16. How Dr. Renee Thompson Went From Speaker to Healthy Workforce Institute

Welcome to The Bossy Nurse Podcast, a show about nurse creators, innovators, risk-takers, and the ideas that shape their success.

In this episode, Marsha Battee speaks with Renee Thompson, DNP, RN, FAONL, FAAN, CSP®, CEO and Founder of the Healthy Workforce Institute. They discuss how Dr. Thompson went from speaking about nurse bullying and incivility to building an institute that helps healthcare leaders create healthier, more respectful work cultures. 

Find the all the resources mentioned in the show and full details at The Bossy Nurse website.

Transcript

Consulting Versus Keynotes Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Consulting, it's every single day for years. It's the nursing leader texting me on a Friday at eight o'clock at night, saying I'm in a situation. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk? Or texting me at six o'clock in the morning. It's every single day taking a look at swimming upstream with some of these groups and getting them on this path. It's the hardest work I've ever done.

Meet Dr. Renee Thompson

Marsha 0:32

Welcome to the Boston Hearts Podcast, a show about nurse creators, innovators, risk takers, and the ideas that shape their success. I'm Marsha Batti, and on the show today, how Dr. Renee Thompson turned her expertise and nurse workplace culture into a national body of work, helping healthcare teams confront the behaviors that make already hard jobs even harder. Nursing has always been hard work. But too often, the hardest part isn't the patient care. It's the culture nurses have to survive with inside it. For years, Dr. Thompson has built her lane there. First as a speaker, naming bullying and incivility from the stage, then through the Healthy Workforce Institute, helping healthcare leaders address disruptive behaviors in real time. The work grew from naming what so many nurses had already known. Unhealthy workplace behavior doesn't just hurt morale, it changes teams, careers, and patient care. Speaking, opened the door for Dr. Thompson, but the deeper need was support that lasted long after the keynote ended. That's where the work expanded into tools, consulting, and systems healthcare leaders could actually use. But before the keynotes, before the consulting calls, and the institute, there was a big close family, a love of learning, and the early experiences that shaped how Dr. Thomson came to understand people, behavior, and eventually the culture of nursing. So we start there.

Family Roots And Love Of Learning

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm the oldest of five kids. So my brother Jerry is only 10 months younger than me. He and I are both born in the same year. So I'm a January baby and he's a November baby. So it's funny. For about six weeks, we're the same age until I turn a year older. And very family-oriented. My uh Italian grandparents lived nearby, and I always spent time with my nonni. And then even my mom's parents, we saw them every single weekend. So there was always a lot of people, always a lot of family, and we had a lot of friends. So there was pure and total chaos at my house almost 24 hours a day. But we loved it. My dad worked for the airlines, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom for most of my upbringing. And yeah, they were very supportive of basically anything that we wanted to do as kids growing up. Yeah, I had a great upbringing. So curious about school. Were you a good student? Oh yeah, super good. So my dad, he reminds me of this today. So I'm fortunate that I still have my parents. And my dad does this to this day. He'll remind me of a situation when I was in school, probably in junior high, and I was really sick, fever, everything. And I'm getting ready for school. And my dad said, You can't go to school. You're sick. And I said to him, But I have to go. I have to go to school. I love school. And anytime now I'll say, Oh, I'm hopping on another airplane, or I'm going here, I'm going there. And he'll say, I have to go. He reminds me that I think I'm just wired that way. I am a voracious learner. Learning is one of my top three core values. And I love school. And I did really well, even through I started an associate, associate degree program, bachelor's, master's, doctoral degree program. Always did really well in school because I loved it. Yeah, I loved school. So, what were your favorite topics? I'm curious. Oh, science, biology, and psychology. I loved biology. So I remember in high school, I took an advanced biology class when I was a senior and I got to see an autopsy and we got to dissect animals. And for a long time, I really wanted to become, I was going to be an OBGYN. I wanted to deliver babies. So I went to college pre-med. That was going to be my path. And then life got in the way and changed all of that. But I also love psychology. And it's one thing, it's a question that I get asked frequently. How do I know so much about addressing bullying and civility? Did I take a course? Was there a program? And I always reply, no, I've just studied human behavior most of my life. I'm fascinated by humans and their behaviors and why they behave certain ways. And always love psychology, minored in psychology. I would just, I actually thought when I became a nurse, I thought about becoming a psych nurse and decided that wasn't my thing. I loved learning about it. I didn't like necessarily the practical application of truly caring for patients with mental health disorders. But yeah, I always loved science.

