Justine Hebert Dinesen is a certified and experienced Life and Stress Coach, speaker, and wellbeing consultant. Besides conducting one-on-one coaching online and in-person in Copenhagen, over the past several years, she has held numerous workshops and courses both inside and outside of Denmark. Justine herself experienced an extreme period of stress while working as a Bid Manager for a large renewable energy company, a personal experience that ultimately led Justine down a new and highly rewarding career path, informing and helping others to prevent or alleviate stress and its symptoms and consequences in their lives. Thanks to her English, French, and Danish fluency, she can reach a wide audience across borders, helping them attain goals, shift into new career paths, navigate difficult decisions, improve their self-esteem, and generally renew their spark for life.
Justine Hebert Dinesen, Life and Stress Coach
Hi Justine, thanks for accepting our invitation for an interview.
You are welcome, thanks for inviting me.
Justine, you are the mother of 3 young boys, you are originally French but have sailed around the world in your childhood and lived in Denmark for the last 16 years. You are a rising star in the Coaching industry conducting one-on-one life and stress coaching sessions in house and for companies, and holding numerous workshops and courses both inside and outside of Denmark. What do you think is the reason for your success?
Thank you, that is very flattering. I guess that the reason I am here today is that I am very passionate about my job and very focused on my clients achieving the best results possible. My aim is to help my clients reach a break-through during each session and to give them the help they need with no more than 5 to 10 sessions. For that purpose, I keep on educating myself to always be able to give them the best support. Most of the company’s profit is actually going to attending courses and buying books (laughing…). I would say that my values are trust, professionalism and results when it comes to my work.
You have a Master's from Copenhagen Business School but you made quite a career change 5 years ago. How did you make this decision and why did you choose to become a Life and Stress Coach?
I have always had a focus on feeling well, both mentally and physically, this is one of my most important values. My motto has always been, “If life is worth living, then it has to be enjoyable”. Therefore, I have always done what was necessary for me to feel well.
When I left my job in September 2017, I had been feeling stressed for about a year. I was mostly suffering from anxiety and I found it so uncomfortable that I had to do what was needed to get rid of that feeling. I chose to quit my job and give myself some time to feel better. I read a lot about personal development which ultimately led me to enroll in a Coach Training Programme. It was a breakthrough experience that impacted me immediately, so I decided to become a Coach and help others unfold themselves afterwards.
What has it given you to change your career?
Well, changing my career has given me the opportunity to find a job which is in accordance with my values and natural competencies. I have always loved to have deep conversations with people. I have been playing being a psychologist with my friends since I was a teenager (laughing). I have also always loved to read books on personal development. I remember challenging my parents on my education in my early twenties (laughing). So helping people feel better is a much better fit for me than when I was working as a Commercial Manager making business cases to build Offshore Wind Parks. I could do it, and I really enjoyed working in a team, but focusing on numbers has never been me.
Also, I love the coaching approach which is change and result-oriented. Today, I do what I like and what I am naturally good at, and at the same time I have much more time to take care of my 3 young boys and myself. I am completely convinced that if you live your life in accordance with your core values and work with what you like and are naturally good at, then you can only be happy in your job.
So, what’s your secret? What do you do to help your clients get better so fast?
I think I have a unique approach as I both use life and stress coaching to help my clients best. I noticed that often my clients were stressed because there was something in their lives that was not satisfying or vice versa. Some of my clients did not know that they were stressed and that is what was preventing them from doing the things and being the person they would like to be in their private lives.
So I usually start by checking if my clients are stressed, giving them the knowledge and the right tools to reduce their stress level before getting into what’s stressing them or holding them back from being where they want to be in their lives. I also use great development tools such as the Enneagram personality test as well as thorough work on core values to provide my clients better knowledge of themselves. It is my experience that a lot of adults have lost themselves throughout their work and parental life.
But I also have a lot of different tools from different theories that I apply according to the needs of my clients. I am not faithful to a method, but I apply the method I think will benefit my clients most. I know everybody is different and that a method that has worked for one of my previous clients may not work on a new client. That’s where it is really an advantage to have read so many books and have attended so many courses (laughing).
What is your speciality, what do you help people the most with?
I am not sure I have a speciality but I help a lot of people to reduce and manage their stress. However, I also help a large number of clients to solve any problem that they may have. It can be finding a new career path, making a difficult decision, improving their self-esteem, to stop overthinking or being more action-oriented, to name the most common topic I work with.
Who is typically a client at Grow Life Coaching?
Well, really anybody. I have clients of all ages, employed as well as unemployed, at director level or a more operative level. And surprisingly a lot of men, although I still have a majority of women. I really value the diversity of my customer base. It makes my job so interesting. And the funny thing is that regardless of age or position, often our problems are quite similar.
A last question to close this interview. What is your greatest source of inspiration?
My greatest source of inspiration are my parents. When they were 40 years old, they left on a sailing boat with my brothers and I to sail around the world. At the time they had a good business running and decided that getting richer is not what they wanted to achieve in life. They decided to live their passion, to go sailing, be with their family, and discover the world although it meant being on a strict budget. They showed me that taking ownership and living your life the way you personally aspire to is the most important thing in life.
Follow Justine on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and visit her website. Read more from Justine!
