📍  Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. It's Sarah Beth, and this is week three of our 12 week Keep going series. This is where I'm talking about what it has looked like for me to grow, to lead, and to rebuild when my life absolutely did not go as planned.

We've already made it through two powerful weeks, and that means that we have nine more weeks to go. Together in this journey, nine more chances to practice confidence, courage, and what consistency actually looks like. And I think even, dare I say, to keep going when the road gets uncertain. And while that sounds like some sort of really perfectly curated Instagram caption, I really mean it in many, many seasons that I have lived, my life has not gone according to plan.

At all. Actually, it sad in some ways and beautiful in others because had it not gone the way I thought or had it gone the way I thought, I wouldn't have been able to create this life to be on this very podcast sitting with you today,

and every time you turn on an episode, I just want you to imagine that we're sitting in your favorite coffee shop. I'm sharing stories, you're sharing stories, and together we're working through this life together. This isn't an audience of a million. This is you and me, a time for us to connect and strategize and get back to what we were always meant and called to be.

That's why if you haven't yet, please make sure that you're following my Instagram page at no Silver Spoons Podcast. When you join the broadcast channel title, keep going. You'll see that link at the top. You'll get first access to the weekly digital downloads that come with every single section of this series.

You'll also see early sponsor updates and behind the scenes looks into how this series is unfolding. Every week there is a companion download, just a simple digital download. For you to take with you in your life and in your business. Some weeks you might find that there are many pages and quite a few things that you can actually thumb through and put into action and use to even mentor those you lead.

Other weeks, it might just be one simple page. Either way, multiple sections of each of these companion downloads will include the ability for you to copy and paste right in your notes app on your iPhone, the details of that digital product. It. This is so that you can actually take it with you. You don't have to thumb through an email or go to a downloads folder.

You can just go to your notes app. You're already on your phone  anyways,

and my heart of hearts this week is especially practical. This week's digital download is a mindset rebuild worksheet that's designed to keep you grounded through the waiting. So let's start here. With the story of how my family's biggest heartbreak turned into the very foundation of everything I've built today.

It was late 2013 when we started talking about Arizona. We were living in Tennessee and a home where our daughter grew up, where laughter echoed down the hallways and we had two English bulldogs. They were massive actually. We bought them from a breeder in Texas, and I'll never forget the day that they were flown in and my husband went to the airport to pick them up.

We loved that house. It was comfort and it was hours for the time we were there. Some of the really beautiful things about this property was that there was a dogwood tree in the front yard. And if you've never heard of that story, I'm linking that story in the show notes. So go check it out. We also gardened during the months that we could garden and the backyard had the coolest backyard with bamboo that actually made a privacy fence all along the back.

And I'm telling you, we knew nothing about bamboo, but it would shoot up and grow like a foot at a time or two feet at a time. And when you went in our backyard, it was full bamboo wall, that literally went 12 or 14 feet up. It was absolutely incredible. Okay. In the front yard, the houses were all divided by a large hedge, and so you couldn't actually see your neighbor unless you walked on the sidewalk or you walked around the hedge.

But next door to us, when the bus would come every day to drop the kids off after school, my neighbor would sit on his rocking chair and play his guitar. We sat on our front porch and we would listen, and it was just this element of peacefulness. I remember very vividly sitting on our front porch and, and listening to that in the cool spring or the early fall.

Anyways, back to my story. When a business opportunity came through from one of my husband's longtime colleagues, it really sounded promising. It was a chance for us to invest in something bigger. Something that could change our entire family's future. It wasn't a job. It was more of a partnership. We were going to be co-owners of a business.

It was a vision that , we really didn't know anything about. It was a type of business we had never heard of. It was in the technology realm, and we were learning as we were growing. As we would listen to this colleague of my husband's, we were really relying on the trust my husband had of this colleague because he had worked with him for so long, and so we just believed everything he was saying because my husband trusted him.

They were great friends.

