The Unfiltered Truth About Career Growth with Yogeshwer Sharma

In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, our guest is Yogeshwer Sharma, who shares powerful insights on navigating today’s competitive professional landscape, building a resilient mindset, and unlocking sustainable career growth through strategic thinking, personal branding, and continuous learning; drawing from her professional journey and perspectives shared across platforms, this conversation dives into practical advice on leadership, adaptability, and standing out in a crowded market, making it a must-watch for anyone looking to elevate their career with clarity and confidence.

You can find him on:
https://coaching.yogisharma.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@YogiSharma
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yogi1/
https://www.instagram.com/yogeshwer/
https://www.facebook.com/yogeshwersharma
Email: yogi@yogisharma.com

Transcript

Yogeshwer Sharma 0:00

And she says she got a 80% raise in the last one week. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, what happened? And she's like, Well, this happened. I talked to people and then they gave me 50% raise, and then I I I pushed further and they gave me 30% more. And and then she asked me something that I'll never forget. She said, Can you work with me? I'm like, I'm not working. I thought she wanted to hire me, you know, to work with me. Like, hey, can you join me and like my company? And like, and I'm like, no, I'm not working, I'm taking time off. Like, no, no, no, no. I mean, can you coach me? And I'm like, what is coaching?

Davis Nguyen 0:40

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 Wynne, 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 businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro Stein 1:12

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Yogi Sharma, whose philosophy that we don't get what we work for, but we get what we work for and what we ask for, has transformed how his clients approach their careers and self-worth. What's remarkable about Yogi's track is about his record in the tangible results he delivers, with clients securing raises above a quarter million dollars and others achieving increases of over 30%, all while improving their workplace relationships and personal fulfillment. Yogi specializes in helping motivated professionals who work hard but feel undervalued, focusing on the critical connection between self-talk and outcomes. His approach centers on fostering self-trust and enabling those uncomfortable but necessary conversations that bridge the gap between daily work and long-term vision, making success achievable and fulfillment inevitable. Welcome to the show, Yogi.

Yogeshwer Sharma 2:23

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

Pedro Stein 2:27

Yes, me too, from the day we met, Yogi. And it's great to have you, you know. And I like to ruin a bit, you know, because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, right? So when was that for you?

Yogeshwer Sharma 2:46

So there is a conscious moment and an unconscious moment.

Pedro Stein 2:50

Walk me through it.

Yogeshwer Sharma 2:52

Yeah, conscious moment was so I was uh I was working at Facebook Meta. I joined when they were 500 people, very small. I left when they were 15,000, so 30x growth I saw in like six, seven years I was there, and I just left that for you know, I was just burned out. I'm like, I'm done. And then at that point, I negotiated an offer with Uber, paid a million, like four million over four years, and I'm like, I'm done. I'm done. I'm traveling, went to South America, Central America, went to Europe, this a lot of travel, about a year and a half learning Spanish. And during that time, I was having conversations with people, just people, you know, friends reaching out, colleagues reaching out. And one person I particularly remember, I was in India in a um kind of a retreat kind of center, relaxing. And she called and we talked for an hour, hour and a half. And she talked about, oh, you know, I'm I feel undervalued, underpaid, and this and that. I talked a few things. You can maybe do this, maybe do that. And then I'm like, I'll done. I mean, I was talking having this conversation all the time. So I'm like, well, great. And then a week later, she comes back and she says she got a 80% raise in the last one week. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, what happened? And she's like, Well, this happened. I talked to people, and then they give me a 50% raise, and then I pushed further and they gave me 30% more. And and then she asked me something that I'll never forget. She said, Can you work with me? I'm like, I'm not working. I thought she wanted to hire me, you know, to work with me. Like, hey, can you join me and like my company? Like, and I'm like, no, I'm not working, I'm taking time off. Like, no, no, no, no. I mean, can you coach me? And I'm like, what is coaching? And that's his history. So that's what we started. Uh then, but I do remember now in 2019 I got married and I met some friends from middle school, and they're asking what do you do now? So I told them, and one of them told me, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember in 10th grade you used to do something like this, help people, and then you found your passion. I'm like, really? I that's the unconscious moment. Unconsciously, I think I've been interested in coaching forever. This friend told me in 10th grade I used to help people, but consciously it happened in 2018.

