I’m writing this at the CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminar in Atlanta after I just came off one of the most hectic weeks of my life. First I had the official launch of my new book Wicked Success Is Inside Every Woman. If you haven’t been following me on Facebook or Twitter, Wicked Success was #10 on the New York Times Monthly Business Bestseller list Sunday, October 2nd and my publisher just told me Wicked Success will be #6 on the New York Times Hardcover Advice & Misc. bestseller list on Sunday, October 9th! Wicked Success hit #1 on Amazon.com, #3 on the USA Today business bestseller list and it was not only #3 on the Wall Street Journal’s bestselling business book list but also #8 on the WSJ’s bestselling nonfiction book list in the same week! Thank you all for supporting the book and sharing it with all the women you love. Being a New York Times bestselling author is every writer’s dream and you helped to make that dream come true.

If the book launch and hoopla wasn’t enough, that same week also had site visits, rehearsals, event planning, preparation, and all the last-minute details leading up to the events with Stedman Graham – our Friday night Women Embracing Leadership (WEL) reception and event at Unity Church and the all-day Saturday WEL workshop. Forget rest! Thursday night was a late night taping our TV appearance on After the Headlines and a late dinner at a favorite restaurant of mine – Brasserie 19. Friday morning we started very early with a live TV appearance on Great Day Houston and continued with a live radio appearance that afternoon. You would not believe how much hurry up and wait time surrounds TV and radio shows!

So, my staff and I were hopping like toads every day and well into the night on Friday. In fact, when I say well into the night, I mean it. Friday night we had so much fun at the Unity Women Embracing Leadership event that Stedman and I were still signing books until 11:30pm! If you know me, you know I’m a morning person and have usually enjoyed a couple of REM cycles before midnight. But I was still wide awake when we got home and was so excited about Saturday’s WEL workshop that I had trouble going to sleep at 1:00am (really!).

Saturday’s 4:00am alarm came way too soon but I somehow managed to get out of bed and Tom (I love you man!) found some Starbucks before he went off to manage the AV setup for the WEL workshop. That Women Embracing Leadership workshop went flawlessly and everyone who attended walked away with a new direction, ready to achieve their next audacious goal. It was so interesting working with such a diverse group of professional women, all with different issues, goals and dreams. I’m already planning the next event! Afterwards, I took Stedman to a second favorite restaurant, Da Marco, then invited my best friends from New Orleans, who had come in for the weekend, to a private “after party.”

Sunday we all got to spend the day kicking back over a late breakfast and a later lunch. In between, we did a post-mortem on the weekend, bonded over those deep and personal conversations about sex and relationships that only women have and had lots of laughs and cutting up. Our ages range from 26 to 80 which made for a rich experience and even more laughter and cutting up when our 80-year-old friend shared that she’s just as enthusiastic about sex as ever. Tom conveniently discovered that he needed to run some errands, so we got some quality girl-talk time while he escaped the overwhelming surge of oxytocin.

I shared with my friends how inspired I was by a workshop attendee who had just retired from a successful career but was finding that retirement was bringing her no joy. She had been looking forward to retirement, and certainly had no money issues, but just wasn’t finding retirement to be “What I worked 30 years to do.” I advised her that it didn’t matter to me whether she went back to work, started a business or stayed retired. What did matter was that she find joy in her life because we all deserve to have that.

At the workshop, Stedman and I both worked with her to help her not only discover her passion but to create a plan to turn that passion into a business. She left Saturday not only with a plan, but with a new spark in her eye, a spring in her step and a fire burning inside.

As tired as I was after that week, on Monday I was still thinking about that woman and her search for passion. I’m lucky. I love the play side of my life, (I grew up in New Orleans after all) but I also love working and I love being busy. I also love that I can work my passions – teaching nurses to become Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, writing books and helping women to discover their own passions. My crazy busy week was just part of my crazy busy life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Without passion our lives are empty and we feel purposeless. We can discover and create a passion for any part of our lives if we take time to go inside and really listen. The woman at the workshop is about to get really busy and I am ecstatic for her. You can call me crazy, but we have just one life so why not live it with passion – even if it means being crazy busy living that passionate life.

Success Is Inside!

I’ve been training and mentoring nurses to start legal nurse consulting businesses for more than 29 years. In all that time, I’ve never met a successful CLNC^® consultant who said “I wish I had waited to start my CLNC^® business.” What I always hear Certified Legal Nurse Consultants say  is “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.”

We all have dreams and it’s a privilege to live in a society where dreams can come true. But here’s what I know for sure – a dream can make you miserable if all you do is dream and never take action. At some point, the dream that you were so passionate about slowly fades into the background until it becomes a memory and then eventually a regret. We owe it to ourselves to go for our dreams all the way. Go for it or reject it outright.

