 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters Here. Hello, welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Arby Kelly, and I've got a really interesting guest for you today. But first, your book of the week. Now, usually I share with you a book that you actually read, but this week, seeing as we're starting the new year and resolutions are all aglow right now, this is a book that actually helps you shape the first quarter of the new year called the self journal. And this is my second version of the journal. I've had multiple journals from this company and it's bestself.com if you want to go find it. But basically, it helps you plot out your goals on a monthly, daily, quarterly, weekly scale so that you are able to keep track of what your overall goals are, what the little milestones are along the way, and you're able to track your progress. And it's really, really cool. So that is called the self journal. You can find that at bestself.com, but it's really awesome. And if you're hoping to have better resolutions and more success in the new year, I would check out a journal like this one. I think you'll be glad you did. Now, for the body language tip of the week, I actually brought some things from home. Now, most people, yes, these are shoes. Most people, when they are thinking about body language, they're thinking about faces or hand gestures, they're not thinking about shoes. Now, the way you're pointing your toes actually says a lot about your state of mind. All right, so if this person is talking to this person and you can see the shoes are pointing together, that shows us they're having a good conversation. They're directly involved, they're focused on each other, but this person is pointing towards them and this person's feet are pointing away. That says that this person's engaged in the conversation, but this person isn't. They are just checking out. Or maybe you'll see it where there's one shoe pointing towards the other person and another pointing away. That's like a way of saying you're halfway in the conversation, you're kind of paying attention, but it's not super important. So if you're talking to someone and you want, like your spouse or your kids, and you want them to know that you're engaged, that you're actively listening, that you are totally focused in giving them all your attention, you want to make sure your toes are pointing towards them. And I think we've all had this happen where someone says they're listening to us, but their entire body is pointed away, like towards the television, and you get the feeling, even as you're talking to them, because they're pointing away, they're not paying attention. And you don't ever want to be sending those messages that you're ignoring someone, that you don't care about them, that you're not listening. So always make sure that your feet are pointing towards the person you're talking to and not pointing away. Until you're ready to leave. When you're ready to leave, feel free to point your feet away all you want to. It'll help you get out of that conversation all the more quickly. Now onto our guest. Now our guest is actually full disclosure, my uncle. He is my husband's mother's brother, and he is really cool. He is actually a mayor, he's involved in politics, and I thought with all the political gandals and discontent going on, it'd be a good idea for us to hear from someone who's down to earth and really cares about the people and is in politics. And so this week, our guest is Mayor Warren Gubbler. And we're pulling him up on screen now. Hi, Warren. Good morning, Aloha. Aloha. He's actually here staying in Kauai. Can you tell us the story about how you're here in Hawaii right now? Well, I'm here with my family. I practiced law for 35 years and I retired last week. And I couldn't think of a better place to come celebrate with my loved ones than to visit the Garden Island of Kauai. Wow. All right, we actually got to have him for dinner at my house the other week. And I cooked dinner for the first time in forever. And it was so wonderful to have you, Warren, and your beautiful family over. So I wanted, yeah, I wanted to first ask you about your first political campaign. What moved you to finally get involved in politics? Well, I was one of those couch potatoes that read the newspaper and complained and kind of figure out why the politicians were doing what they were doing. And my kids and my wife said one day, well, why don't you run? I had thought about it in the past when my kids were younger, but I didn't feel comfortable at that stage in my life because I didn't want to take away any more time for my children. However, when they became teenagers, my kids made it clear to me that I was spending way too much time at home, too much time complaining about politics and why didn't I do something about it? And so at that point, I did jump in and ran for city council of Visaya, which is a town of about 133,000 people in central California. And it was a great decision. I've been on the city council for eight years and have served since 2016 as mayor. Wow. So how did that first political campaign go? What were some of the kind of growing pains you had to go through to make this happen? Well, one of the things I learned real quick was that I was not as well known as I thought I was. I went in certain circles, the law circles, my Chamber of Commerce friends, the nonprofits that I served on the boards of, for instance, the Boy Scouts of America, and I thought I was fairly well known. But once I started campaigning, I found out