Episode 50: Jessica Hubbard
Chief Program Officer for the nonprofit Girls, Inc. in Orange County, California
00:40:48
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Show Notes
In her role as Chief Program Officer for the nonprofit Girls, Inc. in Orange County, California, Jessica Hubbard combines her experience as an educator with her legal training to help girls become strong, smart, and bold. With host M.C. Sungaila, Jessica discusses her pursuit of a law degree and how she decided to apply those skills on behalf of an organization dedicated to mentoring girls and young women.
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Relevant episode links:
Girls Inc. of Orange County, To Kill a Mockingbird, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, YouTube – Girls Inc. of Orange County
About Jessica Hubbard:
Jessica Hubbard
Jessica Hubbard currently serves as Girls Inc. of Orange County's Chief Program Officer in a position that builds upon her years of experience as a classroom teacher, school administrator, and community advocate. In her role, she leads a team of highly-qualified facilitators/educators and directs the development and implementation of intentional, compensatory, holistic, pro-girl, inclusive, research-based curricula in elementary, middle, and high schools across Orange County.
In May 2014, Jessica graduated with honors from Western State College of Law in Fullerton, California. While earning her Juris Doctor degree, she was selected to serve as Vice President of the Honors Moot Court Competition Team and as an executive board member of the Latino Student Bar Association. She also possesses a Master's Degree in Education Administration and brings with her eight years of classroom teaching experience from the public school system, where she focused on special education, for both the Gifted and Talented and students with learning disabilities, and educational technology. Jessica has also completed considerable Masters coursework at Columbia University’s Teachers College in the area of Educational Technology: Computing in Education, which helped her lead Girls Inc. of Orange County programs to quickly and smoothly transition all of their programmatic work to virtual learning spaces with no interruption in service during the pandemic.
Jessica has been an invited guest presenter at the California Workforce Association's Youth Conference and the California Workforce Association Conference to share her research and writing on using and understanding Myers-Briggs Typologies to assist students in capitalizing on their unique strengths and talents so that they can passionately pursue their optimal career path and gain a greater understanding of their temperament type to assist in opening pathways of communication; particularly in giving and receiving feedback.
When she’s not dismantling the patriarchy or encouraging the next wave of feminists to shatter glass ceilings, Jessica is spending time with her strong, smart, bold daughter and her enlightened and sensitive son or laughing with her husband at old episodes of The Office and Parks and Rec.
Transcript
I'm very pleased to have joined the show, Jessica Hubbard, the Chief Program Officer for Girls Inc. of Orange County. Welcome, Jessica.
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
We've explored a number of different career paths and opportunities on the show. Many of them practice law in the legal realm but also a range of opportunities in the areas where you can bring your analytical skills and other training from the law, put it all together and serve in business or in the nonprofit world. That's why I'm so excited to have you here because that's what you've done with your career and with a wonderful, very well-regarded organization here in Orange County. We're going to start first, though, with the law overall in terms of how it is that you decided you wanted to go to law school. Was there a particular thing you wanted to accomplish or some skill you could add to your experience already including teaching?
Thank you. There are a couple of versions of this story. I'm often asked, “Law school, where did that come from?” The short version would be that I was teaching. I was a middle school language arts teacher and have been teaching for about eight years. I read To Kill a Mockingbird one too many times with my students, which is absolutely factual. It's one of my favorite books. We would read it every year with my students. That's part of it.
The other part is that part of the work as a teacher is inspiring the youth that you're working with. I found myself telling my kiddos, "You can be anything you want to be. Go chase those dreams. No dream is too big." I was feeling like a little bit of a hypocrite because a dream that I had way back when was to pursue and go to law school. I'm not sure what I was going to do with it but I felt like I would figure it out once I was there.
I can remember the exact student I was looking at and telling her that she should pursue law school. This is a sixth-grader who could be an attorney someday. I took a step back and realized that I needed to give myself that opportunity as well. There's also the desire to help and support youth in another way that I felt the limits of my impact as a teacher. Year after year, I lost so many students to the criminal justice system, unplanned, unexpected teenage pregnancy, a whole host of issues, drug and alcohol use and abuse. I felt like I needed to do a bit more and was hoping that a Law degree kid could assist in providing me with another way to provide a deeper impact for youth.
That's often something that I've heard from other guests on the show in terms of seeing the law as a pathway to making a difference, having a broader approach to problems that they see and viewing the law as a problem-solving mechanism and skill to have. Even outside the show, there are some judges I've spoken to who have done a lot of education and the rule of law work outside of the United States.
