How to Conquer Graduation Anxiety with The 5 Degree Free Pathways (DF#185)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Want to address that because so many people go, yeah, but they're not going to get paid a lot. And I'm like, yeah, you're paying $60 a credit hour. Okay. They are getting paid. You are paying. And what you're learning is probably not as valuable or applicable because there's already an existing job that pays enough to pay somebody to learn it. And you are sitting on a college campus paying 60,000 to $80,000 a year to sit there and pay that much per credit hour.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:26]:
Aloha folks and welcome back to degree free with the new year in full swing. We have been having a lot of conversations with parents of participants in our launch program about graduation anxiety, the parents of 17, 18 year olds and the young adults themselves around this time of year get really anxious because it is in a few months, 4 months from now, they're going to graduate and they are not sure what they're going to do after. And if they know that college isn't for them, or they're still thinking about it, they might've submitted the FAFSA. Here we go. We've applied as well, but we're just still not sure if we want to spend the money. We're still not sure if it's a good idea. A lot of these parents and these families are lost. They don't know what to do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:08]:
They don't know where to start. So this episode is for you if you're going through that right now. And this also pertains to those 19 20 year olds who are in their 1st year of college, their 2nd year of college. And they know, or you at least have a very, very high sneaking suspicion that this is going to be their last semester and it's not working out. You're lost. I don't know where to start. This is, I want to say it's a forgotten chapters or whatever from the degree free way, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want. We've talked about it before on this podcast and we're going to go over it again.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:40]:
When we first originally wrote these books, it was more than double the size that it is now. And we trim all of the fat where to be completely honest, to go on a little bit of an aside, I think we trim too much fat because a lot of the things that we trimmed that we tried to, like, address turned out to be one of the things that people complain about, I guess. Anyway, we're thinking about this year or maybe next year about updating it and putting some of that stuff back in.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:02]:
We had something in there that said, this is not a list because you have the internet, which is the list. And you just need to know how to search the list you have because you haven't yet.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:11]:
And people are like, I just really need a list so that I can show my child. These are the jobs that you can get. Let's pick from one of these. And if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, you'll know that's not the way to do it. 1, the first thing is that right now, I will bet all of my money. You have a comprehensive list somewhere within striking distance. You are probably listening to this or watching this on a device that has that infinite list, a computer, a tablet, a phone, something connected to the internet, and you have the internet at your disposal and you have all of the lists right there. You just haven't done it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:43]:
And the reason why you haven't done it is because you don't have the constraints. You don't know what your child needs and your child wants. And those constraints are super helpful because when you look at all of the job options that are out there without a degree, which is literally all of them except for 7% of them in the market. When you get into that mindset and you look at all of these things, it gets overwhelming. You're like, Hey, I need to trim this list down. And that's exactly what the degree freeway does. It gives you a roadmap to trim that down in a custom way for your child. The reason why, what we're going to talk about today wasn't in the book is because it's not incredibly actionable to let you know what's out there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:19]:
It's better before you get to the degree free way. The degree free way is a toolkit to give you a custom 3 jobs that work for your child's needs and wants and for their life that they want to live and help them build the life they want. The 5 degree free pathways, which is what we're going to be talking about today, that is going to be the stuff right before. It is super helpful right before, and that is who we're talking to right now. For all of those people who haven't bought the degree free way, the graduation anxiety is coming up, or my 19 year old is coming home from college and they are adamant that this is the last year that they are going, and you have no idea what they're going to do. Should I buy the degree free way? I'm not even sure they're going to be on board with it. Don't buy it. Not yet.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:57]:
Listen to this episode. You can, if you want degreefree.co/book, but let's go over the 5 degree free pathways, because when you first make these decision to go degree free, the 5 degree free pathways, at least we can highlight the different pathways that they can take to get to their goals and your decision about which pathway they walk. That is the degree free way. But in this episode, we are just going to light and show you all of the paths that are available to them. Hey there. I hope you're enjoying this episode of the degree free podcast At degree free, we wanna help everyone thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. And the only way to truly reach everyone is with your help. If you're getting value out of this episode or if this is your second, 3rd, or 4th episode that you're tuning into, if you could just ship this to a friend, just click that one button and share it with someone in your contacts or on your stories.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:46]:
It would mean the world to us. And more importantly, get our message out to more people who need help getting out of their current situation. If you could do that right now, that would mean a whole lot.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:58]:
The simple way to explain what the pathways are is to say, it's the answer to the question. If not college, then what one of the 5 degree free pathways. And it's to illuminate to parents that they don't have to purchase paper. That is not the only option, especially at this time of year, this beginning of the year, there is so much pressure and it's a built, I call it the college cliff, but especially seniors, they are just trying to shove them off of this college cliff. They want parents to feel like they run out of time. They want parents to feel like there's no options. The school system wants them to feel overwhelmed so that they just resort to filling out the FAFSA, paying all these application fees and their kid just goes whether or not it's the right fit. And they want to do that because it's fear based.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:37]:
There's no good way other than this, other than what we're doing to sort through and see what's out there. And so they want you to resort to college because it's the only known and it's far from the only known. It's just that the school system, the K through 12 school system wants you to feel like it's the only pathway that's lit and that's just not accurate. And in fact, not the most common one taken in the employed US workforce. And it's not historically the one most taken. It's not the one with the best ROI and often it's not going to be the one that's the best fit for your child. So don't let them do that to you. And don't let them do that to your child and stand in the way of that pressure because it's immense.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:11]:
And not only is it the system itself, but the culture that pressure puts on people in the age bracket, they'll put it on each other as well. And it's very effective as a marketing machine to just make sure they take on those bankruptcy exempt student loans.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:24]:
So here are the 5 degree free pathways, right? At the start. 1, get a job. Number 2 is fine on the job training or an apprenticeship. Number 3 is earn a license or certification. Number 4 is build the business. And number 5 is learn a skill. And these are super simple when you think about it. And when you've broken down like that, I hope that you're thinking, wow, super simple.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:44]:
And it should be that way. These are the options out there, and we are going to break it down 1 by 1. For the first one, get a job. This is as simple as it sounds. Your child is just going to get a job. Really, it is any job. Ideally, it's a job in the field that they want to work in. Therefore, they can get the exposure to that field.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:06]:
What's useful here, especially if they are hell bent on doing something that they're interested in. And if they're like, Hey, I want to be a veterinarian and the more schooling that is required, the more that they should work in that field.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:22]:
Yeah. Before they buy.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:23]:
Exactly. If they want to work in the medical field, the more that they should work in the medical field prior to then taking on student loan debt and then going to college, going to med school, that type of thing. I mean, not in the medical, there's more jobs in the medical field that don't require college degrees than do, but I'm saying if they want it to be a doctor or if they want it to be a veterinarian, those two jobs, they require degrees.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:45]:
What this practically looks like for a couple of examples would be your child is hell bent on being a teacher. They need to be a parapro first in a classroom or a teacher's aide, because they need to understand that that environment is really going to work for them. And then hearing from teachers who maybe don't like their job and then some that do, how to navigate the system and how it actually works and what the realities of teaching are for nursing. A good example of this would be being a CNA or an LVN, or if your child wants to be an OR nurse, the lower rung on the ladder would be a scrub tech or possibly a surgical tech or a sterile processing tech. And so you get them into the environment that they would be working in in a lower level. And ideally what you look for is something that's paid as well, and that gives them training. And that is how they actually test it out. So there's very little risk to them because they're getting a job that's going to be on their resume.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:30]:
They're going to make connections, all those types of things. You know, your child wants to be an interior designer, go find them an entry level sales job at a big furniture store. That's how you start doing that. And this works for anything, especially those, like Ryan said, though, with extreme costs later. And this is gonna be a controversial take because a lot of people will say that this isn't the path, but I actually know a physician who did this and became a CNA and then became a nurse and then decided after being a nurse for a few years, that going to medical school is the right call. And that person is glad that they are a physician, which is very different from a lot of people who regret going to medical school and spending all that time and money. It's somebody who paid their dues and was sure they wanted to stay in the medical system.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:05]:
I would love to see the statistics on wealth outcomes, specifically student debt, but even just wealth outcomes in general over the life of those that waited and deferred going to college to get their degree and then going to med school and then becoming a doctor versus those that went in right away. I would love to see the financial outcomes of those 2 individuals because I have no idea. I would love to see it. If I had to gamble and say, what is the case? I think what would be the case is that those that deferred and those that went later, their financial well-being is better. They don't get into as much debt and therefore, because they're not into as much debt, then they accumulate more money over their lifetime.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:46]:
I think too, this is anecdotal, but I would be interested to see this as well, but I bet the people that do it later are a lot more satisfied with their career choice as well because they are older. And so they're much more sure that is something that they actually want to do. And they have a better understanding of the risk that they're incurring both in time and money because they are older and they have a better grasp of those things. And then when they're making the choice, they're fully informed. It's not a child. It's not a teenager signing that and saying, this is what I'm going to do. It's an adult. Who's going, you know what? This is the right path for me.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:15]:
I am sure I've got some experience. I've lived a little bit and I'm sure that this is what I want to do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:20]:
Although, as we've talked about many, many times, I don't really believe in that a child is the one that makes that decision. You continually make that decision every day, every year. And, you know, if you think that's being extreme, although I think that that's accurate, you could then say every year, think about, am I going again? I think that by saying, well, these are the decisions that a teenager made. Well, no, it's a decision that you continually made as a late teen, as an 18 year old, as a 19 year old, as a 20 year old, as a 21 year old, at a 22 year old. At any point, you could have gotten off the hamster wheel.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:49]:
You're absolutely right. But you and I both know that the system is structured to punish you when you do that. You're gonna have to pay those loans the minute that you leave. At least if you stay in their minds, they go, well, at least I can get the job. I can pay this off. Otherwise, I quit right now. I have no job, and I don't know what to do other than go to college, which is why I'm here. So it's designed to scare them into staying.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:05]:
I agree with you. I'm just promoting taking self responsibility. Hey, this didn't happen to you. You chose to be there every day, every week, every month, every year you chose to go back.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:16]:
I agree. But if you incentivize certain behavior, that is the behavior you'll get. And the system is incentivized to punish people who decide that this is not working for them immediate consequences. You have to pay now. And I do think that's a huge reason why a lot of people continue when they shouldn't, which is why the exit ramp is

