![[chris-barber.png|80]] I'm Chris, living in San Diego, from New Zealand, Australia, Stanford, and Santa Monica.
Focuses: AI preparation & emotional regulation.
> ![[matt-mochary.png|40]] "Chris is one of my favorite humans on the planet. Smart, doer and fun. But of course my view is very biased. I owe my entire coaching career to him, as he was the very first person to ask me to coach!" – Matt Mochary, coached the CEOs at Coinbase, Notion, Reddit, and managing partners at Benchmark, Sequoia
> ![[griffin-choe.png|40]] "Chris and the thinkers he recommends have had an enormous positive impact on my life" – Griffin Choe, leading AI security efforts at Figma
> ![[josh-singer.png|40]] "I have met none like him. I regularly think "what would Chris Barber do"" – Josh Singer, Founder of Eigen
> ![[rafael-cosman.png|40]] "I've known Chris Barber for around a decade now and he is a great guy and someone that we are honored to have as an angel investor. Would definitely recommend working with him if you have the chance!" – Rafael Cosman, Founder of Protogon Research
### Emotional Regulation
I made a tool called resonance. Resonance helps you make other people feel seen and emotionally regulated.
> ![[matt-mochary.png|40]] "If you want to be in the top 1% of emotional intelligence you need to master this skill" – Matt Mochary, coached the CEOs at Coinbase, Reddit, Notion, and Managing Partners at Sequoia and Benchmark
> Note that Matt's quote is about an old version of resonance, I haven't shown him the new version yet :)
> ![[griffin-choe.png|40]] "it's been helpful for feeling more peaceful about work and future trajectory, in relationship with my girlfriend, and in relationship with parents" – Griffin Choe
> "I just textbook resonated and it worked so well" – my sister
> ![[josh-singer.png|40]] "I find it most useful in helping people deal with their raw emotions" – Josh Singer
> "helpful before heightened situations like an exam, a presentation" – Ben Pan
> ![[alton-sun.png|40]] "I'm regularly complimented on it and it has embedded itself into my language" – Alton Sun
> "you taught me resonance, which is honestly life changing, as I've said to you many times" – Ben Pan
> ![[george-zeng.png|40]] "for me (1) it's wanting to make my partner feel emotionally validated. maybe a distant (2) helping me build trust and resonance in professional relationships" – George Zeng
> "this shit works bro" – Justin Yang
> ![[richard-ngo.png|40]] "This shit is magic" – Richard Ngo
> ![[herrick-fang.png|40]] it's helped with "how to make myself feel better about which choices i wanna take" and "has helped me identify if i actually do/do not want to do something" – Herrick Fang
> ![[josh-singer.png|40]] "I want more. I want more bi-directional rez. We'll be your guinea pigs."
> "I think it would drastically change the next year of our business."
> – Josh Singer
> "when people around me are not doing so hot i can help them more" – Justin Yang
> ![[josh-singer.png|40]] "I use it 70% with partner, cofounder 5%, team members 20%, others 5%" – Josh Singer
> "for me it's about unsticking emotions for myself and my friends when I am frustrated or not sure what to do about something"
> "also just getting closer to my friends by being more supportive and help them feel their way through dilemmas or frustration too"
> – my brother
> "if you're around the bay or SF anytime soon for resonance workshop, I'd love to be a part of that. You know, I think it's one of the most useful skills I've ever learned. And I think it'll just get better and better. I want to keep cultivating it until it becomes a superpower, and not just for my career, but also for friends and romantic relationships, friendships." – Ben Pan
> ![[nina-barber.png|40]] "I was looking for the thing that would bridge that gap between self awareness and actually feeling different, and I feel like IFS (internal family systems) and other stuff fell short, I understood the triggers but they didn't go away. But resonance once I was aware and had practiced a bunch was clear it was the path to reducing a lot of triggers"
> "I use resonance dozens of times a day to help myself and other people get emotionally regulated"
> – my wife Nina
I think the better people are at making others feel seen and emotionally regulated, the more fun the world is.
### Decision Making
I think I've made a pretty good answer for making easy decisions that feel great. It's mostly resonance/emotional regulation, plus a few other steps.
> "I think that's one of the most life changing things I've learned, how to reach peaceful preference between your subconscious and conscious mind"
> "It's just been so powerful."
> "I used to be someone who thinks a lot about everything. I'm very cerebral, very analytical."
> "It's helped me find opportunities that other people aren't working on, that actually are very important to work on."
> – Ben Pan, student at Stanford University
> ![[maile-minardi.png|40]] "Peaceful Preferences are now my roadmap for all parts of my day here are a few small examples that FELT SO GOOD to choose" – Maile Minardi, Founder of Marketing Consultancy
### Parenting
We have a few methods we love. The methods are mostly "get good at helping your kids with emotional regulation by resonating with them constantly."
>![[nina-barber.png|40]] "I wish wish wish every parent knew this stuff" – Nina Barber, my wife and co-founder of the executive coaching marketplace
>"For parenting I didn't desperately need a tool but I see now how there's a huge gap if you don't have resonance. I think about all the ways we connect with the kids because of resonance. The foundation of love and respect and connection because of resonance"
### How To Prepare For AI
You may want to understand what's coming in the next few years, what to be worried about (and not), and how to prepare/thrive.
I'm working on this, here are some quotes from my friends who've seen draft versions.
>![[josh-singer.png|40]] "The product-market fit for this will be very high" – Josh Singer, Founder of LLM consultancy
>![[rick-barber.png|40]] "This is perfect, this is it, this is the way ... I want to read what you've got already" – Rick Barber (no relation!), CTO of AI-native marketing firm
>![[griffin-choe.png|40]] "That's sick, honestly ... I immediately want to click in" – Griffin Choe, Leading AI Security Efforts at Figma
Here's a draft curation of my AI roundups and preparation interviews so far: [[AI Prep Notes]]
### About and Links
I'm effectively a semi-retired entrepreneur/researcher. I also co-founded an executive coaching marketplace for startups (let me know if you're a founder of a seed-series C startup and need help finding an executive coach); founded a place for engineers to discover good startups to join (let me know if you need help deciding between startup job offers); and have previously written deep dives into GPU supply, how to get into Stanford, and other topics.
Email:
[email protected]
On [Twitter/X](https://x.com/chrisbarber) I have recently started talking about AI preparation & emotional regulation.