Welcome to the Doctor Nurse Podcast.
I'm your host, Doctor Sandra Pedanta.
I'm a doctorally prepared nurse practitioner and I am so glad
you decided to join me today. The Doctor Nurse Podcast is a
podcast for nurses and nurse practitioners that are wanting
to understand what exactly their degrees can do for them.
After the birth of my son, I had this pegging desire to have more
flexibility in my career choices, despite feeling like
all the alphabet soup after my name.
Didn't really afford me very many options.
I launched the podcast to find the answers that I so
desperately needed. I also knew I couldn't be the
only nurse who felt this way. Does this sound like you?
If so, come and hang out with me as I figure out what our nursing
degrees can give us access to as far as career flexibility,
control over our schedules, and entrepreneurship by talking with
NP's and RN's who are doing exactly that.
Sit back and enjoy the conversation.
Doctor Nurse Podcast fame Welcome to another episode of
the Doctor Nurse Podcast. Today on the podcast I have
Christian. Is it Cosenza?
Costassa. Costassa.
I love it.
It's beautiful. Last name.
Well, welcome to the podcast. Christian was born in Italy in
1984 and had a pretty challenging childhood.
You lost your father when you were very young, had some, you
know, bullying in middle school and just decided that you at
some point when you were going through high school you wanted
to become a nurse. So you got your BSN in nursing.
You graduated in 2012 and then you looks like you opened up a
nurse led business while you were in Italy, but you wanted
more. So you headed out to Ireland and
you worked in Ireland as an Italian nurse with very basic
English and then through the years kind of moved at different
areas. England working in the NICU Cath
lab and then somehow found yourself to the United States.
Last year you moved working as a nurse.
And yeah, you're also working and to build a business, a
coaching business, which I think is super cool on the side.
And you have a podcast, which is the Mindset Nurse Podcast.
You are just building these little different things, these
little avenues, these little revenue streams to create a
fulfilling nursing career. And today we're going to talk a
little bit on the podcast about resiliency because I've been
kind of doing a mindset series on my podcast.
So I wanted to have you come on and talk about those things.
Welcome to my. Thank you so much and.
I'm, you know, very. Flattened about introduction so.
It's a great story. Yeah, so you're right, I was.
Born in Italy back in 1980. 4 sounds.
Prehistoric now at this school. And.
I had very. I would say, you know, till I
was 10, it was kind of an average childhood and I lost my
dad and my family always been like it interpret.
They had businesses, they ran things around, so always been
exposed to that, so. World.
But I wasn't really into it. And then when my dog passed my
mom had to go full time working for myself and my brother.
Everything changed. And you are absolutely right,
middle school was a tough time for me and I got bullet.
But I'm so grateful now If I think about back, you know,
because that build up resilience and where I am now.
I did finish my high school and I got a little bit, I would say
affect. By the influence of some
teachers back then who said to me you should go back to work,
you should go back you should go into work not to college because
I don't think you can do it. And I was thinking wow thinking
back that now you know to tell that was 1618 years old.
This is tough story and I went into the workforce and I my
first job was a forklift operator which it was good fun
to be honest. I made some money and I went
into and I always had at the back of my mind I want to
become. From a nurse, and that was only
why. Why did you have that in the
back of your mind? Well, I guess a lot has to do
with my dad's passing. He passed with a cardiomyopathy
that's why I am a cardiac nurse now and and I always had that
sort of I remember going into hospital when it was very sick
and that was early 90s. So obviously they were in
Crtd's. They were in like many things
around when someone had cardiomyopathy.
That was it, you know, it was for symptoms management.
And I remember seeing all these nurses coming into the room,
doctors, they seem very important talking about things.
They were kind of joking with me.
They knew obviously what was going on.
I didn't know and then kind of probably sat at the back of my
mind for many, many years. The point that I always the
person that when someone had problem, they used to come to me
or what should I do? And I said, I know you should do
this and that and you know I've. Learned that the power.
