The Coaching Edge Podcast

People don't trust what they read online anymore, and Ali Meehan has a name for it: the trust recession. Founder of Costa Women, a network for women living in or moving to Spain, Ali joins hosts Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to unpack why AI-polished content erodes the very trust coaches depend on. She shares why she believes AI cannot replace the human intuition coaches bring to a room, what...

AI will not raise your children. Parenting coach and LagosMums founder Yetty Williams joins The Coaching Edge Podcast to explain why. Williams built one of Nigeria's first parenting platforms in 2011, and she now works with parents and business leaders on three continents. In this episode, she tells hosts Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave why AI works only once you know your destination, how to s...

Anna Sumara built a coaching career around one idea: the body knows before the mind does. A coach, facilitator, and Coactive Training Institute faculty member, Anna joins hosts Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to explain embodied presence and why tension in the body weakens a leader's message. Anna walks through a practice for noticing physical sensation during moments of stress, describes why s...

Ex-army officer and former corporate GM Jimmy Burroughes burned out in 2017 after 16 to 18 hour days for two and a half years straight. Nine years later, he runs a leadership consulting business teaching other leaders to avoid his mistakes. In this conversation with hosts Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave, Burroughes breaks down his 80% list, a daily habit for catching burnout before burnout take...

Elaine Taylor-Klaus built a career around a question most workplaces still avoid: what happens when we stop designing everything around one type of brain? Taylor-Klaus, co-founder of Impact ADHD and the new NeuroInformed Institute, talks with hosts Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave about neurodivergence, parenting, and leadership. She shares her own late diagnosis story, explains why SMART goals...

Fran Fisher walked on stage in 1997 without her notes and defined coaching as a sacred space of unconditional love. The definition stuck. Fran, MCC, helped build the ICF credentialing system. She chaired the Credentialing Development Committee and has assessed coaches since 1997. In this conversation with Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave, she shares the history most coaches never hear. Two rival...

AI will not run your coaching practice while you sip a drink on a beach. Colin Scotland, who heads the AI for Coaches mentorship at coaching.com, explains why the coaches getting real value from AI start somewhere unexpected: writing down who they are. He walks through context engineering, operational AI that completes tasks on its own, and why the first step toward using the technology well is kn...

You are the bottleneck in your own business. Elle Oren has seen it across tech giants and solo coaches alike. After years building go-to-market strategy for Microsoft, Cisco, and Equinix, Elle now helps small business owners shift from operator to owner. Your qualification is the delivery, not the solution. Build trust into the business instead of yourself, partner outward into an ecosystem, and y...

Paul Dupuis turned around a failing operation of around 75,000 people by asking questions, not giving orders. The former Randstad India and Japan CEO joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to share his belief: the answers are in the room. Learn his three-question approach to listening, the power of "What if," and his E5 Movement model of leadership. A practical conversation for coaches and leade...

A podcast spot, a book, or a TV interview gets you noticed once. Then most experts go quiet, and the attention disappears. Dr. Trudy Beerman has produced hundreds of expert interviews as CEO of PSI TV. She holds a doctorate in strategic leadership from Liberty University. In this episode she explains the back end most experts forget. Visibility now decides who gets hired. Search engines and AI rec...

Being a great coach will not build your business. Brooke Summer Adams learned this the hard way before she went full-time. Known as The Coach's Coach, Brooke recovered from body image struggles through life coaching, built a six-figure business in 18 months, and now helps new coaches replace their salary and work for themselves. In this episode she names the split most coaches miss: coaching gives...

Clients pick coaches for authenticity, not credentials. That was the ICF finding 20 years ago, and Cynthia Loy Darst says it still holds. A co-active coaching pioneer since 1992, Cynthia helped found the ICF, served as ACTO president, and now oversees leader development at CTI. She talks with Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave about presence, the difficulty of self-curiosity, the inside team appro...

