FIGS O'SULLIVAN
Featured on NPR, Mark Groves, Daddy Issues & 50+ podcasts — bringing attachment science and Bitcoin together.
Hi, I’m Figs — a husband, dad, outrigger paddler, and a Marriage and Family Therapist. I created the Empathi Method after years of sitting with people in the messy, beautiful struggle of love. Somewhere along the way I became the guy other therapists and thought leaders call when their own relationships go sideways — which still makes me laugh, because if they don’t have it all figured out, what hope do the rest of us have?
I’ve shared what I’ve learned on NPR’s All Things Considered, the Mark Groves Show, Daddy Issues, Almost Adulting, and 50+ other podcasts. What people connect with isn’t “advice” — it’s that I tell the truth, share my own awkward and funny stories, and make the scary stuff safe enough to face. That mix of humor and vulnerability is what makes change possible, whether in love or, lately, in money. That’s what I explore in my piece, Love & Bitcoin and Why You Won’t Change Until it Hurts Like Hell — because real transformation, in relationships or finances, only happens when it hurts too much to stay the same.
Biography
What's a Figs?
I’m an Irish guy who somehow ended up in Hawaii raising two kids, a dog, and a rabbit with my wife Teale — and spending my days helping people face the hardest, funniest, and most beautiful parts of love. I don’t just teach this stuff, I live it (often awkwardly), and I share my own stories so people feel safe enough to face theirs. At the end of the day, “What’s a Figs?” It’s someone who believes love is worth the struggle, change only happens when it hurts enough, and a bit of humor makes it all survivable — whether we’re talking marriage or money.
What to know...
- Figs is a loving dad, friend, and ally.
- The most sought-after couples therapist to the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley.
- Used to helping the smartest and most creative people in the world at making love work.
- Witty, relatable speaker who is willing to banter and discuss topics deeply.
- NPR compared his ability to read human emotion to IBM Watson's.
Figs' Influence
5,000+ Course Members
30,000+ Empathi App Users
48,000 Email Subscribers
5,000+ Course Members
30,000+ Empathi App Users
48,000+ Email Subscribers
Topics
Answer Your Audience's Questions
Love & Relationships
- Why couples end up having the same fight over and over again (and yes, I’ve had that fight with Teale more times than I can count).
- How the things that drive us mad about our partner are often the very things that can heal us.
- Why people don’t change until it hurts — and how suffering becomes the spark for transformation in love.
- Everyone always makes sense. The listener, their partner or other loved one, and both of them together.
- What parenting, paddling into headwinds, and therapy all have in common: humility.
Bitcoin & Money
- Why people cling to unhealthy systems (just like unhealthy relationships) until the pain of staying the same is too much.
- Bitcoin as a “secure base” — applying attachment science to financial sovereignty.
- What low-time-preference thinking in Bitcoin can teach us about building lasting love.
- How our money stories mirror our love stories — and how to rewrite both with honesty and courage.
- Why laughter, humility, and truth-telling matter as much in Bitcoin conversations as they do in couples therapy.
Book Figs!
your audience, workplace, or community.
Appearances
Conversations I’ve Loved Being Part Of
Featured In...
Want to interview Figs?
Schedule an interview, conference, or other event
with Figs O'Sullivan using our contact form.