If you’re currently fundraising or considering it, this two-part guide will make your life easier by arming you with the ins and outs of a fundraising process AND sharing the personal development tools that will help you cultivate the energy that will make your actions more successful.

This is Part 2 of the guide, focusing on the Inner work. Visit Part 1 if you want to learn about the Outer Work.

PART:1 THE OUTER WORK

1. Should I Fundraise or Not?

2. Types of Funding

3. How to Run a Fundraising Process End to End 

PART 2: THE INNER WORK

1. Manifesting a successful fundraise

   • Why It Works

   • How to Manifest

   • Visualization for Fundraising

2. Expanders & Mentors

3. Building Unshakeable Confidence in the Face of No’s

   • Why Showing Yourself the Evidence Works

   • Daily Journaling

   • List of Praises & Success

   • How to Deal with a No

4. Changing Your Fundraising Story

   • The Work of Byron Katie

5. Your Nervous System’s Role in Fundraising

6. Tapping Into Your Intuition

THE INNER WORK

Fundraising is as much energetic as it is strategic. 

You can read all of the best practices for fundraising, have the technically strongest pitch and materials ready to go, but can still have things go south if you’re feeling ungrounded, unworthy, anxious or doubting yourself or your company.

When I was raising money for The GIST, I felt well-equipped when it came to our financial model, deck, investor pipeline and investor Q&A. It was my confidence, self-trust and nervous system regulation that was missing. That led to me showing up nervous and shaky in investor meetings, unable to find my voice and answer questions I knew the answers to in a confident, self-assured way. You can imagine what impression that gave to the investors I was talking to. 

We did ultimately successfully raise, but knowing about the inner work I could’ve been doing to help me navigate the pressure, limiting beliefs, and my own-self doubt would have increased the efficiency and effectiveness of the round and improved my own mental wellbeing throughout it.

This is why the “Inner Work” section of this guide is just as, if not more, important than the “Outer Work” section. 

This is the information that I wish I had when I was fundraising. And so I hope that you’ll read it and use it as proactively as you do the first half of this guide.

MANIFESTING A SUCCESSFUL FUNDRAISE PROCESS

WHY MANIFESTING WORKS

Manifesting can be a hugely helpful tool in fundraising and I highly recommend it for any founders who are about to embark on (or midway through) a fundraise.

While manifesting often gets framed as a woo-woo concept, there’s real psychology and neuroscience to support it.

1. Reticular Activating System (RAS)

• The RAS is the brain’s filter—it focuses your attention on what you believe is important.

• When you visualize a goal, your RAS filters information to help you spot opportunities aligned with that goal (e.g. investor intros, pitch angles, creative funding ideas).

• Think of it like tuning your brain’s radio to the frequency of what you want.

2. Neuroplasticity

• Your brain literally rewires itself based on repeated thoughts and beliefs.

• When you affirm a vision (e.g. “I am a confident, well-capitalized founder building something world-changing”), you strengthen neural pathways that make that behavior easier to act on.

• Over time, you shift from fear or imposter syndrome to grounded belief.

3. Behavioral Priming

• What you believe affects how you act—and how others respond to you.

• If you show up with energy that says “I know I’m building something powerful,” you subtly shift investor perception.

• Investors want conviction. When your mindset is aligned, your pitch has more clarity, confidence, and magnetism.

4. Cognitive Dissonance

• When your inner beliefs don’t match your external actions, you subconsciously adjust.

• If you start showing up as if you're the kind of founder who easily raises $5M from aligned VCs, your brain starts bridging the gap between who you are and who you believe you are becoming.

HOW TO MANIFEST

1. Get crystal clear on what you want.

• Vague goals = vague results.

• Define it in specific, sensory detail:

  • What does it look like?

  • What does it feel like emotionally?

  • How will you know you have it?

• Note: I provide a visualization exercise below which encompasses this step!

2. Connect to the emotional state now.

• Imagining it isn’t enough. You need to also feel now what you believe you will feel then: emotionally, the sensations in your body, the state of your nervous system.

• If you think success will feel free, powerful, joyful, expansive, peaceful — practice generating those emotions and those sensations in your body today, even in small ways.

3. Identify and shift limiting beliefs.

• Uncover the hidden beliefs that might block your manifestation

  • "I'm not good enough.

  • "Money is hard to come by."

  • "Investors don’t invest in people like me."