They have said that even within the profession, being a judge was something very helpful to that. It helped lead more gravitas to them going in talking about the rule of law in other countries. They were glad that they'd joined the bench because it gave them these other things that they wanted to do in terms of reinforcing the rule of law and helping women and girls in other countries that they felt it layered on together and helped them not just being a lawyer but being a judge.
It sounds similar to what you're talking about in terms of, “There are a lot of things impacting these kids' lives before I see them. Is there something I can do in that realm?” Atticus Finch has been quite the inspiration for a lot of other people too and lawyers. I certainly admired his amazing advocacy and humanity in To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck will be forever identified with Atticus in the movie. He seems to embody all the goodness you see in the book but I think it's created a lot of interest in being a lawyer.
I'm sure it did the same thing for my sixth graders and seventh graders that I was working with. I hope it did. It's a character that's launched many illegal careers.
When you decided to do that, did you decide that you were still going to go to school or teach and go to school at the same time? How did that work?
I've been teaching for about eight years in a Title 1 school in Central Florida and was teaching middle grades English. I had received my Master's degree in Education with the plan to pursue becoming a school administrator, AP and principal. I felt like I wasn't done with higher education yet before I took that leap into school administration completely. I decided to start looking at law schools and realized very quickly that I understand that there are many people that are able to work full time and also attend law school in the evenings. Knowing the kind of student that I am, I thought I would leave my teaching career and then pursue law school as a full-time law student. That's when I moved out to California.
How was law school? The first year was challenging for me. It's like they tear down how you think and rebuild it.
People hate me for saying this but I loved law school. I love every minute of it and the study of law. I'm competitive by nature. I enjoyed that. There's one winner, the Witkin of the class. I liked that. I enjoyed every aspect of law school, even being cold-called. It was terrifying but I looked forward to class every single day for those three years. I'm fortunate that I did very well in law school. That is because this was a second career for me and I had already been a teacher.
I knew the makings of a great student. I approached law school like a full-time job like it was work. I have already been a professional and have had a career for several years. It gave me an advantage over my peers who were maybe fresh out of undergrad. It carried through and continued. I definitely felt like the oldest gal of the bunch but I think that age and experience served me well.
I noticed that in law school as well. I went straight through but there were students who had a previous career. When you decide to go to law school at that point, you have a pretty strong interest in doing it or at least a sense of how it can add to what you've already done. Having that clear sense of mission when you go to school, you're very dedicated as a result of that. You're clearly giving up something, at least for the short term and you have a laser focus on why you're there. You may end up doing something different but at least you have that motivation.
You can be anything you want to be. No dream is too big.
Sometimes people can go to law school right out of college saying, "It's something I can use for something whether I'm a lawyer or not eventually.” They don't have such a clear sense of why they're there. They might develop that when they're in law school to see areas in which they think they'd be a good fit. There's an advantage to having that sense of mission from the very beginning. When you graduated, obviously, you wanted to marry your different skill sets. Did you think, “I want to do some traditional law practice,” before marrying these things together or did you say, "I want to do something a little bit outside the box?"
About halfway through my law school journey, I started to develop an inkling that I was not going to practice. I wasn't quite sure but I was already missing that direct connection to youth. Having done well in law school, I was able to have access to incredible internships. As a dean's fellow, you have your pick of whatever internship you want. I'm so fortunate that I had incredible mentors and was able to dabble each summer or school year in three different internships that piqued my interest that I thought might be the area of law that I would practice. Those were appellate laws. I was vice-president of the moot court team and got a charge from that scene in setting special education law, which was connected to my background in teaching.
In public defense, I was able to work at the Orange County Public Defender's Office, where I had the most phenomenal mentors and female mentors there. What a great group of women, attorneys and judges. Having gone through those different internships, which were all amazing, I still didn't feel that click the way I did when I was a teacher and working with youth. I figured this is the best of the best. You've got the best mentors, the areas of law that I had idealized and imagined fitting in.
If that didn't seem like it was the right click, maybe this isn't my space. There's something else out there. You can get a sense of shame, like, "I spent a lot of money on this education. I need to do something good with it.” I wouldn't fault my law school for this but I think it's part of the legal education, this focus of getting employed as an attorney following law school. You're saying, "There's so much you can do with this degree in other fields and areas of work." I started imagining, “What else I can do with this? How could I use it in higher education and see a nonprofit work?”
