Episode 112: Morgan Taylor

Morgan Taylor

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Pretty Powerful Podcast, where powerful women are interviewed every week to share real inspiring stories and incredible insight to help women or anyone break the barriers, be a part of innovation, shatter the glass ceiling, and dominate to the top of their sport, industry, or life's mission.

Join us as we celebrate exceptional women and step into our power. And now here's your host, Angela Gennari.

Angela Gennari: Hello. Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Pretty Powerful Podcast. My name is Angela Gennari, and today I'm here with Morgan Taylor. Hi, Morgan. Hey Angela, thanks for having me today. Thank you so much for being here.

So Morgan Taylor is a board certified pediatric nurse practitioner and the chief nursing officer at Archer Review. With a deep commitment to nursing education and community building, Morgan has made significant strides in enhancing the preparedness and support for over a half a million [00:01:00] nursing and MP students.

Very cool. So, first question of course, what made you want to get into nursing?

Morgan Taylor: Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, um, at first in my life, I didn't want to be a nurse. I, my ambition in life was to be a ballerina. Uh, and not in a like five year old, I want to wear a tutu way. Like I was very seriously studying ballet and, um, in my Sophomore year of high school had a significant back injury that, um, took that potential away.

Um, and I thought, okay, I have to get serious about my grades. I have to try to get into college. That wasn't really what I was focused on, at least at the time. Um, and people were talking about nursing. I had been exposed to nursing, um, just with family members that had various health conditions. And I thought, you know what, that's, that's easy enough.

Let, let me give that a go. Mm hmm. Um, so went, went to school to get my, uh, Bachelor's of Science in Nursing, ended up loving it, and then began my career as a [00:02:00] pediatric nurse at Duke University in North Carolina.

Angela Gennari: Mm hmm. Huge, huge nursing program there, medical program. It's when you, when you come onto the campus, it's literally the first thing you see, like this massive structure of a hospital.

Morgan Taylor: It's a beautiful campus. It is huge. Not a chapel, it's like a huge, beautiful chapel. The campus is gorgeous for sure. Um, and because of the size of the health system. There are a lot of complex cases and just opportunities to learn. So I got to work in the pediatric float pool, which means that I floated around to different pediatric units based on the needs.

So if there were tons of patients in the ICU, I would go there. If the emergency department was really busy, I would go there. So I got to get training in pretty much every area of pediatrics and that ended up being the best opportunity I could have hoped for.

Angela Gennari: Well, that's really cool. So I didn't know that that was even a thing.

So, so [00:03:00] I've heard of travel nursing and that's different, right? That's where you go from hospital to hospital.

Morgan Taylor: Exactly. Exactly. And, um, that is what the next step in my nursing journey was. After I did several years at Duke, I said, you know what? I really learned the Duke way. I know what we do here. And people kept saying, you know, it's different at different places.

Yeah. So I signed up for travel nursing. Um, the first contract I took was at Seattle Children's. other side of the country. My husband and I, like, packed our life into one car, drove across the country, uh, and my very first day I was like, oh my gosh, everyone's right. They do things totally differently. Who knew that there was more than one way to skin a cat?

There's, you know, different medications, different protocols that, who's to say which one is the best or the right? It can vary depending on the situation. And I realized I had so much more to learn. I thought I had, you know, figured [00:04:00] out all the little ins and outs, but I had only learned in that one environment.

So beginning that, um, chapter of my life where I traveled from hospital to hospital, um, like you said, really was very fruitful for my, my own education.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. It's always. Good to have just a perspective, right? Perspective because there is not a one size fits all solution. And so you might have also regionally, you might have different cases, you know, like they're, you're, you're not going to have hypothermia in Florida, but

Morgan Taylor: hopefully not.

Angela Gennari: So, yeah, I imagine that regionally your, your cases are very different, even in pediatrics. So.

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. You know, different places have different providers that specialize in certain things. When I worked at Boston Children's, they had a big specialty in something called a, a long gap EA. So it's a very specific type of congenital anomaly that I had literally never, ever [00:05:00] seen.

You know, I'm like years and years into pediatric intensive care. And I had never seen one of these before. It was like 50 percent of the patients we had in that ICU because that's what that surgeon did. And they did it the best of anywhere in the world. So we would have patients flying in from, you know, oceans away to receive that surgery there.

