Motivational

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!

There’s a movie called Pirate Radio about the “offshore” radio stations that broadcast rock and roll and pop music into England. This movie has one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in years and I asked Tom to put a copy in my Christmas stocking (I’m listening to it now). The movie is about the antics of one of the merry bands of radio pirates who floated on ships just outside of England’s territorial waters and blasted rock and roll music to the British public.

Believe it or not, in the ‘60s the BBC restricted the types of music the British could hear over the radio. In response, these rollicking and swinging bands of pirate entrepreneurs took it upon themselves to fill a gap in the radio market. The featured ship experienced smooth sailing until it hit a business “iceberg” and the ship sunk.

While the Pirate Radio ship did not sink from an iceberg, it did sink. This movie got Tom and me talking about the traveling Titanic artifact exhibition we have seen and the timeless and valuable business lessons Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can learn from the tragic events of the Titanic 90 years ago (besides the value of being onboard with Leonardo DiCaprio).

Your Business Is a Treasure

You enter the Titanic exhibit through a dimly lit room and walk past a large model of the ship as it sits today, broken and rusting on the bottom of the North Atlantic surrounded by treasures that have come to rest on the bed of the ocean. Here, on the museum floor, sit two rows of dishes half buried in sand – the wooden crate they were stored in long ago eaten away by the ocean. Over there is a crushed light fixture from the ceiling of a stateroom and here sits a ceramic sink, all recovered from the debris field surrounding the great ship. A hidden speaker system plays submarine sounds, adding to the chilling undersea effect and setting the mood for the exhibit to come.

Business Lesson #1 – One day you will retire. How will you remember your CLNC^® business – as a failure or as a success story? Will your mistakes become Titanic-size failures or will you learn from them and make corrections? Will something good come from the business treasures revealed by lessons learned? Amazing lessons lead to a new and higher levels of success for your legal nurse consulting business.

You Bear the Captain’s Burden of Trust

In the next exhibit room you see photographs of the passengers and crew. The black and white photos show stern looking men and women, sweet, well-dressed children, proud sailors and crew members. None had any idea of the tragedy ahead of them. They believed the ship was unsinkable and trusted in the White Star Line and their captain. In fact, the captain’s reputation was so strong that several of the passengers refused to sail with anyone else, booking passage only on ships under his command.

Business Lesson #2 – Your job is to steer your CLNC^® business ship wisely and to lead wisely. Outstanding leadership and knowledge will give you a ship full of loyal, trusting attorney-clients not to mention CLNC^® subcontractors and employees. Never betray their trust. One betrayal of trust can sink the business relationship. It may not be the Titanic, but when you consider that a single attorney-client can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to you, that’s a lot of gold left at the bottom of the ocean. Your subcontractors are needed to help keep your ship on course and making “all possible speed.”

Technology Doesn’t Guarantee Success

Next you see a large photo of the room where the Titanic was designed, along with shots of the ship under construction. It took 3½ years to build this engineering marvel, the largest ship of its day. Revolutionary advances in ship and engine design were developed to make the Titanic unsinkable.

Business Lesson #3 – You can create a modern, state-of-the-art business enterprise using every technology available, but as much as I love technology, it is only an aid. Attorneys need strong analysis to keep their cases from sinking. All the computers, software, smartphones, etc. are tools to be used, not substitutes for critical thinking and communication.

Glitz and Glamour Are Only Skin Deep

The exhibit recreates the level of comfort first-class passengers enjoyed:

1. Full-size staterooms, the largest, most comfortable rooms ever built on a ship, complete with running water and electric lights, a rarity in 1912.
2. A Parisian café, along with gourmet menus and manifests showing the diverse array of fresh and exotic foodstuffs stocked on board.
3. The grand wooden staircase with ballroom music playing in the background and a rescued cherub bearing witness to the ship’s former glory.

In today’s dollars, a first-class ticket would have cost as much as $78,000. The passengers truly sailed in luxury never before seen on a ship, yet, the Titanic was rushed into service and not all its systems and services had been tested. The opulence belied hidden problems.

