Career Coaching Secrets

Fara Yazdani: Leveraging MBTI for Career Clarity and Confidence

• Davis Nguyen

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Rexhen Doda interviews Fara Yazdani, a career coach, MBTI practitioner, and talent strategist. Drawing on a decade in HR, Farah helps professionals find clarity, confidence, and momentum for fulfilling careers. She uses her MBTI certification to foster self-awareness. Her client acquisition relies on LinkedIn and referrals.

Farah plans to expand into group programs and workshops and is working towards ICF executive coach certification. She stresses starting before perfection and the challenge of delegating tasks. She also acknowledges the future impact of AI on coaching.

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Fara Yazdani:

I guess one of the biggest challenges is letting go of doing everything myself. Like many entrepreneurs, like we wear many hats, our own coach, business coach, or our own admin, contact creator, marketer, finance. So I'm learning to start to simplify my work and ask for help. I want to sort of protect my energy and focus on more on what I do best, which is coaching and supporting my clients. So that's why I find right now my biggest challenge is to not to do everything myself, ask for help.

Davis Nguyen:

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. 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. Today, we're joined by Farah Yazdani. a career coach mbti certified practitioner and talent strategist with a heart centered approach to transition coaching with deep roots in hr and talent acquisition Farah brings over a decade of insider knowledge to her coaching practice, helping professionals thrive in sectors from biomedical to clean energy. But what sets her apart is her blend of empathy and strategy, meeting clients where they are while giving them the tools to move forward with clarity and confidence. In this episode, we'll unpack how coaches can build trust quickly, the power of soft skills in a result-driven market and how to create client strategies that actually convert. And it's my pleasure to have Farah on the podcast. Farah, welcome to the show.

Fara Yazdani:

Hey, Erjan. Thank you so much for such a wonderful introduction about me. I couldn't do it any better than you did. I'm really excited to be here and share a bit about my journey. My name is Farah. I'm the career professionals who feel stuck or unsure about their next step and I help them find clarity, confidence and momentum so they can build careers that actually feel good, not just look good on paper. I've spent over a decade in HR recruitment. And as you said earlier, I'm also certified in the Myers-Briggs type indicator assessment. I use it to help clients build self-awareness because once you understand your natural strengths, communication and decision-making preferences, it becomes so much easier to figure out next steps and what kind of work actually fits.

Rexhen Doda:

So thanks so much for that. And thank you for coming to the podcast and taking the time to come into our show. And if you could tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become a coach.

Fara Yazdani:

Honestly, given my background in HR, I've always been the person that people turn into for career advice. Over time, especially working in the recruitment and retention space, I realized that The part that I loved the most wasn't just hiring, it was actually helping people find direction. Coaching felt like a really natural step for me, supporting mid-career professionals to sort of rediscover purpose and career change. So that's what led me to start Revive Career Coaching.

Rexhen Doda:

And can you tell me more about your journey from the moment that you started it to where you are at today? So how does that look like? I know it's been right now you're doing this one year and three months, if not more. Can you share more about how that journey looks like? You're doing it, are you doing it full-time, part-time, or have you changed on that? How does that look like?

Fara Yazdani:

So what I call it is like a pivoting into a new role. So I still feel that I still work in HR. So I've been able to use my background in HR in helping, especially from recruitment intention, in helping find their next role. I always say I feel like I can add value to our conversations. So it really naturally felt like a very natural next step for me. At the beginning, before I moved into the career coaching. I was helping people with resumes and LinkedIn and job search strategies. But I quickly realized that the problem wasn't just the resume. I think it was the confidence and clarity about people, where to go. So that's how I learned to lean deeper into coaching and also became certified in the Myers-Briggs type assessment because I find that it's such a helpful tool because it brings self-awareness into the process of career awareness.

Rexhen Doda:

Go

Fara Yazdani:

ahead.

Rexhen Doda:

I was just going to ask you, so when it comes to the people that you work with and your target audience, can you share a little bit more about that and what transformation do you help them achieve?

Fara Yazdani:

So when my clients understand how they make decisions, what drains them, um what motivates them um they start to see the career options with a fresh start for example just most recently i i worked with a client that was laid off from an organization um she was working in the same role uh for the past 15 years and thought that she had nowhere to go and she didn't have any other options she was honestly quite devastated. Together, we were able to reframe her experiences, looking at all of her transferable skills, rebuilding her confidence. And recently, she ended up landing a leadership role in a completely different, she said, you know what, being laid off was the best thing that happened to me. And I finally got my spark back. So this is an area where I truly feel blessed in working with folks like her, giving her confidence and momentum and clarity to find her next role.

