📍  Pressure doesn't ask for permission to show up. It doesn't care if you've had a hard week or if your heart is already heavy. It doesn't knock politely. It just barges right in. And often it comes disguised as opportunity. If you have ever built anything, a business, a family, a dream, a friendship, you already know this.

Pressure is the quiet companion to progress. It's that whisper that says, keep pushing even when your body is exhausted. Welcome back to no Silver Spoons. I am Sarah Beth Herman, and this is week six of our 12 week Keep Going series. We have reached the halfway 0.6 weeks behind us, and six weeks still ahead.

Six more chances to stand up when it would be easier to quit. Six more chances to really define what it's going to look like for you to keep going. This year and into the next one. In the first few weeks we've talked about rebuilding, betrayal, resilience, and even redemption. We've learned together that keep going.

Isn't this motto that we're gonna use, it's actually discipline. This week we're talking about building under pressure. If you haven't already, join our community over at No Silver Spoons underscore podcast over on Instagram and click in the Keep going broadcast channel.

This is where you'll get early access to weekly digital downloads. And a space where faith meets leadership, where lessons you hear become tools that you actually can use in real life. Like I'm not just making some really cute posts or advertisement about this podcast.

I want you to use all of this. This isn't just another motivational podcast. This isn't just another quote that you'll put on a sticky note and stick somewhere. I am mentoring you every week in real time. You and me through real life, real business, real scenarios. I'm sharing with you the deepest stories of my life.

Moments where I didn't show up the way that I should have, and people didn't show up for me either. I'm mentoring you to actually choose discipline. Discipline in the words keep going. When I think about where my largest brand started. I don't see an office tower or a conference room. I actually see a dark brown, distressed wooden table in the middle of our kitchen.

That table had scratches all over it. Some dings from being moved from house to house, scratches from homework pencils and stains from late night coffee that didn't get cleaned up in time. It was old, but not that old. It did, however, hold the weight of all of our dreams as a family and individually. We had many discussions at that table.

Arguments at that table, tears at that table, serious conversations, laughter, family from all over the place came to visit us and sit at that very table. Six metal chairs circled it. One for me, one for my husband. Two for our daughter's, schoolwork, backpacks and things, and another one that held piles of papers or things that we needed to catch up on.

One of them was for her. I can still hear the clinking of the keys on my laptop and the sound of my daughter's laughter echoing from the hallway. We didn't have much, but we did have a vision. The house that I'm talking about was nestled in Orange County, California.  And to us, when we first moved into that house, it was really everything for us.

It was a dream come true. It was actually the nicest looking interior of a home that we had ever been in before the house was built, I think in the fifties, maybe even the forties, but it had been renovated, so it really looked like a very modern new home. We loved it. Everything was fresh, clean, grays, blues, blacks, whites, crisp, really, and we kept it very tidy.

My husband and I have always just been those people that took the time to pick up, took the time to make sure the house was cleaned up before we went to bed, so we didn't come to a dirty kitchen or a messy table even when the stacks of papers were on the chairs. We always picked them up later because the house was built so early on the first floor hallway from my daughter's bedroom.

Absolutely echoed as soon as you walked down it. So when I say I can remember her laughter or shouting to us to talk to us about something or share something she saw, I really could hear it right from that living room. Anyways, at that table, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you I work 20 hours a day in the first weeks and months of owning my largest brand dentistry support.

It was the rhythm of my survival. My body would innately just wake up at 3:00 AM before the world stirred, before the sun painted its first light, and I'd whisper, God, please bless this company. Please see my vision, and bless me as I go forward. Allow me the opportunity of providing jobs for other people.

Allow me the opportunity to change the dental world. Trust me with this vision. I would pray over and over and over, and I'd roll over. I'd grab my phone from my nightstand. I'd immediately scan my emails for scheduled calls. People who just wanted to know more, a text message that might come in from somebody who had a call with me, wasn't sure and was thinking about it.

You know, early on we didn't have the sophistication we have now. So connecting with my team wasn't the way it is now. I'm gonna get to that here in a second.

I didn't have a mentor at this time. I didn't have a playbook. I didn't have SOPs, and quite frankly, I had never heard the word SOP, but I had something in my mind that was far bigger than any of that. It was obedience. That obedience taught me that sometimes faith looks like spreadsheets and really strong coffee.

Sometimes it looks like showing up when you're really scared, when you're really tired, when you're unsure if what you're creating is even gonna work or someone's gonna wanna buy it. Obedience is taking a call from a client who's absolutely irate with you, but you have to take it anyways. Our daughter would sometimes look up at me and say, are we eating here or are we working here?

