ProBrilliance Leadership Institute

★ Leadership and Accountability Whisperer
★ Business Planning Mentor
★ Time Management Mystic
★ Award-Winning Strategic Growth Coach
★ Professional Speaker: Provocative - Dynamic - Inspiring
★ #1 Best Selling author

President

Vistage Worldwide, Inc.

As a Vistage Chair, Executive Coach, and Speaker, I help high-performing CEOs and Senior Executives achieve greater levels of success both personally and professionally, while having a positive impact on their communities and building a strong legacy. We deploy a proven methodology used for over 65 years to help people who run businesses become better leaders, make better decisions, and get better results.

Leader to Top Performing Business Owners and CEOs in Northern California

Forbes Coaches Council

Contributing Author

InsuranceWebX

Mentor to Insurance advisors - Helping advisors more fully develop their practice through strategically bringing forth their best thinking and empowering them to act on it.

Mentor

The MONY Group

Top producing agent and manager. Coached top producing advisors and agency managers nationally to build their business plans and hold them accountable to executing on their plans while expanding their joy and well being along the way.

Top Producer & National Director

Elevating the leader's mindset to grow themselves and their organizations

YOUR NEXT SUMMIT:  Where Exceptional Leadership Meets Deep Fulfillment

You've built something remarkable. Your team looks to you for vision, your industry respects your achievements, and by most measures, you're exactly where a successful leader should be. Yet there's that persistent voice—the one that whispers of greater impact, deeper fulfillment, and possibilities yet unexplored.

WHERE YOU ARE...
Perhaps you're experiencing:
- Quick success, but decisions that once came easily now feel weightier
- A growing sense that your next chapter needs to be about more than just bigger numbers
- The subtle tension between maintaining momentum and finding deeper meaning
- A desire to transform your success into significance

YOUR POTENTIAL JOURNEY...
Imagine leading with renewed clarity and purpose—where your business success amplifies your life's fulfillment rather than competing with it. Picture making decisions with greater confidence, knowing they align with both your business acumen and your deeper aspirations. Experience a mentor that not only holds you accountable to you but also holds you "capable" in the most challenging times.

THE PATH FORWARD...
Through our partnership, you'll discover how to:
- Access your peak performance state consistently and authentically
- Transform challenging decisions into clear choices
- Expand your impact while actually reducing your stress
- Build a legacy that transcends traditional business metrics

WHY THIS PATH IS DIFFERENT...
As a fellow CEO who has navigated similar waters, I don't simply hold space for your growth—I understand the real-world pressures you face. Our work together isn't about adding more to your plate; it's about accessing the untapped brilliance you already possess.

I call this process "Provoking Brilliance™"  💎 because it's not about teaching you something new—it's about illuminating what's already within you. It's not about solving problems; it's about dissolving them, so you experience more freedom and clarity as you drive greater results.

YOUR FIRST STEP...
If you're ready to explore this path—to transform your success into something even more meaningful—let's have a focused 15-minute conversation. No pitch, no pressure. Just two leaders exploring whether there's potential for an impactful partnership.

For leaders ready to take this step: https://probrilliance.com/link15

Your time is valuable. In just 15 minutes, you'll know if this is the right path for your next summit.

Fear still shows up, but it doesn’t get a seat at the decision-making table.

🗝️ Fear is natural, but not neutral. Left unchecked, it shapes your choices in ways you don’t realize.
🗝️ Leadership isn’t about eliminating fear. It’s about recognizing it, then choosing from a higher place.

Here's How:
 🔥 Feel it, name it. Notice when FAID (Fear, Angst, Insecurities, Doubt) creeps in.
 🧠 Ask what’s true. Get curious about the story beneath the fear.
 🎯 Reconnect with purpose. What are you committed to that’s bigger than your discomfort?
 🚀 Act from alignment. Take one small step rooted in values, not avoidance.

Consider this:
⁉️ What might shift in your leadership if fear had no vote, no voice, and no veto power?

Machen   MacDonald

Accountability is not punishment; it’s belief in potential. If you’re avoiding hard conversations, you’re not leading. You’re babysitting.

Key Ideas...
💎 Avoiding accountability creates confusion, not safety. Teams thrive when they know the rules of the game.
💎Honest feedback is a form of respect. Low standards are a quiet insult.

Key Actions...
 ✅ Identify one behavior or result you’ve been tolerating that is misaligned with your team’s mission.
 📣 Have the conversation. Use empathy, not emotion.
 🤝 Frame it as an opportunity to grow, not a threat to job security.
 📝 Set clear next steps and timelines together.
 🔁 Circle back to recognize progress or readdress missteps.

Consider this...
⁉️ What would shift if your team knew, without a doubt, that you cared enough to be honest?

Control feels powerful, but trust is what actually creates movement. Letting go is not giving up. It's growing up.

🔹 Power is not control: Tightening your grip might feel safe, but it often chokes creativity and momentum.
🔹 Surrender is a strategy: Strategic surrender allows space for people to step up and solutions to emerge.

Action Steps:
 🧘‍♂️ Pause for perspective: Take 10 minutes today to reflect on where you're gripping too tightly.
 📖 Reframe the narrative: Write a new story about the adversity you're facing.
 🗣 Ask, don’t tell: Invite your team to share what they see that you might be missing.
 📍 Name your true north: What core value or long-term vision matters more than short-term control?
 🚶‍♀️ Take one small step: Choose a micro-action that shows you’re willing to trust the process.

Inquiry:
What might happen if you trusted your vision, your people, and yourself more than your current circumstances?

Certainty is a comfort, not a requirement. Great leadership lives in the tension of not knowing and still moving.

🔹 Uncertainty reveals character: Crisis doesn’t create leaders. It reveals them.
🔹 Trust is the work: In the gap between “I don’t know” and “We’ll figure it out,” trust becomes your edge.

Action Steps:
 🛑 Stop pretending you know: Share one honest “I don’t know yet” with your team this week.
 🤝 Build collective trust: Ask your team what support they need from you right now.
 📘 Normalize not knowing: Lead a conversation around lessons from recent mistakes.
 🚀 Choose courage over clarity: Decide one thing today without having all the answers.
 📢 Celebrate resilience: Acknowledge and reward your team for moving forward in uncertainty.

Consider this...
What kind of leader could you become if you gave yourself permission not to have it all figured out?

People don’t burn out because leaders expect too much. They burn out when no one shows they care.

Key Ideas...
🗝️ Empathy and accountability are not opposites; they’re teammates.
🗝️ Your expectations should elevate, not alienate.

Key Actions...
✅ Invite your team to co-create what excellence looks like.
✅ Ask how they want to be supported when they fall short.
✅ Make accountability relational, not transactional.
✅ Recognize progress as often as performance.
✅ Regularly check in: not just about the work, but about the person doing it.

Consider this...
🤔 If you combined high challenge and high care, what kind of culture could you create?

Feeling like an imposter is not a sign you're failing. It might be a signal you're growing.

Two Key Points:
💎 Imposter syndrome is common among high-performing leaders who care deeply about their impact.
💎 Hiding it keeps teams stuck. Naming it creates space for real connection and trust.

Key Actions to Take:
🗝️ Reflect: Name one area where you're second-guessing yourself right now.
🗝️ Share: Tell someone on your team about a time you felt this way and what you learned.
🗝️ Normalize: Ask your team, "Who else has felt like they’re winging it lately?"
🗝️ Encourage: Give someone recognition for showing up even when they felt unsure.
🗝️Reframe: Let doubt be a clue you're in unfamiliar territory, which is where all growth begins.

Consider this...
🤔 What kind of culture would you create if no one had to pretend they had it all together?

Think imposter syndrome is a weakness? The best CEOs use it as fuel. Here’s how...

You’ve built credibility. You lead a team. But deep down, do you ever wonder when someone is going to figure out you are making it up as you go? If so

Open article: Rising Through Imposter Syndrome: Why Your Doubt Might Be Your Greatest Leadership Advantage by Machen MacDonald • 4 min read

Rising Through Imposter Syndrome: Why Your Doubt Might Be Your Greatest Leadership Advantage

Inspiration without accountability is just noise. Here's what great leaders do differently.

At its core, leadership is about building trust and bringing out the best in others. And here's the paradox: You cannot inspire your team if you will 

Open article: Inspiration Requires Standards, Not Speeches by Machen MacDonald • 3 min read

Inspiration Requires Standards, Not Speeches

The most respected leaders are those who own their inner landscape, not just their external outcomes.

🗝️ Insecurity is human. Pretending you’re bulletproof helps no one.
🗝️ Leading with love starts with self-acceptance. You can’t give what you won’t claim.

Key Actions:
✅ Look inward with compassion. No judgment, just awareness.
✅ Track recurring doubt patterns. What keeps showing up?
✅ Get outside perspective. Coaches, peers, and truth-tellers help you recalibrate.
✅ Shift from proving to serving. Lead to contribute, not to protect your ego.
✅ Practice daily alignment. Choose one action each day rooted in love, not fear, angst, insecurity, or doubt (FAID).

Consider this...
🤔 Who could you become as a leader if you no longer needed to prove your worth?

Every new level of leadership invites a new version of self-doubt. Use it as fuel, not friction.

Two Key Points:
 🗝️ Self-doubt is often evidence you’re doing something meaningful.
 🗝️ Avoiding that doubt drains your energy more than facing it ever could.

Key Actions to Take (R.I.S.E. Framework):
 ✅ Reflect: What’s one fear you have about being “found out”?
 ✅ Inquire: What would you do if you fully trusted your ability right now?
 ✅ Share: Talk openly about imposter syndrome with one direct report or peer.
 ✅ Encourage: Invite others to name where they feel it, then celebrate their courage.

Consider this...
🤔 What might shift if your whole team saw self-doubt as a growth signal, not a weakness?

When you trade command-and-control for clarity and compassion, your team rises.

💎 Control is often a cover for fear. What looks like structure can be a mask for FAID.
💎 Courage creates capacity. When you model love over fear, others feel safe to step up.

Key Actions:
🗝️ Audit your habits. Where are you micromanaging from anxiety instead of trusting from strength?
🗝️ Have the real conversation. Address the tension you’ve been avoiding.
🗝️ Share the “why.” Let your team in on your thinking—transparency breeds trust.
🗝️ Lead with empathy. Choose connection over correction.
🗝️ Use FAID as a signal. When fear shows up, see it as a prompt to lead more intentionally.

Consider this...
⁉️ What becomes possible in your business when you lead from courage, not control?

If your team needs you to solve everything, you haven’t taught them how to think within the INSPIRE frame.

Key Ideas...
🔑 Overfunctioning leaders create underfunctioning teams.
🔑 People rise when given clarity, belief, and ownership.

Key Actions:
✅ Share the INSPIRE framework and define what each letter looks like in your context.
✅ Challenge your team to rate how they’re showing up in each area.
✅ Use INSPIRE in decision-making conversations: “What would reinforce this standard?”
✅ Model it yourself. Let your team see you practice, stumble, and recalibrate.
✅ Make it a weekly rhythm: review, realign, reinforce.

Consider this...
🤔 If your team embodied INSPIRE, what would become possible that feels out of reach today?

... Put "INSPIRE" in the comments or DM to receive the INSPIRE framework.

You don’t need to be fearless to be effective. You need to be real and in motion.

Two Key Points:
🗝️Leaders with imposter syndrome often care more, not less. That care is a strength.
🗝️ Perfectionism is a trap. Progress comes from showing up, not showing off.

Key Actions to Take:
 📓 Journal: What’s one story you’ve been telling yourself that feeds your self-doubt?
 👥 Partner: Share that story with a peer or coach and ask, “Is this true?”
 🔄 Reframe: Turn “I’m not ready” into “I’m willing to learn as I go.”
 🎤 Speak: Share this mindset shift at your next team meeting. Model vulnerability.
 🧗 Act: Take one courageous step this week that your inner critic says you can’t handle.

