Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello everyone, welcome to this read and carry on edition of Carry On Friends, where we carry on about the books that we're reading, and those books are typically books by people of Caribbean heritage, and I am excited to kick off this new series with Nicole Dubois. Thank you for agreeing to be part of this inaugural series. And so why don't we tell the community of friends, the audience, the readers, the listeners, a little bit about who you are, the book we are going to talk about, and then me pick up where you drop off.

Speaker 2: 0:45

drop off. Thank you so much, carrie-anne, and thank you so much for having me on this show and this inaugural version of your show. So I am Nicole Dubois. That is not my birth name, but I am a human resources executive. I'm originally from the Bronx, new York right, and my entire family's Jamaican. I was born in the Bronx and raised there.

Speaker 2: 1:05

I actually published a memoir and I published it under a pseudonym. I published it last year and my pseudonym is Danielle M Bryan, and there's a whole story around that which we probably will get to. But I chose the name because Bryan is my mother's maiden name and Danielle is the name that my mother almost gave me, you know, and so until I think it was someone she was working with that said, oh, I'm gonna name my dog Danielle, and so she changed her mind, right. So that's how I chose the name and, you know, I would love to, as we go further in this conversation, talk more about my choice to publish under a pen name and then to be talking about the book. You know, as me myself, is like a whole transformative experience, but I'm actually really happy to be doing so today.

Speaker 1: 2:00

All right, before we get into it, did you say a little bit about what the book is about?

Speaker 2: 2:09

No, that's right, that's right. That's an important piece, right, the meat of it. So in 2016, I was going through a period of what I refer to sometimes as cascading challenges, right? So one is I was married to someone who I had been with since I was 19. And so for almost 17 years, I was a mother to a child. That was, he was about five at that time and you know, as someone in her mid thirties was diagnosed with a chronic illness, right, an invisible chronic illness which is known as multiple sclerosis.

Speaker 2: 2:50

So there was like everything on my shoulders, and when I decided that I was going to divorce, I literally wrote my ex-husband a letter, I left it on the refrigerator and I said, by the time you're going to get this, I'm going to be on my way on a plane to Greece, right? And so I took a two week journey, solo journey to Greece. I went to Athens, I went to Mykonos, I went to Santorini and I took my iPad with me and I started writing because that's all I could figure out how to do. Right, and I remember climbing to the top of the Acropolis of Athens and getting to the top, a journey which you know I don't know how many of your audience you know has taken. But let me tell you something you know it's majestic and the steps are all marble and you know it's slippery and it's uneven and when you get to the top it's like my gosh, I'm like on the top of the world. There was a moment of clarity I think that happened for me when I got to the top of the Acropolis, but I kept on writing and that was a part of my healing and my, you know, sorting out how do I sort of get to the other side of this.

Speaker 2: 3:56

You know, bubble of challenges that I was facing at the time I knew I was going to become a single parent. You know, for the first time I knew that I was going to become a single parent. You know, for the first time I knew that I was an executive. You know, and my gosh, you know, suppose this illness that I newly was diagnosed with was going to be debilitating.

Speaker 2: 4:14

There were so many things, and so I continued to write and I figured that you know, I'm not alone in this world, right, I didn't invent divorce, I didn't invent multiple sclerosis or serious chronic illnesses, and there has to be some body, some bodies, some women that could connect with my story, because when I was looking for books that spoke to something similar to my experience, I didn't find any that were written by anybody of color or anybody that was of Caribbean heritage. I didn't, you know. So I said, man, maybe there's something unique about my story and there's a reason that that I need to to to do this for my own healing. But there's a reason why I, you know, have a purpose, you know, which is to write my story and to share it with others. So that's, that's what my book is about All right, wonderful.

Speaker 1: 5:06

So we're going to get into the book. The first that me want to ask you and you kind of allude to it a little bit in the book from your own behavior when you find out you're sick and you try all of your Jesus might hide it from your coworkers, right, and you know a Jamaican family why you got to carry business on the road, why you got to tell all our business. Now help me get to how we get from that not wanting to tell your co-workers you're sick so you can't go to the hospital Family we don't tell people we're business to a memoir which is literally telling you business. So talk to me about that.

Speaker 2: 5:48

All of the business. Yes, I think that just the way that you describe it is the way that it happened, right? So it was. There were different milestones where I felt like I was pushing myself just a little further, and you know, just a little further.

