![]() The statistics below highlight the ICF’s latest 2022 research findings outlined in the 2023 Summary on the Future of Coaching. Coaches that responded included: External Coach Practitioners, Internal Coach Practitioners, and managers that use coaching skills (HR, Talent Development, Directors, Managers, and Leaders). The estimated global number of coach practitioners is 109,200. In North America, it is 34,000. This is a 54% increase from the 2019 estimate. 91% of coach practitioners reported having active clients, a 55% increase from 2019.
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Dear Coaches,
As you may know, there are so many coaching communities and coaching promotion sites. It is hard to know which ones work and which ones to trust. We've done the vetting for you! We have recently partnered with the Wellness Universe (WU) as a trusted community of wellness providers, including ICF-trained and credentialed coaches. WU is actively seeking credentialed coaches to promote for upcoming contracts. They also offer membership tiers that help you promote your services to new clients. Our faculty and mentor coach, Carrie Doubts, is a Senior Partner at WU, and why we were blessed to learn all about WU! If you are interested in becoming a preferred coach for them, they are holding an info webinar tomorrow, June 27th. You can REGISTER BELOW to learn more about their services and options: ![]() In coaching education, the topic of blending methodologies comes up quite a bit. For example, blending coaching and mentoring or combining coaching and consulting. In my early years as a coach, I felt I needed to fall back on other modalities to be a better coach and "get the client the results they came to me for." That was around 2005. Fast-forward to now. After going through MCC-level mentoring and being a PCC mentor coach who has listened to hundreds of sessions, I've learned a few tidbits of wisdom regarding blending. For those of you who blend or are thinking about it, I hope these elements empower your practice. "The client asked to be mentored and wants my guidance." When coaches tell me that the client wants to be mentored and says, "Can't you just tell me what to do?!" I get it. That was me when I first started exploring my potential and sat in the client seat. There are a couple of truths to consider when this happens. First, whenever we grow and stretch in new ways, it feels good to have someone tell us what to do. Why? We don't have to take responsibility if it doesn't work out. It is so much easier not to dig deep for our answers. If your client requests answers from you, consider the following: "Does this person need to be shown a way, or are they just hesitant to step into their truth?" The journey into our truth is often accompanied by fear and hesitation. In my coaching studies, I discovered that there are two journeys we can take when reaching our potential. In the first journey, we can be shown the way, taught concepts, counseled, or guided. Yet, there is a time when to step into our fuller potential, we have to go within for the answers, and external provisions can limit this process. The second journey is coaching. No other profession I know of can journey with someone as they embark on that second journey. Consider: Is my client still needing first journey support (counseling or mentoring)? Is my client ready to embark on the coaching journey to self-discover their deeper truths and potential? "The session was so good!" The second aspect I see show up when I listen to coaching sessions as a mentor is the "But the session was so good!" syndrome. When I hear this, I wonder, "Was the session great for you or the client?" When we guide, direct, or advise, guess who gets a dopamine release in the brain? The person who is sharing their inspiration or direction, not the client. On the flip side, when the client self-discovers something within them, they receive the dopamine release, and this anchors in their inspiration and their self-belief. So when I hear, "Oh my gosh, that session was so good!" and then as I'm listening to the session, I see the coach took over and was on a roll with feeding their wisdom to the client, this indicates the session was likely better for the coach. Even if the client agrees it was helpful, we've accidentally kept them on the first journey, which isn't the goal of an authentic coaching partnership. If you are excited about providing answers and direction, here are two things to consider. First, no matter how much of an inspiring background, wisdom we've accumulated over the years, or expertise we have garnered, we will never be the expert of another human being's truth. Period. Second, when we allow the client to self-discover their wisdom, they have greater ownership, self-belief, confidence, self-esteem, self-trust, and so on. When we provide and guide, the client's self-discovery subsides. When we step in, we override the client's opportunity to gain access to their fullest self. There is a silver lining in all of this for those of us who rightfully cherish our hard-earned wisdom and life experiences. I believe that deeply transformational coaching is a combination of both coach and client wisdom. The question is: How can we use our wisdom to formulate questions that illuminate the client's self-discovery process? Being an authentic coach humbles us to hold a potentiated space of self-discovery for the coach and the client. Who can I become when I don't advise? ![]() Our dog has discovered a nest of baby robins in the front yard tree. He runs out and tries to jump up to reach them. As he did this yesterday, a small piece of the nest fell. I went over to see if they were ok, and when they heard me, they poked their little swaying heads out of the nest and opened their mouths, chirping for food. Life is so amazing! With all the hustle and