What's your like word of advice, you know, to people
 2
00:00:01.901 --> 00:00:05.038 going through adversity in business and and they want to give up.
 3
00:00:05.572 --> 00:00:10.572 Ask for advice if you can get it or for people to share their experiences.
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00:00:10.777 --> 00:00:14.247 Last year was probably my worst year in business ever.
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00:00:14.381 --> 00:00:15.982 It was just it was awful.
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00:00:15.982 --> 00:00:19.686 One of the things that really, really helped me, though, was I was to a point
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00:00:19.686 --> 00:00:21.421 where it's like, I'm just going to close it all down.
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00:00:21.421 --> 00:00:23.656 I'm just done. I don't want to deal with it anymore.
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00:00:23.656 --> 00:00:26.326 I reached out to my my business group,
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00:00:26.326 --> 00:00:29.329 EO and I just said, I need help.
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00:00:29.396 --> 00:00:31.197 I need somebody to talk to.
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00:00:31.197 --> 00:00:32.399 This is what's happening.
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00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:36.503 And I got, you know, a number of responses saying, hey, I've been there.
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00:00:36.803 --> 00:00:38.405 Let's get together and have a coffee.
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00:00:38.405 --> 00:00:40.540 We'll talk, and it was just so great.
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00:00:40.540 --> 00:00:44.944 Had I not had that, I, I probably we wouldn't be here now.
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00:00:45.145 --> 00:00:46.646 And go with your gut.
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00:00:46.646 --> 00:00:49.682 I mean, your gut is going to tell you try to try to get rid of,
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00:00:49.883 --> 00:00:51.751 you know, the stuff in your head, but go with your gut.
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00:00:51.751 --> 00:00:54.487 Your gut knows, you know, if your gut saying,
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00:00:55.622 --> 00:00:58.358 stop don't do it anymore, then don't do it anymore.
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00:00:58.358 --> 00:00:59.759 That's what your guts telling you.
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00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:02.629 If you don't have it in you anymore, then you don't have it in you anymore.
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00:01:02.629 --> 00:01:06.366 It's it's in the individual personal decision that you have to make.
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00:01:06.666 --> 00:01:09.669 And what's the worst that's going to happen?
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00:01:09.969 --> 00:01:12.972 World's not going to stop spinning and nobody's going to die.
 27
00:01:12.972 --> 00:01:16.676 failure is not failure or failure is just an opportunity to learn something.
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00:01:17.377 --> 00:01:20.180 And it's like, oh, okay, I know that didn't work.
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00:01:20.180 --> 00:01:22.348 Well I'll put that in my pocket and move on.
 

My days are a mix of networking, managing our team, and guiding clients through the remodeling process. I don’t swing the hammer much anymore, but I keep the business humming, from sales calls to subcontractor schedules. I love helping people turn their homes into places they truly love.

