TONIA JACKSON – Mixing Art and Creativity with bottom line – accountancy offers a new approach to Life Skills Coaching.
A true artist at heart, Tonia Jackson CA(SA) innovatively set to work blending together her business and aesthetic skills.
Now as a personal and business coach, she has a vocation she finds incredibly fulfilling.
If you had asked her as a child what she wanted to be one day, she would’ve said “an artist”.
But after considering careers from fine art to engineering, Tonia decided to pursue the CA(SA) track: “It was a career path which I felt was a good broad entry into business and would open doors.” Little did she know it would later link with her artistic talents.
Tonia’s years practising as a CA(SA) in disciplines such as the audit and financial standards offer rare insights that she brings to her life skills coaching. This background was also vital in establishing and managing her new business.
Tonia has integrated her love of art, dance and music into her life skills coaching, with this creativity bringing in an element of play that is a lot of fun. Tonia explains, “We are powerful creative forces in our own lives and this is evident in what we manifest day to day. It’s not so much about art but also about creativity – the art forms other techniques which we use simply to help unlock this awareness and enable us to work consciously to grow and shift in our lives.” Tonia’s approach is still fairly new and feedback from clients has been very positive.
Although she admits she does not regret leaving the corporate environment, she says she is still very much a part of it through her work. Being on the outside has allowed a certain objectivity and fresh perspective.
Last year, Tonia was involved with the coaching programme for trainee accountants run by Thuthuka. She coached two of our future business leaders over a course of six months. She has also developed training and coaching programmes currently running at Wits and Walter Sisulu University for accounting students.
Toni has great dreams for the future: “Imagine what our education system could be like if we not only got the academic component right but also encouraged young people across the board to develop their emotional and other intelligences at the same time.”
Author: Lynn Grala