The EDU Episode

Business brain, episode 648 for Wednesday, May 14th, root canal appreciation day 2025. Hey, if you're a dentist doing root canals, man, you appreciate every one of them. Ka Ching. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take a few ideas, we crunch them, we dissect them, we use them to tune our business brains so that we can each keep on living those charmed lives and share our tips with each other. Our sponsors for this episode include a new one, Nordlayer.com brain, where you can use code Brain gets you an extra 10% off. And actually Nord layer.com brain gets you 22% off. It's network security for modern businesses. Yep. And our friends@shopify, shopify.com BusinessBrain gets you the place where you can go sign up for your $1 per month trial period. So definitely, we'll talk more about those in depth in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Ham.

In Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, man?

I'm good. It's, you know, it's. It's crazy. Yeah. It's what we do. Yep.

So ultra. Ultra productivity, right?

Ultra productivity.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's. There's a tipping point that. That I tend to. To skate on the edge of. Sometimes on one edge, sometimes on the other. Yes. It's not always productive, but yep.

Yeah, it's. I. I find that I'm. I actually, I operate better when it's. The closer I get to the edge. But then I often tip over and go, oh, everything just went to hell. And I have to kind of back off, and I'm getting ready to go out of town for a couple weeks.

That's when it gets haywire. Yep.

Yeah, I had all. Luckily, I had somebody reschedule a. A podcast interview that I was doing that they had me on. I'm like, oh, great. Okay, great. I just got an hour back. So.

Yes. Oh, anytime somebody cancels an appointment with me, I mean, most times there are some appointments that I really want to take. Right. But otherwise, like, when somebody cancels even last minute, and they're like, I'm sorry. It's like you just gave me 30 minutes or an hour. Okay, that's free. That's found time. I'm like, good luck getting me back on your calendar, mind you, but yes.

You know, yes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Hey, I want to talk about education today, though.

I have things to say.

Yes, I thought you might. My t. My thing was. My mind was blown. I had a really interesting call with just a colleague that I met and he is in the trade school business. Right. He owned a trade trade school and he wound up selling that trade school, you know, a while back and now he helps others start trade schools. And I think, man, it's really interesting because I do believe we're in the middle of a big shift in the four year degree type thing.

Right.

And the value that that presents and the roi. So I, I was curious because I just had this standard vision. Oh, okay, yeah, you start a trade school and you make money by getting, you know, people come and students and this and you know, you train them to X or whatever. And I was like, oh, you know, plumbers, whatever, electricians, all that stuff, super valuable, can be very profitable and can be the gateway to owning your own business. Right. Your own whatever to you know, trade type business. But this guy told me something that really blew my mind. He said, oh, actually my main customer that I'm helping is a company that's having a hard time finding people to work for them. So they start a trade school to teach these people their trade, what they're in. And it's very broad. It's everything from the traditional trade school type things like I just mentioned to there's a dog grooming trade school.

Sure. Okay. Okay. Right.

And of all these other things you, you could pick the topic, right?

These are all trades. Yes, they're all trades, yeah.

And, and what happens is this, this guy that I talked to, he helps them set it up and there's often like statewide grants for retraining and things so they can get access because people are like, yeah, I need some retraining, I got laid off or whatever. So he helps get them plugged into the system to see what these, their students would qualify for. And then the business owner who's setting up this trade school, well, he recruits from the top candidates. And I thought man, that is just genius.

Talk about, yeah, creating your own. I'll call it an unfair competitive advantage. I mean it's, you know, unfair doesn't mean against the law. Right. Like I want to make sure I'm clear about that.

You want an unfair, you want.

And every business, if you can't articulate what your unfair competitive advantage is, go spend some time, maybe even with chat GPT trying to figure it out. Because once you know what it is, then you can embrace it and leverage it in, in ways that actually benefit your business. Like that's the whole point.

Yeah, it's, it's a huge, huge thing.

But this really becomes that, because, yes, they have ACT. Now, these students, in theory, could leave that trade school and go and work for somebody else. And I'm sure many of them.

