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#27 Undecided: How to Navigate Tough Choices in College · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

All right, so we are so excited for our guests today. We'll let 'em introduce himself, but let's just say that his. And he can explain who he co-wrote this with, but we, this is one of those books I just wish everybody had on their bookshelf.So go ahead and Tim, why don't you say a little bit about who you.Yeah. Hi. Thanks for having me here. My name is Tim Klein and I am a clinical therapist by trade, and I started my career. Working with I've worked my whole career with young people and so I started working as a director of a nonprofit doing mentoring with low income first gen students to get them to and through college.And then I've worked in a high school as a school counselor and director of community engagement. . I've worked at Harvard in their graduate program and now I'm working at Boston College along with my colleague and co-author Dr. Be Yang. And we're the author of our book, how to Navigate Life, the New Science of Finding Your Way in School, career and Life, and Essentially, yeah, I have all these titles and I've had all these job descriptions, but really my work is about helping young people navigate inflection points in their lives.And we wrote this book because we realized. As young people are going through high school and going to college and trying to figure out their careers, a lot of the times they don't have the space to figure out how to make meaningful decisions and how to decide the people they want to be. And so, yeah, along with Bell, that's, we are trying to figure out and, and that is really why we called the book, how To Navigate Life, and it's really about how to help people make more purposeful decision.I love that you feel like there, you're right. So often there isn't space. Or time people , maybe they chose to go to a certain school and once they're there it's like off to the races. You know, you start putting one foot in front of the other. And I think it does take time, thought, insight to make those choices that are moving towards your longer term goals or your bigger values.So I can't wait to get into some of the weeds with you about that.Mm-hmm. Maybe you could start, start a little bit and talk a little bit about that, the different mindsets that in your research and in the book that you and Bell have kind of identified that people can be in and what the book is.Hoping people can view their lens of their life in.Yeah. And I'm really excited to get into that. And I would just say to add some context here for people listening is. The narrative around college students today couldn't be more wrong with what their values are and what they're into and what they're trying to do. And so I'll just say I'm 38 years old, which feels young to me, but probably feels really old to your listeners.And when I went to college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I literally chose a college because it was not in my home state of Vermont. That's the only reason I chose it. And then when I decided what I wanted to do, My decision making practice behind that was, I don't know. I like sports. That's, and that was the end of it.And then I went into sports, media and marketing as my major and as a clinical therapist. I can tell you both. I'm not doing a lot with sports, media and marketing right now, but like when I, when I was in college, not that long. was this rite of passage, and it was this place to explore and to figure out who you are and what's out there in the world and what you wanna stand for.And it was expected. You explore in these four years of college and then you go out into the real world and figure out what direction you wanna take. But now, today with rising college costs, With how Rejective College is getting, how hard it is to get into and with, you know, it seeming like the stakes feel so hard, high for young people today, and they're coming into college and they're saying, I'm spending six figures going into debt.It seems like only the top 1% are the people who are going to be able to get jobs. So I need to figure out what I'm going to. Incredibly successful at I need to double down and I need to work my butt off to get there. And so, and that's part of the society right now. And so that is what we call this overarching emphasis on.Needing to, how can I be successful? Like if you were a college student and your main goal every day is how can I be successful? That's what we call the and in our research at Boston College and the Purpose Lab, we found that the performance mindset, It's this view of the world, that life is this hyper-competitive, zero sum competition where the goal is to win.And there's few winners, there's many losers. And so if you wanna make it in the world, you gotta make sure that you are beating everyone, getting the best grades, getting the best internships, getting the best jobs. Because if you don't, then you're gonna fall short. So I can go into it more, but I'm just really curious how that resonates with you or how you see that playing out with in your work with students.Oh my gosh, so often, and first of all, like you, again, I won't say my age, but I I went to school and I was just like, I did what I needed to do. I got into college. Time to play. I took Intro to Jazz . I took Intro to Art. I just started just really to your point, kind of explore a bit, and some of the most fruitful experiences I had were those moments . Now I agree. , like I said earlier, off to the races. And not only that, they also wanna have some sort of, it feels like passion on their work.They