Speaker 2: 6:03

And I remember, a few months before I actually went live with the book and I published a book I was struggling with, you know, do I publish under my name, right? What is my mother going to say? What is my family going to say? And I remember one of the first things I did when I got to that point of my journey is I shared it with my cousin, my dear cousin, which I'm an only child, right? So only children connect with their cousins, right? And so I shared it with my cousin. I was like, take a read, right, Because it talks about the family and everything. And do you think, you know, it goes too far? People are going to be upset, People are going to be mad. And when she read it and she said she read it in three sittings and it read to her, you know, almost like a novel I said, okay, maybe I can do this, but I decided almost at the final hour, okay, let me try to protect folks that are mentioned in the story by changing not only their names but also publishing under this other name. And then, lo and behold, Carrie, and you know what happened.

Speaker 2: 7:00

When I finally published it, my mother, she was like oh, you wrote this whole book about me. There's one chapter about her. Let me tell you there's one. There's 26 chapters in the book, one chapter that says mother.

Speaker 2: 7:12

And she said you wrote this book about me. Everybody knows about it. I said how you know? So I think, in just testing the waters and going, just, you know, first it was my editor is reading it and giving me feedback, and then my now new husband he's not that new anymore, but you know Reddit and friends and so on. And then when I had my cousin read it, I said, okay, I'm a little closer, you know, until ultimately getting to the point when I said I think I could do this, but I knew at that moment that I wouldn't probably have been able to do it if I published it on my real name at that point, so let's talk about you, know, because before we even decided to do this recording, I'm like all right, nicole, I think I want to have you on the podcast, but tell me how this is going to work.

Speaker 2: 8:00

How it's going to work.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Yeah, like we're undercover what is happening, but then you're on camera, yeah, so walk me through this process of now deciding that I'm a publisher's book. Okay, maybe I'm a publisher under the pseudonym All right, no forget, pseudonym Me Big Bag Nicole publishing this book.

Speaker 2: 8:23

I love the way you put that, yeah, but so I'll tell you what happened. Last fall. I actually participated in my first book expo, right, and so you know, I got the custom tablecloth, everything and I had my books and I'm sitting there and it was actually a phenomenal event here in New Jersey, where I now live, and there was a guest speaker that was a part of the event, who is a council person, that's local to the town where I live, and so she was talking about personal branding and she invited authors there were like maybe 40-something authors that were set up at the event to talk about their own process of branding and getting their name out and getting their book out and all that. So let me tell you something I'm an introvert through and through, which doesn't make sense, because I wrote this memoir, this personal story. This doesn't make sense. Everything is like contradictory. I get it.

Speaker 2: 9:19

So I raised my hand and I said I'll take the mic. I took the mic and so I'm speaking to the room about my own, you know, sort of experience and I said, well, you know, well, in my day life, I'm a human resources executive and so you know, I wrote this story, but it's sort of personal and I kind of decided not to expose, you know, the real me, and so in doing so, I had to create different social media accounts, like I have, you know, social media for the book, and then I have, like LinkedIn. I probably got like 6,000 connections or whatever it is, but I've had to keep the two separate. Even on LinkedIn, when I first published a book, I was excited about it and I said, oh, you know, I want, I want my followers, my connections, to know about this book from a friend, right, and the woman she responded to me and she said listen, I need you to hear something from me.

Speaker 2: 10:09

She said you can't be two people, baby Right. She said your experience, your journey, your pain, your everything that is a part of who you are. And, carrie Ann, I got chills in that moment. I felt like I get chills, just you saying it. I man, the tears started flowing and I'm not a crier, you know. The tears started flowing and I said she's so damn right. She's damn right.

Speaker 1: 10:38

I feel like so, as I was reading the book.

Speaker 1: 10:41

You are my cousin Simone, literally, because Simone is our only child, and when me come from Jamaica, I'm here with Simone, right, but I feel like and as I was reading it, in your experience, I really got it, and which is why when people say, oh yeah, yankee Pitney, you're born here, I'm like no, you are a Jamaican, because the habits, the mindset, a lot of it you inherit from your parents and your family, and you know. I just want to be clear, I didn't shame you about not telling the co-workers because, best believe, a lot of us will do it Me want to ask you how you're managing, now that you're out, that you write this book. How do you manage that with your corporate life? Because you know we are boxes and they don't touch each other because that's what we do. So how are you managing, like your professional, the head of HR, because this is what y'all think. She claims that she's in the HR at Ray Tate. No, yeah, talk to me about you know, like, getting over that mindset and then we'll talk a little bit about the book.

Speaker 1: 11:55

I don't want to give some spoilers, but there were some things in the book where I was just like go ahead?

