Up next in 10
What does it really take to build a fully digital international coaching practice from scratch — no network, no technical background, no local market? In this episode of Build With What You Know, I sit down with Mousaab Khaldi, founder of 4 Empires Coaching, who built his practice from Morocco to Germany, Spain, and the US by combining inner work with practical business strategy.
We cover why successful executives often feel empty despite hitting every external goal, how Mousaab works with founders and CEOs on identity shifts rather than just business frameworks, and the exact marketing lessons he learned the hard way — including why LinkedIn comments made him money before his posts did.
🔗 Mousaab Khaldi → https://mousaabkhaldi.com/
Subscribe for more conversations on online business, enterprise technology, and digital expertise.
#ExecutiveCoaching #BusinessCoaching #ConsultingBusiness #PersonalDevelopment #BuildWithWhatYouKnow #Entrepreneurship #LeadershipCoaching #DigitalCoaching #InnerWork #StartupCoach
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0:00
So.
0:01
Hello, Musab. So,
0:03
you are a self-made coach and
0:06
consultant, right?
0:08
>> Yes. Hello.
0:11
So.
0:11
>> What are you coaching, exactly?
0:15
>> Okay. So, to tell you about coaching, I
0:17
will start with a short story about
0:19
myself, so people can relate to why I
0:22
chose I have chosen that path.
0:24
So, I would start with something most
0:27
coaches and consultants also won't say
0:31
that
0:32
I'm not here as a consultant to or as a
0:35
coach to prove people wrong or to
0:37
correct people.
0:39
I am, let's say, here
0:42
to
0:43
uh influence and also improvise in the
0:47
business and help entrepreneurs and
0:49
executives to do that
0:51
from the inside out. So, we are looking
0:55
a lot of
0:56
stories of consultants and also
0:59
businesses
1:00
who are right now, uh
1:03
would say, successful
1:05
on paper, but inside they are
1:07
struggling, and that is my point.
1:10
So, at 19, I collapsed at my desk of a
1:16
brain stroke for 55 minutes.
1:19
And that lesson helped me to discover
1:23
myself first and also to discover how to
1:26
reach people
1:28
that are, uh
1:30
in my previous, let's say, version.
1:33
So, I went after that losing three
1:36
businesses in the last 10 years where
1:39
working as a waiter.
1:41
And
1:43
long story short, it was a beautiful
1:47
journey. It was, uh
1:49
challenging one,
1:51
but it opened my eyes to my,
1:55
let's say, my core values and my core
1:58
mission, which is helping
2:00
uh
2:00
entrepreneurs and founders.
2:03
And
2:04
after that, I moved out of Morocco as I
2:08
am originally from Morocco, did my MBA,
2:11
which gave me the let's say the
2:13
entrepreneurship and also the business
2:15
side
2:18
of the corporate world, and it opened my
2:21
world honestly to the
2:22
consultancy
2:24
uh business.
2:26
And I think this is the the subject you
2:28
would like to talk about today.
2:31
>> Yes, Joe. Tell me more. What advice do
2:34
you have for potential consultants?
2:38
>> Um
2:40
for business consultants as myself or
2:43
I specialize in startups and uh SMEs
2:46
like small medium
2:48
uh enterprises.
2:50
Uh
2:51
I will start first by uh building their
2:54
inner self
2:56
and inner business. So, that would mean
3:00
basically starting with yourself, with
3:02
your limiting belief,
3:04
and then
3:06
working on the business from different
3:08
sizes. For me, I started with the
3:10
marketing side, building my brand, my
3:13
image, my
3:15
let's say my story, and then went to
3:19
sales trainings,
3:21
and then
3:23
went
3:24
uh to the coaching side. So, it is
3:26
basically
3:28
uh let's say
3:29
uh
3:31
It's like building a
3:33
building like
3:35
uh let's say a fortress for your
3:36
business.
3:37
So,
3:39
I would start with the inner work
3:43
and then focus on the business side.
3:47
>> What kind of inner work are you talking
3:49
about?
3:50
>> So, inner work I would introduce my idea
3:54
of coaching for empires
3:57
for interior empires. I got that from
4:01
the 5 a.m. Club book of Robin Sharma.
4:04
That helps me a lot to establish the
4:08
inner work. By that, I mean working on
4:11
your health, your heart,
4:13
your soul set, which is your values, and
4:16
then your mind sets. So, people will
4:19
focus, especially with consultants, with
4:21
my colleagues. Also, they are only
4:23
focusing on mind set.
4:25
And at the end of the day, you are alone
4:28
at your house, and you are thinking, "Am
4:31
I loved, or I am I worthy, or am I
4:34
whole?" Um
4:37
"Do I deserve this success?" In another
4:40
word.
