Hi and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened.
What happened?
The podcast that features folks from all walks of life telling us one true story from their
childhood and how that event, that single experience, has impacted who they are today.
I'm your host, Jay Reahack, and like you, I've had my share of childhood experiences
that have impacted who I am today.
What I'd like to think, that everything that's ever happened to me, good and bad, is maybe
a better person.
Now that might not be true, but that's what I'd like to think.
Tell me what happened is sponsored by Sidelining Publishing, publishers of quality books including
Susan Salonar's classics, I've Got Peace in My Fingers, and One Little Act of Kindness.
Both are the perfect gift for young children.
Alright!
Today I have as my guest, Gail Petrel.
Gail is a career and confidence coach.
She's the author of the book The Accident, and she's a noted speaker.
Welcome to the show, Gail.
Thank you so much, Jay.
I'm excited to be here.
Well, Gail, I know that your story is actually quite painful.
I haven't heard it yet, but I know a little bit about it.
So I'm going to leave it alone and allow you to tell it.
So take it away, Gail Petrel.
Thank you so much, Jay.
So I have a background in healthcare administration.
I've been a leader in a zillion healthcare arena positions for over 30 years, much of
it including in the human resources area.
So I've been a director of human resources for a large medical organization.
I've run large hospital departments and large medical groups as well.
When I was born, way back when, my mom says I was an outgoing child who loved meeting
new people and going new places.
And that all changed when I was two and a half.
My mom was taking me to a neighbor's house, so she was taking me next door to a neighbor's
house for an adult tea party.
And all the moms who didn't work were bringing their little kids.
And so we were growing up, I grew up in upstate New York and it was October.
The fall leaves were just beautiful and we were playing in the leaves in our winter
snowsuits because it was cold.
And we could smell the cookies that were in the oven.
The aroma was just coming through the screen door.
And so we all ran into the kitchen and went to the kitchen table, which as I remember
was a long picnic table.
Hi, they had about six kids, so it was a large kitchen table.
And I was using my elbows as a two and a half year old, very small, to climb up onto the
table and I saw cookies.
And as I went to reach for a cookie, I toppled a full percolator full of hot coffee off the
table and all over me.
I permeated through my clothes and burned right down to the bone, 40% of my body.
I was in the hospital for months.
My parents didn't know if I would live or die.
I obviously lived and I struggled for years with the effects that burn survivors struggle
with.
We isolate.
We don't share our story.
We have tons of fears and phobias, rational and irrational.
And in my book, I talk about stories that have never been shared by me before.
And even though my scars are on my body to this day, they're invisible to most people.
They're hidden by my clothes.
And so going to be 70 next year, and I was at a fundraiser just before COVID.
It was September of 2019.
And I was on stage and somebody had just mentioned that they as a nurse had supported
burn children survivors at Phoenix Children's Medical Center just an hour and a half north
of us, I'm in Tucson, Arizona.
I didn't have time to respond and I stood at the podium and I looked at the 200 people,
most of whom I knew in the audience, and I just the tears started to come.
I said, I'm so sorry.
I have a script, but I'll veer off of it for a second.
And I will just share that I wish my family and I had had that kind of support when I
was burned as a toddler.
Dead silence in this auditorium, you could air a pin drop, no rattling of tea cups or
spoons or any of that.
And then we proceeded with the event.
And afterwards a woman who I did not know in the audience came up to me and said, girl,
you have a story to tell.
And I said, no, I don't have any story, but I'm happy to hear yours.
And over coffee over the next three months, now it's December.
She got my story out of me.
And she said, you need to write a book because your story, while horrific, would be inspiring.
And I want you to encourage others to tell your story.
Because as you can imagine, holding a secret of that magnitude for over 65 years doesn't
allow you to be a whole person.
And so during COVID, I sat down at the computer and I wrote my story.
And it was cathartic.
It was transforming.
It took a weight off my shoulders.
And now I'm telling my story.
So sad for you just to think about, well, the event itself, I can't imagine it months
in the hospital.
And also years of not showing anybody or talking about it to anybody.
And the idea that 40% of your body was burned is burned.
And you had to grow up and deal with it as a young woman and as an older person.
It must have been incredibly difficult.
I mean, I'm not trying to be a Ruby, I have a beautiful face.
So you were spared having scars on your face, I would think, is that right?
Right.
They are from my chest down.
Right.
So then I understand from your story that you're able to sort of hide, and for, I guess
that's the right word, or shield, you know, nobody sees the scars.
I would think that going to the beach or something might be problematic or other elements, but
I'm not going to tell your story.
I'm going to ask you how you think, you've already sort of expressed it in the sense
that you haven't talked about, you didn't talk about it for many years, but how do you
think that event impacted you not only now, because now you are telling the story, but
as you were maturing as a young person and then as an older person, how do you think
that impacted who you are, who you were then, who you are today?
Well, I can tell you growing up, I was fearful of everyone and everything.
I had fears and phobias so big it impacted my everyday life, hour by hour.
When you say, you know, how were you able to go to the beach or whatever, I wore a one
piece bathing suit.
I had to stay out of the sun.
My scars, my burns were irradiated as a treatment.
They don't do that anymore.
So it definitely had a huge impact on my life.
I had no self-confidence as a young person.
Dating was atrocious.
Dating was scary.
Dating was, this is great, but how do we get to the next step when I can't tell you what
I look like and I certainly don't want you to see that?
And now coming full circle, I recognize the struggles I had as a young person, as a teenager,
college, marriage, all of that.
And as I said a few minutes ago, sharing my story has really lifted a huge weight off
my shoulders.
