From Corporate Leader to Coach: Dr. Deepak Bhootra on Purpose and Performance

In this empowering episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Kevin welcomes Dr. Deepak Bhootra, a seasoned corporate leader turned coach, Sandler®-certified sales trainer, and ICF-certified coach. Dr. Bhootra, founder and CEO of Jabulani Consulting, shares his transition from 30 years in the corporate world to a coaching practice focused on mental resilience, sales longevity, and fulfillment in work and life. 

Dr. Bhootra explains the meaning behind Jabulani, a Zulu word meaning “rejoice,” and the name of the official ball used at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, as a metaphor for joy in professional growth and human-centered leadership. 

You’ll also hear his breakdown of the “35 by 35” concept, a framework addressing sales burnout and strategies for sustaining energy, purpose, and peak performance throughout a career. The conversation weaves practical sales coaching insights with deep philosophy, including why he believes in “sending the elevator back down” to uplift others and build community success.

Whether you’re navigating burnout, leading teams, or scaling your influence, this episode offers grounded strategies for joy, resilience, and impact. Stay tuned for actionable takeaways you can apply in your own coaching, leadership, or sales journey.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepakbhootra/overlay/contact-info/
Website: https://deepak.bhootra.com/
Website: https://go.sandler.com/jabulani/

Transcript

Deepak Bhootra 0:00

We talk about karma, karma, karma. Here's a lesson karma. Karma is not predictable, Kevin, right? I've just got a simple do good, be good, and leave it at that, man. Leave it at that. Well, you know, I was actually at a you're gonna laugh. I was at a conference. We were talking about goal setting for 2026. And one of the people on the stage came and says, You know, I'm very religious. I go down on my knees every night and I pray, God, I want to be on a private plane. So when I got on stage, I says, that's an interesting prayer. But when you are already earning higher than the rest of humanity, when you're already doing very well, then you gotta ask yourself, how selfish do you want to get? So my goal is not to say that I want to be on a private plane. I would rather say that, you know, if there are privates who go and leave their country, go fight for for your country and other places. Let's rather pray for those privates than pray for private lanes. So my mindset is very different. So I'm not into prosperity and all that. But at the end of the day, Kevin, I'm not stupid. Of course I want to make money, man. Money gives you options, right? I may choose to give that money away in charity. That's my problem. But I don't want to say I don't like money. Of course I like money.

Davis Nguyen 0:55

That's why I suffered for 30 years in the corporate world, right? 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 Wayne, 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, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Kevin 1:28

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Dr. Deepak Boudra. He is the founder of Jabulani Consulting. He's been a coach for 15 plus years. Welcome to the show.

Deepak Bhootra 1:42

My pleasure, Kevin. It's really cool when I saw you struggle with Jabulani for a second. But once you said it, it sounded so cool, didn't it? It sounded so gentle on the tongue.

Kevin 1:50

You said you had a really cool story behind that too. So curious. How did you come out with with Kevin? Hi.

Deepak Bhootra 1:57

So all your listeners as well. And Kevin, thanks for this opportunity to sharing my message with you, right? And it's always cool to get an opportunity on a platform. Sometimes, like I'm I'm a big follower, I I do a lot of work on LinkedIn, but sometimes I feel like I'm shouting into a void. I think with podcasts, you seem to be shouting into void, but hopefully you have more attentive listeners. My company is called Jabulani. And when I was thinking of a name, I've lived in South Africa for 15 years, Kevin, right? And when I lived in South Africa, I actually appreciated a lot of the local culture and I really enjoyed that. And there's a couple of things that I noticed about it. There's one is religion, culture, community matters a lot, right? So there was this one word that kept popping up in it's a Zulu word, Jabulani. And it's actually part of Easter hymns and stuff like that. You know, uh, he has risen therefore. Now I'm not even a Christian, so don't accuse me of cultural appropriation. Please don't do that, okay? I'm one of those guys that'll walk in with a nice, you know, Chinese jacket if necessary, with a nice tight collar if it makes me look good. Sir Jabulani means rejoice, and that is my company motto. We will grow together, the customer, you and I, and we will rejoice together as you grow. Joyce also is a very simple message to the world out there. We need more positivity, Kevin, in our lives, right? You agree? We spend so much time criticizing movies and actors and stuff, but you know, I just wish we would not be so, how do you say this, pessimistic all the time. So Jabulani is a word. Now, two things about Jabulani that'll make you laugh. One, and this will make you cry also. My dog's name is Jabulani. So my wife says, You named your company after the dog? I said, No, I named the dog and the company after an idea that I had. And the 2010 Soccer World Cup happened in South Africa. And the name of the ball was Jabulani. So think of this way. You know, Jabulani is rejoice. Also be positive and just be happy. And and you go do some research, you'll follow laughing because apparently the Jabulani ball was so happy that it was doing weird things in the air. So it became it into a lot of trouble because it was defying aerodynamics. The guy would kick the ball thinking he's going to do a little curve at the top, and it ended up doing a curve at the bottom. And it was so much nonsense on that also. So Jabulani went into infamy, the soccer ball from the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

Kevin 3:59

That's so hilarious. You know, as you're speaking, I'm also thinking in the back of my head, it's like, you know, you could have been so many things. You could have been a soccer player, you could have been a comedian, you could have been a radio host or a DJ or some sort. Of all the things that you chose or done, or in this season of your life, you chose coaching. And not only did you choose coaching, you actually chose to turn it into a business. And so I'm kind of curious about your origin story, the lore about what made you want to become a coach of all things.

Deepak Bhootra 4:29

Oh man, you're gonna hate this story because it's gonna go completely opposite to what you're expecting. I'm not a coach. I'm actually someone that helps people. And the word coach has become a way to talk about someone that helps directs and structures, right, Kevin? So I'm okay with that. I get that. Kevin, my trist with coaching, and let's talk about coaching in the way that you want it to be defined, right? I was having a conversation with my boss, right, and I was discussing with him promotion opportunities at work. And he said to me, Deepagino, I I like the way you think, I like the way you operate, but there's some things that I don't think you're understanding here. To move you higher in the organization, I need you to do a couple of things. Number one is I need you to show more grace to your team. You interrupt people a lot. You don't use your ears to mouth ratio two is to one. You just don't do that. He says, You're a super smart guy, I respect that. You have the answers to everything. I respect that. But sometimes let people finish their sentence because it's it's good for them to finish their sentence. I sat there completely like, so you're not promoting me, right? That's what you're trying to say. And he says, See, see what you did there? See, you're not listening, Deepak. I need you to become an active listener. So I said to him, Yeah, okay, what do you want me to do? Which course do I need to do? And you know what he said to me, Kevin? He said to me, Hey, Deepak, I actually am working with a coach. And I thought he was going to tell me, go find a coach and become better at what you do. He said something completely obtuse. He said to me, As I work with my coach, I actually realized the value of people getting certified as coaches. Why don't you go ahead and become a coach by getting certified in it? So, Kevin, in 2013, when I got this message from my boss, I was absolutely upset because one, I considered that to be a dereliction of his duty. He's supposed to be talking a promotion here. He is telling me, but I'll tell you what happened that day. It changed my life. Because I left, actually went online and I looked, and believe it or not, Kevin, I actually found a master coach in Singapore who actually came in and out from India to do training and coaching in India. So Ben was, I would say, a godsend for me. He came in, I was in Bangalore, and I did my coaching certification for two days. In those two days, I gave it my heart and my soul. I really enjoyed it so much because I really realized sometimes you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, right? And I actually thought I had a cool job. I was ex-sales guy now at sales operations, building massive complex projects and so on, doing very well on the path to I I was the director at that time, wanted to be a senior director, VP, and so on. So on. Kevin, I became a coach and it changed my life because I actually realized that there's so much value that I can add to people. And coaching gave me that structure, actually applied in a way that was first conducive to making me a better person, but more importantly, a framework that allowed people to absorb the information I was giving them. And there's power in that, Kevin. There's massive power in that, right? If you think about it. So for me, becoming a coach was not some altruistic move, right? That oh, I want to give back to society. No, no, no. What happened along the way? I think I became a better person. I also mellowed, you know, age does that to you, right? Kevin, there's certain things that happen with age and that happened to me. So as I became a coach, as I expert, started working, talking to people, one of the things that changed dramatically was that I became more structured and intentional in my engagement. Prior to that, if you came to me and said to me that, hey, Deepak, I report to you and I'd like to have a one-on-one, I would have a one-on-one. But once you become a coach, your one-on-one is now become about tell me where you see yourself going and how can I help you get there. Whereas before it was do this, this, this, this, consider promoting, otherwise, it's the highway. Did you did that subtle shift? So, what coaching did for me was that coaching made me a more benevolent person, someone that was listening more, someone that was very active, and two, not judgmental, create psychological safety. The value of that is so powerful, right, Kevin? What we wish upon ourselves and when we get it, when when I sit with my manager and I know that he's going to criticize my idea, but not the person, that's power, right? You're in a psychological safe zone. For me, that's what coaching ended up doing. So when I was contemplating, COVID came during COVID, and I think everyone went through an epiphany, right, Kevin? Oh my gosh, what is all this? How what is this? What's happened to humanity and so on and so on, right? That's when I reset and I asked myself, Teepa, do you want to work in the corporate world? You've done 30 years now. You're gonna retire with a nice 401k pension and all that, but do you really need to retire? You got lots of energy. What do you want to do? And Kevin, that's when I decided that look, I love selling, I love the sales function, I love coaching because I really do believe. Coaching gives me one more advantage, Kevin. And I just want to call this out to my fellow coaches, which is you know that metaphor, always send the elevator back down to pick up other people and bring them to your level. Because the more people you bring to your level, the more higher you will rise. I can attest to that. I've seen that work magically. All the top managers that I've enjoyed working with, Kevin, were precisely made from the same cloth. Build people, bring them to your level, and use them to build yourself up as well, but keep pulling people up with you. So you can literally think of a manager in a suit standing on the sort of cliff, right? He's leaning down, holding the hand of someone pulling them up. That is the metaphor that I'd like to position to you when you think about that. So coaching became a business, and to be honest with you, it's not a business for me. It's a passion for me. The money is there, and at times I think I could be a bit more better in my rates and stuff, but hey Kevin, what can I say? If you enjoy something, do it. And Kevin, I also, I mean a couple of other businesses, and I'll talk about that separately with you as we proceed. But that's pretty much the long-winded answer to your simple question. How did you get into coaching, Deepak? That's my story.

Kevin 9:48

So I love that. And Deepak, so curious, right? Like because with coaching, there's so many different types of people that you can coach. And we were talking um pre-podcast, we're talking about ICPs and stuff like that, too. And I'm kind of curious: like, how did you find or discover the type of people that you tend to help? And who are those people?

Deepak Bhootra 10:09

Yeah. So let's let's this good question. This is actually a very good question. I'm actually hesitant to answer it because I want to make a very thoughtful answer to this. When I think about who I want to coach, I go back to what my strengths are. My strengths are very clear. I come from a sales domain. These people will take advice from a fellow salesperson. They don't really want to. So it's like, I don't know how to say this to you, Kevin, but you're of Asian extract. I'm of Asian extract. And you know the biggest joke we have in Asian communities is that if you stand up and say my stomach hurts, there'll be 10 doctors in the family. Ah, Kevin, lie on your stomach, lah. Uh, Kevin, turn on your side. No, Kevin, come come, I'll be a tummy for you and it'll be okay. Or here's a herbal remedy that you should swallow. Too many experts. When I was thinking about what I could do as a coach, I actually realized that I don't want to be just a generic coach. Though I do m I must concede, I do have customers who want me to be leadership coaching and stuff like that with them. But I wanted to start from so my ICP is pretty simple. I'm looking for salespeople between the ages of 25 to let's say 35 who are getting their wings, starting to understand sales. They're either very new, obvious, or they are professional, but they now want to hit the next level. And they want to understand what do I need to do to get to that next level. These are people that Kevin most likely have mastered technique, but are still struggling with behavior and attitude. And that's my game plan. That's where I come in with. And I'm not a psychologist or you know, a neuroscience expert and all that. What I am is a practitioner. And with I have four degrees, and the rationale for doing four degrees with Kevin, it's like I one, I had lots of energy, and you're also a doctor, and you know how much effort goes into getting those that word in front of your name, right? My goal was actually to become a solid practitioner with deep academic roots rather than academic. So when I talk practitioners and with salespeople, they actually want to know that they're learning from someone that's been there, done that, and someone that can talk at the scale that they talk in. They want ambition, right? They don't want to talk to a coach who doesn't understand what it means to earn a quarter of a million dollars, half a million dollars a year. I know it sounds like a bitter thing, right? But think about it. Salespeople are there because they have an upside. They can is what I call it, right? And you think that he's going to be impressed by someone walking in who is making a let's say $120, $150, $25,000 as a coach teaching him what to do. These guys are going to look for so therefore I use that route to. So my CP is on LinkedIn. Salespeople, 25 to 35, salespeople who are getting there with technique or are good with technique, but actually feel that there's something happening with the mental setup. That's also one of the things because I've also had my own challenges with mental health. I got burnt out of 33 and 35 in sales. That's the reason why I left sales also, Kevin, FYI. And when you leave something and you experience that, you kind of know what's going on. I then went into sales operations because I love sales a lot. So I still wanted to be involved with it. So now you're talking to someone who's got a very deep understanding of how sales functions, very deep understanding of personal angst when it comes to mental health. And then you got someone who's a deep practitioner. I built systems and tools and technologies that salespeople use to become better. I now embed AI into a lot of the work I do. So as a coach, and I do that, but more interestingly, that 50% of my revenue comes from coaching, another 50% of it comes from consulting around B2B sales. And that's very important to mention as well. Because what's happened is, Kevin, is that I found a niche to answer your ICP question. I started off in that direction, but then what happened was that I met a couple of founders and they liked my message because they don't know how to sell. Founders know how to ideate, and founders have called vested interest in that product because it's their baby. So I was helping them build up selling chops. And because I focus on mental resilience more than technique, they really like that message because they need that same mental resilience in the work they do, Kevin, as founders. So today I'm at a point where I actually have six full-time uh strategic advisory roles that I do, which all started off as coaching and outreach. And uh these guys have actually brought me on board to actually help them not just with their own discussions, but also help them with day-to-day operational advice and guidance on how to set up the sales function, how to grow. And I've got strategic equity in that. What that means, Kevin, is that I spend 50% of my time working on stuff which pays me very little, but one day will pay me more because there's a bonus or performance attached to it. The thing that makes me very unique compared to other coaches is my pricing model. My pricing model is one of let me do good for you. And when you get to a point where you're comfortable, you will reward me. And we typically do a simple agreement around that. My wife hates it though, Kevin, because she means that that means can't go for vacations because you decided to make more money in the future. And I'm like, yes, that is the correct answer.