Of asking questions to people and then to basically see and.
Listen, which is great. Yeah, Yeah.
And it's very interesting. OK.
So Fast forward to you end up going to nursing.
School and you went in nursing school in Italy?
I did, yeah. OK.
And then you decide you started a business in Italy for nurse or
what did you do in Italy is your side household business?
So basically I started, I finished nursing my college
degree, my bachelor and I sat with two other colleagues and
says, Rosha with, you know, everyone is going into the
hospital, Evan is going to this job, I don't think is the right
path. And then we were chatting about
it a lot of yes, no, yes, no. And we decided why should now we
launch? Nurse led, which it was a new
thing. Italy is a very different
environment for healthcare. It's very doctor led.
So he's always a doctor in charge of everything that you
don't have nurse practitioners. It's very, it's very different.
The nurse does a lot, but it hasn't got much room and
capacity to do things, you know, without the doctor overseeing
everything. So we decided to go into the
community to start offering like home care nursing.
We started with partnering up with therapist Now they even
expanded. I left down the line, but now
they have, I think midwives, they offer sumac.
It's coming up like a massive business and I'm so happy for
them. For me back then it was
fulfilling, but I felt the world is such a big place.
I wanted to explore more. Yeah and and my girlfriend the
time with now is my wife decided to get in like a trip and says
let's go on holiday and on vacation and we go to Ireland
which was something that always said oh I love Ireland, I don't
know why but let's go And we went to to Dublin.
We stayed for about a week, fell in love with the city and says
why, why don't we move here? And she says.
What? No way, I says.
Yes. Let's do it.
I didn't have you know. An idea of how we work, what to
do. I don't know.
So I started digging into bridging my registration to
their council and everything around it.
And then obviously the big question is, would I be able to
work in an English? So let's talk Italian.
Yeah, exactly. So I started like this,
intensive courses around the city, my hometown city, back
home and. Well, I said I'm ready, let's
go. So we went.
It's fairly easy for us because we are a European.
So with the European committee you can fairly move yourself
around so you don't have to do much and it's just a submit
documentation, pay a fee and wait.
It's like moving between states here.
It's very safe. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. And.
I then started looking for jobs. I applied for the first job and
I remember it was like a private hospital with a sort of a
medical generic floor. I sit at the interview.
I have these three people in front of me and they started
asking me questions for who is not familiar.
The Irish accent is very strong. And I remember looking at them
and says what are they talking about?
Fairly no English. Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah. I thought I did, but I, you
know, I could like kind of float around questions and give like
specific questions answering to specific question.
But it wasn't very very you know direct to answering them.
I think every manager yeah they're imagine stopped me and
says can I tell you something I said of course.
But I says I don't think we'll ever.
Employ you to work in the. He said, And I said what?
So wait, they said they wouldn't even employ?
You to work in their kitchen and you're a nurse.
Wow, I'm a nerd and I thought there we are.
Challenge accepted. Exactly.
I'm a very positive person and I think I laughed.
Back then, and I said. OK, I went home and talked to my
girlfriend, wife and I say wife and I said, you know they.
Told me this. So we have two options.
Either we grab and we cast the first flight and we go back home
and we continue with our life to we do something about it and
guess what? We did something about it.
I went to intensive English classes.
I started looking into it. I even took the IELTS test,
which is like an academic test, which wasn't even required just
to test where I was. It went very well.
And then I applied for a job in MECU.
And the reason why is because this big hospital was advertised
everywhere, it seems like so nice.
And I thought within myself, I don't have a critical background
yet. I guess everyone is talking
about going to medical, go into this Med search, do this two
years, lay on the ropes and then go wherever you want.
And I he did it, yeah, he did. It resonate with me.
And I said I'll go for the NICU and like I said.
Are you sure? It's like intense, I said.
Yeah, I mean, I applied. I asked some questions.
They are happy to provide training.
They're gonna slowly go through things with me.
