Coach Vijay

Thriving in a Chaotic World: Self-Awareness Advantage Part I

Vijay Kannan (Coach Vijay)

Leadership at Google, Ex-Cisco, PwC, Yahoo, Leadership Coach

Understand the neuroscience behind the anxiety that have been feeling lately

HOW THE BRAIN PROCESSES CHAOS and CHANGE

These 6 Key signals give you valuable information to understand the deal with the situation at hand

The 6 KEY SAFETY SIGNALS THE BRAIN IS SCANNING FOR

Swap confusion and hesitation for clarity. Tap into your internal compass to navigate ambiguous, complex situations

Make Decisions with Clarity

Manage stress and emotional overwhelm and stay out of burnout

Manage Your Energy Level And Avoid Burnout

In this course, we'll explore how to draw from the strengths that frequently come with having a brain that's wired a bit differently -- like creativity, curiosity, hyperfocus, and empathy -- to tackle some common frustrations -- like procrastination, inconsistent motivation, distractibility, and feeling incompetent. To do this, we'll learn about the science of how our minds work, share and learn from each other's lived experiences, and support each other in conducting mini "experiments" to figure out the exact right strategies that work for each of us. In other words, each participant will learn about a broader menu of strategies -- but get support identifying exactly which ones work for your unique brain and current needs. There is no one path that works for every spicy brain; this cohort gives accountability and structure to the path of figuring out the right tools for you.

Understand how to leverage your brain's unique strengths

Course syllabus

We once a week for a 90 minute highly interactive session where we share how it's going with applying the lessons learned from the previous session, explore practical implications of research on a new topic, and then build a new "experiment" to try for the upcoming week.

Weekly workshops 

Depending on the experiment you design for yourself during the workshop, you'll spend a bit of time outside of our sessions each week applying your chosen strategy and seeing how and whether it works for your brain and professional context.

Weekly experiments

For anyone who has run into questions or obstacles as they work on their weekly experiment, or who just wants a supportive space for "body-doubling" (we'll explain that in the course, but also you can look it up in advance), there is a weekly open hour for support.

Optional: Weekly Q&A

Course schedule

Professionals and leaders who suspect their brain may work a bit differently, and want to learn the unique strategies that work for them.

Adults who have recently realized they are ADHD or autistic, or have anxiety or sensory processing differences, and want to learn together

Anyone who feels like procrastination, distractibility, inconsistent motivation, and feelings of incompetence get in their way at work.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Our brains are actually trying to protect us from threats when we procrastinate. If we change the way we understand and approach the task we're putting off, procrastination decreases (or sometimes just disappears)

Understand why procrastination is a threat response, and practice what strategies will allow you to manage it

Distractibility is real, especially in today's attention economy, and especially if your brain is spicy in certain ways. Lecturing yourself to focus doesn't work. Understanding the science behind our attention lets us develop strategies that work for us.

Create a custom plan for how to own your attention and minimize distractibility

If we skip over our internal narratives to just tackle a barrage of strategies, those strategies inevitably fail. But if we revise our stories about ourselves, we make it possible to learn and be equipped for the next challenge or opportunity that comes our way.

Rewrite your story about your neurospicy brain from being deficit-based ("ugh, I feel like a failure") to asset-based ("I've got this")

It's common for neurospicy folks to experience big fluctuations in their levels of motivation. By understanding a bit of the science behind why our brains can feel energized one day and disinterested the next, we can create supports to even out those highs and lows.

Use motivation science to identify new strategies that will help you avoid the highs and lows of supercharged interest to total apathy

When you feel incompetent and uncertain how your brain works, it can make decision-making hard. By understanding the common pitfalls our mind can fall in when considering decisions, and strategies to dodge them, we can lean into our strengths to make more confident decisions.

Apply new frameworks to help you leverage your creativity and curiosity to make decisions you feel confident in

You can find all the research about neurospicy strategies online that you could ever dream of. But a cohort gives you a unique opportunity to share the wins you want with a group who gets you and can offer supportive accountability to help you make progress.

