#209 A Better Path? Why Skilled Trades Might Beat College with JJ Owen Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker-Robbins  01:05

If your child is college bound, you’ve probably been handed a single script, grades, tests, applications, rinse and repeat. But what if the best path for your child is not a four year degree right away, or maybe at all, or perhaps you’re just stuck between options? A growing number of families are no longer treating skilled careers as a backup plan. They know that in the trades, your young person can build a high purpose, high paying career that requires talent training and real skill and yet so many families never seriously consider these paths, because no one explains what’s possible, how to explore them, or how to talk about them without judgment. In this conversation, I am joined by JJ Owen, Executive Director of the skilled careers coalition. JJ is on a mission to reframe skilled trades as the skilled careers they truly are. We talk about why the labor gap is growing, why exposure needs to start earlier than most parents think, and how to help your child stay curious rather than default to the path that feels most familiar, we also dig into where parents can find real opportunities, from community colleges to apprenticeships to employer training, and how interests like sports, music and entertainment Connect to skilled careers in ways your child may never have considered. If you want your child to have more than one good option and you want to feel confident about supporting a path that actually fits well, my friend, you’re in the right place. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right into a great conversation.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  02:48

JJ Owen, welcome to the show. What’s shaking, Lisa, how you doing? I’m great. I am so excited about this conversation, because a year ago, this is something we were going all in on. Was to make our launch Career Clarity process more welcoming to people of all educational pathways, I felt like we were too college focused, and not all three of my kids went to college, and I wanted to be more welcoming and supportive of skilled trades and alternative educational paths, other than just college. So I’m glad we’re going to be talking about that today.

 

JJ Owen  03:28

Heck yeah, this is going to be great. It’s, it’s, we certainly are amongst a moment, aren’t we? Yes, we are grades and education and whatnot. So it’s pretty cool. I love, love this conversation.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  03:39

So tell everybody a little bit about the organization of which you are the executive director and what your goal is,

 

JJ Owen  03:48

yeah, so I’m the executive director of the skilled careers Coalition. We’re a national organization that’s really oriented and aiming towards rebuilding the American workforce. Right? We have gone come so far here. And you know, we have a massive growing labor gap and and part of that is, you know, because we, we’ve, we’ve done the trades a disservice, right? We have held it up as the exemplary, you know, career path that it can be. And so, you know, one of the two big mandates that we have is, first off, repositioning skilled trades as what they really are, which is skilled careers, right? We want a young person or even a careers transitioner, right? We want anybody to realize that their propensity to create and build and manifest and like Tinker, like those, are all skills that can be launch pads to high purpose, high paid careers, right? So repositioning the trades in the in the eyes of the general public is a big thing, right? Like having it show up with with a high degree of merit alongside the four year college or armed forces like we just, you know, we need to hold that vocational path up as well. And then, on the other hand, the other area that. We focus on is really building the field. You know, I think we got to the place where we are today when it comes to the labor gap. And you know, the issue with finding qualified talent for the trades, because we were in a very disaggregated ecosystem, if you will, buzzword, if you had that on your ecosystem. But I think, you know, from what we’re seeing, there really is a need to bring people together across all these stakeholder groups, you know, yes, youth and parents, but also educators and advisors and industry and nonprofit and policymakers, right? You know, when we got started, we took a look at all the infrastructure. You don’t want to start something and bring sand to the beach, right? Like we are underwritten by a very generous philanthropist and, and this gentleman was just like, you know, I know a lot of great work is being done, but like, if I wanted to be a venture philanthropist and start something and really address a couple of gaps in the market, what would it be? And one was field building, and then the other was, you know, destigmatizing and repositioning the trades. And so that’s what we do today, right? Like we’re we’re trying to shift the narrative when it comes to trades as a career path. We’re trying to open people’s eyes and provide awareness around these different pathways and career opportunities that come with the trades. And then we’re trying to employ a roadie to Rockstar mentality, where we’re the roadies as a coalition entity, we want to hold up the amazing work that’s being done by some really remarkable groups out there, like Skills USA, like tech force, like NCCR, right? Like we want to give them a platform to really go further faster together.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  06:35

