How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - A How to Fail Miniseries: Bassel Deeb

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

For this four week miniseries, we'll be introducing you to four 'ordinary' people with extraordinary stories as part of a one-off How To Fail miniseries in partnership with Grey Goose.Today, my guest is Bassel Deeb. Bassel was born in Damascus, Syria. When his country descended into a brutal civil war, he was forced to flee. He came to the UK in 2013 where he applied for asylum. Bassel joins me to talk about this life-changing experience and about what it's like to have to redefine your idea of 'home'. He talks with candour about the conflict that surrounded him in Syria, and about leaving his friends and family behind. He also speaks of his gratitude for being 'one of the lucky ones' and for having been able to make a life for himself here. And he explains what these experiences have taught him about taking a breath, pausing, and understanding the beauty of a simple moment.I first met Bassel two years ago when I went to give a corporate talk at his former employer's. I have never forgotten him. After listening to this, I suspect you won't be able to either.Thank you, Bassel.*Looking for a Christmas stocking filler? I can highly recommend Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong which contains 7 Failure Principles developed from two-and-bit years worth of accumulated podcast wisdom.*How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you! To contact us, email [e-mail] You can buy our fantastic PODCAST MERCH here.*Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This special one-off mini-series of How to Fail is sponsored by Grey Goose. Grey Goose believe in live victoriously because life, as we know, is full of moments, big and small, planned and spontaneous, and those moments need something worthy of the occasion. They deserve to be celebrated. Grey Goose does just this, a vodka of unique quality, expertly crafted for smoothness and exceptional taste, made with the finest

ingredients, single origin Picardy wheat and spring water from natural limestone. A distinctive vodka made without compromise to elevate any moment, Grey Goose brings fun and positivity whatever the occasion you're marking, because when you live victoriously, you transform those moments into lasting memories. Thank you very much to Grey Goose, and please drink responsibly. Hello, it's Elizabeth Day here, and welcome to this one-off special mini-series of How to Fail. Now, one of the things that you wonderful listeners have repeatedly asked me to do is to feature normal people as guests on the podcast. But of course, there's no such thing as a normal person. We are all unique and interesting and resilient and contradictory and loving and wise and funny and sad and experienced in our own particular ways. We all have our stories to

tell. So in the next four episodes, I'm doing something slightly different. You'll hear from people who aren't necessarily household names about who they are and the moments that shaped them. You'll hear from them about what it means to live victoriously. It's a different format from usual. We're not discussing three failures, but we are talking about resilience and what it means to live a fulfilled life. We're talking about difficulties that have been overcome, lessons that have been learned, gratitude that has been earned, and the joy of celebrating the everyday. This is How to Fail as you've never heard it before. Ordinary people, extraordinary stories. Four weeks, four different lives. Because we can learn from everyone if we just

listen carefully enough. Today's guest is Basil Deeb. listen carefully enough. Today's guest is Basil Deeb. I'm Basil Deeb. I am 36 years old. I'm Syrian. I've been living in London for about seven years now and I work in tech companies as design operations specialist. Basil, welcome to the podcast and thank you for making time for us. I so appreciate you being here. Is it quite surreal being interviewed? I mean, for a podcast, it's my first experience and I'm a bit nervous, to be honest. Oh, please don't be nervous at all. It is just a chat between friends. But the reason that I wanted to speak to you, Basil, is that your story is so inspiring, although I know that you probably don't think of it in that way. Do you think of it in that way? Well, to be honest, I always thought of my journey so far

since I came to the UK as a privileged one in comparison to what other people have been through. No, I don't think of it as that special, to be honest. So let's start with your childhood. I know that because of news stories, we are all so accustomed to hearing about Syria in quite negative terms. But I would love to know what Syria was like when you were growing up there. What was your childhood like? Good, I think. I mean, I had a good upbringing.

My parents weren't still very loving and caring. We grew up in a neighborhood that is quite mixed in terms of religious background, which is a thing about living in Syria. We don't probably have too much diversity in terms of ethnic background, but religious background is quite mixed and you don't feel as a minority in Syria in that sense. So for instance, we were the only Christian family in the building, but yet we've never felt left out. We celebrated Ramadan with our neighbours, our neighbours came over for Christmas. So it was always that sort of like warm community feeling in the country in that sense. And I always think you can tell so much about a country from its food. What was your favourite

food when you were a child? If have to choose one it would be what we call stuffed fine leaves which is technically what it says it's finely stuffed with men's meat and rice and it's brilliantly delicious which I haven't had in ages it's great so for you it was a very safe community. And I know that it was a very influential point in your life when your mother bought a computer. So tell us about that. of family in comparison to probably the rest of the population. So we had the means to have a PC early on in our lives. So I think I was about 13 or 14 when we had the first PC. And at that time, it's a big machine that sits in the living room, obviously. And you may know that you can have Windows interface in Arabic or in English. And my mom insisted on having it in English.

