Episode 672: What To Do When Life Doesn’t Pan Out

 We all have personal goals and dreams that haven’t gone anywhere. In this episode, Kiera shares her own journey from 2022, how she worked through it (and continues to do so), and where she is today — with expanded hope and energy. It’s a mindset that can be applied to many of our own obstacles: giving ourselves space to be frustrated and then choosing the best path forward.

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Transcript:

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0:00:05.8 Kiera Dent: Hey everyone. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, filler, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you. Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental, and I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress and create A teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.

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0:00:50.6 KD: Hello Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera, and you guys, ugh, I'm actually really excited for today's topic. I think it's gonna be a great podcast, and I hope you are just having an awesome day wherever you are. I know some days I'm just ticked off about life. So just so you know, I'm not always Polly Positive. [chuckle] I don't know, you can call me whatever you want. But I just want you to know, life is great, and you are living right now, and this is our dream. I was talking to a friend this morning and we were talking about how his life's a little crazy, my life's a little crazy, and I said, "Do you realize that this is the dream life that we worked so hard to achieve and now we're here and we're like, 'Gosh, it's super hard.'" So on that note, I just wanna remind you guys, you are in truly the best profession you could ever be in. You are living your dream of a life. What you once wished for is what you get to have today.

0:01:36.0 KD: So, on that, if this podcast has blessed you in any way, please do me a favor, take a quick picture, tag us on social, leave us a review because the goal is to help and serve and inspire more people. Because I believe if I can inspire you listening today, you're gonna go be better in your dental practice, which then in turn is going to serve and bless your team, then it's gonna serve and bless all your patients, which then in turn are going to go bless their families, and then they're also going to be able to serve and bless all the people that they influence. Like this is a ripple effect. You listening today are influencing thousands of people that you don't even realize. So help me out on this mission and get more people listening. Either share, tag, have them download the podcast, whatever you guys can do, think of one thing, I think often we don't think that our one part impacts, but your one part is a ripple effect.

0:02:26.0 KD: So if you share with one person, think of the thousands of people you're gonna be able to bless and serve just by you sharing this podcast. So I'll show up all the great content and you share it with someone else, and I think we've got a good duo there. So on that note, I wanted to just go through a topic of, what to do when life doesn't pan out for you. So, I think this is gonna be fun. This is gonna be a bit more personal on my side, but I think it's very relevant 'cause I think a lot of us deal with this. So for me, a lot of you heard, last year, and if you didn't, welcome to the show. I'm Kiera Dent. Dent really is my last name, just took me three fiancées. And I last year went on an IVF journey. So I'll share my age. I'm 36 as of the time this podcast recorded. I'm about to turn 37, and my husband and I, we have not been able to get pregnant. And so I decided to do IVF last year. And I went through three IVF cycles.

0:03:20.0 KD: I think this is actually the first time I'm really talking about it. I've shared a little bit here and there, and today I just feel ready to talk about it because I feel it's so important. I'm gonna share my life and I hope listening to my story, you can think about your life and learn some lessons. And don't worry, this is totally relevant to dentistry because think about when you wanted to buy that practice and it didn't work out, or you wanted to hire that team member and they didn't work out, or you wanted to grow to the next level and it didn't work out, or you thought that at this point in your life you would be at a different spot and it didn't pan out. That's the theme of today's podcast, and what to do when life doesn't pan out. So Jason and I went through three IVF cycles last year. If you don't know IVF, I didn't know IVF. I thought, hey, yeah, you just go in, take a bunch of hormones, get these eggs, bada bing bada boom. That's what I thought was gonna happen.

0:04:08.8 KD: Guys, that was so naive on my part, and I'm not going to go into all the details, but what I will tell you is IVF, and a lot of the things I listed off for you or the things you're going through, they're very personal and they hit on a level that I just can't even explain in words. They hit me on a core level. And so we had three failed rounds, and I didn't make enough eggs, guys. And so none of our eggs, they all fertilized, but none of them made it to the next layer. And I will tell you, there is a soul crushing pain to just feel like your body's not working, to feel like, why is this not working for me? I look at so many teenagers and I'm like, "I could give these kids such a great life. How come they can get pregnant and I can't?" Don't worry. There was a lot of self-hate, there was a lot of body hate, there was a lot of feeling really down. Then I found out my little sister got pregnant. Oh gosh, guys, that was not my shining moments.

