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About Gill Mathias
People often ask me, “What does it take to succeed?”
When I think of my own life, both within and outside of business, I believe the most significant factor in shaping me has been the way I have learned to cope with the challenges and hardships – especially those things that come up unexpectedly.
I would like to be able to tell you I handled all of them perfectly. I did not of course – but dealing with all those things developed my character much more than staying within my comfort zone ever would have done.
Before coaching
You probably want to know a bit more about me, so I thought I would give you a quick overview of my life and career, to give you an insight into how I have learnt to bounce forward after some of the challenges and set-backs in my own life.
My first coaching role was actually in tennis. In my younger days I played it to a high level. After qualifying as a professional tennis coach we lived in South Africa for three years, and then my husband’s work took us to Nigeria for a further three years.
Living in Africa at that time was very character-building – and by this time we had two very young children.
On our return to the UK, I trained as a Holistic Therapist before founding an Aromatherapy company which I ran for 12 years. We developed the first of the “aroma pillows” and employed 6 prisons to make up the pillows to distribute throughout the UK, including QVC.
I had the opportunity to sell the business after 12 years and took on the role of Director for a property company and retired 12 years later.
The rest is history and the origins of my rewarding coaching journey follows……
The origins of my coaching journey
I became more interested in complementary therapy after an incident in Nigeria in which my daughter, then three years old, contracted pneumonia. The conventional therapy at that time was not advanced and therefore it was advised to use natural plants and leaves (lemon, tea tree and eucalyptus) infused in hot water for my daughter to inhale.
The results were amazing, and created a desire within me to move into Aromatherapy. This ambition stayed with me for a number of years until the time was right to start a company. I studied to gain qualifications in Holistic therapy and then formed my business, Aromatherapy Gold.
(The name GOLD stemmed from my own initial plus those of my three children, Oliver, Louise and Dominic.)
Initially, Aromatherapy Gold was based online selling aromatherapy products to consumers and retailers. Soon, we were supplying our goods to major stores throughout the UK and I was asked to act as an expert on television and radio programes. At the same time I was director of a property company.
We were very successful: we won awards, were featured in the national press.
In 2011, I decided to devote much more of my time to coaching and conflict resolution. It was at this point that I decided to sell Aromatherapy Gold and set up Gill Mathias.com. In order to do this I first needed to undertake more training and achieve coaching qualifications.
I retrained with Barefoot coaching. After some years of experience I was accepted as a member of the National Council of Psychotherapists. This qualification involved my working with corporate companies in stress management and resilience. As time progressed I was approached to work with individual clients approaching midlife or preparing for retirement. This has now acknowledged me as a leading independent expert in pre-retirement planning.
It is working with people that gives me the greatest satisfaction. What I really enjoy is helping others approach their lives in a whole new way, to find their capacity to achieve happiness.
Enjoying life
In my spare time I have a wonderful relationship with my children and grandchildren, whom I am fortunate enough to see on a regular basis.
I wish I could tell you that everything has gone as planned. However, it never works like that.
The fact is, I would not be where I am were it not for those experiences – some of which seem challenging at the time – that turn into opportunities.
Had everything gone “to plan”, there are many wonderful people I would not have met and all manner of positive things I would not have experienced.
When you come up against the sort of things that really hurt, the easy route is to blame something or someone else.
All my experience is now working with clients to transform their lives by raising their resilience from the set-backs in life to bounce forward into successful results.