Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's that time time, time.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Time, luck and load. So Michael Verie Show is on
the air.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
If you are stationery and would like to read along,
the accompanying materials on the worksheet for the next discussion
will be degree free dot com. Degree free dot com.
This woman helps folks get jobs without buying college degree
(00:45):
tech to trades, she describes it. She's based in Montgomery, Texas,
and that gives me occasion to pay tribute to I
believe the late Great I think he passed because I
never got to meet him, and I was bummed about
that relatively recently. Right, Oh, this is not right. Francis
Rodney Zambone, I believe it was his name. Francis Rodney
(01:08):
Zambone was from Montgomery. He wrote under the name Mark James.
I wish he'd kept Zambone because I think that's a
I mean, Frank Zambone. I like that better than Mark Jane.
Mark James is just anyway. He wrote always on my
mind that Elvis made famous Moody Blue Suspicious Minds.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
The only Elvis song ramone that.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I ever know of being covered with with any facility,
with any success, and that was Dwight Yoakam's version, and
that's because he kind of he took it to punk
country and so that changed the style. And I think
that's the only reason I tolerated. He wrote, uh, hooked
on a feeling for uh.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
What's his name for?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Bj Thomas? Anyway, he was from Montgomery, she's from what
That's all.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
He wrote, just a few of what he wrote. Her
name is Hannah or Hahn? Before we ask her, what
do you think it is? You're gonna go Hannah?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Okay, Hannah Mario Maru Yama, Maru Yama probably a good
Japanese name. The website is degree Free. This is the
kind of thing that I think could help a lot
of folks. So, Hannah or Hannah, which is it?
Speaker 4 (02:20):
It's Hannah. It's Hannah. Thank you so much for having
me on. Michael.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Now tell me you reached out to me with a
kind of here's what I do or your PR person
did or whatever. Did you know this is something that
don't lie? Did you know this is something that I
talk about often? Or were you just scattershotting out there
to everybody that might put you on.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
No, sir, I had a list and you were on it,
and I did I did do a little bit of
research prior before I gave I gave instructions to my
guy to reach out.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, your site degree free dot com. The book you
can get wherever you buy books. It's called Degree Free
Way Workbook.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Parent. What is your purpose here? What are you trying
to accomplish?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
What I am trying to do is I am trying
to keep the next generation of Americans out of unnecessary
student loan debt. And I am trying to save them
hundreds of thousands of dollars in years of their lives
that they do not have to spend on a college
campus learning from people who have never done the things
that they are teaching them how to do.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And what got you interest? Did you have experience with
your in your own life or with your children with this?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
I do so. I personally just finished working in AI
machine learning for the past three and a half almost
four years, and I built a fairly successful type career
where I out earned the media and PhD by I
would say probably about two hundred and fifty percent. And
I did that without buying a college degree myself. And
seeing what I saw when I was doing that really
(03:51):
helped me to understand how employers are hiring, and then
the disconnect and the amount of misinformation there is around
what parents think their kids have had have to do
to get the jobs that are actually going to help
them live the way they want to.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Wait a minute, you're a redhead? Did you know she's
a redhead? Shed sound like a redhead? What is your
maiden name? O'Shaughnessy or.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
It's it's it's Shattck. But yes, I am very Irish.
My husband's the Hawaiian Japanese one.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, Hawaiian Japanese is our executive producer, Chad Nakanishi.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So you're in good company here. I'm looking at your
at your house.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, he's he's thicker than Chad, but I think Chad
could take him because Chad fights every day. And what
is mister?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What is mister? He's a boxer?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
No, no, no, I was asking if Chad was a boxer.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
A ground game guy, although if I bragged on him.
At this point, he says, I'm not any good anymore.
But he's got the cauliflower ears. He trains every day,
but he can't strike anymore because his shoulder is destroyed
and he doesn't want to have another surgery on it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
He he uh.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
He has absolutely ruined his body by fighting so much
so long. He came back the other day and he had
a big old scrape across his leg. And he leaves
in the middle of the day. So we work like twoshit.
He gets in insanely early. He gets up and works out.
At two thirty he gets in it I think four
or four thirty, who knows, nobody's here yet. And he
preps all the way up till eleven thirty, leaves, goes
(05:20):
and trains and then comes back at two and then
he's here for who knows however many hours, like he
works a graveyard shift compared to the rest of us,
because it's all he has to get his training in.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So what does mister maru Yama do.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Mister Mariama runs all of the other side of the business,
so that all I get to do is talk about
the problems that I see, the solutions that we can make,
and then work with young adults. And so he does
all the boring back of the house stuff for the
business so I can do all the fun stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
So I look Joel up and it says, I don't
know how old you are now, but y'all were twenty
nine and twenty six at the time, and you were
living in Honolulu. I'm assuming that's where he's from. Chad's
from the Big Island by the way, and then and
you're from Montgomery. Y'all decided to come back here.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
So I'm actually not from Montgomery myself, my husband, and
my husband is from Hawaii. He his entire family is
from there. I lived there when my dad was in
the military, and that's actually how we ended up meeting.
But we moved to Montgomery during COVID because Hawaii got
pretty crazy during the lockdowns, and so we decided that
that was not a fit for our family and the
(06:27):
things that we wanted to the way we wanted to
live our lives, and so we came here. We picked
it off a spreadsheet, we did a bunch of research
about places that were good to live, and this is
the place that we ended up and we've been here
for four years and we love it.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Nobody's in Montgomery from Hawaii because they found people were
in Montgomery because they got a job, their family lived there,
and they they're there and they like it. But nobody
looks at the mountain says why I guess we'll end
up in Montgomery, Texas.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That is nuts.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
We did, Okay, it was top of the list, it
was top of the Excel sheet.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Did you go to college?
Speaker 4 (07:01):
I did not. I'm degree free, so I guess technically
I did.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Like a disease, I'm degree free. I'm safe.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Well have you have you? If you've met a recent
college graduate, you know it is a little bit, but
you know, I went for about I actually got into
a university when I was sixteen. I du well enrolled
where I grew up in Savannah, Georgia, because my dad
was stationed there in between me moving back to Hooi,
and I ended up fully dual enrolled. And then my
(07:31):
experience in college was that I did not do well
because I ask why too often, and my professors were
not interested in people that ask why and don't adhere
to the orthodoxy that's present on campus. And because of that,
I wasn't I think that the way that I thought,
or the questions that I asked were more of an inconvenience,
(07:54):
which kind of shocked me because I wasn't expecting it
to be so anti intellectual. When I went on a
college campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Hold on, just just a moment.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Hannah, Yeah, it's that Hannah Shattuck, Maria.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
One must dig deep to come up with the right guard.
The Michael Barry That's how.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
I found my first ten wives.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Several years ago.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
There were a group of us all about the same age.
Our kids were about the same age, and there was
they were from all different schools, but they had grown
up together playing ball, and.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
They were I guess my son was a junior at
the time, maybe a sophomore. Michael T.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Was probably junior sophomore. One of the kids was a senior,
and some of the other kids were seniors. And so
it started with the natural questions by mommies. They don't
mean ill, they're just trying to engage with the kids.
