Freedom Lifestyle

NursePreneur: From Shift Work to Schedule Freedom w The Mama Coach [Carolyn Marshall]

• Sam Laliberte • Season 6 • Episode 88

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Making an impact in healthcare, but on your terms.

Imagine replacing the relentless hours of shift work with the autonomy to set your own schedule, all while continuing to make a profound impact on patients' lives. Carolyn Marshall (The Mama Coach) is a Registered Nurse who now owns a private practice in Sudbury, Ontario.

Key Takeaways:

  • Career pivots for nurses who want to transition away from night shifts 
  • How the Mama Coach certification process works and who qualifies 
  • Ways nurses can bring their skills into a business and become an entrepreneur 
  • How to market your small business / private practice
  • Overcoming lifestyle and health challenges resulting from shift work

 This episode will inspire healthcare professionals to contemplate the rich opportunities in personalized services such as lactation consulting and prenatal education.

Support the show:

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About the show:

Sam Laliberte -  entrepreneur, digital nomad and freedom seeker, hosts the Freedom Lifestyle Podcast to expose people to the many ways you can design your dream life and unlock your own version of the freedom lifestyle. Her guests have empowered themselves through flexible work as a way to “have it all” - financial, location AND schedule freedom.

Speaker 1:

I left my staff nurse job to go get my masters and then I like leaped into another job, like that's not it. So then I just keep leaping until I'm happy. I think it's also a good reminder that like a pension isn't worth being unhappy for. Are you happy now? So happy, I'm so much happier.

Speaker 2:

You're listening to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast series. I'm sharing relatable stories of freedom seekers who ditched conventional office life and courageously asked for more. The energy just completely shifted my entire being just felt so free. My business was still generating income while I was on the beach. I decided to quit and just stay at home.

Speaker 1:

I really can't work for anyone but me.

Speaker 2:

It's literally just doing whatever the hell you want to do. As for me, I'm your host, sam, and I've spent the last four years creating a business that allows me to work from anywhere. The Freedom Lifestyle looks different for everyone. What's your free? You're listening to a new episode of the Freedom Lifestyle podcast, where I share relatable stories from everyday people who have found a way to leverage flexible work arrangements to design their lives. If you are new here, welcome. I'm so excited to introduce you to this week's speaker. And if you've been listening for a while, please make sure you hit subscribe or follow on your app and maybe even leave me a short review. It really helps more freedom seekers find this show. If you're new here, give it a listen. If you love it, then maybe you want to hit subscribe at the end.

Speaker 2:

So today's freedom seeker is Carolyn Marshall, who is a registered nurse who now owns a private practice. What's really interesting about Carolyn is I have got a lot of nurses in my family, in my friend group, and most of them are not very happy about the lifestyle it provides. If you know any nurses, you know that one, they're heroes, but two, they're typically doing 12-hour shifts, 7pm to 7am or 7am to 7pm so hard on your body, so hard on your lifestyle, so hard on your relationships. And this was Carolyn's experience, and she basically didn't settle for that lifestyle. While she loved the impact she was making as a nurse and specifically she wanted to continue to support women and women's health, she knew that no amount of security or pension or any of the perks and benefits she got as a nurse was worth her being unhappy forever. So after five years of being an acute nurse, working those 12-hour shifts, she then transitioned to more of a clinical setting where she was a nurse educator working 9-5 hours. Amazing thinking okay, this is now my path to a better lifestyle, turns out in many ways it got even worse and now she's almost three years into nurse entrepreneurship. She has now created her own business. You can find her online themumicoachcarolin, on Instagram, and now she's a registered nurse who shares science-backed parenting tips, from childbirth defeating to sleep and more. She really helps you navigate parenthood with her and with the support of a nurse. So we learned a lot about what even are your options when you are a nurse who's unhappy with shift work and what different paths can you pursue. How she made this transition to becoming a nurse entrepreneur, figuring out what her offers were going to be, what she wanted to specialize in and, of course, learning how to become an entrepreneur. Now it's up to her to acquire all of her customers, to market herself and to set up her business in a way that's going to be sustainable and support her lifestyle long term. Three years in, carolyn is happy and on track to be well surpassing all of the perks and benefits she had in that more secure path.

