What You Don't See Will Cost You: The Belief That Killed My Company (and How I Rebuilt)

How unchecked limiting beliefs shape your business, and your life

This is the story I never thought I’d tell.

I spent years helping companies grow and win—until mine collapsed overnight.
It wasn’t because the product failed.

It was something much harder to see.
This is about the belief that broke everything… and how I rebuilt.

After nearly 20 years as a founder, executive, and advisor, I’ve learned this:

What makes or breaks a company often isn’t in the business plan.

Companies aren’t machines. They’re built by people—people with blind spots, survival strategies, and inherited beliefs.

And a company can only perform as well as the people building it—especially those leading.

When my own business imploded, no one was more shocked than, well, me.

Why?

I’d helped startups raise and exit for hundreds of millions.

I'd navigated successful pivots, mergers, and acquisitions.

I knew how to build. I knew how to ‘win’.

Failure wasn’t even in my vocabulary—until it found me.

Before the Collapse

Kensho Health was an evidence-based, deeply human platform for navigating health holistically. The same day our world ended, we launched coach-led care and named the Founding Director of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Primary Care as our Chief Medical Officer.

We had top-tier advisors, early traction, and a growing user base.

I felt proud. It felt real.

But if I’m being honest, something inside me always felt... off.

The Unseen Ceiling

Years before what I’ve come to call The Collapse, an investor told me:

“You’ll only ever build a you-shaped company.”

The phrase stuck.

I rolled its meaning around often.

Every decision—what you charge, who you hire, how you lead, how you leave—is shaped by your beliefs about what’s possible and what you deserve.

The truth is:

Your business (and your life) will only grow as far as your self-worth will let it.

Self-worth is like a ceiling to confidence that you don’t even know you’ve built. It’s not the outward, polished, skills-based confidence that crafts perfect pitch decks. It’s the quieter, internal, intuitive confidence. This is your knowing.

The knowing that says:

I may not know this yet, but I trust I can learn.

I believe in myself and my vision.

I deserve a seat at the table I built.

This invisible current runs through every founder’s journey. It’s why two companies with similar ideas, teams, and capital can end up in wildly different places.

The Data We Don’t Talk About

90% of startups fail (Startup Genome)

10% don’t survive the first year (Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Many don’t fail because the product was wrong, but because leadership’s limiting beliefs quietly shaped key decisions (First Round Review)

Think: burnout. Bad hires. Avoided truths. Confusion that gets celebrated as “hustle.”

Over the past twenty years, I’ve seen this play out in dozens of ways:

The founder who froze in equity negotiations—not because her ask was off, but because she feared seeming greedy.

The entrepreneur who ghosted her own fundraising—not because capital wasn’t out there, but because every “no” chipped away at her belief in herself.

The creator who spiraled after a nine-figure exit—because without the company, he didn’t know who he was.

And last but not least: me.

The Mistake That Took Everything

I saw the smoke signals. Even confided in close friends.

I flagged the patterns to my executive coach long before the bottom fell out. But by the time I had the courage to voice to the board that something felt off, it was too late.

Within 24 hours, we discovered the company had been dangerously overextended to creditors as the result of an employee who manipulated contracts and misreported critical financial information. I don’t believe they acted in malice, but there had been a heavy dose of naïveté and negligence.

We were stunned. But ready to fight.

What we weren’t ready for was the Corporate Abandonment that followed when employee accountability vanished and the fallout landed squarely in my hands.

Suddenly, I was alone, managing a mess I hadn’t known existed.

Our lawyers offered one glimmer of hope: my D&O insurance, the policy meant to protect leaders, that could cover legal counsel and capital to help us stabilize.

When the question came, my heart dropped.

Our lawyers offered one glimmer of hope: my D&O insurance, the policy meant to protect leaders, that could cover legal counsel and capital to help us stabilize.

When the question came, my heart dropped.

I knew I hadn’t secured it.

Not because I didn’t know it mattered, but because I couldn’t reconcile the cost.

I stalled. I rationalized.

Because back then, deep down, I didn’t believe I was worth protecting.

21 Days Later, We Shut Down

For five years, I poured everything into the company—my savings, my time, my retirement, my heart. I didn’t pay myself enough to be stable unless it worked. I sacrificed my health, relationships, and environment to bet on a vision I believed in.

When things went sideways, I was terrified. There was no playbook. No safety net. I didn’t understand the legal system, and I was too ashamed to tell anyone what was really happening.

