>>Narrator: How do I know which path is best for me?

Is it possible to take on these challenges and obstacles?

Where do I even start?

What should I do with my life?

Sometimes, the only way to find out is to go see what's possible Since 2001, we've been sharing the stories of people who ventured out and explored different career paths and different possibilities for their futures.

This is one of those stories.

This is Roadtrip Nation.

>> Lacey: It's officially been two weeks.

It feels like it went by really fast, but it also feels like two weeks ago was a really long time ago.

>> Yailenne: Meeting new people every single day almost, learning about people's backgrounds and their perspective.

That's been my favorite thing so far.

>> Zane: I'm used to not really talking to anybody about how I feel, or not being around a certain person for more than 24 hours.

[LAUGH] But this trip, every single day, I haven't.

I've been around people, so that's a whole different change for me.

I'm definitely learning a few things.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: I definitely do consider myself more of an introvert.

I'm a very homebody person.

I think that being an introvert has definitely held me back a lot.

I really just want to learn how to put myself out there and make relationships with people and mentors.

Im first-generation middle school, high school, and college.

I have so many eyes on me being the youngest, and then you're the first one who's doing this.

It's just a lot of pressure.

I've been thinking about maybe, you know, getting a master's degree and going into the healthcare field.

All the pressure does stem from the fear of failing.

I think that failure for me would be completing my degree and then maybe not being able to fit into the field and not getting a job.

I think that the number one thing holding me back would be just not knowing where to start and not having a guidance to do so.

So we are about to interview Lilia Cervantes.

She's a doctor and a healthcare advocate in Denver.

She does amazing work in the Hispanic community that is really near and dear to my heart.

>> Dr. Lilia: Nice to meet you, hi.

I'm an internal medicine physician.

So when people come through the emergency department and they need to stay in the hospital, I take care of them.

And now I wear several hats.

I am a health disparities researcher and I also do some advocacy and healthcare policy work.

And also involved in increasing diversity in the healthcare workforce.

So I don't know what it was about becoming a physician, but I was always drawn to it.

I was in third grade and I grew up in the Valverde and Westwood neighborhoods.

Are you guys familiar with those neighborhoods?

>> Yailenne: I grew up in Westwood.

>> Dr. Lilia: Wow, [LAUGH] that's awesome.

Okay, so I guess it was sort of a combination of seeing the hospital, realizing the challenges faced by my community, and really wanting to make a difference.

And once I got to college, I started looking for more experiences, like shadowing in the clinical setting.

I also became a certified nurse assistant and really found my passion in taking care of people.

>> Zane: So what exactly do you research?

>> Dr. Lilia: That's a great question.

So all of my work is focused on improving care for the Latino community, both undocumented and documented.

The initial work that got me interested in this was my deep frustration with how undocumented people were treated when they have kidney failure.

There was a patient that I became very close to.

Her name was Hilda.

She was undocumented, she had kidney failure, and couldn't receive regular three-times-per-week dialysis.

We became very close friends and she decided to stop emergency dialysis so that her kids could have a full life.

After my patient passed away, I had to change this.

I was too morally distressed by it.

>> Yailenne: When I was little, my grandma also had kidney failure.

And so my mom brought her from Mexico to the United States to get her dialysis treatment.

My mom couldn't speak English and she would take my grandma to the hospital.

They were just both confused on what people were telling them.

Yeah, my mom worked hard to help my grandma with that whole treatment, sorry.

>> Dr. Lilia: No, that's really hard, and it can be really frightening.

>> Yailenne: I think that also, for a while, kind of pushed me away from wanting to be a doctor cuz for me, it was really hard just seeing my grandma at home, but now that I'm growing up, it's something that does interest me.

>> Dr. Lilia: Yeah, well, and now you can say, I'm gonna change that.

I'm gonna make it so that people like my grandma don't face that kind of challenge.

For me, I realized that the best way to change this was to put the evidence together and convince people that this needed to change.

I sat down with 20 undocumented immigrants one by one and asked them to just share their experiences with me.

What is it like to receive emergency dialysis?

And my ultimate goal with that specific research was to change healthcare policy.

I think what I saw in her was the opportunity that my parents gave me.

That in moving here, I was able to obtain a medical degree and she was forced to receive substandard care.

>> Yailenne: Health care isn't really talked about in our community just because we know it's not accessible so we kinda just ignore it.

And so it's really good that you're putting your voice out there for people who don't have that voice.

>> Dr. Lilia: Thank you, now that means a lot.

I think my work with the undocumented Latino community has been honestly the most meaningful.

By being a physician, you are able to be that voice for the community.

There's so much you can do as a physician.

It's not just being a doctor, it's being a voice if your community wants you to be a voice.

>> Yailenne: I wanna ask a little bit about grad school.

