Ep 9: Misti Cordell on Service, Leadership, and Solving Real Problems in Louisiana

In this episode of Waiting Tables, John Bruscato sits down with Misti Cordell for a wide-ranging conversation about work, family, leadership, and the lessons that come from serving others. Misti shares her journey from pharmaceuticals and interior design to higher education, healthcare outreach, and public service.

They talk about the value of real-world experience, why young people need more exposure to career paths earlier in life, the challenges facing healthcare and workforce development in Louisiana, and how service jobs can teach skills that last a lifetime. It is an honest, thoughtful conversation about problem-solving, accountability, and what it means to lead well.

Transcript

SPEAKER_08 0:00

Welcome to Waiting Tables Podcast, sponsored by Perspital Law, where we share stories of people in our community who live to serve others. Welcome to the Waiting Tables Podcast, Misty.

SPEAKER_06 0:17

I like this. This is nice. I like the setup.

SPEAKER_08 0:20

So uh I know a little bit about you, but I mean, everybody else listening, can you give us a little background on you?

SPEAKER_04 0:28

A little background about me. Well, I grew up in the area not too far from your wife. In fact, uh Visty and I were friends in school. The rural West Monroe Luna community went to what I went to Woodlawn, um, went to college, went to West Washita, and I went to college at Louisiana Tech, majored in human resource management, and realized that whenever I graduated in human resource management, I had worked since I was 15. I was working for Riverwood International at the time. Uh couldn't get a job in that because they wanted someone with experience. I was like, well, how do I get experience if you won't hire me? So I ended up leaving, uh, leaving out of tech, and I got my very first job um out of state with Xerox Corporation. That was like my big girl job. And did that for uh about a year and a half, which was so much fun. I mean, I would recommended it to both of my boys. It's nice to move away from home and live for a little bit. Uh all my friends were getting married. I was one of the last ones to get married out of my group. And going over there, it was just uh it was a lot of fun stuff to do. We went to dinner somewhere different, just about every single you you could you didn't have to go to the same restaurant more than once. I mean, it there's so many things to go see in Dallas. So it was a good experience. Got a job in pharmaceuticals, came back home, had met my husband on a blind date. We were married within a year, had my first child a year later, had my second child the next year later.

SPEAKER_08 1:54

And so tell me about this blind date business. How's that how's that?

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Well, I as I said, I was the last one of most of my friend group to get married, and I had moved off to Dallas and was loving life. And my best friend since we we were in high school, she said, I want you to move back home. And I said, No, I'm happy right where I am. Everybody's married. Y'all are all married. I'm having loving life. And she set me up on a blind date with Hardman and we met and just clicked. I don't know. I mean, it wasn't like it wasn't like sparks or anything because we were both older, but it was just like we just we clicked. We'd go to the restaurants every time we go out to eat, we wanted to order the exact same thing. We liked the same stuff. I mean, there was a lot of stuff that we had in common, and it was just it was automatically comfortable. And we had a long distance relationship for about six months, and I was working for Xerox. I'd gotten an interview with a pharmaceutical company, and I could have taken the job in Dallas or I could have taken it in Monroe. And I said, I'm gonna roll the dice, we're gonna move back to Monroe, let's see how that works. And we were married less than a year later.

SPEAKER_08 2:58

Wow. So what pharmaceutical company?

SPEAKER_04 3:00

Worked for AstraZeneca.

SPEAKER_08 3:01

Okay, I think I was aware of that. Yeah. Uh I've got a friend of mine. In fact, I think he's still involved with maybe a parent company of AstraZeneca, but Stephen Wall.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_08 3:13

Yeah. Stephen Wall and I are really I trained Stephen Wall. Really?

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Yes. I felt like his big sister there for a little bit. Steven was he's so great. Yeah, he is still with he is with AstraZeneca. I think they're in Virginia now.

SPEAKER_08 3:26

Are they do they well they were in uh in DC?

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Yes, like right outside.

SPEAKER_08 3:31

Silver what's that town called? Silvertown.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

I don't know. Every time I go up there, he tells me you gotta come see him.

SPEAKER_08 3:37

Silver Silver City or Silver Town or something like that. I don't know. Oh, we're gonna have to tell you.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

We're gonna tell him we talked about him today. Does he tune in?

SPEAKER_08 3:44

Uh well I don't know. We need to send him a link.

SPEAKER_04 3:47

Um, yes, Steven is so awesome. I I've he he's just a great guy. And he had gone on a date with Lauren, who's now his wife. Lauren's dad was our veterinarian. So I was like, oh my gosh, great family. And I could see some resemblances a little bit with with Bill and Steven. I mean, just I thought that that would be a great, a great connection.

SPEAKER_08 4:09

Fu father, son-in-law, relationship.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Yeah, both runners, both like super intellectual, great people, just meets the public well, super friendly. And they did that I don't think that they dated for that long either. I think they had like a good connection.

SPEAKER_08 4:25

So I I grew up working in Ginos restaurant. And um love Ginos. So uh and like my family my grandfather started or whatever, and uh my grandparents did. And uh when I was in high school and college, Steven and Lauren dated at Ginos. Okay, and so I would like to Was that their first date spot? I mean, I don't know if it was their first date, but they were there like once a week. I mean, it was like they were regular regulars. Yeah. You know, and uh and so I got to know them extremely well, basically taking care of them as their you know, in-house waiter or whatever you want to call it. Yep. And then uh I got you know, I went to law went off to law school, and then when I came back, uh we started just hanging out all the time.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Like it was it was kind of it was kind of like you know Did he did he go like did you go to his guitar room?

SPEAKER_08 5:18

Oh yeah, yeah. You're talking about his little uh Yeah, the little the little shed thing that he had. Yeah. Yeah, no, he yeah, I remember that. Yeah, they live over there on Oak.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Mm-hmm. They did.

SPEAKER_08 5:30

They did. Did you ever go to a party there?

SPEAKER_04 5:33

I did. We went to a party there, and I had heard Steven used to play a band too. Remember all kinds of things about Steven now.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:42

But uh yeah, he used to play to band. We did go to a party over there. And we were so sad when they moved, but I think it was a great thing for both of them.

SPEAKER_08 5:51

He had to. I mean, it's like dream job.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

Like he he was such a he was so awesome. I mean, literally, I I was his first ride-along. So he was like attached at my hip whenever he first started because that's how we that's how we trained people in pharma. And he just was he just picked up everything so fast and was just such a great rep. I knew that he would go far.

SPEAKER_08 6:14

Yeah, it's like turns around now he's like in their marketing.

SPEAKER_04 6:17

Yeah, like he's moved up, he's moved up quite a few times. He's up with the big dogs now.

SPEAKER_08 6:21

Yeah, like so happy. He's like the people that are like, you know, like put placing ads on, you know, the people.

SPEAKER_06 6:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he's he's big and important.

SPEAKER_04 6:35

And people like that, you want to see folks like Steven move up like that. He's very much deserving. He'll do a great job.

SPEAKER_08 6:42

So, what happened after AstraZeneca?

SPEAKER_04 6:44

After AstraZeneca, so that's whenever the world changed with pharmaceuticals. So we were talking about earlier. I can remember the day whenever I used to have to bring golf balls in to see doctors, and they were like, let's go play around to golf. Um, I don't golf. But uh it changed so much, it seemed like within a matter of five years. It went from you could buy doctors uh big berthas and fish and rods and all this stuff, which really was not a great thing, to the point that you could not even leave a pad or a pen. And that was one of the things that I we did like to do. Anything you could bring value added to a physician's office. We would do um, let's see, some of the stuff that I would do is and uh like a picture of a heart if you're trying to explain somebody to something to a patient that had congestive heart failure. Yeah, it's a good visual. We were able to give leave all these tools behind. Yeah, something like this. Like your spine. Yeah, that bottom part of mine's not feeling too good today. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

We got a prop now.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

There you go, got a prop. Like it. Um it we were able to leave stuff behind, and we were able to take um the physicians, and I would always try to take their spouse to dinner also because being a female in the in the industry, I just thought that that was considerate. And then the doctor had worked all day. Usually their days started at seven, because that was back in the day where they did rounds. They did rounds before um before clinic and usually after clinic clinic. So they didn't get to see the city. It was before hospitalists, maybe aging myself a little bit. But literally, you had physicians that would go do rounds on their patients because there weren't as many hospitalists in the hospital. And by the time they were done with the day, first off, they didn't want to go to dinner and hear a sales pitch.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

And if they did go to dinner to hear a sp sales pitch, it was nice to bring their spouse. Well, they cut out all of that too in pharma. So it really made it hard for us to do our job. It went from being very rewarding where I thought that I was a value added, I was bringing something to the office, um, to to kind of felt like it it became more like a UPS. You know, you're just gonna drop off some samples. So I was traveling a ton, my husband was traveling a ton. At this point, we had two young kids. And I said, okay, let's see what it would be like just to live off one income and and let's see, let's see how that works. So I quit pharma. It was in my 10th year, and decided I was gonna stay at home with the boys. Probably bad timing because it was after both of them started to go back to school. And Misty got bored. So I ended up volunteering for everything at the school from PTO to American Cancer Society, fundraisers, all this stuff. And my husband's like, You are working basically 40 hours a week with no pay. But I had a friend that Holly Boyd was doing the St. Jude Dream Home, and she said, I think you would be really good as a designer for the St. Jew Dream Home. She said, It's my last year to do it. Come meet the contractor, see if you like it, and we need to grow our social media presence and then also you do all the design for the home, like everything on the inside. So I said, Okay, why not? So I did that. Um, was amazing, awesome experience. I did five St. Jude Dream homes as a lead designer. Oh, wow. Started my own business from that, and I did my own interior decorating and design business. So I could help design everything from your cabinet layout to your floor plan to what sofas you were gonna put in there.

