Amy Sinacola is a registered Nurse and an accredited coach who has combined her passion for the two into her company, The Nurses Coach. Here she gives a little insight into her journey from Nurse to Business Nurse.
Nursing background
I trained in 1994 and completed in ’98. It was one of the earlier degree programs at Oxford Brookes University. So I then went from there working at John Radcliffe in Oxford for a couple of years, running around like a headless chicken on a general medical ward to then working in intensive care and then wanted to go and have an adventure so did the work in Australia for a bit. I travelled around and Nursed in Perth, in Australia, just did some agency work again in ICU at that time. When I came back, I didn’t really know what to do with myself, which area of nursing to specialise in. I really enjoyed intensive care but I found I missed that contact with the patients. I liked the fact that I was always learning. It was quite a dynamic place to work, team was good. There was a real good camaraderie and structure between the doctors and Nurses. So I found myself going into haematology because it seemed to have that mix of really sick patients, but there was patient contact and the ability to develop relationships with people. And that’s where I found my Nursing niche, if you like. I worked there for a bit and then moved up to Manchester for love. I met my husband in London just as I was deciding that was where I was going to settle. I bought a flat and I loved the place where I worked. This was where I was going to live my life, and then boom. The weekend I signed the contract on my flat, I met my husband and he lived in Manchester, which is where I’m originally from anyway. I ended up living in all these different places, traveling across the world and then wound up half an hour away from where my Mum and Dad lived at the end of it all. There we go! So I came up here and worked for a bit as a chemotherapy Sister at Christie, and that made me miss my haematology roots so I went back to working in haematology at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. I was a haematology Specialist Nurse there for a long time, about 12 years.
There it is a, broad tour of my nursing career. Done lots and seen lots. So it’s been great. It’s been really, really great.
Inspiration for Business
I stumbled into coaching when I was in a leadership role in my last job in Manchester and I just found myself wondering how to really motivate and inspire a group of Nurses. After reading some books and stumbling across this whole idea of coaching and really liking what I was reading and it somehow fitted with how I operated and how I spoke to my patients. I just wanted to learn some more. So completely off my back, I just decided I’d take a freebie two day introductory course, which I did in my annual leave and then I took a complete course and became a coach when I was still doing my job. I started to put some of that into practice in my job and really noticed such a massive impact and benefit in all aspects of my work, on my patients, on the people I worked with and most importantly, myself and how I felt and how I felt able to manage the challenges of the job. It was really, really transformational and I was so taken with it I just wanted to be a coach. At that time I was being asked to be a little bit more clinical than what I was doing, but I wanted to go more down the route of supporting and coaching rather than going in and sticking lines in people and things like that. So it was time for me to do something else. I always say I left my job, not because I didn’t like it, I had just fallen in love with something else I wanted to do, which was a great way to leave. I always say I left with love. That has been good and bad because I’ve got great memories, but at the same time, it’s been quite hard to separate myself from that part of my Nursing history. In the last few years I’ve been coaching a wide variety of clients. I also work with a charity, I do some work with teenagers and parents of troubled teenagers. I’ve coached executives, I’ve coached managers, I’ve coached business owners. I just come back to my nursing roots. I really felt passionate that coaching really helped me through a tricky place and it really helped me have better outcomes for my patients, it helped my patients get better outcomes through having different conversations. It really helped the people I worked with in terms of how I was able to manage them and help and support them. I just came back to this idea that I think, that if Nurses knew some coaching skills I think that their work and life, their ability to manage the challenges of the job would be easier. I am now really keen to spread the word of coaching and help Nurses to have more access to coaching and learn some coaching skills and tools and help them in their work. So, that’s where the idea of the Nurses Coach came from. I want to help coach Nurses. I want Nurses to learn coaching and I want them to feel inspired and motivated because they are doing an amazing job! It’s shame when you hear Nurses who feel so embattled and embittered and beaten down by the system. And it doesn’t have to be that way. I don’t think so anyway. So that’s where I’ve come back to my Nursing roots and really want to still have my foot in that world, just in terms of helping Nurses to really help empower them to be their best, to build confidence, to find the right career for them, whatever it is that is going to help them light up their life again and make their work better.
