Career Coaching Secrets

Navigating Identity & Career: Insights from Payal Shah

• Davis Nguyen

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Join Rexhen Doda as he chats with Payal Shah, a certified career and leadership coach and founder of Passion Empowered. Payal shares her journey from a corporate job to coaching, focusing on mid-career bicultural professionals feeling stuck. She discusses leveraging strategic alliances for client acquisition and the unique challenges of her niche, including cultural taboos around seeking help. Payal outlines her goal to grow her own business through increased visibility, like podcasts, and emphasizes the crucial role of community and peer support for coaches.

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Payal Shah:

So when I started my career as a coach, there was always this conversation around figuring out your niche, figuring out your niche. Because if you tell someone you're a life coach, that might sound intriguing, but it doesn't resonate with them because it just sounds so broad. And other coaches out there may have heard about this conversation as well around figuring out your niche, right? So I was trying to figure out my niche. And I knew career... Like clarity empowerment was an area of interest for me. So I decided to land on that. And I also knew I didn't want to coach someone like just starting their career. I wanted to coach someone kind of like myself who had been, you know, doing some work and realized over time that the work they kind of had journeyed into was maybe not like the right fit for them or there was something else kind of calling to them.

Davis Nguyen:

Thank you. Before Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven- and eight-figure career coaching businesses myself and consulted with two career coaching businesses that are now doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or just building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Rexhen, and today's guest is Pal Shah. She is a certified professional coach and the founder of Passion Empowered. She helps mid-career professionals get unstuck and find clarity, purpose and renewed momentum in both work and life. Drawing from her own experience, navigating transitions and empowering others to do the same, Pile customizes her coaching to meet people where they are, whether at crossroads or already on the move. It's my pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Pile.

Payal Shah:

Thank you, Rexhen. Great to be here.

Rexhen Doda:

Pau, tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become a coach.

Payal Shah:

Yeah, yeah. It's like a long journey. It's like a decade-long journey, at least. Maybe one can say it started when I was very young. I'm not sure. But I would say when I was in the corporate world, I was taking some personal development classes on the side, and I had coaches in them that really helped me see what I thought was beyond my potential, like they saw that it was capable of it, right? And they kind of pushed me to kind of realize that for myself. And I thought that was just so powerful to see something that we don't feel like we're capable of doing and then push past that and prove to ourselves that we are capable of doing that. So that whole experience was very powerful. And I think at that point in time, I was actively starting to think about, hey, maybe coaching is a career option. But again, I was still in the corporate world. Still doing my thing. It was a good, good job. So it wasn't like an easy place to necessarily leave, but it did start like looking at that as a career option. So I got a book on coaching. I didn't do much else. And then there was a reorg at the corporation. And so I was like really focused on doing a whole other role really well. But once I left, I still had career, not career coaching, but I had coaching in general as an interest. And so I enrolled in a coaching program, got certified, and that began, more formally began that journey for me.

Rexhen Doda:

so um and so you you you left your job was that like you you left your job to do um this uh training and then get into coaching what was that it i i

Payal Shah:

was at the corporation about 10 years i think the last role i was in um again it was reorged into was not a good fit for me so i tried it out for a while and um even before that role i think i was wanting to do something that felt more impactful more directly on people's lives and so while i did enjoy um making like having creating relationship with our customers and helping them out with their accounts um ultimately it wasn't the type of work that had me feeling fulfilled and then the last role was also just not aligned kind of my interests and my strengths and that sort of thing so it made sense to kind of leave and then i had this you know opening where I could do whatever I wanted, which is a daunting question to ask oneself. But I knew when I asked myself that question that coaching was still of interest. And so I can talk more about this later, but I think I didn't have it all figured out, but I knew what next step felt like a good next step. And that's kind of where I started with enrolling in a coaching program.

Rexhen Doda:

And how does the journey look like right after you started? Well, actually, From the moment you started the program to where you actually moved and created your own coaching business and all the way to today, shortly, how was that journey?