From Pre Med To Nursing

SPEAKER_01 5:40

I always loved psychology.

Marsha 5:42

Yeah. So pre-med was the thought and route, the initial route. Probably like a lot of nurses, most a lot of nurses I talk to, they think about that. And I actually was on that route as well as a pre-med student. But I do, I'm curious when you were pre-med, how did that transition come about that you wanted to go from pre-med to nursing? Was it an experience that you had? I know you said you you liked the anatomy and physiology or the odd things like that. Was there an experience that sort of brought you to nursing that sort of pulled you away from that medicine path?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yes. And I've shared this on stage when I've depending on what I'm talking about. And I've shared this openly. I graduated high school, went right to college. And when I was uh 19 years old, I got pregnant. It was a guy that I had been dating. I grew up with him, and I had problems. So I quit school. So I had already I had two years under my belt. It was at Pitt, University of Pittsburgh. So I quit school and I thought I'll have the baby and then I'll go back. And it just wasn't reasonable for me to go to med school at the time with a husband that really didn't want me to go that path. I'm not married to him any longer. I married my second husband. I always say I did it right the second time. Okay, no disrespect to my first husband. We were young, we were kids. Our prefrontal cortexes weren't even fully developed. What the heck? But I decided that instead of becoming a physician, that I would become a nurse because that gave me some flexibility to also be a mom. And that was important to me. So became a nurse instead.

Marsha 7:32

Yeah. And in nursing school, did you find your path and what specialties really brought you some interest? And you were talking about also about bullying and civility, which will incivility, and we'll get to that because that's the body of your work that you've come on several podcasts, your speaking circuits. Just curious at was it the nursing path that you went into that made you experience also some of the bullying and incivility that sort of brought you to that path, or was it something different? I'll answer that part one, part two. Yeah, I guess I mean part one.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

No, that's okay. It's good. Because this is really funny because I went to nursing school

Falling In Love With Cardiac Nursing

SPEAKER_01 8:16

and I was going to be a labor and delivery nurse. I was going to help physicians deliver babies. And then I fell in love with the heart. I I was I had a cardiac rotation, and I'll never forget I walked into a semi-private room, two malpatients. One patient had fluid in his lungs. I could hear crackles, but no edema anywhere else. The other patient had clear lungs, but he had edema everywhere, like ketal edema, scrotal edema, ascites. And all of a sudden, everything clicked for me. And I thought, this guy has left-sided failure. This guy has right-sided failure. And it was like, uh-huh. And I became a lover of the heart. And so I became a cardiac nurse and did that for many years and then did neuro. And the part two of this, my answer is Marsha, I've done everything you could do as a nurse. I worked as that cardiac nurse. I was a home care nurse. I worked for a managed care company. I was a unit director and had a basically managed 35-bed telemetry unit. I've worked as an educator. I was in a corporate role, developing programs for a whole system. And it was when I was in that corporate role, I was meeting with a lot of nurses. And all they wanted to talk to me about was how badly

Why Culture Became The Mission

SPEAKER_01 9:31

the other nurses treated them. And it reminded me of my own experiences. And I realized that it didn't matter what role I was in or what organization I worked for. I swear there was always someone who made it their mission to make my life difficult. And I thought working in healthcare is hard enough without worrying about your coworkers making it harder. And in that moment, I decided enough was enough. I was going to do something about it. Because you know this, we've been talking about bullying and incivility for a century, but what are we doing about it? And I said, that's it. I'm going to do something about it. And I was always, or at that time, I found myself speaking a lot. And I loved it. And I got a lot of great feedback. And I thought, other people do this, other nurses do this. Why not me? So I quit a great job to start my own company. And here I am 15 years later. It went from me speaking about bullying and incivility to now CEO of an entire institute, okay, the Healthy Workforce Institute. And we still do a lot of speaking and beyond. Yeah. So it's an interesting journey.

