Hey Weekly Growers! 👋

It’s been amazing to see spots fill up in the Evolving Student Course! I can’t wait to start 2024 off with a huge bang by completing the 30-day challenge with everyone who registers! In fact, I was unable to wait to share some of the things I’ve been learning so I created a free, 10-day newsletter companion. For the next 10 days, we’ll cover topics ranging from discipline to time management in short (<5 minute reads) lessons packed with tangible advice. If you want to get a taste of what you can expect in the full course, subscribe to the Evolving Student Newsletter below!

PERSONAL GROWTH

Medical School is Chill?

I’m officially in the “chill” part of medical school. As a fourth year medical student preparing for my final semester of medical school, I have more time on my hands than I’ve had in a while (hence making a course of 30 videos and a new 10-day newsletter). Now I’m not completely chilling. I feel like I am spending more time on a plane than in my own home with all the residency interviews and conferences. But overall, I’ve regained a bit of control over my time which has been sweet.

I’ve learned that these seasons of relative rest are great for planning. When life is busy and hectic, it’s hard enough to keep up in the present let alone plan for the future. So I’ve been taking some time to think about what I want to get out of the next busy season of life (residency), and how I can establish a good foundation to give me the best shot at accomplishing all the things I want to. It also helps that the New Year is perfect for planning.

Here are a couple things I’m planning to accomplish in the first quarter of 2024:

1. Optimize time with my family. Madison and I have a lot of trips planned in the first half of the year, that for the most part will be vacations. Thankfully our son Khari has fantastic grandparents who can watch him while we’re gone, but we’re even taking a trip to my alma mater Duke with the entire family! Stay tuned to see pictures of Khari decked out in Duke gear. But I recognize that in this next season of life, time with my family will be very limited, so I want to prioritize time with them now.

2. Set a foundation for residency. I’ve already started this by building the Notion workspace that we will use in the Evolving Student Challenge and that I will also be using for residency. But I plan to connect with a few of my friends in residency to ask what they would recommend doing to optimize my start. I’ve found that asking people who have been through the season that I am getting ready to enter (in this case any resident) are the best ones to get the most useful advice from.

3. Grow Evolving Medic. Now that I have time to let the creative and entrepreneurial juices flow, I want to create more content for you all! This has been one of the most fulfilling things I’ve done, and similar to the first point, I don’t know how much time I will have to scratch this itch during residency. I also want to create a more systematic approach to creating content that will allow me to get back to more regular posts even when I’ll be busy. This will for sure be a work in progress, but I will keep you updated (or I guess you’ll determine how I’m doing by how much you’re seeing me 😅).

WEEKLY CHALLENGE

My challenge this week is to find some time to plan what you want to get accomplished in the first quarter of 2024.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

LESSONS FROM WHAT I’M READING

I’m finally getting around to reading Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins. I think I needed to be in a relaxed state to balance the intensity that I know is in this book.

I’m still very early in the book and will probably spend a few newsletters covering what I’m learning because of how densely packed this book is with knowledge. But I just have to start with who the author is. David Goggins is a retired US Navy SEAL and regarded as the one of the world’s best ultra-endurance athletes.

In Can’t Hurt Me, Goggins describes how he transformed from someone who let circumstances control him, to someone who proactively seeks greatness by tackling new challenging. He provides 10 challenges to help people work efficiently toward their goals.

Challenge 1: Face Your Bad Hand. Our life circumstances ultimately affect our growth and development. Goggins says that acknowledging difficult circumstances that we’ve faced can be a good first step toward overcoming additional challenges. We can draw strength from the times we’ve successfully navigated hardship in the past. He says we should take stock of the circumstances that have shaped our life, past and present. Ways we can do this is by starting a journal and listing all the difficult things we’ve faced or are facing in life. We can ask ourselves the following questions to jog our memory:

• What difficult circumstances did I face growing up?

• What kind of challenges do I face now?

By recognizing the challenges we’ve already faced and were able to overcome, our confidence in our ability to overcome current challenges will grow. No story is great without the main character facing a bit of adversity. This is a great practice for us to better appreciate our own stories.

PRESENTED BY SHORTFORM

If you have a subscription to Netflix, you should have a subscription to something that will help you learn, and I can’t think of a single better resource than Shortform.

Whenever I revisit a book, I always use Shortform. Much of the above lessons came from this incredible tool. They make the world’s best guides to non-fiction books. They’re like book summaries on steroids. You can either read the entire book guide or just their 1-page summaries. If you’re wanting to revisit books you’ve already read to remember key ideas you may have forgotten, or want to preview a book before buying, I am sure you will fall in love with Shortform. Check them out for free now and get 20% off your subscription using the link below!

MY CURRENT FAVS

🎙 Podcast: Creator Science

• The host of this podcast, Jay Clouse, explores how to succeed as a professional content creator by interviewing some of the best each week, including James Clear, Ali Abdaal, and Tim Urban just to name a few. They discuss the strategies they are using to succeed and outline how other creatives can do the same.

📖 Book: The Obstacle Is The Way, Ryan Holiday

• In this book, Ryan Holiday draw inspiration from stoicism to highlight how we can endure pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Holiday uses examples from some of the most successful people in history, from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart as people who have applied these principles to become better, stronger, and tougher. If you’re feeling frustrated or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages.

👨‍💻 Study Tool: Anki

• Anki is a tool that utilizes spaces repetition and active recall, the two evidence-based study approaches, to help you master whatever it is that you’re learning. It’s really just a flash card tool, but man does it work! They say the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, but the second best time is right now. That’s how I feel about Anki. I wish I would have been using this throughout both my formal and personal education up to this point. Learning would have been a whole lot easier. But I’m just glad I use it now! Here’s a video where I talk about how to use tool if you’re interested!

🛍 Amazon Store

• Basically everything I own in my home. These things work for me! Hopefully they’ll work for you too!

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