Ep. 15 | Faith, Flow & Funding: Rethinking Venture Capital With Strategy, Values & Self-Trust

📖 Episode 15 Summary

Recorded on Christmas Day, Amanda shares a brief reflection on gratitude before diving into the real focus of this episode: how to think about venture capital and funding decisions from a strategic, values-aligned, and intuitive lens. Using the prediction of a16z potentially going public as a launch point, she breaks VC down in human terms — LPs, “war chests,” equity, and why raising money is ultimately an exchange of ownership for resources, speed, and support.

From there, Amanda equips founders and business owners with practical tools to navigate money decisions more intentionally: powerful open questions that expand possibilities rather than trigger fear; strategy questions to clarify what your vision actually requires (speed, expertise, infrastructure, or patience); value-based questions to evaluate potential investors beyond the check size; and a simple yes/no intuition practice to cut through noise and analysis paralysis. She also introduces the “Triple E Test” — ease, energy, and enjoyment — as a gut-level filter for alignment.

This episode isn’t about whether to pursue VC or avoid it — it’s about choosing funding that reflects who you are, the season you’re in, and the future you’re building. It’s a guide for founders who want to grow without losing themselves, reminding us that information builds confidence, but self-trust builds momentum.

Resources: 

- Marc Andreessen will summon NYC swagger for IPO

Transcript

Amanda Escobedo (00:03.214)
Welcome to Game Changer by Empower House Coaching, your podcast to master the mental game, elevate your brilliance and build a legacy of progress and impact. My name is Amanda Escobedo. I'm your host and inner game coach here to help you change the game. Welcome to episode 15. We have been doing this for 15 weeks. I actually had to look back and be like, what episode are we on? What week are we on? Wow. Time flies.

And today is Christmas! So Merry Christmas to everybody. You know what's funny? I woke up this morning, I literally was like, Happy Birthday, Jesus. And I started just going through like a list of things I was grateful for. I was like, you know, thank you Jesus, thank you God, happy birthday. And I went through all the things that, you know, my spirituality connects me with.

And I was raised Catholic. I go to Christian churches as well. I feel like they're all kind of saying the same thing. And it's funny, as I've gotten older, I've gotten way more spiritual. My parents love them. They used to force us to go to church. And as a kid, I just didn't feel like my mind really didn't understand it. And I just don't, I think internally, I've always been resistant to feeling pushed in any direction.

And so when I went to college, I kind of just steered away for a bit and then moved to San Francisco. And organically, life has brought me back to my spirituality. And it's interesting because when I go to church and I'm listening to a sermon of some sort, what they're speaking about, like through the Bible, is crazily intertwined with all of the practical tools that I teach.

And for awareness, I don't ever lead with spirituality or religion at all in my work. What I do is foundationally based on science and it's based on practicality. And I really try hard to stay away from like the woo-woo aspect of coaching, because you can get pretty woo-woo-y. But there is a bit of this magical experience that happens in the coaching world.

Amanda Escobedo (02:13.97)
And that's the bit of this world of flow that I constantly talk about, this world of serendipity and synchronicity, and it feels like you're at the right time, right place at the right time, and everything's happening for you. And there's an actual formula for that. And when things like that happen, people might, you know, praise God in that moment or whatever it is. And it's interesting because fundamentally, a lot of the tools that I have that get you into that flow state, they're actually very similar.

tools if you say that I do believe that spirituality, at least from a Christian base, teaches. And not to say that you can't connect these tools to other religions. I'm just not familiar with other religions, but I find it fascinating the intertwine of it all. And like one of the main things that I'll emphasize is of similar between coaching and spirituality is this word faith. And faith is so critical.

so critical in getting you into your flow state and getting you to feel the serendipity and the synchronicity, not just feel it, experience it, actually receive the fruits of your efforts of getting into that flow state. Faith is critical in the space of uncertainty. Faith requires you to believe in something that you can't see.

And faith is so critical because when you're in that dark space where everything is uncertain, there's a choice. And here's the beauty about the human experience is you always have a choice. You know, and what I mean by that is in this space of serendipity and synchronicity where you always have a choice, you have a choice of navigating with fear or navigating through faith. And fear is going to keep you stuck.

Fear is gonna consume the body, it's going to keep you stuck, it's gonna stop and slow you down from progressing forward. Because it's saying everything on the other side of that step of uncertainty is going to kill you. On the other side, faith is saying, I don't know what's gonna happen if I take this next step, but I have faith that I will benefit from it. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how that's going to turn out. I don't know how it's gonna benefit me.

Amanda Escobedo (04:34.722)
but I have faith that things will work out in my favor. And when we talk about uncertainty and how do you know if you take that step or if you listen to fear, because at the end of the day, fear is there to serve you, it's there to protect you. And fundamentally, there are times where you should listen to fear. And this is where we talk a little bit about the inner voice, that inner voice, that intuition. And when we talk and bring this back into spirituality, this is like things that I believe overlap.

