Spirituality and feng shui aren’t necessarily considered conventional ways to achieve business success. But for multimillionaire Dawn Gibbins, they’ve always been the answer.

Take Flowcrete, the commercial and industrial flooring company she set up with her father in 1982

and sold for £35m two years ago. It was the difference their flooring could make to people’s lives that inspired Dawn to drive the business forward initially. “One of the biggest issues in the flooring industry is back pain and knee problems,” explains Dawn, who hails from Cheshire. “Yet our flooring could be installed standing up and laid 40 times faster than everything else. So I was on a mission to really inspire the world with it and I believe the business succeeded because of that philosophy. Our core focus was never the bottom line.” But when Flowcrete found itself in trouble in 2004, the bottom line was exactly what Dawn had to focus on. Instead of tackling it the traditional way by calling in the management consultants and accountants, however, she decided to fix things with a little spiritual inspiration.


First appeared in Soul & Spirit magazine

Feng Shui detox

Having attended a seminar in Bali focusing on the power of feng shui – the ancient Chinese art of energy flow and placement of dwellings and objects – Dawn decided to apply the concept to her business, despite tough opposition from her male-dominated workforce. “We were in trouble and losing money,” she remembers, “so I decided to ‘feng shui’ it, or rather ‘simplify’ it right back to the basics, looking at the organisational structure, the environment and the brand. “When I first started talking about my feng shui passion though, my all-male team would switch off. So I translated it into their language, calling it ‘The Corporate Detox’ to get them on board,” she says. “But I was really using the ancient wisdoms and applying them to my business.” Over the next three years, profits soared and Flowcrete doubled in size. But, by 2008, Dawn was ready for a new challenge. Selling Flowcrete, she immediately launched Barefoot Living, a similar flooring business focused on the residential market. This time, feng shui was firmly embedded in the proposition. But even more resistance was to come. “I wanted to recruit an all-female workforce who would install the floors with love rocks, i.e. a beautiful rose quartz in the south-west corner for harmonious relationships, or with a coin in the south-east corner to bring people prosperity. But it was impossible,” she admits. “Floor installers are all blokes, and trying to get them to take this seriously was a nightmare.”

Millionaire moment

It was 2009 and Dawn was feeling frustrated; little did she know that a spiritual experience was about to change her life completely. “With the power of intention, you get into this zone of believing in your dreams and attracting the right people to you,” she explains. “What you talk about, you bring about – that’s what I believe. And if you are oozing with energy and positivity, I believe people start to arrive on your doorstep and contact you.

“With the power of intention, you get into this zone of believing in your dreams and attracting the right people to you. What you talk about you bring about”

“Well, the strangest thing happened. My two daughters had just said to me, ‘Have you watched The Secret Millionaire? It’s just amazing, it would be the best thing for you’. This was on a Monday. Later that week, I received a call from Channel 4 asking me to appear on the programme! It was the law of attraction in action. I immediately said, ‘Of course!’ and it a magical experience. The Secret Millionaire changed my life.”

After filming the show in Bristol for 10 days, and subsequently donating £250K to three different charities – one of the largest amounts ever given on the programme – Dawn returned to Cheshire a changed woman. Her first move was to step back from business life, licensing Barefoot Living to a number of companies, and redirecting her energy into the charitable world. She launched The Barefoot Foundation earlier this year, a charitable trust linking up ethical, spiritual businesses with worthy charities. These businesses donate a percentage of their profits to the Foundation, alongside all the profits Dawn gets from licensing Barefoot Living and any fees she receives from speaking at professional events.

The money is then used to support a variety of charities, including the three she invested in

on The Secret Millionaire: Project One25, Wild Goose Café and The Teenage Parent Project. It also funds the Foundation’s Inspiration and Education Centre in Cheshire, which provides educational workshops and seminars to people on everything from mentoring to meditation, Reiki and the benefits of feng shui.


	Dawn in Nepal, taking a group of children to meet their school bus as part of her charity work

Prosperity and empowerment

And those benefits are far reaching, according to Dawn. “Feng shui changed my life and made me a very rich woman, not only in monetary terms but also happiness, health, love and wellbeing.” But it doesn’t only increase prosperity: Dawn believes feng shui can also drastically improve lives. “When I first started practicing feng shui, it absolutely freaked me out, especially when I learnt to dial and read the Earth energies and geopathic stress lines.”

Dawn’s father died of cancer in 1994 but Dawn is sure it was geopathic stress that was the main culprit in his illness. “I remember going to my dad’s house to find out where he’d been sleeping and discovered it was on a crossing of geopathic stress lines that was very strong. However, he had smoked and was mixing toxic resins before we made everything squeaky clean and eco-friendly at Flowcrete, but I feel it was the geopathic stress lines that were the main cause of his illness,” she says. Raising awareness of the overall benefits of feng shui is what keeps Dawn focused on her goal to “empower, inspire and feng shui Britain, making it a happy, healthy and prosperous nation”. And now that the Foundation is being run by new CEO Alison Levesley (or CIO as Dawn prefers: Chief Inspiration Officer), she says: “It allows me to get out and share my philosophies on business and inspirational living, and the benefits of working with magical charities and organisations.”

Not even a recent call from the BBC about becoming one of the dragons on Dragons’ Den could entice Dawn back to the business world. If anything, it did the opposite. “I don’t want to be one of those dragons who just criticises and analyses business. Life isn’t about how much money you earn but what you do with it that counts. Myself and other millionaires should be generous both with our money but also with our skills in nurturing and developing people. Because this is what will make people happy. And only by making people happy will we bring more love and spiritual good into the world.”

Visit www.thebarefootfoundation.co.uk for more information. Dawn Gibbins appears in Secret Millionaire Changed My Life on Channel 4 later this month.