The Daring Power of Two: Midlife Women Entrepreneurs Enhancing Health Care- Jen Schroer BSN, RN, NC-BC and Angie Maguire BSN, RN, NC-BC

The Daring Power of Two: Midlife Women Entrepreneurs Enhancing Health Care- Jen Schroer BSN, RN, NC-BC and Angie Maguire BSN, RN, NC-BC Transcript

Nicole Vienneau  00:00

Welcome, everyone, to the Integrative Nurse Coaches in ACTION! podcast. My name is Nicole Vienneau. I am your host, and I am also a board certified integrative Nurse Coach, and I get the pleasure of interviewing amazing Nurse Coaches from all around the world who are sharing how to shift the paradigm of disease care to health care. 

And today is an exciting day, because we not only get to interview one Nurse Coach, we get to interview two Nurse Coaches at the same time. And what’s really exciting for me, and listeners, I know it’s going to be exciting for you, is collaboration with each other, and how we can connect the dots with things that we’re excited about with someone else, and then work together to build strategy to support people in their health and well being. 

And today’s guests are doing that. So I’d love to welcome Jen Schroer, who is the founder of Clarity Health & Wellness Coaching. And I’d also like to welcome Angie Maguire, who is the founder of Coach Angie. And the two of them combined have created the Nurse Coach Duo. So let’s welcome both Angie and Jen.

Jen Schroer  01:21

Thanks, Nicole. 

Angie Maguire  01:23

Thank you, Nicole, very excited to be here.

Nicole Vienneau  01:26

Good. I’m excited to be here too. So we love to take a trip down history lane. And I’m going to ask you to just briefly share a little bit about your Nursing journey. And Jen, let’s begin with you.

Jen Schroer  01:40

Sure. Well, I’ve listened to those podcasts quite a lot, Nicole, so I know that you usually ask people about you know, why they chose it. And I have thought to myself 100 times, I have no idea. I was raised to be told I could be whatever I wanted. And I guess I just decided that was a Nurse. 

And so I became a Nurse and working in a telemetry unit and an ICU for about two years, and then I started traveling. I did about 10 years of travel Nursing in the ICU, all over the country, couple International, done some mission trips along with that. And it was just, it was just amazing, you know, really, you know, people talk about fill your cup. And that was definitely doing that for me. 

I met my husband and decided that, you know, travel Nursing being gone for three months at a time is probably not going to be able to make a relationship work. So obviously, he became my husband after some time together, so I stopped doing travel Nursing and started working for an electronic medical record company. 

So I did corporate for 14 years, and in the last year, I have been implementing a entrepreneurial, solo-preneurial process here with Nurse Coaching and started my business.

Nicole Vienneau  02:52

Wonderful. Thank you. I love how your varied history, right, and the reminder of how many opportunities Nurses have.

Jen Schroer  03:01

Yes, very much so.

Nicole Vienneau  03:03

Awesome. All right, Angie, let’s hear from you.

Angie Maguire  03:05

Yeah, just wait now you’ll know how many opportunities Nurses have. So I have been a Nurse 30 years, and if I would add why I became a Nurse, I think I would have a similar answer. I feel like I just sort of walked into it. I come from a family of Nurses, and so I think it’s in my blood, my mom, my aunt, my uncle, lots, lots of Nurses around me. 

And really a job in an ER as a registrar back in the 90s led me to Nurse, or I decided to become a Nurse. So I started on an HIV AIDS floor in 1990 into the late 90s. And I always like to mention that work, because I think it was my best work and most loved work that I have ever done. And then I moved into lots of inpatient work, med surg, I’ve done children. 

I became a certified school Nurse and worked in an elementary school for three years. And I was an OB Nurse and worked really in underserved areas here in Chicago, in the Austin neighborhood, and very proud of that work, in all mostly maternal child health. 

And I also… my father’s an entrepreneur, and decided, really I wanted the opportunity to work with humans, clients, patients, one on one, and have time to really dig deep and try my best to help make change around health and wellness for people. So that’s why, what led me into becoming a Nurse Coach.

Nicole Vienneau  04:39

Wonderful, and I appreciate your vast experience as well, and how that leads us down a journey of trying to figure out where we’re going to go towards next. So you both decided to explore Nurse Coaching. So Angie, let’s start with you. And just share a little bit about why you… I know you just did a tweet of why maybe you got into Nurse Coaching, but tell us a little bit more about that.

Angie Maguire  05:09

Yeah, so I, again, I feel I wanted to, you know, be an entrepreneur, if you will, in Nursing— an entrepreneur Nurse, that’s what they say, but that’s what they call us, right? I wanted to give it a try. And Nurse Coaching, I felt like was going to allow me to do that. And, you know, obtaining the certificate, and then, of course, just opening my world around health and healthcare and wellness. 

And, you know, combining what I’m bringing from conventional, the conventional world of medicine, into learning all different modalities. And that’s, you know, one reason I decided to do it as well. And of course, in my course, we did that, you know, you get a little right. 