Pedro Stein 5:36

2018. Okay, interesting. Now, you started with her, right? You helped her. Um, that was it, it sounds like your first client, right? Even if you didn't knew it at the time, right?

Yogeshwer Sharma 5:48

It was actually that was just a advising, and later on, I learned a lot about coaching is not advising and this and that. She became a client, it made a very it evolved a lot. I didn't even know what coaching was, so that was the first client. And she did become a paid client eventually.

Pedro Stein 6:02

Now I I love to understand the shift, you know, that that happened when you're like you're starting helping people to I'm building a real business around this. Do you remember when that happened? I'm not sure if it's the first paying client, if it's the first invoice, but it's when you actually put that hat off coach slash business owner, you know.

Yogeshwer Sharma 6:23

When did that happen? I think that was in 2019, we started to, you know, build a business, which is more like a you know, mom and pop store kind of small thing. Uh that's when I started to charge for coaching after a few clients of you know helping them and seeing, I think seeing that it's a reproducible thing, it's not something a one-off thing. And once I saw, you know, five, six people shifting their relationship with work, getting better work, helping one person find a job, I realized, oh, this is something I can, there's something here, and I really enjoyed it doing it also. But there was a gap between you know, uh doing it for fun and then doing it for fun and money both. And that piece was uh, you know, like a lot of people, I mean, I don't know a lot of people, but for me for sure, I didn't have a very healthy relationship with money, and charging people for help I provided just seemed off. So it took me some time to work through that, and eventually, I think uh uh 2019, 2020 or so, and that's when we started to really grow business.

Pedro Stein 7:40

Okay, 2019 yogi launches officially, not not necessarily launches, but feels like a real business. And then we had we got hit by COVID, right? So, how that played out for your business?

Yogeshwer Sharma 7:53

Actually, I didn't see anything in COVID. Basically, pretty much uh it was business as usual. I always had done virtual calls. I I've been online since 2018, so that was if anything, it's more comfortable. Earlier, people would say, Well, can we meet in person? And that that was like, Well, we figured out, and I I coached people even by COVID time, I had coached people in six continents except Antarctica, so I was already like an international kind of business in that way. Uh, but uh COVID made it like Zoom became very acceptable, and just that's how things are. So COVID was normal, nothing really changed for me in COVID.

Pedro Stein 8:38

Okay, so if you're listening right now, good because you already had your structure, which is great. So if you're listening, this from Antarctica, you know, Yogi would love to coach you.

Yogeshwer Sharma 8:54

Explorers, actually, I do have a friend who is uh visiting Antarctica, so maybe you never know.

Pedro Stein 9:03

Okay, now you know, in the early days of coaching, sometimes I see coaches trying to help everyone, right? And uh and then they start refining or niching down, or even they don't niche, okay. But what I would love to understand is um the clients, the people that kept showing up, you know, the pattern, the ones you realize, okay, these are my people, you know. Have you ever eventually found your tribe?

Yogeshwer Sharma 9:32

So that was a hard thing for me because um so the one thing I learned in coaching is that what people come to me for is not what the real issue is. Okay, and so people come to me for workplace. I think usually I work, I've seen the pattern now. I was an engineer, research scientist at Facebook, I was a mathematician before that, I did my PhD at Cornell, I went to IIT Kanpur and got gold medal and all that. So I think that is the trajectory people who are doing well, engineers, research scientists, data scientists, product managers, they tend to show up because they are in my network. Okay. And they think they come, they're coming to me for um undervalued and appreciated, and not getting enough money and not getting the raise, and not how to how to change jobs. And we help with all of that. But what I realize is a lot of time we spend with people on is developing self-trust, building a harmonizing relationship with themselves, building how to communicate better with colleagues, with managers at home, with wife and husband, with kids, and those things are focusing on what you're working on instead of like just being all over the place. So people who I work with tend to be in the technical field, but I have worked with a lawyer from Hong Kong. I don't know much about law, and I have not, I'm not, I don't know much about Hong Kong, but I worked with them. The coaching is a very different kind of the patterns are very similar uh when people come to me. Uh, I worked with uh a financial advisor from Bay Area, I worked with uh a real estate agent from um uh from here also. So but that that that's probably 20 20-ish percent of people, 20-30, maybe the remaining 70 are from technical field.

