A conversation with my client Emma on her transition from nursing to entrepreneurship, the creation of Nurse Fern, and the lessons learned along the way, including mistakes, risks, and triumphs.

Bio

Emma Geiser is the founder of Nurse Fern, a platform dedicated to helping nurses explore non-traditional and remote roles through education, support, and community. She has a background in medical intensive care, emergency, and clinical documentation integrity nursing. Her entrepreneurship path started in personal finance freelance writing and education, she quickly pivoted when a TikTok took off in 2020 which happened to mention her time as a remote nurse. Once an ER adrenaline junkie, she now enjoys working from home in her pajamas.

“My biggest fear is that I become irrelevant to my own business because of me having changed.”

– Emma Geiser

Transcript

Hi there and welcome back to another episode of Unbreakable Brands, the podcast where we dive into the resilient strategies and mindsets behind successful women led businesses. Today, I’m talking to Emma, pronouns she, her, who is one of my longterm clients and an incredibly successful entrepreneur. Emma is the founder of Nurse Fern, a platform dedicated to helping nurses explore non traditional and remote roles through education, support, and community.

She has a background in medical intensive care, emergency and clinical documentation, integrity, nursing, her entrepreneurship path started in personal finance, freelance writing and education. And she quickly pivoted when tick tock took off for her in 2020, which happened to mention her time as a remote nurse herself.

Once an ER adrenaline junkie, she now enjoys working from home in her pajamas. Welcome to the show, Emma. Thank you. Yeah, I’m so excited to have you here. We have lots to talk about. I think that your journey to entrepreneurship is a unique one, as are most folks, but moving from like a nurse, nursing role into entrepreneurship in your own business, I think has a very special place because it takes a lot of guts to do that.

So tell us a little bit about that background and then what brought you to the point of entrepreneurship. I am a weird nurse. This is the best opener.

Emma: It’s so hard because I grew up knowing that I wanted to do something entrepreneurial, but not knowing how to do it. I didn’t grow up in an entrepreneurial family. I saw it on the periphery through friends, parents, but not in my own, but my family was medical. So I ended up in nursing. While still being like, I kind of want to do something else and just not knowing what to do with it, which is how I started off with personal finance, how I met you, and then how I ended up transitioning once my one random tick tock took off.

And I was like, okay, I guess we’re going to do this and lean into it. But at the same time, it’s not something that you see a ton of nurses doing. So it’s definitely unique and weird.

Yes, unique and weird. I love that. Well, and I’m coming from a teacher background. And so teacher turned entrepreneur isn’t something you see too often either because it’s, tell me if you agree or disagree, but I think the fields of like nursing, teaching, anything that’s public service are kind of revered by others who aren’t in them, at least as like, Oh, you’re helping others. You’re doing this incredible thing. And so to leave that, that’s what I meant by guts. It takes a little bit of like, you know, a different perspective to leave that because you’re almost leaving something that’s quote unquote honorable. I don’t know if you felt that before.

Emma: So many parallels between nursing and teaching, like constantly in discussions, like all of our plates seem to match up very well. And yeah, I think. I was looking over because I was trying to be a really good student before the podcast and was reviewing the brand values and everything we’ve done. And the rebel and the caregiver go together so well with the nursing, but also branching out and doing something that isn’t traditional.

Mm hmm. Yeah, you’re a rebel with a cause for sure.

Emma: That sounds so much cooler than I feel.

But you’re cool. Okay. So what inspired, so you own Nurse Fern and for those listening who don’t know, Nurse Fern is a job board, a community, a support center, like I said in the intro. So what inspired you to create Nurse Fern? Was it that tick tock that like set off, Oh, I need to do this thing. Or what was that initial pull.

Emma: So, the initial pull was wanting to see if I could build something outside of nursing, and it didn’t have to be nursing related, which is how I ended up doing freelance writing, and that just enveloped nicely into me getting over my fear of talking to nurses.

I’m a nurse. I’m slightly terrified by nurses at the same time. We’re very blunt and forward. So I initially rejected the option of like targeting nurses as my audience. So nurse Fern actually started as not being a niche to nurse business. And then I just started this random. thing during the pandemic and decided to make a video a day on TikTok.

And in one, I don’t even, I’m going to have to hunt it down, but I barely referenced or you could see in the background that I worked remotely in nursing, nothing HIPAA related, but like, that’s what everybody clung to. The video got 20, 000 views, which I thought was viral at the time. And I had a ton of questions and I just rolled with it from there.

