Sparky Life

A Single Mother's Electrifying Journey - Andrea O'Connel

Lia Lamela Season 2 Episode 70

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In this episode , Lia Lamela welcomed electrician Andrea O'Connell, who shared her empowering story of transitioning from a struggling single mother to a passionate tradeswoman. Andrea recounted her serendipitous entry into the construction industry, where she discovered a fulfilling career path. She candidly discussed the challenges of balancing motherhood with her apprenticeship and the importance of finding supportive employers. Andrea's determination to succeed in a male-dominated field and her advocacy for women in trades shone through as she spoke about overcoming stereotypes and using social media to inspire others. Her journey underscores the skilled trades as a viable and rewarding option for financial stability and personal growth, particularly for single parents.

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Connect with our guest Andrea: @The_Electrician_Chick


Sparky Life Supports: Raya Kenney's Foundation Women Who Worked on the Home Front Memorial

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Raya Kenney website is National Memorial to the Women Who Worked on the Home Front Foundation

Here's Raya and a little about her memorial
Congress approves Women Who Worked on the Home Front Memorial


Here's the link to donate.
https://marnie-kenney-sfg2.squarespace.com/checkout/donate?donatePageId=63d1d506217f9e44111ecfea



Apply for Skilled Trades the Mike Rowe Scholarship:
https://www.mikeroweworks.org/scholarship/

"We recognize a good education doesn’t always require a four-year degree.”


We support financial advancement for the skilled trades community.  You can reach out to Jennifer Markwell at Platinum Wealth email Jennifer@PlatinumWealth.net 


website www.PlatinumWealth.net
 
Connect with Andrea
Instagram:  @that_electrician_chick



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Lia (00:00:00) - You're listening to the Sparky Live podcast with your favorite Sparky Lia Lamela. Get ready for some engaging banter all about life lessons within the skilled trades. Today in the United States, a single mother represents one out of eight families. In other words, more than 12%. According to the national census, 10% of families are below poverty level, and of that 10%, almost half are single mother family homes. Single mother families are five times more likely to live in poverty than two parent family homes. Our Sparky live guest today, Andrea O'Connell, a divorced single mother, stepped into the skilled trades accidentally by taking a job helping out a friend on a job site. This was the first step into the construction industry that sparked this sister Sparky's path towards an amazing career as an electrician. And Andrea has not disappointed a skilled crafts woman. Welcome with me, Andrea O'Connell.

Andrea (00:01:16) - Hey, hey. Good morning.

Lia (00:01:18) - Good morning Andrea, welcome to the Sparky Life. Thank you so much for being here with me.

Andrea (00:01:25) - Thank you so much for having me.

Andrea (00:01:26) - It's a pleasure.

Lia (00:01:27) - You have been doing a lot to support the skilled trades. Can you tell me how you got into this career path?

Andrea (00:01:36) - So longer story or shorter story, I guess we'll go with the mid. Okay. So back in 2017, I became a single mom and I was struggling in my current career at the time, which was like business administration, office management, you know, accounting, just things like that, that were the norm for women to do as careers. And I suddenly found an opportunity to work with a local contractor friend of mine, and he just needed somebody who could hold boards for a couple of days because he had to fire one of his helpers because he found him sleeping in the truck. So I was like, okay, this might be good. I, you know, yeah, I could do that for a couple of days. It would just, you know, help him out. And I get on the job site and discover that I had a lot of fun.

Andrea (00:02:33) - I'm like, hey, wow, this is this is kind of fun. I actually really like doing this. It was hard work. We were, you know, setting up the job site, taking down the job site, bringing the tools in. And I was helping him just, you know, build this handrail. He was finishing a hand railing on a deck. And after the two days when we were finished with the deck, he was like, hey, he's like, you're you're not bad at this. And you seem to enjoy it. Do you want to keep do you want to keep coming in? And I was like, yeah, I would love to. That would be really awesome. So I just kept going because I was a homeowner as well as a single mom. And so not only did I not have anybody to fix things around my house, but my house needed work and I couldn't afford to do it by paying someone. So I just saw the opportunity and discovered that I kind of liked it.