Speaker 2:

This is an amazing conversation. Know for the delay. Meet Carolyn. Carolyn, welcome to the Freedom Lifestyle podcast. How's your day going today? Good, pretty good. How are you? I'm good. I'm ending my day with this interview. I've been so looking forward to speaking with you. As I mentioned in our little preview call before we hopped on, I have so many nurses in my family who are struggling with the lifestyle, and so when you reached out to me with an update on what's been going on in your life, I was just so excited to have you on the show.

Speaker 1:

I'm so excited to be able to share that with you, because a lot of nurses we don't get taught to be entrepreneurs in nursing school Totally.

Speaker 2:

So let's start off with an easy one. I ask all my guests where are you taking this call today and what would you normally be doing right now if you weren't on this call with me?

Speaker 1:

So I'm from Sudbury, Ontario, and that is where I am today. I'm in my home office, which I work out of. Most of the time I work virtually, but I also work in home with other clients. I wasn't on this call today. I might be, at a home birth. So I'm working on a certification for a child birth certification and I'm trying to observe out of hospital birth. So I might be doing that, but I would say a typical day I would probably be finishing up charting and sending a plan to a private client.

Speaker 2:

And how much of that is a contrast to your old life. How were you living before? That wasn't working for you? What would you normally be doing right now, then, in your old life?

Speaker 1:

When I left the acute care system in hospital. It'll be two years, two and a half years, and I think I would be rushing home right now. I didn't really live far from the hospital, because if you're from Sudbury nothing's that far, but I would probably be very unhappy when I came home and then rushing to do dinner and sometimes taking that out on my partner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, totally fair, because it was the 12 hour shifts, right? You're either doing. Is it like 6 am to 6 pm or 6 pm to 6 pm? How does it work? It depends where you work.

Speaker 1:

When I was a staff nurse, I would work 7 to 7, which was a long day, whether it started at night or in the morning. In my last five years in my career at the hospital, I was a nurse educator, so I did work my day to Friday. Technically my hours were 7.30 to 3.30, but I often stayed till 4.30 or later.

Speaker 2:

Hmm. So even when you made that shift, it still felt like a grind and you were just really tired.

Speaker 1:

If anything, I would say it got worse being a staff nurse. There are advantages to that, even when I compared it to my transition into the educator role. When you leave for the day, you're done, there's no more. You go home and you make the care is transitioned to the next nurse, and it's just on this continuous pattern. When I was the educator, that was not the experience that I had. Whatever I didn't finish, I had to finish the next day and more projects would get piled up where you identify more needs, so it never really felt like I was finished.

Speaker 2:

That's interesting. You say that because a lot of people say that about entrepreneurs. They say, well, you're always on, you're never not building your business, you're not ever thinking about growth, you're just always on as an entrepreneur. Do you feel like that's true?

Speaker 1:

I do, but it feels so much different because it's for me, as opposed to being given goals that you have to work towards from someone else, that can feel a little bit more empowering. I do something because I want to and it feels less like work.

Speaker 2:

Amazing. I want to dive into these business models but I am curious a little bit about your personal story and how you got into nursing as a career. We both grew up in Sudbury, ontario. We were in the similar networks. I know what the limitations were like for me, the guidance counselors, and what my paths were.

Speaker 2:

I was told I should be an accountant and that was the career path that was recommended for me. So what can you tell us about high school and choosing to pursue nursing, and what originally connected you to this career path?

Speaker 1:

Honestly, high school I think I knew I wanted to be in healthcare. I really liked anatomy and biological science. There are some restrictions in terms of what nursing schools you could go to, depending on the math courses you took. I felt safe staying in Sudbury, so I did stay here, but I think what really led me to it was I really liked helping people in crisis. I have a strong passion for women's health and children and babies, so it seemed like a natural fit to go into nursing. There's not a lot of help that's completely focused in women and children. I did at one point think about going into midwifery, but then I learned more about that career and that's not for me. A lot of on-call, a lot of doctors they don't really have a schedule.

