Career Growth Advice from Shemia Fagan, business Leader | Career Tips for Women in business

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 22
Featuring Shemia Fagan

Episode Title: #22 Career Podcast Featuring Shemia Fagan a Self-Assured Civil Rights Attorney and Oregon Senator

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Shemia Fagan

Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Thanks for tuning in. I am super excited about today's show. Today's guest is Oregon State Senator Shemia Fagan. She is a hardworking mom and civil rights attorney. She is known for her no-nonsense style and shaking up the status quo while winning fights for families just like her own. She has done great things like helped pass paid family leave and championed Oregon in being the first in the nation to have automatic voter registration and continuing to expand on Oregon's vote by mail participation. Shemiah, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Shemia Fagan (Guest): I'm excited to be here, Mary. How are you?

Mary Killelea: I'm great. And I'm shell shocked because honestly, I'm super excited. You're my first lawyer and my first senator to be a guest on the show. So, to me, it's a big deal because I didn't grow up with politics discussed in our family. And so I don't even know the career path. And so that's what I'm so excited about today with you coming on. I know you're super busy and you carved out time for us, but I appreciate it because I know there's a lot of young women who are thinking about either going into law or going into politics. And I think it's so important for women like you who are successful to share your story. So I appreciate that.

Shemia Fagan: I'm excited about it, too. And we did talk about politics when I was growing up, but very I'm a Democrat. We talked about very conservative politics in Wasco County, where I grew up.

Mary Killelea: Alright, so let's get started. And a lot of people might be wondering this, but what is it about politics that you love so much and that draws you in?

Shemia Fagan: That you get to make an impact on a bunch of people's lives all at once. The funny thing is, folks who know me know that I sometimes swear like a sailor, which I'm going to avoid doing on your show. So they're very surprised to learn that I was on the ordination track for the United Methodist Church. I was going to be a preacher. And I actually got into a Masters of Divinity program at Boston University, full ride scholarship. And about one semester into it, I was like, oh, man, this is not just like preaching and sending a good message. This is like a lot of work. That's like a lot of individual counseling and social work that is not in my skill set. And so my fallback was going into law and politics because you still get to make an impact on people's lives, but on a big scale. In the intro, you mentioned paid family and medical leave. We passed that here in Oregon, and that's going to benefit folks in all 36 counties, whether they're adopting a child, having a child, have a sick family member to be able to take protected time off of work that is paid. They don't fall behind on their bills to be with a newborn baby or a newly adopted child or a family member during those early critical months.

Mary Killelea: And I think that's so wonderful to have such passion about things that you're involved in the lives that you're changing. So let's go back a little bit and just tell us how you got started in your career path.

Shemia Fagan: So I grew up in a Republican household in Wasco County. My dad was very into politics. He, if he hadn't been raising three kids by himself, struggling to make ends meet, he would have run for office. But he ended up, my mom battled addiction and homelessness for most of my childhood. And so my dad ended up raising my two brothers and me by himself. And we dipped in and out of homelessness ourselves with my dad. And so, he really struggled to make a home for us and to give us the security of the basic needs. But he just loved to talk politics. And I grew up in the 80s and 90s in Oregon. I was more aware of what was going on in the 90s, which was the Clinton administration. And my dad was no fan of Bill or Hillary Clinton. And I just grew up really talking politics. I grew up in an evangelical church. And so, politics was always something that I thought I would do someday. And then went to college on a soccer scholarship, studied philosophy and religion, which of course qualifies you for a really good job at Starbucks, maybe a retail job at Nordstrom if you have good style. And then went on to, as I mentioned earlier, I went on to a Masters of Divinity program at Boston University. And after one semester, I thought this is just not the career path for me. And so, law was my backup. I then sold cars for a few years to earn money to go to law school. And then during law school, really just fell in love with politics, thought I would run someday.

And then honestly, in 2008, when there were a bunch of young men running the legislature, folks remember it was Brent Barton and Brian Clem and Jefferson Smith and Tobias Reid and Ben Cannon. These were really great young Jason Atkinson out in the Bend area, Republicans and Democrats, really young guys. I remember looking at them saying, oh, this is not something you have to do once you're 65. It's something you can do now. And I literally googled, how do you run for office? And found a book by an Oregon treasurer named Jewel Lansing, who was the first woman to ever run for statewide office in Oregon. She wrote a book called A Woman Runs. She'd run in the 70s and literally read her book, discovered she was on the board of an organization called Emerge Oregon, which is a training program for Democratic women. And there's also for folks that you're listening that maybe aren't Democrats, they're non-affiliated or Republicans, that Portland State University also has a great leadership program for young women. And did that program and then ran for a school board and it's been off to the races ever since then.

