What makes MCC-level coaching unique?

At Awaken Coach Institute, we believe that reaching the level of mastery in coaching is about more than just techniques and credentials—it’s about fully integrating who we are as humans into our coaching practice.

In fact, we teach with the MCC (Master Certified Coach) level in mind from the very first day of our Level 1 course. There's a vast difference between transactional, behavioral, performance, and achievement-based coaching and the transformational depths that we enter as senior coaches. Masterful coaching reminds me of the title of master coach Leon VanderPol's book A Shift in Being. It's a new way of being together as connected souls.

This evolution in who we are as people is at the heart of our work as we gather this November to co-create a course designed for coaches who aspire to Master Certified Coach (MCC) status. Our goal is not just to pass an exam, but to transform ourselves from the inside out. When we do this deep inner work, it naturally flows into our coaching and the way we show up in the world.

Some people will always think of the different credentials in coaching as merely check-boxes, or as a way to grow our egos. But we at Awaken are far less concerned with the external validation that credentialing brings, and far more interested in the kind of internal transformation that allows our clients to go where they never knew was possible.

One of the ways we do that is by intentionally putting ourselves in contact with people we might never have met otherwise. By creating conversations across cultures, religions, personalities, neurotypes, genders, and all manner of different perspectives, we become dramatically more aware of our own uniqueness, biases, insecurities, triggers, joys, and greatness. 

Masterful coaching is fully client-focused (not problem-focused), where we listen deeply, follow their agenda, hold space, and let go of any need to persuade or convince. True service comes from asking powerful, succinct questions and being the kind of coach that invites clients into empowered action and growth.

In our MCC-level course that we're creating with coaches from all over the globe, we’ll explore what it means to serve clients in this deep, transformative way. We’ll practice building trust, creating a sense of safety, and fostering the kind of relationships where clients feel truly seen, heard, and understood. This is how we invite them into breakthrough moments that can change the course of their lives.

Masterful coaching transcends technique, focusing on the full embodiment of the coaching mindset, presence, and relationship-building. Here are some key elements that make coaching truly masterful:

1. Deep Presence
- A masterful coach is fully present with the client, creating a space where the client feels completely seen and heard. We listen not just to the words, but to the emotions, body language, metaphors, and underlying meanings behind what the client is saying. 

2. Client-Centric Approach
- Mastery in coaching means fully centering the client’s agenda, vision, and humanity. The coach’s role is not to advise, solve, or direct, but to facilitate a process where the client discovers their own insights. We think far beyond problem-solving to the core of the human experience. 

3. Evoking Awareness
- Masterful coaches ask powerful, succinct questions that provoke deep reflection, often revealing what is hidden beneath the surface. They help clients explore "the thing behind the thing" and challenge them to see new perspectives and possibilities. It's quite an art to both stay completely with the client while also inviting movement. 

4. Holding a Safe and Trusting Space
- Trust and safety are critical for any coaching relationship. Masterful coaches create environments where clients feel comfortable exploring vulnerable or difficult topics. More than non-judgmental listening, empathy, and authenticity, as coaches, we're becoming supremely aware of our own bodies, thoughts, and emotions to bring a fullness of Self to the relationship. And we're accessing greater wisdom beyond what the two humans might normally be aware of.

5. Courage to Challenge
- A masterful coach is not afraid to challenge the client in a way that serves their growth. This could be by holding up a mirror to the client’s incongruencies, asking uncomfortable questions, or inviting the client to confront limiting beliefs. We do so with care and respect, and with a deep partnership toward the client’s evolution.

6. Embodiment of the Coaching Mindset
- Coaches at the mastery level have undergone deep personal transformation ourselves. Our ability to coach is integrated into our expansive, accepting way of being. We embody curiosity, compassion, and non-attachment to outcomes, allowing the client’s process to unfold organically.

7. Fluidity and Adaptability
- Masterful coaching is dynamic. Coaches respond to the client’s needs in the moment. Even while we're holding the structure of the session, it feels to the client like a real, warm, connected conversation. Our flexibility allows our clients to explore whatever emerges during the session, trusting the coaching process and the client’s inner wisdom.

8. Comfort with Depths of Silence
- A masterful coach not only can allow lengthy periods of silent reflection, we are inviting a divine source of loving intelligence to infuse the space together with sacred knowledge. Generative, new ways of being emerge as we invite the wisdom of the body, the community, and the wider consciousness to guide these shifts.

9. Facilitating Transformative Action
- A masterful coach tests the congruity of new beliefs as the client translates those insights into action. We know when next steps are aligned with the client's purpose and physiology. That means that our clients receive more than behavior change on a specific issue, they also have a wide variety of options available to them in a host of situations.

10. Commitment to Personal Growth
- Coaches at the master level are deeply committed to our own continuous learning and growth. We reflect on our coaching practice, receive feedback, and engage in our own personal development. Our ability to nurture our own emotional intelligence, our own groundedness and presence, our own authenticity, is a model for our clients.

Masterful coaching is about being fully present, serving the client’s deepest needs, evoking profound self-awareness, and facilitating meaningful change, all while holding a space of trust, safety, and non-judgment. It’s a partnership that honors the client’s journey and potential.

To serve in this way, we as coaches must first do our own inner work. Mastery in coaching requires us to be the client first, to experience the transformation that we aim to offer others. This November, as we come together from Kenya, Kuwait, India, Oman, Switzerland, Dubai, the UK, France, and the US to co-create our MCC course, we will not only deepen our coaching skills but also our own journey toward building a world of loving community.