SPEAKER_08 10:14

So basically, I just need to make sure you don't get my wife's cell phone numbers.

SPEAKER_04 10:18

So much fun. Could have so much fun. I've got to slow down though, because I I tend to stay busy. Um, I had I'm barely able to get my own house finished. We just did our fifth remodel. Hardman and I have been married for 26 years, and we just remodeled our fifth house. And both of my boys are like, Mom, we're done. We're not doing this anymore. I'm tired of moving you. So I think we're we're staying put with this one.

SPEAKER_08 10:42

Well, I know I I've not been in your home since it's been remodeled, but I had been in it before that.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

And uh Yeah, we talked about that.

SPEAKER_08 10:50

And uh I drive by it like every day. You don't have to stop in, but it's a beautiful it looks beautiful up. I mean we changed congratulations, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

We changed so much of it, but I love I I really do. I love the construction process. I've I've helped with homes from the ground up and then doing the remodel. And the remodel is absolutely more of a challenge, but man, it's so rewarding to go kind of look at the before and after. It's like it's like a makeover, basically, is what it is. So it's uh it's great. I think in this one we got everything we need. It's not too big. We can lock off the bedrooms because we're empty nesters now. But whenever grandkids come back, we'll have we could house everybody. We had the entire family at the house for Christmas this year, and it was great.

SPEAKER_08 11:35

How'd you do with the ice storm?

SPEAKER_04 11:37

We were actually out of town during the ice storm. Um we had gotten tickets to see the Eagles at the Sphere and had flown out. I had a regents meeting in Baton Rouge on that Monday, and I said, Well, that's fine, we'll fly out of New Orleans. So my younger son and I, he works for the attorney general in Baton Rouge. We decided we're in Baton Rouge anyway, we'll fly out of New Orleans and I can fly back in on Sunday and make my meeting. So we were good, but my husband and older son were flying out of Monroe and Dallas, and uh we got to Vegas and I was like, y'all aren't getting home. There's there's no way. I mean, we were watching the storm on the weather channel, and I mean it was just so bad. So they had ended up flight getting on the southwest flight with us. We got the last flight out of Vegas and made it to New Orleans and then up to Baton Rouge, where we had to sit for three days, and we had it, we have a whole house generator, thankfully. Um, so we had neighbors that were staying at our house. We're like, just go in there, check on everything, take a shower, whatever you have to do.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:42

Um, so bad though. Gosh, when I came home, I I mean it was it was unbelievable, all the tree damage and things. How did you guys fare?

SPEAKER_08 12:53

Very fortunate. Um, my father-in-law, I think you you know, yes, I know Mr. Martin. Yeah, he's great. Uh well, he is great, and uh he is like uh, you know, an amazing electrician or electrical contractor or whatever, you know, whatever you want to, you know, whatever he called, I don't know what he calls himself, but he knows a lot about a lot of things. He does, including that his daughter probably would have been mad at me if we didn't have a generator at our house.

SPEAKER_06 13:25

So you did have a generator.

SPEAKER_08 13:26

So he actually brought us a uh a diesel generator that was like on a trailer, but it was big enough to power everything.

SPEAKER_06 13:33

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_08 13:34

And uh I'm just gonna tell you, that man sa probably saved my marriage, you know.

SPEAKER_04 13:39

Yes, yes, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_08 13:40

Because we would have been out for like six days.

SPEAKER_04 13:43

Oh were y'all out? Was it out was it out that long?

SPEAKER_08 13:46

We were uh so we went to sleep uh I think it was Saturday night. And I know it was different for everybody.

SPEAKER_04 13:53

Every yeah, everybody had a different timeline. Um you were one of the last ones on so Saturday night we went to sleep.

SPEAKER_08 14:01

We woke up Saturday morning and I was like, it feels a little chilly in here. And I looked like our when I look up from bed, I see the alarm panel and the alarm panel's lit. So I'm thinking, okay, well, it's we didn't lose power, I guess. And in the middle of the night, we heard a big huge limb like crack and land in the backyard. Um so that I remember that woke us up, and I think I remember the lights being on whenever that happened. And uh and so I see the alarms lit, and I'm like, okay, well, we're good. And then I get up, I look at my phone, I don't notice that it wasn't charging, and then I walk around the house a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 14:40

Because your alarm's on a battery, isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 14:42

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, oh yeah, that's so that was the thing, like my alarm's on the backup battery.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 14:46

So I just it didn't occur to me that the alarm would still be on.

SPEAKER_06 14:51

Well, unpless you're asleep at the time, you're not thinking.

SPEAKER_08 14:54

Mm-hmm. And so I go walk around, I go in the kitchen, and I'm like, trying to turn the lights on, and it's like we don't have power. And so I'd go turn that generator on. Yeah. And I mean, so the generator was already there. Yes. Did he bring it like right before the storm hit or did so he brought it Friday afternoon and he had his guys wired up integrated? And he actually built, I've got a switch that he built for me so that like if this ever happens again, like all he's gotta do is just plug it in and good to go. Yep. And uh Yeah, yeah, he's an incredible man. I mean, like he took care of us.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

You gotta take care of baby girl.

SPEAKER_08 15:36

Yeah, he took care of baby girl, you know.

SPEAKER_04 15:38

And you too. Baby son-in-law. Yep, yeah. Actually, actually, grandbabies, too. They probably rank number one.

SPEAKER_08 15:45

Yeah, yeah, you're probably right about that.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Yep. My dad's pretty handy too. I don't know what I would do without dad around. Uh I have my tool bag, Hardeman would probably fuss me tallon on him, but my tool bag is much has much more stuff in it than his does. Yeah, that's kind of how I am. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 16:01

Yeah, I'm not gonna say that Cassie has a uh uh handiness to her either, but I think it was working in houses too.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

I mean, it like on all those St. Jude Dream homes, it was volunteer labor. So not only did I design it, but I had to go like shake people down for donations of oh gosh, plumbing fixtures, uh windows, roofing shingles, uh tile. I mean, anything that was a cool like design aspect, like whenever Rusty used to be open and bat and uh rusting. Yeah, in Rustin. Okay, they would go tear down old buildings and they would salvage the beams and just old wood and cool stuff like that. So I would go pick all that stuff and try to get it donated or as low of a price as possible. In my last home, we were almost all donation. Wow at year five. But I would try to promote them. That's incredible. Yes, it was it was very rewarding. But since you're dealing with volunteer labor, you can't fuss when things aren't exactly on time. So I have my own tool bag. There were some times I had to go tinker with stuff.

SPEAKER_08 17:09

I did not do anything electrical or plumbing-wise, but so I bought this switch uh for some lights that uh are in our backyard that I've wanted to have like on like a Wi-Fi switch where you can schedule it on and off and stuff. And um, I bought it and uh we got it, I got it in the you know, Amazon or whatever. And so I was like, I was like, I'm just gonna I bet I can do the switch, you know.

SPEAKER_05 17:34

And so how did that work? You didn't shock her so you're not you're not one of those guys on a reel, are you?

SPEAKER_08 17:41

So after dinner last night, Cassie's like uh, she's like, Well, I want to go what you know, let's see if we can find a show or something. I said, Well, I'm gonna try to mess with the switch. She's like, What? I was like, just don't worry about it. Just go do what you're gonna do. No, just go do what you're gonna do. I got this. So I go get the screwdriver and the pliers and the you know, all the things that I knew that you would need to to accomplish this task. Yes. And uh I get I get the the switch plate off and uh unscrew the screws and I pull the screen. Did you turn the power off to that well this light was off the I see where you're going.

SPEAKER_06 18:24

Did somebody video this?

SPEAKER_08 18:26

And so I'm like trying to, it's like you know the wire, like you can either put it like screw it, screw the wire into the switch, or you can like put it into the back of the switch.

SPEAKER_06 18:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 18:37

Well, these the way this one's installed, it was in the back of the switch.

SPEAKER_05 18:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 18:43

And so I'm like trying to pull the thing out of the switch, and it's like in there good, you know? And the and all of a sudden there's like this big huge spark, and Cassie's like sitting on the couch, but she can see me, and she's like, You're being an idiot. Call my dad.

SPEAKER_06 19:02

As bad as we could call her dad. What did he say when he got over there to fix it?

SPEAKER_08 19:09

He said, John, you don't see me trying to practice law, do you?

SPEAKER_06 19:14

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_08 19:16

Like, well, you know, but it's like, you know, I wouldn't be mad at you if you, you know, you you you were for sure not gonna kill yourself.

SPEAKER_05 19:25

Or a dog groomer or something.

SPEAKER_08 19:27

You're for sure not gonna kill yourself, fine. You can just you can give it a shot. Give it give me the old college try. But you're dealing with a live wire right there. Let's all let's all do that.

SPEAKER_06 19:35

Oh gracious. Yeah, you know, you live and learn.

SPEAKER_07 19:41

We lived, we lived.

SPEAKER_06 19:42

Uh yeah, there was some reel that was the other day with some guys that were checking something, and and they they pulled, they were going to strip the wire with their teeth. Oh, that did not end up.

SPEAKER_08 19:53

Probably didn't go how they wanted it.

SPEAKER_06 19:54

Not at all. Not at all. It was bad. It's bad.