I feel the destigmatic. Oh, easy for me to say, dematization piece, even as a mom, right? My regular listeners hear me talk about my kids all the time, and you know what we’ve done as a family? I worked. I was a high school teacher for eight years, and then I started a company, and one of the hats that I wore was I was an independent college counselor. So I’ve worked with the college bound and supporting college bound families for years, but for my own kids, one one of my twins, my boy twin, I knew early on that college would not suit him well, like that was just not going to be where he should go if he wanted to thrive in life. And so when he was in eighth grade, was the first time we really started talking about trades with him. And then in 10th grade, he did shadow day at the vocational high school, and that’s where he ended up going. And as a person who was working as a college counselor, the number of people who were comfortable saying to me, like, what you’re you’re sending your son to a vocational high school like with such judgment in disdain. And I was like, holy cow, what is wrong with people like this is what fits him as a career advisor, career coach. I’m all just about like, let’s get the self awareness and figure out what fits. I could care less if it’s what that educational route is, but I was met with that, and I felt that as a mom, and of course, I got like, defensive of my kiddo. Like, yeah, you know? Like, this is fantastic. And you know what? Guess what? He’s 24 married, has a kid thriving in his trade. And I’m with you. I think I don’t want any parent to feel that weight of shame or judgment, and I certainly we, as adults, we can navigate that better. These kids do not need to feel that like there’s great opportunities out there. Let’s just find what fits.

 

JJ Owen  08:42

So I think Ted lasso said it best be curious, not judgmental, right? Like, get curious about it. Like I, you know, I was sharing a little bit of my story with you when I first met. Like, I played baseball all through my whole life, high school, college, like that. That was my, my trade, right? That was my I see a lot of parallels right there, in terms of, like, exploring their pathway. I did not because of baseball. I didn’t go with, you know, kick the tires on what it would look like to be a mason or whatnot, right? Like, and I really wish that I would have, because, you know, I see a lot of, like, shared parallels with I was a catcher when I played baseball. Like, there’s a lot of things that I could pull through in terms of the skills that I developed as a student athlete, or it would have served me well on a career path like masonry or working on job site or whatnot, like and, but I never had that exposure like I was, I, you know, I was a early millennial, right? And it was very much like I private Catholic school. The private Catholic school did not have any any form of trades training whatsoever, right? You know, it was like there was a lack of exposure there. So, you know, it really pumps me up to see a parents being present and advocating for their their kids, right? Like, it’s not that. This not a one size fits, all right? Like you meet the kid where they’re at and then it kind of help usher them and steward them, right? You know, I think we both know you can’t tell the kid what they’re going to do, right?

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  10:09

Well, I always say in our copy, I’m really sure that we don’t, I’m always certain that we’re not using words like guide, because to me, when I say guide, it’s like, oh, I have an intentional place where I want to guide somebody to, like, my GPS guides me. I put in where I want to go, and then it’s telling me, okay, you got these two routes to get there. To me, it’s about supporting a process of discovery and remaining, like, open minded and curious, right? So we try to really in our ecosystem, use words like support, not necessarily guide. Yeah, that’s interesting.

 

JJ Owen  10:45

I like that. I will, I will commit that to memory and reinforce it in my lexicon going forward.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  10:51

Yeah, there’s this little undercurrent with guide that we have, like a place where we want somebody to go and hey, I’ll admit, as a mom who has raised these kiddos who are now adult, there are certain topics that I’m guiding on, but when it comes to this, it’s really just supporting a process. I have a question for you so, so here, you know, I’m in Cincinnati, Ohio, and where we live, the school actually took the kids in eighth grade and 10th grade to the vocational high school to really, like, start that conversation. But I know that’s not the case everywhere. When you guys look at what the work you’re doing around, like, awareness of skilled trades and alternative pathways and things like that, like, what’s the sweet spot? Because what I’ve always felt like with the families that we serve, and it’s over 4000 at this point that we’ve taken through this process, I find that, like, if a parent knows that the end that their child wants, or maybe what they’re aiming for, is college, they do tend to start sophomore junior year, right? They know there’s got to get the AC TM, I got to do some college visits. I see some more of a little bit of a relaxed timeline with people who are only college curious or non college bound, like, oh well, we don’t have to have college applications in my fall of senior year. So we’ve got more ease. But then what I see as the person who’s stepping in to help floundering kiddos who are now in their 20s, is those kids get out of high school and mom and dad are not going to tell me what to do, and they’re doing like gig jobs, and they’re living at home, a lot of them. And so there’s this part of me that goes I want everybody, not just the college bound to get pretty intentional while they’ve got a high school student, yeah? Like, that’s my opinion. Like, where do you guys see that sweet spot of exploration and getting exposure?

 

JJ Owen  12:54

I think it starts early. I love hearing, you know, from big multinationals. Like, you know, you’ve heard from Cummins and John Deere and groups that, you know, they’re going into grade schools early on. Just to contextual, like, I mean, people, people know what the big red, you know, engine is. People know what the big green machine is for John Deere, like, going into that classroom and saying, Hey, this is, you know, at the right level, right? Like, curriculum align, like, you know, we want to have the right level conversation. But like to be able to come in and say, This is how this is made. These are the people that do this. This is the process, you know, the the John Deere folks were telling me that they they bring in A In AR, an augmented reality welding, you know, it can lay a well for the first time. And just like Tinker that early exposure is huge. And if you’re looking for if you’re seeking it out as a parent or whatnot, or a certain supportive relationship in a kiddos life, like go, call your community college. Go. You know, if there’s a major employer in the area that you want to set up an informational with that’s totally in play. The same tactics still work. You know that you’d use for college, like, visit, go get curious, make a phone call, like, call that big multinational that’s in your backyard and be like, hey. Like, what do you guys do in workforce development, right? How do you engage? What would like, I’ve got a young person here who’s trying to figure out their path. What do you think? And at that point you’ll have tons of resources thrown your way, because there are, like, that’s the thing, like, there, when we got started, like I said earlier, like we didn’t want to bring sand to the beach, right? We didn’t want to invent new programming or processes or anything like that. If they were already out there. And guess what they are, they’re very well resourced. The general awareness of them is not so that’s where we try and be in service of like. How do we facilitate that, understanding that there are these different career pathways out there? What constitutes one pathway versus another? But at a minimum, at a minimum, it’s just get curious and explore and try and like and begin the conversations with folks, right? I try and have a conversation my. I have nine and six year old daughters, right? Like we talk when the era’s tour is on Disney, plus, like I want to maybe forcibly I’m guiding, certainly at this point, so I’m going to try a different approach. Thanks, Lisa. But like talking about all the careers that go into making Taylor Swift’s tour happen, right? Or when we’re walking by a new restaurant that’s being built, like, talking about, like, what, what is happening there? And if my daughter feels like asking a question of one of the guys, you know, working on or, like, one of the guys that’s working on it, like, encourage them to go ask that curious question.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  15:33

Well, we should. We need to have those conversations. So let’s back up for a second and talk about, because I wanted to hear more about your mission, and I love where we went, but let’s even back up. Like, what are the career clusters that you guys are, that we are going to put skilled trades into, so that the average listeners like, I don’t even know if I could name the buckets, like, what are the buckets? What? Let’s define them between the beyond the obvious, like we can all go, you know, my son went into carpentry. That’s what he did the vocational program for, and that’s what he still works in today, electrical, plumbing, okay, but it’s well beyond that. Because there’s, you guys have identified 110 skilled careers.

