entrepreneur

Nurses have the strength of fusion. When a patient arrests, your team comes together and fuses like a single entity to do whatever is needed to code the patient successfully. Why not use this strength of fusion to code yourself? The more audacious your goals, the more you will need other people to help you achieve those goals. This means surrounding yourself with strong, successful people of integrity to keep you, and your dream, alive.

More powerful than networking or brainstorming, fusion is the process of collaborating, mentoring, masterminding ideas together and encouraging individual passions and visions. Even though I have a successful business, I also had a personal goal of writing my book Inside Every Woman: Using the 10 Strengths You Didn’t Know You Had to Get the Career and Life You Want Now – and that wasn’t happening. One business excuse after another. It was after I brought nine women together to discuss my book idea that I started on my book in earnest. Fusing with these women stirred my desire and passion and fueled me to move from the dream of the book to the reality of the book.

Even though I’m normally catatonic after 9:00pm, I found myself using my strength of endurance, writing and rewriting, writing and rewriting again and then rewriting the rewrites until 2:00 in the morning. I was energized and ready to move forward. Sure, I lost sleep but I gained a new fire for my life. Suddenly attaining an impossible goal didn’t seem so impossible at all. The collective force of fusing with those nine women is what made my bold venture possible.

The more successful we are, the less time one has to spend with friends and family. We spend less time doing the things we like and more time doing the things we need to do to make our businesses successful. Running your legal nurse consulting business, managing people or navigating your way through the hospital maze can be very stressful and sometimes lonely. That’s why fusing with other successful people is vital to encouraging and empowering you. Hang with winners if you want to be a winner. Only hang with losers if you want to be a loser.

You can fuse with successful CLNC^® consultants from other cities and states. The deepest, most effective fusion will happen when you connect with CLNC^® consultants from different locations and different specialties. CLNC^® consultants who are not your direct competitors and CLNC^® consultants who will wholeheartedly share the bold bursts of genius that have propelled their businesses to higher levels.

Fusing with CLNC^® consultants at a distance will take some planning, but it’s worth it. Don’t expect to have monthly meetings. Instead, plan for getting together in person quarterly or twice a year or even annually at the NACLNC^® Conference. To keep the fusion going in between, use Skype video-conference calls, telephone conference calls, Facebook, monthly chats and emails.

You can also fuse with entrepreneurs who are not CLNC^® consultants. In any group of entrepreneurs, someone has already solved the very challenge you’re about to face – getting your first client, hiring your first employee, working with a difficult client. The key is to remember that successful people hang with other successful people. There’s nothing wrong with fusing with people who, like you, are on the way up.

In fusion, we all have to pull our own weight, carry our own loads and be responsible for our own actions. Choose ruthlessly and honestly. Remember – it’s your career, your life and your goals. Choose carefully so that your fusion team is one that supports you.

Success Is Inside!

P.S.	Comment and share how you can use fusion to grow your legal nurse consulting business.

My success, like that of many entrepreneurs, is built on challenging the experts – not relying on them. Our Founding Fathers weren’t expert politicians. Our captains of industry weren’t experts in their fields. Our best inventors weren’t experts. America and almost all of our achievements were built by a nation of amateurs, tinkerers and inventors constantly poking, prodding, testing and discarding what didn’t work until they eventually hit the magic formula for success.

In 1982, when I pioneered the field of legal nurse consulting, I challenged the experts. The whole concept of legal nurse consulting was contrary to what attorneys accepted as an industry standard. Typically, they relied on doctors to try to make sense of medical records. How crazy is that? As RNs, we know doctors don’t even read the medical records when they’re at work. So how could attorneys possibly be getting what they really needed? Not to mention the fact that physicians were charging way too much for their time and weren’t always giving the attorneys objective opinions (because doctors are way too protective of each other).

I had to go against the “experts” and educate attorneys that the registered nurse (RN) is the only healthcare provider who knows everything that is going on with the patient. We’re the ones with hands-on information, with face-to-face 24/7 contact with patients, and most important, the only healthcare provider who ever reads the entire medical record. As RNs, we not only have the expertise to uncover vital facts and key pieces of information that can make or break an attorney’s case, but we’re cost-effective too. As an added bonus, we bring our (highly developed) skills of critiquing other healthcare providers to the table. This ensures that we deliver an objective opinion.

