The Emergent Coach Training® Program
Advanced ICF-Accredited Professional Training
The Emergent Coach Training® program merges cutting-edge cognitive science, systems thinking, Focusing, somatics, Parts Multiplicity, depth psychology and human development theory with ancient wisdom practices and ICF coaching competencies into a powerfully innovative, whole-person coaching methodology.


Cognitive science estimates that more than 95% of thought functions outside of the conscious workspace, yet it also shapes and structures all conscious thinking. Most conventional coaching methods only interact with that thin sliver of 5% (or less!) of top-level conscious process, leaving that 95% largely untouched. And with 5% working against 95%, which do you think ultimately wins out?
The Emergent Coach Training teaches science-backed ways to recruit this vast resource and help clients access greater creativity, negotiate complexity with ease, become more effective decision-makers and to support truly sustainable systemic change.
If you're committed to being at the cutting edge of science-based human development as a coach, our training is for you.
Download our Curriculum Guide
The Emergent Coach Training® program provides up to 150 ICF ACSTH units.
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The Emergent Coach Training® Program
Please download the Curriculum Guide above for a more detailed breakdown of the Emergent Coach Training® program including our complete ACC (only $4250!) or PCC (only $7450!) coach training packages. Most modules can be also taken individually. Click directly below for a quick overview.
Next Essentials commences October 2022.
In Essentials you will acquire all the fundamental coaching skills needed to run a professional coaching session & client relationship. It’s an intensive 5-week immersive program and asks a lot yet you gain a lot! It’s also the entry point into becoming a fully certified Emergent coach (ECC) ready to credential with the ICF at PCC level or to gain a Certificate in Emergent Essentials Coaching on our ACC track. Like all our programs, you can take Essentials as a stand alone training if you’d simply like to learn the key competencies of professional coaching plus our unique & powerful approach to supporting change. All the live classes and workshops combine expert instruction, teacher facilitated experiential practices and live teacher-led coaching demonstrations with breakout opportunities to practice and coach.
Essentials is a great way to quickly upgrade your resume and skillset if you’re say a therapist, counselor, social worker, manager or leader. Having these skills will give you a powerful new edge, make you a more attractive hire and give you significant leverage to enhance your earning potential.
The program comprises:
- Three 2-hour live teacher-led sessions on the Zoom platform. For certification, full attendance is essential. The recordings are made available following each call. Classes run on a Saturday at noon eastern and then again on the following Tuesday at the same time so you have two opportunities to make them.
- Two intensive weekend workshops. These run virtually on Zoom and take approximately 7 hours each day. In these you’ll intensively learn the structure of great coaching and how to run professional coaching sessions.
- Alongside the live classes and workshops you’re required to have at least five, 1-hour minimum Practice Pod sessions where you practice and integrate the skills. These are essential to the certification hours.
- All participants have access to our in-platform private community pages to connect, self- organize and share resources.
- There are office-hours opportunities with experienced faculty throughout the program. Dates/times to be confirmed.
- At the end of the training you will be required to submit a 30 minute max. recording of your coaching. You’ll receive written responses from a mentor coach who will make helpful suggestions to improve your coaching.
- All participants receive the 8-week self- guided mindfulness program as a free resource to support your learning.
- The learning platform which is your central learning resource containing dedicated learning content (videos, text and audio) and supplementary material such as the call recordings, homework etc.
A certificate of completion is available following sufficient live attendance on the classes, workshops & buddy calls & submission of your fully completed log & recordings.
Essentials will take 5 weeks to complete and earns up to 40 ICF ACSTH (or CCEUs)
Next Pathways begins February 15th, 2023
Alongside the dedicated content, Pathways includes 6 x 2.5-hour live class calls for learning and practicing Emergent Coaching strategies in teacher-led sessions and break-out. Session 7 is a 2.5 hour live small group mentor call.
Live classes occur every two weeks. Participants are expected to meet every other week as a Practice Pod to consolidate the skills being learned.
Module 1: Beginning at the Beginning
In this module we cover:
- An overview including the intersection of Structure & Process as keys for effectively coaching change.
- Practices and qualities for developing oneself as an effective Emergent Coach.
- Engaging the body (coach and client's) as a coaching resource.
