Meet­ing Pro­fes­sor Pearl Gopaul was in­deed a re­fresh­ing and in­spi­ra­tional en­counter for WE Mag­a­zine. Gopaul, though pe­tite, is in fact a gi­ant in the mas­sage and beau­ty in­dus­try with a heart and per­son­al­i­ty to match.

To fit in all her ac­com­plish­ments as a mas­sage ther­a­pist and ed­u­ca­tor in­to one ar­ti­cle is sim­ply im­pos­si­ble. Gopaul has an as­tound­ing 35 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the Mas­sage Ther­a­py and Aes­thet­ics in­dus­try. Pri­or to her de­but in the in­dus­try, the chirpy moth­er of three earned a BSc in Busi­ness Man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona, Ja­maica. Part-own­er and Prin­ci­pal of the Col­lege of Ther­a­peu­tic Mas­sage and Beau­ty Cul­ture Lim­it­ed, Pro­fes­sor Gopaul has al­ways loved any­thing to do with beau­ty. Many of her clients boast that she has “heal­ing hands”.

De­scribed as ‘the moth­er of mas­sage’, Gopaul wears many hats. She has au­thored a book ‘Mas­sage in the Caribbean from Tra­di­tion­al to Con­ven­tion­al’, co-au­thored a man­u­al – a ‘book­let of med­ical con­di­tions (2009)’.Be­ing the de­ter­mined in­di­vid­ual that she is, the grand­moth­er al­so led a team to Par­lia­ment to in­cor­po­rate the pro­fes­sion of Mas­sage (Act 8 of 1998). She is the first Pres­i­dent of the Mas­sage As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Her col­lege is the first of its kind in T&T and one that is a ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tion syn­ony­mous with ex­cel­lence and high stan­dards. For this col­lege, Gopaul, the Founder of Gopaul’s Mas­sage Ther­a­py Clin­ic, ob­tained in­ter­na­tion­al ac­cred­i­ta­tion from the Com­mis­sion on Mas­sage Ther­a­py Ac­cred­i­ta­tion USA. The first woman in Trinidad and To­ba­go to serve as a stock­bro­ker on the T&T Stock Ex­change (1975), Gopaul is al­so a mem­ber of the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Women of the World.

To­day, Pro­fes­sor Pearl Gopaul has ed­u­cat­ed more than 612 stu­dents on the heal­ing pow­ers of touch. As men­tioned in her bi­og­ra­phy writ­ten by Fran­cis Ram­nar­ine, she is a ‘great gi­ant of a la­dy’. She has and con­tin­ues to in­spire and em­pow­er many through­out the coun­try. Her work will be un­for­got­ten. Here is what Gopaul shared with We Mag­a­zine:

What was the biggest chal­lenge you have had to over­come and how did you deal with it?

My biggest chal­lenge was MY­SELF - over­com­ing fears - Fear of fail­ure, fear of so­ci­ety, fear of re­jec­tion, fear of suc­cess and this list of fear is end­less. In deal­ing with it I nev­er hugged my fears or re­mained co­cooned in my com­fort zone. I al­ways mus­tered the courage to be­lieve in my­self “That I can do it”. I was de­ter­mined to stay fo­cused and have al­ways con­quered the chal­lenges of ac­cept­ing my mis­takes, lim­i­ta­tions, ex­tent, bound­aries, er­rors and faults. I must men­tion that in or­der for me to reach the suc­cess­ful junc­ture in my ca­reer, I al­ways had to do in­tro­spec­tion, so that I al­ways had a good idea of what al­ter­ations were need­ed for me to at­tain my goals in or­der to meet the cur­rent mar­ket de­mands, rather than fol­low so­ci­etal preached parts.

Tell us some­thing about you that peo­ple may not know.

Apart from be­ing the pro­fes­sion­al woman as viewed by the pub­lic, I am an open book, very do­mes­ti­cat­ed, fam­i­ly ori­en­tat­ed, I stay loy­al to friends and I am a peo­ple’s per­son.

What are you most grate­ful for?

I am grate­ful for life in it­self. I feel blessed to have the sup­port of my fam­i­ly and friends and most of all to have at­tained knowl­edge and skills over the past 35 years to help oth­ers to al­le­vi­ate their aches and pains through the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Mas­sage Ther­a­py…the mind, body and spir­it con­nec­tion.

What is some­thing you know for sure that you wish the rest of us knew?

I know for sure, that you must spend your time NOW. Nev­er pro­cras­ti­nate and work on the things you want to ac­com­plish – or even try to build a busi­ness, cul­ti­vate a great ca­reer, build a fam­i­ly, and run a marathon. The great­est suc­cess is liv­ing your life to the fullest in your own way.

What are your fu­ture plans?

It’s tough to nail down plans for the fu­ture. I am the queen of chang­ing my mind ever so of­ten…so much to do and so much to see, so lit­tle time. I plan to con­tin­ue to em­pow­er in­di­vid­u­als, es­pe­cial­ly women, in T&T, to con­duct re­search, utilise, and pub­lish da­ta to im­prove the In­dus­try in mas­sage and beau­ty ser­vices and to de­vel­op pro­to­cols for best stan­dards for the en­tire In­dus­try. To de­vel­op ac­cept­able stan­dards to en­sure that Mas­sage & Beau­ty Ther­a­pists in T&T are com­pa­ra­ble to those of In­ter­na­tion­al Stan­dards. I al­so plan to im­prove my­self with the skills and knowl­edge to ed­u­cate oth­ers in the In­dus­try and to con­tin­ue prac­tic­ing my per­son­al and so­cial life skills…yo­ga, danc­ing, gar­den­ing, prepar­ing de­li­cious meals for my fam­i­ly and seek­ing new ad­ven­tures in­clud­ing study Ayurvedic Med­i­cine in In­dia and trav­el­ling the world.