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:29]:
before. So anyway, get a job is the first one. And really, if they don't know, I'm talking to those people that are having this anxiety right now. This is the first time you've ever listened to the degree free podcast. First time you've ever seen one of our videos and yours is like, I don't know what's going on. This is for you. This episode is for you. Don't worry about the rest of it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:48]:
For those that are deeper and shouldn't they go through their needs and wants first? Absolutely 100%. They should. But at first get a job, any job that is the first pathway. And then once they in that job and they're seeing, okay, I like this. I don't like that this job and this type of work doesn't pay enough money for me to reach my goals. Oh, okay. Well, that's interesting that you say that what are your financial goals? And that is when you go with the toolkit that you have in the degree of freeway that helps to figure out their financial needs, what they need from their work, those types of things. But this is just the base level.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:18]:
We're just telling you the different pathways that are out there and to recap, ideally it would be in an industry that they think that they want to work in, or especially if they're hell bent on it, which I know a lot of teenagers are. I get it because you are asked your whole life. Oh, what do you want to be when you grow up? And you're expected to have an answer and you're also rewarded socially for having an answer for most people. You think back to your own childhood and you're like, what do you want to be when you grow grow up? And then, oh, fireman. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Ryan wants to be a fireman. That's so great.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:45]:
Oh, veterinarian, Ryan. Ryan wants to be a veterinarian. Isn't that so great. And you're rewarded socially for that. If they are feeling like that, for sure. One, if you've read the degree of failure, like I said, that's not how we do it, but at least this way, go work in that industry. And just tell me if that's really true, because I know people personally, they're like, I want to be a veterinarian and they actually go get a vet tech job, which is the way that we think about doing this. And then it turns out they actually hate it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:10]:
They hate it so much.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:11]:
They actually hate it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:12]:
A couple of people every once in a while really do. And then what's cool is I have seen this is not uncommon, I think because of the environment with vets, but if they do well and they'd express the desire to go to veterinarian school and continue, I have heard of vets paying for them and to hand down the practice because otherwise it'll end. And so that's a really cool option too that people don't realize is possible if they stay and they really do wanna do it and they really do love it and they make it through actually working as a vet.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:36]:
Well, especially if veterinarians go, it's super expensive, then it's kinda tough. You really wanna be sure before you push all your chips in like that, both your effort chips and your money chips, that it makes sense for you. Because the people that I know that didn't like it, they were just like, dude, you're just wrong animals all day. I love animals. I love dogs. I love cats. Most of these vets, the ones that I'm talking about, they deal with small animals or like dogs. They're in a building all day with artificial lighting.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:01]:
And they're just like, dude, there's no windows in this place. There's only one window in the exam room or whatever. It's like, this sucks. And like, yeah. And then it's like, when I get into my car, there's dog hair everywhere because there's dog hair all over me. And I don't know if I wanna do this. And you've just saved how much money and how much time just by doing it. And then on top of it, you've made money at the same time.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:18]:
So that's the first one, get a job. And that is any job with the skills that they already have, ideally in an industry that they think that they want to go into. Number 2 is fine on the job training or an apprenticeship. This is one of our favorites, if not our favorite of the 5 degree free pathways. And it's simply because your economics, your personal financial situation is going the other way. Whereas many people let's say college, for example, college, the point of it is to go there. You get a piece of paper that validates whether or not you are ready for the job market. That is why people go and for anybody that says like, that's not where they go.

