Performance Anxiety in Beverly Hills

You prepared, and then the moment arrived and the preparation would not come out. When that keeps happening at work, it starts to cost you opportunities.

The pitch you knew cold. The meeting where you went blank on a question you have answered a hundred times. The audition, the presentation, the call with the person who decides. When the freeze keeps arriving in the moments your work depends on, it stops being nerves and starts costing you roles, clients and chances you do not get back. Dr. Sydney Ceruto works on that pattern around the moments where it happens.

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Key Points

Performance anxiety at work has a price: the opportunity that went to someone steadier, or the one you stopped putting yourself forward for.
The amygdala, the brain's threat-detection center, can read a high-stakes moment as danger, and the stress that follows makes what you know harder to retrieve.
That is why preparation done in calm conditions can be hard to reach in the moment it was meant for.
Each freeze teaches the brain to expect the next one, so avoidance tends to grow over time.
Real-Time Neuroplasticity™ works on the response close to the real moments where it appears, not only in rehearsal.

When the Freeze Starts Costing You

“Preparation happens in a calm room. The freeze happens in a room where something is at stake, and the brain handles those two rooms differently.”

If you have performance anxiety at work, you can probably name when it began to cost you. The pitch that went to a competitor. The role that went to someone who interviewed with less experience and more composure. The client meeting you now send a colleague to.

The quieter cost is avoidance. People stop volunteering for the presentation, decline the panel, keep their best ideas for the email afterward. Over a few years, that adds up to a smaller career than their ability supports.

Why Preparation Does Not Reach the Moment

When a moment carries real consequences, the amygdala can read it as danger. To the brain’s alarm system, a room full of people deciding your future can register a lot like physical danger.

Under that alarm, the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s planning and focus center, works less well. What you prepared is still stored; reaching it is the hard part.

This is why rehearsing more often helps less than people expect. You are practicing in a calm room, and the freeze belongs to a different room. Larger stakes can make it worse. In one lab study, people performed a practiced skill less well when more money was riding on it.

How the Pattern Grows

Each time the freeze arrives, the brain tends to file the setting as dangerous. The next similar moment starts with more alarm, sometimes days ahead, in the form of dread that builds as the date gets closer.

Avoiding the moment brings short relief, and the brain learns from that relief too. Over time the safest-feeling choice becomes stepping back, which is how a capable person ends up with fewer of the opportunities their work deserves.

What Real-Time Neuroplasticity™ Does

Real-Time Neuroplasticity™ is the methodology Dr. Ceruto developed to work on a response in the conditions that trigger it. Rather than only talking through last week’s meeting, she works with you around the moments that matter: before them and soon after.

The aim is for the brain to have a different practiced response available in a high-stakes room. That response has to be built close to the event itself: the call before the pitch, the walk into the meeting, the minutes after it goes well or badly.

This work is centered on performance in the moments your work depends on.

Who This Work Is For

People whose work depends on performing in moments they cannot repeat, and who can see what the freeze has already cost them. That includes people presenting to boards and clients, pitching, negotiating, interviewing, auditioning or speaking in public.

It is a significant investment, and it suits people who decide on it themselves.

If a pitch, an audition or an important meeting keeps getting away from you, that is the conversation to bring to a Strategy Call. For a fuller picture of how Dr. Ceruto works on performance under pressure, see performance under pressure; for everything MindLAB offers locally, see the Beverly Hills page.

Marker	What You Experience	What's Happening Neurologically	What We Restructure
Prepared but blank	You know the material, then go blank when the moment arrives.	Under threat, the brain's alarm response can make stored knowledge harder to reach.	How you respond when the alarm fires, in the specific settings where it happens.
Dread beforehand	Days of tension before a pitch, a review or an important call.	Past freezes have taught the brain to expect danger in that setting.	The response to that setting, worked on close to live events.
Stepping back	Turning down presentations or sending someone else to the meeting.	Avoidance brings relief, and the brain learns to choose it again.	Building practiced responses for the moments you have been avoiding.

Why Performance Anxiety Matters in Beverly Hills

Around Beverly Hills, many careers turn on single moments: a first meeting with someone who can hire you, a pitch, an audition, a presentation to the people who decide your next year.

