Steve Ward | How Purpose Driven Education Can Change The World

Srini Rao

 Steve, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Steve Ward

Oh man, my pleasure. Thank you for having me here. I'm excited about this opportunity.

Srini Rao

Yeah, so I found out about you by way of our mutual friend and one of your coworkers, Jesse, who actually is, you know, the now wife and, you know, was the girlfriend of a roommate that I lived with almost God knows how long ago, about 10 or 11 years ago, at this point. And I remember when she told me like two sentences about your story, I said, I don't even need to do an introduction. I'm like, just say yes, we'll have we'll definitely have Steve on the show just based on that. So I wanted to start by asking you, where in the world did you grow up?

what impacted where you grew up end up having on the choices that you've made throughout your life in your career.

Steve Ward

Absolutely. Well, I started off in Compton, California, just around the corner from a very popular high school called Centeno High School. You know, kind of the heart around where, you know, some of the hip hop rappers of the 90s all grew up and stomping grounds around there. In that area of Compton. But what's interesting about my experience in Compton is exact opposite of what everybody hears Compton to be about.

experience is more about the educational system and what I was a part of there. My parents started me off in private and also put me in public schools in Compton.

I guess I must have been a super low achiever because I was always that kid in the back of the classroom in every situation. And every year I would have my counselor or my teacher sitting down with me and my mom and listening to them tell my mom about how poor of a student he is. He can't read like the other students. He can't do English, he can't do math. Look, this is where we are. This is where he is. He needs to be held back. Maybe one or two grades.

And you're already, you're not thinking as a child, man, I live in Compton and all of the things that's going on around there, all you're thinking of is, you know, I must really be stupid because every time I listen to my teacher or counselor, you know, talk about who I am, they're always talking about the things that I couldn't do. So my life started out growing up in this area where all these other things are happening. But the way I feel about myself

because I'm not expected to be anything. And as I grew up in that environment and then my parents moved us from Compton to the suburbs and so I was still going to school at that time and now that we live in the suburbs I realized that oh man I must really be stupid because education is different in the suburbs than it is in the hood where I was and I didn't think of where I lived as the hood because that's just the environment right. But you know that we're in the suburbs and things

Steve Ward

I'm around all these other ethnicities for the first time. I'm the one of maybe three black people in the whole entire school. And I'm getting teased about how I talk. I'm saying auntie instead of auntie and other words that was prevalent where I came from that are now not accepted in the environment and to boot. I'm a black person.

I find that I'm even further behind in education than I was even when I was in Compton. So that was my first brushing experience with kind of understanding that education is not the same in urban areas as it is in the suburbs and outside of those environments. And so even as a young kid, I start realizing that there's something wrong with this picture. There's a problem here. But at the time, being a youth, I couldn't really determine what that was.

me more questions than things but it really did have an impact on the way that I viewed myself for the rest of my time in education and it really started to impact just how or not impact but impact me on how messed up I felt like education was even as a youth going into it going there is a problem here but I can't quite put my finger on it there shouldn't be a difference between the education I was a part of when I was in Compton and education now in the suburbs.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Steve Ward

verbs.

You know, nobody is talking to me, trying to help me understand the difference between the two and really catch me up. They're just leaving me by myself. They're leaving me here to pretty much die on the vine. And that was the first time I started getting the idea that, you know, education feels like if you can't succeed in the classroom, you will not be successful as a person in life. And that was the attitude that I started taking on, which started to trigger a whole list of other things that I was going through mentally.

and emotionally.

Srini Rao

What typically was the advice from your parents about education? And then, like I said, I think that the thing that you and I had talked about would intrigue me most is I wanted to talk about the misperceptions we have of growing up in an environment like Compton. Because I think for most of us who didn't, my experience of what it might have been like growing up in Compton was watching Boys in the Hood. And I think I probably saw the worst of it. So what did your parents teach you about education? And why is it that some people managed

environments and then other people succumb to them.

Steve Ward

Yeah, that's an amazing question. Well, again, when you're in the environment, you don't really understand. It's kind of like being in a fish, being in a dirty fish tank. I bet you the fish doesn't know that the fish tank is dirty until someone on the outside looks in and says, man, that fish tank is really dirty. And it's not until the fish inside that fish tank really appreciates being in a clean environment till someone on the outside starts to clean that environment.

Compton you know you didn't really you know

look at things as being this is really, really bad. You just felt like this is just where I'm at and this is just what it is. And you're not being able to have a perspective looking from the outside in, because you're in it. So my parents just kept on saying, don't listen to the teachers, it's nothing wrong with you. You're just fine. And I remember hearing my mom even say to my teachers, oh, he don't need to be held back, he's fine. But I'm trying to figure out, if someone has to say that I'm fine, then I must not be fine.