To no fault necessarily of the law schools either but clearly, there's a clear path that's laid out within a law school career, which is either clerkships or going to a law firm of some sort that's facilitated on campus. You can find those opportunities easily. Even the government work and nonprofit work, even from a legal perspective, I think those are getting a little bit more presence on campus. It's well set up to go through the on-campus, going to law firms and things like that.
It takes a certain amount of guts and imagination to do what you did and say, "I've tried these various things but I thought that I might be interested in. They're not ringing my bell.” In your case, you know what that felt like when you're in the right place and using your talents in the right direction for you. That was good that you knew how that felt. You could say, "I'm not getting that from this." Interestingly enough, Tracy LeSage from the Orange County Public Defender's Office and also Larisa Dinsmoor, who finished a stint as President of the Orange County Bar Association, both of them I've interviewed for the show. They're guests prior to you.
It's all synchronicity, Jessica. It's all meant to be connected. I'm glad you mentioned those because I think that some people may not have thought, "Those are all different things that could be done as a law student to check things out in the summer or internships during the year to see if it's something you would enjoy."
I'm glad that I was able to have that experience to explore and take my time, see some things and help lead me where I needed to be.
Once you have that epiphany, how did you go about finding your niche or best fit?
I was working in higher education for-profit career colleges. There's a large need for compliance work. Legal education lends itself to compliance work. There are a lot of JDs who end up in that route as well. Great and incredibly important work but I still felt so far from that direct impact and working with youth. It was both a blessing and a curse that I'd had a career and a job that I loved deeply and passionately.
I will tell people that my first great love on this planet was teaching. I fell in love with that work and working with youth and seeing that connection when you introduce them to a new piece of literature. It was a blessing that I had had something that rang the bell that clicked for me but it was a curse too because you're living up to this high expectation, trying to find something that will meet and match that.
Unfortunately, compliance work did not do it for me either. I saw the job opening for Girls Inc. of Orange County. At the time, it was a director of programs position. That made a lot of sense. I got very excited about that possibility and used my knowledge of education in schools in an informal education setting. A departure from formal education in a different setting but still an opportunity to use and utilize my legal skills, contract negotiation, analysis, all of those pieces could come into play and they definitely have.
Once I began exploring and looking into Girls Inc., I was like, "This is it." What's so cool is with this organization, there's such a space. We're a unique organization. We do serve youth and provide programs, education, opportunities and resources but a large part of our work is in advocacy, which is heavily connected to legal work as well. Working to inspire and educate the next base of girls that can be activists and raising and uplifting their voices or making a change in their community is where it's at for me.
Talking about your background and where you find meaning, it seems like Girls Inc. is the perfect intersection of all of that. Maybe you can talk a little bit for people who aren't familiar with Girls Inc., what the mission of Girls Inc. is and how your work fits into that mission.
You will have to reign me in. Once I get started, I have to be stopped. I'm very passionate about Girls Inc. of Orange County and our work. We're a youth-serving organization that serves girls ages 5 to 18. It's even beyond because once you're a Girls Inc. girl, you're always a Girls Inc. girl. We stay in touch with our alum and help support them in their higher education journey and their entrance into the world of work. When we're with them from 5 to 18, we're providing them with deep, meaningful experiences through our programs, education, resources and other opportunities. We inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold. It's our mission and tagline. It's cute and catchy but it's more than that. When we say we inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold, it's intentional.
We mean it because we take a holistic approach in how we approach our girls and the youth that we work with. It's strong. We want them to have a strong body and mind, healthy bodies and find that alignment between a healthy mind and body smart. We provide academic enrichment programs as well, starting as young as kindergarten for early literacy so that girls are reading on grade level and then college entrance and acceptance programs.
There's so much you can do with a law degree. You can expand into other fields and other areas of work.
That full range of academic support. The advocacy work aligns with our bold word. Teaching and assisting girls in raising and uplifting their voices so that they can become the change-makers of the future. That's a bit about our work. We are able to serve through this. In 2021, we served over 4,800 girls. That's through our in-person programming and virtually as well. We are now serving girls with a hybrid model.
I was going to say, given events that everyone's had to adjust to that and figure out ways to continue to serve and reach out to communities, given the distancing and other COVID-related restraints.
We got real creative fast and started a YouTube channel and provided girls with digital and virtual content all through the pandemic. Even now, as we've returned in-person, we have some programs that have remained virtual because sometimes it's easier and you have to remove the barriers of a room and transportation and then we also see girls in-person.
