Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Host Mary McDonald introduces her new podcast, "It’s Not That Serious, even When It Is," sharing her background as a coach who uses human design to help clients recognize patterns, move blocks, and live a more joy-led, embodied life in a no-judgment space. She explains how eight years of personal development and a human design reading two years ago—learning she’s a 5/1 Manifestor—changed her approach to success by emphasizing rest, creativity, and staying grounded when others don’t understand her ideas. Mary also discusses her comedy background, including Second City improv and sketch, and how humor will be woven into conversations about personal growth and difficult experiences. The podcast aims to balance deep topics with laughter, intentionality about emotional input, and a reminder to seek joy even in hard seasons.

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Transcript

0:00

Hi, and welcome to It's Not that Serious, even When It Is. I am your host, Mary McDonald. I am a coach and use human design as a tool to see my clients deeply and guide them to a more enjoyed, led and embodied life. On this podcast, we will have deep conversations and some giggles because life can't be so serious all the time. Hi, and welcome to the first episode of It's Not That Serious, even When It Is. I am your host, Mary McDonald, and today's episode is all about me and who I am and what to expect In this podcast. I'm gonna start with the fact that I'm a coach. I help people see their own patterns. I help them move blocks in their lives, and I help them figure out how to live a more joy led and embodied lifestyle. My goal with my clients is always to help them meet their goals wherever they're at. And I'm the kind of person where if we're in a session together, it is an absolute no judgment zone. I'm very good at seeing all sides of the coin, all perspectives, and I love and honor all of it. It's what brings me joy is the uniqueness of my clients and being able to help them get to where they want to go. And yeah, that's a little bit about my coaching style. Now, how the heck did I even get into this because me, eight years ago would never have been like, that's what you're gonna be doing. But I'm naturally really good at at it. Honestly, most of my life I've been the person that people come to to solve problems and help them talk through things, through things. So I should have probably seen this coming, but I definitely did not. But I'm grateful because it's a lot of fun and I find a lot, a lot of joy in helping other people unlearn, unlearn the things that they need to unlearn to reach their goals and, um, live a life that, like I said, is more filled with joy. So that's a little bit about what I do. I'm gonna dive deeper into that in a minute. But this all kind of started eight-ish years ago. I really started diving deep into personal development because I have always been a really ambitious person and I've always had really, really big goals. And I had this moment in time where I realized that personal development and working on myself was going to get me closer to my goals. And the more I did a deep dive into everything that I was reading, the podcast I was listening to, the more things started changing for me. And I guess, um, I guess from those eight years we can. Fast forward to two years ago when I had my first human design reading, uh, just one for myself, and I found out that I am a five one manifester in human design. If you don't know what human design is, it is basically your energetic blueprint for how you best show up in the world. It can also show some blocks that you might have that you can work through, and it's just this really amazing tool that I actually use in my own coaching. But suffice it to say that it literally changed my life. So I had that reading, and when I found out I was a manifester, I found out that we are only 9% of the population. So that means for the majority of my life I was trying to actually do life in a way that everybody else was doing it. And what I mean by that is I was searching for success in a way that most people are doing it. And I wasn't getting there. I was living on cycles of burnout. I was doing, doing, doing. I was not actually listening to my body. I was not listening to my heart. I was not listening to my creative urges. I was just in this little burnout cycle. I, and I was never really getting to where I wanted to be. So. The key to my success at, at least for now, is like knowing this is my energy type and manifesters actually need rest, and I was not very good at rest. No, not good at it at all, because my little brain would be like, well, if you rest, then you'll never get anything done. And if you never get anything done, then. You know, you're never gonna reach your goals, and if you never reach your goals and like, what are you gonna do with your life? What are you even doing? So it was this really neat spiral that I was in, and I was committed to that bit for a very, very long time. But once I really understood that I actually needed rest cycles. I had so much more creativity. I had so much more energy and I was able to get a lot of things done that I was interested in doing. And the other thing that I, I learned that as a manifester is that I have ideas that not everybody is going to understand and they're not really going to get. And that was something that was really helpful for me to know because. I do have these times where I will have these ideas and like absolutely nobody gets it until the thing is finished. So it has helped me stay grounded in my vision for what I want for my life, even when some of the people around me don't get it and can't see it, like it's totally fine with me. Yeah, sometimes it's a bumpy road, but, but it's okay because that is just the way that I'm built. Now the five one in my human design means that I'm really good at seeing other people. I'm good at reading a room. I can feel things from other people. Like I said, I'm able to see your patterns really quickly, which is what makes me a really good coach. Um, I, and maybe this part isn't so much a five one thing, but I'm really able to communicate with people in a way where you feel heard and you feel seen. But I'm also gonna keep you moving