Legal Nurse Consulting

I was in the gym working out with my trainer Jerome this morning, and after finishing my bench press, Jerome exclaimed “We did it!” That cracked me up and I joked “We? I’m the one moving that weight and hey, I don’t see you sweating.” He came right back at me with, “But I was right there with you, Vickie. I’ve got your back so you can concentrate on feeling strong.”

I like to think I’m your “Jerome.” Whether you’re just starting your legal nurse consulting business or simply trying to take your CLNC^® business to the next level, think of me as your trainer. While you’re concentrating on the work ahead, I’ll be right there with you. When you read my blog, stay connected on Facebook or receive my mentoring advice, remember the “we” in your efforts. Yes, I’m right there watching your back and if you hang with me, the CLNC^® mentors and your CLNC^® peers in the NACLNC^® Association I promise you’ll always feel stronger.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what makes you feel stronger.

According to Bloomberg Business, the top selling iPad2^® app over the Christmas holidays wasn’t Angry Birds, it was an app named Quickoffice. What’s Quickoffice have to do with Certified Legal Nurse Consultants? Easy – with more and more of my CLNC^® amigos turning to the iPad as an auxiliary device, you need a way to view and edit your Microsoft^® Office documents and Quickoffice provides it.

Using Quickoffice, CLNC^® consultants and their attorney-clients can open and edit documents from Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It also has the ability to store, access and share documents in the “cloud” with a functioning tie to Dropbox^®. At $19.99 it’s not a cheap app, but then your business isn’t cheap and neither is the cost of missing a deadline because you couldn’t get back to your computer to correct a document.

When I get my iPad3^® this spring (hint, hint), Quickoffice will be one of the first apps I install and I recommend you do the same. It’s also available for phones but who really wants to edit documents on a phone? I sure don’t and I’ll bet you don’t either.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

We are deep into the information age. In fact, there’s so much information coming at us from so many different directions that “information anxiety” should probably be a DSM-V diagnosis. Too much information (TMI) is our reality, and while there’s a distinct difference between quantity and quality, it’s easy to get sucked into the low quality noise. Do we really want to reduce our lives to the details of Ashton Kutcher’s sex life, Alec Baldwin’s musing about flight attendants or a constant stream of updates from “friends” we haven’t seen since high school?

Recently I was involved in three different mentoring situations with three legal nurse consultants. The first one forgot and missed our phone appointment. The second failed to complete the simple advance assignment I’d given her, despite the fact that she has more than enough free time on her hands – I know because I get her constant Facebook updates. The third is raising four sons, holding down a full-time nursing job and still made time to complete the assignments on schedule and attend an additional mentoring session for an upcoming interview with a potential attorney-client. Which Certified Legal Nurse Consultant do you think will be most successful?

In these busy times fraught with TMI what will you do to cut out the noise? Make a wise decision – your CLNC^® business depends on it. Now that’s a bit of information that really merits your attention.

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share what you will do to cut out the noise.

I choose not to engage in stinking thinking. Thoughts like “I can’t do this…I can’t do that…I wish I could but I can’t” never enter my mind nor do I say them. Positive thoughts and spoken words attract positive happenings in my life and in my CLNC^® business, while negative thoughts and spoken words attract negative happenings in your life. I also choose not to listen to dream squashers – you know who they are – individuals who tell you that your ideas or goals are no good and that you are not going to succeed. “Dream squashers be gone” is my motto and it has served me well in my legal nurse consulting business.

I choose not to use nurses who are not CLNC^® consultants as subcontractors. A group that sings from the same page (same training) is strong and harmonious. As Certified Legal Nurse Consultants we were trained by the best (Vickie) so why look elsewhere for CLNC^® subcontractors?

I choose not to get in a rut in my CLNC^® business as I try new things along the way. Perhaps a new way of marketing my CLNC^® business is in order or overdue. Perhaps locating expert witnesses as part of my CLNC^® services to attorney-clients or revamping my newsletter makes sense at this time. Whatever it is, not becoming stagnant is important to me and my business. Other business owners might not look at things differently or take the time to step back and reflect on where they want to take their businesses, but not me. Even if you have setbacks along the way remember, Thomas Edison tried 10,000 ways to make his light bulb light before he hit the jackpot. When he was asked how it felt to fail 10,000 times, Edison replied that he did not fail 10,000 times, but rather found 10,000 ways in which his light bulb would not light. My vote is for the Edison way of looking at things. How do you go about looking at things in your life and in your CLNC^® business?

