Scales Of Success Podcast

#15 - Burnout, Boundaries and Breakthroughs with Melissa Mora

• Marcus Arredondo

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What if chasing success is draining your energy and stealing your joy? In this Scale of Success Podcast episode, host Marcus Arredondo connects with Melissa Mora, founder of Peak RN, who shares her journey from travel nursing to building a thriving coaching platform for nurses. She discusses burnout, redefining success, and embracing a balanced, meaningful life. Melissa offers practical tips for nurses and caregivers who feel stuck in the grind and want to reclaim their purpose. Discover how to break free from societal norms, manage stress, and create a life that aligns with your values.

Melissa Mora, MSN, RNC-OB, founded Peak RN, LLC, a company focused on professional nursing development. With over seven years of experience in obstetrics, gynecology, and neonatal care, Melissa combines her clinical expertise with a strong business leadership, project management, and education background. She began her nursing career at the University Health System in San Antonio, TX, where she earned multiple awards and served as a leader in evidence-based practice and maternal transport education. Melissa’s passion for empowering nurses led her to create Peak RN, where she supports their growth and well-being.

Reach out to Melissa Mora:
Website: https://www.peakrn.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peak-rn-llc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/peakrn
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/peakrn/

Episode highlights:
(1:46) Pursuing freedom, adventure, and a new vision for life
(4:57) Redefining success: Melissa’s journey
(9:44) Burnout and the birth of Peak RN
(14:28) Connecting with emotions, self, and re-parenting
(21:23)  Challenges and systemic issues in healthcare
(32:04) Coaching framework and tiny changes
(36:25) Surprises and lessons in coaching
(37:36) Entrepreneurial advice and future vision
(42:25) The future vision for Peak RN
(44:06) Signs of burnout to watch for
(47:42) Outro

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Note: The transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

Melissa Mora: 0:00

your body only has a capacity to do so much. And so living in that capacity, but also in alignment with what truly makes you happy, and I think, marcus, that's the thing People don't know what they like, right? People don't know, and so taking the time to kind of figure that out, right?

Marcus Arredondo: 0:18

Today's guest is Melissa Mora, a passionate advocate for helping nurses reclaim balance and purpose in their lives. By way of the platform she founded, PeakRN, Melissa embarked on a transformative journey, leaving the stable insurance career to follow her passion as a travel nurse. She shares the highs of adventure, the lows of constant relocation and how burnout during the pandemic inspired her to pivot toward coaching. In this episode, she offers tools for nurses to thrive beyond the bedside, as well as tips for challenging societal norms in healthcare. Let's start the show, Melissa. Thank you for being on. I'm excited to have you.

Melissa Mora: 0:52

Thank you. Thank you for the invite. I feel honored Welcome.

Marcus Arredondo: 0:56

For the benefit of the audience, melissa is not only an accomplished entrepreneur but also my cousin. So in fair disclosure, entrepreneur but also my cousin. So in the fair disclosure. But neither here nor there I wanted to. I try and kick this call or this conversation off sort of right to the heart of it and I like sort of digging in and using that as a means to sort of springboard and I was wondering if you might just sort of. I know you've gone through a lot of transitions in the creation of Peak RN, transitioning from insurance to nursing and then obviously into entrepreneurship. But I am curious about your move out of your own hometown, which is our own hometown of San Antonio, and navigating that process. I wonder if you can kick it off and start to tell us a little bit about what was entailed and how you navigated it.

Melissa Mora: 1:46

Yeah, I think so. I distinctly have. There was a moment when I was like this can't be it and I really want to explore the world. Ryan, my husband's dad had a debilitating illness and we were talking one day and he said I went to the Grand Canyon but I didn't get to experience it because of these limitations, and that, for some reason, stayed in my mind about life is really short and my dad also had cancer and so there was a lot of illnesses around me that really made me think about what. What is this life going to be like? What I? I love the outdoors.

Melissa Mora: 2:30

Obviously, san Antonio is hot, doesn't have a lot to offer with respect to like fun outdoor stuff, and so when my husband and I got married, we made a vow at our wedding that we were gonna move from San Antonio and start exploring our country, and the beauty of that was I was a nurse, right, so I was able to work in different areas of the country and explore things you know, really just moving out of the typical. You graduate, you take a job, you have a family and you have kids, right Like that's pretty much societal norms, right and we just felt that was not going to be our story and you know, when we left San Antonio, people were like what are you doing? Why are you going? You have this great job, you're excelling, you're you know, you're learning so much, you're making changes, and it just felt like I wanted more. You know, and I want to piggyback on that to say that is a blessing and a curse, right.

Melissa Mora: 3:32

I noticed that in myself after doing some work about there's got to be something more than this, right, and I didn't know exactly what that meant. But now, looking after I've done some therapy and some coaching, it's really was really about the story I had in my mind about what success look like, what life was supposed to quote unquote supposed to be like, you know, following other people's trajectories. So, yeah, I think the the transition itself because I have such a supportive husband and my parents were very supportive about the move those of us in Texas know about H-E-B right, the grocery stores, just all the things that come with moving from somewhere you're very familiar with. I spent like 37 years in San Antonio, so that's what I knew, but again, I think having the support and then having a career that was flexible really helped in that transition.

Marcus Arredondo: 4:44

Well, I think I've got a little bit of inside knowledge, obviously being a family member, so I want to pick on a couple of things here and see what we can unearth. First, you mentioned understanding what success meant to you, so what does success mean to you?

Melissa Mora: 5:00

I'll tell you what I thought it meant. I thought it was a financial situation, right, thought the story that was passed on from my parents, from their parents, whatever, wherever that story came from, I thought it was a financial thing. But now, today, it's about having balance, doing things that I love, finding meaning in my work. It's great that I have a business and that it's growing. You know, I think that's a positive, but really it's about, for me, it became about slowing down.

Melissa Mora: 5:31

I, my personality type, is to keep pushing, keep pushing, and I'm sure we'll talk about that burnout, but to keep pushing harder, to keep pushing more and to really give and people please and to be accepted. Give and people please and to be accepted. And in these past few years, I've realized that that's not sustainable. Right and health things come about from that.

Melissa Mora: 5:54

And you know, relationship, my relationship, started to suffer because of that mindset, and so success today is what I want it to be, which is like slowing down, being present, feeling this ease and like doing things where it's not this intense stress, and then also the physiological things that come with that, like not having a high heart rate and not being short of breath and not gaining weight. You know all these physical things that come along with the stresses of thinking what you should be doing. So you know all these physical things that come along with the stresses of thinking what you should be doing. So you know, and I think that's important for everyone to know, your audience, for all of us to realize, is you can define what success means for you and that if you live in alignment with that, then everything else kind of falls into place and it doesn't feel like this push, pull, this work, life balance and these struggles. It feels just a little more graceful and a little more present.

Marcus Arredondo: 6:51

How much of that definition of success in your pursuit was defined or informed by your dad being an entrepreneur?

Melissa Mora: 7:00

That was my, my starting story, for sure, was like what he was doing, right, you know, having this, having having a successful business and um you know what?

Marcus Arredondo: 7:09

did he do for the audience?

Melissa Mora: 7:10

Um, ppo, so employment, uh, placement, and so you know, basically, um, what's an easy way, it's not that it's similar to staffing, but you're leasing back employees to their businesses. And so you know he was financially successful. But I will say I saw him freaking suffer. He suffered every year when the renewal for insurance came around you know multimillion dollar insurance plans. He would get physically ill, like physically sick to his stomach getting. That's how we found out he had cancer and gallstones and all these other things that came along. And I just, you know, was like, oh, that's how you succeed is, like you just push hard, you just keep going at the cost of your health, at the cost of, you know, your relationships with your family and your kids and your wife and all the things. And I thought that was normal. I mean, there's how many people do you know that live like that right, like I'll?

Marcus Arredondo: 8:12

say every entrepreneur I know, including myself, has endured some level of sleepless nights of tension, if I won't go so far as to say an anxiety. But it certainly goes deeper than that, right? But um, to witness that firsthand. Uh, even in my own dad I, you know, I saw a little bit of that on occasion because, you know, sometimes the wave is good and you can ride it and it rides really nice and, and sometimes you get uh in the Tumblr and you get thrown upside down and you don't know which way is up.

Marcus Arredondo: 8:45

And you can do all the right things, setting up the enterprise, you can have the right people, but you know, there are so many things, I think you know running a business, which I want to explore with you. You identify how many things are outside of your control I've also found that out as a parent and you can only navigate the things that you have the resources to. And you know it's not so much, in my opinion, about avoiding those circumstances, but to better metabolize it right, to better process it and to bring new and effective skill sets to endure it without facing the same physical consequences and emotional consequences. So, on that note, you having gone through some of this burnout. I'm hoping that you can share a little bit about that. What transpired and gave you the idea, which I'm sure took many months and potentially years to actually come to fruition? But what happened and how did it result in you developing Peak RN?

Melissa Mora: 9:58

So Peak RN started particularly as a continuing nursing education. Right, that was my passion. I love teaching. I found that out early in my nursing career and so that's where I started. So PICRN has been around since before.

Melissa Mora: 10:11

I started doing coaching and personal development type stuff, and so my career as a nurse I was second career nurse. I had this mentality that I needed to catch up with my peers. Like here these women are, they know what the hell they're doing. I'm this newbie, I don't know what the hell's going on. My specialty is labor and delivery, and so it felt very like.

