The Top Traits of a Successful Nursing Expert Witness

To be a successful nursing expert, you must have a strong mindset and be a take-action person.

There are several common features and traits that successful expert witnesses share. If you don’t have these yet, you can develop them with practice and perseverance. More than likely, you already have some of these traits if you are looking into becoming an expert. Even if you need to work on some of them, you’re on the right track.

Successful Expert Witness Traits

They Are Fearless

The truth is this is wrong. No one is fearless, but they are able to push through boundaries and do things through fear. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin probably weren’t truly fearless, but they felt the fear and then had enough confidence in their convictions to work through the fear and do it anyway.

Make Actionable Plans

An expert witness makes plans to do things, but they don’t just make plans, they make plans that are actionable. Making plans, and setting goals – that’s just part of the process. Doing is more important than any of that. Without action nothing becomes reality. At some point making plans has to become taking action to get things done.

 Understand Cash Flow

A lot of new experts think that income is an indicator of success, but the truth is, without adequate cash flow a business that earns money can still fail. Cash flow management is a critical element in running a successful business. Your bills are due at a specific time and billables are due at a specific time, but you know that it doesn’t always work out. So, work hard to understand cash flow so that you can be truly successful.

Know It’s Not About Them

You’ve heard it before – the client is always first. But, it never will hit home until you’re an expert. You have to learn to separate your wants and desires from your clients’ wants and desires. The client’s case, and your analysis of it, is the focus of your activities.

Aren’t Afraid to Self-Promote

As an expert witness, you have to let go of shyness and promote yourself. Be known as the “go-to” person in your niche. You can’t get cases if you are too afraid to be a self-promoter.

Network Smart

Know how to pick and choose the right events and the right way to network with the right people. It’s about building relationships with the right people.

Developing success-oriented mindset and building your skills can be a process that you work on as you obtain cases as an expert. Identifying where you are deficient will help you move forward and become more successful as an expert.

 

The Successful Expert: Thoughts to Avoid

It’s hard to believe that your thoughts can play a huge role in whether or not you’ll experience success or failure. Not only that, those thoughts might cloud success, forcing you to downplay it instead of proudly celebrating it.

Imposter Syndrome

This is a true condition that a lot of men and women have. No matter how much success and kudos they achieve, they feel like a fraud. A good book by Harold Hillman can help you with this problem if you have it. The Imposter Syndrome: Becoming an Authentic Leader will help you realize that you’re uniquely qualified for what it is that you do and how to accept that.

Comparing Yourself to Others

You’ve heard of the term “Keeping up with the Joneses’” and it applies to business, too. Nursing experts often make a mistake thinking they need to be just like their competition. The main reason you study your competition is to see how you can be different. You’re a unique person with your own way of doing things and this is what makes you great.

Being Too Skeptical & Negative

Sometimes experience can make people become too negative and distrustful, which can cause you not to put your feet through a door that can mean great success for your business. Try to trust yourself that you know how to study a situation and determine whether it’s for you or not.

Being Preoccupied With What Others Think

If you spend all your time thinking about what everyone around you is thinking, you’ll never be able to be truly successful. Instead of thinking about what others think, consider what you think. Can you look in the mirror every day and be proud of your actions? That’s what’s important.

Overthinking Every Situation

It’s good to look at cases from every angle. Once you do that, you should be able to make a decision. Overthinking situations, though, can keep you stalled. That might stem from a fear of failure. While it’s not a bad thing in and of itself to worry about failure, if you’re too afraid of failure you may end up procrastinating on your decision, which can make it worse. Trust your instincts.

Dwelling On the Past

In business there is a term called “sunk costs”. This theory says that only future costs matter when making a decision. Even if you spent a thousand dollars on an idea, but after giving it your all you’re still losing money, it’s time to get out.

One of the biggest blockers of all is thinking perfection exists. Even thinking that any type of perfection exists can cause a problem with procrastination and not getting things done or changing your mind too much. It all boils down to accepting that good enough is good enough. You can always improve later.

But remember, your reports and analysis should be careful, detailed, and as perfect as you can make them. You’ll live with errors, typos, faulty conclusions, and pay the price.

Overcoming these success blockers takes accepting that you do them and that they exist. If you have often called yourself a perfectionist, take a hard look at yourself and you might find that you’re not a perfectionist at all, you’re just scared to be wrong and to fail. Let that go and move forward so that you can put some success under your belt. The more you know how that feels the more you’ll want to experience it.

Get my newest book, How to be a Successful Nursing Expert Witness, Second Edition. You’ll get valuable actionable tips. Order it here.

This book is for new and established nursing experts.

 

Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs in obtaining more clients, making more money, and achieving their business goals and dreams.

Join Pat’s Facebook group, LNC Business Growth Circle, for knowledge and support. Request membership here.

Pat’s related websites include the continuing education provided on LNCEU.com, the podcasts broadcast at podcast.legalnursebusiness.com, and writing tips supplied at patiyer.com.

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