Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy - Kiley Adams – An Internal Locus of Control - [Invest Like the Best, EP.08]

Episode Date: October 28, 2016

This episode is a major departure from the norm.  My guest, Kiley Adams, is only 21 years old. She has crammed more learning and adventure into two decades than most people could hope to in a lifetime.  She’s track-and-field star, valedictorian, varsity soccer player, Tae Kwon Do fourth degree master black belt, and philanthropic researcher.  She has traveled all over the country and the globe, recently spending two months by herself in India.  I had the pleasure to meet here while teaching an investing class at Notre Dame and am thrilled to share her incredible story and her attitude that makes all of this possible.   For comprehensive show notes on this episode go to investorfieldguide.com/adams/ For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.  Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy, and this is Invest like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, methods, stories, and of strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. You can learn more and stay up to date at investorfield guide.com. Patrick O'Shaunisee is a principal and portfolio manager at O'Shaunicee Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaunacy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Oshonessi asset management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this

podcast. My guest today requires a bit of a special introduction. In this episode, we do not discuss markets or investing. It is instead about adventure and taking life by the you know what. My guest, Kylie Adams, is 21 years old. She's crammed what would be considered a magical and adventurous life into just two decades. Here's a little taste from the episode. When's the last time you lost in the competition? I don't remember.

And a bit later in the conversation. We're going to see if we can sneak you into Myanmar. I met Kylie while teaching and investing class at Notre Dame. She is a track and field star, valedictorian, varsity soccer player, Taekwondo master, and philanthropic researcher. She has been everywhere in the U.S. and recently spent two months by herself in India conducting research that will help people with disabilities. And that's just the start.

She describes how all this is possible because of perseverance, attitude, and an internal locus of control. I'm going to keep returning to this episode as a reminder that just about anything is possible. I can't wait for my daughter to meet Kylie someday. She inspired me to, as she says, move forward relentlessly. For notes on this show, visit investorfieldguide.com forward slash Adams. And now please enjoy this great conversation with Kylie Adams. Okay, Kylie, maybe we can start by talking about Taekwondo, first of several interesting aspects of your life that we'll explore.

Maybe tell me how you got into it and how you got to where you are today. So at the age of four, my parents put me in ballet, and I had zero interest in ballet. And about a weekend, I told my parents that I wanted to fight people. And I think they decided that Taekwondo was the natural evolution to ballet. and so 17 years later still it's still very much one of the most important parts of my life how does it work how does the progression work so you started really young i guess it's kind of unusually young to start martial art how quickly did you work yourself up the ranks when did you figure out that this was something you had talent for what are sort of the how many stages are there

how many levels are there to to taekwondo so you start as a white belt so little kiley was a white belt and I was actually too young to start testing into, like your next belt is your yellow belt and then green, blue, red, black with intermediate stages in between. So you start by getting little tags on your belt, but after I got over the tag phase, you start testing for each belt and you have to learn new forms, you have to break boards, and when you're older, you break bricks. I got my first black belt, I believe in sixth grade, and a lot of people stop at their first black belt, but I wanted to keep. keep going with it. And I never had really an end goal to get to where I'm at right now, which is my fourth on black belt. But I just kept progressing with what felt right. And two summers ago, tested and received my fourth degree master black belt. Give me a sense for how rare, let's say, the first black belt and then the current black belt

that you have are in the martial art world. I think the statistic is that 80% of people quit after getting their first black belt. And very few people even make it to there. But there's different governing bodies to Taekwondo. There's the World Taekwondo and United States National Taekwondo federations. And it's extremely rare to be certified as a black belt in both, let alone a fourth-degree black belt. You have to send your credentials to Korea. You have to be approved by the board.

They send credentials back. So it's a pretty laborous process. That's wild. So how many, let's say, fourth-degree black belts are there in the U.S. women? No idea. But my grandmaster is obviously ranks above me. But there's not a lot. I've met no in my age.

That's a fourth degree black belt. And how often do you compete? A lot in the past now that I'm pretty busy with soccer and school less. But it's always been a part of wherever I go, I always get a chance to incorporate it into what I'm doing. What are the attributes that make for, that allow you to be as good at it as you are? Are there physical attributes?

