>> 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.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Natalie: So we drove down from San Francisco to Yosemite.

And it was just like a nice break from all of this like, rush, do this, city life, all these things.

Just like, wow, nature.

[MUSIC] >> Zoed: Shoot, the mountains, the water, the rock, the trees.

You picture paradise; it's pretty much it.

>> Robin: I keep saying, it's finally hitting me because it feels like different layers of how dynamic this trip is and what each of these places represents.

Surreal is the only way I can think to really describe that.

[MUSIC] >> Natalie: Well we have just finished our second week.

It's already been two weeks.

Isn't that crazy?

Oh my gosh.

It's so sad.

Only two weeks left.

Like after the halfway point, it's just counting down to the end, and it's so sad.

[MUSIC] >> Robin: I don't know how you would articulate how time moves on this green RV.

It's like some sort of warp.

[LAUGH] Because it goes incredibly fast at times, but then other times it seems to drag on, when we have like 700 miles to go.

>> Zoed: Two more weeks.

It's gone so fast.

They might go even faster, which are not good.

Gonna have to go back to reality pretty soon.

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Robin: First rule of DEF CON is you can't talk about DEF CON.

[LAUGH] Doing this road trip, it was just like are we going to DEF CON?

I was super stoked about it and super excited.

What is DEF CON exactly?

I mean, everyone has this kind of idea of what it is.

>> Jeff: Yeah, yeah, and the same thing for me.

I don't even know, necessarily, what DEF CON is because around DEF CON 3, it got too big for me.

And by about 4, I realized, that's it.

I'm not going to be able to see it all.

So then I have to start asking people, what happened for you, and what happened for you?

And it turned out everybody had a different experience.

And so I quickly realized that DEF CON is sort of a conference of conferences.

So now you can come to DEF CON and you can do nothing but lockpicking and tamper everything, and learn how to bypass everything.

And so your whole experience is like, people telling you something is secure and then you learn how to bypass it.

There are other people coming just for the speeches.

Other people come here for socializing.

Other people come here for the social engineering.

I mean, everybody has their own little thing.

For me, it's a shortcut to talk to the experts.

>> Robin: This year, the really big thing is sort of car hacks and things like that, now that you're getting a lot of smart cars.

But you also have short story contests, and people doing art, and stuff like that.

And it's also just kind of a safe place where you can be yourself.

Not that DEF CON found me, but I feel comfortable there.

[MUSIC] >> Annie: I just always knew that I wanted to be in computers because there's not many people that know a lot about computers.

They don't know how to troubleshoot.

They don't know about spam.

They don't know about anything.

The small configurations, you know.

When I got into the security side of it, it became more of wanting to help people understand security.

And how to implement it, and what it means, and what it should mean to them.

>> Natalie: DEF CON was really cool.

It was really overwhelming, too.

It was just like, whoa, so many hackers.

So many hackers.

[LAUGH] And by hackers, I don't mean people are going to steal all your stuff just through wireless connection.

By hackers, I mean people who are inspired to push boundaries and just test limits.

[MUSIC] >> Brent: As soon as someone hears the word hacker, they immediately go to criminal.

>> Tim: Yeah, hackers, again there's that stigma for that name.

>> Tim: People think, they must be dysfunctional because they like to break things.

>> Brent: Yeah >> Tim: That's not it, it's not that we like to break things, we like to figure out how it works and I'm like >> Brent: Make it work better >> Tim: Make it work different.

>> Brent: There are very kind hearted, good hackers that do it for the greater good.

They do it for a good reason and it's not malicious.

[MUSIC] >> Natalie: DEF CON, I had no idea about, that kind of environment usually kind of freaks me out so much.

Like being around people who code all the time and I always feel intimidated by that.

But the DEF CON was so cool.

Opening my mind to all of these amazing things that other people can do.

And I wanna explore more what specifically within that, I could see myself doing for the rest of my life.

[MUSIC] >> Robin: Going through Utah and Nevada and Colorado where, I mean these are areas that I've lived on reservations out there.