Payal Shah:

Yeah, it's been a very interesting journey, to say the least. It definitely feels more aligned to who I am and what I care about than what I was doing prior, so I will say that much. It has its own set of challenges and its own set of opportunities, and I'll talk more about those as well. But when the journey started, again, I had this, like, the oyster is my world. I can do anything at this point in time. I've left the corporation. What do I want to do? And I also, like, had a financial cushion. So I knew I didn't have to like rush to make a decision. So I really like looked at, you know, what was important for me. And I, again, coaching, um, was of interest. So I, it, I knew myself. I knew having some sort of a structured way of becoming a coach would be helpful for me. If I try to do it on my own, I might miss the mark. And I also just like having some sort of structure. So I enrolled in the program, I think, a couple months after I left my job. And then I was excited because I got to be a student again. And I hadn't had that for many years. And the program I did my coaching training through was IPEC. And it was just a very positive experience. you know encouraging kind of messaging that they have around the program kind of like you know you kind of shared the beginning of this like where you're at is kind of where where you need to be um and so it just resonated with me and so I enrolled in that it was I think um a seven month active program like you know part-time it wasn't like a full-time thing um but it was It was a lot of fun. It was really powerful. I got to meet a lot of great coaches, some of whom I'm still in contact with today. So great cohort of people, great content, great training and a good set of instructors. And so that was that was the journey at that point in time. After that, it was kind of like figuring out things on my own, which is interesting. Right. I found myself doing a lot of behind the scenes stuff, which is necessary for setting up one's business. But it was like. working a lot of time on my website, trying to perfect that and getting feedback on it, you know, created business cards, figured out like online, you know, calendaring, that sort of thing. There's a whole bunch of different things logistics wise that, you know, comes with business building. So I think there was like a couple of years of that, but also just doing different sorts of jobs to kind of earn money as well. Right. I was, I was interested in financial planning as well around that time. So I was doing an internship around that. I was doing some of the work I did in, um, in search marketing as like a consultant. So there's a bit of that as well. So it's kind of a hodgepodge and trying to figure things out on my own. At some point I did enroll in a business building program. So I did that, a lot of great advice and tips, but I also realized I need to implement this advice and tips before I can really see more results. So I knew that I had the content, now it was about executing on it. And then fast forward, One of my coaching friends from that training program actually introduced me to a mental health coaching company and said they were hiring. So I thought, why not? This is a great way to just start getting clients. I had a few clients, but it's kind of sporadic when they would come in. And so I thought this is a great way to have a consistent stream of clients and get to do what I love to do, which is coach. And so I joined that company about four years ago. And then I think I know I'm going very long winded, but that I think actually I'm going to backtrack the year before I got connected to a couple other South Asian coaches and we thought like there is a great opportunity. in this space to raise awareness about the benefits of coaching and kind of the impact of this work amongst the south asian community so the three of us kind of collaborated to create a south asian coaches initiative and you know had like a workshop series and um just different social media and stuff that we were doing together so it was kind of a collaboration that we did and then the following years when i joined the mental wellness company as a part-time coach and then um so that was through a connection that I had. I wasn't even actively looking, but because that connection sought, you know, value in my skills as the coach, she introduced it to me. And then I also had, it's interesting, like on LinkedIn, I feel a lot of people reach out trying to sell us things, but sometimes you get like a gem in the mix, right? And someone had reached out about their own coaching startup that needed career coaches. I was like, okay, this seems like a reasonable request, genuine request. And I spoke to that person and I ended up becoming like a contract coach with that company. I didn't end up getting a lot of leads through that company in terms of coaching clients, but I did meet another coach who introduced me to another company also doing career coaching. And then I worked with them for a couple of years. And so I'm going to pause there because I've just shared a lot, but it's just been like a hodgepodge of different opportunities coming my way. that I've like evaluated and said yes to that have led me to kind of where I am today.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. Thanks for sharing all of that. And like later on, you basically continued this path where you're working with a company as a subcontractor, where at least you don't have to do a lot of marketing for your own and a lot of sales. You're still kind of like maybe doing that, but to a smaller scale for the people who come directly to you, right?