Marsha 10:38

And I have to say that this is probably one of the most prevalent shared experiences with nurses. The bullying, the incivility that we come against in the work, in the workplace. And just I just thinking of the past episodes I've had on this podcast where a common story was the bullying is why we made certain transitions in our career. I think back to Dr. Vanessa Abakans, who I interviewed in the first season, and also Jen Johnson, just a number of nurses who their the common theme of some type of story arc in their nursing journey was bullying or incivility in the workplace. And I'm so glad you're doing this work. For those who don't know, Dr. Renee Thompson and I, we have known each other for several years. We haven't talked in a while, but we've known each other for several years. I interviewed her pre-prior on a podcast that I've had previous to this, the Boston Earth's podcast. And I'll include an episode link for that old episode in the show. Oh goodness. Yeah. So you'll be able to see the trajectory of where Dr. Thompson's work has progressed over the years. And even I think when we interviewed back then, it was we you did have the Healthy Workforce Institute. Okay. So I want to talk about that transition. So you were on doing a lot of talks and you saw how important the work was. And I'm sure at those talks you had people coming to you. I actually, I think I saw your talk for the first time at National Nurses and Business Association at one of their conferences years ago. It was in Florida. Um yeah, it was in Florida at the time. So it and that just came to me. I completely forgot about that.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Funny.

Marsha 12:26

Yeah. And I can't remember if that was before we did the podcast episode or after we did the podcast episode. But how did you so how did that transition go?

Leaving A Job To Start A Company

Marsha 12:35

You came from the speaking, and all of a sudden you said, okay, let me just start a business about this. How did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

When I was at that moment where enough is enough, I was going to do something about it. First of all, the best way to start a business like the one I wanted to have is not to quit your day job, is to start dipping your toe in the water and let me try to do this. That was going to be my plan. I decided that I was going to start putting myself out there to do presentations on bullying. And I told my boss, who at the time was the systems chief nursing officer. So I reported directly to that role. And I said, Hey, I just want you to know, because I'm always honest up front. I said, I want to start doing some speaking on the side. It's not going to be related to anything that I'm doing here. So I'm not, I'm very smart about intellectual property. And if I'm doing, if I if doing a presentation on bullying and incivility was part of my job, I can't then take that and then go do it on my own and get paid for it. Okay. There's a conflict there. Yeah. So I was safe and I said, I'm just telling you this. This is what I plan to do. It won't affect my works. You can't do that. I said, What do you mean? She's yeah, any additional speaking you do, that money has to come back to the organization. And like, other people do this, and they get paid. And she and she asked me, who? I'm like, oh, hey, no. Yeah, no, I am not throwing any of my colleagues under the bus here. No. And I'll never forget this sitting in her office. She said, Yeah, let me check. I don't think you can do this. I'm thinking she's gonna check. I have no disclosure. I have none of no documents that say I can't speak on my own. She got back to me three weeks later and she says, Yeah, you can't do this. And I thought to myself, watch me. Yes, watch me. So I just became a lot more open to opportunity. And I would get contacted by headhunters every now and then. And one contacted me. It was an interim leadership role for four months in Washington, D.C. And I lived in Pittsburgh. So that was an easy four-hour drive. And they were looking for someone to come and do some education and very similar to what I was doing. And I agreed. So I quit my job and I went there. It was supposed to be for four months. I quit. Never forget, honey. Guess what? I'm quitting. A good job because I actually really love my job. But I went to Washington, DC. It was supposed to be for four months. I stayed for nine. And in the evenings, when I was there in my apartment by myself, I started building my business. And from there, I started getting speaking engagements. And then people wanted more. Went from doing a 60 or 90-minute keynote to a half day workshop, full-day workshop, two day, two-day seminars. And then finally I built an academy to take some of those courses and put them online because I couldn't meet the needs of everybody. And then somebody reached out and said, We'd like to hire you as a consultant to implement your strategies here. And I thought, consultant? I have no idea what that means to be a consultant to nurses that we figure it out. Yeah. So I figured it out. So it was right when I was going from just speaking and even having an online platform to consulting that I was working with a business coach and she said, You're no longer a personality company, you're an institute. And we became the Healthy Workforce Institute. Yeah.

Marsha 16:16

I love that trajectory. And I love the story of how you decided in a moment, watch me. And yep. I'm I I don't know the situation behind that. And I guess what I would like to ask is how would you describe or what terms would you give it for leaders who are in the position of bullying or incivility? Because I don't want to say that was a bullying situation when you're when your immediate boss or supervisor said, no, you cannot do that. But there's the hostility behind that, it feels

When A Boss Says No

Marsha 16:56

like. And how do you address those type of situations or how do you counsel or consult with those type of situations when you feel like bullying is coming from the leader or someone in a room that's managing you?