Speaker 2:

Got it Okay. The lifestyle piece I know is a big shocker for a lot of nurses At least the nurses in my life. They're similar to what you said, just natural caretakers in a lot of the sense, really interested in science and health, wanting to take care of people, have the capacity to take care of people. Honestly, thank goodness, because I don't have any of those traits. I really don't. That's just me totally being honest. That's not natural for me to be that way. I can provide value and support people in other ways. But nurses really are heroes in so many ways.

Speaker 2:

But then I feel like they become nurses, which is a competitive industry in school to get into. They're hard programs. You have to excel in education prior to that and you are working hard. Then all of a sudden you get introduced to shift work. That is typically when I see them start to break. To me, we should be talking to young people about what is that lifestyle going to be like, because you can predict it ahead of time. Were you ever thinking about what would your day-to-day look like when you were pursuing that career? What were you focused on when you were pursuing it?

Speaker 1:

No, you don't even think about it. You just know that that's where you're going to go. Most people do work in shift work and most people do move right into acute care because it's the best paying job that you can get as a nurse, especially as an entry-level nurse. You're totally right, it is a bit of a culture shock to miss things. You graduate, maybe you're 23, 24,. All your friends have every weekend off. You don't. You work holidays. I thought I would get used to it. I think I thought I would just get used to it and I never did. Every holiday I missed with my family, I took it really hard. I was a missed opportunity. You almost feel a little bit guilty about that because you see so many other nurses come in on their days off to work holidays and get over time and make extra money or just volunteer to come in.

Speaker 1:

You feel guilty that you're not okay with it, but I think we don't get permission to be like. I don't like shift work. It was also really hard on my body. The first year that I worked I had a lot of heartburn, which I later found out is very common. When you work a lot of night shifts, your circadian rhythm is all messed up, so I did end up on medication for a couple of months just to settle her down. It's awkward. You also don't get a lot of time to. You don't get your schedule too many months in advance, so when friends are making plans like six months from now, you have no idea if you can commit to such plans.

Speaker 2:

And what was the dialogue amongst your nurse colleagues? Were other people sharing this feeling and discussing it amongst yourselves, or did you feel alone in that?

Speaker 1:

I think I probably felt more alone, like some nurses would be okay with it. But it also depended on where they were in their life, like if they were single, it sometimes didn't matter If they were married. Many of the nurses I worked with husbands worked in the mines so they were also shift work so it was just really part of their lifestyle and it was fine. And some people are very focused on just. You know they want to be an acute care nurse. They know this is the best way they can make the most amount of money with their degree. They find a patient population they really like and they just kind of like surrender to it. It just wasn't for me.

Speaker 2:

And that's totally fair. Yeah, you're the one who has to get up every day and live this life, and if such a big part of our lives are our careers and are how we work, and so, yeah, it should be more socially acceptable to just say I don't like my life with this job and you've been pivoting quite a bit with it, which I'm not even aware of. These really nine to five options. My brother-in-law is a nurse and he's working in a clinic that has traditional nine to five hours and he said it literally changed his life. He has two young kids now and his wife's a doctor, and so that was the decision they made. What are options for nurses who are listening to this, who have the shift work, who maybe want the nine to five hours? What are your options that you can pursue?

Speaker 1:

The options are limited. From like what you're explaining, like the clinic jobs do, which generally work Monday to Friday, those Monday to Friday nursing jobs are hard to get. There's usually an application process. One of the things that can be frustrating for nurses is we're generally unionized. In Canada Almost every hospital is. There's very few exceptions. So you're working in a unionized environment. You apply to a position and often seniority will determine whether that position is going to be given to you or not, necessarily your skill set, which can be another frustrating part of that. So you can be uncomfortable with your job. They're few and far between and it doesn't matter if you're a new nurse. You're probably not getting it.

Speaker 2:

How were you successful in moving away from the shift work to more of a nine to five? What worked for you?

