Manhood Matters Podcast
Conversations around challenges dominating a man's journey through life. These topics are explored by real, everyday friends, with a lot of experience... And we have the occasional expert guest.
Manhood Matters Podcast
Is a College Education The Way To Go
Education isn't one-size-fits-all, and the traditional path through college may not be the best option for everyone in today's rapidly changing technological landscape.
• College degrees are still necessary for specialized fields like medicine and law
• Trade schools offer direct paths to high-paying careers with less debt
• Content creation becoming oversaturated like professional sports—not everyone can make it
• AI replacing service jobs and changing employment landscape
• Self-education through books, mentorships crucial regardless of formal education
• Focus on your desired lifestyle first, then choose the right vehicle to get there
• Your twenties are the time to take risks, work hard, and try everything
• Mentorship especially needed in the Black community to guide youth through career decisions
Email us at manhoodmatterspodcast@gmail.com
Follow us on all Socials: Manhood Matters Podcast
Host: StéphaneAlexandre
IG: @stephanealexandreofficial
Music by Liam Weisner
Sponsored by www.OnsiteLabs.net
(833) 878-3323
Stretch the brain. It doesn't help you with knowledge, it's just there from a memory bench you can just pull from anywhere.
Speaker 1:Right. So then that goes back to what is knowledge. Is knowledge because you memorize it, or is knowledge because you can regurgitate it? Because of both? Well, if I can regurgitate it because I'm retrieving it, then I'm still so knowledgeable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, take that chip off and you're pretty much a fucking dummy.
Speaker 1:Well, if I take a drive and nail spike through your head, you're gonna be a dummy too, man, you're it's two different things.
Speaker 2:You're killing a whole machine, the person it's different, like I, I don't know. Like. Are you saying that you'd be down with you? Sound like you'd be down for it, oh 100, really I wouldn't forget anything.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't need a calendar. That's crazy. You can probably just start going into your remote. Y'all need to hear the rest of this conversation, which basically started out comparing traditional higher learning, such as college, to self-education, life experience or even trade school. Which road did you take? And, better yet, what will you recommend to your own children? Now, my co-host Jabari and I, we share our thoughts and experiences on both. Somehow we ended up talking about AI, but, trust me, it all ties in well together. Welcome to Manhood Matters. Let's get to it.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of people struggle with do I bother going to college? It's a sham. I know that my son in the fourth grade was already saying college is a scam. I'm not doing this. I'm like dude, you're like six, be quiet. Saying college is a scam, I'm not doing this. I'm like dude, you're you're. You're like six, be quiet, you know. But he actually had made up his mind about it and he's very smart and he reads a lot. So what the landscape is going to look like, especially with the advent of AI, and what that looks like. So for you, for example, you're college educated, you went the traditional route right. What was that journey for you and what is it? Something you chose for yourself, or were there like it was non-negotiable, gotcha, it was definitely non-negotiable.
Speaker 1:So my mom's a doctor, right. So she came over to from Jamaica to the States when she was in her early twenties. Um, it was like she just knew, like I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up. So she was like I'm going to come to the States. She went to prestigious universities, got a degree. Obviously, when you know, my sister and I were kids. She's like you guys are going to be doctors, so got the best you know, got really good educations. And then when I got to high school, I kind of shifted from being a nerd to an athlete. And when you're an athlete, when you're done with high school, the next step is to go compete in college.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:So my journey is probably a little different than most, because for me, my senior year turned into, you know, my dad was like my manager, right, he was the one that was, you know, talking to colleges and setting up my, my recruiting trips, talking to scouts oh, not necessarily scouts, but like, I guess, just to call it, the coaches from those universities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause I was, I was good, but I wasn't like top three in the country, right, um, until like my, until I'd already picked a school to go to, and then I competed between high school and college, but for me it was. It was just an assumption, right, it wasn't a do I go to high school or do I go to college? Do I just go work? It's like, no, you, you have to, whether it was academically or athletically, like I had to go to college to move forward because, you know, I'm 46. So 20 odd, some odd years ago, you had to have a college degree if you wanted to get a quote, unquote job, right, that was the new standard. Before then it was you needed a high school, high school degree.