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Interesting question. And I hadn't really thought about this or even considered that my boss was bullying me, and I'll explain why. And this goes back to my love of human behavior. If I really think back, why would she have stopped me from doing something that I really wanted to do? I won't ever know for sure. Yeah. But I think she was so loyal to the organization that she saw me going off on my own as a potential threat. And maybe that needs to come back to the organization. Okay. She and I didn't, she was so when I was hired into this role, she wasn't in her role. She was then hired into the role later. And she and I didn't really kind of see eye to eye. However, I really appreciated her business sense and I learned a lot from her. And I, even though we did not kind of gel, I would say, she taught me a lot and grateful for that experience with her. But I also saw that I was never going to succeed even in my role, as long as they we had that sort of tension between us

What Bullying Is And Is Not

SPEAKER_01 18:22

and to work for somebody with that type of mindset, stopping me from doing something that I love when it didn't make sense. However, to unpack was that bullying, it wasn't. And here's why. One of the reasons that bullying continues is because people aren't clear on what it is and what it's not. So for a behavior to be bullying, there has to be a target. The behavior has to be harmful and has to be repeated over time. So let's just say with the other colleagues that I had working alongside me, if they all wanted to start speaking on the side, and she was like, Oh, absolutely, go ahead. But me, she wouldn't let me. I'm targeted. Okay. So you're always looking at, am I the only one being treated this way? Or is this person treating everyone this way? Is the behavior harmful? And harm can be a perception of harm. And so if I think about the okay, if you're a leader, or let's say you're even a staff nurse, and every time you see you have to work with someone, you get a knot in your stomach, and you'd rather stake an aneurysm than come into work and work with that person, there's a harm to you. But we always think too harm to patient care, harm to reputation. There's a lot of ways farms show up, but you got to get clear on what's the harm. And then it can't just be one situation where somebody treats you in a way that you don't like. It has to be repeated over time. So in my situation, it definitely wasn't bullying, it was a lack of while I wasn't willing to pursue it, to I do have the right to do it, wasn't worth it to me. And I went and did my own thing, and here we are 15 years later, and I'm doing my own thing. I could have fought it, but then I don't know, I might still be there.

unknown 20:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

But yeah, yeah. And so if you're a leader, that's the first thing that I would do is take a step back and ask yourself, am I the only one being treated this way? Where's the harm? Is this a repeated pattern? Is this person, has this person done this to me before? Is it is has it been repeated over time? Then you know, oh well, this could be a bullying situation. Yeah. Yeah.

Marsha 20:32

Thank you for explaining that and sharing more fully that story. And so I appreciate you distinguishing between bullying and what may be something you just not may not agree with or may butt heads on versus true bullying. And to go into the work that you actually do, which I'm always very fascinated by the businesses that we as nurses start and how did they come about? And you talked about you started doing speaking and then you started getting calls with speaking. So I know that there are a lot of nurses who are out there, especially the nurses, like their nurses in the LinkedIn space who are getting their voice on LinkedIn and want to start speaking about their, whether it's their specialty or their expertise, their knowledge, and their skills for those new nurses and those nurses who are listening today who may want to start a speaking career that may eventually turn into something like consulting or an institute? What would be your advice in terms of the speaking route? Is it just curious about your opinion? And it has

