Executive coaching for Asian American founders & executives
One program · Two coaches · 90 days
You already know.
That was never the problem.
The conversation you keep not having. The role you've outgrown. You worked both out months ago and neither has moved an inch.
More insight won't move them either. A pattern holds in place because two things are true at once: a belief that makes the old behavior feel necessary, and nothing in your week that would support a new one. We work on both at the same time.
At a glance
Mind & Mechanism is an executive coaching program for Asian American founders, startup executives, and senior professionals. It pairs Danny Liu, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist and executive coach, with Sam Hirbod, an executive coach and operator who builds AI-enabled execution systems.
What we hear most often
Seven things come up in almost every first conversation. Each one has already cost something.
The thing you decided three months ago still hasn't happened.
You made the call. It just never got executed, and every week it waits it gets more expensive: the hire who's now been underperforming for two quarters, the pricing change your competitor shipped first, the conversation that would have been awkward in March and will be a resignation in September.
You run the whole trial before you'll make the call.
What if the data's incomplete. What if the obvious answer is obvious for a reason nobody's said out loud. Eventually you ask someone with less context than you, because what you want isn't information. It's permission, and it was always yours to give. Meanwhile the window closes, and not deciding turns out to have been the decision.
Everything still comes back to you.
Work routes through you because the standard matters and you're the one who set it. Your calendar has become the bottleneck for a company that's supposed to be scaling past you. Handing it off feels like risking the thing you built, so the company grows to the edge of your capacity and stops.
Delegating feels like losing control of what you built.
You'd hand things off if you could name what to hand off, and to whom. But scoping the role, writing the profile, and trusting someone with a piece of your company each feel like their own risk, so it stays with you. The cost shows up later, as evenings that belong to work and a version of the job you no longer enjoy.
Loyalty starts to carry a quiet cost.
Early contributors built the foundation, but scaling often requires a different skill set. It's natural to feel protective of those who helped you get here, yet keeping someone in a role they've outgrown can quietly weigh on the rest of the team and compromise the standard.
Every downturn becomes a referendum on your judgment.
A hire that was right during growth looks like evidence of bad judgment when conditions change. Layoffs are the worst version: not a hard decision, but one that feels like it will be read as proof you were wrong from the start. What it costs you is the next decision, which you make smaller than it should be.
You hit the number and felt almost nothing.
Relief for a day. Then the bar moves. Nobody optimizes well while paying down a debt that doesn't clear. And when the weight never comes off, stepping back or selling starts to look less like a strategy and more like an exit from your own calendar.
Why none of it has moved yet
None of this is a discipline problem or a skill problem. You know how to have the conversation, ship the imperfect version, and let go of the wrong hire.
Every one of these has a belief underneath it that makes the old behavior feel necessary, and a week with no room for a different one. Work on the belief alone and you understand yourself better on Monday and do the same thing by Wednesday. Install a system alone and it becomes one more thing you're behind on.
That's why there are two of us.
Mind and Mechanism
Two people. One works on the belief. The other builds what the new behavior needs in order to survive contact with your actual week.
Mind — Danny
The belief underneath the behavior
Reading these patterns accurately is clinical training. It's the part most executive coaching can't reach.
- The behavior is doing a job. Procrastination protects you from being evaluated. Over-functioning protects you from being seen as insufficient. Staying too long protects you from being someone who leaves.
- Find the belief underneath it. Where it formed, what it's protecting, and what it costs you now in board meetings, hiring decisions, and any room where somebody has authority over you.
- Turn it into a claim you can test. Small experiments in real conditions. Sending something before it's polished. Saying the direct version out loud. Letting a deadline pass without absorbing it yourself.
- The disaster doesn't arrive. Most of the time what you've been bracing for doesn't happen, and the belief loses some of its authority. That takes a while, which is why the work is weekly.
Mechanism — Sam
Somewhere for the new behavior to live
Insight doesn't change Monday morning on its own. The new behavior needs somewhere to live.