Pedro Stein 11:32

Okay, I mean that's the ICP, right? A deal client profile. Now, let's talk about the part nobody escapes, Yogi. Marketing, right? So, how do those people usually find you? You know, the the people in the technical field, for example.

Yogeshwer Sharma 11:50

To be honest, that's still a mystery to me. Like uh, I mean, I've got a pretty successful business. I'm you know making more money than I used to make at Facebook and all that, but I think the where people find me is a lot of through referrals, so about 70% still 70, 75, a large fraction still comes through referrals. Um and people just like, well, I learned about you from this person, and so that's the one big part. Second piece is LinkedIn. LinkedIn tends to be about the remaining 20 or so. People find my content. I write from heart a lot of times. I just like I write what I feel, and and then people connect with that and they tell me, like, oh, I connected with how you put this thing succinctly or whatever way I put it. And then they they they they come to me and they message me and like, hey, can I talk to you? We just talk in that that way, and then the small fraction of people, you know, sometimes come through listening to podcasts, my YouTube channel, and things like that.

Pedro Stein 12:56

Okay, now let's pretend I'm one of those people, right? I looked at your LinkedIn profile or listened to you in the podcast, YouTube was referred to you. I resonated with what you you have out there, you know, and I'm like, hey, I want to work with Yogi, right? So we eventually got into a call. Uh, we ended up signing a contract or in deposit, whatever you want to call it, the process. I I'm converted into a client, right? So walk me through it, how working with you actually looks like from the client's perspective.

Yogeshwer Sharma 13:31

So it's actually you're skipping a whole bunch of stuff. Uh, the way I work with people is uh is when they come to me, hey, I would love to work with you. And uh we talk about coaching is serious business, it's fun, but also serious. It's serious fun. Uh so it requires commitments, investments, and uh people think of money as a big investment, which it is, of course, but I think money is not even nearly uh um as commitment creating another I ask people for time, energy they bring to the coaching engagement. So I actually spend a couple calls with people even before we sign up to say to see really are you in good fit and can I help you really? And sometimes in this process, we I help people give you know thoughts around their life, how they can approach things, I we give them some plan or like they could do this and that. And uh sometimes people find that helpful, and that's great. Uh and we don't continue because I don't think I see a lot of chemistry connection and this and that. So um even though I I'm just just just a couple of weeks ago, the person who really wanted to work, I just didn't really see a good chemistry, and you know how um I also want to learn from people. I it's not just me, they learning from me, me and my my coaches and my team, but we also want to learn from people. So I think once there's chemistry and once there is a a good understanding of what that means, uh that's when we kind of sign up for people. So once they commit to this committed people, once they commit, then it depends. I think a lot of my work is uh customized. So we do one-on-one coaching, uh, we do um part of some sort of a small group coaching, uh, we also do um uh kind of laser coaching, what we call like uh on-demand coaching. Um other piece that we do is uh it depends on you know who the client is. I talked about tech people. Tech people are very they're engineers, they're product managers, but I also work with uh tech CEOs, CTOs. I've been working with you know a few companies I worked with. Um sometimes uh if there's a one company I was working with was uh they like a 200 million dollar company in that range of valuation, and they had a CEO-cto conflict that was really burning a lot of things. And I worked with them for a few months to bring unsaid things to the table and help them resolve that and move forward with conviction. Uh, so that's a very different engagement. That's like a lot more one-on-one. They wouldn't, they will not come to a group and discuss this, but a lot of time engineers and and product managers and and and then work with work with like a uh a more uh more uh um common problem, then we end up uh end up working in a different way. So I think it depends on what client is willing to work uh with, what we are willing to work with, what we what we uh what we find a common ground, but the what will help them the most. That's kind of what we will try to find. It makes sense or it's too confusing.