Let's go for it. So I remember going in for my
first interview and I was sitting in this waiting area.
It's full of people. And I started asking questions.
And so, where are you? What you do?
What's your background? They were.
All Irish. Native speakers and I said, here
we are again. I'm the only foreigner and I
started hearing a little bit of process, but then because I knew
that English wasn't still my. Sort of strength, yeah.
I did. I did something that I learned
down the line to do all the time.
I passed for a job. I dig so deep into the history
of the hospital, the unit I knew everything.
I knew I knew all the credentials of the unit.
I knew all the I even knew the days and the times of the
medical rounds. I I downloaded PDF.
I downloaded everything from the news.
I lost the HR to send me some information about the hospital
was coming. I knew everything.
And I created a sort of, a sort of a presentation, sort of.
It wasn't even a presentation. I realized that down the line.
It was a presentation, but it was not my intent.
And I started talking about things and I remember that the
nurse manager saying, well, you know, in 20 years of career I've
never heard everybody. Knowing you know when the
medical. Round happens and you know.
Of course you hired. You.
Yeah, they knew. I knew when they were by
credential for I think they had. I don't remember now.
It's called gold. It's basically when you hit the
target, when the matters breastfeeds enough babies, they
get this cold and credentialed. Yeah, sometimes.
I don't remember, it's been too long.
But then they said, yeah, you're hired.
And I said what? Yes.
Then I started. Yes, mission accepted.
Yeah, you worked in Ireland. I know you hopped over to
England. So then, what brought you to the
United States? Well, England was my.
Bridging between the states were like back of my mind once again
since I was 16. I always said I want to go to
the States. I don't know how, I don't know
when I'll end up there. England was is what give has
given me everything from the nursing point of view because I
did all the roles. I started as a catlab nurse,
which had once again is because of my dad passing with
cardamopathy. So I thought that I was their
way. But I realized that thinking
about it while I was in NICU, there's a process behind it.
And then I became like director of two departments.
I I work as a clinical nurse specialist in our failure
running my own clinics, which is basically a nurse practitioner
that works under the supervision of a doctor which is in a
different room in the same hospital.
You can basically actually down to trade medication and then it
gets signs them off. So I.
I did everything and then I applied for a job in the US with
my background and history that says, yes, we'll give you the
green. So I plan.
For the process. The problem is, between me
applying and then me getting here, COVID hit, so everything
got delayed a little bit, yeah. And then that's when I reached
burn out and it came out of nowhere, so I wasn't even.
I was happy. And I was, I thought I was happy
that's that's probably a rephrase that and then I got
floated around. I end up working in COVID units.
I had to deal with situation. I wasn't raised.
This is in England. In England.
And that's when I reached fair enough and says, oh wow, what
shall I? And I remember sitting in the
car. Crying and I said I've never
cried before and I work what I'm doing.
Which is basically. Now thinking about it's like
having emotions is actually normal.
It should be normalized, yes, yes.
Yes, yes. Like having those, like
outbursts of energy that's actually healthy for your
Parasympic nervous system is to like have those just fits of
crying because it just lets out the pressure.
And it's that release valve, right, To just kind of give you
instapot, the release valve on an instapot, like, you know, you
hit it at all. The steam blows out of the
instapot, it really is that same thing.
So it's actually good. And that's not something to even
laugh or squag at. It's like, it's sad.
It like, it hurts my heart to hear you just like so like the
nursing could just bring you to this point of like complete
burnout where you're just sitting in a car sobbing over
your career COVID and what it did to nurses and just break.
Bringing us to the breaking point is something that again
like I said is just breaks my heart to hear that, like it just
got so bad that that's where people were, were ending up.
But I love so much about your story is about the resiliency
that you described throughout these different spots in your
career. And then you know, again here
you are trying to come to the United States and boom, COVID
hits. And so it's like, OK, great,
like here. We are got another challenge I
have to navigate in order to get to this next spot.
