When the COVID19 Pandemic hit, it was a bit of reckoning for a lot of nurses. What are we doing, not just with work, but life in general? Can I continue doing this? For the next 20 years? Why does it feel like I’m making all the sacrifices? If you were close to burnout or already there, the pandemic put a nice well-done char on it for you. Surveys cite a super majority of nurses intend to leave the profession.

This has to change. I learned early on that nursing is hard work at any level. It also take’s hard work to live well as a nurse. Ultimately, only you can preserve your sanity.

In 2020, as people everywhere reconsidered their relationship with work and reflected on life in general, I too had an epiphany. The lifestyle and career enrichment my wife and I have enjoyed for years, seemed to be what others were craving. While others suffered financially, we thrived. I was very grateful we live the way we do. Our approach to life, our finances, and our careers seemed to be “trending” as aspirational everywhere.

“It’s your turn to enrich.”

For example, FIRE or “Financial Independence, Retire Early” has become a pretty widespread mantra. I’ve employed FIRE style principles since the mid 2000s. Nurses are demanding more flexibility, better pay, and better working conditions and the ability actually use vacation time. The idea that it’s your duty to bleed and sacrifice yourself for the greater good is being questioned. The exploitation of nurses while a lot of other entities enrich themselves at the patient’s and your expense is unacceptable. I haven’t just been saying this for years, I’ve taken action on it through union activism. It’s your turn to enrich.

“It’s absurd and it’s BS…”

Nurses can seek work elsewhere in this environment and raise their expectations. The willingness of leaders to blindly dump record pay into travelers, while sticking it to core staff hasn’t helped. Sure, any nurse can or at least could have made a lot of money anywhere. Does anyone want to listen to executives complain about the economy, budgets, and business costs while they pay premium travel rates to nurses who live right in their communities and used to be core staff? Nurses can get work a few miles away at a different hospital or come back to the original one as an agency nurse. It’s not sustainable. It’s absurd and it’s BS, but it should make it clear that putting you and your family’s well-being first should be your top priority.

I’ve been advocating for common sense treatment and investment in nurses for years. I lead nurses to picket our hospital for just that reason in 2018. A healthy nurse also happens to be good for the patients and the industry, ANA’s even trademarked the initiative: Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation

“It hasn’t always been good, let’s go back a little.”

This is why I created The Enriched Nurse in 2023. It hasn’t always been good, let’s go back a little. In each stage of my career in nursing, CNA, LPN, RN, Student…I thought “It will get better when…” Then I reached the holy grail of finally becoming an RN, the ultimate wake-up call arrived. “It’s not gonna get better…” Not unless I adapt and figure out how to deal with it. I see nurses all the time taking the next step thinking, I just need to become a nurse practitioner, then it will be better! Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Maybe you’ll discover a whole new level of BS. Maybe then get a PhD and pursue academia???

Three months into my RN career I was working on a BSN, picking up shifts, being trained to be Charge, and busting my ass to care for 7 high acuity patients of my own while helping others over a grueling 12-hour night shift. We had minimal support staff, CNAs had 14:1 ratios and no unit clerks. I was frequently harassed or chastised by patients, nurses, RTs, doctors, CNAs, and management. Three months in and I was already burned out. “Why did you screw this up?” “Gee whiz (insert doc, manager, supervisor, colleague here), I don’t know…” Hell, nursing school had a burnout effect which didn’t help. My wife started her first job in a nursing home with responsibility over 50+ patients in two separate buildings. It was essentially a 12-hour medication dispensing assembly line manned by one woman. This was 2006.

“…loathing to return to work only midway through my 5 day weekend.

Our life preserver was that both of our first jobs were part-time. Two 12-hour shifts and 5-day weekends, working more was optional. I worked with Filipino nurses who worked six twelves a week and were in their sixties. Impressive, but not how I wanted to live as a nurse. Here I was, a 22 year old surfer on Kauai, still going to school and loathing to return to work only midway through my 5 day weekend. While some nurses can easily kick ass and keep going, we’re not all cut out to work ourselves to death.