So what the heck is going on? But my parents was always just, well, my dad, my mom, she was the one that was a part of that process. Even though I had a father, he was an alcoholic, and actually he would call me brain dead. Especially as I got a little bit older and we moved to the suburbs, he became more of an alcoholic. And then he would really, I think...

emphasize the way that I felt the teachers felt about me by some of the things that he said, you know, you're brain dead. But it was always when he was intoxicated, he would talk like this to me. But my mom just maintained, there's nothing wrong with you. You got to keep on going. But, you know, to that second part of that question, you know, that desire to transcend, you know, your environment kind of speeds me up in my own personal story to when I was around about 13 years old.

Steve Ward

going to take this test. And I love education, by the way. And for all the listeners who are, hopefully you resonate with some part of the story today. But for all the listeners who like me, felt like you didn't have any connection in education and that you were outcast and left to be on your own and you're just trying to find your way socially and emotionally and also trying to figure out, how does this educational thing help you get to where you want to be in the world? Or maybe some of us is going just F it.

I'm just gonna do me because this is not making any sense. You know, and that's all of the feelings that I was feeling at that moment. But when I was about 13, I remember, you know, I had worked real hard in education. I tried really hard. I wanted to be smart. You know, it just wasn't happening. I remember taking a test. It was algebra test. It was on a Friday. I was a football player and had on my jersey and ready for the game that night, Friday Night Lights. And we took this test on that day. And I say, you know, I studied for this test.

that I possibly could, not that I hadn't before, but I put a little extra into it this time. And I remember taking this test and feeling really confident that I passed this test. And I remember begging the teacher, weeks and weeks and weeks, please grade this test so I can see how I did. I think I really did a great job. And it was the next several weeks until he recorded the grades. And I remember it was another Friday.

and he came to down the aisles handing out everybody's tests and I was excited. Couldn't wait for the game that night. I said this is gonna start out great with a with a great test score and everything and he finally got to my desk. I was always in the back of the classroom because I was set there asked too many questions. I slowed teachers down because of how many questions I would ask and trying to understand what was going on. So I was sit there, I was placed there.

Steve Ward

with anticipation, him putting my paper upside down, like he did everybody, but he kept on walking. And I'm going, why does he keep on walking? He should be excited for me. I've bugged this man for the last two, three weeks to grade my tests, and here he should be congratulating me on how well I did. And to turn that test over, it's a big fat D, and I couldn't, you know.

I couldn't wipe away the tears. They were coming so fast. And emotionally, I felt like, man, I'm a failure. So shortly after the bell rang, I was first one out the door. I got out to the quad at this high school. And I remember just cursing God, saying, why did you make me stupid? Why did you put me in this situation? You know I want to learn. And I want to be the best I can in the classroom. But I can't if you didn't give me the brain to do so. And I remember about five minutes of just cursing God. And it wasn't until maybe five minutes

minutes later after I calmed down a little bit, I started hearing voices and yes I'm not crazy I didn't have any medical issues that said I was schizophrenic or anything like that. I just I was just hearing voices and these voices were comforting to me you know telling me that you know this is all for a reason. You're not stupid. You do have something to offer the world and at that moment my life changed and as I start seeing these visions of the problems that I was going through but seeing them from a perspective that wasn't just me

But it was you know a lot of people that was like me that have no voices and have not been able to articulate How they feel about their experience and they're disconnected from school and they're disconnected from society because of how well or not well they do in school and they're disconnected from size society because they don't have Parental backing and support and there's a lot of different things that I start hearing and seeing in these visions And so you know to your question of what sometime helps people transitions out of difficult situations

environmental is sometimes stealing divine interventions, but then from that divine intervention you have a choice in that there is the problem is that a lot of people don't understand that they have a choice to transition and transcend their current mindset or environment and Hearing the information on why I was going through what I was going through wasn't the solution But it was the choice that came after that made me

Steve Ward

motivated to get involved in life and realize that I have work to do and now that I've been able to recognize who I am and despite all of what I heard about who I am or who people think I should be, I was able to take a hold of my own life at that moment and that there is a problem that we see in society today. People don't understand they have a choice therefore they're not taking control of their own life. They're letting you know other

pretty much control your life. But I made that decision on that day and that's what helped me transition and transcend from my environment and also my mindset from being a victim to actually being somebody of importance and who had a purpose in life all of a sudden.

