NURSING SCHOOL ASK ME ANYTHING

All right.

Hi, guys. Hello. Sorry, everyone, we are late.

It's okay. It's all right.

Welcome to our Monday AMA. That is normally at 9am, except let's talk about all the things.

Is it not 9:00am right now? It is not 9:00am it is 10:00am.

It'S now 10:00am oh, boy. My friends, do we have stories to tell you today.

So it's been. It's been a minute.

It's been a minute.

It's been a minute. All right, all right. You go ahead and shut the door. I'm going to get my coffee right here. So welcome, everyone, to the Nursing School show.

Welcome to the Nursing School show. My name is Christina Rafano.

I am Matthew.

Matthew Rafano.

Hi.

We are married.

Yes, we are. So let's see. Yeah, like I said, it's been a minute. We did not have any AMAs last week, so. Misty.

Guys, we gave our team the entire week off, which was awesome.

It was. It was a time off. It was a very busy time. It was a very busy time off. Let me say that. So we'll get into that a little later.

But I'm here to answer your questions. By the way, I'm a nurse. If you have not been around for more than five seconds.

And I am not a nurse.

There you go.

If you been around.

Hi, Instagram. I love waving at you guys.

Just gonna wave at people now.

Wave at Everybody. I wish YouTube let me wave at people.

Hi.

But, like, you know, like, way. Hey, Nia. Okay, shout out. All right, we've got questions. Hey, we have a member question.

Oh, okay.

So welcome to our Monday Live. Ask Me Anything where I help you through nursing school as much as I can. Full disclosure, Christina is, like, half brain dead right after the week that we had. Let's try our best today, shall we?

So I'm not going to know a whole bunch of answers.

Let's just be honest. So we did have a question from one of our members. Okay, shout out to Emily. She was asking. She just joined the membership community. Oh, hooray. Well, when I say just joined. Appreciate you joined, like, last, like, okay, weeks ago.

All right. Little thing that we. We haven't really told many people yet, and we'll probably talk about it a little more, but membership is open.

We got a lot going on.

Okay.

The membership community is open right now, in case you were wondering. We'll get into Christina's epic fails with that in just a second. So let's answer Emily's question. She just joined and she was just wondering. She shot me a message and was just wondering what she needs to. So if you are a nursing SOS member or thinking about joining because it is open now, she was wondering like how to get how to prepare for nursing school in the fall because she's starting the fall. So awesome. Emily, wanted to answer your question. So the best things to do when you join the membership community is to jump into a the study success course. We walk you through how exactly, step by step, how to study in nursing school. That's really what you're going to want to go through before you start school school because I'm going to lay out the best study tips. You know, there's also a whole course on how to manage your time. So, so, so important. Go through those two courses first. You're also going to want to check out the bonus video that we have inside the nursing SOS membership community that walks you through how to take nursing school exams. It's like nursing school exam hacks to help you pass your nursing school exams. Even if you don't know the correct answer, friends, there are still strategies to get around that. So Emily, those are what I recommend for you. Also, if you have not started nursing school yet, Dose calc. I am going to clap because it is so stinking important. Dose calc. Dose calc. Dose calc. And if you will be on YouTube tomorrow, the video that we have coming up for you tomorrow morning, when are we posting that? Tomorrow afternoon sometime during the day. Tomorrow when we get our act together, it will be posted. Watch that if you are starting nursing school in the fall because it's going to walk you through exactly what to do before you start nursing school. That's all I have to say about that. So important. Like seriously, watch that video. It's gonna help you so much. Okay, friends. All right, let's dive into some questions.

Sounds good.

If you are on Instagram or YouTube. Hello, welcome to Monday Morning. Post your questions in the chat and we will try to get to as many as possible in the time that we have.

Yes. Yeah, we want to be sure to answer as many questions as we can and also the ones that are relevant that would help the most amount of people that are on right now too.

So like don't get mad at us if we like don't answer your question because some questions are like crazy, you know, Like I don't know, we get a lot of weird questions. We do. We do a lot of weird questions.

Sometimes I call them out anyway, sometimes not. So we do want to make sure that we're Helping as many people as we can on these calls as well. So. Calls. I don't think these are calls but AMAs. So anyway, thanks everyone for joining.

Nia's asking, are the 18 month planners being sent out? She's purchased already. I saw you. Did you not get it? Nia, can you let us know? Is that another epic fail that I can add to my list? Because you should have received it like right after you purchase.

Yeah. So look for it in your inbox.

Spam folder, promotions folder. It's probably hiding somewhere around there.

The email has a link and you click on the link and it downloads a zip file.

So by the way, everyone. Oh, she said no. Oh, okay. We're gonna have to fix that. There's something wrong. I will email you after this, my friend.

All right.

Sweet friend. So sorry about that.

Yeah, I'll take, I can take a.

Look at that advice.

So let's see here. Awesome.

Oh okay. Nia's gonna check.

Yeah, go ahead and check. And again, something else that we'll talk about a little later. As for after we answer a couple questions. That kind of sidebar there. We did something else this. This week. It is called a planner.

We'll talk about that 18 month planner available for you if you go to nursingschoolofsuccess.com forward/planner. It's amazing. I can't even.

Let's see, I'll post a link while we're talking about this other one. But just from YouTube, just in general, some basic studying tips. Is.

Is that the question? Yeah, okay.

It's just study.

General study tips.

So general study tips just.

Oh, Sally said I purchased the planner yesterday and I got it right away. Perfect Sally. So glad that I didn't totally bomb that one.

Yeah.

