careercoach &spiritualguide
About Me
i love work & want
you to as well
I believe & know that at its highest potential a professional endeavor can be fulfilling and serve as a creative outlet for self-expression, an opportunity to connect & collaborate with others, and a chance to make a positive impact on the world. It is my personal mission to align individuals and workplaces with this notion of joyful, creative & meaningful work.
Sharing my
expertise
on wgn
My Expertise
Career Crossroads and Transitions
I most often help people answer THE big questions like “what do I want to do with my career now?” and “what are my best talents to offer?” I have very strong intuition about and much experience spotting the genius in people, which is what people need to see in themselves to choose their right path. Also, from my own career crossroads and transitions I have a plethora of practical advice about navigating through the unknown and change. With these talents, I
have much wisdom to offer empowering people onto their most meaningful and exciting future career paths.
Women Emerging into Leadership
I work with both men and women, but do have a particular expertise around women emerging into leadership. This is because … ahem … I am a woman … and I have risen into leadership in multiple industries. Also, I ran a women and girl’s career empowerment organization for 6 years - teaching, mentoring, creating programs, and seeing what works and what doesn’t. In addition, over 3 years I engaged in an intensive study of women & spirituality known as the “Divine Feminine.” With this training, I understand some of the deeper issues that cause women to sometimes experience powerlessness and I hold wisdom around how women can rise up through their greatest natural strengths. I love to help women excel and to advise organizations on how they can amp up their girl power game.
Starting up Solopreneurships & Freelance Businesses
I started my first business at age 7, second business at age 23, and third business at age 36. I know what it takes to launch a solopreneurship or freelance business, and have coached many individuals onto the entrepreneurial path. It’s simpler than you might think. It’s mostly about shifting your mindset and opening your heart to your true genius and creative power. And yes, the freedom is amazing! (Read about this in my interview with Level).
Mindfulness, Spirituality, & Purpose at Work
I believe we are all born with special gifts (our genius) and a divine purpose. I geek out over and extensively study spirituality and particularly focus on teachings for how to create anything we desire using the law of attraction and other divine laws. My top spirituality gurus include: Gary Zukav (authentic power and intention), Marianne Williamson (shifting fear mindset to miracle mindset), Ester Hicks (law of attraction), and Christine Arylo (self love and the divine feminine). Much of what I teach my clients and write about is how to use mindfulness and spiritual practices to create our most fulfilling and joy-filled lives and careers that are aligned with purpose. When we operate from purpose, we are our most creative selves, we produce results with greater ease, we know when something is right and when it is not, and we experience a state of peace and fulfillment even when our path and results are uncertain.
5 Ways I’m
Different from
Other Career Coaches
My expertise above all else comes from my experience:
I serve as a role model and offer mentorship to my clients and fans because I have experienced great success in my career in several industries. I’ve seen and been through just about everything that can happen in a career in my professional experience as a lawyer, as a nonprofit executive, as an entrepreneur, and also in traversing huge change through each of my career reinventions. Read my story here.
I blend the practical with the magical by offering intuitive guidance:
My services to clients also include intuitive advising. Specifically, I have visions, feelings, and hear psychic messages to pass on as guidance. We all have the capacity to be intuitive in these ways but to serve as a channel like this requires much daily discipline. I engage in regular practices of: prayer, meditation, good nutrition, exercise, working with my own healers, and cultivating emotional and spiritual support networks. Because these are part of my regular routine, I show up for clients as a divine messenger. And, even better, I teach clients how to become this for themselves and their loved ones.
I can sort through your challenges and help you find the blessings:
I’m extensively trained - as a lawyer - in issue spotting. This means, you can dump your mess of confusing and conflicting thoughts with me and I can sort through them and identify the key issues you’re facing so we can deal with them. I also have an intuitive gift of pattern recognition. This means, I can identify your issues and tie them into the spiritual growth and expansion you are on in your career and life path. Basically, I can see the origin and why certain blocks are showing up for you which allows you to grow from them and see them as what they really are, blessings in disguise!
We will create a plan that guides your path to success:
My experience in business and in serving as a Managing Director has taught me that to do something important and see a vision through, we need a plan. I have narrowed down the most essential elements for seeing a vision through and have created a template that I use with clients (and for myself) to turn dreams and ideas and into reality. This template comes from law of attraction concepts and also from wisdom I’ve drawn from business geniuses like Steve Jobs, Dale Carnegie, and Simon Sinek.
Our work will expand your spirituality:
I meet clients where they are at spiritually. I work well with individuals who are highly spiritual, at the early stages of opening their spirituality, and I totally understand and can work with those who have been turned off by religious institutions or life experiences that caused them to lose faith. (I’ve been there!) But I’ll be honest, if you’re not looking for a spiritual or purpose-based twist in your coaching, I’m not for you. If you are, I’m excited to expand your spirituality to bring more peace, joy, and harmony into your life and to those around you!
My Career Story
On an otherwise normal morning in 2004, I found myself crying in my shower. Laying in the fetal position, I was distraught with the feelings emerging inside. I was a rising star lawyer, seemingly on top of the world. Many had invested in me to get here. Yet, I did not want to go to work.
Top of my class in law school, a genius legal writer, I had become a “success” rather fast. In law school, I started my own business. Chicago’s top criminal defense lawyers hired me to write their briefs.
Once I finished school, I got a job offer. I didn’t even have to interview, and the firm didn’t even have an opening. One of Chicago’s most famous lawyers liked me and took me under his wing. I got to work on the highest profile cases in my city. And yet, there I was, crying on my shower floor.
I knew I had a lot of opportunities to be grateful for and I worked with people I loved. But I also didn’t know who I was. I had a really great job, but great … for someone else. I felt sad and lost. Read more here.
Career Bio
Meet Gina Marotta - lovingly known as "The Genius Guru." She is a career coach and spiritual guide leading hundreds of people to discover and step into their higher professional purpose and the work they were literally born to do.
She has natural talent to see into people's genius, help identify and release blocks to it, and she teaches about the best tool ever invented for determining one's career destiny: your very own inner wisdom. Gina offers a sharp and magical intuition, a lifetime of study of spirituality and empowerment, and also wisdom from her own experience as a two-time career changer. Gina knows the plight of modern professionals as a former rising star criminal defense lawyer and also the founding Managing Director of Step Up Women's Network in Chicago.
Gina has been featured throughout her career in media outlets like: The Huffington Post, WGN Radio, and CBS and Fox Chicago News. She has been honored with awards and special recognitions such as one of the Top 100 Emerging Leaders Under 50 by Diversity MBA magazine and one of 100 Women Making a Difference by Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine.
Gina gives back to her community as a mentor to high school students through Step Up Women’s Network, to law students through The Restorative Justice Project at John Marshall Law School, and to start-up entrepreneurs at Chicago’s famous technology incubator, 1871. In addition, she is an activist for legal reform and peacemaking, most recently as the writer of the Policy and Procedure Manual for Cook County’s first Restorative Justice Community Court, which creates peace and repairs the harm between parties in criminal cases through “peace circles,” an ancient practice being used in innovative ways. Gina is also trained as a Peace Circle Facilitator.
Gina lives in Chicago, IL. You can spot her around town at her downtown office, in her favorite kundalini yoga classes, laying under a tree listening to music, or sitting with a group of her favorite entrepreneurial gal pals reading oracle cards and talking about their lives and businesses. You can also catch Gina on WGN TV in special guest appearances on the local television show SEE Chicago.