Harper Talks Episode 24 - Dr. Shelomi Gomes

Harper Talks Episode 24 - Dr. Shelomi Gomes (.mp3)

Alumna Dr. Shelomi Gomes lived in four different countries before arriving in the US and enrolling at Harper College as adult student. At Harper she excelled in her studies and became a national speech team champion. Dr. Gomes joins the Harper Talks podcast to discuss her unique path to Harper, making lifelong connections as a student, earning her advanced degrees, including a PhD in industrial organizational psychology, and talks about her career as an Executive Leadership Coach.

Transcript

Harper Talks: The Harper Alumni Podcast
Show 24: Dr Shelomi Gomes — Transcript

[00:00:00.160] - Brian Shelton
I'm Brian Shelton, and you're listening to Harper Talks, a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Today on Harper Talks I'm excited to speak with Dr. Shelomi Gomes. Shelomi is a 2001 graduate of Harper College and currently an executive leadership consultant. Shelomi was heavily involved with the speech and debate team while at Harper College taking gold in form of speaking at both the 1999 and 2000 National Speech Tournament. I'm happy to be in the Harper Radio studio with Shelomi. Shelomi, how are you doing today?

[00:00:31.510] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
I'm good, nice to meet you.

[00:00:32.850] - Brian Shelton
Thanks for coming in today. If you're listening to this live, it's a horrible snowy day for snow of winter here in Illinois. Yeah, sure is. So you were recently traveling a bit around the world. Where were you?

[00:00:46.860] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
I went to Malaysia in September for a family reunion and then later on I went to Australia. I have family there as well as I did some business as well.

[00:00:57.880] - Brian Shelton
Okay, that's fantastic. So the first thing that folks might notice is your accent. Where are you from and how did you get here? How did you get to Harper?

[00:01:05.350] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Good question. Good to start with that. So I was born in Sri Lanka, which is an island nation in the Indian Ocean and at the age of four I went to with my parents, live in England, and I left England when I was twelve and came back to Sri Lanka. And we had civil war in Sri Lanka a year later and so we had to flee. We went to India for about three years and then migrated to Australia when I was 16.

[00:01:37.570] - Brian Shelton
My goodness.

[00:01:38.340] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
So by the time I finished my schooling by the age of 18 I had lived in four different countries and attended 14 different schools.

[00:01:48.730] - Brian Shelton
Wow.

[00:01:49.840] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yeah. And so how did I come to here, to the United States and Harper? So I met my husband in Australia and we love to travel and we always would come via the US whenever we went travelling overseas. And he is in IT, my husband. And so there was this issue of the Y2K problem, I'm not sure if you're familiar with it?

[00:02:16.570] - Brian Shelton
Oh, yeah. I remember Y2K. Yeah.

[00:02:19.000] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
In the late 90s and there was a mass call for people in IT to come over to the United States and that's how we came over. So my husband was the one with the work visa. I wasn't allowed to work, but my visa was explicitly a visa that is to accompany someone that is on a work visa but I could go to school. And that was perfect timing because I wanted to go back to college. I kind of had a better idea of what I wanted to do. I was in my mid to late twenties at that time and so the company that sponsored us was based in Oakbrook and they said why don't you live in Schaumburg? And so hence Harper was just in the neighborhood, so it was a great fit, but that's how I came.

[00:03:05.670] - Brian Shelton
That's great. That's fantastic. I want to go back because I'm just terribly interested. How did moving around to so many different places, so many different countries, so many different schools, how did that impact your life now that you're old enough to look back and think about that?

[00:03:19.060] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
That's a really good question. I would say that one. It has helped me adapt to certain situations. It really forced me to be able to make friends quickly and also a little bit of a detachment, because I knew that the messaging was for me, you're going to get up and leave. So I had to work on that because once I came to Schaumburg, I've lived in Schaumburg for 22 years straight, you know, just lived in two houses. And so I kind of also came to value the importance of stability, of not moving, just stability in just the physical elements of it. So definitely, I think that had taught me culture, the different, the differences in culture, and somehow there are some elements that we are the same, and also curriculum, even in schools, you know, sometimes I felt the curriculum was the same. Sometimes I felt I was ahead of the curriculum, sometimes I felt I was behind the curriculum, and sometimes the curriculum didn't matter. It was something completely different. So adaptability was a key part for survival. So, yeah, that was my experience.