Mary Killelea: That is such a fantastic story. Oh my gosh. And thank you for that tip and information for others listening. Okay. So it kind of makes sense, but I want to hear it in your words. What drew you in on civil rights?

Shemia Fagan: Well, having grown up in a family that was hanging on by a thread and understanding that just the basics, the basics of housing and being treated fairly at work and being paid fair wages and not being discriminated against because of your gender identity or sexual orientation or race or gender or pregnancy is something that just was foundational to me. I thought, you know, I grew up in a house full of boys and my dad was a single parent. I had two older brothers. And so I grew up very much as a strong girl and a strong woman having to hold my own. And then working in car dealerships where folks didn't see me as a strong woman. They just saw me as a young woman. And just really feeling that harassment and realizing that when folks are trying to do the right thing and earn money and support themselves or support their families, they should be able to do so without any interference from folks that are discriminating against them. And so while I do civil rights law, I specifically do it in the workplace. So, I represent workers who are facing discrimination or harassment at work.

Mary Killelea: That's wonderful. And I'm listening to your response and thinking as I raise my own two girls, I mean, they're a little older now, but what you talk about having the drive and confidence and growing up around boys almost makes competing with men not a big deal because you've grown up in that sphere all your life. So what do you tell women who feel like, oh, I can't go into that field because it's male dominated. I just don't, you know, it seems intimidating. What's your advice?

Shemia Fagan: Yeah, do what you love. I mean, that's what I've found is that when I've done what I've loved, whether it was law, whether it's politics, folks can recognize passion. Even folks who disagree with you can recognize passion. And when you've got passion for what you do, now that does not to say that there are not still barriers for folks in the workplace. And that's what as a legislator, I try to pass laws to protect people, to be able to freely work in any, any field that they want to without barriers. As obviously as an attorney, I help enforce those laws. But the bottom line is that what's going to give you a leg up is doing something that you really love that you're really passionate about because that's going to show through even through those obstacles and barriers that we sometimes face in, you know, if we're not cisgender straight white men in the workplace.

Mary Killelea: Okay. So describe to me not only what a typical day is, but some of your responsibilities as a Senator.

Shemia Fagan: As a Senator? Well, it depends on if we're in session or not. So Oregon, like most States has a citizen legislature. So when the legislature is in session, which for Oregon is for about six months in the odd numbered years and about five weeks in the even numbered years, when we're in session, it is an everyday wake up, throw on a suit, drive to Salem, mostly committee hearings is what we do, which is the part of the legislative process where the public gets to be heard on bills. We have open public hearings. And of course, this is a typical day all pre coronavirus, which involves only having a suit jacket on and of course, shorts and no shoes on underneath. But typical day, we drive down to Salem, do committee hearings, meet with constituents and other people who are advocating for changes to the law or against changes to the law. And then towards the end of a session, we start having daily parts where we go to the actual Senate floor, kind of a ceremonial chamber of the Senate and actually vote on bills that have come out of committee and we vote on them up or down. That's a typical day in during session.

During the interim, because we have a citizen legislature, most of us go back to our full time jobs as legislation as whatever we are. For me, it's being a civil rights lawyer. And that's a lot more maybe some occasional meetings with folks working in work groups on stuff that we might introduce in a later session. But the most of our work occurs while we're actually in session.

Mary Killelea: So who have been mentors in your life that have helped shape your career path? Or have you had any?

Shemia Fagan: Yeah, I think a lot about my fourth grade teacher in Dufur. As I mentioned, my family really struggled. My dad was having a hard time raising three kids by himself. My brothers were a little bit of hellions and they would tell you that they would sneak out at night and sometimes throw rocks at cars or they would just kind of get in trouble. So, my dad was really hanging on. And my mom, that's the year that I learned my mom was really battling drug addiction and it was a tough year for me. I was about 10 years old. And my fourth grade teacher, Mr. Wagner at Dufur School, he invited me to join an afterschool chess club. And I was like, okay, my dad had taught me to play chess a couple of years earlier and I took to the game being kind of an analytical person. And I really just thrived. And that year I traveled from tiny little Dufur, population like 537 people all the way to Portland and won the Oregon State Chess Tournament. And it was just one of those seminal moments. I remember walking out of the parking lot and my two older brothers who were usually picking on me, of course, they were hoisting my trophy over their heads and chanting, my sister's the champion. And it was kind of a moment where I thought, okay, I don't have everything that other kids have, but I can compete with anyone. And I really appreciate, I look back on that moment with Mr. Wagner, when I acted out a lot, it was a tough year for me. And he could have taken more of a punishment route, as opposed to a discipleship route where he really reached out and had empathy for what I was going through. And gave me something to do with my overactive imagination and my analytical skills instead of disrupting things. He put that to task and I just fell in love with the game of chess. And so he's a key one.

