In this solo‑style episode of Club Nurse, host Colton Lord reflects on the common conflict nurses face between staying in a job they dislike because of solid benefits—health insurance, retirement contributions, pensions—and the desire for a more fulfilling, happier work life. He shares personal anecdotes about his own lack of dependents, his relationship with money, and his experience working at a Boston hospital that offers a pension. Throughout the monologue he challenges the “stay for the benefits” mindset, urging listeners to consider the cost of staying miserable versus the uncertain payoff of future benefits. He references social‑media posts (@nursedaddies, @coltonallenlord) that sparked the conversation, cites comments from other voices about pensions, and repeatedly emphasizes the need to live for today while still planning responsibly. The episode ends with a call to action: listeners are invited to share their stories, reach out via DM, and spread the episode to anyone feeling stuck, with the overarching message that personal ownership and a shift in perspective can lead to life‑changing decisions.
Chapters
Welcome to Club Nurse.
I'm Colton Lord, your host.
By you being here today, it shows me that you are someone who wants to learn, grow, laugh, connect, and just let your emotions flow.
We are here to share real stories and hear real life experiences from real people. You are not alone in this, and Club Nurse is here to show you that. Don't forget to follow the show and share today's episode with someone you love. Now let's dive into today's conversation.
Hello everybody, welcome back to Club Nurse. It is Colton, your host of this podcast. I am, of course, as always, every single time, I will tell you this forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, how extremely grateful I am that you even come and listen to me chit-chat and yap and tell you, uh, you know, whatever's going on in this brain of mine. Um, yeah, I'm just really grateful that you are here and that you are Spending any of your time with me or listening to me or listening to the guests that I have on, because at the end of the day, I think that there is just so much value in a lot of what I am offering to you. Uh, and I think mostly through the guests, because I'm not here to try to be like, oh, I know things or whatever. Um, and if you're seeing this anywhere on any kind of like video portion, I'm trying to get to where like you can see the Club Nurse sign above me. This like beautiful neon green sign that I purchased that says Club Nurse. Um, they're just literally— it's hanging on 2 screws that I already had in my wall. And I don't know, uh, I don't know exactly how to arrange it and make it look good yet, so it's just gonna be there, okay? A work in progress, baby. Uh, so this segment, this little episode, it's gonna be a quick little conversation between you and I, baby. Yes, girl, let's chat. I posted a video this week on my social medias. If you I say social medias because I have like multiple pages. If you can find @nursedaddies or @coltonallenlord, that is where I post my stuff, mostly on Instagram. I still do post some things on TikTok, but it's just not, you know, I post both. Okay. So I made this video and it kind of, you know, sparked some things with people to pipe in and comment and put in their 2 cents. And I realized I had this conversation with multiple different people this week and I I think it's relatable. I think it's something that we all think about and we all consider with any job that we're taking, any move that we're making. We all consider what benefits the job provides to us, right? When you are applying for a new job, at least I know when I am, when I get to orientation or even during the interview process, some of my first questions are about the benefits. You know, what's the health insurance? What is the retirement contribution look like? Is it a 401? At what point do you start contributing and how much does the company contribute? What is my pay? When are, you know, how does, how do the raises work? Are we on like a scale through a union? Is it performance-based? Is it a percentage? These are all things that are important to know when you start a job. But what I will say is, and this may be a hot take, this may be controversial, but I do not think it is worth staying at a job because of the benefits. And hear me out. If you're at a job that you love, or not even that you love, but you don't mind doing and you don't really want to do anything else and you have great benefits, then hello, stay there. I'm not here to tell you to quit your job and go rent a van and live like a hippie and drive around the world. I mean, if you want to, by all means, please. That sounds absolutely amazing. But that's not what I'm here to say or to tell you to do. I'm not here to tell you to do anything. I'm just here to offer my insight on this topic because I think from my experience, from what I've witnessed and seen people, is that they will Stay in jobs that they are miserable in because of a certain benefit that they get. And trust me, I get it. Let me preface this with, I don't have kids, okay? I don't have to consider health insurance for little kids that are running around or making sure I have a stable income to support children. I have dogs. It's just me. And yes, while that also carries its own level of stress, I don't have to worry about anybody else, any other human being at this moment in my life depending on me. So I understand that there's barriers, but if you are miserable, if you don't love what you're doing, if you don't like the job you're in, if there's— if you feel stuck, you just have to get creative. And I'm not here— again, this is not— this is not an episode, this is not a conversation where I just have a bunch of answers for you. This is more a perspective shift, a way to look at things differently, um, about this conversation of staying somewhere because they have benefits or pensions. And when I posted this, I'm going to show you the video in just a second, and even if you're not watching, you can hear the audio of what I say.
