👋 Hi my name is Roslyn, I’m a founder and executive coach. I help purpose-led founders scale their impact without burning out. Learn about working 1:1 here.

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Hi there,

Happy Tuesday!

It’s Tech Week in NYC which means lots of tech & startup focused events are happening around the city. 

This morning I was at a founders run & coffee event and later this week I’m going on a walk for women in tech leaders. (You can find a list of events here and here btw!) As you can see I prefer to combine my networking with physical activity - IMO this is one of the few instances where multitasking actually makes sense. 🏃

If you’re in town, drop me a line and let me know what you’re taking part in or if you want to grab a coffee.

Before we get into this week’s newsletter, I want to ask for your opinion. 

I’m starting to write my next Within Startup Guide. This one is going to be covering the inner and outer work of Building Teams.

This is one the hardest but most important things to get right in building startups. 

It’s also one of the topics that my clients want support on the most. Which makes sense because navigating human relationships is complex. And when they’re challenging, they often bring up the areas we need healing in the most.

Or reply to this email to let me know about anything else you’d like to see. Thanks for your feedback!

Today we’re talking about how you can tap into your intuition to support your decision-making throughout complex processes like fundraising.

We’ll cover:

• Why intuition is the decision-making super power you might be missing

• How to actually tune into your intuition, including using your “body compass”

• Expert advice from an investor on how to balance optimism with realism when pitching

Let’s dive in!

Where we go deep on the outer work or the inner work of building a startup.

Using Your Intuition for Complex Decisions

WHY YOU SHOULD TRUST THAT “GUT FEELING”

We live in a world where logic, analysis, and data are seen as how we should be making decisions in our businesses at all times. 

Trust me, I was the queen of intellectualizing decisions, with weighted decision matrices, documented thought processes and spreadsheets of calculations and projections to back things up. 

And it’s great to consider these things in making decisions. But we often leave out another important super power when it comes to decision making, our intuition. 

Whether or not you believe that tapping into your intuition is channeling from the universe or it’s simply implicit memory and pattern recognition operating below your conscious awareness, your “gut” judgments are often surprisingly accurate, especially in complex situations (like navigating a fundraise process).

When you’re fundraising there are hundreds if not thousands of decisions that need to get made everyday:

• Which investors should I target, progress, and ultimately bring on to my cap table?

• Should I integrate that piece of feedback from an investor? Or do I actually not agree with them?

• Am I good with the terms my lead investor offered? Which parts should I negotiate?

• Do I need to get back to my employee about their question today?

• Should I send another follow up to that one investor that committed capital but has since ghosted?

• What should I eat for lunch in the 20 minute break I have between investor meetings??

The list goes on and on. 

And if you’re only going to approach these decisions with deliberative, logical decision-making, you’re actually not fully setting yourself up for success. 

That type of decision-making is effortful, slow and burns more mental energy. 

Whereas intuitive decisions are fast and energy-efficient. When decisions don't require intensive analysis, intuition conserves cognitive resources for when deeper focus is necessary.

So how do you tap into your intuition and learn to trust it? 

HOW TO TUNE INTO YOUR INTUITION

1. Create space for it to come through.

• Quiet the noise around you. Create space in your calendar. Resist the urge to scroll during your breaks.

• Intuition usually comes through when the mind isn't crowded with overthinking, multitasking, or external noise.

• Practices that help:

  • Meditation or breathwork (even 2–5 minutes)

  • Going for walks without your phone

  • Journaling stream-of-consciousness (like morning pages or proprioceptive writing)

• Science: Default Mode Network (DMN) activity — brain regions linked to introspection — increases when you're not actively focused on tasks.

2. Tune into your body’s wisdom.

• Intuition often shows up somatically (through your body) before it shows up cognitively.

• Ask yourself:

  • Does thinking about this choice feel expansive (light, energized) or contractive (tight, heavy)?

  • Where do I feel tension or ease in my body?

  • I share an exercise below for learning to tap into your “body compass”.

• Science: The "gut-brain axis" connects your enteric nervous system (gut) with your brain — meaning literal gut feelings can carry important data.

3. Practice asking and sensing — not forcing.

• Instead of thinking your way to an answer, feel your way toward it.

• Try asking yourself simple open questions:

  • "What feels right?"

  • "What’s the first word, image, or sense that comes to mind?"

  • "What would I choose if I fully trusted myself?"

• This allows the answer to come gently. The key is receiving, not analyzing.

4. Distinguish between intuition and fear.

• Intuition feels clear, neutral, and grounded — even if the message is challenging.

• Fear feels noisy, anxious, and emotionally charged.

• If you’re noticing fear is present, it can help to journal, engage in practices to calm your nervous system or talk it through with a coach or therapist so you can figure out what intuition is telling you once you’ve soothed the part of you that’s scared.

5. Strengthen it through small decisions first.

• Start practicing intuition in low-stakes choices (what to order for lunch, what route to take walking home, who to call when you’re thinking of someone).

• Track how often your initial instinct was correct or helpful.

• Building small wins builds trust with your inner voice.

6. Review past intuitive hits (and misses).

• Reflect on times you listened to your intuition — and what happened.

• Reflect on times you ignored it — and what you learned.

