What's up, guys, It's Adrianne. I just wanted to hop on here
real quick and let you know that this episode was recorded last year in May
or June of twenty twenty two, right before I moved from Minneapolis to Chicago.
I make a couple outdated references in here, so I just wanted to
give you guys a heads up. But this is still a really wonderful,
relevant, entertaining episode and I hope you enjoy. Okay, let's go Welcome
to Nursing on censored. We are back today to talk about more positive things
in nursing, because goodness knows, we have had our fair share of trials
and tribulations over these last few years. So today I am very excited to
bring to all of you Donna Cardillo, who is known as the Inspiration Nurse
because we all need a little inspiration, right. She's a powerhouse of energy,
wisdom, humor. She's been referred to as a positive force of nature
who lights a path for others to follow. She's the original Dear Donna columnist
and nurse dot com. Her accomplished career combines over twenty five years of clinical,
managerial and business experience, not to mention her stint as a professional singer,
and I need to ask about that, so we'll come we'll circle background
to that. Donna is the author of four books, including the award winning
Falling Together, How to find balance, joy and meaningful change when your life
seems to be falling apart. She's a certified meditation teacher, a labyrinth facilitator.
I don't know what that is, so we're going to talk about that
too, a raiky master, a certified forest therapy guide, and Donna is
also a lifelong Jersey girl with attitude and hotspot A spare I love a good
year. Said well, yes, thank you, Donna, welcome to the
show. I'm so delighted to have you here today. Thank you, my
pleasure to be with you today in your audience. Excellent. Well already I
have a million questions for you, but I would love to start out with
you telling us a little bit more about yourself. Yeah. Sure. So
I've been a nurse for a long time, for several decades, and it
has just been the joy of my life. There is not ever been one
day that I have ever regretted my choice, or not learned something new or
didn't know that I was making an enormous difference in the world. So nursing
is a big, wide world and I have taken advantage of all of that,
and I'm sure there's still more out there as well. I did start
out years ago in a traditional, actually hospital based diploma program, which is
something many of us did years ago, and I started out working in psychiatric
hospitals on the emergency room. I loved both of those specialties, and I
imagine that that's what I would do with all of my career because many nurses
just see opportunities in a traditional hospital setting, but I was completely unaware at
that time of all the other opportunities that were out there. And I never
moved from the hospital because I didn't like the hospital, not at all.
On the contrary, I had moved at some point, tried to find another
job in a hospital in an emergency room, couldn't find the shift I wanted,
and began to explore other possibilities for myself through classified advertising. So I
wound up initially outside of the hospital working in a medical weight control center,
and that was where I had my first management position. I started to learn
all the transferable skills I had as a registered nurse. From there I went
on to work. I can't even always remember the order of things. I
did quite a few things back then, but I worked for the Stanley Kaplin
company that has test prepped for nurses to take nursing boards. I worked for
a hospital in charge of quality improvement, utilism, zation review and risk management.
In fact, the DRG system, which was introduced in this country in
the nineteen eighties as a revolutionary way of hospital billing. I was one of
the first DRG coordinators in the country. And if you're not familiar with DRGs,
you or your audience, that's okay, stands for diagnostic related groups.
You could always look it up and find out more about it. And then
I also worked for a health maintenance organization. When managed care was getting big
in this country, I was interested in learning more about that and I did
that for a time as well. And for the last twenty seven years now
I have been self employed as a nurse. I'm a nurse entrepreneur and I
started my business twenty seven years ago doing public seminars for nurses on non traditional
career opportunities. Culled career alternatives for nurses because I discovered purely by chance that
there's a wide array of opportunities for nurses, both in and out of the
hospital, and I came aware that the average nurse wasn't aware of those opportunities.
