Gillian Martin’s training

GILLIAN Martin is passionate about life and seeing people reach their highest potential.

But for the 42-year-old Mandeville based belle, though she initially grew up witnessing unity among people and hospitality being extended to others which sparked an interest in psychology, she pursued a degree in management studies then a career in banking.

“I live to help people and motivate people. I don’t like to think of someone being down or sad and there is nothing I can do or say to motivate that person so that is always something that drives me. Once you say you are depressed it triggers something in me that I have to help you. I thought of various ways to do this — counselling, training — and as a result I was interested in psychology. But after leaving Manchester High, I worked and studied at The University of the West Indies (UWI) doing a degree in management studies. It wasn’t my greatest passion and I did it largely to have a degree,” she shared.

After leaving The UWI, Martin went on to work for four years before doing a MBA in finance from Manchester Business School in the United Kingdom, but once again she kept thinking of how she could help people and for her free electives, did psychology-based courses in order to broaden her skill set. In addition to this she also conducted post-graduate research in the areas of human resource management, change management and customer service in fulfilment of the MBA programme.

During this time she also became part of Toastmasters International and even held the presidency of St Andrew Technical High School Torchbearers Toastmasters Club in 2008, and transformed the club into a distinguished club that year. As part of Toastmasters she was certified as a competent communicator and competent leader and describes her time with the group as fulfilling, seeing that it built her competencies in leadership and public speaking.

But after a 15-year stint in banking, Martin’s position was made redundant and she was faced with a choice of whether to continue in finance elsewhere or truly pursue her passion.

“I had years of work experience in areas such as customer service, sales, personal lending, delinquency management, social research, event management, church administration and training,” she said. “Continuing would have been the easier route; it was expected. I had job offers from other institutions, but I felt like doing, for a change, what was in my heart — to go into training and help people. It took faith and passion. It was extremely risky and I was going into an area where I didn’t know how it would work. During my 15 years in banking I had never spent one day as a trainer so it was totally high risk, but I wanted it. So I tried and it worked.”

She said it was very difficult as she had no prior experience, only in areas like customer service.

“It took a whole lot of marketing, positive self talk, reading the Bible and believing what it says is true. It was a process and it didn’t happen overnight. Rome was not built in a day but with time people took me in and I built from there. I kept pushing and researching and ensuring that what I delivered was quality and cutting edge, so in spite of the fact that I am now independent I had to put in everything, and set targets to attain and exceed. I ensured there was professionalism in my approach even though I was working for myself.”

Today, Martin is the proprietor of Captivating Solutions Consultancy, a training company she started in 2009, and has a catalogue of over 200 training programmes in personal development. She is also the author of Captivating Solutions, a one-page digest issued by her company providing information on personal development, leadership and other crucial areas.

But though she initially started training corporate bodies, Martin said after five years in she got a call to full time ministry and now extends her training solely to churches.

“I am most called about leadership and I consider myself an inspirational and transformational leader. I am also ecumenical and at first I didn’t see it as making sense as not many churches train, but I saw the need and they responded positively. I go into churches and do training in leadership, teaching, succession planning, change management and team building,” she said.

Martin, a former writer and contributor for Investor’s Choice magazine and a former instructor in entrepreneurship at HEART Trust/NTA, is also a lay preacher and author and publisher of evangelism tracts, which is a vehicle for her community involvement in the form of street evangelism, and a fledging hospital ministry, where she engages the sick and apart from praying offers them solutions to deal with other issues.

She also mentors young people, usually from the churches she’s associated with, and through her passion for entrepreneurship tries to get those unemployed to view self employment as a route and channel their hobbies into a career.

Martin’s mantra is to positively impact lives and through her work she hopes to encourage people to follow their heart and passions and understand that whatever they want they will get it, once they persist.