University Professor Explains HOW to LEARN ANYTHING You Want With EASE!

You need to ask yourself if you're in the right place. A lot of us get into life and take a path because our families wanted us to take that path, or there were some societal expectations, you know, and that's tough because if you're not committed in your heart to what you're doing, it's going to be a struggle. A lot of professors take on a different persona when they're standing in front of a classroom. It can be intimidating for students, but then you go and start talking to them In their office, they got pictures of their family, they got kids, they got their dog and all that stuff. So you get to know that they're human beings too. And, and you as a human to human, you can form a bond and get to know each other better.

What general time management tips do you have for students so they can, they can keep getting their A's? Believe Nation, I have a super exciting new guest to the channel. His name is Karush Nagchhine. He's got an awesome book, The Ultimate Guide for Making Top Grades in The Most Concise Guide. It's true. It's 55 pages, uh, for your college success. What most excellent students do to get A's. Welcome aboard, man.

Thank you. Thank you, Evan. Nice to see him in video person.

So this is interesting cuz my audience is entrepreneurs and, and we haven't really talked about getting A's in school and how to do it. Uh, so my hardcore audience might be like, what is this interview all about? But I was excited to have you on for two reasons. One, we do have some, some younger people who are on, who are in school, high school, university, and trying to figure out how to do better in school. And also what I, in going through the book, realized is this is actually a book about learning and can be applied to even outside the school system because as entrepreneurs, it's a, it's a self-education journey that you're on. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs never did well in school, and they're struggling to learn, which will hurt them. It's not that they were necessarily bad students or dumb or not smart. They just never actually learned how to learn, which this book kind of teaches you how to learn. So does that resonate? Does that sit well with you?

It does. It does. You know, I never thought of myself as one of those smart students. And, you know, here I am with a PhD and worked in academia for, you know, 20-something years. But, um, what I realized is that you got to persevere and you got to break down the system. You gotta go at it with the attitude of, this is what I'm committed to doing, which is a lot of entrepreneurs have to do that, right? And, uh, and then what do I have to do to prepare? What do I have to do while I'm doing it? And what do I do after I get through a Failure. I don't call it failure. It's a learning experience. And, and then how do I learn from that? And how do I make myself do something better next time? So I think life is a learning process and we are all going through it. And at many times we have challenges and we feel like we failed, but we haven't failed. We're learning. And that's That's the number one message I want people to have. You know, it's, it's all positive.

I love it. So you're talking about, uh, you have a before, during, after methodology, which, which we'll dive into a little bit later on. But you say the number one issue with college students is they never learned how to study. They're putting a lot of effort in, but they don't get the results they wanted, which is the grade. So to the person who's trying and trying and trying and trying to learn and they feel like they just can't get it. What are some of the shifts that they need to make so they can get the results they're looking for?

Well, number one is a mindset. I, you know, you need to ask yourself if you're in the right place. Um, you know, a lot of us get into life and take a path because our families wanted us to take that path, or there were some societal expectations. And, you know, and that's tough because if you're not committed in your heart to what you're doing, it's going to be a struggle. You know, on inside of yourself, you're fighting with yourself. So number 1 is mindset. You want to make sure that you're committed to what you're doing. You know why you're there. Why is it you're studying a particular topic? And then start breaking it down. How do you prepare for class? What do you do before you go to class? And then what do you do during class? What do you do after class? You know, this is what we do for meetings. You prepare for a meeting, you know what you do during a meeting. After a meeting, you'd recap, you try to figure out what you learned and, and, and how are you going to use the material you learn? It's the same, same stuff, right? I've just taken it and broken it down into individual items that are applicable to school. This could be high school, uh, you know, or college, doesn't matter. I mean, it's, it's just Breaking it down, saying, hey, you're going to go to class. There are certain things you need to do before you go to class so that you're prepared for receiving the material. And then during the class, you need to be engaged. You need to ask questions. Don't be intimidated by your professor. You know, you're there. It's like a team effort. You know, he or she is there to help you and you're there to learn and you're going to work together. A lot of students get so intimidated by professors. I had this issue with my own kids. Yeah, professor is not going to scare you away. Go ask questions, you know. So and then after you get out of class, you know, there are certain things you need to do. You need to go over your notes. You need to make sure that you learn the material. How do you know you learn the material? Try to teach it to somebody else. You know, find a friend or somebody who's going to— who's willing to study with you and And try to teach them what you thought you learned that day and then see if you do an effective job. Teaching someone else something is the best way to learn it. I love it.

So I was a, I was a pretty good student. I got a full scholarship out of high school to college, uh, or University of Toronto. And in there I finished with a 3.7-something GPA. So, you know, not top of my class, but still decent. But I feel like if I had read your book, that would've been an easy 4 afterwards. This is 54 55 pages, but the amount of things that you've kind of crammed into 55 pages is actually quite impressive. You talk about attendance being the number one indicator of success, which is interesting because I think a lot of people think, well, how gifted are they? How smart are they? What natural abilities they have? It's like, no, it's like, do you show up is the number one indicator of if they have success or not. And I think that's, it's true in life too, you know, for any kind of learning. You could just buy this book. Cool. But if you don't show up and read it, you're not going to get any learning from it. Why do people join a class or buy a book and then not show up?