Rexhen Doda:

And where are you currently finding your clients? What marketing channel works best for you?

Fara Yazdani:

The marketing channel that works best for me right now is LinkedIn. That is the area that I use a lot. Also, I feel that word of mouth is really important for me as well. I try to show up online in a way that is real and helpful for folks, sharing stories, tips, and kinds of questions that people are already asking themselves. I also get referrals with which I really, value because it means that people are getting results and um telling others which is awesome my approach isn't just hard selling um it's about connection and um building confidence and and uh trust

Rexhen Doda:

and do do you have like right now um after one year and three months uh do you have any goals you're working towards with uh your coaching business for let's say the next one year or the next one to three years

Fara Yazdani:

honestly region i have a long wish list i'm working to expand revive into a more group-based program and workshops so then i can support more people especially those who are not ready for that one-on-one coaching but they still need a I want to build more resources, even a course, use a podcast as a space to have honest conversations and career growth, especially for midlife career professionals. So this is my long wish list right now.

Rexhen Doda:

And on your goal right now to get there, and we'll get to that as well, but to get there so far with one years and three months like you mentioned, has there been any like in either coaching programs, masterminds or communities that you found valuable in growing your coaching business or any investment at all that you feel like has made a difference a difference in you growing your business?

Fara Yazdani:

So I think for me becoming certified in Revive Career Coaching has become a very good investment for me because it really helps individuals find self-awareness with self-awareness and finding their next step so I find that investing in certified in this area has you know it's giving me a really good tool to help individuals get to the next step.

Rexhen Doda:

And just for me to know, when it comes to the certification, which one is that that you have? Is that the MBTI?

Fara Yazdani:

Yes, it's called Myers-Briggs type, the inside type.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. So, and... Throughout your experience so far, has there been any like something that you wish you had known first when you started scaling your coaching business? Any unexpected lessons learned?

Fara Yazdani:

Honestly, I feel like you don't have to have it all figured out right at the beginning. You know, I think we spend a lot of time, especially when we find something new to do, we spend a lot of time overthinking about it and trying to make everything perfect. Well, I learned that again, for myself, to give myself clarity and from the actions that I take. So I feel like the first version of what I'm doing is not the final version. So it's good to just start, let it go and the people who need you will find you. eventually.

Rexhen Doda:

I totally agree with that. I don't think any coach has it figured out all from the start. Eventually, we all learn from experiences in our business. I tend to learn from other coaches because I don't coach myself, but I've gotten to learn quite a few new tips and tricks and things that you could optimize your coaching business with from the experience of coaches that are in different levels like today I had a coach that I interviewed she was talking about how she's utilizing her connection with recruiters in order to help her coaching business and she had a partnership with recruiters which kind of like also helps her success rate because she's working on both ends like helping people prepare to get a job and also connecting with the right people that could the gatekeepers of that job as well and it's a win-win situation because sending the best candidates to these recruiters helps the recruiter speed up their process. From the coach's perspective, it helps the client move forward with success. From the client's perspective, obviously, they get the job. So that is also kind of an interesting win-win-win situation for all parties involved that I didn't know that I just had today on the interview on the podcast. So that episode will come out too. You'll be able to see that. But I just want to mention that, yeah, we tend to learn a lot from what are some of the biggest challenges that that you either face or you're still facing right now in scaling your coaching business?

Fara Yazdani:

I guess one of the biggest challenges is letting go of doing everything myself. Like many entrepreneurs, we wear many hats. Our own coach, business coach, or our own admin, contact creator, marketer, finance. So I'm learning to start to simplify my work and ask for help. I want to sort of protect my energy and focus on more on what I do best, which is coaching and supporting my clients. So that's why I find right now my biggest challenge is not to do everything myself, ask for help.

Rexhen Doda:

I totally agree. And I think as a coach, receiving... coaching goes kind of like without saying, because if you are willing to try to get someone that you can coach, you also should be willing to be coached as well. You should believe in coaching to be able to coach as well. So the final question that I have for you today is, what advice would you give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact?

