Coach FEATURE: Meet Fran Fisher, MCC

I continue to enjoy learning more about our fellow coaches, featuring coaches doing great work - and building a coaching community! This month we meet another of our "guest authors". Fran is a pioneer of the coaching profession - a founding board member of the International Coach Federation (ICF) and the first Executive Director of the Association for Coach Training Organizations (ACTO). She's also an ICF exam assessor and was responsible for designing the original credentialing programs for coaches and coaching schools. 

And Fran is also a joy to talk to! Kerryn Griffiths, a fellow coach, connected me with Fran last year. We hit it off instantly over the phone and have had many email exchanges since. Read on to learn more about Fran...

About Fran Fisher, MCC

From: Seattle, Washington, USA.

Business name: FJFisher Coaching and Consulting.

Describe your coaching business in one sentence: I am an entrepreneurial coach who works with people that are called to fulfill their calling for making a meaningful difference in the world. I also specialize in mentoring coaches to successfully achieve their PCC or MCC ICF accreditation.

Meet Fran:

QUESTION 1: What one book should every coach read - and why?

"When I'm with the girl I love, I love the girl I'm with." Ha! What I mean is that I always love to share the current book I am reading. The book that has contributed the most meaningfully to me recently is "Living Your Hero's Journey", by Will Craig (a coach). I was in a state of breakdown a few months ago, and this book gave me light in the tunnel for my way forward.

Another all-time favorite of mine is A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle. His concepts on the "ego" and the "pain body" have been transformational for me, and I have shared them with many, many coaching colleagues and clients in the last few years.

QUESTION 2: Which website do you visit the most?

I don't tend to visit websites. I prefer having inspiring, optimistic, and meaningful information come to me. One of my favorite email subscriptions is the (free) Optimist Daily. The email provides five article links per day about positive solutions in the field of health, technical advancements, renewal energy, clean water, organic farming, etc. I am inspired with all the good news and I enjoy sharing some of these articles with my friends on Facebook and LinkedIn.

QUESTION 3: Whom do you admire most?

Joseph Campbell - he lived his bliss and in sharing his bliss, he generated his livelihood. He made "The Hero's Journey" myth and metaphor accessible to us as guidance in our daily lives.

Peter Diamandis - author of Abundance, the Future is Better than You Think; offers the inspiration for abundance mindset and "exponential thinking" and MTP (Massively Transformative Purpose) as ways of generating personal and global innovation and breakthrough. Larry King asked him "Why are you so optimistic?" and Peter said, "Because I don't watch the news. I watch the data."

QUESTION 4: What's your vision for your life? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

For the past five years it seems to me like drama, chaos, greater complexity and uncertainty have been pretty much the state of things in the world. Concurrently, consciousness has been accelerating exponentially. Evidence: the amazing advances in science and technology! Right?! People and clients around me have been scared and challenged by the uncertainty. I was suffering too, because I couldn't PLAN years ahead - even ONE year ahead, like I could the first 50-60 years of my life. I was a planner! I was a manifester! I planned it and made it happen.

Well, that doesn't work for me any more. Change is happening too rapidly. Rather than fight it, I am embracing it. My vision for my life in the face of uncertainty and change is to focus on who I am being - present moment. Who do I choose to be? That is the question, and my answer is to make choices aligned with my purpose/calling and my values. I am learning to stop trying to figure out what the ultimate result will look like. I call it letting go of my "attachment to the form", and simply trust the unfolding adventure. I trust that I will love the outcome, regardless of form, because I will have been true to myself along the way.

In five years I will be happy, healthy and prosperous, just like I am now.

QUESTION 5: What is your "big project" at the moment?

My colleague Annie Gelfand, MCC and I were inspired last year to produce a virtual summit event in April, called "Essence of Mastery: What is It?" Our purpose was to provide a forum for people to explore mastery in coaching. Our 2017 event was a smashing success, so we are offering another one in April 2018! These are live webinars on Zoom (one per day for eight days) and subscribers get the recordings and ICF CCEUs.

QUESTION 6: What has been your favourite coaching moment so far?

The moment was in March 2007. I had just completed delivering 4.5 days of team coaching training for 160 Israeli coaches. It had been a stretch for me to deliver this training for the first time by myself, on the other side of the world with such a great many participants, and communicating through an interpreter to boot! So, I had just left the stage and walked to the back of the room. I turned and faced forward as my client took the stage to wrap the event. She made eye contact with me across the room and said, "Fran, for the last 4.5 days you have been the space of pure being. You have been authentic, transparent, generous, and a master of containment." I got reflected back everything I had hoped to be. I felt her acknowledgment touch my soul. For the investment of all my hard work, stretches, and risks, to receive that feedback spontaneous and unsolicited meant the world to me.

QUESTION 7: What are your Top 3 favourite coaching tools and/or resources?

1. (Developed by me) The Core Values Index Assessment: revealing your innate nature (versus your personality).
2. Dependable Strengths – Finding your unique excellence.
3. The Clarity Compass, a book by Brit Poulson. For "reality mapping". Pin point blind spots, move through them and broaden perspectives.

QUESTION 8: What do you love most about being a coach?

I spent the first several decades of my life attending personal growth workshops, reading all the self-help books and listening to the tapes (no CDs in those days). I worked with healing professionals of all sorts, and I finally worked with a coach who helped me breakthrough the limiting patterns! The focus was on dealing with my inner critic and healing my low self-esteem.

My coach helped me send my inner critic on a full-time sabbatical visiting an asteroid in outer space doing what "it" does best: diminishing the heck out of that asteroid (instead of ME!). Coaching ROCKS! That worked. So, after a few years of being a coach, I started to notice that coaching brings out the best in me! I started liking who I am being when I am coaching.

So, this is one of the top things I love most about being a coach. I am more in the present moment, connected with the other person, curious, caring, patient, loving, supportive, appreciative, etc. and that leaves me feeling GOOD 😊.

QUESTION 9: Tell us a secret about you...

Only the people very close to me know that I am now a 20 year survivor of colon cancer. The surgeon removed a tumor the size of an orange. What I absolutely know now is that I was not destined to die of that disease, but rather that I was ready to release the life-long pattern of self-diminishment and self-judgment based on my limiting belief that I was "not good enough". Today I am happier, healthier, and more prosperous than EVER before in my life.

QUESTION 10: If you could change one thing in our world, what would it be? And how would you go about it?

I have a vision of a world where every person is living their passion - true to the essence of who they are. I believe that the secret to living the life and doing the work that we love is living true to our vision, purpose and values. But what's in the way is fear - fear of looking stupid, fear of being judged, fear of making a mistake, fear of failing, fear of being rejected, fear of scarcity etc. The solution is dispelling fear and having the courage to BE TRUE to OURSELVES. The first step is discovering who we ARE at our essence, so then we know clearly and intimately the BEING we are honoring. We can each transform the quality of our own lives by modelling the principles of empowerment in ALL our relationships (self AND other), and living true to the essence of who we are. AND, a coach can help us get there too!

If you liked this article featuring one of our readers and blog contributors, you may also like:

• 6 Zen Principles to Be a Highly Masterful Coach! | By Fran Fisher, MCC
• Coach FEATURE: Meet Lynda Monk, MSW, RSW, CPCC
• See our Reader Discounts and Bonuses page for an exclusive 50% discount (to June 30th 2018) off Fran's "Portable Mentor" audio learning series for coaches to take their clients into the transformational zone!
• 7 Reasons You Might Want to Get Your Own Coach! | By Kerryn Griffiths