And then in my political work, Barbara Roberts has been a huge, huge mentor to me early on. She recognized some skills that I had and has been encouraging me every race I've ever had on a personal level as well. I actually just finished rereading her memoir and I called her up a couple of weeks ago to say, man, thank you for being, if you haven't read her memoir, it's called Up the Capital Steps. And she just talks about all this real stuff that was going on in her life while she was a legislator and secretary of state and later governor, family members dying, family members getting diagnosed with cancer, really, really serious stuff. And I just appreciated that humanity that came through in her story. So she's always been an incredible mentor and supporter of mine in my political career.

Mary Killelea: That's wonderful. What skills do you think that you have that she saw, that she said, here's a woman who I feel has great potential?

Shemia Fagan: She'll tell the story about being in an event with me one time. And she said, somebody came up and kind of came after me on an issue that it was clear that I disagreed with this person. I had voted a certain way or I had made a certain opinion known and Governor Roberts was kind of watching. And this person kind of came at me with all of their views. And I didn't shy away from it. I didn't say, oh, yeah, I know, and duck the question. But I just very politely, but very strongly said, we're going to agree to disagree here. I didn't change my answer because that person was coming at me. And she said that she'll tell that story just about how she recognized that kind of stiffness of a spine under pressure that she knows being the first woman ever elected governor in Oregon. I was a 10-year-old kid in Dufur, Oregon when that happened. And I literally remember that day coming home from school and knowing that Oregon had elected a woman as a governor. And so she just recognized that, that clear communication, seeing people's humanity, letting my humanity and vulnerability be shown. And so she's really encouraged me and mentored those skills to not let me become kind of plastic politician with a plastic smile who always agrees with everybody all the time, but willing to say, hey, agree to disagree here. What can we find that we agree on?

Mary Killelea: What are some of the challenges you face having a life in politics?

Shemia Fagan: I think it's the feeling that folks make so many assumptions about you when they see something about you online. Like I said, I grew up in Wasco County. My brothers currently live in Umatilla County. I've gone out there for roundup and Pendleton every year, hung out with their friends. And they're like, man, you're so cool as a real person. But then you see people that just see something about me online and they can just dehumanize you. And it's like, man, if you just sat down and had a beer with me, you would realize that we will not always agree, but that I'll always be straight with you. And we probably would end up cracking up a bunch of the times. I love to laugh and love to make people laugh in mostly self-deprecating ways. And so just people make so many assumptions about you before they get a chance to actually know you. And I think that particularly nowadays with social media and conspiracy theories online abounding, it is hard as a mom of young kids. I have an eight-year-old and a three and a half-year-old. And it is hard to think about the crazy stuff that's online about me that my kids might see someday that just is so false. It's not even worthy of repeating because it's so false. And folks just dehumanize you. And I just think good talk to some folks I grew up with in Wasco County who are Trump supporters who are as conservative as they come, but they will vouch for me as a person of honesty and integrity and humanity.

Mary Killelea: What has surprised you most about the job in a positive way?

Shemia Fagan: Honestly, just how much I love it. Like you get to dig in. I'm a big trivia fan, Mary, and you get to know so much. Like you'll be digging in on a bill and you will learn so much about some land use issue or some employment issue or something that you never ever would have thought to go research. And you get to know, I would say, sometimes you got to be a mile wide and an inch deep, but on a few of those issues, you got to go an inch wide and a mile deep. And you just walk out knowing so much incredible stuff about our state. I've never lived, other than being in college, I've never lived anywhere else. And just the incredible places and people in Oregon. And I obviously knew I'd love the people and the interactions with people, but I love the nerdy, behind the scenes, policy work where you're diving in on some issue that never even crossed your mind. And yet here you are having to make a decision. So you got to know all the information that you can to make a good decision.

Mary Killelea: How important is it today for people to get involved in the electoral process and get out and vote?

