Certifying with the International Coaching Federation, the world’s largest nonprofit for professional coaches, challenges many coaches because it’s no easy feat. We must speak only 10% of the time, drive clarity, insights, and accountability too. Submitting a recorded coaching call to ICF evaluators for review often erodes our presence with our coachee, who we care about the most, even over the exam itself.

With the calm wisdom of Coach Sathyanarayanan Sethuraman, my friend and peer coach, we unpack and troubleshoot these problems as we pursue our ICF goals. (Sathya’s certifying at the PCC level and I’m pursuing MCC— level two and level three of the ICF’s core credentials.)

Join us for tips on saying less, doing more, and staying calm and present, no matter what. And thank you again to Sathya who had a work emergency amidst our interview which he dealt with midstream and came back to our show! Talk about presence.

Listen for our earlier episode here on taming our monkey brain.

You can reach Sathya on LinkedIn here. Reach out to me, D G McCullough, for insights on my group coaching and training packages and individual packages on reinventing, promoting, and using your voice through refining the written word. You can find my LinkedIn profile here.

Solar eclipse. Mercury retrograde. New moon. Job layoffs. Overwork. No surprise many of us are losing it at home and at work.

But if you’re a mental fitness practitioner with a goal to stay calm and peaceful no matter what, some ways exist to find the ease and flow and stabilize the mood and feeling in yourself and those around you.

In our delightful conversation, fresh after time digging in her garden (where she loves to play the most), Coach Karen du Four des Champs, who has been coaching for several decades, tells us her tips, tools, and asks me some too.

My interview with Chicago-based fashion consultant and stylist, Magdalena Kranz, kicks off a series of ad hoc interviews across my two podcasts. (I also host the Sage Sayers on Apple podcasts).

I love that dear Magdalena takes us from her turbulent past in Poland before migrating to the U.S. We hear that she arrived in Chicago as a teen with little more than books, two t-shirts, one pair of pants, and one pair of sneakers. Today, she serves as a fashion consultant at the U.S.’s most luxurious retailer, dressing Michigan Avenue’s high-end shoppers, and being a true fashionista, collector, and connoisseur of gorgeous fashion herself.

And yet, as our conversation reveals, despite driving for more (like most immigrants), she finds that sometimes it’s the simplest times in our lives when we feel the most peace and our happiest.

I thank Magdalena for her brave story, her honesty and tenderness. Magdalena, you’re an amazing storyteller and woman—my new friend, too.

If you’d like to know more about your show host and my coaching and training services, find me on LinkedIn or visit my website here.