Payal Shah:

Yeah, that's correct.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And when it comes to the people that you work with, typically, is there a target audience? Is there a specific group of people that you generally work with about these companies?

Payal Shah:

Yeah. Great question. So when I started my career as a coach, there was always this conversation around like figuring out your niche, figuring out your niche, because if you tell someone you're a life coach, that might sound intriguing, but it doesn't resonate with them because it just sounds so broad. And other coaches out there may have heard about this conversation as well around figuring out your niche, right? So I was trying to figure out my niche and I knew career like clarity empowerment was an area of interest for me. So I decided to land on that. And I also knew I didn't want to coach someone like just starting their career. I wanted to coach someone kind of like myself who had been, you know, doing some work and realized over time that the work they kind of had journeyed into was maybe not like the right fit for them or there was something else kind of calling to them. So I made my focus mid-career professionals and I use like the word feeling stuck because that's kind of like the feeling that sometimes comes up for some people of like, what do I do next? I've already invested all this time in the career that I'm doing. I know I'm not satisfied with it. I could either try to make it work or I could explore doing something else. But it's scary because I already invested all this time in this area, right? So there's this question of like, what do I do? I feel kind of stuck, right? And really like digging deep with that individual to kind of figure out what is it that is going to help them feel fulfilled, right? Given where they are at this point in time. So that's been my, you know, target goal. niche for a while now. And through that and through the mental wellness coaching and through the career coaching of BIPOC individuals to the other company, I was seeing that a lot of clients I was getting were clients who were bicultural, who struggled sometimes with these questions because of their bicultural background. There's one thing the American culture says, another thing their culture says, and how do you make them mix? you know, how do you navigate like a career transition if your family is not really on board with it or like those sorts of things, right? And so what I realized is that especially with the mental wellness company, I was attracting a lot of East Asian and South Asian clients just naturally, like they would find me in the listings and they're like, yeah, sure, I'll try to work with her. And I realized that when coaching was made available as a resource, like as an employee resource, like a lot of people would try it out. People who may not otherwise go out and pay for it themselves, when they have it as a benefit, they might try after the first time. So I was getting a lot of people new to coaching who are East Asian, South Asian in descent and really getting to experience the power of coaching through that sort of space. So that's an area that I've like newly started to focus on, at least more in my marketing. I have been focusing on that clientele, but now more in my marketing, bicultural individuals feeling stuck and looking to create more purposeful, meaningful lives is kind of my focus now.

Rexhen Doda:

And that being the focus now, if we were to look at the future, are there any goals that you're working towards for like the next one to three years with your coaching business?

Payal Shah:

Yeah. What

Rexhen Doda:

would your future look like?

Payal Shah:

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, definitely, there's always a goal of growing my coaching business. And I still work with, you know, another company as a contractor, or I guess I'm a technical employee, but I work with them as a coach. And I enjoy getting clients through the mental wellness company to coach. It's just, it's a really joy, like the sorts of conversations I get to have. At the same time, I've always like held on to having my own business. I haven't yet decided like i'm gonna go back full time and work for somebody else there's part of me that enjoys having my own thing um i don't feel like i've always like cracked the nut and like how to make it a sustainable you know big business um but there's an interest there so i think my goals next one to three years is to is to grow my business but to grow it from all the knowledge i've gained the last few years so i think I did a lot more marketing, let's say, four years ago. I'm a different coach. I'm a different person than I am four years ago. And there's a lot of deep knowledge around specifically what bicultural individuals may go through that I can speak to. So this also includes doing more social media. It also includes being as podcast guests, as nerve-wracking as I can feel, right, to get myself out there and to just talk about these challenges and opportunities that we might have as bicultural individuals.

