By: Margot Walsh

You know that feeling when you leave a conversation with someone and you feel… smaller? Not because they did anything wrong, but because their worldview just made yours shrink a little?

One thing I’ve come to realize: the people around you aren’t just keeping you company, they’re shaping what you believe is possible for your own life.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about the people in your life being bad or wrong. They’re doing the best they can with what they know. But sometimes the people we love most are operating from beliefs that don’t serve us anymore.

When everyone around you sees the world through a lens of limitation, “this is just how it is” or “you should just be grateful for what you have” or “that sounds too risky” – that perspective becomes ours too. Not because we’re weak, but because we’re human. We absorb the energy and beliefs of the people we spend the most time with.

We start to think: maybe this is just how it is. Maybe I should be grateful and stop wanting things to be different.

Something shifted in me when I started sitting with women who saw the world differently than I did. I’d always had this feeling – this quiet knowing that I was meant for something more – but I couldn’t quite reach it. It felt buried, inaccessible, like trying to remember a dream.

But when I found myself in rooms with women who were dreaming bigger, making brave moves, and believing in possibilities I hadn’t even considered – my own sense of what was possible started to expand. What I thought I could do, who I thought I could be, what I thought I was allowed to want – all of it got bigger.

The, something happened… when I believed more was possible, I started acting like it. Different choices. Braver conversations. New directions. My life didn’t just feel different – it actually became different. More aligned. More mine.

Because when you’re in rooms with women who are going after it – who are being honest about what’s hard AND doing it anyway – something shifts. Your own dreams don’t seem so impossible anymore. Your desires don’t feel so unrealistic.

This is why circles matter. This is why who we surround ourselves with isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s everything.

You need people who love you as you are AND people who reflect back who you’re becoming.

So the question is: are you giving yourself access to both?

This is why we circle. Women are magic. 

Margot is the Co-founder of Femnest and serves as the Director of Growth & Connection. She is a life coach and the creator of Beyond: Discover Who You Are Beyond the Stress, a group coaching program that helps women move past overwhelm and into clarity, calm, and confidence. To learn more about working with her or to join the next round of Beyond, send her a message!