Aileen Vonderheide for Nurse Life Coach Academy Video Testimonials

Speaker: Aileen Vonderheide, Nurse Coach

Aileen Vonderheide: What was going on in my life and career that made me want to join Nurse Life Coach Academy? A lot of things Uh, let's see, uh, I started talking to Laura probably around this time last year, March, April of 2024. And I. My son had just turned 2, so fresh into our. Terrible to toddlerhood years, you know, um. I was and still am working night shift. I had tried every possible combination of. Scheduling for my shifts for work and personal life to try and accommodate for all the demands of my personal life. And my husband's career and my son's needs and my own personal career. And housework and all the list goes on and on, taking care of myself, going to the gym. All the things that you're supposed to do or you want to do, right? Like I wanted to do a lot of this stuff, but I. I didn't know how to make it all fit. I didn't know how to make it all work, um. And none of us did. Everyone I talked to on the unit. We were all struggling, our, we were all on fire, um. Everyone was on, it maybe still is an anxiety medication. We were all just drowning, um. And just going that. What else do you do? This is life, this is, this is what a nursing career looks like. Um, this is, you just gotta deal with it and put up with it and suck it up and do the best you can with what you got. And maybe it's because nursing was not my first career in life, um. I'm grateful I'm here, but I, I, I just had knowledge that this was an unsustainable way to have a long term fulfilling career. Um. We weren't gonna last, we were gonna, we were gonna burn out and and there were already new grads. Burning out, quitting. Going to another unit, going to another career. I mean, I've been a nurse for 5 years and I already know. More than a handful of people who have come and gone. Um, And it sucks because we need good nurses and they are good nurses, but. The temple of this. This life and. The work that we do as nurses, it's, it's not sustainable. So I remember sitting down on my computer going, yeah, this isn't working. This, this can't be it. There has to be an answer. I, I know there has to be another way to support us, to support nurses, to support these people, to support me, I need help. Um, and so I typed in, uh, Coaching for nurses or nurse coach or something, I started typing in these keywords that I was like, I need a coach. I know coaches help. I know they help people in ways that people don't understand how they can help. Um. And just from being in other careers, I understood, so I. Started typing it in and. Found Laura and Shelby's adorable faces staring back at me going, hey, come on over, let's let's book a free call and let's see how we can help you and. Man, the rest is history.

Aileen Vonderheide: Saying yes to becoming a nurse coach was. Easiest thing I've ever done in my life. Having that conversation with Laura and talking about her career path and my career path and how we ended up in nursing and how Laura ended up as a coach and some of my other career paths that I've had before nursing. It just made sense. It made sense and it felt like the right step. I was disillusioned with getting an advanced degree. I Man, everyone I've talked to that has gone back for a master's. they're still struggling the way that I am right now, um, with the BSN it didn't improve their life. It didn't improve a whole lot, their career situation. If anything, it's more stressful, more demanding, more responsibility, um, less flexibility, and that's just not what I wanted. I, I I wanted flexibility in my life. I wanted to be able to do the things that my family needed from me, the things that I thought were important to me that I valued. And in a way that I. Felt that I was making a difference in people's lives in a way that I felt like I could support. People such as myself and my peers who are burning at the bedside and. Thinking there's no other way. To live in this career path, um. Easiest decision I've ever made, hands down.

Aileen Vonderheide: What has changed for me since certification? Can I say everything I mean, what hasn't changed, um. I changed the way I communicate with my son. I've changed the way. Um, that I talk to and about my husband. Um, I changed the way I approach conflicts and confrontations, um. Uh, the way that I. What's the word I'm looking for, not necessarily disagree, but the way that I. Approach conversations when people and I are not on the same page, let's say that, uh, yeah. So a lot of it has to do with relationships and communication, and maybe that's because for me, that's where I struggled the most, pre-certification. Um, even after going to therapy, even after going through, uh, counseling, even after looking into, um, Cognitive behavioral therapy even after being on medication, that was still such a struggle area for me and Certification changed that. I, uh, my husband still says it all the time, I. If your conversation, your tone, the way that you communicate with me, it's just so. So much more understanding, so loving, so giving, so kind, um. My threshold, my tolerance for annoyance or things that get under my skin has definitely increased. I can, I can tolerate it. I can tolerate more for longer because of the tools um and techniques that I've learned through certification. And just being able to to share that and discuss that with clients and guide them through those aha moments. I mean, I can't think of any other way that I want to spend the rest of my life, but. Doing this.

Aileen Vonderheide: What am I most proud of? I am most proud of. My level of acceptance. I don't know how to explain it. Acceptance wasn't even. In my vocabulary. Before nurse coaching. And let me explain. I'm a very open-minded person. I accept people for who they are and what they want to do. Fine. That doesn't, that's not a thing for me. That doesn't bother me. I'm OK with how people are. I'm not OK with When it feels like it's impeding in my circumstances, my life, when it feels like it's pushing on my boundaries, um, making me uncomfortable. And I didn't know how to accept that. I didn't know how to accept people's stress levels. I didn't know how to accept, um, People's disagreements with me. I didn't know how to accept feedback. Oh, no, I was awful, I was so awful at accepting feedback, oh, my god, um, definitely took a defensive stance to feedback. Oh, no, poor past Eileen, that was, that was rough, rough times, um. Um, And there was something. Something in the teaching of the certification. I can't can't even pinpoint it. At some point, a light bulb just turned on. And Life has never felt so. Free, so relaxed. I accept the weather for what it is. I accept. My life, my husband, my parents for who they are, for what they've been through. I accept my callings for and my patients for what they're going through. I accept technology when it doesn't work. Cool, man. You don't want to work? That's fine. Let's troubleshoot, um, and see how I can fix it, you know, if it needs to be fixed. I don't know. Maybe we just need to turn off and turn back on. Um, I accept food when it's cold, when it's hot. I accept. Things not being the way that I planned them to be, um, time moving faster or slower than I wanted it to be. I, it's this level of accepting. Life. That I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining. But I didn't have in my life before certification. And I'm so, so proud. Of that newfound acceptance, it's It's free.

Aileen Vonderheide: What would you say to a nurse considering joining nurse Life Coach Academy? OK. Here's the thing. I'm a spicy girl. Sometimes I get spicy answers and I'm not sorry, OK, um, I would say. It's the best money you will ever spend on anything in your entire life. If If you're serious. If you're serious about changing your life, if you're serious about doing the work, if you're serious. About making a difference in other people's lives. If you're serious about making this change in your career. Hands down, best decision that you will ever make in your life, best money you will ever spend in your life. I can imagine a better way that I would have spent my money. To have gotten The level of change of excitement of hope. Of A visionary feature I didn't even know existed. I can't imagine a better way to spend my time and my money and my skills and my efforts. But nurse life coach Academy is just step one. It's step one. You gotta, you gotta put in the work, you gotta learn how to coach people. Take it seriously. This is not a hobby. This is not a hobby. This is life changing, OK? So, if you're serious, there's nothing better that you could do for your life. If you're not serious, if this is a hobby, if it's just another thing you wanna see how it goes. Don't even bother. It's not It's not a hobby. This is life changing, and if you're, it's, it's like parenting. It's gonna change you. And it should. And if you're not ready for that. Don't waste your time.