4:41
So, this is what I mean by inner work.
4:44
So, you work on yourself, and you reach
4:47
the point of wholeness, or let's say
4:50
greatness.
4:51
So, you can start,
4:54
let's say, giving to other businesses.
4:57
I know this sounds a little bit trickier
5:00
for the consultancy business, because
5:02
they will
5:03
say, "No, this is a guru side
5:07
talk, or this is
5:08
a
5:10
you know,
5:11
uh
5:11
an outside business talk." But, from my
5:15
personal experience, I did
5:18
the business side.
5:20
I did the hustling, I did the grinding,
5:23
I did the frameworks, I did
5:27
I tried I've tried it all. And at the
5:30
end, what helped me is
5:33
relying on my inner work, relying on
5:36
myself.
5:37
And easiest way, as they say, to see
5:42
yourself is to see other people. So,
5:44
when you speak to other people when you
5:47
see them.
5:49
Especially in business,
5:51
uh
5:53
it's a little bit challenging to break
5:56
this uh
5:58
I don't know how to call it, this wall,
6:00
this business wall or
6:02
and to go a little bit personal and to
6:05
let people open up. It's It's the key
6:08
for consultancy. It's the best key. If a
6:11
personal the consultants can do that,
6:14
whatever the industry is, IT or
6:17
infrastructure,
6:20
or in industry or automotive, whatever
6:23
the industry is.
6:25
The key is to let other people open up.
6:29
Some cultures, of course,
6:32
may open up on money easily, some will
6:35
not.
6:36
For example, I was doing
6:39
uh
6:40
a consultancy mission in uh Por- in
6:43
Portugal, and people there
6:46
it's hard for them to talk about money.
6:49
And you can imagine you are coming to
6:51
this meeting
6:52
to solve the problem of cash flow, to
6:55
solve the flow
6:56
problem of margins, and to help this
6:59
business grow.
7:00
And uh at the end they are
7:04
not ready to talk about that.
7:07
So, how The key is how to break this
7:10
uh
7:11
this wall or this resistance.
7:14
>> Okay. What is your typical client like?
7:19
>> Um
7:20
I
7:21
I like to work with entrepreneurs,
7:24
with startups who are doing uh
7:27
let's say okay at the beginning.
7:30
Uh I like to work with executives
7:33
because uh some coaches say it is
7:36
challenging, but for me personally, it's
7:38
not because I know deep down
7:41
that even they they have reached their
7:45
goals, they have reached their targets,
7:47
at the end they go home and they start
7:50
asking themselves and they start blaming
7:53
themselves and they start
7:55
also
7:57
shaming themselves.
7:59
Some executives are not spending time
8:01
with their family.
8:03
Some executives they are not taking care
8:06
of me self
8:07
taking care of themselves and also
8:10
people pleasing in the organization and
8:12
that's was their
8:15
lot of movements.
8:18
And when you
8:20
get to a successful situation, when you
8:23
are successful,
8:25
the things that helped you at the
8:27
beginning will not help you at the next
8:29
stage.
8:30
So this is the identity shifts. This is
8:33
the transformation. This is the
8:36
the key that we work on on the four
8:38
empires.
8:39
And of course beside that we do the team
8:42
building, we do the team workshop, we do
8:46
the
8:48
revenue restructuring, we do the
8:50
controlling of finance as I have already
8:53
worked on that.
8:56
Yeah, we do the technical things but as
8:59
soon as we open the door
9:02
of that executive or that entrepreneurs,
9:04
the personal backdoor,
9:07
magic happens once.
9:09
>> You mean you can see what's hidden
9:11
behind the facade?
9:13
>> Yes. Yes. Yes. Sometimes the facade is a
9:17
hard one.
9:19
>> And
9:21
what do you see? Maybe you can share
9:22
some examples of
9:24
anecdotes?
9:26
>> Yeah. I have many anecdotes honestly. I
9:31
I would choose first clients from the US
9:34
because they are
9:36
uh,
9:37
hustling culture thing.
9:39
So, I had uh,
9:42
a CEO of a $10 million company.
9:45
It was an e-commerce company before he
9:47
sold.
9:49
So,
9:52
the CEO came
9:55
uh, successful as paper.
9:57
Everything is in order. He has two
9:59
daughters, great house.
10:03
He's living his life.
10:05
But, there was this emptiness in his
10:08
soul.
10:09
Like, he has finished a chapter and he
10:12
doesn't know how to open another one.
10:15
And he was still relying on his old
10:17
identity, which wasn't working at that
10:20
time. He was missing a lot of dinners
10:23
with her with his family.