You never you get, you don’t get it as much as you do when you’re done, right? And then you enter the new, the world of trying to figure out how you want to, you know, go down that road as a Nurse Coach, but I think that’s really, it’s really I wanted, and again, that one on one time with someone that, you know, and and to start my own business. 

I really, I felt like I had the support around that as well with, you know, my husband and my dad being entrepreneurs themselves. So feel very lucky for that.

Nicole Vienneau  06:22

It’s always nice to have someone who can show you a little bit of the ropes, especially because as Nurses, we’re not learning…. We don’t learn how to run our own business or start a business, or keep one going, or or any of that. So yeah.

Angie Maguire  06:38

Right, and I think too, one, is as a Nurse, if you’re working on a unit, let’s say you know your work is before you, when you you walk in the… you walk in the door, and your work is there, and you are, you’re you’re going after it, right? 

You’re in it. Whereas when you’re an entrepreneur and you have your own business, you’re creating that work. You’re coming into your office, the work isn’t on your desk, you’re creating that desk. And so it’s just constant, gosh, I don’t know, digging deep within yourself and trying to figure out how to move forward. 

Nicole Vienneau  07:09

So true. Awesome. Thanks, Angie. And Jen, what about you?

Jen Schroer  07:14

Yeah. So, I mean, for me, I found myself a lot during bedside Nursing and working with other Nurses that I was almost Coaching my clients and Coaching my Nurses that I worked with about lifestyle habits, exercise. You know, I was always eating healthy. I was exercising. They were like, how do you fit this in? What do you do? All of these kinds of things. 

And so whenever I went from the bedside to the corporate world, I looked for a health Coaching job. It really wasn’t happening back in 2000 and what was it, 2010, 2011, you know, you could, I mean, the only jobs that you could find were working for an insurance company, and those were super rare back then. 

So then, when I started looking at I’m thinking I’m ready to get out of the corporate world and try something different. Well, they actually decided I got out of the corporate world, but I was already thinking about it. I started looking at the INCA program and other Coaching because I was like, Well, that’s what I wanted to do 15 years ago. 

Maybe I can actually make a career out of it, because now we actually have this thing called Nurse Coaching, which I had no idea, and I actually listened to this podcast for, oh, probably, I don’t know, six months to a year prior to joining, you know, just to find out what are Nurses doing out there? 

Because I knew that as Nurses, we, you know, we’re the ones who spend the majority of the time with the patients. We’re the ones who are doing all the education, we’re, you know, we have so much to offer, and we’re not getting enough time while we’re with those at the bedside that I just thought that we that, as a Nurse, I could offer so much to people. 

And it’s really, truly, the health and wellness world is what I love to learn about. So I found I wanted to be able to share what I’ve learned, you know, and especially what I’ve gone through and what I’ve learned about my body, I’m like, Well, I can help other people learn that about theirs and help them live a healthier life for those people who are looking for that. 

So I just think that Nurses can do that in a different way, because we have the intuition, we have the knowledge, we have, you know, we have the caregiving, obviously, and we have the trust from the community as well. And I just thought that was a really great way to be able to combine, kind of my two worlds of my Nursing, but also my love for like, the health and wellness preventative side.

Nicole Vienneau  09:33

So thinking back to your program and thinking of just maybe one moment in time that was an aha moment for you that maybe you didn’t realize at the time, or just one of those moments. I would love to hear a story about that. Jen, why don’t you start with that?

Jen Schroer  09:57

Well, I think the biggest aha is just that it’s not me out there to give advice. It’s to help the person find it from within themselves, to make the changes that they truly want for themselves and that they’re wanting to do, to feel better, to live the life that they want. 

You know, just because I have this vision of what wellness means to me doesn’t mean that that’s the vision of what the client has, or what anyone else has for them, you know, for me, it might be, I don’t know, just pick anything, like seed oils. I don’t want to have any seed oils in my life. 

Well, seed oils may not matter to someone else, you know. So that might just be a very, you know, like, I’m not going to ever stop doing that, or I want to be able to lift weights. And somebody else doesn’t, you know, these things don’t… Wellness doesn’t have to be one picture. 

It doesn’t have to be one thing. And I think whenever I went into it, I thought, Oh, I’m going to be out here, I’m going to teach these people how to be healthy, and I’m going to teach these people what to do and all that. And it’s really listening to the client and figuring out, you know, what could help them. And maybe they already know that, and they’re just not seeing it yet.

Nicole Vienneau  11:09

And how do you feel that’s different from traditional Nursing?

Jen Schroer  11:13

Well, I mean, gosh, in so many different ways, right? Like it’s you’re following a textbook. You’re following exactly what the doctor is telling you to do for this patient, you know. So that’s one piece of it, right? So it’s like, okay, somebody tells me to go do this, and I tell them to go do that, you know. 

And you’re following all these algorithms and things that is one kind of, almost one way to do it. And we’re telling them that, you know, you need to be on this diet or this regime or what have you, and this is more of what kind of life… again, what kind of lifestyle do you want to lead? What will bring you joy? What will bring you a lot less stress? 

