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About Gina Bell of Extraordinary You

My Story

gina bellBorn in Sydney to Italian Immigrants, I was a bright and curious child with a thirst for learning and a passion for books.

My parents taught me the values of integrity, commitment, perseverance, compassion, and generosity. They inspired me to work hard striving to achieve my personal best regardless of barriers or obstacles put in my way.

At school, history was my favourite subject. I loved learning about the stories and motivations of people gone before us and the significant events that changed our world. It taught me to think critically about human experiences, in different times and in different cultures. It was the social science of our past society that fascinated me.  History was never something I took into account when deciding what career I would pursue. Nor did I take into account my childhood experiences, experiences which upon reflection today were significant in making a career choice.

Deciding what my first step would become such an overwhelming task, simply because I didn’t know what would be a good choice for me. In the end, for better or worse, I took a risk and chose a career in Accounting just because I was good at Maths.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Economics at University, I worked my way through the Professional and Commercial fields of Accounting, learning, and growing in an area that was challenging and rewarding. My roles took me from University Graduate to Managerial and Consultation Roles in Sydney’s Corporate World.

The industries I worked in included: Entertainment and Media, Hospitality, Sports and Leisure, Building Services, Manufacturing, Environmental Services, Wholesale, and Technology Startups. I worked with CEOs, Senior Management through Junior Staff across many departments within many organisations.

I was never the stereotypical accountant and always tried to bring my own personality and caring attributes into the roles I held. Along my career journey, I chose my roles strategically to move beyond accounting to gain skills and experience in recruitment, training, change management, and process re-engineering. My professional learning curve was steep but my personal learning curve was more significant. With every job opportunity I took on, my natural ability to lead, teach, mentor, support, and motivate others surfaced and I loved it!

Without realising, I was gravitating towards my natural strengths and gifts for caring and supporting others. Listening to people, training people, and helping people grow is what got me out of bed in the morning. People naturally warmed to me because I was approachable, friendly, and enthusiastic.

After many years, I sought to take my strengths and skills to a new work environment. Being always passionate about learning and education, I chose to return to my old University to support and teach final-year university students. This felt like a natural progression to be able to give back to the education system that had given me so much professionally and personally.

My Next Challenge

After dedicating a number of years to my career, my next journey became a personal one as I became a mother for the first time. As any mother will tell you, motherhood is the toughest gig you can ever take on. Raising another human being is a lot of hard work but at the same time can be the most rewarding work because you do it from your heart.

You learn to multitask, be patient, make mistakes, never give up and more important you find out who you truly are. I loved being a mum on a full-time basis but I became restless with my own personal fulfillment and I needed a new challenge.

Being away from the workforce for many years gave me a wonderful opportunity to take stock of where I have been, where I was, and where I wanted to go. Questions of purpose and meaning became important to me like never before. I felt driven to make a direct difference to people’s individual lives but didn’t know-how.

The answer to my question was closer than I thought. At the time, my son was 4 years old and attended the local pre-school where the children’s developmental milestones were very much the focus of the school. While this was important, I also observed that there was little nurturing of children’s natural strengths and abilities. If children had natural strength to think outside the box they were gently maneuvered back to think inside the box and this infuriated me.

I reflected back on my work experiences and the corporate world had been no different in its approach. Many adults I had worked with, would not have even know what their strengths and abilities were, let alone act on them. Their passions and natural gifts would typically have not been nurtured and honored throughout their whole education and working lives.

Many pursued careers that were expected of them or made career decisions with no consideration of who they were authentically, what their strengths were, what they believed in, or valued.

My mission became clear and set me on a new and exciting learning pathway with renewed purpose and vision to help people live out authentic career lives.

Career Change

Thinking I would never study again, I excitedly became a University student once more and then successfully graduated with a diploma in Career Development. As a Career Counselor and Advisor, I now work to empower my clients to learn more about who they are, what motivates them, identify their strengths, passions, beliefs, and values so that they can create career lives that have meaning and purpose.

Through my own career transitions, I understand the transition steps, processes, feelings, and challenges my clients face when they come to making career choices and career decisions. Having experience from the frontline of numerous and varied work environments allows my clients a distinct advantage and close insight into the reality of the world of work.

I feel passionate about bringing Career Development and Career Management as an essential key skill moving forward into the 21st century. There are many individuals that are unhappy with what they do every day which can have huge impacts on their personal lives and to our society as a whole.

It is only when something jolts them like a major life upheaval that they do anything about it. Examples include a change in health, redundancy, death of someone close, prolonged stressful work, having children, midlife crisis and the list goes on.

I am passionate about getting you to be the driver of what happens in your career life. To help somebody reconnect with themselves is so empowering, clients are often surprised by the positive process and the steps they take thereafter.  People can do great things if they feel passionate and love what they do; they create meaning for themselves while they can make a significant difference to other people’s lives.

I feel I have come full circle in my own career life to move closer to the social science I always loved. Like history that has gone before us, people’s career and life stories are history in the making, being shaped by events, opportunities, and life circumstances.

To help and support people as they transition from school, university, or from one workplace to another for me is a privilege. Learning how to shape your own career life through your own Career Self-Management is the secret to reaching your Extraordinary Potential.

Having passion and heart in what you do every day and living a career life that is aligned with who you are and what you want to achieve is possible. As you contemplate the next chapter in your career life, consider where you are now and where you want to be.

Extraordinary You would be honoured to mentor and support you as you begin to write the next script of your career story.

Call me today at 0434 028 025 so we can work together on your next career step. Get independent career advice about career options available to you.

 

Professional Qualifications & Memberships of Gina Bell

career advisor

career advisor
My clients benefit from my frontline business industry experience and continuing professional development both in Australia and Internationally.

I have engaged in extensive international research in the area of Career Development and Career Management for the Gifted & Talented and now specialise in career counselling in this area.

Having a strong understanding of the characteristics and needs of the Gifted and Talented allows me to help, support, and mentor Gifted individuals as they face their own unique challenges when making career decisions and career changes.