📍  Most small business owners carry around this secret hope. If I can just get here, then things will finally be easier.  If I can just make that extra $100,000. If I can just grow my team to a hundred people. If I can just land this one client or get this many new patients, then the worry will stop. Then the struggle will finally have an end date.

But the hard truth, the one that I know you just really don't want to hear right now. There is no timestamp on worry in business. There is no magical point where challenges disappear. And if you've ever found yourself waiting for that finish line only to realize that it really doesn't exist, I want you to feel me near you right now.

I want you to hear that I'm right. In this space. I've been there before. I'm living out those common thoughts that keep coming back. Like just get there and then we'll have this, that's why we're about to step into season four of No Silver Spoons, the Keep Going Series, because the real journey of leadership isn't about waiting for the day when problems stop showing up.

It's about learning how to keep going even when they do. And to understand where this series comes from, I need to take you back to the very beginning of a story.

My name is Sarah Beth Herman. I'm your host here of No Silver Spoons, and today we are closing out season three and heading in to season four. Season four begins the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter of the year where we're all racing to reach every single goal we set in January. So let's take the story back.

Let me take you back to a time when things were much different for me. In 2011, I bought my very first business, a hair salon in Denver, Colorado. I found the ad on Craigslist, and to me it looked like the opportunity of a lifetime. I was young, hungry to build something of my own. I convinced myself that this was the breakthrough I had been waiting for.

I remember searching for salons for sale in Craigslist, and I found several that were listed. Several didn't work out, they weren't opportunities that I could actually make come true, but this one ad was everything, and I remember copying the link and emailing it to my husband. I actually am not a hundred percent sure if iPhones were out then, and I don't think link sharing was the same, but I do remember emailing it to my husband and him saying, I think this is the one.

This seller offered special financing. She had a lawyer, which made me feel safe. And when I was approved for a 10 year commercial lease at just $1,300 a month, I thought I had won it life. 1100 square feet in downtown Denver. This felt like my golden ticket. I remember before we actually signed papers or even decided we were gonna sign papers, we met her at a Starbucks on the corner of a street, a common street in the town that we lived in.

I remember walking in and seeing her, and she was beautiful. And she looked put together. She had brochures in her hand and a laptop in her hand, and a file filled with papers and bank statements, and it looked legitimate. In order for us to move forward in the process, we had to give her $5,000, and I remember begging my husband to just let us do it.

Just take the $5,000 and, and let's give it to her. My husband was hesitant, but I think he saw the dream too, and he saw how happy it made me. He saw that this might be the means to the end of how much we struggled in life. At the time, I was working three different jobs. I was still in dentistry as an office manager of a dental practice.

I was working at Bath and Body Works as a cashier,

and I also worked at Kohl's. It was hard. It was really, really hard. I remember at one point during that season, my husband and I only had one car, and because I was working so much, he would drive me to wherever the job was that I was gonna be at, just so we could have time together.

I'll never forget the day that I signed those papers that morning, I actually went to go get my nails done because I really thought that that meant I would look professional and somehow someone would just believe that I fit the part of owning this salon. I called into work that day so I could focus on the milestone moment.

I met the owner at her lawyer's office off of 16th Street. And when I signed the papers and she handed me the keys, I felt like my entire future had just been placed in my hands.

The moment I walked into the salon, it hit me in a way I never expected. In fact, I actually remember walking from that lawyer's office down to the salon at 17th and Welton, and if you've ever been to downtown Denver, I'm pretty sure there's a salon that still exists in that same place. Though it's changed hands many times over the years, it's still there.

I believe I've looked it up from time to time to see what the Google Street view looks like.

I remember it was a cool day. The wind was kind of blowing in my hair. It felt like everything was just coming together.

I remember opening the front door and seeing the staff sitting there. And I didn't really know what I was gonna say, and I don't know if I even expected her to come with me and do a soft handoff, but that never happened. I walked in and, they were crying and I said, hi, I'm Sarah Beth Herman. I am the new owner of the salon.

Apparently the owner had left them letters saying the business had been sold in my naivety, I thought the best way forward was to be everyone's best friend. I thought if I could just make them like me, everything would work out. But I soon learned that leadership isn't about being liked, and that was a lesson I had to learn in the hardest way possible.

And isn't that how so many of us start out? We step into business thinking enthusiasm will be enough. The passion alone will just carry us. That if we hustle hard enough, the cracks will fill themselves in, but passion doesn't pay the vendors Enthusiasm doesn't cover up dishonesty and friendship doesn't replace leadership Very quickly, the cracks became canyons.

I discovered there was no real electrical outlets in the salon. Just  one outlet in the very back with a massive extension cord running through the walls. No permits, no safety. Every change I tried to make was undermined by the so-called manager of the salon, who unbeknownst to me turned out to be the seller's cousin.

Worse, I started seeing cash disappearing. Clients were paying, but the money wasn't hitting the business. I realized the cousin was pocketing the cash and denying it outright. When I tried to buy supplies, I found out the salon was blacklisted. The previous owner owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to distributors.

