Paula Dunn: Once bullied for her cleft lip, now helping teens become resilient

This week on the Finding Fertile Ground podcast, I interview Paula Dunn, who was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. Paula is my first Australian guest, and my first with a cleft lip and palate like me.

On her first day of school, Paula was bullied by her classmates and when she told the teacher, she was called a tattletale. The bullying stunted her academic abilities and self-esteem during primary school and filled her with anxiety, stress, and depression. 

As immigrants to Australia, her parents told her the best way to set herself apart was education. Paula’s Greek mom only had one year of education. Paula applied herself to her education, going from the bottom of her classes to landing in the top 10% in the state for biology and music. She went onto graduate with a master’s of science with honours. 

Now she has found her fertile ground by applying what she learned in her life by working with teenage girls as a resilience expert, author, and cognitive scientist. She helps them create confidence to conquer life!

 Paula lives by this mantra: “It’s not how you start off in life that counts; it’s how you choose to live it.”  

Next week on the Companies That Care podcast, I interview Heather Younger, a best-selling author, international speaker, consultant, adjunct organizational leadership professor, and facilitator who has earned her reputation as “The Employee Whisperer.”

If you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a rating and subscribe to hear our next episode. 

Marie Gettel-Gilmartin, founder and principal of Fertile Ground Communications LLC, is a writer and marketing communications consultant who loves to take the pain and stress out of writing for her clients. She specializes in making the complex clear, using dynamic, accessible language to explain and communicate important issues. She positions her clients as experts in their fields and helps them communicate about pressing issues. Writing communications that boost employee engagement and thought leadership, she also coaches leaders and executives on how to strengthen communications and leadership. She loves to connect people and resources or solve seemingly impossible problems.

As a podcaster for justice, I stand with my sisters from the Women of Color Podcasters Community. We are podcasters united to condemn the tragic murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and many others at the hands of police. 

Fertile Ground Communications LLC is a certified women-owned business enterprise, disadvantaged business enterprise, and emerging small business.

Transcript

Transcript

Marie

HelloPaula, thank you for joining the Finding Fertile Ground podcast.

Marie

It's great to be on your showMarie. Good day from down under.

Marie

Yes, it's so wonderful that to have my first Australian on the podcast and you and I met in the what is it called cleft group on Facebook? I can't remember the name of the group.

Paula

Yeah, it's a weird name, I don't know, but yeah.

Marie

Cleft affected adults or something like that but.

Paula

Yeah, something like that, yes.

Marie

It's like Facebook group for people who've had cleft lips and palates. And before we started recordingPaula and I were talking about how when we were growing up we didn't really know anybody else who had a cleft lip and palate. So let's talk about your life a little bit. Can you tell us about your childhood: where you grew upand what your childhood and family were like?

Paula

Yeah, OK, so I I was born in 1976. I was born in a little town not so little anymore, but called Wollongong, and it's about 75 kilometres south of Sydney. I was the youngest of four. I was a change of life baby as I was told. So I I came a little late in life to my parents. My mum had me when she was 43 and I think my father was about 47, so I came as a little surprise.

Marie

I have one of those. I was 41, but that's awesome.

Paula

Yes so I think they saved the best for last. But you know I'm being biased here, but yeah, look back in those days they didn't really have ultrasounds or anything, so I was also a breech baby. So Mum went in and had a cesarean and out I popped and with a bilateral cleft lip and palate as well. So from what I was told, yeah obviously my parents were upset and they cried and all of that, but she keeps telling me the story that the doctor and the nurses were really positive and they were saying oh but she's perfect. You know, like the shape, the measurements they had. Like they were saying, she's perfect and I think one of the doctors said if you don't want her, I'll take her home. And my mum went no way. So that was the story she told me.

Marie

And did they know why you had a cleft palate? In my case, my mom had German measles. Do they have an explanation?

Paula

No, not really. I think a lot of the misconceptions are because they were old. That could have been that mum thought she thought she was going through menopause. But then when she went to the doctor, they may have given her some morning sickness pills. I'm not really sure. It was never really disclosed. There was no one in my family with this condition either. Now as an adult I've had some genetic testing done to see if I had some form of syndrome or something or but they've not been able to pinpoint anything, so I don't know. It's hard to say for me. Unfortunately I don't have a definitive answer on that one, right?