And you know, everybody is different in that way. Instead of treating someone as, you know, a disease or a illness or something going wrong with them,  you treat them as who they want to be, and what they want their life to look like.

Nicole Vienneau  12:06

Ah. I just want to take a deep breath with that. Yes, no, not a one size fits all approach. And instead, we’re putting the control back to the patient, giving the patient their opportunity to express what they need and what they want in their lives and what their version of health is. Thanks for explaining that for us, Jen. So Angie, what’s one little snippet? One aha moment for you when taking the Nurse Coaching program?

Angie Maguire  12:39

I think breath work and sharing, using that breath with where I was working during the program, like, you know, in a clinic setting, where people are getting ready for procedures and taking breaths. I’m like, Oh, wow, this is what this is. And you said snippet, so I’ll that is kind of, it sounds very basic, but taking what I learned or reminded of or I guess, learned to do in this program is slow down, be with the patient and just… and breathe, and how much that could help in so many situations. 

And I wouldn’t say, I mean, even though I was an OB Nurse, of course, I breathed with people, but that’s different, right? They’re having babies, right? So you’re Coaching them to breathe, but just on a in a everyday sort of situation, it’s anxiety provoking to be in the hospital or come to your doctor’s appointment. And there’s so much, you know, Nurses do so much. 

But I also, you know, adding just these little small, which are often then lead to large, like help to decrease that, those anxieties with basic breath work. So I guess, if that, I hope that answers the question.

Nicole Vienneau  13:52

Oh, it absolutely does. I mean bringing to light, the simplicity of taking a breath. And yet, in our healthcare system today, it’s always go, go, go, go, go, like the next task, next thing we got to get done. Get done. Get done. It’s always fast and going and going that we don’t… even me talking like that, I had to take a breath to get things done. And yet we don’t generally do that in present healthcare. 

So this opportunity that you picked up and that was enhanced for you because of the program, creates an opportunity to realize that you can actually implement that in the fast paced world. I love that. Yes. And we always start our podcast with taking three deep breaths. Yeah, yeah. And just so our listeners know, we always start the podcast right before we click record. 

We always take breaths together, just to set us and help slow us down and come into the present moment. I thank you for sharing that Angie. Love this. Okay, so in 2024 we had our first integrative Nurse Coach symposium that was in Miami, and listeners, we have two amazing podcasts related to this, where I just went around and interviewed people in the middle of the symposium, and it was the most fun I had. 

I swear to goodness, I had so much fun doing those interviews, but there were so many insightful things that happened. People learning and exploring and meeting each other— in person connections. And listeners, I had the opportunity to meet Jen and to meet Angie on different times through the conference, which was really fun. And then I find out later, Jen and Angie have come together and created this Nurse Coach Duo. 

So I don’t know the history, and neither do our listeners. So we need to know, like, how did you two get together? What does that look like? All of that. So maybe Angie, you start and share a little bit about that.

Angie Maguire  16:13

Sure. Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this conference, and I did go to another program, not INCA, for my Nurse Coach certification. And sort of took a leap into INCA and thought, you know, I saw the conference, and I thought, I would really like to go to that. And I went without knowing people. 

And a lot of people were seeing people for the first time that they’d only known virtually. And that was really exciting to to observe. And, you know, of course, I looked at the agenda and I really like everything spoke to me. I was like, Oh, I’m going. And so, you know, Jen and I, we didn’t sit next to each other. 

We were, I think, at you know, not opposite ends of the conference, but we were both, I feel like, you know, wanting to connect with every… you know, other Nurses and, you know, which I think most people were, but we just kept kind of running into each other, I mean, at the conference, and, you know, checking in and how the day went, what’d you learn? 

What are you thinking? What are you doing? And that’s where it started. And I think the bottom line is, is we both wanted to connect with other Nurses and move forward with them and to learn from them. And that’s what we did.

Nicole Vienneau  17:29

Jen, what do you have to add into this?

Jen Schroer  17:31

Yeah, I mean, I think what I… when she was saying that I was kind of like, you know, when you’re trying to start this business, you’re trying to figure out what you want to do after you’ve graduated from the Nurse Coaching, you know, and we went to the symposium and saw these amazing people. 

Hearing all these amazing things that people are doing, and you’re like, how do I feel like I’m on an island, that nobody else is doing this, and I’m doing this by myself, that can’t be possible, like, I just met all of these people who are doing it. 

And so I, you know, I sent Angie an email, and, you know, it was just like, hey, you know, really nice to meet you. Can we, you know, would you like to connect? We just kind of started creating a friendship. We both finished our Nurse Coaching at the same time. We were both looking into starting our own company. 

We just kind of somehow met, and we’re on the same timeline. We are both focusing on women in midlife, you know. And so it was just like, all of these connections, besides the fact that we just really got along, you know, like it was just a good connection in general. Like, I think we would have continued talking, even if it wasn’t for our, you know, our similarities as well. 

And so I think we both were looking for someone who could just be like, Yeah, I know I tried this this week. This worked, that didn’t work, and we really weren’t finding that anywhere else. So we kind of created that within each other. And then I said to her one day, hey, do you want to, you want to create a YouTube channel and share what we’re doing? 