wanna give back. There's an advocacy piece to it as well. So it's not just like, I need to go and grind and, and make a lot of money. It's like I wanna go and make a difference. And so if you start to add that to your performance mindset, God, that's a lot of. I was just gonna say quickly the amount of eighth graders I work with that are so anxious already and dreading high school because of what it's gonna look like to prepare themselves for college. It's sad to me that they're already predicting that four years of their life are gonna be miserable, it's happening younger and younger. The fact that I'm seeing eighth graders that are stressed out about what classes they place into in ninth grade because of what that's gonna look like for college.It's just a, a long process to kind of get there. That is promoting a lot of really negative emotions.Yeah. And we're, we see that in, in Bellying, my work. She's done research of that and she has found. You know, in elementary school that was a time of play and exploration K through six. You know, you just get to go and figure out who you are and how you interact with other people. And, and, and that is a ver in the research specifically exactly what you said, Liz, around seventh or eighth grade they say, oh, I'm playing for keeps Now my grades matter.My standardized test scores not matter because I need to get that a in geometry because I need to get into calculus. So I can take AP calculus. And they just start getting on the train and. But what happens, which is really, really tough, is these students go through high school and they're playing the game.The game is very clear. You need to get as best grades as possible. You need to put as many AP classes on as possible. And then you get to graduation and you hear a graduation speaker after you've just played the game, the Spartan War, and you've won, and they say, go do what you. Find your passions, right?And these high schoolers are like, what? I've just been busting my butt for this whole, and now you're telling me I have to go find what I love. And then they go to college. And not only do they have to keep up the level of rigor, but now you need to be loving what you're doing at the same time. And it's just like, are we surprised at all that's there's this mental health crisis among college students today?No. Who are always asking me, you know, it's so interesting. I'll have people who are parents themselves say, oh, why do you think there's a mental health crisis? And at the same time they're like, oh my God, do I gotta make sure that they go to this hockey short event and get on this team so that they can get, you know, and I'm like, well, I'm not saying that's the reason, right?but at a certain point this just becomes something that stacks on top of each other. And you're also supposed to have fun in college too, it turns out. Right? So then it's like, oh, I've gotta do all these things and I'm supposed to have fun as well. And I always hate, I don't want it to make us feel like we think college is just a time of complete doom and gloo.I, you know, we definitely. We hope that everyone here listening is having a lot of fun as well, but we wanna recognize that at a certain point, you're right when you go to college, and also this is what we see too, is once you, you know, we see people pre postcollege as well. Once they're done and they've been studying, studying, studying, and getting the grades, suddenly they're in the workforce.And how do you navigate relationships? How do you have conflict? You know, how do you. tussle with a, an office mate, right? Like there's other things that involve feeling successful and there's other parts to life besides being successful that are really important. So I think that's something where we love the idea of what you're doing because you have a set of tools I think that can help with that.Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And we can get into those tools by just the, the sad irony is that, and higher education should take a lot of ownership over this, but the value of higher education has been completely been misrepresented. Like we live in a country today, United States. There's, I think over 4,000 colleges in this country alone.And so when you're choosing a college, how do you choose the college that's right for you? We've never taught parents or young people how do, how do you choose a college? How are you supposed to do it? And it's because we've never taught them the role of college. What do they do instead? You work as hard as you can to get into the college that's most likely to reject.right? Because we think that if the more, the more prestigious a school is, the harder it is to get into, the better that college must be and the better I must be because I go there and that's what we call brand capital. And of course like saying that I've worked at Harvard and Boston College, like you assume things about me because I have that brand capital.But the research actually. That it's the people that you meet, peers and mentors and faculty members, and it's the formative experiences in and out of the classroom that actually not only make college more meaningful for people, it makes you more likely to thrive in your career. There was research that just came out two weeks ago showing that.People who had strong relationships with their peers and they did extracurricular activities, had much, much better health when transitioning into the workforce than people who didn't have those. And so the ultimate irony here is that really focusing on meeting interesting people and doing interesting things in college actually is not only going to make that experience more meaningful