Learning Level Two coaching skills can feel daunting. Stepping into mentor coaching to have a trained assessor review one of your recorded coaching session can feel intimidating. Here are a few tips to help you navigate the process, get the most from the mentoring experience and help you pass your Performance Evaluation. In this video mentor coach, Laurel Elders, interviews coaching mentee, Michael on his process, mindset shifting and the studying process for passing the PCC Marker Performance Evaluation with flying colors. This video is in support of our Level Two ICF Accredited Training Program. Transcript
Laurel: All right, Michael, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed about your process with mentor coaching and also preparing to pass the PCC level performance evaluation, because I know that is not an easy feat and you just blew it out of the water getting, 100% plus extra credit. So I'd love would you you share, um, with other coaches that are in that learning process, in that mentoring process, what helped you elevate your growth? Michael: For sure. Yeah, I'm really glad to share. I think first of all, the mentor coaching was, really impactful. And obviously it's vulnerable to record yourself coaching and share it with somebody. And then to let them give you feedback on it. All of that's really vulnerable. But I feel glad, that I was able to lean in to that process. I think for sure. And you saw it from my first recording to my second to my third, I really made, um, significant strides, I think just sort of in the first two sessions, really seeing the patterns, um, getting good clear feedback from you and, taking thorough notes on our mentor coaching sessions and then reviewing those notes before the next session and just spending time with it and thinking through, okay, how am I going to be able to look out for this habit? How am I going to shift this habit? And really thinking through that before my next recording is definitely a part of what helped them to each get better than the one before. Laurel: Nice. And I recall in one of our sessions you shared "coaching is hard". And I remember feeling that same way going through my own PCC mentoring. Like, "oh my gosh", it's so counterintuitive. And what we know about the brain is that the brain wants to provide answers and have certainty. So learning to sit in pure curiosity, unbiased, or to be able to recognize bias, that's a whole new mindset shift. Michael: Yeah, absolutely - I do think honestly, even hearing you say it now, I think at some point in the process I was, I was really appreciating how hard coaching is. And I think that kind of helped me to realize like, hey, this is really hard, it's not easy, it takes a lot of practice, it's not going to be perfect. And I think just realizing this is challenging to shift how I talk and hold space with people. It helped me to be a little bit more compassionate on myself and then to bring some more ease and lightness to it instead of the heavy self judgment which is always like around the corner. Laurel: Yeah, it's such an internal shift. And for those listening in, I just want to offer that. That does change with time. Right. It does become more natural and flowy, as we get more out of our heads, and can be more present. Any advice or words of wisdom for other coaches who are, going through their own mentoring process and learning the PCC Level Two skills? Michael: Yeah, for sure. I think some of what I already shared about, but I think just being really open to the feedback and wanting it with the mentor coach. I think you said early on in our work together, Laurel, hey, I'm going to give you feedback. It might feel petty, might feel small, and just kind of preparing me for it. But I really felt, as we moved through it, like, okay, let me let my guard down. Let me be grateful to be getting this feedback, and kind of switching off that part of my brain that it's easy to try to defend ourselves as opposed to just realizing, hey, this is helpful. So I think that's the first part, is really just being open to the feedback and kind of leaning into the process. One other thing I'll share, that you had recommended to me that was really helpful was just, taking a look at all of the training material that is up on the website. I think I didn't look at it right away at the beginning. In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have had such a learning curve if I had. But I probably underestimated how useful that was because once I went through and when I was driving around town, when I was at the gym in the morning, I would just play one of the sample coaching sessions. They're about 30 minutes each, and then they have all of their notes and they have all of the, sort of the questions that were asked and the coach's side of the script. Once I started accessing that material, it was like major light bulbs were going on for me about, just how to sort of be more intentional of bringing the PCC markers, into my conversations with clients. Laurel: Nice. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That sounds really key. I think there's some- sometimes we can just say, oh, I showed up for class, right. I got the material and then kind of move on because life gets so busy. And I just found out you're doing your dissertation right now through in additional all off this! wow. Michael: That's right. Laurel: So impressive. But, yeah, the idea that we can, at some level, study coaching. Right. Really study it and get familiar with it and really have it be a part of who we are and what we do. Michael: Yeah, absolutely. The resources for preparing for the PCC markers is really incredible, so I can't recommend that enough, really. Laurel: Oh great. Thank you! Anything else you'd like to add? Michael: I'll give one last tip that I just gave to some of my classmates. People that know me know that I'm a fiend for trying to figure out how to use AI to make things easier for me. So something that I did is I asked chat. Gpt to give me. I fed it the PCC markers and then I asked it to create, like a fake 30 minutes transcript that was timestamped for each of the PCC markers, just so that I could look at on paper, what does this look like? To have a perfect session and it's not really perfect because it looks like a robot doing coaching. But it was really helpful to just see it in that way. So that might not work for everybody, but for me, I'm the type of person that, that's really helpful for, just to have a transcript that shows how each marker was met. It was really helpful. Laurel: That is fascinating! I would love to see that! If you want to share it. Michael: I'll share it with you. Laurel: Curiosity, what did AI come up with? Michael: Yeah, uh, it's funny, it's a little formulaic and it's like a robot doing coaching, but, he definitely passed the test. Laurel: Yeah, too funny. Oh, that's hilarious. Great. Well, thank you again so much for being willing to be interviewed and really share your experience so that it can help others. And the message that I have for newer coaches going through this level two training. Is that what you said, that be compassionate with yourself - and also just, it's normal to have that vulnerable feeling like, oh no, somebody's going to be judging. And really a good mentor coach is not judging. A good mentor coach is just saying, "oh, here's coaching" "oh, here's a different way to docoaching and let's explore the continuum of coaching. Yeah. Thank you so much. Michael: Thank you, Laurel, I appreciate it.
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