Stillness Is the Secret Skill of MCC Coaches

The Pause That Changes Everything

“Do without doing and all gets done.” - Zen Koan

Before You Begin

Before you begin reading this article, we invite you to take a moment to consider what you want to learn from it.
And, more deeply, who do you want to be after reading it?

Where do the answers to those questions reside in your thoughts and in your body?
How will they guide your interaction with (or maybe resistance to) the ideas you’re about to encounter?

What are you noticing (assuming that you followed my suggestion to perform this check-in with yourself)?
And, if you haven’t paused yet, if you ignored my suggestion, what are your thoughts behind just plowing forward?
How might that be showing up in your coaching?

The questions above are intentional, both from a perspective of grounded application and to help awaken your awareness.

In moments like these, when we pause and focus on our presence, the intentionality of our presence is where you can connect to the most important tool an MCC coach possesses: your intuition.

The Calm Beneath the Craft

Energy is contagious.

When you’re near someone who is elated, you can’t help but feel their joy and probably notice a lift in your own energy.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re in a state of upset or discomfort, being near someone who is calm and centered helps you regulate and de-escalate your energy, and soon, you’re noticing answers and solutions that had been blocked from your awareness moments before?

When we as coaches embrace and embody that level of calm stability for our clients, we model possibility for them.
That level of focus is also one of the keys to MCC-level coaching presence.

It’s also one of the skills that any coach, at any level, can practice to improve their well-being and their service to clients (and to themselves).

Who’s in Control?

MCC coaches know they are not controlling the session.
They regulate themselves to be a present, curious partner within it.
Their stillness becomes a place for the client’s energy to unfold.

Ultimately, for the client who feels like a victim to events in their life happening to them, gentle inquiry in this stillness allows them to explore the underlying stories, beliefs, and emotions that are creating their sense of victimization so they can begin creating their life as they wish, instead of feeling like their life is dictated to them.

Sometimes, a question doesn’t even need to be asked; the stillness and the nonjudgmental safety of it invite exploration beyond what words could convey.

When Stillness Becomes the Skill

Tools are great.
Until…

• You become attached to your favorite (when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail).

• You think the more tools you have, the more effective you’ll be, and collect tools just to collect them, never mastering any.

• You overthink which tool to use and lose connection with your client.

Chasing skills and certifications in this way is often a mask for our own insecurity.
It becomes a way to hide the sense of not-enoughness behind collections of external validation.

That road leads to our identity being wrapped up in our roles rather than our roles being an extension of who we are.

Consider this:
If you were experiencing financial challenges, what would help you create a more sustainable shift in your being, another certification course or an honest exploration of your inner beliefs around money?

Which option would you invite your client to explore?
And if that’s true for them, why not for you?

Perhaps it’s because we sometimes equate being a coach with having it all together, when in truth, we’re simply human, doing the same inner work as everyone else.

Practice what you invite in others.
Sustainable change always begins within.

Consider how great artists use the tools of their trade.
They practice until those tools become a natural extension of their mind and body.
That’s when creative expression flows. They no longer think about the tool; they become it.

Embodying stillness is the way for coaches to become coaches.

Listening becomes an art when we detach from trying to solve the client’s problem or follow our own agenda.
When we embody stillness, we honor the client’s authority in their life and trust that they truly have all the answers they need.
Yes, all of them.

The idea of chasing tools, skills, and mastery is a carrot on a stick, forever just out of reach.
When we pause, breathe, and become present, we notice that not only can we grab the carrot, we’ve also been holding the stick the entire time.

Practicing the Quiet Edge

Chasing stillness. Now there’s an oxymoron.

Stillness can’t be pursued; it must be invited.
When you chase it, stillness is never home.
When you invite it, you’re always there to answer the door when it arrives.

Deep down, you know how to be still.
Over years of indoctrination to constant doing, you’ve learned to chase, to pursue goals, and forgotten how to slow down to examine what is present.

Stillness happens when you take a moment to allow yourself to be present.

No, actually, that’s not entirely true.

“Taking a moment” suggests you are stealing that time from something else.
It’s an idea rooted in limitation.

Stillness happens when you create a moment. Creation, and the mindset that embraces it, lives in abundance.

We invite you to slow down here, even as you’re reading this, and breathe.

.
.
.
.

There’s a moment between what you just read, what you thought about it, and what your body experienced.
What happened for you there?

What are you beginning to remember about who you are when you stop chasing and allow yourself to be?

This is where your transformation begins.

The Mastery That Feels Like Ease

Let’s play a game of What If.

What if there is nothing for you to chase?
What if there is nothing for you to do but to just allow yourself to be?

What becomes possible for you, personally and professionally, when you embrace your well-being and return to the infinite potential that exists in your return to stillness?

Ultimately, mastery isn’t effort; it’s flow and allowance.
Nothing has to be forced. Including you.

Stillness teaches that truth, and MCC coaches, through regular, intentional practice, know this truth instinctively.

Presence is not something you achieve; it is a way of being that happens when you stop trying so hard.

The Invitation

You don’t need to do more.
You need a place to return to what already works: your calm, your voice, your rhythm.

That’s what our work at MCXI is for.

Not loud coaching.
Truer coaching.

Explore our Mystery to Mastery program to deepen your skills and earn 16 CCEs