And she was like, Yeah, let’s do it here. Here we are. Like, it was just kind of great. Like, we were both so keen on trying just about anything that you could try, because we just want this to, you know, become something.

Nicole Vienneau  19:05

When you… I have to ask this before… I laugh, I just laugh because I just think it’s just so wonderful. Ah, it just like makes me… my heart flutter to know that connections are so important. And when you can find someone that you really align with, that it does make life so much easier in many ways. 

And you’re right. It is as you’re… as we graduate from each program, you go back to your life, and here you’ve spent this, you know, time together through the program meeting like once a week, and doing assignments and all the things, and you’re growing together. 

And then you go back to your life, and then you feel like, oh my gosh, where did my colleagues go? And then you feel like you’re alone. So I love this, even though you’re not alone. So you just need to reach out, reach out, and you know you can make friendships, and you can reconnect. 

It doesn’t have to be that you’re forced to do it because you’re in a program together. So here I’m… what I’m hearing is that, hey, you just found someone you thought was really nice and cool, and you connect, you send emails, you started talking, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, shoot, let’s do something together. 

Let’s collaborate on a deeper level. And so then, then what happened? So, yeah, we’re going to create this YouTube channel. And then, and then, and then…

Angie Maguire  20:33

And then… 

Jen Schroer  20:34

And then you do it, you do it sloppy, right, Angie?

Angie Maguire  20:37

Yeah, do it sloppy. I mean, this is the part of being an entrepreneur and being… you’re going to make mistakes. I mean, you don’t have to make big ones, but you’re not… It’s not… there’s no policy and procedure book. There’s not, you know, the safety officer to go check in with. 

It’s just you, you know, you got to take little moves forward to figure out, you know, which way to go. I also wanted to add how important you know, the idea of making those connections. And you know, especially if you are a, you know, an aspiring Nurse Coach, a Nurse Coach who wants to start your business. It sounds so easy, right? Oh, yeah, make connections. 

Go and network. You know, networking as a staff Nurse, a bedside Nurse, or even if you’re in ambulatory care, wherever you’ve worked, your network’s right there. You go and work with people. There’s, you know, no one’s sending you out to make connections, right? Like, you’re connecting, I mean, and, but with your patients and your colleagues, and it’s all beautiful. 

But I just… it is a… it’s something that you’re going to have to get used to and spend a lot of time doing. And that’s actually been one of the joys of starting my own business is meeting other small business owners, not only Jen and you, Nicole, but you know, it’s really fascinating, meeting people that start their own businesses. 

So, sorry, that was a little fragmented, but I wanted to get that in, how important connections are, and I just don’t think that we always think that way when we are working on a floor or bedside floor, because our attention is to so many things, and you have natural connections to some Nurses that you work with, and others you may not, but you can’t always pick and choose when you have your own business.

Nicole Vienneau  22:27

I love that little segue, you know, because it’s true. It’s true. Working at the bedside, you see the same people over and over again, and you might be working on a different unit than someone, but you’ll inevitably see them in the cafeteria. Or, you know, you kind of get used to the seeing the same people over and over again. 

And one of you pointed out earlier, like your your work is already there. It’s laid out for you when you come in. You know, you don’t have to go find it, right? So, yes, this whole entrepreneurial world is much, much different. And then, and I was saying… I said, “and then” before, because I was curious to know, you know, you started saying, Yeah, we just start this YouTube channel. 

And I bet you some of our listeners are like, well, tell us, what did you do? How did you figure it out? What, you know, what are the some nuts and bolts of that? Because maybe I want to try that too. So, Jen, you want to take on this? 

Jen Schroer  23:24

Sure, yeah. I mean, you know… 

Angie Maguire  23:26

She is the nuts and bolts.

Jen Schroer  23:29

Google and Chat GPT will get you a long way, because I had no idea what we were doing. It literally came from I went to a small business networking event, and this guy was just talking about getting yourself out there, right, anytime that you can be in front of someone is a good thing. 

And I was like, Well, you know, and he mentioned YouTube and I’m like, well, we can get in front of people that way. Like, you know, it’s not always about, how are you making money, right? It’s about getting out there and talking to people and letting people know what we can do and what we do. 

So I just, I really did. I just started Googling, like, how to start a YouTube channel, and we started doing that, and we had to teach ourselves how to create thumbnails. What the heck’s a thumbnail, you know, we started out by just interviewing each other. Figure out, how does, how is it going to work with Zoom, and then how does it work with Canva? 

And we do it our way. It may not be the right way. It may not be the way that, you know is the swiftest, most polished way, but it went, I mean, like my lighting was horrible. We’ve had, you know, problems where we had to learn how to cut certain things from an interview. It’s just been learning every single time. 

We, again, like I said, you do it sloppy, you do it afraid, you do it… I wouldn’t say half you know what, but just kind of like, you go as far as all in as you can with what you know, and then as you learn more, you just you tweak along the way. So that’s really what we did. We have not started, like, you know, an Instagram for the YouTube channel. 