Srini Rao

You basically got this limiting narrative from teachers that you weren't smart, but What is it that other kids experience that leads to these horrible things like a school-to-prison pipeline? Because I don't imagine any kid when they're in kindergarten basically says, you know what I want to do I want to be a drug dealer in the hood or I want to you know steal cars or whatever it is that leads that is it because of you know, the role models that they see is it because they don't get exposed to models of possibility like and

Srini Rao

sort of people succumbing to their environment versus the ones who transcend it, because clearly you did, but I also know there's the opposite sort, because I've had those people as guests on my show.

Steve Ward

Yeah, no, that's a real good question. I mean, I have a number of different perspectives on that. I have my own personal perspective growing up in Compton and growing up in an environment family, who a lot of my family members, they inherently are violent people. And I have that tendency in myself. And luckily I had a mom who helped me identify that in myself early on. And also she helped me to

tailor that violence and temper that violence. And what I'm getting to is sometimes the mindset that we grow up in and yes, it's generational. And I didn't understand that word being or phrase being a product of your environment until I became a firefighter, where I was a firefighter for over 16 years. And then I still maintained a position in EMS for 20 years. And I started realizing working in areas

life was rough you can see the generation of mindset and thought process that is being passed on over and over and over and over and if people don't have someone like my mom who is to help them understand and identify different characteristics in themselves and learn how to use those different characteristics you tend to repeat the same cycle that you were taught and so you know I kind of have a way different respect perspective and I did

right before I was a firefighter because I kind of looked at things the way that some of my colleagues was teaching me to look at things. Hey, when you go to the hood and stuff like that, you need to, you know, you need to be just as hard as they are. You need to, you know, talk to them the way they talk to each other. I was actually taught that kind of stuff, you know, because even coming from the hood, I didn't really know any better from this perspective that of how people outside of those areas look at those people.

But it wasn't until many years passed and I was a fireman for a while and you're running on the same people and the same cause and the same environments over and over again, you start realizing and you see these people grow up in this mindset that they were taught these things. And the problem with it is that there's nobody to help them understand what's going on, what's really going on, and more importantly, who you are and that you are who you desire to be. But I first need to tell you

Steve Ward

or teach you that you need to be, you need the desire to be somebody that's gonna be productive in society versus someone who's gonna be destructive in your own community. You know, and if I didn't have a mom the way, the mom like I had, you know, I would have repeated that cycle as well. So to your point and your question, and the reason why it's so hard to see a lot of change in these types of environments, is because it's a generational mindset that's being taught over and over and over.

again. So when we look at people as you know living on that side of life or we want to put tags on like you know they're criminals or you know they are you know murderers or this or that we don't really understand that this is a generational mindset that has been taught to a particular people and they're doing nothing but repeating the only thing that they know and unless I was a fireman and actually see that mentality from that perspective you know

understood it myself. People are truly a product of their environment.

Srini Rao

Do you have friends that ended up in prison from the time growing up in Compton or ended up, you know, basically in a life of crime?

Steve Ward

Yeah, all those things, you know, dead, prison.

you know, all those different things. And you know what's sad about it too, is even as we've gotten older, you know, some of the guys that I grew up with, who I felt like they avoided a lot of the issues, took on some of that stuff when they got older. And I still can't explain that to this day, other than the fact that maybe they always had that mindset, but it just was kind of a late onset of that mindset. And they went right back into what they were comfortable with

what they know.

Srini Rao

So you mentioned this transition to the suburbs, where you were one of three black people. What did your parents teach you about what it means to be black in America and race in general?

Steve Ward

Nothing. Oh man, actually absolutely nothing. Yesterday was Martha Luther King day. I've spent more time teaching my kids what it means to be Black and Black in America than I ever had any.

education on, even at school, even when I was living in Compton and in the environment. We had parades, we had moments when we revisit African American people and their accolades of what they've been able to accomplish and we'll do reports on them. And that was the extent of it. But I had no training whatsoever from my parents.

Srini Rao

Well, you know, one, what are you teaching your kids and what do you want people listening this to this to know about it? Because, you know, this is a question I've asked a lot of people. We in fact did an entire episode where we basically right after all the George Floyd stuff happened, we have an episode about what it means to be black in America, and it was really shocking to hear some of the things that people said, especially when we put them all together. And, you know, I had, you know, two white roommates and one of them had started reading one of those books and he said, do you don't, he's like, I don't

Steve Ward

Yeah.