- Developing deeper listening, empathic resonance and attunement for more powerful sessions.
- Coaching, embodiment and trauma—what look out for and how to respond.
- The integration of professional and personal ethics.
- The ICF Core Competencies and the ICF PCC markers.
Module 2: The Science of the Implicit
Now we dig deeper into the science and practices including:
- Behaviorism, cognitivism and current theories of embodied mind and cognition.
- Experiential practices for working with implicit intelligence and somatics.
- Coaching the 3 key processing pathways:
- The analytic (D-mode to Prof. Guy Claxton)—the conventional used to engage analysis for deliberate problem solving & decision-making.
- The fast intuitive—the rapid fire “rule of thumb” gut feeling, effective yet prone to bias.
- The slow intuitive—a more nuanced, reflective pathway and a key aspect of the Emergent Coaching process.
- Learning & practice with 3 key modes: Thinking, Feeling & Sensing.
- Managing complexity via embodied intelligence.
- An overview of Otto Scharmer’s “Theory U”.
Module 3: Emergent Pathways
Through live class and online content we’ll explore:
- Maintaining an optimal coaching container to support emergent insight and change.
- The art of accompanying and tending instead of leading or pushing.
- How Presencing, mindfulness and reflective practice can potentiate powerful insight both in session and as personal developmental work.
- The potential for rich, unusual, imagistic communication (language, music, art, poetry, dance etc) to impact creative thinking and the emergence of insight.
- The use of visualization in coaching to provoke new thinking and perspective.
- Engaging the body creatively in sessions.
Module 4: Archetype, Myth, Metaphor & Narrative in Coaching
Module four is devoted to:
- Defining and exploring myth, metaphor, archetypes and rich language and how these areas might be skillfully recruited into coaching conversations.
- The use of rich, figurative language for catalyzing implicit intelligence.
- How to creatively engage narrative, imagery, metaphor, archetype in coaching conversations.
- An introduction to working with parts, selves and archetypes in coaching sessions.
Module 5: Coaching Self, Selves & Parts
As coaches we spend the majority of our time in supporting our clients in improving themselves, here we explore the constructed self and the multifaceted nature of the self through theories of multiplicity. Some key themes will be:
- Exploring theories of constructed self from ancient philosophy through to the work of contemporary researchers.
- Learning some powerful opportunities to explore the client’s narratives, belief systems and sense of self.
- Exploring multiplicity—how to creatively & powerfully work with parts and selves in coaching sessions. This is stunningly powerful work which can rapidly transform a client's perspective and help them easily overcome internal psychological blocks to success.
Module 6: Integrating Emergent Conversations
In this final module we will explore:
- More practical experience with multiplicity (parts/selves) in sessions.
- Integrating the Pathways learning into a PCC-level coaching arc.
- Communicating Emergent methods to potential clients & stakeholders.
- Supporting clients to integrate learning & insights for sustainable change.
- Documents to support client management—how to use them to create and show movement and change.
- Meeting the client where they are—knowing when to go deep and when to hold back.
Module 7: Mentoring
In this final module participants meet in small pods (typically maximum of 5) with a mentor to clarify and receive feedback on live coaching.
There is plenty of self-guided learning content with unique supportive material which is accessed via our dedicated online learning platform.
Pathways will take approximately 13 weeks to complete and earn 29 ICF ACSTH (or CCEUs)
Next Focusing begins May 9th, 2023
Toward the end of the 1970s, Prof. Eugene Gendlin launched his understatedly titled book “Focusing” into a somewhat overflowing self-help market. Despite appearances, Focusing is not another new-agey personal development tool, but was developed from a vast outcomes study Gendlin had conducted with the eminent psychologist Carl Rogers aiming to uncover the key factor(s) which predicted success in psychotherapeutic conversations—why some clients change and others don’t. Astonishingly one simple factor stood out: it was not what clients spoke about but how they reflected inside and then spoke about it. The “how” was how they related to their inner experience. Focusing’s empirically-based potential to radically and quickly manifest extraordinary insight and change for Focuser and Facilitator (or client and coach) alike, makes it a must-have skill for any coach wishing to effortlessly and powerfully get to the heart of any issue and bring their own and their client’s largest version of self to the change process.