We haven’t started putting it out in podcast form, because we just wanted to just start doing it. We’ve got, I think we… I think we’re on probably about episode 13 or 14 now. We drop it every couple of weeks. So we kind of decided on a cadence, how we wanted to show up, how we wanted to do it, and we just did it. 

I mean, really, that’s all I can say, like, we just, I mean, and we’re just doing it on Zoom, kind of like this, and then we put it up through Canva to clean it up, and then put it onto YouTube. And you can, I think you can very easily push a button and make it a podcast. We just haven’t done that yet.

Nicole Vienneau  25:33

So, listeners, if you didn’t just hear that, it was just do it.

Jen Schroer  25:40

Exactly, exactly. If I heard that once, I heard it 1000 times in my networking and doing stuff, and I was just like… because, you know, just even starting like your website for your business, right? I mean, hours that I would scroll over like, the right picture, the right words, the right name for your company, the right this… 

No, just do it, because it’s just all going to… like it just all come and it comes along, you know, like things can be tweaked down the line, like, but if you don’t, if you wait for perfection, you’re never going to get it started. You’re never going to do it.

Nicole Vienneau  26:11

So true. And in the words of Barbara Dossey— Barbara Dossey is the… one of the co founders of integrative Nurse Coaching. She is one of my mentors, and has often said, sometimes you don’t have all of the answers. You just know you need to begin. 

And I always have that little voice right here saying that to me, because so many times, even with this podcast, if you listen to the very first few episodes, I mean, they’re pretty rough, but the vision was to just get the voice of Nurse Coaches out into the world. And that’s what you are doing, is just getting the voices out into the world, sharing what you know to be true and learning. 

You know, I’ve listened to your YouTube channel and watched you two in action, and I’ve actually been a guest on your YouTube channel too. But the whole idea is, like, share information, get it out there into the world. And people, if they’re interested, they’re going to listen, and people who aren’t interested are not going to listen. And that’s okay too. It’s all things. 

Angie Maguire  27:30

You don’t feel ready, but you just have to move, move forward. And it’s… I can’t say it, you know, it’s nice to have a partner and someone to collaborate with, and I would encourage any, you know, everyone to try to find that person, or, you know, reach out to Jen and I because we’ve… we’re here for you. 

I mean, we don’t know everything, and just as you would say that too, Nicole, like, reach out to you. I mean, you have much more experience, but this is what it’s about. And we all have the end goal of, you know, working with clients, patients, and, you know, optimizing their health and wellness, that’s our goal, but we can do it together. There’s a lot of people in the world to work with. 

There’s enough people out there, there’s enough people out there, but, you know, the stronger we can be as Nurse Coaches together, right? The more impact we can have, and we also can be more successful in our businesses, and, you know, within hospital settings, wherever you would like to take your skills.

Nicole Vienneau  28:34

So I would love to know, and I know our listeners would love to know. So the Nurse Coach Duo is, you know, Nurse Coach Duo is doing a few things. So not only are you just, you know, interviewing people, but tell us like the details of that. What does that look like? Who are you interviewing? What is your message? What are you trying to get out into the world?

Jen Schroer  28:54

Yeah, I think when Angie and I came together and decided to do it, we really wanted to work for… bring alternative things to women in midlife, on what they can do, on how they can feel better, right? But we also really wanted to make sure that we’re bringing other Nurse Coaches on and other Nurses in to be interviewed, to show what they’re doing in the community. 

Because it was just… You know, there’s so many people out there doing amazing things and doing it in different ways. You know, like, whether it’s sound healing that Chelsea does, you know, whether it’s movement like you do, you know. 

I mean, I know you do multiple things, but like, just, you know, Angie and I work with clients on managing perimenopause and menopause, and there’s so many different avenues of what people are doing, and it can help you and help these clients, whether it’s preventative care, whether it’s I have this problem and I want another way to solve it than just what my, you know, one doctor is telling me. 

We’re just really trying to just share as much information about wellness opportunities, people who are out there. You may not even realize that people are out there doing certain things that can help you with an issue that you’re having, and so we’re really just trying to share that information, and, you know, lift other Nurses up as well in the process, for whenever we do have Nurses on. Angie, I think you had something to say, sorry if I cut you off.

Angie Maguire  30:13

No, no. I also just say keep our education, you know, moving forward too. I mean, as Nurse Coaches we’ve, you know, we learn from everyone we have on, and I mean, not only for our clients, but also for ourselves, right? 

And, I mean, it has been such a joy to have different practitioners coming from all, you know, all over, it’s just been, it’s been, really, that’s been very important, but just such a great thing that’s come from it as well. And I don’t know if I realize that. I mean, that sounds sort of obvious, but not that I know everything, but it’s just, it’s really, it’s been really good for that reason too.

Nicole Vienneau  30:13

Oh, I agree with that 100% because every time I have a guest on the Integrative Nurse Coaches in ACTION! podcast, I’m like, Oh, I didn’t know that. Oh, I learned this. You know, there’s always these little pearls that we could take away from every single time that someone’s coming on to our programs and just sharing that knowledge, and then having our listeners give commentary and, you know, send emails and so forth that just support that. 

