Ask Questions. Build Relationships. Keep Your Integrity

Tyler Reeb grew up on a Canadian farm, moved to Long Beach at 11, slacked through college, and somehow ended up leading one of the country's most influential transportation research centers. Tyler reflects on what his path has taught him — about failure, procrastination, the value of integrity over people-pleasing, and why he's genuinely worried that young people are turning to AI before they've learned to think for themselves.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you identify somebody who's doing exactly what it is you you want to do, if you write a thoughtful note and then follow up, you really respect what somebody's doing. Could you buy them a coffee? People usually say yes, especially more senior professionals. Whether they say it or not, they are, I think, often moved by professionalism, respect, integrity, and ambition in young people. And if it's done in the right way, they will help.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Hi everyone, and welcome to Pathfound, the podcast about the real, messy, unexpected journeys that lead us to the work we love. I'm Monica Gandonia, and every week I talk with someone whose story proves there's no single right way to build a meaningful life. What do a Canadian farm, the port of Long Beach, an oil town in Alberta, and Martin Luther King Jr.'s inner circle all have in common? They're all stops on the unlikely path of today's guest. I'm sitting down with Tyler Reeb, a journalist-turned academic, a self-described smart aleck who became a scholar, and the executive director of the Center for International Trade and Transportation at Cal State Long Beach. Tyler's career has taken him from knocking on newspaper doors in the Bay Area to covering Washington, D.C. politics during 9-11 to leading million-dollar transportation research that shapes policy across tribal nations, high schools, and supply chains. And somehow it all makes sense. In this conversation, Tyler gets real about procrastination, identity, the dangers of going to AI first, and why the old school stuff, relationships, integrity, showing up still matters more than any tool will ever build. This one's full of hard-won wisdom. Let's get into it. So I'm very happy to have you on the podcast this morning, Tyler. And so as I start with all my guests, what were you like when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_00 1:41

I was born in northern Canada. So I was born on a farm, and my parents were trying to do the kind of counterculture back to the land thing. So my first experiences were just in nature, and that's was, I think, pretty influential. And then we my parents did a 180 and my became born-again Christians, and my dad got a job in the oil industry, and then we kind of moved around from Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, to Fort McMurray, which is a basically a small oil town in northern Alberta, Canada, the province adjacent directly next to British Columbia. And uh then we went to Calgary, which was in more central southern Alberta, and then eventually made our way to Los Angeles. So a lot of my you know formative experiences were just learning to adapt to different environments that were very different. And I was always a pretty curious kid. When I learned how to really read, I became pretty a pretty voracious reader. And I was more of a smart aleck when I was in K-12 than I was a serious student. But I I think my one saving grace is I did read a lot. And I guess that's pretty much it. That's how I got rolling.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

So when you were in Los Angeles, were those your high school years?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Well, yeah, we moved you from Calgary to Southern California and set up shop in Long Beach when I was about 11. So that and there that was the year that was I think 87. So that was the year Kirk Gibson, you know, had the walk-off home run with the Dodgers and the Celtics and the Lakers were playing. So I thought it was incredible. I thought who would want to be anywhere else but here? And then I went to I went to Hill Junior High, which is now Sato, right here adjacent to the university at Cal State Long Beach. And then I went to Wilson High School, and then as I said, I wasn't a very serious student, so I went to community college after Wilson and I got into an honors program and then transferred to UCLA. And that's how I got going.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Did you know what you wanted to do?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

