Dr. John Dunlosky on "Improving Student Success: Some Principles from Cognitive Science"

This is episode #37 with Dr. John Dunlosky, a Professor of Psychology at Kent State University, who has contributed empirical and theoretical work on memory and metacognition, including theories of self-regulated learning and metacomprehension. You can watch this interview on Youtube for the visuals.
Welcome to the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning podcast, my name is Andrea Samadi, I’m a former educator whose been fascinated with understanding the science behind high performance strategies in schools, sports and the workplace for the past 20 years. Each week we bring you an expert who has risen to the top in their industry with specific strategies that you can implement immediately to take your results to the next level.
I’m so excited to introduce you to Dr. John Dunlosky. John’s research has focused on understanding three inter-related components of self-regulated learning: (1) the monitoring of learning, (2) control of study time, and (3) the application of strategies during learning.  These three components of learning fall under the rubric of metacognition, which is about people's cognition (the mental processes like thinking, knowing, remembering, judging and problem-solving, all involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension).[i] By studying metacognition in students across the life span, a major goal of his research involves developing techniques to improve student learning and achievement.
Welcome John! Thank you so much for taking the time away from your important work to be here to share your research and thoughts for improving student learning.
Question 1: I first heard you back in 2016 on an Edweek Webinar, speaking about “deliberate practice” being one of the most effective learning strategies, vs cramming, and I wrote that down and that concept has ended up in all my presentations for the K-12 school market ever since. I recently watched your presentation from the McMaster Symposium on Cognition, Learning and Education[ii] where you dive deep into your research. Can you give an overview of what launched your research with learning strategies and do you think that we can learn ANYTHING with enough deliberate practice over time?
Question 2: When you were doing your research to find which learning strategies work the best, what surprised you the most, and what feedback did you hear about your discoveries?
Question 3: Knowing what strategies scored the highest in your research (distributed practice—spacing study sessions out over time vs cramming) and retrieval practice or practice test taking using multiple choice, fill in the blanks, or essay type recall) do you see that these methods are used more frequently now by students? What have you seen with the application of your research?
Question 4: What happens next? Once a student uses distributed practice and retrieval practice, what is successive relearning?
Question 5: It caught my attention that a major aim of your research is to develop techniques to improve the effectiveness of people’s self-regulated learning because self-regulation is the most requested topic I see when working with schools, especially with older students (middle school and high school) and it seems to be the skill that challenges most adults (thinking where we are at the start of the year setting new goals for ourselves and many goal-setter fall off their plan before January is complete).  Why did you choose self-regulation opposed to let’s say growth mindset or something, and what are your current goals with your Metacognition and Education Lab?[iii] Note- Self-Regulation is one of the six social and emotional competencies that we dive deep into here on the podcast (episode 14).[iv] 
Question 6: I was reading your book on the weekend, the first textbook to be written on metacognition, can you share what metacognition is, and why it’s so important for the learning process?
Question 7: Is there anything else that’s important that you have uncovered to help improve student learning and achievement that I might have missed? 
Thank you very much John, for taking the time to be here today to share your knowledge and wisdom on these evidence-based learning strategies. If someone wants to learn more about your work is the best place through Kent State’s website? [v] I’ve also included your full study from Sage Journals[vi] in the show-notes. Thanks John.
 
REFERENCES: 
[i] The Basics of Cognition and Mental Processes by Kendra Cherry June 16, 2019  https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognition-2794982
[ii] Dr. John Dunlosky McMaster Symposium on Cognition, Learning and Education (YouTube Published Dec. 12, 2013). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KsC9CktCno&t=2102s
[iii] https://www.kent.edu/psychology/metacognition-education-lab 
[iv]Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE #14 “Self-Regulation: The foundational Learning Skill for Future Success” https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/self-regulation-foundational-learning-skill-for-future/id1469683141?i=1000447299318
[v] https://www.kent.edu/psychology/profile/john-dunlosky
[vi] https://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/rbtfl/Z10jaVH/60XQM/full
 

Creator of The Learning Pit, James Nottingham, on "The Importance of Challenge with Learning"