Identify a win you want to reach during the cohort, and leverage course content + the power of group support to get there

Make it easier to get work done by identifying your neurospicy strengths & building new strategies for supporting your challenge areas

June 2025

Becca Block, PhD

Cohort 1

Sept-Oct 2025

Once upon a time, not a thing in the world terrified me the way that public speaking did. And so my journey began: one stumbling speaking engagement after another, I kept going — shaking, anxious, and oddly relentless. Every repetition was… a battle. Until one day, something clicked into place. It wasn't just easier—it was exhilarating. And most shocking of all, I loved it. Years later, I published a book and keynoted at Harvard. A random stroke of luck, perhaps a fortunate happening after all the hustle, and most certainly a fluke—or so I thought. Another random occurrence. This time, I found myself speaking at the World Economic Forum. Slowly, it started to dawn on me that perhaps this wasn't just a series of happy accidents — that "luck" was happening far too often for that to be the culprit. I discovered a rhythm beneath the surface, almost a familiar feeling that would kick in — just as the impossible began to feel inevitable. And I could see what felt like a miracle unravel before my very own eyes. More than anything, I realized there was a pattern. And that it was repeatable. What happened from there is something I could only have described as a downright unraveling of how I believed the world worked.&nbsp; And here’s what’s seldom spoken aloud: you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve experienced this too.&nbsp; You’ve felt it — in those rare, electric moments when time melted away.&nbsp; When every move felt effortless.&nbsp;When it seemed as if the next step unfolded before you, almost without thinking.&nbsp; When the idea landed fully formed. This isn’t about running after another milestone, hoping it will finally be enough. It's about becoming the person who can hold more — powerfully, creatively, and on your own terms. The real power is tapping into your authenticity and returning home to the rhythm that lives inside of you, ready to be unleashed.&nbsp; It's a remembering, not a reinvention. We often treat creativity and high performance like mysteries - sparks that flash and disappear before we can catch them. But the truth is simpler. Flow isn’t luck—it’s rhythmic.&nbsp;Creativity isn’t chaotic—it’s a craft.&nbsp;And genius doesn’t emerge fully formed—it’s raw, unshaped. It’s something you refine into a living masterpiece. Tesla spoke of entire inventions appearing before him - fully formed, in intricate, perfect detail. And he didn't just stumble into flashes of genius. He trained the conditions under which genius could emerge. He crafted a mental environment so precise that visions would arrive—full, detailed, inevitable—before he touched a tool. Leonardo Da Vinci lived between two realities — the world as it was, and the world as it could be. Michelangelo believed his sculptures already existed inside the stone — his work was simply to reveal what was already there. This is where your real work begins. Because more than anything, Built To Change The World is a recognition.&nbsp; It’s the acknowledgement you’ve been craving, for the version of you hidden just beneath the surface.&nbsp; This is the place where that shift happens. Not with more noise. Not with more strategy. But with a system that anchors your genius into something that moves, breathes, and builds impact at scale. Most programs teach you how to achieve more, do more.&nbsp; This one creates the space for you to learn how to hold the full weight of who you already are — and everything you came here to do. You've brushed against your own genius — just enough to know it's real. Now it's time to build the system that lets you stay there — and create from it at the highest level. You'll master the tools and frameworks that history's greatest minds used to turn vision into reality — from visualization and mental models to science-based physiological tools to make high-performance flow states accessible on demand.&nbsp; You'll learn to move with power, presence, and influence — and unlock the mindsets that transform capital and entrepreneurship into forces for changing the world. Everything around you was once just an idea — no more real than the ones you're holding now. It all started as something unseen — a spark, a whisper, a knowing. A thought brought to life.&nbsp; When you master your own creative rhythm, you don't just follow the future — you create it. “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark” - Michelangelo This is YOU, coming home to a version of yourself the world hasn't seen yet. Some moments quietly change everything. This is one of them. Moments like this don’t wait forever. Trust the part of you that already knows it's time. The only question is — will you take that step forward?

This is quantum growth — structured, accelerated, and real.

This is where the core frameworks and teachings are delivered. Each session is immersive, practical, and designed to help you access and apply deeper levels of your genius in real time.

Tuesdays: Hands-On Masterclass

A low-pressure space to integrate the week’s insights through dialogue, reflection, and grounding. Come as you are—this is where the work settles, expands, and becomes yours.

Thursdays: Reflection Labs (Optional)

9:30 AM - 11:00 PM San Francisco12:30 PM - 2:00 PM New York5:30 PM - 7:00 PM London9:30 PM - 11:00 Dubai All sessions will be recorded!

