Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Is College Outdated? - 102

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

Did you go to college? In this day and time, college is almost a standard. We all have been told that we will never be successful or get good jobs without a college degree, but is that true? In this episode of Empire, Bedros and Craig express their opinions on college and universities and their opinions on what you should do to gain that knowledge and experience to excel in the career of your choice!      “$167k is the average doubt that students come out with” “82% of people who come out of college do not work in the profession they got their degree in” “Most people waste a lot of time” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover: 2:00 - How some of the best professionals are self-taught or have been mentored by someone in the same profession 3:20 - How one of Bedros’ employees blossomed in a skill that she didn't go to school for 4:25 - Going to college isn't necessarily the right thing to do for you - and what you can do instead 6:40 - The truly best education you could receive to get you a head start 8:45 - How Bedros is breeding his children to become entrepreneurs about the things they are passionate about   “There's nothing special about sitting in a room with other people” “You don't need to go to college to form social skills” - Craig Ballantyne   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @realcraigballantyne Buy Man Up: https://manup.com/   Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow

Parents, I want you to pay attention. And if you're listening to this and you know that there's a parent, you know a parent who is this close, they're having that conversation with their kid about you should go to college because it's the right thing to do. The only reason parents say that is because they don't know any other advice to give their kids. Time for a rant, time to get Bedros Kulian fired up.

Bedros, should we go to college? You should never go to college unless you want to waste time, you want to waste money and learn information that was used at least 50 years ago, unless you plan on being a doctor or an accountant or a lawyer with a very specialized skill and talent. Oh, welcome to an Empire Rant episode. This one's going to be controversial, but it's also going to be fun. Listen, you know what, Baderos, I was thinking, all right, Baderus is going to take the no college stance, I'm going to take the pro college stance,

because I did go to college, I went to college for six years. I got a master's degree and exercise physical. How much did it cost to you? You know, I was in Canada. It wasn't really that expensive, expensive. expensive. In the end, I didn't have any debt when I graduated, but most people these days, what, $100,000, $200,000 worth of debt? Currently, it's $167,000 is the average debt that students come out with. That is really stupid. That is really stupid, especially for what people are getting themselves into. Because at the end of the day, I would like then compare myself against other

personal trainers. And I'm like, wow, I mean, that guy learned all this stuff on his own just by reading books and magazines. And so I was thinking, I'll come and I'll say, listen, you know, if you want to be an accountant, but there's no reason why somebody couldn't become a great accountant, just apprenticing or whatever. Like, there's nothing magical about sitting in a room with a whole bunch of other people.

In fact, you don't pay attention, you fall asleep, you don't go to class, you screw around. Man, there's really not a whole lot of good reasons to go to college. But what do people say to you? Like, what are their arguments? Well, okay, so like now, see, using the argument of the accountant,

someone's going to be like, well, but the state requires and the city requires where the federal law requires that you have an accounting degree. Well, that's true. But otherwise, if it didn't, dude, some of the best accountants are people that are just fanatical about seeing where the money went, how it went, why it went, what we could do to stop the bleeding of money and make it more profitable.

And then it's some way along the road, someone's like, hey, let's make a degree out of this, let's make it a process, and now it's become a business. But when you look at the percentages, 82% of people who come out of college or university are not working in the profession that they got their degree in. 82% right? Number one.

Number two, they spend a minimum of four to six years getting education and accumulating debt that's outdated by the time they're out of college. Case in point is programming, software programming and all that stuff. Right. You have to go then learn that on your own anyways. You have to. And so when you look at what the modern day universities and colleges are, they're businesses like this, like FitBody Boot Camp,

where when we bring on an intern, and I'll give you a great example, ironically, she was a college graduate, lit Liz. The guys here behind the camera is no lit Liz. You know lit. Yeah, I was actually asking where is Liz? Yeah, yeah, well, get it. She usually brings us water. That's right.

