Coaching with Confidence and Care

We all bring our own experiences, beliefs, and assumptions into coaching conversations, even when we genuinely intend to remain open, curious, and non-judgmental. Those assumptions might influence what we hear, the questions we ask, and the direction we take with our clients. In this episode, let's explore how unconscious biases can show up in our coaching sessions. I'll share practical examples o...

Closing a coaching session can sometimes feel mechanical. There are quite a few things we may want to cover in the final minutes: progress towards the session goal, learning and takeaways, action steps, accountability, celebration, and the actual ending of the conversation. When we try to fit all of that into a short space of time, closure can easily turn into a checklist rather than a meaningful...

Coaching supervision may be perceived as a way to troubleshoot difficult coaching cases or check whether a coach is working correctly. In reality, supervision is not an inspection of your coaching, but a space to look at your practice with fresh eyes, explore what is happening in the work, and develop a greater capacity to notice, reflect, and make responsible professional decisions. In this episo...

Silence in coaching is often described as “giving the client space,” but that explanation only touches the surface. A pause can represent many different processes: reflection, emotional processing, emerging awareness, resistance, uncertainty, or a moment when a client reaches the edge of what they are able to articulate. In this episode, I explore silence as a micro-process within the coaching rel...

Being supportive is an essential part of coaching, and helping someone doesn't always mean agreeing, reassuring, or making the conversation comfortable. Sometimes the most useful thing we can do for a client is to be more courageous in how we interrupt patterns that are keeping them stuck. In this episode, I explore what it actually means to challenge a client productively without turning the conv...

Preparing for the ICF Credentialing Exam (PCC-MCC Exam) can feel overwhelming, especially when in scenario-based questions several answers seem reasonable. If you've ever wondered how to think your way through the exam instead of memorizing competencies, this episode is for you. In this episode, I share the approach and the way of thinking we've used at UpThink Coaching to help many of our graduat...

If the word "marketing" makes you feel uncomfortable or overwhelmed, you're definitely not alone. Many coaches struggle with visibility, self-promotion, consistency, or the belief that marketing somehow requires them to become someone they are not. In this episode, I share some personal reflections on how my relationship with marketing has evolved over the years and what helped me approach it in a...

In this episode, I’m talking about one of the more uncomfortable dynamics in coaching: working with disengaged, resistant, or uncooperative clients. Many coaches take client disengagement personally or immediately assume something is “wrong” with the coaching process. But very often, resistance communicates something important about the client’s experience, the organizational context, the coaching...

In this episode, I’m talking about energy shifts in coaching and what it actually means to work with them in a grounded, non-mystical way. For many coaches, this can feel unclear or even a bit uncomfortable. You might notice something change in the session, but then question yourself: did something really shift, is it relevant, or am I overinterpreting? Let’s bring more precision to this. Energy s...

In this episode, I’m talking about measuring coaching results and how to know if your work is actually effective. If you’re newer, this can be especially tricky. You don’t yet have a long track record, and it’s not always clear what you can confidently say about outcomes. So you hesitate or default to vague language, which does not sound convincing. Let’s look at what actually drives coaching effe...

In this episode, I am talking about working with metaphors in coaching — one of the most powerful ways to deepen awareness in a session. Metaphors show up naturally in how clients speak. We look at how to notice metaphors that actually matter, how to stay with them in a way that supports the client’s thinking, and how to use them to create meaningful shifts without turning the session into somethi...

In this episode, I talk about interruptions in coaching — a topic that brings up a lot of questions and uncertainty for coaches. Many coaches were taught that good coaching means letting the client speak without interruption. So when a client talks for a long time, goes in circles, or drifts away from the goal of the session, coaches often hesitate. They wonder: Am I allowed to interrupt? Does tha...

