Curiosity is the engine.Writing
At my very core, I am a lifelong student. Always curious and always asking why. Some questions won't leave me alone. So I go read the evidence and write down what I find. I want to share what I learn! All of it is Curiosities: the same questions, here in writing — and soon out loud, on the podcast, and in the letter that brings you the next one. Curiosity is the engine of my life.
Latest · Nº 009 ·
You do not control the storm; you build for weather. The real test of a culture is what is still standing after the person who built it leaves.
Read it →All the writing
You do not control the storm; you build for weather. The real test of a culture is what is still standing after the person who built it leaves.
The Culture Playbook · Part 6 of 6
Read the essay →A nineteen-year-old holds up the jersey, and six weeks later he is alone in a city where he knows nobody. High performance runs on people it can also use up.
The Culture Playbook · Part 5 of 6
Read the essay →Pressure does not stop at the players. It reaches the person calling the timeout, and what survives is the decision you made in advance about how you would decide.
The Culture Playbook · Part 4 of 6
Read the essay →An open door changes nothing in a room that has already learned to stay silent. Repairing a culture means treating the soil, not replacing the person standing in it.
The Culture Playbook · Part 3 of 6
Read the essay →The player who saw the answer coming said nothing, and the arithmetic that kept her quiet was correct. Safety is not comfort; it is what makes a hard standard survivable.
The Culture Playbook · Part 2 of 6
Read the essay →Everyone credits culture and almost nobody can define it. It is not the feeling in the room — it is the rules nobody wrote down, running whether or not you designed them.
The Culture Playbook · Part 1 of 6
Read the essay →You can see the kitchen. You know what the light was like. And the person who was standing next to you remembers it differently — here is why you can both be honest.
Read the article →Inattention is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Anxiety, sleep, depression, trauma and ADHD can all produce it — and more than one can be true at once.
Read the article →You can hyperfocus for hours and lose a spreadsheet in four minutes. That contradiction makes no sense if attention is one dial — so it isn't one.
Read the article →Four practical tools for creating space between a big feeling and the thing you do next—human-grenade metaphors included.
Read the essay →A personal essay on how childhood can teach us to fear certain feelings—and what it takes to welcome them back.
Read the essay →How Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help people living with chronic illness make room for what is difficult and keep moving toward what matters.
Read the essay →Dreading February 14th? Surviving Valentine's Day after divorce is tough. A divorced psychiatrist shares her personal story and actionable tips to help you navigate the day.
Read the essay →A personal essay on radical self-love, resilience, and why treating yourself as someone worth caring for changes everything.
Read the essay →A personal framework for noticing the emotional patterns you learned early—and choosing which ones no longer deserve to run the system.
Read the essay →Fourteen emotional archetypes for recognizing the old protective patterns that may still be running your life.
Read the essay →A practical way to notice the old emotional patterns shaping how you respond, connect, and make decisions.
Read the essay →A direct, practical essay on saying no, setting boundaries, and taking your life back from the need for approval.
Read the essay →A psychiatrist’s seven-step playbook for family gatherings: lower the fantasy, set boundaries, use TIPP skills, and protect your peace.
Read the essay →How to listen, encourage appropriate support, offer practical help, and stay present when someone you love is struggling.
Read the essay →A blunt case for treating employee mental health as core business infrastructure—not a wellbeing side project.
Read the essay →After being mistaken for a secretary in the doctor’s lounge, a psychiatrist looks at the hierarchy, cliques, and ordinary acts that shape hospital culture.
Read the essay →Discover how facing our fear can transform your life. Learn to tame fear, turning it into a powerful ally. Facing our fear is key to growth!
Read the essay →A psychiatrist’s personal case for boundaries: why she recommends them so often, and a three-step way to begin setting them.
Read the essay →After being introduced as \"the lady in the red top\" instead of \"Doctor,\" a female physician explores the subtle sexism, microaggressions, and implicit biases that women face in medicine every day.
Read the essay →
By topic
Most questions start in one of these. Some belong to none — curiosity doesn't check the map first.
Adult ADHD
A score can't tell you why starting is hard. I look at what a real assessment actually weighs—and what smart design can quietly remove.
Tools for this topic
Mental health and ACT
ACT, the way I actually use it: feelings get room, values get the wheel, and nobody is told to smile through what hurts.
AI in mental health
I build clinical AI and I'm a psychiatrist, so I hold both sides of this: software can organize evidence. Judgment—and responsibility—stay human.
Tools for this topic
High-performance athletes
High standards and a whole human being are not opposites. The interesting work is keeping performance support honest without shrinking the person delivering it.
Tools for this topic
High-performance organizations · the Routledge book
Whether bad news can move early enough to matter—and how leaders keep candour and standards in the same room.
Tools for this topic
Elsewhere
Guest conversations and interviews — their questions, my answers.