When I think about the quality that has the greatest impact on success, it’s this:

Being willing to try, fail, and try again. Repeatedly. And not giving up.

That’s it. Whether it’s becoming an executive, building a business, or even mastering a hobby outside of work, the recipe is the same.

This is not secret knowledge. I’m sure most of you have heard something similar. So then, if we know this, why do so many fall short of their goals? Well, knowing this is one thing and doing it is quite another. Particularly because there’s a massive blocker that most people face: FEAR.

Fear of failing. Fear of looking stupid. Fear of rejection… I could go on.

And sure, I can tell you to just ignore that fear and push through. I would love for all of you to do that so you achieve all of your wildest dreams. But it’s not that simple… there are additional factors that will influence your ability to succeed. And that’s what I’m going to dive into today.

How your environment impacts your ability to succeed

If you’re struggling to take action, self-doubt may be getting in your way. We hear a lot about this, and I talk about it too – overcoming limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome so you can confidently pursue your goals.

But even if you’re doing the work to overcome this (which you should absolutely do), you may still be set up to fail if you’re in the wrong environment. Let’s explore this and even break it down.

Your work environment

This clearly has a huge impact on your success in so many ways:

  • Does your company promote from within and develop their employees?
  • Do you have mentors and sponsors within the organization?
  • Do you feel psychologically safe and able to share ideas?
  • Are you in an environment that allows people to fail?
  • If you share a crazy idea or ask a ‘dumb’ question, what happens?

This is something that I’ve experienced firsthand. I’ve been in environments where my ideas were heard and valued, and we were encouraged to take risks. This positively impacted my ability to grow and even demonstrate my skills.

I’ve also been in environments where I was shut down or made to feel that my ideas weren’t good enough. Over time, this caused me to become more closed-off, take less risk, and not show up as the leader I knew I could be.

Same me. Different environment.

I remember interviewing a woman who had just been promoted to a CTO role. I was interested in learning more since only 8% of CTOs are women.

She said that the company culture was what convinced her to take on a senior leadership role. She felt she could fail and make mistakes, and it was safe to do so. I can’t stress the importance of this enough.

The other element of your environment that is critical is whether the company, culture, and your position allow you to show up in your zone of genius.

Again, this is something I’ve experienced personally. I spent years at an early-stage startup, struggling to knock it out of the park in a sales leadership role. As soon as I moved to a company that had a clear product-market fit and was in the scaling stage, I excelled. Turns out, my skill set is simply more attuned to companies in the scaling stage.

Reflection:

Take a look at your work environment and ask yourself whether you’re encouraged to share new ideas and what happens if you fail. Does your environment provide the psychological safety needed to take risks and grow?

Ask yourself whether this environment is a great match for your skill set. How often are you able to lean into your superpowers in your current role? Are you trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?

Your home environment

Let’s say work is great and this is not where the block is happening. Time to look outside of work at the environment in your personal life.

Sheryl Sandberg once said that the most important career choice you’ll make is who you marry. These are some wise words, my friends.

The first time I got married, I was in my 20s and didn’t talk to my partner about what life, kids, and career would look like in the long term. When we met, I was highly ambitious and working in my first real job. I was traveling a ton and growing a ton. I assumed he knew what he was signing up for.

Not the case. Two kids and a lot of resentment later, we finally separated. I joke that he thought as soon as I had a baby, I would turn into a teacher or a housewife. That obviously didn’t happen, and for years I struggled with trying to build my career while in a relationship with someone who did not want me to have a big career.

This was a losing battle. And it made both work and home a whole lot more difficult.

The idea that you become the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with is not far from the truth. And your partner is going to have a disproportionate influence as one of those people. Do they support your goals or discourage them? Do they cheer you on or make you feel silly or even guilty for wanting more?

Let’s now talk about friends, because after your partner, your close friends have the next most influence.

For much of my career, I didn’t feel as though my friends understood me. I’ve always had a lot of career ambition, and many of my friends did not or weren’t interested in talking about our careers. This became magnified when I became an entrepreneur.

When I started my business, some friends I thought would support me most did not. I would go so far as to say they didn’t want me to win and mirrored back all of my insecurities. Ouch.

I’ve heard people like Alex Hormozi and Codie Sanchez share that friends who don’t want you to win are actually your enemies. And that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I look at it a little differently – friends who don’t want me to win are going through their own stuff that has nothing to do with me. But you better believe I’m going to limit the time I spend with them. Because I noticed that the more time I spent with these friends, the more I doubted myself.

I took a step back from these friendships because, truthfully, they weren’t serving me. They were making me feel self-conscious and bad about myself. And if the recipe for success is being in an environment where you can safely fail, this was not it!

The other thing I did was intentionally invest in building a network of women who were like-minded and ready to enthusiastically cheer me on, just as I did them. And that has been absolutely game-changing.

I haven’t let go of every friend who isn’t an ambitious corporate leader or entrepreneur! I still find value in the deep friendships of my past. Instead, I’ve cultivated a new group of friends I can lean on for professional support and talk to about things that no one else understands.

Reflection:

Look at the people you spend the most time with in your personal life and honestly ask yourself whether they support your goals (and do you support theirs?). Do they pick up the slack if you need to get a big project over the line or do they constantly tell you to work less and spend more time with them?

Do your friends encourage your goals or sabotage them by causing you to doubt yourself? Is it time to make some new, more supportive friendships with women who get it?

This is a hard topic because reflecting on these questions can bring up some uncomfortable realizations. My goal in this newsletter is to help you determine whether you’re being set up to succeed or fail in your current environment, so you can make informed decisions or have an honest conversation asking for support.

When it comes to your career remember this: If your environment isn’t supporting you, find one that does. You aren’t a tree, you can move.

PS. I love helping more women become VPs and thrive in their roles – and part of that is providing you with a community of women who will cheer on your success. If you’re curious to learn more, ​book a call with me here​. For the next 6 weeks I’m offering a $1K discount and some amazing bonuses to those in my inner circle (pssst, that’s you).

Until next time friends… ✌️💜

Katy