Being the Most Confident in the Room with Chaquinta Fisher, IT Manager for McLennan County Information Technology

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to Chaquinta Fisher, IT Manager from McLennan County, about making technology more accessible, the importance of open discourse, and much more. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:20) So how's Texas going?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:00:22) Texas is, you know, the greatest country inside of the United States.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:26) Oh, I like that. My parents, my dad's from Lubbock.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:00:31) Oh, cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:32) All of our family annual gatherings are always in Lubbock, Texas.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:00:35) Yeah, we have some relatives out there and it can be great, but then there's parts where it's like, where are we? There's nothing out here.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:44) Those parts. Yeah. That's one of the parts they live in. And so where are you at in contrast to that?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:00:51) I am in Waco, so Central Texas, right in the heart of Texas.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:57) And you manage the technology for the county? Is that what it is?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:01:01) I am one of the managers for McLennan County. Yes. So myself and one other manager, and then we have a director as well. We maintain all of the infrastructure for our network, cybersecurity, desktop application support, hardware, software, you name it, for all the employees of McLennan County.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:18) That's crazy. There's two of you. And how many employees are there?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:01:21) In our department, we have 20 positions. We have one position, in case anyone is listening and looking for a desktop support position for McLennan County. We are hiring. But we have roughly over 1,100 county employees.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:36) Wow. Okay. So a team of 20 helps manage the technology for 1,100. I've gotten to actually go visit and tour some different county IT departments and things like that. One of the things I found is that they all have varying scopes of what they do. For example, one of them that I was at was managing the hospital servers and all sorts of infrastructure for the county hospital, for emergency services, for all types of things. Is that what you guys do? Do you deal with the whole county or just managing for the employees of the county?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:02:11) Just managing for the employees of the county. So they also serve the citizens that live in McLennan County. So for instance, if you're going to get your registration for your vehicle and you're going to the tax office, or something to do with your property, you'll go to the tax office. If you need a marriage license, you go to the county clerk's office. If you have a divorce, you go to the district clerk's office. If there's some sort of criminal lawsuit type situation, you might go to one of our district judges or county court or JP. So we also have criminal justice agencies that have inmates and juvenile detention inmates, and we help maintain their around the clock infrastructure and desktop support. So not so much if there is a hospital here, but just really more of serving the employees of McLennan County that serve the citizens of McLennan County.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:02) Do you have to build the applications or buy the applications that manage that?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:03:07) We have some in-house building of some applications, but most of ours is purchased through other vendors and agencies that we support. So for instance, everyone's familiar with Microsoft Office or Adobe Acrobat, some of the widely known solutions out there, things like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:24) And what about CivicPlus? What do you do with them?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:03:26) So CivicPlus, they are actually, or CivicEngage, I should say, they actually have our municipal website that they host for us. We also have our CivicClerk recording and meeting management utilities with them as well. So we have our Commissioner's Court, whenever there is a live stream of one of their meetings, we use their functionality to help host some of those meetings and things like that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:52) Did they change their name since I talked to them last? Are they called CivicEngage now?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:03:56) CivicEngage is for the municipal website, and then we also have the agenda and agenda management suite with CivicPlus. That was CivicClerk.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:09) So I was curious because I am also a citizen.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:04:12) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:13) And so I interact with government services as I have to, for permitting for home stuff, for vehicle related things, all that. And I noticed that often, I'd say 80% of the time, it feels like an application from the seventies, at least where I'm at. And then some of the time, it just feels like a really high-end quality experience. Are there just vendors that vend for every single individual thing? Or why is it such a spectrum of experiences that I'll have when interacting with government services as far as the quality of the tools?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:04:56) So I will speak just for my own personal view and experience. Each department, although we are comprised altogether as McLennan County, each department is their own entity, per se. They are still an entity or agency of McLennan County, but the services that they need to provide for citizens, for instance, if you go to the county clerk's office and you need a marriage license or you need to file for a DBA, the technology that they use inside of their department may not also have technology services available for the county jail because they have inmate management needs. Those two things come from two different spectrums. So we end up supporting two different types of applications for those agencies.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:45) So they can buy all the stuff that they need, and then you just have to collect it all and figure out how to support and manage all of it?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:05:51) Essentially, we do partner with them. We vet things, and we help work through different contracts, make sure that we have the endpoints that are compatible with what may be coming in-house. If we have to spin up a server or if a vendor is providing a server, if it's a server we already have and we're just bringing a utility in-house to assist with that and cybersecurity that may go along with it, any type of firewall adjustments that need to be made, we make sure we partner on all of that as well.