About IGNITE NP

I've been where you are.

During every year of my education I faced adversity, from preceptors and instructors who questioned my path, to colleagues who underestimated my role. The nurses eat their young mentality was not just a phrase. It was my lived experience. As an adult learner I often had limited guidance and no mentor to call.

Once in practice the pushback continued. Nothing I did seemed right in the eyes of clinicians who believed nurse practitioners were less than. I carried the weight of proving myself every single day, not just to others, but to myself.

There were multiple times the mounting pressure, the criticism, the exhaustion, and the isolation nearly broke me. I reached a point where I questioned whether I could keep going. Through therapy, community, and a shift in mindset, I found a way forward.

I have sat in therapy working through burnout and PTSD from a profession that is meant to heal. Over time I reframed that pain into purpose, transforming self-doubt into confidence and survival into leadership.

What came out of that season of my life was not what I expected.

I launched Metta Wellness NW, my own integrative telehealth practice built around gut health, integrative medicine, and men's health. I began presenting at national conferences. I pursued advanced certification in hospice and palliative care and functional medicine. And, I kept asking myself the same question: what would have changed for me if someone had handed me a roadmap at the beginning?

That question became Ignite NP.

I built the courses I had needed and could not find. Clinical readiness, real workflow systems, compensation and contract strategy, financial literacy, coding and documentation, the pharmacology details that are important in practice, and the diagnostic reasoning that only comes from thinking through cases with people who have been there. Not academic theory restated. Not CE for the sake of CE. Practical, honest education built from the realities of clinical practice.

Then came the Ignite Athenaeum, because I also needed a community. A place where clinicians could think out loud, challenge each other's reasoning, support each other's growth, and carry the torch of mentorship forward to the next generation.

This transformation became the foundation of Ignite NP, so others do not have to walk that path alone.

Ignite NP exists because we deserve structured guidance, mentorship, and resources that help us thrive clinically, professionally, and personally. Every course, every resource, and every community discussion is built around one belief: that a prepared clinician is a confident clinician, and a confident clinician changes lives.

If you are a nurse practitioner who has ever felt underprepared, undervalued, or simply unsure of what comes next, you are exactly who this was built for.

Welcome.

— Brendan Tennefoss

DNP, AGPCNP-BC, ACHPN, AFMC

Founder, Ignite NP