This Nurse is A Human Potential Optimizer- Ep. 7
Oftentimes we as nurses think that the only way to advance in our careers is by obtaining advanced degrees. Amelia is challenging that narrative and asking you to just do a google search on how to maximize your expertise. Paying off student loans made Amelia realize that she has the power to control her circumstances. On a quest to figure out a way to earn an extra $1,000 from home, she used the special gift she believes we ALL were designed with, to not only pay off her debt but to help other nurses find their purpose.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Naseema McElroy: 02:22 So, today, we have the honor of having Amelia from Solutions by Amelia. Amelia is a clinical program coordinator at a children's hospital and she also helps high achievers take their experiences out of the junk drawer, put it to use and when they are ready to help them get more first dates in business. It is an honor and a privilege to have you here, Amelia. How are you?
Amelia Roberts: 02:47 I'm good. How are you? I'm so excited for this. You've been on my radar for a while ever since I started, you know, being interested in nurses who are doing something a little different. So, I'm so excited to be here.
Naseema McElroy: 02:58 And I'm excited to have you here because you're doing big things and I just want other nurses to know that there's a whole other world out there and you're exploring that. So, well, I know I gave your intro, but I want you to explain a little bit of what you've been up to.
Amelia Roberts: 03:13 Sure, sure. So, in my role as a clinical program coordinator I get to have a perspective of lots of challenges, system to down to the family. And, I just really started to notice that, you know, there's so many different ways that nurses can help solve so many different problems and only, you know, nobody really knows about it. And so I started, you know, myself personally starting to feel like, you know, wow, you know, people don't really know the value of what it is that I'm doing. People really doesn't don't know what it is that I'm doing. What can I do to change that? And so, in my effort to see how I could get more visible and show up for myself and show other people, you know, what I'm able to do with my knowledge, I started to see other nurses start to ask me like, "hey, how'd you get on that podcast? Hey, how did you get that speaking opportunity?" I too have expertise to share. And so I started, you know, I don't want to give the whole thing away, but that's sort of how I started and that arm of sort of helping our professionals with marketing and visibility and yeah. Different things.
Naseema McElroy: 04:15 So when did that actually start for you? How did you go from being a nurse to having all this other expertise in all these areas that you were getting interviewed for podcasts and having speaking engagements and things like that?
Amelia Roberts: 04:29 Sure. So I always say, you know, no one wakes up with information. All things have to be learned. All things are learnable. And what made me decide to start to learn, I was introduced to... Well I'm a social media native back with MySpace and all of that stuff. So, I naturally had known that there's a means to communicate with other humans in a way that where you can reach large audiences. And so I started to think like, okay, how can I leverage this professionally? When friends started their own online marketing business in 2007, so in 2007 they were virtual assistants, digital marketers early at that time. And now, they're working with Google and Oracle and Facebook, helping them with their supplier diversity programs. And so just watching their trajectory from going to literally a virtual assistant or executive assistant to a virtual assistant business to, you know, working with larger companies. They showed me that it's possible. And when I got another round of student loans, I started to get real creative about, okay, what can I do to pay this off? What can I do to pay this off without working extra shifts because I'm working extra shifts. It's a long story, but I was not going to do that. It was not, I was not gonna work nights. I wasn't going to work weekends. I... You know, it might be my generation, you know, we, there's certain things we're just not gonna do. We don't put up with stuff other folks put up with. And so I thought of my friends, I was like, well, you know, they're out here living in the bay area of San Francisco doing a virtual assistant thing. One of them, let me take a closer look at what it is that they're doing. And then, that's sort of like when I got learned that, you know, there are professionals who have expertise that get paid for what they know and they get paid for what they know by becoming visible and you know, talking with people who value their expertise. And one thing led to another. And here we are talking.
Naseema McElroy: 06:20 Right. So how do you tie that into nursing?
