Dianna L. Hanson, CNSA

I think it's following the golden rule - you treat others the way you want to be treated. It's also staying current with laws and regulations. Even when it wasn't required, I would take the free training online from the Texas Secretary of State. I believe in staying educated and knowing where to look for information. You always want to go to your state laws and know what you can and can't do. I think you have to at least learn your basics and know what you're doing - don't just jump in without reading the instruction book or watching the training. You've got to be detailed, you've got to pay attention, you've got to be focused. And I would say a smile goes a long way, but still be serious. It's about using common sense, and when in doubt, pick up the phone or read your instructions from your customer.

I would say the best advice is to review your laws at least once a year, or call the hotline when you don't know something. There's no dumb question. Ask questions when you need help. If you can't get ahold of anybody, call somebody that you trust, that you know is in the know. But don't go to Facebook University - that's a joke among the ambassadors. We're on a Facebook University Mythbuster mission the last couple of years because there's so much misinformation out there. The key is to ask the right people and get accurate information from trusted sources.

I would say do your homework and check it out. Go to your Secretary of State or whoever's in charge of notaries in your state. Look up the resources, or get a book. Sometimes there are notaries that are listed - find a notary in your state, or check out the National Notary. They could probably link you up to one of the ambassadors in your area. Find a local notary to talk to. Not all of them will talk to you because they're very guarded and look at you as competition, but I don't have that philosophy. I feel like we should all help each other. We all put our pants on one leg at a time. I believe in helping others and trying to pull everybody up together so that we're all on the same page. As a profession, you want everybody to do it right so that we don't all get a black eye. We all want to be a star, we all want to do it right, because you're dealing with people's lives when you're notarizing these papers. Why would I hold something that's going to help somebody be perfect? We're not all perfect either, but you want everybody to be as accurate as possible and give the best service to everybody that you can, because you don't want to mess up their lives either.

Sometimes it's fighting the traffic because there's so much road construction right now, and the roads change. I get frustrated, and I don't drive at night anymore, so I have to figure out if I Uber or partner with somebody that can drive me around. You cannot please everybody, so you learn to kind of bite your tongue sometimes. I would say 98 to 99% of the time my jobs are daytime because I'll say no to the ones that I can't do. The weirdest challenge I've experienced was somebody that you knew was having dementia issues or sundowners, and you just have to learn to walk away and say I can't do this. You have to know that you're making the right decision, and it's document, document - make those notes in the journal. You're not trying to be mean or anything, but you've got to protect yourself.

Integrity, being honest, being organized, clear and precise, and accurate are most important to me. I believe in presenting the facts and getting the emotions out of there - being logical. You don't want a lot of drama, but when you're at the table, you're presenting facts, you're not giving advice. You're checking things, you're verifying things, so you want to have good personal appearance. You're wanting to verify documents, verify your signer, and you're wanting to record and review. If you're needing to drop off docs or scan, you want to do that as soon as possible and have very good communication. Update your status and just follow up - let everybody know what the status is and close it out. You're kind of like the spoke or the main rod of a wheel, and you've got to answer to everybody, just like the title person. You've got to do your part because title can't finish closing it out with everybody else either, so you're part of that puzzle, and it's an important role.