• Below I cover tools that can help with this

  • “Changing Your Fundraising Story” section

  • “Daily Journaling”, “List of Praises & Success” and “Journaling to Shift Perception” sections

  • “Working with a Coach” section to rewire deep-seated beliefs

4. Visualize — but also embody.

• Daily visualization: Close your eyes and see yourself living the reality you desire — vividly and viscerally (refer to visualization below).

• Then act from that version of yourself: What decisions would they make? How would they carry themselves?

• Mental rehearsal strengthens the same neural circuits as real-world practice (studied heavily in athletes and musicians).

5. Take aligned, bold action.

• Manifestation isn't passive. Opportunities are attracted and created.

• Small courageous moves toward your goal signal to your subconscious that you are serious, which shifts your energy and behavior.

6. Surrender timing and form.

• Hold the what and why firmly.

• Loosen your grip on the how and when.

• Often, manifestations show up differently (and better) than expected when you stay open.

• Letting go reduces stress and allows the prefrontal cortex (your decision-making center) to function better. Anxiety blocks creativity and problem-solving.

7. Stay in the energy of gratitude.

• Focus on what's already working.

• Gratitude raises your emotional baseline and signals to your brain that abundance is the norm. (See “Daily Journaling”) 

• Gratitude practices are linked to higher dopamine and serotonin levels — both associated with motivation, focus, and happiness.

CALLING IN WHAT YOU WANT THROUGH VISUALIZATION

The first step of this manifestation process is to get clear on what it is you want.

What I like to do with my clients for this is to walk them through an ideal fundraising visualization which encompasses:

• The outcomes of an ideal fundraise and how those outcomes feel

• What types of investors they’ve brought on and how those investors support them

• How they’ve shown up in their meetings and throughout the process

I’ve included the visualization below with questions to journal on afterwards and I’ve also recorded an audio version of this visualization here which I highly encourage you to do. It will allow you to tap more into the right side of your brain and feel into the answers from your intuition, versus intellectualizing what you believe your outcomes should be. It will also allow you to practice being in the nervous system states associated with a successful raise. 

FUNDRAISING VISUALIZATION 

EXPANDERS & MENTORS

Expansion involves finding expanders, who are real-life examples of people like you who have what you want. This process helps your brain normalize bigger realities for yourself. 

Expanders are people that inspire you, that show you what’s possible for yourself, and that mirror back to you what you most desire. 

Mentors are people that have walked the path ahead of you that can offer strategic and emotional support as you go through your raise, and can help you avoid common pitfalls, sharpen your approach and stay aligned with your values while you raise.

In fundraising, it can be incredibly powerful to find role models, mentors and friends that have successfully raised a round, especially people that are similar to you, are operating in a similar industry or have investors you’re seeking. 

Just seeing that they were able to do it successfully can unlock your belief in your own ability to do it. But also seeing their journey, understanding the steps they took, the setbacks they needed to overcome, how they were thinking about things and navigating challenges, can be extremely helpful, inspiring and expansive.

While it’s still powerful to have expanders from afar, if it’s even better if you can directly connect with them.

Maybe it’s someone in your existing network (from school, your community or a friend of a friend) or maybe it’s a stranger that you think might be open to chatting. Either way, reach out with a specific ask, e.g. “I’d love to hear about your strategy for raising your seed round” or “I’m curious how you negotiated your valuation.”.

Ask them specific questions you have about fundraising, why they fundraised, what their process was like, how they navigated challenges you’re facing, etc. Check in to see if they’d be open to answering future questions as you progress or perhaps to take a look and provide feedback on part of your investor materials. 

If you’re currently in conversation with a venture capitalist, ask if you can talk to companies in their portfolio. Ask those founders about their experience fundraising with and being in the portfolio of this investor, and if they have any advice.

Finding fundraising expanders and mentors is especially important for women and people from historically excluded groups, who, as we know, receive less than their fair share of investment capital. When we see the stats or the headlines of all white male teams getting the big fundraising rounds it can feel discouraging, frustrating and demotivating. Seeking out expanders, mentors and peers from historically excluded groups that have successfully raised rounds help you shift the narrative and see that it’s possible for you too. 

At The GIST, we were fortunate to meet an incredible fundraising expander/mentor early on. He took a liking to what we were building (and us as people) and was incredibly generous with his time, advice and opening up his network.

It was a massive piece of positive momentum in our earliest fundraising round. Definitely don’t estimate the power of having supportive people in your court, and don’t be shy to ask. People love to help when they can. And they especially love to help people that are doing interesting, impactful, and brave things in the world. 

