Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu: ‘Don't Let Other People's Opinions Define You’ | GREAT MOMENTS

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1:14Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Lang and this is Great Moments. hello everyone this is great moments where i share some of my favorite moments from my conversations on great company something that's made me think made me laugh or change my perspective and hopefully hopefully there's something in it for you too so are you ready let's get into it

1:39you grew up in islington right and then you moved to Essex when I was 10. Okay. And then what was that like growing up there? What was school like? This is when things changed. I went in very year six, I went into, I remember having a very long skirt in primary school. And my name was very obviously foreign at the time, Ekins, Jool-Jool-Aul, very long. And it was a very sort of like, it wasn't a multicultural school because when I went to school in Tottenham, it was, you know, different, you know, backgrounds and stuff. So I went from that to going to literally me and everyone. Basically, I felt like an alien and almost like I had quite hairy legs at the time.

2:25You're only young, you're a child. And then you had all the other girls of Prada bags and Prada shoes and fake tan and mascara on. And I'm like, wow, like I idolized that, but I was never fitting in that. I was Kind of the dork, I guess. Teacher's pet at school. Yeah. I loved the teachers. Yeah. And I used to eat my school lunch in the toilets a lot. Then the extreme bullying happened from year seven to year nine. How old were you at that point? 12, 13. Yeah. I was quite big when I was in year seven. Chubby. Got pushed down the stairs, being caught fat, being called ugly, racism. um yeah had a quite a tough time at school i'm sorry that's it's just it's yeah i i chatted to um luke evans the actor amazing so he yeah he's amazing he grew up in wales and he was really badly bullied and he said he had a mentality though he said um he he knew it was going to end he said if i get through school it's going to stop it's going to be okay just going to get through And I said, that's a unique way.

3:37Because lots of people don't have that. When you're in the thick of it like that, you're in the tornado. Yeah, it's hard. You think that your life's going to end. You think, this is what I deserve. Until I fancied a guy at school who wouldn't even look at me. And I thought, you know what? I'm a bit fat here. I need to lose weight. So I Googled how to lose weight. Some stupid diet came up called the green apple diet, right? You're young. You're a kid at this point. And how, you know, morning, afternoon, night, I was just munching on this apple and skipping rope. Are you serious? Yeah. Obviously, you couldn't afford a gym at the time you were a child, but like, didn't have iPhones then.

4:13Oh, did we? Can't remember. And yeah, and I lost weight. And all of a sudden, people started looking at me and fancying me. And then I did the beauty pageant after that, which was wild because I was like 17 on to South Korea. I know. To compete. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on a second. What? So much to say. Oh my God. So you're at school, you're having this really tricky time. You're saying there's racism, you're being pushed down the stairs. Are you telling your parents about that? No. You're not? Because my mom was pregnant to my brother at the time. I didn't want to stress them out.

4:51So you internalized everything? Yeah. And actually my best friend, funny enough, was chocolate. I used to eat a lot as comfort. I would snack a lot because I felt happiness and comforting. It was like a weird bond we had. So you then go on this diet, you start eating apples, you're skipping. Guys, kids, do not do this at home. It's not advised. Very unhealthy. Yeah. And I suppose that maybe came, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it probably became a bit of an obsession maybe. Oh, 100%. And that's when I started to become obsessed with what I looked like. So it was like, okay, what is the meaning of beauty?

5:31Okay, it must be the way I look. Actually, it's internal. It's about how you are, your soul. But I learned that later on in life. So these pageants I did were very all about what you look like. The perfect person, beauty. Very wrong message, by the way. But when you're young, unfortunately, I got influenced by that. So you saw this pageant, you thought, this is what I want to do. Because I thought I needed the confidence when I lost it. Do you know what I mean? I didn't know who I was, but I liked the attention I got. So let me go into this. And then somehow won the pageant in England and then went to South Korea from Asia Pacific, 2020, 12, and became 15th out of 75 countries, represented Ireland.

6:14Although I'm not Irish, I don't know why I did that because I had to represent something from the UK, which is Northern Ireland. Yeah. Interesting times. and so you and so you represented miss island i don't even look irish but don't oh no i'm really there's two things here i would say firstly um it's it's very entrepreneurial of you in certain ways because you knew what you wanted to get we all lie about different things not really lying you just knew what you wanted to get but also you're going into this it's also about competition and it's about holding yourself. That demands a lot of confidence.

6:54Yes. So going from someone who was lacking that confidence to then getting confidence to go and do that, that's a massive shift. It is. And I don't understand how that happened. It was like, almost like I wanted to compete. I wanted to be better. So I was like, you know, there was a talent show in actually one of the pageants and I was singing in it. So all of a sudden this confidence came out and my performative side again came out. And that's when I think confidence happened at such a young age. And it went on forever. Almost like, I've done the bullies. If I can do the bullies, come at me. What's the worst that can happen in life?