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:18) I think government service technology is one of the most interesting areas of technology, and I'm not lying, and here's why. Because I was deeply thinking about this before our conversation, and I was like, all right, where's an interesting angle thinking about government technology and my experience? And I thought to myself, you know, building software my entire career, you typically have one or two personas, different types of people that are using the software, and they typically will group in a specific age bracket or experience level or want something. But when you are providing services to the public as a county, you have to scale to every single type of person, every type of person. There's no exclusion to the people. It's literally every type of person. And so that presents some unique challenges. And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I was just thinking about this before the call. What type of unique challenges are those? Or what do you think about when you're procuring technology that has to be used for the 16-year-old getting their permit and also the 85-year-old doing something, filing a complaint with their HOA?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:07:32) Gotcha. So that could be answered a number of different ways. So hopefully I get to the meat of what it is that you're asking me. I think from that perspective, it is really more of where is technology moving, and are we able to support it, and how user-friendly is it regardless of age. On the other spectrum is where part of my position comes in. Our Commissioner's Court has put together an accessibility plan for our citizens, from buildings to our website accessibility. So with most of what I do in accessibility, I have to focus on making sure that our website and technology at the fingertips, per se, is usable and friendly in the eyes or ears of someone that has an accessible need so they can actually utilize our website to find the information that they need very quickly. Because most citizens or anyone for that matter using any type of IoT device, they're only looking for one particular thing in the moment, and they're normally not going to be on a page more than three to five seconds. So you need to be able to draw their attention very quickly and make sure that they can get to that information quickly. And for someone that may be, for example, using a screen reader, their device is reading everything on that page to them. So if you have a title of a webpage and it's "Welcome to McLennan County, Texas," the zip code, 76701, you know, they don't need to hear all of that when they're just trying to get to what's your phone number. So as far as making sure that everything that we have speaks to the wide audience regardless of age, it's really thinking about where is everyone, even in their personal lives, with how technology is moving forward. Because the banking industry has changed. So how someone uses technology to check their own personal bank account is different than 20 years ago where you went in person to look at things or you waited for your statement to come in the mail. You follow me?

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:39) Oh, I do. Yeah. I remember my mom teaching me to balance a checkbook.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:09:44) And I can't remember the last time I ordered a book of checks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:51) It's one of those things when you're opening a new account, you're like, will I ever use a whole single book?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:09:56) Yeah. Yeah. There was one time I'll never forget. I went into the grocery store. It was probably maybe, it's been about five years. I still used a few checks for small things. And when I used it, I think there had been so long of a time between check numbers and me using a check that the system flagged it. And they were like, this isn't in the order from the last one you used. And I was just like, oh, I just grabbed a check out of the checkbook. And I was like, oh, okay. This is crazy that I don't use checks this much. So I'll just come back with my debit card moving forward.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:31) Right? Remember those things? They still exist. So we were at the grocery store last weekend with, I've got three little ones under the age of six.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:10:40) Whoa.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:41) I know, right? I'm making it happen. We're making it.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:10:43) Yes. You are.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:44) Busy over here on the farm. So they pull out the check thing, you know, for the people to write the checks on, pull it out, and they were trying to hang on it. And I'm pushing it back in and trying to use the card. And they're like, what's this, Daddy? What's this? If it's not meant to be hung on, what is it? I was like, I don't know. It's for older people to write checks on. And they're like, what's a check? And I was like, I was like, it's just the thing we had before we had the cards. And I held up my card. And they're like, oh. I was like, you would write on paper, and they're like, you could make money by writing on paper?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:11:20) Wow.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:22) Really? No.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:11:23) No. That's not how, I mean, some people might find a way, and it's not the right way. But no, that's not what we do.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:31) Yes. Do you have kids?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:11:32) I do. My husband and I, we call us the Brady Bunch. He has three children. I have two. I have a 19-year-old, a five-year-old.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:43) Oh, wow.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:11:44) It's very different. When they say don't have children at 40, it is different. But that's another story. And then my oldest stepdaughter, she'll be 22. My stepson, he just turned 19 last month. And then my youngest stepdaughter, she will be turning 17.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:02) That made me close.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:12:04) And it's, I know. I know. And then my 19-year-old graduated high school in May, and my five-year-old started kindergarten three weeks ago.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:17) Well, I applaud you.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:12:20) It's fun. It's fun.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:23) Yeah. And then are they into technology? Or what type of career path are they looking at?

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:12:29) So our boys are gamers. They work very hard. They work very, very hard. I think this generation coming out of school, a lot of them, they go into high school thinking, I've got to have a plan. You know? And the schools are like, what's your career going to be? What are you going to do? How's your credit? Do you know what you're going to do? And it just bombards them with all of these decisions. And so the one thing I think that our boys have adjusted and adapted to was, no matter what it looks like, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go make money at a place of employment if I don't own my own business. College is not yet for me, but it's not out of the picture. My youngest stepdaughter, she's still in high school. She'll be graduating next year. I know she's very, very big on artistry. She's an amazing artist. But I know that she also has interest in nursing school. And I just try to encourage our kids to think forward. Think ten years from now, especially focus on STEM careers. I mean, STEM is where it is. I think STEM is where it's always been. Science, technology, engineering, and math. Whatever you want to do, focus in on that, especially in the tech industry. My 19-year-old, I remember him when he was 11 and 12, just breaking things and putting them back together. And he didn't know why. I was like, well, maybe he's just being a boy. No. There's something, the wheels are turning up here. I mean, I can't think of how many times I've had things come in the house that I need to put together. And he's like, no, I already got it. And I'm like, okay. Okay. So I just really encourage them and anyone for that matter listening, that plan may not be there in ninth grade. You may not know what it is that you want to do, but at the root of most everything, tech is always going to be involved. It doesn't matter if you're going to be an instructor, a college professor, if you're going to be a surgeon, if you're going into NASA, if you want to be in the military, if you want to start your own business, there is a form of technology either in your hands, on your desk, on your lap, in your bag. Wherever you're going, you're going to be using technology. So if you don't want to be in that career, then you might as well find the best way to use it and make it work for you and your lifestyle.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:45) A hundred percent. And as long as you give the kids a good work ethic and instill curiosity within them, I find that those are two of the base concepts that when people have work ethic and curiosity, they end up doing well.

(Chaquinta Fisher at 00:15:00) Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I don't think that there's ever a question that shouldn't be asked or that should go unasked, if I'm saying that correctly. All of our kids, between my husband and I, even though sometimes they may have certain questions about things, I'm like, you know what? There's a reason that they're asking that. And even if I'm just like, what did you just ask, there's a reason. It's their brain. It's how they decipher information, how they're computing and putting things together that makes sense for them. And so minds like that, I'm intrigued by because I don't know what's going on when they're left alone to their thoughts. And sometimes while some people think that could be a dangerous place, is it really? A lot of creative things have come from someone just sitting and thinking, and those thoughts turn into action, and those actions turn into something that produces something that everyone is using all over the world. So creativity for sure is a plus in this world.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:54) 100%. So you're a mom. You're managing a gaggle of children. I don't get to use that word often, so I will. You're managing a group of children, and you're also working in an executive management type role with all sorts of moving parts and lots of people managing people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:15) I know I saw that in the prep, there was mention of The Art of Dealing with People, the book. Right?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:16:22) Oh, yes. Great book.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:23) And I was like, okay. Those books are great. But I have also found that much like being an entrepreneur is like a fast track to an MBA because you'll either go broke and be poor or you'll figure out how to make money. That's a real fast way to track it. Having kids, I believe, is a real fast way to track your management and dealing with difficult people skills.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:44) And so I was curious what you've learned being a mom, raising a family, and then how you've taken those lessons and they've influenced your management style at work.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:16:55) So sometimes I used to think that it was always best to keep those two avenues separate. And then I realized you can't because who you are is who you are. When no one's looking, who you are is who you are at the end of the day. And so for me, I have a small case of OCD, a very small case. It might be big.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:17:16) My husband might say it's rather large, but it filters over into my workplace. I mean, sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm thinking about what I need to do the next day and I'll text myself and I'll go back to sleep. Or I'll come to work and I do the same thing where I write it down and I take it with me. I plan meals at home. Well, when I come into work, I'm planning my day-to-day task of what I need to do.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:17:37) If it's not written down or in a support ticket or in my calendar or in a text to myself, it's not getting done. But in dealing with people, everyone is uniquely created. Everyone has this amazing brain of all of these thoughts and ideas, just booming everywhere. And you never know what's going to come from that. And there's a level of patience and self-development and people skills that comes with professionalism in the workplace and at home. You might yell at your kids, but you also come back to the table and you're like, let me sit down and have a conversation with you.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:18:15) This is why I reacted this way. You did this, and this is how we need to fix it moving forward. Are you willing to do that? And so I think that same approach—not that we're calling the people that we work with our children, but they are our partners while we're in the workplace. Our family members are our life partners.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:18:31) And in doing so, if you can't formulate and maintain those partnerships with great communication, patience, and understanding, and being able to sit down at the table or in the business office or whatever that may be and have some sort of understanding, then how do you get to your goals? How do you adjust any type of scene or scenario that may not have worked last year in the environment at work, but tweak it this way. And how can it work this year to better where you were before? Just like in home, there are going to be bumps in the road that you have with your family. Okay.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:19:04) Well, remember last year we went through this. How did we get through it? Okay. Well, it looks like it's happening again. What can we do different?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:19:10) So it didn't end up how it may have last year. And so I think trying to balance both of those and making sure that who you are when no one is looking is the same way that you are when people are looking.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:22) How did you become a better person?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:19:26) Wow. Wow. That is a very long story. Sometimes I even surprise myself because I tell people, I don't even know how I ended up in tech. I just, I took some classes in college.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:19:41) I switched between medical laboratory, phlebotomy, Spanish. And then I took some classes and they were like, you're really good at this. You should go this angle because you already have these credits. And I was like, okay. And so I got my degree in computer applications many, many years ago.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:20:01) And I was also still dancing. I was a ballet dancer for a long time. And I got this job, and I did not belong. I knew I did not belong. And I still had young mindset.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:20:17) I still wanted to go party. I still wanted to hang out. I still wanted to travel the world. I wanted to spend my money on whatever. I had no idea about what life is going to be like later on as far as retirement or building a savings or having a home built or where would my children go to school?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:20:37) Do I want to have children? And one night, and I'll be transparent, I was leaving a function with some friends. It was not a night. It was probably 3 a.m. And I was driving on the freeway on the way home, asleep in my car.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:20:55) And my car was driving on cruise control. I had no gas. And when I woke up, I was almost to Dallas. I turned all the way across the U-turn in the middle of the freeway, drove all the way back home with no gas in my car, at least 45 miles, made it home, got down on my knees, started crying, and said, I have to be better because that could have been my life. That could have been it.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:21:24) And in that moment, I realized how selfish I was because what would my father or my mother or my grandmother or my cousins that are like my brothers and sisters or my sibling—who would I have been to be that selfish, to leave them with the thought of their last memory of me being that moment? And that was over 20 years ago. And I've held on to that ever since. So everything that I do, it is with intention. I try my best to keep the right thing the right thing.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:22:02) I always have God at the center of all of my decisions. And I always want to be a better me because there's going to be someone one day that I run into on the sidewalk that just wants someone to smile with them or to say hello or to say, can I help you? And if I can't be a better me, as much negativity as there is in the world, who am I to keep adding to it? Life is already tough sometimes. And if you can't find ways to make it better, then what is your purpose?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:22:34) Like, why are we here? Are we here to serve? Are we here to be better? Aren't we here to build better, to make better, to do more and create more? Because if that isn't, then we're all just on some stagnant train ride going nowhere.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:22:47) And so I read a lot. I read my Bible. Every morning, I'm up at 5:45. I try to get two miles in before I go anywhere. I try to listen to a sermon every single morning.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:22:58) I pray over my family before I leave the house. I'm always listening to Caleb or something positive. And then don't get me wrong, when I get off of work. When I get in and out of my car at 5:00, I'm pretty sure there's some bass blaring from my car because I need that. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:11) 100%.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:23:12) There are just times that I personally do not have time for a pity party. I have moments where I'm aggravated or frustrated with myself. Yes. But who isn't? But I'm not going to allow myself to stay low because I know what low felt like in that moment on the freeway in my car.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:23:28) I had to be better and I have to stay better. And if we stay the same, then so does the rest of the world if we're not trying to give some sort of impact and inspiration to other people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:40) So who do you like to listen to? You listen to your sermons on YouTube?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:23:45) Yes. So right now—