[00:04:41.890] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And I think that I've met people who have grown up and lived and gone to school all in the same place their entire life. And I think you're missing out on something by not getting out there and exploring other parts of the world, are living in some different places, even living in a different place to go to school, you know?

[00:04:58.350] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Right. And it was forced upon me more than a choice. It was just a circumstance of things as they occurred in my childhood. I think the whole point about traveling, I think it should be done, in my opinion, when the person is willing and wanting to do that, to have that sense of exploration rather than being thrusted into it, there's a slight difference because one, you don't feel in control, and whilst the other, you have some sense of control. That makes sense.

[00:05:34.710] - Brian Shelton
No, that totally makes sense to me. I have a lot of what I'll refer to as immigrant friends here in the United States, and you can always tell because they are very much more adaptable. They seem more worldly when you have conversations with them. And they are also a little bit, as you said, disconnected as well, because there's always the idea that you're going to pick up and go someplace else, even if they're not intending to go someplace else.

[00:05:57.910] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Right, exactly. One other thing that I wanted to mention about the accent, one of the things that I would get whenever I traveled was, you have an accent, right. Except for the part when I was living in England, I suppose. Right. But the interesting thing is, to me, they had an accent, right. So accents are all kind of relative.

[00:06:21.280] - Brian Shelton
Yes.

[00:06:22.000] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
So that's also an interesting thing that I noticed.

[00:06:26.770] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. I grew up in the south and so I naturally have a Southern accent, but I suppress it.

[00:06:31.020] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Okay! (laughs)

[00:06:31.510] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. So it's just kind of a funny thing. I think about accents in a different way because of that. So I'm always interested in where people acquired that accent. It's very interesting to me. I read in a bio about you that it was your psychology classes at Harper that really helped push you in the direction of your career, and I thought it was interesting. You mentioned in this bio that you had done a presentation on regret.

[00:06:56.980] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yeah.

[00:06:57.700] - Brian Shelton
Can you tell me about that? I found it really interesting.

[00:07:00.060] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Sure. So just to back up a bit, so I had started a degree in commerce back in when I was living in Australia, and it really wasn't for me. I didn't thrive in that environment. So I went and worked in the corporate world for at least six years I was in the corporate world. So when I got the opportunity to come here to the United States with my husband, I had already started to have an interest in psychology. And that summer of 1998 is when I took Dr. Thompson, who is still I think she's the head of the psychology department currently at Harper. She taught psychology 101. And one of the final assignments that we had was to go and get familiar with a journal article that is in a scholarly paper and to present it. And the topic of this particular research that I was looking into was on the topic of regret. And what was interesting was they found that people tend not to regret the things that they have done, but the things that they haven't done.

[00:08:17.650] - Brian Shelton
Right.

[00:08:18.510] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
So that was quite impressionable on me because my aim was to get a PhD. And it is an arduous and long task. And I'm here starting off with the basics of doing an associate's degree. And I thought to myself, would I be in my 50s and 60s, regretting not doing a PhD? And so that messaging actually stayed with me long after I left Harper and has actually even directed my choices.

[00:08:52.920] - Brian Shelton
Now, that's fantastic. So we regret the things that we didn't try.

[00:08:57.030] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yes.

[00:08:57.540] - Brian Shelton
But not necessarily the things that we tried and maybe failed at.

[00:09:00.630] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Exactly.

[00:09:01.180] - Brian Shelton
That's very fascinating.

[00:09:02.340] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Exactly, that's fascinating.

[00:09:04.610] - Brian Shelton
I was talking to Jeff Pryzbylo, who I work with at the college, and he's run our speech and debate team for years, and he just gushed about you, about how great you were and how great it was to have you on the team so early in his career when he started here at the school. Tell me about your experience on the Speech team.

