Judaline Cassidy: From Diego Martin to New York's Plumbing Union

Judaline Cassidy's journey began in Diego Martin, Trinidad, where she grew up facing poverty, abandonment, and countless obstacles. Unable to afford university, she made a decision that would change the course of her life forever—she enrolled in plumbing at the John Donaldson Technical Institute.

What followed was an extraordinary journey from Trinidad to New York City, where Judaline became one of the first women in her union, built a successful career in the skilled trades, and founded Tools & Tiaras, a nonprofit that empowers young girls through trade skills, confidence-building, and leadership development.

In this episode, Judaline shares powerful stories about growing up without her parents, finding strength through her great-grandmother's guidance, overcoming discrimination as a Black immigrant woman in construction, and why she believes skilled trades can transform lives.

We also discuss the importance of trade education, the future of work, the rise of AI, confidence, resilience, and why every young person should learn a skill that can take them anywhere in the world.

Topics include:

• Growing up in Diego Martin
• John Donaldson Technical Institute
• Life as a female plumber in New York
• Becoming the first woman in her union
• Trade school vs university
• Building Tools & Tiaras
• Confidence, grit and resilience
• Women in construction and skilled trades
• Entrepreneurship and leadership
• Creating opportunities for the next generation

Judaline's story is a powerful reminder that where you start does not determine where you finish.

Transcript

From Trinidad To New York Plumbing

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I started plumbing here in John Donaldson Technical Institute.

Corie 0:03

You were one of the first three women who got into John D for plumbing.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Yeah. Imagine growing up in the same neighborhood with your mother and um she's walking by the street and she doesn't even talk to you. I always knew I wanted to be successful. I knew I wanted to move out of my circumstances. I'd had guys who told me, uh, you'll never make it in plumbing. You're too short, your voice. I remember people said not liking my my accent. And I became the first woman to get into that union. You know, they let girls do this shit now.

Corie 0:32

Why plumbing over earlier the train?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Plumbing you get wet, electrically get shocked. Simply.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

You know, the cloud on the core step on the core, step on the core. Stop up, call it, step up, stop. Mommy, look at the little topic.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And no, it was terrible for us. It wasn't planned, but it just so happened that it wasn't.

Corie 1:04

I thought right enough for them getting references.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

I didn't even catch it. It's because um American people love to shorten names. And uh somebody sent it back to me, like tools and tarot. I was like, wait, actually, named it up without even even the brand colours and everything that kind of like even.

Corie 1:20

And the next one's Trades Women Talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Yeah, Trades Woman Talk. That's a podcast. And it's amazing.

Corie 1:24

You're watching you know, you brighten it a little slick. Oh, is it planned of me?

SPEAKER_01 1:28

No, that's everybody thinks. Because people is the one who pointed out to me because I don't even notice.

Corie 1:33

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah.

Corie 1:34

Welcome to the Corey Shepard Podcast. My name is Corey Shepard. Welcome back to everybody who's been listening. Thank you for everybody who's tuning in and pledging to our Patreon and supporting Nick Budge. Today we have with me a special guest who we spoke to more than a year ago now.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Yeah.

Corie 1:47

Judilyn Castle, fall of TRs, tools and tiaros. Yes. I'm gonna get it right at some point. That's all right. She said everything is TNT. Tools and TRs.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yes.

Corie 1:57

Welcome to the show, Judilyn. It's nice to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, thanks for having me. I love watching your show, and now to be on it is an honor.

Corie 2:03

Oh, you do? You watch it?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, well, I listened to it. I just started watching the videos because when I'm going to work, I listen to podcasts. So I started, I found you and I started listening to it because it just makes me feel close to home and listening to the show, hearing people's uh struggles and their wins is motivating. So I love it.

Corie 2:21

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Maybe it's a good time to remind people that you could listen to the show too. Look at that. You know, everybody's go to YouTube. I'm a real podcast listener. So I hardly find myself watching podcasts like that. Me too. Yeah, so I in it. So you came from New York, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Yes, I did.

Corie 2:34

How long have you been over there?

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Uh about 36 years now.

Corie 2:37

Yeah. Yeah. So your trade is plumbing. The first time you reach out to me, I say, all right, we had to talk to, we had to talk to you because your your story is refreshing for me. In a lot of ways, the things that I wouldn't have thought about. From the time I hear plumbing, the first thing I think is, shit. I say, I say what's going on. You know, if this is a profession I would get into. But you know, when I the first time I built a house, I start to realize, okay, this is a critical thing that we overlook a lot of times. And when you see an emergency and you need a plumber, things bad. I was telling my son the other day, two things uh you sure the house all will fall apart is if Wi-Fi go down.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

For the Gen Z and Adam, yeah.

Corie 3:20

All that we know.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah.

Corie 3:21

And if something wrong with the plumbing, from time you have no water, you feel the babies, get to see from the time the house have no water. So I want to talk to you about your origins of getting into plumbing. But I want I want to hear your story about New York and you as a woman in plumbing. How common is it?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

It is not very common. The percentage of women in plumbing is like about

Women In Plumbing And Standing Out

SPEAKER_01 3:40

2% in the US. And in trades in general, it finally, after 1970, the amount of women in construction is finally a whopping. Let's wait for it, 3.9%.

Corie 3:52

Oh, that's the inp that's increase.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

And it's a lot because of social media. Because just think about it, it was like that since 1970 until recently. So it's very, very it's a difficult uh thing for women to be working in male populated industries like plumbing, electrical, engineering. It's it's not it's not huge, but it's a game changer if women get into it.

Corie 4:16

Yeah, and that's why it was so interesting when I saw the message. When I when I saw you, I was like, you know, Trine's, we do such great things in so many spaces, you know. We get a chance to talk to people who are in the arts and people who are in business and so on. So it's a pleasure to talk to a woman who's in the trade. But is it a pleasure for you to work in it if it's only 4%? And then when you narrow it down by 4%, and then we're black, and then we're not from the states, the percentage getting smaller and smaller.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

It gets smaller and smaller, but I think it worked for my advantage because I just I've always been a person I know I wanted to succeed growing up here in Trinidad, and um it just doesn't stop me. It makes me unique and then just being myself. I've never pretended to be from every anywhere else or change my voice or anything. So it kind of makes me stand out. So everybody knows me in a way and they know like my skill level that I don't play, I'm the boss.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

No, I really don't. Like I might be humble with a lot of things, but I ain't coming from to plumbing, not at all. Because I really dialed in and knew that I walk into every room every time being a black immigrant woman with an accent. So the rules are different for me right off the bat. So I always like try to do everything at a different level because the rules are different for me.

Corie 5:28

Yeah, I would imagine because New York is also not the easiest place to work. New York is fast spaced. I've been to New York a couple of times and idols, it's not for me. The first time I buy a street corner and the whole street corner picked me up and carry me across the road because I walk into swing.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

You will stay to the right. I leave business to the side, okay?

Corie 5:46

I didn't know that's something. So it's is it's difficult from that fast space uh standpoint as well in construction and unemployment fee?

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Not anymore. I think because I've been there so long and I got I I lose the island, um, the island time. I'm not an island time person. It's so hard for me to be anywhere late or anything like that. So I'm really driven with the time. So I'm used to it to space. But I love when I travel and I come to Trinidad and other places, it reminds me to take a breath because I want to go fast. And this is not always, it's not good for you to always be that. It's so driven about achieving stuff and not about living. And that's what I love about here. And when I travel, it's about living. Sometimes you have to be about living.

Corie 6:29

Well, yeah, Trine's, we don't forget to live.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no. It's a return right now. Going on a plane, I'm I want to cry.

Corie 6:37

No, I hear you say uh in one of the podcasts I was listening to with you that you're like blueprint work when it's whole projects, it's a whole building and you have to do that. Because again, for me, when I hear from time I hear plumbing, I think fix a problem, like a pipe bus, that we're saying trend that right? Yeah, you get the reactions when you walk into spaces, like if you walk into a new project and all of a sudden you jump out and walk, or people expecting expecting you as a plumber.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

No, they don't. So I uh I love humor, I use it a lot as a disarmor. So when I walk in and they don't expect me to the to be the plumber, I say funny things like, you know, they let girls do this shit now.

Corie 7:11

You know, oh you would say No, no, no, they really do.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

So they laugh and they get and I then I say you didn't even know you have the world's best plumber in your house. And they laugh. It breaks that wall down because I already know they see the black short woman, four foot, you know, 11 and 78, staying out thinking she's gonna be, yeah, she can fix anything. Look, she but no, no, no. But it really is hard. So, like every job site, if I'm working with a new crew, I always have to be always starting from the bottom, proving yourself. I am worthy, I belong here, I'm just as good as you. It's every single time. But I just I I haven't been I'm not wary of it. Like people might say I'm fed up. I don't, I don't see it that way. I feel like it's an opportunity to change someone's mind about a perception of a person. It really, that's what I use it for. Now I'm gonna change your mind. Now you're gonna see the mighty power of this little person.

Corie 8:06

Truly work.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Truly work.

Corie 8:08

Yeah, and I suppose when they get down to work, people people know what it is then. I suppose a contractor know what they're looking for under the door they're looking at.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, they usually don't want to hire women, and that's a big shift. And one of my business agents, he had a really great idea and it works for people listening and you have objections about women. What he did was he just called me by my last name. So when you I come to your job site, you don't, you're not expecting, you just heard a name Mercer coming, Williams coming, whoever coming, right? So there's no precept uh perception of who that person is, just a name. So when

Winning Respect On The Job Site

SPEAKER_01 8:40

I show up, they can't say no. They already told the union, yes, they taken me. Now it's upon me now to prove why they sent me.

Corie 8:48

I understand. I understand.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

So that's a good way to do it. I like that.

Corie 8:51

Got it. You brought up union, it's something that's you talk about is union 371 you're a part of. Yeah, I think. I don't understand the unionization thing. Why is it so important in New York?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

It's very important because as a union member, let's just give an example. If I was working non-union and you hired me, you could say because you're short, you have an accent, I'm only going to pay you $30 an hour. But now when I come with the union rate, you had to pay me $78 an hour.

Corie 9:15

Oh, God, it'll be expensive.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

You got a little bit of it. And that's just and that's just only the envelope, right? That's just uh the hourly one. But when you check with the medical and all the 401k and all of that, it's like a hundred and almost twenty dollars a month uh an hour.

Corie 9:30

I see, yeah. I see. So it's a trade unit that protects.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah, it's a big protection. Here's the other thing. As a woman, you being six foot two and I being my height, they're paying us the same money. I don't get paid shit short money.

Corie 9:43

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

The guys used to make fun in the elevator about my height, and that was my comeback. They don't pay me short money. No, it's not that. Don't talk about it. That's the great thing about the union. It really is. And then protection. Because when you work in a job site, and this week is actually uh construction safety week, you have protection safety-wise. Like the things that you can do.