Depending on who I'm working with, if someone's not spiritual, you know, we take them through a whole meditation. We take everybody through an entire meditation so they can get connected through into their inner voice, that voice of wisdom, the intuition, which Stanford University says we're all born with and it's mistake free. Now, depending on who I'm working with and they go through this meditation, sometimes that meditation brings them to an inner voice where I've had it where I was working with this guy, this entrepreneur and

I forget that actor's name, but from 007. The 007 guy showed up as his voice of wisdom in this fast car. And so that was, we named his voice of wisdom. And so we teach you the difference of your voice of wisdom versus the critic, the critter brain, the itty bitty committee, right? The lizard brain, the one that really is not logical, creates a lot of anxiety, takes you out of your power. And that inner voice comes in calm.

grounded. Now on the other side sometimes when I'm working with someone spiritually taking through this meditation sometimes people come in and they're like it was my higher self or they might say it was my guardian angel they might say it was the holy spirit they might say it was god they might say was jesus working with someone else they had it was why is my mind it was a saint i was like why is my mind blinking a saint came through saint michael and so

At the end of the day, what I say is I don't care what you call that inner voice. We all have to get familiar with who and what that inner voice feels like so you can start to trust it. We're all born with this inner voice. And I fundamentally believe that we are all unique beings and we are all designed uniquely with a sense of purpose. You have innate gifts. You have things that you are natural out. You have...

Amanda Escobedo (06:55.104)
innate desires that differ than other people around you. And so when we bring in these experiences of your innate gifts and your desires, and then also your life experiences, this is where purpose starts to thrive in. This is like the incubator where it starts to become born and grow and grow and grow. If you're giving it the right attention and if you're fostering it. And so

I personally love to go to church and I love to hear what the pastor has to say because a lot of time again fundamentally I just see so many overlaps of what I teach and what they kind of teach out of the Bible. And so just sharing just I always think it's I'm not trying to push religion on anybody at all. I just am sharing my own personal spiritual experience again coming as I've gotten older. I've now just started to see

the little notes of life that have been there all along that are slowly starting to guide me into this place. And this is where my faith has become bigger and bigger and bigger. And I've realized for myself in particular, like I think my spirit for this lifetime is really designed to do hard. Nothing has been easy, I feel, and I have been designed to do hard and everything has been growing. Like my whole growth experience, I'm like, when does it stop?

I'm always sore whether it's from the gym or whether it's from emotional growth But that's the beauty of life I believe is this whole growth stage and when things are handed to you That's it's not as fun as when you're going after it when you're getting it. You're getting a little rug burn You're in mud your face is in the mud. You're all scruffed up, but somehow you figured out how to get to the other side

Now all that to say that is a long-winded way to say Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday Jesus. Let's bring it into our topic for today. So I was reading up on an article from BreakingViews.com and this article is called Mark Anderson Will Summon NYC Swagger for IPO and it caught my attention. so, oh.

Amanda Escobedo (09:09.998)
I hope you can't hear my background noise. I can hear my laundry going and I hope it's like not showing up in the podcast, but we'll find out. So anyways, bringing it back to this article, today we're actually talking about venture capital. And so a bit of this article, at least from my perspective, it starts to hint that there's a major shift happening in the industry. And this one story is kind of shaking up the snow globe is what I like to say. So Mark.

Anderson, I think that's what I'm saying, Mark Anderson and Anderson Horowitz, known as A16Z. This is a venture capital, and I hope I'm saying this correctly. Watch me butcher all of this. So, and they all have basically the possibility of going public. So that's what this headline is about. A16Z has the possibility of going public. And so Mark Anderson, if you don't know, is co-created Netscape.

And this helps kind of the modern internet. And he and Ben Horowitz, they went to create A16Z, one of the most influential venture capital firms in the world. And so the idea that a VC firm, a venture capital firm might go public, this caught my attention just because it's a bit rare. It's bold. It's not that it's never happened before, but it's just more rare. And while again, this isn't the first time, cause you have companies like Blackstone, KKR,

and other maybe private equity firms, they've done it. Seeing a VC at a scale move in this direction signals a bit of a shift in the industry. And it's a sign that venture capital is a bit evolving. It's adapting to the accelerated growth of AI, at least I believe. It's growing up or leveling up depending on how you see it.

Now, one of things I want to caveat in this podcast, I am no VC expert. Okay? I'm not a financial advisor. I'm not a business advisor. I'm not here to recommend whether you should or you shouldn't raise money at all for your startup. That's not what my focus here for this podcast today is. I am here as a coach for founders. And I'm here as someone who helps, I'll say, entrepreneurs, business owners, founders.