Shemia Fagan: It's so important. And somebody the other day mentioned to me about somebody she knew not being super into politics, but we had just been talking to the same person and their kid was suffering from asthma, from the wildfires. And I said, then set aside the word politics. Does she care about wildfires? Does she care about her son's asthma? Like that, politics, unfortunately, is this umbrella term that covers so many things that really affect people's daily lives, but it's an umbrella that nobody likes. So I just say, throw out that term and talk to folks about wildfires and air quality and the funding for their schools and whether or not their health insurance is affordable. And those are the issues that people definitely care about. Go to any school board meeting and you find lots of parents who care about their schools. A lot of the same parents who might say, oh, I'm not into politics. And I think what they're not into is the gamesmanship and the press conferences. And a lot of what we see in Washington, D.C. is back and forth. But boy, if you ask them about whether or not their kid should be able to have an EpiPen in the classroom because of a life-threatening peanut allergy, oh, they will sure as hell believe that their kid should have an EpiPen.

Mary Killelea: You make such great points because I am probably one of those moms that sits there and says, hey, I'll be mama bear all day long and stand up for my kids on everything they need. But because I wasn't raised or self-educated that way, I tend to be an observer. And so, as I get older and my daughters are getting older, I'm getting way more engaged. And then hearing conversations like this with you and the points that you bring, it just brings it home and drives the value in such a different way. So, thank you for that.

Shemia Fagan: You're welcome. And it's interesting. I think that sometimes people in power, the processes are so arcane and it almost allows them to keep, can be shielded from people participating because the processes are so confusing. And one thing that is characterized my service as a legislator is trying to break through those barriers. And as a legislator, I had a podcast called Capitalizing, which basically every week we tried to get rid of the legal jargon and the political jargon and just talk about the issues. But my most downloaded issue is called How a Bill Becomes Law in Oregon with My Kindergartener. And I sat down with my then six-year-old and walked him through it, not in a super high level I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill way, but really talking through what are conforming amendments with a six-year-old. And at the end of this podcast, he totally got it. We're willing to just break it down and not make it confusing. And I did one of my most shared videos was people are always saying, Oh, go to the legislature and testify, Mary. And you're like, I don't even know what that means. So we created a video that said, folks tell you to testify. What does that even mean? So we said, literally, we did a video of like, you walk in the front door of the Capitol, you go to this screen, you find the committee hearing, you go to the room, you write your name on a sheet, you go up when your name is called, you need to say your name for the record, and then tell about a two minute story. I mean, we just broke it down in super simple terms. And that video has been shared by all kinds of citizen advocate groups that just want to say to their people, you know, people see it on C-SPAN on TV thinking, Am I going to get sworn in? Am I going to go under oath? No, by the way, in Oregon, but it's really intimidating. So I've tried to take the intimidation out of that process, just to say, look, come and participate. And it's actually more simple than you would think.

Mary Killelea: Being a businesswoman, a mom, a senator, how do you keep up with it all? We all know that balance, work-life balance probably doesn't exist, but how do you make it work?

Shemia Fagan: I am a huge time management productivity nerd. I mean, I read books about it. I listen to podcasts about it. There's a great book, particularly for parents whose lives are not, you read a lot of productivity books and it's by some 60 year old, like corporate trainer who gets to control every single second of his day. Well, that's not what we get as parents, right? Kids come in to interrupt us. There's a great book by Laura Vanderkamp called 168 Hours, which is how many hours are in a week. And, but it's a book written as a mom and the fact that she gets that you don't get to, and really, I, you know, I don't do a ton of if I'm going to waste time on Twitter, for example, I'll set aside like 30 minutes to scroll Twitter. I don't just let myself get lost for two hours. And I'm really intentional about my time because I want to be a great mom. I want to be there with my kids. I do a lot of work from home and I really am boundary. Like when I'm at home or when I'm out now, I'm always home because of COVID, but normally when I'm working, I'm working. And when I'm at home with my kids, I'm really good about leaving my cell phone, other places so that when they know I'm there and focusing on them and focusing on them and when I'm working, I'm working.

