Hello, and welcome to season two of Dentistry Support the Podcast with your host, the kindhearted and infectious Sarah Beth Herman. We're back for a new season and ready to pack a punch. In every episode, we'll be sharing you quick, impactful insights into the challenges our dental community and leaders in all industries face.

Expect a little bit of flair, a few laughs, and you might even recognize a friend or two. Because of you, we are the number one podcast in dentistry and number one in management and business, and we couldn't be more excited.  Practical wisdom and leadership with a servant's heart all delivered in just enough time for your commute or morning team huddle.

We're glad you're here. So let's get into it. Please welcome your host, Sarah Beth.  Hey everyone. 

Welcome back to the show today. We're tackling a topic that every leader faces at some point,  resilience in the face of adversity.  Leading is easy, right? When everything is going smooth.  But what happens when things take a turn?

When those you thought were supporting you suddenly aren't?  What do you do when it feels like people around you are actively working against you?  Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try, someone is trying to bring you down?  Or maybe you've had a plan fall apart, leaving you wondering how you will ever pick up the pieces and move forward. 

Those are the moments that truly test who we are as leaders.  In today's episode, I'm going to share a couple of personal stories.  Moments in my own journey where I felt isolated and torn down, but also moments that taught me the true meaning of resilience.  Whether you are leading a team, running a business, or just trying to manage the challenges that life throws at you, there's something in this episode for you. 

Let me ask you a few questions. Well, I guess a few more questions.  Have you ever been in a situation where someone you trusted was working against you?  How did you handle it?  Did it make you question everything about yourself? About your leadership?  And what do you do when the very people who should be on your side become the source of your biggest challenges? 

These are the tough questions, but the real ones.  Today we're going to talk about how to face these situations with resilience. How to keep moving forward even when everything seems to be falling apart.  Resilience is one of those words we hear a lot, but what does it really mean?  It's not just about surviving tough situations, it's about leading through them, growing from them, and using those challenges to become better. 

In today's episode, I'm talking two stories from my own life that tested my own resilience.  These aren't just stories of some random hardship, they're moments that taught me how to lead through adversity. And I hope that by sharing them, you find encouragement  and, and practical ways that you can carry on in your own journey. 

So let's get started. Let's jump into this first story.  Almost 10 years ago, I was working for a management company, and we were going through a major transition. I took over the region of a colleague of mine, and from the moment I stepped into that role, the environment shifted dramatically. The person whose position I took wasn't happy about it. 

And made it their mission to spread rumors about me, undermining my work at every single turn.  I remember how exhausting it was to go to work every day, knowing that this person was trying to tear me down, making calls to my offices, spreading lies, discrediting me to anyone who would listen.  It was really hard.

Coworkers began treating me differently.  That's hard for me, I'm a very emotional person.  I felt incredibly isolated.  But here's the thing,  I was hired for a reason. I had a job to do, and I had to stay focused on that, despite the negativity around me.  There's something that you may not know about me.  I'm incredibly loyal. 

Maybe to a fault, I'm not sure.  Maybe I do really know the answer to that.  But I'm so loyal that even when something is going terribly wrong in any situation, I still know how to take myself out of the situation, look at it from a totally different vantage point  and reset myself. Go back to why I was here to begin with, regardless of the environment around me, because this company hired me.

They hired me for a purpose. They hired me based on my qualifications, based on what I promised I would do. And despite everybody around me, I still had to stay honorable and loyal to that, in my opinion. And That experience completely changed me as a leader.  It taught me that resilience isn't just about pushing through the hard times, but it's about leading with integrity and staying true to your purpose even when everything around you is chaotic. 

I had to literally remind myself every day that my focus wasn't on gossip or lies, that it was on my team and the work we had to accomplish.  I had to stand up and listen. To every negative thing that came my way and still decide to push forward.  I had to listen to doctors come in and question my authority, my decision making.

