Michael McDonald, Transformational Coach

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:...

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...

Something awesome is trying to happen, and your job is to allow it.” Inner Guidance​There’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...

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...

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...

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...

There’re many potential reasons that ‘it’–that goal, aspiration, path, story that you’re seeking–just doesn’t seem to be working… Thinking You might be in your head instead of in the world. I find that conceptualizing and creating cohesive mental models is great creating more understanding and consistency around something that is working, something you've got a grasp of that you'd like more of. But to get to new progress, you need to get out of your analytical thinking (all memory and...

The desire for community, friends, partnership, etc. has been popping up in many of my conversations (both social and coaching conversations) over the last week. For those of you who are seeking ‘your people’, here are some of my recent insights on the matter: Who you’re with is (indirectly) a product of who you’re being. As you grow and change it’s natural for your friends, relationships, and communities to follow suit. But there’s also usually a big lag time, because relationship change is...