Justin Pickens grew up in rural southern Missouri, the son of two parents who both dropped out of school in the 10th grade. His father spent time in the Missouri State Penitentiary, twice. Still, growing up, Justin was told over and over that education was his ticket out, his one real shot at a different life. He believed it.

He credits the teachers and coaches who shaped him along the way. But looking back, he's come to realize something: those teachers and coaches were shaped themselves, by the professors who trained them, pushed them, and modeled what it meant to teach with intention long before they ever stood in front of a classroom of their own.

Justin never set out to teach every grade level from kindergarten through high school, but that's exactly what happened over his 16-year career: two years in high school, eleven in middle school, three in elementary PE. He became an award-winning teacher. Then, at one point, he walked away from the profession entirely. When he came back, he understood something he hadn't before: this wasn't just a job he kept returning to. It was his calling, to be the kind of educator who leaves ripple effects long after a student has left his classroom.

Justin's message comes down to one line he's known for: the extra-mile educator isn't always someone with extra time. They're someone with extra intentionality. In this keynote, he shares that belief with the professors and faculty who train Missouri's next generation of teachers, the people responsible, in a very real sense, for training the trainers. Drawing on frameworks from his book The Lottery Ticket Teacher, including the Pre-Decide Protocol, the Do For One principle, and the Content to Competence to Confidence arc, he makes the case that the intentionality modeled in a college classroom doesn't stay there. It travels. It shows up years later in a first-grade classroom, a middle school locker room, in a struggling teenager's life, carried by a teacher who learned it from someone who believed education could be a ticket out, because someone once believed that for them too.