Are there physical attributes? What is it that has allowed you to get this far at a pretty young? There's a very definite fighter mentality, and what fighter mentality comes down to, the two words we have in our dojong are perseverance and attitude. And I think just starting at the age of four, when every single motion you do is supposed to be done not only with attitude, but a sense of integrity that if no one's watching you, when I was four, our grandmaster would step out of the room and say 100 push-ups, but no one is watching you do 100 push-ups. And it's the sense of on training and off of training, you're accountable for your own actions. And that's very much a fighter mentality of it doesn't matter if someone's holding you accountable for your work. The work ethic of taekwondo is insane. It's day and day out.

It's a year-round sport, no off days. So you're constantly working at the top of your performance level. Can you dive into attitude a little more? So perseverance, obviously, I understand. It seems to be a common attribute for a lot of things like that. us. What do you mean by attitude? Attitude? That's a great question. I'm always told that I can have the most serious face at times. Like I'll go smile to serious face and my friends tell me it freaks them out a lot.

But attitude for me comes down to the ability to say that any situation is a real situation. So when you're fighting, you're obviously not fighting for your life. If I tapped out of a ring fights over. I'm not in any actual danger. But it's having the mindset of convincing yourself that any situation is a very serious situation if you want it to be. So your training doesn't, like you're not immediately applying it to anything, but in the moment you need to convince yourself, you need to have enough attitude to, I mean, we yell. It's called a key up.

We, and they tell you you key up with attitude. It's not just, you're not just joking around. It's a little yell. It's, if someone were actually attacking you right now, you need to let everyone around you know that you're being attacked. You're going to yell loud. And it's attitude for me in Taekwondo. And that just carries over into every aspect of your life is taking things, knowing one to take things seriously, having us on and off switch with your attitude, basically.

When's the last time you lost in competition? I don't remember. Have you ever lost? When I was younger, definitely. Oh, I used to cry fighting while I'm crying and my parents wouldn't let me out of the ring. But, no, it's been, it's been a while. So from Taekwondo, you said you mentioned you like to wherever you go practice or I don't know what that means to join the, you know, go for a workout or competition. What are some places around the world that you've done that?

I was studying abroad in London, my junior year of college and was offered a spot on England's team. And so I would take the tube down to just south of London. and I would get a chance to train. So we'd fight whenever I'd show up. I'd get to fight with the English national team. And when I was in India, I actually had no intention of doing Taekwondo. I was walking around a little hill station called Darjeeling. And I saw people wearing dobox, what we wear when we fight.

So I followed them and ended up at a dojong. And I watched for a while. And I've pulled out, you get a card. It's actually Korean issued. ID and I have a fourth degree issued card basically and I whipped I had it on me. I don't know why. I whipped it out and gave it to their master and immediately not only were people bowing to me, but they brought out a plethora of chai tea and gave me the dojong. If you're a fourth degree, you have the rights to teach at any dojong. And so they turned the dojong over to me and

language barrier at that time was a real thing. But Taekwondo is to an extent an international language. We do the same Pumsei, like forms, same techniques. They have similar names. So we conversed in like this English, Korean, Hindi blend of languages. But yeah. So you, did you take, did you take it over and teach some sort of class? Like what happened? I was in Darjeeling just for about a week. And I would wake up early and go to Takewondo and teach them. They used to teach. I think they still currently teach, but the men and women were taught separately. And the first thing I did was say that it was one class. And the girls thought that was just insane.

But I think they very much like training with the guys. And when I was there, they had a belt test. And one of them was testing for a black belt. And in order to legally test for a black belt through the World Taekwondo Federation, you have to be tested by someone who's two degrees higher than you. And their masters actually weren't second degree black belt. so they couldn't legally test her. And so when I showed up as a fourth dawn, they were like, fantastic.