Andrea (00:03:18) - So I just kept going with it, and I was still doing other work on the side as well as doing the carpentry. Then Covid hit. And so when Covid hit and everybody was deemed either essential or non-essential, my only essential career was construction.

Lia (00:03:39) - Surprise, surprise. So I found.

Andrea (00:03:44) - The opportunity to keep going with that as well as, you know, working from home with doing some of the office management stuff. But that stuff just died down because people, you know, some businesses figured out that they really didn't need people in their office all the time. It just kind of led me down that path. But really, what kept me in the skilled trades is what it brought to me personally, which was self-confidence, a sense of independence, stability, security within my own self that I didn't have to rely on other people to do these things for me, that I had to rely on them before. It was just a newfound sense of independence, like, oh my gosh, I've got this.

Andrea (00:04:33) - Like there was no more anxiety. It was just gone. I was like, I can handle anything, I can learn anything, I can do anything. So that's really how I got into the skilled trades. And then after I found the passion for it, the only thing that I didn't know much about was electricity. And it was so intriguing to me, like there was just so much going on behind those walls that I was like, I really would like to learn. Like I knew enough to be dangerous. But I decided that I, I decided that I wanted to know more so that I could be safe. And that's what led me into my schooling that I received at Pinellas Technical College and went through their day program and took all the avenues that they had for me to, you know, had to offer me, did their job fairs and met my current employer at one of those job fairs. And now I'm coming up on two years with the electrical contractor that I've been working for since I graduated.

Andrea (00:05:37) - So it's been a long road, but one of the most fun journeys I've ever been on in my adult life.

Lia (00:05:47) - Yeah, right. Yeah. It's like we're.

Andrea (00:05:49) - Here. Oh my gosh, we're doing it. We're living our dream, right?

Lia (00:05:54) - Why did you decide to create a social media presence? How did that happen?

Andrea (00:05:59) - So after I started with the electrical contractor, I was on site obviously with my coworkers and other electricians and, just in working day to day with them, they started to notice the quality of my work and they were like, hey, one of the guys approached me. He was like, you're really, really good at this. And I was like, oh my gosh, really? Thanks.

Lia (00:06:21) - That's awesome.

Andrea (00:06:22) - You know, for a guy to come up to you and say that you're, you know, not not just, oh, you, you but like your quality of work is is good. I was like, really? Thanks. Like, I really appreciate that because I'm just sitting here and trying to learn everything that I can from these guys that, you know, some of them have been doing it for 25 plus years, and some of them are in the same boat that I am.

Andrea (00:06:43) - We're all, you know, new apprentices. And he said, have you ever considered starting a social media? And I was like, no, that's for young kids. I, you know, I'm.

Lia (00:06:56) - I'm a mom. I'm, I'm approaching my 40s.

Andrea (00:06:59) - I don't need to be, you know, involved in this social media stuff, like not really knowing too much about it at that time. It was just like, you know, social media, you just associate it with the younger generation. And so I started to look a little bit more at what some of the channels had to offer. And I was thinking, you know, maybe, maybe I could do this. So we just started to dabble in a couple of videos, and one of my coworkers brought in a try. He had a tripod, and he was like, I'll bring it in. We can set it up and just, you know, take a video of you doing some, you know, roughing in some boxes or whatever.

Andrea (00:07:33) - And I was like, okay, that sounds good. So we did that and I posted that. And within a couple of months, one of those videos had just gone like absolutely viral. It was getting like over hundreds of thousands of views and thousands of comments, thousands of likes. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. What has happened. So but it just it kind of just took off. And then one little thing after another, I met a couple of tool companies and I connected with a couple of merchandise companies and they were like, hey, you know, could we send you some stuff? Would you like to put this on your page? And I was like, oh my gosh, there's some really neat opportunities out here aside from just, you know, the likes and the views and the comments, there's actually a second income to be made through social media. So I was like, okay, all right, we're going to do this. And I kept posting regularly and I kept taking opportunities that I felt were, you know, respectful to my career.

