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Hello, welcome to the careers for kids podcast where kids learn careers.

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This is Maxwell Valencia and this is Henry Morrison and today we have Earl Valencia, Former aerospace engineer

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Hi Earl Valencia.

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Hello, how are you?

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Thanks so much for having me in careers for kids.

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I'm super excited to be in the episode and yeah, I mean I guess as I mentioned I'm a

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former aerospace engineer and now I'm an entrepreneur.

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Tell me your name and what you currently do right now.

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Okay good so again for everybody my name is Earl Valencia and right now I actually am a

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co-founder of a AI artificial intelligence and financial technology company that's

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based basically in Silicon Valley.

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So that's what I'm doing and yeah as I mentioned I'm an engineer by training.

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You know went to Boston U for undergrad for electrical engineering.

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I went to Cornell for aerospace engineering and then I ended up going to Silicon Valley

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by Stanford University.

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Nice okay so tell me more about your career and like how did you get to this position?

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Yeah you know I always wanted to think about business but when I was young I just thought

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of like okay there's a funny thing right like you can be a business person but it's hard to be a

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business person then an engineer versus being an engineer than a business person so I started my

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career as I mentioned getting trained in you know the hard engineering so electrical engineering

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then aerospace engineering and my first job actually was to you know look at rockets and

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satellites so I was working for the space division of a company called Raytheon.

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It's one of the biggest aerospace companies in the world right now and yeah and then after

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I was in four years in Raytheon I worked in many classified projects and then ended up going to

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a business school at Stanford in Silicon Valley where I my mind was opened up a little bit on

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technology entrepreneurship investments and that's where I got my big exposure so after that I ended

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up in the new product team of a company called Cisco Systems so Cisco yeah it's like the

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networking company of the world so the headquarters was in Silicon Valley so I did that for a bit so

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I ran innovation globally for their platform moved back actually to Asia to lead innovation

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for a telecom company and also invested in a number of startups and in the past four years before the

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startup I was in Wall Street in their technology side so I was in the data team of an edge fund

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called Bridgewater and then I was in the CTO office of Dell. I know your laptop is a lot of

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people have laptops of Dell technology so I was in the chief technology officer team of Dell and then

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I got hired to lead digital for the operations of Charles Schwab and that's an investment side and

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I looked at AI and all these new technologies where then eventually my co-founder Kevin who

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was my classmate at Stanford quit Google and their AI team and said Earl you know let's start a company

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and that's kind of what I'm doing right now so it's like a new business.

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What part of your job do you enjoy the most and not enjoy the most?

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Oh what I enjoy the most really is you know that the the product that you're building

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is what people actually use right away so for example there's very few jobs in the world where

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it comes literally from your mind an idea and then all of a sudden it becomes a product where

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people use it on a daily basis so for example we have a mobile app that we started and we launched

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it in Asia in the Philippines and in a span of a year and a half we have 500,000 downloads right

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so it's an interesting thing where literally we were just talking about it I guess a year before

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we launched you know we worked on it we built the app and then all of a sudden when we launched it

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in a span of 18 months half a million people downloaded the thing so I just felt that that's

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very good and then you know and then we get stories of people telling us how we help them

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because of our you know credit app in the Philippines and now obviously we're launching

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new products so it's just such a fulfilling thing because you know that's why most people

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do engineering because they want to conceptualize from something to you know from nothing to

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something right and that what gives me fulfilled on a daily basis because ideas literally become

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reality and that's an awesome feeling. Yeah I mean of course I'm not like I don't make products that

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people use every day but I can definitely see how that would be like fulfilling and just like

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kind of mind-blowing at the same time exactly you had this idea and now it's become like a

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revolutionary thing around not necessarily yeah but definitely no of course it's been a humbling

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experience definitely. Okay was this actually the dream job you imagined yourself doing when you

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were working? Actually not so much my dream job actually was to become an astronaut so that's

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kind of why I ended up doing engineering and aerospace engineering because I wanted to become

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an aerospace engineering because I wanted to become an astronaut and you know ultimately you know I

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decided that maybe it's still a dream, not a dream but maybe working for NASA could be something

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again in the future for me but or working again in space systems but a challenge that I saw is

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you know I could think about impacting space right now but I thought now I'll impact people

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on the ground first and then I look at the space again right so that was something that I was

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I was looking at and yeah so I think being an entrepreneur it was always in the back of my

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mind I just never you know think it would actually happen to me right but I wanted to be an astronaut

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and go to space and you know plant the flag and the moon was you know one of the things that you

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wanted to do but that led me to engineering which actually helped me now build this company with my

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co-founder obviously her amazing team all around the world. Oh your idols for me were young. Oh idols?