Nor did the average nurse, at least at that time and still pretty
much today know how to market themselves well, you know, creating a great
resume, going on interviews and really selling themselves, advocating for themselves and their
their skill set and so on. And so my business has evolved in twenty
seven years from doing public seminars for nurses, and by the way, that
seminar career al Trenitive is for nurses, I don't present that live anymore,
but I do have that available in an audio download on my website so people
can still get that information. So then, over the years my business evolved,
and I am now today primarily a keynote or a featured speaker at nursing
conferences and conventions at hospitals and healthcare organizations. I have since written four books,
as you mentioned in my introduction, three of them are for the nurses
career and professional development. We can talk about that a little bit more later,
and also do retreats today for nurses. I do a retreat called Empowered
Nurse Enlightened Practice, and I do those retreats. Those are usually weekend long
retreats that I do either at luxury resorts or I do at some more low
key retreat sectors, depending on the location. So I kind of offer a
little something for everybody. So that's a quick overview. You are a perfect
example of what really nursing can be and what nursing can do for you that
and I think a lot of nurses do kind of fall into that mindset of
like, if I want to be a real nurse, I have to work
in a hospital, I have to do these these and these things, and
that's just not the case. Wonderful bedside experience can be had, and many
people do choose to stay at the bedside, but there are so many opportunities,
and I think that you are a perfect example of how you've got to
let the current kind of take you and find the things that you're passionate about
and that you love and that this guy is the limit. Did you ever
see yourself as a keynote speaker when you first started as a brand new diplomaturs,
Oh gosh, absolutely, I never saw myself outside of the hospital exactly.
And even when I started my business twenty seven years ago, I'd never
imagined that i'd be doing any of the things that I'm doing today. And
that's important because a lot of people feel that they need to have this clear
vision of their future in order to move forward. But many of us can't
have that clear vision because number one, we don't even know that something in
particular exists. I had. First of all, I had no idea that
people, any people spoke for a living, that they would go around,
travel around and speak at different events and people would pay them to be there,
and it was, you know, a certain way of presenting, etc.
I didn't even know that that existed until I don't even remember when,
many many years later, And I remember the first time. The first person
I met who was a professional speaker was actually a nurse. We an organization
that I was involved in, had hired her to come speak at one of
our annual conferences, and I picked her up at the airport and we had
a chance to talk, and I said, wow, that I just had
no idea, And I remember thinking, at that moment in time, I
certainly still didn't think I would do that, but I thought, gee's that's
really cool. I don't know, maybe who knows, Maybe that's something that
I could do someday. So you really just have to get out there and
talk to people, meet people, try different things, because that's how you
find out Number one. You find out what's available, you find out what
you're good at, and you find out what you enjoy doing, and those
are all important things. So I always say you don't have to have a
clear vision of the future. You just need to keep moving in a positive
forward direction and eventually the path will be illuminated for you. That's so hard
for some people because we live in this culture that defines us by what we
do, what we drive, where you know who will identify as And one
thing that I've said many time, and long term listeners will have heard me
say this before, the job that you someday cannot wait to wake up every
day to do may not even exist yet. Well that too, that too,
I mean, that's a very good point. Yeah, But it's also
true that as I've interviewed people through the podcast, I've learned about jobs that
I didn't know existed because there's just such a vast set of skills that nurses
have and roles that we can fulfill. So I think, yeah, so
you make a great point that you can't expect to see the crescendo of your
career, yeah, Kendo, or even the next step. You know.
For example, sometimes you'll hear a question ask like, where do you see
yourself five years from now? I don't mean not a job interview, but
maybe a career coach will say, where do you see yourself five years from
now? The truth is most people don't really don't. They don't have an
image of where they want to be in five years. They're just not really
sure. That seems so far off. So that's what I'm trying to say,
you don't necessary. I mean, you can have a goal for five
years. Some people may great, fabulous, but if you don't, that's
okay. You want to just keep moving in a positive forward direction. I
have a very broad view of who a nurse is and what a nurse does.
Many nurses have a very narrow view. That's not a criticism. That's
just the nature of how we were in some cases, how we were educated,
but what our experience has been and the people that we know. If
we're living in a very narrow world with our job, our friends, whatever.