We're running the test tomorrow. And so I got to sit in on a black belt test in India, which was unique to say the least. When you were, let's say, most involved or most active, you said it's daily, right? A daily practice, you're doing something associated with taekwondo every day. What is that practice? What would that actually intend? Yeah. During like heavy tournament season, you're looking at.

it two hours a day, every day. And the first hour is all cardio strength training. We'd go on team run. So when I would fight for like Washington State's team, for like our national team, we have national tournaments. You train with your home dojong, which is maybe 25 of us. Let's say we're going to nationals. Six a.m. You're up and working out. The second hour is strategies of fighting. So you put on all your, your hougue, your chest protector, your head gear, and you're sparring. the term for it in the round, which is you spar one person, you go immediately to the next for about another hour. And then we practice. We have forms that we do in competition. So it's a series

of moves, blocks, punch kicks that you do for technique and style. So there are two different ways to compete at the national level, and I did both. Are there other aspects, you know, you mentioned perseverance and attitude. Obviously those are mental. Are there other mental sides of this or characteristics common to people that have achieved, maybe not the same level of Black Belt, but very high level in Taekwondo. There's like a common DNA to the people that you encounter? Like body type?

Not body type. It could be body type. Anything. Any common sort of underlying attribute that you see over and over again in the people that are at the high level of competition? Insane mental discipline. It really is a mental sport. We, I mean, they hold us, it's almost military like, like you hold a ready position for sometimes an hour.

I mean, it's insane what they do, but really high-level black belts. I mean, not only the discipline of going two hours a day, but going two hours a day with the right mentality. It's just, it comes down to a lot of discipline at that point. How did you get into travel? What was the motivating force to start going to India and England and some other places you've done? I think my parents instilled in me at a really young age that America is not the end. all and it's important to get wherever you have the opportunity to go. Don't say no to an opportunity. And my parents, I mean, opportunities when I was young, we went to like 48 of the states.

My parents are obsessed with the national parks. But when the opportunity came up to start going international, I couldn't pass up that opportunity. So let's talk about India a little bit. Certainly a really interesting place, a place that I've never been, but I've been dying to go to. Describe your experience there. maybe a bit about the culture, what you've learned. So the first time I went, I was predominantly in Chennai, which is Southeast England, and I was working at an NGO for kids with disabilities. It's a school, it's a community center, sort of a jack of all trades.

They do everything. And I was teaching an early intervention class for kids age zero to six doing physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. They consider training of a middle-aged. American enough to be a professional. So I was pretty much understood to be a doctor, which was hilarious. But the first time I was there, it was a lot of time spent in Chennai. I also got chances to go to the most southwestern state called Kerala, just a beautiful, lots of backwaters, river canals, coconut trees galore. And then I got to go north up to Darjeeling, where I taught Taekwondo,

spend some time in the shadows of the Himalayas. And I love mountains. So that was where I felt the most at home. Describe what you told me last night about greetings in India as a good example of a cultural difference. Yeah, I mean, cultural differences are plenty in India to say the least. But in Tamil Nadu, which is the state that Chennai is in, they speak Tamil, that no one understands Hindi at all. And in Tamil, when you greet someone, I mean, in America, you greet someone, hi, how are you doing, what's your name, if you're meeting someone. And if you meet someone in Tamil Nad, you see, say saphtia, which is have you eaten? And then the person responds with a list of what they've eaten. And then you say, sorry, saptia. And they'll say yes. If you said you haven't eaten, then it's like

literally the end of the world and they'll start cooking on the spot. If you say, normally you would say, yes, I've eaten. And they'll ask you what you've eaten. Then you get the laundry list, including numbers of things. That's very important. So if you say idly sapta, I ate idly, they'll ask you how many idly and you need to respond at least with a number bigger than four. You know, rend the idli saphtha. And even once you've done your list, they will always respond with you haven't eaten enough and then you'll enter their home or a restaurant and they will feed you copious amounts of rice probably. So you did a lot of eating.

A lot of rice eating, yeah. What are your ambitions for future travel? Are the places you want to go back to new places you want to visit, maybe following that taekwine, Doe theme or what does the future hold travel eyes? I'm always open for wherever I see the most possibility with the intersection of all my passions. So if that is going somewhere with the soccer team here, that took me to France and Monaco this summer. And I was never expecting on going to France and Monaco.

