From Retirement Blues to Coaching

I'm Maureen(Mo|) Chaloner and I am a Holistic Life Coach and Personal Development Life Coaching Master.

I am a Mum of three and a Great Grandma, and I live in Wiltshire in the UK with my lovely hubby Jim and our two cats Belle and Honey.

My story is how I progressed from working for years in jobs that felt very restricting and not really who I was, to total freedom - and it all happened by accident.

In the past I worked in a few different roles, as a freelance journalist( I have a BA( Hons) degree in Journalism), in public relations, in sales and marketing and also in accounts, and after retiring, became a companion/carer for some lovely elderly lady clients. Now I am a Life Coach and love it...

Here's how it happened..

After retirement I stayed on working for a local company as a Marketing Executive and was quite happy. Unfortunately due to government cuts, the company folded, and I was out of a job . I didn't know what to do. I applied for a number of positions in marketing, but nothing came up. In fact one recruitment agency told me in a subtle way it was my age that employers were noting, not my qualifications,( I was 67 at the time). The woman at the agency only backed up what I already knew from past experience, as a 50+ woman, I was 'past it '..( what a cheek)

Meanwhile, a good friend of mine worked as a carer and companion and took care of a lovely elderly lady, and she loved it, and persuaded me to give caring a try. I took her advice and began the journey to learn new skills, and take qualifications that included, Handling Medication, Dementia Care and Food Safety to name a few ( 15 different modules in total) I also had to have a police check before I could start work. And so I began work in the social care sector and I really loved this work. The ladies I took care of were amazing, all having their own life stories to talk about and all with vastly different needs and personalities of course. But after 5 years of taking care of my ladies I developed arthritis in my left knee and had to retire from care work as it was vey painful and disabling( I need a new bionic knee)

Now what was I going to do? I was well past retirement age but not ready to give up work altogether!

So I got to thinking. During my time in the corporate world I witnessed the positive and negative aspects of the corporate culture. The worst aspects that I experienced more than once, was how older women were often not seen or heard in team meetings, in the boardroom and elsewhere. I was appalled because older women have so much to offer in the workplace and it seemed such a terrible waste of talent. Even if a female employee HAD a good idea to share, they were reluctant to voice it for fear of the idea being dismissed by male colleagues ( this was some time ago, but from recent research it seems it is STILL going on in many industries)

Over the years I had often thought about this ageism and biased attitude by employers and even employment agencies towards older women and realised something needed to change.

Meanwhile I hired a life coach to help me decide what to do next.

We went over all I had achieved in my life up to then, and we come to the conclusion that I would make a great Life Coach myself having had such a wealth of experience in many different work related roles, I thought about it and eventually decided to give it a go... So, I started by training to become a Holistic Life Coach and then went on to become qualified as a Life Coaching Master. I specialise in Holistic Personal Development Coaching now and working with businesswomen over 50 and help them transition from Invisible to Invaluable..

I want to change societies perception of older women in the workplace. My passion is to empower 50+ businesswomen by cultivating the necessary skills, tools and stategies to overcome this biased view by society and succeed in whatever area they choose to work.

Using coaching tools and techniques in my Holistic Personal Development Coaching programmes that includes mindset shift, building inner confidence, and cultivating positive self belief, I help older women transform from being unseen and unheard to totally unstoppable!

Mo Chaloner