The Rooms That Changed You, and Changed Me

Welcome back to She Wears the Pants — the place where high-growth women come to build companies that match their calling.

I'm your host, Ashley Deland.

Today I want to tell you about a room that helped change the trajectory of my life and my business.

And I want to tell you about it because I think there's a version of this room waiting for you right now, and I don't want you to talk yourself out of walking into it the way I almost did.

So let me take you back about six years.

I was starting to see real success in my business. The money was coming in, things were working — but I had this nagging feeling that I had hit the edge of what I knew how to do on my own.

Ultimately - I didn't know how to leverage what I was building, I knew I needed clarity on how to reinvest and repurpose the momentum - all while taking everything to the next level.

I just knew, deep down, that I needed to get into higher caliber rooms with people who were further ahead than me.

So I made the investment to fly down to Arizona for a two-day event for entrepreneurs doing six and seven figures and beyond.

At the time it was a huge investment for me - in other words - It wasn’t a comfortable yes.

And beyond that, the closer the date got, the more terrified I became.

To the point of - the morning of I was feeling sick to my stomach and every single feeling of imposter syndrome started to show up - "who am I to be in this room," "I'm not good enough to be here” “everyone else has their shit all figured out."

But I walked in true Ashley Deland form, I knew that if I was feeling sick and wanted to throw up - that was the direction I needed to go - because on the other side of facing that fear was my potential and greatness.

And I am so glad that I listened to that feeling because those two days changed me and everything that came after.

Because the first thing that happened in that room is I realized something I now believe with my entire being.

Proximity is everything.

Just being in that room, surrounded by people operating at a level I was reaching for, did something to me that no book, online course, or amount of working harder alone ever could have.

The conversations recalibrated what I thought was possible. The mentor leading that room gave me a kind of clarity I had been chasing for months on my own and couldn't find.

And here's the part that surprised me the most. I walked in terrified that I didn't belong. And what I actually discovered in there was how much I already knew.

Being in that room - showed me my own value.

It took all of that imposter syndrome I'd been carrying and replaced it with real, grounded confidence. And I left knowing I belonged at that level and now I had the tools, knowledge and guidance to exponentially expand.

And that’s exactly what happened.

I came home on fire.

I started seriously amping up my visibility, my thought leadership, my authority here on Canadian soil and that trajectory traces directly back to saying yes to the room.

So here's what I want you to take from my story…

You cannot become the next version of yourself in the same environment that created the current one. - You just can't.

Your discipline matters. Your strategy matters. But the single most underestimated force in your growth is the room you're standing in. The conversations you're surrounded by. And the standard of the people closest to you.

Because the environments we enter shape the women we become. Full stop.

Show me the five rooms you spend the most time in, and I can tell you almost exactly where your business and your beliefs are headed.

If everyone around you is playing at the level you've already outgrown, you will quietly shrink to stay comfortable in that room. But if you put yourself in a room where the woman beside you is operating at the level you're reaching for, you rise to meet it, often without even trying.

That's just what proximity does.

And here's the thing I most want you to hear, especially if you felt that little flutter of recognition while I was telling my story.

That nausea I felt the morning of? That fear that I didn't belong? That was not a sign I was making a mistake.

It was the sign that I was finally walking toward the room that would grow me.

The fear was the confirmation.

And if there’s a room calling you right now, and the thought of it makes your stomach flip the same way mine did — that flip is a compass.

And that brings me to something I have to tell you about today, because the timing is not an accident.

Everything I just described — the proximity, the clarity, the confidence, the belonging, the women you rise alongside — that is the entire reason I built Founder Haus.

It's my private founder collective. A modern founder sisterhood built on intimacy, high standards, strategic advisory, and lifelong proximity.

Ultimately I built the room I wish I'd had in Canada — because I believe women were never meant to build extraordinary lives alone.

And our next cohort begins September 17th. Just days away.

Founder Haus is intentionally kept small. Each cohort is just six women.

And that's by design - because the intimacy and the caliber of that room is the entire point, and you can’t scale that without losing the very thing that makes it work.

So if something in my story landed in your chest today — if you recognized yourself in the woman I was six years ago, standing at the edge of her next level, scared but knowing she needed a bigger room — please do not sit on it.

Because I can tell you from experience, the women who change their lives are the ones who feel the fear and do the thing anyway.

If that's you, head to ashleydeland.com to apply or to book a private conversation with me, so we can see together whether this is the right room for your next season of growth.

A year from now, I would love nothing more than to watch you tell the story of the room that changed yours.

Until next time — keep rising into the woman your calling requires.