>>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.

>> Jackie: All righty.

This is day one of filming.

We're setting up in Missoula.

This is what we got.

We got Justin over here.

>> Justin: What's up?

What's up?

>> Jackie: We got Andrew over here.

Ebony's setting up.

Very excited to be interviewed here in Missoula.

>> Gabriel: We are in Missoula, Montana, and we are at the very first stop on our road trip.

>> Tomi: [LAUGH] Can we get a ride?

Hi, friends.

I've never been really this far west at all.

It's my first time really seeing mountains.

I'm pretty grateful that I have this opportunity in this space.

And on top of that too, I'm not the only Black person going.

That's pretty great.

Shout out to the production staff.

I don't know if I can do that.

For the next four weeks we're gonna be going across the country from Montana to Boston by RV.

The road trip is all about imagining the future and we're looking at it through the lens of health equity.

>> Jackie: We are talking to people in biotech, we're talking to professors, we're talking to chefs.

People that you wouldn't traditionally think of in the health space, but they're all working towards a common mission of imagining a healthier future.

[MUSIC] >> Jackie: My gosh, okay, first off, this is a dream of mine.

Okay, we're gonna do this.

[LAUGH] I'm Jackie Ho, and I'm from Mesa, Arizona.

I work in health equity access specifically in underrepresented communities.

I just think that access to healthcare is just so cool because you realize that not everyone has the same access, whether it's the situation they're born into, the communities and the resources that each community gets.

So, I think my thing has always been, how can I help someone and equip them with the information to empower them to make informed healthcare decisions in a way that's fun to talk about.

During the sophomore year of undergrad while I was still pretty heavy into doing the premed recs, my mom got sick, she got frozen shoulder.

And during that time, I was her translator, her driver.

I took her to every doctors' appointment, and not every healthcare provider was necessarily receptive.

There were so many times when a doctor would interrupt me or wouldn't allow me to translate or would patronize me, saying that I don't understand what's going on and not giving me the space to learn or to speak up for myself.

It made me feel bad, which then in turn made my mom feel bad as she was getting this care cuz she doesn't really speak English.

And I realized that I wanted to be part of the change where I could help more people like my mom.

I didn't know what that looked like.

And I'm still trying to figure out.

That's part of what going on this road trip is.

Learning and figuring out, one, what my healthcare goals are, and what that physically manifests itself into.

[MUSIC] >> Tomi: $1 any size fry.

>> Andrew: Do it.

>> Jackie: Do it, go, go, go.

>> Tomi: Are you getting a video of me getting McDonald's fries?

>> Justin: I gotta let people know what we're doing.

>> Jackie: Yeah >> Tomi: My name is Tomi Siyanbade I'm from Atlanta, Georgia I'm a rising senior at Harvard University, studying chemical and physical biology.

In my lab, I'm helping to write a textbook on outbreak science and pandemic response and preparedness.

It's about 500 pages.

I've been working on it for three years.

Fingers crossed, it'll be out soon.

[LAUGH] Ever since I was super tiny, I was one of those kids who just wanted to be a doctor.

The core of it is just making people healthier so they can live brighter lives.

And I just think that's one of the most impactful things somebody could do with their life and with their career, with their time.

But I started thinking more about the systems that create sickness.

And being a Black woman and being in America and seeing the fact that just because of some of these demographical markers, a lot of things can be different about how we're perceived in the healthcare world and how we do or do not get effective care.

On this road trip, to be able to eventually talk to all these cool individuals who are having their hands in the science and interacting with the groups that I'm the most passionate about interacting with.

I'm excited to get a real actual close look at what they're doing and how we can be a part of it.

When I say I wanna make a difference, I want to help other people, I really do mean that, this is super important to me.

>> Tomi: Let's get shots of y'all cooking.

I'm making a sandwich and he's unwrapping some fresh corn.

>> Gabriel: My name is Gabriel Schulz.

I grew up for the most part in Helena, Montana, and now I live in Portland, Oregon.