Srini Rao

to think about race and I said yeah that's because it's like you know I like to your example of you know water to a fish I said if you're white your skin color is in a lot of ways water to a fish when you live in America

Steve Ward

That's a good way of putting it. You know what? This is what's important to me and I'm glad you asked me this question because I have a slightly, I'm sure, a different perspective than a lot of other African American people in America. I was the only black firefighter and it was that way just about the whole time that I was there. And I experienced a lot of racism all the way up through the ranks.

I graduated and retired from that profession. I call it more graduation than retiring from that profession. But intact with me being who I needed to be and never having to change who I am, you know, to accommodate other people. And I think that, you know, being black in America means for a lot of African American people that they have to measure up to this invisible expectation.

that other, that white America has created for them. And in doing so, you find that a lot of times we as African-American people lose who we are. And even if we talk with slang or with profanity, and at the same time we'll show, well, I got a degree from Harvard, or I was able to accomplish being a rocket scientist, or I am a doctor and stuff like that. And that almost kind of gives us this sense of entitlement to where, you know, well, we've been able

transcend the hood but I can still act hood and talk hood and all that kind of stuff because I've been able to reach these amazing areas in life and not knowing and understanding that whole concept of reach these amazing areas of life is trying to meet that expectation that you felt white America put on you to say that you have arrived and you are validated because you have a

Steve Ward

when it's an oxymoron when you think about it of a concept.

you know, because it's never been about this expectation that white America or anybody else has put on you. It should have always has been about being accepted for who you are. So me and my perspective and the things that I teach my kids is, you know, it's one thing that this is your skin color, but your skin color isn't who you are. And expectation that other people have for you shouldn't be an expectation that you have for yourself. You've been put on this planet,

God or not but in our household we talk about the higher power we call God and you are on this planet with a purpose and you were given this earth suit we are all in earth suits and I'm saying it earth and SUIT these things that we look at when we look at each other are nothing more than just vehicles but the spirit that's on the inside of us is supposed to be driving the vehicle not the vehicle driving the people and so when you hear you know a lot of us

about what we've been able to accomplish and what it means to be a black in America. And it comes with politics. It comes with, you know, how, extrinsically, how other people feel about us. That's not really answering the question on what it means to be black in America, because it should be, what does it mean to be black in America? What does it mean to be white in America? What does it mean to be white and black in the world? And that goes for every ethnicity in understanding that when you're on this planet, you have one job and that's to live out your purpose. And it doesn't matter what earth suit

then at the moment, your job is to take that earth suit and find what characteristics and capabilities that have and then be able to use those capabilities and characteristics outside of yourself to benefit and love the people around you. That is what it means to be black or any other ethnicity in America and if you fall short of that, you fall short of living, you become just an existence and as we have found over and over and over and with exception of

Steve Ward

of what this society, this America calls success. We remember those people and what they've done, but we should be looking locally.

at what we are doing and legacy we're leaving behind for those generations. Full circle here, what I'm talking about is when you ask the question of how and what makes and allows people to transcend their environment, it's the mere fact that they start getting an understanding of who they are and what their purpose on this planet is and the type of legacy that they wanna leave. And hopefully it's a positive legacy that helps the generation after generation behind them see the sacrifices and things that they made and taking full control.

and responsibility for who they are, and then taking those attributes that they are able to provide and making the world a better place than when they first started. That is what it means to be black or any other ethnicity in America, which means again, it doesn't matter what color you are, because it's an earth suit. It's just an outward exterior of a vehicle that you are been given the ability and opportunity to reside in. That's all it is.

Srini Rao

So one of the things I want to talk about, I want to supply the bulk of what I'm talking about, is this whole idea of education. You talked about this contrast between education in urban areas versus education in the suburbs. So I never grew up in an urban area. I pretty much grew up in suburbs my entire life. What is it that is so different about the way that people in urban areas are educated, and how does it end up affecting their life outcomes versus those who are affected in suburbs, or educated in suburbs?

Steve Ward

Interesting question, you know, I can honestly say that it doesn't matter so much anymore as much as people think that it matters Put on my fireman hat for you right now

As I was, I started being a fireman by the age of 20, right? And spent all of my 30s being a fireman and I got to see multiple generations. And what I've found now is that we are not as a society and I'm really hoping that this reaches a lot of people. I'm sounding the alarm right now. It's going, it's been going off in my mind and I'm trying to sound this alarm

we can right now. And what I'm alluding to is that, you know, I would say maybe 20, 25 years ago, you know, environments were more impactful. And also we could, from the data, be able to look at environments and almost predict.

how successful people are gonna come or are gonna be coming out of different environments. But that is no longer the case. And that's a bold statement, what I'm saying right now. That is no longer the case. Does it still have an effect? Yes, it does. But because of the internet.

