Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Career fulfillment and success is conventionally measured by things like title, prestige, compensation, among other things. But today, we’re going to look at career fulfillment and success through a slightly different lens. We’re going to look at things like mindset, failure, resilience, relationships, health and fitness, mental health and legacy. My guest today is Chemain Braman, a fellow speaker at the HR Wellness and Executive Summit, October 12th through the 14th in Atlanta, Georgia. Chemane, welcome to the Life Fulfill podcast.
Shamayne Braman [00:00:42]:
Thank you, Bernie. So glad to be here.
Bernie Borges [00:00:44]:
Well, I’m glad to have you. Let’s get right into it. Shamay, I want to know, let’s start with when you came out of grad school, what were you thinking your career journey was going to look like?
Shamayne Braman [00:00:54]:
I love this question because it’s so different than the journey I actually took. I graduated fully expecting that I would go into a lifelong career as an educator. I joined Teach for America and thought that I would teach for a few years and then perhaps move into school leadership. And with my fellow Teach for America corps members and educators, we would close the achievement gap and sort of ride off into the. Into the sunset. That was the original plan from which my career has well and truly deviated.
Bernie Borges [00:01:24]:
Well, let’s unpack that a little bit, because I know just a little bit about that part of your story, Shimane. And, you know, we talked about the different aspects of your career journey that we’re going to touch on, and one of them is failure and resilience. So why don’t you tell that story that you shared with me about what you experienced at Teach for America and how. And it was not just a failure, but how you also bounced back from that.
Shamayne Braman [00:01:52]:
You know, it’s one of, I think, the most powerful lessons that I learned early in my career, and it’s something that I carry with me into all of my professional experiences, even now. I joined Teach for America at a time when the organization, and it’s still very much focused on this, was really emphasizing making sure that students could see themselves reflected in the classroom. And as a result, they were heavily recruiting teachers of color and teachers who shared similar backgrounds to the students that we’d be working with. And so when I joined, I expected that, you know, I chose a school that was where I was fortunate to be placed to, a school five minutes away from where I grew up. And so I thought, this will be, you know, walk in the park. I share the racial identity of my students. I know the neighborhoods that they grew up in. We have community and background in history and I don’t think anything prepared me for the immediate rejection that was stepping into that classroom.
Shamayne Braman [00:02:47]:
While I shared a lot of demographic experiences with my students, I’d also lived a very different life than many of them had. And I think coming to a place where I assumed that those relationships and that credibility would exist right off the bat was one of my first mistakes in the classroom. And so really learning how to take a step from that pause, blank slate it and really think about what does it look like to build meaningful relationships with my students before I can ever expect anything from them by way of achievement. And you know, one of the things I think I shared with you as I was reflecting on the experience was that it was an early lesson for me in that before you can expect people to deliver any sort of result before they can achieve outcomes or execute, one of the most important things is that they feel seen and cared for and that they have, and that relationships, real relationships, meaningful relationships are in place. And so it was an early lesson for me in the importance of that and bringing my authenticity as a lever for cultivating those relationships.
Bernie Borges [00:03:48]:
So in the context of resilience as an attribute that is part of your journey, did you realize during that experience that you needed to be resilient or was it an unconscious, competent kind of a thing, Shemaine where you just did it and then maybe a little bit down the road you reflected back on that to realize just how much you were resilient from that experience?
Shamayne Braman [00:04:14]:
I don’t know that I would have used the language of resilience to describe the experience in the classroom at all. First, I think it was just a matter of, like, the kids are counting on us to show up tomorrow and bring the best of what we had to bring and be better than we were yesterday. Honestly, some days be at least don’t drop the ball. We were, we were so young in the experience. I don’t think I would have described it as resilience, but I do think there was an expectation of grit. We were spending our time talking to our kids about what grit looked like and how they persevered through much bigger challenges than, I think, what we were facing as first year teachers. And so I think it was also, what I probably didn’t realize at the time was that it was also very much a lesson in grit for me and my fellow corps members as well. I think in hindsight we might describe it as, you know, it had some of the characteristics of resilience, but I think it was really just a combination of grit and commitment.
Shamayne Braman [00:05:15]:
And a very, very clear purpose around what it was that we were in those classrooms to do and really choosing to treat privilege and something that needed to be regarded with care and consistently showing up.
Bernie Borges [00:05:28]:
So really, if I could sum up that part of your experience, when you went into that role, you felt like you were aligned with your students from a demographic standpoint, but what you discovered was that perhaps the psychographics were not necessarily as aligned as you had anticipated, and that’s what caused a different experience that you were expecting. So let’s segue now into the topic of mindset. And how does mindset fit into that experience? And how did you carry that with you forward into your career journey?