Owner

Failure

Support & Encouragement

Advice For People Struggling With Their Business

When you retire, what do you want your legacy to be?
 2
00:00:02.969 --> 00:00:05.972 so the first thing is, I don't believe in retirement,
 3
00:00:06.006 --> 00:00:09.576 I want to find something that I can do that I can't do it no more
 4
00:00:09.576 --> 00:00:11.845 and then I'm six feet under. Right.
 5
00:00:11.845 --> 00:00:14.848 But I want my legacy to be
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00:00:14.914 --> 00:00:18.218 is that, like somebody asked me one time, what is your biggest fear?
 7
00:00:18.752 --> 00:00:21.755 And my biggest fear that I told them was
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00:00:22.255 --> 00:00:25.258 that they say I was average after I'm gone.
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00:00:25.291 --> 00:00:26.893 I'm not average. I don't want to be average.
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00:00:26.893 --> 00:00:30.730 I want to use all my God given talents and I want to maximize it.
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00:00:30.730 --> 00:00:33.700 I want to be a dry sponge when I'm gone.
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00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:37.437 And so I want my legacy to be, hey, this guy did it.
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00:00:37.737 --> 00:00:40.774 You know, a lot of people, when they do anything, they're afraid of failure.
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00:00:40.940 --> 00:00:44.911 And what I found is the most successful people have failed the most,
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00:00:44.911 --> 00:00:47.914 and they just get up and keep going, and they use it as a learning lesson.
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00:00:47.914 --> 00:00:50.350 Now, if you fail and you down there and you miserable
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00:00:50.350 --> 00:00:53.353 and you can't learn anything from it, then that's truly a failure.
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00:00:53.453 --> 00:00:56.589 But if you learn something from it, it's going to help you advance forward.
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00:00:56.956 --> 00:00:57.824 Then you move moving forward.
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00:00:57.824 --> 00:01:00.894 So I use all these other businesses and experiences,
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00:01:00.894 --> 00:01:04.764 I would look at that and I wanted to get the skill set, right?
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00:01:05.298 --> 00:01:07.500 It didn't always work out, but he did it.
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00:01:07.500 --> 00:01:09.803 He went after it and he left an impact.
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00:01:09.803 --> 00:01:13.406 He left an impact on other adults, older people.
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00:01:13.406 --> 00:01:14.174 Younger people.
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00:01:14.174 --> 00:01:18.344 He left an impact and helped them think different, change their life and
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00:01:18.344 --> 00:01:19.512 change their wallets, too.
 

2024 PGCO Roadtrip
entrepreneur
career-change

I'd recommend trying to intern with a stock market education company or brokerage company, regardless of what degree you obtain.

I start my day at 7 a.m. with an hour-long workout. I'll spend the next hour checking and responding to emails. From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. I conduct live training classes that teach beginners how to trade and invest in the stock market. After breaking for lunch, I'll have a meeting with my software development team. Then, I spend the afternoon meeting with prospective clients.

Founder & CEO

I'm not paying for you to pursue guitar as a career.

The Most Successful People Fail The Most

Is there a mistake that you made that felt so horrible that time?
 2
00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:05.739 You're like, I can't believe I did that,
 3
00:00:05.739 --> 00:00:08.742 But eventually it led to a positive resolution.
 4
00:00:09.242 --> 00:00:10.744 I mean, it is absolutely true.
 5
00:00:10.744 --> 00:00:11.911 You learn more from failure.
 6
00:00:11.911 --> 00:00:15.849 I have failed countless times where I thought I had no future.
 7
00:00:15.949 --> 00:00:18.651 When I left the military, I was very lost.
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00:00:18.651 --> 00:00:20.620 I was now in my mid-twenties.
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00:00:20.620 --> 00:00:23.623 I didn't really have any real career prospects.
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00:00:23.890 --> 00:00:26.893 I didn't know what I was going to do.
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00:00:26.993 --> 00:00:31.993 and I think that at those moments, you do have to lean on your friends
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00:00:32.298 --> 00:00:35.135 or at least those people that support you that view you differently.
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00:00:35.135 --> 00:00:37.470 And then maybe you view yourself at those moments.
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00:00:37.470 --> 00:00:39.439 And we all have those times, right?
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00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:41.007 We all have those times.
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00:00:41.007 --> 00:00:43.576 And it took me some time to sort of find my way.
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00:00:43.576 --> 00:00:48.081 I want you to know that that is really what's inspired all of this work here,
 18
00:00:48.481 --> 00:00:51.518 because I wanted to ensure that
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00:00:51.518 --> 00:00:54.621 the students in this community that they had in front of them,
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00:00:55.155 --> 00:00:59.392 a place to explore and find their future that they didn't have to be lost.
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00:00:59.692 --> 00:01:02.962 and it's not because we think that you necessarily need to know
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00:01:03.163 --> 00:01:06.066 what it is you want to do with the rest of your life in fact,
 23
00:01:06.066 --> 00:01:10.336 you likely don't But it's our job to help cultivate sort of those experiences
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00:01:10.336 --> 00:01:14.174 to find your purpose and part of that is failing I shared that.
 25
00:01:14.174 --> 00:01:18.611 I ended up dropping out of all of my classes at the end of my first full time
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00:01:18.611 --> 00:01:19.779 semester in college
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00:01:19.779 --> 00:01:22.782 because of the passing of my dad and working through that grief.
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00:01:23.016 --> 00:01:26.052 And so I didn't think that was me.
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00:01:26.219 --> 00:01:29.989 What was interesting is when I was at Illinois State university,
 30
00:01:30.323 --> 00:01:33.460 my first semester there at the end of the semester,
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00:01:33.927 --> 00:01:38.131 I earned straight A's and nobody was more shocked than I was.
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00:01:38.298 --> 00:01:39.866 It wasn't something I was trying to do
 33
00:01:39.866 --> 00:01:41.935 or expected or I wasn't even tracking my grades
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00:01:41.935 --> 00:01:43.970 because I didn't even think that was possible.
 35
00:01:43.970 --> 00:01:45.271 but that was a moment
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00:01:45.271 --> 00:01:48.274 when I saw that and and sort of faced with the reality of that, that,
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00:01:48.741 --> 00:01:52.278 wow, maybe I do belong here, maybe this is me.
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00:01:52.378 --> 00:01:56.082 And that really did change the trajectory of my of my life
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00:01:56.082 --> 00:01:59.719 and my career, because then that meant there was other things that I could do.
 

