Go forth with clear-eyed intention—
for even the sun burns and water can drown.

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MICHELLE

 I live where culture-making meets consciousness expansion.

For over two decades, I have worked within diverse organizations and alongside various thought leaders, status quo disruptors, and creative minds, leading initiatives that deepen connection, foster belonging, and scale communities.

I bring a rare blend of operational rigor and soulful curiosity. Across every role I take on, my through-line is clear: I help translate big ideas into aligned, tangible impact; harmonizing the practical with the profound so visionaries of all kinds can leave indelible cultural imprints within their families, circles of friends, workplaces, local communities, and beyond.

With a foundation in journalism and cultural anthropology, I launched my career at KUT, Austin’s NPR affiliate, where I worked alongside legendary radio documentary producer David Brown on the Peabody-winning show Texas Music Matters. I later developed and produced documentary projects with Whole Foods Market and HBO.

My commitment to storytelling and community-building eventually led me to work with conflict resolution facilitator and author Priya Parker (The Art of Gathering), a collaboration that propelled me into further partnerships with authors, as well as emerging wellness brands, hospitality groups, organizational development facilitators, brand consultancies, musicians, and visual artists.

All the while, alongside my professional work, I have been engaged in a rigorous inner inquiry—one that began early through teachings from my mother, rooted in the arts, a relationship to the natural world, and a multitude of spiritual practices. These lessons remain foundational to how I listen, observe, and design experiences that invite depth, coherence, and transformation.
In the time since my initial lessons, I have studied under teachers of psychology, body mechanics, politics and public discourse, plant, animal, and psychedelic medicine, business and negotiation communication, meditation, world philosophies, personality typologies, functional medicine, dreamwork, deathwork, and more.

I have devoted myself to understanding how, within individuals, meaning is made and how it goes on to shape the stories we tell, the lives we build, and the bodies we inhabit. And on a collective level, how consciousness shapes culture, and how ritual, presence, and attention can recalibrate shared systems and, ultimately, ways of life.

Deepening my understanding of the impact well-structured communities and organizations have on the individual, the family unit, and the global scale is my guiding purpose.

Today, while continuing my work and studies, I am writing a memoir centered on grief exploration, and expanding my focus to include the design and protection of third spaces dedicated to collective learning through humanity’s connection to one another and the organic world.

I am an immigrant, a seasoned traveler, a dance-floor enthusiast, and a proponent of the outliers. I am also a lover of tall trees, a well-lit room, and talking to strangers.
michelle m. mercedes