You know, I was I was reflecting on that a little bit before we got started because I knew I knew you were going to ask me questions about that. And I think the honest answer is that I knew I always wanted to write. I was fairly, I didn't know if I was any good at it, but I liked the idea of it. So that was always something that I had in mind. I had a a lot of I questioned whether I could be any good at it. But I had little moments where I think I felt like, oh, I might be okay at this where teachers like something or my classmates like something. I wrote something like that. And then when I went to city college, I took a journalism class for the Longview City College Viking, and I did really well in that class. And then when I went to UCLA, they didn't have a journalism major, so I majored in English, and I you could do these, it wasn't a minor, but it was called an emphasis, and I did an emphasis in mass media communication, and it was right when the internet was really blowing up in the first wave of the internet for the big dot-com bubble. So I had the idea in mind loosely, but I was the first person in my family to go to college, so I really was just, you know, flying blind a little bit, and I didn't really know the value of doing internships. The moment I got into UCLA, I went back to being a smart aleck and not really taking school that seriously. I learned, but I didn't take full advantage of it. So when I graduated, I moved up to I moved up to the Bay Area uh with a long distance girlfriend I had at the time, and I started, you know, trying to get going with my career then, and I really had no idea what to do. And I remember I went for a walk in, you know, one of those really nice, you know, urban parks they have in San Francisco and just kind of asked myself, well, what do I want to do? And I had this dialogue in my head, and I and I thought, well, I don't really know what I want to do because I don't really know very much about how the world works. So then I thought, well, maybe if I could find a way to get a job where I could ask a lot of questions and that would be and then learn. And I thought, well, I could be a journalist. Investigative reporting and good journalism is all about asking questions. And then I thought, and I could work on my writing. So that was really where things got started. And the problem was I hadn't done anything really to support that throughout my undergrad career. I just got my degree and screwed around and went to parties. I mean, I didn't really take it seriously. So I ended up getting a job at an advertising agency as a proofreader. And it was, you know, in hindsight, it was a really good experience for me. But at the time, I was so idealistic, I just couldn't appreciate the benefits of working in a large advertising agency and all the things you get to learn. I just didn't feel I just felt like working on advertisements for Kia or Black Angus or Dell Computers, or I think we had Sonic hair, you know, the electric toothbrushes. And I just felt very meaningless to me. So I started, basically went around and begged small local newspapers to give me a shot. And at some point, I got a call from one of the editors, and he said we could use somebody to go. The assistant secretary of education, I believe her name was Judith Heumann, was at a Montessori school in Oakland. And so I called and sick and went and did the story, and that was how I got my first clip. And then I gradually, you know, got into you know working at magazines and newspapers and things of that nature.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So, how long did you do that? And did you consider yourself a journalist?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, eventually I did. I I got, you know, it was a lot of fits and starts for me then because the advertising job didn't really work out, it wasn't a good fit for me. And then I was doing, you know, temp work and little side hustles and trying to get into it. So I had a lot of self-doubt. I because I just really was I always did the bare minimum in school and I was such a procrastinator, I didn't really know what it meant at that point in my life to really apply myself 100%. So it was just by these little, you know, these little small victories, like that first article, and then I did another article for another local publication. And then eventually I did, I got to work on an interesting multimedia project on the history of movie titles with the with the successful freelance writer that Ken the late Ken Copeland, who was a very good technology design writer, and he taught me, you know, how to be a writing professional in a lot of ways. And and the pri although the project itself wasn't journalism, I would credit, you know, Ken for helping me. He also got me a music column. He did the art and design column for the East Bay Monthly. So then I then I had a music column I was doing. So that was a neat thing. And the project we worked on was called Titles, and it was a a study of the opening sequences in movies. So Martin Scorsese and a lot of famous directors, it turns out, really like to focus on the artistry and and the the tone that the opening title sequence in a movie shows. And they there's a in sleep science, there's a term called, I think it's hypnopopic, and it's the state before you go into deep sleep. And the idea that a lot of these auteurs have is that in watching these opening sequences, it kind of lulls you into a hypnopopic state, and then you're you're more predisposed to want to watch the movie after. So I feel like I got lucky with you know things like that. Just it was basically just you know trial and error, just trying different things. And then after that, I got a job at a startup magazine that then went bankrupt. And then I think that was right before Y2K, and I had it in my head I wanted to be in Rome for Y2K. So I and then I decided I would just stay in Europe for as long as I had, you know, keep my keep funding.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So a lot of these jobs were just freelance you were picking up when you could.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yeah, I was just trying to build a portfolio.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