So, I mean, the learning in medicine and nursing, it never stops. There's always something new. Uh, there's something new coming out. So it really is very, very fruitful to get that experience. experience in different

Angela Gennari: areas. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I have to ask, you know, we're four years out now, but how did COVID impact, you know, your nursing career and what you saw from hospital to hospital?

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, very influential. So I was still working at Duke in that time, and because I was in the float pool, like we talked about, I was the first person to be sent to different areas. And in pediatrics, we weren't [00:06:00] hit as hard. Young kids, healthy young kids weren't getting very sick from COVID. They may be sick, but not ICU sick.

They weren't on ventilators at the same rates that our elderly or immunocompromised patients were. Sure. So with that being said, I got pulled into the adult world and I had never ever treated adults before. So there was a steep learning curve there. Um, very thankful to all of my peers who taught me a lot on the job in the moment, um, as I pivoted there.

Um, but you know, for those who aren't in medicine, kids and adults. You know, they're not just different size, same thing, very, very different types of medicine, different protocols. Um, so for me, it was hugely influential in my knowledge base because I really jumped into a whole new world.

Angela Gennari: Interesting. So in college, I studied, um, child psychology.

And so then that kind of transitioned [00:07:00] into adult world psychology. And that was kind of my focus. But my focus was on children specifically and how they're how a traumatic. You know, in, uh, a traumatic event impacts their life later. And so it, but it is so fascinating because children, I feel are so much more predictable than adults.

And so with, with children, you know, you have a traumatic event and children are way more resilient than we give them credit for. They're amazing. They're amazing. But they need that support system. You know, they need that, you know, comforting adult to be there to, to listen to them and to help them work through, cause they don't have the emotional capacity for a lot of what they're dealing with.

So how do you see children in ICU environments and in environments like that, where it's so scary, they don't have a frame of reference for it. Do they handle it better or worse than adults? Do you think?

Morgan Taylor: Exponentially better. You used the exact word that I used to [00:08:00] tell people why I picked pediatrics, which is resilience.

Yes. It can overcome nearly anything. I mean, I have worked with some of the sickest of the sick children, and a year later they come back to visit, and they're walking around, they're throwing the ball, they're living their best lives. Not to say that always happens. There are, of course, really tragic outcomes.

But they are the minority. Most of the time, kids bounce back in a way that adults just cannot do. And they handle the environment way better. They are adaptable. It goes back to what you said. I think if we give them the support system If we try to gauge where are they at, what do they need, and meet them where they are, they adapt to that and most of the time overcome.

And that is such a blessing to watch. It's one of my favorite parts of pediatric medicine.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. No, I 100 percent agree with you because when I was studying children and working with [00:09:00] them, and I was working with them in tough, tough environments. Like, you know, juvenile justice system. And so, I mean, I was dealing with them when they were going through a lot, but, you know, a lot of the issues in their life were caused by the adults in their life.

Um, but I found that they still had so much hope and optimism. They still had that, you know. I want to get better. I want a different environment. They don't have the same, you know, pessimism that an adult has an adult gets in their head and, you know, it hasn't worked out so far. It's never going to work out.

It's just, you know, children always believe that it's going to work out. And so, um, yeah, I imagine in a pediatric medical environment, it's very similar. Yep. I couldn't agree more. Mm hmm. So, um, so then you went into teaching nursing. I did have that transition happen.

Morgan Taylor: It's not something that I ever planned.

It's something that really just fell into my lap along the way [00:10:00] around about this same time, you know, it's COVID I'm pulled over to adults for the emergency room, just very hectic, very chaotic. I saw the preparedness level of the new nurses joining our profession, absolutely plummet. They were not getting the support, the resources, the training that they needed.

to then enter these complex medical situations and do so with, you know, the level of competence that we would expect. And, you know, one thing I will say, no one goes into their first day of nursing like, I got this. Let's, let's go. I'm a confident nurse. That's just not how it happens. But usually we have robust training programs.

You come out of school and, you know, you go through a long orientation and you learn a lot on the job. And though we still have that, you can imagine in a COVID packed emergency room, it, uh, it wasn't really [00:11:00] working. And these nurses therefore were not supported and they left really quick. Nurses are still leaving the bedside at record fast rates.

