The Hobo CEO

By Shae Marie

Life is full of challenges, and we're always looking for the answers, but what happens when you can't read those all-important clues?

Entrepreneur Shae Marie is a successful businesswoman who received a late diagnosis of Dyslexia in her later twenties. By this time she'd suffered through school and university, challenged by something she c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shae Marie
• Release date: Jan 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9780645018080

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

GROWING UP FAT IN A WORLD OF THIN

It’s hard to get used to me.

-Thelma Plum

I grew up in a small country town in Victoria, just outside of Melbourne, Australia. I was never a high achiever; I never won any accolades or awards. I was never terrible at school or excelled. I guess I flew under the radar. From Grade 2 onwards, it was evident something wasn’t right, but no one stopped to question. Like so many other children during the 80s with learning disabilities, they labelled me as lazy, lacking attention to detail with my spelling, handwriting, grammar and inability to grasp maths concepts.

I was always an articulate and social child, which I think masked the fact I was struggling. I never thought to question why the letters on the page changed or why I didn’t understand things like other people. I always loved to read and even now it is my way of escaping from the world and taking time out. That was probably another reason no one picked me up, even though I was at the lower end of my class for reading and writing.

As I kept moving through school without any special support, subtle cracks appeared in my confidence and a fog of depression moved across my life. I was feeling hopeless, lost and stupid. I started to lack self-esteem, yet no one knew, I hid it well.

I always had friends, but I didn’t really like going to school, and by Grade 6 I started missing a lot of school. I hated secondary school. I moved schools three times, the third to a well-known private school where you were an academic achiever or you were good at sport and I was neither. I sucked at extra-curricular activities which revolved around debating, drama and sport, which I was terrible at, therefore I hated it.

Not knowing I had dyslexia then, I struggled in class, but never enough to raise any real concerns. I was told to sit at the back of the maths class and keep quiet. My instructions were in a few years I could drop the subject as there was nothing, they could do to help me.

I had a great group of friends who, with my mum, helped me complete school. Whether it was reading assignments, helping me spell or to do a maths calculation. I flew under the radar. With a love of reading and story writing, who would have thought something was wrong? I thought everyone had difficulties like me. My mum always helped me and would proofread everything. I was terrified of having to read aloud in class and would constantly read ahead to see if there were words I wouldn’t be able to pronounce. I asked my teachers if they could stop asking me to read in class, and they said no. They made a point of making me do it more because they thought it would help me improve. Oh, if only it had!

On reflection, by the age of ten, I’d gained so much weight I looked like a bullfrog or someone going through chemotherapy. My face was puffy because I’d put on that much weight. I don’t know what started this weight gain. It might have been a change in lifestyle. We were now allowed to eat real chocolate instead of carob, yuk. Although carob is now in fashion after all these years! Maybe it was my inability to read and write like others in my class that was affecting me. I don’t know. All I know is from the age of ten I started dieting and I became obsessed with my weight. I could not stand the skin I was in anymore. I was constantly teased in school for it. Boys would laugh at me and the girls would pick on me.

People constantly compared me to my sister, who was thin, athletic, and got good grades. She was the popular one at school. Full of self-confidence, she was the lead in school plays, and they referred to me as Laura’s sister. I would spend hours fantasising I would have to get my appendix out and while they were there, I could ask the doctors to give me a tummy tuck. Oh, it would be so easy. (Although my appendix came out years later, but unfortunately, I didn’t get the tummy tuck.) Or I would dream my legs could be broken, and I could have bone extensions put in so I could be taller, and my fat would stretch. Surely, that could be an option.

This went on throughout my teenage years and into adulthood. The thoughts have never really gone away. Damn! If only I’d asked for that tummy tuck after my appendix surgery. What I know now as an adult is the word, Thinsanity, coined by Glen Macintosh, as I was obsessing and losing my mind trying to be thin. Did you know over 80% of ten-year-olds are afraid of being fat (Mackintosh, 2020). By adolescence, body dissatisfaction is already causing eating disorders, depression and low self-esteem and a whopping 87% of women are unhappy with their weight (Mackintosh, 2020). Body dissatisfaction is a major source of suffering among women of all ages (Stapleton, Crighton, B., & A., 2017). The prevalence among women in Western cultures is significant, and I am not alone in my weight wars. Glenn Mackintosh from Thinsanity calls it the collective lies we have been told about attractiveness/thinness = happiness, money/success = happiness, popularity/fame = happiness, and power/status special ability/talent = happiness. Yet in my mind, I’m saying I can’t be a fat CEO. I can’t get up on stage and look fat. Who will listen to a fat person, let alone a dyslexic, fat person? The collective lies have worked, and draw us into the world of self-hate, self-sabotage and self-loathing and that’s on a good day. All these negative feelings you keep to yourself while to the outside world you look like you have your shit together, smiling and confident, not a care in the world. If only!

