"Coaching Roots" — for nurse coaches and nurse entrepreneurs who are ready to stop patching symptoms and start building healthier, profitable practices.

The Root Reflection

A short, personal reflection from Mary that invites readers beneath the surface of nursing, coaching, leadership, and business. This section offers a grounded thought, story, or question to help nurses pause, look inward, and notice what is being strengthened at the root — not just what is happening on the surface.

Welcome to the August edition of Coaching Roots.

I just returned from vacation, and I noticed how people can be Physically Present, Emotionally Elsewhere

You can be on vacation and still never leave work.

Your body may be sitting on the beach with your family, but your attention is on the phone. A staff member is calling. Someone needs an answer. Another problem has followed you into the very time you set aside to rest.

Meanwhile, the people you love are calling for you too.

They may not say it directly. They may simply stop asking, walk away disappointed, or learn to enjoy the moment without you—even while you are sitting right beside them.

Nurses are accustomed to being needed. We respond quickly, solve problems, and carry responsibility. But when being available to everyone else becomes a pattern, the people closest to us can begin to receive what is left over.

We often take the people we love for granted, believing there will always be another vacation, another dinner, or another chance to be present—until the damage is already done.

This is not about ignoring a true emergency. It is about noticing what has become normal.

The root question is not, “Why does everyone keep calling me?”

It is, “Why do I keep answering?”

What boundary might protect not only your time, but also the relationships you say matter most?

-Mary

The Root Deliberate Practice

Growth as a leader, coach or entrepreneur does not come from talent, time, or another certificate alone. It comes from practicing the right skills with intention, feedback, and a willingness to stay at the edge of your current ability. This section is where we slow down and look at one coaching skill, leadership skill, or business-building practice that helps you become more competent, confident, and effective in the real work.

This month’s practice: Listen for the second answer.

In coaching, leadership, and business, the first answer is often the protected answer.

A client says, “I just need to be more consistent.”

A nurse leader says, “My team needs to communicate better.”

A nurse entrepreneur says, “I need more visibility.”

A nurse coach says, “I need more confidence.”

None of those answers are wrong. They are just often incomplete.

The first answer usually names the symptom. The second answer begins to reveal the root.

So this month, practice slowing the conversation down. When someone gives you the first answer, resist the urge to respond, encourage, fix, or teach.

Instead, ask:

“And underneath that, what feels most true?”

Then be quiet.

That silence is part of the practice.

This is where deeper coaching begins. Not because you have the perfect question, but because you are willing to stay present long enough for the real answer to emerge.

Use this with a client, a team member, a patient, or yourself.

The first answer may give you information.

The second answer often gives you transformation.

Resource to revisit: The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier — especially the practice of asking, “What’s the real challenge here for you?”

The Root Assessment

A brief look at what is happening in the nursing landscape — the trends, pressures, shifts, and challenges affecting nurses, nurse coaches, nurse leaders, and nurse entrepreneurs. This section helps readers notice the deeper patterns beneath burnout, career uncertainty, leadership strain, and business dis-ease, then offers a reflection question to help them assess what may be asking for attention at the root.

A quiet pattern is showing up across nursing: many nurses are not short on passion. They are short on space to develop.

Nurses are being asked to lead, coach, educate, communicate, adapt, and emotionally regulate in complex environments — often without enough time, mentoring, or deliberate practice to grow those skills.

This creates a familiar gap.

A nurse may have the title but not the support.

The certification but not the confidence.

The responsibility but not the structure.

The calling but not the room to mature into it.

This matters because nursing is no longer only about what we know clinically. It is also about how we listen, lead, think, coach, communicate, and create sustainable change.

The next chapter of nursing will require more than credentials. It will require deeper skill development.

REFLECTION:

Where are you being asked to perform at a level you have not been supported to develop?

What kind of practice, mentoring, or structure would help you grow into that next level with more confidence?

Rooted & Rising

Each month, this space will honor a nurse, nurse coach, or nurse entrepreneur who is in the process of growing deeper roots. Not a polished success story. Not a perfect before-and-after. A real story.

DANA SMITH, RN

This month, we’re spotlighting a nurse coach who reminded me of something I see often: completing a program does not always mean feeling ready.

When she first came into the CoachRN space, she had already invested in nurse coach training. She had the certificate. She understood the language. She believed in coaching.

But when it came time to actually sit with a client, she still felt unsure.

She worried about asking the “right” question. She wondered if she was doing enough. And underneath it all was a quiet belief that competence should have arrived the moment the certificate did.

What began to shift was her relationship with practice.

She started seeing coaching as a craft — something developed through reflection, repetition, feedback, and courage. Not performance. Not perfection. Practice.

Now, she is learning to trust the pause, listen beneath the words, and stop measuring herself by how much she knows.

She is not just collecting credentials.

She is becoming the coach.

Read more...

Upcoming Roots

If something in this first issue meets you where you are, there is a place to continue the conversation.

This is your last chance to enter The Coaching Lottery: Everybody Wins again.

And I want to say this plainly - support changes things.

Not because a coach has your answers, but because a good coaching space helps you hear the answers you keep rushing past.

One nurse will receive a full year of coaching with me. Every nurse who enters wins. If not the grand prize, you will receive one month of coaching. There's no way to lose unless you don't enter.

Stop carrying your next chapter alone.

If you are a nurse, nurse coach, or nurse entrepreneur sitting with a decision, a desire, a transition, or a quiet knowing that something needs to shift, this may be a place to begin.

The drawing will be held September 1st, so enter right away.

You do not have to have it all figured out. You only have to be willing to be supported while you have this gift of an opportunity.

Curious? Here’s what it looks like →

The Heart & Mind of Nurse Coaching™ opens again this fall.

Every nurse already coaches.

You coach when you help a patient make sense of a new diagnosis.

You coach when you support a family through fear.

You coach when you guide a team member, mentor a new nurse, or help someone find the courage to take the next step.

But being caring, experienced, and intuitive is not the same as being skilled in the craft of coaching.

This 6-month CoachRN program helps nurses develop the presence, language, structure, and coaching skills needed to deepen their practice and move toward board certification as a nurse coach.

We begin Thursday, September 10, 2026, with live sessions held on Thursday evenings.

Curious? Here’s what it looks like →

Root Check

Check out three quick picks from CoachRN's resource center or from external sources Mary trusts.

https://nursepreneurs.com/e-myth-coach/

https://engage.healthynursehealthynation.org/blogs/13/3451

The Root of the Matter

May you lead with more ease, listen with more depth, and remember to take good care of your roots this month. What is beneath the surface is where the real growth begins.