Those moments come with an audience that talks. A shaky pitch or a blank in a meeting can follow a person through a small, connected industry, which raises the stakes the brain attaches to the next one.

Dr. Ceruto has an office in Beverly Hills. The work runs largely by phone and text around the specific meetings, pitches and calls where the freeze has been showing up.

Dr. Sydney Ceruto, PhD, Neuroscientist & Author, MindLAB Neuroscience

Dr. Ceruto holds a PhD in Behavioral & Cognitive Neuroscience from NYU and Master’s degrees in Clinical Psychology and Business Psychology from Yale University. She lectures at the Wharton Executive Development Program at the University of Pennsylvania and has been an Executive Contributor to the Forbes Coaching Council since 2019. Dr. Ceruto is the author of The Dopamine Code (Simon & Schuster, June 2026). She founded MindLAB Neuroscience in 2000 and has spent over 26 years leading it, pioneering Real-Time Neuroplasticity™, a methodology that durably rewires the neural pathways driving behavior, decisions, and emotional responses.

References

Pessoa, L. (2008). On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(2), 148–158. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2317

Arnsten, A. F. T. (2009). Stress signalling pathways that impair prefrontal cortex structure and function. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2648

Maren, S., Phan, K. L., & Liberzon, I. (2013). The contextual brain: Implications for fear conditioning, extinction and psychopathology. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(6), 417–428. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3492

Mobbs, D., Hassabis, D., Seymour, B., Marchant, J. L., Weiskopf, N., Dolan, R. J., & Frith, C. D. (2009). Choking on the money: Reward-based performance decrements are associated with midbrain activity. Psychological Science, 20(8), 955–962. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02399.x

Success Stories

“Dr. Sydney Ceruto's innovative neuroscience-based program changed how I lead under pressure. Her blend of cutting-edge science, deep compassion, and unwavering accountability got to the root of the panic I had been leading through. She didn't teach me to manage it. She worked with me on what was underneath it instead. I didn't know that was possible.”

Ella E., Head of Operations, Private Equity Firm Manhattan, NY

“Willpower, accountability systems, cutting up cards, none of it worked because none of it addressed what was actually driving the behavior. Dr. Ceruto turned my attention to the pattern that had been running my purchasing decisions for over a decade. Once the loop was visible, it lost its power. The pull didn't just fade. It went.”

Priya N., VP of Engineering, Fintech New York, NY

“I'd relocated internationally before, but this time my nervous system wouldn't settle. Everything unfamiliar registered as danger, new people, new routines, even the sound of a different language outside my window. Pushing through it only deepened the pattern. Dr. Ceruto helped me see that I had started reading anything unfamiliar as danger, and we worked on that response at its source. The world stopped feeling hostile. I stopped bracing.”

Katarina L., Multinational Pharma Zurich, CH

“The moment two priorities competed for bandwidth, my attention collapsed, and I'd convinced myself my brain was fundamentally broken. Dr. Ceruto and I worked on what was causing the collapse, and we rebuilt how I work. My brain wasn't broken. It was buckling under competing demands. Once that changed, everything I was trying to hold together stopped requiring so much effort.”

Rachel M., Managing Director, Boutique Consulting Boston, MA

“Dr. Ceruto's neuroscience-based program changed how I handle what had been a constant struggle. She helped me see it not as something permanent but as a pattern I could work with, and taught me how to reframe my thoughts and adopt healthier coping strategies. Once I understood that, everything changed. Now I'm happier and more in control of my emotions than ever.”

Emily M., SVP Global Marketing, Adidas Portland, OR

“My kids had been sleeping through the night for three years, but my brain hadn't caught up. I was still waking every ninety minutes like clockwork, no amount of sleep hygiene or supplements touched it. With Dr. Ceruto, I got at the constant alertness that had set in during those early years, and we dismantled it at the source. I finally stopped bracing for something that was long over. I sleep through the night now without effort.”

