At least once a day I hear someone say, “When I lose that 10 pounds I’ll be happy” or “When I get one more attorney-client for my legal nurse consulting business I’ll be happy” or “I’ll be really happy when my husband finally cleans out the garage.” Seeking happiness or anything else we desire outside of where we are now, or making our happiness dependent upon some extraordinary incident occurring, pins those expectations on the future.

The problem with that mindset is we don’t live in the future we live in the now, simple ordinary times filled with simple ordinary events. Sometimes extraordinary incidents (like being the CLNC^® consultant involved in a $20 million verdict) will happen, but those moments pass and their resulting happiness will pass too. It’s in this very moment that we must find our happiness, in our day to day living, such as interacting with a CLNC^® subcontractor or doing the research on a case.

Life isn’t a journey to happiness; it’s a journey in happiness. Some of the career benefits of becoming a CLNC^® consultant are being able to set your own hours and have more time with your family. It’s within those extra hours that you’ll find plenty of opportunities to experience the happiness you deserve: the sound of your children laughing, working really hard on a challenging case for your favorite attorney-client or simply prepping dinner.

Certainly extraordinary incidents will bring you joy, but on a daily basis you’re more likely to experience an ordinary one. Take a moment to enjoy them now. For the moment, this moment is all you’ve got.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what you’re finding joy in right now.

I was in the gym working out with my trainer Jerome this morning, and after finishing my bench press, Jerome exclaimed “We did it!” That cracked me up and I joked “We? I’m the one moving that weight and hey, I don’t see you sweating.” He came right back at me with, “But I was right there with you, Vickie. I’ve got your back so you can concentrate on feeling strong.”

I like to think I’m your “Jerome.” Whether you’re just starting your legal nurse consulting business or simply trying to take your CLNC^® business to the next level, think of me as your trainer. While you’re concentrating on the work ahead, I’ll be right there with you. When you read my blog, stay connected on Facebook or receive my mentoring advice, remember the “we” in your efforts. Yes, I’m right there watching your back and if you hang with me, the CLNC^® mentors and your CLNC^® peers in the NACLNC^® Association I promise you’ll always feel stronger.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what makes you feel stronger.

It’s a new year and I am reminded of a line from Sex and the City: “You don’t want to peak in high school.” Life and career are so much more interesting and satisfying when you constantly strive for your next peak. While most of your friends, family and coworkers have moved far past high school, you probably know someone who is still living, or constantly reliving, a “glory day” of scoring a winning point in a sports event, nailing a promotion or getting the biggest law firm in the city as a client for her CLNC^® business.

I’ve hit a few personal and professional peaks of my own: appearing on National Public Radio, Fox & Friends, becoming a New York Times bestselling author and staying happily married for 21 years. But I don’t want to be buried with any of those peaks as my crowning lifetime achievement. Why? Because I don’t want to peak – ever!

Some days we peak higher than others, and that can be okay. For example, I recently hiked in the Rincon mountains outside of Tucson, Arizona. It was a beautiful fall morning and our trail steadily climbed up and down until we reached the top of one mountain where we had a wonderful picnic lunch. There were higher and lower peaks around us, but the peak where we had lunch was a sunny, warm spot with a view of the Mission San Xavier del Bac in the distance as a bonus. That peak was perfect for that day, even though I’ve hiked more challenging trails.

People who never stop peaking are happier because they have something to look forward to besides the distant memory of past peaks, or even worse, high school.

Let’s all keep peaking in 2012! Happy New Year!

Success Is Inside!

2012 is upon us, yet for many over-extended nurses it feels like just another mile marker in an endurance race going nowhere. Depressing, but true. We trudge through the week at a dreary job, drive home fretting about money and spend our evenings robot-walking through the usual haze of homework battles and half-finished chores. Passion and fulfillment? Nope, just sheer survival. And the worst part is, most nurses accept that this is just how it is.

Buck up! You can do a lot more than barely get by – and 2012 can be the year you actually start enjoying your work and life again.