Speaking Fees And Getting Paid

Marsha 21:39

grown over the years. And if it has, I would love to hear that too. Do you think nurses should always get paid for their talks? If it's something that they're doing for the first time, should they ask for speaking fees? Should they ask for travel reimbursement, things like that? Or do you think in some situations it may be good to speak for free and then grow from there? Or if you did it a different way or a certain way, that would be good to know as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yes. Ooh, this is a great conversation to have because it's not, oh, this is the way you need to do it, and then that's it. I'm going to give you this answer. It depends. So for example, if you want your income to come from speaking, then you should charge something. Even if it's $500, okay. Or even if it's I'm willing to do this, and I would say complimentary, not free. Complimentary, as long as it's cost neutral to me. So you're going to have to pay my travel. You're either willing to give me a testimonial if I do a good job. Okay. Because testimonials, especially early on, are key. You got to get a testimonial. And then there's some other things that you can do. Recommend me to one person who might be able to pay my fee. Give me a table where I can set up. Like if you're speaking at a conference and because if there's exhibiting, give you a vendor table. So never speak for zero dollars without getting something. Okay. If speaking is a way for you to get other work, so let's say you're a coach or you're a consultant and you're speaking is a way for you to get people to hire you as a coach, to hire you as a consultant. Also consider that your fee speaking isn't really the goal. The goal is to get people to hire you for other things. So if you're gonna do that, I would still follow the basic rules. So I never do a pay-to-play. So I just got an invite to speak in Taiwan in June 2026. For exposure. And I'm like, first of all, you really think I have any room on my calendar in June, which we're recording this in May, okay? Like nothing on my calendar. This is a total pay-to-play. But I used to get sucked into that. Oh, somebody wants me to speak. And then you, oh, you have to register and pay to register. You have to pay your own speaking. You have to do all of that. So you have to be very careful because early on, you can get caught off guard when people come through LinkedIn or they may email you and it sounds really great. But trust me, 99% of the time, it's not legitimate. Like, so don't fall into that trap. But here's another general rule of thumb: start with a fee. So maybe you start, I always recommend even $500. Once you get three speaking engagements for that price, increase it. Say to a thousand. Once you get three, increase it again to maybe $1,500. And then when you get higher and higher, you can go a thousand more. So always think about once you get your fee, then it's time for you to increase. And I will give you one other consideration. I always have my speaking fee. Okay. It's my keynote fee. Here it is. I often don't get that fee. So if any of you speaking planners or event planners are listening, close your ears right now, okay? Because I don't want you to hear this. Yeah. I don't get that speaking fee as often as I would like. People might think I don't. And I am willing to negotiate down as long as the audience is the right audience. So for example, I just agreed to do an event, a keynote, for less than half of my speaking fee. But because the audience for nurse leaders, if it would have been an audience, say of nurse practitioners or clinical nurse specialists, I wouldn't have agreed. So know what your ultimate goal is. I always consider negotiating my fee down for the right audience because now that I'm an institute, I do part of our income is speaking. And I have other speakers. If somebody can't pay my fee, I can offer one of my other speakers, or if I'm not available, but I am bringing in revenue from speaking. And my speaking is bringing in revenue for my consulting and my academy work. Yeah. Yeah.

Marsha 26:34

And that's a good point, I think, too, when you said you you're okay with reducing for the right audience. Because, like you said, audience audience was Norse leaders because those are the decision makers and the organizations who can decide whether or not you're going to come back for a workshop, three-day workshop, week workshop, or what have you. So it really depends on the audience. I do, I've negotiated speaking fees for my own events. And I've always believed this, and I'm curious about your thoughts of it. I always believe if I'm charging anything to the audience, I need to pay a speaker. And so, oh yes. I have oftentimes been invited to speak somewhere as a nurse for no fee at all. And I would be covering airfare,

Avoiding Pay To Play Speaking Traps

Marsha 27:18

hotel, every all of my expenses I would be covering. However, they were charging the audience for registration. And so my thoughts are if that conference or workshop is charging for registration, there isn't there is no reason we should probably be speaking for free, even if it's only a $250 honorarium or $500 honorarium. Something should come out of that, I believe. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 27:44

I do too. And in general, that's one of the like we try to investigate certain conferences. So for a long time, I was known as a great keynote speaker. And then my consulting and academy work grew, and that was taking me away from keynoting. Now I want to get back to keynoting. And I would say most of the keynoting I have done, I haven't overtly marketed. It's just people hear me, they recommend me. Even I was the keynote speaker at AONL. Adam Grant was one of the other keynote speakers. It was like, oh my gosh, I am at AONL, 5,500 leaders in the room, like my total target audience. And you think, okay, I am this keynote speaker. They paid me, not my full fee, but all the other speakers who were doing breakouts, not one of them got paid. But for someone who's a chief nursing officer who is doing a breakout, that is credibility to the organization. And usually their organization is paying for their travel, paying for the registration. So I guess, Marsha, it's not a binary, yes, they should or no, they shouldn't pay their speakers if they're charging the audience. I think it's one of those, it depends. Yeah, because for some speakers, okay, for example, I would love to speak at SHERM, the Society for Healthcare. Okay. HR. Yeah, HR. I would do it for free. Yeah.