Catherine L., General Counsel, Private Equity Greenwich, CT

“Endocrinologists, sleep clinics, functional medicine, every specialist cleared me, and no one could tell me why I was exhausted every single day. Working with Dr. Ceruto, I could see how much low-grade stress I had been running on and had stopped noticing. Once that eased, my energy came back in a way that felt completely foreign. I'd forgotten what it was like to not be tired.”

Danielle K., Chief Marketing Officer, Luxury Retail Beverly Hills, CA

“Four hours a night for over two years. That was my ceiling. Supplements, sleep protocols, medication, nothing touched it because nothing addressed why my brain wouldn't shut down. Dr. Ceruto worked with me on the stress cycle that was keeping me wound up around the clock, and we took it apart. I sleep now. Not because I learned tricks, but because what was driving the sleeplessness finally eased.”

Adrian M., Portfolio Manager, Citadel New York, NY

“As the CTO of HSBC, I was overwhelmed by constant stress, and my communication was straining every relationship at work. Dr. Ceruto's neuroscience-based approach helped me understand the root causes of my stress and gave me practical strategies to manage it. I learned to read social cues, express empathy, and lead with conviction. The people around me noticed the change before I fully understood what had happened, and my confidence and likability grew with it.”

Bob H., Chief Technology Officer, HSBC London, UK

Client names are shortened, most often to a first name and last initial. Most accounts also name a city, and many name a role and an employer or sector.
These are individual experiences. Results vary from person to person, and the outcomes described here are not what every client should expect.

Frequently Asked Questions About Performance Anxiety

Why do I freeze when I have prepared so well?

Preparation usually happens in calm conditions. When a moment carries real stakes, the amygdala can read it as danger, and stress makes stored material harder to reach. The knowledge has not gone anywhere.

Is this only for performers?

No. Anyone whose work depends on moments they cannot repeat can meet this pattern: a pitch, a board presentation, an interview, a negotiation, an audition, a client meeting. What matters is the pattern and what it is costing you, not your title.

What happens on the Strategy Call?

The Strategy Call is an hour with Dr. Ceruto. She asks what the pattern is, where it shows up, and what it has already cost you, then maps what is likely driving it. By the end of the hour she tells you directly whether her work fits your situation and, if it does, how a program would be structured. Strategy Calls are conducted by phone, a deliberate preference that keeps the focus on the conversation rather than the camera.

How does Real-Time Neuroplasticity™ work day to day?

The work is built around the pitches, meetings and calls already on your calendar. In the 90-day NeuroSync™ program, there are no standing appointments after the first hour. You text Dr. Ceruto as the pattern shows up, before a meeting or after a hard exchange, and you can ask for a call. Dr. Ceruto has an office in Beverly Hills, and much of the work runs by phone and text. You can read how the programs are structured on the programs page.

Is this therapy?

No. Dr. Ceruto is a neuroscientist with a PhD from NYU, and her work centers on how the brain responds in high-stakes moments at work. It is not built around anxiety as a health condition, and she will tell you on the Strategy Call whether your situation fits her work.

How long until something changes?

No one can promise a timeline for changing a pattern, and Dr. Ceruto does not. The Strategy Call is where she tells you whether working on the freeze is a realistic aim for you. The 90-day program is built around one issue, with goals agreed at the start, so you and she can both see whether the work is moving the thing you came in for.

What does the work cost?

The programs are a significant investment, and program structure and investment details are discussed during the Strategy Call. The fee for the call itself is confirmed when you book. The work suits people who decide on it themselves and can already put a figure on what the pattern is costing them.

Also available in: Miami · Wall Street · Midtown Manhattan · Lisbon

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One hour with Dr. Sydney Ceruto, by phone. She tells you what she thinks sets off the freeze and whether her work fits.

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The Dopamine Code

Decode Your Drive

Why Your Brain Rewards the Wrong Things

Your brain's reward system runs every decision, every craving, every crash, and it was never designed for the life you're living. The Dopamine Code is Dr. Ceruto's framework for understanding the architecture behind what drives you, drains you, and keeps you locked in patterns that willpower alone will never fix.

Published by Simon & Schuster, The Dopamine Code is Dr. Ceruto's framework for building your own Dopamine Menu, a personalized system for motivation, focus, and enduring life satisfaction.

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