Laurie Schroeder RN – Empowering Healthcare Leaders with Positivity

Thank you for joining us to the.

You World Order

Podcast today I'm super excited being my first podcast of.

The You World

Order and I have the distinct blessing to be speaking with Laurie Schroeder, RN and.

Personal life coach.

So Laurie, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

And what I'd like to do is just have you kind of introduce yourself.

Tell us about what you're doing and where you are and what you're offering.

Just everything about you, this is the you show.

So nice to have you here today.

Thanks so much, Kasey.

Appreciate this.

But kind of quickly got out, got married, and just for the next 30 years was working in hospitals.

And I ended up finding I really I got a job in the operating room.

So the last 25 years I was working in surgery and then like a lot of nurses just kind of worked.

My way quote up, you know from to charge nurse and then to supervisor.

And then I found myself in one of these nurse management positions.

I was so excited to get that position.

I wasn't looking for.

It, which was interesting it our my manager kind of suddenly left.

And this position was opened and I was really happy in my supervisor role, but so many of the doctors and the anesthesiologists and my nursing director just really supported me and they were like, you know, take this job, this this, this will be good.

I lasted, I shouldn't say.

I lasted for about a year.

I was in that job and it was I was.

I was new to it, although I certainly wasn't new to nursing because I had been a nurse for so long.

But I gave myself.

I gave myself the story that I just burned out, that it was too hard, that I wasn't.

Just wasn't good at it, but I had this this judgment that like not everybody liked me.

I didn't know what I was doing, you know, all I was afraid to ask questions, all those things.

And after a year, I just thought, you know what, this is not for me.

And I bailed out, went back to staff nursing at a different hospital.

And then COVID hits and my husband and I moved down to Tennessee.

And that's kind of when I retired.

But I got into life coaching.

I kind of like the way I got into life coaching.

I was over drinking.

Probably a little bit before that management job and then that management job just gave me such a like an excuse like I would find myself getting in the car.

Being like, oh, I hate this.

Job and then just drinking.

And I decided I wanted to quit and I wasn't quitting and hired myself, a life coach.

And that's kind of how I got into life coaching.

So once I left.

I was in Minnesota with all my, you know, the OR and the nurse management job. And once my husband decided we're gonna move to Tennessee and I was leaving that location, I decided that I would just.

You know, go to get a certified as a life coach now, but we're going to do much with it, but it just.

Was kind of interesting.

Just so that was talking to people about my journey, old friends, things like that. They would just ask, like, gosh, could you coach me? And so I started a one-on-one coaching practice.

Which brings me to I'm in a place of pivot right now because I'm involved with an organization called Positive Intelligence out of Stanford and they have a passion for bringing this program that I went through into the healthcare arena.

Right.

And so I was like, gosh, I.

Could do that. So anyways I'm kind of I'm in a transition right now, doing one on from one-on-one into positioning myself into corporate and.

Basically introducing this concept of mental fitness, which is what Positive Intelligence kind of what they, how they market their you know positive emotions, negative emotions we have like mental fitness and so it's all about learning.

Like those voices in our head giving language to them.

Which is funny in healthcare.

You know, there's always a language in healthcare.

And my husband calls it Med speak.

And this also has a language, so this is kind of like a, a positive intelligence language where the founder, Shirzad, he's a researcher, he has pretty much through research and factor analysis.

Put in a concept of we have basically 5.

Like sage, aspects of our brain and 10 saboteur aspects.

And these are just the voices in our head.

Basically, you know if the saboteur is affecting you because you're having a negative emotion about something, which would be like, let's say your mother-in-law says something, it just tweaks you out and you start acting negatively about it.

And then these sage aspects is operating on a more positive level.

So the mental fitness brings us from negative into positive.

So anyways, I went through Shirzad Chamine’s program as a coach and just loved what he brought.

And then when he was saying he wanted to bring this to healthcare, I'm like, Oh my gosh.

Sign me up.

So basically.

Perfect segue between your experience that you've had for so many years.

Yeah, in the medical field being, you know, a registered nurse.

Having the experience of a positive result from.

Life coaching.

And bringing them together.

I love it.

I absolutely love it, especially in a high stress.

I imagine right with hospital leaders.

That's probably a very high stress.

Niche it and you never really think.

It's a.

It's very high stress and it, you know, COVID happened and that's it's very high stress with that.

But it was high stress before that, like COVID really kind of brought some things out.

But you know, people are overwhelmed by self doubt.

