I want it all.
I want an amazing work-life balance,
where I only work when I want to,
but I'm also free unwind, unplug, take a vacation
whenever I need to.
And yet at the same time, I feel like my work
is actually impactful and helping others.
I want financial freedom where I have a beautiful home
and a couple nice cars.
Not to flex, but because I want to race those cars
on the track.
I want a bad wife who brings out the best in me
and I want a happy family.
I want to have my cake and eat it too.
And who says you can't as well?
(mellow music)
What people often fail to realize is that reality
is more subjective we actually think.
Sound crazy?
Hear me out.
Person A wakes up with a glass half full, optimistic,
growth mindset to start his day.
When he grabs breakfast from the fridge, he notices
the food is warm and the milk has gone bad.
Damn, the fridge is busted
That sucks but, oh well, he's renting an apartment
and not a condo, so thankfully
he'll just call up maintenance and they're gonna handle
the issue, not really his problem.
And as for breakfast?
It's all good.
He watched that one Med School Insiders video
a few weeks back on time restricted feeding
and he's been wanting to try it out but just
never got around to it.
Now, I mean, his breakfast has gone bad
so now's the perfect opportunity.
Person B wakes up in the morning with a glass half empty,
pessimistic, fixed mindset.
And when he goes to the fridge, he's pissed.
God damn.
Now he's hungry, can't focus, the entire day is ruined.
Now, both Person A and Person B are right.
They are both experiencing reality,
and you can't fault either one for not being truthful.
But with the mentality and mindset of Person A,
he's going to assume the best in people, he's going to have
a positive outlook, and these effects are going to
compound with time.
Same thing with Person B.
He's going to be more pessimistic and when opportunities
come into his life, he's gonna see them more as
road blocks, as distractions, as nuisances,
rather than the opportunities that they could be.
Now both mindsets with time will compound and as a result,
the life trajectories will diverge.
Neither one is wrong,
but one way of being is far more effective
than another way of being.
Our realities are in large part
a function of what we choose to focus on.
Now I've spent a lot of time on Reddit
during this quarantine, and one thing I love about Reddit
is that popular opinions and beliefs rise to the surface
'cause they have this upvoting system.
Now I came across a thread on Reddit
asking, you know, how can you be a successful entrepreneur?
Something along those lines.
And the top comments are not things
that I necessarily agree with.
One of them was something along the lines of,
"You need to love money more than anything else
"and you need to be willing to compromise on your morals,
"and ethics, and do some like gray area stuff
"to be actually successful."
And another top comment was that the best paying lines
of work are just not sexy lines of work.
So if you want to make good money,
you need to be willing to do the boring,
tedious, not fun stuff.
This sounds harmless but I would argue
this is just another manifestation of a victim mentality.
Because now the person can say,
"Hey, I'm not successful because I'm not willing
"to compromise on my morals and ethics.
"Those rich, successful people, they just...
"they were doing some shady (bleep)
"that I will never do and I'm better than them
"for that reason."
Or someone could say,
"Oh, you know, the reason I'm not doing well,
"my line of work is really exciting
"and if I chose a more boring line of work,
"which I'm not willing to do, then I get paid more.
"So it's not my fault, it's just the industry
"that I'm working in."
I'm gonna challenge these people with these assumptions
that maybe you're not getting the results you want
because you haven't done anything that's deserving
of those results.
In response to this, of course, people whine and complain
life isn't fair.
No (bleep), Sherlock, but what are you going to do about it?
I've had more than my fair share of (bleep) cards
in my life but guess what,
I determine how I play them.
And you can win the game with (bleep) cards
just like you can lose the game with really killer cards.
As a general rule, people avoid taking responsibility.
They also like lazy thinking.
Black and white, one thing is good, one thing is bad.
But the gray area is where the truth is.
It's in that nuance.
Simplifications that we have are there to help us
understand and compartmentalize not to be
these final truths.
So a car is a car and a motorcycle's a motorcycle
to help us understand what we're talking about,
to help us organize that.
But look at a Polaris Slingshot, for example.
Is that really a car?
Not quite.
Is that a motorcycle?
Not quite.
So you see these exceptions everywhere in life.
Those that are willing to examine these gray areas
are those that find the deeper truths.
Cycling is like an analogy to life.
Cycling Red Rock here in Las Vegas,
from end to end back and forth is bout 25 miles
with 2600 feet of climbing and it's pretty challenging.
Now, there's two types of people.
One will say,
"Damn, that was tough.
"I need to get a better bike."
The other one's gonna say,
"Damn, that was tough.
"I wonder how much better I can get."
Which one do you think helps you grow as a person
and develop your confidence?
It's for that reason that I still ride
the same bike I bought eight years ago,
which was the cheapest bike I could buy from Specialized.
Now the same concept applies to life.
You see people that want to be rich, or comfortable,
or you even see them fighting
over their parents' inheritance, which I find appalling.
Like what makes you entitled to that?
People focus so much on just the outcome,
the final destination of being in some financial position,
for example, but they don't concern themselves
with the journey.
But that's where you're spending most of your time
to get there.
