[female narrator #3] 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.

Ever since the original Roadtrip in 2001, the keys to the Green RV have been passed down to a new generation of Roadtrippers.

[Roadtripper #2] Me and two total strangers [Roadtripper #3] Are going to travel across the nation, interviewing [Roadtripper #2] People who have made lives out of passions.

[Roadtripper #1] We're trying to find out who we are and what we want to do with our lives.

[female narrator #3] This is Roadtrip Nation.

[vuvuzela] [Roadtripper #3] Ah!

[Roadtripper #3] What state are we in?

[Roadtripper #1] Arkansas!

[Roadtripper #3] Yeah!

[Roadtripper #2] This weekend, we are making the almost 1,000 mile drive from Houston, Texas to Chicago, Illinois.

I'm excited for this stretch of driving.

It's like two full days of just reflection.

We've had almost a dozen interviews at this point.

And each of them has been so awesome in and of itself, but I'm looking forward to just these two days of just connecting all the dots.

And I have a lot of food for thought.

This is going to be a fun drive.

♪ [Roadtripper #3] Two days of driving.

Quite the psychological test right there.

[Roadtripper #1] You wake up.

You make your beds.

And then you drive.

All in the same place.

And then you go to bed.

You wake up the next morning.

And you need to drive again.

[Roadtripper #3] Ready?

[vuvuzela] [Jackie] So two days after the Roadtrip ends, I am starting grad school.

So I brought my organic chemistry book and I've been studying that.

Studying on the Road is pretty hard because you have all these beautiful things going on but at the same time, it's like, "All right, I'm doing this after the summer.

And I need to try to find a balance."

So it's been kind of hard to focus but I have found new ways to fully concentrate.

Even if it's only for 15 minutes, that's going to help me.

[Jackie] Look at that.

Illinois state line.

Ready?

[vuvuzela] ♪ [more vuvuzela noise] ♪ ♪ [Roadtripper #3] Today, we're spending the day looking for interviews.

We're totally open in Chicago right now, which is, you know, kind of exciting.

The world is our burrito.

We're at the Chipotle.

We'll put whatever on it we want to.

Right now I'm about to cold call, out of the blue, Chicagoland Skydiving.

[phone beeping] Hey!

We're driving around the country interviewing leaders that we find inspiring and define their own Roads and are doing things they love.

If you would be available to sit down and maybe have an interview with us for about an hour or so...

If you could call me back we could talk a lot more about it.

The other thing that I need to talk to you about is we would all like to skydive, too.

We were just wondering about availability and how that all works.

I'd really appreciate it and I hope to hear from you.

Thank you very much and have a wonderful day.

Bye.

[Zachariah] I don't know what I'm going to want when I'm done with my degree.

I don't know if I'll want to get my Master's.

Or if I'll just want to jump into industry.

I don't know!

So I think the biggest question that I have for these leaders and that I want to get out of them is, "How do you stay true to yourself?"

I am very passionate about a lot of things.

And it's hard for me to encompass it into one channel of everything.

I had gone through the liberal arts phase and the philosophy phase and my art phase and my music phase.

And all these different phases and was all these different people.

And then, I got into physics.

Physics was really the one that exploded.

I'm constantly relating these scientific concepts to life, in my own head.

Right now, we're building up potential energy!

And it's about to be transferred into kinetic energy!

We're fighting gravitational force!

And we're going to convert it into a lot of motion...

Right now!

Ahh!

Oh my god!

Here it comes, corkscrew!

Yeah, that was some good science.

Linear induction is a good thing.

[Megan] Zachariah has a year left of school.

So he has a really unique opportunity to go back to his normal life and radically change the way he goes about it.

Whereas Jackie and I are kind of going into brand new phases.

♪ [Megan] Perfect.

So this is going to work out so fantastically.

Thank you so much.

We're headed to downtown Chicago to interview Zach Kaplan, who is the CEO of Inventables.

And basically, what Inventables helps people do is if they have an idea and they want to build prototypes or test their innovative inventions, it's like an online store for things like moldable gel and all these little and tidbits that you would need to make a prototype.

Acrylic sheets, aluminum sheets, magnets.