Now to be on this really surreal trip, it's just nice to look out the window because all these thoughts of like, I could be there, way over that butte, or way over that mountain.

[MUSIC] I guess it's kind of like dreaming when someone asks, what do you dream about?

And you wake up and you know you had a good dream, but you can't describe the dream.

Looking outside of the window, that's the same sort of feeling, because it's good.

You're processing a bunch of things.

But I can't relay that.

[MUSIC] >> Natalie: Since I have my permit, I can't drive too much.

I've only driven, let's say 11 times ever.

I finally got to drive.

I felt bad that Robin and Zoed drive so much.

You guys ready to die?

[LAUGH] I'm just kidding.

[MUSIC] So that was scary at first.

That was the longest I've ever driven, the longest amount of time, it was past almost three hours maybe.

It was really chill after a while.

>> Zoed: Natalie would always question her skills or her ability.

Now, you see a little less fear in her and she believes in herself just a little bit more.

[MUSIC] >> Natalie: I feel a little more confident.

Like every day is just like baby steps.

Maybe I'm not the best self I can be right now, but it's always baby steps.

[MUSIC] >> Robin: So when we're in Boulder, we saw Sphero which was really cool.

They do a lot of robotics with gyroscope sort of robots and other interesting robotic things that you can control using apps.

>> Leader #1: One night I was playing with my iPhone.

I was like, why can't I use this as the brains to control these robots?

Like this thing has a better touchscreen and display and GPS and all these sensors.

Why can't I just hook this onto these robots that we're making for researchers?

That sort of turned into looking online and not only was nobody using the phones to control these robots, but they weren't using their phone to control anything physical.

[MUSIC] >> Natalie: A lot of people just go on this straight path.

Like, I have to go to this big company and do this.

>> Ian: Were you ever kind of nervous about starting something new that's just for fun?

>> Ian: Definitely like, I mean we have like a hundred different ideas like a lot of them were the more obvious like door locks and lights and stuff.

>> Ian: Hit the button, open the garage door.

>> Ian: And we had this meeting with one of our other mentors, and we have sort of narrowed these like hundreds of ideas down.

He's like all right, out of these three, gun to your head right now, what would you do?

And we're like, the ball.

>> Male, off screen: This is the ball.

Rolling on its own.

Straight [LAUGH] >> Man, off screen: Generally.

>> Adam: So in this video, as you can see, I'm controlling this robotic ball with my smartphone.

And you might ask yourself, what's so great about that?

Well, it's a robotic ball controlled from a smartphone.

[CROWD LAUGHS] [MUSIC] >> Ian: We wanted to do something that we were passionate about.

I'm glad we did.

We could be making door locks but we probably wouldn't be staying until 2 in the morning every night.

>> Adam: And it wouldn't look this fun around here, right?

>> Natalie: Yeah.

>> Adam: We know the door lock industry enough too and it's like man that's a serious game.

Like that's not fun at all.

[LAUGH] >> Adam: So we chose fun and then we just emphasized it a lot in everything we did like our marketing, everything, the package, everything.

Gotta have fun.

People need to have fun to make it.

[MUSIC] So you guys have to just have fun here, that's the whole point of what we do.

>> [LAUGH] >> Adam: Have you guys gotten to play with these at all?

>> Zoed: No.

>> Adam: All right, well now it's time to just play.

>> Natalie: Cool!

>> Ian: It's basically just- Just push the joystick on the direction you want it to move.

>> Natalie: That's so fun.

[LAUGH] >> Adam: Maybe I'll grab mine.

[LAUGH] >> Natalie: Part of the reason why I wanted to come on this trip, was I wanted to see what it's like to work in like a coding environment >> Natalie: And then a job like this and they emphasize fun.

They have that little go kart where you ride around, that electric skateboard.

Just everything, even their product is fun, it seems like they're just kids every day, going back in time I wanna say, I don't know.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> Leader #3: I've always been really lucky.

Every job I've taken has always been successively more fun, so I'm not sure how I'm gonna top this.