This is episode #36 with the creator of The Learning Pit®,[i] a sought-after keynote speaker and author of 9 books about teaching, learning and leadership, James Nottingham,[ii] from Northumberland, UK. Within a few minutes of posting about this interview on my social media channels, I had good friends who are deeply invested in teaching and learning from around the world, message me about how excited they were to hear this interview. You can listen to the interview here, or watch the visuals on YouTube. It’s not surprising that The Swedish Teaching Union describes James as “one of the most talked about names in the world of school development.”
James’ most recent book, Challenging Learning (2017) describes the theory and practice of guiding students through the “Learning Pit” encouraging them to step out of their comfort zone. This practical book is filled with ideas for making lessons engaging, thought provoking and collaborative.
Welcome James! Thanks, so much for taking the time to be here today all the way from the UK.
Q1: James, we all know that our educational system worldwide has been under a microscope of discussion for transformation the past few years and that some countries that you are working with are leading in this transformation over others. Just a note, here in Arizona, USA, we are ranked near the bottom[iii] which is scary for me as a parent, but it motivates me to want to do more. Where did your vision to improve education begin and did you ever imagine that you would be creating such an impact?
 
Q2: I dove right into your book, Challenging Learning,[iv] this weekend, and should have known from the title that I would be drawn in as challenge is actually one of my Top 5 values. I don’t work well without it and now have a completely different perspective as to why. Can you explain a bit more about how you Challenge Learning with The Learning Pit®? 
Q3: Why is challenging students “to question, to wonder, to challenge together”[v] such an important life skill? How does this improve their self-esteem, help them to become more self-reliant and achieve more?
Q4: I saw your TEDx about Labels that Limit Learning[vi] and it did surprise me as I thought we are on track over here with our 2 girls, implementing Growth Mindset now, being careful not to tell them they are “so smart” (Carol Dweck) and now I see I’m going down the wrong path with labels even with ones I would think were positive. I often say “just do your best” (with school or sports) not thinking at all that they might translate for them into “they must be THE best” dropping their expectation. Can you explain the research by Jacquelynne Eccles about how labels can lower expectation and impact the effort someone will put into something?
Q5: I’ve heard before that we always remember the people in our lives who have challenged us to “think” differently or think at all. And I had some early influencers who impacted me this way, and from reading your book, I can see that you have also.  Can you share some of your early influencers and how you went from idea to action with the Ready, Aim, Fire concept with your work? (Clay Shirky/Michael Fullan-who was the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto when I was in teacher’s college in the late 1990s)?
Q6: What is your vision with your company Challenging Learning and The Learning Pit® with such a broad audience and staff in 6 countries. Where are you going with this vision in the next few years?
Q7: Is there anything else that you think is important that I might have missed?
REFERENCES:
[i] https://www.jamesnottingham.co.uk/learning-pit/
 
[ii] https://www.jamesnottingham.co.uk/
 
[iii] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education
 
[iv] https://www.jamesnottingham.co.uk/books/
 
[v] James Nottingham, Learning Challenge (Learning Pit) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IMUAOhuO78
 