Fara Yazdani:

Pre-reveal. Show up consistently. People are drawn to your energy and not just your credibility and credentials. Focus on connections and building trust. And like I said earlier, don't wait until everything is perfect to start. People who want to help you are already looking for someone like you. Those would be my advice to myself and also other coaches as well.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you so much, Farah. It's been lovely having you on the podcast. For anyone who wants to connect with you or reach out to you, they can find you on your LinkedIn at Farah Astani, which is spelled F-A-R-A. And then last name is Y-A-Z-D-A-N-I. So Farah Astani, you can find her on LinkedIn. Also, when it comes to your website is fararevivecoach.com. Is there any other way people can connect with you?

Fara Yazdani:

I think that's it, really. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram as well under Farah Revive Coaching, also on Facebook. So I'm on two other social media platforms as well.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you so much, Farah. It was lovely having you on the show.

Fara Yazdani:

Thank you so much. Thank you so much again for such a great conversation. Thank you.

Rexhen Doda:

And a note for the editor, we end the podcast here. I think it went great, but how do you think it went?

Fara Yazdani:

I don't know. What do you think? I think I stumbled on advice for other coaches how to scale your business. I

Rexhen Doda:

think that was fine. I think that was fine because, like I said, When it comes to these answers, you don't have to be perfect. Stumbling is not really an issue. What the message is, what's important. I think you did good with the message, so totally fine with that. We don't have to be amazing orators when we're talking, so I think it's all good. And by the way, I've mentioned, I don't know if I mentioned you to this before, but we have two bonuses for anyone who comes into the podcast. And one is that one is a research paper that I've done at the end of 2024 on the state of career coaching, where I interviewed about 71 coaches, which most of them were career coaches. Some of them were executive coaches and leadership coaches. And that research paper goes into how they structured their business this their offer their pricing what marketing channels did they utilize and things like that I think I don't know if I mentioned this to you before but I will send that to you as a bonus and over email and the second bonus this is optional if you want to take advantage of it is if you want have like a strategy session with Davis on the current challenges that you have for example in figuring out how to like like when it comes to when it comes to figuring out the marketing for example like or taking one one business as back at a time. Operations, marketing, sales, or improving your sales conversion. All of that is something that I think you could ask Davis and maybe just get some advices is offered for any coach that comes into our podcast. Thank you for joining us and reaching our podcast with this episode. So let me know if you also want to take advantage of that second one. And also, before you think about that, there could be two um options for you to consider this right now uh are you thinking of like uh going uh completely full time into your own coaching practice because i was seeing in your linkedin you also um are on the revive career coaching well actually this is also it was feldman decks and partners

Fara Yazdani:

Yes, there is an, I didn't say fellow indexing partners because I'm not here to advertise them because there's an organization that I work with three times a week. And this is like my part-time job, the money comes in steady. So what they do is I also do career coaching with them, but their career coaching is a bit different, not so much the same, but it's a bit different. You know, outpacement, have you heard of outpacement services? Yeah, yeah. So I'm a career coach as part of their outpacing services. So I guess my reasoning was that I didn't want to advertise them in my sort of podcast. That's why I did not mention their name at all. Right. And I'm happy that you didn't either. I'm not trying to hide everything is on my LinkedIn. But, you know, I mean, what happens if you look at career coaches like jobs, right. I feel like I've seen people have many different organizations that they work for. Nobody is like full-time what they're doing. I would love to become full-time in my own business, but right now, the money is not there, unfortunately. And I just want to mention something that I forgot to mention in terms of my next step is that I want to eventually become an executive coach. That's what I'm working towards. And I'm getting my ICF. I don't know if you know what that is, international know so I forgot to mention that I just because you said executive coaching I totally forgot so that's my next sort of step in terms of my own sort of growth as a career coach

Rexhen Doda:

I see I see okay cool and do you have Are you thinking of like a specific time you want to move into executive coaching just out of curiosity?

Fara Yazdani:

So for me, I feel like I have to build credentials in career coaching a little bit. um just build a little bit more experience and i find that um but that executive coaches i find that either they're like very very super senior in their current role their director level and then they're like i'm done with this director executive level and then i want to move into executive coaches so it's like a very easy pivot for them. But for myself, I feel like it's going to take a bit of time. So my timeline is that at the end of, towards the end of this year, I'm going to start my certification in ICF and hopefully, you know, eventually when I get more credentials, I become executive court. So I don't know honestly how that looks like. I just, people have to kind of reach out to me once I have a bit more experience.

