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10 Questions —
Michael Townsend Williams

Michael Townsend Williams is an international coach, author, speaker and entrepreneur.

I am an anti-conformist. I associate with the underdog; it’s not in my nature to fit in with the status quo. I want to know that I can do different things. Essentially, I want to be free and I think that has shaped how I live. My personal normal is living with the unknown – in coaching, business and life. I'm used to not knowing what’s happening next week.

Conformity can be a big problem. One of my favourite quotes actually is from Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, and it says: ‘Follow the man who seeks the truth. Run from the man who has found it’. My worry at the moment is that there will be a move towards such conformity. In a world where people are confused and scared, they will be more likely to follow the crowd and fear the new. I think people should find their own truth – or truths. I like to help people discover themselves without falling victim to beliefs that restrict or control them.

My guiding principle is The Golden Rule: don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you. Everyone believes in it on the surface but few people put it into practice across all areas of their life. That’s the problem. They like the concept but either lack empathy or are too scared to call it out when they see it being ignored. We all believe in it, but rarely apply it consistently.

Seeing people suffer more than they need to. For example, sometimes I see my children suffering because they are experiencing something in life that I also have. When this happens, I need to decide whether I should relieve their suffering with a solution or guide them through the actual experience so that the learning can be meaningful. I face the same problem when I coach people. Ultimately, I trust my intuition. That intuition comes from my own experience. I couldn’t have learned it in a book. Times of crisis and tragedy often lead to significant personal transformation – they just never feel like it at the time.

People are stressed and scared. They’re afraid of expressing their opinion and of trying new things. I work with people to help them manage difficult situations better. That means accepting situations they can’t change and acting intentionally on things they can. Acceptance and intention are mental and emotional muscles you build slowly. I was a complete scaredy-cat. Courage came to me later in life. I cultivated it by jumping off a few cliffs. All the people I know that have achieved something worthwhile have jumped off cliffs and taken risks. At different levels and in different situations, I help people do the same. And the secret weapon we all carry with us every day is breath. By controlling your breathing, you learn to cope better with stress. With a calm mind, we can find focus, get stuff done and make better choices more often.

Sometimes experience is related to age, sometimes to depth of experience or insight. But what is critical is that experience and the knowledge that comes with it needs to be lived. It can’t come from a book or something we see on the internet. That said I've also met 16-year olds a lot wiser than me, so age doesn't always guarantee wisdom.

I am optimistic. I’m excited by the emergence of more and more people who want to move the world in a better direction. I like that people are learning to say no to things they think are not good for them. I have faith that the incredible natural and human systems that surround us are more powerful than man-made technologies. I believe these systems will coalesce to make things better. But to live better within these systems, we need to adapt and respond much better to things that we don’t expect. Human wellbeing and energy will be vital. I believe women often understand this better than men. They share and work through new challenges much better together. Men often struggle to let their guards down and stay stuck as a result. The future is more female.

To be honest, lockdown was one of the best things that could have happened to me, because it forced me to do things I wanted to do but never did. Things I had been putting off for years became flavour of the month! Right now, I’m learning fretless bass. I’m not playing pieces, just doing finger exercises. I do it almost as a meditation. I’ve learned the names of birds in French. I’ve also learned that while I love doing live events, doing live online ones without real world feedback is much more challenging. Reflecting on what I like and what I don’t or what I do well and what I don’t showed me that I am constantly learning to be me. Learning can also be a way to postpone what you want to do though. A way to say to yourself ‘I want to do this thing, but I’m scared, so I’ll watch others first’. Sometimes you just need to take the first step, try it out and learn as you go.

Painting – though I’m not sure what yet. I want to live in nature but still visit cities and friends from time to time. My grandchildren will be coming to swim with friends in the pool I have here in the south of France. I hope to be growing stuff, doing permaculture – being part of a community. When I think about the future, I think of loads of company, not loads of stuff.

Teaching yoga and meditation, and inspiring people to breathe better every day.