 

JJ Owen  16:19

Well, there’s, I mean, you have the clusters as defined by the Department of Labor and all that. Like, there are a whole heck of a lot of career pathways out there that technically fall under skilled careers, right? Like, where you don’t necessarily need a four year degree to go out and apply your trade. For us, we’re very much focusing on a few key areas, construction, manufacturing, supply chain, energy is an emerging one for us, and then looking at transportation and aerospace and diving in there, because there are plenty that we’re leaving a whole creative sector out of this right, like there’s plenty of amazing jobs and video production and whatnot. We don’t want to go a mile wide and an inch thin, right, like that. That would be spreading us way too, too thin. So, you know, given that we’re three years in, four years in, we want to explore some of the classic more in demand trades, especially

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  17:16

given that’s what I was going to ask. So where you guys have focused Is it because there’s, like, more demand there, or, okay,

 

JJ Owen  17:24

that, I mean, and it’s it, it times up nicely with the the drumbeat of, you know, rebuilding American manufacturing, and, you know, looking at that as as a big need, like, you know, AI. You want to talk about AI. Look at all the data centers that are going to need to be built. To be built, right? That is that is totally powered by all skilled labor, right? Like, you have heavy equipment laying the foundation and building this massive data center. You’ve got HVAC cooling it. You’ve got got, Lord knows, you’re going to need some electrical, yeah, not just building and, you know, and operating, but maintaining, like, there’s so many careers that are tied to those opportunities. And so for us that that, like looking at construction, manufacturing, supply chain, are big ones for us, because we see the huge opportunity.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  18:15

Frankly, that’s what I was curious about. Was like, How did those is that where there’s more opportunity? Because when I, when I was prepping for us to record, and I was thinking of the the skilled trades career clusters, and then as I looked through the more creative or service industries, right? So restaurants or website building or graphic design. There are some jobs within, particularly the creative industries, where it’s like, you could go get a four year degree in that there are four year degrees offered for some of this cyber security. Falls into this. Graphic Design falls into this. Networking can fall into this, but yet you don’t have to, like, there’s other so we get kids in our launch Career Clarity course, where it’s like, I’m college curious, and maybe mom and dad are pushing college and I mean, I’m a geek. I love learning, so I even think it would be fun to go get a PhD. I’m not going to do it at this point, but, but, you know, the average person is like, I don’t know that. I want to go to school that long. And so those were two of the clusters where I’m, like, a lot of people might think you have to go get a college degree for that and start to go down that road, but you could save a lot of money and go do an alternative educational pathway.

 

JJ Owen  19:40

Yeah, I remember. So we have a great partnership with Warner Brothers discovery. And we had a chance to we work really closely with Skills USA as well. And we had a chance to bring out some students from video production as well as teamworks construction. So Skills USA has a teamworks program where it’s a carpenter, a Mason. A plumber and an electrician. Their high school students, they form a small team, and they compete together at the National Championships in Georgia, so cool in Atlanta. And they build, they build roughly a tiny home, right? Like, it’s certain things that you can only do so much in two days of building. But it’s really remarkable to see. So we ended up bringing some students out to the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank in California. And day one for the video news production, kids were like, we brought them to meet with everybody in post production who works in the Foley Sound or coloring and all that. And I remember the head colorist that we got a chance to meet with. And these students are asking these questions, of great questions. And, you know, they asked about the, you know, do you have to go to college? And he’s like, I didn’t finish high school. He’s like, school is not my thing. He’s like, I loved what I did, and I was super passionate about it. He’s like, I’m not advocating that people don’t finish high school. He’s like, let me be clear, but yeah. But he’s like, oh, yeah, don’t finish high school. Uh, but he’s like, he’s like, I just, I had this thing where I was really curious. I knew how to, you know, work on a computer and, like, you know, manipulate video and color. And here I am today. Like, I have a great career. Like, in it, it manifested off of a non traditional pathway. And you know, the same thing you’d hear the teamworks team that we brought out was an all female team from Jacksonville, North Carolina. They’re unbelievable group of young women. We brought them out. And again, you think Warner Brothers discovery. You’re thinking these big theatrical production talking about careers. We were talking to studio ops team, because you have to build the sets right? You have to keep the sets cool. You if there’s a water scene, you got to plummet. You got like, there’s all sorts of things that you don’t necessarily know. And that’s part of our hope too, like in in sharing the story. And you know, trying to drive general awareness around skill trades is that your trades can take you anywhere. Right, right. You can be building SoFi stadium, or you could be building the studio, you know, the leaves in studio. Or you could be working on set design for the next Harry Potter movie, like, let alone, you know, being a small business in your community and working on remarkable projects, you know, like,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  22:21