[LAUGH] But Sphero seemed like the hardest problem, all the challenges lined up correctly where I felt that it was going to be the best environment to kinda challenge myself and to stoke that curiosity, especially coming from parents who were a minority, parents who didn't speak English.

Growing up in a community where people just weren't as affluent, you're forced to kinda have that successful mindset right off the bat, because if you don't, like you are destined for failure at that point.

>> Zoed: You speak as if you've always had certainty, right?

You're either all in or you're not.

There had to be some point when you weren't certain.

>> Amara: So there's a lot of hesitation while I'm in the process.

But there's this great framework and it's called the regret minimization framework.

When you're at kind of an impasse, when you need to make a decision, think about your deathbed.

It's a little morbid, but think about your deathbed and think about all the things that you would have done with your life and would you have regretted not doing this thing.

And if you would have regretted not doing that thing, that's the absolute thing you should do.

[MUSIC] >> Robin: I didn't know what to expect going in there, but immediately it was like a fun house, so that was really cool.

>> Natalie: Just having fun every day, and doing what you like to do.

>> Robin: They feel very creative, and like they kind of supported that.

I think some of what scared me away from going into tech in the first place is because it seems like this cold business.

Cold machine.

And the fun part of hacking is that it's silly and it's creative and you get to build and take apart things.

And so seeing that business is a setup like this, it's really inspiring.

And it's kind of like, okay cool now I know what my markers are in terms of I can aim to work in an environment like this.

>> Natalie: [LAUGH] So cool [MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Robin: We went to this tiny little town called Chicago.

[LAUGH] Driving in Chicago was mostly handled by Zoed.

[MUSIC] >> Natalie: We did jet skiing.

That was so fun!

>> Zoed: Man those things were awesome.

>> Natalie: As soon as we hit the clearence mark I hit the throttle and it was like woo!

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] >> Robin: I was terrified, but it was also so freeing, so it was like I want more.

I want more.

>> Robin: I was doing donuts and man, catching air on that thing.

This feels amazing.

>> Robin: I got to lie down underneath Cloud Gate >> Robin: The big metal bean which I really like.

That was really neat.

[MUSIC] >> Robin: I want the most out of experiences.

And I want the most out of life.

And the only way that you can get the most out of it is to be there.

To be fully present.

Not partly present and then a huge wall.

And so with this I'm trying to be as open as possible.

>> Zoed: All of these interviewees have been very inspirational.

Some of them I've looked dead in their eyes and, you can do it.

You're gonna be big.

You're gonna do what you want.

When somebody looks at you right in the eye and tells you that it gets you like man, maybe they're right.

>> Natalie: Like you can do great things.

It's just I've always been afraid to just go for it.

[MUSIC] Everyone's obviously a little afraid of the unknown.

I don't know where I'm gonna be in five years but it's also kind of exciting at the same time.

>> Leader #2: I certainly empathize and have been where you are today and I think that soul searching, I commend you for taking time out of your lives to figure it out.

If you'd ask me five years ago, I didn't even know what 3D printing was, to be quite honest.

And it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I thought okay, this it it.

This is what's going to shape and reimagine our futures.

I could see it, I could feel it and it made sense to me.

[MUSIC] >> Zoed: Well you can tell us how you came about, from early age to school interests.

>> Dima: I was born in Beirut, and I grew up in Indiana, and the two couldn't be more different.

After college, I had some time to take a road trip, much like you.

Connect with friends, get to know myself, and what my truth was.

Before I left, actually, I knew I wasn't coming back.

I went, telling my parents I was going for a friend's wedding, and I never looked back.

Part of why I ran off and moved to Chicago was because I had a gender orientation that they didn't approve of and I didn't want to disappoint them.

And so as you can imagine being part of the GLBT community at that time was very challenging and for my mother it was that there was no such thing in our culture.

And so that's the bar I had to try to reach, and there was a time where communication was more than strained and challenged, but you know, it's probably where I drew my greatest strength.

Is knowing that it was incumbent on me to rely on myself.

