Speaker 1: Appolgiate Production.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name's beck Woodbine and welcome to Tenderness for Nurses.
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for the person that I have the opportunity
Speaker 3: to be.
Speaker 1: So I hit it and parked it for Nelly four years.
Speaker 2: We always have free will, We always get to choose.
Speaker 1: We are autonomous.
Speaker 2: Hi. Everyone, thank you for tuning back into Tenderness for Nurses.
Speaker 2: Today we have doctor Lendra James from the US having
Speaker 2: a chat to us about mentorship, burnout and her journey
Speaker 2: in nursing. And it's going to be a really interesting discussion.
Speaker 2: After reading all the information that's on her website and
Speaker 2: the podcast that she does, I think she's going to
Speaker 2: really value add to nurses and what we know here
Speaker 2: in Australia and having a look at the two different
Speaker 2: countries with nursing, because even though we're the same, we're
Speaker 2: quite different. So welcome Lindra. How are you?
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I am good. It's actually
Speaker 3: a beautiful day here in the US.
Speaker 2: So can you just tell us a little bit about yourself,
Speaker 2: how you've ended up in the role of running your
Speaker 2: own business, writing programs, mentoring, dealing with other nurses with burnout,
Speaker 2: How did you get to this point.
Speaker 3: Or sure, so I have.
Speaker 1: I've been a nurse for over twenty over twenty years,
Speaker 1: like about twenty two years, and I've worked across the
Speaker 1: country in the US, I've worked in several different areas
Speaker 1: of nursing, worked my way up to nursing leadership, and
Speaker 1: it was during my time in leadership that I experienced
Speaker 1: a transformative shift in my purpose. Right the onset of
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic. It really highlighted the pressing need
Speaker 1: for self care, wellness promotion, and preventative.
Speaker 3: Education within communities.
Speaker 1: Just witnessing the stream on hospital resources, the lack of
Speaker 1: attention to staff well being, I chose to redirect my
Speaker 1: focus towards a greater emission, which for.
Speaker 3: Me was self care advocacy.
Speaker 1: And my vision was and is to create a lasting
Speaker 1: legacy right that ensures widespread access to self care, wellness
Speaker 1: and preventative health education. Just in recognizing that I was
Speaker 1: intrigued by the operational, by the business side of healthcare,
Speaker 1: I embarked on a new chapter, which was entrepreneurship, and
Speaker 1: I launched my own company, leveraging my leadership skills and
Speaker 1: my certification as a nurse executive and my Doctor of
Speaker 1: Nursing Practice degree. So I based empower nurses and healthcare
Speaker 1: professionals to break through from burnout and build generational wealth
Speaker 1: so that they can stop trading time for money. And
Speaker 1: I do this through courses, mentorship and events. For instance,
Speaker 1: I have an upcoming event this Thursday which is called
Speaker 1: the Health and Wealth Expo. But through these events, I
Speaker 1: am able to you know, network and empower as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: healthcare professionals to really understand the reach their professional and
Speaker 1: personal and financial goals through the events, and I b
Speaker 1: actually empower them to follow their entrepreneurial aspirations and prioritize
Speaker 1: self care in the meantime, and I've discovered profound fulfillment
Speaker 1: and guiding others towards their optimal wellness.
Speaker 2: Did you yourself have been out?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yes, so I experienced burnout.
Speaker 1: Like I said, it was during my time in leadership
Speaker 1: that I experience a level of burnout.
Speaker 3: And we don't talk about it enough because a few
Speaker 3: years ago died.
Speaker 1: You know, burnout was something that was considered a weakness
Speaker 1: and or it was tap tapoo, right, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't say this is what we were trained to do.
Speaker 3: How can you be, you know, burned out. We were
Speaker 3: trained to know.
Speaker 1: We were trained clinically, and we were trained to provide
Speaker 1: a service, and we were trained with skills and that
Speaker 1: you know, made us become experts in what we do.
Speaker 1: But we no one talked excuse me, no one really
Speaker 1: teaches or empowers about the taking it, taking hold of
Speaker 1: your setting boundaries right and really prioritizing yourself because as
Speaker 1: nurses were so used to prioritizing others, and we don't
Speaker 1: talk about enough. When you start to see yourself really
Speaker 1: start to become disconnected or exhausted, or not sleeping well
Speaker 1: or even behaving differently in what you can even identify.
Speaker 3: Is not your norm.
Speaker 1: It's when you start to realize that, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm experiencing burnout, and burnout is a symptom. It's a
Speaker 1: symptom of something else. And that's why I started to experience.
