Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Carry On Friends, the Caribbean American Experience. I'm your host, Carrie Ann. I started Carry On Friends in 2013 because everything I believed about work stopped making sense all at once. Up until then, I thought I had it figured out. I worked hard. I kept my head down. I didn't get into any mix-up. I didn't get into any trouble at work. I did good work. And because of all of that, I was told that you'll be rewarded. That's what I was taught. I didn't know any other way. That's what I believed. And up until 2013, I thought that was working. I was a hiring manager. I was doing well. At least I thought I was. I'd survived this long by being excellent at what I did. And yeah, looking back, I can now see through hints of my career that something else was happening. Accommodations were being made for some of the things that I started to bump up against because I delivered. And so in 2013, everything came into focus all at once. I'm typically locked in, heads down, and do my work. And because of that, people thought I was being unfriendly. I didn't realize how much weight was being put into socialization. You know, the social aspect of work, the happy hours, the small talk, the office culture stuff. At the same time, I was interviewing candidates. And I remember one young man in particular, I've told this story many times in the podcast, a young Jamaican man. And I had asked him about his weakness, and his answer was his accent. He thought his accent was a weakness. And that bothered me. At the same time, personally, I wanted to grow. I wanted mentorship. And I wasn't getting what I needed. Not because I wasn't trying, but I couldn't find anyone who could understand what I was going through, understand what I needed. And for those who I thought could be a good fit, they didn't seem quite interested. All of this was happening simultaneously. The realization that hard work alone isn't enough. The discovery that socialization mattered more than I understood. And I couldn't find the conversations online about any of this. That's why Carry On Friends exist, because the way we navigate professional spaces isn't just about individual choices or personality. It's cultural. Now, here's what nobody tells you when you're growing up Caribbean. You know that work ethic, your parents drilling at you? The way they said, hold your head down and do your work. Don't get into any crosses or mix up or any trouble at work. And how they didn't leave here so and dear, so for us to come here and waste opportunities. Now, that work ethic doesn't disappear when you walk into an American workplace. If anything, it gets more complicated. That same work ethic that makes you exceptional can also cause you to burn out because you don't know when to stop. That directness that makes you efficient can get you labeled aggressive or difficult. That same focus on getting quality work done can be read as you being antisocial or not a team player. And you arrive to work believing meritocracy exists. You arrive believing hard work equals success. And then you discover the game has different rules than you were taught. And there's no perfect solution. You're always going to be adjusting, modulating, making choices about how you show up. That's what we're talking about today in lens five of the Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model, aka C Dem. And this lens is about cultural identity influences how we show up at work. Before we go deeper, let me give you a quick context if this is your first time hearing about the Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model, aka C Dem. CDEM is a model I created through Carry On Friends to help us understand how Caribbean cultural identity forms, evolves, and expresses itself outside of the region. It is not an academic theory. It is grounded in real life, my lived experience, and built from years of podcast conversations. The model has six lenses. In previous episodes, I've already covered lens one, where you start shapes the journey. Lens two, where you live plus what you seek equals how you connect. Lens three, cultural anchors keep us rooted. And lens four, your identity will shift. That's the point. Today we're exploring lens five, cultural identity influences how we show up at work. And even if this is your first time learning or hearing about CDEM, you can jump right in. Because if you've ever worked a job, you've experienced this lens, whether you knew it or not. Okay. So diving in, I want to talk about what this lens shows us. Let me be clear about what this lens is really about. Lens five says culture shapes how we work, not just what jobs we choose or what industries we choose to go into, but how we approach work itself, how we think about success, how we navigate professional spaces, what we're willing to sacrifice, who we think we owe. And all of this starts way before we ever have a job. Most of us learned how to work by watching who woke up early, who carried multiple responsibilities without complaint, who sent money back home, who held things together even when it was hard. Work wasn't framed as optional. Work was survival. Work means stability. Work was justification for migration because most of our families left wherever they came from in the Caribbean for a better life. And that means better jobs, better work. So from an early age, many of us absorbed messages like education is non-negotiable. Hard work equals good character. Your success reflects on the family, and each generation is expected to do better than the last. And those messages become the foundation of how you and I approach work. The