Nicole Huesman:  It is so nice to meet you.

Sharon Davis: Well, it's a pleasure to meet you.

Huesman:  Thank you so much for spending some of your time with us today. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where are you, as we sit today, where are you in your journey?

Sharon Davis: That's a very good question. I just turned 70 this year, and I think maybe it's a good time, anytime you get past the age of 50, to take account of your life and what you've done and where you are and where you are now. 

I was the First Lady of California, but that was when I was in my late 40s.  I have now lived another lifetime since that, and I'm enjoying life immensely. I'm retired, so I get to pursue the things that are of interest to me. I do charitable work and my husband and I play golf together. We find it to be very positive for us. It works well for us.

Nicole Huesman: Oh, that's wonderful.  It's wonderful that you're enjoying these years and it sounds like  you've grown together and  you've built this, really, this lifelong support of each other.

Sharon Davis: Yes, that's so well said, Nicole.  It takes time and it takes work to make that happen in any partnership. If you're in a partnership with anyone, you have to work on it and you have to be able to, as my mother-in-law said, bloom where you're planted. Find a way to bloom, wherever you find yourself, find a way to make that work well for you.

Part of aging is to age well, and the way to age well is to stay healthy.  Making sure we get plenty of exercise, eat a lot of healthy food, pay attention to things that you can kind of get away with when you're in your 20s, 30s, and even 40s. So, there's no fast food. There's no fried foods. You don't get away with that much when you get older.  I think part of it is not just living well because you have a good relationship with who you are with, but living well in that you try to live as healthy as you can, that you can be as healthy as it's possible for you.

Nicole Huesman:  And whether it's your physical health, your mental, mental health, emotional health, but to, to really focus, to make it a, a thing, right? 

One of the things that I'd love to really dig into is what you've learned over your years.

Sharon Davis:  My first job was working in a drug store and I was a clerk. And then, I decided that I wanted to do something different. And on a whim, I went out and I went to the local airport in San Diego. I picked up a job application at every counter at that airport. And I ended up getting hired by PSA. And this is what I learned from having a real forward-facing customer service type work.

First of all, flight attendants, men and women are underrated because we are trained to be first responders on airplanes. People think we're just there to pass out the food and the meals and sell the meals and sell drinks, headsets. That's not what you're trained to do. The FAA seriously wants you trained, seriously trained, to be a safety expert, to give first aid, to provide CPR. You have to be able to evacuate a plane in 30 seconds, get people out, how to do that, the procedures, how to deal with smoke in the cabin, a hundred fires, everything. So you really learn how to be a first responder.

But what I took from working in that kind of a public job, where you have people from all walks of life, sometimes, because travel is stressful, in their most stressful conditions, you learn how to work with people. You learn how to deal with people from all walks of life. You learn how to, to take situations that could be explosive or difficult and find ways to de-escalate. And that kind of knowledge helped me as I progressed on a business side, because if you've ever worked in a business team, you have to know how to deal with all the personalities in that team.

And in politics, it's absolutely the same. Nothing happens in politics without being able to work with both sides. Of the aisle or an issue, so if you really want to be successful on environmental laws, for example, you have to work with all the stakeholders. So you have to work with farmers. You have to work with builders. You have to work with automakers. You have to work with everybody to come up with solutions that don't put anybody out of business, but also work on keeping our climate cleaner.  A very strange example just happened when it was suggested that President-elect Trump might pull out of the Paris Climate Accord once again, and Exxon, big oil company, said, Don't do that. That does not work. That's not a good idea. And I think that would be shocking for most people. And I'm not defending Exxon, but I'm saying that, I think now, because they were brought to the table and they know what's at stake and they know that they're part of causing the problem, that they want to be part of the solution. And they do not want to continue to be contributing so much.  They like the idea that there's some solutions out there that could work.

So, to take somebody from being a clerk in a drugstore to working and being able to understand how to work in groups and how disparate groups can work together. And actually working in public service actually teaches you that because you work with people that come with different agendas and different issues and different things that they're trying to accomplish.

Nicole Huesman: What do you think were your strategies or approaches to bringing people together?

