Adam Wright, Ph.D., CMPC, PCC
Co-Founder, The Antifragile Academy Former Director of Mental Performance, Washington Nationals (MLB)
Elite Performance Under Pressure
Integrated performance consulting for athletes, executives, and high-stakes professionals.
You've optimized everything. So why do you still tighten when it matters most?
You've trained focus, yet the same distraction keeps pulling you off course.
You've mastered your craft, yet the words—or the movement—still slip away.
That gap between potential and execution—that’s where we work.
Not through tactics alone, but by training the physiological, cognitive, and emotional systems that determine whether you hold or break under pressure.
About
I work with people who perform at the highest levels—MLB All-Stars, national-team athletes, world-tour golfers, surgeons, trial attorneys, CEOs, investors, founders, and award-winning performers. My clients operate in environments where pressure is constant and execution is public.
My training spans sport and performance psychology, exercise physiology, and clinical depth work. I hold a Ph.D. in Kinesiology from Temple University, specializing in sport and performance psychology, and an M.A. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. I previously served as Director of Mental Performance for the Washington Nationals and work privately with elite performers across sport, medicine, law, entertainment, and finance.
The work addresses execution under pressure and develops the internal systems that make performance sustainable over time—systems that hold when it counts, regardless of conditions.
I'm also Co-Founder of The Antifragile Academy, where we help organizations build human systems that strengthen under stress.
Three Systems Drive Performance Under Pressure
1 – Physiology
Your nervous system sets the ceiling. You can't think your way past a dysregulated body.
2 – Cognition
Mental skills aren't simply concepts; they're trained capacities that determine whether you execute or hesitate when it counts.
3 – Emotion & Pattern
The toughest opponent isn't across from you. It's within—the patterns that surface when pressure hits.
Performance challenges are rarely single-domain problems
The executive whose “confidence issue” traces back to chronic physiological overload.
The athlete who knows the mental skills but can’t access them when the lights come on.
The founder who has strategic clarity on paper, but is paralyzed in the decisive moment.
When performance breakdowns span multiple systems, single domain solutions often fail.
Services
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Personalized Performance Consulting
For those who’ve already optimized the fundamentals but know that sustaining excellence requires addressing what’s beneath the surface.
We identify where the interference lives—your nervous system, decision-making under load, or recurring emotional patterns—and build systems that hold.
I maintain a limited roster to ensure depth of engagement.
Engagements are structured in 3- or 6-month formats, determined through an initial conversation about fit and scope. -
Organizational Consulting & Training
Through The Antifragile Academy , co-founded with Dr. Nick Holton, we partner with elite teams and organizations on performance, recovery, and resilience under high-stakes conditions.
We design systems that strengthen decision-making under pressure, sustain clarity in complexity, and protect well-being in volatile, uncertain, and ambiguous environments.
Clients include professional sports organizations, executive teams, surgical departments, and tactical units.
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Speaking, Podcast & Media Engagement
Keynotes, panels, and podcast conversations exploring the dynamics of performance under pressure. Topics include the neuroscience of choking, leadership in chaos, burnout prevention, and how elite performers train the internal systems that hold when stakes are high.
Let’s Talk