My 15 Year Walk Towards Becoming An ICF Credentialed Professional Coach

As of yesterday, I am a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) credential holder from the International Coaching Federation (ICF).

Yeahhhhhh !!!

What makes this a remarkable achievement for me?

Here is my journey, Thank you being a part of it by reading this.

My tryst with professional coaching began in 2009 with my first employer, a UK based telecommunication company who had their customer experience team outsourced in India. My designation at that time was 'Quality Coach'. The organization was undergoing a cultural transformation from being a feedback focused organization to a coaching focused organization. At that time in my early 20's the term's coaching and feedback meant the same to me.

The entire organization had to adapt to this new culture however the leaders and the coaches in the organization were poised to be the front runners in this metamorphosis. We were put through a one year laboratory which consisted of education, peer coaching, observed coaching, implementation and tracking the impact of coaching on the business.

At that juncture, I had no idea how significant that year will be to my life.

I was extremely uncomfortable with the idea of coaching. I firmly and truly believed that people need to be told directly if they have certain areas of improvement. Why ask these questions and "beat around the bush”and hope that the coachee realizes their failings and prepares an action plan and sticks to it. In my heart I believed that all of this was simply an eye-wash for the company to spend some very good money to show some kind of action. The first 9 months of that one year transformation program was extremely painful for me - mentally and physically.

I was doing something that I did not believe in. In the labs I would try my best to ask open ended evocative questions without my whole person committed to it. Outside the labs I was more or less my old self : providing feedback. It was quicker and got me through my day faster.

I can't recollect what made me give coaching a real shot. Maybe it was the smile on the faces of the other coaches? Or Maybe I observed that I am more stressed than others in spite of moving quickly through my feedbacks! Or Maybe I saw the performance metrics of other coaches sustainably improving? I don't remember. In the last 3-4 months of the coaching lab, I decided to give this approach one real shot.

This time I imbibed the principles, revisited all the concepts that was handed down to us and internalized and showed up as a whole person.

In life I have recognized that when there is a significant life altering event, more often than not there is no BIG bang 'moment'. The catharsis occurs over a period of time involving several decisions, affirmations, reaffirmations, circumstances and course corrections.

In retrospect, this was one such phase.

3 months into the “coaching-methodology-trying” phase, I observed a few facts:

1. My productivity dropped in the first few weeks. I was spending more time with my coachees than before.

2. Although my coachees were briefed about the transformation, they experienced resistance to my new way of working.

3. Over a period of 6 - 8 weeks, I observed that the performance metrics for my teams started improving. As a quality coach, my metrics were focused on customer experience metrics like Customer Satisfaction, First Call Resolution , Net Promoter Score. However other metrics like Average Handling Time, Average Wrap Time, Employee Satisfaction started showing signs of improvements.

4. While my productivity dropped in the first few weeks, it came back to the usual levels in les than 2 months. I was getting better at coaching and my coachees were opening up more one session at a time.

5. I started seeing a marked difference in my mood and my coachees temperament towards themselves and their work.

At that point in time, I did not understand the science and rationale for what I was observing. However, as a 20 something old who wanted to do his work well and learn, I became aware through my own experience that coaching works. And I had the proof for that.

That is how I became a believer in coaching.

I did not think much of this event. I moved on to my next workplace as a team lead of operations for a much larger team. Coaching stayed with me as a leadership trait and so did the sustainable performance metrics for my team.

I moved on to pursuing my Masters in Business Administration and then pivoting towards a career in fintech, data and analytics. When I had the opportunity of leading projects and teams, my leaders and peers recognized that I tend to ask more questions than others. Some were pleased with this and some not so.

By this time coaching was a long forgotten memory due to various commitments, dreams, aspirations, circumstances, decisions. However in retrospect, coaching never really left me. It had become an integral part of me. I can recollect the feedback of my direct reportees, my peers and leaders in this phase of my career. The feedbacks always had the element of higher employee satisfaction, focus on performance management and people development as star positives.

The year was 2017-18, I was going through a tough challenge in my life when a book about “Ikigai” found me.