2024 VOHE Roadtrip
first-in-family
community-college
advanced-degree
veteran
army

A school district leader serves many different populations including students, parents, teachers, local government, and local businesses. A typical day involves responding to or facilitating these stakeholders individually or collaboratively toward the improvement of educational opportunities for students. This involves leading meetings, developing plans, visiting classrooms, speaking with teachers, advocating with local legislators, and a lot of writing.

Associate Superintendent for Teaching and Learning

You Learn More From Failure

Did you have any leaders or mentors that you know influenced
 2
00:00:03.670 --> 00:00:06.406 you and how you treat a leadership role?
 3
00:00:06.740 --> 00:00:08.842 My first leader, when I first came here,
 4
00:00:10.076 --> 00:00:11.644 saw how intuitive I was
 5
00:00:11.644 --> 00:00:14.514 and saw how mechanically inclined I was with different things.
 6
00:00:14.681 --> 00:00:17.751 So he sometimes would purposely,
 7
00:00:18.051 --> 00:00:21.988 Hey, I need you to work on this job, but I've never done it before.
 8
00:00:22.155 --> 00:00:25.458 I just looked at it as a challenge and so I spent the entire shift
 9
00:00:25.458 --> 00:00:28.261 figuring out how to run that job and do it.
 10
00:00:28.261 --> 00:00:30.397 And I know that wouldn't work for a lot of people,
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00:00:30.397 --> 00:00:31.998 but for me it really worked.
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00:00:31.998 --> 00:00:36.836 And it felt like he was focusing on different people's strengths and seeing
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00:00:36.836 --> 00:00:40.540 what they were and not being afraid to kind of push them in those directions.
 14
00:00:40.607 --> 00:00:44.778 And that's something that I've really looked at what I've done in the past
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00:00:44.778 --> 00:00:47.814 and something I've seen similar times that I've done before.
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00:00:47.814 --> 00:00:52.118 So when I became a team lead over a whole team, I try to think about those things
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00:00:52.118 --> 00:00:55.522 because you want people to feel like they can do the job
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00:00:55.522 --> 00:01:00.226 and you're not hovering over them and giving them the opportunity to fail
 19
00:01:00.660 --> 00:01:03.296 I think is a really good thing because like I said
 20
00:01:03.296 --> 00:01:04.864 before, you learn from your failure.
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00:01:04.864 --> 00:01:08.334 So if you don't allow people to fail, they're never going to grow properly.
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00:01:08.334 --> 00:01:10.670 They're going to be stuck in one mentality.
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00:01:10.670 --> 00:01:13.440 Be like, okay, I got to this point, I stopped this is it.
 

