Young people are constantly asked what they plan to do next. Andrew Bryan thinks they may need more space to figure out who they are first.
Bryan, founder of Trek Epic and co-founder of Emerge Educational Consulting, has spent decades working with students and families. Through that experience, he noticed two recurring problems: some young adults struggled to make decisions, while others followed every expected step but could not explain why they were doing it.
Trek Epic grew from that observation.
The organization takes small groups on roughly 10-day walking experiences, often through European destinations including England, Wales, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Participants walk between towns and villages while engaging in guided reflection and personal development.
The walking is intentional.
Unlike a road trip or even a cycling journey, walking slows the experience down. Participants leave familiar environments, spend extended time with a small group and have room to consider questions that can easily disappear beneath school, work and daily routines.
At the center of Trek Epic’s approach is a deceptively simple idea: every person has a core gift.
For younger participants, Bryan sometimes describes it as a “superpower.” The objective is to identify personal values, characteristics and principles before asking how those qualities might contribute to the wider world.
That contribution does not have to fit a traditional definition of service or leadership. One person may want to help individuals directly. Another may care deeply about animals, ecosystems or climate. The important question is how someone’s interests and abilities can become meaningful engagement.
Bryan believes this process is especially relevant as young adults face a growing number of possible paths.
The traditional formula of graduating high school, attending college for four years and immediately beginning a linear career does not reflect many people’s actual lives. Students delay college, transfer, work, take gap years, enter the military or return to education later.
Meanwhile, technology and artificial intelligence are creating career possibilities that have not yet been fully defined.
Bryan compares today’s landscape to Robert Frost’s famous image of two diverging roads. The problem, he says, is that young adults no longer face only two roads. They are looking at a vast, multidimensional matrix of opportunities.
That abundance can be empowering. It can also make decisions harder.
His answer is not to predict every future job. It is to help people better understand themselves so they can make quality decisions amid uncertainty.
Bryan also believes adults sometimes make the process more difficult by reacting too aggressively to a young person’s emerging interests. A teenager says they enjoy basketball, and adults immediately start talking about camps, teams and professional possibilities.
Sometimes, Bryan says, the better response is simply putting a basketball hoop on the garage.
The same principle applies to difficult conversations. Parents often expect teenagers to process a serious question immediately. Bryan recommends asking the question and giving them a day or two before returning to the discussion.
Space matters.
So does experience. Bryan argues that education has become heavily focused on assessments and data while often undervaluing what happens outside the classroom. Job shadows, internships, outdoor education and exposure to unfamiliar environments can reveal abilities that standardized measurements miss.
Leadership can emerge from those experiences as well.
Bryan does not see leadership as a quality reserved for a select group. When people understand themselves, recognize what they can contribute and begin working with others to navigate uncertainty, they are already practicing leadership.
That may be particularly important for Gen Z and the generations following it.
The future is unlikely to become less complicated. Artificial intelligence, economic shifts and changing career structures will continue expanding the number of choices people face.
Bryan’s work suggests that preparing young leaders for that future may require something surprisingly old-fashioned: time, mentors, honest conversation and occasionally a very long walk.
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