How did you connect to that? For example, that author on the movie titles.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Well, that was, I think I was living in Berkeley at that time, and I just think I went, they had a job center, and I I think I paid some amount of money to get access to it. And then Ken had listed the opportunity, and he had been unimpressed with the other applicants. And I and what what played to my favor was when I was at UCLA, I had figured out how to what's the word, petition classes to count for requirements that wouldn't otherwise. And I got I so I found I found this way I could get all these foreign films to count for language credits, and so so Ken was very impressed with my broad understanding of film, you know, and it was just so it was kind of a lucky accident out of my, you know, trying to cut corners basically and petition things in undergrad to watch movies, it ended up making me qualified to do that film project. So that was a lucky thing there. And then a lot of with all the other publications, but initially, it was just literally knocking on doors, writing emails, asking advice until somebody gave me a shot. And then when I got my first clip, I could use that clip to show the next outfit. Hey, I've got one. And then when I had the project with on the film titles, I had some I had a good reference from a successful journalist, you know, writer, author. And then once I got the moot, you know, the music column, it just kind of goes up a little bit more. And then I at that point I was working in full-time, you know, publication environments.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

All right. So now let's go to Rome. So randomly you pick Rome to spend Y2K in.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Yeah, in my mind, I thought if we're gonna have the millennium roll over, how cool it'd be to you know to be in a place with had with that had thousands of years of ruins and plus I'm Italian, you know, in part. But so that seemed like a neat thing to do. And uh, you know, I got to tour around and see a lot. I I I had planned on doing more writing when I was there. I think I ended up producing a few things. And then uh when I came back, I came back to Long Beach.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

How long were you there?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Abroad in Europe. I think about five months. I went to language school in in Sevilla, was able to get to be about an intermediate level of Spanish speaking, which, you know, sadly I I I'm not there anymore because I haven't practiced, but I went through most of Eastern and Western Europe and it was pretty interesting time. It was just as the Euro was coming on. I got to see the protests in Austria against York Hayder, who was, you know, a concern to a lot of people because he had neo-Nazi roots. So it's not a lot you you know, was able to see a lot of interesting things. And and then when I came back, I was broke. So I stayed at my parents' house for a little while, and then I went got a job at the Long Beach Business Journal. I did some other freelance stuff too, and they hired me to do a statewide study of utility users taxes because there was a feeling in Long Beach that Long Beach was paying more than the average. And it I did the study and it turned out that I think Long Beach was paying about double the utility users' tax that other municipalities were. Wow. And it was a pretty controversial thing because the that was part of the the funding base for the city, but there was a local ballot measure that went through and it it was passed, and I think they reduced it from 10% to five. But uh, that was really my first, you know, in-depth experience with more business journalism. And then from there, I wanted to live on the East Coast. So I got a job in Washington, D.C. for a satellite magazine, satellite business magazine. And my goal there was to learn more about Washington. My I had this goal of going there to try to advocate for getting money out of politics, and clearly that didn't work, but that was the ambition. And then, you know, learned a lot about D, you know, Washington, DC politics and and and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

So, all right, so how long are you in DC?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

I was in DC for a year and it was cut short, I think largely because I was there during 9-11 and I lived about five blocks from the White House. And yeah, it just was the first the first nine months. I got there in January of 2001. And the first nine months were really, really, really quite nice. I learned a lot, and then it became a very difficult place to live after 9-11 for all the reasons everybody knows. There were anthrax scares in in the buildings that I went to, and it became a very tense environment. So I I moved to Portland, Oregon after a year, and I stayed on as a freelancer for that same publication and tried to do other work in Portland, which had probably the worst economy in the country at that point. Why Portland? Because of family. My wife at that time, she had a grandfather who was very ill and she wanted to move to Portland, and it seemed like a nice place to go after all the craziness of DC. At that point, Portland is also a very affordable place to live. But I I realized in part because its economy was so incredibly in the dumps that you know, the all of the kind of logging industries had gone away. There was a tech bubble that burst, and it just it was not a primary job center like Washington, DC or LA or New York. So it was tough. I ended up getting a job while freelancing at a to uh develop a technology and training center for in a long-term transitional homeless shelter. And I did that. That was very eye-opening. It definitely opened my eyes to how how difficult some people have it and how difficult it is to re rehabilitate people. And I did that for about four months, and then I got was contracted by the Long Beach Business Journal on a contract to write an extended history of aerospace because Long Beach, with its airport here, has a great legacy in the early years of aviation. So the the journal publisher wanted to have this special edition that would commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Kitty Hawk and then focus a lot on Southern California because I think it could get a lot of ads for the publication and stuff. So I was able to do that. And then as I was concluding that, I just I was offered a full-time position to be the managing editor of the business journal. So that's that's why I moved back to Long Beach. And then I ended up working my up way up to being the editor, and I did that until about 2006, at which point I went to grad school.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

