[Female narrator #1] Everywhere you turn, people try to tell you who to be and what to do, but what about deciding for yourself?

Roadtrip Nation is a movement that empowers people to define their own roads in life.

Every summer we bring together three people from different backgrounds.

Together they explore the country interviewing inspiring individuals from all walks of life.

They hit the road in search of wisdom and guidance to find what it actually takes to build a life around doing what you love.

This is what they found, this is Roadtrip Nation.

[Sofaya] We're in Seattle.

We're about to go to Experience Music Project.

It's all about music and interaction and that kind of thing.

[Ben] It's all about music.

Experience.

[Sofaya] Building is designed by Frank Gary.

We'll be inside of it doing cool things.

[Ben] Andrea Weatherhead designs Museum Exhibits like the sound lab at Experience Music Project.

Which is just a super cool museum.

This is one of those moments when you're like wait that's a job.

There's a person that dedicates their life to making exhibits, that is cool!

There area little sound booths everywhere.

With people jamming on guitars on bass guitars on drum sets on you know keyboards.

You are bound to get hooked on some aspect because you can try anything.

[DJ sounds] [Martha] It was so participatory, I love learning and learning about new things but I think there are a lot of museums that fall very short in terms of conveying interesting thing in ways that really grab people and her work is really inspiring in that way.

[Sofaya] We all just kind of picked something up and we're just like "yay, all the small things."

[All singing "all the small things" together] [Andrea] The goal of sound lab was to inspire collaboration and critical listening but also you learn what all the instruments are and by the time you've left there, if you're not a musical person before you've gone in there, you would have understood to hear music differently the moment you turn on your radio.

You might know what a high hat is and hear it in the right channel and go oh that's a high hat.

[Andrea] I was in your situation I didn't know what I wanted to do.

When I was first out of college I went to work for a law firm writing down evidence.

I didn't have confidence that I could stand out musically and from that point I decided I really did want to try to become a recording engineer.

I was like how am I going to do something with music.

Then I got a job as a recording engineer for seven years.

The museum work came out of being at Microsoft and making interactive music and made an interactive music website and this is what led to museums, but it wasn't like I said, I'm going to become a museum person.

So just being awake and seeing what kind of things are in front of you [Sofaya] But like I don't know I just kind of, I don't really know what I want to do.

I don't have a goal to fight for I don't have a ladder to climb I don't like have like a finish line to get to so it's like weird.

[Andrea] What really pisses you off in the world?

What gets your ire up?

[Sofaya] I don't know off the top of my head.

[Ben] Decisions.

Decisions.

[Laughs] [Martha] Deciding what to eat for dinner.

[Sofaya] It's not knowing what I want, really pisses me off.

It's kind of like a running joke on this thing like when I get a menu at a restaurant and I'm just like "oh my god" and it gets me really upset.

[Andrea] I panic order at the restaurant all the time.

I panic, I wait for everybody else to order I need to know what everybody else is going to have I can't figure out what I want it all looks really good to me.

I think that's partly because two things, one is I like a lot of things so I'm not terribly discriminating but secondarily I'm not even sure at my age I actually feel super in touch with what I want, and I think sometimes when you don't know what you want to do it's because sometimes you don't know yourself.

and Sofaya with your whole I don't know piece, I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know.

I feel like you are resisting not knowing, what if you just lived with the not knowing?

Trying and not knowing may be an ok thing to be.

Tune out all the 'you shoulds' or 'I can't because' or 'I would really like to give you an answer but' like all those but things, just put them aside.

Open up your eyes to what moves you and what doesn't move you and you'll find that you have pathways open up just by being you.

All you need is just to relax and get to know yourself.

Get comfy with you get comfy with the unknown get comfy with silence love yourself and rock on.

[Ben] She walked about finding quiet place and listening to yourself to know what is true to you, what your, you know, motivations are.

Now that we have these big drives in between these destinations we're getting that time to really dive deeper into ourselves and the knowledge we're being given.

[Martha] Those days that are only driving become time warps because it gives you a chance to be in your own zone and write and read and draw and sleep [Sofaya] Part of my goal coming into it was to be exposed to things I've never seen before which is already happening.

This kind of thing is so far out from anything that I've ever visualized or fantasized about [Birds chirping] [Ben] Nature!

You did it!

[Clapping] [Bacon sizzling] [Ben] Did my classic facial hair experiment for the fourth of July.

I like to rock the mustache with the handlebars or something.

So the team voted I rock the handlebar mustache for the fourth of july.

It's the fourth of July, y'all got that right.

Fourth of July.

mhmm, Fourth of July y'all know what it is.

We gon' celebrate.

We woke up, shaved Ben's face then we went to Yellowstone [Ben] Some pools are acidic enough to burn through boots, I'm in flip flops!