My relationship with myself has been a love-hate one for as long as I can remember and left me with a feeling, I can never get rid of. One of low self-worth and self-criticism that has never gone away. This negative image led me to have bad relationships with boys and men. The obsession is real and as we get older, it can become worse as the wrinkles appear, the grey hair, the flabby arms and that bit of skin under your chin that won’t go away. No matter how hard you work, how many degrees you get or how successful you are or even the wonderful relationship you finally find yourself in, the feeling you’re never good enough because you’re not a size 6 never goes away.

I have tried every diet under the sun from dietitians to doctors, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Michelle Bridges, to diet pills, diet shakes, bulimia, starvation. I’m hungry! I’m hungry! What the hell is a BMI? Now that really messes with your head. . The whole diet industry slowly corrodes away your self-esteem, your self-worth until there is nothing left of you because you’re so obsessed with being something you will never really be. Yet when you look in the mirror at forty, you still see that young girl trying desperately to be the thin self she has so longed for all her life, to be accepted and loved. Does it ever go away?

My relationship with my father growing up was hard, and those early years shaped our love-hate relationship. My father has always been emotionally disconnected. There was nothing there, and from a young age. His inability to love was, at times, too much to handle, and I hated myself even more, thinking something was wrong with me. For years we have had a fragmented relationship. His inability to connect, to show love, to even show an interest in my life has always affected me. For some reason, I have always felt like my dad despised me. I’m honestly not sure if my dad ever really liked me. I’m not sure if he sees too much of himself in me whether our dyslexic traits made us clash, or whether it was because I challenged him, and it made him see all his flaws and faults. I have grown to understand he does love me in his own unique way, but it’s possible he doesn’t like me, that I grate on him like nails running down a chalkboard. I agitate him like an annoying fly buzzing around his head that he can’t squash. I’m not sure if I will ever know but we have grown to tolerate each other and to have a relationship of sorts and I guess that’s all you can ask for.

My relationship with my dad and my poor self-esteem—the inner self-critic was at its best. Self-criticism can affect everything you do. You are the attacker and the attacked. Self-criticism, feelings of unworthiness and hate lead me down a path of self-destruction. Drinking from a young age led me down a dark path of substance abuse for many years, binge drinking, risk taking and drugs, lots of drugs and lots of partying. It was the early 2000s when electro dance music was being churned out in nightclubs. Pills were cheap, and it was so fun.

The nights that turned into long lazy days, watching the sunrise, the endless dancing. A world where you felt cool, you were hanging with the cool kids, where you felt more accepted. Because everyone loves everyone when you’re on drugs, right? I had so much self-confidence. I was the fun girl, happy to stay up all night and do it all over again the next day. The secret clubs hidden behind secret doors. The medallions that enabled you to skip the long queues and head into the VIP rooms where free drinks were flowing. And the cool people were hanging with their big saucepan sized eyes, the music pumping through their veins as they danced like crazy, drug crazy.

You would take that little, tiny pill, the excitement and nervousness of not knowing what you were taking. Suddenly, you would feel this warm feeling filling your whole body, then hits your stomach. For a moment, the feeling was so strong you weren’t sure if you would vomit as that little coloured pill rushed through your body taking you on a journey. Your heart pounding to the bass beat of the music, feeling it thrumming through your body. The sweat dripping off your skin, your legs moving with a mind of their own, like they could dance without the rest of your body. A cigarette in one hand, vodka in the other, a blur of disco lights, seen through smoke-laden clubrooms on the dance floor. The rush of knowing you were doing something just a bit naughty. We felt so cool; the secrets no one else knew about but your friends that night. The love for everyone around you. You were invincible.

I love you so much.

No, I love you so much. You’re my best friend.

We will be best friends forever.

There’s a cute boy over there. You go speak to him.

No, you go speak to him.

We would giggle amongst each other. The world has changed significantly since our days of discos dancing, drugs and one-night stands, some of which were great and others blur. The feeling of recklessness, no cares or worries, just fun, fun and more fun. Life was a party. Or was it?

CHAPTER TWO

GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Remember, whatever is inside you is greater than any obstacle you may face.

-Kikki K

It’s a long drive from Melbourne to the further north-west region of Victoria. It’s desert country, part of what we call our fruit bowl. They irrigate our beautiful Murray river system to grow fruit, vegetables and produce wine, amongst other things. I had decided I wanted a change, to do something different, so I packed my little car and heading off to rural Victoria to work with Aboriginal communities along the mighty Murray River. I had always wanted to work with Aboriginal communities ever since I learnt they were facing significant health, educational and life disparities compared to other Australians. My passion for working in this space developed when I was a young girl living on an Aboriginal Mission called Wadeye about 400km from Darwin in the Northern Territory.

My earliest childhood memories were living on the mission. It was called a mission because during early settlement, the missionaries would go into Aboriginal communities and convert them to Christianity. Children were forcibly removed from their homes their families and sent to state or church-run institutions, residential schools, boarding homes and adoption programs (Read, 1981). This is what we know as the Stolen Generations. During these times, Aboriginal people were not allowed to speak their languages, live their traditional ways, and were turned into slaves by white farmers. By the time my parents, sister and I arrived, they’d handed the mission back to the Aboriginal Communities of Wadeye, although nuns still lived there.

Dad, a carpenter by trade, built houses while my