I’m not talking about forgotten New Year’s resolutions. I’m talking about truly changing the way you think about things, breaking old habits and tapping into your determination. I’m talking about taking responsibility for your own happiness. I see this all the time in your tweets, posts and status updates in social media – the desire to have someone or something sweep in and change your life. Don’t you think if someone was going to sweep in and rescue you, it would already have happened?

I’ve earned the right to be a tough talker. I know many of you think it’s been easy for me, but I started a business in 1982 when registered nurses did not own businesses. It is possible to create a life that excites and energizes you. But first you have to make a conscious choice to step out of your old, unfulfilling one (which is exactly what I did when I left my dead-end hospital job in 1982 to start my legal nurse consulting business). The choice to step out of an old, unfulfilling life is a choice you must make over and over again – if you don’t, your old patterns will suck you back in.

There’s no reason why 2012 can’t be your biggest, boldest, most wickedly successful year yet. But for that to happen you have to match your big goals with some real changes. You have to take on a wickedly successful mindset that doesn’t take “no” or “I can’t” or “I’m too tired” for an answer.

2012 is your opportunity to do it right. If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to buck up and embrace the challenge.

Success Is Inside!

I hope that you share and enjoy this holiday season with those you love and that all of your holiday wishes come true. Remember, even a lump of coal is a gift (but I hope you do better than that)! Let’s all keep true to the spirit of the holiday and keep the true meaning of Christmas in our hearts.

Happy Holidays!

Success Is Inside!

As this holiday season comes into full bloom, with only four days left until Christmas and the inevitable aftermath of torn wrapping paper and dirty dinner dishes, I’d like to take a moment to discuss the best Christmas “present” you can give yourself. That present is being present – present in the moment with full attention and intention, not living with an eye on the past or looking to the future. It means living fully in the current moment – whether that moment is with your family, friends, legal nurse consulting business or attorney-clients.

As many of you already know, I have a morning tradition of waking up to two cups of healthy green tea. With the first cup, I take time to enrich my soul, set my intention for the day and, more importantly, give myself the present of starting the day by being present. This practice helps to prepare me for the upcoming frenzy and, while it doesn’t guarantee my day will be stress-free, it does guarantee that I’m better equipped to deal with the madness.

So buy yourself or your loved ones a Christmas gift – the present of being present. Here are three different resources that can help give you, or your loved ones, the present of being present.

The first is A Course In Miracles by Dr. Helen Schucman, a text that has the power to change your daily practices of living, learning, loving and meditating through a series of lessons and exercises. It’s not an easy read and is one of the most challenging books I have ever read, but if your mind is open it can transform all your relationships, whether spiritual or physical.

Second is Five Good Minutes: 100 Morning Practices to Help You Stay Calm and Focused All Day Long by Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstone. What I love about this resource is that while everyone may not be willing to get up early enough to have two cups of tea, anyone can find five minutes in their morning. This is a quick and easy way to train yourself to become present and start your day with calm.

My final recommendation is Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chodron. I must admit I was first attracted to this book by the title, and being familiar with Pema’s other works, I didn’t hesitate to pick it up. It’s a great way to learn how to use meditation as a way of life, not just a practice.

Life is challenging enough without taking time for ourselves. Reading any one of these books won’t change your life immediately – think of them as seeds that will help you grow into all that you are meant to be. Give yourself the present of being present this Christmas and in the New Year.

Success Is Inside!

People tell me that what is even more impressive than the fact that I went from a hospital nurse to owner of a successful business is that I’ve sustained and grown that business for 29 years. Especially since we’ve gone through not just boom times, but also the ugliest recession since the Great Depression.

Managing my business and 23 employees is challenging and potentially exhausting. There’s one of me and 23 of them. When they have problems, they naturally think they’re worse than anyone else’s, but as the boss, their problems are magnified 23 times – plus I’ve got my own problems. I’ll readily admit there are days I might prefer to zap them with an Epi-Kit, defibrillate them back to life, or just holler “Off with their heads!” from the throne in my office.

“Off with their heads” is not a viable option, so I need to have my act together to show up the right way day after day after day. This is no easy task. How do I do it when I do? What’s the secret to my success? It’s actually very simple and every one of you can start doing it for yourselves too.

