Competency No. 5

Episodios

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  "Faith in myself inspired me to move my coaching business from side hustle to my all," with Christopher Chin 18.09.2026 12m

  Our host Debbi McCullough asks Hidden Speaker CEO and TEDX speaker Christopher Chin about his transition from engineer to coach, side hustle to full-time coach. It started with paying attention to his body and then taking that faith to give his venture, his 'baby,' his all. Our Guest You can find Christopher Chin on LinkedIn here and his TEDX talk here. Visit his website the Hidden Speaker. Our Host Debbi McCullough, is an executive communications coach for Fortune 500 leaders, a ...
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  Why AI Can't Replace Human Coaching with Dr. Marcia Reynolds 04.09.2026 33m

  Dedicated AI coaching infrastructure and platforms support roughly 23 million active individuals worldwide. Master Coach Trainer and Author Dr. Marcia Reynolds feels unfazed. Humans are irreplaceable as coaches, she feels, provided we stay present, curious, bold in our inquiry, and willing to share what we notice. Debbi and Marcia also take a closer look at detached empathy, staying present, kind, and calm when someone we coach or listen to experiences a range of emotions, anger, outrag...
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  Maintaining Presence Requires Taking No Notes When I Coach 21.08.2026 12m

  The Truman Capote technique, letting our senses remember the most important bits of a conversation, (which I learned in journalism school at UC Berkeley) works surprisingly well in coaching. I realized this four years ago, when I tried taking notes amidst an early boom in my coaching business. Writing and then trying to read afterwards notes from ten sessions in one day was futile. So I stopped. And I let my memory serve me instead. Which it did, beautifully. Over the last five ye...
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  "To get through hell week, I'll take a lot of naps." Nicholas McCullough on his second year at Harvard 07.08.2026 14m

  There are 1,676 students in Harvard's Class of 2029 with the entire cohort entering their sophomore year this August. Nicholas McCullough is one of them and one of a handful of Wisconsinites. In this interview, fodder for chapter 10 of the Harvard Mum Essay Project, we stand with Nick and hear about his summer; his self-funded travels to Europe; and lessons on self calm and time management from having completed his first year of studies and football living 1040+ miles away from home. We...
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  Chapter 8: The Harvard Mum Essay Project | Kodaira Station 24.07.2026 12m

  My Harvard son's travels through Europe this year and last year at ages 18 and 19 remind me nostalgically of my own adventures at his age. He self-funded his travels as did I. He went with his mates, with no adult companion. I went solo. Reflecting on a journey I took around Nicholas' age, from Christchurch, New Zealand, to Kodaira, on the outskirts of Tokyo, required navigating Shinjuku station along the way, with its 3.5 million daily commuters, then the population of New Zealand.&nbs...
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  "To support women through menopause, we must sit, listen, and believe." Interviewing Menopause Coach Simon Salt 10.07.2026 28m

  Menopause has more than 34 symptoms recognized by the medical community and around 100 symptoms that women experience. And yet menopause, which impacts 75% of women, remains largely undiscussed and unplanned for. In this episode of Competency No. 5, on staying present as we coach, lead, and live, we speak with Simon Salt, a British author based in Florida and newly certified Menopause Coach, whose book The Quiet Transition is underway. Salt trains men to stay present through their partn...
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  Marcia Reynolds on managing judgment as we coach and maintaining boundaries when a conversation offends us 26.06.2026 36m

  If you've coached some hours, you've possibly noticed our clients can (at times) become combative, biased, and/or lay down something in front of us which invites our judgment. (Coaches still judge. Of course we do. All of us do. It's part of the human condition.) We bring back to the show Dr. Marcia Reynolds to unpack those moments and how we can A/maintain our presence and let the judgment go and B/exit the conversation with grace and calm when anything offensive directed at us erodes our pr...
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  “Time is more precious when we treat it as such.” The Wolverine and Die Hard 5 Studio Executive Steven Puri on Focus and New Dadhood. 12.06.2026 15m

  We sit down with former studio executive on films from Die Hard 5 to The Wolverine, Steven Puri, who learned how to inspire a broad range of teams through this creative work. He's now sharing tips and techniques to help leaders and teams perform at their best and does so as a speaker, serial entrepreneur, and CEO of the Sukha Company, a productivity app which helps stop burnout before it starts. Hear from a new dad who is finally "getting" what parents mean when they delight in th...
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  "There's much noise around sleep, and when sleep improves, life improves." Clear advice on better sleep from Louise Berger 29.05.2026 33m

  We sit down with Louise Berger, a British occupational therapist specializing in sleep, to hear about the deep work she's doing for the UK's National Health Service on a large sleep study for sleep deprived Brits. (She's the founder and lead of the NHS Insomnia Clinic and a sleep coach with BetterUp.) Given that maintaining presence and staying calm amidst mayhem, ambiguity, and life's stresses becomes so much easier when we get good sleep, I knew Louise would help us rewire how we think abou...
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  Nicole Francois on maintaining hope and presence amidst adversity, change, and motherhood 15.05.2026 20m