Kevin 14:24

Now it's really interesting how you kind of pivoted uh into founders and when you originally started with like salespeople, how do these people typically find you as well? Like how do they discover you?

Deepak Bhootra 14:37

So here comes a nice story that you will love. When I, Kevin, started my journey in September 2024, I had a shock of my life. No one knew me. A year and a half later, a lot of people know me because I actually realized that we have a problem. My corporate persona would defined Deepakputra. My personality was secondary. But when you are a coach, people actually want to know who are you, what are you, what do you do, right, Kevin? So therefore I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, Kevin, doing thought leadership, but then I suddenly realized I actually don't know what to write about. But then I realized, but I do with four degrees, with so much knowledge, and I write books as well. You have a lot to talk about, right, Kevin. The problem though is that you need to make it relevant to the person that's listening to you. So I started with videos. Believe it or not, my first video in my entire life that I made was in January of 2025. I now have 98 videos that I've published since then, which got a lot of traction. I think 4,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is not a lot, but I don't look at YouTube as a big channel for me. LinkedIn is a big channel for me, Kevin. So I find these salespeople on LinkedIn by DM. I also do a lot of email infrastructure, Kevin Cold. I don't believe cold emails work very well, but I have them as a part of my arsenal. LinkedIn direct messaging is where I really have done a lot of work. And Kevin, what I typically do is that I work on referrals. Referrals is, I would say, about a third of my guys' are referrals that I get back into the system based on work I've done and so on. And then of course, I'm a Sandler franchisee because when I became a coach, one of the things I did, Kevin, was I actually invested in a Sandler franchise. Sandler is one of the world's top five sales training and sales coaching organizations, right? So I'm ICF certified and I'm Sandler certified. So what that means is that I'm hyper-specialized on sales coaching. Call that out. But along the way, because I've I come from a deep corporate background, because I've done leadership roles, I'm actually very comfortable. And that's where that pivot with the founders comes in. They suddenly sense that this guy is more than just a sales coach. He actually is also a guy that understands how processes work and how tools align together. Plus, he I relate very well to these types of people because I've actually put in a lot of effort to understand what goes wrong with salespeople between the ages of 21 to 35. And I'll give you an example, Kevin. This is this just blow your mind. 35% of salespeople will leave the sales function by age 35. That's it. Now you just 35 by 35. That's how I call that slogan. You have a problem right there, Kevin. Salespeople are supposed to be humanity's best. These are sharp people who can have got solid mental resilience, make good money. I'm not talking about car salespeople or a furniture salesperson, right? I respect those roles. I'm talking about B2B salespeople, right? Typically, guys making a good package, giving big solutions, multi-million dollar quotas and stuff like that. And that's when you suddenly realize that, oh yeah, if you have a one-third of humanity's best are exiting sales, then there's a problem, right? That's leakage. Why does that happen? And that's when I started dedicating my understanding and my life to figuring out how to ensure that we can give career longevity to salespeople so that less people exit the function and those who stay make more money along the way. People ask me, isn't that a money-minded game, Deepa? I said no. If you last long, that means you've got the basics right. And the and the reason why you tolerate sales is because you make money. And the day you stop being motivated by money, which happened to me at age 35, because my boss also offered and said to me, I'll double your salary if you stay in sales, and I declined. That's the reality, Kevin, of how I am finding my sales guys and how I communicate with them. They read about me on LinkedIn, they read my articles on LinkedIn, they then come out to me and say, Hideep, I would love to have a call with you. I always have a call with them, and then we figure out whether there's an opportunity to work with them or not. It's also about fit, right?

Kevin 18:05

What do you feel like the core reason why the sage group like burns out 35 or 35?

Deepak Bhootra 18:11

What is the main reason why they burn out?

Kevin 18:13

Yeah, what do you what do you see? No suspicion.

