Claim OwnershipCompetency No. 5
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© 2026 Competency No. 5
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Around 4% of the 55,000 + coaches certified with the International Coaching Federation hold the revered status of Master Certified Coach. Why so few? I'm about to find out. Competency No. 5, the podcast, explores how we maintain presence when we coach, lead, and live our lives. We interview coaches and others whose very livelihood depends upon staying calm and present with those they serve. We also chronicle my attempts (as a self-retired professor and global business reporter from New Zealand) to become an MCC coach. This effort requires beaucoup coaching hours, mentoring, and adhering strictly to the ICF's seven core competencies, especially the deceptively tricky Competency No. 5, maintaining presence.
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I can’t remember a time where people didn’t confide in me. Every time, it felt like an honor. I was super young when I first noticed the pattern, which began before I was aged five, in New Zealand, and has continued to this day, even inspiring my later-in-life career as a communications coach. My first memories of people sharing their all with me come from visiting my dad’s farm a year after his divorce from my mum. There I quickly bonded with dad’s new wife, Jane, a gorgeous Kenyan British w...
In a new favorite episode, we asked Master Certified Coach trainer and author, Dr. Marcia Reynolds: how do we coach the person, not the problem? And why business leaders ought to join coaches in this highly-rewarding and joyous activity. We met with Marcia a week after her second edition of "Coach the Person, Not the Problem" became a bestseller on Amazon. Marcia shares her love for taking coaching slow (especially in the beginning), noticing everything, interrupting (as needed) a...
Dr. Matt Barney is a true scientist practitioner and an entrepreneur in the field of measurement and analysis. His most recent tool, the TruMind.ai Leader and Coach Assessment, he feels supremely hopeful about, because it helps coaches help their clients see and note their progress, something that's otherwise hard to quantify and measure. "Reviews tell us that most coaching outcomes are measured by one metric alone: whether the executive liked the coach," he notes. "That's not enough. W...
Leadership coach Amy Krymkowski fell in love with coaching through her work in HR. After observing a coach in action, she found the approach so spacious and like nothing else. "I was in awe with how much progress and awareness came from listening, silence, and creating space through inquiry," she says. She declared coaching as her primary profession, certified, and joined an outplacement firm as a full-time job search coach before founding her own firm: Better Path Coaching, guiding pro...
Last Friday, January 16, I heard from the assessors at the International Coaching Federation that I passed their famously difficult and evasive Master Certified Coaching Performance Evaluation. I've still the Coach Knowledge Assessment (CKA), a four-hour exam to go, before I get to join the 4% of MCC coaches globally, a rare group of around 2,240 coaches within 56,000 ICF credential-holders worldwide. But the hardest part (the performance evaluation) is now behind me. I was amazed...
When Karen Canham struggled with anorexia, her body felt numb. In fact, she couldn't access her body mentally at all, because the eating disorder stemmed from trauma. Through therapy and recovery, she came out the other side, learned yoga, how to regulate, and reconnect with her body after years of disconnection. Yoga taught her presence. Breath taught her patience. And after years in the corporate world, her new journey began: Teaching others how to move beneath perfectionism and...
The holidays can stretch too many of us bringing heightened stress and surface-level conversations, even with those we love. Paris, France-based Coach Marie-Louise Pereira knows how to bring coaching skills and Competency No 5 (maintaining presence) into our daily flow and to our relationships with those we love. In a lovely conversation with a dear friend and peer coach, we unpack how we use our active listening skills and clear boundary setting (and even our ability to say 'no' vs 'ye...
It's the annual review season and the final quarterly review for those on the quarterly system. I hear rumblings from many I coach who feel stretched too thin, burdened with too many projects, and exposed to failure more than they'd like. If the task becomes writing on our work, all that went well, and how things emerged as we'd hoped, ought we also address what flopped? I say: Yes. We ought to. Failure opens up great storytelling opportunities and if you're working 330+ days in a year,...
My Master Certified Coaching submission is finally in with the International Coaching Federation! I await my ICF assessors’ feedback on whether I pass or fail. My musings on active listening and masterful coaching since I hit “submit” this past Monday, including final indecisiveness, a solar eclipse across my birthplace in New Zealand, and a stunning reminder from the late Dr. James R Doty, an esteemed neurosurgeon, on what active listening really means, and feels like, for the receiver. ...