More than a dozen people have been scalded to death and hundreds badly burned including little Johnny.

It was another planet, geysers going off and steaming waterfall looking things with bacteria growing stalagmites.

I don't even know.

It was cool.

Want to get a team selfie here in front of the geyser here?

[Martha] Geyser [Ben] I forgot I have a wicked handlebar mustache [Sofaya] It was just so much nature like it was just a lot of just untapped-ness, speaking of nature.

I had a lot of moments where I was just like 'what' how is this my life how am I looking at this right now.

Am I really driving through Wyoming?

Is that a thing that's happening?

[Martha] Nature is so dramatic, nature is such a drama queen.

She's just like alright I'm going to do flatlands for thirty miles and then Pow!

Mountains for like miles and no one is going to see it coming.

[Sofaya] I was driving through the Tetons, and I was like if I were to go back in time where my fifteen year old self was learning how to drive and kind of implant those memories into my fifteen year old self and say you are learning how to just kind of push the gas pedal and like, and feel your way around maneuvering a vehicle in preparation for this moment right now, I don't even know what my fifteen year old self would have said.

[Ben] So that whole day was just completely soaking in nature.

[Martha] Then we kind of just meandered into Jackson Hole.

[Ben] Came riding in our horse late that night, evening festivities started getting kicking off.

Fireworks for the fourth of July.

[Martha] It just was kind of a very peaceful American July fourth.

July fourth becomes so much about the people that have been a part of your life for so long.

It definently, I felt, I didn't want to be like guys I love you all but in my head I was like 'guys!'

[Ben] So we travelled to Boulder to sit with Eiko Okura who is a feng shui interior designer.

It looks very feng shui.

And she is amazing from what we hear.

So we're pretty excited to go have our minds blown.

[Eiko] Hello!

[Ben] Hi!

[Eiko] Hello I'm Eiko.

[Ben] I'm Ben.

[Sofaya] Sofaya.

[Eiko] Growing up in Japan, especially in a small village, everybody knows you and everybody knows your parents, your grandfathers your grandmothers, and I just wanted to be somebody else.

At that time, women were expected to be obedient and get married to a doctor or lawyer And have children, and stay home.

I didn't think what they thought of me was correct.

So I just woop, I'm going to just go somewhere.

Nobody knows me, but the reason I chose Colorado was that when I was growing up my favorite song was Rocky Mountain High by John Denver, So here I am.

[Sofaya] Can you talk about the moment where you kind of made the transition in your brain between this is something that I like to do for fun to this is something that I like and that I'm good at and that I will try to do as a profession.

[Eiko] I remember moving furniture around in my tiny one bedroom apartment.

I really enjoyed that you know every month I was moving things around so I said ok that means interior design.

It wasn't a long you know deep philosophical discussion with myself, it was pretty obvious and sometimes obvious things present itself as something as complicated.

Your mind wants to think it's complicated and you cannot decide.

But once you have that good grounded place in you, the obvious things are very obvious.

So in your case, maybe it's just a matter of stop thinking and see what emerges in you.

Keep asking that question 'who am I who am I?'

Who I want to be.

[Martha] Have you ever had a time where that unknowing has been difficult to process?

[Eiko] Many times, many times.

I was in a place of unknown when I, living Osaka, but I was young, so I wasn't afraid.

It was almost exciting to be in unknown.

Unkown is actually a field with great possibilities.

Because I think creativity and inspiration comes from your openness to be in that unknown or not knowing what might come out.

And in order for you to feel that deeply and clearly you have to be able to provide yourself the very quiet place.

[Ben] What is your quiet place like for you?

[Eiko] I go back to my breathing, and my quiet place is in between in breath and out breath.

(breath in) that moment (breath out).

So that's my quiet place, so when my mind gets too crazy or thinking too much and of course I do that all the time but when I catch myself doing that I take a deep breath in and focus on that spot.

You know that tiny little moment between in breath and out breath [Ben] Immediately I think we were all just like (breath in) man I was just in Eiko's place.

In a quiet place, it was crazy.

It was very interesting to hear that something she can do almost meditatively in the moment you can still find that center that quiet place for self.

[Martha] Is there any advice you would give of how to be creative and also lead fulfilling happy lives?

[Eiko] All those questions you ask, there are answers coming from other people and receive it and hold it at the same time listen to yourself too.

How does it feel?

The answer is always in you.

Oh Eiko, Eiko is a wonderful human being.

Everything was so thought out, everything was so rich in wisdom and just a higher level of thinking.

So it's very very meditative to talk to her.

[Martha] Sunday was just an epic day in the most epic location.

[Sofaya] We went to Red Rocks amphitheater.

The event was a yoga slash concert and it was just like Michael Franti sitting there strumming his guitar to this enormous yoga session in the middle of a crevice in a mountain.

[Live music] [Announcer] Michael Franti in the house.

Reach up and out up and out, inhale.

To the floor to the floor to the earth flow high inhale exhale downward facing.

[Ben] It was awesome, and then we had the pleasure of hanging out with the one and only Michael Franti [Martha] It was a definently a very star struck moment but in a cool way that he was super approachable.

[Michael] When I was twenty two I was in a little van touring around the country.

We had this tiny little band we were called 'The Beatnigs' and we were like this very industrial punk rock very political and we would just travel town to town and play shows and sleep on whoever's floor was had a space for us and the end of the night we'd go 'thank you for the show it was a great night y'all, um anybody have a place we can sleep tonight?'

[Announcer] Everyone get their hands together for Michael Franti and Spearhead!

[Live music] [Martha] So you were touring with the band, what first got you into music and were there any touring at an early age, it must have been tough at times, what kept you going?

[Michael] You know what, I got into music not because I wanted to get rich and famous and make money and retire.

I got into it because I felt like I had something burning in my heart to say.

This one goes out to all the veterans that are in attendance, it goes out to everybody that's stationed in Iraq and Afganistan tonight, and to the people of Iraq and Afganistan put your cell phones up [Live music] [Michael] A few years ago I had a scare my appendix ruptured on tour and I came close to dying and it was the same week that my first song went into the top twenty, after twenty years of making music we had the song 'hey I love you' in the top twenty and I'm being wheeled out on this gurney perhaps to my death.

And I get this text 'your song is in the top twenty' you know and I'm like it didn't even matter.

I was like whatever I was just like I want to see my kids again and I want to be with my family and it's nice thing to have a lot of people hear your song.

But if I can't share it with my family it doesn't matter.

At this point of my life I have two sons I have one is twenty seven I have one is fifteen, I still feel like I'm twenty two years old I still have the same passion for what I do like with music and I have this life that I feel is fulfilling in so many ways, I feel happy most of the time.

[Live music] [Sofaya] Do you have any advice to people in our position on how to kind of navigate the world on all the decisions?

[Michael] A lot of people think, did I make a good decision did I make a bad decision.

I look at it differently, I don't look at it like decision making is qualitative, I think it's quantitative.

It's like a lot of people sit around not making decisions because they're afraid to and they're afraid to try something and fall on their face.

And I think it's like make as many decisions as you can and try many things and if you fall on your face make another decision.

Try something else and just keep trying keep doing it.

But don't sit on the sidelines you know just settling for second best.

Make lots of decisions and fall lots of times like we're all going to miss lots of shots trying to become good at it.

Making baskets you know.

So you got to just keep doing it, keep trying.

[Live music] [Jessica] There was this moment I remember thinking this is not me, I really just had to drop everything and start over.

[Ben] Being out here on the road and seeing huge amounts of this country, it just gives you perspective.

We don't have any interviews, so we're just going to make some on the street, because who knows maybe we'll meet a genius.

[Jake] When people ask what I do I always be like oh I have a t-shirt company, that doesn't really explain it.

[Outro music] Roadtrip Nation extends beyond the program you just watched.

It's a movement that empowers individuals to define their own roads in life.

Here's a quick snapshot of the Roadtrip Nation Experience at the Clinton Global Initiative, America.

[Taylor] My name is Taylor Walker, I am a sophomore.

[Christian] My name is Christian, I'm sixteen.

There's so many things I could do but I don't know yet and I'm kind of nervous about it.

[Nyduyen] I'm going to be a Junior.

My parents don't want me to become what I want to be like going into social work because it doesn't make enough money.

[Christian] We're going to the Clinton Global Initiative.

[Nyduyen] We get to interview some of the biggest names in the world.

[Taylor] I'm so excited, I already have my outfits planned, everyone's like what are you doing tomorrow and I was like I'm busy!

[Christian] So our first question is [Taylor] How would you personally describe success?

[Myduyen] What do you think was your biggest obstacle?

[Leader #1] I thought that I was going to become a doctor because that's what happens when you have immigrant parents.

[Leader #2] I'll tell you there's a zillion of examples of people who now have a heart filled with gladness for what they do everyday.

We started doing something no one could have predicted.

[Myduyen] I got a lot of support from these people cause they've been through some of the stuff I'm going through.

[Christian] Me aspiring to be a leader it makes me feel like I can be myself.

I don't have to put on a whole different persona.

[Taylor] Now I know there's literally anything I can do and if it's not out there now I can go make it happen.

[Narrator #4] No matter what you do [Narrator #5] or where you come from [Narrator #6] You've got wisdom to pass down.

[Narrator #7] Help young people find their way by sharing the lessons you've learned.

Take fifteen minutes to tell us what you love to do.

[Narrator #5] The door's open, [Narrator #6] We're all ears.

[Narrator #4] Become a leader at ShareYourRoad.com