there were a lot of people that had never heard of war in Goober. So I had to reach out, I had to advertise, I had to put signs around town, I had to get in the newspaper in a positive way as many times as I could so that people would get to know me and feel comfortable with me. So just from what you've talked about so far, it sounds like there are a couple obstacles in getting involved in politics that sometimes maybe you want to get involved, but there are a couple obstacles along the way. Can you tell us some more about those obstacles? Well, one thing is you have to get to be well known because you want people to vote for you. Another thing is you have to fundraise, and that's always a joy, I say that facetiously, asking people for money, sometimes putting your own money into the campaign so you have a little bit of skin in the game. But those are the obstacles. A lot of it is that learning curve. Before I ran the first time, I served on the campaign committee for other candidates, and I got to learn a little bit more about how a campaign ran. So if someone's thinking about going into politics for the first time, I'd suggest that they go to work for another candidate who is running for office and learn as much as you can. That makes sense. That way instead of running on your own and maybe not being successful and losing all of that fundraising money, you get to see how it's done, work out the kinks, and get on that learning curve before you finally run on your own two feet. That makes sense. That's correct. Again, you have to learn what you're doing. Also, it's good at least the first time to have a campaign consultant, someone who has been through the experience before with other candidates. The first time I ran for city council, I had an experienced campaign consultant who kind of pointed me in the right direction, made sure that I spoke to a lot of service clubs, that I got my name out in the community. The second time around, I was the incumbent, and so it was a different type of campaign. I didn't have to fundraise as much because by that time I was a household name in our community, but I still wanted to go out there and run like I was running scared because when you get back and get complacent, that's when you get upset in a campaign. I love that. Now the news seemed to be flooded with bad politicians, sex scandals, accusations, racism, perjury, all sorts of just horrible things from our politicians, and it seems like for most of us, the trust for our politicians is at an all-time low. What's your take on that? Well, we're seeing a lot of that in Washington DC, in Hollywood, and in Sacramento, and my take on that is that politicians should be held to a higher standard. If you're going to go out there and be in the public eye, you better be prepared for people to watch you, to watch what you're doing, and to question you if you're acting inappropriately. So I have no problems with running for another office and holding myself out as a leader. A leader should be setting an example. I should mention that I am currently running for the State Assembly in California, and there's been some problems there with the number of the people in the legislature, and I'm putting myself out there as someone who's been in the public eye for many years that is well known and that tries to live to a higher standard, and that if elected to the assembly, I will continue to uphold those higher standards and be a leader. I love that. I feel like so many of our politicians and our leaders think, oh, I'm in control now, that means I'm above the rules. But I love that your take on it is that the leader should actually be held held to a higher standard and upholding those laws and upholding those moral statue. Well, and again, you're not only a leader, but when you're elected to office, you have to continue to be a servant. You made an interesting point there. Sometimes when people are elected to office, the power goes to their head, and they go on a little bit of an ego trip. And so you have to realize that even though you are leading, you are still a servant of the people. You have to listen to them. You need to try to do the will of the people. And that's something that I strive to do as the mayor. I attend a lot of public functions because the people want to see the mayor out there in the community. They want to see that I'm active and involved and serving them. And it seems like sometimes there will be politicians who they get elected, they get into office, and then they just disappear and they never seem to be around doing their jobs. What would you say to someone who's doing something like that? Well, what I would say is to be more personally involved. I find that a lot of state and federal lawmakers, officials tend to have what they call district directors. And the district directors often are just college students who show up at events in the name of the politician. So what I try to do is go personal. I don't even have a district director or anyone that is my spokesperson. I kind of chuckle when people ask me why I don't have a spokesperson. I am my spokesperson. And so if I can't make it, I'll tell them why I can't make it. I'll do everything I can to make sure that I attend as many functions as I can out in the public as well as city council meetings to let people know that I'm there, I'm active in the community. And when I end up going to Sacramento after I get elected to the assembly, it's my intention to continue to be in the Visalia community, as well as Tulare County, Kern County and Inyo counties, which