{{ post.title }}
{{ post.teaser }}
{{ post.date }}
Wild Ground
Integral coaching for people who’ve stopped believing the next summit is the answer.
I won’t hand you a framework, a worksheet, and a summit to climb. I work with people from all backgrounds who have to reinvent themselves in a world that refuses to stop accelerating — much of the work outdoors, on Irish mountains, woodlands and shorelines, where people finally have the opportunity to experience silence. We will do the work together either in The Burren or a place in nature where you feel most at home. For those who can’t access nature together physically, we do it virtually across Ireland or internationally.
Ways to Work TogetherThe Name
Where the name comes from
After three decades in California, I went home to Ireland — to the Burren, craggy limestone that still looks as though it flows, cows closing their ring around me, the birds my choir and the 5,000 year old stone circle holding me. This is my church.
Nothing grows here by force. It grows by patience. I don’t chase anymore; I put out an invitation to life and let things happen as they are supposed to. I’m wild and grounded now. I’d like to offer you the invitation to join me in this place of unlimited possibility.
Read My Story
The Approach
Integral, not partial
No quick fixes. No one-size-fits-all. You are not a problem to be solved. Within you lie the answers to your questions, the reasons you feel as you do and the things that are holding you back. We peel back the layers together, uncovering what was always yours to hold and to lay down what you no longer need to carry.
I take people outside. Up a mountain in the sideways rain, out to where the sea does the talking — because real change rarely happens sitting behind a desk. It happens when the chasing stops and you can remain still long enough to hear, feel and sense yourself in a way the world of the present doesn’t allow.
See the InvitationsThe Fit
Who I Work With
I spent thirty years on the treadmill of accelerated change, so I know it from the inside. If you’ve achieved the things you were told to want and quietly suspect they aren’t yours anymore, that’s exactly who I work with — not to help you climb one more summit, but to reinvent yourself for the life that’s genuinely your own. My work is not related to your job title or role, it is tied to your desire to look deep inside for the answers you already have. My work is for anyone, anywhere.
“I came to Alan as a skeptic, believing I had nothing left to change. He gently challenged that, and encouraged me to explore deeper parts of myself I had not known existed. With warmth, insight, and incredible intuition, Alan led me to a renewed sense of purpose.”
JoAnne Shayne
Professor of Psychology
About Me
I’m not a traditional coach.
I do this work because I found myself lost and alone at two points in my life, and I know the ground and courage it took to find my way back. After thirty years away, I ended the long journey home to do the work I am truly meant to do.
I’ve never met anyone who was truly broken — only people who’d lost the thread, and needed room, and time, to find it again. So, I’m not here to lead you to more. I’m here to walk alongside, to notice what you can’t yet see, and to help you lay down the bags that are not yours to carry anymore.
Alan Daly · Certified Integral Coach®
My Story
Here’s how I came to it.
Thirty Years
I climbed the ladder
I left Ireland in my twenties — terrified and not feeling any place in which I fitted. Fear was not a topic to be spoken on back then, it was something best addressed by running away from. I crossed an ocean, and went from electrician to vice president in Silicon Valley — always pushing in the way we are taught to achieve success. Then came the houses, the car, the art: the show that says this is me, I matter, I fit in, I am successful. None of that was true.
2008
The facade came down, and so did I
My finances evaporated, my home was taken, and I was lost and confused. I was broke and the me I thought existed was simply a mirage. I meandered through the pain for several years as an alcoholic. I tried to drink my way out of a situation I couldn’t think my way out of — a wildly unsuccessful effort. I got sober the hard way — forty-five days in rehab, then a walk back into a new self, one I didn’t recognise.
Thirteen Years
A small, stubborn dog
Rehab dried me out; it didn’t hand me back a life. Milo, my miniature poodle/terrier did. On our first morning I promised him: I’ll feed you and walk you, morning and evening, and I’ll try not to drink in between. I kept that promise for thirteen and a half years until he passed away and in return he taught me about the things that really matter in life. On my hand today, Milo is inked — reminding me that journeys never end and my recovery work continues under his watchful eye.
Coming Home
Back to the Burren
When Milo died, the grief had no bottom. A David Whyte poem put words to it — that anything or anyone that doesn’t bring you alive is too small for you. After three decades in California I came home to Ireland with a passion to help others navigate this thing called life. Poe, a rescue border collie who hitched a ride with me, reminds me that we both belong amid the wild ground — alive and at peace.
I’m wild and grounded now. I’m inviting you to join me.
The Approach
How I work
The Whole Of You
Integral, not partial
I tend to walk into a room already sensing what each person is carrying — I learned to see that from a creature whose only voice was his eyes. The Integral method of coaching works the same way: it takes in the whole of you, and supports who you are, not just what you want to change.