Pedro Stein 16:57

No, it makes sense, and I appreciate you sharing the fact that you first you see if there's alignment, right? If there's a fit between your work and what they want to do, because I think if you don't do that, at the end of the day, this in the future will come back as 10 axed, you know, as a problem. And so it's very important to have to have all the expectations uh leveled and first point of contact. So I appreciate it on you.

Yogeshwer Sharma 17:24

Um and that piece, by the way, because a lot of people who come to me, like paying 10, 15, 20,000, whatever is actually it's actually it's not a big amount of money, it is a chunk of money, but people can afford it, and the results we get are immense compared to what we charge. So that makes sense. So money is usually not the make or break factor for us. What factor is really are they committed? Are they willing to do the work? I mean, coaching doesn't do anything if you're not willing to do the work. We are not magicians. So kind of teasing that out, whether somebody is serious or somebody just wants to shift blame to somebody, and like uh I I hearing their language is very important for me, like uh how they're describing problems, how they're what their goals are. Their goals are exciting and challenging for me, also. I would love to help you do this. So it depends on uh depends on a lot of factors that that fit in.

Pedro Stein 18:28

You know, your work seems pretty hands-on, and you mentioned uh something in the origin story that you burned out and all of that. And I see a lot of coaches out there in our in our space that they even burn out themselves while advocating against burnout because it's such a passion identity-driven profession, right? So, how do you think about capacity right now for your own coaching business? So don't stretch yourself too thin.

Yogeshwer Sharma 18:55

Yeah, I think burnout is I used to think burnout, if you if you do work on your passion, you don't burn out. That's absolutely not true. You can definitely burn out working on something you're passionate about. So I actually I left um Facebook to have a better lifestyle. Okay, and one of my goals in life, long-term goals, is to uh take four months off and do Pacific Crest Trail in California, like a long hiking. I do backpacking and I teach people backpacking and I do all kinds of things also on the side. I want to do that. It takes four months though, right? And four months off pretty much on the trail, right? Um and I thought, you know, I'll do my own work and my own job, and then I'll I'll have all the time. And I realized um three, four years of coaching business, and I I was working more in my coaching business than I was working in Facebook. And I was like, what am I doing here? Right? And the thing is I couldn't find a good reason why I am doing it. It's just it's just a habit. So I've been working on that habit of like, how can I be sustainably uh effective and sustainably create impact with people? And I've been uh I've been working with uh I have coaches now on my team who are one of the coaches used to coach me, so I brought them on the team. So there's a lot of like, you know, I I've been good people, and uh now I've been kind of scaling impact that way too so that I can show up more present and more focused and more impactfully when I show up. So burnout is definitely real, and I've I've seen this even in my coaching business, even though I I I love most of what I do.

Pedro Stein 20:42

Hmm, interesting. I I I can't I I'm also a coach, so I I kind of share the same principle. It's like, oh my god, this is this is so fun, but at the end of the day, sometimes I feel depleted, right? So you can definitely burn out, even if you're doing something that is like a passion for you. Now, I I love the the hiking and all that the four months, four months off, but I want to understand, like and I'm curious about it's like future, right? So, where you're taking all this, you know, looking ahead, where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Yogeshwer Sharma 21:19

And it's interesting you you brought the scaling and also the burnout piece. For me, they are very related. So, burnout for me, last time it happened was probably a couple of years ago. So now things are much better. But what I'm working on is I'm working on high quality systems. I've coached, I worked with, you know, I've had conversations with I don't know, probably 600 people now over the 80 years, close to 600. It used to be 500 a few years a year ago, and now I'm probably close to 600. Uh and I realized that I used to keep a lot of things in my I used to remember stuff. I'm pretty good at remembering things and this and that, but it doesn't scale very well. So I think building Building high-quality systems so that it's actually there is a system to this madness. Madness meaning I used to think like I just come and show up and I coach impactfully, which is what happens. But I think system makes it even more impactful for people. It makes it easy for them to implement things, right? So can developing the system is has been one thing. Now my role now is I know how to grow. I kind of pretty a good sense of how to grow. What my thing is to resist the growth so that I grow at my own pace and maintain the high quality because I think that's that's the reason I'm not uh raising money. Uh I don't want to I I meet a couple of um investors in the area, and I there's a friend who is a investor, and he's like, You should raise money, and I would love to invest. And I know that once people invest, they want me to grow according to their timeline now, not my timelines. And that has been a difficult push because this person is, I mean, as a friend, sometimes they ask me some things and I I suggest what I what I do with people and they really find it impactful, have valuable, they would love to invest, but I'm not interested in that. So pushing that out is is is is a challenge and building a system at my own pace. Some things are challenging for me, even though it'll be very easy for I don't know, some other person. So I think just working on that has been uh the what I've been working on is to grow at my own pace, develop high quality systems, and then the growth piece is actually the easy piece for me. Uh, because I I left Facebook job. A lot of people leave job out of knee-jerk reaction. It took me three years to leave the job because I got the idea of leaving a job in 2013, 2014. I left in 2017. But once I left, I left in a sustainable way. I don't have to go back, I just thought through it. So I I'm a thinker and I'm I'm also um careful uh that way. I I really care about people I serve and I want to do a good job at that. Instead of like, oh, let's just go grow, but we'll figure it out. Like, no, we don't figure it out that way.

