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!

In honor of my favorite quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well-behaved women rarely make history”, my New Year’s resolution for 2012 is to be less well-behaved.

Whether it’s in an interview, a CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminar or an individual mentoring session, you’re going to see more of the real Vickie in 2012. I’m going to let go and tell it like it is and in so doing, I hope to inspire you to realize your own best self as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

Know that I remain in your service – it’s just going to be service a little more “Vickie style.” While mentoring one of you it hit me that I was holding back to spare your feelings. I owe you an apology. I not only wasted my time; I wasted yours too. I hung up the phone and vowed in 2012 to bring more of the realistic, optimistic, buck-up Vickie that my staff, friends and family know and many (or some) days love. This is the style that’s served me for 30 years in my legal nurse consulting business and now it’s time to crank it up a notch for you and your CLNC^® businesses. Here’s to being less well behaved in 2012.

Success is Inside!

P.S. Go ahead, comment and tell me what you really think.

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!

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!

We all know the person whose life would be totally different and of course much better if only “Y” had happened instead of “X.” The mantra never changes. “If Y had happened, then I could have done X” or “If only W had done Z, then my life would be different” or “If Q was different, I’d be different” and, my personal favorite, “If only Y had happened, I’d be happy or successful or married,” or whatever.

What successful people, especially successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants, do is live in the world of “what next”, not in the world of “what if”. If an attorney-prospect says “I’m interested, let’s stay in touch”, the CLNC^® consultant knows what’s next and does just that. The CLNC^® consultant doesn’t go into the space of “If the attorney had just given me the case today, I’d be on my way to quitting my job at the hospital.”

The first attorney-prospect I connected with asked me to call him two weeks later because he was preparing for trial. I waited two weeks and called, but he never returned my call. I called again; he still didn’t return my call. I called a fourth time and on that day he took the call. The rest is my legal nurse consulting history. It wasn’t easy during those waiting periods, but I stayed out of the “what if” space and just continued to move in the “what’s next” space. I didn’t allow “If he didn’t have that trial then…” or “If he’d just returned my phone call then…”; if I had, I predict I never would have made the fourth call and I wouldn’t be where I am today.

The only “what ifs” in your life and your legal nurse consulting business should be the “what if” questions you ask yourself about what you should be doing at this very moment.

• What if I make five sales calls right now?
• What if I practice my interview questions before I meet with that attorney-prospect?
• What if I call that attorney-client back right now?
• What if I turn off that TV and turn on my commitment to taking action on my legal nurse consulting business?

Now it’s my turn to ask you a “what if” question. What if you did all these things you know you’re supposed to do? Answer: Hmmm.

Success Is Inside!

When I’m at home, I love being home. There’s nothing better than sleeping in my own bed and enjoying a cup of healthy green tea with my bamboo clicking away outside.

I’m on the road for 9-10 weeks a year for business, and I try to find something to enjoy in each city I visit. Sometimes it’s going back to a favored restaurant or discovering a new “favorite,” visiting with a friend or just taking a walk in a botanical garden after working inside all day at one of our CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminars.

When I’m on the East Coast, my business day ends later because my office is an hour behind. Instead of focusing on the late night I’m going to have, I focus on enjoying the extra hour of quiet I’ll get in the morning before my office comes alive, my iPhone starts ringing off the table and the email starts flooding in.

When I’m on the West Coast, my business day starts earlier. Instead of focusing on the fact that my office will start looking for me at 6:00am, I focus on the quiet time I will get at the end of my business day when the office has been long closed. With everyone gone for the day and offline, I have uninterrupted time to go out with speakers and friends, to enjoy dinner, laughter and a healthy glass of red wine together.

I have a love/hate relationship with air travel, an industry that just keeps getting worse. Don’t get me started on airline service, airport food or the TSA pat-downs – I don’t have space in this blog. But when I’m finally in the air where no one can disturb me, I put on my Bose^® headset, play some music on my iPod^®, pop open my laptop and get deep into the rare and cherished uninterrupted work time.

Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who look for the good in every situation, look past any perceived difficulties and look for the silver lining are not only the happiest, they’re also the most successful. Sure, you can focus on the five outstanding, urgent voicemails waiting for you while deadlines loom large, or you can take an optimistic view and see where that takes you. Building tolerance for less than optimal situations builds upon your strength of endurance.

Attorneys come in all shapes and sizes, so it’s only natural that you’ll have favorites and not-so-favorites. When I mentor a CLNC^® consultant who is complaining about an attorney, I’ll counsel that CLNC^® consultant to enjoy the challenge or to find something positive about the attorney and to focus on that trait instead. Sometimes it may be more difficult to find that positive trait than other times, but in the end it will be worth it for your mental health and your Certified Legal Nurse Consulting business. I’m sure you know the saying “Wherever you go, there you are.” You may as well be happy both along the way and when you get to your final destination.

Success Is Inside!

On our vacation to Provence, I consciously left my iPhone^® at home. That sounds good and healthy, right? Well it did feel good and healthy right up until the time I stepped off the airplane in Paris and reached into my purse for my phone. Nothing there. Momentary tachycardia, like when you can’t find your wallet, car keys or wedding ring (Where was I last night?). I remembered the phone was at home, took a few deep breaths and headed to passport control.

Standing in line at passport control and later in customs there are big multilingual signs, “no cellphone use”. No problem, even though I don’t like to be told what I can and cannot do. It was a different story in the car ride to the hotel, in the Paris subways and on the TGV to Provence. When I sit in a car, I usually take advantage of that time to catch up with my office and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants. It was only natural that when every other Frenchwoman or man pulled out their cellphone to text, Facebook or check their make-up, I unconsciously and enviously reached for my own phone. It’s an involuntary reaction, much like breathing. When I have a bit of free time I grab the iPhone, check email, check Facebook and check email again (just in case).

It took a couple of days, but I soon calmed down and joined fully with the slow life of Provence. Walking from village to village, eating lunch outside in a small café or having an aperitif on the terrace before dinner, I forgot the iPhone. Even the urge to call family or friends left. I was free to enjoy my vacation, and enjoy I did! Although one day the combination of a French baguette, Époisses cheese and a healthy glass of great Bordeaux wine almost had me ready to tweet!

I heartily recommend that all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants take a temporary vacation from your phones. Your mental health might suffer at first, but then it will magically soar. Take a moment, put down the phone, pick up a baguette, some cheese and a glass of French red – you’ll thank me later.

Success Is Inside!