I had eight siblings growing up.

I was the third oldest.

We also grew up in a small town, very religious.

We were homeschooled, which is why we were home all the time.

I think it's because of that I have this energy, this wanderlust, to go see and do things.

I could not get over the thought of growing up and going out there.

I just bungee jumped.

Very surreal.

Felt like my head was detached from my body.

It was so much fun.

[MUSIC] >> Gabriel: I do see myself having a career in health equity, especially in relation to nature.

For me, a healthy environment is everything.

And that is something that pertains to every single person, it will catch up with all of us eventually, especially as climate change accelerates.

Everyone should have the right to remove themselves from an unhealthy situation.

But when the entire city is kind of unhealthy, if there's not clean water, if there's not clean air, if the weather is way too hot, you can't really escape from that.

And so the thing that I truly feel a deep desire about is ecosystem restoration and it's not always easy knowing how to get there.

Just because, unlike most other careers, there's no way to really prepackage that.

And so when we go and interview these leaders, I'm excited to figure out more about health equity and all the opportunities available, especially if it's related to nature and how we can use that to improve our lives.

>> Tomi: This road trip's important to me because it's gonna get me out of the bubbles that I've grown up in, get to see the country, get to meet new people.

So I'm really excited to just see what's out there.

>> Jackie: I'm really looking forward to talking to the leaders about them working within systems and how they balance that with their values and what they find fulfilling in their life as well.

[MUSIC] >> Gabriel: Today we are going to interview Dr. Dayna Baumeister, she is an expert in biomimicry.

And I'm excited to see what she has to tell us about the natural world and how we can use it to better the world.

My name is Gabriel.

I was home schooled here in Helena, Montana.

I've seen rural paradise and I've also seen the paradises in the city.

But I also know that there are a lot of issues plaguing both ends of the spectrum.

Looking forward to learn what can I do and what can the people around me do to kind of merge the better of the two together so that we can live in healthier, more green cities.

So, would you mind explaining what exactly biomimicry is?

Because we have an idea but if we had to really explain it to someone, we wouldn't really be sure where to go with it.

>> Dayna: Sure, yeah, happy to.

For the last 25 years, I've been working in this field called biomimicry and in fact, For the last 25 years, I've been working in this field called biomimicry and in fact, not only working in it, kind of creating the field.

My business partner, Janine Benyus, wrote the book on biomimicry, and I met her two months after the book was published.

And I've been doing this work ever since.

I'm in charge of the the verb, what does it mean to do biomimicry, to practice biomimicry, which at its core is learning from nature to apply towards human design challenges, health included.

But as a species we're only 300,000 years old.

And 300,000 sounds like a lot, but given that life has been on this planet for 3.85 billion years, we're just infants.

And so it's the practice of going out, asking nature for advice, what would you do?

And then listening to that lesson, and then bringing it back into our world, and designing something new.

So we always used to ask nature until we started surrounding ourselves with brick walls, concrete floors, and just sort of forgot that there's wisdom out there.

And certainly, many Indigenous cultures around the world still practice today asking those questions.

So, in the industrialized western world, we forgot to ask that question.

>> Tomi: I guess from a very kind of narrow biochemical sense like I understood the concept of biomimicry, mainly through biomimetics and making vaccines that are delivered in virus-like particles and using that.

But outside of that, what does biomimicry look like for things that aren't just directly health-related at least?

>> Dayna: Sure, so you can go to product design.

So for example, we worked on a project for a company that makes toothpaste, and they wanted to solve the problem of caries, cavities, so how could they create some process that would be low cost for families to improve the mineralization process of teeth?

So we looked at how nature biomineralizes, how does it grow bones and corals and other sort of crystalline type structures.

But then you can also go to systems design, how to build cities, how to build buildings, like so we've worked on all scales.

We're always honoring nature, we need to give back.

We actually at a minimum, whatever we work on has to cause less harm than the thing it's replacing, but more valuable and more importantly is if it actually contributes positively to the ecosystem.

