Power of Performance

Welcome, I'm Rita

I have spent over a decade coaching, consulting and researching optimal performance, occupational health, and sports psychology methodologies with a broad range of clients including corporate employees, FDNY firefighters, family members, military personnel, and performing artists.

I have been interested in performance and psychology as long as I can remember. As an undergraduate, I studied classical voice singing at a conservatory as well as hard sciences and psychology. And although I was studying everything I was passionate about, I was a mess. I had just enough successes to keep me going, but I wasn't performing at my peak. After college I began meditating as a way to build resiliency in coping with a loss and later was asked to participate in a research study of coaching performing artists, corporate employees, and later firefighters in proper breathing and its effects on the central nervous system to gain peak performance. And then it all clicked. What I learned was that the techniques I had as a professional singer and actor could have helped in my academic studies, and my scientific knowledge could be applied to performance and life.

I went on to graduate school to study organizational and occupational performance psychology while performing in the world’s longest running musical in New York City, and it’s become my mission to show and teach people that we have way more ability already in us than we ever thought possible.

Recent and Upcoming Speaking Engagements

Adding Self-Healing to Your Medicine Cabinet
4-Week Live Workshop with Power of Performance (Zoom)
JWS Broadway Acting Studio
New York, NY (now on Zoom)
National Fallen Firefighters Foundation Retreat
San Antonio, TX (now on Zoom)
Ft Hamilton Spouses Foundation
Brooklyn, NY
FDNY Counseling Service Unit Meeting
Fort Totten, NY

Rita Neidich, MS, BCB

Rita's unique coaching approach was developed during the ten years that she lead peak performance coaching and research programs at non-for-profit organizations which specifically service firefighters, military, and their families. Rita's research of the effects of Peak Performance Coaching and Biofeedback with firefighters is the first of its kind. She is a Certified Biofeedback Specialist certified through the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (BCIA). She has collaborated on accepted research and grant proposals for FEMA and Walter Reed Army Hospital. Rita holds an M.S. from Baruch College in the field of Organizational and Occupational Performance Psychology and is also a magna cum laude graduate of New York University.

Services

Merging components from sports and organizational psychology, applied psychophysiology and biofeedback, mindfulness, performing arts techniques, and meditation, the Power of Performance coaching methodology focuses on optimal performance training, overall stress and anxiety reduction, self-regulation, and improving quality of life. We operate under the assumption that the real power is not in the coach or coaching techniques: it is in the individual and their potential.

Speaking Engagements

Keynote and speaking presentations for large groups to understand and utilize the science of performance in their work and lives.

Indiviual coaching

One-on-one coaching sessions in person or virtual via Zoom.

Group Workshops

Workshops for groups and organizations practicing and learning tangible tools of peak performance and resilience.

Charity

Portion of profits are used to do coaching and workshops with first-reponders and non-for-profits.

Research

Ongoing and past research to assess training efficacy and contribute to scientific research.

Client Feedback

"I wanted to improve my performance in response to stressful situation, both on the job and in my personal life. Coaching with Rita Neidich has expanded my toolbox for dealing with stressful situations and self-regulation. The practices helped during free fall training and to regulate my fear response before exiting the plane at 13,000 feet. Knowing that I can control my internal stress response to perform my best has been rewarding."

US Air Force Special Operations Pararescue, Active Firefighter, and Military Veteran

"I had a tendency to let my thoughts run away with me, almost to the point of hyperventilating and building into a panic attack. Through this process, I'm able to control my thoughts better, recenter myself and shift my train of thought...and slow down my heart rate. It's like hitting the reset button. I find it very helpful with dealing with stress and dealing with anxiety. I'm very grateful for coaching with Rita."

Retired Firefighter, FDNY

"The coaching has helped me increase my awareness of self-control, has helped me regain concentration, focus, and awareness. I was suffering from anxiety and frustration on the job. In the last couple of years every time the tones would go off I would lose my breath, my heart rate would go through the roof, and I would sometimes, for a second, forget what to do. Rita has shown me how to increase my lung capacity, lower my frustration levels and most of all decrease my anxiety. All this has also helped in my everyday life."

Active Firefighter, FDNY

"Since coaching, I have been able to manage 'racing thoughts' that occur in the middle of the night’s sleep. Getting back to sleep easier; stressful situations have become easier to handle. I am able to lower my pulse."

Active Firefighter, FDNY

In the News

Credit and thanks to the firefighter community that has participated in the coaching and for the development of the training. This has been a collaborative effort with the firefighter community in developing tangible applications. The coaching model continues to value the individual and operates in a collaborative way for all careers and situations.