From Adversity To Triumph

[00:00:00] Paula: Welcome to Tesse Leads with your host, Tessie Akpeki, and me, the co host, Paula Okone. Tessie Leeds encourages people to tell their personal stories, but this episode is slightly different. In this one, Tesse will be reviewing Pretty Ugly Lessons by Deshauna Barber. Deshauna’s personal story leads to changes in her life and is impacting the world.

[00:00:32] Paula: And for this reason, Tessie Reads, a book club set up by our very own Tesse, is meeting Tessie Leads. The theme of today’s show is adversity, triumphing in the face of challenges and suffering. So welcome Tessie to Tessie Reads with you as the reviewer of your book club, Tessie Reads.

[00:00:59] Tesse: Wow, Paula, what can I say?

[00:01:01] Tesse: It’s always a joy and a privilege to have this show with you and to do different things and I am super excited.

[00:01:12] Paula: Yeah, so let me tell you a bit about Deshauna. Deshauna Barber is an American beauty pageant title holder. She’s a motivational speaker and captain in the United States Army Reserve. On June 5th of 2016, she was crowned Miss USA 2016 by the outgoing title holder, Olivia Jordan of Oklahoma, and Deshauna represented the United States at the Miss Universe 2016 pageant and finished as a top nine finalist.

[00:01:47] Paula: So Tesse, what made you decide to choose this book?

[00:01:51] Tesse: Wow, Paula. First and foremost, I’m going to say I’m super excited to be doing this with you. And actually, it’s one of the interesting things that I never knew that one day Tesse Reads, which is a book club, would meet Tesse Leads, which is about people’s personal stories.

[00:02:08] Tesse: That’s how things happen. You follow your heart and things come together. But actually, before I say… what led me to lit to go to this book. I want to talk about you and I’m sure that you, I’m sure that you weren’t expecting that.

[00:02:22] Paula: I certainly wasn’t.

[00:02:24] Tesse: But this is, this is my personal story about how meeting you and being coached by you led to meeting Deshona.

[00:02:34] Tesse: Okay. So how, what happened? You were coaching me on how to use social media, how to do LinkedIn, and how to actually be a generous leader. And being a generous leader means it’s not all about you. It’s about other people. And one of the things that you said about LinkedIn was that when I, um, on, on LinkedIn to spend some time.

[00:03:02] Tesse: each day to read other people’s posts, to encourage other people and to engage with other people, to learn about birthdays and people’s pets and so which they choose to share on LinkedIn and get involved with people’s lives in an appropriate way through a professional platform. And I followed your tips to the T and I have now developed a whole network of people who have become friends and family, but also knowing about people’s work.

[00:03:36] Tesse: So it was while I was doing this wonderful scrolling practice that I scrolled and I came across this clip by Deshauna talking about her personal story. And I thought, Oh my word, this person’s story is actually so brilliant. So I actually sent it and reposted it to other people and said, you need to hear this woman’s story, which is so awesome and so inspiring.

[00:04:06] Tesse: And then I read her Wikipedia and went to her website and found out more about her and found out that she was launching a new book. And so, and so I did a backorder because as you know, I live in the UK and the US books come out earlier than in the UK. So I did a backorder on the Pretty Ugly Lessons.

[00:04:29] Tesse: And so I got her book on the day it came out in the UK. So that was how this thing literally landed because I followed the tips of my co host. So, yeah.

[00:04:40] Paula: Wow, you surprised me. This is supposed to be about Deshaunna’s book, not about me, but I get it.

[00:04:46] Tesse: I love surprising you, Paula. You are so humble. If I had said that it was about Deshaunna only and not about you, you wouldn’t have done it.

[00:04:55] Tesse: I know you, so well, I’m, I’m, I’m kind of like egotistical to say I know you, but I do know you, and I thought you wouldn’t do it. So you led me to her. Thank you for being the bridge.

[00:05:07] Paula: What can I say about, okay, thank you. Thank you for that,. But, um, yeah, not but.

[00:05:14] Paula: That doesn’t take away from why you found out about Deshaun, and now we’re having the opportunity to review her book. So tell me some of the highlights of this book.

[00:05:23] Tesse: Okay, this book blew me for all kinds of reasons. First and foremost, I’m going to talk about the structure. Then I’m going to go into the story. You know, I love storytelling and she’s a wonderful storyteller. So what she does in her book is that she goes in and out of personal professional.

[00:05:40] Tesse: She weaves it together. She’s in and she’s out. So she has a personal bit and then she has a professional bit and then she bridges the two. That’s the first thing she does. The second thing she does in this book is that she actually has a, at the end of every chapter, she summarizes what she has said in the chapter.

[00:05:58] Tesse: So this is what I said. This is what, this is, these are the key things. And then she has a question piece. So she asks questions. And then she had the place for reflection. So what she does, which a lot of people say is not maybe a best practice, but I think it’s an emerging practice, is that she turns this book, which is a personal story into a workbook and you don’t have to have a separate workbook to enjoy this thing.