Melissa Mora: 10:32

I felt very responsible for people's lives, which I am like two people, mom and baby and so there was this tremendous amount of stress that the job was putting on me. But I was putting on myself right, like to excel, to learn. I enrolled in extra classes, I went into the ICUs to learn how to manage critically ill patients. I was going above and beyond, I was volunteering, I was saying yes to all the things because I thought I wasn't enough, I thought I was behind, and that's things. Because I thought I wasn't enough, I thought I was behind, and that's really been my story of like overcoming the enoughness, you know, and so, as I, you know, was in the trenches of like doing the things I never took time for myself and and really, you know, self care is one thing like taking a hot bath and like doing a meditation but really unpacking some of the mindset stuff and the unconscious behaviors that were playing out in my life, that wasn't until, you know, I, after travel, nursing, that I started exploring that and that came about because I was involved with a nurse leader group who, um, there was some amazing mentors and coaches to me where they introduced me to the framework of well-being and I'll just it's called the PERMA model and Dr Martin Seligman is the doctor who created this framework. There's tons of literature about it, the School of Positive Psychology, this is their framework that they use and that was really my introduction into well being in like I took a survey and it was like, oh, you are scoring low in meaning and accomplishment, like pretty much everywhere except health, because you know I was personal health has been my thing. So I was like, holy shit, this is a huge opportunity for me to like try something different. Obviously, the shit I'm doing isn't working right. I'm continuing to feel stressed, I feel guilty when I call in, I feel guilty from not picking up a shift, I feel guilty for saying no. And nobody was making me feel that guilt, it was me.

Melissa Mora: 12:39

It was my own story about you know that I have to show up and I have to perform and I have to be this quote, unquote superwoman, which is just not realistic. You know, we're human and we have to bring that humanity to our business. And even as a nurse, you know, working in a hospital it's like we're, we feel the stress of taking care of a sick patient, but we still have to take care of ourselves, right? We forget to take the five minute break, we don't go pee for several hours, you know, don't eat lunch or whatever it is.

Melissa Mora: 13:12

So there was this, this moment, when I got introduced to this framework through a great friend of mine, and it was really like surface level stuff, you know, it was all intellectual and I was trying to like do it in a mental state and it wasn't until I found another coach her name is Alyssa Nobriga, and the Institute for Coaching Mastery was the program that I enrolled in and that program was a year long program and we went deep. I'd never gone that deep in my life, I mean, even in therapy sessions. It was just this whole new approach and trying different things and where it really was like, oh my God, there is something on the other side of this. I don't have to feel tired, I don't have, and I was working nights so I felt drunk all the time, like literally drunk. I don't have to drink as often, right, I don't have to eat like crap, I can still exercise and have friends and all the time like literally drunk. I don't have to drink as often, right, I don't have to eat like crap, I can still exercise and have friends and all the things that really rejuvenate and nourish me, and still be a nurse and take care of patients. Right, it doesn't have to be one or the other. And I think breaking that black and white mindset good and bad judgment really helped me become grounded and like notice.

Melissa Mora: 14:28

Now I notice in my body when things are happening or when I'm starting to feel those flutters in my heart or wherever I'm, I'm noticing those, those emotions, right, and I for me it was growing up Emotions were like, oh, it's okay, you're going to be okay, everything's okay, right, and I continued that into adulthood and that doesn't serve anybody, right, like feel the feelings. My vocabulary for emotions still isn't amazing. I don't know if you've ever seen that emotion wheel, but I'm like I don't even know what the hell half of you or even mean. So, like you know, just recognizing that emotions are sensations in the body. I know this to some people might sound a little woo or heady, but there is, there's some science behind it too, and as a science person, you know I love to read about those studies and the things that come out of.

Melissa Mora: 15:21

You know the psychology space, right, and so really being able to see things as just it is what it is, and learning from it, right, like taking obstacles and challenges as an opportunity for growth and not seeing them as like, oh, I have that damn hard patient and she won't shut up and she keeps complaining. You know, that was really when I, when I was telling myself those stories. When I think back, I'm like I was super critical. I was like talking shit about my patients and why the hell am I here? Then I'm a freaking nurse, like what am I here to do? To talk shit about my patients or to serve them? That was another one of those like flags and like I got to do something about this. I cannot be a nurse for another 30 years and have this terrible voice and talking shit about my patients like that. They're obviously going to feel it at some point, you know you can't, you can't deny that.

Melissa Mora: 16:13

So the journey is of really recognizing that has been the most transformative experience in my life, which is what I want to share with other people, and you know I'm I'm, I'm hoping to to bring awareness into the nursing space, but this is for all caregivers. I mean, I'm sure you can relate to this as a dad, right Like this kind of along those same lines and and any kind of caregiver is going to experience this the sense of like over responsibility and so kind of checking that, taking a step back and like recognizing that they too are individuals. So let's empower, you know, the people that we serve, our kids, our family, whoever that is.

Marcus Arredondo: 16:59

So I want to talk about how screwed up our medical system is in a second, because I think it's informative on what nurses have to endure what's coming from their side and I think I want willing to share that stands out as an, as a representation of what, uh, transformation or um sequence of some processes that you went through and where you started and where you, where you came out, so to speak.