And so when you were describing, I was listening to your story,
it just kept coming back. This theme kept surfacing as you
were talking of this dude is so resilient.
He just he he takes a licking and he keeps on coming back like
and that got me looking and thinking about the resiliency
mindset of nurses and how what does that look like to be
resilient because what you describe in all these different
spots in your career is systems that are really broken, right.
Like we saw how broken the healthcare system was with
COVID, right? And we saw at different times
when you would go from different hospitals in your story, how
they would say things to you. That was like, did we really say
that to someone? Like, did we really like instead
of encouraging people, instead of finding moments to build you
up, we kind of tear you down and you have to find that within
yourself. And so, like we were talking
before the podcast, I really want to inspire nurses.
Yes, we work in a broken system, but how do we develop
resiliency? What does that look like?
Because I believe the broken system is what brings about the
burnout. But how do we create the
resiliency to move about in a broken system for our benefit,
to prevent that burnout that sets in?
And so I'll let you finish up your story, but then I wanted to
break into that a little bit and maybe we can share some ways
that you feel like are good techniques to help build
resiliency. And yeah, that's kind of where
we'll take it. But if you're just tell me a
little bit more about your story and then we'll break into that
and then yeah, we'll kind of finish up that.
Yeah, actually that nicely slides into what I was about to
say because when I was there crying and then.
How you still my old self think who I'm crying?
I'm a man. I'm in the car.
What am I doing? You know, all this is security.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
And I hung myself. And I think you know.
Once again I thought I've done it so many times.
I have always two options is like do nothing about it and
keep complaining or do something about it and change where you
want to go. Yes, and that is always, but it
does count. The resilience is the resilient.
Self that always surface up. And then I started, I opened
Spotify first time ever in my life.
I didn't even know the podcast section.
I looked podcast and that's what I need to do.
And I found this podcast about this big podcast about mindset
and I started listening to it and I started every day and
that's something shifted in me and that's great what you said
about the system, the system is broken.
The system has problem everything else in the world.
But what we can do, we can change ourselves.
And then if we change ourselves, everything else around us looks.
Yeah. So, yeah, that's the big thing.
And sometimes I hear people in the corridors over the years and
I don't like this. I don't like that.
So. What are you doing?
About it, keep complaining about it.
It's gonna keep bringing your energy levels down, It's gonna
keep like share the same. Problems without a solution, you
know. And complaining without solution
is like doesn't really resume with me.
So I kindly always step away from that and thank you very
much. So that's where I started
exploring more healing sort of techniques.
And then my favorite one is meditation.
But meditation has to come from a place of.
I understand what's going on first, because it's like.
Okay. You can change something, but
what do you need to change so that everything.
I guess in my opinion everything kind of fits together from the
point of view of having like the strong wise or knowing where
you're going, why you want to go there.
No way getting to down and write the plans of journaling.
It's very important. So like putting on paper because
it's like having this big math problem.
If I'll tell you solve me this problem, would you write it down
or would you think you know automatically in your head you
know so that's the same for. Our brain is a beautiful
machine. It's a calculator.
It likes to solve problems, but you have to give the right
problems to the brain first. So if you write it down and you
start writing about I wanna get there.
How? And then you write down steps.
It doesn't have to be perfect because perfection is a big
fiction and doesn't exist. It has to be like functional.
That's what I like. And then you start thinking,
okay, I need to do a BCDEFG. Okay.
So the B doesn't resonate with me.
What can I do? An alternative.
And then you start digging around and you start planning
and then you try. And what shifted for me, and
I've built up the resilient myself that I love, is seeing
challenges and anything that goes wrong.
As a golden opportunity in the past I used.
I used to. Fear and run away from oh this
is not going to work. I'm not going to try it, but.
How do you know? If you don't even try, you know,
what can you learn about it? You know, I've started and tried
so many things, but then I sit down and think, okay, it didn't
work. Why?
And what actually brought me that journey, What this brought
me and what's is teaching me for the next level.
