📍 You ever reach a point in your story where you realize that staying true to who you are is going to cost you something  where your standards, your voice, your work ethic, your commitment to excellence suddenly become the very things that threaten other people?  That's exactly what we're stepping into today.

Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. I am Sarah Beth Herman, and this is week eight of our 12 week Keep going series. Conviction has a way of showing up at the exact moment you think you finally found your place. I used to believe conviction was about being strong, outspoken, or firm, but I've learned conviction is actually quiet.

It's steady, stable. It's what keeps you aligned when everyone around you wants you to bend, and in leadership, conviction is both your compass and your cost. I won't name the city or the company, but when I started working there, it felt like home. I oversaw between 25 and 35 dental practices depending on the season.

The role felt electric. People appreciated how I showed up. How I cultivated conversations, how I cared about the offices.  Even the CEO told me I was influencing culture in ways he didn't expect I was dressing for the position I wanted to have. I was speaking for the position that I wanted to have. I was assuming the role that I always believed I should be in, which was always several levels above where I was currently.

Looking back, I now see how deeply I loved that season. It was one of the first places where I truly felt seen for my work ethic and not just my title. I poured everything into that company, my ideas, my energy, nights and weekends, the best parts of me. I was creating SOPs when I didn't even know what the word SOP was.

I wasn't even trying to outshine anyone. I was simply living in my calling, and for a while it felt like everyone could feel that light.

There came a day that we hired a fourth person into our leadership circle. The atmosphere changed instantly. It was not something you could point to in a meeting. It was subtle. A look, a shift, a new current. Suddenly the access that was once given freely started closing quietly.

If you've ever worked in a place where you can feel decisions happening in the room that you aren't invited into, I think you understand exactly what I mean. No email, no memo, just an emotional climate shift. My intuition started whispering before my logic could catch up, and now years later, I trust that whisper More than anything else, it's God's early warning system.

You see, the chief operating Officer, the person who once championed me, started playing both sides. She would call me privately and struck me exactly how to handle a situation, and I would do it with excellence. Then I'd get reprimanded by upper management. I never defended myself saying she told me to do that.

I took the blame every time because I wanted her approval. This is where leadership psychology comes in. When you depend on someone's approval, they own your confidence. I didn't know that. Then I kept trying to earn something that was already being withheld intentionally. You see, sabotage doesn't start loud.

It starts with quiet distortions that make you doubt your own intuition, and that's exactly what was happening  when the new hire's spouse joined the company and landed under my leadership. Things grew complicated and yes, you heard that, right? The new hire, the fourth person we hired in our leadership circle, we ended up hiring that person's husband after discovering his affair with someone in the front office.

I reported it ethically, professionally, just as I should. Instead of supporting me, the chief operating Officer took him out of my leadership and placed him under the leadership of his wife, a complete conflict of interest that day, felt like a physical shift in my body.

Neuroscience calls this the neuroception. When your nervous system detects a threat before your mind processes it, I remember I was in my car that day. I was just thinking as I was driving down a very familiar road hitting every green light, which never happens, right? I kept thinking, no one is coming to save you here.

You need to save yourself. This place is too far gone. And that was the first moment that I realized my conviction was going to cost me my comfort. Early on when I worked with this company, I had worked with an older coworker, and in the beginning it was just her and I. She once admired me and her and I had a great relationship.

But then things shifted. She became competitive and overly influenced by our chief operating Officer and eventually very manipulative. Six of our practices asked to not have her overseeing them anymore. She wasn't leading. She was controlling and control always cracks under pressure

Instead of termination, which is what she should have faced for all of the complaints and the HR issues that came up from her leadership, this chief operating officer saved her position and created an absolutely ridiculous position I have never heard of in my entire career, so that she could stay working there.

I will never understand that decision. It will perplex me for the rest of my life on why someone would ever do that.

However, it will also break my heart on how that once wonderful relationship that I had with that coworker was tarnished for no reason. In hindsight, I see how insecurity can reshape a person. More than ambition ever will you see that coworker. She never started out that way. As I said, we were friends, we worked really well together, we had a great relationship.

She was kind, warm, eager to grow, but environments, shape people and toxic leadership rewards, imitation, not authenticity. I never blamed her. I simply grieved who she became under pressure.

