In this week’s musings, reading from my musings on Medium, I’m sharing what I’ve learned from completing 2:10 of the required mentor sessions with my MCC mentor coach as I strive to certify as a Master Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation.

The insights I’ve gathered so far have changed how I feel, think, and how I coach — all through the lens of maintaining presence (competency no 5).

My biggest a-ha? I can remain me—and stay creative—even while following the ICF’s very strict seven core competencies. A major phew, I’d say. I worried I had to become all stodgy or boring or something to achieve mastery. Heaven’s forbid! I’d lose all my clients immediately and probably have to find something new to do with my time.

If you’d like to know more about your show host and my coaching and training services, find me on LinkedIn or visit my website here.

Such a lovely way to launch season two for Competency No 5, my podcast focused on finding calm when we coach, lead, and live our lives.

Meet Lady Pamela at the Sea, AKA Pamela Currall, a retired practice nurse in New Zealand. She’s also my dear Mum, and in our delightful interview (which takes place in her garden off of the Kapiti Coast)  she shares the joy and tranquility that comes from gardening.

Pamela’s immensely talented at this craft. She finds gardening and making something stunning from something bland, not only uplifts, brings confidence, she finds tranquility, too—something we can all benefit from, especially as life gets too busy.

If you’d like to know more about your show host and my coaching and training services, find me on LinkedIn or visit my website here.

Boston-based project manager Emma Zhou has long found joy, calm, and courage from playing flute. What began as a hobby in her undergraduate studies in China has now become part of her personal branding and a delightful activity she maintains alongside advanced analytics work. She performs often with local musicians and solo in the greater Boston area,  at weddings, and remote for retirement homes in China, especially now during Christmas and New Year.

Emma reminds us of the presence and calm—the peace—that comes from music, or any artistic activity. And we hear how having a craft alongside our professional work life becomes an excellent extension of our personal brand.

If you’d like to follow Emma’s delightful music, find her YouTube channel here. If you’d like to know more about your show host and my coaching and training services, find me on LinkedIn or visit my website here. 

If your mind wanders too much for you to effectively meditate, then this week’s interview might delight you. My guest is Helio Fujita, an HR executive based in Switzerland. And (among other things) he’s a student at a  prestigious UC Berkeley school training the bright and gifted how to teach meditation, the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification program.

I loved this exchange and how kindly and patiently Helio asks about my disastrous attempts to meditate.  He also offers us new ways to view the situation, to continue on with meditation, and he reminds us: even noticing things counts.

If you’d like to reach out to Helio Fujita, do so by LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn too. And if you’ve stayed loyal to this podcast so far, you’ll know this episode chronicles a second interview with Helio. We spoke earlier this year on his sabbatical and Buddhist pilgrimage, which he found quite life changing indeed—and even inspired this new training to teach others to meditate. You can find that episode here. 

This week is Thanksgiving in America. I love that this country I’ve made home stays one of a few nations around the world devoting an entire holiday to giving thanks. (How lovely. And perhaps more countries can follow suit?)

As a mental fitness practitioner and coach, I find that feeling thankful daily helps me feel more confident, calm, and centered, especially with high-stakes situations and presentations and especially when I coach. In this week’s podcast, I share three ways that gratitude focuses my mind while building more focused, potent, and effective strategy, which helps me also in business.

You can read my musings on feeling thanks and how that helps me as a coach and entreprenuer on Medium, by clicking here. 

We have my dear friend and peer coach Sathya Sethuraman back with us this week to discuss with me a curious dynamic that comes up for coaches when maintaining presence: The occasional but powerful need for radical candor. In this context we mean challenging our coachee on the words they lay down and asking open-ended, short, but powerful questions to challenge inconsistencies we notice and hear or get to the root of the feelings behind what they lay down. 

Clients typically want and expect this kind of candor from their coach; and yet many coaches struggle, especially when the culture they emerged from drives home respect, staying pleasant, and agreeing vs. disagreeing. 

