The Second Shift

It is 7:46 PM. You clocked out sixteen minutes ago. You are still in the parking lot, replaying one comment from 1:15 this afternoon.

This episode meets you right there.

We are not talking about fixing you, because you are not broken. The short staffing is real. The mandatory overtime is real. The pizza party that showed up where a raise should have been, real. This episode is about the one territory no staffing grid, no manager, no survey score can reach: the conversation inside your own head, the one deciding what you are worth at the end of every shift.

I spent many years letting other people run that conversation. What pulled me out came down to three lessons. I hand you all three in this episode, each one applied to your actual life: the text on your day off, the family member who screamed at you, the comment you carried home.

In this episode:

* The system is real. You are not imagining it. You are not weak; you are trained.

* Lesson one: the voice in your head is borrowed. It is not yours. What to do when the staffing text arrives on your day off.

* Lesson two: you can hear an opinion without wearing it. The counter practice, applied to the worst moment of your shift.

* Lesson three: valuing your worth is quiet, daily, unglamorous. You have held the hands of dying strangers. When was the last time anyone held that kind of space for you?

* All three lessons in one ten-second moment, plus your assignment for the week.

* For the nurse who knows it is not one comment, it is the whole environment.

This week’s assignment: One question each morning: whose approval am I carrying today? One act: a single unapologetic no, a single comment set down in the parking lot instead of carried through your front door.

Resources + links

📄 The companion essay: When Your Worth Is Up for Debate

🎁 Free guide, Transition Out of the Bedside: translating your skills, refining your job search, AI prompts to sharpen your resume for the role you actually want. www.lifenursecoach.com/free-guide

☕ Schedule a Conversation, Nurse to Nurse: thirty minutes, real, honest, no fancy frameworks. Book here

💬 Join the conversation: leave a comment on this post. What did you set down this week? I read every one. I respond to every one.

🔔 Subscribe to The Second Shift for a new essay plus episode every week.

About The Second Shift

The Second Shift is a newsletter plus podcast for nurses who carry the weight of caring for 12 to 14 hours, then come home to begin a second shift. This is the shift no one sees, one that is equally important. I have lived this story. As a coach, I create space for nurses built on real, honest conversations: a plan that moves you from chaos to a life you feel alive inside of again.

Patrick LaRose, DNP, MSN/Ed., RN, NC-BC Board-Certified Coach | Life Coach lifenursecoach.com

Music Credit: Suno, The Second Shift

The Second Shift is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

There is a voice most nurses know well. It is the one that says someone else has it worse, so sit down and stay quiet. The Second Shift podcast opens by admitting that voice almost kept this episode from existing at all.

This episode is about what self-doubt actually costs a nurse, why disqualifying your own experience became a professional reflex, and what years at the bedside teaches you about showing up before you feel ready.

Lessons you will take away:

* Loving nursing while hating the conditions are two separate problems, not one. You get to define what your nursing career looks and feels like.

* The most transferable skills you own today are proven by every shift you work, by every decision you make. Your inventory of skills gives you choices you may have never thought you had.

* Why permission is never coming from anyone else, except you. You hold the key to your future.

Nurses: Is this you? You know when you’re mid-shift, running on fumes? You stop in that moment of chaos, for a brief moment, and think, there has to be something better than this! If this describes a typical day in your nursing life, you are in the right place.

I help nurses stop white-knuckling their way through chaos. I help them hear what they actually want, then rebuild a life around it that pays the bills without losing themselves in the process.

Connect: This conversation continues in my Substack community, posts, and daily notes. If you are the nurse tired of working in the chaos and you are ready for a real, honest conversation about your future, let’s schedule a conversation nurse to nurse. This will be the easiest conversation you have had all week.

Are you interested in hearing more? These are designed for you.

The second shift is a newsletter and podcast designed for nurses who carry the weight of caring for 12-14 hours and then come home to begin a second shift. This is the shift no one sees, but one that is equally important. I have lived this story and want to share with nurses that there is relief. As a coach, I create space for nurses that is based in real, honest conversations. The development of a plan that moves you from chaos to a life where you feel alive inside of it again. No fancy frameworks, no 5-day plans that never seem to work. A real, honest conversation from someone who has lived the experience.

If you are ready for that conversation, I am excited to hear from you.