You know, people have all kinds of reasons, and some of it is valid. I mean, people struggle. Life can be hard. Going to college is not always easy. Not everyone has all the finances worked out. People have to work. Sometimes they're working until midnight, and then the next day they got a class at 8:00 AM. Well, you know, when you're exhausted, you kind of feel like, ah, I'm going to give myself a break. I'm going to sleep. So I tend to err on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt. But, you know, and they talk themselves into thinking, I don't need to be there. My buddy's there. He'll take notes for me. And, you know, or I'll copy the notes from somebody else, or the lectures are online. I'm just going to look at those. But that you're missing on that interaction piece, you know, the part where you're in class, you're engaged, you're talking to the professor, you're asking specific questions because they help you understand better, not the questions that your buddy asked because that helped him or her understand the material better. But you need to be there to ask your questions and to find out, you know, there's so much that's communicated through body language. And, you know, by just reading the material, well, you might as well read the textbook and think, oh, I got it, you know, but it doesn't work that way. You need to be there. You need to engage. You need to talk to the professor. Don't talk yourself into thinking, I don't need to go to class. I know it's hard, but you gotta get there. And if you paid all that money, we both know how much debt people are accumulating, right? It's one of the biggest things that's going on right now with college education. I mean, my kids got out of school with debt. I wasn't happy about that, right? And I don't want other people to get out of school with debt and then at the same time not get their money's worth. I mean, that's really like paying for a product and then putting it aside and saying, well, I'm not going to use it.

What's great about that is just, it's just the effort, and, and that's always controllable. Like, you can't control where you were born or who your parents are or how much money you have or even maybe your natural DNA or smarts, but you're saying the number one success indicator is just effort. Like, anybody can always show up. That doesn't discriminate. And so it's great to see that, that— and I think that translates definitely into the business world and entrepreneurial success too. Like, you just got to show up every day, and it's It's not often— you can be the smartest person and still not be a great entrepreneur because you just didn't show up. So it's great to see that that's the number one success factor. Tying into that, you talk about get in early, sit at the front, like get into class early and sit in the front. And I just came back from an event in San Diego, and I went to go see one of the speakers, and the front seats are the VIP seats. Like, the front seats are the most expensive seats, right? And if you go to a sporting event or a concert, the front seats are always the one that people pay more money to. But for whatever reason, you know, in college, university, high school even, you pay the same amount to get into the university class, but all seats are equal and nobody wants to sit at the front, even though it's like the richest experience. So I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Why are people not sitting at the front, and how does it help people learn better?

You know, it's a vulnerable feeling, uh, to be up front and so close to the instructor. I, I think there's a feeling of being intimidated by instructors. So people tend to distance themselves a little bit. They want to put this little space between themselves, or maybe putting other people in between themselves and, and the instructor. Um, and you know, that hurts them because when you're up front, you, you're not going to get distracted, you know. Uh, it's The only thing you can see is instructor, whatever he or she is doing, the stuff that's going on on the board or on the projector screen. That's what you got to pay attention to. And the sense of false security that you get by sitting back, it kind of actually deters from your experience because now, you know, your attention could waver a little and then, you know, your phone buzzes and you look at it down there under your table and you're like, you're distracted, you're not paying complete attention. And, and it's like you said, you know, you pay good money to go to a concert, you go pay good money to go to a conference, and you— why wouldn't you sit up front? And it's, it's amazing because the students who sat up front in, in my 26 years of teaching at university, um, I would say 9 out of 10 were the highest grade students in the class. And there were students also who sat up front who were struggling, and I respected them so much because they were there and they were exposing their own struggle in class to their classmates But they allowed me to try to help them. And that's why I was there. I'm there to teach. I'm there to help our students learn the material. And these students were actually working with me. It's like a team effort, right? And it seemed like the students who were sitting up front were the ones who were more engaged and would have this back and forth. I say something, and I look at one guy's face, and I can tell, oh, this really didn't go across. All right, let me try it another way, you know, and, and I think that's really important. And some of the lecture classes nowadays are so huge, students get lost in, and they don't really get the good experience. I don't like those kinds of lecture rooms where you got like 500 people, and, and it's— I know some colleges, they can't help it, you know, that's, that's the fact of life these days, but You can get there early and get up front, man, do it. It's going to help you. It's going to help you understand the material better. It's going to help you engage with the professor better, and you'll get better grades. You know, we talk about grades, and grades are one measure, and I don't want to just put all the focus on the grade, you know, because the, the biggest thing is that you take away an understanding. Of the material. You understand the fundamentals. You can assemble it together, assemble the concepts together in a different way if you need to. And those come from being engaged, looking at— it's almost like you're looking at a, let's say you're looking at a Rubik's Cube and you're looking at different angles. As you look at it in different angles and different perspectives, you get much better understanding of the material. That's what we need to do in college.

I remember in my first year at University of Toronto, the accounting class is one of the, the biggest classes on campus. It was like 1,500 students in a class in a, in a giant auditorium, 3 levels of, of seating, stadium-style seating. And I did not like accounting, was not my best subject, so I struggled to stay focused compared to other subjects. And I remember when I, when I started, I sat at the back because I, I didn't, you know, I didn't like the content and I was really struggling just to, to pay attention, to see the screen, The people around me were just making jokes and not paying attention either. So now it's easy to fall into that circle. So I made a shift. I mean, I didn't, I didn't have this book at the time. I was like, okay, I need to, I need to focus cuz I need to get a decent mark in this, in this class. And so get there early, sat up front, paid attention, forced myself. And again, it's, it's just, it's controllable. It's, it's just, you can get there early and you can sit up front. You don't have to be a genius to sit up front. There's no, there's nobody blocking you. There's no VIP access or ticket you have to buy. Like it's just controllable. So both of these, like show up to class and sit up front, are completely inside your control.

You know, what I have put in my book is simple stuff. You know, they say life— in life, there are many pieces of advice you receive that are simple but not easy. And so that's— this is one of those things. These are simple. You could actually do them no matter what you're doing. And sometimes people make it more difficult for themselves. But yeah. This is, you know, follow the advice, simple stuff. Just do these steps.