Andrea (00:08:32) - And it has grown into a second job, and I'm being compensated for that job at this point. So it allowed me to have the income of two jobs but not have to get a second job, if that makes sense.

Lia (00:08:48) - Yes, absolutely. And congratulations. That's wonderful. That's wonderful.

Andrea (00:08:52) - Thank you. I have connected with some of the most amazing people and amazing companies. So I just feel I feel so blessed to be in this position. So it's really a place of gratitude for me.

Lia (00:09:06) - That's fantastic. What are some of the struggles involved in being a single parent, and how does a career in the skilled trades help with those challenges? I don't have children, but however, I know a lot of women who are single moms in the skilled trades and they've made comments that this career path has like game changer for them. Yeah.

Andrea (00:09:28) - Yeah, it has been. So in the beginning, obviously there's so many avenues in skilled trades that you can take as a tradesman or trades woman, and it's finding that right fit for your lifestyle.

Andrea (00:09:44) - And as a single parent, my schedule limits me more than you know that of someone who's single and can travel or work long hours or overtime. But me personally, finding the company that I work for, which is new construction and we have a set schedule every day and I'm not required to work overtime. But overtime is occasionally available and we can take it if we want to. Or, you know, it can be passed on to the next person who would like to take the overtime schedule, but the financial stability that comes with it. Because as an apprentice, yeah, you start out as a lower wage, but as you grow, you hit milestones and with those milestones come pay increases. So. When they say game changer, they're not kidding, because it has provided me the sense of relief that I no longer have to fight for a raise. Based on what you know, somebody thinks you're worth, right? There's actually a, you know, level that once you get certifications, you add this to your resume, you add that to your resume.

Andrea (00:11:03) - It is a clear cut line of, this is what I'm worth, and this is what I should be paid. Because whether you're union or non-union, a lot of the apprenticeship programs that are non-union still abide by some of those same wage brackets, so that if you're a first year or a second year apprentice, you're going to make between this dollar amount and this dollar amount an hour. And then once you get your journeyman card, you bump up to this pay level. So it's like something to look forward to and something you know, that you can achieve just by continuing with your education and continuing investing in your skill. So with the schedule conflicts, it was hard for me to say, okay, I want to work in a position like service because sometimes you don't know when your service call is going to end. And for me, it's important to know that I get to be, you know, done at 330 every day and go home, be there for my kids cooked in or, you know, do the family stuff.

Andrea (00:12:03) - So there are so many opportunities within skilled trades for people of all walks of life. And it's not just, you know, being a single mom. I work with plenty of single dads who, you know, deal with the same struggles of being a single parent that I do. And it's just it's finding that right employer who understands, you know, okay, well, daycares don't open till 7:00. So if you have a kid in daycare and you have to be at work at 7:00, it's hard to do both of those things at the same time. So there's a little bit of leniency when they understand that you can't be there right at seven, because you have to drop your kid off at daycare first. And some employers may not be open to that. They may have to abide by a stricter schedule. And, you know, that's when you have to say, okay, well, maybe this just isn't the right employer for me. It's not that it won't work for other people, it just won't work for me.

Andrea (00:12:54) - So you have to work a little harder to find that balance. But it's possible.

Lia (00:12:59) - Yes, yes. I want to drive the point about finances. Right? Who doesn't love money? Yeah.

Andrea (00:13:06) - I mean, gosh, it's what makes the world go round, unfortunately.

Lia (00:13:11) - So it is important that the generations that come after us understand that even though you're starting point, your apprentice pay is on the lower end, no other career path. And I've been in seven different career paths in my life. Will you excel and move your salary in such huge steps in such a short time frame? So I really want to drive that point because a lot of the younger generation will hear, oh my gosh, the starting salary is so low and they'll they'll just pursue it. Not looking into the future, wanting everything now, now, now, now, now. But you really have to understand career paths and average salary increases for different career paths. No other career path is going to give you the jumps like the skilled trades will.