But another phenomenal cultural experience. Future of travel, I am in love with India and I very much hope to return, probably through a Fulbright Research Fellowship to continue. the research I've been doing. Can you talk about that research? What what the nature of it is and what you want to keep keep going on? I do research on the community-based rehabilitation model. It's called CBR and it's the World Health Organization promotes the CBR model for low resource areas to offer services for people's with disabilities predominantly. And the model is you train local community workers. So if there's a hospital that's not available, you're too rural to have a hospital

centric model. You train workers to make the community basically a hospital, an offering of care for people that can't get into large cities for that care. And in India, people, for whatever reason, are only about 50% of people use CBR services in a place where CBR is offered. And so I'm looking at differences throughout India of why people don't use CBR when it is available. So looking at the low participation rate. And so you just keep, the idea would be to keep advancing that. understanding. And looking at it specifically in Tamil Nadu. So last summer when I was looking at specifically social and cultural barriers to accessing the model and I was traveling all throughout India, I realized that every state had a very specific answer. So in Kerala, they focused a lot on

marriage of children. And if a person with a disability isn't marriage eligible, then why would you ever pour an ounce of resource into that child? Because you need someone to carry on the family name. Whereas in Tamil Nadu, the state I'm hoping to go back to, that never came up as an answer. And sort of every state gave me a unique look at my question. So I'm going back in the hopes of focusing on one area in India. Were you alone? I was alone for a lot of my travels. Like how long a stretch, let's say, in India were you by yourself traveling around?

Two months. I assume then maybe you're some sort of autodidact where you teach yourself a lot of what you're interested in. What did you study at school? My parents instilled me a notion of if something's interesting to you, you go learn about it. There's no other option. And I love learning about anything. At school, specifically, I study biology and math. What kind of math?

Any of his focus and specifics, just a general math degree. I love it all. What are some maybe early or recent formative books, teachers, learning experiences that have really, like, affected you in the lasting way? Maybe start with books if they're already. Yeah. Oh, there's always. books. One of the most informative books on India I've read is called Behind the Beautiful Forever's, and it's a book that explores slum areas in Mumbai, and basically they're in the shadows of these

just giant hotels, and they're technically squatters that live in the garbage lands right behind the hotels, and it explores families that live there and what it means to grow up in the shadow of that much wealth. So it's one thing to be in rural India, where all you know is that extreme rural poverty, but another in urban India. When you're, India is such a unique case study because they do have an incoming surplus of wealth, but they also have this huge income gap. And so what it means to grow up as your profession being a garbage picker, they don't have an actual garbage industry in India. You just, you get paid for picking up trash on the spot. And so what does it mean to be that when you're in the shadows of these corporate leaders that

come in to these massive hotels that are your backyard? phenomenal book. And then the health gap is written about social determinants to health care. So increasingly America is looking at the, it's called the biomedical model, which is it's always something in your body, a molecule in your body. And it's looking at how many social determinants there are to health care, that how different cultures define health is differently, and that America specifically, ours might not be the end all. And we don't necessarily have the best health system. Does that book put forth, does it opine? Does it say this is a better model? or these are aspects of other models that it would be an improvement on the American system?

I think it proposes that the best model is one that takes into account all the social determinants to health. So, yeah, it does. What would be one example of a social, like an individual determinant? India, for example, if you, if an Indian American, if an India comes to America and they get a seizure disorder, or they're diagnosed with a seizure disorder here, they'll interact with the health care system in a way that our doctors will offer them X, Y, and Z medicine. Whereas for them, a seizure disorder at home is treated by shamans, and it's considered their soul leaves their body,

and they need a shaman to go find their soul and put it back in their body. And so they actually, there's been research on it, they will not respond to the medications. That actually a lot of medications in the U.S., in the U.S., sort of like an antidepressant. If you don't think an antidepressant will work for you, it likely will not work. It is... Pacebo thing, yeah.

