Many clients come to me originally thinking that what is missing from their life is information — they just need to know more about ‘how to’ do something. They want me to teach them new tips and techniques, because the other tips and techniques they’ve tried haven’t worked. They’re living in a world of “I don’t know how to.” — which Steve Chandler describes as the primary belief of the victim mindset.

If it was really information that was missing, a couple minutes on Google or asking AI will give you all the information you want and more about the thing. They’re actually stuck because they’re asking the wrong question.

“How do I?” is a lie, an act of self-deception. It’s a reason to wait, for something you don’t actually need. It’s the heart of procrastination. It protects you from the unfamiliar, from change, and from progress.

Yes, learning is a piece of the puzzle — but it’s not the missing piece.

When you’re stuck on ‘how to’, what you’re really missing is choosing to.

You simply haven’t chosen to do it yet. Because once you have chosen to, you’re in action: You look it up. You ask someone. You try something. You sit down for a moment, see what comes to mind next, and do that. You commit time on your calendar.

What if you don’t know if it’s possible? Find out by trying it. What if you’ve never done it before? Do it anyway. What if you don’t know all the steps? Just take the next step.

When you drop the ‘How do I?’ act, you actually know what to do. My coach Jamie Damsker recently told me, “We always know. We really, really know. And even when we truly get to a point where we don’t know something, we’re in action to figure it out.”

We learn how to do something by doing it. Want to write a book? Start writing. Want to buy a house? Visit an open house and start asking questions. (That’s how one of my clients started, and at the end of our year together she sent me a photo of her keys to her new house.)

Who do you think will be better at riding a bike, a kid who has been riding a bike for a day or a kid who has read a book about riding bikes?

Most of us wait for a path to appear, and then walk it. Sounds reasonable, but that’s not how life works. The truth is, you start walking, and the walking makes the path.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

Figuring It Out

When you come to a fork in the road of your life, the common thinking is to consider all your options carefully and pick one. However, you often don’t know much about a path until you’re walking it. And we usually think we’re great at predicting, but we’re actually terrible at it.

This leads to endless looping in the land of ‘figuring it out’. To doubling down on your concepts instead of being in the territory. This is different than divine timing, where you know when to act and when not to. ‘Figuring it out’ is where your conceptual mind has hijacked your forward momentum because you’d rather be right than wise.

‘Figuring it out’ is procrastination masquerading as planning.

One of the things you can do is just decide. I‘ll probably write about that later. But today I want to introduce a weirder yet very practical approach: follow multiple paths at once.

Quantum Planning

The old way of planning is to figure out everything up front and then just execute. Like with billiard balls and Newtonian physics, this kind of planning works in predictable, discrete systems. The conceptual mind loves it, and it can be incredibly useful — except that the majority of your life is not discrete and predictable.

Quantum planning is a refreshingly different approach, where you treat the future as if it is in ‘quantum superposition’. Quantum superposition is the property of a system to be in multiple states simultaneously. A classic example of this is the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment where a cat is considered both alive and dead within a box at the same time. Once the box is opened, the state ‘collapses’ into one of the discrete states: either alive, or dead — but no longer both.

Quantum planning is moving on all live paths at once, while holding each lightly. Instead of picking among A, B, or C — you’re proceeding with all three of them. You’re both staying in the job, and leaving the job. You’re moving across town, and you’re moving to another country. You’re not yet committed to one outcome, and engaged in all of them. And it doesn’t collapse into being one thing until it’s time for that.

Possibility

This path lets go of predictability in exchange for possibility. Despite the protests of the conceptual mind, engaging with life is where the magic happens: Possibility becomes a living flow. You uncover what works. You find out what you actually want. You learn as you go, and get a feel not for the ‘right answer’ but for something that ‘wants to happen’. Quantum planning is built on wonder rather than ‘should’.

All paths are true. Accepting a possibility is not the same as deciding it. And it turns out you’re well-made to think this way; it’s just that you’ve been socialized out of it.

