Hi! My name is Will, and I’m the guy behind FastGAMSAT.com. I passed the GAMSAT on my first go, with just 59 days of study; and went on to attend and graduate with an MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) from the University of Queensland. You can read more about my pre-med origin story in Version 1 of my About Me page.

That said, I want to make it very clear that I did not survive the medical pathway – and not even in a “I did fine at it, but I ended up not liking it, so I chose to leave” even-half-competent sort-of-way – I was bad at med, and sucked through med school, failed my internship, and (naturally) am no longer practising medicine.

I have a habit of calling a spade a fucking spade, so I won’t sugar-coat it: I’m a failed doctor.

For more sordid details and self-analysis of my fall-from-grace, see my Full Disclosure.

Why did I start FastGAMSAT?

Since we’re in the TMI stage of the getting-to-know-you phase, let’s drop the pretense.

I started FastGAMSAT to make money.

See, it took me two degrees to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. Psych was my first degree, and I chose it merely out of interest¹, and had no interest or intention of pursuing a career in it.

Medicine, being the second degree (i.e. the practical one), and an inherently career-oriented pathway, was my brightest hope, and I genuinely believed I was destined to do med, and felt genuine passion for it during GAMSAT prep.

But of course, having read Full Disclosure, you’d know that med was a red herring for me. You would also know that during med school, I discovered what I know² to be my true calling, which is entrepreneurship.

Since med school, and into internship, I have been listening to podcasts regularly. It was firstly out of filling boredom with edutainment; then as I began to burn out from medicine – yet felt compelled to stay – and continued to crave the entrepreneurship pathway, startup-related podcasts provided some comfort and escapism from the horrors of my reality.

Since dropping out of internship and the medical pathway, I have not just been looking for work, but specifically work that was both a source of income, and an entrepreneurship venture³, no matter how big or small.

One day, I heard a podcast interview featuring Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, where he told his origin story of being an architect, studying for the LEED Exam, and posting his study notes on a site that he shared publicly. He was laid off during the 2008 financial crisis, and was forced to look for alternate income. During this period, he noticed the study notes site he started had gained significant readership, with some readers even noting that they would pay if he charged for the resource, so he compiled all the notes into a ebook package that he sold online, and ppl actually bought it – and thus began Pat’s path as an entrepreneur.

Listening to Pat’s story reminded me of my own circumstances: Back when I passed the GAMSAT, I had blogged about my own experiences – and since that site went quietly into the night, I had already compiled the posts into an ebook, and shared it with friends thinking of taking the GAMSAT.

And the podcast helped me put two and two together: I already knew how to write in a non-boring manner, and my background of passing the GAMSAT in 2 months was quite notable – and heck, I even already have a basic ebook – so I should try what Pat did: And I went about building FastGAMSAT.

That said, just because I started FastGAMSAT out of capitalistic reasons, doesn’t mean that the content is pure evil and useless⁴ – I talk more about this in the section The More I Embrace My Past, The More I Can Help You.

Why Am I Talking About My Failures?

This is such a legit question it’s not funny.

For the longest time, I was ashamed of my failed doctor status. Sure, I had no intentions for practising medicine, or making my mark on the world as a doctor. Still, to have sucked so much with learning what is actually a really practical field of knowledge, and to have spent so many years with nothing to show for it⁵, I was heaps ashamed.

And what’s more, I was afraid – afraid that talking about my failures would just throw all my credibility out the window.

And it showed – before 2018, FastGAMSAT had no mention of what I was up to post-GAMSAT, other than that I got into and graduated from med school; and my About Me page at the time was just rainbows shitting unicorns (or is it the other way round?), portraying that my passion of med started with GAMSAT prep and never faded, and that it was all smooth-sailing and Disney-style happy endings after passing the GAMSAT.

But in time, I came to openly accept this failure as part of my identity, for lots of reasons.

It’ll Eventually Come Out Anyway – So Just Own It

First, for the more self-centred reasons.

Hiding my failed doctor status on FastGAMSAT, is like hiding it in real life: It’s locking a part of my life and identity away, that I neglect to mention, or refuse to discuss. It’s like telling a lie long-term, or living a lie: It takes effort to censor myself, and to keep the lie straight. And it’s bad for my self-esteem and mental health.

