DNP Ep. 66: Find your career purpose with the CEO and Founder of Purpose People Eva Shuman, RN, BSN

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Dr. Nurse Podcast fam. Thanks for tuning in today. Today we have on the podcast Eva Maha. Did I say that right?

Eva Shuman: It’s actually Eva Shuman now cuz I got married and changed my name, but I still Oh my gosh. I know. Congratulations. Thank you. I, I’m so bad though, cuz I left all my socials with the shadow cause I was like, oh, no one’s gonna like figure out who I am.

Like it’s too confusing for them. And then, I just like three days ago, changed them all after a year being married to Shuman, so it’s Eva Shuman.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Okay, well, congrats. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, yes. She is a married woman and she is a nurse and business owner that owns the Purpose People business, where it’s the actual nursing lifestyle brand that supports nurses with merchandise community and give back efforts.

She’s just so passionate about how The pandemic affected nurses in our mindset. And she just wants to empower them and to send them off into the world better than how they came to her. So it’s just a really sweet story. And I, I love one of her shirts, which is the reason why I reached out to her was enjoy the Journey and she has rn You know, bolded in that part of the message, which I just, again, you guys all know if you listen to the podcast at all, but that’s just my tagline.

I just want people to just, again, just realize that this is a beautiful journey in this career. So welcome. Thank you so much. This Isman. I know. This is Shoeman. Get it right, get it right.

Eva Shuman: I know right? Thank you so much. That was so sweet.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: So, again, for my listeners that are tuning in and they’re like, okay, what’s her deal?

What’s her stitch? I love for people to say who they are, like how they see their roles and their job title.

Eva Shuman: Yeah, so I could go on for hours, I feel like about who I am. I’d do so much and I have so many different things going on, but I have been a nurse for about five years. My first year I was full-time night shift.

I then moved to New Jersey to be with my now husband, which we just discussed . And when I did that, I got kinda whatever job I could find, because I really wanted to work at a specific hospital where I was gonna have no commute because. Already prioritizing certain things and I was like, I live in the same town as this hospital.

I really wanna work there. And so I ended up getting a per diem role, which I probably would’ve wanted full time, but I got a per diem role there and I still work there now. I work in cardiology, so we specialize in electrophysiology. It’s a really interesting role just because the hospital’s so specialized and it’s awesome.

I love it. But during that journey, I learned that I absolutely love being per game. I’m a huge advocate for it. I talk about it all the time on all my pages. Why it’s so great. I worked full-time hours in that role for years, and then when I started my business a couple years, Which we actually just hit three years in business.

That’s mind blowing to me. But as I transitioned into, okay, what do I wanna do beyond working at the bedside? I wanna add something in, but what is it? And as I found my business, which is now purpose people, and I can call it that and it’s great, but in the time where I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, it got really confusing and I started.

Trial and error, different things. And then I landed on this business, which you see today, which is so fun and exciting and, and that’s what I do now most of the time. And then I also have my per diem role in nursing. So today what I do is own purpose people. It’s a nursing lifestyle brand, and I’m super passionate about that.

But then I also do nursing as well. So I get the best of both worlds.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: I think that’s so great. And again, that’s another thing I talk about here on the podcast and that’s why again, you and I, when we were first kind of chatting, we’d so aligned because I do feel like being in that part-time per diem does allow space and, and what I call margins for you to start to dream and to create and to see what your soul is saying. You were meant to do this and you were meant to create this. And so by creating that space again, it took you a while. You planted the seed. You were like, okay, so what do I wanna do? I think you started off with like four mugs or something like that when I was reading your story and then you built up to where you are today.

So again, those little four seeds you planted, you watered them, you grew them, you fertilized them, and you still kept doing your other side hustle. And again, you work differently when you know. Hey man, I got this thing on the side that might build into something that I can use

I just think that’s just so Encouraging for nurses to hear that they have opportunities, you know, again, to kind of step back from the bedside, still make decent money and even working part-time, maybe adjust their lifestyle a little bit and give space to dream. So I think that’s awesome.

Eva Shuman: 1000%. I mean, even in the beginning when I was in that nurture phase, I was working full-time hours and this is when Covid first hit too. I was working in the pandemic full-time hours as a nurse and I was just so passionate about purpose people. I was just able to do both. I knew it was in the nurturing phase where I couldn’t just be like, oh, I’m gonna make money off this right now and decrease my hours in nursing.