Marie

Right and what was your childhood like? What are some of your first childhood memories?

Paula

I guess I was a very outspoken child. My mum used to say that she had me in the pram and we'd be stopped at the traffic lights and waiting to cross the street and apparently I’d turn to somebody and go, oh, it's a beautiful day, isn't it? And talk to random strangers like that. I used to like climbing trees and climbing up the antenna and getting onto the roof of the house. And then they'd have to call the fire brigade to get me down and stuff like that.

Marie

Yeah, it sounds like you were pretty confident and outgoing.

Paula

Yeah, apparently yeah. So being I guess the youngest of four. My siblings were all baby boomers, so they were a lot older than me. But I guess the closest in age was about a 14 year gap so I was basically the baby so I had to play by myself a lot. And yeah, get creative.

Marie

So tell us about growing up with a bilateral cleft lip. I only had one cleft in my lip, but tell us about growing up with that kind of condition. How many surgeries did you have and what was that part of your childhood like?

Paula

It's funny, I I didn't really keep a tally of how many procedures I've had, but I've had a lot. I mean, I think the youngest or the first procedure I had was when I was three. I think that's when they closed the palate and then obviously I've had subsequent revisions and for those people that know what cleft lips are like, you can't just repair everything in one go because as you grow and develop in your face changes and all of that there's different stages of development and different stages of growth.

Marie

I don't know how many surgeries I have had either. My mom might be able to remember. Did you have to wear an obturator or like a speech appliance?

Paula

You know I was listening to your podcast about that and I don't remember wearing a speech thing. I remember when I was in primary school my 2 front teeth were way back and I needed to get braces in my 2 front teeth so I had this plate to try and push the two front teeth back out. I don't remember wearing anything for speech and actually I don't think I went to a speech pathologist but I remember I did have have a lisp and I used to get teased so I used to practice at home to try and get rid of the lisp. So that was my speech pathology.

Marie

You did it on your own. Wow, that's very independent. I don't hear a lisp.

Paula

My dad used to tease me but he didn't do it maliciously. I was getting bullied in that at school and then he'd make a joke if I said this word that sounded really bad, like I'd say the word snake and he'd go thnake like that, 'cause that's how I used to say it. And then I'd practice in the mirror. Used to sit there and see how I could move my tongue and create the S without the lisp.

Marie

Well, I wonder, maybe the hole in my palate was much bigger than yours.

Paula

Maybe occasionally like if I spoke there might have been a bit of whistling depending on the word. Obviously with surgeries things have closed up and it was OK.

Marie

And in my case as you heard on the podcast I had this bulb in the back of my palate and they had to keep shaving it off. So I think that it must have been a been a big hole. If I spoke without my obturator when I was a kid, people couldn't understand me. I mean it was that bad. Apparently my mom would always be able to understand me. I don't know how old I was when I got that, but of course I had a lot to say. But other people couldn't couldn't understand me. So let's talk a little bit about the bullying that you experienced.

Paula

Being the youngest of four I was really excited to start school because I thought, oh, good, I get to play with others and all that sort of thing and so I remember my first day of school and I got to school and I was really excited. I was sitting in my class on the on the carpet and looking around at all the kids. I was scoping the room to see who's there and who would be a friend. I remember seeing the girls looking at me. Some of them would look away. Some of them would make faces like what are you looking at type thing and you know various body language and so that's when I realized that oh, maybe making friends isn't so simple and that was the first time I started feeling really embarrassed about how I looked. Initially it was my first day of school. As that progressed, it became more of, you know, the boys used to sort of tease me a lot. They used to call me names like Fat Lip and Train Tracks. They never called mePaula. It was more, hey Fat Lip, you know. So I was like a toy. It was like a fun thing for them, so that's when it kind of wasn't very nice. And then they peppered it with playing games in the school yard where they’d run up and kicked me in the shins and run away. And so yeah, that was my childhood experience growing up in primary school. 

And I remember it was a year and a half into starting school. I decided to go tell my teacher what was happening because you get to a point where you just you want it to stop. You know it was just so physically and emotionally painful and I remember that day I was really scared to go see my teacher. I remember my heart was jumping out of my chest because you know, like you grow up I, I don't know what it's like in America, but it's basically if you dob or tell on people it's not the appropriate thing to do. So they used to have a phrase when I was growing up saying “dobbers wear nappies,” you know diapers in America.

Well that's all I needed to be teased for how I looked and then being told that I'm a dobber. So it was a big thing, but I remember I went in to talk to my teacher and I told her what was going on and instead of getting the support and nurturing and protection I was looking for, she pointed at the door and yelled at me and said “go away, don't tell tattle tales!” 

Basically, I froze. I remember that and I was six years old.

Marie

Oh my God.

Paula

I still remember.

Marie

That is horrible.

Paula

Yeah it was awful.

Paula

Yeah, so I walked away, I remember, I left the room. I felt my body temperature rise. I felt embarrassed. I felt ashamed. I felt like I'd done the wrong thing, and I felt like it was my fault that I was getting teased. Not that I knew at the time, but reflecting back as an adult, I think that was the icing on the cake for me. That made me realize that I was less than everyone else, that my feelings didn't count, and those in authority turned a blind eye, so they were the beliefs I grew up with. And it it's funny when I think about it. When you're working in an office environment and you see things and or whatever…Those beliefs really hold onto you. You know you kinda think, “No, I'm not gonna get involved. I'm not gonna say anything 'cause I don't want it to come back on me.”

So it's those types of beliefs that we carry from our childhood that if we don't address them, if we don't find a way to heal and improve upon it, it can really repeat on us, yeah?

Marie

Did your parents know what was going on?

Paula

Yeah, my parents knew what was going on. My parents are first generation. Well actually they're migrants from Europe, so they came to Australia in the 1950s, so that's another layer there because they are from the silent generation. They lived through World War Two and so obviously they have a scarcity mindset and everything is really sort of hard. They came to our country for growth and prosperity, came to Australia, and they were non English speaking as well. Obviously by the time I came around they could speak English. But still they did go to the principal at one stage to tell them about the bullying and all that. I remember that the teacher paraded me up out of the front of the class, told me to drop my socks so she could show all the kids all my bruises on my legs. She was yelling and being aggressive. I felt like I was being shamed in front of the class. So to me it didn't feel like they were there to help me.It was like parading me in front and saying, look at this, you know. And to be honest the boys just found other ways to bully me without being caught.

Marie

Oh my gosh, that just sounds awful. I don't feel like I experienced bullying until I was in junior high. Yeah, I don't remember that in grade school really at all. In junior high it was horrible. It's horrible at any age, but I can't imagine starting school and having all this happen to you right away before you actually made friends and had some positive things. That's just so sad.

Paula

So I did have a best friend in primary school growing up and we're still friends today, so we've been friends for probably 40 years, so it's really good, so it wasn't always negative, but I guess if we're talking about primary school years for me, I had seven years of dealing with that. I wish I had the tools to stand up to the bullies because I grew up with a Catholic background as well. So you know, we kind of grew up with turn the other cheek, you know, if somebody hits you on the cheek, turn the other cheek and let them hit you there. Ha ha. And I think it was very passive sort of approach and they were the things I was taught to sort of, you know, sticks and stones and all that sort of stuff, and I think I wished looking back that I was given better tools to cope with bullies. Like you know to be more proactive and more assertive and not sitting feeling like I'm a victim and feeling like it was out of my control. That I couldn't do anything about it because even adults couldn't do anything about it. So that was the thing I wish I knew back then.

Marie

I think the extra challenge is for immigrant parents because like for example, I had a coworker a few years ago who also had a cleft palate and her parents were Chinese. They didn't speak very much English, so you know here in the US you have to pay a fortune for medical care, right? But my parents, they didn't have a lot of money either, but they knew how to advocate for me, so they were able to get low cost care. All of my care was either low or no cost through the medical school here, but her parents didn't know anything about how to get her help, so she didn’t actually have her palate fixed until she was an adult, so she was wearing an obturator as an adult and she actually had the surgery to fix it, which I had when I was 15, called a pharyngeal flap. You may have had that when you were younger. She had that as an adult and it did not work and it just caused more problems and so it was all because she had these immigrant parents who didn't speak English that were not able to advocate for her. Not that that was the case with your parents around health, but it does make it more complicated when you have immigrant parents.