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:46) Who do you like?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:23:47) Right now, I've been listening to Charles Metcalf. He is hilarious. I love the way he puts a spin on a lot of his sermons because he keeps it real. You know, I grew up in the church, you know, I went to my grandmother's church. She had been going there since the early 1920s. And it was this real, you know, don't sneeze, don't go to the restroom.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:24:09) Don't chew gum, no snacks. And he keeps it real, you know. He makes it relatable. He speaks to where we are in today's culture. And it's okay to just put your own spin on some things to bring people in so they can understand what it is that you're trying to teach. You know, if everything is taught up here and it's not relatable, then how are you going to bridge that gap where you can bring people in and maybe help them in the way that they need it most? Like, when you're talking to your three children under the age of six, the conversation you're having with me, you're going to use different language with them. You know what I'm saying?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:24:49) And so I think that's one thing that I love about Charles Metcalf is just the way that he puts on his sermons. It's so relatable for anyone no matter what age group you're in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:59) Can you spell his last name?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:25:01) M-E-T-C-A-L-F.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:05) I was a little disappointed when I found out that the book of Joel is basically like a lunatic ranting.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:25:12) Yep. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:14) I mean, maybe not lunatic, but it's pretty Revelation-ish. You know, I was like, man, I identify more with, like, the Ephesians, like Paul's letter to the Ephesians. That's a nice positive one.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:25:29) I want something positive. You know, you can spank my hand just a little bit, but, you know, just keep it, you know. Yeah. No.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:36) But there's a lot of great communication. That was one of the beautiful things I love about YouTube is there was a whole rise of just all these amazing pastoral personalities and just great communicators. And now we've got these devices, and we can have high quality sermons and high quality messages, like, anytime of the day. I mean, when I was growing up, we didn't have cell phones. And so, you know, when I was probably like eight or 10 is when I started to see, you know, the very first cell phones start to emerge.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:10) And, you know, the Internet was super, super basic. But now we just have this high quality media on demand. I think that's one of the big blessings that we got from the tech.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:26:19) It is. I mean, everything is at your fingertips these days. There are things that I think about—I think about my grandmother, she was almost 102 when she passed away a couple years ago. And that woman has seen—she saw so many things and we couldn't get her to even get a cell phone, you know, because she's just like, Nope, I have my phone and it comes out with the eight-foot cord attached to it at home. You know, there are just those little things and kids now—everything is at their fingertips.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:26:47) If they need to look something up about their homework, it's just at their fingertips. And I have these old school Encyclopedia Britannicas from 1952, you know? So it's definitely, definitely changed the world.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:59) Oh, I remember the day my mom got the long extended cord for the phone so she could walk around the whole kitchen and do her baking while talking to her family.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:27:07) Yeah. Yes. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That was hilarious.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:27:10) I remember my first cell phone. It was a brick. It was probably like my coffee cup here. Oh, yeah. But I thought I was something, and it had the big antenna on it.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:27:19) I'm like, yeah, I'll be there, but I gotta hang up because this call for me is $4.99 a minute. Bye.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:26) Yeah. There is one episode I would like to recommend to you from the show. I don't do this often, but—

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:27:31) Sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:32) There's a popular Christian apologist named John Lennox. He's older.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:27:37) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:37) He's probably seventies, and he's at Oxford. And he's written a bunch of books and given lectures and all of that. So he's also a professor of artificial intelligence.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:27:52) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:52) So he's got very much the math side and the science side and the God side. And so I did not know this.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:28:00) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:00) And there he is, John Lennox. So I did not know this. So my team had researched. I had said, hey, bring me one of the brightest people on AI that you can find in the world.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:28:10) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:10) And they brought me this guy, and rightfully so. He's a well-published author and everything. So we're getting in. We're about 10, 12 minutes into the conversation, and he just mentioned something about God. And I didn't think anything of it because I did not know who this guy was. And then I was like, oh, yeah, I'm interested. Like, go down. He said, oh, you want to talk about God?