It's hard to engage with teenagers. So what are you
gonna do? We you knew when you graduate? What do
you know you graduate when you graduate high school? And
they all told where they were going to go to school, Georgia, U,
(09:06):
T A and m TCU and one kid said, I'm
going to work, and it was like the oxygen was
sucked out of the room.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I'm going to start with a plumbing company. I think
I want to be a plumber, start with a plumbing company,
and then if I like it, I'm going to go
to plumbing school. So they started asking questions like he
had just he had just become a quadriplegic. The questions
were things like, well, what do you what?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
What will you get paid? What? What if you get hurt?
Do you do you? Have you ever done that before?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It was a it was a cross between mommy panic,
desperate panic, and Dad's thinking, oh, you're gonna regret that.
And I don't know what the kid, what will happen?
But I know I've watched a lot of kids go
off to college. Mommy and Daddy spend a fricking fortune.
(10:12):
When you hear numbers of what people spend for college,
I'm going to tell you, in some of the circles
I run, those numbers you're hearing reported are way low.
TCU at Miami, they're spending over one hundred thousand dollars
per year. It's insane, And many times I've seen this happen,
(10:34):
many times, way more than you realize. They go there
and flunk out, they go there and get in trouble,
they go there and get distracted, they go there and
fall out of love with this concept of you know,
the same path that everybody else has been on. So
they pull to Charlie Robinson and go work on uh,
you know, go work out in the oil patch and
(10:59):
go find them so else or go to the military,
or go to cops school or go to firefighter school.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So we need to be.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Careful that we don't assume the natural thing you ought
to do when you graduate high schools go to college.
Our guest is Hannam Mariyama. The website is degree free.
I was poking around it during the break. There's a
lot there and you can learn a lot about her
and then she's got books. There's a one on one
you can do with her. And yes, it will cost money.
I know people nobody has a problem paying for some things,
(11:26):
but they don't want to pay for other things. It's
the craziest thing that legal work is the funniest one
from me, Hannah. People would Hey, you're a lawyer who
just looked this over me real quick? Yeah, before I
do that, what's your budget of what you're willing to pay? Well,
I don't need to hire me, And then I just
wanted to look it over. But you understand they're looking
it over because they spend all this money to go
to law school. Lawyering is the one thing people think
they ought to get for free, Like they want to
(11:47):
walk right up to the edge of when they'll ever
have to spend a dollar and then pull back so
they get enough legal advice but never have to pay
for it. Nobody says I'm gonna go to the dentist.
He can clean about half my teeth. Don't give me
the flooride rans or any of that just happened. And
when it's not free anymore, let me know what, I'll
get up and run out. It's the weirdest thing anyway.
I like what you're doing here, Hannah. What are some
(12:09):
the ten cool careers teens can land without a degree?
Let's talk about what kind of careers we're talking about.
It's not all dig and ditches.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
No, it's definitely not. Michael, And that's actually one of
the things that while I do appreciate a lot of
a lot of the people who do talk about this,
people who have done a lot of work raising awareness
about the trades, people like micro and that comes to
mind where he frequently talks about this. But the thing
for me that stands out is a lot of kids
already know about the trades. They can see the trades,
(12:40):
they already know about jobs, they can see. One of
the things that we found when we work with young
adults a degree free is that they're very limited. They
only really can name about six to eight jobs, sometimes
twelve on the high end, but they're all jobs you
can see. There's a reason they all want to be cops, firefighters, teachers, doctors, nurses.
And then every girl you meet right now, every teenage
girl wants to be a psychologist. And I think it's
(13:00):
because a lot of the teachers just wish they had
become psychologists.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Well, and because these therapy they're all going to therapy.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yes, that's right, So it's it's something they can see.
And so one of the things that's such a such
a rub for me is that people, a lot of
these kids know about the trades. The problem is that
now everybody wants to go into the trades. And there's
nothing wrong with that. Then. So Ryan, my husband, was
a firefighter. Actually he has an economics degree that he
didn't use and then he became a firefighter later in life.
(13:29):
My own youngest sister is actually a structural welder at
a steel company. She currently works on rocket ships. She
makes more than a master's degree holder. It's very she's
the only it is hot, and she's also the only
girl at the whole steel company.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Oh no, in terms of you know, it's really you
can sweat a lot at that job.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Oh no, she she does. She gets burned all the time, too,
But she and.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think it's hard. So let's talk about some more
of these. Let's talk about some more of these.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Cooperst one that I really think people need to know
about that doesn't fall into I'm going to give you
a bunch. All of them are going to out earn
the average master's degree holder. None of them require college degrees.
You do not, your child does not to buy a
college degree to do these things. And none of them
are actually trade. So the first one is a pilot.
Right now, there's not a single US airline that still
requires a college degree to become a pilot. Delta is
(14:22):
the last one to remove it in twenty twenty two,
so it's old news.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Which is probably three is awesome.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I think a lot of people don't know that because
people tend to be pretty surprised when I say it, also,
there are flight schools. Your average flight school right now,
with a guaranteed pipeline into one of these airlines is
going to cost you less than the average bachelor's degree,
which is going to run you about one hundred and
four to one hundred and fify six k. And so
if you want your child to have a high earning
skill that's tied to a legal license, then pilot a
pilot's license is definitely a good one. The next in
(14:53):
Houston specifically too, is going to be cloud computing specialists,
which is a type of it's a type of data
text certification, and Houston is getting an inflow of data centers.
There's a ton of work in those. It's a little
bit of software, a little bit of hardware, a little
bit of electrical work, but it's not a trade necessarily.
It also crosses into cybersecurity, high paying, high demand. A
(15:15):
lot of people will train on the job for that.
Surgical technologists also high demand. That's very medical. You assist
in operating rooms and it's a start program Q shortage
of fire alarm installation texts, so nice at certifications where
they go in and train them how to actually you know,
do low voltage low voltage installation, and that leads directly
(15:38):
into business ownership for a lot of kids too.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Can I interrupt you, Hannah? I have a friend.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Yeah, Lee has a company called Platinum Environmental, and they've
got you said Nicis or nicis, however you want to
pronounce it. He got certified for environmental remediation and environmental consulting.
They're working on the border wall. He's doing city, county,
state work, federal. It's it's amazing. Hold on sing dot com,
Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Lifeless Eyes, black eyeses, tick A Dolls.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Brandon writes.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
I know I've recited my professional story several times to you.
It's practically an annual campfire tale by now. But this
Hannah is talking right to my wheelhouse. I consider my
path as serendipitous as it is circuitous. My time in
college was nothing short of rudderless. But God bless her
for taking on a mission like this. She's going to
help so many people. Tip of the hat to both
(16:31):
of you. That was subject line A note on Hannah's call.
The website is degree free dot com. Not only is
she presenting options and guidance and instruction and mentoring to
finding a.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Career without a degree.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
She is creating a mindset for people who are choosing
not to go to college to not only not be
ashamed of it, but to be proud that you did
get fleeced, you didn't spend all that money. For some people,
college is the right thing to do. For many people,
it's not. But we try to push everybody to go,
and that is a huge That's how you end up
(17:11):
with a trillion dollars in student loan debt that nobody
wants to pay back and they don't have jobs. That's
a problem. Hannah maru Yama is our guest degree free
dot com. I want to go back to those careers
you talked about, but I want to talk about what
the one on one sessions look like.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Sure, so the do you want me to do the
careers first and finish up that list?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
How many more did you have?
