I was twenty-five years old and had never really managed anyone, never built a team. Now I was one of the CTOs in a massive company of almost 300,000 people. I’d experienced plenty of failure, but this was truly a new and exciting set of experiences to fail at. The rush of imposter syndrome was almost overwhelming.

Then they told me that anyone who joined the team would have to be drug tested.

I spent nine years at Apple. It’s the place where I finally grew up. I wasn’t just managing a team anymore. I was leading hundreds, thousands of people. It was a profound shift in my career and in who I was. After a decade of failure, I finally made something—actually two things—that people actually wanted. I finally got it right.

But it didn’t feel like success at first. Or even in the end. It was still work, every step of the way.

She believes we need to move from mentors to sponsors because a sponsor advocates on your behalf.

Sallie says, ‘All the important decisions about your career are made when you’re not in the room. People decide to hire you, fire you, promote you, fund you, send you on the overseas assignment, all when you’re not there. So how do you ensure that you have someone in the room fighting for you? I would strongly argue that you need to have in place your Personal Board of Directors. Those are your mentors, your sponsors, your confidants, the people you can turn to when you’re thinking about a career transition—for the kind of advice your boyfriend, your parents, and your best friend from college just can’t give you.

As you involve more and more people in the change process, you may feel as if you’re treading water. This feeling comes from having to introduce and convince each new wave of people as your changes percolate down through the organization. During your first year there will never be a time when your strategic agenda isn’t being criticized, questioned, and debated. Be patient, and remember that the new converts will need the same time that you and others did to get it.

Thankfully, there were people close enough to me to tell me the truth. I had a number of conversations with senior staff, who told me there was ambiguity where there shouldn’t have been any: “Nobody’s making decisions, and when someone does step up, they’re accused of making a power grab. You have to name a GM, Will.”

But all I heard was: You need to work harder. You’re not here and you need to be, so you better figure out a way to shoehorn an extra hour into the day so you can do your new job and this one, too. No matter how guilty I felt, I was able to rationalize it away. “How bad could it be, when our guests were so happy?