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:29) And I was like, yeah, sure. Let's talk about the intersection of artificial intelligence and God and Christianity and all of that. He's like, okay. And then he had all these brilliant ideas, and I'm like, dude, you're brilliant. And as I'm doing this, I just open up a tab and start Googling him. I realized he's like one of the top apologists out there in the world, and I was just blown away. And so it turned out to be a really interesting episode.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:28:53) Okay. I'll have to check it out.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:55) Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then—

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:28:59) Where—

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:59) Where else do we want to go with this conversation? I got sidetracked. I didn't expect this to be so awesome.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:29:03) No. You're awesome yourself. So one thing I think that I would love to chat about is Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in STEM.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:13) Okay.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:29:14) I have run into so many environments, whether it's a conference, whether it's a high school that I'm speaking to their STEM group, whether it's just someone's friend's daughter or son, and there's this stigma that Black, Indigenous, and People of Color do not belong because the percentage of BIPOC in STEM is so low. And while that percentage is low, I don't know that it should be something that intimidates anyone from staying outside of those careers. Anyone, if they want to go into nursing, they should. It's needed. Technology, we already know it's needed.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:29:55) And what I found—this is just my own personal research—is because they walk into a room and they don't see someone that looks like them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:06) Mm-hmm.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:30:06) And that intimidation is there or that fear is there. And I don't know that it should be, you know? I think there are a lot of different arenas that everyone can operate in. And I love explaining to people that everyone belongs in STEM. STEM touches everything in this world.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:30:28) And I just, I like to put that little blast out there. If you're interested in STEM careers, go for it. If there is training, a lot of—even Google has training that's out there. And some of their training is free. Go for the training, go for the internships, apply for that position.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:30:46) Don't let that intimidation push you into a corner where it's, oh, I don't belong. Oh, I'm not going to get it. Because if you think that way about just that area of life, you're going to apply that same, oh, I can't. Oh, they won't think about me everywhere else. So if STEM is for you, please go for it.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:31:10) I mean, the way it's moving and shaping and all the different types of careers that are coming out of STEM careers, it's nothing short of jobs and opportunities. You know? And I just—I wish there were more BIPOC in STEM. Women in STEM careers is already low as it is. You know?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:31:31) There are a lot of times that women have to fight a little harder than men. But I think if everyone had that understanding that the STEM area is for everyone and they had that relaxation behind it that, hey, take away the stigma, take away the intimidation factor, whatever. Just go for it. Whatever it is, like, just go for it. Do it.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:31:52) And if it says no over here, it doesn't mean someone isn't going to say yes over here. Just keep going.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:58) When I was in high school, my parents had got divorced, like, in middle school, high school. And for a brief moment, I transferred to a different high school. Like, three weeks, I was there because of just legal stuff going on. I was the only white kid in my class for the first time. So growing up in school, you know, I was not.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:32:18) Mm-hmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:19) And it was weird. It felt weird.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:32:23) It's good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:23) For me, of the guys that were on the football team, because I was joining the football team, made an effort to, like, be cool with me and hang out with me and invite me in and everything like that. And it was just, like, one or two of them. And that made all the difference in the world because, remember, I walk into the room, and now no one's—no one shot me dirty looks. No one did. It was just a completely different environment than I had ever been in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:49) And I was like, woah. This is weird. And, obviously, I felt a little uncomfortable. And then when people made the effort to talk with me and hang out with me and stuff, it just made all the difference in the world, and then everything just went right back to normal, and I felt fine. But I think that's important too because there are so many times when we have—I don't like to use male dominated or dominator. I don't like those words. But I do understand this idea, like, there can be a time when it just so happens that all the people are men in the class, in the tech room, and there's nothing wrong with that, and then a woman walks in, and then it's important to see that, okay, there's one of us that's very different. Let's definitely make sure we welcome that person in. Right? Because they're gonna have this—you know, they might have an awkward feeling or whatever.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:38) But I really think it boils down when we talk about, you know, all of that. If you're a good person and you have morals and you have a standard and you follow God, that takes care of, like, 99% of it.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:33:53) Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:55) Yeah. And so I—

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:33:56) I can—oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:58) No. You go ahead.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:33:59) I was saying I walked in the conferences where it would be me and one other female in there, and I walk in like I own it because I'm going to control that environment for myself because I belong here too. But in doing that, it made it so everyone else in the room, then they gravitated towards me. But I've also on purpose walked into other conferences in the opposite way without self-esteem, without like, oh, I own this conference or this is my conference, and no one spoke to me. So I think a lot of it too—yes, go and be that person and welcome someone in. But also when you are the one walking in, walk in with that confidence. Walk in and say, yes, I belong here. You know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:42) A hundred percent. I think that's the majority of the problem is people want it to be easy. And there's just things in life that aren't easy.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:34:50) Oh, exactly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:51) So you just have to develop a certain level of mental toughness to handle—I mean, going on stage and talking in front of 5,000 people is not easy, but you just decide that that's what you wanna do, and you prepare yourself for the opportunity. And, yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:35:07) Absolutely. I agree. I agree.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:09) When you say black and indigenous people, I don't understand that second part. What is the—I understand black people. What is the indigenous part?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:35:17) Indigenous is referring to Native Americans.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:21) Cool. That's what I thought.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:35:21) Yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:23) Okay. Very cool. So that's—and you used the phrase, I didn't understand, BIPOC or something?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:35:28) It's the acronym for Black, Indigenous, People of Color, so BIPOC.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:32) BIPOC?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:35:33) Yes. BIPOC.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:34) Yeah. Very cool. Have you ever explored, like, the Black Girls Who Code or Girls Who Code or anything like that? Have you ever gotten involved with any of those?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:35:42) Not really. I'm not a coder. I took a few coding classes and I can read it and know what it's doing. But if you ask me to code, you get some basic HTML and that's all you get out of me. But I love those groups. I love that they have relatable areas for those that want to intermingle with someone that looks like them and are relatable. You know? I love they have that as well.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:07) Back on the—that previous—I have one more thought over there too because I think about this a lot. Right?