Deepak Bhootra 18:15

I I can tell you, I know what I know because remember, once you deal with hundreds and hundreds of these people, you start seeing a pattern. And that pattern is very simple. People enter sales because they think that money is going to give them all the joy on the planet. They get in there and they actually realize that just because you're being paid highly doesn't mean that you can tolerate stress. What is sales? Sales is one of the most stressful things that you can think about. On Monday morning you made your quota and everyone's congratulating you, and Tuesday you lose a deal and everyone's screaming at you. That level of up and down, you can't see in any other function, right, Kevin? And by the way, this is the only uh function which punishes you. The more successful you are, the more your quotas go up, the more expectations go up on you as well, right? So that's a vicious situation. So what this means is that ambition is going to drive you. Success is measured in terms of money, but then ultimately you realize that I'm making the bucks, but I feel shitty inside. You feel bad inside because your mental resilience has been broken. Many of us don't understand no, right? It's saying easy, you know, people tell me my customer said nope, I just take it in stride. Really? What you're saying is as follows. It hurts, but I recover fast from it. And that, Kevin, is the answer that I'll give you as follows. I help salespeople recover fast from negative situations and maintain mental resilience by simple discussions, conversations, frameworks. People leave the sales function when they don't have a channel or an outlet, when they start becoming disengaged because they cannot believe that they can achieve this thing and they're taking the news personally. And you gotta understand one of the things I keep telling these guys that how many deals do you win out of 100? And they tell me I only win 20. I said, therefore, your success metric is that you need to lose 80 deals. And they look at me like, what? That's stupid. Success metric is that I need to win 20% deals. I said, no, you need to lose 80% of the deals. If you start balancing your thought process like that, Kevin, you will actually realize that loss. Is part of the plant. We have the yin yang conversations, right? We talk about balance in the universe. And here's a funny thing. When you pick to a salesperson, you ask him that, hey, if you were to talk to another salesperson that was stressed out, what would you tell them? These guys actually have some brilliant ideas. So I ask them a question. Thank you for showing compassion to the other guy. Have you had the same conversation with yourself? Answer always is, I don't understand. I says, Have you shown yourself the same self-compassion? The same advice that you gave to the other sales guy, did you give that advice to yourself? The answer is always no. Why? Because we've not been trained like that. We are not taught how to show grace to ourselves or how to show self-compassion to ourselves. And I think that's very powerful. So in my case, Kevin, I hate a no. I don't like losing deals because I'm competitive, right? But here's what happens. Previously, when I used to lose a deal, I would actually pick up a phone and call a friend and say, hey, let's go for a couple of drinks. I said it. And I kid you not, the percentage of people that actually look at recreational stuff like alcohol and stuff or whatever, it's very high, Kevin. We think now we reacted in a way that sounds socially acceptable, but at the end of the day, that doesn't solve the problem, right? You need to get to the root of the problem. And it's very simple. So when I get a no, I actually just take the dog for a walk, Kevin. Believe it or not. I just go for a 10-minute walk. Short and quick, take the dog, he does his business, I bring him back, and guess what? In those 10 minutes, I don't think about the problem. I think about the solution. How do I react? Is in my control. I cannot control my customers' reaction. Rule number one, Kevin. And you've got to pound this into people's head. That's why coaching becomes a long-term engagement and not something that you say, so many of my customers will tell me, Deepak, let's do a couple of sessions. And I agree to it because I do want to get the ball rolling. But Kevin, you gotta understand mental resilience is not something that you can spoon feed people. It's not like a red pill or blue pill moment, right? That you tell them, choose one, my friend. It doesn't work like that. It requires consistency, it requires high levels of self-awareness, and it requires a purpose. And the purpose has to be very clear. What are you in the sales game for? I help people make sense of that. And once you have this North Star, then you will put in the effort to reach that North Star. Long answer, but again, I hope that gives clarity in terms of how I approach things and how I what I've seen happening with salespeople and why they end up getting burnt out because they don't know how to manage that process. They don't know how to self-regulate. And many of them are perfectionists, but you've got to understand. Kevin, here's an example I'll give you, and this will blow your mind. Kevin, I'm working with five customers, and all five of them say to me, I love your product. I want a proposal on my desk by Monday morning. Kevin, any other person in a non-sales world, you know what he does? He negotiates deadlines, correct? But what do you think a salesperson does? He wants those deals, right? So he's not gonna argue with the customer. He falls in line. What that means is that because he did make because he's accepted everything, he now ends up in a vicious scenario where he's working the weekend to make sure that on Monday morning five proposals go out. And Kevin, therein is the challenge right there. That also requires self-regulation, also requires you to work as a team. A lot of salespeople tell me that, hey, because I get paid on my effort, therefore I work very hard by myself, it's a bad idea. Build relationship with the rest of the team members. Call upon people to help you when you need support. Those types of networks and relationships in the sales world are not built very well. And those are the type of relationships that can help you to ship. Think about it this way, Kevin. Sales guy making a quarter of a million bucks, is he gonna stand up and say that I have a coach that helps me? He's not. I make a lot of money. Why do I need anyone's support? And in sales, if you acknowledge that you're using support to become a better salesperson, then you know what your boss says to you? Why did I hire you then if you're a shit salesperson? Which is a weird situation because that's not what we're saying, right?

Kevin 23:23

Yeah.

Deepak Bhootra 23:23

That's not what we're saying. But unfortunately in sales, it becomes very, very, very melodramatic. Back to you, sir.

Kevin 23:28

That's really, really interesting. Yeah, I can see the reason why you called your your business uh jabo lani as well. And with the dog as well. So it goes full.

Deepak Bhootra 23:36

Perfect, man. Absolutely correct. Because we gotta constantly remind ourselves. And this is why I I love this thing, right? We talk about karma, karma, karma. Here's a lesson about karma. Karma is not predictable, Kevin, right? I've just got a simple do good, be good, and leave it at that, man. Leave it at that. Well, you know, I was actually at a you're gonna laugh. I was at a conference. We were talking about goal setting for 2026. And one of the people on the stage came and says, You know, I'm very religious. I go down on my knees every night and I pray. God, I want to be on a private plane. So when I got on stage, I says, that's an interesting prayer. But when you are already earning higher than the rest of humanity, when you're already doing very well, then you gotta ask yourself, how selfish do you want to get? Right? So my goal is not to say that I want to be on a private plane. I would rather say that, you know, if there are privates who go and leave their country, go fight for for your country and other places. Let's rather pray for those privates than pray for private planes. So my mindset is very different, right? So I'm not into prosperity and all that. But at the end of the day, Kevin, I'm not stupid. Of course I want to make money, man. Money gives you options, right? I may choose to give that money away in charity. That's my problem. But I don't want to say I don't like money. Of course I like money. That's why I suffered for 30 years in the corporate world, right? You keep growing, you make a shit better money. At the end of the day, one of my ex-bosses said something which blew my mind. Blew my mind. Help me a lot, Kevin. At age 26, he said to me, Deeput, the question is not, my friend, that you are a prostitute in the corporate world. You are, we know it. The question is, how do you feel about it and how will you manage it? And what reward do you want to justify? And I thought that was the most craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. But the point he made was very simple. Don't try to act holier than thou. Complaining about why bosses are bad and why the corporate world sucks. You chose this path. And now that you've chosen the path, the question is that we have established who you are, how much, and on what basis. And if it conflicts with your values, then please exit. Because there's nothing worse than you forcing yourself to go through a grind that doesn't make sense to you. And there is another that's another reason why sales people leave. The value system that sales requires is very different from the value system that you would act and behave like at home, right? You have to reconcile that. So instead of being a two-faced monster that you have something different, a 6 a.m. deep and a 6 p.m. Deepak, right? Let's try to have a 6 a.m. deep at all. That's where I work with these guys also.

Kevin 25:49

And so I'm sure like these guys are raising their hands, they're finding out about you. They're just like, oh my God, how do I work with someone like Deepak, right? How do I work with you? Kind of curious. Like, what does a coaching engagement or offering look like from you? Is it mostly one one-on-one? It sounds mostly one-on-one, but you tell me.

