Welcome to Transformative Principal, where I help you stop putting out fires and start leading.
I'm your host, Jethro Jones.
You can follow me on Twitter at Jethro Jones.
Okay.
Welcome to Transformative Principal.
I am your host, Jethro Jones.
You can find me on all the social networks at Jethro Jones.
I am excited today to have on the program Tyler Lafferty, and he is the executive director and founder of Slingshot.
He's a longtime entrepreneur.
He's built five successful companies and digital marketing advertising.
Media and health and fitness, and this has been over the last 20 years, and he is produced services purchased by multi-billion dollar companies and clients across the nation, including at and t, Amazon, Nike, Nintendo, MTV, TikTok, Disney, and many others.
But we're not here to talk about all that.
We are here to talk about our kids and the future and his current.
Venture called Slingshot, which you can learn about@helloslingshot.org.
And uh, Tyler, welcome to the program.
Why don't you start by telling us about what Slingshot is?
Yeah, thanks Jethro.
Um, so Slingshot is, uh, ultimately what we're trying to do is help young people.
We're trying to coach purposeful direction, trying to help them better align themselves their unique skills.
Their personality, uh, to a, uh, job that's gonna be more aligned and, and to an industry that they can dream big about and be excited about, to wake up every single day and go into that industry to do that work.
So really trying to open their eyes to possibilities that are out there, and then show them how to connect the dots, how to make it a reality.
to go forward and whether that's, you know, validating these ideas, whether that's building connections with, you know, professionals in an effort to build that network, um, for moving forward, but really trying to show them the techniques to, to, to, to do that alignment on the front end and then to go and, and, and make those connections on the back backend.
Yeah, so let me explain why we're talking about this and this.
Is very personal to me, uh, because I love learning and I love helping other people learn.
And so I thought that the only option for me was to be a KK 12 educator.
Sure.
And I didn't realize that there were so many other things that I could have done.
Uh, probably because I wasn't super engaged in school.
And, uh, I also had a little.
You know, wanted to stick it to the, the teachers that I had who didn't do a good job preparing me for the future,
Right.
my opinion.
And, uh, and wanted to, um.
I, I just love helping people learn.
I think it's really fascinating and fun to do, but I didn't realize there were so many other things I could done besides be a teacher, and that there's so many different opportunities out there, and I want to be part of solutions that help kids see that there are a lot of different things out there for them.
And that, um, that the, the main, uh.
Main jobs that exist are not the only ones that are out there.
And, and one of my dreams is to start a podcast about crazy jobs that people have that are just off the wall.
Because every time I talk to somebody, I'm just amazed at what they do.
So, so that's why this is personal to me and why I think it's valuable to have you on the show and to, to talk about this because I love this idea about helping kids dream big about their future and then connect the dots to get to where they want to be.
Yeah.
And the biggest thing that I hear from kids is that they really, most kids don't know what they want to do when they grow up.
And like, where do you start with that?
Because that seems like an important thing to figure out before you can start connecting the dots to that.
Right, right.
Well, and, and not only that, but trying to remind kids that you're not trying to find.
You know the one thing you're supposed to do.
I don't believe in a path to singular discovery.
It's not, it's not a one true love.
It's not the one thing you're supposed to kind of find out about yourself.
You're a multifaceted, amazing human being that could do all sorts of really fantastic things that ultimately you could find fulfillment in.
So why don't we open the door a little wider to possibilities, to learning to.
And I always, you know, I remind people what you're doing at uh, 22 is likely different than what you'd be doing at 28, which is likely different than what you'll be doing at 35.
And that's okay.
Like be open to the journey.
We call it the winding path.
Be open to the winding path and everything there is to learn along the way with that growth mindset, right?
If I have a growth mindset about kind of what I'm doing and where I can go and, and, and how I can progress along the way that I'm not really having failures.
I'm just learning along the way.
No, no losing, just learning.
We say.
And if we can get young people to kind of see that as they think about their future, you know, we're trying to reduce that stress and anxiety and fear that comes with trying to figure this out.
'cause so many young people are freaked out about, I gotta know exactly what I'm gonna do.
And especially if I'm going on to, you know, some post-secondary thing, like college and I'm, and I'm thinking about, um, choosing the right major and then trying to get the right job.
And, and, and I, it, it just, it, it.
I hate that.
You know, mental health is real, right?