So are you liking all this? Are you liking the work? Are you I mean, are you thinking, yeah, this is what I want to do?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Yeah, I loved. I mean, if I was asked, somebody asked me a while back because if they had if you had your ideal job, what would it be? And I I I thought about that, you know, I'd be a newspaper man before the internet. I loved it, you know, and it peep it was there was a real joy to you know write a story, think, you know, this one might be controversial. I wonder what's gonna happen. And then, you know, we're about two hours after all the newspapers would get delivered, the phone would start ringing. And I, you know, I I had a lot of fun with it. It was a lot of work, and you know, I was all I was already seeing some things that concern me about media. It's much worse now, sadly. And I would always put the extra time in to try to really think through the topics and try to offer something to the readers that wasn't an opinion, but provided, I think, a rich context for them to make their own decisions. A lot of times, then you know what I would see is these journalists that would write say, here's a controversy, this is what this side thinks, here's what this side thinks. Ah shucks, that's all we're gonna. And I I felt like, well, sometimes one side might be just unequivocally wrong, and there's clear evidence that you could just point out, and that's what a journalist should do. It's not an opinion, it's saying there's all kinds of facts out here and other, you know, that will dispute this. And I felt like that was what needed to be done. That takes a lot more work to do that kind of journalism, but I liked it. I found it satisfying, and I think the only thing that really compelled me to want to leave the field was I I just could see the writing on the wall because the internet was coming online in a real way. I could see that it was gonna just decimate print media. And I had a hunch that being an online, you know, online reporting would be more work, more stories. And I also at that point had a desire to do more long-form writing. So I thought if I went to grad school, I could transition to from journalism to writing books and essays and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

So, what did you pursue in grad school?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

I looked at MFA programs and I and applied to some and I and I looked at PhD programs, and Claremont Graduate University had a very strong focus on transdisciplinary research. And that was something that appealed to me because I, you know, was a believer as a journalist that, you know, if you could do the research and you could, you know, logically connect the dots, there was nothing that was off limits. So when I was at the business journal, I remember at one point there was a very strong initiative to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in the port of Long Beach. And some my spider sense kicked in. I just thought, oh, there's something wrong about this. So I went in, did a deep dive on really the science of liquefied natural gas, the dangers. And, you know, I I felt like initially a lot of people were like, stay in your lane, you're not qualified. And I stay with it. And then I found other, you know, experts. And, you know, I found this chemical engineer, a very conservative guy from Arkansas. And I interviewed him and he said it's gonna be very dangerous. So I took a lot of pride in drawing from other disciplines and tackling projects, and Claremont uh seemed to be the best fit, and it was, it was a good place for me to go. So I went there. They had a master's where I could have an emphasis in creative writing, so I could do you know, my try my hand at some of those projects I'd wanted to work on, you know, short stories and screenwriting, stuff like that. And then when I completed the master's, they increased my scholarship and I got I did the PhD there. And uh it was good, it was a good experience. And then when I came back, I started teaching and the business journal again, because I needed, you know, I'm adjuncting, trying to get a full-time teaching job. They asked me if I would do, you know, a full kind of in-depth interview with the late Bob Foster, who was the mayor of Long Beach. And uh, Bob, you know, was had a reputation, I think, of being a fairly tough, rough around the edges guy. But Bob had always cracked me up. So I think I was a good fit, and I think the publisher knew that. So I did that. And then Tom O'Brien, who is now the associate dean of the college I'm based in, the College of Profession and Continual Education, had just assumed leadership of the Center for International Trade and Transportation, which I now lead. And he wrote a column at that time for the business journal about international trade and was looking for somebody to kind of be his deputy. And he heard through the grapevine that I was back in town. And I had, as a journalist, written a lot about transportation. And I started doing some consulting with CITT, and that's how I ended up where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

So what do you do now?