With care,

Patrick LaRose, DNP, MSN/Ed., RN, NC-BC Board-Certified Coach | Life Coach lifenursecoach.com

The Second Shift is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

From Fine to Free | Show Notes

It was You. You Were There.

The Decision That Changes Everything

A weekly podcast for people living in the crossing between fine and actually free. Hosted by Patrick LaRose — nurse, coach, and someone who has lived the transformation from the inside out.

About This Episode

Have you ever sat in your car in the parking lot before a shift and had to talk yourself into walking through those doors?

If you know that feeling, this episode is for you.

This is not another conversation about burnout statistics. It is not a self-care checklist. This is a conversation about the moment a person decides their own life is worth showing up for — what that decision looks like, what it costs, and what it gets back.

Patrick speaks directly from his own experience as an ICU nurse — tripled on the unit, managing vents, drips, and split-second decisions — while carrying a quiet question he could no longer ignore: Who am I outside of this work?

Key Highlights

The Parking Lot Moment The episode opens with a scene every exhausted nurse recognizes — driving home on autopilot, changing scrubs in the garage, standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator open and nothing to reach for. That moment the thought surfaces: Is this all there is?

The Exhaustion That Sleep Cannot Fix Patrick names what nurses rarely say out loud. The exhaustion is not about the work. It is about losing yourself inside of it. When you have been reliable and capable and giving for so long, the role absorbs the human being wearing it.

The Disguise "It doesn't feel like weakness. It feels like loyalty." That kind of exhaustion disguises itself as professionalism. The structure becomes the identity. The schedule becomes the person. Until one day you look in the mirror and do not recognize who is looking back.

Three Lessons From the Other Side

The exhaustion is not the enemy. The silence is. Nurses are trained to respond, to move, to act. Sitting with the question of what you actually want is harder than any shift you will ever work.

Performing strength is not the same as having it. Pushing through without complaint is not toughness. It is performance. Real strength looks like telling the truth about where you are. Real strength looks like asking for something for yourself without apologizing for it.

Choosing yourself is not selfish. It is the prerequisite. You have watched patients decline because their baselines were compromised long before the acute event. The same principle applies to you. Choosing your own life, your own voice, your own direction is not abandonment. It is maintenance.

The Takeaway

You do not have to sell everything and drive across the country. That was Patrick's path. Yours will look different.

The point is the decision underneath it — the one that says: I am worth choosing.

The version of you that existed before the nurse title, before the sacrifices became the default — that person deserves to come back.

Your One Action for Tomorrow

Before the shift starts. Before the kids wake up. Before anyone needs anything from you.

Find 10 minutes. Open your Notes app. Answer this question in writing:

What did I want before all of this?

Not what the unit needs. Not what your family needs. What did you want? What did the version of you who walked into nursing school believe was possible?

Write it down. Do not edit it. Do not judge it. Just write it down.

That is where you come back.

Send This to a Nurse Who Needs It

You know exactly who came to mind while listening to this.

Stop right now. Copy the link. Text it to them.

Do not do it later. Later never comes.

She will thank you for it.

Connect With Patrick

If something in this episode hit differently, Patrick wants to talk to you.

The link to schedule a call is in the show notes. It is not a sales pitch. It is not a program presentation. It is a conversation between two nurses — one who has been exactly where you are, and one who found a way through.

Not a show notes person? Find Patrick directly on Substack at From Fine to Free. DM him. Tell him what landed. Tell him what you are carrying.

From Fine to Free is for the person living in the crossing between fine and actually free. New episodes weekly.

A Bigger Stage, Same Performance

Same act. Bigger stage. Still no time to ask what you want.

What do you do when you finally get everything you wanted, and nothing in your life changes?

A friend of mine chased a promotion for six years. She got the email, and about an hour later, she was sitting in a parking garage crying, hands on the wheel, not going anywhere. She did not know why. I think she did. She just did not want to say it out loud, at least not yet.

We talk about what happens after the thing you wanted finally arrives, and why a reward does not end the performance. It only gives the performance a bigger stage.

In this episode:

Why getting the job can sometimes be harder on a person than not getting it

The difference between a reward and a real change

Three questions to ask yourself before you keep performing on the new stage

The questions worth sitting with:

When was the last time you took a moment to think about what you actually want from your life?

How long has it been since you asked yourself that question honestly, instead of staying busy with everything in front of you?

If it has been a while, what do you think staying busy with everything else has cost you?

