I think I must have been the last person in the world to see Avatar. Sunday, a week ago, Tom and I went with a large group of our friends (all of whom were seeing it for the second time) to see this movie. Everyone I knew who had seen it, raved about it (which seemed to be everyone I know) and I was so excited about seeing it that I even brought my own 3D glasses!

About an hour into the movie I turned to Tom, and after yanking the popcorn away from him, whispered, “If this doesn’t get Best Picture I’ll be shocked.” I loved the movie.

Last night, I watched the Academy Awards and was indeed shocked when Hurt Locker won Best Picture. In all fairness I never saw Hurt Locker and will have to add it to my list. Until then my vote is still Avatar. Not only was it entertaining, Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can learn several lessons from director, James Cameron. The lessons all stem from an opinion I feel strongly about after growing my successful legal nurse consulting business for 28 years – the experts are often wrong and you shouldn’t always listen to them!

Think about it. Hollywood experts said audiences won’t go see an intelligent movie; that they only want gross-out, teen-style comedies or star-driven vehicles where the star walks through his role in his sleep. Cameron ignored them and penned a movie that required your full attention and one that put its leading characters into unrecognizable avatars.

The experts say the attention span of audiences cap out after 80-90 minutes and that audiences won’t sit for a movie that runs 162 minutes caption-to-credit. Cameron ignored that line of thinking and cut the movie he wanted audiences to see. Again, the experts were wrong to the tune of over $2.5 billion worldwide!

Experts also believed that audiences weren’t ready for full-length 3D movies other than horror, children’s or the occasional IMAX^® film. Instead of following that thinking, Cameron went out on a limb and filmed the movie in 3D applying it tastefully, without cheap shock effects. This has turned out to be one of the most popular methods to see Avatar.

Like I’ve always told CLNC^® consultants, you can’t always listen to the experts because they’re often wrong. Like James Cameron you have to make your own decisions and follow your own dreams. Like James Cameron, your CLNC^® business may not win a coveted Academy Award, but there’s nothing holding you back from trying, except the experts.

See you in the theaters!

My success, like that of many entrepreneurs, is built on challenging the experts – not relying on them. Our Founding Fathers weren’t expert politicians. Our captains of industry weren’t experts in their fields. Our best inventors weren’t experts. America and almost all of our achievements were built by a nation of amateurs, tinkerers and inventors constantly poking, prodding, testing and discarding what didn’t work until they eventually hit the magic formula for success.

In 1982, when I pioneered the field of legal nurse consulting, I challenged the experts. The whole concept of legal nurse consulting was contrary to what attorneys accepted as an industry standard. Typically, they relied on doctors to try to make sense of medical records. How crazy is that? As RNs, we know doctors don’t even read the medical records when they’re at work. So how could attorneys possibly be getting what they really needed? Not to mention the fact that physicians were charging way too much for their time and weren’t always giving the attorneys objective opinions (because doctors are way too protective of each other).

I had to go against the “experts” and educate attorneys that the registered nurse (RN) is the only healthcare provider who knows everything that is going on with the patient. We’re the ones with hands-on information, with face-to-face 24/7 contact with patients, and most important, the only healthcare provider who ever reads the entire medical record. As RNs, we not only have the expertise to uncover vital facts and key pieces of information that can make or break an attorney’s case, but we’re cost-effective too. As an added bonus, we bring our (highly developed) skills of critiquing other healthcare providers to the table. This ensures that we deliver an objective opinion.

Shortly after I started consulting with attorneys on the medical issues in their cases, I recognized exactly how widespread the need for nurses in the legal arena really was. My next step was to begin training other nurses on how to consult with attorneys too. Now I had two growing businesses in a field the experts said would never succeed. Today, over 6,000 CLNC^® consultants are still proving those same experts wrong!

Contrary to what most people believe, it doesn’t take an Einstein to spawn brilliant ideas, and even Einstein wasn’t born an expert (just a genius). Experts and extraordinary people can and do wake up with dumb ideas while ordinary people can and do wake up with extraordinary ideas.

The reality is that there are very few Einsteins out there and a lot more ordinary people like you and me (some with Einstein hair though). Like I said, ordinary people wake up with ideas every day; some are brilliant ideas, some are ordinary ideas and some are just plain dumb. But even a small, ordinary idea can pay off huge when you have the courage to own it and take action on it.

In my company, I encourage everyone, expert or not, to speak up when they have a new concept and to verbalize their objections when they think something isn’t working. Sometimes the person who knows the least about the subject asks a question that helps us make the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, I always know we’re onto a truly innovative idea at Vickie Milazzo Institute when one of the experts says, “You can’t do that.”

You’ll advance your legal nurse consulting business faster by listening to non-experts as well as experts. The experts aren’t always right except in their own mind. If it weren’t for people who didn’t listen to the experts, there are a lot of the things that we take for granted today that wouldn’t exist because the experts said that they weren’t needed or nobody would buy them.