Rexhen Doda:

Nice. And so basically you're trying to grow your, like the goal is in the future, like one to three years, you're trying to grow your own business and try to get leads on your own business directly as opposed to working for another company and getting clients that way. I really like that goal. And yeah, when it comes to these podcasts, yeah, for me, personally I am kind of like an introvert so even though even though I'm an introvert still I kind of like do well in one-to-one conversations so even for me it's not that easy however like over experience I think I've gotten better but I feel that you have the right mindset when it comes to doing marketing for your own business so as many podcasts as you can do I think that's going to help in getting more eyeballs out of LinkedIn especially because this type of content is not easy ai so like an ai um like with the world that are we are in now an ai could do like an an article it could even do like a full copy of yourself and a video with it however for the podcast and being authentic a human i feel like this is something that we uh as humans have an advantage over ai so i feel like yeah a lot of people are going to be interested in um seeing more of your true and authentic self throughout these podcasts i feel like you have the right mindset about that the next question i have for you is uh when it comes to your um coaching business um you mentioned that you first invested in yourself by going into uh and learning more about how to coach how to be a coach at early beginnings and having a structure about that have there been other investments after that um and by other investments i mean that have actually helped you grow your coaching business maybe investments in yourself or maybe you've been part of like a coaching program a masterminds or maybe communities that you found to be useful in you growing your coaching business

Payal Shah:

yeah it's a good question i think

Rexhen Doda:

um

Payal Shah:

In investment, like money-wise, I did a coaching business billing program, right? So again, lots of great knowledge. Some of it, I probably still need to go through back to my notes and implement some of it, right? So even tips like, you know, having like a freebie offer to lead gen, just offering something of value to someone that they don't have to pay for, right? Things like that. I think I learned through those sorts of programs or other sorts of coaching conversations that were around me. Apart from that, I think just investing in our own personal development. I think I've done one-off personal development programs. I'm not even working on building my business, but deepening my own self-awareness, which just goes a long ways in our work as coaches with other individuals. And it helps us see and empathize with our clients by having our own self-awareness deepened. So I think those sorts of works have been useful. And then I guess, I don't know if this counts as business building. I think it does. I think there's like a financial investment around just having those like behind the same things taken care of. Like, do you have something that you use to help send contracts? Do you have a calendaring program? Do you have a website? Do you have other sorts of ways, right? Do you have social media marketing? So there are like financial investments in some of those places that you make just to help your business operate more simply, right? So it's less time spent doing admin work, but it's just the flow is kind of there for you once a client signs on and works with you, decides to work with you.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, totally. Those are very important investments. And I've had coaches that I've interviewed in the past as well that talk a lot about the importance of having automations to eliminate the admin work so that you're focused on the rest of the business, which is the coaching side or maybe the marketing, but not the operations side of marketing, but basically working on the strategy and also the sales side of it. So I wanted to ask you, in the moment that you decided to move into coaching and now it's been seven years and two months and maybe a little bit more, is there something that you wish you had known first when you started it? that is like an unexpected or expected lesson learned?

Payal Shah:

Yeah, I think it's one of those things where you have to kind of go through it to get it. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Like, I did have people tell me, like, I remember a person who had done that personal development training that I'd done. And he's like, you know, it's one thing to be a coach in there as a volunteer. It's another thing to try to make a career as a coach. That's a whole other level. I forget the word you use, but it's different. I remember one of my colleagues at work saying there's a lot of hustle involved. Hustle culture involved in running your own business. They weren't necessarily... telling me not to do it, they were kind of like giving me, like heeding me warnings, like, hey, this might be difficult. And so I kind of got that conceptual, I was like, okay, it might be difficult, right? But I also was like, I still wanna try it. So it's not like I wasn't warned. And it has been difficult, but I guess one thing I didn't realize or take into account is that as a coach, even though I came from the sales world within the corporation, I was like, well, I don't wanna do sales anymore. It's still sales, right? Now we gotta relate to it differently. And there is like, I think, again, conversations around like really getting enrolled in the work that you're doing such that it's not selling anymore. It's just sharing, right? It's getting to that point, but it can feel icky. It can feel transactional when we're in like, I have to sell myself. I have to sell my practice, right? And what's scary is that you are your own brand. So it's not like I'm selling that product or service over there and like letting the sales do it for itself, like by promoting kind of the qualities of it. I have to sell myself. I don't even want to use this out, but I've done role people in me, you know, and that is very vulnerable. It can be confronting. It's very personal. And so I didn't anticipate that in going into this. I think a lot of people are drawn to coaching because they are service oriented. They want to help other people. But then there's this whole other business side of it, which is. can not be healing right um and i just want to acknowledge that and i think that business building course i did take i was one thing that the woman who created that had mentioned is like if you want to be like a coach running in practice you have to love both coaching and you'll have to at least be interested in running your own business like both have to exist to some degree right um and i remember that i was like yeah okay that's good to keep in mind so those are a few lessons um i think It doesn't change. It wouldn't change what I do, but I'm more aware of them now, I guess.