Throughout the 8 modules you’ll be guided through the key steps of this extraordinary skill, and how to seamlessly integrate it into coaching conversations. The program is delivered by leading Focusing trainer, psychotherapist and coach Charlotte Howorth LCSW and Rod Francis plus their support faculty. The program comprises a series of eight 2.5-hour live classes which occur every two weeks, eight 1-hour Practice Pods to integrate and practice the learning, supplemented by our online learning content.
Module 1: Introduction to Focusing
This module's learning will include:
- An overview of the research informing the Focusing approach.
- An exploration of the 6 key steps of Focusing—Clearing a space; Contacting Felt Sense; Getting a Handle; Resonating; Asking; Receiving.
- Direct, experiential and conceptual understanding of the felt sense and how to reflect and support a client to locate and connect with it.
Module 2: Resonant Reflection
In this module the learning will cover:
- Guided exercises for taking turns to listen and focus.
- Opportunities to work through the six focusing steps we covered in Module 1.
- Experiences of finding a “handle,” or “fire engine” word and direct practice.
- Learning how resonantly reflect back the focuser’s words and how to fine-tune reflections with the felt sense to catalyze thinking.
Module 3: Making a "Something"
In this module we cover:
- How to create appropriate distance—to make a "something"—in order to not be entangled in or dissociated from one's inner content.
- Mastering appropriate resonant words, questions and invitations to explore.
- Differentiating between emotions, thoughts, felt sense and understanding how this relates to a Focusing approach.
- Helping the client to be less identified and merged with yet still able to keep company with their "issue" offering a radically different perspective and new potential avenues for seeing, thinking and action.
Module 4: Making Contact
Key learning areas this module are:
- Working transformatively with critical voices or the Inner Critic.
- Masterful pacing.
- The skillful use of metaphor, archetype and rich language for bringing more for a client.
- Learning & facilitated experience of the 12 avenues (Physical, Emotional; Location/Shape, Sound, Posture/movement, Relevance from past, Metaphor/Simile, Imagery, Internal Dialogue, Felt sense, Internal conflict)
Module 5: Deepening Contact
Areas for exploration and learning will be:
- Using language and invitations for deepening connection with and teasing out the intricacy of the felt sense.
- Engaging the felt sense as perspective shift and ways to reveal underlying and unseen aspects of self.
- Inviting and catalyzing meaning & insight via deepening connection with the felt sense.
- How to deepen listening and hold the Focusing frame of attention.
Module 6: Shift Questions
Key learning points will be:
- Understanding Shift (Powerful) questions and how and when to deploy them.
- Tracking client energetics (vocal, somatic etc.) and how to effectively reflect them for awareness and shift.
- Sensing/understanding when the client is stuck or plateaued and how to help create forward movement.
- Knowing what to do once a question has “landed” & created a shift.
Module 7: Working with Parts
Some of the key learning points in this module explore a Focusing approach to parts including:
- Understanding parts and how to help a client separate them out.
- How to identify part conflicts and how to work effectively with them.
- How to engage with these areas when there’s a sense of being stuck and how to engage focusing in order to assist the client to create solutions.
- Learning on how to engage in dialogue with parts to create shifts and overcome internal blocks.
Module 8: Integrating
In this final module we will be supporting you in being able to seamlessly integrate Focusing into your coaching. In doing so, we will also be looking at how a session incorporating Focusing or a Focusing approach will also embody the PCC markers.
Focusing takes 16 weeks to complete and offers up to 33.5 ICF ACSTH/CCEU's.
EMPOWERMENT: WILD CONVERSATIONS & PURPOSE (2022 Retreats: Virtual Sept 2-5; Elohee In-Person Sept 9-13)
The key element of this section is the Empowerment Retreat which from 2021 can be taken in-person or virtually (on Zoom). It provides an immersive opportunity to step out of “regular life” and as a community explore untapped aspects of our inner process though facilitated direct interactions with the wild which help awaken and reconnect participants with a deeper, more primal and elemental story and offer fascinating potential for deep conversations.
The retreat is supplemented by:
- 2 live classes on Zoom.
- 2 Practice Pod sessions (min. 1 hours) are required in this module.
- Supportive content in the learning platform.
THE RETREAT
Stand still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you Are not lost.
Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.
