Hi! Welcome. You being here means more than you know. Knowing it lands with someone like you keeps me going. I'm Lavena Xu-Johnson. I write about psychology for founders. Why? Because scaling a business means scaling ourselves first.
Happy Chinese New Year, founders!
My dear readers - wishing you a year of steady luck, clean energy, and the kind of progress not just impressive on paper but feels calm in your body. May your home feel warm, your mind feel clear, and your ambitions stay aligned with what’s meaningful to you. 🧧✨
It’s been exactly one full year since I began to write to you. It’s been an absolute pleasure, and honestly, a grounding experience to explore the wonder of my own mind - find answers through the most fascinating research in psychology, neuroscience, and the social sciences, and translate what I’m learning into something actionable for you.
I won’t pretend it’s always easy. Setting everything else aside to distill research into actionable insights takes me roughly 7-9 hours. Sometimes, somewhere in the middle, I’d have a crisis: Is this not deep enough? Is this too dense? Is this relevant for founders? Is it genuinely useful?
But I came to realise that it is part of the journey, to feel the doubts and the stuckness. Because without that, I won’t have the pleasure of writing, and the joy and happiness when you, lovely readers, reply with kindness, and share how you’ve actually applied something from this newsletter in your real life.
If you’ve been enjoying these essays, it would mean a lot if you could share a short testimonial - just a few words on why you subscribe. The form also lets you choose what I can share and how you’d like to be credited (or remain anonymous).
Below are a few essays from the past month you might’ve missed. Enjoy.
And as always, thanks a million!
In case you missed it:
This piece breaks down Impression Management - not as pretending, but as translating your inner world (values, intent, competence) into signals other people can actually read.
Inside: why the world really does treat you like a stage, how reputation forms from repeated cues, and a clean set of tactics (boundaries, consistency, generosity, self-awareness) to shape perception without feeling fake.
Inside: This piece is about sugar - not as a “health” topic, but as a cognitive and emotional stability topic. It walks through the reward-loop mechanics (why cravings feel so intense), how sugar and cocaine can activate overlapping reward pathways, and why this matters for founders who need consistent clarity. It’s not moralistic—just sharp, human, and practical.
Is extraversion overrated, or is introversion underrated?
Inside: This issue reveals a third personality most of us are, but didn’t know: ambiversion - the perosnality sit inbetween introversion and extraversion, with the ability to move between outward and inward energy depending on the moment.
Inside: a breakdown of Stanford research on “wise criticism” - how to give feedback without losing someone’s sense of belonging, by using what researchers called assurance of capability.
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