The Papered Mindset: The Disconnect Between College Education and Employment (DF#123)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:

As soon as you're let out into the wild at age 18, no one cares anymore about you doing things the correct way. All they care about you doing is getting it done. That's it. And sometimes part of that criteria is doing it the correct way, but a lot of times, it's just gonna be getting it done. Is just gonna be, did it work? Did it accomplish the goal? And especially for people who are gonna be in creative fields like marketing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:26]:

Hello, folks. And welcome back to degree free. It is great to have you back. We just had

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:32]:

Such a good idea for TikTok. I'm gonna do it. Follow us at degree free on TikTok if you wanna see this, but maybe we'll we'll put in the show notes is for the next episode. How about that?

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:45]:

Yeah. Follow along on TikTok if you haven't already. Anyway, let's jump into today's episode. Today, we are doing a continuation from last week. It's actually not even a continuation because we We basically teased it out last week of what we were doing or that this was gonna be fun. And then I came with such a banger That that had to end.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:12]:

We had to cut it. We did.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:14]:

Because it was a complete episode because that's what you get here at degree free.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:18]:

And we like full circles.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:19]:

Exactly. That is what I do. I bring the heat and

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:24]:

And I just sit here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:26]:

The heat was brought. And so this week, we are gonna be following up with what we had planned to do last week, which is It's kind of like a mean tweet. Have you ever seen that from Kimmel? But not really at all at the same time.

Hannah Maruyama [00:01:42]:

It's more like a TikTok talk Crap. That's really what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about TikTok comments because that is where I live.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:49]:

Yeah. And so it's going to be it's not just It's gonna be us talking about these different comments from TikTok, and I actually have a comment from YouTube. And we're gonna be talking and kind of reacting to these comments. But there's a lot of good things that I think that I know me personally. This comment that I'm gonna talk about really hit home. I think it's gonna hit home for a lot of people, and so I'm really excited. So definitely stick around everybody, but I think You are gonna start off. I don't know what we're gonna talk about, but you have the floor.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:23]:

So I was going to pick up where I left off last week with our fun, with our TikTok comments, with our TikTok top crap, we'll workshop the name. Let us know what we should say. Instead of mean tweets, we're gonna come up with some TikTok label. Let us know what your ideas are for the formal segment that should be called, because I'd like to keep doing this because it's fun.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:42]:

Yep. Go to YouTube. Comment on YouTube. Let us know.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:45]:

Let us know. But what I want to do is I actually put in I bumped my mean tweet TikTok comments because I want to talk about a TikTok that Ryan sent me, which never happens. I don't know that you've ever sent me a TikTok before.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:00]:

I'm hip, man.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:00]:

I he's hip with the kids. But he sent me a TikTok, and holy crap. This one was this was a doozy. So much so that it has bumped to number 1 on today's episode that we're gonna talk about. It is a girl, woman, girl. How How old do you think she is?

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:18]:

She says it in the video. She's 25.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:20]:

She's 25 years old. She looks great for 25. Hard to tell. She looks like she's 21, 22 years old. But she she is 25 years old. She's a 25 year old woman. Her handle is at fitness with Allison. I wanna make sure I attribute this correctly, because people wanna go follow her to see the original video.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:34]:

They should. But her name is Allison Johnson. The lead up to the video is I have a problem with America, which I think is hilarious because she leads with, I have a problem with the country. I do not have a problem with the entity that sold me, this thing that I'm about to complain about, but we'll get back to that. And essentially, what she says in the video is that she's going to her serving job, like her waitressing job. And the waitressing job pays more than entry level roles that she could get with her marketing degree. Do you want to guess how much her marketing degree cost?

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:04]:

Well, I've seen the video. So but I'm gonna pretend like I didn't see their video, and I'm gonna say $20.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:12]:

$20. Nice. Nice. Thanks. Way way to be the boys. Way to be the boys. No. $80,000 she paid for this marketing degree.

Hannah Maruyama [00:04:20]:

And the irony the great irony being here that she says she wants to apply for jobs that pay a 150 to $200,000, but she doesn't have any experience. And then she just goes, but the degree is the experience, except it's not. Obviously, the businesses do not perceive it that way. The college told her it was experience, but it's not. A degree does not equal experience, which is why there's so much frustration from college graduates because they feel like once they have a degree, they have experience. But just because you purchase paper does not mean that you now have professional experience. That is not the case. Now the other thing that I wanna talk about about this video that's so thing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:11]:

As I said, the fact that she goes, I have a problem with America. Why don't you have a problem with the colleges that sold you this thing that clearly doesn't serve you for $80,000? 2, this girl bought a marketing degree, and then she has not been successful at marketing herself to get a job. Getting work is marketing. So clearly, the college did not give her enough experience to even be able to market herself. Yourself is the easiest thing to market because you at least know yourself. She's not even able to market her own experience, her own labor to a company successfully, but she thinks a company should pay her a market value $150,000 because she says the entry level roles are not enough. Her serving job pays more. So here we have so many problems.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:01]:

I don't know which problem to talk about first. Which problem would you like to talk about first?

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:05]:

Well, 1st, I did wanna say the $80,000 that you're talking about, that's not how much it cost her. That is how much she's in debt. So it cost more than $80,000 for that. And so, yeah, the marketing degree one of the top comments When you click on the video and for those that are just listening and not watching on, YouTube, at the show notes, degree freedot c04/podcast. I will put a link to all of the comments and all of the vids. I actually don't know how to put links to comments, and so I'm I'm just gonna put links to the videos that we're talking about there, degree free.c0forward/podcast. You so you can go and watch All of these videos and find all these comments. But one of the top comments is another person who has a marketing degree that said, I have a marketing degree.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:57]:

I had 3 internships. I did this volunteer project, this project, whatever. Experience is experience.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:05]:

Well, let's move the grasp on reality.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:07]:

They vehemently disagreed, obviously, with her even though they also had a marketing degree. And the marketing degree in that person's mind, by the way that that comment was worded or at least through text, It seemed like they agreed with your point, right, which is, like, experience is experience and the marketing degree. Just because we got it doesn't mean that we are now qualified for these jobs. I think in their mind, it's just the table stakes of what you need To get the job, which I also think is erroneous.

Hannah Maruyama [00:07:45]:

For marketing specifically is ridiculous. But if you think about it too so she went to college. She paid $80,000 plus more. You're right. Probably 6 figures at the end of the day, all told for that. And she sat in a classroom for we're gonna conservatively say 4 years, but you and I both know it was probably five and a half, because she's 25. What is that? 7 years? If she went to college after she graduated high school, 7 years.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:06]:

Yeah. But she's just saying that now. I don't know when she graduated. I don't think it was made clear in the video.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:12]:

Okay. She didn't talk about when she graduated. Okay. So she's 25 years old now. She went and took general education classes for 2 years. And then for 2 years, she sat in the classroom, room, and she learned what was very likely outdated theory from people who do not get paid to do marketing. That's what she did. And she thinks that that is experience because the college that sold her this piece of paper for $80,000 told her and implied that it was.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:38]:

And that when she's done, check this box. You can waltz into anywhere you want and get paid 6 figures, which we know we've talked about on this podcast before at ad nauseam that college graduates now, especially, have dreamly disjointed views of how much they're gonna get paid. They do think they're gonna walk out and get paid 6 figures, and that's not the case. It's about half or less.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:58]:

I think that that's the case in general or has been for the last 15 years. When I went to college, that was definitely the case. I thought that I was going to get paid x amount of money. I think by the websites that were around at the time, I think it looked like I was gonna get paid, like, $90,000 or $80,000 right out of college. And so it wasn't the college itself that was saying this, but it was all of the resources that are built around colleges and around that system that are also trying to make money and trying to gather, quote, gather Data. And so, you know, what she says, the marketing jobs don't pay more than her serving job. I know how that feels. I literally know exactly how that feels.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:51]:

I went. I got my 4 year degree. I got it in economics, and then I applied for jobs. The jobs that I was applying to were paying way less than what I was making as a bartender. It was crazy. And it was difficult for me at the time to deal with that realization. And so I understand the frustration of what she is going through. She hasn't made it out the other side yet and realize like, hey, complaining about Your degree and then not not being counted as experience when it quote should be.

Ryan Maruyama [00:10:27]:

Okay. That's not gonna get you more experience. That's gonna get you another day as a server and not getting experience in your marketing role. And so for me, I had to deal with this, And I took a massive pay cut. I took such a large pay cut that I had to keep my bartending job on the side. Because college takes five and a

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:48]:

half years for most college graduates, by the time they graduate, they have this really inflated sense of where they to be, and they're not willing to actually take entry level work anymore, which is so interesting because that's what you have to do, and you have to go get an entry level job. Like, the person who's applying at 18 to a marketing role that pays $40 is this they're applying side by side with a 25 year old who has a serving job, a marketing degree, and $80,000 worth of debt. Applying to the same job, you're in the running for the same job. You have the same amount of experience. 0. And that's a tough pill to swallow.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:26]:

Is there anything else that you wanted to get into with this one specifically?

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:30]:

Yeah. I don't just wanna beat her down. I wanna also say that we have a really one of the best, actually. It's really one of my favorite podcast episodes you've ever done, but it was with James Stewart, and he's a digital marketer. And he breaks down probably as basically as you could and and very comprehensively and very clearly how to get into marketing and build experience and actually build a portfolio and get entry level jobs. And anyone who's interested in digital marketing, I would highly suggest going back and listening to that episode. It is great.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:59]:

Yeah. It is a very good primer on the beginnings of how to become a digital marketer from his perspective, Because his perspective is from Google Ads. Like, that's how he cut his teeth, and that is what he is good at. He is good at running paid ads. And so it's not necessarily from the creative side of it. It is from the numbers and cents paid ads and paid acquisition side of it. And he goes over a very, very meticulous road map of how he would do it right now Or at least as of when we had that interview a year ago or so.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:39]:

Yeah. But it's super valuable. And I think anyone who wants to be in marketing, whether you just graduated or your degree free, and you're 17, 18 years old and looking to get into that world. Definitely, definitely worth an hour of your time to listen to.

