Season 2: Episode 7 - Stephanie Holvick, RN - Nurses CAN Do Anything - Even Launch a Successful Skin Care Company!

Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast with this week's guest, Stephanie Halvik. Stephanie began her nursing career in 1982, specializing in surgery. While working in the field of plastic surgery, she took the first step into the aesthetic nursing world. Fast forward to today's time, And she is a very successful nurse entrepreneur with her very own skincare company where she travels the country, not only taking care of people's skin imperfections, but also teaching other nurses how they can also do the same thing and lead a very successful, very satisfying, and very rewarding career. So let's welcome Stephanie to the show. Welcome to the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast, brought to you by The Nurse Speak, a show where we rally some of our nation's greatest nurse leaders, educators, experts, and advocates to tackle some of our greatest challenges that the nursing profession faces. My name is Damion Jenkins, and I'm your host for this show. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn that nurses You can do anything. Okay, Stephanie, thank you so much for being on the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast. Why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to the listeners? Let them know a little bit about who you are, where you started in nursing, and where you are today.

Oh, well, thank you so much, Damion Jenkins, for having me today. I'm so pro-nurse and love nurses, so here goes. I'm a registered nurse. My name is Stephanie Halvik. I have an associate's degree from Atlanta Community College in South Jersey. I graduated in 1982 and immediately had the desire to work in the operating room, but I had to go through my paces and go to med surg, a little home health. Finally, I made it to the big leagues in the operating room where I spent about 20 years, uh, mentoring other nurses while at my craft. And 10 years into my nursing career, I did take a permanent makeup course because I really wanted to help individuals who had suffered from either blindness. Some, some of my clients had multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, and burn victims. So I wanted to help that community. Not only did I found— find that I helped the community, but it was a raging business for myself, which I had in tandem with being PRN in the operating room. And then 4 years did both of those professions until I got into the skin aspect of nursing. So taking care of skin integrity is super important as nurses, and I took it further with my cosmetic business and eventually let the bedside or the operating room table go for good. And I'm now in just my own business as a solo entrepreneur, um, where I help others, other nurses and skincare professionals, um, elevate their cosmetic career with courses that I train others to do and equipment. So this has led me, um, since 1982 till now, which is quite a while, but still total nursing.

Wow. So I mean, this is the dream, right? You You realized what you enjoyed and you went for it and you were able to make a successful career out of that. You know, 1982, I was, I was 1. So it's a long time. Yeah. So 40 years.

Go ahead, rub it in.

I'm not. Hey, I'm just saying, 40 years, you've done some amazing things, and it takes some people a lifetime and they don't even get to this point. So this is pretty incredible. Um, you know, I've had the pleasure of meeting you in person at the National Nurses in Business Association, and that very first interaction with you, uh, instantly impressed me and made me want to be more like you myself, because I could see that not only are you an excellent nurse through your communication skills and your ability to train and educate and lead people to doing the right things for themselves. But also, I can see right away you're a successful business person, and it's because you've aligned yourself with what you love to do. And I think that's what many of us do and why many of us stay in nursing despite the challenges we face, because we love being nurses, right?

Totally. Absolutely.

How much we can do. And this, I say it every podcast episode, nurses can do everything or anything. So, okay, so you've done incredible, you're doing incredible. So you have lots of wisdom to share with the listeners here. So let's talk about what is the one thing that challenge the, the, you know, issue that you see here in nursing. We'll talk about that first, and then we'll talk about some strategies that surround that.

Well, of course, in this day and age with what's been going on the past couple of years, there has been a lot of nurse burnout.

Yeah.

As they're at the bedside. So I feel like nurses have really taken on such great roles in what's been going on in the past couple of years with COVID and the total number of ICU nurses needed and all of that. So there's been so much more responsibility put on the nurses. Um, the rate of burnout is incredible, I feel.