Amelia Roberts: 06:23 You know, it's so interesting that you asked me that. I've always been a problem solver, separate from nursing. I've been a problem solver. I love looking to see, you know, solutions, whether somebody has a pain, no matter what the pain is, what is at the bedside or business pain, what can I do to solve it? And so that process of looking to resolve someone's pain, that's called marketing, that's called sales. And you know, a lot of my assessment, you know, just looking at someone's situation and seeing what it is that they need and how to best get them from to the highest level of functioning. That works in different ways. And, it's a long story but I don't know if they like necessarily tie in with each other, but they definitely support each other. My early clients have been health care clients. You know when it comes to healthcare marketing and healthcare writing and healthcare influencers. I've been on an influencer campaigns related to like the health department to get people to take, to sign up for health. And so, I mean, you know, I feel like nurses could do a better job of just realizing how vast their expertise is and who own needs it. Healthcare marketing agencies, they struggle with talking to the people that they want to buy because they really don't know what happens, right But a nurse can easily come in and talk. They can easily come in and you know, say, you know, this is what will resonate with someone who just got diagnosed with cancer. They don't necessarily want to know the latest NIH research. They want to know empathy. They want to know that they're going to be taken care of and we know that. But like a marketer who doesn't have that background, they're going to say, well, this NIH article is doing very well. Let's, you know, put this there. And we know that that's not how that works. And... You know, but any case, and also, you know, just different, our perspective can help so many different companies. It just takes us first knowing that it's valuable before we can start to charge for it.
Naseema McElroy: 08:12 I think the overall theme with the guests that I've had on the podcast so far is just the vast array of things that nurses can be doing. And this is outside of the bedside. This is outside of even in clinical work, but because you have that expertise and because just as the nature of nursing, you have so many skillsets that are transferable that people need in sales, in marketing and all these other areas in tech. I mean like, yeah, how tech is influencing healthcare right now. I think that it's so important that, and it's hard to do when you're so ingrained in your work, but what's important is that we take a step back and we look at how valuable we are just in so many different areas and try to capitalize on the skill sets that we have. So I'm so glad to have you here and sharing your perspective. So just to move on, what are some tools that you're using to optimize your career and your finances?
Amelia Roberts: 09:11 Oh, tools I'm using to optimize my career. Well, I mean, I don't know if it's like a necessarily a tech tool per se, but definitely relationship. Yeah, that's something that I'm, you know, leaning in towards more and more because it's, I'm just realizing, well I think I've always realized the value but it's just when it comes to, you know, what sort of opportunities are even available at your own facility that could, you know, give you a higher salary. Sometimes that information isn't necessarily posted on the job board. Sometimes you can find that out through conversations with, you know, somebody who's working on a program within the hospital and they need an extra hand and they might be willing to create something that's not necessarily going to be posted on the job board or speaking opportunities, you know, other ways to earn money. I got into event medicine. Someone on my job knew that I was interested in paying off my student loans and they said, well, have you ever thought about event medicine? And I was like, what's that? [Naseema: I've never heard of that.] Never heard of that. Well. Yeah, so, and I'm like, I'm local to Washington DC and we have races, we have marathons, we have large conventions. And when you know it's a different story, but you know, events over a certain size need to have medical staff in case something happens, the local police or the local fire department won't be drained. So anyways, it was through a conversation in relationship. So I would say and speaking opportunities, you know, to go out to Las Vegas to talk to healthcare marketers, healthcare IT marketers, a presentation that came through a relationship. So yeah, I would say relationships.
Naseema McElroy: 10:40 I think that that's phenomenal. I feel like you have been able to be exposed to so many different areas, just so many different opportunities in general. And, I'm glad that you're the face of nursing that they're seeing. I think that that's awesome. But also you said that these things helped you pay off some of your student loans. Can you share more about that?