We don't necessarily see the big picture. The more I got out there
and did different things, the bigger the world got, and the bigger my
vision got about nursing as well. And I always say nursing is the most
diverse profession on the planet. It will take you literally anywhere you want to
go. And we have a lot of people coming into nursing today from prior
career, a career, or careers, so they're bringing a very interesting skill
set and work and life experience to nursing, which is phenomenal. And whether
it's a background in psychology or in manufacturing, or in welding, or being
a trained conductor, whatever it is, they bring all of that into the
profession and that is really helping to add a lot of texture and strength to
our profession as well, which is very exciting. I did not get my
ADN until I was thirty five, and I'm now forty one, and I
consider myself to be at the very tip the beginning of my career because there's
so much that I want to do. So many nurses are bringing other skill
sets and other careers into kind of the nursing world. One of the most
compassionate nurses I've ever worked with was a nurse named Marcia, and she was
an IT. She worked in IT before she became a nurse, and I've
seen some of the most fantastic nursing care I've seen it betside done by this
woman, and so I think we would be we would be foolish to limit
ourselves, and I strive to with this show kind of as we talked a
little bit about before we started recording, my goal is to just illuminate everything
that nurses are doing, because it's even news to me. I mean,
even though I've worked in a hospital since two thousand and five, every time
I talk to someone new, I'm like, what's that? What do you
mean? What is that job? I've never heard of that? That's amazing,
that's really great. And I think that the more we listen to each
other. I'm a big proponent of the collective knowledge of nurses. Nurses are
in such a unique position to reach people and provide care, whether it be
through direct hands on care or like what you're doing, which is providing information,
inspiration, motivation. So I do want to kind of fall back for
a second to the introduction that I read for you. I am so desperately
curious to know what a labyrinth facilitator is. So I don't want to derail
too much, but I have to ask that questions, okay, when you're
not really derailing, because the thing is, as I said, I have
a very broad view of who we nurses and what a nurse does, and
we are all We're healers, we're teachers, were nurturers, and there are
many ways in places to make a difference. As you just articulated, and
we are. Healing is at the heart of everything that I do and that
any nurse does, no matter what role they have, no matter what they're
doing, whether they sit behind a desk, where they stand at the bedside,
whatever that might be. So first of all, I'll tell you what
a labyrinth is before I tell you what a labyrinth facilitator is. A labyrinth
is an ancient spiritual tool, and the exact argins of it are not even
known. I encourage everybody to look it up. It's spelled la by Rintch,
a little unusual spelling, and it's not a maze. Maze is kind
of a fun. Well, I don't think they're fun, but where you
have to kind of try to find your way out. You go in and
there are dead ends and whatever you find. The path a labyrinth is what's
called unicursal structure, which means there's only one path in and there's one path
out. So you can't get lost per se in a labyrinth. And I'll
explain the purpose in a moment, but there's an entrance. You walk in
eventually to the center, and then you walk back out on the same path.
And the labyrinth is used in many different ways. It has been called
a walking meditation or a process meditation because you're moving, but you do have
to focus and be very much in the moment to make sure that your feet
stay on the path because the path is not straight, it's curved, so
you do have to pay attention to what you're doing. There's a lot of
metaphor in the labyrinth because our path in life is not straight, it's curved,
goes in different directions, but at least in the labyrinth, as I
said, you can't get lost, although people do occasionally misstep in the labyrinth
and then they have to find their way back, which you're either going to
go to the middle or you're going to go to the outside, lots of
metaphor there for life. It's also, however, an opportunity to you know,
it's in a well. Labyrinth can be square. In other shapes,
many of them are circular. There's a certain spiritual element to circles as well.
So the labyrinth is very, very popular right now. It's it's an
ancient tool, but it's become particularly popular in the last ten years. You
see them popping up, being built at hospitals, schools, churches of old
denominations, parks, and a lot of other public places. So a labyrinth
facilitator is someone like myself who learns about labyrinths and not only what they need,
but how to use them, and then guides people individuals or groups and
the use of the labyrinth. So a typical labyrinth experience would be where you
take a moment before you enter the labyrinth, get yourself grounded. You might
ask a question, set an intention, and intention is just maybe you know
how you want the experience to be, and you begin to slowly walk on
the path that is in front of you until you get to the center.
And because because the labyrinth it's not concentric circles, the path may wind in
different directions, but it's still all ultimately going to the same place, so
you really can't You don't always know whether how close you are to the center
or to the beginning, which more forces you to kind of just focus on
one step in front of the other, to be very mindful and to focus
on what you're doing. So there are three parts to a labyrinth walk.
