Dreams for the Future

[00:00:00] Paula: Welcome to “TesseLeads” with your host Tesse Akpeki and me, Paula Okonneh, who’s her co host. “TesseLeads” is a safe, sensitive, and supportive place and space to share, to hear, and tell your stories and your experiences. We and our audience always get super curious about the dilemmas that shape our lives and shape your lives and your futures. And this is the place to talk about that. The theme for today is “Dreams For The Future”. And our guest is Debra Allcock-Tyler. Typically, I give you the audience a synopsis on who my guest is, but today it’ll be different. Debra, why don’t you tell our audience who you are?

[00:00:54] Debra: Okay. Hi, Paula. Hi, Tesse. Okay, so my name’s Debra Allcock-Tyler. I am the eldest of four children. I come from a massive mixed race Anglo Indian Catholic family. So my mother’s one of seven. For example, I have like loads and loads and loads of cousins, many of whom Tesse has actually met, interestingly. So I come from this big family. My birth name is actually Debra Alcock, that’s my name. The Tyler is my ex husband’s name. What happened was when I was married, I started to like, do a lot of writing and sort of build up a bit of a public, you know, not massive public, but you know, a bit of a public profile. And so I became known as Debra Allcock-Tyler. And so when we got divorced, it was really, I had to do this thing that if I dropped the Tyler, you know, people are going to know. And so I just thought, oh, I’ll just keep it. It’s just a name. I don’t care. So interesting my family always like nagging me, say drop the Tyler, drop the Tyler, he’s your ex husband. I’m like, I don’t really care about it. For me, the surname is irrelevant anyway, because it’s always the surname of the father, not the mother. And I just have issues with that. So, you know, I’m Debra. You know, so yeah, so there you go. So that’s some weird personal stuff about me.

[00:02:04] Tesse: I’m laughing so much because Debra, I love that introduction of yourself to us. And yes, you’re right that I met your family, a number of times and love them all. Love them, every single one of them. There’s no one, I really love them. And the dog and your dog, and your dog love. Love your dog. You know, and so, you know, I’m super curious, one thing you don’t know is that I’ve got a term for you or a name for you, which I’ve shared with Paula and that’s “Debrastic”.

[00:02:36] Debra: “Debrastic”.

[00:02:36] Tesse: And that is putting Debra and fantastic together.

[00:02:39] Debra: Oh my goodness. I don’t think that’s going to catch on, Tesse.

[00:02:44] Tesse: That’s my way of seeing you, that I see you as a catalyst for excellence. I think of you and I think of you as sunshine. And I also see you as somebody who continues to hone greatness, goodness in others. And that’s why I coined that term. And my question is, how do you see yourself?

[00:03:01] Debra: You know, that’s so funny you should ask that, Tesse. So I’ve got a board meeting next week, and we’ve got five new trustees coming. And my chair and I were talking about like, kind of the ice breaking, like getting people to know each other. And he came up with this idea that everybody has to say, how would your friends describe you? So if I met one of your friends in the street, what would you say? And I got thinking about myself and I had to laugh, because my friends would say, well, we love Debs, but you have to be really careful about her in public spaces, cause she’s always on it. Which is really true. I actually find it incredibly difficult to like, let things go. And that’s not a strength. You know, I often end up, I can see people glazing over, because we’re like, well, you’ll be having a lovely chat about something, you know, like perfume or makeup or whatever thing happens to me. And then somebody will say something and I’ll be like, well, actually I think you’ll find that that’s not true. Or I think you’ll find that that’s the eternalized misogyny or why, you know what I mean? It’s like, I’m always on it. And so I dread public spaces. I’m not, I’m gregarious, because I’ve learned coming from a big family and the, you know, the sort of nomadic background I come from, you have to be able to speak out and perform. But actually I’m quiet. My favorite thing to do is just to sit quietly by myself, to read my book, not to speak to people. I really don’t like parties. I hate social gathering. I’m not great with strangers. I always feel like that I’m not particularly good fun and that people are going to find me difficult to be around. And sometimes they do. So I tend to sort of, you know, one of my strengths is the fact that I’m so passionate about things and I want to change it and I don’t let things go, but that’s also one of my weaknesses because it puts people off of me, you know. And like, they’re not so keen to hang out with me, you know, so yeah.