It took a long time of me doing both, but it was easy to do both because I was so passionate. And you’re right, it completely changed my mindset about my bedside role. I just didn’t put all my eggs in one basket, even though that was where all my money was coming from. , I still had this like multi-passionate aspect to my life that.

Me able to live in my purpose a lot easier and be more fulfilled in what I did, so that’s completely right.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Every single nurse that comes on here says that same thing. I gave myself some space, I gave myself a little bit of margin. I let myself dream. And again, you know, even if it’s just I took two weeks off, I mean, that’s how it started from one nurse.

She just took two weeks off. She was like, I need space two weeks. Like, let me see what I can do. And then she just again, just got quiet and just figured out what came to the. What was coming up? What? And again, just asking yourself that question, that checking in with yourself to see what it is that you were meant to do.

Because again, bedside work is so important and so it’s, it’s important for society. We need nurses, right? There’s nothing wrong with staying at the bedside, but I think what’s happening is that we think that that’s all we can do is just be at the bedside. That’s the only option you’ve got go to.

You burn out, and I don’t think it’s sustainable. And that’s the part that I love about your brand and what you talk about so much. So what is the hardest part of owning your own business? And when did you, I think that’s the first question and then I wanna hear about when you decided. To go ahead and decrease those hours at work and to really focus more on building your business.

Eva Shuman: I think starting from the ground up, the hardest part was, Believing in myself in the mindset of I know I want to do something and it’s okay if it doesn’t work out.

It’s okay if what I try, isn’t it? So leading up to what I have today, which everyone sees and they’re like, oh, that’s so great. That would be nice if I could do that. Right? But before that, it’s like you said, I trialed an error. I gave myself space and I tried a bunch of different things that just, they weren’t it.

And when I realized that they weren’t, it. Was okay with it and I just tried something else, and so that was really hard to believe in yourself. Like, okay, I guess this isn’t it. Let me, I guess I’ll try something else. Instead of just sticking with the one thing that you first thought that you wanted to do and then just going with that forever.

I. Had a book club that I started and it was a mindset book club. And I did that, and then I did a round of it and I was like, I don’t know why. I’m just not feeling it. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t like mentoring people, is it this is it that picking it apart did another round of it. And then after that I was like, I just have to let it go and just know that I’m starting from scratch again with something else.

But I know I like nursing, so I would pick apart the parts of things that I liked, I didn’t like, and take that with me and go to the next thing. And then you, like you said, saw kind of the story of, I started with six mugs. I was like, let me play around with product. Got a, a mentor who just taught me the basics, like very, very basic on how to do product.

And the second I launched it, I knew right away that it was it. And so getting to that point was really hard. Getting to the point of like, okay. I know I want something more, but what is it? And I just want it given to me now. I want my purpose given to me now. And so that was really challenging. The beginning, once I got to the point of finding what it was, it’s been so easy.

I mean, not so easy. I shouldn’t be, I shouldn’t lie. There’s a lot of challenges along the way. Yeah. But it felt so good when I landed on what I knew I wanted to do. For sure.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: The work is different, right? Mm-hmm. , you work with a different, there’s work that inspires you and then work that drains you.

And I think that’s the problem sometimes with nursing is that initially it’s work that’s inspiring, but the system is set up to absolutely drain you and tank and just completely empty your tank. And so what I want for more nurses to hear is kind of like what you were saying. So find the. That also makes you feel like it’s not work.

Even though it is work, we’re made to work as creatures. As humans. I believe that we need work, we need purpose, time and time again. As I work with the elderly population, I see stories of they stop working and then they die. It’s like you kind of need like some type of purpose, right? And I’m not saying it’s a hundred percent all the way that always that way if you pick up a hobby, you know, you might be able to stay off some of it.

But I am noticing this, like as soon as I stop working, it’s like the body’s just kinda like, okay, cool, I just go to sleep. You know? And so it’s something that we need to be doing, but it doesn’t need to be a work that completely tanks your life source, your energy, how you feel about yourself.

So finding. It gives life to the bones, I think is so cool. Yeah. So when did you decide to go ahead and decrease those hours and to go ahead and say the business needs more of my time and attention.

