By the time Liz Luya finished a 250-kilometre race across the Gobi desert last June, the worn-out mother of three felt dizzy with excitement.
'It was a strenuous walk of about 10 hours a day for a week. I got very bad blistered feet and was walking in a huge amount of pain. But I finished it,' says the former senior human resources (HR) professional with the Economist Group who now runs a HR consulting and coaching firm.
She says the experience taught her about the strength of the mind. 'I can tell people from my own experience that when you put your mind to something, you will find a way to achieve it.'
Originally from Britain, Luya was relocated to the Hong Kong office of the Economist Group in 1997. In 2002, to recuperate from the stresses of her working life, she took a sabbatical and joined a fitness retreat in Africa where she met her future husband. A year later their first son was born.
'At that point I was 39. I had given up hope of meeting somebody so it's a great thing [to have met my husband].'
After giving birth to her third child in 2008, she decided to leave the corporate world and devote more time to her young family. She also needed time out to contemplate her next step in life. 'I had a burning ambition to do something on a one-on-one basis,' she says.
In the months that followed, Luya spent time with her children, started thinking about setting up her own business and took on the challenge of the Gobi march. Since returning from the race, she has been developing her business in career management, which embraces aspects from writing r?sum?s and corporate outplacement to coaching people who want to change their lives.