And you know, it’s wonderful when we can share all of this knowledge. Yeah, there’s, it’s not good when you just keep it under a bushel. You know, what is that, remember that song? My little light will shine. I’m gonna let it shine.

Angie Maguire  31:35

Yeah. I mean, what struck me when you said that is, I do feel like sometimes when you work in one place, in a busy, busy environment, stressful environment, you can tend to go under the bushel because you’re just trying to make it out that day. You know, do your best, do your best work. 

Take the best care of your patients. And it’s hard to look outside of the bubble that you’re working in when you work in such those high stress, go, go, go environments. So that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Nurse Coaching, but I just encourage Nurses to try to look outside the box, or get out, get out of the bubble a little bit. 

And if I could segue, because I’m good at that, and I apologize, I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but that’s what I do. So but like, that’s where I see where a benefit of a Nurse Coach on a in patient hospital setting is allowing… giving opportunities to Nurses to come outside of the bubble. 

I’m just saying, using that analogy, if there’s other things you could use, but, you know, giving the opportunity to breathe and debrief or make goals, or, you know, just, I just feel like it’s so, you know, the environments that we work on, work in, the majority of us are, you know, high pressure, high stress situation, you know, jobs. I mean, we’re taking care of humans. We’re amazing. Nurses are amazing.

Nicole Vienneau  33:12

We are humans. We are humans first, caring for humans at some of the most traumatic times in their lives. We’re humans as well, yes. And Nurses who are listening, you don’t have to take the program, right, to have some benefit. We actually have an intro class as well, a short snippet of what Nurse Coaching is that may be of interest. And I’ll pop a link into the show notes for that. 

And then there are opportunities to learn just a little bit about Nurse Coaching, and not feel like you have to take whole program within Nurse Coaching. Or something is interesting to you, like learning about breath work. Maybe it’s just looking in your community for a two hour workshop and just going to explore that, or sound healing or aromatherapy or homeopathy, or what else, Reiki, what else? Girls, share some things.

Jen Schroer  34:09

Hypnosis. 

Angie Maguire  34:09

Hypnosis, yeah.

Nicole Vienneau  34:12

Just those little dabbles in it to see what piques your interest, doesn’t mean you need to move away from the bedside at all. In fact, many, many of our Nurses who have taken the full programs, they still stay at the bedside, but it shifts the perspective of the work that we’re doing. 

And so that bushel or that bubble can expand a little bit, or it can be, you know, change color or change texture, you know, things like that. So it doesn’t always have to feel like you’re being compressed or put under a bushel. So yes, so thanks, Angie, for that. That was a good segue.

Angie Maguire  34:52

And I mean, INCA offers so many wonderful programs for Nurses. And I’ve, several times, sent information about the different courses for Nurses, Nurses who I’ve worked with.

Nicole Vienneau  35:05

Awesome. Yeah, thanks for doing that. So I’m curious to know, what difference do you think Nurse Coaches make in our world? Yeah, go for it, Jen.

Jen Schroer  35:18

I mean, I think all the difference. Unfortunately, I feel like we, as a healthcare system, still don’t focus on preventative care enough, and still follow those exact algorithms of, you know, oh, you have this, you take this, you have this, you cut this, you know. And we just kind of, we go along this pathway of this is the only way to do it. 

And as you guys were both saying, you know, outside the box. Need to think outside the box. And I remember, as a traveling Nurse, you know, I couldn’t go with like, when I left one facility to the next. I couldn’t go, Well, this is how they do it over there. Didn’t matter how they did it over there. 

This is how I’m doing it over here, you know. And it did allow me to kind of start to see that it’s not always this perfect algorithm on how you do it. Yes, ACLs, BLS, I can follow that algorithm every day, right? Like, you know you save, to save a life it’s this one way. 

But I do think that being able to think outside the box, being able to look at different ways of how to manage a disease process or keep you from getting that disease process is really where we should be looking. You know, a prime example would be, I had a relative that got diagnosed with pre diabetes, right? And they were put on Metformin, sent home, nothing else, no information. 

I did not understand. Realized that they did not really understand what diabetes did to the body, and so I gave her some education. I told her about the continuous glucose monitoring. I let her learn her own body. Educated her on, okay, well, if that you know, if that banana causes a blood sugar spike, you’re gonna do XYZ. And just really started like, kind of helping her plan that. 

But insurance doesn’t cover that, that continuous glucose monitor, unless you’re diabetic. We have to get, you know, it’s this whole like, well, you’re almost there. When you get there, we’ll start treating you. Really think that we can start looking at the, you know, oh well, you’re edging towards, or maybe preventing you even to get to that point. 

And Nurse Coaching is so helpful in that way. Because, yes, we do spend a lot of time of letting you figure out, okay, what do you have in your own arsenal to take care of yourself? But we can also provide you some information of how you can help yourself in that way as well. 

And I just think that the Coaching is just, you know, people need to talk. People need more than 15 minutes. You know, we’re given at least an hour in our sessions, and you need to be able to really talk through what’s going on. I’m not going to just send you home and say you need to eat better. 

