How a Degree Free Life Leads to More Freedom and Why Your Child’s Personality Shouldn’t Decide Their Career (DF#166)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Something you and I talk about a lot, but you can always go back to college. The college is always going to be there. They will always take your money. Your child does not have to buy a degree right out of the gate. And in fact, I don't think that anyone should I'm to the point now where I even think if you're sure you want to be a heart surgeon, you should still be waiting until you're 25 until your brain is fully formed to do that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:16]:
Aloha folks in this episode of degree free podcasts. After we tell you about our amazing studio upgrade of our chairs, we get into one of the most frequently asked questions that we get all the time, which is my child is blank. How do I find them a job that is in blank? For this week, we talk about my child is creative and how do I find them a job in a creative field? And we talk about why that's the wrong question to ask and how you can start asking the right questions to get there.

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:54]:
Ryan also makes a correction of himself 2 years ago about believing that it's actually harder to be degree free than it is to buy a college degree. We talk about the pros and the strengths of the degree free way. And then we also talk about what we learned from Zach at the post office processing center and some information that we did not know about how the mail works.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:18]:
Yeah. I think that this episode is going to be a banger. When we recorded it, I thought that this was really good except for the drooling on at the end about the postal service. But if you're a nerd like us, you're gonna definitely want to listen to the end and I hope you enjoy it. Aloha folks. Welcome back to degree free. I'm Ryan. She's Hannah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:42]:
We are feeling great today because we had a very noticeable change in our studio situation and you can't see it on the video or probably hear it in the audio at all, but it has been a major quality of life improvement for the both of us. We had these Walmart chairs that I think it costs us like $40 each per chair. When we first moved away from Hawaii to Texas. And we just didn't have a lot of furniture. We also didn't have a lot of money.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:19]:
We still don't have a lot of furniture to be clear.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:22]:
Yeah. And so we bought what we could afford and they were like $40 Walmart chairs that were literally the most uncomfortable.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:31]:
I feel like they have caused health issues because due to the level of discomfort,

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:36]:
you guys at home, you guys can't see it or hear it. Cause we edited a lot of it out, but a lot of times Hannah is this like fidgeting in her chair or she slumped over.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:47]:
I look like there's something wrong with me. And there was, it was a $40 Walmart chair. You guys, I swear I can sit up straight.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:53]:
Yeah. It is literally the most uncomfortable chair, but we tough through for like 3 years on those chairs because we just couldn't afford or we didn't want to spend whatever. I didn't. I'm so tiny.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:04]:
I am.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:05]:
And that's like not a racist thing, but

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:06]:
like, I have

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:08]:
Chinese. I was like, no, no, it's fine. I mean, like, I mean, how often are we really in the studio anyway? Like, I don't even get it. No,

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:16]:
I can't sit in these chairs.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:17]:
Okay. Maximum

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:18]:
like 10 hours a week.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:20]:
Let's just say that we record once or twice a week and maximum we're in there for an hour and a half.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:25]:
Just sit in it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:26]:
Just sit in it. Like, well, I don't understand. And finally, I came.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:31]:
Saner heads have prevailed. Totally.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:33]:
And it was a big unlock for the both of us that we realized we didn't have to get the same chair.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:40]:
We actually are totally 2 separate individuals and we do not have to sit in the same chair. And I am so smug right now, all the smudginess for how comfortable this chair is. It has lumbar support.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:52]:
Yeah, it is a marked improvement.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:55]:
Like look how straight I'm sitting up.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:57]:
In the way that we feel. And I think the quality of the episodes that are going to be coming out of this studio now, but anyway, we are very excited to be back. I think we got a banger this week. I'm pretty sure I wanted to start with, it comes up a lot actually, and it comes up in different forms. A lot of times parents will say my child is blank. What can they do? Hey there. I hope that you're loving this episode of the degree free podcast. We spend a ton of time every week creating this content for you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:29]:
So my only ask is you take a quick second to leave a review or thumbs up on whatever platform you're on. It's one of the best and easiest ways that you can support this podcast, and this simple action can help bring more people into the degree free community. At degree free, we wanna help as many people as we can thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. Your review will be a step in that direction. If you could do this small favor right now, pause this and leave a review. It would truly mean the world to us. Thank you, and back to the show. In this form, we were packing books on a live and one of the people who jumped in and asked some questions.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:05]:
And one of the questions was my child is creative. What can they do?

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:10]:
And this is something that comes up constantly and it's this way because of the way that we frame and add value to things in the US school system, because we want, oh, my child's creative. They're unique. They're different. And all children are, everybody is like that. However, we need to take this all the way back because what parents really want there is they're looking for, oh, here's this unique artistic career that your child can have and should have because they are creative and they need to go all the way back to 0, which is it doesn't really matter your child's characteristics. It doesn't. Not yet. You can get there, but you don't start with characteristics and personality at 17 18 years old and pick careers based on that because that is crazy town.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:53]:
Instead, you go all the way back to 0 and you go back to what kind of life do they need? What kind of life do they want to live? What do they need in order to get that life and have the life that they want? So you have to take it all the way back to your degree free for, and what those are, are your income needs, your schedule needs, your location needs, and your work environment needs. And they don't necessarily have to be in that order. The main thing that we're looking for here is what does your child need? How much money do they need to make? What sort of schedule do they need to have? What sort of income do they need to make? What sort of work environment do they need to have? And what location do they need to live in? Usually you and I say that you should really only have one need and the rest should be once, but let's say your child has needs for all 4 of them because they have certain constraints. But the main thing is that you need to sit down with your child and figure out what they need from their work so that they can choose a work type or a job type based on their needs, not based on their personality type, because there is little to no guarantee that their needs will be met by basing their work and career choice on their personality or on a characteristic like creativity, which lots of people have and can be applied in any job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:05]:
Yeah, exactly. We've talked about it many, many times in this podcast, but it is choosing careers and jobs and career paths. This way is what I believe leads to career dissatisfaction, which leads to life dissatisfaction at the end, which is I'm a creative, I'm going to go create. I'm an artist. I'm going to go art. Well, one, what does that mean? And then you realize that when you get into the artist portion of it and you start working, you start making money or do you start not making money, whatever it is, you're gonna be like, man, this doesn't provide the income that I want. This doesn't provide the lifestyle that I want. This doesn't provide whatever it is that you didn't identify because you didn't identify your goals.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:47]:
1st, ideally, it is one thing and I'll tell everybody the best way that this can look is just having one need. And it's just something super basic, like the amount of money. And it's usually for most people that we work with it's money because you need a certain amount of income to live. And so if it's $60,000 a year, perfect. Awesome. There's a lot of jobs out there that can pay $60,000 a year. Now, if you start adding a whole bunch of other. Essential must have, and I'm using that in air quotes for those that aren't watching YouTube.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:24]:
Like I need to work 4 days a week, or I need to be able to only work when I have the inspiration for music. When I have the inspiration for art, that must be in my work. Talking about like work environment. I need to not be able to talk to people. I need to never talk to a soul ever. And now you're looking, okay, well, $60,000 is your income needs. And then your schedule, you need to be able to only work when you want to work. When you have the muse, when the muse is there, and then you need to never talk to anybody.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:00]:
Now you put all 3 of those together. That is an incredibly hard job to find now. And so the more needs you have, the less likely you are to find a career path that fits those needs.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:13]:
I have such a good story about this. There is a young lady in the launch program who was in college to become a veterinarian because she likes animals. And then having realized, wait a minute, I'm actually not enjoying this. And I'm thinking about the realistic implications of how long I'm going to have to be in school and how the demands on my time are really going to not allow me to do what I want. This is her words. When we sat down for her interest inventory, she said, you know, I really just like a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. I like to have my weekends off my holidays off and I want to be able to get off work and go hang out with my friends and family. She has a very reasonable salary expectation.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:48]:
She has very reasonable goals. And she said, I really just want some cats. I really just want 2 cats. And that satisfies her desire to have animals. She really just wants pets. She doesn't want to be a veterinarian. She wants to have a very calm schedule. She wants to make $60,000 a year, and she wants to have a reasonable 9 to 5 job that allows her to live a life where she has time to do what she wants.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:12]:
And for her, that is a Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. And so those goals are so different from my child likes animals. What can they do? And that's what happened to her, which is go be a veterinarian because you like animals. And she really does. But now with the schedule she has with the responsible savings, she'll be able to have, she can volunteer at the animal shelter if she wants to. She can start a business as a groomer if she chose to, or she can just stay at home with her cats and then go out to dinner with her family because she has the type of lifestyle that she wants because she has the income that she wants to save responsibly and achieve financial goals she has. She has the schedule that allows her to feel relaxed and calm and balanced and healthy. She lives where she wants to live, which is near family and friends.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:53]:
And then she even works in the work environment she wants to, which is a calm place where she does work with other people, but she has regular hours. And that type of life, her outcome now is going to be so much better because she thought those things through and she's only 19. So choosing her work, if my child likes animals. Okay. Now they have to go into an animal job is crazy. Instead, you dial it all the way back down and you go back down to your degree free 4 and and you figure out what your child needs. And that's how you pick, especially their first job. This is something you and I talk about a lot, but you can always go back to college.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:23]:
The college is always going to be there. They will always take your money. Your child does not have to buy a degree right out of the gate. And in fact, I don't think that anyone should I'm to the point now where I even think if you're sure you want to be a heart surgeon, you should still be waiting until you're 25 until your brain is fully formed to do that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:37]:
So one of the things in the degree free way, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want. We go over all of this. We call it needs versus wants in this section. I think we're gonna be changing this framework to the degree free 4. We're kind of workshopping it right now. Those 4 things you definitely need to hammer down, but in the needs versus wants section of the degree free way, for all of those that haven't purchased it yet, you can go to degreefree.clforward/book and you can pick it up there in the needs versus wants after those four aspects, money, work schedule, work environment, location. After those 4, there is a 5th thing that we say is optional and we give major warnings about putting needs in it. And that is the type of work or industry.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:27]:
And that is the reason why is because if you say, okay, I wanna be a heart surgeon, well, now you are completely 100%. You've chosen your industry. You've chosen the profession and you are boxed in to what only the heart surgeons can do and their lifestyle, their pay scale, everything you're locked in. And in the same vein, when you say my child's creative, what can they do? You're choosing their industry first, and you're choosing the type of work that they should go after first, which is completely limiting. And so instead, you put some other constraints around the problem first, like their income, their location, their schedule, like their work environment. You put those constraints into the problem first, and then you can see they need $60,000 and they want remote work. In the degree free way, like I said, we call it needs versus wants. And so you make a list of all of everything that you need.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:23]:
And if their job that they're looking at doesn't have that need, they don't pursue that job. Awesome. $60,000 remote work. Now I want to do some sort of graphic design work. Easy. You can go in graphic design or anything that touches graphic design, but now that you've had those two constraints, it is much more helpful.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:46]:
Yeah. Now you're not just going, okay, well, I want to go into something artistic. Let me go be a muralist because that's all you can think of. And now you're constrained by the income that muralists make and where they can work. So instead you basically just flip the entire process on its head. Don't do it the way that we do it now because it doesn't have a good result. And like you said, it results in people not being satisfied with their lives, feeling very trapped by the work that they're in and having spent a ton of time and money in order to be trapped in work that no longer fits the things that they need.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:14]:
Yeah. And I think the main takeaway there is a lot of people when they hear what we say, don't be an artist or whatever. I mean, we don't say that, but sure. That's what they hear. And they're like, well, you can be an artist for work and all you're telling us is that they have to go and be an artist on their free time and they have to have a soul sucking job in the day time to then go do art, which is what they want to do or whatever creativity they do, photography, music, production, whatever it is, then they can only do that on their off time. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that they need to figure out their needs first. And one of the worst ways that they could figure out their needs is by putting their industry first.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:00]:
That is the worst way to do it because you are just trapped. You are absolutely trapped.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:06]:
If they only need to make $25,000 a year, and then they need to be an artist. Well, wow. It's much easier. Now they have to slam their expenses through the floor in order to do that. If they only need $25,000 a year, and then they need to work in some sort of art or do their art, then it becomes much simpler because now they just need to make $25,000 a year as their 1st entry level job, getting experience in their art or being self employed. And that becomes much easier, but you have to start with what they need first, because if they need a $100,000 a year, because you live in San Francisco and they can't pay rent otherwise, and they need to be an artist. Well, now those two things are fundamentally opposing forces and they can't be both of those things at the same time easily, right. As they graduate high school.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:48]:
And then downstream from that, buying them a college degree to be an artist is kicking the can down the road of those eventual consequences. Anyway, it's not actually going to help them. It's actively going to hurt them from being able to pursue their art because they need to shrink their expenses down. And in fact, buying degrees at that point too, just kicks the can further down the road and makes it more difficult for them to slam their needs down as far as income and location. Because a lot of times now they got to make a certain amount of money because they have to pay their student loans. And then oftentimes now they're constrained by location as well. Cause they have to go somewhere where the income is high enough, but then their cost of living is also high. It's just a domino effect of how people end up trapped and feeling like they can't go anywhere in their late twenties, early thirties, and they just go, I'm not happy here.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:30]:
And it's the downstream effect of all these choices that they make early on in the wrong way. Cause they haven't thought about their degree free 4.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:37]:
So if you want to be guided through this process where you talk through your young adult needs and wants, you can get your copy of the degree freeway@degreefree.com/book.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:51]:
Recently, I made a video talking about the degree freeway and about the needs and wants section of the book where I said, parents need to talk through these things with their children, especially when they're 16 to 20 years old, because there's going to be a lot of pivotal life decisions that get made during that time. And I think probably about 10 times, I got a version of this comment from people saying, well, this is really useless because no teenagers know the answers to these questions. And all that did for me was make an extreme case and showcase the reason why buying a degree. If you can't answer those questions, buying a degree at that age is patently insane because you cannot get out of the loans you're going to take out to buy it. And if you can't answer the questions of what you need and want from your work, other than industry, you shouldn't be buying a college degree in those things at that age. I just think there is probably no better case for that because the equivalent thing I think, and these people were just saying for their own children, well, they can't answer those questions. So buying a degree is the best thing. That's crazy because it's kind of like saying, I'm taking my child to test drive cars, but they've never driven a car before.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:53]:
And actually they don't really need to test drive any cars. I'm just going to co sign a loan on a Ferrari for them because they don't know what kind of car they want to drive. They don't know if they want stick shift. They don't know if they want 4 seats. They don't know if they want an SUV or a minivan or a used car or a leased car. They don't know because of that. We're just going to co sign the most expensive car that we can find because that's essentially what they're saying, because they don't know what kind of car they want to drive. We should just buy them whatever car they think is cool.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:20]:
Maybe even though they've never driven that car before. That's basically what's going