Those who earn their wealth, on average,
have statistically significant higher levels
of life satisfaction of happiness compared to those
who receive a windfall or inheritance
But you see so many people that just wanna have
rich parents, or win the lottery,
or have some other wishful thinking.
I (bleep) cherish the fact
that I paid for my own college, I paid for
my own medical school, and then I paid off
those student loans.
Yeah, it was stressful, and it sucked at moments,
and I pinched pennies like none other.
I would never get guac with my Chipotle bowl.
I needed to save that $2.05.
But now I'm so grateful for that because I'm on
the other side and it makes it so much sweeter.
And guess what.
No one can ever take that away from me
and it makes me feel really (bleep) good.
Confidence is so important to any endeavor
you take in life.
Whether that's doing well on a test,
or taking a professional risk that can possibly pay off
big time, or I mean, hell, even your dating life.
But the common narrative is that you gotta
fake it til you make it.
(Bleep) that noise.
Earn your confidence.
You take small risks at the beginning, and then
you're gonna win some, you're gonna lose some,
but then you'll have the confidence to say,
"Okay, I can take slightly larger risks,"
then I take these medium risks, and again,
you're gonna win some, you're gonna lose some,
but then you have the confidence that you can handle it.
Even the losses, right?
And then you take even bigger risks.
And then so on and so forth.
That's a more natural progression to build your confidence
whereas if you fake it til you make it,
then you end up at a position where
you ultimately just have imposter syndrome.
Now I quite plastic surgery and for those of you
that aren't in medicine and aren't familiar with it,
it's one of the most competitive, lucrative,
and safest fields of medicine.
For example, no matter what happens with insurance companies
and compensation, a plastic surgeon can always open up
a cash-based practice and they're going to be fine.
People kill to get into plastic surgery.
The year I applied, the match rate was...
It was the only specialty that had a match rate
in the sixties.
I was so ecstatic when I got in and then I quit.
And for that reason, a lot of people thought
that was insane, some people still do.
But I had built up the confidence to quit
because I had these smaller entrepreneurial wins
leading up to that point.
Most of us in medicine are very risk-averse
and normally I would be too.
But in that situation, I felt that the risk
of me not being successful in entrepreneurship
was low enough for me to tolerate.
I pulled the trigger and I was willing to be on myself,
even though a lot of people in the service
thought that it was super risky, foolish,
stupid, whatever, but that's because I had
built up the confidence with these smaller wins
to a point where now my risk assessment had shifted.
But Kevin, 80 to 90% of small businesses fail.
That's why I say statistics apply
to populations, not individuals.
By the way, we got two styles.
We got another style over here.
You can buy them below this video.
I don't think that my businesses
have an 80 to 90% chance of failing.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I'm in for a rude awakening
and maybe you're like,
"Kevin, you're an idiot.
"Just wait and see."
I don't know.
But I don't believe that and at the end of the day,
I make my decisions based on beliefs,
which are fundamentally built off of my confidence.
Now only 40% of students that apply
to a US MD program every year actually get in.
Now if I think back to when I was applying
to medical school, do I think that I had only a 40% chance
of getting into a medical school?
Obviously not.
But people still take that same mentality
when it comes to their own medical school applications.
Now some students, they'll come to us,
they have a 3.9 GPA,
520 on the MCAT,
but they didn't get in last cycle.
And they come to Med School Insiders because they want help
as a reapplicant.
And they're usually confused.
They're like,
"What happened?
"I had a 95% chance of getting in."
No, you didn't.
Students with your stats, on average, 95% of them get in.
But you did not have a 95% chance of getting in.
You were definitely part of the five percent that don't
and if I looked at your application a year ago,
I could have saved you the time and effort
because I could have pointed out, you know,
reasons A, B, C, and D why your application
was weaker than what it should be.
Now similarly, we've helped students with 3.0 GPAs
and 502s on the MCAT get into good MD schools.
But Dr. Jubbal, there's only a five percent chance
of getting in with stats like those.
No, no, no.
Five percent of students with stats like those
get into US MD schools.
But once we help you refine your essays,
coach you on interview skills, do the whole process A to Z,
you're odds improve.
It's not fixed based on your numbers.
So what are your goals?
What are your dreams?
In my mind, obviously in my professional life,
there's financial freedom but then there's also meaning.
And usually people think you get one or the other.
You either make a lot of money and then you don't like
your line of work or you love your job
but you're a starving artist.
I want my work to impact others and make me feel like
I'm doing my part and not just mooching off the world,
but contributing to it.
I wanna feel excited and invigorated by my work every day
but maybe I just wanna take the day off
every now and then and drive my Cayman GT4
on the race track.
Or maybe take a couple weeks off and just
travel the world with my future partner.
I want a beautiful home that inspires me every day
and I want to provide for my family and give back to those
that did so much to me to support me.
Thank you mom.
I want it all.
And the crazy thing is,
10 or 12 years ago,
all the signs would have pointed at this being impossible
and let's be real, I'm not there yet.
But I do think that I'm on my way.
Life's not fair and I've had my fair share of (bleep) cards.
Trust me, you guys only know the surface level.
But you know what?
I wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm the author of my own life and I love the story
that is being written.
(mellow music)