Amanda Escobedo (11:28.588)
really navigate the human side of money, the human side of money, the clarity required for making aligned decision-making. I'm here to kind of help cultivate that creative thinking. We've talked a lot about flow, creativity. So to help cultivate creative thinking required to build something that really matters. And I'm here to help cultivate self-trust required to lead. Now,

Because if money drives fear and uncertainty, a lot of us have a funny relationship with money. And I'll raise my hand. I'm the first to say, I did not realize I had a funny relationship money until I started my coaching business. Starting any type of business really does slowly uncover what your money mindset that you never knew you had. And you will hit new obstacles in business as your...

in this place where you're faced with a money mindset and your money mindset has to evolve in order for you to continue to progress in your business. bringing it back for today, our goal for today is to help you access clarity and confidence as it relates to money. Because in order to make money, you got to spend a little. And whose money are you spending?

And so, you before we talk a little bit about whose money are you spending, we'll summarize this article a bit, then we'll break down a little bit of what VC actually means, kind of the VC language in human terms. I want to do that just because again, I'm no VC expert and my brain just for the longest time was like, I don't really understand venture capital. There's probably still a lot that I don't understand. But the heartbeat of today's episode is really again, money is strategy plus intuition.

And so we are navigating venture capital or money from strategy and intuition. And information is power, information is power, but self-trust is where you get your clarity. So let's dive in a little bit of a summary. So the Reuters story highlights a prediction with this article. So in 2026, the prediction is A16Z, one of the biggest venture capital firms may go public.

Amanda Escobedo (13:40.258)
So this comes at a time when venture capital is consolidating. AI investments require billion dollar checks, some big money there. And the top 10 firms are capturing nearly half of all fundraising. Wow. And smaller VCs are struggling to complete compete. And A16Z is scaling with ambitions similar to Wall Street Giants.

So if they go public, what does this mean? It could mean anyone could buy shares in the firm, their value becomes tied to public markets, and they would shift from being private stewardship to public accountability. And symbolically, it kind of blurs the line between Silicon Valley and Wall Street. So this is the arc of evolution. This is the story of what I believe, adaption.

And so let's kind of do a little unlocking of VC jargon for you. So tech friends, founders, investors, bear with me. I know, you know, a lot of what I'm going to explain here, but many listeners don't. And today's coaching tools rely on a shared understanding. And so when I say there may be some listeners that don't, again, I'll be the first to raise my hand where it like, I had a lot of questions, still have a lot of questions. So let's just get the basics so everyone can follow this podcast together. So venture capital.

What is it? What the heck is venture capital? It's a system. It's a system where VC firms raise money from LPs and LPs are what they consider limited partners. This creates a war chest. And what is a war chest? It's a big pool of money. So it's not their personal bank account. And let's go back real quick. When we talk about VC firms raise money from LPs, limited partners, limited partners could be insurances. It could be...

universities, it could be other people's money that they are raising money from. There's a lot of time people think the venture capitalists are the ones donating their own money and maybe they are but generally it's not all of their money that is investing into a company. They could be also raising money from high net worth families etc.

Amanda Escobedo (15:55.136)
And so this creates a war chest. So war chest is an interesting term. A war chest is literally just a pool of money. And so when these VCs are raising money from LPs, so they're trying to gather a bunch of money from a lot of different LPs, limited partners, that's what creates this pool of money. And this pool of money is called a war chest. And they use this capital to then invest in startups in exchange for equity. So ownership. And so think of it as kind of money in.

and then money out. You raise and you deploy. And when we talk about money in the LPs, they're bringing in the money into the VC. And when we talk about money out, that's when the VC is then taking some of that money and then investing it into their different investments. So let's say I'm a startup, I'm asking for $2 million. This VC could have actually raised $100 million.

That's where that war chest comes into play. That would be that pool of money they raised from the LPs. And then they would give me some capital. That would be the money out where they're giving me my $2 million for my startup. Now, VCs are not usually, again, giving out their own money. They are managing other people's money. They are stewards, accountable and strategic because most startups fail. So they need to be very strategic.

And then again, going back to this war chest, a war chest, think of it as also this pool of money is strategic fuel. It's optionality, it's the ability to make moves with intention. And so again, going back to just one more example, A16Z, let's say they raised, they've got bigger pool of money than I would. So they could raise $2 billion funds, that war chest. That's what that war chest is.

A16 could raise $2 billion. That's their war chest. And then they invest $10 million in one startup. They could invest $50 million in another startup, $250 million in an AI lab, et cetera. And so they write these checks. They're deploying capital to build the future they believe in. Now, every time a founder raises money, they're actually trading for something. So every time a founder raises money, they are trading ownership.

Amanda Escobedo (18:13.112)
They're training in a piece of ownership for an exchange speed, resources, and acceleration. And so when this happens, I like to say, you know, this is where there can be a potential identity shift happening for a founder. So one identity could be, you know, they are 100 % of the bicycle. So what does that mean? If they're 100 % of the bicycle, that means as a founder, you own the bicycle, all of it.

