Chief Psycho, San Diego, CA (2025)

08/11/2025

A couple weeks ago, I shared my red flags—the uncalibrated strengths that can do damage when I’m not self-aware. 🚩

But every red flag has a flip side. When I’m dialed in, those same traits become my green flags—the ones that make me a leader people trust, follow, and actually want to work with

💚 My speed turns into momentum that moves big visions forward.
💚 My blunt honesty becomes clarity that builds trust.
💚 My emotional depth becomes the space for real connection and breakthroughs.
💚 My resilience turns into shared strength that lifts the whole team.

Green flags aren’t perfection; they’re what happens when self-awareness meets intention, and they’re just as important to name as the red flags.

Which of your green flags have you been sleeping on? Drop them below so we can celebrate them.

08/06/2025

Your Boss Doesn’t Remember Half of What You Did 🧠

Did you know a manager’s memory accuracy drops to 23% after just 6 months?

Here’s what that means for your career:
📉 That Q3 project you crushed? Forgotten.
💸 That raise you earned? Overshadowed by last week’s minor mistake.
🚫 That leadership potential? Lost in a fog of recency bias and stress.

And here’s the double-bind: high stress doesn’t just impact your focus—it also messes with your boss’s memory of your performance.

So no, you’re not imagining it. The system really is stacked.
The fix?
✅ Document your wins
✅ Create visibility
✅ Build proof of your impact

Because your career isn’t judged by your performance—it’s judged by what they remember.
And memory? That’s psychology.

07/30/2025

Did you know that micromanagement triggers the same neural pathways as physical threats?

When someone constantly questions your decisions and monitors your every move, your autonomic nervous system can’t distinguish between that and actual danger.

Workplace stress has been reported to cause 120,000 deaths in the US each year, and micromanagement is a leading contributor.

The physiological result:
🔺 Elevated cortisol levels
🔺 Impaired cognitive function
🔺 Decreased creativity and problem-solving
🔺 Chronic activation of the fight-or-flight response

Your team’s poor performance under micromanagement isn’t about attitude. It’s about biology.

When you micromanage, you’re literally triggering a threat response that makes everyone perform worse.

07/28/2025

The psychology of change resistance isn’t about laziness—it’s about survival.

When you challenge organizational norms, you’re activating people’s threat detection
systems. The amygdala doesn’t care if your disruption is logical; it only cares about maintaining predictability. ⚠️

Research from organizational psychology shows:
🔹 70% of change initiatives fail due to resistance
🔹 Humans process change as loss, not opportunity (loss aversion bias)
🔹 Social conformity pressure increases cortisol by 35%

Smart disruptors understand this isn’t a logic problem—it’s a limbic system problem.
Sometimes you shake the table. Sometimes you sit beside people and help them see what’s possible.

The difference between revolution and evolution? Psychological safety. 🔐

07/27/2025

People love to talk about red flags like they only show up in relationships.

But what about the ones hiding in your leadership style? Your coping mechanisms? Your “I’m fine” energy?

Well, here are mine.

Unfiltered, unapologetic, and yeah, still evolving. Red flags aren’t just flaws, they’re usually strengths turned all the way up with no regulation.

And when you don’t check them? You start bleeding on the people you lead.

Swipe through—then ask yourself:
💭 Which ones are you carrying?
💭 Are they driving you… or derailing you?

07/24/2025

Your annual performance review is based on your manager’s faulty memory and unconscious bias, not your actual performance.

Cognitive science reveals that managers accurately remember only 23% of what employees did six months ago. The rest? Their brain fills gaps with:
🔸 Recent events (recency bias)
🔸 Personal prejudices (confirmation bias)
🔸 Whatever mood they were in during your last interaction (halo effect)

Meanwhile, neuroscience research shows immediate, specific feedback improves performance 3x more effectively than these annual guessing games.

You’re not being evaluated on merit. You’re being judged on cognitive shortcuts.
The fix? Real-time feedback loops that work with human psychology, not against it.

07/23/2025

According to Harvard research, teams under narcissistic leadership experience:
📉 52% drop in creative problem-solving
📉 34% higher turnover of top performers
📉 67% decline in psychological safety

Let that sink in.

Now here’s the twist: Over 53% of managers report feeling burned out, but instead of becoming more self-aware, they begin to control.

That’s how The Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) quietly infects your culture.

This isn’t just a personality problem, it’s an operational crisis and if you don’t know how to spot it, you’ll either hire it, promote it, or become it.

That’s exactly why we launched ZIAversity with ! In our next cohort, we’re teaching leaders how to build cultures that are anti-fragile, psychologically safe, and self-aware as hell.

Enrollment is open. Your team deserves better leadership. Start with you, so check it out!

07/14/2025

Let’s kill the myth: Work-life balance doesn’t exist.

t’s a polished lie high performers keep chasing until they burn out—and then wonder why.
Your brain doesn’t run on balance.
It runs on energy cycles.

And most of you are sprinting without ever hitting recovery.
The truth?
🧠 You can’t scale your business if you can’t regulate your nervous system.
🔥 You’re not supposed to be “on” all the time.
⚡ Top leaders manage energy, not hours.

I’m not the only one calling BS on balance. Other bold, brilliant leaders are talking about it on the —raw, unfiltered, and all too real.

🎙️ Tune in to hear how they’re trading burnout for sustainability—and how you can too.

07/09/2025

I don’t run at 5 am.
I don’t need to suffer to prove I’m serious.
But I do move my body—because I know what it does to my mind.

This isn’t about motivation or discipline, it’s about neuroscience.

Studies show aerobic movement improves executive function—AKA:
🧠 Decision-making
🧠 Focus
🧠 Emotional regulation
🧠 Strategic thinking

The leaders who move their bodies aren’t chasing aesthetics—they’re rewiring their prefrontal cortex (the CEO of your brain).

You want to lead better?
Regulate your nervous system.
Move your damn body.

06/24/2025

Corporate speak to human translator 💬

Corporate: “Let’s circle back on that”
Human: “I forgot and won’t admit it”

Corporate: “We’re all in this together”
Human: “You’re taking the fall when this fails”

Corporate: “Opportunity for growth”
Human: “More work, same pay”

The truth no one admits:
This linguistic dance isn’t professionalism—it’s institutionalized cowardice.

Every time you:
✔ Sugarcoat bad news
✔ Weaponize fake niceness
✔ Hide behind buzzwords..you withdraw trust from the corporate bank. Eventually, it bounces.

Try this radical alternative:
🔸 “This will suck, here’s why”
🔸 “I messed up”
🔸 “No, and here’s the data”

Tag someone who needs this decoder ring.

Chief Psycho

08/11/2025

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