Travel

Here at Vickie Milazzo Institute we are counting the days until the 2010 National Alliance of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (NACLNC^®) Conference in Nashville! I am so excited about the hotel (Gaylord Opryland Hotel) this year. Staying at the Gaylord is like being in your own city – 40-acres of fun galore, so you will not even have to leave the hotel. But in case you do, here are 20 legendary ways to experience Nashville.

1. Take a ride down the Honky Tonk Highway if you like country music and longnecks (and if you’ve never had a longneck, you should try one). Clubs like Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge (Patsy Kline, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson all sang here), Legends Corner and Second Fiddle still host drop-in celebrity musicians and are great places to heat up a Spring evening.
2. Have a grand time at the Grand Ole Opry. There’s more to Opryland than just Hee-Haw. For more than 80 years, live radio shows have been broadcast every Friday and Saturday night from this grand home of country music. If you’re in town early for the Conference or choose to stay afterwards, this is a must-do. By the way – this isn’t the original home of the Opry – but more on that later!
3. Visit the “Home of 1,000 Hits.” Ever heard a song by Elvis, Roy Orbison or Dolly Parton? If so, there’s a good chance it was recorded at RCA Studio B on Music Row. Take some time to make a pilgrimage to a truly historic location.
4. Pay homage to the “Man in Black.” Stop by Johnny Cash’s grave and pay tribute to one of the greatest country music personalities and singers ever. Before you go, rent the movie Walk the Line and get a feel for the life and times of the legendary “Man in Black.” When you create your own CLNC^® legacy you’ll know what detours to avoid. His grave is really in Henderson but shoot, you’re this close already so why not go by?
5. Count the Elvis statues in downtown Nashville. I’m sure I didn’t see them all.
6. Do something truly off-beat and take a “Nash-Trash Tour” lead by the famous (or infamous) “Jugg Sisters.” You’ll take a large pink bus to where some of the most famous country singers have performed (including the Nashville jail), hear celebrity gossip, fun stories and generally laugh your way through the city.
7. Realize that you do know Jack – Daniels that is. Just 20 minutes outside Nashville is the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. It’s an extremely interesting, free tour and the grounds are just beautiful. But don’t expect any free samples because for some odd reason they built the distillery in a dry town (Lynchburg).
8. Stick around after Conference for St. Patrick’s Day and celebrate the 17th with a green beer after a trip to St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in east Nashville. The church dates from the late 1800s and is one of two “second empire”-style buildings in Nashville. If you don’t like old architecture – skip the church and go straight for a Guiness^® at Findley’s Irish Pub in the Opryland Hotel or any of the Irish pubs in Nashville.
9. Speaking of church, make time to visit Ryman Auditorium, also known as “The Mother Church of Country Music.” Built in 1881, this is the original home of the Grand Old Opry (1943-1974) and is filled with more memories than your great-grandmom’s attic. Check out the bronze statue of Minnie Pearl and look for the price tag on her hat.
10. Make some new friends. Nashville residents love visitors and are some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. Just remember when you order ice tea that swait tea means sweet tea and I do mean sweet, honey.
11. Take a drive to visit the Belle Meade Plantation. Dating from 1853, this is a Greek revival (What is it with Nashville and Greece?) mansion that was part of a 5,400-acre thoroughbred farm. The so-called “Queen of Tennessee Plantations” is a wonderful visit and the tour includes the Dunham’s station log cabin, plantation mansion itself, slave quarters, dairy and horse stables. The outside of the house still shows evidence of bullet holes from the Civil War.
12. Go celebrity spotting at the Loveless Cafe. This is sort of a pilgrimage because there’s a fairly good chance you might even see Elvis chowing down on their world famous biscuits and southern fried chicken. Leave your cholesterol outside, this is food to die for (or from). Buy yourself one of their “Praise the Lard and pass the biscuits” T-shirts. I promise you’ll have fun – clot my heart and hope to die.
13. Take a trip back in time and I mean waaaaay back. The centerpiece of Centennial Park is a recreation of the Greek Parthenon. Originally built for the 1897 Centennial Exposition, its features direct castings from the real Parthenon. There’s no Greek food but there is a great art collection (it’s Nashville’s art museum) and a 42-ft. tall statue of Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom. If you’re traveling with a culture snob, drop them here and then go have some honky tonk fun.
14. Eat at a Waffle House. It’s a Southern thang. They serve more than waffles but that’s the sole reason to go there. Elbow your way to the counter and sit between the sheriff and the deputys (Isn’t that Boss Hogg?). Don’t worry about your cholesterol and make sure you add a big scoop of whupped butter before you cover your waffles in syrup. If you don’t come home sticky, you didn’t fully immerse yourself in the experience.
15. Send your husband off for the day to see the statue of Sgt. Alvin York outside of the Tennessee State Capitol building. The World War I hero, Congressional Medal of Honor winner and Quaker hailed from Tennessee and may be its most famous resident. He lead an attack knocking out 32 machine guns, killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132 more. As a side note, Gary Cooper won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Alvin York. See if your hubby can spot the statue’s anomaly.
16. Scream, yell and pound on the glass at a Nashville Predators ice hockey game. If you’ve never been to see ice hockey, it’s a whole lot of fun. My favorite seats are in the first row just to the right of either goal. The pucks come at you at over 100 mph and you can even count the teeth on the center when he gets slammed up against the glass! The original Broad Street Bullies, the Philadelphia Flyers are in Nashville on Tuesday the 16th and it’s sure to be a good game.
17. Visit the Country Music Hall of Fame. Walk through the history of country music. See some of the really cool memorabilia and marvel at all the things you’re sure to have never seen before (especially Elvis’ gold Cadillac). You can even burn your own CDs from the music choices and just have a whole lotta fun.
18. Set yourself on fire and see just how hot it can get in March, with fried chicken that is. Venture down to Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack at 123 Ewing Drive and try the mild, medium, hot or extra hot versions of their fried chicken. This is not for the faint of heart but if you like it spicy, this is THE place to go.
19. Join the line-dance at the Wildhorse Saloon. If you ever watched “The Wildhorse Saloon Dance Show” on the Nashville Network here’s your chance to do the Watermelon Crawl and pretend you’re on TV. Kick up your CLNC^® boots with some good country music and free dance lessons starting at 5:00pm most nights.
20. Take a walk around the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. You could spend a full day wandering around and still not see everything. Best of all, it’s all indoors. You can even cool your feet off in one of the many waterfalls (just don’t let me see you). There’s so much to do here you’ll have to set a reminder so that you don’t miss any one of our exciting NACLNC^® sessions!

