This article is more of an opinion piece, but one of observational truth that I am sure many nurse practitioners reading this will agree with: nursing school and advanced nursing education is designed to produce work horses for the corporate and bureaucratic healthcare system in this country… The sooner you realize that what “you should do” is nothing more than a way to keep you reliant, dependent, and subservient to the system, the sooner you will be to freeing yourself from the grip of large organizational healthcare slavery.

When I came to this realization, my life improved for the better almost instantaneously. It was like the curtains were opened in front of me, and for the first time in my life I saw the reality of the world around me and how I was nothing more than a pawn in a giant chess game being played by bureaucrats, power hungry physicians, and high-level healthcare executives that couldn’t give a rats ass about my wellbeing. All they cared about are the numbers and what my “production” was. Nothing more.

This is how the overall system in this country is designed, in and out of healthcare:

1. Be brainwashed into thinking that the ONLY way to succeed is by going to college to get a “great” job.
2. Graduate High School.
3. Go to college not having much of an idea of what you want to do in life. Come on… Did you REALLY know what you wanted to do at 20 years old? We are still kids at that age for all intents and purposes. We are not fully developed at that age. True adulthood happens around 30 for most people…
4. Pick a degree in hopes that it will land you a job, which luckily for nursing, will guarantee you a job as an RN right out of school.
5. Maybe go back to school thinking it will increase your salary and overall freedom. Which is true for the Elite Nurse Practitioners out there, but for many, it could not be further from the truth. You might make just as much as you did as an RN, or even if you do make more, you now work more and have more responsibility.
6. Be a good little employee for your corporate healthcare and governmental overlords for the next 40 years and feel blessed to retire at 65 with possibly a decent amount in your 401k and the promise of receiving your Social Security benefits.
7. Enjoy your “golden years”, which we all know is a crock of shit for many people unless you take care of yourself and have awesome genetics. Most people after the age of 65 are in degrading health and it rapidly worsens year by year.

This is what we are led to believe is the only way to live this life.

In addition, you MUST:

1. Take out student loans.
2. Purchase a new car with debt.
3. Purchase a new house that you truly cannot afford with the ridiculous mortgage you were approved for.
4. Use credit cards.
5. Keep up with the “Joneses” next door.

Now you are strapped with debt and even MORE RELIANT, DEPENDENT, and SUBSERVIENT to your employer. You don’t have a choice, right? You are a couple paychecks away from financial disaster… You now must be a good employee, or else! This is how the system controls you. This wasn’t accidental friends.

This is how the system is designed, and unfortunately, far too many Americans live this way. Even sadder, is that MANY of my sisters and brothers in nursing live this way as well… It is a fear tactic used for control.

There is a severe lack of basic financial and business education within our educational system. Even more so in nursing. We all must take some BS “nursing management” or “advanced healthcare informatics” or whatever nonsense class it is while in school that truly does not benefit us in the real world. Additionally, half of the classes we take are nothing but fluff filler and do very few of us any good. But we are led to believe, regardless of these classes, that we will graduate on the other side with secure employment and a mountain of opportunity at our fingertips.

HAH… not for many. Sure, anyone can finish RN school and secure a solid job almost immediately, but unfortunately for the nurse practitioner, it is becoming harder and harder to find decent employment. Advanced nursing education continues to pump out more and more graduates who think that opportunity abounds.

There is opportunity, if you are willing to be paid $50 an hour and become another worker bee for the machine. And that is where the problem is friends:

The system is designed by people who benefit at the expense of the hard-working nurse practitioner.

Low salaries are GOOD for employers, corporations, and government sponsored healthcare.

Large enrollment numbers are GOOD for nursing programs.

Large amounts of nurse practitioner students graduating who take the certification exams are GOOD for the AANP, ANCC, and BONs.

Market saturation is GOOD for our corporate and physician overlords as they know it allows them to get away with MORE AND MORE while giving us LESS AND LESS.

If you disagree with what I am saying, then you must live in a great area and have been truly blessed, because this is happening ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. I see it EVERY DAY over on the Elite Nurse Practitioner Facebook Group. If you think you are immune, well you are not. Market saturation begins to creep all over with time…

Regardless, I need my Elite NP sisters and brothers to be different. I want you to go down a different path. A path that “you shouldn’t” and that is “risky” and possibly “dangerous”, from what we are told. Remember, venturing out on your own and living a life on YOUR TERMS does little for the system. The system wants you to be in debt and reliant on it. It helps feed it. It gives them control over you.

Give the system the middle finger.

Instead, follow The Elite Nurse Practitioner Model I have designed. Following this will help you be NIMBLE during the very uncertain future ahead of us.

Being debt free allows you to take more chances and live a freer life.

Having your own practice and a passive income source will allow you to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

Keeping your business expenses low decreases your risks. Remember, a cheaply started business is a business that can be closed just as cheaply if necessary.

Living below your means will allow you to not rely on an employer that doesn’t care about you.

Seriously, do the EXACT OPPOSITE of what the system wants you to do, which is going into debt and getting a full-time job that you are utterly dependent on to survive.

The system wants you to be a compliant, productive, and a submissive work horse for 40 years, sucking you dry of your vitality and life.

As an alternative to the system, build a small niche side practice as soon as you possibly can! Build multiple income streams, with a passive one thrown into the mix. Invest your money for the future. Be as financially redundant as you can. If you do this, you will break away from the system and build a life that is simply unimaginable to most people. A financially free life that is practically immune to most outside factors.

I do what I want when I want. I am not alone either. There are HUNDREDS of nurse practitioners that live the same way. Even more so, there are MILLIONS of entrepreneurs doing the same thing.

All it takes from you is to open your eyes and see the truth and to take a SMALL risk. That is all it is friends; a combination of taking a small RISK and a little time that can result in a HUGE positive change in your life.

You only live once, so what are you waiting for?

Cheers and to your freedom!

With love,

Justin Allan