E328 Pauline Pirotte

Hello, my name is Aziz and I'm the son of a divorced mother. She is really my superhero. That's why it's important for me to support women to share their uniqueness, their personalities, perspectives and emotions about life. Too many women in this world feel alone. They worry about the judgment of others and they struggle with their mental health. But when they listen to the Rare Girls podcast where empowered women share their voices and tell their stories, many women will feel inspired to live a life of freedom and to overcome all insecurities. they will feel. It is a safe space to find their confidence, to remember their unique beauty, and to feel their self-worth. And they will connect with the sisterhood of rare girls who encourage their success and support their dreams. That's what this podcast is all about. My guest today is Pauline Pyrot. Pauline is a 20 years old French girl living in Barcelona and studying international relations. Pauline has lived all her life abroad, born in Tunisia and lived in Guadalupe, Mauritius Island, Bali, Corsica, the United States, and now she is living in Spain. She loves to travel, going to museums, playing beach volleyball, listening to music, journaling, spending time with her loved ones she enjoys learning about new cultures and events. Family to her is the most precious thing she has. They have taught her to be herself, to follow her dreams, to fight for everything she wants in life, and to never give up. Pauline is very interested in bringing a change to the American educational system and given a voice to women all around the world while fighting for equality and justice. A quote that has changed her and inspires her every day is from Queen, Don't Stop Me Now. Pauline, how are you today? Hello Aziz, thank you for having me. I'm very good. How are you? I feel blessed. Very excited to know much more about you. And I'll begin with this nice first question, which is if your friends and the people who love you and you love could describe your personality, what would they say about you? Well, thank you for this first question. Honestly, I think that if I had to go around the room and ask my loved ones and my friends to describe me, I think they would say I'm pretty social. I'm outgoing when I believe in something or want something. I try my best to achieve it. I never let anything bring me down and I try to fight my best for what I want and for what I deserve. Because I think in life, no matter how hard it can be, if you don't try, that's the biggest failure. I agree 100%. There is a quote that you miss 100% of the bats that you don't take or something like that. But to ask even more, you mentioned so many important things and I'll focus on the word deserving. You said what you deserve. A lot of women nowadays unfortunately don't feel they deserve much or their self worth. Did you always have the sense that you deserved a lot? How did you build it? How does it happen? And how do you believe more women can feel they deserve more? Well, I think that to know you deserve something, you have to truly find yourself. You have to meet yourself and you have to understand who you are first. Because if you don't know yourself, and that is a very long journey, and if you don't understand who you are and you know, it's like meeting someone, but meeting yourself, then you won't really know what you want. And when you know what you want, you know that there's nothing that can stop you in this world to get you from that point, to get you to what you deserve. And I think that it's a long journey that everyone needs to take, because we all need to know what we deserve in life. And sometimes that may change. One day it might be something and the next day might change. And honestly me, I've always been raised with the mindset that as long as I try failure, even if it happens, it's just an experience and you learn from that. So when you say, did I always know what I deserved? No, I didn't because we aren't born with this knowledge of knowing what we need to have or what we deserve or what we should have in life. And with time and with experiences and with people I met and with learning about everything, I understood what I wanted in life or what I wanted right now in the next few years. And with this little information, I know I have all the tools to know what I deserve to get in life. Thank you. And you said that you are raised so that you don't see failure as a thing, but as long as you try, it's a great success. Do you mean your parents raised you this way? I have a question about that, if that's what you meant. Well, my parents are the most amazing people ever. They have worked their whole life to give me everything. and with my brother and sister, and basically, they have always taught me that hard work and dedication, even if you don't succeed at the end, at least you worked to get there and you tried your best. Because in life, if you don't try, then that means you're scared. And if you're scared, you won't ever take those chances to actually, you know, like take a step into society or put yourself out into this world. And I think that's fear, that fear of not putting ourselves there, even as women, we're so afraid of, you know, putting ourselves out of these boundaries. And it's horrible because if we don't do that, then we can't, you know, we can't find ourselves. And we need a strong support system. And I know I've had one since I was born. And my parents have always taught me that no matter what, family is always here. And for me, that keeps me going every day because I know that if I don't succeed in one thing, there's another thing waiting for me. I love that energy of abundance that your parents instilled in you and that you're always supported. And to ask you even more, because it seems if you go deep down to it, that a lot of people and women, they had well-meaning parents, but who parented them in a way that was limiting. What are some lessons from your own parents you can share? So maybe some women or people, when they can understand that, they can become in the future better parents for their daughters, their sons, everyone that they will be guardians to, so that they give them that inspiration and ability to not feel ashamed, to not feel bullied and criticized by those they love. Any of the lessons, any of the ideas that you can share? Well, honestly, my parents come from two different backgrounds, so I've been lucky enough to have two different perspectives of people and backgrounds to give me insights on what life is. And for me, my parents have always given me advice. And then with that advice, I can do whatever I want. I can either take that advice and implement it into what I want to do and to them or I can take that advice do how whatever I'm feeling like I want to do and then learn from my mistakes or learn from how ever I would succeed and honestly I mean I think it's hard to try to tell people this is a certain way to educate your children and everything because everyone's different I mean I know that in my family my mom has two other sisters and they're they raised the same way, but they all educate their children differently. And I know that I wouldn't react the same way to one of my aunts if she had educated me, you know? But I think as long as there's a clear communication with children, and especially understanding that we're all evolving and adapting with maybe social media, maybe what we're seeing on the news, and that can affect children and even parents very rapidly. And I think it's very important to keep aware that even though we were born in different generations that in a way we all live similar things and so we shouldn't take the generation difference gap you know what I mean as an excuse of oh this is your generation because a lot of I think a lot of parents do that nowadays I don't want to speak for everyone but from what I can see with the people I hang around with it's a it's true that there's this gap between the parents of, oh, in my generation we used to be like this. And I think it's just forgetting the cliches of generations and focusing on your child, the child you made because you wanted to have a child, and focusing and giving love to them. I agree, and it makes me think it's similar to your love for new cultures. If there is such a thing as difference between generations, consider that as a new culture that you're enjoying to learn and to discover things from, rather than something to judge and to chastise. And you mentioned that you find yourself outside of the boundaries, the walls, your comfort zone. So, and you spoke about how some women worry a lot. Let's say there is a woman, she's living up to other people's expectations that they might not even have said. She might think in her own head, oh, they expect me to be a blah, blah, blah. She's staying in that comfort zone. She feels dead inside, but she worries. She thinks, Oh, what if I go out of my comfort zone? I don't know myself, but you said on the only way to know yourself is to go out of your comfort zone. So it becomes a catch 22. How can women who have stayed far too long within their comfort zone, so it feels like a walled prison break free and feel that they will be having a support system or at least trust and have faith that if they go out, they will be able to handle whatever comes and that they're not so weak just because they haven't tried it before. How can more women live up to their potential which exists outside their comfort zone without being crippled by anxiety? Well, honestly that is a very, very interesting question and I hope I can answer it to the best of my abilities. But I think that today in our age there's a sense of fakeness, hear me out in social media, because we all see everyone and women empowering women, men empowering men and vice versa. But I think from what, I mean, this is my personal experiences again, from what I've learned with that is that there are people that want your best, but we live in a world where we are humans. And as humans, it's been set in history, it's been set from even before we were created, we are here to survive. And survival is an instinct that a lot of people have in different ways. And I think that once we step out of our comfort zone, first of all, we need to understand that we are stuck in a box. The first step is realizing that. If we don't realize that we are in a comfort zone, and if we're fine with that, Some people are fine with being in a comfort zone, because it's comfortable, they don't see anything wrong with that, and that's amazing. But other people, they know they're in a comfort zone and they wanna get out of it either for multiple factors, to discover themselves, to discover the world around them, or for whatever it may be. But I think there's multiple answers to your questions. It could be finding a strong support system, may be in your family, on social media, there's many support groups, may be in facilities such as mental health facilities, talking to support groups, you know, strangers that are suffering maybe from the same thing, and it's nice sometimes to talk to strangers about your problems because you don't know them, they won't judge you, or maybe a strong friendship group. But that is hard for everyone because everyone is living in different cases. many people are very fortunate, other are as less fortunate. So it depends also in the education your parents have given you, it depends on the country you've lived in. Because not as many people can have a voice today, as sad as it may be. We are in 2023, a lot of things as we've seen with the years have been happening. And it's sad to say that we are in a survival mode. It's like we're in the Hunger Games, you know? We're all here to survive. We all say that we're here with each other. There's many causes that have been created to support each other. But at the end of the day, many of those are phenomenal. Many of those are phenomenal. But you need to understand what you want and why you want to step out of your comfort zone. Because if you step out of your comfort zone to go into another comfort zone, I mean, that's a trap, you know? But if you go out and you talk, communicating is the most important. I mean, I know that when I feel bad, I talk because I want the pain to go away. And I think that even seeing a therapist or a psychologist or anything or even journaling journaling has helped me a lot to understand where I'm at today. Okay. Today I feel like this. Okay. Why do I feel like this? And it's questioning every little thing you think you act. And honestly, your question is a very good question. But I mean, I don't think I could answer it like globally. But I think for me, that would be my answer to try to have a support system. And if you can't, try to engage in something else that is individually. Writing, singing, doing sports activities, finding yourself in what you like and what you don't like to understand, okay, why am I stuck in this comfort zone? I love that answer very, very much. Thank you, Pauline. and it makes me wonder how is this related to your desire to create a radical change within the American educational system and to fight for equality and justice? Is it the same things like you want more communication, more of people being pushed and encouraged and motivated to go out of their comfort zone rather than rote memorization and regurgitation of information? Or how is this? Because what you're speaking about can be applied so perfectly to educational systems. Well, honestly, I studied 10 years in America. I was in a sports academy playing beach volleyball, but I sadly got a scoliosis surgery, so I had to stop my volleyball career. So I only focused on school. And once I did that, I focused on school. And then COVID happened and I wanted to move back to Europe, so Spain, to be closer to my family. And just, you know, COVID hit us all differently, but I think similarly as well. And I needed to be close to family because family is all we have, you know. And so when I was in America, I loved the system because for me, I'm someone who's very studious. I love to study. For me, school is something that comes very easy to me. And so, you know, I studied not that much, but it was very easy. I passed high school, I did everything perfectly. Everything was good, but I didn't want to study in America because it was too self-centered on themselves. Our World War II was only four years from when the United States entered until they left. So when I came to my school in Spain, which is taught in English in Blanquerna in Barcelona, I was completely devastated because it was a new learning process Because in America, they don't ask you to think. They ask you to memorize and spit it out. So I was used to that for 10 years. So when you come to a school, which is university, so it's a higher level of education, and it's basically to form you for your future, and I had to adapt myself to a whole new educational program. I had philosophy classes that I've never had. I had all these different subjects that made me think. And I mean, since I've traveled all around the world and lived in different countries, I've always had this philosophical thinking, way of thinking, but never in the academic world. And so when I, even in history, we never learned about the Chinese dynasties in America. We never learned about the Napoleonic wars, none of that. So when I came to my school and I'm doing international relations, so it's all about history and all about politics and everything, I was completely lost. So when I mean by reforming, I know it's a very hard thing to do, because it's, I mean, it's the United States. But I would love to be able to at least, you know, try to put a step forward. And because, I mean, I think there's a stereotypes with Americans that they only know a certain amount of information. And that's not fair, because America is, I mean, the United States is a big superpower. It's economic power, a global political power. And today we see Americans when they come to different countries as tourists that don't maybe know a lot, and which is completely false, they're very bright, but it's true that they're very self-centered because that's the way the educational program is. And so I'd like to reform it in a way that it's more inclusive about other countries and that it doesn't just talk about America when it came into the wars with other countries. And so I'd like to include this is a big project and I hope after my studies I could do it, but include a thinking courses like philosophy, sociology, everything to make Americans think more because if they want to study in Europe, it's going to be hard like it was for me, you know, and I had the opportunity to live in other countries. And so it was a bit easier for me. But people that come to Erasmus from America to Spain, I see it all the time, it's hard for them because they're not used to the type of educational system we have here in Spain. I understand. And you spoke about how the educational system is so self-centered in the US. And yes, it was hard for you. But then how did you move from that to international relations? Is it part of you choosing to study something that it's in many ways you could have been traumatized by the fact you went to a system within a new culture full of new subjects and topics, so going from there to international relations seems almost like an unexpected move. Why did you choose this? Is it related to your love for travel and new cultures? Is it because, and I will tell you, part of this, and this is a good thing to know. I was in Ukraine when the war started, I lost everything, and then part of this process is women from different cultures sharing their souls, so that when they listen to each other, they feel they made a new friend in that country. And when people from different places get to feel they're friends, they understand that we're all cosmopolitan and human, and war is less likely to happen. There is a lot of psychological studies that nowadays war is at a distance because when soldiers feel they know the other soldiers from the other camp, they're less willing to kill them. So in many ways, part of this project is bringing countries and cultures together for more peace in the world through women sharing their stories and their souls. To you, what was the cause of you choosing international relations as a topic and subject? Well, for me, I mean, I think it wasn't always clear to choose it, but at the end of the day, I always wanted to do something I loved. And for me, I've always been around different cultures. So this degree made so much sense to me. And also, there's not a lot of women in the political field. We have been seeing either women going into the political field, but either on social media or in the news being ridiculized because, oh, she's acting this type of way today. And we saw it during COVID. During COVID, an example was Angela Merkel in Germany she she was very soft and lenient on them I mean it was it was hard protocols you know to follow for the Germans but a lot of people were saying that oh maybe she's not taking enough measures and then they a lot of people compared you know because when you're a woman you're compared especially when you're a woman going into a field dominated by men you are always being And that shouldn't be the case, because there's no field that should be dominated by a man. We all know how to do the same things. We all have the abilities to do the same things. And so me, honestly, I didn't go into international relations because there were less women in the field. But now that I have learned that there are less women in the field, it pushes me every day to show that us as women, we can do the same thing a man can do. And in my class, it's actually amazing because we are, I wanna say 60 girls that have all chosen to do this degree, and there is only seven guys. So it's amazing to see that it's not only me who thinks like this, and it's a lot of women that are coming into this world and are dominating so much, so much of the new classes that are being brought and being offered to them in many universities. And it's amazing to see how women and men are being heard and standing up and going to, you know, protest and manifestations. Many women in France, there was a reform with the retirement age and half of the people leading the marches were women. And so it's amazing to see that we're making us heard, but at the same time, we're being criticized because it's a man's world, as the saying is. It's a man's world, and it seems like no one wants to let us in, but when we are let in, we get criticized in a way, in certain aspects, of course, so that's why. Thank you, and what would be your advice to some women who are willing to enter that man's world, but when they get criticized, they might feel crushed or disappointed or cry or something. What would be your advice for them to feel stronger, to let that roll off their back and to ignore the haters? Well, me, there's one thing I learned very late. Well, I mean, I'm not that old yet, but I will learn many other things. But one thing I learned and one thing that my mother has told me a lot, because she has been a very big influence and a role model to me, is that the only person at the end of the day that can affect you mentally and physically is yourself. So