I want you to put aside all those the mindset that they've allowed you to cultivate. I want you to set it aside because today I'm dedicated to improving your mindset so you can succeed. There are some people that are more cynical than others, right? In life, there are some more pessimistic, some who are more optimistic. You'll hear from both sides. But I want you to hear today from someone like me that says, hey, you can do It is possible. Maybe if you just try to do the right things, right. You probably hear somebody else who has been through this same process and did not make And they will be more pessimistic because they had to try a few times before they But I'll tell you, at the bottom of all of these individuals, you have a certain level of joy of that accomplishment that nobody can steal from So I want you to think about it this Depending on who you talk to, you'll get a different perspective. But you're here today because you want a new perspective. And I really want you to focus on that new perspective that you're trying to The road is going to be hard. It's going to be tough. You're going to meet roadblocks, but I want you to keep your focus. Now, it's true that this is competitive process. We have to be factual, we have to be realistic. It is going to be hard, but it doesn't have to end that way because usually difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations. And so no matter how hard it was for me today, I can stand here and present to you something more beautiful. In my observation, I understand, to have a higher level of resilience after we've gone through this process, just because it's so super challenging to wear compared to our American medical graduate counterparts. We have a little bit more resilience when it comes to day to day work. Because we work so hard to get and this has been my thought process through this whole entire thing through red. Residency fellowship, and even in current day Because the psychology of your approach to this process is the most viable thing. The way you choose to approach this journey to residency can literally make or break You have a choice here. You really do. You can build or you can fall. You can stand or you can fail. You can grow or you can get chopped down. You can choose to flourish, or you could struggle for a long time. Whether it's your tenacity to sit down for 7 hours to study for the exams, or whether it's your resiliency to be able to keep trying time and time again after one failure, after having a mishap, maybe you've tried to apply right before and you didn't get in. This is your second, your third try. You're having to go over it again and again and you feel defeated. You feel like you've given it everything you've got. Because internally, what happens is once you feel defeated, it prevents you from actually taking initiative. You can't even think things through. You can't even see things that are in front of you because your subconscious mind is not connecting to the same level as your conscious mind.

So let's move into the mindsets. American psychologist Carol Dweck from Stanford University coined the mindset theory and she describes a fixed versus a growth mindset as the two types of She defines them as underlying theories that people have about learning and intelligence. And so what that really means is, according to her theory, there is a fixed mindset about learning and intelligence versus a growth mindset about learning and intelligence. The growth mindset believes that learning and intelligence can improve it's interchangeable over time, whereas the fixed mindset does not necessarily abhor the same A fixed mindset is a sort of mindset that thinks everything is static. It believes that nothing changes, is going to be that way because that's how it's worked for everyone A growth mindset, on the other hand, is more dynamic. Meaning things can things can improve. If different parts work well together, things can change and bring about a separate result. We'll go into the differences between both while we work through this I want you to use this time also to do some self reflection. Use it as some time to be introspective, to ask critical to step back and look at yourself as though you're looking at yourself from the outside looking I want you to be open and vulnerable. I want you to look at yourself and say, hey, what are the areas of my life that I'm operating in a growth mindset or where I'm operating in a fixed mindset? Meaning, what are the areas of my life where I feel like things can improve? Or what are the areas where I feel like nothing is going to change? The reason that's so important is everyone operates in both mindsets at different points in So you're never always in a fixed mindset, and you're never always in a growth mindset. You're just in that mindset when it comes to. Specific areas of your You can be the most positive person, but still have moments where you feel like you doubt yourself or you stall on your ideas. You compare yourself to other people's accomplishments, and you feel like you're just not there and there's no hope for But then if it's another area where you feel really confident, then you feel great and you're thriving in your growth mindset about that and so that's how both mindsets can live in the same person. Now, when you transfer that to the IMG journey, so many of live in a fixed mindset because of the forums, the blogs, the information, things we've heard from social media, friends and family, we're looking at our circumstances, and we can't see past Some of us may say, oh my god, I failed multiple times before. There is no way I can make That's a classic fixed I tried applying once before did not make There's no way I can ever match that's a fixed It's important to realize that no matter how smart or talented or gifted that you you can swing between both. But what I want us to get out of today or what I want you to get out of today is how you can remain in your growth mindset at least 80% of the I say 80% because you've probably heard of the 80 20 rule. It says if something works good 80% of the time, it's probably good If it only works well 20% of the that's not nearly any So if you can dwell in your growth mindset most of the time, probably good You'll never get 100% right, because that's not realistic. There's always going to be some negative, some downsides, some red flags, and that's just not But you can dwell in the mindset of, say, "Hey, I could be better." Things can improve at least 80%. I can make a change. In at least 80% of my application portfolio. And that's what I teach you here at the IMG Roadmap course. It's how you improve yourself. 