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Yeah, so I'm the executive director of the Center for International Trade and Transportation. We're a center of excellence that has existed for almost 30 years. Initially, CITT really was launched to house a certificate training program called the Global Logistics Professional designation that still is thriving today. The founder of CITT I know correctly identified that there was a gap in training. There were a lot of global logistics and international trade and transportation companies here, with their, you know, the Long Beach Los Angeles support complex being the largest gateway in the country, 40% of our nation's inbound goods come through here. And a lot of the employers across the supply chain weren't getting the talent they wanted. And there weren't degree programs that satisfied it. So what Marianne Veneres, the founder of CITT, did was start this G global logistics professional program. It was very prescient for its time. It met the needs of working professionals. It was taught by industry practitioners, and you get the certificate out of it. And it was a big success. And out of that, CITT ended up about a year later, establishing a really successful partnership with USC, forming an organization called Metrans, which is really a mashup of Metropolitan Transportation, Metrans. And they won a federal grant through the University Transportation Program, which is part of the Department of Transportation. And then, you know, over the years, CITT MINITS alliance with its partnership with USC and it independently continued to grow. And, you know, now today we've got a multi-million dollar research portfolio. We address, you know, critical policy and workforce development challenges facing all surface modes of transportation. And I'm trying this year to expand that into you know maritime and air as well. Maybe you should.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So is this it for a while? Do you see yourself doing something else?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Yeah, I mean, I think that you know, a marker in my career has been, you know, when I feel I need, I need, I need to be challenged. Otherwise, the smart alec comes out, you know. So I I need to, it's okay to have a good sense of humor, but I think I need to be challenged. I notice my little girl's the same way. She does better when she's challenged, she's engaged. And but for now, there's a lot to do here. I feel like the field that I'm in has become a lot more interesting with you know transformational trends underway. AI is changing things in some pretty radical ways for good and bad. I think the move to to you know implement sustainable transportation is underway. It's faced some obstacles and roadblocks, but. It continues to move ahead. And I think just more broadly, there's a need, I think, to educate people about the value of our supply chain because it gets beat up on a lot. And I think that it's important people understand that if we didn't have a supply chain, we it it brings, you know, literally everything to our communities. The goal is to do it as sustainably as possible, certainly. But uh, you know, sometimes it I feel like a lot of times my role is to try to bring people together a little bit more, find common cause. And I think we can do that through research. Kind of going back to what I tried to do as a journalist, which is don't be a partisan. I made a decision as a journalist, and it's still the case today that I didn't want to be registered with a party, wanted to be an independent voice. And I still think I want to, I still try to do that today. Look at, you know, where let the evidence and the research take me there, you know. And a lot of times I'm hired to do studies that are in the early phases, so that it's we don't have big large amounts of data and research, but I I, you know, what I try to do is use the research to you know help, I think, people and leaders in industry, government, education identify these common pain points, find common cause to try to, you know, move important initiatives forward. And for now, I think I've got my hands full. So I've got plenty to work on and complete. We're gonna be bringing out a short little video about called supply chain 101, about how our supply chain works. So that's gonna be a fun project to share. We're doing a lot of work with K-12. We've got three high school pathways we're working on here in Long Beach with Longish Unified, funded by the Port of Long Beach, one at Cabrillo High School, one at called the Academy of Global Logistics, one at Jordan High School called ACE, Advanced Construction Engineering and Manufacturing, and the newest one at Long Beach Polytechnic High School called Nova, which is a focus on next generation opportunities and in zero emission vehicles and energy generation. And uh, so that's another area you know that I care a lot about. Another area that I'm extremely passionate about is our work in tribal transportation. I feel like tribal governments have to deal with challenges that equivalent communities don't have to. You know, they people don't realize it, but when they drive on roads all across the country, a lot of times these are roads that have been designed, developed, operated, operated, and maintained by tribal governments. And some tribal governments are huge. You know, the Navajo Navajo Nation has this has a roadway inventory equal to Texas, you know, and they have to deal with all kinds of red tape and all kinds of problems and less money to get the job done. And I toured the Tahona Otum Nation in southern Arizona, and because I was doing some work with tribal schools, and I asked some of the students there, I said, How do you get to school? And they said they hitchhiked. And that was really the the moment where I just thought, okay, this is not right. So we have to work on this. So I've been done a lot of work with tribal governments and you know, one of my some of my great friends had become tribal leaders, and that's another area that you know I'm very thankful and honored to be able to, you know, help and hopefully in a some small way with that, the many challenges facing tribal leaders, you know, with transportation.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

That's interesting because yeah, I think you're right, nobody realizes that and that it's an issue. So you mentioned AI. You are on a college campus, you know, students are very much concerned about the impacts of that as they go out into the job market. What advice do you have or what do you see that they can do now to prepare for that when they graduate?

SPEAKER_00 25:33

Yeah, that's a good question. I guess I mean I I've that you know the thing is, you know, AI is not gonna go away. As much as people think that, you know, we could get some federal policy to shut it down. It's the private markets are investing in it at a level that it's impossible that AI is not gonna be here. And it holds great potential. So, but like all things like transformation like that, they can be very disruptive. They're double-edged swords, they can cut both ways. And I think one of the ways they can definitely cut both ways is that most of my character development had to do deal with dealing with frustrating things. I feel like young people these days already are at a disadvantage because they can't really get teenage jobs. Or even, I mean, I I was talking about this yesterday to a friend. I had a paper out when I was 10. I mean, I sound like some old crap off from the 50s, you know, talking about what walking around in the snow. And but literally, I had a wagon. I'd pull around newspapers run, I delivered them all around the neighborhood in Canada till it was dark. I can't believe my parents let me do it. And I remember one time, you know, out in the prairies, there was this crazy windstorm. It blew all my newspapers away. And I had to call my dispatcher and take ownership of it at 10. And my what I feel sad about for young people is a lot of young people, and it's not their fault, the uh they literally don't have the opportunities, don't get to be in a position where they fail professionally and have to own it until they're maybe 20. So learning how to take ownership of things, learning how to complete something without the ease of AI, as frustrating as it is, is it's like working out. It doesn't always feel great, but it makes you stronger. And that's what concerns me. So my advice to you know, any young person is learn to become a good writer the old-fashioned way. Think about it like Picasso before he did all his crazy paintings. He could do, you know, ink and paper and pencil and paper stuff. As far as I know, who's the guy that did all the drip painting?