Speaker 1:

I did actually. I went back to school. I got my graduate degree in nursing, so that did give me an edge over other nurses. It's hard to work in an environment where everybody has a baccalaureate. As part of becoming a nurse you have to have a baccalaureate degree, so getting graduate education was a one up for me. I did publish a few studies in my master's. I did a lot of poster presentations. I applied like all over Canada and did a couple of those. I did a lot of other things, like more speaking, more academic writing, and the opportunity just happened to come up at the right time. Like there is also that piece of like luck that came to me.

Speaker 2:

And at that point where you thinking okay, this is how I do it, all I've got. The nine to five lifestyle was probably more accommodating for other aspects in your life. Tell me more. How long did you survive in that role?

Speaker 1:

I survived.

Speaker 1:

another five years I survived so far Five and a kid I tried really hard, like I really did think it was the end, all or at least part of my progression throughout my career. I knew that every time you make a step you just see more things you want to change and then I could see how I could increase or how I could develop my skills and keep kind of like climbing up the ladder to affect more change. And that was like one baby step towards that. But it's frustrating. Once you get in it you see the restrictions. You start to see like your values you know are lower in the totem pole In terms of what I really thought I was going to be able to do. I thought I'd be able to accomplish more of my own goals and I think it was a bit of a shock for me to figure out over time that that is not what that position was.

Speaker 1:

I also watched nursing change. I came into healthcare at a very interesting time. When I started 12 years ago. Nursing was very different and I kind of watched our public healthcare system change in the last 12 years, not always in the best ways, and watching that decline also was difficult and many nurses feel that who've been in the system for more than a few years they've seen the changes and it does make it hard to hold on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm curious what changes you're comfortable sharing. And also you mentioned you thought it was going to help you achieve your goals. So of course, your goals were better lifestyle, not having to take heartburn medication, not coming home cranky and taking it out on our family. But what were your goals? That you thought that this new 9 to 5 educator position right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think I would say my new goals were really to improve patient outcomes on a grander scale, just doing it one on one, obviously, there's not always as much change. Yes, you directly affect that one family and it's so validating. But to think that I could help nurses all do that because we all have similar skills, it was definitely my goal in terms of what changed. I mean, if you read the news, publicly funded healthcare is a challenge. I wouldn't say I know how to fix it, but watching everything become about other people's goals was hard to watch and, depending on where you work, it could feel suffocating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, another big thing for nurses is the amount of money that you can make. I know my sister is I think she just turned 30 and she's pretty much capped out for the most part in how much money she can make potentially for the rest of her career. When you shift into educator work, is there more income that can be made? Is that a factor in a perk?

Speaker 1:

I actually made less. Oh my goodness, why. So I would make more per hour. But one of the advantages of shift work often when you're in a unionized environment is that you make shift premiums. So if you work in evening or a night or a weekend, you would make a few extra dollars per hour. So because I worked days only, I no longer was eligible for shift premiums. So I actually made a few hundred dollars less a month when it all worked out, wow. But I had the trade of the hours, so you would hope it would be worth it.

Speaker 2:

And making a bit more of an impact. If you were really helping the next generation of nurses making a change when you see there's an issue in the industry. I'm sure was rewarding but not enough. So what comes next? I know I have a little bit of a preview from us talking. You discovered a program, but tell me how you go five years shift nurse, five years nurse educator, nine to five and now two years entrepreneur, or how long has it been? It'll be three in January. Congratulations.

Speaker 1:

How did this?

Speaker 2:

get on your radar. Were you seeking it out? What did something happen where you just discovered it and leaned into the opportunity?

Speaker 1:

I think I was ready to leave before COVID and then while I was trying to give something like a second try. There is something about nursing where you just feel like you are not good enough If you're unable to stay in a acute care system. It's some sort of pride that we all have. So I was really trying to stay and then COVID hit and then I felt super trapped because how could I leave during the scariest thing to ever hit our health care system? So I stayed.

Speaker 1:

Within about six months I did end up on a stress leave. From the amount of work I was doing and the stress that I had in my position. I had to do a lot of reflection. I went to a counselor. We talked a lot about what was happening to me and reflecting on my own personal goals Do I want to be 32 on a stress leave? And I decided that that was kind of the end point for me. I've always really wanted to work in breastfeeding. It's one of the very specific niches within PEADS that I always liked. I was fortunate enough to be able to just resign with zero plans, so that's what I did.