[00:09:25.510] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
No problem. Jeff is a dear friend. He was my coach back in the day, and it was, to me, some of the best experiences I've ever had in at Harper. I would even chalk it up to the top ten things that have happened in my life, really. So what was interesting is so again, a little bit of backstory. I didn't realize I actually liked doing speeches. I actually still get nervous when I speak in front of people, but I do enjoy it. And it was actually at my wedding back in Australia that I decided, hey, you know, I'm going to do a speech at my wedding. Why should it be just the father of the bride and the men speaking? I want to speak. So I got up there, cracked a few jokes, told them how much I loved my husband and all of that kind of gushing things, and I was totally, again, didn't regret doing that at all. Right. Would have regretted if I didn't do it. And so when I came to Harper, one of the requirements is to do Speech 101. And my first thought was, well, the First Amendment is freedom of speech.

[00:10:34.240] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Of course, it's compulsory to do Speech 101 because if you're going to speak freely, you've got to know how to do it. So that was my thought as to why it was a mandatory class. Right.

[00:10:45.600] - Brian Shelton
Love it. (laughs)

[00:10:46.710] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
And so I was actually in Marsha Litrenta's class, and after doing, I think, my first speech, which was informative, she wrote it on my she wrote on my evaluation, "See Me". And it was interesting because I was wanting to also talk to her because I knew she was part of the Speech team, and she said, Go see Jeff Pryzbylo. And I walked into Jeff's office and we just hit it off from the beginning. So that's how I got involved in Speech. And I had joined it halfway through the first year. And that year I did informative speaking and Persuasive and did well with it at the Nationals levels. I got bronze at FYRO Pie. And then the second year, I was the Co-captain of the team. And there I did informative Persuasive Speech to entertain and prose, I would say. We toured all over the nation. We went to local community colleges and stuff. And honestly, it really presents an opportunity for you to learn one, how to speak, but also how to present yourself, how to be poised, how to how to you know, I always think about, you know, whenever I'm doing a business presentation, I go back to my speech roots.

[00:12:11.280] - Brian Shelton
Sure.

[00:12:12.190] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Right. And so it has been foundational to even the work that I do. Now, I have to say one story, if you don't mind me sharing.

[00:12:22.800] - Brian Shelton
No, please do.

[00:12:26.210] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
It was the state competitions. In the state competitions, you have to. So at the state competitions, I was presenting a number of my speeches, but the one that was really important to me was Persuasive. And Persuasive speaking, has two finals, one for community college, for two-year colleges, and the other one is called the open category finals. And that's open to the four-year colleges as well as the two-year colleges. And at that time, I was pregnant with my first child, so I would go to these rounds hungry because I was having morning sickness.

[00:13:07.270] - Brian Shelton
Oh no.

[00:13:08.340] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Hungry as heck, right. And trying to eat a banana as fast as I can, or a can of peaches, doing my speech and stuff like that. And then in between rounds going and throwing up.

[00:13:19.810] - Brian Shelton
Oh, no.

[00:13:23.740] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
And so I was quite in a miserable place. And in those days, when they posted the final results, they would post it on old days, not on computer screens, there was no online, it was literally on these large boards handwritten in the cafeteria somewhere. You have to go and find the results. And I went there to see if I had made it into the open division, just sorry, not in the open division. If I had broken into the two year division. And there was a rival girl that was standing next to me, she was on another team. You do have rival competitive nature of the sport. And I was looking at the two year finals and looking for my name and I couldn't find it and I'm like, oh, I didn't make it. And then the girl next to me goes, Congratulations, Shelomi. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And I look at her and she's looking at the open division. And I had broken into the open division.

[00:14:26.370] - Brian Shelton
Very nice.

[00:14:27.060] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
And I was the only community college person that had broken into the open division. And there's six of us. And when it came to the finals, you get up on stage and I'm right at the edge of the stage, bit of imposter syndrome going, I don't think I belong here. And each time they called a name and it wasn't me, and I was getting closer and closer to being the top three, I could see the entire section of community college students up on their feet cheering. It was like the little engine that could scenario and it ended up being I became I got second place and another girl got first place. But it was experiences like that that I treasure.

[00:15:13.980] - Brian Shelton
Oh, yeah. And does wonders for your confidence, right?

[00:15:17.010] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Absolutely. From a girl that's been traveling all over the world and didn't have a stable schooling life. Yeah, it really was very good.

