Was college always like thing you wanted to go to? &gt;&gt; Yeah, college was always something that my parents kind of pushed me towards. My dad had graduated from college and he had a master's degree. My mom didn't, my mom worked. So I got a good work ethic from both my folks. But one of the things that I feel very, very strongly in my administration, I think that young people coming out of high school you have three opportunities. One is what we would call formal education, getting your social degree or your bachelor's degree. One is for career technical job which sometimes is taken for granted. Right now we can't hire enough welders, or electricians, or plumbers or carpenters, or miners, or those sorts of things. When you learn a skill building trade, that's extremely important that it's something that you can make a great living at. And the third is the military. I mean, military provides a great opportunity, a lot of benefits. Awesome responsibility to work for and represent the country. So I encourage people, young people in high school, to look at all three of those options and maybe come up with one or two of them. Oftentimes people do multiple ones. They go to a formal education, get a bachelor's degree and then they learn to trade, or then they go into military or vice versa. 

Set your goals and then keep your options open as best as possible. Not everyone can reach a certain goal sometimes because it's just not possible. For example, 10 people may have wanted to be governor but all 10 can't get elected. Do things that will direct you towards the goals you've set so that you give yourself the best chance of achieving that goal, but keep your options open because things change along the way.

I ran for State Senate twice and lost, which was disappointing. However, I persevered because I still wanted to serve the public, so I found a place that was a better fit for me to get started.

Governor

Choices

Education

Options For High School Graduates

You talked about the opportunity of being governor when it presented itself. But when do you think it's a good time to say yes to an opportunity versus saying no. How do you decide that? &gt;&gt; I think you can't have a knee-jerk reaction, that's not usually your best decision. I think you need to gather as much information as you can, consult with people that you trust, and you kind of accumulate along the way, then I do a lot of reflecting on those issues. And I talk to my wife a lot, when it comes down to issues that she's really involved. With that, sometimes you just kind of need a sounding board, and I'm a fanatic about reading, I read a lot and try to accumulate information that way. And you kind of got to take all that in to get a sense, and then formulate your own conclusions. 

Support & Encouragement

Advice For Making Informed Decisions

To be in this position and to represent so many voices has got to be a pretty heavy weight on your shoulders. What's the biggest difficulty with this and how you overcome it? &gt;&gt; It's hard sometimes to balance it all. This is one of the problems I think that I face it. I don't wanna say no to anybody. And we get asked to go to a lot of events. Do a lot of interviews, meet a lot of different people, take a lot of meetings and it's tough to say, okay, I'll meet with you, I'll meet with you. No, I'm not gonna meet with you, and make those choices is hard. And I've got staff that I guess acts as a gatekeeper to get the right ones through. And sometimes people come with problems that you really can't solve. They're either local problems, I mean I can't fix the broken streetlight out here or the pocket. &gt;&gt; [LAUGH] Yeah. &gt;&gt; And I can't fix somebody's social security benefits that's federal ones local. I fixed the ones in the middle and you try to get those addressed. It's hard to pick and choose then along the way and picking and choosing, unfortunately disappoint people. And that's something that I have to deal with and then state was very hard. I'll give you an example, Veterans Day. We had veterans issues, I spent the whole day down here. I think we had five events and Veterans Day but I didn't get to do any in northern about and they're disappointed that I wasn't there. They're disappointed in sparks that I wasn't at the sparks Veterans Home. But you can only do the ones you can do and you have to make those calls and hope that people understand 

Community

Struggle

My Biggest Struggle As Governor

I don't yet know what I wanna do next. I'm really excited about this particular job. And I think that's one thing that I do try to do, is be present here. And now and think about what I'm doing today, and not really worry about the future. There's all kinds of data and science that says that you should write five year goals and you should write ten year goals. And if you do that, you'll achieve them far faster than if you don't write them. I've never been able to do that [LAUGH]. That's just not me, I tend to be very present and do the best I can at what I'm doing right now. And then when the doors open, if they open, then that's when I start thinking about what I might wanna do. The only time that I had that really chance to kind of think about it. But the Vegas there was two, is when I was transitioning going to DC and then when I got done being president of ASC, and I was starting with and I was really struggling, because there were pros and cons on all of the things like I'd like to this, I'd like to do that, what if I don't like this, what if I don't like that. And now I'm doing this, and this is awesome, and this wasn't one of the options. And so that's the other thing to know. There could be options out there that you haven't considered. Cuz this was something that I didn't think I could get, it wasn't even on the table, I was aiming far lower. My name got floated to the team somehow, somebody gave them my name, so I'm not entirely sure how an administration comes in with their team, but I know they have a transition team, and so somehow that transition team got my name. &gt;&gt; And it's really cool. &gt;&gt; It is cool, cuz it's far better than what I had on my radar. 