Ryan Maruyama [00:12:52]:

So this is a perfect segue into what I wanna talk about or the first thing that I wanna talk about, which is a YouTube comment. And this is from a while ago. But because we were doing this episode, I thought back to this comment, and I was like, I gotta go find that comment again and read it Because there was so many red flags in here, but then I saw a lot of my old self and the things that I did and thought from back then. And so this is very related to what you just talked about, that same mindset.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:25]:

The papered mindset.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:26]:

Exactly. And so this is a video from the early days of the podcast. And once again, I'll link everything to degreefree.c04/podcast so that you can actually watch these videos. And in the video, I am just talking about this is from the early days of the podcast, our first studio. And I am talking about how when I was in the restaurant industry, when I was a server, before I was ever a bartender, whatever, even when I was a bartender, I worked with so many people that had college degrees. It was insane. I worked with so many people who had psychology degrees. They had master's degrees.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:00]:

They had advanced degrees, but they did the exact same job as me. And they got paid the exact same amount as I did. Then you went on to say that 56% of graduates are under or unemployed, and they get paid $37,000. And because they get paid $37,000 a year, that's what their degree is worth. I think that's still valid. Sure. I don't know about the 56%. I don't know if that's changed or not.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:25]:

But as far as if that's what you can get, that's probably what it was worth. I mean, for myself, That lines up perfectly because what we were talking about earlier, I thought that I was gonna get paid $90,000 or $80,000. I didn't go at my degree or my major willy nilly. I chose it specifically, but the Numbers that I had and the resources that I were pulling from were just inaccurate. And that goes to, I think, that the Mark Twain saying, It's not what you don't know that'll hurt you. It's what you think you know that just isn't so. And so I made these decisions thinking I was gonna pay $90. And then when I walked into these interviews, they were offering me, like, $12 an hour.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:13]:

A little shocking.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:15]:

So when I ended up I don't know if I've ever told this story before, but we have an a lot of new listeners, so I'll tell it again. When I went into my interview for the bank job that I call myself a monkey with a headset and so I actually got a job before that, and I've had a couple of jobs For that, like, employing my degree, and I'm using that in air quotes for for everybody. And so when I went to this Interview. It was actually the negotiation stage at this point. I had landed the job. I go to the downtown office, and I Walk in and I'm talking to the HR person or the manager. I don't even remember who it was anymore. And I was talking to them about how much money I should get paid.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:58]:

And they gave me the offer, and the offer was $31,000 a year. So that is a 3rd. Literally, a 3rd of what I thought I would be making out of college. So that just Shows you my discrepancy of, like, what I thought was possible. I was off by 3 x. Right? Like, that's crazy. That's crazy. But what made this conversation memorable was that I had always heard that you always negotiate.

Ryan Maruyama [00:16:28]:

Right? You always negotiate. And so I was like, okay. I'm gonna negotiate because I had a job already. Right? I was working another Bank job. And then I was also bartending. So I was like, what do I have to lose? Right? I'm I'm I'm just gonna throw a number out there. And I was like, what about 37? And she and she goes, ah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:53]:

He has told this story before, and every time it That's very honestly, too, what a power move. Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:01]:

She literally She goes Yeah. No. She literally laughs at me. And then she just, like

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:08]:

We can offer you $12 an hour.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:10]:

I was like, okay. I guess that's a no. It's Is that what

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:15]:

you said?

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:15]:

No. I mean, no. It's not what I said. But she laughed. She snickered. And she I'm not sure. I don't remember if she didn't answer me. I'm I'm pretty sure she just laughed, and she Let it sit at least for a second because I remember sitting in it for, like, what I felt was forever.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:33]:

Like, 10 seconds?

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:34]:

It probably no. It's probably way less than Probably, like, 4 seconds. But the and then I just sat there, and I was just like, Oh my god. And it felt like forever. Yeah. And so it was probably probably really what happened is that There was not a pause at all, and she was just like, no. But my memory is such that I just sat in that In eternity. Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:17:59]:

Forever. And I'm probably still sitting here Right now.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:03]:

Oh, man. That's brutal. Well, what's so funny about that is when she had just read a book about negotiating the night before and just, like, laugh when they

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:10]:

Right. Exactly. Which was a power move. This is

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:12]:

the 1st time you ever done it. Very effective. Wow. That works.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:15]:

Very effective. I ended up taking the job and so for $31,000 a year. And so that number, at least in my mind, very accurate for my own personal experience. But getting to the comment of this video, I'm going to read the 1st comment verbatim so that we can all have context of what I'm about to say. It is a little bit long, but let's just get through it. That is not true what she said. I have an IT degree and can't find anything in my field. Years ago, when I did get IT jobs, they paid me to hook up servers, and then they would lay you off.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:52]:

Companies were not looking for long term employees. It's the great lie in society. I mean, other than people going in the medical field, which is nothing I want to do, there isn't much All I see today is a bunch of entry level jobs that pay crap and nothing else. And if there is something else, companies throw all these Extra requirements on you to get the jobs, like 35 years of experience to get the job. Problem with this country is it doesn't have enough good jobs, and it's like the lottery system. Some get lucky and some do not get lucky. So please don't say people who work all in retail have psychology degrees. That's not true at all.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:34]:

We have been lied to by the politicians. Okay.

Hannah Maruyama [00:19:38]:

I don't completely disagree with some of his points about being lied to by politicians. But

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:43]:

Sure. Sure. There is a lot to unpack there. So yeah. Sure. Maybe maybe we're lied to by politicians. The fact that, like, all people that work in retail have psychology degrees. I've literally never said that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:56]:

Well, he's referencing that portion that I spoke in that video. Like, I've literally never said that. I'm talking about my personal experience working at restaurants and every restaurant that I've ever worked at, of which I've worked at many because I did it for over 10 years. And so and I've worked at my fair share too. Yeah. So and everywhere that I went, there were people that had college degrees and advanced degrees in every single restaurant that I've worked at. And so I'm saying from my personal experience that has been the case. And it's not just 1 person, even though the teams are small at these restaurants, at some of the restaurants that I worked at.