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So I had a couple ones but obviously the most impactful one for me is Michael Jordan.

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It's a basketball player and you know I was I forgot what it was but before Michael Jordan

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had the cafe and I was also probably like your age and I went to the Michael Jordan cafe

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and there was a big poster there that says one of the quotes of Michael Jordan says you know

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I was aware of my success but I never stopped trying to get better right and that was somewhat

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of the mantra that I'm you know have now in my life and it's because of Michael Jordan right

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so I thought that was a something that I was always looking forward to and you know and I

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I really really saw him as someone that I wanted to to be right in the future so yeah it's a bit

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of a basketball sports idol but you know at least some of the life lessons the quotes that he had

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was very like important in my in my life. What inspired you to like pick this job like why

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because I know you've been through many jobs but what inspired you to go through this one?

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Yeah you know or just or just necessarily all of your jobs in the past. Yeah of course no I mean I

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think the common thread here is impact right so you know I told myself like how can I get a job

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that actually will help people and I can help them directly so sorry so that was something that I was

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very conscious about and I said if I had to you know some people will say how do you measure your

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life is what people say and I tell them that maybe in my in my in my life I'll be like a hundred

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millionaire but not necessarily dollars but 100 billionaires with regards to people that I helped

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right so imagine if I can help 100 million people or be a billionaire and help a billion people

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before you know before I died and that's something that I would love right so that's kind of how I

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thought about it that's why I went to all these different jobs and that was always my filter like

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how can I use my talents and technology combined in order to help more and more people so that

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you know I can help change their lives for the better. What was the biggest highlight of your

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career? Oh yeah so so the biggest highlight of my career obviously it's you know having my you know

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getting married to my wife is one of the highlights of my life of having my my kids I have three kids

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as the highlights of my life. On a professional basis it's a couple of things actually and maybe

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all corresponded into about a year or two ago 2021 I think I got into you know the company and I got

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into the incubator of NASDAQ right which is a kind of a big technology like where stocks get listed

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and so this is like the kindergarten of NASDAQ is our joke so it's like where small companies get

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incubated but NASDAQ picks them and I was a representative of the company there and the prize

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was you have your profile your literally your face and stuff and the NASDAQ board in Times Square.

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So I you know I think I was shocked my kids were there my wife and you know it was really

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fulfilling to see you know your face in a big billboard in Times Square that doesn't happen

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very often and it was definitely something that I was I found a lot of pride in and humility right

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seeing at the same time that you know hopefully we'll really go to NASDAQ at some point in the

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future not as the kindergarten of NASDAQ but as the actually college of NASDAQ right which is like a

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listing in the stock exchange. Okay so what are the biggest challenges like that you would want

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solved like in more recent years by like our generation Gen Z or like I don't know. I think

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you're like at the Gen Alpha now by the way. I think Z, I think Z. Oh really maybe. Gen Alpha was 2013.

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Oh really oh you're like literally just at the intersection of Alpha and Z. Oh so my so there's

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two big things that actually three big things that I think is the biggest challenges for your

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generation right like one of this is that the global world economy is changing very rapidly

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right so in the end of the day right you know you have to be really smart about global affairs

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because before I think you could be very good and just seeing as like okay I can just be

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aware what's happening in my town aware happening in my city my state my country right but actually

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you have to understand now that the world is so interconnected and let's say things that happen

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in China will affect something that happens in Connecticut right so you have to be aware of that

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so that's one the global economy is so interconnected but at the same time the powers are shifting very

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rapidly. The second one is this notion of the rapid rise of technology so like you know there's

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artificial intelligence you know and people are like oh but our jobs will be changed but the thing

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is technology will move to the pace that it is going so for example in my generation cell phones

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weren't a standard smartphones were definitely not a standard but we just had to adopt to use

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cell phones daily so your generation will have what is that cell phone for your next generation

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maybe it's AI maybe it's some other technologies you just have to like be very good in learning

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and adapting and new technologies but this thing will happen faster than my generation

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and then the last one is I think this notion of climate sustainability like the world is before

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I think in the previous generation maybe not my generation but previous generation is like the

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world is where humans can just take advantage of all resources of the world but not caring about

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how this will be the next 100 years and I think you will have the responsibility to think about

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how can the world be better in the next 100 years where the damage has been done in a lot of places

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already right so it's a bit of a something like that but I'm pretty optimistic because if you have

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your global interconnectedness if you have the new technologies to help this and maybe you can

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help this part too which is sustainability world you know and using technology to help it so that's

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the challenges I see your generation will have to solve in your life. Do you think that like bad

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things like I don't know but just like do you think that bad things will happen from too many

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ideas because we all know how fast technology is advancing now because I think like because it's so

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advanced and all of that I think like it's gonna turn against us yeah but like stuff is advancing

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so fast that like um I don't really know how to explain this but there's so much like new like

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there's just so many new things coming on the board like today and but you know but yeah but

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basically do you think some of those things like there will be too so many things that some of

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those things will be bad and affect the world and it looks like anything else right like

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someone says that tv was bad right long time ago because oh wow now everybody has access to

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you know content or violence right something like that like let's say the terminator right like

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you know Alex Schwarzenegger starts doing this or aliens right and try to like blast out aliens

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and someone says before oh that's violence right yeah I guess it is but now you have to think okay

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how can we use this medium for good so now you can think about more inspirational stories in the tv

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movies that enrich your lives so I think technology always has both a good and bad part about it

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and it's up to you to figure out how you utilize these new technologies and no matter what to be

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honest with you technology will move right human progress keeps on moving which relates to technology

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so um it's more of how you use the next level of technology to actually make make better decisions

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or make more impact in the world is probably how you should think about it versus like oh wow

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like let's let's be scared of it or there's an there's always going to be good and bad

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it's more of like what are you going to do with it right so um yeah if someone wanted to follow

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in your footsteps or in your careers what would you tell him or her oh yeah especially for you

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right like you know um I think both of you are probably like in you know middle school or

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something and for everyone listening that's maybe in in that age group right they could maybe 10 to

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13 or maybe 18 years I think just always keep the curiosity is my advice always keep learning always

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be abreast on new technology developments it's like maybe the things that I would want for you

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to do so because if you don't don't try new things especially with regards to learning new things then

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it's you know it's hard to to keep up right so always be open be curious approach it we're like

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oh actually that's so interesting how do I try things out I'd rather people try let's say uh

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new technologies than to like be afraid of it right so that's like my my thought so

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let's say if you want to like be curious about engineering um you know it's so good now to just

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go to youtube and see if you can try to code some simple website right or let's say if you want to

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make a podcast right like it's just so good to just look at some blogs or youtube and then make

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a podcast right so I think that's the way it's like I think that's the that's the beauty about

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you right now uh in your generation is like you can literally like learn anything you want as long

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as you focus and be curious so that's my big thing and for me I was lucky that when I was

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um you know 10 or 11 years old my my mom brought me to the NASA Johnson Space Center which is in

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Houston and I saw the the rocket that brought people to the moon and at that point I said oh

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I kind of want to be an engineer so I just literally when I go to the library I look at

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space books right I my my you know one of my research papers at seventh grade was about

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astronauts so it's like I took my own curiosity and I took advantage of whatever was around me

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even if it's just reading about things on a regular basis so that's what I would do to you

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I mean also that's part of the route because we all know like 11 to 13 like yeah but pre-teenages

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and like a little like teenagers but basically like that's usually when you find your path in

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life like of course it doesn't there's no rush it doesn't have to be at a specified time but

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on average that's usually the time people find their path to life yeah that's why I think that's

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amazing that you're doing these careers for kids right it's focused on this time where people are

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thinking where do I harness my passion exactly I think that's why I'm so excited for this podcast

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to be able to because I feel like a lot of just kids in general especially our age um just don't

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really pay like as much attention as I think they should to like um just like just everything going

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on and like I don't really know what explain this but like I feel like a lot of I feel like it's

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becoming less like just less um less often that like people are starting to find like their path

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in life now exactly because like I don't know it's just like because of multiple factors it's driven

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by multiple factors but that's the whole reason me and Maxwell started this podcast here to help

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inspire kids to um yeah to explore to look at that look at this that's why it's it's really good

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yes yeah okay also what is your life advice for kids listening to the finals

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yeah so maybe my final life advice for all all of the kids listening here is um

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um you know find find what what sparks if you sleep at night and and you're like wow I really

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I really get excited about it right then then pursue it and try to like learn more about it

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right so I think that's something that that that I think you have to like look at all the time is

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like wow like if I'm interested in business like how do I how do I keep on learning about business

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right like if it's if it's media right how do I learn more about that because you never know

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right like the foundation you have right now could do something in the future um and I think that's

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the biggest thing right so for for me always keep an open mind but always ask yourself you know um

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if I feel that I'm getting passionate about something try it don't be afraid to try something

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that makes you wake up at night and say I wish I learned something more about this this thing and

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then execute right maybe that's the last thing it's like do something about it right because if it

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all still stays in your mind then it could fade away but if you actually do it then you learn a

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lot more that's great advice well thank you for your time here in careers for kids great

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fortunately we have to thanks for listening to the careers for kids podcast hope you enjoyed

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the episode and see you in the next episode bye