[vi] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viHaslVc9cc
 

How to Use Your Brain to Break Bad Habits in 2020

This is EPISODE #35, focusing on understanding how the brain works to break those bad habits that zap your energy so you can have a highly productive 2020. Welcome to the “Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning” podcast, my name is Andrea Samadi, I’m a former educator who has been fascinated with understanding the science behind high performance strategies in schools, sports and the workplace for the past 20 years.
As we are well into our New Year, and new decade, I am sure you have been thinking about ways that you want to improve this year over the last. Have you thought about what specific actions you’ll take? Have you thought about the activities that you’ll start, stop, and continue? This is a good place to start as we are evaluating what worked for us last year, and keep doing more of what’s working, with an awareness of what didn’t work. Once we know what we want to change, then we will look at how the brain forms habits, so we can break them.
WHAT YOU WILL START THIS YEAR: Think about positive behaviors that you would like to implement in your life. Do you want to be more self-aware? More proactive? More forgiving? Do you want to take more action, or more doing vs thinking and planning? Look at the START/STOP/CONTINUE graphic in the show notes and think about what actions you want to begin this year.
WHAT YOU WILL STOP: Do you have some habits that you need to let go of? You know what they are, the ones that zap your energy, with an impact on your productivity. If you have some habits that are draining you, you’ll be well aware of what they are. Write them down. There’s never a better time than now to become aware of what needs to go this year.
WHAT YOU WILL CONTINUE: Think about the things in your life that gave you energy, joy, and happiness. You will probably want to keep those things on your list for 2020. Whatever brought you focus and inspiration, should stay this year.
How Exactly Do We Break Bad Habits?
This article was originally published on Achieveit360.com blog.
We Must Understand How the Brain Learns to Forms Habits, in Order to Break Them.
I learned the idea of "neurons that fire together, wire together" from Mark Robert Waldman, (from EPISODE 30)[i] the world's leading expert on communication, learning and the brain. If you think about it, it’s kind of obvious—where your attention goes, your energy flows. Never underestimate your own power and be mindful of where you place your attention, especially when you want to improve your focus. This year be intentional about where you are placing your attention. When "neurons are out of sync, they fail to link"[ii] so when you are not working on or thinking about something that you want, maybe because your attention is being taken away by something else, the neurons will not link, the neural pathways will not be formed, and eventually the neurons for what you want will prune away, since you have not applied the correct focus with your attention. This is exactly why people fail to achieve what they want. They have not properly applied their attention. So how can we safeguard ourselves from this happening in 2020?  
Let’s dive deeper into our brain to see what’s happening.  
We have around 100 billion brain nerve cells called neurons that connect the brain to the body. "If you took 100 billion sheets of paper and stacked them on top of each other, it would be 5,000 miles high. That's the distance from Los Angeles to London!" (Dr. Joe Dispenza, TED TALK, Feb 8, 2013). This puts the vastness of your brain into perspective.
Each neuron has one axon with many tails (terminals).  When you are learning, the axon terminals send electrochemical messages to other neurons across tiny spaces called synapses.
Learning creates a synaptic connection when you are thinking, feeling, or actually doing something new. New neural pathways are formed. This is how you create a new habit.
Breaking a habit is just the opposite; by avoiding certain thoughts, feelings or actions, your impulses or neural connections become weaker and weaker. Just as knowledge and skills are constructed in our brain with focus, they also diminish without the focused attention. As we learn, our dendrites actually grow as they make new synaptic connections. Learning something new happens when we forge these new connections.
"Neurons that fire together, wire together" and "neurons that are out of sync, fail to link." 
It is easy to see now that "we are what we think about" or "we create our reality" as we do reinforce our neural pathways with attention to the habits or goals that we want. We even reinforce what we don’t want when we are thinking " I don't want that piece of pie" or " I don't want this project to fail" or “I don’t want to lose that game” and so on. The neural pathways for “I don’t want this or that” are being formed! See how tricky this can be. Our brain only knows what we tell it, so we must be very careful with our thoughts, feelings, and actions, as they will cause our conditions, and circumstances.
Are You Ready to Break Some Bad Habits?
Now that we can clearly see how the brain works, we must now apply this to our daily lives if we expect change. This is the hard part. Change is difficult, uncomfortable, and hard work. Most people won’t do this, but if you are ready to take your results to the next level, stay with me here. Anyone can break out of old habits and personalize this new knowledge for new results. Once we are aware of what we want to change, then we must take the action steps needed for this change to take place. To mentally prepare for a whole new way of thinking, being and taking action, I highly recommend reading John C. Norcross’ book Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions.[iii] This book will prepare you to accomplish something that you have never done before. You can find a PDF overview[iv] of the book to get an idea of the 5 steps he takes you through in pursuit of what change you want to tackle.