You tell a story in the book of a, of one of your students who was falling asleep in class at the back and you, you know, slowly move towards him, keep talking, he's still passed out. And then eventually, you know, his, his buddy nudges him and he says, hey, you know, wake up. And, and then you are, you know, say, hey, if you wanna sleep, you could sleep at home. And, and he's tells some kind of joke like, I, you know, I like sleeping in class. Then when everybody laughs. But how do you, Like, what would your message to him be? I mean, it's a fun— it's a fun joke in the moment, makes everybody laugh. But I mean, he missed out on the entire lecture. You have a point that if you're going to sleep, just stay home. What would your advice be to somebody who's always coming in late and sleeping at the back and struggling to stay, you know, attentive, and their grades are really struggling?

Think about it this way. You went to a store, you paid this expensive product, and then you put it on the side of your house and you didn't touch it. It's the same thing. You've paid this expensive tuition, you came to class, and then what'd you do? You did what you would do at home. You slept or you didn't pay attention. You're wasting your money. You know, I never mind what your parents think about that, but you know, you're wasting your money, you're wasting your time, and time is money. Entrepreneurs know that, right? We're, we, you know, we're looking at our time and thinking Hey, I'm making so much money and this my time per minute is worth this much money and I need to use this time effectively. I think students need to be looking at their time as worth a lot more than what, how they value it. I think it comes down to looking at your life and looking at how am I spending my time? What am I doing with my, my, my life, my time? And, you know, using it more effectively. I have to tell you, the most focused students I had were the students who had already served in the military, and now they came back to school and they were trying to get their degree. These people were focused, they were disciplined, they knew their time was worth money, they knew how valuable their time was at school. And they used it most effectively. Man, I admired these people. You know, some of them were struggling with all kinds of issues, but they would show up, they would be there early, and they would do their work. I wish every student did that because they would all succeed. Yeah.

And if I think about the entrepreneur world too, how many Zoom conferences are we on? How many virtual trainings are we attending? You may not be going to university for classes anymore, but we're still learning and attending conferences and seminars. And so what's the equivalent? We'll show up early. You know, we're doing this over Zoom. We were both here early. You know, you're, you're eating your dog food. It wasn't like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm 5 minutes late. No, he's like 5 minutes early for the session, right? So if you're going to trainings, show up early, turn on your camera. It's the equivalent of sitting up in the front row as opposed to if it's off, you can, you can sleep, you could be browsing something else and not really paying attention, right? So I think it's super applicable. I mean, as it sounds basic, but I never even thought about it that way. And so You've been through it so many times. You, you, you were a professor for so many years, you've seen it. And so it, it's, it, you know, all these little life hacks are great in the book. One surprising one, maybe my favorite was get to know your professor. And so that's a little deeper in on the book, but it's like, get to know your professor. And I don't know that I ever made a conscious effort to get to know my professor. Talk about why that's important and how would we do that when it might feel weird or awkward to like, how do we get to know our professor?

Show up at office hours and try to use the resource. Number 1, you don't want to waste their time. You want to show up and ask questions or things that you're not sure about, things that you didn't learn well enough in class, questions that came up for you later. You show up at office hours and talk to them. No matter what you do, it's a human-to-human interaction. No matter what you do, there'll be some side thing that will come up, something about, you know, you might be wearing your band uniform and the professor will say, oh, you're in band. Oh, you know, what do you know, where are you at the game, you know, what's going on? So they'll get to know you. They want to know you. No professor goes to teaching profession thinking I'm going to teach a bunch of robots and I'm just going to go to class, deliver my material, and then go home. That's not what gives us satisfaction. We want to get to know our students. There are so many students that I got to know over the years, and I loved it, you know. And, and then I— we had this relationship because I could see them in one class and I could see how they struggled and how they overcame that struggle and how we work together to help them pass the class. And then they're taking another class, and, and you know what's going on there, and how are you dealing with these issues now? You know, you start getting to know students, and, and then you're there. I try to be there at the graduation ceremony where the faculty sit on the stage and we watch the students come through. It is the happiest day of my life, you know, watching them graduate. And you just, you know, you have this bond. I know you can't have that with every student, but I think you end up developing that with many students. I've been blessed that I got to know so many wonderful people, so many young people. They are some of my best friends. We have lunch every once in a while nowadays, and it's just amazing how these young people have grown. They got their own kids now. Vice presidents, directors of companies, but we still know each other from back when they were in school. And what did they do? They came to my office, we chatted, they talked about what they were struggling with, and gradually we formed a bond. And, and that's really important. You know, when they were looking for their first job, I was more than happy to write a reference letter for them or answer phone calls. Somebody calls and says, do you know this, this student? And yep, I do. And I can tell you they were in every class, They were asking questions, they were engaged, and I think they will do a great job for you as an engineer in my case. So I think going and meeting with your professors is really important. Plus you get to see them as human beings. You know, it's a lot of professors take on a different persona when they're standing in front of the classroom and And, you know, it can be intimidating for students, but then you go and start talking to them. Yeah, then in their office they got pictures of their family, they got kids, they got, they got their dog and all that stuff. So you get to know that they're human beings too. And, and you as a human to human, you can form a bond and get to know each other better.