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:54]:
That's the only reason they go.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:55]:
Okay. So that now I have this piece of paper that validates me and I am ready to go into the job market and you have paid those 4 years to go. Whereas on the job training or an apprenticeship, you are getting paid. It's the opposite. And your bank account is going up instead of down. Not only are you getting paid? I mean, it doesn't even matter what you get paid. I mean, you can get paid less than the minimum wage and that's a controversial take, but you can get paid less than minimum wage. And you're still coming out way ahead because the alternative is that you're paying.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:20]:
I want to address that because many people go, yeah, but they're not going to get paid a lot. And I'm like, yeah, you're paying $60 a credit hour. Okay. They are getting paid. You are paying. And what you're learning is probably not as valuable or applicable because there's already an existing job that pays enough to pay somebody to learn it. And you are sitting on a college campus paying 60,000 to $80,000 a year to sit there and pay that much per credit hour. So it doesn't matter if the apprentice is getting paid $7 an hour.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:45]:
They are doing financially better than you because they are quite literally, as you said, their finances are going in the opposite direction. I'm vehement about this and I always will be.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:52]:
For on the job training and apprenticeships, typically when we tell this to people, a lot of people will go, oh, well, my son, my daughter doesn't want to go into the trades. So this doesn't really work for them. And that is not the way that the market works anymore. There are huge companies out there that in every industry.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:10]:
Twitch, bank of America, Pinterest, just off the top of my head.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:13]:
Exactly. So finance, tech, manufacturing, you name it. They have all spun up these apprenticeship programs or on the job training programs so that your child can get into these roles at a younger age and actually secret. They are going to high schools quicker than they are college campuses. And yes, the people that take the cynical view of that is like they're cheaper. They can exploit them more and everything like that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:37]:
They want to pay market value wage because college graduates want double what their market value wages for entry level work. They have no skills. And that's the real reason that they would prefer high school graduates because they're happy to learn and their expectations are accurate.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:49]:
Yeah. Their expectations are less. They need less. The reason why they need less is because they didn't go into debt and they don't have to service on top of their rent payment that they have to share with their roommates and stuff like that. The $1,000 a month that you have to go ahead and share a house or an apartment, depending on where you live with your 4 roommates or whatever it is on top of that, the college people have to service their debt payments, dollars 500 a month or whatever, dollars 400 a month because of that, you need more money. And I have no data to back this up, but I think that's where a lot of people say, oh, well, college graduates get paid more money. 1, I think that they need to get paid more money

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:28]:
and they negotiate harder because otherwise they'll be in the red. Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:32]:
There'll be underwater. Whereas those that don't, they just take whatever, because they don't have that debt payment. So have