Okay. General study tips. Can you tell me, can you be a little more specific? Because the study tips in nursing school will change depending on what term you are in. So maybe we just walk through them, friends, because I feel like this will be very helpful for people. If you are in fundamentals, here's what you're going to want to do. You need to focus on four main categories. This stays the same. If you watch any of our other YouTube video types, this stays the same. Physiology is very important and fundamentals because you don't necessarily, you're not getting into like pathophysiology super deep into disorders. Yet in the fundamentals you more have to know what's normal in the body, the physiology. So for example, in fundamentals you're going to do a lot of like ABGs, metabolic acidosis, alkalosis, those things, fluid and electrolytes giving fluids, electrolyte imbalances, things like that, you're going to focus on a lot, medications you're going to focus on. You have to understand what's happening in the body normally before you can then figure out what's abnormal. So fundamentals focus on these four main categories. Physiology, the signs and symptoms of whatever you are studying. So whatever case, hypomagnesemia, you know, low magnesium level, metabolic acidosis, whatever those things are. So signs and symptoms of those things. Even if you do do some med surg disorders and fundamentals, which you probably will, things like the high level ones, stroke, diabetes, heart failure, maybe dka, diabetic ketoacidosis, you, we'll probably cover those to some extent in fundamentals. So physiology, some pathophysiology there. Signs and symptoms, what is happening? Nursing assessment and then nursing intervention. So what are you going to assess for? How are you going to fix it? Those things. So those are the four main categories, same thing, pretty much everything we teach. It stands for fundamentals as well. Then med search, same thing, Pathophysiology, not necessarily the physiology. You already learned that, right? Pathophysiology, signs and symptoms of the disorder, nursing assessment, what are you going to assess for? And then nursing interventions, what are you going to do about it? So that is for med surg. Specifically then med surg. What you're going to do is you're going to walk through our critical thinking cheat sheet. Can you put that in the chat? And you can. So if you are on Instagram and you want our critical thinking cheat sheet, please go to YouTube and look up Nursing SOS Critical Thinking. You will find that cheat sheet there in one of those critical thinking videos.

This guy?

No, that's the checklist. Oh no, the checklist has it in it. I think, I think maybe I'll. Maybe we'll have to find the. But there's a critical thinking playlist there. Can you just post that on YouTube?

Critical thinking cheat sheet.

Critical thinking, yeah, Critical thinking cheat sheet. So okay, Matthew will post it on YouTube. So critical thinking cheat sheet, where I walk you through key critical thinking questions to ask so you're able to really put the puzzle pieces together and understand it more. How to critically think in nursing school. Right. So that is what you're going to do in med surg. You're going to walk through those critical thinking questions, really connect the dots between things, put the puzzle pieces together and that teacher is going to Walk you through exactly how to do that. So that is for med surg. And then when you get into things like mental health, pediatrics, those are two big ones for pediatrics, the disorders and pediatrics, that advice still stands. So pathophysiology, signs and symptoms assessment and intervention, say you're dealing with like TOF or it's a congenital heart disease for kiddos pediatric patients that you would do like pathos, signs and symptoms assessment interventions. But if you're doing things like infectious diseases, that is a lot of memorization. Anything mental health, pediatrics or anything else, like fundamentals that you just have to wrote, memorize, that is going to be whiteboards and flashcards. That is the best advice that I have for you. That is what I did in nursing school to help memorize things. Anything that's just rote memorization. I just really honestly write it out again and again and again. Flashcards and whiteboards. I got two huge Costco whiteboards that I just write things out over and over and over again with. Super helpful. This is really helpful for like a lot of learning styles. Like if you're a kinesthetic learner, right. Physically writing it out can really, really help. So a few things. Physically writing it out. If you're a visual learner for me, because I like visual and I'm auditory visually, when you're seeing the words on the page, like seeing it like you're kinesthetically, you're writing it out. Then you're also seeing the words on the page. You can even draw diagrams if you want things like that to help you. If you're a visual learner. And then if you're an auditory learner, just talk it out to yourself or teach it to somebody else. I taught you a lot of things in nursing school. If you can teach your husband, friend, whoever, who is not in nursing school, if you can break these concepts down super simple, like in a really simple way that they can understand it. I'm pointing at you because you're.

If I can understand it, which is hard thing to do for nursing.

So yeah, if he can understand it. Like if you can teach someone who has no concept of nursing whatsoever, that means that you're ready for your exam. Because if you can take these big, big concepts, break them down into super, super, super simple terms, that means you understand it on a whole nother level. So I hope that works. Ray Robsun, 24. Hello. I found it. What did you find? Tell me, was it the planner or was it the critical thinking cheat sheet? Oh yeah. Where Do I find the. Oh, okay. Where do I find the planner? Nursing schoolofsuccess.com forward slash, planner.

Yep.

It's brand new. It's 18 months. I'm so excited. Okay. This is the best planner. It's the most comprehensive planner you've ever seen in your life. It is a printable PDF planner. So you can download it, print it off month by month, whatever you want to do. Oh, it's so pretty. Actually, I have some here. I printed off some pages. So here's what you're going to do. All right, let's just do story time, planner talk time. Here's the planner. Monthly spreads here. August monthly. And then it's like a two page monthly spread. You can, you know, put it in your notebook, whatever. So it's got monthly spread, weekly spreads, and here's the key to nursing school success, the hourly schedule. See, if you guys, you guys. I don't know if you could tell, but I'm like shaking. How many shots was in the coffee.

That a normal amount?

Is that. How many shots of caffeine are in a grande Starbucks?

Two shots. Can someone.

I can really feel those two shots right now.

We can tell.