for you, but it's actually going to lead to better.Outcomes in your career? Mental health outcomes and lead to more purpose in life. And that's just a message we're not sending to students right now. They're hearing I need to show up in class. I need to follow the syllabus. I need to get the best grades. I need to check it off, off the box, and I need to get out of here, and I need to go up the next rung on the ladder.We talked a little bit about the performance mindset. So Tim, can you talk about, , Sarah kind of alluded to this where I, I do think this is the other side now that I'm seeing a lot more in recent ears where it's kind of, there is this, pressure to kind of do more meaningful, , work.I have somebody right now, Love the loves the arts, like really, really loves It is incredibly artistic. But is in a stem major because that is the reliable, safe thing to do and technologies where it's at. But they're miserable, right? I'll have her do some ratings around her different activities and what brings her joy and pleasure. , she's happier when she's drawing or producing art. So maybe you can speak a little bit. Cause I think this is, it really is this tension, I think a lot of college students experience between doing something that's meaningful, meaningful to them, something they really value.And the demands of, you know, what you just alluded to earlier.Mm-hmm. . Should we talk about that student specifically as an example, if that's helpful or,Yeah. Oh, I would love to. And she's, she's a listener, so she'll be listening.right? Yeah. So she's doing the practical thing, right? Because it's like you get into stem, cuz you're like computer science, you're gonna go learn to code, you're gonna do all of those things. And then like I'm sure she's like, I love art, I wanna do it. And then what's the narrative around art? Oh, like you're gonna be a broke artist living on your couch.There's no job there. Right? And so we've done the research on it and what's interesting is that, yes, people with a stem. Start their careers with a higher wage than someone with an art career because they have some sort of demonstrative skill. They know how to code in Python or whatever it is that's gonna get them higher.But what happens over time, the gap in income between those people who have a STEM career versus a liberal arts degree, like an art program, the people with the liberal arts degree, it catches up over. Why does that happen? Because in stem, people get into STEM because it's the stable job. Because technology right now, it's not stable at all.And so the, the, the skills that she is learning in her STEM program right now, the research shows that they are probably going to get automated in the next three years. And so a lot of the time, people who are in stem, they need to be constantly learning new skills over in time because those skills depre.And so people in engineering leave engineering at much higher rates because they don't wanna have to be continue li learning new skills over time.The people who stay are the people who are really motivated, like learning those skills. . What's interesting is that people with a liberal arts degree actually make more money over the long term because her love of art, personal expression, creativity, those are skills, what we call universal human skills that will never be automated by technology.And so if you see it now, personal expression, creativity, those skills are highly in demand right now. And so, Again, this is the irony of thinking that we have to do this practical thing in the moment now, and we have to divorce it from things that are autonomous to us when we need to help students lean into that.So I should say she should go. I would combine the stem and the art in some way so she could be getting both.I am gonna talk to her about thatI'd like to do some research to see how many of our listeners have artists after, after that pitch. If only I had the talent. That's my problem.  So we started with this performance mindset, right? Which is like, you do what you're supposed to do, you're doing the practical thing, you're doing what everyone else tells you.We are seeing students reject that a little bit. Right now, you see it in quiet, quitting. You see it in the mental health crisis. You see it. Students are beginning to say, what's the point of being successful if I'm just gonna be miserable? And so they're, and they're stepping off and they're saying, I don't wanna play a game.What we're finding is that they go to the other end of the spectrum and they're, and they're saying, the goal of life is not to be successful. The goal of life is to be happy. And when we have that, and their question becomes, how can I be happy? Right? And so there's a pretty simple formula for that. It's maximize positive emotion. Minimize negative emotions. And so they think that if I just have more positive emotions than negative emotions, then I will be happy. And that's what we call the passion mindset. Like to do what you love, follow your passion. And what's interesting about that in the research, it's the more you put happiness as the central value in your life, higher rates of depression and anxiety.Lower, like worse relationships with your peers. So the irony is, is that putting your own quote unquote happiness as the central most important thing in your life leads to the same dangerous place as the performance mindset. I'm not against happiness as a thing. It's just this passion mindset where it's the most important thing it sends. Dangerous message that negative emotions are to be avoided at all costs. And it sends this message, if I'm experiencing negative emotions, something must