Speaker 1:That was a standard, right yeah and then as you and I got older, it went from oh that's nice, that's cute that you have a college degree, but you have a master's right. And then in my mind I was like when I was younger I was like crap, like in 20 years it's not going to be. Do you, you have a master's, do you have a PhD? Just to be a general manager at Arby's right.
Speaker 1:And the world changed and then the world changed right, and it's going to always continue to change. And now the generations that we have coming up, now it's I just want to make money. Who's making money the fastest? Oh, these people on social media are making money the fastest. They don't have college degrees. It looks like they're having a great time and so they're emulating the lifestyle that they see, which isn't real.
Speaker 1:Hopefully they know that what you see online is not real and they're equating that with well, I can be a millionaire and I don't have to go to college. I don't have to go to school, I don't have to work hard, I need to just be. I need to just get likes Right and then, with the likes becomes the advertising dollars and with that I become rich. With the likes becomes the advertising dollars and with that I become rich. So it's the traditional thought of you know my parents or my mom, you know of you graduate and then you find a job and then you work for 40 something years and then you retire and you've got your pension, your social security and you've got some savings, and then you live out the next five to 20 years, right, and when you're 65, with your money and you'd be happy then right.
Speaker 1:But those 40 years is going to be, you're going to be working.
Speaker 2:I was going to say there's so many people go back to work after that first career they really can't even retire, I mean depending on what type of job they had. For me, that path was different. I initially thought I was going to college. I wanted to go right after high school. I did well enough playing soccer, to you know. I thought I was going to college. I wanted to go right after high school.
Speaker 2:I did well enough playing soccer, to you know, I had a couple offers that fell through because, you know, I was going to live with my dad and that ended up not happening. So instead of me just saying, hey, I'm going to make it happen anyway, I kind of found that, oh my God, look at all the freedom. I'm going to have All the free time and I'm not going to do any. I'll go to work, maybe, or whatever, but I'm just going to focus on just play music and maybe get a side job here and there. And I was going nowhere. Nowhere for a while until a friend of mine that I used to date what was his name?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a whole. Men and women can't be friends, so stupid.
Speaker 2:So she right, so she calls me, we're having this conversation and she's like what are you doing? Like what are you up to, like what's going on with you? And I was like nothing. It was just at the time. I'm just living with someone, I'm not doing shit with my life, I'm just, you know, living with someone, I'm not doing shit with my life, I'm just, you know. Again, I'm waiting for the music thing to kind of take off and I needed that sense of direction. She just called me one day. She was like hey, can you do you know where your social security card is? I was like yeah. She was like you got a license? I was like yeah. She stopped by. She said get in the car. Next thing, you know, I'm pulling up to Queensborough college and that, and that's how I got enrolled in school in my early 20s. And she's because I wasn't going. You know, one year of a let's not go to school yet turned into two, into three years and next you know I wasn't doing shit.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, the music thing wasn't working, it wasn't taking off and of course I have this crazy addictive personality to not just to to certain goals too. So my mindset is I know that I can do it, so I wasn't stopping, I was just going and going and it didn't really matter if I just like lost everything on this gamble, because, again, this is before I had kids. But when I got to college, I was Dean's List every single time Because it was a decision that I didn't really make the decision, but I wanted to be there. So I was like this is good, this is what I need to be doing. I was just really doing really, really well. But after those two years, man, I got my associates and I didn't follow through. I got another associates because I thought I wanted to be a graphic designer. Still searching for what I'm looking for, I ended up going to school for that, worked in a field for a little bit, had my own business and moved on.
Speaker 1:I don't think a college degree is needed, unless you're trying to do something that's extremely specific, where you need that, like if you want to go be a heart surgeon. Yes, I think you needed to specialize.
Speaker 2:There's a traditional route for certain things, Exactly, and you can't decide. You're going to do it your way. It has to be the yeah, you have to pass the bar. If you're going to be a lawyer, you can't enter law school unless you have you know exactly.
Speaker 1:But I think if you're just like I want to go get a job, I don't think you necessarily need to go to college for that. You may want to go to like a trade school, or you may want to just get life experiences, or you can go look up the information yourself. If you're studious enough, and you want to go download the information into your brain, perfect Right.