Hmm. Oh, okay. Amazing. And then since working together, so you did this in 2020, and then we connected in 2021. So a year in, you had your TikTok following, you had a blog that you had started, and then you were a remote, uh, I’m a nurse and you were freelance writing, so doing a little bit of everything. And since working together, not only has Emma now taken the business full time, she went from 15,000 sessions monthly to 94,000 sessions monthly in traffic to her site. And that number has probably increased since I looked because she’s constantly growing.

Emma: Google killed me. Oh, no. Not in a bad way, but I have dropped down with Google playing games.

Dang it. Okay. Well, I’m still, then I’m going to stick with that number now. Google likes to mess around like that. On top of that, she’s grown a massive community. So like 2,000 to 42,000 in her email list, social followings have grown Instagram up from 10,000 to 71,000. So she’s grown massively. And I’m not here to take all credit for that, but our work together built you a brand and a foundation and a new website and now we’re in the phases of phase two of your brand moving into its next stage, which is pretty exciting.

But I’d love to hear from you kind of what that experience was like working with me and just that overall growth over time in terms of our relationship.

Emma: I really hope you share photos again of the original website before I found you. And how bad it was.

Everyone can see, actually, if you’re listening to this, you can see the photos in the, I have what’s called my impact file, which has case studies of clients I’ve worked with, like over time.

And I do have original photos of your site before we work together. So that’ll be in there. And then I’m going to update it when we were doing this site redesign now. So when that’s out, I’m going to also show the version two of the site because I’m like, Oh my gosh, even since 2021, you know, the site needs to grow and improve in all the things that you’ve added.

So it will be available for people to scope out if they want to see it.

Emma: I love looking at those. Hi. Oh my gosh. I tell people you’re my secret weapon all the time. I think I found you randomly in a post in FinCon and your name just kept coming up. Anytime people were asking about websites, branding, you were there.

And I started stalking you a little bit and I finally on a like, finally hit the point where I was like, I need to do something because everything’s disorganized and I don’t want to be the traditional sense of an influencer and a content creator. I was really looking towards building a business and a platform, and I knew that to get there, I needed to tighten things up and really have a plan.

I am also not a visual person. I’m very science techie. I cannot envision something to save my life. So I knew I needed help, which is also why I’ve worked with you for so long, because the only way I can keep the ship going is by Continuing to have your support, but I constantly get comments from nurses that are like, I saw your website.

I love your colors. I love everything about it. Like, it’s so professional. And like, I relate to it. I like what you’re doing. And I don’t think anybody ever would have said that about the other website.

Oh, my gosh. Well, thank you. I love hearing that. And I think that was a really important thing for us to connect on to was that you were interested in more and more than just the basics and more, more than just a refresh, like you are ready to build something and, and, you know, trust me to support you in building that and like, take that step of like, this is going to be a brand that supports my business for the long term, not just in this moment.

And that can be a really challenging game. Like shift or perspective, I think, for folks to have because there’s, there’s always, you know, the option to go cheaper and faster and quicker and on Fiverr and all of those things, and I just appreciated that you brought the perspective of like, this is a long term venture for me that I’m going to be committed to because I mean, you had proof of concept at that point for sure.

Emma: Oh yeah, having the continuity and having people tell me, like, I can tell immediately when it’s your post. I can just, like, I see the colors and I know it’s you. Like, it stands out, I recognize it. I’m like, That’s the brand identity I wanted, but I didn’t really, like, know how to get there.

Yes. Yeah. And we did some work, too, to make sure that it was going to resonate with nurses and be like fun and cheeky and playful and not like typical everything you see in the medical sphere, which is the same colors, the same fonts, and it’s very like, no stock photos, no blue, no…

Emma: no, like, Pale pink.

Yes, yes, exactly.

Emma: I mean, we have blue and pink, but we have fun ones.

Yes, we do. Yeah, they’re very fun. Every everything about it is very fun and very like rebellious. We wanted to play on that rebellious piece because you are doing like remote nursing is not That in itself is like a rebellious phrase, you know, like you came out with like real nurses are remote nurses and like, it doesn’t take away that you’re still a nurse by choosing to not be at bedside, which I know is something you talk about a lot.

So we wanted that to come through of like, we’re rebels, but that doesn’t mean we’re not helping people in a different way or doing something in a different way that works better for us too.

Emma: Just kind of like the alt side. People don’t really understand us all the time. Yeah.