We were crying to have it in Arabic because that's how we were taught, to deal with it in English. And then my mom insisted on having it in English. We were trying to have it in Arabic because that's how we were taught, to deal with it in Arabic. But she insisted on having it in English and then she brought up a dictionary and she put it next to the machine and she said, here you are, if you need anything, you can look it up. That helped, except for the fact that after 15 days we had to send the PC back to maintenance because we just screwed it up. But I think it was one of those moments in life where we started adapting to learning different languages,

although English was never my second language. My second language at school was French, and I've never actually been taught English as a language. So it was all picked up throughout the years, and I think this is one of those big moments that had allowed us to kind of like get accustomed with the language and with using technology and foreign language. So you mentioned that you celebrated Christmas and various other religious festivals how would you celebrate Christmas describe to us a typical family day

around Christmas time? I don't know if my family is a typical family day because we're not big on religion but we still have that gathering around so Christmas usually it's very similar to the UK so you have Christmas Eve where the family will gather around we would have a you know stuffed turkey even and everyone will cook their own things. So for instance, my mom is the oldest in the family, so everyone will gather after my grandfather passed away. So everyone would gather at my mom's place. So we have all the aunties and uncles. You have about 25 people in a three-bed flat,

and we will have that sort of like a long eating festive for like I don't know how many hours. Lots of them will be traveling from different cities, so they will stay over. And then on Christmas Day, it's a lazy day for us because we're not very religious, so we don't go to the mass. But I know people go to mass the night before and on Christmas Day in Damascus. And then you have the lunch, which is literally the leftovers from the previous night. And if there are families around, you go around and just celebrate with them or, you know, wish them well. It's very typical to what probably lots of the Christian families do in Western

countries. So this life that you depict with a close loving family and a feeling of safety security and community in Damascus that all changed with shattering force in 2011 when the war in Syria started how aware were you of the impact that that conflict was going to have in 2011? Not at all. I remember before 2011, it started in Egypt in 2010, early 2011. And I remember watching the news and I was speaking to my dad and asking would something like this happen in here? And we never thought it would be possible for many reasons. On one hand, the regime in Syria is way stronger than the one in Egypt. It's more structured and more tied together.

Not necessarily that's a credit to them, but that was what the situation was. So we haven't seen it happening. But then we knew that the country is struggling. People have always been under that pressure. So there was a possibility. Now, even after it started, so I don't know if you remember, but in 2011 when it started, it started all-life peaceful protests for about six months without any outcome

until the regime started having retaliation in terms of violence and then people started coming back in the same way and it turned into a sort of like a civil war. But even within these few months, no one thought that it would last for that long and it's still long going after 10 years. We always thought it would be just around the corner, specifically because, you know, we've seen in Egypt,

it was only some 17 days that they had that until the president stepped down and then they had a bit of change in the government. So we never seen it going that long and surely no one had seen it becoming a war or becoming that violent we would never have thought of it that way so you came to the uk in 2013 but what for you was the tipping point what was the moment where you thought I need to get out of my country and leave my family? I don't think it's been the plan like when I first started thinking about it it was from

professional perspective and I actually started doing an MBA by distance with Edinburgh Business School in 2010 but then I didn't feel like I can finish it being by distance. And I wanted to move to more on-campus study. And I came to the UK in 2010, actually, on a tourism visa and went to Edinburgh and went to the university and asked about how can I actually move to on-campus. And I started exploring the options around that. And I felt that the only way for me to actually be able to afford this is to have a sponsorship. So I started looking into sponsorships in 2011, 2012. And I was lucky to be granted a Chevening sponsorship in 2012, 2013. And to be offered the seat in Reading University to study.

And that's how the journey started from studying to do my master's in the UK. Tell me about when you had to go back to your flat to retrieve your belongings and what happened then? So in 2010 after I came from the UK for my holiday shortly after that I moved to my flat which was a small flat that I managed to buy outright in the suburbs of Damascus which is literally seven minutes from one of the biggest roundabouts in the east center of the city. So it's not like miles away, it's literally two or three kilometers away. So I bought a flat there, refurbished the whole thing, and moved in in probably late 2010, early 2011. And I managed to live there about a year. At that point, the uprising was getting violent

and it became more of a combat. And the suburbs of Damascus, which is the east, what they call East Ghouta, the unrest was becoming more severe in that side. And one day, I remember waking up that night with the sounds of bullets as if they were fighting underneath our windows. And I remember my friend and a colleague, a very close friend of mine, lived just opposite to me.