You can go slow on a bicycle, it's stable, it's reliable, it's yours to keep. Versus, if they are getting venture capital, think of it as 70 % of a rocket ship. So instead of owning 100 % of a bicycle, right? Just that little dinky little bicycle. Once they go to venture capital, they own 70 % of a rocket ship, which means they're giving up some ownership to gain fuel.

to gain infrastructure, momentum, and expertise. And so as a bicycle founder, you could maybe, let's say you're creating a cleaning product, right? And you're using your savings or your 401k to grow at a pace for cashflow, right? Whereas a rocket ship, you're building, let's say, an AI platform. Speed in this case matters. And market competition.

matters, infrastructure matters. And so that's why you might need to be making moves into this identity shift from let's say a bicycle owner to a rocket ship, 70 % owner. And so either direction, whatever your strategy is, there's no judgment here. Debt is also an option. You can borrow money from a bank with interest. And debt is not always bad. You get good debt, which can be fuel for the company. And then there's bad debt, which turned into kind of like anchors.

And the question really comes into play, you know, what aligns with your vision? When we talk about money, what aligns and how you're, where are you getting this money from to invest in your company? Whether it's your own money, whether it's venture capital, whether it's from a bank, what aligns with your vision, your values and the season of business that you're in?

Amanda Escobedo (20:26.07)
Now let's go into a little bit of like a boutique versus like a mega VC because there's also key differences between boutique versus mega VC. Now think of old VCs, what they used to look like older VCs, they would invest, they would provide, let's say a startup $250,000 to maybe $2 million. They would write you a check. Think of Shark Tank, right?

If you're in Shark Tank, these little startups are showing up and they're asking the sharks, like, want $300,000 for my startup to invest in X. And whoever's investing in you, they're likely early believers. And the mindset is, we'll figure this out together. And there's a high risk in this process because we're an early believer. You probably don't have a lot of proof of concept yet. And maybe you need money to build out that proof of concept.

So that's what would make it high risk. And within this process, it's also high intimacy between the VC and the founder. Now, some of the newer VCs, newer VCs at scale, these larger, these mega VCs, they look like maybe writing you a check of 50 million to $500 million. So we're gonna put lot of money. So they're investing in 50 to $500 million checks.

And what comes with this is not just the money, they're also giving you in-house marketing, HR, legal, policy, engineering. They're giving you infrastructure that you can just plug into your business. So you're able to operate at a speedy rate through resources. Now buying speed, that's really what you're doing when you're working with these mega VCs. You're buying speed. You're not just buying infrastructure. You're buying the ability to go fast.

And so the money that you're using from these mega VCs, you know, you're buying talent, you're buying tech, you're buying infrastructure, you're buying influence. And money also shortens the time of your idea and impact, right? That's that speed that we're talking about. But not every founder needs that. Not every founder needs speed. Not every founder needs that type of infrastructure. Not every founder needs tech.

Amanda Escobedo (22:38.254)
in the way that these mega companies can provide. And so if you're in a competitive market, maybe tech, AI, defense, biotech, speed may not be optional. Like you may have to move with speed in order for your idea to even compete with these big companies out there. So why does this matter for you? This brings us into our coaching territory. So, and I'll bring you a little bit of kind of

these are coaching tools, not identity and morality. We're really gonna be providing you tools as it relates to decision-making for money. And so how would you, and what do I mean by that? So I work again with a lot of founders, business owners, executives, and a lot of time they're raising money. But sometimes they come to me in the beginning phases of their business where they've been self-funded and they need more money to move forward or proceed. And we might be working through an exercise of decision-making.

on what kind of money are they using to hit that next phase. So generally when I'm working with a founder or business owner, we're working through seasons, we're working through a transition period. And so it could be a sale of a company, it could be raising money as an example, could be growth, whatever it is. And so if we're talking about money, then it might be in this phase of, well, do I borrow money from a bank? Do I go deeper into a whole of my 401k or my savings?

I ask a bunch of family members to pull in money depending on the type of resources their family has, or maybe do I work with a VC? And if I work with the VCs, there are a lot of different types of VCs. What kind of VCs should I be partnering with, right? So there's a lot of different ways to get your outcome. And what we're trying to do is find your way. And so my goal with this podcast is to provide you with tools on...

how to come to clarity in your decision making and also get you a little curious of your money mindset because your money mindset is either going to propel you or it's going to keep you stuck. It's going to propel you towards your vision or you're going to stay stuck in this season and you're going to have a slower transition than you would like. And so one of the first tools that I want to help you and provide you with and gaining clarity on a decision making and these can really apply to any decision making

Amanda Escobedo (25:02.29)
is powerful questions. And if you've been following this podcast for a minute, you've heard me talk about powerful questions in quite a few episodes. Powerful questions is one of the fundamental tools on accessing your intuition and also in cultivating your creativity. And so there's really a critical distinction between what I would consider open questions. So powerful questions in our world are more

open questions and then there are closed questions and generally closed questions keep you stuck. And so what I'm going to go through is just a little bit of an example and I want you to hear the difference between a closed question versus an open question. So a closed question has the ability to shrink your possibilities. So for example, let's say something doesn't go as expected. You do a marketing launch, you create a go-to-market strategy,

and it didn't go as expected. You didn't get as many sales, you didn't get as many leads in, and so you're considering whatever that strategy launch was a failure. Now, this is your response into a failure. You have the ability to ask a question, and that question, again, can help extract learnings, cultivate that creativity so you can figure out how to pivot, or it can keep you stuck. And so let's start with a closed question. So let's say,

We go back to that go-to-market strategy, didn't go as expected. If I ask the question, gosh, why can't I do anything right? Or let's say I'm working at a full-time job and I've been wanting to transition to do my own thing and I'm starting to feel like this is the critical moment, I've been preparing and it's maybe time for me to quit my job and I should be launching my own thing. Then I ask the question, what if I fail?