This might sound lofty and complex, but you’re actually doing it all the time. You date someone to find out if you want to be in a relationship with them. You pack the hiking gear just in case you end up walking the Camino. You bring your best to your job, unattached to whether you’re staying or going. Indeed, any time you ‘try’ something you’re actually using quantum planning: you’re in a superposition of it both working and not working.

Quantum planning leverages experience to bring you the learning that ‘figuring it out’ can’t. It’s a natural way to navigate the unknown.

And eventually, one way or another, it’s time, and the many paths become one. It might take minutes, or years. Sometimes you make the choice; sometimes it feels like the choice has been made for you. And the other paths that dropped away make the remaining path all the sweeter.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

When most people think of dominoes they think of lining up a series of small dominoes and knocking them all down. This is also how most people think about success: create a big plan and execute a long list of predetermined steps.

But there’s something fascinating about the physics of dominoes: A domino can knock over another domino that is 50% larger than it. This results in a geometric progression where a standard 2" domino can knock over a 3" domino, which in turn can knock over a 4.5" domino, ad infinitum. If you started with a tiny 5mm domino, the 13th domino would be a domino about 3 feet tall and weighing 100 pounds. The 29th domino would be as tall as the Eiffel Tower, and the 57th would nearly reach the moon!

Rapid Growth

Not only is this a physics lesson, it’s a rich metaphor for rapid growth:

At every step, your sole focus is on the next domino. You will need to use all that you’ve got to knock it over. And you can’t even begin to consider how you’ll handle what comes after that. People who need to know all the steps up front, who need to be sure of success, are constrained to a linear world of execution, and miss out on this opportunity to grow geometrically.

Each domino is a challenge. By knocking over that next domino, you learn and grow from the experience. You gain strength, momentum, and become the version of you capable of tackling the domino that comes next.

“The demon that you can swallow gives you its power.” — Joseph Campbell

Start with your current domino, and give yourself permission to start small. Growth and progress can happen fast, as long as you are honest with where you’re at and good at picking a right-sized next challenge.

You can aim big, like ridiculously big, like Eiffel Tower big. And then plan backwards. Imagine what domino would be 2/3 that size. And then 2/3 that size. And so on until you get to your current domino, and then you can begin.

Dream big, and take the next tiniest next step towards your dream.

This approach requires resilience, humility, and persistence. You are always at your edge, forced to grow. Most of the path is unknown, because it’s revealed by walking it. Surround yourself with support, including a coach that can keep up with you.

Traps

Here are some traps to keep an eye out for:

• Making the first domino too big: Ambition and impatience drive us to overload the starting goal. Instead, make the first domino small enough to actually knock it down. At the beginning prioritize momentum over being impressive, and get a feel for this way of working.
• Skipping a domino: In the linear game you can pull one out and the chain still works. But here you can’t get away with skipping stages of growth. And along the way you’ll probably encounter the limiting beliefs, uncomfortable conversations, and weak links that you’ve been avoiding for years.
• Not fully integrating: When you’ve tackled a domino, do the work to integrate the experience and embody what you’ve gained. Like letting your muscles recover between strength training sessions, let growth settle in before identifying and tackling the next domino.
• Personal gaps: Some dominoes are internal dominoes, involving personal healing and development rather than as a response to external factors. If the next domino suddenly feels far too hard, add a domino in between that builds the capacity, skill or mindset shift you’re missing.

So, where are you currently at? And what is the domino in front of you right now? Is it too small, too big, or the right size? What would the next +50% level of possibility look like for you? Pick wisely, and give it everything you’ve got.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

This little tip has the power to end overwhelm and skyrocket your productivity and life, but it’s so counter to popular thinking that few are willing to actually try it.

It’s simply this:
At any given moment, have either Zero or One thing on your mind.

Most people nod their heads and agree that they shouldn’t multitask, while simultaneously giving into this dopamine-driven ‘hustle’ mindset which is easy to justify (as long as you ignore the science, ignore your body, ignore your wisdom, and ignore your results.) Because hey, everyone else is doing it. And busy is productive, right? … Right?