That's how you evolve basically. And and meditation is massive in
my life. It's a non negotiable time.
I wake up every morning, every morning, at 434 thirty am,
regardless Monday to Sunday. And I feel so.
Popped up. Because I do my meditation, I do
my reading, I do my routine, Everyone is asleep in the house.
So I do have my me time. I do my linking.
And then I go off to work when I started in my new role and I
started telling everybody I wake up at 1st 30, everyone started
saying, what are you sick? And I says no, I'm very, I'm
very healed actually. What about you?
And then I do my day and then I come home.
I kind of not every day. I don't sit every day, just
write down about what happened throughout the day.
Sometimes I do it, sometimes I just chat with my wife about it.
But it comes always from a point of what can I learn about it.
That's not a tip if the people. Has a family or have children.
What we love to do is we sit at the table and then we talk about
what's was for us. The grass, the cloud and the
mud. I love.
This. You do this with your children.
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Yeah, she's 6 and she loves it. So we sit down.
She always want to go 1st and says the grass for me was and
she can say something that. It was OK, but no, extremely
well then. Cloud is something that brings
her like so much happiness, something that really made a
difference for today. And the mud is something that
didn't go as planned. But then it doesn't stop there.
What can you do then to not let that affect you?
And I love it because I can see her in what she says, what, how
she reacts to the situation. That is a reflection of us.
And then this is cool. That's a big thing.
That for us helped a lot, especially with her moving.
Across different countries that's helped a lot going back
to the resilience, you know self and the healing.
I think there's a lot of things together that people can do.
But meditation is a is a big one and and a lot that's most people
think about meditation like this monk on the top of a pig and
then thinking but it's not like that.
It's anybody can do it, you know?
And there's so many options and it's so personal and then I love
it. Well, what I love and you what
you just. Described is that you're you're
giving this knowledge to your child.
So how much far ahead of of the game will she be just by having
processed this as a little one? I love that.
And I love that you're creating that environment in your home
and you're creating that mindset so that when she is older, she's
already got these synaptic, you know, connections in her brain
that, yes, that was hard, but it's not forever.
And this is just a moment and there was an opportunity in that
and to keep looking and keeping that mindset.
From that and then I guess to kind of, I want to make sure I
closeout your story that you've got, you know, the, you know,
you're in the UK, you have this moment, you know your breakdown.
You're like, OK, that's it. I need to create a new mindset
around my career and my job. And then you come over to the
United States, you get a job here, you transition from
working in England, the UK, now you're working in the United
States. I had to be a lot better than
coming from Italy to Ireland but.
Because you're able to speak. The language and then living
here in the United States and you've launching this program to
help? With mindset shifts with nurses
and teaching them that, what are some of the things that you've
been finding in your podcast journey and kind of that whole
new leg of your career? So, well, yes, moving to the US,
it's been a big change again but mitigated, but as you said me
moving first to Ireland in England, so.
There are so many similarities and obviously it's always
adjusting, but it's you. You do it from a point of
experience. You know, you know what to
expect. The Social Security is just
called in a different way. The building up your credit
score is just different, but it's the same, you know, all
these things that are not used anymore.
And yes, I created the whole life journey.
That's how I like to call it because.
And I work. I don't want one.
I'm planning now to launch a sort of a membership to make it
more accessible to everybody. Because what I did, I can, I
think what is being done once can be done billions of time by
anybody. It's just sitting down taking
the time and then actually take the actions to do it and make it
happen. And we never have to forget that
our thoughts drive our feeling, our feeling drive our thoughts,
and eventually that hard wires our subconscious patterns to do
something. And then that's.
Everything comes after, you know one after another.
I like to to teach my that little one these things because
we are what we've been told the first seven years of life and
yes and and then basically that can change.
We have external things that we can control like school,
environment and everything. But we are so important for our
kids and what we tell them. Hardwire them in reacting, then
in life to, you know, different situation in different ways.
And and it's better to tell them from day one how to deal with
that than having them to heal down the line as I did.