Speaker 1: I started to experience that symptom and it started to
Speaker 1: affect me, and excuse me, affect me and areas of
Speaker 1: my life personally and professionally.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting with the podcast, the number of nurses
Speaker 2: that I've spoken to here that really have developed burnout
Speaker 2: moral injury to some degree. Some of the nurses have
Speaker 2: had PTSD with things I've had to deal with. It
Speaker 2: has never been discussed. And like you here in Australian
Speaker 2: nurses were just meant to keep on keeping on, and
Speaker 2: we're a little bit I think people think where dispensable
Speaker 2: and when not and we really have to start not
Speaker 2: only caring for ourselves, but caring for each other and
Speaker 2: asking each other you're right, can I give you a
Speaker 2: hand with something? Because often when you're in the midst
Speaker 2: of burnout, you don't realize you are.
Speaker 1: And it's because it has a ripple effect, right, and
Speaker 1: it impacts you in every area of your life.
Speaker 3: And when you're.
Speaker 1: Burnt out, you stop pursuing those things that once or you.
Speaker 3: Enjoy, both personally and professionally.
Speaker 1: And I've seen so many talented nurses who put their
Speaker 1: dreams and their career aspirations on whole because they're simply
Speaker 1: to exhaust it and they're not realizing that they're dealing
Speaker 1: with a symptom of exhaustion. And it's not just career
Speaker 1: you know, stagnation either. Burnout takes a toll on your
Speaker 1: self care. As I mentioned, for nurses who are natural
Speaker 1: care giver is we often forget to take care of
Speaker 1: ourselves because.
Speaker 3: We want to.
Speaker 1: And when you mentioned trauma, think about how we as nurses.
Speaker 1: We can code a patient for about thirty to forty
Speaker 1: minutes and have to and say that person doesn't survive
Speaker 1: or they do. But after dealing with that, we now
Speaker 1: have to walk into that next patient's room and act
Speaker 1: like everything is okay.
Speaker 3: But that's what we're trained to.
Speaker 1: Do, and no one really sits us down and say like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of not okay, right, because think about if
Speaker 1: someone wants to see someone get hit by a car
Speaker 1: in the middle of the street and this person tragically die,
Speaker 1: that's traumatizing. So we deal with trauma on an ongoing basis.
Speaker 1: And one a solution from in my opinion is organizations
Speaker 1: really have to look more into the mental health of
Speaker 1: their employees. And that's something that is a part the
Speaker 1: goal of one of my businesses is to really bring
Speaker 1: that wellness into organizations so that we can really start
Speaker 1: taking care of our healthcare workers who are consistently traumatized,
Speaker 1: and not just with EAP. And I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: you guys have in Australia, but in the US, we
Speaker 1: have in an employee assistant program and oftentimes.
Speaker 3: It involves you know, you being able to see a.
Speaker 1: Mental health expert for three sessions.
Speaker 3: And sometimes that's not enough and sometimes.
Speaker 1: Some places it's fifteen minutes, some places that maybe thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: and sometimes that's not enough. What about someone coming in
Speaker 1: on a consistent basis to be able to provide mental
Speaker 1: health services to your employees, whether they understand or know
Speaker 1: that they need it or not. But this is how
Speaker 1: we really start to move the needle and shift their
Speaker 1: perspectives and shift the outcomes for our healthcare workers.
Speaker 2: Do you think the hospitals in the States, because you
Speaker 2: have a very different system to us here in Australia,
Speaker 2: because it's so money driven making money, do you think
Speaker 2: they value nurses? Do you think I want to spend
Speaker 2: that money on nurses to keep that retention right and
Speaker 2: the nurses healthy.
Speaker 3: That is such a great question. So there's two sides.
Speaker 1: If you acts an executive leader that question, they will
Speaker 1: say yes.
Speaker 3: If you ask a nurse that question, they.
Speaker 1: Will say profit or the patients. And I say that
Speaker 1: because I have you know, I know a plethora of
Speaker 1: nurses who they don't feel valued and they don't feel
Speaker 1: that the organizations and this is part of the problem, right,
Speaker 1: And this is why and I don't know about Australia.
Speaker 1: This is why a lot of the hospitals in the
Speaker 1: US are striking because I'm a big part of it
Speaker 1: is because of feeling underappreciated and undervalue. So what we
Speaker 1: have here in the US we have value based health
Speaker 1: care and the hospitals are paid according to the amount
Speaker 1: of value that in the quality of care that they
Speaker 1: provide to patients. So we have nurse sensitive indicators. And
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. If a patient falls in
Speaker 1: the hospital and they break their hip, CMS, the Center
Speaker 1: for Medicaid and Medicare Services, they will not pay that
Speaker 1: hospital for the treatment to fix that hip. So now
Speaker 1: that's cost, that's loss, right, that's a financial loss for
Speaker 1: the hospitals because now the patient has to stay longer.
