EntreLeadership - #199: Adam Braun—Why You Need to Value Competency Over Credentials

Episode Date: May 8, 2017

If you’re struggling to recruit talent, listen in. Because according to this week’s guest, Adam Braun, your traditional candidate pool is about to get a lot deeper. The founder of Pencils of Promise, a nonprofit that builds elementary schools in third-world nations, has recently launched a new form of higher education. MissionU is an alternative to college that teaches students the hard and soft skills they need to thrive in any 21st century career. And did we mention that every student graduates without being saddled with debt? This is a fascinating conversation that explores a rising trend you can’t ignore. entreleadership.com/podcast Summit Event EntreLeaders Guide to Hiring   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, four leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. Our feature conversation this episode is with Adam Braun, a great entrepreneurial mind, and he is behind a whole new, I believe, wave. Mission U is what he is doing.

You're going to hear about it, but there's a much bigger conversation that we're going to have. This idea of what does the future of college education look like as it relates to new people coming in the workforce? And then why does that matter to you as people who are hiring? Well, it matters big time. We'll unpack that for you. And then we have a clip of Dave Ramsey himself talking about hiring. This is important stuff. all on message because again, we believe that your greatest assets are your people.

We also have some great tools from InfusionSoft and the Entree leadership team. So I'm really passionate about this topic that we discuss with Adam because I think there's already of movement underfoot. And many of you are very, very knowledgeable. You're paying attention to what's going on with trends. You pay attention to the news. and there is a growing movement of people that are realizing, wait a second, I may not need to go to college. I may not need to send my kids to college.

And then leaders saying, hey, I don't have to hire somebody with a four-year degree. Now, that's the reality. You know, this isn't new, but you're seeing more and more people begin to say that openly. Because let's just be honest, here's what we're facing. We live in an American culture where there's this huge pressure to go to a four-year college, get a degree, then go get a job. That's just a reality. Now, is that wrong? No, I'm not saying that it is.

Is it relevant? That's the question. So, we did some research. Adam Braun and his organization gave us some research. Eric the producer and Will, the engineer, did some research as well. And I want to set the scene for you. Where we sit in 2017, it sets up our conversation. well because I really want you to dive into this because this matters. As people who are hiring

all the time and you're looking at next generation hiring, you need to know this. Now let's set this up. Here is where we are at in 2017. Are you ready for this? Over 31 million Americans have some college credit and no degree. This comes from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 31 million Americans have some college credit but no degree. Amongst all students entering a four-year bachelor degree program, are you ready for this? Only 18% of them will graduate on time and finish in four years. Those two stats go together there. That's what's happening.

Now let's look at this. Let's look at employment. So you've got your bachelor degree, right? This is what society says you have to do. Go get a four-year degree and then go get a good job, junior. That's success. The average starting salary for bachelor's degree graduates for the class of 2016, $52,569. The source there is the National Association for Colleges and Employers.

So $52,000. Now, more than half of bachelor's degree graduates are underemployed and work in jobs that do not require their college degree. Now soak on that. The average starting salary for bachelor's degree graduates for the class of 2016 is $52,000. Half of those graduates are under-employed, right? Which means their degree says they should be making more or they should be doing more. Which, by the way, what's driving that? We don't have time to get into that.

But I should be making more. They're underemployed. They're overqualified. And this is even worse. Some of them are working in a situation where they don't even need the degree. Now, here's where it gets tragic. Here's where it gets sad. Here's the economic impact of those data points.

Average student loan debt among 2016 college graduates is $37,000. That's up 6%. From 2015, source there is student loan hero and the Wall Street Journal. 57% of college graduates regret taking out as many loans as they did. Well, of course they do. Let's go back to that last data point. 57% of college graduates regret taking out the loans because there are that other swath of people who are employed in a situation where they didn't even need the degree.

Half of bachelor's degree students are working in jobs that do not require a college degree. Well, of course they regret the loan. Think about how many years they're working to just pay off the loan that they're not even using the degree. It's unbelievable. So that's where we sit. So why does this matter so much? Because I think you're going to see a huge wave. Cultural shifts are afoot.

And I'm telling you, it's going to shift big time. All it takes is a couple of dominoes, and I believe they've already fallen. And then it's going to take maybe a few years or so. All of a sudden, it's not going to be this thing of shame to not go to college. If you've got the skills necessary, you can go work, and you can compete and you can win, and you can hire people like that. This is a huge, huge economic factor. And I actually believe there's also not just an economic factor here that's worth discussing.

I also think it's important for us as parents and grandparents and leaders. When you want to hire people who are fulfilled doing jobs that they love and that they're good, They don't have to go to college for that. You may not need it. Start thinking differently. That's why we're having this conversation. Let's get right to it. Folks, Adam Braun is a great thinker.

He's going to make you think. Here is our conversation. Well, Adam, this is a treat for me because our audience has heard me talk with several guests. Just briefly about the topic of college and how necessary is it? What have we done institutionally as a society that's wrong that's not working? So that being the context, I want you to start with Mission You, then we'll dive into that. But that's where we're going to spend our time today. But let's first talk about Mission You, because at some point you said, all right, this needs to exist.