Marsha 29:22

Because my audience, whoa, those are the hires for all of the workshops on bullying and work space. And yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Yes. So again, it depends. I there are times where I would speak for free because I know I'm going to generate revenue on the back end. Yeah. But if speaking is your jam and that's your revenue, if you're starting out though, what you want to do is some conferences won't pay you if you're just a breakout. I don't want to say just a breakout, because when I was just a breakout at AONL 20 years ago, I was tickled. I was very excited. Okay. Yes, look at that. I'm speaking at AONL. It was like the last day, one of the last sessions, I think 15 people showed up, but that's okay because I spoke at AONL. Okay. But it's taking a look at what is your ultimate goal. And starting out, you may have to do some free, but always have a plan of capturing people's names and email addresses so that you can follow up with them because then they may become one of your clients or they may recommend you to another conference where they can pay.

Marsha 30:34

Yeah. I love that. I love that.

Turning Talks Into Consulting Work

Marsha 30:38

So moving to, I know you said, you know, you're doing more consulting work now. Yes. And what does consulting for you entail? Oh I have a lot.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

I have, I'll tell you how I justify going down that path. It's because I love doing keynotes. Marsha, they're easy. I get on stage, rap, people love it, accolade, celebrity status for a little while, and then I'm done. Consulting, it's every single day for years. It's the nursing leader texting me on a Friday at eight o'clock at night, saying I'm in a situation. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk? Or texting me at six o'clock in the morning. It's every single day taking a look at swimming upstream with some of these groups and getting them on this path. It's the hardest work I've ever done. However, when I'm doing a keynote, Ross, see you, I don't see any outcomes, hard outcomes from that. Consulting when I have these leaders and their the physician say, we're now having conversations with each other, hard conversations. We would have never had these conversations before. Our employee engagement scores are high. One of my favorite stories is one of the clinical directors for labor and delivery, she had a 50% turnover and now she has a waiting list because of the work that we did. Wow. Yes. And I can give you a thousand outcomes like that. So consulting is so hard. It is so hard. And it is so worth it because I see just when you equip leaders and their teams with, we always say the knowledge, skills, tools, and confidence to start addressing disruptive behaviors, we see positive outcomes. And we have a system. So I developed a system that we know works. And we've done consulting in, if I would just count the departments, well over 150 departments across the country with great outcomes. Yeah, not easy work though. So not easy, but worth it.

Marsha 32:50

And you have a team too. You brought on you were mentioning how if you can't do a talk, you have team members who may be able to do a talk for you. How did you make the decision, or when did you make the decision to start to bring on team members? Was it because the work was you're getting so many requests, or did you just want to put out a body of work and create an institute where you felt like you can make more of an impact?

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Or both? Yes, a mix of both. So I have a core team, and that core team started slowly. The first person I hired was our graphic designer, Bobby. Knew her from Pittsburgh, knew her from when I worked in Pittsburgh, and she started doing like business cards and some graphics for me. And now she is our academy program manager. So she's still our graphic designer. So anything that's out there that has a graphic on it, Bobby does that. But she also manages our academy. Okay. She does all the work in our LMS. Like she uses her left and right brain. And I don't think I quote unquote hired my husband for a couple of years after that. And actually, he's technically not on our books. We don't pay him anything. Poor guy. He retired and he has a t-shirt that says, I retired and now I work for my wife. Okay. And we run this business together. But then I started adding somebody to do digital content, a director of education. And that grew over time. The faculty,

Building A Team With Shared Values

SPEAKER_01 34:08

we call them faculty, but they're either consultants or speakers or both. I started having trouble keeping up with the demand for speaking. And I've had to this day, I have people reaching out that they want to work for me. And I'll say, All right, what do you do? I had somebody say, I have the gift of gab. I like talking to people. I'm like, that's not a skill I can monetize. Okay. I don't want to sound like unharing, whatever, but I need you to contribute. And I remember needing to hire some speakers. So I put it out there to my community. And one of the nurses, she's a nurse leader. I had about five of them. And I took them to a cabin in Seven Springs, which is about an hour and a half from Pittsburgh. We had a whole weekend thing and I had them present and that we bonded as women. It was awesome. And then I hired two of them. And Diane Salter, she is my secondary speaker. I love Diane. She was the first person that I trusted with my content. So I gave her here's all of my bullying content. I want you to learn it and I want you to present it. And you know what, Marsha? Sometimes she does a better job than me. She's amazing. So she did a lot of speaking. I have other speakers, and I just slowly started adding people. And then the consulting was just me, and it was too much. So I brought Diane on to be my second consultant too. Monday, she was with one of our consulting clients. So instead of it being me there, Diane went. So I'm able to, I'm the primary consultant for all of our consulting clients. Diane is usually the secondary one. Diane is great. Diane is the current executive director for of surgical services for hospital in Pennsylvania. So we do a lot of work with perioc. So that's why we Diane is always with me because we're always doing something in Perioc. Oh, yeah, this just happened in our OR last week, and this is how we handle it. Total credibility with Diane. She's great. And she's a she's a good human being too, which kind of well, you didn't ask this, but I will tell you. You cannot work for the Healthy Workforce Institute if you're not a kind, caring, respectful, good human being. So we're hiring somebody right now into a speaking program manager role. And that was my last interview with her is about tell me what your core values are. There are core values. Which one resonates with you the most? And we talk about our culture here because it's important to me. It's important to my team to preserve that. Yeah. You want to hire the right person, not just for skill, but for character and culture too.

