Yesterday something happened which turned my world upside down!

Picture this.  I am standing outside the door.  My palms are sweating.  My heart is beating so fast and loud I am sure the woman walking past me on the street can hear it. I’m scared, and I really don’t want to go into the room.  Because the room means pain.  The room scares me and the man in the room scares me even more. I know he’s wearing rubber gloves and a mask and the tools he has make 50 shades of grey look tame …. I know it’s going to hurt.

He doesn’t care when he hurts me.  He never smiles, I have to close my eyes shut, to try and make the pain go away.

“Cheryl, can you come with me please.”

Suddenly I am back in the room as the 54-year-old adult and yet I can still feel the fear of the 8-year-old inside me.

But hang on …. it’s not the room I was expecting to see, and the man is completely different.  This is not a place of torture and pain, it looks more like a high-tech studio where you’d have a photo shoot. And the man, Manish, has the warmest and most welcoming smile.  I immediately feel at ease with him.  I trust him.

Clearly, things have changed since I went to the dentist as a child!

And I’m looking at this emporium of equipment, the 3D moving graphics that show me all the possibilities for how my chipped teeth can be sorted, straightened, whitened, you name it!  It’s like a Pandora’s box of possibilities and it made me think about how the past experience was still with me, holding me back from this new adventure (I forgot to mention, I’d been thinking about this moment in my mind for over 5 years).

Have you ever talked yourself out of something?

Here’s the thing my past had prevented me finding out about all this sooner.  The pain from my 8-year-old self was causing my adult self to fear so much, that the dentist was just something I avoided unless absolutely necessary.

But now, well, I could see all the wonderful possibilities, it’s like the fear receded back into the distant past.

That said there was also something else that happened in my past that caught up with me yesterday.

I have 31 teeth, with only one lost wisdom tooth quite a claim to fame!  Except that I have 2 chipped teeth, one cross over tooth, 4 crowns & 8 fillings all because of the past too.  A combination of eating too many sweets (which at the time was a knock-on result of having parents that worked in a sweet factory!!!) and using my teeth to open bottles/hair grips and so I’ve spent a long time in dentist chair!!!

The thing is, whilst I can’t change the situation of the past – what I can do, with Manish’s help, is change the look, change the aluminium fillings to white ones, re-align the teeth and possibly even whiten them.

And that’s about finding the right expert to help and guide you, to make you feel safe and to show you that the world is full of opportunities to make changes that in your past seemed impossible.

Of course, it’s about finding the right expert, so if you would like some help with your teeth, I can recommend Manish of Dental Concepts in Andover https://www.dental-concepts.com/. And that leads me to another point; go with an expert that has experience and evidence from other clients that matches what you are looking for.

I had proof of Manish and his work second hand initially and now I have first-hand experience, so I know he is an expert and one that cares.

So, as an entrepreneur/business owner make sure you share your clients success and ask them to share their experience too – either written, video or maybe a post on social media.  Social proof is very important nowadays and that’s the way your potential clients will know how much you care about your clients and the great work you do. And the great news is you can take away any fears they may have about your service too.

And the win for you? Well, it feels so lovely when others share how they feel about you, especially when you do what you love.

I’ve had some really lovely feedback recently on social media, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram and tomorrow I will be attending Sammy Blindell’s “How to Build a Brand” Awards Ceremony where I have been nominated for an International Speaker award.  Of course, it would be lovely to win and yet the comments and support given to me already make me feel like a winner ….so chipped teeth or not I’ll be smiling all the way.

If you’d like to find out more about what I do please check out my website cheryl@cheryl-chapman.com   I offer free consultations to see how we can make your smile bigger too.

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