Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

Does manifesting work with early stage entrepreneurs?

9 Jul 2023 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:59

In this segment, the speaker explains a personal experiment that applies manifestation principles to evaluating early‑stage founders. During due‑diligence conversations, they closely monitor the specific words founders use—especially affirming language like “I can” or “I will” versus limiting phrasing such as “I choke.” The speaker treats word choice as a window into a founder’s confidence and subconscious blocks. By reflecting founders’ own statements back to them as quotes, they help surface hidden beliefs and moments where the founder feels stuck, illustrated by a founder who repeatedly thinks about “choking” at the last minute. The overall aim is to gauge mindset, identify limiting narratives, and potentially influence outcomes through conscious language awareness.

Chapters

I want to hear more about your manifestation experience or experiment with your founders. That's so sick. Yeah. So I guess like it sounds like The Artist's Way randomly. So I swear I didn't read that book, but I, I walk them through, like I listen very closely to the words people choose. Right. And even in due diligence, I'm paying attention to if founders use I can and I will language, like, are they just so sure that they're going to pull this off? Like it's, it's no question in their mind. So this is the kind of nuance I'm paying attention to. with people. It's just like, what word choices do they use? It's a lens into their mind. What order do they say it in? It's indicative of their values. And I'm able to get a sense of where they're getting stuck, like where they feel like a little bit muddy, where they feel limited. And then I throw quotes at them. I'm like, does this feel like this could be going on in your head? And then they're like, whoa. And with one founder, it was like, I always choke in the last minute. And I kept sensing like choke was the key word. And he's like, I literally think the word choke all the time.