Across Time Zones

Course Schedule

Visionary leaders seeking to cultivate transformative self-awareness and create at the highest level.

The intellectually curious investor, entrepreneur, or leader cultivating their innate genius to craft a legacy of impact.

Changemakers ready to transform sporadic moments of inspiration into sustainable systems for flow state

What you get out of this course

4 PILLARS OF TRANSFORMATION: PERCEPTION SHIFT, IDENTITY UPGRADE, CREATIVE ENGINE, AND EXECUTION POWER

Learn to reverse-engineer how breakthroughs actually happen — not as flashes of luck, but as patterns, systems, and compounding momentum. You’ll study history’s greatest minds, decision-making models, creative problem solving, and frameworks that power nonlinear transformation.

WEEK 1) Perception Shift: The Genius Mental Model Framework

Most people grow in predictable, incremental ways—but genius follows a different path. You’ll train yourself to leverage nonlinear thinking to unlock exponential results.

WEEK 2) Perception Shift: Linear vs Exponential Growth

Upgrade your identity to match the future you're building. Learn to embody power, expand your capacity, and move with the kind of clarity that makes the world reorganize around you.

WEEK 3) Identity Upgrade: Recalibrate Your Sense of Self

Stop waiting for inspiration to strike. Learn how to&nbsp;trigger high-performance on demand&nbsp;using a neuroscience-backed physiological toolkit.

WEEK 4) Creative Engine: Engineering Flow States On Demand

Ideas don't change the world —&nbsp; execution does. Learn the systems that turn bold vision into momentum, scale early wins into real results, and unlock abundance mindsets that reframe entrepreneurship and capital as creative forces for good.

WEEK 5) Execution Power: A Playbook For Turning Ideas Into Impact

Power isn't volume —&nbsp;it's precision. Master how to communicate like a visionary, build strategic alliances, and move through rooms with the kind of presence that pulls opportunities towards you.

WEEK 6) Execution Power: Navigating Power, Presence, and Influence

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥BONUSES🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

→ A quick-reference guide with physiological, psychological, and environmental triggers for inducing flow on demand. Includes breathwork, visualization, dopamine detoxing, and movement protocols.

✅ 🌊 The Flow State Activation Toolkit

→ A one-page reference sheet of the most powerful mental models used by Einstein, Da Vinci, Tesla, and other greats—distilled into actionable insights students can apply to problem-solving and innovation.

✅ 🧠 The Mental Model Vault

→ A concise, high-impact reset routine that students can use whenever they feel stuck, creatively blocked, or out of flow—designed to quickly shift them back into high-performance mode.

✅ ⚡ The 3-Minute Genius Reset Guide

Genius isn't a gift — it's a rhythm you train. This is quantum growth — structured, accelerated, and real.

May 2025

Aroojina Sheikh

February 2025

Fall 2025

Again and again, we learn that the expectations and 'shoulds' we live by often rob us of our agency and joy. We feel and perform better when we pause instead to greet reality just as it is—and listen. In that listening, we don’t find easy answers but rather deep understanding: a moral grounding that guides tough decisions and a reliable sense of direction when the world feels upside down. This course brings together the lessons of the five preceding fluencies. Through this series, we’ve been cultivating the ability to see and adapt to change (Reinvention); allowing purpose to guide us (Purpose); using the forces of change to inspire humility and possibility (Foresight); actively engaging in future-building (Innovation); and connecting with others to foster true growth and evolution (Belonging). Now, we are prepared to step into the humility, discernment, and ethical core that define wisdom. Wisdom is not only the work of our lifetime; it is its purpose. This is the last of six fluencies in the Lead Like a Futurist program:Leading Self: Reinvention and Purpose (TBD – join the waitlist at leadlikeafuturist.com)Leading Strategy: Foresight and Innovation (Spring 2025)Leading Culture: Belonging and Wisdom (Fall 2025)Learn more at leadlikeafuturist.com.___________________________________DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE!Register for two or more fluencies within a 24-hour period and save big. Indicate your interest on the application to receive your discount code: - Two Fluencies: $100 off each course- Three Fluencies: $125 off each course- Four Fluencies: $150 off each course That's 4 for the price of 3! BONUS: Registering for two or more fluencies grants you access to continued Workroom coaching sessions between courses. This high-value opportunity is exclusively available to those who make this commitment. CERTIFICATION: Students who complete the full Lead Like a Futurist six-fluency leadership program will be awarded a certificate that verifies their achievement and training. This certificate is suitable for framing, adding to your resume, and showcasing on your LinkedIn profile to highlight your leadership development.

