Healthy Lifestyle Strategies: Michael McDonnell's Mindset from Cystic Fibrosis Diagnosis Helps Clients

Michael McDonnel knew he was different than the average person. But it was in learning how to navigate his own life around his cystic fibrosis treatment and cystic fibrosis-related diabetes that give him the upper hand in organizing and prioritizing healthy habits. Listeners will find inspiration for a healthier life from this podcast, learning

• How the pressures Michael grew up with shaped him into achieving more physical capability and fitness than the average person,
• What made him realize being a personal trainer with only a few hours a week with someone wasn't enough, and
• How he is now able to guide clients toward prioritizing lifestyle strategies that ensure healthy habits when they aren't in the gym.

Michael McDonnell is a speaker, author, and entrepreneur. He was born with cystic fibrosis and eventually developed a diabetes similar to type 2 from the mucus that cystic fibrosis causes acting like fat. His physical struggles, however, pushed him to work harder and longer than his peers at sports and fitness goals. He explains that he needed to think differently than other people to find his place in the world, both physically and in terms of work. Eventually, he used his expertise on developing physical fitness to become a personal trainer. But he had a realization: You can help people get healthy and fit by telling them to eat and exercise better, but the rest of their week is out of the gym. Maybe there a daily factors working against these goals.

This realization along with his own hard-won lifestyle choices and skills sent him towards a lifestyle design profession. He studied and researched stress relief and organizational skills to help clients create time all week to be healthy. He now helps his clients put lifestyle design first so that health and fitness develops as a result. You can tell someone to eat better, he says, but their lifestyle needs to enable that. Therefore, he expanded his work into the self-improvement and self-development route, utilizing skills in prioritizing health and organizing one's day around fitness goals that he had been developing his whole life. He shares some great examples with listeners about ways he's helped others to reshape their daily life towards these goals. Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK