Stop losing yourself.

Return to your power, no matter what happens to you.

A comment. A silence. A setback. An urge. It feels as if the moment is making you react. It isn’t. What happens sets things off, but your thinking patterns and what your body goes through decide whether you react or respond.

Many people already know this. Knowing it rarely helps when the moment arrives. Changing those patterns while it’s happening is the part no one hands you.

I’m David Zulberg, a coach and author, born in South Africa and now based in New York. Drawing on established psychology, coaching, and philosophy, I give you practical tools to come back to yourself while the moment is still happening.

Book a 15-minute call How I work

Author of Stop Losing Yourself, written over years and four full rewrites, and built on research in cognitive psychology and behavioral science, from Albert Ellis and Daniel Kahneman to the Stoics and Maimonides.

MA, Columbia University
Harvard University, Leadership Coaching
Brown University, ACT Leadership Coaching
ACE Health Coach
Bestselling author, The Life-Transforming Diet (Feldheim Publishers)

Do you want real confidence, the kind that doesn’t depend on how it goes?
Do you want to finally let go, instead of just telling yourself to?
Do you want to stop replaying the conversation, the mistake, the message, long after it’s over?
Do you want to be close to people without losing yourself in them?
Do you want to go after what matters to you without fear making the decision for you?

These may sound like the usual promises. They aren’t goals to chase. They’re results, and they all come from the same place.

You can’t tell yourself to be confident or order yourself to let go. You can’t force your mind to stop replaying, make yourself stay yourself with the people you love, or argue away the fear of failing. It doesn’t work, and trying usually makes it worse. But when the pattern underneath changes, all five show up on their own: confidence, letting go, a quieter mind, closeness that doesn’t cost you yourself, and the freedom to go after what matters. You don’t have to perform them or act your way into them. I’ll show you the steps, one moment at a time.

Book a 15-minute call

The moments

You have done this.

You sent the message, and the reply did not come. You checked your phone. Then checked it again.

The board meeting went well. At midnight you are still rewriting your answer to the one hard question.

You know the hire was wrong. Saying so means you were wrong, so another quarter goes by.

You promised yourself not tonight. At eleven you are standing at the open fridge, already negotiating.

You got the promotion and were bracing for the next test before the congratulations finished.

Your child is unhappy, and you cannot be okay until they are.

Different people. Different problems. So we treat them as different problems. We analyze the relationship, research the symptom, replay the conversation, argue with the past.

The topic was real. It was almost never the core problem. Underneath, it was the same pattern every time.

Try it now

Try this before you read another line.

1
Think of the thing bothering you most right now. A person. An outcome. Something from the past. A feeling you cannot shake. Hold it for a moment.
2
Your mind will go to the topic. What happened. Why they did it. How to fix it. How to make the feeling stop.
3
Ask a different question instead.

What am I telling myself about this?

Notice the difference. For a moment, your attention moved off the topic and onto what is happening inside you: the story you are telling, and how your body is carrying it. That shift changes everything. The topic is often outside your control. What happens inside you is where change begins.

Most of the time, we never make that shift. That is what losing yourself looks like. It rarely feels dramatic. Usually it feels like caring. You check again because you care. You keep explaining because you care. From the outside, you look fine. From the inside, an ordinary day has become a negotiation with your own mind.

And the better you get at solving the topic, the easier it is to miss the pattern. Solve one, and it moves to the next. New person. New job. New worry. Same place.

Bring what you noticed to a 15-minute call

The method

How the change happens

CRI5, Compassionate Rational Inquiry, brings established psychology, coaching, and philosophy together into a short, practical process you can use while the moment is still happening. Once you know it, it takes a few minutes.

Underneath is a simple map of three Circles. Only one of them is yours to author. Most of what wears us down comes from trying to live in the other two.

1
Find the moment.
We start where you keep losing yourself: the conversation, the decision, the habit, the replay at 2 a.m.
2
See the pattern.
We trace what happens inside you in that moment, in your thinking and in your body, until you can catch it while it is happening.
3
Practice the return.
You use the tools in real situations between sessions, until coming back to yourself is something you do in the moment, not something you think of later.

Confidence, letting go, steadier decisions: these follow as the pattern changes. You don’t have to force them.

How CRI5 works, and its sources →

In their words

What clients and readers say

I initially approached executive coaching with David with a fair degree of skepticism… I have come to realize that many of my preconceived ideas about leadership and myself needed to be challenged.

Rob · CEO, Peregrine Holdings (Pty) Ltd · 25 years in financial services

“His work is a welcome source of guidance for both the professional and the layperson.”

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski, MD · Founder, Gateway Rehabilitation Center

“I have seen a major change in my general mood and emotional reactions.”

Sarah · United States

Who I work with

Different doors. The same pattern underneath.

The breakup you cannot stop replaying.Months later you are still arguing with them in your head. The loop, not the love, is what will not end.

The weight that keeps returning.You know what to eat. The block that undoes it was never about food.

The habit you quit every Monday.The habit is not the problem. What it is doing for you is, and willpower was never going to outrun it.

The decision that will not close.You have the facts. You have had them for months. What you do not have is permission to be wrong.

The block in your business.The client you cannot let go of, the hire you keep deferring, the calm you perform in every meeting.

The approval you keep checking for.Reading someone else’s mood to find out how you are doing, and handing them the answer.

One-on-one, for leaders, for teams, and for coaches. Format and fee are set on a 15-minute call.

How coaching works →

Stop losing yourself.

You have done this.

Try this before you read another line.

How the change happens

Find the moment.

See the pattern.

Practice the return.

What clients and readers say

Different doors. The same pattern underneath.

Stop Losing Yourself