My name is Steven Feinberg, PhD., and I’m a Neurostrategist, Executive Coach and High Performance Team builder for some of the sharpest, smartest brains and businesses in America. I work with CEO’s, senior executives and business founders, from billion-dollar Corporate 500s to young and hungry entrepreneurial start-ups, across brands like Oracle, Google, LinkedIn, Wells Fargo, Hitachi and Xero, ranked Number 1 innovation Start-up.

For the past 30 years, I’ve also taught at the University of San Francisco School of Management and School of Education, and had the honor of guest lecturing at UC Berkley, Stanford and Cal Poly. I’ve authored a highly-acclaimed Amazon best seller leadership book called, The Advantage-Makers, and I live in Palo Alto, California, with my beautiful wife Terri: artist, elementary school teacher and mother of our two wonderful children.

With over 30 years of frontline experience, I know what it takes to thrive in the world of high-pressure, high-stake business. And from first-hand experience, I’ve learned how to create 180 transformations of rock-and-a-hard-place stalemates into high-velocity advancement – for both you and your teams.

I didn’t always work with the leaders, & aspiring leaders, of Silicon Valley & beyond.

I grew up around the Mafia in 1950’s and 60’s New York. And although I was never involved in their world, being in their orbit was an unparalleled education into the psychological savvy they never teach at school. Like how to tell the wise guys from the otherwise guys, how to evaluate risk, how to calculate and shift the game behind a conversation in your favor, and how to spot BS from a mile off.

When I was four, my parents didn’t have enough money, so I slept at my grandparent’s house on the fire escape. It was on Delancey Street in the Lower East Side of New York City, in the Jewish ghetto. My wife, Terri, says I didn’t have a normal childhood. To me, it was just kind of crazy and fun.

People wonder and ask me “Given the fire escape upbringing, how did you become a Neurostrategist?”

It really had to do with my Dad, Sam Feinberg. He didn’t want me to go into the family business. He was a big time bookie… not the type that reads books.

Watching my dad do this work, I got to experience, up close, risk-taking in its most immediate form. It didn’t teach me to be an expert in probability, but I learned about risk, the odds and how to shift the odds in your favor.

He wanted me to go to school and be a doctor, a professional.

Over the years my father owned and ran lots of businesses other than bookmaking: a trucking company, one of the largest meat packing plants in New York, and an Italian restaurant and pizzeria…

We lived right across the street from the pizzeria, so I worked there during my college years and early 20’s.

He would joke that his phone was connected to the cash register and every time a purchase was made, his phone would ring… music to his ears.

It was a real part of the community and my Dad loved handing out free ices to the kids in the neighborhood. It was a good business.

One day my Dad says, “Steven, take a ride with me…”

We drive to go see Joe (his food supplier).

As we’re driving, he says, “Steven, you know, the business isn’t doing so good… we need better prices from Joey or we’re gonna have to let some people go. Maybe even close down.”

I think to myself, “What?! I’m about to go to the University of Buffalo. What do you mean, close down?”

We get to Joey’s and the place is amazing. It smells of hundreds of cheeses and meats hanging from the ceiling and there are huge cans of sauces on racks.

My Dad says, “You sit here Steven…” and he goes into an office for his meeting. I wait. 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes. I’m getting worried. I start pacing.

The door opens… my Dad’s face is gloom and doom, I’ve never seen him look so deflated before. It’s completely out of character.

I ask, “Is everything ok?”
“It doesn’t look good, Steven.”
Before I can say anything else, he gets a glass of water and walks back in.

I pace some more.
Fifteen minutes later, he walks out… smiling.
He kisses the back of each of his hands and proclaims, “There’s no one better than me, Steveroo!”

Not only did Dad get better prices, but he got a loan for the business so we could stay open. He could save all our employee’s jobs, and still give the free Italian ices out to the little kids. He was able to reframe it so everyone won… even Joe.

That was my Dad.

I didn’t really understand what happened in that room at the time, but for the rest of my life, I’ve tried to unravel it. I wanted to understand the science behind the moment and my life’s work became about unlocking that magic…

In the conversation, what did he see that hadn’t been seen before? How did he say it in a way that allowed him to influence Joe, and to do what others said couldn’t be done?

That’s what I now call a game-changing conversation. Boom, in an instant, everything changes. Before he went into the meeting, big trouble. Behind those closed doors, boom, big win.

It took me years to understand that he was, in modern terms, a game changer. He was a leader and he successfully broke through the Status Quo Bias.

Fast forward to today & my passion still lies in helping individuals do amazing things.

Here in Silicon Valley and across the world by Skype, I’ve gone beyond sleeping on a fire escape in NYC to spend my days working with forward-thinking senior executives and their teams.

My motivation is still rooted in ingenuity, transforming people, increasing their influence and power. Together we defeat the status quo bias, solving real problems, and creating opportunities.

I’m intrigued with advancements in technology and in people.

Thanks to my early mentors, a passion for the science and psychology of human motivation was ignited within me, and in my early 20’s and 30’s, it led me to study at the feet of some of the greatest change-workers in the fields of psychotherapy, performance psychology and applied neuroscience.

I realized that the people I most wanted to work with were leaders, like my Dad. I advanced my Neurostrategy insights – dedicated to my father and mother – who had complete confidence in me,  and found ways to rewire leaders to be game changers and advance civilization.

There are hidden forces that drive behavior in your brain, your interactions, your arena of power.

In order to rewire, there is an unconscious bias, that isn’t going away without game-changing conversations that are precisely delivered.

In the high stakes world of disruption, you don’t need a coach to be an accountability partner, or a communications person to teach you to play nice.  You need a safecracker, a locksmith, who can reach inside your head and free you from the status quo bias.

My intent is to give leaders a new vantage point to view their situation, in the face of real friction to be the key sense-maker in their organization – the influential person that people turn to do what others say can’t be done – to be known as the leader who delivers maximum impact when it was needed most.

That’s what has kept me advancing what I do for 35 years and why I’d like to teach you how to do that for yourself, your teams and your business. Because my dad didn’t just teach me how to be the best man I can be; he taught me that life’s far too short to spend it locked inside The Status Quo Bias.

Why Work With Me?

These days it seems like everyone and their mother-in-law is a coach. The world is flooded with them. That’s why it’s more important than ever to do your due diligence when hiring one for you or your team. But not all coaches are created equal. Most are glorified sounding boards or accountability partners; more concerned with building rapport than accelerating your success by speaking the truth that will advance you and your cause.

They’ll say they want to be there for you (and of course they do), but if they haven’t been in the executive situation room during a crisis, career blunder or leadership failure it’s all academic.

And business is not academic. Not at your level. You need a trusted advisor, teacher, and codebreaker. Someone who can get behind your mental defense, anticipate and expand your thinking, and strengthen your decision power.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some great coaches out there. But few are equipped with the psychological tools, techniques and strategies needed to do the deep, strategic work that true transformation work requires. Fewer know that they need to do that kind of thing. And even less know how to make sound judgments under uncertainty, and radical, positive shifts in your neurology.

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