because of social media, because of video games, because of music, and a lot of things that has put the world almost on a level playing field from the perspective of what people are now knowledgeable about. See, back in 20, 25 years ago, in those urban areas, people still only had limited access to information and to the world around them. That is no longer the case. So now that everybody has almost equal access

Steve Ward

And not necessarily education but information it has put everybody on this playing field Where everybody is becoming screwed up all at the same time with the same information and so as a firefighter now I want to give you guys some alarming information here. This is this is earthshattering. Okay

My first five to 10 years of being a firefighter was about, you know, fighting fire. And it was about those, those divides and the slums and the suburbs and all of every, all of the different areas that I worked, that was the topic. But then the last 10 to 15 years of my career,

It automatically changed from being, from firefighting being the focus to the medical aids and medical aids were, you know, people's health was really starting to drag and then the latter part of that 10 and 20 years, it became about mental health and then all of a sudden in the last years, and I'm still in this EMS world, has been about mental health and the most of our cause now is going to either domestic violences or people with mental health.

issues and from the beginning of my career to where we are right now you're seeing a bigger population of people that are emotionally disturbed you're seeing a greater amount of depression you're seeing a greater amount of suicides you're seeing a greater amount of education needed for what we call social and emotional learning at the workplace in schools and so on so forth so the bells that I'm ringing right now is that society is crumbling

so quickly before our eyes and like that dirty fish tank analogy that I had brought up earlier, we are all in the same fish tank and not realizing how dirty of an environment and how caustic of an environment that we're in right now. So no longer do you see this divide between communities, you see the whole freaking community of people itself is eroding right now because emotionally

Steve Ward

And so therefore you see in, you know, a lot of people end up on the street. I call it giving up on society because they're no longer able to cope with how hard it is to survive. And we're not leading people as leaders. You're a leader, you know, with this podcast and stuff. We're not, but we as leaders as a whole are not really understanding what's going on right now. So it's not about education. It's not about, you know, transcending your environments or anything anymore.

need to be about saving the human species period because the whole thing is corroding, it's eroding and as a fireman it was very clear and us in the medical world we're all seeing the same thing and we're all having that conversation but this conversation isn't reaching podcasts like this you know it's not reaching the masses so everybody's in that fish tank swimming but not realizing how the environment is changing around them as a whole as a people as a whole.

Srini Rao

So what do we do to get out of this mess then? Ha ha ha.

Steve Ward

Oh lord.

Steve Ward

Yay, you said we had it now. I'll give you it, I'll sum it up for you shortly. Hey, here's the good news. I have the solution.

Srini Rao

Well, you knew what these were the kinds of questions I was gonna ask, given the conversation we had before.

Steve Ward

I do have a solution and I'm not saying that as if I'm a messiah or something like that, you know, but I feel, you know, parts of the story that I haven't been able to talk about yet, you know, is what I've done with that divine intervention of information that I've gotten, you know, what we have to do as a society to what I hope can still be done and hopefully we haven't distorted ourselves too far where it's no, no.

way of being able to reverse.

Where we are is that people have to understand that they have a purpose on this planet We have to help people rediscover that purpose We have to help people understand that you know, you were put on this planet for a specific reason now my scientists And I'm sorry if I if I get you bad reviews on this Podcast because a lot of my scientists have disagreed with me and we've had really great conversations

because a lot of people don't believe in purpose. My scientist being my natural scientist who's been studying Darwinism and a lot of type of evolutionary things who have simply stated that we've done all this research and found that things evolved but it doesn't necessarily mean that things evolved with a purpose. So therefore people do not have a purpose. But I'm here to tell you that that's a falsehood.

people do have a purpose. People, again, are in these earth suits and they have something valuable to contribute to society. But where we have failed, you know, is that we have cannibalized our youth.

Steve Ward

And what I mean by that is we made our youth more of a transaction than we have transformative. Education has become more transactional than it has transformative. We've made our kids into consumers rather than cultivating them into being leaders and keeping mankind and society going. We've made that, that's...

I dare anyone to answer this question and have some accuracy to it. But we didn't start seeing billionaires until we start really seeing our kids being used as customers. And I'm not saying that's like...

all the way across the board. And I'm not saying that billionaires didn't exist before this time period. We all know that that's the case, but we didn't see the transition of billionaires to the point of where it is right now until we start seeing the cannibalizing of our youth, making them the customers. It's not about them purchasing anything, but it's about their eyeballs. And then when we are feeding our youth mental junk food, hear me out here, this is the term that should be sweeping the nation right now,

revolution back in the 70s and 80s where we start putting labels on things and realizing that we were eating a whole bunch of crap but now we need a mental revolution where we need to understand that we are still eating crap but this crap is in the form of mental junk food and so we're feeding our kids in their eyeballs and their ears all of this mental crap

That is, it's taking them further and further from understanding who they are as individuals and therefore being able to bring what they have to offer to the table in their earth suits to be productive citizens that keep things civilized and keep the world moving forward. Those mechanisms are now eroded and gone. So until you fix, you know, what we are feeding ourselves and our kids, all this mental junk food, and yes, I do mean we need to probably put labels

Steve Ward

crap that we are able to watch and they are as silly as it sounds is that warning this may cause severe depression if taken or consumed over a long period of time.

You know, Facebook has admitted to this and a number of other organizations know that this exists, but we are not really talking about it to the extent, it's like, okay, I'll put it out there, like the Surgeon General saying, hey, smoking is bad for you, but I'll still keep on promoting it, I'll still keep on putting it in your face, and now that I've made it clear, I can wash my hands and say, well, listen, that's a parenting issue, that's not my problem. I need you kids to keep looking, and why am I gonna go out of business? Because you don't know how to control your gambling, how you control yourself, right? And I threw that gamble.

Srini Rao

Yeah.

Steve Ward

in there too because it's the same concept with that is where we are right now. So you're talking about you know a problem that some people think that's insurmountable but the simple solution is you know we got to stop feeding ourselves mental junk food and we have to stop cannibalizing our youth for profit. That's how we reverse this otherwise we're going to continue to go down this road and I think everybody knows where that's going to end up.

Srini Rao

So, I mean...

tends to mean like what you're talking about is purpose driven education and what I wonder is how you integrate a purpose driven curriculum into our standard curriculum because the funny thing is you go back to college or anything like that when I reflect at you know things like going to Berkeley as an undergrad things like going to high school nobody taught me anything about you know figuring out what I was good at figuring out what I was drawn to it was more hey here's the list of things that you're supposed to do

And if by some stroke of luck, you happen to be fucking brilliant at them, that's great. Then you get to thrive. But much like yourself, I didn't do well in school. I was a straight A student only because I had Indian parents and they would disown you if you didn't get straight A's. But as I told my roommate, Matt, I'm like being a straight A student in high school doesn't make you smart. It means you're disciplined. And that was just enforced around our house. But nobody ever really talked to me. I mean, even all the way through business school,

Steve Ward

Hahaha! Oh man...

Srini Rao

me about trying to answer any of these sort of deeper questions. I only got that from having thousands of conversations over the past 11 years with people like you.

Steve Ward

Yeah, you're gonna make me cuss right now, man, cause this is such a passionate, that's fine, give it up. Yeah, this is therapy session for me. You know, and that's the only time I'm using my cuss words, man, is when I'm venting like this, you know, to your point, you know, and I wanna make sure I have that question, you know, really clear what you're asking. How do we integrate, you know, purpose-driven education, you know, and that's our turn, you know. So,

Srini Rao

It was fine.

Steve Ward

I'll try to give a short answer to that, but I have to first start off with just an experience over the holidays. I was meeting one of my clients at a restaurant and one of the waitresses, she looked like she was around 21, 22. She was waiting on me and she saw me working on my computer and she said, you know, I don't know why I feel like I wanna ask you what you're doing, but I have to ask. And I said, gosh, sure.

She said, so what do you do? What are you doing here? Like right now, why are you working on your laptop? What do you do that you have to do that here? And I said, well, you know, short answer I gave her. I said, I have a program to help people discover their purpose. My software is called Dream Catcher. And she says, wow, Dream Catcher? You mean you actually help people, you know, find and discover their dreams and actually catch them? I said, yeah, absolutely. And I saw her face light up. And then the next words out of her mouth.

was, you know what makes me pissed off? I said, oh, whoa, whoa. I said, yeah, what makes you pissed off? She says that this is the first time that I'm hearing about someone doing this. Helping people discover their dreams. And here I am going to community college and going to school trying to figure out what am I there for? And I'm doing good in school, but I just can't realize, I don't realize why I'm there. I'm about to transfer over to UCLA and I'm gonna go there to do more of the same of not knowing where am I going? What am I doing?