And what’s more, it’s pointless: PPL who know me for long enough, eventually find out anyway, and as the cliched instagrammable saying goes:

And it’s not just on a personal social level, but hopefully eventually on a massive level: I noted in Full Disclosure and About Me v1 that I want to help a lot of ppl, and help them profoundly – I intend to do so via entrepreneurship, and later on, through thought-leadership⁶ and philanthropy. That means I’ll be in the public eye, and my past will be out in the open.

And as we all know, the difference between (a) a normal person who suddenly finds themselves nude, and (b) a nudist or streaker, is that ppl make less of a big deal out of the nudist/streaker, because they own their own public nudity⁷.

In the same (well, similar) way, I’m anticipating that heaps of ppl will know about my past sooner or later anyway, so I might as well start owning it right now.

The More I Embrace My Past, The More I Can Help You

You might be surprised that after I said I started FastGAMSAT to make money, that I would say I that want to help you.

That’s actually not unusual at all, because entrepreneurship is different from a job: At a job, the value you provide has no bearing on the money you make – you can make shitty powerpoints that nobody reads or even wants⁸, and still get paid minimum wage. For your own business, if you make shitty powerpoints that nobody reads or even wants, nobody’s going to pay you shit.

In entrepreneurship, the money you make depends on the value you provide to the world. The more that you and your products and services feel relevant to ppl, and the more different you are from your competition, and the more value you give compared to the price you charge, the more business you’ll receive.

In the above sense, the more that you the readerp⁹ can relate to me and my experiences, and the more useful you’ll find my writing, the more value I can provide to you.

Now, I know that a lot of ppl out there just want to pass the GAMSAT, and sure, I can help with that – but so can all the other GAMSAT resources out there – and they can probably help a lot more than I can too (especially with Section 3).

But, I also know that a lot of ppl out there:

• Don’t know what the hell they want to do with their lives¹⁰
• Wonder if med is really for them
• Feel that they have to do med, because they already got in, and don’t know how to switch pathways
• Are choosing med to accomplish a goal¹¹, when that goal can be accomplished faster, cheaper, and without doing med
• Dropped out of med or something that seems prestigious, and wonder if they can achieve anything as great as one can achieve in that industry
• Want to “take some time off”, but really just don’t ever want to go back to the degree or work

And I can also help with that, because I have tried to improve various aspects of my life through self-development, and have looked for the longest time for my true calling – and have looked in the wrong direction fully believing it was correct, and survived the fallout of it all.

And now that I’ve embraced my struggles and failures, I can analyse and discuss these touchy subjects¹² openly, and give guidance through writing my own experiences, or commenting on your circumstances.

I Can Be Your Acid Test

I really want you to be sure that you should do med, for 2 reasons:

1. If you choose med for the wrong reasons, life is horrible

As mentioned in Should I Do Medicine, I started wanting to do medicine – then that want went away, and I realised that I chose medicine for the wrong reasons.

Now, medicine isn’t just a degree you do, then a job you get: It is difficult, it is confronting, and it is competitive every single step of the way. You will have to sacrifice the best years of your health, youth, social life, and family life, for an often thankless, lonely, demanding, stressful, and work-life-unbalanced existence.

And if you’re unsuited to do medicine, you’re between a rock and a hard place: You can either swallow the bitter feeling of all the time, money, energy, and missed opportunities that you sunk into medicine, and drop out of med school or the medical profession, and probably carry the identity of a medical drop-out with you personally and/or socially. Or you can carry on, living a self-inflicted life sentence, wishing that a good part of your life (or the good part of your life) would just be over already.

Know this – I got out early, don’t have as much debt, or the time pressure of looming debt¹³, and was relatively resilient to the social fallout¹⁴ – and it still sucks: I regret the time I wasted learning jack shit, I regret the time I wasted living by other ppl’s standards, and I hate the identity of being a failed doctor.

And I can assure you that, even though I still feel shit, that I’m a rare case that survived relatively well: It’s unlikely that you will be affected less than me by dropping out of med path after getting in – which means the above Lose/Lose decision (drop out vs keep going) will hit you much harder.

