📢 This is the last episode of season 2! A funny and insightful conversation with my IRL friend Shawn Yavari!
🫶🏽 I sat down with Shawn and asked him a bunch of questions. We share a lot of laughs and gems, and here are some questions from the chat:
What’s your relationship to social media?
What kinds of routines and self-care have helped you?
What’s your relationship like with your siblings and parents?
🧐 While in today's episode we talk about social media, routines, and family, here is a bit about Shawn's background. Shawn works in sustainability, and currently lives in Paris, France. He has an MBA from Wharton and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania (where he met and became pals with your host, Nicole.) Shawn has a background in electric vehicle management, environmental consulting, and chemical engineering. Outside of work, he enjoys video games, meeting new people, and exploring new cities/their public transportation. Originally from Panama, he grew up there, in Belgium, and the United States.
🪩 Want to help Multitudes reach more listeners? Share this episode with a friend!
✨ On Multitudes, we talk about a multitude of different types of experiences, perspectives, and have conversations with different guests who offer their wisdom and the tools that have helped them navigate their life.
🩷 Thank you SO much for joining Season 2 of Multitudes! You can find stay tuned for updates by checking out multitudespodcast.com and heading over to our IG @multitudes.podcast.
📢 This is the last episode of season 2! A funny and insightful conversation with my IRL friend Shawn Yavari!
🫶🏽 I sat down with Shawn and asked him a bunch of questions. We share a lot of laughs and gems, and here are some questions from the chat:
What’s your relationship to social media?
What kinds of routines and self-care have helped you?
What’s your relationship like with your siblings and parents?
🧐 While in today's episode we talk about social media, routines, and family, here is a bit about Shawn's background. Shawn works in sustainability, and currently lives in Paris, France. He has an MBA from Wharton and an MA in International Studies from the Lauder Institute, University of Pennsylvania (where he met and became pals with your host, Nicole.) Shawn has a background in electric vehicle management, environmental consulting, and chemical engineering. Outside of work, he enjoys video games, meeting new people, and exploring new cities/their public transportation. Originally from Panama, he grew up there, in Belgium, and the United States.
🪩 Want to help Multitudes reach more listeners? Share this episode with a friend!
✨ On Multitudes, we talk about a multitude of different types of experiences, perspectives, and have conversations with different guests who offer their wisdom and the tools that have helped them navigate their life.
🩷 Thank you SO much for joining Season 2 of Multitudes! You can find stay tuned for updates by checking out multitudespodcast.com and heading over to our IG @multitudes.podcast.
Hello, and welcome back to multitudes. I'm your host, Nicole Carter and today's conversation is a very unique and special episode for multitudes as I'm interviewing a very good friend of mine, Sean, your. Sorry, Sean. And I are friends from grad school and I sat down with Sean and asked him. A bunch of questions about his life, his thoughts, his routines. And what came out of, it was just a lovely conversation with two friends that I think you'll find enjoyable, funny and insightful. And this is part one with Sean. And in this episode, we talk about home identity challenges, hardships, religion, and in part two, we talk more about social media routines self-care and family. So stay tuned for that conversation as well. And thank you for supporting the show and you can find more about multitudes, multitudes, podcast.com and on Instagram at podcast. And with that, let's get started. I'm so excited to get into your story. And I think podcasting, it's really just like a conversation that happens to be recorded, but it's not live and can always be edited. And it's kind of like, we're just at a coffee shop. in a virtual setting. So I would love to start with some questions a little bit about you and some basics about you. I would love to know where were you born and where do you call home? So I was born in Panama in the capital, and my mom is actually Panamanian, my dad is Iranian, but they met in the us. And for a few years before I was born, they moved to Panama. And so I was born there and sometimes home is Panama. I did also, I was there for, for six years and then, and Georgia for five years, Belgium for five years, New York city for five and a half years. And Well, California, four years, so it's been, I've moved around a lot and so home is kind of a weird word sometimes or a weird idea, but I guess I do think in a lot of ways, Panama is home because my parents are currently there. My grandma is there, the, well, the one grandparent that I was closest to and I, and I do go, I went there for Christmas this past year, but at the same time, I. I think of New York City as my chosen home, and it is the second longest I've ever lived anywhere, the place that I've lived for the second longest out of anywhere. It's where I worked really hard to get into a college in New York and, and to be able to get a scholarship that made that affordable, and So it was a very conscious choice to go to Columbia and move to New York city. And I love it there. And even my past job