Melissa Mora: 17:39

Yeah, so my personality type I don't know if you've ever done any of the Enneagram or anything like that. I'm an achiever right, and that comes from a childhood experience in that this is something that I unpacked during this program. And why do I have this over responsibility? Why do I always want to achieve? Why do I have 25 letters after my name? Why do I have all these certificates and degrees and all this and never feeling satisfied? So that's where I started, like what is that about Right? Why do I keep wanting more instead of being where I'm at Right?

Melissa Mora: 18:15

And through one of the processes it was I can't remember exactly how we accessed it, but it was during kind of a meditation or a closed kind of you know process that when I look back, you know I can't even remember what the questions are, how the sequence went.

Melissa Mora: 18:34

But when I look back, I remembered myself as like eight or nine years old and I got my first fee and my parents were like you got to be like why didn't you get an A? And it was so eye opening. In that moment, of course, I cried and was like holy shit, I've been holding that on since. That is the story that I've been living that to receive love and to be accepted and to have belonging, I have to freaking, achieve and bust my ass all throughout my life. Right, that was the story I told and so you know, in that moment I saw my eight year old self and um, with my evolved, you know, mature Melissa reparented her and gave her the regave her the love that she needed, in saying like, hey, it's okay, if you didn't make a B, that means nothing about you.

Melissa Mora: 19:34

You're gonna have another opportunity. You have 20 years of school ahead of you. This is not the end, right? And so a lot of dialogue, a lot of reparenting work really helped me kind of get past that. Plus, there's some like somatic things, right. So just doing some breath work and then living in your body more and recognizing the sensations is another avenue that I explored, which I had never explored before, and really felt like what the hell?

Melissa Mora: 20:03

You know, growing up in a Catholic school, you know, I was very skeptical of this religion crap and then, as, equally, the spiritual stuff. But it's not the same. Spirituality is not religion, is kind of where I've landed, in that we can have a spiritualness and a being, and this, this inner knowing and sense that, you know, is kind of inexplicable, right, like you can't identify that, but there's something to it, I mean, as is life in human form, like what the hell is that? That's so bizarre too, right? You know, in this whole cell of mass, right, we have a soul, we have a sense, and so, yeah, I think there was a lot of reparenting, lots of like connection with my emotions, which I was very disconnected from.

Melissa Mora: 20:56

Like I said, I didn't know what my emotion, I was feeling, I didn't have the vocabulary for it and I would often just ignore it by either drinking, going out for a run, like just ignoring it, whatever modality I was into at the time. So connecting on a somatic level, connecting on an emotional level to the parts of me that needed that, that support and that love, and then obviously, mindset work, which I don't know if you've heard of Byron Katie, but a lot of mindset work, unconscious reprogramming, so, yeah, a lot of different tools, which is which was really great about the program. Alyssa was a therapist but she moved into the coaching space, so she brought some of her therapy tools into her program and I think that comprehensive kind of way really helped me peel back the layers to find out what was getting in the way and holding me back.

Marcus Arredondo: 21:55

That's really I think. I sort of look at therapy as a form of coaching. Yeah, I think that reframing has been helpful. So let's, let's dive into the medical world for a little while. Ok, and so, as somebody who really I consider myself fortunate, I haven't had many encounters, but over the last two years, since the birth of my son, I have had more in the last two years than I have in the last 15 combined, right and the first.

Marcus Arredondo: 22:23

I'll just highlight two instances. One unfortunately my wife. When she went into labor on a Monday morning, she ended up having a C-section on a Wednesday night. That was a long period. When the anesthesia wore off, there was a good 12 hours where she had no medication. It was extraordinarily painful. I've never. She is one of the toughest people I know, and it still gets me a little bit choked up because there was no continuity of from one shift to the next. And it wasn't until a nurse who was probably in her early 60s came in and said oh honey, you haven't had any medication for the last 12 years and I cannot tell you. I ran up and down the halls, I spoke to every single one of the nurses. No one seemed to give a shit.

Marcus Arredondo: 23:23

And I'm going to pause for one second and fast forward to like three weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago. My son, we get a phone call from daycare. You should come check your son out. Pause for one second and fast forward to like three weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago. My son uh, we get a phone call from daycare. You should come check your son out. Uh, there was an incident. He he fell and his arm is hurting. I go, I look, his arm is broken. It's broken to the naked eye, completely clear.

Marcus Arredondo: 23:46

I go to the er and it's a pediatric ER in Westwood. It's the one we knew had pediatric assistance available and for a two-year-old it's different than a seven-year-old. So you're more relegated to fewer opportunities. We were there for seven and a half hours. There was several one-hour spans where no one checked in on us. There was several one-hour spans where no one checked in on us. We had attempted to give some time to him and we got a little bit in Hours later. He was uncomfortable. So I am looking. I mean, if you look at the file it shows which we all can access.