Andrea (00:14:11) - And also it's like a earn as you learn yes type of career, because no other career will pay you to learn the skill. Yes, you have to pay to go to college. Yes. And if you want to earn money while you're in college, you still have to work while you're in college. So then you graduate college. And what do you have an insane amount of debt that you have to pay back with? Hopefully the career that you set out to obtain, right? And if you don't use that career, you still have to pay that debt back.

Lia (00:14:52) - Exactly.

Andrea (00:14:53) - That was another thing that brought me to the desire to receive that education, because I was able to go on a Pell Grant as a single mom.

Lia (00:15:04) - That's amazing.

Andrea (00:15:06) - Essentially, the government paid for me to go to skilled trade school. Did I get paid to be in school? No, but they covered my dues, right? And so I was able to still work. You know, it was only a five hour a day program is from seven in the morning until noon.

Andrea (00:15:23) - And so then I was able to work after I was done with school and still be home by dinnertime, you know, to be there for my kids. So was it a lot of work? Yeah, it was, but was it worth it? Absolutely.

Lia (00:15:38) - Yes. So what has been your experience in the apprenticeship program?

Andrea (00:15:44) - I have been so pleasantly surprised with the welcoming atmosphere that I received, and I think that had a lot to do with the drive that I had to succeed in this industry. It wasn't like I had the attitude that I walked in and I was expecting it to be handed to me. I really made the effort and I told everyone around me, hey, I, you know, I'm really interested in this. Would you be willing, you know, to help teach me or can I watch? Can I take you? You know. When I started in trade school, there's obviously a group that had been there prior to me. And one of the things that I would always ask in labs is, can I take your stuff apart? Because when you put stuff together in the lab, then you have to take it apart so you can build more stuff.

Andrea (00:16:33) - But taking someone else's work apart allowed me to see how it went together in the first place. So it was like a jump for me seeing work put together that I hadn't done myself. But it gave me that the ability to see it coming apart like, oh, okay, this is how they put it together. And then it was just extra knowledge that when it came time for me to be able to build that stuff, I had less of a struggle putting it together because I had seen it once before or twice before or three times before, and once everyone saw how passionate I was about learning the skilled trades. They wanted to help me and they wanted to teach me and oh, hey, come here, I want to show you this. And you know, it's been the same. The same atmosphere with my employer as well, because once my coworkers who had been working there for such a long time and doing this trade for such a long time, saw how eager I was to learn and how driven I was to do this job.

Andrea (00:17:39) - They're like, oh my gosh. Like, yeah, we'll teach you because you want to learn. People don't want to teach people who don't want to learn if they feel like they're forcing you to do something like, and you're just dragging your feet. No, they don't want to teach you. But if you're excited to learn, people want to teach you.

Lia (00:17:57) - Definitely having the right attitude will take you very, very far. You are in a unique position. I have spoken to thousands of skilled trades men and women across the world, and unfortunately the construction culture has a very negative stigma attached to it and it's there for a reason. It's rare that you find an environment that is so supportive. A lot of women don't necessarily get that advantage, get that opportunity. For those women who are in an environment where, regardless of how eager they are, regardless of how they show up. Great attitude, because I found that the reason women tend to outperform the men in the skilled trades is because we have this shared feeling of something to prove.

Lia (00:19:03) - We are determined to show we belong there, and that drive really helps us excel in this environment, even when the environment isn't as supportive. So what would you recommend to the women who doesn't necessarily have a supportive construction company behind her is struggling in her apprenticeship program.

