If you say this to yourself then you’ll never worry about being rejected by patients...

I used to offer a LOT of free masterclasses to help female dentists stress less.

Only for me, it wasn’t free. See, to rally up people, I needed to pay Facebook a buttload of money to get my ads out there. So in fact, I was actually paying people to come and watch me speak.

I remember there were times I would have 150 women register. I’d get super-pumped about it, but most of them wouldn’t actually rock up - maybe about 25% if I was lucky.

On the day, I would psych myself up and jump online ready to do the thing. Then I’d see it at the top right hand side of the screen: the number of people attending.

Up and down. Up and down. Straight up, I became a bit fixated on this figure for a while.

Now, the thing about masterclasses is they take up a LOT of energy. It's not like live speaking where you have all eyes on you. Online, you're competing with a hundred different distractions that are going on in your audience’s life as they are watching. You have to be 150% over the top just to keep people’s attention.

And yes, there will be times when the numbers will start to drop out.

I remember how much it used to spook me. Especially towards the end when they’d drop down to maybe two people and I’d be like, “Fern, they’re getting bored of you!”

It became so important for me to keep in my mind that whatever the number was, it was not about me.

I’d say to myself, "Okay, if there’s just one woman who gets something out of this masterclass today, who gets an aha moment that manages to change the trajectory of her life somehow, then that is my job done."

See, as speakers, coaches, leaders and health care practitioners our job is to serve.

And we can be martyrs about this, or we could reframe it by realising when we serve others, we also serve ourselves. Offering free masterclasses was my way of doing the reps to get REALLY good at public speaking. Deep down, I was actually doing it for myself.

Everything you do, you do it for YOU. Remember that.

When I reframed it like that, I stopped suffering and obsessing about the numbers.

It stopped being about me. I didn't have to take it personally. The numbers didn’t need to affect my self-esteem and knock out the energy I needed for my mission. Just showing up and talking was me actually going out there after my mission.

See, if you’re going out in the world doing things for people and then expecting them to be a certain way in return, and that does not happen, you’re in for trouble.

Say your patient decides not to go with you for a treatment plan, your team member quits on you or your partner doesn’t show up in the way you expect.

If you take it personally and get offended because you made it all about you, you are missing out on a valuable opportunity.

What if you could step in without expectation and ask,

"How can I serve better?”

“How can this be an opportunity to learn so much more about myself?”

“How can I grow from this?"

How much better do you think things are going to work out?

It's all psychology and you have the power to change it around.

When you reframe like this, you never, ever fail.

It's never about you, so don't take it personally.

Step in there, turn around and say,

"How can I serve this patient?"

“What would I say to them if they were my mother or my best friend?”

“How can I serve them AND use this to also help myself improve?”

Do this and I promise you'll see things start to shift for you.

Love,

Fern

P.S. See me LIVE in person teaching a full day event in Ottawa, Canada!!

https://owdscfernwhite.eventbrite.ca