be wrong.I need to be changing something. And like, you know, you know, I mean, you said it better than I, that, you know, negative emotions are part of the human experience. So, so that's why we try to differentiate betwe, stay away from passion mindset, and that's where we talk about the purpose mindset to differentiate between those two.I, I was gonna say quickly and then maybe Tim, you could talk about the purpose mindset that, you know, I see high levels and it's one of the most difficult things to treat of. Like ex existentialist, kind of depress typic thinking, sorry, that's very clinical. But essentially people like, what is the meaning of life?What's the purpose of life? And I think, I find college students are really stuck there because of the dichotomy or the difference between these two things that you're talking about. They're like, okay, wait, I'm gonna swing away from being really performance focused and I'm just gonna focus on. What makes me happy and then they're like, wait, I'm poor living on the side of the road with my dogand then they're like, then what's the point? And then they get really stuck because I think they can't fit kind of into either one of those sides. So how, how could a purpose mindset. Help maybe cultivate meaning, which I think is essentially what they're looking for behind the decisions that they're making.Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I, I, it's a, that was a great setup because I think that big question that they have. it's not so much about finding the answer to that question. It's about using that question to to, to as your guidepost to figure it out. You know, it's not, they're looking for an answer and the journey is seeking and understanding that.And so we would say the balance that we call purpose mindset is, and I needed that too. I was that same person. It was like, if I didn't know the purpose of why I needed to go to class or learn something, I just wasn't gonna do it. And so, and I struggled with that for a very long time. And, the research on it.It's, it's just the intention, right? It's not actually, when I, when we say the word purpose, usually people think you need to be like, combating climate change or curing cancer or doing, you have to be sacrificing everything for these huge noble aspirations. And they're like, well, if I'm a accounting major, how am I gonna find purpose?That's not what purpose is. Purpose is an intention. It's an intention, right? It's within. To do something, to live a life that's personally meaningful to you, that also contributes to the world beyond the self. And so it, it's the presence of those two things, of doing what's personally meaningful and doing things where you feel like you're contributing, making someone else's life 1% better.In some sort of way. And so it's not actually what you're doing where you find purpose. It's to you can you find personally meaningful in it? Do you think it's contributing to someone else? And if you personally can say yes to those questions, you're headed in the right direction. You're pursuing the right thing no matter what anyone says.And the challenge is, and I'm curious how you tease this out, is people need to know what's personally meaningful to. They need to know what sort of contribution that they want to be making. And then they have to figure out how do you actually pursue that in the world. And that's really kind of at the heart of our work is how do you get people to have those experiences so they under understand themselves better.But I'm curious from both of you how that aligns with your work. Cause I'm, if at all.Oh my goodness. So I'm a big practitioner of something called acceptance and commitment therapy, and so much about the word commitment in there is to say, how do you use your values and make an action that's committed towards that. So again, we could just re rephrase that to say purpose, right? Purpose.Having a purpose mindset. So, so much of the time, I'm one of, and one of the first things I'm always doing with people is to say, let's get a sense of, you know, where your values are. I'm working with you. maybe to reduce your anxiety or to help your mood stay more regulated, et cetera. But I also need to know you, like why are we doing this for you?What are the values in it? What are the values in it that are gonna make you work hard or want to, you know, get rid of this? Like what are you moving towards? We're moving away from anxiety. Sure, but what are we moving towards? And I always sit down and think with them too. Not so much about career, although that certainly could.you know, what are, what are the larger goals that you have and what are sort of a top 10 values that we know, that we all know when we've assessed together, so that when you're making big decisions or you're thinking about relationships, et cetera, you're moving towards those. And the other part too, and I'm curious to hear you, Tim, talk about this, is we know a lot of things that help people move away from those things.So distraction, comparisons, big emotions that you don't wanna feel, anxiety, et cetera. Shoulds, I should go into stem, right? Those kinds of things. So yes, absolutely. It's, it's a conversation I'm having with every single person in my room.Hmm.Liz, how do you do it? I have to say, college students are always, they're very Nosy in my experience and wanna know everything about me. They're like, well, how do you do it, Liz? Like, how did you find like your path? And, I think part of when I self-disclose how I ended up where I am in terms of my career, I'm being content and happy and excited, still doing what I do is to pay attention to moments throughout