Here’s another great example of a founder who benefited from having a knowledgeable friend in the fundraising space:

FOUNDER INSIGHT - SUZE MASON

BUILDING UNSHAKEABLE CONFIDENCE DESPITE NO’S

Let’s be honest, when you’re going through a fundraising process, you’re likely going to get a lot of no’s. Even if what you’re building is incredible. 

Just look at these founders who faced tons of rejection before breaking through:

1. Melanie Perkins (Canva)

❌ Over 100+ investor rejections over 3 years.

✔️ Built a $26–49B design unicorn.

“Investors didn’t get it. But I knew the problem was real.”

2. Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk (Airbnb)

❌ Rejected by over 20 VCs in their seed round.

✔️ Built a $100B+ company and reshaped travel.

“We were selling air mattresses in strangers’ apartments. No one believed it would work.”

3. Howard Schultz (Starbucks)

❌ Rejected 242 times before finally raising funding.

✔️ Went on to scale Starbucks into a global empire.

“You have to have a dream and a relentless pursuit.”

4. Sara Blakely (Spanx)

❌ Laughed out of rooms by countless male VC firms.

✔️ Became the youngest self-made female billionaire.

“I didn’t know not to believe in myself. So I didn’t stop.”

5. Ben Silbermann (Pinterest)

❌ Pitch after pitch ignored—investors didn’t get it.

✔️ Built Pinterest into a multi-billion-dollar platform.

He used to email every new user personally in the early days.

6. James Dyson (Dyson vacuum)

❌ Over 5,000 failed prototypes and repeated investor rejections.

✔️ Built a global design and engineering empire.

“Persistence isn't easy—but it’s essential.”

7. Whitney Wolfe Herd (Bumble)

❌ Faced resistance not just as a founder, but also in court battles and in shifting VC perception.

✔️ IPO’d at age 31, becoming the youngest woman to take a company public.

“People want to box you in. You have to break out.”

For any of these founders, it would’ve been completely understandable if they gave up. But they believed deeply in what they were building, even if no one else did. They continued building their companies, iterated on their pitches, refined their stories, and kept going. They turned their rejection into redirection, and found aligned capital later. 

We aren’t born with unshakeable confidence or resilience. We need to cultivate it in ourselves. 

It’s natural that when you get a no, that you feel discouraged and unmotivated. But, if you believe deeply that what you’re building belongs in the world, then it’s your responsibility to shift your perception in order to keep going. 

Below I’ll offer a few practices that allow you to continually find the evidence that you, and what you are building, are worthy. And to continually show your brain the proof that you can and will be successful in your fundraising efforts.

Before we get into the practices let’s talk about why these work.

WHY SHOWING YOURSELF THE “EVIDENCE” WORKS

1. 🧠 Rewires Your Brain Through Neuroplasticity

• What you focus on, you strengthen.

• Your brain has a negativity bias—it naturally scans for what’s wrong (a survival instinct).

• Journaling on wins trains your brain to spot success, not just problems.

• This builds new neural pathways of confidence, momentum, and solution-orientation.

2. 🌱 Builds Internal Validation

• Founders often rely on external proof (investor interest, user growth). But that can be inconsistent.

• Journaling helps you acknowledge progress you might otherwise dismiss.

• It gives you internal evidence that you're capable, making you less dependent on external validation.

• This strengthens your founder self-worth, even when metrics are in flux.

3. 💪 Boosts Resilience by Creating a Bank of Proof

• When things get hard (and they will), you need receipts.

• A journal full of wins, learnings, and moments of traction becomes an emotional buffer during rough patches.

• You can look back and say: “I've done hard things before. I’ve figured things out before.”

4. 🔍 Shifts You from Survival Mode to Strategic Thinking

• When you’re stuck in “everything’s on fire” mode, it’s hard to lead.

• Pausing to notice what’s going well activates the prefrontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for planning, perspective, and long-term vision.

• This helps you regulate your nervous system and think more clearly.

5. 💫 Amplifies Momentum and Magnetism

• Confidence is magnetic. So is clarity.

• When you journal about what’s working, you start showing up with more grounded confidence.

• This changes how you pitch, how you lead your team, and how people respond to you.

DAILY JOURNALING

Every day, write down the following:

• 3 things that went well in your company and what it means

• 3 things that you did well, and what it means

These things can be major or minor. 

For example:

• We received a constructive piece of feedback from our customer. This is evidence that our customers are invested in our product enough to give us feedback for improvement. 