0:05:06.0 KD: I was really discouraged and really depressed on that, and I took a lot of time for me. I went to Bali. That's actually why I went to Bali. So those of you listening, I needed a reset because I'm like, gosh, this life was so hard. And I just think like what happens, you have a story, you have something, and guys, please, I don't want this podcast to be something where you feel sorry for me or you send me emails. That's not what I want. Nor am I sharing this for sympathy or empathy because that's not here. I've personally worked through that a lot and I didn't wanna come on the podcast until I was at a space where I could share this openly. I could share, I could have people say that girl's so dumb and not have it rock me. Because guess what? When you put your life out there, you are open to people loving you and people hating you, and I wasn't ready for that until now. And I think for you, what are your personal moments where it didn't pan out? And then what the heck do you do?

0:06:00.8 KD: So I'm not an expert at this. I'm just gonna share with you some things that I've learned through this journey in hopes that it helps at least one of you today listening. So what did I do? Number one, I had to freaking cry my eyes out and just honestly grieve the reality that I might not ever become a mom. Now, again, please, I don't want people sending me hope 'cause that's not really what I'm here for. Do you know how many people have sent me these emails of like, "Kiera, you'd be such a great mom." And I know it's all done with good intentions, but right now, I'm not at a space where I even wanna receive that, 'cause I'm like, "You don't know what it feels like to not have it." Now, someone out there might be listening, you might be the IVF person like me where you can't get pregnant, IVF didn't work out for you and you're like, cool, what am I supposed to do now? That's where I'm at today. And again, I'm not looking for it.

0:06:44.2 KD: So please, please respect that wish of mine as I go through this and share with you 'cause I really don't, I don't need it, nor do I want it, nor do I feel good, 'cause I'm like, "I don't want the stories of hope today. I've kind of come to a spot of reality." So again, I think when you're going through a spot where it doesn't pan out, give yourself that space to grieve, and notice on this, tell people how to show up for you. I told my family and I just told them, "I don't need you. I don't wanna talk about it. I don't want you to call me on it. I just want you to know so I don't have to answer those questions." So I think grieve it and be okay that it didn't pan out the way you wanted it.

0:07:18.9 KD: The second thing to do is to, like I said, tell people how you want them to show up for you. And then I think really just protecting yourself. So if you don't wanna talk about it, don't tell people. If you do, reach out to specific people. I had very few friends in my life that I would rally with, that I would talk to, and I told them like, "Hey, you're here for this and I need this to just be my space that I can come into." But then after that, I think the biggest piece was, what the heck do you do when that vision's not there? [chuckle] Like how do you create from the ashes? How do you say like... Guys, I'm literally sitting here. I built Dental A Team and I worked hard. Our whole team had a goal in 2020 to have the company run independent of Kiera, and we worked our tails off to do it. Guess what? We did it. And I did that all intentionally so that way I could be a mom and the company could run and everyone would be taken care of in the event that I needed to vacate the practice.

0:08:10.0 KD: Doctors wanting to leave your offices and go and do whatever you wanna do, same thought for you. Then I also built a house. We bought our first house, this is my first house, and I built it to have a nanny live downstairs so that way I could have a live-in nanny, I could take care of this baby, I could still run Dental A Team, I could still show up, I could still be a person 'cause I didn't know how that would be and I wanted the option. Well, guys, I'm sitting right now, where are you watching this, I am actually downstairs, this is kind of ironic, downstairs in the room that was built to have a nanny. Oh cool. That feels great, right? I've got a lot of reminders around me. I have this really cool house that I thought I'd have babies in and it didn't happen. And so I think you've got to give yourself space and not try too hard. I literally, people are like, "Well, what are you gonna do now?" And I'm like, I don't know," and I think it's okay to not know.

0:08:58.6 KD: And then once you've gone through that, for me at least, it's been, I need to create a new compelling vision for myself. I need to create a new reality. I haven't given up the hope of becoming a mom, but that's not my driving force anymore, and I realize that would've been my why. And so it's almost like when things don't pan out and your why is stripped away from you, how do you rebuild from there? And again, I'm only sharing what I've got in hopes that it will give you guys a glimpse for something you can do. I don't think there's an A, B, C on this, and I love to be tactical on this podcast and give you tacticals of how to get your overhead down and how to get your team there and how to run a leadership team and all these how-tos. This is called life and I believe that there's 80% psychology of life and 20% skill and this is that 80% right here. So for me, it's been a process. I don't know what I'm working towards right now.