SPEAKER_08 19:58

Well, uh, so you you brought us through the St. Jude thing. I'm sorry I keep interrupting.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

Oh gosh. Okay, so after St. Jude, that's whenever I started my own business. So I have my own design, decorating and design business. Um, enter Jeff Landry winning attorney general. And both of my boys were at the age that they were playing sports and soccer, and it was kind of like, you know, a chaotic schedule because you're trying to build a house and be at the soccer field, and somebody calls you and they're like, paint's the wrong color. Of course, I'm not gonna leave the soccer field, it's like six o'clock to go over there and fix it. So Jeff had gotten um, Jeff had gotten attorney general. And I was realizing that the construction with the amount of time that I wanted to be there, because I'm I'm one of those type people, if you do call me six or nine, your paint color's wrong, I want to go. But I mean it's it's it that's that's not always feasible. And with young kids, it really wasn't feasible. And there was a it was a lot of um it was it was taking up a lot of the time with family. And Jeff had gotten the the job with attorney general. He said, Hey, I need some help putting together a outsource, I mean outreach. So his outreach group was doing everything from training for cybercrimes, elder fraud, um, teaching kids how to use cell phones responsibly, as well as being his person whenever he couldn't be in an area. Much like your legislators have now their their representatives that they have, your legislative representative. Um, that's what he was trying to build at the AG's office. And he said, I would love for you to come in, use your sales background and help me build this up. So worked with the team and got that, got a regional representative in every area. We had it, we had it rolling. We were doing um anti smoking talks, which I transferred over to anti vaping talks. Kids were not at the time smoking, they were all vaping and it was rampant. And We we did a lot of educational stuff with that. And I did that for I guess two and a half years. Um, just helping get that program up and running. And Saint Francis, you know, I had the background in pharmaceuticals. Saint Francis was looking for a physician liaison. And I had a friend that used to be a competitor, Pfizer, rep, that called and just kind of gave me an offer I couldn't refuse to come back over and and work with the doctor. So I did that work at St. Francis as their physician liaison and helping drive business to St. Francis for, I think that was right at three and a half years, and it was right smack dab in the middle of COVID. So one of the things that I did with the AG's office was any of the disaster relief, floods, things like that, I would go work with GOSEP, make sure that we could tell citizens where to go get help, how to um, how to get uh tents brought in, how to how to use, utilize the National Guard and Gosep to get problem solved. And during COVID, I was able to use that little nugget at St. Francis because we set up all the COVID testing units, tents, um, getting generators in, so many things. But it's it's like every little station in my my crazy crooked career path from one thing to the next has kind of built. I mean, I've there's not been a single thing that I've done that I have not used. Not not one. And it's it's entered right on into what I'm doing now with with running for Congress. I feel like I truly can be a problem solver and address things and see things. I've worked in just about every every aspect of the things that are important for Northeast Louisiana, which are agriculture, education, healthcare, and protecting our trades. You know, we have meta coming in. We really need some more tradesmen. And working with subs, um they have it tough, man. I'm sure Martin can tell you. It's hard to find it's hard to find folks that come in and can work and do a good job, and that you don't have to retrain when they get out of school and then have them stay. Once they're really good, they get offers elsewhere, and they're good offers. So we need to be able to keep our guys here and and girls. I mean, there's there's all kinds of people that go into trades.

SPEAKER_08 24:20

I I've I've had a lot of conversations with uh Martin about, you know, his guys, you know, uh like you know, I think a lot of electrician or tradesmen go through a phase, whether they work for a firm or they um you know strike out on their own. Um at some point they have a desire to strike out on their own. Yeah. You know, and and then they go through that, they weigh the pros and cons of that. Yeah. And you know, it's difficult. I mean, you factor in insurance overhead, you got how are you gonna get your business? You gotta have a stream of business.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

And um being able to buy your products in bulk versus just for one job at a time. You've been yeah, there there's a lot of things to consider there. And that's that's something. Um now I'm the governor appointed me over Regent, so I'm over all of higher ed. And so there's as I I serve as a chairwoman over all of higher ed. And so there's a lot of conversations that we've had in education about what can we add to education? I mean, I'm sure you've you listen to podcasts, you do podcasts. I mean, some of the some of the commentary that's been said in the probably the last five years is why do I need a college degree? Why do I need why do I need that? I could just go go learn from somebody else or be an influencer. Sometimes it's pie in the sky thought. Um, but how can education meet the next generation where they are versus us trying to bring them in to our world? And a lot of it is linking together the why. I was always a kid that wanted to know why. You could tell me no, but I just, you know, may not always accept that. I want to know the no but. I mean, I wasn't rebellious, but it's just like, give me a reason, why? And I think we need to give kids a reason why again.

SPEAKER_08 26:06

Um and then this all this AI stuff is kind of That's mind-blowing. It's it's like well, it and but uh but the why thing is probably harder to answer. We need to link it. Everybody's talking about like, well, all job, like you've got people like Elon Musk saying, and he may be right, but saying that like basically the robots are gonna take everybody's job, that we're gonna need some sort of uh uh universal income for everybody so that uh because that nobody's gonna work anymore.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Is it gonna is it gonna take over your that that brings up a very good point. Is it gonna take over your your service industry? I mean, it's so there's something about a human touch. Would you if when you're calling um say your phone has something wrong, do you want to talk to a chat bot or a person?

SPEAKER_08 26:58

Well, I think the chat bots have drastically improved.

SPEAKER_04 27:01

They have gotten better. They do, they have.

SPEAKER_08 27:03

And so to your point, yeah, I would rather talk to a person, but also I want it to be correct.

SPEAKER_04 27:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 27:11

So there's some fallibility there.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

There is. That's why we need to do better training in college. We don't train on customer service either. I mean, there's just so much in education that we're missing out on that we need to go back to. And one of the things that we're looking at right now with with education is linking in K-12. How when is the sweet spot to reach a kid to figure out what do you want to be when you grow up? Because again, somebody that wants to know the why. I'm going to college, I have to go through 12th grade, and then I have to, I mean, I'm going to K-12, I have to graduate, then I have to go on to college. Do we ever stop to try to figure out what it would be like if you actually encouraged a kid along a path versus just saying you have to graduate, take all these tests, and then go to school again and graduate? Um we have it. I mean, I that's one of the things is as chairwoman, I've asked to go tour every single campus because I was put into this role.

SPEAKER_08 28:08

Campus meaning what?

SPEAKER_04 28:10

Like school, like colleges. I've toured just about every college in the state.

SPEAKER_08 28:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 28:14

I've still got a few more to go, but that's one of the things that I wanted to do to just see what a day in the life looked like. It's been a while since I graduated college. And I want to talk to the students. And I learned more in the student panels than I do with anything else that in the big building. Because the kids are your customer and they will tell you, you know, what they need. And some of the feedback that we've gotten is the sweet spot to reach a kid, is between the ages of sixth grade and eighth grade. Because if you think about it, once you get into high school, you're not focused on what do I want to be when I grow up until you hit your junior year and you have to declare a major or you have to decide what am I going to go to college for. Some kids, you know, they're blessed to have families that help them along the way. I mean, Hardman and I could see the gifts of both of our boys and kind of help direct them without telling them this is what you need to do. God's, he, he gives a, he gives everybody's bent a certain way. I believe that we're all put here for a purpose and you got to find it. But uh at least we could help them understand. My youngest child is not a mathematician, so I'm like, you are not going into engineering. This is not probably not gonna be something unless you're really stubborn and study a lot. Um, his gift is more, he loves to read, he loves history, he loves reason, um, argument. He's going into law. So he's he's he's very methodical in his thinking. But you know, not all kids have that in the home to try to see, okay, this this could be something that you're really good at. Why don't you look at it? And we need to do that in schools more.

SPEAKER_08 29:46

So you think let me see if I can pinpoint what you're you're saying. So do you think that the schools from the ages of six to eighth grade need to be doing assessments for interest and capability?

SPEAKER_04 30:04

I think there should be a class. I mean, we've discussed it. I think that there should be some sort of some sort of uh there there's already a class. You're going I'm gonna have to repeat. There's a class in Louisiana that you have to take, and I think it's an eighth grade, and it's like career development or something along those lines, maybe eighth or ninth grade. But some of the students that I've talked to about it said that's that's too late, and it's not necessarily how it's tailored right now is not necessarily pertinent. It didn't it didn't ring any bells for them.

SPEAKER_08 30:41

Um there's this uh I'm sorry, like I'm going off this um I just went like my mind just went somewhere and I was like, this is exactly what we need to be talking about.

SPEAKER_06 30:51

My mind goes all kinds of places.

SPEAKER_08 30:54

It's a uh it's like a chart. And I just I just dealt with this.

SPEAKER_07 31:02

Journey to careers. Is that what you're looking for?

SPEAKER_06 31:05

Is that what it is? Is that the Louisiana? Eighth grade.

SPEAKER_07 31:11

Yeah. Explore different career paths.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

Yeah, yeah. Is it just eighth grade? Is it is it continuous? I should know this, but I'm higher ed, so I need to ask these questions. Is there like a follow-up class the next year?

SPEAKER_08 31:33

I don't think I'm gonna find it. What are you looking for? I'm looking for this, uh it's like a a graph, uh a graphical thing, and it's uh it shows you it's like things that you are interested in and skilled at, but you can't make money from or hobbies. Okay. Things that you're interested in, skilled at, and can make money are, you know, career. Things that you're not interested in, but good at could be uh anyway. And it's like what you're looking for, like it's kind of like some sort of assessment that you could then tailor.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

It's not just another curriculum that is gonna drawn on and on at a student where it's just another class I have to take. How can you make it pertinent and tailored to the student by maybe and what that's something with AI. I mean, they're catching kids up now in K-12. If you're behind on your reading, they can give you an iPad and have AI like be your own tutor. So the kid's still in class, and the one that's a little bit behind is being caught up while the ones that are advanced, they're still they're still rocking along. It helps the teacher out too, and then it helps really even everybody out. Somebody just made it. I was not a math kid, not my favorite thing. Um, I would have sat there with my chat, my AI device the whole time in algebra to catch me up because I that these people in the front may have gotten it, but I need to hear it about three more times. But there's a lot of kids like that. Just some things click and th some things don't.

