WE ARE FINALISTS. Also, Rouge didn't make it. Let me explain.

We just found out...

So I wrote this...

Hey TEAM 12 X 12!

Great news, delivered with more emotional whiplash than usual: the 12 X 12 Research Project is officially a Finalist for the 2026 ICF Coaching Impact Awards, Social Impact category.

I found out mid-memory of the trip that almost broke me. Last year I drove Rouge, my Tesla, on the "Plugged IN, Charged UP" EV road trip for 15,000 miles of advocacy, one deer strike survived with guerrilla tape holding a mirror bracket together for 9,000 more miles, eleven strangers converted into EV owners along the way. Rouge and I were seven hours from the finish line in Northwest Arizona, on a sunny Sunday at noon, when a drunk driver ran a red light over a hill and hit us.

Rouge was totaled. I walked away without a scratch, because that car did exactly what it was built to do and put itself between me and the impact. I've since replaced her with Scarlett, same model, fewer miles, half the price, sold to me by a West Point graduate who had no idea that he was actually handing off to a former USAFA Cadet Captain.

So here's what I keep coming back to: 15,000 miles, one deer, one drunk driver, and a car that gave everything so I could keep going and somehow that's also the year the four of us turned "how do we actually do this?" into a body of research good enough to be named a finalist on a global stage.

I don't think those two things are unrelated. Rouge didn't finish the drive. But everything the drive was for, the climate advocacy, the EV modeling, the stories, the stubborn insistence on showing up anyway just kept going. So did we. FIREWORKS and MIC exist because none of us stopped when the road got hard, literally or otherwise.

Whatever happens on October 5, this already happened: a panel of strangers read what we built and believed it mattered.

Claire, thank you for the writing that made this research sing.

Fran, for the steadiness and the Brazil expansion, gracious gratitudes.

Padraic, for pushing this work into rooms it hadn't reached yet. None of this was a solo drive. Go raibh maith agat!

(Per ICF's rules: if any of us hears anything before October 5, it's confidential until the public reveal. Not even Scarlett gets told early.)

Plugged IN, Charged UP,

Kat

Then ICF sent us this:

Hello dear Finalists!

It is wonderful to see so many of you celebrating your finalist recognition on social media!! So much excitement! 🌟🌟

I may have missed some posts, so if you've shared one, please feel free to send me the link.

And if you're posting, don't forget to include #ICFImpact and feel free to tag ICF as well 😊

We're thrilled to celebrate this milestone with you. Keep enjoying every moment!

Best,

Stephanie

https://coachingfederation.org/blog/icf-announces-finalists-for-the-2026-icf-coaching-impact-awards/

So this is my request...

Please share this post to your socials to amplify this big win for one of your sisters: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7486489182736093184/

1:15 a.m., somewhere outside Atlanta. A deer runs straight into Rouge, my Tesla Meanwhile someone other than me is driving her for the very first time in her life. My friend, wide-eyed, hands at ten and two, having just taken the wheel an hour earlier. Panicked, in shock, she loudly repeats, "Stay on the road!"

My friend, both hands at ten and two, having held the wheel for exactly one hour, looks over at me like "is this a metaphor." We pull over. Mirror bracket hanging on for dear life (pun fully intended) and cracked headlamp. Guerrilla tape becomes a long-term relationship for the next 9,000 miles. Nobody hurt. Rouge just shakes it off like she's been in worse bar fights.

That's the story I actually want to tell you. Not the quiet 5 a.m. wake-up-worried-about-the-planet story, but the loud, absurd, wide-awake-at-1am one. Because that's what climate work actually feels like. It is not a calm meditation. It is a deer in your headlights while you're driving cross-country to defend the idea that coaching belongs in the climate fight — and somehow, everyone survives, and you keep driving anyway.

That's what I was doing last year: driving Rouge coast to coast to help carry our 12 x 12 findings into the world, moved by a simple, urgent question. How are coaches actually showing up for clients in a climate crisis? I joined Fran Smith, Claire d'Aboville, and Padraic O'Donnell, PCC, who were interviewing pioneering coaches worldwide who are bringing the climate crisis directly into the coaching room. International Coaching Federation offered a speaking spot to them. That's where I came in to help tell the story from a seasoned (800+ TEDx Talks) speaker coach who had produced 65 TEDx events over 17 years. We became Team 12 x 12.

What we heard was too useful to keep to ourselves. So what came next?

1. We partnered with the Climate Coaching Alliance to house it all, free, forever.
2. We backed it with a global survey of climate coaches with hard data behind the human stories.
3. Coaching at Work asked us for both an article and followed up with a podcast request.
4. Fran and I presented at ICF's annual conference Converge in San Diego.
5. We hosted 11 webinars connecting 11/12 pioneering coaches interviewed directly to CCA's community with triple the usual attendance at each session.
6. And this week: we were notified that TEAM 12 X 12 are finalists for the International Coaching Federation's 2026 Coaching Social Impact Emerging Catalyst Award. Stay tuned: winner announced October 5th.

Here's what I want you to sit with: this isn't an award for a nice idea. It's recognition that the inner work: how we relate to fear, to each other, to this planet, is not separate from the outer work of saving it. Right relationship with Earth starts with right relationship with ourselves. Coaching builds that bridge.

Rouge took a deer strike and kept driving. So did we.

#ICFImpact

#ICF

#ClimateCoachingAlliance

#FranSmith

Thanks everyone who drove with us for fun & climate impact.

We modeled and WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER.