About me
I am Javad Salehi Fadardi, PhD, a motivation and mental-health coach based in the Bay Area, working with clients by video wherever they are.
For more than two decades, my work, first as a researcher and professor, now as a coach, has centered on one question: how do people build a life that actually works for them? Not someone else’s version of success. Theirs.
Many of the people I work with aren’t really asking “What’s wrong with me?” I think a more useful question is usually: What’s happening in my life? What matters most to me? And what’s getting in the way of living that way?
You may know exactly what you should be doing and still struggle to do it. You may be thriving in one part of your life, your career, your team, your product, while feeling overwhelmed, reactive, or quietly lost in another. If you work in tech or lead a fast-growing team, this often shows up as a particular kind of exhaustion: succeeding by every external measure, while your own sense of direction gets harder and harder to locate.
These are the problems I most enjoy working on.
My background
My approach draws on a PhD in Psychology from Bangor University (UK), postdoctoral research, and more than 20 years studying motivation, habit change, and behavioral science, including the Life Enhancement and Advancement Program (LEAP), a motivational-restructuring method I helped originate and have taught internationally.
Certified by IMPART (Institute for Motivation and Personality Research, University of Osnabrück) as a PSI Competence Consultant and Coach, licensed to use the TOP/EOS assessment system.
Languages: English (fluent), Farsi/Persian (native), Arabic (basic).
How I work
Rather than generic advice or a push toward “more willpower,” we work together to understand the system underneath the problem: your needs, values, goals, emotional patterns, habits, and how they interact with the pace and pressure of your daily life. This is the thinking behind LEAP: looking at how your goals, motivations, emotions, and daily behavior fit together, rather than treating each piece in isolation.
What people come to work on
Reconnecting with motivation for the goals that actually matter to them
Performing at a high level without running on depletion
Bringing competing priorities and commitments into a clearer order
Thinking through a significant career or life decision with more clarity
Building habits and routines that hold, rather than ones that keep slipping
Closing the gap between outward success and how the work actually feels
Understanding their own motivation well enough to direct it deliberately
Who I work with
Many of my clients are founders, engineers, managers, and other professionals in the Bay Area’s tech and startup community, people whose drive and capability are real assets, but who find that same intensity leaving little room for balance, connection, or a clear sense of purpose outside of work.
I have worked with people from several countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Czech Republic, Türkiye, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Canada, and the United States.
Our work is collaborative and individualized. I don’t start with a formula for what your life should look like. We start with your life: what you want to keep, what you want to change, and what a genuinely better version of it would mean to you.
The goal isn’t a few days of motivation. It’s a clearer understanding of your own motivational and emotional system, stronger tools to act on it, and a life that feels coherent, manageable, and genuinely yours.
Ready to talk?
If any of this sounds familiar, let’s talk. Book a free 20-minute introductory conversation to talk through what’s going on and whether this approach is a good fit for you.