Guest Blogger Profile

Lawrence H. Frace, RN, CLNC is an independent CLNC^® consultant with more than 30 years of nursing experience. He is the founder of Spectrum Medical-Legal Consulting in central New Jersey and specializes in medical malpractice cases.
 

As Certified Legal Nurse Consultants travel the information superhighway researching cases, you’ll run across many billboards, banners and advertisements. What you don’t see are the insidious ways that your movements are tracked by various parties, honest and nefarious. Flash cookies and browser cookies are one thing, but there’s another “invisible web” made up of tracking beacons, web bugs and rogue pixels hidden in web pages by website publishers, advertising networks and behavioral data providers that track your activities. Is there anything wrong with being tracked? Not really – after all, if you’re honest you have nothing to hide – but do you really want those tracking bugs slowing down your browsing experience? Time is money to legal nurse consultants and seconds add up over a busy work-week.

A free add-on for just about every web browser called Ghostery provides you with information about who is tracking you on any website and gives you the option to block or allow that tracker.

I’ve found it handy and I use it to block trackers at almost every website I visit. A caveat, my CLNC^® amigos, is that some websites will need components of the blocked functions to display properly. Luckily Ghostery makes it easy to allow or block. It displays a simple “ghost” in the top right of your browser showing associated trackers for each webpage you visit. They’re all blocked by default, but you can click each one to learn more about them, what they do and whether to allow or keep blocking. Some you must allow to make a particular website work for you. Here’s a screen shot:

You can read more about Ghostery and the “invisible web” at the Ghostery website.

I heartily recommend it to all tech-savvy Certified Legal Nurse Consultants.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

Ownership is a funny thing. We all like to own things: a house, a car, an iPad2^®, a legal nurse consulting business or simply a garden. Then we learn that there’s some responsibility that comes with that ownership. Stand up and look out the window. You probably don’t have to look far down your street to notice that some people are better homeowners than others.

There are some things we’ll probably never own (like that private jet I want) but one thing we all own equally is time. That’s right, we all get the same 24 hours every day and the only difference between us is how we regard our time and what we do with it. Time is one of our greatest possessions.

And just as I care about my home, I care about my time and, more importantly, care for my time. How about you? Maybe it’s time to step back and objectively observe yourself for a day or even a week. Are you a good steward of your time or do you squander it away?

For the record, I love to play as much as I love to work. I started a business to have a life, not to give up my life, and fortunately my New Orleans upbringing helps me to remember to do just that – to play on a regular basis.

Whether it’s work or play, it’s your time and what you do with it is your choice. I’m just sayin’…

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share the good and bad things you do with your time.

Vickie,

I am an independent Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, but for one attorney-client, I work in-house one day a week. I no longer want to work in-house, as I prefer to focus on the attorney-clients that hire me as an independent consulting expert. I am very successful and do not need this job but I don’t know how to tell the attorney without burning a bridge or damaging what’s been a great relationship. What should I do?

Liz, RN, CLNC

Hi Liz,

Congratulations on making a decision that will ultimately strengthen your CLNC^® business. Start by telling the attorney you are expanding your legal nurse consulting business and can no longer work in-house for him. Emphasize that you value your business relationship and will always be available to him as an independent Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Next, give examples of how well this works with your other attorney-clients. Finally, emphasize the speed of electronic communication and your availability for personal meetings. Since you are already successful as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, you have very little to lose and the attorney-client has everything to gain. Go for it!

Success Is Inside!

P.S. Comment and share your tips for saying no to attorney-clients.

A few Tuesday Tech Tips back I mentioned that I routinely disable the touch pad on my laptop. Since then Certified Legal Nurse Consultants have been clamoring to know not just why?, but also how?