Even after I left the company, I still, for at least two years, heard from every manager that had a connection with me about things they were still saying about me after I left.  This lesson I learned during this crazy experience of my life,  it carried over into my work today.  One of my largest companies.

Even when we're working with a difficult client, someone who is challenging every step of the way,  or maybe a review that comes in that's totally not right or totally not accurate compared to what actually happened,  we always choose to operate with honor.  Even if someone chooses to leave our support for whatever reason, or we choose to end a relationship with a client for whatever reason,  we remain focused on delivering the very best of ourselves until the very last second. 

It's about saying true to who we are, no matter what adversity comes our way.  Resilience isn't just about surviving the storm. It's about keeping your focus on what matters most when everything around you feels like it's falling apart. The temptation is to get caught up in the negativity, to get sidetracked by the noise, right? 

But that's where leadership shines through, when you can remain steady even in chaos.  That experience I had so many years ago, it really did help shape my leadership today. When I face challenges, whether it's This tough client, this difficult conversation, or a situation that feels completely unfair.  I remind myself of that moment.

I remind myself to stay loyal to my values, to stay focused to my purpose, on what really really matters, and to not let adversity define how I lead, both personally and professionally. Let's talk about a different kind of adversity, imposter syndrome. Um,  If you haven't listened to this episode that I talk about imposter syndrome, go back a few releases and give a listen. 

For years, I struggled with the feeling that I wasn't enough. Every time I had a business idea, I felt like I couldn't do it alone. I thought I needed someone else, a partner, to help me feel validated, to help carry the load.  So I brought in people. But what I quickly learned was that not everyone is going to work at the same pace or with the same initiative.

Some people aren't self starters.  They weren't taking on the next step when it needed to be taken.  And then created more of a frustration for me than if I had just done it myself.  Sometimes I've even learned that projects literally never get off the ground because I'm the only one that's starting them.

And if my plate's full, I don't actually have enough time to go remind someone that they need to do it.  I often get asked different questions about how do you take the leap of faith from working a full time job to being a full time business owner without that security?  Well, I'll tell you right now that the only way it's going to work is if you have no other choice because if you have a plan B that's always your safety net, you'll never stick with plan A. 

You'll always revert to plan B.  I had to learn that. My journey with bringing other people on wasn't about them. It was about me.  It was an opportunity for me to pivot and to trust myself more.  I realized that I didn't need anyone else's validation. I have the drive. I have the vision and I need to trust in that.

When I started doing that, when I focused on being authentic to who I was, on staying true to my mission, that's when things started to click for me. The more I trusted myself, the more successful I became.  I also learned that collaboration doesn't always mean bringing someone else into your business as a partner. 

Sometimes it's about working alongside others in different ways without having to rely on them to carry your vision forward.  So how do you build resilience in your own leadership journey?  Here are three strategies that have worked for me.  You can use these in whatever order, but these are strategies that help me ground myself, bring myself back to center so that I know where I'm actually going in the future.

Number one, cultivating that growth mindset.  Every challenge is an opportunity to learn. When things go wrong, I ask myself, what can I learn from this?  It's not about avoiding failure, it's about learning from it and growing. I had a conversation a few weeks ago with my husband, and I was listing off different regrets I had. 

And he stopped me for a minute and he said, Sarabeth, no.  None of those are regrets. Those are your opportunities to grow. And he was right. I don't have to live in regret for how I chose to do something before or who I chose to bring in on something. I just have to stay my course.  Number two, staying focused on my longterm vision. 

Adversity is going to come.  It will come in waves that will seem like they are knocking you down and drowning you.  It's going to try to distract you.  I'm going to repeat that again.  Adversity is going to come and it is going to try to distract you. Because that's all adversity is. It's distractions.  But if I stay focused on my long term goals, the short term struggles don't knock me off course. 