And so all of our work now is moving in that direction, and that's the kind of projects that we're working on now, so it's everywhere.

>> Jackie: I'm actually going into consulting, realistically, financially, it provides me a lot of support that I wouldn't get working in like a nonprofit.

Did you ever feel that you had to compromise in some ways that might not align with your values when working with these larger companies?

>> Dayna: Yeah, that's a great question.

The way I like to describe it is, there's the world that we know should be, and there's the world that we're in right now, and my work is straddling both of those worlds, right?

I would love to hang out here [LAUGH] all the time, right?

But the reality is I still got to pay the staff, I'm still subject to this world's rules and context.

And there are places where we have found a way to work with what we're stuck with here, in the service of what's over here.

So for example, another company wanted us to do teeth whitening.

Really, there's bigger problems in the world to work on, but we agreed to do it for two reasons.

One, of course it helped pay the bills, but more importantly asking how does nature create white can help us get out of chlorine, which is the common thing that we use bleach, right, and we know that bleach is toxic.

So if we can get a company that can pay us to do the research, we can justify some things that way.

It's never about maximizing profit, it's about staying sane and staying well, and spending time in nature, and you can create some change by sort of having that confidence.

>> Jackie: We should all stand in the water.

>> Gabriel: Yeah.

>> Jackie: Tomi.

>> Dayna: And I'd like to find a way where we can instill that, that confidence, and like trusting your intuition and not compromising it.

Right, what's your intuition about, is this good for me?

I mean, that's like health care 101.

>> Gabriel: Really appreciate the way she talked about the genius that was kind of already in front of our eyes we just get used to and ignore it, and we can just use what's right in front of us.

>> Dayna: And if you can just spend some time in nature and ask the question, well, what would nature do?

>> Tom: How you doing?

Doing well?

>> Jackie: Doing well.

>> Tom: I watch Roadtrip Nation.

>> Jackie: Really?

We just started.

>> Tom: How much time do you have to do this trip?

>> Jackie: 28 days.

>> Tom: Yeah, I think it's pretty cool that when you guys stop at a place, you get to know somebody that has a specialty- >> Jackie: Yeah.

>> Tom: In whatever it is they do.

>> Gabriel: Yeah.

>> Tom: Just for your information, >> Jackie: Yeah.

>> Tom: The park, there's fishing here, really good fishing right where you're at.

So I don't know what your schedule is or when you have to leave, but I can show you, I can bring my pole down here my vest and just give you a quick about it.

>> Tomi: I feel like that'd be cool.

>> Jackie: Hey Andrew.

>> Tomi: Freaking Tom came out and taught us how to fly fish.

That was crazy.

Like, I did not expect to see a fan of Roadtrip coming out and teaching us how to fish.

Nah.

>> Jackie: [LAUGH] >> Tom: Anybody else?

There you go.

>> Jackie: Okay.

It looks so much easier than it actually is.

>> Tom: You need to relax, fly fishing will relax you.

I mean the whole rest of the world goes away.

>> Gabriel: Wow, yeah, I appreciate it.

[MUSIC] >> Gabriel: We are headed to Minneapolis, and along the way, we're gonna explore Yellowstone and South Dakota.

And so we were able to stop by Old Faithful, got really good front row seats.

Cool.

>> Tomi: It's doing it.

>> Gabriel: Probably gonna be one of my favorite legs of the trip going through the mountains.

It's just where I'm meant to be.

>> [MUSIC] >> Gabriel: Today we're at Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills in South Dakota, kind of as our Mount Rushmore alternative.

We were a mile away from it and it was still ginormous.

>> [MUSIC] >> Gabriel: We were recording and then we saw the hoop dance and we just kind of got pulled into this show with Starr.

>> [MUSIC] >> Starr Chief Eagle: [speaking Lakota] >> Starr Chief Eagle: So my Lakota name is Brave Star Woman, my English name, Starr Chief Eagle, I am Rosebud Lakota.