Corie 10:08

So that means there's balance with gender as well. They can't pay you less because you're a woman or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Now you might lose man hours because of what I said. If they realize it's a woman, you may not get any much man hours, but when they do pay you, they have to pay you the same rate.

Corie 10:23

Okay, what do you mean? When they see a woman, you don't get much man hours, meaning that they're less likely to want to hire a woman.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah. So, like, there's times in construction. New York City, uh, construction is beautiful, it's fast, it's rapid. So a building that might take in let's say another state, uh take them a year, in New York, we can finish that in six months. So the idea is a woman, if they find out I'm a woman, they may not want to hire you. So you might be sitting on the bench, meaning waiting for work, longer than somebody else. So that's why you have to be creative and do other things. So that's why me personally, I learned everything about my craft that I'm doing, so that I they don't want to replace me. So they they like me because I'm really good at what I do. But when guys see me coming on the job, they know they're gonna get pulled off brazen, which is like welding or soldering. They're like, oh gosh, it's your strong. Because they know I'm really good at it. So I'm good at everything, but they know like the boss knows they turned the water on, they ain't gonna be no leaks.

unknown 11:23

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

So women, uh, I am very, I am blessed. I wouldn't even say lucky, because I have that mindset. I tend to work, I had worked for companies for a long time. One company, 15 years, they lend me out if work is slow to somebody else. But a lot of times the women get under job when they're apprenticeship and they don't listen to what I say and master the craft. So they think because of a woman, you just dare to earn a paycheck, not really loving the job. So they'll keep your junior apprenticeship, which is five years. The union must keep you working. So you get the man hours when you're working as an apprentice.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

When you journey out and become a journeyman, the woman like journey woman, but I'm okay with journeyman. When you journeyed out, now you have to find your own work. And that's when a lot of women don't work. I was blessed that I worked for 30, it's close to 30 years now I've been a plumber.

Corie 12:15

Wow, wow, congrats on that. When you say get work, that's something that's interesting to me. Because in Trinidad, for instance, if I'm the plumber Corey, there's a certain type of work I get and certain type of job. Well, if I name it like Corey's Plumbing Solutions are registered, is it the same over there or do you represent the colour?

SPEAKER_01 12:29

It's the same, but it's different. So in New York City, one of the toughest cities because of the buildings, the codes are very strict. So there's something called a master plumber. So you being the master plumber, I work under your license. Now I could open up my own business, but I may not be able to work in those high-rides because when you go, they need a licensed plumber. And that test in New York City is a lot of money.

Corie 12:52

Understood.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

It's like almost $10,000 to each other. Yeah, it's a lot. I was gonna do it. I started doing the course and stuff to um, but then I I realized I don't want to have my own business because the customer can't always be right. Yeah, that's what they feel. And I'm from Trinidad, it can't always be right. Yo, that's it's it's no, I really was opening my business, and then I realized I'm very personable, but I can't stand foodgery. So I cannot, yeah. So I back off for that. For that, yeah, no, seriously, that's why I back off. Because it can't always be right.

Corie 13:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

There's no, I don't understand that logic.

Corie 13:28

But particularly in your field, because if I don't know what I'm doing, it's hard to be right.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Oh gosh, when I go, and especially the men, uh, the men are always trying to like tell me what to do, but I'm funny, so I find cool ways. I said, Um, I can I say, Where's your profession? And men are very proud to tell you. I um I work for BMW, I do whatever. I say, so the mafia, when I take a go, get a cup of coffee and sit on a day. You call me because you didn't know what to do, because I'm the plumber. And you, and then I remind them they trade. And they're like, all right, all right, all right, all right.

Corie 13:58

Julie, you leave your little Trinidad ways here, no, you carry them with you.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

All the time. All the time. No, it's who I am. I I listen, this is this is home. Even though I may not, you know, get to come back as much as I I want to, and and but I really like I never left Trinidad and just been any different. Every opportunity I get to be on the media and I'm in my work clothes, I have my Trinity bandana.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yes, every opportunity. Even when I get awards, I go up and I'm I'm dancing all the way up and I'm waving a flag or something.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Um even when I do speak in engagements, my first after thanking God, the universe, asking

Why Union Protection Matters

SPEAKER_01 14:40

everybody to acknowledge where they are and just being mindful in the moment. My next thing is I'm from the beautiful, I'm a daughter of the soil of the beautiful twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago, filled with the rhythmic islands, filled with soccer calypso, and a beautiful breeze and a nice thing. I get them wanted to come there. Of course, of course, I see. So, yeah, so I always start with that because it's who I am. Like I formed my formative years here. I started plumbing here in John Donaldson Technical Institute. Yeah, John D. And they changed now. But that's UTT.

Corie 15:12

For people who don't know, is honoration roadway. UTT location is now. But you were one of the first three women uh who got into John D for plumbing.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, it was cool. I mr. Cro, he looked at me, looked at my height, and he was like, We're not gonna hire you.

Corie 15:25

This height thing is a technical smaller.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

He doesn't think when it's good, but I got a Napoleon complex, so we just won't go with that. So when he told me no, I dropped down, I do pushes, push-ups.

Corie 15:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

And he was like, Yeah, because he was telling me about the cast iron heavy and all of that.

Corie 15:39

Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, so I was I was going to the gym, so I dropped down, I do some push-ups.

Corie 15:43

What age you at this time?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I was probably nine going on to 19. I just finished um secondary school and everything like that. And I I really wanted to be a lawyer. Like I I watch interviews of Kidsy and Trinidad, and everybody wants to be a barrister or something. And I was I really wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to like go all over the world and fight injustice and fight for people. But when she passed away, my great-grandmother, I couldn't afford to go to university. So the trades was the next best option.

Corie 16:13

There's a big gap. Like when they say the trades was the next best option, yeah. Oh, I see, free. That's how that changed everything. I see I wish you.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

See, that's why a lot of people miss the opportunity here in life. You have to take advantage of things that are free. So for me, like in my mind, with John D, I figured like a lot of women would be going for the culinary arts. Uh, tailoring, they had searing, sewing, and sec, they had secretarial when you had to do that. Of course, type in and shorthand. Yeah, now you know. So I knew I wasn't gonna be able to do any of that. And I always like to wear the odds in my favor. I knew a lot of people.

Corie 16:50

So you wouldn't be able to do it because so much people applying.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

So much women will be applying for those. And my and they might know somebody who knows somebody and they got, you know, you know, too. Of course, it's not true. So I probably wouldn't get into one of those. So I figured if I go for the male one where men are, um, hardly women go be trying out for that. So I increased my odds of success by doing something and pushing myself out of, I wouldn't even say my comfort zone, because in a way, when I even when I was in secondary school, I got ticked kicked out of typing and was put into a technical drawing. So in a way, I think I was like kind of already being I was already comfortable being the one and only girl around the guys.

Corie 17:30

Understood, understood.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

So I think that's probably why. So, but strategically was a strategic thing.

Corie 17:34

Yeah, one day from a strategy standpoint, it wouldn't be the opposite. Because for instance, if you're going into a field like say Mr. Sebro, from the time they see women, it might be like, especially in the era you talk more. Give me my idea the year now without dating yourself to I I have not thinking about my age.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

I don't know what to think about.

Corie 17:49

I don't know how David I'm in his body. Not me.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

I I love my I I think I look real good. I think so.

SPEAKER_03 17:54

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

So I mean I was 19, so I don't even know. I'm I'm dyslexic, so numbers I hate, but I I was really young, I was like 18 going on, going on to 19, because I got married at 19. Yeah, I was 18.

Corie 18:07

Yeah, so you're not in this world of equal opportunity and all these different things that people say now. So it's easy for somebody who in John D at the time to say, nah, woman, it just can't do it. You can't so you didn't feel like you was making it difficult for yourself by going into that?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

No. I don't know. I don't. I never do see things that I jump into seeing it difficult. I don't, I I so I have dyslexia, which is like numbers and letters, I flip them, right? But what's great about that, it's a superpower, and a lot of entrepreneurs are actually dyslexic. So my brain loves to solve problems. So when my girlfriend calls me to tell me she problems, I know solutions. I don't know how to dislike and say, I don't, I I want to solve. So I that's why I think plumbing is really great for me. And if people look at things like that, like how can I fix it? So I just look at it like, how can I get in? How can I uh you know stand out and make myself get in? I don't know. It just comes, I wouldn't even say it's me, man. It has to be God because it's somehow through everything, all the difficulties of growing up in Trinidad, what I experienced growing up without a mother or father, and then going to the US being a black immigrant woman who didn't change her voice, is only God. This story is not my story, it is for others to see. And that's why I so wanted to come back and do this show. And um, because there's a lot of people and a lot of young people in Trinidad don't realize that you just have to push, you just have to keep going, and the universe matches the intensity of what you do. So that's one of the reasons.

Corie 19:35

So you're going into trade. Why plumbing over all the other trades? You could have got and tell Mr. Siberry I want to do anyone. What made you choose plumbing?

SPEAKER_01 19:41

So this so this is how I chose plumbing. I said plumbing you get wet, electrical you get shock. Simple match didn't. No, it seriously was that I know. No, that's how it was. So, and up to this day, I'm deadly afraid of electric. I will turn off the whole panel to change a light bulb.

Corie 20:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

I was at Mr. the house yesterday, and all the current the current wet houses like that. Yeah, yeah. And I wouldn't even go to the panel to look to see if it was a break of the stuff. No, I really, I think because when you're younger and my cousins and them make it put the um here pin in the outlet and hold yeah, so since that, yeah, they did that. You know, boys like it. My cousins do that. And then I just never, I up to this day, I'm I teach let the girls do electrical, but I'm deadly afraid of electric. Oh, you do?

Master Plumbers And Customer Myths

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, anything electrical, even when I do a water heater, I turn off almost everything in the person's house for electrical body and I mark everything. Gas ones, I'm not afraid of, but electric, I I really, yeah.

Corie 20:41

Yeah. So, how much of a shock it is when you're going in and you're learning what plumbing really is? Because you talk about how expensive plumbing is now, whereas I just think a pipe bus. When you as you're learning it's in John, the what was you thinking going through the process?

SPEAKER_01 20:52

So, what I loved about plumbing is that people don't realize it's a science, it's all mathematical and it really works. Like you have to use formulas like Pythagoras' theorem, all the things that I think.

Corie 21:03

Well, I disqualified.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

No, that's the here was the other thing. With all that thing I told you, I don't know why I choose plumbing because I hate mathematics. And I was not, that was the one subject that I did fail.

SPEAKER_03 21:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Um, I got like a C or something in that one. Um, and plumbing have so much math, but people don't understand that plumbing is a science. We are doctors, we protect people and they don't even know it. During the plague and all during society, uh plumbing was the thing that kept us from having uh diseases up to this day during COVID. What was the main thing they told you to do? Wash it. How you wash your hand with the plumbing, putting water and telling about that. Yeah.