That's kind of that's how I felt.

I was just like, had such doubt that I couldn't do this job.

And that's just a sign that your mental fitness needs a boost.

I think another big thing is just that bouncing back from hardship, this these, this has really helped me just like recover so much quicker from a negative situation into positive.

It's not that it's.

It's it doesn't diminish the things that happen to us at all, this this mindset, this, this, this way of thinking.

It just helps enhance.

To quickly get into a more positive.

So yeah, and it just it addresses that lack of focus as so many leaders have.

I remember thinking I was so.

Scattered, you know.

There there'd be all these initiatives coming down from the system.

And it's just like, oh, my gosh, where do I start?

But through these tools, it really helps kind of narrow stuff down.

And I think.

What's you know what's really telling you what's really grabbing me with what you're doing.

And I love that statement.

Mental fitness.

I love that because we tend to like, focus on our bodies and we think that like.

Exercise and fitness in the sense is, oh, going and lifting weights.

And you know.

Going for a run or a jog or, you know, whatever have you.

But we're forgetting that that mental exercise that we have to do in many different situations especially.

What we're doing in.

Business and the balance of life and family and everything like that, especially when you're in a high stress.

Job and career.

So I absolutely love this mental fitness because it reminds us that, alright, we're human, right?

And we're all going to be going through these emotions.

And if we're equipped and we're working on what we need to work on.

It's not gonna eliminate those things.

Nothing's going to change.

It's how we react exactly.

It's how we react to them.

It's if you want to just go over some things that you work on.

With your one on ones to help energize.

I guess to exercise the mind.

I love it.

Yeah, exactly.

And that pulling that mental fitness piece out, it is like a workout because.

You know, it's almost like if you don't, we know this about our lives.

If we don't do anything to change or to, you know, don't go to the gym like you're not going to build those muscles up.

So there's techniques within this program that help develop the muscles.

And that's the that's.

Kind of what I'm bringing to the healthcare leaders.

So just something to help support and sustain these habits

New ways of self discovery.

You know, there's kind of kind of something for everyone.

I think within this program.

And then the bot and the bottom line is just helping improve performance.

Strength and relationships that was this was a little surprise bonus that that I got doing this work and just general well-being which to me translates to like happiness so.

100%, especially when you think about.

Just the sheer amount of time.

That we spend on our careers and we spend on our job in the hours that we put in and it's a majority of our time, you know not everyone can be independently wealthy where they don't have to worry about, you know being in a stressful situation.

And then oftentimes I have found that when you have these feelings of self doubt.

You know, it kind of just builds, right and then you start to, I don't know if I can do that and you start really doubting yourself and how your ability is to perform a job and that I believe leads into like other parts of your life and your self-confidence goes down, right? But if you're opposite.

And you're working on this like what you're saying kind of take it on and.

And use those as tools to.

Catapult you forward instead of like dwelling on.

Them is that sort.

That's exactly it. Yes, exactly. It helps you catapult just gives another reframing of what's going on in your brain because this, the work that Shirzad has done is based a lot on research and functional MRI's and things like that, stuff that nurses and, you know, doctors and things. If you like, love brain science. It's an interesting.

Of along the lines.

Right.

Program, but it's just that just knowing that like positive change can't be sustained without like exposing.

Kind of like what the negative things are and how to build to the positive.

So it really, you know there's concepts and work and just identifying what these saboteurs are.

And basically it's the voices in our head like.

That we hear.

And we all.

He gets little, he gets little names to them, so just kind of helps remember.

But yeah, so that's what I'm doing now.

And the challenge, the challenge for me has just been that transition from one-on-one coaching into the corporate world. So I'm doing some work with, you know, getting my LinkedIn.

Together, because before I never even gave any mind to that so.

Right, right, right.

So we're just doing a little switch out there, so.

And I think it's it.

It's a good you know it I think that especially in the corporate world, you know I spent a lot of time in the corporate world.

I'd much rather be where I am now because I feel like I make more of a difference personally.

But I remember.

Trainings right and kind of.

And it was all a lot of it was tech based and it never really we never really challenged with any other struggle other than I can't open the spreadsheet or how to make a formula and he right so like it's so great to know that we have such an awareness now that.

We can tap into these things that affect it isn't a matter anymore of someone not being able. I'm just using this as an example of course, like it's not just about someone not being able to open a spreadsheet anymore. You know, if something is kind of affecting someone’s work.

That it's the realization that it might be something else other than maybe being technology technologically challenged or something like that, right?

And I think this is such a great thing that helps a lot.

Of people that.

Maybe we’re either too afraid to admit that they were struggling mentally with AB or C stress anxiety or whatever self doubt.

Like you had mentioned.

And you kind of internalized that, right?

Never really spoke about that stuff and it just.

Right.

When you're really, yeah.

Yeah, I think this really gives a language to those fears that come up and there's all, like, you know, some people.

Avoid taking things on.

That's me like to avoid doing things like I know what's expected of me, but sometimes I just don't want to do it.

It's understanding that.

And then some people are just have to do 1 achievement after another.

Other people feel like they're always a victim and that nothing goes right for them, so this program gives that language on.

Right.

A corporate level.

And it's kind of fun to do a seminar on saboteurs, because people take an assessment and you get to find out who, what your top saboteurs are and it just it really helps you understand how you approach a problem, a problem, and then maybe how your coworker is so different than you and approach it in a.

Different way.

So it's.

It probably opens a lot of eyes, right and it becomes a topic.

To talk about that doesn't.

Bring you know, it's a little strong of a word, but.

A shame because I.

That's what I was going to say, Shame

Feel like?

Yeah, it's such a strong word, but it's true, right?

Like we tend to when we feel like we're lacking in some way, shape or form, it's somehow such a negative.

OK.

Such a negative, so we don't want.

To admit it and.

Right.

Renee Brown.

Renee Brown has done such good work in the corporate arena around vulnerability and shame.

So she's just kind of, I feel like, paved.

The way for.

This extra layer of work to be done or to bring that bring it forward to corporate.

So I really a lot of this work is does mention those types of things, but you're you are absolutely right with that.

And I know.

I thought that as a new nurse manager of just like, shame and like, oh, I'm just not good enough.

I don't want to speak up in a meeting and you know those types of things to give it a language and validity.

Can really help propel just like just your person.

Just like to fulfill your true potential, whatever that is.

And like I had mentioned before it seems like it's such a good way.

To exercise the mind and other aspects of your life, you know obviously career, because that's a majority of most of our lives.

But knowing that that creates what you're offering is creating habits so it can affect you with relationships and you know other aspects of your life is actually it.

Yes. Yeah.

It's you're really getting down to the core of really helping people.

And I think on the corporate level, which is so interesting to me because everybody's focused on the one-on-one right now, right. But this is like listen you do, do you want to increase?

Is there?

You know. Work

Do you want to increase positivity in your entire company?

You're not just tackling one person.

That's because everyone struggling something different, right?

That's exactly it, because it really brings out because the performance well-being and relationships is kind of like his three pillars, 3 pillars that we bring to the corporate.

But each person individually has issues and you know and it, it goes into family life too. And you know, through coaching, it's always interesting one-on-one coaching.

You always, you know, you come in with a goal and a situation, but so many times it bring it, it gets to that.

That just.

That baseline of like, how are your relationships at home and then what's your relationship like to yourself so?

Worse, of course, cause it's it all gets blended, you know, like you had mentioned before about the mother.

In law.

That could be the situation with your children or your spouse and it you know, the littlest tweak can set you off in every aspect of your life and.

If you're equipped with learning how to deal with those.

You know, just like you know, right.

Yeah, that was.

So it's like you, you're helping your organ.

It's just another organ that you're helping your mind is like another piece of your body.

You know I.

Like to run because I want my

I want good cardiovascular health and I want, you know, and things like that.

So yeah.

So yeah, so the techniques taught really bring in that mental fitness of getting, you know quicker from the negative to the positive and those taught.

We just.

Yeah, yeah.

Some very specific basically exercises for mental fitness.

Yes, I love it.

Yeah, yeah.

I love it because I think we focused on the physical so much and I think up until recently, I think you can kind of agree the topic of mental Wellness was something was like, shhh you know, like, not really spoken about but.

Yeah, right.

The mental.

Like you would talk about some of the.

Mental health like.

That that word, mental health, mental Wellness.

Like, it's becoming a lot more common.

And I've kind of like tested.

Shizard has labeled a mental fitness cause.

I've heard it.

Before, but it's the kind of the cornerstone language within his with his program.

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

I think it's I think that the niche that you're focused on is fantastic because I.

Think it's forgotten?

About because of the sheer amount of time that people spend, you know at their job.

OK.

So why not?

You know, if you're teaching them, you know, a program in work, why not help them?

