098: Keep Going: Week 9

In week nine of the 'Keep Going' series on No Silver Spoons, Sarah Beth Herman delves into the complexities and emotional challenges of hiring family members in business. Sharing her personal experience, Sarah Beth discusses the pitfalls of misplaced loyalty and the difficult decisions leaders must make to maintain peace and alignment. She emphasizes the importance of setting non-negotiable boundaries and holding onto personal convictions. Through this heartfelt narrative, listeners are encouraged to protect their purpose, maintain clarity, and prepare for a successful future despite past betrayals.

Chapters

• 1:28 The Cost of Hiring Family
• 2:06 Personal Experience with Family in Business
• 3:19 Realization and Boundaries
• 6:29 Healing and Lessons Learned
• 9:27 Brainstorming Activity
• 10:24 Closing Thoughts and Next Steps

Transcript

  📍  Welcome back to No Silver Spoons. I am Sarah Beth Herman, and this is week nine of our Keep Going series. If you have been walking with me through these weeks, you already know that this series is not just about motivating you in business or even in leadership.

It is about formation. It is about becoming. It is about learning, the quiet discipline of moving forward when life. Business relationships, and even your own thoughts feel like they're working against you. This week, we are talking about something difficult, tender, and rarely spoken about. Honestly, the cost of hiring family, the cost of loyalty, the cost of trusting the wrong people with the right parts of your heart, and what conviction requires of you when peace becomes your priority.

I want you to hear this episode with compassion, not with Heaviness. I'm not here to drag anyone. I am here to free someone listening today who feels guilty for expecting better from people they love. So, let's go there. Let's talk about what really happens when family steps into your business. When I first hired a family member, my heart was truly in the best place.

I wasn't trying to hand out favors. I wasn't giving a job away out of obligation. I genuinely believed I was blessing someone with an opportunity that matched their degree, their potential, and their life plan. It felt like something sacred, really. Like I had done what any loving sister would do, and then things shifted.

It wasn't one dramatic incident, though it wasn't a single argument or a single conversation. It wasn't even a mistake that needed correcting. It was a pattern. The resistance, the change in tone. The second accountability showed up. The moment someone on my leadership team checked in the moment, responsibilities increased.

The moment they felt pressure, everything. About them changed, and at first, I really did try to ignore it. I tried to rationalize it. I tried to make sense of it because that's what we do when it's family. We explain away the tone; we soften the behavior. We excuse the disrespect. We bend ourselves in ways we would never bend for a stranger.

The turning point for me came quietly. Other team members began sending me messages not to gossip and not to stir things up, but because their interactions with this employee were becoming so disruptive, they didn't know who to go to. They were confused, they were uncomfortable, they were concerned. And when multiple people start saying the same thing, you can't pretend you don't see the pattern anymore.

And that was the moment I knew  something was deeply misaligned. And family or not misalignment, eventually collapses whatever you have built. Now, I'm not going to disclose specifics out of honor, but this is what I lived.  They spoke about me behind my back. They shared internal business information. They tried to recruit clients away from me after leaving, they questioned my decisions publicly.

They compared themselves to me in conversations where they should have been learning. Not competing, and they twisted stories in ways that painted me as something I never was. None of this came from a place of wanting clarity. It came from entitlement, it came from insecurity, it came from jealousy.

It came from thinking our proximity meant they deserved access. Family can do that. Sometimes they believe they have rights that no one else does. They believe they understand your journey when they've never lived a single day in your shoes. I will absolutely admit that I was not perfect. I was not beyond mistakes, but I was always honorable.

I was kind. I was loyal, and I kept every ugly emotional response inside instead of ever using it against them because I believed in that person. Because I hoped for them, because I wanted them to win, but they didn't want my guidance. They wanted my position, they wanted my company, they wanted my authority, and unfortunately that was never going to work.

I didn't remove this person from my life overnight. I prayed and I asked God to show me what I wasn't seeing. I asked him to expose what was hidden, and he did small moments, inconsistencies, tone, comments, screenshots from team members who were trying to protect the integrity of my very company. I built text messages, overhearing conversations, whispers of discernment that grew louder and louder until they were undeniable.