yes, you might hear people criticize you, but that all comes from jealousy or envy at the end of the day, because once you criticize someone or once you, I don't know, start talking things about another person behind their back, you are envious, you know, because if you were so focused on your life and on the things going around you, you wouldn't be talking about someone else. And so my advice to women going into a field dominated by men or half dominated by men or upcoming field is you know why you're there. You know why you chose this subject or this course or anything that you're doing. You know why you're there. You chose it. You knew the risks. Yes, people are going to talk, but that's not only in this, it's in everything in life. And so as long as you believe in yourself, nothing will ever stop you because the day you stop believing in yourself, then those people will be right. And I don't think anyone should have any say in what you as a woman or as a person or as anyone should have to do or say, unless you think bad of yourself, then they're right. But if you believe in yourself, if you wake up every day and you tell yourself, okay, yesterday was hard, but today's a new day, and it's hard to do on, it's very, very hard to do, but you're the only one that thinks the way you do, that gets up, that lives in your body, That thinks the way you do so you're the one that you know that has the the foot on the gas and the brakes you chose this field and So why would anyone stop you from doing what you love or what you want to learn? And so that's what I have to say. You're you're your own enemy at the end of the day No one should have to stop you from fulfilling or from Attaining your goals that was very Inspirational. Thank you, Pauline. And to end this and to finish, since you are introspective, you journal, you're always getting to know yourself more and more. Are there lessons that you learned about life and yourself that you feel if other women can hear, it can give them a new perspective or a way of looking at life that gives them more power and the ability to live happier and to make a difference in this world? Well, as I said, I am a quick story, but I got I had a surgery of scoliosis because it was becoming life threatening. And so I had to stop on my sports. And it's very hard when you're a young athlete to stop doing something that you work so hard for. And so I was in the hospital for a few days and then I had to relearn how to walk. I had to relearn how to sit down. I lost so much weight, I couldn't hold even a plastic ball because it was so heavy. And so, as I said in my quote, Don't Stop Me Now, that song, an amazing song by the way, but that song and that quote has helped me so much because even when I was at, well, what I consider my worst, because that was my worst, I wanted to give up because it was very hard to not be able to do things that I knew how to do. I knew how to walk before, I knew how to sit, I knew how to shower, I knew how to eat alone. And at 17, I had to relearn how to do everything alone. And my mom had to help me. And so the quote, don't stop me now isn't just, oh yeah, don't stop. No, no, the quote don't stop me now is a very inspiring quote, Because as I already said it in the previous things I mentioned, you're the only one who controls your life. So if you let anyone affect you, and even if you affect yourself, which is very hard to not do, you're not going to live. And we only have one life. We don't have a retake. We don't have a second chance. We don't have a second life. So, as long as we live every moment, day by day, we don't know what will happen tomorrow. But who cares about tomorrow? As long as we're living in the present, in the moment, as long as we're happy, as long as we're doing what we love, and as long as we know that if tomorrow, let's say an asteroid hits, because I like to use that phrase to imagine things, who knows? But if we know that tomorrow an asteroid hits, then we tell ourselves at least today, I did everything I needed to do. I'm happy with myself. I accept myself. So yeah, Don't Stop Me Now is a quote that even listen to the song. That song has helped me so much. And when I feel down, even when I'm crying, I don't want to listen to happy music honestly. But that song helps me because it's a joyful music. It's an amazing artist and a group of artists that created it. And the quote is just to show you that nothing in this world can stop you besides yourself. And so you have to live life as much and as long as you can because we only are here once. Thank you, Pauline. It was my privilege and my honor to have you here, to share your voice, your story, your perspective. I wish you to keep going to represent women in every field and in particular in international relations, to keep exploring the cultures of the world, to give women as well a voice, to fix a lot of the educational systems and to keep supporting people. Thank you so much for participating in this podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Aziz. Rare Girls Podcast is an amazing, amazing idea. And I'm so happy that you are letting women have a voice and you are giving them a voice. So thank you so much for doing this, not only for me, but for the millions of women are listening and participating. So thank you for doing this. You are welcome.