Paula

Yeah, yeah, and it's hard because at that time in Australia, like my parents came in the 1950s and back then they still had the white Australia policy and you had to assimilate and you had to basically fit in, you know all that sort of stuff and they found it hard. I mean Dad being an immigrant and coming in the workforce and a lot of people that were in sort of senior positions were either English or Australian, so I think the view my parents had was that because they were born normal and they came to a country where they were still sort of segregated because even when they became Australian citizens, they were still called new Australians. You know there was still a segregation, you know like that's how it was. You know what happens is for those that are listening, you know a lot of our parental beliefs are superimposed onto our lives because our parents do the best they can with what they've got at the time and so as we're growing up, we're told certain things because they've experienced things, so my dad always had a mantra of life wasn't meant to be easy, and money doesn't grow on trees because that was his truth. That was his reality, right? That's what he experienced. So anytime things were difficult, he turned around and he'd say to me, well, you know life wasn't meant to be easy, you know. Like in other words, suck it up. You know that's life. You can't change the situation. That's like a fixed mindset there already, you know. And so if you don't know any better, then you kind of come to believe that and you go… as kids we have no filters in our brain, so whatever we're experiencing, it becomes our truth. It becomes our reality. We don't have the cognitive function as adults to be able to discern whether what we're experiencing is real, like is right or wrong. We end up internalizing it as it's our fault that this has happened. I'm a bad person, I'm not good enough, you know as opposed to, well no, actually that situation was wrong. The teachers should have said something. Teachers should have done something. The teacher who shamed me? Maybe she was having a bad day, maybe you know she was having marital problems but just didn't want to deal with my issue. Or maybe she didn't know how to deal with the issue, so just kicked me out of the classroom, yeah.

Marie

That's a very compassionate way for you to look at it.

Paula

Yeah, but that's as an adult. As an adult, it's having the insight and being an adult and going, Yeah, I know I've had bad days and I snap at people and stuff. You know, maybe being a teacher for her was not something she wanted to be. You know, there's a lot of teachers that are disgruntled and have been in the game for such a long time and they can't stand it anymore and they take it out on the students. We don't know her back story at the time.  It didn't help me because it made me feel like it was my fault and that I shouldn't have even gone to see her.

Marie

Where were your parents from?

Paula

My dad was Russian background and Mum was from Greece.

Marie

Wow yeah, my husband is actually half Russian as well. His mother was full Russian and his father was Irish.

Marie

What did they speak to each other?

Paula

Oh well, actually what happened was my dad technically was born in Moscow and they fled during the revolution, so he left when he was two years old. And they ended up seeking refuge in Greece. And so Dad grew up there and spoke the language. So that's where he met Mum. In the same village, yeah.

Marie

Wow, that's an interesting story.

Paula

And then they got married and he came to Australia first to find work and buy a block of land and do all that sort of stuff. And two years later, Mum came out when he was more established. And yeah, and built their life here. Yeah, it wasn't easy, yeah, so there's a lot of different layers. 

Marie

So you went from being in the bottom of your classes to getting in the top 10% in the state for biology and music. Take us through that story.

Paula

Yeah, yes. So what happened was that my parents put me into a private or girls Catholic school in high school because they saw the challenges I faced with the boys and they thought, well you know if they took me out and put me somewhere else then I'd probably continue with the bullying again somewhere else. So that's why they didn't move me. So the only option they thought was, maybe we'll put her in an all girls school. So in a way that was my salvation. It took a while because I'd fallen behind at school, not just with the bullying and feeling anxious every day and not taking in information. But also being pulled out of school because I had to have operations and recoveries and all of that or dental appointments and all that sort of thing. So it was kind of compounded, so I had a steep learning curve to not only keep up with what was going on at school academically, but also trying to relearn the concepts that I never really fully grasped in primary schools. The feeling like I wasn't good enough and that kind of drove me to say, well, I wanted to be good enough so that was my internal motivation to do the best I could academically, in a way that bullying and that sort of taunting gave me a sense of purpose and my parents really drummed in being migrants, they drummed in the importance of education. My dad used to say to me education was power for me. It's like it gives you choices for me. It meant well if I get educated, maybe I won't get bullied. That was my logic because only people that are dumb, you know 'cause the kids you say you were dumb and you're ugly, you know. So I thought, OK, well, maybe I can't change the way I look. Because obviously as I said, it takes years to have different surgeries to, you know to improve, but I thought, well the thing I could change was my brain, my academic performance, that was something I could move the scale. So that was something I worked upon. And I think that was what kind of saved me in a way?