I'm sure many of them do, yes.

But if you've got access to these students during the process, you can say, okay, wait a minute. Like, that one would be great to work here. This would be a good fit. And then you learn, you have that data and you can approach them sooner.

Like, yeah, I just. Such a great hack. You know, we're always talking about different ways to do things. And I was like, oh, man, he just mentioned that one in a quick sentence, like it was no big deal. I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Slow down, buddy.

Yeah, it was really smart. And I love the trade school concept because I think there is so much to learn outside of just sitting in the classroom. And I know even just from my kids going through the recruiting process out of college and everything, like, when my son started getting, you know, he's like, I need to get sales job, dad. I just want to go through the grinder. Right.

And figure it all out. Yeah.

The main thing they were interested in talking to him about was a summer he spent going door to door selling solar.

Oh, for sure.

That was it.

Yeah.

That was like, wait, okay, this is the whole focus of our interview becomes this new thing. You know that because of everything that kind of experience teaches you.

Yeah, I know. I think it's great. And I love this concept of your buddy. Didn't think that this was a big deal at all. It seemed obvious to him. And so he created this and he's doing it, and it's awesome. And you only learned about it because he happened to casually mention it in a brief little moment. And these are the things that we all need to pay attention to. We. We have a segment on my tech show called Quick Tips, which are exactly this, but for, like, tech stuff. And it's the kind of thing where you see somebody do something on your. Their iPhone and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. How did you do that? Or you do something on your iPhone or on your computer, and somebody's like, slow down. What was that? And you don't think about it because it's obvious to you. So if you can notice one of these things, either that you do, which is harder, or that someone else does much easier, like Shannon just did, Let us know. Feedbackusbrain show because we would like to share it with all of you. And then that's the whole point of the show. Is that we share these things and we all get to keep living our charmed lives. The next thing I want to do is tell you about our two sponsors because, well, when we're building our businesses, our to do lists are long enough without accidentally leaking data to the the entire Internet being on there, right? And that's where our sponsor NORD Layer comes in. This is a toggle ready network security platform that protects your business without turning our IT setups into like Rubik's cubes from hell, right? Whether you're a solopreneur scaling a team or an IT pro running remote everything, NORD Layer gives us that VPN protection, access control and threat monitoring in one sleek, ridiculously easy to use platform. You can set it up in minutes, there's no hardware, no wizard robes required or anything. And it all runs on zero trust principles. It works across every major OS and it helps you stay compliant and secure as you grow. And the best part, you get to control who accesses what from where and on which devices. It's like bouncer level security, right? But for your internal data instead of your, you know, Friday night doubting whatever it is, you know. So if you want to keep your team secure and keep living that charmed life without a cybersecurity meltdown, go to Nordlayer.com brain and then use code brain to get up to 22% off plus an extra 10% off of yearly plans. And here's a great part, you can try it risk free 14 day money back guarantee. So go check it out. And our thanks to NORD Layer for sponsoring this episode. And now let's talk about starting a business. Because you've got the big idea. The caffeine free ambition, respect and the dream of waking up to passive income. But then reality hits. You need a storefront payment system, inventory tracking, emails, marketing support, shipping. Basically you need Shopify. I use Shopify to sell merch for one of my other podcasts and merch for one of my other website businesses. And it's super smooth. It makes me wonder if it's secretly run by a team of caffeinated owls in a server farm somewhere, quietly shipping your orders while you sleep. It's really, truly Shopify powers 10% of all E commerce in the US from giants like Mattel to folks like me or anybody. Just getting started. You get gorgeous plug and play templates, AI that writes your product descriptions and marketing tools that make it feel like you hired a team of pros without hiring anyone. And let's not forget the purple shop pay button, right? That Beautiful little thing your customers already know and trust. It's one of the reasons Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet. Turn your big business idea into Ka Ching. With Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shop shopify.com businessbrain go to shopify.com businessbrain shopify.com businessbrain and our thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, you happen to mention the whole idea of an evolution of this perspective of a four year degree and all that. You got more to say about that? I have lots to say, but I want to.