Corie 21:42

Yeah, it was just take it for granted. So we know that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

People take it for granted and they assume that plumbers, we unclog toilet bowls. And that's the least of what plumbers do. Yeah, no, I'm telling you that unless you have a specific business of unclogging um drains and toilet, most plumbers, we hardly ever, everything we touch is is brat. We'll install new toilets and shower bodies and the copper lines and it's beautiful. Pummine is beautiful. You people just don't get to see how beautiful my work is behind the wall. Because some joker put up a wall afterwards. No, let me put it this way.

Corie 22:12

Anytime you see in behind the wall, you have a problem. I'll give you an example, right? I built a house and sugar. Yeah. And maybe we lived there for two, three years. The whole bathroom was tiled off, right? Yeah. But every time I go outside, I would see water and sediments and moss coming right outside the thing. And a guy who comes to do something completely different tell me. He's like, boy, water leaking in that wall. And I know if you realize, and puffs of paint coming up all over the house. So eventually it got bad, and we had to call a guy in and he break the wall. And you know what he realized? The person who did the plumbing who built the house. I tried all how to find the name so I could call the name here today. What he did was they say maybe the mats you're talking about when he measuring to run the thing, he measures it and he offered it up, but he never went back and sealed all the different points. Yeah, so the plumbing was just jammed together.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Oh, he didn't miss a joint with the PVC.

Corie 22:57

So water just running all the water.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah, he missed a joint. Because here in Intranet, you guys use PVC for everything for water and uh waste. In America, they use in New York City, we use cast iron, which is the couple.

Corie 23:08

It's because of the weather?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

It's yeah, it's the weather and also it's a quiet pipe. So PVC, if you ever notice PVC is very noisy when somebody flushed, you know, somebody was in the bathroom upstairs or they was taking a shower. So the cast iron is a quiet pipe. So in the big buildings, we have to use cast iron. So PVC, when I do it with the glue, I tend to use like the purple so you could see that every joint. You see, not you know, you say, come over to my house now, Nuggia.

Corie 23:33

Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

It's a funny thing, is when I do speaking engagement, I tell everybody. I say, once I tell everyone what I do, everybody will want my number. And you're gonna need my number before you need a lawyer's number. I want to tell them, they all laugh.

John Donaldson Days And Choosing Plumbing

SPEAKER_01 23:50

They're like, you're so right. Because once you find a good one, you want to hold on to a plumber.

Corie 23:53

Of course, of course. Yeah, 100%, 100%. So going back to those early days, where what parts of Trinidad do you grew up in?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

In Diggle Martin. Yeah, Coven Road. Oh, yeah, Coving Girls. And then there's a little side street, which nobody saw it's Coven Road, and it's a little side street called Carey Street. And that's where the boys' school is. And I actually named my daughter, that's my daughter's name. I see. I named her. If she was a boy, she was gonna be Diego for Diggle Martin.

Corie 24:17

I understand it.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Trini boy is so her name is C-A-R-Y. That's a little street. Gotcha, gotcha.

Corie 24:25

And what school did you went to?

SPEAKER_01 24:26

I went to um guild school for a short time, and then my grandmother um every trendy is a guild school.

Corie 24:31

Which guild school is this? Then you'll be gonna be just a guild's book. All right, good. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Hold on. Diggle Martin R. C. All right, nice Catholic school. And and then my grandmother had this uh great grandmother had his idea of sending me to to Portispain for school for Tranquility Primary. So I went to uh primary school and tranquility primary, and then uh with common entrance, I had put down St. Francis uh school as my number one choice, and I can't remember what this is St. Francis and was uh Tranquility Secondary School as my second. But I think after she realized spending all that money to send me to she went and changed back and put Degle Martin secondary as my first choice.

Corie 25:11

Yeah, come back on your room.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

She said it's easier for you to walk down to Diamondville.

Corie 25:15

Why is why it's a white?

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah, so that's how I ended up going to uh it was a great school, Degl Martin Secondary. Yeah, it was a great school. I I learned a lot being in that school.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

And a lot of my friends, uh, a lot of them, I don't get to come back and see them as much, but they're all pretty much successful because that school, the principal, Miss Robinson, they used to a nickname was Robertaki. Yes, that was a nickname, but she was it it was driven, like it was all about being successful. Even like when we did um any tests or anything, they would line you up in the room. So you see who's first, who's second, who's third, who I didn't see where you were on the line. Oh my god, it was yeah, it was traumatic was it? It was very traumatic. I didn't realize so it should affect me. But like, especially in the math class, and I'm all the way down, like down here. Yeah, but it it pushed you if you wanted it to, because everybody was so driven, and it was like uh form one, one, form two, two. So if the ones were like the the bright ones and they push in you, so but it was good. I liked it.

Corie 26:11

Yeah, build our competit competitive spirits, I suppose. Yeah, and so other than math, you were doing good in school this one.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

I was good, I was great. I love geography. I did subjects that I could do law, so I did geography, history, literature, art, and I can't remember principles of business. I was great in those things. I love the the struggle was math, but I realized it was I didn't know back then I was dyslexic. There wasn't even such a thing until I got to the US and stuff. I I remember like even getting married and have to fill out one of my husband's friends' name. His name was Dennis. Ten times I wrote it and it was Denise. When I finally sent it out, he still gets it as Denise. Close it, close, close enough.

Corie 26:54

Close enough.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

I didn't know, I didn't know, but now that I know, I let people know. And it's a good thing because when I go to schools and I meet boys and girls and I share that, they come up to me because they feel because I, you know, I thought I was stupid, like I wasn't, I was chippy. You know, I really did with the match because I knew all the formulas. My class would say, What was the formula for this? Even in plumbing in America, the guys used to say, What's the formula? I remember all the formulas, but I used to flip numbers when I added total up and stuff without even knowing it.

Corie 27:25

Yeah, and something that we never really paid a whole lot of attention to back then, as you say, the more it's slow. You know what I mean? That was that a broad categorization for everybody, yeah. Slow and you just can't get it. So, and and at that point in time, you have law, the law is inspired by by granny too, or is it is it you just just everything is by her.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Like my great-grandmother, um, my mom uh didn't want to take care of me for whatever reason. I still wouldn't, I don't know the reason. But my great-grandmother was like always seeing the best in me, see stuff in me that I didn't at that time, you know, and she gave me words to live by. One of them, which really helped me a lot, and I think she was slick with that one, but it still works to this day. So, like if you go to the Christmas uh bazaar and all of them things, she had a thing she would tell me, I trust you, trust yourself. You know how important that is for somebody to tell you, I trust you, and now you feel your own self. So that's kind of like how she got me to stay on the good partner, I didn't know. Because she would say that over and over everywhere I was going, she would say, I trust you, trust yourself. That's a lot, that's a lot.

Corie 28:31

Yeah, and I saw I saw she was uh partying forward in the book, yes, yes. So her and back on your life, I could see that, and I could see you talk about her throughout the book, but what you didn't grow up with mommy at all, you don't know your mommy.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

No, I knew she was, and um it's still some healing from that, right? Imagine

Plumbing As Science And Public Health

SPEAKER_01 28:50

growing up in the same neighborhood with your mother, and um she's walking by the street, and you she doesn't even talk to you. You see her, you know that's your mom is like no relationship at all. But I never despised or was angry at her, but it hurts because you long for that relationship with a mom. So and you see her, and she was she was stunning like the way she dressed, and everybody knew in the neighborhood when she was walking. But I don't know what it is. I don't know if I I I but she just never like I I I just remember one time my great-grandmother sent me to get um money from her because she she's an entrepreneur, and I think I get that from her. Um she worked so hard selling, uh, going to the market and buying vegetables in Port of Spain and coming back by Degal Martin by the corner of Coveen Road and selling, and then she got really big and had her own store and um like our own almost like a supermarket in the baby right by the uh the the this this primary school over there. And uh I remember my great-grandmother sent me to ask her for money for books, and I went and I asked her, and she literally pulled out the jaw and she said, let Henny, which was my great-grandmother, bide with she pension. And I'm very prideful, and maybe it's my baby Scorpio. After that, I never asked her for anything. Never, I never I saw her, but I just never because I don't I don't like to be cut like that, so I just never, but I truly wish that sometimes when I achieve stuff and I go places and I see people's mom. I wish that I had a relationship with with her, and it affects me in relationships. It does, but I'm working on it because now I'm self-aware. I wasn't that it was, but it hurts.

Corie 30:34

So she's still here?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

She's still she's no, she passed away. She passed away.

Corie 30:37

Yeah. You came back and all that? What was that was all like?

SPEAKER_01 30:40

No, I didn't even know. I didn't come back because I didn't really know I didn't really know, like I didn't have any uh so I I have um three other sisters and I had a brother, he passed away also. So I didn't really get to know them until I was in the US. So I knew them when they were here, but like see, just knowing that somebody's your brother and sister, but they have no relationship. That's how it was. Not that they were mean or anything. Like we had like I see them, my brother Ray will call me or my daddy will say hi or whatever, my sister. We will have, but not like growing, like where you would love to grow up with your brother and sister and fight and who get any last piece of chicken, it's stew chicken in your life. I know, or something like that, you know. Um, who getting to get the gray food juice or something, nothing like that. So I grew up with my cousins, which was really difficult. That was hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was the um everybody who lived in that house, they were brothers and sisters. I was kind of like the outsider. The uh so I was teased a lot, and um, yeah, it was it was tough.

Corie 31:40

Oh, which and your brothers and sisters, they had a relationship with mom, they did they yeah, that's so that must be tough, yeah, it's extra difficult.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yeah, that's why it was tough. Oh, which I saw that and and I was wondering.

Corie 31:50

Yeah, when I saw it, when I saw you, because I guess when you open the book and you read about great grandma, tell me her name again.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Her name was Margaret Hart.

Corie 31:57

Margaret Hart. That's the first thing I see when I open the book. So you know the natural expectation is to see her at well, come long the road with granny and then mommy.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

So yeah, I even wrote about her in the book. I did. I wrote that um, even though she never um she wasn't there, um her entrepreneurial spirit is in me, and that's it drives me. And I just wanted to let her know. I never, I really never, I never was angry at her because when you uh use the trendy word, when you become a big woman, you understand like what women go through, and you don't know what was your reason. What was what was these circumstances, how I was conceived. I don't know. Yeah, you don't know what might have happened, right? And I could have been a memory of something. So I think that's how I just never know. You never know. So you can't they do what they did, that's all they knew, right? Now I have to pick it up and from there and do better for me, my daughter, for everybody else. So I have a way of always trying to look at things from people's side until I get real vexed. That is all yeah, you do. And I always use vex, right? What would what does that mean? I mean I real angry. Um so yeah, I I always try to look because I like you never know what caused whatever pain she was in, whatever she went through, that made that those decisions. I could understand. I people fail to realize that understanding doesn't mean you agree. It can be two different. I could understand that Corey, you wanted to wear that white shirt, but that doesn't mean that's yeah, so you agree with us. Right, right. So I think that's why I'm move in my life, like on using that first, moving from that space and then moving forward.