And people like, oh, Pensions don't exist.
Yeah, girl, they do. The hospital that I work at here in Boston literally offers pensions to the staff. They exist. And that's a nursing job. They are out there. I understand there's not as many as probably what they used to be. But I'm just not somebody who is motivated by— I'm money motivated and I am working diligently to change my relationship to money. It's a gross conversation that feels like, ugh. That's maybe we should have somebody on to talk to us about that because money is, ew, it's just a conversation that makes me feel ick. But what was I saying? We were talking about, oh yeah, I'm not motivated by benefits or a pension or what are you going to contribute to my retirement? Like, I just don't live that way. Uh, what I really think about is I think maybe this is because I witnessed so much tragedy, death, or just people that come in with terminal or life-changing diagnoses. And I just think to myself every time, why are we all so worried about Our planning for our future. And again, hear me out. I'm not here to say do not plan for your future, withdraw all your money from all your accounts and just go live your life. Like, I'm not here to say that. You know, there's a balance to it. There's a rhythm. And every single person has a different perspective, has a different way of looking at this situation. We all have a different story. We all have different needs. And it is very individual. Individualized. For me, I am not going to plan my life, live my life planning for my retirement. Yes, I am doing things that will most definitely benefit me once I hit retirement age, but I am not living my entire life to get there because there's no guarantee I'm going to. So why would I spend my time right now as a 29-year-old person? Why would I spend my time focused solely on when I'm going to retire. And I feel like we're fed this information as kids. Like, we start hearing this as kids into our, you know, teens and early adulthood. And it's like all about just like, get a good paying career, make sure you're planning and whatever for the retirement. And it's like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, it is important. And I'm not saying that it's not. But don't base your whole life on that. Like, oh my gosh, if you're in a job that you literally cannot stand and it's driving you insane and it's crushing your soul and it's sucking every little bit out of you, why are you staying there? What are you doing? Even again, if you are the quote unquote breadwinner for your house and you have a family to support, like, what are you doing? Like, you're gonna just live your life, your one life, for the sake of everybody else? Again, I understand you need to support them, but there's a way out of it. And don't stay just because you've got these good benefits. I have spoken to countless people who I've been in that mindset before, and I think we all have. If you are of the mindset of you need to stay because of the pay, the benefits, whatever, you're not crazy. I understand that. I've been there many times. I know multiple people who have been there. But the collective answer and response to when they actually switched how they thought about it and got out of that was life-changing. It was life-changing for them because when they owned their life and they encompassed who they actually wanted to be, it It just—it's a ripple effect. You—it's scary, and maybe it's a leap. Maybe you're thinking about starting a business or any kind of venture, like writing a book or starting a podcast or going on social media and starting that kind of a journey. Or maybe you're just thinking about switching career fields. Maybe you have a—you are interested in being a realtor or whatever it may be. There's so many different avenues of life, interests, whatever, and whatever that may be for you, it's just important to consider. Why you're staying in something if it's crushing your soul. Again, this is not for the people who are just like happy-go-lucky, chilling in their job, loving the benefits, living their life. Like, happy for you. And if you are, maybe share this with somebody that you know is struggling, uh, because it's important for them to feel seen, feel heard. And just all we need sometimes is somebody to like be like, hello, slap us around a little bit, wake us up, and make us see that we're living a life that's not lighting us up. Not— it's just not doing it for us. So anyways, let me play that video for you that I posted. And again, if you're not watching, I don't know if you'll watch this, but you'll, you'll hear. Okay, let's play it. But my job has such good benefits, I can't leave.
I have a pension that I need to get when I'm 80. Girl, come on. I was talking to a friend yesterday and we were talking about how people will stay in the job that makes them miserable, that they are suffering in, that they Hate because they have a pension or they have good benefits and they need health insurance. Oh my God, my hair. Anyways, if you are miserable, if you are suffering, if you literally wake up every time to go to your job and you dread the day, what are you doing, girl?
What are you doing, girl?