Business Lesson #4 – The first impression is so powerful that you want every aspect of your legal nurse consulting business to look good. To an outsider your business may look solid and even glamorous. But as the captain of your ship, only you know where your weaknesses lie. For example, are your medical-related case reports filled with substance or just appear glitzy? As long as you can identify weaknesses and remedy them, you can still maintain the glitz and glamour. Ask for feedback from your clients and do some self-analysis of your work – nothing is perfect (just ask your spouse) and everything can be improved upon.

Stay on the Lookout for Icebergs

In the next starkly lit room, you step out onto the deck and feel the chill of the night air. A 30-foot-long mountain of ice dominates your view. You can press your hand into the side to feel the chill of the ice and start thinking about the coldness of the waters. The recovered ship’s bell hanging nearby rings suddenly, loud and clear, and you hear a lookout shout, “Iceberg!” You learn that in the rush to prepare the ship for sailing, neither lookout could find his binoculars, a fatal error.

Business Lesson #5 – No matter how many times you cruise the seas – even while tending to your attorney-clients’ every need – you must always be on the lookout. Don’t get lost in the details of running your CLNC^® business or creating the glitz and glitter. You can easily lose sight of what’s ahead and forget to watch where you are going or what icebergs may await you. To stay on alert you need to keep one eye on the future, one eye on the past and one on the present.

You Don’t Have to Hit the Iceberg Head-On

The Titanic’s collision with the iceberg wasn’t head-on. Instead the berg glanced along the side, tearing a gash no wider than three inches in six watertight compartments. The ship was designed to float with as many as four of these compartments flooded. But six flooded almost simultaneously, dooming the ship. With a harder collision, even a head-on blow, or a crash tearing one large hole across two compartments, the ship would have survived.

Business Lesson #6 – Don’t underestimate the small problems. Even a small amount of damage can have catastrophic effects. You may plan for a major catastrophe, but the cumulative effect of smaller injuries can sink your business as surely as a giant iceberg.

There Are Icebergs Everywhere

The Titanic sailed for only two days before striking the iceberg. After 3½ years in design and construction, it took less than 3½ hours for the ship to go down.

Business Lesson #7 – No matter how long you spend building your business, it is important to be alert at all times. Icebergs are plentiful.

Have Your Lifeboat Ready at All Times

Leaving the iceberg, you move to the next room and you are quickly sobered by the personalization of this tragedy with the lists of names, photographs and artifacts from the passengers. In the haste, some lifeboats were launched nearly empty. Some were over-full. There were far too few lifeboat seats for the number of passengers and crew. People who fell into the ocean lived less than 10 minutes due to the extreme cold. At least one lifeboat tipped over, saving only those lucky enough and strong enough to climb out of the freezing water and cling to the capsized boat.

Business Lesson #8 – You must always have enough lifeboats and be prepared with an alternative if you run out. Today’s lifeboats are self-righting – but you still need to be strong enough to climb out of the water. In business terms, this means you need not only a viable emergency or contingency plan that you can easily activate, but also the ability to survive for the duration of the emergency.

Rescue Your Best Attorney-Clients First

In most cases men chivalrously stood aside as women and children were put into the boats. The highest percentage of survivors were from the first-class section. Proportionately fewer second- and third-class passengers survived. Passenger class was determined by the cost of the ticket, and hence by the passenger’s wealth. (Incidentally, two rich passengers traveled in third class to hide their wealth, and both were lost.)

Business Lesson #9 – Take care of your best attorney-clients first, but don’t forget your occasional attorney-client. Your best clients are the ones you’ll need most and a show of loyalty here can take you far. But all attorneys, big and small add value to your company so make sure that your level and quality of service is constant across all your attorney-clients.

Icebergs Lead to Improvements

The sinking of the Titanic triggered a congressional inquiry (even back in 1912). A lot of fingers were pointed, and the rules of shipbuilding were changed forever. None of this helped those who went down with the ship although future passengers enjoyed a higher level of safety.

Business Lesson #10 – Rules can and will be changed after mistakes are made from hitting icebergs. If you’re not out there making mistakes, you’re not making any progress. Each mistake is a learning opportunity that will make your business better – if you take the time to learn from your mistakes and not just shrug them off as “experience.”