As you set the stage for your Nashville excursions, remember to come prepared to keep up with the tempo for the 2010 NACLNC^® Conference.

• Come relaxed and ready to discover new ideas. The NACLNC^® Conference is much more fun when you’re rested, and you’ll learn so much more if you leave your stress behind.

• Pack energy bars, raw nuts and other healthy snacks to maintain your energy. That Jack Daniels buzz will wear off quickly.

• Bring plenty of business cards to exchange with the many new CLNC^® friends you’ll meet.

• Go online and print the NACLNC^® Conference textbook sessions you plan on attending after you receive the link in my March 10 email.

Have a great trip and be sure to read my blog on March 11, 2010 when I share how to Master Your Strategies for the 2010 NACLNC^® Conference.

Success Is Inside!

This past Sunday Tom and I visited the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and their special exhibition on Arts of Ancient Vietnam. We’d already seen many of these rare treasures in the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi and the Museum of Cham Culture in Da Nang. The museum was filled with holiday spirit.

I love the holiday season and call me strange, but it’s not just the decorations and everybody’s good moods, I even like holiday traveling. I think what I like is the organized chaos of holiday travel. You find disparate groups of people all moving in their own holiday migrations across a state, across the country and sometimes, just across the airport. The lines at the airline check-in counters are fairly well organized, but once you pass the TSA security lines, the real chaos ensues. Some travelers are organized and move with intention, some are not and move like it’s their first time in an airport. I like to think of Tom and myself as travel pros, creating our own choreography as we move through the crowds of travelers.

