Career Coaching Secrets

Alanna Shaikh: Leading with Clarity Through Complexity and Turmoil

• Davis Nguyen

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Host Rexhen interviews Alanna Shaikh, a global health leader, TED Senior Fellow, and executive coach. With 10+ years of coaching and a background in global health systems across 20+ countries, Alanna guides high-performing professionals through leadership, clarity, and change.

Her coaching journey began unexpectedly through her global health blog, leading her to formal coach training to transition from advisor to a powerful questioner. Her business is called "This World Needs Brave." She finds it most rewarding to see clients transform and find meaning in their work.

Alanna's clients, mostly referrals from word-of-mouth, span all career levels. She offers personalized programs (minimum 4 sessions, ideally 6-12 months) for lasting change. She does minimal marketing, preferring to rely on her strong referral network.

Currently, a challenge is coaching clients forced into career changes due to turmoil in the global health sector, which she calls "grief coaching." She balances this with a part-time global health job. Good investments for her were a virtual assistant, advanced calendaring software, and her blog (thisworldneedsbrave.com) as a client resource.

Her advice to coaches: define your own impact, and embrace it, as she coaches individuals striving to "shape human history for the better."

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Alanna Shaikh:

So good investments for me were hiring a virtual assistant so that a lot of sort of follow up and administrative tasks I can hand off to someone else and not have to spend my time on. Getting really good calendaring software. People tend to default to a couple of the major calendar softwares. And like I actually researched and picked the one that would really work for me. And that was a really good choice for me in terms of its ability to sync and integrate with my calendars and to ask the right intake questions and let me have different kinds of appointments available. So that has been really useful. Let's see this.

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 $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching business myself, and I've been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over a hundred million dollars each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business. Nice.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regan, and today's guest is Alana Shaikh. She is a global health leader, TED senior fellow, and executive coach to high-performing professionals navigating leadership, clarity, and change. She has over a decade of experience in coaching and a career spanning global health systems in over 20 countries. Alana helps her clients move through complexity with courage and convictions. And it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Alana.

Alanna Shaikh:

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Rexhen Doda:

It's a pleasure for us. So I want to know more about how this got started. What inspired you to become a coach and then start your own coaching business to help others?

Alanna Shaikh:

So it all started with a blog, actually. A long time ago now, about 15, 17 years ago, I started writing a blog about global health and international development. And this was when blogs were a within the sort of international development blogosphere. And I had a decent amount of readers and commenters. You know, it was a pretty widespread blog. I got a lot of attention. People started reaching out to me because they were interested in careers in international development. And the thing about international development is it's not like being a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. If you're a kid or a college student and you're interested in international development, your uncle probably doesn't work in international development, right? There's no friend of your parents who does this. It's much less common as a career. So people were reaching out to me because I was the only person they knew who worked in international development. So I ended up sort of unexpectedly building out this practice of doing career counseling and advising to people who were working on getting their first job in international development, who are in college and wanted to prepare for that career. And then as things evolved, senior level people who wanted to change careers and start working in international development. So at that point, once I realized I had sort of a lot of clients and I was doing this, I realized I need more skills. I don't want to just winging this with people when this is their lives. So I went and I actually trained as a coach to make sure that I was genuinely a reliable resource for them. And once I'd completed my coaching training, then I found my practice sort of changing and broadening because like a career advisor tells you what to do, right? But a coach asks you powerful questions. So I found after my training, I was delving more and more into like, what did my clients really want? Why had they decided this was the career for them? How could we make sure that they were getting what they wanted from this change?

Rexhen Doda:

And for your business which is called This World Needs Brave, right? Yeah, that's right. That one, looking at LinkedIn, you've been doing it for about six months so far.

Alanna Shaikh:

No, I've been doing it for about 10 years.

Rexhen Doda:

Oh, interesting. So it says here six months. That's what I wanted to clarify. So about 10 years. Throughout these years of doing this, which part of your coaching journey would you say that you find the most rewarding since you started doing this?