The most recent data is about 50 percent of new nurses are out of the profession in two years, which is less time than they spent learning to be a nurse. And I find that alarming and, um, just really, I'm very saddened and know that we can do better. So for me, I, you know, my wheels are turning. It's, I'm thinking, where does this start?

How do we impact it? It's very multifaceted, but my brain kept going back to This has to start from day one. This starts with how we educate our next generation of professionals. And I really felt like there were gaps that could be filled. So that was when I started innovating. I met my co founder, Karthik, who is a medical oncologist who was doing some work in [00:12:00] this area.

We, we really hit it off and he brought me on to develop the nursing curriculum for Archer Review. Uh, it started out with like videos in my closet and you know, I'm like. writing questions over here and and slowly but surely we started paving the way for really a community platform that could support nurses from day one of their education throughout

Angela Gennari: their entire career.

That's really smart because I mean, I think you're exactly right. I think people are coming out of it out of schools now lacking confidence and competence to really be the at the same level as their peers, you know, and and that's, it's scary. Um, and I don't know how they're, I don't know how that's happening.

Are they fast tracking people in the education system? Are they, you know, the lowering the bar? Like, this is one thing that I really don't know.

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, well, I'll tell you, it's absolutely multifactorial, but there are a few key [00:13:00] areas I've picked up on that I'm trying to work towards addressing that I do think make a big impact.

First is, we have a shortage of nursing faculty. There's just not enough of them. They're retiring. And we don't have more nurses going into education. So the cohorts of nursing schools are getting bigger and bigger and bigger with less instruction. Nursing is a really hard degree. That bachelor's degree has some of the highest number of exams of boards of papers of clinical hours of all bachelor's degrees out there.

And it's. kind of an emotional profession to get into as you're going into clinical rotations for the first time. You're seeing people who are very ill, who are passing away. You're navigating the intricacy of communicating with families. And if you don't have faculty that's there to support you, to guide you, to talk it out with you, you might just drop out of school.

Or you're [00:14:00] going into day one with a lowered competency or just, you know, not the confidence to, to jump into this. So I do think that the number of faculty, the robust support system we have in our education systems has at least a part of, uh, the role

Angela Gennari: to play there. Interesting. So do you find any of it?

To be generational just to the because I know as an employer, I can definitely see generational differences and work ethic and the amount of resiliency that they have and, you know, kind of going back to our conversation about children and needing that adult support system. I, I. Do feel that, you know, a lot of people have coddled their children too much, you know, like they've gone too far, do everything for them.

And now they cannot handle, they can't handle stress. They can't handle, you know, commitment. They can't handle certain, certain aspects of life that you learn in childhood. [00:15:00] Through that resiliency through that, you know, that, that fall down, get back up, fall down, get back up like that. And so I do find as an employer, I see a lot of generational differences.

Now, of course, you always have anomalies. You always have those people who are just rock stars, no matter what.

Both: But,

Angela Gennari: you know, I do feel that there's a. The generational difference between, you know, the, the people who are coming out of college now versus the ones who had come out 20 years ago. Very different.

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, I, I think that you're right. And, um, you know, it's for me, just, and so totally, I don't have numbers to back this up or anything, but something I've seen in the past, I'll say. Five years, give or take, um, is a dramatic decrease in attention span for how long I can, um, provide educational content and really retain the focus of, of the students.

You know, I used to put out like hour long lectures, and then we were [00:16:00] like, Oh, that's a lot. Let's break it up. Let's chunk it out into 20 minute lectures. Now, nobody wants to see anything longer than a TikTok video. And I'm sorry, but you can't go to nursing school on TikTok. Now, it's like the bane of my existence.

I, I,

Angela Gennari: I get it. And you can't also learn from YouTube. Which, I learn a lot from YouTube, but there's limitations. There's

Morgan Taylor: limitations. Oh, we say it's like an adjunct. It's like, you didn't quite get that. Okay, you know, go, go out and find something supplementary. But, you know, you can't get your whole curriculum there.

