Why Put a Bowtie on a Llama? How a crazy idea can change your life and transform your business

Celia Gaze, made a name for herself putting bow ties on llamas – after hitting burnout in a high powered NHS job and experiencing the very real de-habilitating impact of stress. Quitting her high pressured job, she spent three months reflecting and reviewing her life. She became obsessed with stress. What was this condition that had turned her from a high-flying, career-driven individual to a crumbling wreck reduced to tears by the slightest bit of criticism?

She read every book there was on stress and enrolled on a stress management course. She achieved qualifications in stress management and organisational stress management. One of the modules on the course was to create an environment that enabled you to live stress-free. She decided to base her coursework on the perfect vision of a business that would help individuals be as stress-free as possible. Her vision was to harness nature and use the ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ to design and build a venue focused on wellbeing.

This led to her travelling around the country with her son undertaking primary research. She visited 196 venues from Devon to Scotland amassing ideas. When the coursework was submitted, it was so good that Celia decided to turn this into a business plan. Her partner Stephen had a neglected farm and Celia wondered whether this could be transformed into something special.

Having had no experience of running a business or overseeing a building project, Celia threw herself into a huge project. She secured finance, gained planning permission, oversaw the building transformation including liaising with architects, builders, electricians, installing a wind turbine and water treatment plant etc. Her learning curve was massive.

During the early years, Celia faced nearly every type of challenge – tribunals, staff issues, system problems. This passion project saw her in court, nearly bankrupt and once again experiencing high levels of stress as she had walked in blindly to a project she was out of her depth in…..Then inspiration came when she put a bow tie on a llama and she transformed the venue into an award-winning wedding venue that attracted couples from miles around – The Wellbeing Farm.

As Celia says “The day that I put the bow tie on a llama was the day that transformed everything. The minute I put the bow tie on the llama, my business became different. We leapt from 15 to 43 weddings in one year (2016) and we continued to grow. That was the start of the transformation of my business. Up to that point, The Wellbeing Farm was just another venue, but the bow tie-wearing llamas meant we suddenly became a venue that stood out”.

Celia decided that having experienced so many failures and obstacles that people needed to learn from her mistakes so she wrote a book about her experience: ‘Why Put a Bow Tie on a Llama? How a crazy idea can change your life and transform your business. The book is intended to be an honest and highly practical guide to starting your own business, recovering from work-related burnout and bouncing back from failure.

Bursting with down-to-earth, straight-talking advice and Celia’s passionate guidance on self-care, it is an inspirational and invaluable read for anyone looking to transform their business or even start their own.

Since publishing the book, Celia has shared her story in Psychologies, Huffington Post and BBC News to name a few publications. The book has opened doors for speaking, podcast and writing opportunities and she is now proud to own ‘the venue with a story’.

Why Put a Bowtie on a Llama? (Published by Practical Inspiration Publishing) is available to buy on Amazon. 

Connect with Celia: LinkedIn – Twitter – Instagram

Winners of The Business Book Awards 2021 will be revealed online on Tuesday 25th May 2021.