2023 Indiana Roadtrip
first-in-family
changed-major

I can't say I'd recommend getting a degree in psychology to do my work. I'd recommend a mechanical engineering technology degree if you wanted to attend school first. However, you can also find employers that will pay for schooling. So you can work in this field without the educational background up front and pursue it after. That way, you can see if it's the right fit and then potentially work to become an engineer or engineer technician, or pivot to something else if the fit isn't right.

I lost two best friends within 10 days of each other. The loss caused my to take a hard look at my life and career. It ultimately pushed me to pursue the career I have now.

A typical day starts with looking at which projects I have that need to be completed first. Then I work with engineers on any questions or issues that arise. My typical daily tasks include wire drawing, testing, and moving material around.

Research and Development Technician

Leadership Influence

I'm someone who loves to work with my hands it's the one thing I know
 2
00:00:04.070 --> 00:00:07.073 I want from whatever future career I get into.
 3
00:00:07.507 --> 00:00:11.111 But I'm also trying to figure out where I want to go.
 4
00:00:11.111 --> 00:00:15.215 So I'm very, very open to trying new experiences and jobs.
 5
00:00:15.215 --> 00:00:19.619 So what would you like give advice for someone who wants to approach that?
 6
00:00:19.619 --> 00:00:21.354 My advice would be to do it.
 7
00:00:21.354 --> 00:00:23.123 I mean, don't be afraid.
 8
00:00:23.123 --> 00:00:28.123 I wish I was more adventurous and I think I wish I had been more open
 9
00:00:28.495 --> 00:00:32.032 to trying new things and not trying to just follow a certain path.
 10
00:00:32.032 --> 00:00:36.503 So my biggest advice is to do it to try different things.
 11
00:00:36.503 --> 00:00:39.873 The best way for you to find your passion is to actually experience it.
 12
00:00:40.040 --> 00:00:42.809 You might find something that you thought you would love and you're going to hate,
 13
00:00:42.809 --> 00:00:47.614 but that's all part of the process and we're all afraid of failure.
 14
00:00:47.614 --> 00:00:51.217 I think I feel less affected by it than I used to
 15
00:00:51.618 --> 00:00:54.054 because I know that, you know, mistakes are going to happen.
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00:00:54.054 --> 00:00:58.358 You can have all this information and make the logical correct decision,
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00:00:58.358 --> 00:00:59.926 but it can be completely wrong
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00:00:59.926 --> 00:01:03.229 because there's always factors that you may not see coming in
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00:01:03.696 --> 00:01:05.098 and you just have to be comfortable with that.
 20
00:01:05.098 --> 00:01:07.400 And if you make a failure, it's okay to feel bad about it.
 21
00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:08.635 It's okay to make mistakes.
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00:01:08.635 --> 00:01:10.770 You know, I get hard on myself, I get upset.
 23
00:01:11.004 --> 00:01:12.172 There's nothing wrong with that.
 24
00:01:12.172 --> 00:01:15.108 Feel those feelings and then learn from that and move on.
 

