LegendaryLife Blog

With all that has happened in the past few months, a few articles I wanted to write about fell off the screen which I am now salvaging and writing about. Part of living a legendary life is having a body that is enables you to do as you wish.

Background Info

RNCentral.com has some really good advice, straight from front-line nurses who have very thoughtful and first hand experience to save you a lot of money by living healthily. Sickness can be avoided with a good lifestyle including plenty of exercise and a great whole food diet but sometimes, hospitals are a necessity, so here are some tips from Heather Johnson that ensure you leave as healthy as possible.

General Advice

1. Care about your Care

Nobody cares as much about your health as you do (or should). If there are some decisions to be made, make sure you are involved in the process.

2. Ask Questions

There is no such thing as a dumb question, only a dumb answer. If you don’t understand why a procedure, medicine or other things are happening to or around you. ASK!

3. Get YOUR care done by somebody you know!

Doctors, nurses and other front-line medical workers are there to HELP you but having somebody you know, such as your own doctor, will make a world of difference in easing your stress levels. Somebody you have a medical relationship with will also have knowledge about YOU that maybe another practitioner doesn’t which may affect outcomes. Always make sure your personal doctor knows you are in a hospital undergoing treatment and feel free to consult with them.

4. Become an open book

No detail is too small or insignificant to be told to a medical practitioner… tell them everything about your health and any conditions you may be suffering from. Knowledge goes a long way towards successful treatment.

5. Become your own expert

If you suffer from a medical condition, make sure YOU become an expert in it. Not only will this help to create informed decisions regarding your care but it also allows you to have an intelligent conversation with your doctor or nurse.

Medications

6. Know and tell your drug history

Every supplement, prescription and over the counter drug you take should be listed along with amounts (quantity / dose) and given to the person caring for you. Drug interactions are a very nasty thing that are avoidable.

7. Allergies

If you got them, be sure to tell!

8. Ask about prescriptions

Your health practitioner will know far more about drugs than you ever will but that doesn’t mean you don’t politely ask them to give you additional details about it which you can then research on your own to learn more about.

9. Don’t over/under dose!

Numbers are usually abstract things but when it comes to medicine, they can have serious consequences if they are wrong even by a decimal point. Be sure to double and triple check all dosing with different people before taking your medicine.

10. Double check your medicine

Don’t assume anything, once you get the medication, open it right away, make sure your name is on the bottle and the dosing is correct. If things look a little odd, point it out!

11. Can you read it?

If you can’t read your doctor’s handwriting, then how do you expect a pharmacist to? Make sure the drug name is clearly legible and be sure to ask him to tell you the name orally as well so the two match.

12. Side Effects are BAD

Every drug, even placebos, have side effects. Make sure you read and understand them before taking medication, prescription or otherwise. If you feel “not right” after taking a medicine, call your doctor right away!

13. One stop pharmaceutical shopping

Most pharmacies now track your prescription history in their computers which also double-check automatically for drug interactions and other possible hazards. Make sure you consolidate all your prescriptions at one pharmacy.

14. Measure

Pills may be easy to use but sometimes medication comes in other forms which aren’t as easy to measure. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if there is an easy way to get the right dosage if your drug is in powder or liquid form. If needed, ask them to show you how to properly administer the correct dosage in front of you.

Surgery

15. Know what is going on!

If you are going for surgery, after educating yourself as to what will be done to you, make sure that those responsible for your care ALSO have this knowledge. If there are complications, you want somebody who knows both YOU and the procedure to make an informed decision on your behalf.

16. Surgery is to be avoided

If you don’t need something done, don’t get it done. Packing-in multiple surgeries in one shot may also sound efficient and possibly save you some coin but it also exponentially increases the risk and damage being doen as well.

17. Deal with specialty hospitals

Some hospitals are well known for certain medical procedures, make sure you go THERE to get your surgery done. For instance, if you have a hernia, try to go to a hospital or clinic that specializes in hernias… the motto of “practice makes perfect” holds very true in the medical field.

18. Know your Surgeon

Is your surgeon specialized in the surgery he or she is about to perform on you? Do they have all the right and up-to-date credentials? These are things that are best known BEFORE surgery than in a recovery room.

19. Know what is going on!

This needs to be repeated, if you don’t know what is going on and your caregiver is in the same boat… you are asking for problems. Educate yourself and your caregiver BEFORE surgery.

20. Deal with specialists

Specific conditions require specific knowledge, if you are about to go under the knife, make sure you deal with specialists and even better, get a second opinion as well if you have any doubts.

21. Mark your body!

It seems the media is full of stories of surgeons amputating the wrong limb, doing the wrong procedure on the wrong patient and even leaving tools of the trade behind. If you are going in for surgery, MARK YOUR BODY with the name of the surgery and if you have two of them, make sure your doctor, with pen, marks the incision area with a EXTRACT / CUT / TIE (etc.) LEFT or RIGHT as well. The last thing you need in surgery is having to do it again because the wrong side was fixed

Hospital Stays

22. Keep yourself up to date!

If you haven’t heard back regarding a test of any kind that was performed on you, make sure you ask and find-out the results. Don’t assume no news is good news… especially in a hospital with overworked and underpaid staff.

