Adversity can lead to triumphing in the face of challenges and suffering. Deshauna Barber is doing good in the world from a place of knowing what it’s like to serve. She is doing her story, being her story, telling her story. Pretty Ugly Lessons: empowering strategies to transform adversity into triumph by a former Miss USA and Army veteran is a treasure trove.
Deshauna, a serving officer in the U. S. Army, makes no apology about highlighting the plight of serving officers.
She uses her platform to talk about post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, encouraging us all to pay close attention to mental health of our service members after deployment and their service. Twinned with that she advocates for peace and happiness as inside jobs that enable us from the inside to actually operate on the outside and live fulfilling lives…
She touches on the power, how to reclaim it and of persistence meeting with resistance. She does not shy away from the weight of grief, of loss, of death, of regrets and of recovery.
In Pretty Ugly Lessons she mentions the importance of getting balance in life through strategies for investing our energies and overcoming our fears. Helpful coping strategies involve trusting the process, being aware of our biases, bouncing back from criticism and inviting feedback so that it becomes an enriching step for rebuilding and shaping our futures.
Usefully she mentions the dark side of leadership, personal growth and compassionate leadership strategies that are worth paying attention to. These techniques increase self-worth, enhance talent and offer ways of making businesses successful, sustainable, nurturing and flourishing.
Deshauna elegantly navigates the very tricky pathway between adversity. to strength. Life is life. Life can be tough. Her encouragement is not giving up, respecting and learning from our no’s and letting rejection be building blocks towards success. “You will learn more from rejection than you sometimes learn from success. You can actually embrace the no’s and be stronger through your adversity.”