Marie

Wow, what kind of music?

Paula

I used to play piano. Yeah, I picked that up when I was eleven, so it was quite late to pick that up, but it was something I was really interested in 'cause I used to play on this toy keyboard. I could hear a song and I used to be able to play the tune on the on the keyboard before I started learning to learning music. So I really liked it. And so yeah, my parents go OK, let’s give it a go. They didn't have a lot of money, but they didn't want to throw something at me if I was going to lose interest, but I didn't. I didn't. I actually wasn't too bad in it. I did well. I skipped a few grades as well in between. Music was also another form of therapy and escapism for me and something to also channel my interest 'cause again, that was something you can improve upon, you know. And I think in terms of resilience, you know, developing resilience was having that growth mindset to say, OK, well, what can I have control over? What can I focus on instead of focusing on the negative, which is what we all tend to do. I focused on something more positive…music.

Marie

So you have a really fascinating career background as well. Can you tell us about how you got to where you are now? Take us on the journey through your career.

Paula

Oh gosh, OK. I guess after you know after being in in and out of hospitals for years and years and I, you know, I always found the medical side of things very interesting. You know very, very passionate about science and medicine and all of that, and I think I got to a point where I was like no, I think I want to move into medical research. You know, I wanted that. Well, that was something I wanted to venture into 'cause I was very curious about finding cures and working out why we are the way we are medically and that so I ended up getting into university and studying a medical science degree and I actually went all the way and graduated with a masters with honors. So not so dumb after all.

Marie

Oh wow.

Paula

But so in my early career was yeah, basically yeah, science-focused medical research. You know, making a difference that way and so I spent the next 20 years working my way, you know, started off working in preclinical research. So working in a lab with animals and animal experimentation…realized I didn't really enjoy it. I wanted to go work more with people, so I moved into the hospital sectors and worked in in research there and then discovered that the pharmaceutical industry had a lot of different layers, so it was a lot more than just selling drugs and so they actually do have a research area as well and I thought, that's great, so I moved into the corporate space in medical research and worked my way up the corporate ladder into leadership roles where I project managed multimillion dollar projects across Asia Pacific as well as managing teams as well. So I did find my sweet spot. I really enjoyed bringing out the best in people and making a difference that way. And you know, I found developing leadership skills for me was like probably something I would have liked to have had as a little girl, as I mentioned like I wish I had certain tools when I was growing up and that one of the things that was missing from my toolkit was leadership and to me leadership was like a code of ethics, a code of conduct, a way of doing things, a way of seeing things. And I really loved what leadership was able to empower me, to strengthen me, to make me have a voice and not be afraid to be visible. That is what I loved about developing leadership and then about five years ago, I kind of decided, well, actually I wanted to do more than just finding out the why of diseases. What about helping people? Initially I stepped out to working in executive coaching and helping new and emerging leaders in corporate, in particular women, because there was a lot of challenges that women face in the workplace, and it wasn't just me going through stuff, it was quite universal. But then I started piecing things together and I went back to that 6 year old self and that experience that I'd gone through and I went, hang on a minute, if I could go back to my younger self knowing what I know now with the skills and the tools and the resources that I have, that I know that I've got within me, how would my life be different? I mean, I'm not saying that my life is not good. I think I have a great life and I have a lot of opportunities. But in terms of the mental anguish, the mental health issues, the mental anxiety, the feelings of not good enough and how that has influenced the decisions I've made in my life, I decided to work with teenage girls to help them create leadership mindsets. So to set them up to be future ready.

Marie

The name of my podcast is Finding Fertile Ground. I'm just curious about how whether you feel like you found fertile ground in your career.

Paula

Yes. I decided to become a teenage resilience expert and cognitive scientist. Do you ever feel like sometimes got a ladder and you're climbing up the wrong wall? A lot of the motivation I think was people pleasing, you know, wanting to do the right thing by my parents or what I think I should be doing, you know, and you don't question it. Get to a point where you want more or there's something missing or like, yeah, you've got everything. You've got the house, the family, the car, you know, the money. And then you still go, yeah, but there's something missing and that that was the thing that was missing. You know, when I have a have a coaching session with some teenage girls, I leave and I feel like I'm over the moon. It's fantastic. Such a great feeling.