I couldn't even order shampoo, chairs, product, anything because her name and now my business's name was tainted and that's when reality set in that was about nine weeks in. There was no way forward. The business was a sinking ship and no matter how hard I tried to bail out water, it was already too late.

And this is where I think so many business owners find themselves. You sign up with hope in your heart, you throw in your savings, and you don't know what you don't know. And according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, and nearly 50% don't make it past five years.

Cash flow mismanagement is cited as the number one reason for business failure. And in that salon. I became one of those statistics. I wasn't alone, but I felt completely alone. I remember going there late at night and just not knowing how I was gonna find a way forward.

I ended up closing those doors. The previous owner had vanished to Switzerland with $80,000 I had given her. I was left bankrupt, devastated, and humiliated. Did you know that I celebrated buying that salon? We had a grand reopening. My family, my friends, my old boss even brought gifts. We catered the event.

We had special promotions for clients. I met everybody in downtown Denver. Everyone believed we made it. I believed that we had made it, and now I was left to explain how it had all fallen apart. Did you know that I also hired family members to help me learn how to run a business? Those family members actually worked for me, and I was never able to pay those family members.

It was so humiliating because I had to decide that I was gonna file bankruptcy.

To make matters even worse, in order to file that bankruptcy, I had to sell. The one thing that felt like my reward in all of this. A MacBook Pro I had bought for myself when I first opened the salon. Selling that to pay for bankruptcy fees felt like the final nail in the coffin. I can still remember sitting there holding that computer and thinking.

How did I get here? I didn't know, but I still went to that same Craigslist website and listed that MacBook for sale. I remember driving and meeting someone in the parking lot to buy it. I ended up having to sell it for two or $300 less than what I paid for because I needed the money.

. Small business failure isn't just numbers on a chart. It's not just 20% here and 50% there. It's real people. People who give up birthdays and vacations, who put their family savings on the line, who lose sleep and sometimes lose everything like me. According to a 2023 US Chamber survey, 70% of small business owners report stress that affects their physical and mental health in that moment.

I was one of them before I sold that MacBook Pro. I remember setting it up, and somehow this setup became a pivotal moment in my life that I would never forget, and here I am a decade and a half later remembering it and reciting it to you right now. I remember going to the Apple store and buying it. I remember it had a pink case and I loved it.

It was a really big deal that I got to buy this MacBook. And I remember first setting it up and there were a lot of different software things at the time that just no other computer had like different photo filters that you could take pictures of. And I actually still have those silly photos that I took.

But when I was setting up the computer, it walks you through several different steps, I guess you could say. And those steps are everything from what language do you want this in, what time zone set up your wifi. Well, then comes this section where it asks you to type in what I thought was a slogan of some sort, but looking back, I think it might be the place that you type your name in and instead of typing my name in, I typed this slogan and it was just two words, keep going

out of nowhere. I typed those two words. I don't know why I typed those two words. I just did. And I didn't know it then, but that moment was my turning point. Those words became my lifeline. They carried me through that bankruptcy. They carried me back into dentistry, back into leadership, and eventually into the business I run today.

And did you know that every computer I have, which is multiple across my different properties and my laptops and all the areas, I have computers, that every single one of them, they all are synced up and they all say, keep going. I sold that MacBook nearly 15 years ago. But then when I was able to afford another computer, I typed in that same thing and it all just says, keep going.

So that is where this series comes from, from two simple words that were born in my deepest loss and carried me into my greatest growth. This is why season four of No Silver Spoons matters. Because being in business is a constant journey. There are no timestamps on. When struggles end, every season brings new challenges to contemplate new fires, to put out new risks, to take new lessons to learn.

But it is not just about survival. It is about finding a rhythm where you can keep going without burning out, without breaking down, without giving up. And that's why this series isn't just episodes. I've got digital downloads for you, a private cohort and free resources to build a community with you.

We'll have a Facebook group where you can connect with other leaders and business owners, faith woven into our conversations, not just as a club that you join, but a reminder that you are always meant to be here. And my goal is simple in all of this to carry you through the end of this year. To prepare you for a beautiful new beginning and to help you see why you were designed to keep going.

I may have lost that salon. I may have filed bankruptcy. I may have sold that very first MacBook Pro I ever had, but those moments didn't define me. They shaped me. They built the foundation for who I am today. And if you're in a season where you feel like quitting, where you feel overwhelmed, betrayed, or broken down, I want you to hear me clearly that it is not over.

Your story is not finished, and that's why season four of No Silver Spoons is here sponsored by Dentistry Support to walk with you, to give you real tools to remind you of one simple truth. Keep going. Our first episode airs on October 6th. To get more information, visit dentistry support.com/keep going.

And know this series isn't just for those in the dental industry. It is for anyone in business leadership and beyond elevating you where you are always meant to go. Just two words. I'm reminding you. Keep going and I'll see you 📍 October 6th.