Amelia Roberts: 11:04 So first of all, I was fed the, you know, the misinformation that the only way as a nurse to earn extra money was to get extra degrees. I didn't realize, you know, I didn't realize that there were nurse riders who made six figures and only work 10 hours a week. I didn't know that. So anyways, and also for the different roles that I wanted, that did offer a little more flexibility, you know, it seemed like the... Anyway, so I had student loans, to cut the long story short. And my husband had been reading Dave Ramsey and you know, when he was like, you know what babe, we could pay these off in two years. You know, all we have to do is just, you know, hit these with a thousand a month and we could cut this and cut that. And I'm like, yeah. So yeah, I have some friends who are digital marketers, you know, what are they up to? So yeah. So I started to, you know, I took a class or two and in fact I took their course I think was like around 2012 they had a course, anyway. And so I was like, okay, so I'm a digital native. I grew up with social media. I'm familiar with how to use it. By that time I had started to build my audience. I mean, I do is sharing information and you know, people flock to people who have helpful information. And I said "you know what, I can start to teach people how to grow an audience." And so I just started listening to people who may have are interesting and might be able to use my help. And I was listening to a podcast of a nurse and you know, she sounded interesting and I looked at her Facebook profile and Twitter and I was like, hmm, she could use my help. And so I just said ""hey, you know, great interview. And so that was my first client. And then I, you know, sort of optimize my LinkedIn profile and no matter what you're doing, please optimize your LinkedIn profile. And after I did that, another actually nurse came up to me and said "hey, I need help with social media." And she was a speaker and you know, just need to support getting out there and helping people get to know about what she does. And, and then after that, I saw it as a long story. I saw a HIPAA compliance consultant opportunity and I've found HIPAA to be interesting just because my day job, they're like, you can't be on social media because I HIPAA and I'm like, wait, wait, wait, let me read this HIPAA thing and see what that's all about. And so I gained enough information to be able to help someone out understanding it. I'm not a lawyer, I didn't know I wasn't a lawyer. They just needed, so anyway, so that was another client. And then, you know, Earl's too, you start to work with people, they say, you know, Amelia I can help you with, you know, growing an audience and getting out there and you know, meeting people who need what it is that you have to offer. And...
Naseema McElroy: 13:41 So with that first nurse, you helped her grow her social media presence, kind of like her web page. Made sure that that was something that was more appealing to gain more customers until those are the things that you do. Kind of just, yeah, that's on people's like social presence in.Yeah.
Amelia Roberts: 13:58 The very first one. They just wanted to know what to do. Even like having like a done for you. And that's something I've learned too is like some people they just want to know what to do. They want the DIY that they want to do with themselves. And then there's the type of client who wants a done for you service, wake up and have it done. My early clients were the DIY folks, or maybe not DIY, a done with you folk who wanted it done with them. And just to learn a little bit about the ins and outs and the possibilities and what could be. And then, as I started to get used to helping people get the word out about what they do, like most recently someone wanted a done for you service, they wanted to go on a podcast or they wanted to be connected with people who had Facebook live streams of at least audiences of a thousand or more so that they could get in front of hundreds of eyeballs every week. That was like more of a done for you things. So, so you know, it evolves and that's what the business does. Yeah.
Naseema McElroy: 14:52 I like that. Instead of taking your husband's approach to making sure that you eliminated the expenses, you were like, listen, I'd rather just make more money in all these different ways where I can make more money. Because really the optimal way to building wealth or whatever your financial goals are, you can do two things. You can either decrease your expenses, which is, there are only a finite number of ways you can decrease your expenses or you can grow your income and there's infinite ways to grow your income. And so I love that you took that approach.
Amelia Roberts: 15:29 It's like you have a plan could have worked. It's just, you know, I like having mine, you know, I like getting a pedicure from time to time. Right? Is there's, I love to travel, I love to eat. And it's just, I was just looking at, yeah, it was just like I was motivated because we all need that push, right? You only to have and that's something my cousin had said. She has a photography business, deep Vinny Benny photography. And when she started her business in 2009 you know, I asked her, you know, what really made you take your push and you're jumping? I was ready for something inspirational. I don't know why she started her business, but she was like, she couldn't find work. It was around 2009.
Naseema McElroy: 16:09 That's when I graduated from nursing school. That is, I know what it was like, like, you know, out of a class of 83 at graduation, only three of us had jobs. So yeah, I know what that was like. So she started it out of necessity. So, ultimately all at the end of the day, what are you focused on right now? What would be the optimal outcome for your businesses, for your finances, for your career?
Amelia Roberts: 16:40 So, I don't know if you've read Renee Brown or not.
Naseema McElroy: 16:44 I don't, but I'm already familiar with a lot of the stuff that she does.