I've been thinking of applying here to get my master's in anesthesiology.

Just the requirements is very intimidating because I feel that my family isn't a good source for help for medical school and all of that.

And so I was just wondering how you were able to get your foot in the door or what pushed you to keep going.

>> Dr. Lilia: I would say for me, a lot of it was persistence.

Ask questions, find people that are willing to be your allies, and to help you navigate that.

Let those experiences fuel your passion even more.

The challenges that you face, you can either use those challenges to propel you forward or let them hold you back.

So I think when you're faced with impostor syndrome, when you're faced with these challenges of will I succeed, will I not succeed, you have to be your own sort of strength and motivator to push yourself forward, to remind yourself that you absolutely can do this >> Yailenne: It's really good that you say that because it's hard to do that and to be proud of who you are and be confident that you are good enough.

>> Dr. Lilia: Yeah, if medicine happens to be something that you decide is part of your journey, reach out, I'm happy to help you.

>> Yailenne: Okay, thank you.

That means a lot to me actually.

>> Dr. Lilia: Of course, I think that you're doing the right thing by meeting with different people, asking all these questions.

Really think thoughtfully through, these are the steps and can I imagine myself waking up and doing what this person does and know that once you make a decision, it's okay to change.

Just realize that life is a constant journey and you don't have to have it 100% accurate.

There will always be twists and turns and that's okay.

>> Yailenne: Thank you so much for your time and for having us.

>> Dr. Lilia: Yeah.

>> Yailenne: It just kinda has opened a perspective for me that I hadn't seen before and I'm excited.

It's a wonderful, wonderful interview.

Thank you so much.

>> Dr. Lilia: Thank you.

>> Lacey: Do you want to come on the RV and sign it?

>> Dr. Lilia: My gosh, totally.

[LAUGH] >> Lacey: Okay.

>> Yailenne: Crazy how one hour of somebody else's time can change your perspective on life.

>> Lacey: Healthcare isn't just a doctor going in every day, it's community outreach, it's research, it's talking to patients and patient relationships.

It was a very perspective-changing interview.

>> Yailenne: That was very inspiring.

I just really connected with her and the work that she does.

I feel more motivated now to start the whole grad school process.

She's expecting me to reach out, which I'm excited to do.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: We went to the Great Sand Dunes.

It's basically the Sahara Desert in the middle of the Rockies.

Honestly, it's unreal.

Its like, it's not even supposed to be there.

>> Lacey: We went sandboarding, it was awesome.

I went sledding, it was fantastic.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: [LAUGH] It was intimidating.

At first, I was scared to fall, but it wasn't as bad as I thought.

>> Lacey: Go for it.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: [LAUGH].

I fell a lot of times.

It was still fun though.

>> Lacey: [LAUGH] You're like ten feet away from your board.

Nicely done.

[MUSIC] >> Lacey: There was so much sand everywhere.

It was in my mouth, it was in my eyes, it was in my ears.

>> Yailenne: I ate something and I was like, ew, what is that?

And it was sand.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> Zane: I'm definitely a big problem solver.

I love challenges and that's definitely why I'm getting into IT.

The technology that comes out of the state of Colorado is tremendous.

I want to have a sense of direction and sense of control over what I wanna do.

I still wanna do IT.

I still wanna do the outdoorsy things, but I just wanna see how I can do both.

Definitely most scared of not having a purpose in life.

A sense of belonging too, it's a scary thought.

I'm definitely open to a lot of new ideas and I just wanna know everything.

I wanna do everything, I wanna see what else is out there.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: So we're heading over to Evergreen to speak with Gerrit Padgham.

He runs a cybersecurity company and he also does search and rescue on the side.

He is a perfect example of someone who combined two of his passions and that is exactly what I wanna do.

>> Gerrit: My name is Garrett.

I am a business owner, principal consultant for a company called Psicurity.

We do offensive security testing for businesses all throughout the nation and even internationally.

So companies will hire us to try and find all the vulnerabilities in their network and their applications.

We do what are called penetration tests and so if they write a program that's available on the Internet for people to use, we wanna make sure that application is secure.

And so we create the exploit a proof of concept that we hand back to the customer and say yeah, you have a vulnerable application.

This is what's wrong with it.

This is why it's a threat to your business, and this is the code we use that we wrote to take advantage of it and get access to this data, and here's the data that we got.

>> Lacey: That's awesome.

>> Zane: Can you kinda talk about what got you into IT in the first place?

>> Gerrit: I was good at it, and good at computers and my teachers were always asking me for help.

The computer science major was just coming out in colleges.

Eventually, I figured out what I did like about IT and what I didn't like about IT and then tried to steer my career towards the things that I did like to do.

I realized all the things I got involved in, outdoors was actually a passion of mine.

And seeing things and traveling, I discovered that I really liked to travel.