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:36:14) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:15) About because I do the show and I get all types of topics. I've had—here's something that's fun for you that you might not know. I get yelled at either way, either way, my views are, because there are women who are like, it shouldn't matter that I'm a woman if I bring up that they're a woman. And then there are other women where I just don't bring it up and they're like, why didn't you bring up that I'm a woman? And so I was like, okay, there's two sides of this. The one, it shouldn't be important that I'm a woman and then you're not recognizing that. I was like, alright, so I don't—I don't know. I just treat everybody with love and respect.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:36:44) And I think for you, you know, you're in the position—this is your show. You know, you should be able to have the show how you wanna have it and discuss the thing that you wanna discuss if someone has accepted that role in coming on to your show knowing that, hey, this is open conversation. But when it comes to women and it's, well, this way on this side and this way on the other side, we know when we wake up every morning, we are a woman. We know that there may be certain fights that we have in this world because we are women. And then we should also be open to having those conversations because there may be one young girl out there that's coming up behind us that needs to hear that and how you got through it. So it shouldn't matter what the conversation is. If you brought up something right now, we're gonna have that conversation. I'm not gonna shy away from it. But I'm also not going to block you from asking me something because there may be someone else out there listening that that could help. Because sometimes the conversation is in the mouth of you or I. You know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:39) And that's why it's so important that we don't shut down discourse. On every single big popular thing you can argue about, there is a section of people that wanna shut down discourse and they just wanna yell, right, on any side of anything. And so my whole thing is it's important that we talk about things so that we can better understand them. Like how we're talking about, you know, walking in the room, whether you're a girl walking in a room with confidence, there's a girl listening right now that's like, okay, well, that's what I need to do the next time I go to a networking event is I need to go in there with this mental confidence and prepare. I'd say the same thing to almost anybody. Anybody? Like, go in there with that confidence and prepare.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:13) But to the point of either, like, sexism or racism, I've thought a lot about it. And one of the things that I feel is a good thing to broadcast is that if you see it, stop it. Because a lot of people hear about it, and they just don't see it. And then they will start to dismiss it. And so I was like, okay. Rather than talking about—like, if we put the emphasis on if you see someone being a dick—

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:38:42) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:43) If you see someone being rude to someone because of an immutable characteristic, then say something. Like, I won't stand for that at all. And I don't have a preference if, like, if somebody's being mean to, like, handicapped people or just any person from something that's immutable. Right. Something they cannot change. It's like, what are you doing, dude? They can't change that. It's not like a behavior and I could become a better person, or it's something I'm doing that I could change and I'm not because I'm a bad person. If it's something they cannot change about themselves, then you—that's—you shouldn't be making fun of that.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:39:16) Exactly. My daughter—I had lunch with her the other day. And, you know, five-year-olds are fun. I mean, it is—their brains are—they're doing something else. They're in a whole other land.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:27) Oh, yeah.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:39:27) As we were getting ready to leave, one of her friends' friends walks by and she's like, "Bye, crazy hair girl." Okay. Both of my children are multicultural. And so my daughter's hair is like these beautiful ringlets of curls. Okay. And some days she just wants it out. Some days she wants a headband. Some days she wants a clip. Some days she wants ponytails. It's whatever it is. So this day she had it big and wild or whatever. And she looks at this girl and she goes, "It's my hair and it's beautiful." And I went—I didn't have to defend her. You know, she just knew to say, hey, you stop that. You don't do that because that's not right. And I think you're right. You know, sometimes, and I think you may have to judge some scenarios because you could go somewhere and someone is just belligerent, just rude.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:20) Oh, yeah.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:40:20) You may not know if they're just gonna wanna take a knife out and just slit your throat or whatever. But there is a way to approach people to say, hey, you might wanna lay off of that or whatever. You know, just kinda chill out on that or that's not nice. That's not cool. You know? Because I know I've done it. I've done it where I've been in the grocery store and I see someone's kid acting up and I'm like, I know you heard your mom. You stop that right now. That's not nice. You know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:41) Communal parenting. Yeah.