Yeah, for sure. So burnout is not new, right? Burnout happened way before COVID Burnout's been an issue forever. Um, you know, like yourself, I've worked with nurses who have been nurses for 30, 40, sometimes 50 years, and they're still hanging in there. And it's always been part of the role because it's a giving role. We're always giving and very Seldom do we have a chance to restore our own health, our own wellness, our own needs, because we're always tending to others. And we know, you know, big capitalism is going to play on that. As much as we're willing to give, they're going to keep on taking. So burnout's a big deal. And there's lots of people that surround themselves around trying to mitigate the damage that burnout causes. So how did you manage that? Or what strategies do you have to offer individuals who might be feeling that burnout?

Well, even when you're a new nurse or, or an old nurse like me, you need to diversify within nursing. And I know you talk about this a lot on your podcasts, As nurses, from the first day you get that license, you need to be thinking not about one pigeonhole. You need to think about it long term so that you don't get that burnout. Always have an exit strategy within your specialty. If you are going into med surg, just know you will not die there. The next step is got to be another department, maybe another type of nursing, maybe away from the bedside, but always have that plan that keeps your nursing career in check. Because I don't wanna leave nursing. I always wanna be a nurse.

Right.

And be a champion for nurses. But you need to move around a little bit. You cannot do the exact same nursing strategy your entire career.

Right.

You just, besides being burned out, you'll, it'll, you'll be irrelevant. Relevant. You need to stay fresh and focused and have new ideas and learn new things. And I think that will help a lot of nurses, especially in the beginning, realize that there is so much out there. Yes, go to the hospital, get your hospital work, but know that you're not going to do that forever. Yeah, you need to be your own boss.

Yeah, that's such great advice because honestly what they're telling you when you start working is the opposite. Of that, right? Hospital administrators and even some nurse managers will tell you that jumping around is a bad thing. Getting a variety of experiences is a bad thing because you'll become a jack of all trades and a master of none. And they kind of, you know, will make you think that that's a bad thing, but really it's just a control tactic. It's a control tactic so they can manage their numbers, so that they can have safety in knowing that their staff are going to show up. But, you know, at the end of the day, the only obligation a nurse has is to their patients in the moment that they've accepted that assignment. Beyond that, you have no obligation to anyone else. Um, obligation to yourself and obligation to your patients. But so often healthcare institutions, especially our traditional bedside facilities, they will play on our heartstrings to try to make us feel that we're doing the wrong thing by getting those different experiences, by going for the additional certification, for going for an advanced degree, for trying to become an entrepreneur and start a business. And they have little to no support for that because it doesn't help them with their bottom line. And so that's such good advice, and I want everyone to hear this advice very strongly because I've always trusted my instinct and I bounced around and I got a variety of experiences. And when I felt like I was hitting a roadblock in one area, I pivoted and went to the other. And in a very short period of time in my nursing career, within the first 5 years, I felt like I had 20 years of experience because I did so many different things— travel nursing, adjunct faculty for teaching, and at the same college I graduated from. I traveled to several states, you know, I was charge nurse, I helped develop training programs, customer satisfaction programs, you know, all kinds of stuff. Then I launched my own business, all within a very short period of time after being a nurse, because I never stayed in one place too long. And so that's excellent. So the variety is really a great key to keeping it fresh, like you said, and avoiding the sense of, you know, doom and gloom, right? Because we can get burned out by the same thing all the time, right?

Right. Nurses are so lucky we can make our own schedules. And you mentioned that you were a travel nurse, as I was at one point too. And nurses somehow don't believe that they're entrepreneurs, when I know when I became travel nurse, I became my own boss. I dictated my salary, what my benefits were. I negotiated those things. You don't always get a chance to do that in the very beginning, but a little bit more experience, you're actually in business for yourself. Yeah. So you need to act like it and negotiate what you want. And that goes on in nursing, but nurses don't even think about that.

Yeah. And of course, I mean, again, a lot of it is conditioning. We're conditioned to believe that this is what we're worth. We're conditioned to believe that these are our working hours. We're conditioned to believe that we can only do bedside or else we're not serving our purpose. We're conditioned to not talk about salary because it's considered unprofessional. These are all control tactics. We know that's the case. There's no actual law that says you're not allowed to talk about your salary. And so again, when you hear your hospital or nursing home administration saying these things, sure, following policies and protocols is important to appease them. If you want to keep your job and you want to be in good graces of your superiors, then you have to follow those policies and procedures. But your career and what you have available to you does not end there. Right.