So let's start with what is Mission You? Why does it exist? And where do you see it going long term? Sure. So Mission You is a one-year college alternative for the 21st century. And what we do is we prepare students for the jobs of today and tomorrow. are debt-free. We charge no tuition at all up front at zero tuition. When you get into Mission You, we think that institutions of higher education should really essentially invest in their

students rather than vice versa. And maybe I can back up a bit and explain why it exists, what it was really born out of, which is, you know, the fact that when I met my wife, she grew up in a very loving household, but without, you know, much financial means. And, you know, like so many young people, she really bought into this kind of promise that you go to college maybe you take on the debt that they tell you you have to take on to get through that journey and that you'll have some great job waiting at the end of that path for you. And she went to college for about two and a half years. And in those two and a half years, she racked up so much debt and incurred so much financial

hardship. And what she was learning, you know, she kind of looked at the pieces and said, I don't know that this is actually helping me get the skills that I need for the jobs that I'm interested in. And so, you know, she became one of what is now 31 million Americans who have some college credit and no bachelor's degree. She left early to start working to not take on more debt and incur more financial hardship. And by the time that we met several years later, she'd been paying, you know, $5,000, $700 every single month towards what was really just the interest rates because the student

loan interest rates are so high nowadays. And she had $110,000 of student debt. And when I learned that she had over $100,000 of student debt without a bachelor's degree and, you know, I kept on making all these suggestions about how we would, you know, build a life together. And, and, you know, and how she could position herself in her career, especially with my kind of view on the world as an entrepreneur, what I kept on hearing back from her was really just the crushing toll, you know, emotionally, spiritually kind of in viewing what her future could look like that this debt had.

And I actually encouraged her to declare bankruptcy. You know, I said, you should declare bankruptcy. You shouldn't be penalized for life because of a decision that you made as a, you know, 17, 18 year old. And once we get married, I have clean credit and, you know, we'll be okay. and that's when she told me that student debt is the only debt in the United States that cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. It's with you for life. And not only that, if you die or flee the country, they'll go after your family because you usually have to have, you know, next of kin, co-sign on your student loans. So, you know, once I learned that, my blood started to boil. I've spent my whole career focused on education and trying to solve some of our world's really largest social injustices.

And, you know, I looked at my family and we were able to, you know, better one generation. after the next because of that investment in higher education. And I looked at what my wife went through and started to do the research. And it just became very clear to me that college is a one-size-fits-all system no longer works. And the cost increase over the last, you know, 10 years of college blows anything else out of the water. And yet the value of that bachelor's degree to an employer is really less and less in terms

of the skills that you're acquiring. And so, you know, we built Mission You as a true college alternative, a one-year program. that would be more favorable, you know, financially for students. So, again, no debt. It's a debt-free program for those that really believe that they're looking for a fast and accelerated path with a skill-based curriculum and partnerships with leading companies, which I can go into more detail on. You know, that student who's really the career starter, Mission You is for you.

Yeah. Okay. So we're going to break this down. But before we break it down, because you really gave us a beautiful mission statement and I want to go through the different details. But let me just point out. something that I think I heard you say, and I want you to correct me, is it the dirty little secret that honestly a degree for a college graduate has little to no worth at all in a job interview?

Is that essentially what I'm hearing? I think it depends on the job interview, and I think it depends on where the degree is from. So my honest opinion is that it doesn't have no worth. You know, it has some worth, but it is one of many signals that an employer now has to evaluate at you. If you think about to really, I think, highlight the point, let's look back 15 years ago. You know, 15 years ago, if you had, you know, somebody coming to apply for a job, you really only had the information about them that you could find out from asking them where they went to college and then requesting their transcript. And so, you know, if you wanted to hire, let's call it,

you know, somebody who did analysis for, you know, financial information, you would look and say, what did they, you know, get in their statistics class, right? I mean, how did they do macro and microeconomics. That was kind of the information you had on that person. You know, LinkedIn didn't exist. Facebook didn't exist. You know, you couldn't Google their name necessarily and find out much information. Nowadays, you know, I have probably 15 to 20 relevant data points on any individual that I'm going to hire.

And, you know, I've said this to a lot of young people, but what shows up when I Google search their name and what's on their social media stream in the last two weeks is going to have a bigger impact on whether they get a job than where they want. went to college or whether they got a degree. And I've never looked at a single transcript. And the organizations and companies that I've started have collectively hired hundreds of people. And I've talked to a lot of friends and entrepreneurs of very big businesses. And I can't find anybody that's looked at a single college transcript, nor even asked or checked whether somebody graduated from a college in the last five years. Now, that's what I was driving towards. That right there is enough to make parents want to throw up. I mean, it's unbelievable.

So that's all the point that I wanted Adam to make, folks. But you have got to soak in on the last 30 seconds of that answer. Go back and listen to it and just put that in context of where you're – especially if you've got younger kids who aren't even in high school and the college game hasn't even really become a serious discussion yet. All right, let's go back. So Mission You. You said this, but I'm reading it right off of your company information.

Mission You is a one-year college alternative. Let's start there. We'll get into the zero tuition and the jobs of today and tomorrow debt-free. I want to cover both of those two key points. But a one-year college alternative, how is it, Adam, that you believe that one year at Mission U is an alternative to college? I believe it is, but I want you to unpack that and explain it. Sure.

You know, when you break down, not the demographics of college students, but the motivations, it turns out there's six different buckets of why kids go to college and they self-identify in these six. So, you know, one of them is the coming of age student. You know, they want to spend, you know, four, five, six years on a leafy green campus. They want to go to football games and, you know, sorority and fraternity life. That's a very particular type of student. And Mission You is not for that student, right?

You have your academic wanderers, the ones that want to, like, study biology and, you know, history and pursue a lot of different academic interests, which nowadays, you know, all that content is free online on the internet. And so it doesn't really make a lot of financial sense, but some people still want to pay a lot of money for access to that content. But, you know, there's a very large. subset of the college population that self-identifies as a career starter. So, you know, they're looking at college as the pathway to a better job. There's a large survey done of American college students, and, you know, they asked entering freshmen, why are you going to college? And the number one answer, 91% of them said to get a better job. But when you speak to administrators at colleges, they don't see that as their responsibility, nor do professors. So you have this huge disconnect

between what your consumer, you know, the student and the parent is really seeking out of college and what the deliver of that, you know, kind of good or service believes their responsibility is, right? And there's no kind of, you know, market price correction for it because you got, you know, government-backed loans that kids can get with, you know, a massive amount of money and not a deep understanding of the long-term ramification. So, you know, what we kind of identified as the two biggest problems with college are, you know, one, whether a student completes college or not, they leave with insurmountable crippling debt way too often, right? So it turns out, first of all, I'll ask you, I mean, what percentage of students that enter a four-year program in this country

would you believe complete that, you know, that four-year degree at the end of four years? That's a great question to put me on the spot. What's the percentage of students who go to a four-year school actually finish? That's the question? Well, finish in four years. Finish in four years later. I'm going to say 35%. So it's 18%. Oh my gosh. I thought I was being aggressive. Yeah.