Usually there's lots of different ways to use it. But the path in is
there three are is the path it is releasing, So on your walk in,
you're releasing anything that no longer serves you that you don't want in your
life. You just kind of letting it go. You get to the center
of the circle, it's an opportunity for you to just open up and receive
any messages that are there for you, any insights of any type. And
then on the path back, you are returning or assimilating back into your regular
life. And sometimes it's just a peaceful, relaxing experience, but sometimes people
get incredible insights in the course of walking the labyrinth mindfully, So that's just
a very quick experience. I've met many people and I was probably one of
them originally who had encountered labyrinth somewhere walked them but didn't really understand what they
were about or if there was anything I should or shouldn't be doing. So
I'm really very excited today to have some knowledge about labyrinth and how to use
them and then facilitate. Usually group walks on Labyrinth and World Labyrinth Day is
the first Saturday of May, so for two consecutive years now, I've had
hosted a program called Nurses Walking for Wellness. I lead the group in my
local area, but I encourage nurses all around the world to have something similar
in their area on that same day. So I say, we're walking for
ourselves, for our profession, and for our patients and for the world.
That's wow, that's that's a lot to take in. But that's so incredible.
That's amazing, and it's hard to give like a real simple explanation.
Yeah, yeah, I tell you what a facilitator does. There's also a
website called Labyrinth Locator, and I believe it's dot com labyrinthlocator dot com,
so that you can type in your town, your state, your zip code,
and you can find out if there are any registered labyrinths in the area.
There may be some that aren't on their website. But I've actually found
some great labyrinths through that website. Excellent. I'll include Todd in the show
notes. I'm curious to find. I'm about to in like the next twenty
days, I'll be moving from Minneapolis to Chicago, so I'm really curious to
see what's going on in that general area. So and that's good you mentioned
that, because the labyrinth is it's a great thing to do when you're at
any sort of time of transition. It's something good to do with the change
of seasons. Maybe on your birthday, the beginning of a new year.
My birthday is right before my move so yeah, perfect, perfect, Maybe
this is my call to the summer solstice is coming up so later this month,
and some people walk the labyrinth in honor of or in memory of someone.
I've had whole families who come together and walk a labyrinth together in memory
of someone who has passed on. There's lots of different ways that people use
the labyrinth. I'm so glad I asked you that question. I feel like
they're you know, there's a reason that these things happen. There's a reason
these burning questions coming at life, So that that seems like a very interesting
role because you know, as nurses, I often the word facilitator to me
comes back to my practice a lot because for a very long time, I
worked with patients that were at end of life, and so of course there's
a lot of emotion that comes around that. There's a lot that goes on
at any point in the life span, but very specifically during end of life.
And I one of the ways that I helped keep my emotions in check
when I was at the bedside was to remember that I am a facilitator of
an experience in a lot of ways, and so there is room for my
emotion, my compassion. But as a facilitator, as you know, it
is not about your experience. It is about the experience of those that you
are leading or with or guiding or whatever whatever appropriate word you use. And
so I think it's really interesting that you talk about this because as a facilitator,
like we're facilitators in so many different roles, you know, And so
that doesn't mean that we erase or eliminate our own experiences or our own emotions,
thoughts, preferences, whatever, but it does mean that we need to
make sure that we are remembering what our purpose is in that moment, and
I think, God, yeah, absolutely absolutely, and I think that that's
that's something that I feel. A facilitator seems like kind of a generic word
or you know, like a job or you know, like I'm a facilitator,
but it's so much more than at and since we are kind of talking
about experiences and spirituality and awakenings and transition, I feel like your role overall
has been that of a facilitator and you are very much facilitating for me because
I've been trying to consume a lot of your content recently. I mean I've
I've known about you for quite some time, for years, since the early
days of my practice, and now that you know we were, we've decided
to have this conversation together. I decided to accelerate that and kind of listen
to some more of your talks. I want to talk about your most recent
book, which, forgive me if I'm getting the timeline wrong, but the
is falling Together at what point? Which where in line of the four does
that fall in? Because I want to talk about your first year as a
nurse, But before we get to that, I want to talk about Falling
Together just briefly, So Falling Together is the fourth book that I wrote.
Okay, okay, and my first three books are there. I wrote them
for nurses there about career and professional development. Actually anybody could benefit from them,
but I did them specifically for nurses. Falling Together I wrote for anyone,
and Falling Together the subtitle is how to find balanced joy and meaningful change
when your life seems to be falling apart. If I had to put it
in a word, it's about resilience, but it's really about facing life's challenges
and rather than letting them knock you down and knock you out, being able
to learn from them, build something, and come back stronger and move on.