Having One thing on your mind is a superpower. When the US Senate questioned Andrew Carnegie about how he was able to build wealth so quickly he revealed his secret: “I can keep my mind focused on something for five minutes at a stretch.” Sustained singular focus is a simple superpower that few achieve. Most people are drunk with distraction, and don’t know it.

And that’s where overwhelm starts. Overwhelm is the feeling you get when you try to think about more than one thing at a time. And it’s a slippery slope, because when you think it’s a good idea or a necessity to think about multiple things it starts to make sense to try to think about everything. Until your frazzled nervous system gets you to stop. What could have been a pleasant block of work becomes a downward spiral and you’re ready to crawl into a fetal position even though it’s still morning.

By thinking about One thing at a time, I mean One thing at a time. I’m not saying that you should only have one priority or project in life. But that you’re only focused on one thing in this moment.

Also by One thing I’m being liberal with the word ‘thing’. When I first learned to drive a car it was overwhelming: I was paying attention to mirrors, gear shifts, multiple pedals (including the clutch — I learned on a manual car), speed, road markings, navigation (before Google Maps), etc. Eventually driving was one ‘thing’. And now often driving isn’t even a thing; I can be thinking about a thing, while I happen to be driving as well since the driving isn’t a foreground task.

So what I mean about ‘One thing at a time’ is really ‘one foreground mental process at a time’.

So, what about that Zero?

Zero is the art of not thinking about anything. It’s about putting things down. Having Zero on your mind taps you back into your natural mind. This is where the body relaxes, and you plug back into your whole self. This is the place of open focus, intuition, listening, presence, and receptivity. This is where the noise settles, and where we get clear access to signal.

You can’t really master the One without also mastering the Zero. One of the practices that helped me get a real feel for Zero was the ‘pomodoro technique’ where you work for 25 minutes on a single task, and then rest for 5 minutes. It wasn’t so much the rest but the shifting from work to rest that helped me get good at putting things down. And I noticed how powerful and clear my focus became when I next picked something up.

It is from the Zero that we know what the next One will be. When you put something down and listen or just be, it occurs to you what to do next. The clarity of Zero leads to clarity of One, which often leads to a lot less thinking and a lot more action. Your active being in the world is one of relaxed focus, wise action, and doing only what is necessary.

‘Zero or One’ is a deceptively simple distinction: It’s easy to do. And it’s easy not to do. It leverages our nature. But it is far from what is normal for the people around us.

And, Zero or One isn’t just a productivity technique — it’s a way of following the rhythm of life. It’s both the notes and the space between the notes that make music. And there will be stretches of life where it seems like nothing is happening, because that’s the Zero time: time to open and listen.

Try it out yourself, Zero or One. First as a way to focus. And then as a way of life.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

I cringe a little even getting my blood drawn, and the idea of being cut open and things poked around my insides was a creative leap. So I was glad to be going under for the dramatic bit. I felt the office banter camaraderie of the people in the prep space. I was impressed by the cold, gear-packed surgery room where I was to offer up my body to the pit crew of professionals.

And then I woke up, both comfortably and painfully, in the recovery room.

It was time to listen to my body, to see what it needed, and to gently tend to it. I silently recited my Personal Declaration to myself. I took stock of the sensations in my body. My belly and my core were swollen and sore, with a sharpness near the surface. It hurt.

And it’s supposed to hurt.

So that’s what I sat with: Pain isn’t a problem. It’s information, valuable and often useful information. It’s letting me know what needs attention, what not to exert, and where the healing is happening. And perhaps a residual scolding of “don’t do that again.”

They asked if I’d like something for the pain and I honestly wondered about it for a bit, before accepting it. I wanted to make sure I got the message, before I turned down the volume on the message.

Pain is something to be honored and listened to — neither indulged in nor avoided. It doesn’t ‘mean’ something about me or about the world. It’s a feedback loop about something that is happening in my body.

