 Welcome to New Workforce Hawaii. I'm so excited to be here today and to be co-host of this group that's looking at all the different ways that we can work in Hawaii. And a lot of them are new and emerging. They're not really the same as what we're used to in the past. You'll see on the bottom of your screen a website, NewWorkforceHawaii.com. New Workforce Hawaii was founded by Carlene McKay, a national speaker in the field of aging, as well as new ways to work for all ages. Millennials all the way up through 90, 95, however old you are. And I'm happy to be a member of that group along with three other founding members. When you go to that website below, you're going to see not only some really interesting information, but also the opportunity to download a free book called Work Future, Work in the Future. And what you'll find in there is that it's really time for you to wake up, look around, and get an idea of what other things you can do besides whatever eight to five you're doing today. One of the scary parts about that is that we may not have the choice anymore just to work in a regular job. A lot of those are going away to robotics and other things as they come along. But today we're going to focus on, and I'm really, really thrilled to have as my guest Dr. Jackie Young. And Jackie is a force to be reckoned with for advocacy for women and girls. And she has spent her life doing a lot of work in that regard, as well as you may recognize her name from being on the House of Representatives for Kailua Waimanalo a while back. Jackie, well, I guess we're going to ask you a bunch of questions today. And Jackie is, we've asked her to talk about secrets of reinvention, her secrets of reinvention over her life. Why I think that's such a great thing for us to have the opportunity to do is that, you know, how they say necessity is a mother of invention. You know, necessity is a mother of invention. That's how the Post-it note was built, right? It was just a mistake, but necessity brought it on. Well, Jackie's one of the mothers of reinvention. So thank you, Jackie, for being here today. Thank you. And we'll hear a little bit about parts of your resume as well as the key parts that you think our viewers would really relate to in terms of their own lives, okay? Okay. Okay, great. So we'll get started. Let's see. Right now, Jackie is on several boards, right? Yes. What are some of the boards that you're on right now? I'm on ACLU state board and on the Civil Rights Commission, Hawaii State Advisory Commission to the Civil Rights and also on the Judicial Selection Commission. And I was just elected chair. Wow. Excellent. Well, they're lucky to have you as chair. Thank you. Yeah. And then you're also on a national group? Yeah, I was reappointed by the Secretary of Defense to the Defense Advisory Committee on Women and the Services. So it's a committee that advises Secretary Mattis, Defense Secretary, about integrating women into the military. Wow. And I was so fortunate. I was on this committee in the 1990s when they had the combat exclusion law and wouldn't allow women into combat positions, except for aviators. They could fly combat planes. And that was in 1993. And then just recently, a year ago, they repealed that. So now 220,000 jobs in the military opened up for women. That's a huge new workforce opportunity for women in the military. Right. I was reading about that. And actually, one of the interesting things, I think, is that you're really for fairness and equity, right? But you're also for safety, right? Exactly. For people in various job categories and things like that. And that's one of the other things. You know, do you want to say anything more about that? Well, I want to talk about DACA was in the sense that, to me, that's going to revolutionize the workforce. When you see women moving into positions they never had before, in combat, in ranger school, in the seals. And it's going to be hard for them in the beginning because they haven't trained for that. But when they get in that, it's going to be revolutionary in what women can do. So it just opens up a whole new field. Well, that's an excellent point. And I think also in terms of the future of, like, I think it's over 49% of all the degrees that are graduate degrees are earned by women now, right? Yes. So in terms of what we can do as a force, not against men, but in terms of parity, equity, and the future of womanhood, right? We should be able to do some things. Exactly. An example of that is in the judiciary. There's been a call for more women judges and over 50% of the law school students are women. So why isn't that happening? And I think part of that falls into, frankly, some of the traps we fall into. And that has been the theme of my whole life about traps and how to get out of it. Well, that's, this sounds fascinating, doesn't it? So well, tell me the one trap that you personally didn't notice at the time. Okay, so you're in a trap. Most of us don't notice it right away, right? Sure, they don't know. So a trap you got into, all of a sudden you woke up, you were like, what, what's going on? And how did you get out of it? Well, you know, it's our culture and government that puts us into traps. And in my opinion, age is a big trap. Because what the government tells you what you're going to do at a certain age and go to kindergarten, certain