So the book is often referred to as a self help memoir. It's
not pure memoir. It's not just all stories of mine, but I do
share some of my personal experiences in there, not because you may have had
my exact experience, but hopefully you can glean lessons learned from the experiences that
I've had in the lessons that I've learned, and I do summarize at the
end of each chapter. Because my purpose in writing the book was not for
people to learn about me. The purpose was to help other people and to
vigate their way through through their own challenges of life. So at the end
of every chapter, I summarize lessons learned from that particular chapter. In a
more general way, I abstract them from my own story that I might have
told, and I do talk about getting going through a terrible divorce shares ago.
I talk about being a family caregiver to my current amazing husband who is
very disabled with MS, and with some other things that happened. I talk
about a great lack of self confidence and other things early in my life,
talk about getting started in business, writing and speaking, because sometimes people we
tend to do this with people that we perceive are successful. We see them
in what we perceive as their success bubble, and we think, well,
I could never be like them, because they obviously have it all going on,
and they're confident and they whatever. But the person I am today is
because of every thing that I have done before, and especially the last twenty
seven years as a nurse entrepreneur. I was a very different person twenty seven
years ago, and certainly when I got started in nursing. So we learn
and we grow and we move forward. And I want people to know that
I've had some big, not only big challenges in my life, there have
been times when I have just had almost total lack of self confidence and really
didn't believe that I could ever do any of the things that I was doing
today. So that's part of the reason I share that I have always loved
reading biographies of people that I admire, and what I always i would read
them Initially, I think, oh, I'd really like to hear more about
their life. But what I learned by reading so many biographies is that everybody
who has achieved anything in their life that let's just say that I personally admire,
they have overcome incredible obstacles and had amazing challenges that I didn't know about.
It was something maybe that wasn't public knowledge or whatever, and I'd be
like, wow, you know, I just assume that the road was paved
for them with gold and that's why they're so successful. So, you know,
when you hear those stories, I think it gives any of us pause
to think, Okay, you know, then maybe I can do this too.
And some of us, again, we live in a you know,
we kind of keep to ourselves. We live a very isolated or a somewhat
isolated existence. We don't maybe share our stories or our experiences, and we
think that we're the only one. So I wanted to give voice to my
experience so that I could also speak up for others who maybe don't have the
courage, don't have the words, don't have the opportunity to let their own
voice be heard. I'm hoping that people will read it and say, oh,
my gosh, I know exactly how she felt in that situation because I
have felt that way also, maybe different circumstances, but I have also felt
like that. So and then you know how to be able to move forward
in spite of it or with it. Much of what you just said,
like I'm biting through my tongue to not be like, yes, yes,
that is it. That is it, because it again comes back to that
collective knowledge of nursing. We may not be walking the exact same footsteps,
but we all have these in these situations or these instances where we listen to
someone talk about their own experience and they're like, I've felt that way,
I've been through that, and we don't, you know, we don't see
what goes on inside of people's experiences, especially when we see people like you
said, have become successful. We think they've always been this confident, eloquent,
you know, the powerhouse of a person. But a phrase that I've
heard a lot lately in the last few months is it only takes ten years
to become an overnight success. And that is so true. And I think
that that's so important for young nurses to hear new nurses, regardless of age
or career trajectory. And I think it's also important for nurses to hear that
that are, you know, deep into their careers, knowing that you're not
stuck, you're not isolated, you're not alone. There are so many other
people that have had similar experiences, similar emotions. And if we talk about
these things, and we talk about how we handle them, how we struggle,
how we stumble, and how we then fall together, then we have
at least some kind of like blueprint or indication that there's like a way out
of this labyrinth, right, this like ability. Well, yeah, let's
not say labyrinthynth that's different if you're not lost in the labyrinthy. I don't
want to cross metaphors in the maze. Yes, yes, maybe people get
those very different, very different. And I'm still learning. So pardon my
slip. No, no, no, that's okay. I just wanted to
I just wanted to clarification. Absolutely, So, I think that it's interesting
that you've come to me at this period of time. And I say that
because you know, of course I've consumed your content. I've listened to the
things you have to say. But it's interesting that we're connecting now because now
I feel like I have. I used to read a lot, but I
read a lot of nonfiction. I don't read as much as I used to,
but I'm starting to collect the small stack of books that I want to
read, and your book is in there. Now. You have another book
that I would like to speak about, one that was just released. You
released it during Nurses Week because that correct, well, it was a third
edition of Editions. Okay, actually yes, yes, it was forgivened no
forgiveness needed. It was launched officially on May tense. The title is your
first year as a nurse, making a transition from total novice to successful professional.