well, you know, it makes me think of we just had a an episode in the fall. I want to say it was in early November, and it was about jobs and sports beyond playing on the field. So, yeah, yeah, you’re a former athlete. That is home for me. Yeah, I didn’t say as a baseball player, student athlete, so, but the idea that, like, you’re not on the field, but you can take whatever your aptitudes are, your aligned careers, your education, and you can serve within that area that you’re really excited about. So if somebody’s interested in media or entertainment, and yet they’re gifted in and they like the construction or the electrical like, oh my gosh, go work in the industry and serve a very practical, very needed role.

 

JJ Owen  23:18

Go, take the Nick Offerman route. You know, Nick Offerman, I don’t, oh my gosh, legendary mustache. He’s on Parks and Recreation. Oh, yeah, okay, I’d say the character he plays in parks and rec is not a terrible departure from who he is in real life. He’s an accomplished, you know, woodworker. Grew up in, I want to say rural, rural Indiana, and he was a theater kid at heart, but because he grew up on a farm, he had a certain degree of know how in terms of building and fixing and so he started working building sets at the local community theater, because that would get him a foot in the door for auditions and it but that was like that, that moment where I was like, Oh, this is like, you just because you love theater doesn’t mean you’re going to be an actor or director like you can do. There’s so many other pathways, right? Same thing with, you know, sports, you know, like, not everybody gets to go play on Sundays, you know, right? But, man, there’s a whole entire economy of amazing skilled labor out there. We did so skills Jam, which I know you know about, but it’s all

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  24:38

people have got to follow your YouTube channel. Like, that’s one of the call to actions from this, because it is, I went over there. I’m a subscriber. I’ve been through the content. It’s fantastic. Like, the video information that you have over there.

 

JJ Owen  24:54

Yeah, so skills jam was, you know, we talked earlier about, like, those two areas that skill careers coalition focuses on, and. And you talk about repositioning skilled trades and skilled careers, that was like, Oh, we are going to launch a youth focused brand right on social media. We’ll call it skills jam, and we’re really going to explore different career pathways. And, you know, jobs in different sectors. And it’s taken off like it’s been really remarkable. And one of the really cool video shoots that we did in the early days is we went to SoFi stadium and we met with the head of campus there. They employ no less than 30 full time engineers. These are people that, you know we got to talk to, and they’re like, they didn’t go to college. They’re not the engineers as a four year degree, like, they got their AA, they got their, you know, certifications, and they’re welders. They’re fixing glass. They’re running electrical and plumbing, like all these systems that enable SoFi to host Taylor Swift or the Rams, yeah. And these people like you can tell like they’re passionate about what’s happening at the building, but their job is very clearly something different, right? The chance to show up to work and be like, I work on SoFi stadium, you know, is, is one of the it’s a point of pride for them, right? We heard the same thing. We were down at the San Diego carpenters union and talking with a bunch of the amazing guys who had been part of the carpenters union for years. And, you know, there’s an older gentleman who’s like, I love that. I can, you know, drive by Petco Park, the baseball field and point to it and tell my grandkids, I I built that, right? Amazing, yeah. And he’s like, and I’m a hell of a Padres fan. So you talk about the intersection of like, passion, but also like, some of the skills that need to enable those passions, like, there’s a