Hannah Maruyama [00:20:31]:

Also, you and I both have worked all over the country too. That's the other thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:35]:

Exactly. And so my big thing with this Comment is having to do with the mindset to write this comment. And so I don't know. I've thought about this for a while, And I don't know what else to call this mindset other than a losing or a loser's mindset. I'm not calling this person a loser. The reason why I'm saying that is this This transported me exactly into where we have been talking about this entire day. This entire time, we have been talking about, you know, me in college and me right out of college. And this is the exact same mindset that I had.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:13]:

And so I'm not calling this person a loser. I am very comfortable calling myself a loser, at least back then. Very comfortable Because this is the exact same mindset that I had, which is I got this degree. I went to school for 4 plus years. I did this. It's supposed to be experience like that girl was saying. Right? It's supposed to be experience, but it's not give me the job.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:38]:

And this is what we've come to refer to at degree free as a papered mindset. Because you believe what you've been taught, which is that things if you do certain things, you get specific results, and it will always work that way. And that is how it's supposed to work. And that is how you deserve it to work. All of those things may be true. Right, it could be very true that it should work that way, and you were told that. And because of the work you put in, that should be the result you get. However, that is not the reality and getting stuck.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:07]:

And and this is where people get stuck in a papered mindset, which is they stop when they're confronted with the reality that, oh, you know what? Maybe it doesn't work like that. As this guy's he's he's reached the right conclusion, which is it doesn't work how I've been told it works. Yes, it does not. It does not work the way that you've been told it works, which means you don't know how it works, which means it works any way you can get it to work. And that is the degree free way. And then the commenter I know where the story is going. But

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:34]:

Yeah. So if it doesn't work, Change. I mean, that's where we're going with this, and I'll get to that in a second. Yeah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:42]:

You don't just sit and complain.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:44]:

But to add more context to this and how I fully came to this conclusion, you might be thinking now that, wow. That's kind of Hard to judge somebody on those things. And I'm not judging the person. Like I said, it's just like the mindset, the comment, and made me jog and think back in my own life about it. But the comment to the next one down was this person. It was a degree free person who had certs, Who works in IT and who is asking this person about, hey. Do you have certs? How does your resume look? What are you doing? I want to help. Right? And this person saying, like, I'm just trying to be helpful.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:25]:

And if you read this comment, it is very, very helpful. He's taking time out of and I don't know if it's Woman or or a or a man. I'm just gonna say he. So he is taking time out of his day to help this person to write this down On their phone or on their computer, ask all these questions so that this person could give some answers so that he could give some insight. That's obviously what this person is trying to do. Props to commenter too, by

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:54]:

the way, also for this, because this is a very degree free thing too. Once you figure something out and something that works for you, tell other people. Tell as many people as you can, because you never know if you can get somebody around a roadblock by just telling them 1 sentence. You just never know. So you always share if you can figure something out.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:09]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Which is why we started the podcast. Yeah. And then this person said Answered some of the questions in a sentence. And then in another comment, they said, you're not helping. You're actually making it worse for me. Assert isn't going to help me program.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:25]:

Assert isn't going to help me take a part a computer or work with complex algorithms. It's like every time you get a degree, they want a cert, then a license. It never ends. How much do I have to do to get ahead with this BS. And then this person sent another comment saying, easy, mate. Don't get ahead of yourself. You sound like you've got decent qualities. Landing an entry level IT role shouldn't be too difficult.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:51]:

How's that resume look? I'll shoot you a DM with some info.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:56]:

Comment or two.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:56]:

Yeah. It's amazing. Really, really amazing. The the original commenter didn't post back to this. So I hope it I hope they DM, then I hope that this person found a job or is finding a job.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:09]:

What the irony of this too, does commenter 1 not see the irony in saying that, like, this is not true, it's degrees, but then his degree is not getting him work. Does he not see the irony in that?

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:18]:

Not only that, but there's A person that is degree free that is trying to help you do it, but literally saying you're not helping.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:29]:

Yeah, shooting him down while he's trying to help him troubleshoot because he's clearly having issues.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:33]:

Exactly. You're clearly having problems, and this person's trying to help. At the same time that this person is trying to help, you are saying that it's not possible to do what this person who is Trying to help has done.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:47]:

Already done. Yeah. That's so true. It's just so much irony. It's an irony sandwich. It's just like, I don't want

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:54]:

You're saying it's not possible to get a job without a degree. It's not possible to do it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:01]:

But, also, I can't get a job with my degree.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:03]:

And then there's this person, a degree free person who has a job a job in your field that you want without a degree And is willing and able To

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:14]:

take time out of their day to help you figure out what's wrong.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:16]:

Exactly. Trying to help you get this role And you are not willing to accept it. That's tough. One of the things that this also reminded me about was When I was younger, I thought that I knew everything and I thought that I was smarter than everybody. And it was really bad, But I would see I would graduate college, and then I would see all these people have jobs that I really, really wanted. Right? Very similar to what this person is talking about here, but they didn't do what I did. They didn't go to college. They didn't get a degree.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:50]:

They didn't put the hard work in that I put in. They didn't put the 4 years in of going to class, balancing a part time. For me, it was a full time job. Right. They they didn't do all of that work. They just went to work and, quote, got experience. But I went to college. And so I Looked at those people that had what I wanted, and I was jealous.