The first edition was the very first book that I wrote, way back
when I believe it was released in two thousand or two thousand and one,
and I read ginerally wrote that book that first edition, because I was getting
calls from many new nurses who were saying, since I was teaching non traditional
and other nursing paths, newer nurses were calling me and saying, Donna,
I'm not cut out for this profession. It's not what I expected. I
don't think I can do this. What else is there for me out there?
And I would initially say to them, Okay, well let's talk first
about what's going on right now? What's going on that you feel you're not
cut out for this? And all and everything they would relate to me was
exactly the same experience that we all have when we're new nurses. But that
reality shock of going from nursing education into becoming a licensed professional nurse is it's
a real shock when you get out there, no longer under the protective wing
of your instructor, for example. So I wanted to write a book to
better prepare new nurses to get acclimated to their new profession and to only describe
a lot of experiences. But I asked of many many new nurses I wanted
to hear. I wanted to identify what their top ten challenges were as new
nurses and then I wanted to address those and give them ways to make their
way around them. And I also say that the book is all the things
they don't have time to teach us in nursing school that we need to be
successful in nursing. And that's in no way a slam against our nurse educators,
our nurse Without our nurse educators, none of us would be nurses.
But they are required in the allotted amount of time and resources that they have
primarily to prepare us for They have to prepare us for entry to practice,
They have to prepare us to pass that end clex RN or that mplex that
end clex LPN, depending on what you're going for exam, and so that's
what takes up the time. There is still so many other things that we
need to learn, like assimilating into your new work unit, communicating with physicians,
staying positive and upbeat in the midst of negativity and chaos. Not that
nursing is negativity and chaos, but we all find ourselves in those situations at
different times. So those are just some of the examples of things that I
address in the book. And as I say, it's a lot of things
that we did not learn in nursing school and the book. I wanted to
make the book light and easy to read, because a new nurse has just
gone through so much clinical and textbook reading. It's not another textbook. I
wanted it to be very commercial, meaning it was easy to read and digest
and absorb, and I do. The book is not a collection of quotes
from others as some other books are for new nurses. However, I did
interview a lot of both new nurses and seasoned nurses, as well as nursing
instructors, nurse recruiters, anyone else that's involved in the life of a nurse.
And I do have some short stories and some quotes and tips that I
share from them, so it's not just all the Cardillo method or what I
have to say about it, but I really collected the best wisdom from everyone.
And so the second edition of the book came out around twenty eleven,
twenty twelve, something like that. The book is published by Penguin Random House,
which is a very large publisher, which is fabulous, and then so
much has changed, of course in the last ten years, naturally, and
so they asked me if I would do a third edition of the book,
which just came out in May, and because the original book was written twenty
years ago, there was a lot of revision that needed to be made,
and I added on three brand new chapters. First of all, I interviewed
I always interview a lot of new nurses for another revision, but I particularly
interested in speaking to new nurses who started their careers in the midst of the
pandemic, because that is a unique experience in history for any nurse to have
been part of, but especially for once starting their practice. And so I
tell a few of those stories in short form in the book and just honestly
just blew me away, not just their experiences, which were unbelievable, but
their stamina, their resilience, their altruism, their intelligence. It just really
blew me away and continues to inspire me and renew my faith in future generations
of nurses. So the three new chapters that I added that weren't previously in
the book. One chapter is titled something like the Empowered Nurse, and it's
really about how to use your voice, how to be assertive, how to
become very well acquainted with yourself, your skills, and how to best use
them. Another chapter is all about resilience, and resilience is not just pushing
yourself until you collapse. Resilience is developing a strong innercore, a spiritual core
that really is going to help you, whether the toughest times, but that
is going to help you to recover and then become stronger and to move forward.
We all are going to have challenges in our lives, both professionally and
personally, and resilience is a very important skill. And then the third chapter
is all about mindfulness, mindfulness and practice, and mindfulness has been a very
popular subject in the world for a long time, but it's absolutely critical part
of a great nursing practice. So those are the new chapters that I added.