SPEAKER_08 33:06

And and sometimes some things like maybe like the essential things, like you gotta you gotta sit there until they click.

SPEAKER_06 33:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_08 33:13

You know, you gotta figure it out. Like this isn't like we get to move on from this.

SPEAKER_06 33:17

Like Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 33:18

Like you gotta figure out algebra too.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

I know it sucks, but you have to because it's a building block too. I mean, if you miss something, it it's hard. The rest of all your maths are gonna be a little bit more difficult because you missed that.

SPEAKER_08 33:31

If you want to be in business, very important component. If you want to get a business degree, yeah, you're gonna have to take an economics course that requires you to understand algebra too.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

Yeah. So see, I loved econ. Did not like algebra.

SPEAKER_08 33:44

Do you like macro or micro? So the macro is like where they study like the populations and the big No, I liked I like the the bell charts and the curves and all I like the statistics of it and um supply.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

Let's see, what all did I?

SPEAKER_08 34:04

And then micro is like all about price and elasticity of price and competing games.

SPEAKER_04 34:09

I like that one. That's the one that I liked better because I could visualize it, I could see it. I liked geometry because I could visualize it, I could see it. I did not like algebra.

SPEAKER_08 34:19

Yeah, algebra too sucks. I don't care who you are, it's just not fun.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

My oldest child likes algebra. I did not like algebra. He likes annuities and all that stuff too, though. I didn't like those either.

SPEAKER_08 34:30

So the so the with the higher ed piece, well so I I I'm gonna throw I'm gonna throw this out there. I'd recently heard a statistic and I think I was listening to a podcast, that like 30 years ago, kids at home, set like 70% of parents raising kids were like, whenever you grow up, you're gonna be in college. Like you're getting a college degree, whether they had a college degree or not. Like when you grow up I was told that. I was told that.

SPEAKER_04 35:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 35:04

I was told that. It was like not, it was not not a it was never a question that I was going to college. And then, but now it's more like 30% of households are raising their children to say and to believe that whenever you grow up, you're gonna be a college student. Like this is for sure happening. And so that's a you know, almost 100%, you know, 50%, what is that, 50% drop in uh the number of people that are being raised to be told they're going to college.

SPEAKER_04 35:35

What are they saying they're telling them to do?

SPEAKER_08 35:39

Well, it's just not everybody has this perception that college isn't an essential component of success in life. And then college is not for everybody. And you know, and maybe some of that is the trades, but I look at trades like I look at my father-in-law, he's an electrician.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

They they knock it out of the park.

SPEAKER_08 35:56

I mean, the dude is he is a very smart man. Very smart man. He is not like if he wanted to go to college, he'd go to college right now and you know, be just fine, and he'd get through it. Um probably with straight A's. Um but he doesn't need to go to college because he has a trade and he has you know a company and he has a business and he's built this business that you know takes care of his family. Uh but and none of that happened overnight, but you know, he grew he went through the apprenticeship program. He he and it's like a four at the time, I think it was a four-year deal.

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Probably. Yeah, it takes a while to get your journeyman's license.

SPEAKER_08 36:31

There was a classroom component and a uh hands-on apprenticeship component to it. Um and I think it's still that way, but it might be a three-year process.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

Yeah, it's it's still longer. It it and plumbing, they're they're not short. Um, but yeah, see, that's that's where you need to introduce those those jobs to kids sooner because it's nice to be able to have a class that only tells you, okay, this is what you may be you you may be gifted in. But what is that life gonna look like? Kind of like what you were looking for on your phone. How much do you make? Um, what what is your day-to-day gonna look like? Um for physicians, when I was recruiting physicians, it was always good to go talk to the students whenever they were trying to pick what specialty the specialty they wanted to go into. Because if you're a dermatologist, you don't have a lot of call. You're an orthopedic surgeon, you're gonna have a lot of call. And when you come out of school, you're gonna be low man on the totem pole and you're gonna have to take all the the crap weekends and things like that. But you talk to them about jobs. What is your what is your life gonna look like?

SPEAKER_08 37:36

And by call, you're what you're saying is like being available to assess or treat someone.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

Well, for the hospital. So if you're gonna be on the the for the ER for hospital call, because I know St. Francis, um, they have one orthopedic surgeon that's there. So somebody has to cover call for what comes in to the hospital 24-7. Somebody's got to be able to come in and you know, there's an auto, there's a car wreck, there's fractures, there's hip fractures, those can't sit and wait. So they need to have somebody that's there on call. So they work with orthopedic, orthopedic clinic, other ortho orthos for a call schedule. And that's it can be brutal. It could be your fourth of July weekend. I mean, it could be your all your weekends. It's it's just one of those things to consider when you're when you're gonna be a physician. You know that going in.

SPEAKER_08 38:28

Um it's interesting to it's a different thing that probably not everybody thinks about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

If you're a female dermatology, that's great because you're gonna have mostly clinic hours. So when you have kids, then you're gonna be, you know, whatever your clinic is. It's just a different way to think about what is my life gonna look like here. And I love these three different fields, but which ones would be best for me with, you know, if I'm gonna be having kids or if I'm gonna be the breadwinner. And you know, it's just different things to consider to try to start getting students to think about that earlier could really help their career path all the way through. And another thing we're trying to do is link in from the higher ed side. So once you are a college student, how do we help you get a job? And making colleges regionally relevant. So, for instance, Meta, they they need to come to our colleges up here and say, this is what we're looking at. Work with the career center. I never went to the career center in college. I thought that's I always had a job through college. So I said, that's where you go for like babysitting and dog walking jobs. You don't think about, okay, this could be a great tool that could help me build my resume, figure out what I want to do, get an internship, get a paid internship. And what is Meta looking for? And how do I, how do I meet Meta? But for that to truly be a hub for all of our um for for you. If you wanted, if you wanted a law clerk, hey, go to the college. I mean, there's there's some kids that are interested in pre-law. Let me go find a law clerk here. We we really could make colleges a better resource for business also.

SPEAKER_08 40:11

Well, and uh uh to that point, there is a program that we've tapped into. Uh I wish I could tell you the I wish I could tell you the name of the program. It's uh but we had uh I say tapped into, I I was there was somebody that promoted it to me.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 40:28

Um uh Kelly Cole, who works at ULM, uh called me up and said, Hey, um, I'm doing this internship program. It's a uh it's a summer long program, X number of weeks. And uh we've got candidates that are interested in working in various different uh career businesses, and uh we've got several that are interested in law. Uh they're high school kids. Uh they can work up to 20 hours a week.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

So are they 18 yet? That's another question. Okay. Well, one of them was okay Did you have to sign like a waiver?

SPEAKER_08 41:12

The mother, uh the parents did. Yeah. The parents um like authorized or whatever that I dealt with the parents a bit. Yeah. Um, which was you know, which is fine. And and they uh but they we had a and we had a meeting, like actually in this room, and you know, I said, you know, this is uh I'm and they and they were paid by the state, I assumed the state, there was some kind of grant that was involved to fund their salary during the period of time that they worked here, and they were high school students. Um and you know, they had a I think they had a great time. They learned they got to learn and see a lot of things that we do here and things that probably they wouldn't have been exposed to had they not been in this office. And I and I talked to them a little bit about like the financial aspect of it from my client's standpoint, uh and just to kind of enlighten them about how things, you know, work in this area of law that I practice in. Yeah. And uh it was it was rewarding for me too from the standpoint of you know when it when you teach something, and I'm sure you know this working in higher education, it's kind of makes you it it makes you condense things and sharpens your uh makes you better. Yeah, I feel like it made me better to have that experience. So it was reward and it was rewarding for them because they got to step outside the box. Like these these two girls showed up the the they both started on the same day, and uh I had it in my head that I was not gonna let them just like sit and be on their phone all day.

SPEAKER_06 42:54

Good for you, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 42:55

And I'm like, because I I knew that they were gonna show up and they're gonna be doing this for eight hours, and I'm gonna be like, why are we why are we doing this? So like on that very first day, I had like a little straightening up in our storage area that needed to happen. I put them to work in the heat, in that storage room that's not air conditioned.

SPEAKER_06 43:17

You get to see all the sides of the city.

SPEAKER_08 43:18

And they look like legally blonde, like, you know, like they were all dressed to the nines. They thought they were going to court or something. I was like, no, we ain't starting in court.

SPEAKER_06 43:27

We're gonna we're gonna do the grunt work first. Uh that's good.

SPEAKER_08 43:32

They had they ended up having so much fun. I had fun, I had fun with them too.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Yeah. So that it that you bring up an interesting um thought with with the social media. I mean, do you notice that that young people just they cannot connect? That the awkwardness. I mean, I can remember going to going to uh school and like the school dance or something, everybody stares at the wall or their toes, and now they don't have any of that those awkward pauses. It's like, okay, well, how do I get out and go? Meet this person or do that. You just pick up your phone. It's like a crutch.

SPEAKER_08 44:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:04

It's like you just don't.

SPEAKER_08 44:05

And it's hard to put yourself out there. I'm 30, I'm 39 years old. Yeah. I recently am talking to another lawyer that I'm uh interested in bringing onto the firm. And um sh um this person is in her 20s. Okay. And um she like I call her and she doesn't answer the phone, but then she texts.

SPEAKER_06 44:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 44:29

It's like people don't want to talk on the phone.

SPEAKER_04 44:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 44:32

I don't know what that's about. I don't know what's going on. When did that happen?