It’s Okay to Hit Icebergs

The last business lesson is the most dramatic of all. The Titanic wouldn’t have sunk if it hadn’t sailed. If you never leave the dock, you’ll never hit an iceberg – but you’ll also miss the thrills of the voyage.

Business Lesson #11 – You have to sail before you can fail. If you hit an iceberg while you’re working, at least you’ll have the chance to keep your business afloat. If you never leave the dock, you’ll never have a legal nurse consulting business to keep afloat.

Some businesses sink on the drafting board because they never get built. The owners spend more time getting ready than they spend on marketing. One CLNC^® consultant kept her business in the planning stages for four months because she wasn’t happy with the company name she had selected – and she finally went with the original name she had chosen. She might have missed a lot of icebergs in four months, but she also didn’t win any attorney-clients. As hockey legend Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

No business is unsinkable – but there are steps you can take to watch out for icebergs. Personally, I’d much rather try and fail than never try at all. I’ve made my share of mistakes and I’ve hit my own large iceberg. My business didn’t sink and I stayed afloat, thankfully I had the necessary lifeboats and contingency plans in place and acted quickly on them. The iceberg knocked me off course and led me on a journey that would change my business and the nursing profession forever. In fact, if I had missed the iceberg, I probably would have kept going in my original direction. Then you wouldn’t be reading this blog, and thousands of RNs who are now successful CLNC^® consultants would instead be battling healthcare facility icebergs daily.

Full steam ahead, lookouts to the crow’s nest!

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!

We’ve all worked with healthy and unhealthy patients and we’ve seen the effects of poor health habits on the human body. The health of a pregnant woman is often dramatically reflected in the health of her offspring.

To run a successful and healthy CLNC^® business, you must enjoy an optimal state of health. Give yourself permission to take care of yourself first. I love my business, but I love myself more. After all, without a healthy me, I couldn’t muster the energy to give 110% to my clients and employees every day.

Vickie’s Personal Prescription for Optimal Health

• Exercise – My goal is to exercise at least five days a week. I love hiking, biking and working with weights. Even a short walk outside helps me clear my head before or after a full day.
• Massage – A once-a-week massage renews my energy.
• Vacation – I schedule 12 weeks of vacation for myself every year.
• Time with spouse, family and friends – Make time for love. When I travelled to Africa, I was touched to learn that in a herd of elephants when one falls, the others will try to pick him up. I love being surrounded by my own family of elephants.
• Daily prayer and meditation – I’m most creative in silence. So I start each day with a cup of healthy green tea and a few moments of silence.
• Weight control – I eat mostly healthy low-fat, low-carb foods with occasional treats like popcorn at the movies and I avoid all high-fructose corn syrup and trans fats.
• Supplements – Flaxseed, green tea, vitamins and antioxidants are part of my daily regimen.
• Fun – I schedule something fun at least twice a week, including time for things I love – reading, walks with my husband, our whirlpool, theatre and musicals.
• Sleep – I get 7-8 hours sleep per night, not per week.
• Take Sunday off – I don’t even make my bed or shave my legs.
• Work my passion – I revolutionize nursing careers, one RN at a time. Nothing invigorates me more than a CLNC^® success story from one of my students.

Write a prescription for your own optimal health physically, spiritually and emotionally – and follow it. You’ll have the energy and vitality to enjoy your legal nurse consulting career.

Success Is Inside!

It’s a New Year, the time and opportunity to start new, think new and be new. Time to create new realities for ourselves.

Many of you have contemplated becoming a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, and may be wondering if, as a nurse, you’re cut out to be an entrepreneur and own your own business. After all, none of us were born entrepreneurs. It’s not like when we were born our moms asked, “Is it a boy or a girl? And the doctor said, “No… it’s a little entrepreneur.”

We often look to outside experts and when I started my legal nurse consulting business in 1982, I wished that nursing school had trained me better for managing a business. Nursing school didn’t offer classes such as marketing, accounting or business management. I wasn’t confident that my nursing education and nursing experience had in any way prepared me to own my own business. However, I soon recognized that nursing gave me most of the answers for successfully starting my own business. I also quickly discovered that I was better trained as an RN than most MBAs are for the world of entrepreneurship. Here are 10 things nursing taught me well about owning a business.

