Lela Grubisich: Building with Discipline, Leading with Heart

Today, Lela Grubisich the Co-Founder and Vision & Growth Lead of NoviSmile and Founder of NoviBlack, She is building businesses across healthcare and wellness. On the surface, the ventures may appear different. At their core, however, they are rooted in the same philosophy: helping people take ownership of their health, confidence, and lives.

For Lela, business has never been only about growth.

It is about people.

Lela’s understanding of resilience began long before she understood the language of leadership or entrepreneurship.

Born in Foča, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and raised with strong Serbian roots, she grew up in a family where hard work, love, and caring for others were part of everyday life.

When Lela was 14, her mother was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

For the next four years, Lela watched the person she loved most face a devastating disease with extraordinary courage. Her mother died when Lela was 18.

The experience changed her understanding of life forever.

Watching someone she loved lose physical abilities while continuing to fight taught Lela lessons no classroom could have given her. It taught her that health can never be taken for granted, that time matters, and that strength does not always look loud. Sometimes strength is simply “continuing to show up with grace when life gives you every reason not to”.

Her childhood also carried other challenges. Her father had left when she was very young, and he later died of a heart attack. Her sister has special needs, adding another layer of responsibility and perspective to Lela’s understanding of family and care.

Yet when Lela speaks about her childhood, she does not define it by what was missing.

She remembers love.

That foundation would eventually influence the way she has built teams, cared for patients, approached wellness, and defined success.

Moving to the United States meant starting over.

Lela arrived alone without speaking English and without a predetermined path waiting for her. What she did have was an extraordinary willingness to learn, work, and keep moving forward.

She has built her life in the US one step at a time.

Her education eventually included an MBA in Economics, while her professional journey led her into dentistry, not as a clinician, but through the business and patient side of healthcare.

She learned dental practices from the ground up, gaining experience in patient communication, treatment coordination, office management, operations, business development, and growth.

Those years gave her an education that went far beyond spreadsheets or business strategy.

She learned how vulnerable people can feel when making major healthcare decisions. She saw how fear, finances, past experiences, and insecurity could influence whether someone pursued treatment. She also saw the enormous difference that compassion, communication, and trust could make.

That understanding became foundational to the leader she has become.

Eventually, Lela co-founded NoviSmile, where she now serves as Vision & Growth Lead.

Her role sits at the intersection of business strategy, growth, operations, culture, and patient experience. While NoviSmile is built around advanced surgical dentistry and modern clinical care, Lela’s focus has always extended beyond the procedure itself.

She believes patients remember how an organization makes them feel.

Many people seeking complex dental treatment have spent years hiding their smiles. Some avoid photographs. Some cover their mouths when they laugh. Others have slowly withdrawn from social situations because of embarrassment or insecurity.

Lela has watched what happens when that changes.

A patient walks differently. Smiles without thinking about it. Takes the family photograph. Goes on the date. Applies for the opportunity. Laughs without instinctively covering their mouth.

Those moments have reinforced something Lela has come to understand throughout her own life: confidence can change the way a person participates in the world.

At NoviSmile, that belief influences everything from the first conversation with a patient to the systems used to support them throughout treatment.

Clinical excellence is essential, but Lela believes the human experience surrounding that care matters just as much.

Early in her career, Lela associated leadership with working harder, doing more, and carrying more responsibility.

Experience changed that definition.

Today, she believes leadership is less about proving how much one person can accomplish and more about creating an environment in which other people can succeed.

Her philosophy combines two qualities that are sometimes incorrectly treated as opposites: kindness and accountability.

She believes leaders can expect excellence without diminishing people. They can hold high standards while listening. They can correct mistakes while maintaining respect. And they can build strong businesses without losing the humanity that made the business worth building in the first place.

At NoviSmile, that philosophy is reflected in three core ideas: people matter, teams are better together, and the patient experience is non-negotiable.

For Lela, culture is not what a company writes on a wall. It is what leaders tolerate, reward, model, and repeat every day.

If NoviSmile represents Lela’s belief in restoring confidence, NoviBlack represents another lesson her life has taught her: health deserves attention before life forces us to give it attention.

The idea is deeply personal.