Speaker 1: Now we have to pay for that surgery. So anything
Speaker 1: that basically comes out after that surgery that's not related
Speaker 1: to anything prior to that patient being in the hospital.
Speaker 1: Say the patient came in for stomach virus, they were
Speaker 1: eighty years old, and they slipped and they fell and they.
Speaker 3: Broke their hip. That's a nurse sensitive indicator.
Speaker 1: So the hospital will now not be paid because this
Speaker 1: patient fell and broke their hip, and the hospitals won't
Speaker 1: be paid for that. Or let's say they get an
Speaker 1: infection from a central line, where they get an infection
Speaker 1: from a fully catheter, the hospital won't be paid for that.
Speaker 3: And there's been.
Speaker 1: Hospital who has been in hospitals where they've been fined
Speaker 1: in the million, the seven figures because of these infections.
Speaker 1: And so now what that's more push on the nurses
Speaker 1: to do more, but they're doing more for less. And
Speaker 1: now so you see how the shift and the burnout
Speaker 1: because now there's a huge you know, push from the
Speaker 1: higher ups to you know, now we have to do that.
Speaker 1: We have to have zero clapses, we have to have
Speaker 1: zero qualities, we have to have zero you know, zero falls.
Speaker 3: And I get it because we don't want to do
Speaker 3: harm to our patients. But what we.
Speaker 1: Don't realize is that we're now pushing the nurses to
Speaker 1: do more with less because we're not necessarily giving them
Speaker 1: the tools and the resources that they need like staffing,
Speaker 1: for instance, right or investing in bet alarms, or investing
Speaker 1: in the tools and the resources that they'll need in
Speaker 1: order to in order to stop these falls or in
Speaker 1: order to prevent these clapses and these qualities from occurring.
Speaker 1: So now and then, and this is how just another
Speaker 1: example of how the burnout and the exhaustion becomes because
Speaker 1: now your leader has to come and be the voice
Speaker 1: of all of.
Speaker 3: The directives that are coming from the higher ups.
Speaker 1: So I say all this to say, and again this
Speaker 1: is just you know, an example, but I say all
Speaker 1: this to say, this is why and how nurses are
Speaker 1: not feeling appreciated. So you're not giving me the resources
Speaker 1: because you're making me work short staff, but yet you're
Speaker 1: telling me that I still have to make sure I
Speaker 1: prevent that fall from recurring.
Speaker 3: How can I prevent that fall if I.
Speaker 1: Had eight patients and we only have one nursing assistant,
Speaker 1: or if there's only three nurses on the floor. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I've beenished situations where I've had nurses working short staff, and.
Speaker 3: Thing was still able to.
Speaker 1: Prevent those falls from recurring because you know, we instill
Speaker 1: a level of empowerment and pride in them so that
Speaker 1: they took pride in making sure that their patients were safe.
Speaker 3: Because most nurses, they want to make sure that their patients. Absolutely,
Speaker 3: but if you're not empowering them and engaging them, you
Speaker 3: don't understand how you're leading to that exhaustion.
Speaker 1: You're leading to that feeling of being undervalue, their feeling
Speaker 1: of being underappreciated, and that's not what you want.
Speaker 2: And I love that term of empowering your nurses. I
Speaker 2: think that's through education, through correct staffing. That's so important.
Speaker 2: And I think since the pandemic, we weren't hit anywhere
Speaker 2: near as hard as you were in the States. When
Speaker 2: I went for a conference last year, I interviewed one
Speaker 2: of the nurses that I met at the conference, and
Speaker 2: she had worked in Philadelphia and she was on the
Speaker 2: COVID ward. She arrived, everything was shut down. They went
Speaker 2: in and they were locked into the ward. They couldn't
Speaker 2: get doctors, the food was left outside. They had to
Speaker 2: do everything. And she said they just got on and
Speaker 2: did it and did it well or as well as
Speaker 2: they could. And I said to her, how psychologically were
Speaker 2: you afterwards? And she said I was fine until I
Speaker 2: stopped working. And she said and then I fell apart.
Speaker 2: And she said, none of my family wanted to see me,
Speaker 2: no one wanted to be around me because everyone was
Speaker 2: so scared. So she was also not only isolated at work,
Speaker 2: she was coming home and feeling isolated.
Speaker 3: It was terrible.
Speaker 2: And she left. She's gone into the aesthetics space. She
Speaker 2: just didn't want to deal with that rubbish anymore.
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: There's been a huge shift of nurses leaving the traditional
Speaker 1: setting and going into spaces like aesthetics and wellness and
Speaker 1: met spars.
Speaker 3: As you mentioned, I myself on a met spar well.
Speaker 1: I own an alternative form of treatment on a wellness business.