• Our revenue organically grew 5% this past month. This is evidence that even without investing in marketing, we’re growing through word of mouth because people love our service.

• I navigated a difficult conversation with an employee with grace. It wasn’t perfect but I stayed calm and in my integrity. This is evidence that I can face my fear of conflict and stay rooted in my values.

• I went for a walk outside. This is evidence that I’m committed to maintaining my physical and mental health while fundraising.

LIST OF PRAISE & SUCCESS

Keep a list of positive feedback and success, update it and revisit it regularly. 

Whenever you receive a positive piece of feedback — whether a customer review, a comment from a co-founder or employee, an email from a partner, a text from a friend or loved one — add it to your list. 

Whenever you’re feeling down or unmotivated, read through your list to remind yourself all the ways in which you and your company are amazing.

JOURNALING TO SHIFT PERCEPTION

If you’re going through a rough patch, feeling a lag in momentum, coming off a streak of no’s, open up your journal and free-write to these prompts.

These questions aren’t meant to erase hard feelings, but to create space for a new perspective to emerge—one grounded in reality and possibility.

• Where am I seeing signs of traction, even if small?

• What positive signals or feedback have I gotten from investors so far?

• If this were working out perfectly behind the scenes, what would that look like?

• What synchronicities or lucky breaks have happened that I might be overlooking?

• What would it look like if this raise flowed with ease and alignment?

• If the “right check” came in today, what would be different about how I’d show up?

• What makes me and this company magnetic to aligned capital?

• Where am I already operating from abundance, trust, or vision today?

• What would it look like to trust that what I’m building is worthy of support—right now?

• What’s one small action I could take today that feels like it’s coming from the “after” version of me (post-raise)?

• What part of this situation is actually outside my control—and what’s within it?

• If I could speak to myself from a place of love and compassion, what would I say?

• How might this be preparing me for something greater down the line?

• What have I navigated in the past that proves I can handle this too?

• How would my “highest self” or future self interpret what’s happening right now?

• What about my mission still lights me up, even on hard days?

• Who or what can I reach out to for support, inspiration, or expansion right now?

DEALING WITH NO’S

Rejection is painful — especially when you’re pouring your heart into your vision. And especially for those of us that might have a rejection core wound. It’s so normal to feel this way.

Here are a few steps you can take to move you out of that rejection energy.

1. Allow yourself to feel your emotions

Getting a no can bring up all types of emotion, and many of us will try to brush it off, power through, or distract ourselves. Instead, give yourself permission to feel the emotion. 

Naming and allowing your emotions helps them move through you, rather than getting stuck and influencing your behavior in subtle ways later on. 

First, acknowledge the truth of what you’re feeling and experiencing. Is it disappointment, doubt, frustration, despair, anger? 

Where do you feel this sensation in your body? Do you feel your throat closing up? A heaviness, numbness or tightness anywhere?

2. Give yourself self-compassion

Breathe mindfully into the part of your body that is holding your emotion, maybe placing a hard over that body part. There’s no pressure to fix or change anything.

Be gentle and kind with yourself as you would with a small child. Send loving tenderness to your inner child and allow them to share their uncensored thoughts and feelings with you. 

3. Support yourself 

Ask yourself what you need right now in order to feel safe and supported? What would feel good right now? Maybe it’s a walk outside, reaching out to a friend or mentor, a hug from a loved one or cuddle with a pet. 

It’s possible it would also feel good to move this emotion out through your body. You could try a kickboxing class for anger, a run or power walk for self-doubt and restlessness, or yin/restorative yoga for sadness.

4. Ask questions that help you see past this moment.

Once you’ve given space to your emotions and are feeling safe, zoom out from the rejection and reframe.

• What is this no making space for?

• How is this happening for me rather than to me?

• What might be on its way that’s even better?

• What can I learn from this?

• Who is still a potential yes?

• How can I move forward?

These expansive questions help you step into possibility and stay connected to your bigger vision, even if the path feels uncertain.

And if the no is really causing you to spiral into self-doubt and despair, keep reading.

CHANGING YOUR FUNDRAISING STORY

Limiting beliefs come up all the time in fundraising. When we believe those thoughts, they affect our emotions, and consequently the actions that we take. 

The actions that we take then create our reality. 

For example, if we believe the thought “Investors don’t believe in people like me”, then we feel frustrated, discouraged, and self-doubt. We bring that energy into meetings with investors and they sense the resistance, the closed off energy, the insecurity. As a result they don’t invest. And then that thought becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

However, it’s possible to shift the limiting belief before it’s able to influence the way we show up.

