I never set out to become a facilitator. In fact, for years I didn’t even think of the word as having anything to do with me. Yet if I look back, there were clear signs. One moment in particular stands out: I was 28 and working at the University of Texas at Austin, standing in front of a room full of colleagues at a retreat I’d been asked—out of nowhere—to “help lead.” I remember glancing around and thinking, Why me? I’m not the expert here. But as the session unfolded, something strange happened: people started opening up, responding to prompts I had improvised on the spot, building on one another’s ideas as if the room itself had shifted. It wasn’t polished, and I made plenty of rookie mistakes (e.g. stacking questions if the silence lingered, offering an opinion here and there, overbuilding the agenda), but I walked away with the feeling that something had just clicked—something I couldn’t yet name. It took many more years before I understood that moment for what it was: the beginning of a path I didn’t even know I had already been walking.

Looking back, the dots connect more clearly. My career has zigzagged across geographies and job functions: sales assistant at an oriental rug gallery; clerk at a used CD store straight out of High Fidelity; concert production manager in Washington, D.C.; English teacher in Querétaro, Mexico; performing arts administrator in Austin; and eventually a program officer at a major family foundation in Arkansas. On paper, it reads like restlessness or a lack of focus. In reality, each stop taught me something about people—how they gather, how they express themselves, how they struggle to understand one another, and how much hinges on the quality of the spaces we create for dialogue.

Along the way, I kept finding myself drafted into roles that had me designing or running gatherings: first conference sessions, then professional development workshops, followed by staff retreats. Lots of little pockets of structured conversation inside larger events. Almost every year someone new would approach me and say, “Could you help us plan a retreat?” or “Would you be willing to facilitate this session?” I never quite understood why they asked me, but I always said yes. I liked watching people think together. I liked figuring out how to get people to open up. And I especially loved the moment when strangers suddenly heard one another differently because of how the space had been shaped.

Part of this instinct came from music. I grew up playing piano and guitar, drifted away from it for a while, and then rediscovered it with real commitment as an adult—especially jazz. Improvisational music taught me how to listen in a way that feels similar to what facilitation demands. In jazz you’re constantly balancing: knowing when to play and when to lay out, catching subtle cues, giving others space, supporting the ensemble rather than spotlighting yourself. A good gig isn’t about your virtuosity; it’s about making it possible for everyone else to play well. When a group locks into that shared groove, something emerges that none of you could have created alone. I didn’t realize it then, but this was my earliest training as a facilitator.

There were other clues. I’ve long been drawn to bridging—linguistically, culturally, socially. I learned Spanish and Portuguese largely because I wanted to understand the people and artistic traditions of Latin America, whose music and culture kept popping up in my life and later, work. My social circles always blended MBAs and MFAs, philanthropists and musicians, academics and entrepreneurs. I loved translating between worlds, finding the common “notes” across different languages or disciplines. And anyone who has spent time in the arts knows how much the environment matters: location, lighting, seating, acoustics, food and beverage—all the invisible structures that set the tone for how people will relate to a painting, a song, or a play.  For years, I absorbed this subconsciously.

But I also witnessed the opposite of good facilitation: panels squandered by moderators who wanted to be panelists; sessions derailed by unclear purpose and worn out prompts; events where the physical setup all but guaranteed superficial conversation. I remember sitting in conference rooms thinking, There was so much potential in this room—and yet most in the audience are staring at either their phones or the door.  Those moments stayed with me. I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate what was wrong, but I knew when the structure failed the group.

So when the pandemic hit and I found myself scrolling the web more than I care to admit, I kept pausing on Voltage Control’s LinkedIn posts. Douglas’s short videos caught my attention—not because they were flashy, but because the questions he posed were the same ones I was asking myself. I had been “facilitating” for years without calling it that, using instinct and accumulated habits rather than an intentionality or methodology. I was craving rigor, language, structure—a way to build on what I already did well while filling in the gaps I had been skating over. More than anything, I was hungry for a community of people who cared about this work as deeply as I did and who genuinely had fun doing it.  

Curiosity pushed me to enroll first in the Core Certification program and then Master Certification. Curiosity has always been my compass, the trait that has kept my career interesting and my life expansive. At the time, I also felt the faint pull of something bigger—an intuition that investing in facilitation wasn’t just professional development, but a realignment with a part of myself I had neglected. I signed up for Voltage Control’s Facilitation Certification not because I needed a credential, but because I wanted to understand what this craft really was.