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:23]:
on. What brings to mind for me, if your young adult doesn't know any of the answers to this question, then they need to start thinking about the answers to this question. It's as simple as that. I mean, when they leave your house, eventually this book is meant for 16 to 20 year olds. If they're in the 16, 17 range, they're still within your household probably, but eventually in a year, in 2 years, they're going to be out on their own. And maybe you're not going to force them out of the house or anything like that, but eventually don't you want them out? Obviously they're your children and you love them, but exactly what you said. For their own sake, you want them to be on their own. A big portion of being on their own is figuring out all of this stuff.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:05]:
So if you're a young adult doesn't know any of the answers to this question, then you need to know the answers to this question more than anybody else.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:12]:
Yeah. Help them out.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:13]:
I'm just saying, if you don't know the answer to this question, your young adult needs to know the answers questions.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:17]:
Or at least think about it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:18]:
Exactly. And they need to be asked them if they don't already know the answers to these questions, then they need to be asked these questions so that they can answer them so that they can start thinking about them because these are the questions that you're going to have to deal with in real life. Every people that aren't under the parents' wing, they have to deal with these questions and they're soon going to be out of the house and independent. And to do that, you have to answer these questions.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:43]:
There's no wrong answers to these questions either. And there's no shame if your child doesn't know the answers, but you should still ask these questions. Someone should. And I believe it should be parents that ask these questions because someone needs to prompt them to think over these things. It's okay if they don't know the answers, but at least get the wheels turning so they can kind of just think about, you know what? What do I want? What do I need from the work that I'm going to do?

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:07]:
The argument then is okay, well, they don't know, or the answers that they give now are going to be different than the answers in 5 to 10 years. They're going to be different than the answers a year from now. They're going to be different than the answers 2 years from now. They're going to be different than the answers tomorrow, whatever it is. Okay. Sure. Absolutely. Or maybe, I don't know.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:30]:
You might be right. That doesn't matter. They should still have answers. Some sort of goal is better than no goal at all. That's not always true. What I mean by that is if you want to run a marathon, you probably shouldn't have a goal to sit down and veg out on the couch for 3 days straight. That shouldn't be your goal because your goal is literally opposite. Yeah, exactly.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:53]:
But some goal in these essential things that you need to have goals for the biggest one is income. Like that's the biggest one.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:00]:
If you got to pay your bills,