Here’s how.

THE WORK OF BYRON KATIE

The Work of Byron Katie is one of my absolute favorite mindset tools I use for coaching clients on limiting beliefs. It operates in part by dismantling our existing neural wiring and promoting the formation of new neural pathways.

It’s designed to help us understand how a certain thought, belief or story is affecting us, and it introduces the real possibility of alternate stories we can choose to believe instead. 

1. IDENTIFY YOUR LIMITING BELIEF

What’s the story you’re telling yourself that’s making you feel so stressed out, angry, scared, anxious? A few common ones I’ve seen in a fundraising context are:

• “My company isn’t good enough / not growing fast enough”

• “If I don’t fundraise my company will die” 

• “Investors don’t invest in people like me”

For this exercise you’ll want to frame up the painful thought by distilling it into a simple declarative sentence, omitting your emotional state and any qualifiers.

For example:

“I don’t feel I’m qualified to raise capital” → “I’m not qualified to raise capital”. 

2. ANCHOR INTO THE SITUATION

Think about a recent situation when you experienced having the stressful thought you identified. This will allow you to access your feelings and behaviors more readily as you go through The Work. 

Last week, after coming out of a meeting with an investor that didn’t go well, I had the thought “I’m not qualified to raise capital”.

3. INQUIRY

The Work of Byron Katie consists of four very specific questions asked in a particular order. 

I’ll use my example to illustrate how this works in italics.

1. Is it true? (yes or no - if no, skip to question 3)

Yes (it does feel true to me in this moment).

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true? (yes or no)

No.

3. How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 

3a. What physical sensations and emotions do you notice, when you believe that thought?

I feel shame, anxiety and inadequacy. I feel a pit in my stomach and a weight on my chest.

3b. How do you treat the others in that situation when you believe that thought (the situation, the other person, the goal)?

I have less conviction and magnetism in investor meetings. 

I overcompensate by trying to sell the company instead of actively listening to what investors are enthusiastic and curious about.

I come across as prickly, closed off, and rigid because I feel like they're judging me or doubting me.

3c. How do you treat yourself in that situation when you believe that thought?

I self-sabotage by not giving myself the time and space to calm myself down before investor meetings so I go in feeling overwhelmed and anxious. 

I beat myself up for not answering investor questions as well as I could’ve. 

When the investor passes, I blame myself, instead of considering that maybe it’s just not a fit on either side.

I put all the power in their hands instead of thinking that investing in my company is a privilege.

4: Who would you be in that same situation, without the thought?

4a. What physical sensations and emotions do you notice, there in that situation, without the thought?

I feel hopeful, optimistic, relaxed, happy. My body is lighter, my breaths are deeper, my limbs feel lighter. 

4b. How do you treat the others in that situation without that thought (the situation, the other person, the goal)? 

I treat investors with warmth, openness, excitement and gratitude. 

I respond to their questions with a mix of self-assuredness, conviction in my company, humility when I don’t know the answer, and curiosity when they offer constructive feedback.

4c. How do you treat yourself in that situation without that thought?

I’m less self-critical.

I see mistakes as opportunities to learn and get better.

I don’t see constructive feedback as a criticism of myself or my company, but as a new perspective to potentially integrate.

4. THE TURNAROUNDS

Turnarounds are the opposite versions of the original thought that offer different perspectives on the stressful situation. They invite us to try out new thoughts and to open our minds to new possibilities.

There are three types of turnarounds:

• Turnaround to the opposite

• Turnaround to the other

• Turnaround to the self

Once we find a turnaround, we then look for three pieces of evidence to support that the turnaround could be as true or more true than the original thought.

Turnaround to the Opposite

In order to turn a thought around to its direct opposite, simply change a positive statement to a negative statement or a negative statement to a positive statement. 

I’m not qualified to raise capital → I am qualified to raise capital

3 pieces of evidence that support this:

• I’ve been running my business for two years, I have loyal customers, it’s profitable and growing. 

• There are no qualifications for raising capital. Plenty of people without specific degrees or experience have raised capital. I know it’s more about my vision and ability to execute than any kind of external qualification

• I already have funds committed, which means there are investors that believe in me.

Turnaround to the Other

Turning a thought around to the other most often involves reversing or switching the subject and the object in the sentence. 