Meet with an engineer and ask what they do and why. Then meet another and ask the same questions. Our career is very broad so while one area may not be interesting to you, another might exactly line up with your passion.

I think the key to work-life balance is realizing that you can do it all over time but you can't do it all at once. I've sacrificed relationships in order to pursue my interests, but that's a choice I made because I wanted to pursue those things.

My day includes a lot of meetings and preparation. The issues being discussed are largely big picture policy items and not the tactical day-to-day decisions, though some of those happen too. The focus is on how to best spend the limited resources we have (primarily human and funding) to ensure that the state's transportation system is best meeting the needs of everyone using it.

Director

You switch jobs too frequently. You're intimidating.

Opportunity

Live For The Present And Take Opportunities

I haven't let a lot of people influence the decisions that I make. And even my husband, we're both very independent and we're independent together, we're supportive of that. And so, but we independently make decisions even when they impact each other sort of, like when I was choosing to leave my job at the city In order to do ASCE, I talk to him, he was actually at the time, he was in London when we actually ended up making, so we made the decision and then I was at the office and making the decision, and I'm like calling him, I'm like, are you good? He was like, we're good. And so, but a lot of people, when I told the executive director of the organization, I'm like, he's like, we could've made it work, I'm like, but I don't wanna make it work, like this is my only time, I only get to do this one time. And if I say no to this, what am I saying like, A, I'm going back on my work cuz I'd already committed to a whole bunch of people that I was gonna come to their organization? And, B, I'm not gonna get to meet those people and I'm not gonna learn from them and see what they're doing in their communities. And so I've been very generally independent in my thinking. 

Individualism

Don't Let Others Influence Your Thinking

When do you know when to say yes or no to certain opportunities? &gt;&gt; I fail at saying no. [LAUGH] &gt;&gt; [LAUGH] &gt;&gt; I'd probably be better in some ways if I said no more often, but I also think that when you say yes, you don't necessarily need to know that it's right. If it's not right, you can choose something different like you can bail out, right? But if when you say yes, it often opens doors that you never would have imagined. And so when we have choices, we often think about the good and the bad of the new choice, but we don't think about what we're giving up. And sometimes it's not possible especially when you're making a choice about where you wanna go with your, you don't necessarily know where this one's gonna go. But we evaluate new differently than we evaluate what we're currently in. I tell people say yes, cuz you never know where. &gt;&gt; Might lead them. &gt;&gt; Right, yeah, I mean, I'm telling you like I was really doubtful about whether or not I wanted to take this job. And I'm so glad I did, and it's awesome. And then there's still some days where I'm like, my god, I took this job and it's really hard, and how am I gonna manage it? And what's it's doing to me, what's it's doing to my relationship, and is it worth it? Cuz some days are really, not great, but overall I'm still in the place where I'm really glad I did. But it took me I mean, I had some heavy thinking to decide to do it. And we all, everybody, I think goes through those decisions, on all of the things in life. 

Deciding Whether Or Not To Say Yes To Opportunities

What is it about what you're doing right now that is making you stay here and wanting to keep working on that? &gt;&gt; I got to help design and build a not only physically beautiful plant, but there aren't many facilities like this in the world. Especially ones that kind of embrace all the way from the agricultural side, all the way through to the finished product. There are a lot of little distilleries in the world that buy grain off a train and make things out of it. But we grow it, we process it. We do all the green side dry processing, we call it. We do all the cooking and fermentation and distillation side. And then when we're done, all the byproducts go out to the compost piles and then that goes back on the field. So that's a really beautiful, circular kind of holistic view on how an operation like this should run. I'm not actually the person who decided to be a master distiller and then worked my way there. I'm really just the person who made more mistakes than anybody else in the room. And so I've had more of those to learn from, but mistakes aren't things that went wrong. They're just a thing that happens and you grow from them. We have this tendency to see people where they landed. And assume that there was some knowledge of the path beforehand, but I don't think that's really the case. I think in a lot of cases, people are making decisions as they go and doing their best. And I've done a lot of different things and a lot of times it was just kinda like, I found a thing that I was interested enough in doing to do it. I don't really believe that there are many people in the world who find the one glorious thing that they'll never tire of. And I think a lot of people suffer for deciding that they have to find a thing and do it for the rest of their lives. You can totally do stuff for a while and quit. Quitting is a great skill to go do something else that inspires you. 