What I loved is you had a couple of pages in there basically putting you yourself in the shoes of the professors. Like, understand that professors are here to teach and they want to see you grow and learn. And they could have a job in the corporate world and be making 50%, 100%, you know, more money, but they're here. Why? Because they want to— they want to teach. I never even thought about— like, now as a 42-year-old man, I can kind of think back, but back when I'm 19, 20, I'm like, okay, I need to get my grades, I need to understand what's on the test. Like, I'm not even thinking of this person as a human, just like kind of the guy who's going to help me get grades to get to the next step. But like, just asking those questions, uh, you've got a couple pages of like, do this and don't do this when you're going in to talk to professor. And I think it makes a huge difference. And all those extra bonuses and connections and the relationship, you know, how do you pick the ones who you form the relationship? Well, it's the ones who show up, right? If you got 500 students in a class, you know, you're not, you're not going to go out of your way probably to always go to the back row and talk to the person back there if they're not showing up for themselves. So again, it's just effort thing. If you're showing up, you're going to office hours, it creates that opportunity to create the connection.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was one of the suggestions in the book too, of, hey, show up to office hours. And I remember going, and I, I, uh, at the beginning of my semester, I didn't want to waste time. I didn't want to waste the professor's time. Like, I don't know what I'm going to ask. I don't want to waste time. Um, there's probably a lot of people there, and he had, uh, twice a week office hours for an hour and a half or 2 hours. And I remember I showed up one time and nobody was there. It's like, wow, we've got like 500 students in this class and nobody went to ask for help at all.

Right, right.

It's like, that's, that was shocking. I thought I'd be standing in line for an hour and like might get one question and nobody was there at all. Is that common? Like, are students just not showing up to office hours? And like, teachers are there, they want to serve and help and like, Nobody's showing up.

Yeah, a lot of times that's, that's a fact of life and it's sad. And you know what happens? Then there's the exam day and then all of a sudden there's this line by the professor's office saying, you know, hey, what do I do about this? What do I do about that? But, you know, again, it's just like anything else in life. Look ahead. You got to prepare. And you know, you don't overcome a huge obstacle by just, you know, dealing with it on the last step. You break it down, you deal with it at every step. And so you need to go talk to your professor, and professor's there. I mean, in many schools, they're obligated to be there for that hour and a half that you mentioned, right? So they, they would love to have somebody stop by their office and talk to them and You know, the thing is, when as a professor I heard a student ask me a question, the question gave me an insight to how they were analyzing the topic and did I communicate it the best way possible. There were many times when they left my office, I took some notes, and I told myself, next lecture I'm going to go back and talk about this topic again and talk about it in this different way. So I think it's really important. Yeah, it's unfortunate that people don't show up at office hours and take advantage of this resource that's available to them. You know, it's like you have the professor in class, but you're sharing the professor with another 500 people. But now you could have the professor all to yourself, and you could ask whatever you want. Why wouldn't you take advantage of it? Yeah, but people get scared, and that's something that I, you know, I kept talking to students about. You need to overcome that. You can't be intimidated by, especially freshmen, you know, freshmen go into school and they're like, oh my God, you know, these professors, they're like, you know, gods, and I can't go waste their time and I can't ask questions. But you can, that's what they're there for and they wanna be there for you.

Yeah. Or, or they just don't know. I mean, I think when I started, I just didn't know. I wasn't used to that in high school. That wasn't something that teachers did. So it just wasn't part of my, how I learned or the, what was trained into me. So like, oh, this is an option. Okay. I think the week before the exam definitely is when people start coming, but then also the week after the tests come back and, and fighting over the grade. Like, why did I get a, B- instead of an A, you know, and, and that's probably the worst time to go and talk to the professor when everybody's just complaining about their grades or stressed out about the exam coming up ahead. So to your point, just being able to go connect with them on their office hours makes a huge difference. Um, there was one, one, it's relationship building.

You're building a relationship, and as entrepreneurs, we know how important that is. You don't go out there and make a product, a high-quality product, and say, here, I'm gonna throw it out at customers and then buy and then leave. You know, you build a relationship. That's how you develop your business. And this is the same thing.

In my third year of university, I went and built a relationship with one of my professors and saw him on his office hours. And he proposed to me that in my fourth year we do a, I forget what he called it, it's like a self-study course. Or we just designed our own course together where he sponsored my course that we did on, on pricing a product. And I had no exam, no tests. I just had to meet him once a week and kind of talk about what I had learned. So I was getting free mentorship from him with no exam at the end of it. Like, this is great. I wish I had— I didn't even know this was an option. I wish I found this out sooner. All because I just went and talked to my professor on his office hours when nobody else was showing up.

Yeah, and that's part of being engaged. You know, there are many options to get your degree. There are a lot of little loopholes. You know, doing some kind of independent research with your professor is one of those options. But unless you talk to your advisor, you talk to your professor, you know, not every professor want to do independent research with you because maybe your interests don't line up. But, uh, talking and building a relationship, you can find all those resources and you'll have a much better experience. I bet that independent study work or independent research work you did ended up being an amazing experience for you in hindsight, plus the fact that you got to know this professor so well, uh, on one-on-one basis.

Yeah, it was basically once a week I'd go in and get free mentorship. You know, he would teach me and train me about pricing because I knew nothing about pricing. I cared about it and launched my business. And the idea that I didn't have to study for an exam was also great to me at the time. And I— it was one of those hacks that I wish I knew earlier. I didn't know professors can sponsor you to do one-on-one studies and that counts as a credit for your— that's— that was fantastic. I only knew that because I showed up and I was the only one coming out to office hours. So the professor has to like you. They're obviously not going to do that for most students. But again, if nobody's showing up and nobody's sitting in the front and nobody's, you know, coming out to office hours, it's not actually not that hard to stand out in a professor's eye.