Sam builds that. Depending on what the Blueprint turns up:
- The conversation. The script, the frame, the promotion case.
- The handoff. A delegation structure, and the person you're handing it to.
- The week. A calendar rebuilt around the work that actually matters.
- The overhead. AI workflows that take administrative weight off the front of your week.
- The cadence. An operating rhythm that holds without you having to maintain it.
He's built revenue systems and shipped nine production AI agents inside a NYSE-listed company, run a function and its P&L from scratch, and coached more than 1,000 professionals.
One engagement, not two coaches.
When the belief work turns up an action, it comes to Sam to build. When a system keeps failing for reasons that aren't structural, it goes back to Danny.
Most executive coaching tries both halves and does neither well: belief work interrupted by planning, or systems built on guesswork about why someone is stuck. At Mind & Mechanism, each coach stays inside what he was trained for.
Asian American founders, startup executives & senior professionals
Nothing above is unique to Asian Americans. What's often different is the intensity, and where the beliefs came from: families where the stakes involved sacrifice, filial duty, and face.
- What the numbers show. Asian Americans are among the most likely groups to be hired into professional roles and among the least likely to be promoted into management.
- What isn't yours to fix. Some of that is bias and organizational dynamics you did not create and cannot fix from the inside. Carrying it as a personal failing is its own cost.
- What we work on. The gap between how you were raised to operate and what these environments are set up to reward. We start by helping you tell the difference.
That second part is workable, and it still isn't simply a matter of information. Most leaders already know they should speak up sooner and ask more directly. Knowing has never been the hard part.
Composure read as absence of leadership
Restraint and a preference for harmony were strengths where you learned them. In American executive settings they get described as lacking presence or vision, even when your judgment is the soundest in the room.
Assertion that once cost someone
Speaking plainly isn't a skill you're missing. It's something you learned early would upset, burden, or drive away someone who mattered. The behavior isn't absent. It's prohibited.
Leaving as abandonment
Ending a role, a partnership, or a project can carry the weight of a much earlier separation. The result is staying long past the point of fit and calling it obligation.
Carrying it alone
If needing help once meant being a burden, your board is underused, your executive team is underused, and you're carrying what the structure was built to share.
Failure your family will absorb
A pivot or a shutdown isn't only a business outcome. It's something your family will interpret and carry, which can make a rational decision to stop feel impossible.
Fit
People arrive at this work from different places. Some can name exactly what's blocking them and still can't move. Others just know something is off and can't put words to it yet. Both are workable, and figuring out which one you're in is part of what the assessment is for.
What matters more is that you have somewhere for the work to land: a team, a board, a P&L, real decisions in front of you this quarter. That's where a belief gets tested and where a new system has somewhere to run.
If we're not the right fit, we'll tell you on the intro call and point you toward someone who is.
Danny has spent his career with Asian American founders and executives. Sam is second generation himself: Persian parents, born and raised in Sweden, an immigrant to the US at thirty.
One door in. Two tracks through.
Step 1 · 30 minutes · both coaches · free
Intro call
How the program works, who does what, what a month looks like, and what it costs. Either of us will tell you if this isn't right. It isn't a sales call and it isn't a free session.
Step 2 · 2 hours · both coaches
The Executive Performance Assessment
The paid diagnostic that starts every engagement. $3,500, billed $1,750 by each of us.
Thirty minutes with the three of us. Then forty-five with Danny alone and forty-five with Sam alone, because some of what matters comes out more easily one to one. Then the two of us compare notes.
What you leave with
The Executive Performance Blueprint, written, in your hands within five business days.
- What is in the way internally. The beliefs and patterns Danny heard, in his words.
- What is in the way operationally. Where your week, your team, and your systems are working against you.
- A 90-day sequence. What to tackle, in what order, and what each move is meant to prove.