Finding clarity and equanimity in an upside down world.

<ul><li>Prework Videos and Readings:&nbsp;Access anytime!</li><li>Recorded Live Sessions:&nbsp;Can’t make it live? Catch up with session recordings.</li><li>Workroom Time on Fridays:&nbsp;A time to dive deeper into the material.</li><li>1:1 Support Calls:&nbsp;Personalized guidance to keep you aligned and moving forward.</li></ul>

If your schedule blows up, we've got you

There are five 90-min live sessions that occur on Wednesdays at 9am CST. This time is suited to a variety of timezones, making it friendly to students across the Americas and Europe.These are the people you've been waiting to meet: thoughtful and passionate—just like you!

A 5-part series

<ul><li>The Prework will generally be 30 minutes of time or less.</li><li>Expect Homework to take 30-60 minutes each week.</li></ul>Additionally, we offer two Workrooms (Optional) for group coaching and project work on Fridays, 9am and 3pm

Prework and Homework

Let the lessons take root with real-life coaching between course, where you'll tackle pressures, politics, and decisions in a supportive community.Available for those registered in 2+ fluencies in 2025.

The Workroom Continues

This course is built for busy professionals

You sense there's a kind of leadership training that will take you to the next level in a way that traditional development doesn't touch.

You want to be a leader who can meet the needs of this next era, equipped to "dance with change as it emerges."

You understand that to be an evolved and effective leader, you have to be an evolved and effective human.

Who this course is for:

Become the Calm in the Center of the Storm

<ul><li>Create ease by aligning perception and action with the natural flow of change.</li><li>Celebrate lightness as the 'fake news' of our belief-driven minds begins to lose its grip.</li></ul>

Awaken to a Simple View of Life on Life’s Terms

<ul><li>Laugh at the paradox that we will never know it all, yet are always right.</li><li>Relax into awe, discovering wonder in any and every moment.</li></ul>

Experience the Softening and Expanding Effects of Humility

<ul><li>Learn to separate facts from feelings, truth from triggers, and reality from fiction.</li><li>Approach study as a vital tool for digging deep into discernment and uncovering wisdom.</li></ul>

Exchange Judgment for Discernment

<ul><li>Accept loss as an inherent part of every decision, meeting it with compassion and grace.</li><li>Master decision-making frameworks and collaborative problem-solving techniques to confidently navigate life’s toughest choices as a leader.</li></ul>

Discover What’s Right to Do When There Are No Right Answers

Today we are drowning in intelligence, yet face a drought of wisdom. This course helps you tap into this most vital, underutilized resource.