Speaker 2:

So you quit without your plan of what you're going to do next. Were you considering entrepreneurship? It sounded like you were starting to think about what your specialties were, your niches were. Did you have mentors in this space? How were you even finding what career paths could be right for you, knowing that you had a counselor who was like, hey, this lifestyle doesn't work for you, but then what?

Speaker 1:

I read some books over the summer about private lactation practices so there's different certifications you can get for that. The gold standard is something called an IBCLC, which is an internationally board certified lactation consultant. So it's an international certification. There is unfortunately no Canadian equivalent, which is often the case in Canada. We don't have a lot of women focused certifications. So I knew someone I was having trouble meeting some of the requirements to become an IBCLC at that time because of COVID, so I decided to keep looking. One of my girlfriends had a baby and she said why don't you look at this link? She had had a nurse come to her home and help her with breastfeeding. Her name was the mama coach and she was part of a brand. So I checked out the brand, I filled out the form and I had my interview with the original mama coach, carrie Bruno. I now have a license agreement to work in Northeastern Ontario, so I have my own private nursing practice but I work within the mama coach brand.

Speaker 2:

Wow, okay. So what is the mama coach brand? Is this just for nurses, or who would qualify to be part of a program like this?

Speaker 1:

So the mama coach is very specific you have to be a registered nurse or a nurse practitioner. And right now it did start in Canada, which is so exciting. Carrie's from Calgary and she's a very inspiring woman to work under. She has a big vision. There's Canadian ones, there's Americans, there's also a new group in New Zealand, australia and the UK, which is super exciting. But yes, for being a registered nurse and nurse practitioner is a requirement.

Speaker 2:

Okay, I was just looking that up. I need to send that to my sister immediately. I'm curious if this is even on her radar, because I know she spends a lot of time thinking about this and she's a labor and delivery nurse. So I think there's a lot of shared values in terms of wanting to focus in that sector and I think breastfeeding and lactation services is not that far of a jump. So I'm curious if this is on her radar. Were you surprised you hadn't heard about it before when you discovered it?

Speaker 1:

Yes, you don't learn anything about entrepreneurship, at least in your baccalaureate. In my graduate degree, we talked about it for half a class, maybe. It's definitely not something that's focused on and there's quite a few restrictions while you're working with your college, so it's also brand new. It feels like we're at the front of something which is so exciting. That's probably not on a lot of people's minds. I would say if anyone was a nurse and they were thinking about private practice, the first thing that comes to their mind is likely an aesthetic nurse that does like Botox. It's similar, other than I don't do any physical skills like that. I just focus on education.

Speaker 2:

Hmm, yeah, that's how I lost my family doctor. She went and started a Botox skin lab and the more I learned about it, the more I understood why. When I would hear about how much money she was making in the hours and all this, I'm like, okay, I guess that makes sense, but pretty annoying, like we need these healthcare workers, and so it's great that you're still staying in it in a different way, and so you said you're not hands on now, but you consider yourself having a private practice. What did you learn from the mama coach program and what are your offers that you're bringing into the market now?

Speaker 1:

So when you sign up with the mama coach, she provides us several days of like intensive training. So she offers a bunch of different programs. You are allowed to work within those programs and you don't have to offer all of them, but she gives training on each one. So right now I offer prenatal education, lactation or feeding support services. So, like, no matter how you feed your baby, I support you, whether it's formula, bottle pumping or breast.

Speaker 1:

I am a certified sleep consultant through training through the mama coach, so working on even just improving sleep with newborns up until like preschoolers. We also do potty training, which is like a newer program. I actually quite enjoy potty training. I get a lot of good feedback from it. When we're successful Nurses really care about poop. If anyone's going to be excited for you, it'll be me. I do that. I am a certified CPR instructor as well, so I do a lot of like informal CPR training, but I still do some CPR certification for other healthcare providers as well and I do just like feeding, pregnancy, sleep, potty training. I do both group stuff online. I do a lot of virtual group classes, but I would say the number one thing that I like doing is breastfeeding support in home. There's something incredibly powerful about empowering a woman to do how she wants to feed her baby in her own space.