Exploration

Try Different Things

You know, I'll say that my first 15 years was all about failure.
 2
00:00:03.737 --> 00:00:06.706 I started off my career working with my Uncle Marvin,
 3
00:00:06.773 --> 00:00:09.776 who was my hero because he had developed a curriculum
 4
00:00:09.776 --> 00:00:12.746 for middle school back in the 1960s and seventies.
 5
00:00:13.546 --> 00:00:17.384 And then when I was kind of figuring out what I wanted to do with my life,
 6
00:00:17.851 --> 00:00:20.653 I decided to kind of pull him out of retirement.
 7
00:00:21.187 --> 00:00:24.391 And then we started writing a curriculum that was specifically
 8
00:00:24.924 --> 00:00:28.094 for middle school teachers to teach kids about emotions.
 9
00:00:29.262 --> 00:00:30.096 And we failed.
 10
00:00:30.096 --> 00:00:33.299 There was a lot of fear around feelings and letting kids
 11
00:00:33.299 --> 00:00:36.836 talk about their emotions, and especially teachers themselves,
 12
00:00:36.836 --> 00:00:40.240 revealing how they were feeling like, I'm not going to tell my students how I feel.
 13
00:00:40.874 --> 00:00:42.942 You know, I had one teacher, for example.
 14
00:00:42.942 --> 00:00:46.579 He said to me, if I told my students how I felt, they would all become depressed.
 15
00:00:47.714 --> 00:00:48.081 All right.
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00:00:48.081 --> 00:00:50.116 Well, we can work on that. There's hope.
 17
00:00:50.116 --> 00:00:52.986 And so I quickly realized educators,
 18
00:00:52.986 --> 00:00:56.256 when they get trained, you know, they go for their degrees.
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00:00:56.423 --> 00:00:58.858 They don't get training in this.
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00:00:58.858 --> 00:01:02.362 So the expectation was just too high for them to deliver this
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00:01:02.362 --> 00:01:04.030 in the way we were intending.
 22
00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:07.133 So we went back to the drawing board and our team started building out
 23
00:01:07.500 --> 00:01:10.270 curriculum and training that was just for the adults.
 24
00:01:10.270 --> 00:01:12.238 And then we had more success.
 25
00:01:12.238 --> 00:01:14.340 However, we'd get to a school.
 26
00:01:14.340 --> 00:01:16.142 I remember this is like a long time ago.
 27
00:01:16.142 --> 00:01:20.380 I go to my workshop and then the teachers would come up to me on their break
 28
00:01:20.380 --> 00:01:25.218 and say, You know, my principal's never going to let us do this.
 29
00:01:25.218 --> 00:01:27.187 I'm like, What are you talking about?
 30
00:01:27.187 --> 00:01:29.556 And they would say things like, Well, we've been told that we
 31
00:01:29.689 --> 00:01:32.792 you know, we can't really implement this until after the state tests.
 32
00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:34.627 I'm like, Are you kidding me?
 33
00:01:34.627 --> 00:01:36.062 Like, it's August right now.
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00:01:36.062 --> 00:01:38.198 Like, you're not going to do this until May.
 35
00:01:38.198 --> 00:01:39.666 Like, that's a waste of my time.
 36
00:01:39.666 --> 00:01:41.234 Your time. Like, what's going on?
 37
00:01:41.234 --> 00:01:44.037 And it made me realize very quickly
 38
00:01:44.537 --> 00:01:48.975 that we needed to think about having a systemic approach to SEL.
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00:01:48.975 --> 00:01:53.546 That if people at the very top did not believe that this is valuable
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00:01:53.546 --> 00:01:55.915 and important, they probably wouldn't find the funding to do it.
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00:01:56.816 --> 00:01:59.853 And if they weren't living it themselves as role models, then
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00:01:59.853 --> 00:02:03.456 the principals probably would be like, This is not going to really happen.
 43
00:02:03.656 --> 00:02:05.325 And then the principals weren't role models
 44
00:02:05.325 --> 00:02:07.627 and the teachers probably wouldn't think it was important
 45
00:02:08.061 --> 00:02:11.831 and then the teachers didn't have the role modeling ability then
 46
00:02:11.831 --> 00:02:15.135 the student's probably wouldn't value it, and then also getting families involved.
 47
00:02:15.702 --> 00:02:19.172 And so that was like a 15 year kind of experience for me
 48
00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:24.639 in terms of evolving the curriculum from only a classroom program to now being.
 49
00:02:25.378 --> 00:02:28.281 We start off with institutes over the summer, these three day
 50
00:02:28.281 --> 00:02:31.718 intense institutes for the superintendent and their teams.
 51
00:02:32.018 --> 00:02:36.422 Of course, we care about kids, but if the adults who are raising and teaching kids
 52
00:02:37.423 --> 00:02:40.126 don't have the skills themselves.
 53
00:02:40.126 --> 00:02:42.929 We're not going to get anywhere because it's not going to be implemented
 54
00:02:42.929 --> 00:02:45.732 in the way we intended it to be implemented.
 