And we've gotta be, you know, careful with our young people, especially coming out of the pandemic and everything that kind of happened during that.
And, and for them to just open their eyes to big opportunities and they're gonna grow and learn and do you know good things?
What we're trying to do is help them get aligned with who they are.
I don't want to create, you know, them to get into a situation, create friction about, I'm doing something that, this isn't at all what I love, but I joke and call it the path of least resistance.
My, my mom, you know, works at the bank or my dad sells insurance, and so I'm just gonna choose one of those.
'cause it's what I know.
It's my path of least resistance.
And like, well, is, is that totally aligned with who you are and what you wanna do and where you want to go?
Probably not.
Maybe not.
Maybe it is.
And more power to you.
really getting kids to say or to see that if we can help them have that agency to just dream a little bit bigger, to see how those dots might connect and then show them what you do to move down that path to make it a reality.
I created something called the Ideas Framework, and that's really the, the step by step.
I wrote this book called Be More Like You, it was about, um, helping, uh, helping young people see what this path could look like.
So it's.
Introspection.
Design, exploration, adaptability, and service.
The introspection is the is.
We spend a lot of time in better understanding who you are, what are your core skills, what are you innately gifted with, what's your personality type, which I like to say is how do you show up in the world?
What does that look like?
And obviously your skills and your personality.
going to gel more into certain job types that you're gonna find more fulfilling just 'cause it's, it's leveraging your skills and what you're good at and that just feels good when you're doing that kind of work.
And so we do a lot of work in that introspection phase to better understand kind of who you are as a human so that you can apply that to a job type.
And then in introspection we do this, um, we call it industry mapping, where we dream big about possibilities.
Uh, about, you know, industries that maybe you never thought of as, as, as real for someone like you to move into.
And what I hear from so many young people after we do this, whether it's a college seminar or within the high schools that we work in, is I'll hear young people say.
You made me realize I was dreaming way too small, like what I actually was thinking of, and the possibilities was way too small.
And so we're opening their eyes to such bigger opportunities and showing them how to connect the dots, which is really, you get into the deed to design phase, which is designing the plan.
And, and really, I, I jokingly should have called it the research phase, uh, because it's researching the companies, it's researching the job types to better understand and know about these.
It's researching the path of how to get there.
It's researching the people, the actual humans that are doing this work, because in the e, the exploration phase, we're gonna get you hooked up with those people.
We want you to go and have an informational interview, a job shadow, an internship, but we wanna get you to a point where you're actually talking to someone who's doing that job that you're interested in, whether it's in person, whether it's over the phone, whether it's virtual.
But we want you to have a, you know, meaningful conversation asking.
Tell me about your job.
What's a day in the life?
How did you get here?
What advice do you have for someone like me who might wanna move in this direction?
But you know, using that to better understand and validate, is this a direction you want to go?
That exploration phase can be so good because
Hmm.
you and I both know so many young people can romanticize jobs.
Like, oh, this would be so cool.
This is exactly what I'm gonna do.
they go talk to a professional that's doing that work.
They better understand what the day in their life is, and they're like, oh, uh, yeah, maybe not.
That wasn't at all what I thought, and it's
Well,
right.
and that piece is so fascinating because so many times you think like I. You're young, you think I can do anything right?
And, and there's a lot of truth to that.
But then you think, I wanna make a lot of money and provide for my family and not be poor and, and take care of people and all that.
And so you think maybe I'll do this job because it makes a lot of money and that's, and that's what I need.
I had an experience like that in college.
I had a friend who was a lawyer who was, uh, he was a church leader, and so I got to know him that way.
And then I asked him what it was like being a lawyer and he was like, you basically are doing research and writing all the time and you rarely interact with people.
And I was like, I thought lawyers were like.
In court, like debating all the time.
And he is like, that is a very tiny, tiny part of what I do.
And I was like, oh, I need something where I interact with people.
I know that I didn't know a lot when I was in college, but I knew I needed to be able to interact with people.
And if I didn't have that, it would be I. Really, really tough and you know, hence why I am doing podcasts now.
Yeah.
I love it because I get talk to interesting people and, and be able to go deep.
So I, I interrupted you on that, uh, to share that story.
But, uh, go on about the other parts of the ideas framework.
appreciate that.
And you're totally right though.