Marcus Arredondo: 24:24

Now Father seems a little perturbed by what's going on. Then father seems a little frustratedurbed by what's going on. Then father seems a little frustrated. Father is increasingly curious and I will say my pleasantries were reduced at each successive interaction.

Marcus Arredondo: 24:40

I was more direct and more inquisitive. So one point where somebody the resident came in and offered to give him Oxy and I said the kid's two years old and they're like, well, we can give him ketamine. And it was like we really jumped through a lot of things here without full education and I finally got the attending in there who placated everybody who understood what was going on, much like the nurse who was 60 years old, had a lot of seasoning, but there were so many rungs that got up that I had to go up to actually get that level of care or consideration. But it all seemed to stem from a lack of informing. One shift to the next, one nurse to the next. And I want you to maybe share the other side of this because as an infuriated dad or husband, it's such an unpleasant experience and I don't think it needs to be. It's already unpleasant because if you're in a hospital there's likely some challenge you're facing, but what don't we know about nursing?

Melissa Mora: 25:54

Well, the L&D stuff. We'll go to the first story. There's no excuse for that. The standard is that you give you alternate Tylenol and Motrin every four hours. Right, there is no excuse for that. There are orders as soon as the patient has a C-section or even a vaginal delivery. Those orders are placed to ensure that the patient has around the clock pain management, because that is not an easy thing, right, especially a C-section. So there is no excuse there. I mean, was the nurse, could it be? So I'll just. You went through the whole L&D process.

Melissa Mora: 26:36

It's supposed to be a one-on-one patient scenario. Oftentimes it's not. You need to be in the room hands-on with your patient to ensure, you know, the safety of mom and baby, right, once the baby's delivered, we can kind of slow down a little bit, but oftentimes hospitals are giving that nurse another laboring patient. So your nurse probably delivered, your wife took off to another room and had to deliver another patient. Right, that's just the way. Staff and I'll just tell you, staffing in California is way better than Texas, florida, some of those southern states Forget it, like you'll probably. Just, you know there will be an adverse outcome, right? So we're lucky that we're in California, that we do have a little bit of rules quote unquote where we can't have, we shouldn't have, more than two patients.

Melissa Mora: 27:30

As a labor and delivery nurse In Texas, in Florida I've heard some of my colleagues that have traveled down there they have three, sometimes four patients. How the hell could you possibly take care of four people at a time? It's impossible. When I'm doing charting every 15 minutes or every 30 minutes, repositioning all the things that come along with having a baby, you physically have to be in the room, right, so there's really no excuse for that. But I think that's part of the problem. Number one is staffing, in that we're seen as an expense right.

Melissa Mora: 28:05

When the hospitals see nursing as an expense, where's service? Right, and until the system moves to an outcome driven, um, uh, like platform, you know, where are people getting better? Are they coming back? Is their infection rate? You know, because of the c-section, whatever that is, until our insurance, until our government gets on board with that, we're going to continue to have the problem that we do, which, then, because I have three patients and I'm trying to manage all this shit, I'm freaking, stressed out. I'm still not going to the bathroom. I'm still right, and you probably aren't sleeping well, right, you probably aren't eating. Right, your brain is not firing, you're not fast, you're not, you're not able to connect the dots to see when something, to sense, when something's going wrong, right, so you're really taxing your system when you're, when you're really being stretched thin, and I will say for the ed nurses, it's even worse, right, especially, probably where you are, there's not a lot of nurses that specialize in pediatrics.

Melissa Mora: 29:15

You know, a lot of people go into the adult world and their loads are even heavier. So heavy loads, silly insurance and legislation, or lack thereof, right, this broken system of you know, or lack thereof? Right, this broken system of you know we pay for how many patients we seek, like what the hell is that you know?

Marcus Arredondo: 29:36

Yeah, it's such a far cry from my experience as a kid, although that was in many hospitals, but even doctor visits, it just seems nobody seems to care.

Melissa Mora: 29:46

It's changed in our lifetime for sure. Right, Like people, that personal responsibility I mean. You had a good relationship. You could call your doctor.

Melissa Mora: 29:53

I remember my doctor, we had we had his number, we would call my pediatrician if, like, I had some flu or like whatever, I needed antibiotics or like whatever it was. That doesn't exist anymore. There's this bureaucratic bullshit You're going to get somebody you know at the front desk who passes it to nursing, then they need to screen and then they pass it to the doctor maybe right, and depending on what that doctor is loaded. So there's very. There's so many, like I know we talk about this one of my girlfriends often and it's just like where do you start? Like where the hell do you start? And for me it's been about like I want to give nurses back their power to recognize, you know, maybe setting boundaries, being more vocal, get involved in legislation.