You came from the, the ER floor, like adrenaline, high pressure, and you moved into business. And, um, I want to hear about like the biggest challenges you’ve faced in transitioning from a nursing career into your own business. I know there was remote nursing in between there, but I’m curious if you draw any parallels of different types of adrenaline rushes between the two or like how you did that.

Emma: Oh my goodness. So this comes up a lot with nurses and even the hardest day with like, let’s be honest, there are a lot of bad remote companies out there. There’s a lot of good jobs. There’s a lot of bad ones. It’s like any corporate world, but your worst day as a remote nurse. It’s still not going to be as bad.

It’s probably an average day on the floor being out of patient ratio and having just like the normal things go wrong. The stress levels just are not comparable. Like, there is no, it’s just different. It’s different playing fields. Like, if you can handle the transition to working from home stress, there’s no way, I don’t, I fail to have the words to describe it.

There is no comparison.

Emma: I mean, it’s probably like you and teaching. The stress is just so different. I’ve had a couple different times where the transition has been interesting. And the first time was moving from ER to non bedside. And I think a lot of people are surprised to learn. I’m pretty open about my story, but I didn’t go remote right away.

I was on site and on bedside, and that did help with the transition a lot because I still saw people every day that I worked with before, and so it gently helped to remove me from the direct patient care. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a weird transition where, like, you get in your head and you do ask yourself, like, am I really doing something to help the patients?

Like, did I abandon my work family? All this stuff that you, like, want to say you never did, but it still gets in there.

The transition from full remote nursing to full business was not hard. Because you were already doing both.

Emma: Yeah, I was already doing both. I was working double. I actually am very happy having made the transition.

I think the sneaky things. And I was talking to a friend recently about this too. I know this is a common entrepreneurial conversation, but being like, things are going well right now. I am so fucked if this stops because then I’m going to have to go back to where I was before maybe. And that’s just not an option now that I know the other side.

Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I relate to that on so many levels. Like if people were like, Oh, would you ever go back into teaching? I think my first, maybe a couple of years as an entrepreneur, I was like, yeah, maybe I’d consider it because there’s still like some ties, but now I’m like, absolutely not.

Like we’ll find anything else to do. That’s just not, it’s just not an option.

Emma: It’s not an option. I like to say that I’ll never say never. Because I still have a pole, like that never goes away. Okay. But I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I won’t say never.

Okay. Because then it could happen, so you don’t want to put that out there. I don’t want to jinx it. No. No, not at all. But you have built such a successful business and brand, and I’m curious what the overlap between nursing and entrepreneurship, like, have you seen, like, what are the skill overlaps that you’re like, Oh, this transitioned super well for me and really serves me on the daily.

Emma: Especially as an ER nurse, the absolute chaos. I love it. I am fully comfortable not really having a plan, which is one of my main reasons that you truly keep this like, you don’t know this, but you’re one of the backbones https: otter. ai

This is true.

Emma: We have due dates in the calendar. And I do, I, oh my gosh, I would do everything possible to not miss those due dates. But yeah, no, I, I really think, um, the chaos of nursing translates well because It’s very bizarre when you do realize you’re your own boss and you truly make the schedule and get to pick what things you do.

So prioritizing and nursing and prioritizing and entrepreneurship, definitely. And just remembering to focus on the things that are really important. So like triaging your tasks. Oh, I’m good at this. I can give you one.

Ooh, I like that. Triaging your tasks. That’s a good one. Mm hmm.

Emma: Because I constantly I, um, didn’t realize that this was something that I did, but I intentionally try and do less like when I’m, I know I’m really bad at this right now with our current project, but like trying like intentionally only picking a few things to make sure I’m doing really well and not continually adding on and focusing on what’s most important. I think nursing really helped with that.

Yeah. Oh, I like that. That’s such a good connection between the two. And you and I are very opposite like that in personalities too, which is, is always interesting because I’m like, we need a plan. We need a system. We need a structure.

What steps one through five, like, Like, if you’re like, let’s strategize on something, I’m like, amazing. Let me write it down for you. I’m ready. I’m ready to give the plan.

Emma: So I fully, you like so much more than branding. I rely on you because I know that you will help me organize what’s happening and make sure that I’m moving forward.

I didn’t ever know that that was going to be what this evolved to, but I think it’s really cool that I know you do mentorships for people who do graphic design and branding. And I often wonder like what they would think if they knew that you pretty much are a mentor for a nursing company.

Oh my gosh, thanks. I do my best. I will. And I feel like we have a special client relationship, you know, because when I initially built your brand and your site. I mean, it was literally a blog basically to post Jobs every day on blog posts, you know, it, it wasn’t like what it is today and wasn’t at that point. And so it’s grown and evolved so much.