Shamayne Braman [00:06:03]:
Yeah, you know, I think it was just some of my earliest lessons in humility and curiosity and openness and willingness to learn. As I mentioned, I expected immediate connection with my students, and then off we could go with the work that needed to get done. And, gosh, what would I do with the remaining six months of the school year after I’d closed the achievement gap? Which is, like, comical to think about now. And I think that those first experiences where I realized that my students had actually many of the things that I’d held. You know, you talked earlier about some of those accolades that we define success by. Many of the accolades, my education, going to an Ivy League school, et cetera, that I’d held as really sacred to me for many of my students, it signaled that I had rejected our community and that I was not at all a part of the community that I thought that I felt so. So close to. And it took humility and curiosity and openness to take a step back and understand a How do I sort of repair that sense of trust? What do I need to learn about my students and about the community as it is today, as opposed to the assumptions that I came into it with? And how can I be open both in allowing their lived experiences to become a part of my teaching practice, but also open about who I am so that they could see the humanity as opposed to some of the titles or the accolades.
Shamayne Braman [00:07:27]:
I think the way I carry that into my professional career now as Chief People Officer and as an HR executive is there are so many things in the HR space that my colleagues have to teach me. And oftentimes when you’re stepping into a role or a new experience and maybe you don’t have all of the traditional experiences and skill that, you know, a role might bring to the table, how you come from a place of humility and curiosity and openness and A willingness to learn and listen and really soak up the wisdom of the people around you, I think, is the mindset that those early days in the classroom taught me and the recognition that that is, in fact, not failure. It is not a sense of not being qualified. What it is is being honest and inviting the wisdom of the people around you into your practice to make you better. And I think there’s a strength in leadership in that that I’m grateful to have learned for him.
Bernie Borges [00:08:21]:
You mentioned the importance of the relationships that you had to build with your students and how it was not what you expected, but you realized that it was something that you were going to have to really focus on, and you obviously did. How did that relationship pillar, if you will, from a career standpoint, how did that carry forward with you as you moved out of education and into HR and then, you know, experiencing chief people officer role? How has that relationship pillar really shaped this part of your career journey?
Shamayne Braman [00:08:56]:
Yeah, you know, my career has spanned a number of industries. I began in education. I worked in healthcare and retail and tech. When I think about the through line across all of the spaces I’ve had the privilege of working, I think it really stems from a recognition. What is core to me in my leadership is deep care for people and the sense that whether it is helping a child in a classroom see their future potential and then work really, really relentlessly towards closing that gap, or helping a colleague achieve something professionally that is important to them or develop or grow, or helping a workforce rate a group of folks develop in a way that maybe had been previously not accessible to them. I think all of those are demonstrations of the same core value, which is caring deeply about people and wanting to help them achieve whatever opportunities are available to them and doing everything that is in my power to close the gap between whatever that current state is and what those opportunities might be. And so I think building an HR career coming out of the classroom didn’t feel like a major leap because that through line was so clear in terms of why I was there and the impact that I wanted to have as a number of roles in a number of industries.
Bernie Borges [00:10:19]:
Well said. And you read my mind. I was thinking the same thing. You know, coming out of education, you had a great foundation for that human connection, which, of course is so important in HR executive roles. So where I want to go next is one thing that we share in common is an affinity for health and fitness. And I’d love to know how health and fitness fits into your career journey.
Shamayne Braman [00:10:45]:
Yes, I think other than it is probably my other career, my hidden career that I. That anyone who works with me would probably laugh at, because it’s not uncommon for me to be drinking a green juice in a meeting or encouraging my colleague to join me in some crazy health and fitness challenge. But, you know, I think there are a few things that health and fitness do. One is I’ve just been fascinated by the science of longevity, personally. I have seen so many folks in my own community and in my family experience illness and disease and the way in which that’s impacted my life. And so I think it’s created sort of a sense of what does different look like and how are health and fitness perhaps vehicles to something, to a different quality of life. But I think the other thing that is really valuable from my perspective is that I’m accomplishing something from a physical perspective or a mental perspective or something that makes you feel good on the inside is such a beautiful mirror for what is possible professionally. So I love to start my day with those accomplishments and a win or two in my toolkit before or in my bag before I even step foot into a meeting or into a conversation with others or into a business problem or a challenge.