[00:04:36] Tesse: The way that I see you as somebody who I’ve known for over 20 years now, and every time it’s refreshed is I love your honesty. I love your truth. I love your standing up to and calling things out. I also love your calling things in. And I think sometimes when people are uncomfortable with that, it’s because they’re uncomfortable with the truth, you know. I remember Debra, and I shared this story with Paula a couple of years ago when I’d had a really horrible time with a group of people.

[00:05:09] Debra: I remember.

[00:05:10] Tesse: Who were on the religious side.

[00:05:11] Debra: I remember.

[00:05:12] Tesse: And I had gone into a space of ego deflation, and also I’m not going to go there again. And I said, let me meet you.

[00:05:21] Debra: Yeah.

[00:05:22] Tesse: And you said, yep, I’m coming over, and you came over. I remember we were in a little room and you talked to me and you said, what feedback did you get from the people who commissioned it? And I said, they said it was good and you said, don’t you believe them? I said, but see what those people are saying. And you said, who do you believe? The people who commissioned it or the other ones? Because you were doing what you were doing so well, that’s why they got upset. And then you went there and I said, what about you? Would you work with these people again? You said, yeah, it’s too important not to. And then what I’m trying to say is that there’s that piece whereby some things are hard because they need to be done. They’re not easy, because if they were easy, everybody would be doing it, like behavioural change, like culture change. So coming back to you, I sense that I love what you’re saying about how you energise yourself, and I hear that you might not be fun, but sometimes your truth, and truth is sometimes not fun.

[00:06:13] Debra: That’s very true. But when you’re at a party drinking and people want to talk about what they watched on telly last night, sometimes, you know, I need to suppress the truth. I’m just not good at letting people just have a good time. I’m terrible. Yeah.

[00:06:28] Tesse: Sometimes life is much too short, you know, you know, sometimes.

[00:06:33] Debra: Yes, I have time for Miss morality. Do you not realize the state of the world? You’re giving me a good time laughing at this wedding. Why are you laughing at this wedding? Do you not know what’s happening over there in Yemen?

[00:06:46] Tesse: You’re a faithful, you’re a faithful.

[00:06:50] Paula: That shows your heart.

[00:06:51] Tesse: Yeah.

[00:06:52] Debra: But then, it’s five and it’s my birthday. I don’t care. Pay attention to them.

[00:06:58] Paula: But then we need people like you. I mean, we need people who in parties where everyone wants to forget what’s happening, to remind them that look, if each one of us care, things we can be the voice that can create the changes that we want to talk about, you know.

[00:07:15] Debra: I think you’re both being far too kind to me. My brother would be saying, no, she needs to let, when to let it go.

[00:07:25] Paula: So we recorded right at the beginning of 2024. What would you like? I mean, we’re talking about dreams for the future. So December 31st, what would you like to have experienced between now and the end of the year?

[00:07:39] Debra: Oh what would I like to have experienced?

[00:07:43] Paula: Between now, what are you looking forward to doing this year in 2024? What’s occurring for you?