Speaker 2:

Hmm, I bet that's so beautiful. What are some of the other trainings you could do through mama coach and specialize in that you're not doing?

Speaker 1:

She has a new program, but I don't think I can tell you what it is. I was launching in March, but literally it's never ending and we're probably going to be the one stop shop for moms, for both mothers health, like women's health and children as she continues to develop. It's only started in 2015. So I feel like we're just just getting started.

Speaker 2:

Amazing. So she really helped you with how to offer that as a service and how to develop your offers and what you want to specialize in. There's a whole other piece of becoming an entrepreneur, which is setting up your business, learning how to market, learning how to acquire customers. Did you get support in the program to do that? If not, how are you learning how to do that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we do. We have frequent business coaching. We made strategic plans last quarter, like before the summer. We're always getting business coaching and professional development. So the professional development is usually like the clinical part, but we're always looking at new ways to market lots of social media training. That's probably one of the most difficult parts of this is because I don't have a store friend, which I know is similar for other entrepreneurs. It's hard to get your name out there. Social media is where new moms are, so I do my best on a few platforms. I recently joined TikTok and I feel like I haven't quite figured that one out yet. I'm avoiding it.

Speaker 2:

I'm avoiding it for as long as possible. I don't need another app to be addicted to. Right, I judge everything, but I do think it's powerful. So many of my younger cousins, even when I went home for the holidays, were like you really need to be on TikTok. Your videos should be on TikTok. I'm like, okay, okay, maybe.

Speaker 2:

But, yeah, I haven't tackled that either, and so I would consider Sudbury and I'm sure other people would too as more of a smaller market. How are you finding customers in Sudbury, at help that? You stayed. You went to high school there and you stayed and you built your career there. So imagine you have a way stronger connections to the community than I have after leaving and potentially coming back. How are you finding your clientele there?

Speaker 1:

I would say still, I probably get 80% of my clients on social media. But you are correct, Like I had lots of connections and that 100% gave me an advantage when I started this, Working directly with midwives, pediatricians, obstetricians, family doctors. Knowing who I was was all an advantage for me, but that didn't mean I didn't have to, like you know, hit the pavement and make sure people knew what I was doing. I was also one of the first people to do that in surgery. When you're the first person, you're half of the time.

Speaker 1:

I was explaining what a private nurse was, let alone like the services I provide. They were confused what I was doing, it seems like for the majority, or at least for a million with my name now. So that is rewarding. Sometimes when I go into mom groups, they already mentioned that they follow me on social media. I went to a wedding this summer in Elliott Lake and I had three separate families come up to me at the wedding. It was like a not a super close friend, but three separate families came up to me and had taken my courses, which was an amazing feeling for me.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing and you didn't know, because you have passive products where someone can just take your course without having to work actively one-on-one with you.

Speaker 1:

They were a lot of group clients so I don't always remember every single group client. I probably run like four group classes a month and they can have various amount of participants and at the beginning I ran way more because I was just trying to get anyone to know who I was. But they did a lot of work to like market yourself, especially with a home-based business. Totally, and I don't sell a product.

Speaker 2:

Okay, but you do, you sell a service.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the service I think the product would be. It would just be like a different. I can see how it would be very different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, totally. And also, who's paying for this? Because in your nursing experience prior to this and correct me if I'm wrong in Ontario of course healthcare is covered, and so people were able to come see you and not having their own personal income be a factor whether they wanted to benefit from your service. Who's paying for your services now?

Speaker 1:

The clients have to pay me directly. So at this time insurance really private health insurance hasn't really caught up to like what's happening. So we don't always get private health insurance covering our end services, despite me being in our end. But it's just with restrictions within the programs that they offer. Sometimes health spending accounts will reimburse clients for it. I can't do any direct billing, but they're paying out of pocket for these services.

Speaker 2:

Has that been a barrier? I mean, I imagine it has to be, so how are you overcoming that for people?