Amelia Roberts: 16:49 Okay. So, she talks about a concept of, as she did an originated, she just done a lot of research and she just shared observances and she'd said, you know, the thing, the job or the thing that you use to feed your family may not feed your soul as well or should not, or something like that. So, you know, we are all told, you know, don't go into nursing for the money, however, no one tells us what to actually do to pay our bills. Isn't that interesting?
Naseema McElroy: 17:16 It's very interesting. I love that.
Amelia Roberts: 17:19 And so, I know, people say, do you ever see yourself doing this so you can leave nursing? And I was like, no, I want to do this so I can have a volunteer spirit. You know, when I do my nursing a couple of days a week, you know, I want to be able to not necessarily look at that. I want to look at it as a way to literally to care for people and serve people in a unique way and know that my family needs, my needs are being taken care of by something else completely separate and entirely just for me. You know, it's just like the expectations that can come along with the nursing career and taking care of our needs. I don't know if I like the two so closely together.
Naseema McElroy: 17:58 Right. Yup. So yeah, I heard you talk about a couple of times that you were sold this dream about nursing, that in order to make more money you have to earn more degrees or certifications and that's what we're pushed. Right? And make sure you get your certification in this. You can get a pay raise if you know you get this degree, but at the end of the day we know that is not that significant, especially for the amount of money that we also we all and the amount of time that we spend pursuing this education. What advice do you have for people who are fed that?
Amelia Roberts: 18:32 That's a good question. So, I would invite them to take a look at, I'm just trying to think what would've been most helpful for me back then. You know, for someone, first of all, listening to this, now you have this as a gift. You know, there are, thanks to the digital marketing world and thanks to the Internet now and thanks to the remote work econ, you know, Google remote work economy, Google gig economy, and Google the world of work and just see how it's changing and see the opportunities that come along with it. There are virtual assistants who make six figures and that's the facts. That's the math of it. And, so when I hear people who do go back, that's another thing. It's like if you want to go back for higher degrees and become a nurse practitioner, do it because you want to be a nurse. Practice help and serve and that don't do it because you think that you're going to, you know, because I have a, you know, it's a long story, but one of my workmates, you know, she went back to to NP school at the other end, she was offered a salary that was the same rate as what she made as a nurse.
Naseema McElroy: 19:35 Or less like me.
Amelia Roberts: 19:38 No. And, I just want people to go and make their decision based on the decision alone. And, if it's for financial gain, just I invite them to look in a different direction. What direction? Remote work or Gig economy or freelance writing or how to monetize my expertise. Google that. And maybe that's my advise. How else can I monetize my expertise? And see what you see. And, if something seems like it could serve you okay. But I don't want people to ever make a decision out of desperation thinking 'cause that's the only thing they have to do.
Naseema McElroy: 20:13 And I like how you talked about relationships too, in maximizing relationships and making sure that you're getting the most out of those who build social capital, I think. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing as well.
Amelia Roberts: 20:24 Yeah. Yeah. And that's the other thing, you know, have conversations with people you know, within your job and your facility. Because I feel like sometimes when it comes to pursuing degrees or doing something else, we might make too many decisions in a vacuum and or going or leaving a... You know, a job to a facility and you find yourself in a similar place. I feel like the more, especially nurses if we, you know, would have network more of with each other, amazing things could happen because you know, other fields do it, do networking all the time. I mean granted our work structure kind of makes it challenging but after work they are hanging out with one another and they are just doing different things in different situations. They are doing away days, you know, we're away from the office and how we do it might look a little different. But that's something that's been extremely valuable to me. Like I said, on my day job too, one of the nurses that I work with, she's a speaker, she's a professional speaker. A couple days a week she works at the hospital, but then she does lecturing around the country. So, if I wasn't talking to other people and learning more about them, I wouldn't have learned about this too. So that's something else that I definitely encourage nurses to do.
Naseema McElroy: 21:33 Yup. And then you said something that I'm a little bit challenged with. I have to admit that my LinkedIn profile is struggling. So you said that that's a super duper important. Can you share some tips for optimizing your LinkedIn profiles?
