Consultant Cardiologist & Health Coach
Dr Toomas Särev is often introduced as “the cardiologist who coaches leaders”. That is true. It is not the origin story.
He was born in Estonia and grew up in the countryside. He can milk cows. He can use tools. He learned early that work does not negotiate with your feelings. At weekends he was also backstage at the Estonian National Opera, where his mother ran the costume department. Farm dirt on Saturday. Opera costumes on Sunday. Precision and humanity in the same body.
See Steps to self mastery - unlearning the Armour
He did not get into medical school on the first try. So he studied pharmacy, earned his way in, and fell hard for cardio-respiratory physiology while working critical care shifts alongside his studies. Then life became a sequence of high-stakes rooms: Estonia to Finland to Sweden to Sudan to the United Kingdom, through cath labs, ICUs, and on-calls where decisions cannot be “undone”.
Along the way he became a second-degree black belt in Korean martial arts. Not for the belt, for the training: stay calm, see clearly, act on purpose.
Because pressure does not just fill diaries. It shrinks judgement. Under enough load, good people become reactive. Empathy narrows. Teams go quiet. Control goes up. Blame starts to look like a management tool. Not because people are weak. Because they are human.
By 2023, he reached his own limit and chose a different path. He remains clinically active (locum work and a small private practice), and now puts most of his energy into building the School of Cognitive Oxygen: a practical body of work for better decisions under pressure, without losing the humans. He coaches and facilitates leadership development with LMI-UK, and is certified in Red Team Thinking, so “speaking up” becomes a method rather than a personality trait.
His work is an invitation, not a pitch: if you are leading in a high-pressure system and you can feel your judgement narrowing, you do not need more willpower. You need more margin.