Speaker 4 (17:35):
I got five more?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay, why don't you do one career and then like
a minute on the one on one and then one career.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I'm just sitting finish the careers, go ahead, gotcha.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
My next one. I have a young lady pursuing this
right now. Actually she's in Louisiana. Is court reporting and scenography,
which is a really really good, great job, a lot
of flexibility. She wants to be a mom long term,
so that's something that really fit into what she wants
in the futures for as flexible work. Actuary is one
that people are often surprised does not require a college degree.
(18:06):
It's a series of very difficult tests, but it is
in fact, there is no degree that is legally required
for that job. Just persistence and heavy math, heavy maths,
heavy stats. Another one that people are overlooking, but there's
a lot of retirement and is construction and oil field scheduling,
and that's something that's a little bit like project management,
(18:27):
but you can get assistant in junior roles. There a
ton of people retiring, a great opportunity, great industry often
that pays over one hundred thousand dollars as well, so
great six figure job. Audio engineering which is big as
you know, broadcasting, film, podcast production, and then digital marketing,
which is one it can often be got through very inexpensive,
(18:49):
very very accessible certifications online and then it's just a
matter of you know, applying to enough jobs.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Well and then we take for granted and I think
people get burned on this when I talk about sales jobs,
which I know salesmen make a lot of money, a
lot hundreds and hundreds of thousand of dollars that may
or may not have college degrees and certainly weren't required
to have one. Is everybody that wants to get into
sales sees a sign while the drive on the road
it says, you know, you can make up to X
amount of money. They never go into and it ends
(19:18):
up being telemarketing, and nobody wants to do that. They've
all seen Glengarry Glenn Ross and they don't want to
end up Jack Lemon's character.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
But there are lots.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Of small companies and mid sized companies that are looking
for people that are presentable and that can present, that
can communicate, they can show up to work every day.
As you know, Hannah, half the battle and being successful
is showing up, not being drunk, not being under the influence,
not having a bad attitude, looking people in the eyes,
(19:47):
delivering on what you're told to do, and managing to
show up to work. That is so hard for people
to do, especially early in their careers. And if you
can do that consistently, especially small owner operated, you can
end up rising through the But who am I telling?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Tell me about the one on one sessions.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Sure, so, my, I'm very proud of the process that
we've created, mostly because we've done it through just trial
and error, put hundreds of kids through this process at
this point, and basically, the way we teach young adults
to pick careers now is kind of insane. We've completely
disregarded Maslow's Higer group needs. We don't think about what
they actually need to make, where they want to live,
how much, you know, what kind of schedule they want
(20:25):
to have, And so instead we do the opposite because
right now in high schools, high schools are just college pipelines.
All they do is cell degrees, All they do is
sell paper, and all they do is push. They push
one hundred percent of these kids into college. If they
don't want to do that, they ignore them, They let
them fall through the cracks. And then if the only
other tool they have is the military. Now they're kind
of using trade schools a little bit. But instead we go, oh,
let's follow your heart. Oh your test scores are this,
(20:47):
you can be an engineer or you know, here's some
random personality tests. You like to work with your hands?
So go be an electrician. That's a terrible, crazy way
to have seventeen and eighteen year olds choose what they're
going to do first after they graduate, and so instead
we've done the opposite. So it's a complete one eighty,
which is what do you want your life to look like?
Where do you want to live? Do you want to
stay in your hometown? Do you want to move somewhere
(21:08):
you know if and this is a huge one, but
schedule you know, long term? Do you have a family?
Do you want to be home with your kids? And
this is for boys and girls, but one thing that's
completely under addressed to women for sure, is that a
priority for you? If so, we're looking at a different
set of skills, different set of work that's going to
help you to accomplish that in your life, because that's
what's going to make them actually fulfilled by their job,
(21:30):
because their jobs not their life. And then after that
we talked about, you know, how much money do you
want to make to do the things that you want
the right A good example is is Chad, you're you're
you know, you're you're in your you're in house Hawaiian.
He you know, he trains and it costs money to train,
and so I worked with the young man who really
wanted to spend a lot of time training in jiu jitsu.
(21:50):
But that's expensive. You know, as he moved out of
his parents' house, he's responsible for his own bills. He's
got to make enough money that he can pay to train,
you know, and that's something that he cares about. And
so we were looking at jobs that will fulfill that
so you can pay you know, pay for his rent,
pay for his food, a lot of protein, and then
you know, go train. And then we also think about
the type of schedule that they want to have. You know,
do they want to work you know, they want to
(22:11):
work swingshifts, they want to work oil field work. Do
they want to work four days a week? You know,
because that's going to give you a different side of jobs.
And what's the priority to them. And when once we
put those things in order, then our team goes out
and we just research. We just go out to the
whole internet. There's three thousands, six thousand different jobs out there.
We add hundreds more every single month, and we go
through and we find where they live or where they
(22:33):
want to live, what jobs are going to fit those things,
and then what skills employers actually need them to learn,
and then we give them options to learn those things.
All of them are faster and cheaper than a college degree,
because a college degree really just slows you down nowadays,
and it costs way too much for what they're going
to teach you, and they're actually not going to teach
you anything employable, So you're going to get out and
have to do the exact same process that we do
a degree free, you know, for eighteen year olds.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
What what you're talking about there, and it's just very
important to people here is that you have agency over
your life.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I know so many people, and I've known since.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I graduated high school that they get out of school
and they're like being blown about like a leaf because
they don't know. Nobody told them. And where did you
go to work? Well, so and so was hiring. What
did you do? Well, they put me over here doing this.
What were your hours? Well, they had me working overnights.
When you create, we live in a glorious time for this.
(23:26):
When you create that skill set, that ideal life for you,
and you consider your skill set and passions and all
those sorts of things, and you go looking for it.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
And it might be a dog rumor, it might be
a karate instructor, it might be a oil field scheduling
or actuary or court reporter or any number of other things.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
That's what I love is the idea.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Of planning the life you want and then going to
find it rather than who's hiring. Well, that's not a
long term that's not a long term success goal. I
love your approach here and I absolutely love it. I
think this is fantastic. It's degree free dot com, degree
free dot com. Coming up, I'm going to ask Hannah Maruyama.