I love nurses and want every nurse to be happy. The happiest nurses are those who pursue their dreams and take action on them. They’re not dreaming the dream – they’re living their dream. The time for you to start living your dream is now. Whether your desire is to launch your CLNC^® business or obtain two more attorney-clients, do it now!

Success Is Inside!

This weekend I am privileged to be presenting the Women Embracing Leadership events with Stedman Graham. I confess that when I was a young nurse, “leadership” was a word that didn’t get my juices going. It was too traditional and boring for this renegade nurse who didn’t fit in an institutional hospital environment.

Since then, I have learned that leadership is one of the most provocative and exciting words in the dictionary because it applies to how we show up in every situation every second of the day. For some of us, leadership does involve managing others and being in charge of a situation, but leadership first and foremost is about leading ourselves.

Success or failure is the result of thousands of decisions, actions and reactions. Almost every time I mentor a student who is struggling, that student has failed to be a leader in one or more of those decisions, actions and reactions.

Our leadership is tested and challenged not only when things go our way, but also when they don’t. Commit to lead yourself in the most consistent and congruent way each and every day. When you do, you open yourself up to opportunities beyond your imagination.

Lead yourself and CLNC^® success will be yours.

Success Is Inside!

You know that thing you have always wanted to do? I confess I am often perplexed by a person who can never for the life of them achieve a goal they’ve set for themselves. They set the goal, they want the benefits of achieving that goal and then that’s the end of it.

For example, a nurse wants to start a legal nurse consulting business to earn more money and have more free time for family. Great goal, but then the reality check: reaching that goal is going to require work, like working before it’s time to report to that full-time job at the hospital, plus working again after getting home from that hospital job and, oh yeah, working on that coveted weekend off. And did I mention work?

I spend a lot of time with nurses all over the U.S. Some of them have a difficult time relating to my success until I remind them I started out just like they are going to have to – with a full-time job at the hospital. Plus, I had to work overtime just to pay my mortgage. To launch my legal nurse consulting business, I was going to have to work. That was okay. After all, nurses aren’t afraid to work. When this mouthy, opinionated, Italian girl faced the choice of working really hard for the rest of my life at a dead-end job, or to get to work on me, you know what I chose.

If you want to succeed as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, today I only have three words of advice: Get to work!!!

Success Is Inside!

Thanks to all the CLNC® consultants who attended the 2011 National Alliance of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants Conference Cruise. I so loved hearing how much you learned from our speakers and seeing you networking with fellow CLNC® pirates. It was a blast partying with you and spending a week together. I loved hearing your CLNC® Success Stories and am so energized by them.

Here are a few tips to keep you going on the path to your goals:

1. Reconnect with your attorney-clients by sending a note to let them know you’ve attended the NACLNC^® Conference for additional education and to renew your CLNC^® Certification. Remind them that this is your way to better serve them and their clients.
2. Send a news release to your community newspaper announcing your completion of this advanced Certified Legal Nurse Consultant training and renewal of your CLNC^® Certification.
3. Continue your success: mark your calendar and sign up now for the
   2013 NACLNC^® Conference where you can join us for a 7-Day Weekend March 2-9, 2013 sailing the Western Caribbean.

Enjoy the NACLNC^® Conference photo gallery and the video of the CLNC^® cheerleading contest (each group had five minutes to create, choreograph and practice their cheer).

Thanks for helping to make the NACLNC^® Conference the amazing event that it was. I’ll see you in 2013 aboard the Oasis of the Seas for the next NACLNC^® Conference. Can’t wait to cruise the rest of the Caribbean with you.

Success Is Inside!

Everyone knows that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant knows at least one CLNC^® consultant, if not more. If you’ve attended one of our CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminars, you’ve made lifelong CLNC^® friends. When you attend the NACLNC^® Annual Conference, you reconnect with CLNC^® consultants from all over the country. But all too often you only do it for those short periods of time. Not everyone capitalizes on their connections to make a strong chain or develop a mini-network.

In this information/communication-driven world of Facebook^®, Twitter^®, Skype^® and the Internet, the only thing holding you back is the lack of a plan. Given the myriad ways we can communicate these days there is nothing, and I mean nothing, stopping any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant from setting up their own CLNC^® Connection Chain (or “CCC” for short).