We truly believe that this business opportunity could be the breakthrough that we had been praying for. You see, as much as we loved Tennessee and met friends that we're still friends with today,

 We experienced an incredible nonprofit that we were part of and ended up bringing to Arizona. While it was a really beautiful experience for us as a family, we struggled financially. It was rough. Oh my goodness. We were in a house far too big, far too much money than we could actually afford. I was working multiple jobs.

My husband was working multiple jobs. We were doing whatever we could to survive. We prayed, we contemplated, we weighed out the options, and ultimately we decided my husband would head out and see if it was gonna be worth it. Our daughter and I would stay back and we would see what he felt when he got there.

All with the plan and intention that our daughter and I would pack up the house, hire movers or people that could help us load a moving truck and we would go meet him in four weeks time if everything worked out. So my husband went ahead first again. He left about a month before us to really lay the groundwork and just confirm that it was gonna be okay.

And during that month he was gone. Our daughter and I missed him so much. Every night she would ask, when we were leaving to go see Daddy, I'd reassure her that it wouldn't be long. And when it finally came time to leave, we loaded everything we owned into a moving truck with the help of several men that we were able to hire off of Craigslist.

I remember the Bulldogs sat up front with us. It was one of those moving trucks that had two bucket seats, but there was an area in between. And because our daughter was young, she. Didn't take up much foot room, and so she sat in the seat next to me and the bulldogs were all over in there.  And let me just tell you, that was an interesting moment.

I remember them snoring, panting, and drooling, and all the things dogs do. I also remember praying that our daughter's hamster was actually gonna survive the trip because we had no room up front, so we had to put the hamster in the back of the moving truck. At this point hoped it would survive because it was March, and March was getting a little warmer I actually don't know if it did make it. I'm not really sure. I don't quite remember. Anyways, we drove across states and deserts through hours of silence and tears, just wanting to get there. I can still picture that drive the fear, the excitement, the unknown. Me driving by myself with our daughter, which is scary enough.

We were chasing a promise, and I really believed it would change everything. When we finally arrived and reunited as a family, it felt like we could breathe again. But within weeks, that breath, they turned to panic. Unfortunately the partnership wasn't real.

The business we had invested in was gone. The money gone, everything we trusted, gone. We were stranded in a state with no income, no savings, no safety net, no friends we could call for connections. It was just us. That season. Tested everything in us as a family, as a couple. , My husband started listing things on Facebook, furniture, tools, electronics, anything that could bring in cash.

I went back to what I knew best, cosmetology. It was a skill I had earned in high school, and it was something I could use to help people and keep us afloat. I started by posting ads on Craigslist and Facebook, offering to do hair in people's homes for discounted prices. I remember writing those listings late night and trying to sound professional, but knowing deep down, I was just desperate to make it work.

And still,  I held onto this strange, quiet confidence even when it didn't make sense. I believed we were going to turn a corner. I told myself, you've been here before.  You've been uncertain. You've been scared. But you haven't been unprepared. You've been given skills, you've been given a mind. You've been given a resourcefulness in your heart that you can turn this around.

These were the first real lessons in leadership. I didn't know. I was learning how to make decisions without emotion,  how to lead through panic, how to believe something good could come out of something painful. One night I did a woman's hair for $75. When I finished, she handed me a hundred dollars bill and said,  keep the change.

That small moment, I look back and I feel like it changed everything. I remember walking into the garage that night as I got home and I handed the money to my husband. Now, I'll tell you, we didn't even have 10 cents in our bank account. We had an $1,100 rent payment. We didn't have the means to pay for.

We didn't have any groceries and we both cried over that a hundred dollars. You see, it wasn't about the amount of money we had, it was what that money represented for us. That $100 was hope. It was proof that faith and effort still mattered. Within 12 hours of getting that a hundred dollars, I had made the decision that I was going to apply for jobs.

And doing hair wasn't gonna be enough. A hundred dollars at a time wasn't gonna make it. I was applying for anything.  I didn't care what it was. I just needed something.