Since losing her mother to ALS, Lela has carried an awareness of health with her throughout adulthood. Years later, her experience as an athlete has added another dimension: meaningful change rarely comes from one dramatic decision. It comes from the small choices repeated consistently.

That philosophy became part of NoviBlack.

NoviBlack is an appetite-control water brand designed around intentional wellness and everyday discipline. Its philosophy is simple: better choices do not always have to begin with enormous changes. Sometimes they begin with a pause, a habit, or one decision made differently.

For Lela, the brand’s message can be summarized in two words:

Discipline, bottled.

But NoviBlack also carries a purpose much more personal than the product itself.

ALS remains part of Lela’s story, and she wants the brand to become a vehicle for increasing awareness and supporting ALS research. In that way, NoviBlack allows her to transform one of the most painful experiences of her life into something that may contribute to hope for another family.

It is not about building a brand around loss.

It is about building something meaningful because of what loss taught her.

Discipline is a word that appears throughout nearly every part of Lela’s life.

It is present in business, wellness, leadership, and athletics.

As an IFBB Professional athlete, Lela understands discipline at an unusually demanding level. Professional bodybuilding requires months and years of training, nutrition, preparation, repetition, early mornings, and sacrifices that often happen when nobody is watching.

But her relationship with discipline has evolved.

She no longer sees it simply as the ability to push harder.

She sees discipline as a privilege, the ability to make promises to yourself and have the opportunity to keep them.

It is not punishment. It is not perfection. And it is not about being motivated every day.

It is about knowing what matters to you and aligning your daily choices with it.

That philosophy carries directly into her businesses. Large visions may inspire people, but Lela believes the smallest repeated actions are what ultimately build them.

Entrepreneur. Healthcare business leader. Founder. Author. IFBB Professional athlete. ALS advocate.

On paper, Lela’s life can look like several different careers happening at once.

She sees one.

Each part of her work is connected by the same question: How can I use what I have learned to make something better for someone else?

NoviSmile helps people restore function and confidence.

NoviBlack encourages intentional choices around wellness and creates another avenue for ALS awareness.

Athletics reminds her what consistency can create.

Writing and speaking allow her to share lessons that may help someone else see greater possibility in their own life. This is the reason she sat down and took the time to write her latest book of empowerment to others, Smile Fearlessly, Love Fiercely.

The industries may change. The purpose does not.

Lela is ambitious about growth. She wants NoviSmile to reach more communities. She wants NoviBlack to grow nationally. She wants to continue building, mentoring, speaking, and creating.

But her definition of success has become increasingly simple.

It is not just how large a company becomes.

It is what becomes possible for other people because the company existed.

A patient smiling confidently after years of hiding their teeth matters.

A team member discovering what they are capable of matters.

A person making a healthier choice because something reminded them to care for themselves matters.

A family affected by ALS feeling seen matters.

Those moments are difficult to measure on a financial statement, but to Lela, they are some of the most meaningful measures of success.

Lela’s vision for the future is expansive.

She intends to continue growing NoviSmile into new communities while protecting the patient-centered culture at its foundation. With NoviBlack, her goal extends beyond national brand recognition. She wants to build a wellness platform synonymous with discipline and intentional living while using its reach to bring greater attention and resources to ALS research.

She also wants to continue mentoring, writing, and speaking about entrepreneurship, leadership, discipline, and personal growth.

Her own journey is evidence that a person’s beginning does not have to dictate their ending.

A young woman can arrive in another country alone, unable to speak the language, and build a life from the ground up.

Pain can become purpose.

Loss can deepen love.

Discipline can create freedom.

And success can be ambitious without losing its heart.

When Lela thinks about legacy, she does not begin with the businesses she hopes to leave behind.

She thinks about people.

She wants the people who worked with her to know they mattered. She wants patients to remember that they were treated with dignity and care. She wants the people who encounter her story to believe that difficult beginnings do not disqualify them from beautiful futures.

And she wants something meaningful to remain from the experience that changed her life when she was only 14.

Her mother’s battle with ALS taught Lela how fragile life can be. Everything she has built since has reinforced the other side of that lesson: precisely because life is fragile, what we choose to do with it matters.

Businesses can grow. Awards can accumulate. Recognition can come and go.

But for Lela Grubisich, the most meaningful measure of a life will always be much simpler:

“How did you make people feel, and what became better because you were here?”