Corie 33:29

I which you and Daddy wasn't a wrong at all, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

I don't even know who he is. I don't know who he is. I really don't. I there is uh this guy that had stepped up and and be my uh father and said that he was, but it was kind of like a strange relationship. And then my sisters and them talking to my mom later on, like years they told me they said that it wasn't him, it's some other guy, and I don't even know he did.

Corie 33:51

Yeah, again, me being presumptuous something. From the time I see it, but when you first spoke about it, I said, Well, I had to figure out how this woman gets a plummet, that I'll be like mommy or daddy or some inspiration from their system.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

No, just pure wanting to succeed. I used to sit on the Calbert um on Digo Martin right there on Carey Street and look up to the sky. And uh, I always knew I wanted to be successful. I knew I wanted to move out of my circumstances of being poor. Because when I say uh, you know, it was like a shack, like the tin roof, the galvanized roof. Um, I used to with food, because there was so many of us in that household. Uh hops bread, we used to they used to go. My cousin and I used to share half of it, cut it in half, and share it. Even going to John D was difficult. Some days um I walked from Degomartin to go to John D. There was days that I didn't even have lunch, but they looked the guys and then would notice and they would share their lunch with me. Yeah, I was just I just wanted to succeed. I mean I'm still like that. Like I just I want to succeed.

Corie 34:52

Well, congrats, you succeeded.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

I nah, I get almost there. I woke up. No, I think that's my problem. I'm always driving. Okay, I did this, now I have to do this. Yeah, what that's what it is. Sometimes I I don't uh somebody who was she used to work for me, but she left. But she she said, Jay, you gotta stop and just sit and just think about the things you've accomplished. Like the people that I was able to meet, one of them that made me really, really wake up was uh this woman was chasing me for a long time. She's a big sculptor, and she was trying to find me for a long time and she found me. She'd seen a video of me on uh TV somewhere. And she

School Life Dyslexia And Self Belief

SPEAKER_01 35:30

cast my hands holding a wrench, and like some of the little girls holding the wrench with me and cast it. And then when she did the show, and every time it's presented, my hands, the girl from Trinidad and Tobago is right next to Root Gator Ginsburg, one of the first Supreme Justices as a woman. That's that's that's my you know, and so she's holding a pen and I'm with a wrench. And she said, just stop. Like I just never stopped to sit in moments, and I'm trying to be better at that this year. Listen, everybody's a work in progress, right? So I'm trying to be better at sitting and say, Wow, you did that, you know, the the vice president, the former vice president husband came to my camp. I met Kamala Harris. Like, you just take those moments and you just like just sit in it for a moment from where I was, the girl on the culprit, looking up in the sky, knowing that she wanted to succeed, to like uh having a nonprofit that really helped girls.

Corie 36:24

I hate going back to John D so often, right? Because tell David or say anybody who knows the name John D is every IT say having the time you had John D. You know, these training knows they know UTT.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

I know.

Corie 36:35

But while you were there, you fell in love with it. You knew that's where you wanted your career to be.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

I fell in love with it because I was able to do something that at that time I didn't know my brain love, solving problems, right? And that's what plumbing is. Even from the lot of times the plumbing that I do, I start from the the ground up. So if I was here doing plumbing in Trinidad, none of the pipe will be outside the back of the wall.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

No, because we don't. We literally, even if we work in buildings that are concrete like that, we design everything and then they build the bricks and everything around it.

Corie 37:05

Okay, so no more questions, no are lost. This is just complete ignorance zone here now because I hate to see plumbing on the outside.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

I know.

Corie 37:12

It looks messy.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

It does.

Corie 37:13

Yeah, it's just change the beauty of the building. But if you put it in a wall and something, how happens then you had a busy wall every time? What was the situation?

SPEAKER_01 37:21

It's more than like if it do the right job. Nothing wrong. Nothing goes. And then the beauty of Trinidad is that you don't have the elements of winter time, but you're doing PBC pipe. Once they glue it properly, there's no problems, right? Unless they just didn't do the right job. And that's why you go slow to go fast.

Corie 37:37

The teacher, this isn't John Lee because every plumber here is good plumbing in the outside, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

No, because no, I when I did plumbing here, I did it on the outside. So what I learned great about being in America, so Trinidad plumbing is based on the British plumbing at that time. I don't even so it's the one pipe system where the waste and the pipe after a certain height becomes the vent. In America, there's a two-pipe system, one for the waste and one for the vent.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

So like we do underground. So like when they cast in the base here, that's when you could do all the plumbing. But you have to know mat and the plumbing. You have to know mat in order to lay it out. So when they pour the concrete, everything's stub-ups. So when we do buildings, there's stub-ups everywhere. And we already know which one is for the sink, which one is for the toilet, which stack is going to be uh for the ways, which one is going to be the vent. We already know that.

Corie 38:25

Understood. Understood.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Yeah, but it's beauty. It's like you're all of this is done, and this is cast, and you even know that is now there might be a leak maybe 30, 20 years from now. Because sometimes I was in jobs and we have to use the jackhammer to dig up, but like the cast iron could last for 100 years, it might be 70 years now and it might crack. But you dig up and you fix it, but it just looks better. I just wish, like every time I come and see, I was like, let's put the plumbing in the wall.

Corie 38:52

But it started here when they graduated from John D. You started doing the wheelkill?

SPEAKER_01 38:56

No, I didn't even get a chance because I I I was fresh. I wanted to get married young. So no, I just didn't. I went to I was going to the church. So grandmother had some kind of rules, you know. So I got married really young.

Corie 39:08

Skip the line.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if you want to do the day, you have to be married. You're going for the church, you know? So I got married really young at 19. And then he This is the same manager joined? Yeah, right after I got I I got married while I was in Jundi. Like while I met him like during that time. And um he his family were all, they stole all of them uh police officers and stuff, and he didn't want to be in that anymore. So he wanted to go to the US. So I left and we went to the US, but I didn't get back into plumbing right away. I became uh, I was a housekeeper, I was a nanny, which all the jobs I love, and a personal shopper. So I used to go shop for the rich folks uh go pick up the clothes and stuff. So they had different kind of plumbing. Yeah, no, but I really wanted like, and my husband's you know, Trinidad in here, but I remember the people loved me so much that when I told them I was getting into going and doing the job for plumbing, they wanted to give me more money to just stay.

Corie 40:06

Yeah, it's of course.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yeah, to stay because I was really I anything that I do, um, another thing that the school had in um primary school, a job worth doing is a job we're doing well. That was our motto upon um in the school tranquility primary. So any job I do, it doesn't matter if it's just washing the dishes, cleaning my car, it's worth doing well.

Corie 40:29

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

So I love the job. But my neighbor who lived next door to me in Staten Island, he remembered that I told him I went to do plumbing. And back in the 90s, black and brown people didn't get access to construction jobs, were building in their own neighborhoods, seeing people coming in, they not getting part of it. So black people formed things called coalition. They were show up on a job site and demand work. So he told them he had a plumber. Because they throw out random jobs, knowing that let's see, they ain't gonna have no plumber, they might have a carpenter, like a tough, because we are called the mechanical trades, which is a tougher, you know, more needed a lot. So he threw out a plumber, but he didn't tell them it was a woman. So I show up on a job site. Now everybody knows me. I like four by fours, and boy, my seat is be jacked all the way up and a cushion. Wait, and a cushion. So I look at a real tall in the car. So I drive up on the job site, he tells them I get the job, I pull up on the job site, and I push the button because now I have to come back now. And you see all the men watching me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the men watching. So I'm pushing the seat down and I come out of the car and I can see all eyes on me. And I'm walking down to the construction pit. It's it's a big sight. And I walk up to the man, his name is Jimmy Nunzio. And Jimmy looked at me, and all the guys are laughing. No, laughing. So I still composure, you know, because remember, I was I literally think I'm six foot two. Yeah. That's how I walk in my life. So now I'm walking down and they all laughing, whatever. And Jimmy's like, there's no way you could be the effing plumber. Right? No, they back then they talked to you. A lot of women don't understand how different it is now. PC, there was no such thing as PC.

SPEAKER_03 42:12

It didn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Politically correct does not happen. So Jimmy said that to me, and then I don't know how things have come to me. I said, I know go. I said, Jimmy, uh, I said, let's do this. I'm already here. I'll work for you for today for free and just do stuff. And if I don't work out, you don't have to pay me anything. Jimmy took the bet. He bet wrong. Because he was so surprised I knew plumbing. So I knew the fit-ins. They try to get me to go for a bucket of air or what kind of they have these days and none of that. So I was so organized the way I put all the fit-ins and everything like that. And Jimmy was like, all right, come back. And I became the first woman to work for that company. And then I was working for them, and they um send you down to the union. And all the men, all my brothers with me, they took all of them. And the instructor at that time, he looked at me and he said, Go home and do dishes. And man, I gasped. And I went in my car and I just started crying. Like, dad, because I really wanted to get in the union. It's a big difference with the salary, gotcha. Medical, everything, right? So now I go back in the car crying. I took a deep breath and I grounded myself and I remember why. Always

Family Pain And Hunger For Success

SPEAKER_01 43:20

have to go back to your why. My why is the kids, my why is I love plumbing. Just go back and keep doing it. And then another man turns out to be my hero again, uh, Brian Totora. He saw how good I was at plumbing. He took me under his wings. He said he really wanted to get in the union. And Brian went and talked to someone who spoke to another someone and a third someone. And I became the first woman to get into that union.

Corie 43:45

Oh, you're the first woman as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

That union.

Corie 43:47

So, what what makes it difficult to get into the union? Is just connections?

SPEAKER_01 43:50

It's it's back then the connection is all connections, and it's it's it's connections where it was family, generational. So even like the firemen and everybody, it's their sons and and It's and because they know it's a game changer from non union to what that salary commands. And so yeah, it really does. It commands a whole different salary. So it was it was it was I I d a lot of times when I was doing these things, I didn't know I was the first. I just I just wanted some vote. I just wanted money.

Corie 44:17

You see, is that a problem solver? You see a problem here by Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

So Brian did that to me. And the great thing about Brian, what I loved about Brian, Brian didn't just get me into the union, he took me under his wings, and he really was a lot of American people love to say they're friends with people. They mean they just work on the job site with them. Brian, I actually used to go with my kids and stuff to Brian's house and have dinner. And Brian taught me to be the best. He was like, if I soldered or I did something and it dripped, you make me do it over. He's the one why I'm so detailed. He didn't accept, and he wasn't mean. You know, look at it. Sometimes when I cut pipe and it wasn't straight, he'd be like, nice prevalon. Yeah, and now I cut it was so I cut my cast iron is like factory because he would make fun and I just had to get better and better because he would be looked like nice deli slices.

