Introduction

Patrick: [00:00:46] 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, Kiley 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.

Patrick: [00:01:08] When's the last time you lost in a competition?

Kiley: [00:01:11] I don't remember.

Patrick: [00:01:12] A bit later in the conversation.

Kiley: [00:01:13] We're going to see if we can sneak you into Myanmar.

Patrick: [00:01:16] I met Kiley while teaching an 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 Kiley someday. She inspired me to, as she says, move forward relentlessly. For notes on this show, visit investorfieldguide.com/Adams. Now, please enjoy this great conversation with Kiley Adams.

Taekwondo

Patrick: [00:02:08] Okay. Kiley, 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.

Kiley: [00:02:19] At the age of 4, my parents put me in ballet and I had zero interest in ballet. About a week in, I told my parents that I wanted to fight people. I think they decided that Taekwondo is the natural evolution to ballet. And so 17 years later it's still very much one of the most important parts of my life.

Patrick: [00:02:41] How does the progression work? You started really young, I guess it's unusual young to start a martial art. How quickly did you work yourself up the ranks? When did you figure out that this was something you had a talent for? How many stages are there? How many levels are there to Taekwondo?

Kiley: [00:03:01] You start as a white belt. Little Kiley was a white belt and I was actually too young to start testing. Your next belt is your yellow belt and then green, blue, red, black with intermediate stages in between. You start by getting little tags on your belt but after I got over the tag phase you start testing for each belt. 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. A lot of people stop at their first black belt, but I wanted to keep going with it. I never had really an end goal to get to where I'm at right now, which is my 4th dan black belt. I just kept progressing with what felt right. Two summers ago tested and received my 4th-degree master black belt.

Patrick: [00:03:51] 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.

Kiley: [00:03:58] I think the statistic is that 80% of people quit after getting their first black belt. 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. It's extremely rare to be certified as a Black Belt in both, let alone a 4th degree Black Belt. You have to send your credentials to Korea. You have to be approved by the board and they send credentials back. It's a pretty laborious process.

Patrick: [00:04:24] That's wild. How many, let's say 4th degree Black Belts are there in the U.S? Women?

Kiley: [00:04:29] No idea, but my Grandmaster obviously ranks above me,but there's not a lot. I've met no one my age that's a 4th degree Black Belt.

Patrick: [00:04:38] How often do you compete?

Kiley: [00:04:39] 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.

Patrick: [00:04:48] What are the attributes that allow you to be as good at it as you are? Are there physical attributes? Are there mental attributes? What is it that has allowed you to get this far at a pretty young age?

Kiley: [00:05:00] There's a very definite fighter mentality, and what fighter mentality comes down to, the two words we have in our dojang are perseverance and attitude. I think just starting at the age of 4 when every single motion you do is supposed to be done, not only with attitude but a sense of integrity. When I was 4, our Grandmaster would step out of the room and say, "100 pushups." But no one is watching you do 100 pushups. It's the sense of on training and off of training, you're accountable for your own actions. 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 in, day out. It's a year-round sport, no off days. You're constantly working at the top of your performance level.

Patrick: [00:05:49] Can you dive into attitude a little more? Perseverance obviously I understand. It seems to be a common attribute for a lot of things like this. What do you mean by attitude?

Kiley: [00:05:58] Attitude. That's a great question. I'm always told that I can have the most serious face at times. I'll go smile to a serious face. 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. When you're fighting, you're obviously not fighting for your life. If I tapped out of a ring, the fight's 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.

Your training, you're not immediately applying it to anything, but in the moment you need to have enough attitude to ... I mean, we yell. It's called a kihap. They tell you, you kihap with attitude. You're not just joking around. It's a little yell. 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. It's an attitude for me in Taekwondo and that just carries over into every aspect of your life, is knowing when to take things seriously, having this on and off switch with your attitude basically.

Patrick: [00:07:05] When's the last time you lost in a competition?

Kiley: [00:07:08] I don't remember.

Patrick: [00:07:10] Have you ever lost?

Kiley: [00:07:11] When I was younger, definitely. Oh, I used to cry fighting. Fighting while I'm crying and my parents wouldn't let me out of the ring, but no, it's been a while.

Patrick: [00:07:22] For Taekwondo, you said that you mentioned you like to, wherever you go, practice, or don't know what that means. go for a workout or a competition. What are some places around the world that you've done that?