I'd smile and I'd say both, because when you're building something from nothing, there's no line between your home and your hustle. Now, I know we live in a time where work life balance gets thrown around like confetti, and I believe in rest. I really do, but I also believe that there is a difference between busy and building.

Harvard Business Review found that 62% of entrepreneurs work over 50 hours a week, and nearly 30% exceed 70 hours. This isn't bragging rights, it's just a reality check because vision doesn't build itself. Vision doesn't say, okay, I need work, work-life balance right now, so you're gonna need to keep on doing this while I go balance and have my life.

I will be honest with you. I never ever felt alone in those hours, in the stress, in the angst. I had to learn to switch my mind to recognize that anytime those things would creep in, I learned to recognize that as me being guided. It's as though I felt this whisper from God reminding me, I'm in this with you.

That's how I know now that obedience isn't about knowing. It's about trusting.

At first, when I got my very, very first client, everything was just golden, right? We were onboarding, we were sending invoices, we were growing steadily. People were trusting us. My bills were paid. I could pay payroll. It felt like. The dream was working and that was until it wasn't.

You see, I had created our onboarding form to be really simple. I just wanted like a couple of fields, the person who was filling it out, their name, the dentist's name, their address, their NPI and what services they wanted. I thought convenience was compassion. But I quickly learned that clarity is actually compassion because when you don't ask the right questions, you end up answering the wrong problems, and that's exactly what happened to me.

We didn't know our clients well enough, so our early systems began to collapse and then came the really hard calls, the angry clients, the confused emails. And here's the part that made it worse. All of those calls and emails came directly to me. No team inbox, no assistant, no filter, just me. My phone lighting up like it was a warning signal.

There were days my stomach would drop at every time I heard the bz, I'd see a number flash across the screen and my heart would whisper. Please don't let it be another problem. Please don't let it be another office. Please let it be someone I've saved in my contacts, so I'm not wondering where that area code is coming from and if I have a client in that area code that could be mad at me, and yet  it was always exactly the opposite of what I had hoped and dreamed for.

 Billing issues, missing payment postings. Insurance eligibility, confusion, people not liking the accents of my team on the phone.  One night a client called me furious, and while I calmly promised to fix it, my heart was breaking inside. When I hung up, I sat at the table and I actually cried, like real tears falling down my face.

And in that moment I whispered to myself. Sarah Beth, you can cry later. Right now. You need to fix this. You need to fix this team. You need to fix the direction we're going in. You need to fix the processes. You need to do this now. You can cry later. And so that's just what I did. I tore apart every workflow.

I asked my team questions. Every frustration became a system. Every mistake became a manual, and that's how dentistry support was built. Not from brilliance, but from true breakdowns. Leadership expert John Maxwell said, pressure is a privilege.  It's proof that you're trusted with something that matters.

 And he's right. That pressure refined me more than any other success ever could. There's something sacred about seasons that strip you down. Because when you have nothing left to lean on, you realize what you were standing on all along.

Pressure at its core is actually a mirror. It shows you what you believe, what you fear, and what you value most. There was a night, I'll also never forget, it was just after midnight and I was at the table again  surrounded by my notebooks and a mug of half drunk coffee and a Diet Coke, and I think there was a water bottle.

 I remember just sitting there for a second and closing my eyes and I said, God, I don't know how much longer I can do this. And in that moment I felt that peace, the kind, you can't explain the kind you have to really experience. It was as if I was hearing God say to me, you don't have to do it all. You just have to keep going.

And that's what I want someone listening today to hear. You don't have to fix every single issue in your leadership all at once. You just have to be so obedient. To keep moving forward and change things one thing at a time.

Scientific research actually backs this up. Studies from the Journal of Behavioral Neuroscience show that small consistent progress triggers actual dopamine releases  the same chemical that fuels motivation. So even the smallest act of moving forward builds momentum and rewires your brain for perseverance.

Now, that's not just psychology, that's design. God designed your brain to reward, obedience and consistency.  And yet I resisted help. For so long I thought I didn't need mentorship. I thought if one of my team members isn't doing it right, I'm just gonna take over and do it right. I can do it, I can do all of it.

But humility has a way of knocking when pride builds walls. And when I finally accepted mentorship, when I finally accepted that I could delegate things to my team, when I finally chose to have a team email that our clients and prospective clients emailed. When I finally learned that my inbox should be managed by my admin team and they should flag just high priority emails, that really should go to me.