I’m going to say, What did you eat today? What do your breakfasts usually look like? What do your lunches usually look like? How can we tweak that to make you feel more energetic, to make you feel better? So that you’re not so… if we go back to the blood sugar analogy, or, you know, scenario, so you’re not having those spikes, you know, and you really dig into the person more than you can in a traditional just doctor’s visit.

Angie Maguire  38:12

Perfect place where I would like to come in is really Nurse Coaches are looking at the whole person. And, you know, when we do our initial assessment, if you’re, you know, if that’s the way you’re working is we’re doing a head to toe wellness assessment. 

That’s how I like to say it, you know, it’s like, we start out physical, mental, emotional, social, and then we go, I mean, occupational is huge. I mean, where, you know, if you’re not happy at your you know, where you spend the majority of your time, 40, 50, hours, 60 hours a week, you know, let’s talk. 

Let’s start there. We might not be able to change it, but how are we going to implement ways to decrease your stress there and maybe find someone to talk to. You know, so the whole person, you know, really looking at the whole person. And I think, you know, Jen and I, as we’ve already said, is we both work with women in midlife. 

And you know, many women in midlife, you know, it’s a big, great age range, but you know, let’s just say 40 to 65 for today. You know, they haven’t stopped to look at their whole self for a long time. And that’s where I think we really do a great job. 

And the second thing I was going to say, I think Nurse Coaches as a whole, I think wherever we can be within the health system, like, I think we can just, like, slow the roll, like, just slow the momentum of how and what happens in our healthcare system. Like, wherever we are, we can fill in the gaps. 

I mean, maybe it’s just a little love and care that we give, because that’s what we… you know, our hearts are there, but then our knowledge and our… and then we’ve already mentioned intuition. I mean, we bring so much to the table for people. But our health system, our traditional health system, is fast and furious, and it’s gonna get… it’s not slowing down. 

So I feel like there’s a place for Nurse Coaches to slow the roll. And that was my favorite thing to tell my kids, when I’m like, All right, slow your roll. Like, slow your roll. All right. Your britches are too big. But, you know, just I think that’s where we can, we can set ourselves and be there for people.

Nicole Vienneau  38:12

Slow the roll.

Angie Maguire  38:58

Slow the roll of traditional healthcare.

Nicole Vienneau  39:03

Right. Well, I do feel, having been in healthcare, and I still have, I get to go into the hospitals once a week, and still see that environment in action. And the role is very fast. It is very, very fast paced, and it is difficult to slow down. And yet, when given an opportunity, when a Nurse Coach like myself shows up on the unit and says, Hey, I’d love to offer you a two minute Reiki session. 

And they’re like, oh, I don’t have time. I gotta go chart. And I said, Okay, you go chart, and I’m just going to stand behind you, and I’ll just bring in unconditional love from the universe, and you could just keep charting. And they’re like, Oh, okay. So then they’re charting, and then all of a sudden, the hands come off the computer, and they just rest for a moment. 

I mean that… oh yeah, I love it too, because it’s just like, whoa. It’s slowing the roll. And then they’re more focused for what the next task is at hand, you know? So yes, I really, I fully believe, and I know we’ve mentioned this, that there should be on staff Nurse Coaches at every single hospital. 

Not just one, but a couple, because the Nurses are the workhorses of a hospital, and without healthy and productive Nurses, we don’t have safe and effective care. We have great care, and it could be better, and patients could be treated fully, respectfully as the humans that they are, and then we’re taking care of the humans who are caring for the humans. 

So yeah, I have a lot to say about that topic, but that could be a whole other thing. Yeah. So in your topics, when you’re Coaching midlife women and with the Nurse Coach Duo, tell us some of the, maybe not the guest names, but some of the topics that you’ve shared on your programs so our listeners can have an understanding of the breadth that you’re doing.

Angie Maguire  41:59

Well, we’ve had a variety of practitioners, and we have invited a OBGYN on, and we’re going to have her on again, and just, you know, to really, you know, talk very medically or like, what we’re, you know, what they’re thinking, where they are. And she is sort of one of the menopause out there, if the listeners know what we’re talking about. 

And she’s been very, oh my gosh. She’s been so generous with her time. And I mean, everyone else. We’ve had a hypnotist. We’ve had a sound healer. Chelsea. So we’ve and, of course, Nicole, we’ve already mentioned that we’ve had you on and, Jen…

Jen Schroer  43:30

I mean, pelvic floor therapist, physical therapist, we’ve had, I mean, I almost want to say, you name it, like we’ve had them on there. Like, we’re really trying to go and look at all the different symptoms that people are dealing with when it comes to perimenopause and menopause, and then bringing someone in to talk on those types of things. 

We talked to a provider, functional medicine provider, recently, that we’re dropping next week, about autoimmunity. We’ve had Susan Greiner, who’s a Nurse Coach, come on about insulin sensitivity. You know, all of these with midlife, you know, we talk about so much about, like, oh, the sandwich generation, right? 