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:37]:
a lot more freedom.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:38]:
Exactly. But to find these on the job training and apprenticeship programs, there are a couple of ways that you can go about this and this goes for get a job as well. That's pretty straightforward. You can help your child with that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:51]:
Don't go to the interview. I read that there was trend of Gen Z taking their parents to the interview. Don't do that. Just help them research and find opportunities.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:57]:
Well, what I was gonna say is you can help them with that for I know that just from speaking with a lot of parents. For the most people, it's probably been been a while since you yourself have looked for a job, but it's still pretty much the same doing the resumes, looking online, applying, following up, trying to find somebody networking, all of that stuff with finding on the job training and apprenticeship opportunities. The first way to go about doing it is the exact same is you have them structure their resume. You have them look up job opportunities on the job training and apprenticeship opportunities. And the way you're going to do that is literally the same way that you would look for jobs. Instead of saying jobs, you would say on the job training or apprenticeship at the end, whatever the job title is, whatever the job roles are. And then on the job training, your area apprenticeship your area, or if you're looking for a remote thing, whatever remote, and that will help to narrow it down and show you all the opportunities that exist in that arena. And then just go ahead and put the resume out there.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:57]:
So that's the first way of doing it. The second way of doing it is something that we call BYOA or build your own apprenticeship. And the way that this works is there are so many businesses out there. We are going to leverage the fact that there are so many small business owners. This is not a shade at anybody. They are not great at operating rating. Maybe this is a more positive spin on this. They're so good at operating that they have more business than to know what to do with.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:22]:
There are so many one man shops or 4 man teams or whatever, very small companies that need help, but they don't have the time or the effort to throw a job listing up to throw an apprenticeship up. And maybe they don't have the money to they're like, you know what? I can't hire another associate at $60 a year, but I mean, I have work. I can only pay whatever it is $10 an hour, whatever the minimum wage is. And they're like, nobody's going to do it for that. I'm not even going to put it out there.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:51]:
A few examples of what that would look like locally. And even in small towns, you can probably picture these places, upholstery shops, even that do marine or auto upholstery, people that do maybe really small boutique cake decorating, people that do cake decorating, people that do vacuum repair, sometimes mobile mechanics. So we'll take people like that as well. There's a host of examples of this. Pet groomers is another one that people cannot keep up with demand, and they do train really often for that type of role. You just close your eyes and think of small local businesses in your town that you go. That's probably only 1 to 3 people that work there. And then those are the ones that you go in and the ones that have been around a while and you know that they still exist and they're still doing business.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:30]:
Those are good examples. Cause the chances are as well, the owner is probably a little bit older and maybe not as tech savvy and maybe not tech savvy enough to post a listing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:38]:
I want to stress that it doesn't necessarily just have to be something in the physical world.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:41]:
Yeah. Digital marketing agency locally or something small

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:44]:
like that. It can be a small agency. So the reason why we're saying small as well is because usually your child isn't going to have to go through the red tape. Once they get to 20 plus 50 plus overhead, there's HR involved. There's red tape involved and there's like a process they have to put down a process. Well, this is how we hire people. This is how we put out our job listings. This is how we give opportunities to everybody and all this stuff, where as 1 to a 5 and then maybe 1 to 10 in overhead.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:13]:
That's a really smaller business. I mean, they could be doing 1,000,000 and millions for sure. There's just not as many people on the team. And therefore you don't have to go through as much red tape of your child getting hired there or your child getting put on as an apprentice or as an on the job training. The best thing to do there is what I love to do. And this is really, really practical is just going to Google maps and searching for whatever it is in the area. So let's just say locksmith

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:38]:
or wedding photographers,

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:39]:
digital marketing agency is a good one. And then just seeing what pops up and we're gonna just go in there or call, but I suggest going in if they have a physical presence and then submitting a resume. Now just a last pro tip that I will say about this. The Google maps doesn't always show the, all of the businesses out there because that is just the physical businesses. So what I would suggest doing is Googling it as well. Whatever comes up on Google also submitting to those places as well. Because for example, if it is not something in the physical world or like maybe it's a mobile mechanic or something like that, then they won't come up on Google maps because they don't have a physical location because they don't have the overhead of an office. You're doing yourself a disservice if you're just doing the Google map, but Google maps is a really good way to, especially if you're going into something that is physical to here we go.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:32]:
And then you can just hit one day, you can hit this side of town and another day you can hit this side of town. And then if nothing shows up on Google maps, then you go to actual Google and then you just go down the list and then call is always good. It's a little bit better than emailing. It's a lot more personal. And if there is a number call and then obviously if no number then email.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:49]:
Yeah. You don't always physically walk in. That doesn't hurt either.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:52]:
And so that is the second pathway. Find an on the job training or apprenticeship.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:56]:
All right. Pathway number 3 is earn a license or certification. This pathway also has a special spot in my heart. I still think that on the job training or apprenticeship is my favorite as well, but I myself did this, and this is how I got into tech years ago. And that was by earning a Salesforce administrator certification. So what you do is your child can find certifications for so many, and this is typically going to be a little bit easier to do more accessible to more people with online certifications and things like cybersecurity or technical field. However, certifications could be anything. Certifications and licenses, if you think about it would be notary publics, mortgage brokers, pilots, anybody that has a license to do something.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:36]:
Now, this is not something that requires a degree. This is something that requires a license. If you are not legally licensed to do that thing, you cannot do that action. What you do, and the reason this is such a good pathway is because if your child earns a professional license of some kind, any kind, it does 1 show up on a resume and it looks really good in the future. 2, if you have a license to do something, it means that other people can't always do the thing that you can do. Naturally, what you're doing is you're giving your child a skill that other people don't have, because it's quite literally going to give them a laminated license that says that they can do this thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:06]:
So what I like to think about for licenses and certifications is it breaks down into 2 buckets, and this is very, very broad strokes licenses for the most part are legally binding or rather they're legally obligated to have it for whatever industry.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:22]:
Typically government issued federal or state?