She came up with her college degree. With her college degree. And ironically, she went to college for PR stuff, but we found that she was much better at really being a producer for our show here. And as she interned for us in the beginning, and then it ultimately became a paid producer. intern, you know, worked with us longer, she realized, hey, you know what? I love working out at a FitBody Boot Camp here in town.

I love fitness. I'm going to open up my own FitBody Boot Camp. And now Liz is opening up her own Fit Body Boot Camp in her hometown of Sacramento with a degree in public relations. Now if someone's going to be like, well, she could use that to drum up business. No she can't. Don't fuck around. Yeah, right. She's going to use it.

You know what? I've known a lot of people with PR agencies. No PR agency can drum up business. They're all. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no. You're going to run direct response Facebook ads and lead gen ads and build a list and know I can follow. That's how she's going to fill up her boot camp. But the bottom line here is, man, most people who go to college end up wasting a lot of time. Now, here's a problem. And parents, I want you to pay attention. And if you're listening to this and you know that there's a parent, you know a parent who is this close.

They're having that conversation with their kid about you should go to college because it's the right thing to do. The only reason parents say that is because they don't know any other advice. to give their kids. Because what I would do, if my kid was like, hey, dad, I want to run a digital newsletter like early to rise. I would say, son, guess what? You're going to go intern for Craig for a whole year. Or if Chloe says, I want to be a dentist.

Great. Go be a dentist assistant. Just go help out, clean the office for six months at a dental place, see what they're doing. Do you really want that? Because we have a dentist friend who was a coaching client, Mark Costas. If you remember, he goes, look, no one told me I'd come out

with $140,000 in debt that every day people would look at me and say, I hate you because everybody hates dentists, right? And he goes, look, I got arthritis in my knuckles, and I'm covered with people's blood and pus at the end of the day. So listen, let's take a look at our friend Joel Marion. He went to school to be a teacher. He didn't use that to become a multi, multi, multi-millionaire. In fact, he was like, I realized I didn't want to be it

after a while, and he got out of it. You, so I think it's important for you to share your story because you're ranting and raving and people are going, well, did he go to college? How does he even know it's worth this? You know what? Good question. And the fact is, I did go to college because I didn't know what else to do. Everyone else seems to be going to college after high school. The Marine Corps didn't want me since I have flat feet. Mrs. Boyer told me that you got to go to the Marine Corps. They're the only ones who can set you straight. I was a problem child. And so I went to become a smog technician. From there, I decided I don't want to be a smog technician.

I want to be a personal trainer. So exercise science was going to be my degree. After 32 days at Fullerton College, I realized I don't fit in. I don't belong. I'm having anxiety again being here because I know deep down in my bones, there's a better way to be a coach and a trainer than to get some old antiquated certification when there's modern day coaches out there who have revolutionized what real training is all about.

And so I'm going to go get certified instead and then start interning. And that's what I did. But it took me 32 whole days, miserable days in college to figure that out and probably a few thousand dollars spent. So I think I got out lucky. Yeah, absolutely. And so I actually just had somebody DM me the other day. I said, hey, I want to become an amazing personal trainer.

I'm like, go intern at Todd Durkin's place. Go intern at Alan Cosgrove's place. You know, basically, anytime somebody says to me, hey, listen, I want to be in this industry, I say go and find the best entrepreneur in your town or wherever you can move to and go and work for them. That is the best education. And it's like, you know, hiring a coach, but you get paid for it. You know, if you're sitting down having this conversation with your kids or if you're a kid listening and you're sitting down having this conversation with your parents, you've got to think long term.

