What Actually Makes a Great Coach? with Carrie Fabris
Ever heard someone say, “You give such good advice. You should be a coach”?
Not so fast.
Because coaching — real coaching — isn't about dispensing good advice. It is a discipline requiring training, practice, listening, discernment, and the ability to ask the right question rather than simply offer your opinion. And excellent coaching requires something considerably harder to put on a website:
You have to do your own work.
In this episode of The COACHED Podcast: Coaching Masters, Coach Keren sits down with executive and leadership coach Carrie Fabris, founder of CareerFrame and author of ALL IN: A Working Mom’s Unapologetic Quest for a Juicy Life, to examine what actually makes a great coach.
Carrie and Keren share analogous paths into the profession: substantial corporate careers, rigorous training and accreditation, and the eventual realization that credentials and experience alone are not enough.
Carrie candidly shares why her first attempt at building CareerFrame failed, how ego, fear, imposter syndrome, inherited beliefs, and her own unexamined material followed her into her work, and why she ultimately had to go inward before she could successfully go outward again.
Today, Carrie describes excellent coaching as learning how to “read the human” in front of you: listening carefully, noticing what changes in their face, hearing what they are saying and what they are avoiding, and asking the right question rather than the impressive-sounding one.
Because you cannot take another human being somewhere you are unwilling to go yourself.
In this conversation:
- Why giving great advice does not make someone a great coach
- Why coaching is a discipline — not simply a personality trait
- What real corporate experience brings to executive coaching
- Why Carrie's first attempt at CareerFrame didn't work
- The difference between ego-driven ambition and genuine alignment
- Why Carrie returned to corporate — and eventually realized she couldn't stay there either
- Fear, imposter syndrome, inherited beliefs, and the inner work that changed her trajectory
- Why credentials, frameworks, and assessments matter — but aren't enough
- What it means to truly “read the human” you're coaching
- Why great coaches listen instead of rushing to advise
- The difference between asking a question and asking the right question
- Why a coach's own unexamined material inevitably enters the room
- The essential truth at the heart of great coaching: you have to do your own work
CONNECT WITH CARRIE
Learn more about Carrie and CareerFrame:
Read ALL IN: A Working Mom’s Unapologetic Quest for a Juicy Life:
Follow Carrie on Instagram:
ABOUT COACHING MASTERS
Coaching Masters is a series from The COACHED Podcast devoted to positioning coaching as the serious profession it is by examining what excellent coaching actually looks like, what qualifies someone to do this work, and what those entrusted with another person's growth owe to the human being sitting across from them.
Listen to the full episode of The COACHED Podcast with Coach Keren Eldad.