Melissa Mora: 30:39

I am reaching out to our House of Reps and our senators writing letters about people needing more time off and that nursing should not be an expense, right, like hospitals. Most hospitals are in business for a profit not all of them, but most of them, right. And the ones that aren't? Why can't we take some learnings from them and use that in um in these private institutions? What's really even more ridiculous is like the turnover that happens in these institutions. It's not cheap to train a nurse. It's not cheap to train a tech. It's not cheap to train a new, you know, ultrasound person or a PC or whatever it is. So let's freaking get the people that are doing their job and keep them where they are, but let's make them happy. I don't understand from a business perspective. I'm sure you can rate, like, if you keep your, your employees happy, they're going to step up for you Right, and they're going to want to be a part of what you're doing.

Marcus Arredondo: 31:38

Well, what seems odd is there's no best practices being shared.

Melissa Mora: 31:42

And there's tons of literature out there for best practices. It's up to those individual institutions to implement them. It takes a ton of energy and leadership and a lot of like back and forth. You know, the nurse has got to agree with the providers and then administration has to agree with that, and so there's a lot of layers to it. I mean it's like government right, you'll never get anything done. I remember for us to do one change at the hospital in San Antonio. It took an entire year right, doing the literature, educating the nurses, working through the key, doing a plan, plan do, study, act and making the process improvement, writing the policy, implementing it, implementing it into the EMR a whole year for one change, which was? The change was, instead of estimating blood loss by looking at somebody's blood loss, weighing it and when you think about that that's not freaking hard.

Melissa Mora: 32:42

Just put the damn thing on the scale and freaking. Weigh it. Why did it take a year? Why yeah?

Marcus Arredondo: 32:48

Right it. Why did it take a year? Why, yeah, right. Well, on that note, let's talk about, uh, how some of this applies to the own the, the people that you're coaching your own nurses, what, how do you? You can't obviously distill everything, all of your coaching, uh, in a in a short explanation, but what are some of the principles that guide how you, how you, coach?

Melissa Mora: 33:11

So we I also use a framework right Like it's helpful, in that, you know, we first start with kind of unpacking the things, um, that may be getting in the way of your goals. So we start there by looking at you know, where do you want to be, what do you envision your life to look like, or what would be the perfect life If somebody gave you, um a one wish you want to be? What do you envision your life to look like? Or what would be the perfect life If somebody gave you a one wish? What would that be right? And unpacking that to see, like, what are some of the things that get in the way.

Melissa Mora: 33:38

And once we've identified, or we've kind of figured out, what some of those blocks are, that's when we go in that kind of deeper level to unpack. You know, where did those blocks stem from? Is this a pattern of yours? How does it show up in your life? When has it previously showed up? What are you doing about it now? And then trying to upgrade that approach. You know, once we've done there is some like meditation that I include and and and through that process, after you know we've, and through that process, after we've identified some of those blocks is getting really grounded and letting that intuition come. Like, instead of doing my old thing, I'm going to try that new thing Right, and making these and when I'm saying tiny, I mean super tiny right, like the smallest little change incrementally just adds up. You know over time which you know right. Like you can eat you can eat an elephant, one spoon at a time, or whatever the saying is right. Like it's like that.

Melissa Mora: 34:54

And so working with people, you know being strategic, and I like to work with people in their, their goals. You know, maybe they want a career advancement or maybe they want to move into another specialty or they want to decide, if they want to, you know, get into academia. I like working with people that have those kinds of goals because you know it's very solid. And when we do this process, you know it's about assessing, looking at, you know what those blocks are and then taking a line action. We kind of go through that cycle in multiple phases because it's not just a one and done, and I'm a perfect example of that. I've, you know, gone through burnout twice. It's like you're going to have to continuously upgrade your approach and know. But having the tools is really important, right.

Melissa Mora: 35:35

So that's what I do is I hold the space for people to be able to try things. If it doesn't work, we pivot, we try something else, and so it's holding someone accountable to that, and so it's not nursing specific. I mean, this would be applicable to really, to really anyone. But I understand the nurse troubles, right, and I'm like, right, that's a story. You're telling yourself that you can't do this, or you, you're, you're never going to be able to be this, this thing, and so next year I'm planning to do like a group program to kind of bring in that community aspect.

Melissa Mora: 36:14

I think that really helps for people to be surrounded and to say like, oh yeah, I'm going through that too. You know, this is not, this is not new. We're all humans, we're all nurses, we all have families. So trying to find that balance, and and then the last, the last piece of that is really, you know, it doesn't just when we talk about reaching your goals in nursing and we start working through some of these blocks and patterns that come up, it ends up impacting all areas of your life. You know what I mean? It's not just the profession, which I think people are surprised by, right. I think they're like oh wow, I have a better, I'm able to better communicate with my partner or even my child, right Like I have better boundaries with my children, and that was kind of a side benefit of going through a coaching package with me or with anyone.

Marcus Arredondo: 37:07

Sure, what do you think has been most surprising as a result of developing this program and having clientele in this realm?

