{"version":"1.0","provider_url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu","provider_name":"Warpwire","is_public":true,"duration":0,"has_caption":true,"links":{"caption":[{"label":"English","url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/api\/caption\/Ty8IAA\/316995\/vtt\/?nonce=529a8051fa35732d87f1cc36a425ec9b&expiration=1787371200&signature=4ea289dd387765b1ad7b05faadb4984b4f994c5b5cfab3ee423bb081b5beb64e"}]},"views":0,"upload_date":"2024-02-13T21:35:11+00:00","description":"Join Rudi, \u00c4ngela, Nicole and Kai as they discuss an answer, or many, to the question \u2013how do we merge our purpose and future with our identities, goals and everything else that makes us who we are.   \u202f\r\n\r\nTranscript:\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nY'all, we're back. Hello and welcome to What's Career Got To Do With It? Podcast. Where we hope to provide a space for honest conversation and information that encourages the listener to take the next steps in their career journey. Wherever you're at in the process, we hope this episode will meet you with affirmation, guidance, and maybe some laughs along the way.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nOn today's episode, as we discuss an answer, or many, to the question, how do we merge our purpose and future with our identities, goals, and everything else that makes us who we are? We live the dream.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nLiving the dream.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nI can't.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nIt's been a while y'all.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nI need another sip of coffee.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nI miss y'all in new setting.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nOoh.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nWe're back and we found buttons.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nFun mag.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nOkay, Kai. How do you live the dream?\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nOh my God, I sleep and dream of dreams undreamed and hope they come true.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nAnd dream of dreams undreamed.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nAin't that a line?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nAnd hope they come true.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nI do. Because I believe in you and me.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nIs that copywrited?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nAll right, now.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nWho's your ghost writer? No, I think this conversation started with Angela and I were planning, we were just sitting there and we had no idea what we wanted to do next. And we were trying to think through some ideas. We put some ideas out there. I don't know why, but I just thought of this phrase, living the dream, and how corny it is. How annoying it can be. There's always that one person you go up to and you're like, \"Hey, how are you doing today? Living the dream.\"\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nLiving the dream.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nWell, apparently Nicole says that. Yep. So living the dream. I know people ask me, I go, swell.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nOh my God.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nSee?\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nSwell.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nYeah. But I think it carries something with it and we don't often ask the question, what does that even mean? What are we doing when we say we are living the dream? Are we actually living the dream? Is there something behind it? Are we really, day in and day, out going out and carrying out what this means? Is it sarcasm? What does that phrase mean to you? I think there's so much nuance to this. I would just love to just put the question out there. What does it mean to live the dream?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nI think it all depends on the day, whether it's sarcastic or not. Be real honest with you. But if I have to answer seriously, I think living the dream is just trying to live to be the best me I can be in that space and time. What does it look like? Is it a good day? Am I going to get all my to-do list done, or am I doing good just to get one done and we'll figure it out the next day. But then on the sarcastic side of everything is just falling down, I will be the sarcastic behind and say, \"Hey, living a dream, you can see it all crumbling\". But I'm still good.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nHonestly, when I thought about the response of living a dream to how you're doing, I'm used to people saying, yes, I'm blessed and highly favored without not necessarily being religious, but saying that regardless of what day it is, whether it's a Monday or a Thursday, it's working out towards some sort of good at the end of it. So, I think that's what I think that and living the dream has in common. It's a continued, committed effort to making whatever you want to happen happen through strategic planning, goal setting and all that good stuff.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nHe just made me think of Abbott Elementary.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nYou know it's coming back on. The new season is starting too.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nIt's coming back. Why are y'all giving away a free advertisements.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nA, B, C.