Corie 45:08

Sandwich you make it.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

I'll make it sandwiches. So he just pushed me, but in a nice way to be better, man. I understand I became better because of how we his tutelage.

Corie 45:16

So when you went over there, you had to go and do like school again, or you learn everything. Okay, so what was that process like when you went?

SPEAKER_01 45:22

The great thing about a union apprenticeship is you get into the union, you earn while you learn, which is beautiful.

Corie 45:27

So this is why when you got into the union, and when you went back. So you had enough from John D to be able to do good work over there.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Well, I had enough that I a lot of people start off green, meaning the union is a great thing. They take you not knowing anything. Any of the unions, you have the desire to work. Now they ask you for G D and stuff like that. But before that, they didn't.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Right? Now they do. But you have the desire and the hard work to work out and get up early. Very important. Instruction starts at seven. And coming up at seven, rolling in here at seven is late. They don't accept that.

Corie 46:02

You should make some laws here, no. You have some things to say.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Listen, every time I come, Alex getting real vex, you know. Because I remember one reunion, I came and we were meeting at the beach, and they said it was going to be four o'clock, right? I got there like six o'clock on purpose, and I was still number one.

Corie 46:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Tell me that makes sense.

Corie 46:21

That's me here. We have a thing called breakfast. Yeah, they're gonna make sense to eat it, pie and them first, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 46:29

America, they don't play with especially construction. People might, they don't, you could you'll get laid off, or you'll get you'll get laid off. We call it laid off. So they'll be like, all right, this is not for you. So you have to have desire. So the apprenticeship, what's beautiful is you earn while you learn. And why it's so important is that while you learn in your first year, let's say you start off at $15 an hour. Six months later, when you pass your test, you have to learn all the science I'm telling you about. You're going to school, right? But like when I went, it was late at night after working. It was like five till nine. So you're working in the cold all day and you have to go to school once a week. And you have to pass different tests. So every time you pass, you jump up, you get a salary raise. And every year you get closer, you get more closer to the journeyman's rate. So the last year, you get 75% of what a journeyman makes in. And that's how it works. And a lot of times you start off the class with maybe 40 people, and by the end, because it's it's tough, the the mental work and the mental thing of being in that weather. I'm an island girl, so let me tell you, it's real cool. I never forget the first time I started to cry, I was gonna quit plumbing because of the weather. It's that cold. So a lot of people drop out. So by the end of the year, the five years, four more years, I could have been a doctor, but that's a whole nother thing. Right? It's five years, and after five years, there might be like 15 people in your class when you started off with 30 something. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's uh all the apprenticeship because it's not just a work in school, it's a mental thing. When it's zero degrees, and I'm talking about wind, snow coming down, and yeah, some days it's ice, rain, and you're still working.

Corie 48:11

This doesn't work, right? This really worked, but the apprenticeship itself is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

The apprenticeship is on you go to a school, you go to a training center. So it won't be. Something like John D, yeah. But now you're falling asleep.

Corie 48:20

Of course, yeah, we'll do it.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

But now you have to stay up and they they're not playing like the heat. Your body now is so happy to get that heat because all day you're out in that cold and everybody knows me. I'll show up. There was always I was showing up, but all day I have a song. Um, my toesies are frozy's. No, I have to because and I would show up, and I I lived in Pennsylvania and would commute two hours for 20 years to get to New York City to work.

Corie 48:51

Oh, and then when I hear some people hear they can't go to Arima to learn a little class, what wrong with you but you know something you say so bro it's so simple but so profound is like the free. Because now we in Australian where you have so many different programs where people could learn because when you talk about our apprenticeship, well, up to the other day, C Top was like that where you could do your work journey day. And when you say journey day here, it's from about nine to about quarter past nine, you're done work, right? And then you could go and sit down and do some kind of vocational work and so on.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

Yeah, it I think everybody's missing this point, and I think COVID was really, really uh I wake up uh moment for different countries who put a stain on construction work and and and act like people who do plumbing, electrical, they they less than, they're not that smart, they couldn't go to college. But just think about it. We in this building right now, you trust the electrical is working, the plumbing, you trust the engineering of this building that these columns are gonna hold up if the hurricane comes.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

Of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 49:49

Right? You trust that, and that is all that you have to be smart to figure that out. And I think that's with the disconnect because everybody started looking down in the trades and push their kids to go to college or let's be a lawyer, let's be a doctor, and forget that if you're making all of that money, who's gonna maintain your house, who's gonna maintain your buildings, right? Somebody has to do it, and uh and that's where we have a disconnect. And I really, really my biggest hope of of um, you know, I started my nonprofit was to have one here in Trinidad to show people the import the importance of the skill trade. Because if we don't get these young boys and girls to do these jobs, we're gonna have to get people from other countries to come and do the work here when we should be doing this ourselves.

Corie 50:33

Of course, yeah. Bring that up because the school system in Trinidad was like that. You know, you have you have schools where they have trade and it it was treated, at least in my time in 1990s, something where you basically, if you care do the work, the work we bring you here to do, which is maths, English science, I think, you go and you do a trade as if it is a demotion.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Yeah, and Europe don't do that. Like Holland and a lot of other countries in the world, they their their students learn both paths. They they have to do both, learn which of they wanted to go that way, the college kind of way, and the trades, and then they choose and then they don't look down on one or the other. We should need to be like that.

Corie 51:10

Yeah, like I listen to you know, Dr. Umar.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

Yeah, yeah.

Corie 51:13

He often he talks about learning that trade and the importance of pushing the children to that rather than in at least in your society where there's this whole college that you could end up in.

SPEAKER_01 51:21

It's a lot. It's only now during COVID and because of AI, like right now, monthly, 16,000 jobs are being lost to AI. That that's a real number. But it's gonna take a long time before I, robot, could do my plumbing. Long time. You got and he has to learn how to dance and sing at the same time. You know, take him a while. Now the robot can dance. I see it. Yeah, a little bit moves, but it's gonna take because I dance and sing while I'm within my life.

Corie 51:53

Those are the jobs that are gonna be harder to replace.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Listen, hear how you listen up to the sound of my voice. If BlackRock,

Breaking In The Union Apprenticeship Grind

SPEAKER_01 52:00

the founder of Nvidia, Microsoft, all of them are investing billions of dollars now into the trades, what I should tell you. We should learn. I like to learn from people lessons. So if you tell me, don't walk down that road because you never have a vagrant down there and you like to rob people and tick you. I love walking down that road, right? I don't need to go down and say, excuse me, that's I'm not doing it. Because you told me. If those people are telling us, right, and and those venture capitalists started buying up HRAC, plumbing, and electrical companies, what'd that tell you? So this is why we need to get those schools back in Trinidad going up again and making sure our people have access to these jobs. They need to have access to the jobs, and it's a game changer. Let's just say I decided I don't want to live in the US anymore. And I decided I want to go live in uh let me Spain. I will always have a job. I could literally put a map up on this wall, take a dot, throw it, and wherever it lands, I good. I have a job. Somebody needs me.

Corie 53:05

This is food for tourism. He says, I clearly don't.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Yeah. It's it that's that's how important what I do and what skilled trades people do.

Corie 53:15

100%.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

That's how important it is why we need to get Silvall back and all of these school back. And I I am here for it. Yeah, I am here for it. I am here saying as a voice who it changed my life. I grew up really, really poor. Okay. I am not just saying that for I'm I'm really saying that to what I have access to and able to help my community, help the girls that I help to help random. It's a game changer. Uh you know, every time I come to Trinidad and people find out the Palmer, they want to tell me something they have that I should say.

Corie 53:50

Of course. I have an uncle as an electrician, right? And every time South Uncle Michael in New York, he knows when he comes home. We don't fix nothing on the electrical. Exactly. We just let pile up for when he reaches. Exactly. He's supposed to be home sometime around now.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

I keep forgetting. Next time when I come back, I keep saying I want to like leave a bunch of tools here so that when I come back, I can uh fix up. Like I hate when I go in people's kitchen and stuff and the faucet is loose. I know they didn't have a basin wrench. Oh, like, oh god.

SPEAKER_03 54:15

It's a wrench.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Yeah, there's a special, it's a special wrench. You just can't get it, it has an extension in because you can't get up under the the scoop in the sink. The right tool for the right job. See, that's why.

Corie 54:25

Let me come over this like topic out of my dad. But they bring up tools. Let me talk about tools now. Yeah. I see you post something the other day, I get very nervous, right? Okay. It's Mother's Day, we are on Mother's Day and these things, right? Let me let me let me slow walk this dog a little bit to become a mother that's listening to. Yeah. And she just tell me how the same thing about she, and that never happened, right? Okay. But I hear Mother's Day, right? Yes. I used to see my mother on the morning when she gets up. She used to go and wash down the yard and sweep down the place and see about plants and them kind of thing, right? And then you remember they used to have a scene on TV and them one eight hundred thing, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:56

Yes.

Corie 54:57

I see something they call a roller hose. You ever see it? You just roll it up in a little thing so you like.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

Yes.

Corie 55:02

And it's neat, neat, neat. Instead of this big hose you're wrapping, so I say, you know what, Mother's Day coming up, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:07

Yeah.

Corie 55:07

I gotta give my mother a roller hose. Make sure job easier. Now that I look back at it, you know, wait, that was a hell of a thing. We can now wash it, or photo wash down the yard now that we're talking about it's like, but I say I go buy the roller hose. Yeah. Needless to say, me here from she until about the next Mother's Day, about two, three Mother's Day after that, I can hear she vexed.

SPEAKER_03 55:25

Yeah.

Corie 55:25

So when I see you for all this thing with tools, I set her pink tools now and telling people to go. I want to caution people. If I just give my mother a thing with tools now, you you're promoting this. You're saying that it's okay for us to give our mothers tools for Mother's Day. Yeah, basically.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

No, you have to know she wants that. So that's what it's starting to do. See, let me let me yeah, I'll let Mendel meeting.

Corie 55:45

So if I give my mother a basement rich.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

It's for you to use. Oh no, no. I I I made a video. Um, it's it's a company. The girl had um uh reached out to me. A lot, I get a lot of stuff that people want me to promote. But I'm very intentional about what I do. I tend to like love to work with black and brown people. Even like with my nonprofit, I bank black, I do everything. Um I walk it, talk it. Even uh my car, I never everybody would be like, when you're gonna get a different color car. My car is black, the interior is black, everyone after that is always black. So, but what I loved about it, because I was one of them, I was always against the pink, the pink tools, the pink this white, because I just let it be whatever. But then I had to understand that girls really love pink and women love pink. So anytime they do a limited launch, like Stanley did a cup, they couldn't even get it. Anything, Carhart, they did uh they brought back the pink. It's uh I put it up, it's sold out in like if people love pink. So when I saw the set, what I loved about it is you can use it as a as a book, as a coffee book.