The hybrid seems like a good option for your programming going forward for a lot of the programs for the transportation barriers and things like that that you mentioned and probably allow people to be a little bit more consistent in attending things if they have some other obligations. It's good to make lemonade out of lemons in that regard and maybe reach a few more people than you did previously with a new model.
We've decided we don't like the word pivot at our organization. Instead, we're seeing evolve and evolution, which is a better way to describe our work because we haven't completely changed. We're doing the same thing. It's moving it forward and serving more girls in a creative way.
I think of that is a silver lining, being able to reach more people and more girls by being creative in that setting and then carrying it forward. That's encouraging. Maybe you don't always can pull the thread between your legal training and what you do as the chief program officer. Can you think about some skills that you've used to say, "That I learned from law school or my legal training. Here's how that has translated to what I'm doing now?"
On the nuts and bolts side of things, there's contract negotiation that shows up all the time. A large part of my work is discussing and negotiating contracts with our school districts so that we're able to provide programming in school space for our girls. That shows up there. The other one that you don't realize how much you're going to use this at the time when you're in law school but I-racking, which is day one, the first thing that you learn how to do and carries you through.
The number of times that I I-rack things in the way that I'm going to present an argument, a case or a thought to my colleagues and peers, I use it constantly. With some of our programs, we even have a mini I-rack session where we're teaching our girls how to I-rack because it's such a valuable tool when you're trying to convey something to an audience.
If you're talking about persuasion and advocacy, there are a lot of aspects to both of those. Constructing an argument in a very logical set way, that's one of the skills that we're taught early on. It can help in any setting. It can help the girls organize their thoughts and make sure they've got their case presented before if they're going to go out and advocate for something and make them more effective at that.
I've also seen that in serving on different boards. I have served on multiple nonprofit boards, probably. Since I was in my late twenties, I've served on a lot of different boards and chaired some of them too. I noticed that the lawyers on the boards have a different way of analyzing challenges or issues that need executive decision-making. We cut through it. We need to figure out this, this and this, get this information or have this information and here's what we do. We have this flow to how we analyze it.
It seems very obvious to those of us who are lawyers on the board about how to approach or attack this problem but the businesspeople see it differently. I feel, on the one hand, that as lawyers, we provide something different to being on a board, which is helpful to any organization. It makes you step back a little bit and say, "We do think differently." All those years of legal training cause us to look at problems differently.
It's interesting you bring that up too because I think that I consider my legal training to be one of my superpowers and the work that I do, especially in nonprofit work. I don't know how familiar you are with Myers-Brigg's type policies, for example, which I'm a big fan of those. I am definitely a feelings person. I'm going to make a lot of my decisions. When the chips are down, I'm going to go with my feelings. My legal training and experience had me develop and hone my logical skills. I'm going to sit back and weigh those pros and cons.
I've noticed that those who are drawn to nonprofit and education work are often usually feelings folks too but are not maybe as developed in the logical area or logic skills. It does feel like a superpower to be able to bring that out in a discussion and say like, "Let's look at it from another angle." We always want to make decisions that guide us on what is best for our youth. Sometimes that's a logical decision and not necessarily one with your guts or emotion. It helped me there as well.
I'm thinking about the Myers-Briggs components. Gut feelings and intuition come from somewhere. It isn't just a feeling. It usually comes from some experience you've had before or something that registers. You may not be able to articulate it but you recognize something in a logical way. It's coming out in a gut feeling way. It seems like having the analytical developed a little more maybe put you in a position to explain what's going on when you have those flashes of intuition about things or a gut feeling about something.
You're like, "I have this feeling. I may not be able to explain it exactly but here's logic to why this might also be a good approach to take." You're very self-aware about different things, which is cool. You're like, "I see this. It could be hard to step back from things to see what's going on as opposed to being in the moment. You can step back and see that. It's like, "I see where all of these threads fit together."
In legal work, the stakes are high and you often only get one shot.
That's the Girls Inc. influence for sure. We are working with our girls. We are incredibly self-aware and we analyze. If a thought comes up, “Where's that coming from? Do I want to accept or reject that?” I'm definitely a Girls Inc. girl at heart and utilizing those skills that we're teaching our girls.
It's good to embody it. It helps you be a good ambassador for the organization too. You talked a little bit about your mentors, who had helped you. Maybe you could give an example of what that looks like or how someone helped you in a particular way. I feel like that sometimes is helpful to describe it because people talk about mentors but knowing what mentorship looks like, it can look different than I think what some people might imagine. It's helpful for people to know that so they can accept the gift when it comes to them and recognize it.