choice, my last job was that was that Con Edison, which is their utility company. Uh, for New York City, it's the utility company for New York City and Westchester County. And a big part of wanting to, to work there was because I love the city so much and wanting to influence its infrastructure. So anyway, that's all to say, I guess I have kind of a default home and a chosen home. I think that is a lot of people I feel can kind of identify with the home that your family in a way gave you and then also a home that you have decided feels most like home for you. And I definitely feel that way with New York, not really having grown up here, but. Kind of discovering it more as an adult and feeling that connection to New York and yeah, I would love to unpack a little bit about your upbringing and the fact that you grew up essentially in the U S Panama and Belgium, So I did start in Panama, and we were in the US for almost two years before we moved to Belgium. And so that was split between Puerto Rico and Georgia. And then we, in Yeah. We went to Belgium for five years, and when we came back to the U. S. after Belgium, we came back actually to the same town that we were in for a year. It's called Peachtree City, and I was there for my high school years. Got it. Okay, Peachtree. Like, Peachtree dish? Or, like... Peachtree City, like peaches. Oh, wow. Okay, like peaches, But I didn't have a peach tree. I was not picking peaches. As much as I probably would have loved that, but there were no peach trees. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean it's, what is it like the peach state and no peach trees. It's the peach state. Yeah. Uh, there were, there probably are peach trees in other parts of the state. Just not in Peach Tree City. Just, yeah, of course. I mean, that's how it has to be. It's not in the actual place that it's named for. And what was that like living in multiple places? international while you were growing up? Do you remember having any particular thoughts or struggles that shaped your childhood? It was very different at different stages of childhood. When we first moved to Puerto Rico and then to the U. S. I think I was too young to really understand what was happening. Especially, I mean, especially the first time, because I just didn't even really know what it meant to leave a place. Like, I didn't really think about friendship and connections and any ideas of rootedness. But I remember when it was time to leave Georgia and go to Belgium, I think I remember Being kind of sad because I remember in Georgia being in the suburbs and going out and meeting The neighborhood kids and playing with them and and that was something that I actually couldn't do in Panama living in the city We couldn't really like just go out and play with the neighborhood kids. So I thought that was something really cool But once we got to Belgium, I remember thinking like, wow, this is, this is a whole new place and a whole new set of opportunities. And let's have some fun with this. And I do remember after five years in Belgium, and I was 13 when we left, I do remember being really sad when it was time to leave, because that was at that point, when you're becoming a teenager, you're kind of developing an identity and means of connecting with people. And once you build that, I think then you really start getting a sense of. understanding of home, maybe. Like, at that point, Belgium was probably home. So that's, yeah, it, but it was an amazing learning experience. I remember when we got to Belgium, my parents asked me if I wanted to go to the Belgian school, and then I would get to learn French if I wanted to go to the Canadian school, because then it'd be mixed between English and French and, or the American school, which would just be in English, basically. And they were But if you go to the Belgian school, then you get to really learn French. And that would be really cool. And I was like, yeah, that would be really cool. I should say that this is all on the NATO base in Belgium. And that's why there are so many schools with different nationalities. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. So was your family connected to working with NATO? Is that how you ended up in Belgium? And so you were there from seven to, or eight ish to 13. You were there from eight to 13. Eight to 13. Yeah. And actually, even though I went to school in the NATO base, my dad didn't work on the NATO base because he wasn't working for NATO. he worked for the U. S. Army. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah. And with, which was interesting because the Amer, the U. S. Army base was just somewhere else off of the actual NATO base, but that's, but the NATO base had the schools. So all the kids, even if their parents didn't work for NATO, if they were in Belgium for other sort of military reasons, they would end up going to this, to the schools on the NATO base. Yeah. I am curious about that choice of deciding to study in a Belgian school. can you talk a little bit about that experience or you were learning in French for five years? Yeah. So, I mean, the only subject that wasn't in French was English. And so they had, yeah, so yeah, everything was in French and they had what they called it. I think in, well in the U. S. we kind of call it ESL or English as a second language, but in this school system on the base, they had something called French and French Special, Francaise Speciale. And so Francaise Speciale was basically their version of ESL. And so anyone