I enjoy mentoring coaches to develop capability, capacity and competence. Whether that is at beginner level (ACC), intermediate level (PCC), or mastery level (MCC). A milestone was reached in June 2024, when the 200th coach (I know of) I’ve mentored for at least 10 hours for their MCC credential preparation, was awarded their ICF Master Certified Coach (MCC) credential.
This has been an 11 year journey to get to this point. My vision is to mentor 1000 coaches to become MCC. While that may not happen in my lifetime, I’m going to continue.
As John F. Kennedy is quoted as saying; “A rising tide lifts all boats.” For me, this means embodying a 
continuous learning mindset of excellence and improvement. The more coaches who continue on their path of development toward higher levels of coaching presence and coaching skills mastery, the better it is for our beloved coaching profession and the clients we serve. I want to uplift more coaches to embrace new levels of mastery, no matter how many hours of coaching they have. We can aspire to be masterful, even nearer the beginning of our coaching.
Special Acknowledgement
My journey as a coach began with coaching training in Australia in 1998. My life was forever changed when I married Michael Stratford, MCC in 2001 and moved from Australia to the United States. Coaching literally changed my whole life experience!
Michael is a big reason I’ve learned to embrace my humanity and love myself. He supports me to continue to develop my professional knowledge about coaching presence and coaching competency distinctions. Michael continues to train and mentor coaches and is a passionate supporter of the uniqueness of each person.
I asked Michael: After decades of training and mentoring coaches, what keeps you supporting coaches toward Mastery and MCC?
Response: “When I was younger, I had zero self-acceptance. I wanted to be anyone but me. Later, when I attended a coaching workshop, the Master coach who was leading, coached me to return to myself…to valuing and appreciating my uniqueness. This was a life changing gift. My continued support of coaches toward mastery is sourced in that day. I want to help people experience that amazing gift of being and living from themselves. MCC and Master coaches do that. This is why I support them.”
You can learn more about Michael at these two websites. Website 1 and Website 2.
We are partners in our company, Full Being Coaching, Inc. You can read more about what we believe at that website.
The Contributors to this Article
In celebration, I sent out a general request in June to some of those coaches mentored for their MCC process. Twenty one coaches responded by the deadline to questions about their experience of preparing, becoming, and being an MCC coach. I thank each of them for their generosity to share. You’ll meet them through this article, and all are named at the end of this article, many with links to web pages where you can learn more about them.
Many shared a photo of themselves. Given MCC coaches are ‘real people’ you’ll find many of the photos are of real moments from their life. Thank you Hellen Yang, MCC, for suggesting to ask for photos that represented a ‘real life’ moment.
I crafted 11 questions, plus 2 more questions for what else they might want to include or share. Each coach could answer as many questions as they wanted to. This article represents only a small sample of the responses. You can download the document at the bottom of this blog article, with all responses (30+ pages!).
I hope you are inspired by these amazing coaches, to continue your path of excellence as a coaching professional.
~ Carly Anderson
Question: What prompted you to undertake the journey of upleveling your coaching skills to MCC?
Hellen Yang (pictured): “My life’s mission to make the world 1% happier each day through intentional and meaningful conversations. This was the driving force behind my decision to elevate my coaching skills to the MCC level. I discovered that in every conversation and interaction, there is hidden power—this is where the magic happens. Each conversation is my way to partner with my clients and help them create their own happiness, whether it’s building confidence, leading a successful team, or becoming a masterful coach. This journey is about enabling clients to find their unique paths to happiness, both in small and big ways.”
Question: What was the most surprising part of the MCC journey for you? 
Steven V. Borek (pictured): “The closer you get to MCC mastery, the coach becomes more invisible and simply part of the overall picture instead of the focus. In addition, the coaching becomes effortless by empowering the client throughout the session.”
Carl Barringer (not pictured): “How much I didn’t know (that I thought I did).”
Question: What challenges did you experience as you engage in the learning process to prepare to apply for your MCC?
Ricci Victorio (pictured): “Getting it RIGHT. Checking all the boxes. Integrating the MCC session structure into my own natural process. However, as an improvisor, once I realized the MCC structure was like a Long Form in improvisational performance, it locked in! I started discovering I COULD be playful, be myself and use the MCC structure as the backbone to achieve transformational results.”
Karen Oliver (not pictured): “When listening to MCC recordings I could hear the difference but when I was in a coaching session, those wonderful questions did not occur to me.”
Ute Kueffner (not pictured): “That it wasn’t that easy. Partly different requirements to what I have learned and practiced for many years.”
Question: What supported you to keep going in your learning journey toward MCC readiness?
Lisa Pachence (pictured): “Carly’s kindness, relatedness, humbleness, and empathy. I healed my relationship to feedback thanks to her ability to be with all the emotion, truly see each person’s gifts, and trust everyone’s process (especially the coaching process!). Also, her enormous library of passed calls and articles, along with the Targeted Approach, articulated the understanding of what MCC coaching looks like in a crystal clear way. Lastly, having group “buddies” and accountability was tremendously valuable. I could not have done this alone.”
Question: What was a key “Being” shift you realized you needed to make or embrace to become MCC?