Yeah. Can you tell? Can you tell? Am I like, talking super fast? That doesn't surprise me at all. So here is the hourly schedule. So this is where. I'm at a loss for words. This is where the key to your success comes from. When you break down your time hour by hour in nursing school, you are going to find time that you never knew you had. You know, because we spend a lot of time just wandering around our house baking cookies. If you're like me. And this will help you stay on point and on task. It's so pretty. There's also Bible verses throughout it. So let's see, where is. Oh, there's like a bunch of note pages, note section, and then I've got study tips on each of the month, on each monthly spread. There's like study tips at the top. I don't know if you can see that. Can YouTube see that? Oh, there you go.

Kind of.

It's hard to, like, do it for both Instagram and YouTube at the same time. And so there's study tips and then there's Bible verses as well because, you know, we love that. Can you see that? Bible verses a little bit. Oh, okay. I know.

Yeah.

So Luke 137. So there's that. Super exciting. Okay, so along with the planner, the membership community right now is open for enrollment. If you didn't get the email, it's because I got it for you. Were you on my Instagram stories on Saturday night? Because we had a moment there, you guys, when I sent an email out to, thankfully, a very small portion of our email list. Thankfully. And I ended up getting 5,000 emails to my inbox because it did not go to you.

Not to yours only.

It did not go to you. They all went. Okay, so 2,000 went to me.

Yes.

3,000 went to him.

So I actually technically got more.

You got more?

Yes.

I ended up sending 5,000 emails to us. You guys okay?

Yeah, so we're, like I said, backing up, back up a little bit. This last week was a quote, unquote break. Wasn't really a break. We don't do breaks. So there was a lot of new things that we were doing. Like, like we mentioned Planner is now up. And we decided to, due to demand, we opened up the membership just for a little bit. It was only open till tomorrow afternoon, depending on where you live, I guess. But tomorrow is when it closes, so I'll put the link down below. But yeah, membership is now open. So we decided to do that. So that was an extra overhead. And we're also testing out a couple new things here which resulted in a few faux pas. A few faux pas?

A few.

Yeah, it was funny because my phone gets the notifications for our emails and it went crazy.

It was just like buzzing and beeping 15 minutes straight.

Whenever I tried to clear out the notifications, it just kept coming in. So finally got that all cleared up. But yeah, I think we worked that out and sent out the emails. And I think they went out. Pretty sure they went out.

I'm telling you what, you do not want to get 2000 emails to your inbox.

It is. It is pretty fun.

That was fun. I was feeding. I was feeding the baby and he comes in, he's like, why am I getting all the emails? I look at my phone, I've got 2,000 emails in my invoice. I'm like, something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. And then. So that was. That was just one thing. That was just one thing over the weekend, then I sent another email and people started letting us. They're like, I'm subscribed. If you click to the link. There was one link in one of the emails I sent over the weekend that if you clicked it to join the membership community, it unsubscribed you. So let's just have a moment for that.

That's interesting.

That happened. That happened.

I think all the kinks are worked out though, so everything is going well.

Man.

We did get a couple questions about the. The membership. Some people wanting to know a little bit more about it or thinking about joining. So we'll just answer those really quickly. Is there a fee to cancel the membership once you join? There is not. Someone was thinking about joining and then canceling and then rejoining again in the fall. There is things in there for you to do to prepare for nursing school, if that is what you want to do. We talked about that a little bit at the beginning of this, this AMA about how to prepare for nursing school for the fall. So there is a lot for you in there. If you want to join now, we recommend it. There is things to go through. If you do want to cancel, you can at any time and then you can rejoin when we open up again or whatever. But I think that if you feel the need to join and there's things for you to do there for nursing school coming up in a couple months or whenever you guys start.

Yeah, a lot of people start on the 17th of August. Like that seemed. I posted inside our Facebook group, the private Facebook group for members, and then like everyone was saying, like, I started on August 17th. August 17th seemed to be the day. Hi, Laura. Join what? New here? Hey, Laura. Or is it Lara? Can you tell me Laura? It's not Lara, right?

Lar. Lara Croft. Like Lara Croft. I'm sure you get that a lot.

I don't know. So this is our nursing SOS membership community. This is basically me teaching you through nursing school. Your step by step guide through nursing school. It's me. Like, if you love our YouTube channel and want me to teach you everything you need to know for nursing school, that's what this is. So Nursing SOS membership Community. We've got tons more videos in there walking you through pretty much everything you have to know for nursing school. The only two courses we are missing is pediatrics and mental health. If you are in one of those two things, pediatrics or mental health, do not join. If that is what you're going through this term, don't join. We don't have it yet. So that is that. That is the only thing that we do not have. But if you're in Med Surge, if you're in Fundamentals, definitely join now on that point, as you said, someone asked on YouTube if they can come for a month and then cancel and then come back in the fall, that's totally fine. I don't recommend it for a few reasons. Like Matthew said, there's a bunch of things inside the community that you want to go through before you start school. A huge thing for me is making sure that you are prepared before you start nursing school. There are so many things that you can do to set yourself up for success before school starts. And those are the things that I walk you through inside the membership community. We don't really talk about them on YouTube a ton. So I would definitely highly, highly recommend that you go through those things like we talked about earlier in this video, the study success course, the time management course, and then a whole video on how to ace nursing school exams on top of the dose calc workbooks that we have for you inside the community as well. So those are the things that you're going to want to go through. So of course, like, you can cancel anytime this way, but no fees. Come on, you guys. Why do people keep asking us if we have a cancellation feed? Do you like even. I'm like, the thought that goes through my head, I'm like, do you even know who I am? Why would I give you a cancellation fee? Like, that's just dumb. Come on.

Another.

That's like, that's. Yeah. No.

Another question related to the membership. If you get the monthly, because we have two tiers. There's a monthly. You can just pay monthly and then cancel anytime you want. Or there's the yearly. So if you get yearly, you get like two months free or something like that. So you can definitely start off monthly and then you can upgrade it anytime to the yearly to get that deal. I think people do that. I thought I saw one of those come in just recently.