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:13]:

And I said, that doesn't make any sense. You're so dumb. How is it that you got a job when you're dumber than me, quote, unquote, when you didn't put as much work, quote, unquote, as I did into doing this, into gaining the experience, quote, Is it doing all of these things? How would did you get this job and I didn't? You're an idiot. But I wasn't actually asking them the question. It was a rhetorical question in my mind that I would say and stories that I would tell myself to make me feel better about the situation that I'm in, which is doing these actions and getting the same outcome and then doing the same actions and getting the same outcome. What I should have done if I wasn't jealous Is I should have gone to them even if I thought the the things that I thought, which we can get to that another day. You probably shouldn't think that. You shouldn't think that other people are idiots, especially for me because I'm an idiot.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:08]:

You know? Like you. Yeah. And so you should just go to that person, and you should say, how did you do that? You have what I want, and you took a different path. I wasn't aware that that path existed. And so I would love it If you took some time out of your day to explain to me how you did it. How did you do it? Okay. That's how you did it. Wow.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:32]:

I didn't realize it. I thought this path college was the only way to do it. And you're telling me you're totally breaking my frame. You're totally shattering the glass. You're telling me that there's an entirely different way. And I promise you, if I had done that back then, I would be way further ahead in my own life with the career goals that I want to accomplish and the things that I wanna do. And I promise you with whoever's listening to this, myself included. If you do that right now, today with something that you wanna learn or the person that you wanna be, no matter what level you're at in life, you will get ahead quicker.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:11]:

Absolutely. I could not agree with that more.

Ryan Maruyama [00:29:14]:

The last problem that I wanted to highlight from this segment is the problem of schools and the problem with Binary thinking. And so I'm equating the 2 just to make it simple here. But schools teach you that there's a right way To solve an answer. Go back to your high school or your middle school English classes to say, This is how you write an essay. One of the most creative endeavors that you can do, which is write and tell other people your thoughts and convey those thoughts to somebody else to have them think that, they're telling you that this is the only way to do that. Intro paragraph, 3 body paragraphs, and a conclusion where you sum it all up. That's how they tell you to do it. But, really, There's a 1000000 ways that I could tell this story.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:07]:

I mean, we could have started this podcast with this. Some some people listen to this probably, like, I wish you would have.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:13]:

Get to the point already.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:15]:

Exactly. But that is what school teaches, and that is the binary thinking that I had at the time, and I think that the first 2 people that we've talked about so far in this segment, that TikTok video and this commenter have. And that's where they're suffering from, Which is this is the only way to get there. And until your frame is broken and until you have met somebody or surround yourself or exposed to people that have done different things, you don't know any other way to do it. Because just like everything, you don't know what you don't know. And so it reminds me a lot of firefighting. Right. So for those that don't know, I used to be a firefighter.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:59]:

It's a big part of my life. Loved it. Best job in the world. All of that. One of the things with firefighting Is that every situation is dynamic. And so you can learn how to solve these problems and you can drill them And practice them. That's what drilling is. Right? You can drill them all the time, but it doesn't matter when you got onto the field.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:21]:

When the house is on fire, when that person needs to get caught out of the car, doesn't matter how many times that you practiced it. Like, yes. This is the most efficient way to do it. I've learned that. Absolutely. But there's a 100 other ways that you could do it. There's a 1000000 other ways that you could do this Exact thing. And so a framework that my crew used to use or at least my engineer used to use was, Did it work? That was it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:49]:

That was the question. Right? Did it work? Did we do it safely? Right. Are we still alive? Did we accomplish our goal? Okay. Perfect. Sounds good. Let's talk about how we could have done it safer. Let's talk about how we could have done it more efficiently. Let's talk about how we could have communicated more in the process.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:08]:

Right. Let's talk about how we could have prioritize and tackled the tasks that we did in a more intelligent, safer, efficient way. Sure. But at the end of the day, there's only 2 questions. Are we alive and did it work? It's that type of non binary or dynamic thinking That really, really helps and really breaks your frame for all of this. Because then you'll see, I need to get an economics degree to go work in banking. I need to go get an economics degree to go become an economist. I need to go get a marketing degree to become a marketer.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:43]:

And that is very black and white. It's 1 or 0. It's yes or it's no. That's it. But then when you meet somebody that didn't do that, well, Everything changes. Everything changes.

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:55]:

Yeah. The glass breaks, and you're just oh, wait a minute. What? This is not an attack on training basics. That's not what we're talking about. Because in the story that Ryan just told about firefighting, you have to know the fundamental basic principles of things in order to use them. Right, that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is teaching people that there's only one way to do things. That is incorrect.

Hannah Maruyama [00:33:17]:

Because as soon as they're let out into the wild specifically in high school, I will say I'll talk about this. But as soon as you're let out into the wild at age 18, no one cares anymore about you doing things the correct way. All they care about you doing is getting it done. That's it. And sometimes part of that criteria is doing it the correct way. But a lot of times, it's just gonna be getting it done. It's just gonna be, did it work? Did it accomplish the goal? And especially for people who are gonna be in creative fields like marketing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:33:42]:

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 2nd, 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. 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.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:16]:

If you could do that right now, that would mean a whole lot. There's a bunch of things I wanna Give a drill for parents to talk about with their kids or things that you could actually do if you don't have kids To help foster this mindset and to help foster this type of problem solving. It's a drill that some of my friends used to do. I was on a different company. I was on a different truck and at a different station. But and I don't know if I've talked about on this podcast, but I'll get to that in a second. To talk about what you were saying, which is Doing the basics and learning the foundations of something reminded me of I mean, this is all a firefighting, but it reminded me Of a story or of a time when was it really the first time that I was thrown out of my preparation? That happens a lot when you're new. Totally happens because you learn in the classroom one way, and you're, like, CPR is supposed to look like this.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:11]:

And then you go and you're you break your 1st ribs, and you're, like, oh my, you know, I I didn't realize I was gonna break ribs. You know what I mean? It's, like, tough. And you're, like, am I, like anyway. Sorry. I don't wanna get too graphic. But it reminded me of My first auto education, and I'm not sure if I ever told this story. But when you're learning auto education, when you're a firefighter, if you are in a well funded department, you're in your fortunate enough to have access to cars. You are going to learn in a pit somewhere.

