Michael Neill Weekly Michael Neill

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.’..