I’m teaching a three-part coaching course this month. The purpose of the class is to equip the participants with the skills they need to effectively help higher ed students of different ages, stages, and backgrounds succeed in school, at work, and beyond. It’s challenging and fun at the same time.
One of the primary areas of development for emerging coaches is the skill of asking powerful questions. What makes a question powerful? A powerful question is one that evokes awareness in the responder, leading to an “ah ha” moment. These questions are most often open-ended, nonjudgmental, and come from a place of curiosity rather than confirmation.
Powerful questions, I’ve found, are also one of my most powerful tools when it comes to combating Jerk Brain. The person I’m coaching in these instances is myself. When I encounter the familiar voice of Jerk Brain, telling me I can’t do something or I am unworthy of love or care, I pause. Then, I ask myself one (or more) powerful questions.
Here are a few that I find helpful. What are your favorite questions to evoke awareness in yourself and others?
1. What is the source of my discomfort in this moment?
From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.
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