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 professionals and leaders through career transformations and transitions in holistic ways. From her Milwaukee, Wi. base she's stayed in love with coaching ever since and all it brings.

While coaching and transformation is what she brings her clients, silence and a practice with observing silence is part of Coach Amy's self care and flow.

In our interview, we hear of her retreats, training, and her discovery on what changes within her, simply from creating space for something no money can buy: quiet, and time to just "be" and think.

You can find Coach Amy on LinkedIn here and Better Path Coaching here.

Your show host, Debbi Gardiner McCullough, is a communications coach for Google PMs through Fortune 100 leaders, a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. Find her on LinkedIn. Book her for coaching, training or ICF mentoring here. Join her active listening and communications workshops on Maven here and here, with a new Listen Like a Boss coming soon.

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 and cried a lot when I read I’d passed and wrote on what's coming up for me on my Substack here. This is my immigrant dream coming true.

Over winter break, (having submitted my MCC submission in September) I convinced myself I’d need to resubmit multiple times, like many coaches do. I still can't believe I passed with my first shot.

Curiosity, presence, and determination helped me the most, along with the accountability this podcast, Competency No 5 brought. [So, thank you for bearing with me!]

In this week's episode, we welcome back MCC Coach Ben Dooley, one of two MCC coaches who mentored me. Ben tells us what that CKA is all about and how to pass it. I've since booked my CKA exam for early February.

Reach out to MCC Coach Ben Dooley via his website, here.

Your show host, Debbi Gardiner McCullough, is a communications coach for Google PMs through Fortune 100 leaders, a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. Find her on LinkedIn. Book her for coaching, training or ICF mentoring here. Join her workshops on Maven here and here.

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 performance and return to themselves; not through hacks. More so daily practices helping us regulate our nervous system and lead with presence, clear communications, while inviting safety for others to do the same.

In this interview, we experience that shift live time through inquiry and candid sharing. The shift feels unmistakable. Learn from a somatic and wellness coach stories of bravery, presence, and the powerful shifts on what we see before us when we pause, notice, and anchor in our conversation and bodies.

You can find Coach Karen on LinkedIn here and visit KarenAnnWellness here.

Your show host, Debbi Gardiner McCullough, is a communications coach for Google PMs through Fortune 100 leaders, a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. Find her on LinkedIn. Book her for coaching, training or ICF mentoring here. Join her workshops on Maven here and here.