There was pain, but not suffering. It barely occurred to me to worry, or be scared, or to complain. They came as micro-worries, micro-fears, and micro-complaints, rather than woe-is-me stories. The surgery was just a thing to do. There were real risks involved and an abundance of support, and my job was essentially to follow instructions and not turn it into a big deal. There are many other times in my life I’m not this clear, but for this body journey I brought my A game of just being.

Now I’m in the days of recovery. I am deeply grateful to Iara for being with me at the hospital and tending to me afterward. I’m following the wisdom of my body, including whatever random things it wants to eat (saltines and bone broth seem to be a favorite), and when it wants to sleep, while still having rich conversations with my clients. It’s interesting to feel such strength in my arms and legs, while needing to be tender and inventive when lying down and getting up.

I am grateful to be healing, to be regaining strength. I am grateful to have a body, and this brief life. And I’m learning to trust, even more, the fundamental wellbeing underneath all of it.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

My 50th birthday is approaching and I’ve been even more introspective than usual lately. In many ways I have a dream life: I’m healthy, I have a thriving coaching practice, I continue to learn and grow and have agency over my time and attention, and have many dear friends amongst many conscious, loving communities. I’ve radically transformed many lives, both directly and exponentially through my clients. My life is in some ways masterful, and suspiciously comfortable — and I also know that I’m just getting started.

David Brooks talks about the metaphor of the ‘second mountain’ — where the first mountain is the pursuit of success, and from that peak is revealed the second mountain: the commitment to serve beyond ourselves, to live a moral life. It’s a beautiful metaphor for illustrating the evolution from getting to creating, from individual to interdependent, from hedonic to eudaimonic, from self to service.

But, it’s rarely that neat and tidy. Your life isn’t necessarily going to be a stage of ‘success’ then ‘service’. The next mountain is really just what’s next. Sometimes the next mountain is an evolution, building on top of everything that came before. Sometimes the next mountain is filling in something that was missed.

Some of my clients learned to serve everyone, and their next mountain was to serve themselves. Some developed spiritual connection, and their next mountain was to develop personal power. Some thrived on growth and service, and their next mountain was to reclaim playfulness.

There’s always another mountain.

There isn’t just one calling for you to figure out — there is the current one, and the next one, and the dance between.

Part of thriving is committing to your mountain. Not chaining yourself to expectations (yours or others’), but accepting what you know to do and committing to doing it well. You’re climbing enthusiastically and continuously, as if to reach the top, while also holding your work lightly. Because we rarely reach the ‘top’ of a mountain before the next mountain starts to call.

You can get a feel for when the next mountain is calling, for when a paradigm shift wants to happen. In S-curves of innovation there’s an art to knowing when to hop off one curve that’s getting stale and onto another one. When your mountain starts to feel more like protecting the past than creating the future, you can tell that the days on this mountain are numbered.

Most people get trapped on their mountain, because they are in the business of gathering more beliefs, rather than questioning or looking beyond beliefs. They’re trying to solidify their current paradigm, rather than allowing paradigms to shift.

And yet, there is a calling. Maybe it’s restlessness. Maybe frustration — what used to work often stops working. Sometimes emotional or physical symptoms, or random misfortune. The world is moving on, and the old way is no longer aligned. They probably don’t even recognize it as a different mountain calling to them; they just know that neither up nor down feels like the right path anymore.

Thriving is a living paradox. It involves leaning in and creating structure and momentum as if your current direction is your one true purpose in the world. And simultaneously staying open to something subtler, something emergent that feels fundamentally different.

Learning to dance between mountains taps you into a life that’s bigger than you.

Maybe that’s the real ‘second mountain’: not what you do with your life, but that what you do with your life keeps evolving.

If this points towards a new possibility for you, I’d be happy to arrange a conversation. I’m here to help.

Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

A while ago I was called in for conflict resolution between two parties. They were both loving and idiosyncratic powerhouses, really owning their own style and way of being in the world. And one was really angry with the other, who was really confused about what was wrong.

Before agreeing to work with them, I set a context for the conversation: that there would be no attempt allowed to change the other person. The one intention of the conversation was to understand more clearly and thoroughly the nature of the dynamic between them. Setting that context did a lot of the work towards resolving the conflict, and it required some enrollment and trust with the annoyed party.

