Smart Life Coaching – A Turk In Athens

This week we share an interview with Goncha. Thanks to our friend Rebecca from leavingcairo.com!

Goncha Papasotiriou is Turkish, married to a Greek and living in Athens.  She runs Smart Life Coaching and I have to say, she’s good.  Far from the ‘touchy feely’ approach that  many people are quick to jump to the conclusion that coaching is all about, Goncha poses some interesting questions that can help you reach your own conclusions about whichever aspect of your life you feel you most need help with.  She certainly helped me with “Leaving Cairo” and gaining the confidence to develop my site.

I decided I wanted to know more about Goncha and why she took this route.

Goncha, tell us about how you ended up in Greece.

That’s a great question Rebecca, because it’s  a great way to show your international readers that we can do whatever we like with our lives, and if we aren’t able to find contentment in one place…., why not look for it somewhere else?

I studied as an economist and started my professional life as a ship sale & purchase broker in Istanbul.

As I was working in the highly competitive and glamorous shipping industry, my boss came up one day and said he had decided to retire. The company was going to shut down. I was going to get a severance package and continue working in the company that bought ours.

The next morning after this announcement was made – I can still remember it very clearly – I woke up, sat in my bed and looked out the window.

I said to myself, I am going to go to Greece!

I had no friends there, no relatives, no prior connection… just a few business contacts that I’d done some work with. But the decision coming from my heart was so clear and I was so sure that without a second thought, I took my compensation package, booked myself a flight, rented an apartment online and enrolled in a language school for 3 months. Everything was ready, I was so excited and I had no idea what I was excited about!

When I landed in Athens, it was a beautiful day in May.

A fellow broker picked me up at the airport and drove me to my apartment which I had never seen before. The apartment looked lovely with its antique furniture and high ceilings. My landlady handed in my keys and there started my life in Athens.

I started happily going about my days, learning the language and meeting new people.  Among those new people was a man named Antonis, who would later become my husband. We met,  fell in love almost instantaneously and spent a wonderful summer together.  But, at the end of the summer it was time for me to leave Athens and go back to Istanbul…time to end the adventure.  I had run out of money, visa and time. I had to go back home and look for a job. We parted in tears, promising to one another that this was not a break up. I went back home and felt sad, but at the same time I knew in my heart that this was not the end. Antonis would come and visit me every other weekend and several weeks passed like that…until one day

I received an e-mail from a London-based head-hunter company, informing me that a shipping giant was interested in offering me a great job, and would I prefer to work in Copenhagen or Athens??

Well, I’m sure you can imagine the answer – I returned to Athens with the biggest smile, started working in a beautiful office by the sea and a year later, Antonis and I were married.

To read the rest of the interview, please visit Bex's blog at leavingcairo.com

Until next week,

Jack

In this weekly space, keep up with ‘Jack’ as he navigates daily life in Athens… Anecdotes, stories, hits & misses, the good, the bad and, well, the rest…