forward. I'm gonna call you out on the things, but I'm gonna do it in a way that resonates with you. And I'm gonna help you get to that point where you are calling out your own patterns, you're calling out your own spirals, and you're really able to move past all that stuff on your own. Like you are starting to do the pattern recognition, you're starting to understand your cycles, and you're starting to be able to self-correct in the moment. So. Suffice it to say. I guess that's one of the things that five ones are really good at. And no wonder again that I am in the coaching space for a reason. The second thing that is very important for you to know about me is that I have a background in comedy, so I, I don't wanna be like my whole life, I was hilarious. But, um, my whole life I've really enjoyed comedy. Um, let me just paint a picture here. I was Mary Catherine Gallagher, Molly Shannon's character on SNL for Halloween, all through middle school. So I would never necessarily call myself like the cool girl ever, but I did that. I also dressed up as do Denise, you know the character Kristen Wigs character with the small hands several times in my twenties. I went to the office once like that and gave a presentation like that. Some people were horrified. Let me clarify. That was on Halloween. That wasn't like I just randomly went into the office with small hands, although that would've been hilarious too. Um, no, that's not what I did. Um, anyway, some people were horrified and some people thought it was hilarious because they knew who that character was. Character was. So, like I said, some people get me and some people don't. I'm not, I'm not everybody's cup of tea. Um, anyway, so all of that kind of stuff led me to take an improv class at Second City and I loved it so much that I continued taking classes and I graduated from there and I did a lot of sketch comedy shows and really enjoyed my time there. And now I'm just a girl who cracks jokes all the time. Uh, it's just how my brain works. And sometimes I'll be in conversations and I'll literally have like 45 jokes in my head. Some, and like. 45 little side, you know, zingers in my head, and it's not always at the most appropriate time. So I, I try to keep it to myself, but just sometimes these little one-liners will pop out. So expect that as we move through this podcast, because sometimes I just can't keep it to myself. But the whole point of me telling you that in that is like, in this podcast, I'm gonna be talking about personal growth, the blocks, and. Things that I have encountered, how I've moved through those things and how I've moved through a lot of difficult things while still trying to find those times where I'm laughing because I know there's that quote that says that laughter is the best medicine, but truly it is. And there was this point in time where I had a really hard year and I didn't really. Realize that I hadn't had a belly laugh. Like, you know, the one where you can just like feel it throughout your entire body. You're like crying, laughing, and it hurts. I hadn't had one of those for months until I was with my best friends at Christmas, and it was this really eye-opening time for me because I thought, oh my God, I've been so wrapped up in how difficult things have felt that I've not actually laughed very hard. I've not made joy and laughing and funny things. My priority. So that's really the gist of this podcast is, yeah, again, we're gonna have some deep conversations. I'm gonna talk about some serious stuff. However, I'm gonna talk about also trying to find joy in that time, and also looking back and having giggles about myself being like, wow, good thing we don't do that anymore. But you know, there's not shame in who we were. It's just, you know, you have these realizations. And we can have a little chuckle about it, you know, um, about who we were in our twenties or who we were 10 years ago, five years ago, two years ago, whatever it is, because we can't just take it so seriously all the time. And I think the other thing that I'm very passionate about is not focusing on all on the difficult all the time. That doesn't mean not dealing with it because you gotta deal with it, but it does mean trying to find pockets of laughter. Trying to find pockets of funny things and trying to be super intentional about the information and the things that we are ingesting all the time. From our TV shows to our Instagram, scrolling to our emails, to the people around us at work, whatever it is, it's being really intentional about we're taking, what we're taking on emotionally and how we have to watch ourselves or else it's very easy to spiral into the deep, dark places. So I want this show to be a reminder that, you know, things can be difficult, the world can feel like it's ending or whatever, but at the same time, when we raise our own vibration, we are raising the vibration of the people and the things around us, and we are doing our part in the collective just by having joy. So with that said, I think that's all I've got for you for my first episode on who I am obviously. Got, you guys are gonna learn a lot more about. Me as we move through this because I'm gonna be sharing some pretty personal things, but I just wanna say thank you for being here and thank you for checking out this podcast and I hope that you learned some stuff while you're here. And I hope that you have some laughs 'cause I'm sure, I'm sure we will have those together. Some of my stories are embarrassing because I've done a lot of silly stuff and I hope that you can walk away with just some levity and a feeling a little bit lighter. So again, with that said, thank you for being here. I am thrilled to have you here, and I will catch you in the next episode. Thank you for joining me on today's episode. If something resonated with you, then we are probably best friends and friends. Rate review and share episode. If you wanna stay connected, you can find me on Instagram at Mary Kate McDonald. That's Mary, CATE, McDonald. If you want more information on coaching or when a cape. Connected in my weekly newsletter. You can find that in the show notes. Thanks again for joining me on today's episode. I'm looking forward to catching you in the next one. And just a reminder that it's not that serious, even when it is.