Outdoors
Real change rarely happens at a desk
I take people outside. Up a mountain in the sideways rain, out to where the sea does the talking. Change happens when the chasing stops and stillness takes hold.
Who I Work With
People who’ve outgrown the climb
Outside you may be in crisis or inside you may feel lost or stuck. You know you are in a place that no longer fits you, but you can’t yet find a renewed sense of purpose. Together we explore the roads less taken and you create the life shaped around the person you truly are.
Why this work might fit you
The Burren taught me this way of working — slowly, against the grain, never by force. Growth here doesn’t happen by pushing. It happens by patience.
So if something in you has grown quiet, or restless, or tired of being hurried — that isn’t a problem to fix. That’s the wild ground within you, beginning to stir. And it already knows the way home.
If any of this lands for you, let’s have that first conversation.
Ways to Work TogetherCredentials
Alan Daly is a Certified Integral Coach®, trained through New Ventures West (San Francisco) — an ICF-accredited programme. He lives and works in the countryside of Co. Limerick, Ireland, with a border collie occasionally asleep on the floor beside him.
“I came to Alan as a skeptic, believing I had nothing left to change. He gently challenged that, and encouraged me to explore deeper parts of myself I had not known existed. With warmth, insight, and incredible intuition, Alan led me to a renewed sense of purpose.”
JoAnne Shayne
Professor of Psychology
Ways to Work Together
Every piece of work I do begins with a conversation, not a contract.
What follows is an invitation to go as far as feels right for you — one step at a time, each one complete in itself.
Step One
The First Conversation
Free · 60 minutes
Before any coaching begins, we sit down together. This is an hour to talk through what’s on your mind — the challenge you’re facing, the thing you’re reaching for, or simply the sense of being stuck, lost, or restless that brought you here. Mostly, I listen.
It’s a chance for both of us to feel whether we’re a good match, and whether the work I do is the work you need. There’s no cost, and no obligation to go any further. If it isn’t the right fit, I’ll gladly help you find your way to someone who is.
Book a ConversationOutdoors
Groundwork
A half-day on the Burren · 4 hours · €195
A half-day in the open air, on the limestone and grassland of the Burren — or a place that speaks to you. We walk, we sit, and we let the landscape do some of the work that four walls prevent. Being outside — moving, noticing, away from screens and lists — has a way of loosening what’s stuck and surfacing what really matters.
Groundwork stands entirely on its own. You can take it as a single, self-contained experience, with no expectation that you go any further. For many people it also becomes a natural first step into the fuller programme — a way to test the ground before deciding whether to walk it. Either way, you leave with something you didn’t arrive with.
Enquire About GroundworkThe Programme
New Ground
The coaching programme · weekly
This is the heart of what I offer: sustained, developmental coaching that helps you become, over time, more the author of your own life. We meet weekly either in person or remotely (depending on location), and the work builds session on session — noticing, practicing, integrating — until the changes hold on their own.
Two ways to take it
The ten-week programme — €800
A complete arc, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the path I recommend — a defined container gives the work the room it needs to deepen and take root.
Week by week — €95 per session
For an agreed number of weeks, if you’d rather keep things open.
Bespoke
By Design
Bespoke · by agreement
Some people arrive with something specific — a transition, a decision, a role they’re growing into, a question that won’t leave them alone. If a set programme doesn’t quite fit, we design one together: the focus, the rhythm, and the shape of the work agreed directly between us, around what you’re setting out to do.
Price by agreement.
Design Something TogetherThe Why
Why This Work
This work is grounded in real life, not theory.
It comes from lived experience — of change, struggle, and rebuilding — and from years of learning what actually creates lasting shifts.
I don’t offer quick fixes or surface-level solutions.
What we do here is slower, deeper, and more honest — so that change is not just understood, but lived.
Everything begins with The First Conversation.
When you’re ready, get in touch and we’ll find a time to talk.
Get in TouchNature
Why Nature Matters
Nature reaches places the mind cannot.
In its presence, perspective widens, the ego softens, and what once felt heavy begins to loosen.
Contact
Start the Conversation
You don’t need to have everything figured out — every piece of work I do begins with a conversation, not a contract.
The First Conversation is an hour, free of charge, with no obligation to go any further. An hour to talk through what’s on your mind. Mostly, I listen. If it isn’t the right fit, I’ll gladly help you find your way to someone it is.
I answer every enquiry myself.
Send a Message
Send me a message
Thank you — your message is ready in your email app. I answer every enquiry myself, usually within a day or two.