bustle in the world, I’ve seen how easy it is to lose touch with life’s magical side. Have you experienced this? If you think about it, life is pretty miraculous! Just look at physics. Did you know that the earth is rotating at 1,000 mph?! Not only that, while it is spinning through space, it is orbiting the sun at 66,616 mph!! This leaves me wondering… If the universe started with a big bang, what contained the ball that exploded? Nothingness? That is impossible. Nothing doesn’t exist. What is on the other side of the edge of the universe? Or is there no edge? How is infinity possible? Yet, there can’t be an ending because what would be on the other side of the end? While these are astronomically exciting aspects of living on a planet and spinning through the universe at record-breaking speeds, the human body is also crazy amazing! Did you know that the body produces 25 million new cells every second? Or that thoughts (brain information) travel at 268 mph?! I also learned that the brain could generate 23 watts of electricity. Where in the body is the electricity generated? Here is another one… Brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 1 billion synapsis and 100,000 neurons. Is your mind blown yet? In high school, my friends and I would joke that we were starting a new religion called Wowism. We would sit back, look at the world and think, WOW! Integrative Coaching includes the mind, body, energy, and spiritual domains of human potential. When people get in touch with these aspects of themselves, transformation is leveraged, and life goes from ordinary to WOW. Today’s resource is a video from one of my favorite astrophysicists, Neil deGrasse Tyson. He offers a perspective shift on life and meaning. As Einsten is quoted as saying: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” https://youtu.be/JtahB1-MNvk ![]() Coaching for Everyone (CFE) is a non-profit organization started by Dr. Victor McQuire. In their words: “Coaching For Everyone (CFE), a 501c3 non-profit organization, operates with two forward-thinking missions. The first is to offer complimentary coaching and leadership support to traditionally underserved and under-resourced BIPOC populations. The second is to offer a coaching fellowship to working BIPOC professionals interested in becoming a certified coach.” Our beloved Instructor and Coach, Michael Tucker, is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at CFE and a founding member of CFE has connected our missions together. Thank you Michael for supporting! We are proud to announce that CFE has chosen The Institute as their coaching training provider of choice and we began proudly supporting and training their scholars in May. This partnership aligns with our mission to: “Be a part of a much bigger movement towards integrative thinking and sustainability that is heart-centered, inspiring and empowering so that freedom, health and joy may be shared for generations to come. “We are here to serve people who also feel the call to support a shift towards sustainable, collaborative practices in business, management, leadership and personal evolution. We are here to provide the framework for global and economic empowerment and to inspire groups into ethical and viable professional practices.” If you also feel called to leave a positive impact, I trust you will value the collaboration between these two amazing missions. CFE has ongoing coaching cohorts starting throughout the year. If you, or someone you know, could benefit from their services, please visit the links below to learn more, join a program, or make a donation:
by Laurel Elders, MCC, CEC ![]() What happens when we locate our personal power? Have you experienced the healthiest version of your emotional and spiritual well-being? In Part One, we looked at healing as a result of integrating. One aspect of integration is locating our personal power. In Part Two, we explore the type of personal power that results from discovering the true self and shedding the false. The concept of integration comes with a few complexities. The process is not linear and often counterintuitive, yet the results are observable. What does it mean to integrate? First, integration results in reaching new potentials that become possible when we tap into the cohesive state of wholeness within us. We integrate by accepting all parts of self and consciously leading our life through our gifts, core values, and authentic self. I say consciously because it takes intention. What we focus on grows. Focus on nothing, and anything can show up. How do we embrace all parts of the self when there are parts we are not friends with or do not serve us? How do we embrace the "good" and "bad," the true and the false? Let's explore the theory to understand how these aspects of self came to be. The theory is that our first wounding generated the egoic self. The ego is the part of the mind that decides it is unsafe in this world. The egoic self sees itself as separate from others and, therefore, makes up strategies to keep us emotionally and physically safe. This process is not good, bad, right or wrong. It is just one aspect of the human experience. While the ego's attempts to keep us safe may work and benefit us when needed, the illusions generated fragment us from our true self and the depth of our intuition. Fear blocks intuition. So the idea is to shed the defense mechanism once we no longer need it. When our true power shows up, we release the grips of the ego. We can begin a sifting process once we embrace all aspects of self. We can peel the egoic layers of our inner onion back to find no substance at the core of the ego. Our substance is the very essence of who we are. You are not your fears, defense mechanisms, or limiting beliefs. You are your gifts, strengths, values, and virtues. You are also so much more. You are also potential. |