First, I wake up very early in the morning. No computer, radio or TV. I always love waking up because I do so just for me. Once I’m up, I make the first part of my day all about my development, emotional and physical. Emotional and physical renewal gives me the endurance and the stamina to do the running-a-business-thing day after day after day. I start the first part of my day with two cups of healthy green tea. Over the first cup of tea, I make time for my spiritual development. Over the second cup, I take time to read a book or just sit and connect with me and my passions.

Once the tea is gone and the mind is ready, it’s time to take care of the body so I’m off to the gym or out into our “hood” for a brisk walk. I exercise first thing in the morning because at the end of the day too many things (including me and my lack of motivation) get in the way. Early in my business, I pre-paid for a lot of evening Pilates^® classes that I never made. It took me a year to look reality squarely in the eye and admit I was more likely to exercise if I did it before my office opened.

I’m not saying that every Certified Legal Nurse Consultant has to get up early in the morning. You know yourself and what works best for you – maybe the end of the day is a better time.

The bottom line is that to be our best selves, we need time for ourselves. The key to making your CLNC^® success long-standing is to make sure you make time for your time. This is one of the keys to avoid being a one-hit wonder.

Success Is Inside!

A recent analysis of the stream of Twitter “tweets” reveals that people are happy in the morning, less happy throughout the day while they’re at work and then happier again after work when back at home. That’s a pretty revealing study which suggests that most people are compartmentalizing their life into a work life and a personal life. But the reality is, we don’t have two-compartment lives. We only have one life. Most of us spend more time at work than with our families. You can’t turn happiness off at work and go home and turn it on and expect to have a passionate, purpose-filled life.

I’m not naive. None of us can expect to feel happy all day, every day. In fact if someone claims they are, I’d bet that they’re either medicated or need to be. Likewise, we can’t put our happiness on hold 12 hours a day when at work and then crank it up when we get home.

I faced the ramifications of such a life on my mind, body and soul 29 years ago when I woke up to a dead-end job at the hospital. Plus, I was going to have to work overtime for the rest of my life just to pay the mortgage on my 1,100 square-foot condo. And I was way too mouthy and opinionated for a hospital institution.

I seized my dissatisfaction and started my own business as a legal nurse consultant. Owning my dissatisfaction and, most importantly, doing something about it changed my entire life.

Is it time to check in and assess if you’re one of those Twitter statistics? If so, what do you plan do about it?

Success Is Inside!

One of my favorite quotes by Shinichi Suzuki states: “What we’re doing here is so important, we’d better not take it too seriously!” I think CLNC^® consultants excel at this in part because of our background in nursing. As nurses, we deal in serious subjects: death, disease and dismemberment – just to name the fun parts of the job. Then there are the short staffing and floating issues, arrogant doctors and administrators who are out of touch.

In order to handle all the stress, nurses have to develop a sense of humor which outsiders might find strange to say the least. Nurses can find the humor in just about any situation. And nurses even have a sense of humor about their own health crises. Recently I rode an ambulance with a good friend (also a nurse) who was being transported. In the E.D. she said “Vickie, please don’t tag me on Facebook in that ambulance photo.” I promise I didn’t even take a photo, but her sense of humor reassured me that she was at least stable.

When we become Certified Legal Nurse Consultants and start working with attorneys, the game changes: or does it? Suddenly instead of seeing patients who recover, we see a higher percentage of catastrophic injuries and plaintiffs seeking redress and compensation, often with no hope of recovery. It can depress us if we let it. When this game changer occurs, do you change your game or do you approach your legal nurse consulting business with the same sense of humor as you did your nursing practice? I’d recommend keeping your sense of humor.

What we do as CLNC^® consultants is serious, but if you catch yourself taking yourself too seriously step back and remember what Suzuki said; “What you’re doing is so important you’d better not take it, or yourself, too seriously!” Take some time today to have a laugh with an attorney-client. It’s good for the relationship as well as your soul.

Success Is Inside!

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!