Marsha 36:50

And I'm glad you said that too. A lot of that is missing. I'm finding in in certain industries, not necessarily so much in nursing, but I do find that in in in some industries where, especially pet culture and things like that, where your skill matters a lot more than your culture or your values. But that's a topic for another day.

Writing Books To Build Credibility

Marsha 37:12

I do want to get on one last topic, and that's writing your books. And you have three, four, four, four books. Wanted to know when that process started and how did you go the traditional sort of publishing route? Did you do I know one of your books or maybe more was an Amazon bestseller? So, how did you decide to start writing? And how did you decide to go out and publish? Or what was that? Why for you? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

I, when I wanted to be a credible speaker, I was taught and I spend, and I'm still an active member of the National Speakers Association and they had a local chapter in Pittsburgh. And so I would attend that. I've learned so much about running a business and being a good speaker from this organization. Highly recommend this organization if speaking is one of your areas. This is one of your revenue streams. And to be a credible speaker, I learned that having a book is helpful. It's not the be-all and the end all, but it is helpful. So I wanted to write a book and I decided to write that first book based on the work I did in my doctoral program about how to protect and bullyproof senior nursing students before they start their first job. And it was research that I did. It I had statistically significant results. It was awesome. I decided to self-publish, and I was smart enough to hire a writing coach. And I will never forget the first meeting I had with this writing coach. I told her the premise of the book. This is what I want to write about. And I sent her some notes and we sat down and she said, So you're writing a comedy. And I said, No. She said, Nurses bullying nurses. That's a comedy, right? I said, she was shocked. She she wasn't in healthcare. She she thought it was a joke. This was going to be a funny thing. I'm like, no, this is real. Her name was Bonnie Badowski, and she is one of the loveliest human beings. And so she helped me to write because Marsha, I'm a good writer. I'm not a great writer. I'm a better speaker than I am a writer. Thank goodness for Grammarly and you know, spell check and all those things. So I wrote that book, and then that was the title of my keynote. And then you promote that. Oh, book author. Then I wrote a couple of other books, and they usually came from, for example, I used to do this one keynote, celebrate nursing, human by birth, hero by choice. Okay. Now nurses don't like the word hero. So I had to stop that. Somebody said, Oh, you should write a book. This or do you have this as a book? Oh, I'll purchase 500 copies if you can write this as a book. And I thought, heck yeah. So I did. And then of course they didn't buy 500 books, but I had it. So I still have it. Then I did a keynote at a conference, and it was it was wildly received. And it was about nurse burnout. And so I wrote a book on that. And then I thought, I need to write a book for leaders. And I did. And that was my enough book. Yeah. And then that was in 2018, I think I wrote that. And then decided last year that I wanted to write another book. It had been a long time. Was I going to write something new? Or was going to write what or was I going to revise that one? And a lot has changed since 2019 for leaders, pre-pandemic, post-pandemic. So I just decided to revise that one. And that's the one that was on Amazon's bestseller list. And it's still, well, it's only been not even a year since it's been published. But almost every day somebody reaches out and says, I just read your book. Oh my gosh. I just gave it to our somebody told me the other day they gave it to their physical, their neurosurgeon, the head of neurosurgery. Yes. That the seen is pressing person. Yeah, no. And actually, it's the opposite. He totally bought into the importance of culture. You need to read Renee's book. And but yeah, and I am writing another one right now.