The order is the part most plans get wrong. Rank by impact alone and the highest-stakes move lands in week two, before anything has made it feel survivable. We sequence by readiness as well as impact, so each piece lands when it can hold.
If you continue into the 90-day program, $1,750 is credited toward your first month, $875 against each of our retainers. That makes the effective cost of the assessment $1,750. If you decide not to continue, the $3,500 covers the two hours and the written Blueprint in full.
Before the assessment you'll sign a short information-sharing agreement setting out what stays with Danny and what the two of us discuss.
Step 3 · Weekly · First 90 days
Two tracks, running in parallel
Monday with Danny. "There's a call I keep pushing to next week." The session works on why.
Thursday with Sam. "Let's script it." Talking points, the frame, the calendar block, the follow-up. The call happens Friday.
Both tracks run weekly, and the cadence is fixed rather than as-needed. A belief changes through repeated contact with real conditions, not through occasional deep conversations. Weekly is what gives the new behavior enough repetitions to hold.
The first 90 days are a commitment on both sides. Weekly sessions with each of us for a full quarter. That is the shortest period in which a belief gets tested enough times to shift and a new system survives contact with a real week. Neither of us takes clients for less.
Step 4 · Day 90 · Quarterly review
What moved, and what happens next
The quarter closes with a review against your Blueprint: what the goals were, what actually changed, and what the next quarter should hold. Danny starts forming his read earlier, usually around day 60, so the review arrives as a considered recommendation rather than a snap judgment.
Danny's sessions continue by agreement. If the work is still useful he will say so and recommend continuing, and his sessions stay weekly. He does not work at a lighter cadence, because belief-level change depends on repetition. Nothing on his side is billed automatically. You continue because you decide to, and clients often do for years as new pressures surface: a raise, a board seat, a first executive hire.
Sam's engagement continues monthly. Systems need maintaining and extending as the company changes, so the work carries on after the first quarter, billed monthly and renewing automatically. You can stop it with 30 days' written notice at any point, and the review happens every quarter regardless.
You can also stop with the Blueprint and the systems already built. Neither of us owns your continuation. You do.
Billing
Separate, simple
You're invoiced separately by each of us, from our own practices, at our own rates. Neither of us pays the other for referrals, and we don't share revenue.
Who you'd be working with
Mind
Danny Liu, PsyD — Executive Coach
Founder of a Manhattan practice working with high-achieving Asian American professionals: founders, executives, attorneys, engineers, and creatives.
- The patterns he works on. For the past decade: perfectionism, difficulty self-advocating, overextended responsibility, and the family expectations that shape how they lead.
- How long clients stay. The executives and CEOs he works with typically stay for years rather than months, a working relationship that keeps producing value and growth.
- Outside the practice. Featured by ABC News. Runs Beyond the Surface, a psychoeducation channel for the Asian American community.
- Background. The son of Chinese immigrants, he grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and was the first in his family to attend college.
PsyD, Clinical Psychology · Licensed psychologist in NY, NJ & CA
Mechanism
Sam Hirbod — Executive Coach & Operator
Lead Strategic Partner Development Manager at HubSpot, where he trains the founders and teams of HubSpot's partner agencies, a portfolio serving more than 5,000 client companies, to build and sell AI services of their own.
- What he builds. Nine production AI agents that automate revenue and customer-success operations, and the pricing-and-packaging tool HubSpot uses to train partners on value-based pricing.
- What he advises on. Positioning, ideal customer profiles, and conversion. Built a marketing and analytics function and its P&L from scratch.
- Who he has coached. More than 1,000 professionals across finance, technology, healthcare, real estate, and hospitality, and leaders at HubSpot, Google, IKEA, H&M, and the Swedish Parliament.
- Track record. HubSpot's first Swedish-speaking channel consultant, based in Dublin across EMEA before moving to the US. President's Club 2024 and the number one Senior Partner Development Manager in North America the same year.