Ryan Maruyama [00:35:39]:

You're gonna learn in an environment that's very safe. Right, whether or not that's your local junkyard or if you're fortunate enough for your training center to be able to bring in cars and have a car pit there for you, whatever it looks like, That is what you're gonna do. In this environment, it is chaos. Sure. But it is the nicest that you will ever get these cars. These cars are absolutely smashed. Right? I mean, they're absolutely smashed, and you have to learn the fundamentals. I'm gonna cut here.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:08]:

I'm gonna spread here. I'm gonna cut here. I'm gonna spread here. Right. And then that's why we're gonna roll this back, and then we're gonna extricate the victim. Right? Like, that's what we're gonna do, and that's the play that we're gonna run. Yes. Is it in the hot sun? Absolutely.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:21]:

Is it hot in your gear? Are the tools heavy? Does it suck? Absolutely. But that's just the table stakes. Right. Like, that's just what you have to do regardless of the situation. Now when you're talking about learning the basics, when I had my 1st alarm, I got The scene, we got the scene and it was absolute chaos. Sure. The car was smashed and that kinda looked familiar. But then there was another car that was in a totally different orientation than I've ever worked on.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:50]:

And we didn't we didn't work on that car. We had to extricate the victim in this car, and the other truck was ex extricating the victim in the other car. And I was like, okay. But the victim That we are working on is up against the median. And the whole playbook just went out the window because the driver, I don't wanna get morbid, but the driver of the is deceased, and the passenger is pinned in, and she's soon to be deceased or she's dying. And sorry for kids who listen to this or anything like that, but, you know, she's dying. And I'm just, like, I have I have the spreaders, what they call the draw jaws of life. And I'm like, how do I get there? Right? Like, how do I even get to start The thing that I was trained to do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:38]:

Luckily, this is why your team is firefighting, and my team was very experienced. I was the youngest person by far on my team. And they hadn't seen this before, but they had seen many other things. And so me being a beginner, I didn't know how to solve this problem. I didn't even know how to begin to solve this problem. Right? Like, that's just me going to get my degree. Right. I was like, I'm just gonna go and do this thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:04]:

And I thought I was just gonna arrive to scene, and I'm gonna spread this thing open, and this person is just gonna walk out of there. Right? No. We had to completely shift the car, do an entirely different play to get the car into a place where we could go and do our job. Right? And then so many things happened on that 1 alarm on in that while we were working that one call That wasn't by the book. Right? I mean, one of the firefighters in there, they say never take your helmet off when you go inside the car. Never leave yourself in, like, pinched situations because Things can happen and then, you know, pinches and then you get pinched and then things aren't good. Right. But we had to stabilize our head.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:45]:

Right. And so you're not to take your helmet off When you go in, but there wasn't any space because the car smashed. And so 1 of the boys had to go in the back. We had to break a window in the back. We had to go Stabilize her head. To get her out. Yeah. Stabil stabilize her neck because we're about to jostle a bunch of stuff.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:02]:

You know what I mean? And we didn't wanna injure her further. But, anyway, there's a whole and he had to take his helmet off. He was in a pinch zone. It was, like, it was very, very, you know, quote, unsafe, and it wasn't by the book. But prior to that, I had no idea Of what could be done. Right? Like, I didn't understand. I only understood what I understood, which is this is exactly

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:22]:

Fundamentals in a controlled environment, not cars whizzing by and somebody already dead and somebody passed somebody bleeding out.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:29]:

Exactly. Somebody screaming. Yeah. Actually, she wasn't she wasn't screaming because she was actually Close to death. But so that's a long winded way of saying that it wasn't until I saw

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:39]:

Real life.

Ryan Maruyama [00:39:40]:

Real life, And I saw problems being solved in a dynamic way, even though that's not what we were trained to do. And even though that's not what I knew, That is when it clicked for me that I was just like, okay. There's, like, way more ways to solve this problem of auto extrication. There's way more ways of us being able to solve how do we get work, how do we get Jobs when they say college degree required. Right? And so as promised, a drill that one of the guys did at his company, on his truck at Their station was they filled up a mop bucket and with water pretty much all the way. I think it was, like, 3 quarters full. And if you fill up a mop bucket or any bucket, right, it's very sloshy. Especially mop buckets, they're very, very sloshy because there's they're, like, weird shaped.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:30]:

Anyway, what they did is they set up a big tire, and they stood that tire up. And they said, move this Mop bucket to the other side through the whole of the tire without touching it. You can use any of the tools on the truck. And so what it did was it was like tool familiarization, right, for them. So it's like a firefighter is nothing without his tools. Right. And just, like, you're nothing without your tools for whatever career that it is that you do. But then also just thinking through the problem dynamically.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:03]:

Like, how do we get this freaking mop bucket through to the other side without touching it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:08]:

Right. Like, if you're a job seeker, alright, what tools do you have? You have your resume. You know, you have the skills that that you do have in your skill stack. Alright. Which ones do you need to mix and match? Which ones do you need to get? What are you missing?