Right, exactly, exactly. You know, even students who struggle, uh, even the struggle is part of getting to know each other. Um, I'll tell you a story. Um, I had this older student and he was struggling. He was struggling with taking exams. He would understand the material, but taking exams was a tough thing for him. And I think he had a lot of exam anxiety. And at one time I remember thinking to myself, I need to start the exam day with some meditation music or something and calm these students down. But, you know, in engineering, people would have had a fit, you know, doing something like that. So anyway, he would come to my office, we would have these discussions. And then there'll be that day where there's this long line out of my office and people are asking questions. And he's somewhere, you know, halfway through the line. And as I'm answering questions, I watch and I see other students are showing up in the line, and this guy's answering their questions, and they're leaving. And, you know, it just made me feel like I want to help this student so much more because He deserves it. You know, he obviously, this is something he's challenged with and I need to help him with that. And I did, you know, we worked together, we tried to get him help. And, and, you know, in a lot of schools there's Office of Student Disability Services, you know, things like that, that students don't even know about, you know, that they don't. If you've been the same way all your life, you have no idea if this is different from other people. And so, you know, there's, there's a lot that a professor can do for you. Yeah.

There's a story. I don't, I don't know if it's true or not, but when rescue helicopters show up to, you know, those people drowning and they only have like one, one life vest, there's only a certain amount of space in a helicopter. It's like, well, who do you pick to take with you? And the answer was, well, it's the one who swam to the helicopter, right? It's like there's only a little bit, a limited amount of space. Like show that you're interested in being saved. Show up. It's not that difficult, but put in the effort.

Right, right. And just like in life, there are many people who are struggling. And in school, you have the same group of people. You know, there's people who, um, you know, they go through a bad breakup. There are people who are having depression issues, family members die, you know, it's just, it's real life and it happens in school too. And there are a lot of resources at universities for helping these people. Um, you know, a lot of people don't even know that, you know, if something drastic happens in your life, you can go to your professor, you can go to your, um, you know, the head of your school, and you can get a lot of exemptions. Uh, but people are so afraid to ask these questions, they just go away and they get— take the bad grade and, you know, But if your school knows about it, they wanna help you. Um, so make sure you approach them, make sure you ask people for help anytime you're struggling with anything.

You also talk about the importance of forming a study group. And this is where I probably struggled the most is I, I tried to do everything myself. And if I was going back, I would've tried to— maybe because I'm introverted or shy, just, okay, I'm gonna do it myself. Or had some bad experiences in study groups. I'm just gonna do it all myself. But I recently came across a quote from Bill Gates who was talking about education and formal education and says the number of students who can learn without a social setting is very, very small. It's like, so we learn collectively where if you're left to your own devices all by yourself, you're probably not gonna pick up the material. So can you talk about the importance of forming study groups and how do we go about making that happen?

Absolutely. You know, in a lot of schools as you're going through your degree program, you'll see the same students kind of moving along with you. And maybe they're not in every class, but you guys are all advancing at about the same rate. And, you know, people can form friendships, and it's, it's wonderful if you can start with one person and then ask another person, but gradually form a group where you guys can come together. And I say this I try to make this very clear. You're not there to copy homework from each other. But, and there's so much value in having another person explain to you the concept that you just saw in class the way they saw it. We, we all see the material in a different way, and learning to see it from different points of view, different perspectives, it's so valuable. And when you teach it to somebody else, this is how I understood the material, this is what I learned from the material, it is so much more valuable. I got so much value out of, um, the group of people I studied with, um, when I was an undergraduate student. There was a group of us and we all show up at the school library and they had a study area. We'll, you know, put your books down and we're there to, uh, do our work and somebody gets stuck Hey, did you understand this any better? I didn't understand this topic. And that person gets a chance to try to teach you. This is helping them as well. And then as time went on, you know, as I went to graduate school, I had other people who I was working with and, hey, it's time for me to go to a conference and give a presentation. Would you mind listening to my talk and critiquing it? He would just chew it to shreds. And I was grateful for that because now I was prepared for anything and everything. So there's so much value in working with other people to learn, to prepare for what, you know, whatever it is that you're trying to get out of school.

If I think backwards to myself, you know, 20 years ago in college, what my two big things probably would have been I'm carrying this group, you know, like I'm the, I'm the one who cares the most. So I picked the wrong people and so I don't wanna waste my time. And two, I'm afraid to go up and talk to people to say, hey, do you wanna be my study partner? Do you wanna form a study group? So what, what advice would you have for people who feel either of those two things?

I think what you need to think about is that everybody else is feeling the same thing. You know, we're all human. We're all human. We all have insecurities, and we just cover our insecurities in different ways. You know, other people might seem unapproachable, but hey, you put out an effort, you ask a question. You don't have to say, hey, be my best buddy, or, you know, study together all the time. Say, hey, I need to understand this one topic better. You seem to ask a good question in class. That indicated you understand this material better than I do. Would you mind if we met after class? I'll buy you a coffee, and then you can, you can explain this to me a little bit better. I would really appreciate it. You know, that's a start. You just, you know, you kind of get started and see if that's something that's a lasting relationship. You can continue it. If not, then you move on. You, you try to form a, you know, a relationship, a working relationship. I call these working relationships. You know, you're in school, but man, this is your job. You're working. And so, you know, gradually you're going to have a group of people. A lot of times these come together almost naturally. Sometimes professors will assign a project and just put a group of people together. Well, now you get to really get to know people And yeah, yep, if you're carrying the whole group, yeah, they're probably not good study partners for you in the future. That's knowledge. You just gained some knowledge about— you're just eliminating some people from your possibilities. But there are other people in class who are— they got their hand up, they're asking questions, they're sitting up front, they're engaged with a professor. You're watching them, you know, taking notes. You know, those are the kind of people you want to focus on.