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:01]:
it affects all of us unless you are super wealthy and that you're able to provide for them. And you're going to do that for the rest of your life then. Okay. And if any, if you are super wealthy and you are going to provide for them for the rest of your life, you're not listening to this podcast.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:14]:
They're fine. You don't have these problems because these are the problems of people who need to earn enough to pay for their life.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:20]:
But if you're regular people like you and I are well then, then you're not going to be able to do that for them. They need to figure this stuff out and having some sort of goal about these essential things that need goals is better than not having any at all.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:36]:
And what's so crazy is that was another comment that said, well, these things are definitely going to change. And I said, yes, they are going to change again. I can't think of a better argument for why buying them a college degree is not a good idea if those things are going to change, because that's insane. Again, why would the choice then be, let me make this irreversible purchase that they're going to be paying for the next 30 years. If you know, and just admitted those answers are not going to be the same. And the cognitive dissidents to not see that and not understand, Hey, I'm telling you be very careful with this bankruptcy exempt purchase, ask your children what they need from work and then say, well, their answers are going to change. Okay. So don't sign any loans.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:18]:
I don't understand.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:19]:
I just think that they should have answers to the questions and I'm not necessarily talking about college at all. I just think that they need to have answers to these essential questions.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:27]:
Yeah. I agree. I could not agree more. Just blank period. Yes, absolutely.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:30]:
They need to answer these questions. And then the college thing, I agree with what you're saying down the road after they answer these questions. Like if they don't know the answer to these questions, then you shouldn't buy a college degree a 100%, but they should answer these questions.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:42]:
Yes. Period. A 100%. So that brings us to, I believe I have beat this horse to death. This is just something that has happened over the last few days where I just keep going. I can't believe these comments. But anyway, we've definitely addressed that. If your child is insert characteristic here, figure out what they need from their work.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:56]:
Those four criteria, schedule, income, location, and work environment. Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:00]:
If you guys want to ask a specific question about your child, you can go to ask. Degreefree.co. We're going to be start answering questions on the podcast. When you go there, you're going to have to record a video of yourself asking the questions so that we can see your face 1, but then also so that we can do what I'm about to do right now on the podcast, which is we're going to play it on the podcast. But I'm telling you right now, if you ask a question, my child wants to get into zoology, How can my child get into zoology? And we're going to tell you to back all the way up and be like, does, do they really need to be in zoology first? That's the number one thing that we're going to ask you. And that's what we're going to back up to like a 100% all the time. That's what we're going to say. And for 99.9% of parents, pretty much a 100%.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:46]:
They haven't done these types of exercises. They haven't thought about their needs and wants. They haven't thought about the income that they need to live. They haven't thought about the work schedule. They haven't thought about the location. They haven't thought about the work environment. They haven't put in those reps. I'm not saying they should have or anything like that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:03]:
I'm just saying like

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:04]:
no one told them to

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:05]:
exactly. It's not your job or anything like that, which is why we created this book so that you can help guide them up along that path, making these decisions. Now, you know, you do end up at zoology again, like, okay, that's fine. And then now you can figure out how to get there. But if you don't do all of those steps to get there, you did it wrong. And so what I was talking about playing clips here is I'm going to play a clip of me. I saw this clip and the team put this clip together and they posted it pretty recently, maybe a month or so ago, maybe a little bit more than that. It was of me years ago when we first started this podcast.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:43]:
And I am saying a whole bunch of things. I'll just play the clip now. The life that you're choosing by not going to college is not gonna be easier. It's going to be much harder, but at least you get to direct your life. At least you can put in the work where you wanna put in the work. You can spend your money and your time where you think that you should spend your money and your time. You can direct your own quote, unquote education.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:13]:
You are just loving the flashbacks. Now that you've realized you can play yourself on your own podcast. It is like a monster has been unleashed. He's like, I have a clip of me from like 2 years ago. Let's roll the clip.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:29]:
Well, if you've noticed the last time that I did it and this time that I did it, I am only playing clips where I'm saying something erroneous, like just literally wrong or I'm correcting myself.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:44]:
It's picture and picture react videos. You're like, let me just react to this clip of myself so I can take a contrarian opinion to myself in the past.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:54]:
So I agree with most of the things that I said there at the end, especially, but I disagree with the first part, which is being degree free is going to be a lot harder. And I remember I was having a conversation with somebody before and it was after I had said that. And it was about a year and a half into us doing degree free. Cause I was like at the very beginning. I'll tell you exactly the episode. That episode is episode 22, how to tell your family you're not going to college. That's within the first 6 months of us doing this podcast. I will link it in the show notes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:30]:
Let's just say how I link everything else. So we talk about degreefree.coforward/podcast. So you can watch that whole episode and I'll link the clip as well for our TikTok. So in the beginning, I obviously thought that it was harder to be degree free. What do I mean by harder? And this is just me thinking back. I must have thought by these young adults not getting college degrees, that companies on the other end are going to say, no, I'm not going to hire you guys. You need to pay the Piper to pass. You need to pay the Piper to get over this line for me to even consider you so on and so forth.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:05]:
And that's what I meant by life is going to be harder because you're going to have to get turned down a lot more. And I just don't think that that's true anymore. Not only do I not think obviously we've talked about that a lot. Like the trends is actually the opposite way now.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:24]:
It has been for the last 10 years. People don't realize that this started in 2014. This is not actually recent.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:29]:
They don't care. Companies at large, we've talked about it many times before. Obviously, people listening to this are gonna say, well, my company cares, whatever. Your company is a very small portion, whichever company that you're saying that about.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:43]:
Let's assume that it's true. Sure. They don't hire anybody this degree for sure. And you absolutely positively have asked everybody, you know, for sure.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:50]:
Which is probably wrong too, but let's just say that you're right. Your company represents a very small fraction of the amount of jobs that are available in the US job market. And a lot of the companies that actually do make up the majority of the US job market, we're talking the biggest companies in the world. Those companies don't care. And so if those companies don't care, that is the majority.

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:14]:
Yep. And whatever your company does, doesn't matter.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:16]:
Exactly. And for those people who it's directly affecting that doesn't have a college screen, like, well, these companies won't hire. And we talked about this recently on a podcast episode. You know, it is very similar to somebody saying I only hire a 120 pound people. And it's just like, just go to another company that doesn't care about your body weight. Go somewhere that hires people that are all body weights. It's fine.

