Tim Vaughan, Executive Director of The Trade, and Will Laughlin, CEO of The Trade and Mountain Valley Treatment Center, appear on the Fear Less podcast. Together, they discuss The Trade, a new work-life preparatory program for young adults (ages 18–30) who feel stuck, disconnected, or unsure about their next steps. Drawing from decades of experience in education, mental health, and mentoring, Tim and Will explain how The Trade provides meaningful work, mentorship, and a supportive community—all on a 2,000-acre mountain campus in New Hampshire.

Young adulthood is marked by the furious development of the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for higher order thinking and feeling—including lofty existential concepts such as personal meaning.   

For many, this sudden hunger for meaning only highlights its absence. It is not unusual for young people, especially the most sensitive and perceptive among them, to experience this existential appetite as a painful unsatisfied hunger. As lostness. As boredom. As anxiety. As loneliness or, even, depression. It’s what the French existentialists called “ennui”, and the psychologist Viktor Frankl called “man’s search for meaning.”