I mean, I, and well, and like I said, so many young people have this, you know, what I saw on TV or what I, you know, saw on TikTok or what I, you know, I believe to be that job.
I don't have a problem with that feeling, but you need to go validate it.
Is that truly what it is and what it means to you?
And so we push this e exploration, this, this idea that you need to go and, and a validate those ideas and, and a, is this something what you were thinking?
And it's, and I always tell young people, are you leaning into this conversation?
Is it interesting?
Does that something that's kind of lighting you up and exciting you?
Or are you leaning out?
Oh, that's not at all what I thought and wasn't, you know, what I was, what, where I thought this would go.
so a, it's, it's all about validation of, of your thoughts and ideas of, of is this job type, is this industry where I want to go?
But B, it's also about networking.
So I. Young people struggle.
I, all of us struggled with, you know, what does networking actually look like for us?
And, and that social capital is the, is the term that keeps coming up.
And more and more educators I talk to in, in this, in this industry, this, this idea of young people not having social capital, especially after Covid d and, and needing this, that idea of these connections.
'cause we all know that it's really about, you know.
Who you know is, it does matter.
And having this social capital, these connections with people, which absolutely can be done by the student.
It doesn't have to be, oh, well my parents don't know anybody or, or whatever.
That's fine.
teach them and coach them on how they can go out, reach out to somebody that they don't know at all, and actually build a connection with them to have, you know, a meaningful conversation about the work.
And so, and I've seen it time and time again, Jethro, where someone.
Does an informational interview with somebody and, and builds a, a connection now has them in their LinkedIn or whatever it might be in their network.
And then two to three years later actually gets a job through that person at their company because they were hiring and they stayed in touch.
They saw that they posted it on LinkedIn or something like that.
And then it happens.
And so this is really that social capital we coach young people on how to build it for themselves.
And that's really important 'cause we do work across the the socioeconomic spectrum.
And so of course a lot of these young people that we work with don't have these family relationships or that kind of thing.
So we teach them how do you go out and build those?
How do you, what does it look like to reach out to somebody?
What's the email that you send?
Um, what are the questions that you ask?
Once you get the chance to have these conversations?
We believe wholeheartedly in that exploration phase and why it's so important and why they need to grow as a human being in that.
So that's the exploration phase.
is adaptability.
Adapt.
Lemme ask another question, um, because this, this is something that, uh, that a lot of people don't understand.
Everybody, everybody loves to be an expert, right?
Sure.
if you're an expert on just your thing in your one little niche area, it feels really good to have somebody say, Hey, tell me about this.
I don't know anything about it, and I wanna learn.
Like everybody really enjoys being able to say, here's this thing that I'm pouring my life into and let me share it with you.
And that's why this is such a powerful thing to do and to teach kids how to do.
Because the other part of that is that if it's a teenager reaching out saying, I want to know more about this, people are so willing to give their time and energy to someone who's curious about things and, and so when you say like, you don't have to have connections, you really don't, because I've had many teenagers reach out to me about podcasts and I'm like, I would love to give you advice, tips, anything that I can do to help you.
Figure out your place in the world with this thing and um, you know, that would be fascinating.
Jethro, I agree 177%.
Let me just take this one step further in this in, because you know so many of your listeners are educators.
seen this happen a lot with educators
They'll say, oh, I don't wanna reach out to them.
I don't,
Yeah.
ask them to come to my classroom.
I don't wanna bother them.
I don't wanna, and I, I think honestly, it's a little bit of a cop out.
I
Yeah,
like, it's them not wanting to have, to have that adult interaction themselves with this
yeah.
And I remind, I remind, uh, educators all the time, do not.
Take away that opportunity from that person to help their community.
They want to help that young person.
They want to come and speak in your classroom.
They want to help you.
And if you don't reach out, you're actually taking that opportunity away from them, which is, which is horrible.
Like, like allow them to give back to their community, allow them to do something for these young people.
And, and, and so I always remind teachers that, because I get that all the, I actually created a software program years ago that was like a match.com for, uh.
and professionals, and we had over 300 professionals in our, in our local area in Spokane that were excited and wanted to give back and said, yeah, absolutely.
I'll, I'll be an advisor, I'll come speak in the classroom, I'll do whatever.
And then we had about 200 te um, educators that were on there.
But the look dirty little secret is a lot of those educators wouldn't actually get on there and do the search for an architect, an engineer or whatever.
'cause they just like, well, I just don't wanna bother them.
Well, again, I, I think that just that, that that adult interaction or whatever, they were actually a little bit afraid to do
Yep.
and it was kind of a bummer.
So I, I, I think it's really important to remember that thought.
So the other thing about that is I created a tool called Creatives for Education where, uh, creative people would, um, would volunteer to take an ugly worksheet that a teacher was doing and turn it into something beautiful
love
and yeah, great idea, but I had the same exact problem that teachers wouldn't ask.
The creatives to do it.
I had a whole bunch of people who were willing to be like, yeah, I'll turn that worksheet into something beautiful, no problem.
And then nobody would ask 'em.
And so I ended up shutting it down because it just didn't, it didn't work out.
And it's so fascinating to me because people are.
Anxious and excited to help out.
Um, but they don't know what to do.
And they don't, they don't know how to, like, it's, they're not just gonna show up at a school and be like, Hey, can I speak in one of your classrooms?
Um, you know, that's, that's, that's probably not gonna happen.
And so.
They need to be asked, what can we do?
And I had, I had a friend who was like a distant friend, uh, that I didn't ever talk to, but I, he was a editor on movies in Hollywood and I reached out to him and said, can you talk to my video class about editing?
And this guy who's literally editing the Marvel movies, the kids are going to see that weekend.
Is Skyping into my classroom to, uh, to talk to my kids about editing and what it's like as a, to be a real
cool.
editor and what an amazing experience for my kids to be able to see that.
And he was happy to do it and like tried diligently to find time to make it work.
And I just think that that kind of stuff is so amazing.
We need to do more of that and get more mentors for our kids in schools.
I totally agree.
And, you know, that's where advisory programs come into play, whether it's CTE or that kind of thing.
Like it's, it's important that we get the schools and the teachers to get excited about this and say, Hey, these are partners you wanna come alongside you.
That, that, that the, you know, and then you'll hear, and I know you've heard this as, as well as I have a teacher say.
when I bring a, a, a, a guest speaker in, and that guest speaker says something that I said last week, and the kids all rolled their eyes, but the
Yeah.
says it.
And they're like, wow, okay, cool.
And they're like, just told you that.
And it's like, it's just a good reminder for teachers, like, Hey, let's bring in some more people from the, from the business world, from out there in the real world and, and get them to speak in your classrooms and, and give you a break.
I mean, let you, you know, you know.
Sit back and let this person, you know, help you and be a part of that.
I love the teachers that are diligent about like, lining up 2, 3, 4 a semester, you know, of people to come in and speak to kids, a new perspective, something different.
Like I think that's absolutely valuable and I, I, truth be told, I do think.
That the business community at, at large has, has kind of fallen down of not being more engaged in education.
You'll find the, the one, the two, the three businesses that are super jacked and they're, they're the ones that are always, you know, offering job shadows or whatever, and they're the ones that are always at the job fairs and career fairs, which is great.
But the larger business community as a whole has kind of, you know, sadly in my opinion, has pulled back a little bit and just said, well, we're just waiting for 'em to come to us once they, you know, finish high school or finish college or whatever it might be like, no, you need to go and build this pipeline.
You need to go and get excited about, you know, these young people that are coming up that are your next generation of employees.
And so, you know, of course business is about today, business is about the bottom line.
Business is about like trying to stay.
Healthy and relevant and what's going on right this moment.
The idea of investing in this larger five year plan of this, you know, ninth grader who could be an employee of yours.
You know, coming up is hard for a lot of businesses,
Yeah.
if we
Well,
a little more excited about that, I think that it would make education as a whole, a better place to see more of that connection between industry and education.
yeah.
And it's not just industry that's doing that.
Education is doing it also by not creating their own, uh, programs for getting kids to become teachers and creating a pipeline for kids to become teachers.
Like I've been advocating for a long time that a kid should be able to graduate high school.
Get a job in the district and become a teacher and have the district help pay for their education to become a teacher, that pathway should exist.
Because if a kid can go from working in a school to, uh, or from being in a school, to working in a school in a different position, not as a teacher, but then becoming a teacher later, they're gonna have a much better connection to the district, to the kids, to the, to everything.
And, and we haven't done that well.
The other problem with education is that we, we have made our schools not inviting to other people.