While reading the book and putting myself through it, I began to ponder and journal about my ikigai. From the depths of my subconscious, coaching kept making a comeback as one of my top Ikigai. This was probably the light bulb moment for me. I felt a strongly calling towards coaching.

In 2018 when I had this realisation, I was transitioning from a Corporate Social Responsibility role to leading a team of analytics professionals in the fintech space. I knew the "Why” and "What” of my calling however I barely knew the "How”.

In 2019, I decided to move continents and arrived in Berlin. After my first few weeks of settling in, I started researching this topic. I realised the breadth and depth of the decision I had made. I found out that this is an unregulated space and that I can begin calling myself a Coach from the same day.

Although I had an in-depth coaching education with my first employer and practice of over 1000 hours over the past decade, my research told me that there is more to it than what meets the eye. My paths once again crossed with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) after a gap of a decade. It felt like coming back home.

I was pleased that in this unregulated space there are organizations like ICF who provide framework, principles, structured education and most importantly credibility at the highest level of excellence.

It started as a lonely journey in 2019 however as I began to research various ICF accredited coaching schools and various modes of education, I began to understand the nitty-gritty details and the depth of what coaching can bring to me in my journey towards self awareness and our professional and personal worlds.

I decided on joining the International Coach Academy (ICA) given my need for flexibility and the feedback I found online about their amazing mentor coaches and support staff. Choosing ICA as my education partner in this journey has been a great decision.

Through the phase of COVID-19 lockdowns, I finally decided I was ready to take the plunge. I was working full time then with a ecommerce company with a very tight scheduled. Making time for coaching was challenging however the calling continued to be strong. I convinced my lead to sponsor the 'Workplace Coach Program’ from ICA as a part of my professional development. This was a foundational program with 30 hours of coaching education and some other requirements.

It took me almost a year to complete this program. Each module in the program could be completed in 1 to 2 hours however there is tremendous depth and width in the science of coaching, cognitive behavioural therapy, neuroscience, psychology and it simply encapsulated and engulfed me. I started peer coaching as early as I could. That was another good decision I made in this journey.

At the same time, I made it public to my friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances about my coaching journey. Doing this enabled me to get a steady stream of pro-bono and paid clients to practice my education.

Over the past 5 years, through a rigorous 125+ hours of in-class education, 100s of hours of personal education, 500+ hours of documented coaching, 100’s of hours of being coached, mentored and observed by senior ICF credentialed coaches and peer coaches, unlearnings, tremendous depth of new learnings, self awarenesses of my own biases, patterns, and self-limiting beliefs, I received my certification from my coaching school (ICA) in January of 2025.

The next step was to be credentialed by the ICF. In all the learnings and growth that I was experiencing with my mentors, peers and clients, I did not have the bandwidth to dive deeper into the credentialing topic.

My assumption was that this step will be a "walk in the park". Ofcourse, it should be right ! Imagine the number of hours of coaching, education, exams, thesis and I assumed that since I have the education and coaching experience there would be a simple exam from the ICF that would get me credentialed.

Was I in for a joy ride ! (BIG laughter !!!)

A short pause...

So many times during the prep, I felt if there was a source that could guide me with reasons for "why the worst answer is the worst". I decided to create something on my own. Thank you for checking it out and looking forward for your feedback and successful outcome.

And now, let's continue...

I think that my experience from being Coach "certified” to "credentialed” deserves an article in itself. At this point I would like to say that, I really appreciate the rigour and authenticity ICF has brought to the space of coaching education and credentialing.

It took me 2 months of dedicated effort on an almost daily basis for an average 2+ hours to feel confident to attempt the credentialing exam yesterday.

And now it is done.

For now, I celebrate, share my thoughts and take a moment to appreciate the journey to becoming PCC credentialed and most importantly the growth mindset this journey had instilled in me.

Thank you for hanging on until the end.

"This article has been written 100% without the use of LLM's. Please excuse my grammatical errors. If there are other comments, happy to receive them in the comments sections or messages"

For a list of useful resources on coaching, leadership and how to be your best possible version checkout Fedrick's blog.

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