[00:15:27.120] - Brian Shelton
And it's always fun when the community college groups and students and teams place into the four year and categories, because that means that you've done a really great job, right, because you're competing against juniors and seniors at university and that's always a really really big deal. Such a cool story. Yeah. When I was talking to Jeff, like I said, he just gushed about you and said that he said that, you know, that when you sometimes you meet a student and you work with them and they wind up becoming your friend while they're a student and then become lifelong friends. And those are just the absolute best relationships that we get to have as faculty at an institution like this. And he's absolutely right. So you've got a friend there.

[00:16:08.140] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yes, I do.

[00:16:10.690] - Brian Shelton
So how would you say working on the speech team and doing all that impacted your education in your career?

[00:16:17.970] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Sure. So I was going to go down the clinical route in psychology, and I then went to Roosevelt. They were doing an open house presentation, and it so happened in the next room from the clinical Psych was a presentation done on industrial and organizational psychology. And what that is, it's a big mouthful, and it really is business psychology. And so since I had worked in the business world before coming to Harper and my love of psychology, I felt that that was a perfect fit and how speech plays into it very much. On the intentionality of messaging that I would like to convey to my clients, whether it be a one on one presentation or a PowerPoint that I put together, or whether it is talking to a whole group of people. If we're doing a workshop on diversity and inclusion or anything on leadership, it is always make it succinct, make it impactful, and we always have the solutions element in our speech. For me, it's what is the takeaway? What can you take away from this that are actionables? Very much so. That's how speech impacts me even to today in my work, in my career.

[00:17:39.120] - Brian Shelton
That's great. So from Harper, you went to Roosevelt University?

[00:17:42.090] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yes, I did.

[00:17:42.960] - Brian Shelton
Tell me about that process. How did you went the whole I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. But you went the whole way, right. You went the PhD route.

[00:17:51.340] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Absolutely. So I went to Harper. It wasn't immediately after sorry, I went to Roosevelt. Not immediately after Harper. I took some years off because I was having children now, and I just I didn't want to complicate things with that. So I had the opportunity to stay at home with my kids for some years, and then I decided I wanted to go to Roosevelt. And as I said, I was going to do a clinical degree. And so I finished off the other more intense psychology classes there. And the more I got involved in, say, abnormal Psych, I thought, this may not be for me, it's good information, but is this the route that I want to be in? And I did take some industrial organizational classes, and so that started to percolate my interest. I then took some time off and helped my husband in his business because he was going off into being a contractor himself and working for himself. And again, that really helped me see what it is like to be working for yourself, the challenges within that. How do you get paid, making sure the invoices get out on time, marketing yourself.

[00:19:15.240] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
So it was really a great platform for me to delve into those areas or even to witness it through my husband. And then I decided to go back to Roosevelt because then they had opened up it was just a small window of time that they opened up a PhD program, which first started at Schaumburg campus and then eventually moved my year they moved it down to the Chicago campus. So from moving from literally being about 15 minutes away from campus when they were in Schaumburg, I was now an hour and a half away from home.

[00:19:51.700] - Brian Shelton
Which makes it a struggle.

[00:19:52.830] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yeah, it does. And it was actually very good. It put me in a very uncomfortable position of having to travel and navigate home life and school life. And I think I've gained for that. That discomfort was necessary for me to get out of my comfort zone, get downtown, see what life is like downtown, mingle with people that I would normally wouldn't have the opportunity to meet. And yeah, it's, again, another pivot.

[00:20:26.590] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. Discomfort is a theme for you, though.

[00:20:29.550] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
I agree. And moving is a theme for me!

[00:20:34.170] - Brian Shelton
Well, the discomfort of moving as well, right, yeah. Fantastic. So what's your PhD.

[00:20:39.340] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
In industrial organizational psychology.

[00:20:42.070] - Brian Shelton
How long did it take to finish all that?

[00:20:43.690] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Six years.

[00:20:44.280] - Brian Shelton
Six years?

[00:20:45.000] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Six years. Yeah. It's a Masters to PhD program. And the idea being is that they train you on the research elements from the Masters from the very beginning. So if you were to do a Master's degree at Roosevelt, you still get the same intensity of classes, but with a PhD they go a little bit more into the research elements of it. And then, of course, then you get your Masters, and then you have to sit for comprehensive exams, which are a killer unto itself.

[00:21:19.470] - Brian Shelton
I remember. Yes, I remember them well. Like, I can picture it right now.

[00:21:24.540] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Oh, goodness. It's a rite of passage, I call it, to do the final element, which is the dissertation. And so yeah, that was good.