Speaker 1:

It absolutely is a barrier and I wish I could offer it for free. I mean, some of it is. I don't really have control over it. The price kind of it, then that is a hard part of that for me. Working in acute care for so long and feeling like everybody deserves my services and everyone is equal and everyone should have the same access like accessibility is so important to me as a nurse. Unfortunately, I can't change the prices, like my experience and education or worth with their work. I have applied for a couple of those like by now, okay, later, so I do have those options at checkout. So, like Cecil, I think I have pay bright, but those are available. That's kind of like what I can offer. Other than that, it's like kind of calling your health insurance to see if they'll cover it, because you do get a copy of the receipt with my registration number on it, so it's on there to submit.

Speaker 2:

And you mentioned that it's a pretty regulated industry that you have to work within. I know that my mother-in-law as a therapist. She even has regulations on how much she can charge for her services. Does that apply to you? Can you just price your products however you want, or how does that work in terms of the pricing?

Speaker 1:

We work under your correct, under the college documents for independent practice. It's not as specific for pricing. It just says like you shouldn't be charging exuberant amounts for your services and try and compare them to others. It's not as prescriptive as some other health care professions. I believe like there's people like massage and physios where there's like they're given like sort of a rate that they have to charge. But they do give us guidance on like even the way we're allowed to use our advertising, how we can recommend products, how we can't use testimonials as part of our advertising, those types of restrictions. We just have to be really careful about how we market.

Speaker 2:

Okay, cool. Well, there's so much to learn for you. Are you enjoying learning about entrepreneurship? I know so often when I work with entrepreneurs who found their passion and figured out how to create a product around their passion. They just want to be delivering the service, and then having to acquire customers is just annoying part of it. Are you getting more of the hang of being on social media and acquiring customers? Are you even perhaps enjoying it?

Speaker 1:

I think I'm enjoying all parts of it. I think the one thing I didn't like which is funny, because you said you were supposed to be an accountant but like bookkeeping is not my thing, so bookkeeping would be like the worst. I am enjoying social media more than I thought I would. Actually, I have a real going viral right now. So, like when something good happens, like that it's like reinforcing, seeing like a gradual increase in your followers and like really like nurturing that community. Like it's not a amount, it's not about the amount of followers you have, it's like whether they're engaging with you or not.

Speaker 1:

So I find like working towards that goal makes me also feel like less like an influencer and more like someone who's actually helping. But you're right, I do want to do the service but, like you know, working as an entrepreneur like this is really allowing me to do the service when I want. I booked a client a few weeks ago on a Sunday and they don't always work Sundays, it's not open on my online booking form. I had time, I could do it and we just we did it and I just it was like the best appointment and they were so grateful for it and I'm just, it's just. I feel so lucky that I'm able to like do that for someone when I can, and they're also equally as grateful.

Speaker 2:

I bet you put in the form that your number one freedom value is schedule freedom. What have you learned about yourself through this process that made you answer that way?

Speaker 1:

I really don't like to get up in the morning. I'm working at the hospital. Everything says is 7 30 in the morning.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I mean I don't think I realized how much I hate that, like being forced to get up at a certain hour and like have my morning so structured in order to be functional at 7 30. I know my brain doesn't function that well at 7 30 in the morning. I know my peak hours they start after 10. I really enjoy the schedule freedom. I like being able to book appointments during the day If I need to see someone or get my hair done or whatever, and then I just work later in the night and that just sees my personality to just be kind of like flexible and all over the place. I really like that.

Speaker 2:

And you said you're doing the virtual programs as well, not just in home care in Sudbury, ontario, and so is there a restriction around who you can serve online. Is it anyone in Canada? Is it anyone in the world? How global can we go?

Speaker 1:

I mean, some of it depends on where you live. So, like Ontario's guidance is like you can serve people outside, but you have to follow that where the guidelines for where they live within Canada you would also have to look at your insurance. So I currently mostly just do Ontario.

Speaker 2:

Okay, got it. Do you think things are going to change in your industry where private practice, specifically with the services you offer, will start to become supported by the health insurance providers in Canada and in Ontario, so that they don't actually have to pay for it? I am not sure you don't know what's going to happen.