You got to think this is not a decision to rush into you. Like you said, go and get a job in the industry in the field. See if it's even something you want to do. Right. I think a lot of people end up, oh, you know, they get a lot of. go and get a law degree and next thing you know, like, oh, my God, all you do is sit there and read the most boring stuff in the world. And now I'm locked into this for the next 40 years. They built themselves this prison. This prison. It's a paycheck prison, right? Because, okay,

you've got all this debt. And if you stop working, the debt accumulates, you have no, you have no money coming in, and then you get a mortgage, and then you get a card payment. And, like, you're screwed. Nailed it. And that's the American dream to get that. The paycheck prison. Right. Nailed it. That's exactly it. You have gold in the handcuffs on that you cannot get rid of. Listen, folks, the reason we're so adamant, the reason we're so passionate that Craig and I want the best for you and your kids is because universities and colleges just pump out employees. And that's okay if someone just wants to be a mediocre employee. Best case scenario is that you want to end up becoming a team member, like the guys and gals that work with me here, where we do a partnership rewards program, where we take good kids.

care of them. We make sure they're always personally developing into great human beings and leaders in life so they can move on like Liz and go open up their own boot camp or whatever it is they want to do. Or grow into our organization, right? But there's not a lot of companies to do that. They just want you to be like a machine, a cog in the wheel. And that's what universities are there for. And so the reason you and I preach this so hard is because when parents just tell their kids, go do it because it's the only right thing to do, we want to make sure they have some other options. Maybe the other right thing to do is go work in the industry that you want to get a college degree in and see if you like it. And I'm telling you, man, if more people did that, like for me, me and my wife, we emptied out

our kids' college funds about three years ago. And we literally took those college funds and we bought a small rental property for Andrew, under Andrew's name, and one for Chloe. Now, by the time they're old enough to get those houses, those properties will be paid off. Each house will probably be worth about $6,000, $800,000, especially how quickly Chino Hills is going up in price. So they'll have nearly a million dollars to start their life with. Now I'm breeding them to become entrepreneurs and the things that they're passionate about

and leaders. And so look at the startup capital they have. Not only are they debt-free, they're starting life with half a million to a million of money. I think that's what we owe as parents to our kids. My parents didn't put me in that position. Yours didn't. And I think this is why we're pushing so hard for this, right? Yeah.

And the last thing I'll say is I went to college and I went to college and I I know how much of a waste of time it can be for so many people. I mean, you know, kids smoked weed all day long. I mean, I got drunk a lot. Delicious. I mean, I went to class a lot and studied a lot, but I still went out a lot and wasted time. And, I mean, you don't need to go to college in order to develop social skills.

You can develop them plenty of other places. Did you ever do cocaine? Because I tried cocaine once. Can I tell you about my experience? Please. And it wasn't, it was during those 32 days, ironically. Really? The only time I've taken cocaine was those 32 days of going.

going to college. See, college will make it into a drug addict. Right. But truly, a friend of mine was like, actually, it was during those 32 days, but I think it was coincidence. I'm not saying college made me a coke head because I only tried it once and I didn't like it. He's like, he's like, Bedros, if you just throw a little bit of coke before we do legs, before we train legs, you're going to be so focused, you're going to be so intense. I'm like, Mike, his name is Mike Botticelli. Actually, he's now a junior high school teacher in Las Vegas. Mike, shout out to Mike Botticelli from Buffalo, New York. His students having the best leg workouts in the state.

So Botticelli says, you know, let's just do a little tut of cocaine. And I was like, all right, buddy. So I snorted some up my left nostril, and I don't know if I snorted too hard. It went down my throat and my throat got numb. I started going into a panic thinking my throat is closing and I'm not going to be able to breathe. And so instead of having a great workout, I went through a massive panic attack for the next 20 minutes until the numbness went away. So that's my only experience with college and drugs. There you go. So parents, keep your kids out of drugs by keeping them out of school.

And keeping them in jail. Gyms. Yes. So there you go. You can take this for what it's worth. Just think about it instead of blindly going and sending the kids off to college and racking up that debt because there is a lot of other ways to succeed in life. Amen. Thanks for watching this episode. Thanks for listening to this episode. Make sure you leave a five-star review. and fill out the application for the Empire Mastermind where you can join us to become a coaching client who can help you scale your business, take it to massive profits,

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