IN THE MEDIA
Mike MacConnell (BA, BEd, QMed, AccFM, AccIM, OCT) is an accredited family mediator and conflict communication coach. He founded Reflective Mediation in 2013, which is now close to the top of Google page one for family mediation services in the Greater Toronto Area.
In his prior career he founded, SOLA (School of Liberal Arts – 1989-2010) a private high school in central Toronto. After transitioning to family mediation, he published a self-help memoire The Yoga of Divorce; A Mindful Route to Resolving disputes (2016) and taught the Family Mediation course at Humber College, Toronto (2017-2020).
He has credentials as an elder mediator and a child protection mediator in addition to mediating separation and divorce. His work spans the generations, with individuals as a coach, with couples and families as a mediator, and with larger groups as a restorative justice circle keeper.
He is dedicated to facilitating conversations that not only arrive at practical solutions to immediate problems, but that improve communication skills and emotional self-regulation into the future.
AS SEEN ON…
Mike MacConnell on Divorce Mediation
This podcast episode featured an interview with Mike MacConnell, an accredited Family Mediator who runs a practice called Reflective Mediation. As the author of "The Yoga of Divorce: A Mindful Route to Resolving Disputes", Mike shared his unique approach to divorce mediation, which focuses on helping clients shift their mindset from conflict to collaboration. Rather than seeing divorce as a battle, Mike coaches clients to develop an "Attitude of Gratitude" and view it as an opportunity to generate a new, healthier script for their family. Drawing from his own personal experience, Mike believes that choosing dialogue over conflict can enable ex-spouses to resolve their relationship amicably and model mindful conflict management for their children. The overall theme of the podcast was Mike's perspective on how divorce mediation can open up new possibilities when approached with the right mindset, rather than adversarial thinking.
Building Your Practice – Getting the Phone to Ring, and What to Say When it Does
"I’ve built my business without paying anything for advertising. You don’t need ads if you can convince Google to send inquiries your way. Word of mouth is wonderful, but the only gatekeeper to please today is Google. Befriending the search engine required a range of skills I lacked – so I committed to investing in the expertise of people who could advise about social media and do things that I didn’t even know needed doing [...] I committed to get volunteer experience in the community at large, and being active in any way I could. I offered free talks to parent groups, appeared on podcasts, did ADR workshops for various organizations, and offered reduced-rate mediations (and even free to friends and a social service organization). I wrote and self-published a book, which helped as a launching pad for building legitimacy. These efforts were all about getting out there, building connections and a name, and putting in eight hours a day even when few of those hours were paid. This built my confidence and my connections."
