FROM THE EDITOR Make the Most of Your FREE CLNC® Mentoring with These Guidelines
by Vickie L. Milazzo, RN, MSN, JD
I want you to succeed. That's why I developed the CLNC® Mentoring Program for all CLNC®s and Institute students. You receive free lifetime mentoring as long as you remain certified. As a CLNC® or student of the Institute, you are not left to figure everything out on your own. Our CLNC® Mentors guide you in starting and growing your legal nurse consulting practice.
All CLNC® Mentors are full-time practicing Certified Legal Nurse ConsultantsCM. I personally handpicked every CLNC® Mentor, guaranteeing that you are being coached by the most successful CLNC® Pros in the nation.
"Vickie Milazzo Institute offers ongoing mentoring by some of the most important and successful CLNC®s. This you can't get anywhere
else."
– Mendy Bragg, RN, CLNC, South Carolina
Our CLNC® Mentors guide you every step of the way to CLNC® success whether you're preparing for an interview with an attorney or writing a report. Our goal is to help you avoid mistakes and face each new level in your business with confidence. The only thing we don't do is do your work for you. For example, we won't locate an expert for you, but we can answer your questions about how to find an appropriate expert for a particular case.
"The support that follows the training is unsurpassed. CLNC® Mentoring gives you everything you need."
– Toni R. Young-Huber, RN, BSN, CLNC, Colorado
The Institute is committed to meeting the mentoring needs of our students and CLNC®s. For the fastest response to your mentoring questions, please visit the NACLNC® Community, go to the Mentoring section and use the Mentoring Request Form. Make your mentoring request via email to Mentor@LegalNurse.com, and we will respond within 24 hours, Monday-Friday.
Depending on the complexity of your question, we will provide an answer via email or a CLNC® Mentor will contact you. Our family of trusted
CLNC® Mentors represent many nursing specialties, and we will match you with the right one to address your issue. Please do not email or call our CLNC® Mentors directly. You must make each mentoring request through the Institute.
If you have a question about your marketing materials, send them to the Institute with your request. We will review your materials within 5 business days of receiving them.
Our FREE CLNC® Mentoring is available at 3 different levels as long as you remain certified:
VIP CLNC® Success System:
You have FREE unlimited priority CLNC® Mentoring as long as you remain certified. Unlimited mentoring – unlimited success.
"With the VIP CLNC® Success System, you cannot fail. Vickie and her staff are always at the other end of the telephone."
Basic CLNC® Success System (Home-Study or
6-Day Seminar):
You have access to FREE mentoring once a month as long as you remain certified.
We are here to help you make your career as a Certified Legal Nurse ConsultantCM a rewarding success. Hands down, students and CLNC®s rate the mentoring they receive from the Institute's CLNC® Mentors as their favorite FREE benefit. CLNC®s say, "Free mentoring is the secret to success."
BEST PRACTICES FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Are You an Organizer or an Actor?
by Dan Cryer
Working in customer service with Vickie Milazzo Institute, I interact with CLNC®s every day. The most frequent discussion centers around the CLNC®’s desire to be fully prepared before launching their CLNC® careers. There’s a saying that “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The CLNC®’s concern reminds me of a lesson learned from three days in July during the Civil War.
In the summer of 1863, the forces of the Confederacy advanced unchecked into southern Pennsylvania. President Abraham Lincoln’s Union forces were better trained and better equipped than the Confederate armies but were consistently outfought and outsmarted. Lincoln named a succession of commanders to head his armies—all with similar results. The war was being lost. Finally, after his next choice declined, Lincoln placed General George Meade in command.
The Obsessive Organizer
Meade was well known for being a great organizer and being very thorough in preparing for battle. He tried to ensure that his troops were well trained and motivated. He drilled, practiced and inspected them for weeks. Meade demanded that everything be in place and every option explored before he would commit to action and take his troops into battle.
The Confederate forces probed deeper into Union territory. Meade still refused to commit his forces to battle, still believing they were not fully prepared and not knowing Robert E. Lee’s intentions.
Finally, in the farmlands outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as Meade moved his forces northward onto safe high ground, on July 1st Lee committed his troops to battle. Despite Meade’s preparations the Union nearly lost the battle, even though his numbers were larger and his troops were better equipped.
On the second day of the battle, at a hill called Little Round Top, Union Colonel Joshua Chamberlain took an unexpected action. Out of ammunition, under attack and short of men, had he followed logic and Meade’s strategy he would have retreated. Instead, his gut told him to advance. He ordered his remaining men to fix their bayonets to their rifles and charged the advancing Confederate troops. Surprised, the Confederates retreated. Chamberlain’s action kept the Union forces from being flanked and swept from behind. The Union carried the day and, during Pickett’s Charge the next day, July 3rd, Meade’s forces decimated Lee’s army causing them to retreat into Virginia. One man’s action possibly changed history.
As the defeated Confederate forces withdrew, they awaited a hard pursuit and attack by Meade’s forces. None came. Meade decided not to press his advantage, holding onto the safe ground he had won and preparing for the next battle. Having won the Battle of Gettysburg, he was in an ideal position to win the war, but by not moving forward, his inaction inadvertently prolonged the Civil War for two more years.
The Driven Dynamo
Months later, with the outcome of the war still uncertain, Lincoln replaced Meade with Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was the polar opposite of Meade. He was unorganized, unstructured, undaunted and frequently disheveled. He did posses one power that Meade lacked – action. Grant wasn't concerned whether his supply lines were organized or his men's uniforms the right color. Those questions never entered his mind. He just pointed his sword and said, “Attack.” Attacking hard and attacking often was Grant’s philosophy of war. Like Chamberlain, he went on the offensive against forces that were attacking him.
Meade and Grant couldn’t have been more different. Meade had trained, organized and supplied the army. Grant put them into action. Under Grant’s command, the tide of the war changed and the North eventually won the conflict and preserved the Union.
What lessons can CLNC®s learn from these men?
Could Meade have won the war, given more time? In my opinion the answer is no. He was too cautious to act.
Did Chamberlain do the logical thing? No. Conventional wisdom told him to quit and retreat. Instead he followed his gut, and by taking action and moving forward, even in the face of what should have been overwhelming adversity, he carried the day.
Did Grant’s policy of always moving forward win the war? Again, no. If his army hadn’t been so well prepared and supplied, defeat would have been the outcome. He eventually learned to employ the coordinated strategy of attacking on different fronts with different armies. Ultimately, what won the war was the combination of both preparation and coordinated and planned action.
Successful CLNC®s Prepare and Act
Remember history as you take your next CLNC® career step. Many times nurses complete the CLNC® Certification Program and are ready to begin their journey as CLNC®s. But with all their experience, training and knowledge, they continue to prepare just a little bit more and a little bit more. They take weeks pondering questions like “Do I need a second phone line?” or what color suit to wear to interviews or what opening to use when calling that first attorney.
As you march toward your passion, ask yourself: Am I being like Meade, ever-ready to begin marketing my business, but too cautious to pick up the phone and call an attorney? Or am I like Grant, taking advantage of preparation and moving forward in a planned manner, even in the face of fear.
Being a CLNC® doesn’t have to be a battle and will only feel like one if you spend all of your time preparing, without the glory of action. Take action steps that infuse your practice with the right combination of Meade’s thoroughness and Grant’s drive, and you’ll win any battle you take on.
Dan Cryer is a customer service representative at Vickie Milazzo Institute and a history buff.