I've never heard of you before and she's coming at me pretty hard But I understand where she's coming from because like I said, you know This is where I really started getting pissed off and talking about this But i'm hearing this all the time from adults and young people saying

When are we going to start focusing on us in school? When is education going to be about us and not about what other people think that we should be doing? Why am I taking all these stupid assessments that are taking my personality traits and my characteristics and then telling me what I should do when nobody's asking me to ask them question on who am I and what I should be doing? And why isn't, and by the way, why isn't anyone teaching me who I am or helping me understand who I am? How come I'm doing all this math but I'm not doing anything

Steve Ward

helping me understand who I am. And that long story short and also full circle conversation what also sparked me when I was a youth thinking that same exact thing over 20 some odd years ago, 30 some odd years ago of why aren't we helping people, especially our young people understand who they are. So purpose-driven education is about

helping people understand that before we start talking about even your academics, and before we start talking about a career path, just burns me up that we're so quick to try to push kids into a job or to the freaking school. But before we do any of that, we haven't done the very basics. It's like going from A to Z and starting at D or E, F, G.

where the first thing that we should be doing is helping them understand who they are. And at least if they don't have a clear understanding just yet, you still have to open up the door and give them that opportunity to start discovering it. Because here's the thing, here's the magic, here's what is transformative in that thought process. When students are and young people are starting to understand who they are, they start latching on to characteristics that they didn't know that they had. And when they start latching on to those characteristics,

then start looking at the world from a different lens and trying to figure out what the freaking world needs and then starting to look back inside of themselves to see how they can fit those needs. So just like what we say with invention, the mother of invention is necessity. The mother of freaking living is necessity. And we are humans who have built in within us those abilities to fix and correct things,

engage and disable those mechanisms in people. And so if we don't go back to purpose-driven education, which starts from students doing self exploration before we start doing career exploration, before we start doing all of the other things that is going on that we as adults and adult leaders think that they should know.

Steve Ward

you know, this is where the problem is. So that's what purpose-driven education is. Before I get back to you on this, you know, it was amazing. Yesterday I took my kids to Disneyland and we had a great time and we briefly walked past this parent who...

is at Disneyland with us and their child is on their iPad and I notice they're watching YouTube and I'm thinking to myself how in the hell are you at Disneyland with all of this magic going on around you and you think it's okay to have your child instead of you know absorbing and soaking in this experience they're watching YouTube on a freaking iPad.

That was, to me, just to sum it up, where we are as a society. And that's the lack of purpose-driven education. And it starts very early.

Srini Rao

So one thing I wonder, I'm guessing you have had an opportunity to work with some young kids in this process. What is it like when you talk to a young kid about purpose? Because I kind of wonder what I would have done if you'd asked me about this when I was in sixth or seventh grade, because Indian family, I'd been so conditioned to believe that I'm supposed to go be a doctor, lawyer, engineer. I always jokingly say the Indian parent motivational speeches, you can be any kind of doctor, lawyer, engineer you want to.

Steve Ward

Right.

Srini Rao

When you talk to a young kid about something like purpose, what is that experience like? Like what do they say?

Steve Ward

Oh man, again, I know you're asking this question so I can give information, but I hope anyone listening to this, I hope you are asking people around you too, what's your purpose? What are you on this planet to do?

freaking such a simple question. And when I asked, you know, the youth that I've been exposed to, which in the thousands right now, our software has helped thousands of students discover their purpose. I have helped thousands myself to help young people discover their purpose because I speak and I also do personal sessions one-on-one with youth. I have youth right now that follow me wherever I go. So I feel like sometimes the pie piper, you know, of young people. And what it is,

Shreeni, is when you start asking those type of questions, you open up kids to a world that they didn't know exist, but I'm seeing their eyes light up as if they was in that what we used to call, you know, 15, 20 years ago, toys rust, you know, kid in the toy store, pretty much, with all of these wonderful things around them, and they're seeing a world of things that they can do because of all these wonderful toys. Well, that's the same look in their eyes that they get when I start asking.

What do you think your purpose on this planet is? And they look at it, they look at me and they go towards answering that question as if they've been waiting for someone to ask them this question all along. And finally, somebody cares about me. So there's a whole bunch of emotions that comes from first when I ask that question. Then the second things they go, oh, I never thought of that.

I don't know is the next thing coming out of your mouth. And then they go, well, what is purpose? And then so some of them will try to explain what they think purpose is. But then I give them a definition that they can latch onto. And in our program and our software that we've created, the way that we break down purpose, it's not a religious thing. It's not a philosophical thing. It's a very humanistic, very tangible, humanitarian thing. And it's three verbs, give, show, connect.

Steve Ward

So what do you have to give or show or how can you connect with the world around you in love in return for what you want out of life?