Marie

That's wonderful. That does sound like fertile ground.

Paula

Yeah, it's so energizing, it's amazing. And the reason why I picked teenage girls. It's because you need to work with individuals that have a sense of starting to develop their critical thinking, and all of that you know you need them to be able to have a conversation to sort of develop the, you know, be vulnerable, and when you're about 14-15 years old, when you're starting to question your identity, you're starting to test it out. What kind of friends? What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of social media are you following? You know, it's all about figuring out who you are at that age, and the brain continues developing. It doesn't mature until you hit 25. Scientifically speaking, the brain doesn't mature until 25 so there's a really great opportunity there to be able to mold these girls and help them express themselves and be their authentic selves. Because at that age they want to fit in. They want to belong there in part of a tribe, and so they're doing anything and losing who they are just to gain acceptance, and that's what where things can go wrong over time, because as they grow up into adults you keep doing the same thing. It's a pattern.

Marie

Well, I'm happy for you that you've gotten to that point. So any kind of ongoing issues that you still deal with your cleft lip and palate. Like any health issues?

Paula

No, not really, no. I mean ideally I'd like to make my teeth look better, but again, that can be done. It just costs money.

Marie

Yeah, I know, you know I had braces for so long and I think that my teeth have relapsed over the years, you know?

Paula

Right? Yeah, I'm pretty happy. Yeah no I don't have any issues. I stopped my surgery when I was about 22 'cause they at the time were saying, oh, that's as good as it's gonna get. Then 20 years had gone past and there were people around me, you know, obviously Botox and fillers and all sorts of the beauty industries just skyrocketed and things that didn't really sort of exist for the simple person, the average person back then exists now for everyone. It got me thinking and I thought, oh I wonder, I wonder if anything improved for a cleft. So I was in this parent not for profit group for cleft kids. And they were like little babies and toddlers and stuff. So I did a call out in there. Does anyone know any good plastic surgeons for clefts for adults? And yeah, and then all these moms were saying yeah yeah and they were posting pictures of their kids.

And I was like, Oh my God, look at that you can't even tell. Wow like it was amazing. These photos you know. So then three of them said this one particular plastic surgeon. She was a female surgeon, so I'd never been to a female plastic surgeon. I thought, OK, I'll give it a crack and see what it was like and I made the appointment, went to see her. I went in with the mindset of she'll look at me and say no, there's nothing I can do. So that was my preparation going in and she had a look at me and then she like goes, Oh yeah, I could do this. I can improve this. I can improve that. You know all this stuff and I was like oh OK and I was shocked. I was stunned. And then I left. I had to do another two more consultations to be convinced to go down the path of surgery. Not that I didn't trust her or I didn't believe in her. I had to really dig down deep to go, OK, why am I doing this? Am I happy with how I look today? What if it looks worse? What if things don't look the way I, you know, anticipate so it was like trying to weigh up the risks and benefits to say, OK, well why am I doing this? I just really needed to dig down, but it took me 3 consultations with her to actually decide to go ahead with surgery. And yeah, I don't regret it. I think she's you know she's done some little improvements which have made significant difference.

Marie

That's great. I've never thought about looking into more surgery.

Paula

My profile is a lot higher now in Australia and I'm in the media and you know I'm talking to kids, not that I looked horrific or anything beforehand, but I wanna be the poster child for clefts in Australia. Like, you know, we're not freaky. We actually do look normal. Like I, I think I fairly look pretty normal. Like maybe you might see a little bit of scarring, but I'm like everyone else. I think that's a really good message to show to show teenage kids, especially girls who are concerned about how they look… their self-image looking at themselves on social media, comparing themselves to their friends and to influencers who use filters on Instagram and all of that and think that they're not good enough that they're ugly. Well, I can stand in front of them and show them pictures of what I look like as a little girl and how I look like now and the challenges I faced growing up with bullying and not fitting in. I feel their pain and it resonates so much with them. Even though you know I wasn't born normal, but it's putting it out there. It's showing them that, yeah, you girls were born normal like these girls I work I work with, they're beautiful inside and out beautiful, nothing wrong with them, but yet they feel the same way I do, right? Like exactly I got everything going for you, yeah, how do you feel about your appearance now?