But I just find, yeah, time management, there is enough hours. That's the point of the Laura Vanderkamp book. If you just take 168 hours and you time out all the stuff that you want to do in a week, including good sleep and exercising, there's actually so much time in a week, but she actually has folks go through and do a time audit of a typical week. And you'll just see where you just leak out hours at a time of things that you otherwise could be much more efficient about. So I feel like I have such an incredibly full life and I love being a parent is the greatest joy I've ever had in my life. I love being an attorney. I love being a Senator. I love running for secretary of state. I would love to be secretary of state, but for me, it's a matter of making the main thing the main thing, as they say, and prioritizing. And, and I use the phrase, people will often say I didn't have time. And Laura Vanderkamp teaches you to say I didn't make time because really we have time, but we prioritize. So, it's a matter of, okay, I didn't make time for that because I was making time for other things.

Mary Killelea: And I think that answer totally kind of stole my thunder or your thunder for how do you define success? It sounds like you have success in your life because you're living a full life now.

Shemia Fagan: Yeah, I just define it as, you know, living the fullest life that you can and having the, the transcendence and the self-awareness to take the bumps as they come and find a way to help them make you stronger. And sometimes stronger means learning how to process pain. And sometimes being stronger learns is learning how to process empathy. Being stronger doesn't always mean, oh, I'm glad this horrible thing happens to me, but it's like, okay, this horrible thing happened to me. Now I have a deeper sense of empathy for when someone else, something else horrible happens to someone else. I really have lived and know that pain and I can be a better friend, a better partner, a better parent, a better niece, whatever it is when other people are going through significant pain.

Mary Killelea: When it comes to professional businesswoman being one, a successful one like you are, what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

Shemia Fagan: From my dad, who was just such a rock in my life. And he said, and he said this a lot. He said, go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. And I have really lived that in I'm very outspoken in the work that I do, which means I have gendered a lot of fiercely loyal friends. And I've got a couple of folks who hate my guts. And the reality is I don't try to just water it down and be all things to all people. I try to go where I'm celebrated, not where I'm tolerated, to know where my skills and who I am are going to be an asset, not where they're going to be something people have to work around so that I can be the fullest version of myself and actually contribute and be make wherever I am better off for me being there because the skills that I have and the person I am is a celebrated person, not just somebody tolerated.

Mary Killelea: And that's so great because this show is titled To Be Bolder. And I try to ask my guests, what does To Be Bolder mean for each of them? Because I want really the audience to think it is a unique perspective on what it means to yourself when it comes to being bolder in life. So, what does it mean to you?

Shemia Fagan: For me, it means vulnerability. And I'm cheating a little bit here because I'm such a huge Brene Brown fan.

Mary Killelea: Me too.

Shemia Fagan: I've read every book of hers. I've watched her Ted Talks. I've listened to her podcast. Thank God it just recently came back on. It was off for a couple of months. And I just identify so much with her personality and just how it is so courageous and bold to be vulnerable, to just be able to say, oh man, I screwed that up, didn't I? Let's start again. To really trust that vulnerability is going to be something that people see your authenticity. And in the work that I'm doing, I imagine there are places in professions where it's really hard to be vulnerable. I would stick politics really high on that list of where it's hard to be vulnerable because there are so many people out there just ready to literally call you. I mean, I've been called some of the worst. I mean, the names are so bad. I've been called, I have to laugh because I can't even comprehend somebody saying that to me in person, but they'll say it in email, they'll say it online. And just, boy, it is just appalling. And so, but just to be able to say, oh man, to be able to honest and be like, oh, that's disappointing. And it hurts when folks make incredible misjudgments about me. And then it makes me careful not to do it to other people. I love when Brene Brown says a good rule of thumb when you're dealing with other people is assume everyone is doing the best they can. Not that they're doing things perfectly, not that they're going to agree with you, not that they'll be without mistake, but that they're doing the best they can. And boy, if we could just get back to that principle of humanity, even when we disagree, I think that our country and our relationships would start going in the right direction again.

Mary Killelea: Completely agree. What gives you hope?

Shemia Fagan: My kids. I mean, I think about how I grew up in a very small evangelical church and some of the beliefs that I was taught growing up, I look back now and I think, man, that was really, really off the mainstream, even in the religious evangelical world, but how to me, it was just without question that profound responsibility as a parent that you create their worldview. You can tell them there's this chubby guy that goes down the chimney once a year and flies magically and they will just believe you. It is a crazy thing to believe, but they have absolutely no doubt that you would. And so I have taken that responsibility very seriously, raising two white kids in a world in desperate need of racial justice. From what I can tell two cisgender kids from what they've told me. And my son is an athlete type kid, loves to play basketball, is super tall for his age and knowing that he's going to be a kid that is going to probably be one of the jocks on the sports team someday. And really, really from his earliest memories, I emphasize that my body, my choice rules. You don't touch people without consent. Just because you have a crush on her, because he indicates that he likes girls, just because you have a crush on her doesn't mean that you get to keep pursuing her. If she says no, just really building into his DNA that sense of you're not entitled to someone else's body. You're not entitled to have someone else like you back. If she doesn't have a crush on you back, move on buddy. There's lots of fish to see.