Thankfully, instead of buying tons of stuff, updating our cars, and buying a home, we kept our expenses low. Hawaii’s not cheap, we adapted and figured it out so we didn’t have to work more. We didn’t skimp on the things we loved doing, but we didn’t splurge on things we didn’t need though we could afford them. We paid all of our high interest student loans off within months of graduating and started investing on day one of employment. Eventually we learned to enjoy our work, even though it was tough. This allowed us to live on Kauai for several years, get married, and take almost a year off between jobs at the height of the Great Recession in 2009-2010. We spent three months of that time on a grand tour of National Parks in the US.

“I’ve had the equivalent of over 5 full time work years off…”

I’ve only worked three full-time years in my entire career. Our income peaked in 2013. When my wife and I both worked full-time and had our best earning years, we had to pay a ton in taxes. Each year the tax owed in April increased by thousands of dollars. In 2013 I owed almost $10k extra. Between payroll taxes, income taxes, property taxes, and more, we paid almost $50k. As I filed my taxes an “estimated tax payment” form popped up. Even though I claimed nothing on withholding I was expected to start making extra quarterly tax payments! WTF! While I’ve always been pretty financially savvy, this put me on the fast track to figuring out tax shelters. Meanwhile, I was working in administration and while everybody else was getting a pay raise in admin and at the bedside, I didn’t qualify for a raise. Even after getting a prestigious award.

I wised up and went back to the bedside, except now as a part-timer. Instead of working 1800-2000 hours per year, I would only work 1200 hours again including PTO. Every three years I’ve had the equivalent of taking a year off compared to my full-time colleagues. Over my career so far, I’ve had the equivalent of over 5 full time work years off throughout my twenties and thirties not including vacation time. Almost every year I work more than 600 hours LESS than full timers. After travelling for several months in our twenties we thought we should probably work full-time so we don’t have to when we are older. Here’s the thing since we went back to part-time our quality of life has gone up, and Net-Worth exploded. While my pre-tax income has gone down, my savings rate is up, and my after-tax income has remained about the same. Which means no sacrifices. How’s that for “FIRE?” What would you do with an extra 600 hours away from work?

My wife and I each took several months off after the birth of both our kids. I honestly don’t know how Nurse Moms work full-time until labor and then are right back at it 6-8 weeks later. It’s of the most rewarding, life-changing experiences of someone’s life. And you only get to take 6 weeks. How do these nurses not burnout sooner? Working 20 years in nursing is a piece of cake when you aren’t working full-time hours. I’ll be able to go another 20 by choice and on my terms.

“Real, effective results.”

For years my wife and I have enjoyed West Coast Swing dancing, traveling, sailing, mountain biking, surfing, music, skiing, snowboarding, raising our kids, leisure, and spending quality time with friends and family. We make no sacrifices on our present or future life. There is no reason why every nurse can’t live an enriched life, enjoy an enriched career, and have enriched finances. The first step is figuring out “how stuff works.” In life, in work, and in finance. When you finally figure out “how stuff works,” you can get stuff done. Real, effective results. No post-its or affirmation reminders required. I want to share with you just that, how stuff can work for a nurse.

“…nurses are basically the MacGyvers of patient care.”

For some reason, a lot of nurses don’t understand how some things works, finances especially. This is odd, since nurses are basically the MacGyver’s of patient care. They constantly figure out how to provide quality care with broken crap, disappearing supplies, short staffing, changing EMRS, frequent turnover, never ending initiatives, and coaxing orders out of Docs, sometimes with leadership “checking in” during shift change.

They also work off the clock, don’t take all their breaks, they don’t take advantage of benefits, and they don’t speak up. This can make you think financially, it’s all rigged against you or make you complacent. I think finances are key to address, because it impacts everything else in life. The less you work as a nurse the harder it is for nursing to burn you out. I know that feeling you get when you know you have to report for a shift in a workplace you loathe. That feeling of helplessness because you need that paycheck.

Forget the get rich quick schemes and learning to live your “best life.” Work less and live more. Rediscover your dream career.