>>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.

[MUSIC] >> Lacey: I know who I am, but I don't.

I feel like I'm still just like a kid.

I have interests in all of these different fields, but I think the disadvantage is that you're pulled in so many directions.

It's really, really hard to choose one thing.

>> Zane: I still wanna find that one thing that just clicks for me, so far I really haven't.

>> Yailenne: I've always had self doubt, or that stage in life where you just feel like you can't do it.

I feel like a lot of it is mental.

>> Zane: Definitely the most scared of not having a purpose in life, it's a scary thought.

>> Yailenne: Following your passion.

It's good to hear but honesty, how do you find your passion?

That might be the question for a lot of people.

[MUSIC] >> Lacey: We're about to go on a 17-day trip around Colorado, talking to people about what they do with their lives.

Learning about the growing industries in Colorado.

>> Zane: Along the way, we're gonna be doing a lot of fun things.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: I am definitely excited to see the parts of Colorado that I haven't seen yet.

>> Lacey: I feel like this is something that's going to be important.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: So this is the first day of the trip, and I'm feeling pretty anxious and nervous about it.

There we go.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: Hello.

>> Zane: Hey, how's it going?

Come on in!

>> Yailenne: Thank you.

>> Zane: What do you have in this thing?

>> Yailenne: My gosh.

>> Lacey: Hey.

I'm gonna like trip.

I'm good.

>> Zane: My name is Zane Stymest.

I'm 20 years old and I live in Snowmass Village, Colorado.

The degree I'm pursuing in right now is informational technology.

What I want to get out of this trip is to have a sense of direction or a sense of control over what I wanna do.

I'm here to explore and see what else is out there to offer.

>> Yailenne: I'm looking for my one favorite pair of socks.

My name is Yailenne, I'm 19.

I'm from Denver, Colorado.

I'm studying biology.

I graduate very soon.

I didn't know that it's possible to be sheltered by the Hispanic community until I came out here and I realized, wow, everybody in my life is Mexican.

So I'm really anxious about leaving my community, for so long, stepping out of my comfort zone and doing this, it scares me.

>> Lacey: The easiest part about it is I can just like open it, so now if I need clothing or anything.

I'm Lacey Ceriani.

I am 18 years old and I live in Platteville, Colorado.

Right now I'm majoring in communications, but I'm kind of struggling to find how I wanna fit that into the real world.

I think we all are kind of curious what we wanna do with our lives, but I think it looks very different for all three of us.

If someone were to describe kind of what I was like, I feel like they would say, I'm very talkative, I like to talk a lot.

I figured out how to zoom in and out, so like that, and then you go like that.

I have a really big family.

We're all very close.

They're some of my favorite people on the planet.

I love my siblings, they're awesome.

Right now I'm majoring in communications.

I feel like it's a really good major, I just don't know what to do with it.

But I actually really love art.

It's one of my favorite things to do, and I like activism a lot.

But most of the time I honestly just go hang out with my speech and debate team.

I feel like I spend a lot of time with them.

No New York, you need New York.

And so I really struggled to find how I can feel passionate about my job and passionate about what I'm doing, because I feel like I've all these interests.

My dad is much more nervous for me to change my major, he's very anxious about it.

Whereas my mom is the one that's more like, you should do your semester abroad, and if you change your major a couple of times, that's okay, just make sure you graduate on time.

And so I think they both are giving me this opposite advice, they both really want me to be successful.

But I feel like their version of success and my version of success are two very different pictures.

I never wanna have a job that I'm like, oh yeah, I just work there.

I wanna have a job that I'm proud of.

>> Yailenne: Lacey?

>> Lacey: Yessy.

>> Yailenne: We're ready [MUSIC] >> Zane: I'm definitely looking forward to meeting some of the leaders that we will be seeing.

>> Lacey: I am the most looking forward to see how other people have kind of made a life for themselves that you wouldn't expect or that was very unique.

Our first interview is with Kelsey Hutchinson in Steamboat Springs.

Kelsey is a bike wilder.

She seems like she's super passionate about her work, so I'm kinda curious to see how she found such an interesting job.

I just graduated high school three weeks ago, I think, now.

So obviously, as an 18 year old, fresh out of high school you're like, I don't know if this is the right major.

>> Kelsey: [LAUGH] >> Lacey: We'll see.

So yeah, I'm just kind of like seeing what industries I'm the most interested in.

So would you please introduce yourself, and then just kind of tell us about your journey?

So how you got to where you are now in your career and just like in life?

>> Kelsey: Yeah, it is a long journey.

I wanted to go into design and fashion, and so I went to the Art Institute of Chicago for fashion design.

While I was there, I kinda pursued the side of fashion in journalism aspects, and then I ended up getting an internship with Nylon Magazine.