Success Lesson 1 – You Have the Power to Take Control of Your Nursing Career

We all know that patients heal faster when they take control of their health and practice healthy habits. Even the smallest positive action can give a patient a sense of control and empower the healing process. Placebos are proof that if a patient believes he can be healed, his body does the necessary work for him.

You too have the power to practice the healthy habits essential for taking control of your career destiny. Educate yourself about the necessary steps to achieve career health, including new career options like legal nurse consulting. Then take control of your career destiny by taking action on those steps.

Success Lesson 2 – Don’t Give in to Fear

As a nurse, you often treat different patients who have the same progressive disease, yet they experience dramatically different outcomes. We all have known patients who lived years after their predicted demise and other patients who should have lived but didn’t because they gave up. The fact that so many elderly patients die within months of losing a spouse is a sound example of the mind-body connection. In almost every case, the patients who died too soon had given in to their fear.

As Frank Herbert said in Dune “Fear is the mind-killer.” Fear can paralyze you and keep you from making decisions. There’s also a mind-business connection that will influence the health of your business. When I give in to fear, I become the biggest obstacle to my success. Practice mind control and exercise your mind daily for positive thinking. Shake off any lack of confidence and negative thinking. Don’t let fear be the reason you don’t live your career dreams. Always remember the mindset of the patients who live and the patients who die. The good news is that in business as opposed to nursing, bad results usually aren’t fatal.

Success Lesson 3 – Nurses Can Do Anything

If you can make life and death decisions in the middle of the night, heal sick patients and handle life-threatening emergencies as easily as you make your bed in the morning, you really can do anything – especially something as straightforward as starting a legal nurse consulting business. Whenever I face a business crisis, I remind myself, “I’m a nurse and nurses can do anything.” I’ve repeated this same message to myself for every obstacle I’ve had to overcome in my business.

Success Lesson 4 – The Nursing Process Is Your Friend

When I left hospital nursing to pursue my legal nurse consulting business full-time, I thought I could set aside the “nursing process” forever. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Business requires that same process of assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation. Every case you get involved in requires you to assess the possibilities and needs, diagnose the problems, plan how to achieve the goals, implement the plan and evaluate the results.

Your nursing jobs have prepared you well. You can apply the nursing process to any business situation and challenge. You will thank your nursing instructors for this one. Every time you review a medical-related case, interview with an attorney or face a challenge, you will rely on the process they taught you. Today, thanks to the analysis powers I gained from the nursing process, I handle things easily and successfully that would have seemed impossible 28 years ago. Aside from drawing blood, almost none of your nursing experience will be wasted in business.

Success Lesson 5 – Act Quickly and Decisively

As an RN you know that seconds make a difference in patient outcomes. You rarely have lots of time to ponder or brood over a clinical decision. Act as quickly and decisively in your CLNC^® business as you do as a hospital nurse and you will seize the opportunities that slower peers miss out on.

Will you always be correct? No. Will you make mistakes? Yes. But one thing for sure, you’ll never be paralyzed into inaction. Don’t miss your chance to succeed. Act quickly and decisively to grow your CLNC^® business.

Success Lesson 6 – What You Focus on Is Where You Yield Results

Nurses are often overwhelmed by short staffing, heavy caseloads and lack of support from hospital administration. Even the general public knows that working conditions for RNs are worse than ever. We quickly learn to triage and focus on what we need to do to heal patients in this less-than-ideal environment. Nursing taught me that where I focus my time is where I yield results.

That skill comes in handy for legal nurse consultants. It’s as important to triage and prioritize your actions in your CLNC^® business as it is when working with patients. Every day I’m confronted with dozens of challenges, five things that must be done at once, and 20 new creative ideas for my business, but I rarely panic. The organizational and multitasking skills I learned as a nurse have served me well. When you start your CLNC^® business, you will not receive any extra hours in the day. In fact, the days will feel shorter because you’ll be enjoying your newfound freedom. Your ability to focus on what’s really important is the perfect training for your successful CLNC^® business.