10:25
And he had this idea of I would just pay
10:28
for a trip for my wife and the two
10:31
daughters. They will be happy. I will
10:34
pay for my mother's, whatever. I will
10:36
just pay and solve the problem.
10:39
And we started working on that.
10:42
And long story short, after just 2
10:46
months
10:47
working off
10:49
on self-awareness first, he started
10:52
having
10:54
the two dinners
10:57
a week. And then, we started seeing
11:01
let's say, uh, an improvement in his
11:04
relationship with his wife.
11:08
More intimate, more compassion, and he
11:10
started also with his company leading
11:13
from not anger and hates and revenge,
11:17
and you know the corporate world.
11:19
And started leading with compassion,
11:21
empathy, understanding, and his team
11:25
just shifted in like 6 months because he
11:28
was losing a a of executives.
11:32
He seems just after 6 months he had
11:36
three executives who just stayed with
11:37
him the
11:39
the longer period of his, you know, of
11:42
his career for the 6-month period.
11:46
And when we finished the year, he was
11:48
healthy, he was
11:51
uh of course wealthy, and his values
11:53
changed. This is why I told you he
11:56
before he sold his company.
11:58
So, when he tasted the new life, when he
12:01
tasted the travels with the his family,
12:04
with his mother,
12:07
life changed.
12:09
And then he decided to sell the
12:10
business, and uh surprisingly he moved
12:14
to Spain.
12:16
And he started also a consultancy
12:19
business
12:20
in the automotive sector.
12:24
And I have different examples
12:27
like uh we had a project manager from
12:30
Germany.
12:32
He was
12:33
almost at the same level, successful,
12:36
but not feeling worthy of this that
12:38
success. This was
12:40
he was an immigrant, he had some shame,
12:43
some guilt.
12:44
And we worked on that, we helped him
12:48
be
12:49
self-aware of these limiting beliefs.
12:52
And he just shifted in 3 months. When I
12:56
say in in just 3 months, it doesn't mean
12:58
it is easy.
13:01
He changed his sleep time, he changed
13:04
his diet, he changed
13:06
his clothing, he changed his routine, he
13:09
changed his friends. He just became
13:12
another person.
13:14
That's the change we make. He just
13:16
became another person, new identity.
13:19
And after that 3 months, he decided to
13:21
change the job, and it was really good
13:24
for him, because sometimes
13:27
uh
13:28
we do not
13:30
do the things uh wrongly, if you can
13:33
say. It's just we are doing it at our
13:35
best of our knowledge.
13:37
That's our best.
13:40
Like we are at our best in our
13:42
self-awareness. But when you work in our
13:45
self, get another level of awareness,
13:47
get more tools,
13:49
life just became becomes more clear, and
13:52
then decision become easier because it's
13:55
clear what I want. I am clear with
13:57
myself. And then
14:00
it's an opportunity for you to get also
14:03
relationships. I can't talk about all of
14:06
the successful of the whole day, you
14:08
know.
14:09
>> So,
14:10
in your experience, what are the top
14:13
three or maybe five
14:15
uh tips
14:16
any consultant should apply to become a
14:18
better consultant or better executive?
14:21
>> Okay, good question, honestly.
14:24
Mhm.
14:31
I would start what we talked about inner
14:34
work.
14:36
Uh
14:40
Inner work is the key. If you start it
14:42
from yourself,
14:43
if you
14:45
are the example
14:48
for the company, whatever the the job
14:50
will be, you are doing you will do the
14:52
controlling or you will do whatever uh
14:55
audits, financial audits.
14:58
If you are the example, if you start
15:01
with with yourself,
15:03
you will show up in another way. And
15:05
this is for all the consultancy.
15:08
Uh let's say consultants and coaches.
15:12
Secondly,
15:15
I don't know if you agree with me, but I
15:17
see a lot of judgments in this uh
15:20
industry.
15:22
In consultancy and uh
15:25
and coaching uh
15:27
When they are hired, they come with
15:29
these judgments, if we can say. They are
15:32
They don't start helping the other
15:34
company be aware. That is our job,
15:37
literally, you know.
15:39
When our company
15:42
brings you out as a consultant, they
15:44
don't know the problems, we can say, or
15:47
they don't know how to
15:49
move to the next level.
15:52
And they
15:53
hire you to
15:56
help them be aware of themselves
15:58
and of the company, of course.
16:01
But some consultants, some coaches, they
16:04
just go there and they start judging,
16:06
not helping.
16:08
And that hurts a lot, honestly, a lot.
