Your Nursing Career

I quit working holidays, weekends and night shifts... a personal story

This is not a sales letter, as a matter of fact I have a great e-book that I want to give to you for your library.

My name is Emma Soy, let me introduce myself on a personal level. 19 years ago I had a University degree, a nursing license and and a burning desire to climbed up the clinical ladder, receive a lot of nursing recognitions and make a lot of money... I was planning to have a family.

During the first several years that I was in the nursing I took a few of the top nurses out for lunch, asked them a gazillion questions about how to really experience success in nursing. They were all looking at me like I was from another planet, and re-assured that nursing was not a career, but it was simply a job. I was pretty disappointed after talking to them, because after 4 years of college, I was hoping for something better than a job.


I will say this if you want to learn how to experience real success fast in nursing, find nurses who are already experiencing massive success and model your career after theirs.

I went on to attend seminars, purchase every books, and tapes on the subject of success that I can get my hands on.

I had what Napoleon Hill says is the most essential trait of all successful people... A burning desire.

I wanted to be successful... If only for the sake of success.

This burning desire is what enabled me to be where I am today, and doing what I love to do, working the hours that I want and getting paid what I am worth.

Shortly before Napoleon Hill died, he said that if he had to start all over and was to pick two of the top 16 traits that all successful people have. He would want to have a burning desire and his master mind group.

By the way you are not born with these traits that all successful people have, they are acquired.

Fast forward 19 years and now what would I do?
Well lets just say that there are some of the old things that are still worth doing. And a whole lot of new stuff!

If you do not keep up with continuing changes and you think that you are a dinosaur now, you will be a fossil in a few years.

The good thing is that it is really not that hard to keep up.

Couple years ago I decided to quit clinical work after 19 years.  Nursing is a great profession; it offers many opportunities, flexibilities and choices that cannot be found in other profession.  As nurses we have the opportunity to touch many lives, work with people from all walks of life, and help people when they are most vulnerable, which sometimes impact our own lives personally.  During my fifteen years as a nurse, I have had the opportunity to work with a wide range of nurses, and in those years I have also met many unhappy nurses that would quickly admit their contentment with their choice of career, but not of their choice of current position or employer.  I have worked and observed some great, skillful, experienced nurses that remains in the same position day after day for years, unfulfilled and unhappy waiting for their retirement day.   I also have come to the conclusion that many of these unhappy fellow nurses are victim of the enemy call fear which paralyzed them and lock them in a job instead of a career.  The fear of failure and the fear of the unknown discourage many nurses from exploring opportunities that could bring them long lasting enjoyment in their careers.  Beside fear, I can also see resignation, submission, and endurance.    The lost of passion for your nursing career can only bring professional dryness and eventually career death.  The dead professional nurse loses interest in the profession, stops attending seminars, or any continuing education classes unless it is required by law or the place of employment, express no interest in participating in any professional organizations, committees in the workplace, or do anything to advance the cause of nursing.  The defeated nurse is content with working long hours, mandatory overtime, make money, come to work every day and go home.  At a glance this person dread to work every day, moody, grumpy, complain about everything and infectious to the rest of the staff.
Today, I dedicate my life to learning more about the topic of success and to help fellow nurses in restoring and nurturing their careers as a career coach.  Almost every nurse that I have talked to has a vision of what a true dream job would look like for them.  I believe that experienced nurses have enough skills, knowledge, education and combine with their God given gifts to create or land any dream opportunity for him or herself.  Yet, for many those dreams have shriveled in the frustrations of long hour shifts, overwork, burned out and routines of daily life that they no longer even make an effort to dream.  

This eagerness to learn is one of the traits that all successful people have. It is what Napoleon Hill calls specialized knowledge. It is a must and it should never stop. Because when it does, so will your career.

When Napoleon Hill wrote the book Think and Grow Rich, he was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to interview the richest men of his day.(unfortunately there were few business woman back then). Today there is not one successful business "person" that has not read this book.

The following are 5 of the most important 16 traits that all successful people have.

1. To have burning desire

2. To attain specialized knowledge

3. To have an entrepreneurial spirit

4. To be part of a mastermind group

5. To be decisive in nature


I do wish for you a very successful future in what ever path you choose... Because you too can do anything.

To the next 20 years and to your profound success.

Emma Soy, RN
www.nursingshepherd.com


P.S. If you would like a copy of Napoleon Hill's e-book, reply to this email address and I will send you a link.

emmasoy@nursingshepherd.com

My gift to you.









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Nurses, Are You A Lot Like Me?

You know, I think I am a lot like you

 
When I got out of nursing school in 1990, I really had this sense of adventure.  I wanted a job that I did not have to work weekends, nights or holidays. I wanted a job with minimal stress, well paying job that I can express my life purpose, challenging and growth opportunities. I wanted to be able to work less and make more money, to have more time to spend with my family and more time to accomplish some of my life time goals like pursuing higher degree or some of my hobbies. I wanted to travel, see the world and visit exotic, glamorous places, and return to school two years later to become a nurse practitioner or train the new generation of nursing students as a professor. I had no intention of getting stuck in a rut or feeling trap on a job.  I wanted to climb the clinical ladder and quickly become a leader in the nursing field. I did not want to be the nurse who spends her entire nursing career working the same unit, with the same employer, only a bachelor degree, a capped salary with more bills than I can handle, and a family to support.  I was really after experiencing true success, financial freedom and recognitions. But instead, as I got out of college it seemed like every path I looked down just led me right into that same old path that everyone seemed to be taking. I got married a year after I got out of nursing school, and started a family shortly after that. I spent the next 15 years burying my dreams, raising a family, working full time, overtime, and accumulating more bills than I wanted to. After 15 years of living such a stressful and unfulfilled life, I began evaluating my life looking at my pass accomplishments and found none.  After a long 60 hour week at the hospital one day, I just decided that was not for me, and I made up my mind that I was going to take charge of my life instead of living it to my circumstances and my environment. At one point I felt that my dreams were being killed by life, but now looking back I recognized that those years were not lost at all, and they were my preparation years for what I am free to do today.
 
 I began to look around for opportunities for me to make more money, to be debt free, work less hours, spend more quality time with my family, travel, live a healthier life, find a less stressful job where I can have independence, autonomy, control of my time, my money and where I can use my skills, my experiences and my natural talents.  After many years of research, I found the one opportunity that had it all. I found the career coaching industry, a billion dollar industry that is exploding. After being educated in the area of coaching, business and marketing, I am now in a mission to use my skills and knowledge to help nurses’ live extraordinary lives. As a coach I vow to help nurses to identify what is most important to them and help them to align their thoughts, their words, and their actions accordingly to help them achieve the life that they really want. My mission is to help nurses create a more balanced  life, make more money, live the abundant life that they were created to have.

One of the things that I found that I am really good at doing is in the area of problem solving.  I am good at problem solving, I am a good listener and passionate at helping people get what they want in life.  I also believe in purposeful living. I believe that everyone came to earth for a purpose and also born with all the tools to live out that purpose successfully.  Knowing that nurses are smart, flexible, resilient, and intuitive people of integrity, I believe that most of them are living way below their potentials.  I also discovered in the past few years that nurses have treasures buried inside them, and behind their scrubs hide people with tremendous talent, knowledge and abilities, if applied systematically can produce success beyond what they can imagine or dream.

Let me know how can you relate to this story, email me: emmasoy@nursingshepherd.com

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what in the world is a nursing career consultant?

Have you ever heard of a nursing career consultant?

 I am Emma Soy, Rn a Nursing Career Consultant. Looking at my title, you might be asking yourself what in the world is a nursing career consultant?