Speaker 1: I own a IV hydration vioment therapy, so we offer
Speaker 1: that and we offer wheat loss services as well. And
Speaker 1: we also have added a component of wellness right, a
Speaker 1: wellness service for stress management, burnout and such. And I
Speaker 1: say that to say the pandemic it just really gave
Speaker 1: rise to a huge shift and a lot there were
Speaker 1: a lot of epitomes, epiphanies, excuse me, and you know,
Speaker 1: people realized taking their power back. So for me, starting
Speaker 1: my wellness business is you know, becoming an entrepreneur was
Speaker 1: more of a way of taking my power back. And
Speaker 1: to your point, and to that nurses point, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened. So I am in New Jersey and dealing
Speaker 1: with COVID in New Jersey. So we were right next
Speaker 1: to New York. So any if you know anything about
Speaker 1: and remember about the pandemic, New York was like the epicenter.
Speaker 1: And because we're right here in New Jersey, we got
Speaker 1: all of that overflow sort of speak. So people were
Speaker 1: not going to New York hospitals because they were like, oh.
Speaker 3: No, I'm not going to New York. I'm going to
Speaker 3: get COVID, so I'm not going there.
Speaker 1: But guess what, So they were coming over into New
Speaker 1: Jersey and they were still getting COVID because we got
Speaker 1: all of the overflow, all of the patients from from
Speaker 1: that tri state area, from Brooklyn, just all over New York.
Speaker 1: They used to they would come to New Jersey they
Speaker 1: still had COVID And just what that nurse mentioned to you,
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 3: Exactly how it was.
Speaker 1: It went from I'll never forget it went from us
Speaker 1: having one patient to after it was one weekend went
Speaker 1: by and have the unit was COVID positive and exactly
Speaker 1: no one wanted to come on.
Speaker 3: To the floor.
Speaker 1: You didn't see anyone. All the doors were closed and
Speaker 1: even during codes. I can remember doing codes. Nurses would
Speaker 1: be in the rooms running the codes on their own,
Speaker 1: and the doctors would be at the door writing signs,
Speaker 1: you know, putting the paper up against the window, saying
Speaker 1: like pul socks, like what's the pull sox? Like are
Speaker 1: you kidding me? You know, so you want us to
Speaker 1: intubate the patient too, like.
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
Speaker 2: Nurses were dispensable, but doctors weren't right.
Speaker 1: And that was unfortunately, that was the feeling now. I
Speaker 1: will say in the area where I was, doctors were
Speaker 1: you know, we had doctors who we actually lost due
Speaker 1: to COVID, and doctors were just as suicidal as nurses were, right,
Speaker 1: and because there was a time where we felt like
Speaker 1: we were losing patients at such a rapid rate, and
Speaker 1: there was a feeling.
Speaker 3: Of what are we doing wrong?
Speaker 1: You know, we didn't know what we know now about
Speaker 1: the disease, and there was a feeling that we felt
Speaker 1: like we were doing you know, we were doing something wrong,
Speaker 1: and healthcare professionals were actually committing suicide and becoming suicidal,
Speaker 1: and all of those elements that you talk about about
Speaker 1: feeling isolated. People were sleeping in their cars, people were
Speaker 1: getting hotels. You know, there were some nursing organizations that
Speaker 1: were providing free hotel rooms because not only did families
Speaker 1: not want people to come home, people didn't want to
Speaker 1: go home because they didn't want to infect their husbands
Speaker 1: or their children. They didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 3: So again, so when we.
Speaker 1: Talk about like burnouts, that's a whole different that's a
Speaker 1: whole different level of just mental health and burnout.
Speaker 3: That's what it is.
Speaker 1: It's a symptom of mental health, and it's often a
Speaker 1: mix of being overworked, underappreciated, and facing systemic issues. And
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic was definitely one that was you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't know how long it was going to last.
Speaker 3: We didn't know, there was nothing we knew about it.
Speaker 1: The policies were changing every day, these you know CDC
Speaker 1: every time, you know, they were changing.
Speaker 3: I felt like the policies and the rules change daily.
Speaker 1: So we got to a point where it made no
Speaker 1: sense to write anything down because you know it's.
Speaker 3: Going to change tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And it did, right, So sometimes things would change like
Speaker 1: two or three times a day.
Speaker 3: So we went from needing to have.
Speaker 1: In ninety five to know you can just have a
Speaker 1: surgical mass, right, and like, wait a minute, So now
Speaker 1: we just lost one hundred and fifty nurses who caught
Speaker 1: COVID because you're saying we only need a surgical but
Speaker 1: they only need a surgical mask. And guess what, they
Speaker 1: still caught COVID root those.
Speaker 3: In ninety fives.