Mentorship is a huge part of the work that we do at Girls Inc. I'm so fortunate that I've had incredible mentors to show me what mentorship looks like. When we're crafting those programs for our girls, we know what we want to make sure that we're providing for them. For me, there's been a couple of women at the Orange County Public Defender's Office. My law school professors were so incredible. While I'm not practicing law, I think mentorship isn't just the person that opens the door for you, takes you by the hand and brings you into the courtroom or the office or the kitchen or whatever it is. It's also the person that shows you, “This isn't what I want to do as much as it would be that this is what I do want to do.”
That guidance, letting me step in and figure things out, maybe make a mistake and support me through that process, has been life-changing and illuminating. There was, in particular, an amazing attorney, April Gilbert, that I was able to work with during my time at the Public Defender's Office. She let me sink my teeth into some work and showed me and taught me how to write those motions that were used and what was needed. I was able to even appear on record for a couple of cases for some clients. I could have a meaty role as an intern where I wasn't sitting in the back, shuffling papers. That was awesome.
It's showing me what those interpersonal relationships looked like across the aisle. Introducing me then to the prosecutors and the DA so that I could see how everyone interacts and what their side was. It’s a world of knowledge. She has so much experience and knowledge. Teaching me about how we do the job, how the job feels and what the job looks like 5, 10, 15 years out, it's cool. I have to give a shout-out to my alma mater, Western State.
While not the razzle-dazzle-ranked school, the professors are phenomenal there and care so deeply about teaching the next group of legal professionals, whatever that looks like. I had so many opportunities to work as a research assistant, a student assistant, a dean's fellow and get active with the student government association and the moot court. Try different things and have so many rich experiences in law school. That opportunity to fail or try and succeed was so invaluable.
There are a few things in what you said there. The first thing is, recognizing that mentoring can sometimes look like opening the window or the door to see what that position or the opportunities look like down the road. In part so you can decide, “Is that something I want to do?” in a very clear-eyed way but also showing you what it looks like in terms of having the exposure to doing some of the work and meeting the council who you'd be going up against in these particular cases.
You can sense the dynamic of what that's like and whether you also enjoy that. It does take a certain level of generosity to do that. It's good that you recognize that. Sometimes, I teach as well. I taught for over ten years at various schools, from Whittier to UC Irvine to Loyola, a range of students. It's invaluable to provide them with an opportunity, in my case, to see what it's like to abdicate in court as an appellate lawyer. They're in appellate clinics in the Ninth Circuit, which is such a wonderful opportunity for them, both for their career, in terms of being able to stay.
Before they've graduated, they argued a case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which many lawyers don't do for many years down the road. Being able to see, “Is this something that I would like to do? If not, that's okay but I've developed some good skills along the way that I can use in a number of different settings.” Recognizing the generosity of someone who does open the door like that and show you may not be the thing that you end up doing but it's important to know whether that's the path that you want to pursue or not and have the graciousness to show that to you.
It does take time to do that. Some thought to think about if you're making this decision, which things would you want to know and how do I open that up to you. It's good to hear about the professors and the school providing a range of opportunities. It sounds like they did and coming through and in helping facilitate the internships as well.
They definitely did. Mentorship does take time. We've all seen the professors and the teachers that punch in, punch out and are done as soon as the class ends. That was not my experience ever at Western State. My professors were checking in on us at the library, always offering additional resources to extend that learning experience beyond the textbook, the cold call and the brief that was right in front of us. Those are the pieces that I carry with me that I keep thinking about and I refer back to and why I consider my professors my friend, my mentor and people that I so deeply admire.
You also had a different finely tuned perspective to that having taught. You had a little bit of distance from it to say, "What they're doing here is effective. Here's why. These are these helpful and additional things they're doing that make a difference in my experience and what I'm learning.” There's a little meta-analysis going on there, Jessica.
Many things came full circle for me as well too. Even as a teacher, I was using the Socratic method with my students in a much plus imposing way than what you have in law school but still having that experience of being asked a question, the opportunity to respond on the spot with the information that you're given. That's such a great tool. Law school gets this reputation for having this terrifying, cold calling experience but that's a great learning technique and method. There are lots of strings and full circle moments there.
Enhancing one's critical thinking is what it does. Obviously, I-rack but it enhances critical thinking, thinking on your feet, being able to persuade, advocate and explain things maybe a little bit differently at different points in time. When I think about that from the appellate perspective, by the time we filed our briefs and then we stood up for argument, what more can you say? You filed this very large brief and the court always says, “Don't repeat what's in the briefs.” How do you do that without arguing something entirely new?
