The First Principles of Being Human

The First Principles of Being Human

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2541287/fan_mail/new] Justin Rufa grew up in a small Rust Belt town on the St. Lawrence River with one clear thought: I'm leaving. What followed was nearly 24 years in the Air Force — aeronautical engineering, a master's, a PhD from Michigan, teaching calculus at the Air Force Academy, space launch operations in El Segundo — and then retirement at 42 with no clear next step. Two months in Kansas. A year teaching high school math. A three-month solo stint in Colorado, walking a creek every morning, trying to figure out what comes next when structure is no longer handed to you. What Justin eventually landed on wasn't a job title. It was a question: What does it mean to be a good human being? In this episode, he talks about the tension between prestige and passion, what the military gives you and what it doesn't, and why he thinks the younger you can reach a student, the better. He's now tutoring, academic coaching, and moving toward middle school teaching in the Boulder area, and for the first time, it feels like the right fit. This one is for anyone who has ever taken the long road back to what they actually care about. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

Denim on Her Own Terms: The Bold, Scrappy Path Behind Knorts

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2541287/fan_mail/new] Eleanore Guthrie didn't set out to disrupt the fashion industry. She set out to find a pair of shorts that looked good on a bike. What followed was more than a decade of building Knorts, a brand built entirely on knit denim - from weekend photo shoots in her parents' driveway to Revolve partnerships, a Lady Gaga placement, a Kendall Jenner moment, a collaboration with Urban Outfitters, and a Vogue write-up.  In this episode, Eleanore shares the unfiltered version of what it actually looks like to build something genuinely new: the years of not making money, the burnout of doing everything alone, the painful lessons of growing too fast, and the identity crisis that comes when bigger brands start copying your signature textile. She also talks about her newest pivot — moving from selling clothes to selling textiles and launching Big L's Gym, a media project aimed at getting the denim and activewear industries to finally see what she's known for years: knit denim is the future. This one is for anyone who has ever been told their idea is weird, wondered if they should just quit, or tried to do too many things at once because there was no other choice. Eleanore's path is proof that stubbornness, when pointed in the right direction, is a superpower. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

From High School Dropout to Harvard Law: How Discipline, Detours, and Doing the Work Built a Career

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2541287/fan_mail/new] Steven Kerns grew up in Long Beach, California, dropped out of high school at seventeen, and eventually made his way through the Army Infantry, Long Beach City College, Cal State Long Beach, Harvard Law School, and on to the California Department of Justice. Today, he works as a deputy attorney general, representing land-use and energy regulatory agencies, including California's oil and gas regulator. He also teaches environmental law at CSULB. In this episode, Steven traces the surprisingly coherent through-line of a path that, from the outside, looked like a series of sharp right turns. We talk about what the military instills that classrooms can't, what it felt like to arrive at Harvard and wonder if he'd made a grave mistake, and how a polite follow-up email to a rejection changed the arc of his career. We also get into the big picture — his "earn tomorrow" life mantra, how imposter syndrome functions as a signal rather than a warning, and what he tells students trying to figure out what to do in a world reshaped by AI. Steven brings a lot of hard-earned wisdom to this conversation. He's also just genuinely funny and kind. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

Kitchen to Capitol: On Being First, Finding Your Way, and the Jobs Nobody Tells You About

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2541287/fan_mail/new] Alex Mitchell didn’t have a plan when he graduated from high school. No one in his family had gone to college, and he didn’t apply to a single university. He started at community college, changed his major five times, and it wasn’t until a political science professor connected history to present-day policymaking that something finally clicked.   Then the pandemic hit. Alex decided virtual learning wasn’t for him, so he packed up and moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where he spent a year cooking in his godfather's restaurant kitchen. He learned kitchen Spanish, fell in love with the craft of feeding people, and had one of the best experiences of his life.   When in-person school returned, so did Alex’s sense of purpose. He completed his political science degree and landed an internship in the office of a California Assembly member. He never planned to stay, but ended up staying three years as a legislative aide, staffing committees on transportation, criminal justice reform, and more issues than he ever anticipated caring about.   Now he’s back in Southern California doing government relations for the Port of Long Beach, building on the policy and transportation expertise he developed in Sacramento, and surfing again.   In this conversation, Alex talks about what it means to be the first in your family to go to college, why he’s glad he took the long route, and why grace - for yourself and your process - might be the most important thing he’d tell his younger self. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast

Relationships Are the Resume: Career Pivots, Tech Ethics, and Finding Your Place in Policy

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2541287/fan_mail/new] Virginia Ross has one of those careers that sounds impossible until she explains exactly how each step led to the next — and even then, it barely seems planned. Because it wasn't.   After getting kicked out of college twice, pivoting from government consulting to culinary school to a startup acquired by a Utah telecom company, Virginia landed at Amazon's Ring, and accidentally became one of the rare voices inside Big Tech asking hard questions about what their products were doing to the world outside the app.   Today, Virginia leads Amazon's state and local AI policy portfolio. She analyzes proposed legislation, engages civil society and advocacy organizations, and translates between the engineers building the technology and the lawmakers trying to regulate it. She loves it more than any job she's ever had.   In this conversation, Virginia talks about growing up as one of only three Asian kids in a Northern Virginia suburb, what it really means to build a career through relationships, why she's still convinced that curiosity and a willingness to pick up the phone matter more than credentials, and what she'd tell her daughters about the future of work. 🎧 Listen to “Path Found Podcast” Real stories of pivots, side quests, and scenic routes that inspire new possibilities. 📅 New episodes drop every Thursday. 👉 Subscribe & Listen: https://www.youtube.com/@PathFoundPodcast ★ Follow, rate, and share if you’ve ever taken the scenic route. Get Involved: 🌐 See the work we’re doing at Keystone Network - Web: https://keystonenetwork.org 💬 Submit your comments, questions for guests, or suggest new guests you’d love to hear from! 📷Instagram: @pathfoundpodcast