That's tragic. It is. It really highlights, you know, for me, that we have a fundamentally broken system. So here's the follow up. If 18% of college students are getting done in four years, what is the average? I mean, is it five, six years? I'm just curious to the other side of that. Yeah, so in six years,

59% will complete. So you're doing much better. You're just over half in six years. But, you know, we positioned as a society, a bachelor's degree is a four-year experience. And it's not anymore. That's just not true. Right.

Right. We need to start thinking about it as a six-year journey. And therefore, you need to multiply the annual cost times six to get a real sense of how much this is going to cost. Plus, you know, the opportunity cost of missing out on, you know, potentially having a job. job during that period, right? So when we thought about how do we design a true college alternative for the 21st century, there were two major issues. The first was this intermedable crippling debt.

The second was that almost every employer that we were speaking to was saying, yeah, I mean, kids are coming out of college, just not having the skills that I need for my business. They're just not prepared. What they're learning is theory. What they really need to do is get, you know, kind of on the job type experience and the specific skills that are needed in a 21st century economy. So, you know, our program in one year is very, very different. I mean, our admissions process is very different. You know, we don't look at SATs. We don't look at GPA and you don't have to have a high school degree to get into mission

you because what we really value is future potential, not pass standardized test scores and the ability to fill in, you know, a scan tron. So our admissions process is really about how effectively do you solve problems? How do you work in teams? Because, you know, you think about a traditional college admissions and it's an entirely individualized process, right? I mean, you submit your resume. you take these tests, you know, SATs or ACTs, SAT2s, it's an individualized experience.

You have an individual interview with an admissions counselor, but when you enter the workforce, I mean, almost every single job today is a team sport, right? And there's very little evaluation of how well do you work with others, which is actually what employers really value, or how well do you, you know, communicate your ideas as a, you know, effective and persuasive communicator. So, you know, to really drill down into how we built our year, rather than start purely with academics, many of which are wonderful people, but haven't worked in the industries that they're teaching in like 15, 20, 30 years.

We start with basically C-level C-suite employees at leading companies as well as HR managers that are on the front lines of hiring. And so we've had hundreds of those conversations and said, you know, if you could kind of design the ideal curriculum so that, you know, your dream employee would walk into an interview and be ready to hit the ground running day one, what would that, you know, year look like? and that's kind of how we reverse engineered our curriculum. So we have a series of what we call employer partners. These are leading companies that advise us on our curriculum.

And then they allow us to encourage our students to apply for open roles at their companies. And then we give them preferred and early hiring access to our very top graduates. And right now those are companies like Spotify, Lyft, Uber, Warby Parker, Casper, Harry's, plated, and a whole bunch of others. So our year is really framed around, you know, what are the hard skills? soft skills, and then you have a major, which is a technical skill right now. Admission, we offer one major that's data analytics and business intelligence. It's our version of the modern business degree, but actually applicable to the jobs that people

are hiring for. And the first quarter is heavily oriented around eight hard skills that we think make you an effective employee at any company. But these eight skills, regardless of what company or job you're interested in, you know, I would be interested in hiring you from day one. It's your foundation. The second quarter is what we call discovery that's really about, you know, kind of figuring out where do you want to point your compass in life, like that kind of

coming of age experience. But for many of us that spent four years in college, you know, you can point to the one, you know, really immersive, you know, maybe weekend that you did or the study abroad experience, you know, it didn't take you four years necessarily, although that was nice. You can have a really kind of deep introspective period with, you know, directed learnings that can help you figure out what you want to do with your life. That's our second quarter. Our third quarter is a 12-week deep dive on your major, gaining that technical skill.

And then the fourth quarter is much like an internship. You're broken out into small teams and you work on real businesses and nonprofits building a public portfolio of work. And then the last part of the year is that we really don't think that it makes sense to have graduation at the end of the year and then send out young people on their way by themselves to try and find a job after that. You know, you think about that 91% of students that come to college you get a better job, but career services is like this afterthought, right?

I mean, it's usually like one or two people in this kind of siloed old building that you never visit. They may be organized one career fair for the entire student body throughout the year and a bunch of maybe banks come and show up or something like that. So the way that our program works is our graduation moment is actually six weeks before the program ends because we reserve the final six weeks for what we call career launch. And that's six weeks where we work with you really intensely from everything that includes interview preparation, all the way through to salary negotiation. So we really deeply work with our students to end up getting jobs where they thrive

because to come back to how we solve for the debt piece. As I mentioned, we charge no tuition and we tie our success to our student success. So when our students, you know, end up completing that program, if and only if they secure a job paying them $50,000 or more, we receive 15% of that income for three years. and then that's the end of the commitment for them, and that enables us to pass that opportunity onto the next student. Wow. Okay, so you answer those other two parts,

which is the debt-free part and the zero front tuition. So did I hear you correctly that the only major you're offering right now is data analyst and one other distinction? Do you plan to expand that? Yeah, oh, for sure. I mean, right now, just as an entrepreneur, I mean, I'm sure you've had many other great guests on in one of the things that I think any entrepreneur

who's kind of been through, building something before can recognize is just the incredible value of focus. Yes. Right. I mean, you can't be all things to all people. And, you know, as much as there's these kind of shiny opportunities all around you to take on new things, you know, the single hardest thing to do is keep your head down and say, we're really going to master and excel in this one area before we move to the next, you know,

vertical. How long have you been up and running? So we've just, you know, launched this March. Okay. So, you know, Mission U has been essentially, you know, being built for the last two years. But one thing that we fully recognized is, you know, if we're going to come out and let people know that we're a true college alternative, you can't say, hey, we're building a college alternative and then have nothing to show.

