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minds of practitioners. He even scanned the brain of an avowed athe-
ist, who was asked to attempt to pray to God, and concluded that when
a person is asked to adopt beliefs contrary to his own, the brain often
applies the brakes, so to speak. “If the pieces don’t fit well together, a
neurological dissonance is created that sends an alarm to other
processes in the brain.”7

With each passing day, Lynn Ivey found more reasons to believe.
In November 2006, a month after her mother passed away from com-
plications related to her dementia, she received an e-mail from a
woman who had read about The Ivey in a local magazine. “You do not
know how much I have prayed for someone like you,” the woman
wrote, going on to share that her husband was declining due to a re-
cent, massive stroke, and she was entering her own battle with breast
cancer. “Please tell me that you will be open soon and that there is
some availability. Could you send me some information? Lynn, you
are a GOD SEND! I had always thought a higher-class daycare would
be a great thing to do. If you need any help at all, I would love to help
out, but first I need you to OPEN!”

YOUR FEEL-GOOD GANG

The entrepreneur’s path can be crushingly lonely. New founders
must find and haul their own motivational fuel, building their store
of inner resources. At the same time, nearly all successful entrepre-
neurs find support and encouragement from their social network of
friends, family, colleagues, and advisers. One of our earliest instincts
during the incubation phase is to share our idea with trusted friends
and colleagues, people who can act as sounding boards and who
might caution us about unseen obstacles or problems. Mostly, we
hope they will reinforce our idea, confirm the rightness of our path,
and cheer us onward.

On this last hope, the news is all good. Studies investigating the
impact of social networks on the formation of new ventures suggest
that when a founder seeks support and advice for a new venture, he
or she taps a small number of well-known, trusted, and like-minded
individuals.8 And social psychological research has confirmed again

American Management Association • www.amanet.org