who was, uh, who didn't speak French natively would, would go to this until they were ready for the, to go to the French classes with all the native French speakers. And so I was in that for a little bit less than one school year, but you can end up there. You can end up doing that for, it'll range from kid to kid in terms of their level of comfort. I remember the teacher towards the end of the first school year that I was there. She said, Sean I don't think you're fully getting, you're reaching your potential by staying in this and so you should go to the regular French class now. Conversely, there was the Anglais and Anglais Special and so the native English speakers Or nearly native level English speakers would go into. English special. So the goal was to be in, uh, not French special and, uh, but English special. Okay. So at this point, what language are you considering your native language? if that's changed over time, like the language that you think in and that sort of thing. It's, it definitely changed over time. When I, In terms of what was native to me, I learned Spanish and English at the same time, but for the early years of my life, I was definitely, I was more comfortable in Spanish and I had an accent in English, sadly, things have changed at this point. I have an accent in Spanish. I probably lost my accent in English. Slowly, it was slowly happening even in Belgium, as I, the default language, when you're among people of different nationalities, it ends up being English. But, I fully lost, I would say, I had no accent in English at some point. Like, that happened. In high school in Georgia, And I'm curious about also to say you want to feel comfortable sharing about like your parents journey. Like they've. Been moving around a lot as well. And did you have any like thoughts or observations of your parents? Like as they were moving around, both moving to countries that they were both not native of. Yeah watching them and thinking about and looking back and thinking about their, as an adult, thinking back to what I was seeing as a kid is really interesting because. with every, everybody, they have very different skill sets. My dad is not so good at learning new languages. Part of the reason why my English was still pretty good, even growing up in Panama was because my dad, even now his Spanish isn't that great. So I, to speak to him, I had to speak English. And so even when we were in Belgium, I, I remember seeing my mom take French classes and then making progress and, and being able to kind of survive out in, in like public and in Belgium and in French speaking places. Although actually I was definitely progressing faster than everyone just because like I was a kid and I had time to go to school and, and get exposure to French all the time and mm-hmm. so a lot of times we were, when we were out and about, I was tran, I was their translator. And so that was an interesting experience, but, but yeah, I, so, and even though it was kind of my dad's job that, that, that took us to Belgium in the U. S., it was always my mom with that kind of leading the charge in terms of anything involving language. What was that like being a translator? Like, how did you feel doing that? I know that's an experience for a lot of people who have parents who have immigrated somewhere. And what did that feel like for you having to do that? And if you did that a lot, you mentioned like your mom might also have been involved with that too. I did. I definitely did it a lot in Belgium. And I liked it. I thought it was really fun. My mom is actually, uh, a translator for, or she was a translator for work. And so I thought it was really. A really cool skill and an ability and I always, I admired that about her, her work and so I thought it was cool to be able to be that, to be that, have that role for the family and I even wanted to be a translator for a while when I was Trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. you definitely have a love of languages. That's very clear in knowing you and having those experiences early on that were like positive and fun for you. It's very cool to see. And what languages do you at home speak now with your mom, with your dad, with your siblings? We basically all speak and speak English when my mom, I thankfully, even now, although she, to a lesser extent now than when I was growing up, she still tries to make sure that we I'll speak Spanish to keep it up, which I really appreciate. She's she's text me in Spanish, which is nice. And then my grandma, we really just speak Spanish with her. But yeah, when it's really just the nuclear family, we mostly speak English. Got it. So you get back to the U S from Belgium and then you spend your high school years there. And then you go to college in New York. I'm curious about what was it like being in high school, having these international experiences and like you're I'm curious about like your, Any experiences you might have had in terms of your relationship to like being an American and living in America Yeah, moving around a lot. I think you're you get so focused on just acclimating to new places and meeting new people and making new friends and just trying to and you're I mean also as a kid like that's. So you often don't end up thinking about things too deeply, but I think I got so focused on just trying to make things work and whatever new place I was in that I didn't really. Think about that in the moment, but when I look back on it and some of the things that I did and