Episode 228: Karamo Brown

Hey friends, this is Karamo and you're listening to Five Questions with Dan Schaubell.

You're listening to the Five Questions podcast and I'm your host, Dan Schaubell. In fewer than 10 minutes, my goal is to extract the best advice from the world's smartest and most interesting people by asking them just 5 questions. My guest today is TV host, author, and activist Karamo Brown. Karamo is the host of the daytime talk show Karamo, stars as the culture expert in the award-winning Netflix series Queer Eye, and is the co-author with his son of I Am Okay to Feel. We talk about his childhood, being a parent, and more during this episode. Karamo, welcome to 5 Questions.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

What aspects of your childhood most shaped who you are today?

The fact that I'm the son of immigrant parents. It taught me to work hard. It taught me that in life there'll be people who underestimate you. And it also taught me to lead with love.

Yeah, I feel like when you think you're the underdog, you work really, really hard. And if you see your parents who work really hard, you can either work just as hard them are harder. Or there are people who are pretty lazy too. They're like, oh, they put in all the hard work, I'm gonna sit back and do pretty much nothing. Why do you think that children are having trouble expressing their emotions in a healthy way?

I think because it's a culture and a society, we don't really know the language as adults. So how can you teach kids how to express themselves when as adults we are constantly censoring ourselves? Think about it. We walk through life, someone says, how are you doing? The first thing you say is, I'm fine. Even if you're not fine, you say, "I'm okay." Those are generic responses. It's because we don't have the language to understand that all of our emotions, whether happy, sad, excited, anxious, curious, these are all emotions that it's okay. And so I wish we spent just as much time teaching people what their emotions mean and having emotional language as we do teaching them about ABCs. Because that way then we could pass on the language to the next generation so they don't get closed off. Because I sometimes see on my daytime talk show where men come up to me or even women sometimes, and they're like, you know, their partner's saying, "What are you feeling?" And they're like, I don't know. And when I hear them say that, I know they're not being sarcastic or rude. A lot of times we really just don't know. And so it's important we learn it ourselves, then we can teach our kids how to feel better.

And we need to be good role models too. And I do feel like the past 3 years have made this worse. And I think when you talk about emotions, I immediately think of, you know, soft skills. You know, you can learn hard skills by learn math and writing and whatnot. But when it comes to soft skills, those things become even more important as you get older.

Amen.

And you have a new book that you co-authored with your son, which is really cool. How does your book I Am Okay to Feel reflect your relationship with your son? And what do you want readers to take away from it?

Yeah, so this is our second book. First one's called I Am Perfectly Designed, which is about him loving himself and me showing him how to love himself just as he is, not, you know, wishing the grass was greener. And then with I Am Okay to Feel, it's about, again, as two Black men, how do we talk about our feelings and how do we tell our kids that it's okay for you to talk about your feelings. If you're frustrated or angry, instead of you acting out any way, it's okay just to talk about it, you know? And that goes for every race, you know, every cultural expression, gender expression, sexual orientation. It's okay to talk about your feelings. And this was just the journey that I had with my son at a young age. But now that he's older and it worked, we can talk about these are the things I learned, these are the tools. And in the back of my book, I actually give— actually work with some clinical people to get real tips and tools in there that people can use at the end of the book.

I thought that was really smart because, you know, judging by your background, you're not a therapist. So bringing in that expertise is extremely valuable in terms of credibility, but in terms also in terms of usefulness. Now a word from our sponsor. Having trouble hiring, retaining, and developing your workforce? iSolved is here to help. iSolved PeopleCloud is a comprehensive human capital management solution that helps you employ, enable and empower your workforce throughout the entire employment lifecycle. From attracting and recruiting to onboarding and compliance, from payroll and benefits to time and labor management, and from talent management to predictive people analytics. Transform your employee experience for a better today and a better tomorrow with iSolved. For more information, go to iSolvedHCM.com. And what are some of the hardest conversations you've had with your son? And why are you using this book as well as, as you just said, your talk show to help people have these conversations as well?

I think some of the hardest conversations I've had with him is about some of the adult things that happened, but like how pressure can impact you in different ways, you know, whether it's like depression, addiction. And I think some of those things, you know, you try to protect your child from. And as parents, we don't realize that if trauma isn't healed as a kid, it automatically starts to come out as an adult. We then become adults, we have adult children that are looking at us and you're saying, why are you not doing this? Why are you not doing that? And we don't realize because we never addressed the issues as children. And so for me, it's about making sure parents realize, as I had to, you have to address those things that happened in childhood. But more so than addressing them, you have to listen to your child and let them tell you what they experienced without being defensive, so that you can acknowledge what they're going through, and then you can start to heal together.

That's so true. And I talked to so many people, I talked to Bobby Burke on this show, I've talked to a lot of your peers, as well as people who are successful in other industries, a lot of them have that in common too. A lot of them struggled as a kid and that has affected them as an adult. But a lot of them, such as yourself, have made kind of headway and have become more aware and have passed out that knowledge to their children, which I think is really important. And what's your best piece of career advice?

Plan, do, ask for help if needed. I've been telling my kids that. I say, anytime you want to have a career, make a plan and be specific about that plan. Don't just say like, I want to be in TV. Make a plan and say, I want to be in TV. I want to be a doctor, but give your specialty. What is it you want to do? Make a clear Plan, not just an old, you know, this big macro plan. Be micro about it. Then do the plan. And when I say do it, that means you don't have to just get up and accomplish everything, but if you can do at least one thing every single day, you'll make it there. It's just like walking. If you get up and you take one step, the next day you take another step, or it's like working out. If you lift the weight one day, lift the weight another day, then one day you're going to have the body you want. And so it's about that consistency of doing it at your own pace, which means being patient with yourself as you're doing it. So if you miss a day, it's okay. Be patient with yourself and keep going at your own pace. And then thirdly is asking for help because not one person I know who's successful in any industry has done it on their own. There's always been family members, spouses, friends, people in their field that have different roles that have all helped them. So it's okay to ask for help. And just because someone rejects you and may not give you the help doesn't mean that someone else won't step up for you in the way that they need to. And so plan, do, ask for help if needed. And then the last one I really say is finish it. Don't forget you're going to finish and keep finishing it. The goal, you're going to get to that finish line because you can make a plan, you can do it, you can ask for help. But if you don't have it in your mind that I'm going to finish it and say that every single day, then sometimes we get discouraged. And even though you do the plan, you're doing it, you ask for help, you get discouraged and you stop. Keep telling yourself, I will finish this and it will happen.

Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, Karamo. To follow his journey, you can read his book, I Am Okay to Feel, and find him on Facebook Instagram and Twitter, where he shares his culture commentary, appearances, family, and new projects. To watch the full extended video version of this episode, go to youtube.com/danshawbell. And please remember to rate and review the Five Questions podcast on iTunes.