my life that I think really helped guide me to where I am.So I'll quickly kind of, and so usually I start with that in terms of. Sharing my story and then asking them to kind of reflect back on their life at certain moments that I'll define the moments for them to pay attention to and to be curious and do some self-inquiry, like, okay, like what does that mean?What could that possibly mean about you? What could it possibly mean about your next, your next move that you make? So, so in my example, I'll, I always said like I reflected back. Where was I? Happy is where was I most excited? , and where did I feel the most proud of myself, let's say in high school. And for me, that was some form of contributing to others, and it happened to be within science or medicine.So when I'm working with young adults and with high school students, , asking 'em to pay attention to, and sometimes they're these like light bulb kind of moments, right? That I think sometimes they neglect to kind of pay attention to because of all the noise around society, their parents, their high school, et cetera,, to help kind of guide their decision making.So No, no, I love this. Okay, before I begin, there's, there's three purpose sparks. If people don't know what their strengths are, the skills that they wanna develop, the impact that they wanna make, the values that they wanna stand for, which are our four purpose elements.If you don't know what's purposeful to you, the first thing you want to do is envision the. , and, and Sarah just said, when they walk into her door, they're gonna envision the future. They're gonna be like, what do you wanna stand for as a person? What are the values that are most important to you? You're gonna start thinking about the future in a really, really intentional way.And what I mean by that is people with a performance mindset, they are, they, they are focused on the future, but they're, they're just saying, what should I be doing? And Sarah is saying, what are you called to do? What do you aspire to do outside of expectations what you want? So, People listening, you need to carve out time to say, what do I aspire to do in the future?Not what should I do in the future? Because people who only are doing the shoulds, that's a performance mindset. But then to un, to make sure that your future aspirations are purposeful to you, you need to go talk to. Because Liz is gonna go in and she's gonna come in and you're gonna help people reflect on the pasts, right?And you're gonna help them dive into moments of their past, what we literally call moments that matter, formative experiences, relationships into your life. These bigger, small moments that really stuck with you. And you need to go and reflect on your path and. What are moments in my past that influence my values, the strengths I want?And if you can do this connection between understanding your past and being able to articulate how this formative experience in your past is connected to a future goal, that's purpose right there. And I know purpose is this really big word, but the way to think about it is that I. This is coming to me right now.But like each person has three different people in their lives. They have their, they have their future self, where they want to go. They have their past self, where they've been, and they have their present self. And the work of purpose is to, how do we help people think about their lives and create stories of their lives where that their past feels connected to their present and that present feels connected to their future.And the. , anyone who can tell that story. Like for you, Liz, it's not like your life isn't stressful or you don't have anxiety or anything, but having this coherent story, this narrative that you can tell yourself about what you're doing and why takes you out of the everyday moment and like, and I'll just stop there.Does that make sense to y'all? I'm really curious here on your thoughts on that idea or how you would apply that to your work.Oh yeah.It makes complete sense. I mean, this is like the stuff I can geek out on all day, but I'm just realizing that Liz and I need to now create a Sarah Liz therapist hybridthat's why we have this podcast, sir.speaking of the past and the future.  Yeah, I think it makes complete sense. This is a really intentional, effective way to reflect on the past, to help inform your decision making and help you kind of reach goals in the, in the future.Here's my question and here's what I get a lot, which is like, I have no idea what my values are, right? We're starting from scratch here. I've been told. , but I value X, Y, and z right? From my parents or my community. How do you start to work with people who might be at that point where they just have no clue where to?Mm-hmm. . Yeah, I mean, so the, the key thing here, when I say it's using your strengths and the skills and the values and the impact, it's really, these are all aspirational. So I would start, you start by envisioning the future, and what we have people do is if you don't know what your values are, take four minutes and 33 seconds, and you go on this question, what do you want to stand for as a person? and you just go, you know, and that's a future, or it's not. What do you stand for now? It's what do you want to stand for as a person? And it don't self censor. Let yourself go free form writing and just go.And what people will find there is that they're gonna really struggle at the beginning, but every word that they write is gonna make it a little easier for the next word to come out. And then they're gonna start writing and writing and writing. And this is what we do in our work. We just have them explore