Alanna Shaikh:

The most rewarding part is seeing my clients' lives change, right? The most rewarding part is actually seeing the coaching succeed, seeing people find meaning in their work, find work they love. I have a client I'm working with right now and I worked with him in 2011 and he came back to me this year because he's gone from entry level to transitioning from sort of mid-level to senior level and he wants coaching again as he navigates that transition and it's just this wonderful feeling to see this person who's like happy and settled in a career and I helped him get there.

Rexhen Doda:

And when it comes to your clients that you're working with right now, is there a specific industry or a specific goal that these people generally have when they're working with you? Or is there a specific demographic that you typically find yourself working with, such as like, is there a target audience with your coaching?

Alanna Shaikh:

So people who work in global health and international development are sort of naturally drawn to me because there's only a handful of coaches that come out of that background. That being said, pretty much all of my clients come to me from word of mouth. So I get referred from person to person and I get lots of referrals, people who come to me because their friend recommended me and they don't have anything to do with global health or international development. I work with people at sort of all levels of their career and I enjoy all levels, honestly. I enjoy helping people figure out how to get started and I enjoy working with like C-suite executives who want to build their leadership presence or, you know, really be thoughtful about the way they approach leadership and management. So I'm sort of all over the place that way because I like a lot of variety.

Rexhen Doda:

And how does the program look like for any executive that's listening to this and wants to know how do you help these people? Is there different programs that you have within your business or how do the programs look like for anyone who's interested?

Alanna Shaikh:

So my coaching is really personalized. So I do a getting to know each other phone call, right? A free phone call, not a coaching session where we talk about their needs and what they want from coaching. And then after that, I come back to them and tell them like, this is what I think would meet your needs. How many sessions, what the approach would be, what we should do during the process. So it's really very, very personal to the individual person. I like to work with clients in a minimum of four sessions because I don't think you see change in fewer than more sessions, fewer than four sessions, sorry. And I really like to work with people over the course of six months to a year, ideally, so that there's time for them to really like see the change that they're aiming

Rexhen Doda:

for. And generally speaking with the people that you're working with right now, how long does it generally happen that you work with them? Do you have people working with you more than the program generally lasts?

Alanna Shaikh:

So I have clients who come back to me sort of every Mm-hmm. It really depends on what their needs are.

Rexhen Doda:

Okay. And that makes more sense there. Cool. And for any coach listening, where do you find your clients or what marketing channel right now is working very well for you?

Alanna Shaikh:

So I'm a little embarrassed. I really don't do much marketing. Every so often, if I feel like I need more clients, I send a note out to existing clients telling them that I'm accepting new people. And then sometimes I'll just put a note on my LinkedIn or even on Instagram that I'm accepting new clients. And usually that's all it takes to start getting inquiries and have more people come on board

Rexhen Doda:

interesting so that is very minimal marketing but it still works right as long as it works that makes yeah i

Alanna Shaikh:

know there's a couple of facebook groups where periodically my name will move around a facebook group and i'll get 10 12 people reaching out because there was a discussion about my coaching on the facebook group and so on so like it sort of moves on its own sometimes but you know i like doing the coaching i feel passionate about doing the coaching and i think a lot of coaches run into this i don't feel particularly passionate about doing the marketing and as long as I feel happy with my client base by working through word of mouth and sort of a limited set of when I open my roster to new clients. I'm going to stick with that.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, actually, that's true. That's not only a lot of coaches that I've interviewed do not like to do the marketing and even sales themselves. They like to do the coaching. So what I found with coaches that don't want to do that is generally they either work as contractors for certain bigger companies that will do the marketing and sales and they will do need the coaching done from a coach or they would do a mixture of work as a contractor for other companies and then some of that doing it independently for their own coaching business. So that's what I found from coaches who don't focus a lot on marketing. The other group is coaches who have a very large number of their clients coming in from their referrals. So past clients refer newer clients to their coaching business and I believe that also could be the case with with you where past clients will still send some people to your brand as well?

Alanna Shaikh:

Yeah, I definitely have probably the majority of my clients coming in as referrals, direct referrals that someone knows someone who's looking for a career coach and shares my name.