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nExactly. So, my living the dream, I think when I say it's everything, kind of encompassed with what everybody said all at once, right? I'm living the dream. I woke up, I'm alive. Praise them. Won't only do it. I got a job to go to. Praise them. Won't do it. I can pay my bills. I'm probably get ready to have some breakfast. Once I get to work, I'm in the building and we going to do today. So, I'm living the dream.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nThat's usually what I'll say. How you doing? I'm in the building. That's where we are.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nI think there's something that we talk about effortless perfection a lot with our students. We talk about it here at Duke and how students operate on this grind constantly of, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. My fellow students are doing this, they're doing that. We're going out here and we're winning the day. We're constant. Then there's also something to it of like, yeah, no, this is deeply sarcastic. This is a struggle and if something's going to happen, okay. I'm just going to kind of move through the day. Yeah, like a G in lasagna, silent. What is that? What does that look like?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nGiving away so much. Breathe, little Wayne.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nStouffer's Lasagna, extra meaty.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nWow.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nNo, but I think too, there's some reality to this. We to students so much and I think there's a good time to be optimistic and share with them, yes, we can be living the dream, but also it could be tough. What we're doing is tough. Going to work nine to five, are we really actually built for that? Are we supposed to be people who actually enjoy what we do? I don't know. What would y'all tell a student that's like, no, I have to do this. I have to go to work and it has to be this way. It has to be the best thing that's ever happened to me. Everything that I'm going to do is going to be perfect.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nI would ask them if they know Willy Wonka because of living in a chocolate factory. I mean, that's honestly, I usually, every conversation when it kind of gets into a little bit of seriousness, I tell folks, I'm not going to give you diabetes. You can get a little bit of sugar, but I'm not going to be responsible for giving you diabetes. So, to set yourself up to think that everything has to be \"perfect\" or having this outlook that I'm coming to college to go into a career that I'm going to love every day, is just not realistic. That sets you up, I think, quicker for burnout, for letting yourself down when something doesn't go how you think it's supposed to go super quickly coming in as soon as you get in there. So, I think, again, we've talked different seasons about balance and having people that can tell you the truth even when it's not pretty.\r\nSo, having those conversations and being able to say, even using myself, 96% of the time I come in and I have a great day. But even within that one day, there's probably a 2-3% where I'm going to be like, what is happening? And that's part of it. That's part of being able to sit in a career, grow, make yourself better. Those are things that all need to happen. So, I would definitely say if the advice that you're consistently getting is that you have to strive to go into something and love it every day, we might need to have a bigger circle or evaluate some things.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nAlways when they're stressing out like that it's just pause. All these things that you're trying to do. If you do not achieve them by the end of the day, will it take your next breath? And it's like, no. Okay, well, if it's not just breathe through it one step at a time. It's still going to be there the next day and you'll figure a way out through it. It's not worth the stress. I think that also comes from us with time and experience and a little wisdom that we have on this. Where you kind of grow and learn like, \"Hey, listen, I'm going to give you what I got and that's all I can give you. And we going to try it again tomorrow\". So as long as it's not taking your next breath, it's going to be okay. Breathe. Keep going.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nI think one of the hardest things about what we do is we see when people run into a wall and we can see them not noticing that they're running into a wall. We tell them, \"hey, you might potentially be running into a wall\". Then they look at us and say, \"no, I'm not\". And we're like, well, this usually equals this, which normally equals this, which is the result of running into a wall. And they're like, I don't know. I still want to make this pre-health track work. I still want to make this pre-law track work. And I think for me, that is the hardest thing to do with the work that we do of telling somebody, hey, it's okay to let the idea of this end result, ultimate end result, go whatever that current living the dream is. To allow yourself to think of other options. You might end up seeing something that makes the original dream work or you find out something else that you didn't know you were excited about, which is useful too.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nAll I hear in my head is Tasia, sometimes you got to lose the win again. You're saying, okay, we do all we can to express this is what's getting ready to happen. But sometimes, unfortunately, they have to hit that wall. You got to encounter something before you'll be like, oh, that's what they were saying. So, I think, yeah, sometimes you got to lose the wind again. What you got, Nicole?