And so I went out there and I lived in New York, and I slowly just kind of learned that it wasn't really the environment for me, so I transitioned out of that.

So then I started going to school for graphic design, and then I was like, I hate sitting in front of a computer.

And so I started working at a bike shop at the time, and I just fell in love with bikes.

And so I was like, maybe I'll become a bike mechanic, I was just like, that might be fun.

And I saw somebody welding, and it was a female and I was like, that's a thing that I can do?

And so I ended up enrolling in our two year community college welding degree.

So I have my associate's degree in welding.

And my whole goal the entire time was to be able to get into right bicycle frame building.

And so, I went to UBI, which was United Bicycle Institute out in Oregon, and then a month later I got my dream job.

[LAUGH] So that's the long-winded story of my journey, but yeah.

It is such a good feeling when you get to weld your first frame, and so I just weld everything right now, which is really nice.

>> Lacey: That's amazing.

>> Kelsey: Yeah, it's weird.

It's a weird journey.

[LAUGH] >> Lacey: Do you have any kind of just advice for people who are our age or going through the same things that we are, we're just entering the world and figuring out what we want?

>> Kelsey: All three of you, just try everything.

It's gonna be messy and sometimes you're gonna feel like, what am I doing?

But I think just don't compare yourself or your journey to anybody else.

I was literally 27.

I think that's when I figured out I like this is what I wanted to do, like welding.

It was so scary, but it was so fun at the exact same time.

If it brings you joy or sparks any kind of excitement in your life, just go do it.

You don't have to be set on anything, especially when you're at your age.

You have your whole life ahead of you.

So when you're going through your journey of figuring out what you wanna do, find something small that just makes you happy.

I think that's the most important thing.

>> Lacey: I like what she had to say, that it's not too late to change what you're doing.

Life doesn't end after you pick a major and graduate.

>> Kelsey: Dang!

This is nice.

>> Zane: She went to fashion school, which is totally unrelated to welding.

And so the one thing that really stuck out to me the most was about accepting change.

>> Kelsey: At the end of the day, you only have yourself, be you.

Love, Kels.

>> Yailenne: Beautiful.

>> Lacey: I love it.

>> Yailenne: When she said, don't compare your journey to somebody else, I think that's very important.

Cuz for me, I spent a lot of my first year of college comparing my life to my peers' lives.

It just increased the doubt I had in myself.

If you start comparing that's when you start putting yourself down.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: I've just always like seen myself having a good life.

I want to enjoy my future career.

I'm just so indecisive, I don't know what to do.

I grew up in Denver.

I've been there my whole life, I really love it.

Before I started college, I decided to go to beauty school and get my aesthetician license.

I got my license and now I opened a business at my house, so I do facials and lashes for people.

I'll take a couple clients a day.

My dad is from Jalisco.

My mom's from Chihuahua.

My older siblings moved here when they were like four years old.

They didn't go to college, and so when I was growing up, I thought it would be hard for me to get an education because it's not something that is very common in Hispanic community.

So growing up it was something I didn't know how to approach or where to start.

I love my brother a lot but unfortunately he was deported when I was ten years old, I think.

It is really hard kind of like being separated from him.

When we would go visit him, my mom would pretend to be strong, it clicked in my mind that it was affecting her really strongly.

And then that's kinda when I decided I have to make up for everything that's happened, and kind of show that her hard work really did pay off.

I'm graduating next year with my bachelor's degree.

It is really nerve-wracking to be 19 and then also about to graduate college.

It's scary.

I've always been interested in being more than what I'm expected to be.

Im always wondering how things work and being ambitious and having a curious mind.

I'm always feeling like I deserve more.

And my parents deserve to feel proud for what they were able to do and the sacrifices they made.

I'm really excited to maybe find something that I wasn't even considering in my future.

[MUSIC] >> Yailenne: So today we're heading to Glenwood Springs to interview Justin Bishop.

He's the owner of Bluebird Cafe.

He has a passion for the culinary arts and for his community.

So as a small business owner myself, I'm really interested to see how he combines the two.

>> Justin: I've always had an interest in the culinary arts.

Even as a youngster I remember always watching my grandmother cook.

I knew that I wanted to be in the restaurant industry.

I didn't know that I wanted to own one.

Then I thought that I didn't want to be in the industry and I left.

And I left the restaurant industry for five years.

>> Yailenne: What caused you to step away from the restaurant industry for those five years?

>> Justin: I was getting a little burned out, getting a little stressed.

At the time that was all I knew.

I started working in the restaurant industry as a dishwasher when I was 15, 16.

I stayed at the steakhouse that I was at for 17 years.

And then when we moved out to Colorado there were no real restaurants that I wanted to work at, and I was kinda like this is my out.