Success Lesson 7 – This Is Just Business, It’s Not Cancer

Ministering to patients and family members helps nurses put life, with all its problems and challenges, into perspective. Today when I overreact to a problem or feel I’m in crisis, I think of sick and dying patients. I think, “Now fighting for your life is a REAL problem.”

In business I’ve had lots of ups and downs. When the down moments come, I remind myself, “This is business – not cancer.” This helps me focus positively on solving the problem rather than embarking on a pity party. I’ve thrown plenty of those “parties,” and not only did they not make me feel any better, they never helped me solve a single business problem. As you grow your CLNC^® business, it helps to ask, “So what if that one attorney says no?” or “So what if my favorite attorney-client retires?” and to remember it’s just business, not cancer.

Success Lesson 8 – Illness Can Wake You Up

All nurses have treated some patients who only began to live after they almost died. We’ve all had patients who said they are glad they got sick, because while they were well, they weren’t living the life they wanted. The health crisis forced them to wake up, reassess their lives, decide what was truly important to them and go for it.

If your career is facing a health crisis, this is your opportunity to wake up and change things for the better. Today at work, ask yourself whether your nursing career is healthy and whether your nursing career is affecting your health and well-being. Wake up and remember that there’s always time to make a change for the better – but it’s better to do it now while you can still enjoy the change!

Success Lesson 9 – Business Is Personal

Even though technical skills are vital for nurses, the relationships with patients and their families are usually what matters most. Those relationships pay off. When I was a young nurse, I made a mistake on one of my patients and he knew it. To my surprise the patient requested that I continue to be his nurse despite my error. I attributed his continuing trust to the relationship we had established together.

Just like nursing, business is personal. I have all the technical skills to lead my seminars and run my business. In fact, at this stage I could hand off some of those responsibilities to others. But I still teach every CLNC^® 6-Day Live Certification Program we offer and speak to students daily because those relationships are what I thrive on. No one else could replicate my relationship with each and every nurse. As a result, most of our business comes from referrals by practicing CLNC^® consultants and graduates of Vickie Milazzo Institute.

Legal nurse consulting is a service business where you will apply the same relationship principles you learned in nursing to your attorney-clients and prospects. Provide quality service and excellent work product that no other legal nurse consultant can replicate, and soon you’ll feel like you’re in a short-staffing situation all over again.

Success Lesson 10 – Take a Deep Breath When Managing Your Employees

One more thing I learned, it’s easier to manage an ICU full of patients than a room full of employees! At least you can sedate your patients.

Every lesson I learned from nursing, I apply to my business today. You’ve already learned similar lessons yourself. Take a moment on this New Day of this New Year to revel in everything nursing has taught you. These lessons will help you manifest any dream you desire for 2010 including becoming a CLNC^® consultant.

Success Is Inside!

Over the holidays, four generations of my family gathered together to celebrate and, of course, to have a great dinner and some terrific wines. My 85-year-old father represented the first generation present. Next came my generation, including my twin brother Vince, my sister Karen and me. Karen’s sons Joshua and Matt were next and, our newest generation, Joshua’s daughter – my 9-month-old great-niece Reese. After dinner, we discussed the differences in the generations and, as with all of my Italian family discussions, it got quite enthusiastic with lots of hand-waving, a raised voice or two and everybody talking at once.

Just the amount of experience and knowledge that exists in this gathering of my family’s generations made me think about how Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can learn something from each generation – grandparents, parents, siblings, our siblings’ children and even their children’s children – for your CLNC^® business. Certainly each different generation can bring something different to the table and by examining the best traits of each, it can help us not just in understanding them, but also in managing our legal nurse consulting businesses through a wider lens.

Those Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who have been blessed to know their grandparents and even great-grandparents who lived during the Great Depression probably remember how they paid cash for everything. My grandparents didn’t even have a credit card and only bought new things when the old ones were worn out beyond repair. My grandmom seemed to wear the same pair of sensible shoes as long as I can remember. They taught us to live beneath our means and invest our money not only in our businesses, but also to build savings and not to spend our money on TVs and extra clothes we didn’t need. Thanks to my grandparents, my habit of investing and reinvesting in my legal nurse consulting business has helped me grow the Institute into the largest and leading education company for legal nurse consultants. Take the elder generation’s advice and reinvest in your CLNC^® business so that you are never in fear of losing what you have created.