Whether you're a team lead, executive, or coach you may relate to the idea that barriers can exist in our hearts and minds when challenging the words and ideas of others. I hope today's conversation between a coach from India and one from New Zealand, two cultures which encourage pleasantries from communicators, sparks something new within you.

You can reach Sathya on LinkedIn here.   Reach out to me, D G McCullough, for insights on my group coaching and training packages and individual packages on reinventing, promoting, and using your voice through refining the written word. You can find my LinkedIn profile here. 

This week, I’ve reached 5,250 individual coaching hours, which more than doubles the 2,500 individual hours the International Coaching Federation asks for coaches certifying as a Master Certified Coach. MCC certified coaches make up only 4% of global ICF coaches, because of all the other lengthy requirements they ask for, and because it’s so hard and expensive. 

MCC became my game plan when I fell in love with coaching, four years ago, and remains my plan today. Certifying as an MCC coach became my new PhD ambition.

I pulled from a lot of skills, including entrepreneurialism, creativity, and communications to coach these first 5,250 hours. Here lie my top 10 tips and tactics I’ve developed to reach this milestone, and (hopefully) to continue the momentum I’ve started, knowing I've still so much to learn--the main reason for going for more mastery.

Reach out to me, D G McCullough if you'd like coaching on reinventing, raising your visibility by building your personal brand, and using your voice through refining your presentations and the written word. You can find my LinkedIn profile here and read my musings on Medium here. 

Anyone who knows me well knows that Lake Michigan, the world’s fifth largest lake, is my happy place here in Wisconsin bringing me calm, clarity, gratitude, and creativity. One visit can bring powerful shifts in perspective and unlocks big ideas. A recent trip to a new access lake point, Two Rivers, brought an unexpected adventure: Getting caught in a riptide. My way back to shore became a lesson and reminder on accepting, trusting, and staying present in dramatic and fearful situations..

Reach out to me, D G McCullough (now safely back ashore) for insights on my group coaching and training packages and individual packages on reinventing, raising your visibility by building your personal brand, and using your voice through refining the written word. You can find my LinkedIn profile here and read my musings on Medium here.

My guest this week is Sathya Sethuraman, a financial Services and insurance industry strategist and thought leader who's served for 20+ years as a trusted advisor to Fortune 100 global insurance and financial service firms. Sathya’ s also my friend and a coach. Sathya’ s  realizing, as he applies to certify in more advanced ways with the International Coaching Federation, that taming our active mind (our Monkey Brain) becomes pivotal to this process. 

You’ll hear laughter, connection, and musings as two coaches work together to figure out how indeed do we ground and stay present for our clients, and for those we love? Also, what powerful shifts can occur in us and our audience when we trust the process and coach the person vs the problem.


You can reach Sathya on LinkedIn here.   Reach out to me, D G McCullough, for insights on my group coaching and training packages and individual packages on reinventing, promoting, and using your voice through refining the written word. You can find my LinkedIn profile here. 

Many of us struggle with fear and uncertainty—the very opposite of presence—when speaking with powerful people. It’s 100% normal; and more pronounced in these intense times. And yet leaders like Jevon Koh, a business development and global digital partnerships director for a giant financial services firm, find that his Christian faith, his easy-going nature, and living abroad give him a vital and calming perspective in high-stakes situations he might otherwise lack.

I loved Jevon and my exchange on travels, outlook, and faith. This interview reminded me that whether we have religious conviction or not, belief that something bigger than us exists and that all will be well, no matter what, brings a calming, grounding perspective indeed.

You can connect with Jevon via LinkedIn by clicking here. Find me, D G (Debbi Gardiner) McCullough, by visiting my website and clicking on the Calendly link. Or, write to me on LinkedIn. If you enjoy this podcast, do share with anyone interested in coaching or wanting to find the coach approach to life’s problems through staying more present.