Kiley: [00:07:37] 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. We'd fight. Whenever I'd show up, I'd get to fight with the English national team. When I was in India, I had no intention of doing Taekwondo. I was walking around a little hill station called Darjeeling and I saw people wearing doboks, what we wear when we fight, so I followed them and ended up at a dojang. I watched for a while. You get a card. It's actually a Korean-issued ID and I have a 4th degree issued card. 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 dojang. If you're a 4th degree, you have the right to teach at any dojang. They turned the dojang over to me. The language barrier at that time was a real thing but Taekwondo is to an extent an international language. We do the same poomsae, like forms, same techniques. They have similar names so we converse in this English, Korean, Hindi blend of languages.

Patrick: [00:09:01] Did you take it over and teach some sort of class? What happened with that?

Kiley: [00:09:08] I was in Darjeeling just for about a week and I would wake up early and go to Taekwondo and teach them. They used to teach, I think they still currently teach, but the men and women were taught separately. The first thing I did was say that it was one class. The girls thought that was just insane but I think they very much like training with the guys. When I was there, they had a belt test and one of them was testing for a black belt. 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. Their masters actually weren't 2nd degree Black Belt so they couldn't legally test her. When I showed up as a 4th dan, they were like, "Fantastic. We're running the test tomorrow." I got to sit in on a black belt test in India, which was unique, to say the least.

Patrick: [00:10:00] 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 entail?

Kiley: [00:10:13] During heavy tournament season, you're looking at two hours a day, every day. The first hour is all cardio strength training. We'd go on team runs. When I would fight for the Washington State team, our national team, we have national tournaments. You train with your home dojang, which is maybe 25 of us. Let's say, we're going to nationals. 6:00 AM you're up and working out. The second hour is strategies of fighting. You put on all your hogu, your chest protector, your headgear, and you're sparring is the term for it in the round. Which is you spar one person. You go immediately to the next, for about another hour. Then we practice. We have forms that we do in competition. It's a series of moves, blocks, punch, kicks that you do for technique and style. There are two different ways to compete at the national level and I did both.

Patrick: [00:11:05] Are there other aspects, 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? Is there's a common DNA to the people that you encounter?

Kiley: [00:11:26] Body type?

Patrick: [00:11:27] Not body type, or it could be body type. Anything, any common underlying attribute that you see over and over again in the people that are at the high level of competition.

Kiley: [00:11:40] Insane mental discipline. It really is a mental sport. I mean, it's almost military-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 comes down to a lot of discipline at that point.

International Travel

Patrick: [00:12:00] How did you get into travel? What was the motivating force to start going to India and England and some other places you've been?

Kiley: [00:12:08] 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. My parents, they gave me opportunities when I was young. We went to 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.

Patrick: [00:12:32] Let's talk about India a little bit. Certainly a really interesting place. A place that I've never been but I'm dying to go to. Describe your experience there, maybe a bit about the culture, what you've learned.

Kiley: [00:12:45] The first time I went, I was predominantly in Chennai, which is Southeast England. 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. I was teaching an early intervention class for kids age 0 to 6, doing physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. They consider training of a middle-aged American enough to be a professional. I was pretty much understood to be a doctor, which was hilarious. 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 beautiful, lots of backwaters river canals, coconut trees galore. Then I got to go north up to Darjeeling where I taught Taekwondo, spent some time in the shadows of the Himalayas. I love mountains, so that was where I felt the most at home.

Patrick: [00:13:41] Describe what you told me last night about greetings in India as a good example of a cultural difference.

Kiley: [00:13:48] 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. No one understands Hindi at all. 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. If you meet someone in Tamil Nadu you say, "Saaptiya?" Which is, have you eaten? Then the person responds with a list of what they've eaten. Then you say ... Sorry. "Saaptiya?" 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. Normally you would say, "Yes, I've eaten." They'll ask you what you've eaten. Then you get the laundry list, including numbers of things. That's very important. If you say, "Idli saapta." I ate idli. They'll ask you, "How many idli?" You need to respond at least with a number bigger than 4. "Renda idli saapta". Even once you've done your list, they will always respond with, "You haven't eaten enough." Then you'll enter their home or a restaurant and they will feed you copious amounts of rice probably.