So there’s a lot of stress there with having kids and aging parents, but there’s also the changes that are occurring in our body. So we’re trying to bring people on there that can give us some solutions to the symptoms that we’re dealing with, and then also alternate ways of dealing with stress.

Nicole Vienneau  44:28

So listeners, we have a link in the show notes so that you can click and follow along on YouTube with the Nurse Coach Duo, yes, yes, and more episodes to come, I know.

Jen Schroer  44:42

Absolutely yes, we’re going to be interviewing our husbands very soon, so put the men in menopause so that we can understand what they’re wanting to know and answer some of their questions as well. But, yeah, we’re always welcome… You know, ready to have other Nurses come on as well. 

Any Nurse Coaches that want to join, tell us, you know, what they’re doing out there in the world, and how they’re sharing the Nurse Coach knowledge, and what they’re doing with it, because we’re all doing different things, which is amazing. And you know, so if anybody wants to come on, we’d love to hear from them.

Nicole Vienneau  45:12

All right, listeners, that was a plug for you. All you have to do is reach out and say yes. Yes.

Angie Maguire  45:19

And even if you don’t want to be on the Nurse Coach Duo, reach out to us, our information will be in the description, so we’re happy to collaborate, to talk.

Nicole Vienneau  45:32

Yeah, we need support. We need to support each other. And yeah, all it takes sometimes is that scary time when you’re typing that email, thinking, are they ever going to reply?

Jen Schroer  45:43

And there’s no competition here, right? Like, I mean, Angie and I, and Susan and you, like, or Suzanne, like, we all work in the same realm of, like, our niche group of people who we’re helping, and there’s zero competition in this. 

Like Angie said before, like, there are so many people out there that need help. We should all be working together to lift up the voices of Nurse Coaches and shout it from the rooftops that we’re out there, because we all want to help, and we just need to be able to find ways of getting in and letting people know we’re out there.

Nicole Vienneau  46:14

Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes. Love it. I love that. All right. Angie and Jen, in our last few moments, we always love to ask a certain question, and you just are welcome to pause a moment and just think about it before you answer. What is on your heart that you would like to share with our listeners, and I’m going to leave it open to either one of you that would like to jump in first.

Angie Maguire  46:43

I love being a Nurse, and it has brought me 30 years of all different experiences, working in many environments, and not everyone does that. Does it that way. I often say that I’m an expert of nothing. I know a lot about a little. But I feel like that has brought me to Nurse Coaching, and actually really benefits my practice and who I am. 

Because of all the places I’ve worked and people I’ve worked with, and just being 53 years old, but I’m just proud to be a Nurse. I think also, I feel like, and we’ve touched on this, and, you know, I think if anyone leaves this podcast, they’ll understand that Jen and I are about collaboration and support. 

And, you know, plugging the Nurse Coach, and building us up and building, you know, our network across the country, the world, and we are the… we’re not, we’re not… There’s going to be more of us, right? I mean, there’s going to be a lot of us coming moving forward. 

And you can be and you can work in a hospital, and you can work and you can have your own practice, you can do a lot of different things as a Nurse Coach. So I think that’s what’s on my heart.

Jen Schroer  47:55

I just want to, you know, I mean, I think that the fact that you do this podcast is amazing, Nicole, because I do think that, like I said, we just need a way to lift us up and lift up our voices. Because Nurse Coaching, regardless of where you take it, after you’re done with the information, you know, after you’re done with the certification, regardless of where you’re taking it, I have heard from probably everybody that I met at the symposium, and everyone that I was in my cohort with, it really can change your life. 

What you learn in it, how you learn to, like Angie said, slow your roll, how you bring it down to just breathing, to pausing and taking a minute to recognize what you need. Because whenever you figure out what you need, it’s only going to be better for whoever you’re taking care of on the other side. 

I know it’s the age old, you know, if you don’t fill your cup, you can’t fill other people’s cups, and people just want to throw that out. Maybe we need to figure out a new way of saying it. But it is so true. You know, if we are run down, we are not going to show up for somebody the way that we need to show up in whatever job that we’re doing, whether that’s at home, taking care of our family, whether that’s in a business. 

And I do think that pausing and taking a break and recognizing that rest is a requirement. It’s not a, you know, it’s not this selfish thing, and it’s not this luxury. It shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be part of our every day, and just taking that slow down. It’s super powerful. It’s super powerful, and it’s amazing what your body will do for you and how you can show up better for people whenever you take that.

Nicole Vienneau  49:33

Well said, thank you both for sharing a little bit of what’s on your heart today.

Jen Schroer  49:38

Thank you. 

Angie Maguire  49:38

Thank you.

Nicole Vienneau  49:40

And so listeners we can… we’ll drop in all of the details, both from Angie and Jen, into our show notes so you can connect with them. Reach out. Please do, and of course, listening to their Nurse Coach Duo YouTube channel. And Angie and Jen, I’m so thankful. We’re so thankful that you came on our podcast today to share a little bit about what’s going on in your Nurse Coach world.

Jen Schroer  50:08

Thanks for having us, Nicole.

Angie Maguire  50:09

Thank you so much for having us.