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nI don't have anything because it was playing in the car on the way to work. That's why I was late this morning.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nThis morning?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nAnd also maybe somebody in this room wrote that on my whiteboard in my office. No names.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nAnd for this segue, which this is random, this is how my brain works, spelled S-E-G-U-E. I used to read that as segue in books growing up. But growing up we also had dreams. See, look at that segue.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nPlease push...mash one of them buttons over- [inaudible 00:10:31].\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nOkay. Yeah. So, we all had dreams growing up, and I think how many times that dream changed? How many times did the dream change? And not just dream dreams, like going to sleep because Kai told us we don't want to be around him when he sleeps for various reasons.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nYou missed all of that, Nicole in the elevator.\r\n\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nThat's what you get for trying to be on time in '24.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nYou're right. How many times in your life have dreams changed for you?\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nMultiple. But you know why they changed? Because I was exposed. Come on Kai. Let me finish my sentence.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nI had to bring it back. I brought it back.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nTake it all the way back.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nI brought it. I brought it back.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nI was exposed to different things and made sure that I put myself in positions where I could be exposed to see if I wanted to do this or not. So, I think it's all about exposure, but it changes. Sometimes the dream can change from day to day, and sometimes it can be emotional and then you have to pull yourself back. Are you changing it because this isn't working or are you changing it because you're a little ticked off in the moment and I need to go back and reset. So, I say it changed all the time, but it changed because I was exposed to opportunities. Kai Kelley Jr.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nI think the privilege you have, with dreams changing, is that you get to live the dream. So, kind of encompassed with what Angela said, you've had the opportunity to be exposed to different things. You've had the opportunity to meet new people. You've maybe had the opportunity to live new places. I kind of see it as an honor of being able to let my dreams change and some of them may decrease in value, but there's a reason why that's happened. So, I think again, when we talk about things changing, that's okay. I think maybe that's a little bit of the bigger conversation as well, too, is being able to be okay with change and them adjusting.\r\nI often tell people, validate your feelings, sit in them, but don't live in. If you live in those feelings then that's going to prohibit you from having the chance to continue to dream and continue to learn. I would definitely see dreams and goals and things like that changing, not accomplishing, as a privilege.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nI'm going to come down somebody's street and it might make them upset. But we talking about living the dream and Nicole was just saying it's an honors or privilege to be able to do that, but whose dream are you living? Are you living your dream? Or are you living somebody else's dream that's been pushing things upon you? So, that's another thing you've got to wade through. Whose dream are you living?\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nAnd it's not always just, I think, people that are impactful in our lives. So, I think the common refrain there. It's like, oh, my parents wanted me to do this. But it could actually be a larger societal pressure as, I mean for myself as an athlete, it was like, you have to be a certain way for you to be successful. If you don't make it as a professional athlete, then you need to be making millions of dollars doing something else. And you need to be doing this. You feel that pressure wherever you go. So it could be a larger thing in your life that pushes you to be somebody else, to do something else and that dream's going to end. That dream's not a reality for everybody. We know how many people are actually millionaires in the world. So the likelihood of you making it to that threshold is very slim. Now, that may be a motivating factor for you, and that may drive you and push you to continue to get going, but at the end of the day, you also need to be realistic. That all you got Kai?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nY'all should have seen the side-eyes Kai gave me.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nI had one of them eye boogers, you know. To build off of the point you were saying, I think it's important to also add to the conversation the context of the conversation. Living your dream in the nine to five doesn't have to be the measuring stick for when the dream has to be lived or occur.\r\nI think one of the things I appreciated Greg telling us when we were talking about incorporating purpose into the career community model and how we advise students. He was like, we don't have to approach it where we're helping every student find their purpose and passion in their nine to five day job. I was like, oh, it was good to know. I was like, that's good to hear somebody say that out loud. Your dream can be something you do after the nine to five. And the nine to five might be either something tangentially related to it, but it's not the exact thing. It just helps you do something to take care of what needs to be taken care of and allows you to commit whatever extra time you've got to making the other parts of your dream happen. So, I think that's cool to say too.