Wherever You Go, There You Are.

lpachence
Jul 23, 2025
3 min read

This month in IGNITE, we’re exploring Core Competency #5: Maintains Presence, and I’ll also be speaking on this very topic at ICF Philadelphia on Tuesday, July 29 at noon. The universe has a divine sense of humor.

Because here’s the truth: presence isn’t just a skill we use when life is calm—it’s something we build in the middle of the mess.

Presence is forged inside overwhelm. It’s tested when everything feels “too much.” And it’s developed by strengthening three essential relationships, which we’ll go into below…

Presence to Self

Before we can coach others, we have to check in with ourselves. That means honoring our limits or blindspots, asking deeper questions, and creating time for reflection, among other things. It also means that when something feels off, we ask: What’s the thing under the thing? Presence starts with self-awareness, self-respect, and deep internal listening to the inner landscape of our intuition.

To coach at a masterful level, we must stay connected to:

Self-awareness: What am I noticing in myself right now? What does my spidey-sense say?
Self-respect: Can I honor my truth without bypassing or judging or being attached?
Self-honoring: Am I giving myself what I need?

We’re always responding to presenting symptoms—but they’re rarely the full picture. Deep work often requires peeling back layers through journaling, therapy, talking it out, walking, meditating—anything that helps us ask, “What’s the thing under the thing?”

Presence to Others

We are social creatures. Being present to our clients, families, and communities is fundamental—not just for connection, but for integrity. When we attune deeply to others, we build trust, compassion, and momentum.

As relational beings—coaches, parents, partners, humans—our ability to be fully present with others matters profoundly. This includes our:

Clients: Can we stay in attunement without jumping ahead? Are we fully partnering, inviting them to lead, and running a three-legged race with our exploration?
Loved ones: Can we show up with empathy, even when we’re tired? Are we fully present to their needs, their patterns, their love language?
Communities: Can we listen, reflect, and respond authentically? Can we bring our full selves as a model for others to bring theirs?

We are pack animals. Without presence in our relationships, something critical is lost.

Presence to the Coaching System

This includes the session itself—are we aware of where we are in the arc of the conversation?—and our broader coaching practice. How we contract, communicate, reflect, and represent ourselves as professionals are all ways we maintain presence on a macro level.

This includes both the micro and macro levels of our coaching work:

Micro (Session Level): Are we tracking where we are in a conversation’s arc—start, middle, and end? Are we facilitating a co-created flow?
Macro (Business/Practice Level): Are we maintaining presence in how we show up as professionals? This includes:

Contracting. Projects and coaching goals. Overall breakthroughs.
Boundaries. Expectations. Energetic capacity.
Admin and systems.
Reflection and supervision.
Embodied values and principles.

And here’s the thing:

Core Competency #2: Embodies a Coaching Mindset lives in close relationship to Presence.

You can’t maintain presence unless you’re truly living your coaching mindset. At the MCC level, maintaining presence is often cited as the root of mastery. This isn’t a “nice to have”—it’s the root of transformational coaching.

Without mindset, presence collapses. With it, we grow.

In IGNITE, we’re finding that many coaches have a gap in one of these three areas. So this month, ask yourself: