Coach Interview: Anne Gélébart. Spread your wings and find your “aha moment”

Anne Gelebart has always wanted to help people. 

When she was younger, she wanted to become a doctor, but, as she says, “life brought me somewhere else”. She moved from her native France to Spain for a summer, then to the UK for several years, and has now settled in Amsterdam. It was through her experience working for multinational organizations that she had an “aha moment” and realized something was missing: “true, authentic and powerful conversations with people”. After discovering coaching through a lucky encounter during a leadership program, she fell in love with coaching. She started training to become a coach alongside her day job at the time and gradually made the transition to having a full-time practice.

Why is coaching so important?

According to Anne, coaching is really important because it means giving ourselves the opportunity to “understand our set of values, our limiting beliefs and define our vision for life”. Through coaching, you are better able to “increase your confidence, enhance your communication, [and] support your decision making” which helps you to achieve “more of your dreams”. The best part for Anne is having a true partnership between coach and client. She enjoys being fully present for her clients and having a trusting relationship. Her motto is “spread your wings and unleash your potential” which she helps each of her clients to do.

Her volunteer journey with Empower Amsterdam

Anne has been a coach with Empower Amsterdam since April 2018. She found Empower Amsterdam while looking for “powerful coaching organizations”. Since starting with Empower Amsterdam, she has coached several dozen unemployed internationals and, early in 2020, took on more responsibility within the organization. She now co-leads the team of international coaches which means meeting with the other co-leader, Andries van Rozen, weekly and leading monthly meetings with all the volunteer coaches. She really enjoys building authentic relationships with her fellow coaches.

What’s it like to be a client with Anne?

As a coach, her focus is on life and career coaching. She believes in the power of “looking at your life from a holistic point of view because everything is interrelated”. Anne is also a Pilates instructor which she integrates into her coaching philosophy. She has seen how making a small change in one part of your life can also have a positive impact on others, including professionally. Her favorite part of working with Empower Amsterdam clients is when they have “the ‘aha moment’ when they realize what (or who!) is blocking them!!”

Her tips for other expats moving to the Netherlands

Since Anne has personal experience being an expat, she has a lot of advice and tips for people coming to the Netherlands. Her first tip is to build up your LinkedIn profile. “LinkedIn is a must (with all parts of your profile filled in!)”, she says. Her favorite way to top a tosti (a popular Dutch lunch) is to make it a tartine with avocado and spices (yum!). And her favorite city in the Netherlands is Delft which has a great, compact city center with the canals and the homemade beer bars. With so much intercultural experience in her life, she is also adept at coaching people from different backgrounds. She focuses on being aware of cultural differences and being respectful, while maintaining the same overall approach with each client: building an alliance, helping them to spread their wings and finding that “aha moment”, together.

Want to learn more about Anne?

Anne coaches in French, Spanish, and English. You can find more information about her on her website: https://www.angelcoachinginternational.com/ or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnGelCoachingInt/. True to her own advice, she is also on LinkedIn (with all parts of her profile filled in!) here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annegelebart/.