age, you graduated a certain age, you go to college at a certain age, those are our traps that you have to think your way out of. And I fell into a lot of those. In fact, what I brought is you're talking about 20th century, because this is the 21st century, right? That's right. This is my very first degree that I got. And it's from the YWCA in advanced cake decorating, you can't really read it, advanced cake decorating in 1956. But that was all I could get at that time, because I had left college to get married. And the only courses available to women were at the YWCA in millery and sewing and cake decorating. That was a wife trap. You know, you don't go back to school if you were married, you do just stay at home and you do homemaking things. And that was all I could get. Well, now in the 21st century, I looked it up, you can learn how to decorate a cake online. They have courses and of course, you know, I have the Apple Watch too, right? It doesn't matter. You don't have to be a wife. And in fact, probably our best pastry chefs sometimes are men. That's true. So what what's limiting for women is limiting for men also. So Oh, wait, let me stop you there. I think that's an excellent point, right? What's limiting for women is limiting for men. Why? Because it then puts us into these gender roles. And I know that you have an advanced degree in women's studies, right? But gender roles that trap us all into thinking that we have to be a certain way. And like you were saying, traps of work, traps of marriage, right? Yeah, and way back when I was with the Department of Education doing gender equity issues, I met the HR person, human resources person from AT&T, he was here to give a talk. And they were being sued at the time by switchboard operators who were told you had to be female to be a switchboard switchboard operator, and you had to be male to climb the poles. So when the women challenged them on that, they had to look at different research and how to have lighter bells, smaller tools that could fit in their hand. What they discovered when they did those things that small men could also qualify to climb the poles. So it opened it up to diversity in the sense that Asian men were smaller than some of the other big burly men. And so it really opened it up to everyone when you open it up to women, you open it to a variety of people, right? You're not limited then by ethnicity or gender, right? You know, it's the kind of the blinders are on but then they come off and helps more than just the one group that you're advocating for. Yeah, so those inequities are traps. And we have to be aware of them. And as I said, age is a big trap. But for me, as a housewife, which I was for about 15, I didn't get my first job till I was 38, 38 years old. And that was after I got my degree, some of my degrees and and work my way up. And that was because the Vietnam War was going on. My husband was in military. And I thought if he died, I had four children. What was I going to do to take care of them? It was a very practical decision that I had to finish my college degree. So I went back to school in my 30s. And then my first job at 38 years old. So I didn't want to be caught in that trap of not being educated. That was when you were speech pathologist. Yeah, I became a speech pathologist. And I was going to ask you, of all the things you could do, besides cake decorating, how did you decide to do speech pathology and audiology? Well, when I went back to school at the University of Hawaii, because I was unclassified, I could only take the leftover classes at that time. And in high school, I had been on the debate team. So I wanted to go for speech. Right. But a lot of people thought speech was an easy way out. And it was all filled. And the only classes open was speech pathology. Oh, I see. So I ended up taking the introductory course in speech pathology. And I thought this is a pretty good field. But once I got in it, I found out you had to have a master's degree in order to utilize it, because it required a higher level of clinical competence. Right. So then I thought, Oh, my gosh, I've set myself a path to get a higher degree. You know, and, and so that's so were you working? Were you working full time while you did that? No, I had internships, which was really, really useful to me. But I have to tell you, during this whole period, what got me going back to school, what got me to become more active was I read something that Jackie Robinson wrote that life is not a spectator sport. You can't spend your life in the grandstand. You have to get out on the field. And I thought about that because I felt like I was a spectator for so long, that I thought I really, and that rung in my ears. I thought I'd need to get out of this. I need to do something. And that's what spurred me on. That's great. Well, I think when you work for Hawaii, too, one of the themes that we're trying to broaden out is that learning is doing. Yes. And not just, and going back to school is a wonderful thing to do. But these days, you can learn on YouTube and go try something new. Exactly, like that. So you can learn faster, like you were saying about the cake decorating, right? Yeah. So this idea of there should be fewer traps, right? Right. No, we get trapped all the time. Like another one is I consider them conceptual traps. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, I frankly had a dog up to 15 years old, he was constantly learning new tricks. I am, you know, they think of elderly people, I am constantly looking for new ways to learn. Because to me, aging means living. Living means growing. And I mean, all you have to do is look at your fingernails, they constantly grow, don't they? Yeah, absolutely. All the time. If you didn't, they'd belong. So that's a sign to you that you're still growing. Right. You know, if you're still growing outwardly, then you need to grow inwardly also. You know, so it's a, to me, being a lifelong learner is super important. Absolutely. To continue to learn and keep yourself relevant. Right. Relevance is the thing. And if we don't learn, we're going to become dinosaurs, right? Exactly. Yeah, right. So let me ask you this, then like, were you always a lifelong learner from way up? And if any of our viewers aren't, they don't consider themselves lifelong learners, or they're afraid of that, how would you help them to get over that trap? Well, I was a lifelong, when I think about this, and I keep it, you know, I keep it hanging because it reminds me, that was what was available at the time. It's amazing. And, you know, yet I continued on that path. So I always had something I was learning, whether it was Chinese cooking, which I learned, millinery, I learned how to make hats, sewing. I learned how to sew, stretch and sew. I learned every method of sewing. But it was not something that I really loved. And I learned after a while that a career is something that you have, you set as a goal, you want to be a speech pathologist, a career. But a vocation is something that you truly love and believe in. It's a calling. The word vocay, vocare is Latin for calling. So things called me and they usually were in my volunteer activities. There was something I volunteered for that called me. But pretty soon they merged together. My volunteer work and my career work. So I felt inspired and motivated and able to activate myself. And those are key words in my life. So would you say, do you know people who weren't really uncomfortable with learning, who now have made it through the trap? Or have you helped other people get through that trap? Well, you know, I have given hundreds of speeches over the years. And to this day, I'll have people come up and say, I remember when you said something 20 years ago. And I'm like amazed that something I said a long time ago, my belief is as you grow, you're not only learning, but you're teaching and you don't even know you're teaching by your behavior and the actions that you take and the life that you lead is just teaching in itself. That's great. That's great. We're going to come right back. We're going to have a short break. And then when we come back, we'll hear some more about your story. Okay. Okay. I'm Nicole Alexander Enos, and I was born three weeks ago. Congratulations on being there for me for some of the few weeks of my life. I'm starting a new show, The Millennial Mind, every Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the month of April, where we'll go over some of the reasons why millennials are some of the most anxious and frustrated people at the moment. Hello, this is Martin Despeng. Please join me on my new show, Humane Architecture, like the one in the back that you see by architect David Rockwood. The show is going to be on Tuesdays, 5 p.m. here on Think Tech Hawaii in downtown Honolulu. See you then. Welcome back. This is our show on secrets of reinvention with new workforce Hawaii. And our guest today is Jackie Young, Dr. Jackie Young. And Jackie has an amazing life. If you miss the first part of this, go back and watch the tape later. She has been telling us about how to get out of mental and physical and job kind of traps and free yourself to do what really is meaningful and purposeful in life. And you know, a lot of people, we go through and we do things that are good for us. We get better jobs. We change our job. We go back to school and learn something new and make more money. Well, Jackie has transcended that and she has chosen to become a public advocate for numerous causes. But I'm going to ask her about now is how she decided to do that. So Jackie, what made you decide to go out and be a public figure on various causes? Well, one of the earliest language gifts, and I call them gifts, when there are quotes or sayings that people do that inspire you, was my grandfather. I was raised by my grandparents and my grandfather came from Korea in 1904. And he was very political and he was leader in the Korean community. He would go around to the different plantation camps and tell people, if you care about your family, you have to care about politics. You have to care about what's going on politically because it's going to trap you. I would hear that when I traveled around with him. And it didn't really sink in until I began to feel powerless and began to feel like I was not contributing and I was being a spectator and I needed to activate myself. And then it hit me that what my grandfather said way back when I was a child was true. That if you care about your family, you have to care about politics. Not just voting. It's the minimum you have to vote. But you have to care about the policies that are being written that are going to impact your family. Well, was it scary for you at all to get into that realm? It was. But again, because I had volunteered to work for the Hawaii Women's Political Caucus earlier as a volunteer, and then later I became chair. And then when I was chair of the White Women's Caucus, I had a cancer scare. And I thought I had colon cancer. And I got a call from the national office asking you to run for national vice president. And I said, well, I can't do that because I may die in six months because I've got this colon scare. Well, you think that when you get cancer. Absolutely. And I heard a pause on the other side and she said, it can't be that bad. Put your resume in. Run anyway. Well, and I went, okay, so I ran for vice president, which I won the National Women's Political Caucus. The next step was, well, hey, you're in, you just moved into a district and and somebody there is against the things you believe in. Why don't you run? And I went, well, I just moved into the district, right? They said, so what? You know, and I thought, okay, you don't have to live a lifetime in a district to care about issues that affect your family. And I use that as my theme. So what I'm saying is that your language can trap you so easily. My dissertation was about language traps. And they can trap you into thinking this is the way it is or has to be. Right. And I have to say millennials, the young people will have to worry about that because they're being defined by society is what they can or can't do. You know, that they're free thinking, that they're above authority, that they can do whatever they want to. And they will find that's going to trap them just by thinking that way. So they have to realize that there are things that people say and do that can trap you and you've got to think of a positive way to get out of that. That's an excellent point. And I think, you know, boomers also are trapped that way. Absolutely. Like we're like self enlightened. And we all think that we're going to be young forever. Right. Some of us could actually be young forever if we just don't put the label on. Same thing with millennials. I totally agree. But boomers are being trapped already by saying they're entering retirement age at 65. And they don't have to. They don't have to, you know, that's what the government says. You get Medicare at 65. That makes you feel old. Right. But it's a gift from government that you get Medicare and you can continue. I didn't retire until I was 79. You're still not retired. No, I still have a goal I wanted to teach at the university because I have that in my background. And I'm thinking how do I keep myself fresh is by challenging young people and hearing what they have to say. I'm going to put myself into that arena again. Oh, that's wonderful. Well, I think, you know, the idea of when you were talking about getting into politics that you had you had moments where opportunities came your way and people saw something with you, right? And then they they they encouraged you, right? Yeah. And and yet now I know that you do that a lot with other people, right? You give it forward, right? You're able to take the energy that you have and you inspire so many people just with what you do. I mean, I hope you realize that. No, and I don't. I mean, it's afterwards that I find out that I did. If I did, I would stop and think about it probably be too much of responsibility. Oh, you'd be scared. Yeah, there were when I was in the legislature, the issue of marriage equality came up. And people told me not to get involved because if I wanted to be reelected, I better stay conservative on that issue. It didn't feel right, you know, because my children had friends who were gay. And I thought this doesn't feel right to do this. And it's a long story that's in my book. But I asked the people who supported me whether I should get involved. And they said it's going to be political suicide. And I thought about it. And I thought that means it's really important. That means I have to take a big risk and I'm willing to do it because I believe in it. And so I took that risk. And yes, politically, it impacted me. But it made me feel good that I did the right thing. Right. And it prevailed. Yes. And it prevailed eventually. But it was just something I felt you have to take risks. Yeah. And there are responsibilities and consequences. And I suffered them. But I suffered them with my head held up high. That's right. It was it was OK. Well, that's excellent. I mean, excellent advice. And just so what you're really saying is if you were raised, right, not with the great grandfather that you had that said get into politics, no matter what your situation, how you were raised, you need to transcend whatever those communications or traps that are in your head and figure out what you really stand for and go and do it. Right. At any age when you're a millennial, when you're a Gen Y or whatever they're calling that group now, all the way up. Yeah. And they need to challenge things that they hear like in my dissertation, one of the big conceptual traps. And this goes back to my interest in domestic violence and violence against women is I kept hearing men protect women, men protect women. Well, who do men protect women from? Right. Other men. You know, so there's something wrong with that concept of men protect women. So women need to protect themselves. They