The thing that you might not know about me is that until a few years ago, I did not even know what a nursing career consultant do until I met a very successful young lady in her early 30’s who introduced me to her career consultant, and explained to me how she turned from a plain business degree student with an MBA to the extraordinary person that she was at such an early age with the help of her career consultant. Since that day, my life has never been the same again.

Since I have met that young business woman, I have found the right experts that helped me take charge of my own nursing career and turned my whole life around.

The simple truth is, I discovered nursing to be the greatest profession, and it is a great time to be a nurse today.  Nursing offers more opportunities than any other profession that I know. But you need a career plan with clear and specific goals if you are to experience success and true fulfillment that nursing offers. Without a career plan, nursing is just a job that pays your bills. Although nursing is a great profession, it is also a very demanding and stressful. As a nurse if you do not have a career growth plan, you will easily become frustrated, and burned out.  In the midst of trying to do your best every day, trying to survive you can easily get stuck in the daily rituals of work, and find yourself just going through the motions letting the excitements, the drive and the passion that you once had for nursing be replaced by the daily routine of the job; which brings the feeling of running into a brick wall experiencing career stagnation.

I feel very fortunate to have found the right people to come my way and helped me turn my life and my career around, because a few years ago I found myself in the same place that you probably are today with a stagnated career, a rut, a capped salary, working long, stressful shifts, weekends and holidays, spending very little time with my family, no vacations and a lot of bills.
So why am I telling you this?

Well…. This is something of an “open secret”…… I have been working on a way to help you turn your life and your career around the same way I did.

In fact, I have been working on this for over a year. Many of you have not heard from me for a while, I have not been speaking or publishing for almost a year.  I even started a waiting list, and some of you have been on that list for a very long time.
Well the wait is almost over.  It looks like I am only a few weeks away from releasing this new program that will help you turn your nursing career around, attract the nursing opportunity of a life time, increase your income and become an expert in any nursing niche of your choice.
 
But before I unleash this thing, I want to do one final check to make sure that this program really has everything that YOU need. So I have this one question for you…..
What are the two most important things that you need from your dream nursing job?
I really want to know, please press the reply button in your email program right now, type in a quick response, and then press your send button.
With so many readers, I can’t guarantee a personal response……. But I can guarantee that I will personally read your email.  So go ahead and let me know—what are the two most important things that you need from your dream nursing job
That’s all for now…….
Wishing you success

Emma
P.S. I am dead serious about this---and I do value your feedback.  I need to know your answer so I make sure my program is perfect…….what are the two most important things you need from your dream nursing job? Please reply now……

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Nurses, has your work become nothing more than a paycheck?

Nurses, has your work become nothing more than a paycheck?

For many nurses, work is nothing more than an activity that consume time while waiting for days off in between, holidays, vacations, retirement; and for many others, their primary reason for working is to meet their financial responsibilities. After being in the nursing field for more than 18 years, I discovered that nursing can be and should be a fulfilling, enjoyable, and financially rewarding field. Recently, I was thinking about this career path that we call nursing, and the word enjoyable is far from the words that we would use to describe our work.  Some of the common words that we have used to describe the work of a nurse have been such words like: stressful, physically and emotionally exhausted, long shifts, jack of all trade, weekend and holiday work, underpaid, and many others. Have you ever imagined of being allowed to do your most enjoyable nursing task every day and be well compensated for it, and impacting people’s lives at a greater scale? What if you had a job that you could hardly wait to get to every day, or too busy to look for Fridays, or even retirement? I bet you never thought that was possible. I am here today to let nurses everywhere know that it is possible and they only have to look beyond the usual, traditional path of nursing.

Nurses, your work can be more than a paycheck; instead it can be fulfilling bringing you happiness, confidence, enthusiasm, purpose and money. Did you know that most millionaires never went to college? And the one thing that they all have in common is that they are doing something that is enjoyable, fun and fulfilling.  Most people think that to have a lot of money, you have to work hard; well the truth is if you are working in a job where you are exchanging time for money, you are right. To make more money, you have to exchange more time and work more.  Ironically, the secret for making money is not working harder, but working smarter.  To all the nurses that are working for a paycheck, as time get harder, things become more expensive, your check will never be enough, and you need to learn how to take your current assets, which are your skills and experience and turn it into an enjoyable and financially rewarding career.