Angela Gennari: No, because they're not vetted, right? So you don't know who's teaching you this stuff. Um, you know, I, I talked to some of my, uh, Gen Z, uh, employees, and I was asking them, like, where do you get your news? Where do you get your information? And almost exclusively it's in the internet, you know, TikTok or, or Instagram.

I'm like, that's. Not news, like you don't know what he has embedded to give you the authority, they're not [00:17:00] the authority on a topic.

Morgan Taylor: As someone who really wants to engage with this audience and produce fruitful conversations. Yeah. It's this weird balancing act of, I need to put content out on those platforms.

Um, But the expectation is, you know, I'm giving you a nugget of something that hopefully provides value, but I really want you to engage in a more robust platform where I can, you know, teach you a little bit longer. And, you know, some students absolutely get that. Others, they really, um, really want those very, very short little bites of information, um, and that's a big challenge.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, well, and I hear the, the average attention span is something like eight minutes now, which is just scary.

Morgan Taylor: Yeah. It's just scary. You can just only get so far in eight minutes.

Angela Gennari: I know, I know, like, I, by the time you finish your hellos and introductions, you're, you're four minutes in. You're done. You have four [00:18:00] minutes.

To grab whatever you're so, so, uh, it's very interesting. So, so how do you then produce content that is engaging enough and, you know, at the rate of attention span that people have, how do you do that?

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, so there's two big strategies we've taken, and depending on if our content is being engaged with live or in an on demand platform.

Uh huh. So, really, we hope that students will engage with us, you know, live, come to a webinar, get a lot out of it. But we want them to also be able to follow a curricula at their own pace when they have time. Yeah. Uh huh. So, we really do drive home that on demand kind of library of content. And what we've tried to do is kind of make it like a Netflix for nursing skills.

So we'll have a whole season of, let's say, cardiovascular knowledge. And then you get little episodes. So, you know, you talk about heart failure for eight minutes. You talk [00:19:00] about a cardiac arrest for nine minutes. And then they can say, you know, play next, play next, or take breaks, you know, they can listen to those chapters on the go, in their car, while they're on a walk.

I've seen a big uptick in people taking their content on the go, which I'm personally a big fan of. I learn best when I'm in motion, and I think other students do too. So making it versatile. Breaking it into chapters, I think, has been very useful. But as far as when we're engaging with our students live, we've really tried to innovate using gamification of learning to get them into the session.

Interesting. They're sitting there just listening how easy it is to pull up, you know, your email, your TikTok, your, your, your Instagram, it's, I mean, you're only half if that there unless you're actively participating. So we use a platform where there's like a little [00:20:00] QR code, they scan it, they can like buzz in to answer questions.

They compete to get on a leaderboard. Um, and it really turns it into this community participating in the session and they're there, they're with you a hundred percent and they walk away with so much more.

Angela Gennari: Oh, I love that so much. Cause you're absolutely right. If it's interactive, then people want to stay engaged because I'm very competitive, but I'm also someone who, uh, you know, if I'm like, I listened to audible.

at the gym, because just like you were saying, when you're in motion, you kind of retain things better. So if I'm on the treadmill, I'll be listening to an audio book on, you know, I don't know, scaling up or

Morgan Taylor: totally. I love it,

Angela Gennari: but I retain it better because I'm, I'm in motion and, and it gives me something to really.

It actually prolongs the time that I'm at the gym, because normally if I'm listening to music, I'm like, okay, okay, I'm done. Bye. Forget about it. An audio book. I'm like, I have 10 more minutes of this. I'll keep [00:21:00] going. Right. I'll keep going. I'll keep listening to this. I

Morgan Taylor: couldn't agree more. I remember the exact moment in undergrad when it clicked for me, that like, that was how my brain was retaining info.

I was listening to a lecture in my headphones while I was like on a walk or something. And then later that week I had a test. on that information. And I had like an out of body experience where I remembered where I was on the walk when I had heard that bit of information that I was using to answer that test question.

Yeah. And I was like, Oh, you know, I remember I soaked all that up. Like that worked for me. You know, it doesn't work for everybody, but I advocate to all of my students, try different things, you know, try different methods of studying until you clicks for you because everyone is different. And if you, if you really focus on studying smarter, not, you know, harder necessarily, you're way more effective.

