📍 Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. I'm your host, Sarah Beth Herman, and this is week two of Keep Going. This is a 12 week series, and in my mind, this is a space for leaders. For you, the dreamer in your business, the dreamer in your company, the dreamer in your leadership, and the doers who are learning what it means to build something that lasts far beyond the position you hold right now.

Last week in week one, we walked through the business detox plan, A moment to breathe, release, and clear the clutter that's been holding you back. If you haven't had a chance to listen to that episode, it's episode 89 and the digital download is available for just $5. You can go back and check the show notes of last week.

This week. We're talking about something quieter though. Something not everyone wants to practice, but everyone eventually needs, and that's humility and hard work because here is the truth that I have found over the years. Before any of us built businesses or managed teams or LED movements, we learned to show up and we learned to work really hard and we learned to keep going even when it wasn't really beautiful, really glamorous, perfectly organized, or even really paying well at 16 years old, my greatest treasure wasn't something shiny or new.

It was my car. I had a 1984 Brown Nissan Maxima that literally talked, and it was really funny for everyone around us because I've always been a talker. Kind of funny now that I literally have a podcast and I talk and talk and talk anyways, when you open the door, or if the door was left open, it would say right door ajar.

Right door ajar. And if I forgot to turn my headlights off, it would say, your lights are on. Or your turn signal was left on, but it actually spoke words. It wasn't just a chime or a ding in the car. Now this car, it wasn't flashy. It was just brown, plain, reliable brown, I guess you could say. My mom, she paid $400 for it when I turned 16, and that car felt like my ticket to independence.

My friends, they had much cooler cars than me. One of them drove a Chevelle, another an old Bronco. One of them was lucky enough to have a brand new Pontiac Grand Am. But my friends, they were all so good to me. They never made me feel like my car wasn't enough. Inside my Maxima, I kept vanilla little trees, you know, you can get 'em from the gas station and they have a million different flavors or scents, however you wanna call that.

But I always picked the vanilla ones. And they were hanging from my rear view mirror, and then also the little handle in the backseat. My friends always reminded me that they never, ever forgot the smell of my car. Even as we all grew up on the ceiling, I had glow in the dark stars everywhere, and I thought that was so cool.

And interestingly enough, I remember I had a photo album in the backseat that was filled with pictures of me and my  friends. This Nissan Maxima, was mine and it carried me to the first job I could ever drive myself to, and that was at a place called the Old Country Buffet.

Now, before that job, I had babysat and I worked as a buser at a Mexican restaurant, and I have a really, really funny but embarrassingly humiliating story from that place that I'm gonna bring up in future episodes. So stay tuned there. But the old country Buffet, it was never the old country buffet, but it was old country Buffet is what it was called.

And if you remember them, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That job was the first one that required a uniform. And for me that meant a whole lot of humility. I wore a white button up shirt, an apron that was tied at the waist. And in one of the positions , I had to actually wear a chef's hat, but it looked more like a sailor cap than a chef's hat.

And we had upholstered vest, , And I don't know how else to say it other than upholstered vests because it was like a maroon color, maybe almost a mauve, but it was upholstered floral, and I was 16 years old. Okay, so wearing pleated black slacks. An upholstered vest, a white button up shirt, and in some portions of my job, I'm gonna get to that in a second, I had to literally wear a sailor cap.

This was like the most humbling experience of my life Now when I had to wear this sailor cap and apron. Over the actual uniform is when I worked the smoothie bar, which sounded really fun until I realized unlimited smoothies meant unlimited blending and mixing and tending to people

The smoothies were always free. It was part of the buffet. I remember I would push this old rickety metal cart across the tile flooring into the actual dining room and, and set up where I was making these smoothies at. The kids were, I guess, not always well behaved, if that's the nicest way I could say it.

But the blender never stopped and honestly, it was just messy and kind of gross really. But I showed up, I smiled. I learned that real work isn't always pretty, but it's what shapes your character. And when I wasn't making smoothies, I learned to work as a team, and so I would refill the soda machine ice with five gallon buckets.

I would load dishes for our dishwasher. I would be checking in guests when they paid for their meals at the very front of the restaurant. I would clear tables and bus tables. I would fill food. I would restock biscuits and buns. You see, I learned to work together without needing to be told because that's what a team did, and that was the environment I was introduced to.

If one of us slowed down, the whole team would feel it. It was the first time that I think I really understood what it meant to carry your part of the load. At Old Country Buffet, Tuesdays were senior discount days, and that dining room filled with familiar faces that I learned to see over and over and over again.