Deepak Bhootra 26:08

It's here's the problem with one-on-one. One-on-one delivers what I call instant dopamine hit because you can now relate to an individual who's telling you that his life is being impacted by the work you do. And that's cool, right? The problem with one-on-one is that you got maybe six hours a day. Because remember, Kevin, if I spend an hour with a customer, then I need an hour to prepare for that call also, right, man? So you cannot, I cannot believe that you actually do six sessions a day and tell me that. And then again, depending on your hourly rate also, right, Kevin? And where you are in the process. So at the end of the day, when you look at coaching and when you look at structure, one-on-one coaching is a great approach, but I don't think it's scalable. This is where you need to then start productizing your way work you do. Plus, you also need to do a lot of automation and AI integration into your work also. Now, coaching is one of those ethically challenging areas, right? How do you bring in AI that does not substitute for you my voice as a coach, correct? But at the same time, AI is very powerful. So I'll give you an example, right? Uh, Kevin, let's say you are my customer and you and I have done four sessions. I cannot possibly remember everything we have discussed, right? And also you'll notice, Kevin, that I don't take notes when I'm in my sessions with any other guys because I have my transcript, right? What are we talking about in the age of AI? I have a transcript, I have a recording. I take that transcript and I put that through AI and I summarize the notes in from a context that makes sense to me. I then also take that over time and I ask it. We started this journey with this plan. Based on the conversation as well as the fact that I've now understood more about this client as the A, B, C, D, E, F G, H I G. I document all that. Where do you think we should do a course correction? And guess what? AI can actually help you because all these books and methodologies that I have are also part of the knowledge base, right, Kevin? Can you imagine, Kevin, the power that you now have? And this is what I try to tell coaches. It's not that you're abdicating your responsibility as a coach, you are actually becoming more powerful. I became powerful, Kevin, just to give an idea. My hourly rate doubled, but my value to my customers went up by three to six times. And why am I so confident? Because I actually measured it. Value is measured qualitatively as well as quantitatively. I can actually tell you previously it would take me 45 minutes to generate a report for a customer. Now it takes me only 15 minutes because 30 minutes of that time was actually just assimilating of the notes and making sense of them. Now I get the notes assimilated even before I start my process because it's automated in the background, it happens. So for a lot of coaches, right, they're jumping into these things like, oh yeah, you know what, I'm gonna create an AI avatar of myself and I'm gonna create a coaching that is done with my AI avatar at level one, and only you come to me at level two. And I'm like, if no one has experienced level two with you first, why would they even buy level one from you? Makes no sense, Kevin, right? At the end of the day, coaching is an experiential thing, it is practice. You can't just say, look, there's a book on coaching published every day. And for the last 50 years, you have at least 5,000 books on Amazon. You would therefore expect that humanity should be cured by now, right? Humanity is not cured because humanity cannot be cured by books. In fact, my Riser book is 520 pages. It is thick, it is a massive book. In fact, I'm gonna just pick it up just for you, Kevin, and just you take this book, Kevin, and I tell people use this to beat the life out of a car hijacker. Because the people who are gonna read this are very few and far between, unfortunately. But I wrote the book because one, I need to develop authority and because I also want my frameworks to be enshrined and captured, right, Kevin? That tells people that hey Deepak has productized his knowledge, he's structured, let's work with him. That's another message I want to give out to people also on that front, right? That if you want to expand your business, coaching one-on-one is fine, but until and unless you don't get multi-thousand dollar, you're gonna find yourself in deep trouble, Kevin, right? Then, Kevin, for me, it's more like also, you know, retainers and stuff. I'm still not there yet. I would like to get more into retainers. But Kevin, to be honest with you, I hear of million dollar practices for coaches. Then actually, when I dig in deeper, I actually realize it's multiple coaches working together. The single coach making a million dollars most likely got a very high rate, and he's got some really solid rock star clients that have been with him and will stick with him through thick or thin and are willing to be price insensitive because he adds so much value in their lives. Back to you, sir.

Kevin 30:07

Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. So you've written a book and then you mentioned retainers. That's six books. Wow, that's quite a bit. Spend a lot of time doing that. Which which actually leads me to my question. Like, as you think about this coaching business, right? Where do you want to take you in the next few years? Do you have what desires to look at? That's a very powerful question.

Deepak Bhootra 30:31

Very, very powerful question. So, Kevin, let's tell you where it has taken me in the last year and a half. That helps you then see the trajectory, right? So when I started the coaching game, to be honest with you, Kevin, I had no clue, man. I did not know what my hourly rate should be. In fact, I didn't even know that I had to charge an hourly rate. I thought I could go to people and say that, hey, I like to do a couple of sessions with you. Pay me 500 bucks flat. And then people said, Oh, that's a lot of money. And I'm like, what? And it was a lot of money because I didn't explain what I was trying to do, right, Kevin. In that conversation, I just said to someone, let's do a couple of sessions. First, he doesn't even know how many sessions. He doesn't know what the content is. So that was a lesson for me, that journey, right, to make sense of that. So in that process, I also also realize that you need to also have authority. And to create authority, you need to actually create some sort of an impact. And that impact for me was through LinkedIn, through writing my books, right? Through coming on podcasts like this, right, Kevin. And I highly encourage people that if you underestimate the power of podcasts, what podcasts do, Kevin, is that and and I've now Kevin, I can not, if I if I do a quick calculation, I think you are podcast number 19 for me for uh for ever since I said my journey. And I myself have hosted 14 podcasts. Now you add those numbers up and suddenly you realize that wait a minute, this is a guy that's literally done daily, what, 25, 30 podcast experiences. And Kevin, that's what actually makes you better at you, it sharpens your sales angle, it sharpens how you explain things to people, right? So the benefit that I'm getting by talking to you is that it's not just I'm pontificating, right? I'm also sharpening my own intellect. And as you repeat things, it makes it easier for you to repeat those same things back to your customers. So one of the suggestions that I have to coaches is that, you know, go let your voice be heard. Go on LinkedIn. I have, I kid you not, I thought I'm making big bucks, but they're not on LinkedIn. And the question I always ask is that when the downturn comes, what's going to happen to you? But it will come. So for me, it's uh more about thought leadership. I want to grow my business, to be honest, Kevin, because I also have a sales training component to it. I like to do more training in organizations. Kevin, organizations tend to be less price sensitive and better margins, right? Plus, then you're coaching one-on-five. So it's like five people I coach or I train at the same time. That's where the money comes in, Kevin. It's not one-on-one. One-on-one will pay the bills, but if you want to scale, you need to get into retainers. Now, with retainers, here's the challenge though, right? I have really not focused on retainers too much. So, what ultimately happened for me is that my retainers I have dedicated to my founder coaching business. Right? Got it, Kevin? You know, the six guys that I coach, most of them don't pay me a cent, Kevin, just FYI. They just gave me equity in their organization. So I work with them one or two years, and if we achieve certain milestones or if they grow the business at a certain point, I then see my money. Now, if I would have charged them today, I might have made, let's say, $50,000 as an example, right, Kevin? But by this arrangement, I forgo the $50,000 today in the hope that I'll get $250K in two years' time. And now the challenge though is I got to pay the bills. So my retainer strategy is not a very cool strategy at all. So I want to focus on even the one-on-one guys. I've actually just launched, Kevin, since you're asking, because after being in this for a year and a half, I actually realized I need to have a retainer type of setup. So I am actually deploying a retainer type of setup. In fact, I've just set up the landing page for that as well, Kevin. And I'm going to encourage my existing clients to go there. But the way I'm doing it, Kevin, is slightly different. And this is something I'll share with you because I think you can make a lot of sense of this. Yes, I'm saying if you join me with a retainer, I'm actually going to make you part of my community. And in my community, I'm going to take all the information that I've put till now and I'm going to put it in a very structured way. So I'm actually forming a community for my sales coaching on circle. And I also do career coaching and career progression. Rise up. I'm also creating a community for Rise Up. Kevin. So I've got two communities that I want to build out now. And what will happen in those communities is that for a small subscription as well as for a retainer, you get access to me. The subscription gets you access to the community and the information that I put into it. Think of it as LinkedIn on steroids. Instead of dumping all the shit on LinkedIn and then hoping someone finds it, you're now actually going to structure it. Videos, you know, case studies, interviews, my podcasts. So Kevin, let's look at this podcast as an example, right? If you think about it, you and I have been speaking for what 40 minutes now. Can you imagine about can you imagine, Kevin, that I can actually create from this 40 LinkedIn posts? You know that, right? Now instead of creating 40 LinkedIn posts, what if I were to create four webinars and I say that, hey guys, inspired by this conversation, 30 minutes, anyone who can join come, I'm going to be talking about how to grow your coaching business by using retainers. And I can do a talk on that as an example. I'm not saying that that's what I would do though, Kevin, right? But back to you, Boston.