Sharon Davis:  Listening. And really, I'm not listening and thinking, what's my answer? What's my answer? But really being open and thinking about what people are telling you, even when it's nonsense. That we learn to say, Okay, that's a point of view I haven't considered. Would you consider my point of view? As opposed to shutting them down or saying what your suggestion is just nonsense, stupid, doesn't make sense. If we can find a way to really be more open, I think we could start bridging this terrible divide that's happened in politics where no, we're not listening to each other anymore because we feel that side is so outrageous. And they feel that our side is so outrageous that there really is no common ground. And actually, on most issues, there are common ground in the middle where we can agree on these five things out of ten. And let's find a way to expand, maybe that we could agree on eight things out of ten. We won't agree on everything, but let's find something that works so that we're not punishing one side just to get what we want. That everybody gains from it, something or they're not losing as much as they might have.

And so I think we see that in a society like ours, it's complicated. We need all the parts to work. All well and good to have electric cars, they're very good, but you have to have a strong grid. That has to be an investment. It's all well and good to say, Well, we're just going to have organic farming. But we have to be able to put food and grocery shelves at a price that people of all income levels can afford to access. That doesn't help anybody if lettuce is so expensive that we can no longer have salads available for most people.

So those are the things that, that I think we could find common ground. I really do believe we can say, How can we do what we have to do, but do it better, so that both sides benefit, both sides get what they want? And that we can accomplish what we want to accomplish, which is, I think everybody wants what's best for their city, their state, their country. And actually, I think for the world.

Nicole Huesman: So true. To really understand that we actually have, at the end of the day, in the bigger perspective of things, that we actually do want to better the world. And I think what you're talking about is, and what occurs to me, is that it's easy to just point fingers and say, Oh, that other side is ridiculous, or that other side, whoever it may be, right?  That's kind of the easy way out. The more difficult, the more difficult, yet far more effective and more enriching approach is to find that common ground. Like you said,  we're not going to agree about everything, but we can agree about these three to four to five different things. And let's work on that and then expand from there. And that actually takes work that, that, …

Sharon Davis: That takes, that takes work. And I'm talking about interpersonal relationships. We can definitely disagree with something that our government's doing. We can definitely disagree with, um, a president who comes in with ideas that we feel might hurt us personally, might hurt people we know, might be detrimental to women's health. We can oppose all of that. I'm not saying don't oppose it, but I'm saying, find a way to reach your legislators on both sides of the aisle and say, We see what, what you're trying to accomplish. Would you take into consideration how it affects this group? Fifty-two percent of the vote is women.

So, and I think trying to understand, I think moving forward as a party, as a Democratic party, how we can make sure that we have  the wherewithal and the correct information to go to the table and ask our representatives to represent us in a way that really is important. And I think flooding the airway, so to speak, join groups on whether you're TikTok or on Facebook or your local group, or your local Democratic club, your local Republican club, join them and figure out how you can join an effort to make that change.

Sharon Davis:  If it makes you feel better to be on a women's march, do it. If it makes you feel better to tell people, seriously, how seriously you're being affected, that's important. I don't think we should give up any of that. Don't take any of that off the table. I'm just saying, add more tools.

Nicole Huesman:  One of the things that I have really tried to do is to really understand and get outside of  the siloed information, the realizing, Oh, I'm in a bubble. I need to get outside of that  and really listen to, Well, why might this other person feel that way? Feel the way that he or she does? Or to truly understand and to just get outside this echo chamber.

Sharon Davis: We all are in these echo chambers, aren't we? You know, whether you're watching Fox News or MSNBC, we're in these little silos where we're really getting limited information. So we're always shocked with an outcome that doesn't match what we anticipate.

Some of the people that have been announced for appointments to highly important work in Washington are very suspect. And so I think you have to make your voices known that that's unacceptable and, but then, also say, Why is it the other side? Try to understand why the other side even finds it acceptable. I think there are people on, who voted for the candidate I didn't support, I think some of those people are now saying, Wait a minute. I thought he would take this seriously. I thought he was really out to do what's best for the country. But some of these things aren't making sense. So, how can we join efforts together to let them know this doesn't make sense for us. Even if we didn't agree on the, on election day, maybe we agree now that an approach is not the right approach.

Nicole Huesman: Yeah. Yeah. And to approach each other with, with respect and, and dignity and, and working together.