I don’t fucking want that for you¹⁵. I know they say that it’s all about the experience, that shit happening leads to great stories, and that it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all #Inspirational, but in this case, I want you to make the correct decision the first time round, so you don’t get locked away for life. That is why I will try to break your desire to do med – and if you even suspect that you want to do med for the wrong reasons, I will make you clarify your suitability so hard it’s not funny.

2. Being sure about med lets me motivate you with rocket fuel

So you’ve clarified things, and you’re truly suited to doing med?

That’s great: Because it means that I can motivate you with… extreme measures.

You’ve probably heard of the acid test: It’s the use of acid to test whether a piece of gold is real or not: If it is, it’ll stay intact; if it’s not, it’ll melt like the wicked witch¹⁶. This also means that it’s possible to clean gold with acid, since the acid will melt away the BS and leave the gold¹⁷.

Similarly, when we’ve established that your medical heart of gold is legit real gold, when it gets dirtied and clogged with bad habits, procrastination, self-doubt, and so on, I can suggest activities that makes you stare your true calling in the face – and if med is your true calling, you’ll be motivated; if it’s not… well, you’ll probably flip out, then maybe calm down – but I don’t know how long afterwards you can keep up the charade of pretending to want to do med.

Why Listen To Me?

Now, you must have a lot of questions, some of which may be “Why should I keep reading?”, and “Why should I learn GAMSAT prep from this dude?”

And I get it – if I were a freshly-minted Gamster, I would have the same questions about a failed doctor running a GAMSAT prep site. However, as unconventional as my background may be in this space, I believe that I’m uniquely qualified to help those who think they should do med.

My GAMSAT Experience is still Legit

I’ve had a customer who enjoyed my style of writing so much, that after they got into med, suggested that I publish my own med school notes.

I chose not to do so, because I didn’t have the background of doing well in med, which means two things:

Firstly, I don’t have the hard experience of knowing the key points to teach, and how to teach it correctly and efficiently.

And secondly, even if I could figure out what to teach, I still wouldn’t have the intuition of a successful med student, so I wouldn’t know how to advise on new learning resources, or more complex med student questions, since I can’t refer back to my own experiences.

These are the reasons why I never wrote about med school or beyond, or even the interview process¹⁸ to get into med – I don’t pretend to know what I’m talking about with these things. And if I ever write about these topics, it will be with a heavy disclaimer that I’m speculating about stuff.

With the GAMSAT however, I do have the background: I thought med was my true calling, and I wanted to do med, so I was serious about passing the GAMSAT. Because of these real stakes, I experienced that struggles of serious GAMSAT candidates, like feeling there’s not enough time, not knowing if I was on the right track, doubting my worthiness to pass the GAMSAT, etc. And despite that, I did pass the GAMSAT, on my first go, with 2 months of prep. Even if this was back in 2009, the knowledge about the required mentality and study strategies still remain just as relevant – and this makes me confident enough to give my opinion about GAMSAT prep.

I have your best interest in mind

I have always been a student of self-development. I don’t know what kicked off this lifelong obsession: Maybe it’s being born shy and introverted¹⁹; maybe it’s feeling that I was meant for more, or a better life, or a meaningful life; maybe it’s wanting to have friends, to be better with girls, to not feel alone, to get respect and recognition, to live the good life, to have a life of freedom…; maybe a chance sighting of a relevant book at a library or bookstore kicked things off. I can’t be sure – it was too long ago.

What I do know, is that you don’t know what you don’t know, and that you won’t know until you learn that there is an issue, and that there’s a solution.

I also know that for every itch/issue someone has out there, there is a scratch/solution for it.

I also know that if you keep on doing things the same way, you’ll keep getting the same results.

I also know that there is always more than one way to think about something; and when you think differently, you act differently – and you can do so sustainably.

I also know that small habits, carried out consistently, compounds²⁰ into life-changing results.

Because I know the above things, I know that a lot of ppl are miserable in their lives – or try to solve things in ineffective or inefficient ways – because they don’t know of any other options.

