I work with people in Dubai who are good at their jobs and still feel lost inside them. Some are in the middle of a career change, trying to work out what a new career could actually look like.
Others are senior enough that nobody challenges them anymore, and they've started to notice it. If you've searched for a career coach in Dubai or a life coach in Dubai, this page should tell you enough to decide if I'm the right coach for where you are.
This is a genuine, complimentary conversation about what's actually on your mind.
I'm a certified coach with an ICF PCC credential, and I trained directly under Dr. Richard Bandler, the co-creator of NLP. I'm also, more specifically, a certified career coach for senior professionals working through change. Coaching certifications range from ICF pathways to CPCC training through the Co-Active model, and the letters matter less than most coaches want you to believe.
What matters is whether the person across from you can see something you can't, and say it without judgment.
I built the MARK Model after years of watching the same pattern show up in different people: a strong track record on paper, no real strategy for what comes next. A leader gets promoted twice in three years and then stalls, not from lack of skill, but because nobody ever taught them how to lead people who used to be their peers. Clients don't come to me for a fresh unique value proposition or a personal brand refresh. They come because someone outside their life can offer a different perspective, and because I've spent over two decades doing this work with founders and senior leaders in Dubai and beyond.
I'm passionate about helping people lead more authentically, not perform a version of themselves that's easier to promote. If you're trying to find a coach who will tell you what you want to hear, I'm probably not it. That's not my approach to helping people, and it's not why clients stay.
Award‑winning coach
A career coach can help with more than job titles. Career coaching helps most when the problem isn't obvious on paper, when you're doing well by every external measure and something still feels off. A career coach may notice patterns in how you talk about your work that you've stopped noticing yourself.
Most of what I do in early sessions is refine the question. People usually walk in asking the wrong one. Someone asks "should I take this promotion" when the real question is whether they want to keep climbing in the direction they've been climbing at all. Getting to greater clarity there takes a few real conversations, not one, and a clear vision usually shows up only after the honest question replaces the polite one.
My coaching brings deep experience in communication skills, the kind that changes how people get heard in rooms that don't naturally listen to them. People gain clarity fast once we get here, and the insight tends to stick because it's about how they communicate, not a script they memorized.
My coaching services aren't built around a fixed curriculum.
Feel stuck describes most people who reach out to me, whether that's in a role or in a pattern they keep repeating without meaning to.
The work is action-oriented from the first session. We identify next steps early, even in week one, because insight without action just becomes a more articulate way of staying where you are. I work from your specific needs rather than a generic program, which means the specific areas we focus on shift depending on who's in the room. Two examples of what that looks like in practice:
That's usually where positive change actually starts, in naming the real problem rather than in the plan that comes after it.
If you already know roughly what's not working and just need help figuring out how to navigate your next move, that's often the fastest kind of engagement. Whatever's next, the way to get to the next level usually starts with naming the actual problem clearly, which is harder than it sounds.
Life coaches tend to work across every part of a person's life at once, touching aspects of life that never show up on a resume. An executive coach usually works inside a narrower lane: how you lead and how you make decisions when the room is watching you closely.
I sit somewhere between the two, closer to a career coach with a life coach's willingness to ask about the rest of it. Career development rarely happens in isolation from the rest of a person's life. Someone dealing with a promotion they're not sure they want is also usually dealing with work-life balance, or a version of personal development that has nothing to do with their job title.
Leadership development work tends to be the most impactful when we stop treating career and life as separate conversations, because for most senior people, they aren't.
Your LinkedIn profile is not your career path. It's a summary written for strangers.
Career development conversations that only live on LinkedIn tend to stay shallow, focused on what looks good rather than what you actually want.
We spend real time on career goals, the kind you'd be embarrassed to admit out loud at a networking event because they're honest instead of impressive. Goal-setting only works if the goals are yours and not the ones you inherited from whoever raised you or whichever manager praised you first.
Once someone can name what they actually want, professional goals stop feeling abstract. People start to unlock decisions they'd been sitting on for months, not because the decision got easier, but because they finally know what they're deciding for. That's usually what it takes to achieve your career goals instead of just talking about them, and it's often the same groundwork behind learning to achieve your goals in the rest of life, and a personal brand that isn't a performance.
A first session usually starts with almost no agenda from me. I want to hear how you talk about your own situation before I bring in any framework, whether that's the MARK Model or something else entirely.
I don't lean on personality typing tools like the Enneagram. Some coaches build their entire practice around them, and that's a legitimate approach for some people. Mine stays closer to the ground, working directly with what you say and how you say it, in real coaching sessions rather than through a typing system that sorts you into a category first.