Shortly after I started consulting with attorneys on the medical issues in their cases, I recognized exactly how widespread the need for nurses in the legal arena really was. My next step was to begin training other nurses on how to consult with attorneys too. Now I had two growing businesses in a field the experts said would never succeed. Today, over 6,000 CLNC^® consultants are still proving those same experts wrong!

Contrary to what most people believe, it doesn’t take an Einstein to spawn brilliant ideas, and even Einstein wasn’t born an expert (just a genius). Experts and extraordinary people can and do wake up with dumb ideas while ordinary people can and do wake up with extraordinary ideas.

The reality is that there are very few Einsteins out there and a lot more ordinary people like you and me (some with Einstein hair though). Like I said, ordinary people wake up with ideas every day; some are brilliant ideas, some are ordinary ideas and some are just plain dumb. But even a small, ordinary idea can pay off huge when you have the courage to own it and take action on it.

In my company, I encourage everyone, expert or not, to speak up when they have a new concept and to verbalize their objections when they think something isn’t working. Sometimes the person who knows the least about the subject asks a question that helps us make the biggest breakthroughs. In fact, I always know we’re onto a truly innovative idea at Vickie Milazzo Institute when one of the experts says, “You can’t do that.”

You’ll advance your legal nurse consulting business faster by listening to non-experts as well as experts. The experts aren’t always right except in their own mind. If it weren’t for people who didn’t listen to the experts, there are a lot of the things that we take for granted today that wouldn’t exist because the experts said that they weren’t needed or nobody would buy them.

What “expert” have you challenged lately? What “non-expert” have you listened to? Don’t let anyone stop you on your way to CLNC^® success.

Success Is Inside!

P.S.	Comment and share the brightest idea from a non-expert that helped you grow your CLNC® business.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Success Is Inside!

P.S.	Comment and share how you are creating a complaint-free day for yourself or GO AHEAD and tell us about one of those annoying complainers.

Powerful, strong entrepreneurs have one common trait – they are passionate about their business. In today’s post, Beverly Denver, the publisher of Houston Woman Magazine talks with me about what drives passion in successful entrepreneurs. Certified Legal Nurse Consultants will find Beverly’s insights especially applicable to your CLNC^® businesses.

Success Is Inside!

P.S.	Comment and share how passion for your legal nurse consulting business has changed you.

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!

P.S.

What polar bears know about renewal is that like entrepreneurs, they’re active year round (only the pregnant females get to rest). Polar bear renewal consists of several months of summer fasting followed by eating all the ringed and bearded seals they can catch before winter comes back. I like my renewal much better – what do you think?

When my father was a kid, he didn’t even know a nickel. He and his friends were penny boys. They couldn’t afford comic books or candy, but they found creative ways to have fun on what they called “the greatest corner in the world.”

Nothing got in the way of their fun. If a skate broke, they’d tear it apart and make a scooter. They’d make their own toys.

My father taught me that fun was what you made it. It wasn’t about spending money, or possessing the latest Barbie. Although, I would have really enjoyed a CEO Barbie. (Wouldn’t that be great, the one that comes complete with her own briefcase, power suit and assistant. “Ken. Get me a cup of coffee. NOW!”)

Even having kids didn’t stop my parents or their friends from enjoying life. When they were married with children, none of them could afford babysitters. No problem. They went out anyway, kids and all, each couple taking turns babysitting in the car while the rest were inside dancing the swing, celebrating life.

When I feel overwhelmed by my responsibilities, I think about how my parents always found time to dance! Happy Father’s Day and thanks Dad, for teaching me how to dance and to appreciate the simple joys of entrepreneurship and my legal nurse consulting education company.

Success Is Inside!

P.S.	Comment and share what your dad taught you about your CLNC® business.