Speaker 1: So there was just such a lack of appropriate care
Speaker 1: for nurses. I can remember some of the nurses in
Speaker 1: New York going to work in garbage bags. But then
Speaker 1: you have the media who's coming into the hospital and
Speaker 1: they have a full astronauts suit on right, so to speak.
Speaker 1: So why aren't we protecting our healthcare workers the same way.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of bureaucracy that leads to the
Speaker 1: burnout of healthcare professionals, and.
Speaker 3: The way we change these things.
Speaker 1: We have to change what takes place more at the
Speaker 1: legislative level in order, if in at least in New
Speaker 1: Jersey it excuse me, in the US, so that we
Speaker 1: can really start to affect change. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of nurses going into politics now. Myself, I've joined
Speaker 1: organizations like the American Nurse and Nursing Association dmpis of
Speaker 1: color all to really start to start to give rise
Speaker 1: and have a voice in how politics plays into nursing,
Speaker 1: just like Rob Wade being something that has been taking
Speaker 1: away and that's a huge We have our presidency election
Speaker 1: coming up and that's a huge talk. Right now. I
Speaker 1: won't get into politics, but I say all this to
Speaker 1: say that you know, we in order for there to
Speaker 1: be changed in our healthcare system, there needs to be
Speaker 1: changed from a political standpoint, from a legislative level. And
Speaker 1: the way a lot of nurses are taking their power
Speaker 1: back is by starting their own businesses.
Speaker 3: And that's where I come in. Part of what I
Speaker 3: do is I help.
Speaker 1: And I show nurses how to start their own business,
Speaker 1: how to gain that power back because no one teaches
Speaker 1: us the business side of healthcare. And that's a part
Speaker 1: of my mentorship. And my mentorship goes.
Speaker 3: From being.
Speaker 1: One Most nurses will contact me because or nurse leaders
Speaker 1: and they'll say, you know, they're burned out, they're at
Speaker 1: a place of exhaustion and they're not sure.
Speaker 3: Where to go. And we really unpack that. We set
Speaker 3: a plan.
Speaker 1: We help to recognize the burnout, where's the burnout coming from?
Speaker 3: And then we set a.
Speaker 1: Plan and then we identify what are you doing about it?
Speaker 1: And what are you going to do about it? And
Speaker 1: then once we're able to unpack that burnout and really
Speaker 1: set that plan to release it and develop and grow
Speaker 1: from it. Now, what are the next steps? Is the
Speaker 1: next steps to write about it? Because I you know,
Speaker 1: that's one of the courses that I offer craft your bestseller.
Speaker 1: A lot of nurses have a authorship inside of the
Speaker 1: inside of us because we have stories to tell, you know.
Speaker 1: Or like I said, it's starting a business, whether it's
Speaker 1: a concierge business, and I help.
Speaker 3: You do that as well.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different ways that you can
Speaker 1: escape the burnout and really advocate for yourself so that
Speaker 1: you can and really gain that power back and really
Speaker 1: start looking at other so you can stop trading time
Speaker 1: for money and other streams of income. Because when I
Speaker 1: say stop trading times for money, what is it that
Speaker 1: we do when we want to buy a house, we
Speaker 1: just go we work extra, right, Or we want to
Speaker 1: put our kids through college, we just work extra and
Speaker 1: we just work those two and three jobs. But guess
Speaker 1: what that time that we're putting in is now even
Speaker 1: more so adding to that burnout factor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a doubt, So how many businesses do you have?
Speaker 3: So have I own two businesses.
Speaker 1: I own Premier Fusions and Wellness, which is my wellness business,
Speaker 1: and then I own a Deal James Consulting, So gl
Speaker 1: James Consulting is my consulting business where I coach and
Speaker 1: mentor other nurses and my podcast is listed under my
Speaker 1: ideal of Deal James Consulting as well.
Speaker 2: And can Australian nurses access your skills?
Speaker 1: Absolutely because the services that I offer are online, their
Speaker 1: virginal and you can definitely access me through my website
Speaker 1: which I'm happy to share. I also have a burnout
Speaker 1: Guide that I can provide to your listeners and to
Speaker 1: your nurses as well that I created, and it really
Speaker 1: talks about helping you how to beat burnout. It really
Speaker 1: provides the strategies that you will need to really take
Speaker 1: a shift in what you're doing. So it's a really
Speaker 1: big jump start and helping you to recognize the bias
Speaker 1: and what strategies you should use to really beat the burnout.
Speaker 1: So what I do is we go through a strategy call.
Speaker 1: So we would go through a strategy call and during
Speaker 1: that strategy call, we identify what your needs are and
Speaker 1: if your needs are to work with me for three months,
Speaker 1: or if your needs are to work with me for
Speaker 1: six months, that's what we do. We work together for
Speaker 1: six months, or you can work with me for a
Speaker 1: year if we have options like that as well. And again,
Speaker 1: like I said, I provide courses by I have virtual platforms.