Eva Shuman: I gotta step away from bedside. So, okay. So I started my business at the end of 2019 pre Covid.

That’s when I launched those six mugs, and I launched my first little apparel line of three things before Covid and then Covid hit. I grew my business a lot during Covid. I learned a lot, but I was still working full time. So, as you can imagine that. Very draining and just, but it was, it was draining, but it wasn’t because I didn’t have all of my other outside life, right?

We weren’t hanging out with family, we weren’t hanging out with friends. So I had time to do both, and so it actually kept me busy in a way as well. And then 2021. Was when I realized I needed to decrease my hours because the business started doing well. That was the year I got married, as you know now.

And so I was planning a wedding, working, working full time, and having all these outside commitments come back into my life because things started to settle down and we were starting to transition back to our old lifestyle a little bit, and that is when, not the burnout, but when it just became really clear to me that I needed to step back from something.

Something had to give. Yeah, because I got married, went on my honeymoon. It’s, crazy the amount of stuff I was doing, but I got back, and holiday season is really busy when you have a product based business because of gifts for Christmas, and I had a video go viral in early December. and I had shifts at work that I was supposed to be at and things went viral and I had hundreds and hundreds of orders to do and I just was like, if I could choose right now, I would so much rather be doing these orders and be excited about this.

That was my breaking point where I was like, do I call it a work? Like do I stay up 24 hours? What am I gonna do? And I was in a full panic and then I was like, this is the point where something has to give. And so my commitment going into 2022 was to use all the money that I had reinvested and saved in the business and never spent a dime of, just cuz I was like, Like I said before, knew I needed to nurture it.

So I kind of was saving all of that money in my business account and I was like, okay, yeah, 2022, my commitment to myself is that I’m gonna work my minimum requirement as a per diem nurse, and then I’m gonna do my business all the other time and see what I can do. And so that’s what I’ve done all year so far.

And that’s been. Very overwhelming and just feels like a lot of pressure to make the business do well, but it’s what I wanna be doing. Yeah. And I have felt so good this year. I haven’t felt burnt out at all. It’s so nice. And I tell people too, like it’s kinda like you were saying before, if what you’re inspired to do is something that’s not nursing, it’s okay to say I love being a nurse.

I just don’t love being a nurse full time. And that’s my little model that I go by is I’m. It’s not that I don’t like being a nurse, it’s that I like this more and I don’t like being a nurse full-time. I like being able to go one 12 hour shift a week at the bedside and just be lit up and be like energetic and running around the unit and just like having a great time with my patients and then not be back for a week.

And I love that because when I go home I have this other thing I’m really passionate about. And so that’s kind of when I decided to take that shift was when it really just became too much to handle.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: When I hear nurses talk about different aspects of understanding business, right? We have a really myopic view of what nurses can do from a business perspective.

And again, we just get taught like once you get outta school, go right to the bedside. That’s what you’re, you. Take whatever job the hospital offers you. The hospital is your employer, you are their slave. So just whatever they give you, be thankful you have a job. And I just, something about that just rubs me wrong on every aspect.

And so I’m like, nah, I think we need to understand better business and how to market ourselves and what we’re doing. So what are some of the. Of business that have been the easiest and then also contrast it with the most difficult that you’ve had to really invest in yourself. I’ve really had to learn this.

And then the stuff that, your nursing skills made it really easy for you to just transition right into.

Eva Shuman: Yeah. So let me just start by saying that, Not having a business background has been the most empowering part of my journey because when you’re starting a business, it’s so scary. You’re so vulnerable, like you’re just so scared to screw it up.

And not having a business background and knowing I went to school to be a nurse, not a business owner, has been so empowering because I’m like, oh, guess what? I get to screw up all the time and it’s totally fine because I’m not supposed to know this. And so it’s actually, it was actually way better than like being a new grad nurse when you’re like, I’m supposed to know this med.

I’m supposed to know this. I’m supposed to know that. And you can talk yourself. Yeah, you can talk yourself crazy, right? Whereas I went into this and I was like, oh girl, I’m gonna be messing up left and right, and it doesn’t matter because I’m not supposed to know. And so I gave myself a lot of grace using that mindset, which I think made things a lot easier for.