Speaker 1:

I really don't. It's really hard to predict after having some conversations with, like manual life and some of the other you know, private health insurance companies. They often try to limit us in nurses and you know there's several kinds of nurses. There's RNs and then there's RPMs and RNs and RPMs can do different controlled acts. I don't work any under any in controlled acts because I don't work with a physician, so they're always trying to get the cheaper person to accomplish the task. So, because anyone can do education, I'm not sure that it'll go that way. It would be nice if we could get something similar to the United States has the lactation network, where they work directly to pay for lactation services and they work with the insurance companies to help pay. It would be nice if Canada had something like that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, it also sounds like you were able to take this leap without a plan, like you mentioned. You quit without any plan, really, and so you walked away from your income. You also walked away from a pension, which my sister mentioned. In Ontario, the hospitals often do contribution matching. So how did you actually do that? How are you able to just stop having income for a period of time to play and explore this uncertainty that was now your future?

Speaker 1:

I think some of that was I was in a privileged position with my household income to like make that leap. The other part was you know you can give yourself so many years If I'm unable to start saving for myself with long term saving or look at other methods of long term saving for retirement, whether that's investing or looking into like other avenues like that. I mean you have to kind of just have to leap and like trust that you're going to be able to do the work and like use that as motivation to really get your income to where you want it to be so that you can still do that. I hear that argument a lot like where people can't imagine losing their pension because it is so generous in healthcare in Ontario specifically, and that's just part of that unionized environment. It's a very hard mental shift to leave a unionized environment where you have a high rate of pay and you have really really good benefits and a really good pension, to leave and just kind of like not know where you're going.

Speaker 2:

And do you feel, or have you seen yourself in your business that you were betting on something that would provide more income than you could have had in those old careers and then being able to contribute even more to your pension? Like, is that the risk that you're taking right now? Yeah, okay, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And you know digital products like passive income as well as what I'm doing and I think about really working on like the combination of things is like how that is possible. It's just a lot of work to do all the things, but you kind of just got to dive in.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm so happy for you. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing all of this with us. It sounds like you have a lot of courage. You mentioned you had the household income and that privileged situation in terms of the numbers probably to take that leap, but also the mindset to be able to endure uncertainty and the risk of leaving behind something that was secure and safe. What do you attribute that courageous mindset to?

Speaker 1:

I think I've always been that way. I left my staff in her job to go get my masters, and then I like leaped into another job and like that's not it. So then I just keep leaping until I'm happy. I think it's also a good reminder that like a pension isn't worth being unhappy for. Are you happy now?

Speaker 2:

So happy, so much happier, amazing. Well, that is the perfect place to end, carolyn. You are awesome. I'm so glad you reached out to me. I know I learned so much. I'm going to send the Mama Coach website to my sister right now. If people want to follow along, either as nurses who are aspiring nurse entrepreneurs, or potentially mamas who want to learn more about your offers and services, where should we point them?

Speaker 1:

I'm most active on Instagram, so I'm at themamacochcarolin, but I'm also on Facebook and frequently not frequently TikTok.

Speaker 2:

Soon to be TikTok. You'll see me there next, folks. Amazing. Okay, we'll include all of those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, carolyn. I'm so happy for you. Thanks, sam. Thanks for tuning into another episode If this one inspired you to take action.

Speaker 2:

But you could use some help on your plan, or perhaps you've got too many ideas bouncing around in that beautiful brain of yours. You'd love some clarity on your strategy, what you should pursue first and why. Well, I am now offering one-on-one freedom coaching sessions. You can book these at buymeacoffeecom. Slash what's your free. This is our opportunity to have a virtual coffee together. Spend an hour getting clarity on how you can unlock more freedom and flexibility in your life. On these calls, you can ask me anything, but here are some things that I'm an expert in Creating a location, independent lifestyle, building service-based and freelance businesses, leveraging the gig economy and platforms like Fiverr, utilizing podcasts to build your personal brand and developing passive income streams. So book your freedom coaching session with me at buymeacoffeecom. Slash what's your free. I would love to have a virtual coffee with you.

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Sam Laliberte

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