Cecily Sommers 

One of the World's Top 50 Female Futurists

Chris Everett

Experience Designer, Facilitator, Coach

Fall Wisdom Cohort 2025

The ChallengeYour days are filled with:🗓️ back-to-back meetings,🚀 sky-high customer or investor expectations,⏱️ wishes that your team could move faster sooner,🔥 wishes that you could move even faster and work on what really matters instead of fighting fires. You start each day with the best intentions, but somehow find yourself constantly reacting instead of leading.&nbsp;Sure, it would be nice to focus on your own goals, but you care about those other people (or at least some of them 😁). They’re colleagues and customers, family and friends... How can you collaborate with them responsively without forsaking your goals and becoming just a (re-)Actor in their story? 🎬 ✨ You wonder if AI can help, you wonder how other leaders are using AI to manage it all and manage their teams--but honestly, who's got the time to figure that out? ⏳ You have a constant, lurking anxiety about what’s falling through the cracks or not getting done, so you work faster. As you try to move faster, people fall short of your expectations and their potential. It causes friction and frustration (even if you hide it well). It's uncomfortable to call out, so you avoid giving feedback or mention it lightly, which makes the situation more uncomfortable. Eventually, you decide to give feedback. Sometimes it goes okay. Often, you try to move through and out of the conversation as quickly as possible because it feels so awkward. Growth and improvements rarely last. You take on more work yourself to get it done. The Solution (Evidence-based. Immediately applicable.)⏱️&nbsp;EVERYTHING YOU READ BELOW WILL BE ORIENTED TO IMMEDIATE APPLICATION DURING THE COURSE ⏱️What if you could shift from reacting to the constant inputs to creating what matters most and leading your team in that direction--everyday? This course will support you, step by step, in building your Operating System to make this shift. Fancy apps aren't enough. Nor are bursts of motivation. A sustainable Operating System has 3 features:🧰 Tools (simple enough to keep using, and amplified by AI)🔁&nbsp;Habits (the tools don't use themselves...except for some of the AI ones we'll build)🧠 Mindsets (you can "productively" spend your life responding to other people's messages and requests--or build something that matters) No, "perfection" isn't possible (or even desirable). But our days--and our results--completely shift when we focus our attention systematically instead of ad-hoc and reactively. And our conversations shift when we stop trying to fix people and start inspiring them to take action and grow. We teach you how to do this by using straightforward approaches that reliably transform defensiveness and friction into self-reflection, connection, and motivation to grow. You will start to look forward to feedback conversations because you will know how to use them as powerful tools for building trust and deepening connection. You will also explore your own mindsets and beliefs around feedback, identifying your own patterns around conflict avoidance, people-pleasing, and controlling behaviors. AI is woven throughout the course, including:1️⃣ building your own Custom GPTs2️⃣&nbsp;mastering your calendar3️⃣ using AI as a practice partner for difficult conversations and coaching skills4️⃣ helping your team use AI, and so much more! Once you've shifted the way you manage yourself and lead your team conversations, applying evidence-based approaches tested with 1000s of managers and amplified with AI, the whole game becomes fun again. Bonus:📝 You will also get 5 step-by-step facilitation guides for sharing and teaching your team members everything we cover in this course. This helps establish shared language and frameworks within your team/organization, and positions you as the leader of change. 📖&nbsp;You'll also get our 20-page Offsite Playbook with step-by-step guidance on how to design and facilitate unforgettable team and company gatherings. 🚀 And you'll get to do this while in a practice lab with other high-growth leaders.

Spend your days fighting fires or each other?

Sundays (+ 1 Thursday)

Weekly Office Hours

High-Growth ManagersReady to move out of IC mode, you want to be the inspiring leader people thank for the rest of their careers.

ExecutivesYou know there's a better way than back-to-back meetings everyday. To scale your impact, you know you must scale yourself first

Startup FoundersYou're expanding your focus from building a product to building a team. And to do so, you need the team to step up fast.

You'll have the Inner and Outer Game in place:<ul><li>A systematic set of habits, tools, and mindsets to define What Matters Most each day and week</li><li>You'll be using your emotions as signals for what needs to happen next</li><li>Your mind will be at ease</li></ul>

Clear Focus & Emotional Balance

Whether you're currently intimidated by AI, curious, or all-in, you will:<ul><li>know exactly how to leverage Claude and ChatGPT to improve your skills and help you prepare for key conversations</li><li>have your own CustomGPT to do a recurring management task FOR you</li></ul>

AI As Your Ally (including your own CustomGPT)

<ul><li>Next Actions template (simplest tool possible to stay organized)</li><li>Weekly Preview Checklist (define what matters most and who should do it)</li><li>Daily Defining Checklist</li></ul>

The Operating System (feel on top of your s***)

<ul><li>Know how to decide WHAT to delegate to increase your leverage</li><li>Know HOW to delegate (to a person or AI) in ways that build confidence and follow-through</li></ul>

The Leverage Framework

<ul><li>GAIN Template for how to structure feedback conversations that inspire response-ability, action, and growth</li><li>how to use AI to prepare and practice</li></ul>

GAIN Feedback Framework

<ul><li>GROW Template for coaching conversations</li><li>The key skill to coach effectively</li><li>Know the difference between a feedback and a coaching conversation</li><li>how to use AI to practice and get feedback on a coaching conversation</li></ul>

GROW Coaching Framework

What if you felt on top of everything and your team were aligning and growing through every conversation with you?

Lightning Lessons

Thriving in a Chaotic World: Self-Awareness Advantage Part I