What “expert” have you challenged lately? What “non-expert” have you listened to? Don’t let anyone stop you on your way to CLNC^® success.

Success Is Inside!

Nurses often say, “You must have known quite a few attorneys when you started,” suggesting that the adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is the guaranteed path to launching a successful business as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

Actually, I didn’t know any attorneys when I got started! I didn’t live in their neighborhoods or get invited to their parties. When I decided to become a legal nurse consultant I didn’t even think I knew anyone who knew an attorney. That false-ism, “It’s not what you know it’s who you know,” is a leftover from the 1980s, when “networking” was the buzzword among out-of-work professionals vying for consulting or other business. They gathered at events to eat, drink, pass out business cards and ask for referrals. Sometimes it resulted in new business and sometimes it was just an excuse to drink.

While referral and word-of-mouth promotion are still the strongest and the most cost-effective ways of building an attorney-client base, networking only works for you when you are selective. Unless you’re selective, networking events become nothing more than a waste of your time, i.e. networking is NOT working.

As Dale Barnes, a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, shared, “The worst advice I followed had to do with a networking group. I think networking groups are wonderful and can be effective, but it has to be the right one. I had a friend who belonged to a group and received a lot of business because of this group, so I joined too. I found that there were manicurists, massage therapists, hairdressers, network marketing people, construction company owners, electricians, etc. in this group. There were no attorneys and no one seemed to know any attorneys. I stuck with it for a year. I was able to find some good resources for my own personal use, but it never helped grow my CLNC^® business and was a waste of time and money. I later joined a high-powered business networking group for attorneys, CPAs, bankers, upper management and administrative people. My CLNC^® business did grow due to this connection. I wish I had not wasted that first year. It pays to really check out the makeup of a group and its main focus prior to joining.”

That one year Dale spent in the wrong networking group is an example of where networking was not working – at least as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. She wisely sought out and found the appropriate group to network with.

Networking is often overrated. I’ve seen people spend countless hours in meaningless conversation with people they really don’t want to spend time with while trying to build a business. The best way to find attorneys through networking is to spend time with potential attorney-prospects or people closely related to them. Your prospects are attorneys, so if you want to hang somewhere, hang out at the courthouse. Target your networking to where it will make the most impact.

Be cautious also with established networking groups, such as associations, and with how much power you give them over your success. Sometimes when you’re within a network, and your ideas don’t align with that network, people can try to persuade you to their side and it can often be the “dark side.” I often wonder what people expect when they join a closed-minded organization. Do they expect members to share business (Sure, I’ve been working with Bob Smith but you can cut me out)? Or even worse, the network will try to eliminate you or blackball you in your industry because of your ideas or stance.

Your own ideas, your own career plan, your own business model have to be strong enough to stand alone, without network support. That’s the entrepreneurial secret that has helped to build this country and that I’ve used to build my business.

After pioneering the industry of legal nurse consulting, I took a grand departure from what others believed our industry needed. I believed we needed a standardized certification program. They disagreed. So what did I do? I ticked some people off by creating what became the first and most widely recognized certification for legal nurse consultants and the largest association for legal nurse consultants – the National Alliance for Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (NACLNC^®).

In short, the less approval is important to you, the freer you are to succeed. Don’t let association groupthink dictate what is acceptable or appropriate for your future. Taking a grand departure from conventional wisdom can take you places no other has dared to go before. Something else to remember is that when someone’s status quo is threatened they’ll react with fear and do what they can to discourage you and put down your ideas. This especially includes new group members who want their own piece of the pie.

Networks are often an incestuous “go along” type of situation and when it comes to career building, striving to “go along to get along” is not necessarily a formula for success. Did Madonna “go along” to skyrocket her career? Does Donald Trump “go along” with anybody? Is Richard Branson “going along” as he promotes one crazy, successful venture after another?

As I started to achieve success, I began to realize that my position would be stronger if I didn’t rely on an outside network to advance my company but instead built a strong company of free thinkers. I believe in inviting my staff to disagree with me and they are quite vocal and quite comfortable (sometimes too comfortable) doing so. My ideas often get shot down. We are a stronger company for that.

You have to be willing to take a stand. Audaciously successful people often stand contrary to what the world believes is right and proper, and they don’t care if their ideas upset people. Of course your goal is not to upset people but to express your ideas and opinions, uncensored, in your truest voice.

Neutrality is a death sentence. You’ll never please everybody, so don’t kill your nursing career – and your earning potential – by trying. As we say in Texas, “There’s nothing in the middle of the road except yellow stripes and dead armadillos.” You don’t want to be either.

Dramatic success comes from taking a stance, even if it’s contrary to the experts or to the self-proclaimed experts. It’s your nursing career and to make the most of it, you need to be willing to stir things up, stand out and maybe tick off a few people. Let other nurses “go along” and have their middle-of-the-road successes. But, don’t let one of those “other” nurses be you.

Success Is Inside!