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:25]:
Typically, there are always exceptions to the rule, but like painting with broad strokes, just so you can have an understanding of what the difference between a license and a certification is. Mostly licenses are going to be by exactly what you just said, a federal or a state body, where if you do not have this license, you cannot perform whatever job or whatever job duties that are gated by that. License. So for example, like you need your real estate license, you need to have your life insurance or insurance licenses. You just have your medical license to practice medicine, pilot's license,

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:54]:
law,

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:54]:
those types of things, certifications. Those are typically not legally obligated or at least not legally binding that you must have these things to then perform job duties. What certifications usually do is that they certify that you are proficient up to a certain level in whatever skill that they have. The bodies that give out the certifications are different bodies. They can be government sometimes, but a lot of times they are private practices or private parties. A good example for the tech industry is that Google has certifications out there. Salesforce has certification. HubSpot has certifications.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:30]:
All of these different big software companies and these big tech companies have certifications to help with the administration and the development of their platforms. And those are just some examples of certifications.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:43]:
There are some certifications that are done by national licensing bodies as well. And this is where it gets a little bit gray because they look like they might be licenses, but they're not actually good examples of this would be certified medical billers, where there's a national body that says you are able to navigate this complex medical code. And so you understand the system and they issue a certification. There isn't a license that you get. It's a certification that you get.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:06]:
What's difficult in the certification space is knowing whether or not the certification that your child is going for is useful or is valid or has the reputation or is what employers want to see on their resumes. It's difficult to know whether or not that is, or isn't the case. What I mean by that is okay. So Google Salesforce, I said all of these companies, all of these big companies, they have their own certification programs. They have teams of people that go through and work on the certification process. And I had Matt from SAS or SAS on that match a Catano, who was the general manager of the certification program. And he explained this whole thing that there's whole teams of people behind at these tech companies that go through and be like, okay, what do they need to be proficient in? Is this test fair? All of these different benchmarks that they have to hit. That is one thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:54]:
And those are legit certifications. And they have other companies usually smaller that have these other certifications that, okay, well, you know how to use this platform. Let's say that you're doing HubSpot certification or something like that. And you go to this private company that says, I will help you pass your HubSpot certification exam. And then you take one of their practice tests or you take one of their real tests is what they call it and you take their exam. And now you're certified up to Acme HubSpot training company. Inc. You're certified under that, but that doesn't mean anything because the thing that you need is you need HubSpot validation.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:28]:
I think a good rule of thumb here is typically when you're looking for a certification, it's going to be something that is issued either by a national licensing body that holds an agreed upon standard. Again, the medical billers is a good example. The example I was trying to think of was court reporters are also certified. So certified court reporters, they get certified by a national body that says you are good enough to be a court reporter. Another good example is the NCARB. This one's a little bit confusing because an architect has a license. But first, they go through a national licensing body who is in charge of deciding who becomes an architect and who does not. That's a good example of a private.

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:00]:
It's not public, but they are the ones who determine who can be an architect and who cannot. So if you're looking at a certification for your child, specifically tech, because I think tech is where really where it gets super murky. And I would say that there, what you're looking for is the actual tool. So if your child is trying to learn a Salesforce skill, the certifying body should be Salesforce. It should not be something, something and Salesforce. I'm not saying don't use a course to study it or use a resource to study it. I'm saying that when you take your exam, it comes from Salesforce. That's the person who issues those tests.

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:28]:
If you're taking it from SAS, it should be an SAS certification. It should not be such and such an SAS. No, no, no. Just take it from the original company that issues it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:36]:
Yeah. So I just wanted to break that down between licenses and certifications. That's just with broad strokes. That is how to think about when you're thinking about doing it case. This one's legally binding. Usually this one is usually legally gated. And then the certifications, this one is just to show to employers that you have a proficiency in a skill up to a certain level.

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:58]:
Yeah. I think that was a really good explanation. And then degree free pathway. Number 4 is build a business Ryan and I love this pathway. They're all good ones, but this specifically is to demystify this because a lot of people said, my child doesn't want to start a business. Well, our entire economy is shifting towards business ownership. A lot of gen Z are interested in business ownership over half of them, which is rather a lot. And it doesn't have to look the way that we think business ownership looks.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:20]:
Business ownership at the core of it is being self employed. You are responsible for yourself. You pay your own health insurance. You to a degree, decide when you work, how much you charge all of these things. I do think that when gen Z is talking about owning a business, that is what they're picturing. They're actually picturing themselves, being able to choose who they work for when they work, you know, to a degree, because your customers decide when you work, but to a degree, they decide when they work, they decide how how much they charge, all of those types of things. And they have more control over the work that they do. And this is a lot more accessible than people think.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:49]:
And we break this down into 2 things. You can build a business or you can buy a business. Now, before you get all worried about buying a business, we're going to demystify that a little bit too, because there is a silver tsunami of baby boomers retiring from their businesses and they have no one to give them to because their kids don't want them. So there's a unique opportunity in the market here. But first building a business is as simple as your child using their own labor to charge people to do a service. That includes things like really simple things that you can see like lawn care or organization or power washing or window washing. These are really simple things that people pay other people to do. We just recently saw people putting up and taking down Christmas lights that probably made a killing off of that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:29]:
What I like to think about here is that it's really just creating their own job instead of thinking, okay, well, I have to build this huge business or I have to get a buy a product, figure out what people wanna buy, buy that, and then sell it to other people instead. It's okay. Maybe we just start very, very simply. What do people need to get done? And then how can I go ahead and do that for them? With building a business? What's difficult is at the very beginning. And I know this, this is actually for many people, not just young adults. I was just having a conversation like this with somebody in my life. Literally, this is exactly the conversation that I had is that I have a 3 d printer that I've been making these small little tchotchkes, I guess, or like small little knickknacks. And I'm thinking about selling them.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:10]:
I felt a little bad. This is a totally in the side up. I didn't know what to say. 1 of my friends years ago, gave me a really good framework that I've adopted and I've used. I wanted to be a photographer and I love doing portraits and everything like that. And so I showed him a photo that I did. I said, look at this photo and he looked at it and then he asked me. He was a professional photographer for a long time.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:31]:
He looked at me and he asked me, oh, that's awesome. Do you want me to tell you a good job or do you want feedback? And I want feedback. I said, okay, cool. And so he gave me feedback and that is what I did for this guy as well for my friend. Or do you want me to give you feedback on the idea? And he wasn't really sure. And then he asked for feedback, although I gave him feedback and he didn't like it. But the feedback that I gave him was basically that not that nobody wants knickknacks, but the way that he's thinking about doing the business is wrong. What I mean by that is he's got to start a problem.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:00]:
Hey, there's a problem in the market, or there's a problem with the people that I know. There's a problem with this certain subset of people. And I think that I have the solution for it. And I think that I can provide the solution. Therefore I'm going to do it. And yes, you have to do what you can, where you are with what you have, for sure you have to do that. And so he's just thinking about different ways to use his 3 d printer, this new technology that came into his life to try to make a business out of it and think about ideas. And that's great.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:27]:
But the way it's going to become a business or real business is if you start thinking about the problems that exist and how you're going to solve them. So I suggest your child think about this as well. And you gave a couple of really good examples. Thing that is the children have in spades over older adults is their labor can hold the fact that their joints don't hurt. And the fact that they're able to do a bunch of of stuff, putting up Christmas lights, you know, not afraid of heights or going ahead and power washing driveways. I mean, I love to watch somebody else power wash your driveway. Cause I like to see it go from dirty to clean. I'm a very, very simple.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:58]:
I like to say action consequence.