SPEAKER_02 56:49

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 56:50

And so whenever she wants to find a tool, she can find it. So girls love pink, and a lot of women now that I meet tell me they wish they had like learned when I'm teaching the girls how to put up a shelf, how to do something, because not all of us lucky to have a man in all, okay?

Corie 57:09

Lucky to have a man must say, they don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 57:12

They say to people have somebody in their life to help you put up a shelf so they don't have anybody.

Corie 57:18

You know they call Judalin'.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

No, but that's but a lot. I see that with the moms who bring their daughters. They're like, I wish I could learn how to do this or whatever. So I thought it was a cute thing because some women love pink. This if she wants tools, but you first have to look at it. Start stand there and find out what she wants because sometimes all about refrigerators and things and things that is where you may want that to know.

Corie 57:39

I know she don't want a roller hose. What she doesn't want is a roller hose. That'll know for sure. So we're along the way the turn for you into teaching and the nonprofits and the work you do you do with girls.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

Yeah, so when I started years ago on a job side, I used to be the only woman, only woman around all of these men.

Corie 57:56

And that's in all the different construction work, not just a construction, not just a plumber.

SPEAKER_01 58:00

I I would be Bobby the only woman on the job side. Sorry. Only woman on the job side. And then as the years goes by, more women started coming. But they would come and they would leave because of the culture. So the culture is the way the men want to talk to you. Uh, they're not letting you learn the craft. Like, uh as a plumber, they would want to send me out for coffee. We on the morning when we stop working, you have to get coffee for the guy. So the woman is relegated to that role. So they would leave.

Corie 58:28

So you're making it, you're making it or creating a space where young girls could be inspired to take the route that you that you is based on those early days in the construction site, as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Yeah, definitely was. It was based on the fact that I saw so many women come out, come into the trades and get pushed out. So the problem why the numbers didn't change is retention. Women are coming in, but I always explain to people uh when I do speaking in uh speaking is that it's like you, Corey, inviting me over for dinner. I told you I'm a vegetarian, but when I come to your house, you have nothing for me. And that's what it's like for women on the job site. It's not prepared for them. So I in my mind, I remember when I was a little girl, I remember wanting to be Wonder Woman and that lawyer.

SPEAKER_02 59:12

Very easy.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

And girls have this when they're little girls, they believe they could be anything till society tells them they can't. So I figured I'll harness that power while they're young. So I start with girls as young as six to seventeen, so that they never lose that I am powerful, I am um girl. So that was the idea behind tools and tiaras, but I never did it, right? It was an idea, and I just didn't follow through with it. And then one day I was doing my speaking engagement and my speech, because I'm very girly too, liking the trades. I said that you should give a girl a tool and a tiara, which is given her confidence, independence, and power. And when I said those words, the universe, God, whatever you want, he said, you gotta go start that nonprofit. And I literally came back and Googled nonprofit, how to start a nonprofit. And I've been you running a nonprofit on Google ever since.

Corie 1:00:09

I understand. I understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

I just figure it out. I just, and like I tell kids now, you have it easier. Remember the library in Port of Spain? If you wanted to learn something, any one of us, right? We had to go to the library, get a book, and it's only for a short time and bring it back. And if you're late, you get a late fee. Now we carry knowledge in our hands, and they can figure it out. So that's what I did. I came back and I started tools and tiaras, and I just I write everything in a book and I sketched like what it would look like if I was a girl to want to do these classes. So I had like the week planned out, and I I planned it not having a space, not having any money. I I on the job side, I picked up um bottles and cans to start the nonprofit.

Corie 1:00:56

Yeah, just to make money to get a job.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:58

Just to make money to file, like, you know, to file the documentation to get a 501c, to open the bank account with 50 bucks. I had plumber's money, which helped, but I still had bills. But I I did that and I sold one of my cars uh to start the nonprofit.

Corie 1:01:12

Understand and the purpose then was just educated?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

It was just I I love girls. I love kids. I I in general I think I love kids, but I just wanted girls to feel the way that I felt when I was a little girl. I felt empowered, wanting to be everything, until I didn't. Until society made me feel like I couldn't be a police officer, I couldn't be a flight attendant, I couldn't be those things because of my height or the way that I spoke.

Why Trades Survive AI And Hype

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

And I just didn't want that. So that's why I started Tools and T Ross. And every time the girls come to the camp, the very first thing I is around food. We have the best food. No cold cuts. I'm Trini. We don't give the girls. No, really, they tell their parents it's the best food. We don't do cold cuts. But I I start off with that and then I teach them what the most powerful words in the universe is. I am. And I make them shout it out. I pretend I'm Mel Gibson and Braveheart, and I pound the tables and they get all and and I make them repeat it. I say, um, who is fearless? And they shout out, I am. And that's really for world domination.

Corie 1:02:19

It's the superhero thing. Is it more than just the yeah, so it's not a plumbing class, it's not a trades class, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

No, they learn more than that. So in the morning, we have it's a uh a free uh summer camp if they need sponsorship and they just have to pay a registration fee. I had to do that because people would sign up and when it people like when stuff has a cost, I learned that associated. So they come for the week, they come in the morning, they do like a trade, whether it be plumbing, electrical, welding, uh bricklaying, all taught by women in the trade. I find I seek women, I slide in their DMs and stuff when I see a trades woman. And then in the afternoon, we teach them life skills. They learn public speaking, they learn how to debate, um, they learn self-defense, uh, money management. So they learn those things in the afternoon.

Corie 1:03:08

I understand.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

It's an all-round program.

Corie 1:03:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because the when I when I go through your book, for instance, you you talk a lot about the idea of belief. What you're trying to transfer to them is belief in themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

Yeah, yeah.

Corie 1:03:19

I see, I see, I see.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

It's belief that you can do anything. Like I always tell the kids um when I go to the schools, is that you know, talent is good, but hard work would be talent any day. We know so many talented football players, basketball players, I know so many, but then they don't have the work ethic of going beyond that. So that's and the belief in themselves, and then put in the work. And that's kind of like what I do at Tools and T hours. Add all of those elements together.

Corie 1:03:47

Gotcha. Initially, what's the girls' response when they're learning about electrical and plumbing and they're excited about it?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Or no, so a lot of times the moms, now we have a lot of dads signing their daughters up. So at first, it's the mothers who wish they had something like this. When they see the camp posted on social media, they're like, oh, this sounds exciting, right? And um, all girls camp and they sign their daughters up. The girls come in, not knowing each other, their parents force them to come, they don't want to do it. But right after Eden and they start, I start everything with breakfast. So they start talking to each other. That's like a little trick. And then when they start doing their projects, they get to build stuff they keep. So that I I take a project that we do in real life and break it down where girls would love it. So they'll make robots, they'll make lights, they'll they'll make shells, they'll make different things that they use, and they're using real tools, not Fisher Price tools. I literally put in a soldering torch, a welding torch in their hands, and then they feel so empowered, right, that they can do it. What is it?

Corie 1:04:52

It's a shift. What kind of age is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:53

Six to seventeen.

Corie 1:04:54

Yeah. It's something that look because I asking, because when you look at uh the way we raise girls, it's about here, for instance. You could we tell as parents, sometimes you tell girls, you know, you could be anything you want to be, you could do anything. Once it's a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or accountant. So if I'm not sure if you come back and you say you want to do well, then it's like they're looking at you differently.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

But those jobs welders are paid right now. Welders are even more demand than a plumber. Guys who go undersea and weld and they go for like they can't stay the long, they get a lot of money. These jobs, but I'm telling you, please, not everybody could be a social media influencer.

Tools As Gifts And The Pink Debate

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Okay, not everybody could do that. It takes a lot of work as court to do all of this. It's a lot of work. But you could put your hands on a trade. Right. And even if you wanted to do those other things, you could still do it. But you have a skill where you can help yourself, help your country, help your community. Um, it's it's really game. I'm telling you, it's a game changer.

Corie 1:05:50

Yeah, like you said, you could live anywhere, you always have work, you could always do it. And I wonder sometimes if it's like societal. So when you see people six years old, girls in particular, they have Doubt that they could do these kind of things, or is it like they grow to eventually have doubt?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

So it's different. So what I've learned now, the little girls are fearless. I want to do it sometimes. I pump your brakes because it's real tools. So I have no the little girls, the six-year-olds, that's like how we were. They are unstoppable. They believe that daddy, wait a they are unstoppable. But then when they get older, every image they see changes. So I notice with the older girls, they have doubts. And what I do is I teach them that you could make mistakes, but you can fix it. I am not perfect, and I am very honest that sometimes I might put, I might cross the line if once in a blue moon, if I'm not really being it. But then I could fix it. That's the beauty. So they can fix anything in their lives. It's it's the trades is more than uh actually fixing anything, it applies in other aspects in your life. And they get that. And we have since nine years now, we have a young lady who uh her parents were from Bangladesh. Um, she they wanted her to be a doctor, and now she's an engineer because she went to Tools and Tiara's. She's actually working as an engineer. We have another girl as a pilot. She met female pilots and she's like, wow, I can do this. We have like three girls in college studying to be architects, no plumbers yet. I had one, she wanted to be a plumber, and then I just saw at an event her dad brought her to to see me again. And um, Hayley, um, her name was Holly, and she wanted to be a plumber so bad. And I was a I was a big, I'm still uh, you know, she's a big fan of mine, and she wanted to, but now she wants to do, she wants to be a welder.

Corie 1:07:28

Yeah, but still in traits. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I think um, and maybe just growing up as a boy, I I never felt well, I couldn't know that. I mean, my daughter was really brought to myself, but I never felt like if there was a challenge or a barrier or anything to say if I want to do well, then the issue was really me. So you don't think of it as little girls growing up feeling like that is not for me or I'll be judged or I can't earn a living.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

Yeah, they grow up like that. They ask men certain questions like even though we are black and brown and we will face racism outside of Trinidad, you would. You would. It's different. Men naturally, people assume if you and I walk in the room together and we could do this together. You never think guys a plumber. He'll really think you were the plumber. And it's happened many a time. I have a uh a guy who works with me, and when we go on people's door and we go in, they always assume that he's a plumber. He's Saint Lucian, and you know his wife, not me. He's like that. He points to me. And he's like, you know, he makes he makes it fun too. But people always assume that he is the person they need to talk to. I a lot of women might get offended, but I don't because all the images on television, all the images on the boxes with the ads and everything shows a man. So they don't know any other way. So I don't get upset. I just think it's my opportunity to to show them, you know, that women do this. But the line really does work good when I say they let girls do this shit now. They laugh. Oh, yeah, I guess they would have to say they laugh because it's funny. Because they can't imagine. And I do like this, like I lean in, imagine. They let girls do the shit now, and they laugh. Yeah, they laugh. Because it like it's it's it's a it's a shock to me too.