(24:07):
I'm going to ask her the however many minutes we
have available the most, the things that most people don't
know that would make the biggest difference, So the low
hanging fruit, the things that come up the most that
she helps people with, and how you can get started
today as a parent or as a young person. I'm
a big person, a big one forgetting your kids involved
(24:27):
in this process. Mommy, don't do it all for them.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
The term anal intercourse on your program Michael Barry.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Show, if it's relevant to the story for journalistic.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Purposes, the Michael Berry shown Pope or the Pope. Nope.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Okay, Okay, I love the emails I'm getting, Joseph writes,
after two years of college, I found out what I
would be making after graduation, I quit. I went to
electrical apprentice. After fifty years, I retired with a great
retirement and full of cash. So many of these stories
coming in people that went into not just electrical employing,
(25:31):
but all sorts of other things. Okay, Hannah Maruyama, the
redhead married to the Honolulu native.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
I want to know what are the.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Issues that come up the most when people start their
one on one training. By the way, you can you
can have one on one training with her, or you can.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Buy the book, or there are workshops and workbooks.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
And all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's all at degree free dot com. And I'm not
saying don't go to college, folks. I'm saying, just explore
your option plan your life. Don't be blown about by
the winds. Okay, what are the low hanging fruit, Hannah.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
So low hanging fruit. Well, there's a few things that
parents need to know, I think, and that's parents are
the biggest drivers of whether or not they're kids buy
college degrees. But a lot of parents just don't have
the right information. They think their kids can only get
good jobs if they go to college. But really that's
just not the reality of it anymore. The market right
now shows that a zippercruiter's quarterly reports came out fourteen
(26:30):
point five percent of job listings mentioned college degrees at all,
and then on indeed it's eighteen percent, So it's the
less than one in five that even say a college
degree is preferred. We actually went through the Bureau Labor
Statistics and we counted and found that only seven point
seven percent of jobs in our entire country actually legally
require the purchase of a college degree to get. Interestingly,
(26:52):
Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, he removed degree requirements from
all state jobs that weren't necessary. There's I think twenty
four states have done this so far in the last
two years. But when he did that, it mirrored our
data and it freed up ninety two percent of the
state jobs in Pennsylvania. So almost a direct you know,
directly related to our data, which is ninety two point
(27:13):
three percent of jobs don't require degrees. So it's just
staggering a lot of parents just think, oh, this is
the only way for my child to be successful. It's
the only way for them to get a spouse. I'm
sure you've heard that. Actually, Michael, how how many people
do you think meet their spouse on a college campus
these days? Have good I have a good one for you.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
For people who go to If you don't go to college,
you can't meet your spouse there. But let's say for
people who go to college, I'll bet you can't. Fifty
eight percent meet the person while.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
They're at college.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Point seven four percent of people meet their spouse on
a college campus.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Not even wow, okay, so even just going to just god, wow,
that is very interesting, very and you know, there's so much.
I have so many friends that are big ut families
or big Texas A and M families, or big Alabama
family I've talked to one of my dogs yesterday and
his daughter's graduating from Auburn, so I sent him war
(28:11):
Eagle and they're so proud. And families invest in the image,
you know. I know people that the most important thing
they want you to know about them is they went
to UT or they went to A and M. And
they they're seventy five, right, and it's their identity. The way,
somebody's a Vietnam bet, that's their identity. I'm an aggie
(28:31):
and you go, okay, well that's great. But I think
that people see that and they take from it the
wrong thing.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
I would agree with that, and I completely see why
people do. It's because it's such an emotional purchase for them, Right,
they're spending so much money so early in their life,
or their families are and nowadays, I mean the goal,
and this is the thing we all should be asking,
is why is there so much pressure on high schoolers
to do this? This is the only time debt that
is bankruptcy exempt, and it is bankruptcy exempt specifically for
(29:04):
seventeen and eighteen year old kids whose parents are co
signing on these loans. Why in the world is there
so much pressure on these kids to do this so young?
College is not going anywhere. Colleges are businesses, they're hedge funds.
They're always going to take your money. They're aways going
to take your kids money because it's bankruptcy exempt debt.
It's six figures on average. But why don't you wait
until your child's twenty five because you might be able
(29:26):
to cover the whole cost of their degree? If they
actually need it at that point, because no longer will
your income be determining how much your child's getting charged,
because they're not trying to reach through your child to
get you. The largest group right now that's taken out
student loans is actually grandparents because they've tapped the parents out.
The parents have their own student loans, and now they're
going to the grandparents to get them to take out loans.
(29:47):
And now you're threatening homes, you know, pensions, all kinds
of different things because of the amount of debt panner
and they're not questioning value.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
How's your kid going to be a sigma co if
they're not in college?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
You know what?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
You know what, Michael, I'll say you my my middle sister,
she was actually in the military, because there's no my
family didn't have the money to pay for four kids
to go to college. You know, I was paying my
own way when I did go before I broke out.
But my youngest, my middle sister, not the welder, but
the other one, was actually an officer in the military.
She still has student loans she's paying off even though
she had rot you know, she went ROTC but just
(30:26):
you know, taking on loans to live the life, to
live the college life that you haven't earned yet. And
so many kids get caught up in that and parents
are the ones that are on the hook for it.
But the parents are the ones that told them they
had to go in the first place, and so they
can avoid that. And it's not you don't go, just
don't go until you actually need to or until you're
sure what you're doing, because so many of these kids
(30:47):
have no idea what's out there. And that's that's the
biggest thing we found. But in the meantime, I'm a
huge fan of sales. I think that all kids should
go into into sales. I think that if you're looking
for how can you equip your child now for the
future of work. And because I just came from AI,
one thing I tell parents is there's three big things
you can do. One thing is Toastmasters or local small
(31:09):
business Chamber of Commerce. Amazing everybody has access to those things.
Find those groups. It doesn't matter how small of the
town that you live in. I know there's one in
Montgomery and it's a small town, but there's Toastmasters. Go
take your kids and teach them how to public speak.
If you want them to be able to conquer the
world because these kids cannot a lot of them. They
can't look people in the eye, you know, you know,
(31:31):
just they can't look people in the eye. They can't speak.
And all your child has to be able to do
is do that and let them use AI tools heavily,
because colleges are punishing them for doing that right now.
And it's like watching somebody pay somebody one hundred thousand
dollars to kick them in the knees before they have
to go run a marathon.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I didn't think you were going to say, knees. I
love what you've done.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
You know, I'm from Savannah, so.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
I love what you've done. And in the midst of it,
not lost on me is you have done exactly what
you're teaching other people to do. You have You and
Ryan have created a business, right and you've you've used technology,
You're you're obviously the face of the company, You're a
great communicator, you're you're you're good at this, you're good online.
And so in the midst of all this, here is
(32:19):
yet another business that is being created, and some people
are uncomfortable with that. You know, I like to talk
about making money and how we make money, and how
much money you want to make and how you want
to live and what you want to do with that
money and all the fun you can have and things
you But I love I love that you have set
this up, that y'all have created this life, that you
you find a spot on the map based on all
(32:40):
the factors you want. You know, uh, low cost of living,
close to an airport, you know, all the things that
probably went for you, low crime rate. It's it's it's
how you want to live. And it's even beyond your career.
It's a question of what kind of life do you
want to live? What kind of person do you want
to marry? Whoever shows up next to you at the
bar and you sleep with and you wake up the
(33:01):
next morning why not? Or somebody that shares your values
that you would want to go on a road trip with,
what you want to do.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
For a career, where you want to live. I love it, Hannah.
We should have you back.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You're wonderful.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Tell Ryan thanks for sharing you with us for has
it been an hour?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Wow? Whole hour? Okay, that was fun.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Did we lose her?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
She's already handling, She's already got other people going on
it's all right.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Well, ever, against a break, we got a pope. Yet,
we got a pope.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
No, no pope, Okay, Michael Berry Show, Princess.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Hope or Nope.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
You have no idea how hard I'm rooting no Pizza Bola.
If it's Pizza Bola, I'm that's going to be so great,
It's that time time, time.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Time, luck and load. So Michael Verie Show is on
the air.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
If you are stationery and would like to read along,
the accompanying materials on the worksheet for the next discussion
will be degree free dot com. Degree free dot com.