So, Sharon, I wonder for you, where does your commitment and love of public service come from? Did that start from an early age or, or how did you come to that?

Sharon Davis: It’s so interesting. My parents were always involved. They were involved with the local Republican women's club or a local Republican club. My parents worked at the polls every single time there was an election.  They were just very, very involved and very active. And so really talking about politics, I came from a military family. My dad was in the Navy. And for most of my developing years ‘til I was about 13, so I only knew that kind of life.  I kind of understood.

But then when I got old enough to vote and I asked what we are, they said, We're Republicans. I registered Republican, but when I paid attention to the issues, I realized, Oh, well, I'm not a Republican. They don't agree with the things that I think are important. And so they're not, they're not promoting the things I think are important. So I think this party over here, the Democrats, seems more in line with what I'm interested in. So, I changed my registration. 

I think for people who want to be involved, I always say, work on a campaign or get involved with your local Democratic party. Attend meetings or women's marches.  Join groups where you can. It can be anything from the local women's club, which is a really nice networking group of people. You can volunteer.  I think working on campaigns is actually a really good entry point into, especially if you have a local election where you can volunteer early in the campaign, work in the office, say, I'll answer phones, I'll do whatever you need to do.  I think walking precincts, of course, is always excellent. Doing phone banking. All those things. Those come at the later part of the campaign. But getting in the door early where you get to, when it's five or ten people, makes you a much more integral part of the campaign. You're doing more, seeing more hands-on and seeing what it really takes.

Nicole Huesman:  Can you talk a little bit about your time as First Lady of California and what you appreciated or learned the most?

Sharon Davis:  If you have an opportunity to serve in public, serve the public. And that's serving on your local school board. That's on your water board on any of these nice agencies. If you help a mayor get elected, serve on one of their advisory boards. Anything that you can do, if you have an opportunity for public service, go for it, go for it. It's extraordinary and fulfilling. And so the reason why a lot of people that get elected don't want to leave is because it really is very fulfilling.

And the great thing is it puts you in touch with people of all walks of life that you would not normally come in contact with. So, as First Lady of California, I could be with farm workers in the morning. I can be meeting with a doctor, speaking at a doctor's group in the afternoon. And that night we would be at a gala for honoring some  celebrity or CEO. So I would see people on all walks of life. And that was extraordinarily helpful to me. I think it helped me grow more than anything to understand we are all, we are all equal in this. I cannot enjoy my life and the fortunate that we're, we have our house if it wasn't for the farm workers and, you know, thank God I can afford somebody to help clean my house and thank God for the people that when I go to the doctor's offices there to meet the technician or the nurse or the doctor, all those people, everybody who's providing services are vital to us. And, let's come to appreciate one another more. Let's come to really appreciate people who are willing to put themselves out there in service to their community or their country, if they're serving as a police officer, firefighter, they're, they're in the military. All levels. All that is so important. And let's, let's try to come together more as a country to say everything that every that people do contributes everything. And so let's, let's find a way to find to say, Okay, I don't agree with you, but I appreciate that, that you care enough about the issue to come to the table.

Nicole Huesman: Right. Right. 

One of the other things that I think has been incredible about the work that you do is your advocacy for  children's health,  education, literacy. I would love to hear what inspired you to focus on these issues for children and what I can do, what we can all do, to, to advocate for that on behalf of children.

Sharon Davis: I realized early on, because I, I'm a, I'm a child of public education that public education is extraordinarily important. And, I think the big challenge is is how do we have well-rounded students, but make it relevant for them. They have so much access to information.  When I was growing up, I was taught how to access information. That was to go to library. Unfortunately, kids today, they have such a broad amount of information, we have to teach discernment. How do you discern information that is really good information and how can you identify what would be valid information versus what is not valid? What is not backed up with fact? So opinion is not fact, obviously.

I think we have to, as a society, find a way to educate children to be able to be discerning. Which can be challenging because we're at a time where they're looking to cut dramatically the funding and federal from the federal level and a lot of federal grants come to local public schools. So, when that funding gets cut off, then it will fall more on parents to teach children how to be discerning, how to really find the facts, and how to utilize that information. Because now kids have ChatGPT. Astonishing. Astonishing that we got through college without that, and we actually learned how to write. 