Past experiences make me paranoid for fees. That's the problem with the world. That's the problem with the world, man. Other people just ruin it for everybody. We don't have fees. There's no end fees, you guys. If you want to cancel, you cancel, you know, whatever. Whatever you don't want to. Because it's amazing. Let's see. All right, where you go for YouTube?

Oh, no. Just answer that question. The hourly planner. Someone's just asking from Instagram. We were talking about the planner. We'll probably talk about it a little bit more later. But we do have a new planner. The nursing or the nursing school planner. It's available at our website, nursing schoolofsuccess.com forward slash, planner.

Yep. Nursing schoolofsuccess.com forward Slash, planner. Planner.

One L, two N's, an E and an R. Some P's and A's in there too. Planner.

How often do our enrollment openings every a few times a year. Surely this one was not planned. We only opened it for three days. It's only open until tomorrow because we've come on here on the AMAs and people are like, let me in, you know. So we really, we wanted to open it for you guys, just like three days, you guys know, like we've talked about it. It takes a ton of behind the scenes scenes work to open up the community. So that's why we keep it closed for the vast majority of the year. So we can really focus on our members a ton and not like continually be enrolling people constantly because it takes a lot of work and that would be time, like my time away from our members. So that is that. Oh, I forgot to mention with the planner. If you are a Nursing SOS member, do not buy it from that link. You have your own link. If you are a nursing SOS member, it's. I'm going to email you today and it's inside the Facebook group. You have a unique link that you get a bonus for. So please, if you're a Nursing SOS member, do not buy the planner. At that regular link, you have to go onto the membership community site, click on bonuses and then the plan. There's a planner, like a unique planner link for you inside the membership community where you get, you get special bonuses and stuff because you're a member. So.

So that's another thing that's cool about membership too. In the membership community as well. In that bonuses area. We also have a version of the planner that doesn't have any dates at all. So and that's just free to you guys. So if you, if you want the, the no dates dateless planner and just print it out by month, you can do that. If you want the full 18 month, it's a link right by there too. So you can definitely take a look at that.

Yeah, so if you're a member, just don't buy it. Don't buy it like off our normal website. Like don't go to nursingschoolofsuccess.com planner. Don't do that. If you're a nursing SOS member, go to your dashboard inside the membership community and purchase it there because you get special bonuses there too. Okay, Can I do a couple on Instagram?

All right, so everyone that's new here or anyone that has joined since then, welcome to Nurse School show ama. Hello, Christina, I am Matthew.

Nice to meet you.

We are here to primarily answer nursing related questions. We meaning Christina. We meaning not Me, I'm just here to talk comedic value. So anyway, we are here to answer nursing school questions. Go ahead and post them up. We're both on Instagram and on YouTube, so we'll try to get to questions that will benefit as many people as possible. Try and work through a couple of those. So, Christine, why don't you ask a couple from Instagram?

Okay. So, Madeline. Hi, Madeline. So happy to be part of your community. So excited, but scared to start this program next month. And then someone else. I started on the 14th and I'm freaking out. Don't freak out, you guys. Actually, at the beginning of this video, we talked about nursing fundamentals and how to study for it. Here's the thing with nursing school, especially when you're start. When you're just starting nursing school, you guys have heard, you've heard the rumors. Everyone wants to psych you out. Like every. People just tell you, nobody passes nursing school. Everybody fails out of nursing school. Well, if that was true, like, if that truly were true, we would not have any nurses now would we? So take it with a grain of salt. Don't listen to the rumor mill. Go in confident that you're going to pass. You know that's all you can do, right? Do your best. Go in confident because you can pass nursing school. I did it. Like, people pass nursing school all the time. Actually have a whole video on YouTube about nursing school lies and that's one of them. So if you go on YouTube, type in nursing sos lies. That's it, right?

Yep. Nursing sos lies will get you there.

Yeah, that'll get you there. Yeah.

So just kind of expanding on that because people in YouTube are also asking. They are medical assistant school. Almost done with that or just general ideas for any advice for pre nursing students or what to expect in nursing school. Just the people that are entering in. I know that we talked about a couple studying things to do at the beginning, but just what. What to expect as a new nursing student.

What to expect as a new nursing student. So we just posted a video, wasn't this like 2 weeks ago on what to expect in nursing school. And so a lot of tips in that video. Really one of the biggest things that you just have to be prepared for is that you're going to be like drinking from a fire hose. You are going to be so shocked at how much you learn in such a short amount of time. So when you start nursing school, I talk about this in tomorrow's YouTube video. So be sure to watch that. Make sure that you are Studying dose calc before your term starts. Because here's what to kind of expect. The first two weeks, you're going to have a dose calc exam that you have to get 100% on. Some schools allow you to get 90% on it. Not very often. So you really have to pass that exam or you're booted out of your program. So make sure that you study dose calc before you start nursing school so that you're prepared for that exam and you can focus on other things. So things like, you know, writing your paper, studying for your exams, things like that. So that's what to expect. In the first two weeks, you're going to have a few classes, lecture, clinical and science skills labs. It's a little different now. Some classes are. A lot of. Most of us are online, so clinical is most likely going to be online. Skills lab might be online. I do know of some schools who are allowing you to go to skills lab. So depending on how your program does, there's a lot of pivoting going on right now. Be very graceful with your instructors because everyone's moving online together. We talked about this two weeks ago. It's just very, very important. We're all in the same boat. And just be nice to your instruction instructors. Make sure to reach out to them early and often. Like, you know, make sure that you are constantly communicating over. Communicating with your instructors, especially in this online world. Post a lot, A ton. Like once every two days in that discussion forum. Ask people how they're doing. Email your instructors, ask how they're doing. If there's anything that you know, you can help. I love this question I'm constantly asking people, like, how can we best support you? Like, as an instructor, how can I best support you? Like, I know I'm a student, but how can I best support you as the instructor is. Man, if you say that to someone, that just lights up their heart, right? You know, show that you care. We're all moving through this together. Your instructors are in the same boat as you are. Everyone's moving online, so I know. Don't freak out about it. It'll be fine. Fine. Just, you know, just don't freak out. I've. We've gotten so many emails from students just super scared for the fall because everything's moving online and everything, you know, the whole world is different, but it's not. It's really not. Like, nursing does not change. Nursing school is still here. Keep in mind that it is possible to pass an online nursing class because there are schools even before all this stuff happened in the world, there were a ton of schools that were online anyway, in nursing school, you know, so, you know, people have been doing it for years, decades, whatever. It's totally possible. So don't psych yourself out, but that's kind of what to expect. And then definitely watch tomorrow's YouTube video because that'll walk you through. I'm not going to give it all away, but it's going to walk you through some very, very good stuff that you're. You do not want to miss if you're starting nursing school.