23. General Hygene

Wash YOUR hands before you touch any wounds and make sure your health care provider does the same. The last thing you need in a hospital recovering from a condition is to get another one!

24. Freedom! Almost…

You got out of the hospital… GREAT!  But do you know what you have to do to make sure you don’t return? If no, make sure you do. Some conditions require specific treatments to be performed.

25. Assign a caregiver

Sometimes you are unable or unwilling, due to the nature of your condition, to tell a medical practitioner what is going on. Make sure that at least one person in this world knows both you and your condition so they can make decisions on your behalf.

BONUS

Getting sick sucks, going to a hospital sucks even more… avoid both by living a healthy lifestyle, don’t smoke, drink or do too many crazy things in a row.

The Bottom Line

Become your own health advocate!

Source:
25 Tips to Help Protect Yourself from Medical Errors By Heather Johnson

If you ever wanted to become successful, here are Richard St. John’s 8 Secrets of Success that will give you a glimpse into what you need to achieve the life of your dreams.

Methodology

Richard St. John studied the question “What Leads to Success” for seven years, his results were gathered by interviewing 500 successful people. Without further delay, here is all you need:

PASSION

If you don’t love what you do, don’t do it.

DO IT FOR LOVE, NOT MONEY

Money comes as a result of love, not the drive for an ever increasing bank statement.

WORK

Lazy and procrastination aren’t in the successful persons vocabulary.

GOOD

Become the leader in your field

PRACTICE

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

FOCUS

Set your mind to be like an arrow going for a bullseye

PUSH

Push yourself mentally, physically and in every other way to become better… this is where shyness and self-doubt really allow some to achieve greatness.

SERVE

Provide value for others, becoming a millionaire takes time and lots of customers who will each give you their small piece of the pie.

IDEA

No idea is too crazy if you believe it’s possible.

PERSIST

Never give-up and never let yourself down… failure is a great teacher and tormentor in one.

The Bottom Line

Common sense mixed with a little stubbornness and craziness goes a long way towards achieving your goals.

I realized a little while ago what was going on in the United States, and around the world for that matter, that was at the root of all the pain associated with job losses… a loss of perspective!

Jobs suck

If you hate your job, your co-workers, waking-up at your bosses desire to begin a 9-5 lifestyle, being fired, layed-off, terminated… which ever makes you feel better… is a wonderful opportunity being fired! You finally are pushed into a decision you should have made long ago but procrastinated on. So many people have dedicated the best years of their lives towards doing menial tasks which they don’t want to do or have a desire to pursuit because they have built their lifestyle around the income this is providing instead of using it as a bonus in their lives. Jobs suck, entrepreneurship or doing what you love doesn’t. If you love your job so much that it takes over your life, I think this should raise a red flag to immediately begin creating your own enterprise where you can benefit directly from your work.

Why a job should be a bonus and not a lifestyle

I think where our society went wrong is that people began taking their jobs for granted, they began building an entire lifestyle behind their monthly or bi-weekly pay checks. They though that this “guaranteed” flow of money would never stop and actually grow every year with pay increases. There was this unwritten contract that a lifelong job was not only available, but a right for everybody who graduated and did things the right way. This, for the past 30 years has erroded but people still grasp at this idea. Hence, people are very angry and lives are destroyed when reality hits. They didn’t diversify their income streams, they sacrified their passion for the quick check, they realize they could have been far more than they are now. They where not prepared while, if they had treated the income from their job as a bonus, they would be completely fine and probably far better off in the long run. I understand the desire for stability, especially when you have a family, but don’t fool yourself into drinking your own kool aid, you are ALWAYS one week away from being fired no matter your seniority or work ethic. Even worse, you will be the first to go once profits decline or evaporate, which can happen ANYTIME. I would never purchase a house based off future income of a job nor live paycheck to paycheck in order to maintain an elevated lifestyle… that is when problems occur, as we have seen!

Opportunity

As I have wrote earlier, being terminated is a great thing when it’s job related. You are now free of the ball and chains that held you back before, you are now able to do what you want, when you want. You are now experiencing the full spectrum of emotions that life has given to you, this feeling is called FREEDOM. Your boss, whom you should thank, has allowed you to escape the cotton fields for the forest where you can now create your own life, the way YOU want. Now, this means you may lose your house, cars, toys etc… but, really, they are all meaningless. Material things have no value but what you assign to them and if your self-esteem was invested in such things, this is a great time to divest yourself of these distractions and get back into living LIFE!

The Bottom Line

Jobs are the false profit of the 21st century.

With each passing day, I hear nothing but doom and gloom. Why is that? Being fired is a GOOD THING! You should jump for joy if you are given a pink slip, not fall in tears!

Why being fired is a good thing!

Stagnation is bad, life is boring and being fired is a great motivational factor to create lasting change in both! Anybody who ever thought that one job for the rest of your life is the way to happiness obviously never had more than one job. There is an entire world out there, with different habits, languages, cultures… basically, an entire new lifestyle is born the minute you are fired. After you get over the dread of being thrown into the ocean without a lifeline, plunge as deep as possible and discover what you are truely capable of! Being fired is a good thing because it re-envigorates the mental, physical and emotional connections in yourself!