Angela Gennari: Have you heard of this book [00:22:00] called you happier? No. So Dr. Amen is, um, he is, uh, some kind of physician, I think neuro. Okay. I don't know. But anyway, he wrote a book called you happier. And it's all about, um, understanding your brain type and how your brain type needs certain foods, needs certain exercise, needs certain, uh, engagement and, and your brain type will basically like, if you're feeding, it's, it's like making, making your brain happy by what you're putting into it and, and how you're getting information out of it.

So it was fascinating. And I'm still kind of yeah. Finishing the book, but one of the chapters that I just finished, um, is called, I think that's it's called grounding, but to retain information, um, for me, because I have what's called a spontaneous brain, which can be a little add, which just, which it makes sense of why I need to be at the gym because I'm actively doing something short, but also listening.

And so it's [00:23:00] something that I can do and listen to, but I have to like, not let myself get caught up in the. You know, the subtitle stuff of the, of the TVs and like, I can't actually read two things and retain them both. So I'm constantly trying to figure out, like, how do I, you know, keep that focus. And so one of the things that he suggests is this thing, and I think it's called grounding and I may be butchering that, but I think it's called grounding where you, you walk you in your mind, you visualize, like, let's just say you're trying to remember, you know, the.

chemicals, right? Or, or medications you go into, you know, you visualize going into one room of your house and you read all of these different medications and you memorize these medications. You go into a next room of your house and you go through the same thing, but it's like you go from place to place to place and you just chunk the information into that place.

And so then when you say, okay, so let's talk about the medications involved with. Diabetes. Oh, that's my living room. Okay. In my [00:24:00] living room, we have blah, blah, blah. And so you're kind of putting these, these things in a place, um, that has a physical presence wherever you are. So it's interesting because, um, it's a good way to remember because you're chunking the information, but you're associating it with something that you care about, like your home.

Right. So yeah,

Morgan Taylor: that's the grounding of really giving it something to latch on to. I love that concept.

Angela Gennari: These aren't just, you know, these aren't just things I have to memorize because that's like our weakest, you know, our weakest form of memory is just like, Oh, I'm just going to remember it. You know,

Morgan Taylor: it's just like brute force.

And then it exits. Stage laugh as soon as you're done with it.

Angela Gennari: Exactly. The only thing I've ever retained is like the Gettysburg address. It's like the only thing, but, um, but yeah, so the, but yeah, when you, when you associate it with something, um, or with a food that you love or, you know, something that makes your brain happy, your brain remembers it better.

[00:25:00] So anyway, just food for thought. I love that. Yeah. I'm going to

Morgan Taylor: have to put

Angela Gennari: that on my reading list. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, it's, it's good. Um, and it tells you a little bit more about like, you know, the foods that help your brain and, uh, you know, cause like there are certain things that aren't good for me, uh, to be consuming, obviously sugar, but, um, but especially for my brain type, it just doesn't, you know, it kind of overacts, you know, I don't know.

But it's an interesting book, you should definitely check it out. And I think it's very relevant to what you were saying with like this, you know, how we, how we interact. We know so much more than we've ever known about how to learn. And so now it's about applying those principles and doing it effectively.

But, um, but I love that you're setting it up like a Netflix because that's, it's very, you know, it's very. What people are doing anyway, right? Yeah.

Morgan Taylor: Yeah. It's gotta be user friendly. It's gotta just flow naturally. Path of least resistance, right? The harder it feels, the less likely they are to really gain [00:26:00] something from it.

So if we make it. And that goes back to, like, my whole philosophy on teaching and part of what I'm trying to do at Archer Review is bring joy back into education. I felt like nursing school was this scary, big, bad woof that they were weeding people out, you know, only the strong are gonna survive. And it just wasn't fun, okay?

I mean, it was just not a good time. And not to say that, you know, it shouldn't be hard. It is a challenging thing to do, but why do we have to make it scary? Why do we have to make it intimidating? I don't think we do. I think we can lighten up, make fun of ourselves a little bit. Have a good time. I love the profession of nursing, and if I can pass that joy off to the next generation, I think they'll stick around for longer and be more fulfilled in their careers.

