We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gisela Di Fabio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Gisela, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about the early days of establishing your own firm. What can you share?

After managing different family businesses for more than ten years, I decided to follow my purpose. One day there was one event that made me think “How do I want to live my life?”, “How do I want to be remembered?” I realized that I didn’t even know myself enough to be remembered in any particular way. So I sold my part of the business and started my coaching practice. Through exploration and capitalizing on my degree, experience, and passion, I decided to help other people follow their dreams and build businesses from those dreams, passions, and purposes.
I formally started my practice in 2020, but I’ve been coaching since I started my certification in 2018.
I wouldn’t change anything, because everything I’ve done took me where I am today. It was rough, sometimes it was harder than I expected, but it was all worth it. During these past years, I accomplished things that I never thought I could, such as writing a book and becoming a speaker.
My advice is that it’s never too early or too late to follow your purpose. Never let anyone talk you out of following your dreams. And surrender, the universe has a bigger plan, just work smart and honor your values.

Gisela, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I help entrepreneurs and business owners who are leading from fear, feel tired, overwhelmed, and frustrated, to bring their warrior within, and through eliminating problems, to start leading from confidence. The most common struggles are admin issues, they normally don’t know their numbers, time, and task management, they spend more time on urgent tasks than the important ones, and they feel that everything is a priority. And then, they have challenges building and managing their team.

I manage to do that by creating a safe space for my clients to open up and feel understood, so they feel comfortable sharing what’s really going on. I’m an empathetic and compassionate thinking partner for them. And that’s why they appreciate that I challenge their thoughts, cut through the noise to listen between the lines, and translate what they are struggling with back to them so together we can find the solution.

What my clients get working with me is peace of mind, clarity, and concrete steps to move forward to their next phase of business and life. Ultimately, these will lead them to financial freedom and the feeling of their life finally being in control.

It is my main goal to inspire 500,000 business owners and entrepreneurs to lead passion-filled businesses without sacrificing their integrity and core values so that they can make a social impact that creates the necessary changes in our world we so desperately need by 2032.

If this sounds like you, go ahead and schedule a “get your time back” strategy call, which is a free session where we can meet each other and decide which program works best for you.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Sure! I was reading “The universe has your back”, and it was talking about signals that the universe gives us. Then, I paused the reading to take a break and got on Instagram. While I was scrolling, I saw a story from a writing coach and editor that said “If you are a coach and you want to write a book answer ME”, so I answered “Me!” and immediately thought “If this is meant to be, he will answer, if not, it’s ok, not this time”.
30 seconds later he answered, “Thank you Gisela for contacting me!”.

Of course, he became my writing coach and editor, and we remained friends.

The book is “Live By Your Own Rules! – Break free from family and social mandates”, that’s the English and original version. The Spanish version is “Vivi Bajo Tus Reglas – Liberate de mandatos sociales y familiares”.
Both are available on Amazon and Ingram sparks.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The capital I needed to fund my business was not a lot, since I was working from home, I had to invest in my office space, and my team’s payroll, and manage to cover my bills.

My strategy was to start coaching while I had my previous business. I used to coach before or after office hours to get the practice and the hours that I needed to become a Certified Professional Coach. During that time I used to charge a donation. I picked Children’s Hospitals in Miami and Buenos Aires, so people could choose where to donate.
After getting the certification from UM (University of Miami) and ICF (International Coaching Federation), I launched my practice officially and converted those donating clients into paid clients.
I also used my savings to create passive income. This way, even though my revenue was not enough to cover all my bills, I was able to break even with my passive income, and I wasn’t spending my savings.

Contact Info:

• Website: itscoachingtime.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/its.coaching.time/
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/gisela-di-fabio
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/giseladifabio
• Other: https://www.itscoachingtime.com/service-page/get-your-life-back-strategy-call?referral=service_list_widget