Starting out
Fundability wise, the initial training I undertook was expensive. So I used some savings to do that. Other than that, with coaching, is a bit like anything – you think that, because I’ve got the certificate and because I’m a coach now and this is what I’m setting myself up as, means that all of a sudden I’m going to have those clients coming to me. It doesn’t work like that. I listened to the EntrepreNurse podcasts, another one of your podcasters said the same thing.
Marketing is about going out there and telling people what you’re about. When you’re a Nurse, you put your uniform on, you go in and people know what you are, they know what you’re there to do. They have an expectation of you, you fulfil that expectation and get some thanks for it.Whereas when you set up in business, you’ve got to go out there and do all that yourself. You tell people what you do and what you can help them with. I’m now starting to invest some money in marketing because I recognise that marketing is not something I’m particularly skilled at or know much about.
Transition
It would have been sensible to continue Nursing perhaps locum work whilst I set up my own services.Boldness or stupidity, I don’t know which. I think because I was working part-time at home, I had got two small children and I left feeling very confident that by three month’s time I was going to have this diary booked out with clients but that didn’t happen. Life throws you curve balls, doesn’t it? My Dad died suddenly and that threw everything on its head and my motivation waned somewhat, we should say, as I went through the process of grief. I think that’s when I started to look for other options for how to earn some money. I had some associate coaching work. I took a job part-time doing some university lecturing on a freelance basis to start with, and then a two day a week job, which I’ve left now because I’m really all in with it. Now I’m just picking up bits of work as I go. I’ve got a new opportunity that’s come my way that’s given me another couple of days work a month. It’s very much what you would call a ‘portfolio’ career, a bit of this, and a bit of that, and trying to do things that really fit with what I want to do now. I’ve always got my eye on NHS jobs, I’m not shutting that door completely. You’ve got to be bold and you’ve got to almost ask for things, which I don’t think comes easily or naturally to anyone actually, whether you’re a Nurse or not, and also be creative. I’m quite keen that whatever work I do fits with my coaching ethos. So I wouldn’t go back and take a job running around on the ward.Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just feel like there’s other things and other strengths and skills I want to be using. I will look for opportunities and it’s about backing up that time, with working on building your business, building your client base, building your courses, whatever it is you’re doing alongside making some money also having a family and all that goes with that. So for example, when I was teaching, I was teaching compassionate care to the students and I was talking about Schwartz Rounds, about their reflective group practices that happen in hospitals to help healthcare workers decompress. Then I saw that there were some opportunities for mentors to help guide the hospitals in their Schwartz Rounds. So I emailed and contacted them and they were interested in me. And the upshot of it is I’m now going to be a mentor for Schwartz Rounds.That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t have been thinking outside the box, if you like. Also being bold enough to initiate conversation with someone, I probably wouldn’t have done five years ago, if that makes sense. If you open your eyes to the opportunities around you, you will find ways and means to make a living, make an income.
Self Confidence
I think in some ways working in conventional Nursing has helped my self-confidence because when I stop and reflect on, everything that I’ve done and all the experiences that I’ve had and all the people that I’ve met and all the people that I’ve had the privilege of learning from, I think there’s no other job like it. So when you stop and reflect on it, you just think, “Wow, that’s pretty awesome, actually.” Nurses are pretty amazing and have so much to offer and have so much that is of value and have so much but the problem is they don’t realise it. I didn’t realise it. I never saw it in myself and I never valued it in myself because for many years, I think you just feel like this tiny cog in this massive machine, and you’re all dressed the same and you almost don’t feel that individuality and specialness of who you are. You go on maternity leave and you’re instantly replaced or someone leaves and needs to be replaced, no one really honours that person and what you’re doing. But each person has such unique gifts and special skills and qualities. One of my mentors said to me, “How can you value yourself or see the value in yourself when you’ve worked for a system for so long that doesn’t see that value?” But it’s only when you start to honour that value in yourself and see it and understand that value in yourself, that you then start to feel valued and feel that you’ve got something great to offer and feel more confident. That’s been a learning. Nursing has given me so many skills and attributes that I am now proud of but it’s taken me a long time to realise that and see that. Things are slowly changing. I know certainly some places are definitely putting things in place to help their staff feel more valued. But I know that in a lot of places, that’s still a big problem. Ultimately how we feel valued, inherently comes from inside ourselves. We can learn to value ourselves and believe that we do offer something wonderful and brilliant and unique. Then it almost doesn’t matter as much what the bigger system thinks, because you know something.