Pedro Stein 25:02

Interesting. It's like growing but with intention and uh maintaining the core of your own business, you know, so you don't lose depth with the growing aspect. Don't lose depth.

Yogeshwer Sharma 25:15

I I like that. I I haven't thought through that way, thought about it that way, but not losing depth. And I still have kind of you know, so far I still talk to people myself uh to to bring people into coaching. That's that's it's a quality control. And eventually, if I wanna you know, like hire somebody to do that, I want to make sure that you know that is done in a good way. The culture of the coaching program doesn't shift because when we do group coaching, uh part of the work we do is create vulnerable space for everybody to share, and one bad fish can really create havoc in the group. I don't want that.

Pedro Stein 25:55

Yes, and I can only imagine the rhythm to find that tune fine-tune balance between growing and impacting people is such a challenge because when you see the outcome, you feel I I imagine you feel energized, right? You're like, oh my god, I helped these people, I helped this guy, I helped this gal. And then you're like at the same time, you want to grow, you want to preserve the integrity of your own business and the way you want to do it. So it's like I can only imagine it's a constant inner battle, right? I'm not sure if that's what happens, but I'm I'm trying to picture what it would look like.

Yogeshwer Sharma 26:32

Actually, that's true. I think that the battle is real, and for me, you know, building a good team is very important. Second piece, I do have really high goals. Like, I want to impact a million people through this work, and impacting doesn't mean getting a followover, impacting means somebody saying creating a sentence about how Yogi's work helped me, right? So that way a million people and but I'm patient. I'm not like it has to happen in next two years. For me, this is 10, 20, 30, 40 year work, and I don't see myself uh quote unquote retiring from this. I think it's uh this is one of the work that uh gives me energy, like even I mean, there are parts of coaching work that doesn't give that don't give me energy. For example, I don't know, sometimes the admin work can be exhausting, but the actual coaching call, right? Uh I remember there was a time a couple of years ago, three years ago, I was burnt out and I was very tired. And what really helped was to hop on a coaching call that would energize me for the next one. So coaching has been energizing for me. So that's a good part. So I'm here in the long run, and I do want to impact, you know, positively impact a million people. And I I worked with you know a few hundred people now, so I'm I'm far from that goal, but I'm not in a hurry to go there. I want to really go it sustainably and you know, having helping people have good experience and good results, and uh helping them achieve good results.

Pedro Stein 28:15

I'm thinking about your hiking experience, it's not a marathon. Uh, I'm sorry, it's not uh a sprint, right? It's a marathon, it's like slowly getting there, slowly getting there, but keep moving forward, right?

Yogeshwer Sharma 28:28

The Navy SEALs in uh in um in US Navy, they talk about um US Special Forces, they talk about this uh phrase. I love this, it says slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. And I think for me, the smoothness is important for all of that.

Pedro Stein 28:45

Nice. Now, I I kind of feel the need to tap into your experience for a second because people listening can really benefit from this. I mean, you've been in the game long enough to hear all kinds of business advice, right? Some are good, some are bad, you know, they're all types of business advice. Like, what would you say is like one piece of business advice you hear all the time that you think that's overrated or maybe misunderstood, you know?