All these materials that you don't find at your regular old hardware store.

[Zach] When I was a kid, I loved building things.

I probably started with Legos, Tinker Toys, and Construx.

If there was something to be built, I was working on it.

I got really inspired by all of the amusement parks.

Somebody had to build those rides.

So I was like, "Woah.

Who gets to work on that?"

I worked on a two-year project building a model roller coaster out of steel.

[Zachariah] Oh wow!

[Megan] Was it a functional roller coaster?

[Zach] It was a functional roller coaster, yeah.

G.I.

Joe could ride in it.

♪ [Zach] Yeah, so I applied to different colleges.

I was interested in mechanical engineering programs.

I got into the school, but I didn't get into the mechanical engineering department, even though that was what I was passionate about.

[Zachariah] What were some of those conversations like?

[Zach] "I want to be in engineering!

Look, we're building all this cool stuff!

This roller coaster.

All these projects!"

And they were kind of like, "That's not part of the process."

[Zachariah] Did that discourage you at all when that initially happened?

[Zach] Not really, no.

Because I knew I wanted to do it more than anyone else on campus.

So I just took all the classes anyway, freshman year.

So I was kind of on the track.

And I just worked on projects.

One class, they had a "black box project."

It was GE 103 which was Introduction to Engineering.

And the only rules of the "black box project" were that it had to be a box.

Two by two.

And the T.A.

gave you a matchbox car.

It had to go in one hole, and out the same plane of the box on the hole.

And your grade was measured by how far the car went.

And you know, for most kids it was a project like every other homework assignment.

This was like my life.

I was like, "This is my chance.

I'm going to demonstrate..." I remember we had to present our ideas.

And I presented three ideas.

And I got laughed out of the room.

The T.A.

made me sit down.

The class was just out of control.

People were just laughing at my ideas.

One of the professors actually told me, "You're not smart."

So it time for the day of the "race," so to speak.

So four teams came in.

And guess what they put in their box?

[Zachariah] What?

[Zach] A ramp.

So the T.A.

put the car in.

It went down the little ramp.

Rolled out.

They got something like six to eight feet.

And inside my box, I put a potato cannon.

So we had to take mine outside.

Everybody else did their's in the hallway.

T.A.

put it in, and it goes, ch-ch-ch-ch... Pow!

So my car doesn't go on the ground, it goes in the air.

It launches about 150 feet, from the Granger Engineering Library all the way to the river.

Like... [Zachariah laughs] It was   far!

Like ten times further than the second place guy.

Nobody had ever gotten a car to go that far in the three years that he had taught this class.

So I got 100 percent on that project.

And then I kept nagging the dean and the department head every six weeks or so up until they just kind of relented and just said okay.

[Megan] I'm curious about how you conceived the idea for Inventables.

[Zach] Yeah.

So initially what we did was we just started... we opened up the directory of industrial designers.

And we just started cold-calling down the list, to try to get interviews.

Kind of like what you're doing with me today.

We had just graduated from college so we didn't really know anything about their daily work.

So we just asked them to tell us, "So what do you do?

"Show us where you work.

"What kind of projects are you working on?

What are the problems?"

And one of the patterns was that people had a hard time finding new materials.

[Zachariah] So you just looked for a need and then satisfied it.

[Zach] Yeah.

[Zachariah] Wow.

[Door sliding] [Jackie] Woah.

[Zach] This is the warehouse.

Come on back.

So these are all the acrylics.

All the different colors.

[Zachariah] So all this stuff is pretty affordable.

[Zach] Yep, that's why it's exciting.

[Zachariah] Yeah.

[Megan] I just love that this is a secret room.

[Jackie] (laughs) [Jackie] So why start your own company instead of gong into... [Zach] Because I really wanted to realize my maximum potential.

And I felt that if I just took a job somewhere, then I wouldn't be able to realize it.

It would just be whatever they gave you to do.

[Zachariah] Yeah.

[Megan] Thinking about starting a company, that feels really inherently risky, to me.

[Zach] Why is it risky?

[Megan] I don't know.

What was that like?

You know, the safer route would probably be to have employment with an established place.

[Zach] Why would that be safer?

[Megan] I don't know.

I don't know!

You're making me think!

[Zach] So, if you think about it, it's actually safer to start a business than to work at a big company.

Because in a small business, if you started it, you control the decision-making.

But if you work at a big company, you could do a good job and they could lay off 20,000 people.

You did a great job, but they laid you off because you were part of this department.

So you have no control over that.

So I'm not sure that it's necessarily less risky.

[Megan] I've never considered it like that.

That makes a lot of sense, actually.

[Zach] Well so, today, if you want to build something, the barriers to try are very low.

Anything you want to learn is a Google search away or a Youtube search away.

You can do anything you want.

You just have to go do it.

And it really comes back to effort and desire.

So go do it.

[Zachariah] He doesn't waste any time thinking about, "Well, what if?"

He just does it.

And that amazes me.

Because that's just what I needed to hear.

Just that hard, "Get up and do it."

[Megan] He really flipped my conception of what's safe and what's risky, on it's head.

♪ [Zachariah] Grrrr!

[Megan] Ah!

Oh my god!

Wait!

Wait, wait.

Don't cut it.

Don't cut it.

Don't cut it.

[Megan] I've lived in the same house my whole life.

And I get really comfortable in that routine of eating the exact same meal at the exact same restaurant all the time.

And I get almost an anxiety about trying new things because that is unknown.

So I don't necessarily go for the challenging unknowns as much as I might like to.

[Roadtrippers] Rock, paper, scissor, shoot.

Rock, paper, scissor, shoot.

Rock, paper, scissor, shoot!

[Megan] Nooo!

[Zachariah] Bam.

[Megan] Okay, so am I driving?

[Zachariah] Yeah.

[Zachariah] I'm so nervous going under these bridges.

[Megan] I don't know if I'll ever consider myself 'good' at driving an RV.

I don't think I'm   bad.

Am I bad?

[Jackie] Look at this!

Look at this!

We have a foot!

[Megan] It was kind of alright that I was a little fearful and a little cautious.

Because it ended up making me slow down and think.

Instead of just gunning it into a bridge.

[Zachariah] Oh, I think we're fine.

That looks pretty high.

[Megan] Um... [Zachariah] 11' 7".

We're fine.

[Megan] Okay.

♪ [Zachariah] Uh.. Go slow.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Hold on.

Uh.. that's a no go.

Megan, I'm going to back you up and we're going to scoot over on the road.

You can make it if you're over on this side because it's at a big, huge slant.

[Megan] Okay.

[Zachariah] All right?

So just trust me and keep your eyes on me and do exactly what I tell you to.

[car honks] [Zachariah] It's about a minute of your day.

You can be nicer!

[siren in distance] [Jackie] Left.

[Zachariah] Yeah!

[Megan] Thank you!

[Zachariah] That was...

I mean it was literally an inch the whole time.

[Megan] Do you have any valium I could use?

I haven't killed anybody yet.

Yet.

[Megan] (laughs) Okay.

Well, thank you so much, Ward.

I'll see you tomorrow.

Take Care.

[phone beeping] We're going skydiving at 10:30!

Totally going to puke on all of you!

No, I'm kidding.

He's going to meet with us at 9:30.

We can sit and have a conversation with him.

And then he's going to take us up in a plane.

And we're going to jump out of it.

[Zachariah] Thank you, God!

[Megan] What!

Ahh!

We're going on a plane!

It kind of psyched me out a lot.

I like boring things.

I really like sitting.

(laughs) ♪ [Ward] I was going to be an attorney.

I actually went to the army after high school.

I spent five years in the army.

After that I decided I was going to be a police officer.

And then put my way through law school while being a police officer.

I went and got a degree in criminal justice.

My friends can't believe I used to be a cop.

I actually was a cop.

They still don't believe it.

But I was.

And then I started skydiving.

Got a little bit of the bug, like we always get.

And I thought, "I'll take a year or two off of the law enforcement side.

I'll come back to it.

I'll take a break."

And that was 16 years ago and about 11,000 jumps ago.

♪ [Megan] So what was that first jump like for you?

