---What is it that pushes us to perform at our best? Which people on our teams thrive in high-stress/high-stakes environments and which are always cool, and calm under pressure? Why does this matter and how can you use it to drive peak performance? After 3 years of interviewing more than 200 people including professional athletes, military officers, poker players, and psychologists, Rafi Kohan offer insights into the psychology of gamesmanship and how mental stress can be used to drive performance and behavior. This work, which culminated into the lively and hilarious read Trash Talk, The Only Book About Destroying Your Rivals That Isn’t Total Garbage, offers anecdotes from some of the world’s top competitors and the mind games that push them to outperform their opponents.

Jenn Lim is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness, a company that she and Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) co-created in 2010 to inspire happiness in work, community and everyday life. In 2005, she created the first Culture Book for Zappos – now on its 7th edition – and has produced them ever since. In 2009, Zappos was sold to Amazon.com in a deal valued at $1.2 billion on the day of closing, and in 2011, Zappos was #6 on Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. The Culture Book has become a global symbol of how companies can successfully create cultures based on happiness and be profitable at the same time.

Dean Ornish, MD, is clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Dean Ornish is also the founder and president of the non-profit, Preventive Medicine Research Institute. For over 30 years, Dr. Dean Ornish has directed clinical research demonstrating that comprehensive lifestyle changes may begin to reverse even the most severe coronary heart disease without drugs or surgery. His current research shows that comprehensive lifestyle changes affect gene expression, "turning on" disease-preventing genes and "turning off" genes that promote cancer and heart disease.

With a mission to use his battle-tested experience to help others lead lives of impact, service, and health, Dr. Sudip Bose is a world-leading emergency medicine physician, combat veteran, professor, and entrepreneur. From his experiences in the ER and on the battlefield, he has learned the keys to staying grounded in the face of overwhelm and tackling any challenge with skill and agility. In speeches, Dr. Bose shares stories from his humbling and transformational service in the Army and uses lessons-learned on the front lines from combat to the ER to demonstrate the battle-proven strategies to stay grounded in the face of overwhelming circumstances, lead under pressure, make tough decisions, and achieve peak performance in even the most unconventional environments.

Dominique Dawes spent years breaking barriers and breaking records in the sport of Gymnastics and is best known for her tremendous success as an Olympic gymnast who competed in three Olympic Games. She was a member of the gold-medal-winning "Magnificent Seven" team at the 1996 Atlanta Games. After much dedication to the sport, Dominique retired to focus on her passion to encourage, educate and motivate others. Currently the Co-Chair of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, she works closely with First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s Council to help promote the Let’s Move! Initiative, educating children on fitness and nutrition while motivating them to get moving.

Dr. Geoff Tabin is a medical visionary, humanitarian, accomplished mountain climber, professor of ophthalmology and global medicine at Stanford University, and co-founder of the Himalayan Cataract Project, a nonprofit organization working to eradicate preventable blindness in the developing world.

Dr. Holly Atkinson is a physician, author, and human rights leader. A well-known media personality, she served as medical correspondent on NBC’s TODAY show and The CBS Morning News, and is currently the senior correspondent and Chief Medical Officer of HealthiNation, the country’s leading producer of health videos. She is also the past president of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Physicians for Human Rights

Dandapani is a Hindu priest, entrepreneur and a former monk of 10 years. After graduating university with a degree in Electrical Engineering he left it all behind to become a Hindu monk under the guidance of one of Hinduism’s foremost spiritual leaders of our time, Sivaya Subramuniyaswami. For 10 years he lived a life of serious personal discipline and training at his guru’s cloistered monastery in Hawaii. When his vows expired, he chose to venture out into the world making New York City his home. He works with entrepreneurs and some of the top athletes in the world in helping them understand and leverage their mind so that they can be the best at what they do. He does this by empowering them with tools and teachings that have been used by Hindu monks of his tradition for thousands of years. Among his clients are companies such as Fortress Investment Group, ICONIQ, McKinsey, Nike, Comm Bank of Australia, Bloomberg LP, Ribbit Capital, Red Ventures, Sprinklr, AMEX and more.

Jon Cohen is a widely published magazine writer and author of four nonfiction books on scientific topics. Cohen is a senior correspondent with Science, and also has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, BuzzFeed, Smithsonian, Technology Review, Slate, and many other publications. Cohen specializes in biomedicine, and is widely known for his coverage of epidemics (HIV/AIDS, COVID-19, Ebola, influenza), immunology, vaccines, and global health. He also has reported extensively on genetics, primate research, evolution, bioterrorism, research funding, ethics, reproductive biology, credit battles, and the media itself. Cohen’s books have covered a wide range of topics for a lay audience, including the search for an AIDS vaccine, the science of miscarriage, the scientific differences between humans and chimpanzees, and a critical analysis of Tijuana, Mexico’s faltering response to its HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Ben Nemtin is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Do You Want To Do Before You Die? and the star of the MTV show The Buried Life. As the co-founder of The Buried Life movement, Ben’s message of radical possibility has been featured in major media including The Today Show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC News, and more. Oprah called Ben’s life work “truly inspiring.” An acclaimed keynote speaker, Ben has presented his '5 Steps to Make the Impossible Possible' to business conferences and corporate leadership teams around the world, garnering standing ovations from Amazon, FedEx, Harvard, Levi's, Microsoft, Verizon and more.

Michelle MiJung Kim (she/her) is a queer immigrant Korean American woman writer, speaker, activist, and entrepreneur. She is the author of The Wake Up (Hachette, Fall 2021), which won the 2021 Porchlight Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the 2021 Best Business Book Award. She is CEO and co-founder of Awaken, a leading provider of interactive equity and inclusion education programs facilitated by majority BIPOC educators, where she has consulted hundreds of organizations and top executives from Fortune 500, tech giants, nonprofits, and government agencies to spark meaningful change. Michelle has been a lifelong social justice activist and has served on a variety of organizations such as the San Francisco LGBTQ Speakers Bureau, San Francisco Human Rights Commission’s Advisory Committee, LYRIC nonprofit’s Board of Directors, and Build Tech We Trust Coalition. Michelle currently serves on the board of Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality (AACRE). Her work has appeared on world-renowned platforms such as Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The New York Times, and NPR, and she has been named Medium’s Top Writer in Diversity three years in a row.

Dr. Jha is a practicing physician and recognized globally as an expert on pandemic preparedness and response as well as on health policy research and practice. He has led groundbreaking research around Ebola and is now on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, leading national and international analysis of key issues and advising state and federal policy makers. Dr. Jha has published more than two hundred original research publications in prestigious journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the BMJ and is a frequent contributor to a range of public media. He has extensively researched how to improve the quality and reduce the cost of healthcare, focusing on the impact of public health policy nationally and around the globe.