Patrick: [00:14:57] You did a lot of eating.

Kiley: [00:14:59] A lot of rice eating. Yeah.

Patrick: [00:15:00] What are your ambitions for future travel? Are there places you want to go back to? New places you want to visit, maybe following that Taekwondo theme. Or what does the future hold travel-wise?

Kiley: [00:15:10] I'm always open for wherever I see the most possibility with the intersection of all my passions. 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.

Patrick: [00:15:40] Can you talk about that research? What the nature of it is and what you want to keep going on?

Kiley: [00:15:44] I do research on the community-based rehabilitation model. It's called CBR. The World Health Organization promotes the CBR model for low-resource areas to offer services for peoples with disabilities predominantly. The model is you train local community workers. If there's a hospital that's not available and 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. In India, people, for whatever reason, only about 50% of people use CBR services in a place where CBR is offered. I'm looking at differences throughout India of why people don't use CBR when it is available. Looking at the low participation rate.

Patrick: [00:16:33] The idea would be to keep advancing that understanding?

Kiley: [00:16:38] Looking at it specifically in Tamil Nadu. 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. In Kerala, they focused a lot on marriage of children. 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. Every state gave me a unique look at my question. I'm going back in the hopes of focusing on one area in India.

Patrick: [00:17:16] Were you alone?

Kiley: [00:17:17] I was alone for a lot of my travels.

Patrick: [00:17:20] How long a stretch let's say in India were you by yourself, traveling around?

Kiley: [00:17:24] 2 months.

Patrick: [00:17:25] 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?

Kiley: [00:17:32] My parents instilled in me a notion of, if something's interesting to you, you go learn about it. There's no other option. I love learning about anything. At school specifically, I study biology and math.

Patrick: [00:17:44] What kind of math? Any focus? Any specifics or just a general math degree?

Kiley: [00:17:47] I love all.

Formative Books

Patrick: [00:17:48] What are some maybe early or recent formative books, teachers, learning experiences that have really affected you in a lasting way? Maybe start with books if there are any?

Kiley: [00:18:02] Oh, there's always books. One of the most informative books on India I've read is called Behind The Beautiful Forevers. It's a book that explores slum areas in Mumbai. Basically they're in the shadows of these just giant hotels. They're technically squatters that live in the garbage lands right behind the hotels. It explores families that live there and what it means to grow up in the shadow of that much wealth. It's one thing to be in rural India, where all you know is that extreme rural poverty bBut another in urban India. India is such a unique case study because they do have an incoming surplus of wealth, but they also have this huge income gap. What it means to grow up as your profession, being a garbage picker. They don't have a actual garbage industry in India. You get paid for picking up trash on the spot. 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. Then The Health Gap is written about social determinants to health care. 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. It's looking at how many social determinants there are to health care. How different cultures define health differently. That America's specifically, ours might not be the end-all, and we don't necessarily have the best health system.

Patrick: [00:19:28] Does that book put forth ... Is it opine? Does it say this is a better model or these are aspects of other models that would be an improvement on the American system?

Kiley: [00:19:37] I think it proposes that the best model is one that takes into account all the social determinants to health. Yeah, it does.

Patrick: [00:19:43] What would be one example of a social, an individual determinant?

Kiley: [00:19:46] India, for example. If an Indian comes to America and they get a seizure disorder, or they're diagnosed with a seizure disorder here, they'll interact with the healthcare 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. They need a shaman to go find their soul and put it back in their body. There's been research on it. They will not respond to the medications. That actually a lot of medications-

Patrick: [00:20:25] In the U.S.?

Kiley: [00:20:25] In the U.S. Like an antidepressant, if you don't think an antidepressant will work for you, it likely will not work. It is-

Patrick: [00:20:33] Placebo thing. Yeah.

Kiley: [00:20:34] Slightly placebo. They've actually started finding that with seizures, that they have a significantly better outcome if they get a chance to see a shaman in America than a biomedical practitioner. Any model that takes into account people's own culture. I think America is becoming a little too focused on our model is the best model especially because we're becoming a minority/majority, it's increasingly important to offer what we consider alternative models.

Patrick: [00:21:01] Maybe one more book that influenced you.

