What Your Language Is Doing Without You
Why the vocabulary you reach for automatically, below awareness, is shaping a self-concept you never chose. A clinical look at language, identity, and the cost of imprecision.
You Don’t Burn Out From Doing Too Much
You Don’t Burn Out From Doing Too Much In 2021, the tennis world called Naomi Osaka a diva. She was the highest-paid female athlete on the planet, four Grand Slam titles, and she refused to sit in front of a…
When Earth Fits in a Window, the World Goes Silent
A client came back from space a few years ago. Not a figure of speech. Blue Origin. A few minutes past the Kármán line, the altitude where atmosphere ends and space begins. When we met afterward, I was prepared for…
Confidence Is a Weak Mental Skill
What elite athletes get wrong about mental performance — and what to build instead By Sharon Chirban, PhD | Clinical Psychologist & Sport Performance Coach There is a moment, before any important performance, when the thinking becomes the problem. You’ve…
The Last Ten Percent
Most of us have a last ten percent—the habit we almost broke, the pattern we nearly changed, the version of ourselves we got close to but never fully reached. We’ve done real work. We are, by any honest measure, mostly…
They Knew. They Stayed. Here’s Why. | The Psychology of Looking Away
I think of it as a volume problem. I sit with people who are navigating the quiet tension — the layer of pressure, drive, doubt, or longing that hums beneath the surface of a high-performing life. Usually, it’s quiet. It…
“Data Is Not Steroids”: What WHOOP’s Response Reveals About the Performance Culture We’ve Built
Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of WHOOP, had a week. When the Australian Open instructed Carlos Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka, and Jannik Sinner to remove their WHOOP bands during matches, Ahmed did not issue a quiet corporate statement and move…
When Winning Feels Like Losing: The Hidden Psychology of Performance Blocks
When Mikaela Shiffrin crossed the finish line in Milano Cortina last week and dropped to her knees in the snow, most people saw a champion reclaiming her place at the top. What she said in the press conference afterward was…
The Penguin Cliff and Your Bratty Teenager
I recently watched a National Geographic video - first time ever recorded - of 700 emperor penguin chicks in Antarctica making their inaugural trek to the water. Climate change has made the journey harder. What used to be a 1-2…
How High-Performing Parents Can Create a Healthy Home
Balancing a high-pressure career with our personal well-being is challenging enough—and for parents, there’s an added complication: teaching our children about good mental health, too. High-performing parents who struggle with anxiety, depression, an eating disorder, or another mental health challenge…