Professional Practitioner Diploma / “The learning was so fundamental and deep that it lives with me every day”

Lucy Russell, founder of the Lucidity Coach and an ICF and EMCC certified coach, empowers working women and mothers to define success on their own terms. Specialising in coaching women returning to work after maternity leave or career breaks and those transitioning into new roles, she helps her clients carve out the time, space and energy to reflect and pursue their unique goals. In this interview, Lucy shares how the AoEC’s Professional Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching has shaped her approach to supporting her clients through these pivotal career moments.

Reflecting on your journey over the last five years, what key areas of your coaching practice have evolved the most, and how have these changes impacted your approach to coaching?

So much has shifted for me in the last five years, both personally and professionally.

Becoming a parent has changed me on such a fundamental level, and my coaching has changed alongside that. The most significant shifts within my coaching practice have been the evolution of my ‘Freedom’ coaching model, as well as my own confidence and presence as a coach, and my understanding of how and where my coaching fits into the world.

My evolved model speaks to the freedom that I believe exists in coaching. Coaching is one of very few places in life, especially professional life, where we can genuinely feel free to explore different aspects of ourselves and our situations without judgement. The role of freedom was incredibly important to me throughout the programme – indeed, it has become a value I hold close to my heart. From feeling the shift when I embrace freedom to be human and fallible, to witnessing the power of freedom when a client truly feels it, it is an intrinsic part of my coaching. It really speaks to the ‘what’s possible?’ question and opens up so many more possibilities for the client, and also for me.

The impact of being closer and more connected to a model that feels authentic has been significant for me. I feel much more confident in my coaching and so much more relaxed when I am coaching. I hold onto less now and embrace a much stronger sense of fluidity and freedom. Finally, I feel I can trust the process on a whole new level.

What prompted you to pursue further training with the Professional Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching, and how did you know it was the right time for you to take this next step?

I was extremely fortunate to be invited onto the global pilot of the Professional Practitioner Diploma by Leila (Rezaiguia), my original PD trainer who is also on the faculty of the PPD. It had been five years since my Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching and in that time I had experienced both highs and lows, professionally as well as personally, and I felt ready for a new challenge that would not only elevate my coaching, but also give me the chance to get even closer to myself, in terms of who I really am and how my coaching connects me to a wider system.

What role has personal growth played in your professional journey, and how have you balanced the demands of self-employment with continuous professional development?

Personal growth is absolutely at the core of my professional journey. Given what we do for a living, I think it’s crucial. Being honest, over the past year or so, the demands of self-employment have often felt overwhelming and so I have often found myself taking solace in CPD. I’m at a bit of a crossroads professionally and I do think that the combination of personal growth and CPD is helping me to understand what is happening and to work out what is right for me in this next chapter.

How would you describe the transition from the Practitioner Diploma to the Professional Practitioner Diploma in terms of complexity and depth of learning?

I’d say the transition was smooth enough, because of the years in between each programme and the real-life personal and professional growth that happened within that time. But there is no denying that the complexity and depth of learning this time around was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before – it was profound, challenging and incredibly rewarding. It can be very easy to undertake some training and then move on, forgetting some of the nuances of what was learned along the way, but with the PPD the learning was so fundamental and deep that it lives with me every day.

In what ways has the Professional Practitioner Diploma equipped you with new tools or perspectives that you didn’t gain from the Practitioner Diploma? How do these new insights elevate your coaching practice?

In so many ways, both on a profoundly personal level and on a more practical professional level. Firstly, I feel so much more at peace with myself as a coach. When I am coaching, I feel a deeper connection to my client, myself and our interconnected systems. I carry my learnings of Ubuntu from the programme with me – I am, because we are. Humanity is systemic. The collective accountability principle we learned about really struck a chord with me and the aspiration to operate at a higher level of self is always there; the aspiration to be positively intentional with every human interaction.

This has felt especially resonant over the past year, as I am incredibly fortunate to live in the Middle East, where our lives and communities are rich with diversity. As we learned more about the nature of systems within a coaching context, I felt a sense of reconnection to something I had long felt but not necessarily been able to articulate. Beyond our shared and basic humanity, we are all the product of a system (or multiple systems), with layers of collective programming inside us.

The truly empowering part of learning that is also learning that we can question it – we can acknowledge that we are a product of a system, and we can work with it in so many ways. From the moment we first connect with a client, we have a responsibility to meet this human being where s/he is. We can recognise that our different systems, backgrounds, cultures and beliefs have shaped us into the human beings we are today, in that very moment.

Throughout the course of our work together, we can question the system, we can try to see things from a different perspective, we can notice how our role in the system affects us, how the system itself affects us, and what we have the power to do, change or stop.

I believe in coaching with compassion and courage, to reflect the words of Pema Chödrön: “Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”

How has the Professional Practitioner Diploma helped you better align with higher-level credentials like the PPC from the International Coaching Federation?

This is an ongoing journey for me, as I’m sure it is for most coaches. I decided to renew my ACC this year, rather than pursue PPC, as it better reflects where I am professionally and what I feel fits best for me right now. I also joined EMCC this year as a Practitioner, as I found the organisation to be a great fit for my approach to coaching and my values.

Looking back, what advice would you give to someone considering moving from the Practitioner Diploma to the Professional Practitioner Diploma? What should they prepare for in terms of personal and professional growth?

Go for it! It has genuinely been the most impactful training I have ever done, in terms of the depth and breadth of learning. I would say prepare to be changed in so many ways, all for the better, as you learn more about yourself and how you navigate and show up in this world as a coach. The growth you’ll experience during and after this course will be profound – and your clients will thank you for it!

How has your sense of purpose or direction as a coach deepened or shifted through your ongoing development, and what specific experiences contributed to that growth?

It feels like my sense of purpose or direction as a coach is becoming clearer and clearer as time passes, and I also believe that it’s an ever-evolving state. We don’t necessarily arrive at some final destination; this sense shifts and grows with us, as we move through life and understand ourselves and the world in different ways. Earlier this year, just after finishing the PPD, I entered a new decade of my life and felt a significant shift both personally and professionally.

A few quotes from the programme really stood out to me, one of which is this from Rumi: “Yesterday I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself”. Years spent working in the non-profit sector cemented that external view (one that I came to coaching with); over time and especially through the PPD, I’ve learned a lot about the power of looking within and how that can strengthen whatever we put out into the world.

Can you share any pivotal moments during your coaching career that significantly influenced your development as a coach and helped shape your identity as an executive coach?

For me, it’s a combination of a few things. The PPD programme as a standalone influencer, four years after first training as a coach, as it shifted my whole perspective and growth at a deep level. Group supervision has also deeply shaped how I feel about coaching and my identity as a coach; coming together with a supervisor and other coaches around the world has added such a richness to my coaching path, as well as personally.

This year, creating the TLC Community has been a pivotal moment in my career. Allowing me to dovetail my purpose and passion, this compassionate and supportive community has given me so much and I love coaching members, as well as witnessing their peer support on all sorts of issues and questions. Bringing together women from around the world, each with a unique background and life story, so we can all grow and succeed together, is a dream come true.

My identity as a coach is constantly evolving and next year is going to see some even greater changes, but one thing I know to be true is that I am exactly where I am meant to be right now.

Our deepest gratitude to Lucy for sharing her personal journey and experience of coach training at the AoEC.