are part of the assembly district 26, to be involved and let people know that I care. Well, Warren, not only am I biased because, like, we're related and I think you're cool, but even just for you as a politician, I already like you so much more than all of these other politicians that I've met with and interacted with. So in your opinion, what is the thing that just sets you apart from the other candidate? Well, first off, I think you're right. You're probably a little bit biased since we are related. But I think a lot of it is just being down to earth. Another thing that sets me apart is that I was a successful family man, a successful businessman, a successful employer, long before I ever got into politics. I think that's one of the problems we have in politics today. Often, we'll get young people who want to jump into the political arena at the top. Instead of starting maybe on a local school board, maybe for a city council or even serving on a chamber of commerce, they jump in and say, I've got these great ideas and I want to be elected to a state or federal level. I really think that you need to start at the beginning, get some practical experience, and at the same time, don't be a pool time politician. That's one of the nice things I've liked and enjoyed about being on the city council is that I can continue to practice law to be a businessman and employer during the daytime and then do my political work in the evenings and weekends. And as a result, I think I can relate to people a little bit more because I go through the same struggles that they do. I'm not off in Sacramento or some other location trying to dictate what they're doing. I'm right there in Visalia as the mayor doing my own job and trying to overcome the same obstacles that other people in the community are trying to overcome. And as a result, I think that I'm a little bit more relatable. I love that. I love that. Now, we are going to take a very short break, but we'll be back in just a couple minutes. So if you have more questions about running for office or being involved or becoming a politician, stay tuned. We'll be back in just a minute. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea. Aloha. Hello. I'm Helen Dora Hayden, the host of Voice of the Veteran, seen here live every Thursday afternoon at 1 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. As a fellow veteran and veteran's advocate with over 23 years' experience serving veterans, active duty and family members, I hope to educate everyone on benefits and accessibility services by inviting professionals in the field to appear on the show. In addition, I hope to plan on inviting guest veterans to talk about their concerns and possibly offer solutions. As we navigate and work together through issues, we can all benefit. Please join me every Thursday at 1 p.m. for the Voice of the Veteran. Aloha. All right. Welcome back to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm your host, Arby Kelly, with my guest, Warren Goobler, who is the mayor of Vassalia and is running for public office. Now, would you be willing to tell us a little bit more about the state of the race for state assembly? Sure. I'd be glad to. We have an incumbent who is running of the same party as I am, Republican. There's a lot of dissatisfaction with the incumbent. And so as a result, I think a lot of people have been concerned I was asked to run. And in fact, I was contemplating it myself after a few of the votes that he took. Part of the problem, going back to the relatability issue, is that the incumbent would represent to the local constituents how he would vote on certain bills before him, and then he would vote the opposite. And that didn't set well with the constituents. In that type of situation, you either need to stick with your word or you need to let your constituents know that your mind isn't made up and you're willing to continue to listen to arguments on both sides, sides of the issue. But once you make a representation as to how you're going to vote, you better stick with it. Keep your word. I love that. So instead of telling the people what they want to hear in order to get elected, you actually ought to be up front and tell them what's really going on. And once you give your word, you should stick to it. You know, really, that's important. People aren't going to agree with you on every single issue. One of my favorite quotes is from former mayor of New York, Ed Koch, and he was quoted as saying, if you agree with me nine times out of 12, then vote for me. If you agree with me 12 out of 12 times, then go see your psychiatrist. So I'm not expecting people to agree with me on every issue, but I will do my best to explain the reasons why I vote on each issue. And at the same time, be honest in my dealings. And if I make a representation as to how I will vote on a particular bill, then I'm going to keep my word. I love that. And it seems like honesty is such a lost concept these days with our politicians. They seem to be just mired in controversy. Now, I'm sure you in your eight years of like you've got a public voting record, you've got a history. I'm sure you've seen a little bit of controversy, though. Can you tell us about any controversies you've been in? Well, generally, during my time of service on the city council for eight years, most of the issues are cut and dried. We're talking about public safety. We're talking about fixing potholes, making sure we have safe roads, finances, budgets, things like that. Pretty cut and dried type issues. But on occasion, we'll