Speaker 2: 12:01

No, absolutely. So, you know, again, everything is like I don't know how to say other than tiptoeing and sort of you know, okay, I went this far, maybe I could go just a few steps further. And so, after that experience at the Book Expo, I came back and I had a conversation with my boss, who's our CEO, and I said I just want you to know I wrote this book. And she said what? And she said you know cause she, she gets it. She, you know, she spent a time around a lot of Caribbean people or people of Caribbean descent. She's like it's not about telling your business, but then, if anybody, especially in this world where social media is so prevalent or whatever it was to happen upon it and connect it to you, the question may come up about well, why didn't you say anything right?

Speaker 2: 12:48

And so, literally in small ways, whether it's with a direct report here or a colleague there I've been coming forward is how I've been describing it, and I recently connected to a colleague who I appreciate a hundred percent, and this colleague, you know, is like a top voice on LinkedIn, right, somehow found me and I kept on saying how on earth could you find me? You have a hundred and some thousand connections Before the person reached out to me in my, you know, by direct message. They posted something on LinkedIn which said this is the photo of somebody with bipolar right and they had been a professional and working in the DEI space and a public speaker and speaking all over the world and a published author and all of this stuff, but came with a level of vulnerability that I literally have never seen before and got such a wave of responses and big ups and everything. And I've said this to her multiple times and I will say it again. I said, listen, if you could do this, it made me feel just a little bit more like I could do it and that you know, actually, if I connect it to my work as an HR executive, I talk about authentic leadership all the time in work and vulnerability in leadership, and so this is like an avenue in my mind for sort of leaning into that and being an example of it.

Speaker 2: 14:18

I can be vulnerable because what is the shame in? Again, I didn't invent divorce. What's the divorce rate in this country? You know what I'm saying. So if I talk about it, okay, and I got remarried, and what right? What about that? And did I give myself MS. What's the shame in that? You know what I'm saying, so why can't I talk about that?

Speaker 1: 14:40

The divorce was minor in all of this story. The divorce was minor in my point of view, Not minor in your life, obviously. I had way more questions, you know. But so are you republishing the book or do you plan to republish under your real name? If you don't have the answer, I'm just you know.

Speaker 2: 15:01

I don't know. You know I've actually received that suggestion. I'm not sure yet. What I am more sure about is I want to write more and there's no need for me to write behind, you know, sort of the cover of a pseudonym, right, and it may be that it's not necessarily limited to personal narrative, it may be more related to leadership. But I want to write more and I'm very clear on that. I'm not sure, you know, if this particular book, if I would republish it, okay.

Speaker 1: 15:31

So what I appreciate about the book was, you know, there was a part in the book where you kind of going through the mindset of how you buck up in a HR. It connected in a way because I buck up in a HR and I'm like I don't know if I want to really work in HR. It's like it's a miscellaneous job category, for lack of a better word. Right, but I appreciated how you kind of went through the career journey and kind of finding yourself in your career and having to deal with many Jamaicans who just say, all right, we are working in a hospital, I'm good with that and want you to work in hospitals. I appreciate it, you know, taking us through that process because, I don't know, maybe most people take for granted, say, oh, they work in a hospital, but like what if I don't want to be? Like what happens?

Speaker 1: 16:29

And even though you dedicated one chapter to your mom, I already figure out your mom. She, she, very, she might be here somewhere. She very, you know, like, do this, do that. But I also appreciated that you showed her vulnerability, the way a Jamaican woman is vulnerable. She wanted a divorce from your father and she tell the judge, say, if me, no, left him, he might go kill me, and that in and of itself it doesn't feel like vulnerability. But if you know a Jamaican woman, for her to even say that out loud in public in a courtroom.

Speaker 1: 17:07

that was her defiantly saying enough is enough. And either way, those nuances and that's why like a memoir coming from someone who lives in the diaspora, like not a story of someone based in Jamaica, because that's a very different telling yeah, of a story um, than somebody who lives here and have to experience that. So that's what I appreciated about it. Me really fast about. You know how did Daniel manage the Osman Akomanga Leith? With no explanation I said I would have bussy head already.

Speaker 2: 17:49

Let me tell you something. When my mom first read it, she got into the first chapter. This is before she got to the mother chapter. Right, she said go on boxing, you see.

Speaker 1: 18:02

That's all I was saying. So that's why I'm like, by the time you got to the divorce, I didn't care when I said I'm lucky I didn't pee as much as he gets with his behavior, because you know. So that's what I mean.

Speaker 2: 18:32

I'm not saying the divorce was nothing it so that's what I mean. I'm were discussing sort of like the journey around divorce, that it's not always a linear journey and you know, I think it's okay to normalize that. You know, this is someone I met when I was 19 years old. He was like 21. I effectively grew up with him, right, only person I ever lived with at that time. All of that Then ultimately, with the back and forth and everything, had a child, and so there was that, you know, just sort of like what do I do with this?