Conflict resolution, like couples therapy, often works a lot of the magic by one party getting to overhear me work with the other party. The intention this time was understanding, not any behavior change and not even apology or making amends. I was making space for insight rather compromise.

After getting to dive in with both sides, getting their worlds, each of them having some more compassion for the other’s experience, I found a central sticking point: They both placed a very high value on integrity. However, they had very different ideas about what integrity was, so they were both feeling like they were in integrity and the other person was out of integrity!

In my coaching I call these ‘precious words’. Words like integrity, purpose, relationship, love, power, etc tend to hold a lot of psychological weight and story. We take them seriously and personally, forgetting that they are metaphors, and forgetting that other people have totally different stories around those words.

I can pretty easily hear when a word is ‘precious’ to a client because there is both an intense sense of drama in their voice, and I can also hear the anxious attachment to the word. I picture clients clinging to the word and saying “My Precious!” like Gollum’s attachment to the Ring. Precious words are often authentic values coupled with a lack of awareness, resulting from an excess of story.

So it turns out these two had two completely meanings of integrity!

For one of them, integrity meant that the action matched the behavior. If someone said they would do X or not do Y, they could rely on that exact behavior — independent of reason of impact. It’s the word and behavior that mattered.

For the other one, integrity meant that the action matched the intention. They held the outcome of the actions as what was important. They viewed what to do or not do as merely examples of how to achieve the outcome, but the outcome was what was being committed to.

So, which is right? Promising the behavior, or promising the outcome? I realized both had pro’s and con’s. Creating reliability around behavior is more predictable, and makes room for if they don’t fully understand the reason for the behavior (e.g. just make sure the door is locked — you don’t need to know why). But it’s also more rigid.

Creating reliability around outcome allows more creativity, more convenience and potentially better solutions. But also less predictable, and might require more communication.

(This is a question that plays out in management, as well: telling a report exactly what to do, vs telling a report what the desired outcome is.)

But the magic that resolved the conflict wasn’t answering the question “what to do” – the magic was in both parties seeing they both valued integrity, and understanding what integrity meant to both of them. They’ve been on great terms ever since then.

So, what’s one of your own ‘precious words’? It’s probably something that matters deeply to you – or something that you try to avoid. Hold that word more lightly, with more openness and curiosity, and you might find many conflicts in your life start to dissolve.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

If this points towards a new possibility for you, I’d be happy to arrange a conversation.

Are you willing to be bad at important things?

Most ‘successful’ people got really good at something, and then they got careful. Their skill became their identity. They lost their ability to be a beginner.

But the soul will not invest itself in a fixed identity, no matter how impressive it is. We’re meant to continue learning and growing, for (at least) as long as we are still breathing.

And to do so requires a willingness to face the Suck. This is the part of the learning curve where you’ve left the innocence of Unconscious Incompetence (not knowing what you don’t know) and stepped into the thorny territory of Conscious Incompetence (noticing how much you have to learn).

It sucks. Every step is an increase in awareness–that your goal is even further away than you thought.

This kind of suck is when your soul is pointing you in a direction that your ego doesn’t like. The feeling isn’t a warning, it’s a challenge: Do you want this enough? It’s actually a reverse indicator that you are on the right path. It’s pain that is evidence of progress.

It’s not a coincidence that the part of the Hero’s Journey that immediately follows the ‘Call to Adventure’ is the ‘Refusal of the Call’.

Mastery isn’t limited to getting good. Mastery is being an advanced beginner. It’s getting good at getting good, which includes getting good at being bad. So keep finding new learning curves to ride. And enjoy every part of it, including the Suck.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

I work with a lot of founders and entrepreneurs, and almost all of them claim to have a problem with being overwhelmed. But the problem behind the problem is that they don’t understand what overwhelm really is, which is why it spirals out of control.

The trap is confusing two separate things: overwhelm and overload.