On my trip from Houston to San Diego to attend the christening of my new great-niece Reese, I experienced a strong dose of branding. Many of you know I enjoy my cups of healthy green tea almost as much as I enjoy a glass of healthy red wine. You probably don’t know that I have a secret addiction for Starbucks^® coffee. One that’s not entirely healthy if I’m not careful to tame it. I don’t get a Starbucks fix on a daily basis, but I manage to fit in two-three cups a week (usually at least one free one) on my morning walks with Tom. So, anytime I hit an airport in the morning (and I tend to fly only in the morning), my internal GPS goes off as soon as I clear security. That GPS will lead Tom and me directly to the airport’s Starbucks for my “red-eye.”

Tom’s favorite part of flying is sitting in Continental Airline’s Presidents Club. It’s all I can do to keep him from getting us to the airport three hours before our flight. He likes the free newspapers and will plow through the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Houston Chronicle and The Financial Times and then jump on the club’s free wireless Internet to blow through his email on his laptop – all before we head to the gate. Even though I’m a president, I’m not crazy about the Presidents Clubs. From my point of view, although the seats are comfortable and the restrooms are clean, there’s no decent food. We usually fly before the bar is open and, here’s my pet peeve, the coffee is terrible.

As part of the process of being married for almost 19 years, we’ve worked out a bargain (one of many). I agree to get to the airport a little early. Tom agrees to go to Starbucks with me for my Starbucks fix. Then we both go to the Presidents Club so Tom can get his “news” fix. That bargain sometimes turns out to be more than Tom expected and a little frustrating for him as our last few flights have gone out of gates 27 or 30 in Terminal C at Houston’s George Bush Airport (IAH) and the closest Starbucks is way over in Terminal E. In fact, it’s so far that I joke with Tom that it’s in another time zone. What makes it frustrating for him is not just that we’ll have to walk one mile across the entire width of the airport, but that we’ll pass by at least two other brands of coffee shops (Peet’s and Einstein Bagels) and any number of fast food joints serving coffee on the way to the Starbucks in Terminal E. Tom loves to drink coffee, but he doesn’t really care that much about the brand. It can be airline coffee, McDonald’s coffee or even the brown water they call coffee in our office. As long as it’s hot, he’s happy. Me, I’m stuck on Starbucks. In fact, I’m so hooked, I go without coffee if I can’t find a Starbucks. Now that’s brand identification!

Let me ask you about your brand as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Do you provide your attorney-clients with the quality of service that creates that sort of brand identification with you? Will your attorney-clients use only you for their medical-related cases? Are you the first and only legal nurse consultant they think of? If yes, you’ve accomplished what all entrepreneurs strive for. If no, ask yourself what you can do to create the Starbucks experience for your attorney-clients. Make it more than just providing the best CLNC^® work product available. Add a little lagniappe (as we say in New Orleans) – something more. In the technology age when everyone emails each other, show up at the door with bagels and a box of Starbucks coffee, deliver a bottle of champagne after your attorney-client wins or settles a big case or send a handwritten thank-you note.

I’d like you to comment and post some of your favorite tips for fostering brand loyalty to your own CLNC^® business. While you’re doing that, I’ll have another cup of one of my favorite brands.

Success Is Inside!

It’s hard to believe that in my lifetime I’d ever see layoffs in the nursing field. Like many of you, I remember the good times when there were billboards around my city advertising signing bonuses for nurses at local hospitals. That’s all changing. Two recent articles in the Wall Street Journal (1) (2) and one in the Washington Post are focusing on the fact that, while there is still a nursing shortage, there is now a shortage of nursing jobs. That sounds like a contradiction in terms but it’s not.

In a March 2009 report, the AHA revealed that 53% of the hospitals surveyed were operating at a negative margin or in plain English, they’re losing money. Hospitals in some areas of the country are reducing hospital staff. Just a year ago hospitals that were taking just about any skilled nurse who walked through the door are now finding it easier to be selective in their hiring. In short, this ain’t your mother’s nursing profession anymore.

If the news from nursing wasn’t already bad enough, there’s a news story about Dean Health System which announced its intention to “immediately” lay off 90 employees. This included a nurse who was assisting in a surgical procedure and was called out of surgery to be told she was laid off! Okay, I can understand cost cutting, but don’t you think it’s a little extreme to lay someone off in the middle of a procedure? Has the world just gone crazy? What if they’d laid off the anesthesiologist? Or the surgeon? I shudder to think of the consequences (Dr. Smith, please report to HR, stat!).