0:09:46.0 KD: So I decided, what are some passions that I've wanted to do and let's start exploring those. Real estate has been an itch I haven't been able to scratch. So I decided I'm gonna take a real estate course with some friends that I know and to start looking into that. Does that replace? The answer is no. But I had all this energy channeled one way and now I need to channel that energy into something else. It doesn't mean I'm not still open to it or I've given up or I don't have hope. It just means that I have a lot of energy that I've been building towards something that didn't work, I need for me Kiera, and maybe for you to redirect that energy to something else. So for me I was like, "All right, well, let's go into real estate. Let's hunker in. Let's go 100%." And then I realized I'm still empty. Like cool, so if I hit this real estate goal or dream, is that gonna replace this? And the answer is no, it's not.

0:10:33.2 KD: I don't think anything, for me right now, today, recording this podcast, I don't actually think I've got something that will fill this hole. But what I do think is I can start walking through. And I think grief, I think when things don't pan out, I think when life changes, I feel like it's kind of like the waves of the ocean, and sometimes it's a freaking hard wave, and other times you're okay with it and you accept that this... But what I will say is, through all of it, I have accepted that life is always happening for me and not to me, and I think that mindset has made Dental A Team become a reality. Guys, if I would not have had the things that happened to me prior to starting Dental A Team, which honestly those make me wanna cry, they were horrific. And if I told you everything, it would be a really exciting podcast in such an awful thing. And I thought that my life was over, and because of that, Dental A Team was born, which has blessed my life and hopefully has blessed your life.

0:11:30.2 KD: And now I'm thinking, okay, Kiera, with this IVF, I have way more compassion and empathy and understanding for people going through infertility or when things don't pan out, that really hurt. I don't know it. But what I can do is I can be there as a support for you. And so thinking about it, I have to just accept that I'm not gonna understand the why. I'm not going to understand why this was Kiera's lot. Guys, I think I'd be a freaking great parent. I really do. I think I'd be an awesome mom. Those kids would be marching to awesome drums. We'd have a good time. I think I'd be an awesome mom. And people are like, "Kiera, why don't you just adopt?" Right now, that's not my path. Right now, that's not something for me, and I can say that with full confidence. It's not that I don't wanna help people. I can just say, for me, that that's not a personal choice that today is the right path for me.

0:12:14.6 KD: And so for you, what is the right path for you? And I think also trusting internal. So for me it's been trust my internal and be okay with that. Have a close group of friends that I can share with, and then create something else and take that energy, channel it into something else that I can grow, evolve, and become. And then just realize like I don't know, and so right now is the time for me to flow with life as opposed to trying to direct and command. I think about myself floating down a river and I could resist that river and I can try and hold back and it's gonna hurt and it's gonna be a lot more painful, or I can choose to surrender and flow with that river and accept that this is the path that's mine right now. Can I dictate? Can I change? I can't guys. It's this body. I've tried everything I possibly can and I keep reading books. So I will accept, if you know of awesome IVF doctors that have had people in my situation, yeah, please send me that.

0:13:06.2 KD: If you've heard of things... I don't need the successors. I hear them guys like, "Oh my gosh, I switched doctors and I got pregnant." Cool story. But if you've got actual tangible things, like my friend sent me a book called It Starts With the Egg, and that was super helpful 'cause it was a tactical thing of a new diet of something that I could try to help out with that. Or other people have really awesome doctors that they said, "Kiera, they didn't do it in the conventional way. They thought outside the box. They were beyond customizable and they really did... People that thought that there was no hope, this doctor was able to help them." Those things, I'll happily take, 'cause that's gonna help me on this path. But I think for you, so again notice, I'm being very clear on what I want and what I don't, and I think for you going through it, being clear on what's helpful for you are not helpful for you. And if today you're not going through something, just dog tag this podcast and listen to it when you are.

0:13:53.3 KD: And then I think it's a matter of, I've got to find another compelling vision. I don't know what that is and I'm giving myself space to just surrender and flow, having full confidence that I know life is happening for me and not to me. And so I'm just gonna trust that whatever is next is going to be exciting. I also think keeping optimism and gratitude. I can sit here all day long and say everything that's not going right, but everything that is going right is equally available, and I think that whichever path we opt to choose is the one that we're going to make into a reality. For me, I'd rather focus in on what's going right, what's going well, having gratitude for that. And I will be honest, it does not always work, but the days that I choose that and I'm grateful and I can really get into that. Today I did a meditation where I listed off seven things that I was really grateful for and I said them out loud and I have never done it and it felt very awkward. But I will tell you, at the end of that, I felt like my life was so incredible.