I’ll admit I was skeptical at first. I am, by nature, an in-person person. I draw energy from rooms and shared physical presence. The idea of building a cohort online felt like trying to have a jazz jam session over Zoom—technically possible, but spiritually incorrect. I was wrong. The cohort was vibrant, generous, and full of people who approached this work from wildly different angles. We built trust quickly, swapped ideas freely, and formed relationships that continue today through the Hub and beyond.

The program gave me language for instincts I’d had for years, but it also challenged me to expand beyond what felt comfortable. I became more intentional in how I designed sessions, more aware of the cognitive load of participants, more skillful in selecting methods rather than defaulting to my favorites, and more reflective about my own presence. Voltage Control didn’t teach me what to think—it taught me how to think about facilitation as a discipline.

It also introduced me to tools I now consider essential. Mural, Workshop Design Canvas, SessionLab—all platforms I had either ignored or dismissed before the course—became extensions of my practice. Even more surprising was how the program influenced my everyday interactions: weekly standing meetings became small laboratories for better design; dinner parties became opportunities to craft prompts that elicited stories rather than small talk; hallway conversations with colleagues became moments of micro-facilitation that helped surface what people were really trying to say. Facilitation wasn’t just something I did anymore—it was becoming a lens.

One of the places I felt the transformation most vividly was during a workshop I facilitated for the founders of the DAG Foundation. The family behind the foundation was in the earliest stages of imagining what their philanthropic identity could be. They had passion and a desire to give back, but no shared language yet, and a sense of purpose not yet fully articulated.  I used what I had learned in the certification—affinity mapping, structured prompts, pacing techniques, emergent synthesis—to guide them through the messy early phases. Predictably, we hit the “groan zone”: the moment when the energy dips, the ideas blur together, and the group questions whether any of it makes sense. Previously, I might have panicked or rushed them through it. This time, I trusted the process.

We took a break. People stepped outside, grabbed coffee, talked about music (and favorite instruments). Something loosened. When we reconvened, the conversation shifted noticeably. Insights sharpened. A shared purpose began to emerge from what had felt like noise just an hour before. Watching them see their own alignment for the first time felt like witnessing the group “find the pocket” in a jazz combo—the moment when everyone is listening, adjusting, responding, and something larger than any individual voice takes shape. That session wasn’t perfect, but it was unmistakably different from how I would have facilitated it before Voltage Control. I could feel the difference in my confidence, my presence, and my choices.

Somewhere during that project, I found myself thinking about the word facilitate. It comes from facilis—easy—and ultimately from facere—to make or to do. Facilitation is, at its heart, the work of making something possible: easing a path, lowering friction, clearing space for what wants to emerge. But it’s also an act of creation: you are helping make something happen that otherwise would not. That dual meaning resonates deeply with how I see myself now. My instinct has always been to support, to serve, to connect dots others haven’t yet noticed towards their ultimate aim of making or doing something, not just thinking about it. The certification didn’t give me that instinct—it helped me claim it.

Since completing the program, my facilitation practice has expanded in ways I couldn’t have predicted. I’ve stepped into both formal roles—leading retreats, strategy sessions, and design sprints—and informal ones, where the “small f” facilitator in me brings clarity and connection to everyday moments. I’ve paired this work with training as an executive and leadership coach, broadening my range so I can support individuals as effectively as I support groups. For the first time in my career, I feel like all the seemingly unrelated chapters—arts, philanthropy, language, teaching, music—are converging into something coherent.

I’m now preparing for a new chapter, one where facilitation moves from the margins of my job description to the center of my professional identity. It feels less like reinvention and more like alignment—finally naming the work I’ve been doing all along and choosing to pursue it with intention. I don’t know exactly where this path will lead, but I recognize the feeling I had in that early retreat years ago: the sense that something fitting, something meaningful, is unfolding.

If there’s any guidance I’d offer someone considering Voltage Control’s certification, it’s simply this: follow your curiosity. You don’t need to have the title “facilitator” to begin. You just need to care about helping people think better together. The tools matter, the frameworks matter, but what matters most is the mindset—the willingness to listen deeply, design thoughtfully, and trust that groups are capable of more than they realize when given the right conditions.

I used to think of facilitation as a side skill. Now I see it as a craft, a practice, and a way of making something possible—something easier, yes, but also something meaningful. And in that sense, this journey doesn’t feel like an ending at all. It feels like the beginning of the next chapter.

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