Overwhelm is a feeling. It’s the internal experience of the mind spinning, of trying to juggle and solve many thoughts all at once and all of it feels incredibly urgent and important, and it feels like you’re fighting a losing battle.

Overload is a circumstance. It’s when capacity doesn’t match requirements. There isn’t enough money in the account. That task will take longer than the time available. The sofa doesn’t fit in that corner.

The myth that keeps overwhelm alive is believing that overload causes it — that that terrible feeling is being ‘caused’ by a circumstance. But it doesn’t work that way. Overwhelm and overload are completely independent variables, only joined together by an unquestioned cultural misunderstanding.

The feeling of overwhelm comes entirely from what we’re thinking in the moment. If we‘re creating a story that there’s too much to do, that we can’t handle it, that we need to try but will fail anyway–we’ll feel overwhelmed! (Have you ever noticed how easy it is to feel overwhelmed sitting alone in a quiet room with nothing that you need to do?)

Overwhelm is, in essence, the feeling of trying to think your way out of a feeling. But the thinking just creates more of the very feeling you’re trying to get rid of. It’s not inevitable–it’s noise.

And chances are there have been many times you’ve faced genuine overload without it being a big deal. You couldn’t afford something, so you didn’t buy it. Something didn’t work, so you moved on. There were too many things to do, so you made trade-offs. Overload, when you don’t overwhelm yourself about it, is simply logistics.

Conflating overwhelm with overload is a mild, culturally-endorsed form of insanity. You end up at war with your experience, thinking you’re fighting circumstances, not realizing you’re chasing your own tail. The bad news is that you’ve been taught to do it, and everyone around you does it too. The good news is that you simply don’t have to.

When you’re overwhelmed, here’s what to do:

Address overwhelm and (potential) overload separately.

First address the overwhelm: See it as overthinking, as noise rather than signal. The feeling comes from the story, not the situation. Don’t believe your thinking when you’re overwhelmed. Give yourself permission to not try to solve anything from this state. Slow down exactly when you’re most tempted to speed up.

Then address the overload: When the feeling eases, or you at least recognize it as feeling not fact, you’ll see the world as it is. You’ll have more awareness, creativity, and common sense. If there is indeed overload to address, you’ll see it. And from this altitude, it looks less like a crisis and more like a puzzle. And perhaps even an opportunity.

When you realize that overwhelm is optional, overload becomes easy.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com

I haven’t been following the Winter Olympics, but did happen upon a video of Alysa Liu’s free skate which just won her the Olympic gold.

Even more impressive than what Alysa did is something that she didn’t do. Her skill, style, and personality are all masterfully on display. But what struck me, and it’s echoed by the commentators in this video, is what was not present: pressure.

Watch the video on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCrFaRsezGo

This is not the performance of someone who is experiencing a lot of pressure and masterfully coping with it — this is someone who didn’t put the pressure on in the first place. And this isn’t an inherent trait — it was a choice.

Alysa stepped away from ice skating in 2022 and returned in 2024 with a new intention to bring joy into her career: enjoying the process, choosing her own music and choreography, and prioritizing human connection over medals. And it’s no surprise to me that that approach has propelled her to #1.

Pressure likes to convince you that it’s necessary for high performance, but it is the enemy of high performance. Even most Olympic athletes struggle to understand this, taking on pressure like an abusive relationship, thinking they both need pressure while also knowing that it is hampering them. Hard work, yes. Discomfort and adversity, yes. But pressure, no.

Watch the video a couple times. Look for what Alysa Liu is psychologically not doing, compared to many other athletes.

Pressure is a serious, egoic, meaning-making kind of intensity, a psychological self-pressuring which is often blamed on others but actually created internally. And no matter how habitual and common and expected by most people, pressure is not necessary, is not helpful, and might be the only thing standing in the way between you and your dreams. You can be sincere, ambitious, inspired, and engaged all without being ‘serious’.

Don’t even ask yourself how to drop it. Not yet. Simply wonder what it would be like without it. And cheers to Alysa Liu for being an example.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com