When I finally realized I needed an operations team, directors in different counties, states, divisions of the United States. When I needed to have an actual structure for how my team was handling things, when we needed to have an ethics department so that every time someone had a problem, immediately a ticket was created and training would be starting to be established.

It would give us room to learn to grow. We could have processes that built things for us,

 I also learned that our entire trajectory could be changed.  I learned that humility doesn't actually make you smaller. It gives you access to growth, and that's what separates the leader who survives from the one who  📍 scales.

  This week I have a digital download for you that is called the Pressure plan. My idea, my thought, my hope, my trust, my faith in this pressure plan. Is that it is designed to help you find calm and the chaos, because leadership doesn't have to mean losing yourself. In the storm

inside, you'll have a little audit you can do. It's called the pressure audit. It'll separate what's loud from what's true,  a 92nd grounding practice to recenter your focus and calm your breath. Keep going. Affirmations that are faith rooted, neuroscience backed  great affirmations to rewire how you think  a daily reset, a three line habit that trains your brain to find clarity and gratitude.

 And if you take it seriously, if you copy and paste it into your notes app and actually use it, it will change your leadership posture.  Research from the Journal of Positive Psychology in 2024 shows that repeated intentional affirmations tied to purpose can actually increase resilience by 32% and reduce your burnout by 45%.

So what I'm telling you today is that  by downloading this digital download and learning exactly what I'm giving you,  you are literally rewiring your mind. When you practice it daily, all of my digital downloads for my listeners of this podcast are just $5. The code and the link to that is in the show notes, but the real investment is actually in your mindset because when you rebuild your thoughts,  everything else follows.

Just like in every other episode here at No Silver Spoons, I'm bringing about your, that's good moment. This is the part of the podcast. Just before we wrap up, where I recap the things I really want you to remember from this episode, pressure did not crush me.  It crafted me.  It taught me to build stronger systems, deeper roots, and higher faith.

It showed me that God never wastes pressure.  He uses it as preparation. If you're in that hard season right now, feeling stretched thin and worn out and wondering why me? I want you to hear me for a minute. You are not being punished. You can do this. If you have pressure, consider it the greatest gift. If you feel stressed, consider it a gift.

You have no idea how many people are absolutely shocked the moment they are stressed, absolutely perplexed that they have any angst in their world. Completely shocked that they're the ones going through it.  I will tell you right now, you are being prepared. You are being prepared for the next level.

 There is a version of you that is requiring you to go through this stress, this pressure, this stuff right now, so that you can handle what's in your future if you can. Today, I want you to go back to episode 91, the Mindset Rebuild,  where we talked about rebuilding with intention. Then to episode 93 when people walk away.

Where we learned the power of letting go with grace. And if you remember correctly in episode 90,  work small, trust big. That's where I first talked about starting small, but staying faithful.  Every one of my episodes, even outside of this series, has been building towards this one truth.  God doesn't waste anything.

Not the waiting, not the heartbreak, not the pressure. So when you're sitting at your own kitchen table, staring at your dreams and wondering if they are still worth it, I want you to whisper this with me.  Keep going. I'm in this because you are. And he still is. And that's good. And creating this episode I referenced the Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Behavioral Neuroscience, the Journal of Positive Psychology, John Maxwell.

Jamie Kern Lima, and several scripture references in paragraphs that I read. All interpretations, stories and leadership applications are based on my personal lived in experience and lessons learned as a CEO mentor and faith driven leader, if you have questions or you are seeking leadership, mentorship, or guidance in your business or brand, I would love to be there for you.

 LinkedIn, the show notes is the opportunity for you to schedule a quick 30 minute call with me. I love to explore opportunities where you and I together can help your business scale.  If you're currently at five figures and you're looking for six,  six figures and looking to get to seven,  seven, and looking to get to eight,  here I am.

 Here's your resource.  Your circle right now that's been feeding and pouring into you, it's not working, or you'd already be there. And I'm not saying anything bad about anybody that's in your circle, but you've gotta level yourself up.

  Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of No Silver Spoons, week six of our Keep Going series. Be sure to check the show notes for opportunities for you to become a sponsor of this series or any of our future episodes here at No Silver Spoons.  If at any time you feel I'm speaking too slow  or too fast, you can choose to change the speed of my speaking  right in the application that you use to listen to this podcast.

If you have suggestions or future topics that you would love for us to share on this podcast,  please submit those by visiting dentistry support.com/podcast.  You can connect with us there, ask to be a guest on the show or give us feedback.

 As always, we encourage you to like listen and share and subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to your podcast at. Thank you so much and I'll catch you 📍 on the next episode.