mPEAK Team

Compassionate. Specialized, Driven to Serve.
mPEAK Team Co-Founders, Carli Kody and Ben Durbin, offer in-person and online courses, coaching, and professional training in the application of mindfulness for stress resilience, performance optimization, and well-being across life realms. We believe our human capacity for growth, change, and excellence is maximized by attunement to the present, self-compassion, and intuitive action. We serve individuals, groups, and organizations in professional, corporate, athletic, and community-based settings.

The mPEAK Program

mPEAK (Mindful Performance Enhancement, Awareness & Knowledge) is a mindfulness training program for anyone seeking to achieve personal and professional goals, as well as attain new levels of performance and success. This cutting-edge training program is built around the latest brain research related to peak performance, resilience, focus, and “flow”. The mPEAK program enhances the human capacity of mindfulness through established and empirically supported practices and exercises. Mindfulness is effective precisely because it is a way of being and relating to all aspects of life, rather than a specific technique or tool for a particular goal. As with physical training, this brain training program is based upon the understanding that optimal outcomes occur most often when participants continue to engage in the practices and exercises on a daily basis as a part of their training regimen.


The foundation of this program is based on the highly respected and empirically-supported Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. Additionally, mPEAK incorporates elements of sports psychology, positive psychology and specific exercises formulated to correspond to recent neuroscientific findings and related research regarding optimal performance.


The mPEAK program was developed in conjunction with the US National BMX Cycling Team in 2014, as a collaboration between the coaches of the team, UC San Diego neuroscientists Drs. Lori Haase and Martin Paulus, and the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness Founding Director Dr. Steven Hickman and former Managing Director Allan Goldstein.

Intended Audience

This program was specially designed for athletes, first responders, leaders, entrepreneurs, executives, musicians, dancers, and busy professionals or parents who set big goals, face consistent challenges and stretch themselves towards excellence. mPEAK is appropriate for beginner and seasoned mindfulness practitioners alike. Previous meditation experience is not necessary to participate, but can facilitate a deeper learning experience. ​

Course Objectives

  • Develop greater focus and concentration
  • Tap into the power “flow states” during performance events and everyday life
  • Learn to be present to the process and let go of attachment to outcome
  • Practice responding wisely to stress rather than reacting out of fear
  • Develop resilience by learning how to be with emotionally difficult or physically painful experiences
  • Leverage personal strengths and stretching your personal edges without giving up or burning out
  • Recognize and shift from critical to compassionate inner self talk
  • Process and learn from inevitable mistakes and failures

Course Format

mPEAK is offered in a safe and supportive environment for exploring how we typically respond to challenges and opportunities and provides tools for becoming more adept at meeting and overcoming these obstacles to enhance performance and wellbeing. The emphasis of the program is on enhancing attentional and emotional resources, as well as personal capacities for mindfulness and compassion. 

mPEAK class is offered as an 8-Week Course (2.5 hours/week) or a 3-Day Retreat. The program may be offered in-person or live online via Zoom.

Course Content & Process

Each of the eight mPEAK themes include a new meditation, an experiential exercise, group discussion, short presentations and home practices.

Class 1: Intro to Mindfulness & Performance

Class 2: Interoceptive Resilience 
(Recognition and regulation of the sensations of stress and performance anxiety)

Class 3: Performance Stories  
(Recognition and regulation of unhelpful thinking and mind wandering)

Class 4: Priming for Flow
(Getting out of your own way, trusting your training and performing naturally and spontaneously)

Class 5: Working with Pain & Difficulty 
(Allowing physical or emotional pain rather than distracting, avoiding or repressing)

Class 6: Your Inner Coaches 
(Cultivating compassionate rather than critical inner self talk around mistakes or failure)

Class 7: Practicing Positivity 
(Leveraging gratitude and personal character strengths without becoming attached or identified)

Class 8: Living With Intention 
​(Applying a mindful approach to goal setting)

mPEAK Team Bios

www.mpeakteam.com

Dr. Carli Kody
​Co-Founder of mPEAK Team

Carli Braun Kody, PhD, LP, CDWF, mPEAK Team Co-Founder, is a licensed psychologist, mindfulness coach and teacher, speaker, and owner of a private psychotherapy practice. She specializes in mind-body pathways for stress resilience, performance optimization, and well-being.

Carli’s services are rooted in the neuroscience of mindfulness, research-based methodologies, and an unwavering belief that human connection is a catalyst for healing, growth, and the pursuit of excellence. With 23 years in the mental health profession, Carli brings decades of psychology expertise to her work with individual clients, groups, teams, and organizations.

Carli earned a doctoral degree in counseling psychology in 2008 and a master’s degree in counseling psychology in 2002 from the University of Minnesota. She is a Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator (CDWF), certified by the Brené Brown Education and Research Group (BBEARG) in 2014. In 2016, Carli began training to be a mindfulness teacher through the University of California, San Diego, Center for Mindfulness. She is a UCSD Certified mPEAK (Mindful Performance Enhancement, Awareness, and Knowledge) Coach and a Trained Teacher of Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC).

Ben Durbin
Co-Founder of mPEAK Team

Ben Durbin is a transitioning Navy Veteran, Performance Coach, and UCSD Certified mPEAK Coach. Ben discovered mindfulness while seeking methods to enhance his performance in military training. A lifelong student of self-mastery, he continued to learn physical and mental techniques to improve performance throughout his military career. After completing multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he created a framework of mindfulness, breathwork, and movement that helped him heal from the cumulative effects of combat and post-traumatic stress.

Ben’s approach to self-mastery and mental performance includes mindfulness as a core contemplative practice that strengthens emotional regulation and builds self-agency. His practice is informed by a 27-year military career that includes many tours within the Naval Special Warfare community during wartime. Ben is passionate about serving others in their journey to heal, build empowered minds, and perform at peak levels in all aspects of life.

​Ben serves on the elite team at The Trident Approach, in addition to his work at mPEAK Team.

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