Right. I love that. Yes. They are control freaks.

Yes. They are. Yes.

And I never really thought about it that deep.

Yeah. And they, they have to be, and I've been in leadership positions, so I understand they have to be, there's so many moving parts. It's just easier to lay down the law and make everyone comply and get rid of those who want to be rebels because you don't have the capacity to really provide a one-to-one individualized experience for every single employee. It's impossible. When you're running such a large organization. But nurses are not obligated to their organizations beyond their position of employment. That is it. A hospital does not govern your license. They don't govern your practice. They only govern your employment. So, you know, keeping it fresh in the variety. So here we are, you did exactly that. You said, all right, I'm gonna go through the 10 trenches, get my experience, jump into the arena that I want to be in, the operating room surgery. So you did that for quite a while, but at the same time doing the makeup. And then at what point did you branch out into the skincare with like the Skin Classic and all?

Well, um, in 2000 I started doing microdermabrasion and some other lower level procedures that I can do without a physician. And I said to myself, when I make per week, what I make per week as my travel nursing job, that's when I would totally quit. Because I was PRN, I was a travel nurse, so I could work when I want, take a month off, but— and then I really concentrated on my practice. And once I made what I made as a travel nurse, I never looked back at nursing at the bedside or the operating room table again. So that's really what thrusted me, um, forward, uh, with my practice. And, um, I was lucky enough that my husband, um, was a chiropractor, and he went back to nursing school so he could help me in the office. So they dropped him in as a junior in, um, Colorado. He has his Bachelor's of Nursing, and he never worked a day in the hospital, just side by side. We had 2 rooms, 2 of everything. And he did what I did, taking care of skin integrity, and still does. So that was a big win for him, too, getting out of the chiropractic world to get into my world.

Yeah, that's amazing. You know, I've entertained the idea of my husband also getting his nursing license, and he's like, no way. He's not on board. He thinks he'd be the worst nurse in the world. I'm confident I could train him. But he's just like, no, I don't want to do it. He's going to stay in the engineering world of things. I think that's, I think that's great that your husband did that. I mean, he was already in the health profession, which is awesome. So it wasn't too much of a shift for him, but to help you and run this business and he can also provide the same services under his license. That's amazing.

So, right. Yeah, it was. It's, it's a lot of fun and And it's nice to have the company.

Yeah, it's a, it's a great tag team effort here. Awesome. Yeah, that sounds nice.

Maybe I'll keep seeing if I can't get Matt to go back to nursing school or think of a really great idea that he can engineer for you for the nursing world.

Yeah, those, those, um, ideas have already been flowing. I'm trying to see if I can't get him to step into some of the need that they have for medical devices and things like that, or even, right, you know, to enhance a nurse's ability to do their work. So, uh, so many ideas, so many opportunities. So, okay, so variety. So what else? And so we have so much to talk about in this area because we're both members of the National Nurses in Business Association. We've both gone to the conferences. We're planning on being there again this year here in July. So, you know, how else would you recommend that people can keep it fresh as far as avoiding that burnout if they're having a really hard time processing or even accepting the situation of where they are now? Where can they go? What are some options for them?

Well, A lot of the people that truly get burned out, I believe, are within the walls of the hospital. So within those walls, you'll find yet another opportunity. If you are too frightened to jump out of that arena and maybe become an insurance nurse or a legal nurse consultant or that type of thing, stay within the walls and go to a new department, go to something fresh, labor and delivery, something maybe you wouldn't even think you would wanna do, but would be so dynamic, so much learning going on that your brain will, you know, you know what it's like working in a new department. You go home and your head is filled. We need that.

Yeah.

We need that as, um, even myself, I need to take new courses on skin. I need to develop that noodle and, um, maybe within my walls. But I think a lot of nurses need to stay within the same walls but get out into a new department and keep it fresh. You'll still keep the big boss happy that you're still at the hospital but in a different fashion. And, uh, but you do need to, you do need to break that cycle, or even shifts, right? Sometimes the shifts burn people out. Um, so you, you just have to have the the chutzpah to actually do it.

