Your Nervous System Is a Business Risk

If you run a business, in your opinion, what do you think is the number one reason businesses lose money or close down?

I'm going to give you a hint: it's not a wrong hiring decision. I mean, partially it is, but it's not the root cause. And it is not necessarily tough economic times.

One of the ways a business can lose a lot of money, and a lot of wrong business decisions can be made, is when a founder is not regulated, or doesn't know how to regulate their emotions.

Because if you've run a business for any amount of time, you know that when your business is your livelihood, and you put a lot of value and pressure on it, and it's something you created on your own, you start to attach your self-worth to your business. Whether you want it or not, whether you're conscious of it or not. And when things are not going as well as they should, it's emotionally tough, and that can transpire in all kinds of ways.

And let's also think about this: if you are a founder, if you are an entrepreneur with an identity devalued by the majority culture, like you are a gay entrepreneur, let's say, the stakes are a lot higher.

I mean, look at any successful entrepreneur: Robert Hartwell, Rachel Rodgers. Even if you look at mainstream influencers in the business space, like Alex Hormozi or GaryVee, you can see, or they can attest, that they run through difficult times all the time.

In fact, when we talk about running a business, the majority of the time you lose, and you have a window when you can win. And when you win, you win big.

And with the recent economic changes, a lot of small businesses felt it. A lot of service businesses have felt it, whether it's coaches or therapists or anyone brick and mortar. If it's not an essential business, if it's not an essential product, we all feel it.

So nervous system regulation is actually an asset.

We make decisions without thinking

And when we are not regulated, and I'm talking about myself included, we make decisions without thinking. We purchase the wrong packages for our business. We make wrong financial decisions.

The majority of the time, it comes with marketing. We start thinking, if we just outsource the skills that we're not really good at, all of a sudden we'll make money. Or we start hiring support. We start hiring, I don't know, coaches, mentors, advisors who don't really have our best interest in mind, because they've never worked with gay entrepreneurs, gay founders.

And you know, if you're anything like me, you are not about identity politics. I don't need my therapist or my coach to be gay. I need my therapist or coach to be a professional, to know what they're talking about, right?

But when it comes to regulating your nervous system, it's a lot more complex than that, because it will transpire in wrong hiring, even in your team.

And when you are not regulated, it's also hard to manage your team. Because your attachment style, your trauma responses, what's going on emotionally, all of a sudden it will transpire in a kind of toxic culture. When people are not regulated, they tend to be toxic. They tend to be not kind to other people, and unnecessarily harsh to their employees.

I can attest to it myself. I'm a kind person, but when I was not in a good state, especially at the beginning of my business, I was not in a good state of mind, and I was not very kind to some of my assistants. Unfortunately. And to them, I apologize, and I mean that.

So nervous system regulation, really, is an asset.

The one mistake we make

And when we talk about how we regulate our nervous system, there are many different ways to do that, right? Going for a walk and listening to a personal development podcast.

But what is important? How do we often regulate our nervous system as founders, as business owners? We're either hiring coaching support for skill set development, or, if you're anything like me, I go for non-traditional things. I go for hypnotherapy, I go for mindset coaching, I go for spiritual coaching, something outside of the mainstream. And of course, I go for therapy.

And when we are considering those options, we often make one mistake. Again, if you're anything like me, I'm not necessarily looking for a gay coach. And quite honestly, there are not a lot of gay coaches that I see in the wild who work with entrepreneurs and have a really good mindset. It's not to say that gay coaches don't exist, or that they're not capable. They are capable. If you know some of them, please list them in the comments below. I would like to follow them.

Optics marketing

But what we end up doing, we fall for optics marketing, right? They sound good, they own their perception, they have a successful business. It's a lot of numbers and income claim marketing. "Oh, I had seven figures, I had eight figures. This year was so hard, because I finally hit my nine figures and my nervous system was so dysregulated. Oh my, guys, life is so hard." And you look at them like, oh yeah, I want to work with them, because clearly they know how to regulate a nervous system well.

But again, when it comes to business, when it comes to your mental health, when it comes to your nervous system, in my opinion, and this is the hill I'm willing to die on, it is important to work with a person who knows you. Who knows you.

And in the next video, we're going to talk about why therapy sometimes doesn't work. I mean, I am an advocate for therapy, 100%. But for founders and business people, there is a hidden challenge with therapy too. So stick around, because in the next video we're going to talk about that.