So which is possible but obviously it's easier if you
have a guy or somebody that that's gone, has been there
before and says well you know, I'm not going to tell you that
because that's this can lead to this, this disbelief that any
life can affect, affect you down the line and then can be very
toxic so. Yeah, the podcast has been a
blessing. I'm connecting with so many
people. I'm talking about these things
nonstop. And then what I found is a lot
of people that wants to go into business force the process.
So I have to, in six months duties.
It's all about following followers.
No, it's about being intentional and loving the process.
I'm falling, yeah. I'm falling in love with the
process of where I'm getting. I don't care how.
When it's like, you know what you need to do.
You are, I mean, joining it and I'll do it every day.
And then let's see what the universe brings in the life.
I love that. And I love that you are being
intentional and you're following the and you're enjoying the
journey because those are things that I talk about all the time.
My podcast I I end with that line because it's true like.
It is so much in nursing about when I become a BSN, when I
become an RN, when I become a nurse practitioner, when I
become, when I become, when I become this thing.
And you're delaying this sense of contentment and happiness
until you get to this mountaintop and then when you
get there, I mean, when you get to the end of the mountain, you
just go, OK, now what next? You constantly have this.
Lack of fulfillment and enjoyment and and and again I've
read the story and I've heard Michael Phelps right.
He's just incredibly accomplished swimmer and he's
multiple Olympics and multiple medals and this one medal have
50 and he's got all these medals and he says at the end of his
last Olympics he went into a deep depression afterwards
because he said I got there and I said now what?
And So what you need to be doing again is enjoying the journey of
your career, enjoying as you're walking through all these steps.
And taking time to take inventory of what's going on
around you. Because you dreamed of being in
this spot at one point, and now you're here, dreaming about
being someplace else and not enjoying where you are.
So. I want to talk really briefly
about, and I know that was a little diatribe, but I want to
describe what burnout is, I want to define what resiliency is,
and then I want to describe why it's important for healthcare
systems in particular to stop. Stop burnout or to promote
resiliency in their employees. So I love the and we'll just
start with the definition. Burnout describes a human
response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stress at
work, and it's defined by exhaustion, cynicism, and
inefficacy. Resiliency describes the
personal process of protecting yourself from burnout through
Adapting successfully in the face of adversity or significant
threat involves building and developing.
In the IT supports systems to combat stressors and promote a
culture of mutual openness and understanding to prevent
burnout. And you develop resiliency by
promoting environments within healthcare professions to reduce
negative and increase positive outcomes of stress in healthcare
professionals. And so I kind of wrote that down
and then writing down why it it's important because it
affects your ability to cope with challenges.
And it's got a lasting negative effect that you're we want to
build resiliency so that you bend but you don't break, right.
So resiliency develops from the lessons of learning about those
things. And that's why I loved your
journey was because I helped keep hearing like your father
passing away. And there's a book and by
Malcolm Gladwell that talks about David and Goliath and how
the things that you think make you weak, like losing a parent
sometimes can end up having the opposite effect of making you
very strong. And so you end up becoming.
Who you're supposed to be because of that not or in spite
of that, not because of that, which I find very interesting.
And it's a really great book. David and Goliath by Malcolm
Gladwell. And then surviving, healing and
thriving, which are all things that you just talked about,
right? Surviving the situation,
learning how to heal, which is what you just talked about.
And then how to from that healing do I now thrive And that
increases your ability to be resilient.
And so a couple other things we can talk about.
Again, work life balance. That's something that I think
really helps with increasing resiliency, personal development
and training. So if you're tired of your job
going off and doing things that you enjoy inside of inside of
your life to personally develop you, and that's where hospitals
can come in here. So encourage the people that
work in your systems to find things that they enjoy either
within your system or outside of your system, so that they can.
Grow that resiliency and then again mental health resources
and appreciating and recognizing what nurses do in their systems
to bring about change in healthcare and create this the
system or create good care of their patients, I think are ways
that we can kind of combat that grow resiliency.