So, you know, it's been a two-year journey thus far to, you know, build out the partnerships, the curriculum, you know, the staff, the infrastructure, you know, the financing, all of those pieces before we were really ready to say, hey, we're open for admission. we opened up our admissions process, you know, this March 2017, and we're currently running that admissions process through to mid-June for our first cohort, which will start in September. That'll be 25 students. All cohorts are 25 students. Okay.

And we also think it makes no sense to only start on the academic calendar because businesses need to hire year-round. So we actually open up cohorts every quarter. So, you know, if someone listens to this and they've missed that first admissions process, I'd encourage you still just go to Mission You. It's just the letter to you. M-I-S-I-O-N-U.com. And there'll be an open, you know,

cohort for application at any time that you visit. That's so great. I absolutely love this. I love that we're talking to you as this thing is literally launching. Yeah. Yeah, you catch me at a good time.

Well, I think it's so fun, Adam. And I'm happy to let our audience know. We've got a huge audience, and a lot of them are entrepreneurs. Many are just personal growth junkies. They know what it is they want to do and they're chasing it hard. And I think this is such an important.

conversation, let me shift it a little bit because one of the big things that you have talked about is what matters most in this discussion for our businesses. So we've heard a very good breakdown of what Mission You is, where you wanted to go, and I think this thing is really going to take off. What should we as business leaders take from this? And how are we looking at this concept of mission you going, hey, this could be a game changer and how I'm hiring. I just sense that you want to see parents and young people and also business leaders all connect around this platform of Mission You to see the vision really come to fruition, which is how we're getting people qualified. It's not just for the young person, right? But it's also for businesses to get the best and the

brightest and get them earlier. You know, my belief is that when it comes to, you know, any entrepreneur who's running a business, one of the things that, you know, we've heard time and time again from, you know, leaders at some of the largest companies in the world is that what they ultimately need to establish for their teams to be as successful as possible is a diverse, you know, set of opinions, set of backgrounds. It's not just ethnic and gender diversity, but it's really those who have taken a different path from those around them because, you know, you want as many voices in the room and ultimately kind of ways of thinking to become, you know, a team that creatively solves really challenging problems. So from the very very very very,

get-go, I think part of what we've recognized from these conversations with various employers is they're really struggling to recruit top talent that doesn't just follow the way of thinking that everybody else does. There's a really, really great book that came out probably, I want to say, three, four years ago that surveyed the students that were coming out of top Ivy League schools. And I can't remember the exact name, but it was something like obedient sheep. Like, that was the name. Sheep was part of it. I can't remember if it was obedient. or what that first word was. But, you know, it was just like, hey, they're all coming out thinking the same way as one another.

And so, you know, if I'm an employer out there, you know, I'm kind of seeking the person who has a different way of thinking who's also willing to take a bet on themselves, right? You know, that's ultimately what any mission you student is choosing to do is say, look, I'm not just going to trust that this institutional system has my back. I'm going to make sure that I'm going to carve a path that enables me to get that dream job that I want. You know, they're willing to really, you know, roll the dice. and say, I'm going to bet on my own future and take really that kind of path ahead into my own hands.

I'm not going to take on a tremendous amount of debt under the promise that some college is going to get me a job. I'm going to take on no debt and instead, you know, work my way into that great job. So one thing I would encourage any employer is just to widen your search when you're looking for great candidates beyond just the traditional pathways. The second is, you know, we're seeing this already happening really, really widely across our culture. but don't use the bachelor degree as a proxy for quality in your candidates. So it turns out this is not just happening in like the startup or tech sector, but Pricewaterhouse Cooper's and Ernst & Young, right, to the largest most traditional, you know, you'd probably assume old school way of thinking employers in the country, right, massive accounting firms. Both of them in the last

18 months removed the bachelor's degree requirement altogether from getting a job at their companies. because they ran really, really large studies. And what they identified was that it was not an indicator of success in their companies whatsoever. They weren't able to correlate success between having a bachelor's degree and being successful in their specific companies. Google has done the same. And then you look at even more traditional penguin books, you know, one of the largest publishers in the world. You would think, oh, these guys really value the academic path. They also, just in the last year, have removed the bachelor's degree requirement altogether.

So, you know, what we're seeing really widely in our culture is an acknowledgement that there's more than one educational pathway to gain value. And so as any employer out there that's listening to this, I would really encourage you to not just say, hey, you know, you have to have a bachelor's degree to work in my company and instead really, you know, value competency over credential. All right, Adam, I got to ask you a question. And this is just your opinion. Obviously, you can't foresee the future. But you're thinking about this stuff. And I think it's an important thing. I'm willing to, this isn't controversial, but I think this could develop on some level, this idea.