I think that is so, yeah. And I think a lot of nurses need to hear that cuz that is so good. Right. But one of the hardest things for me, I think was just my perfectionism and the passion I had because I wanted it to be what I wanted it to be. And so things that I get upset about in the beginning, I’m still so embarrassed.

One time, someone got the wrong order, right? Like human error. Like we switched the packages, they went to the wrong people, or someone got the wrong size in something, right? Like they were supposed to get a large, but we pulled the medium, sent them the medium, they email us, customer service, right?

Hey, I got the wrong thing. I was in hysterics, bawling my eyes out because I was just wanting it to be perfect and I’m like, this is my baby. It’s so fragile. If we start screwing things up, I was just a mess. And so it took a long time for me to get over those humps. when things go went wrong.

I would use that mindset, like I said, of like, it’s okay, it’s okay. But when it was something that I felt I was supposed, that’s just something that you just pay attention. Eva, come on. I would really put myself down about. And so that was really hard to me, thank God for my husband because he’s super helpful and he’s just like, you need to relax

But I think my perfectionism

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Do you have a total chill husband and then you’re the one that’s like type A’s? Is that what you’ve got? That’s what I have.

Eva Shuman: He’s like a type B. Just like it’s all gonna be okay. Let’s just have some fun while we do it. And I’m like, how are we supposed to have fun when it’s not perfect?

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Yes.

Eva Shuman: No, it’s so bad.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: It’s so bad. That’s so funny. We went on this vacation. I’m so Type A, my brother at some point was. He’s like, okay, so you’ve literally booked every minute of this trip. Is there time, calculated time for rest? I was like, yes, you get five minutes and then we’re back on schedule.

It’s just exhausting thing. He talks about all the time now, he’s like, is your calculated time for rest? It’s so bad in the schedule.

Eva Shuman: Yeah, we found our match. We found our match. That was the most difficult part for me, was just that perfectionism, just really, really the passion that I had behind.

Kind of caused it to be difficult for me because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted it to do well. And so that was good because I had a lot of work ethic and I was hard working in building it, but also just really hard on myself in the beginning in some ways as well. But the easiest part for me was just the alignment.

I think once I realized that it was what I wanted to do, kind of as I shared before, getting to the point of learning that, okay, this is it for me, or this is what I really like. You can go so much further, so much faster when you’re aligned with what you’re doing and you’re doing the right thing. And that’s at bedside scale too.

If you’re even working in the wrong specialty. It’s gonna be so much harder for you to love what you do, right? And so it was easy for me to market. I love marketing and so it was fun for me to grow a social media brand and do that side of it. And I felt that came really naturally to me as well.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: So for the social media marketing, which is something that a girlfriend and I, we were just talking, we’re like, this is literally so exhausting. How do you keep going? Because it is, it is like a, it’s some people’s full-time jobs, like that’s what they do. They just help you. Do social media marketing.

How did you keep yourself going at the times? You’re just like, I cannot post another thing. I get like, and maybe it’s an elder millennial thing, I just get so posting fatigue. I’m like, I just can’t put more stuff out there, even though I make myself do it. That’s kind of how I feel like. How’d you overcome that?

Eva Shuman: I have always been someone who. Creates way more than I consume. I used to never consume or create, I just was like, I hate social media. It’s so stupid. And then as I started a brand, I was like, okay, obviously I’m gonna need to be on these apps. And I started creating, creating, creating.

And I really still to this day do not consume much. I think consuming too much. Contributes to that burner. I feel it’s 50% of it is because then you’re like looking and then you’re in your head, and then when you go to create you’re like, well, this person did it this way and it gets to be too much.

It’s too much stress, . And so I’m a fan of yes, you have to be relevant in what are the trends right now? You have to be on social right and consume some. But I think, yeah, I try to limit the consumption and then. I run three accounts right now. It is a lot. I totally get, and I don’t think that it’s an elder millennial thing, like you said.

I think it’s just a thing when you have to create constantly. It’s a lot. And I think using one of my first mentor I ever had taught me this, if you’re not in the mood, it’s okay, but when you are in the mood, lean in really hard. So, yeah. So get in here like you’re waking up and you thought you were gonna do XYZ today, but if you’re in the mood to do something else, Accept that and do it and go really hard with the thing that you feel good about that day, and that helps a lot.