They don't know us

But not knowing our culture, and not having our best interests in mind, that is one of the reasons those providers, coaches, hypnotists, don't work for us. Because they don't know us.

And the second reason why those methods are not working: a lot of providers, or some of the providers rather, who support people in nervous system regulation don't have formal training in psychology, and they never worked as a psychotherapist.

And I know it personally, because I buy coaching. I buy outside of the box, outside of just traditional therapy approaches, to stay regulated. I'm super curious. And of course, I go to therapy myself as well.

But when people don't know how human psychology works, when they never sat with a client as a therapist, with years of education and knowledge, and you present them with very high challenges with your nervous system... Because what often runs when we run businesses is anxiety. We're going to have anxiety-related issues, a hundred percent, because we do have fear of the unknown. And in entrepreneurship, everything is unknown. Everything is unknown.

And you're always on this exploratory hunt, on a scavenger hunt, right? Why are my numbers up right now? Everything is working. Why is it working? Oh, my numbers are down right now. Why are the numbers down? Why are my ads not working? Why did my clients slow down? Why am I attracting the wrong type of clients?

You know all of that. It's very much anxiety-producing, and we tend to fall into a spiral. And simple breathwork, I mean, it is just not enough without understanding the history, how the brain works, how the unconscious mind works.

I know the industry really well

So this is why, when I serve people as a registered hypnotherapist: for one, I have years of training as a psychotherapist, and I have a master's degree in psychology. I've worked for many years as a therapist in Russia, and in the United States I worked as a case manager, as a youth counselor, as a social work professional. So I know the industry really well.

And I've met people at different stages of life, all the way from vulnerable populations to founders and entrepreneurs. And in my other business, I coach entrepreneurs on messaging, on marketing, on how to run a business. And I've seen it firsthand: when things are not working well, not a lot of us know how to deal with anxiety.

And when we go to those coaching containers, breathwork sessions, sound bath ceremonies, it works in the moment. But there is not solid support when we're dealing with a high level of stress, and when we need a higher caliber of regulation for our nervous system.

Hypnotherapy can be really regulating

So hypnotherapy can actually be really regulating. And one of the things that I do with my clients specifically: I always give them recordings in between sessions, as a regulation tool. And I also teach them self-regulation, so they don't always depend on me, or on my recording, or on the sound bath, or on the app that I may or may not have with a recording. So they can actually regulate themselves.

And I also look at other issues, because with a dysregulated nervous system, there are always co-occurring conditions, or co-occurring issues. Maybe it is a trauma response. Maybe there are other underlying issues. Maybe there is an anxiety disorder, and we might need to have a conversation about working with a licensed mental health professional who knows how to work with entrepreneurs. And I do have, in my network, a licensed therapist who I trust, who I can actually refer to.

And if you are curious about hypnosis specifically as a tool to regulate your nervous system, check out my website, go to goodhypnotherapy.org. The service is for entrepreneurs, for professionals who are in really high-stakes positions, because I've been there myself, both in mental health and big tech, and also running my business. I know how hard it is.

Our relationships suffer

And when we are dysregulated, our relationships suffer. We have a high divorce rate, and this is why I started talking about divorce and breakups, and how hard it is for us. We also might take on roles in our personal life, when we start managing our partners. This is why in my previous videos I talk about codependency, and how codependency can translate into our business too.

And hypnotherapy can be a really, really, really good way to actually regulate. The way I do it, I use motivational interviewing to help you get clarity and deal with ambivalence. Because nobody is 100% clear on what change they want. We have a large amount of ambivalence, especially when we are unregulated. We don't know what we want.

And I operate in the Internal Family Systems modality, which is a really good, non-judgmental, respectful, non-pathologizing framework. Because we're not looking for a diagnosis. I don't diagnose, by the way. As a registered hypnotherapist, I don't diagnose. I deal with the different parts of your mind and bring them all back together.

Next video: why founders have such a hard time with therapy

So stick around for my next video, because in the next video I'm going to talk about a really important topic. I'm going to talk about why therapy may not be effective, or in some cases is not effective, for founders.

Again, a twist: therapy is very helpful. Founders, business owners should go to therapy. In my opinion, it's a must-have. But if you've been in therapy and you're like, you know what, it doesn't work, we're going to talk about why founders have such a hard time with therapy and therapists.

Stick around, and I will see you in the next video. Bye, y'all.

This first went out as a letter on my Substack on September 28, 2026. If you would rather get these by email, subscribe there.