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:42]:
Whenever we talk about this too, I've noticed that the clips, when they get put on YouTube or TikTok, a lot of people just say, well, I've always gotten eliminated from my bachelor's degree, but I realized that a lot of people, they don't get jobs and they think that that's why, but they actually have no idea what the reason is that they didn't get the job. They think it's because they didn't have a degree on their resume. That's what they think, but they actually don't know that. It's not like you get the rejection reason a lot of the time you just get a rejection period. So they're actually attributing them not getting jobs to the fact that their degree for you. And in fact, it could be a variety of other factors, but they just assume that's the reason because we've been sold that that is the criteria to get hired when it is not. And so people are going, well, yeah, but I've gotten turned down from so many jobs because of a degree. And that's not actually why.

Ryan Maruyama [00:29:26]:
Then there are the vocal minority that actually have been told that small cohort of people, because they have been told, and that was their life experience. They're able to say, I was told this, I was told that because I don't have a degree. That's why I didn't get the job directly to my face. And because they were told that they can say that and they can be represented, they can be misrepresented as a larger portion that actually exists when the majority of people, they just don't get calls back and the people that don't get calls back. They're not going to say, well, I just don't get calls back. They're just. Be silent. And then you look at the people that are loud and you think in your mind that, oh, wow, that's a lot of people, but really it's like one out of a 1000 people and there's the 999 other people that are just remaining silent.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:13]:
It's like the layoffs on LinkedIn, whereas it's really loud of, Oh no, the tech layoffs, but it was almost all HR people that got laid off and they were extremely loud on LinkedIn because they're overrepresented because they literally do their job on LinkedIn by posting and being present on LinkedIn. So when they got laid off, everybody knew about it. It's very similar to that actually.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:31]:
So there's that aspect of like, why I thought it was harder, which is companies didn't hire degree free people. And I thought it was possible for degree free people to get work. It was just going to be a lot harder. You're going to have to do a bunch of other things and everything like that. I actually think it's pretty much flipped now. My opinion has pretty much flipped in saying for the vast majority of things, like, assuming that you don't legally need a degree to get a license to get whatever job that you're thinking about, And we go through the legal requirement breakdown in the degree freeway, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want. We go through that at the very end. Once you have your young adults degree free 3, it's 3 jobs that fit their needs and work for them, the 3 job options that fit their needs, then you go through and do the legal requirement breakdown, and you figure out whether or not you have to buy a college degree or not.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:21]:
For all of those that go through the legal requirement breakdown, Well, this career path doesn't actually legally require degrees. Then I'm just going to go a degree free route to get there. I actually think that's much easier than going the college route. And the reason why is because the college route, you are spending 4 years of your time and effort and money into doing this thing that isn't doing the job that isn't actively going to help you get work in that field. So for 2 years, you're taking gen ed courses, doing whatever, and then you're also paying the money to do that, spending the time where for those 2 years of gen ed, you could have done entry level work in whatever field that is, or you could have been building your portfolio to then get entry level work. So that's still 2 years in. Even if you're not, like, let's just say marketing or something like that, that absolutely does not need a degree. For those 1st 2 years, let's say that you can't find a marketing associate job anywhere.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:24]:
That's fine. You could work fast food or whatever entry level job. You can be a stocker at Walmart or at your local retail store getting paid $15 an hour, $10 an hour, whatever it is. And you can be working towards building your portfolio to then get into one of those roles. And that's for the 1st 2 years. Now you're arguing and say, okay, well, the last 2 years in your marketing program or whatever it is, is that's where you really learn everything that you need to learn so that you can go and get one of these roles. Well, then by that time, the other per the degree fee person who has been building their portfolio for the past 2 years, if you've been doing it for 2 years, you are going to get an entry level role somewhere. Somebody is gonna give you a chance 100%.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:10]:
Let's say that they don't. Now you keep building your portfolio for another 2 years. And then at the end of 4 years, now you have 4 years of work that you've been doing. And 4 years of experience after 4 years, somebody is going to give you an entry level role. Whereas now, if you look at the college person, that person isn't even out of college yet. They still have a year and a half because on average it takes 5 and a half years to complete a 4 year degree. But let's just say that they do now, you guys are quote in the same place. And this is the false dichotomy that I've talked about before.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:47]:
And I link the episode where I go in-depth in it, but I'm going to talk about it right here too. Whereas there's this false dichotomy that we've heard our entire lives. I know that I've heard it my entire life. You say, okay, who would you rather hire all everything else being equal? Well, let's look at this resume and let's look at this resume. Everything's the same, except this one has a college degree and this one doesn't, Which one would you rather hire? And in that situation, I don't know. I guess I'd hired the person with a college degree, I guess. I don't know. And that right there has sold more college degrees than almost any other tactic ever.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:25]:
All the marketing things that they do, like, that simple brain exercise is just like, yeah. I guess so. You're not questioning the actual mental framework. You're not questioning the mental model. You're just in the mental model and you're just like, yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, we're we're going to choose a person with a college degree. I want to be that person. Right.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:41]:
So I should go spend 5 and a half years and a hundred grand and go and do that. But in this scenario, I just pointed out to you where your young adult, your child has 4 years of experience and this person was in college, not getting experience, not doing the actual thing. In what world are those 2 resumes the same? They are not. And that is where it is a false dichotomy. And And then that's what I'm saying. Like for degree free people, for the people that listen to this podcast, that believe in the things that we believe in, that think that you can teach yourself, that you can learn things and that you can gain experience. Those 2 resumes are not the same. They're going to hire you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:19]:
They're going to hire the person with experience.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:21]:
This is the thing that I wanna drive this home so clearly. You have 2 pieces of paper. You have 2 resumes. And what this looks like in real life is not they're equal, and you're gonna pick the one with the college degree. No. What you're going to get is you're going to get somebody who has been working since they were 16, is now 20 years old. Let's say they started working at Walmart or Home Depot when they were 16, and now they have 4 years of actual work experience. They have 2 years of full time experience, and they're a shift lead at Walmart or at Home Depot.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:50]:
Let's just say stocking shelves. And this one over here has been in college for 4 years has literally no work experience, has no clocking in of any kind. This person or your Home Depot, Walmart stocking lead, this is the one I'm going to hire every single time. And if realistically speaking, if people think about that, they know that this is the one employers are going to hire too, because this is less risk. Employers are all about churn. They're all about low risk. When I get kids in the launch program, and I get a young adult who is, let's say 20 years old and has been working, they're always surprised too. And they'll tell me they've worked at McDonald's, they've worked at Walmart, they've worked at Home Depot, they've worked at AGB, and they've been there for 4 years.