migration stories, all the complexities behind our individual families' migration stories create invisible pressure. Achievement isn't just personal, it is collective responsibility. So when Caribbean people enter professional spaces, we often arrive with this foundation: a very strong sense of responsibility, a deep fear of failure, an internal belief that quitting is not an option. And here's the double-edged sword. These all create exceptional professionals. People who show up, people who deliver, and people who don't quit easily. And so that work ethic that creates exceptional professionals also creates people who don't know when to stop, who can't set boundaries because we know the sacrifice. People who measure their worth, our worth, my worth by productivity. People who feel like rest is indulgent or failure is unacceptable. Ambition, professionalism, leadership, these aren't neutral traits we just developed. They are inherited, they're cultural. And these traits function as both positive drivers and sources of pressure. I know this very well. And that's what this lens helps us to see. So there are specific patterns lens five helps us identify. Let's talk about them. So the first pattern, success and ambition as double-edged swords. I've mentioned this, but I'm gonna go a little deeper into this. So the same drive that pushes you and I to achieve can also push us past our healthy limits. Success feels good, but it also feels like an obligation. You can't stop because too many people are counting on you. Like if you slow down, it means letting people down. Ambition becomes loaded because God forbid you don't want anybody calling you or labeling you like you don't have ambition. And it's not just I want to advance, but I have to advance to prove and insert whatever you want to prove here. So I had a previous guest on the show, um, Natalie, and she talked about she wanted to prove that she can come out of the ghetto and make something of herself.

To go back about like, you know, not feeling successful, I think it comes from like how I grew up. Uh because I grew up poor, right? From Kingston, Jamaica, didn't have a lot, um, ghetto, ghetto life, you know, nothing much is expected to come out of those communities. I was being led and driven by just coming out of scarcity. It like the thing that was driving me was coming out of scarcity, proving that I was not gonna end up a teenage mom, proving that I could make it. Like there were these things inside of me that I didn't even realize that was driving me. So every time I would go a little bit further, I'm like, wait, am I far enough away from where I started? So my mind wasn't even processing the success.

You want to prove that all the sacrifice your family did to send you to America is not wasted and you don't turn walkless. This lens doesn't judge whatever you have to prove, it just names it. So we can make conscious choices about when that drive serves us because it does, and when we need to protect ourselves from that thing that drives us. The other pattern, the meritocracy myth. As mentioned earlier, we're taught that you work hard and you'll succeed. Your excellence and your excellent work speaks for itself. Just hold your head down and do good work. But that's not how it works anymore. If it ever did. In American workplaces, especially corporate environments, hard work is necessary, but it's just not sufficient. Which ties into the next pattern: social and cultural mismatches. The way Caribbean culture approaches work and the way American corporate culture approaches work are often fundamentally different. So Caribbean work culture tends to value directness and efficiency. You focus on the task at hand, and there's an arm's length professional relationship situation that happens. Then there's respect that comes through competence. You know how to do your work. Success in corporate America requires different things. It requires relationship building and social connection, and you build relationships beyond your immediate team. It values visibility and personal branding, making sure the right people know all about your work. And then there's the self-advocacy part. You want to talk about your accomplishments even when it feels uncomfortable. You gotta toot your horn. And then there are blurred lines between personal and professional. And respect, while you'll get respect through hard work, respect comes through likability. Neither is wrong, they're just different. A few years ago, when I used to be on the platform Twitter, I would see a lot of the conversations with young Caribbean professionals talking about why they have to do professional play dates and going to the happy hour and going out to hang out with the office and bar and drinking, and people are complaining about it because they didn't like it. And up until 2013, I'd be in that camp. But when not being social and when not making friends with certain people, basically politicking in the office, brokering relationship with certain people cost me a job. I had to look at things differently. This lens helps you to see, oh, they're my play by some different rule over us. And I can choose to learn them without abandoning my values. I mean, if you need to survive and take care of your family, you really need to, right? Which is what I did. This lesson I learned at a previous job. I was managing my team, getting my work done, hitting my deadlines, you know, doing all the good things. But I really wasn't social. I didn't hang out, I didn't go to the happy hours. And, you know, I didn't go into people's office and chit-chat. And I was labeled mean because of it. And I was offended because I wasn't mean. And the mean wasn't because my work wasn't good. It wasn't because I wasn't professional. I just wasn't playing the social game. That particular experience that culminated in 2014, started in 2013, culminated in 2014, and other experiences throughout my career led me to really focus on career in the first year of Carry On Friends. And even beyond that, it's been the undercurrent, the underlying thread of why Carry On Friends as a platform was started. And I often tell people, like, we are coming to work, I play soccer rules, football. We United Caribbean call it football, America call it soccer. And those are the rules we come into the game with. But the American corporate environment is playing American football rules, which is a completely different set of rules. And the other thing is a lot of the things that work don't necessarily come naturally to us. I know I grew up hearing, you know, be seen and not heard, and you know, let the work speak for itself and not to you're not supposed to be show off and not blow your horn on when the message opposite, you're supposed to toot your horn. So we end up working twice as hard and not really getting as much recognition, if half we're lucky. So when you show up with one set of values in an environment, expecting the other, that's where friction comes in. As I mentioned, your directness gets read as rude, maybe aggressive, your focus gets read as unfriendly and maybe not a team player, and your boundaries gets read as being unfriendly as well. And so this lens helps us understand that it's not you, it's a cultural mismatch. And you can make strategic choices about when and how to bridge that gap. Let's talk about code switching because this is one of the most complex parts of lens five. I can control my accent. You've probably heard it through this episode already. I know exactly how much patois to let through and when. As I mentioned earlier in the conversation, the young man that I met who said his accent was his biggest weakness, had not yet developed this mechanism. Here's what this lens teaches us about code switching. For me, it's not about cultural betrayal, it's strategic navigation. When I adjust how I speak in a professional setting, I don't consider myself being fake. I'm reading the room and I'm choosing which version of myself serves the moment. Like we said, there's a time and place for everything under the sun. It's not about shame, it's about strategy. And yes, it can be exhausting. Yes, it requires emotional labor that our colleagues may not have to perform. But by naming it, calling it for what it is, recognizing it as a skill that helps us to do it consciously instead of out of shame, is how I choose to frame this. The goal isn't to never code switch, the goal is to do it strategically to protect my energy and to know when to let my full Caribbean self out. The next thing I want to talk about is achievement as repayment. Now, when I went to school, I got a lot of awards for my academic success in school, for my performances in MOOC court, mock trial. And I gave all those awards away to my grandparents in Jamaica. So when I went to Jamaica and I would see them on the wall are the whatnot, the Jeremy kind of snow me at top bow, I'd be like, oh my gosh, because I forgot I got those awards because I gave them away. In my mind, I was like, they deserve these rewards because they sacrificed so much to help me when I was going to school in Jamaica to take care of me. Even when I moved to the US, they were still doing a lot from what they had in Jamaica. So, yes, they deserve this award as my thanks to them for sacrificing so much. And the thing about it is that when you get these awards, it's like on to the next. So I I don't even, it's not that I don't appreciate it, but I because I gave it away, it's like I gotta keep working to keep proving and I had to keep achieving because my achievements was an homage and a repayment to them. Not that they asked me for it, but because I know they deserved it, because they did so much. So for Caribbean professionals, success is framed as paying back the sacrifice, the degree or awards isn't just yours or mine. It's proof that whatever it is, all the hard work was worth it. Your promotion isn't just professional advancement, it's honoring what your parents, grandparents, auntie, uncle, everybody gave up. Your salary isn't just income, it's sometimes literal remittance, financial support going back home. All of this creates a specific kind of pressure that people without migration stories don't carry. And again, this can be motivating, but this can also be crushing. This lens helps us see the pattern so you can decide where this is serving you and where you need to set boundaries. So why do naming these patterns matter? Because when you don't have language for what you're experiencing, you think it's just you. I thought it was just me until I saw all the conversations happening on Twitter at the time. You think I'm not good at office politics, can't front up, front up people, me can't bother with the fitness, I'm gonna want to play no game, and you know, I'm not really social, me just likes the over here. So whatever messages we've told ourselves. But when we understand these are cultural patterns, not just personal peculiarities, right? It changes everything. You stop internalizing the messages you might be getting that it's you, and you start making conscious choices instead of unconscious reactions to what people are saying or behaving towards you. You begin to recognize that, oh, this is a cultural value mismatch. And you can choose how you want to navigate this without thinking