Melissa Mora: 37:17

There's so many different personalities, right, like there's so many different people. What I found interesting is I attract people that are similar to me, and that they're high achievers, they're people pleasers, and so that you know the universe and the world, in a way of like, I've overcome some of that, and so they're giving me a reflection, you know, back to me, to way of like, I've overcome some of that, and so they're giving me a reflection, you know, back to me to see if, like, can I hold the space to help somebody else do this as well.

Melissa Mora: 37:46

You know Well, it's not terribly surprising that achievers would see coaches either.

Marcus Arredondo: 37:48

You know, because it's, I think there's an implicit label that if you're getting some form of coaching, something's wrong. If you're getting some therapy, there's something wrong. But I think the counterpoint to that is really things could be going really great and you could be seeking a better way to do it. And it's a constant form of achievement, it's a form of improvement. And on that note, I'm curious what advice on the business side? You've gone through the trenches of developing the business, coming up with the themes, the practices. What advice would you give yourself if you were to redo this or talk to your younger self? What advice would you give?

Melissa Mora: 38:28

Oh my God, stop being so damn critical. That is my thing. You know, women are, I think, just a little more critical about their appearance and all the things, but I am a critic of all the emails and the content I'm putting out or whatever. So, just allowing myself a little more grace, and you know, when I hired somebody like to help me part time, that was like a huge deal for me. I'm like, oh my god, I'm losing some control. But looking back, it was like that was literally the best thing for me. That allowed me to focus on the things that I really needed to focus on. And you know, when I you know so, let's say, five years ago, melissa, don't focus on the shit. That doesn't make a difference, right? People don't really care that much about your website, like they really don't. So focus on the things that matter right and that's building the relationship creating.

Melissa Mora: 39:22

For me, it was creating the nursing content, making sure I'm delivering it in a certain way. Focus on that stuff, not the shit that doesn't matter, and the billing and the systems and what you're going to use. Like you could use a Google file, you can use an Excel document. You know what I mean. Like, don't get fancy. I think keeping it simple and I'm sure you know I've heard other people say this Just keeping it simple will get you a lot further. You people tend to complicate things right, make things more than what they are. So, yeah, that would have been my advice. Give yourself some grace you got this girl and focus on what matters, not what doesn't.

Marcus Arredondo: 40:00

Well, and also I mean perfection is the enemy of progress.

Melissa Mora: 40:03

Oh, yes, right, oh, hell yeah.

Marcus Arredondo: 40:06

So how would you advise maybe another nurse who is in nursing and wants to go into a path of entrepreneurship which is less known, which is less stable, less reliable?

Melissa Mora: 40:19

Yeah, and I think you know, evaluating that and determining, like, again, that goes back to your vision. If your vision is to create on your own, then that's what needs to happen, right, like, if that's what you feel in your heart once we've unpacked some things, it's like then that's where, that's where you need to go and and the path is not going to be linear. I mean, you know that you're, you're entrepreneur journey, right Like, we all dig and zag, and so you know, I think, if, if you're, my other thought when I, when I hear people saying they want to leave nursing, is like do you really want to leave nursing or is there something about nursing that's unsettling in your body? Right Like, let's get clear on that. First, I'm not trying to make all nurses leave nursing, definitely not. You know there's people that truly love it. So, connecting, reconnecting with that, but giving yourself, you know, the permission to have self care and the boundaries and all the things to live a healthy life as a nurse.

Melissa Mora: 41:18

But if you truly want to take that next step, you know, yes, the journey is going to be unstable. Having a support system, definitely, having a mentor throughout the transition, and it doesn't have to be me. There's so many nurses now that are doing entrepreneurial stuff that find someone that's in the space that you want to go to and ask them questions, figure out their paths, learn from their mistakes. Right, and again go back to keeping it simple and doing one thing at a time. I was trying to start a program while I was trying to get my certification in coaching, and doing too many things at once is a recipe for disaster, right? And to get back to the burnout. So do one thing great, make it replicable over time, and then let's pivot and try something else, which I'm sure that's applicable in your field too. Right, one thing at a time.

Marcus Arredondo: 42:13

Well, something I've learned. You know it's easy to feel like you're not moving forward, especially when you're you're the only one you know, you're your own boss, you're the one you're setting your own deadlines. No one's telling you that your website needs to be this or that, nobody's saying that it needs to be up by this certain timeframe, but you set those boundaries to move forward and it seems like nothing's moving forward for so long oftentimes. But if you still, if you're doing that little thing, if you're doing what matters to move that forward, it starts to break through. It happens.

Marcus Arredondo: 42:51

But I will say, in all the endeavors I've gone down, there's a long period before there's some opening you know, there's a lot of clouds before you know the it starts to clear and you start to see some forward progress. So, um, a couple of things here I wanted to talk about, um, before we start to bring this in for a close. Um, what do you see for peak RN into the future? I mean for a close, what do you see for Peak RN into the future? I mean, what's your? What do you want to? What do you envision this becoming? Do you have an idea of what it looks like 10 years from now?