What I love about it is it might be awkward, it might be uncomfortable, but it's a fantastic skill to learn because once you get out into the corporate world, the academic world, the entrepreneurial world, you can't do this alone, right? It's like you can't have success in any career by yourself. And so if you've just kind of gone through high school studying and got, got good grades, cool, but if you are just a loner always, you will never accomplish your big goals. And so, uh, it's, it's great kind forced awkwardness to learn the skill. And I wish I'd done it sooner because I didn't figure this out until maybe in my 30s. You know, again, I wish I had this book. Maybe I'm still trying to figure it out, man.

I don't know.

Yeah. But I think that's an important journey for people to go on to recognize, hey, like, I can't do this alone. It's okay to ask for help, whether it's the professor and showing up to office hours, whether it's forming a study group. A lot of what you're— again, in like, in reading through the book, a lot of it was that what I was expecting was study hacks, and you do a lot of those, but there's a lot of relationship stuff in there too that was unexpected, which, um, again, in reflecting back, like, I wish I had that knowledge because it makes a lot of sense going backwards, but I didn't have that knowledge when I was 19, 20, 21, kind of going through the school system.

Right, right. You know, life is all about relationships. You're, you know, the connections you build with people And again, entrepreneurs know that best. You know, you can't work in isolation. And that's— it's really important. Sooner you learn it, the better, the more successful you will be.

You talk in the book about one of the major mistakes students make is they don't turn in their homework. And when I read that, I was like, really? Are people not handing in homework, like, at all? Like, I mean, I could imagine if you just didn't do a good job or you didn't understand the material. But I don't think I ever just did not hand something in. Is that super common?

You know, for some people it is. Not everyone, but for some people it is. Just, you know, they're looking at the system and thinking, well, you know, I didn't get a chance to do my homework today and I'll take care of it another day. So they're not handing in their homework. Um, it's, it's that whole business of having wrong priorities. Um, instead of breaking down this big, um, mountain into little rocks and taking care of them, uh, they're thinking, well, I'll just be ready for the exam. Well, you won't be ready for the exam if you didn't break down the topic and learn to hand in the homework as the material was being learned. So yeah, some people do that. Not, you know, not all successful students will do that. Well, nice, successful students will not do that. But it's, it's the, the other people who are— they just want to get by, you know. And, and it's, it's tough because it's, it's one of the things that just like a simple thing we said, show up to class. Hand in your homework, do your homework, hand in your homework. And it seems so simple, but again, some people will just ignore that.

Well, I think of it as 3 stages of freedom when you're going from high school to university or college to then entrepreneurship, where in high school you're being told what to do. Your parents are telling you what to do. The teacher's telling you what to do. You know, if you don't, If you don't hand something in, you know, a call goes home and say, hey, Johnny didn't hand this in, what's going on? And but then you get to university or college and you don't have the phone calls anymore, and nobody's chasing you down. The professor's not chasing you down and saying, hey, hand in your homework or you have to stay in detention afterwards. And then you get to entrepreneurship, there's, there's nobody at all. There's not even a structure to follow. And so it's a great— I, I mean, I saw a number of my Classmates struggle with that extra freedom that they were given because they were used to having somebody else discipline them as opposed to them having the self-discipline to show up and do the work. One of my best friends almost got kicked out of the program because he just was failing so much in the classes because he wasn't doing the work. He wasn't showing up, wasn't handing in the homework, wasn't studying for the test. He had complete freedom, just partying all the time. He was like, dude, come on. I need you for next semester. We got to do this together. Um, anyway, I mean, go ahead.

I think we need to do a better job of preparing our high school students for that transition. You know, that when you go to college, there's this huge transition, as you mentioned, all of a sudden, from everybody telling you what to do to now you have choices and you have to manage your time. You know, it's, you know, that managing your time is one of those things that some people didn't have to do when they were in high school. I think we need to do a better job of preparing our high school students for that transition. When I saw a college student, I looked at them as this man or woman will be working, doing a full-time job somewhere within 2 to 3 years from now, and my job is to I treat them like the professional that they're going to be. And, and so what that means is that I give them the freedom. With freedom comes responsibility, and then there's consequences. And, and that's what one of the hardest things that they have to learn. I think parents and, and high school administrators could do a better job of preparing students, but, you know, it's—

one of your tips is, uh, be engaged and ask questions, and Whenever I'm doing a training, I always, if I'm doing a training on YouTube, how to grow your YouTube channel, I tell people at the beginning, maybe it's a 2-hour training, hey, I want you to come prepared with a question. Like, don't come and just listen to me talk and take a bunch of notes, but what question, if I answered for you, would make a meaningful impact to the growth of your YouTube channel? In a university or a college environment, would you use that as a rule of thumb? Like, always ask a question or always be thinking about a question that during the middle of a, you know, whenever we get the questions, I want to ask something for clarification so that they're more engaged?

Absolutely. I, I don't think— look, as a professor standing in front of a class of 50, 100, 150, God forbid 1,500, there's no way you can present the topic in a way that everyone can understand it perfectly. Quick. So there's got to be questions. There's got to be people who, uh, maybe even they're— they got a little distracted and they didn't pay close attention and they wanted— they want me to repeat something. That's okay. Raise your hand. This is your opportunity. You need to raise your hand and ask a question. And if you didn't understand something— and this was one of the most important things I got out of my students asking questions They ask a question, they say, you said that, that, that, that, that, that, that, I don't understand it. And we go back and forth. So which part of it you didn't understand? How did I explain it that you didn't understand? How can I explain it so that you better understand it? And I think that's what a professor gets out of you asking questions is what can I do better? How can I explain this topic better? Now, you asked a question that I am sure at least 10 other students in the class had the same question, but they were afraid to raise their hand. And you just did a huge favor for so many other people in class. So I don't want students to think like, oh, I'm taking class time, I'm, you know, all this stuff. Ask your question. You didn't understand something? Ask your question. You're there to get the material. Professor is there to convey the material. And it's a give and take. If you didn't receive it, ask for it in a different way. So I think it's really important.