Seeing the Vietnamese exhibit brought me back to an experience I had while stuck on a curb in Saigon (I know it’s Ho Chi Minh City but nobody calls it that). My objective, a restaurant where my husband and my lunch awaited me, stood on the opposite side of the street. I could see the food, smell it and, if you know me, you know I had built up quite an appetite.

Stranded in the Chaos

The only barrier between me and my lunch was crossing the street. Now, this sounds like a simple task, but at noon in Saigon, my objective might as well have been the far side of the moon. The road was crammed with motor scooters (called “motos”), bicycles, motorcycles, cyclos (pedaled rickshaws), cars, trucks and buses. The fewer wheels a contraption had, the more passengers it seemed to carry. I saw a family of 5 riding a Honda scooter – sans helmets, of course.

Even the center lines contributed to the confusion. In Saigon, rather than dividing the traffic into two lanes, each moving in opposite directions, the yellow markers apparently serve only to indicate that you are on a paved road. I watched as people passed, stopped, turned around and crisscrossed the center lines with utter abandon.

Traffic flowed both ways in the same lane, more traffic merged from the side streets, and people pushed their motos off the curbs into the flow at odd angles. At any given moment traffic bore down on me from as many as 6-8 directions, front, back, sides and all angles – everywhere, it seemed, except from above. To me it was a scene of incredible chaos.

The traffic lights compounded my problem. In Saigon they serve only an advisory purpose. Even when the light turned red, traffic continued to flow, as drivers blatantly ignored the red light! The lanes of traffic impatiently waiting at the green light would edge forward into the traffic that was ignoring the red light. At some point traffic trying to move with the green light would build up enough momentum (and vehicles) to stop the traffic running the red light. Traffic would then flow correctly until the light changed, and the whole process started again.

Dancing Through the Chaos

Under this onslaught, the flashing green “walk” sign over the crosswalk taunted me from the far side of the street. I was ready to look for something to eat on my side of the street when an older Vietnamese gentleman took my arm.

In English he kindly said, “Crossing the street is not a problem, but a dance.” With that, we stepped off the curb and entered the maelstrom together.

My heart pounded as we walked slowly across the street. Instead of greeting us with blaring horns, irate shouts and screeching brakes, the drivers saw us and adjusted to us. As long as we made no sudden movements (like diving for the curb or running screaming from the street), we were fine. I felt like we were swimming through a school of fish. The tempest flowed smoothly around us and before I knew it we had reached the other side.

I thanked my benefactor and went on to lunch. Later that day I taught the same technique to my husband and friends – at one point crossing a busy boulevard with an entourage of eight people strung out like a Broadway chorus line.

Later I thought about how the traffic in Saigon is a metaphor for your legal nurse consulting business. There is a sort of graceful chaos, everyone going in their own direction, some traveling with traffic, some across it and some against it. Buses and trucks barrel through the streets, stopping for no one. Certainly collisions and accidents happen, but for the most part the system works. People reach their destinations and life goes on. And the best way to survive is not to struggle against the flow, but to approach it like a dance.

Invitation to the Dance

Do you dance through your life, your CLNC^® business and the surrounding chaos? Or do you struggle against it, exhausting yourself, causing collisions with others and keeping yourself from reaching your chosen destination?

On any given day, each of us must adapt to life and pass through it gracefully. Occasionally things are going well, then out of the blue a big truck bears down on us, forcing us to stop or change directions. How we deal with such routine chaos as Certified Legal Nurse Consultants determines whether we prosper or fail.