Rexhen Doda:

I actually had a coach just last evening, yesterday, where I was interviewing her and she also had a similar kind of challenge when it comes to sales, which is, for her, it was more of like a mindset challenge of bringing up the actual... like setting a number to the service that you're providing, like putting a price to it. She always had kind of like a challenge with it mindset-wise on when to bring that up. This is especially the case initially. And I think with experience, once you start getting more clients, in your case, you kind of like have in a way avoided that because you're not doing that. bully on your own, but there's some clients that come to you directly where you face that. I feel like it just goes with experience and over time you just need to shift your mindset when it comes to sales. One other question I wanted to ask you is what is the biggest challenge you're facing now? You mentioned that you want to grow your coaching business over time as a goal. What would you say is the biggest challenge you're facing now in scaling your coaching business that if you were to fix that it would get much easier for the rest of it is it the sales part is it the lead generation part or is it something else maybe your time what would you say is the biggest challenge

Payal Shah:

I would say at this point it's probably lead generation and the biggest challenge I see is like getting on my own way and maybe other coaches out there understand that right it's like as we're coaching others right it's also continuously building the self-awareness around where we're creating limited beliefs for ourselves right and so for me i've never had in my mind like oh yeah my business is going to be like the sole seven eight figure source of income for me i was like yeah it would be a source of income but i like doing different things so i'll have income from different places so i've had that mindset why i have that mindset i don't know maybe Maybe I think it's too much work to get to that level. Maybe I think it's not possible. But I do realize there's mindset limitations, right? And so in similar vein to kind of like the coaches I had, this is just occurring to me, so I'll just share. Similar vein to the coaches I had in the personal development program, I need to push myself past what my limited beliefs are, right? That means like challenging them by saying like, okay, well, I... don't know if it's going to go well if I do a podcast, let's do it anyway. Or finding that healthy balance. There's a framework. Sometimes here with clients, it's not my framework. It's one that's out there. It's like there's three concentric circles. The middle one is your comfort zone. The one outside of that is your stretch zone. The one outside of that is your panic zone. So we know what comfort zone feels like. We're in it, that sort of thing. We know what panic zone feels like. It's scary. It's daunting. You're paralyzed, right? The goal isn't to get yourself into panic zone. It's to get yourself into a stretch zone around the things that we end up taking on, whether pushing our clients to look at that for themselves or doing that for ourselves. So we're blocking the talk with our clients. So definitely that's the biggest reason for, I think, the lead gen. I think the other couple of things are like, I know what I need to do, like with the business building program, I know I need to get myself just out there speaking and speaking my truth, speaking why I see the value in this to be without it being like sales, just sharing content, having interesting conversations. I think the other thing is for the niche that I'm looking at now, bi-cultural individuals, at least historically, and I don't know the cases, I think it's changing with generations. I'll just take the South Asian culture. There's this notion to not get help from someone else. for mental health type things. There's a taboo type of topic. So if you talk to people in my parents' generation, most of them would be like, why would you need to see a therapist? Like, it doesn't make sense. Like, we've dealt with this all our lives. Like, there's nothing to get help on, right? And I see you nodding and smiling, so there's some understanding there. So there's that mentality there that we're having to challenge, but it takes something to challenge, like a traditional mindset. Especially if people around you aren't challenging it right and so um it's there is a barrier there that mentality of like ah would like coaching or therapy be helpful for me um maybe maybe not right there's um but what what is the belief that's there for us that's like having us not look at it in the first place right what are things that we're willing to challenge um for ourselves um for our own betterment, right? What are women beliefs, what narratives that we have, what