80%. Then you have a chance at a much better place at cultivating the results that you want to see in your A lot of what keeps us in the fixed mindset is our past. That's the key area. We have experienced situations where we've been considered bottom barrel not good We feel stuck in what we've already seen before, and we can't see any clearer than We can't see ourselves beyond that. We can't seem to look past what we know because our conscious reality has become so apparent, so obvious, so real, that everything else is faulty. Everything else seems dodgy. Everything else is not set on stone. Because we failed one because we experienced. because we got rejected But this is the point where you turn things around and you say, my failure is not set on stone. Past failure doesn't describe What I experienced, it's in the past and it's not my future. My inability to interview well, last cycle is not set in The fact that I'm an IMG doesn't mean I never get to Because, ding ding, you're looking at one. So those kind of thoughts that are born out of a fixed mindset, we're going to ditch them. Today, a growth mindset will begin to look at things differently. You'll analyze your life with a different perspective, a new perspective. You'll tell yourself, I may have failed before, but instead I'll step back and look at what I need to do, how I need to study to make a different score. Or how about those who have not passed in the past and yet made it into residency? What did they do How can I mirror their experiences, their The thing is, when people fail the Usme, they're usually not vocal about A lot of people will never tell you what happened to You may never know what someone's true result report is unless they opened up to But it's key that you realize that how you perform is dependent on you. How you network is dependent on Do you get observerships or externships? Do you try to get that elective now that you had that poor score? What are you doing to get an LoR that's going to boost your application? What are you doing to network? Are you being open and vulnerable? Accepting, acknowledging your fault and learning from Are you seeking out What happens once we've had that one failure, we get robbed of our confidence. We get stuck in the fixed mindset. We don't even have the tenacity. They ask for opportunities we're shy, reserved to go before people, to go before institutions and ask for the opportunity, hey, you can walk up to a professor, a preceptor and hey, Dr. So and so, can I observe you at your hospital? Can I observe you in the operating room? Can I watch one of your surgeries? And when they ask you, what was your step one score instead of blurting out, well, I didn't do well. No, that's not the question. The question is, what was your step one score instead? You can say, I did get a 190 on the first try. I am not proud of that. But I learned that I was not great at taking the multiple choice test And so I took a step I started understanding question stems. I sought mentorship. I took a supplementary course to help my test taking And then the second time around, I knocked it off the park, and I got a 250. But I would like for you to look. Past that and see me as a person who would like to shadow you for a That's a very different But that fixed mindset brings us to the failure when we're being asked simple things like our score So I want you to step back today. Think about the things that have held you back in the the things that make you really sad or make you feel like you didn't not perform well. The questions, the thoughts, the words that you've said to yourself. I want you to consider those and begin to think about a new way that you can reframe your mindset, a way that you can shift from the fixed to a growth mindset, even about things that you are guilty for. Whether it's your failure, whether it's your circumstances, whether it's your past experiences, whatever that may You can answer any question in the manner that shows Because if you live in a place of fixed mindset, you're always going to. if you live in a place of a growth mindset, it's going to come out of you naturally. Even in your nonverbal cues, in the way you speak, the way you carry yourself, your confidence is going to shine through to where the institutions, the facilities, the preceptors, the program directors that you're meeting and speaking with, they'll be able to tell some difference A fixed mindset seems to avoid challenges. It gives up easily. As opposed to a growth mindset that's persistent even in spite of obstacles. A growth mindset encounters a challenge, but yet it looks at the obstacle and says, you know what? Hold on. I'm going to stop right here and I'm going to see what I need to do to be better, to overcome, to take a next The growth mindset is continuously working. You get all your neuronal circuits continuously firing, asking questions, pivotal questions like how do I overcome this? How do I move forward from The fixed mindset sees effort as fruitless. It's like, Man, I've already tried this before. I've done it a hundred times before. The stats say I don't stand a chance. It says if you fail once, you're done. If you didn't get any interviews, that's If you didn't get a strong letter of recommendation for your job application, that's you're done. And so you live in that. And you believe that fixed mindset when that's just a process of You're thinking, it's not going to I'm just going to throw in the towel and see what happens. When instead you could shift that to say, what can I do differently to get a letter of recommendation? How can I get my personal statement reworked on reedited? How can I write a new statement? Where can I fetch a new story from my past? The growth mindset is like, you know I'm going to put in every little bit of effort that I have left in Every little cell in me is going to fight for this thing 100%. I'm going to do whatever. Is necessary. I'm going to seek out the people to tell me the areas that I need to work I'm going to seek out mentorship. I may feel shy, rejected, but I'm going to put myself out there and ask for mentorship and guidance or coaching like you're doing Everybody that you know that has an MD or a DO or is a resident or a physician. Yes. Tap into Utilize your network. You're like, hey, what do I need to do to be different? I don't want to just come to this session and say, hey, Dr. Lum, tell me everything. I want you to ask other people that you also know if you're not close to them. I want you to ask multiple sources, trusted sources, people who have done what you desire to do, people who have accomplished what you desire to accomplish

So you may be asking yourself, what are the things I need to do differently? Right? Is there anything that I need to do to make a change? That's the growth mindset asking questions that are introspective. You may say, hey, I heard about this from Dr. Lum, and I want to start thinking about something else. I want to start changing the way I process my thoughts. You want to be sure that you put in every piece of effort necessary. The fixed mindset, on the other hand, could say, well, Dr. Lum looked over my personal statement. She was critical. She deleted half of it. She called it nonsense. That means there's no hope for me. I can't do this. I just can't write. And I get that a lot during time when we talk about the personal statement module, you get into that mind But what if you flip that script, flip it over and say, hey, I may not feel like I know how to write a proper for statement, but I'm going to tap deep inside of I'm going to take out my writing prompts from the course, and I'm going to answer them, and I'm going to take a walk down the street and. If I can get some inspiration