Rexhen Doda:

Oh, great. In that case, I think that taking this strategy session with Davis would potentially be much better. This is always going to be open to you, by the way. I want to make sure that you use it when you are mostly thinking of doing this also as full time. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to send you an email and I'm going to include on the email together with the first bonus, which was the I'm going to send you also the link where you can book this call with Davis. So you'll have that link and you can schedule the call whenever you think it's valuable to you. And this is only from my perspective. You can also schedule it at any time. I was just thinking to better make use of this call. session that is free would be the best time would be once you also get into maybe the executive coaching so you can save the link and schedule a call later on whenever you feel like you want to use it

Fara Yazdani:

okay so what if i want to get executive coaching with more getting myself out there hey that i want to be executive coach Jeremy. I have a call with one of my colleagues next week and I have a conversation with her because she's the one who's an ICF, she's certified and she's an executive coach. So I'm going to speak to her a little bit about it and then I'll speak to your colleague. So can you tell me a little bit about my conversation with him? How does it look like?

Rexhen Doda:

So in terms of the conversation field, you can feel of it as a coffee chat where you're talking about how to expand your career coaching business, looking into your challenges right now. And you can just ask Davis because he's helped multiple coaches accelerate their growth into growing their coaching business. And we have multiple ways we can do that. questions and get value from Davis, maybe get answers on how he has helped multiple coaches or strategies that are working for him right now. And depending on the challenge, what you're going to ask, for example, if the challenge is in generating leads, you can focus the call on that. If your challenge is on um conversion like sales conversion you can focus on that yeah depends on what you want to focus on but you can still reduce the goal as a strategy session

Fara Yazdani:

okay I apologize. I should have stopped you then, but then I don't know if that could be a little bit when you guys are talking. You're introducing me because I have a bit more than a year and three months of coaching. I've been doing it since September of 2023.

Rexhen Doda:

Okay, so how much has that happened? September in 2020, how many years and months would that be?

Fara Yazdani:

So September to September is one month. And then is that a year and three months? No, no, because I've been a year. So I was a year and three months. I don't know. So September to September, September 2023 to September 2024 in one month. And then September 2024 to... Well, I guess you're right, eh? A year and three months. Was it a year and three months? I feel like it's been longer.

Rexhen Doda:

So again, September one year and then September 2025 has not come yet. So it's one year and then we are now in... May, so the 24th has passed, which means we have October, November, December, January, February, March, April, and we are on May, so it's like one year and seven months.

Fara Yazdani:

Oh, okay, so better. Could you take out how long I've been a career coach in the introduction? Is that okay, or are you able to do that?

Rexhen Doda:

Oh, what I can do is, and by the way, note for the editor here, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read the intro again, and you can take this intro and remove the intro that I did before and use this one instead. So in this one, I'm going to read the whole intro again, but I'm just going to say, well, was it on the intro? Actually, it was not on the intro. Okay, it was in the intro. Okay, so note for the editor, if it's possible, you can just delete the part that it says one year and three months later. It's going to be a little bit challenging because I've mentioned that quite a few times. But one year and three months from one year and seven months, I think it's kind of like close.

Fara Yazdani:

But I think if you say a year and three months, it... just makes me very junior and i feel like i'm not just because i've been working in char for like 10 years and i've been doing it for a long time but it just hasn't been like hey you're a career coach right um so if that's if that if that's that's if that's an issue don't worry about it you just keep this as it is not a big deal at all

Rexhen Doda:

no i'm just thinking like is is is i i don't know if it's possible unless we like record it all from the beginning because it's mentioned so many times and all the questions kind of have that And if we were to cut one year and three months, questions are going to look weird because it's going to be interrupted in a weird way. Oh, you've been doing this and then move

Fara Yazdani:

to the question

Rexhen Doda:

instead of weird. I think it doesn't mean that you're a junior because you might have done it before, but this is when you actually started.

Fara Yazdani:

Yeah.