When I would talk to students in school who want to progress, I said, learn two things: learn to be a good reader and a good writer. Both those skills, extraordinarily important, because you could be the most brilliant mind, but if you can't communicate it, if you can't put it on paper, your idea may never even make it.  On the business side, if you can't communicate an idea well,  your ideas will never be adopted, or  the core of your idea, which you are not able to communicate well, will be taken by somebody who can communicate well, and taken as their own. So to own it, you really have to be able to communicate well.

That's so difficult to teach because access over here is so easy, so easy on ChatGPT to just get  some machine to write it. But unless you can understand how to do that yourself, it's going to be much harder to be successful because you have to have the discernment, be able to see what, what AI has put out and determine if that information is really valid and really is what you're trying to communicate.  There's a lot of garbage, garbage in, garbage out. It's not enough to just say, you can't use this technology to write your term paper. It's going to say, if you use that technology, just know that you may get garbage out of it. So you still have to put in the work. You still have to put in the work.

And that is probably the biggest challenge, I think, for employers is finding people who are willing to make the commitment. We're so used to things happening so fast that when things don't happen fast in the business world, because sometimes it takes time, you have to build your professional resume. You have to be able to build your experience. You have to show that you're good at no matter what level you're in at that company because if you're good at this level, your chances of being promoted to the next become higher, making sure you have the skills, showing that you show up. Those are big. Those are really big. Showing up when you don't have to show up is very big.

Nicole Huesman: Yeah, you know, and we have a running dialogue in our house.  around fact checking, making sure that the information you do have is valid, is factual. And I can't tell you how many times, you know, our 14-year-old has come home and is repeating things that were said at school. And over the dinner table, we have had numerous conversations around, Okay, let's stop and think for a moment. Where did you get that information? Is that a vi is right? Is that a viable source? What would be a viable source of information? And teaching him that, right, teaching him how to discern and to parse what is, what is fact and what is fiction.

Sharon Davis: Exactly. Or just opinion. Opinion is, you know, because opinions can be so strongly held that they can feel like facts to the person who's imparting it – that their opinion is, feels so strong that they feel it's fact to them.

And so how do you find a way to say, Okay. It's an interesting, like I said, an interesting point of view. And that's another way to say it, because you don't want to shut people down before you have an opportunity to look at the other side. So, another way to say as well, that's an interesting point of view. How did we reach that? How did we reach that point? Because I'm just fascinated to know how we got there. Sometimes once they realize they have to explain it, they realize that they don't have anything to back it up. And so you're not telling them they don't know what they're talking about. They begin to realize they don't know what they're talking about.

Nicole Huesman: Yeah. So Sharon, what advice would you pass along to our next generation?

Sharon Davis: I hope that if I can impart just one thing, one thing. No matter what your job is, excel at it, excel at it, because it will teach you how to excel at your next job. And so even when you think, Oh, I'm just a receptionist. Nobody's going to pay attention. Nobody knows. If you're an exceptional receptionist, trust me, you could be the office manager.  If you're working in a store and all you're doing is selling clothes, be good at it, be really good at it, because if you really love that industry, you might become the regional manager. You might move up in management. So I would just tell anybody, especially if you don't have an education, a college education, and you just want to be as good as you could be in the field you're in, no matter what that field is, be the best you can be. Be the very, very best you can be.  I always felt when I went to work, and I think this was instilled by my parents, you had to be as good as you could be. That was the most important thing.  Really be good at what you do. And when you're good at what you do, you're noticed. And when you're noticed, you're given opportunities.

And I can tell you from a corporate standpoint that we always look for potential high achievers, always looking for potential high achievers that we wanted to groom to take to the next level. So, don't think that any job you're doing and we're talking about people that were line workers line workers. Could this people person be a manager? And then once he's a manager, could he be progressed? Could we provide the educational opportunities? Would he be the potential to become a regional manager? Could we give him the opportunities to take it to the next level to be a VP?

All those opportunities, because most people want to hire within because they already know you, they know what you can do.  Be good at whatever you do, whatever opportunities you're given, be the best you can be at it.