Awesome.

In the fall.

I actually have two questions here that are really closely related, so we'll kind of hit both of them. How. How do you increase your concentration on studying? Or what are some tips on increasing your concentration on studying? And how do you motivate yourself to get into studies when you don't feel like it?

Oh, so good. Okay, so for the motivation part, let's talk about that first. The motivation part. How do I say this? So motivation is something that I think people put too much stock in. Like, we wait, right? We kind of procrastinate. Be like, well, I don't feel like it right now. I'm not motivated to do things. That doesn't matter. Like, really, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter. How often are you motivated to get.

Up in the morning?

You're like, I want to be super productive today. Or do you just want to stay in bed? Like this morning? Like, our kids had a very rough night last night. We were super tired.

Yes.

Can I make fun of you for a second?

Just like, oh, okay, sure.

So our oldest, this was two days ago.

Oh, oh, you're gonna tell that story.

Her oldest.

All right, you go ahead and tell that story.

Yeah. And I don't want to embarrass you in front of the entire world, but I think it's hilarious. So a couple nights ago, we had a very rough night with the kiddos. Just not sleeping. We both wake up so tired. This guy lets me sleep in. So nice of you, by the way. So I'm sleeping with our baby. Baby's sleeping. I'm sleeping. We're sleeping in. He, however, is up with our three year old reading stories. And so when I wake up, our three year old comes out and says, mommy, Daddy fell over on the couch. Like, what? Like, daddy fell over on the couch. Apparently, they were reading stories and he fell asleep with our oldest on the couch. So funny. I'm sorry. You were so tired. That makes me feel super bad because I'm like, I should have gotten up with him. You should have been sleeping. But it was so nice of you to let me sleep in. You're just the best husband ever. I really appreciate you. It was.

It was fun.

It was fun.

It's fun getting up with him. It's fun reading with him. And he sits on your lap. And I think personally, what happened is.

This is the best.

He's a very cuddly.

He is so cuddly.

He's so cuddly, and he loves reading. So he grabs some books and says, can we read? And so he jumps up and he sits on my lap. He's really snuggly, and he's a little warm kid. So I feel like that contributed to me being comfortable enough to.

It's like fall asleep being wrapped in a blanket, you know? He's such a cuddly kid. He just, like, curls up on you, and you're like, okay, let's just fall asleep right now. Yeah, it's totally fine. That's what happened. Call layers. People think you're funny. You got a bunch of hearts on Instagram.

I don't know.

That's so funny. I love it.

So, yes. Motivation. I don't know. I think. I think motivation is closely related to a couple things. There's willpower and there's momentum. Oh, yeah, that's willpower I like to think about as a muscle. It's a muscle. So as with anything, it takes practice. It takes practice to do, and it is not something fun to do to push your limits. So in order to increase your willpower, you need to push past what you're comfortable doing. So that's why you're not comfortable doing it. But you do that a little bit at a time, and through years or however long that willpower muscle grows. So I think it's just pushing yourself past it and knowing that that uncomfortableness is uncomfortable now, but it allows you to have more willpower later. So that's what I like to think about as willpower. Also throughout your day with this muscle. Muscles get tired, too. So at the beginning of the day, when you first wake up, your willpower muscle is the most relaxed. So you can do harder, tougher things earlier on in the day because you have the willpower to do it. I'm not sure if you notice. I notice at the end of the day, it's a lot harder to say no to ice cream than when you first wake up. Just something as simple as that. Like, oh, you know what? I'm tired. I'm just gonna have ice cream. Same thing with exercising. A lot of people like exercising first thing in the morning. Because if you. If it's 10 o' clock at night and you're about to go to bed and you remember, oh, I need to exercise, it's just not there. Their willpower is just not there to push through that. So again, you can increase that. That fortitude. You can increase that willpower.

But fortitude, I know this guy, man does take time. That is the word of the day.

The other part of that is momentum. And once you start moving, it is easier to keep moving. So you can build up that momentum, too. Doing little things at a time, kind of building yourself up until you have kind of that momentum behind you and it's easier to push you forward. Those are the two things that I like to think about. About motivation is it takes practice. It takes practice to up your willpower and also to kind of work up to it, using momentum as a help and kind of get some quick wins and build up to bigger things.