[Ward] Terrifying!

I hated it.

I hated my first skydive.

Back then, you had to do it yourself.

And I was terrified.

You had to climb out on the step, climb around the strut, and they told you step off the step.

And you were just hanging by the wing in the wind.

And they go, "Let go!"

And I'm like, "I don't want to let go!

I don't want to!"

And you do, and the parachute opens immediately.

I did it.

I was on my way down and like, "One is good enough for me."

But I landed, and I was with a buddy the time.

And he was like, "That was awesome!

You want to do it again?"

Me, the machismo, says, "Hell yeah, I want to do it again!

That was...Heck yeah!"

And I don't think he wanted to do it either.

And I was like, "Yeah!

We'll do it again!"

So we ended up making three that day.

Hated them all.

Right?

But then my instructors were so good.

They could tell that I was very goal-oriented.

And so they dangled a little carrot in front of my face the entire time.

"If you can just make ten more skydives, you get to do your first free fall for five seconds."

And I was like, "All right.

I hate it but I'll do ten skydives."

So I did ten and got my first free fall.

I was like, "This is starting to become pretty cool.

This is actually pretty neat."

And they were like, "Only 100 more jumps and you can be a jump master!"

Er, an "early jump master!"

"All right.

I'll do a hundred jumps."

And then 500.

And then 1,000.

And then 5,000.

And it just kept going.

And then I started to actually love it.

And I realized that it's a very safe sport.

It's incredibly safe.

And if you don't "what if?"

yourself to death all the way up, you're going to be fine and have fun.

Turn around.

Put your left foot in there, right foot in there.

Walk it up.

Right arm in just like a jacket.

[Zachariah] Phoo!

[Jackie] What's the speed we'll be going?

We're going two hundred thousand... no.

[Zachariah] Two hundred thousand miles an hour!

[Jackie] We're going two hundred miles an hour.

Once we're free falling.

[Zachariah] Yep.

[Jackie] (laughs) And we haven't told any of our parents.

[Zachariah] Yeah, we'll tell our parents [Jackie and Zachariah] Afterwards.

[Zachariah] What's the physical sensation like?

[Ward] Probably related to being a dolphin in the water.

[Zachariah] Yeah.

[Ward] You forget about the wind, just like a dolphin forgets about the water.

And you can actually just start to then swim and fly and go where you want.

You feel like gravity no longer applies.

Like, "I can do anything."

Until you get to about 3,000 feet.

And then you realize, "Okay.

Now I can't.

I've got to open the parachute."

But until then, it's complete freedom.

[Zachariah] So you get to feed off of that first time excitement when you jump with somebody?

[Ward] Every time.

[Zachariah] That's awesome.

[Ward] I get to feel their fear all the way up.

And I try to calm them as much as possible.

I tell bad jokes.

Once we get hooked up, you'll be closer to this strange man than you've ever wanted to be to a strange man in your entire life.

I promise.

But you get to feel their fear just like I had.

And I'm like, "I remember that.

It takes me back 16 years."

It's amazing to relive the fear and the excitement joy, all of that, every time.

[Ward] What's up Zach?

How's it going, buddy?

[Zachariah] I am very excited to be here!

I'm about to go jump out of a plane.

We're going to really harness the transfer of potential energy into a lot of kinetic energy!

[Ward] All right!

[Zachariah] It's going to happen!

So I'm really excited!

[Ward] Cool!

Cool!

Cool!

So what, we're going to go 14,000 feet.

[Zachariah] Fourteen thousand?

Is that really it?

[Ward] Yeah!

[Zachariah] Almost three miles?

[Ward] Yeah!

[Zachariah] All right.

All right.

[Ward] All right, man.

Cool!

We got that sucker on this!

[laughter] [female instructor #1] Do you have a special reason to throw yourself out of perfectly good airplane?

[Megan] Um...

I can't think of one right now.

I had one like, two hours ago.

[female instructor #1] (laughs) And now you don't even know why you're doing this?

[Megan] Not sure why I'm doing it.

[Jackie] It's because of peer pressure... Just kidding!

[laughter] [Ward] I love peer pressure!

