Sum of Our Parts – Connecting Across Differences
What happens in your brain when you’re under pressure, receive difficult feedback, or face challenges at work?
In this practical session, Daria Maneche will explore how our brains respond to stress and challenges — and how understanding these patterns can help us communicate better, make better decisions, and work more effectively with others.
Using insights from neuroscience, Positive Psychology, and the PERMA/W framework, we’ll look at the difference between reacting automatically and responding intentionally.
You’ll learn how to:
- Recognize your own reactive vs. responsive patterns
- Better handle stress, feedback, and challenging situations
- Understand negative emotions as useful signals
- Improve communication and collaboration across teams
- Build a simple weekly practice to strengthen these skills
Think of it as performance engineering for one of the most complex systems you work with every day: your own mind.
The session combines practical tools, science, and personal stories that you can apply in your everyday work.
Daria S. Maneche
Architect of Human Performance
About the speaker
I sit at the intersection of neuroscience, positive psychology, and emotional regulation (also known as metacognition) — working with individuals, teams, and organizations ready to grow.
When we understand the basic functions of our brains, we can intervene, recognize the feelings we have or need, and regulate effectively. I am a facilitator and coach with a unique blend of realism, a clear sense of what needs to change, and an empathetic ear.
My 25-year career in styling for advertising taught me something most coaches never learn inside a classroom: the complexity of our intrinsic and extrinsic personas, and what it actually looks like when people are thriving versus quietly disappearing. I was often an observer inside large teams, and what I saw was that systems were outdated and in need of a deep overhaul. Digital transformation gives us the opportunity to mend those frameworks and redesign workspaces and cultures where people genuinely thrive, with adaptability and resilience embedded into how they work and integrate AI.
I am a passionate practitioner of the PERMA framework. I have seen firsthand how these tools, paired with a real understanding of human potential, can enhance performance, skill sets, ambition, and drive for individuals and their teams. When people thrive, they find resilience and trust. They align their day-to-day work with their organization’s goals, and that creates clarity.
Every individual can make a difference. And that impact extends outward to the people around them. We have a mirror effect on those we influence.
As a coach, I can uniquely see the blind spots, patterns, and potential in people that help them move forward.