Kiley: [00:21:03] It's when I was younger, a book called The Silent Boy. Small book by Lois Lowry. I read a lot of Lois Lowry. 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. It's this mystery of did he actually murder this cat? It explores the difficulties of being an individual with a disability in the community and how he interacts with the different levels of being in trouble and just a phenomenal book.

Most Memorable Day in India

Patrick: [00:21:44] 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?

Kiley: [00:21:55] Ooh, great question. Probably I was in the most northeast corner, which borders Tibet and Myanmar. I was living with the Catholic Bishop of Miao, a very influential man of Miao.

Patrick: [00:22:11] How'd you meet him?

Kiley: [00:22:13] I met him on the street. No. One of my friends is family friends with him and in India, the guest is a God. 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. Bishop was a friend of a friend of a friend and took me in like his daughter. I think the word he used for me in Hindi was daughter. He would introduce me as his daughter, which hilarious for a Catholic Bishop. Woke up one day in bishop's house and went downstairs for breakfast and he said, "We're going to see if we can sneak you into me Myanmar." I was like, "Great." He said, "You're a saaph paanee." Which translates to clear water, which is what they call white people. He said, "Okay. You're a saaph paanee so it won't be an issue. You can just walk on over and all will be well." We drive through the Himalayas, the Eastern Himalayas for a while, and we come to several 'border checks'. Men holding guns next to signs. You stop and rapid Hindi is exchanged and you keep going. They kept pointing at me in the car and I'm like, "Okay. All is well." We came to a stop sign basically and they were like, "Oh, we're in Myanmar." I got to go to the Burmese markets, so not only was it fantastic to be just in the Eastern Himalayas but the cultural exchange of going into Burma was just fascinating. I'm there reading what items are and aren't allowed between the borders. One of their most allowed items is opium. It's top of the list of things you trade at market.

Patrick: [00:23:51] Well, that was the Golden Triangle area, right? Where the heroin trade came.

Kiley: [00:23:54] Exactly. Oh, the trade is insane. I mean, opium's a greeting like chai tea. When you come into someone's house, the first thing they offer you is opium. That's normal.

Patrick: [00:24:06] They must not get a lot done there.

Kiley: [00:24:10] It's a different pace. It's definitely a different pace.

Patrick: [00:24:13] What a neat day. You mentioned that there was an episode where you spilled into Pakistan?

Kiley: [00:24:19] Oh, I was considering putting that one up there also. I was in a town called Jaisalmer. It's in the desert and you live in a fort. It used to be part of the Mughal Empire. I was living in this sandcastle. It's what I called it. We got ahold of local camel nomads and they took us out into the desert. Our guides didn't speak a ton of English. We knew bits and pieces of Hindi. I'm the lead camel of our camel safari. My guide turned around and said, "Hello Pakistan." I'm thinking, "We're not currently in Pakistan. I think I know that we're still in India." Then I was going through my words and I realized the Hindi word for let's go is chalo. That in the town they dropped the Cs of words, the C sound. And so when he was saying, "Hello Pakistan." It was, "Let's go to Pakistan." To which I did not have enough vocabulary to say, "Actually, that's probably not the best idea for me." I mean, we slept in the desert. When the camels got tired, you just pulled off and there was the sand dune in Pakistani sand dune.

Most Memorable Taekwando Fight

Patrick: [00:25:34] 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.

Kiley: [00:25:40] 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, but I did then win. I was abroad with a lot of my close friends so it was cool for them to be a part of the process because usually Taekwondo, I mean it is a team sport, but also in the end, you're the only person in the ring when you're fighting. It was fun to get to share a lot of those victories with my friends. They would come out and all their U.S. gear and chant, "America, America."

Patrick: [00:26:09] How long does a flight last?

Kiley: [00:26:11] Two 2 minute rounds with a 1 minute break in between. So it is it's fast and intense.

Patrick: [00:26:17] Are there tap-outs?

Kiley: [00:26:18] If you get knocked out in a headshot, then you are considered done. But I'd be the one most likely to get knocked out, I'm really short for my weight class. They call me The Tank. I have no off switch when I fight. I go forward and I plow through people. 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 don't know how to stop. I've never stopped in a fight. I think that freaks people out when I fight them.

Patrick: [00:26:49] You probably have some mental intimidation aspects to your unbeaten run here.

Kiley: [00:26:54] I think I freak them out. I'm all about it.