Slightly placebo. And they've actually started finding that with seizures, that they have a significantly higher, a better outcome if they get a chance to see a shaman in America than a biomedical practitioner. And so any model that takes into account people's own culture, and I think America is becoming a little too focused on our model is the best model. And especially because we're becoming a minority majority, it's increasingly important to offer what we consider alternative models. Maybe one more book that influenced you.

Oh, I grew up reading, it's when I was younger, a book called The Silent Boy. Small book by Lois Lowry, oh, I read a lot of Lois Lowry, but The Silent Boy specifically is about a boy in a small farming community that he can't talk, has a developmental disability,

not otherwise specified. He gets involved with, they think he murdered a cat. I mean, it is a children's book, And it's this mystery of did he actually murder this cat? And it sort of explores the difficulties of being an individual with a disability in a community and how he interacts with the different levels of being in trouble and just a phenomenal book. If you had to pick out the most, let's say, favorite and or most memorable day in your time in India,

what day would that be and what happened on that day? Ooh, great question. probably I was in the most northeast corner which borders Tibet and Myanmar and I was living with the Catholic bishop of Meow, a very influential man of Meow. How'd you meet him? I met him on the street. No, one of my friends is family friends with him. And in India, the guest is a god.

And even if I said my cousin's brother's uncle's son is in a city in India. and my friend is coming, they will put you up like you are their child. I mean, the hospitality is truly insane. So Bishop was a friend of a friend of a friend and took me in like his daughter. The word he used for me in Hindi was daughter. He would introduce me as his daughter, which hilarious for a Catholic bishop. But I woke up one day in Bishop House and went down to stairs for breakfast and he said, we're going to see if we can sneak you into Myanmar.

And I was like, great. He said, you know, you're a vellum bee, which translates. translates to clear water, which is what they call white people. You said, okay, so you're a vellumbee, so it won't be an issue. You can just walk on over and all will be well. So we drive through the Himalayas, the eastern Himalayas for a while. And we come to, like, there's several, quote, border checks, men holding guns next to signs and you stop and rapid Hindi is exchanged and you keep going. And they kept pointing at me in the car. And I'm like, okay, all is well. And we came to a stop sign, basically and they were like oh we're in Myanmar and I got to go to the Burmese markets and so not only was

it fantastic to be just in the eastern Himalayas but the whole the cultural exchange of going into Burma was just fascinating and I'm there reading what items aren't aren't allowed between the borders and so one of their most allowed items is opium it's like top of the list of things you trade at market that was the golden triangle area right where the heroin trade came yeah yeah Exactly. Oh, it's exactly. There's such, oh, the trade is insane. But, um, and I mean, opium's a greeting like chitee. When you come into someone's house, the first thing they offer you is opium. And that's just, that's normal. They must not get a lot done there. It's, it's a different pace. It's definitely a different pace.

What a neat day. You mentioned that there was an episode where you spilled into Pakistan. Oh, that, I was considering putting that one up there also. I was in a town called Jaisalmer. a fort it's a in the desert and you live in a fort like it's a it used to be part of the mughal empire um so i was living in this sand castle that's what i called it and we got a hold of local camel nomads and they took us out into the desert and our guides didn't speak a ton of english and we knew bits and pieces of hindi and i'm the lead camel of our of our camel safari and my guide turned around and said, hello Pakistan. And I'm thinking, we're not currently in Pakistan. I know, I think, I think I know that we're still in India. And then I was going through my words. And I realized the

Hindi word for let's go is cello. And that in the town, they drop the seas of words, the sea sound. And so when he was saying, hello, Pakistan, it was let's go to Pakistan. And to which I had no, I did not have enough vocabulary to say, actually, that's probably not the best idea for me. and I mean we slept in the desert when the camels got tired you just pulled off and there was the sand dune and Pakistani sand dunes What was your most, we'll jump back a little bit memorable fight in taekwondo or match or whatever, I don't know what you would call it.