and come back and answer them again. And then I'm going to use them to formulate the best personal statement I can possibly come up Because if I am a medical student or a graduate of a medical school and I have advanced degrees like this, I can definitely write an essay because that's what it And I'm going to have as many people read through it and critique it for and I'm going to be open to their criticism. I'm going to say, what are some things I can do different? I'm going to take it all in because I'm a work in That's how the growth mindset You need to begin to look at yourself more as someone on a journey. And not that your match is a final destination, because there's going to be different challenges that you encounter counter throughout your Now, a fixed mindset is easily threatened by other people. It's threatened by the AMG counterparts. Is threatened by your Co-IMGs. This is very true. A lot of us IMGs tend to compare ourselves with others. We compare ourselves to other IMGs. We compare ourselves to US We're saying, Hey, you know, these US Grads, they have their schools backup. They have opportunity for research. They have strong LoRs. They have their dean. They have attendees who can pick up the phone and make calls for Man, I'm so screwed. Right? That's what we tell There's no way I can do Our schools are not supportive. We're so cut off from our school. It's been so long since we graduated. My year of graduation. That's a huge roadblock for IMGs. We get so fixated in feeling too old to accomplish No, I have coached IMGs who have taken 10 to 12 years from graduation and match into You know, what they did different is they figure out what they needed to do They. Because even if their school may not remember them to give them that support, even if their families may have been grown and left the home and they felt like they had lost their own personal identity, they had to. Adopt a growth mindset, to become a student again, to be inspired by other people, to take coaching from someone like myself or other coaches to gear them towards success. a fixed mindset is the belief that skills, intellect and talents are set and unchangeable. Which is such a because if you look at a child when they're born nobody tells a child when to start breastfeeding. They just place themselves on the mother's breast and their natural instincts allow that child to And then the feeding cycle and they get better at it each time. Same thing when a child begins to crawl by watching, it starts to crawl and then it. Starts to walk and then it starts to in that same manner in our journey, we're going through different phases. Now, these are normal developmental processes of human neurobiology that we expect. Right? but what do we know? There is a lot of research now describing neuroplasticity in And what is neuroplasticity? It's basically a theory that speaks to the ability to continue to regenerate new neuronal circuits in your brain, even as an adult. And it's a huge key in adult learning. So even as adults, we can learn new we can create new habits, we can adopt new skills, we can create new and we can change our mindset. The only difference is a child is not under complete control of their conscious mind. Whatever they're exposed to, they internalize, and that's what comes But as an adult, you are in complete control of your conscious You can decipher truth from lies. You can decipher good from You can decipher when your voice is being suppressed or when your voice is being heard. So you feel like if you feel like you're not a viable member of society or you feel marginalized when you're a child, when you grow older, that person becomes the person who also feels marginalized in society. But until you change that mindset inside of you and begin to see yourself as one that takes opportunity even when it's not given to one that can create success in spite of where they've been or where they are coming from, until you take conscious control of your mind, you're not going to be able to create success. so you can transform who you are based on the theories of neuroplasticity. That's why you see adults who can change their lifestyles become a whole different person, even far into menopause a postmenopausal, because there is such a thing as neuroplasticity that allows our brains to evolve and change, even in old So as an adult, you have your conscious mind, and that is very much well aware. It's what's allowing you to take this program today. It's what's allowing you to sit through and process everything I'm saying. It makes all your rational It tells you where to stop when you're driving down the interstate. It tells you someone's driving too fast and to slow down. Right? That's your conscious You could see fire, fight, or flight. You see something dangerous, you can step Okay. It's probably your same conscious mind that told you, hey, sign up for this program and see what you can get out of it. It may be beneficial. That's your more rational mind. On the other hand, you have a subconscious mind. It dwells deep inside of you, and it's more subjective. It doesn't make decisions on its It's a mind that you have to seek to cultivate. It's You sort of have to reach deep down. Your conscious mind has to be in so much control that it can overcome that subconscious. You have to almost bring it out to because that's really where your true habits lie. Your true character forms in that subconscious part of It's based on things that have happened over the course of your life that you've just been internalizing without even thinking a second thought about You wonder why you do things the way you do, why you think the way you do. It's because of that subconscious. It just embraces whatever is thrown at But when you grow in your growth mindset and you say, hey, my belief is that skills, intellect, talent can all be developed over time. With practice and perseverance, that means. Telling your brain, hey, my neuronal circuits in my brain can get better. Whether I do realize it or not, there is chance for improvement. Even though I didn't do well on my first test of med school doesn't mean I get to do poorly on every other For example, if you take a test and you oh, I'm a bad test guess Your fixed mindset is stuck onto that. As to being a bad test taker, whenever you're faced with the next exam, you're going to be a bad test taker because that's what your subconscious has internalized. Whereas the growth mindset would say, maybe I didn't perform well on my first exam, but now moving forward through practice and perseverance, I can become a better test taker. So what do I do? I start reading through the question stems. I read the last sentence. I find what the question is. I go back into the body of the question, and I study I answer in my mind. And then I select the right answer. How do you think all those other people ace the exams? That's what they They try to formulate the answer in their mind before looking at the options presented to But you will not be able to do that if you don't have the base of knowledge which comes from taking that extra time out in study, in preparation, in practice, and in perseverance. So you can therefore say, I can become