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:18]:

Who do I need to talk to? Who do I need to network with? Who do I send that cold DM to?

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:22]:

Do I need to get a LinkedIn? How many do I need to send a 100 messages?

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:25]:

What's the project that I need to start in order to get recognized?

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:28]:

Do I need to start searching a slightly different term when I'm looking for jobs. Right? It could be that simple. It literally could be that simple. Or even simpler is just applying for jobs that say they require college degrees and ignoring it completely.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:39]:

So you can do something similar with your child or with yourself. I know it's difficult with teenagers because, you know, they're kinda they're teenagers. Right? And then they're busy, and you're busy. And so I I I get it. But it is a great way to bond with your child or, and even younger children could do something like this too, Just to help stimulate dynamic thinking and dynamic problem solving?

Hannah Maruyama [00:42:00]:

Yeah. There's lots of ways you could do that. So in the same vein, since we're talking about this, I think that this is something I'd also like to bring up. I made a video on TikTok about how guidance counselors and teachers have little to no vocational creativity. Now. I want to preface this with the fact that one of my dearest friends is a speech pathologist, and she's married to a teacher. So it's not like I don't know and love any teachers in my life. So I'm saying this because, 1, I have experience with it, and, 2, it's just the truth.

Hannah Maruyama [00:42:29]:

They just took a job that they saw. They did it in a very binary papered way, which is check these boxes and apply for these jobs. And then usually, typically they stay in the same jobs, right, because it's just the way it's laid out. So I made this video about how guidance counselors and teachers have little vocational creativity because they didn't need it, and they didn't need it to get the job that they have now. And what was interesting about this was it I think it's got, like, a 100,000 views now, but overwhelmingly overwhelmingly, parents were like, yes, 100% this. So parents agreed with me pretty much across the board, And there was 1 guidance counselor who was determined to prove me right, who, apparently, this hit too close to home for. In the video, I talked about the fact that if your child does not have a clear path to college, guidance counselors will send them will either not talk to them or they will send them into the military because that's all they know how to do with them. So if there's not a clear path for your child to college, guidance counselors will send them into the military or just kinda tell them that they're out of luck.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:31]:

The only tools that they have are the ones that are predetermined. So they have college. They have the military. Right? They'll tell them to take the PSAT. They'll tell them to take the SAT, or they'll tell them to take the ASVAB. That's kinda what they do. That's kinda their deal. And this particular guidance counselor took a lot of issue with that and said, no.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:49]:

This is the guidance counselor's comment, I make sure I get those kids on job sites. And I responded with, why would you immediately put them on a job site if they don't want to buy a degree. And their response to me was, you're full of crap. I show the kids all of their options, college, trades and the military. And there's the smudges. I couldn't have written this any better because this dude, it was a guy, this guy is telling me that I'm wrong and then confirming that his range of knowledge for what to do with kids after they graduate from high school is the military or college or the trades. That's it. There are no other things.

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:34]:

And so, basically, what I wanna give you all is here's how to make sure guidance counselors and teachers don't accidentally limit your kids with their own lack of out of the box thinking. Number 1, when your child says they may want to pursue something, find out if it legally requires a license and if part of that license requires a college degree, I e, CPA or veterinarian. It is easier to tell you the jobs that your child cannot have without a college degree than to tell you which ones they can, which is why this is difficult for guidance counselors to be good at because they just don't know how to do it, and there's no resources for them to know how to do it. So we're not gonna make them do it. We'll do it. We're gonna that's what we're gonna talk about. So 2, if whatever job your child wants does not legally require a license, find out what skills they actually really need to have in order to get an entry level job in that field. Not even entry level, any job.

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:27]:

Number 3, find out what options they have to learn those skills. And when I say options, I mean, like, are there vocational programs? Are there online programs? Are there free resources that they could use to teach themselves the necessary skills in order to get these jobs. And step number 4, which is just a point, it is very likely that there are far less expensive options, far less time consuming options, and far more effective options than buying a college degree in in order to help your child get the work that they want. So follow those steps and that if you do those with your child, you will help open up the world to them while at the same time showing them how they can critically look and say, do I actually need to buy a college degree to do this? Because if they don't, then they won't end up like Allison, our girl from the beginning who bought a marketing degree when she should have just gone out and gotten a marketing job.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:17]:

So I have a question. When that counselor was saying, I put all my students on job sites, what did he mean?

Hannah Maruyama [00:46:27]:

He meant physical jobs that I asked. It was in the thread, but it's hard to find thread because there's, like, thousands of comments on that video. But I asked, do you mean physical job sites? And he said, yes. So not like he puts them with a temp. I asked that question. I was wondering that too. I was like, oh, because putting them in an actual work environment is a good idea. But no.

Hannah Maruyama [00:46:44]:

No. No. No. Puts them on construction job sites.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:47]:

Got it. Got it. Because when I hear job sites, I think of ZipRecruiter. I think of Indeed. I think of LinkedIn. I think of, like, going to jobs. And not like I physically going to a job site, But I think I'm, like, going to a job website. Maybe that's not the role for them, but that doesn't seem like that's Too bad of a thing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:47:10]:

No. It's not. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and that I assume that's what he meant. No. That's not what he meant. He meant he hands them a yellow neon vest. That's what I meant, which there's nothing wrong with that. For some kids, that's a great thing, and it's gonna lead to them having hard skills and business ownership one day.