Andrea (00:19:30) - My advice is to take it in stride and grow your thick skin, because when I started, there was some opposition. There were some people who voiced their opinion that they didn't think I belonged, or that they didn't think I would succeed. And instead of being all dramatic about it and, you know, trying to like, you know, huff and puff, I stayed silent and I let my actions and my work speak for itself. And the more you just keep showing up and not letting those people get to you, the quieter those people become because they realize not because you said anything, but because you proved it. So that that determination that we feel on the inside has to be used to our advantage in saying, no, I'm not going to tell you that I belong here.

Andrea (00:20:23) - I'm going to show you that I belong here and that I'm not going to give up. Even when you throw your nasty comments, you know my way, or make fun of me for the tools that I choose to use, or the fact that I like to wear pink every day at work because I can. It's a high viz color, it's accepted in construction. And you know, I still want to be that person, but telling those people that they're not going to get to you actually shows that they've gotten to you, showing them that they haven't gotten to you by just continuing to show up and do what you do every single day. That's how you change people's perspectives. Because there were men when I started that were not happy that this company had hired a woman, and they voiced that opinion, and I was like, okay, well, you can sit there and stew and be mad, I don't care. It's not going to.

Lia (00:21:16) - Affect me none.

Andrea (00:21:18) - You know? So you just have to say, like, I'm not going to cry about it.

Andrea (00:21:23) - Just keep showing up. And the more you do that, that's when your confidence in yourself grows and you get to that place where it doesn't matter what people say. I still have people say stuff to me, more so on social media than to my face on a job site.

Lia (00:21:38) - Oh yes, I can resonate with that, my dear.

Andrea (00:21:43) - People want to be a keyboard warrior behind the scenes, but the reality of it is that there's not very many men who would come up to me and say those things to my face in the field, but they're definitely not shy on the internet. Right? And so it's like, again, take it in stride. And there, you know, you can gain some constructive criticism from the things that they do. Say, evaluate yourself, reflect on yourself. Look at the way that you're behaving in the industry or on the internet. Is there room for improvement? Is there ways you can change yourself to better yourself? As long as you take things constructively, there's always room for improvement.

Andrea (00:22:31) - But if somebody just says, oh, you don't deserve to, you know, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich. Well guess what? That's where I start my day. Every day is in the kitchen, making myself a sandwich. And I make one for my son. So yeah, I do belong in the kitchen, but I also belong on the job site.

Lia (00:22:48) - Right? Right. There you go.

Andrea (00:22:51) - You know, you can just take it. Just take it how it comes and realize that misery loves company. And I have not met one single person who's winning. That would take time to go and leave negativity anywhere. Yeah, misery loves company. So people who want to throw those negative comments at you, they're probably miserable in their own lives.

Lia (00:23:12) - I'm taking a brief pause in this episode to ask you if this podcast is entertaining you. If you are learning from this podcast, please subscribe. All the information on how to subscribe are in the show notes below. It really helps grow Sparky Life podcast and reach more listeners like you.

Lia (00:23:34) - Now back to our episode.

Andrea (00:23:36) - So don't take it personally. It's not anything that you've done. You just struck a nerve with them or triggered something with them that has absolutely nothing to do with you.

Lia (00:23:49) - That's so true. And one of my really good girlfriends, Maria, she is a charter boat captain. I actually had her on the show and she says this all the time, and it totally reflects what you're saying. It's a Chinese proverb about this man in a village has a sun. The sun breaks his leg. And you would think, oh my gosh, how horrible. Well, the next day the army comes and they're taking all the young men out to war, but they can't take his son because of the broken leg. And it goes on in. In this manner, so choosing to look at it from a different perspective. Remaining positive. Doing the introspection like you're saying. Self reflection. These are key. Absolutely key. Because the life is crazy. You never know. No you.

Andrea (00:24:53) - Don't. And you can have a plan and everything can change. Like I didn't think going into skilled trades that I was going to become anything on social media. And now I get to work and advocate for the industry that has changed my life. And so. I could have never predicted this, right.

Lia (00:25:16) - I know it's wild.

Andrea (00:25:18) - All I wanted was a stable job that was going to provide for me and my kids so that I could make sure that, you know, my daughter just got her driver's license. And with that comes, you know, a car, transportation, insurance, all that stuff. And, like, I'm never going to be able to afford those things doing what I'm currently doing. So, you know, a few years ago when I saw that in my future, I was like, I have to do something right. And for me, I hate to even say this, but like when a single woman looks for a partner, sometimes we look for a partner because they can provide for us what we are unable to provide for ourselves.

Andrea (00:26:00) - And I didn't want to have to choose a partner because he could fix things for me, or because he could pay my bills that I couldn't afford. And I was like, I have to learn to do this on my own. I was like, I just, I had this like. I don't even want to call it a drive, but it was just like. An urgency. To be able to be independent, so that if I was going to put myself out there again in the dating world, I wasn't going to choose someone and end up in another toxic relationship because, well, they could fix this for me. Or hey, Will, they made a lot of money. Like, I don't want to choose my partner for those reasons. I want to choose my partner because they respect me and they care for me, and they show me that they love me every day, not just tell me they love me. So. It was so many things all rolled into one. That once I got going in the skilled trades, I was like, oh my gosh, this was my answer.

Lia (00:27:02) - Yes. Like this.

Andrea (00:27:03) - Was what? This is what my life needed so that I could make all of those decisions from a sound, stable, respectful place for me and my kids.

Lia (00:27:15) - I think that resonates with a lot of women. Yeah, it's easy to say, oh, she's a gold digger, or she's only interested in a guy with money. Well, what is wrong with wanting your partner to be able to provide, especially if you're raising children? Yeah. What is the possibilities, career wise for a single mom? Which, by the way, statistically, in the United States, the largest poverty group is single mothers. Okay. So you what you're saying it's. It's incredibly relatable because I am positive with the women I've spoken to and my life experience and the women that have been a part of my life. This is a common thread. Yeah. And to be able to make yourself in a position where you're no longer vulnerable, where that doesn't have to be a driving force. The skilled trades does that for us.

Lia (00:28:26) - It really does.

Andrea (00:28:28) - It does. And it's incredible because it's not just electricity. I mean, if it's HVAC, it's plumbing. If you want to be a mechanic, if you I mean, there's so many different areas that you can get into in this industry and make a good living.

Lia (00:28:47) - Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Andrea (00:28:50) - And it's not like I'm, you know, taking a feminist approach and saying that women can do it better. There's, you know, there's always going to be a need for men to do this job, but there is a place for women in this field. And I think that that's been highly overlooked in the past because it is such a, you know, you think of construction and, oh, it's a masculine field, like you get dirty, you don't come to work looking all cutesy and together and leave looking all cutesy and together. I mean, some days I come home and I can't even stand the smell of my own self, but, you know, like, because you just, you work hard and that it's like a free gym membership five days a week, eight hours a day.

Andrea (00:29:39) - And are there side effects to that? Yeah, I've gotten in the best physical shape at 38 years old that I've ever, I've ever been in my entire life. Yes. I've never physically been stronger. And with that comes, you know, the endorphins that you get when you exercise. It literally makes me a happier person to go to work and work hard and sweat and use my muscles and do that physical labor aspect. But when you get into the higher skilled trades, it takes a mental game as well. I am learning constantly, which is super great for me because I have ADHD like many, many, many, many of my coworkers. We all talk and joke about it, but the skilled trades is like an outlet for people who cannot sit still. So it helps to focus your life because you're not forced to sit in one place. Be quiet, follow directions, show up at the same place every day. For some people, yeah, that's great. It's consistency. They don't like having a change in their workplace.

Andrea (00:30:54) - They like to do the same tasks over and over and over again. But we don't all have the same brain.

Lia (00:30:59) - Right. Exactly.

Andrea (00:31:01) - And so it works for, you know, people like me and people like my coworkers. We've found the place that makes us happy.

Lia (00:31:10) - Yes, everyone has strengths and weaknesses and different backgrounds. Women in this line of work just want the same opportunities. Yeah, you are on the road to success. Your career is on fire. What tool is in your tool belt? What do you wake up with every day that's with you in the back of your mind that's helped you get this far?