And one day sitting in my office, I felt the deepest and clearest conviction that I had ever felt in years. Sarah Beth, you can love them from whatever distance you need to love them from, but they cannot have access to your calling. You see, there are moments where God protects you by removing people you would never have had the strength to walk away from on your own.

And that's exactly what this was. So, I created boundaries, the kind that don't bend, the kind that don't break the kind that are cemented in discernment, and they are covered in prayer. The kind you don't apologize for, and I never went back. You see, healing didn't happen instantly for me. I had to rebuild how I talked to myself about it.

I had to rewrite the narrative in my own mind. I reframed the guilt. I reframed the confusion, and I reframed the betray.. Not with bitterness, though with clarity, and here's what I learned. Peace is more important than approval. Family does not get automatic access to your purpose. Blood does not override boundaries.

Truth always rises without you defending yourself. And you do not owe explanations for protecting what God has given you. 📍   I've also learned something else about myself, and this is something that a lot of leaders learn far too late. I was never the villain in their story. I was simply; the mirror and mirrors make people uncomfortable when they don't want to face their own reflection.

I know that's a hard truth, especially because I have lived that before. I have lived in a world where I thought everybody else was wrong and I was the only one that was right. I now look at things much differently. I learned that leadership psychology tells us that betrayal from someone close triggers the same neuro pathways as physical pain.

Neuroscience confirms that repeated emotional conflict elevates cortisol and it suppresses clarity, which is why family betrayal feels heavier than anything workplace related. Scripture actually tells us, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life. It doesn't say guard it from strangers. It says guard it, period.

And in leadership studies that were published in 2022, researchers found that leaders who set and maintained boundaries experienced a 40% increase in team trust and a 34% increase in performance. Why? Because clarity breeds safety, and safety breeds growth. Removing chaos is part of leadership, even when chaos has your last name.

Even when chaos has your childhood, even when chaos has all the memories you've ever had of being successful, a failure, a winner, a thriver

this week is another brainstorming activity. I'm giving you a soul level assignment. I want you to write down two words. Write 'em on a piece of paper. Write 'em on a sticky note. Add them to your notes app in your phone, the word conviction and the word non-negotiable. Now, I want you to open that notes app on your phone or a pad of paper, and I want you to write down the three convictions you refuse to betray.

Next, I want you to write down the three boundaries that are now non-negotiables in your life. And finally, I want you to write down the one place where you know something needs to change. When you're done, you can email that to me. Yes. Actually email me at hey@sarahbethherman.com. I read every single message that comes through and I will absolutely do my very best to respond to each of you.

You are not alone in this work that you are doing. I am walking with you. As we close out this episode, I want you to carry with you just a few things. First, you can love people and still remove their access. You can have compassion and still close the door. You can forgive and still protect your calling Family loyalty should never cost you.

Your peace and conviction will take things from you, but it will always return something better that is not lost, that is alignment. And goodness grows from that.

So as we wrap up week nine, I just want you to pause for a moment and realize where you are in your journey. We have walked through Rebuilding, betrayal, pressure, conviction, success. Loss and growth altogether. This has been an incredible 12 week series so far, with purpose stitched into every single episode, every single digital download, and we are now entering the final stretch with just three weeks left.

These last few weeks of the year are not an ending. They are preparation. They are a soft landing after a long road and a launchpad for who you are becoming next, next week, we step into week 10 and it's going to be powerful. We are talking about stepping into a new identity, not the one others assigned to you, not the one shaped by pressure, guilt, or old stories, but the identity God has been forming in you all along.

As we move toward the end of the year, your intention is everything. Your posture matters, your heart posture matters, and your perspective matters. We are closing this year with purpose, not panic, and we are setting the tone for a new year where confidence is rooted, boundaries are protected, and your calling is non-negotiable.

We're not done yet. The best part of this series is still ahead. I'll 📍 catch you on the next episode.