[00:06:24] Tesse: By the time you finish the chapter, you’re good and ready to do the exercise. You’re good and ready to do the reflections. And I think that’s awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And I think that’s what I’ll be doing more of in my own work. That actually the workbook and the story, they’re all one line, you know, it’s just polarities of the versions of what is going on.

[00:06:45] Tesse: So she does that very beautifully. So in saying that, what I really love about her is that she talks very, very powerfully. In fact, the strap line of the book is called Empowering Strategies to Transform Adversity into Triumph. And given that she’s, yeah, I repeat that.

[00:07:03] Paula: Repeat that please.

[00:07:04] Tesse: It’s called Empowering Strategies to Transform Adversity into Triumph.

[00:07:10] Paula: Wow.

[00:07:11] Tesse: And the fact that it’s by former Miss USA and Army veteran makes it even more interesting because she’s the first veteran to become Miss USA.

[00:07:22] Paula: Wow. First veteran or first black?

[00:07:26] Tesse: Both.

[00:07:26] Paula: Wow.

[00:07:29] Tesse: Because really what is really wonderful. I’m so glad you said something about her is that she makes no apologies for highlighting the plight of veterans because she was a serving officer in the U. S. Army, and she makes no apology about highlighting the plight of serving officers. And she talks about post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, and she uses her platform, which she has now, to encourage us all to pay close attention to mental health of our service members after deployment and their service.

[00:08:07] Tesse: in the country. So she’s set apart for me because she’s actually doing good in the world from a place of knowing what it’s like to serve, but also doing her story, being her story, telling her story.

[00:08:23] Paula: That’s impressive.

[00:08:25] Paula: I know that books, I want to say are your life, but books are an integral part of your life.

[00:08:31] Paula: And so you chose this book primarily because of the fact that she was unique. She’s a veteran. You love the structure of the book and you love her

[00:08:42] Paula: story.

[00:08:43] Tesse: Absolutely. And I went on YouTube as well. And I listened to clips of YouTube presentation she has given. And I just thought, guess what? This woman is a complete package and she’s young.

[00:08:55] Tesse: Paula, she’s still 33 and she’s a young person. And, and, and I just thought, my goodness, you always believe, as I do, that our future is in good hands. Yeah. And she’s lived life. She’s lived life. And I just think, guess what? No better person to review the book than myself for her, you know, I see her through the eyes of my age. I won’t say what it is, but many decades after her, decades before her.

[00:09:33] Paula: Before her.

[00:09:33] Tesse: Yeah. Many decades before her. So this is peer support, right? This is peer support.

[00:09:40] Paula: Well, I mean, I love it. And I especially love the fact that I saw that she is local to me. It

[00:09:45] Paula: looks like she’s based in Washington, DC, Maryland.

[00:09:49] Tesse: Yeah, absolutely. Who knows? You might actually catch up with her sometime or better

[00:09:54] Tesse: still bring her on your new TV show.

[00:09:56] Paula: You know, that may be something I could consider.

[00:10:00] Paula: If you. want to do that, of course, it’s totally up to you. And so Tessie, oh my gosh. Um, what can people take away? What are the key messages that you can take away from this?

[00:10:10] Tesse: Well, before going to key messages, I’d like to actually, because I talked about the structure, I’d like to touch on some of the things that she touched on.

[00:10:18] Tesse: I’m not going to give away spoilers as such, but it’s an encouragement to people to, to dig more deeply. into her story by, by actually getting the book or getting the, the, the, the digital version. She touches on how she turned from an ugly duckling to becoming a beauty queen. She talks about reclaiming your power.

[00:10:42] Tesse: And in this, she talks about healing and recovery because she was abused sexually as a child. And she had to overcome adverse events. And I think that’s really important for people like me, like you and others who have actually had a lot of trauma in our lives about how we engage with trauma. And she goes on to talk about peace and happiness as inside jobs that enable us from the inside to actually operate on the outside.

[00:11:08] Tesse: Then she goes on to talk about change management or change agency. So she touches on the power. of persistence and meeting with resistance. So she actually goes into resistance. persistence and that’s wonderful. Now what I love, because I thought what a book for me is in this cycle of my life for now, because dealing with a lot of grief and loss, how would she deal with that?

[00:11:34] Tesse: And she does a wonderful job at talking about the weight of grief, of loss, of death, of recovery. And she talks about the power of regrets. And so she covers these really not much talked about subjects. She makes them normal by putting them as part of the cycle of life. And she now goes on towards the end of the book to talk about getting balance in life, how we have strategies for investing our energies and for how we actually overcome our fears.

[00:12:12] Tesse: And now she gets professional. So in getting professional, she moves on to talking about trusting the process, which as a mediator, I always talk about trusting the process and facilitator trust the process. She talks about biases at work. She talks about bouncing back from criticism and how feedback can become so.