need to be able to take charge of their lives and step forward and take care of themselves. And that was a big trap that I'd like to put out there that things like that can really ensnare you. And it's important you realize that they're there. So you just decide once you know I have an opportunity, you just decide I'm going to go do this. I'm weighing all the pros and cons. And I'm just going to go in. Yeah, sometimes you get sucked in. You get battered, you know, you do that. But then because over the years I've developed a self confidence in myself, I know I can get out of it. There you go. I can move I can always be a cake decorator. I mean, I can always look at Leonard's bakery and go I can do those cakes, I can make roses, I can make animals, you know. Yeah. This has been something over 50 years ago, and I still have that skill. Yeah, you know, that's a good point. Never lost that. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I could always write resumes or help people with LinkedIn or something. Well, you know, my first job, Phyllis, was as a reporter for the Honolulu Star Balls when I was 16 years old. And when I was given that opportunity, I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to be writing for the world, which at that time was Hawaii, right? You know, but it gave me the ability to meet deadlines, you know, to be able to interview people, you know, they were outside of my little circle and to network with a larger group of people. It was a high school column, but I had that column for four years. Wow. So I was able to really meet a lot of people in the community as a result. Right. We were talking a few days ago about the networking and the volunteerism and how it really kind of helps prop you to know what you might be interested in later, etc. Right. So it's really important because if you're in a job that is kind of junk, you can still hunt here for something like habitat for humanity or food bank or something that makes you feel you're giving back to the community and you'll soon find that your skills in raising money for that non-profit maybe will come in handy in your career. Absolutely. Or the skills of networking or organizing will come, you know, if you want to run for office someday. So all those skills dovetail with each other. Right. Right. Well, I want to hear just a little bit about your book. Okay, we have a few minutes left and I know you've been working on your memoir and it's in various stages of iteration. And what is the title of it right now is the Gifts of Aging. That's the working title. Well, that's the subtitle. Actually, the title is What the Gypsy Said. And it's because when I was 15 years old, I was in Chinatown with my brother and my grandmother and they had gypsies on the sidewalk right across from Woh Fat. They had tables set up with tattoo artists and gypsies on the sidewalk. And I was standing there and a gypsy came up and grabbed my hand and said, Oh, too bad, you're going to die when you're 25. Oh, my God. And my brother was shocked that she would say that. And everybody I asked after that said, Oh, that was just a silly prophecy. Don't worry about it. Yeah. And I didn't really worry about it, though it sat in the back of my mind until I hit 25. Then I hit 25. Maybe this is the year I'm going to die. At that time, I was pregnant with my third child in Germany. And I thought this is the year I'm going to die. So it became very present in my mind. And what happened after that is I began to feel like we really can't take life for granted. We really have to make decisions now. And it crystallized when I read a book about if you had six months to live, how would you live your life? We would be blessed to be able to know we could live six months truly, because we don't know. Right. And so I used to plan if I had six months to live, I would run for office. This is the way I was thinking when I was asked to run for office. Well, if I died, I'd be elected and the governor could appoint a Democrat. This is what I thought. If I had six months to live, I would do it. Always thinking I would do it. If I had six months to live, would I do this? If I had six months to live, would I retire? Would I quit? Would I do something else? It gives you a long enough span that you can think I can do it. And then one of the last quotes I'll mention is when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I sat there in the doctor's office waiting for him to come and tell me the bad news when there was a sign on the on the wall that said yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift and that's why it's called the present. And I looked at that and I said whatever happens to me and I had breast cancer at the time and that was 1998. You know, I said I would live the fullest that I could live. Oh, what a wonderful way to end this segment. But I sure hope that we have a chance to talk to you more and anyone who has the chance to check out Jackie's book when it is published. Hopefully by the end of the year. Yeah. And if you are even before that, if you don't know her, look her up on Google, LinkedIn, check this woman out. She is, she's had so many different important roles so far in life. And we really thank you so much for spending your time with us today. This is New Workforce Hawaii. Thank you very much for tuning in and we'll see you next time.