Stop losing yourself.

I spent more than ten years coaching people on the one thing they most wanted to change: first their weight, then their work, their relationships, and their decisions. The same thing kept happening. Someone would understand exactly what to do, and then the moment would arrive and the understanding would be out of reach.

That gap is where CRI5 came from: five questions you can use while the moment is still happening, not an hour later. It took me ten years and four full rewrites to make it simple without making it simplistic. It became a method I coach, a workshop I teach, and a book, Stop Losing Yourself, which is on its way.

Book a 15-minute call How I work

Brown University, ACT Leadership Coaching
Harvard Leadership Coaching
MA, Columbia University
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 the fear of failing making the decision?

Every one of these comes from the same place. None of them can be chased. Chase them and they become one more thing you need. They come on their own when you stop losing yourself.

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 almost never the whole problem.

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 has to happen before I can be okay?

They must understand.This has to work out.I have to know what comes next.This feeling should stop.That should never have happened.

Notice the difference. Somewhere along the way, something you wanted became something you needed. The wanting was fine. The moment it became a need, your okayness moved into something you cannot control: a reply, a person, a past, a feeling that keeps its own schedule.

That is what I mean by losing yourself. 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 your answer to a 15-minute call

The method

What CRI5 is

Five questions, asked in order. Once you know them, they take a few minutes, and they work while the moment is still happening.

Underneath the questions is a simple map. Everything in your life falls into one of three Circles, and only one of them is yours to author.

How CRI5 works →

Who this is for

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. Your okayness, parked in a Circle that was never yours.

The parent who cannot be okay until the child is.You would carry it for them if you could. So you carry it anyway, and it helps neither of you.

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