get into issues that are more emotional. For instance, land use may be a large identity project being built next to a residential neighborhood. In those types of situations, people tend to come out. They're very excited. They're very emotional, which they're entitled to be. And sometimes all you can do is listen. When possible, I try to reach some type of middle ground so that both sides of the issue will feel like they came away from the city council meeting, having received something or went a little bit. Sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes you have to make the hard decisions and you make that decision and you find out that about half of the people in the room think you're terrific. The other half of the people in the room think you're not very smarter and are upset with you. So sometimes as a politician, you just have to be ready to bear the consequences of your decisions. But again, I find that people, once you explain to them why you voted the way you did, will understand that and will catch a little bit of break most of the time. So have there been any instances when people have been upset with you about the way you voted? Or is there any dirt in your campaign that your opponents are trying to dig up? Well, in this assembly race, there's always someone who's running, who wants to try to point to my record. What's nice is that after eight years, they've only been able to come up with one or two issues that I voted on, which they think the public may have disagreed with. And frankly, there are issues where I've decided a certain way where the constituents, some of the constituents didn't agree with that vote. So for instance, a few months back, one of the council members asked that we put on an agenda the issue of whether we should put the motto or slogan of In God We Trust on our city council chamber walls. The council decided to go ahead and have that discussion, that debate. And we did discuss it thoroughly. And the council decided four to one not to put those words on the council chamber walls. I had a lot of people who came up afterwards who patted me on the back and said, thank you so much. And I had others, particularly a few ministers in town who called me and asked me why I had voted the way I did. I consider myself a supporter of religion. I'm religious in my own faith. We had a good Lutheran, a good Baptist and myself a good Mormon who voted the way we did, because we felt that it wasn't necessary to put that on those words on the council chamber walls. My comment was that I thought it was more important that we put those words on our heart. In other words, that we live like in God We Trust. There's lots of models out there in God We Trust, which is a national model I should mention, not an isolated model or a state model. How about God Bless America or One Nation Under God? How do you decide which motto to put on your council chamber walls? And so sometimes you have to look at that and say, what's it going to cost to put that on the wall, you know, literally to pay to have that sign put on the wall? Is it going to make the majority of the people happy? Is it going to make our community a better and safer place? And in that situation, the council decided that it was better that the people of Isaiah put those types of words on their home walls and that they live according to those principles. I will tell you that on the walls of my home, we do have the motto One Nation Under God. And I'm proud of that. I consider myself someone who believes in God. And I appreciate everyone in our community of Isaiah in our area of Central California, who are religious and who participate in their religions and make our communities a better place. But in this particular situation, it was emotional. And some people disagreed with that decision. But you have to make the best decision you can under the circumstances and live with it. So again, if you give me the choice of carrying a sign that says in God we trust versus living the principle of in God I trust, I would suggest that living that principle is more important than one more sign. I love that. What an awesome story. Now, can you tell us just a little bit more? We've only got about five or six minutes left. What would you be willing to tell us a little bit more about what the campaign has kind of been like for you, if there have been ups or downs or for those who are considering running for office? What are some of the things that you have to go through that maybe they might not expect? Well, first off, you need to make the decision early. For instance, in the assembly race I'm involved with, we don't even start filing for the race until February 2018. The primary election is on June 5th, 2018, with the general election in November 2018. And so anytime you're running for office, particularly if you're going up against an incumbent, you have to start early. I should mention that when I ran for city council, there were 10 candidates running against three incumbents. And so in that case, I was fortunate enough to get one of those positions on the city council, even against an incumbent. And I've got the same situation facing you this time around. So the first suggestion I have is make up your mind as to whether this is something you really want to do, and then start early. Start planning for it. Start fundraising. That's really important. You have to fundraise, and you have to let people know that you're running and why you're running. So you just have to get started early. Be prepared to ask people for money. Be prepared