Do you want to know how to turn your job from nothing more than a paycheck to an enjoyable, fulfilling, purposeful and financially rewarding? Ask me now http://www.nursingshepherd.com/promotions/askemmanow.aspx

Send me an email and tell me why do you work at emmasoy@nursingshepherd.com

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Building your nursing career with a defining nursing career purpose


Many nurses enter the nursing profession with no clear goals, beyond getting their first job. It is no wonder that those nurses find themselves after five to ten years in nursing unfulfilled and burned out.  The process of building a nursing career should begin with your first job, and the basis for picking your first job should be base on a clear career purpose.  If you do not have a clear career purpose, you should begin this process with defining clearly, and specifically what is it that you want out of your nursing career.

You should set timeline for achieving specific career goals, and your career purpose should be realistic, attainable with a high probability of success.  In defining your career purpose, consider your values, because your values have to be congruent to what you want to achieve.  Honesty is also important when you are defining your career purpose.  Be honest in your ability to achieve certain goals to prevent discouragement as a roadblock to your success.  Set career goals that will motivate you to take actions, instead of sabotaging yourself.

Every nurse wants to have a successful career, but many are unwilling to do the necessary tasks, the years, and the investments that are required to achieve significant mark in the nursing profession.  If you are willing apply this simple technique of defining, and writing your nursing career purpose, your success is almost guaranteed.

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Patient’s satisfactions and your nursing career

Would you consider yourself to be a good nurse? If I would ask this question of nurses around the world, they all would have the same answers; of course “I am a good nurse”. Often when we are speaking of a good nurse, we are usually referring to the nurse’s professional skills, but amazingly over the years as a nurse I have come to realize patients have a completely different definition of a “good nurse”.  It’s been said that people do not care about how much you know as much as they want to know how much you care, and it is from that specific point of view that I believe patients use to rate their level of satisfaction in describing a good nurse.

 As a young pediatric nurse, I used to believe that the best thing that I can do for a patient is to make sure that I provide the correct medications, proper treatments, and follow policies and procedures to the teeth. It did not take me long to realize that the more I focus on these matters the more hostile, and frustrated that my parents and patients were with me .  Please do not misunderstand what I am trying to say, performing these skills with excellence is necessary for good nursing care, but what matters most to people is not how well you can do your job, but also how much their basic needs are being met.  I worked in a pediatric intensive care unit for many years, and so many times I would hear parents complaining how much I was starving their gravely ill children, and failed to understand how hard I was working on trying to keep their love’s one blood pressure stable.

According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or the basic needs of all humans are: physical, safety, love, acceptance, self-esteem and self-actualization. Many times when patients are ask to rate their level of satisfaction, they use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs scale for excellence. Knowing and understanding where patients are coming from regarding patient satisfactions, it is our duty to education them and their love ones the rationale behind our actions, so they can have the whole picture of their care in order to make an informed decision regarding their level of satisfaction.

Patient’s satisfaction and career success
Have you ever imagine what would happen to your career if you took the time to find out what patients have to say about your nursing care? Well I suggest that you find out, and career advice to you for week is to carry with you a 3x5 card daily, and at the end of your day take the time to get your patient’s level of satisfaction in writing.  Take it further and do the same with your co-workers, and use this information for your annual reviews,  and as reference for a new position.

