Resilience in Career Crossroads, Hollywood Glam in Politics, and Embracing Change

What happens when a passionate advocate for democratic values faces unexpected career hurdles? 

Kitcaster Podcast Agency
Did you know that podcasts are a great way to grow your personal and business brand voice?

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Okay, good so, and thank you for sharing all your journey this past year. And also, you mentioned that things are going to change with your current career, right? It's the reason I brought this up. I don't know if you want to share, but because, since we were talking about you, know how do you start some shows here? Because, since we were talking about you, know, have you started some shows here?

Speaker 2: 0:30

And you also have some other projects on the side that you're. I've got a lot of things kind of going in the burner. You know, two weeks ago we had the State Democratic Convention, right, and I ran for the position of elector, okay, and as we talked about the Electoral College and all of that, I ran to be the person that signs the Electoral College certificate that goes to Congress for the second congressional district. And I almost won but didn't quite get it done. But I was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. I think I was actually the highest vote getter in my district caucus. So a lot of people were inspired by what I've had to say and entrust with me the ability to go to Chicago and uphold the democratic values that we have. So that was fun.

Speaker 2: 1:20

So in August I'm going to be spending a week in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, and before I had done that I have a friend out here who I'm pretty close with, who when I was celebrating her birthday with her up at Hearst Castle and stuff talked about I didn't know if I was going to get elected a delegate or not. But I said if I do, would you like to go to Chicago with me for the week and she was all for it. So when I told the folks in Nebraska I was going to bring my girlfriend from LA, who is a hair and makeup person, because that's what she does, and they were like what? We were just talking, we need to find somebody. And so I'm like not only going to go back and do that, I'm going to make sure that we are the best coughed delegation in the entire convention. So I've been doing that, but yeah, um, it does look like I may be having some time on my hands.

Speaker 2: 2:22

My office has decided to institute restrictions on teleworking. I've been able to telework for 13 days a month from my house in Omaha. I run a section of the DA's office and over the course of the four years that I've been in charge, I've lost resources, I've lost people, but the work that we do is like tripled. So I've somehow managed to triple my production of my section with fewer resources, and it's all because we're able to telework and we're not spending an hour and a half, two hours a day commuting back and forth and into the office. So we get much more work done. But they've decided to institute that they're only going to allow a single day of teleworking a week, and so that's going to make it practically impossible for me, obviously, to be able to do that work.

Speaker 2: 3:25

So I'm looking at my options and I do have a lot of vacation time built up, and so I do have things that I need to do in Nebraska elections to be involved in, and I've made promises to folks and I did that on the basis that I was going to have my time there because my unit has been extremely successful in the telework environment. It's been beyond anyone's, I think, beliefs that we could do what we've done, and so I'm extremely stressed out right now on what I'm going to do. I bought tickets throughout for the end of the year with my schedule. I've scheduled everything out and there are some things I'm not going to be able to change, and so I'm looking at what I'm going to do and I may end up having to take vacation.

Speaker 2: 4:18

I'm at that point in my career where my retirement is kind of on a trajectory like this over the next year and a half on what percentage that I get for retirement. So I need to stay pretty much as long as I can, but I may very well be taking three or four months off, using up my vacation time, and that's going to free me up to do some projects that I've always wanted to be working on. So I'm going to start working on doing some writing and I think I'm going to take you up on your offer to be on your channel and we can talk with some inspiring folks about transition and what they've done and how they've done it and why it's important to support trans people and what we can do if we get just a modicum of support.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Yes, and also I want to let whoever is watching. You also mentioned about speaking gigs, right?

Speaker 2: 5:19

Surprisingly enough, out of the blue, I have been contacted by multiple organizations who have seen me do some of my continuing legal education presentations for various groups and who have booked me to do their Pride Month ERGs. And so one is a major law firm in the country who has offices all throughout, and another is a major corporation and one of their subdivisions approached me you.