But being a part of that growth has been really fun for me, a really great way to like use and exercise my skills and with someone who listens and also gives feedback. Because that’s something that’s been, I think, important in your growth and our growth together and me being able to help you is like, if I give a suggestion or want to try something, you’re either like, yeah, I’m down to try it.

Or I don’t know if that would resonate with the community. And here’s why. Or yes, absolutely. I’m, I’m on board. We’re going to give it a shot. And I think having that kind of collaboration has been just as important for like overall growth too.

Emma: I totally agree It’s actually really helpful having somebody outside of the medical world because you have a completely different perspective and then coupled with the fact that I’m basically willing to try anything once.

Yeah Yeah, and see how it goes like just really creates a fun business relationship of, yes, let’s see if this doesn’t work, we’ll just can that idea and move on to the next, right?

Yeah, no. And it’s, it’s been great and so fun. And because of that, I’m never fighting you on anything and not that I would like fight a client, but you know, I definitely have clients who like, don’t listen or don’t do it or don’t want to.

And that’s fine that, you know, they could do whatever they want to do, but like, you’re like, yeah, let’s give it a shot or let’s, Do it, but do it this way. And I just, I just so appreciate that about you.

Emma: So I don’t know if you know this, but about four years ago, you sent me an email that scared the crap out of me. And I was like, I’m never getting an email from Bethany like this again. So I need to behave.

Bethany: Oh no, what did I send?

Emma: It was during the first web design and I was just drag. I had not emailed you back about something and you sent a very polite like getting on track email and then like what the schedule was gonna be moving forward and I was like, I’m never missing a deadline again. Like she was so kind but oh my god she’s in charge.

Yes. Yeah, I’ll harass I tell that to my closest clients like I’ll harass you if we like we need to move it along Okay, that’s funny. I was like, what did I send?

Emma: But I also, like, I think you talked about it a second ago, too, like. Our personalities are so different, which is why I think it works.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So I want to pivot a little bit away from us, even though I love us, but I want to share with anyone listening, like what are some mistakes you’ve made in your entrepreneurial journey? Since it is entrepreneurs listening that you like, what did you learn from them? How did you pivot? Share with us some of those that stand out.

Emma: I’m not sure I’ve learned because I still, to be totally honest, will give it a try every once in a while. But like in a way, I guess not having full faith in myself and being able to like fully get the results just with my company, but continually every once in a while, like trialing, like collaborating with somebody else and thinking that like that other audience or something is going to really, I like payouts a bad word, but like convert over to me and grow our community more.

Yeah. Most of the time, it doesn’t work out the way that you think it will. And I still continually waste effort doing those types of things. So I don’t know what I’ll learn on that, but I’ve gotten a lot more picky about making sure that if I collaborate with people, like I truly. like what they’re doing and back what’s going on.

Like I recently did one that was just a friendly collaboration, but it was with another company that is nurse founded. I know the nurses who own it. And I was like, I get nothing out of this. I’m fine because I just think their brand is really cool. So I guess I’ve learned to switch my perspective on collaborations a little bit.

Yeah. I will say you’ve become much like in our conversations, you become much more careful about. your brand collaborations, for sure. Just because it’s also like, you’ve become more protective of your community and your people too over time, which is something I’ve noticed. And like who, who’s going to get access to them the other way around?

Because now it’s people reaching out to you too. Like you don’t have to go collab with other people are reaching out to you for your community. And I, I love that you’re like protective of them. I’m like, who’s actually going to be beneficial in the, in the end to my people.

Emma: Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

As I’ve grown, I’ve gotten much more careful. I also just like, it’s that constant like seeing past companies that you’ve done things with, then do things that you don’t align with and being like, now what? I’m attached to that from like a few years ago. Like, if somebody draws that parallel, like, I’m just always very conscious of making sure that we really do align now if I go into something.

That is such a tricky one, too, in the sphere of when your brand overlaps in influencer kind of territory where you are collaborating with so many other brands, which isn’t the case for all businesses, but I mean, all businesses do collaborate at some point. I’ve even had it where like past clients maybe go do something and you’re like, well, I’m Oh, that’s really out of integrity.

Maybe I don’t really want my site credit on there anymore. And it’s a weird feeling to be like, oh, like, how do I deal with that other than make it really clear where I stand is what I, I have to keep coming back to and what I share with my clients. Like, as long as people are clear with what’s here now, we’ve done the best we can do, you know?

That’s all we can control really too. Yeah.

Emma: I kind of think of that a lot. Because I almost don’t believe that the business has grown to the point that it is. And then when people ask me questions like that, I’m like, is this actually helpful advice? Or am I giving like the really fluffy, weird answers that are on like the crappy business podcasts?

And people are like, okay, no, when you’re ready, switch to full time entrepreneur. What does that mean? Like, what does it mean? Be careful. I, I always have that thought. Yeah, I don’t know if this belongs in the podcast discussion, but like, like that, like rattles around my brain frequently.

I don’t think so because the answer, even though it’s like, this is something I think about and struggle with is at least allowing other people to have that space to feel seen to. And when you like operate in an online space or in a remote world, that’s hard to find. So in that way, I think it’s helpful to hear like, Oh, well, she also feels like that. And we’ve all had a shitty similar experiences. And now we need to be more careful and protect our brands. And you know, you explained exactly how you did that. So I think that part belongs here for sure.

Emma: I mean, sometimes I consult for companies and half the time I feel like I’m just telling them, no, they have a bad idea.

You’re like, that’s not it.

Emma: No, don’t do that. It’s not going to be good for you. You need to do something else.

Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I want to hear about some risks that you took that really paid off. I mean, we’ve talked about a few, obviously it’s a risk every time you make a big change, right? Moving from bedside to in person to remote. to entrepreneurship. But what are some other key risks you made within entrepreneurship that ultimately paid off in the long term?

Emma: Yeah, I’m sitting here also thinking about the fact like stuff ringing in the back of my head from everybody telling me that I don’t talk about this enough. Like talk about what I’m doing and how I downplay everything. So I’m like, okay, I like, I’ve got risks and I’m like, no, that’s not good enough to share.

Share it. It’s good enough to share.

Emma: It was definitely a sketchy risk switching over to full time entrepreneurship, but it was also very calculated. Like I don’t, I am, this is an old term now, but I’m kind of a YOLO person, like if I’m no longer comfy and I feel like there needs to be a change. It’s going to seem like I very quickly made a change, but there is usually a lot of calculation that went on behind it with like mentally, like it might look brash, but I, there’s not really anything that I like on the fly was like, yes, let’s change this and then been like, Ooh, that was sketchy.

So probably one of the sketchier things I did was when I switched to full time entrepreneurship, even though I knew it was time, it was that leaving. Employment thing, and that was the worst phone call I’ve ever had. My manager and I both cried. Uh, and I like that made me feel better about it that we were all crying that it was time for me to move on. But at the same time, I had been on leave for about five months and before that I already had revenue for a year that I could track and say, these are my expenses. This is my expected revenue. As long as this keeps going, I’ll be fine to switch over.

So a lot of people see like, Oh, she just like quit that job and switched. But really I had already had the business for a year, wasn’t taking any money out of it for myself. And then also had like a five month leave runway that got me comfortable with like what life was like not working my other job. So that was a risk, but it did feel very safe.

Yeah. Well, see, that’s where you don’t give yourself credit because the techie science analytical part of you was like, But I’m still going to make sure it’s a calculated risk.

Emma: I’m still mad that I pay myself, but it’s not just like that wasn’t like I didn’t mind seeing like just my business bank account billed.

But then that’s also like the risk I take, which the other the flip side of that is a risk. Like I. do everything on a cash basis with the business. I don’t take out loans or bring on investors, things like that. So anything I do, I have to make sure that I either have the cash already or that I can make it to invest in it.

And that’s a big thing with like us doing the website redesign and all of these other things. I’m like, I want to do these, but I’m not doing them unless I have the cash. Because then if If everything fails, things are still fine.

Yeah. Things are, you’re not putting yourself or your business in a bad place financially. Which also makes sense. Going back to the very start of this conversation when we said, Emma and I met in personal finance, it was just like a little blip blip in the conversation for anyone listening. We were part of the personal finance, like, For a while, my partner and I were part of like the fire world, which if you didn’t know is like financial independence, retire early.

It’s like very like frugal, stringent, can be very much about tracking finances. We’re no longer a part on that track. We’ve, we’ve changed our minds about how we live our life. But in that way we do align with our mindsets of like, You know, we’re here to make sure things are accessible, affordable, but also take care of ourselves.

I love that you make that a pillar in your company, like you’re never putting jobs behind a paywall, like jobs that you post, because that’s part of like your integrity and what you think nurses should have access to. All of your products are. affordable, like 50 and under, you know, like you make sure like things are able to help other people while also considering yourself, which I think is really great.

Emma: And I think to like, since this is a brand and business podcast, like talking about it from the side of like your strategy, it goes with my values that I didn’t want to make nurses. Pay for something that they could find for free on the Internet. Like, I know that, like, I do have people pay for things I could also find for free on the Internet.

But I chose one thing that I really wanted to make sure that we did well, which is the job board, and make it free no matter what for nurses. In the future, I hope companies pay, but that’s also always been something that I’ve said. Like, if anybody’s paying for the job board, it’s companies. It’s not the nurses.

Yes, and also like, oh, this is a business lesson to, um, Ooh, let’s hear it. One of my big fails, I did a mastermind, like, I don’t even think you knew I was in this one and it was just awful, like everything that the person told me, like I asked questions and everything that this person told me. Like I told them, like, I don’t want to charge a ton.

I want to figure out how to grow an audience, not be doing like some form of like a high ticket item. And I got into the mastermind and that’s all it was. And I was like, God, um, but I’m also a people pleaser, so I kept my mouth shut. But one comment that got made in that was that they were like putting down this person that taught people how to do tiny offers, like small ticket things, and that stuck in my head. And I was like, I’m gonna go look this person up. I went and looked them up, bought their course. And that’s when after a year of building my audience, I finally really released the resume template. And like, just, Having that failure of being in that completely wrong mastermind, but getting that one piece of information that really is what helped propel my business.

Because all of a sudden I was, it clicked and I’m like, this is what feels good. I’m going to go figure this out. And so that was the first product was the resume template.

And it’s still the primary product, which is really important. And yeah, exactly. Okay, well, that had to have been close to around the time, because you launched your resume template like six months after we built your site or something like that.

Emma: I don’t know. You knew me, but I don’t think you knew I was in this mastermind.

Yeah, I don’t think I did either, because you were like, okay, I, I’ve always wanted to do a product. And then you came to me later, like, we’re gonna do the resume template. I was like, great, let’s do it. I like that. And I think that’s an important lesson too because there are so many different masterminds and courses and approaches and just because someone’s selling it on Instagram and saying they made 60,000 in three months or whatever their money headline is that it’s gross, even though you still kind of want it, doesn’t mean that that’s the thing for you.

Like, it just doesn’t. And I think that not having mentors or people even in your sphere who can share and appreciate different models is something that you need to change if that’s not your case. Like, if you, if you’re surrounded by the people doing all the same thing, like, you’ve got to have that variety and that change because it’s something different for every business, you know?

Emma: And it definitely helped, especially when you’re like sinking tons of money into these things and you’re like, Oh, this was a bad call. I just invested all this money. I just like, I’m like, I’m going to get something out of this. Like somehow I’m going to get something out of this. And I’m like, I got the link to that person out of it. It led to me spending more money, but then it came back around.

Yes. Yes. See, that’s good. That, that counts for something. At any time I’ve had an investment that’s burned me, which I have been in a group program that has also burned me. And I go back to like, Hey, what am I learning from this? What’s the takeaway? Cause like, I did not waste this money. I was like, there was something that came out of this.

Emma: For sure. Or it’s like a social experiment. Cause I’m like, okay, these are the things that like, as a consumer, I don’t like, so I’m going to make sure that I don’t include, like, I do something different that supports what I like with my offerings.

So it’s a little bit of market research too. Even if it’s not like, you know, your target audience, you get to see like how different people run things and pick up. Like I’ve picked up several new things from people that I really liked that I’ve incorporated just like little things that they do.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It can it can trickle down in so many different ways, which, yeah, it’s all it’s all like Okay. an outside perspective looking in. And, and that’s always the perspective I take too, since like my clients span all kinds of industries. Like I have clients in law, clients who are spiritual entrepreneurs, who are like intuitive.

I have clients who, you know, are service based like I am. So if I don’t have that perspective of like different models work in different ways, then, you know, I wouldn’t be doing my job. And what is important to you that should come into your brand? And for you, like, you’ve always been aligned about having your prices and things that you offer accessible to nurses, because nurses are underpaid and overworked, as we all know.

And so I think that that’s, you’ve always stuck to your integrity that way, which has been amazing from the very beginning. It was like one of our first conversations.

Emma: Yeah, and that goes back to, like, just, like, having to do what you know is what you want to be doing, because there’s just been so many people who are like, the next step is offering something for $2,000. I’m like, why would I do that? Like, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. But also like, what is the value?