[00:07:48] Debra: Well, there’s a lot of big events, big anniversaries in my family this year. You know, like I’m turning 60, my mother’s turning 80. My parents celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. My nephew is 18, my niece is, 21. My uncle is 70. My cousin, other cousin is 61. Yeah, so there’s loads of those. So I’m really looking forward to, yeah, us all being together. I mean, my big, wide, mixed, you know, race, Anglo Indian Catholic family is very important to me. And we’re very close, and we stay in touch and things like that. So like being around them is like, you know, so that’s, so I’m really looking forward to experiencing that this year. In terms of personal dreams. I don’t really have sort of personal ambition in that sort of sense. You know, I’m like, there isn’t a thing I particularly want to do. There’s no different job I want to do. There’s no, you know, I’m incredibly lucky that I feel I’ve managed to do a lot of stuff. Like if I, you know, rolled over dead tomorrow, I wouldn’t be full of regret. Well, I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t be full of regret, anyway, but you know what I mean? I wouldn’t be, you know, I wouldn’t feel like, well, I never got to, you know. And there are things I regret, of course, I was never able to be a mother. So that’s really sad for me, you know. So, yeah, but I wouldn’t. So in terms of dreams myself, not really, I want dreams more broadly. I want to see, like people thinking more reasonably about things, you know. People being a bit more thoughtful about stuff. It’s not that we will have to agree with each other, but it’s about the way in which we engage. I’d really like to see, you know, some of the kind of like, the hatred that people have certain marginalized groups. So I’m really uncomfortable and disturbed and upset by the sort of anti trans hatred that we have in the UK at the moment. I find it distasteful and difficult. I don’t really understand what the, you know, what the. I understand, I hear what people say, you know, on whichever side you have to be looking at, but I just hate the whole sort of rhetoric and nastiness and like pushing people down. And I would like to see that, and that’s just one example. There are other examples. I just like to see that sort of narrative, you know. You look at things like Israel, Gaza conflict, and you have like people saying that you’ve got to take a side, you know, you’ve got to, and I’m like, the side I’m taking is the babies and the children. That’s the only side I’m interested in. You know, and I was talking to somebody the other day and saying, actually with this, you don’t have to take a side. You just have to say, this is a horrible conflict. I don’t really properly understand it, but please stop killing babies on both sides. Do you know what I mean? It’s like, I would just like people to be a bit more about not who wins, not who’s right and who’s wrong. But look, how do we just move forward? I would love to see more of that. You know, how do we fix this? How do we, how do we see people as human beings? You know, I worry so much about the language that we use, you know. Or like, you know, when we talk about illegal migrants and it drives me crazy, there’s no such thing as an illegal migrant. There’s a migrant or there’s an asylum seeker. And if they come and their asylum is rejected, then they go back to wherever they came from. They’re not illegal. You know, I really dislike that kind of rhetoric and language that we use and things like that. So I would love to see that change this year. I’m not sure it will because it’s an election year. So I think it’s probably going to get even more polarized. But, and I think that the work that we do in the voluntary sector can really help with that actually. You know, and I’m not saying about, you know, when I say don’t take sides, I’m not saying that some things clearly aren’t wrong, or aren’t right, sorry. And some things are clearly wrong. I get that. But it’s just that whole sort of, I’m in this camp and therefore this camp can do no wrong. Well, I’m in this camp and therefore this camp can do no wrong. I just, I’ve never experienced that as being helpful, you know, so that’s what I really hope for this year. But I mean, Paula, you and I were chatting on a different occasion, weren’t we? About young people. You know, I feel so much hope with young people, because they just, I mean, okay sweeping generalization, but they just seem so much more compassionate and tolerant and understanding and more willing to stand up for what they believe in and more. And they seem to have a more global outlet, which I think personally is healthy. I always think about, it seemed like buy local, shop local, only local. I think that’s all very well and good. But what if you come from a country where the only thing you can grow is oranges? You know, so saying like, we’ll just do in this area, it’s not helping that law. You know, can’t survive on oranges or like, you know, you mustn’t go on holiday to these places, the places that rely on tourism. Do you see what, you know, I’m also, and I love the fact that our young people are very global in their outlook. And I think that’s one of the big benefits actually of modern technology. You know, when I was growing up, we didn’t know what was going on on the other side of the world, you know. Most of the young people I know now have like regularly in communication in their video games with somebody who’s in India or who’s in Japan or who’s in some other America, some other parts of the world that we would never typically, unless you’re pen pals, you know, and like took weeks to get something back. So I love the fact that they seem to have a more global outlook. And I hope that, well, I don’t hope I don’t dream. I know that that will permeate through, and I’m confident we will have better leadership in the world. with the next, you know, the next generations of young people who I think are just better people than my generation largely is, and certainly the generation ahead.

[00:12:51] Tesse: You know, when you say don’t hope, don’t dream, it’s just as what is, that’s a hope and that’s a dream, you know, it’s, but the fact that you’re saying that means that it’s a possible thing, you know. Walt Disney’s often quoted as saying, “if you can dream it, you can, you can see it, you can be it”. And I think, I believe that to be true. You know, our discourse has got so uncompassionate.

[00:13:12] Debra: Yes.

[00:13:12] Tesse: And when I think of you, I think of you as kind and caring, and kind and caring is actually looking at people and being empathetic, seeing how they can be in their shoes. And also seeing on stuff, you know, and so one of the things I’m pretty curious about is given the life that you have led and you’re leading, you’ve mentioned to us that this is going to be the year where you turn the big six o.

[00:13:40] Debra: Yeah.

[00:13:40] Tesse: Yay. And what would your older self say to your younger self knowing what you are experiencing now and you have experienced, what would you be saying?

[00:13:50] Debra: This too shall pass. You know, that don’t get too in despair about the bad times because they will go, and don’t get too excited about the good times because they will also go. You know, that life has a habit of doing this. I would say to my younger self, listen more, Debs, you know, don’t be so. I mean, I’m dogmatic now and I’ve softened Tesse and Paula. Can you imagine what I was like when I was in my twenties?

[00:14:14] Tesse: Dynamic

[00:14:15] Debra: Well, I’m such a know it all now, you know, and let me tell you my twenties, I knew everything better than anyone else, you know? So I would go back to my younger self and I say, listen more and get the, actually, you know, very little, be more open to those sorts of things. I would say I struggled a lot with mental health in my young years. I had a massive breakdown when I was in my early thirties. And it turned out that I’d had a mental health issue since I was very young, but it’s just never been picked up because back in those days it wasn’t recognized in young people. Now that when I ran away or disappeared, I’d lock myself in my room. I wouldn’t get out of bed for days, you know, put that down to just being a teenager or tantrum. And actually it was much more serious than that. I would go back to myself and say, tell the truth about how you’re feeling, you know, and go and get the help that you need rather than just keep going. And I would also say to myself, don’t believe what other people say about you, whether it’s either good or bad. You know, my grandmother always used to say, what other people think of you is none of your business. And I just think that, yeah, it’s super helpful, actually. If they think I’m amazing, if they think I’m terrible, that’s about them, not actually about me. What’s much more important is what I think about myself. You know, and so to not be fooled by the people who say, you know, you’re fabulous and then turn around and stab you in the back or, and not to be broken by the people who say you’re absolutely awful, who may end up, you know, being, it’s like. You have to look yourself in the mirror and say, right, Debs, these are the bits of you that you know are not nice and you could work on. And these are the bits of you that you’re proud of, and you can enhance those things. And I think that’s also real proper, which I think I’ve come to now as I’m older, but when I was younger, I’m not sure I was properly self aware. I’m not sure I really understood. You know, it’s like, I always felt I was in the right. I always justified my own behavior even when that behavior was really poor. And instead of being able to say, actually, Debra, you said that horrible thing because you wanted to hurt that person. You know, and being honest about it and recognizing that we all do those things sometimes. And yeah, so I think I would say to myself, paying more attention to what you think about you rather than what other people think about you.

[00:16:15] Tesse: Oh, I think that’s an amazing response. Paula, you know, you’ve met Debra. Debra was one of our first ever podcast guests on “TesseTalk” and kindly has come back and I stopped our discussions and our conversations. How do you see, how do you experience Debra?