SPEAKER_04 44:34

I don't know. Now I I will say that I have been guilty of that sometimes because I'm in a I'm in a meeting. Yeah, I'm in a meeting or when I was physician liaison. If I were somewhere with the physician, I wouldn't pick up the phone. Um but the text, I'm like, you can I can text you immediately and I can get with you. But I don't know. I think I think it's the awkwardness.

SPEAKER_08 44:55

It's the younger, it's the younger of those.

SPEAKER_04 44:57

It is. It's what if there's I don't I think they're afraid of that face-to-face interaction. It's not even face-to-face, but just like the live on the spot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What are they going to ask me? This is this is it's an interview. What if I what if I mess up the interview? It's, you know, part of learning is failure. I mean, how many times do you mess up something before you get it right? Um, they just don't socially, it seems like we don't allow our kids to mess up socially. Where you can be there and correct to them. Okay, so you you put your foot in your mouth. You're not gonna do it again. You can't hide behind text and social media forever. I mean, that's the only way you're gonna evolve.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Yeah. No, you're right.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

You know, whenever you walked in somewhere, uh I can remember as a kid, it's like, oh god, I really should have said that. Why'd I say that? Or just you know, some some dumb flub. Um you're right. How do you rebound from it? You just do. You just keep rolling.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Keep going.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

Yeah, that was stupid. I shouldn't have said that. And then you just keep on going. Now I think it lives, they are under such a microscope that they're afraid to mess up.

SPEAKER_08 46:02

So uh Warren Buffett talks about this thing uh that he finds in uh uh highly successful people that uh many of them have had a paper route or the paper route equivalent. And I have a similar philosophy, but about waiting tables. That's why I name this podcast Waiting Tables. I feel like I learned how to do this.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 46:24

Taking care of people at a restaurant like would you like conflict resolution, sweet or unsweet tea? You know, like like Yeah. Like you have to get to the you gotta get to the finish line. You get you know there's a goal. The goal is to get fed. Yeah. And you know, have a good experience. You gotta have a good experience. You gotta do it. You're part of that. Yeah, and it's a it's an important part of that.

SPEAKER_04 46:45

That's right. Both of my boys waited tables in college.

SPEAKER_08 46:48

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 46:49

Yeah, one worked at trios, he helped open trios at Rustin.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Oh, really? Okay.

SPEAKER_04 46:53

Yep. And then the other one worked at Ginsei. He went to Old Miss. So it was like a super busy hopping um I don't know, Ginsei restaurant. It's it's really good. It said um it's in Oxford, Mississippi.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

But the guy that owned it also worked there. So if they were low on bus boys, then he would get out and bus a table. I mean, he was great manager. All the college students loved working with him. And like my son had to work out, you you start out as a busboy. Everybody starts out as a bus boy. Yeah. And then you move your way up through the ranks, the bartender or waiter, where you get more money if you're a waiter. But they just had uh he he had a hierarchy and those kids earned it.

SPEAKER_08 47:31

That's like the best job.

SPEAKER_04 47:32

It really is.

SPEAKER_08 47:33

Like you get you get such a rich experience with all walks of life. I mean, even in nice restaurants, like it's not like everybody that comes through there is a gazillionaire, you know. And in in middle of the road restaurants, you get you know, gazillionaires in those places too. So it's it across the board, it is one of the best jobs for young person. Wait tables anywhere, wherever you can find a job. You're gonna wait more money doing that than probably any other job you can find.

SPEAKER_04 48:03

100%. I mean, and you're you can't have this crutch with you all the time. I mean, I know Hank, whenever I would try to reach out to him, if he was working, he would not even pick up his phone. I wouldn't hear from him until after a shift. And he's like, We're we can't use our phones. He said, I could check it when I go to the bathroom, maybe. But you know, if I if I if he knew like when I would come into town, I'd let him know how close I was. And he's like, I'll check it whenever we get a break, but I can't check it until after my shift's over. Not really. Can't talk to you after after my shift's over, which was good. I mean, it's good. They learn not to just live in that thing all the time. So it's a blessing and a curse.

SPEAKER_08 48:39

Board of Regents.

SPEAKER_04 48:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 48:41

There's some recent news uh I saw there was some correspondence that the governor had issued to uh who did he issue the he sent a letter?

SPEAKER_04 48:53

There was a letter that went out from the the federal department of education say that they were going to look into Louisiana for DEI, still having DEI as you know under the Trump administration and under this new legislation, legislators, um we did away with all DEI in schools. The prior administration had a lot of DEI and everything. Um diversity, equity, and inclusion.

SPEAKER_08 49:26

So that sounds like a wonderful concept.

SPEAKER_04 49:28

It does. It does. I think it was um I I think in some areas it it was it was abused.

SPEAKER_08 49:38

Um which way which I mean do we want to know about No, and I'm I'm saying it sounded like diversity, equity, and inclusion sound very like a virtuous thing.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

There was there was a little blurb that was in the old funding formula that was passed back in, I think 2019. I'm not sure when the old funding formula was. I think I think 2019, I should know this because I've looked at it so much. That had it excluded white males and Asians. And we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna look at all of the information on these students, but we're gonna exclude white males and Asians. You can't do that. I mean, you got to include everybody. Um that was sent to the secretary. Now that's since been scrubbed, and we are going off merit. How do we raise kids up so that they're at the level that they need to be in? Um the focuses that we're looking at right now is rewarding colleges for outcomes. How many students can you get in and get completed?

SPEAKER_01 50:39

I love that.

SPEAKER_04 50:40

Because that's important. Um, how many students can um what what are some of your your degrees of higher earning that we could we could move them along through? Also, your your degrees that may not pay a lot, but my gosh, we need them phlebotomists, um, CNA's. There's there's a whole list of of uh there's a whole list of degrees and programs that we need from the LCTCS, which is your old trade schools, um, and all the way to the four-year degrees for everywhere from bachelor's to beyond. And the the new um, let's see, it was the gosh, my brain's freaking out right now. Um the master plan. Thank you. The old master plan had some of the DEA DEI components in it. The new master plan is more focused on workforce. How do we get kids from K-12 all the way through through college into the workforce? How do we create a path? We're rewarding that. We're giving before we weren't giving credit to LCTCS for their skills, for their HVAC classes. They're only 18 months. So whenever you don't weight these things in the funding formula, those schools aren't getting paid. Regents distributes the money out of by looking at a funding formula. The DEI component was in the funding formula and it rewarded some schools disproportionately. And we have since gotten all of that out. Starting last year, we started moving a lot of this stuff through long before this last little headline came out. Actually, that was an article that was brought up, I want to say in October, probably before that, the first DEI article. But it was, it was, it came out because somebody founded an old HB1. And it was under prior administration, had nothing to do with the people that are there now, myself included, and trying to get things changed and move forward. As soon as all those mandates were put out that we're doing away with DEI. Um, we got back on track to trying to get kids educated into careers, which is what it should be. That all that um those changes were made in 25. And we're starting to see the funding formula will be run this year. We're starting to see some some different uh priorities in education, which they really do need to be there.

SPEAKER_08 53:10

I like I like what you said about funding outcomes.

SPEAKER_04 53:14

Getting to fund outcomes.

SPEAKER_08 53:16

Because, you know, in my business, and I mean I'm just one example of, you know, there's other there's other ways of skinning the cat, you know, but this is the way my business works is I don't receive a dime from anybody Until you do your job. Until I collect, until I do the job that I was hired to do.

SPEAKER_05 53:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_08 53:37

And it's it hold it keeps me accountable. It it makes my, you know, it just makes everything work. I mean, it all works. And it's amazing. Like I do the job, I do what I'm supposed to do, and everybody's suddenly happy. Yeah, and then I'll be happy along the way, you know, and I may not be happy along the way. I might have to work, I might have to sh do something that's difficult or challenging, or prepare or get get ready to do something that's challenging, or try a case.

SPEAKER_04 54:03

And if you don't, there's an accountability metric behind there. You're not going to get another client. You're gonna have bad word of mouth. I mean, there's always an accountability metric. I think we've tried to make education in schools such a safe space that we've forgotten that to hold people accountable. Yeah. And and that again, failure, you learn from it. It helps you grow. Um, if I want to be the very best attorney that I want to be, I'm gonna have to learn from my mistakes so I can write that ship and keep going forward. I mean, that's we don't we we we need to allow, we need to allow and teach that more in schools too. I think that prepares kids. And colleges that do it well, they should get rewarded for it.

SPEAKER_08 54:46

What about healthcare? Um, you're you have a business related healthcare. I don't know what I don't I don't know anything about that.

SPEAKER_04 54:52

So whenever whenever I got put on the board of regents as chair, I was working with Affinity at the time as their health care, as their physician recruiter. It was bought out by Baton Rouge Clinic. And they wanted to keep me on, but I said, I'm going to be an HR nightmare. Why don't we just do a consulting basis? So I still work for BRC as a consultant. So when they need um when we're recruiting docs, which they're not for up here right now, uh, I would help with that. When we have legislation that's coming through, I help with that. I try to help them get linked in with the community. What are some of the community needs? Right now, we're trying to figure out how to reach more businesses. If you guys need some help screenings and things like that, I might know somebody. So you know, you just try to you try to link in business and just try to drive business to Baton Rouge Clinic. Kind of the same, kind of a marriage of the two things that I was doing when I was at St. Francis and also at Affinity.

SPEAKER_08 55:48

Okay. And so um are you dealing with like primary care or like all of it.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

I mean it depends on the specialty. Specialties?

SPEAKER_08 55:57

Yes. Like what kind of specialties?

