A newsletter made just for coaches like you...a space designed to elevate your skills, strengthen your confidence, and keep you connected to the evidence-based heart of our profession. Whether you’re just beginning your coaching journey or advancing toward the NBHWC credential and beyond, this newsletter will deliver the tools, insights, and support you need to grow with purpose.
Each month, you’ll find practical skill-building tips, research-based guidance, cohort announcements, NBHWC-exam study support, and resources you can use immediately in your coaching sessions.
Our mission is simple: to help you master your craft, stay inspired, and feel empowered as a leader in the field of professional health and wellness coaching.
Let’s grow, learn, and lead...together.
Skill Builder of the Month: Building Relationships
Coaching is personal. Coaches are asking someone to stretch out of their comfort zone to try new things, learn new information, and take healthy risks. Creating an atmosphere of emotional safety and support is absolutely critical to help clients get the best results.
- Warmth: Be open, smile, be kind and personable. Use humor to establish common ground. This will help ease the client's nerves about the coaching experience, especially in early sessions. Ensure a distraction-free environment with a calming aesthetic.
- Acceptance, non-judgment: Individuals are their own worst critics. Even if this isn't showing on the outside, they're likely doing it on the inside. Don't join them in that harsh judgment. See and value them for who they are without placing your own judgment on them. Accept them. It will show.
- Care: Caring about your clients can go a lot further than you may realize. Take the time to remember important details of their story. Check in about family members or complex situations they've shared. Ask about their mental state. Show that you are there to support their goals, but also them as a whole person with an intricate life.
- Autonomy: The client is the expert of their own life, the coach is not. Building a supportive relationship with a client means ensuring they know that their next step is ALWAYS on their terms. Coaches are not here to tell their client what to do or how to do it. Rather, we are here to go along the journey with the client in the driver's seat. Reassuring the client that you're here to help them use their own strengths, drive, values, and motivation.
- Empathy: The distinction between sympathy and empathy is worth making as these two words often get confused. The power of empathy cannot be overstated in the coaching profession. Brene Brown describes it here: Click Here
Not already a certified health and wellness coach? Keep scrolling to enroll in our accelerated summer program. Begins June 21st.
Coaching Asset: Tips for How to "Show Up" as a Coach
- Stop trying to "fix" people. Your job isn't to solve your client's problems- it's to facilitate awareness and support behavior change. The moment you jump to advice-giving, you weaken the client's ownership.
- Master silence. Most new coaches talk too much. Ask a question and then let it land. Allow for "think time". This is their journey, not yours.
- Ask "what else?" at least twice. The client's first answer is usually surface level. The second and third are where the truth lives and expansion begins. Coaching sessions are a great chance to dig deep.
- Use a repeatable flow. 1) Wins, 2) Challenges, 3) Deep dive, 4) Action Steps, 5) Commitment to Action. Consistency builds safety and results.
- Focus on behavior change, not just insight. Insight feels good and can be inspiring, but it's the action steps that move the needle. Always bring it back to: "What will you actually accomplish this week?"
- Shrink the goal. Many of our clients have big goals and dreams that could move mountains. But their day-to-day is hectic with mounds of responsibility. If the action steps aren't manageable during a bad week (when everything stacks against them), it's too big. Plan for the chaotic and sprinkle in some "extras" if time allows.
Summer 2026 Coaching Cohort (accelerated)
Now Enrolling! Enjoy a 30% early bird discount- ends TODAY!
Financing offers available.
Click Here to view the live session calendar for Summer 2026.
Enroll Now: www.expertcoachcenter.org/store
Unsure of what to look for in a coaching program? Check out our program checklist to compare accredited programs: Click Here to View
Interested in group rates or programs specifically tailored for your organization? Click Here to see how we can work together!
NBHWC Exam Study Hub
Testing in July?
Our next peer-led study cohort will run May 31st to July 26th. Sessions are held on Sunday evenings from 4-6pm central time for a total of 8 sessions (no session on July 5th). Study cohort students receive access to our digital study course for free. For more details about the cohort or to enroll, click here.
Can't join us live? Enroll in our digital study course instead.
Course Spotlight:
Enhance Your Relationships: (11 NBHWC CECs)
In this course, you'll do a dive deep into 4 areas:
--> Our relationships with ourselves
--> Our relationships with significant others
--> Our relationships with our clients
--> Our relationships with our businesses / careers
Understanding relationships in a deeper way is absolutely crucial for coaches. This course is perfect for new and veteran coaches.
Use coupon code REPEAT10 to earn 10% off.
Building Your Coaching Business:
Find Your Why
When you're creating a foundation for your coaching career, it's important to get clear on your motivations, reasons and your vision.
In this TED talk, "Start With Why," Simon Sinek discusses how great leaders inspire action by building their message from their WHY.
While you are developing yourself as a coach, preparing to launch, transform or expand your career or business, starting with your why is a great idea.
Watch Simon Sinek's TED Talk below:
https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en
Join Us:
NEW!! ECC is launching weekly case study reviews to help coaches enhance their skills by looking at the whole person in real-life context.
Each case study includes:
- Client profile: name, age, circumstances, biometrics, values & goals
- 12-week session-by-session coaching arc
- Sample coaching questions (open, evocative, MI-aligned)
- Potential barriers and coaching considerations
- Suggested behavior change theories and models
- Annotated motivational interviewing dialogue example
- Sample resources for each scenario
Join us live on Fridays from 12:00-1:30pm from April 17th-June 5th.
Perfect for new and experienced coaches alike. Not yet a coach, but exploring the field? Join us to see how coaches work with clients through a whole-person lens.
For more information or to sign up, click here. Recordings will be sent afterwards. Live attendance is encouraged, but not required.
(Pending NBHWC CE approval for 8 CECs.)
We love to hear from our readers!
Click Here to offer suggestions for content you would like to see in this monthly newsletter from Expert Coach Center!
Interested in discussing our program? Click here: https://calendly.com/expertcoachcenter/30min
Until next time, happy coaching!
~Holly Miller, Owner of Expert Coach Center