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:40:42) Yes. Yeah. I won't spank your kid, but I'm gonna tell your kid something.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:48) Yeah. I've seen, my—I think my daughter has—she saw a girl with the big blown out hair, you know, and she was like, oh, that's so cool. And the girl was like, hi. I'm so-and-so. She's like, hi. I'm you know? And they started hanging out. I think curiosity is an important thing too. Right? Because when people see things that they don't—that are new to them and they're curious, I think that that's an interesting thing too. I also have found it fascinating that my kids don't under—they really don't understand race. They do. They don't care. They'll play with the kids that wanna play with them. They'll be around the kids that wanna be around with them.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:41:26) Oh, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:26) And yeah. So I think that's kind of beautiful as far as—

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:41:30) It's a very beautiful thing. I've never raised my children to look at race. I want you to look at the person for who they are and who you are to that person. It was only as they got older and higher grades and being around other children and whatever those environments were that they came from, that they started to say, oh, like my daughter, she'll be six in October. Only in the last few months has she come home and she's like, "Mommy, our skin color is not this thing. How come?" You know, those little things, because obviously she didn't learn it at home. You know? And when I was growing up, my grandfather, he raised all of us. "What's that person's name? Well, don't talk to me if you don't know their name. I don't want you to describe that person to me without knowing their name." And so I think a lot of that is taught in some environment, and it could be that it's just passed down from generation to generation. And then there are other families where it's, we just wanna love everybody. You know, if I don't like you, it has nothing to do with your skin color. It's probably because you might've been a dick, you know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:28) Yeah. Yeah.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:42:28) Or disrespectful in some manner, you know? But respect can go everywhere and liking people and making friends, I think it's universal and shouldn't be related to someone's skin color or their background.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:45) Yeah. I mean, I'm—I've been a—and I credit, I guess, my parents because they've raised me to care about the character of a person. And and then that's just what I noticed. And to be honest with you, even growing up, I mean, maybe it's a positive about our world, but, like, in my school systems and things like that, like, I didn't pick up on, like, much racism at all, like, people being mean to other people because I pick up on that, like, you know, and I think that we're headed in the right direction. I think that we're headed in a better direction.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:43:15) Oh, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:15) Slow, steady steps forward.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:43:20) I would say so. I also see that when you go into schools, a lot of the schools, they're getting more brown. You know? All the babies, they're getting more brown, and everyone is starting to blend and mesh, and they're the beautiful young students everywhere. And it's just like, look at this world coming together. Look at these beautiful babies. You know, look at all of this change that's happening. You know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:46) Oh, yeah. There's so many different combinations of people now and ethnicities and skin.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:43:50) Oh, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:51) It's just like, I don't even—my mind doesn't even care to try to figure it out anymore. It's just like, let's just find out who this person is because I used to try to figure it out.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:43:57) Where do you live? You like Shaggy Boo? You wanna go to movies? I mean, little stuff like that, though.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:04) Yes. That's what we need, especially right now in the country, is to find things that we have in common and that we agree on, like, core principles that we agree on because there has been a lot of division in the past decade. And so I think that focusing on the core aspects of, you know, what we're doing here as a people in the great American experiment is super important.

(Jaquinta Fisher at 00:44:29) Yep. And I think if we even remember to come back to our roots and the basics of everything and the creation of this beautiful world, and I always tell people this is a beautiful world, even though there are some ugly things in it, because it is beautiful and it's truth and love. And that the center of both of those things, where there is truth, you have the light, you don't have to worry about any dark areas or gray matter or anything like that when it comes to discussion. And then there's love. And love doesn't necessarily mean that you just like one particular person, but I love what was created. I love that you are here. I love this being. It's breathing. You may have done some wrong over here, and maybe you hurt me here or hurt this person, but you are still someone to someone. You are still a creation. And for that, I can love.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:21) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email, [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.