…but you must be prepared

If you are one of the many people who just put their head in the sand with your fingers in your ears in the face of massive unemployment thinking YOU will not be affected and putting all your eggs in the “job” basket you currently have… then, being fired isn’t going to be a joyful experience for you. If you where already living paycheck to paycheck, again, this isn’t a fun time you are entering… but you got caught with your pants down by choice and what will happen to you, you helped create yourself and have nobody but yourself to blame for it. You need to act fast, turn your hobbies and dreams into reality before reality begins to hit on them. You should have prepared to be fired years ago, developed other streams of revenue, developed other contacts and tried to wean yourself off the corporate or job trap but you procrastinated and now, you have to make up double-time for the time you decided to waste earlier.

If you don’t do this NOW, you will end up feeling like the monk in this trailer for 2012.

Pink Slips are a blessing in disguise

Prepared or not, on the verge of bankrupcy or with plenty of savings… all this market upheaval is a good thing. For far too long, people where able to live in the illusion of stability, they took things for granted such as their paycheck, their lifestyle and even “friends”. Now, the true ruler of our world, chaos has come back with a vengence. What you need to realize is that losing the platform under your feet was going to happen anyways, sooner or later. This is an opportunity, a huge one at that, to really feel alive again. Sell your house, your cars and travel the world, get out of the 9-5 lifestyle, start a new vocation or career… whatever, just don’t sit there and watch television… get out and live life! This is the blessing of a pink slip.

Society cannot fight chaos

Chaos is the ruler of the universe, take this firing as a lesson that trying to bring stability in your life is a lie. Here is what you need to do ASAP.

1. Evaluate your financial position, if it’s good, go take a long vacation to find yourself mentally and physically but if it’s bad, sell EVERYTHING YOU HAVE that you possibly can as it will only become a drain on your finances.
2. If you don’t know how to cook, now is the time, it will save you a fortune and actually improve your diet, no need to buy books, just look online for recipes. Fast food is cheap calories that do nothing to keep you sharp and strong.
3. Live off as little as possible, if you have a cell phone, that is a luxury you don’t need to have, same goes with television, satellite radio and even subscriptions (magazines etc).
4. Get your kids involved, ask them to pick what they really need in their life and teach them the valuable distinction between a want and a need. You need to show your children what happened and lead by example, this is as valuable a lesson for you as for them.
5. Make your health priority number one, no job usually means no health insurance so you cannot afford to get sick. If a gym membership is still too much, do exercises that involve only your body weight such as crunches, pull-ups, push-ups and squats.

The Bottom Line

Being fired is an opportunity, not a loss.

There is nothing wrong with self-promotion nor self-delight in your accomplishments, and a Wall of Success is a great start towards reminding yourself of your achievements!

What is a Wall of Success?

Every award, achievement, photograph, writing and even letter from others you look-up to is essentially stuck-up on one of your walls which you see daily. This is very simple to set-up with tape and tacks and the layout is completely up to you, you can sort however you wish with as much or as little information as you desire. Basically, this is YOUR wall to showcase your successes so far in your life. Nobody else has any other say. It also beats looking at a plain wall on a daily basis and may just motivate you enough to get that much more done on a daily basis.

Why a Wall of Success is essential?

Daily reminders of your achievement goes a great way towards motivating you, even at a subconscious level, towards maintaining a positive state of mind and continue on habits that create even more success! The wall can be as big or small as you wish, the point is that IT’S THERE, staring you in the face on a daily basis. It becomes the strongest of affirmations, showing what you have actually DONE instead of what you want to do. Actions, stories and lessons learned from each item will never be far from your mind as you try to achieve new heights of success in your life. You do stick pictures of your family on your wall, why not your achievements as well?

The consequences of a Wall of Success

There is a reason why you don’t see many Wall of Success in you houses you visit, because most people are either too humble or worse, achieved nothing of note in their lives. Remember, this will become a conversation piece. If you have a friend visit you, they will find this, I usually stick this right in the living room for ALL to see. If people have nothing but negative things to say about this, they are trying to keep you down to make themselves feel important. Negative people with their negative habits have no place in my life nor should they have in yours… success is to be congradulated, not hidden or used to belittle somebody.

Get others involved!

If you have kids or other people living with you, make this a group activity, maybe even a competition, as to who can achieve the most positive things in their life. For a child, maybe brushing their teeth for an entire month (which is an eternity for them) is something they can tell all their friends about when they come and visit. The amount or quality of the success is entirely up to you. Having a healthy level of competition within a family unit is a good thing, it helps bring everybody up!

Walls of Failure

Although I am a firm believer in the fact that failure teaches far more than success, the lessons you have learned, have stained you and as a result, I don’t see any positive aspect of exploring failure on a daily basis. Remember, the reason for a Wall of Success to begin with is to create positive, lasting successful habits, not negative, lasting negative thoughts. Remember, the difference between spending and investing are NILL, words are important especially when you are trying to keep as positive an outlook on your life as possible.

The Bottom Line

Success should be shown-off, not hidden.