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Michael McDonald, Transformational Coach

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Featured Post

Letting Go

I feel like I’ve been saying goodbye to a lot of things in my life recently, to people and pets and paths not taken. There’s a nostalgia that comes with it, a tender vulnerability and grieving of each little change. Not painful but poignant, beautiful. “I don’t know why I’m crying” is something I often hear from clients when they’ve had a life-changing insight. Their life and their perspective has up-leveled, but they’re confused by the tears as if they were unhappy about getting what they...

3 months ago • 1 min read

What does it really mean to ‘trust your intuition’, and is it actually a good idea? Opinions abound: Following your intuition. But don’t jump to conclusions without thinking things through. But don’t obscure your inner knowing by going into your head. Don’t live on autopilot, but also don’t live in your head. Entire books have been written about why going with your gut is a good idea, and entire books have been written about why going with your gut is a bad idea. What’s missing is a...

3 months ago • 2 min read

It doesn’t matter what you say; it matters what is heard. Coaching isn’t downloading information from one brain to another; it’s opening up someone’s mind so that they see something new. An insight invariably shifts someone into a new, better world – an internal shift from which miracles outwardly spring forth. Sometimes you might share a story or idea, and especially if it comes from being deeply embodied and having had a profound impact on you, it’s a much more evocative transmission that...

5 months ago • 1 min read

For about the first decade of my coaching career I collected methodologies. I dove into everything that interested me, finding approaches that went deeper with things liked, that felt like colorful variations of other strategies, and approaches that went way out or directly contradicted other approaches. As that approach matured, I started optimizing, filtering, picking favorites – what models and tactics of transformational work gave the biggest ‘bang for the buck’? When a client got more...

6 months ago • 1 min read

I returned from Burning Man about two weeks ago. The clothes have been washed, the shoes rinsed with vinegar, and the bins are back in the closet. There are many tales and lessons being woven around the remarkable rains and days of mud, of people coming together and adapting, bonding, and playing in the face of new challenges. But I’m drawn to share about something else, not unique to this burn but a regular and sacred thread of my personal Burning Man experience over the last couple years:...

7 months ago • 2 min read

Find a limiting belief that’s creating resistance, and see through it. Find a missing action, and take it. Find a conversation you’ve been avoiding, and have it. Find a skill that’s weak enough that it’s holding you back, and practice it. Find an assumption which isn’t happening, and drop it. Find a feeling you’ve been avoiding feeling, and feel it. Find something you’ve been trying to fix, and instead ask yourself what you want to create. Find something you’re struggling with, and ask for...

9 months ago • 1 min read

“Something awesome is trying to happen, and your job is to allow it.” Inner GuidanceThere’s an underlying intelligence behind life that is there to guide us. It doesn’t always make sense, and it is often difficult to see, and sometimes feels scary or disorienting, but it is wiser than our little personal self and can always be trusted. In this workshop we’ll be exploring: The reality-shifting power of insight The nature of your inner guidance What gets in the way of following it How feelings...

10 months ago • 1 min read

Integrity gets a bad rap. It’s one of those ‘precious words’ that a lot of my clients have a lot of unconscious stories built up around: It’s both something they really want, or at least think they should want, but they also have a lot of stories about how difficult, rigid, and life-sucking it’s going to be in order to ‘be in integrity’. Most people think of integrity as something structural, e.g. “doing what you say you will do” or “always telling the truth” or “starting what you finish” or...

about 1 year ago • 2 min read

Many of my clients start out as ‘successful victims’: They’re talented, hard-working, and have a lot going for them: some are masters at their craft, some have great relationships, some have had great success in their careers, some have created a lot of free time for personal development, etc. In many ways they’re ‘winning’, but they’re also unhappy. They each have their own explanations why they’re unhappy: they need a purpose, a life partner, or more money or success or skill or time. They...

about 1 year ago • 3 min read

What’s the conversation you’ve been avoiding? When relationships go sour, whether it’s an intimate relationship or family or with potential client or in an organization, chances are there’s a conversation you’re not having. (And chances you instantly knew which conversation that was as soon as I asked!) Which is why I often ask this question in initial coaching conversations when someone is struggling with a relationship, executive, or leadership issue. We often focus on the ups and downs of...

about 1 year ago • 1 min read
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