And here it is. There was a time, Adam, where you could go from high school to the NBA if you were good enough. Now, there were some kids who couldn't cut it. But there were some special kids, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, just dropping three future Hall of Famers. Do you see in America a time when employees, employees, you know, years go, you know what, because of the mission news out there, do we see kids that are mature enough and talented enough in lower level opportunities going straight from high school to the workforce? I think it should be considered if the kid has got the maturity and enough self-discipline

and enough talent to function. I think it's something that should be, it's like an apprenticeship, if nothing else. What are your thoughts on that? Do we see that happening? First of all, it's already happening. It's just happening in some pretty niche spaces, right? Right. So it's happening in spaces where the competency is all that matters to the employer. And so, you know, it's happening a lot in engineering, right? So, you know, coders that are 17 years old are getting really, you know, well paid jobs at top tech companies because they have the skill, right? You're also starting to see it in, you know, a couple other fields where real estate sales, where, you know, 18 year olds that are really just, you know, quality salespeople and hustlers are getting jobs at real estate firm. and pound in the pavement because ultimately the main skill is can you sell something? So, you know, you're starting to see it in spaces for sure. I think, you know, to your point, maturity is really important. And, you know, I don't think that the majority of 18-year-olds enter companies with the depth

of maturity that they're going to possess at the age of, call it, you know, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. So, you know, one thing that we've actually done at Mission You is that currently, you know, we have this open application process. Anybody can go to missionu.com, you know, slash apply and apply today. But for our first cohort, we put a floor of 19 years old for those who can be accepted. And that was just for us to,

you know, ensure that we were getting a more mature talent pool. And it's more just about not having your entire day scaffolded and planned out for you by virtue of being at least one year out of high school. So you don't have to have gone to college. You could, you know, have chosen to be in college,

maybe not. But it also guarantees for us that every single one, of our graduates after this year-long program is in their 20s. Because we want to give, you know, employers that confidence. Look, you're getting the cream of the crop of, you know, the top 20-year-olds who have decided to take a non-traditional path. But, you know, I think over time, I mean, what you're seeing with the rising generation

that's coming up behind the millennials is that they're a generation of makers and doers, right? I mean, they've had the tools at their fingertips since they were, you know, little toddlers to be able to craft the ideas that they always envisioned. into reality. You know, they didn't have to own a large factory with 100 employees to be able to make a prototype. They could buy a 3D printer and their parents could put it in their bedroom and they could mock something up on a computer and then print it out that day. So I think we're entering a really, really exciting time where we're ultimately, I think talent and ambition is going to rise to the top and the notion that you need some, you know, external validation by having this kind of piece of paper

that fewer and fewer people are ever going to check or really care about means that there's a lot of opportunities for new ideas, new innovations, and ultimately, I think breakthroughs for individuals that recognize that in a time where everybody in this country recognizes that college is overpriced and that the value of that investment is becoming increasingly questioned. People that are smart and are able to take advantage of those opportunities, I think, are really going to rise to the top. You know, I told you this before we started recording and I believe this, And I want the audience to hear me say that. The reason I asked that question is I wanted to know what you honestly think about it. And obviously we agree. I think of maturity and skill set are there, it's something that people are going to think about. I think this idea of younger people, you know, coming out of high school, going to the workforce, if they're mature enough and skilled enough, all right, those being the two big factors. It's a game changer for our economy. Yeah. Because we have, you know, you've got boomers at them and Xers that have bubble wrapped their kids. But if I'm a small business owner or any business.

owner. And I'm thinking about talent. I'm looking at quality families who've raised their kids the right way where they didn't get a trophy just for showing up. Yeah. Yeah. And we let them fail. And we required character. I'm just saying, you got a kid coming out of high school and think about it. It's like the reverse of the minimum wage disaster that the government thinks makes sense. I'm not trying to make a political statement. I'm just saying that if you can hire a kid at 18 and pay him 24, that'll blow his mind, $24,000. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? or $30,000. Yeah.

And you may be getting something, you'd have to pay somebody else 60. Right. And so I'm just making that point because I think this, you're on the front edge of what could be a bigger economic shift. Well, that's my hope. I mean, what I recognize and really saw through my wife's experience is that historically, you know, for decades, the one enabler in our society above all others to achieve, you know, this kind of idea of the American dream that you can go out and really build whatever life

you want and kind of, you know, earn the income to, support yourself and your family and move from, you know, one class to another was most enabled through college. Like that's really what college was positioned as was, oh my gosh, if you get a great college education, then you can move up in life. And, you know, when you look at the data, I mean, it's not conjecture. I'm not guessing at this. I know the stats. And what they tell me is that college is creating a greater divide in our society between halves and have-nots. And if you think of it, regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, you have to acknowledge that we have probably the most divided society that we've ever had.

And I think that college is increasingly becoming a larger and larger culprit in the situation that we have. And the only way that you're going to enable working class families to get to a place where they aspire for their children is to have more than one choice beyond taking on an insane amount of debt that you can't work your way out of to get the education that you want to better yourself and your family. That's right. And let me just make a statement, too, because

I'm not anti-college, nor is Adam. Right. But when you look at what Adam said, which is that 31 million Americans have college credit, but no degree. And let me add also those 31 million Americans, a large portion of them have debt and no degree. Yeah. Right? So they got credit and debt to the story that you told your wife. And I think the thing is, is that, you know, we preach fiscal responsibility around here.

And the idea of maybe letting your kid, you know, if you still want them to go to college and they need to go to college for the job they want, it's okay to work for two years and then go nail it and do it debt-free. But, you know, I just think that you're right. We've got a situation where college used to be the thing that puts you ahead, and now it's got you behind, at least financially. It may help you get a job in certain degrees, but almost certainly if you haven't saved up and paid cash, you're behind the ape off with debt. So, unbelievable. All right. Let me just mention two other really important things here that make me so motivated to work on Mission You and ensure that it is the incredible world, education that we've created here.

So first of all, I have, we have four-month-old twins. Oh, congratulations. And I think about what's their future going to look like, right? What's their higher education journey? And, you know, I think when my parents had, you know, myself, my siblings, it was just like a foregone conclusion. Like, we're going to work and we're going to save and we're going to get our kids to a place where they can go to college.