So then I, that’s really good. Some things as well, which helps. But part of it too, I think is the, the passion and also viewing. My audience as my community. So instead of it being like, oh, I have to post, it’s, oh, I have to serve and show up, and so then that like change in lens helps a little bit too. I mean, it doesn’t fix it because it is still an action that you have to complete.

But I think when you’re trying to view it as like, well, these people need me, or they’re relying on me to show up for them because I’ve cultivated this community and it’s really important to me that can help as well. I mean, like I said, it doesn’t fix everything, but that.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Yeah, again, it’s that mindset shift, right?

Like that’s what you’re talking about. It’s just like putting it, putting a different lens on it. Cuz sometimes, again, you just look at it through the lens of like, this is really daunting and exhausting. But if you’re like, no, how can I show up today? How can I be present today? My community needs me to post something and to encourage them and to stand there and the gap and.

You know, say something that maybe somebody else wouldn’t say or share something that they all need to hear Again, you are right. It’s that same act of service that you do through your products, through your merchandise, through your community efforts. I saw that you went on to the hospitals and you went and took care packages to the nurses and you were just, you just put a bunch of stuff in a, like a little bag and you’re like, even if one.

Hits one thing, brings joy. That’s all I wanted that package to do. You put a bunch of stuff in there, but you’re like, I’m okay if just one thing totally makes it and lands on a fertile ground that creates a seed that sparks like that brings joy. And so when you think about it again, through that lens, just switch out that other lens, put the other one in.

And fixate on that. I’m not saying you’re still not gonna have that feeling. That feeling is still there. Your emotions are real. They’re there, but you’ve just gotta talk yourself into a different mindset. I think that’s really good. And you’ve mentioned something before. Before I get to the next question, but I really want to kind of harp on this because you’ve said something about mentorship twice now and I really like to.

Focus in on that because mentors I feel like are a little bit lacking in nursing, especially when you’re in the hospital. I just kind of feel like you’re a woman wolf and you’re just kind of hustling and you really hope that your team members help you on the floor and different things like that. But especially with the Nurse Ether young mentality that we’ve had.

Tell me a little bit about mentors that you’ve had and really how they’ve helped shape you in your career.

Eva Shuman: I completely agree with what you said. I don’t think I’ve had many nursing mentors. The field of nursing in general? I can’t think back of like, oh, when I was a new grad, this person really took me under their wing.

I think in my new role there’s definitely nurses I can think of that do that for our new grads now, but I wasn’t a new grad when I came into this role. So I do think it is really challenging in the nursing space in business. I sought them out because I really needed it and like I said, I knew I didn’t have any business background, so I was like, if I’m not getting help, I’m never gonna get there.

I need somebody to, to help me and teach me. And so I had a few different mentoring experiences. One of them was like a mastermind experience, so there is q and a calls, you do have access to their mentorship, but there’s also free resources and videos and. Events almost that you go to online, virtual events.

And that one was really helpful because I got community of other business owners who then helped me as well. So that was just really interesting and a cool way to do it. And I got some of my biggest questions answered through that experience. But just starting out off the bat, I had a mentor and I think a lot of people have the mindset that mentoring has to be so expensive.

And I got my first mentor for I think it was $450 total. And I got five or six calls with her and she taught me exactly how I was going to go to a wholesaler and get a product, and who would I have to call to get it printed for me? And then how would I. Get it shipped and what website do I need to use for that?

And it was the granular stuff that I just did not know that I needed to know. And it was well worth the money and it was not, I don’t view that as very expensive for that many calls and one on one time with somebody. Yeah. No it’s not. And so, yeah, that experience is what really launched me to even be able to do what I do.

And so I think it’s crazy to think nurses don’t have. Because when I say, oh, that was so critical to my journey. Mm-hmm. , imagine being a new nurse, especially in today’s world and not having that. And so I think it’s a matter of burnout too though, because who wants to step up and not be paid to be a leader and.

Take everyone under their wing and make sure that they’re nurtured. And yes, there are great souls out there who do that, but it’s few and far between because they’re not being compensated, they’re burnt out already. They’re already being asked to do so much. And so it comes back to the same issue of just the healthcare system right now in general.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: So it’s heartbreaking. . Yes. No, you’re, you’ve, you’ve said that perfectly, you’ve nailed it right on the head. Is this is. We have to pay people for what they know because it shows that we value. When you pay, you pay attention. And when somebody is out there giving your knowledge and you know that you’ve put some skin in the game, then you spend the time to go like, okay, I need to be absorbing this.