In this episode, I am talking about laser coaching sessions: those short, 15–20-minute conversations that can create a shift when done well. Most leaders don’t have an hour per team member every week. And even if they want to coach more, they often don’t know how to make a short conversation meaningful. So they either avoid coaching altogether or they end up giving advice because it feels faster....

In this episode, we explore what it really means for a leader to act as a coach and when it actually makes sense to do so. Many leaders want to incorporate coaching into their leadership style, yet struggle with the practical question: When should I coach, and when should I simply lead, direct, or mentor? This episode brings clarity to that distinction and offers a structured way to recognize real...

In this episode, we explore what makes a coaching question truly powerful and why lists of powerful questions are useless. I see powerful questions as an emergent outcome of a coach’s presence, listening, relational attunement, and capacity to stay with uncertainty. Powerful questions do not come from performance or preparation; they arise when the right internal and relational conditions are in p...

In this episode, let’s explore one of the most common questions that comes up in coach training and mentor coaching: how to establish clear and meaningful measures of success for a coaching session. Rather than treating measures of success as a technical requirement or a box to tick during contracting, let’s look at them as a relational practice that serves the client first. Measures of success ar...

This final episode of the year is a reflective exploration of unlearning. In this final episode of the year, I spend some time with the idea of unlearning as making space for something new to emerge in our coaching. I look at unlearning not as erasing old patterns, but as creating the conditions for new responses to emerge. Much of what coaches struggle with in training, mentoring, and supervision...

This episode takes a careful look at the Revised ICF Core Coaching Competencies released in 2025 as a professional reflection on what these changes signal about the maturity of our field and the evolving role of the coach. I walk through each competency and highlight where language has shifted, where expectations have deepened, and where the emphasis has moved. We explore why some competencies rem...

Every coach bumps into these questions: “How do I structure my practice? Which business model actually works for me and for my clients?” This episode takes a practical look at the most common B2C coaching business models and what it takes to make them sustainable. We walk through one-off sessions, fixed-term packages, retainers, tiered offers, and group programs. You’ll hear the pros and limitatio...

Working with Emotions in Coaching If you’ve ever found yourself unsure about what to do when a client gets emotional (whether to explore it, hold space, or turn the client’s attention back to the content) this episode is for you. Many coaches hesitate around emotions, afraid of crossing into therapy or “doing it wrong.” Yet emotions are not off-limits. They’re essential to understanding who the cl...

Three-Party Agreements: Coaching in Organizations If you’re stepping into organizational coaching (or thinking about it) one of the first big questions is: how do you navigate a coaching engagement when there’s more than just you and the client at the table? That’s where three-party agreements come in. In this episode, I break down the essentials of three-party (or sponsored) engagements: what the...

When a Client Does Not Make Progress in a Coaching Session If you’ve ever left a coaching session wondering, “Was that enough?” or “Did my client actually make progress?”  this episode is for you. Whether you’re a new coach or an experienced practitioner, the pressure to “deliver results” can lead to performance mode, second-guessing, and even subtle missteps in the coaching relationship. As a men...

Many coaches associate a “coaching mindset” with being positive, open, or reflective. But in practice, it’s something deeper and more disciplined. In this episode, we unpack what it truly means to embody a coaching mindset, beyond ICF definitions and into the psychological habits that shape how we show up. For coaches who and coaching leaders who have ever felt: Uncertain whether you're being pres...

If you're a coach-in-training, a freshly certified practitioner, or simply someone who feels stuck between wanting to help and fearing you’re not “ready” yet, this episode is for you. You probably have a lot of questions about how to find clients, how to talk about your coaching, and whether it’s okay to charge for your services yet. As a coach educator, mentor and supervisor, I have worked with m...

What does it really mean to coach the “Who” and why do we talk about that often in coaching? In this episode of Coaching with Confidence and Care, I’m addressing one of the most frequently discussed ideas in coach training: coaching the whole person. You’ve probably heard the phrase in mentor feedback, ICF performance assessments, or coach training sessions. My goal for this episode is to explain...