Most teams avoid the conversations that would solve their biggest problems. Gaby Jordan, founder of Source Elements Group, has spent 20+ years teaching leaders how to have them. A former Manhattan trial lawyer turned coach, Gaby has taught at MIT, NYU, Stanford, and over 80 institutions worldwide. She joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to unpack champion conversations, the role of agency in...

Sports coach turned practice developer Simon Harling joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to challenge how coaches build their work. Author of Good Coach, Bad Coach, Simon brings 15+ years from pro football, squash, and national governing bodies into a conversation about environmental design, stakeholder alignment, and the tension between development and performance. Hear why moving from "am I...

Most leadership programs teach skills. Max Klau teaches wholeness. The founder of the Center for Courageous Wholeness and a Harvard-trained leadership scholar, Max joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to explain why shadow-integrated servant leadership is the missing piece in how we develop leaders. Learn why shadow is not the opposite of light, how a 90-minute session gets total strangers to...

A horse won't follow you because of your title. It follows you because of your presence. Wencke Meteling, leadership coach and former historian, joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to explain how equine coaching makes invisible leadership patterns visible. From energy work in the arena to the lead rope team exercise, this episode connects somatic awareness, authentic presence, and practical l...

82% of coaches fail within two years of starting a business. Laura Berman Fortgang, MCC, has spent 30 years solving that problem. Laura is a founding member of the International Coaching Federation, student number 16 at Coach U, and author of five books. She now runs the A-List Coach, a program for coaches who want to build a practice that actually works. In this episode, she shares why speaking i...

What happens when a coach stops worrying about labels and starts contracting for what the client actually needs? Dr. Clare Beckett-McInroy, ICF MCC and EMCC Master Practitioner, joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to discuss supervision, team coaching, neurodiversity, and why courage in contracting is the skill most coaches need right now. Clare brings 25+ years across education, leadership d...

Coaching emerged to meet a need in the world. But what is that need right now? Tracy Sinclair, founder of Coach Advancement, joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to explore why presence has become the most valuable thing a coach can offer. Leaders are burned out, disengaged, and running from one meeting to the next without a moment to think. Tracy makes the case that coaching's greatest opport...

Your comfort zone is not comfortable. It is a zone of self-limitation. Alex Verlek, coach and author with nearly 20 years of experience, explains why. In this episode, Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave talk with Alex about the frameworks he uses with business owners, high potentials, and coaches in training. Topics include the awareness cycle, limiting beliefs, impact versus legacy, and what the...

Most leadership coaching stops at mindset. Erin Hutchins, MCC and CEO of ACT Leadership, says the next layer of performance lives in the body. In this episode of The Coaching Edge Podcast, Erin joins Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave to discuss how she helps senior leaders ground themselves before coaching conversations, why stuck emotions show up as physical pain, and how movement and music form...

What would your life look like if you stopped living by other people's expectations? Sandra Stocks, NLP practitioner, energy worker, and bestselling author, joins The Coaching Edge Podcast to explore authenticity, the inner voice, and the Hell Yes framework. Sandra explains why motivation alone rarely creates lasting change, why emotional goals matter more than outcome targets, and how curiosity o...

Most leaders manage their teams without first managing themselves. Margaret Andrews, Harvard instructor and author of Manage Yourself to Lead Others, has spent nearly 20 years closing that gap. In this episode, she shares the self-awareness framework she teaches at Harvard, covering emotional intelligence, values clarity, feedback patterns, and team resilience. Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave j...

Dr. Marcia Reynolds started coaching in 1995 and helped design the original ICF competencies. Her message today: AI is forcing coaches back to the one thing it cannot replicate — genuine emotional presence. In this episode, Marcia explains how a coach's emotional state co-regulates the client's nervous system, which is the actual mechanism behind coaching breakthroughs. She challenges the idea tha...

Coaches are trained to ask great questions. But most find selling deeply uncomfortable. Lisa Carver spent 16 years as a corporate sales leader before becoming a team and leadership coach, and she has a clear view on why. In this conversation with Dr. Steve Jeffs and Erwin de Grave, Lisa explains why a single LinkedIn message is only the first five minutes of a two-year campaign, how she traveled t...