The good thing about legal nurse consulting is that medical malpractice and personal injury litigation is recession proof. Now that we’re seeing financial stress on hospitals and doctors, I believe we’re going to start seeing more and more medical and nursing malpractice as well as the delivery of substandard healthcare.

A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that a fifth of Medicare patients were rehospitalized within 30 days of their initial discharge! When the pressure is on to cut healthcare costs by reducing care, testing and length of stay; as nursing shifts come under more pressure with fewer nurses covering more patients; and as healthcare continues to devolve into what I call the “Dark Ages of Medicine;” you can be sure that Certified Legal Nurse Consultants will be on the front lines working with attorneys to redress the wrongs that are certain to happen.

One of the things I like best about being a self-employed entrepreneur is that the only person who can lay me off – is me (and that isn’t happening any time soon)!

Stay busy!

Success Is Inside!

On February 4th I gave an assignment for all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants attending the 2009 NACLNC^® Conference to go see the movie Slumdog Millionaire and to identify Jamal’s maverick entrepreneurial moves. For those of you who couldn’t join us in San Antonio, read the brief overview of my conference opening below.

I will start by confessing that the only reason I saw the movie was because of the acclaim it was receiving. Frankly, I didn’t have the high hopes for Slumdog Millionaire that the critics had. It was directed by Danny Boyle and the last movie of his – Trainspotting – I walked out of.

Set in Mumbai, India, Slumdog Millionaire unravels the main character Jamal, who lives in a slum and against all odds, escapes by evolving into a true entrepreneurial maverick. The movie opened with a torture scene and just when I was packing up my popcorn to leave, suddenly the scene switches to Jamal, as a little kid, diving into a filthy toilet, and before I knew it, I’m sitting back down, laughing so hard I’m falling out of my seat.

What made it funny is – it isn’t even a toilet. It’s a squat hole with a 4-foot drop into a pit – filled with you know what.

Locked in the outhouse for this squat hole, Jamal’s first maverick move is when he plunges himself through the squat hole and literally, into the sh*t. Covered head-to-toe with excrement he uses that to his advantage to push his way through a crowd and ask a famous Indian movie star for his autograph.

And some of you are afraid to walk up to an attorney in your best suit and ask for a case.

Then, after losing his mother at age 5, he and his brother survive by scavenging dumps for scrap materials to sell.

You already know that some of the best marketing strategies are free. But when’s the last time you made a maverick move and scavenged your old attorney-clients for new cases?

Soon the brothers are abducted by a gangster who steals children off the street with the plan of maiming them and sending them back out to beg. Jamal doesn’t mind begging – but he’s not about to settle for being maimed, so he and his brother find a maverick way to escape.

Let me ask you, are you settling and accepting something in your CLNC^® business that you shouldn’t?

We next see Jamal stealing shoes at the Taj Mahal to resell in the market.

Overhearing the guides taking tourists around the Taj, Jamal, in another maverick move, promotes himself to self-professed and self-educated tour guide, filling the tourists with facts he makes up as he goes along.

When’s the last time you tackled something that you’re not an expert on? That’s maverick.

As an uneducated young adult, he works as a “tea wallah” delivering refreshments to employees in a call center. A job he uses in true maverick manner to locate his missing brother and, against all odds, to catapult himself onto the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

On the show, the host secretly tells him the answer to a question but he doesn’t trust it. He goes with his gut and this uneducated slumdog chooses a different answer instead – and wins. That’s a true maverick.

When is the last time you ignored someone’s “expert” advice and came out the winner?

Now I’m not advocating you start running scams on your attorney-clients or make uneducated guesses about your cases. We will leave that to your competitors.

What struck me about the movie was the spirit, the life force and the maverick qualities embodied by Jamal. His entire life he faces terrible adversity and yet you don’t see that stopping him.

One door closes in his face and he forces another one open, each time using his life experiences to succeed.