Yeah, so a lot of it comes from a place of courage, right? We have to be brave enough to ask for that. We have to first be able to identify that it's a need for us, right? So we have to kind of go back to self-reflection and ask ourselves on a regular basis, am I doing what I really want to do? Is this working for me? How can I improve it? And then have the courage to ask for that, because that's another thing that really hinders nurses along the way is no one asks for a raise. They don't. I know.

Excuse me?

Um, and I thought it was so wild when I was, um, a new nurse, but I wasn't new to working, you know. This is a second career for me. I had 15 years of food and hospitality industry where I was at the top of my game. I was a regional store opener. I was creating front-of-the-house curriculum and all of this, opening multimillion-dollar casual restaurants up and down the Eastern Shore. So when I got to nursing and I was treated like I didn't know anything, I was blown away. And I realized very quickly that nursing is one of those things that if you don't have the years of experience, they don't really value anything else you bring to the table because they think nursing is so separate from everything else. But it's not. There's so many transferable skills that nurses have, that we can be in any position and do well because we have all those skills. But I found it so wild that when I asked for my first raise, how disgruntled everyone was, and like, like I had committed some crime. They were all clutching their pearls and gasping, like, I can't believe this new nurse just asked for a raise. And I was like, why is this so taboo or uncommon? Like, this makes no sense to me. But it makes sense, you know, when you look at it historically, right? Nurses have always been kind of kept down, you know.

Totally.

And, you know, right, call it the patriarchy, call it whatever you want to call it. Nursing as a profession has always been kind of kept down.

And you are absolutely right, it's not normal culture for that.

It's changing. I will say it's changing. Conversations like this help that change. But yeah, you have to have the courage to, to even ask for what you want. And so early in my career, I jumped around a lot. Like I said, I moved different positions, I tried different shifts, I tried different patient populations. And then when I kept running into the same issues, the same burnout, the same frustration, I too chose to leave being a staff nurse and then did travel nursing, which was much more freeing and much more liberating because I got to choose when I wanted to work, when I didn't want to work, how much money I was willing to make. You know, if I wanted to make $120,000 that year, I could because they had the need. If I wanted to only make $60,000 because I wanted to play around and take a lot of vacations, I could do that too.

Right.

So that was really nice, and it also helped me improve my craft because then I got to learn nursing from some different perspectives and see different technologies and different processes that other areas use to manage some of the same chronic issues that I see everywhere else, like staffing models that I wasn't familiar with, or maybe communication techniques for dealing with conflict that I didn't learn in my first, you know, couple places I worked. But these other organizations in California, for instance, were doing it in a different way with better outcomes. So that variety really helped keep me invigorated and keep me going as well. And so I know of a really excellent resource where people can go to learn more about the different opportunities.

I do too.

We've already mentioned the National Nursing Nurses in Business Association. This is a great place to see all of the amazing things that nurses are doing, um, and it is heavy on the entrepreneur side of things because nurses are perfect to be entrepreneurs. We again have all these transferable skills, and even if it's just developing a singular course that you're a specialist in and providing that at a fee and earning side money that way, or running your own multimillion-dollar skincare corporation. You could do that too. There's lots of opportunities out there, right?

I really hate when I hear from nurses and say, I got out of nursing because I— because of the burnout, or I didn't like what I was doing. They just don't realize that out of all of the professions, there are so many offshoots to nursing that something will make you happy. And it's not always the structure that we get used to working with in our early years of nursing. So nurses just really need to get into that National Nurses Business Association just to see what we're all doing, how we got out of the bedside. And some of us, like me, I worked alongside the bedside nursing while I had my own practice. So it's not something that you just give up for another. You may work it out and, and and meander into your own business or still work for an institution until you retire, right? Or as long as you're happy, right?