Andrea (00:31:38) - So for me personally, it's my kids.

Lia (00:31:42) - Yes. Oh I love that's.

Andrea (00:31:45) - Beautiful like I can't. Every single day I wake up knowing that, oh my gosh, I'll get emotional about this. Oh, My kids are so proud of me.

Lia (00:31:58) - Oh, I love that.

Andrea (00:32:00) - And they tell me that on a regular basis. Okay. I got to get myself together.

Lia (00:32:04) - Oh, that's beautiful.

Lia (00:32:06) - That's absolutely beautiful.

Andrea (00:32:08) - It's so motivating because you hear people all the time say that their relationship with their teenager is starting to crumble because, oh, teenagers have such an attitude. Or, you know, my work is so stressful and I come home and I'm constantly fighting with my kids because of this and the other thing, or they want to do this and I don't want to. It's just they find themselves losing that relationship with their kids. Mine has grown so much with my children because of what they've watched me accomplish.

Lia (00:32:43) - That's so beautiful and you're such a great role model.

Andrea (00:32:46) - Thank you.

Lia (00:32:47) - As much as they change your life, you change their lives.

Andrea (00:32:52) - So it's just you want to make a better life. Not just, you know, for yourself, but it's really for them. I mean, that's really, I think any parent who leaves the house in the morning to go and make a living, what are we doing? We are trying to provide for our kids. And so it just has changed the whole entire dynamic in our household, because not only did my anxiety go away, but my kids anxiety went away because there's literally nothing that they like.

Andrea (00:33:29) - If something breaks, they're like, oh, it's okay, mom will fix it.

Lia (00:33:31) - Yes, I love it. Oh my.

Andrea (00:33:33) - Gosh. Okay, well I have to pay for this for school. It's okay. Mom makes enough money now and so there isn't any worry for my kids that I'm not going to be able to do something for us, or provide something for us, or show up for them, or this stability that it's brought for my family every single day is immeasurable.

Lia (00:33:58) - So every single.

Andrea (00:34:00) - Day I do, I wake up and it's like, oh, I could call out today, sometimes I want to call out because I'm tired where.

Lia (00:34:08) - People.

Andrea (00:34:09) - Right. We're human. Right. But it's for me really. It's my children. That's my driving force that allows me to continue on when otherwise I may not want to continue on.

Lia (00:34:22) - That is so powerful. That is so powerful. Andrea, thank you so much for sharing that.

Andrea (00:34:29) - Oh, gosh. You're welcome.

Lia (00:34:31) - Thank you. Andrea, thank you so much for coming on the Sparky life, for everything that you are doing, for the skilled trades, for your social media presence.

Lia (00:34:41) - You are a role model. You are a woman other women look up to.

Andrea (00:34:49) - Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. It means a lot. You know, it's so much fun to advocate for the industry that's changed my life. Like, I wish that everyone could feel the way that I feel about what they do for a living. So thank you for giving me the opportunity.

Lia (00:35:05) - Yeah, that really resonates with me because I feel the same. That's why I'm here. Yes. Bye, sweetheart. Thank you. Bye. I am moved to speaking to Andrea and I resonate with a lot of her journey. Sparky life doesn't want women to accidentally fall into opportunities with the skilled trades. The Sparky Life Podcast is dedicated to unveiling the viable career paths available to them in the construction industry. Sparky Life's mission is to inform, guide and mentor. If other women can do it, why not you? Thank you for joining us. If you felt a spark in today's episode, I invite you to write a review.

Lia (00:35:52) - I'd love to hear what lit you up.

Lia (00:35:55) - Take what resonates.

Lia (00:35:56) - With you, and.

Lia (00:35:57) - If you'd like to hear more.

Lia (00:35:58) - Of the Spark Life, please subscribe, like, follow and share. Until next time, create the sparks in your life.


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