7:27What would you say to someone listening who's going through something like that? I would say, please speak to someone. Whether that's a teacher, a friend, or someone, don't bottle it in. And I would definitely say that it's going to make you a stronger person. and those bullies at school are going to end up below you because that is what happened and I'm going to definitely say that it's going to pass and never hold everything in and if anyone needs help seek help therapy whatever it needs even if you're you know young person there's always help out there free help there's loads of websites that you can talk to someone too have you ever seen any of the bullies again yeah oh 100 i didn't even they didn't even deserve my my uh blink i saw them on the high street one of them looked absolutely ridiculous honestly like literally did this i was like and one of them was like can i have a picture of you i went do i know you oh you're the you're that guy from school and i just passed and i walked off and i was like yeah it was the best feeling ever, Jamie.

8:31It was when I won Love Island 2022 and it felt good. I chatted to, and I'm sure she won't mind me, Scarlett Moffat. Okay. Who's amazing. And I haven't seen her in a few years, but I was friendly with her. And she said one of the most empowering moments for her ever. She was in a supermarket and she saw one of her bullies. And she went straight back into being this little girl, like scared, like, oh my God, freaking out. Oh my God, there she is. and the bully ran up to her and she was with her daughter and she said, oh my God, Scarlett, I haven't seen you since school. You're doing so well. All these kind of things.

9:10And she said, oh, I've been telling my little daughter how we were best friends at school. And Scarlett said, she said, oh, can I have a photo? She said, I want to say one thing to you. I hope your little girl never goes through what you made me feel at school. And she dropped her basket and walked out the supermarket and she had never felt more alive that she had confronted her bully. Yeah. Unbelievable. That's given me goosebumps. Good for her for saying that. Yeah, because it is. Brilliant. That's all you need to say and walk off. Because I think this, especially with something like bullying, it's such a, firstly, it's so awful.

9:46It's horrendous to do that to people. It's such a short-term sort of thing to do to someone. People don't realize that in later life you're going to see each other or walk past each other. The world is small. The world is small. It's so small. and be nice to everyone on the way out because you never know who you meet on the way down never ever step on the little people never be rude never bully never do anything like that because you'll meet them in the future and like you did you'll flick your hair and walk on and you know what Jamie I never understand bullying at a young age I understand bullies as an adult I feel like it's a reflection of who they are because they hate themselves they want to make you feel bad but I feel like when you're young when you're not fully developed how are you a bully like I don't understand what goes through that child's mind how can you be nasty to someone is it bad parenting?

10:28Is that a question? It just, do you know what I mean? I've always thought about it. I think it's probably they are making themselves feel better. So they've probably gone through some sort of trauma. 100%. Or something like that. That's what I think. How do you stop the bullying? You can't. This is the sad thing. You can change and you can control yourself in the situation. Because bullying happens even now, right? It happens in everyday work. There's always a manager or a boss or a colleague that just doesn't like you. But you just have to accept it. And when you know that that's life, you can move on.

11:06Even now, there's probably people that hate me for no reason. That's fine. Hate is an emotion. You've got to worry when no one has no feelings towards you, Jamie. Really? I've had hate. I've had bullying. Just love life, you know? It's amazing. It's mad. It is mad. But I prefer being real. I prefer, you know, this, the mind being, the heart being beautiful than focusing on the look. I feel like. It's hard though, right? It is hard. It is so hard. It's really hard. It takes time. It takes a lot of time because it's, and that's such a great message too, because we live in this world because of social media and what we look like and things like that, that we kind of forget that actually it does come from the inside.

11:47And all of the outer shell doesn't matter. Anyone can be beautiful, Jamie. Anyone. There's loads of people that are handsome, beautiful. with someone better looking than me, better looking. It's okay, but there's only one of you. But how do you change that? And be honest, because that takes, that is a lot of unlearning to do. Yeah, yeah. And that's hard, really hard, especially as we're talking about the industry that we're in, especially being a woman in the industry. So how does that change? When does that change for you? And be totally honest with that. What does that change for me? It changes for me when you hit rock bottom, and you realize how there was a moment in my life I was very depressed.

12:21And I just looked at myself, and I was like, I looked at Instagram and I was like, oh, it just seemed really, something didn't feel right. It looked like an illusion. I felt like I was in a video game. Like what, what is this? We, we, we take a picture, we put it on Instagram. We wait for people to like it. We edit our pictures. Why? I went to a walk in a park after and I took off my shoes and I walked barefoot on the grass. I sat there, closed my phone, just meditating. And I was like, and I went back to like, it's really weird, but where we came from, Adam and Eve, like for instance, we're humans, like this social media is all new.

12:59It's toxic. It's not natural. We're all living a lie. I feel like it is. How do you know this Instagram is what is right? It's not. Living in the moment, realizing what's important, family, morals, happiness, being healthy. We're breathing right now. There's people in hospital that cannot breathe. They've broken a leg or an arm. We we still are here right now. But then there's someone that's moaning about the weather being rainy. Do you get it? It takes time.

13:46Business is booming. But you know what really helped? Zero. The accounting platform for small businesses. I used to think spreadsheets were just part of it. Ugh. But real-time cash flow? Wow. Invoices that chase themselves? Even better. Books that automate? That's a big one. And I can keep track from my phone while I get the job done. No spreadsheet in sight. What a life. Do right by yourself and your business and search XERO for your free trial. Conditions apply. Do you keep hearing podcast ads? Like this one, for example. But always wonder how you actually get involved with them for your own brand or organization?

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