So I can literally just open the window and shout. And at 7 a.m., I told him, we probably need to pack our bag and just sleep somewhere else tonight and see how things go. And that night turned into five or six months and at that point when people were saying you know things are seems to be normal so I went with this same friend and his brother who also owned a flat in my building and we went in just to get some stuff out from the flat because it was winter and we didn't have any winter clothes on us and we were just literally surviving on whatever we put on that backpack six months ago so I went back to my parents place at that point so anyway

on that day we decided to go and and have a look and see what we can actually get out of the flat and we had a van with the driver to help us move some stuff the area is just outside of what is a small motorway, similar to the Northern Circular or M35. So you have one small junction that you take that exit, you are literally inside that area. And after you take that exit, you turn left and after like 100 meters and you are in our sort of like small street to the building. So the minute that you take the exit, there was a checking point for the regime, which became very, very normal at that point. There were plenty of them within the city and outside the city.

So you stop there, they see your ID, and they ask you what you're doing, and they check the car, and you go in. And when we got there, there was a queue, so we felt more comfortable that people actually are going in and out, so it seems like things are getting slightly more more normal and then we went in we passed that checkpoint and after 100 meters we took the left street and literally the minute that we turned left we were stopped by another checkpoint but this time it was a rebel checkpoint and it took

a bit of time to understand I'm laughing about it now but trust me it wasn't a laughing point at that point so it took us a bit of time to kind of like just comprehend the idea that these two who are fighting they literally have between them only a small wall if they peek from the top of that wall they can actually see each other it was crazy and the guy stopped us and took our ids and at that point there was a lot of talk about the rebels being sunnis and such like conservatives and all of that and the three of us were christian and you can tell from our ids like for instance my dad's name is ge. So it directly gives away the religious background, although it's not mentioned on our national IDs. Yet the guy, when he looked at it, he welcomed us and he called us as brothers.

And he asked us, what are you doing here? It's not safe. You are literally on the fire line. And we were like, we just need to get some stuff out. And he was like, yeah, go in, but be very quick. So we went in and we passed by our building but underneath our building it was like a movie with heavy machines and sandbags and people scattered around it felt like a war movie scene because it was so sweet for us to see that

and experience it firsthand and we went around and we parked behind the building and the guys were like you need to be very quick and taking the stuff and we parked behind the building and the guys were like you need to be very quick and taking the stuff and they pointed at my building and they said if you go into that building just be worried that if you're taking the stairs obviously the electricity was shut so you can't take the lift they have to go up using the stairs and he's like just be careful because this building is showing on the main road and there are snipers around. And I started running upstairs. After I got upstairs, I noticed I was having my suitcase on my back, thinking that I'm protecting my head, which is silly because obviously it's not going to do anything. Yet

alone, it's an empty suitcase. But anyway, we went to the flat and it was all dark because I had electric shutters on the windows and there's no electricity. So we just literally tried to grab whatever we can blindly and just went downstairs. I was waiting for my friends to come from their building when our van driver decided to answer a phone call. He was saying, yeah, we're just two meters and not too far, just after the checkpoint to the left. Yeah, yeah, it's not far. And then I heard this guy who was storming towards him and shouting, saying, why are you giving your location? Who are you giving your location to?

Who are you talking to? Hand up the phone and all of that. And he was accusing him of being, you know, informative for the regime, and he's giving the location of the rebels, and started shouting and threatening him to take him to prison and and I was literally standing in the middle between these two times go so slowly in these moments probably was like less than two minutes but you know all that you can think of that this guy can literally just shoot the other one in front of my face now I can't do anything about it I tried to

intervene which was silly of me as well to kind of kind of like say to him, well, don't worry, the guy is with us. He's no harm. And he said to me, well, give me your idea as well then. And then he asked him to call back and to put the person on speakerphone. The rebel guy started pretending that he's part of the intelligence in the regime and trying to trick the other person on the call to say anything that would give any information that would tell if the driver is actually with or against them. Luckily, the guy did not say anything. He was just very neutral in his answers. And the rebel guy seemed to be the leader of the group there. He was satisfied and he let us leave. And at that moment, they were like, you need to move very quickly because the checkpoints will be closed in a bit.

