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Coaching found me, not the other way round.

How I got here, and what I bring to the partnership.

I've held several positions over the years, in several different fields. Each one taught me something. None of them felt like the thing I was meant to be doing.

Life coaching does.

It's the only work I've done that I can't get enough of — a passion that borders on obsession, if I'm honest. That drive is what makes me good at it. It's also why I'm still learning: reading, training, refining how I work. I don't think a coach who stops developing has any business asking clients to keep developing.

My background is in the community and voluntary sector, and that's where I learned the part that matters most: how to talk to people properly. Not scripts, not techniques — real human communication, built over years with people from every background you can think of.

I currently work part-time as a community development manager at a community centre, where I coach my direct reports and keep those skills sharp every week.

Gulam Akbar - Life Coach.png

Working with me

What I actually do in a session

01

I ask powerful questions

Not to test you — to help you think for yourself. The answers you reach on your own are the ones you act on. The ones I hand you get politely ignored.

03

I hold you accountable

You'll set commitments. I'll follow up on them. Kindly, but I will follow up. That single dynamic is why coaching works when good intentions don't.

02

I listen properly

Active listening is the core skill of coaching and it's harder than it sounds. Most of us are waiting for our turn to speak. I'm listening for what you haven't said yet.

04

I empower, I don't instruct

I'm not here to run your life or tell you what to do with it. The goal is that you leave with the capability of your own, not the dependency.

Why "holistic"?

Because you can't fix your career in a vacuum.
Plenty of coaching focuses only on the executive or professional side of life. In my experience that hits a ceiling fast. If your sleep is broken, your relationships are strained, or your health has been on the back burner for three years, no amount of goal setting at work is going to hold.
So we look at all of it — work, health, relationships, finances, purpose, rest. Not to overhaul everything at once, but to see the whole picture and work out which one or two areas will move everything else.

What my clients say

Gulam always pushes me to achieve my ambitions. I remember a recent coaching session where Gulam asked me how my dieting was going. I told him it was going well and that I was making progress.


We then had a long, guided discussion about how I was succeeding in this area of my life. Gulam wanted to explore this so I could identify the strengths, habits, and inner resources I was already using to achieve this important goal. The idea was that, once I understood what was helping me succeed in one area, I could apply the same approach to other major goals in my life.


Gulam is always kind and considerate, but he also challenges me to accomplish the things I set out to do.

Shopa Ali, Youth Worker

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