hospital job

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!

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!

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 all know when we discover something we feel passionate about. We feel amazingly energetic. Desire is energy. Have you ever experienced a time when desire overcame all physical, emotional and intellectual barriers? Like a child waking up on Christmas morning, you spring alert full speed ahead. Why can’t we experience that passion – that vitality and energy – not only on Christmas but every day? Believe me, you can. When you wake up every day to a life and career that are your heart and soul, a life and career you’re passionate about, you experience maximum joy.

One of my passions was ignited in me when I was eight years old. For hours each day I taught an imaginary class. I was so absorbed with my class that my dad would come in and break it up to encourage me to play outside with my real friends. To this day I have no idea what I was teaching, but I was darned passionate about it.

At eight years old teaching was play. At 28, I turned that passion for teaching into a business, and I’ve been playing ever since. When I left my hospital job as an RN to start my legal nurse consulting business, I promised myself I would work only my passions. That decision proved more important than I realized. Along the way I’ve been tempted by many flattering and interesting offers, the most tempting of which was joining a powerful law firm as a partner my first year out of law school. But I always stop and listen to my heart. When we live and work our passions, we take an uncompromising approach. It means being honest with yourself and others about what you value.

As The New York Times reported, I “crossed nursing with the law and created a new profession” when I started teaching other nurses how to become legal nurse consultants. That’s the kind of BIG Thing that can happen when you commit to Promise 1, to living and working a passionate life.

Commit to Promise 1 right now and you’ll discover the passions that will propel you to a totally fulfilled future.

Success Is Inside!