This woman helps folks get jobs without buying college degree
(00:45):
tech to trades, she describes it. She's based in Montgomery, Texas,
and that gives me occasion to pay tribute to I
believe the late Great I think he passed because I
never got to meet him, and I was bummed about
that relatively recently. Right, Oh, this is not right. Francis
Rodney Zambone, I believe it was his name. Francis Rodney
(01:08):
Zambone was from Montgomery. He wrote under the name Mark James.
I wish he'd kept Zambone because I think that's a
I mean, Frank Zambone. I like that better than Mark Jane.
Mark James is just anyway. He wrote always on my
mind that Elvis made famous Moody Blue Suspicious Minds.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
The only Elvis song ramone that.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I ever know of being covered with with any facility,
with any success, and that was Dwight Yoakam's version, and
that's because he kind of he took it to punk
country and so that changed the style. And I think
that's the only reason I tolerated. He wrote, uh, hooked
on a feeling for uh.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
What's his name for?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
Bj Thomas? Anyway, he was from Montgomery, she's from what
That's all.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
He wrote, just a few of what he wrote. Her
name is Hannah or Hahn? Before we ask her, what
do you think it is? You're gonna go Hannah?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Okay, Hannah Mario Maru Yama, Maru Yama probably a good
Japanese name. The website is degree Free. This is the
kind of thing that I think could help a lot
of folks. So, Hannah or Hannah, which is it?
Speaker 4 (02:20):
It's Hannah. It's Hannah. Thank you so much for having
me on. Michael.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Now tell me you reached out to me with a
kind of here's what I do or your PR person
did or whatever. Did you know this is something that
don't lie? Did you know this is something that I
talk about often? Or were you just scattershotting out there
to everybody that might put you on.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
No, sir, I had a list and you were on it,
and I did I did do a little bit of
research prior before I gave I gave instructions to my
guy to reach out.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Okay, your site degree free dot com. The book you
can get wherever you buy books. It's called Degree Free
Way Workbook.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Parent. What is your purpose here? What are you trying
to accomplish?
Speaker 4 (03:06):
What I am trying to do is I am trying
to keep the next generation of Americans out of unnecessary
student loan debt. And I am trying to save them
hundreds of thousands of dollars in years of their lives
that they do not have to spend on a college
campus learning from people who have never done the things
that they are teaching them how to do.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
And what got you interest? Did you have experience with
your in your own life or with your children with this?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
I do so. I personally just finished working in AI
machine learning for the past three and a half almost
four years, and I built a fairly successful type career
where I out earned the media and PhD by I
would say probably about two hundred and fifty percent. And
I did that without buying a college degree myself. And
seeing what I saw when I was doing that really
(03:51):
helped me to understand how employers are hiring, and then
the disconnect and the amount of misinformation there is around
what parents think their kids have had have to do
to get the jobs that are actually going to help
them live the way they want to.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Wait a minute, you're a redhead? Did you know she's
a redhead? Shed sound like a redhead? What is your
maiden name? O'Shaughnessy or.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
It's it's it's Shattck. But yes, I am very Irish.
My husband's the Hawaiian Japanese one.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Well, Hawaiian Japanese is our executive producer, Chad Nakanishi.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
So you're in good company here. I'm looking at your
at your house.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Yeah, he's he's thicker than Chad, but I think Chad
could take him because Chad fights every day. And what
is mister?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What is mister? He's a boxer?
Speaker 4 (04:40):
No, no, no, I was asking if Chad was a boxer.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
A ground game guy, although if I bragged on him.
At this point, he says, I'm not any good anymore.
But he's got the cauliflower ears. He trains every day,
but he can't strike anymore because his shoulder is destroyed
and he doesn't want to have another surgery on it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
He he uh.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
He has absolutely ruined his body by fighting so much
so long. He came back the other day and he had
a big old scrape across his leg. And he leaves
in the middle of the day. So we work like twoshit.
He gets in insanely early. He gets up and works out.
At two thirty he gets in it I think four
or four thirty, who knows, nobody's here yet. And he
preps all the way up till eleven thirty, leaves, goes
(05:20):
and trains and then comes back at two and then
he's here for who knows however many hours, like he
works a graveyard shift compared to the rest of us,
because it's all he has to get his training in.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So what does mister maru Yama do.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Mister Mariama runs all of the other side of the business,
so that all I get to do is talk about
the problems that I see, the solutions that we can make,
and then work with young adults. And so he does
all the boring back of the house stuff for the
business so I can do all the fun stuff.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
So I look Joel up and it says, I don't
know how old you are now, but y'all were twenty
nine and twenty six at the time, and you were
living in Honolulu. I'm assuming that's where he's from. Chad's
from the Big Island by the way, and then and
you're from Montgomery. Y'all decided to come back here.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
So I'm actually not from Montgomery myself, my husband, and
my husband is from Hawaii. He his entire family is
from there. I lived there when my dad was in
the military, and that's actually how we ended up meeting.
But we moved to Montgomery during COVID because Hawaii got
pretty crazy during the lockdowns, and so we decided that
that was not a fit for our family and the
(06:27):
things that we wanted to the way we wanted to
live our lives, and so we came here. We picked
it off a spreadsheet, we did a bunch of research
about places that were good to live, and this is
the place that we ended up and we've been here
for four years and we love it.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Nobody's in Montgomery from Hawaii because they found people were
in Montgomery because they got a job, their family lived there,
and they they're there and they like it. But nobody
looks at the mountain says why I guess we'll end
up in Montgomery, Texas.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
That is nuts.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
We did, Okay, it was top of the list, it
was top of the Excel sheet.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Did you go to college?
Speaker 4 (07:01):
I did not. I'm degree free, so I guess technically
I did.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Like a disease, I'm degree free. I'm safe.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Well have you have you? If you've met a recent
college graduate, you know it is a little bit, but
you know, I went for about I actually got into
a university when I was sixteen. I du well enrolled
where I grew up in Savannah, Georgia, because my dad
was stationed there in between me moving back to Hooi,
and I ended up fully dual enrolled. And then my
(07:31):
experience in college was that I did not do well
because I ask why too often, and my professors were
not interested in people that ask why and don't adhere
to the orthodoxy that's present on campus. And because of that,
I wasn't I think that the way that I thought,
or the questions that I asked were more of an inconvenience,
(07:54):
which kind of shocked me because I wasn't expecting it
to be so anti intellectual. When I went on a
college campaign.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Hold on, just just a moment.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Hannah, Yeah, it's that Hannah Shattuck, Maria.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
One must dig deep to come up with the right guard.
The Michael Barry That's how.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
I found my first ten wives.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Several years ago.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
There were a group of us all about the same age.
Our kids were about the same age, and there was
they were from all different schools, but they had grown
up together playing ball, and.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
They were I guess my son was a junior at
the time, maybe a sophomore. Michael T.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Was probably junior sophomore. One of the kids was a senior,
and some of the other kids were seniors. And so
it started with the natural questions by mommies. They don't
mean ill, they're just trying to engage with the kids.
It's hard to engage with teenagers. So what are you
gonna do? We you knew when you graduate? What do
you know you graduate when you graduate high school? And
they all told where they were going to go to school, Georgia, U,
(09:06):
T A and m TCU and one kid said, I'm
going to work, and it was like the oxygen was
sucked out of the room.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I'm going to start with a plumbing company. I think
I want to be a plumber, start with a plumbing company,
and then if I like it, I'm going to go
to plumbing school. So they started asking questions like he
had just he had just become a quadriplegic. The questions
were things like, well, what do you what?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
What will you get paid? What? What if you get hurt?
Do you do you? Have you ever done that before?
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It was a it was a cross between mommy panic,
desperate panic, and Dad's thinking, oh, you're gonna regret that.
And I don't know what the kid, what will happen?
But I know I've watched a lot of kids go
off to college. Mommy and Daddy spend a fricking fortune.
(10:12):
When you hear numbers of what people spend for college,
I'm going to tell you, in some of the circles
I run, those numbers you're hearing reported are way low.
TCU at Miami, they're spending over one hundred thousand dollars
per year. It's insane, And many times I've seen this happen,
(10:34):
many times, way more than you realize. They go there
and flunk out, they go there and get in trouble,
they go there and get distracted, they go there and
fall out of love with this concept of you know,
the same path that everybody else has been on. So
they pull to Charlie Robinson and go work on uh,
you know, go work out in the oil patch and
(10:59):
go find them so else or go to the military,
or go to cops school or go to firefighter school.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
So we need to be.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Careful that we don't assume the natural thing you ought
to do when you graduate high schools go to college.
Our guest is Hannam Mariyama. The website is degree free.
I was poking around it during the break. There's a
lot there and you can learn a lot about her
and then she's got books. There's a one on one
you can do with her. And yes, it will cost money.
I know people nobody has a problem paying for some things,
(11:26):
but they don't want to pay for other things. It's
the craziest thing that legal work is the funniest one
from me, Hannah. People would Hey, you're a lawyer who
just looked this over me real quick? Yeah, before I
do that, what's your budget of what you're willing to pay? Well,
I don't need to hire me, And then I just
wanted to look it over. But you understand they're looking
it over because they spend all this money to go
to law school. Lawyering is the one thing people think
they ought to get for free, Like they want to
(11:47):
walk right up to the edge of when they'll ever
have to spend a dollar and then pull back so
they get enough legal advice but never have to pay
for it. Nobody says I'm gonna go to the dentist.
He can clean about half my teeth. Don't give me
the flooride rans or any of that just happened. And
when it's not free anymore, let me know what, I'll
get up and run out. It's the weirdest thing anyway.
I like what you're doing here, Hannah. What are some
(12:09):
the ten cool careers teens can land without a degree?
Let's talk about what kind of careers we're talking about.
It's not all dig and ditches.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
No, it's definitely not. Michael, And that's actually one of
the things that while I do appreciate a lot of
a lot of the people who do talk about this,
people who have done a lot of work raising awareness
about the trades, people like micro and that comes to
mind where he frequently talks about this. But the thing
for me that stands out is a lot of kids
already know about the trades. They can see the trades,
(12:40):
they already know about jobs, they can see. One of
the things that we found when we work with young
adults a degree free is that they're very limited. They
only really can name about six to eight jobs, sometimes
twelve on the high end, but they're all jobs you
can see. There's a reason they all want to be cops, firefighters, teachers, doctors, nurses.
And then every girl you meet right now, every teenage
girl wants to be a psychologist. And I think it's
(13:00):
because a lot of the teachers just wish they had
become psychologists.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Well, and because these therapy they're all going to therapy.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
Yes, that's right, So it's it's something they can see.
And so one of the things that's such a such
a rub for me is that people, a lot of
these kids know about the trades. The problem is that
now everybody wants to go into the trades. And there's
nothing wrong with that. Then. So Ryan, my husband, was
a firefighter. Actually he has an economics degree that he
didn't use and then he became a firefighter later in life.
(13:29):
My own youngest sister is actually a structural welder at
a steel company. She currently works on rocket ships. She
makes more than a master's degree holder. It's very she's
the only it is hot, and she's also the only
girl at the whole steel company.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Oh no, in terms of you know, it's really you
can sweat a lot at that job.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
Oh no, she she does. She gets burned all the time, too,
But she and.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
I think it's hard. So let's talk about some more
of these. Let's talk about some more of these.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Cooperst one that I really think people need to know
about that doesn't fall into I'm going to give you
a bunch. All of them are going to out earn
the average master's degree holder. None of them require college degrees.
You do not, your child does not to buy a
college degree to do these things. And none of them
are actually trade. So the first one is a pilot.
Right now, there's not a single US airline that still
requires a college degree to become a pilot. Delta is
(14:22):
the last one to remove it in twenty twenty two,
so it's old news.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Which is probably three is awesome.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I think a lot of people don't know that because
people tend to be pretty surprised when I say it, also,
there are flight schools. Your average flight school right now,
with a guaranteed pipeline into one of these airlines is
going to cost you less than the average bachelor's degree,
which is going to run you about one hundred and
four to one hundred and fify six k. And so
if you want your child to have a high earning
skill that's tied to a legal license, then pilot a
pilot's license is definitely a good one. The next in
(14:53):
Houston specifically too, is going to be cloud computing specialists,
which is a type of it's a type of data
text certification, and Houston is getting an inflow of data centers.
There's a ton of work in those. It's a little
bit of software, a little bit of hardware, a little
bit of electrical work, but it's not a trade necessarily.
It also crosses into cybersecurity, high paying, high demand. A
(15:15):
lot of people will train on the job for that.
Surgical technologists also high demand. That's very medical. You assist
in operating rooms and it's a start program Q shortage
of fire alarm installation texts, so nice at certifications where
they go in and train them how to actually you know,
do low voltage low voltage installation, and that leads directly
(15:38):
into business ownership for a lot of kids too.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Can I interrupt you, Hannah? I have a friend.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Yeah, Lee has a company called Platinum Environmental, and they've
got you said Nicis or nicis, however you want to
pronounce it. He got certified for environmental remediation and environmental consulting.
They're working on the border wall. He's doing city, county,
state work, federal. It's it's amazing. Hold on sing dot com,
Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Lifeless Eyes, black eyeses, tick A Dolls.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Brandon writes.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
I know I've recited my professional story several times to you.
It's practically an annual campfire tale by now. But this
Hannah is talking right to my wheelhouse. I consider my
path as serendipitous as it is circuitous. My time in
college was nothing short of rudderless. But God bless her
for taking on a mission like this. She's going to
help so many people. Tip of the hat to both
(16:31):
of you. That was subject line A note on Hannah's call.
The website is degree free dot com. Not only is
she presenting options and guidance and instruction and mentoring to
finding a.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Career without a degree.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
She is creating a mindset for people who are choosing
not to go to college to not only not be
ashamed of it, but to be proud that you did
get fleeced, you didn't spend all that money. For some people,
college is the right thing to do. For many people,
it's not. But we try to push everybody to go,
and that is a huge That's how you end up
(17:11):
with a trillion dollars in student loan debt that nobody
wants to pay back and they don't have jobs. That's
a problem. Hannah maru Yama is our guest degree free
dot com. I want to go back to those careers
you talked about, but I want to talk about what
the one on one sessions look like.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Sure, so the do you want me to do the
careers first and finish up that list?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
How many more did you have?