If I think back to my university days, or even now in business conferences, whenever it goes to Q&A time, there's always this kind of awkward lull while you're waiting for somebody to be the first one to ask a question. And then it ends up being there's so many questions that you don't have time for. It's like, well, where were you at the beginning? Like, ask the first question. And so I think, you know, if you just mentally— I'm— this is a hack for myself now, but I think it could be useful for others— is I'm preparing myself for wherever I go to learn. I'm gonna— I want to ask the first question. And so in listening to the presentation, I'm already thinking, what's my question going to be? So now I'm more engaged in the content because I'm thinking about the question. And then when— whenever they move the Q&A, like, I got it, I'm ready, I'm first, I want my question answered, let's go. I could think that I can shift and If you apply that to the college university setting, you, you, well, you even know, I mean, the material's already laid out in advance from the textbook. Typically it may not be word for word. You may not get through all the material, but you already know enough of what is gonna be taught. So what are your question? Like if you're reading the textbook already with questions in mind, does it shift how you show up for that lecture day?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. No textbook will explain things in a way that you're going to understand every little detail. Otherwise, you wouldn't need an instructor. Why do you need an instructor if you just, you can get it out of the textbook? So, you know, I, in my book, I say that you should look over the material before you go to class and have some ideas about the things that you didn't understand, and then look for those in the lecture that the professor is delivering. And if you didn't get it, you better have those questions ready and ask your questions because, hey, that's one sure way to get your money's worth, understand the material, and leave the classroom having your questions all answered. It's, it's, it's like when you go to a meeting, you know, you want to be ready for the meeting. What do you want to get out of the meeting? Everybody asks themselves that question, right? I'm going to a meeting. I'm going to spend my time in a meeting. What do I want to get out of this meeting? And what are the things that I need to ask? And what are the things I need to get out of this meeting with? Same thing. You're doing that before going to class, preparing for it and asking your questions.

You talk about the golden rule. And, and when, when you think of the golden rule, I think of Christianity and religion and the golden rule, do unto others. But you've got your own golden rule, which applies to studying. So tell us about, you know, the golden rule and how we can apply it.

Yeah, you know, a lot of students coming, making that transition from high school to college, they think that all I need to do is just go to class. And, you know, I think in, in some high school classes they might have devoted some time to doing some practice problems or homework and things like that. They might not have a lot of homework at home, but college is different. And, and my rule of thumb always was for every credit that the course is worth— now I'm also thinking as a semester schedule, not a quarter type of college— for, for a semester-long class, for every quarter, every credit, you need to spend 3 hours outside of the class. So we're talking 3 hours in class, 9 hours outside of class. That's a total of 12 hours that you're spending each week. Now, you know, I'll be honest, at the beginning of the term, things are picking up slow. You might not really need to spend so much time with the material, but there's going to be another time where you're going to be spending a lot more than 12 hours. On that particular course. So it's an average, it's a rule of thumb that I always use. It generally came up because in engineering, at the end of the 4 years, students have to do a capstone project. And so, you know, basically they're building something, they're doing something on their own, and usually they're working as a group And, you know, and they start thinking like, well, I can slough off and I can't really, I don't really need to do a lot of work. Well, that capstone project class is worth 3 credits. And I would tell them, look, you're responsible for a minimum of 12 hours of work per, you know, per week on this class. So that's where it came from, but it really carries throughout the the college education. That's really the minimum average time that you need to put in for each class.

I love it. It's a great rule of thumb and it ties then to note-taking and you outline 5 different ways to take notes. And like there's 5 ways to take notes. This is amazing. I didn't know this. You got the Cornell outline mapping sentence. And charting, all these different methods. And so you quickly outline each one of how you can take notes. And, uh, you know, I have to review how, how I take notes. I wish I knew those methods beforehand. I think the closest for me is maybe the Cornell method. Um, what I will typically do is I'll go with two notebooks. So if I'm like now at 42-year-old Evan going to a business event, I have one notebook where I'm just taking notes, like anything the person says I'm writing it down, trying to take detailed notes. I know you're a big stickler on like, take detailed notes, don't just take like one quote that they said, take detailed notes. And then on the plane ride home, I'll, I'll look at the notes and put it into my second notebook of what do I need to focus on, what I need to prioritize, like how do I apply this right now, what are the main lessons. And even looking at it a second time really helps. Uh, the Cornell method seems to be maybe the closest to that, where you're, you have your main notes on the side and then your important notes or summary, you know, down the, down the columns and at the bottom. Have you— I mean, for anybody who wants a detailed breakdown, just go pick up the book. We'll link it up in the description below. It's probably the easiest. There's pictures, it shows you how to do all these things. Have you found one technique more effective than the other? Is it based on personality, or how do I decide which of the 5 techniques are best?