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The instant millionaire nurse

Today I want to talk to you about the topic of being an instant millionaire to stir up some feelings that you probably been suppressing about your current nursing career. If you won a million dollars today, how would your life change? Would you quit your current job?  The difference between a job and a career is that a job is you exchanging your time for money, and a career is something that you would do even if you received no monetary reward. 
A good career assessment can simply begins with this question, and if you find yourself in a job because of the money or because you have bills to pay, then the next logical question to ask yourself, is why are you accepting this situation?  Nursing is a very rewarding profession, but can also be very stressful. Taking control of your nursing career involve being alert and aware of your work environment, being able to manage stressful situations, and having a well thought out career map. 

One of the things that a career plan will do for you is to give you the freedom to choose.  A career map will give you the freedom to choose your schedule, your employer, your pay and even your dream position.  The main reason that people remains in positions that are not the best for them is because of fear of change. 

Do not let fear tie you down, but begin to imagine the possibility of you landing your dream nursing position, allow yourself to do whatever that you want to with your career and let your true goals emerge.

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Nursing law of legacy

As we are facing yet another brutal nursing shortage nursing leaders should thrive to pass a really important leadership test, which is the law of legacy.  
Legacy means to pass something immaterial from one generation to another.  The ability and willingness for nursing leaders to reproduce themselves in other nurses is very important in our efforts to attract and keep people practicing the nursing profession. 
Leaders who seek to reproduce themselves in younger nurses should do so very early in the career of the younger nurse. They should be pro-active in looking for the future nurse leader to cast the vision of reproduction in becoming leaders.  Future nurse leaders can be found in every unit during any regular working hour waiting to be discovered by someone in leadership. 
If you are looking to make a difference in nursing, reproducing yourself in someone else’s life is a great place to start.  As a leader in the quest for future leaders be intentional, and take the opportunity to handpick the next generation of leaders in nursing.           

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It is possible to turn your nursing career around


According to Brian Traci, “Perhaps the greatest discovery in human history is the power of your mind to create almost every aspect of your life.” Everything in your life today started as a dream, a wish and a hope.   If you are unhappy with your current nursing position you have what it takes to turn it around.    The best place to start is to figure out what you want in regards to your career, focus on how to achieve it, and top talking about what you do not want, the problems in nursing, or blaming others for your lack of success.

Make clear achievable goals and keep your mind on them if you want to make significant progress in your career.  You do not always have to leave your current employment or nursing to find success.  You can remain exactly where you and achieve what ever the goals that you set your mind to achieve.  That is the power of “you become what you think about most of the time”.  If you desire to be number one in your place of employment or want to be recognized as an expert in nursing, it will happen simply by deciding that is what you want.

If you set little goals, you will achieve little.  It is completely up to you, if you set large goals you have the ability to achieve goals of any size, and scope. Go ahead set goals to turn your nursing career around.  I believe in you, and you can do it.  I believe that you can get from point A to point B even if you do not know where point B is, you only have to believe that there is a point B.

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Are negative attitudes or emotions destroying your nursing career?

Nursing is great, but it is a very stressful profession to be in. As a nurse, we are consistently being pulled in different directions. Everyone seems to think that we have the answer to all their issues and problems, and usually we try our best to service everyone, every department or physician who seeks our assistance.

At the end of a long day or stressful week, it is not uncommon to find many us complaining about the job or the profession. I have been a nurse for over 17 years, and I have never known a time we were not facing a nursing shortage, which is one of our biggest issues in nursing today. The chronic shortage is the cause of a domino effect of an endless list of problems such as the working condition. As nurses we usually work long hours on our feet with very little time for lunch or bathroom breaks, we are always being ask to work over time or extra shifts and the list of issues can be endless.

With all the issues that we face in the profession, I believe that the biggest enemy of success or happiness can be rooted to the degree of your negative attitudes or emotions that you develop over the years. Your negative attitudes have the power to hold your career back, tire you out and rob you of all your joy in nursing. If you want to start enjoying this great profession, one of your goals this year should be to free yourself of negative attitudes and emotions such as fear, self-pity, envy, jealousy, feelings of inferiority and anger. Once you make up your mind to replace those negative emotions with more positive ones, I believe that your career will start to move up to a whole new level.

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