Yeah, and the book is available today anywhere books are sold. If
I'm a big supporter of local booksellers, especially your community, your small private
booksellers, and you know, there's lots of ways to buy books these days,
but if they don't carry the book, any of them can order the
book for you. Absolutely. And my significant other is a librarian, and
so we are always not just looking to obtain books for ourselves and get others
to buy books, but we're also if you see that there's a lot of
people don't know this. If your local library does not have a book,
or does not have a current edition of a book, you can ask them
to buy it, and oftentimes if they know there's a demand for it,
they will buy it. So I just like to throw that out to my
listeners every chance I get, because we want people to purchase your book,
absolutely, we also want people who maybe don't have access to it to have
access to it to libry. No, that's a great point, and I
am a huge cheerleader of the public library and of librarians. I've even written
an article about it, and I talk about it. I'm sure I even
mentioned it several times in my book because there are just and I'm glad you
mentioned that, because many people don't know that. Some people don't even know
what's that there's a research librarian available to them. Even in many healthcare organizations
we have a health sciences librarian. So there's so many resources out there.
And yes, there's always a way to get the information that you need.
There's many different ways we want your books everywhere. I think so much of
what you're sharing is important and obviously needs to be shared. So I want
to make sure that new nurses, while all nurses really that are listening to
this understand that what you are doing, that what I look up to,
what I admire, is achievable for us. It's like you say, you
just people moving forward in a positive direction. And i'd like to hear before
we wrap up, I'd like to hear if you have any thoughts or advice
for nurses that maybe really are kind of feeling the pressure. You know,
we've had wave after wave of pandemic. Resilience and mindfulness are very important,
and it's more than just the superficial stuff that we've talked about, you know,
the pushing to exhaustion, the you know, unhealthy coping mechanisms or things
that maybe are thought of to be resilience but are not. Do you have
any kind of thoughts for our nurses that maybe are struggling right now and are
struggling to find that place of positivity for themselves. Yeah. Absolutely. First
of all, it's important to understand. I mean, there's so many things
I would love to say right now, so let me try to condense it
as best I can. We in particular, in nursing work in a profession
where we are putting out a lot of energy, physical, emotional, and
spiritual energy. And when you have that kind of output, you have to
just as passionately work on replenishing that energy. We're human beings, we're not
machines. We'll break will break down. And self care is not self indulgence,
it's self respect. Self care is akin to eating and sleeping. It's
that important. So when we are working, whether we're new or we're experienced,
whether we've just gone through a hard time or things are going along,
however, we have to make time to do things that not only care for
us and nurture us, but that give us joy and build that inner spiritual
course. So that includes having fun, diversionary activities that you do outside of
work. It includes taking breaks in the course of your work day and not
sitting at your computer and eating lunch or returning phone calls, but stepping outside
for a few minutes, even just getting some fresh air or whatever. It's
spending time with friends and laughing and having a good time. It's definitely walking
or you know, walking your dog, things like that. I mean,
there's there's so many things involved in self care. Write about this in both
my book Falling Together, and I also write it, about it, write
about it in your first year as a nurse. So we have to periodically
disengage or step back from what we're doing to recharge our batteries in a whole
variety of ways, whatever brings us joy and peace and fun and laughter and
rest, so that we can more passionately re engage in our work. It's
not optional, it's not a luxury, it's not pampering. It's not a
reward. It's routine maintenance for the body, the mind, and the spirit.
The other thing is nurses who feel that they're powerless or stuck or whatever,
and people we all fall into a rut periodically in our life or our
work. You're never stuck anywhere. As we mentioned earlier, there are unlimited
opportunities. But it doesn't even mean that you have to change jobs. Look
for opportunities. You always want to be learning and growing, So in your
current place of employment, look to get on a committee of some sort that
interests you, not out of any sense of loyalty to your employer, but
do it for what's in it for you. You may learn that something new,
you'll learn something maybe that you're good at. You'll get feedback or maybe
you'll even learn something that you don't want to do. But committee work is
a great thing to do to develop yourself personally and professionally, and just because
we don't have endless time. The other thing I want to say is it's
very important to join and get active in your nursing professional associations because it is
through our associations that we create community in nursing, and without that community,
you may survive, but you will never thrive in this profession. So that
includes the American Nurses Association, the national as well as the state chapter.