Here Are 5 Ideas for Breaking Habits that No Longer Serve You
1. Replace the bad habit with a good habit and begin to strengthen the new neural pathway. If you want to give up coffee in the morning, replace it with hot lemon water. With time, the neural pathway of the old habit of drinking coffee will prune away with the new habit of drinking hot lemon tea. Write out any bad habits that depletes your energy, and beside the habit, write out something more positive that you will replace the habit with.
Put This into Action:
Here’s an example: Every year, at the start of the year, sometimes over the summer, I do a no sugar, no alcohol challenge, for at least for 30 days. This year, to launch the new decade, I am doing the challenge for 90 days. If you have never done this, it really is a powerful activity. When you cut out toxins, or foods that are known to be bad for our bodies and brain, something amazing happens. After the first 2 weeks, the cravings go away, and you won’t miss the food you used to enjoy. It will actually taste bad if you sneak a taste because your brain and body has become used to the clean, healthy foods, making the bad foods feel poisonous, which helps to continue with the new habit.
You will gain some new awareness about yourself with this challenge. When I cut out drinking wine with my dinner, I replaced wine with carbonated water, (following the tip of replacing the bad habit with a more healthy one) but I drink the water in a wine glass. I realized that it’s not the wine I miss, it’s actually the glass! I would love to hear about any new awareness’s you have had if you have eliminated toxic foods from your diet to help others to perhaps give it a shot.
2. Try brain-training. Over time and repetition, you can change old habits, and beliefs with guided meditations or affirmations. I use John Assaraf's programs at www.myneurogym.com and Dr. Daniel Siegel’s (EPISODE 28) Wheel of Awareness. [v]There are many different meditation or relaxation apps you can download and use on your phone. The key is to use something. Visit our episode #25 where Mick Neustadt discusses how meditation and mindfulness changes your life.[vi]
Put This into Action
If you want to change your brain, old patterns, habits or beliefs that operate within your subconscious mind, brain training is an excellent first step, but it’s not a quick fix. Results with brain training will come with time, effort, practice, persistence and daily application. One day, you will be able to articulate the affects, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Brain training definitely has helped me to relax about certain things, bringing me more peace and has been well worth the effort. If you are pressed for time, you don’t need to spend a long time doing this. Just a few minutes a day will allow you to calm your brain to improve your results and give you a sense of peace. You can search for mindfulness apps[vii], or play music that relaxes you.
3. Create a daily habit tracking sheet to keep track of your daily habits. If you recall from Kent Healy’s episode 33[viii] that we all have the same amount of time, and that the most successful people in the world manage their time really well.
Put This into Action
To better manage your time and activities block off your activities that are non-negotiable on your calendar, and then you can add in negotiable activities around what you must do. Be clear about what could possibly take you away from the activities you have blocked off so that you don’t just cancel the important parts of your day when you are called to do something else. Protect your time, as it is your greatest asset. With the proper use of your time, you will see your results will soar.
 Click here if you would like to access the tracker that I use.
4. Replace negative thinking with positive thinking. In order to break negative thought patterns, or ruminating, use something in your head to break this destructive pattern. 
Put This into Action
An effective strategy used in cognitive behavioral therapy[ix] is to say the word “SWITCH” in your head as you focus on switching the negative emotion that you feel to something more positive. We all have automatic negative thoughts that come into our head at times, but we must have a strategy to stop them from ruminating or continuing in a loop, since we know that switching off these negative thoughts is an important step towards moving us towards our goals. I’ve always used the strategy of saying “STOP” when this happens and changing the thought pattern in my head to something more productive.
5. Find an accountability partner who you can count on to keep you on track with your goals. Entrepreneur, investor, author and public speaker Gary Vaynerchuk did this when he wanted to lose weight. His trainer followed him around every minute of the day to keep him on track. You should be able to change your habits without having to go this extreme, but if you are still struggling, there are many ways to reach out to others and ask for help.
I hope you have found these tips helpful and would love to hear from you if you do implement any of these ideas. I’m excited about the next few guests to launch the New Year with ideas, research and strategies that are being implemented around the world to improve performance in schools, sports and the workplace. Stay tuned! Happy New Year!
REFERENCES:
[i] Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast EPISODE 30 with Mark Robert Waldman https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/neuroscience-researcher-mark-robert-waldman-on-12-brain/id1469683141?i=1000458597396
 
[ii] Dr. Joe Dispenza and Lewis Howes “Where Your Attention Goes, Your Energy Goes.” (YouTube Published July 25, 2019) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om435J7u1T8
 
[iii] John C Norcross Changeology https://www.amazon.com/Changeology-Steps-Realizing-Goals-Resolutions-ebook/dp/B006VJMYQC
 
[iv] PDF Overview of the book Changeology http://www.isihome.ir/freearticle/ISIHome.ir-21161.pdf
 
[v] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/clinical-professor-psychiatry-at-ucla-school-medicine/id1469683141?i=1000456048761
 
[vi] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindfulness-meditation-expert-mick-neustadt-on-how/id1469683141?i=1000453919865
 
[vii] https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/top-meditation-iphone-android-apps#the-mindfulness-app
[viii] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/author-kent-healy-on-managing-time-our-greatest-asset/id1469683141?i=1000461240028
 
[ix] What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with Therapist Kati Morton YouTube uploaded Sept. 23, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7B3n9jobus

Lifestyle Entrepreneur Chris Farrell on "Actionable Strategies of High Achievers to Improve Daily Results"

This is episode #34 with Chris Farrell, host of the podcast “Setbacks and Success”[i] where Chris, a former radio/TV presenter turned lifestyle entrepreneur, shares the struggles, obstacles and hurdles in life, and how we can overcome them. Be sure to check out Chris’ podcast  where you will see his first episode with the creator of Baywatch, who I am sure I recall he met on an airplane, who shares how this billion dollar brand almost failed, and his second episode is with one of my favorite podcasters, Lewis Howe’s with his School of Greatness[ii]. You can hear this flashback interview here, or on YouTube.
Welcome to the “Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning” podcast, my name is Andrea Samadi, a former educator who has been fascinated with understanding the science behind high performance strategies in schools, sports and the workplace for the past 20 years. Our guest today, Chris Farrell is one of the most respected and successful internet marketers in the industry. Chris’s training products and websites have already helped tens of thousands of people create and grow their online business and I was blessed to be mentored by Chris when I was creating our online courses for Achieveit360. 
Chris is a popular in demand public speaker – having worked with and spoken on stage with Brian Tracy, the late Dr Stephen Covey, Gary Vaynerchuck, Robert Cialdini, Daymond John, and Harv Eker amongst others. In 2017, Chris began his podcast Setbacks & Success, showcasing the highs and lows of business owners, entrepreneurs, and people doing great things. He travels the world and has one of those personalities where he is drawn to meet people and when he gets to know you, he’s always looking for ways that he can bring value and wants to genuinely help others reach those higher levels of success.  He’s Originally from London, England (which explains his accent) – but relocated to Los Angeles.  I hope you enjoy this flashback interview, that I felt was very relevant for the launch of this New Year.  Even though this was at the start of the year in 2014, I am sure you will find his success strategies helpful and inspiring.
REFERENCES:
[i] https://setbacksandsuccess.com/podcast/
[ii] https://lewishowes.com/sogpodcast/
 

Author Kent Healy on "Managing Time: Our Greatest Asset"

