The 4-Part Success Code Every Woman Entrepreneur Needs

What is the actual way you feel successful in life and business? We've boiled it down to four things. This is our definition, so take what you want and leave what you don't, but this is our belief: when you've got these four things, anything is possible, and we live by an anything-is-possible attitude. The four are accountability, your social circle, structure, and skin in the game. Let's unpack what each one really means, because these are the difference between showing up, growing your business, making money, and having a great life, or trying to do it all on your own and staying stuck.

🎧 Prefer to listen? This post began as Ep 602 of the My Aligned Purpose podcast. Listen on Apple Podcasts or listen on Spotify.

Accountability: The Indirect Return on Investment

When you're doing things on your own, nobody knows if you don't show up, and nobody knows if you're actually doing what you said you'd do. The moment you have a coach, a mentor, or a community that knows your targets, your fears, and the things that would hold you back, accountability becomes an indirect return on your investment. Inside Aligned CEO Method, as soon as somebody tells us they're going to do something, it goes in the calendar, and we will hold you to it. Accountability means sharing the goal that feels big, scary, and stretchy, figuring out the steps, and then executing while somebody is waiting for you to report back.

Here's our own proof. We made a bet with our coaches that we would show up to our live mastermind with the manuscript of our book. It took us until the 11th hour, but we wrote that book, printed it, and brought it to the event in Duo Tangs (it was thick enough to need two). Would we have produced a completed first draft without that bet? Absolutely not. We would bet a million dollars on it, because there were ten thousand competing priorities: running the business, launches, families, life. The book only rose to the top of the list because of the wager. That's accountability.

Your Social Circle Sets Your Ceiling

Back in 2018 and 2019, Nicole's side business, the Homework Project, wasn't taking off, and she was surrounded by teenagers and teachers all day. Lovely people, but not an entrepreneurial circle, and no fault of theirs: they couldn't see her next level because it wasn't their reality. Everything changed when she committed to a coaching program and put herself in masterminds with other coaches, people who said "absolutely you can make a course, and absolutely you can host an event," because they were living it.

Think about the difference. Tell the staffroom you're planning a five-million-dollar net worth in five years and you'll hear "good luck" and "must be nice." At our most recent Aligned CEO Method event, one client told the person next to her that her goal is a seven-million-dollar net worth this year, and the response was "You go, girl." Be surrounded by people with crazier goals than yours, people who nonchalantly talk about building billion-dollar businesses, because you cannot think bigger inside a conversation that never goes there. And if you're worried you're too early for a room like that, that's the whole point: turn what you think is your ceiling into your floor.

Structure: Give the Flow a Container

Here's the analogy we love. Nicole is the water: dreamy, intuitive, visionary, flowy. Kaila is the beautiful glass jug: the structure that holds the water so it doesn't spill everywhere. An empty glass serves nobody, and water without a container goes everywhere. Vision plus structure is the win-win, and it's why coaching with us feels different from the all-structure coach who never gets your human design, or the airy-fairy coach who says "just vision board it" when you're asking for a marketing plan. You get both here, because both are required.

And if you're the woman saying "I don't want structure, I like my paper agenda and my pens," we say this with love: we were you, and it will not grow you a business that makes you money. Structure and systems don't have to be complicated. Inside Aligned CEO Method we make them as simple and effective as possible, with set call dates, replays, accountability groups, and days for working on your business versus in it, so this becomes a legit business instead of a side hustle you half-ass off the side of your desk.

Skin in the Game: Enough on the Line That You Show Up

We could run Aligned CEO Method for free, and we would have a zero percent success rate, because there would be no energetic exchange. We deliberately set a price point that's enough that you show up, do the work, contribute to the community, and do what you say you're going to do, because there's enough on the line that it stings a bit. We know that feeling. We're in it right now with our own investments, and we always will be.

This is also why a course alone rarely changes your life. Who has bought a course and never logged in? Probably everyone reading this. There's nothing wrong with courses when they're marketed honestly as a stepping stone, but a course can't give you accountability, an up-leveled network, or structure. Your next level is unlocked with people, not a program.

The Success Code in Action

Here's what it looks like when somebody runs all four. One of our clients, with us less than a year, wanted to create digital products, double her revenue, and step into a new identity in her business. She asked for accountability on a free event she was hosting, so we and the whole group held her to it. She leveraged her new social circle, inviting about a quarter of the Aligned CEO community to participate in her launch with giveaways and bundles, which meant all of their communities learned about her launch too. She followed the launch structure inside the method instead of winging it. And she had skin in the game because she invested in being with us. The result: her launch went off, and her revenue has more than doubled this year.

Nobody jumps out of their cozy covers at 5:00 AM excited to sweat through a spin class, but the people who show up feel amazing afterwards, and business works the same way. It takes some sacrifice, and you get far better results than average. We're not here for mediocre.

Want the accountability, circle, structure, and skin in the game working for you? Take the free 30-second quiz to find your fastest path to more money in your business, come join us inside the Aligned CEO Method, and hop on our newsletter for weekly strategy and soul.