Corie 1:09:10

Yeah, I suppose, I suppose, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

Even though I'm the flower. It's a shock to me too.

Corie 1:09:14

It's a good way to break that tension.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:16

No, it does. I I think what has helped me uh trive, uh say to my, you know, the teachers, the trive.

Corie 1:09:23

You're in real place.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Yeah, yes. Um, because I wouldn't have other over there, I have to think about it. Uh uh, thrive and survive is because I use humor a lot in the construction. So I don't I let the stuff part of my trinity culture of always just in and everything. I think uh that's helped me survive, not taking it personally and coming back with a good punchline.

Corie 1:09:44

Of course, yeah, you have that. We see that. We see that. So as these girls come out, I suppose you see them graduate more empowered all the time. One of the things that I heard you say was that in terms of the public speaking, you you help them with that. But you say that you usually scare you, so you're frightened every time you had to do public speaking. So we'll make you get into that if you if if it's I didn't want to get in, it was by necessity.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:03

Um so my friends and I realized how I'm passionate about the trades, and there was a building called the Women's Building being built in New York, and it was supposed to be built by women, it was a whole thing. So we go to speak to the politicians and they're like, come up on stage with us, come and they have all of us. They got me up on the stage, and then they all fell back. And then they made me speak about the building and being a woman in the trades, and it was such a I was like, yeah. So after doing that, I still didn't want to do it. I still didn't want to do it. And a friend of mine, Pamela Schiffman, she says, think about it like when you're doing it, it's for the girls because you need to raise money for the girls. And that was a shift, and it worked, but not all the way. So about eight, I think it's like eight years ago, I went to my very first speaking engagement all the way in Miami. Fancy thing. They pick you up in a car with these sign with your name by the airport. It was fun, it was fun. And um I go there, and it was um three big speakers, all J. It was John Maxwell, he's like a leaderships coach, and John Taffer from Bar Rescue. And I was in the middle of the speaking uh trio. And I spoke on the stage, and the company had a fundraiser. And when I finished speaking, they raised $250,000. I say, girl, yeah. No, that was a wake-up call. I was, I was because I I was just being me and speaking, and when I saw that, I came back and like I took I've I've made a website. Uh I you know what I did. I I have a website, I have my own website separate from Tools and Tiara's, and I I form a business, Miss Judalin speaks, and I took it seriously because I didn't realize the power of words. And my goal and my hope one day is when I have an event for my organization, I raise that in one room, one room. And every time I do speak in engagements, uh people come up and say it inspired because I'm very honest. I do exactly how I'm here, that's how I'm on the stage, you know, telling people. But I didn't, I that's when I took it seriously. And every time I go up on the stage, I'm very, very scared, very fearful, very nervous. If anybody tells you they don't feel it, they're lying, partner.

Corie 1:12:28

Some people say they don't feel nothing. So when does it go eventually? When it's sort of like a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:31

So for me, it goes because I make a lot of jokes. So I use humor a lot after I'm very like intentional with the way I open. I open the way I always thank everybody, thank Mother Earth. But once I start making jokes, is when I sit into it and get very uh okay with it.

Corie 1:12:49

Gotcha, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:50

That's how I do it.

Corie 1:12:51

And you have a general theme for the keynotes, is it's built around the same message?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

Different every time. So it's different but same. So what people are inspired by, I guess, is my story of starting from nothing and building the things that I've built. Um, so it's usually around empowerment. I c I change it. So if Gucci wants me to come and speak, it will be catered to that. Like I'm very intentional when you hire me. I ask you, what is your message? What do you want your audience to leave with? Um, so I will change it, but still me. Understanding.

Corie 1:13:23

So you use the message to convey what you have to convey and your story.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:26

And my story.

Corie 1:13:27

Yeah, which is I saw one time there was this guy, uh, I wish I couldn't remember his name. What he did was he used to paint. So he's uh he would do art while he's doing a keynote and basically use that to reveal things like um your own determination or believing in yourself and the whole I am and I was talking about.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:44

I do that, I make the whole audience repeat it, and I change it. Maybe not the three words I use with the girls, but I would change it for whatever message the the company and people always say that one that one resonates a lot, the I am, because a lot of people we have doubts uh you know, and I still have them. I I mean I do a lot of things while being scared and not even knowing how to do it, like figuring it out, even writing that book.

Corie 1:14:09

Uh yeah, because when you say it's dyslexic, right? It can't be an easy process to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:13

It was not, and even if you look, so when I when I really, really blow up even big, it has some mistakes in there.

Corie 1:14:19

It does wait. Go back and change it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:21

No, I was gonna change it, but then I said, you know what? One or two things, like when I'm because it's self-published, I move the letter or here or there or something. But I wanted to show that you could do things rather even being imperfect, you don't have to be perfect, it's in the doing. And this book, um individual telehold up the book and it's a good thing. Yeah, so this book, and it's city colors, people. All right, it wasn't even intentional. No, when I asked somebody to design it, everything is like serendipitous. They use these colors.

Building Tools And Tiaras For Girls

SPEAKER_01 1:14:50

Uh and this was the the design that I ended up liking. But I did a speech one time, and I I you I this is a mantra that I live by. I conceive an idea, and if you have to sell something, you have to believe it, or else I can't sell it to you, right? And then the last thing that a lot of people fail on, they don't do the shit. So this was my mantra to get anything done. And I went and I did a speaking engagement, and I said this. You have to conceive it, believe it, and then do that shit. And everybody started tweeting it. Oh my god, Judy and Cassidy said and then the voice said, Stop using it and till you write this book.

Corie 1:15:29

Of course, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:31

Because it was it, it took off like people's like, oh, people say that they were all. Yeah, yeah. It was like, oh, I love that. So then I stopped, but then I had trouble writing the book because of the writing, and then I did an interview with Mike Holmes. He's like a big uh TV guy on HD TV. And he said when he did his book, he recorded the audio. And in and that's how I did it first. I had the chapters, I had everything for years. The the six chapters, whatever, I had it written out, and I wouldn't, I couldn't go past it. And that was the lightning bulb. And then I figured out I didn't even know how to do publish it with Amazon, how to do everything, everything is a fragrance out. Right now I have a fragrance line coming up. Every time I finish one plate, I jumped to another thing. And it's all within the trades, like staying to who I am, being who I am, being West Indian, being Trinidadian. But it just so happens, like it's just doing, and I want people and to understand a lot of my friends love this book. They said it was really good because there's no fluff. I'm not repeating the same thing over and over and over. Get to the substance. I just I hate when I have a book and it's no, just yeah, just too much. So it just people used to ask me, How did you do this or how did you accomplish this or how you did this? And it's because I live by this. A lot of people fail and then do the shit. Because you ever seen a television commercial or a product and you had actually taught about it?

Corie 1:16:57

Listen, I get talk about that for and you know, especially because you know what was your because I think you're right. You you you dream it up, you conceive it, you believe it, but you never did. And then you see somebody else who's doing it now, and it's way worse than what you better do.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:13

Exactly. So, this is one of my favorite books is The Alchemist. If you want a book to inspire you, read The Alchemist, and it's about this spiritual journey this young man takes on. And many times you wanted to give up. And I so identify with that book because it's me. While I'm doing all of these things, sometimes I want to give up, but I there's something deeper inside of me. So you wanted to give up, and everybody was put here with a purpose, uh, with a with with a with a fire that you have to fulfill your magical journey, your magnificence. That's what the book is about. And many times you wanted to give up. So the way God works is we are collective, he gives you an idea or whatever, and if you don't use it, he gives it to somebody else.

Corie 1:17:52

Yeah, and they will like still do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

And they will do this butt.

Corie 1:17:56

Yes, listen, like you I may be talking to myself, but that is up, that's big for me because um the doing is the action, regardless of what you want to do or say. And sometimes as in perfectionism, you feel like you want to perfect this idea. I always tell students, for instance, I don't know what is perfection before you take something, before you execute. Yeah, it can't be perfect in your mind. Yeah, and it's not gonna be perfect in reality or when you execute something.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

It's never perfect. When I saw the Tools and Charles, I would send out emails and I'll look at it, misspelled words with the website, even just at it. I yesterday I thought I missed work, and but it's out in the universe, and you can make a judgment. And you can make uh uh corrections. Like every time I do a camp, I I call it a post mortem, and I look to see what worked and what didn't work, but it's already out there. So you can put something out there and fix it. I show your podcasts have gotten a lot better from when you started, right? No, but no, no, don't say about you doing it. Yeah, you have to own that shit. Yeah, you gotta execute. So you gotta own that shit.

Corie 1:18:57

Yeah, it's true, it's true. But I'm gonna stop short.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

No, but that's what everybody I I swear to you, even when I'm making a video or whatever it is, I want to be I had suffered with perfectionism. I used to get a lot of migraine headaches. And a lot of people suffer with migraine headaches is because they're perfectionists. And one year when I had my very first camp is when I let go of that because of the girls. I had an electrical project. The electrician, my sister, why she let the plumber buy the materials, only God knows, right? She let me go and buy this stuff and home, I buy all the electrical products to do the product. There was made uh project, they were doing a light. And this is when I let go of perfection and stopped getting migraines. I I I go and I they do the project, and she said, This is the wrong card, it'll burn down their house. So now it's time for I left and I went to all different Home Depots. I ordered everything, they say they have it. I go, they don't have it, I go to the next one, they don't have it, I go to the next one. I get back to the the parking lot, and Corey, I sit there and I'm crying. I'm literally because now I feel I failed the girls. I'm a perfectionist, everything has to be perfect. Um I'm crying, and then a voice, which is God, I'll say universe sauce, he said, just go and be honest with them and tell them they'll finish this project at a next workshop. And I go upstairs and I was honest to the girls. And I said, We won't finish the light today because I got the wrong card. And when I went to get the other ones, nobody had them. They told me it was there. But and the girls turned to me saying, We don't care. All we happy is that you spending time with us.

Speaking Fear Fundraising And Finding Your Voice

SPEAKER_01 1:20:40

And that was it. And since then I let go. I only get migraines now when I because I let go of perfectionism and I just do things and I'll figure it out, I'll fix it, I'll ask for grace, whatever it is, I'll figure it out. But when I let go of that, I don't get migraines unless I get overheated or I didn't get enough sleep. But not because I literally want to be perfect, yeah. Because of my child, they're thinking if I was perfect, then they'll love me. But um, no, I let go of that.