a better test taker through practice and perseverance. But saying it is not going to get you there. You have to say it, and you have to follow your words with action, because motivation doesn't do anything for Motivation is as good as nothing. Action is what takes you from one to the Now, let's say you've been studying for the USMLE. And I remember when I was studying for the USMLE. I would sit down for six, seven, 8 hours a And when you sit down so much, you're so sedentary. Your health is down, your mental health is because all you do is sit and study the whole time. But instead, if I can change that mindset and say, this is an opportunity for me to get closer to my dream of residency, so that those long hours are less painful, those long hours carry a bigger meaning, a bigger significance, a bigger purpose than the now. So I'm moving out of my fixed mindset as to, oh, woe is me. This is so painful to this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for me to be better. An opportunity for me to make it into residency. So every day I want you to show I want you to be committed to getting better. I want you to be committed to taking that one step in front of the other. In front of the same thing. When you try to run a mile, what do you do? You start by walking. You do one two mile, then a 5K, then a 10K. But it takes time. It takes It takes perseverance. You get better. What do you think is happening in that process? You're getting new neuronal regeneration. That helps you get stronger Same thing happens even in your IMG journey. When you get knocked down, you get rejected. You get beat down. We practice and persevere. You stand back up and you take the next step. And throughout this course, I'll be instructing you how you can take the step on every single aspect of your whether it's from networking, your rotations, your observerships, your personal statement, your LoRs, even down to filling out your ERAS Because you're going to be the one to say, I wasn't born smart. I wasn't born rich. But I can do Because a growth mindset would say, hey, I wonder. How the other IMGs did I wonder what I need to do differently to be accomplished. The dreams that they have Let me try to figure out what I can Let me send this email. Let me ask for this recommendation. Let me seek this advice. Because that's what the growth mindset That's where it positions you

When it comes to dealing with setbacks, you know, if you have the fixed mindset, you may be thinking more like this. You may say things like, you know, I've tried this, I tried applying last year, it failed. This is my third time applying. I don't know if I'll make it. You know, maybe I shouldn't give it a try. Right? And you can walk into that process and not giving you 100%. You'll need to be in this process wholeheartedly. You need to be committed 100% of the time every day. Yes, there are going to be times where you may not feel like it, but you take action in spite of how you feel, okay? Because whatever your goal specialty is to match into, you need to be fixated on it. You need to have it as your number one priority and you're taking the action in the direction of creating that. Plan A for yourself. You can't let other things that have been setbacks in the past to resurface and define your future for you. Because what that does is it really holds you back from accomplishing or from even taking action in the direction of your Because in your subconscious when you embody setbacks, you prevent yourself from fighting. You prevent yourself from searching, you prevent yourself from networking. You prevent yourself from seeking opportunities that can put you in a place of success, that can put you in the right rooms with the right people. A growth mindset, on the contrary, will say, hey, I may use another strategy. I'll try something different. If what I did last year did not work, well, maybe this time around I'll try something new. What can I do to change? Where can I change? What are some opportunities for improvement? That's what the growth mindset does for when it comes to your skills. A lot of times your growth mindset would or your fixed mindset could say, this is what it is. It is what it is. I am just get this or I am just don't get And that's what your fixed mindset wants you to believe. The fixed mindset wants you to think. There's no time to change anything. September is going to be close by before you think about What you have is what you have. You can't do anything. I can't get more. I can't, I can't, I When you see yourself believing or living in, I can't. I want you to take that as a challenge to take action. September is going to come around and I want you to give it your I want you to give what you can bring to the table as your best application possible. Your growth mindset is critical. It's being able to ask yourself, is this my best Can I do anything else better? Is there one more person that can review my personal statement? Is there one more person that I can ask about a recommendation is there one more person that I can talk to who can drop an award for me with their program? That's again what the Growth Mindset does for you. It allows you to be introspective, to be truthful, to seek to ask. To be bold, to be confident. want you to look through your phone, look through your contacts, your email, your Facebook Look for people that you can begin to reach out Look for people within your network who can introduce you to other people. Maybe they're in your specialty of interest, or maybe they know someone in your specialty of interest. Of course, all these skill sets we're talking about are really about networking. They're about creating likability, about being approachable, being personable, and presenting your bestselle first and then your problem after. Sort of sandwiching your problems between an honest approach and genuine care before asking for opportunity. Just creating relationships, networking because you want to get to know people, you want to learn from But it all starts with asking the question of how can I be better? So let's go into some barriers that you may face in this process as you begin to navigate the change that you're about to experience in evolving into a growth mindset. 