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 Tuesday, founders,
It’s time for the ‘in case you missed it’ issue, where I take a creative break and look into the readership metrics on what you enjoyed reading the most behind the scenes!
It was really fun reading your poll answers for the certainty effect experiment and AI companion articles (If you’re curious what others voted, find the links below!)
Below are the 4 most recent articles I wrote last month, practical insights from psychology and neuroscience for navigating the insane life of a founder.
Why do some leaders make others feel relaxed, welcomed and warm, and others make everyone tense?
In this article, we explore the Polyvagal Theory by Dr Stephen Porges and how leaders should be aware of their physiological state, as their team members co-regulate through neuroception.
Why do you make worse decisions at 4 pm than at 9 am?
The answer lives in your prefrontal cortex, and a 2022 neuro-metabolic study finally gave us the neurochemical proof. We explore which tasks are most cognitively demanding and how to sequence your day around your cognitive load to avoid afternoon crashes.
The opportunities with the highest upside are almost never certain: and that's exactly why our brains discount them. A 1979 experiment by Kahneman and Tversky explains the certainty effect that causes founders to plateau and what to do about it.
Research consistently shows our brains process AI relationships using the same neural circuits we use for human ones, the empathy response fires regardless of whether the source is human.
A 2021 study found Replika users rated trust in their AI higher than in most people. The essay explores why this happens and how to consult AI safely when emotions are already running the decision-making process.
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