I recently had a minor hernia (probably caused by holding a sneeze in - I’ve snapped a belt before when sneezing!), which I’ve just had repaired by keyhole surgery. I paid to have the surgery performed privately instead of waiting for an operation on the NHS. Why? Read on…

2nd dan grading

I’m training up for my 2nd dan grading in Aikido which is in September. This is the culmination of 11 years of training and teaching - so it’s pretty important to me. Having a hernia meant that I couldn’t carry on with my hard training in case it got worse, so I needed to get it operated on ASAP in order to resume training.

Health Mind and Body

Aikido helps to keep my mind and body healthy, and when my general health drops I get more tired, ill more often, and less motivated to do stuff (like work). Also, when not training, I notice that my mind thinks about work all the time and starts to get paranoid about dumb stuff. Aikido really helps because when I’m there I’m doing something totally different - so I don’t think about work or my day to day life. The breathing and meditation also helps a LOT of course, so I’ve tried to keep that going.

Waiting around is not good

If I waited for an operation on the NHS I would have missed my 2nd Dan grading and had to wait for a whole year before I could take it again. Furthermore I would’ve been walking around for months knowing that I had to be really careful not to make my hernia worse. Plus my health would have suffered and, ipso facto, my work would have suffered. Therefore I decided to take action and pay to have the operation done privately.

Spend more for a better result

I was given a choice of two types of operation: open surgery and keyhole surgery (which cost more). Keyhole surgery is less invasive and so there is a quicker recovery time. Thus I opted to spend the extra money on keyhole surgery because:

a) it meant that I could get back to work sooner and thus earn money sooner (the extra cost of the operation would be offset by increased earnings by getting back to work days earlier)

b) it meant that I could start training for my 2nd dan again quicker and harder (and as a side effect my work motivation and output would improve)

c) in theory there would be less pain (well it still bloody hurt!).

Your body is like your car

So there you have it. Let me make an analogy: if you had a car that you needed for work, you’d spend the money to get it fixed ASAP rather than waiting around for a friend to fix it for free several months later. Also if you had a choice of two repair methods and one method cost more but you’d make that money back through your ability to work sooner, you’d do that too because it makes business sense right? Well that’s what I did with my body.

Now spend some money on yourself!

As an aside, people would often PREFER to spend money on their car than themselves, when maybe they need to see a dentist, or get some new glasses, or have a massage or some acupuncture, or even just join a gym. This is quite amusing, but it’s a common trait. So, I challenge you to think “how could I spend money on my body or some holistic treatment that will improve my life and work?” and then go and do it!

P.S.

I want to say two more things:

One is that I think the NHS is great and we are very lucky to have it. I just needed things to move faster this time which is why I went private. I’m considering health insurance so that I can have more choice in the future - this seems to make sense if your business can be affected by your health; after all, you insure pretty much everything else right?

Also, I didn’t have enough money for the operation. I used all my savings and also asked for money gifts from relatives for my birthday which helped (thanks all!), and then I got a thing called a BMI card which is basically a medical credit card that has 0% interest for 6 months - bargain! I put the remainer of the cost on the BMI card and will pay it off before the interest kicks in. There’s always a way if you look for it!

Someone on the Blitz forums asked “Where do you learn patience”. I responded as follows:

How old are you? Sounds like late teens if you are college? I never finished anything at that age too, but patience developed over time for me (by having a job and responsibility etc). However, I’m sure I could have learned it a lot sooner had I been taught what I now know.

Here’s some simple techniques:

- read this article
- I like reminding myself of the end goal and then I know that, even if it’s far off, every step I take is important. Then I can focus on each step properly.
- Break stuff into small steps and then get a step done and feel good about it.
- Take up a sport or martial art that teaches mental and physical endurance.
- Give up caffeine (and other substances) + eat healthy.
- Don’t fart around getting “ready” to do some work, just start it. After a short while you’ll probably get into it. Sometimes I have a boring task like filing paperwork to do, but once I start I get into it. I focus only on that and not “what else I could be doing”. So basically “Take Action”.
- Switch off email, Internet messaging, mobile phone and resist going on the Internet when you have something important to do.
- Make to do lists and do some planning. Enjoy crossing stuff off. But don’t spend all your time planning and no time doing.
- If you have been working for a while and start going nowhere fast, take a break, do something else and then come back to it later. You can even do another task on your to do list, but getting up from the PC is best.
- Listen to motivational music (probably without lyrics) so like trance or classical or SID chip music - whatever floats your boat.
- Don’t worry about it too much You’ve got plenty of time to get better at focusing and at least you are aware you have a “problem”, and so you can now fix it. The single biggest skill you can have in my opinion is “awareness”, because then you can spot flaws (in you) and fix them.

Hope these help, I’ve got tons more…

Read a good article today about why some people are almost always sucessful. It lists some key traits that successful people have. I feel that I am strong on most of those points.

My martial arts training helps with some of them too like “They do things even when they don´t feel like it”. I think that some people just want to do all the fun bits of making games and then when it comes to the boring bits they just don’t do them and so their game is never finished, or if they do finish it, they don’t do any marketing and so it never sells.