There's so much stranger danger and like getting through multiple layers of security and all this kind of stuff.
They're not inviting.
And you know, when we moved down here to Spokane from Alaska.
We did not feel like the school wanted us as the parents to come into the school.
Granted it was during Covid and so there was that issue, but even afterward, it was like, you, you have to ring the buzzer and then the person is a jerk when when they answer, instead of recognizing that you're a parent and saying, Hey, we're glad you're here.
It's like, state your name and business, and it's like, oh geez, maybe I don't wanna be.
Coming to this school, and I'm someone who's in education and I want to be there.
And, and those things still exist, and that's really unfortunate.
We've gotta find a happy medium between those two, um,
Yeah.
both sides that it's not, it's not just the educators.
They need to reach out, but the businesses need to reach out also and be proactive about creating these pipelines as well.
Agreed.
Absolutely.
Oh, okay.
So further down the ideas framework, the A, the A is adaptability.
Adaptability is just recognizing that we're not all on that right path.
Sometimes, even though we've done some of this work and we figure out that, you know, we've now we, we've better understood and validated what actually goes into being in this, um, job, this industry.
Oh, that's not for me, and that's okay.
Right.
So I always say it's having that courageous conversation with yourself maybe I'm on the wrong path and that's, and I need to jump back into introspection.
I need to do a little bit more work there.
And we need to look at a different job type within maybe the same industry or a different industry.
But just recognizing that that is okay and it's okay to actually make some changes.
And even if you've done something for 2, 3, 4 years and you now really wanna make a change and be adaptable, that's okay.
And it's good to be adaptable.
So recognizing that and and talking about the importance of that, and then the s and the IDEAS framework is service.
Whenever we're talking to a young person, we're talking about finding purpose, fulfillment, happiness in work and life, and we believe it's possible.
And yes, of course you can find that in your vocation.
We believe that's absolutely possible.
There's also another way, which is to recognize that connection to your community.
How do you give back?
What does volunteerism look like?
We want all these young people to recognize what that's like and what that feels like.
And I'll talk to kids and say, Hey.
How many of you have done a little bit of volunteer work?
And of course a lot of hands go up, it's great.
I said, did that feel pretty good?
And you see a lot of nods, and I'm like, that's kind of wonderful, right?
Like you actually sacrificed your time, your energy, but you actually got something out of it.
And that's really, really fantastic.
And so young people to recognize that and see that, and then if we can get them to go do some volunteer work to actually get into a practice of that, what you of course then find is some people are like.
love this work.
Like this is, this is my, I want this to be my day job.
And so we want them to have that exposure.
If they want to go work at a nonprofit or some order, other sort of service type of, you know, industry or business or, I mean, I always say teachers are in, you know, in in the, in.
That's a, they're in the service of, of others.
I mean, that's a beautiful thing that you could be a part of.
And so getting young people to recognize that, I always knew that if I had the ear of a young person and we're talking about the future.
I always wanted to, you know, just dabble in the, the sure they understood the importance of, of giving back to their community and what that looked like.
So we, we talk about that and what that looks, how they can go about that.
Yeah, I really like the, the ideas framework.
I think that it's, uh, valuable and definitely something to, to do.
What does this look like in practice, um, day to day?
How do you work with kids?
Um, how do you, how do you help them if they are.
I.
Like just some ambitious kid and they're like, Hey, I'm listening to a principal podcast 'cause I'm a super nerd.
How do, how do they get involved?
Or more realistically, you know, we got principals and teachers listening to this.
How do we bring this kind of program to our schools?
I appreciate you asking.
So there's four different, uh, I call 'em delivery pillars.
We have four different delivery pillars.
The first one is we do a lot of work in schools, high schools and colleges.
So, and how that kind of looks is we come in, maybe you've heard of advisory.
A lot of schools
Yeah.
Maybe it's a half hour a week, um, maybe it's an hour a month, whatever it might be.
It's different in a lot of different schools that we show up in.
but we've come in and helped out if, if not even in some places, taken over advisory and said, Hey, let us a, a lot of principals who are honest with me, we'll say, Tyler.
you came our, you know, I'm using air quotes.
Our advisory was not advising anything.
It was, you know, we didn't have any real curriculum.