I need to understand. I need to make sure I get the bang for my buck. I need to make, it does motivate you in a different way when you pay for it. I don’t think it’s wrong to request it. I think you’re a hundred percent right. I think, again, showing that value, and that’s why I put a lot of people on my podcast that are like, Hey, listen, I want to teach.

I want to show you guys how I did my career, but I require payment. I don’t think that’s wrong. That’s their time. That’s their energy. I think also if somebody doesn’t have maybe all of it, then you can always go like, Hey, listen, all. $500. It’s like, okay, that’s everything you got. Okay, I can do it. That’s the stuff that I feel we can then show our heart on and just be like, all right, that’s all they had. So I just, I dropped the price for that one person. Mm-hmm. or whatever it is that you kind of set in your mind. It’s gonna be your charity bucket and that’s the stuff that you give.

But I totally agree with you and I find it so disheartening to hear that we do start off in this career and there really is no one that just kind of goes. Hey, let me show you how to be successful here. And I don’t know why hospitals don’t invest more money in that.

Eva Shuman: I was gonna say, you have something go from the business lens.

Something that I used a lot when I started my business was, if you look at it from the lens that there’s three things, time, energy, and money. If you don’t have one of them, you’re just gonna have to work really hard together too. So, if I didn’t have the money, like if you’re like, I wanna start this thing, but I seriously have no money right now.

I’m in debt, X, y, Z, you can’t do it. Okay, you don’t have money. That just means you’re gonna have to go way harder with time and energy. You’re gonna have to put way more energy, and you’re gonna have to go find the books. You’re gonna have to Google it, you’re gonna have to sift through, and then you’re gonna have to, you know, that’s gonna take you more time and more energy, right?

Because you don’t have money. So money gets you there faster, but you don’t need money. And so same thing, if you don’t have a lot of time and you’re like, I need to learn this right away, you’re probably gonna have to spend a little bit more money to learn that real quick from someone who can just spit you all the information you need, right?

And so when you look at it like that, that’s a good. Tool to use as well when you’re looking at it from a business perspective. I don’t know how that translates as well into nursing. I’d have to think a little deeper, but I know for business that that’s a really good one to use as well. If you’re in a different position, like not everyone’s in the same position financially and time.

If they have kids, like you said, you’re like my toddlers in the background, like whatever. You know, we all have different things going on that are gonna affect our lives, so I think that’s a good one to use. Yeah. .

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That is so good. Guys. Hold onto that. Time, money, energy so just seeing where you’re deficient on and then just realizing that you’re gonna have to just bolster the other two because unfortunately you’re deficient on the one. So, and just that it is what it is. There’s just laws that govern the world, right? And so you’ve gotta respect the laws and, and as much as you’re like, man, I don’t wanna pay for that.

It’s like, I know that you get your time and you get your. So like just pay it, you know? So I think that’s really, really good. I wanted to also know if there was one aspect to your business that you were like, I will not let this go. This is the one thing that we will continue to do because it is so successful.

I cannot drop this one thing. What would it be?

Eva Shuman: We have three pillars, and I’m like, I’ll never leave all three. But when you talk about. Well, okay. Tell me the three pillars. Merchandised, don’t tell me, give back efforts. So I’m like all three of those. I know for a fact, like I will always have them. But I think the give back efforts, the style that we do giving back, I will never, I’ll never teach it.

I love it. So I made it up, I call it cyclical giving. So it’s basically giving in seasons in different ways. So there are companies out there who are like, we’re gonna get 15% to this charity. You know, profit or sales that’s our mission. That’s what we do. This is who we give to.

Whereas I just started this way of giving where we just asked the community, what do you guys need right now? Who needs help? Does this specific person need help? Is it this charity? Is it the care packages we did? And then we’ll just run campaigns and then three months later we’ll be like, okay, now. And then just do something completely different, like out of left field.

And so it keeps it really fun and I want to have fun in business. And so that keeps it really fun for me. And it also keeps the community really engaged, keeps us relevant with what’s going on. What people needed during Covid is completely different than what they need now so it’s fun to be able to shift and make giving back feel fun for me.