Kevin 34:53

So many things that you mentioned. Like, first thing I want to touch upon, right? Like, is like with the founders. It just reminds me of that famous quote by Peter Drucker where he says, like, all profit is derive from risk. And the more risk that you take on, the more you deserve a profit. So it's really interesting to see. It's a risk reward.

Deepak Bhootra 35:10

It's risk reward. Absolutely. And by the way, you know, you talk about Peter Drucker. I don't know if it's Peter Drucker or Philip Kotler, but there's one line that comes, you know, and this is something that's counterintuitive. It'll make you laugh again, Kevin. Peter Drucker or Philip Kotler, one of them actually said very I think it's Drucker. It has to be Drucker because he's typically typically more Kotler was more marketing. Where he said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Right? You can have the best strategy, but if you don't have the right culture, here is what I say. And you may disagree with this, Kevin, but I want to challenge people, your listeners, on this one. Here's what I say to that. Structure is fine. Structure is the structure will eat your culture for breakfast and your strategy for breakfast both. If you don't have structure, what do you mean by structure? Structure is discipline. Kevin, it's like, I know I need to lose weight, but well then why don't I lose weight? Either I'm not motivated or because I don't have a plan of action. And when the plan is in place, when something goes wrong, I don't have a recovery process to it. What is that? That structure. It's discipline. Wash and it's repeat. And one thing I've learned is that all the people that I worked with have become successful, not because they just listen to Deeva, but they actually develop a system or a structure on that advice. And if you look at James Clare's book, right, one of the reasons why his book became so popular was because he actually argued the same thing. You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems, is how he put it, right? And Kevin, right there is a message I want to give out to coaches. Coach your people on how to be self-sufficient and self-reliant by giving them the tools, systems that they can activate. You cannot be there for them all the time, right? You spoke about where what area do you want to grow Deepak next? I can tell you right now. I want to grow into my community where I actually want to bring AI, where my community member can say, hey, Deepak, what's your thoughts on self-doubt and imposter syndrome and what's the difference between the two, right, Kevin? Isn't that powerful? You're not waiting for me to come online. You can literally ask it of an AI or an AI avatar that now says, Hey, wait, I know all of Deepak's transcripts. I know all of Deepak's work that you see in the back of this bookcase, right, Kevin? Let me give you an answer right now based on Deepak's language, Deepak's talk. And in fact, I can, Kevin, I have actually done AJN and a couple other tools. I've created my own persona, right? You can literally have my persona explaining to the person, but you'll know it's not me because I'm a very movement guy. I'm a lot of hands in the air type of guy, right? And AI, you can't train AI on that. You gotta keep it very static, otherwise you create a mess. But Kevin, that's the future. I'm warning people right now. There are some coaches which are taking to the extreme, which is that they are productizing their entire persona into avatars. And there are business models being built on that. I'm not name some people, but right now one of the biggest stars on LinkedIn is someone that's actually building out a very big voice-operated avatar mechanism and offering it to coaches for like 100-200 bucks per month. You sign up on that platform and you create your own avatar and so on. I get that, but you know the reality with AI is that you've got to be very careful, Kevin. I'm predicting, Kevin, in five years, you and I are gonna pay a premium to speak to a human being because we'll be tired of working with automation. You're gonna call into a call center, you're gonna struggle for 10 minutes, and then they're gonna say, by the way, I'll charge you extra, but do you want to speak to a human being? You're most likely gonna say yes, because you'll be tired. You'll actually want to hear a soft voice telling you what's going on and stuff like that. So this is the judgment will remain with human beings, whether we like it or not. Yeah. Back to you, sir.

Kevin 38:20

I definitely see I definitely see that. I always talk about this of like uh you know how we have like cruelty like cruelty-free products and stuff. There's gonna probably be like a human-made like type of thing, AI-free or whatever. So yeah.

Deepak Bhootra 38:37

It's really interesting you say that because you know, when cruelty-free first came in, I didn't understand the concept. But then you get this nice warm feeling. And that warm feeling is that by my little gesture of buying this product, I've actually sent a message that I do care. I don't care enough to go and save someone outside as a good Samaritan, but I do care by showing that small gesture. And AI is one of those things that when I first came across AI, I must be honest with you, it bored me to death because I didn't understand its intent. But my God, Kevin, it became so cool and so good at stuff that I was surprised. And then I said to myself, people don't fight it. Work with it. But work with it under your control, under your voice. Do not let it overtake you. And this is why I love it when people say human in the loop. I'm like, shut up. You are the loop. The AI is the satellite that's in your orbit, man. What are we saying here? When you change your mindset, first of all, it's artificial because it's trained on your information. Now, if we needed artificial intelligence that tells you that we don't trust our own intelligence, but here's a tool trained on our intelligence, but on one hand, we don't trust our intelligence. What's going on here? I think AI's benefit is scale, Kevin. It will do things faster, it'll do them at scale. Even when you're sleeping, AI can work for you. And I have a feeling that that is what I'd like to give a message to all coaches out there. Build an infrastructure, build an AI that actually helps you. Doesn't take over. Look, there's also ethical considerations, right? As a coach, you are now taking people's information and you're putting it into two. And processes, you gotta watch out for that, also, right? And then if AI can solve everything, then why should someone pay you $500 an hour, right, Kevin? Why not just get a chat GPT subscription to 20 bucks and create your own little self-guided, which you can, by the way, Kevin, which you can. And I'm warning coaches out there, if you do not establish your worth, someone will take your job. And that someone is going to be AI or a coach using AI, right? Kevin, that's what's going to happen.

Kevin 40:26

A question for you because as we are talking about AI and thought leadership, how you're using AI to grow your business. You know, one thing that I just noticed, especially on uh Instagram, somewhat LinkedIn, some uh and these social media platforms, everybody loves to show a highlight reel, but we all know that there's like unsexy stuff going on behind the background. We could call them challenges, but I'm kind of like I'm kind of curious, what kind of growing pains are you kind of noticing in this season of business right now for yourself? Anything come in mind?

