Influence starts before you open your mouth

I have a friend that’s the COO of a $1B startup out of London. He has what I would say is an average background for a founder - a few years in corporate, background in finance, degree from a great school.

His resume wouldn’t particularly stand out in a stack of other resumes, and his product is truly not revolutionary in any sense of the word. It’s not new tech, it was built before the AI boom, solves what you might term a niche problem. In fact, I’m willing to bet that if you’re not corporate or work for HR, you’ve never even heard of the problem his company solves.

But there’s one thing that’s unmistakable about my friend, something that every single person that I’ve ever spoken to about him mentions.

It’s this thing that, without a doubt (I know because one of his main investors told me so), got him funded over and above better ideas and better tech.

And it’s this very same thing that gets so many others ghosted; that creates a situation that, as one founder told me, “they can’t get even 2 out of 20 investors that they’ve had calls with to look at their data room.”

The secret to winning deals

My friend is so successful and so well known and liked in the startup world in London because his energy is off the charts. He’s the most contagiously energetic, friendly, outgoing, full-bore person you’ve ever met.

When you meet him, he exudes this self-assuredness, this confidence in himself (and you) that is just infectious.

In fact, you might even say that his energy is seductive.

What does seduction have to do with getting funded?

People make the mistake in thinking that this tactic or that will get them what they want. It’s rampant in the dating world, the sales world, the startup world - wherever. They want playbooks and tactics, frameworks and scripts.

“If I can just do X better, or say this magical combination of words, I’ll unlock fireworks in someone’s mind.”

All the while, there is something sabotaging them, something that they can’t shake off as hard as they try because they don’t know it’s there. You might even call it a stain on their personality, spinach in the teeth of who they are.

They’re needy. Desperate. Clingy.

We’ve all been around people like this - perhaps even are, to some extent, people like this. People who are more concerned with what the world thinks of us than what we think of us, who chameleon ourselves a hundred different ways just to fit in to the expected mould. We’ve all been on a call when someone desperate has talked about themselves or their product, who can’t understand why no one wants what they’re offering.

I speak as a recovering addict

I know this world intimately - for I am a recovering “nice guy”, a recovering “people pleaser” myself. For me, it started because of a choppy upbringing, as I’m sure it does for many. I had to be hyper vigilant of my effect on those around me, those caregivers closest to me, and so I learned to pay more attention outside than in. Slowly but surely I learned to ignore or even worse, mistrust, my inner voice. If validation didn’t come from the outside, it wasn’t worth it.

At the very end of this spectrum, the extremes, you get the “incel” community - a group of men who have convinced themselves that they are fundamentally unloveable. Trust me when I say that is a toxic place to be.

But anyone who’s afraid of rejection has some of that same energy. Anyone who puts their self-worth on closing deals or getting funded or any other outcome they must have, has some of that energy. Anyone who is desperate, or has commission-breath, has some of that energy.

I’ve become woo

As I’ve done my own internal work (decades of therapy and coaching, though much of it not worth half the money I spent) and my have walked my path as a servant leader (both as a medic and as a rabbi), I’ve learned more and more that there are things that exist beyond the rational plane, energies and vibes, feelings that we get that we can’t explain, and that these are as real as the coffee cup I’m sipping from right now.

The worse part about it is that they’re not directly accessible. You can’t just change your energy like you can change your pants (read that in British or American english 😂). Not only that, but you energy oozes out of you like you ate too much garlic on a hot day. It’s present in every DM you send, in every face to face interaction you have, in every post you write. It’s that “pick me” vibe that is so off-putting, that desperation that makes us turn our heads in shame and walk faster the other way. The energy that reminds a small part of us that “if not for the grace of God there go I.”

That is why you’re not closing deals, that is why you’re getting ghosted, that is why you can’t get people to do what you want them to. Your energy is off.

Fixing your energy

For the moment, be honest with yourself (or at least with me). How much do you depend on this next thing in your life going right? How much do you have to have this sale, or this newsletter blow up, or this date go well? How focused are you on the outcome of this next try?

The antidote to this is understanding one fundamental truth — you will be ok. No matter what happens, you will be OK. If you don’t get the sale, you’ll be ok. If your newsletter bombs, you’ll be ok. Heck, if your business fails, you’ll be OK.

It’s this energy that helped Bill Ackman move from a $4B loss, the end of his marriage, and a lawsuit on top of it all to now being worth $9.3B. It’s not reality, it’s a mindset.

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And then you begin to understand — your product is good. It’s good whether or not this person buys it. In fact, that’s another one of the hallmarks of true inner confidence — you’re not for everyone. Your product is not for everyone.

When you’re able to show up with that “I’m valuable and I know it” vibe, the “come into my world and let me show you around” vibe, you instantly become more attractive.

So imagine you’re asking for funding. You send a cold DM to an investor (or you go through their dedicated pitch page) and the energy is all about “pick me, please, I need you, without this money I’m toast” — well then, guess what? You probably won’t get a call back. But if you show up with “this is an amazing idea and it’s happening with or without you. I’m just here to give you an opportunity to get in on the ground floor” and you mean it … well, that’s a totally different outcome.

There are no shiny tactics that I can give you today that will fix this for you. It’s a journey of a thousand miles and more, a journey to rock-solid belief that no matter what happens you will be OK, a journey to the point where you can detach your self-worth from any given outcome.

Well, there is one thing you can do. But you have to do it no matter what, no matter how bad you feel.

Treat yourself with grace. Build yourself up. It’s not for nothing that the premier athletes in the world have mindset coaches. It’s not for nothing that the top executives have coaches that encourage them, that give them a voice outside their head. This is the problem that is holding you back from being superhuman - your belief in yourself. So here’s the tactic - look at the world through rose coloured glasses. See the glass as half full. Read testimonials about how amazing you are and what a good job you’ve done in the past. Celebrate the “no”s you get, as they’re just another person who wasn’t for you. Another person closer to the ones who are.

The secret of this life is that what you go looking for you will find. If you go looking for evil, for bad, for disappointment, you’ll find it. It will infect you. It will destroy you. But if you go looking for good? If you believe in yourself? The sky’s the limit.

To get what you want, stop needing what you want. Be yourself come hell or high water. Live into your principles. The rest will follow.

"Don’t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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