186. Breaking The Coaching Code: How Great Coaches Transcend The Rules with Karen Foy

Breaking The Coaching Code: How Great Coaches Transcend The Rules with Karen Foy

What if great coaching isn’t about mastering the rules, but learning when and how to transcend them?

In this heartfelt and grounded episode of the Sacred Changemakers Podcast, I’m joined by Karen Foy, a Master Certified Coach, Coach Educator, Supervisor, and Mentor with over two decades of experience shaping the next generation of coaches. Karen’s journey began in nursing, where her natural compassion and care for others first took root. Her love of psychology led her into the NHS, where she moved through policy and service development before discovering the transformative potential of coaching. She has since served as Programme Director for Accredited Programmes at Henley Business School, where she remains a Visiting Tutor and Honorary Fellow, continuing to inspire coaches and changemakers worldwide.

Together, we explore the themes in her new book, Breaking the Coaching Code: How Great Coaches Transcend the Rules, and the deeper invitation it offers to those of us who coach to move beyond frameworks and techniques, and instead cultivate trust in our own wisdom, presence, and humanity. Karen speaks with rare humility and openness, sharing how her own path has been a lifelong process of “walking people home” to their unique selves, while continuing that same journey within her own life. We discuss concepts such as enoughness, compassion, the evolving nature of retirement, and what it truly means to live and work with integrity in a world that often demands perfection.

This is a conversation filled with heart and hard-won wisdom, one that will resonate deeply with every coach, guide, and changemaker who believes that our presence, not perfection, is what truly ignites change.

Key Takeaways

• Why great coaching begins where the rules end; trusting your own wisdom and humanity.
• The journey from nursing to coaching and what it reveals about care, service, and transformation.
• How to embrace “enoughness” and coach from your unique authenticity, not expertise.
• What the “second half of life” teaches us about purpose, letting go, and contribution.
• How small acts of compassion and presence ripple out to create a kinder world

Learn More About Today’s Guest

• Karen Foy Associates & The Coach Tribe website ****→ http://www.thecoachtribe.com/
• Karen on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenfoy/
• Karen’s new book → Breaking The Coaching Code: How Great Coaches Transcend The Rules by Karen Foy, https://amzn.to/42syIbK

Explore Sacred Changemakers:

• Start your journey → SacredChangemakers.com
• Discover Your Resonance Code → quiz.SacredChangemakers.com
• Join our community → SacredChangemakers.com/community
• Subscribe to The Coaching (R)evolution Newsletter → https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-coaching-r-evolution-7371571227230101504

Books by Jayne Warrilow:

• ‘Becoming: Poems From The Thresholds Of Change’ →