Deepak Bhootra 40:58

Let me break it down at practical level first, right? Let's look at LinkedIn first. LinkedIn is a big resource for a lot of coaches, right? And here's my caution to coaches. LinkedIn is also a cesspool. I know LinkedIn wouldn't like me to say that word out loud, but the reality is that the feed optimizes to its needs. I'll give an example, Kevin, and you can laugh at this one. LinkedIn says, do not use pods. When you use pods to boost your engagement, we don't like it. But guess what? I can pay LinkedIn to run an ad for me on the same post. For 20 bucks, I can actually get 5,000 impressions, which is cheaper than getting a pod. So ask yourself a simple question. What's the difference there? Substance over form? That's weird. So it's illegal for me to slap you, Kevin, but I can hire someone to slap you? Where we go. So to coaches out there, when you use LinkedIn, use it with intent and purpose. Be very intentional in how you use. Understand this massive noise. And look, Kevin, you're gonna fall over laughing here. Let's look at my DMs. 80% of my DMs are from people trying to sell to me. 80% of my DMs going out on me trying to sell to people. At some point, you gotta ask yourself, holy sh, what's going on here? Everyone's selling to each other. So if everyone's selling to each other, then who's buying? Watch out, right? So this is what I'm trying to say. You got the LinkedIn. Now let's go to AI as an example, right? AI is pretty cool. AI will come in and AI will, and you will say. And I'll tell you what a lot of salespeople are doing right now. They have absolutely abdicated. I need to write an email to the CFO. Hey, Chat GPT, give me an email to a CFO and give me the top two pain points that he can resonate with. And ChatGPT spews out something and you read it and you're like, yeah, that's what I call convenience. Think about it, Kevin, right? It was convenient to get it, therefore it's done. But was it the right thing to do? And by the way, those two points that came out, if you were to read them very carefully and if you knew your customer, you would actually realize that those two points are generic, they're not specific enough. Now, what do people do? Now people go take AI and they say, hey, and you will follow when I say this to you, Kevin. People are hyper stupid on basic stuff. Let me tell you what I mean by that. And please apologize for the words, but I need to be very clear because I want people's attention right now. Someone told me that I'm coaching the pak. I have a tool that I've created where I put in a person's LinkedIn profile and it tells me what is the nature of this person, how to approach him. And I said, okay, who is your ICP? And he said, the VPs and above. I said, okay. I said, did you know that most VPs and above actually most likely have hired someone to help them with their LinkedIn profile? Number one. Number two, they most likely are also using AI to write the stuff that you see on their posts. So I have a question for you. What are you analyzing? Are you analyzing their mindset or their writing, or are you analyzing an AI writing that sounds like them? And how comfortable are you? Now, see, do you see the problem there? We are now using AI and deploying them on stuff that AI should not be deployed on. You are deploying AI to actually understand from someone's writing what type of person they are so that you can position a selling offer to them and you don't even know if that blog was written by them or not. People ask me, Deepak, you're a prolific generator of information. Do you use AI? Man said, yes, I do. And immediately they tell me, uh, then so you're part of AI slop. And I'm like, hold on, I'm a bit confused here. What is AI slop? I heard this term for the first time, Kevin, and it didn't make any sense to me. Now I started reading coaches. Coaches are now writing a lot. Kevin, I'm going to say something that's going to hurt the feelings of a lot of coaches on this call. There is an entire generation of coaches which are just writing so much AI slop. So much, Kevin, that I can actually tell. And let me tell you, people think that, and then you have this. So there are a couple of coaches that I track and follow. Some post only once a week, there are some that post twice a day. And this is what they'll post a billboard with a motivational quote on it. When you get that for the first time, it's awesome. But Kevin, let me tell you one something that my customer said to me once. He said to me, you know, Deepak, I want to leave my organization. I said, Why? I want to leave my organization because they play bullshit. I said, What does that mean, man? Tell me more. He says, What they do is Deepak that they'll tell me, employee of the month, Deepak Bhutra, January. Then in March, employee of the month, Deepak again. Then they'll suddenly say, Hey guys, uh best customer service, Deepak again. He says, Deepak, I want to show you something. I got 10 certificates last year. But when it came to promoting me, the guys told me that we don't have a budget. I'm so sorry, man. He said, Then what's the point of giving me all those certificates? Now, when I got the first certificate, I was excited. Someone recognized me. I got the second certificate, I was ecstatic, someone recognized me again. I got the third, the fourth, and the fifth, and then I started asking myself, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's exactly what AI, my friend. We have taken AI and we're going to use it, use it, use it, use it to a point where people are actually going to start saying, you know what? I don't even need to read this guy's post because I know he's got AI in it. What's the value in it for me? Therefore, that relationship that you had is now diluted completely and gone. Coaches listening in, please, you may challenge me, not understand this point I'm making, but you are digging your own grave. And I don't want to take names, but I can, Kevin, tell you right now, the top coaches write their own stuff and they don't post every day. But then you have the other coaches which are fighting to survive. And what they do is because someone told them, create a nice graphic. And you know what? Creating a graphic is not that difficult. The coaches are spending three hours creating images which are really cool, but you know what? After five or ten images, they all become the same. When you are consistently using a certain technique, that technique becomes old. We need to watch out for that. Kevin, sorry, I kind of went all over a tangent there. But this is very, very important for people to understand. There's a certain way to make your voice heard. There's a certain way to impress upon people that you are the person they should spend their hard-earned money with. But at the same time, the coaching game is full of too many people, Kevin. I kid you not. Someone told me coaching is the fastest growing industry. I says, how? Just think about that, Kevin. How? Overall, AI is taking jobs, overall the economy is tanking, overall tariffs are making a big bruising, but there are more coaches growing every day. I'll tell you why. Because those people who lose their jobs become coaches overnight. And we have a problem in this industry. There are too many coaches. And now what happens is that you got this noise. And I'll give you a classic example. A customer of mine put in a LinkedIn service request. This will blow your mind, Kevin. They put in a LinkedIn service request. Previously, people say that when they used to put a request in LinkedIn, they would get maybe five or six proposals in 24 hours. I have now customers telling me that, hey Deepak, thanks for sending your proposal. But by the way, I got proposals from 22 people, 25 people, 30 people in a 24 hour period. Kevin, how do you make decisions now? Look at what's happening to the life of my customers. They don't know what to do anymore, right? So now guess what's happening here? They told me, I just look at the first three and I just choose one man because I can't talk to 20. Kevin, did you just realize what happened here? The person that can get the proposal out the fastest wins the deal. Isn't that sad? Isn't that sad? I'm a solopreneur. I can't be sitting there watching on LinkedIn service, watching to answer it immediately, right? This is the the now what's going to happen? Someone's going to automation that's going to respond to those things very fast, very quick, and he's going to deal for all the wrong reasons. That's another concern I have. And at the end of the day, look, automation and AI will scale stupidity. If you are stupid in your basic fundamentals, and I sorry I keep using this word, but it's really hard hitting. I have to make it hard hit. All you're doing is scaling stupidity. Please watch out for that. A broken process remains broken. You cannot, even the Japanese have this kintsugi, right, where a broken pot you meld it together with gold. For me, that was an amazing metaphor. What that simply means is, but the point is people get confused with the gold angle to it. Well, you could have used copper, you could have used any metal. But the point was that what was considered shattered was made whole again. Okay, cool. Metaphors, get it. But I'm concerned about the prolific nature of some of the coaches and generating AI slop, which is going to make the entire industry take a hit. It's concerning me a lot. Because I'm I'm I'm drowning in it. I'm drowning it. Just go, Kevin. In fact, I would highly recommend, since you guys are very interested in coaching. Bo, actually do a survey. Go and actually go and look at your feed and start doing a mathematical count of how many people from the coaching industry post regularly and what is the level of that and then rate it from one to ten. A ten being no AI detected, one being all AI, I can tell. You'll be very surprised. I would argue 50% of all the coaching motivational nonsense that is being published. And do you know how I know that, Kevin? Is because I invite these people to my podcast and they will tell me, oh, I'm not comfortable. I haven't done a podcast before. And I'm like, you haven't done a podcast before, but you're writing on a daily basis with all this magical stuff. Oh, I'm busy building my base out right now. But but the way you write seems already making a million bucks. Do you see what's happening here? This is what's happening here. People are going and making blatant lies and white wall because you can't AI allows you to become bigger than you actually are. You end up boxing in a weight class which you never prepared for because AI gives you the capability to sound more intelligent than you actually are. Back to your boss.