In your CLNC^® business, you have attorney-clients, subcontractors, vendors, obstacles and challenges that appear in the road in front of you. You have many choices. Tell me – do you collide with them head on, turn down a side street, take a detour, avoid them altogether or simply flow with them? How well you adjust your dance to this chaos controls your future success as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

You can adjust to the chaos and dance through it gracefully, or you can allow it to stop you or force you into costly detours. The choice is yours.

In Saigon, I chose to cross the street with my new-found guide and enjoyed the reward of a wonderful lunch. Then I plunged back into the chaos, feeling a lot more comfortable with it all. Every day in my business I face the traffic, dance with it to the best of my ability and hope to enjoy continued success. You can do the same for your CLNC^® business if you cultivate the grace to flow with chaos.

Success Is Inside!

I just got back from four wonderfully luxurious days sitting on a beach in Mexico with nothing more on my mind than my stack of novels. You’d think that for a woman who grew up in New Orleans, in a home that didn’t have air conditioning, I’d only like warm weather places like beaches or jungles. Surprisingly it’s exactly the opposite! Many of my favorite travels have taken me to colder climates.

I’ve been snow-shoeing in the high Rockies, explored Iceland, the Antarctic, the Arctic (600 miles from the North Pole), trekked the Everest and Annapurna sides of Nepal and stood among prayer flags on a 13,000-foot high mountain pass looking across Bhutan’s Haa Valley and the Himalayas into Tibet. Standing in rushing water up to my waist while fly-fishing in a Canadian river in a cold drenching rain, I remarked to

Vickie at Chelela Pass in Bhutan

If you plan to go somewhere or start something big, whether it’s a vacation or a legal nurse consulting business, you need to be sure that you’ve completed all the necessary preparations. You need to dress yourself and your CLNC^® business appropriately if you want to enjoy success. Just like you can dress badly for an outdoor event, you can also dress your legal nurse consulting business badly with poorly designed marketing materials, an unprofessional-looking website and unclear communications with attorney-prospects.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, you need to always dress yourself and your business for success. Today, as you begin your day, I’d like to know what clothing you’re planning to wear for your legal nurse consulting business.

Success Is Inside (but the fun’s outside!)

I love to travel to remote places. I’ve been deep inside the Arctic Circle, the Antarctic, the high Himalayas and the plains of the Serengeti. The farther I am from home the clearer my mind becomes. All of my energies (physical, emotional, spiritual, mental) realign and I’m renewed again. But only if I’m careful to leave my American comforts at home.

One year I was packing for a trip to Morocco and I noticed that even though I had invested a lot of time and money in the adventure of exploring an exotic new destination, I was trying to bring my American comforts with me. Tom says that I travel like those old British explorers with teapot, table and tent. He lovingly told me I didn’t need my hair dryer unless I was planning on blowdrying a camel.

It got me thinking, “If I’m going to bring the U.S. and all my comforts with me, I might as well stay home and watch it on the Discovery Channel from the comfort of my couch while enjoying a cup of healthy green tea.” In other words, if I replicated the comforts of home, I would actually miss what I was going in search of – an exciting, unexpected experience. The only way to spark my senses and stimulate my creative juices is to move me out of my comfort zone and clear my mind so I can return home ready to deal with all the challenges of life and my business.

I quickly decided Tom was right. I didn’t need my blow dryer to ride a camel into the desert to camp out. By leaving some of those unnecessary comforts behind, I not only packed lighter (Tom said “hooray”) but I was able to fully immerse myself in the Moroccan culture. The result was a more complete sense of adventure and some slightly wilder hair for both me, and the camel.

Does the same thing that almost happened to me getting ready to embark to Morocco and the Sahara Desert happen to you as you embark on your legal nurse consulting adventure? Are you packing all your old “nursing career comforts” as you pursue your new CLNC^® career?