The Empowerment Retreat is a five-day (four-day virtual) immersive and experiential program designed to help participants embody their capacities as Emergent Coaches and to reconnect with and deepen their abilities for deep listening, powerful conversations and living aligned with ones deepest sense of purpose. The retreat offers several opportunities to radically deepen learning and capacity as a coach, and for in-person participants to be able to do so in an extraordinary wilderness setting.
Alongside many other activities during the retreat, participants are facilitated into direct wild world encounters in deeply powerful, surprising and transformative ways. The experiential group and individual activities include deep listening practices, mindfulness practices, conversations with the wild, somatic learning opportunities, and many nature-based practices and games entwined with and built around competencies-based coaching skills opportunities. The activities can open powerful new doors for coaches to be able to engage their clients more effectively and effortlessly in their sessions. Over the retreat, participants are also given plenty of time to engage in their own reflection, integration and change and also offered appropriate support if needed. Overall it's an incredible experience for all!
As the retreat is dedicated to supporting participants reconnect with self, others and the land, ample time is allowed for that. Plus alongside all that deep experiential learning we make sure there's plenty of time for fun, connection and play. Each evening there is facilitated council and group learning activities including story, song, fire and laughter.
Empowerment takes approximately 4 weeks to complete and offers up to 36.5 ICF ACSTH/CCEU's depending on whether virtual or in-person.
PCC TRACKS (EMERGENT PCC & CORE):
Upon successfully completing all the components of your Emergent Coach Training track (Pathways, Focusing, Empowerment, Mindfulness Levels 1 & 2 plus Essentials and Mentor Coaching if they’re required) you will need to apply for and complete Certification within two months of completion of the last section of these.
Before you submit your final certification package and recording, you will first submit another max. 30 minute recording and then meet with a mentor coach for a 45-55 minute 1-on-1 review designed to ensure you’re ready to certify and credential.
To certify as an ECC you must have:
- Paid for all tuition in full including certification fees.
- Submitted a full and complete log (log is accessible in your Resources section and includes a short film with instructions). The completed log is to show:
- Attended all 3 core modules (4 if you're taking Essentials) Participants can miss a maximum of 1 call per module and must have submitted a Missed Call Form within two weeks of the call).
- Learning platform fully completed.
- All your Practice Pod calls attended in full.
- 8-week Level 1 Mindfulness program completed. 6-weekLevel 2 program is optional.
- 30 paid hours of client coaching.
- Submitted all appropriate recordings and received feedback; submitted the mentor recording and attended the live mentor session in certification;
- And finally submitted and received a pass on the final 30 min max. certification recording.
- There should be no longer than three years from beginning the first program course to completion and the final certification package must be received no longer than 2 months following completion of your last core module of the program.
CERTIFICATION —ACC TRACK:
If you’ve taken the Emergent ACC track then in order to gain your Certificate of Emergent Essentials Coaching you will need to submit a final 30 min recording and receive a pass. Other criteria are:
- Paid for all tuition in full including certification fees.
- Submitted a full and complete log showing:
- Your full attendance and completion of all appropriate modules including Mentor Coaching.
- 8-week Level 1 Mindfulness program completed.
- All Practice Pods completed.
- Attest to 20 hours of client coaching.
- Submitted and received a pass on the certification recording. If the recording fails there are additional fees to resubmit.
- Your package is received no longer than 2 months following completion of your last section/module of the program.
Following successful submission and acknowledgment of all of the above in either tracks you will be awarded your certificate. If your final recording fails there will be additional fees to resubmit your materials for further review.
The Emergent Coach Training model is powered by the meta-competencies of Presence and Embodiment. These are extraordinarily generative qualities of being which require training and dedicated practice to bring them fully online. The primary tool for the development of these superpowers is mindfulness training which is why it’s integrated into the program.
Mindfulness practice is not simply a contemporary strategy for gaining a little more calm, getting some better focus and attention or taking a break from your bullying inner voices. It is a profound path of practice which can bring freedom from existential fears, restlessness and debilitating uncertainty via great clarity of seeing, insight and the development of embodied wisdom. It also supports important capacities necessary for powerful coaching: greater coaching Presence, an ability to self-manage and importantly for emotional regulation, to have more bandwidth and to be able to successfully manage complex interactions intuitively and with greater ease.