Or you find that pain point like many of us have where you can still be in the setting that you're passionate about. Like say you really love, um, cardiac ICU, right? That's your jam. But doing the shift work of being cardiac ICU nurse is just not in your cards anymore. But you can leverage still your skills and knowledge and perhaps become an educator for that department, or even an outside consultant to improve the nursing practice within the department. There's so many things that you can do still within the realm of nursing. And, you know, you can run your own home care agency, you can open your own nursing home, you can, you can start to demand a seat at the table by positioning yourself to do just that.

Yes, nurses are highly respected by the community, and if a nurse opens a business, it's a big deal. When you say, I'm Stephanie Halvik, I'm a registered nurse, owner of RN Faces, that says something. In my early days when I did, um, just permanent makeup, and there was an— maybe a skincare person that did permanent makeup and had 5 years more experience. They still came to me because I was the nurse. I may not have been better, but they trusted me. And so nurses getting into their own business or shifting will always get the respect that they need in order to elevate their practice.

Yeah.

And it's very important. But yes, nurses are highly, highly respected.

Yeah. Highly respected, highly in demand.

Oh yeah.

And I don't know if you've seen recently the travel nurse opportunities that are out there, but it's been very tempting for me not to jump on some of them when I'm getting notifications from recruiters saying they're paying upwards of $20,000 per week before taxes. I was like, what? Now, of course, these are going to be the most challenging assignments in the ICUs that have no nurses. So yeah, you're going to work very, very, very hard in, in some non-ideal situations. So that's also a consideration, but it's unfortunate in crisis. Comes the dollars. But it's a crisis because it's a chronic condition that's been happening. The pandemic just made it worse, ripped the Band-Aids right off of the wounds. And nursing is not the only profession suffering. It's a great resignation everywhere because people are reevaluating their worth, reevaluating the lifestyle that they want to have. A lot of us had to face mortality in a lot of ways because of the pandemic. And we're like, wait a minute, life is fleeting and we want to do things that we want to enjoy, right? So now is the time to make those decisions and pivot and see where we can go. And I know I get a lot of requests from individuals who want to consult with me, who want my services to help them figure out, you know, curriculum design for their company because they want educate on certain things, or maybe they're just interested in going the MSN route to become a nurse educator and they want kind of someone to walk them through the process. And education, we have— we always need great education, so I'm always ready to recruit educators. But nurses are natural educators anyway. We have to teach our patients on everything.

Educators, right?

Procedures, everything we're doing for them, medications. Our treatments, our— the way we work, we have to educate them on that. So there's lots of possibilities here.

And you mentioned something that was interesting, the MSN in order to teach. Well, I said in the beginning, I have an associate's degree.

Correct.

I don't have a bachelor's degree. I don't have any other degree, yet I do run my own business. And I am a nurse educator, not within the walls of the hospital, but I have online courses. So for those nurses that may be BSN or even like myself, that they're able to educate and educate for money. So if they do have that jam going on, like you said, the cardiac nurse, they may be able to put that into a course that they can help others and, and make money in your sleep. So it's very important for nurses that are natural-born educators like us, every one of us, um, then we need to know that we can also be educators for hire.

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that. Um, so many of us focus on the degree or the title and we forget that one of our functions, one of our roles, one of our responsibilities as nurses is to educate, right? As registered nurses, to do that initial teaching. So we already have it, and our license says that's the role for us, right?

That's right.

So yeah, I appreciate you saying that you don't have to have a bachelor's or a master's degree or a doctorate degree in order to create high-quality education for purchase. Um, But yeah, so there's always lots of options. And I know LPNs who are making millions of dollars out there because they found what they love and they ran with it, and they've created their own businesses surrounding that. And they didn't need a registered nurse license in order to do what they're doing because they're still working within their scope of practice, right?

Absolutely. And the way you get all these great ideas from, of course, your podcast But again, the National Nurses in Business Association is such a melting pot for so many great ideas. So if you are, you know, in the market to expand your horizons, there's no better place to be than that organization.

Absolutely. And so how long have you been a member of the National Nurses in Business Association?

Um, I think since, uh, maybe 2001.

Yeah.

Yeah, a good long time.