Marsha 41:19

Oh, yay. Yeah, that I was hoping a synopsis of what that.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yes. It's based on the story of David and

Staying In Your Swim Lane

SPEAKER_01 41:30

Goliath. It is not a fable, though. I actually don't like fables and they tell a whole story in the lessons. I'm not a fan of that writing style. So it's not that. It really came about during a call that I had with my business coach where I was very frustrated. And I said, I feel like David against Goliath. David against Goliath in two ways. One is so many people reach out to us every single day for help. We know we can help them, but then they don't have the approval, the financial approval for our help. And it's frustrating. And then there's just the Goliath of cruelty in the world and how much worse it's getting. And so through the conversation with him and then a lot of thinking time, I'm writing a book about how to slay the giant of cruelty and how to get the support that you need. And so I'm not sure if that's coming out this October. That was going to be my goal. I'm going to get myself until early 2027 because I have lots of other things that I'm working on, but I'm really excited about this. I really am. It's clever, but yet powerful. And it speaks to what leaders are going through right now. And it's based on my frustrations too.

Marsha 42:41

So yeah, that'll be my fifth one. Okay. And curious about that particular book. Are you one working with a self-publisher or traditional publisher? And then second, is that an industry agnostic book? It sounds like it could be something that's not only in nursing but any type of industry.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

So I'm self-publishing. Okay. And I, for my revised enough book, I went through a company called Self-Published. And I have that framework on how to publish. So I'm going to write this book and just follow that same framework. So I'm really doing it myself. As far as industry agnostic, here's something else for anyone who's listening right now who wants to start their own business, who wants to do something either within healthcare or even outside of healthcare. What has made us very successful beyond our content is really good, is that we have a lane and we stay in our lane. I call it our swim lane. We do not go outside of our swim lane. When restaurants reach out to us for help, we say no. Part of a healthy work culture, but mental health and all of that. And I'm like, nope. If it doesn't relate to disruptive behaviors, we don't do it. If it's not in healthcare, we don't do it. So the book, all the stories, all of the examples and the statistics are all healthcare related. However, Marsha, I cannot tell you how many people have said to me, I'm in this other industry and I watch all your videos and they apply to me too. I'm like, of course they do. It's human behavior. It doesn't matter if you're an accountant, if you're a respiratory therapist, it doesn't matter. It's the same behavior. It's just all of our examples and everything are healthcare. Great. Wonderful.

Marsha 44:46

Thank you for answering those questions. And for all of the resources that you provided from the National Speakers Association

Risk Taker Mindset And Closing

Marsha 44:53

to your books to any of the organizations that you mentioned, I'll make sure we have all of those links in the show notes. And if probably there are any people out there who have questions about speaking or anything, is there a reference that you can refer them to? Or would you want to take those questions as well?

SPEAKER_01 45:12

I'm always happy to help other aspiring speakers because I was helped. Okay. It's a way of paying it forward. So just connect with me on LinkedIn. And I would also highly recommend joining the National Speakers Association. Start in your local area first. So just kind of Google your city, National Speakers Association. They have chapters all over the country, even internationally. I would start there because that's where I really learned how to run a business being a speaker. Because it's not the speech, it's the business. Like, how do you bring in revenue? Because I have operating costs. My operating costs some months were more than what my salary was in a whole year. The operating cost for one month, more than what I got paid. Like, how do you make sure that you're running a business and learn the skills of that? So I highly recommend that. Yeah, National Speakers Association. And I'm still involved. They teach me every single month, I'm learning something from them.

Marsha 46:10

Wonderful. Now I have one last question, and you can answer it in any way that you feel is of applicable to you. So if you had to consider three different terms, I'm going to say right now, which one would you consider yourself and why? Okay. The first one is creator. Second one is innovator. And the last is risk taker. Ah, that's easy.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Risk taker. It has always been there. I've always said the reason that I am where I am is because I've always just been a risk taker. Even going from working uh cardiac nurse at the bedside to home care. I took a risk becoming getting that corporate job. There are a hundred people who applied for that job and I got it. Starting my own business, huge risk taker. Even thinking other people do it, why not me? What's the worst that can happen if it doesn't work out? I go back to doing something for an organization. So I initially resonated with creator because that's what I do, and that's my happy place is create. I'm not much of an innovator, believe it or not. Like I want to be more innovative. But yeah, risk taker is what truly has gotten me to this point.

Marsha 47:29

That was Dr. Renee Thompson, CEO of the Healthy Workforce Institute. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to rate and review this episode in your favorite podcast app. Then don't forget to click the follow button so you won't miss an episode. This episode was produced and edited by yours truly with administrative and research support from Liz Alexandri and Renan Silva. I'm Marcia Batti, and you've been listening to the Bossiners Podcast.