Hi Reader, What’s the secret to making great decisions? You’ve probably been told by parents, teachers, or some sort of authority that the key is to be logical and to stop listening to your feelings. You’ve been told they get in the way, or that they cloud your judgment. But when we rely only on logic, we miss a critical detail. Intro: The Neurology of Decisions In 1982, a Portuguese neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio made a fascinating discovery. His patients with damaged emotional centers...
about 16 hours ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, What’s the secret to making great decisions? You’ve probably been told by parents, teachers, or some sort of authority that the key is to be logical and to stop listening to your feelings. You’ve been told they get in the way, or that they cloud your judgment. But when we rely only on logic, we miss a critical detail. Intro: The Neurology of Decisions In 1982, a Portuguese neuroscientist named Antonio Damasio made a fascinating discovery. His patients with damaged emotional centers...
about 18 hours ago • 2 min read
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, Johannes Landgraf had everything most founders want. His company had just raised $25M, big-name banks were using his product, and over 2 million developers were on his platform. From the outside, it looked like everything was amazing. From the inside, he could see a different reality. The product architecture that got them here couldn’t get them where they needed to go. It created friction for customers and slowed his own team down. Staying the course...
19 days ago • 1 min read
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, An old client of mine was constantly terrified of failing. Every week, she’d bring me a new variation of the same worry: “What if this product doesn’t work?” “What if my investors lose faith in me?” “What if I just… can’t pull it off?” On paper, she was doing great: Her company was growing fast and had just closed a Series A. Like every founder, she ran into some speedbumps here and there. But even when she succeeded, her anxiety never went away. Every...
30 days ago • 2 min read
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, There was a CEO I coached once who couldn’t stop talking about recognition. He’d say things like, “I just want my team to know how much I’m doing behind the scenes.” Or “It feels like no one appreciates how much I’ve built here.” A few weeks later, I went to visit his team during an offsite to see what was happening. What I noticed was that his team actually deeply respected him. Yet, every time praise came up, he dodged it. When employees brought up...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, Early in my career as a venture capitalist, I met two founders with very different approaches to their work. The first ran his company like a clock. His calendar was precise to the minute: every meeting scheduled, every hour optimized. But every time I saw him, his energy was dimmer. It was clear that he was on the road to burnout. The second founder ran a global business yet somehow looked lighter every time we met. He seemed to have more energy at...
2 months ago • 2 min read
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, A founder recently asked me: In a lot of traditional finance, I see the classic story of investment banker chasing their client all over the place. Like "Hey, just checking in, checking in with you." It sort of seems to work, but I keep trying to find a more connected, VIEW-based version that isn't coming from this desperate: "I really want you to write me back" place. Your sales funnel never seems to chase anyone, yet it works amazingly. How? It’s a...
3 months ago • 2 min read
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, I had a client ask me this question recently: “When entrepreneurs are going through massive personal transformation, how do they integrate that with the intensity of running a startup?” Here’s what I told him: If you can’t handle transformation on the inside, you won’t be able to handle it on the outside. Every external breakthrough in a company requires a nervous system strong enough to hold the chaos and change it creates. Without that foundation,...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Note: Scroll down to check out our new section How to Have Better Meetings. The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, I've seen this pattern in several of my CEO clients: They feel superior as a way to protect themselves. But in actuality, they're signaling their shame and shutting down their joy. Here’s what I show them to break the pattern: 1 - Superiority and deep joy are fundamentally incompatible. Try to name a single person who feels superior that is also deeply joyful. You won’t find...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Note: Scroll down to check out our new section How to Have Better Meetings. The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, A while back, I worked with a CEO who was brilliant, relentless, and exacting. His startup was breaking into its first $10M year. But every time they got momentum, something bottlenecked. Engineering wouldn’t ship on time. Sales didn’t close fast enough. Leadership hires weren’t stepping up. The problem? He had an answer for everything. In meetings, he’d jump in before the head...
4 months ago • 2 min read