I would go to school obviously during the day, and then I would drive myself thereafter. At three 30 in the afternoon, and I would go until we closed, which was about 10 o'clock. And after you cleaned everything up, you know, I was getting home around midnight or so.

But I would remember the faces that would come in, you know, kind people who'd come back week after week. met people that are ingrained in my mind to this day. For example, there was one man who, I'll never forget him because at Old Country Buffet at this time, we would actually make steaks to order for people, and he would sit down and always request to have a steak seared for exactly 17 seconds per side.

Not 16, not 18, not 30 seconds or even five minutes. He wanted his stakes steered. 17 seconds per side and every time. Someone would remind me he was there or I saw him, or I heard his order come up. I would cringe every time because that sounded frightening to me. My team would count every time because for him, that's what mattered.

That was my first quiet lesson in leadership. Respect the details that matter to someone else. That's how you build trust, not through what impresses you, but what matters to them. Now every meal that people would purchase in the evening time at dinner, it came with a $2 off coupon for Wednesday lunch.

That's how the restaurant kept people coming back. Loyalty before loyalty programs existed. Right. It taught me something that I still believe today, the best businesses, they aren't built on flash. They're actually built on follow through. I learned that consistency builds trust. Trust builds loyalty, and loyalty builds legacy.

And then there was Rolf, he was my manager. It wasn't Ralph, it was Rolf, ROLF. He was a shorter gentleman with medium brown hair, glasses, and always dressed like he really meant business. His slacks were always freshly pressed with a seam down the center. He wore a crisp button up and a tie. And he was that quiet, calm, that kind of fills the room more powerfully than a shout ever really could.

He just walked in and, and you knew that how he was standing or the way he was looking, or what he was paying attention to was something of importance, and you paid attention. Now, Rolfe wasn't the kind of leader who barked orders. He never did. He always led by example. If you weren't doing your best, he didn't yell at you.

He just handed you what needed to be done and said. We take care of people here. And if you got short with someone, he'd look over his glasses and he'd say, kindness is part of a uniform. And I'll never forget these things. So I'm gonna repeat them again so that you hear them One more time. We take care of people here that was used in place of raising his voice or instead of putting you down for what you didn't do.

It was a redirection. And when you weren't really living up to your best potential or you got short with someone, or you were irritated with how a guest treated you, kindness is part of the uniform. Years later, I built my leadership around some of those very same principles, and not because I read them in a book, but because I lived them out, had an old buffet wearing the most hideous uniform and the most thankless job.

Out of Rolf's example came what I call now my SBH standards, A set of five truths that anchor how I lead and how I hope you'll lead too. And you can copy and paste these into your phone from the notes for this week that you'll find in our digital download. I'm gonna recite them here for you, but they'll be available for you to copy and paste and, and share with your team.

One, we take care of people always, every client, every employee, every time, and sometimes that taking care of people, it looks different than you might think. Like when I send packages to my team members overseas, or when I buy someone a new computer, or when I help an employee buy a car, we take care of everyone.

Number two, kindness is part of the uniform. Your tone is your reputation. Now, all of my companies are virtual companies. They don't exist in a brick and mortar building. There's nowhere that someone can see my team physically, but our uniform is kindness. Some of the most incredible feedback we get from my clients, from my offices that we work with, from people I personally mentor that work with my team, they'll say.

Your team made a mistake on something, but they were so kind, so understanding, and they tended to it immediately. And so for that reason, I've been your client for the last five years, seven years, six years, 10 years. Number three, consistency builds. Trust. Be steady even when things get shaky. My team knows things that are familiar to me, things that are common things we always talk about, things we always do.

We build consistency in everything we do from reciting our core values and our brand statement at every meeting. From talking about what success looks like for us, not what failures we had. Number four, humility leads the room. You don't need to be loud to be respected. Do you think every time someone asks me for a time off request that I wanna honor it?

Do you think I just want to be understanding to the fact that someone is sick again or their internet isn't working, or they can't clock in on time? Do you think I wanna be understanding every time those things happen? No, I don't. In fact, my first instinct is that I want to say no. I wanna battle it. I wanna ask questions.

I want to be frustrated. That's my first instinct. But I have learned in my leadership that my choices have to come from a different place. My choices have to come from choosing something differently. My responses have to mean that I made a choice, that it was far better to be understanding than to be cruel.

