• • What’s included: Course fees include tuition, materials, post-retreat class calls, and meals and lodging*. Required pre-reading textbooks are not included.
  • Location: All North Carolina retreats are held at Bend of Ivy Lodge, a secluded and beautiful retreat center 20 minutes north of Asheville. Retreats include long hours, morning practices, and evening sessions. We believe that the community experience is a vitally important element of the retreat. We have a limited number of rooms available at the lodge, once we are at capacity at the lodge (first come, first serve), you must stay off site. We have a PBC rate at a local hotel about 15 minutes from the lodge.
  • Meals and Lodging: Meals and lodging are included as part of the package. Lodging and meals prices include single occupancy lodging, shared bath, and gourmet meals prepared with locally sourced, organic foods. Meals are provided Monday breakfast through Wednesday lunch. Lodging is provided Sunday night through Wednesday at 2 PM ET. *If you are staying offsite, you will pay a reduced commuter rate which will include all meals and day use fees. You will be responsible for paying for off site lodging fees separately.
  • Cancellation policy: If you must cancel your registration for any retreat or course, all fees paid minus a cancellation fee will be refunded, as long as the conditions outlined in the terms and conditions are met. If those conditions are not met, no refunds will be provided. See more details on cancellation policies on the Terms & Conditions page.
  • Special Pricing: Payment plans can be arranged for a small financing charge, inquire with Jenny.

The Presence-Based^® Coaching Course is a three-part program. This course provides coaching and change professionals with a pragmatic toolkit for accelerating your own development and that of your clients. We focus on building and extending our own presence, and on specific coaching moves and models that awaken and support long term efficacy in our clients.

Attending will build your foundation of Presence-Based coaching skills, with a particular orientation toward developing the whole person. The course is grounded in a model of human development, leading toward the capacity to be present and a learner in all of life.

General Description

PBC I consists of reading The Mindful Coach, approximately 1 hour of additional pre-work, a three-day retreat, and three 60 or 90-minute follow-up class calls. 

PBC II consists of reading Presence-Based Coaching, approximately 2 hours of additional pre-work, a four-day retreat, and three 60 or 90-minute follow-up class calls. 

In Part I: Being a Development Partner, the ongoing theme is on the presence of the practitioner. This focus on presence, coupled with a powerful architecture for the coaching conversation, invites the conditions for development. 

Part II: Evoking Self-Generation, emphasizes presence as an outcome of coaching for clients. We continue to strengthen our own ground as coaches, as we also couple our way of being with new coaching moves that evoke new awareness and capacity in the client. The result is greater resilience, efficacy, choice, aliveness, and leadership presence.

The Presence-Based Coaching model and methodology is an entry into supporting others around change that offers considerable depth, challenging even for experienced practitioners. Our overall promises for the Presence-Based Coaching I and II and Mentor Coaching Courses are that you will build observable new competencies in coaching, greatly enhance your coaching presence, contextualize your coaching in a robust model of human development, and be more self-generative in your own life. 

Who This is For

The Presence-Based Coaching Courses are designed for:

• experienced coaches, facilitators, and OD practitioners seeking to integrate somatic and presence-based coaching into their work
• business and nonprofit leaders using coaching to develop people and build relationships
• new and aspiring coaches wanting a coherent and integrated coaching approach
• educators and helping professionals who recognize that their way of being, and ability to ask artful questions, is essential for the learning and empowerment of others.

Specific Areas of Learning Focus for PBC I

• distinguishing somatic, emotional, and cognitive awareness
• working with your own habits, attachments, and aversions as a coach
• cultivating and holding mindful presence in a coaching partnership
• distinguishing and coaching through seven distinct roles
• framing artful questions for catalyzing awareness, defining outcomes, and mapping a plan of action
• working with metaphors and distinctions
• designing body practices and self-observations
• building an integrated development plan

Specific Areas of Learning Focus for PBC II

The second part of the Presence-Based Coaching Course addresses:

• experiencing a model for building presence and resilience together with specific professional competencies
• evoking the direct experience of presence with clients
• engaging psychobiology in service to long term development
• supporting clients in recognizing and shifting embodied habits
• integrating somatic and question-based coaching processes
• increasing your own capacity for holding a field of presence with your clients
• working with polarities in coaching competencies and in client content
• designing integrative application fieldwork and practices

Mentor Coaching Course

The Mentor Coaching Course is an integral part of the Presence-Based Coach Courses. It is designed with the same rigor, attention to presence, and multiple layers of learning that participants have come to expect from our retreat-based programs. The course content is based on our unique Presence-Based Coaching competency model correlated to the ICF Core Competencies. Rigorous practice and feedback are offered around PBC competencies. Mentor Coaching is required for ICF accreditation at the ACC level. After completion of PBC I, II and Mentor Coaching Courses, students will understand, and be equipped to develop mastery in, the complete Presence-Based Coaching model.