Melissa Mora: 43:31

I do. Yeah, I mean, I want to continue growing groups and having programs where we're, where I'm working with, not just one-on-one you know I love the one-on-one because it's very personal and we hold each other, you know, accountable. But in a group setting, to have a bigger reach, honestly, I think the need is there in that, when you look at some of the data on the American Nurses Association and you know burnout levels are slowing down but still 75% of nurses are feeling burnt out at some point in their career in the last 12 months. So it's like that's not good and sustainable for the healthcare industry, right? So, I think, getting a larger reach and then also doing some presentations you know I do small presentations here and there, but on a larger scale, some of the, the nursing conferences, um, to really explore this and to normalize that it's okay to take care of yourself.

Melissa Mora: 44:24

You know, I think people think that's selfish or you know they're, um, self-centered, whatever the word you want to attach to that and it's really not. It's like your body only has a capacity to do so much and so, living in that capacity, but also in alignment with what, what would truly make you happy and and I think, marcus, that's the thing. People don't know what they like, right? People don't know. And so taking the time to kind of figure that out, right, you know, and I'm saying that as 44, before you're at- 43 years old.

Melissa Mora: 44:57

Well, that's constantly changing right, yeah, that's getting to know who you are and who you are.

Marcus Arredondo: 45:00

Evolved time yeah, I think burnout can happen as a little bit like boiling a frog. What? What are some signs that you would suggest people look out for?

Melissa Mora: 45:09

cynicism, criticism, lack of sleep, waking up at 3 am, um, turning to other substances, alcohol, whatever it is, um, some people it's like an eating addiction, right? Um, I have a nurse friend who she was 260 and her her drug of choice was food, right, and so she gained all this weight. And then what comes along with the weight? All the freaking health problems, right? So then you know, if you can recognize, for me it was a little bit of that, like what I was telling you when I was talking shit about my patients like no, like no. God is definitely a sign.

Melissa Mora: 45:51

So, criticism, cynicism, you know, feeling like you want more or not knowing what to do, the confusion, and then all the physical symptoms that come along with that. And so there could be IBS or diarrhea and, like you know, shortness of breath, even some of the skin things that come up. Right, you're just so dysregulated in your, in your body that it doesn't know what to do, your cortisol so jacked up that there's no, there's never a time that your body is like in a state of relaxation, you know. And so sleep definitely is one of those, you know, waking up in the middle of the night, not being able to go to bed insomnia. I mean, those are the big ones I had. I had a um, a friend of mine who had a hypertensive crisis at work and you know, meaning her blood pressure was out of control. Um related to stress, right, internalizing a lot of the hospital stress as your own is not um helpful, and so you know if you're unable to ask for help or feel like you're alone.

Marcus Arredondo: 46:55

Those are some other signs, right, and you're crazy that the story we're telling ourselves about the reality in front of us can actually have an impact on our physiology. It is amazing. It's all just a figment of our imagination.

Melissa Mora: 47:10

It's amazing yeah.

Marcus Arredondo: 47:11

Yeah.

Melissa Mora: 47:11

The mind is so powerful that you know you can, you know the know the placebo effect right, you can trick yourself into feeling well, so like, why not capitalize on that? Your brain doesn't know whether or not it's real right, it doesn't, it doesn't know. So, yeah, I, I, I love that, that thought. It's just like you can create this, this illness, out of nothing, and I, I know people that have done that, and it's um, family members, actually, so sure, yeah, I think.

Marcus Arredondo: 47:44

I think there's a Shakespearean phrase that's uh, there's no good or bad, but thinking makes it so, exactly so um well, thank you so much, I think.

Marcus Arredondo: 47:51

Look, I think this was informative to me. I hope this was informative to others about, uh, I think, the challenges that nurses face, but there's a large common denominator among, I think, all people um, in a number of different realms, any, uh. Well, first of all, what if people want to get ahold of you, what's the best way to get ahold of you and who would you want to hear from?

Melissa Mora: 48:12

Yeah, I mean peakrncom is my website. I have a great freebie out that's geared toward nurses but really it's applicable to anybody and it's peakrncom backslash freebie and you know, I think I'd be happy to chat with anyone that's open and wanting to explore. You know, this coaching thing. If they've never done that before, I do have a network of other coaches that I can refer to. You know if, if they're looking for a particular person that works in like professional development or corporate or whatever that looks like. So, yeah, I mean, I love working with women particularly. That's my passion. So, yeah, any woman that's listening.

Marcus Arredondo: 48:53

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on any closing thoughts you have.

Melissa Mora: 48:56

No, I really appreciate your time, Marcus. This has been so fun and I'm so proud of you.

Marcus Arredondo: 49:01

Thank you, I love you. Thank you so much for being on, yeah thank you, have a good one.