So that’s something I don’t personalize, stopping doing. It’s so fun. I love it.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: I love that answer to this question. It wasn’t what I was like looking for, but it’s totally something that, now that I’m hearing, what you’re saying is one of those, again, going back to the laws of nature, right? You plant a seed, it’s a pumpkin seed, it’s gonna take six months for that pumpkin seed to germinate.

Then all of a sudden you have to replant it. You gotta give it full. Certain nutrients, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, you gotta put all this stuff in it, and then, then you get like a bigger pumpkin and then it grows in six months, and then now you have fruit and all this other stuff. There’s laws, right? You have a baby, it takes nine months.

You don’t expect it to be born any earlier than that because it needs the nine months. That’s what it’s been deemed. And so one of the things that I always hear in business is that you’ve gotta give, you can’t. Hold it. You can’t keep it. You can’t be like, it’s all mine. Precious, like Gollum underneath a, you know, troll bridge.

Like keeping all and hoarding all your stuff. Like you’ve gotta give because that is such, again, one of those things and laws that govern the universe that you’ve gotta respect this law. You’ve just gotta give. And what you find when you do that is it always comes back. And again, when I was watching that video of you guys giving, I was just like, this girl is so incredible.

She has such an other. Centered mindset that

, It’s gonna bring joy. When you focus in on others, it brings so much more joy to your life. Yeah. And I can see it just emanating from you of like, I will never get rid of being other centered. That’s what I’m gonna keep doing no matter what.

I don’t care. It’s not social media, it’s not, I was thinking like it was gonna be like, we’re gonna consistently market to this space. No. Like you’re just like, no, I’m gonna focus in on. Always like, that’s the thing I’m never gonna stop doing. Because I think that’s the secret of business. It’s just, it’s about others.

It’s never about yourself. And the most successful businesses are the ones that fixate on the customer. This is what we need to be aiming everything towards. And as long as we are giving and we are. Giving, expecting nothing in return, then we are fulfilling that law of no, it will come back. You just have to trust it.

You just have to trust that it’s gonna take nine months. You just gotta wait. The baby’s coming. You know, so, and the baby is coming.

Eva Shuman: That’s part of it too, is that every time we give something crazy happens. I’m not even kidding. And it comes back around like tenfold every time. When we did the nurse care package campaign, good morning America slid into my email and was like, Hey, do you wanna come on?

Good morning America. What IGMs, I’m like, what the heck? And we got on Good Morning America Which then, right? Gives us this authority it gives us this credibility. It’s something I can use forever that is just so freaking awesome. And then gives us the exposure, xyz. And then we did another care package campaign a year after that, and I created this little design on Canva.

As the face of it that had heroes written and crossed out and said humans underneath. And that was kind of what I put on our marketing materials. I love that. I got request that the request had request to put it on a shirt, so I was like, oh, I didn’t think people would really want that on clothing, but it’s by far a best seller.

It went viral. We made so much money off of that one design and it’s like, oh, but where did that come from? It came from a care package campaign trying to give back, and so you hit the nail on the head and it, it always comes back.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Oh my God. It makes me almost like wanna cry. Like I can just throw my eyes, like just tear up.

I’m like, ah, it’s cause I’m pregnant. But also cause it’s so beautiful like . I think that that’s the challenge that I want nurses to hear this week on the podcast. I want you guys to give something away.

That’s my challenge to you right now on the podcast, we are hitting it to you. Mrs. Shoeman and Mrs. Pajata are. Flat out telling you, go give something away because it, it’s going to shock you how it comes back. And you’re gonna be like, oh my gosh, this is some supernatural, again, this is a Halloween was yesterday.

It’s this some Halloween spooky thing. I’m like, yes it is. Just trust us. Just go give it and see what happens. And again, I’m not saying that people should be paid or compensated for their time or compensated for their energy or their work. Those are two separate things because I feel when you respect the law, and you can respect the law of other.

I don’t believe that they have to live outside of themselves. Well then just give everything away. It’s like, nah, I don’t know about that. That world can’t operate that way. But again, when you respect the laws and you say, I know I’ve gotta give something here. Mm-hmm. , because I know that’s just what we’re called to do.