Because they're going to be more sufficient.

They're going to do a better job.

They're going to be happy.

Happy employees are going to give their best work.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I've been in healthcare for a while and there just there just seems to be.

Like this hidden.

Expectation that everything has to be 100% effort and perfect.

Like especially with like.

Physicians, the amount of pressure that they have on themselves to, you know, always to be getting it right and it's not to diminish that work, but I think just.

Bringing forward that there's a lot of negative emotion that comes from that pressure and this is kind of another way to handle it.

Give it a different language and a different focus and.

Just to help the leaders cope.

And I love the awareness.

And I love that.

Because you can't really make change or create change if you don't.

If you're not aware, if you're just not aware of it or you're denying it, that even so far right.

Oh, absolutely.

So like if it's presented to people, someone who wouldn't normally step forward and say, OK, you know, I'm struggling a little bit, I'm not really sure why or how or what the reason is.

You know, this is intriguing to me.

And then our given steps to kind of pinpoint that, yeah, without feeling that shame without feeling like, OK, you know, and realizing that.

A lot of people.

There's a lot of people just like me and you, whether it's different circumstances, everybody.

Struggles with that.

I struggle with it every day.

Every day? Yeah.

So it just.

So it so that's the direction I'm going and yeah.

Yeah, I love it.

So I know you're on that pivot stage.

I get that you know, how can people get in touch with you right now?

I know that you know you're in transition right now, but is there a way people can get in touch with you right now if they have any additional questions, anything like that, feel free to share what you're, you know, ready to share, of course.

Yeah, I would.

I'm sure.

Yeah, I don't have a website.

I’m not going to do a website?

But I would say LinkedIn.

So Lori Schroeder and then R like you could type in Lori Schroeder RN and like coach and message me through there so.

That's great.

I absolutely love it.

I love.

How there's so many resources out there now that are that are able to help people from all different angles to be the best version of themselves.

And when you know that, it's like that kind of cliche saying, like when you, when you take care of yourself, everything else.

Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And this gives that healthcare leaders, in particular the tools. So I'm talking about the nurse managers, the directors, the C-Suite.

Follow suit, right?

Yeah, you know, the ones that are helping, you know, leading the, the caregivers like, you know, the nurses and.

So I just know that when I was a nurse manager like this really could have this this program actually I believe could have helped me just stay in that role.

And not have not have bailed out so quickly. To have that tool

Right.

When you look at it in hindsight, right.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so.

Yeah, it's miraculous how that kind of went full circle for you that like you lived that.

And went through those steps and now we're like this helped me.

Now I want to help others.

And knowing that this probably could have helped you at that point, who knows?

I mean, you might have still.

Been in that.

Role you know.

That's right.

I was very well supported in that role.

I just came from a wonderful organization, but yeah.

Ah, so anyways, yes.

Now that's great and I love it.

I love everything about it.

I think that.

When you think about healthcare professionals, just me being not.

A health professional, right, you've.

They're invincible to me.

I mean, this is a doctor.

These are nurses.

These are healthcare professionals, right?

So like.

You don't even think that possibly.

They need to work on anything or like you know what, I.

Mean in the way there's like this just kind of aura of.

Well, so it almost seems like it.

Was like a forgotten group of people who.

That's what I think.

So I and those are the people you want the healthiest.

That's what I think.

They're taking care of you.

I want the healthiest person mentally and physically to me.

Yeah, there's actually Shizad, the researcher that that brought this forward. He's out of Stanford University, but he's had several physician groups gone go through this program. It's a seven. It's basically a 7 week program, but.

So it's quite amazing.

That's miraculous. I love it.

But yeah, but.

I love it.

Well, you shared your LinkedIn right now you know I'm keen on keeping, you know, track of you and how you grow and.

Thank so much will be my first podcast for today.

I'm so excited, you know?

Yeah, let's.

See. Thank you.

So if anybody wants to get in contact with you, they can check you out.

Lori Schroeder RN make sure with that RN.

That's how I found you as well.

You came right on top.

So that's great with all your background and information.

Good. Thank you.

So if anyone wants to contact

They can do it that way for.

Now I'm looking forward to seeing.

You strive forward and seeing where you build this cause you know I truly believe in what you're doing.

I think it's absolutely fantastic.

I thank you so much for.

Your time today.

Thank you.

And it was great to have you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, so, so much fun.

Thank you so much, Kasey.

OK, you're so welcome.