- Background. Second generation: Persian parents, born and raised in Sweden, an immigrant to the US at thirty.
MSc, Business Administration & International Economics (Sweden, Spain) · Certified Executive & Professional Coach · Leadership Excellence in Leading Teams, Harvard DCE
Common questions about executive coaching
How much does executive coaching cost with Mind & Mechanism?
The Executive Performance Assessment costs $3,500 and starts every engagement, billed $1,750 by each coach. It includes a two-hour session with both coaches and a written 90-day Blueprint delivered within five business days. If you continue into the 90-day program, $1,750 is credited toward your first month, $875 against each coach's retainer, which makes the effective cost of the assessment $1,750. If you do not continue, the $3,500 covers the assessment and the Blueprint in full. Ongoing coaching is billed separately by each coach at his own rate, discussed on the intro call.
What happens in the Executive Performance Assessment?
The assessment runs two hours: thirty minutes with both coaches, forty-five minutes one-on-one with Danny Liu on the beliefs and patterns underneath the problem, forty-five minutes one-on-one with Sam Hirbod on how you currently operate, and a joint close. You receive the Executive Performance Blueprint within five business days, covering internal blockers, external blockers, and 90-day goals in writing.
Why two coaches instead of one?
Because the two halves of a stuck pattern are different jobs. A belief that makes the old behavior feel necessary is psychological work. A week with no room for the new behavior is an operations problem. Danny Liu works the belief. Sam Hirbod builds the system. Keeping them separate means each of us stays inside what we were trained for.
Is this therapy?
No. Mind & Mechanism provides executive coaching, not therapy, psychotherapy, or clinical assessment, and no diagnosis is provided. Danny Liu is a licensed psychologist, but coaching is a separate service: he does not provide both to the same client and does not accept current or former psychotherapy clients into coaching engagements. Coaching conversations are confidential but are not covered by HIPAA or therapist-patient privilege.
Who is Mind & Mechanism for?
Asian American founders, startup executives, and senior professionals who have been stuck on the same thing for a while. Some can name exactly what is in the way. Others just know something isn't moving. What matters most is having somewhere for the work to land: a team, a board, or a P&L where real decisions are in front of you this quarter.
Do I have to work with both coaches?
The program is built around both tracks running together, so the assessment and the 90 days include both of us. If what you need is only the psychological work, Danny sees clients through his own practice. If it is only execution and systems, Sam does the same. We'll help you figure out which fits on the intro call.
Where do sessions happen?
Virtually, or in person in Manhattan. Most clients work with us remotely, including founders and executives in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles. The assessment can be run either way.
Is there a minimum commitment?
Yes. The program runs as a fixed 90-day engagement with both coaches, weekly with each. Ninety days is the shortest period in which a belief can be tested enough times to shift and a new operating system can hold, so neither coach takes clients for less. After the first quarter, Danny's sessions continue by agreement at a weekly cadence, and Sam Hirbod's engagement continues month to month, renewing automatically until you give 30 days' written notice.
What happens after 90 days?
The quarter closes with a review against your Blueprint: what the goals were, what changed, and what the next quarter should focus on. From there, Danny Liu's weekly sessions continue by agreement, with nothing billed automatically on his side. Sam Hirbod's engagement continues month to month and renews automatically until you give 30 days' written notice. You can stop either track, or both, and keep the Blueprint and the systems already built.
Why do capable executives get stuck on decisions they've already made?
Usually because two things are true at once. A belief, often formed long before the current role, makes the old behavior feel necessary. Acting means risking being judged, disappointing someone, or being wrong in public. And the week has no structure that supports the new behavior, so insight alone changes nothing by Wednesday. Working on the belief and the system at the same time is what closes the gap between knowing and doing.
07 — Start
Thirty minutes with both of us. No charge, no pitch.
Tell us what's stuck. We'll tell you how the program works, what it costs, and whether it's the right fit, for you and for us.