And there was an opportunity to do construction with my wife's uncle and I was like I love building things, I love working with my hands, I'm gonna do this and did that for a little bit.

>> Zane: So what made you get back into the food industry?

>> Justin: Realized that I kind of missed the kitchen.

I felt like I had this urge to create something new.

In the kitchen or in the culinary world, you can create something, send it out, and watch someone's like, look at it in awe and wonder and eat it, enjoy it, and makes you feel good about yourself.

I was lucky enough to come here and just fall in love with the whole vibe of it.

I have people who come in and spend all day here.

You get to know them.

It's that personal relationship there that I was like, you know what?

This is my happy place.

This is where I wanna be.

Everything for me revolves around community.

On Wednesdays, I do a free ASL class.

We also have queers and coffee here.

We're also bringing in a Spanish speaking bilingual group, so you can learn Spanish because we have a very heavy Hispanic population here.

And so I want a place where any and everybody can come in and feel comfortable, whether there's a language barrier, a cultural barrier, or anything like that.

I want that to all leave when you walk in my door.

Our locals here have come to know that I got their back and I'm gonna try to help them out any way that I can.

>> Lacey: What would you say something that you've struggled with or failures that you've struggled with?

>> Justin: I had massive doubts.

I mean, absolutely massive doubts.

Because I came from an Italian kitchen and a steakhouse to making breakfast.

I took it as this is another challenge, this is another thing that I must do.

I still have doubts every now and then about am I doing the right thing?

Am I moving in the right direction?

And even if I fail, then I can always look back and say, all right, been there, done that, tried it, what's next?

Let's try something new.

>> Zane: So people that are in this situation like us, do you have any advice?

>> Justin: Yeah, don't get fixated on one thing.

Don't be upset with yourself if you either fail or if you decide that, I thought this was it, this isn't it, I'm gonna start something new.

Embrace that new challenge.

And there is nothing wrong with starting over again.

>> Lacey: So Bishop talks a lot about self doubt, and I'm at a point in my life where I'm dealing with a lot of my own self doubt.

But hearing him talk about it and seeing him put his 100% into his business and like reap the rewards of that, kind of encourages me to put my 100% into the next chapter of my life, even though it's like new and scary and I don't totally know what I'm doing.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: We went rock climbing in Telluride with a guide.

>> Yailenne: I've never done it before.

And I want to do more things that are intimidating to be able to step out of my comfort zone.

I think that's important for me.

>> Lacey: I don't know why I'm nervous for it, but I'm nervous.

So it was my first time doing outdoor rock climbing, I'm just really scared of heights so it's gonna be an interesting day.

>> Zane: At the beginning it looks intimidating, trying to figure out the route and paths that you shouldn't take and should take.

[MUSIC] >> Lacey: Zane did a really good job to climb all the way to the top and came down, which didn't really surprise me.

>> Yailenne: Rock climbing was fun.

At first I was trying to get up and I couldn't.

I feel like I cannot get a good grip.

I almost gave up like three times.

No, I cannot.

I definitely cannot do this guys.

>> Lacey: Yailenne, I wasn't sure she was going to get past the second move.

>> Yailenne: I was very ready to give up, honestly, cuz I just couldn't get past the first little climb.

And then Chris, the instructor, kind of just told me that I should try again.

And then he was like, “Sí se puede!

” And then after he said that, I just like climbed all the way up.

I'm going for it.

>> Instructor: Yeah.

>> Yailenne: I think all I needed to hear was “Sí se puede!

” [LAUGH] >> Lacey: After that, she scaled the thing super fast.

She literally looked like she was having the time of her life.

>> Yailenne: Can you take a picture?

[MUSIC] >> Zane: It was a lot of fun seeing her climbing all the way up to the top.

>> Yailenne: Wait, I have to come back down.

Im gonna cry.

that was so scary.

>> Zane: When you're up there at the top, it kind of makes you proud of yourself because you've done something that you never thought you can do.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: I do have a lot of self-doubt, but the outdoors is definitely my go-to place.

It just clears up my mind on a lot of things and it just shows me why I'm here.

I grew up in a military family.

I have family members in the Marines, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard.

I was like, I kind wanna be the first in the Navy.

So in high school I joined a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, and I was in there for three years.

When I went into the military, in boot camp, I had a surgery on my neck just about in this area.

It's called a brachial cleft cyst.

It was benign, so it had to be removed, so it was a very complex surgery, the surgeon nicked a nerve in my neck.

I was losing muscle in my shoulder that I gained prior to the surgery.

They told me that they see that I'm falling behind and I'm pulling back the whole platoon.

That's when the doctor put a stamp on my card saying that I can't be in service anymore.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: It was definitely the lowest moment in my life, just not being able to pursue your dream goal.