Amelia Roberts: 21:48 Yeah. So what I did, you know, if you'd go to mine, you'll see, you know, who I help, what I do and who I help and you know, what others have said about my work and you know, I invite people, you know, even if you're not, you don't have a business or you don't have a business and you're a nurse. Have you worked on a project with anyone else? Have you brought any sort of value to your institution at all in any way? Things are changing such that the nurse who can speak to her, his or her value is a nurse that will remain. I've seen so many nurses who have gone across the career ladder based on their leadership experience and sometimes leadership experience doesn't have the same weight as far as what value have you brought to the institution? How have you helped us meet this metric? What cost savings have you brought about? What projects have you led that has saved us money in some way and help elevate our reputation? I'm seeing nurses being called on to be able to speak to their value in that way and that can show up on your LinkedIn profile as a project that you've done and you know, tag people who help work with you on those projects. And, if you find yourself in a position where you now have to look for work or you now need something else and you may not be able to rely on your former job the way you thought you could, you have evidence and proof of the value that you've brought in a variety of different circumstances. So, I feel like that was an unwieldy answer. But yeah, I mean I've been found in approached for opportunities just because I was the easiest nurse that they could find. I was not the expert. I'll be honest with you. I was not the subject matter expert at all. They just said they were looking for nurses. They searched nurses and something else and I popped up. Wow. And yeah, so that's what they got. So and I invite you if of course if you have not, if you have just again highlighting your expertise and recognizing it's a value and recognizing that it's something that either people should know about and they should from a variety of different reasons. Use those keywords in your LinkedIn profile and maybe that can be a different conversation. Hopefully that helps. And your projects, money you've saved, projects you've led, value you've brought to an organization.
Naseema McElroy: 23:56 I know and as a bedside nurse is like a lot of times you are like, oh well you know, I don't bring them as value to my organization. But I'm sure there is a program that you initiated. There is something that you did valuable. They might just seem like things that you're just doing day to day in your job. But those things are cost savings for your hospital. Those things are transferable skills in other areas and you need to really start bragging on yourself and don't be ashamed to do it because we have done some extraordinary things. It's just that sometimes we forget or we don't see the value, but the value is there and people are looking for it. So, please make sure that you highlight those things because you never know what opportunities are gonna come your way just because you listed it out. Like I love that you shared that somebody just Google. I mean just, you know, kinda just search LinkedIn for you and they found you though you're not the subject matter expert in it. It was an opportunity that was presented to you just because you put yourself out there. I love it.
Amelia Roberts: 25:04 Yeah. Just because, yeah, the easiest person to be found. And you know, if you are there and you're listening and you actually have a certification, you actually did help on a committee or you actually did, you were involved. Well by goodness gracious, please add that to your LinkedIn profile like today, like stop and do that.
Naseema McElroy: 25:23 What advice do you have for people who are aspiring nurses?
Amelia Roberts: 25:26 Inspiring nurses? So this is good. So be aware of all of the options that you have. So, a little backstory, I kind of did fall into nursing. This is gonna sound like I was born in 1950 but my grandmother was a teacher. My mom was a nurse. So those were like the roles of women in my life and either be a teacher or a nurse. My mom said "she pay for schooling if I became a nurse." So here I am. And by going into it, I always knew that I wanted something different. I couldn't see myself working nights. I couldn't see myself working weekends. I did med surge as a patient care tech and I wasn't a fan. So, I really did feel like my options were limited and I started to feel trapped even before I took my NCLEX. And so I was starting to Google like what else can you do with a nursing degree as I was in nursing school. And so, and because of that I saw options. I saw like, hey, there's ambulatory care, there's endoscopy nursing, there's research nursing, there's infusion nursing. And my career has looked different. So, I would recommend to aspiring nurses like look at all the different types of nursing out there. And, if you do find yourself in a nursing role that you're not a fan of, you know, see if you can get through it for a few months to a year or even a few months and then, you know, just know going into it that there's many different options where you could use your degree. You don't have to ever be in a position that drains you or that you don't love or you have options.
Naseema McElroy: 26:55 Yes. And so what experiences have helped you build your confidence in your career and in things that you've done to attack your student loans and build yourself up financially?
