Every week we will feature the adventures of one amazing woman.

We aim to celebrate the varied and colorful roles women play within industry and business. Experience inspirational, real stories by real women; Interested in being featured? Please send your adventures to info@zarsmedia.com For previous adventures please click here

Adventures of Dr Pauline Crawford BA MBA PhD CEO Corporate Heart Ltd Vice President, The International University of Entreprenology, Head of Program Development My Story its never too late! As I approach my 64th birthday, I realise my life and my career as a woman are just coming to fruition and expanding to my fullest potential as a silver veteran. As I look back in order to assess my life, I feel young at heart and see a future with hope and optimism. My life is opening up to new opportunities and new roles are unfolding. I wish now to give back my wisdom to others. I am fundamentally an entrepreneur and creator of behavioural concepts. As I mentor and guide my clients, women and men alike, I love to see them grow and prosper in all ways. My service has taken me into most sectors of business and ranges of business entities from large corporations to SMEs. The latter now, more and more, are the life blood of the new economy. In particular, it is said in many recent articles that silver veteran SMEs are changing the face of business. For my part I am glad we baby boomers are being noticed! Always be noticed for the right reasons My advice to women today -always strive to be noticed for who you are naturally, not for who you think others want you to be! My natural pioneering nature has drawn me to look at new ways to perceive and understand people and how they communicate and interact successfully. I have especially work with Gender Dynamics my own unique framework that enlightens both men and women (and different types of men and women within a matrix of styles) how to share and grow healthy communication on a daily basis. As women forge ahead into business, I see the challenges we face and believe there is a new conversation to be had which fundamentally re-draws the map of business and life. It is a dangerous to assume all women are alike and the nature of our differences often gets in the way of men understanding us as a collective. My career path has embraced being a mother, grandmother, and now wife and business partner to my new husband. As a business woman, I bring my whole self to everything I do and cannot divorce the nurturing, multifaceted, connected personality from the logical, strategic, pragmatic applied business persona. I wonder where I found the natural business woman within the mix, but she evolved from all my roles as often is the case with women. I am naturally a more masculine-minded woman and this has become more and more relevant as I study women and men. Becoming intentional its never too late! My career after passing my BA Sociology and Statistics at Exeter University started, unintentionally, in the lively new Tourism industry of the 70s for some 7 years at Thomson Holidays based in my home city London. There, young and naive, I learned in action what expanding markets and good business were about. Rising unwittingly through the marketing department, I applied my natural logical mind to whatever I did. Leaving there as Senior Product manager in 1977 to start my family, meant little to me at the time regarding ambition. My natural business entrepreneurism only woke up in my 40s when, as many mothers choose nowadays, I realised I enjoyed the creative business life. I also

loved the independence I gained in my own pursuits and again, unintentionally, I uncovered my path into understanding people and developed the behavioural skills sets I now use as part of my service to my clients. My reference to the turn of events being un-intentional is critical here in terms of lessons learned and shared with you all. My underpinning positive philosophy about harmony, abundance and freedom drove both my natural evolution and eventually my intentional and high value of life itself. Was I intentional from a young age and did I know where my path would lead me to now, aged 64? No, I evolved one step at a time and as I look back in order to study that journey, I realise I allowed my natural love and desire for harmony and happiness to motivate me to tune into my logical mind combined with my artistic creative side. These lead me to create concepts that frame certain propositions about people and how we behave in a corporate context as well as life. My intention was to use my natural skills, my personal talents and passions and relate these to the business and life I was creating. This was exactly what I teach my clients and it works every time once we recognise who we are and how best we work with others. Write down your intentions daily Nowadays I know for sure that writing down my intentions works for me. These are never fixed them in stone, but laid down with a strong sense of flexibility; always with deep integrity alongside ones most personal desires. You then need to act out your intentions by adding in a few spoonfuls of perseverance and a bucketful of courage! I know my courage was born from my upbringing, where my parents encouraged us all to be ourselves and always do (and work) our best. We were loved, praised, guided and valued in our childhood. My brothers and sister did not choose my entrepreneurial path yet I know that my business desires and my life desires became entwined. My work from 1989 was to help people help themselves to be their best and to do this in the context of their business life whether that was as a corporate being or an owner manager, or one person business or whatever. Who we are and what we do needed to emerge from a passionate core that lay within me, embracing natural talents and creating a lifestyle that was healthy, wealthy and wise. One of my favourite quotes is from Eleanor Roosevelt The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams I didnt wake up to this dream of how I might influence the future until I created my very own business Corporate Heart Ltd in late 1999 which underpins all that I do now. This is a Performance Consultancy unlocking peoples passion to drive outstanding business results www.corporateheart.co.uk Prior to that, my return-to-work-after-babies had turned into a career, starting with Image Consultancy in 1989, then setting up a partnership enterprise with an Image colleague over 1990-96, a period in which I was also President of the Federation of Image Consultants UK 1992-94. This was a highly impactful time for me and helped me see that much was possible with confidence in oneself. I grew in stature, in confidence to deliver my messages, and a desire to do more for the world around me. How transformation occurs As the year 1997 arrived, I had grown so in touch with my own independence and desire to do well, that my intimate relationship with my first husband dissolved. We had a 30 year relationship, started at University, married 24 years and we had played out our time together. I became single once more, and as my children were just adults, I could focus on how my career and life might blend into a new lifestyle. I know this can often be the greatest challenge for women who love to work (or need to work) and my advice is to ensure you retain respect from your family while also forging your own path. The best way is to be honest and open, and own your decisions whatever they are.