Hannah Maruyama [00:33:00]:
Hey man, who doesn't.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:01]:
But I personally don't really want to power wash my driveway. That is where they have a really good advantage. And there's a problem and they have the solution. And that's the way that I would approach thinking about building the business. Now, going to buying the business to what you were saying about not needing to require a lot of money upfront. As Hannah was saying, there is a very, very large wave of baby boomers that are retiring. And the word that they care about, I just said it, is retire. And so I know that people listening to this, they might have a lot of money.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:29]:
You might not have a lot of money and you might not be able to help them. I mean, we're talking about, okay, I can't take out a $100,000 loan and I can't pay that, but now you're asking me to spend a $100,000 plus on a business that it's probably will have to be or whatever the valuation is. And you guys can think think about that. You guys can talk about that, but everything is negotiable. And if they have people in their life that don't want the business and nobody wants it and you show up and you're willing to be there, your child shows up. They're willing to be there. They're willing to learn the business. They're willing to have it passed down to them as it were.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:58]:
When you get in there, you say, Hey, I'm gonna give you money up until this number until it's paid off, or I'll give you money for the rest of your life so that you're secure. Here it is. Let's go over the financials together. Okay. How much profit do you make every month? Okay. I wanna give you that profit. I'm gonna give you 80% of the profit or whatever it is, whatever number makes sense to you and be like, k. What do you need? You need 6,000 a month? Okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:20]:
So how about I give you 6,000 a month from now on, and you're taken care of, and I have to pay you no matter what. You take over the business from there on everything's negotiable. So you don't necessarily even need a down payment. You don't even need to have cash upfront. It always helps to have cash upfront for sure, but it's not necessarily necessary.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:38]:
And it could be 6,000 sounds like a lot, but depending on the size of the business and what it does and how much it makes, it doesn't even have to be that much. You'd be shocked. People would be shocked at the just different opportunities that are available. For example, I saw recently a little coffee hut. And again, food service is a tough one, but it was for sale for $10. This person wants to get rid of this business. So theoretically, you could go in and off from $500 a month to pay for your child. It'd be there for your child's full time job, but it's their business Now they have to run it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:05]:
If it's making enough, if they can disclose the financials and it's making enough that it makes sense to make the payment in addition to helping your child finance that that might make sense.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:13]:
Well, not if they disclose the financials.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:15]:
When? Cause you don't ever buy a business without disclosing financials.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:17]:
Yeah. Unless you're only buying the assets.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:20]:
Like the hut itself

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:21]:
and you're not buying their Google maps listing. If you're not buying that, if you're not buying their website, if you're not buying their number and you're only buying the asset. So like for that coffee stand, you're only buying the hut and you're buying the blender. You're buying the special machine. You're buying the current inventory of coffee. You're buying the current inventory of cups and lids and straws. It's currently Jimmy's coffee. And then now it's going to be Nancy's coffee.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:43]:
I want to keep it Jimmy's coffee. And you're like, no, I'm going to sell you the name because I'm not working here anymore. Okay. Dollars 10,000 Nancy's coffee in that situation. They might not want to give you the financials, but then also at the same time, if they're not going to give you the financials and they're not going to give you the name, you're going to get a much better deal on the price because now you're just, instead of going for the brand, you're getting the power of the brand. You're just getting assets. You're just getting stuff, inventory, equipment, those types of things.