Because cruel is easy, cruel is natural. It's just the way that we blurt out how something has affected us or how something has made us feel. Humility leads the room. Number five, excellence starts small. Master the simple things before you chase the big ones. I built all of my companies on these five sentences, and they're things I recite to myself.

There are things that I'm thinking about all the time, even when it's really hard. Even now, right now, five companies later, over 700 employees hired. I go back to them because they are what remind me to keep going even after 25 years in the business world.

And , owning my own companies humility tends to still meet me every single day, like when I have to admit that I got something wrong or my employee was right when I suggested something and it wasn't gonna work out. When a client's expectation surprises me, or a call that was supposed to take 30 minutes, takes two hours, and I have to listen to every single word because I believe in taking the time.

Taking moments to care enough about the person on the other line, that you let them share what they need to share so you can earn their business. Or when I realize a team member handled something better than I would've handled it, let me tell you how often that happens. Many times I want to just type my response to my team and I want them to just do exactly what I say.

But my admin team will write back and say. Uh, Ms. Sarah Beth. I think we actually should do this, this, and this because this has proved to be an issue in the past. , These moments that I have, they're not setbacks, they're actually reminders, and I've learned that every humbling moment is an invitation to learn again, to listen deeper, to remember that growth requires grace.

And in those moments, there's one phrase that runs through my mind. Keep going. Because we aren't crumbling under uncomfortable moments. We are thriving through them. Our future self depends on how we respond to today's humbling moments. They build empathy and wisdom and understanding for the people we will lead tomorrow.

And when you remember that, you stop seeing discomfort as punishment and you start seeing it as preparation. And for me, that's really, really good. 📍   In week two of this series, I want you to carry something really special, and maybe that sounds corny or a little bit forced that I'm saying it, but I want you to hear it loud and clear.

When you are humbled whether in business, relationships or leadership, your internal phrase should always be, keep going. You don't pause to wallow in frustration. You take a breath, you collect yourself and you remind your spirit. This is building me because it is. Humility gives you depth, it keeps your heart soft, even when it feels really hard, and it's the secret ingredient to longevity and business and leadership.

And I guess in life, you could say too, we thrive through discomfort. Not because it's easy, but because it's where we meet our truest self. The version of you five years from now is counting on you to not quit today. When you keep going, you not only grow, you gain understanding for others who are still learning and growing too, and that's how legacy leaders are made.

That's how generational leadership is designed. This week's keep going. Digital download is called Small Work Big Trust, the SBH Standard Reflection Pack.

Each digital download that I've designed for you is created for copy and paste. Use right in your phone's notes app so you can take the lesson with you anywhere inside this week's pack, you're going to find your full SVH standard for daily reference. A short journal prompt of where in my business can I serve before I lead a curated quote about humility and leadership. And a few additional resources to help you reflect and realign this week. All digital downloads for any of my podcast listeners are discounted to just $5. You can find the code in the show notes and you can download these in the link there as well.

This week I'm going to bring something new, something that I haven't done in a previous podcast episode, and that's giving you a keep going invitation. Now whether you are spiritual in any realm or not, you can take what you want from this next portion, Luke 1610 says, whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.

Jack Welch states before you are a leader. Success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is about growing others. So this week's invitation is to let humility refine you, not define you. You are not behind, you are being built. And for that we must keep going.

Next week we're going to talk about something we all face, what it looks like to keep going when you feel unseen and under-prepared. Until then, I want you to remember my maxima, my sailor hat, the blender that never stopped, the sticky hands that I could never get rid of. The team that I worked with, the way I was humbled in not only the uniform that I made, but the tasks I had to do and the team I learned to understand.

All of these moments, of course, didn't break me. And no, they weren't comfortable. And yes, I tried to watch for friends or people I might know that might come to eat there. And thank goodness I never ran into anyone, but I was built by all of these moments. And you likely have these moments too, in a bonus section, in the digital download, you will too talk about some of the moments that didn't break you, but they built you to bring you back to where you were at one point to help you have an understanding for those that come after you and those that you lead. Because there may be things that you are asking someone to do right now that you wish someone on your team was doing, and they might find it humiliating.

Humbling, uncomfortable, and when they come to you and they don't have the enthusiasm you wish they would have, you'll understand them just a little bit more. I'm Sarah Beth Herman, and no matter what you're walking through this week, I'm encouraging you today, now, and forever to keep going. I'll catch 📍 you guys on the next episode.