Same goes for you.  Number three, operate honorably. No matter what,  just like I mentioned earlier at one of my largest companies, we always stay honorable in every situation, even when it gets tough. We remain focused on doing what is the right thing.  That's part of building resilience. It's staying true to your values and remembering your values, even when it's really hard. 

Before we wrap up this episode, I have three questions that I want you to reflect on as you build resilience in your own life.  Number one, what is this teaching me?  Number two. Am I staying aligned with my long term vision? And number three, who is supporting me and how can I strengthen those relationships? 

That number three,  whoo,  that's a good one.  Who is supporting me and how can I strengthen those relationships? Oftentimes, we spend so much time focusing on relationships that feed nothing into us.  We waste time on endless calls, and endless text messages, and endless get togethers, and they really result in nothing but bringing us down, questioning our worth, and making us fail at getting to the next step, fail at alignment with our own selves. 

One best practice that I'd recommend is for you to take one small step every day.  When adversity feels overwhelming, I want you to focus on what you can do today right now. Just one thing.  Progress, no matter how small, it builds momentum.  There are some days that I really have a lot on my schedule and I do not have time to record a podcast episode, take an extra call that just got added to my calendar, Or whatever task might get thrown my way. 

But those are all distractions that I'm finding frustrating.  If I just take one of those things and follow through with it the right way,  the honorable way, the way that is loyal to myself,  I will continue to build momentum and achieve all of those long term goals.  Remember those tough questions I asked at the beginning of this episode? 

What do you do when people work against you? When plans fall apart?  When those around you become your biggest challenge?  Here's your answer.  Your TGM, your that's good moment for today's episode.  You keep going.  You keep going.  You focus on what you can control.  You stay true to your values and you use adversity to refine you, not define you. 

Adversity is tough, but it doesn't have to stop you. It doesn't have to put a halt or a roadblock on the path of you getting to where you want to go. It can actually make you stronger.  My hope is that you sit down after you listen to this episode  and you just try to jog your memory for a minute.  On a couple of hard moments that you have experienced.

Maybe these moments happened 10 years ago. Maybe they happened 20 years ago,  but for some reason they happened  and I want you to think about them and then I want you to think about who you are today.  Who are you today?  Ask yourself, who am I today? How do I operate today?  Think about it for a moment. And then I want you to connect those two dots because who you were five, 10, 15 years ago, all the adversity you faced. 

It taught you hard lessons that are leading you to right now, to the leader you are right now.  The ways you learned to respond, the ways you learned to get through that adversity,  are best practices you created for yourself unknowingly. And now you are excellent and amazing because of it.  You are your greatest project.

Your life and your legacy are the most important things you have.  A hundred years from now you may not exist. But the people you lead right now will continue to become better leaders in their future and lead more people long after you.  And I want you to think about the impact you have.  If you don't choose to move forward right now, if you don't choose to get through this really tough time in your life and use it to propel you forward,  you're only going backwards. 

Thank you for joining me today.  I hope this episode gives you some important feedback, important thoughts.  I hope it challenges you, and it encourages you.  Stay resilient, stay focused. You actually have what it takes.  You are fully equipped for all of the dreams you've been dreaming of,  and all of the ways that what I had to say stuck with you in this episode. 

Write those down. Remember those.  The next challenging moment, it's just preparing you for something excellent in your future.  You have what it takes.  I'll catch you on the next episode.  

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Dentistry Support, the podcast. If you want to get in on the conversation or have something to share, join us on our Facebook group, The Dental Collaborative.

Looking to connect or to be a guest? Head over to dentistrysupport. com. Or if you'd like to learn more about your host, Sarah Beth, or maybe you're thinking of starting your own podcast or looking for mentorship. Shift opportunities. Well just visit sarah beth herman.com. If you've got just a sec, remember to rate, subscribe, and leave a review for the podcast.

That helps us keep growing. Thanks for supporting the show, and we hope you'll join us again in the next episode of Dentistry Support the podcast.