[Ward] So, you're going to be nervous.

It's going to happen.

But let it be that good kind of fear.

Like when you're riding a roller coaster and you're at the very top.

You're not thinking, "Oh my god, I'm going to die."

You're thinking, "Oh my god, I'm scared.

But this is going to be awesome."

Same thing with the skydiving.

Think that it's going to be awesome and you're going to be fine.

And enjoy the thrill, not the "Oh, I'm going to die!"

Because you're not.

♪ [Jackie] I was super scared.

Like, "Oh no, I don't want to jump out of a plane!"

That got me thinking, "Wait a minute, why can't I do it?

"Why am I stopping myself "from trying to achieve something?

I need to do this.

I need to try it."

[Zachariah] Yes!

[Zachariah] And I see Jackie.

She goes to the edge and goes, "Ahh!"

I'm in all the way in the back.

And I have to crawl up and crawl up and crawl up.

And inching toward it and my nerves are starting to...

It's like, "Come on!"

Jackie, they're gone.

They've disappeared.

[wind blowing] ♪ [Ward] My first jump, like I said, I was terrified.

After 11,000 jumps, there's still fear.

But there's fear and fear management.

And you have to weigh the rewards.

I can either be too afraid to do this and never have this amazing experience of falling 120 miles an hour and feeling that parachute open and look at the world from 5,000 feet above in a harness, because I let my fear hold me down.

You have to weigh the rewards.

And the reward of just being, "Okay, I'm afraid.

But it's manageable fear.

Look what I get for giving it a try.

Look at the reward I get."

Because I still get afraid.

I'm still afraid at times.

I'm not a first jumper by any means.

It's pretty commonplace.

But there's still fear.

Courage is not being fearless.

It's acting in the face of fear, right?

And that's what I think true courage is.

You act in the face of it.

You do it anyway because the reward is so great.

And if you let fear just keep you squashed, you're not living.

You're dead already.

[Zachariah] Ahh!

Yes!

[Megan] Thanks, man!

[Ward] Congratulations!

[male instructor #1] Welcome back to Earth.

[Jackie] Whoo!

[male instructor #1] Would you do that again?

[Jackie] Yes!

♪ [Zachariah] We're in New York City.

Big old New York City!

Very exciting!

[Megan] We're going to head up to WNYC Studios to meet with Jad Abumrad, the host of RadioLab.

[male #1] You can reframe terrible feelings to make them an indication of what you   should be doing.

There are times when you sort of just want to stand in them and be in them.

Because you might be at the margins of something great.

And things always get tense at the margins.

[Female narrator #4] Roadtrip Nation extends beyond the program you just watched.

It's a movement that empowers students to define their own Roads in life.

Here's a quick snapshot of the Roadtrip Nation experience at Gateway to College.

[woman #1] I'm a student resource specialist with Gateway to College.

[student #1] It's usually for people who have lost their path.

[student #2] I recently got kicked out of high school and I came to this program.

And I want to be an immigration lawyer.

I interviewed a district attorney and a paralegal.

They both grew up in a traditional Mexican family where their dads were like, "Oh, you can't do this" or "You can't do that."

That's how I'm growing up right now.

[student #1] My mom raised me and my sister.

And it was really hard for her because I had a special sister who needed ten times more attention than I did.

And then she became disabled, so I became the head of the household.

And I had to take responsibility at 15.

Our next door neighbor, he's the director for Autism on the Seas.

[Jamie] Working with special needs families is absolutely the best thing I ever did.

And I'm thankful now that I was open enough to look at it.

[Alan] Working with those type of kids, that became my passion.

[student #3] I interviewed Billie Stevens.

He's the CEO of Dinky Music.

I want to get into audio engineering.

[Billie] Stay as late as you can.

Learn everything you can.

[Victor] Once you hear it in person with somebody who was raised in the same situation you were, it really enables you to take what this program is saying and actually believe it and apply it.

[Alan] Now I have more of a Road.

Roadtrip paved it for me.

[female narrator #4] If you're living a life you love and want to share you story with the next generation or if you're looking to define your own Road head to Roadtripnation.com to join the movement.

♪