And my daughter, who's three and a half, teaching her very early that even if mommy says, can I have a kiss? And she says no, I'm like, okay, I love you, baby. Your body, your choice. And just I get to create their worldview and watching how easily they adapt to that. I'll tell the story in part because, well, so I have somebody who, Brynn, who's on this, they're listening on to this. They're the first gender non-binary person that my kids ever encountered. And I talked to them about people being transgender, but for kids, the idea of getting around someone who's non-binary is hard because they're so black and white in Congress. Is it A or B? Well, neither. And they met Brynn at the Capitol and they worked with them. And then I remember driving home that day with my son, who at this point was in first grade. And I was kind of like, okay, how do I approach this? How do I talk about it? And I just said, Brynn doesn't identify as a boy or a girl. When we talk about them, we use they pronouns. And I was really nervous to tell them about this. How much is he going to understand this? And I said, so when we talk about Brynn and we say they or them or Brynn, and my son stops for a minute, he goes, or you. I said, or you. And he was like over it. I was like, okay, cool, mom. The fact that they're just like, if we just are intentional about our parenting, we can create a better world through our kids. When I talked to him about white privilege and systemic racism and what our ancestors have done and how we can be part of the solution, he just accepts it and feels empowered by it. So long question or long answer. But when I talk about my kids, it's hard to get me to stop because I just adore every little fiber of their beings. And they give me so much hope that if we're intentional about this, that we can make a better future for everybody.

Mary Killelea: I completely agree. I do think the generation, oh, the younger generation who's dealing with so much complexities in life, not that we didn't have our own and I'm older than you, but each generation has their own and each generation evolves. But I am too hopeful for the next generation and how they look at the world and the responsibility that they appear to be taking on more consciously. So that's really cool. What's next for you? Where do you see yourself? Five, 10 years?

Shemia Fagan: Well, five years, I hope to be running or having just one reelection to my second term as secretary of state this November. I'm on the ballot as Oregon secretary of state, which is the really important position in Oregon. Essentially, the funny thing is when I first started running for this, I quickly learned that most people have no idea what this job is, like no idea. And so it's essentially making sure that government works for everybody, running free and fair elections, auditing revenues and state government to make sure that there actually our policies line up with the values of Oregonians, using public records to make government more transparent. There's an office of small business assistance that I helped create as a legislator that you get to run as secretary of state. So, I hope to get elected this fall and then I guess five years from now, I would hope to have just been reelected to my second term.

Mary Killelea: Well, I think you're on your way. So, it has just been so great to get to know you and I appreciate you so much coming on. In closing, is there anything that I didn't bring up that you'd like to share or do you think we touched on the important topics? I know we could go deep into politics, but really, this was more about just getting to know you as a human, getting to know your career path and inspiring other women to know that if they have interest in something, they're capable and able to Google a career and have the drive to make it happen like you have.

Shemia Fagan: Absolutely. And I would just encourage folks that whatever that issue is that they care about, whether they make it their career or a side passion, whether it's gun safety or, you know, whatever it is that, you know, if they want to share their voice at the legislature, whatever, like we are so influenced by real stories from real people. We are so inundated with people that lobby us and professionals that have 16 different clients and this day they're here for this client. The next day they're here for another client. When just a regular everyday mom comes down and she's nervous and she's like, oh, it's my first time at the Capitol. I'm nervous. And she's just like, I just wanted to say how much I care about gun violence in schools or climate change or, you know, making sure that we have housing security or whatever their issue is, prescription drug monitoring, anything that is affecting your life that as a policy, we can make a difference and we can make it better. And party doesn't matter whether Republican, I never asked people's party affiliation ever when they come step foot in my office. Once you're representing people, you got to win half of the votes to win, but you represent everybody once you wins. I would just encourage folks, if they've got a passion for something, never underestimate the power of your authentic personal story to influence folks, whether it's through politics or nonprofit work or in a small group of parents that you get together with, whatever it is, the power of personal story is remarkable.

Mary Killelea: Well, thank you for all that you do for everyone and for joining us here today. Take care.

Shemia Fagan: Bye-bye.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number two, little b, bolder.com.