I don't know. I still, until this day, I don't know how they knew that. We drove around. We went back to the outside on the main road, trying to go to the exit again to the motorway. So you have to queue again on the checkpoint of the regime. And suddenly the whole queue stopped. And two seconds after that shooting

started and we were literally in the middle so all we can do is to follow what everyone else was doing which is take a u-turn and drive further down in the suburbs and the rebel sort of like held the area at that point and keep driving not knowing when we're going to go out or from where or whether we'll sleep there or whatever it took us about three hours to go around to a different exit and go back and at that point that was the last time I've seen that area and I told my friends you can forget about it because it would be bombed soon because these people are literally under our building so you can forget about the building which was the case the building was which was your home you had to forget about your home yeah yeah it was literally everything that i had in saving of 10

years of working in that flat also with the help of my parents my brother had a flat in that building my friend had a flat in the building next to it and his brother had a flat in my building so we're trying to kind of like create a sense of community in that area. And we moved in all together at the same place. And we all left our houses there, our flats. Basil, I'm so sorry that you went through that. You managed to get to the UK. And I know that you had a limited amount of savings in your pocket to live on and you

started volunteering at the credit union but in order to save money you couldn't afford a bus fare so you used to walk to and from your work every day and while you were doing that you were applying for asylum which I know is a very difficult and often exhausting process can you tell us a little bit about what that's like to go through seeking asylum I think the difficult part of it is not going through the process is understanding and accepting the fact which is that you're not going back I think that's the tricky part, and that's the most difficult bit to make peace with. And then you get hit by the home office processes to make it even worse, to be honest. The process itself is not, if you think about it, if you stand outside and just read about

the process, it's not bad. But living the process is a different thing. You know, I don't blame anyone because they're overwhelmed with cases going to the home office was an experience by itself because it's really really challenging emotionally to be there and i can only imagine those people who are doing this job every day talking to people who i mean god knows what stories they hear so i can't blame them if they are not the most happy people in their job. So that comes across, obviously, when you are on the receiving part of it.

To make that decision, to make peace with it and accept that you can't go back. And different people have that for different reasons. And then you go through the process to apply, you wait. Literally just wait. You don't know when, you don't know for how long, you don't know what's going to happen next. There's very few support. I mean, I consider myself as an educated person.

I can find my own information. I can seek advice from what I can. And I was really struggling to do that. So you often rely on people that you know, that you ask, if they've been through it before, if they know anyone who has been through it before and try to kind of like understand what's going to happen next or what's the best way to go ahead with it. So you have your first session, which they call it the screening session, which is literally just to take your application through

and take the first statement. Then you wait again without knowing for how long. I was really lucky that my whole process took about four months. I know people who with a straightforward case as the Syrian case, it took them about nine months to get the outcome. It's a waiting game and you then wait until you have your case heard by a caseworker. At one point, which is an interesting process, they ask you to speak to someone on the phone without giving any information of who you are. They will speak to you in your native language and the dialect of the city that you claim that you came from. So as you can imagine, the north of Syria would have a slightly different accent than the south. And if you're claiming that you're coming from Aleppo, which is in the north,

they will have someone from that city speaking to you about the town itself, about how to get from A to B, about what you've done in your life, where did you go out with your friends. And try to see if you're trying to trick the system by claiming that you are Syrian from Aleppo, but you're not. Which is a clever process, to be honest. But it is weird, because they don't tell you what's going to happen. They just ask you to answer the phone, for instance. It must make you feel so uncertain and so stuck in a kind of limbo at the same time as you are carrying on and living your life and volunteering at the credit union. And I know you received your grant for asylum on Christmas Eve in 2014

and on the 2nd of January 2015 you had a job at the credit union and you started paying taxes and I just really think that's so important for everyone to hear that you wanted to be a member of society and that your story despite what you went through is such a story of society and that your story, despite what you went through, is such a story of triumph over adversity. And I wanted to ask you, Pasol, what do you think those experiences of living in a war zone for two years, then going through the asylum system, what has that taught you about resilience? I mean, it's a very unique thing to go through. And I can understand how difficult it might be for others to actually feel it because you can't until you are in these shoes, you can you can try to empathize with the situation. But having to start your life from

scratch is one thing. I'm sure there are plenty of people who had to do that. But having started from scratch with a new country, a new language, with a badge of refugee, which I take it with honour, but lots of people treated differently. And the fact that you are not allowed to work while you're waiting for your asylum, I must say that sometimes they give that bite, but I didn't have it. But at the same time, you want to do something, otherwise you go mental, and you want to fill your time to contribute to start building a life, which they are sort of like holding you from starting because of the waiting process. And that's why I started volunteering.