SPEAKER_04 55:58

Oh, we need we need some. We need a lot of, we need more specialists up here. But since Baton Rouge Clinic does not have a hospital, the when we hire specialists, well, we can um we can hire them and they can go work at any hospital that they want to. So for instance, if we hired, we don't do ortho, but if we hired an ortho, he could have um he could have privileges at St. Francis, Glenwood, Oshner, wherever, wherever he can get the business. Um, what we try to do is get business to those physicians. We have panels, gosh, healthcare is such an animal to eat in a few minutes. Um everything is driven by referrals, it seems like now. And you have the way Baton Rouge Clinic hires is you are you act as an independent practitioner and you eat what you kill. However many patients you have come in, that's that's what you get paid for off of a metric, kind of like the funding formula in higher ed. We want to drive as many patients to that physician as possible. And since they're independent, there's really not a competition. Yeah, it's not like you can only go to St. Francis doctors, you can only go to Oshner doctors. You can come to us from anywhere and we'll see you. Same the same plane. If they want to go see some, if they want to do their surgeries at a certain hospital, it's not like they have to have the referral path that you would if you were employed by that hospital. We need we don't need to lose our independent physicians. Well, and it seems like to me, and uh kind of like I like to be an advocate for the independent physicians because we need them.

SPEAKER_08 57:35

Well, and I I think so too. I I I have a big the biggest advocate for physicians across the board, across all specialties. Yeah. Um and I for me, like I feel like I in my business I deal with physicians all the time.

SPEAKER_06 57:51

You know, yeah, I bet you do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 57:53

I mean, from you know, and I don't I don't do med mouth stuff. Like I'm not saying there's not a place for that. It's just not my not interested in it. It's not something that I do. But I am an advocate for people that are injured that are typically receiving treatment from uh orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons. Um, one thing that I notice we don't have a lot of is neurologists. It'd be great if we had a neurologist.

SPEAKER_04 58:20

Shortage neurology, urology, dermatology, ENTs. That's probably my four, that was the four biggest ones.

SPEAKER_08 58:29

Yeah. And it seems like all the ENTs are retiring and Larry Dana died, you know, locally. But but all those guys they had their own like their own independent shop, and now it seems like it's all just getting sucked up by like a hedge fund or something.

SPEAKER_04 58:45

Well, it's yeah, private equity. But a lot of it is it's so difficult to get reimbursement payment. It's that's why a lot of physicians like to go to an employment model so they don't have to worry with all the books. There's somebody there that does credentialing when Blue Cross or whomever changes up in October of what they're gonna see or what they're gonna cover. There's there's a person that's dedicated there to understand that. Where a physician just can just come in and put on their coat and their stethoscope and go to work, get to seeing patients. Now they there's a lot of um well, you have a my chart. Do you have a my chart for your health?

SPEAKER_08 59:23

Uh, you know, I know what it is, but I don't use it.

SPEAKER_04 59:25

Yeah, that's that was all predicated by the Epic whenever they started doing electronic billing. So there was a way that you could put in all the physician, could put on all their notes and they could put in all their stuff, so it made it more seamless with billing. That has since grown. So now your MRIs, your blood work, all of your medical information and the physician notes are put into the Epic system, which you can then pull up and read in your MyChart. If you go from Munro to your primary care physician all the way to Baton Rouge to a specialist, those notes are automatic. So that that physician can pull up your my chart and have everything.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:07

So the benefit of your other encounters with different providers.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:11

Used to, you'd have to go to the office and get your file and carry it to the specialist. Now that's that's really made the world smaller. Yeah, it has. As far as medicine, it definitely makes things more seamless. Um, and it it it helps your independent physicians. Not all of them can afford to get on the epic system, though, because it's very expensive. So there is some legislation. I think there's some money that's coming in through LDH that they're gonna try to have an arm of the Epic system in the my chart that would actually be able to be offered to independents. Because like we were talking about earlier with electricians, you may want to go out on your own, but there's a there's a component to that that's more costly. One of the things is this electronic billing system. But um, we're we're trying to close that gap a little bit too.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:58

The uh the it's in it, I've had some conversations with providers um that it sounds like to me there's like insurance rate uh reimbursements are like going down. And it's like for some reason, I don't know if it's I don't know what exactly the deal is, but it's like premiums are going up, and then but what the physicians are getting paid is going down.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:28

That's that's been kind of happening for a while. I mean, let's face it, we're Louisiana, we're a horribly unhealthy state. We have great food though. Um when I used to recruit cardiologists, I'm like, you're gonna be real busy here because there's everybody's got high blood pressure, everybody's got high cholesterol, um, most people too many people are overweight, and that that takes a toll on your insurance. That takes a toll on uh on our society and our our the cost of health care. So splitting that out, and I just it's gotten to be such an animal. Again, whenever I've was first started out in pharmaceuticals, there were not that many, um, there were not that many PBMs with with all of your prescriptions. I mean, it kind of the doctor got to write what he wanted to write.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:17

And if it didn't work for you, you would say, hey, this gave me headaches or this gave me upset stomach, whatever. He's like, well, that's fine. Here, I'll give you this one. And guess what? It was covered. Now it's like, okay, well, is it on your plan? Do you have to pay extra for it? You have to jump through all these hoops. I think we've gone backward, and I guess the intent to help health care and get everyone covered, it's almost like we've gone backward and made it entirely too complicated. It should just be physician is able to practice medicine without having to do so defensively. Now, I know you know there's there's some that that have ill intent, but it's called the practice of medicine, not ill intent, but they just they need they need a little work. Um, it's called the practice of medicine for a reason. I the first drug I give you may not work. You know what? Your body's different than mine. May work great for me, may work great for 70% of his patients, but you were the one that it didn't work as well on. And we keep penalizing our physicians for that. And I don't know how you wind that clock backwards.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:22

That is well, that's a beast. I go back to, you know, I get what I what the thing that I keyed in on that you said was outcomes. Yeah. It's like let's reward the people that the providers that have good outcomes, fewer bad outcomes and more good outcomes.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:40

Yes. You know, and that could be easier with surgeons, but for instance, there was um there was a metric when I was at at one of the one of the uh institutions that I worked at that if you had, let's say, if you had heart surgery, that patient needed to leave with beta blocker, ACE inhibitor, um cholesterol med, and something else. Well, what if that patient already had low blood pressure? The computer tells you you have to have all this, and your outcomes are measured by all of these things. But a beta blocker is gonna lower your blood pressure and you're gonna be dizzy all the time. You're not gonna feel great. Um, it doesn't always allow for that. There's always that outlier that makes it difficult. I mean, again, it's an outlier, it's probably a smaller percentage, but still, does that that doctor's gotta wear that ding for that?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

Well the computer told me I had to do it. I knew the patient had low bread blood pressure, but you know, how how do you get around these things?

SPEAKER_08 1:04:39

Well, and I mean, I uh at some point, I mean, like it's the physician that went to med school and residency and all that, they gotta be the guy that stands behind the decision to do whatever, whether the computer suggests.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:52

I don't teach all that in school anymore, either.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:56

You've got a lot of rule followers, and again, it's the practice of medicine. And that's just one, that's just one example. I mean, what about your engineers? I mean, what about you get to use your brain and problem solve and come up and be, you know, good old-fashioned ingenuity. I don't think we'd reward that enough. I think we've gotten to be a little too litigious and and you have to do things a certain way and box checkers. And we're we just don't we don't make as many things as what we used to. I mean, just think of all the things that we have invented in our nation and how that came about. Wasn't necessarily by following everything to the way the every yeah, I mean, like, you know, you can you can't what's the death of any organization? That's the way we've always done it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:43

I mean and then you follow the beaten path. It's a beaten path. You know, sometimes it's a beaten path for a reason, but yeah, sometimes there's a better there's a new path that could be better.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:52

That's right.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:53

Yeah, so absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:54

We should allow uh we should allow for that.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:56

I agree.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:56

Which go that goes back to colleges. I mean, how are you measuring those outcomes? level colleges it's gonna be about grads but you know I would love to see it us us look later at rewarding colleges that not only create graduated students but did they stay in the state of Louisiana were certain firms looking for oh this kid came from ULM all my all my everybody I've hired from ULM is really great I think I'm gonna you know if I'm looking at a resume this is gonna this ULM student is gonna have an advantage yeah and and why would that be?