I got a chance to explore and really expose myself to the person I really knew I was.

It was another transformation.

And it's, it definitely wasn't easy.

>> Robin: You're very strong minded and strong-willed it seems.

You did all these things and you're kind of just, it seems like you're bulldozing through any obstacles.

But how do you deal with that?

Or come to be [LAUGH] this way?

>> Dima: There's a whole series of challenges across the board.

I think you have to figure out, are they challenges to you or can you turn them into opportunities?

Life is up and down.

And you know that when you're down, you're going to be up.

And when you're up, there's going to be a divot.

So that's really, the experience I can share with you is you've got to try and try and try.

And find that place where you're kind of at peace.

>> Natalie: So how did you, I guess, gather the courage to do that.

Exploring your interests and your passions and that's kinda something I've been actually really thinking about lately.

What advice would you give to someone who's making thinking about it?

>> Dima: I don't think I consciously knew that that was something I was trying to do.

That didn't come until later in life.

As I worked through the various ideations and business ideas and concepts, I learned that I had a yen for technology.

And I was always at the geek's table asking for more, wanting to know, how do you build this?

How does this work?

I was just a naturally curious person and so I wanted and I thirsted for technology.

I didn't really understand how much I needed to explore and I guess what you are looking for is the time to explore what's in your heart and what you want.

And so that's really your challenge as you go down this road and you travel across this country and you meet with people.

Listen to your heart.

Listen to your head, and reflect on what is it that's really triggering the light in your eyes, in your gut.

For me it was technology.

You can follow the traditional routes.

And you can get traditional responses.

Or you can be bold, you can be brave, and you can be brilliant.

You determine your own destiny.

[MUSIC] They say live in the moment.

If you can master that, experiencing the moment, there's a lot of power in that.

I can only expect great things for each of you.

>> Robin: It's been clicking in all of us, like this is it.

And we've already been talking about it like what are we going to do?

We only have like a week to share this with them, or a week left to do that.

And that part is kind of, oh.

>> Zoed: We got New York and then we got Boston.

After that we got to take off so that's the bad part.

So I guess I just keep getting what I'm getting cuz I've gotten so much I just kinda wanna enjoy the interviews that we have, the fun that fun that we have.

>> Natalie: Boston's home.

It's where my family is.

It's where I grew up.

It's home.

And we're finishing there.

Oh my gosh.

This week's gonna fly by.

I don't want it to fly by.

>> Robin: I'm hoping to just kind of seize every moment this last week.

>> Leader #4: I had a lot of insecurities about what I was able to achieve because I've never seen anyone achieve it that looked like me.

>> Leader #5: The next step for you guys, you have to give back, and talk to other people to help other people, which is really important.

>> Robin: It's here, it's the end of it.

>> Zoed: The end of the day you don't wanna leave, man, they're friends for life.

>> Natalie: Come here, I'll miss you guys.

>> Narrator #2: Road Trip Nation extends beyond this program, creating resources to help anyone to find their own road in life.

Here's a snapshot of Ready to Rise, a documentary about Opportunity Youth.

>> Roadtripper #1: Some people call us at-risk youth, disconnected youth, I don't know about all that.

[MUSIC] >> Roadtripper #1: This whole thing right here is where I was raised in.

This is where all the gritty stuff happens.

I just feel like we've been dealt a very tough hand and we're just looking to move forward, honestly.

[MUSIC] >> Roadtripper #2: The plan is to go on this road trip that I'm really excited about.

>> Roadtripper #3: I'm gonna be able to get out of here.

I'm gonna be able to breathe fresh air.

>> Roadtripper #1: We're going to be interviewing all sorts of people to figure out how they've made it through the struggle.

>> Roadtripper #3: I thought they were just gonna be interviews, but they turned out to be something more.

>> Leader #6: We all come from some place that we did not necessarily choose, but we can choose where we're going.

[MUSIC] >> Narrator #3: To learn more about how to get involved or to watch interviews from the road visit roadtripnation.com.

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