And I genuinely, because I know the information I'm about to share, it's not a foregone conclusion at all, right? You know, the key is they need to have alternatives in case one wants to go to a traditional college and the other one says, why the hell would we spend this much money? But, you know, Forbes put together a study where they basically projected out the cost of college, you know, if everything stays the same and the trajectory that we're on doesn't move. So in 2030, and my kids would go to college, you know, let's say around, you know, the mid-2030s. But in the year 2030, Forbes projected that one year of a private college will cost $130,000 to a family for one year. In 2020. So the

entering freshmen right now. Let's not even talk like distant future. Right now, seven and ten people who graduate have debt. But the freshman class right now that's entering college, by the time they graduate, the average debt for a borrow, seven and ten of those individuals will be over $50,000 for that education of debt on very high interest rates that on average takes more than 20 years to pay back. So, you know, once you start to learn the information, you really need to take a hard look at whether this is actually going to get you ahead or whether that's the it's going to hold you back. And maybe even as a parent, ask the question of your kid, you know, what would you do

if, you know, you had access to that same amount of money that's going to be spent on your education and, you know, could spend it on, you know, your own self-created education, perhaps, right? I mean, if you were able to travel or then go work for two years and save and, you know, I would encourage any parent that's out there, especially for those that aren't in the financial position where you can pay out of the gate all that money for your kids' college to really be open to alternatives from the traditional path because I think it's ultimately going to better serve you, your children, and long term, your family. All right, Adam, I'm a big fan of

Mission You, and I want to bang the drum. I'm hoping this thing wins and wins big, because I think it's going to help usher a cultural shift. That is underway. But let me ask you this, because I know you're passionate about businesses as well. You are an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. And do you see, and I don't want to distract from Mission You, but let me just throw a crazy. question now. Do you see potential for businesses in their local community when they're looking to hire? Do they educate? And this is off your last answer. You're talking about the self-education and things like that. Do you see businesses getting to a point where they create their own, and I'm going to call it an apprenticeship from the old days, that's what everybody used to do,

but where they actually have young people or anybody, I guess, come and work for a certain amount of time where they're educating them on the skills within that company and then they essentially hire them right out of that. Seems to me that there might be some money to be made there. For sure. I mean, if you look at the origin of the word bachelor, like, why do we call it a bachelor's degree? It dates back like hundreds of years. And the origin is French and the original meeting was apprentice. That's how, you know, education originally was created. What's now seen as the liberal arts kind of bachelor's degree started out as an apprenticeship in a company, you know, maybe not a company, but like a business of some kind, right?

So, you know, one of my really, really big beliefs that I would encourage anyone that's listening to this to wholeheartedly adopt, because it is a cultural shift that we are encountering right now. And if you do not acknowledge this, you are being left behind, not just individually, but as a business owner, you will be left behind. And what I am getting to is the fact that, you know, we've lived for the last, call it, 50 years in a society where you were a full-time student from the age of, of five to either 18 or 22, right, depending on whether you went to college or not, which in general in our society is like a relatively recent phenomenon that everybody's supposed to get to college.

But you were a full-time student for five to 18 or five to 22. And then after that, you were a full-time professional, right? I mean, you were a contributor to the workforce and you were not a student. You were not focused on your personal growth, your learnings, et cetera. And we are now entering an era where that is dead. That is no longer the case because the skills necessary to thrive in an account. economy that is moving as quickly as ours is requires that we create essentially an acknowledgement that we are in an era of lifelong learnership.

And that means that, you know, you don't necessarily have to be a full-time student from 18 to 22. You can have shorter periods of learning because throughout your career, it is essential that you as an individual continue to invest in your education by upskilling, by taking classes online, you know, by going to seminars through off-sites with, you know, your team. and then as a business owner, it's really important that you invest in the education of your employees in an ongoing capacity, right?

I mean, that you actually say, you know, we're not just going to full-time commit to exclusively working, but I'm going to have, you know, we'll pay for night classes for you to go and learn this new skill or, you know, we'll pay for you to take this online course

or, you know, this weekend immersion because it's really critical. And then when you draw that down to the younger demographic, you know, having the opportunity to bring in, and call it, you know, an 18, 19, 20, let's say 22 year old to be a part of your company, I actually find, you know, much like mentorship, most people think mentorship is a one-way exchange, but I find mentorship is absolutely a two-way value exchange.

That's right. All these kids are like, how do I find my mentor? And my answer is your mentor chooses you. You know, you don't pick a mentor. Your mentor picks you. And it's for two reasons. The first is they see something in you that reminds them of themselves at a younger age and they want to bring value and help you succeed because they feel like you can do.

do something great in the world. But the second reason is they want to learn from you. And you have opportunities to educate them and keep them relevant to a market that, you know, maybe they've lost a little bit of touch with. And I think when you as a business owner think about bringing in some of these young people, it's not just getting cheap labor and someone who's going to have a huge growth curve, but, you know, they can actually add a huge amount of value to your businesses because they see the world through a different lens. And that might ultimately be your next consumer. All right, Adam, before I let you go, I want you to lay out what you believe. leave are the skills that are needed to thrive in this new economy, especially coming off of

some of your earlier answers in this conversation and what you just said moments ago, which is that we're moving into a lifelong learner economy. I mean, that's the reality. Things are shifting all the time with digital and technology advances. So this is partly for you parents out there, grandparents that are listening. For the young people in your life, you need to write this stuff down. Rewind it, go back, and pass it on. Leaders, people that are hiring young people, you need to know what this is. So Adam, with that setup, I want you to just lay out what you think are some of the most important skills that are needed for folks to thrive and for businesses to make sure they're training and learning and teaching. Yeah, for sure. So, you know,