Rexhen Doda:

are

Payal Shah:

aspects of our identity that like we feel are static that we can actually start to move and discover something new about ourselves through it. So I think there's at least a twofold challenge, one internal, one external, but those are top ones I see.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, at least the good news I think there is when it comes to the traditional thinking of not needing coaching, I think that's kind of slowly going away because a lot of people are actually, and coaching is becoming more common recently. I think a lot of people are seeing the value in it and the people who are seeing the value in it are like, giving more awareness to other people who don't yet see the value. I feel like that is only going to continue to grow. So I feel like eventually we'll get past that challenge. And I had that challenge come up quite often. That's why I was smiling because it's always been kind of like a situation with coaches where they have to explain the value or they find that it's kind of sometimes difficult for people to believe in coaching or invest in coaching sometimes that feels like luxury but it actually isn't and yeah so I do completely I'm fully with you on that and I feel like eventually it's going to move away so yeah is there any final advice you'd like to give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact and this would be like an advice you'd give to yourself if like to yourself when you decide to scale when you decide to take that next step

Payal Shah:

yeah um i think first i want to just offer empathy for anyone feeling like they're struggling i think it Again, like I said, I believe a lot of coaches come into coaching because they're very service-oriented. They're not in it necessarily to make big bucks. So they want to maybe earn a comfortable living. Maybe I'm generalizing. Maybe I'm incorrect. But a lot of it's really about helping other people. And then to come into it and feel like, oh, I've got to sell my services. I've got to sell myself. I've got to do social media. I've got to do everything but coaching to get some coaching clients when all I want to do is coach. That can be disheartening. So I just want to offer empathy for anyone going through that right now. been there I will be there again like it's like a up and down journey right and I will say something that I didn't actively work on but I had around me or I've had around me is just coaching colleagues right whether it's like so the coaching like program I did like a number of us we stayed in contact we would have monthly just chats for about six years since the program ended like so we were in touch right and still I can reach out to any one of those individuals and feel like chat with them and like commiserate or share what's going on or celebrate the wins because the wins that we have in this world, being in this world, they may not seem like extraordinary wins to someone outside. It's like, oh, great. You got some more likes on your post. It's like, but that took something. That had me put myself out there in a whole sort of way. Someone who's So having colleagues or other people in the industry who you trust, that you feel like have your back, that you feel like you can talk to honestly, authentically about the challenges, who might have their own advice or guidance, who might have their own networks that you can reach out to. Again, the two contract type roles that I have outside of my own practice that I've gotten have been through contacts I've had, other coach colleagues. And I wasn't actively pursuing them, but because I was in contact with them and they knew how I was as a coach, they were able to put me in touch with these opportunities. So having a community, it can feel very lonely. being any sort of entrepreneur can feel lonely. But having some sort of community around you, I think, to kind of support you so you don't feel alone, I think can be valuable.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, and I think there's a lot of communities like that that people can look up online and even our communities, that kind of community in a way. So thank you so much, Paul. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. I think this was a great episode. For anyone who wants to reach out to you or connect with you, they can find you on your LinkedIn at paulshaw. And they can also find you on your website, passionempowered.com. Is there any other way they could connect with

Payal Shah:

you? You can find me on Instagram. I'm starting to post there a little bit more under Passion Empowered. And yeah, look at the content if it feels good and relevant, feel free to follow me. But no, otherwise that covers it. Arjun, thank you. It's been such a pleasure. And thank you for being an incredible host for this conversation.

Davis Nguyen:

Thank you for coming. Thank you.