Georgina Halabi is a Professional Certified Coach with 25 years background of senior roles within business and marketing, and a lifetime of experience in meditation and self-discovery.
She tells us that, “It’s always been essential for me to balance two fundamental needs: outer success and inner peace. Today, I work with professionals globally, to help them overcome self-doubt and achieve peak performance and wellbeing. Using a unique blend of whole-brain coaching that incorporates neuroscience, positive intelligence, NLP and visualisation techniques, I help resolve and align conflicting internal tensions that hinder personal and professional growth, creating the space to focus talent and energy where it most counts.”
What were your initial years of growing up like? Tell us about your life before starting your corporate journey/venture/initiative.
I had a happy childhood. With an older and younger sister, we were raised by our mother and lived on the outskirts and then in the centre of London. My father lived in Australia, so every year we would go see him. I have beautiful memories of spending time on the Barrier Reef, and I absolutely love being in and on the water. At the same time, I’ve always been quite driven. I love studying and found a natural balance between work and play, studying hard during the week and relaxing with friends and my family on the weekend. This still works for me now. As part of my commerce and french degree, I was sent to a business school in France for my third year, where I met my husband. It wasn’t my intention to meet an Englishman, as I really wanted to practice my French, but I still got to practice it! After university, I went backpacking on my own for 6 months, travelling around Australia, Japan and SouthEast Asia. I learned two of the best life-lessons on these travels; 1) It’s not only ok to go up to a group of strangers, and ask to join them but it’s a wonderful thing to do. Nobody once turned me down, and I got to meet some amazing people. 2) I learned that there is always a bigger picture. It’s easy to get caught up in the myopia of day to day problems, but I promised to remind myself that there was an incredible world out there full of beauty if ever I do. After my 6-months of travel, I worked as an intern at the UN in Geneva, in a variety of roles before deciding that the private sector would match my pace and vision more quickly. When I moved back to the UK, I started working as the Personal Assistant to the General Manager and within a year, I was running their Sales team of 4 people. Back in 2003, my husband and I felt the travel bug and moved to Singapore for “a year or two.” We stayed for 18 years. I ended up working in big brand agencies such as Ogilvy and Mather and J. Walther Thompson in Client Servicing for many years, before moving across to the marketing technology SaaS world, primarily for start-ups. I had often had to wear multiple hands; prospecting and winning clients, servicing them and many of the operational roles too. I loved it as I got to build the plane as I flew it, and worked with amazing mentors. Then one day something happened. It was as if I stepped out of my body and asked myself – what am I doing here? It’s not surgery, I’m not saving lives, in fact none of this reeeeaaaallly matters in the long-term. By the end of that week, I’d enrolled for coaching classes, studying as I worked. Things moved quickly after that. Covid hit, and I made the decision to take my coaching full time. I had a few clients by then (who are still coaching with me today 3.5 years later!) I have never looked back.
Every industry that is now a large-scale, top-notch business once started as a small idea in the minds of entrepreneurs. What was that idea or motivation that made you start your business /initiative? What motivated you within to say YES, go for it!”
When I heard about coaching I told myself “I’ve been doing this all my life – are you telling me I can be paid for this????” It’s the perfect synthesis of my strategic and commercial work and my own spiritual journey and growth. I had a feeling that everything had led up to this, and it was a simple step of signing up for my coaching diploma. Everything I learned resonated, and I love the idea of powerfully transforming people’s lives, by sharing everything that I have learned and by deeply listening and appreciating people.
Tell us something about your initiative or current role. What is it about, and what impact are you trying to make?
I work with executives and leaders who want to make a bigger impact in their own lives, but feel hampered by self-doubt. I help them realise that they have everything they need within them, and help them create the space to go inwards and access that. It is all about building that self-connection and self-trust, and being able to access their inner creativity, empathy and resourcefulness. Part of it is scientific; accessing the part of their brain that serves them, rather than the part that sabotages them. Part of it is a lot more intuitive. I meet my clients where they’re at, and have so many tools to share with them, both creative, commercial and spiritual.
Your journey and your vision are very inspiring, but are there any achievements or accomplishments you would like to mention?
I have so many that I am inspired by – but they mostly belong to my clients and the amazing transformations they have experienced. You can see these on my testimonials (https://georginahalabi.com/testimonials) or google reviews (look up Georgina Halabi Coaching Ltd). My accomplishments I would celebrate are more personal; 1) Throwing myself into my coaching business and committing myself to learning and growth non-stop. I managed to get enough clients and hours in to become a Professional Certified Coach – within a year. This normally takes people many years to get. 2) Hypnobirthing my two daughters – using self-hypnosis to be present, relaxed and actually enjoy the birth of my two daughters. 3) Being there for my grandmother and mother when they were dying. When all is said and done, it’s the relationships and intimacy that matters most in life.
Would you like to share with our young budding women entrepreneurs the change you would like to see in the world if given an opportunity?
I would like to see people being kinder to themselves.
Women are a growing force in the workplaces worldwide, standing shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. There are cracks in glass ceilings everywhere, with many women breaking through to carve out a space right at the top of the pyramid. What are your thoughts about women leadership today?
Keep going! We need you …
What would you want to say to our young women leaders/audience reading this?
Believe in yourself! Women often aren’t able to identify or articulate their strengths, and hold back from confrontation, or even asking for things like pay rises. Men don’t hesitate any where near as much. So be bold. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And if you need to know your strengths, ask your friends and people who love you.