The night I signed the company over to the lawyers, I didn’t want to be alone. A close friend was hosting a dinner, so I stayed at her house, hiding in the office on a call with my board and legal team.

When the verdict came in—sign everything over to prevent further fallout—I signed. The feeling was the exact opposite of the high I felt the day we incorporated. I was gutted.

When I emerged, the guests were seated around the table, answering the prompt: “What are you letting go of?”

By the time it was my turn, I couldn’t speak. Just tears.

I had never felt so betrayed. So scared. So alone. And for a while, I hated them—and myself.

But over the months that followed, when I stopped looking for someone to blame, I found something else: clarity.

Here’s the truth I uncovered:

I had chosen to be deferential.

I had chosen to play small.

I had chosen all of it.

This wasn’t my first executive role.

I’d led operations, marketing, people, and creative for some of the more notable growth stories in tech.

I rarely missed a deadline. I often knew who to call.

My colleagues called me The Closer.

When it came to protecting others, I was all in.

When it came to protecting myself, I always came up short.

My failure to complete the policy represented a long-worn pattern of low self-worth. I didn’t negotiate my first salary.

Or my equity at the first startup I joined, which later exited for hundreds of millions.

Or my compensation in the startup exits that followed.

I knew how to talk about money—until the conversation was about me.

My own limiting belief wore the mask of low self-worth, but these invisible forces don’t always look the same.

Sometimes, they sound like silence—for fear of being misunderstood.

Sometimes, they feel like boundarylessness—keeping others comfortable at your own expense.

Sometimes, they rush you into burnout—because somewhere along the way, you learned that rest has to be earned.

And perhaps most quietly of all, they convince you that leadership means carrying it alone.

But beneath every version of this story for every person is the same unspoken belief:

“I’m not enough.”

So—how did things shift?

Part of it was The Collapse itself—the rawness, the silence turned to shame that got so heavy I was finally forced to listen.

But most of it was practice.

I rebuilt rituals of self-worth: journaling the truth instead of spinning it, asking for help and letting it land, catching myself in the act of shrinking.

Therapy helped.

Breathwork helped.

Time helped.

I learned to be with all of it.

To stay with the discomfort.

To stay with the part of me that used to abandon herself.

I didn’t just rebuild my confidence.

I reparented it.

And in doing so, I found something more lasting than success—I found sovereignty.

The Confidence Matrix

While ‘The Collapse’ gutted me, it also helped me to see that true confidence is about living from a place of limitless potential, not letting limiting beliefs run the show.

Confidence lives in the space between what you’ve mastered and what you believe you’re worthy of mastering.

This is where your self-worth and your skillset come together.

When self-worth is strong?

You act. You ask. You grow.

When it’s shaky?

You hesitate. You delay. You disappear.

You forget you’re allowed to take up space in what you’ve built.

It took me years to see: this collapse wasn't about cashflow or insurance.

It was about confidence.

Which Invisible Beliefs Live Inside You?

Over the past decade, I’ve tracked the most common limiting beliefs in founders, creatives, and execs.

I recently read the list aloud to my 73-year-old mother, a lifelong entrepreneur.

She said, “I would’ve been more successful if I’d been a different person.”

We laughed but that line gutted me. I knew exactly what she meant.

It wasn’t our ability that got in the way.

It was our limiting beliefs.

If you're wondering how to find yours, the truth is, they’re already visible:

• In your calendar (the time you give yourself—or don’t)

• In your pricing (what you believe you're worth)

• In your inbox (what gets your attention, and what doesn’t)

• In your body (how you feel, how you care for yourself)
  

20 years of entrepreneurial ups and downs, wins and losses, coaching and cultivating, led me to the creation of this Hidden Limiting Beliefs Checklist.

My hope is that it will help you surface the silent forces shaping your life.

As you go through it, ask yourself:

Are these beliefs true?
Or are they inherited?
Outdated?
Protective?

Because what you can’t see will cost you.

If this resonates—or if you have a “limiting belief gone wrong” story in your own work or life—I’d love to hear from you.

Which belief hit home?
How has it shaped your work or relationships?
What might it be costing you?

You can reply to this post, or email me directly at krista@lifedeathallofit.com.
I read every response.

Here’s to being with All of It,
Krista

Stay with All of It:

• Subscribe to the Life, Death, All of It podcast (launching soon!)

• Download the Hidden Limiting Beliefs Checklist

• Share this with someone building something brave

• Want to connect? Email me: krista@lifedeathallofit.com