How people and communities change.
I study it, write about it, and help people through it.
Through Tertium I help organisations and scholars work out what they’re building, then build what makes it run. I also coach one to one in San Diego and on Zoom, and write and teach.
Two ways to work together.
Tertium
Work out what you’re building. Then build what makes it run. For founders, mission-led organisations, scholars and authors.
- Launch & BuildFounders and mission-led organisations
- DevelopmentScholars, authors and teachers
Coaching
Intentional conversations, a written record, a clear end. In San Diego or on Zoom. Three rates on every format, and you choose yours. Fees are on the coaching page.
- Transformational coachingThe Ninety-Day Arc · 12 sessions
- Decision and conflict coachingThe Decision · 4 sessions
- Strengths, vocation and purposeThe Strengths Map · 3 sessions
Where the work lives.
Read and follow
- InstagramFreediving, Plato and Persian poetry, for an audience of 63,000. (opens in a new tab)
- The compendiumThe thinkers, talks and readings behind the posts. (opens in a new tab)
- LinkedInCareer and engagements. (opens in a new tab)
- WhatsApp channelNew posts and essays as they go out. (opens in a new tab)
Listen and read on this site
- PodcastHow does a person change? Long conversations with the people who carry the traditions that change people. First conversations recorded autumn 2026.
- BooksBorn Again, on the human rite of rebirth. Upstream, on forming human beings in the age of the machine.
- WritingEssays on formation, change, and the traditions that understood it first, including the longer reference pieces.
Anthropologist by training. I have run marketing and operations for organisations in education, publishing and health, and I came to see that the problems were rarely operational; they were formational. 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, candidate, 2027 · Leadership Coaching Certificate, USD SOLES, in progress · Graduate studies in theology, Boston College · PMP · San Diego
More about me →“Joshua would ask great questions with gentle curiosity and make insightful observations, but there was always something beyond what was being said: a quality of presence and aliveness that is beyond words. Within about seven sessions, things really shifted.”Bilal K. · certified professional co-active coach, Lisbon