I’m one week shy of finalizing my MCC application process, which began with the launch of this podcast in July 7, 2023. This week’s episode is documentary style. No music. Just raw footage, of me documenting the many final steps, big decisions, the over thinking, and the huge importance of staying present when working in a state of not knowing. Thanks to my many peer coaches, my clients, and friends and family who’ve supported me in this journey, which has changed how I feel about...
Pharmaceutical executive Jill Staudacher took things harder than she thought when her middle son Dean moved out of home and seven hours away for his studies and baseball. I’ve struggled moving my oldest son Nicholas into his dorm last week at Harvard University—now living 1070 miles from his Wisconsin base. The college transition can challenge parents—and the teens who move away. Exact data’s scarce; but we know 16% of 18.4 million undergraduate students in the U.S. live in some form of...
When Fortune 500 Chief Technology Advisor Suhail Syed learns that clients are upset, the instinct is to jump in and solve. That’s what often feels right. Something’s broken; so fix it. But as someone intent on staying calm amidst crisis, Syed finds that asking questions and listening well works best. “It’s amazing what unfolds,” he muses. “Clients feel listened to. They get to vent. And from that more peaceful, trusting state, we problem solve together.” This delightful conversation wit...
The Harvard Mum essay project is my documentary essay series on immigrant motherhood, immigrant dreams, leadership, and all the deep lessons on staying calm and present as my oldest son joins the Harvard University class of 2029 this fall. He’s one of 3% of applicants to gain admittance and only one of a few Wisconsinites to do so. My Chapter 2 essay, the high school graduation, revealed the vast numbers: 3.9 million high school graduates graduated from high school as the Class of 2025. Mos...
If you've ever had your hands in clay, you know: The experience can connect you to a deeper part of yourself--as it does with any art medium. Art unlocks. It connects us to our body. And the flow state helps us detach from our fears and a want to control, because art is so uncontrollable. I spoke with Santa Cruz, calif.-based artist and coach Tess Mascari amidst her own flow state building stunning ceramic pots in shapes of Tibetan men, all in states of bliss. She calls them her spirit ...
The International Coaching Federation’s Competency 8 asks its certified coaches to work with clients in ways that great leaders do with their team: consider possibilities, create action plans, and explore learning. It also requires developing measurable achievements. In a new coaching session with MCC Coach Ben Dooley, we review a strong— perhaps an excellent contender for my second recording submission to the ICF for my MCC certification. It seems strong to me—and to Coach Ben— b...
This month, the U.S. reaches historic milestones in some lovely and not so lovely ways. In my world, June 2025 brings joy and hope to 3.9 million high school graduates. Class of 2025 becomes the largest and most diverse class in history, experts say, and with historically high competition for college placement, too. My son, Nicholas, and his friends joined those millions this past Sunday at Muskego High School here in Wisconsin. What the media skips over is the deep emotions and new perspecti...
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” Albert Einstein, our beloved German-born physicist and mathematician, owns the delightful quote. And I find it especially timely when I’m mid-build of something big, new, risky, but beautiful. I find when I’m imagining what’s truly possible, I love to collaborate with my inner circle (new and old). I also love to isolate. This feels intelligent (or at least sensible) to me. Imagining is where the magic is. We can always c...
In 2025, the ICF estimates 109,200 ICF certified coaches exist worldwide, an unprecedented milestone exceeding the 100,000 mark. Most recent 2023 data has MCC coaches at 2,203. So reasonable to expect, it’s still under 3,000. How high am I with this long climb and summit of certifying with the International Coaching Federation as a master certified coach, an honor the international non-profit, the largest for coaches globally, bestows to only 4% of its coaches globally. Well. I ne...
Harvard University received 53,700 applications for this incoming class of 2029. Of those, 1,950 were admitted, a 3.63% acceptance rate. My oldest of two sons, Nicholas McCullough, is one of them. He’ll play defensive tackle for the Harvard University football team, who recruited him, and he’ll study economics. As mother’s day weekend approaches, my last with him under our roof, I’m feeling what any Harvard parent might feel: Pride. Euphoria. Excitement. Awe. The deeper feelings, impend...
“The summit is what drives us; but the climb itself is what matters” The delightful quote comes from Conrad Anker, the American rock climber, activist, author and mountaineer who climbed Mount Everest three times. Anker, known for his visionary approach towards hardship, also tackled challenging routes across the Americas, Antarctica, and the Himalayas. I’ve thought of Anker’s views on the journey of learning often whilst securing my final goal of MCC certification: Finding a second viable co...
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