It might still have the same result as somebody who didn’t invest all that money. I don’t, I guess it’s like an equal playing field too. Like I don’t like the idea of somebody paying me that amount of money when I could actually disseminate more information. Because I have more mental energy to create more if I’m not using it all on like one person.

Yeah, you have the one to many model and you’ve built it in a way that is most beneficial to people around you.

Emma: See, I’m taking that. I forgot about that term, one to many. Yeah, the one to many. Because I do not have the one to many model.

I have the one to one model, which is very different. And I’m so glad you do. Thanks. Because I hate nothing more, like, I am at the point where I want somebody to do it for me. I, and I know there’s nurses in my realm, too, that email me and they’re like, please, can you just do it for me? And I’m like, I love you, but I don’t want to know, but I know people who do see it. There you go. You can hand it forward for sure. Amazing. Okay, so I, I want to end with a couple of fun questions just to like paint some pictures for people listening. But what is a typical day like for you now compared to when you were working as a nurse? So like layout, like, okay, this was my day when I was working as a nurse, and this is my day now, just so that people listening can like see the difference, the stark difference.

Emma: I’ll get three different versions because the first one’s wild. For the first while working as a nurse, I was ICU and then ER and I was down in San Diego. I had at least a 40 minute commute each direction working night shift. So it was like in crappy traffic going to work and then coming home in crappy traffic.

So like what you’re at, like a 14 hour day by the time you get home and then you get to sleep for a short amount of time before you wake up feeling like death and doing it all over again. So that was my typical day. And then, um, luckily at the time in my twenties, I didn’t have trouble sleeping. So that wasn’t an issue.

I didn’t stick with it long enough to hit the thirties and not being able to sleep, but then working as a remote nurse. Like without doing anything on the side with business, like I always made sure that like there was a strong separation, um, between business and work related activities, but I could get up anywhere between like 6 and 9 a.m. and start work once I was fully remote from my house. And then. Like take breaks, take a lunch. I had a flexible, um, group and then usually I’d sign off by like 3:30 in the afternoon, close my computer, walk out, have a lovely day. If I didn’t have this weird entrepreneurial tick to me, I would be completely happy staying in that job for the rest of my life until retirement. And all of my coworkers are. They all absolutely love their lives. I just am weird and couldn’t stay. Like, I just like, I got antsy. I couldn’t do it. I was like, I’ve got this thing. Let’s do this now in entrepreneurial life. It’s sweet. Like, I like my schedule a lot, but I would hope I would, too, because I’m the boss.

I wake up anywhere between like 6 to 8 a.m.-ish, and the tasks that I always do right away are looking at emails. I tend to do like a lot of people say don’t do this, but like I like doing this in the morning. I look at emails first and I look at analytics and sales. I look at my ad dashboard. I just like to get an idea for like what happened in the previous day. And then I go in and I start looking for jobs. I start with LinkedIn and I update the job board and then I go back to things in my inbox that I didn’t hit before. I go into our community, I post things online, sometimes I make a video, usually I’ll be doing all that stuff till like noon.

And if I don’t have any other special projects that day, I can sometimes stop working at noon, which gives me time to do other things, which is really nice. I like going outside, I live in the mountains, but it’s also why I cringe at the like influencer type speak online because I am fully aware that me posting about my own life is not what I’m giving information about anymore. I’m a business owner who has a ton of risk on their side. So, yes, I can make a nice schedule for myself. But it’s an entirely different world of like, I am responsible for bringing home what I’m bringing home. And that’s not going to be helpful to show my entrepreneurial life to my audience who is looking for employment that is non-traditional.

Yeah, but it’s still employment, which leads to like the sort of secretive thing that we’re working on with bringing more nurses on board that are still in it and can share more of that. My biggest fear is that I become irrelevant to my own business because of me having changed.

Oh, oh, that is a good one. But I don’t think you ever will be because of where you came from, because you walked the path before. You’ve just taken a different path. Ownership of getting that out to people, for sure.

Emma: And I mean, and it’s totally a little bit of that, like, real nurse mentality creeping in just from a new direction now, too.

Like, yeah, you’re still a real nurse who’s bringing remote work and alternative work to nurses like front and center that otherwise wouldn’t have maybe that access, but then also the resources to land those jobs, which is just as important to change their lives so they can have that schedule.

Emma: Yeah. And totally changing the storytelling from me to other people now. It’s like the new evolution because if I hadn’t evolved at all from the beginning, I would not be here anymore as a business. I see those competitors. I see them.