Speaker 4 (17:35):
I got five more?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Okay, why don't you do one career and then like
a minute on the one on one and then one career.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I'm just sitting finish the careers, go ahead, gotcha.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
My next one. I have a young lady pursuing this
right now. Actually she's in Louisiana. Is court reporting and scenography,
which is a really really good, great job, a lot
of flexibility. She wants to be a mom long term,
so that's something that really fit into what she wants
in the futures for as flexible work. Actuary is one
that people are often surprised does not require a college degree.
(18:06):
It's a series of very difficult tests, but it is
in fact, there is no degree that is legally required
for that job. Just persistence and heavy math, heavy maths,
heavy stats. Another one that people are overlooking, but there's
a lot of retirement and is construction and oil field scheduling,
and that's something that's a little bit like project management,
(18:27):
but you can get assistant in junior roles. There a
ton of people retiring, a great opportunity, great industry often
that pays over one hundred thousand dollars as well, so
great six figure job. Audio engineering which is big as
you know, broadcasting, film, podcast production, and then digital marketing,
which is one it can often be got through very inexpensive,
(18:49):
very very accessible certifications online and then it's just a
matter of you know, applying to enough jobs.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Well and then we take for granted and I think
people get burned on this when I talk about sales jobs,
which I know salesmen make a lot of money, a
lot hundreds and hundreds of thousand of dollars that may
or may not have college degrees and certainly weren't required
to have one. Is everybody that wants to get into
sales sees a sign while the drive on the road
it says, you know, you can make up to X
amount of money. They never go into and it ends
(19:18):
up being telemarketing, and nobody wants to do that. They've
all seen Glengarry Glenn Ross and they don't want to
end up Jack Lemon's character.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
But there are lots.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Of small companies and mid sized companies that are looking
for people that are presentable and that can present, that
can communicate, they can show up to work every day.
As you know, Hannah, half the battle and being successful
is showing up, not being drunk, not being under the influence,
not having a bad attitude, looking people in the eyes,
(19:47):
delivering on what you're told to do, and managing to
show up to work. That is so hard for people
to do, especially early in their careers. And if you
can do that consistently, especially small owner operated, you can
end up rising through the But who am I telling?
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Tell me about the one on one sessions.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Sure, so, my, I'm very proud of the process that
we've created, mostly because we've done it through just trial
and error, put hundreds of kids through this process at
this point, and basically, the way we teach young adults
to pick careers now is kind of insane. We've completely
disregarded Maslow's Higer group needs. We don't think about what
they actually need to make, where they want to live,
how much, you know, what kind of schedule they want
(20:25):
to have, And so instead we do the opposite because
right now in high schools, high schools are just college pipelines.
All they do is cell degrees, All they do is
sell paper, and all they do is push. They push
one hundred percent of these kids into college. If they
don't want to do that, they ignore them, They let
them fall through the cracks. And then if the only
other tool they have is the military. Now they're kind
of using trade schools a little bit. But instead we go, oh,
let's follow your heart. Oh your test scores are this,
(20:47):
you can be an engineer or you know, here's some
random personality tests. You like to work with your hands?
So go be an electrician. That's a terrible, crazy way
to have seventeen and eighteen year olds choose what they're
going to do first after they graduate, and so instead
we've done the opposite. So it's a complete one eighty,
which is what do you want your life to look like?
Where do you want to live? Do you want to
stay in your hometown? Do you want to move somewhere
(21:08):
you know if and this is a huge one, but
schedule you know, long term? Do you have a family?
Do you want to be home with your kids? And
this is for boys and girls, but one thing that's
completely under addressed to women for sure, is that a
priority for you? If so, we're looking at a different
set of skills, different set of work that's going to
help you to accomplish that in your life, because that's
what's going to make them actually fulfilled by their job,
(21:30):
because their jobs not their life. And then after that
we talked about, you know, how much money do you
want to make to do the things that you want
the right A good example is is Chad, you're you're
you know, you're you're in your you're in house Hawaiian.
He you know, he trains and it costs money to train,
and so I worked with the young man who really
wanted to spend a lot of time training in jiu jitsu.
(21:50):
But that's expensive. You know, as he moved out of
his parents' house, he's responsible for his own bills. He's
got to make enough money that he can pay to train,
you know, and that's something that he cares about. And
so we were looking at jobs that will fulfill that
so you can pay you know, pay for his rent,
pay for his food, a lot of protein, and then
you know, go train. And then we also think about
the type of schedule that they want to have. You know,
do they want to work you know, they want to
(22:11):
work swingshifts, they want to work oil field work. Do
they want to work four days a week? You know,
because that's going to give you a different side of jobs.
And what's the priority to them. And when once we
put those things in order, then our team goes out
and we just research. We just go out to the
whole internet. There's three thousands, six thousand different jobs out there.
We add hundreds more every single month, and we go
through and we find where they live or where they
(22:33):
want to live, what jobs are going to fit those things,
and then what skills employers actually need them to learn,
and then we give them options to learn those things.
All of them are faster and cheaper than a college degree,
because a college degree really just slows you down nowadays,
and it costs way too much for what they're going
to teach you, and they're actually not going to teach
you anything employable, So you're going to get out and
have to do the exact same process that we do
a degree free, you know, for eighteen year olds.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
What what you're talking about there, and it's just very
important to people here is that you have agency over
your life.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
I know so many people, and I've known since.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
I graduated high school that they get out of school
and they're like being blown about like a leaf because
they don't know. Nobody told them. And where did you
go to work? Well, so and so was hiring. What
did you do? Well, they put me over here doing this.
What were your hours? Well, they had me working overnights.
When you create, we live in a glorious time for this.
(23:26):
When you create that skill set, that ideal life for you,
and you consider your skill set and passions and all
those sorts of things, and you go looking for it.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
And it might be a dog rumor, it might be
a karate instructor, it might be a oil field scheduling
or actuary or court reporter or any number of other things.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
That's what I love is the idea.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Of planning the life you want and then going to
find it rather than who's hiring. Well, that's not a
long term that's not a long term success goal. I
love your approach here and I absolutely love it. I
think this is fantastic. It's degree free dot com, degree
free dot com. Coming up, I'm going to ask Hannah Maruyama.