By the end of a career coaching session, most people leave with one thing they didn't have walking in, and it's rarely advice. It's usually a sentence that describes their situation more honestly than the one they walked in with. That sentence tends to do more work than a to-do list.
Job search work with me isn't just CV formatting, though resume writing does come up. A CV update matters less than most job seekers think. A recruiter can usually tell within ten seconds whether the story on the page matches the person applying.
Where I actually spend time is the story underneath the job application, why this role, and why you instead of the last candidate who applied.
That's closer to a negotiation than a submission, even before you get to a table where negotiation about the offer itself matters. Someone moving from finance into a creative field, for example, needs a way to explain that pivot as a decision rather than a detour.
Some of this comes up when someone's chasing a promotion in their current role and needs a different way to talk about what they've already done. Some of it comes up when someone's leaving their current role entirely and needs to explain a gap or a pivot without sounding defensive about it, and recruitment teams notice the difference immediately.
Career growth doesn't usually stall because someone lacks ability. It stalls because the strategy around the ability is missing, whether that shows up in interviews or in how a resume gets read in the first six seconds.
Interview coaching with me is less about rehearsed answers and more about interview prep that holds up when the room goes off script, which it usually does. Real job search strategies account for that. A scripted answer collapses the moment someone asks a follow-up you didn't prepare for.
Certified coaches disagree on a lot of this. Some believe in heavy scripting. I don't. I believe in giving someone enough clarity about their own case that they can improvise inside it, because a career coach may hand you language, but only you can deliver it like you mean it.
A career transition rarely announces itself cleanly. It usually starts as a low hum of dissatisfaction that someone ignores for a year or more before they act on it.
Working with a career coach during a transition means someone helps you navigate career transitions without pretending there's a formula that works the same way for everyone. Your career journey is not the same as the last client's career journey, even if the surface details rhyme.
I've watched clients navigate a move from corporate to founder, and I've watched the reverse just as often.
None of this requires knowing the best career path in the abstract. It requires knowing your specific version of it, which is a much smaller and more answerable question than "what should I do with my life."
A career coach focuses on decisions tied to your work: a promotion, a career transition, how you present yourself in a job search. A life coach usually works across more of your life at once, including relationships and personal development. I sit closer to the career coach end, but I don't ignore the rest of your life when it's clearly connected to the decision in front of you.
It depends on what you're working through. Some people come in for one focused session around a single decision, a promotion or a resignation letter. Others stay longer while they work through a full career transition, sometimes several months.
Both. Sessions happen in person in Dubai or over a video call, depending on your schedule and where you're based.
Yes, and that's often where people start. Job search strategies and interview prep are concrete, specific work, not vague conversations about purpose. The deeper questions about career goals tend to surface once the practical problem is handled.
If the work is mostly about how you lead or make decisions under pressure, that's closer to executive coaching. If it's about a career transition, a role, or a decision about what's next, that's the career coach lane. Most people don't need to get this exactly right before reaching out. I'll tell you honestly which one fits.
Not much structure, on purpose. I want to hear how you talk about your own situation before I bring in any framework. Most people leave the first session with a clearer question, not a full plan.
"Rajiv Sharma gives timeless principles that help both individuals and organizations in their pursuit of excellence. You'll discover challenging and compelling insights into the MARK Model. This coaching is your call to action to improve your effectiveness and success in life."
"Rajiv is one of the top professional trainers and speakers in the world today. He has over 30 years of experience in Sales, Corporate Strategy, and Value Chain creation. He's thoroughly qualified and proficient to help you and your people become absolutely excellent, ensuring that your organization is at the top in this very competitive market."
"Rajiv Sharma has connected four pillars of effectiveness and success: Mindset, Action, Repetition & Knowledge, and using these tools in life coaching programs, you can create a roadmap to achieve your goals. It provides the key to unlocking your potential and achieving sustained greatness. I strongly recommend this program."
Rajiv Sharma is ranked among the top 30 global experts in NLP and sales training, and has transformed thousands of careers. Choosing him as your mentor and coach moves you from setting goals to actually achieving them. Let Rajiv guide you toward the career growth and confidence you've been aiming for.
If you're ready to take a real look at what's not working, the first move is simple. Reach out and tell me where you are.
I can't promise career success as an outcome. Nobody honestly can. But I can promise you'll get expert attention on your actual situation instead of a generic framework applied to everyone who walks through the door.
Clients often put it simply a few sessions in: they finally feel like they're moving towards my goals, not just staying busy in someone else's.
I'll tell you honestly whether this is the right fit.
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