Absolutely. So really, just making the platform fun, making our content fun, it, it, I think [00:27:00] goes a long way.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, I think I think you're absolutely right. And it builds confidence, you know, because if you learn something in a book and it's your standard coursework, you're going to win it when you're put into a real world scenario.

Um, and. You have to try to remember the textbook and the textbook is the hardest thing in the world to remember, just like we were saying, but if you've done this gamification and you've done these videos and somebody has actively engaged and really enjoys the stuff that they're teaching you, then it's going to stay with you longer and you're going to have that confidence to go into it a little bit, you know, a little bit.

I

Morgan Taylor: completely agree. The biggest compliment and the most reward that I feel from this is when a student reaches out and says, Morgan, I could hear your voice in my head when I was taking that exam. That's

Angela Gennari: awesome. Like,

Morgan Taylor: all right, we've done something. You've got this.

Angela Gennari: It does. It feels so good. That's awesome.

So coming out of nursing school, um, where do you feel like the biggest challenge is for [00:28:00] new nurses?

Morgan Taylor: I think finding your footing and your confidence to really engage with your peers and ask the right questions. We really set the bar so high for ourselves, thinking we should know everything. Right. We should be this confident, confident, amazing nurse.

And the truth is, none of us came out of nursing school like that. We were all these, you know, little baby nurses that didn't know what was going on. And we were really scared. We wanted to fit in. We wanted to ask the right questions, but not look like we were, you know, silly. And finding, finding your footing, coming into yourself and getting that confidence to just engage, not be afraid to ask the questions.

That is brutal. It's a really, really challenging thing to do. Um, I think it comes back to just, you know, how, how secure you are in your own skin as well. Um, it's just a delicate time and it really is [00:29:00] a challenge.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, it really is. Well, and confidence is one of those things where, um, I feel like there's so much growth we can do as women, you know, on, on being confident, especially in the workforce.

So, um, I, I do a talk on confidence. Um, and one of the things that we talk about is you don't have to know all the information. You just have to ask the right questions because if you go in and you just, through it and you don't really know what you're doing. It's going to, you're going to lose confidence because you're going to be like, well, I screwed that up, you know, but, but if you just ask somebody, Hey, can you show me one more time?

I just want to make sure that I do this right. Or can you just, you know, help me with, with one thing. I want to make sure that I get this right. That, that shows confidence that doesn't show. You know, incompetence and so I think that's where we get confused is we don't want to ask questions because we want to feel like we like you're saying we know everything already.

Morgan Taylor: I think there's this mentality hanging around that we can fake it till we make it. Yeah. I hate that. I

Angela Gennari: hate that so [00:30:00] much.

Morgan Taylor: I really hate that. Yes. I'm like, don't fake it. Please do not fake anything. Learn, learn, learn. That is not going to help you. That's not going to help the other nurses, the patients.

Like, please don't fake anything. Um, I, I kind of try to set my students up with like, here's a script you can follow. Here's some verbiage you can use. And it's as simple as. You know what? I'm not sure. Let me go find the answer for you. Exactly. No patient is going to come down on you. I mean, I shouldn't say no.

We never know. Never say never. But most of the time, the vast majority of the time, you tell somebody, hey, I'm just not sure, but let me go find out for you. Oh, no problem. They would much rather you go find the answer than make something up.

Angela Gennari: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because nobody, I mean, we're sometimes, I mean, in nursing, you're dealing with life and death situations at some time.

So, you know, you definitely don't want to get to the point where you're just kind of fumbling your way through it because you should get somebody's life or help on your hands. No, no

Morgan Taylor: fumbling. No faking aloud. Just ask the [00:31:00] questions. Yeah, I, I agree. And once you get into that groove and you find your footing and start to see that.

I really do think it starts to get easier, but it takes some time. And it also takes the right role models. If you don't have a preceptor, a charge nurse, you know, any sort of figure to look up to that's modeling that behavior, you're, you're gonna struggle more. So All in all, that's one of my missions at Archer is, you know, really from day one of your education, setting that expectation.

Yeah. That it is okay to ask those questions, that it is okay to demand to be treated with respect, to really exemplify that. Because if we can raise this next generation of nurses to go into the jobs with that expectation and that skill set, It'll transform the profession as a whole. You know, no one will expect you to fake it until you make it.

