Most people know the quote “You’re the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with”. You hear it, you feel it, so you get over yourself and spend multi 5 figures on a mastermind, a new coach and whatnot.
You feel growth and inspiration, but even when you’ve done all of that – there's a secret layer to this nobody talks about openly: I’m talking about those rooms you’re in you can't easily leave.
Because they’re your home.
Maybe it’s your mom, your partner or your best friend from high school.
The Part Everyone Skips
Most conversations about the “different room rule” focus on finding better rooms: masterminds, events, high-level peer groups, coaches who are further ahead. And yes, that matters. I've invested multiple 5 figures a year into exactly that kind of room for most of my entrepreneurial journey. The results show up not in the strategies I learn, but in what gets normalised. What I stop needing to justify. What becomes the new baseline.
But in this Fail to Win podcast, I add a layer I've never publicly talked about before: what happens in those rooms you cannot easily leave.
The Enrollment Problem
A Dutch friend once said something to me that completely shifted my perspective on a relationship I was struggling with at the time. She said: “Watch out that you don't get enrolled in their world.”
It sounds simple, but what it describes is one of the quietest and most costly things that can happen to an ambitious woman.
You've worked hard to raise your standards and you've built a new baseline for what you expect from your business and your life. And then someone you genuinely care about, who is operating from a completely different set of beliefs, starts pulling that baseline back down. Not on purpose, but just by being who they are, where they are.
You leave conversations with them feeling a little heavier, like something is off but you can’t put a finger on it.
You start filtering your goals through whether the people around you can relate to them.
You soften your numbers before you share them out loud.
You stop speaking certain things into existence because they don't land well with the people who love you.
85% of our thoughts are repetitive. So if the room you spend the most time in is running on “that's too much, be realistic, don't get ahead of yourself,” that's what's filling your brain the other 23 hours of the day too.
What the Right Room Actually Does
I was in LA recently with a group of women, serious builders, when one of them hit her first million-dollar year. The reaction in the room was immediate: let's go to Rodeo Drive and celebrate. Not “do you think it will last?” Not “aren't you worried about the workload?” Just pure, loud celebration, and then the next conversation about what she's building toward next.
That's what the right room does: it makes winning feel so normal that you can't not win. It makes your goals feel like a baseline, not like something to apologise for or carefully word before you dare to say it in public.
When you stop spending energy on downplaying your ambition, you can start using all that fuel to figure out how you can make it all happen.
What to Do When You Can't Leave
I want to be clear on something I am incredibly aware of: I know you can’t just cut everyone out of your life. It’s simply not always possible, and it's not always the right answer either. But you do have to stay conscious about what's happening when your environment keeps you small. You have to notice when you're adjusting your dreams to fit someone else's ceiling and you ESPECIALLY have to catch yourself shrinking before it becomes your new normal.
And you have to seek out rooms where it's normal to want what you want, charge what you charge, and build without apologising for the size of your ambitions.
You're not too much. The room might just be too small.
If you're ready to be in a room that actually matches your standard, I have two of them.
My Self-Made Millionaire Mastermind is for women scaling toward 1 million and beyond, with 1-on-1 coaching, retreats, and group coaching included.
My Gold Mastermind is for women scaling toward their first 500K year and beyond with 2 live workshops per year.
Find out more and apply here: https://fastforwardamy.com/applicationformeng
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