80% of the it's easy for me to sit here and say, yeah, I have a growth mindset. I just do it all the time. No. There are so many times even I, as an individual, get stuck in that fixed mindset. But what I have to stop and ask myself is what's stopping me right now from adapting a growth mindset about the situation? Or what would a growth mindset in this situation look like for And I think one of our biggest challenges as IMGs is the data, the stats, because everybody wants to tell how we don't stand a They want to tell us how hard it is for us. They want to tell us how impossible it But you are the single most important person in your equation of life. You are your own denominator. You get to determine what outcomes you create, obviously by God's grace. But you get to determine what you put The fact that everybody else did not make it doesn't mean you as well will not make The fact that your competition did not arrive, the destination that you want to get to, doesn't mean you get to not It's your place to adapt that thinking and to begin to say, hey, I'm not a statistic. If anything, I beat the I'll tell you a story. When I was in medical school, I had my own personal slogan, and I put it up on my wall in my And it was defeating stereotypes, which means to me, that meant I knew I was going to have to deal with several stereotypes about the path that I chose. Whether it was going to Caribbean Medical School or whether it was being a visa applicant, whether it was not performing well on my first exam and having to study harder, make myself better to overcome those whatever that was for me. I just had to focus on the fact that I was going to defeat the. Stereotypes that came with my background and my history. Instead of focusing on every other thing, I focused on what I could do to be better. How could I make myself more competitive the category that I came What I really mean is you can stop yourself from going down that barrel of negative thoughts about who you are and where you come from, about your background, and about all the things that's society says. You cannot achieve what you could focus your attention. Instead, it's on learning about the people that made So look for the few in your life that have actually made it with your background and ask yourself, what is it about What do they do And this was one particular reason why I started my on my blog, the IMG Roadmap series, which has blossomed into the podcast that you listen to today. I started it because I felt like there wasn't enough people talking about the success stories for IMGs. If you went on any network, any forum, everything people wanted to tell you is how bad it I had a student send me a direct message on a social media platform. I think he's in Nepal. He said he didn't do well in Step 1, and his performance was somewhere in the 230s. This was when it was a numerical and I don't remember what the score was specifically, but it was a good But this person was in the depth of despair, thinking that they did so poorly because of what they read on the And I want you to realize that everything you read on the Internet, first of all, is not true. Second is not the end all, be all. The truth is, you are the single most important factor in your life. So even with your 230 240 or over or under, you could still make yourself super competitive. And that is a fairly good score. As you know, there are tons of people who have matched with average There are tons who have matched with not so great I, for one, have been very open in sharing my Step 1 performance was a 198. I'm never proud of it, but I've had to grow and learn a lot from it for you to see the person that you see today. So don't compare yourself with statistics. Don't compare yourself with other people, whether good or bad, whether positive or negative. Instead, learn from them. Glean an understanding of what they did differently. You get to choose your own destiny. You get to create But if you sit down and let it passively take control and just let whatever happen to you, then the result you're going to get will be passive. You have to be active in this process. You need to take action in the direction of the goals you want to You're going to have to stop and say, I am going to be active about this process. I'm no longer going to sit down and wait for whatever comes to me. But I'm going to take Another key area that we struggle with as IMGs is the fear of the unknown. A lot of people don't know what's going on. They don't understand there's a lack of knowledge into the entire process. You know, there's a lot of hearsay and we just don't have that much information. And so instead of being like a student that reached out to me and said hey, there's a program in my area, I just didn't know about it. I just learned about it and I'm trying to see how I can get a networking experience. And we're sitting there thinking about how she can present herself to this program. It just tells you that at some point when you're not aware of what's around you, you're not able to even take upon opportunity. so in this program, as you go through it, I'll show you ways that you can find resources in your area, ways that you can find opportunities even where there are none that have presented themselves to Did you know that there are several programs across the country that really honor taking IMGs? There are few and far between, but they're there. there are other programs that will never hire an IMG. But instead of focusing on that group that doesn't hire an IMG, why don't you focus on those that do prioritize IMGs? Some of them you've never heard of, but because of hearsay on the internet, you underlook them or you disregard and no one really tells you anything about them because they're just not often talked about. But what I'm here to tell you today is there is hope for It is possible. We can, however, do Another key area that we should talk about is the negative self And that is the one where I can give everyone a trophy for this, including myself. If you've gone to medical school, you have some degree of negative self because in your class we're all type A, highly competitive people, and everybody was top of their class wherever they came from before they got into med So yes, it's competitive, yes, But one thing we're not familiar with is dealing with And the minute we mess up on one thing, we beat ourselves. Because maybe this is the first time ever that we've had to experience such failure. And that's where the negative self talk And before we know it inside of us, in our subconscious mind, it just breeds and breeds and breeds and Every time you talk to yourself negatively, you're suppressing your own subconscious mind into believing that thought about yourself. Because your conscious mind needs to take over and say I will not define myself by this past failure and it needs to inform the subconscious to do the same. Your conscious mind, when it experiences failure, could look at it and say, man, I'm worthless. There's a hole for me, I'm not going to make Your subconscious mind grabs that and runs with and therefore what happens? Your actions are You don't feel like waking up in the morning and doing what you need to You don't feel like you have what it takes to fight. You don't feel like you have what it takes to be competitive. You may even encounter physicians at an event, at a conference, but you don't have the courage to walk up to them, to just interact and start a networking process. If you're at a function, why can't you walk up to people and talk to them? If you're at a meeting, an association gathering of someone introduces you to another physician, why don't you take that as a networking opportunity? Sometimes you hide your true identity behind your failure, behind your fear, instead of stepping out into what has been set out for you to accomplish. You know this. This was your calling. You felt it. This is what you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be a physician. So why not embrace Why not embrace the ups and the downs, the challenges, the successes? Because in life, there's going to be both. There's always going to be both options.