Yeah, I know what you’re doing. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, one of the things we did in our current secret project was even remove like all the we had a lot of I’s, literally, like I versus we throughout. So that’s the only hint you guys are getting in listening. But that was an important step because it became about a community, more so than your story and your story of leaving. And that’s a big shift for, for brands and businesses to make in general.

Emma: Yeah. And it goes to like, I know it’s a discussion a lot with business, like building something that you could eventually sell.

Oh yeah. And my April Fool’s joke, a lot of people got pissed off about that. So my April Fool’s joke was that like I sold out to private equity. And I really hoped that the term sold out was going to clue people in that it was April Fool’s and a joke. But I still made a lot of people mad. I lost a lot of followers that day.

It happens, but like, that was also one of those shifts. Like, I don’t know if I’m ever going to sell or bring on investors in a way that feels authentic to what I’m doing, but I sure as hell, I’m going to build something that like puts me on that path. So I have options.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you still have to think about that part of it for sure. And nurse founded and nurse run can still, it’s like you get to decide, you know, and so if you are going in a different direction, you I’m sure I’m just going to stick with your integrity and make sure it stays within the realm you want it to stay in.

Emma: Oh, and then my pet peeve of like the all the businesses out there that say they’re like have nurse run or something, but you get into it and they’ve got one nurse that works and like their customer service or something. And you’re like, this isn’t nurse. Like this. If you say nurse founded or nurse run, they better be like on your board in your C-suite. Be the CEO. Don’t target nurses with that language, if it’s not true. Otherwise it’s slimy. And they’re going to find out.

You can’t keep that secret.

Emma: Yeah, like, you can only so well bury that before, like, people who care are gonna figure it out.

Exactly. Okay, amazing. Well, thank you for sharing.

Emma: I’m really good at going off topic today.

Oh, no, I liked it. I thought that this is this is the type of conversation I want to have because I think people like to follow along with those like tangents. That’s where all of our entrepreneurial brains go anyways.

Emma: It’s a lot easier to speak honestly once you have like some separation as a nurse from the feeling that you’re always going to get in trouble with your employer if you ever share your mind. That’s why I’m unemployable. I’m much better at speaking my mind than I used to be.

And even sometimes I think it’s okay if I share this here, but sometimes when you send content, your ideas my way, you’re like, is this too spicy? Or is this too cheeky? And I’m usually like, no, it’s so good. Do it. I’m always the one who’s like. Press post it, put it out there. We want the opinion.

Emma: I’m so conservative. You’re probably like, that’s so dang vanilla. Like, just post it.

But then, but then you’re, you’re opposite of me with like your April fool’s things. ’cause I’m like, oh, she’s brave. But you like a good, good joke, which is fun.

Emma: I do. And yeah, some people don’t, which is fine. Like, I think that’s also something you got to get comfortable with in business. You’re going to have your magnetic field, but that also pushes some people away.

Yeah, for sure. I always like to say like the girls who get it, get it. Like it’s if you don’t, it’s fine. Could just go where you want to go. I want to go back at the end here. I want to go back to your why, like, and if you can tell us in a story, ideally of like, maybe a fern in your community who has gotten a remote job and it changed their life. I know you get messages all the time, but like, share a little bit about the why that you’re building this thing, no matter what direction it goes.

Emma: Mmm. So there’s, it’s two pronged because part of the why is obviously making money and supporting myself. Yes. Yes. Which I think is really important to admit that if you have a business and the other why is helping nurses because I have been in the spot of being like, I need a change.

Nobody’s taking my opinions anymore. This isn’t getting better. I need to find something new and getting those messages from nurses, whether it’s like a quick Instagram DM or full email with like a complete writeup of their timeline, seeing them. share the difference between what life was like before they found nurse fern.

And then after getting a remote job, what they call their unicorn role and what their life looks like now definitely keeps me going. Like I can tell if I haven’t gotten one of those in a while, cause I start to like question myself and what I’m doing. And then once I get a little happy note like that, I’m like, Oh, I need to look at these more.

This is really what keeps me going. And like excited to share things.

Exactly. I mean, you’ve got to keep a happy file. You have to. Amazing. Okay. So for anyone listening, if you happen to be a nurse or know a nurse in your life who is craving a change, Nurse Friend Community is where it’s at. So Emma, could you share where people can find you and connect with you?

Emma: Yeah, probably the best place to find me is on the website and it’s nursefern.com. And then my current favorite social spot is Instagram and it’s nurse.fern.