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Importance of Mental Health

I am sitting on the beach with my dog.  Just helped a lady to jump-start her car.  That's the positive, the negative is I am currently unemployed due to mistakes I made a work last year.  My previous employer has complained to the nursing council about me.    I had been planning on leaving nursing for a few years now and had found that I have a lot of talents as a teacher.  During my nearly 17 years as a nurse, I have gained a lot of teaching skills and a teaching qualification.   As special educational needs is a passion of mine due to my 3 children and my sister all of whom have special educational needs I a completed a diploma in Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. I have also been working on other skills which will make me employable such as marketing, business studies, employment law and so on. Back to the NMC investigation.  When I heard about the complaints I was working as a teaching assistant in a school for children with pred...

Most popular degree subject - transferable skills

The importance if transferable skills discussed in the below article on LinkedIn. In an ever changing economic market the needs of businesses world wide are changing.  So the skills employers require are changing to. When I studied my first degree more than 20 years ago, specialism seemed to be the word of the day.  Whatever subject you chose you had to find employment to fit that specialism.  My first degree in Theology and I did want to be ordained however after completion of my degree, I was deemed to be too young by the church to start my journey as a minister.  Go away and come back when you have gained more life skills they said.  Subsequently 20 years later I am a registered nurse with a bucket load of life skills, mortgage, wife and children. Financially I would not be able to train to be a church minister if I wanted to.   I have however gained business skills such as sales, marketing and investing from lots of short courses I have ta...

Investments

I have started my shares off to a flying start. With my own knowledge and the help of the Motley Fool share advisor, I now have shares in 8 different companies. Something we didn't touch on in my Rich dad poor dad article is dividends.  Not all companies pay share holders although the bigger ones do.  Reading a blog by Richard Torres who started putting his dividends back into his investments to buy more shares.  The plan is you keep putting your dividends back in until the amount of dividends is equivalent to or more than your monthly expenditure.  This is none as passive income, 'passive' because you need do no more work to earn it.  Your money is working for you rather than you giving your time in exchange for money.  (Companies like Coca Cola  McDonald's,Britvic and so on pay dividends per share. Coca Cola has paid 8% on each share) How many banks pay 8% right now?  A word of warning share prices can and do go down and you may lose your in...

Rich dad Poor dad

Rich dad, poor dad Inspiring you to achieve financial independence Let money work for you It's Monday afternoon my child is screaming and work has been it's usual challenging self. Looking into my bank account I need to make some serious money fast.  Whenever I have worked more than one job and got money, I have always found I have nothing to show for it at the end of the month.  Indeed like this month, I am worse off than I was with a smaller amount of money.  This is one of the first lessons of the rich dad which most people do not understand, as they always work for money rather than letting money work for them.  I agree, my plan like most people's has been to work hard get a good education so I can get a good, well-paid job.   The importance of education I am a nurse I studied Business Studies and economics at A'level when but decided to move away from this when I studied Theology at university. My driving force has always been people, the needs of othe...

Cali saves the day.

Cali to the rescue My son's nursery  had a teddy bears picnic today. It was about to start, but the weather was not good and threatened to ruin it.    I offered to use Cali with her awning so everyone could keep dry while outside.   But picnic happened inside and as you can see Cali was used as the refreshment stall.  Well done Cali.  James wanted the roof up so he could sit up there. I just missed his smile when I took this photo. 

Time to Tic, positive effects.

Dad with tourettes and 3 children with autism.  My anger goes from zero to 60 in 20 seconds. Normally I start off calm with the use of breathing techniques but eventually I lose it, sometimes swearing under my breath. I used to think this was due to a lack of self control but later found out I have Tourettes syndrome and have done since I was little.  After a swear word escapes my mouth I straight away say I'm sorry. Now my saying I have tourettes doesn't mean swearing is acceptable and certainly not in front of my children.  It means I have to work extra specially hard to prevent myself getting to the point of no return where I begin swearing following by apologising and the usual cycle of negative thinking Luckily I manage to swear under my breath as out of earshot of my child.  I also employ meditation, playing music and time to tic as tools to enable me to control my anger more effectively and be able to walk away when the need arises. I love my children ...

The Paper mask - don't give up

There is so much I want to impart, So much I want to say, to you my friends reading this today. Yes I'm fine I say. That is always my standard response when someone asks me how I am.  But deep inside I am not ok.  The world has turned against me, the black dog is around me again.  https://youtu.be/XiCrniLQGYc   I can think of so many public figures who seem to have life sorted (Robin William's comes to mind) when they're in fact in turmoil. I want so much to tell people how I really feel but I can't as I'm afraid they will get bored of me.  So I put on this metaphorical disguise and with smile pretend it all ok.  When deep down I just want to die. Most nights I wish not to wake up the next morning to get rid of this pain.  Along with my wife my power of 3 help me keep going.  Joel, Thomas and James are my world.  When I think of hurting myself I worry how Claire will cope without me and also I haven't yet printed out my life insurance ...