Ooh, my most memorable fight. I had some really good ones in England, ones that I wasn't expecting on winning or even having half a chance in that I did then win and I was abroad with a lot of my close friends And so it was cool for them to be a part of the process. Because usually take one out, I mean, it is a team sport, but also in the end, you're the only person in a ring when you're fighting. But it was fun to get to share a lot of those victories with my friends. And it was a big, they would come out in all their U.S. gear and chant America, America.

How long does a fight last? Two, two-minute rounds with a one-minute break in between. So it is. It's intense. It's fast and intense. And are there tapouts? If you get knocked out in a headshot, then you are considered done. But I'd be the one most likely to get in a...

I'm really short for my weight class. They call me the tank. So I'm just this little... I have no off switch when I fight. I go forward and I plow through people. And a lot of the girls I fight in my weight class are these extremely elegant tall fighters who know that I'm an easy headshot target.

And so they wait and wait and wait and try to drill me in the head. But I just... I don't know how to stop. I've never stopped in a fight. And I think that freaks people out when I fight them. So you probably have some mental intimidation. aspects to your unbeaten run here. I think I freak him out.

I'm all about it. Is it fair to say that what you just described, which is that you just go forward relentlessly, is true of you in general and is a reason why you've got kind of accumulated this resume, we'll call it, that seems kind of lifetime worthy and at the young age? My parents say that all of my success comes back to Taekwondo,

that the reason I'm good at soccer, the reason I am good at research and math and everything, comes back to their choice to put me in Taekwondo when I was four. And I do. I think it comes back to the notion of there is no backward. You don't retreat in a battle. You don't retreat in a fight. At least I don't with my fighting style. And I think that has very much carried over into, I'm always looking for what's the next step. Where can I go forward from this? You know, where can I take my research next? It's not okay to just truncate something and say I'm done here. They're always, I mean, I love knowledge. There's always more knowledge to be had. So whether that's in sports or in research, I always want to

forward. It's a pretty incredible mentality. You mentioned to me offline that one of the things maybe that explains you or your life is that you don't like downtime. Are you satisfied? Do you feel happy and satisfied often or do you feel as though this kind of forward momentum is like you're chasing something or is it or do you just love that movement more than downtime?

I do despise downtime. I always need to be working out, add a book, something. And I think it's one of the reasons I do love India is, even though India is a slower pace than America, but when you finish the day, your body truly tells you, we live the day. Like, you are exhausted. There is no easy anything in India. There's no easy meal. There's no easy water. I mean, everything you do is a struggle in some way.

I mean, you're walking and you think you're swimming because it's so hot and humid. And I love finishing a day knowing that I have, that I'm empty. I, if I finish, if I just like read in my bed and then drink some water and ate, I would just, I would, oh gosh, that would never happen. So I love finishing a day knowing that I have lived the day. I want my body to know that I've lived a day. Trying to think of aspects of this. So this is, this is an, I'll call it unusual conversation for this podcast that I've just started working on, given that it really has nothing. to do with investing per se.

But one of the things I'm most fascinated by is investment of time as well as money. Are there aspects of kind of how you've lived your life that you think can be replicated by the average, you know, Joe and Jane? If so, what are they? And the way of asking this question is how much of this kind of relentlessness and perseverance and attitude is inborn and just innate in you and how much of it has been cultivated by you. To start with what I think a lot of people can do, that's like a pretty easy, I mean, fix is the wrong word, but a pretty easy place to start is I was always told growing up. And it is something

that I don't think I was just innately born with. I think it was something that Teguondo and my parents instilled in me was always having an internal locus of control. That if you're having a hard time with something, it's not the class is too hard. It's you're looking at it the wrong way. And it's not the fight was too hard or they were better than me. It's I can be better. So just having the notion that greatness does start from within yourself and you can, you can work harder. You can study harder, whatever it is, just having that internal reference of this is what I need to do going forward, not this is how the world needs to change around me. It's this is what I need to do. I think that's one of the reasons I do have a lot of success in different areas. But also just,