Well, I have a lot to say, but as you alluded to the topic before the show, I want to hear. I think there's a big shift in the value of it. And yeah, I think as employers and as parents ourselves, we need to be aware that there is this big shift going on right now.

There is a big shift going on. Yeah. I was talking to a friend and they were telling me about, I guess it was one of their kids that has been in the workforce and, you know, doing some things, had finished some college, had not finished, had not completed a degree and was having trouble kind of moving up in the workforce because of this degree now because of this lack of a degree. And the frustration was, well, all the skills are there that like the person's literally out there working, they're doing the job. Yeah. And they said, okay, well I don't have time to like take two years and go like finish a degree. So what are my options? And there are plenty, it turns out, of accredited, fully accredited schools, four year universities, as it were, four year colleges maybe is what they're called, that are built for people just like that. And okay, instead of spending, you know, what, 80 grand a year times $260,000, don't do public math. And spending so 160 grand and two years of your life to get this piece of paper that is only there to be a piece of paper. Like it's not there to. For really learning. You spend about six months of your life in the evenings and weekends while you're still working at your job. And maybe about 10 to $12,000 of your money total. And at the end of it, before the end of the year, if you were to start now, you would have your degree. And that will check all the boxes that any employer is looking for. For most employers, I would say some, some might care about where you got your degree from, but the reality is most don't most just, you know, for places where it is a, a, just a requirement with no foundation to it or not, not much of a foundation to it, where it's just like, oh yeah, we don't hire without a degree. It's like, well, okay, but if I painted a picture of the right person, would you take them? Well, maybe, you know, no, maybe. Right. It's like, okay, here's the piece of paper. Now is this same person qualified? Yes, 100%. Absolutely. For those places. That's what this, this whole, this whole thing is, is built for. And the people in these classes, the majority of them, as I understand it, are people who are about to be ex military. Right. Like, like they're, they're finishing their careers in the army or the Marines or whatever and they're moving on to something else. And, but they don't have, they haven't yet completed their degrees and want them for exactly the reasons I just articulated. Sure. And remember these people, you and me, we're I think, pretty sure we're the ones paying the bill. So it's not even the amount, it's the time.

Yeah, right.

It's time. And so it's them and nurses, the healthcare industry, you know, you've got these people working as nurses, clearly already have all the skills and all the knowledge and all the things that they need. But you can't level up and become a, you know, manager, nurse or whatever, whatever that works out to be without the piece of paper. So you, so okay, you get the piece of paper. Here you go. Yeah. Yep, yep.

Yeah. I think we're in the big. Well maybe even further along than the beginnings of a massive shift in this concept. The degree has been a good rubric to test or. Okay, you finished this, you got through this, you have this basic knowledge, but for a ton of positions there's other ways to do it.

Right. I also think that, yes, the degree shows you can apply yourself and complete something. And that's good.

It's good. But it shouldn't cost you $300,000.

Correct. But the degree also the four year, the traditional. I left high school, went immediately into a degree and I think, personally, I think that's always been wrong. I think you should go. Need to go work in your field before you go get a degree in it. But I would agree that's just my opinion. But that period of one's life, often people need to, for lack of a better term, people need to find themselves. And the four year traditional live away from home college program, I've Called that a halfway house.

High school 2.0.

It's high school 2.0. It's a halfway house. You get to see what it's like.

You still had a great time doing it. And I told my kids, you should go do it because you have the opportunity. We did talk a lot about the roi. A lot. Especially when my daughter's school was. Was much more expensive. Son wanted to go.

Right.

But I was like, you need to build your network while you're there and the people that you're going to meet, that could be the most valuable thing that you will get.

Yes.

And so it's. It's analyzing it and discussing it in a different manner than just the, okay, I'm leaving. And I'm, you know, because for the.

People who don't need to find them, who have already found themselves, let me put it that way. I think it is important for each of us to find ourselves. If you don't need that or you simply can't afford the four years and somewhere between 100 and $400,000 to do that, well, then there are other ways that I'm pretty sure Excelsior University is the one that my buddy was telling me about. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes. But there are many of these. And actually, my son, speaking of backdooring college degree requirements, similar situation. He finished about two years of school at Reed College, and then they. They wound up firing. Not firing.