Kevin 49:19

Quick one last quick question. How do you feel like it's affecting your business with this uh AI slot thing?

Deepak Bhootra 49:26

It just means that I need to double down on what works, right? Kevin, if I know that I've tried 10 things and only three work, then just focus on those three and don't get distracted with other noise. Two, don't try to imitate what other people do. Kevin, I tried that, and you know what? Your heart's not in it, so don't do it. I'll give an example, Kevin. There are at least six coaches that publish a daily selfie of themselves. I kid you not. I kid you not. I actually had a coach sending a photograph of them in a bikini at the pool edge and saying, Build your coaching business so that you can enjoy life the way I am enjoying it. That is such a non-coachy message to send to anyone, right? What are we talking about here? Am I did you uh I'm a bit confused. What happened there? I'll tell you what happened there. This is the Instagram crowd that has suddenly realized that they can make LinkedIn. That's why I call LinkedIn a cesspool, right? Because what's gonna happen is, in fact, here's another thing I'll ask all coaches to do. Just go to LinkedIn and go and look at videos recommended for you, Kevin, right? There are five videos that they will stack in a horizontal way to show you. Look at all five and weep. Weep, my friend, weep. One will exactly some person swizzling their coffee and telling you why when you're making a cold call you need to drink coffee. Once, twice, thrice, it's good. But with that type of stuff, when it gets to the top five feeds, on it tells you that LinkedIn is becoming nothing more than just Insta with a professional tag. And that's dangerous. That makes no sense. Selfies, I mean, I it blew my mind. I actually three posts in one day of that person at a conference in three different outfits. Your outfits are now there because you're now totally focused on your online persona and not on your coaching business. That's just doesn't make sense to me. But that's maybe my personality. Maybe I'm too old for this stuff, right, Kevin? But look, I'm not old enough to know that coming on this podcast is actually a good thing for me, a good thing for you. I think it's a message that I would love to hear more messages as well, right? Back to you, sir. I hope that answers the question, though, Kevin.

Kevin 51:19

Last question for you, Deepak. Such profound insights, by the way. So much I could comment, but we'd probably go on for another hour.

Deepak Bhootra 51:26

Absolutely, my friend. Like I said, I got at least 40 posts just from this conversation with you.

Kevin 51:31

Yeah. How do people find you and connect with you?

Deepak Bhootra 51:34

On LinkedIn. I'm the only Deepak Boothra on LinkedIn. Feel free to go there, drop me a DM. I'm pretty good at my DMs. Yes, it is drowning with a lot of gunk, but I'll find you out. You could send send me a Demon. Demon? I meant DM. You can send me a demon message in the DM. That might work as well. Kevin, subscribe to my newsletter. I have two newsletters on LinkedIn. Highly recommend. And by the way, Kevin, I only started writing my newsletters two months back, right? Because there's a certain time and place. And as a solopreneur, I'm also, how do you say, stretched for time, right? It took me a long time to figure out where people like my voice. I invest time in that. Subscribe to my newsletters, they're on LinkedIn. Two newsletters. I have two communities. Feel free to um come back to me and say, hey, I'd love to join the communities. I'm happy to bring on people for free. I'll give you the first year for free if you don't mind. If you don't like it, hey, no hard feelings. Exit. But if you feel you're getting value, I'd love to have you a subscriber. Stuff like that, Kevin.

Kevin 52:26

I love that. You know, as I'm looking through my notes, by the way, something that I'm really fascinated about was how coaching like there's this perception of coaching, but it's really amazing to hear how coaching has made turned you into I don't know, this sounds so cliche, but like a better human. You're talking about how it made you a bit more a better listener, more compassionate. And uh it's just it's just really, really interesting you got it. And I think you could have made two paths. You could have made the path and be like, hey, this guy that is giving me this feedback, he doesn't know crap and just go off that route. But you actually leaned into it too, and it's really interesting how you kind of things didn't go the way that you expected to, but then you pivoted and stuff too, and it's just really, really, really inspiring. That's what I'm saying. Kevin, you know there's a big message.

Deepak Bhootra 53:12

There's a big message in what you said. Then I just want to close very quickly on this thing to people, right? People have this notion that you know there used to be this interview question that Kevin, most likely you got as well. Where do you see yourself in five years, Kevin? If anyone is asking that question today, then they are fools. That question is meaningless. Kevin, five years ago, I can assure you, I was gonna tell you, dude, I am retiring at 55 and I'm gonna have I've got a flat in India and I'm gonna have my house in South Africa, I'm gonna be flying around and said, No, I'm not doing that anymore. Five years ago, I didn't tell people I was gonna become a coach and an entrepreneur. I'm right now raising funding for Rise Up on WeFunder, right, Kevin? If you spoke to me a year and a half ago when I became an entrepreneur that hey Deep Bhutta, you're gonna have your own startup. No, startup is for young people, right, Kevin? That's what they tell us. No, no, it's not. So it's it's it's one of those things. So passion, latch on to the passion, but more importantly, don't try to extrapolate too far out into the future. Just take the next quarter, the next six months as the next benchmark. Where you're gonna go is gonna be a function of how well you do the next six months, not how many dreams you have. I need to lose 40 pounds, focus on the first five and then multiply that eight times. End of story. Sorry, Kevin, back to you, man. I think we be I think Kevin, congratulations, records. This is the longest podcast I have recorded, either as a guest or as a host. Well done, sir.

Kevin 54:29

I have done some pretty long podcasts in my day, by the way. It's pretty interesting.

Deepak Bhootra 54:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Joe Rogan for me, the record, I think he does like two or three hour podcasts, right? And that guy's crazy as to, but his style is different. I think Kevin, you have also kept a very simple, straightforward style, and that worked for both of us.

Kevin 54:46

Yeah, definitely for purple circle. Keep it like pretty like standard itself. If it was my podcast though, bit more unhinged for. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah, I'm with you. Um why I brought up all that stuff too is that Deepak, that's just my long-winded way of saying I I really appreciate you uh your work and your stories about how you started this coaching business, the struggles that you're going through with the AI slop. And I just want to thank you for your time, your stories, your wisdom to podcast today. And hopefully it's uh really helped a lot of the people listening to this. So thank you so much.

Deepak Bhootra 55:22

My pleasure, Kevin. Thanks for the opportunity. And I think that this was a great conversation. You did a fantastic job in keeping it relaxed, comfortable. And I think you latched on to some of the things I said and dug in deeper. And uh, good luck to your editor in the editing process. And we take it from there, but I'm grateful for this opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, T-Pac.

Davis Nguyen 55:40

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, 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 $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 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 purplecircle.com.