My applications I was sending out were done through Craigslist.  I was scrolling through posts that were offering $14 an hour and sometimes less. Now most of my experience was in dental and I happened to find a couple of listings that had dental office manager positions that were close to my house, and I was hopeful that I could negotiate the pay to be something that would cover our rent.

At least I had done the math and I needed to at least make $26 an hour. If I got any less than that, I was gonna have to stick to doing hair in addition and just make it happen.

The next morning I opened my email and I had multiple job offers just based on my resume. They wanted to meet me in person and solidify the offer. I spent the next day going to those interviews. I ended up getting two job offers, one that was pretty far from my house, maybe about 45 minutes to an hour, and one that was only about 20 minutes away.

The farther one paid far better. Holy cow. It paid really, really good. And the one closest to my house, it paid less, but it was closer to home, and I felt safer taking that because it just seemed like it was in a better part of town.

I accepted that job not knowing how much it would test me, stretch me, and eventually change my life. From day one, I knew something wasn't right at this dental practice. First of all, what I didn't know during the interview is that she actually hired two of us for the same position, and we would both be fighting for our right to keep our position.

She wasn't sure which one she was gonna stay with, so she hired us both and didn't tell either one of us that we just ended up finding out that we were in competition. That is not a great environment.

The dentist reused disposable items between patients, which if you've been in dentistry for any length of time, you know that that's absolutely not okay. She charged for treatment that wasn't needed and wasn't even completed. Her assistance rarely lasted longer than a few days, and I really mean a few days she yelled, belittled, and shamed, all of us in front of each other, myself included.

But I needed this job to feed my family. I needed this job to keep our cars that were out for repossession. I needed this job to pay my rent. She asked me one day to create a LinkedIn profile to connect with high-end patients, and at the time, I couldn't have cared less about LinkedIn. That same day, she notified me that I had made the cut.

I was the office manager and the other person was being terminated. The goal was that I would focus on growing her business, getting patients on the schedule, and she thought I could do that by connecting on LinkedIn For me, I needed to focus on what I knew best, which was growing the practice, not filling out some LinkedIn profile and connecting with people.

I didn't care about any of that. I needed to close treatment plans. I needed to keep the office running smoothly. I needed to generate revenue, get billing under control, hire assistance. I had a lot of work to do and LinkedIn was my last priority,

so I put my loyalty and energy into what I knew.

However, she was insistent, so reluctantly I made a LinkedIn profile. And that one simple act of obedience of following a directive I didn't understand changed everything for me. About eight weeks later, I got a message through LinkedIn about a job offer, a six-figure leadership position, overseeing 30 dental practices in the East Valley of Arizona.

At first, I didn't really believe it was real, but it was,  I loved that job. I met one of the most incredible CEOs that I've ever met in my entire life. Who I highly respected until they too made some decisions that I'll never understand. I'll get into that in another episode. That opportunity led me to my first C-Suite position, a relocation to Beverly Hills, California, and eventually the foundation of the largest company that I run today, and the start of four others along the way that still thrive and run as I speak into this very microphone.

When I look back, I realize that. What felt like wasted effort was actually divine alignment. The very thing I resisted became the doorway to everything I'd been working toward. Over the years, I've learned a few things, and one of them is that your brain will always believe the story. You tell it. If you say, I'm broke, I'm failing, I'm done.

Your brain goes to work proving that it's true. That's called neural priming. Your subconscious constantly scanning for evidence that supports your belief. So what is the belief that you're telling yourself? But if you shift your internal language even a little bit, if you start saying, I'm rebuilding, I'm learning, I'm becoming, your brain rewires itself to seek evidence of that instead.

And that's neuroplasticity and it's powerful.   📍 Have you ever been on this amazing journey where you're building something and all of a sudden you have an amazing idea? Well, your brain was on a mission to find that it was looking for the evidence. Every time you reframe your story, you're training your mind to find the possibility instead of the proof of failure.

Positivity isn't pretending that everything's fine. It's practicing a different focus. It's telling your brain we're not done yet. And it's definitely not fake it till you make it. I actually hate that statement and I encourage people to not use it ever. I want you instead to practice a different focus.

You're assuming the role you were always called to be in. You are not faking it. You are living out exactly who you were called to be. You see, that season I was in taught me how to lead in silence. How to work hard when no one was watching how to stay the course when my confidence was hanging by a thread and every time life humbles me.

Now I go back to that phrase I talk about in our very first episode of this Keep Going series, that episode where I tell you how the two words keep going, wherever formed. We don't crumble at the thought of uncomfortable moments. We thrive through them because our future self depends on it. Every single experience, even the messy ones.

Is shaping your ability to understand others who are still in their waiting.

I have a few reminders for you today as we close out this episode. When everything feels uncertain, I want you to remember what you do know, your skills, your values, and your grit. The next open door might come from the thing you least expected.  Even a small act of obedience. Don't mistake silence for absence.

Waiting. Seasons are working Seasons. The words you repeat become the reality that you live. Choose them carefully and keep going. ' cause this chapter isn't your ending, it's your training. If you've been with me since the beginning, you know how the, that's good moment started.

In the very first episode of No Silver Spoons, I talk about the fact that I love to take and recap episodes, giving you information and what the carrots were that I wanted you to take with you. So today I want you to remember. That you are here to find the light in the middle of the hard places you are learning to recognize good, even when it's small, subtle, or hidden in heartbreak.

That a hundred dollars bill, that tiny crumpled miracle, it was mine. It was the moment I realized that goodness doesn't always look like abundance. Sometimes it looks like just enough or barely enough, and for me, that's really good. This week's digital download is a one page daily tool created to help you rebuild your mindset with intention.

Inside you'll find daily affirmations or your keep going affirmations, whatever you want to call them. They are short, powerful statements designed to rewire how you think and respond throughout the day. There are reminders that no matter what the circumstance looks like, your mind has the power to shift your entire environment.

This isn't about toxic positivity. It is about grounded truth. You can use these affirmations each morning before you open your email when you're facing a hard client call, or even at night when you feel like you didn't accomplish enough. They're your daily reset, your way to reframe what's possible before the day decides for you.

You'll also find the gratitude lens, which is a short reflection, inspired by my a hundred dollars moment. It designed to help you see small miracles in your own story. There is a quick neural reset and 92nd grounding practice to bring calm and focus when you feel overwhelmed. And lastly, scripture and quote blocks, verses in words.

You can save or screenshot for midweek reminders. It's simple, printable, and made for your everyday life. Perfect. To copy and paste into your phone's, notes, app, or use as a daily journal companion. Okay, grab yours for $5 with the code listed in the show note. And don't forget to follow at no Silver Spoons Podcast for our exclusive access to new drops and resources.

When you download these tools, I don't just want you to print them and move on. I want you to experience them. I let this be your week to rewrite your inner narrative. Each affirmation, each reflection, each small exercise is a seed planted toward who you are becoming. And before we close today, this is my personal invitation.

The part where I ask you to look inside and decide, am I going to keep going? Because that's what this series is about. Not just surviving but truly rebuilding as a man thinketh in his heart. So is he. Proverbs 23, 7, you become what you believe Oprah Winfrey.

These two quotes hold everything I've learned about transformation. What you think becomes what you seek and what you believe becomes what you build. If your thoughts are small, your life will shrink to match them. But if you believe that small steps matter than your efforts are seen that your faith is building something bigger than what you can see right now, you will walk differently.

You'll start to breathe easier, and you'll start, keep going. We are only at week three of 12, which means there are nine more weeks left in this Keep Going series. Next week we'll talk about what happens when your plans shift, when what you thought would be your breakthrough becomes your biggest lesson.

 Until next time, remember every season, even the ones that feel broken, our preparing you for something bigger. I'm Sarah Beth Herman, and no matter where you are this week, 📍  keep going.