by David Cicerchi Something is shifting in the world of leadership. You can feel it if you're paying attention. The strategies that worked for decades — drive results, hold people accountable, optimize for competitive advantage — are still producing output. But they're producing something else too: burnout, disengagement, polarization, and a growing sense that the game we're playing isn't actually worth winning. I've spent years coaching leaders across sectors, and what I'm w

Most people, most of the time, walk around reenacting patterns they learned or inherited — unconscious, automatic patterns that quietly answer the question Who am I? before they've ever really asked it. Maybe you recognize some of these. There's the person who lives to fit in — navigating life according to what their social group expects, conforming to norms and roles because that's just what you're supposed to do. There's the person who has identified so completely with thei

By David Cicerchi There's a particular feeling that many of my clients know well. You want to move forward. You want to transform, grow, show up fully in your relationships, your work, your life. And yet — you keep falling back into the same pattern. A trigger hits, and suddenly you're in shame, contraction, fear, anxiety. The spiral begins again. This is the false self at work. What Is the False Self? Before I explain the false self, let me say something about what it's obsc

Sensemaking, self, and transformation in a time of unraveling by David Cicerchi As I discussed in Part 1 of this series , we are living in a time of fragmentation. In the external world, we see polarization, disconnection, burnout, and isolation. In our internal world, many feel a constant sense of not-enoughness, a persistent fear of being unseen, unloved, or irrelevant. This is not merely a collection of individual issues—it’s a civilizational condition. It’s what Dr. Mar