that, create space for it, and then we have them pick out three terms or phrases that feel especially meaningful to you from this and then. We just say, okay, if you have to pick three of these values right here, what do you aspire you?What do you wanna stand for? Right? And so, ev, I've never worked with a student who couldn't do that. Because it, it's aspirational in the future, right? And then, then the hard part is connecting the dots to the past and being like, why did you pick that value? What are the lived experiences that inform it over that one?And so and so, it's, it is what we call a practice. And so every once in a while you need to be intentionally thinking about the future for yourself. You need to be reflecting on the past to understand where these aspirations are coming from, and you need to start looking in the present to try to connect what you're doing on a day-to-day micro moment.to those things. And I'll just, there's one story from last week when I was doing this work with students where you know, we were taking students through this process and then we have them do what we call a one one one. Like once they've identified their strengths or their values, what's one action you can take in one minute or less that will take you one step closer to living out those values or those strengths?And the student said to me, . Like when I was looking for answers, one student raised his hand and he is like, I'll, I'm gonna play video games, right? And you typically hear that with a young man saying, I'm gonna play video games. That doesn't sound very purposeful to, to you, does it. And I was like, but I knew there was a story there.And I was like, why is that purposeful to you? And he told this beautiful story about his grandmother who had this value of rest and she was all about rest and recovery. And she made it really, really sure that her family. Put in time of rest and recovery from a religious perspective. And so he was like, when I'm playing video games in that way, I am practicing rest in a way that embodies what my grandmother taught me.And so do you see like, Two people. One person's just playing video games to avoid studying for their tests. This student is doing something incredibly meaningful that connects into his rich cultural tradition. The only difference, the story they're telling themselves about what they're doing. But the only reason he could do that is because he had been really intentionally thinking about how all these things are playing together.Yeah, I was thinking the it is, the action itself doesn't always have to be like, I would say like a towards or a way move necessarily. Right? It's like sometimes watching Netflix is clear distraction, and sometimes it's allowing yourself a break that you never really give yourself. It's actually to your point, that rest idea is quitting.You know, quitting a class is taking a medical withdrawal. Like, like a lot of these things in and of themselves, it's hard to know. Are they purpose driven? You know, so part of the story I hear you saying is what's, what's in, in, what's leading to that decision in your past? What are the things happening or what are the emotions that might be.leaning you towards that. Is it something where it feels like it's purposeful and you're thinking about your mental health or you're thinking about your overall change in a maybe your major, right? Versus, eh, it's hard. I just wanna quit the class. Well, those are two different ways of quitting the class, so I see exactly what you mean.I love that idea of knowing your story.Mm-hmm. . Exactly. You just put it so well there. And just to bring it back, like let's go back to the art versus engineering student and what is her story, you know? And if she continues with engineering one, when she goes, when she goes for that job, she's gonna need to tell a story. To the person that she hopes hires her about why she wants to work there.Right. And if she hasn't done the work too, you know, if you have an engineering student who's been like I, my six year old loves Legos. He loves systems, he loves problem solving. He loves figuring out why things do. He's he just loves engineering. He's gonna have a different story about why he is going to engineering than a student who just says, well, it's the practical job.I don't wanna be crushed with debt. And so that's why I'm doing it. So one that story's gonna help open doors for you wherever direction you want to go. And two, when it, when that, when it gets really, really, I'm not saying she shouldn't go into engineering, but just like if she doesn't have a very good story, when it gets really, really hard, she's gonna say, why am I. And if she doesn't, and the story, is the thing that's going to tap into to get you there. Versus with art, you know, when she's struggling or it's inconsistent or she doesn't know the way forward, if she knows her story for why she's on the journey that she's on. Re, that will give her the mental stability.It will help her deal with the stress and the anxiety of it in a way that's gonna allow her to keep going. And so I'm not saying anyone should do or not do any direction, but I'm just saying when I work with people, it's like you, you have to have your story for why you're doing what you are doing. And if you don't have your story, you're not on your path, you're on someone else's.You know, it's so interesting because even with this podcast people will say like, oh, how's it going? How is it? And Liz and I, I think, have the same response, which is like, oh my gosh, it can be. a lot of work. It's a labor of love, but that's the point. Like it's a labor of purpose really. Right. , we, we know we're