My doctoral work focused on motivation and self-compassion, and before that I spent several years as a professional counselor. Both still shape the way I work. The research training is why I take evidence seriously. The counseling training is why interviews and working sessions tend to draw out material clients didn’t know they had, or didn’t know how to say. A love of the written word is what ties the two together into the work I do now.
Since leaving academia, I’ve worked on a range of nonfiction books with entrepreneurs, media personalities, mental health clinicians, university professors and a university president, and a former presidential advisor. Subject matter has spanned memoir, self-help, higher education, and the intersection of religion and politics.