Okay, I'm gonna sing a song for you. And I got this from Shirley over at home and arrows on the YouTube channel. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart. I do this with my. As working for the Lord and not men. Okay? That's your scripture. Do everything as working for the Lord and not men. That's how we do it. That's because I do not wake up and think, like, well, I need to, you know, do all these things for nursing sos, you know, Although, actually, I kind of do. I'm super excited to do everything, like, jumping on these AMAs. So fun. But at the same time, like, sometimes it's really hard. It's hard. We have been with. With the open enrollment, with the planner, we have literally been staying up to, like, I mean, way longer than we normally do. It has been rough. It has been rough. Let me just tell you. We have not gotten a ton of sleep the past week on our vacation. So we are not doing that to, you know, for, like, us, you know, we do this because we know that we are serving one and only God. So that's why we do it. You know, we are here to serve him. Not. Not even necessarily, you guys. You know, we are always here to serve God, and that is how we run our life. So I think that really goes for, like, motivation too. Do you need motivation? It's nice. It's easier. But sometimes what you just gotta do is do it and do it for God. How he would Want you to do it. That's how we do it.

I think. One last thing before jumping to the concentration part or that question. Yeah, one last thing about motivation and willpower and momentum and serving God. God wants us to serve others as well. And really it's not about you. There's always a shortage of apply when it's very self focused. So be others focused and remember why you're becoming a nurse. Remember why you're trying to achieve your goals. Remember that it is for others. I follow Rory Vaden. Great guy. One of his famous quotes that I really, really like is, it's hard to be nervous when your heart is on service. So definitely think about the service aspect. You guys are all going to be great nurses, wonderful nurses. And that is really a service industry and you're there to serve others. So just remember that and kind of link onto that when you're feeling low on motivation and willpower.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Hard to be nervous when your heart is on service. That's Rory Vaden. So good. I was thinking about that too. So when we started this. I'll get into concentration in a second. When we started nursing sos, when I started nursing SOS all those years ago when I was in nursing school, I was so terrified to get on. So terrified. It took me a while to get on video. I knew I had to because I love it. But I was super nervous. I was like, people are going to hate me on video. Whatever. People hate me every day now. I don't care. But I got the best feedback from a friend and she said, christina, it's not about you. It's not about you. It is not about you. It's not about me. Like, we don't get on here and say like, oh, it's all about me. No, this is all about you. This is all about God. Like, we create all of this for you. Right? Right. Like, do I need all these videos in the membership community? No. Like, no, it, you know, this is all for you. So that's why we do it. We do it for you. We do it for God. That's it, you know, it's not about you. Do it for everyone else in the world. Not everyone else in the world. You know, do it for your patients, do it for your family. Remember your why. That's a huge thing too. Remember your why. Remember why you're going to nursing school. You're going for your kids. Better life for your family. Most likely a legacy for your family. I love that word. Leaving a legacy of hard work, dedication, compassion, what have you, you know, that's what we do. Okay, let's talk concentration. How do you stay concentrated? How do you stay focused when you're studying? How do you stay focused when you just don't, you know, there's so much going on. I think. I think the biggest thing is that. Well, I mean, just from what I've learned the past year, so being in a life coaching program, you guys have heard me talk about this a gazillion times. I'm in a life coaching program with Brooke Castillo. It's called self coaching scholars. Totally recommended. But the biggest thing that I've noticed with me is, like, when I am not focused, when I'm not concentrated, I know that there's a lot of things going on in my mind that I need to fix. Things like anxiety, things like stress. Anytime for me, anytime I feel rushed, I know something is going on that I'm not noticing. Like anytime I feel rushed, pressured, you know, whatever. Like that. I know that there are things going on in my mind that I need to, you know, notice and I need to fix. So in nursing school, if you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed and anxious, like, that's always a choice. How you feel is always a choice. It's based on your thoughts. How you are thinking creates your feelings. And so if you are thinking thoughts that are making you anxious, you are going to feel anxious, right? Like, if you're thinking those thoughts, those thoughts make you anxious. That's how you're feeling. Oftentimes we notice the feeling, we don't necessarily notice the thought. So for me, if I am sitting at my desk trying to work and I am, you know, not being productive, I know something's going on in my mind that I am not necessarily noticing. So, you know, things, like a lot of triggers for me, I'll just tell you a lot of thoughts that I have that I'm really working through is I don't have time. That's a big, big thought for me that causes me a lot of anxiety. And it took me a long time to notice that I was even having this thought. Like, I don't have time. Like there's not enough time. So that that causes me to feel rushed is when I have that thought. So what I do is think new things, right, that make you feel calmer. So when you are sitting at your desk not feeling focused, I really, really hope that you can really think about, you know, what are you thinking about? Think about what you're thinking about, right? Dig in there. Dig in there. See what's going on. Because I can almost guarantee you something's going on that you are not noticing with the whole concentration thing. I do want to mention the hour by hour schedule. So back to the nursing school planner. I know we have a lot of people that are just joining us. We just released a nursing school planner yesterday. It's a full 18 month principal planner. So great. Please, please go download it. It's going to save your life in nursing school. It's so amazing. So nursingschoolofsuccess.com planner, here's the hour by hour schedule. Can you see that on YouTube maybe? It's kind of blurry. Okay, sorry. The camera's like, maybe if I hold it back like that. Okay. Okay. There you go. It's an hour by hour planner. It's kind of light, you can't really see it, but it looks super pretty when it's printed, so it's awesome. Hour by hour, planning your time, hour by hour. This is really going to help you focus your time and energy. When you really schedule your life hour by hour, you know what you're doing and when you're doing it and you know you have enough time for everything. That's it. Like it's there. It's there and you see it on your planner and you get it done. Just like we talked about before. You don't need motivation, but it's helpful, but you don't need it. You know, work diligently for the Lord. Work diligently for your family. Do what's on your schedule. Do what's on your planner. Get it done, my friend. You'll become an amazing nurse on concentration.

