In The Field: Nursepreneur Haleigh’s tough call to take her own advice & prioritize self-care
Texas nurse Haleigh Adamson, MSN, RN, CEN, TCRN, started her business, Nurse Rx Box, to fulfill her true calling: helping her fellow nurses. Recently, she made the tough call to pause her dream business, and shared an emotional video explaining her decision. In this interview, Haleigh gets into her nursing career, what inspired her to start Nurse Rx Box, and why she’s moving on - for now.
Let’s start at the beginning. Can you tell us how you got into nursing?
I knew from a young age I wanted to be a nurse. Both my brothers were in pretty severe car accidents and had prolonged ICU stays, so I was involved with that and watching them recover. I just knew that's what I wanted to do when I grew up. There was no delay for me. I graduated high school, went straight to university and graduated with my bachelor's in nursing in 2011, and I've been a nurse since then. I got my start on a med surg floor, because back then you could not specialize, and I spent exactly 365 days on a med surg floor. I knew it was not for me, but my one year came and I put in my transfer request to go to the ER because I had always wanted to be an ER nurse. That was just always my dream. I was super pumped to pursue that. Since then I've had my hands in ER in some form or fashion. I did air nursing, travel nursing for about two years, and slowly worked my way up the clinical ladder, becoming a supervisor. I then transitioned into a more specialized group with trauma services, became a trauma coordinator, trauma program director, then back to trauma coordinator. Currently, I'm in a trauma coordinator role working remotely from home. I've had a wide variety in my career as a nurse, but I've loved every bit of it. I've also hated portions of it, which is why I've moved around a little bit until I found what I love.
Haleigh Adamson, MSN, RN, CEN, TCRN
For people who aren’t familiar with Nurse Rx Box, can you tell us exactly what it is?
For sure. I'm sure everybody's familiar with the Ipsy Bag or FabFitFun Box - it's the same concept. It's a monthly subscription, specifically for nurses, with five items in each box aimed at providing functional self-care items for nurses. Each box contains something you can always use on shift. So You always get asked in leader rounding if you have the tools needed to do your job, and it's like, “no, I don't have the tools I need to do my job.” That's where that came from. I always try to include some sort of gadget to help nurses while they're on shift, no matter what their specialty is, and then some themed items to go along with it.
Tell us about how you started your company Nurse Rx Box. What gave you the idea? What was the inspiration?
It really gave me some perspective being in so many different roles - whether it's at the bedside, administrative, remote, what have you - but my true passion was not just helping patients, but also helping my fellow nurses. That's really why I got into leadership. I graduated with my master's in 2020 in leadership and healthcare administration because I knew deep down that was what I thrived in. My passion is helping other nurses, because I remember being a novice nurse and going to work every day with anxiety and crying the whole way home thinking, “I have no idea what I'm doing, I have no business being a nurse,” and just feeling totally overwhelmed. I really made it my mission, as an administrator, as a leader, as a nurse, to help other nurses succeed, and find their passion, whatever that may be, whatever that looks like for them. Enter 2020: I’m an ER director in the midst of a pandemic, and when COVID hit it really shook my world. At that point, I was still a novice leader. I really struggled to keep my department afloat, but more so to keep my nurses afloat and keep them happy and energized, and remembering their why. I stuck around for about a year in that role, and I was miserable the whole time. You can only burn at both ends for so long before you just have nothing else to give. I had given so much of myself that I had made the decision to leave that role - even though that was my dream - and pursue something that set my soul on fire. That's how Nurse Rx Box was born. I took my passion for helping nurses and cultivated it, really honed in on that passion, and said, “hey, if there's a way I can help nurses feel supported and empowered - and if I did that every single month - maybe that would help them remember why they're doing what they're doing during this pandemic when we have no idea what the future holds and healthcare is changing so rapidly.” That’s the why and the story behind Nurse Rx Box.
Did you always want to be an entrepreneur?
No, not really. If you told me two years ago I would be doing what I'm doing, I'd laugh. Business and everything there is to know about business and startups - how to forecast and operationalize and develop a business - it makes me sick in my stomach to think about it. As nurses, we aren't trained to think that way, which is unfortunate. In any ADN or BSN program you rarely have financial classes or courses that teach you what that looks like, so this was a huge struggle for me and really had a massive learning curve. Although I did have my master’s and I was able to learn some business one-on-one - it's not the same. This was definitely not the end result for me, this just came out of me. I was jotting down ideas in my Notes app on my phone: what I could do to find my passion and change my life. I had a friend I had worked with previously - she was a peds ER nurse by trade turned trauma coordinator - and she's very passionate about self-care and empowering women and making them feel beautiful in their own skin. She had done the same thing and developed a self-care box for women. So I was like, “that’s a fantastic idea, let's do it for nurses.”
I know there’s been a lot of struggles, but what have been some of the fun and exciting moments as you’ve become a nursepreneur?
Once it clicks, in anything that you do, whether it's starting that first IV or finally understanding the rationale behind the why - once it clicked for me strategically and I started getting into a routine and feeling like maybe I knew what I was doing, that was really one of the best moments for me. I felt like, “okay, we're going to make it. I'm not gonna have a plan B, this is plan A,” and that was the most exciting part for me. More than anything, it was getting that feedback from all of my subscribers saying, “I didn't quit nursing because of this box,” or “I remembered this month that somebody cares about me.” To get that kind of feedback and know that you're touching a life from my small town in Texas - that's amazing.