SPEAKER_01 27:18

You're putting me on the spot. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, people come to me in a second. But anyway, the point is before you do all the all the fancy techie stuff and and you know, just make sure you can do it on your own. If all the computers turn off, can you still write a paragraph? Can you communicate? And another thing that I would share is that you know, there's a direct link between your written and spoken communication. And sometimes those frustrating times you write out, you know, scratching stuff out, thinking, you know, genuinely, what are you, what do you think about something? What is your unique take on it? Going through the struggles to articulate that and not just typing into AI, what's a good thing to say to my boss? What's a good thing to say to my on my first date? You know, come up with your own stuff. I think that's really the key because if you learn to do that, you will develop skills that are valuable in and of themselves, and then maybe you'll be less vulnerable to having your job being AI'd. I the concern I have about AI also is that a lot of people are going to AI to in in you know, phase one of ideation. And that to me is a mistake. I think AI, as I said, holds incredible potential to help increase productivity, amplify research. But I like the idea of at least have a napkin drawing before you go to it. It because all AI really is at this point, we haven't reached general intelligence, and there are some people who are feel that's right around the corner. I'm gonna let the research take me there. I don't know. But you know, AI is very good at crowdsourcing everything on the internet and kind of replicating it. So if everybody goes there first, then we're just replicating and imitating. And it's I feel that's a less diversity of thought. So keep your creativity. The big way to be creative is to know your own unique creativity, and that requires frustration. I also feel like another thing that is lost is the kinds of things I did when I was, you know, trying to scratch and claw into a career, it's really hard for young people to go knock on doors now. Right. So but it can be done. You know, the thing I recommend for for young people and and mid-career professionals, anybody, I mean, I still do it, is if you're trying to figure something out, if you identify somebody who's doing exactly what it is you you want to do, or they're they're they're leading an organization or one thing or the other, if you write a thoughtful note and then follow up and ask if you could just your pre, you know, you're you really respect what somebody's doing, could you buy them a coffee? People usually say yes. And then, and uh especially more senior professionals, whether they say it or not, they are, I think, often moved by professionalism, respect, integrity, and ambition in young people. And if it's done in the right way, they will help. The thing that I would also recommend is, you know, don't that the help is not give you a job or give you money or anything like that. It's it's shared experience. You know, they're gonna they're gonna give you the game. You know, they're gonna tell you how to do it. They're not gonna do it for you. And I think that that's another thing that, you know, every generation should check, you know, themselves at the door with, which is don't come in entitled, come in gracious and thankful. I mean, I a good personal experience of mine was when I was in grad school, I there was a retired president of uh my graduate school who had a center and he sent out Martin Luther King Jr.'s Beyond Vietnam speech, which I hadn't read at the time. And I read it and it just fell out of my chair. I I mean, it was one of those things that just changed me instantly. And I thought, holy cow, this guy not only was he a civil rights leader, but he was a global thinker who understood all of these things. So I went and contacted this pre this former university president, not realizing that the Beyond Vietnam speech was a speech that was one of the committee speeches that King produced, meaning he didn't write it all himself. A lot of his speeches he wrote entirely himself. And this former president, John McGuire, was roommates with Martin Luther King Jr. And he knew basically everybody, every living member of the civil rights movement. And I remember when I went to talk to John the first time, I left thinking like, hmm, he just like told me to call a couple people. That's not really helping me very much. And thankfully, I kept those, you know, immature thoughts to myself because I ended up getting to literally speak to all of the remaining living legends, you know, in civil rights, Grace Lee Boggs from Detroit, you know, Vincent Harding, you know, all kinds of folks. And that was because of of that connection. And so I guess, you know, with with up-and-coming generations and you know, people who feel like they're a little bit stagnant in their careers, AI is great, technology is great, all these things are great, but it ultimately comes down to relationships and your ability to maintain those relationships and maintain a reputation as somebody who has integrity. And when I say integrity, it doesn't mean you just have to be nice or go along to get along. It means you're principled. So, an example of that would be when I was a journalist, a lot of times I would have to call people up and say, look, this story is going to come out, you're not gonna like it. I'm just telling you, so you don't feel like I blindsided you, and they'd usually not be happy. But what I over time, what I realized I had developed, and it wasn't really anything, it was a I did it by accident, was as you go through difficult challenges, controversies, whatever the case might be in whatever industry, whatever field, those things are inevitable. How you handle them is the only thing you have any agency in. And if you're able to, you know, over time, people people realize, yeah, doesn't try to please, but is honest and trustworthy, even if I don't like it. Over time, these will become some of your greatest allies because they know that you're somebody who could be dependent on and have integrity during a tough time. They're not going to be a yes man or woman. You're somebody that that earns that. And I think, you know, that again is might seem very unrelated to AI, but I feel like maybe the part of what is challenging right now is AI is dwarfing the discussion of all the other very important things that people need to do to be successful throughout their careers at every phase. AI is another tool. There'll be other tools after that. We'll have, you know, we're gonna have quantum computing and all kinds of stuff. So but the old school stuff is just as important, I suppose. That's what I'm trying to say in Bonica.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

No, I think that's great. And yeah, being true to yourself, being true, and so that people know that that's who you are and that they can rely on that, whether they agree or disagree with you.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I think that's true. And I think that you can show somebody respect, but not be trying to please, you know. Like when I used to teach classes, I remember sometimes they would say, Hey, you know, you in the back, like let's talk after. And I'd always just say, I am going to respect when you have something to say, and I'll make sure everybody in the room, you know, gives you the floor. And what I expect is that you do the same for everybody else. And that almost always worked, you know, with any kind of student in any class, because if people feel like you have integrity, you stand for something, I think that, you know, that's something people respect.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Yeah. Well, Tyler, thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me this morning.

SPEAKER_00 34:07

My pleasure. Thank you for your time and thanks for making time for me.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Thank you so much for listening to Pathfound. If anything we talked about today connected with you or gave you a new perspective, we'd love it if you subscribed, left a review, or shared the episode with someone you care about. You can also find us on Instagram at Pathfound Podcast. To explore more stories, resources, and ways to get involved, visit Keystoneetwork.org. This podcast is just one part of the journey. A Keystone Network, we're helping young people and anyone figuring it out as they go build meaningful futures one step at a time. A huge thank you to my podcast editor, David Strutt. You can find him on LinkedIn for helping bring these stories to life, and to Elizabeth Minor at Silvermine Creative for the beautiful artwork and web design. And if you're on your own path, navigating the unknown, making a pivot, or simply figuring it out as you go, just know you're not alone. The route may not be linear, but there's always a way forward. I'm Monica Argandonia, and I'll see you next time on Path Found.