doing it and the stress is worth it for us because we're excited about being able to reach people who might not otherwise get, get some of these tips.So, so yeah. I hear you loud and clear . I'm like, oh man. It's had to get Liz and I through some, some long nights.Yeah. I mean, the big takeaway here is in college to, to get the most outta college, how do you form meaningful relationships with people? How are you having hands-on formative experiences and how do you make sure you're doing active reflection?How that, thinking about the future, reflecting on the past and. We're working True North is really a program that we're working on to try to infuse this stuff into every aspect of higher education. because this stuff doesn't just happen in the classroom. It happens in student life at bc. It happens in mission and ministry.This, this can happen anywhere. I mean, Liz, you said like your whole journey started on one, like little internship where you were working in the hospital just rolling people down, and so we're really working on how do you infuse these best practices of purpose and belonging in higher education. So that anywhere a student goes, it's an opportunity to build a relationship, have a form, an experience, and do this active reflection. I think that's what I'm most excited about, is trying to put something out in the world. Where it can be self ran with other people. But so stay tuned on that one and if anyone has an ideas or collaboration, like we're always open to that.But you know what, and, and I think this is a good example of. I don't have a five year plan on where I'm going. And so my true north, which is what we call it, is like, I know I'm headed in the right direction, but I can't tell you the path that I'm on or what it's gonna look like a year from now.And so that's really me walking the walk where I know I'm headed and Bell and I are headed in the right direction, even though we don't know exactly where we're going, but we've done the work to be. You know, this aligns with our purpose, so we're just gonna move forward. Can I ask you two, one question before we go, like, I do, like, you've talked about this labor of love and this podcast and how hard it is.Like where does this fit into your story? You know, this, this podcast, like yeah. Where does it fit?. I would say my story probably, if I'm really reflecting on like why I said yes to this in the midst of a peer consultation meeting with Sarah, , I really struggle with the status in terms of access to quality mental healthcare. And that part of.that has never, like what I do, has never felt like enough in terms of attending to some of my values. So when I'm trying to like, make meaning out of meaning, out of like the learning curves and everything, that my goal is really like to cast a wider net and I really want people to. Have actionable steps, , that they can kind of access or potentially hear this and be like, you know what, like maybe it might be worthwhile to get help. Or even better, can we prevent, , people that are susceptible, can we catch people earlier on with, getting access to life skills essentially. That's my longMm-hmm. . No, I love that.  As you are describing sort of the past future and then coming into the present. You know, I was, yeah, similar stories that I was a clinical psychologist. I mean, before I became a clinical psychologist, I loved working with kids. I was always volunteering and undergrad for shelters, et cetera.And so I took my love of kids and how to give back. And then over time my purpose, you know, is so similar to Liz and anyone who's probably in this field just like wanna contribute. I wanna help where I can. At some point in time, my value, right, of trying to also have some stability for my children meant that I had to go into private practice so I could be home more and not work in a clinic.And I think part of the reason that this podcast fits into my story is like kind of going back now that I have some time to those original roots, right? To say, okay, now I wanna make sure that I am going back. Helping a wider range of people in a, in a wider community. And, and to also, to hear your point, I don't know where this is gonna lead.People keepYes. Oh, they alwaysthey're like, what is your purpose of this podcast? And Liz and I are like helping people. They're like, no, but what's the point though? And we're like, well, that's just, that's, that's the point. So many people in different fields, they're like, what is it? You know, write a book.Do you wanna be in media? Sh we just wanna tell people and they almost look at us like we're so sad, little dumb dumbs. You know, we're like we feel good about this answer, We've taken too way too much of your time. Literally I love the book. My husband read it. I think he loved it. Like it was just, Really wonderful and it's been a really great resource to give to parents, , I'm just really excited for you guys and excited to follow where this is gonna go.Thank you for having me on. Yeah, people go out and read the book. I hope they get a lot out of it, but it's really about, Getting you to reflect on your life.So there's probably like 500 questions in that book. And like the best thing you can do is just give yourself time. But if anyone wants to reach out to me who have read the book or have a question about this, like, you know, I really, I really, really want to get this out there in the world. So you can put my email.Honestly in the show notes of that, and if people wanna reach out directly with a question, I promise you I will answer and try to give you some guidance on how to do it. So I love the work that you're doing here, so thanks for having me.