Set up your CCC in 5 easy steps:

1. Use Darwinian Selection. From your certified, but not certifiable, colleagues pick 5-8 other CLNC^® consultants you respect, who have different specialties than your own and who are in different parts of the country. This is Link 1 in your CCC.
2. Facebook’em Danno. Next, set up your own private group on Facebook and send an invite to each of the Certified Legal Nurse Consultants you’ve identified and ask them to join your group. You now have the second link in your CCC, a place where you and the CLNC^® members of your group can communicate freely and network with each other that doesn’t require any special skill. Remember to set your privacy settings to keep others from seeing your group’s discussions. CCC Link 2 is complete.
3. Get Yourself a Glam-Cam. Your next step is to go out and spend less than $60 and buy a USB web cam with embedded microphone for your computer (unless you’re lucky enough to have an Apple^® laptop or iMac with one built in). Install the camera. (Tom installed mine and claims it’s so simple even a caveman can do it.) Then sign up for the free version of Skype. This will allow you to have weekly video conferences in pairs or in groups with your CCC members. It’s much more fun than telephone conferences and much more rewarding in terms of retying the connections with the other CCCers. You can also use this to check in with your hi-tech attorney-clients. Link 3 checked off.
4. Tweet Like a Tweety-Bird. Join Twitter but be sure to protect your “tweets.” Protecting your tweets allows only those Twitter members you specifically approve to see your tweets. You can still follow Ashton Kutcher, but your tweets will only be seen by those you approve to view them. Use the initiation function of Twitter to send email invitations to your list of CLNC^® colleagues. If you have a texting plan for your smart phone, turn on the mobile tweets function of Twitter and select only those people in your group to update you via cell phone. You can read the rest of the twitterers using Tweetdeck or on Twitter. This way you’ll get texts of important updates from your CCC. Use Twitter to schedule your Skype calls, update your CCC on new attorney-clients or just to tell them what you’re doing. Link 4 in place.
5. Meet Up to Keep Up. When you attend the NACLNC^® Annual Conference, plan on flying in at least two days early to brainstorm with your CCC members. You’ll want to meet before the conference to get your face-to-face time in with your CCC members. Focus on learning from your group and grab new ideas for your legal nurse consulting business so you can rock back and enjoy the conference. Link 5 done and your CLNC^® Connection Chain is ready to pay off big!

Now put your CLNC^® Connection Chain to use. Set accountable and measurable objectives, and share them with your CLNC^® chain members. When you complete an objective, send out a tweet. Schedule at least two Skype calls a month so that everyone can update each other on the steps they’ve taken towards their accountable objectives. Research shows that being accountable to others for the action steps in your strategic plan help you implement them. Celebrate each others’ successes and brainstorm over what went well and what didn’t. This is your private brain trust, exclusive board of directors and personal planning committee – make use of them!

A CLNC^® Connection Chain is a great way to make sure your legal nurse consulting business succeeds. Here’s my challenge to Certified Legal Nurse Consultants – set up your own CCC and put it to the test for 60 days. I’ll be waiting to hear from you when you share with all of us how your CCC has helped your legal nurse consulting business.

Success Is Inside!

A marketing plan without accountability is not much of a plan and is unlikely to get you the attorney-clients you want for your legal nurse consulting business. Accountability is the muscle in your marketing plan. Making a plan without accountable goals is like grabbing for a fistful of rain.

For example, if you set a goal of marketing to five attorney-prospects each week, you could meet that goal without accomplishing any results for your CLNC^® business. While this goal sounds like a good objective, the objective of simply meeting the goal is in no way accountable to you and your CLNC^® business. Instead, you must develop an objective that is accountable to your legal nurse consulting business. That means developing an objective that reaps a result.

Here’s one example of an accountable objective, “I will market to attorneys to obtain one new attorney-client each month.” This results-oriented objective not only propels you to act, but requires you to act until you achieve the desired result. While you’re setting up your accountable objectives, attach a target completion date to each objective and hold yourself accountable for hitting it.

I teach that during the first 30 days of your CLNC^® business the most important thing to do is take action every day to create the habit of acting on your business, but beyond 30 days it’s a mistake to think that just taking action is making progress. The savvy Certified Legal Nurse Consultant knows that when your actions meet accountable objectives you’re truly making progress. Make sure you’re one of the CLNC^® consultants taking action, making progress and not just making plans.

Success Is Inside!

Certified Legal Nurse Consultant David Kuntz

During my career as an ICU nurse, I was always looking for ways to better myself. I took and passed the CCRN exam, but to my dismay I received no recognition from the hospital administrators for this accomplishment. I tried management and found that I was working more hours and getting paid less than the nurses on my unit. Then something happened that changed my career. I tore a ligament in my hand while restraining a patient. I could no longer lift anything over 25 pounds. I was devastated. My ICU nursing career was over. I spent one and half years on light duty and was told that I had to find a different job or the hospital would settle with me. After months of searching, I landed a job in IT as a clinical analyst.

At home after my surgery I had time on my hands, or in my case – hand, so I started to search for different ways to use my nursing knowledge. I came across legal nurse consulting on one of my searches. I spent hours researching legal nurse consulting. The spark was lit and grew with every bad day I had.

It took me five years until I finally decided to just go for it. I enrolled in the CLNC^® Certification Program in July 2009 and immediately started the home-study course. I finished it in a week and was certified the following weekend. I then worked on the NACLNC^® Apprenticeship Program. It took me a little over a week to finish and at that point, I started getting my promotional materials, sample work products and letters refined and ready to send to attorneys.

I started sending out material toward the end of August using all of the techniques I learned from Vickie. One goal that was foremost in my mind was to have a case before I attended the CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Program in October.

I was nervous before I made my first phone call to an attorney, but I kept remembering that they are people just like everyone else and that really calmed me down. In that first call, I introduced myself and gave a brief synopsis of the material I had already sent. I asked for an appointment and the attorney said, “Sure, come in at 4:00pm.”

Now I was really nervous. I looked over the sample interview questions in the online NACLNC^® Community and realized that I knew this information. I met with the attorney and the interview went so well, he is sending me a medical-malpractice case.

Two weeks later, I called another attorney to follow-up on my promotional material. He told me he didn’t receive it, so I presented a short version of how I could assist him. He asked me to set up a meeting with his secretary. The next day I went to his office and he walked into the conference room with a case in his hands and a check for $1,500.00. Inside I was doing cartwheels yet I remained composed until I got in my car and was heading home. The following day I talked with a different attorney and he wants to use me on two cases.

From the end of August to the first week in October, I was able to obtain three attorney-clients.

My first goal was met. I followed what Vickie taught and used her techniques. If everyone follows what they learn in the CLNC^® Certification Program, they will be successful in this business. Vickie and Vickie Milazzo Institute have already done the hard work; all a student has to do is apply what they learn from the CNLC^® Certification Program.

Guest Blogger Profile

David Kuntz, RN, BSN, CLNC has 17 years of nursing experience. He is the owner of David Kuntz and Associates in western New Mexico and specializes in medical malpractice.

I’ve got a confession to make. I’m not hooked on Lost. I don’t know what “frack” means and I’ve never watched American Idol. I used to keep my television in my closet (it was a 12″ black and white) and it wasn’t out of shame – I just didn’t watch TV. Even though we now have one of those state-of-the-art flat screen, surround-sound systems (ask Tom for details), I still don’t watch TV. I will also confess there are a couple of exceptions. I set aside an evening for each of the Grammys^®, Golden Globes^®, Super Bowl^® (for Tom) and the Academy Awards^® as sacrosanct (don’t call me, I won’t answer). But the other 361 days of the year, my TV is off. My Google^® homepage tells me the news headlines and Tom keeps me in the loop. If the world was going to come to an end, my executive team would notify me and ask me to release the Institute employees early so they can go home and prepare (being on the Gulf Coast, I’ve even gotten tsunami warnings). In other words, TV doesn’t play a role in my life – it’s not an early warning system and it’s not a distraction.

Now, on the other extreme, I know legal nurse consultants who live and die by their TVs. Between reruns of Seinfeld, Friends and shows like The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars, they eat, sleep, relax and work. That’s okay for them and possibly for you. I understand the need to let your mind coast and let your body relax. One of my best friends gets home from work each day in time to watch Oprah – that’s how he (correct, this is not a typo) relaxes. I relax through books, movies, Jacuzzi^®, meditation and a glass of a great red wine.

Let me ask you a question – if you turned your television off for just one night a week and put that time into your legal nurse consulting business, what dividends would it return?

TV is passive. As Zen master Takuan says, “This day will not come again.” Every hour you sit in front of a television you’re accomplishing nothing. Each of those hours is irretrievably lost to you. Sure, the next morning you and your friends can discuss Glee or which of the fifteen hundred versions of CSI had the most fun autopsy scene, but where will that get your legal nurse consulting career?

I challenge all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants to take one day a week and turn off your TV. Put that evening into your legal nurse consulting business. Concentrate on a different aspect of your business each week, marketing, report writing or a new CLNC^® service. See what you’ll reap from that time. You’ll never be able to say “I’m too busy to…” again because you’ll have recovered 2-3 hours of time lost from Lost. If this whole topic is making you nervous, you can always TiVo^® your shows to watch them at a later date (after you’ve accomplished all you want).

If you dare to fully realize the power of this, try taking a week off from the TV. Put that time into your CLNC^® business and your family. You’ll make exponential leaps in both. I warn you though, this powerful practice is not for everyone – it’s only for those who choose to take back their time and make something powerful from it.

Success Is Inside!

Congratulations to Tracy who shared with me that her income as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant exceeded her hospital salary in her first year. Now she has exceeded $250,000! I’m confident she’ll reach the high goal she set for herself in the video. Here’s wishing her even further CLNC^® success in advance – you go Tracy!

Success Is Inside!