Rexhen Doda:

an official business so yeah

Fara Yazdani:

okay okay no problem okay norris you keep it there

Rexhen Doda:

and uh we could also like uh in the future uh do like a second episode together maybe like six months from now a year from now and in that moment we could just like do it a little bit differently where I don't mention the time but it would be like another episode and we would be catching up together on how it looks like right now one year later after we interviewed together before

Fara Yazdani:

okay and say hey how's it going sure maybe you know we can do it when I become the ICFI but the certified internationally career coach internationally

Rexhen Doda:

because I'm really

Fara Yazdani:

looking to the next step so

Rexhen Doda:

Great. In that case, what you can do is just make sure to also message davis that okay you finished your um your like you are now you finish your icf uh where you are now working as an executive uh coach and uh you can mention that you have a course you had a conversation with reggie and you wanted to do like a second episode once you became an executive coach so just let davis know how that works and davis was just like book another call with me or optionally i can just give you the link and you can book a call with me um whenever the that happens so I'm gonna give you the link I just but I'm not sure the link is always gonna be this one one year and a half later so I'm just gonna send it to you on the chat but you can save it on your own notes and then if this link doesn't work there's obviously gonna be some other link that you can just message Davis

Fara Yazdani:

so the email address I have for you doesn't work

Rexhen Doda:

the email works the email works uh but i think asking davis might be best uh just in case like in the future i'm no longer hosting or like someone else is a host and i still am a research analyst or like there's two hosts just to make sure that you connect again with me

Fara Yazdani:

okay

Rexhen Doda:

kind of like unpredictable so it's really one year and a half later or like but

Fara Yazdani:

yeah you don't know what's happening

Rexhen Doda:

right

Fara Yazdani:

Like I'm just not copying. Hold on, sorry. It's like, okay, why is this not copying for this? Oh, here. Copy link. Okay. All right. Well, sounds like a plan. Okay.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, yeah. Be happy to have like a second episode. I haven't had any second episodes yet because we've just done this for like three months. But eventually I'll be running into coaches for a second time to see how, where they are at after like a few, like a year after. I'd be happy to do that.

Fara Yazdani:

yeah yeah that's awesome awesome hopefully i have some really good news for you then you know starting to get lucky a lot of credentials like i said i started with this assessment have you ever done mbts yourself

Rexhen Doda:

i haven't and um myself personally since i'm not a coach i uh my uh my focus is mostly on marketing so i only do marketing no

Fara Yazdani:

no this is the the uh the myers-briggs type assessments oh

Rexhen Doda:

it's i think i think i've done that one but i don't remember the results

Fara Yazdani:

I like it. It's a really good assessment and it gives you really good, like a good floppableness of who you are and how to move forward. But, you know, honestly, I think this is the one struggle that I didn't mention during that. I just kind of was debating whether I should mention it or not. I decided not to mention it because, you know, it's in the mind of all of us, right, which is AI. I think AI is just kind of like, I think everybody, not just me, everybody out there, they're like, okay, is this going to take over our job one day, right? So I think that's one of the struggles. Maybe I'll speak to him about it to see how I can sort of move around that a little bit. If anything, I don't know.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, I think... I think we should, yeah, I think we could discuss that definitely even on a later time, because right now I feel like it's not yet a threat to coaches, but in the future it might be. So it could be a discussion for the future. Like I was talking with a coach just right before we had this call and she was a bit concerned. that there were like new AI tools. One of them was launched on LinkedIn, like a career coach on LinkedIn. There was an AI and there's like also... google's career coach ai as well so i don't know if this like a current challenge or it's like a challenge for the next like five years or 10 years but yeah right now it's still not it's more of like an assistant

Fara Yazdani:

okay yeah you know sometimes you know have you ever feel like i heard of that imposter syndrome you know you feel like you feel like you know okay you know there's somebody else i can some other like machine out there can do it better than me and i'm just kind of like so Sometimes I use chat GPT myself and I don't like the advice it gives me. So I'm like, hmm, I don't know, right? So I'm like, okay, I don't think this is sometimes the best tool to use because, you know, we need that human interaction, right? I think that's what's missing with AI and the machines out there. So I was really debating on whether I should say it or not, but that's okay. Maybe next time.

Rexhen Doda:

We have more news next time. Yeah.

Fara Yazdani:

For news next time. Yes, yes, yes.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. Great then. I will give you your time back. It was great meeting you and hopefully we'll meet again in the future with you being an executive coach. And once this podcast episode goes live, I will send you a link. You can watch it as well. I kind of feel bad that we cannot remove that one year and three months now, but I think it's still fine. And yeah, so it was a pleasure overall. I think it was a good episode.

Fara Yazdani:

Thank you so much. Thank

Rexhen Doda:

you.

Davis Nguyen:

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit joinpurplecircle.com.