Speaker 1: We are creating an alliance burnout to break through alliance
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn and you know we'll probably open it up
Speaker 1: on another platform as well. But it's to create community,
Speaker 1: right so that people can have a safe space to
Speaker 1: come and discuss, you know, what their issue is or
Speaker 1: just you know, sometimes you just need a place to
Speaker 1: not feel judged, right and just talk about event on
Speaker 1: what you may be feeling. So I wanted to create
Speaker 1: a safe space where nurses can feel nurtured go through
Speaker 1: their burnout, whether it's at the novice level, whether it's
Speaker 1: at the leadership level, and really be able to have
Speaker 1: someone who can comment and provide without feeling like they're
Speaker 1: being judged. And I think that's important because I think
Speaker 1: oftentimes we feel like we're going through something alone. I
Speaker 1: know I did, like I felt like I did alone.
Speaker 1: And it's to your point.
Speaker 3: Burnout is a pandemic, right now it really is.
Speaker 1: And it's just now that we're starting to realize that,
Speaker 1: and it's nothing, you know, it's identifying it identifying the symptoms.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're feeling anything like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: like that disconnect or that exhaustion or that lack of sleep,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to really start understanding, like, you
Speaker 1: know what, maybe maybe I am overworked, maybe I.
Speaker 3: Am going to burnout.
Speaker 1: And you know, to answer your question about how do
Speaker 1: I not get burnt out from just my businesses is
Speaker 1: what I've learned to do is I've learned to structure
Speaker 1: my businesses so that it revolves around my availability. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, my wellness business, I've hired nurses. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's number one. And so in my case, if you're
Speaker 1: going to have a business, you need a team. Otherwise
Speaker 1: if you try to do everything yourself. Because that's the
Speaker 1: thing with us nurses, we want to do everything because
Speaker 1: that's how we were taught, right, we were told.
Speaker 3: To be everything to everyone and we can't.
Speaker 1: So a huge part in one of the strategies that
Speaker 1: I mentioned in that burnout guide that I created that
Speaker 1: we're going to share with your listeners, a huge one
Speaker 1: of the first things you have to do is create boundaries,
Speaker 1: create boundaries, and learn how to say now right because
Speaker 1: and I may have mentioned this, when you don't say no,
Speaker 1: when you say yes to something all the time, you're
Speaker 1: saying no to something else.
Speaker 3: And so creating those.
Speaker 1: Boundaries and creating those boundaries for yourself they're huge. And
Speaker 1: for me, my work schedule for my wellness business is
Speaker 1: Monday through Thursday. And like I said, I have nurses
Speaker 1: who I'm able to work outside of the business and
Speaker 1: run the business and not work within the business. And
Speaker 1: that's because I have a team. So having a team
Speaker 1: around you and being able to delegate with your skills
Speaker 1: that we learned clinically, right, those those delegation skills are important.
Speaker 1: A lot of the things we learn as nurses are
Speaker 1: so transferable. And being an entrepreneur and I didn't realize that,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until I started my own business, and
Speaker 1: when I gained mentorship is when there was so much
Speaker 1: I had so many epiphanies and so many things.
Speaker 3: Started to make more sense.
Speaker 1: Because no one teaches us the business side of healthcare,
Speaker 1: so I was intrigued with it. But I can remember
Speaker 1: having my first budget that I had to go through
Speaker 1: as a nurse leader, and like there was no no
Speaker 1: one to show me how to do this, so I
Speaker 1: had to learn things on my own. And it was
Speaker 1: the same thing when I got into entrepreneurship. I had
Speaker 1: to learn how the finance side, but I got a mentor.
Speaker 1: So having a mentor seeking that guidance was huge, and
Speaker 1: that's how I'm able to not get burned out because
Speaker 1: I have had mentors and I continue to have mentors.
Speaker 1: Even at every stage, you still need to coach. You
Speaker 1: still need a mentor. So at every stage of you
Speaker 1: know what, every level that you elevate to, you'll still
Speaker 1: need coaching and you still need mentoring.
Speaker 3: And that mentorship is what keeps me from burning out.
Speaker 2: That was why I started tending this finis is that
Speaker 2: I saw a need for nurses to support nurses and
Speaker 2: be kind to each other and to ask each other
Speaker 2: if you know you're okay, and to look out for
Speaker 2: each other. And the one thing I have learned because
Speaker 2: I go to the States a lot to see my
Speaker 2: daughter is no matter where I have been and what
Speaker 2: nurses and doctors I have had the privilege of spending
Speaker 2: time with, we all want the same thing, which is
Speaker 2: time with our loved ones and our families. We want
Speaker 2: to give the best care we can to our patients,
Speaker 2: go to work, do the best we can, come home safely,
Speaker 2: which didn't happen in the pandemic. But in amongst all
Speaker 2: of that, we've forgotten to look after ourselves. We're so
Speaker 2: busy just trying to put all the other hats on
Speaker 2: that we just aren't being tender and kind to ourselves.