(24:07):
I'm going to ask her the however many minutes we
have available the most, the things that most people don't
know that would make the biggest difference, So the low
hanging fruit, the things that come up the most that
she helps people with, and how you can get started
today as a parent or as a young person. I'm
a big person, a big one forgetting your kids involved
(24:27):
in this process. Mommy, don't do it all for them.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
The term anal intercourse on your program Michael Barry.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Show, if it's relevant to the story for journalistic.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Purposes, the Michael Berry shown Pope or the Pope. Nope.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
Okay, Okay, I love the emails I'm getting, Joseph writes,
after two years of college, I found out what I
would be making after graduation, I quit. I went to
electrical apprentice. After fifty years, I retired with a great
retirement and full of cash. So many of these stories
coming in people that went into not just electrical employing,
(25:31):
but all sorts of other things. Okay, Hannah Maruyama, the
redhead married to the Honolulu native.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
I want to know what are the.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Issues that come up the most when people start their
one on one training. By the way, you can you
can have one on one training with her, or you can.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Buy the book, or there are workshops and workbooks.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
And all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's all at degree free dot com. And I'm not
saying don't go to college, folks. I'm saying, just explore
your option plan your life. Don't be blown about by
the winds. Okay, what are the low hanging fruit, Hannah.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
So low hanging fruit. Well, there's a few things that
parents need to know, I think, and that's parents are
the biggest drivers of whether or not they're kids buy
college degrees. But a lot of parents just don't have
the right information. They think their kids can only get
good jobs if they go to college. But really that's
just not the reality of it anymore. The market right
now shows that a zippercruiter's quarterly reports came out fourteen
(26:30):
point five percent of job listings mentioned college degrees at all,
and then on indeed it's eighteen percent, So it's the
less than one in five that even say a college
degree is preferred. We actually went through the Bureau Labor
Statistics and we counted and found that only seven point
seven percent of jobs in our entire country actually legally
require the purchase of a college degree to get. Interestingly,
(26:52):
Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania, he removed degree requirements from
all state jobs that weren't necessary. There's I think twenty
four states have done this so far in the last
two years. But when he did that, it mirrored our
data and it freed up ninety two percent of the
state jobs in Pennsylvania. So almost a direct you know,
directly related to our data, which is ninety two point
(27:13):
three percent of jobs don't require degrees. So it's just
staggering a lot of parents just think, oh, this is
the only way for my child to be successful. It's
the only way for them to get a spouse. I'm
sure you've heard that. Actually, Michael, how how many people
do you think meet their spouse on a college campus
these days? Have good I have a good one for you.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
For people who go to If you don't go to college,
you can't meet your spouse there. But let's say for
people who go to college, I'll bet you can't. Fifty
eight percent meet the person while.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
They're at college.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Point seven four percent of people meet their spouse on
a college campus.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Not even wow, okay, so even just going to just god, wow,
that is very interesting, very and you know, there's so much.
I have so many friends that are big ut families
or big Texas A and M families, or big Alabama
family I've talked to one of my dogs yesterday and
his daughter's graduating from Auburn, so I sent him war
(28:11):
Eagle and they're so proud. And families invest in the image,
you know. I know people that the most important thing
they want you to know about them is they went
to UT or they went to A and M. And
they they're seventy five, right, and it's their identity. The way,
somebody's a Vietnam bet, that's their identity. I'm an aggie
(28:31):
and you go, okay, well that's great. But I think
that people see that and they take from it the
wrong thing.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
I would agree with that, and I completely see why
people do. It's because it's such an emotional purchase for them, Right,
they're spending so much money so early in their life,
or their families are and nowadays, I mean the goal,
and this is the thing we all should be asking,
is why is there so much pressure on high schoolers
to do this? This is the only time debt that
is bankruptcy exempt, and it is bankruptcy exempt specifically for
(29:04):
seventeen and eighteen year old kids whose parents are co
signing on these loans. Why in the world is there
so much pressure on these kids to do this so young?
College is not going anywhere. Colleges are businesses, they're hedge funds.
They're always going to take your money. They're aways going
to take your kids money because it's bankruptcy exempt debt.
It's six figures on average. But why don't you wait
until your child's twenty five because you might be able
(29:26):
to cover the whole cost of their degree? If they
actually need it at that point, because no longer will
your income be determining how much your child's getting charged,
because they're not trying to reach through your child to
get you. The largest group right now that's taken out
student loans is actually grandparents because they've tapped the parents out.
The parents have their own student loans, and now they're
going to the grandparents to get them to take out loans.
(29:47):
And now you're threatening homes, you know, pensions, all kinds
of different things because of the amount of debt panner
and they're not questioning value.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
How's your kid going to be a sigma co if
they're not in college?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
You know what?
Speaker 4 (30:03):
You know what, Michael, I'll say you my my middle sister,
she was actually in the military, because there's no my
family didn't have the money to pay for four kids
to go to college. You know, I was paying my
own way when I did go before I broke out.
But my youngest, my middle sister, not the welder, but
the other one, was actually an officer in the military.
She still has student loans she's paying off even though
she had rot you know, she went ROTC but just
(30:26):
you know, taking on loans to live the life, to
live the college life that you haven't earned yet. And
so many kids get caught up in that and parents
are the ones that are on the hook for it.
But the parents are the ones that told them they
had to go in the first place, and so they
can avoid that. And it's not you don't go, just
don't go until you actually need to or until you're
sure what you're doing, because so many of these kids
(30:47):
have no idea what's out there. And that's that's the
biggest thing we found. But in the meantime, I'm a
huge fan of sales. I think that all kids should
go into into sales. I think that if you're looking
for how can you equip your child now for the
future of work. And because I just came from AI,
one thing I tell parents is there's three big things
you can do. One thing is Toastmasters or local small
(31:09):
business Chamber of Commerce. Amazing everybody has access to those things.
Find those groups. It doesn't matter how small of the
town that you live in. I know there's one in
Montgomery and it's a small town, but there's Toastmasters. Go
take your kids and teach them how to public speak.
If you want them to be able to conquer the
world because these kids cannot a lot of them. They
can't look people in the eye, you know, you know,
(31:31):
just they can't look people in the eye. They can't speak.
And all your child has to be able to do
is do that and let them use AI tools heavily,
because colleges are punishing them for doing that right now.
And it's like watching somebody pay somebody one hundred thousand
dollars to kick them in the knees before they have
to go run a marathon.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I didn't think you were going to say, knees. I
love what you've done.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
You know, I'm from Savannah, so.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
I love what you've done. And in the midst of it,
not lost on me is you have done exactly what
you're teaching other people to do. You have You and
Ryan have created a business, right and you've you've used technology,
You're you're obviously the face of the company, You're a
great communicator, you're you're you're good at this, you're good online.
And so in the midst of all this, here is
(32:19):
yet another business that is being created, and some people
are uncomfortable with that. You know, I like to talk
about making money and how we make money, and how
much money you want to make and how you want
to live and what you want to do with that
money and all the fun you can have and things
you But I love I love that you have set
this up, that y'all have created this life, that you
you find a spot on the map based on all
(32:40):
the factors you want. You know, uh, low cost of living,
close to an airport, you know, all the things that
probably went for you, low crime rate. It's it's it's
how you want to live. And it's even beyond your career.
It's a question of what kind of life do you
want to live? What kind of person do you want
to marry? Whoever shows up next to you at the
bar and you sleep with and you wake up the
(33:01):
next morning why not? Or somebody that shares your values
that you would want to go on a road trip with,
what you want to do.
Speaker 5 (33:07):
For a career, where you want to live. I love it, Hannah.
We should have you back.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
You're wonderful.
Speaker 5 (33:11):
Tell Ryan thanks for sharing you with us for has
it been an hour?
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Wow? Whole hour? Okay, that was fun.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Did we lose her?
Speaker 3 (33:23):
She's already handling, She's already got other people going on
it's all right.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Well, ever, against a break, we got a pope. Yet,
we got a pope.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
No, no pope, Okay, Michael Berry Show, Princess.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Hope or Nope.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
You have no idea how hard I'm rooting no Pizza Bola.
If it's Pizza Bola, I'm that's going to be so great,
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