me tell you a story. I was coaching a student this past season. She did really well on her board exams, really brilliant physician. when we were doing our interview coaching, I believe it was, I asked her this question, very frequently asked interview question. And it what are your strengths? Tell me about your strengths. And she could not tell me one thing she could not identify one thing that she was great And then I pivoted and I what about your weaknesses? Tell me about your weaknesses. And she had a long list of things that she had identified as but could not identify one Does this sound similar to you? This is something that I see frequently with people who dwell a lot in a fixed mindset. Because what makes you realize that you don't have any strengths? What makes you feel like you do not have any skill sets, transferable talents that you can share with a future employer to show how you can add to that corporation? And she starts to beat herself down. And I just had to tell her, you have to put fact versus fiction. What are some things that people highlight in your life that are good What about the people you've helped in the past? What have they commended you for? What is the one thing that you are the resource person for? What do your friends come to you about? And as we start to talk about these things, we're digging and asking all these introspective questions. we finish up with a really long list of strengths that she has and she's able to use that towards her future job interview for residency. Right after she went on an interview and she had 17 interviews total. She'd worked on a personal statement. We did that together. Worked on her entire ERAS CV. She had taken this program and she knocked them all out of the park and And she matched with a really great program as well. Top tier. The point is, it's important that you realize what's fact and what's fiction. If you're in medical school, or if you made it through medical school, you're probably already baseline smart. That's a given. The only thing moving on from here is that when you start to compare yourself with other people in your class and you start to feel less than, then you're robbed of all the opportunity and all the possibility. Fundamentally, you probably have a really great high IQ. But if you're being robbed of yourself and your true self, your confidence, then you're not able to exploit that IQ that you So you start to rely on fiction and that you're not smart enough, you're not great enough. And before you know it, that translates into everything that you Another thing that we fail to remember is that standardized do not define a person's intelligence. There are some people that are great at taking And there's just other people who know how to study really well in a short period of time and take a test and do really That doesn't ever translate into being a great physician or into being highly intelligent to that same degree. The fact that you get a failure doesn't automatically mean that you are now a failure, because failing at one thing doesn't get to define failing everywhere else. Failing one standardized test doesn't accurately reflect who you would become as a physician. Now, we do know, however, programs do use prior failures to filter applicants out because they worry about future failure. But it's up to you to transform that one failure into an even higher performance on the next So you could start with zero people skills, zero clinical skills, zero bedside manners, and still become a great physician by adopting and learning and growing. But you cannot rely on these tests to define your level of intelligence. Last but not least, we'll speak on Impostor Syndrome. Impostor Syndrome is that feeling where a highly accomplished individual feels like a It's been defined a lot better in the recent literature in medicine is that consistent feeling of feeling like you'll never actually meet to everything that you are, or that somehow you made it here by chance. Some people that have had accomplishments that should be proud consistently feeling like they're going to get exposed someday, that they're going to be called out, when indeed no one is calling you out, it's all in your mind. Impostor Syndrome makes you feel like you're not worthy of a job or not worthy of a position, not worthy of a certain accomplishment or career when indeed it's not true. It's a false evidence that appears real. In the next section, we'll talk about some ways to overcome Impostor Syndrome so that you can actually move forward and propel yourself into your residency position of your dreams

In this section, you will learn five ways to adopt a growth mindset. And that would be, one, by creating internal silent seminars. Two, visualization. Three, your associations. Four, time management and how to maximize your time to accomplish your goals. And five, how to leverage the power of your mind and your The difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset is that it dwells on the same person. So it could be present at all times, but it's up to that person to choose one over the other to get better at it. We talked about this extensively in the prior lesson. It's much like a Every time I have a thought that I would consider a fixed thought, I create a statement that can help me in my conscious mind to counteract that, so that my subconscious mind can be informed and allow me to transform into who I want to So same thing with my conscious versus my subconscious mind. The conscious mind and the subconscious mind are one. They're in the same individual. But it's up to me to inform my subconscious about who I want to become. So you don't have two minds, it's you. But your same brain that is able to create a sense of reasoning over one idea is now predominantly focused on ideas that would propel you forward. So in many ways, you can have a more objective way of reasoning through things that you have, and you have a subjective way of reasoning through certain things. The objective way is the conscious way, meaning you're aware of what's around And the conscious mind as well is what we used to look at a report, for example, from the Easy FMG or the AMC, right? You may have seen some of these data points or reports, or I may have even reproduced some of them to share with you on different social media platforms. But you may have seen something that may read only 51% or 53% of IMGs in year number XYZ, right? And so you may think, well, that means I have a 50-50 chance, but seeing as I'm on the lower end of the spectrum, I'm probably not going to be the one to match, but I'll just try it, right? That's, for example, what your conscious mind could Your subconscious mind then would internalize that because it's more dormant, meaning it's not aware of its environment, it just takes whatever it's presented to But that's really where our habits, our emotions, or through thoughts begin, deep down inside that subconscious. it takes whatever the conscious mind gives to it, and at that point it embraces it, and that's what it creates. And he says, well, the conclusion is we're just going to not be able to make this, but we'll try. And then you wonder why when you take that step and try and not make it, why that happened? Because there was a part of you that wasn't committed. There was a part of you that did not take full control of your life. So in this section, as we go through these different items, I want you to begin to employ your conscious mind to take action with some of the recommendations that I'm going to provide to Your subconscious mind is here to grow. It has room and opportunity to develop, to be transformed. You are able to do Because once you get, for example, an Observership opportunity and you outperform your peers, and you perform in a manner that allows you to get a strong LOR, or once you get a research opportunity that allows you to shine. It's because you've been able to embrace the growth and the work that you are doing in your personal life. To see yourself advance your career in more than one Even if your subconscious may tell you that you don't know what to do to shine. Well, you're here. And throughout this program, I'll be teaching you all the ways in you can outstand outperform and make yourself different from where you're starting You may feel like you're not able to reach out to people to get help, to ask for help, to network. But once you start to internalize these things, you wake up in the morning feeling a little bit better about the possibilities lay hold for you. And when you show up at work, people are going to feel you, they'll feel your mood, they'll feel your energy. And that's how you begin to create likability. that when that program chooses