To experience all that legal nurse consulting has to offer, you must be willing to shed your old ways and habits. You’ll need to step out of your nursing comfort zone and let go of old beliefs that no longer serve you and may only hold you back. As a RN, you may have that steady paycheck, but as a CLNC^® consultant, you’ll have more fun and the potential for greater financial prosperity as soon as you open up to the possibilities within you. You’ll develop a new support group of other CLNC^® consultants through the National Alliance of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants association while abandoning the nursing station and cafeteria clique that may be dragging you down. Beliefs in administration, policy and procedures, red tape and “that’s not the way we do things here,” will be tossed overboard as you prepare for the faster moving world of business where your “life and death” decisions are made not for patients but for your business.

Start packing your bags today. One warning though, the wardrobe and accessories you take on your CLNC^® career are not the same as what you needed in your old life as a RN.

If you pack even one familiar “career comfort,” you might learn painfully that you could have stayed “home” and saved yourself a lot of time and money.

Success Is Inside!

On a recent trip to Paris, I had the chance to meet up with a young friend, international artist and filmmaker Edward Silhol. We met at his new studio on a hilltop with one of the best-kept secret views of the city I’ve ever seen. He’d just moved in and was still getting it ready so I felt privileged to be one of his first visitors.

I met Edward in Burgundy a couple of years ago. Since then, I’ve walked and Metro’d over half of Paris to see his art in galleries and have cruised the far reaches of the Internet to see the private portions of his website (it’s so secret I can’t disclose it, although I would love to).

Edward’s talents and love of art are far more impressive to me because you can sit with Edward in a café and drink (too many) French coffees or bottles of wine (a personal record that still surprises not only me, but anyone who knows me) and never, ever run out of things to talk about. From FaceBook to the French Revolution, from Impressionists to Indian food or where to find the best darn baguette in Paris (it really was) you can sit and talk, or just be with Edward. Enlightening conversation is a trait that more Americans should take the time to embrace.

I’ve been privileged to meet many well-known artists, but what strikes me most about Edward is that he’s got an incredible understanding of what it takes to be an artist. And Edward’s sage insight is exactly what it takes to achieve legendary success as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. I want you to hear it from Edward himself so check out this video with Edward and me at his new studio in Paris. By the way, we did turn off the video at the café – yes, some things are meant to be private and don’t worry – Tom was right there by my side (red wine and all).

Success Is Inside!

Karen, Vickie, Reese & Jill at Disney	Vickie and a Fan

My sister and I took my first nephew, Joshua, to Disney 25 years ago. At that time my legal nurse consulting business was only 2 years old. I had a blast seeing Mickey and Minnie through a child’s eyes, but I also noticed that just looking around this innovative enterprise, I was experiencing a crash course in entrepreneurship.

Everywhere I looked I discovered lessons and ideas for my own legal nurse consulting business. And this was a lot more fun than boring business class with a boring instructor who probably had never owned a real business. Thanks to my nephews, I’ve been to Disney more times than I can count.

I just returned from a trip with Josh’s daughter, my great niece Reese, her mom Jill and my sister Karen.

25 years ago I started with the kiddie rides, advanced to the wild ones as the nephews got older and here I am again starting all over with “It’s a Small World.” I can’t wait for Reese to be tall enough for Space Mountain.

The Disney entrepreneurship lessons live on 25 years later and are as valid today for your CLNC^® business as they were for mine when I pioneered the legal nurse consulting profession in 1982.

The Disney Experience

We pay big bucks to Disney to stand in line, long lines, for long periods of time that would challenge even a nurse’s bladder. And we smile while we are doing it. Some are really smiling even after paying extra to jump the line.

The Certified Legal Nurse Consultant Experience

Give your attorney-clients a reason to stand in line and pay big bucks for you and your CLNC^® services. Sure they could get a mediocre report “yesterday” from an untrained or mediocre consultant, but the smart attorneys aren’t searching for the legal nurse consultant who has a lot of free time on her hands. They seek successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who are in demand.

At Disney the more successful a ride, the more successful that ride becomes. Success breeds more success and attorneys (like people) only stand in line and pay big bucks to legal nurse consultants who they perceive to be already successful.

If you are successful and deliver superb work product and 5-star customer service, your attorney-clients will be willing to pay bigger bucks to be at the front of your CLNC^® business line.