For example:

I’m not qualified to raise capital → Capital isn’t qualified to raise me

At first this may seem a little funky, but let’s get creative and play with it. One way I might interpret this is “capital isn’t qualified to raise me up or to raise my business up”.

3 pieces of evidence that support this:

• For “capital isn’t qualified to raise my business up”: 

  • Some sources of capital aren’t qualified or appropriate for my business. Ultimately I get the final say on which types of investment and which investors go on my cap table. If someone doesn’t feel like the right fit or like they’ll add value in the way I’m hoping, I equally have the power to say no.

  • Ultimately it’s not the role of capital to raise up my business. I’ve already done that through building a great product and developing traction. I have the ability to raise that traction up myself. Capital is just a tool to help me get there faster. 

• For “capital isn’t qualified to raise me up”

  • Raising capital doesn’t make or break me. I have conviction in my vision and I can make this a success with or without capital. 

Turnaround to the Self

Turning a thought around to the self is most often accomplished by simply making the sentence an “I sentence”. When the thought is already self-referential, try substituting “my thinking or “my thoughts” for the subject. 

For example:

I’m not qualified to raise capital → I’m not qualified to raise me 

Again, this one isn’t obvious at first but we can get creative with the interpretation. 

3 pieces of evidence that support this:

• I’m not feeling confident to raise myself up as a leader and visionary, which means I’m subconsciously shutting down opportunities before investors can. 

• I can think of times when I’ve shut myself down in the past with my own inner criticisms instead of self-belief. I know that repeating that dynamic isn’t supportive of fundraising.

• I haven’t been the “inner parent” that the parts of me that are scared need (in effect I’m not “raising” my inner children in a way that’s loving and productive). Instead of criticizing myself for not being qualified enough, I should reassure my inner parts that are scared, that they are enough and that they can trust me as a leader.

These three turnarounds allow us to see other possible stories and to start to loosen the neural pathways to the thought that’s stressing us out the most. 

Next time you’re feeling stressed, self-doubting or pessimistic about your raise, see what stories or limiting beliefs might be fueling those emotions. Even if you believe they’re 100% true, it’s worthy taking them to The Work, and seeing what happens. 

YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM’S ROLE IN FUNDRAISING

Supporting your nervous system is a very underlooked but game changing tool when it comes to raising capital. 

Looking back on my own experience of raising capital, I can see now that often my nervous system was in fight, flight, freeze, flop or fawn in investor conversations. I’d often feel nervous, shaky, palms sweating, stomach sick, heart racing going into investor meetings. Because I was in either an activated or a frozen nervous system state and unable to regulate myself, I’d sometimes feel stuck in meetings, unable to confidently pitch, navigate questions and think clearly. 

Here’s what I wish I had known then.

When we face anything our brain perceives as a threat, stress is our body’s natural response. In a healthy nervous system response, we move through a full stress cycle, where we experience a fight-or-flight response, and then we come back to rest or digest. However, if we get stuck in the middle of a stress cycle without completing it and hang out in an activated state the majority of the time, our nervous system can become dysregulated. 

It’s natural for your nervous system to process some facets of a fundraising process as danger: a high-stakes investor meeting, a hard question from an investor, a no from an investor, a term sheet that you feel is very unfair, your slacks and emails overflowing as you dedicate more time to fundraising, etc. 

When you’re stuck in a constant state of nervous system activation it can be difficult to think straight, to stay present, to access your intuition, creativity and problem solving, and to show up how you want to throughout your fundraise.

An activated nervous system can also create an emotional response — anxiety, overwhelm, doubt — which may lead to stories like “I can’t do this”, “My company isn’t good enough” or “If I don’t succeed my company dies”. Which leads to actions that are not aligned with the outcomes that we desire.

To add to the matter, some of us may have nervous systems with lower capacity to move through these stress cycles and might be more likely to get caught in activated or freeze states.

Here’s what can cause that:

1. Our nervous systems store trauma, pain and programming that may be counterproductive to raising capital.

Many of us may have had traumatic experiences in our upbringing that can make investor pitches feel unsafe. For example, being humiliated when public speaking or being abused or feeling shamed by authority figures. If unhealed, these traumas get stored in our nervous systems. If something that feels like a similar dynamic is present (e.g. an investor critiquing our pitch feels like we’re being shamed for not being good enough), our nervous system can go into that fight/flight or freeze/flop/fawn state because it thinks there’s still danger present.