I have gained a tremendous amount of self-confidence.
That's why I'm a career coach and a confidence coach.
I've overcome huge confidence issues, feeling different, being distrustful of people, certainly
body image issues.
Think about today how many young people, men and women, boys and girls struggle with the
way they look in large part because up until especially a few years ago, everyone we saw
on TV, model, actor, actress, was blonde, blue-eyed, five foot three and 120 pounds.
How many of us look like that?
Now we see in commercials, heavy set men and women.
We see black women and white men together and the reverse.
We see Asians together with white people or with black people.
Our culture is really changing and that's wonderful and it makes it easier for people
like me to come out and share my story because we've all been burned one way or another.
We've been burned physically or mentally, emotionally, whether we've been through a divorce or physically
burned.
Even when you take that first sip of coffee from your Starbucks cup and you burn your
tongue, that's painful.
Then you bring that out to 40% of a body being burned and that pain not just then in the
moment but for years struggling with as you grow, those burns changing and growing as
well.
Yes, it's had a huge effect and impact on my life.
But I'm really grateful to the people that have always supported me.
My husband and I have been married going on 43 years this month and he's my biggest supporter,
my best friend and he didn't know my whole story until a year and a half ago either.
My goodness.
Oh my goodness.
Well, I'm so happy that you're able to find a partner who understands you even though
the depth he improved over the last year and a half as you said.
I think that's just so great.
It's just what came up to my mind.
When I was a little boy, I was at a campfire and I had a marshmallow and it was lit on
fire and I flicked it and I got my sister in her face and she has a scar above her eye
that is very hard to see, I think, but she tells me about it not all the time but occasionally
she'll say, you know, this is where you scarred me and I feel this tremendous guilt.
I was a little boy, I wasn't a malicious action.
I'm a mistake.
But yeah, I mean, I just, I say on this micro level, I understand where you're coming from
and I certainly do appreciate the fact that you said and I agree with you a thousand percent
that we've all been burned in some way or the other.
And sometimes it's physically obvious and sometimes it is not, but as you mentioned also,
I think what happened to you was an internal burn as well as an external burn.
It really did impact you in terms of your perspective or whatever else.
I'm so glad you're able to overcome the ideas that you may have felt of not being confident.
Can I just ask you very briefly how you were able to overcome your self-confidence issues?
I mean, I know I'm sure it's not just a one day thing.
I'm not suggesting that.
What how did you achieve that?
Well, it took a lot of years and as I said, a lot of it I reflect back and appreciate
my husband's support.
So I'll give you a quick story.
When he and I live back in upstate New York, his job had him traveling a lot and I would
tag along and in the evenings there would be networking events for the people, the attendees
of the conference to mingle and whatnot.
And he would bring me to those events and I would head in a corner and not talk to anybody.
He'd bring me to the bar and say, you know, would you like a glass of red wine?
I'd say yes.
And then he'd go and introduce me to other people and say, nice to meet you and I'd go
back either to the bathroom to escape or back into a corner or to where the food was.
So I didn't have to talk to people.
And eventually he got wind of, okay, she's really not good at this.
And he would bring me to a group of three or four people, introduce me and then walk
away.
It was the best thing he ever did for me in a way because I had to learn that everyone
likes to talk about themselves.
So it's not so much about you talking, it's about asking questions.
So what are you doing here?
How long have you been involved with this organization?
What do you think of dinner?
What are you doing tomorrow?
Whatever.
And so then you become a really good listener.
And I will say I'm a very good listener.
I have to be as a coach.
But those skills took a lot of time to build and that was one way we built those skills.
The other thing I would say is I had great mentors as I was growing up in my career and
those mentors, when I did something great, they would be very complimentary.
Of course, we're not perfect and there would be times when people would say, oh, there
was a better way to do that or, but I never felt really bad about what I had done when
I had made mistakes because my mentors were so amazing.
Of course I had people that weren't, but I'll only talk about the people that were very
supportive.
Because it makes you more confident.
It builds your confidence and your self-respect when you're working with people that support
you and encourage you.
And one of the things I work with my clients in the confidence realm is talk to them about
what's the last compliment you received?
Oh, you have beautiful blue eyes.
That shirt's a great color on you.
I love your red lipstick.
Whatever.
When you're able to draw on those compliments, when you're having a bad day, when someone
has said something negative of you, when that little voice in your own head says, wait,
you're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not strong enough, I encourage people
to go back and think about the compliments they recently received.
That tells you you're doing something right.
It also tells us we're not alone.
And it's very important for all of us to know we are not alone.
We don't know what the person in front of us in line at the grocery store is going through.
But I can tell you, if you smile at someone as you're passing them, smile at the hostess
who's seating you, smile at the cashier at the register in the grocery store, or the
waitress or water boy that's serving you, your smile is contagious.
They will smile back and you've made someone's day.
Well said.
Well, I want to thank you very much for being on the show.
You've made my day.
I do want to try to tell you I tried that.
I try to be that person if I can't be, because I do know that the power of words, my last
guest was telling me that she believed that all of us cast spells on one another with
our words, that our words either make us feel, the other person feel great or not so great,
et cetera.
And I hear what you're saying.
You've actually made me very happy today.
I was in pain thinking about what the pain that you've been in, but you certainly come
across as a very confident, happy person, which makes me happy because I'm so scared
you'd be buried in your pain, but you seem to be doing quite well.
And I think you make a heck of a great career and confidence coach.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, that's our show.
Thanks again, Gail Petroa, for telling us that inspiring story.
So until next time, this is Jay Rehak, asking you all to please stay safe out there and
try not to hurt anybody.