Uh, yeah, we have one of those school links, or zello, or one of these programs that allow students to maybe go on and do a little bit of exploration, but we weren't truly helping young people prepare for the future and better understand who they are as humans and what that looks like.
and so I've had a lot of principals say like, this has become our North star.
Like, this is such good stuff.
And so we come in and we have, uh, a, a curriculum that that is nine months, uh, long that we can come in.
And whether that's once a week, whether that's once a month, we've adapted it in, in a lot of different ways.
But we come in and and do one of a couple things.
One is either.
Uh, train the teachers on like a 15 minute, um, little training to say, Hey, we're gonna do this activity this week.
This is what we're, we're in the introspection phase.
And then it's a usually a video of me kind of talking about why this is valuable and what we're doing, and then we'll share with them the activity they're gonna do, whether that's a worksheet or, or some sort of thing we're gonna do on the computer.
we teach the teachers, coach, the coaches, uh, we do that and then we allow them, uh, to, to do that during the advisory period.
And sometimes we come in alongside teachers, we come alongside counselors and do it with them.
Um, so it kind of shows up in a lot of different ways.
But we have the curriculum that allows to walk through the ideas framework within that kind of nine month time.
And mind you, I've done this in a. One hour, uh, assembly.
I've done it in a three hour seminar.
I've done it in a weekend seminar.
So we do this in high schools and we're brought in, um, to kind of come in and be a partner in this work.
Right now in the Spokane area, we're working with over 3,500 kids, uh, within the high schools that we're, we're in six different high schools that we're working in.
And, um.
And it's great.
I mean, this is a, a really, you know, strong way to deliver this content, to change the way kids see the future.
And I've had kids come up to me and be like, Hey, you're the slingshot guy.
And I'm like, yeah, because they've either seen my videos or seen me speak at an assembly for this school.
And I had one young man come up and he's like, this is way better than what we did last year.
Yeah.
like, that's awesome man.
I'm so glad you're like engaged and interested and excited about this, and.
And so that's one way we do that, both in high schools and colleges.
So we, we work at some of the, the universities as well and do seminars for them and, and, and their students.
Uh, so the second delivery pillar is we do one-to-one coaching.
So if you have a, a, a parent who, of a young person and you say, Hey, you know, she just needs a little extra help, a little more customized, a little more personalized, we can offer one-to-one coaching, and that's usually paid for by the parent.
We also do scholarships, but it's.
Paid for by the parents to do that one-to-one coaching.
And then we have, um, what we call the academy.
And the academy is virtual.
And so we have co we'll do cohorts, 20 to 30 young people coming together, in a cohort, in a Zoom like environment, five weeks.
So we have, it's really condensed.
It's five weeks and once a week for five weeks.
They come on with a coach group discussion, that kind of stuff as we work through the ideas framework.
And then they have a lot of.
Uh, homework, if you will.
So they have videos to watch, they have activities to do that to, again, to walk through the ideas home framework when, when they're not with us.
Uh, and that's, like I said, five weeks.
So it's, it's pretty fast, pretty content.
And then that's again, something that parents would pay for if they want their, their young person in that.
And then we have the fourth, which is the kind of go at it, your own pace, which is our online course.
So, hey, this is gonna be easier for me to do it when I can get to it.
And that kind of thing.
I can't commit to every Wednesday, you know, for five weeks or whatever that might be.
Uh, can I just get to the content myself?
And we have that option.
They can pay to have the, the, uh, um, access to the, to the online course.
I.
Yeah, I, I like the, uh, the broad way of making it available to everybody because that's, uh, you know, everybody's got their own thing that is, um, that, that makes it possible for them to be successful.
Right.
And, you know, I. Uh, meeting synchronously may not work.
Meeting asynchronously may work better.
Yeah.
and so those are, you know, some kids aren't gonna be able to pull through doing the asynchronous.
They need that, that calendar time to, to make it happen.
So, yeah, this is good.
Um, just, uh, as we close up, can I, I love the title of your book, be More Like You, and, and this is, uh, one of the things that I. That we struggle with right now in our society is this idea of identity.
And we define identity way too narrowly.
And I've said this a bunch and, and people, um, listening are, you know, they're probably sick of me saying it, but I'm gonna keep saying it because we define ourselves so narrowly and focus on things that are either unchangeable or too narrow for us to really, um.
For that to be so important.
You know, and, and we really need to recognize that we are each.
Unique individual people that even if we have commonality with some people, we are still very different from those people.