I just want to add, just real, real quick, I, I love the, the plan of the hourly planner. And really the, the trick there is to unload what's in your head out of your head so you can focus. Going back to focus. Focus on one task. Because really the problem with concentration is that you're thinking about multiple things and kind of like willpower we're talking about, you only have a certain capacity for concentrating. And I know a lot of people like the tout. Oh, I'm a great multitasker. Humans are not multitaskers. We can switch pretty quickly. And if you believe that you're a multitasker, you're switching tasks really, really fast, really, really well, but you're still switching tasks and so that decreases your ability to concentrate. So that's what a planner is for. If you dump it all out and it's no longer in your head and you can Concentrate more on what you're doing. If you do the mind work that is very uncomfortable when you're actually digging into it, but once you work through that, then you're not thinking about these different things. If you don't believe me about multitasking, I know that this kind of environment, we're not really driving around much, but you know that we're not multitaskers. When you're driving around and you're really trying hard to find a location and you have to turn off the music.

Yeah. What do you do when you're, like, trying to find somewhere? Like, you're, like, looking at people's addresses. If we could really multitask, why do we turn down the music? Let me ask you a question.

Not even turning down the music, but sometimes myself, I'm a little different. That I can compartmentalize pretty well. So I can put it in a box in my head and just forget about it. And sometimes I never find it again. But I can compartmentalize pretty well. It's not as good as actually working through your issues, so I still need.

To work on that.

But, yes, that's great. And in that driving scenario, I just. Some reason I just. Your hearing just drops away.

Yeah.

You don't really need to turn down the music because you just do not physically hear the music because your brain can only take so much. So if you're focusing so hard on trying to find a destination, your brain just says, okay, you don't need to hear me.

Right. So it's like your flight, fight, or flight response. Right. Like muscles, go, go, go, GI tract. Everything else, like, it just turns all off. Like, all your energy, blood flow, everything is in your legs to fight or flight. Everything else in your body is like, nope, not gonna do it. You know?

So that's really the. That to concentrate is to figure out a way to unload everything as much as possible out of your head so you can focus on one single task. Now, along with that, there is that caveat that I do want to throw in there, that knowing yourself is a big thing too. Some people do like white noise in the background. I do not. I like complete silence when working. I just find myself. But some people can concentrate that way. So part of it is also knowing yourself and knowing your environment, knowing what will help you, and leaning into that.

And also with that, if you have kids at home, you kind of have two options, right? White noise, if you have kids at home while you're studying or working can be very, very helpful. Not because white noise helps you study, but because you can't control their, their noise, the kids. Right. You can't control the kids noise. They're all the toy clanking and whatever's happening, you know, you can't control that. So the white noise can help you decrease that. Does that make sense? Did I explain that right?

Yeah.

You know, having white noise, even though maybe white noise, like for you, maybe white noise doesn't really help you on a regular day to day basis, but if our kids were like outside the door or like around and you really needed to focus on something, then white noise might help you to decrease that.

Yes. Yeah. So some people do do like classical music or things like that. And if you, if you think through like what music actually helps you. And again, everyone's different. But music without words, because as soon as there's words your brain wants to say, oh, what are they saying? What did I miss? What am I thinking about? So, so just musical things might, might help. And again, if there's clanking noises outside or people talking in a room outside, and you kind of hear, but not quite, your brain's like, oh, let me try really hard to hear what's going on, or the clanking noise of your kids, oh, is everything okay?

Right.

So what's happening? And so there's always a bit of your brain that's kind of occupied by doing that. But the better that you can control your environment and understand how you work best and lean into that, then the better.

Right? For sure.

Do you have any questions?

I've only been here for one minute and I already love this. Oh, I'm so glad. Welcome friends. And we have a lot of new people joining us. My name is Christina Rafano.

Hi, I'm Matthew.

Matthew.

Welcome to Nursing Scotch Nursing school show. Ama.

Welcome to Monday.

Welcome to Monday.

I'm gonna wave at people on Instagram again.

I'm gonna wave to you guys on YouTube. And I can do that.

Hello. I have to like click buttons.

Luis. Luis Luiz. I'm an SOS member now. Congratulations. Hope you enjoy it.

We are here for you 1000%.

For those that don't know, for a limited time until tomorrow, our membership community is open to join. I'll put the link here in, in YouTube.

And you guys are so nice on Instagram, man. I'm like scrolling through you guys.

Do you have any questions from Instagram ever?

I have to scroll up pretty far. No, I think it's pretty much like, I love you. You guys are awesome. Thanks for your positivity. You rock all of you on Instagram. Thank you. Oh, I'm a member and I see two different planners. What's the difference? Okay, so glad you're a member. So inside the nursing SOS membership community, like I said earlier, do not buy the planner that's public. So if you are a nursing SS member, don't buy the planner that's on our website. Don't do it because inside your membership dashboard you have a different link that will give you extra bonuses. So if you are a member, go to your dashboard, click on bonuses. You have two planners there. There's one that is just. You just get it for being a member. It's one month and it's undated. So. So you can use it again and again and again. Or you can buy the one that we just released. It's an 18 month planner. It is dated, it goes through August 2020 through January of 2022. So 18 months, you don't have to buy it again in a year, it's 18 months. So that one is in the membership community for you if you would like to purchase it. You do get extra bonuses. So as a nursing house member, just make sure that you purchase it through that link, not the one on our website, but everyone else buy it through the website or join the membership community and then buy it there because you get extra fun and fancy things for free. So that is how we do. I love how positive and energetic you are. Thanks friend. All right, happy caffeinated.

Quick time check. We have around eight minutes left where we don't have that much time. So let's hit one More question from YouTube Rapid Fire Real quick. I don't think this is going to be a rapid fire one, but one more question through YouTube. I have all a bunch of the other questions that we aren't able to get through. We'll maybe talk about it later. We are again doing our AMAs Mondays and Wednesdays. Wednesday is back at 9, 9 o', clock, 9am Wednesday is back at 9. But the one question that I did want to hit here is what is your advice thoughts on reading or skimming through your readings a day before lecture?