How you do it is to address the problem from different angles, explaining it a little bit differently. For each person, a different explanation will resonate with them. Thinking, "I can raise the same principle but maybe this analogy will resonate with a particular judge on the panel or will cause them to realize, ‘This is what's going on in this case.’"
We shouldn't be asking the fish to climb a tree because they're just going to feel stupid and silly. If you are a fish, please swim, and if you are a bird, soar in the sky.
Thinking about reframing, making arguments and analogies in a little bit different way at argument is how I think about the appellate argument. You've got to think on your feet in a little bit different way than trial lawyers but you've got to adjust based on what you see in the panel. All of those things start with what you mentioned in law school in terms of putting you on the spot a little bit in terms of those questions and teaching you how to act in those circumstances.
It's all with purpose. They're not trying to torture you.
That's what I always tell my students or my associates who work with me. I’m like, “I have a plan. Trust the plan. There's always a plan.” How I'm doing things or what order I'm putting them in where like building skills. We have intent based on experience where we're building the blocks in this manner for a reason to make sure you're the most successful you can be.
Even the way the grading structure is in law schools, there's still a lot of heat, controversy and discussion but you only have one test. That comprises your whole entire grade. That's okay. I'm an advocate for that because, in legal work, the stakes are high. You often only get one shot. There's a great application in that process as well.
There's some thought behind some of this. That's good to know. I wanted to close with a little lightning round of questions. What talent would you most like to have but you don't?
I wish I could sing, especially for my children. Those poor babies have to listen to mama try and she's not good.
At least you still try. It may not be opera level but it's still mom’s. They appreciate that. What is a trait you most deplore in yourself and what do you most deplore in others?
I'm very direct and I like this about myself but I do need to work on it and temper it, especially in the work that I do, where I have so many folks that are led and guided by pure emotion. I can be a little bit too direct and to the point. I don't know if I would say deplore but it's an area I would like to grow in and work on. In others, it would be hypocrisy and inconsistency.
Who are your favorite writers?
I love this question so much. A totally underrated the author is Roald Dahl. He's a children's writer. People know him through Willy Wonka and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His short stories for adults are wicked and brilliant. When you do look at a lot of his stories, there are the building blocks and pieces that helped Harry Potter for the future. I'm a huge fan of Roald Dahl, Steinbeck and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is up there as one of the greats.
Dahl has a lot of layers. I'm glad you mentioned that. I don't think many people think of that. It was a good recommendation. Who is your hero in real life?
I have a lot of heroes. I'll start with my grandfather, who raised me when I was young. I had the opportunity to live with my grandparents. He was a firefighter and proudly and tirelessly for over 30 years for the Hialeah Fire Department but still made time to help me work on my science projects and instill the love of STEM in me but he was also a Big Brother. He volunteered for Big Sisters in its early years. That's where my early love and appreciation for nonprofit work comes from.
For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
I'm going to say my resilience, which has allowed me to have the beautiful family that I'm so grateful for. It's two things but they're connected.
Given the choice of anyone in the world, who would you invite as a dinner guest?
I know this is cliche but I cannot help myself. I have to say Oprah because I am an Oprah fan. We're going to dinner. She's going to give me all the wisdom and tell me what books I need to read next and all her favorite things. We're going to talk about those too.
I was going to say Oprah and then maybe some of her favorite guests or something where you'd get that to you. What is your motto if you have one?
I have a couple. A quote that I love is, “If it doesn't open, it's not your door.” Connected to that is something that I find myself saying to my staff, team and also to our girls a lot. It comes from a quote that I think is attributed to Albert Einstein but I'm unsure if that's correct or not. It’s "We shouldn't be asking the fish to climb a tree because they're going to feel stupid and silly." If you are a fish, please swim.
If you are a bird soar in the sky. That idea, which I think also connects to, if it doesn't open, it's not your door, which I think aligns with what we've been talking about here. We're going to go full circle, finding what your talents are, what drives you or your passion. It's so funny when you find the things that you love the most that you're good at them too. Opportunities start to open up.
It is work. You're committed to it and disciplined at it but it doesn't feel like work. In some ways when you find meaning in what you do and then it fits with the skills that you say, "I get to do this. They pay me for it too." That's lovely but I liked doing it, independent all on its own. What's come across is that you have found this sweet spot where you are and have so much to contribute given all of the different skills that you've acquired and teaching and also in the law. Thank you so much for joining the show, Jessica and sharing your journey.
Thank you so much for having me. This was such a pleasure.
You're welcome.