to interview you down the road, they'll rank you. Because you did indeed leave them with a good impression. Because your mindset was positive. You've been operating in a growth mindset to where they can see through that. And they can see that there's potential in working with If you're ever in a position where you're networking and you feel like, well, why am I not outgoing? Why does this program not like me? What can I do different? Instead, immediately arrest that thought and ask yourself, how can I change this negative self talk and rise up out of How can I become the person that they want to talk And your conscious mind will begin to expose you to the answers to those types of questions. That way you're just not accepting and internalizing whatever is being thrown at but that you can begin to create a new future. You can begin to create your own medical success story. So whether you choose to continue with. Today. It's up to you. But I'm believing that because you're still sitting here and you're still listening to these lectures. You've chosen to make a difference in your You've chosen to begin to dwell in your growth mindset. You've chosen to take control of your conscious mind. You've chosen to take the driver's seat of your And one of the ways that you can do this is to start with your own personal affirmations, affirmations over yourself. And this is just not saying words that will do anything for It's about creating an internal rhetoric that you can believe for yourself. It's about creating an area, changing your identity, so that you can become someone else, someone different, someone better. I want you to list out five areas in your life that you want to see something different, for example, and you write down some affirmations towards whether that one, I will complete a compelling personal statement before August 20. And that is something that can become an affirmation for you, meaning you start to work towards a statement with a deadline of August 20 every morning. Before you know it, you'll begin to think about stories in your clinical work during your rotations, you'll meet encounters and talk to people and realize things that you can write about. You may maybe be exposed to a patient encounter that you can use as an opening statement for your letter. You may get into a conversation that reminds you about something that you can put in your personal statement. But until you open up your mind to receive that kind of wisdom by actually asking yourself and setting these deadlines and goals for yourself or affirmations for yourself, then you wouldn't be able to start to actually take action in that direction. So even if you don't feel like it, write down these things that you want to What are five things that I want to see differently in my Well, it could be my personal statement. It could be gaining a mentor and just by March 15, hypothetically, I will gain a mentor in internal medicine, or I will find a mentor in emergency medicine. I'll find a mentor in general surgery. And before you know it, because that is a goal of yours, you'll find yourself in circles and with people that you can ask, hey, do you know someone willing to mentor? Because that becomes primary in your And when it's primary in your mind, you can take action toward it. You can begin to ask about it, and you can begin to set your foot forward to be able to gain the result that you want to see. Some of us, it may be an economic resource issue where we don't have the resources to apply into 100 programs or 130 or 20 programs or whatever number you choose. You may choose to write down something like, say, you after identifying, I need $25 per program, for my application. I'm. Applying to 100 programs. I need X amount of dollars for So my affirmation would be, I'm believing that God would provide for me this X amount of money for my application come September And every day you just believe in that. You don't need to know how it's going to happen. It's like a prayer. You put that out there on your paper and you begin to believe that over time these things will come to fruition. And when you meet that family member, that friend, or get that opportunity for a freelance gig, it would all line up to where that provision can be made available to So I have these ways in which you can use to transform from a fixed to a growth mindset. And it's so important because it helps you even thrive in the workplace. There have been time and time again in the workplace where in residency, because of how hard it was to get in, it was easier for me to just hold on, to just take one more step, even when things and conditions were not conducive. Because you know how far you've come to get to where you want to be, that you're willing to do about just anything and you do it joyfully. rest assured that every effort that you've put in up until now will not go in vain. Your investment and time into this program and to other resources that you're dedicating your time and effort toward will not go in vain. Because you have to believe you're going to have to start to tell yourself, I'm going to do everything that I need to do in this place to be the best possible physician in the United States in residency that I can possibly be

In choosing to change your mindset, the first thing we'll talk about is creating a silent seminar. It's actually an internal silent I tell myself the things that I want to manifest in my life and I tell myself that. And that's my internal silent seminar. So if I wanted to match into internal medicine and I'm open to location because I know again, fact versus fiction, I know that there are some states that are IMG friendly. That's a And the fiction would be that every state is going to be IMG friendly. But within those states you'll find programs that are IMG friendly. So I can say I want to match into internal medicine. So I'm open to matching into internal medicine anywhere in the country. At this point, my affirmation before my feet hit the ground along with my prayer time is before I start running about the day is, I'm matching into internal medicine as a resident in XYZ program, wherever, right? But that's my internal silent seminar. Is I begin to see myself by telling myself all day long what I want to produce in my So if I'm choosing to become a pediatrician, or I'm choosing to become an emergency physician, or I want to become a primary care physician, whatever that could be for you. It's about creating an internal silent seminar that you have with yourself, where you're almost redirecting your mind and teaching yourself what to think. Because I want to be a pediatrician, that means I'm going to look for opportunity within pediatrics. I'm going to shadow at the children's hospital, I'm going to do my volunteer work at the children's hospital. I'm going to employ my time, dedicating my time and effort into networking amongst pediatricians. And you can use that technique for just about anything, but it's about being able to recite to yourself the things that you want to see in your Because if you don't take action to what you listen to, you listen to just about everything everybody else is going to tell And so the first key part in taking control of your mind. Is creating your internal silence seminar about the results that you want to The next thing is visualization. And visualization is real because it's like looking at something that you want to produce, right? For example, the way I use visualization when I was studying for step Two after my performance in Step One, I decided I wanted to do much better on Step Two because I wasn't proud of the way I did on my first exam. So I created a goal for myself and that was a 240. I was devastated because that's not what I got on Step One. And so this time around, I knew I had to do a lot different. I knew I had to work twice as hard and I knew I had to put in more time, more effort, had to get the right resources and stop hopping from resource to resource. And so I put it up on my wall, all that I was going to get a 240. I'd actually went to the Internet and I printed out a score report with that number on it because that was my target score for that exam. Along with that, it wasn't just printing out a piece of paper and hoping that was going to become something for But I started talking to people who were making two forty two fifty on their exams and asking them how do you study? How are you making it? What are you using? What resources are you using? How do you approach these questions? And I started to learn from And because I would wake up and see that on my wall, I started to implement the resources that were being recommended from people who I felt were much better at test-taking than I And before