One of Gabriella Goddard’s life-changing “gulp” moments was when she was earning six-figure salary as European marketing director for broadband company that unexpectedly went belly up.
New Zealand-born Goddard had just bought her first house in London and the safe option would have been applying for another job. Instead she took plunge into the unknown by setting up her own executive coaching business.
Less than two years later scary encounter with her own mortality provided similar jolt – one that reconnected Goddard with an early childhood dream of being writer.
“And I thought – if not now, then when?” she recalls.
Which is pretty much the theme of the resulting book – Gulp! The seven-day crash course to master fear and break through any challenge (published Penguin, 2006). The publication is supported by an interactive website that not only promotes the book but associated seminars, one-on-one coaching, as well as presenting personal ‘gulp’ journeys in people’s business and private lives. It also tells you that Gulp! is pending UK trademark of Goddard International.
This month, Goddard will be in New Zealand promoting her book and speaking at an NZIM-sponsored event.
So what makes her book any different from library load of other motivational literature – like Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway?
“Firstly,” says Goddard. “I think [Feel the Fear] is great book but it is an older book and I think Gulp builds on where it left off and brings in more current thinking and techniques.
“And the essence of Gulp is not to focus on the fear but on the buzz of what you create and where you’re going and allow the energy of that to actually pull you through the gulp.”
It’s for people who’ve either had challenge thrust on them and have no choice but to embrace it as well as those who are “simply tired of being stuck in rut and feel it’s time to do something bit different and radical”, says Goddard.
Her own background doesn’t show too much stuckness. Having started and abandoned food technology degree, Auckland-born Goddard switched to international marketing and ended up working in Japan which was where she first caught the travel bug.
Since then, she’s worked in England, Mexico, New Zealand and Europe and, at 40, has notched up time as corporate high flier, marketer, coach, entrepreneur and, now, writer.
Her first book is based both on her own experience and the work she does with clients. It takes wannabe life-changers through seven-day programme that provides tricks and tips that help give them the confidence, motivation and energy to break through their current challenge to “create the life they really want”.
Which is what Goddard wants to inspire people to do.
“The beauty of it is that when you step up to challenge – whether it’s one that happens to you or one that you create – it creates momentum in your life.”
Goddard is good example. Apart from promoting her book, she’s just completed course in documentary film-making and has now decided to write novel.
“I’m an ex-corporate person – I never thought I was creative. The whole point is that once you make gulp, you tend to think ‘okay, done that, now what else can I do’ and life becomes more of an adventure.”
• More information from www.gulptime.com
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