The lesson:

A reward does not end the performance. It only gives the performance a bigger stage. The only way to actually change your life is to stop performing long enough to ask yourself what you really want. You have the power and ability to look at your life and create one that has meaning and is yours. You.

Two ways forward:

If you stay in the performance, here is what it actually costs you. Not a crisis. Just more years on a stage you did not choose, telling yourself there will be time later to ask what you actually want. There will not be, unless you make the time.

If this episode landed somewhere and you are ready to get to work, DM me or use the link below to schedule a conversation with me. It is free and may be the best call you could make today.

If you are still not sure what your thing is or are not ready for that conversation yet, start with the 10 Question Audit.

If you already know you are ready for the next thing that will change your life and you have named it, the Quick Start program gets you on the road.

Coaching is not about fixing. It is about witnessing.

Patrick LaRose, From Fine to Free

About This Episode

What if the universe was giving you signals that it was time for a new route in your life? In this episode, Paddy shares the story behind one of the biggest decisions of his life — selling everything he owned and living full-time in a van for five years. This is not a van life story. It is a story about defiance, self-discovery, and what happens when you stop living the life that fits on paper and start living the one that fits in the body.

What You Will Hear

The moment the question “is this it?” would not go away.

Why the decision to leave felt like defiance — not escape.

What five years on the road actually gave him. Space. Belonging. Self-understanding. Strength.

Why the quiet of the road still matters today.

The decision to come home — and why that took the same courage as leaving.

What all of this has to do with the life you are living right now.

The Line That Started It All

Every time I get in the van for a long trip, the quiet reminds me of why I do this.

If This Episode Landed For You

You are probably someone who has felt the pull. A life that looks right from the outside. A question you keep talking yourself out of. A version of yourself is waiting on the other side of a decision you have not made yet.

That is exactly who this show is for.

Connect With Patrick

Substack: simplypaddy.substack.com

Website: lifenursecoach.com

Want to Go Deeper?

If you are sitting with a big life question and you are not sure what to do with it — that is where coaching starts.

Schedule a Conversation.

I remember sitting in a hospital parking lot watching everyone march into work.

That song from Barney kept playing in my head. The ants go marching one by one.

I was one of those ants.

Maybe you know that feeling.

This episode starts with a simple question — one most of us have never actually stopped to answer.

Who are you today? Not the version you perform at work. Not the one that keeps the peace and pays the bills. The real one. The one your ten-year-old self was counting on.

Somewhere between who you were and who the world needed you to be, most of us made a quiet deal. No paperwork. No ceremony. We just... became someone who worked.

This episode is for anyone who has looked up recently and wondered how they got here.

Press play. Bring a piece of paper.

If you are just finding this podcast, start with Episode #1.

Are You Still There — the question that started all of this.

New episodes drop every week. Each one starts with a question and ends with one small thing you can do today.

Come back next week. Bring whoever needs to hear this. Or better yet, share this with someone who might benefit from the message.

From Fine to Free is written and hosted by Patrick LaRose, nurse, coach, and occasional van dweller. If this landed, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next.

Something New Is Starting

I have been writing From Fine to Free for a while now. Essays. Notes. Reflections on what it looks like to stop performing your life and start actually living it.

And somewhere along the way, people started writing back.

Not just to say they liked it. But to say they recognized themselves in it. That they had been feeling the same thing for years. That they did not have a name for it until they read it here.

So I started thinking about what it would mean to take this conversation somewhere deeper. Somewhere you could hear it, not just read it.

That is what this is.

From Fine to Free is now a podcast.

A weekly show for people living in the crossing. The space between the life you have built and the life you actually want. Between fine and free.

Each episode is a coaching conversation in audio form. No guests. No panels. Just you and me, working through the real stuff.

This week’s first episode is called Are You Still There?

It is for the person who is still showing up, still delivering, still being who everyone needs them to be — but who woke up one morning and felt nothing. Not sadness. Not crisis. Just flat. Just gone from their own life.

If that sentence landed somewhere in you, this episode is for you.

Listen above. Subscribe so you do not miss what comes next. And if someone in your life needs to hear this, send it to them.

The crossing is better with company.

From Fine to Free is written and hosted by Patrick LaRose — nurse, coach, occasional van dweller. If this landed, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next.

From Fine to Free is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Join me for my weekly podcast.