Amelia Roberts: 27:08 So I was introduced to personal development, like around, I think it was like early in my life, like 19 or 20, introduced personal development books. I was like part of like a direct sales organization and you know, a lot of people have different opinions about direct sales and network marketing. But the truth is is like they have a very strong personal development piece that's like unmatched because you have to be able to sustain rejection. So, I was introduced to Jim Rohn and different ones like that very early on. So they helped strengthen my mindset when I went into nursing. So when I went into nursing, I experienced, you know, different forms of rejection and bullying. I was able to sort of navigate it in a way because I had started the process of feeding my mind on abundant mentality and feeding my mind on what that really means and not the woo woo stuff, but really being able to put in perspective when people come from a state that they're not able to acknowledge someone else's, you know, value that that means a lot about them versus you. I was able to, you know, restructure some of the bullying and stuff that I experienced and yeah, so I think personal development and investing in yourself early on.
Naseema McElroy: 28:22 Yeah, I think those are two extremely important things. So Amelia, if there is people that want to connect with you and want your help further, how can they do so?
Amelia Roberts: 28:33 Sure. So, I have a couple things. I'm going to give you a link to a video that's called Do I Know Enough To Get Started? I would love for all nurses to look at that and yeah, it doesn't do everything that I wish could be done, but it just answers the question. Do I know enough to get started and get started on what your next thing, your next chapter, your business idea or whatnot, and then connect with me on LinkedIn. Yeah, please, please connect with me on LinkedIn, Amelia J. Roberts over on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with you there.
Naseema McElroy: 29:03 And you guys don't be shy to reach out because there's probably something untapped are even something that you're working on that you don't think is very significant, but has so much more potential that Amelia can help you sort through. So I think that she's a phenomenal resource and that's why I wanted to share her with you guys because nursing is so dynamic, as you probably heard me say a million times, but there are so many different things that you can do with your nursing career, even outside of your nursing career, that nursing can help you leverage. I mean, I'm in the personal finance space, for example, and I just happened to be a nurse, you know? And so, and people like that, that I'm not in the personal finance field, you know. I'm not a, what do you call it? No, no, in a whole, my drawing a blank. But you know, I'm not a finance professional. I'm a nurse that has been able to do great things with my finances. And people see that and like, oh, you're a real person like me and I can relate to you a little bit more than I can somebody else that does just look at numbers and finances for a living. And so I think that you have to look at the other side of that when it comes to nursing and knowing that there's other areas that you can bring your expertise to that are just waiting for you. There's so many potential and so there's so much potential in so many options out there for you to explore. And I think that Amelia can definitely bridge you from a... Is that bridge that you need to get you from where you are right now to where you can be in your career and just in your personal development. So, I thank you so much, Amelia, for sharing your experience in your story. I feel like you are such a wealth of knowledge and you have so many experiences, but I have barely scratched the surface of all the things that, that you do for people with. But I'm just fortunate that I'm able to know you and I wanted to be able to share you with my audience so that they know what's out there and think what you do. So thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. Is there anything else that you wanted to share?
Amelia Roberts: 31:18 Yes, there's one more thing and this is how you know you have like a few too many things going on. So I have a blog, I have a blog called the businessofnursing.com and I have stories there of nurses who have a variety of different backgrounds. There's a nurse who became another nurse who became a social media manager. I'm one who does home care one, a couple who've done CNA schools and CPR, there is a product developer, concierge nursing, a variety of different businesses that these wonderful nurses have started. So hopefully you'll also get some inspiration over at the businessofnursing.com.
Naseema McElroy: 31:55 And all these things will be linked up in the show notes you guys. So you don't have to worry about writing them down if you're driving or on the go. So make sure you check out the show notes, make sure you connect with Amelia. And with that, Amelia, I'll let you go, but it has been my extreme pleasure having you on this podcast, and I'm wishing you well on all your future endeavors.
Amelia Roberts: 32:15 Oh, thank you so much. And, you're the same. Take care.
Hey there I’m Naseema
My dream is for everyone to know that financial independence is attainable with a little intentionality. Learn how I can help you finally break the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck.
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