I did thank you, and I did greet you as my relative.

So with Crazy Horse Memorial, I've actually been here for over 11 summers.

So I feel like with my career path, I'm actually an educator, artist, presenter, and performer, and this has been a part of my journey.

What we do is we like to share on behalf of our culture and our travels, and really represent the truth about who our people are.

And we like to speak on such topics as culture and history, as well as the dance.

Our overall goal with what we do is to bring us together as a society through education and through sharing.

>> Tomi: Amazing, beautiful.

So I guess my main question for you is what do you wanna tell us?

>> Starr Chief Eagle: I feel as Native peoples, we're often placed inside of a box when we have many differences, whether that be differences in tribes, or just differences within each other.

Something that we like to advocate for throughout our journeys is really to ask questions, have conversations, and really gain an ear towards our Indigenous side of the story.

>> Tomi: Thank you so much.

Really appreciated it.

>> Starr Chief Eagle: Thank you.

>> Gabriel: It was one of the most beautiful performances that I've ever seen.

I'm glad we saw it right at that time, it was like serendipity or something.

[MUSIC] >> Jackie: So today we're in Minneapolis and we're gonna be talking to Sean Sherman.

>> Gabriel: I'm excited to see Chef Sean's food creations and how they're better for the planet and for our health.

Curious to see why and how he's taking charge of the food industry.

>> Sean: I think it's important to be inquisitive.

It's important to question everything.

It's important to find the solutions and realize that there's many ways to do everything.

So, not having the fear to do something different, to not having sodas on the menu, or not having ranch dressing or something that might be comfortable that people would expect at a restaurant.

We only have black pepper upstairs.

We are here at Owamni, which is the restaurant.

And there's a really great history because right outside this window is the Mississippi River.

And right where we are there used to be the one waterfall in the Mississippi, and it was pretty amazing cuz it was about 300 feet across and about 40 feet down.

So, the Dakota people called it Owamni Yomni, which meant place of the falling swirling water.

So, when we named the restaurant, we basically just reclaimed the name of this area which is Owamni, and it just means the area around the waterfall right here.

So there's just so much really important history, and we're just really excited to have this restaurant that just features in modern Indigenous foods.

Utilizing our philosophy of removing colonial ingredients like dairy, wheat flour, cane sugar, beef, pork, chicken, and just showcasing something completely different.

And it's working because we've won some big awards like Best New Restaurant in America by the James Beard Foundation, and so many top ten lists.

So we're just really excited to receive that kind of attention and that kind of notice for doing something that we feel like is just really important, and with a lot of intention.

>> Tomi: Amazing, this space is very unique, I don't think I've ever seen a restaurant like this.

Your shirt says decolonize education, but you're a chef, you're not fitting into the traditional boxes here.

I'm at least wondering, when you were coming up through your more classical chef education, was there any inciting incident that made you think, I'm gonna it differently?

>> Sean: Yeah, I mean, I think I just questioned everything.

A few years back I started doing this work of really focusing on the history and the heritage of where I came from, and trying to understand why there weren't Native American restaurants in every single city.

And why growing up in a tribal community, I knew very little about my own Lakota food.

So I spent a lot of my time researching to try to understand what were my ancestors eating.

And it really kind of pushed me into understanding a better picture of what happened to us as Indigenous people throughout American history and American colonialism.

And just naming that and identifying that, and then creating a whole philosophy around the work that we do of trying to feature what is healthy, modern Indigenous foods.

And how can we better help steward Indigenous knowledge, Indigenous peoples and cultures and communities for future generations, and showcasing the importance of that, and showcasing the beauty of that through food.

So, it's just why not?

I guess when it comes down to it.

>> Gabriel: So, I'm generally quite a bit of a health nut.

Most of what I buy is produce.

As many of us know, our average grocery store is just chockfull of ultra processed foods, really high in sugar, high in fats.

What are some things that we can do in our own lives to create some access for others and ourselves of healthier, better foods?

>> Sean: Yeah, I mean, that's a big part of the work that we do, like how do we get healthy food access out there?

We're not calling ourselves a health food restaurant, but we're gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, soy free, and all these fad diets are trying to get to that, but it just happens to be like the Indigenous diet of this continent.

We're not attempting to cook like the past, we're not trying to cook like it's 1491.

We're trying to showcase what's possible moving forward by incorporating a lot of Indigenous knowledge into our food ways.

And it's all part of just working towards food sovereignty is that we need local control of our food systems, which means nongovernmental control.

And so we have to break free from that, we have to realize that we could just put food everywhere.

So, I always tell people that lawns are stupid like we should just be putting food in every part of the ground everywhere, because we can utilize permacultural designs, especially that Indigenous peoples utilize.

So it's addressing some of these larger issues, and again a lot of it comes down to just these governmental rules that keep us down that we can be completely unaware of.

>> Jackie: What I really love about the execution of your restaurant in this space is that you're very intentional.

I understand that there's a lot of emotional labor that goes into explaining your history, and I know that you love talking about history and its connection to food, especially within your cooking.

Have you ever had to navigate that space where you're facing pushback or you're explaining and it's not going through?

And how have you operated that space?

>> Sean: Yeah, I mean it's difficult, I feel like I just take it as it comes because if there's pushback, we just deal with it and we just figure out a solution around it, whatever form that might be.

We are trying to do something that's different that there's no model for it right now at this moment, but we're creating the model as we go.

And I do see a path in the future, I do see a vision of how this can work out, how we can change the narrative around foods on not just a regional local situation, but on a national and international scale.

Cuz we've been able to connect with people from all over the globe, being able to travel all over North America and experience all this Indigenous diversity from Mexico all the way into Alaska.

And there's just so much that we should be doing.

I feel like the American project, which is the American government in general, has really failed and we need to do something different.

It's not working for us, we have way too much inequality.

So for me, I just like to think of solutions that are possible.

But to find the solutions, you have to identify the problems first.

And so that's a big part of it, is seeing the hurdles that we're facing constantly and trying to figure out how can we make those hurdles easier for people coming in behind us to do the same work.

So, it's gonna be a long, hard road, but if we band together, especially as people of color, we can be so much stronger in making these systems really work and happen.

>> Jackie: My gosh, it was so inspiring talking to Sean.

He mentions a lot about like the oppressive systems, but he does it in a way that's like here are the ways that we're addressing it.

He doesn't use that as like a mindset to hold him back from what he's doing, and I think there's something so impressive about just like recognizing that, and then going for it.

[MUSIC] >> Tomi: After Minneapolis we went to Chicago.

Doing the boat tour and having that time to think and reflect together, that was a really nice moment.

>> Jackie: It's really cool exploring new places that I never thought I would be.

Like, I'm really here in Chicago, just really soaking it in.

I feel like I've already taken away so much from this experience.

>> Gabriel: I think there's a lot of power in knowing what to ignore, just to simplify things.

A bit more local, doesn't always need to be worldwide because when you are a part of a smaller picture, you might actually know more of the answers.

Because it is something that you as one individual might have more power to actually do something about.

>> Tomi: Just like having fun together, I think those are probably the moments that I'm gonna miss the most when we finish this.

Having those conversations makes me realize that I do really believe there's a lot we can do as individuals for a lot of huge systemic things.

And even if it is just for our community, our community, however big or small we wanna limit that to be, we can impact three generations ahead just by being a person, just by being an individual.

[MUSIC] >>Jackie: We're halfway through our road trip and I'm exhausted [LAUGH] but in a good way.

This is has been such a great experience.

>>Tomi: Really excited to talk to more people that are in health equity and making a meaningful impact.

>>Pardis: Always come back to your foundation.

This passion that you have for health equity.

like just keep finding that because a lot of stuff is going to come at you.

You're not going to solve it all.

Just take a step each day in your own direction and your own purpose and whatever will come.

You will be your best self.

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