This is episode #33 with Kent Healy, the co-author of The Success Principles for Teens[i] with Jack Canfield and the co-creator of The Uncommon Life[ii] where you can go to learn more about this phenomenal writer, thinker, entrepreneur and now family man. You can listen to the podcast here or watch Kent's visuals on YouTube.
Welcome to the “Neuroscience Meets SEL” podcast, my name is Andrea Samadi, a former educator who has been fascinated with understanding the science behind high performance strategies in schools, sports and the workplace for the past 20 years. Today we have a flashback interview with Kent Healy, someone I discovered by chance, over 14 years ago, when I was researching the most popular books for teens and success, before the release of my first book, The Secret for Teens Revealed. [iii]I came across Jack Canfield’s “Success Principles for Teens” and since I owned his National Bestseller The Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be,[iv] (if you have never looked at this book—I highly recommend it). After seeing Kent’s connection to Jack Canfield,[v] who is the co-author of the Chicken Soup for Soul Books with Mark Victor Hansen, I thought I had better find out who Kent Healy was, and get to know him better. Back then I wasn’t on Facebook, and don’t remember how I searched to learn more, but I did find out that Kent had written a few books, and he was in his 20s.
After a few minutes of thinking about the time I had wasted in my 20s, before I started to manage my time, I read his books and was blown away by the dedication, awareness and motivation that this young man had at an early age. Since I was always looking for high performers, I knew that he could help inspire some of the young people I was working with at the time, and when I needed help with launching Achieveit360 (2012), Kent was the first person I asked to say a few words of inspiration to help this next generation of learners.
I hope you enjoy Kent’s thoughts on how the most successful people in the world manage their time, our greatest asset, and think of some ways that you can better manage your time in 2020.
Kent Healy: Welcome to AchieveIT360.com my name is Kent Healey. I am the co author of the Success Principles for Teens and the cocreator of TheUncommonlife.com. So I assume since you're on this website you're looking for more, maybe more from yourself, more from your life. I really respect that-- the challenge is, you know, in order to get more, we often start with this question, do I have what it takes to get me to that next level? The problem with this question is it usually leads to a game of comparison, a game that we usually end up losing. So it's one thing to look at somebody else and appreciate and respect, you know, the talents and the skills that they've built. It's another to look at it and then compare yourself to those talents and skills that you're still in the process of building. Basically to say that you're not a leader is to compare yourself to somebody else and focus only on those differences.
But if we had to focus on what was most common, one thing that we often overlook is the fact that we all have the same amount of time. It doesn't matter who the person is, you know, whether they're a successful athlete, or a successful business owner or successful in any other way. It's not that they have more hours in a day or more days in a week. It's that they use that time extremely well. And this is why I always say that talent is overrated. So hands down, time is the greatest asset that we have. Time is really the great equalizer more than anything else. It's how we use our minutes that matter most. Successful individuals realize that time is more valuable than skill, than money, than almost any other resource there is. Because with enough time you can hone skills, you can raise capital, you can nurture relationships, and you can summon whatever is required to lead an exceptional life or to achieve the specific goal that you're after.
So you may ask, well, is it really that important to obsess about the seconds and minutes that make up my day? Well, rather than just give you my opinion, let's look at some specific numbers. So I don't know about you, but I've been guilty of saying, eh, whatever, it's only 10 minutes. Well, in the course of a year, that's two and a half days. In five years, that's almost two weeks. But 10 minutes is such a small period of time. I mean, let's look at something more realistic, like 30 minutes. Maybe that's the length of a TV show that you love to watch. Well, just 30 minutes every day in one year is a week in five years, that's 38 days. So you can see how time adds up and why it really matters. So what's really alarming though is the number of people that really can't answer or identify where their time goes, especially in increments of say like five to 10 minutes.
I mean, just think of yesterday, for example, what were you doing at 2:00 PM? You know, it's hard to really identify and it gets even worse the longer we go back. So the problem is we usually write off these lost minutes as no big deal, but it really does add up. I mean, let's use this fun example. So imagine that every morning a deposit of $86,400 was added to your checking account, but with each deposit came two unbreakable rules, number one, at the end of each day, your account balance is completely wiped, meaning that you know everything you don't spend and on that day disappears. No transfers allowed. Number two, the game can end at any time without warning. So the questions you have to ask yourself is, what would you do with this money? How might you act differently? And what would your days look like? Okay, so truth be told, this is not an exercise in finance.
It's actually much more sobering than that. Metaphorically, this is your game of life. So the daily deposits I mentioned of 84,600 are actually the number of seconds that we're given each day. So money or not, the same rules, right I mean, at the end of the day, we don't get to use those seconds in a different way and the game may end at any point in time. So we have to be in the moment and appreciate every second that we're given. That's what makes the difference. So I'm currently in my twenties now and when I look back over the last 10 years or so, you know, I'm very pleased with the amount of stuff I've been able to do in that period of time. But I'm also smart enough to know that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. There's a lot of people who are born with more natural talent and ability than I am.
But it's funny that this awareness has actually changed my life in a surprisingly positive way. Instead of focusing on this like obscure, immeasurable, and inheritable concept of talent, I've turned my attention to maximizing what we all have that's equal. And that's time. So over the years I've developed this healthy obsession for these 84,000 seconds that I get given in a day. And that to me has made all the difference. So here's the thing. No one else can make you care. No one else can make you care about these 84,600 seconds that you're given every day. But in the end, that is what makes the difference. It's not innate talent. The best tips and the best insights will do absolutely nothing if not proceeded by the willingness to take action and apply what it is that we learn. So let's stop looking at things in which we can't control and start focusing on what we can.
It's the passing of time combined with just an effort and a commitment to be a better person is all that we need is all the opportunity necessary to accomplish the goals that we want. We just have to demonstrate that commitment each and every day. Look at nature, even the largest mountains, the hardest rocks are no test against the tenacity of time. And the reality is we have far more time than we know what to do with or that we care to admit. So do you have what it takes to succeed? Well, if you use your time well, the answer of course is yes. If you could just spare 15 minutes each day to work towards your goal, then that equals 3.8 full days at the end of the year. That's a lot of time to start, you know, building a new skill to start networking with other successful, extraordinary individuals to start raising capital or to start doing whatever necessary for you to reach a goal. The only question remaining is, will you, nobody can force you to take action, but most importantly, will you stop focusing on this arbitrary idea of talent and start focusing on what you do have control of it, which is time. I hope you enjoyed this video and be sure to check out the other amazing resources here at achieveit360.com 
 RESOURCES:
[i] The Success Principles for Teens by Jack Canfield and Kent Healy (April 15, 2008) https://www.amazon.com/Success-Principles-Teens-Where-Want/dp/0757307272/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2R17R5H9SJ7ZG&keywords=the+success+principles+for+teens+by+jack+canfield&qid=1577812252&s=books&sprefix=the+success+principles+for+%2Cstripbooks%2C186&sr=1-1
[ii] www.theuncommonlife.com
[iii]The Secret for Teens Revealed by Andrea Samadi (September 15, 2008)  https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Teens-Revealed-Teenagers-Leadership/dp/1604940336
[iv] The Success Principles by Jack Canfield (10th Edition January, 2015) https://www.amazon.com/Success-Principles-TM-Anniversary-Where/dp/0062364286/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AYWLT8GZ525P&keywords=the+success+principles+by+jack+canfield&qid=1577812462&s=books&sprefix=the+success+principl%2Cstripbooks%2C189&sr=1-3
[v] https://www.jackcanfield.com/