0:14:51.0 KD: Again, it's not replacing that space where I have a deep hope and a wish for it, but I'm able to just be happy in this life no matter what's happening. I am choosing to be happy. I am choosing to be this way. And I have this sticking here, literally right here, and it says, and I have this on... It says, "No matter what, decide to live in a beautiful state. Why wait till the final moments? Life is short." Guys, if I don't get pregnant and I'm not a mom, my life is still freaking awesome. It is still amazing and I still get to be here with you and to share with you and to be in your practices and to inspire you on dentistry. That is a pretty dang great life. And I am not settling for second best. I am choosing that this is best. I am choosing that no matter what happens to me, this is going to be my best life. And I'm also gonna trust and believe that if things don't pan out, there is a reason behind it and that life is always happening for me.

0:15:43.5 KD: I might not see the why today, and I might need to just wake up every day and just put one foot in front of the other and take that next step, and that's honestly all I can give. And sometimes it's not just a day, it's a minute. This minute I'm gonna choose to move forward, this hour, this day, and I had to scale it back sometimes to so low. Be okay. Grieve. When those times hit, when those tidal waves hits, guys, give yourself that space. Give yourself space to be frustrated that it didn't pan out, and then choose that you are going to live and this life that you are living and all the things that you have, you are choosing that this is the best. 'Cause I am not willing to sit here and let life determine if my life is great or not or my body or my limitations or the things around me or other people's choices. I refuse to allow that to determine if I'm living my best life or not.

0:16:33.1 KD: I, Kiera, and I hope you are going to determine if this is your best life and decide 'cause you get to decide. No one else can decide that for you. So hopefully, guys, with my story and thank you for listening and thank you for being a part of it, 'cause honestly, the podcast has been a therapeutic space for me to share with you guys, to inspire you, to give me a reason to get up, and to realize, this is magic. I hadn't thought about it. That maybe Kiera's babies aren't her own, but maybe all the children, if you will, like massive air quotes around children. I think having kids, the reason I wanted a child so much is 'cause I wanted to pour so much love into them and have all these fun things and play all these fun games. And as I just said that live on the podcast, you guys just helped me have an aha moment. Maybe my kids and my family and the people I get to pour love into is this Dental A Team family, are the clients I get to serve, are the team that I get to evolve. Maybe that's where all this love gets to go.

0:17:31.2 KD: And so I'm grateful that you allow me to give my love to you and to share and to have you be the family that listens, and you're there for me on the technical and you're there for me on the times when it's my life, just like I hope I'm able to be there for you during your life. So when life doesn't pan out, what do you do? That's a decision for you, and I hope today I was able to share some things that maybe will help you just have a different perspective or maybe a tangible tactical tool. But whatever it is, just realize life is happening for you and you get to choose that this is your best life. Why have our best life contingent upon outcomes? Why not just decide that no matter what, it is our best life. We get to create it. I'm freaking creating this and I hope you are too. And guys, at the end of the day, this life, everything about it, was custom made for you. And I think me giving myself that power, giving myself that opportunity is so much more empowering than anything else anyone could do.

0:18:28.0 KD: So just know, when life doesn't pan out, maybe it is, maybe there's another reason. And right now, decide that you are living your best life no matter what is happening. And as always, guys, just thanks for being a part of my life. Thanks for being a part of our Dental A Team Podcast family. If I can help you on a personal level, if I can be that listening ear or that friend who's there, guess what? I think life is ultimately a lot of business. I think our businesses are often influenced by our lives. So me being able to help you in your personal life with our team and consulting, it's one of the greatest blessings and honors, and I don't take it lightly. Because I know I've had coaches, I know I've had friends, I know I've had people and mentors that have pulled me through. So whether it's just through the podcast or whether it's one-on-one with you, I'd love to be that person for you if I'm the right and perfect fit for you.

0:19:13.9 KD: 'Cause remember, you choose. You choose the people that you want in there. You choose the boundaries and how you want people to show up for you, and you choose the outcome that you want to make this. You choose how this is. You choose how much weight you choose to give it in your life. You choose that. And if you can take that ownership and decide, again, I gave myself a lot of space. It was a lot of time. We're talking six months since my last failed IVF before I'm willing to talk about it. I chose when to show up. I chose how I wanted to show up. I chose the path for me. And right now, I'm choosing to live in gratitude and to make this life, whatever it is, be the best I possibly can have, and I hope you do too. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.

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0:20:00.4 KD: And that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.

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