[00:16:33] Paula: Oh my word, she said something that her grandma said and then she ended the last sentence saying it about, you know, pay more attention to what you think about yourself than what other people think about you. And so I wrap that up with saying, I see Debra as funny, but pragmatic, very wise, probably not recognizing how wise she is. You give a lot more tip and you always say, do I talk, you ask sometimes whether you talk a lot. No. You don’t talk a lot. You say a lot of things that make practical sense and are very impactful to many people. And so what do I think about Debra? I think that she’s, and now you have to believe this because one thing you said.

[00:17:18] Debra: If you’re going to say something negative, Paula, I’m not listening. I’m not listening.

[00:17:23] Paula: Oh my gosh, I think I’m going to borrow Tesse’s word. She said at the beginning that “Debrastic” , which means fantastic and Debra. You’re unique. You’re yourself. You’re truthful. You believe in saying the truth, but saying it in ways that are not just practical, but they’re helpful to those who you are speaking with. And I believe in listening to you that you know you are someone who also is very good with taking feed forward. Is it what we called it?  Feedforward? Yeah.

[00:17:58] Tesse: Feed forward.

[00:17:59] Paula: You believe in feedback, but in the way that it should be helpful. And so I can see, I asked you this question, what do you think your experiences would be when you look back at, on December 31st, 2024? I see a woman who was always willing to learn. And to me, that’s more of what the world needs. People who are willing to learn, take what they hear, muse on it and spit it out or give it back in ways that can help mankind. So that’s my summary of Debra.

[00:18:27] Tesse: Debra. Can you believe it?

[00:18:30] Paula: And please believe it.

[00:18:35] Debra: I believe you believe it, Paula. Whether it’s true about me, I’m not so sure.

[00:18:38] Paula: Aren’t we all?

[00:18:39] Debra: I’m in my own head. I know all the horrible thoughts that I think about.

[00:18:43] Tesse: You know, Debra, I’m so glad that Paula reflects back what she sees. And I, at the beginning, I reflected back what I saw and what I still continue to see. But when I think about you and that ray of sunshine that I was thinking about, Is it the heart that you have, but you are unconditionally yourself, and that helps others around you, including me, to be unconditionally ourselves. Because that kind of embrace, that kind of acceptance, you know, of you as you, knowing that perfection doesn’t exist, but knowing that you can be and strive to be your best self, knowing that there are days when that is not always going to be the best version of you on the day. I love that. And when I thought of the kind of topic, dreams for the future, I actually thought you are a dream, because if we are that, then the world would be a much kinder, much brighter, much more compassionate and functional space, a place to be.

[00:19:37] Debra: Oh wow.

[00:19:38] Paula: I say amen to that. A double amen.

[00:19:41] Tesse: Yeah.

[00:19:41] Debra: We just need the young, don’t we? We need the young, brave and bold and kind and compassionate.

[00:19:47] Tesse: And you have the competence to go with it. Competent, you know.

[00:19:51] Debra: I thought after this, bits of my body are falling apart. You know, I’m constantly needing to pee. It does not belong to me. It belongs to the younger lot, honestly.

[00:20:01] Tesse: This belongs to you, not me. Paula over to you.

[00:20:12] Paula: Oh boy. So as we wrap up this conversation, I mean, we’ve heard, I mean, I’ve learned so much more about you today. What words of wisdom do you think you would like to share with our visitors? There I go, with our viewers and our listeners. Okay. Let me rephrase that. Now, because we’re talking about dreams for the future, just give us two words that you would like to share with our listeners who are thinking about the future that you can see that will be practical. If you were the prime minister today, that would be practical for 2024. Just two words.

[00:20:46] Debra: Well, two words is too hard for me, Paula.

