Michael Mackintosh

Before any of this work began, Michael lived through years of addiction and depression. A single mentor showed up with love and opened his eyes to a different way of being. That experience became the seed of everything he now teaches: that transformation is real, that it can be transmitted, and that someone has to be willing to do for others what was once done for them.

In 2004, after years of daily meditation following his own awakening, Michael began teaching in a small room opposite King's College, Cambridge. Students arrived for peace, but quickly began sharing real struggles. From that need, he developed the methodology that would eventually be called spiritual life coaching, before the term existed.

In 2011, he left everything behind with a backpack, his dreams, and $800, and relocated to Hawaii to build the work full-time. He invested over $150,000 in training, refining what worked and discarding what didn't. By 2014, alongside his partner and co-founder Arielle Hecht, he established Awakened Academy as the first truly spiritually-grounded coach training of its kind.

"The more we help others get what they want, the more we get everything that we want."

Today, Michael lives on Kauai, continues to mentor students 1-on-1, and writes about spiritual coaching, dharma, awakened business, and the inner work of being a spiritual leader.