E even kids in the same family are gonna grow up and be their own unique person.
And they may look alike, they may sound alike, they may act alike.
They may believe a lot of the same things, but they are still unique individual people with a unique and individual approach to life.
And.
That should be valued and recognized rather than, um, thinking that we have to be like everybody else or define ourselves so narrowly.
So we just talk a little bit more about what be like you really means to you.
I.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
The, yeah, the, the title of the book be More Like You.
I mean, it really was this idea that.
I do believe that everyone is uniquely gifted and like you said, and we should celebrate that uniqueness and it's beautiful, right?
Um, and the importance of that and that likely these things are already inside of you.
These skills that you're uniquely gifted with these, your, your unique personality, um, these interests that you have about the world and, and learning more about it, like honor that right?
And, and be more like you and who you are and draw this out of you.
So that you can find that, that alignment to, I, I just believe in that wholeheartedly.
And, and also, you know that, that.
Again, I, I'll just go back to this.
It's not this path to singular discovery.
We, as human beings have all sorts of amazing interests that we have, and you should explore those and, and better understand those.
I was meeting yesterday with a young man and he's, and, and he was asking me, Hey, I'm, I'm considering colleges, you know, and what sort of questions should I ask about this business school versus that business school or this and that?
And, and I said, Hey, listen, I love that you're interested in business, and I think that's gonna be wonderful.
It seems to suit your personality and what I know of you.
But what I'd rather see you do is, is choose a school because it's where you want to go and what you're excited about and that you're into.
Um, and, and if you're, you know, I said ask about their, their curriculum and their different classes, class lists for these different.
The schools they have, and then find out what, like what is exciting to you and what's coming out for you.
And then once you go there, go and start to take some classes within the business school, of course, but then take a broader variety of classes, anthropology, you know, philosophy, take some of these and then like be open to like what's exciting you, what's drawing you in.
And, and, and then if a certain.
that you're taking, you find really interesting.
Go do some research.
What are jobs around, you know, this type of industry or that kind of thing, and better understand what that's about.
It's about that, that, that exploration phase and getting the information.
I joke with young people, I, I say that, Hey, listen, we only know what we currently know.
And I'm like, isn't that a dumb statement?
And they all kind of laugh and like, you know, nod their head.
I'm like, but you're making decisions about your future on the limited amount of information you currently have.
you can go do the work, do the research, watch the videos of more, and get more information, more influence, more things, you're gonna be able to make a better decision.
And just trying to get them to understand that.
And I'll even tell 'em like, Hey, there's good content on TikTok.
You, if you're interested in artificial intelligence, if you're interested in whatever it might be there.
I guarantee you there's content on YouTube, on TikTok.
I mean, it's out there.
So just go and like get some more of that content.
And then honor that and say, wow, this is really cool.
I had no idea this industry existed and I wanna honor that and be more like me because that's inside of me.
I wanna find that.
And so I just really think it's this idea of like, we owe it to ourselves to honor that, that uniqueness within us, and to try to push young people to, to recognize that, to, to, Hey, it's okay.
You, you know, you don't have to be like everybody else.
You don't have to be what you see on Instagram.
Like, like what does this resonate with you and does it excite you and light you up?
Yeah.
And, and even better if you don't find something.
More information about that you can go create it.
That's, that's the beauty is, is you don't have to have permission from anybody to start doing that.
And you, you can start creating and sharing what you're learning and what you're interested in and, and create a niche and find other people who are interested in that too.
And, and that is just really incredible.
It's one of the most amazing things about the, the time in which we live and the world we live, where you can.
You can create and find other people who are interested in the same things.
Um, so Tyler, this was awesome.
Thank you so much for being here.
Um, please let us know how to get, uh, in touch with you and get more of these programs, uh, in our schools and what that looks like.
appreciate that.
Yeah.
I think the best way is the website, that is that hello slingshot.org.
You'll find out about our different programs and you'll find a way to contact us and reach out, and I would love the chance to have a conversation if anyone is interested in kind of the way we approach this and what we do and learning more.
I welcome that.
Yeah.
Cool.
So hello slingshot.org.
This was a, a great conversation.
Thank you so much.
And, um, I think there's gonna be more to come from this and, uh, thank you so much for being here, Tyler.
Appreciate it.
j.
Appreciate it.