[00:20:48] Tesse: I love it. I love it

[00:20:52] Debra: I would say, firstly, be flexible. I can’t bear it when people say, stick to the plan, stick to the plan. It’s like plans are nonsense. Planning is all right. But like, you know, stick to your principles, but change your plan because circumstances change. And I think that’s true for you in your own life. Like if, for example, when I was very young, all I wanted to be was an actress, and I also wanted to write books. Those were my two dreams. And I never ended up being an actress, and I never ended up being an author of fiction books, which I always wanted to. But I have ended up being a public speaker. So doing a lot of performances on stages, talking to people about stuff. And also I’ve written a lot of management books. So the universe has a very strange way of delivering for you what you wanted, it just doesn’t necessarily present in the way in which you imagined it would when you were 10, 20, 30, 40. So like, so get that you’re probably are achieving your dreams. It’s just not necessarily manifesting the way in which you thought they would. So that’s the first thing. I think the second thing is, which refer, you know, to the thing you said before, but it’s about just don’t stop hoping. You know, it’s like without hope, the situation is hopeless. You know, it’s like, you’ve always got to have hope, because there always is hope. As long as you’re breathing, there is hope. As long as there is, you know, yeah, that there is always, always hope. Yeah. And I suppose really practically get a reputation for being somebody who people want to work with. So think about who are the sorts of people you want to work with. And most of us want to work with people who are enthusiastic, positive, willing to roll up their sleeves. Like, don’t do it. It’s not my job. It’s your job. You know, most of us want to work with those kinds of people. And if you want to get on in your career, being that kind of person is what’s going to get you promoted, you know, for all, everybody thinks otherwise, you know, it’s not brand nosing or anything like that. It’s about the fact that if you just enthusiastic, if you’re somebody who’s always like points out why it can’t be done, or what the problems are, or all the difficulties are in the way. Nobody wants to work with people like that because they drag you down. We don’t want to be dragged down. We want to be dragged up. So have a reputation saying, yeah, that’s a massive challenge, but we’ll find a way around it. Or, okay, I know that’s gone wrong, but what we need to do is think about how we can fix it. You know, be that person, have that attitude and you will, and even if you don’t get to the, you know, run the blooming country or ever who’d want to, to be fair, you will always feel good about yourself because you’ll always know that you gave everything a good go and you tried it and you didn’t sort of give up, so it can’t be done, you know. It’s too difficult. I haven’t got enough money. I haven’t got enough people. I haven’t got enough resources. And then show me somebody who says, I’ve got plenty of everything, you know, even rich people. Well, definitely rich people never ever have enough money. You know what I mean? So need that kind of person. So Paula, you said two words. I think that was about 202.

[00:23:45] Tesse: I think Paula suspected it wouldn’t be that. I’d call it a trick question.

[00:23:56] Paula: I’m a mathematician. I love

[00:23:58] Tesse: Inspirational, Debra!

[00:24:00] Paula: That was exponential. You took two and you took it to the 10th power or more. I love it. So I love, what I’m going to end with is summarizing the three things that I heard from you. Change the plans, but stick with your principles because life continues. Life goes on. Don’t stop hoping. That’s the essence of life. And be the person that people want, get a reputation for being the type of person that people want to be around because of your quality. What better way to end this show.

[00:24:30] Tesse: Wow. So “Debrastic” .

[00:24:32] Paula: Yeah. So thank you so much. We want you all, our listeners, to continue listening and tuning in to “TesseLeads”, because on this show, you hear people in their authentic, authentic way. We ask that you head over to “Apple Podcasts”, “Google Podcasts”, “Spotify”, anywhere that you listen to podcasts and click subscribe. We’d love when you do that. And if you have found “TesseLeads” helpful, who hasn’t? Please let us know in your reviews. If you have any questions or topics you’d love us to cover, send us a note. And if you’d like to be a guest on our show, head over to our website, which is simply “TesseLeads”, and you can apply there. Debra, you are the best. What is it? Debrastic?

[00:25:18] Tesse: Debrastic, yes.

[00:25:20] Debra: It will never catch on. It doesn’t matter how many times you say it.

[00:25:23] Tesse: No, I know it won’t catch on, but it catches on for both of us. And I mean, you just need a few to change the world. So you are absolutely Debrastic, honestly.

[00:25:32] Debra: Saying that word makes its way into the Oxford English dictionary.

[00:25:39] Paula: There you go. Uh huh.