Nicole Huesman: We all go through challenges. I imagine that you and Gray had difficulties and challenges during your life in public.  How did you weather that storm, uh, that challenge and, and make it through to, to the other side?

Sharon Davis: You know, it's a mindset. It's just mindset. You just accept that you can be defeated in life, but it doesn't have to defeat you. That's your choice. That's your choice.  The choice that we have is how we deal with what we're dealt. That's what we get to choose. We don't sometimes get to decide, even when it's, you feel it might be unfair, it might be unkind, it might have been cruel. None of that matters. How am I going to deal with it? How do I move on? How do I go from here to there?

And I have to say, part of it is to be married to somebody who's such a strong human being that the day after the recall campaign and we lost, he said, Okay, now that's over. That's over. It's done. Let's get on to the next thing. 

I'm not saying don't go to therapy if you need it. Terrible, terrible things happen to people who have served our country, things they've seen at war, you know, terrible, terrible psychological damage that's done to people who have been in terrible relationships or had very bad parents. Get the therapy you need, get the care for that, but determine how you move forward.

But I'm just saying the normal terrible things. Your company has a layoff and you get laid off. You lost your job and you don't know how you're going to pay rent by food. But this is what you do. You tell your manager, I hope you think I was a great employee. I know you had no choice, but to lay us off because, but would you give me a letter of recommendation? I need that to go to the next level to get another job.

And so instead of saying, I have no hand in this. There's nothing I can do. This terrible thing happened and now I'm damaged. Terrible things happen to people. Terrible diseases are diagnosed. Things that you didn't deserve happen to you. Bad things happen to people that don't deserve it. And you decide how I'm going to move on. How I'm going to deal with it. Am I going to be crushed by this? Am I going to be destroyed by this? Yeah, it's crushing. It's painful. It's awful. But how am I going to deal with it? How, how do I get past it? How do I put it behind me? That's the big challenge.

And if you need help doing it, get the help you need. If you need a support system, Look to your friends. Look to your family. Say, I need your help with this. I need you to help me get through this time because this is very painful for me. And sometimes we just don't want to tell people how much we're suffering because we don't want to burden people, or we're embarrassed, or we think that it's just not something that they can do anything about. When somebody cares about you, they don't mind being a shoulder to be there for them. Know that there are people that care about you. And if you feel there's no one that cares about you, say, How do I get stronger here? How do I get stronger within myself? Those are all big challenges.

And trust me, my husband and I know people have faced things much worse than what we faced. We were fine. My husband was a lawyer when he went into politics. He's a lawyer now. We do very well. We live very comfortably. And I think in some respects, the quality of our life got better after politics. Because in politics, your life is completely dictated by a schedule of other things, things that other people need you to do, and the timing of what other people need you to do.

But when you're in the private sector, You can say, this is my priority. We're taking a vacation this year. This is my priority. We're going to spend more time with family. This is my priority. We're going to spend more time playing golf and doing the things we love to do. Those are not options when you're running the fifth largest economy in the world. They're just not options. I'm not complaining because it's an extraordinary opportunity to be Governor and First Lady of California. But there's a lot more to life than just politics. And so now we're getting to enjoy the other side of it.

Nicole Huesman:  Oh, you have been such a bright light. I'd love to ask you what She Lights the Way means to you.

Sharon Davis: That is such a good question. I think She Lights the Way is the recognition of the important role that women play in all parts of life, period. All parts of life. And how everybody in society, no matter what you're doing, is contributing. And if you're a mother who cares for children at home, you're contributing as much as a CEO who's running a company because you are building the next generation. And so I think, as society, She Lights the Way, it really is about women lighting the way. Because women and women leaders bring a different voice to the table. And you hear that when you hear women CEOs being interviewed. They said, I brought a different perspective, and that's why I was successful.

Nicole Huesman: I can't thank you enough for spending your time with us today. I have so, I've learned so much from you and I, I appreciate it.

Sharon Davis: It was a pleasure, Nicole. I really enjoyed getting to know you as well. And I wish everyone the best. It's going to be a rocky kind of time going ahead. But this is, I think, what brings people together. I mean, as much as it's going to feel divisive. Let's all hang tight, especially women. Let's hang tight together because we'll get through it together. We will get through it together.