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  26:43

we have to, like, peel back the layers of how, how things happen, my my son, my 27 year old, and I went to see Cold Play over the summer. Not that particular concert that everybody thinks of. It was three days earlier before the Yes, but we went, we went to Toronto to see Cold Play, and I was blown away by the number of 18 wheeler trucks that it took and the stage infrastructure, because we went in early. And I think we just have to pull the layers back with our kids. And so your Taylor Swift example resonates with me. But even with a 27 year old, we were like, Oh my gosh, look at the audio visual. Makes me think of like a student we have on our course right now. He came to us because he went to a music careers panelist webinar that I was the moderator for back in July. And one of the people there is, I’m a independent educational consultant who works for kids who are going to go to college for music somebody else’s I tell you to go major in something else and work on your music career separately. One of the students, and that’s he’s like, I’m trying to figure out what I want to study. But like, we were talking about in our live Q A that we do monthly, about his ideas around sound engineer, maybe because there’s, like, an intersection there, but like, you know, you’re opening up the fact that you don’t have to go get that degree. Like, there’s other benefits to going to college, and so if, if money is not an object, and, you know, you’re not on a tight budget, and or maybe it’s a career that requires college, but there are things like, he could go work in being a sound engineer without getting the college degree, and still work in the music industry, right? There’s opportunity for things like that. So we’ve got, just got to think more broadly.

 

JJ Owen  28:44

Yeah, I mean, develop the skill and then be open to where it takes you, right? Like, you know that sound engineer? Go, go understand what it actually means to be a sound engineer. Go learn how that happens. And you know what, lo and behold, you might find out that you’re really good at talking about it and sharing, you know, key things that are happening also you you become a beat writer for Rolling Stone, right? But it’s grounded in the fact that you had this fascination with the skill, and you happen to just realize, Oh, I’m one heck of a storyteller, and so I went that way with it. Or, you know, maybe on a less glamorous level, like maybe you start as a plumber, right, and you’re working with a handful of clients in your community, and and then you realize that you’ve got this little business itch in you, and you recognize that you’ve got that entrepreneurial bent, and you’re like, oh, I can qualify for that small business loan. I can go from one truck to three trucks. I can go hire this all of a sudden, you’ve leveraged that ability as a plumber in the skills that you got to turn into a decent sized business, right? Like and, and that’s where it’s like, start with the skill, right? Start with what you’re fascinated with and what you like doing, and let it evolve into. Take you where you wanted to go, right? Like, we’re all trying to figure out what we want to be when we grow up. Lisa, right? Like, I really hope that I’m, I’m always going to have that mindset, but from a very young age, like, you got a lot of people that just start crossing things off the list because they’re not curious, right?

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  30:15

Because they don’t, they don’t even they invent reasons that are not grounded in truth, right? Sure, or they’re unfamiliar,

 

JJ Owen  30:23

and you have, you know, especially when you’re you know a young kid like you have the supportive relationships around you, parents and friends and advisors and educators like you know, those things leave lasting impressions on a kid, right? Just because dad cusses every time he has to take the car to a technician. Doesn’t mean that the technicians, you know, doing a poor job, like no technicians kicking butt, charging dad a good amount of money for that fix on that car, right? But little Johnny, Little Susie, are like, okay, not going to be a technician.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  30:56