Yeah, I came late to the game, but again, you know, my nursing career started in 2010, so, you know, last 12 years I've been doing the nursing thing. But I discovered the National Nurses in Business Association in 2016, and then in 2017 was my first conference, and I've been going every year since. So, and I've spoken twice and Hopefully more times are coming. So this is all exciting stuff.

Well, I'm excited. I'll be speaking, um, this year as well. And do you know what my topic is going to be?

No, what's your topic going to be?

It's going to be how to go live and monetize. So no matter what your nursing business is, you need to show up, educate, educate, Educate in video, and then you can sell your product. Once you've educated your community, um, people will want to purchase from you. So for the nurses in business at the conference, I'm hoping to help them strategize their live presence on Facebook.

Yeah, perfect. Um, I definitely can, uh, take a few pointers from that. Lesson, because, you know, marketing is probably one of the most challenging things when it comes to business. And there's so many different avenues and there's a lot of misinformation out there. Let's just say it, call it what it is. There's a lot of misinformation and some, you know, not so great tactics that wind up costing a lot of money. And if you don't know what works, then you're just going to go with whatever you hear until you figure it out. But I agree, when you educate your audience and they really get to know who you are and what you're offering, that's when they trust to purchase your products or services. It doesn't matter how pretty your pictures are, how choreographed your scripting is, or your videos. It's just if, if you're not teaching them what they're going to get out of it and you're not giving them a taste of what they're going to get out of it, then they're not going to be into it. They're not going to trust.

Absolutely.

I can definitely take a few additional pointers from that, so I'll be on the lookout for that information as well.

Oh good, well I'm excited.

Awesome. So, all right, Stephanie, so how can people find you if they're interested in connecting with you at— in the form of consultation work? Maybe they just want to pick your brain about, um, the skincare world, the Skin Classics that you're selling and training, um, you know, skincare providers to master so that they can elevate their business. How can people get in touch with you?

Well, it's very easy. Um, if they are on Facebook, if they can remember RN Faces— as a nurse, I work on faces— um, I'm on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and I go live every Monday on one of those platforms to educate my community. So you can pop on, you can pick my brain. I have a clinic in Cape Charles where I do trainings for nurses that want to get into this type of business. And again, it's working without a physician. So all you'll need is your nursing degree and a license. And you can come visit with me and see the inner workings of a very modest practice.

Very modest and successful practice.

Thank you.

Yes, very successful. Um, for those of you listening, I've been following Stephanie for several years now, and I'm very impressed. I mean, again, I want to be like her when I grow up, right? So I think we can all strive to create that thing for us that works for us, that we love, and we can also be successful and be rewarded. So many of us do what we love, but we're still waiting for that monetary reward, right? We get that. We get the thanks and we get the, oh, you're amazing. And sure, I get all of that all the time. And although it does feed my ego and it does make me feel validated for the work that I'm doing, I would also like to buy nice things and pay credit card debt off and pay off my student loans and, and be free when it comes to the finances for the work that I'm doing. And we all have the capacity opportunity to do that.

Absolutely, absolutely. Nurses can make so much money.

We know nurses who do, so I know, I know this to be true. I'm, I'm ready to be on that receiving end. So this is awesome. Thank you so much, Stephanie, for sharing your wisdom with all of us today. I can't wait to see you in July in Vegas.

Okay, terrific.

And maybe, maybe I'll get to see you before then, but at a minimum, I'll see you in July. So thanks so much for being on the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast. I'm sure you'll start to get some people pinging you because we always have people interested in what they can do to be successful within their nursing practice. So thanks so much for being on the show today.

Thanks for having me, Damion Jenkins.

Take care, take care. We'll talk soon. And that concludes episode 7 of the Nursing Nursing Strategies for Success podcast with this week's guest, Stephanie Pawlik. We hope that all of the strategies we've shared for you in today's episode will help you find a successful journey in your nursing career. If you have any questions about anything that we've covered in today's episode, you can always visit thenursespeak.com/contact and get in touch with me. I would love to have a conversation with you. So until next episode, take care, be well, and remember that nurses can do anything.