These type of questions are going to access what I call your critter brain. You know, if I ask the question, why can't I do anything right? The critter brain is going to answer that question. It's going to be like, because you're an idiot, Amanda, because you suck at life, because you can't do anything, because you are a terrible leader, because, because, because, because it's going, it's a leading question and it's leading you to your critter brain and it's leading you to all your limiting beliefs. A question like that is not

Amanda Escobedo (27:26.616)
helping you extract learnings, it's not helping you pivot, it's not helping you cultivate new ideas, it's not helping you access your inner wisdom, rather it's going straight to that critter brain. Another example of a question, what if I fail? A question like that of what if I fail, again, it's a leading question leading to failure. Your critter brain is gonna be like, well, what if you fail? You're gonna end up.

living on the street, eating hot dogs out of a trash can. That's what's gonna happen if you fail and it's gonna create all the worst case scenarios that are going to keep you stuck. And when we talk about stuck, it doesn't want you eating hot dogs out of a trash can. It wants you to be safe. And so all of the answers of what if you fail, they're going to stop and slow you down from actually making moves, risky moves that propel you forward. Now on the other side, when we talk about

Open questions. Open questions sound a lot different. Open questions expand your possibilities. An example of open questions, let's say again, my go-to market strategy didn't go as expected. I did not get results that I had hoped for. If I ask a question of what can this teach me? A question like that is now trying to extract learnings.

Right? It's trying to extract learnings that's going to help you pivot in play. And so within this, another question, what support would make this feel possible for me? And so rather than asking a question, what if I fail? What if we ask the question, what support would make me feel this is possible? A question like that is now we're looking for resources, support resources to help,

to help secure confidence in this decision. Another question we could ask is, how could I attempt this at 10%, 50%, 80 %? These questions, these open, powerful questions, they're very future forward, open to the possibilities, and they're starting to cultivate new ideas that start to bring you forward toward that vision that you are trying to meet.

Amanda Escobedo (29:38.134)
And so a little bit of the difference of the open and closed questions, some key characteristics, closed questions might be full of ego. They're usually pretty safe. They're dull. They're full of assumptions. They're full of old stories and baggage, jadedness. On the other side, open questions. Open questions are so selfless. They're energizing. They're daring. They're inspiring. They're full of wonder. They're full of possibility.

And so whenever we're, let's say we're sitting in a team meeting and there's generally some people have in their critter brain, they're afraid to ask a question because they're afraid to look stupid. And some leaders are like, no, there's no such thing as a stupid question. No, no, no. Well, we say that and then people have had interactions where people have kind of dumbed them down on their question. And one of the things that I want to highlight is, is your question an open or a closed question? So that's one.

One, is this a question that you should already know that if you were resourceful that you could have gotten this answer? If it's something that you should already know and be resourceful about, then that's a question that's not serving you. It's showing that you're not doing your homework. And that's maybe why you're getting the response that you're looking for. On the other side, if you're asking closed questions, closed questions start to look like you're finding all the reasons of why we can't make this work. And if you're sitting in a room of leadership, that leadership is trying to

influence everybody to hit a new vision and now your fault and they just reviewed the vision they're saying this is where we're going now they're bringing it breaking it down into goals and you have a response of a close question you're gonna sound potentially like somebody that doesn't like change and that's where the blocker comes in and someone that doesn't like change that means your question is likely coming from fear your question is likely coming from jadedness

Your question is probably coming from past experiences and stories. And so you might have good risk that you want to highlight, but there might be an open question to ask. And so just think of the tone. We want to be a lot more conscious when we're asking questions. And conscious questions, again, they're going to help cultivate creativity. They're going to keep you moving forward to your vision. They're also going to cultivate that inner voice that we're looking for.

Amanda Escobedo (32:00.972)
So now let's bring these open questions into decision-making on let's say venture capital. Let's say you are a founder, you are a business owner and you're in this next season of growth and you're wondering how or what kind of money you should be using for this season of growth. Let's bring in some strategy open questions. You might be asking, do I want control or acceleration? You might be asking, do I need money?

Or do I need expertise? How fast does market require me to move? Is my fear financial or emotional? And so I want you to just pause for a minute.

Amanda Escobedo (39:02.68)
So let's go into some examples for strategy questions, some strategy open questions. So as you're navigating your investments, you might be asking, what resources, whether that's capital, expertise, relationships, momentum, what resources would unlock the next chapter of my business? We could also ask, where could collaboration or...