Hannah Maruyama [00:36:29]:
And I'm like, oh, you've been working for 4 years, sometimes four and a half by the time I get them. And they say, yeah. And I'm like, that's amazing. I don't think you understand that you've started, you have 4 years of continuous work experience. And then I get a 20 year old who has never had a job. And this one with a Google Analytics certification job hired immediately. This one, I don't know. Cause they're not going to have any skills.

Hannah Maruyama [00:36:53]:
It's going to take them much longer to get any proof to show an employer that they're not a risky hire, that they're not immediately going to leave because also college graduates, they just surveyed 800 employers. And those employers said that one of the reasons they're actively not hiring college graduates right now, when they're looking at these side by side resumes is this one with actual work experience is not going to turn over, which you and I know. This one, 40% of employers said that they're actively not hiring college graduates because they haven't planted salary expectations and they can't look them in the eye. This one, your home Depot lead hired immediately. And that's, what's actually happening in the job market. That's what's actually happening in real life. And that's why, like you said, that dichotomy in real life does not play out like that. It plays out like I just showed you, which is you hire the one with work experience.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:38]:
There are a few other things other than that, that I wanted to talk about too. And I want to talk about how degree free is easier than actually going to get a college degree. How like your life is going to be easier. The first one really is simple, and it is less debt, more money. So for, like, a lot of people, the debt doesn't matter for some strange odd reason. A lot of people are just, like, it's monopoly money or whatever, and it's not actually your life and it's not actually your child's life and which is wild to me, but, okay, that's fine. It's not here. If you go into the student debt, I borrow money now, and I don't have to pay until after I graduate.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:17]:
Like, that's future rights problem. Let's let that guy worry about it right now. Like, this guy is just gonna focus on what he's doing, focus on getting good grades and learning and whatever, whatever, and it's all gonna pay off at the end. But I think it's literally life defining, actually. I think that with less debt and with more money, your life trajectory is going to be better for a slew of reasons, but the biggest one is freedom and just the burden that takes off of your shoulders and being like, okay, wow, I am free. I can do whatever it is that I want. And I can go ahead. If I want to learn this industry, if I want to learn whatever it is, like at 17, 18 years old, instead of signing a student loan, then I can take a job for $10 an hour and I can work, get absolutely abused.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:06]:
Sure. Whatever. Working 60 hours a week, I need to get paid more, but like you don't have debt, so you don't have to get paid more.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:11]:
You can get paid to learn your finances. And you and I talk about this are going the absolute opposite way. You wanna be a glass blower apprentice, go do it. $9 an hour. Your life has totally changed now because you don't have to service student loan debt burden. That's exactly what we're talking about. You want to learn from a master artisan and they can't pay you more than $7 an hour. Who cares? You're learning, you're getting an education.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:33]:
And that's why separating college and education is so important too, because education is not the same as buying a college degree, but you can take a lower wage and you can move if you need to move cities. I experienced that I was able to move because I didn't have student loan debt. I didn't have to service a balance. And so I had that freedom.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:50]:
I want it to be clear. It's not like taking a lower wage. It's really just the more freedom to do whatever it is, including taking a lower wage. For a calculated result. Why would you take a lower wage than, quote, what you're worth? 1, if you're taking that wage, you're not worth more. That's what you're worth because you agreed to do it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:07]:
If you're not, then don't agree to it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:08]:
Just from a freedom perspective. Exactly what you were saying. You can move wherever you're not chained to one place. You can move, you can take jobs, you can do other things and that freedom can remain true for as long as you're not going into debt. Even if they don't do it right in the beginning when your child's 18 years old, at 20 years old, if they've been working a part time job, if they've been working a full time job at whatever quote dead end job, you know, they think it's dead end, you think it's dead end, whatever, which I know, like a lot of people do think that like you can't do that forever. I said, okay, that's fine. And so when that opportunity presents itself and they're like, well, you get paid $20 an hour at Costco to check people out. Why are you going to go take a job $10 an hour to be this marketing associate at this company? Like you've already making double.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:58]:
Well, that's kind of the whole reason why I didn't go to college so that I could reduce the risk when these opportunities come. I don't have the burden of that debt over my head. And I can take these opportunities. I can seize them.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:11]:
And you think of those entry level types of jobs where you do take a pay cut in order to learn strategically as apprenticeships. That's how you think about them. You get paid to learn on someone else's dime. I was just talking to somebody about this and I said, Hey, that's what you're looking for. What you're looking is for someone else to pay you, to de risk the situation for yourself. So you can learn whatever skills, proof out that as a career path, and then you go deeper into it. That's how you do it. And that's how you stop that cycle of buying and then having to be boxed into those past life choices to pay for those student loans.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:46]:
It's such a problem.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:47]:
The next thing that I want to talk about these all kind of bleed into each other, but it's all kind of downstream from that freedom thing. The next thing I wanna talk about is the flexibility and control that it gives your young adult to be degree free, and that is obviously flexible in being able to take all those work and things like that. But then also just the flexibility of not having to attend college and not having to do those general education courses and not having to do those courses at all. A lot of people will say, well, my child did AP courses or they did dual enrollment for the last 2 years of high school, so then they actually have their associates now. And so now it's not just gen ed courses. It's their actual 300 workload, and they only have to do 2 years. This still remains. Do you still have the flexibility control over your own schedule, over your time, over your efforts, and not having to do the things that college people have to do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:41]:
I have to do a report at this time. I have to go be at this class. I have to be at this lab or whatever, and you have more flexibility and control to be like, wait a minute. Is that what I want my life to look like? Does that make sense? Today's Tuesday. Otherwise I would have to be in whatever lab today, but it is Tuesday and I want to learn this principle.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:01]:
So I can work on this project. Exactly. Which I'm gonna have done in 3 months instead of two and a half years.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:05]:
Exactly. I'm gonna go and do this instead and work on my portfolio today so that I can show my future employer.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:12]:
And this could be anything from copywriting to coding too. Your English majors don't need to be college. They need to be writing your coding majors. Don't need to be in college. They need to be learning. They need to be building projects, building apps, building websites, building backend stuff, building databases. That's what they need to be doing. They do not need to be sitting in college classes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:27]:
And with that flexibility control that bleeds into the third thing, which is tailoring your learning. With that flexibility and control over your schedule, over your time, and over what you're learning, you can tailor your learning. You can you say, okay. Well, I wanna be a developer. It's like, well, that's huge. You could go get a CS degree. I guess. That's one option adoption that a lot of people take, or you can figure out what roadmap do I need to follow to then become a developer.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:54]:
And then you have to figure out first. They're like, well, what is this front end? There's back end? Do I wanna be a full stack? What does that even mean? Do I wanna be a Bitcoin developer? Do I wanna be a machine learning developer? What are the different languages that I need to learn to get to that place? But with that flexibility control over your own schedule, you can then use that time to tailor your learning for those young adults out there. They can use that time to be, okay, I need to learn front end. So I need to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Like, I have to learn those things first. And then you're like, wait a minute, JavaScript. There's, like, a whole bunch of other languages around JavaScript that I could do back end stuff with too. Wait a minute.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:32]:
I need to do automation stuff. I better go learn Python. Whatever whatever whatever.