thought at the time, I think, I guess I didn't, I probably didn't feel very American for a long time, especially even it like, because I hadn't lived here very long until I, until high school, even though I had citizenship, my, my dad was naturalized and when he was young, that's And so he's always had citizenship. And then I do remember coming to the U S at some point in my childhood, maybe while we were in Belgium, we came back to the U S to do this, but I remember going with my family so that my mom could do her citizenship tests and I guess after being in Belgium for, for a while, I didn't really identify with being American. I think I identified with. Being just an international person. But then I, once I started being in the U S for a long time and like college, I think it was towards the end of college that I really felt. American and especially like having established this chosen home of New York City and figuring out that, oh, my chosen home is in the U. S. I guess that makes me American. I would love to. Talk a little bit more about your identity and how you think about that. And first from going outside and like, how would you, how would your friends or family describe you, or how do you think they would describe you? My family and friends would probably describe me as fairly extroverted. I'll start with that. You'd probably describe me. As hardworking, dedicated, really mission oriented with the sustainability stuff just because my whole career has been sustainability focused and I think people notice, people notice that and so mission driven extroverted. Fun, likes to go out. I don't know if I'm particularly proud of that, but maybe a little bit. I kind of like being like the fun kind of crazy friend. Sometimes it feels, it feels there's something that feels good about it, especially when you've devoted so much time to academics and in your career. It's it. I think there's something really nice about stepping away from that. And being fun and extroverted. But yeah, so that's, I guess that's how my friends and family might describe me. Yeah. Yes. I would say, I'm curious about when you said there's something about being the fun and crazy friend that feels good. Can you say a little bit more about that? If you can. Yeah, I think, and it plays, it's, it's, it is related to my having moved around a lot and part of that kind of fun and crazy. reputation, if you want to call it, friends will say, Oh, wow. Like you really, even as an adult, you just, you kept moving to new places and like building a place for yourself in those places or place for yourself in different cities. And so part of that, I can be a little bit of a yes, man. And I think it's, it. I love having experiences that, that are new and make me feel uncomfortable. There's just something really satisfying about it. These descriptions that you provided, how you think your family and friends would describe you, do you feel that is how you would describe yourself? For the most part, yes. I kind of wear my heart on my sleeve and really put it all out there for better or for worse. And for the most part, I think I'm a little bit guilty of, and I wish I were better about being myself in work contexts. I think, I think I wish I were more extroverted and, and fun and at work because I don't think there's any reason not to. I think obviously like still you should still be professional. But I kind of wish I weren't, I were less shy at work than, than I, than I am in real life. But yeah, for the most part, I would say the outside matches the inside. Yeah. thank you for sharing. And I feel like we all. I mean, I definitely feel that way in certain circumstances where, yeah, in a professional setting, it's like they're getting one version of me and like, among different family members, among different friends, or I don't know if version is the right word, it can be easy to show up to different environments in different ways and kind of normalizing that everyone does that to some extent, whether that's like good or bad, or maybe it's just neutral. That's just like how people show up to different places. next question, how do you identify and that can be along any lines of. race, ethnicity, gender expression that you feel that most describes you? Well, I guess I'll start with the most Our most recent experience where we really had to discuss and really come to terms with our identity, which I think was, which was business school, probably the main three things that I really put forth there was, were my mission driven, or being mission driven and being really focused on sustainability and the environment, really being into video games, it's a big part of my life. I think it's a really exciting and innovative way of storytelling and something that's It's just going to keep having a bigger and bigger influence on society and, and being queer as a big part of my identity and In terms of ethnicity, I, it's the easiest, it is easiest to identify with being Latino, and especially having grown up in Panama. And because when you put yourself, when you present yourself as Latino, you kind of, The default is there, there's any race that can come along with that and being actually like an eighth Chinese and like a quarter Iranian and like half European and you split between Spanish and then being like an eighth Panamanian, it's easiest to just say I'm mixed race, but if I have the option, I just say that I'm mixed. That I'm Latino. Yeah. Thank you. And I'm curious about any of the ways that you have talked