to maybe dig into your own pocket and contribute towards that campaign, and get ready to run. I love that. So you have to get started early. But once you're started, is it all uphill from there? Are you telling from the start like the campaign is doomed? Or are you definitely winning? Or does that all kind of vary from day to day? Well, you know, it's kind of like riding one of your waves here in Hawaii. You have your ups and your downs, right? Some days you think this is the best decision you ever made. People patch on the back. They're very supportive. And on other days, people will criticize you. And all you can do is smile and say, that's okay. They're entitled to their opinion. And I'm going to do the best I can to explain to them why I think they ought to vote for me. But it's really an up and down situation day by day. And you just have to you just have to have a positive mental attitude on my website for my campaign, which is goobler4assembly.com. I've actually put a one of my favorite quotes by Teddy Roosevelt, where he talks about the man in the arena. And you really have to consider yourself as the gladiator out there. You're going to be putting yourself out in front of the public. Not everyone's going to agree with everything you do. Some people will will not vote for you just because you may be of a different party than they are, which I don't think is a good enough reason. I think you have to look at the person first and look at the party second. One of the nice things about serving on the Visalia City Council was that it was a nonpartisan position. Most people in the community weren't even aware of what my political party was. In fact, I was talking to one of our council members here just a couple of weeks ago and I said, Greg, by the way, we've been on the council for a number of years together now. What political party are you? You're a Democrat, aren't you? And he said, well, yes, I am. And I'm glad to know that you didn't know that because this is a nonpartisan type position you and I hold. And I think I'm doing a good job when people don't know what political party I belong to. And then Greg turned around and said, by the way, what party are you a member of? I said, well, I'm a Republican. And so we kind of got a chuckle out of that one. But that showed that people of two different parties could set aside the party issue and come together. And frankly, Greg and I agree on a number of issues and it worked very well together. And that's something that I intend to continue in Sacramento. It's important that you have that party backing, of course, because you want the party to bring out the voters. And it's important that you have the same philosophy as your particular party in a state race where it is run by the different parties, where it's more of a partisan type of race. But I will tell you, it's been fun being on the city council because we didn't have to get into Republican or Democrat or independent issues. We got to go straight to the issue in front of the city council and decide based upon what we felt was best for the local citizens. I think the whole world would be a better place if politics were more like that. You see it more and more, people are just dividing into tribes where you're a Republican and I'm a Democrat and this means we can't be friends because we're just too different. And all the media, all of the, all of the politicians seems to be driving this line of if you're not with me, you're against me. And so I love that you've been able to be in a position to work side by side, set aside the parties and just focus on the people, focus on the character, focus on the situations and work together to make your little corner of the world a better, safer place. You know, I really agree with that. There's too much gotcha politics. There's too much bomb throwing. There's too much partisanship in politics today. And again, you know, we have different philosophies. I'm not going to agree with everything that a person on the other side of the aisle is going to do on every occasion. But I think we need to reach out and say, where can we reach agreement? What can we do to make our constituents happier and to make our state in our assembly district a better place to live in? And so that's what my objective is. As an assemblyman, I will continue to stand on my record of eight years on the city council in Visalia and as mayor of Visalia to say, we can work together. We can get a lot accomplished. Let's focus on the issues and set aside some of that partisanship that tends to creep into government. We're seeing a lot of that in Sacramento. We see a lot of that in Washington, D.C., particularly in the last year or two. And I think that we need to cut through some of that and say, let's be friendly. Let's work together. And let's decide where we can agree to agree and focus on those issues. I love that. Now for our viewers, if you want to learn more, Warren, will you tell our viewers where they can learn more about you, where they can visit you? Sure. Feel free to visit my assembly website, which is Googler, which is spelled G-U-B-L-E-R, Googlerforassembly.com. That tells a little bit more about my background, the principles, the issues that I think are important, and why I'm running for office on a statewide basis in California. Awesome. Thank you, Warren. Thank you for being my guest. Thank you for coming in. I really appreciate you taking time out of your family vacation to come be on our show. Thank you. Mahalo, and thank you very much for inviting me. Pleasure to have you.