16:11
That hurts a lot the consultancy
16:13
business, because at the end the team
16:15
who
16:17
are already there doing the work feel
16:20
that they are doing
16:22
something wrong, like they are from Mars
16:24
or whatever, and this guy is coming to
16:27
just teach us.
16:29
So,
16:31
that's the second point.
16:33
Uh, no judgment is the key.
16:38
The third one, of course, will be
16:39
relationships.
16:41
>> Mhm.
16:42
>> Yeah, in the company, especially in
16:44
international ones. I've worked with
16:47
uh Bosch in Germany
16:50
in the financial controlling
16:52
purpose controlling, and uh I have seen
16:55
I have seen consultants coming and I
16:57
have seen uh the other side, you know,
16:59
being the client, having the consultant.
17:02
I've seen how people talk about the
17:04
consultants. I've seen how people uh
17:10
have this resistance.
17:13
Uh,
17:14
the fourth thing, of course, with those
17:17
without
17:18
>> [laughter]
17:19
>> without the uh degree, without studying
17:23
every single day developing.
17:27
Uh
17:31
And the fifth point, as a bonus, would
17:34
be
17:35
focus
17:37
on the marketing side.
17:40
Mhm.
17:41
Focus on the marketing side. Focus on
17:43
the marketing side. I done the this
17:46
fault at the beginning.
17:48
I started working feeling like I knew it
17:51
all.
17:52
I don't need this marketing. I And I
17:55
have this idea. Even with an MBA, I was
17:58
having this idea marketing means ads,
18:01
running ads.
18:04
And this wasn't
18:05
marketing.
18:06
>> is it?
18:07
>> Yes, marketing is being clear 100% about
18:11
your brand values,
18:14
your vision,
18:16
who who you will be, let's say, uh
18:20
helping.
18:22
In a more technical way, the UVP and uh
18:26
the USP.
18:27
And I will not go through that, but
18:29
being aware of brand,
18:32
your vision, your values, who are you
18:34
going to solve? And you can list 20 pain
18:39
points for your client.
18:41
So, these pain points where they are
18:43
struggling.
18:44
And then
18:46
the same pain points, you can go to the
18:48
other side
18:49
and create 20 dream points.
18:54
What are you going to create for them?
18:56
So, when you have 20,
18:58
it's almost impossible to not use them
19:01
with your client.
19:04
It's impossible. So, you have 20 pain
19:07
points,
19:08
you have 20 uh dream points. So, you
19:11
have pro so problem and solution. And as
19:14
we are uh
19:16
as humans, we learn from contrast.
19:20
So, if God wants to teach you, let's say
19:24
unconditional love, he will put you
19:26
through a lot of betrayal until you
19:31
learn how to give and receive, of
19:33
course, unconditional love.
19:36
And that goes also for the business.
19:39
You need to learn. And we are
19:42
we must, you know, as a consultant to
19:44
learn the other side, not only the
19:47
abundance or the revenue or the profits
19:49
margins. We all We also need to know the
19:52
other side, also.
19:56
>> Right.
19:57
Thanks. That's a lot of uh useful
19:58
information. So, what about your uh your
20:01
company?
20:04
>> So, for me,
20:05
I think we we have to support us a lot.
20:09
Uh
20:11
we are the four empires coaching. We do
20:14
coaching mostly
20:16
and preferably with founders,
20:19
entrepreneurs, and executives.
20:21
And this year, we opened also the door
20:24
because we were more
20:26
uh
20:26
let's say more close to the founder and
20:28
entrepreneurs and executives.
20:31
This year, we opened to projects
20:33
managers, to
20:35
uh data analysts, to more, you know,
20:40
to more, let's say,
20:42
uh
20:44
I don't know how to
20:46
honestly to to define that.
20:48
But to more varied uh
20:51
industries, so the goal is to help a lot
20:54
of people
20:56
as much as we can.
20:58
Uh of course, we cannot so take
21:00
uh 100 clients uh a quarter, but we take
21:04
right now 10 clients are uh quarter. So,
21:07
it's like three clients uh a month.
21:10
I do with the company a lot of speeches
21:15
around the world
21:17
as a speaker and on also I have an ebook
21:22
which is a 66 days
21:25
of change. So, it is a detailed of
21:29
everything I've talked about
21:32
of changing the consultant on or the
21:34
coach so they can change their life,
21:37
live it, understand it, experience it,
21:40
and then they can apply it to their
21:42
client.
21:46
>> Okay, sounds good.
21:49
All right. So, thanks a lot Musab for
21:53
>> Of course.
21:53
>> all this information and of course I
21:55
invite everyone to check your website
21:58
and I will put the link in a
22:00
description. Thanks.
22:02
>> Okay, thank you Messi.
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