Where could collaboration or partnership multiply my impact? And if the right expert or funder appeared today, what would I invite them to help me to create? Or maybe we're thinking of the market and the industry and we're asking where is this market pulling me and what does that pace ask of me? And how can I honor market timing while staying grounded in purposeful growth?

So these are some examples of open questions, but that are really tied to strategy. Now, another thing I want you to think about in this process, you should always, I hate to use the word should, you should, here I am again, you might consider, and let me just pause for a minute. I really hate the word should because it turns into advisory and it turns into direction.

when people communicate with what you should be doing, what you need to be doing, the brain critter immediately puts walls up and is like, don't tell me what to do, I'll do what I want. So I always like to invite people into considering things. And so one thing to consider is values, aligning and evaluating values against your decision-making process. And so if we are considering different ways of

investing, so using different people's money, whether it's yourself, or let's say we're actually considering a VC. If we're considering a VC, there's a million types of VCs. We want to ensure that there's a value alignment within these venture capitalists. And values I want you to think of are a little bit of how you're operating. They're not what you're doing. They're how you're executing.

Amanda Escobedo (41:13.606)
And when think of if we're going into an organization business, generally a lot of businesses have values on their walls. And it's not just about writing down what's important for you. How are you living out those values? And so, you know, as generally in a recruiting era, if the recruiting team is doing their job right, or the talent acquisition is doing their job right in partnering with a team in the hiring process, they have value based questions that help ensure, you know,

Maybe Johnny or Tina have the technical chops to fulfill this senior software engineer role, but are they a good culture fit? And when we talk about a culture fit, it's really asking, is there a value alignment? So generally in the interview process, there are some type of value-based questions. On the other side, as a candidate, something to consider is also having value-based questions for yourself.

We want this to be an interview both ways. We don't just want an organization to interview you and then they choose you and you say yes. No, you want to also consider whether or not this is an opportunity that you want to say yes to. And it's the same for venture capital. Off the bat, what we wanna highlight, similar to trying to get a job, you're gonna get way more nos than a yes. You're going to have to pitch.

over and over and over and get a lot of no's before you get a yes. And what we don't want to do is on the first yes, jump to, we finally got a yes, let's move forward. This is where faith comes into play because the brain critter is going to create a scenario in your head. Well, what if this is the only VC that will ever believe in my idea? I have to say yes. No, This is where alignment comes into play and alignment relies on values.

What we want you to do is if we have a VC saying yes to you, we want you to really have critical thought and evaluate if this is an alignment with where you're going, with who you're becoming, what your mission is doing and the impact you're trying to create on the world. Now, if you're ever curious on what your values are, there's a whole values exercise that I do with my clients.

Amanda Escobedo (43:30.54)
And so if you're curious for yourself or your business or just as an individual, what are my values and how do I apply them into my decision-making process? I'm happy to help anyone that's curious and working with me as a coach, you can just come through. get one free coaching session. You're guaranteed to break through. And the goal is just to give you a taste of it. So, you know,

what the experience could feel like and how it could potentially benefit you. And so you have the ability to use that free breakthrough session with, if you want to focus on values, I'm happy to do that for you. No sales pitch, no nothing. You can literally come in, come into my email inbox and be like, Amanda, I listened to your podcast. I really want to go through a values exercise. I'm not interested in coaching, whatever it is. If you are happy to talk about it, put.

Literally, if you just wanna come in for a values exercise, I am happy to support you. Now bringing this value system here within open questions, what we want you to do is consider questions like, do their, so when I say they were talking about those venture capitalists, how do their ambitions, their track record, their worldview expand the mission?

I'm building. How could they expand my mission considering who they are, their ambitions, their track record, their worldview? How could they expand the mission that I'm building? Another question you might consider is, know, what part of my vision feels seen, feels supported or accelerated in their presence? So as you're talking through, you know, if you're meeting with a venture capitalist, they might just be

profit driven, maybe they don't even care about what your vision is, your mission. If they just hear dollar signs, do you actually feel seen? Do you believe you will feel supported in what you're trying to accomplish or do you believe that they will be influencing and driving you to be money hungry profit expanding? And so that's an example of something to consider in your evaluation.

Amanda Escobedo (45:37.994)
Another question you might ask is how might our partnership, your business, yourself as a founder with the venture capitalists, how might our partnership amplify impact beyond capital? What future becomes possible if we co-create together? I love that question. Where might our alignment strengthen or sketch out what I'm designing? And then another question you could potentially ask is what's a non-negotiable for me?

I asked that one time to a client when they were navigating through this process and they're like, what a good question. What are my non-negotiables? We want to walk into any type of business meeting. We want to walk through a venture capitalist meeting with knowing what are your deal breakers. So I want you to consider within your value system, maybe your mission is to reduce homelessness as an example.

And again, going back to maybe an investor only cares about the profit optimization, there might be a misalignment in values there. If your goal and your mission and your vision is impact and their goal, their mission and vision is profit optimization. Now, another thing to consider in your decision-making process is your money mindset.