Speaker 2: And that's one thing after now, I've interviewed over sixty nurses, doctors,
Speaker 2: lay people, and it's been fascinating to hear the journey
Speaker 2: of different nurses and what they have gone through and
Speaker 2: how they didn't seek help, And you wonder would they
Speaker 2: still be in the system if they had have had
Speaker 2: some mentorship and some guidance and someone to listen to.
Speaker 2: And it makes me think, well, they probably would be,
Speaker 2: and all these wonderful nurses wouldn't be leaving.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly because I think you asked the question about
Speaker 1: feeling underappreciated and undervalue if you have someone to empower you,
Speaker 1: if you have someone to simply guide you so that
Speaker 1: you Because I made mispeeds as a nurse, and I'm
Speaker 1: not necessarily, you know, referring to clinical mistakes, I mean
Speaker 1: I made mistakes. As a nurse leader. I meet mistakes,
Speaker 1: but again I didn't have mentorship. And think, you make
Speaker 1: a great point. Had I had a mentor in nursing.
Speaker 1: Now I had a mentor for my business, and it
Speaker 1: made a huge difference. Had I had a mentor in nursing,
Speaker 1: just imagine how much more I've could have done.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've opened.
Speaker 1: Programs, closed programs, open units, created programs, created policies.
Speaker 3: I've done all the things right. My units were constantly
Speaker 3: number one.
Speaker 1: I decreased falls throughout organizations within the hospital from using
Speaker 1: my models.
Speaker 3: And I say all this not to toot my own
Speaker 3: worn I say all this to.
Speaker 1: Say, imagine, had I had a mentor and actually had
Speaker 1: someone actually able to guide me as a nurse leader,
Speaker 1: how far I could have gotten my last role in nursing.
Speaker 1: I've reported directly to the CNO, so my next level
Speaker 1: would have been CNO, which is where a lot of
Speaker 1: nurses in the traditional setting see themselves. But by the
Speaker 1: time I got there, I had no incentive or passion
Speaker 1: to continue on to that stage, to a ce ANDO,
Speaker 1: and ultimately I became the CEO and CEO of my
Speaker 1: own companies, and I wrote about this in my book.
Speaker 1: So I actually wrote a book discussing the bias and
Speaker 1: the burnout that I dealt with in healthcare. And the
Speaker 1: book is titled Confessions of a Nurse Executive and the
Speaker 1: subtitle is the Conscious and Unconscious Bias and Healthcare. And
Speaker 1: I write about how my passion for nursing and for
Speaker 1: being a leader, it just really came to a crashing
Speaker 1: hope and I realized that that's not what I aspired.
Speaker 1: I no longer aspired to be that, and stepping into
Speaker 1: the world of entrepreneurship, it really started to bring my
Speaker 1: passion back for nursing and for health care. And I said, okay,
Speaker 1: this is my purpose I am. I'm meant to help others,
Speaker 1: but now I can help others in a different way,
Speaker 1: so I can help communities.
Speaker 3: So when you say can I.
Speaker 1: Help nurses in Australia, absolutely, I can help other nurses,
Speaker 1: so not just clients and patients. Through my wellness, I
Speaker 1: can actually offer my services and expertise on a broader scale.
Speaker 1: And that's what it's about, and that is where I'm
Speaker 1: fulfilling my purpose.
Speaker 2: And doesn't that make you feel good?
Speaker 1: And it makes me feel amazing, It really really does.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel amazing. Often we limit ourselves to
Speaker 1: the traditional setting, and it's no one's fault because that's
Speaker 1: what we're taught.
Speaker 3: We're taught clinical.
Speaker 1: We're taught, you know, patient care in the hospital, at
Speaker 1: least in the US, we're taught, you know, the Florence
Speaker 1: Nightingale way of going, you know, going to the hospital,
Speaker 1: you know, taking the doctor's orders. But we're not taught
Speaker 1: that empowered me of entrepreneurship. We're not taught the finance
Speaker 1: and the business things. So unless you grew up at
Speaker 1: a dinner table talking about these things. You may know
Speaker 1: about finances, you may know about investments, but you're really
Speaker 1: not taught about entrepreneurship in nursing and how you can
Speaker 1: really you're constantly told, oh, there's so many things you
Speaker 1: could do when they're in nursing, but you're not actually
Speaker 1: shown what it.