Marie

Do you still have a lot of doubts about yourself? Are you feeling pretty good about it?

Paula

Yeah, I've got no issues with my face. The thing that I've got issues with is I've put on a lot of weight on during COVID. So it's it's not my face, no, it's like oh, the rest of me. But then also working in medical research, it's not just looking fat. It's like the health ramifications that I could potentially have…Was being a lot bigger than what I should be. So then I think, Oh no, I don't wanna get type 2 diabetes, I don't want high blood pressure, so I think of all these things there's not just the external appearance.

Marie

I think for me I'm probably more critical of my nose than my scar 'cause my nose is sort of misshapen. I think that a number of people on the Facebook group have talked about that.

Paula

Yeah, yeah, I know there's bits and pieces where I sort of sit there and I'm like, yeah, I remember when I was having my surgeries again with this new surgeon and you have this vision of what you think it's gonna look like. You know 'cause she'll say to you we can improve this and we can do this and she'll draw pictures and you go, Yeah, then you walk away thinking, oh, it's going to look so good like, I'm going to look normal and all this and perfect and then after things heal and you go, oh was that it?As a little girl I went through the same feeling. I remember I used to see my surgeon like maybe once a year. I would go for a checkup and some years he'd look at me and say, yeah, I'll see you in 12 months and then I’d leave depressed because it was like oh you mean I've got to stay looking like this for another year. Yeah, that was my disappointment then when he booked me in for surgery I was like so excited like oh great, they're gonna fix me. I'm gonna be normal. And but no, because there were different stages and you can never reach that normality that you were hoping for.

Marie

I think I must have been pretty young when I had my last cleft lip surgery, 'cause I don't really remember that part. So what would you say you have learned from having a cleft lip and palate? What are your life lessons from going through that experience and what would you tell your childhood self if you got the chance?

Paula

I think being born with a cleft gives you that sense of resilience because you can't change things overnight. You know what I mean. You've got to learn to accept the things that you can control and accept the things you can't control. I think one of the advantages of being born with a cleft also is yeah, we've gone through a lot of adversity, not just you know, not just physically, but emotionally as well, and it's how we choose to live our lives. My motto is and I say it in my business, it's not how you start off in life that counts. It's how you choose to live it, so for me it's like have courage and live life without limits.

Marie

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Can you tell us about your book.

Paula

The book is called The Limited Edition Leader: Create Confidence to Conquer Life, and I wrote the book specifically for Generation X mums of teenage girls. It's a really cool book in the sense that I share anecdotal experiences of myself and some of the things we discussed today, and other points of my life, but I've also peppered it with insights using science and psychology. So instead of like doing, you know, maybe you might be read a book on a psychologist and that would be talking about all the facts and the stats and all that. Or you might be reading a personal development book where somebody is sharing everything about their personal insights. So what I've done is I've merged the two together so it gives you that sort of interesting flavor of OK, giving you some science and context about creating confidence to conquer life. But also, you know ways in which how I've overcome things to create confidence to conquer life. And I find that it resonates quite well with the teenage girls as well.

Marie

Congratulations and can you think about something that you have read or watched recently that has inspired you?

Paula

Thank you. I did watch this Netflix show, it was called Self Made.

Marie

Oh yeah, Madam CJ Walker, yes.

Paula

Oh my God yeah yeah.

Marie

She's great.

Paula

Oh man, I think I watched that series twice because it shows an inspiration at a time where an African American lady in the early 1900s, right, came from nothing… so creative and entrepreneurial like and despite all the obstacles that she faced, you know the competition or a husband doing things or people putting her down and a lot of setbacks…It never stopped her, she just kept getting new ideas and going, you know, and visualizing things and it got me inspired because I think if people like that can do something with their lives and make something happen from nothing, then what opportunities do we have? I get inspired by role models, who's out there, who's done something? How did they overcome the challenges to get to where they are, I think a lot of people have the misconception, especially when they see people on social media and they think all of a sudden this person is rich and famous or they just for some reason. And they don't realize it might have taken that person 10 years to get to where? And they think, oh no if it's not happening like overnight, then I'm a failure. I'm not good enough, you know. And again, that's about resilience as well. It's understanding that you want something good in life. You've got to work hard for it, but you also need to pivot as well. You need to be flexible in how you get there. Yeah, but also never lose sight of the end game.