And I was going to share some books that people could read if
they wanted to to grow their resiliency.
Did you have anything that you felt like was really good in
your growth? From that time and in England
and COVID, I think you wanted to drop something.
What was that one? It's Becoming Supernatural by
Joe Dispenser. Oh, So what is this about?
This is, I would say, a Bible for self development.
Yeah, it basically talks about how we can evolve and it goes I
think for healthcare professional will love this one
because it goes so much deep into brain waves.
It talks about how it works. It talks about all these sort of
trials that they did. They work with the Harma
Institute. They they like and it goes by
you know, it tells you how meditation is important, it's
great. It's a greater source to
understand how the body is connected so.
How our subconscious, our heart, our emotion, everything works
together like a body mind and spirit.
And once you get that sort of balance between your thoughts
and your heart, you just kind of you are whole and then you are
actually evolved and and it's amazing.
You know it's a very strongly recommended book I.
I will have to put it down. I'll have.
To read it for sure. And one of the books that I
loved was grit. Which is the personal The Power
of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth.
That book is fabulous on how to develop resiliency.
Talks a little bit about children and resilient children
as well. So it's definitely very good
read. And then another book was A
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankel.
That's another good book holiday survival.
Yeah, that's another great book. So again, like we understand
these concepts in nursing. And so I really wanted my
podcast. Especially today, but just in
general to be a focus in on we know the system's broken.
How do we rise above it? How do we create something
beautiful out of the broken? And I think, you know, for my
faith, and I talk a lot about my faith on this podcast, but my
faith really does talk about how God creates.
Out of our brokenness something very beautiful and so that same
thing that's the concept of resiliency is just how do we
create something beautiful out of something that is broken.
And nurses do such a great job at creating in broken systems
with patients and and healthcare where we're just we're trying
our best to keep people as functional and optimal as we
can. We do our best to grow and
people beautiful things and that's why we're so trusted by
by patients because they know that's what we do.
Nurses get in the trenches with you and they try to build
something beautiful. And so I just want that so much
for our careers and for our lives.
I think we've like exhausted this, this, you know, this
concept as much as we can. And I really want nurse
practitioners and nurses to hear this for sure.
And So what I always ask every nurse that's on my podcast is if
you could go back to Christian. At any stage, 10 year old
bachelor's degree knows that you didn't buy the line of Med
Surge. OK, you weren't that guy.
If you could go back and tell him something at the beginning
of his career that you tell him to hold on to this because this
is like everything. What would you tell him?
Very short and very direct. Trust the process.
Trust the process because because I guess we get.
A lot of external inputs and we get a lot of people involved.
I remember don't move to Ireland, do something in Italy
or do this, do that by people that are not where you wanna be.
So start to kind of vibes and learn how to match with people
energetically and on their thoughts and learn where the
person you are aspiring to become is and go.
After it, without being too much affected by others opinions,
that's people that are not there and that's what I would tell
myself and I think I delayed things in my life because of
that. But once again, I'm grateful
because that led me to these thoughts.
So. Yeah.
And I think that's good. I think it's what you described
too, is like not looking back with regret.
I'd be like, man, I wish I would've done this differently.
I wish I would've done that better.
You almost did it right there. And then you were like, Nope.
Capture that thought and you captured every single thought
and you submit it and you put it under the power of what is true.
And so you're like, Yep, those are moments.
And yeah, it wasn't ideal, but it brought me where I am today.
And so again, that process, again, you enjoyed the journey.
You pay attention to what's going on around you.
You're more present. And that's what we talked about
even when I was on your podcast about being present, being
there, taking that ability to being in that spot where you
have the time freedom so you can be present to.
I think really does build resiliency, because if you're at
work, but you know that you've structured your life to where
you are present and you aren't missing all these little moments
with your children, then you can't be present at work.