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:36]:
I need to learn containerization. Let me go learn some Kubernetes and a little bit about Docker. You can just choose what you pick up and when you pick

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:43]:
it up. Exactly. And that goes for every single career out there, rather than it goes for every single path out there. If you want to learn marketing and you're like, okay, well, I need to learn what side of marketing do I want to be on? Do I want to be on the creative side? Or do I want to be more on the management side? Do I want to be on the ad side? Portion of it. Okay, well, let's test it all out. And that's part of the flexibility and control. Well, this week, let's try ads. You find somebody, a local shop or something like that to be like, Hey, do you mind if I run some Facebook ads for you? And then if they don't have any money, zero money at all.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:20]:
And they're like, yeah, maybe if you could give me a budget of like a $100 a day or something like that, I can help you run some ads and see how we do. And, okay, well, that's hard to find. Well, then just go find that person though. I mean, just go knock on some local business people's door.

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:34]:
If you ask 20 local business owners that question, and I mean, you go in, you talk to the person at the account and say, oh, I'm not the owner. The owner's not here. Okay. We'll ask for the owner's phone number. Come back the next day. Do that for a week. If you do that in 20 businesses, you'll find somebody that'll say yes to you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:46]:
Just tell them, like, I'm not getting paid. I just just give me the $100 ad spend. Or 50. Yeah. $50. $20. That ad spend goes straight to the ads. I'm not making any money.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:56]:
And that goes to the last debt, more money. That's the freedom, everything kind of flows downstream from that. This works in everything that you want to do, every single thing that they want to do. Then the last thing is faster entry into the workforce. By building your portfolio, you can then enter the workforce quicker for a lot of people that build projects, they'll buy that project. They just put their head down for 3 months and then they go get hired at a job. And for a lot of people, they don't even need a portfolio. They just need to show that they can do it depending on what the job is.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:26]:
They just need to, Hey, I'm just going to keep knocking on your door until you say yes to me. They're like, well, I guess let's just give this guy a job and you get that job. Those are the 4 things that I think is actually easier. If you go degree free, less debt, more money, which he goes more freedom downstream from all that freedom that is flexibility control, especially over schedule. But that also bleeds into the tailored learning that they can actually learn things and what they need to learn and what they need to know at that time and then faster entry into the workforce. And so I was wrong all those years ago.

Hannah Maruyama [00:47:01]:
But you're right now.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:02]:
Yeah, I think so. And that is my flashback number 2

Hannah Maruyama [00:47:07]:
on the

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:09]:
degree free podcast. And if you would like to get your question answered, you can go to ask that degree free dot co and you can ask your question there for everybody that bought the degree free way already. If you can do me a favor and review the book, if you go to dfwreviews.degreefree. C o, that'd be great, and you can review us there. Once again, that's d f w, like degree freeway, d f w reviews dot degree free dot c o, and I'll leave it in the link of this podcast as well, and I'll leave it show notes so that you can find it there, little peek behind the curtain. We're recording this on August 27th. And so this is gonna coming out, I think, in September 18th. So this is gonna be a little bit delayed because we have a bunch of things coming up, and so we need to stack some episodes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:56]:
It is insane that not once, but twice, we have sold out of books prior to launch. When you're listening to this, we've already launched and the official launch date is September Labor Day. 2nd. Labor Day. And we're not making very much money at all on these books currently priced. We're doing a lot of work with suppliers and everything like that in the background to try to bring our printing costs down, our fulfillment costs down and all that stuff. But we have to bring the price up. Like we have to charge more because we have to make some money off of this thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:28]:
And it was insane that we've sold out twice now. Well, for those listening, we're going to keep it at the presale price at the pre order price until we get them back in stock because we don't know what we're getting back in stock. And I ordered them

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:44]:
a while ago,

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:45]:
a while ago, but we just sold out way quicker than we thought.