SPEAKER_08 1:06:34

Like how do we how do we have a series of fair accountability and metrics that equate to outcomes that we can measure our colleges with our student our school as a whole another statistic that I think it's fair well it's fair what is fair what is fair what is fair I know what is fair is it fair if you have a good rapport with your teacher and you maybe get a little bit of an edge whenever the crunch time comes and the grades are administered.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:10

But you get so mired down on the minutiae and nothing gets done yeah that's the that's the part you just gotta you just gotta roll you just gotta roll to keep rolling man like you know my kids have bad teachers I'm like guess what you're gonna have bad bosses figure it out figure out figure out how to win over that one that you exactly yeah yeah you're gonna have a bad table when you're waiting tables that you're gonna have this one over here that you want to go fill their tea up every time they they take a drink because they're so pleasant and you're gonna have these over here you want to just they want to die of thirst I don't know but it's you got to figure it out you got to strike the balance and figure it out.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:47

Yeah and you gotta have the you know awareness of reading the situation you know I mean sometimes people are just they're just not ever going to like you and that's and sometimes they could have had a bad day that too and you you're being kind and attentive could be the bright spot in their really crappy day.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:08

You just never know. But yeah you learn how to read the room and you learn how to to recognize roll through it.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:15

Just do what you can do and roll on.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:17

Because there's I mean stopping's not an option up your apron and go home.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Start sit there sit go to the safe room and get your yeah go get your snug cry yeah no nobody there there's no crying in in waiting waiting tables crying in baseball suck it up man you're gonna let it's not gonna kill you. It's not gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:40

No. Well but go going to the outcomes thing though you know that's why you have like you look at big numbers and you look at you know I mean I would think yeah and I go I was talking with somebody else about this too. It's like yeah I don't know if you're familiar with um the No Surprises Act. It's it's federal legislation that deals with insurance billing. Yes. And it created this IDR process. It's a you can get a quote well you can get a you can get an arbitr a physician, a provider can go to through an arbitration process if they provided treatment in particular circumstances. The biggest most obvious one is if it's a call encounter with a patient that's out of network like an emergency call or emergency say you have a somebody breaks their hip and they need emergency hip surgery with an orthopedist and the orthopedist that's there is maybe maybe he's an employee of the hospital maybe he's not um but if it's an out-of-network encounter then the charges that that physician encountered or uh his billing yeah the billing will with the out-of-network deal they they typically will either ignore the the bill yeah and they'll see and send an EOB to the patient and the provider basically says they're this is what they're paying or they're not paying anything. Or um uh and or they'll pay like a very small amount like a minimum like the the patient would pay the physician a small amount. The the insurance oh the private insurance yeah and so uh in those situations the provider actually has the can avail himself through the No Surprises Act or federal IDR uh to a dispute resolution process involves uh requesting an arbitrator be appointed to review the matter and to fix the bill and there's a negotiation so they would get paid a fair price. Yes exactly so they would get paid that in accordance with what the circumstances they would get paid for their service at the cost of the service versus getting a surprise. Yeah everything including the the outcome you know and to me uh I just think that's in the other part about why does there have to be legislation for that though? Because we have legislation that requires everybody to get up the trick.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:21

I get it. No I I I get what you're saying. It's good that we have that but I mean gosh society should we should really do better. You should pay a physician for what for the work that he's done but that's where I was getting at earlier with healthcare it's gotten so muddled. Man it used to be you pay a person for the service they provided now it's it's got so there's so much minutia in the middle of all of it. It's not just easy for a physician anymore to go hang his coat up and or go put his coat on in a stethoscope and go to work which takes us back to what we were talking about earlier why so many physicians choose to be employed because they're gonna have an arbit they're not going to have to leave the clinic they're gonna have somebody that's there working under that they're working under the group that they're working under that's gonna handle all that arbitration it's it's gotten so complicated where it should not be so complicated. But that's I mean I like I like that like what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:20

I think that's a good bill it's certainly going to help the physician well it just doesn't save them any time it passed in 2020 twenty three and it's really it's only been around because it went into effect in twenty four so it's only been around for two years and it's really un unsub undersubscribed it's I was about to say how many of your independent doctors know to go through they don't even know about this. I've been having conversations because I'm like I want to get into this I think it's an amazing opportunity for for the provider too. Absolutely and it's like if you but if you look at it nobody even knows about it. And then the r the reimbursement rates are going down the premiums are going up you know there's like a 30 40% increase in premiums for people that are paying for health insurance across the board right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

And it's just like there's and they're so busy they they probably don't know about it. I mean that's what I felt like I was a resource as a pharmaceutical rep because back in the day I mean I could read everything from the package insert you know when you go get your Tylenol that wad of paper that comes out of it. I used to have to give yeah I used to have to give details off of that I would I would have to detail off the package insert I had to know how to read a study. We had to know how to you know of course go over our slick but the slicks were just that was sales and marketing. I had a physician that really wanted to get into the the science of the drug you you would need to talk some science to them. And I felt like I was able to provide a resource to that physician because we actually came in and we educated because during the day he doesn't have time he's seeing patients he's doing his call going to go home and try to spend time with family when are they going to have time to learn about something that's new on the market yeah or if they had heard something bad about it because your competitors are always coming in talking trash about your stuff um how do you dispel it? So I mean y'all I felt like we did truly provide a resource to the physicians in order to do that. I had five minutes to go back there and tell them what they needed to know.

unknown 1:14:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:20

And then leave some samples behind and then get feedback on them. You know if they had a patient that had an interaction or if they had a patient that couldn't afford their meds we could get coupons uh we could do things for them.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:30

But the affordability of healthcare is ultimately the it hadn't gone down much for physicians.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:37

I think uh oh this was a few years back it was a doctor we were recruiting general surgeon um malpractice insurance alone with the group rate I want to say was like $75,000 a year. It's just a carrier insurance that's a big chunk.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:56

What's amazing is they really don't have very much liability like they don't get sued that often I know this and they also don't lose when they do get sued like it's with the independent or with the employed physician yeah any of them yeah any of them. I'm talking about you would know more about that side than I would say don't lose physicians don't lose and I'm not saying it shouldn't I'm not saying that they don't deserve some protections. Yeah but they're protec they're the most protected uh contract contracting business that you can be in I mean I don't have those protections you don't have those uh but they're their electrician doesn't have those protections so much training on the front there's no limits to my liability and I'm I'm not saying there should be yeah like but physicians have limits to their that's part of their grading skill though you know how how you treat a patient just like what I was talking about earlier with the heart surgery surgery.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:51

You have to send them home on these four drugs and if you don't you're gonna get dinged so they're not able to practice medicine. I mean it's well they are but I mean it it's still rewarding it's definitely a rewarding career don't get me wrong but it's it's taken away some of the autonomy because there's so many rules that are in there to keep institutions from getting sued. So they're like you can't do this you have to do this you you know you have to go outside at noon and hop on one leg. There's lots there's lots of there's lots of uh not just guardrails there's there's lots things that physicians have to do now versus just be able to practice. So they they shouldn't be making as they're not allowed to make mistakes anymore.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:33

Well I mean I think that's I think that that's a that's an like I I hate to stifle someone's professional creativity with unnecessary rules. Um but I g I I keep going back to the outcomes thing like outcomes outcomes. Like what the regardless of what regardless of what the rules are yeah I mean follow the rules don't follow the rules what are your outcomes like what percentage of cases do you have with a successful outcome what percentage of cases do you have with a bad outcome and let's like have honest conversations with everybody about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:10

There'll always be some sort of extenuating circumstance but you shouldn't change the rules because of that one thing or that small percentage you should have everything uniform across the board. There's something that happens you deal with it and you like you said you keep rolling with it.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:28

Be um the other thing is and what this is this is what's been in my head and I'm just like like I don't like I don't I just feel like I have to say this. Yeah so you go to the doctor's office I actually went to the doctor yesterday like I had got a shot you know getting the crud shot or whatever you want to call it sinuses everybody's sinuses are going crazy right now. And I give my the desk clerk the my insurance card and she's like do you know what your copay is like I don't know anything about it. In it on that card somewhere she's like okay well and like I said just send me a bill I'll pay the bill or I'll whatever you want to do. Whatever you want to do I'll do whatever you need me to do. And um but it it occurred to me that like they can they're bound by the insurance agreement that they have with my insurer okay and so that means they've got to bill me in accordance with that agreement because I'm like one of the chosen few with that insurance company uh provider or whatever you know and they have that agreement. And that's great that's great. But to me what's kind of crazy is why can't it to me there should be like if there's going to be standardization it should be standardization with what the insurance companies pay the providers and then if the provider doesn't exceptionally makes me feel good makes me want to come back makes me want to stay a patient of theirs why can't they charge me beyond like if they've got a waiting room full of people why can't they increase their rate with you know you see what I'm saying? And so standardize who cares what your insurance is insurance company is always going to pay X number of dollars for this particular service but if you have an agreement with your patient like we're gonna bill you X amount of dollars more and so then there's like I don't know maybe that's the thing and that may be where some of them would go out and decide to become independent.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:35

You know if you're if you feel like you're getting paid the same amount as your peers and you have a a chock full waiting room every single time I mean you'd think that little economics would go in there supply and demand. Still though I mean you have your your population that can only pay so much they can't afford to pay anything extra. It again it's complicated. I mean it's just healthcare is so complicated. It would be great to have a magic bullet to fix all of it but it's just so many facets to to it it's not just I go in and I see a physician I do a I I'm so happy with my treatment I go tell all my friends yeah and then they're all go into them too. I mean we all we all know those doctors there there's there's a quite a few of them around here well there's a couple of dermatologists that like they're not seeing new people they they can't yeah they can't but they I mean I don't think that they can raise their rates either they might that's they're stuck. They are they are I mean if you provided a new service that's why a lot of them go get into the cosmetic side of it there's no managed care in cosmetics. Your Botox you're never going to get your Botox paid for with your your managed care card your insurance card I tell people all the time I said uh they don't give enough Botox for my the looks on my face whenever I see myself on camera. Somebody says something crazy I'm like shouldn't have made that face because of subtitles so often.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:59

So tell tell me about running for uh Congress like that's it it's I I haven't heard you say that you were like uh you've held other elected positions but you but you have been appointed to things so I've been appointed I mean I've held I've helped with lots of campaigns I've had people ask me to run for office my my um my my my go-to line was always heck I like to support good people and as long as there's good people in office I I'm gonna stay right here and I'll I'll be support however I can point me to something help with fundraisers um I'll help link you with some people in healthcare if you want to write a health care bill um education stuff I'm doing some of that right now still with some of our legislators you know you want to write this bill I'll give you some some tips on some things that I see that could make that a little bit better.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:52

I love that side of it. I like to be involved but when Julia decided to run for the Senate seat the way that the congressional district has been carved up does not look anything like what it used to. And I helped on Dr. Abraham's campaign I helped on Luke's campaign and I helped on Julia's as well born and raised in CD5 the fact that we were being lumped into Baton Rouge I said if somebody from Baton Rouge wins the seat it's never going to go back to the way it used to you know we had the whole that could be a whole other podcast about the the D SAG order. Um but when they redraw those maps I want to make sure that Northeast Louisiana has somebody here that gets a say and that needs to be somebody that's serving as the incumbent so I finally decided to throw my hat in the ring and that's whenever I pulled the trigger and decided to run.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:42