you need to fundamentally change who you are. And that's what I did at the job after the one where I had this discovery. And here's what lens five gives you: it helps you identify pattern recognition versus personal failure. When you see that other Caribbean professionals are experienced in similar tensions, you realize it's systemic, it's not individual, and that takes the shame out of it, right? You begin to think of all right, there's just a mismatch, and I need to figure out a strategy to survive at work or to not survive, but thrive in my own way. You become conscious about modulation, right? You're always going to be adjusting. You're always going to be modulating how you show up based on the environment. But there's a difference between doing that consciously and understanding what you're doing and the and the why behind it versus you're doing it out of some kind of fear that you might lose your job or some kind of shame. This lens also helps you make strategic choices about when to set boundaries, when to push back, and when to adapt. Because we can't be too rigid. That's just the reality of it. Again, we want to work, we need to take care of our family. Then we want to focus on what we can control. We cannot change corporate culture. You can't make every workplace honor your Caribbean values. And we can't create the perfect environment where you never have to adjust, right? That that's not the goal here. The goal is understanding your patterns, your responses, and your choices about how you show up. You get to ask yourself, where are you overworking because of cultural pressure versus strategic choice? Where are you avoiding necessary relationship building because of cultural messaging? Because you need to build relationships at work. You can't avoid all of them. And so this lens helps you identify what you can actually address about how you operate. And here's the important thing that connects lens five to lens four. This all will look different as you age. How you navigate work in your 20s is going to look different in your 40s, it's going to look different in your 50s or your 60s. Your relationship with ambition changes. Your willingness to modulate or to flex based on the environment changes. Your priorities shift. Also, you're tired, you know, to be quite frank. The bottom line is that this lens evolves with you, just like your cultural identity evolves with you. So a quick reality check. I want to be honest about something. Understanding all of this doesn't make it easy. I'm telling you from experience. It doesn't make it easy. You come back to this because it's like it's our default mode, and we can have an understanding, but it's going to take a while to even work to address. And you know, you, I don't even know how to call it, right? You can you can work on it, you can figure out a solution, and then something happened and you reset. You know, it's not something that goes away. So it's something you are usually working on. I continue to learn this, right? It doesn't give you a perfect solution. It doesn't mean you'll find the ideal workplace, you know, where you never have to adjust, right? Work is work, work is filled with people. There's always something that's going on. You're going to be tired sometimes of code switching or modulating at work, different versions of yourself showing up. You know, it gets exhausting. Navigating cultural mismatch takes energy. You're, you're, you're putting a lot of energy to show up a particular way. But knowing what you're navigating, that's what's helpful. And having language for it, that's what's helpful. Making conscious choices instead of feeling like you're failing, that's what's helpful. Here's what took me years to understand, and this lens helps to make clear. The same cultural background that creates workplace challenges also creates incredible strengths. And if you don't know, let me name some of what Caribbean professionals bring. Adaptability. We've been navigating multiple cultures our whole life. Let's put a star beside this one: resilience. We have it. Because we come from people who've survived and built something despite everything that they're going through. However, I believe we try to over-index on resilience too much. And I won't go into it here. I'll do it another time. We bring collective thinking, we understand community and collaboration very deeply. Resourcefulness, we know how to make something from nothing. Leadership without titles, because in our families, you lead when needed, regardless of what official title or position you hold. And because of our multiculturalness, we see different perspectives that a lot of our colleagues may not have or experience. And these aren't just nice traits, these are professional assets. And you don't have to choose between being Caribbean and being successful. You all know this, right? I don't have to tell you already, no. The lens isn't about survival, right? It's about transformation. It's how you thrive in the environment that you're in, or you find a way to thrive in the environment that you're in. Bringing it all together. Here are three things to remember from lens five. Number one, your work ethic is cultural inheritance. You honor it and you set boundaries. Remember, you don't have to prove yourself to everyone. Easier said than done. Success doesn't always mean working the hardest, easier said than done. Sometimes it means working smartest, easier said than done. I acknowledge those things, but it's true. Number two, the meritocracy myth is real, but we often learn for play the game. Hard work alone won't get us there. You have to be visible, you have to show up