Your brain hates massive action

You're three weeks into January.

You set the goal. You announced it. Maybe you even told your mastermind: "This is the year I raise $10M."

But every morning, you open your laptop and your brain says: "Let me just check Slack first. Maybe reorganize the CRM. Actually, I should review that deal one more time."

Two hours later, you've made zero investor calls.

Your chest tightens. Not because you can't do it. Because you know you're avoiding it.

Here's what you probably don't realize: This isn't a discipline problem. It's a friction problem.

Here's what most syndicators don't know:

Every time you set a big goal, two parts of your brain go to war. Your conscious mind says: "Hell yes, let's raise $10M." Your subconscious says: "Whoa, that doesn't feel like us. What if we fail? What if people think we're idiots?"

Research from Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory shows that we only take sustained action when our goals meet three criteria: autonomy (we genuinely want it), competence (we believe we can do it), and connection (we're doing it with others).

Translation: If you're doing it because you "should," or because some guru said so, or because everyone else is—your subconscious will sabotage you.

For syndicators, this is why you set massive goals at conferences and then ghost them by February.

Here's how this shows up:

Endless Preparation You've rewritten your investor deck twelve times. It's still not "ready." So you don't send it.

Strategic Procrastination You tell yourself you're "building systems" when really you're avoiding calling that LP who might say no.

Intellectual Hedging You consult ChatGPT, redo your CRM, double-check the market analysis—anything to delay the moment you have to act.

This isn't laziness. It's your brain treating massive action like physical danger.

Why does this cost you deals?

Trust erodes when investors sense hesitation. Momentum dies when you're stuck in planning mode. Confidence drains when you're stagnant—and only builds when you're moving.

But here's what changed for one syndicator who couldn't pull the trigger...

A client came to me managing $12M AUM.

He had the strategy. He had the deals. He couldn't make himself pick up the phone.

His fear showed up as perfectionism—reviewing numbers obsessively, waiting for the "perfect moment" to reach out.

Here's what we did:

Step 1: We identified his real "why" (autonomy). Not what sounded good. What he'd do even without money. For him: proving to his kids that taking risks pays off.

Step 2: We cataloged past wins (mastery). Times he'd taken action despite fear—quitting his corporate job, closing his first deal, asking his wife to marry him.

Step 3: We built an "if-then" plan (implementation). "If I feel fear before a call, I'll take three deep breaths and dial anyway. If I get rejected, I'll text my accountability partner."

Six months later?

He raised $5.3M. Made 127 investor calls (got rejected 89 times—didn't matter). Started leaving work at 6pm instead of obsessing until 10pm.

Not because the fear disappeared.

Because he built a system that worked even when fear was screaming.

Massive action isn't about motivation.

It's about removing friction between your conscious goal and subconscious resistance.

Here's your next step:

Ask yourself: "If I achieve this goal, who do I become?" Then ask: "Does that scare me?"

If the answer is yes—that's your real blocker.

That's your move.

The most successful syndicators I work with aren't the ones who eliminated fear. They're the ones who built systems that work despite it.

You don't need more discipline.

You just need to align your brain.

Chris

P.S. The AMPED framework has five components. This newsletter covered the first one (Autonomy). Want the other four? They're in the MoneyMental mastermind.