Hannah Maruyama [00:36:05]:
That's such an interesting option that is in the market right now. And a really cool story I heard of this was actually a young lady who in her town was working at an embroidery shop, small operation. And she had learned how to operate those, was learning a little bit about the business. And then the owner said that they were gonna close the shop. And that was a unique opportunity for her parents. And at that point, they decided that the right move, instead of buying a college degree, was to help her finance the sale of this small embroidery tiny, very small, but that's it. I think 2 other employees, very small operation, not making a ton, but they were able to just work out a deal where they were just paying monthly in order to cashflow this business much less than they would have paid for a college degree. And if you think about what you're doing when you do that, you're buying your child a job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:48]:
The way that I think about this, and this is the same way that I think about young adults moving away is that if you're willing to move away for college, let's say that you live in Kansas right now, and then you're thinking about going to school in Maine. Why wouldn't you also be willing to move to the other side of the country or halfway across the country for a job? And in the same vein for this, if you have some money set aside and obviously if you have it in a tax advantage account of 5.29, that's more difficult, but let's say that you just have cash sitting in treasury bills or however you have it sitting or an investment account where you can liquidate it and where you can get it. And you're saying, okay, well, I have a 100 grand, I have 30 grand. I have 10 grand, whatever the amount is. This is the amount of money that I have to then I've saved to help them with college and with going to university. Why would we not then take that money? If you already have it earmarked and already put on the side, why would we not take that money and then drop it into another opportunity that isn't as risky that buys hard assets that buys a brand. And then exactly what you said that buys some sort of income for your child. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:56]:
And it was going to be a total loss. Anyway, you're going to take that $10 and you were just going to then dump it into a university quote investment into their quote education.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:04]:
Whereas a business is an actual investment.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:06]:
Now you're just making it a real investment instead of hopefully in 4 years, we're going to start seeing some ROI.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:11]:
Hopefully in 4 weeks, we're going to start seeing some ROI.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:14]:
Exactly.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:14]:
And also the purpose and experience of that. I would generously say that the amount of experience and learning that a young adult would get from that, if they're responsible enough for their parents to trust them to do it. Right? Because this is obviously going to be only the caveat I would say is only young adults who are interested in doing this and want to do it. This is not a, your child doesn't wanna do it, buy them a business. Don't do that. This is if they have the initiative and they actually want to do it and they want to give it a shot. The amount that they're going to learn is gonna be laughable compared to what they would get from a bachelor's degree. It's gonna be such a joke.

Hannah Maruyama [00:38:43]:
They're gonna learn to do everything. Marketing, managing, problem solving, depending on the type of business, equipment repair, sourcing, negotiate. So many things that they'll learn that are just so practical for the rest of their lives.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:54]:
I completely agree. And so that's pathway number 4, build a business. And that breaks down into 2 things. You can either build a business from scratch or you can buy a business. The last pathway pathway number 5 is learn a skill and learn a skill is sneakily similar to earn a license or certification. The only difference with learning a skill is that they are not getting a certification or a license after they learn whatever skill it is. So the prerequisite for licenses and certifications is that they must learn something before they do it. And the license or certification is just the validation that they have learned those skills.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:30]:
It doesn't even have to be something that they've learned just recently. It's just a validation that they have learned it at some point. What I mean, very simply to illustrate the point, let's take, for example, a language learning a language. There are licenses and there are certifications out there that validate that, you know, this language, whatever that language is to a certain degree

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:51]:
to a business level, to a conversational level,

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:53]:
to a medical level, whatever it is that you understand it to this level. And I'm certified in this language up to that level. And you could have been speaking English your whole life, but you could maybe Spanish is your first language or Japanese is your first language. And you've actually, you've been bilingual your entire life. You just now, okay, well, I need to get certified in it. So to show people that I am proficient in English or to show people that I am proficient in Spanish or whatever, and then you just go and get a certification. At one point in your life, you learned it. And so it's just the certification and the license.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:23]:
It's just a

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:24]:
It's a paper.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:25]:
Exactly. That says that some point in time, you had learned it and I'm proficient to this skill. Learning a skill is everything that requires earning a licensed certification, except for not

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:35]:
no paper.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:36]:
Yeah, exactly. No paper. I am fluent in English. I just don't have a certification that says that I'm fluent in English. I'm talking like literally for my own life. I am not always fluent in English.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:45]:
80%. Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:47]:
I can at least read to a 5th grade level. That's generous. I guess I can at least read up until a 3rd grade level.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:55]:
Examples of this that I like to use would be you would get a license to be a diesel mechanic, but there isn't a license or certification for fixing mountain bikes that are a certain type. If you live in a place where the mountain biking is frequent, you can't necessarily get a certification for painting custom snowboards. Can't necessarily get a certification for restoring Jordans or vintage sneakers. That's just not really something that you can do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:18]:
There's just no industry standard for the certification. I'm positive that they can find somebody to certify them in that thing. Yeah. But once again, how valid is that certification that goes back the