Hannah Maruyama [00:47:23]:

But that's not the de fact o, I get really tired of this whole micro esque, like, if you don't go to college, the trades. Like, yeah, or literally almost anything else. Yeah. Literally almost anything else.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:36]:

Absolutely. I think a lot of those people, they get 50% of the way there or, you know, some percentage of the way there, which is not college, but then they reinforce The college thinking, which is go do a trade work or go do any Other specific subset of work. It could be anything. Trades is just what it is now, but it could be programming or whatever else, like, literally anything else, that this subset of jobs is set aside for people that don't have degrees. And you can have a great life if you go ahead and do one of these subset of jobs, which is true. Absolutely true. There are a lot of people Out there that do whatever that subset of jobs is that make that make more money, that are happier, that have fulfilling life, That have wives, that have husbands, that have families, and, like, oh, everything's great. Right? Absolutely.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:37]:

With whatever subset of jobs that is, sure. Definitely. What we are saying is that you don't have to go to college To do anything. Or just period. Like just period. And then if you do that or if, you know, if that's where the sentence ends. Okay. Well, Every job is open up to you.

Ryan Maruyama [00:49:00]:

Right? Like, it's not just this subset of jobs that's appropriate for nondegreed, For degree free people to go into. Right? And buy for all those people, micro included, all of those people that are just, like, yeah. Don't worry. Yes. You absolutely don't have to go to college. Go into the trades instead. You know, go ahead and cut hair, get into the beauty industry, Whatever else that you've heard, all of these people are reinforcing what the colleges are saying.

Hannah Maruyama [00:49:32]:

Which is we are the only pathway to anything other than the trades.

Ryan Maruyama [00:49:36]:

Exactly. And so you've got it kind of, But you're also really helping them out.

Hannah Maruyama [00:49:42]:

The other day, my 1st million hat on, Scott Galloway, who's a professor. I've stitched a bunch of his videos because I think that his views on what's going on in the economy and in work are, in a lot of ways, really ironic and really incorrect. But he thinks it's a crisis that boys are not going to college, and I think that it's a solution to a failed system. And that is what I said. I just said, it's not a problem that these boys are choosing not to spend what's totaling up to be half $1,000,000. It's the fix to the problem. The system is bad, and they're not buying. That's not a bad thing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:19]:

That's a good thing. And it was interesting because in the comments, there was an angel investor. This is what his Twitter bio said. An angel investor where I just said, this is the solution, not a problem. And he said, well, how do you suggest these boys provide for their families with just a high school education? And I was like, get literally any job? And he said, what do you mean any job? And I said, there's very few jobs that you're barred from if you don't buy a college degree. And then he said, well, But don't you think that maybe we need to make these jobs more attractive? And I was like, no. I don't think that you need to tell people that it's attractive to be with software developer or a professional photographer or any amount of jobs that you can get without buying a college degree. But it's just interesting because this guy, apparently, it had never occurred to this guy that you could do any of those things without buying a college degree.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:03]:

I did wanna talk about one more thing, talking about The guidance counselors not knowing all of the options that are out there and then not giving great advice, which is what this boils down to. The problem, like you said, of one of them to however many, you know if you think the teacher you think the 2 Teacher student ratio is bad. The guidance counselor to student ratio is atrocious, which makes sense. It's very difficult To track and justify the usefulness of their job. And we've talked about this before, but what is really easy to track?

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:43]:

Student debt.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:44]:

No. Enrollment.

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:45]:

Yeah. College enrollment or or military service.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:47]:

Military service. Those are really, really simple to track, And they're cheap. And so they're gonna go to simple and cheap rubrics.

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:56]:

To track to make their school more attractive to parents so they can get more funding. So it's the system.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:01]:

And so it's just yeah. It's exactly. It's just a system of that. Because if they don't do that, then they're bad guidance counselors.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:08]:

Yeah. By their job metrics. They're not well equipped on purpose.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:10]:

Yeah. What you measure gets managed. Right? You're measuring the wrong thing. That's it. That's what it all boils down to When it comes to guidance counselors, when it comes to high school students, when it comes to their outcomes. And like I've said before, I get it. It's very difficult to track just going and doing life. It's very difficult to track outcomes Past a certain whatever.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:36]:

Right? But it's just like, here's high school. Here's college. I did my job. Awesome. I'm great at my job. That's it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:43]:

Which is why we're doing this, because we're trying to fight that battle with you, I should say.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:48]:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's pretty much it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:51]:

And if you want more degree free, degree free jobs, degree free resources, and cool stuff that Ryan and I find, go ahead and go over to degreefree.c0forward / newsletter to sign up for our free weekly newsletter.

Ryan Maruyama [00:53:02]:

Yep. And that's pretty much it for this week, guys. I really liked Doing this episode, and I hope that it was useful for other people, and I hope that you also enjoyed it. If you liked it and you made it this far, Comment in YouTube and let me know that you guys like this because I have thought There's a lot of comments out there, especially on TikTok since we have so many TikTok followers. But leave a comment in YouTube, and let us know if you want more of this. Let us know if you want less of this. Let us know what you like. But, yeah, that's pretty much it for this week, guys.