How can you give, show, and connect in love in return for what you want out of your life? When I put it to them that way, everyone latches on to either having something to give, a personality trait to show, or a way of being able to connect. And then being able to take those three verbs, analyze it for themselves, look within what their attributes are, and then pick one, a combination of those, or all three of those, and figure out how to apply it in a way that makes them feel fulfilled.

is it's got so many things wrapped in so many individual adjectives wrapped into that word love. We just sum it up with the word love but in that love there's motivation intrinsic and extrinsic. In that word love is a desire. In that word love is passion. In that word love is sacrifice and so students when they're able to latch on to those three adjectives and they think about that word love and then we do break down love in that way so they can understand then

process and then start thinking about well, okay, so I figured out what I want to do and we call this the internal GPS You know, I discovered what I want to do and then I read I read verse engineered on how I'm gonna get there And I love the process and how I'm gonna get there and I love the people that I'm gonna help once I get there And I love the way that I feel when I do what I do But now I got to have that one last component

which is that, okay, what do I want out of it? And now all of a sudden, when they put all of these three things, these three components together, they've built for themselves a life. And that is worth a billion dollars in itself to see just one kid start to manufacture a life based off of what they believe their purpose is, and then how they're gonna get there, and why they're gonna do it, and the fulfillment that comes with it. And then you mean to tell me that I can actually have a family that I can support?

Steve Ward

on that passion, on that purpose, on that love and do what I wanna do and affect the world the way I wanna affect them. Oh my gosh, you just changed my life. That's how we've been able to change life. That's how I've been able to change life. And it's been given to me as a gift to be able to give to the rest of the world. And if we can just reproduce that process in every one of our youth, this is when we start reversing what that massive problem is that we was talking about earlier.

Srini Rao

Wow, you've really left me speechless. There's just so many gems in here that, I feel like we could do an hour on each section that you talked about. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews with the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Steve Ward

It's an easy question. You being an individual and understanding who you are, that's what makes people unmistakable. I know you could appreciate and you've seen us.

more times than you care to probably even admit to as well. But we live in a world of zombies right now. You know, I think that Hollywood has done an excellent job of entertaining us with what we really look like as a society. We, with exception of the makeup and the paint that makes us look lifeless and like we are the ugliest things ever created out of someone's imagination. We are all those things that a zombie is. With exception of what that final look looks like.

everybody latches on to the gruesomeness of what that looks like. But nobody takes a moment to sit back and think that everything that from conceptually what a zombie is, which is somebody who's walking around with life, without a life, which means they have no purpose, which means that they are all the same, almost like they've been cloned and they act like everything else around them. They've taken hold of the environment

of the environment so you can't tell them apart. So we'll run from all zombies but we won't sit there and look at individual zombies and go well you know this one's kind of cute or this one actually has some other abilities maybe I'll just chain them up and make them you know do this for me or do that for me. You know we don't look at things like that we see everything as the same. We see all the zombies as the same and that's how you and I and people on this podcast I hope we'll start looking at the world is that we are a world full of zombies and we don't have such

of differentiating people. And I don't care how creative people can get or what things people can get into that helps them sustain themselves financially. If we as humans aren't doing what we need to do to really maximize while we're on this planet and we're not doing those things, give, show, and connecting and love in return for what we want out of life and just in that order, it's hard to be unmistakable. And so I feel what I see as unmistakable now is the people that I'm constantly around discovered or who were in the process of discovering their purpose and they're living this life and the journey that comes along with it and that transcends you know our entertainers that transcends a lot of the things that we see and emulate. Who are you?

as an individual and what are you doing to make sure that when you close your eyes for the last time that you've made this world a better place than what you left it and not only do you think that but the people around you think that and will say that at your funeral. That's what it means to me.

Srini Rao

Amazing. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your work and everything that you're up to?

Steve Ward

And thank you for asking. Dreamcatcherprogram.com.

is the website. You can go and see our software that we call Dreamcatcher. And then I would love for people to respond to me both positively and I don't ever look at it negatively. I hope I do get some hate mail on this. You can reach me directly at steve at dreamcatcherprogram.com. You know, because I love always to get engaged in conversation about these deep things that are affecting our society. I have nothing against people that are capitalists and I'm

Steve Ward

thing is a problem. So please reach out to me in either form. You can find me on the website or you can find me at steve at dreamcatcherprogram.com. Thank you guys for this opportunity.

Srini Rao

Where  can people find out more about you and your work?

Steve Ward

So you can reach me at steve at dreamcatcher program or you can also Connect through our website which is dreamcatcherprogram.com And again that steve at dreamcatcherprogram.com or you can go to our website at dreamcatcherprogram.com

Srini Rao

Amazing and for everybody listening we will wrap the show with that