Working With Fear While Building in Dentistry, Aesthetics, and Healthcare
How Fear Became My Compass to Building a Healthcare Staffing Empire
Fear and ambition often arrive together.
For years, I built my career inside dental practices, learning every layer of the industry from clinical support to front desk leadership to business management. I witnessed the pressure behind every schedule, every treatment plan, every financial conversation. Dentistry is not only clinical. It is operational. It is emotional. It is deeply human.
When I decided to launch Fabysmiles, a recruitment and consulting company focused on dentistry, medical, and aesthetics practices, fear showed up immediately. Not because I lacked experience. I had over seventeen years in the field. Fear showed up because I was stepping into visibility. I was no longer supporting someone else’s vision. I was building my own.
Many women believe fear is a signal to stop. I learned it is often a signal that you are expanding.
In healthcare environments, expectations are high. Teams are expected to perform flawlessly. Doctors are trained clinically but not always trained in business. Front desk professionals are expected to manage insurance, collections, and patient emotions without formal leadership development. There is a gap between clinical excellence and operational strength.
Recognizing that gap is what led me to build intentionally.
Fear was present when I raised my pricing to reflect expertise. Fear was present when I positioned Fabysmiles as a long term strategic hiring partner rather than simply filling last minute shifts. Fear was present when I began advising practice owners on culture alignment, retention, and structured onboarding.
But I stopped waiting to feel fearless.
Instead, I prepared. I studied market trends. I mentored candidates who had unrealistic salary expectations and helped them understand positioning. I had transparent conversations with practice owners about turnover costs and the true value of intentional hiring. Preparation transformed fear into power.
One of the biggest challenges in our field right now is expectation versus reality. Candidates expect rapid salary growth. Practices expect instant loyalty. Social media creates illusions of overnight success. In truth, sustainable growth requires structure, mentorship, and patience.
Working with fear means accepting that discomfort is part of leadership.
It means speaking up in rooms where you once felt small.
It means negotiating contracts even when your voice shakes.
It means building a brand in an industry that traditionally values hierarchy over innovation.
For me, fear became a compass. If something intimidated me but aligned with my long term vision, I leaned into it. Expanding into aesthetics staffing. Launching consulting services. Creating leadership frameworks for front office teams. Each new level required a new version of confidence.
Confidence is not the absence of doubt. It is the decision to move forward despite it.
I attribute much of my strength to the women who modeled resilience in my life. My mother and my first boss both carried themselves with stature and grace. They believed in preparation, integrity, and quiet power. Watching them taught me that leadership does not have to be loud to be impactful.
Today, I mentor women entering healthcare who feel uncertain about their next step. I remind them that fear is often proof that you are playing bigger. The goal is not to eliminate fear. The goal is to grow your capacity so that fear no longer controls your decisions.
Building in dentistry, medicine, and aesthetics requires clinical awareness, operational intelligence, and emotional leadership. It also requires courage.
Every time I choose growth over comfort, I reinforce the belief that women belong at the forefront of business conversations in healthcare. We are not just support roles. We are strategists. We are builders. We are decision makers.
Fear still shows up. It simply no longer gets the final word.