• This develops a personal map of how your intuition feels and acts.

USING YOUR “BODY COMPASS” IN DECISION MAKING

If you’re not used to tapping into your body sensations to access your intuition (don’t worry, that was me up until a year ago!), I invite you to try the following exercise. 

It’s a practice that I learned in my coaching training to help clients calibrate their own “Body Compass” (as it’s referred to by Martha Beck). 

1. Body Scan: The first step is to create awareness for how your body is currently feeling by completing a body scan. You can do this sitting, standing or lying down. You may wish to close your eyes and take a few deep breaths, noticing your connection to the seat, ground or whatever surface is supporting you. 

Gently bring awareness to each part of your body, starting with your toes and moving all the way up to your head. As you complete your body scan, just notice, without judgment, how each body part is feeling (or if there are any parts with no feeling at all). 

2. Learn your “no”: Take a moment to recall an unpleasant or uncomfortable event or time in your life. Vividly recall the situation. 

Notice how this memory is making you feel, physically in your body, and name those sensations (e.g. a knotted stomach, tense shoulders, etc.). 

Then, imagine a scale from -10 (the most unpleasant sensations) through 0 (neutral) to +10 (the most positive sensations). Then for this negative memory, rate that sensation from 0 to -10. 

3. Learn your “yes”: Take a moment to focus on a moment of joy, pleasure or wellbeing. Vividly recall it, and then notice how this memory makes you feel. 

What bodily sensations are connected to this memory? (e.g. expansive chest, a tingling or a floating feeling). 

Then rate those positive sensations from 0 to +10 on the scale. 

Great! You’ve calibrated your Body Compass. Now you have an idea of what a “No” feels like and a “Yes” feels like in your body.

4. Practice: Now practice using it. Try using your body compass for smaller decisions (Sriracha vs. Franks’ Red Hot) before using it for bigger ones (do I want this investor on my cap table?).

IF YOU’RE DISCONNECTED FROM YOUR BODY

If you tried the exercise above and have difficulty accessing sensations in your body, don't worry. This is totally normal if you’ve been operating from “the neck up” (aka from your brain vs your body) for a long time. It can take some gentle, intentional practice to start to cultivate that feeling again. 

Set a timer for three times a day where you’ll take a few minutes to check in with yourself. Ask yourself (and journal the answers if you’d like):

• What’s happening in my mind? What thoughts am I having?

• What emotions am I experiencing? (Do I feel joy? Sadness? Fear? Anger? Anxiety? Gratitude?)

• What do I feel in my body? (What’s my posture like? My breath? My heartbeat? My temperature? Am I hungry or thirsty? Where am I tense or relaxed? What sensations do I feel in my body?)

This practice will help you start to cultivate awareness of what’s happening in your mind, emotions and body. Be gentle with yourself and keep showing up.

1. How do I make decisions throughout my day? Do I rely on logic and analysis? Or do I rely on intuition? A mix of both?

2. What’s one time that I let my intuition or “gut feeling” guide a decision? What was the outcome?

3. What’s one time I went against my intuition or “gut feeling”? What was the outcome?

4. What are the practices, circumstances or factors that allow me to access my intuition more?

5. What blocks my intuition?

6. What does a “yes” feel like in my body? How about a “no”? 

7. What small decision today can I practice using my body compass on?

8. How can I cultivate and incorporate intuition in my life going forward?

Today’s expander is a wonderfully kind and smart investor. He talks about how founders can navigate the tricky balance between realism and optimism in a pitch.

Investor Insight: John Nordin, J Ventures

“Something that is core to a successful fundraise is the balance of optimism and “realism”. 

Do the “outer work” on the realism side and “inner work” on the optimism side. You need to bring both to a successful fundraise.

Being overly optimistic and not considering all the possibilities and risks can seem naive. And being overly realistic can seem pessimistic. And frankly, all the best startup ideas are not super realistic. They’re a risky shot at building something, a product that's part of a better future. And they’re never all going to work and that's okay. 

To balance that as a founder, ahead of time, do the realism work and think about “What could go wrong?”, “How are we going to address that in our plan?” or “What are the risks we are going to accept as part of the business idea?” And be thoughtful about it — write an FAQ or a memo for yourself, address certain questions like that in your deck, in a data room or in a long-form email to investors to show them it’s something you thought through.

Get all that out of your system, put it on paper and be thoughtful, be organized about it.

And then allow yourself to show up to the pitch with your most energetic, positive and optimistic side. Because you’ve already done the work on the realistic side, you don't have to caveat your vision, your pitch, your vision. Just let the best positive version of your startup and vision shine through. Give yourself the permission to be bold, think big and to accept risk as part of the business.”

— John Nordin, Co-founder and General Partner at J Ventures
As seen in: Business Insider’s 100 Best Early Stage VC Investors of 2024

• 1:1 Coaching: If you’d like support with the inner AND outer work of fundraising, or any aspect of building your startup, let’s chat. You can book a free consultation.

• If you’re more of an audio/visual learner I’ve been sharing fundraising content in Instagram reels like this one.

• Finally, tell me how you liked this newsletter. I read every piece of feedback.

Thank you for reading, I appreciate you being here so much.

With love,
Roslyn 💚