My parents were part of the so-called “Greatest Generation” and I’m sure my dad, Sal, never one for modesty, would agree about that name. His generation gave service when called and worked hard but they always made time to have fun with their friends. My dad was off to work in New Orleans’ French Quarter every morning by 3:00am. He’d come home in the afternoon, take a nap and then go out dancing with my mom or play cards with his buddies. They hung out in large groups and always seemed ready to have a good time but were never late for work the next day. From this generation, legal nurse consultants can learn to work hard, but to play hard too. I have to work hard, my employees don’t manage themselves and my business doesn’t manage itself, but thanks to my parents, I have learned how to take the time to play hard too. I schedule and take my vacations, go out with friends and visit family. You need to learn that all work and no play will quickly burn out even the most ambitious Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

My generation are the “Boomers.” We learned to question authority, challenge the experts, to be competitive and confident. We’re also the richest generation since the early 1900s. We learned never to be defeated, sent women to new heights in the workforce, took stands on difficult issues and decided that it’s what you do, not what you say, that’s important. We worked hard to create a better world for ourselves and our families, to create a legacy for the generations to follow.

I’ve been likened to both Florence Nightingale and Oprah but what I really enjoy is being viewed as the most renegade nurse of my generation. My generation’s lessons for CLNC^® consultants of all ages is to make a plan for your business and don’t listen when others tell you it can’t be done. Our motto is “If you say it can’t be done, you better get out of the way of the person doing it!” All Certified Legal Nurse Consultants can take charge of your lives and your CLNC^® businesses and know that if you put your minds to it, you’ll accomplish whatever you want.

Generation X teaches us to be independent and entrepreneurial. Theirs is one of the most inventive generations (think of Google, iPhones and all those videogames just to name a few). They sought to be freed from the types of careers that, in their minds, imprisoned the Boomers (their parents) and even their grandparents. So, Gen X became the generation of dot coms, tech start-ups and entrepreneurs running lots of new small businesses. This generation won’t be hanging around the same hospital for 30 years counting down the days until their retirement parties. They’ll find their own way to fund their retirement. You’ve probably already run into a few of the Gen X nurses and learned that they’re seeking alternative nursing careers, such as legal nurse consulting, earlier than any other generation. Wait until you see the terrific Certified Legal Nurse Consultants they become. From them we can learn that the time to act is now, not to put off our happiness until a future date. Thanks to Generation X, I have to keep growing every day to assure that the Institute is as relevant today as it was 28 years ago.

Generation Y or the so-called “Millenials” is our most technologically savvy generation. They’ve been steeped in electronics and connectivity from day one. From their good traits we can learn to be collaborative and socially conscious. This is also a generation that likes to job hop and feels no loyalty to the company machine. At the same time, they’ve returned to embrace some of the beliefs of the Greatest Generation. They hang out with groups of their friends and believe in finding a strong balance between work and play. They’re also pretty thick-skinned, when you close a door on one of them, they don’t take it personally. Legal nurse consultants can learn about balance from this generation and be reminded that we got into the legal nurse consulting business to have a life. Gen Ys always remind me that having my own business has allowed me to be in charge of my own life and I love that!

I love every generation (some more than others on certain days) and what each one teaches me about my business.

Success Is Inside!

To be happy in a million ways

No man must stand alone with out-stretched hand before him

Let your heart be light

Children laughing, people passing, meeting smile after smile

Snowing and blowing up bushels of fun

A swell time to go gliding in a one-horse open sleigh

Jingle bells all the way

A bag filled with toys

All is merry and bright

Laughing all the way

Gone away is the blue bird, here to stay is a new bird

Time to rock the night away

Snow and mistletoe and presents on the tree

Homemade pumpkin pie

Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright

Let it snow

To be a child again

Making spirits bright

Angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold

Peace on earth, good will to men

Joy to the world

Love and peace this day

Although it’s been said many times many ways:

Merry Christmas to You!

Success Is Inside!