  Note to our listeners: We took the Competency No 5 show outside of my studio this episode, and with that encountered technical difficulties. Hopefully this won't detract from an otherwise powerful conversation about navigating change, adversity, and maintaining hope, courage, and presence along the way. Nicole Francois, a Wisconsin-based friend, sales leader, and fitness model, has had her share of life struggles. Growing up with a troubled mother, moving in with a strict and firm dad, ...
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  Zsofia Juhasz on being an "accidental" Master Certified Coach and developing today's MCCs and leaders 01.05.2026 24m

  Brisbane, Australia based leadership coach Zsofia Juhasz, MCC acheived a herculean feat: Certifying as a Master Certified Coach instead of renewing her PCC. She had the hours and the focus amidst Covid-19. Within a year of stating her intent to herself, she passed her performance evaluation on her first submission. We hear of Coach Zsofia's journey from HR to coaching, from Hungary to Australia, and the changes in her 20+ years in the industry. We hear how she's training and certifying ...
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  Leadership Coach Jennifer Maxson on building a coaching business and staying connected with our clients 17.04.2026 26m

  We ask Leadership Coach Jennifer Maxson when and how she knew to build her own coaching business, how to stay connected with our clients, and why and how the International Coaching Federation's Proficiency exam despaired us both (and we still passed.) You can find Jennifer Maxson & Associates here and find Coach Jennifer on LinkedIn here. Your show host, Debbi Gardiner McCullough, is a communications coach for Fortune 100/500 leaders, a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economis...
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  What my girlhood taught me about earning people's trust 03.04.2026 18m

  I can’t remember a time where people didn’t confide in me. Every time, it felt like an honor. I was super young when I first noticed the pattern, which began before I was aged five, in New Zealand, and has continued to this day, even inspiring my later-in-life career as a communications coach. My first memories of people sharing their all with me come from visiting my dad’s farm a year after his divorce from my mum. There I quickly bonded with dad’s new wife, Jane, a gorgeous Kenyan British w...
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  Interviewing Dr. Marcia Reynolds on coaching, writing, and her bestselling second edition of "Coach the Person, Not the Problem." 21.03.2026 40m

  In a new favorite episode, we asked Master Certified Coach trainer and author, Dr. Marcia Reynolds: how do we coach the person, not the problem? And why business leaders ought to join coaches in this highly-rewarding and joyous activity. We met with Marcia a week after her second edition of "Coach the Person, Not the Problem" became a bestseller on Amazon. Marcia shares her love for taking coaching slow (especially in the beginning), noticing everything, interrupting (as needed) a...
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  Sharing the ROI of coaching using AI. Interviewing Matt Barney, CEO of TruMind.ai 06.03.2026 27m

  Dr. Matt Barney is a true scientist practitioner and an entrepreneur in the field of measurement and analysis. His most recent tool, the TruMind.ai Leader and Coach Assessment, he feels supremely hopeful about, because it helps coaches help their clients see and note their progress, something that's otherwise hard to quantify and measure. "Reviews tell us that most coaching outcomes are measured by one metric alone: whether the executive liked the coach," he notes. "That's not enough. W...
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  I certified as a Master Certified Coach! The comfort with silence and the victory feels magical 20.02.2026 16m

  I certified as a Master Certified Coach two weeks ago, ending a two-year long odyssey in mindfulness, active listening, and perfectionistic goal setting. Feels amazing finally reaching that top 4% of ICF certified Master Certified Coaches. This week's episode reads from my Substack post on this victory and especially the growth I felt with my comfort with silence. I stayed comfortably silent with my client in the recordings I submitted ICF assessors for over a minute. Most of us d...
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  "Silence boosts all your senses. Thoughts become clearer." Coach Amy Krymkowski on the power of pause and silence 06.02.2026 35m

  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 pro...
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  I passed the MCC Performance Evaluation. (Whoop!) My final step: Passing the Coaching Knowledge Assessment exam 23.01.2026 28m

  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...
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  Karen Canham: "I don't do goals. It feels like too much pressure." A wellness coach's insights into moving beneath perfectionism, performance, and returning to ourselves. 09.01.2026 29m

  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...
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  Nick McCullough: "What got me through my first semester at Harvard? Camaraderie with fellow athletes and extreme time management." 19.12.2025 14m

  In our final episode for 2025, First Year Harvard student Nicholas McCullough shares how he maintained presence, calm, stoicism, and all those great things amidst a pressured first semester at Harvard University as a footballer and Economics student. He and other student athletes averaged 65+ hour weeks. In this interview, Nicholas (my oldest son) shares the power of camaraderie with his fellow Harvard athletes (his fellow footballers and other athletes across campus). He shares the imp...