[00:21:33.390] - Brian Shelton
That's great. So helping your husband with his business, is that what led you to go into business for yourself?

[00:21:40.410] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yes.

[00:21:40.830] - Brian Shelton
Okay.

[00:21:41.200] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Absolutely. I feel that there is a certain level of autonomy that you have in running your own business. There is immense risk as well.

[00:21:52.300] - Brian Shelton
Yes.

[00:21:52.920] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
You know, for instance, things like health insurance, we have to pay for it ourselves. But at the same time, I love the aspect that I could do this work wherever I go. Again, the theme of travel. Right. So whether I'm in another state, another country, or at home, I'm still able to do this work. So the autonomy piece was huge for me. And seeing how he has been able to factor that into his world. And there is this ebb and flow that I really enjoy with being your own boss. Sometimes the work comes in fast and you're on your toes all the time. And then there's lull. So what do you do in those times of lull? You know, you have to rethink about your marketing strategy, go out and understand more what's happening in the business world, the best practices. So I'm constantly feeling that I have to read, keep up with things, talk to people.

[00:23:04.910] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, you like that challenge?

[00:23:07.330] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Absolutely. Most of this work is word of mouth, all right? So it's going into an environment and you never know when your next client or how they will approach you. So it's always being aware of yourself in that setting that, hey, it could be at this party that I meet a client. Not that I'm going in thinking that, but I love that. I love that aspect of meeting people and seeing where it goes.

[00:23:40.140] - Brian Shelton
So I understand what you do and I know that not every client is the same and what you do for each client is not the same. But what are you typically doing for a client? What does that involve?

[00:23:50.640] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Okay, sure. So as a leader, executive leadership coach, so I'm sure you're familiar with life coaches and other types of coaches that there are out there. We do something similar to that. So an executive coach may come and say, hey, I'm having difficulty leading a remote team. So they may come with a particular challenge and they may want to know about best practices and how to lead a team or a multigenerational team. They may have those kinds of needs. So the first thing I do is do a needs assessment. And the needs assessment is what are they wanting? But also it involves a 360 kind of analysis. I go and find out from their direct reports, from their bosses, what are they like as a leader and so forth. So what's different between a life coach, say, and what I do is that I see myself as in partnership with the client as well as their organization. And I try to bring in not only the individual's goals, but also what the organization's objectives are. So I kind of work in partnership with the client and the organization. So hence we then do that kind of 360 report on how are they currently as a leader.

[00:25:23.830] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
And then we develop a program of what aspects in leadership they need to target. And these are, again, as I said, best practices. There are also things that are done in research, but also things that they can apply the next time they see their clients or their direct reports or their and one of the biggest things, one of the biggest challenges has been multigenerational leading groups that are multigenerational as well as remote hybrid work.

[00:25:57.790] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. Work has changed so much in the last two years. Right. The nature of it.

[00:26:01.180] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Absolutely. And leaders are feeling that they're losing control as leaders because they don't have that one-on-one or they don't have that FaceTime that is in person with their team. So to build trust with their team has become so important. And how do you do that when you're dealing with remote settings?

[00:26:23.040] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. What about the clients who don't listen to you? Maybe you don't want to talk to them.

[00:26:29.890] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
They need what is called a little bit of massaging. Right. I did have one particular client who initially wanted me to come and babysit his team. He ran a very small business, so it was only about 15 employees, but it wasn't big enough to have a HR department. And he wanted me to babysit, come in once a week and just sit there. And I'm like, no, that's not what I do. And it was a little bit more work. But you keep on telling him what is needed and eventually they come round. I also think the ones that don't listen or hard to listen, you just have to keep on repeating the message and either they get it or they don't. And it's up to them whether they want to implement those strategies. It's? Not necessarily. We're living in a very different work environment where employees are telling are more vocal on what the things that they want. Especially when you look at the current generation that's coming in, they are more savvy, but they also are more vocal in things that they're needing. And leaders are having a hard time understanding how to deal with that.

[00:27:52.760] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
So if they don't listen well, they can surely find someone else, hopefully that could help them because it has to be a match. Right.

[00:28:04.200] - Brian Shelton
Right. That's very, very interesting. It's fascinating, the whole idea of it. I love it. So I try to ask every guest who's on the show, what advice do you have for current Harper students?