to some of the social events, even if it's for a little 20 minutes. We all know how for sure we face a little bit. So let's apply it to work. We have to build the relationships and learn who the players are. I know we're gonna like for front up, front up and kiss up, kiss up, but it or some you know, our success at work and taking care of our family depends on it. You want to advocate for yourself. Say I did this, even when it feels weird, right? Remember, we can't bring soccer rules to the NFL game. We have to learn to play the rules, and every industry, every job has a different set of um unsaid rules, and we have to learn them. Three, code switching is a superpower, not a betrayal. You're not being fake when you are just at work, you're being strategic. Do it consciously, not out of shame. You can protect your energy, and sometimes you can let your Caribbean self out. I know this part is difficult given where we are, but let your different perspective be your strength. So as we wrap up, CDM Lens 5 helps us understand that one, culture shapes how we show up at work. This isn't about personality or individual choice, it's about inherited values, migration stories, and cultural messages about what work means. The way you and I approach work was taught to us long before we had jobs. And understanding that helps us see why we operate the way that we do and help us to make conscious choices about what we keep and what we adjust. Two, every strength is also a challenge. Work ethic can be exceptional and it can lead to burnout. Ambition can drive success and create unsustainable pressure. This lens doesn't tell you to abandon your cultural values, it helps you to see both sides so you can navigate strategically. Three, there's no perfect solution. You will always be adjusting, modulating, making choices about how you show up. Different environments will require different navigation. The goal isn't finding the ideal workplace, the goal is understanding what you can control about how you operate in whatever environment you're in. Four, this all evolves as you age. How you navigate work at different life stages will shift. Your priorities change, your leverage changes, your willingness to code switch or the boundaries you set change. In lens four, we talked about your identity shifts. And so when your personal identity shifts, your professional identity will shift too. And that is all normal. Five, understanding all these patterns helps you to see this as cultural navigation instead of personal failings, and you can make strategic choices instead of internalizing that something's wrong with you, there's some dysfunction or whatever you've been telling yourself. You're not bad at office politics, per se, right? You're just operating with different cultural values, and now you can decide when and how to bridge that gap. So here are some things that I want you to reflect on. I'm not asking you to solve them, just notice what comes up. What did your family teach you about work that you still carry today? How is that serving you? Where is it creating pressure you might need to address? Where is your work ethic or ambition driving you? Are they driving you towards goals that matter? Or are they pushing you past healthy limits? Are you still operating as if work alone is enough? What strategic adjustments might you need to make? And I'm not saying abandon your values, but to navigate the actual game being played in corporate or in work. What patterns in your behavior can you address? Not fixing the workplace, not looking for the grass greener on the other side, not changing other people. What can you choose about how you show up? I want you to think about those because lens five isn't about having all the answers. It's about seeing patterns clearly enough to make conscious choices. And so, in closing, here's what I know for sure: the way we work, the way we show up, the way we carry ourselves professionally, that's not separate from our Caribbean identity. It is our Caribbean identity in action. And the more we understand that, the more we can leverage it instead of hiding it. My culture, our culture, is not a liability in the workplace. It's our foundation, it's our strength, it's what makes us have different perspectives, it's what brings value. Once we've learned when to let it show, when to protect it, and when to unleash it strategically, that's when the real magic happens. And I've had that experience after I've learned that very hard lesson. So the way you work, the way you show up, the way you navigate professional spaces is not random. It's not just you, it's cultural. We've all inherited messages about what work means, what success requires, what we owe to others who've sacrificed. And those messages created wonderful strengths and at the same time, very complex pressures. Understanding this doesn't make it easy, but it makes it clearer. You can make conscious choices about when your cultural approach serves you and when you need to modulate. And, you know, it's a reminder that, you know, we don't have to fit perfectly into certain spaces or every space. And so, with that, thank you for listening to this episode of Carry On Friends on the CDEM, Caribbean Diaspora Experience Model Lens 5. Our cultural identity impacts how we show up at work. And so, if you have any questions, if you have any experiences at work that you would like to share, comment on this video. If you're listening to the audio, you can reach out on social. Um, we're on we're at carry on friends. And I'd love to hear your work stories, lessons you've learned, and other things you'd like to share. And so, until next time, walk good.