To everyone new this week: 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. Because scaling a business means scaling ourselves first.

Happy Tuesday, founders,

It’s August already!

We’re heading into Q4 of 2025 (how crazy is that?). I wonder how you’re all mapping out strategies, budgets, and maybe sneaking in a few end-of-the-year getaways.

Are you ready for Q4??

Today’s a little bonus drop.

I wanted to pause and resurface a few essays you might’ve missed. Below are 5 editions from the past month - each one digging into the hidden emotional or behavioural patterns that shape how we lead, build, and show up in the trenches of founder life.

Partnered with Delve

We’re thrilled to announce our $32M Series A at a $300M valuation, led by Insight Partners!

Delve is shaping the future of compliance with an AI-native approach that cuts busywork and saves teams hundreds of hours. Startups like Lovable, Bland, and Browser trust our AI to get compliant—fast.

To celebrate, we’re giving back with 3 limited-time offers:

Thank you for your support—this is just the beginning.

Book your demo now

We’re not just building businesses, we’re building a story of our lives. We often get stuck living a script we felt like we never wrote. Sometimes, all we need is to take a step back and create a narrative that feels like us.

There’s a pattern most of us as founders fall into: a high of excitement, followed by an inevitable dip of doubt. It’s what psychologists call the Emotional Cycle of Change. Mastering it is how resilient founders survive the mental troughs of building.

We don’t buy into polished advice. We buy into people who’ve been through it. “I’ve been there” is one of the most powerful trust signals in leadership and brand building. Let’s talk about how to share your story without oversharing.

Bias doesn’t just show up in hiring rounds or investor calls. It sneaks into how we treat people we relate to, and overlook those we don’t. From boardrooms to backstage, let’s unpack how Affinity Bias shapes our decisions

Every small choice chips away at your mental energy, leaving you drained before noon. Let’s talk about decision fatigue, cognitive load, and how to reclaim clarity in your day.

As always, hit reply if something in here hits home.

Until next week,
Lavena

P.S. If you want to get a founder feature about your own story, reply to this email. If you’d like to reach our newsletter audience (founders, creators, and marketers), click the button below.

If you’re new here, I’m over the moon you’ve joined us! To help me craft content that’s actually useful (and not just noise in your inbox), I’d love it if you took 1 minute to answer this quick survey below. Your insights help shape everything I write.

Dive into our other newsletters - where psychology meets the creator economy, e-commerce marketing, and Human resources.