[00:12:34] Tesse: positive and strengthening and become feed forward and vice versa. She goes into all these sorts of things. Then she gets personal again and she talks about good friends and bad friends. She talks about not all advice is good advice. And she talks about the interplay of good and bad and how we can embrace life’s duality of good and of bad.

[00:13:01] Tesse: So you see what I’m going to like on the platform of professionals. She talks about the dark side of leadership. She talks about personal growth. She talks about compassionate leadership strategies, but that’s on the professional side. Then she does the other side and she talks about personal development.

[00:13:18] Tesse: She talks about low bars and low self value. She talks about recognizing and owning our value. She talks about techniques to increase self worth. And she also talks about businesses and the talent that can make a business successful, sustainable and nurturing and flourishing. Wow. So I love this book. You can see.

[00:13:42] Paula: I can hear it, I can see it, I can feel it.

[00:13:45] Paula: I’m, I’m almost like, yeah, where can I get this book? Not almost, I am there. This is a must read,Tesse. Yeah, it is a must read.

[00:13:56] Tesse: Yeah, it’s kind of like she really navigates that very tricky pathway between adversity. to strength and backwards. And actually life is life. She talks about how life can be tough, but she talks about not giving up and becoming Miss USA.

[00:14:14] Tesse: She actually went to the pangent. Yeah. Competition. And five times, she lost.

[00:14:22] Paula: I love her persistence.

[00:14:25] Tesse: I think she might have even done it five to six times and she was just losing and losing and losing and losing. I think it was actually the seventh attempt that she won Miss Columbia. I think it was, and she went to the platform, but by that time she was already seasoned in learning the craft of being a pageant queen.

[00:14:44] Tesse: You know, she learned that the hard way, but more than that Paula, she said, and this was in her book, you get so many more no’s. than you get yes. So many more no’s than yes. And then she went further to say, respect and learn from your no’s.

[00:15:03] Paula: Respect and learn from your no’s.

[00:15:05] Tesse: Respect and learn from your no’s because you will learn more from rejection than you sometimes learn from success.

[00:15:13] Tesse: And I was taking notes, Paula. I was taking notes. Seriously. I was taking notes because I thought, Oh, if there’s a note that I haven’t succeeded, but her motivation is different. Actually, it is your nos and your rejections and other things that make you the person that you use that when you do get the success, not only are you valuing the success more, you are actually able to encourage other people to take. failures to take the no’s, to take the rejection as building blocks to their yes to success and to the balance of the personal and professional. I love this book, Paula. I loved it.

[00:15:51] Paula: I can tell. As I said a few minutes ago, this

[00:15:56] Paula: is a must buy. for me.

[00:15:58] Paula: So with that being said, where did you get, you ordered this book all the way in the UK.

[00:16:03] Paula: Were you able to get it? Yeah.

[00:16:04] Paula: So it must be on Amazon.

[00:16:06] Tesse: I actually think it’s on all kinds of bookshops. It’s definitely on Amazon. And actually I think that it’s very easy to get, you know, because now that it’s out, it can be put in anybody’s hands. It’s a lovely thing to give to people, to encourage them when they’re feeling low, that it’s not the end of life.

[00:16:24] Paula: Yes.

[00:16:25] Tesse: When people die. It’s not the end of life when things in you don’t want to live, you know, this is a book to say you can actually embrace that and be stronger through your adversity.

[00:16:39] Paula: Yes.

[00:16:40] Tesse: Not deny it. Not deny it.

[00:16:42] Paula: And you know, and the title says it all ” Pretty Ugly Lessons “.

[00:16:47] Tesse: Absolutely.

[00:16:48] Paula: Wow. And so folks, this was a review by Tessie Reads, a book club set up by Tessie Leads.

[00:16:57] Paula: And as we always say in every episode of Tesse Leads, your precious stories and lives

[00:17:04] Paula: matter. Please share them with us. And we’d love for you, if you haven’t already done this, to head over to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts, and please click subscribe. And if you have found Tessie Reads and Tessie Leads helpful in any way, please let us know in your reviews.

[00:17:30] Paula: If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, send us a note. And if you’d like to be a guest on our show, Tesse Leeds, head over to our now dedicated website. And I say dedicated because prior, we were sharing the website with tesseakpeki. com. So head over to our dedicated website, which is www. tesseleads. com.

[00:17:56] Paula: Tessie, thank you for being such an excellent and passionate reviewer on Tessie Reads as you reviewed this incredibly helpful book, Pretty ugly Lessons by Dashauna Barber.

[00:18:12] Tesse: You know, Paula, I couldn’t say more how excited I am to be doing this with you. And it’s, uh, bringing this platform, Tesse Reads, to life and raising awareness and education, but also talking about the importance of embracing the whole parts of our lives.

[00:18:29] Tesse: So thank you so much, Paula, and I’m excited to be doing this with you.

[00:18:34] Paula: Thank you.