Corie 1:21:06

One of the things I enjoyed about the book a lot was that when you read, it feels like it's I feel like I hear in you. The conversations we had on the phone, and when I read it, because I I bad with reading books, right? So audiobooks usually help me a lot. Yeah, but I read in it and I feel like I hear in you talking, like almost in our accent and just the way we talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:23

That's what everybody said. So now everybody keeps telling me when you're gonna do the audiobook. I have to sit down. That's what everybody said. Who knows me? It said, like, I feel like you're just talking to me because I know who you are. Yeah, and that's exactly the feeling.

Corie 1:21:35

100%. Yeah, do the audiobook, please. Yes, and now we talk always talk so you could confuse them yanky too. You know what I mean? Uh yeah, I gotta get some of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:42

So glad now I you know when people tell you that you feel like they're just no, no, 100%.

Corie 1:21:46

We had a couple of phone conversations, yeah. And then when I pick up the book, it went straight back to your voice. Yeah, but a few other things that stood out. Like you had a chapter that was dedicated to grit. I wanted you to talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Yeah. So grid is uh is is not learned. There's people who are there, grit is something you have to build, it's a muscle like going to the gym and training uh training. So something might a lot of people, something bad happened to them and it knocks them off. Now, I'm not saying it doesn't knock me off, but then I figure out a way to get back up. Griff is is something you have to build over time, over and over, all through the failures. Your strength and your determination have to be stronger. So that's what grid is. It's a learned, it's something that's learned. It you're not born to it. They have the the navy seals in them, right? They'll they'll be the strongest, whatever guy, and sometimes it's not that guy who finished.

Corie 1:22:38

Yeah, yeah, you see it built over the side, yeah. Yeah, I went to our podcast a little to Kivo and Kyle recently, and they were talking a little bit about us. So coincidence that when I came home and I read that chapter, they were talking about it. Like they were something they had asked about the podcast, and I told them they say, Well, you know, because now we're in a space where you're public, yeah, and they say, Well, maybe you know, you could fail publicly. I say, All right, it's then could fail publicly, we'll fail publicly, fail all the time. All the time failure is non-stop, it's not that you happen all the time. And for me, just like you, like a lot of things you say, like public speaking is mortifying for me to not like doing it. But when I do it, I'll do it. Yeah, you know what I mean. If you're getting to leave home, that's another story. But when it's time to do it, I'll do it. And the thing about it is no matter how my leg shaking and my hand shaking, we're gonna execute it. So when I saw you write about our grid, yeah, it released another one. I thought Moxie was at a restaurant in Miami. Oh, is Moxie? When I see Moxie, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:32

I think Moxie for me was like that little sass with it. Like, like, like you owning that, like, I'm doing this podcast and I'm making it happen. I'm making shit happen, right? I think that's for me what Moxie is. It's a little bit different, like just having that. I don't know if it's my island girl sass, but that's what Moxie is for me.

Corie 1:23:50

Yeah, I realize that's audacity, you know, because Yeah, that's sass.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

Like, like who you're talking to?

Corie 1:23:57

Like when you when you write about that, I was picturing you in this thing because you you wrote about this thing so well with coming over to the truck on a height. I picture in that moment that say that that'll be what Moxie mean. You playing in these people's face.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:09

No matter how much they're looking at you, and you feel it. Don't feel like I wasn't feeling weird. All of these men staring at me, you know, looking at me. I remember I was, but the only way to conquer that is to be so have audacity. People might call it delusion or so delulu, like that's the thing that people use now. But I call it like like this kind of moxia, this kind of sense, like, no matter what you think, I have a different version of me. I would walk off the construction site. The moxie also leading to after work, right? All of us walk into the train station, and I would see women and they're looking really, really short. And I would say to my brothers, I taller than her, they look at me like you do. I saw in my head this walk around like a six foot two kind of guy. That's the moxie I'm talking about. Like with just having that, like it takes you farther than talent will ever, just having that moxie, that grit. Work it, work it, work it. And it's not, and even like everybody's into manifestation. I do it myself. I manifested a lot of things that I never thought would happen. But you have to put the work in the grit and the moxie. They all they all work in harmony. It's like a it's like a like a pail out. Yeah, nobody take it, you had a brown, you know, start off with the manifestation is the wrong in of the chicken, you know. And then, you know, you like burn, you watch your eyes on it before you get too, you know. But that's what I that's what I feel like how it is with everything I do. I'm seriously figuring it out.

Corie 1:25:38

Like no, the message was well received because the truth is, and on what you say is like putting in the work. Because at some point, no matter what happened on that site, you actually had to go and do the work.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:46

That's a football, I talk, I talk. Okay, no tricky daddy. All the people say you can rail talk in okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:57

That's it. We'll have to back it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:59

So I know sometimes people get like, I'll do an interview and I would say I'm one of the world's best plumbers, right? And guys will get offended. But like, if you have to believe what you believe about yourself, that you could say the same thing. I said one of is a trick word. Maybe even paying attention. But that's the kind of belief you have to have in anything you want to do. And like, even listening to, you know, some of the guests that you have had on, and to hear them saying the same thing. Like, you have to so believe in those despite all the outside world is saying, juddling it. Had guys who told me, uh, you will never make it a pummon, uh, you're too short, your voice. I remember people not liking my my accent, and then other people loving it. You would have all of that, but don't let that stop you. Trust me, you were sent here for a purpose, and it's in you, and you just gotta do it. Or she's gonna give it to somebody else.

Corie 1:26:53

Yeah, 100%. I appreciate you for sharing that message and sharing your journey and your story. Your awards now. Like every time I see when I watched since we talked the last time, every time I see yours, you want to tell us some of the awards you've been receiving.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:04

Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of them, but they're fun, they're fun.

Corie 1:27:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:08

They're fun to receive. The last one I just got recently, it was the ENR uh top 25 newsmakers. And then out of the top 25, I was number one. Um, and that one was really fun because you know, the people were really nice who was given the award. And also, when I was there sitting down and they were revealing, telling all the top 25s was coming up and telling their story, what the work that they did, I was sitting in that chair, like, oh, I'm not worthy, like, how did it get how they giving this to me? Like, how am I? And I just felt kept on getting that impossible while I was sitting, I was thinking that, like, oh, that Corey story is so beautiful, he should have gotten it. Oh, Herman should have gotten it, or Cassidy could have gotten it. There was a no, I'm really thinking that, right? And then they played the video and showed my life. Story, you know, showing Trinidad and you know me growing up, my secondary school pictures and stuff like that. And then when they finish the story and I'm singing, they catch me doing my singing and stuff like that in it, and then they reveal the cover. And I say, Who's that boy? When they put no, I mean I I knew I was gonna get it. The other people didn't know because they had to let me know so I could give them like um but I couldn't tell anyone. But even during all that process, I still was feeling unworthy. Unworthy. And then they did the video and when they put that cover up button, I was

Grit Moxie Awards And Bringing It Home

SPEAKER_01 1:28:40

like, I didn't even realize it was me. I know it's so weird, but then I was like, oh look you know, and it's and I don't like taking pictures at all. I don't like I just do all of it for the girls. But that cover looked real good. Hold on, let me show you. And what was what was so awesome about this when I got it to they knew that I love my country, so I tell them they have to play a song. So I danced all the way up to the stage, and then I dance all the way to the podium, and when it finished, I dance off coming up to Twin Bago.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:23

Yeah, oh nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:24

I did, I was like dancing. No, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. And then boy, well, here was the best one too. So I was about ready to jump. Because I always I was like a Marshall Montana. I like the real jump with the song. So I'm ready to jump, and I was like, oh, in heels. I did it with one with um Kess, I love Kess. Um, with one of my words, I use Kess song. But this one, I felt it was appropriate because I wanted them to know in that room it was people that was didn't look like me. Um, none of them were the first, you know, black color woman of color to get it. And I wanted them to know where I was from. And after that, the uh the the owners of the company said from now on, everybody have to dance for their award. Because I really did, yeah, I really did. And um, yeah, so every award I always um always this one I didn't do the Trinity Flag.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:17

True.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:18

Uh but I always have my bandana. Like I go up and I'm waving it and doing the whole thing and coming off. Yeah, because I want people to know it made me, even though I live in America, my foundation of the person that I am started here.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:31

So it's always uh it's very important to me to always represent us. So any video, anything I'm going to be on in my working clothes, because I work with bandanas, I wear them all the time. I always rock in that one purposely. I would make sure I have it on.

Corie 1:30:46

Yeah, we see it, we see it, we see it. And congratulations on all the awards and all the accolades. And I want to tell you before we wrap up that when you when we spoke the first time, yeah, I felt like if I was walking on no purpose for the first time since we did this podcast. Because I think I don't share the purpose a whole lot. I think I just want people to find the meaning in it. But the podcast is about you. I think the thing the thing about it is we as people accomplish extraordinary things in several different spaces. Yeah, some of us get all kinds of awards and put on covers of things, and some of us don't, but we're accomplishing a whole lot. So I was excited to hear the story behind this and and and because it's it's all difficult.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:25

Yeah, it's nothing's easy.

Corie 1:31:26

It's cool. We could have just spent two hours talking about how cool it is. Because I wasn't doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:31

I know, I know. Everybody would be so surprised being an island girl. Like I tell them, my people, when it gets 70 degrees here, we in jacket for we don't play.

Corie 1:31:40

We don't play. So when you look at it, yeah, you when you talk about your black, you're a woman, you're an immigrant with an accent. Yeah, and then you say short. I find you find your regular saying short all yourself, mates singing things, but it's there's you know so much odd stacked against us. Very good. But we still find ways to to get there and to accomplish a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:58

And you walk in your purpose because you know, and don't shrink yourself for anyone. And you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna do it. But I just truly want everyone to live with that purpose because you are magnificent in creation. We are all energy, we are all sent here for a purpose. And don't shrink it. And and when you do um accomplish or whatever those things, try to be learn from me and learn from Corey. Like start walking in it early and own it and say, I did that shit.

Corie 1:32:26

Yeah, 100%. 100%. I want to thank you as well for taking the time to show young girls or young people so many things you do or that you shared with us because you're gonna keep all this private as well and keep all your accolades and things. So thanks a million for sharing it with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:39

I wanted to share because you know, everybody watching here in Trinidad Island Tobago, or you politicians, my dream is to always bring tools and tiaras back here. I want to have a camp here for girls and let them build and let them see that they can become anything and build the world that they desire for themselves. So if you're listening, Paul Mena.

Corie 1:33:00

Yeah, 100%, 100%. I'll make sure all the info there. And I commit until you know that whenever you do it and you're ready to launch, come back, come and talk to us. Yes. And I will come and learn something about the turnly tap off until the back of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:13

Righty, tidy, lefty Lucy.

Corie 1:33:14

Right, right, good. Thank you very much, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:17

Thank you for having me.

Corie 1:33:19

Thanks so much for coming. Thank you. Thank you.