Let me ask you: What would your CLNC^® business be like if you never gave up?

Now I know this is just a movie. But what if you allowed yourself to have Jamal’s maverick entrepreneurial spirit?

Like life, Slumdog Millionaire is not all feel-good. Parts of it are painfully harsh. But in the end, it’s the story of a little boy who teaches you the greatest tools of the entrepreneur – maverick persistence, hope and optimism.

Jamal never gave up hope, never gave up trying and never gave up on himself.

Two of the child-actors in the movie were actually from the slum and ended up, against impossible odds, walking the Red Carpet, spending a day at Disneyland and receiving a hero’s welcome when they returned to Mumbai. If opportunities are there for the slumdog Jamals of the world, why not for you?

This story reminds me that life is meant to be good.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

What’s stopping you?

Go out.

Get started today.

My motto is: We are nurses and we can do anything!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Thanks again to all for a great Conference. Comment to share your best maverick entrepreneurial techniques you learned from Slumdog Millionaire.

Welcome all Certified Legal Nurse Consultants who have stormed San Antonio for the 2009 NACLNC^® Conference. I hope you’re as excited as I am about our keynote speaker, Stedman Graham.

Since our Conference theme is Move Like a Maverick for Breakaway CLNC^® Success here are some tips that will help you maneuver through the Conference like a maverick.

1. Start Day 1 off with some fun. Don’t miss out on Texas-style mariachis at 7:00am on Thursday followed by my opening Move Like a Maverick for Breakaway CLNC^® Success.
2. Turn off your cell phone, pager, chiming watch and any other stress-producer you’ve brought with you. This is not only a courtesy to your fellow CLNC^® peers, but also a courtesy to yourself, honoring all you’ve invested to be here.
3. Limit checking your email and voicemail or calling home to just once a day.
4. Be open to all the new recommendations so you can achieve bold CLNC^® success with your legal nurse consulting business.
5. Meet and get to know two new CLNC^® consultants at each break and reception. Eat lunch and dinner each day with three CLNC^® consultants you don’t know. Sell your expertise to each other. You are each other’s best resources for future CLNC^® subcontractors and experts.
6. Practice positive masterminding. Connect with two other CLNC^® consultants and mastermind together at the end of the day. Each of you will process and apply information differently. Focus only on positive ideas for your CLNC^® business. By coming together, you’ll take home new strategies you wouldn’t think of alone.
7. Remember to sign up for your professional photo session while at the Conference to add to your legal nurse consulting website.
8. Don’t miss a session. Go in positively knowing that a single idea can increase your profitability 1%, 5%, even 10% and more.
9. At each session, write down at least one action step you will take to grow your CLNC^® business.
10. Commit to learn one thing from each speaker. While every presentation is packed with useful information for you, the key is being in the right mindset to grab the ideas when they come your way. I once attended a seminar where only 5% of the information was interesting and fresh. But the ideas I got from that 5% added to the growth of my company by as much as 10%. Because I was committed to learning, my mind was ready when the “good stuff” was presented.
11. Take the information presented and create your own new ideas. My goal when I sit in on a session is to come up with ideas that are even better than any I get from the speaker. This mindset will help you achieve a unique CLNC^® business – not a look-alike imitation of someone else’s.
12. Take it easy. If you allow yourself to get frustrated about anything – an airport delay or the person sitting next to you – you’re the only one who will suffer. Stay loose. If you aren’t happy with the person sitting next to you, sit next to someone else in the next session or get up and move. Stay upbeat and attract positive energy.
13. Exercise daily – even for only 20 minutes. Get outside the hotel and renew yourself. Take a brisk walk around the block. Visualize your CLNC^® experience as you indulge in a massage or relax in a hot tub. Treat yourself to a fun memory – buy a Texas souvenir.
14. Remember to put on your comfortable CLNC^®Wear so everyone in San Antonio will know you are a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant.

Check back on March 16, 2009, when you can read my tips in Plan Your Moves After the 2009 NACLNC^® Conference.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. The quickest and easiest way to find me is at the Vickie Milazzo Institute exhibit.

P.P.S. Please comment and let me know how you’re enjoying our Conference.