Speaker 2: 19:05

And, you know, does it have to be final? There was a piece that I talk about in the book around. You know, so much divorce and separation in my family, so maybe I could be the one that's going to fix it, you know, and change the course, right. And so I put that burden on myself, which you know now I can name, you know, and wasn't able to, as I was sort of going through it, you know, and so I think that's that's a part of why it was so important for me to be able to lift up my experience, because I imagine there's people right now young women right now, or young people right now that are in relationships, even if it's not marriage, that are trying to figure out. What do I do when you know? And so I don't know how else to explain it besides that. I mean, it's been years. I'm almost 45 years old. There's so much that I've learned since then. You know what I mean. But I think that was what was primarily coming.

Speaker 2: 20:02

And then, by the time we had a child, then it was well, we have a child. You know, I was the product of a divorce. I was raised by a single parent. That is the last thing that I wanted for my son and his father. Same thing that I wanted for my son and his father, same thing, you know. And so I was like my gosh, maybe there's just some way. But I knew there was a day that came, and, especially after the diagnosis of MS, I was like, no, I can't do this. No, this is not what I'm here for. And my son will be better for it, because if his mother is healing, not only physically but emotionally, and is doing what she needs to be, well, he's going to have a different type of mother, different type of life, than he would if I drowned in.

Speaker 1: 20:48

you know the pain of, you know, being in a relationship that wasn't serving me, so yeah, there were a lot of things that I appreciated about the story, the relationship with the grandmother. I have a soft spot for grandmothers because I was my grandmother on bug.

Speaker 1: 21:04

You know it is what it is I'm the first grandchild and you know your grandfather, who was not your biological grandfather but was really that grandfather. I too have a similar experience with that Right, and you know you can't explain it because if you want to tell anybody that you're not related by blood, they would not believe Right. But there was one particular scene that I even I don't remember how I shared it with somebody, but it was just such a poignant story with your aunt who had the addiction and when she came to your house and, um, you know, the salt shaker was the thing that kind of threw her off or something right, it's like what do I do with?

Speaker 1: 21:49

this grinder thing, yes, right, and. And then she didn't come around and she said, um, because she didn't feel like she was with our people, our fit in our mother? Well, of course she's not fit in. We're not drug addicts, you know like I was just like, oh my God, oh, you read it, read it. Yeah, but the reason why it stood out it wasn't for the dig at your aunt. I used it in another scenario where I gave that example and I basically said if somebody said they don't fit in with you, it's not, has nothing to do with you.

Speaker 2: 22:29

It's them Right.

Speaker 1: 22:31

That's really what your mother was. Your mother was saying in that way and that was just like, oh, my God, would I probably soften it, but it was. But it was just like your mother is right.

Speaker 2: 22:50

So um, yeah, and it was a choice.

Speaker 1: 22:54

Yeah, there were so many things. I don't want to argue with the book. There were so many things. Your mother and the doctor and you know patient confidentiality, just like wait, that went right out the window, right out the window.

Speaker 2: 23:07

And I was, you know, in my 20s. It's not like I was a kid or something, a minor man, I don't know. But it's so funny that you were talking about my aunt, my mom's younger sister, because she was heavy on my mind recently. Listen, she's still on the road. She's in her sixties. She's been, you know, on and off of drugs since she was probably in her twenties. She was in the military, she had two children, she has grandchildren. She'll likely never meet. She has never met and she'll likely never meet.

Speaker 2: 23:36

And in this current climate, in this country right, where ICE agents are running rampant, that's the first one of the first people we were thinking about and we said listen, I don't know if she had her green card on her, I have no idea. And I said to my mother, it must've been a few days ago. I said, you know what, if she gets picked up by an ICE agent and she's deported, that's probably the best thing for her, back to Jamaica, even though she hasn't been there in decades, you know. But she was, she was. So it's funny that you mentioned that, because she was just on my mind.

Speaker 1: 24:06

Yeah, sclerosis diagnosis and going through that experience and Mifas where are you now in that health journey?

Speaker 2: 24:30

How are you managing that diagnosis? Well, jamaican isn't fast, so you know, thankfully, thankfully, I after three different tries at treatment. So disease-modifying drugs is what an infusion, right. And actually the first time I had the infusion, I think I was there like eight hours, but now they've like made it rapid, so it's like cut in half, right, and so I go in every six months. Most days, quite frankly, carry on, I don't even remember.

