Three Principles That Changed My Life
Hi, my name is Mícheál Colhoun, and I am the founder of Transforming People Academy. I have been coaching people through deeply impactful change for over 20 years, but it’s not my only passion. Before this, as a physicist with a first-class honours degree in Science, I lectured at the University of Galway, Ireland and collaborated with NASA on telescopes and worked alongside top astronomers in the UK and Russia. Later, I consulted on IT enterprise solutions in London’s financial district. Yet, despite academic success, on a personal level I felt lost and adrift in the late 1990s, battling depression, obsessive tendencies, and 18-hour workdays with no purpose.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) changed everything for me by providing a powerful set of tools and techniques to take control of my life and direction.
Today, I want to share three principles from my toolset that reshaped my life and are now key to everything I teach at Transforming People Academy. My students’ breakthroughs prove these principles aren’t just my experience: they work.
Subjective Reality Shapes Your World
NLP taught me we don’t see reality for what it is. We see a filtered version, shaped by our unique experiences, which distort, delete, and generalize information into what we call our worldview or model of the world. I wrote about this in my book, The Pillars of Transformation. Realizing my worldview wasn’t the absolute truth – but just my truth – and that everyone has their own version of reality, taught me to communicate more effectively. This insight led me to create my Reality Shift Framework, which helps people cut through cognitive biases and discover lightbulb moments that transform lives. It’s not about arguing who’s right but understanding how we each create different lenses.
Congruent Goals Create New Destinies
Growing up, I chased other people’s expectations. I got straight-A’s and a 1st class honours degree in Science, but I had no personal goals. NLP opened my mind to new possibilities and career paths and showed me how to set congruent, actionable goals and fully immerse myself. By applying these principles of action-oriented goals, I became a top NLP trainer within two years of discovering NLP, earning praise from leading industry figures. Later, I applied the same focus to secure £100,000+ IT contracts in London’s financial district, quadrupling my previous income as an IT consultant. Now I run my own IT Consultancy alongside Transforming People Academy. Immersion and clear goals can make anyone world-class in any field. I have since documented my goal-setting process in my book, A Present To Your Future
Timelines Heal Past Traumas
Unresolved emotions (e.g. random anger, sadness, or guilt) stem from unlearned lessons, as Steve Andreas’s and Tad James’s timeline techniques revealed. By revisiting past events, identifying unlearnt lessons, and reframing my experiences, I released emotional baggage and childhood trauma. This was huge for me – truly life-changing. After my first timeline session and resolving internal conflicts, the critical voices in my head went silent. For the first time in years, I felt peace of mind, free from critical self-talk and depression’s grip. This inspired the creation of Time Heals Paradigm and THP Therapy™, which I teach to Breakthrough Mastery students at our academy
Start Your Journey Today
These principles aren’t just my story – they’ve sparked breakthroughs for my students too, over the past 20 years we have received similar testimonials and stories of light bulb moments from our students and clients. At Transforming People Academy, we teach transformation through deep impactful coaching, not hype. Question the critics who make straw-man arguments because these are real, life-changing tools that change lives.
Join us to discover your own path to purpose and peace.
What Our Students Say