The stories and behaviors our caretakers had around money also get stored in our nervous system. Maybe we had a parent with a scarcity mindset, that taught us that there isn’t enough money to go around. Or that possessing money equates to being selfish, greedy and entitled. 

Maybe we experienced a trauma around money — a parent that lost it all, or a messy divorce. Or maybe we experienced a money-related trauma ourselves in our adult life, a business failure or feeling trapped in consumer debt.

Maybe we’ve developed our own stories about money over the years — that we’re not able to hold on to it when we make it, that we’re “not good with money” or that if we have it, it will disconnect us from our community.

Any of these can contribute to a dysregulated nervous system when it comes to fundraising.

2. Beyond the trauma of our own lived experiences and what we observe from our caretakers, our nervous system patterns can be genetically inherited from our parents. 

That means you inherit your parents’ genes related to stress regulation, genes that influence how your body and brain respond to stress, regulate emotion and recover from threat. 

And that they inherited their nervous systems from their parents (both genetically and epigenetically).

And so our nervous systems might be holding intergenerational trauma — think anything from war to poverty, slavery, or abuse. That’s heavy and absolutely can be experienced in our own nervous system patterns.

3. Our unconscious or subconscious nervous system seeks safety by trying to keep things the same. 

Our brains and bodies are wired for survival. Especially in times of stress, our nervous system wants us to stay exactly the same because it’s energetically expensive to rewire our nervous system. It depends on predictability to feel safe. And what feels safe for our nervous systems is what’s familiar to us.

For most people, when it comes to fundraising, most of us have not previously experienced raising $1m, $5m, $10m. We’ve never seen that amount of money in the bank. Never been responsible for that amount of cash, and the expected returns that come with that capital. And so, although logically we want that capital — we know it will help us scale our teams, our businesses, our impact — everything in our nervous system says “NO, we do not want to change. This is not safe.”.

When left unaddressed, any of these can meaningfully keep you from being energetically aligned to who you need to be and what you need to do to successfully raise. 

Know that if this is the case for you, that it’s not your fault. You have nothing to be ashamed of. This is simply the hand that you were dealt.

However, you do have the opportunity and responsibility to heal and build resonance in your nervous system if you believe that raising capital is part of bringing your vision into the world.

There are going to be moments naturally where your adrenaline spikes in the fundraising process, high stakes moments like pitches and meetings. 

The point of nervous system work isn’t to prevent that from happening, but to increase your nervous system’s regulation or resonance, aka its ability to more smoothly flow between sympathetic and parasympathetic stages. So for example, maybe your heart’s racing as you kick off your pitch, but you don’t stay stuck in an activated nervous system state for the entirety of your fundraising process.

The next section will talk about how we can start to build resonance in our nervous systems.

INVESTOR INSIGHT - ROHAN WADHWA

BEFORE A HIGH STAKES MOMENT

Before a high stakes moment — a pitch competition, going into an investor meeting, pitching the partner group — take a moment to regulate your nervous system with any of the following tools:

• Feeling the five senses: Take a moment to name five things you can see around you, four sensations in your body, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste. This exercise grounds you in the present moment (pulling you back from ruminating about the past or worrying about the future). Here’s a guided meditation.

• Breathwork: Intentional breathing helps regulate your heart rate, calm your mind, and signal safety to your body. I’m personally a fan of the simple box breathing, the physiological sigh, and alternate-nostril breathing (nadi shodhana). 

• Humming or omm’ing: Humming stimulates the vagus nerve, which activates your parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) system. Just a minute or two can slow your heart rate, reduce stress, and help you drop into a more grounded, embodied state.

• Butterfly hug: Cross your arms over your chest so each hand rests on the opposite upper arm, and gently tap back and forth. This bilateral stimulation calms the nervous system and creates a sense of self-soothing and safety.

• Washing machine: Gently twist your torso side to side with loose arms swinging like a washing machine agitator. This rhythmic, pendulum-like movement can discharge excess adrenaline, regulate your breath, and restore a sense of flow and balance in the body. 

• Body scan: Slowly bring your attention through each part of your body, from your feet to the top of your head, noticing sensations without judgment. This builds interoceptive awareness and helps bring you back into your body if you’re feeling disconnected or tense.

DAILY PRACTICES

It’s not only great to use nervous system practices before a big moment but to incorporate them into your day regularly. 

Find a time in your day when it makes sense to habit stack one of the practices below — maybe it’s during a morning practice or routine, maybe it’s after you eat lunch, or maybe you use it to transition from your workday to your evening. 

Even better if you can take multiple breaks in your workday to fit one of these in (really just 1-2 minutes a few times a day will make a meaningful change.) 

And trust me, if this thought passes through “I have to [go to the bathroom / fill up my water bottle / stretch my neck] but I just want to finish this [xyz task]”, it’s time to take a break, see to your needs and try one of the following:

• Breathwork, as described in the section above  

• Light stretching, yin and restorative yoga, foam rolling: Gentle movement and deep stretching signal to your body that it’s safe to relax. These practices help release stored tension, calm the mind, and increase circulation

• Phone free walk: Step outside for a short walk without your phone or distractions. The combination of natural light, fresh air, and rhythmic movement soothes the nervous system and helps clear mental clutter, making space for presence and clarity.

• Get up and stretch: Just 60 seconds of standing up, shaking out your arms, rolling your shoulders, or stretching your spine can shift stagnant energy, increase alertness, and lower cortisol. 

• Guided body scan: Listen to a 5–10 minute guided body scan to reconnect with your breath and body. By directing attention inward, you create spaciousness in your nervous system and shift from anxious anticipation to grounded awareness.

• Self-care routine: Whether it’s splashing cold water on your face, lighting a calming scent, or sipping a warm tea, simple self-care rituals anchor your body in safety and intention. They send the message: I’m cared for, I’ve got this. 

• Interoception: A couple of times a day, carve out five minutes to consider these five questions: 

  • How’s my mental state? Are my thoughts racing or foggy? Or are they calm and alert?

  • What’s my awareness like? Is it narrow and protected? Or is it expanded and receptive? 

  • How’s my posture right now? Is it tense and collapsed? Or is it open and relaxed? 

  • How is my breath in this moment? Is it shallow and rapid? Or deep, slow and soft? 

  • What emotion(s) do I feel right now? Do I feel joy? Sadness? Gratitude? Fear? Anxiety?

DISCHARGING THE STRESS RESPONSE

If you’re feeling quite stressed and stuck in a dysregulated state, these evidence-based strategies can help you complete your stress cycle, so you can come back into a rest-or-digest state.

• Physical activity: Since stress is physical, physical activity can be a big part of ending stress cycles. A run, hiking, the gym, dancing, water aerobics — any type of movement goes. 

• Creativity: Engage in whichever creative activity appeals to you - drawing or coloring, writing, photography, basket-weaving, origami, baking.

• Laughing: Laughter is a way to release and express all our emotions we’re keeping inside. Read a funny book, watch some comedy on YouTube or TikTok, listen to a funny podcast. 

• Crying: Crying is one of our body’s mechanisms to release stress. If you feel yourself wanting to cry, let it come up and embrace it.

• Physical affection: If you have someone you feel safe with, ask for a long hug. Spending time with a loving pet can also work. If you don’t have access to either, even hugging yourself or engaging in self-massage (like Abyhanga mentioned above). 

• Breathing: As mentioned above, deep breathing can calm down your vagus nerve and complete your fight or flight response.

SOMATIC WORK

If you’re someone that has a quite dysregulated nervous system or a background of trauma, you might benefit from doing some deeper somatic work. Here are a few options: 

• Somatic experiencing: Somatic Experiencing helps the body complete the fight, flight, or freeze response that got interrupted, allowing the system to return to balance. You can find a directory of somatic practitioners here.

• Body mapping: I’ve personally been using a modality called body mapping, a practice of attentively scanning, sensing, and “mapping” different parts of the body, often through guided prompts or visualization. I’ve been working with Prism Studio and highly recommend them.

• Nervous System Courses: While I haven’t worked with her directly I love Sarah Baldwin’s content on Instagram and understand she has a couple of courses on nervous system regulation and embodied healing. 

I loved this advice from a founder where she mentions how her pets helped her stay regulated during her fundraise!

FOUNDER INSIGHT - CHARLOTTE CRUZE

TAPPING INTO YOUR INTUITION

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 thousands of decisions that need to get made everyday:

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

• Am I good with the terms my lead investor offered?

• 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 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

Intuition grows in stillness, speaks through the body, feels like knowing without reason, and gets stronger when you trust it.

Here’s how you can start tuning into your intuition:

1. Create space for it to speak.

• Quiet the noise. 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

• 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 signals.

• 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?

• 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?"

• Allow 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.

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. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. And then 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.

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?).

THANK YOU FOR READING

If you’d like to learn about how 1:1 coaching can support you through your own fundraise, you can book a free consultation call with me.