Consider this...
🤔What new possibilities would open up if you trusted your leadership before you felt ready?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! 🦃🙏🏼

Your team doesn’t need a flawless leader. They need one who’s willing to go first.

Two Key Points:
🔑 Leadership vulnerability creates team permission.
🔑 When you open the door to real talk, others walk through it with more confidence.

Key Actions to Take:
 ✅ Identify: Where in your leadership are you faking certainty?
 ✅ Plan: Choose one team meeting this week to model realness.
 ✅ Speak: Share a time you questioned yourself, and how you moved forward.
 ✅ Invite: Ask, “What part of your job feels hardest to talk about?”
 ✅ Follow-through: Celebrate honesty, not just performance.

Consider this...
🤔 How would your team transform if you made it safe to not always have the answers?

Optimize the one asset your business cannot grow without: YOU!

“What would become possible in your leadership, your company, and your life if you had 10 more years of vibrant, disease-free energy, starting now?”

Adam Shipp, Dan Miller and 2 other attendees

View event: Run Your Body Like You Run Your Business

Escape the grip of Fear, Angst, Insecurity, and Doubt and lead with love, clarity, and conviction.

You were not born to lead from fear. Yet if you're like most high-performing leaders I coach, founders, CEOs, senior executives, you have, at some poi

Open article: Lead Without FAID: How Great Leaders Rise Above Fear by Machen MacDonald • 4 min read

Lead Without FAID: How Great Leaders Rise Above Fear

Great leaders acknowledge insecurities. Weak leaders bury them and hope no one notices.

💎 Doubt thrives in the dark. What you won’t admit, you can’t shift.
💎Naming your doubt gives it shape. Once it’s visible, it’s workable.

Key Actions:
🗝️ Identify your FAID triggers. Is it revenue, relationships, or relevance?
🗝️ Journal your fears. Get them out of your head and onto the page.
🗝️ Reframe the story. Ask: “What’s another lens I could view this through?”
🗝️ Speak it aloud. Share vulnerably with a trusted peer or advisor.
🗝️ Choose transparency. Lead by example. Your team mirrors your emotional posture.

Consider this...
🤔 If you were honest about what you fear most, what breakthrough might follow?

When leaders let things slide, they don’t keep the peace. They weaken the standard.

Key Ideas...
 🔑 What you permit, you promote. Your team is watching your follow-through more than your slogans.
🔑  Culture is built in the micro-moments of what you celebrate, correct, and ignore.

Key Actions...
 ✅ Name one value or behavior you say matters… but aren't reinforcing consistently.
 ✅ Ask your team how they experience that value in action.
 ✅ Publicly recommit to modeling it yourself.
 ✅ Choose one behavior to spotlight this week.
 ✅ Book a 15-minute end-of-week debrief with yourself or a peer to reflect on how you showed up.

Consider this...
 🤔 What message are your actions sending that your mouth is not?

When energy disappears, your example speaks louder than your strategy.
🗝️ Resilience isn’t loud: It's often quiet, gritty, and hidden behind tired eyes.
🗝️ Your team watches how you show up: Especially when things are not going your way.

Actions to try this week:
✅ Choose one day you don’t feel like showing up strong — then do it anyway.
✅ Use the DRIVEN method to structure your bounce-back: Decide, Reset, Identify, Verbalize, Engage, Navigate.
✅ Openly share your process with your team. Let them see that leadership isn't about perfection.
✅ Ask one teammate what they noticed about how you showed up.
✅ Reflect on what shifted internally when you acted from discipline, not emotion.

Consider this...
🤔 What would shift in your culture if your team saw perseverance as a team standard, not a personal trait?

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Machen MacDonald's Linkedin Analytics

Machen MacDonald

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Machen MacDonald

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Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Machen MacDonald's Linkedin Analytics

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