[00:28:17.820] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
OK, this is a good one. So one of the things that happened to me when I was in Harper, I remember it was an English 102 class, and I had written some paper, and I had just written it really in a rush. And the professor pulled me aside and he says, you know, you got some really good ideas here, but there are some issues with structuring it maybe some grammar issues and stuff. And he said, you know what, if you come to my office about half an hour before the class starts, maybe we can go over this at least for the next couple of weeks and I can help you on it. And I went away and I thought, oh no, some more work, I don't have time for it. And also a bit of my ego was in there too, like, I don't need help, I'm okay. But then I'm glad I took him up on that advice because he really did help me. So there are professors here that are willing to help you, and if they offer you help, just go. Just go at least that one time to see what they can do to what advice they can give, what kind of tips they can give.

[00:29:27.670] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
That's not one thing. The other thing is get involved. There are so many clubs and associations and things you can do on campus, and it would be I don't think it would be I mean, maybe you work and maybe you don't have the time to come and do other things on campus, and that's fine. But that opportunity to meet other people that is beyond just academics is something that is there at Harper and would be beneficial for some students. It definitely was for me, doing speech. So take up the opportunities that are offered here on campus. And another thing that I would say is going to college is meant to be challenging. You are going to change the person that you are that when you entered in and the person you are at the end of two years or at the end of four years, is going to be a different person. And so that change requires you to be challenged and to get your best out of that experience is to lean into that challenge.

[00:30:42.560] - Brian Shelton
Yeah, that change is very important, too, and to be challenged and to be open to challenge. We have a lot of people today who are very closed off to challenge, who are not willing to accept different idea, different opinions, and that's not good for the educational process. But I also wanted to second your thought of getting involved, because it makes a huge difference because you meet people from everywhere, especially at Harper. Right. Our campus population is so diverse, and you can meet people from all over the world here. It's so cool.

[00:31:10.830] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Absolutely. Let me tell you about I mean, not only with the professors that ended up being good friends and dear friends like Jeff Pryzbylo, but I also want to share a story about another friend that is dear to me. She's retired now. Her name is Barbara Wiel, and she was, I think, at one stage, the head of she was a chemistry professor. And I go to her place every Thanksgiving, and I've done that for the past 22 years.

[00:31:42.570] - Brian Shelton
That's amazing, right?

[00:31:44.350] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
That's what I mean by it could be just stopping by and seeing your professor and starting a conversation with them that you just never know. And that's all that was. It was just stopping by our office and having a chat with her. And that led into a lifelong friendship.

[00:31:59.430] - Brian Shelton
Yeah. I remember always being stuck at school because I ran the campus radio station and I couldn't go home for Thanksgiving. And our faculty adviser, a guy named Jim Greenwood, who's no longer with us, but he would invite. Me to his home every year for Thanksgiving, so I had a place to go and I'll never forget that. Right. And those kind of relationships are so wonderful. So take the time to talk to people.

[00:32:17.590] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Right, exactly. Because since I haven't lived or been raised in America, I didn't know what Thanksgiving was about and what it involved. And because of Barbara and going to her place for Thanksgiving, my children actually have the American Thanksgiving experience, which we probably would have eventually created ourselves. But yeah

[00:32:39.510] - Brian Shelton
That's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being here today. It was so much fun to talk to you. I hope that we get you back in here again sometime soon. That would be fantastic. And I wish you the absolute best of luck with your career and life. And Thanksgiving is coming up, so I hope you're going to have a good one.

[00:32:54.510] - Dr. Shelomi Gomes
Yes at Barbara's! Thank you so much for having me. It was an absolute pleasure to be on the podcast with you.

[00:33:00.730] - Brian Shelton
Thanks for being here. Shelomi Gomes is a graduate of Harper College and an organizational psychologist. People do great things with their Harper education. If you're enjoying Harper talks, please subscribe. And while you're at it, rate and review us so that others might find us. Harper Talks is a coproduction of Harper College Alumni Relations and Harper Radio. Our show is produced by Shannon Hynes. This episode was edited by me, Brian Shelton. Our online content producer is Erica Burger. Our theme music was created by Aidan Cashman. I'm Brian Shelton. Thanks for listening.