“I preach all of the time about self-care and taking care of you. I thought, “if my heart isn’t all the way in this, and I can’t fully be present, then that’s not really why I decided to build this business.”
You have a great engaged social media community. You can tell your followers and audience is really engaged. How did you build that?
I think that is something anybody who decides to be an entrepreneur or start a business - you really have to learn social media. That was one of the hardest things for me, because I'm not on the up-and-up. I have a personal social media account but it's just not my thing. I don't post all the time, and I'm not some big, huge influencer. It really was a learning curve for me to try to understand how the algorithms work, but after spending some time diving into that and creating Facebook ads and Instagram ads, I was like, “you know what? I'm done with the ads, I don't care about ads. I don't care how many followers I have on Instagram or Facebook,” although it does help from a business perspective. It is a business decision: you have to have followers there to make money, it's just how it is. Obviously, I do care about it to a degree, but I stopped monitoring my Instagram flow and my Facebook flow and how many likes I was getting and how many followers I had, and really decided to focus more on content creation that was empowering and uplifting, and actually helping my followers in the long run. I was talking to my boyfriend about it last night, and I've had more followers since my announcement to suspend operations. I think being vulnerable and honest and just being your true self, as opposed to really focusing on the numbers and being so caught up in that, is really what helped me in the long run.
What have been your driving values in running Nurse Rx Box?
I think, ultimately, I wanted to remain true to myself. By doing that, I would provide a service to everybody else. Quitting my directorship and letting go of the title and ego that comes along with that - I had dreams of being a CNO one day and that quickly came to a crashing halt when I quit my directorship. Just being true to myself I am providing a service to other people, reminding them it's okay to be who you want to be. This person you've dreamed up in your head that you think you may be, maybe that's not who you're going to be and that's okay. But no matter the way you find out who that person is, we're going to do it together and you're going to be okay.
With all this being said, you recently announced you’re closing up shop on this amazing business that you poured blood, sweat, and tears into. Can you talk us through what led to that decision and the challenges you faced in making it?
It's definitely not a decision I made lightly. I had to talk to a ton of people and really make sure that this was the right thing for me. But more importantly, for my subscribers there were a variety of issues that have come up in the last six months. It's no secret the economy is not doing well and inflation has impacted everybody in one way or another. I really peaked on subscribers back around April and May; Nurses Month was great and I was so excited because I had the most subscriptions I had ever had before. But that quickly started to dwindle down and down, and before I knew it I found myself back at the same level I was when I first started the business. There have been boot camps I've taken and classes I've taken but I realized that none of that education or pouring that into my business is going to make the economy better. I'm having people cancel their subscriptions, not because the subscription is poor or because they're unsatisfied with the product, but leaving me feedback saying, “I just can't afford it, I've got to put gas in my car.” It's very difficult to curate products when you have a smaller subscriber base; obviously, the more people you have, the better pricing options you have available for products, so that was becoming challenging and shipping was becoming such a challenge. I included flat-rate shipping when I built this business, and I haven't changed prices once, so that was another thing I considered, “maybe I could change prices and raise prices?” But if people are canceling now, they're for sure going to cancel if I raise prices. I also have a lot of hats: I am a coach, I am still a full-time nurse, and I also run this business. Plus, I am a mama to be, I am 21 weeks pregnant, and this is my first pregnancy and it’s been incredibly hard for me. I have been sick a lot - I had COVID and I've never COVID before. I've really just been struggling. That has really taken a toll on me mentally and physically. So, me and my better half had a conversation about what I needed to do. I preach all of the time about self-care and taking care of you. I thought, “if my heart isn't all the way in this, and I can't fully be present, then that's not really why I decided to build this business.” So, it's best for me to take a step back; have my baby, get my family in order, get my life in order, come to a better place mentally and physically, and then let's reevaluate, see where we are, and see if we can pick this back up where we left off. It's important for me to take care of myself right now. It’s a very tough decision, but one of those things I think people are so afraid to do for a variety of reasons. When I quit my ER directorship, I didn't want to let go of all of the things I had worked for, and it was the same thing with this. I didn't want to let go of it, but at what cost? I decided my peace of mind and mental health was worth more than anything, and making sure that my baby is healthy. That's where we are. Nurses, women, mothers - we're taught that you have to go, go, go, go, go all of the time, and we don't have to do that. I'm here to say that we don't have to do that, you don't have to do that, you don't have to struggle. There is a way out.
Is there advice or a lesson you'd like to pass on to the next nursepreneur?
I would just say, and I've said this a lot on the page, you really have to dig deep and remember your why. As soon as you remember, that's going to lead people to finding their purpose and their passion. You have to let go of the “what was”, and be present with yourself and where you are today. If you thought you were always going to be a CNO today, you might not be a CNO, and that's okay. It's okay to let go of your title and your ego, to make a change that will be better for you in the long run. Just don't be afraid of change. Don't be afraid to figure out what it is you're passionate about. Once you figure it out, just sprint towards it and don't stop.