The anthropology of human transformation.
Coaching, books, and conversations about how a person changes.
I study how people change, and I help them do it. Coach, writer, researcher, and a thinking partner for organizations, working one to one in San Diego or on Zoom. Scholar-practitioner: the reading feeds the room, and the room sends me back to the reading.
Or start with the books · the podcast.
The goal is that you won’t need me.
A coach is a carriage: the word comes from a Hungarian village that built them. The Buddha called his teaching a raft, for crossing over and not for carrying once you’re across. Both are vessels you leave on the far bank. Nobody crosses alone, and nobody should have to. But you get good at what you give hours to, and the point of giving some to yourself is to be able to run this on your own.
Why I use the old words →How does a person change?
Coaching
One-to-one, for people who have already thought about it. In San Diego or on Zoom. Three rates on every format, and you choose yours.
- Transformational coachingThe Ninety-Day Arc · 12 sessions$2,400 · $1,200 · $600
- Decision and conflict coachingThe Decision · 4 sessions$800 · $400 · $200
- Strengths, vocation and purposeStrengths and Vocation · 3 sessions$500 · $300 · $150
The books
Six in progress, two manuscripts complete. Born Again, on the human rite of rebirth. Upstream, on forming human beings in the age of the machine. Eudaimonia, The Green Mantle, Fate of the Middle World, and a political volume.
The books →Conversations on Human Transformation
How does a person change? Long conversations with the people who carry the traditions that change people, and the anthropologists who learned from them. First episode autumn 2026.
The show →Conflict, formation, and the designated third
M.S. in Conflict Management and Resolution at the Kroc School, University of San Diego, and the Leadership Coaching Certificate at USD, an ICF Level 2 program. Current work: a comparative study of grievance institutions and how societies constitute a third through whom fairness is checked. I facilitate restorative circles on campus.
About →La Jolla Freedive Club
San Diego’s AIDA-certified freediving school, from age eight to adult. One breath, the cold water, and the same lesson as the rest of this: the body knows before the mind does.
The club ↗The same few ideas, in everything I make.
The threshold
Every culture gives a passage the same shape: separation, the space between, return. The Arc is built on it; Born Again is about it.
Born Again →The third
The one who is neither of the two, and what arrives when two people leave room for it. The stance of the coach, the consultant, the ombuds.
A reader’s index →Desire
The one thing Socrates claimed to know. Telling what you actually want from what was put in you. Diotima, chanda and taṇhā.
The science of desire →The verb
You are not a noun that got misfiled. Fuller, Plato’s remembering, the porous self, and Hahn’s plus est en vous.
The essay →The self as instrument
The good life as tuning, from the Republic to al-Fārābī. The monochord as the picture of the work.
The monochord →Formation against the machine
What it takes to form a human being when the machines can do the rest. The argument of Upstream.
Upstream →These get worked out at length in the Library — essays on why ninety days, what desire actually is in the research, and why the old words for this work are better than the new ones.
First episode autumn 2026
Becoming Human is in preparation. The premise, and what a guest can expect, are on the show page.
The show →Thirdness a reader’s index
Sixteen sources on the one who is neither of the two, from Peirce to Benjamin, each in its own sentence.
Read →Upstream Forming Human Beings in the Age of the Machine
Manuscript complete; seeking representation.
The book →The Kroc School M.S. Conflict Management and Resolution
University of San Diego, expected 2027. Leadership Coaching Certificate, USD SOLES, in progress.
About →
Anthropologist by training, practitioner by craft. I spent years building alongside people before I understood that the problems were rarely operational; they were formational. I work as a scholar-practitioner. The reading and the fieldwork feed the room, and the room sends me back to the reading. In English, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic.
B.A. Sociocultural Anthropology, UC San Diego, cum laude, Mel Spiro Award · A.A. Arabic Language, Grossmont College · M.S. Conflict Management and Resolution, Kroc School, USD, 2027 · Leadership Coaching Certificate, USD SOLES, in progress · PMP · San Diego
More about me →“Joshua has a remarkable ability to listen deeply and understand the specific challenges we’re facing. His advice was always practical and aligned with our vision — it helped sharpen and accelerate our goals.”Souhayl M. · startup founder