Speaker 3: Is unless it's inside the traditional setting.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and here in Australia, for the nurses that have
Speaker 2: gone out on their own and do it within the
Speaker 2: esthetic space, there's been a lot of pushback. People you
Speaker 2: don't like nurses that go out and unfortunately in Australia
Speaker 2: we're not like you guys in the States that applaud
Speaker 2: and love people that are hugely successful. We have a
Speaker 2: little bit of that British colonialism where you know, the
Speaker 2: tall poppy syndrome and if someone's doing better than everyone else,
Speaker 2: people like to bring them down. Whereas that's one thing
Speaker 2: I must say I love about the States is you
Speaker 2: go applaud people that go out and are entrepreneurial and
Speaker 2: try different things, and it's so obvious. It's so obvious.
Speaker 2: So when I got sick and took a year off,
Speaker 2: I didn't tell anybody. I was so afraid of people
Speaker 2: saying naki things about me that I just told everyone
Speaker 2: I was working on the business. I didn't tell anyone
Speaker 2: I was actually taking time off because I was a mess.
Speaker 2: I was so so sick, and I can talk about
Speaker 2: it now, but how sad. At the time, I was
Speaker 2: so isolated, so alone, so scared. I thought I was
Speaker 2: going to lose my business. It was horrendous and I
Speaker 2: don't want anyone to feel the way I felt because
Speaker 2: it was so awful. No one should feel the way
Speaker 2: I felt. And I think we have to change the
Speaker 2: dialogue around that it's okay that you're feeling this way,
Speaker 2: but let's do something about it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, and you're so right. We feel shamed, so
Speaker 1: to speak, when we have to step away, and that's
Speaker 1: unfortunately how we've been trained, where we've been trained to
Speaker 1: think that it's something wrong when we step away for
Speaker 1: our own self care.
Speaker 3: And I did the same thing.
Speaker 1: I stepped away from I resigned from my position as
Speaker 1: a nursing leader, and I didn't have a job lined up.
Speaker 1: I just stepped away because I knew that I needed
Speaker 1: to do this for my own sanity, like I needed
Speaker 1: to really rethink where I was going and what I
Speaker 1: was doing and redefine myself and redefine my.
Speaker 3: Purpose and my purpose.
Speaker 1: It all really came back to still being a nursing
Speaker 1: being nursing and healthcare, but it was in a different
Speaker 1: way and that made me feel liberated. And I can appreciate, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're being seeing other nurses, you know, going forward.
Speaker 3: Trying to reach their goals or.
Speaker 1: Doing something different, because if this is not what is
Speaker 1: making me happy, I can't stay in that situation. And
Speaker 1: I was doing it, and I was doing it because
Speaker 1: you know, I had I have a mortgage. You know,
Speaker 1: I have a family to take care of. I have,
Speaker 1: so you have all of these you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say burdens, but this is a part of life.
Speaker 3: Life. Life is life, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: And you have all of these things that you need
Speaker 1: to take care of the last thing you need is
Speaker 1: to be in a situation where you're unhappy. But you
Speaker 1: have to be here because this is what's paying the bills.
Speaker 3: That shouldn't be. That shouldn't be the case. I shouldn't
Speaker 3: have to be just because.
Speaker 1: We've come to normalize burnout unfortunately, and the things that
Speaker 1: we go through at work as this is just what it's.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to noble it.
Speaker 1: Right, And unfortunately that's not normal and we shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to deal with it, you know, we we should not
Speaker 1: have We should not normalize it as oh well, if
Speaker 1: you don't do it, you're just not strong enough.
Speaker 3: No, that's not it at all.
Speaker 1: And we need to start realizing that we can speak
Speaker 1: up and it's okay.
Speaker 3: And I love that people are.
Speaker 1: Coming with you and saying that, because that's the first
Speaker 1: sign when someone comes to you and they recognize that
Speaker 1: they need help, we need to help them and not
Speaker 1: make it feel bad that they're coming to you for help.
Speaker 1: We have to help them.
Speaker 3: If they're coming to you, it's because they need help,
Speaker 3: and it's for me. I feel obligated.
Speaker 1: And again it's that part of nursing where we that
Speaker 1: nurturing side where we want to help everyone. So if
Speaker 1: I can help you, I definitely will, or I'll show
Speaker 1: you I'll give you a resource that can't help you.
Speaker 2: And I absolutely love that, Lindra. I have loved every
Speaker 2: second talking to you. I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2: I do have all your information, but I am going
Speaker 2: to put it all on the show notes. I love
Speaker 2: that you know you were doing so many wonderful things
Speaker 2: for nurses. It just warms my heart. And thank you
Speaker 2: for taking the time to chat to me today. I
Speaker 2: really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for having me. It's been great.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.