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nIt looks different for everybody. I think in this conversation as we began this, Angela and I were talking about this being a core factor in living out that dream. Is this going to look different depending on your identities that you carry with you and wherever you go? I'm excited for our guests coming up in the next couple of weeks to discuss how their life and their story was impacted by their identity. But also how their dreams changed over time and what that meant for them and what it meant for the people around them and how they had those conversations of I want to be this now or I want to do this. And what does that look like? Nicole, you have a question?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nI do. Not really a question. I had something as you were saying that that kind of came in my soul. One of my icks, and I don't really know that it should be an ick, but when people or folks, it's great to aspire to be like somebody, but you do not have to be just like them. This might be me also being a tad bit selfish. I want my story to be mine. I want to thank the people that inspired me and motivated me and gave me ideas. But I want to create a lane for me. I see a lot of young people who aspire to be like people, but that aspiration is so exact that it has to be exhausting. So, I encourage you to use it as inspiration, but not the plan. It does not have to be exact and that's okay. Be selfish with your story. It is yours for a reason.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nAmen.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nI don't think there's a clapping button here, but.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nIt is. I thought there was some cheering or something.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nI think this is laughing. We're not going to laugh at that.\r\nBut yeah, I completely resonate with that. I was meeting with a student a couple of weeks ago and they were talking about their aspirations to go into medical school. They are a first year student. They were already talking about an MS one who was at Harvard and why they wanted to be that student. I said, you don't have to be that student. You can be yourself and yourself can be pretty great as well. You can do some amazing things. You can still do wonderful things if you don't follow the same pathway as someone else. We look at others' pathways to see that it is possible, yes, to see different ways to take and turns and opportunities, but we don't have to take that exact pathway to get to where we want to go.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nI guess we dropping mics, huh?\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nLook all over the place. All over the place. I do want to acknowledge too, for the folks listening, students listening, it can be hard to let the template go. It's so important to let the template go because then you open up yourself to possibilities and allowing your story to develop in a way that isn't seen in somebody's LinkedIn profile. That isn't seen in the Duke alumni directory in a way that exists yet, which is a good thing. I think the risk and the uncertainty with that can be beneficial. It's just hard to trust the unseen thing or step out on that unseen thing, which I'm just saying I agree with. How you do it exactly is a day by day thing. I know for a fact it's worth it.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nTake a chance on yourself.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nYeah. Yeah.\r\n\r\n\u00c4ngela Bonner:\r\nIt's worth it.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nAll right. Kai and Angela, giving their 2 cents. Nicole, you're up. What's your last bit of advice for students?\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nDang I thought that's how I was going to leave.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nNicole's over here writing emails already.\r\n\r\nKai Kelley, Jr:\r\nCome back, you said, come on back.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nI think I hold strong kind of on what everybody says. It is an honor and a great journey to be able to live the dream and have the ability to dream. It is vital to embrace that dreams may come true and dreams may not come true. And that's okay. Again, create your own path. Use the cheat code of being able to see what others have done as a guide. And again, not the way, you do not have to do the same exact thing and that's okay, as well.\r\n\r\nMichael (Rudi) Rudisill:\r\nAbsolutely. Be creative, be curious. Surround yourself with people who allow you to fail, but walk with you along the way and then push you forward into whatever pathway works for you. That is the dream. This has been the What's Career Got To Do With It? Podcast. We hope to see you next week.\r\n\r\nNicole Mitchell:\r\nBye y'all. Bye.","author_name":"Sandhya Pakala","html":"\u003Ciframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/w\/Ty8IAA\/\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media; camera; microphone; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E","height":360,"width":640,"thumbnail_height":360,"thumbnail_width":640,"url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/w\/Ty8IAA\/","type":"video","title":"S3 E9 Living the dream...","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/img\/10ED13AE-DB77-4E78-BDAA-21F9B14D30E1\/8B5E9F9A-0E53-412D-ACA6-FDA506BEF930\/large\/"}