Let’s start with the first question first. The why – because I don’t like touch pads. Sorry CLNC^® consultant Apple^® users, I know touch pads are useful, but on my Windows^® machine I’ll be typing away in the middle of a Tech Tip, unknowingly drop my wrist or thumbs (much to the consternation of Mrs. Giles my piano teacher, may she rest in peace) which then come into contact with the touch pad causing my cursor to jump to some other point on the page, all while I keep typing merrily away, in the wrong sentence or paragraph. Believe it or not, I find that frustrating.

To avoid the hated touch pads, I carry a laser mouse (along with my charger and other accessories) in my Codi Mobile-Max rolling computer case. But when I’m working in airplane mode (me, not the laptop) there’s no room on my tray table for a mouse so I’m reduced to using the pointing stick in the center of my keyboard (instead of the touch pad). By disabling the touch pad I eliminate the frustration of messing up my perfectly-composed pages and retyping my perfectly-written prose. I don’t disable the buttons by the touch pad so I can still use them to make left-click/right-click selections; I just disable the touch pad itself. The pointing stick also functions as a left mouse button depending upon the pressure you put on it so tread, or point, lightly.

Now that the first question is answered, let’s work on the second – the how. As with every different computer model, the actual steps may differ; so, my CLNC^® amigos, I’ll talk in generalities (this works in both Windows^® XP and 7) and hope to lead you to what you’ll need by example. I recommend you only attempt this exercise if you have a mouse plugged into your legal nurse consulting computer in case you mess things up – that way you’ll have a workable way to move your cursor when things go south.

Before plugging in your mouse and making sure it works, confirm you indeed have a pointing stick on your laptop’s keyboard. That’s the little thing that looks like a dirty pencil eraser somewhere in the middle of your keyboard – usually between the “G” and “H” keys for some reason. If you have one, make sure it works by using that pointing stick to mouse over to, and open Start (Pearl button in Win 7), Settings then Control Panel. Once you’ve got the Control Panel open, look for a selection named Mouse and double-click on that. That should open up a box labeled Mouse Properties or something similar. Inside that box look for Device or Device Select, and then Touch Pad and make sure the radio button labeled Disable Device is selected. You can also select Disable Touch Pad/Stick when USB pointing device is present (that will only disable it when a mouse is plugged into the laptop). Then click Apply or OK and before closing out the various windows try the touch pad to make sure it no longer functions. Try the pointing stick to make sure it does function and then unplug the mouse to make sure everything keeps working (pointing stick) and not working (touch pad). If everything is set the way you want it, close out those windows and you’re good to go!

Now not one Certified Legal Nurse Consultant will ever suffer from misplaced cursor while typing again!

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

2012 is upon us, yet for many over-extended nurses it feels like just another mile marker in an endurance race going nowhere. Depressing, but true. We trudge through the week at a dreary job, drive home fretting about money and spend our evenings robot-walking through the usual haze of homework battles and half-finished chores. Passion and fulfillment? Nope, just sheer survival. And the worst part is, most nurses accept that this is just how it is.

Buck up! You can do a lot more than barely get by – and 2012 can be the year you actually start enjoying your work and life again.

I’m not talking about forgotten New Year’s resolutions. I’m talking about truly changing the way you think about things, breaking old habits and tapping into your determination. I’m talking about taking responsibility for your own happiness. I see this all the time in your tweets, posts and status updates in social media – the desire to have someone or something sweep in and change your life. Don’t you think if someone was going to sweep in and rescue you, it would already have happened?

I’ve earned the right to be a tough talker. I know many of you think it’s been easy for me, but I started a business in 1982 when registered nurses did not own businesses. It is possible to create a life that excites and energizes you. But first you have to make a conscious choice to step out of your old, unfulfilling one (which is exactly what I did when I left my dead-end hospital job in 1982 to start my legal nurse consulting business). The choice to step out of an old, unfulfilling life is a choice you must make over and over again – if you don’t, your old patterns will suck you back in.

There’s no reason why 2012 can’t be your biggest, boldest, most wickedly successful year yet. But for that to happen you have to match your big goals with some real changes. You have to take on a wickedly successful mindset that doesn’t take “no” or “I can’t” or “I’m too tired” for an answer.

2012 is your opportunity to do it right. If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to buck up and embrace the challenge.

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.