Shamayne Braman [00:12:00]:
So I think there’s an element of that. And then I think the flip side is true, too. I find the practice of whether it’s running or cooking and being creative, I find them to be really great outlets for some of my thinking as well. And so I love for them to sort of bookend, bookend my day. And the last thing I’ll say about it is, I think so much of hr, at least, is about offering what you have to others. And so you are constantly pouring from yourself. How can you offer advice, guidance, a listening ear, a point of view, perspective, challenge? And so I find whatever routines he keep me healthy and fit is also just really important for replenishing my cup. I think it’s very difficult to pour from an empty cup.
Shamayne Braman [00:12:48]:
And so those practices make sure that I always have something to give in my professional space as well. So there’s value there, too.
Bernie Borges [00:12:56]:
Well, I love how you connected to your career. I love your point about before you hit a meeting, you’ve already achieved something. And as you know, Shimane, my definition of fulfillment is the second most powerful emotion in our humanity, second only to love. And fulfillment is associated with an achievement of some sort. So that fulfillment that you experience every morning when you’ve completed whatever it is that you did that morning from a health and fitness standpoint. And while we won’t get into the details. I will give you a shout out for having completed a 75 hard fitness challenge. And I’m going to look that up and find it and put a link to it in the show notes so my listener can go check out what a 75 hard fitness challenge is and then drop their jaw and they read about it.
Bernie Borges [00:13:40]:
Because that is an impressive, impressive fitness endeavor. Especially when you consider that you’re not a professional athlete. You actually, you know, you go to work after your morning routine. So that is fantastic. And you also touched on the mental aspect. I want to go there and let’s go there next because I think she mean mental health is not given the attention and the priority that it warrants and it deserves. You know, we all deal with the stuff we deal with in life and life just gets more, not less complex. So what’s the role of mental health in your career journey?
Shamayne Braman [00:14:20]:
You know, it is, I think, something that as least as, at least as an HR leader and practitioner, I don’t think we talk enough about it for ourselves. Some of that I think being the sense that, gosh, we it’s our responsibility to support employees from a mental health perspective and to support others. So the idea that our own mental health is something that requires similar care intending to, I think can be something that is really easy to shy away from or reject. I also will say that Caribbean Guyanese woman, at least in the black community, it is something that is an ongoing conversation about how we embrace the importance of tending to our mental health. I think for me it has been about finding quiet in my day. A dear friend of mine recently gifted me an amazing book that I highly recommend called the Ambition Trap. And it talks about this idea of sort of purposeful and painful ambition. And I think what it eliminated for me is, is the sense that so often the idea of sort of stillness and quiet or time and space to do nothing or time and space to reflect is not always viewed as time well spent because it’s not time in sort of overt traditional sense of productivity.
Shamayne Braman [00:15:40]:
And I think one of the things that I’m learning through mental health is that is actually so important is to have stillness and quiet to start the day with whatever my thoughts might be, embracing them, honoring them, acknowledging them. And then I think the second thing is another huge component of mental health and learning is being comfortable, asking for help and rejecting sort of the sense that I think many of us who, whether it’s millennials or certain demographics, feel this sense of needing to always portray perfectionism and sense of achievement and being able to say, gosh, today I really need help, whether that’s reaching out to a therapist, speaking to someone that you feel comfortable sharing with, and that there is no sense of shame in that, and that the practice of taking care of ourselves is the thing that allows us to have the capacity to care for others, and even if it didn’t, that we are worth taking care of in of itself, sort of point blank. And so I would say I’m on a journey around those things, and I imagine that, you know, there’s a lot more for me to learn in this space, but those are the two that I’m holding true for myself these days.
Bernie Borges [00:16:46]:
And it sounds to me like that’s a flag that you’re waving in your professional circles, right? So that it’s not just something that’s important to you individually, but also important to the people that you can impact through your career as an HR executive.
Shamayne Braman [00:17:02]:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, maybe a couple of months ago, I was at a speaking engagement and another one of the keynote speakers shared an incredibly powerful story about her journey with mental health. And what it illuminated for me was when we’re comfortable sharing our stories, when we create safe, psychologically safe spaces for these conversations to exist, we give people permission to share their own stories, too. I think, particularly post pandemic, there is data that shows that we are spending more time alone and in isolation than ever, and that there is very much sort of a crisis around anxiety and mental health, at least in the United States, if not more broadly. And I think one of the things that getting creating spaces where we can talk about these things really allows us for people to realize that they are not alone and that many of the challenges of navigating our mental health and our anxiety post pandemic are things that others are dealing with as well. And I think what it does is it takes away stigma and shame around that and creates space for conversation where people can feel seen and heard and as importantly, connected with others, which I think is so important right now.
Bernie Borges [00:18:13]:
Was that the same conference where you spoke on the topic of loneliness?
Shamayne Braman [00:18:17]:
It was not, but I know which conference you are talking about, and I do sometimes pull threads from that into other speaking engagements as well. Yeah.