You know, different techniques work better for different people. I used the sentence method. And just like you, kind of like a variation of what you did, I had loose paper that I would take with me and I'd take notes. And then at night I would go home and I would rewrite those notes, maybe sometimes even with more explanation in a different notebook. So, you know, that way I had everything because in class I'm taking notes and it's fast, like, you know, it's barely legible. And, uh, you know, going back home, then I could, you know, rewrite it. But I think I used the sentence method, and that worked well for engineering. But there are— each of these techniques might fit better for a different type of material that you're studying. It also might fit better for for a different person. You know, some work better for people more visual. So I would say experiment. You know, there's— try the different techniques and see which one works well for you. Try a different technique in a different class, different type of class, and see which one works for you. Again, just like you said, you didn't know these techniques exist I didn't know until years after I got my degree. So I wish I had known about these techniques as well. But I want students to know those.

Yeah.

And I think, I think there's a lot of value in figuring out which one works for you and in what kind of situation.

That's a great distinction because I was in reading it assuming, oh, well, there's one style that's best for me, not necessarily another style might be better depending on the content that I'm trying to learn. So You know, the mapping technique is very visual. It's like a, a, a tree org chart kind of thing that you're working towards. And maybe it's a, if it's a really visual concept, mapping might be better than the Cornell technique. So I like that, that a different technique might be better for you in different situations depending on what you're learning. I'm excited to dive in and try all these things out. This is great. Like I'm learning at 42, I'm learning how to learn again. This is, this is amazing.

Hey, I'm 61. I'm still learning. And I love it. That's, uh, I know I'm alive when I'm learning.

You, you've touched on time management a little bit and, you know, university students are struggling. It's a first taste of freedom. They're trying to balance, you know, relationships and maybe being away from home and all the classes and extracurricular and sports and band and all the things. What, what general time management tips do you have for students so they can, they can keep getting their A's?

You know, I think it's really important to have clear priorities. That's where it all starts. What are your priorities? And I know there are a lot of books that talk about sit down, write down your goals, write down your priorities. And I think there's a lot of value in that. You know, what are the things that you want to spend your time on and why? I think a lot of times we are on auto, you know, friends say, let's go do this, let's go do this. You know, somebody else says, let's go do this, we'll go do that. And I think we need to pay attention to what's important to us and how we can devote our time clearly to our top priority items. I think that's the number one. Factor in time management. I don't think there is shortage of time. I think there is unclear priorities, and people need to be really clear about what they want to spend their time on, what's, what's of value to them. But then, you know, this time management can also show itself in other aspects of our life. You hear about people talking about, I don't have entrepreneurs, I don't have enough time for my family. I don't have enough time for— this is real. I mean, these are demands of life. And the sooner we learn the skill of establishing our priorities, figuring out how we're going to devote our time to those priorities, the more successful you will be, the happier you will be. And I think that's really important. I, you know, the number one thing I want to see in my students my kids for sure, be happy, productive people and go on doing whatever you're going to do. But to be happy, you need to make sure that you're paying attention to those things that are important to you. And to, to do that, you need to know exactly what are the important things. You've seen the chart with the urgent versus important, the four quadrants. Um, that's, that's an excellent example of, uh, giving you a way of analyzing the different situations in your life. And, uh, is it important and is it urgent at the same time? That means you let it become urgent. Um, so the better, uh, way to go about it is to deal with things that are important when they have not become urgent. And so that's, you know, those are the kinds of things that— there's a lot of time management books out there. Uh, the other place that time management comes in is in taking exams. Um, and I talk about that in my book because a lot of times people start taking the exam and they just lose track of time. Um, well, again, time management. There are so many problems, you want to make sure you get to all of them. You've got to give yourself a certain amount of time to spend. I tell my students, start off looking at each problem and thinking to yourself how much time you're going to devote to that problem, giving yourself some spare time so that once you're done one— making one pass through the test, you can go back and review your answers. So again, it's another time management hack that, you know, it helps you in taking exams. But it all comes down to figuring out how much time you want to spend on certain things.

I love it. I got one last question for you. You open the book and you close the book talking about self-awareness and understanding what is your motivation to even be here in the first place. That's the first thing you talk about and it's how you end the book too. And you mentioned that yours was security. You really valued security. That's why you went down this path. How do you guide people through figuring out what their motivation is to be in college?

Yeah, and that's a, it's a tough one because it's a stage of life where there's a lot of things happening at the same time. You're young, maybe you've never had to struggle with these questions, but I think it's really of value to ask yourself Why am I here? At every stage of your life, no matter where you are, how old you are, doesn't matter. Why am I here? And why am I spending my time at this particular place doing this specific activity? I think it's important for students to, you know, there are certain classes at times that you can take that will make you think about some of these topics. There's a lot of general education classes that students have to take no matter what your major is. And I think there's a lot of value in those. I know a lot of schools or professors sometimes even will poo-poo some of those classes, but I think there's a lot of value in, you know, taking a psychology class, taking a sociology class, thinking about some of these topics. And hopefully those professors in those classes are making the students think about these bigger questions. Reading is a number one activity that helped me. I think I was an avid reader from my youth. And, you know, read as much as possible and don't discriminate. Read all kinds of different things. I think it opens your mind to possibilities and makes you think more about where you want to go and, and what you want to do. Like I said, I'm still learning. I, I think it's a lifelong process, and, uh, and we all need to keep at it.

Do you have any quick book recommendations apart from your own? We'll link this up. Any, any quick book recommendations that you think every college student should read?

I would say there are some resources in the back of that book. There are some good books available that delve much deeper into the different topics that I talked about. You mentioned note-taking. There's specific books that address note-taking by itself. I'd say my book gives you a top menu and then dig into some, some of these topics more detail. And, and there's resources in the back. Use those as a starting point. But yeah, keep, keep learning.

I love it. Well, this is what it looks like, everybody. It's called The Ultimate Guide for Making Top Grades in College. We'll link it up in the description below. Thank you for spending time with us sharing your knowledge and best of luck with the book launch.