Angela Gennari: Exactly. Exactly. So to pivot [00:32:00] a little bit, who inspires you?

Morgan Taylor: Oh man, you know, nurses as a whole, the profession is so tenacious. There are so many out there that really have shown me what it is to be inspired. Um, yeah. So rather than just one person, I think the nursing profession is what inspires me because they are really able to pivot to wear 10 different hats.

In this most recent phase of my career away from the bedside. I've met nurses as innovators, as CEOs, as, you know, board members and learned so much that I had no idea was possible for nurses, for women, um, to really reach that level of, uh, you know, I'm a decision maker. I, I carry some weight. I sit at the table here.

So really seeing that power and influence has been [00:33:00] incredibly inspiring.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, I imagine. Yeah, nurses in general I just think are very inspiring because I mean they, they, they're in a career that's literally just saving lives and helping people. So yeah, I think they're, they're the unsung heroes. Doctors are okay, but, uh, nurses,

nurses are really the rock stars. Um, that's awesome. So what challenges have you overcome and just in transitioning from nursing to teaching nurses?

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, um, one of the big challenges is really just learning to adapt to what, what this newer generation is looking for. Like we talked about with the shorter attention spans.

Both: Sure. And

Morgan Taylor: also being willing to admit when something's, uh, not working and pivot. Yeah. Um, it can be really hard for me once I've solidified an idea. And I think it's really going to be amazing. You know, it doesn't always work [00:34:00] out, and I have had to learn that it's okay to kill it and move on. It is not, you know, the death of me, the death of my company.

We don't get it right 100 percent of the time, and I'm doing more harm than good by just, like, clinging on for dear life, rather than saying, all right, That's not really what they were looking for. Let's learn from that, pivot, innovate, and make it better.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, love that. For sure. Yeah, I think as entrepreneurs, that's one thing we struggle with, because everything is our baby.

Everything is our baby, and it's all ego tied, right? And so they always say, don't let your ego get involved. And, and, you know, being an entrepreneur is one of the most ego crushing things that you can ever do. A hundred percent. So, if you really want to be humbled, start a company and you'll find out how.

Start a

Morgan Taylor: company, you'll get total, you'll get total notes every time. Like, it's just, and it's soul crushing, you're right.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, it's soul crushing, but, you know, you learn and you become resilient. So. Um, so as women, we [00:35:00] give our power away a lot. Um, you know, we tend to give other people credit for our work, or we tend to, you know, take criticism when it wasn't, you know, justified and, you know, so where do you feel like in your past that you've ever given your power away and another time that maybe you've stepped into your power?

Morgan Taylor: Okay, you know what? Every family gathering I've ever been to in my life, does anyone else just like revert to their teenage self and just, I become so not powerful in any way. I mean, I can like vividly think about like last month at Thanksgiving, you know, my extended family's like, so what are you doing now?

And instead of like, Oh, I'm running a prominent nursing education company. Yeah, I'm just teaching on zoom, you know, why are these words coming out of my mouth? No, they're like, I have a doctorate degree and I can't like express that to my family. I don't know what it is. I don't know if anybody else [00:36:00] relates with that.

Yeah, but I definitely give my power away at things like that.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, you know, I do too. And now that you say that, it's so interesting because I grew up in Pennsylvania and I grew up in a very, it was a very blue, blue collar town. And, um, I remember when I graduated from college, I decided not to move back home.

I decided to move to Atlanta. So I graduated from University of Maryland and I moved to Atlanta. And so I started working and, you know, just kind of started. Moving along, but every time I would go home, if people ask me what I do, Oh, I'm, I graduated from college. I did it, you know, and, and busted my butt, right.

I graduate on the Dean's list. Like, but you know, if I say any of that around my family, I remember getting a few comments of, Oh, you think you're too good for us? Oh, you think you're better than us? Oh, you know, Oh, you're so fancy now. And they kind of, they, it almost like I became out of the club. If I, if I was, you know, Promoting myself [00:37:00] in any way whatsoever.

So I would always downplay it. I would always downplay it. And like, yeah, no, nothing much. I was just saying, I say that

Morgan Taylor: all the time, nothing much. And I'm like, no, I, I literally just went through a private equity transaction. I'm scaling this company. Why am I afraid? I think I'm so afraid of sounding boastful that I would rather just shut myself down.