I knew my results came And at that time we had a two digit score, which is a percentile. And getting above the 99 percentile was the same effect as getting a 240 that we have And lo and behold, when I took the test, I did indeed score And that's just to tell you not that printing a piece of paper out on the internet is going to do anything for you, but you need to be able to have that internal silence seminar. And two, you need to be able to continuously visualize what you want to create in your and the way that you do that. Is not by just sticking up that paper on the wall, but figuring out what people who have accomplished those things did to get Coming under their mentorship, learning from them, and then implementing what they tell you to because it will be no good to seek recommendations and advice and then not take them and not implement It's like going to the gym and asking a personal trainer to train you and then not following the instructions, but yet expecting have the six It doesn't work that So when it comes to your academic work, the same applies. You put up that as a reminder, as a visual reminder for you. Your goals that you've written down, your internal silent seminar, your goals that you're going to visualize. But then you take action and you take action by what am I going to do different this Am I going to study from this video resource? Am I going to study from my First aid, Patomac, UWorld whatever resources that you choose to use? But what am I going to do differently this time from how I did the last time? So I don't perform in the same. And that may look different for you. Your silent seminar may be, Hey, I'm matching into residency come whatever year, or I'm matching into fellowship come whatever year. That could be for But it's important that you realize that the story you tell yourself is going to be very important in this whole Because if you wake up in the morning feeling defeated and you're dealing with this negative self talk, you're never going to be able to, one, create that silent seminar and actually practice or visualize and believe what you've placed for yourself to believe. So if you're looking at alumni from your school who did not match or family, friends and other people who you really had good intentions towards and they did not make it's important that you realize that you're on a different career path from these You cannot continue to define your future based on their You should create your own path and your own medical success story. So what I'm telling you is you should try some. Different in order to produce a new result. You will need to create your internal silence seminar, and you'll need to have some type of visualization in order to change your mindset and to change from the woe is me, I failed, or woe is me, I don't stand a chance, to what if I do stand a chance? How can I transform my future? How can I change my outcome? I think there was a time as a medical student where I actually printed out a badge from the Internet and I said, someday I'm going to make sure that I get my MD degree. It felt so far away. There were so many obstacles along the But seeing that every day gave me hope that someday I would hold one of those as And the next thing we're going to talk about is associations. When you're in this process, you're going to benefit from a group like what we have here at the imgroadmapgroup.com You want to be in a place where people are working toward that same mindset as you, or they already have that so that they can foster and help you grow. You want to be in a positive environment that helps you flourish, that helps you grow and develop. If you're trying to do your silent seminars and you're trying to be you're trying to create your associations and you're trying to do all these things you're trying to visualize. But you cannot do those things if you're not in a proper environment that fosters that growth Last but not least is time management. Because you can visualize all you want, you can put up all the sticker notes you want to put up, but if you don't manage your time appropriately, you're not going to make You can spend 7 hours a day on social media or other resources, Netflix and such, and expect to get the results of someone who spends 7 hours a day studying, reading through different resources and making plans for their future. So time management is super, super, super important. It's important that you see yourself becoming this successful person, but you need to create block schedules. What I do is I turn off all my notifications, my cell phone goes off, and I make sure that when I'm in front of my books, it's just me and my for 30 minutes at a time. No distractions. Because until you take control of distraction, you're never going to be able to take The mesmerizing thing is you can stare a Q-bank for hours if you're not present with and actually involved and emotionally connected to what you're studying. None of that will be retained. None of that will stay with you. None of it will stick with So what you need to do is set a block scheduling time where you're dedicated to one thing and one thing only. No multitasking when you're studying. You're not on Instagram. You're not on Facebook. Your phone is on silent or airplane mode. No interruptions. Even if your mom is calling out for you, you are not there. If your parents keep interrupting you, pack your bags and go to the library. When I first moved to the United States, I remember living in a really crowdy place, really loud, always noisy. I had to wake up every morning and pack my bags and find the nearest public library, find those private cubicles and sit there for five, six, seven hours. Until that was done. I wasn't leaving, and when I left there, I was able to be present at home and interact with my family members that were in that location. It is highly important that you maintain your focus, and your focus must be indestructible. If you are distracted, you are never going to be able to take proper action. You need to manage your time properly. The same token goes, goes into when come back home. You want to be present. You want to talk to them. When you're talking to them, you're present. But then when you step away from them, you get back into your audios or your videos for whatever. Source you're using to study, and you stay on schedule. Find pockets of time where you can take advantage of things like are you on the commute? Are you on a bus or a train? Can you listen to an audio that would help you understand one concept from earlier in the Can you watch a video that will bring you closer to where you want to Yes. You can actually even take this course on your commute and listen to it while you drive. That will be use of your time so that when you're ready to sit down and study, all you have to focus on in that time is the material you have to cover. So if you don't manage your time, you will not be able to make this process work for You need to be doing what you need to do within the time frame that you set for yourself. For those who are already in Observership right now, I get it. You're busy, you're in a rotation, or maybe you're in a clinical elective. You may not have enough time, but can you wake up an hour earlier? Can you give yourself one extra hour in the morning to study? On your commute, you can listen to helpful videos and audios on whatever you're studying that While you're at work, you're contacting programs expressing interest in that place and that locale that you're working You know, when you wake up in the morning, you're gonna have to tell yourself, hey, today's the day. I'm gonna contact one program through an email. Right. If you start this in January of the year that you want to apply, by March or April, you would have been able to network with at least 30 to 40 programs where you potentially stand a chance of working with them in an Observership or clinical rotation. And when you're on your commute there, you're listening to your video resource, because maybe you're studying for the USMLE step three, or you're studying for step two. You're listening to an audio resource or you're studying for step one. On your commute back. You may be reading your first aid if you're on a bus or a train, but the key thing is using every pocket of time that you have and scheduling it. Because if you don't schedule your time, life is going to take up your time for If you don't set your own goals and targets, you'll find yourself going through the nuances of everybody else's So you need to have everything on the That's the only way that things are going to work is you're going to be dedicating your time every single day to certain things that are important to getting you your final result.