Reigning Australian Coach of the Year Yasmin Raja shares how three years after joining TCI she is supporting female entrepreneurs in her flourishing business and being a great role model to her four kids.
Growing up in Malaysia, Dr Yasmin Raja started her first business at age seven, when she bought greeting cards for 5 cents from a local store and sold them to friends for double the price. “I loved selling,” she says. “I am a very creative girl and when I saw an opportunity I took it. I sold a lot of stuff when I was young.
“Business marketing is in my blood.”
So is coaching. Three years after she joined TCI, Yasmin—a Melbourne mother of four kids aged from 22 to 13 who holds a PhD in branding, which means yes, her Insta is insane—is the reigning ICG Australian Coach of the Year (the 2020 winner will be announced in November.)
Claiming that inaugural title saw Yasmin, 49, flooded with messages from all over the world and rocketed her coaching business to capacity. “It turned my world around 360 degrees,” she says. “An amazing journey.”
Her road to coaching wasn’t straightforward. A ballerina and pianist, Yasmin left Malaysia at 19 after landing a scholarship to study business management at Michigan State University in the US: “Culturally, I am a girl and should be home. I am a very different type of girl. I like to do something adventurous.”
“When I started at TCI I had no idea what a landing page was but I don’t feel that guilt of asking because I know every time I ask for help from TCI they are going to help me. TCI is always holding your hand and walking the journey with you.”
After working back home in the banking sector, Yasmin taught at a university then came to Australia to study her masters in IT. She eventually “fell in love with marketing” and did her PhD in branding in Australia, where she and her husband of 21 years decided to raise their family.
She joined TCI in 2017 at Masters level, then two weeks later made “the very fast and most scary” decision to sign up for Pro Coach. At the time she was “almost bankrupt” but “I decided to take action because you guys taught me how to believe in myself and trust myself.”
What was behind that?
“I always have this dream I want to have a successful business,” says Yasmin, who has made that come true with EQ Biz Coaching, which has the high-quality problem of having to cap its one-on-one clients.
“My business started from zero. After six months I already started making income and just within just within one year I managed to pay back the amount of Pro Coach by using the system,” says Yasmin.
Her clients are businesswomen who need help pivoting into digital marketing. “I would say 100 per cent of them have a big fear when it comes to digital marketing so I teach them in terms of the structure,” says Yasmin.
“They have different business models so … I have to be very creative but I always have that support from the TCI team. One of my clients is now generating income like $10,000 every two weeks.”
For Yasmin, TCI has been “such a worthwhile experience,” she says. “Being able to help these women is already a success for me. Money will come later. Happiness is No. 1.”
What has it been like being Coach of the Year?
It has changed me in a positive way. I would say it’s given the opportunity to open up a door for me. To find all these people who really need help from me. When they approached me with Coach of the Year, seriously I have no idea what that is. Trang [Ho] contacted me and said I was shortlisted and had to answer these questions. Answering them it was like I was writing a love letter to myself. From my heart. I was so falling in love with what I was doing that I just answered the questions and sent them off, bang.
What makes you such a great coach?
No 1, I always want to learn. No 2, it is not just learning, it’s taking action. When I jumped from Masters to Pro Coach I spoke with Joe Pane. I was heartbroken. I failed in my business, I was broke, I lost two properties in Malaysia, I lost three cars. My family was chased out of the house because we had no rent money, I only had $100 in my pocket but I really want to do this so badly at TCI. I told Joe, ‘If I sign this contract you have to tell me how to become a millionaire’. He said, ‘You can get anything you want on one condition: take action’. That was the moment. It gave me a big slap, telling myself the moment I commit I will make sure I implement and take action. That’s the reason I am not turning back and do not have any excuses.
“I have changed other people’s lives as well, with the support, the resources, the knowledge that I learned from TCI, it’s a perfect combination to go out there and start helping others. An amazing journey.”
How has your life changed through coaching?
I started to be more conscious in the way I changed my perspective. I feel more grateful with what happened in my life and how the path brought me to TCI. It’s a blessing in disguise that all those things happened, I see that as part of my asset.
What has this done for your lifestyle?
I am very happy with it—I have quite a lot of balance. I work very hard, I still put a lot of effort in, my business is growing and more and more people want to work with me. I always have family as my No 1 value because I want to be not just a mum but also a good role model for my children. I have been pretty disciplined with myself, I always take care of myself first, my diet, meditation, everything, and I love to read and gain knowledge. I work seven days a week, I don’t mind because this is my passion at the same time. When I do business, I do it in a way that puts no pressure on me. I just want to do something I enjoy. I still have goals but it’s not something that will lead me to feel burned out.
Where are you at with your business?
I have 15 paying clients for my six month program, I charge around $3000, and I also do a lot of online group mentoring. My specialty area is digital marketing. During COVID I have had to put people on the waiting list so I am coming out with online courses in November.
My business is called The EQ Biz Academy. I love the concept of EQ. I have my own framework, and all my programs will always begin with emotional intelligence and learning about emotional resilience because I help female entrepreneurs. I believe as a female we must be good in managing our emotions. We need to balance out our life—business is part of it, but we also have families, children, parents, hobbies, so we don’t need to be competitive or push ourselves to the extent that we burn out. Ask yourself your big why: what do you want to do to make you happy?
What challenged or surprised you most about TCI?
Something which is fun I learned from Remi Pearson: it’s okay to make mistakes.
What was the big turning point or milestone with your coaching journey?
I allow myself to be me. That is such a beautiful thing because before that I am too ashamed to go out and be authentic me, but the moment I accepted I am unique that process helped me a lot in terms of my confidence levels. So many people ask, what is the secret? Look at me ten years ago. I failed so many times. You have to allow yourself to fail many times to become confident.
Your best marketing strategy?
Social media and content creation. I did it myself. If you look at my content my strategy is not about me focus, it’s about you focus.
Advice for other TCI coaches?
No 1: keep learning. No 2: you must apply. No 3: you have to teach to other people because the moment when you learn, you apply, you teach, you are going to learn more and then also it will help in terms of your credibility as a professional coach. When you coach based on what you learn and apply, that is where you are going to leverage and increase your level of authority and credibility.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I am going to talk in front of ten thousand people, I will be one of the best speakers known for inspiring women.
Yasmin loves books, inspiring people and "making a mess in the kitchen." A mum of four with a PhD in branding, she laughs when asked her secret talent—"I can dance. I can sing. I can make stupid jokes." Yasmin's mission is to empower women all over the world and she lives by her message to them: "Don’t give up, believe in yourself, trust yourself, you have your own genius zone so use it wisely. Do what you love to do, don’t do what other people want you to do, stop comparing yourself to others."
My journey began when my husband got cancer