So I made a personal goal of saying I'm gonna visit every continent in this world.

Antarctica seemed pretty darn difficult.

So searching for new jobs cuz I was sick of my old one, I actually found a job for the United States Antarctic Program, which this company was needing IT people in Antarctica.

So I was like, well, I'll just apply for that for the heck of it and got the job amazingly.

From there, met a really good friend and we were doing IT work together.

He ended up wanting to go start another company.

And so that's how I became my own employer, and that was fun because I only had to answer to myself.

Now I'm a field active member and mission coordinator for a backcountry search and rescue team here as well.

It's my unpaid profession, so to speak.

>> Lacey: Yeah, I feel like that really correlates with the fact that you like helping people.

I mean, obviously, you do like the Alpine rescue, so could you talk a little bit more about that?

>> Gerrit: Moved to Colorado, had a hole in my heart for first responder stuff, so I applied for the team.

Got accepted and worked my way up through the ranks.

So I've been doing that.

Super rewarding, and like I said, it's all unpaid.

Yes, it's about who we're out there to save but now it's more about my team and supporting my teammates in that community, and friendship and camaraderie that I have with them.

>> Zane: I know you do run your own business and you make your own hours.

How are you able to be able to do search and rescue on the call while you're still managing your own business?

>> Gerrit: When we get a mission, it's up to me to decide when I respond and when I don't respond.

With IT, a lot of the stuff I do, all of my customers are remote.

All of my employees are actually remote.

So if I have a meeting with a customer coming up that I have to meet with them, I won't respond.

I have to make that choice.

But if I'm just working on a contract, I can go away for six hours during the middle of the day.

I have to meet my deliverables and my timelines when I say I'm gonna get them done still.

So there's discipline there.

It's just a matter of dividing time and another thing I say is there's 24 hours a day.

That's a lot of time in the day.

So you have time to do the things you want.

You can't say you don't have time to do something.

You say it's not a priority for me, right?

And that sort of changes your perspective.

Reframing those types of things helps you manage your time and what you wanna spend it on.

>> Lacey: Kind of looking at each of us as 18, 19, 20-year-olds who are just entering the professional world, but also just life in general, what is your advice for us?

>> Gerrit: Prioritize your passions, be patient about that pursuit.

It's not gonna happen right away and seek opportunity, right?

Don't be passive.

Don't wait for things to happen to you, go after them.

Eventually, as you grow and progress in your career, you're gonna have more flexibility to choose the jobs that you want to be in and situations where you can have a good work-life balance.

>> Zane: Gerrit is fantastic, definitely made me more happy knowing the fact that it is doable to do outdoor stuff while I'm doing IT stuff.

I do feel like I could be a Gerrit 2.0.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> Lacey: For me, it takes a lot more to do something that's out of the box or that doesn't fit with what I feel other people's kind of expectations are.

I have interest in all of these different fields, but I think the disadvantage is that you're pulled in so many directions that it's really, really hard to choose one thing.

I don't feel like I see myself in a lot of spaces.

There's not very much representation, especially for people who are queer.

A lot of people kind of look down on you for being young and naive and barely 18.

It's very hard.

It's hard to hear, and it's a lot of almost pressure, you put all this pressure on yourself to be the best.

But at the same time, you doubt yourself, [LAUGH] and that's really hard.

I'm really nervous to put myself out there sometimes.

I feel like I'm definitely the kind of person that when I'm reaching for something, I still want to have a hold on something else because I'm nervous.

I can't just fully grab onto something without being hesitant.

[MUSIC] >> Brittany: I always really liked math and sports, and so I was trying to merge the two essentially.

So, I figured out that sports analytics was a thing.

Once I graduated, I started applying for anything sports-analytics-related.

I wanted to be close to the sport.

That's always where my passion lied.

I just want to be living, breathing a sport all the time.

Pretty much any decision that might be made within baseball, we have a report for it.

So it's really just trying to come up with a competitive advantage over other teams that we can try and use to win our games.

>> Lacey: Was there a specific point in time where you're like, okay, this is really what I want?

>> Brittany: I think I really got into the groove whenever I got with the Rockies, and truly figured out that I really liked doing advanced scouting.

I always really like figuring out that part of the puzzle.

>> Yailenne: What's the most important lesson you've learned since you started your career?

>> Brittany: I think not being afraid to be wrong.

I think we need to get out of that headspace that when you're 18, 19, 20, right, that you are making these decisions for the rest of your life, you aren't.

So you have to be okay with okay, like, if I make this decision right now, maybe it's gonna go really poorly, [LAUGH] or maybe it's gonna go really well, but let's find out.

>> Margo: I feel like half of me signed up for college because I didn't know what I wanted to do with myself, [LAUGH], so.

Then I found out that where I happen to have been going to school had an aviation maintenance technology program.