If you're interested in something, find the people who are involved in that thing and reach out to figure out how you can work together. People are always willing to work with you if they know that you'll put in the hard work to learn, grow, and develop whatever it is you're working on. For my industry specifically, I suggest that you read a lot of books and get to know process and the industry. Know it better than everyone else, be passionate and knowledgable, and let that show.

I was working in real estate in Chicago when the housing market collapsed. At the same time, I was tired of living in such a huge city with my young kids. So, my family and I moved and I pursued a career change.

I had to leave my family behind in Chicago for 6 months while I figured out graduate school in Michigan. We've also had to move around a lot because of the nature of my job. It gets hard but I'm now at a job where I can remain in place for a while.

I help to run and troubleshoot our distilling equipment. I also spend a lot of time making sure my teams know how the equipment works to make the same product every day. When my teams are ready, I spend time giving them the creative confidence they need in order to design products rather than just making products on equipment they already know how to operate. When I get calls from our sales team about forecasted sales, I plan the corresponding production, down to how much grain we need to plant.

Master Distiller

That's a big risk. It's not okay to make mistakes.

Fulfillment

Transitions

Quitting Can Be A Great Skill

I grew up in a normal middle class family with a mom and a dad. My mom didn't work, my dad had a business. I have a brother and a sister who are younger, I'm the oldest. But I have always marched to the beat of my own drum. Less so through law school and more so now. Like I went to law school because honestly when I grew up, you were told to go to law school, go to medical school, become an accountant, an engineer or something you had to go to college. So I did what was expected of me, I don't like bullies. And everything I ever did as a lawyer was take on bullies, whether it'll be the IRS, whether it'll be the bank, I don't like people who use power to hurt people who don't have power. And there was a moment in time, I had settled a case against a large bank that re-wrote thousands and thousands of people's home loans. And we were in federal court getting the final settlement approved and the judge who was a brilliant judge was so complimentary to my side and in the bank side about being able to craft this settlement, and it was worth about $2 billion in value. And as he was talking, all I could think of was they stole 10 billion. And that's the nature of our system right now. If it was an individual, we go to jail. If it's a bank, they pay 20% of what they stole and life goes on. I didn't know if I wanted to do this anymore. And at the same time, my youngest child who was then about three, I told her one person can change the world then you just have to be good to people on the planet. And she said, how have you changed the world? And this was a month after. And so those two things caused me to just reflect on my life and say, I could stop now I don't need to work anymore, or I could try to do something to really change the world. And then I closed my law practice and started blockchains. I think this was a logical leap for me, I found a way that I believe I can help way more people and really effect a positive change in the world more than just suing a bank. Don't do something because others are telling you it's the way it's been done. Follow what you think is right, something you're passionate about and I think that you'll be successful in anything you do in life. 

advanced-degree
entrepreneur
2019 Nevada Roadtrip

Learn how to code. We're at a point where you don't necessarily need a college degree for a variety of jobs, including jobs within my company. I suggest taking time to learn how to code and learn how computers work. I believe those are the skills you'll need to get ahead and make an impact in the future.

I closed my law practice and opened my own business dealing with blockchain technology. It may be a huge risk, but I believe this is the future and I want to have a hand in that impact.

I'm the CEO of a startup that is using blockchain technology to reimagine how we exist and interact with each other. My work revolves around supporting those who work for me. I create and translate my vision for the company's future and then put myself behind my employees so they can make it happen. I open doors and breakdown barriers for them. I'm also the face of the company, so I spend time meeting with potential partners and engaging in outside activities to drive the vision of the company.

Choices

Options For High School Graduates

Options For High School Graduates

Steve Sisolak

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