about how you identify, if there are any particular hardships. That you feel called to talk about. And then also I want to talk about any particular blessings that you can think of with how you identify. I think a really easy blessing of being mixed race is that you're able to have a lot of different perspectives and you just have a different understanding of, of the world and, and maybe it's kind of a fun space to occupy in the U. S. because. I would say in Latin America, more people would identify as mixed for a lot of different historical reasons, but then in the U. S., and so it feels like a very niche identity here. Mm hmm. And it's, so it's kind of fun to occupy this weird small space that is just going to, which in a lot of ways is the future of our country and the world as it becomes more and more global. Yeah, absolutely. In terms of... Let's see challenges. I can be fairly white passing. And so there are a lot of privileges come with that. But do as a sort of bypassing person, I have a hard time talking about hardships related to race as I'm fairly privileged. In that sense, and I mean, I definitely have had people ask me things like, what are you? Or people that gone on, I've had updated say things like, Oh, you're like the perfect amount of ethnic. Granted that I haven't heard things, I hear things like that less now because people know better than they did. The early 2010s. And so, I mean, those are, those are things that I've experienced, but I feel silly in a way it's sometimes, or not silly, but I feel like it's not as much of a hardship as people who are less. White or less white passing have experienced. Yeah, no, totally. And yeah, thank you for sharing that too. And I think it's also just important to share like the ranges of like how people are feeling about like their relationship to experiencing hardships and, and or not experiencing hardship. It's all your experience and that's valid too. And how you feel about it. So that definitely makes sense. I'm curious about what role religion and spirituality played in your life, Yeah, yeah, I guess I grew up Catholic. I always resented it. Like, I remember being angry about it at a very young age, but I also vividly remember when I was like five or something, I told my mom that I didn't want to go to church. I didn't like it there. And then I saw how much it hurt her feelings. And I was like, okay, this is, I'm going to grin and bear it because I do love her. And this made this really upset her. Because she was, I mean, it was interesting because she wasn't even angry. She was just so sad. And so from a very early age, I realized that it's a very important part of people's lives. And I kind of just dealt with it, even though I was mad about going to church and going to confirmation and, and first communion and all that stuff. I was like, I don't identify with any of this. And I really don't like, really don't like this environment. But I knew how important it was to other people, so it was, yeah, it was kind of weird. And then I guess I didn't really associate it with homophobia until much later in life. And by that point, I really hadn't spent much, I kind of really didn't have any stock. in it by the time I kind of realized I was gay. So that it's been kind of a apathetic or resentful relationship with it. But yeah, I basically once I was confirmed and I was 13 and because I think outside of the US people usually get confirmed earlier And I remember in high school, I was just like, no, I have too much schoolwork to do. And I always use that as an excuse to not be forced to go to church. But I think as I've gotten older and matured more, I see what a positive force it can be in people's lives. And I respect that. Yeah. And did your family, did they, like, Except that you were kind of moving away from this and you could use school as kind of an excuse to not go. I don't think it made them happy, but they also just didn't talk about it As an adult, like I would just go, I would go with them for Christmas, but now it just hasn't come up in a long time at this point. And the extent to which I might be spiritual is just in terms of like feeling. Or I do kind of believe in fate in, in, in so much as everything is just, we're all just a bunch of molecules floating around and reacting to each other. And there is like, just by virtue of our existence and like being made up of these chemicals, there is a predetermined way that this can all go. And I think there is some, there is like an element of faith and there is something beautiful about that. And, and sometimes I like to joke a lot about, oh yeah, like they're putting that energy out there. And I do believe that like the actions that you take have ripple effects and come back to you. But I kind of also just think that we're all kind of, everything that we're doing was kind of the way that we were going to end up doing things. Yeah. I will acknowledge. I don't know what happens after that. I'm hopeful that it'll be something nice, but I just kind of accepted that. I don't think I'll ever know. And I don't think anyone knows. Yeah. But I hope I get to see you. I hope I get to see you It's going to be so great. Yeah. We'll be hanging out, Thank you so much for listening to part one of my conversation was Sean. We will be back next time with Sean, where we talk about social media routines, self care siblings, parents, and family. So stay tuned and I'll see you soon. And as always, thank you so much for listening and have a beautiful week.