Speaker 2: 25:12

I have the illness and that's a good thing, and so I knock on wood. You know there's some sensation that I lost in my fingertips that never came back, so it's like numb, but I haven't had a major exacerbation in at least two years and so I am so grateful for that. You know, I've had times where my youngest son is 14. I have bonus children too, but my child is 14 now and when he was little I would just not be around and he didn't know where, because I was in the hospital. You know, having a relapse and having to have, you know, high dose steroids and all of this stuff, because, like I would walk around and I can't feel my leg, but I haven't had anything like that now. Now MS is one of these like nasty little things to me because it's, you know, people look at me and they don't know what I got. They don't know I have anything. They wouldn't know unless I tell them.

Speaker 2: 26:06

And if I have days that are good, then sometimes I even forget, but it's one of those things that's unpredictable, right. I have something called relapsing, remitting. So arguably I'm in a remission, right, and so I just every day, I take one day at a time, I try to enjoy the heck out of life, and so I told you about that trip, that solo journey to Greece. I ain't stopped traveling since I had to take a brief pause during the pandemic, but I had bucket list trips to everywhere I wanted to go. I went to Bali, indonesia, I went to South Africa, morocco, and we are traveling, we're going to Portugal next month and Barcelona. So, you know, I take every day, you know, at a time, and just try to enjoy every, every part of life Wonderful.

Speaker 1: 26:54

I mean, the trip that you took to the desert was funny.

Speaker 2: 27:02

That was a test drive, right? Yes, oh, maybe I could do this. I could travel alone, I could do this, you know.

Speaker 1: 27:08

Yeah, it was funny, but I do appreciate the telling of this story. I do recommend people read this book. I think that's why memoirs are just so interesting, because it's not highly fictionalized and outlandish. It is real life and the perspective of being from the Caribbean. There are stories that I hear over and over on this podcast what it means to be the child of an immigrant, a Jamaican immigrant, a Caribbean immigrant and how you show up in the world because of that. And I really appreciated that nuance, relationship with the father and all of that. If we keep talking, we're going to give away the book and I'm not going to do that here, so why don't you tell everybody where they can find the book? And yeah, all that good stuff.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Sure, sure, thank you. So the book is available on amazoncom, barnesandnoblecom, archwaypublishingcom, and so it's available in paperback and hardcover. I do have an IG right now it's still unparalyzedmemoircom, and so you know, I invite, you know, connection, and you know I have really been in a space of mentoring, you know where I can, mentoring young people, mentoring women that are similarly situated. So, you know, happy to connect and to be helpful, however, I can.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Wonderful. I was going to say Danielle, but Nicole.

Speaker 2: 28:44

I know, I know, listen, I've been married twice right, and so I've had three different last names in my life, right? So even going through that, there's like an identity shift, right, my maiden name, my first married name, and then changing it, so yeah, but then with the whole name thing it's been, it's been different, but this has been a wonderful part of the journey of sort of coming forward and becoming one person, so I appreciate it Before I leave.

Speaker 1: 29:12

I don't think I asked this question. How long I know you started writing the book when you're going on a trip, but how long did it take the publishing process take for you to get this book out?

Speaker 2: 29:22

Yeah, actually the publishing process was one of the easiest pieces because I went with a hybrid publisher, so with self-publishing, however, I didn't have to do like nearly anything on my own right. It was a company that did, you know, the binding, the printing, the cover, the whatever Right, and so they really did a lot for me. So it probably took two months, if that.

Speaker 1: 29:49

And how long did it take you to write?

Speaker 2: 29:51

write, oh, to actually write it and edit, and you know, rewrite and all that. That was more like about four years. I would say, you know, rewrite and all that. That was more like about four years. I would say I worked with two different professional editors. First with a developmental editor and that person was so instrumental. She actually was with me when I was still in New York, was living in New York, and then she moved to Prague. I was like, where are you going? But she saw a different story than the one that I saw. She said that she, I thought my thing was about you know, ms and the divorce and the this and that. And she said no, this is about your relationship with men. I said, excuse me, and the chapter that's now first was not the first chapter, so it was such an interesting thing. And then I worked with another editor that you know helped with line editing and everything you know. So it was really a process.

Speaker 1: 30:43

Yeah, I really liked it. So thank you for sharing and carry on. Friends audience, please go pick up Unparalyzed. It's something that I think you will enjoy, especially if you live here in the diaspora. You will get the perspective of someone who lives, understands your community. All of that good stuff. So thank you so much and much success to you and until next time, as I love to say, walk good. Thank you so much, Garyann.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Thank you.