Well that's a courageous step.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:46

I mean that's amazing and thank you for taking that on I mean we need candidates that are you know I feel like that are going to represent yeah this this region it's important we're different in education healthcare and ag I mean that's really what drives us and even with with some of the new district there's a lot of farmers from everything loggers row crop farmers cattle farmers I mean there's there's just a lot that is going on in this area that's agriculture related and we need to say for that we have meta coming we we've got a lot that we need to get caught up on in education and I feel like my unique experience that I have that makes me qualified for this position is I've worked in each and every one of those fields. I mean I've got a working knowledge of each and every one of those little the those those segments and I know somebody there I've got some problem solving skills behind me. And I really do think that I could take that and make a difference and bring some stuff back home. And it's not about the title if I wanted a title I would have run for something by now. That's not what it's about it's about do coming back and doing something for this community that's impactful.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:59

Right well the um if let's say it's your first week in office so many things. What what well let me ask you this if you could pass a piece of legislation any leg federal legislation what do you think would be of of the moment at the right now what do you see as a priority that's that's I don't know that I could come up with that in like a five minute question.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:32

Education definitely because education is is the rising tide that lifts all boats but that's complicated because right now Trump I met with Secretary McMahon the last time she came in town he basically told her that he's hiring her to work herself out of a job so does federal government do education better than your individual states I don't know yeah you have states rights you had a lot of federal funding that goes into each and every state so how does that impact how the autonomy that you have in being able to to run education do you have to have put so much federal wording that's how the DEI component got in there in the first place all these federal grants that are linked have you have have you do you have any experience in grant writing I've never written a grant I mean I understand what a grant is yeah a grade application for funds. Yes so I got I got put on a task force with LDH and we had to look at we had to look at some grants so that was kind of like my maiden voyage with that but you had a certain grant that was being written and you have these these 10 components does it does it hit items one through 10 well the people writing the grant also know that we're looking for item one through 10. So that is written out with all those 10 components hit. So just think about what that does when you're having to ask money for from the feds and some of the DEI stuff is what they're pushing. They're gonna have to write whenever they're requesting money from the federal government they're gonna have to have a component in there is that really helping I mean do are we better for it if I have to if I have to play the game in order to get this grant um is that really going to be what at the end of the day is it is it going to make us better? Is this is this the state's push something that the state needs or is this something that the feds are trying to push on our state and that I don't know how you work that into a bill um again that's that's very complicated. There's so many things spinning in my head that I would like to fix right now. I don't know that I could just pick one uh farm bills trying to help our our farmers what do you see as it's gotten very complicated too I'm very unfamiliar with anything agricultural farming related or what the issues are I got a question the other day on tariffs I'll just give you an example and and my answer was and I was I was caught off guard is that we're trying to play the long game you know let let Trump do what he's doing with the tariffs it may hurt for a second but at the end of the day we're trying to play the long game and it's about fairness you know if we export import all that should be fair our farmers should get paid much like you were talking about with physicians they should get paid a fair price for their crops and that should not change by any foreign entry entities and that's that's just one of the many aspects of ag and with the with the tariff situation did that answer your question it kind of went around in a circle my brain my brain is like a little it's like a d a dog with a rabbit chasing down all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:46

I I feel I did the tariff thing is definitely like it's obviously with the Supreme Court recent decision um basically striking down a bunch of the tariffs that uh I guess President Trump

SPEAKER_04 1:28:04

But is it really you think that's really gonna stop the charge on the tariffs? The Supreme Court's ruling. What is your thought about the Supreme Court ruling?

SPEAKER_08 1:28:12

Well, it I listened to the State of the Union uh the other night, and I mean President Trump seemed to indicate that he had some other ways to uh by executive order uh enact these tariffs or keep these tariffs rolling or whatever. Um but ultimately, I mean, it would be interesting to like I mean, and I'm not I'm not I'm not sure. Like I kind of like the idea that our leader can create a situation that they have to negotiate around.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:48

He's responsible for the economic impact of our nation, be it good or bad. I mean, at the end of the day, when they go back and look at at what he's done, that's gonna be on his shoulders.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:58

Just look at his outcome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:59

So why not let him have a little autonomy? Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:01

I mean, he should I mean it's He should. Yeah. He should have some autonomy. Just like whenever somebody else is in office, they should have some autonomy. And but I mean, it's an inappropriate. I don't know what you know, I'm not a constitutional scholar.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:20

Uh so uh I probably should have read up on the uh there there's some nuances there that that could could that that uh go along with the Constitution. But uh from a business standpoint. I see it as like this is I mean, Trump's doing this wild man, you know, negotiation thing. And I think there's something to that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:49

He's also a businessman.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:51

So he's not a politician, which is which is one of the things sometimes we get, again, so mired down in the minutia of this is this this legislation, that legislation. What about what works in business? You know, he I think he's playing the, like I said, he's playing the long game. He's realizing from his business experience in negotiations, look, I need to have, I need I we need to have a little bit of teeth in the game where imports and exports are. Why, why should we just always kowtow to other countries for whatever reason? Why can't we ask for a fair price? I mean, why are we the bad guy for asking for a fair price? And if you're not gonna, if you're gonna t charge us taxes whenever we import stuff to you, then we have the choice of of doing the same thing on the flip side. Why is that bad?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:42

Um but I think it's because he came in as a businessman, not a politician, that he actually tries to come in and solve problems. Versus, I mean, how many times have you seen legislation that's passed that goes nowhere? I mean, it's it it looks good, it's a great soundbite. I mean, it's a but what the heck does it do?

SPEAKER_08 1:31:01

It's basically somebody's planking their platform.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:03

Yes, that's it. And I think we've had so many years of that, and then so many years of people that weren't willing to say that's a dumb piece of legislation. You know, that's one of the things about Trump. He he says what he thinks, um, that we've we've just I don't I don't think we've moved our nation forward.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:23

I think we've gone backward.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:25

I definitely feel like we've gone backward in health care for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:28

We've gone backward in healthcare. Like as a nation, what do we make in the nation anymore? I mean, we don't have steel mills anymore. We don't have manufacturing's gone by the wayside. We're not celebrating trades. Um, I know in colleges, I mean, in in K-12, so often your guidance counselor is trying to put you on a career path to college. Why aren't they pushing trades? Um I I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:51

What about our population growth situation?

SPEAKER_04 1:31:56

So birth rates contributed to what? Like birth rates or people coming in?

SPEAKER_08 1:32:01

Birth rates are on the decline.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:04

They are.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:05

And so we're I don't I think at this exact moment in time we still are a growing population. But based upon the trend, like in the next 20 years we'll be a declining population by the numbers, by meaning more people are getting a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:22

Look at what that's doing to China right now.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:24

Say that again.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:25

Look what that's doing to China right now. What is their birth rate? Is it under one child? I think it's like I think it's under one.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:32

The one child policy drastically, severely has put China in a horrible economic condition.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:40

They have a large population of people, but the one child policy, they don't have enough workers. They don't have they have no ag. I don't think that they're able to grow anything there. They import everything. That's not a situation we want to be in. That's when you like your freedoms and and your constitutional freedoms that you have. Why we should work as hard as we can to protect those. They're very important.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:02

I mean, how do we get families? Because I think it's pretty I mean, like, I don't think this is controversial. And like my hand uh hats off to the single moms out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:12

True, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:13

But families do a better job raising kids.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:20

Like husband and wife. Mother and father.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:23

The good old-fashioned nuclear family, yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:26

And we those barely exist now.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:29

It does.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:31

So and it's I don't see anything it does it does feel like there's a like a resurgence of faith and you know, I don't want to say religion, but like you know, I feel like there is a it's I f I feel like more people are more interested in going to church and interested in like scripture today than maybe even five years ago or ten years ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:59

I I I can I can definitely see that. And you know, that's also I mean, like it or not, I I think I've seen a rise in patriotism again since Trump's been in. Also a rise of people looking at faith and family. Um it's it's less we're less we're more in an era of how do we get better versus how do we not be a victim. I I and I like that. I like that approach. I think that that's something that's gonna make us stronger again as a nation. Let's look at the things that make us better. Family, nuclear family, it makes us better.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:37

I don't care whether you're black or white or Asian or that is whatever all-encompassing. Families to do it better.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:44

A dad in home that's gonna that's gonna tell a daughter you're not going out of the house in that, or a son, you don't talk to your mom that way. I mean, just that type of correction that's lovingly done in a home. Because the world, when you get out in the world, that there's there's no guarantee that somebody loves you that's gonna correct you out in the society. You need to have that at home. It prepares a kid, just like school, prepares a kid to go out and be able to be an upstanding member of society and and do well. And you set them on a path to success. Without that, I mean, we're setting our kids up for failure. And there's no amount of safe spaces that are are gonna fix the root of the problem.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:24

I think you're exactly right. Thank you for coming in. I really appreciate you uh spending the time here. And I'm excited to uh see how your campaign goes. Thank you. I wish you all the best. And thank you for stepping up to uh to represent uh Northeast Louisiana.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:40

Happy to do it, happy to do it. It's just it's odd being the candidate versus just helping with a campaign. So I just have to kind of block all that out of my mind and say it's just another campaign. It's just another campaign I'm working on. It just happens to be mine. But it's good. Thank you for having me today. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:56

Well, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:57

Please tell Cassie and Martin and Misty hello.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:59

I will do it.