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:28]:
thing at a certain point, it doesn't matter. Just finding a certification for certification sake is not useful unless it has an actual function.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:34]:
And that is one of the things that we should have addressed in the third one. I apologize to everybody is that earning a license or certification. One of the hard things about identifying them is whether or not they actually need it. Because what I see happens all the time, I saw this happen a lot when we were working a lot more with job seekers, is that people would just go and treat the certifications and the licenses just like how they treat degrees. And even though they're just like, well, this one only cost me $200 and it only cost me 2 weeks of my time. And now I have this certification and now I'm going to go and get this certification too, and this certification and this certification. And then I'm going to have all these 7 certifications. And then I can go out to the job market and then I can find a job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:08]:
Dude, you've got this all wrong. If you've identified that you have a certification, that you need a certification to get this job or need a license to get that job, get that, then apply the job. Okay. You're still not getting callbacks while you're applying to the job because you have that first one. You're studying for the second one. Okay. Then when you get the second one, you're still applying to the jobs. You're not going to jump into like how you do with a degree where you just drop into the tank for 4 years and you never come out trying to get to the actual goal of getting a job and being employed.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:33]:
Don't let your child do that. Look, I need all these 6 certifications to do it, and it's gonna take me 2 years of my life. Woah. You say you need the 6. Let's prioritize the number one that you think that makes the most sense. That's gonna give us the highest lift. That's gonna make you the most attractive to employers. Let's go ahead and do that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:42:47]:
Let's tackle that one first, and then let's go back out to the job market and let's go ahead and try to apply to jobs. If you still aren't getting callbacks, then you go and get the second one. And while you're still studying for the second one, you continue to apply and continue to apply and continue to apply. And then you just keep doing that cycle over and over and over again. Sorry. I missed that point at the third one.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:06]:
No, that's a really important one because that was a question people were, oh, what's a good cert. Nope, wrong question. You're already off on the wrong foot.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:12]:
When people say like, oh, why don't you guys have a list of certifications that are out there? It wouldn't be useful for you. You think it would be useful for you, but you're still picking the wrong way.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:19]:
Well, also good doesn't mean anything because good to someone is not good to you. A living wage to you is not a living wage to you. Everybody has different, you know, a good location to you is not a good location to you. Some people hate the cold. Some people hate the heat. It doesn't work that way. There's no good. And you have to figure out what good is to you.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:34]:
And then if certifications are needed, get one that's needed. And then you try, as you said, another good example of this too. And this one is important because there's a lot of young adults who are studying different coding languages because the CS degree is a complete and total waste of time. This is a learn a skill. Actually CS is gonna fall under that one because your children will need to learn coding languages and build portfolios of work. Software development certifications, specifically, let's say I'm a full stack software developer, not useful. But a GitHub that is very good and shows that they've built projects is very good. So they don't necessarily need a certification in software development to be a good candidate.

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:09]:
What they need is they need to learn the actual skills so that in a technical interview, they understand the concepts and they understand how to do things, which can only be mastered through learning.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:18]:
And for learning skills, there's a framework that we think about and that we actually, when you come through the degree free launch program, if you want to come through that, you can go to degreefree.coforward/launch to put your child through the degree free launch program. When we build these custom career curriculums and we are telling them here, here's what you have to learn to master these skills to then get this job, whatever the job is. And it's completely custom to your child. We always break it down into 3 different ways to learn the skills, which is self study supported study and structured study. And what that means in a nutshell is self study is going to be free resources usually, or some sort of course materials, whether that's companies, free resources for Salesforce to have Trailhead. You can go ahead and take those classes for free. There's a whole bunch of other certification programs, licensing stuff. And then you can also get it from private parties, YouTube university.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:07]:
Those are all self study. And the way that you think about it is whether or not you have the support or not, whether or not you have somebody when your child gets hung up on something, whether or not they can ask a question to somebody and says like, Hey, is, does this go on this side of the equal sign or does this go on this side of the equal sign? Something like that. Obviously they can go and find it like on Reddit or other forums or in discourse, Slack channels. They can do all of that. That's going to be piecing it together themselves.

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:36]:
So someone personally answers. So for example, Mike Wheeler has a great Salesforce course that I took years ago. And if you are in his course and you ask him a question, he'll answer you. And that would be supported study.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:47]:
And then moving on to supported study, supported study is going to be where you have somebody curate what it is that you need to learn and says, okay, here you go. So that's going to be something like if you go ahead and buy a Udemy course or something like that. Here is a course on how to do and pass your whatever, or here's a course to how to learn JavaScript, everything there for you. And it can come with support. Here's a support group where you ask a question, but it's not necessarily 1 on 1 or it's not necessarily customized to you. There could be like a knowledge base where everybody has asked their questions before in the video on the very bottom where people are like, Hey, so does it go on this side of the equal sign or does it go on outside of the equal sign? And then somebody else is like the instructor or one of the community members is like, oh, it goes on the right side of the equal sign. And here's why. So that is supported study.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:36]:
Somebody comes up. Says, okay, here is what you need to learn. They package it all up for you. And then they have very limited support, but there is some sort of support there with it. And then the structured study is going to be what I like to think about here is going to be like boot camps. It doesn't necessarily have to be software bootcamp, but it's something that has, Hey, I have a question I'm going to ask somebody and then somebody is going to answer me directly. It's not like I'm asking into the ether sphere, like, Hey, maybe can somebody help me with this? Hey, John, I don't know whether or not this goes on the left side of the equal sign or whether it goes on the right side of the equal sign. And then John answers back within a day or John answers back when you go go on the call with him on Friday and says, oh, got it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:16]:
It goes on this side of the equal sign and here's why. And they explain it to you. And those are the tiers of study that we give every single person that comes through the lodge program for every skill for the career path that fits their life needs. That is how we suggest you think about looking through these different learning opportunities and these different learning materials. Think through it. Self study supported study and structured study. I hope that was helpful for everybody. That was a 5 degree of free pathways.

Hannah Maruyama [00:47:42]:
Number 1, get a job to find on the job training or apprenticeship 3, earn a license or certification for build a business quote and possibly buy a business. And then number 5 is learn a skill.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:53]:
I hope this takes away some of that graduation anxiety or some of that 1st year college not going to their 2nd year or 2nd year, not going to their 3rd year anxiety because it's coming up fast 4 months from now or 3 months from now or so, they're gonna be finishing it up the year and being it's summer. And it might be eternally summer from now on. And you're okay. What do they do? Those are the 5 degree free pathways that they can walk down. Now, at least the paths are illuminated for them. Now, if you want to see which one they should walk down and what makes sense for them, you can get the degree free way, how to help your 16 to 20 year old build the life they want. And that walks you through the next steps, which is customizing it to their needs and what they want their life to look like. And you can get that at degreefree.co/book.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:38]:
That's pretty much it until next week guys.