Success Is Inside!

During my polar bear watching trip, one of the naturalists, Richard, was often one of the first to spot a polar bear. Now, if they’re sitting next to the ship or licking the bow that’s pretty easy, but Richard could spot an off-white bear in a white environment as far as 2½ miles away. Everyone was in awe of him. Plus, it wasn’t just polar bears that he’d spot. We’d be scanning the ice flows for anything that looked like it might be alive and when Richard would spot a bear he’d tell me something like, “It’s lying on its belly, off the bow at 2:00, about a mile out, just past the two ivory gulls and to the left of the walrus with the cavity in its left tusk.”

Richard could see things that others could not and everyone commented on his ability to be the first to spot wildlife. What went uncommented on, however, was the fact that it was more than just his talent. He had a slight advantage because he started off as a birdwatcher. So in comparison to spotting and identifying tiny, quick-moving birds, the large polar bears were relatively easy. When we were on land, he’d spot Arctic foxes, reindeer (easy) and tell you about every bird that swooped by seemingly without looking at them directly.

It was when I stopped to watch Richard spot wildlife, that I noticed why he was so successful. He never stopped moving and searching. Richard was a combination of constant movement and stillness, starting on one side of the ship’s bridge, searching, moving to the other side, searching, moving outside to the observation deck (in his flip-flops) and searching. When he was moving, he moved quickly (even faster than Tom), but when he was searching, he was a portrait in stillness. Richard achieved the perfect balance of movement and stillness, one that I certainly envy – not just for polar bear spotting but for everyday work.

Other passengers and crew were also looking for wildlife but without the success rate that Richard achieved. Some would spot for half an hour or so and then give up. Others would simply look to see where Richard was searching and then try and search in that same direction. But none of them realized the essential difference between themselves and Richard. He was working harder (and at the same time smarter) than anyone else.

I learned a lot from Richard over the course of my trip. He taught me the best way to spot a polar bear (at least one that isn’t sleeping) was to slowly move my binoculars or spotting scope (and I do mean infinitesimally slowly) across the landscape looking for the slightest bit of movement, any movement. On an ice flow, that movement might be an indication of wildlife or it might just be a bergy bit rolling over. In any event, I learned first to watch for movement as the first step in locating a polar bear or a walrus.

Next, Richard taught me to watch for variations in color. Polar bears, despite what you see in most photos, are not pure white. They’re really sort of a yellowish white but when photographers edit and color correct the photos, the bears tend to come out whiter than real life. Richard knew to scan for variations in color at the same time he was looking for movement – all in the white on white icescape.

But most important, Richard’s actions and lessons reinforced something I’d learned long ago and something that even Thomas Jefferson had commented on when he said, “I’m a great believer in luck. It seems the harder I work, the luckier I get.” Richard was making his own luck by working harder than anyone else on the ship. When he was on duty he never quit and I even ran into him transiting from the bridge to the observation deck during his off-duty hours. He was a man driven to succeed.

The successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants I’ve met aren’t the lucky ones or even the ones that are better at marketing than anyone else. The successful CLNC^® consultants are the ones who work the hardest – day in and day out. They’re the ones constantly searching and looking. If you find yourself commenting on how lucky or more talented some other CLNC^® consultant seems to be, maybe you should ask yourself whether or not you’re willing to put in the hard, smart work necessary to find your own polar bear or just sit back and look at someone else’s CLNC^® success. In the meantime you’ll find me on the bridge searching like crazy for my own polar bears.

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!

Every CLNC^® consultant worries endlessly, and to some extent needlessly, about privacy. Without getting into a discussion, let’s talk first about the hippo in the room – HIPAA. It’s been said that law firms are not covered entities under HIPAA (hooray).