All Emergent Coach Training participants receive an 8-week online self-guided level 1 program free of charge.
For those purchasing the Emergent ACC package you receive the level 1, 8-week program. For those purchasing the Emergent PCC package you receive the level 1, 8-week and access to a level-two 6-week programs. For those purchasing the Emergent Core package you can choose either the level 1, 8-week OR level-two 6-week program. You must have completed a level-one mindfulness program before taking the level-two six week course. For further details please see the curriculum guide.
Full live attendance on the mindfulness programs earns 8 ACSTH/CCEU's for the Level-1 in-person and 6 ACSTH/CCEU's for the Level-2 in-person.
Next Group Begins August 1st, 2022
We offer International Coaching Federation (ICF) group mentor coaching packages. Ten hours of mentor coaching is required for all coaches seeking to credential (or re-credential) with the ICF and will become a requirement for all ICF-accredited programs to have integrated within their offer by 2023. Our group mentor package offers a cost- effective way to meet this requirement.
The package consists of 7, hour long group classes of no more than 10 participants and three one-on-one classes with a highly qualified PCC mentor. The ICF requires that the program runs over a 3 month period. The 2022 programs will currently be led by Rod Francis.
Please click the IA Learning tab above to learn more or to register.
Meet the Lead Instructors

Rod Francis, PCC
Rod is director of coaching and a founding member of InterActualizer. His early interest in physical performance took him via an elite national academy in his home country of Australia onwards to an extensive international performing, teaching, directing and choreographic career. Following a period as an entrepreneur in London, Rod’s deep interest and training in human optimization and leadership development drove a transition into coaching and then onwards to professional coach training program development in Europe and the USA. His personal meditation practice commenced over 40 years ago, he’s a qualified MBSR teacher, a dharma leader with Chattanooga Insight and designed and leads the mindfulness programs for InterActualizer and other leading coach trainings. Alongside his work within InterActualizer and a private coaching practice, Rod has almost a decade of experience creating and leading internationally regarded professional coach training programs and has trained over 2000 industry professionals. For inquiries about coaching or leadership training with Rod please contact him directly via his website.
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Charlotte Howorth, LCSW
After gaining a degree in Cell and Molecular Biology at Kings College, London, Charlotte began her career as a science journalist for major broadsheet newspapers such as The Guardian and Times in the UK. From there she evolved into a career as a documentary producer/director for the BBC Science and Features department creating science documentaries for prime time viewing. Her experiences led to her becoming a psychotherapist and she currently has a busy private practice in NYC working with individuals, couples, families and groups. Charlotte has taught The International Focusing Institute’s 2-year certification program for therapists and coaches for the past 12 years and has facilitated Focusing retreats and workshops internationally. She is on the faculty of The Relational Focusing- Oriented Psychotherapy program in NYC where she teaches and supervises. She is a Clinical consultant at CHDFS (Center For Human Development and Family Services) in NYC and is also a Certified C-IQ Coach and actively working as an organizational coach. (www.howortherapy.com)
Some Success Stories
Kathryn Guylay, MBA, PhD
Founder, Make Everything Fun
“I have explored many different coaching programs, and the emergent approach is truly unique. The focus on presence and the profound tools that integrate the brain-body system combines science, art, and the human spirit. I have 25 years of background coaching and consulting with individuals and teams from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. I have often wondered if this world is ready to shift to states of higher consciousness and connectedness. With the tools I have learned through the Emergent approach, I feel profoundly confident that this shift is soon to come or is already happening.”
Heather Juergensen
Human Potential Coach
Mental Health Advocate"The Emergent Coaching training has truly been a game-changer for me, both in my personal life and in my coaching. What they have done in the program is nothing short of miraculous - weaving together a magnificent tapestry of ancient wisdom and modern sciences, touching on areas as seemingly diverse - but undeniably related - as intuition, depth psychology, language, metaphor, movement, embodied cognition and somatic intelligence. These were all tools I was already using in a scattershot and somewhat clumsy way as a coach. The Emergent training has invited me to better understand them, collect them together and create a thoughtful process out of them."