All throughout my career at this company, I refused to compromise my work ethic. I refused to change my standards to align with dysfunction.  I refuse to dishonor anyone even when it meant being an easy person to blame. I still gave 100%. Some would even say my a hundred percent was others 200% even when I knew it was being used against me.

This genuinely was the hardest emotional season of my early leadership career. I felt isolated, misunderstood, and deeply disappointed by people I once admired. I questioned myself constantly.

Not because I lacked integrity, but because dishonor makes you feel unstable even when you're standing on truth. But God kept whispering to me this whole time, Sarah Beth, don't shrink, don't bend. I am with you. And that steadiness carried me when my confidence couldn't. Neuroscience shows that when you abandon your values to gain approval, the brain experiences internal conflict.

But when you stay aligned with conviction, your decision making centers strengthen integrity, literally stabilizes the brain. Pair that with scripture. Proverbs 4 25 says, let your eyes look straight ahead. Fix your gaze directly before you, and it becomes clear. Conviction isn't just morale, it's mental, it's emotional.

It is spiritual 📍   standing firm is biologically and biblically. Strengthening conviction is God's design for protecting our purpose. Fast forward almost three years into working for this company. I walked in one morning. I remember waking up the morning. I knew I was going to be giving my notice.

I got ready just like any other day. I hadn't checked out mentally, I knew that day. As soon as I left the house, I would send a text message to our chief executive officer requesting a meeting with him that morning. I knew how it was gonna go down, and I knew that it wasn't going to be easy.

He accepted my request for a meeting, and I arrived at our corporate office about three hours later.  When I gave my notice. There was no dramatic exit, no grand reveal. It was just peace, and I would venture to say about 70% heartbreak. I loved the dream of what that company could have been.

I grieved the imagined future that would never happen. I remember sitting across from him explaining that I was giving notice, giving him a letter, and feeling the sadness leave my body because I was so, so devastated to leave a company that I loved working for. It truly broke my heart. How it went from a place that I bragged about that I literally would tell my husband, if we ever win the lottery, I'm giving a million dollars to this company and I'm investing in it.

Because I believed that heavily in the company I was broken hearted, but leaving was the first breath I had taken in months. It felt like stepping out of a pressure chamber. And sometimes the greatest sign that God is in a transition is not the excitement, it's the relief. It's the softening in your chest that says you can rest.

Now, I didn't leave failure, I left misalignment, and those are two very different things

This week isn't a digital download week, it is a personal activity. Where I'm gonna give you three questions, and I'd like you to answer all three and email me your reflections if you'd like to share them. If not, keep them for yourself or share them with any mentor you might have. The first question is, what do I refuse to compromise, no matter the pressure?

The second question is, where have I allowed approval to dilute my standards? And the third question, what are the non-negotiables for my life and leadership? I have had to ask myself these questions many times. I've had to learn what the answers truly are for me, and I haven't always answered these questions the best way.

And I think our answers to these change over time. We become different people. We grow as individuals and professionals. I'm going to put these three questions in the show notes so you can copy and paste them there. Or you can pause and rewind this episode and listen to them one more time. I genuinely read every message that comes through  your stories, your feedback.

It all matters to me. This series is a conversation, not a monologue, and your reflections help shape where we go next. The next series content. The best leaders are always students first. Humility is what keeps us teachable and teachability is what keeps us promotable. As in every episode, we always have a that's good moment.

So here's what I want you to remember from today. Conviction will cost you, but compromise costs more. You are not too much. You are just not willing to be less. Some people were never meant to clap for you. Peace is proof. You chose alignment, not approval.

Honor is not weakness. It is your spiritual armor,  God is leading you toward a room where your integrity is not a threat. You are not being punished, you are being positioned, and that positioning is worth every misunderstanding, every loss, and every lonely step.

Because this episode releases during Thanksgiving week, I want to close here. Be grateful for what God has removed from your life. Be grateful for what he protected you from. Be grateful for the redirection, and be grateful for the conviction that keeps you aligned with who you truly are.

Gratitude clarifies. It clears your mind. It softens your spirit. It strengthens your resolve. It reminds you that even when relationships fall away, God's faithfulness does not. Gratitude is what lets you keep going. Next week is week nine. Peace over proving how to lead from rest instead of reaction. And if you haven't yet, check out the show notes.

That's where you can find episode links, sponsorship information, and ways we can work together. I'm Sarah Beth Herman, and no matter what it costs you, keep going and I'll  📍 catch you on the next episode.