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:48]:
And they took us out of TikTok jail earlier than we thought as well, because they limit you to how many orders your shop can fulfill before it's mature. And they were just like, oh, you're mature. And we're like, oh, okay. And they're all gone.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:58]:
Yeah. Right. Exactly. I mean, a great problem to have. And every one of those books that we are packing up and sending out, it has the opportunity to change the trajectory of these young adults lives. But then the more that I've talked to the parents that have purchased the book and the more that I've thought about it as well, we're not just changing the trajectory of the young adult's life, but in many cases, we're also changing to the trajectory of their family's life as well, because a lot of times the parents also get into cahoots with the debt.

Hannah Maruyama [00:49:36]:
Yeah. The co signing of the loans, protecting people's retirements and their homes. And again, when I say generational impact, I'm not exaggerating, it's preventing the drain on families resources.

Ryan Maruyama [00:49:48]:
I'm not saying that like we have anything to do with it at all, actually, but for us to be able to provide a resource that helps them through that. And when they put in the work, it can have that amount of impact is awesome.

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:02]:
And every single one we pack too. It's so cool. I always read the names off in the location. I'm like, oh, this one's going to South Dakota. Oh, this one's going to Massachusetts. Oh, this one's going to Oklahoma. It's so cool. We've got every single state in the country they've gone to, which is unbelievable.

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:16]:
I want to do a map and put all the dots of all the cities they've gone to. Cause it's very cool.

Ryan Maruyama [00:50:21]:
That would be really, really cool if it didn't require probably like a lot of work.

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:26]:
Maybe we'll just print out a big map and we'll just put dots on it with a dry erase marker.

Ryan Maruyama [00:50:31]:
Yeah. But I can say definitively that we absolutely shipped every state. Yeah. 100%. In the country.

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:38]:
Vermont and New Hampshire were the last right in the door.

Ryan Maruyama [00:50:41]:
I mean to sell 1,000 and thousands of copies before it was even released

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:47]:
It's crazy. This is such an aside, but it's also exposed us to the post office in a way that I've never been exposed to the post office. As you guys know, Zach, our guy at the processing center, and I've just met Zach because we took a giant load of books over to the processing center and we filled up one of those big I'd never seen one before. How tall are they? Probably 10 feet. They're tall. 8 feet. 8 feet. Yeah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:10]:
Okay. So 8 feet. It's pretty large. It's like taller than an NBA player or like freaking tall.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:15]:
They're large. It's way over my head.

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:17]:
And there's a picture of it while I'll post it on TikTok. Maybe we'll put it in the show notes or something. You take this big netting, this heavy, like military grade woven netting, and you push it to each rung to increase the amount that the cart can hold. And we started with it halfway up and then we had to go to the 3rd rung and they were like, oh shoot, but all the way up to put all these books in because I kept going, oh, surely that's it. And then every time I turn around, there was more of them. And I'm just watching every single state and every single family that one of those books is going to all over the country was kind of the coolest thing. Super cool. That's all.

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:47]:
And then we asked Zach about how they scan things and at the post office, and we're getting a little lesson from Zach on how that works, which is cool.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:53]:
It's very interesting. I had expected him and the team at that fulfillment center or that processing center to do more work. Now I'm not saying they do less work. He just said that all they do at that processing center when they receive big loads like that, and I'm not sure if this is at every one, but all they did was they just scanned it in. I was like, oh, so you scan it in. And then your scanner tells you which bin to put it in. They're like, we're in Texas right now. And so this one's going to Vermont.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:19]:
So that one means, so you put it over here because that loads you into the east coast. And then this one's going to California. That one's going to the west coast.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:25]:
But no, they get sorted somewhere else.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:26]:
Yeah. He was like, no, I just scan it from here. And then I put it into another cart. And then I put that cart onto the truck. And I said, really? This cart to another cart, put it in the truck.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:36]:
They scan it sometimes or maybe the next place after that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:38]:
And now I need to see the next place because

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:41]:
Do they sort it there? Is it like the Polar Express with the conveyor belts where they just

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:44]:
I'm guessing it must be. Right? I'm guessing it must be. And if anybody knows this and everybody works at USPS or even, like, a UPS, but I'm more curious about USPS because we're using USPS. Give us a comment in YouTube or Spotify or anything like that. Like, let us know. But I'm pretty sure I am envisioning exactly what you're envisioning, which is a polar express or, you know, how your luggage gets sorted. And it's completely automated is what I'm guessing when it gets scanned. It's not so much like just goes into this bucket or that bucket.

Ryan Maruyama [00:53:14]:
Because now that I think about it, that's probably a lot of human error, actually, probably a lot of human error. Like if it did, like you scan it and then on the thing it says bucket a and then you sort it. How many times is it going to go to bucket b?

Hannah Maruyama [00:53:27]:
I don't know.

Ryan Maruyama [00:53:28]:
And if this bucket b is going to the west coast, then you're screwed right from the beginning.

Hannah Maruyama [00:53:32]:
I did think that as he was describing that to us, I just went, wow, this is kind of crazy. All of this just runs. You just show up and give them packages, and then they somehow get where they're supposed to go. It's kind of crazy.

Ryan Maruyama [00:53:42]:
And he was stoked because nobody asked him about his job. But that whole conversation with him had definitely had like how it's made vibes.

Hannah Maruyama [00:53:49]:
Yeah. It did. I was like, did he what now? Yeah. Really? Okay. It did.

Ryan Maruyama [00:53:53]:
I'm like super interested. I'm a super interested to just see the rest of it. Yeah. I just need to put myself in that bin and see what happens.

Hannah Maruyama [00:54:02]:
Yeah. And just see where you go down the polar express.

Ryan Maruyama [00:54:04]:
But, yeah, that's pretty much it for this week. I really, really appreciate everybody for hanging in with us. The degree freeway, if you want to get your own copy, you can go to degreefree.coforward/book. If you want to ask us any questions and get answered here on the podcast, go to ask.degreefree.co and for the reviews, DFW reviews.degreefree.co.

Hannah Maruyama [00:54:26]:
Let us know if we were better because our chairs were not medieval torture devices.

Ryan Maruyama [00:54:30]:
Yeah, exactly. Until next week guys.