Yogeshwer Sharma 29:12

Business advice that is overrated, business advice that is overrated. I think there's not real one advice. One thing I see is that people don't look at the advice in the context of where they are in life. So, for example, let me give you um any advice can be good or bad advice depending on where you are in life. It's a marathon, let's say, zero to 26 miles. What is a good advice for a mile three? Is a bad advice for mile 20, and vice versa. And advice like, oh, focus on lead gen is a good advice for some people and a bad advice for somebody. Oh, focus on sales, sales is the or cash is the king, or or you know, you're gonna be a good salesperson, or you just focus on coaching, everything else falls in place. I think all of them are contextually good advice and contextually bad advice, right? And that's where for me, having a personalized approach is important, like where somebody understands my context, or I understand somebody's context, and tell them what might be helpful for them, not what will be helpful, I don't know. And then they figure it out, do something, and come back and tell me it how it worked, well or not so well, and then we course correct, you know. So that is uh I would say there's no really specific advice, but any advice uh I can see being a bad advice many times, even though it's a good advice for other people.

Pedro Stein 30:58

Really depends on the the moment, the situation, the context, and all of that. Now make that make perfect sense. I I love that. Now on the other side, what's a piece of advice you wish more people actually took seriously, you know?

Yogeshwer Sharma 31:14

Uh what a piece of advice business orders or just generally?

Pedro Stein 31:21

Usually business, but it could be general. I don't mind because uh they always mix together, right?

Yogeshwer Sharma 31:27

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people are in a hurry and uh they're looking for quick fixes, and but sometimes we do need tactics, we do need quick fixes, but a lot of times quick fixes can really um push the real problem down and it'll it'll bring your head bring the problem and bring its head back up later on and creates a bigger mess. So I think, for example, growth, I think maintain uh quality is important compared to like okay, I need to grow and do something. One advice that actually might uh was very helpful for me was uh my business uh coach had given or my coach had given me was just for coaching for me was very helpful. He said if the money is a concern and you are really money is the top priority for making you know the working on the business, then this business is not a good business for that. So if money is a concern, then find a way to make money somewhere else also and do this work on the side, because that seeps into your experience of coaching. And uh I think that has been very helpful. I I've always had uh not rely on this income for for uh you know for anything, and it's a very beautiful gift when it when I do make the money, and I do make a good amount of money, and that's great, but I think the that piece was very helpful because otherwise it just it's hard to hard to separate, you know. I need something, so money can of course be a concern, but not the top concern. Third, fourth, I mean down there is good, but uh uh that was very helpful.

Pedro Stein 33:21

You know, I worked in sales for a while, um, with a landscape coach, a landscape business coach, and the moment it shifted for me, I'm not sure if that's gonna make sense, but the moment it shifted for me is like I wasn't going for the sales call to close, I was going to serve, you know. So it's like a mindset shift on I'm not going to serve to to go to a coaching client or whatever call to to actually get money out of it. It's more about helping them, and money will come. Did that make sense? Is that something like you're talking about money, but that's not the primary concern, it's part of the process.

Yogeshwer Sharma 33:59

Yeah, I think this uh I used to have this uh post-it here where I was struggling with the kind of selling and serving and that kind of thing. Sell to serve, sell to serve, not sell to make money. And I think that was very and and that was part of my evolution of like when making money is actually a beautiful thing. There's nothing wrong with making money, but that's not a primary concern. That was uh has been has been a very, very helpful thing for me.

Pedro Stein 34:28

But on the other side, I'm not sure if you agree with me, but I've seen a lot of coaches out there that they do free work pro bono, and sometimes having clients with no skin in the game, they know show they don't work at all, it doesn't work, right?

Yogeshwer Sharma 34:41

I I've done free coaching, used to do earlier, and I would do the same coaching with two people, and one is free, one is paid, and paid get a lot of results. I realize, oh wow, that's why money is definitely part of this work. I can afford to do free coaching for sure, but I don't do it anymore. Yeah, I because it makes me feel good, like oh, I helped somebody, but they didn't get any results, I know, because they're just not taking it seriously.

Pedro Stein 35:08

They have no skin in the game, right? No skin in the game, no commitment, yeah. You know, yogi, and if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you?