Maybe they want the good life, or freedom in their lifestyle, or to attract and keep someone perfect for them, or to get mad props, or to have real friends, or to do work that’s meaningful – but because they don’t know how to solve their issue directly, they buy into the silver bullet: In this case, that they can solve all their problems – and make all their dreams come true – by doing med, and becoming a doctor.

And almost no one out there will tell you any different: Most GAMSAT resources out there will just sell you their product and services, no matter who you are: A dollar from you is just as good as a dollar from another stranger wanting to do med.

In fact, it is in their best interest not to wobble²¹ your desire to do med: If you end up not choosing med, you don’t need to take the GAMSAT, and you don’t need their product and services, and you don’t need to give them your money.

Me on the other hand? I don’t give a shit if you do med or not: I just want you to make the best life decision according to your circumstances.

A analogy would be if a person offered money for the quickest path towards a cliff: Most ppl who are out to make a buck, will just take the money and give the direction.

I, on the other hand, will try to find out if the person was trying to Goodbye World, and if they are, to try to talk them out of it²². It is only when I’m satisfied that they just want to go para-gliding or abseiling, that I would give them the direction to the cliff.

I would also give them directions to the local adventure sports store to get some extra gear, then go and pick up a referral fee at the store later.

There’s less conflict of interest²³ on my end, because my fields of knowledge that benefit both you and I, extend beyond the GAMSAT: Throughout my life, I have been an avid learner of self-development, social improvement, pick-up and attraction, wealth-building, lifestyle design, and so on. I know what resources out there can benefit you, no matter what your background is – and some of these resources may pay me a commission if you buy from them, at no extra charge to you.

So, it helps me to help you, even if it’s outside of the scope of the GAMSAT.

Self-Development Informs GAMSAT Prep

Now, if med is your true calling, and you’re looking for GAMSAT resources, I can help in unique ways as well: Because of my self-development background, I am constantly learning about news things which also happen to help if you’re studying for the GAMSAT, for example:

If you want to learn more things, faster, and have it stick around longer, you need to learn how to learn properly.

Do you want more energy, to operate on less sleep, or to have more concentration? Maybe biohacking is your thing.

Are you having trouble kicking bad habits, or making good habits stick, or struggling with procrastination or low motivation or self-sabotage or insecurity? See how different ways of thinking can help.

Are you rushed for time, and want the best podcasts, videos, or articles to help with the gap in your knowledge? I’m your guy – I’ve sample far and wide, all the time²⁴, so I know the best resources out there. I’m also listening to podcasts without the time pressure of prepping for the GAMSAT, so I can actually smash through enough episodes to get an accurate feel for what the podcast is about, and if it keeps being helpful or not.

The Three Pillars of FastGAMSAT

Like the Olympics, FastGAMSAT has three goals in its mission to serve its Gamster readers: To help Gamsters pass the GAMSAT faster, smarter, and snarkier.

Faster!

My background was that I passed the GAMSAT myself on the first go, with 2 months worth of prep. I understand that most Gamsters will feel like they don’t have enough time – and it’s natural to feel that way – that was a worry for me from the get-go. Through my own example, I want to show you that it’s possible to pass, no matter how rushed for time you feel.

Smarter!

Of course, there’s no point in telling you to just study harder and for longer: With my experience, I can give you the mentality and strategies that helped me pass the GAMSAT.

But it doesn’t stop there.

With my parallel background in self-development, I am constantly learning about new ways to learn, new resources to learn from, and new ways to think²⁵ – and I pass on these tips and tricks in the way that’s directly relevant to GAMSAT prep.

Snarkier!

As you probably figured, medicine is serious business, GAMSAT is serious business, and ppl who run GAMSAT resources like to come across as all professional and shit – like if they act safe, and talk stuffy, that Gamsters (or more accurately, parents of Gamsters) will find them more authoritative, and somehow better to learn from.

That’s not the way learning works: You probably know from school and uni, that it’s hard to learn if you’re having trouble staying awake; and that it’s usually the more unconventional educators that work for you – it might be the cool teacher with the on-point pop culture references, or the adorably-lame lecturer with all the dad jokes you didn’t think you needed to hear (but actually do) – you’re not bored to tears ands Zzzzs, and there’s more goodwill and connection, so you’re more able and willing to pay attention.