That being said, in my humble opinion (which was wrong once back in 1977 – a really bad haircut), a legal nurse consultant working for the defense would be considered a business associate of the defense attorney who would be a business associate of the hospital, other facility or other defendant who is covered by HIPAA. On the plaintiff side, HIPAA regs don’t apply because you’re looking at the records with the plaintiff’s, or potential plaintiff’s permission. But to be safe, keep your CLNC^® subcontractors under contracts with confidentiality provisions and you should be in good shape. Once the suit has been filed, the plaintiff’s medical records are pretty much fair game as they’ll become public records. Here’s a Medscape article on the subject if you want to read more, but the best way to stay in compliance is to discuss any privacy expectations with your attorney-client first.

Enough of HIPAA – let’s talk tech! More and more Certified Legal Nurse Consultants are buying laptops, which means you’re working in places where other people can see your laptop’s screen. I know that every time I walk through a Starbucks^® or to the airplane’s restroom from my seat in steerage I look at what people are doing on their computers (most of them are watching movies but you see the occasional worker bee crunching away on a spreadsheet). Sometimes I get dirty looks but I really don’t see much. It’s the person sitting next to you for a period of time at a table or on a three-hour flight who is the danger.

If you’re worried about people seeing your work product, or lack thereof, consider buying a frameless privacy filter for your laptop. You’ll have to mess around with the installation and make sure your laptop will close with the screen installed, but the filter will hide your data from prying eyes. 3M makes some highly rated filters. They’re a bit pricy, none is perfect (some can be viewed from above) and all can be seen from behind you (otherwise you couldn’t see through them). The good news is that it works on all laptops, after you figure out how to install it. If you think you need one go ahead and buy it. I’m thinking about getting one to keep Vickie from looking over at my laptop to see my flight simulator score on those long “working” flights. But if people seeing your work (or play) isn’t a concern for you, save your money and put it into your marketing materials.

Another privacy concern is with getting your work product to an attorney via email. There are ways to encrypt your email but they can be pretty complicated to set up and not every attorney understands “public key encryption” like you do. So, for legal nurse consultants who want to keep their documents private, buy a copy of WinZip^®. It will allow you to compress your reports, into password-protected “zip” files, which you can then send to your attorney-client. Simply set up a different agreed-upon password with each attorney-client and then send them the password-protected zip files. If anyone intercepts your email or it goes to the wrong address, they won’t be able to read it (easily).

In an earlier blog I discussed another way to secure your work product by sending your attorney-clients your work product in portable document format (PDF). If you have the free Bullzip PDF Printer or a full version of Adobe^® Acrobat^® you can password protect your PDF documents too. Once you get Adobe, it will integrate into your Microsoft^® Word software so you can print PDF files straight from Word. The “save PDF” add-in from Microsoft will let you create PDFs but will not let you add security so you really need either Bullzip PDF Printer or Acrobat (Bullzip is a lot cheaper…free). Then you can simply email your new password-protected PDF documents to your attorney-client (just make sure he’s got the password).

You should keep in mind that it’s pretty unlikely that someone will intercept your email. It’s more likely that you’ll send it to the wrong address and password-protecting your work is a great way to keep it private.

This post should help allay some of your privacy fears but, remember, even paranoids have real enemies!

Keep on techin’,

Tom

One of the chief complaints I hear from legal nurse consultants about Gmail is that unlike Outlook, Thunderbird or other email clients, you have to be online to access or work with your Gmail email. If you’re a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant who wants to use your Gmail without the Internet (like when you’re on an airplane or in some inferior coffee shop that doesn’t have free Wi-Fi), follow these steps:

1. Log into your Gmail account.
2. Click Settings in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Click Labs in the top right corner.
4. Look for the selection for Offline Gmail and set the button to Enable and then click Save Changes.

Your web browser will then reload and there will be a new link that says Offline^0.2 in the top of your Gmail screen. Click on that new link and follow the instructions (you’ll need to download Google Gears but Google will help you) and download your Gmail email. Before you know it, you’ll have offline access to your Gmail no matter where you are! If you ever work from an intermittent wireless connection this could be a lifesaver. Of course, you can’t send or receive email while in offline mode.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom