Inside Every Woman

Nurses naturally have the strength of agility. After all, you can’t be a nurse and not be agile. When you have five people talking to you at once, and you’re handling five different emergencies at once, that takes agility. When you go from this to that, without time to think and seconds are making a difference – that’s agility. When you’re floated to a unit you know nothing about – and you don’t kill anyone – that’s agility. As nurses, we’re all over that strength, aren’t we?

But agility is more than bending over backwards to satisfy a patient or even a unit of patients. Instead of simply using your agility to cope with your nursing practice or your day-to-day life, do you use your agility to stretch and grow to new levels professionally and personally? Agility is also flexing a curiosity about what else is out there for you professionally.

Agility is also about challenging fixed viewpoints that people (like the doctors, your supervisor, your spouse) have about you and fixed viewpoints you have about yourself. When I started my legal nurse consulting business, I had to challenge the fixed viewpoint that nurses don’t go into business. I also had to challenge the fixed viewpoint that if the business idea hasn’t already been invented, there’s probably no market for it. But more importantly, I had to challenge my own fixed viewpoints.

These include the belief that nursing didn’t prepare me for owning a legal nurse consulting business and the belief that I didn’t have time to start a business as a legal nurse consultant with my full-time nursing job at the hospital.

Open your mind and energy to people who can introduce you to new ways of thinking about nursing or your CLNC^® business and the unlimited possibilities that are available when you stretch your agility. You’ll need to be willing to change directions, just like you do in your hospital job. And be ready to shake things up.

Risking even minor change strengthens your agility to go where you need to go next and prepares you for future challenges that will undoubtedly require even more change. When you stretch yourself to a new level, the next challenge isn’t nearly as scary; the ground is more familiar. Agility is your path to a deeper, richer experience in nursing and in your CLNC^® business, as well as the strength you’ll need to side-step any challenges you’ll meet along the way.

Success Is Inside!

Engagement is about committing to achieve big. Talk about a group who is willing to engage or commit. Nurses are tycoons of engagement. Nurses commit themselves to situations that make normal people faint. Every nurse I know is fully committed – or maybe ready to be committed. We’ve all worked that shift. Nurses know how to engage and get things done. In the middle of horrendous situations, you instinctively triage on the fly – you resuscitate, defibrillate and medicate and then you go to work. Total engagement.

You have the strength of engagement. But are you willing to engage all the way in resuscitating yourself and your nursing career? There won’t be a code team coming to rescue you or your career. It’s entirely up to you. Resuscitating your career requires the same level of commitment you would give to a patient who just arrested, but is even more long term.

When I decided to start my legal nurse consulting business in 1982, I knew a lot of smart nurses who had dreams and ideas, but they didn’t do anything with them. They didn’t engage, they didn’t take action. They had their dreams, but they were disappointed. Some were bitter and angry. I’ve always said that dreams can make a person miserable, if you don’t ever act on them. It’s the action behind your dream that makes you happy.

When I launched my legal nurse consulting business, I had a full-time nursing job; so to succeed in my new business, I committed to take action every day. I learned that in the beginning it didn’t matter so much what I did, but that I did something. I was developing the habits and the discipline to make my legal nurse consulting business dream a reality. Whatever your dream is, you need to engage big. Start with the first 30 days. Turn that into 60 then 90. Success is in the motion and in getting the motion moving. You can’t start a business without starting something.

The more action you take, the easier it is to step out the next time. Anything you’re going for: career advancement, starting a CLNC^® business, improving a professional relationship – do something. Once you’ve committed to take action every day, then it’s time to focus on and engage in the impactful actions that give you the result you want.

What you engage and focus on is where you will yield results. You’ll need to break the feel-good addictions, and there are so many of them – checking email, surfing the Internet, watching TV and keeping up with your friends on Facebook – all of which take us away from big and important things. If you’re spending more than eight hours a day at work, you need to be extra vigilant about cutting out any feel-good addictions in order to have the maximum energy and focus for your CLNC^® business. The wrong focus might make you feel good about how many points you’ve scored in Mobster Wars or Farm-gate but, at the end of the day if all you’ve done is clicked your mouse, how’s that working for you and your dreams?

Where and how we focus also includes our families and friends. Society is complex, with family, friends, career, spiritual and social obligations. Nurses can handle a lot, and if we’re not careful, we find ourselves doggedly committing our energy to every person or situation that demands our time. My motto is nurses CAN do anything – not nurses SHOULD do everything. Set your own expectations for what you want to accomplish, stop being a commitment queen (for male nurses that’s commitment king) and shed the guilt for not doing everything for everybody.

It’s okay to say no. Say no to all the laundry, all the housework and all the carpools and preserve some time for your own dreams. Delegate. Your spouse and kids will benefit from participating in family life and learning new skills like washing dishes or sorting socks.

Engagement starts with choice. Choose the goal for your engagement with your passions and vision in mind. Resolve to engage in something big today.

Success Is Inside!

Intuitive vision is about connecting with your imagination, paying attention, trusting, perhaps experimenting a little, and seeing where that takes you. You have the strength of intuitive vision. How often do you make a diagnosis even before the doctor does? You don’t need lab reports or X rays. How often have you not followed your “gut” and regretted it? You intuitively know what needs to be done. And you do it every day, day after day.

You have intuitive vision. But are you using that strength for yourself as well as for your patients? Are you using it to move your nursing career to where you want to be? Are you making the diagnosis and doing what needs to be done to create the future you desire? As nurses, we’re our own worst patients. Go ahead and laugh, but you know it. We always know what everybody else needs but are often in denial about what we need. It’s time to trust what our intuition tells us we need for ourselves.

In 1982, I created the nursing specialty of legal nurse consulting by trusting my intuition. My intuition told me attorneys needed nurses, even if those same attorneys didn’t know it yet themselves. When one of the first attorneys said “no,” that could have discouraged me if I let it. Then where would I be now? My intuitive vision told me not to stop and has led me to where I am today.

Don’t squelch your passion. For intuitive vision to work, you must not only trust it, but you must be tuned into it. How do you get in touch with your own intuitive vision? First, silence will arouse your vision. Clear some space, unclutter your mind. Purposefully eliminate one outside stimulus or one TV show. Then eliminate another and another until you can make time for silence. Silence is the only way you can connect with your intuitive vision to advance your nursing career.

You must also avoid negative naysayers. You might not think of a relationship as clutter, but it can be if it’s blocking your intuitive vision. Negative people, negative relationships and other energy vampires will stand between you and your vision. Cut them loose. This act is one of the most freeing acts you will experience.

Finally, to become more successful, begin to see yourself as more successful. Envision your new success over and over – planning, taking action, succeeding. If your goal is to put together a legal nurse consulting marketing proposal that wins a new attorney-client or to earn a promotion at your hospital job, vividly see the benefits you’ll receive and the people (you, your husband, your kids) who will enjoy the fruits of your efforts. You must see the change you wish to be – start creating it today.

Success Is Inside!

One thing I know about nurses is that you didn’t get into nursing for the big bucks, the big raises or the big perks (like the cafeteria food, going four hours without a restroom break or the five-minute lunch hour). To do everything that nurses do every day, you have to be wired by passion, by a fire that drives you to make a difference in the lives you hold in your hands. Nurses have the strength of fire and passion. But are you as fired up about nursing today as when you first started? If not, what are you fired up about?

I remember my own fear of fire, or at least my fear of losing my own fire and passion. In 1982, after six years in nursing, unsatisfied with the career choice I made, I woke up to the fear of becoming like so many other nurses at the hospital – burned out, exhausted, the spark gone. A voice in my head said “Vickie, forget Code Blue. It’s time to Code You.” I faced a decision: Step out into the unknown or spend the rest of my life working as a hospital nurse.

My dream was to start a legal nurse consulting business advising attorneys on medical-related cases. Afraid to step out, I settled for reading business books instead. Then, one day I thought about how easy it was for me to resuscitate a dying patient – I could practically do it in my sleep. You know what I’m talking about and may even have resuscitated a few patients that way yourself. So I asked myself, what could be so hard about resuscitating my own career and life by just stepping out and going for it?

With only $100 in my savings account, I stepped out and called my first attorney-prospect to offer my services as a legal nurse consultant. To my horror he answered the phone. About to hang up, I told myself: “If he was wearing a hospital gown with his backside showing, I would have no problem introducing myself and inserting a Foley catheter so Vickie, just talk to him.” I sputtered out something that I’m sure was unintelligible, and despite that clumsy start, he became my first client. Stepping out for what I wanted gave me the freedom to live and work my passions.

For me, success is not about the achievement. It’s not the pay raise, promotion or the prize at the end. The real achievement comes from just stepping out. Every time we step out into the unknown, win or lose, we succeed. I might break a leg or invest in a losing business idea. But I won’t end up at my 90th birthday party with nothing more than stale white cake and regrets about the paths not taken. I understand that bad things can happen when we step out, but I believe worse things happen to our souls when we don’t.

If you’re at a crossroads in your nursing career, stuck in your nursing job and feel you’re not living passionately, try stepping out and exploring new options. Find or create something you can be on fire about. If fear is holding you back, start with baby steps. I started my legal nurse consulting business part-time while still working extra shifts at the hospital to pay my mortgage. I really had nothing to lose and everything to gain. There’s a certain freedom to being a nurse and knowing that if you do step out and fail, you’ve got your hospital nursing experience as a terrific safety net to fall back on. That thought alone should give you the courage to step out.

Remember, life is too short to live it with regrets. Step out and try something new, something daring or just something different. It doesn’t have to be legal nurse consulting. I just want you to live a life of your choosing, not one of your surrender. Take a few minutes today and consider those dreams you’ve put aside. This might be the perfect time to act on them.

Success Is Inside!

On the way to Philadelphia to teach one of my CLNC^® Certification Programs, Tom and I went for our cross-airport trek to the Starbucks^® in Terminal E. When we got through the line, the young guy working at Starbucks looked (and sounded) like he hadn’t had his coffee yet. After repeating our order at least twice we received a semblance of our “black eyes,” a doppio expresso dumped into a vente Komodo blend. From there we stormed back to Terminal C and stopped for our standard pre-flight spicy breakfast (lunch really ‘cause we’ve been up since 4:00am) at Popeye’s Fried Chicken (nothing beats red beans and rice in the morning). The woman working the counter at Popeye’s was complaining in Spanish on her cell phone to a friend about having to be open at 6:00am and how unfair it was that she had to open the store three days a week.

When we got to our gate, three uniformed airline employees working there (including a “red coat” or supervisor) were complaining, somewhat loudly as only a group can do, about a systems problem with their airline, all within hearing distance of the customers. I was at least glad that I wasn’t overhearing a safety issue but the line of passengers waiting to board didn’t seem amused.

Even the waiter at the restaurant where we had dinner that evening got into the act, complaining about how the economy had reduced his tips (apparently his surly, complaining service had nothing to do with it).

I was trying to figure out if it was just my day to ride the complain train or if there was some other message, when it hit me. The people who had been complaining all day were doing it without regard for who was listening, or maybe they just didn’t care. Suddenly I started worrying about you and all of the Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. I worried that perhaps without thinking, you might be complaining about someone while in a public space, or even worse, using your cell phone voice and having a 72-decibel private conversation. Let’s face it, you never know who is listening to you. It could be the attorney-client you just marketed to sight unseen, it could be a supervisor or a family member of an injured party in a case you’re consulting on. The first danger is that you might harm a relationship, whether it’s with an attorney-client, with a client of the facility you work for or just a neighbor.

Negativity is damaging. Even more important, complaining by itself is counterproductive. It rarely has a purpose with an outcome in mind. The airline employees weren’t brainstorming the problem; they were just making sure each of them was as aggrieved as the other in dealing with it. What a waste of energy, not to mention brainpower. Although in my experiences most complainers don’t have much of either and can’t afford to lose the little bit they have.

I’m not advocating that we should shut our eyes to problems. We should be using our agility to recognize what’s not working and then work on getting it fixed. Someone recently told me my staff is perfect. I’m smart enough to know she’s way off base in her assessment but one reason for her positive experience is that when employees come to me with a complaint, I tell them, “Don’t criticize – strategize. Offer me an alternative, a solution or an idea I can work with.” I don’t expect the perfect solution, but I won’t indulge complaining.

Why do some people complain, even when they know better? Because complaining is easier than action, and it is much easier than personal responsibility.

There’s an apocryphal story about two dogs outside a butcher shop trying to get a pork chop from the butcher. The first dog, who’s entrepreneurial and genuinely excited about the bounty of meat in the shop, does tricks, barks and takes all sorts of action to get the attention of the butcher to earn a treat. The other dog lies on the pavement, whining and sniveling about the unfairness of all that food out of his reach and hoping that someone will take the action to feed him. Guess which dog gets the pork chop?

Twenty seven years ago I decided I would no longer stand around whining and complaining like many of my nurse colleagues about the bad state of hospital nursing. I wanted more for my career, more for me and more for my life. I decided that it was time to take action and start a legal nurse consulting business.

I stopped complaining and suddenly life’s opportunities started pouring my way. I was feeling better and stronger. People around me recognized the change. I recently severed a professional relationship with a complainer. Life is too short to be around one and a lot more fun without them. As Barbra Streisand said, please “don’t rain on my parade.”

I always say “Where you focus is where you’ll get your results.” What results are you focusing on and for what purpose? Where will you choose to put your time, energy and strengths in your legal nurse consulting business today? Choose wisely and you may change the course of your life.

Success Is Inside!

I just got back from an 18-day trip to Svalbard Island, deep in the Arctic Circle and halfway between Norway and the North Pole. We started in Copenhagen and finished in Oslo. The best part of the trip was spent spotting polar bears and other Arctic wildlife at Svalbard Island.

Let’s get the facts out of the way. Even at 79° North, life abounds. The frigid waters surrounding the Svalbard archipelago contain Atlantic walruses, five different species of seals and 12 different types of whales as well as cod, plankton (for the whales) and other sea life. The air is host to 27 species of migrating, and one resident species of, birds numbering in excess of three million (who counts these?) during the short summer. The island, really islands, host reindeer and Arctic foxes and, one of the main reasons for my trip, about 1,500 polar bears.

I attribute a lot of my success with Vickie Milazzo Institute over the past 27 years to my morning and evening renewal rituals and to my sabbaticals. Just like you don’t expect a battery to keep going forever without recharging you can’t expect it of yourself as a legal nurse consultant. Revitalize your mind, body, emotions and spirit frequently, and you’ll find the energy abundantly available when you need it for your attorney-clients and your CLNC^® business. But there’s more to renewal than two cups of healthy green tea and a good soak in a candlelit tub (although that does work for the short-term).

I take 12 weeks off a year and at least 2-3 times a year those weeks are a true sabbatical from work, business, email, staff and all the associated stressors. This 18-day Arctic Circle trip was one of my sabbaticals – the kind of remote place where I can completely disconnect.

As you can imagine, getting off the grid is not always an easy thing to do (you don’t just hop onto the 5:15 train to Bhutan). I have to plan for renewing my energy in the same systematic way I plan to manage and grow my legal nurse consulting education company. I set my renewal goals and strategies and formulate action steps (can you tell I’m a Pisces?). I schedule my vacations and other Vickie-enhancing activities far in advance to guarantee that no one (including me) overbooks my calendar or schedules a last-minute emergency that will completely wreck all those hours of planning (although it has happened and when it does, I adapt).

My goal is to get far away, into something so different that it forces me out of my regular relaxation routine into one that helps stretch me in different ways. So, for 18 days I was completely disconnected from my normal, day-to-day life and I allowed myself to completely relax and renew. Nature and wildlife provide two of the most powerful tools for relaxation that I’ve ever found and the combination of Arctic ice packs, mountains, glaciers and sea water was incredibly renewing. Sea kayaking, hiking, riding a zodiac raft, seeing a blue whale and worrying about nothing more than getting too close to the business ends of large, hungry, white-furred mammals renewed me in ways that a massage just cannot. Studies show that being exposed to nature may improve your memory as well as your well-being. I know it makes me feel better all over.

I’m now back at my desk and I have the energy for whatever madness life and business throw at me. My mind is clear, I’m calm (relatively) but more important, renewed. My batteries are fully topped-off and I have the energy to accomplish my Big Things and juggle my daily demands yet feel centered, even in the unrest. Renewal lightens my load, and while the world around me may be (and often is) in chaos, I can remain solid in the midst of it.

You don’t have to travel 4,500 miles or 49 degrees of latitude to renew. Find what works best for you – it may be a three-day weekend, working in your garden or lying on a beach. Whatever it is, plan it and do it. You owe it to yourself, your family and your legal nurse consulting business. In the meantime, I’d like to share some small parts of my trip with you. (The one where the bear chases Tom is really funny.)

Rested, renewed and ready for anything.

Success Is Inside!

In 1982 nurses weren’t starting businesses in droves. And the term legal nurse consultant didn’t yet exist. What possibly made me think I could do something no other nurse had done before? That’s Promise 5 – believing as a nurse I really could do anything. Believing you can do it is 90 percent of the win.

I still remember vividly my first interview with an attorney. I was sitting in the attorney’s office to promote my brand new legal nurse consulting business. He was sitting behind a big desk and I was so nervous my legs were shaking and I worried that if I had to stand suddenly I might faint. What got me through that first interview was remembering who I was – a registered nurse.

I thought if that attorney was in a hospital gown with his backside showing I would have no problem introducing myself and inserting a Foley catheter. During my 27 years of owning Vickie Milazzo Institute, I always remember I’m an RN whenever I hesitate to go for what I want.

We Are Nurses and We Can Do Anything!^® How many of you handle emergencies as easily as making the bed? How many of you make split second decisions that are the difference between life and death for your patients? And how many of you do so in the middle of the night when there are no doctors to be found (and even if they were – they’d just get in your way)? If we can do all that, for sure we can do something as straightforward as talk to an attorney and analyze a medical record.

Any time you’re not grabbing the opportunity, tell yourself, “I am a nurse and I can do anything!” Believe and you will achieve all that you desire for your CLNC^® business.

Promise big and promise now!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what you will do to believe you can achieve it.

All great athletes and performers practice every day. Even after they achieve a level of success, they continue to practice and take instruction from their coaches, learning new ways to reach higher levels. They are lifetime students.

Success breeds success. Becoming a legal nurse consulting success student for life is about practicing being successful. What’s hard today is easy tomorrow – with practice.

A woman who started her CLNC^® business after completing Vickie Milazzo Institute’s CLNC^® Certification Program told me, “I think I can do this.” A few weeks later, when the demands of the business world had her spinning in circles, she called and told me, “No way I can do this.” We talked through some of the strategies she had learned in class, and she kept taking action steps. When she accomplished her first big business goal, she called me again. This time she said, “I know I can do this.”

It is a myth to think you can launch a successful legal nurse consulting business or succeed in any life goal without learning. The most successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants respect the complexity of consulting with attorneys on medical-related cases and become students for life.

I’ve owned my own legal nurse consulting business for almost three decades, and I still learn every day – from my CLNC^® students, staff members, favorite writers, speakers and business experts. No matter what the subject, there is always more to learn.

There are two ways you can learn:

• The hard way – through trial and error, making lots of mistakes. We’re going to do some of that anyway, but this is a slow, expensive path to success.

• The easier way – through the experience of others who have already successfully overcome the problems and discovered the answers. This is the quick and sure path to success. Just about any problem you will encounter, the right mentor has already successfully managed.

As a committed lifetime student, I choose to listen and learn from mentors who are far more successful than I am. I attribute much of my success to choosing my mentors wisely.

Commit now to being a legal nurse consulting success student for life and to learning not only from your own mistakes and accomplishments but also from successful mentors. When you do so, “I think I can” becomes “I know I can,” squelching any thoughts of “No way I can.”

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share how being a legal nurse consulting success student has helped you launch or grow your CLNC^® business.

When I decided to start my own business as a legal nurse consultant in 1982 I had a full time nursing job at the hospital, plus I was having to work a part-time job to pay my mortgage. How could I possibly realize my dream of starting a business? Through Promise 3. No matter how tired I was at the end of the day I would take at least one action step a day toward my legal nurse consulting business.

Let’s face it, dreams and visions are great, but without action they are nothing more than hallucinations. Without action, visions scud away and dissolve like clouds. While my belief in pioneering this new profession never wavered my belief alone wasn’t enough. I needed to take action every day.

When a national news anchor from CNN asked me how I got to where I am today in light of my humble beginnings, I was hoping to say something profound. But the truth was I did it one step at a time.

Like anyone trying to accomplish any whopping big goal, I had to tackle it in small workable chunks – talk to that first attorney, get my first medical-related case and build my first attorney-client relationship.

I lacked business savvy, but with each small step I gained both knowledge and momentum. Sometimes I barreled through with enthusiasm, other times I barely had the energy to inch forward, but the accumulated effect of all those steps brought me to where I am today. What I learned in the process and what still applies today is that it is less important what I do and more important that I do something.

Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants love the action as much as the dream. By taking action every day you develop the habit and discipline to make your vision a reality. When you focus not just on the idea but on making it happen, you stay in motion, not just dreaming your passions but living them.

Make this third promise now, that you will take at least one action step every day for the next 30 days on the big thing that will bring you closer to launching or growing your CLNC^® business. Once you are hooked on the natural high of action, taking giant leaps comes easy.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share the action step you will make today to launch or grown your CLNC^® business.

Legal nurse consulting may not be for you, but if you decide it is, then you owe it to yourself to go for it or reject it outright. Don’t leave the dream dangling with that one day someday I’ll get around to it attitude.

If you want to become a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, don’t wait for conditions to be perfect – won’t happen. When I was working in the hospital, I knew many nurses who had dreams, but they didn’t go for their dreams. I went to a lot of retirement parties for those nurses. And you know what they got: a glass of watery punch and a piece of white cake. And the punch wasn’t even spiked with anything interesting.

Dreams can make a person miserable. Going for your dreams is what makes us authentically happy. To paraphrase Yoda, “There is no try. There is either do or not do.” Own up to your passions, then step out and grab hold of them with both hands.

Despite a fear of cliff-hanging heights, I stepped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet to skydive. I was terrified. Once out of the plane’s cabin I couldn’t step back in. I was truly committed, even if not by choice, and the exhilaration I felt later at overcoming that lifelong fear proved to be a catalyst for future accomplishments.

Most of us stay in the safe cabin of everyday life. We never step out into the audacious dreams that smolder and spark inside us. What would your life look like if you didn’t have the choice of that safe cabin? If your only option was to grab that dream and jump into it? To go all the way once you made the jump?

It’s perfectly okay to admit that a commitment is not right for you and to reject it outright.

What’s not okay is to hold back and put less than everything into a commitment that is your passion. If you want something, like a new career in legal nurse consulting, go for it all the way and go for it now. When you do, you’ll wake up every day to a life and career you love.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what you will do to go all the way in your legal nurse consulting business.