I say this all the time. We have to be careful about how we’re talking about our own jobs, right? Or that’s extrapolating it out to who I’m engaging with job wise, right? Yeah, it’s about how much money dad has to pay, not about that particular job, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Staying curious. I had somebody in our course we use the Brooklyn personality assessment, and so we generate this jobs list that basically says, Hey, young person, you look like the professional adults who are already working in these areas. And it is both a blue collar, white collar, for lack of a better term list of jobs, but you look like the adults that are already working over here and are happy, and you look nothing like the ones that are working in these job families who are happy. But I had somebody recently say, well, they were looking at their list, and their top job family match was something that would be not a college required path, and and the individual said, Well, I’m going to college. So I like, why is that at the top? And I’m like, I’m gonna challenge you to stop and be curious. And I totally support your your college bounding, and I believe that you’re 100% going to college, but that job family match still tells you something about how you work that’s important. And so in this case, it happened to be demonstrating like, like, you’re process oriented, you’re detail oriented. You like organizing things. You don’t need to go over there into what that job family is. But like, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Stay curious and just go like, well, what does it say about me? Okay, and then move on and go on and explore the next job family. But don’t forget, the lesson of that was on the list because you’re a detailed process oriented person, yeah,

 

JJ Owen  32:47

because there’s alignment there with R as a human, right,

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  32:50

exactly, and that’s going to translate into for that kid, it was the college bound job. But vice versa, if you get this job list, you’re like, I’m 100% not going to go to college, or I certainly wouldn’t want to go to grad school. There’s this, like, research science, job family that the Department of Labor tracks, and so sometimes kids will get that, and I’m like, oh gosh, almost every job, like a lot of the jobs and that that are that come up on this list, are we going to acquire an advanced degree? And I’ve got somebody who says, like, I’m only going to college for four years, or I am not going to college. But what does it say about you? You’re you’re curious, you’re intellectually curious about how things work, and discovering stuff and spending some time figuring it out, like there’s takeaways both ways. Let’s say something about who we are. Do you have any parting words of advice? I mean, you’ve given so much great advice, you know, I try to be mindful about how I talk about all educational pathways you’ve reinforced. Even more important, how important this really is. But any other parting words of advice to our listeners?

 

JJ Owen  33:57

Oh, I would encourage everyone to actually go, get curious and go, you know, find out about a trait that you’re curious about, right? Like, you know, if you have younger kids, like, there’s amazing programs that happen. Like, you can go to a Lowe’s or a Home Depot. Or, you know, sometimes there’s these woodworking shops called Rocklin, which are Rockler, which are amazing. Go take a little class, you know, build a birdhouse. Like, see if that, if that gets, gets things going for a kid, right? But if you have someone who’s a teenager, like, go, go explore the community colleges. Go talk to, you know, set up some of those informational interviews, the same thing that you would be doing for the four year college path, right? Don’t put it off. Yeah, Ted lasso, be curious, not judgmental, right? Like, and be just, just be informed about the pathways that are there, right? Like you can go. You can certainly look at apprenticeships. You can certainly look at community college. Trade schools are not a dirty word. Trade schools are great, like they

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  34:57

are not a dirty word, yeah. Like you. We actually in our course, when we revised it to be more inclusive of all educational pathways, we did a choose your own adventure. So to help you go like you’re going to choose if you want to explore, four year college pathways, two year apprenticeships, employer training. So stay curious, my friends. JJ, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for just opening our eyes to more possibilities, because that’s what we’re all about here.

 

JJ Owen  35:26

Lisa, I appreciate the opportunity to have a chat with you. It was awesome.

 

Lisa Marker-Robbins  35:34

If this episode got you thinking a little bit differently about what a good path can actually look like, do not let it stop at an insight. Turn it into action. One reason families get stuck is that they try to compare options without a clear understanding of how their child is wired. In our launch Career Clarity course, we use the Berkman assessment as a foundational tool, because it maps students to both professional and skilled careers. It gives families a shared language and a much wider lens for what fits, not just what is familiar. If you’re curious what it looks like, you can download a sample report at flourish, coachingco.com, forward slash Berkman, and I’ll put it in the show notes, and you’ll be able to see how this tool opens possibilities many families never considered. You can also follow skills jam and the skilled careers coalition. To keep expanding your perspective on what is possible after high school, we put those links in the show notes too. If this conversation was helpful, share with a friend who is staring at a confused young person also wondering what comes next, and you’ll help them know that it is figure outable. Thanks for listening, and I will see you next week. You.