there's kind of two different approaches. There's soft skills and then there's hard skills. So, you know, hard skills, I'll list out eight real quick that I think make you an incredibly effective and valuable contributor to any company, I would hire you immediately if you came to me and really demonstrated mastery in these eight. So the first is business writing. The second is internet-based research. Can you use the internet, in particular, Google, or any other tool to find the answers that exist somewhere out there, but really require some skill to unearth? The third is project management. The fourth is requirements gathering, which is kind of an extension of project management. The fifth is Excel modeling. The sixth is PowerPoint

keynote-based storytelling, you know, can you synthesize and take information and then put it into a compelling presentation that communicates those ideas and persuades others? The seventh is a basic tech foundation of HTML and CSS, you know, just simple kind of code writing, but do you have an understanding of, you know, how essentially kind of internet-enabled websites work? And then the eighth is public speaking. So those are the eight core hard skills that you bring those to the table and you will get hired. The other area is that, you know, when you speak to employers is actually more valued and a lot tougher to measure and quantify, but ultimately is what drives success at a company, are these soft skills. And I'll mention six of them real quick. So

anyone that's listening can write them down. The first is time management. It's often, you know, not discussed. It's underrated, but you have to learn to manage your time and optimize for the appropriate priorities in a given day. The second is taking initiative, right? Do you aggressively reach out when you see an opportunity or are you kind of passive, you know, bystander? These are, again, soft skills, but as an employer, I want to see the person who's taking initiative, who's pinging me left and right, who's tweeting at me all the time and making sure that they are top of mind in my kind of orbit. The third is receiving and delivering feedback.

This is so important in a business context. I mean, you talk about an 18-year-old that comes out of high school and you hire them for a job. The first thing that becomes a parent is they have no clue how to receive or deliver feedback in a professional context. So true, so true. You could spend an hour talking about this one. Yeah, for sure. You know, the last three are kind of the overarching really important ones. The first is just critical problem solving abilities. The next one is collaborative teamwork, as we've talked about throughout. You know, work as a team sport nowadays. You know, you have to be an effective team player. And then the sixth is, you know, effective listening. That's the final one is not just can you get up there and speak on a stage, but, you know, do you sit in meetings and really engage as an active listener? That's the final soft skill. And these are kind of the foundational elements of what we teach at Mission You. All right, folks, I'm going to tell you something. You didn't have to hear any, that all of it was good. But if you'd heard nothing else, the last two answers, the hard skills

and the soft skills, I'm going to tell you something. And Adam, I know it's your first time on the show, so I'm not blowing hot air here. The audience knows I do this when I get excited of something. That is rewindable, tweetable. I mean, you need to share this. Those hard skill list at Soska, those unbelievable stuff. Adam, thank you for running through that so quickly and effectively. Really good stuff. He is Adam Braun. His book is The Promise of a Pencil.

We didn't even get into that, honestly, because I was so obsessed with what he's doing and launching with Mission You. But that book is a New York Times bestseller. I don't want to mention it because it gives you further context to what a special entrepreneur and leader that Adam Braun is and a privilege to have him with us today. MissionU.com. I mean, it's brand new. Some of you are hearing it here for the first time.

I think it's going to be special. I think it's going to be great. Here's what I'd like to send you off with Adam. People that are listening out there who have caught the vision for what you're doing. And they're also entrepreneurs and they love the birth of things that could change society, as I believe this could. How can they get connected and help or just in some way be a part of what you're doing? Is there an opportunity for that? And if so, tell them.

Yeah. I mean, so we're looking for businesses that want students to work for free on their businesses to essentially bring on teams that run data analytics and business intelligence projects for you. So if you go to missionew.com, there's a partners tab. You can click on and take you to one or other pages on our site. And at the very bottom, it says, are you a nonprofit or a business looking for, you know, a project? And we will have a team of our, you know, top-notch students work on a real project for you so that they can create proof that they've demonstrated an effective ability to,

to run the exact tasks and responsibilities they're going to have on the jobs they're going to land. And you benefit by having a free and incredible team, you know, work on some of your most critical issues. So, you know, any business owner, I'd say go to, you know, missionnew.com, click on partners and at the the bottom of the page, apply to become a project partner of ours. And then if this has resonated with you on a personal level, please tweet at me. It's just at Adam Braun or my email address that anybody can reach me at is Adam at and then the letter I promise.org. So, you know, I spent the last decade of my life focused on

international education with pencils of promise, which many people are familiar with, but we've now built over 400 schools around the world. And after focusing for most of the last decade internationally, I'm excited to work on education and workforce development here at home. And, you know, I hope that this can positively impact you and your kids and your families and your communities. And I also want to make a special offer to anybody listening to this podcast right now that, Even if you yourself are not a prospective student at Mission You, you might know somebody who might be an incredible student. And so if you just go to MissionU.com, you'll see at the top of the website, there's an opportunity to refer a great student. And if you send them to us and they end up joining and becoming successful in the program, we will give you $500 as a thank you for referring us that student.

And we'll also give that student $500 as well for joining the program. So you can just go to Missionu.com and check it out. It's at the top of the website. Good stuff. Well said. I would love for Adam to one day be a Secretary of Education. That would be, boy, oh boy, would we rock Washington, D.C. with that move. There you go. Hey, man, this was really enjoyable, and we appreciate you being with us, and we want to stay in touch with you and track what's happening with Mission You. And, folks, he gave you the opportunity there. This is an opportunity to get some wonderful talent coming out of what Adam is doing. And can't wait to see how it develops. Thanks again, man. Really, really good stuff. you appreciate it. Folks, you heard us mention it, but one more time, I want to give you the link to what Adam is up to mission you.com, mission you.com. Now, we told you that we were going to help you on this important issue of hiring.