So that was where you can get an A&P license, which is an Airframe and Power plant, which is the certification required to work on aircraft.

I was like, yeah, I guess someone does have to fix the airplanes.

In that moment, I knew that was what I wanted to step into, more than it was like a long-term thing where I was like, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I graduated high school.

>> Lacey: All of us are sitting here terrified.

Cuz I was I would love to say I know exactly what I wanna do, but that's definitely not true at all.

[LAUGH] >> Margo: That's the perfect part about the first year, that was you can spend the first year taking all sorts of classes.

In the end, then you can try something and be sure that's what you really love doing.

I still have friends that are in their forties that are going back to school and changing their careers, which I know it seems really intimidating to say like, I gotta change everything right now.

But those opportunities are always there.

>> Lacey: I felt like our paths were very similar.

She knew what she was good at, but she didn't know what to do with it.

Which I think is kind of the reassurance I needed, because I feel like she was determined enough to be like, I don't know where this is going but I know I'm good at it.

And I have enough faith in myself that it doesn't really matter what other people have to say.

I feel like I'm always putting on myself like, you only have so much time and there's only so much money and time in the world.

And it's like, dude, you really have so much more time than you think, like if stuff changes, and it'll be okay.

>> Roberto: I actually started to experience a lot of health issues when I was in grad school, so it really made me think about my health in a different way, and so I started to explore diet and lifestyle changes that would contribute to my health.

Through that kinda self-initiating journey of learning, I began to understand more about plant physiology, how they grow, and the different components and materials that I had at my disposal to create urban farms indoors.

So fast forward 10, 12 years, and now I'm working on a farm.

>> Zane: If somebody is looking to get into agriculture, do you have any advice for them on how to start?

>> Roberto: Come out to our farm, visit other farms as well, so that you can see the different ways that farmers do their thing.

There's a lot of work happening in agriculture, a lot of innovation, a lot of technology.

And there's just a lot more resources than when I first started.

The advice that I would have in terms of finding your purpose would be to look at not only what you're interested in, but what you're good at.

What is it that you're good at?

Because if you can find a way that plugs into a potential business or an opportunity, you'll never have to work a day in your life.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: I feel like once I'm home, I'm gonna be like, what just happened?

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: I've learned a lot about myself.

I've learned life is gonna take me where it needs to take me.

>> Lacey: I feel like I still don't know completely where I wanna go next, but I at least know the framework.

But it was a really good perspective change that I think will lead me to be able to pick a career.

It'll be interesting to come back home having learned what I learned.

They all have different lessons and I think combining them is probably the most important part of the trip.

>> Rachel: My advice is experience everything you can.

Be an observer and be a student in every experience that you have.

Step back a little bit, detach a little bit, and look at the lenses that are one step removed of your two eyes and how you're seeing things.

>> Zane: Where I see myself in ten years is having a good job that I love doing and it's not just because of the money.

Balancing out work life to personal life, and I have a lot of free time to go camping or doing outdoorsy things.

>> Kelsey: Go do what you want to do.

If something makes you excited, just try it.

A career won't end with a declined job offer, or getting a no, you just have to push forward.

You're gonna get told no a thousand times, just keep pushing till you find that yes.

>> Yailenne: I feel that I'm more mentally prepared for grad school.

I feel that I do have what it takes.

>> Lacey: Ironically, my biggest fear was having this trip change my major, and if anything, I only want to do it more.

Now I know what to look for to find jobs in the field that I want.

>> Yailenne: Before the road trip, I was very scared of failure.

The couple of times in my life that I have faced failure, has pushed me away from doing certain things and not trying again.

Talking to everyone, they basically all had failures in their life.

Now, I definitely have a different perspective on what failure is and what it will mean to me.

>> Zane: I kinda doubted myself on what I know.

But during this trip, I learned to be confident with what you do and what you make.

It definitely kind of changes my view on life.

>> Yailenne: To find your passion, you kinda just have to put yourself out in the world and not be scared to do it.

When I go home, that's something I have to work out on my own.

I need to step out of my comfort zone more because I feel that it helped me develop a lot as a person.

Life is too short to only live inside one little tiny bubble.

>> Lacey: I've got a long, long, long, long time to figure out what I wanna do and do it for a while.

You can be confused and still end up doing what you're supposed to be doing as long as you're listening to yourself.

>> Yailenne: [SPANISH] >> Lacey: Do you really want to live your entire life knowing that all you ever did was reach everybody's expectations and goals for you except yourself?

Do things that make you proud of yourself.

If you're not really proud of yourself, who really cares, bye.

[LAUGH] I have to walk away?

That's fun.

Wondering what to do with your life?

Well we've been there and we're here to help Our website has some awesome tools to help you find your path And you can check out all our documentaries, interviews and more Start exploring at roadtripnation.com