I was depressed for many months, I kind of locked myself out from others, and I'm still healing to this day.

College never went into my mind until that happened, that's when I decided to go into IT.

The main reason why I'm choosing IT is because I just love the idea of technology.

Every day there's something new that's coming out, but I love the outdoors.

I just want to see how I can do both.

What I want to get out of this trip is to see, maybe, if there's another path out there for me that I might be interested in.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: So for today we're heading to Montrose to interview Rachel Sralla.

She's a district wildlife manager for the state of Colorado.

I'm pretty curious about what a wildlife manager does specifically.

>> Lacey: How would you say that you kind of came upon the job that you have now?

>> Rachel: I found myself a lot like you, Lacey, that I was out of school and kind of knew what I liked but I wasn't really sure where I wanted to go with it.

But I was born and raised in Colorado so the outdoors was always a part of who I was and how we interacted with the world.

And so in college I just really found that thing that lit up my passion and my soul.

And it was just being outside, but I still didn't know what I wanted to do.

I was working at a retail store in Fort Collins while I was going to school and met somebody that worked for Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

He invited me on a ride-along and that was a watershed moment.

And I was all in, it was that's what I wanna do.

I changed my major, I took summer classes and I just went all for it for wildlife biology with the goal of being a district wildlife manager.

And you go through training, you get to be a pro-certified peace officer, so we're state certified peace officers.

And then you get put on district somewhere and do everything from wildlife management to education to law enforcement in that role.

So I did that for eight years and found it very, very fulfilling.

So we have tremendously passionate people that work in public information, that work in education, that work in our IT department that are still helping our agency do its mission of protecting and perpetuating wildlife resources of the state and quality outdoor experiences for now and for future generations.

Definitely a different path than I ever saw myself taking, but it's been incredibly fulfilling.

All of us that love to be out and love to be in the back country, we have to recognize the impact that we're having and how do we manage that?

How do we let people do what they love and also make sure that wildlife has what it needs to exist throughout the year?

>> Zane: I love the outdoors.

I'm a big hiker, rock climber, and I'm big on skiing.

I'm in college to get my IT degree and associates.

So you mentioned before there's an IT department within this field.

Do you mind if you talk to me more about that?

>> Rachel: Sure, so our agency does all of its technology and information technology through a different state agency, that's the OIT department.

So we communicate through them.

They get to do some stuff remotely or can do some fixes remotely.

They also will have to come out to, say, Montrose.

So they'll have to go to Durango or maybe have to go to one of the state parks to work on some of their equipment and get them on the network and get stuff shipshape.

And the neat thing is I love talking to our local IT guy, Kevin, because during ski season, he's a big skier.

And so yeah, I had to go to wherever and then I'm gonna roll that into the weekend and go ski at a different place or something like that.

So he's been able to kind of mesh those things as well, find a job that he likes but gets out and sees some of the world.

There's a ton of careers that are not that limited and that you could still do remote worksite stuff for people and help get them set up, and see a lot of this beautiful state.

There's a lot of really cool jobs in our agency that people are doing really important stuff and it doesn't always look like this.

>> Zane: No, it actually kind of excites me.

>> Rachel: Yeah.

>> Zane: No, that's what I'm trying to look for actually.

[LAUGH] >> Rachel: Yeah, very cool.

>> Zane: Yeah.

>> Rachel: Well, my advice is within the bounds that you have and the opportunities that you have, experience everything you can.

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

There's just an incredible spectrum of things, and the more that you can expose yourself to, and go, wow, I really liked that, I really enjoyed that, or, no, that was not my thing.

That's all really powerful information for you, and it could change your life.

>> Zane: Rachel's interview was pretty cool, and I learned that I can apply IT in that type of field.

Be outside, go on to different remote sites, and fixing stuff up in the mountains.

So I think that sounds really cool to me.

Now I know that there is something I can apply that towards, and that could possibly be the parks and wildlife.

[MUSIC] >> Zane: So we're about to go whitewater rafting and it's gonna be a blast.

[MUSIC] >> Lacey: We've already talked to some really awesome people and been to a lot of cool places.

I'm just really excited to see what the rest of the trip has in store for us.

>> Yailenne: I'm still excited to keep my options open and learn about other things.

>> Lacey: [LAUGH] I'm trying to keep my mind open to change.

>> Zane: Don't let anybody else interfere with what you wanna do.

That's definitely something that I'm gonna think about everyday during this whole trip.

Here we go.

[MUSIC] >> Lacey: It's officially been two weeks.

>> Yailenne: Learning about the growing industries in Colorado, that's been like my favorite thing so far.

>> Zane: I'm definitely learning a few things.

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

>> Gerrit: Seek opportunity.

Don't wait for things to happen to you.

Go after them.

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

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