Study Secrets for Success (BeFirst Course 003)

Okay, so the first video you just watched or listened to or saw or deleted or skipped is an introduction to the overview of the course. I'd like to give you a little introduction to one of the processes that I found very very helpful. And this is, we're still pre-course here. We haven't actually gotten into the lectures yet, but this lecture I think is really critical. First and foremost, you'll learn this about me, I'm a notecard guy. I love notecards. I have a whole bunch of notecards of different sizes that I use and refer to. My process is interesting and I won't get too far off of this, off topic here. I handwrite everything. I handwrite it with pen usually and then I scan it into my iPad or into my notes on my iPhone or iPad or MacBook and then I can annotate it with my Apple Pencil later on. So I have a record of all of the notes. Maybe it's my OCD, maybe it's whatever it is. But I love notes and one thing I would encourage you to consider, I love notecards I should say, is as you're going through these lectures, whether it's with notecards individually or whether it's with paper or with your phone, making notes or taking notes or whatever it is you're doing, a bullet list, I would recommend that you identify two or three, maybe four at the most, but two or three key points that you can take time to digest and evaluate over the next period of time. Whether you're looking at one of these lectures per hour, one per day, one per week. And what I like to do is I like to write it down on a card and sometimes if I have a pocket that is, I'll carry that around with me and throughout the day I might refer to it or it might be sitting on my desk, might be on a magnet sticking in the corner on the wall, just so I can review and refer to that. I find that learning for me requires multiple contacts with the information. So recommendation, notecards, two or three items that are important to you that you learned from each lesson, keep those, if you will, and then refer to them periodically. It'll help you to kind of inculcate the information a little bit better in this gray matter up there. OK, so I'm going to share with you four phrases. I guess this is not a phrase. This is a word. What? So as I'm teaching, whether it's me, whether it's anyone talking, teaching, sharing, coaching, mentoring, whatever it is, we need to know what we're going to learn, what we're going to assimilate, what we're going to take in. So the first thing I'd ask you to consider during every lecture is what is the data that is trying to be presented to you? What is the lecturer, me or whoever it is, trying to convey? What's the purpose? And that's the two or three main key bullet points. You know, in business, we have KPIs, you know, things that that give us an indication of how well we're doing. We want to make sure that we know what the relevant, salient, important, critical data is. So number one, what? Right. As you're as you're taking a lecture of any type. Number two, so what? And basically what I mean by that is, so what does that have to do with me? So what? Right. Here's the information, whether it's about self-help or personal improvement, here's the information. So what? Why does that matter to me? Right. Why is it relevant? What is my personal connection to this data? It's important that we understand the so what of the data that's being presented. OK, critical that we understand that. Next, we need to know what to do with the data. So we've got the what, the so what. So what now? What do I do with it? Right. What do I do with this data? We can attend any number of lectures, courses, classes, read a ton of books, do a bunch of online research learning. But if we do nothing with it, it's a waste of time and money and resources. You know, we have all these potential other things we could be doing. So I would encourage you as you're going through these lectures, what am I going to do with this information now? And it's critical, as I mentioned a moment ago, not to to gather too much data, two or three main bullet points that you're going to focus on and learn from is usually the sweet spot. Now, certainly you can review, learn additional information down the road. That's wonderful. I'd encourage you to do that. However, make sure you do something with that data, at least process it, try to make some sort of a change and improvement. OK, so we've got three. We got what is the data, the information that's being shared? What does it have to do with me? Right. And then what do I do with that data? OK, this is really, really critical. If we don't do anything with the data, with the information, with the concepts, it's it's again, it's just a waste of time. Now, those of you who want to take things to the next level, here's the next question. So what's next? Right. What is next? What do we do next with this information? For most of us in most situations, especially in a lecture like this, the next step is implementing. So what now? And learning more. And I would submit to you, as I mentioned in the introduction, what's next also involves helping others. So as we learn and grow to become a better version of ourselves, we should also be trying to help others around us. It does us no good to achieve happiness by ourselves, because is it really happiness if we're by ourselves? I mean, it might be fun and relaxing and chill and whatever. And some of us certainly enjoy having alone time. I'm not I'm not saying that's bad in any way, shape or form. But I would ask you to consider what is true happiness. And I would submit to you personally, from my personal experience, happiness is being with other people that I love who are also happy. So is that a circular definition? Happiness is being happy with other people that are happy? I don't know. So you'll notice that I left off one important ingredient off all these cards, and that's the question mark. I did that on purpose, believe it or not. So I'm adding those question marks now. Why on earth am I doing that? Adding question marks, because we have to have the question mark in our head all the time. This is something that we have to make sure that we're always doing right. We're always inquisitive, always learning. What does it have to do with me? You know, what is it? What does it have to do with me? What am I going to do with it? And what am I going to do next? You have to be grabbing the data. You have to be pulling it in. Yes, we can, you know, take whatever it is and, you know, pour the data into you, onto you rather. But you have to receive it. You have to receive it. You have to pull it into you, accept it. And that's what that question mark symbolizes in my mind. Unless we are in a state prepared to learn, to pull that data in, that information, those concepts in, we're not going to learn as much as we possibly could. You know, I'm not a instructional designer. I'm not a I don't have any real education training. You know, I don't have a degree in education or whatever. But I know from personal experience that if we are not engaged, focused, desiring to learn, we just won't learn much. You know, case in point, most of my grade school, high school education wasn't until, you know, I got to college and, of course, dental school that that I started to see how this stuff really meant, how much it really meant to me from the standpoint of learning. So what? So what? So what now? And so what's next? As we're going through the lectures, as we're sharing and talking and learning and teaching and coaching together, please, please make sure that you're pulling that data in, that you're inculcating it in the gray matter and that you are taking steps to assimilate it and to do good with it. All right, let's move on to the next lecture.