So before we dive into your money mindset, what we want to understand is what does your vision require in order to achieve it? And when we talk about what does your vision require in order to achieve it, does it require speed? Does it require resources? Does it require risk? Does it require investments? It may require all of them, right? But we might be in a prioritization focus exercise right now. When we ask questions of what is your

Vision requires speed, resources, risk, investment. And at the same time, your money mindset is scarcity, meaning I can't spend, I can't invest, I can't take risk. You might sabotage the very path required to reach your vision. And so in response, you may wanna ask yourself those open, powerful questions. If I believed this mission was possible, what would I choose, right?

Amanda Escobedo (47:57.004)
And so what we're trying to do is disregard the scarcity mindset and pull the scarcity mindset away. If you fundamentally believe in what you're trying to achieve, what would you choose when we talk about what is your vision require? Would you choose speed as a priority, resources, risk, investment? Maybe you're pulling two or three out of these four. You might be asking yourself, if I trusted myself, what investment would I make? There's that self-trust that we talk about.

If you trusted yourself, what investment would I make? I love this question so much because it's speaking directly to your voice of wisdom. It's speaking directly to your intuition and your intuition is going to answer that question. If I trusted myself, what investment would I make? And is my caution, the caution that I'm leading with, is my caution rooted in wisdom or is my caution rooted in fear?

I love this question as well because again, the truth will come out. Your inner wisdom will answer if this is fear or if this is wisdom. Now at some point, you're gonna need to make a decision, right? So these powerful questions are gonna help give you more and more clarity by giving you answers from your inner wisdom. In the same time, you might be doing a lot of research, you might be doing some interviews with other founders that are within these venture capital firms.

You might be Googling and seeing all the different brands these venture capitalists are working with. You could go onto an information swirl, right? And at some point, you have to stop researching. At some point, you have to stop collecting data. And at some point, you have to stop waiting to feel like you have all the information you need to make a decision as though it needs to be perfect. At some point, the question,

actually starts to move out of the open question where we're trying to access your inner wisdom or your creativity and we bring it actually into a closed question and when I talk about closed question we limit your possibilities and we limit your choices intentionally and what I mean by that all you have to do is ask yourself one question yes or no right and so if the initial exercise that you're doing is whether you should proceed with borrowing someone's money

Amanda Escobedo (50:19.904)
and borrowing someone's money, let's say you are in this space of do I raise money with a venture capitalist or not? Then the question is, do I raise money with venture capitalists or not? Yes or no? And at some point, you're just removing all the noise. You're removing all the data and you're connecting with your inner wisdom. And you're just asking, is this a yes or no? Not because everything is certain, but because you are certain. And what I mean, you are certain.

That's your inner wisdom. And let's give you an example here when I say remove all the noise and remove all the information. You're like, what do mean remove all the noise? What do you mean remove all the information? What'd I gather all that data for if we're not considering it? I'm not saying you don't consider it. What we're trying to do is bring all the data into place as a data point for your decision-making process. And we're trying to bring in that inner voice as another data in your decision-making process. Here's an example.

I was working with a bunch of executives and I was teaching them part of this curriculum, this decision-making curriculum, asking and helping them and introducing them to powerful questions and then also introducing them into this distinct close question of yes or no to access their inner wisdom. And I asked them all, does anyone have an example of where all the data told you to go left, but your gut, your intuition told you to go right?

Do you have an example where you ever came at that fork in the road where they didn't actually align with each other and what decision did you make? And I had someone shoot their hand in the air and he was like, that's definitely happened to me. I was like, tell me more. And it was something so simple recruiting. He was hiring, let's say some type of engineer to support one of their programs, one of their legacy programs.

He had all his top people in this interview process. Everyone was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Nobody had anything negative to say, yes, yes, yes. And there was something in his gut that said there's something off. There's something I can't put my finger on, but there's something I'm not in support of. But he couldn't articulate it. He just had a feeling. And he decided to go with the data, the masses, where everybody said hire. So we did that.

Amanda Escobedo (52:36.238)
You went through the process and they ended up firing this person very quickly because his intuition was what was correct. Right. And so when we talk about the data, this person had a great resume. He's worked at all the top aerospace companies. This person was a lieutenant in the army, all the things had all the badges, had the perfect resume, right? Knew all the people and it did not work out. And so this is where we talk about

the data and the information still does not require certainty of the future. And your intuition is mistake free. But the other thing I wanna highlight about this story with this question of yes or no, no matter what decision you choose, you always have the ability to change your decision. So in this example, even though his gut told him to go the other way, he didn't listen to that, he followed the data.

He still had the ability to not proceed. They ended up firing and removing that person. So at any point you have the ability to change that decision. Let's bring this to a smaller note. One of the exercises that I would invite you to try this week, start making decisions with removing all the noise. Start making small decisions with removing noise and just connecting with your inner voice and your inner wisdom and just asking yourself yes or no. What does that look like?