we talk a lot about the details and almost anything i do research comes down to details sports come down to details and focusing on those details you don't realize how important they are until you had the wrong foot and back which gave up the headshot which gave up the fight and you know you ask yourself why did i have the wrong foot and back it always comes down to some level of your training and that's what they say you don't necessarily rise to an occasion when you're in a severe situation like that you do you resort to your level of training it's not rising to the occasion. It's looking back on what you did to prepare yourself. And so details in my everyday life, I always think about how could I be better in a little detail, whether that's drinking enough water,

getting the right, nutrition. It does come down to the details for me on a lot of things. It seems like, again, like daily practice, right, that there are details is all about, practice is all about doing things over and over again. I always think about like karate kid. Wax on, wax off. I think about that scene a lot for some reason. It seems, it seems applicable, right to if you're going to be a fourth degree master taekwondo, master black belt, that you need to be very good at the small things. So, all right, so we've got a, quite a story, math, biology, Taekwondo master, Fulbright scholar, hopefully, community researcher. What are other areas right now that you're most interested in that you haven't, we'll call it mastered or, you know, pursued a lot

that you think you will pursue in the future? I'm a very avid hiker and backpacker, and I've always looked at ways to tie into my love of nature and the outdoors, to my love of health, health care, and disability. And so I've been reading a lot about, I'm in a anthropology medicine, health culture, medicine anthropology class. It's a great title. And I'm looking at intersecting those two loves, because a lot of people do find increased health when they get outside, basically. And so in the event that I either don't get the Fulbright or just choose not to pursue. the Fulbright. I'm looking at exploring work in Alaska with doing intersecting, getting people's with disabilities outside, seeing if it's possible to get the modified equipment that allows them to

hike or even kids with autism, having a lot of success with getting them outside somewhere where it's quieter and they don't have the pressures of having to act within social norms and society. So that's something I'm definitely, it's on my radar of pursuing. But there's, I mean, there's always something I'm looking at reading a book on. I haven't mentioned this in, intentionally until the end because I just wanted to hear everything else first. But what we are here at Notre Dame, I was here teaching a class yesterday, and we're doing this because you're close friends with my younger sister, who's at school still, and this was the source of our connection.

Maybe talk for a second about what Notre Dame has done for you, you know, things that you love or don't love about Notre Dame, and we can wrap it up there. People are always asking me, why Notre Dame, why Notre Dame? And I was a dead tie between like nine schools the night before decision night. My parents locked me in my room and said, don't come out until you've paid the deposit. What were the other schools? Brown Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern Caltech, Wash you, amongst others. But when I came out of the room, my parents said, where, where did you get, you know, where are you going?

And I told them, I wouldn't tell them I wanted them to guess. And I wanted them to guess where they think I'm going and where they wanted me to go. and they said, you know, we think you're going to Northwestern. We wanted you to go to Notre Dame. And I was like, psych, you know, going to Notre Dame, which, and I asked them why, you know, why did you want me to go there? And they said, they went on all my college tours and things with me. And they said, we wanted you to go there because we thought they had, you know, the strongest

community. And it sounds cheesy that sometimes is a very parent-like answer. But it is ultimately what I have found at Notre Dame and what I love the most is there is, there is such a huge sense of community, whether that's, I needed funding to go to India, and I have so many different funding opportunities and people willing to read over research proposals, not only my friends willing to read them over, and even my friends, your sister, that can't read a scientific research proposal, someone who's willing to go out to lunch with me and just laugh for an hour as a break.

But there's always, there's such a sense of community here that I need in order to have success on the soccer field, doing research, whatever that is, you very much, you need that support system. That's great. So we'll end it there. Thanks for doing this. This was a blast, some awesome, awesome stories and perspective and hopefully some, you know, three or four incredibly applicable little things that people can take away and do themselves in their own lives. I know I will, and hopefully can start to step my own game up a little bit, feeling rather inadequate. at, you know, six in the morning or whatever it is here in South Bend, Indiana. So thanks, Kylie, so much for doing this.

Yeah, no, thank you. Hey, everyone. Patrick here again. To find more episodes of Investor Like the Best, go to investorfieldguide.com forward slash podcast. If you're a book lover, you can also sign up for my book club at investorfieldguide.com Forward slash book club. After you sign up, you'll receive a full investor curriculum right away,

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