Of course, I don’t have any of the above theories in mind when I write – I just naturally like making cultural references and cracking weird jokes. It’s my goal that my writing is as funny and engaging as it is useful and insightful. If it works for you, and you learn better as a result, then that’s a win/win for us both.

Your Enjoyment is Key

Look here, med is a socially desirable pathway, and so there are tons of resources out there for passing the GAMSAT. Out of all those, I’m not the most academic, nor the most scientific, nor am I the biggest – with different departments making shit-tons of resources and doing heaps of marketing, and nor do I aim to be any of these things²⁶.

What I do aim to be though, is the most truthful resource out there: If I know about better GAMSAT resources out there, I’ll point you to them – even if they’re my competitors. I’ll also make you clarify your suitability for the medical pathway – and if you’re not suited, I’ll help you work through issues, whether it’s finding what you’re really meant to do with your life, or to help you achieve your goals more directly (i.e. not through doing medicine).

What I also aim to be, is the most enjoyable GAMSAT resource: If I can brighten your day in general, or during your darkest hour of GAMSAT prep, I will have done my job.

So, enjoy your stay on Planet FastGAMSAT, look around, ask questions, click on Snarky²⁷, learn stuff in general, have personal breakthroughs and whatnot; and feel free to reach out to me via Will@FastGAMSAT.com!

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¹ I was into learning about pop psychology, self-improvement, and pickup and attraction, which all fell under the banner of Psychology. I thought that studying it academically would be like learning the above disciplines, but in a legit way (as in the info would be more accurate).

²  Or at least “currently believe to be” anyway. I don’t expect it to change though, since it matches my core values and long-term aspirations the best.

³ By this, I mean some sort of business that I have full control and ownership over, and that the time and effort I put in will directly contribute to how much money I make down the track. For example, the more blog posts I write, the easier ppl can find my site, and the more traffic my site gets, the more sales I can make, and the more money in my pocket.

Contrast that with having a job: You can work hard, do lots of overtime, or give years of your life to the job, and all that time and effort may translate into more money in your pocket, but it will always have a cap – you will never suddenly get a 100% pay-raise on a wage or salary, whereas writing a better sales copy, or gaining extra business exposure, can easily translate into double (or even more) sales.

⁴ Well, like, it’s not 100% that….

⁵ I don’t just mean I don’t have a medical career or a “Dr” prefix, but as in I didn’t learn med well enough to be able to apply it in everyday life: I essentially wasted my entire med school and internship period – that’s 6 years of my life.

⁶ I understand that saying “I want to be a thought leader” sounds as grating and wanky as “I want to be a billionaire” or “I want to be The Fame Monster” or “I want to be the very best”, but yeah, I know that if I’m not good enough at what I do in life, I won’t become a thought leader – so time will tell.

⁷ And micro-penis.

⁸ You know those soul-sucking office meetings, where you can literally feel your life leaving your body with each second that you’re monitoring intently from your watch instead of paying attention to the meeting? Do you think anyone there appreciates any of those 87-slide powerpoints?

⁹ The reader, but derpy (in an endearing sort of way).

¹⁰ This applies at various ages, whether you just left school, graduated from your degree, or feel the Quarter-Life or Mid-Life Crisis breathing down your neck.

¹¹ E.g. To get rich, to get girls, to get respect, to give meaning to life….

¹² Things to do with failure, or mental health, or secrets and shame, or going against social conventions (telling your family that you don’t want to do med definitely counts here).

¹³ In Australia, the university student debt (HECS) is government-granted, and just sits there, interest-free (though it adjusts for inflation, so it doesn’t get cheaper the longer you wait), with no time limitations, and you only start paying it back when you start earning over a certain amount of money. Students in the states don’t have it that good: For-profit companies dish out student loans, which obviously accrue interest. Also, loan companies, being decentralised and less regulated than the government, can arbitrarily loan out more money, which drives up college prices, and the process cycles until you get ridiculous college prices matched by ridiculous loan amounts. What’s more, these loans don’t go away even if you declare bankruptcy: That’s like karma hanging around when you die, so you’re reincarnated with it – fuck me that’s heavy.