Marie

Yeah, I talked about Madam CJ Walker with a recent podcast guest on my other podcast, Companies That Care. She's a Black woman from Marietta, GA, she has a company called The Wig Doctor which she actually provides wigs for people who have lost their hair from health conditions. We were talking about that show and how it was such an Inspiration for entrepreneurs, especially related to hair. 

Paula

Perfect. Whenever I felt down in my business, I watched it.

Marie

Yeah, I think I should watch it again. I mean, yeah, she was so confident and full of spit and vinegar. And yeah, I thought it was great. Thanks for that inspiration.

Marie

So is there a story of grit and resilience that has been an inspiration for you in your life?

Paula

I think my mum because she grew up in a time where she was the oldest of five kids. And she grew up during World War Two, so she only had an education up to year one grade one. By the time the war was over that was it, but she was basically raised to be a homemaker. OK, so being a girl as well, so I don't think education was that important in the family. But being a good homemaker, a housewife and mother was, and so you know she had to overcome a lot of adversity when she married my dad and she had to relocate to Australia. She didn't realize how far Australia was from Greece. 'cause you know at the time they came by ship so it took a month to travel from Greece to Australia on a ship.

Marie

Ah, wow.

Paula

She used to think oh it's OK, I'll be able to go back and visit anytime but in those days, no you couldn't. It was so expensive it was only for rich people to fly. So it was very hard that, you know. She left, I think she was 20 or 22 and came to Australia. And again, no social media in those days, so you know you didn't know where you were landing. So when she came to the town of Wollongong at that point in time, Dad had only built a one room house, so it wasn't like a very big house. When she stepped out of the car she lost her shoe in the mud like she stepped right in the mud and when she pulled the foot out, the shoe was gone, never to be found again.

Marie

Oh my God, wow.

Paula

And so you know she was like many migrants, there was a lot of migrants in the street from all different places of Europe so she had to learn to be wife and a mother by herself. She didn't have her mum down the road to sort of support or family or cousins or aunties or no one. So she did it all on her own. By the time I came around in her life, you know she was the best mother. I wouldn't have had the patience like she had and the tolerance to have a child like myself. It's not easy. It's not easy having a child that's normal, but not one that has special needs like a cleft so right, you know, and the adversities and imagine as a parent, people coming over to see your baby and your baby doesn't look normal and they're kind of maybe saying stuff behind your back. 

Yeah, well, it's hard enough these days that you know I've got friends that go to mothers groups or you know or stop going to mothers groups because all they do is just they compete with each other and they compare and they go oh little Johnny is running now you know. Yeah, I can imagine what it was like back then.

Marie

Oh right, is your mother still alive?

Paula

No, She passed away in 2009 but she was my best friend.

Marie

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Paula

Yeah, we had a really had a really good relationship and I think being born as a special needs it makes you closer because you go through a lot.

Marie

Wow, right like I remember these going to doctors appointments all the time.

Paula

You go through a lot.

Marie

For example, you know, I remember going with my mom and I have really special memories of that.

Marie

Did she ever get to go back to Greece?

Paula

She did a few times. Yeah, the last time was in 1996. That was the last time and then when she came back, yeah she had heart issues. So after that it kind of was not good. Yeah, so she went yeah, so she had didn't really travel back there again.

Marie

What was her name?

Paula

Catherine 

Marie

So my final question is, what would you advise others who want to find their fertile ground? What would you pass on to other people that are trying to find that kind of excitement that you get right now when you work with teenage girls?

Paula

I think the key is to follow your heart. Find something you're passionate about, but also find something that you're going to get paid for as well because you know you can't survive and live on passion alone. Generally what happens is we follow security. We do something that you know that's mainstream that people think is expected of us that we should be doing. So my advice is find something that you're passionate about, that gets you excited to get up in the morning and also something that's gonna you know you'll get paid to do as well. 

Marie

Yeah nice OK, well those are all my questions. Do you have anything else you'd like to say to our listeners?

Paula

The only thing I need to say is you know, go out there, be you. Have courage. And live life without limits.

Marie

Wonderful, that's a great way to end. Thank you so much for your time.

Paula

Thanks, Marie. This is really great, what you're doing.

Marie

Fantastic to talk to you. It's been really great hearing your story. Good luck to you.

Paula

Yeah, thank you. You too.