Um, and that is something I need to work on, um, because there is a line between discussing and being honest and being boastful, you know? Just because we're talking about it, we're not necessarily boasting. Um, and that's hard.

Angela Gennari: You're right. Absolutely. It's very hard, especially as women, because we're kind of expected that, you know, and then I'm around, you know, people that, um, you know, maybe have chosen a different path, you know, they, they can go, go the career path.

They decided to, you know, just raise a family or, and I say, just raise a family. That's it. Obviously a very, it's like the hardest job, but yeah, [00:38:00] yeah, exactly. But, but, you know, they decided to take a different path. And so around them, I'm also very cautious about like, you know, I don't want to say anything that I'm doing with my career because I don't want to sound like I'm arrogant or that I'm boasting, but, but yeah, it is, it's a very interesting, um, dynamic, especially for women, because I think that we feel like we have to stay in this little box that.

In this box.

Morgan Taylor: I, I completely agree. I completely agree. Um, and for the latter half of your question here, really, I very recently had an experience where I felt like I stepped into that power a little bit more. Um, but not on the family side with my company, with my team, we had an all team, uh, all hands retreat for the end of the year, you know, celebrating what we had accomplished looking forward.

Um, and I've had a habit of really downplaying what our goals are out of fear that we wouldn't achieve them. I never want to let any of my employees down. I, you know, I only want to tell them [00:39:00] about things that are certain so that they don't feel the pain of things that fall through inevitably as, as we know happens.

Sure. Um, And this year I decided, for our closing remarks, I was really gonna shoot for the moon, I was gonna give them my full, unfiltered vision of everything I think and know that we can be without holding back. And it felt so good to just really let loose and say, you know, We are going to be the premier, uh, you know, nursing education company.

And here's, here are all these things that we are going to accomplish. It was so invigorating. The response from everybody was so positive, fully aware, you know. Maybe some of these things aren't going to necessarily happen tomorrow, or at all. I know how this path goes, but I'm not going to be afraid of putting it out there, of setting the bar really high, and it was wonderful.

Angela Gennari: Oh, that's amazing. I love that. That's [00:40:00] amazing. Well, good for you. And I'm glad that, because, you know, you're, you're the leader, so you have to rally the troops, right? So, you can only do that by inspiring them and getting them bought into your vision. So I love that you, you communicated that to them. So good for you.

So what do you wish your 18 year old self knew? What do you, what do you, what do you advice would you give?

Morgan Taylor: I would say, don't be afraid if the path you think is the path changes. Yeah. There's been so many changes from, you know, thinking I was going to be a ballerina to being a nurse, thinking I was going to practice at the bedside my whole career.

Moving into education and leadership, you know, to not be so afraid of letting it happen.

Angela Gennari: Yeah.

Morgan Taylor: When there's a fork in the road, just trust your gut, go with it, and, um, the right thing usually does play out.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Morgan, this has been a really, really enjoyable conversation. I've really learned a lot, and I'm so [00:41:00] grateful for the opportunity, and I wish you so much success in everything that you're doing with Archer.

So, Um, tell me my last question. What do you wish more people knew? What do I wish

Morgan Taylor: more people knew? Well, I think this is something that people know, but they maybe need to be a little bit reminded and they need to remember that if there's something out there you want to know, if there's something out there you want to achieve, you want to figure out.

It is up to you to do it. We live in a day and age where the information is out there. Usually for free. You can find out the answer to anything you want. So if there's something you don't know and you want to know it, you know, you're making the choice not to know it. Go out there, get it, follow your, your ambition, and, um, you're the only one who can make it happen.

Angela Gennari: 100 percent agree. Well, thank you so much, Morgan. This has been a really super enjoyable conversation. I am so grateful. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and then where can people find you?

Morgan Taylor: Yeah, thanks. [00:42:00] The pleasure's been all mine. Um, you can find us on all the socials at, um, at Archer Nursing and then our website is archerreview.

Angela Gennari: com. Very cool. Well, thank you so much. And, uh, I appreciate everyone's time today. We look forward to seeing you on another episode of the Pretty Powerful Podcast. Have a great day, everybody. Bye

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