Michael Neill Weekly

Last week, we talked about the importance of "grounding" - our moment to moment level of understanding of who we are, what life is, and how it works. This understanding is the foundation on top of which we build our lives, and the more solid the ground in which we place our foundations, the higher and wider we can go with our lives...

Anyone who spends any time around principles-based practitioners will hear the word "grounding" bandied about a lot. It's become a sort of a buzzword - a currency in the "whose better at this game" game. There are conversations about how "her grounding is deeper than his grounding"...

As part of the final weekend of Supercoach Academy, ​one of our guest lecturers, George Pransky, shared a story of a conversation a friend of his had with long-time world number one tennis player Pete Sampras. His friend asked Sampras how it was that he was able to be so cool on the court, unlike many of his compatriots who seemed to be feeling the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat after every point...

One of the coolest things I ever saw at the movies was the scene in The Matrix where Neo asks Trinity if she can fly a helicopter. Her response is "not yet" - and then she closes her eyes and receives a download from outside of the matrix that allows her to not only fly the helicopter, but wreak some havoc on the evil machines in the process.

One of the first things that I tell pretty much everybody when we begin training, coaching, or working with the inside-out understanding is that the most important (and in some ways only) key to getting the depth of what's on offer is to "stay in the conversation". In order to understand why that's so important, I'm going to share a bit of my own story and what I've come to see by staying in the conversation even when it didn't seem to be going anywhere, and even more importantly when it seemed like I'd already "got it"...

One day, while sitting with my back against the trunk of a massive tree in my garden, I fell asleep and dreamed that I was sitting with my back against the trunk of a massive tree in my garden. Much to my surprise, it asked me for some coaching. ‘I am a mighty tree,’ it began, ‘and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that a few of my leaves have begun to fall to the ground. The thing is, I can’t afford to lose my leaves. What will people think of me if I go bald? They’ll see me as naked and weak and frail. I’m not sure I can go on if it means going through such a difficult ordeal.’..

In one of his final interviews, the author/philosopher Aldous Huxley was asked to sum up his life's work.  What he said was this:  It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than "Try to be a little kinder." While I actually think that's beautiful in and of itself, I also love the question.  If you had to sum up everything you've learned about life in one or two sentences, what would they be?

There is a line from the Greek poet Archilochus which is generally translated as: The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. While foxes might be cunning and able to devise hundreds of strategies for catching unsuspecting hedgehogs off guard and eating them for dinner, the hedgehog has only one defensive strategy - to curl up in a ball, spiky spines exposed, and wait until the fox (or other predator) gives up and goes away...

A couple of years ago, I was asked to participate in the making of The Mindfulness Movie, a documentary about the practice of mindfulness and its spread and impact in modern culture.  While I enjoyed watching the movie, I wasn't surprised to see that my interview was largely absent from the finished product.  As I told the producers going in, my take on things is a bit outside the norm...

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been sharing the story of how a mission launched back in 1990 has led to the work I now do in unleashing the human potential. In part one, we talked about the infinite creative potential of human beings and the possibility of a whole new way of being in the world; in part two I shared some "thought experiments" which help highlight the way that thought creates our experience of life and at times obscures a deeper reality of peace and possibility...

Last week, I shared the story of how in 1998 I woke up to a deeper potential for human beings - our innate capacity for genius, creativity, and well-being. In 2007, I stumbled across a new understanding of how the mind works that not only made sense of that deeper potential but also made it obvious why it seemed so hidden and remote so much of the time...

Over twenty four years ago, I articulated a simple three-part "mission statement" for what I wanted to do with my life: To uncover the secrets of happiness, success, and well-being, To live the secrets in my own life, To share the best of what I learn with others...

I've been reflecting on the essence of what my clients and students bump into most often in their attempts to live happier, healthier, and more meaningful lives. What I've noticed is that even after people see the inside-out nature of experience - that we are living in the feeling of our thinking, not the feeling of our circumstances - they still often struggle to navigate the world with as much ease and grace as they had hoped for...

I was listening in on a coaching session done by one of our Supercoach Academy students the other day and heard their client making a compelling case for why her situation was uniquely hopeless...

On my recent trip to London, I had the chance to meet with hundreds of people who have been impacted by the inside-out understanding and the three simple principles that create our experience of life, for better and for worse. 

Recently, I've been doing my best to take a fresh look at the process of creation, and in particular, how results get created in the world. One question I've sat with in that time is ""are goals helpful, harmful, or neutral in the living of a wonderful life?"