Now CEO of my own Performance Consultancy, Corporate Heart, I carry on my mission to engage my clients to develop healthy well-behaved, excellent performing cultures which would produce not just the best employees but the healthiest results for all. As I grew into this part of my life, I grew confidence in presenting my concepts to large audiences and started to enjoy a reputation for my pioneering work on Whos in Charge men or women? through my work on Gender Dynamics. With the mounting cry for more women in the boardroom and the questions about why there is a lack of women coming through, I am well positioned to gather all my experiences from my days in the Image world, studying body types and personalities, combined with my study of people and communication behaviour. I believe there is a new world emerging, where women are forerunners in enterprise and entrepreneurial pursuits - growing micro businesses across the world - as well as entering and running for top corporate jobs. Not all women want business to the exclusion of their life at home yet they want a balance that may not be fully accepted yet by men. My work in this area

is my greatest passion and pleasure to deliver. Ask yourself, does your work give you that fulfilment? If not, what is missing? The Missing Link my new husband As my story and my work continued, a vital aspect was missing to find love and a co-pilot for my onward journey. As my story is about intentions, I cannot finish without my love story being told. During the years prior, every moment of achievement and joy was mirror by the desire to meet my soul mate, to be with and work with my co-pilot in this life. It was something I always felt would happen. I had always enjoyed working with team mates yet a soul mate would be the true path. I had written this intention many times over the past 6 years in journals, yet the years continued and I was alone for 15 years since my divorce. Then late in 2011, November, I flew to a business conference in Budapest on a curious unrelated work assignment and one I didnt want to do, and met my now American husband, Dr James A Omps, Professor and President of The International University of Entreprenology IUE. www.iue-edu.org Never give up on intentions expect the unexpected A chance opportunity to connect or destiny? The lesson here is that never give up on intentions, write them down, live and breathe them and they will come although not always as you might expect. He too did not want to be there but was. He had looked for me all his life, his dream woman, one who is strong yet sensitive, yet all woman. He is my counterpart, a feminine-minded man. After 6 months and 45,000 email words, I flew to Las Vegas and stayed with him for 10days, he proposed, I accepted. We married October 7th in Las Vegas with my kids watching over the webcam in Brighton England and Elvis walking me down the aisle! He and I have decided not just to marry but to merge our business ideas. He like me had always wanted to work, love and live with his wife (and his previous 3 wives had not!) We are transforming our whole life to walk a new path, combining our working experience and integrating Entreprenology and Gender Dynamics to produce a program selection and delivery that will, we believe, change the face of business by connecting people with their natural skills to create entrepreneurial success. So watch this space as I begin to fulfil my new roles with him in IUE and in a new joint venture in the UK which will be launched later this year. We fly to Malaysia this month to set up IUE there and to launch my work with Womens Entrepreneur Networks. The world is opening up for us and we hold a strong belief in our dream coming true and that we can leave a legacy of hope for young and old, men and women alike, wherever they are right now. Its never too late... but are you ready? I do believe that the world is ready for great and courageous yet amazingly caring women such as those profiled here on Zars Media. I am honoured to be in that roll call. My mission is to lead by example and to share with you what I have learned about the dual nature of being a woman, and honour us all as we can be strong and sensitive in a truly female mix that influences the world around us. My major advice to all women, always be true to your nature as a woman, look to see the world from others view and never give away your personal power to either a man or woman because you think they are superior, they maybe be senior by role but never by nature! Dr Pauline Crawford BA MBA PhD CEO Corporate Heart Ltd Vice President The International University of Entreprenology Head of Program Development