Again, I still think of it as I've been really lucky with everything that I went through. I'm sure that a lot of people have been through way worse journeys, but I was lucky in the way that things have worked out for me. The fact that I started volunteering and literally the first day of the following year, I had a job, which was paying me part-time salary but it made me feel part of the community made me feel part of a new society that I'm trying to go in I think these moments matters in building that resilience it's this cycle of internal validation is important otherwise the resilience by itself I don't think it will be enough for the long run. I love that so much it's those everyday moments that because of what you've been through you're probably especially equipped to notice

that give you as you say that internal validation that lends you the strength to keep going but I know that you have had an interesting journey in terms of celebrating the everyday yeah because in the past you weren't great at it but you've got better haven't you Basil tell us about the beach trip that's one of my favorite stories well I mean for context as you mentioned honestly I didn't know that I failed in celebrating my life until I of doing therapy sessions while I was working. And during those sessions with my therapist, we talked about this concept and we talked about how all of this journey that I've been through, from getting that first letter of invitation to do my scholarship interview, for instance,

to getting the scholarship, the visa, studying, graduating, getting an distinction in my master's, getting asylum, finding a job, and then moving to London. And all of that, I've noticed I've never actually stopped and been happy and celebrate these milestones or these achievements in life. It was always a race, sort of like a treadmill race from point A to B, but you're kind of like just running in your spot. And we talked about this and I had this moment of what I call a moment of insight. When I was driving south earlier this summer for my birthday, I hired a car to drive from Eastbourne to Hastings to Brighton.

And at one point I took a side road specifically to go by what looked like on the map it's a small street by the beach and I remember getting stuck in that small street and it was there was no beach on either side it was just houses and at one point the houses on the left stopped and you literally had the beach on your left and the pebbles scattered on the road. And I looked at it and I, you know, I was so glad that I've seen that. It looked beautiful. It was a sunset and everything. Everything that you need in that sort of like landscape was there.

But I carried on because my sat-nav was set to go to Brighton. So I went to Brighton. And then after I got there, it's like, what stopped me from actually parking like everyone else on that beach by the pebbles and just take it in enjoy it there's nothing I had nothing waiting for me in Brighton I was not rushing to get anything it was just that the sat-nav was set to that point B and I was heading there and all I can think of is getting to that point and I was talking to my therapist about this and I said to her actually this is the metaphor of my life this

is how I've been living my life from point A to B without stopping on these moments in between to think and appreciate and take it in so when I got my car recently on a lease. I called it Pebble for that reason. And I started driving it randomly. I love that. So you're just taking random drives and soaking up, I don't know, the glory of an autumnal tree, trying to do that. I think so many people will relate to that, myself included.

I think we can all be so conditioned to drive along life as if it's a motorway and there are certain pit stops represented by school exams or promotions and we forget as you say to celebrate those beautiful moments of the mundane so the real question is what are you going to celebrate next because I know you've got a new job so how did you celebrate that? I've got quite a few to celebrate in September so I had the offer that was a good thing I celebrated passing my life in the UK test I can tick that box and I stopped to celebrate my journey with my former employer now as of today ClearScore and celebrate the people that I've met, celebrated the moments that we've had together, wrote a long message that people hated me for reading. I'm just kidding,

they did not. But it's just to kind of like stop and rethink about these small moments from things that goes by without thinking. One of them, for instance, I mentioned in my interview process, for instance, I remember the hiring manager at that point, she told me, look, Basil, I don't think we are the right fit for you. And my response to her at that point was I begged her to say it and then I made it my case. And then surprisingly, she got convinced and she invited me actually to a face-to-face interview. But then thinking about it, she did not say you're not the right fit for us she said we're not the right fit for you and I think even those small changes in our narratives and the way that we present ourselves makes a huge difference and it stayed with me two years after that this is one of the things that she said and

it made me feel empowered that actually no I am the right fit for you and you are the right fit for me and I made my case for it so I took the time and think about these moments and mentioned these to people and thanking them for those opportunities that they gave me and looking forward to start a new job on Monday. Basaltib, you are an inspiration to us all. The right fit for this podcast, beyond a doubt. And you said earlier that you wore your status as refugee as a badge of honour. And I have to say, it has been my honour to hear your story today. Thank you so, so much.

Thank you so much for having me. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.