It includes your specialty associations, whether it's the Academy of Medical Surgical Nurses or
the American Holistic Nurses Association or whatever that might be. And then there are
organizations such as the Association of Nurse Leaders. You don't have to have an
official leadership title to belong to that. In the back of my book Your
First Year as a Nurse, in fact, I have extensive resources listed as
well as links to learn about those associations because I am amazed and how many
even experienced nurses don't realize all the associations that are out there, or that
there's an association related to their specialty. That's how you meet people, right,
that's how you that's also how you meet people. But you also absolutely
and you have to be plugged into a pipeline of information. Things are rapidly
changing. Oh yeah, that's not just clinical expertise, but but legal issues,
licensing issues, just so many different things. So you've got to be
plugged in to a pipeline of information to stay on top of everything that's happened.
True, Yes, that is such valuable information. I mean even I
can benefit from that. I know, go ahead, go ahead. I
just wanted to mention one thing because I know we're almost out of time.
And I mentioned earlier that I do retreats for nurses, So this is part
of self care, but it's also me finding some things that bring me joy
in my life. I do periodic I have several weekend long retreats for nurses
every year. Those are all on my website under the events tab. And
I do a program called Empowered Nurse Enlightened Practice. And I I think I
mentioned this earlier and when I was introducing myself, but I have one coming
up in September at the Beautiful Canyon Ranch in Lenox, Massachusetts, which is
nestled in the Berkshire Mountains there. I do them at different locations, but
that's something to check out as well. And that is a great way to
not only disengage for a couple of days really nurture yourself, but to be
with a community of like minded nurses. And it's life changing for everyone who
comes. Sounds wonderful. Donna, will you give us your website again?
Absolutely? Now, you might want to write this down because it's tricky.
It's donnacardillo dot com. Just kidding about the tricky part. Donnacardillo dot com.
I wanted to make it easy to remember. And yeah, I have
a new design on my website. We just launched that within the last couple
of months. And on my website, if you click on the nurses tab
there there's a whole huge resources of articles, totally free articles for new nurses,
experienced nurses, everything in between, personal and professional development, career development.
There's even a free webinar there about the language of nursing, how we
speak about ourselves and our work. I have a long long page of books
by nurse authors. I have a long long page of nurse entrepreneurs because I
am also an advocate for the profession, and I want to have all that
information available. There are lots more there too, and we add other things
periodically. So I also post on social media every day. It's where I
see you, that's where I found you. I love it. I have
a personal Facebook page. Feel free to friend me there. I have a
Facebook page for nurses. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on Twitter, I'm on
Instagram. Every day I post something positive, uplifting, inspirational. That's another
way to stay uplifted because we have so much negativity around us, and we
want to expose ourselves to as much positivity and inspiration. We all have to
do it. We're naturally negative by nature. We need that positive influence in
our life every day. That's absolutely true. I will link all of that
in the show notes. I want people that absolute People can sign up to
be on my website too, and you'll learn about, you know, any
new books I have coming out, events coming up in your area, when
I have something else new that comes out. But by all means, follow
me on social media, and I welcome your listeners to get in touch with
me if they would like to speak to me. I am open to phone
calls. My phone never rings anymore, not because I don't have any business,
but everybody likes to use the keyboard these days. But I'm totally open
to a five or ten minute phone conversation. We can actually get a lot
done in a five or ten minute phone conversation, more so than we can
messaging back and forth or emailing. And if anybody ever reaches out to me
and I don't get back to you, it's not because I purposely ignore you.
I do sometimes get a lot of messages and it's hard to keep track
of them all. So follow up. That's a big lesson for life.
If you want to get in touch with somebody and they don't respond to you,
then you follow up with them. There's an expression that says the fortune
is in the follow up. Yes, absolutely, well, I'm so glad
that I've followed up with you because this has been a wonderful conversation. I
am so grateful that you came to talk to me and my audience today,
and I hope that we get to do it again. I will be definitely
reading your book. I've already gleaned so much from this conversation just today,
and I've taken little notes for myself. So I'm very excited to follow up
with some of these things. And again, thank you so much. Wonderful,
it's been my pleasure. All my best to you and thank you very
much. Thank you so much, and everyone please go to Nursing onsnsor dot
com check out the website for past posts, episodes, blog posts, all
sorts of content that I have accrewed there. So thank you again for listening,
and I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Please remember to stay inspired.
Thank you, Donna by pleasure, Thank you. The Nursing Uncensored podcast,
like nursing itself, can be intense. We don't censor, but we
do protect private health. Information has been changed and concealed to comply with her
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