¹⁴ My dad would try to guilt me back into med, but the mind-games and negative emotions wouldn’t affect me, because I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn’t want to do med, I wouldn’t go back to med, I couldn’t go back to med (due to sucking at it), and I knew that entrepreneurship is my true path (I didn’t just believe it – I knew it, and it also matched all my core values and ambitions).

Also, I had grown up as a social outsider most of my life, so I was especially unaffected by social conventions and pressures. In my mind, everyone who wanted to make me feel bad about not doing med, can all go and eat a dick.

¹⁵ It’s similar to the uncool protectiveness of your parents not wanting you to do ice or heroin or whatever hard shit is out there: They know the path that lies ahead is a Lose/Lose decision (struggle to get clean and stay clean, ride the merry-go-round of relapse and rehab; versus just keep going, and flush your health and money and future down the toilet. They really just don’t want you to end up like that girl in Emergence).

¹⁶ Although we all know that’s not what happened.

¹⁷ Not hydrofluoric acid though – that shit will melt even gold; but that’s where this analogy breaks down, so don’t mind it (handwaves).

¹⁸ I got into UQ, which didn’t require interviews. I also did not apply to sit any interviews at other med schools (in retrospect, that was quite a naively optimistic way to get into med school), so I don’t have any experience to do with sitting interviews, or passing interviews.

¹⁹ Being introverted isn’t the same as being shy: Shyness is anxiety and often avoidance of social interactions, whereas introversion means social interactions is draining (whereas it’s energising to extroverts) (this is because introverts [meaning “inward-facing”] turn inwards to recharge their energy, whereas extroverts turn outwards). Introverts can still seem social, but if they had their way, they’d much rather hang out with a small group of familiar friends (extroverts prefer large groups of new acquaintances), or to veg out with their vag out at home by themselves (extroverts prefer to go out partying).

²⁰ Compound interest (or just “compounding”) is the effect of the interest (or result) that you get becoming more over time, because the interest is being added back to your principal (the original amount of money/thing that you invested to generate interest) to help generate interest. So, as time goes on, you generate more interest, more quickly.

The effect of compounding is demonstrated with the scenario of a penny/cent that doubles for 30 days. Einstein thinks so highly of compound interest that he has called it “The Eighth Wonder of the World”.

Compounding is the reason that the rich getting richer, and poor getting poorer: Poor ppl usually have ongoing debt, like credit card debt, which is like compound interest but evil – the interest generated is what the person needs to pay back; and most poor ppl just pay the interest amount each month, meaning that they never pay off the principal, meaning the debt will never go away. Or they only pay the minimum repayment amount, meaning that the interest is not fully paid off, and is assimilated into the principal, which grows bigger and badder to generate more interest to kick their asses more. Then they’ll likely add to that debt by taking out loans for emergencies (e.g. flat tire, surprise pregnancies), or discretionary spending they can’t afford (e.g. a bigger TV, a holiday, a new smartphone, a new car – for no good reason).

Rich ppl do things in reverse, in that they build up assets (things that provide income) like businesses, or put their money into investments that generate interest or dividends, and just leave–that–money-the-hell-alone to compound, until it gets to the amount that they can live off (and then some).

It’s also the reason that success breeds success, when it comes to developing and sticking to good habits: The gains you get stick around, and compound on itself.

²¹ Your gobble.

²² Or tackle them. Or both. Maybe both. At the same time.

²³ Between wanting what’s best for you, and wanting your money.

²⁴ I don’t know if I have a phobia of boredom or something, but I have wireless headphones around my neck most of the time, and when I have a spare moment, I put my headphones on, and turn the podcasts on. I get through a lot of episodes most days.

²⁵ More important than it sounds: Our attitudes, beliefs, and thought processes, are responsible for self-sabotage, procrastination, bad habits, and even choosing not to go for what we want (if you’ve ever avoided approaching someone cute even though you’re single and wanted to approach, you know what I’m talking about). These things can all break your chances of passing the GAMSAT.

²⁶ There are other ppl out there better suited to it.

²⁷ ( ^ФДФ^) Don’t you dare.