We’ve gotta be others centered. It always comes back. If you could go back to, Just young Eva and just go, all right. I want you to know one thing. As a brand new nurse, if you could go back to her and tell her something. This is the last question of the podcast.

What would you tell her that you want her to know? That you’re just like, hold on to this. Like this is your buoy. This is your life jacket. Don’t you dare take this off. You ride this wave all the way down. You write it? What is one thing you would tell her as a piece of advice?

Eva Shuman: I think I would tell my younger self, which I needed to hear, let me tell you, but I would’ve told her that nursing is working for you.

You’re not working for nursing. Because I so much, I went into my nursing career being like, I need a full-time job. I’ll work night shift. I’ll do whatever they need me to do. I’m gonna go back to school. I’m gonna be a nurse practitioner because that’s what I’m so quote unquote supposed to do, and then I’m gonna do this.

I had my whole plan laid out, and as you know from previously in the episode, my perfectionism and my planning is, A core part of my personality. And so when that derailed, once I realized this is just not what I thought it was gonna be, that was a lot for me. And it’s funny to think now fast forward five years.

I am obsessed with being per diem. I literally work in the flu clinics, covid clinics. I work for OMS on the side, like I do all of this stuff. I work day shift and night shift. I just make my career work for me so hard and I am just constantly thinking about how can this work for me? How can they benefit me?

That’s how I kind of made space for my business, like we talked about. And I was able to step into that. Now I have like a gajillion revenue streams, like doing all these different things and I just thought nursing was the end all, be all in the beginning. And now I’m so clear on the fact that it’s not the end all be all.

It’s my purpose is the end all, be all. What makes me fulfilled is what should be my goal in the future, not this map or like this roadmap that’s laid out for me, if that makes sense.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: So beautiful. That is so freaking beautiful. It is like, I want that for every, I know. Won’t nurse, like, I’m just like, pour that on everyone because the way that it’s just portrayed you just sound free. Like no one’s clipped your wings. And that’s what happens is that your wings get clipped as a nurse and you just kind of settle in and you just get in this little cage and you’re just this little sad bird in a cage and like watching you is like, no, this bird flies around.

She’s free, she’s flapping and she doesn’t have any, any cares about. Oh, I just, I, this is, this is the life I’m gonna live. It’s, I’m never gonna be, I’m never gonna be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do. And you’re doing it now. You’re not waiting until you get a pension and you retire and all these different things.

Yeah. You’re doing it now, which is beautiful. It’s just it’s totally my heart. So for the last part of the podcast, we’ll just end it right there cause it was perfect point.

I do rapid fire, so what I, what I just hit people with. It’s just like these really quick, like boom, boom, boom. Let’s just do it.

If you could have somebody play you like on a, like an actress.Play you in a role.

Eva Shuman: I’m say Milli Bob Drum. Everyone told me that I look like her. .

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: You do look like her.

Eva Shuman: I get that all the time.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: So yes. You totally look like her. She’s got like really cool personality. Yeah. She seems like super chill. Like she’d be fun to like go get a cup of coffee with and like, hey. Yeah, for sure. And if you had to give someone a book to read what book would it be?

Eva Shuman: Harry Potter. Is Harry Potter full of every lesson you ever need in life. It’s so good.

I’ll give them the first one and then they’ll read the other six because they wouldn’t, they have to once they read the first one.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Yeah. That is so funny. Good answer.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh. I had so much fun chatting with you today. Thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing you.

Eva Shuman: Thank you so much journey for having me. Thank for this was so perfect. I’m so excited. So good.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: I feel like I just wanna go out, get stuff away, and I just wanna like go. Just keep, just You inspired me.

It was so much energy. I love it. Thank you so much. And so from my listeners that are like, okay, I wanna go get her stuff, this is so much fun. Where can they find you?

Eva Shuman: So our site purpose people.co. CEO that is the same thing as our social media. So our Instagram is purpose People Co, and that’s where you can find the brand stuff.

My personal page, I’m actually loving TikTok these days, so my personal TikTok is eva dot shoeman, and my Instagram is eva shoeman underscore. Thanks guys.

Dr. Sandra Pagenta: Guys, check her out. She’s amazing. Thanks for tuning into the podcast guys. Now don’t forget to enjoy the journey of your careers. Take care.