Let’s take a simple test to find out whether you’re an optimist bound for glory as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant or a pessimist bound for a longer road to success:
Question #1: An attorney tells you they already use a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. You:
Conclude that the market is saturated.
Go after one of the other 1,300,000+ attorneys practicing in the U.S.
Question #2: An attorney says “No” to your best marketing pitch. You:
Conclude that there is no market for CLNC® consultants.
Refine your pitch and move on to the next attorney-prospect.
Question #3: An attorney asks you to provide one of the 33 CLNC services that you have never provided. You:
Tell the attorney it’s not part of your CLNC business.
Respond “I’d be happy to help you with that,” request CLNC mentoring and get on with it.
If you answered “b” to any of the above questions, you’re an optimist. It should come as no surprise to anyone that I consider myself an optimist, and while pessimists have criticized my positive outlook, I’ve happily ignored them for decades, reaping all the benefits of hanging with other optimists.
Why is optimism important? First, studies suggest that optimists succeed not because they’re more skilled than their peers, but because they are more likely to actively engage problems, positively reframe challenging situations, plan a course of action, and rely on support from others. Successful CLNC consultants don’t expect issues to resolve themselves; they attack them with true grit, learning positive lessons all along the way.
Optimists may also be more motivated to do the hard work that is necessary to achieve goals because they believe their additional effort will be rewarded. Successful CLNC consultants enjoy the work as much as the benefits of owning their own businesses. A successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultant told me that one of her subcontractors admitted she didn’t want to work as hard as was necessary to achieve the results the attorney wanted. Obviously she no longer works with that subcontractor. Optimists understand that success doesn’t fall into their laps and even when a CLNC consultant meets an attorney “accidentally,” what happens next is anything but.
Optimists are also agile. When something is not working, they know it’s time to evaluate the issue and take a new course. We’ve all engaged in what I call “hallucinations,” i.e., bad ideas. I’ve doggedly pursued a project only to realize that it wasn’t working out, regrouped and turned it into something even more successful than originally planned.
Optimists are also more fun to be around. Wouldn’t you rather hang with positive, happy people than someone who knows the sky is about to fall? Is it truly a surprise that optimists are more successful? Not to me.
One thought on “Optimism Is All You Need to Succeed as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant”
I am by nature an optimist. I think one needs to be to run the slow and steady race of consulting as a business and not just a hobby. I’ve had no billable income in the last 10 weeks. Instead of complain or quit, I chose to see this as a time to rest and recover from my Dad’s passing in the spring, because while planning his funeral and then a memorial service 2 months later, I was running three cases at once. I actually got closure from my best friend’s Dad’s funeral last week, and since then, have one case, and awaiting hospital records from 2 more; all these from attorneys I had marketed to 6-12 months ago and decided to check in on.
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The National Alliance of Certified Legal Nurse Consultants (NACLNC®) is the largest and oldest association of legal nurse consultants.
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*The opinions and statements made by Vickie Milazzo, the founder of Medical-Legal Consulting Institute, Inc. are based on her experiences and expertise, should not be applied beyond the specific context provided, and do not guaranty or project actual results. Vickie Milazzo is no longer involved in the operations or management of the business, but is involved as an independent education consultant.
I am by nature an optimist. I think one needs to be to run the slow and steady race of consulting as a business and not just a hobby. I’ve had no billable income in the last 10 weeks. Instead of complain or quit, I chose to see this as a time to rest and recover from my Dad’s passing in the spring, because while planning his funeral and then a memorial service 2 months later, I was running three cases at once. I actually got closure from my best friend’s Dad’s funeral last week, and since then, have one case, and awaiting hospital records from 2 more; all these from attorneys I had marketed to 6-12 months ago and decided to check in on.