Yeah, they kind of dismantled the program.

Yeah, in a sense, they dismantled the computer science program for lack of a. Yeah, right. For. For lack of any more detail. But I'm happy to share the detail. It's all very public. They, as you would imagine, he backdoored his way into a company by getting a. An internship there.

Oh, yeah.

And then at the end of his internship or halfway through or something, they were like, what are you doing after this? And he said, we want you. Nothing. Yeah, well, they said, we want you. And he said, you can't hire me because I don't have a degree. And his. It was a new. It was. He had. It was somebody new to the company that became his boss during his internship. And the guy basically said to him, hold my beard. Like, why in the world wouldn't we hire. You're already working here. We didn't have to train you. There's no onboarding. This is ridiculous. And we can get you super cheap because you don't have a degree. You know, like, capitalism wins, but that's fine. Like, okay. And so he now has, you know, he paved that path and that's another way of you know, doing like the, yeah, yeah.

It's like the, the Peter Thiel, the Thiel Challenge.

Right.

Where it's like, hey, don't go to a four year college. I'll give you $100,000 to, to start a business.

Yeah, right.

Do you know for every kid. No, but for some that are for the right people.

Yes.

Yeah.

Not it.

No.

There's no one size fits all with any of this, including the things that I'm telling you about in this episode. Like you just, but if it is the right path for you to not do that four year time and money investment, there are options and I think that's an important thing. I never graduated college. I got about two and a half years in and started businesses and I found my own path. That's another way. Like speaking of backdooring the college degree requirements, I just created a business so that I, I, I don't have that policy here.

Yes, that's good. I just saw another, I just saw an article. These high school juniors that are making 60, $70,000 a year because they're the trades are so desperate for workers that they're getting these kids and getting them to accelerate out of high school to go in and making that kind of money at a, as a 17 year old. It's pretty wild, right?

I'll put a link to that article.

Yeah. Welders, electricians, all this kind of stuff. And you know, I think we're in the midst of a significant shift in education for, in a good way.

I think so, Shannon.

I think so. Yeah.

We're going to, I think we should talk about education. Industry is very eager to, to prevent that shift from happening and there's a lot of money there. So yeah, I like, I'm, I'm hopeful but I'm not necessarily optimistic about this change happening to the degree I think it will.

It's not going to come from within. It's not going to come from within. They will resist it because you know, the, the not to bash I love teachers are awesome and they should all make more money.

Right?

But the, the unions that control the academic system are not in my just, my opinion is that they're not, they don't work in the interest of your kids. They work in the interest of control and they generate and money and politics and so you know, I live in California. The teachers unions control the political landscape out here and get, and, and, and our education system used to be amazing, but now the government system's like 47th or 46 or something like that, and it's too bloated with administration. So, you know, there are. There's a school district near me where only 14 cents out of every dollar goes towards teaching the kids. And it's a known fact. But again, no one's going to blow it up from within.

No, they're not going to change it. No.

Yeah, they're not going to change.

But like the, you know, the things we're talking about, the excelsior universities of the world, the trade schools, the AI.

Education, it's going to be very different. Yeah.

Yes.

Awesome.

Yes.

And we're going to be talking about it more because there's just a lot of opportunities for entrepreneurs to get into this space to build things that. Micro schools or new ways of educating our young people. They're going to need your help.

Yeah. And all those, all those birds chirping out your window, they're going to need somebody to help teach them how to chirp in tune. Oh, it sounded great. It only came through once, but I really liked it. It was like, oh, the sounds of spring.

I like it. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool.

Thanks for hanging out with us, Everybody. Feedback at BusinessBrain Show. Let us us know your thoughts on this and any ideas that you found out about or that you've had on your own, we want to know it. Feedback at BusinessBrain show check out our sponsors and yeah, thanks. Keeping with charm life. We'll see you Friday.