Bernie Borges [00:18:26]:
Okay. Because I remember when I first read about that, for some reason, my brain, you know, sometimes when you reach something, your brain thinks it’s something else. And when I saw the word, I thought it was loneliness, but it’s not. It’s loneliness. So I’d love for you to touch on that and just briefly Share that topic.
Shamayne Braman [00:18:48]:
Yeah, it is something that I have really reflected on in my career. I have had the immense privilege, and I really do see it as a privilege of being able to be in spaces that five year old me could never, you know, just immigrated to the United States, growing up in a low income community just outside of Newark, single mom, could never have imagined being in. And so while I’m grateful for those experiences, it’s also meant that frequently I am the only one or one of very few in many of the spaces that I occupy. And for a really long time, especially coming from a background that was not, you know, sort of traditional HR I mentioned, I started as a teacher coming from that background, I oftentimes saw that through a deficit lens, right? What am I missing in this space? Where do I not measure up? Because I am, you know, in this sort of typical imposter syndrome we kick out. And I think what has evolved over time as they’ve sat in these spaces more and more is the sense that this is actually not a deficit. This is a tremendous asset. It’s an opportunity for organization still today have primarily, you know, homogenous leadership teams to have a perspective that is different and may see things through a different lens and can ask questions, questions that others may not necessarily perceive. And that there’s value, there’s give and take value in that.
Shamayne Braman [00:20:09]:
And really how do I embrace that and see that as an asset? One of the things I talk about is having needed some of those credentials we talked about earlier, right? Whether it’s, you know, Princeton or Harvard or things like that. I used to think about sort of how far off campus do I need to move before all of the accolades that gave me credibility go away. And I’m just sort of a black woman walking down the street and what’s the perception there? And I think what I’ve learned to do is sort of move away from some of those accolades as giving me a sense of belonging in the spaces that I occupy and recognizing that my lived experiences and the diversity that those experiences bring and that many others experiences bring are in of themselves value enough. And that the spaces that we occupy, it is their privilege, right, to be able to have those perspectives included. And so that’s what the talk is about. And it’s an invitation to organizations to think expansively about them.
Bernie Borges [00:21:04]:
I think it’s a great segue to touch on the final attribute that I teed up in the opening and that final attribute that we haven’t really addressed specifically yet is legacy. And as you know, Chemain I look at legacy as not being limited to how we are remembered after we’re gone, but I look at legacy primarily, first and foremost as how we have an impact on people today. In other words, our legacy is today. So I think much of what you have shared already is touching on that legacy pillar, but I’d love to hear from you specifically on how you’re thinking about legacy and your career journey.
Shamayne Braman [00:21:42]:
Yeah, one of the most inspiring marketers that I know has a quote. She talks a lot about this idea of helping people live not just the length of their lives, but the breadth and width of their lives as well. And I shared it with my husband a few weeks ago. I was like, I really love that framing for the idea of legacy. You know, I talked earlier, we chatted a few moments ago about caring deeply about people and that care transcending, whether it’s professionally helping close some of those gaps, access to opportunities, professional or education or otherwise. And then personally, that care being how do I help my family understand about nutrition and movement and how do I inspire my aging parents to find fitness in their older years, whatever that sense of care looks like, really being a through line. And I think for me, I’d like my legacy to be not just sort of having impact within and outside of the organizations that I’m a part of, but really helping people find that depth and width and breadth in addition to obviously the length of the lives that we all live. And I think for me that that is through some of the experience that I’ve shared here and is the impact I hope to continue to have on folks within the organizations I work with as well as my community.
Bernie Borges [00:23:05]:
Well, she mean that is very inspiring that along with everything you shared in your career journey, as we said at the beginning of our conversation, wanted to take a little bit of a unconventional look at career fulfillment and career success. And really thank you for sharing your story, your journey again, very inspirational. Someone listening today. If they want to connect with you, what’s the best place for me to send them to and link it up in the show notes?
Shamayne Braman [00:23:32]:
Yes, I wish I could say I was savvy and had the tiktoks and all the things that you can find me on LinkedIn is one of the easiest places to find me. Thank you so much for having me, Bernie. It was wonderful to connect with you.
Bernie Borges [00:23:43]:
Absolutely. Shemaine, thank you for joining me today. Of course your LinkedIn URL profile will be linked up in the show notes for this episode. And again, I want to thank you for providing the inspiration you provided today. I look forward to meeting you in person at the upcoming HR Wellness and Executive Summit and look forward to connecting with you then.
Shamayne Braman [00:24:01]:
I look forward to it as well.