Victoria Reese
CHPC
"Emergent coaching is teaching me how to branch out and deepen my coaching skill-set in an intuitively fluid and richly holistic manner. I am coaching from a more mindful, creative and heart-centered space. This style of coaching is beautifully alive, and intently focused on presence, intuition, and heartfelt resonance. The profound shifts and amazing depths realized during my coaching sessions are having a very real and lasting impact on myself and on my clients.
I am forever changed and grateful for this dynamic way of coaching and to my wonderful teachers and mentors from which I am blessed to be under their loving and skillful tutelage!"
Some Success Stories
Kathryn Guylay, MBA, PhD
Founder, Make Everything Fun
“I have thoroughly enjoyed the Emergent One program and have found the unique approach of this model to coaching to be transformational. The learning platform is well-done and full of enjoyable and relevant content. I have explored many different coaching programs, and the emergent approach is truly unique. The focus on presence and the profound tools that integrate the brain-body system combines science, art, and the human spirit. I have 25 years of background coaching and consulting with individuals and teams from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. I have often wondered if this world is ready to shift to states of higher consciousness and connectedness. With the tools I have learned through the Emergent approach, I feel profoundly confident that this shift is soon to come or is already happening.”
Heather Juergensen
Human Potential Coach Mental Health Advocate
"The Emergent Coaching training has truly been a game-changer for me, both in my personal life and in my coaching. What they have done in the program is nothing short of miraculous - weaving together a magnificent tapestry of ancient wisdom and modern sciences, touching on areas as seemingly diverse - but undeniably related - as intuition, depth psychology, language, metaphor, movement, embodied cognition and somatic intelligence. These were all tools I was already using in a scattershot and somewhat clumsy way as a coach. The Emergent training has invited me to better understand them, collect them together and create a thoughtful process out of them."
Victoria Reese
CHPC
"Emergent coaching is teaching me how to branch out and deepen my coaching skill-set in an intuitively fluid and richly holistic manner. I am coaching from a more mindful, creative and heart-centered space. This style of coaching is beautifully alive, and intently focused on presence, intuition, and heartfelt resonance. The profound shifts and amazing depths realized during my coaching sessions are having a very real and lasting impact on myself and on my clients. I am forever changed and grateful for this dynamic way of coaching and to my wonderful teachers and mentors from which I am blessed to be under their loving and skillful tutelage!"
FAQs
If you're a complete novice to coaching or need to upgrade/update your skills then you need to take the Essentials intensive program before taking any of the other modules for certification. The best option is to take our Emergent ACC or PCC packages, both of which are complete end to end programs. If you are already a credentialed or certified ACC-level coach or already certified coach and have a good working knowledge of the ICF coaching competencies (or similar i.e. Association for Coaching, EMCC etc.) then you can take any of our core modules (Pathways, Focusing or Empowerment) or buy our Emergent Core package. You can buy any of the programs individually as well.
You can purchase all of the learning modules separately. Please go to either our Courses or IA Learning pages (use the menu tab above) to see the costs and learn more about the individual programs.
Emergent ACC costs $4250 for the complete package.
Emergent PCC costs $7450 for the full package
Emergent Core costs only $4550
If you withdraw from the Emergent Coach Training program, the following two conditions will decide whether you are entitled to a refund or not.
- If you apply for a refund 31+ days before the commencement date of any Emergent Coach Training course you've paid for, a full refund will be provided (minus a $250 non-refundable registration fee and any financial transaction costs e.g. PayPal, card or bank transfer fees).
- If you apply within 30 days of your Emergent Coach Training course commencing, there is no refund. As such, once the program has commenced there is also no refund.
- If you’ve purchased either the Emergent ACC/PCC or Emergent Core package, the above conditions apply to the commencement of your first section of the entire Emergent Coach Training program.
Your course fees for either Emergent ACC or PCC packages will cover all the costs of tuition and include Mentor Coaching. Fees for the Core program also give everything but you do not receive Mentor Coaching in that. For those not buying the program packages all individual items including certification (Fulfillment) will incur extra fees. Level 1 self-guided mindfulness & Resources are free to all participants.
Empowerment Retreat, travel, accommodation and food are not included in the course fees.
If your certification recording does not pass, resubmission will cost $250 per submission. If you need make-up calls for missed classes they are charged at $180 per class.
Costs for ICF credentialing or membership are not covered by your fees.
To find out more about the Emergent Coach Training® or access a Free Trial of the program.