2023 WCED Roadtrip
advanced-degree
Virtual Interview.
Interviewed in unknown but works in New Haven, CT USA.

I already consider myself a worrier, so coming out as a gay man caused a lot of stress for me. My work with emotional intelligence helped settle me and understand myself better.

Founding Director

It's not my job to talk to students about feelings.

Dealing With Failure And Learning To Adapt

How do you kind of get the energy to continue going back, even though the progress feels like it might be getting further and further away sometimes? &gt;&gt; I'm really balanced by challenge. You tell me something's impossible, I'm like, yes, okay, let's do this. And I think that's why research is very much for me, because research is like just endless challenges. And you have to be somebody who doesn't mind, who failure doesn't really got your soul. It's like, okay, that's another thing that needs to be solved, and I particularly love it. I'm just like every time something goes wrong, I get a hit of energy. And it's not for everybody, you know what I mean? But then, when it comes to the complexities that it's human, that's another set of challenges that you have to deal with. And in infectious disease, there's so much of that. It's so political. It's going to create suspicion and paranoia, and to me, it's the same thing. It's just like that's another puzzle to solve. How do we think about what each person needs, what we need to get from here to there? And so, it is a big piece of it. You can't do work in infectious disease and not see that as one part of the puzzles you need to solve. One part of your job is the people part, but it can be solved. You can find out places where your incentives are aligned, your visions are together, and then use that as a basis of how to move forward. 

Find the space where you're energized to do the work, not expending energy to do the work. I'm able to do so much work because I get energy from doing it. If it starts taking more energy than it's giving, then I know it's time to move on. So find whatever that space is for you. Figure out how you like to spend your day. What can't you take your mind off of? That's your flow state. What are you thinking about when you're not even thinking? That's how you'll know what you're supposed to be doing.

I run a lab and have about 40 people who work with me on computational genetics and experimental genomics. In computational genetics, we take the data in our genomes and use computers to try and decipher those codes. My lab is broadly focused on human health with a primary interest in infectious disease.

Principal Investigator

Determination & Hard Work

Passion

Staying Energized In Your Career Despite The Challenges

What are perhaps, you know, some expectations fed to you or expectations that came of your own beliefs that were perhaps not met and were kind of tough to deal with as you, you know, reach for that goal? &gt;&gt; I was kind of used to being let down. In fact, I think I was expecting to be let down more than I was expecting for stuff to work out. For a very long time, I had this phrase. Where I was like, stuff like that doesn't happen to people like me. But then I start asking myself like, why not me? And I had a lot of hurdles that I went through at first. So like going to one of my first performances and not a single person Clapped at all. I would have felt better if they would have booed me to be honest. &gt;&gt; [LAUGH] &gt;&gt; It was just so silent. I didn't know what to do, but the good part was is that there was a guy who told me to come back the next week, he was like, don't let this be The last time that we see you and so I adjusted and came back. So there was moments where I thought I was gonna win these different things, I thought I was supposed to be signed at a certain time. In hindsight, I needed to be developed in these other ways. It's okay to go through those moments of I hate to call it this failure, but like you need that and you don't fail because you didn't achieve the mission. Like I think the only time when you really, truly fail is if you just really stop it all together. That's the goal. It's like, I may not win all the time, but not losing all the time either. It's it's balance. 

I believe that in life you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. So make sure you're always advocating for yourself. Make sure that you're speaking up for what you want and creating opportunities for yourself. Don't just wait for someone to present an opportunity to you.

At Guitars Over Guns, we hire musicians to come into middle schools, high schools, and community centers to create relationships and mentor students for years on end. A mentor will arrive at a school with a lesson plan. We start off with a circle to check in with the students about how they're feeling—that check-in essentially guides the day. We'll teach lessons and lead activities to create a positive experience for students.

Regional Director

Stuff like that doesn't happen to people like me.

Failure

Advice For People Struggling With Their Business

Advice For People Struggling With Their Business

Amy Ecklund

250 videos on Failure: