The Key to Success: Nurse to LNC

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I talk to nurses all the time who have dreams of running their own business as legal nurse consultants (LNCs). The want to move from being a nurse to being a LNC. They want financial independence; they want control over their hours, schedules and work environments. And they don’t want to be a prisoner of the hospital and have to work weekends and holidays.

“Lorie, how did you do it? How did you go from being a nurse to being a successful consultant and businesswoman?”

The Key to Success: Nurse to LNC

It wasn’t easy! But I was motivated.

I was a single mother pregnant with my second child 17 years ago. I just had lost my job as a partner in a law firm where I practiced in medical malpractice defense. Since pregnancy and single-motherhood do not equal billable hours, I hung out my shingle. I thought if I put this service out there, they would come. Boy, was I wrong.

So what kept me going through all of that?

I was as they say, “all in”, completely committed to doing whatever it took to be successful. For me that meant hiring a coach to help me learn what I did not know in developing a successful business. As I grew my business, I eventually had eight LNCs working for me while I coached other LNCs on how to grow their own businesses.

In my experience, intention makes up 99% of your results. There are endless ways (or actions) to get to the same result. But you must intend it with all your heart, to your core, for you to achieve the results that you want.

You must be willing to not let circumstances get in the way of your success. If it’s your intention to be a successful LNC, you will make it happen. There’s no back door. Quitting is not an option. If your intention is to have a successful business, you’ll make it happen. You will take the actions that produce the results that you want. Some people are so afraid of failure that they never begin or even set themselves up to fail. With intention, failure is not an option.

Look at Olympic athletes. I am reminded of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta where gymnast Kerri Strug ran on a broken ankle to vault over a horse and lead the American team to a gold medal in the all around competition. Her intention was so strong that failure was not an option.

It was not comfortable for Kerri Strug to run on a broken ankle, but look at the result. This process is called stretching. If you talk to any successful person, they will tell you that the journey to success was not easy, that you must stretch, think out of the box and get out of your comfort zone to overcome a lot of obstacles.

For nurses, this is particularly true. We are caregivers, not business people. It is true that because of our training and personalities, we are gifted at understanding and meeting a patient’s needs. If you think of your client as a “patient” whose needs you are trying to understand and meet, this is a logical transition. To be a successful legal nurse consultant, though, we need to learn the necessary business skills, including marketing.

We had the mindset to be a successful nurse, but now need to shift that mindset to become a successful businessperson. As a nurse, when we were hired by an employer, we did not need to worry about how to get business, how to bill and how to manage the finances. We knew how to do our jobs, and we were good at it. As a successful LNC, you may know how to review a case, write a great report and prepare an excellent chronology, but you may not have the mindset or skills to be successful in business.

If you are truly intentional about your business and take the appropriate action, there is no other result but success. But to be successful, it requires you to get out of your comfort zone and do things that are out of the box.

Are you ready to stretch outside of your comfort zone? Then I’m the coach for you. Because so many have requested it, I’m doing something I rarely do. I’m hosting a LNC Group Coaching Intensive. In six sessions I’ll show you how to grow your biz and get all the cases you can possibly handle. Go to www.empowerednurses.org/Inc to learn more. (But don’t delay because you save over 40% if you sign up by April 1^st.