You're not empty. You're not so empty that you're
pouring into other patients from your bottle that's completely
tanked. I'm full.
Because I'm doing the life and I'm living the life that I want
so I can pour into others. And so again, just working from
a place of fullness in your career instead of just empty
exhaustion, I think is just great.
So for the last part of the podcast Christian this is the
rapid fire questions you can't prepare.
You can't prepare I'm. Ready.
All right. So, OK, I want to know, what are
you most grateful for in the whole world?
I would say myself and it sounds.
Weird, yeah, because you just explained that Amazingly, if you
feel the world and others from an over failed and overflowing
cap, everyone else and everything else around you.
Can benefit from it, my family and my daughter, which obviously
I'm extremely grateful, but it's myself.
First is setting boundaries to be intentional and present for
everyone else around which I can sound a little bit selfish, but
it's not. It's like from a very good
perspective I would say. Yeah.
So through all your traveling, I want to do something maybe
traveling wise, what's the biggest difference between US
and Europe that you feel like US does better than Europe?
Or maybe. Yeah, I want to know that one.
And then we'll yeah. So here we do. 100 times better
at giving people everybody's an opportunity to do something.
Oh, come on. Yeah, yeah.
I can see. I came in on day one on my job.
But they were all talking about what would you like to do next?
What what's your plan what can you work towards like a plan for
you to evolve And I thought what and in Europe is more like I've
been in this position. For 25 years.
So until I retire, maybe this role is not available.
Not all the time, but most especially.
In Italy, in England, England is more in line with here.
You know, you get more opportunities, but not as many
opportunities as in here. Guys, take listen.
To what he just said. Absolutely.
You are in the best country for opportunities.
Yeah, there are opportunities abounding.
There is no scarcity. There is no not enough.
He literally just said it. He's been all over.
He's been a nurse all over and you are in the best place to
grow and see opportunities and be thankful for that.
Dang, that is so good. OK.
And then what does Europe have better, that we don't have
better, that we could make better over here?
Maybe food. Yeah, it's.
I like you better food. Over.
There. Yeah, I'm Italian, though I'm.
I'm biased. I'm biased now.
No. And they all say the same thing.
So I have a couple Italian. They're like, we eat way better
over there. I mean, we.
Americans pump a ton of. Garbage in their food.
So you know what? You're right.
We we eat like. Like cows.
It's terrible, actually. We feed our cows better than we
feed humans. Like I can find a positive in
that there's so many options and opportunities around that we
have the power to choose. So once again, you know.
Back there, you're taking it back.
I love it. Christian mindset is everything.
It's everything. Guys, where can people find you?
Christian Share where they can find you, your podcasts or your
stuff. Drop that.
Shameless plug. Yes, yes.
So the Bind Set Nurse podcast on Spotify and everywhere else that
the podcasts are. I'm very active on LinkedIn.
That's my favorite platform and I'm now planning to start this
sort of membership where I'm gonna talk about all these
things. And I'm still like working on
it. So whoever is interested and
wants to join us on this sort of waiting list, you know, I'll,
I'll send you a link for that and then we can build things
together because I think as I said, as I done it, I can show
other people how to do it. And then it's not about the
money, it's not about, it's about like being intentional and
being, you know, supportive of our community.
That's my main goal. Guys, check him out.
I'll put all his links in the show notes.
And honestly Christian, thank you for coming on today and
talking to me about resiliency and letting me kind of like veg
out on it because I was so interested as again like when I
read your bio, I was like that that just word just kept popping
up as you were talking. And I was like I've got to talk
about this because I think again we've we want to focus in on the
macro we we want to get you out of.
Oh, this is, this is my roadblock.
I want you to see that like the whole map and how you're going
to end end up someplace good as long as you have your mindset
there. And so guys, thanks for hanging
out with me on today's podcast. And don't forget to enjoy the
journey of your career. Thanks for coming on, Christian.
All right, guys, take care. I'm going to hit.
So that's a wrap. Be sure to subscribe to the show
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