Applying behavioral science to how we live, love, and lead.
Managing emotions, thinking flexibly, and acting effectively are skills we can learn and develop. Behavioral science shows us how to strengthen them.
Dialectical Living
Skillful Loving
Regulated Leading
Live meaningfully. Love skillfully. Lead honestly.
The Behavioral Foundation
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT integrates behavioral science and Zen practice with a dialectical philosophy, making it scientifically grounded and contemplatively informed. It builds emotional, cognitive, and behavioral regulation capacity through skills training, practice, feedback, and reinforcement.
The framework is centered on the tension between acceptance and change. Change skills move us toward more effective living. Acceptance skills hold the fact that pain is unavoidable. The goal is experiencing life as worth living amid pain – which is what makes the pain more tolerable.
Dialectical Living asks what becomes possible when that philosophy and those skills leave the clinic. Skillful Loving and Regulated Leading extend it to relationships and work.
How I think about behavior.
All behavior is caused – which means all behavior makes sense. Every thought, feeling, and action serves a function, whether we're conscious of it or not.
Regulation capacity is the ability to notice what's happening, tolerate discomfort, and choose deliberately rather than automatically. It determines whether we engage in protective behavior or valued action.
Explore the thinking →
I've spent my career helping people accept reality, embrace change, and effectively navigate the messy space in between. What I've seen, both professionally and personally, is that strengthening regulation capacity helps us productively respond to life challenges.
Clinical science offers behavioral skills to strengthen this capacity, and I believe they're too valuable to stay confined to therapy offices. I'm now translating these strategies to how we live, love, and lead.
About →