Regrets
I sometimes have days when I wonder if I did the right thing. I had a good job. I enjoyed my job. I’m sure I could have gone further up the kind of leadership ladder and I miss the patients and that contact and that kind of exposure to all that wide range of humanity and different personalities. There’s something special in nursing about how you get to be part of someone’s life for a small piece of it. You will always remember and they often will, too. There’s something special about that, that I do miss. I wish if I’d known, I wish I had a bit more of a mentor. I think that might have helped me in my career along the way, and to be a bit more intentional about my career and where I wanted to be and what I wanted to get out of it. That might have meant that I trod a different path, but I don’t really have regrets. It’s all learning and it’s all stuff to grow from.So now I am doing what I love to do. I’m still able to serve and help. It’s all good. And who knows? In the future I might find something where I feel I want to double back in the kind of the patient care. I’m not sure, though. We’ll see. We’ll see- wherever life takes me, but no regrets. I can’t live with regret.
Value
The value having my own business has brought me is that feeling of self-control, almost that I am the master of my destiny. I can make the choices depending on what’s right for me. So if I choose to push on with my business, I can do that. If I choose to go and get another job back at NHS, I can do that. If I choose to go and do something completely different, then I do that. I just think once you see those choices in front of you, it’s like a wall being taken down. You see the opportunities that are there. I think really, I’ve met some amazing people. I’ve had doors opened to me that I never would have imagined. I’ve met some inspirational people and have learned an incredible amount over the past five years. And I’m excited for all the things I’ve still got to learn and all the people I still have to meet. So life and my work, all of a sudden just seems so much more exciting or there’s so many more possibilities than I ever dreamed there would be, so that’s exciting.
Also it is frightening, but maybe push yourself to stretch that little bit outside your comfort zone and see what’s out there. At the end of the day, you’ve got a choice haven’t you? We’ve all got a choice in what we do. You can choose to stay where you are and if that’s what makes you happy and lights you up, then that’s fine, isn’t it? But if it’s not making you happy and it’s not lighting you up anymore and it’s making you miserable, or you hate the system you work in, or you don’t agree with the work culture, you’ve got a choice. You have a choice. We’re not short of nursing jobs and opportunities. So I do think that we can all be the master of our own destiny, whether we choose to set up a business or get a different job or find a different opportunity then that’s open to anybody.
Ultimate Goal
The ultimate goal, and I’m going to be really bold and put this out there.
I would love to be part of a force for change in the healthcare system. To try and get a coaching culture and coaching mindset out there into the healthcare system and within Nursing from the bottom up to the top. I just think it would make such a massive difference to patient care. It would make a massive difference to staff retention, wellbeing, how we communicate with each other, how we deal with conflict or we deal with difficult teams. There’s so much in there and I want to be part of helping to push that into healthcare systems. So, that’s the big, bold vision. If I can help one Nurse feel a little more empowered, a little more motivated, a little more inspired, a little more self-confident, or a little more focused on where they want to get to in their career, then I’m happy.
Nursing Skill
I think it would probably be that ability to connect with other people. No matter where they’re from, it’s that ability to connect and have empathy and compassion for other people and what they’re going through.I do believe that coaching is the way that Nurses are going to kind of find new ways to help deal with all the demands and challenges of the job because it is one of the most, it’s one of those jobs, it gives so much, but it takes so much away at the same time if you let it. I think coaching and that mindset work that comes with coaching and being able to understand some of that and put some of that into practice in your daily life just makes such a massive difference. Well, it certainly did for me, so I’m a convert anyway!