Internal Locus of Control

Patrick: [00:26:55] 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 the reason why you've accumulated this resume, we'll call it, that seems lifetime worthy at a young age?

Kiley: [00:27:12] 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 4. 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. 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? Where can I take my research next? It's not okay to just truncate something and say, "I'm done here." I love knowledge and there's always more knowledge to be had, so whether that's in sports or in research, I always want to go forward.

Patrick: [00:27:51] 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. Do you feel happy and satisfied often? Or do you feel as though this forward momentum is like you're chasing something? Or do you just love that movement more than downtime?

Kiley: [00:28:16] I do despise downtime. I always need to be working out, at a book, something. 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 finished the day, your body truly tells you, "We lived the day." You are exhausted. There is no easy anything in India. There's no easy meal. There is 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. I love finishing a day knowing that I'm empty. If I just read in my bed and then drank some water and ate, oh gosh, that would never happen. I love finishing a day knowing that I have lived the day. I want my body to know that I've lived the day.

Patrick: [00:29:08] Trying to think of aspects of this. This is an unusual conversation for this podcast that I've just started working on, given that it really has nothing to do with investing per se. One of the things I'm most fascinated by is, investment of time, as well as money. Are there aspects of how you've lived your life that you think can be replicated by the average Joe and Jane? If so, what are they? Another way of asking this question is, how much of this relentlessness and perseverance and attitude is inborn and just innate in you? And how much of it has been cultivated by you?

Kiley: [00:29:49] To start with what I think a lot of people can do that's a pretty easy, I mean fix is the wrong word. 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 Taekwondo 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. It's not, the fight was too hard or they were better than me. It's, I can be better.

Just having the notion that greatness does start from within yourself and 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 in almost anything I do. Research comes down to detail, 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. You ask yourself, "Why did I have the wrong foot and back?" It always comes down to some level of your training. 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 a lot of things.

Patrick: [00:31:27] It seems, again, like daily practice, right? That practice is all about doing things over and over again. I always think about Karate Kid, right?

Kiley: [00:31:36] Wax on, wax off.

Patrick: [00:31:37] I think about that scene a lot for some reason. It seems applicable, right? If you're going to be a 4th-degree master Taekwondo, master black belt, that you need to be very good at the small things. All right. We've got 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 mastered or pursued a lot, that you think you will pursue in the future?

Kiley: [00:32:10] I'm a very avid hiker and backpacker. And I've always looked at ways to tie my love of nature and the outdoors to my love of health, healthcare, and disability. I'm in a health culture medicine anthropology class. It's a great title. I'm looking at intersecting those two loves because a lot of people do find increased health when they get outside basically. 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 getting peoples with disabilities outside. Seeing if it's possible to get them 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. That's something definitely on my radar of pursuing, but I mean, there's always something I'm looking at reading a book on.

Notre Dame

Patrick: [00:33:09] I haven't mentioned this intentionally until the end, because I just wanted to hear everything else first. 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. This was the source of our connection. Maybe talk for a second about what Notre Dame has done for you. Things that you love or don't love about Notre Dame, and we can wrap it up there.

Kiley: [00:33:35] People are always asking me, "Why Notre Dame? Why Notre Dame?" 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."

Patrick: [00:33:47] What were the other schools?

Kiley: [00:33:48] Brown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Caltech, Wash U, amongst others. When I came out of the room, my parents said, "Where are you going?" I told them I wouldn't tell them. I wanted them to guess. I wanted them to guess where they think I'm going and where they wanted me to go. They said, "We think you're going to Northwestern. We wanted you to go to Notre Dame." I was like, "Psych. Going to Notre Dame." I asked them, "Why did you want me to go there?" 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 the strongest community." It sounds cheesy sometimes and a very parent-like answer, but it is ultimately what I have found in Notre Dame. What I love the most is there is such a huge sense of community, whether that's I needed funding to go to India. 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. 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 need that support system.

Patrick: [00:35:10] That's great. We'll end it there. Thanks for doing this. This was a blast. Some awesome stories and perspectives, and hopefully 3 or 4 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 6:00 in the morning or whatever it is here in South Bend, Indiana. Thanks Kiley so much for doing this.

Kiley: [00:35:39] Yeah. No. Thank you.

Created by @_Nick_Diller