Rexhen Doda:

And right now, what is the goal with your coaching business for like the next one to three years? How do you see your coaching business changing or evolving? Or is it going to be the same? Are there any goals specific for that you have in mind now for like the short to midterm future? So

Alanna Shaikh:

So one of my goals right now is to increase the number of my clients who come from sectors outside global health and international development, because right now that sector is in tremendous turmoil. And a lot of the career coaching I do with clients feels a lot more like grief coaching. These are people who are being forced into a career change who are being forced out of this sector. And I'm helping them like process that feeling and figure out what else they can do, right? What is other work they can love? What is other work that will bring the same meaning for them? And it's really hard. It is really difficult, draining work. I'm proud to be a resource for these people, but it's also, you know, often... career coaching is really joyous, right? You're helping people achieve their dreams. And that particular component of career coaching isn't joyous right now. So I'm hoping to have more clients who are making their career changes for happy reasons.

Rexhen Doda:

That makes a lot of sense. And for any other coach listening similar to you, what are some good investments that you've made in your coaching business or in yourself that you feel like, oh, that investment was actually worth it? I actually got a lot of return on that investment. What would be some investments that you would classify as good investments in your coaching business? I wouldn't say marketing, but any other investments

Alanna Shaikh:

probably. So good investments for me were hiring a virtual assistant so that a lot of sort of follow up and administrative tasks I can hand off to someone else and not have to spend my time on. Getting really good calendaring software. People tend to default to a couple of the major calendar softwares. And like I actually researched and picked the one that would really work for me. And that was a really good choice for me in terms of its ability to sync and integrate with my calendars and to have the right intake questions and let me have different kinds of appointments available. So that has been really useful. Let's see the assistant calendar software. And then I have a blog about bravery and coaching and I don't update it all the time. The main purpose of it is so that prospective clients can learn about me and my approach and my attitude towards the world and towards coaching. And every so often I spend a little while adding more content that sitting down, doing some writing for it, building out people's sense of me as a person. And I've seen a lot of good return from that. A lot of clients come through the website because they feel like they know me and they understand me once they've read some of my blog posts

Rexhen Doda:

you also have a newsletter

Alanna Shaikh:

I do not do a newsletter no

Rexhen Doda:

No

Alanna Shaikh:

newsletter, no mailing list. I know I should have a list. I know I should have a list. And sometimes when I'm like a thought partner for clients who are doing marketing, I'm always talking to them about the importance of having a list. But I myself do not have a list.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, the reason why I was thinking is because I thought maybe you use that to also market your blog there so that people can read it. But I guess most people will just like read it from the website in that case when they are visiting the website. That makes a lot of sense.

Alanna Shaikh:

Yeah, it's not so much that it reaches out to them but that when i mean i've seen this looking at how the traffic comes into me people like they search for my name and coach they search for alana shake coach and that pulls them to my website and then they spend like 15 20 minutes reading on my website right that's how they learn about me and who i am and get a sense of my personality and decide is this a person i want to work with or not so it's not so much that it's pushing out to people it's more that it's there if they're looking for me so that they can feel like they know me

Rexhen Doda:

i see so let's say someone referred you to me then naturally i would just look you up a little bit and then I'll find you and then I'll find your blogs and then I'll read your blogs. That makes a lot of sense as a customer journey.

Alanna Shaikh:

And I have a fairly broad online footprint. And so I realized I needed a coaching specific destination for people to learn about my coaching and my coaching approach because otherwise they find all the other things I did instead.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I also wanted to talk to you about challenges right now. What is the challenge in your coaching business that you're trying to solve for next? So right now,

Alanna Shaikh:

One challenge I mentioned is sort of grief, right? That the niche sector that so many of my clients are coming from is really in like pain and turmoil and figuring out how do I navigate that as a coach in terms of being a real resource to these people, right? Who are my people, but also making sure that emotionally I have other kinds of clients and I don't just sort of get endlessly drained. And really like it's a whole new kind of career coaching when you're coaching people who have not just lost a job, but they've lost a sector, they've lost an entire or future career and they need to figure out something else they can do. And not like something slightly related, something totally different. And so it's a whole different approach to career coaching, right? It's like a much broader challenge. And in some ways it's really interesting. And when you can help someone, you really feel like you've helped them. But these are people where their entire network is other people who are in the same sector. So everyone is in the same boat that's filling up with water. They can't be of support to each other. Normally you tell people like reach out to your network, but what do you do when your whole network's reaching out to each other? So one challenge is just like navigating a way that I can really be of service without emptying myself out to the point where I'm exhausted and miserable.

Rexhen Doda:

And right now, how do you feel about that?

Alanna Shaikh:

Right now, I'm finding my balance. There have been times in my life where coaching was all I did, where that's been my exclusive career activity job. But right now, I'm actually also doing a global health job. So I'm balancing coaching against that.

Rexhen Doda:

So is it like part-time coaching, most of the time, full-time job on the other occupations?

Alanna Shaikh:

Yeah.

Rexhen Doda:

Cool. And okay. So you also fall into a bucket of people that I have interviewed where are doing coaching on the side. So it does make sense that you are not pushing a lot with marketing. That is a very good approach because getting more clients than you could handle then would also be a problem, would be another challenge.

Alanna Shaikh:

I don't want to create demand I can't fill right now. So when I want to lean in on coaching more, then I reach out more. I ask for referrals more and they come, right? So I'm able to sort of shape it around my needs

Rexhen Doda:

absolutely the final question i have for today is what advice would you like to give to other coaches like yourself that are trying to scale their impact so coaches who are trying to reach out to more people make a bigger impact just like you're working with leaders when you think of impact you're actually not just working with the leader the impact you have on the leader will also affect his team his family and then it just like ripples out so what is your advice for coaches who are trying to scale that

Alanna Shaikh:

impact my advice for be know what impact means to you, right? Does it mean number of people? Does it mean people in certain types of organizations? Does it mean people who are driving certain kinds of change? Does it mean working with college students to make sure that they stay in college and help them get their first job? Think about does it mean increasing your income because you want to know you can provide for your family, right? That's a totally legitimate form of impact to care about. People forget that, but it's real. So know what impact means for you because it's easy to like get stuck in someone else's metrics and someone else's idea of what is impact. So you need to know what's the impact you want. I guess that was a very coachy answer.

Rexhen Doda:

So what would be from your perspective, your impact, and then would be like an advice you'd give to yourself?

Alanna Shaikh:

I want to coach people that are going to help shape the systems around them for the better. That's what sort of this world needs brave means. It means that we're in a place where the old systems don't really work anymore. And we need courageous individuals to stand up in the face of that and help shift human history on a better path. And so for me, I want to coach people who are driving that kind of positive change. And some of them are nonprofit leaders. Some of them are in businesses that are important for a sustainable future. Some of them are in education. They're in sort of lots of different roles. But for me, it's really important to know that like my client is going to be doing something that's helping shape human history for the better.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Alana. For anyone who wants to find you or connect with you, they can go into LinkedIn and search Alana Sheikh. They will be able to find you there. There's also your website. website, alanashake.com. They'll be able to find the link to your website. We'll also put it in our description, but they will also be able to find it on your LinkedIn. Is there any other way that people can find you and reach out to

Alanna Shaikh:

you? So my coaching website is actually thisworldneedsbrave.com. If you just want to learn about my coaching and not like everything that I do. And there's obviously a contact form on all my websites, or you can reach out to me through LinkedIn. So I think that was it. I think you got it all.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Alana. It was a pleasure having you on the podcast thank you for having me

Davis Nguyen:

that's it for this episode of career coaching secrets if you enjoyed this conversation you can subscribe on youtube spotify apple podcast or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes this podcast was brought to you by purple circle where we help career coaches scale their business to a hundred thousand dollar years hundred thousand dollar months or even hundred thousand dollar weeks all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want to learn more about our community and how we can help you visit join purple circle.com