Yogeshwer Sharma 35:21

So I have a YouTube channel, Yogi Sharma. I have a website, yogisharma.com. I don't have a lot of uh LinkedIn is good. Um yogi1, y-o-gi one. Um, I think those are a few places. And of course, yogi at yogisharma.com is a is a good email uh to reach out to me. And if if if something is comes up, I'm happy to I'm happy to see to explore and see if uh I can help you on a quick call, see if something will be helpful. If that's helpful, great. If not, you know, we don't have to spend too much time on that.

Pedro Stein 35:57

Yeah, we're um we're gonna add all the in the description, all the links, so that's not a worry. Now, there were a few things that you shared today that really stood out to me. I'll put it like that. You know, the 80% raise you mentioned, just by giving me advice, right? It was not even we you were not even coaching that that women in that retreat or the the time off you were, and she's asking you in a way that is super organic like, can you can you do this? Can you work with me? I love how natural that is, and uh how organically you created your coaching practice.

Yogeshwer Sharma 36:31

It's something like in in that context, by the way, the eight and the 880% raise was it's I think what I learned is also the way I'm being is very important because just a year before that, I had negotiated a job offer at Uber going from 350k to a million dollars a year. And I had done it, I know how it feels, and it's very, very uncomfortable, and this and that, and how to navigate navigate the emotional mess you are sometimes, and I think that was I realized what this person found helpful, not specific words to say and all that, how to be in an uncomfortable conversation, right?

Pedro Stein 37:17

Yes, and um when you said that you were more working more uh in your coaching business rather than Facebook. I mean, that's that is so true. That is so true. I see a lot of coaches joining this space, right? And they they're they're only thinking about the coaching practice practice itself, the one-on-one, they love coaching, all that. They forget about the CEO, right? The business development, the marketing, the you know, all of the all of the the other hats. Like when you were on Facebook, you were in your your team and you had that, but you had a a big machine in the background working for you and setting up all the structure, and now you have to do all by yourself. So that's one. And um, overall, I think, Yogi, it's how honest you you are and how you own your own story, right? I need to commend you on that. It's like I burned down, I went there, I didn't expect this to happen, this happened, you know. And so I think that's like a key asset for a true coach, and I always say this on the on the podcast is like owning your own story, being vulnerable, and showing integrity along the way, you know. I think that's the real true asset.

Yogeshwer Sharma 38:27

And I added to that, I I must say, like, I guess we haven't talked about this, but you know, it looks like oh, I struggled in Facebook, I recovered, and then I burned out, now I'm good. Now I'm perfect. I have anxieties now on a hope not a daily basis, but here and there I worry this and that, and I think through coaching, I do coaches that I work with and uh regul uh regularly, and through my own coaching, coaching other people, I also implement them myself, and uh that's how I learn how to help people. Like I do have my own mindfulness practice, I have my own journaling practice and this and that, and I still struggle. So, struggle is not over, it's still ongoing, and that's what also helps me connect with people. For example, the fear around AI. A lot of people who come to me are very afraid of AI. I'm also afraid of AI. It's a matter of how do we walk through this kind of passage that we are, you know, on now, and somehow it doesn't create a lot of trouble for me. Yeah, I see a possibility of AI taking over a lot of stuff, and somehow working through that, my my emotions and this, and now it's okay. How to work with that, right? And uh and making things fun along the way, like even marketing. Um, like marketing is uh one of my coaches helped me this a lot. Like see marketing just as a word, oh marketing, and he helped me see how to make marketing fun, do in a fun way, and I do it very differently than most people do, and I like it, and I can and I I did for for six months I did it in a way that I was supposed to do it, and I burned out so bad. So that's also partly kind of a learning process for me.

Pedro Stein 40:28

Yeah, especially the fun part. I gotta agree with you on that. You know, it it's it has to be fun, or else it's gonna be turned out to be boring, not a great outcome for for you and your clients. Now, this is my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today, Yogi. It was great having you on.

Yogeshwer Sharma 40:46

Thank you, Pedro. It was fun. Uh, it was really great to chat with you also.

Davis Nguyen 40:51

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.