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Terence Mirabelli speaks to Stephen Cordina, a self-made entrepreneur who owns a successful business producing fragrances, oils and cosmetics. “I want to be normal,” wrote Stephen Cordina on his classroom’s blackboard, when his teacher asked pupils wha‘I know instinctively what ingredients will work’
Terence Mirabelli speaks to Stephen Cordina, a self-made entrepreneur who owns a successful business producing fragrances, oils and cosmetics. “I want to be normal,” wrote Stephen Cordina on his classroom’s blackboard, when his teacher asked pupils what they wanted to become when they grew up. Meet him today, and you wouldn’t think there’s anything abnormal with Malta’s leading aromatherapist. But it wasn’t always like that. From an early age he was judged difficult by teachers, who did not understand why young Stephen had a tough time learning to read and write. “I was considered illiterate and an idiot,” he says. This led to him being bullied, and the distress made him develop a stutter – now gone. “I had very low self-esteem at the time and by the age of 12 had thought of suicide twice,” says the now 38-year-old Mr Cordina. To defend himself from the bullying he took up Spirit Combat, a martial art, and won several championships in the process. This doggedness to overcome obstacles has been the driving force throughout his life. At the age of five, on his first trip to Malta from his home village of Sannat, he “fell in love with the glamour of Valletta” and the scents of the... Read more