Spend your whole life miserable and hating what you do and taking it out on everybody else around you and being resentful because you have a pension? And good benefits? Girl, you should not. And I do not tell people what to do a lot of the time, okay? But I'm gonna tell you this: you should not stay in a job because of the benefits and because the pension. Like, girl, no. Odds are you may not even get to enjoy those benefits, okay? Love you.
Period. Okay, odds are you won't even get to enjoy that stuff. And you might, maybe. I mean, hello, I, I know people. My great-grandmother's in her Oh my gosh, mid-nineties. She's still living her life, independent, all the things. So you might, sure, but there's no guarantee. And why are you going to jeopardize and not live your life now? And that's not to say that there's not sacrifice. You know, people who are uber super duper successful will talk to you about the sacrifices that they've had to make and how it was worth it. Yada yada yada yada. But those are people who were taking risks. And not following the path that was drawn out for them. And I think for nurses, it's so hard for us to wrap our minds around doing anything else. It is so hard for nurses to get to a point to where you're like, maybe I need to pivot, or maybe I need to, you know, go pretty at this job to keep, you know, keep my feet here because I, you know, we enjoy taking care of people, right? There's an aspect to that that we enjoy doing. That's why we got into this. And I'm not telling you to just give all of that up. Again, this is very individualized. So take, take any Take anything from this conversation that you feel resonates with you and the rest of it, leave it alone. And if you disagree, you, again, more power to you, girl. Stay in your job, keep doing what you're doing, and don't listen to me. I don't— again, I'm not here to tell you what you have to do. This is just to offer some insight because I think sometimes we need it. And I think there's been times in my life where all I've needed is to hear a voice of reason or just somebody that I don't even know to give me permission to start living or make a decision for myself that feels better in my life. And that's all I'm here to offer you is just this. This is your permission. This is a way for you to look at your life and realize you do not need to just plan for retirement or one day. You know, you need to live today, plan for the future, but live for today. There's going to be nothing worse in your life than getting to the end and regretting that you didn't go for something or turning 35 and for whatever crazy And you have— find you have a glioblastoma brain tumor, and you now, like, your life has forever changed. But you've been planning for when you're 70. Like, it's crazy. It's insane. It's insane that we live that way. I have seen way too many people, way too many patients that have gotten life-altering news, diagnoses, terminal diseases, and their whole world is flipped upside down. And we're all vulnerable to that. None of us are safe from that happening to us. And even if you get diagnosed with some terminal cancer when you're 60, that's not that old. And that's, you know, you're just about to the age to where you are going to be able to enjoy that money that you have been waiting to have access to in that pension or that retirement account. And I just think it's wild. I really do. I think it's an insane roadmap that we are given to drive down. And I truly believe that there's another way to live. And I hope that somebody out there hears this and it just makes you think about your own life. And again, I am not telling you to just risk it all and quit your job and move to some village in England. Again, it sounds great, just like the van, driving around the country in a van. If you do that, please let me know. But it's not what I'm here today to say. That's not the message I'm trying to convey to you. It's just to take accountability and ownership over your own life and realize that you have that ownership and you don't have to keep going down this road that you're going down if you're not happy, if you're not fulfilled, and if you just feel like you have to plan for someday. Okay, live for today because you deserve that. Your life deserves that. You're beautiful. I love you. Thank you so much for listening to Club Nurse with me, Colton Lord. Uh, if you want to hear more content like this, because this is stuff that I like to share on my social medias, follow me @coltonallenlord. Okay, that is Colton Allen Lord. That's my full name, Colton Allen Lord. All right, as always, thank you guys so much for joining Club Nurse, and we will see you next time. And if you quit your job or you make a change or this resonated with you, send me a DM, whatever it is, let me know. I'd love to hear it. And share this episode with somebody that you love or somebody that you think needs to hear it, somebody who may need just a little kick in the butt to stop living in that cycle that they're living in. Okay, I love you so much. Bye-bye. From the bottom of my heart, I wanted to thank you for being here at Club Nurse.
I hope you gained something valuable from today's episode, and if you did, remember to share this episode with someone that you love. Follow me on socials @NurseDaddies or ColtonLord17, and be sure to follow nurse.org to stay informed with all of the hottest healthcare topics. Until next time, take care of yourself. Yourself the way you take care of everyone else. Love ya. Bye.