This is all related, and I can't think of a better person to talk about hiring than Dave Ramsey, the architect of how we do hiring, and we do it well. I mean, no, you know, that's not arrogant. That's just a fact. We do it well. We have a lengthy process. and it works. Doesn't mean we haven't made hiring mistakes, but the point is what I love so much about Dave and leadership here is when we do make mistakes, we fix it. We put it into our process. So here is

Dave teaching at one of our signature events, Entree Leadership Master Series. This is Dave teaching about hiring. You're going to love this. Proper hiring creates a good team and a good team lowers turnover. What you have on the team is going to beget that type of team. When you keep a apple around, it does spoil the barrel. The deal is this lower turnover comes when you stabilize your hiring process because you're putting thoroughbreds in the stable. That's what I'm saying. The way my HR director, Rick Perry, likes to say it, he says, we have a 95% turnover ratio before we hire them. You get into an interview with us, a physical one-on-one interview, even at that point you have a one-in-twenty chance of making it here.

Getting on with us, getting on board with our team is incredibly difficult. Because every time we have discovered that Crazy got in the building, we find what door they used. And we add a step to the hiring process so that door is no longer open to Crazy. Team members leave or are let go most often because they never should have been hired. It shouldn't have been in the building in the first place. by far the biggest mistake we made, especially in the early days, we don't make it today, by far the biggest mistake people we coach in business, whether it's big business or small business, the biggest mistake they make in hiring is they don't spend enough time on it.

Take more time in hiring. However much time you're taking and you're hiring now, quadruple it, fourfold. If you're doing two interviews, take it to eight. If you're doing one interview, God help you. No wonder crazy got in the building. But the way it starts out, it's pretty simple. I mean, we're starting out. Like Melissa's just starting her things.

It's just her. And you start out and you're working your butt off. And you go, I need some help. And I was so stupid that I thought everybody that I hired would work and be honest. I was naive. I hired a guy. I thought, man, he's just crap. And I'm working my butt off.

And so I had to stop working and getting work done to interview. a guy, right? So productivity just went to freaking zero. The whole organization is shut down when there's one of you and you stop to do interviews. If there's two of you and one of you stops to do interviews, you're at 50% production while you do interviews. It drive you nuts. And so I'm trying to get the hire done as fast as possible. And I'm pretty much doing a drive-by at that point. I got a mirror out going, can you fog get up? If you can, you're in, baby. Because I was so dumb, I thought they want a job. job there's work to do come help me let's get the work done and then i looked up and there was all this crap going on drama drama drama it was ridiculous all this stuff and all it was i didn't screen anybody i

just said oh he loves jesus great bring him let's go you know he'll work hard i went to church with him oh brother that was a bad idea you know what i'm talking about and i did not spend enough time spend more time because listen you're going to spend the time you're going to spend it either in the hire or in the replacement of the hire or in the dealing of the lawsuit of the replacement of the hire that you fired. You're getting into crap here because you don't take T I.M. It will drive you bananas as you're doing it, but you'll increase the quality of your culture because you keep crazy out of the building. You'll lower the turnover because you don't hire people you shouldn't hire. You'll get the right talent and the right people, and there's a process to go through to do that.

And it just takes time. And I got to tell you, it's one of the biggest business mistakes I've ever made in my entire life. All right, we're going to keep on giving here because now you've heard Dave teach on it. How about one of our top five resources that we've ever given away here on the podcast, the Entree Leaders Guide to Hiring? So really, this is left hand, right hand. Dave just taught. Now here's a tool to help you apply this in your space.

Again, it's free. Here's the summary, 12 steps to hire. well. Then we're going to give you the top 10 interview questions that you need to ask. This is template-driven stuff. Now, you can add to this stuff, but this is going to get you way down the road and creating a great process so that you hire Eagles. Here's how you get it. You text the word E-L-hire, E-L-hire. You text at the 3-3-444. That's 3-4-4. Or, of course, you can always click the link to this resource in this episode's show notes. at entreleadership.com, just click on podcast.

Hey, the Entree Leadership Summit is literally around the corner, May 21 through 24 in Orlando, Florida. Dave Ramsey has invited Simon Seneca, Robert Hershevik, John Maxwell, Lou Holtz, Patrick Glincione, Chris Hogan and Christy Wright, and here's the good news. They all said, hey, we'll be there. I will be there as well. Eric the producer is going to be. They're going to be a lot of fun. We're going to have some fun live podcast things.

We're doing all kinds of ideas. I mean, it's very, very fun. This is a great, great environment. If you're sitting there going, I've heard you talk about this event, I'd love to go to this event. Why should I go to this event? Here's why. There's no event like it anywhere else. You will absolutely get all of your monies worth out of this thing and so much more.

Maybe you just need to get away and unplug. You know, maybe you just need to get to a world-class resort. Listen to world-class communicators and come up with a world-class personal growth plan for yourself and take that back to your team. We have a lot of teams coming as well. We're seeing a lot of groups come to this event, not just one-off leaders. So that's a fun environment as well. We have a summit discount for you just for the podcast audience.

You've got to tell them that you listen. And by the way, tell them you like it if you're, you know, if you just want to be honest. Hey, text the phrase, summit 17, the 3344-4. Text Summit 17 to 33-444-4. Hey, big thanks to Adam Braun for joining us on this episode. And speaking of episodes, next week's episode is our 200th. What a milestone. Thank you all so much for allowing us to come to you on a weekly basis. And here's just a sample of what you're going to hear. This is a fun conversation with an entree leader like you. She is Daniel Antevereaux's. Her company has grabbed the gold. And I'm telling you, you will be so encouraged by this conversation.

Here's just a little bit of it. You don't want to miss this. Whether it's a solution, a service, a product, you have to want it for yourself. If you're creating it just to put it out in the marketplace and make sales because you think that other people need it, there's a disconnect. It's not the same as saying, I need this, and I'm going to go out and share it with other people because I feel that other people have the same need that I do. Oh, it's going to be good, almost as good as her grab the gold bars. On behalf of Eric the producer, engineer Will Rutter, and the entire Entray leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.