Let's say we're coworkers and I say, hey Tina, I'm going to Starbucks. Do you want anything? Your typical motto or mantra that's going on in your head or the narrative in the story that's happening might go, oh, I would love a matcha right now, but I'm on a diet. I'm trying to save money and it's going all through these things. Well, but I haven't really spent that much this week. And so it's trying to analysis all these different things to just get to an answer where I'm on my way out and I'm like, girl, yes or no.

And so if you're practicing this exercise, you notice the story that's happening and you say, let me just connect with my yes or no. Yes, done. Amanda's getting it to you. I get you the matcha, you say yes. At some point, let's say, you know what? I don't wanna finish this. You don't need to finish it. You can change the decision. Let's say somebody calls you and invites you to a comedy show on a Wednesday night. And maybe you're married and typically you're like, I need to talk to my husband.

Amanda Escobedo (54:59.686)
but we got the kids, we'd have to get a babysitter, all these different things. But what if you just connected with your intuition and you were just like, yes or no? And you said, no, great. Hang up, move on. You just saved yourself of the whole story. If you said yes, you can figure everything else out after that. And so we want, what we want to get you doing is getting you more into this decisive decision making, just yes or no.

Yes or no. So you can move with speed. You actually have a lot of power within your time management by moving through decisions quickly and moving through decisions quickly means removing the noise and connecting with your inner wisdom. And so moving through these, again, it's also helping us not get stalled and stuck into these analysis by paralysis where we're getting so decision fatigue by evaluating all of these things.

we can move you into simpler forms in connection with that wisdom. So that's an exercise I would love for you to try on just a smaller note this week. Try making as many small decisions as possible. What do you want for dinner? Chinese or Mexican? Instead of going through all the different things, just say Chinese or Mexican. Yes or no, this or that, this or that. And remove the stories and just make an effective decision. Now, the last thing I wanna highlight in this decision-making process is

what I consider the triple E test. Now in the coaching world, we have what's called the triple E test. And the triple E test is you're really asking yourself, does this give me a sense of ease? Do I have a sense of energy? Is there a sense of enjoyment? And you can apply this triple E test to any area of your life. You can apply it if you're trying to get married. So when you're dating aspect and your relationship building, if you're getting another job,

Let's say you're interviewing with a team. Let's say you're interviewing VC firms. You can apply this triple E test. And the triple E test in terms of, let's define these triple E. You're really asking yourself, do I get a sense of ease? And an ease means, do I feel at ease? Not that things are gonna be easy. So if you think of as an example, a marriage, and then you're in a marriage with a partner and you're working through a really difficult situation.

Amanda Escobedo (57:20.514)
You know, that conversation that you're navigating may not be easy, but you may have a sense of ease navigating it with that partner because you trust they have good intentions, because you trust that you can both figure this out together, because you trust that nobody's leaving, that you have the tools to work this out. That is an example of you have a sense of ease. Energy on the other side, again, if we're talking about a relationship is,

you're asking yourself, wow, I get a sense of energy from this person, right? There's people that really suck the light out of us, or maybe we're constantly in these toxic fights. Those are just so draining. Where on the other side, you have a partner where every time you're around them, it's just energizing, which can also lead into enjoyment. And so enjoyment, we like to say is like about an 80, 20, not everything is gonna be enjoyable, but we want on average 80%. And so you can apply this

to your home if you're looking to buy a house, you wanna feel, do you have a sense of ease and flow walking through this house? Does this house give you energy on how the structure is, right? Could you experience a life of enjoyment here? Is that what you're starting to see in your vision? Similar with venture capital, as your relationship building, as you're doing your pitch, as you're evaluating your value alignment, do you have a sense of ease when you're connecting with these VCs? Do you have...

a sense of ease or energy, right? And another way I like to put them in, do you feel like you're at home, right? Some people talk about in their relationship, they just feel like home. Sometimes you feel like that at work, this work, this type of work, I'm living in my purpose. I feel like it's just home, right? So it's another phrase to kind of consider for yourself. And so you can apply this triple E test as you're navigating and interviewing different VCs for yourself.

As A16Z potentially steps again into public markets, I want you to ask yourself, what season am I in? So if you're a founder, a business owner, an executive, what season am I in? What future am I building for myself and my business? What support aligns with my values? Where does intuition point before logic justifies, right? Because game changers don't follow

Amanda Escobedo (59:42.924)
the rules, game changers write them from the inside out. Your inner world is what sets that pace for you. Your intuition, it sets the direction. Your decisions are what build your future. And until next time, I want you to stay curious. I want you to stay courageous and I want you to stay in your power.

Alright folks, that's all I've got for you. I'm Amanda Escobedo and you've been listening to Game Changer. If today sparked any insights, a-ha's or new appreciations, I'd be so grateful if you subscribed, left a review and shared this episode with three people in your network who are ready to master the mental game, their inner game and unlock their potential. Your support helps others discover this resource and invites them to be the next Game Changer.

Join me next time for another conversation on leadership, culture, and creating impact that lasts. Thanks for listening.