Stephen Light (pictured): “Carly shared with me the 10 MCC qualities, ‘ways of being’ that completely shifted how I was with clients. The key shift in the space of being that I experienced and embraced was that of spaciousness and giving clients time to think. Asking a powerful, customised question and letting that question sit with the client as they grapple, reflect and work with it, required stepping back, letting go and allowing the client to find themselves in the answer.”
Amy Warshawsky (not pictured): “I believe the shift of “being” was around presence — not only deepening my ability to “be in presence” but also, understanding how I need to be in presence as an MCC, how I can listen and how I can respond. I shifted in my understanding of what it means to support.”
Question: What other areas of your life have benefited from studying and becoming MCC?
Donna Grego-Heintz (pictured): “The deep listening, the use of provocative questions and sitting with silence has helped in every relationship I have and with every person I encounter. I find myself creating space and safe places for others to talk whether it is the clerk in the grocery store or my close family. Less of me is more to the others around me.”
Question: What are some benefits your coaching clients experience as a result of your MCC coaching approach?
Stacy Gorin (pictured): “My clients are getting a more thoughtful coaching experience that we are creating together. The questions I am asking are unlocking deeper reflections and responses from my clients.”
Alissa DeWitt (not pictured): “My clients feel very safe and supported. They know they are valued, and we are able to explore more deeply and achieve greater levels of awareness and growth for them as a result of the advanced skill development.”
Anon (not pictured): “My clients are making deeper shifts instead of finding surface solutions. Because of MCC-level skills that I am now able to utilize, I have seen clients make longer-lasting changes, which is deeply rewarding for me and them!”
Question: What opportunities have opened up for you as a result of becoming MCC?
Sibel Babacan (pictured): “I was recruited for a government contract specifically because I have MCC. There have also been several individual executive leadership coaching engagements that were only available for MCC coaches.”
Lisa Pachence (pictured further above): “An uptick in client referrals, in speaking engagements, in opportunities within the ICF, and a huge community of connections of other MCC coaches.”
Question: How have you used your MCC presence and coaching skills to their best?
KBT (pictured left): “Being more “available” to not only my clients but others as well. When I’m facilitating, I am able to lean into my presence in service of deeper conversations for the group.”
Pamela Maxson (pictured right): “I always remember to let the client be the flame of the candle – to not blow it out.”
Question: Under what circumstances have you found it challenging to utilize your MCC presence and coaching skills?
Zsofia Juhasz (pictured): “Some clients want actions and not open to explore and stretch themselves, or don’t have the awareness.”
Laurel Elders (not pictured): “Challenging moments have been using the MCC presence and skills during emotionally intense conflicts during discussions around DEIJ. The skills challenged me to remain open, present, and neutrally positive so that I could show up in life affirming ways. MCC invited me to shift from a mindset to a heartset.”
Question: What is one reason you’d like to share with other coaches, to embark on the MCC learning journey?
Connie Kadansky (pictured): “Getting your MCC is a unique journey in personal development and worth all the suffering and humility you experience. Your courage and confidence will skyrocket.”
Karen Oliver (not pictured): “The challenges and disappointments along the way are worth it. The journey continues but with an inner sense of curiosity, of being, adding to the richness of each coaching conversation.”
Question: What else would you like to share?
Sven Liane (pictured): “Take advantage of time and resources Carly provides. I wish I would have spent more time in those.”
Question: What question isn’t here, that you’d like to add (and respond to)?
Gideon Culman: Question: “Now what?”
Response: “Worst case scenario, demonstrating MCC coaching and receiving an MCC credential represents the end of your coaching journey. At its best, it represents one of the more exciting points of departure a coach will experience along their personal and professional journeys. “Now what?” is a generally helpful mantra.”
My Gratitude to the Amazing MCC Coach Contributors
This is article is only a small sample of the responses. You can download the document here with all responses for a rich experience of inspiration and learning.
Here are web links provided by each coach:
Hellen Yang, MCC: website and LinkedIn
Steven V. Borek, MCC: website
Lisa Pachence, MCC: website and LinkedIn
Ricci Victorio, MCC: website
Stephen Light, MCC: LinkedIn
Sibel Babacan, Ph.D., MCC: website and LinkedIn
Donna Grego-Heintz, MCC: LinkedIn
KBT, MCC: website and LinkedIn
Stacy Gorin, MCC: LinkedIn
Pamela Maxson, Ph.D., MCC: LinkedIn
Zsofia Juhasz, MCC: website
Connie Kadansky, MCC: website and LinkedIn
Gideon Culman, MCC: website
Uta Kueffner, MCC: website
Karen Oliver, MCC: LinkedIn
Laurel Elders, MCC: website
No web links provided: Sven Liane, MCC, Amy Warshawsky, MCC, Alissa deWitt, MCC, Carl Barringer, MCC
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A long term experienced and continuously active MCC Assessor since 2005, assessing and mentoring for all 3 credential levels. Including being trained to assess using ICF ACC Behaviors, PCC Markers, and MCC Behaviors. As at July 14, 2024, 203 of the coaches I’ve mentored for their MCC preparation have passed ICF MCC exam process, as well as hundreds of coaches passed their ACC and PCC exam process. I do my best to communicate ICF publicly available credential information in a simple manner. Mentoring Supervision clients have access to an incredible and exclusive member-only library that includes 40+ coaching recordings that have actually passed ICF MCC, PCC and ACC credential process.
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