I think it's fine if you want to skim your readings the day before or morning before lecture just to get an idea. I do not recommend that you read the entire book. No, no, no, seriously. Are you gonna read this entire thing in nursing school? Absolutely not. You are not going to remember at all. So when you are studying for nursing school, you absolutely, absolutely have to focus your energy, study time on the things that matter. So Matthew, can you post the study playlist on YouTube? So if you guys go to YouTube, nursing SOS, study how to study how to get straight A's. I don't know. Find a video. It's there. Matthew's gonna post it in the chat here on YouTube for you. Such good videos in that playlist. That's the one that I want you to go to. So I don't know, find this video on YouTube and click that link. The best study tips for you. Because I do not want you to read this entire book. Right? You don't wanna read this entire textbook in nursing school. And this is fundamentals, but I mean, you see the other med surge ones, like here's the Merck manual. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? You are not going to read this whole thing in nursing school. It's just not going to happen. Or in life, it's just not going to happen. Let's be real friends. So focus your study time, focus your energy on the things that matter. And in that playlist, I walk you through exactly what matters. So watch it. That's what I have to say about that.

So, okay, skimming it.

Skimming is fine. Just to understand what you're going to go through with lecture. But don't read the entire thing. Yeah, absolutely.

Even after.

Even after.

Even after.

Yeah. No, no, no, no.

Awesome. All right. There's this question that I find really interesting because this is the first time I've heard this. I don't think we'll have time to talk about it today. Maybe we can maybe talk about it a little bit. But again, ama, it's Monday, Wednesday. Maybe we can talk about it offline and maybe having some advice on Wednesday. But any advice sitting through a 12 hour class, their response is to do online every other day and two 12 hour classes a week. And it's med surge.

That makes sense. Okay, that makes sense to me because my guess is that's your clinical. Is that your clinical day? Can you clarify for me? Was this on Instagram or YouTube?

That's on YouTube.

YouTube. Clarify for me. 12 hour class. If your, if your school is having you sit through two 12 hour classes, my guess is this a clinical day. That's my guess. And so it depends on what you're doing. Yeah, can you just clarify? And I want to. Can we like bookmark this question? Because we might answer it on Wednesday more. Because I need a little more information from you. I need a little more information. So it's lecture until October. So it's lecture in the beginning, that's pretty typical. Sometimes in nursing school we even had this in the first few weeks we had lecture and instead of clinical for a little bit because you have to really get your feet under you before you go, you know, deal with real patients, real life, human beings. So totally normal. Don't. First off, don't think this is weird. Just, just go with it. This is totally normal. That's a really good piece of advice. If you guys are going into nursing school thinking everything is wrong with the world. Everything is. Nothing is normal, everything's off. You know, you're just not going to do well. You are, you are going to psych yourself out, friend. Go into nursing school thinking this has always been this way. This is totally normal. One thought that Brooke has given me. So Brooke Castillo again, the life coachschool.com. i'm in her self coaching scholars program. So helpful. One huge blessing that she has given me. A thought that she's given me. Nothing has gone wrong. I tell myself that constantly. Christina. Nothing has gone wrong. Everything's totally fine. Nothing has gone wrong. So tell yourself that as you start nursing school. Nothing has gone wrong. Like nothing has gone wrong. This is how it was always supposed to be. This is how it's always supposed to happen. You know, God goes before us, you guys. God goes before us. So this is how, this is just how it is. Nothing has gone wrong. So I really want to talk about that, that question. Yeah, so we're gonna bookmark that question.

We're gonna.

For Wednesday.

Yeah, we're going to talk about a little bit more Wednesday. We have a lot of other questions that we weren't able to get to. Sorry. We do this every Monday and Wednesday. So I have a couple here that maybe we can talk about and revisit on Wednesday. Just one more quick one. The membership is good till tomorrow. Someone's asking if it's good for the LPN program as well.

Yes, LPN program. You absolutely can join the membership community if you are in an LPN or LVN program. Totally fine. Just please know, note this in your mind that when you get inside the membership community, there's going to be more in there for you that you will not do in your program. Things like care plans, nursing assessments, things like that. The nursing assessment videos that we have in there are specifically for RN programs for RN students, not lvn. So just know that going in that it does have what you need for your program, but it's going to have more, more than what you need. So just don't get overwhelmed when you go in there. Just focus on the things. Focus on finding the videos inside the membership community that you're talking about in class, in your school. Things that you're studying. Totally going to be helpful for you. So I do on Wednesday, I think maybe our theme on Wednesday is going to revolve around moving to online classes. So if you guys have questions about moving to online classes, how to study for online classes, what to do, like we said, we'll probably, we'll definitely talk about that question that we got From Rachel on 12 hour classes online. How. How in the world are we going to do that? So let's talk about that on Wednesday, you guys. Like Matthew said, the nursing SOS membership community is open for enrollment until tomorrow. We just opened it really quickly, only for three days. We. It was totally not planned just because we got so many, so many people wanting to get in. We just wanted to help you guys out. So it is open, but only until tomorrow. So please, please join.

All right, so we'll see you guys on Wednesday again, 9 o', clock, which is our normal time, 9 Pacific, 12 Eastern.

Yep.

I don't know what other times. I don't know.

I have no idea.

Yeah. Anyway, we'll see you guys on Wednesday. Thanks for joining our Monday morning AMA.

Or Monday afternoon ama, depending on where you are.

It's nice to see you guys after a week. So, yes, we're back. We're back in the saddle. All right, guys.

All right, take care, friends. We'll see you next. Oh, well, Instagram's gonna shut off on me.

All right.

All right, bye, guys.

Take care.

See you next Wednesday.