Speaker 2:But depending on what you are trying to do, I don't think you need to go to college. So what's the message here? There's three different messages. A you need to know what you want to do. Yeah so would you say. If you don't know that, you should be enrolled in school. You should be going to college because you're not sure. Yet you haven't made up your mind because, worst case scenario, at least you get that degree.
Speaker 1:And it'll, and it'll open you up to experiences, right, Because you'll? You may start off undecided or you may start off I was in a major in biology and then a year later you're like I'm going to major in communication. And then a year later you're like, okay, I figured it out, I want to be in advertising If you know what you want to do and you don't need a college degree to do it or the experience that you're like if you want to be a mechanic, yeah, you can go to college and get a degree, or you can just go to a shop and bust your ass yeah, but you still need certifications and things like that yeah, but if you're at the shop and you learn how to do it, I'm sure you're going to be able to pass the test in order to get certified yeah, and that and that certification test is not a college class what are your thoughts on?
Speaker 2:because it's always been underestimated. You know, the vocational schools, oh, and a trade school and things like that. It used to be the kind of thing that if you went 20 years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you went to school.
Speaker 2:you got out of high school and you went to school for you know plumbing. Oh my God, that's what you went to school for. You know whatever.
Speaker 1:He was a dumb, dumb Well hey, you know what?
Speaker 2:There's a few jobs that AI cannot take away. Yeah, right, yeah. And plumbers are expensive. Let me tell you A hundred percent.
Speaker 1:You know, show up. Yeah, exactly they're expensive.
Speaker 2:All these different jobs, refrigeration, age, age, back tax, all these people you could have a very, very wonderful life and a great, successful career.
Speaker 1:If you look at a like Roto-Rooter right, I'm sure the gentleman that started Roto-Rooter was probably a plumber. I guarantee you he's not sticking his hand down any toilets today. If you want to be a plumber, yeah, you can go to vocational school and learn that, and let's say you do that. But you still have an entrepreneurial mindset. Well, maybe you start off as a plumber and then a couple of years down the road you get your own truck. A year down the road and you have a friend that's doing well, you hire them on. Now you have two trucks. Five years down the road, all of a sudden you have a building. Five years down the road, all of a sudden you have two buildings. You have two locations. Now you're what? 30. Your company's revenue potentially could be seven figures a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, how? Where else are you going to be 30, making 7 million, seven figures a year in revenue?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:If you go to college and you get a business degree, maybe you're working at a company. You're working for the guy that started his company. You're working for the plumber now. Right, so the guy that you're- making fun of in high school, like oh, it's dumb ass with the plumbing school. It's like, yeah, laugh it up now, because in 10 years you might be working for that guy.
Speaker 2:There's that, and then there's the, as you mentioned before. You know you have a lot of kids who are seeing that the conventional routes are not it, and I think content creation is becoming like elite sports Everyone can play basketball.
Speaker 1:But not everyone can play basketball, not everyone can be in the NBA.
Speaker 2:Not everyone can get to the NFL, but every kid is playing peewee football, but at some point 1% of 1% is going to make it into the big leagues. So I think it's becoming that way, for content creation is obviously crazy saturated, but who's not a content creator? There's no barrier of entry.
Speaker 1:We're doing it right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when kids are watching that. So what are your thoughts on? Is there a danger to where they're headed if they're not going back to the traditional schools, college et cetera?
Speaker 1:I think you have to have a strong foundation, right? If you look at like the Paul brothers, or if you look at Mr Beast, like yeah, they're content creators, but they have actual businesses. These are people that are very good at business and they're able to have these businesses, but yeah, they started off.
Speaker 2:I was going to say the, the, the business get funded because of the content creation. It did.
Speaker 1:But at some point your content, like everyone, was a YouTube star, right, and then it was an Instagram star, and then it was a Tik TOK star, and then, I'm sure, within the next few years, it's going to be something else, whatever.
Speaker 1:I can't even imagine what it could be right, but you have to be able to be smart enough to pivot. But you're going to need to have the tools and the knowledge to know how to pivot and also to create multiple lines of income. Right, because of Mr Beast or the Paul brothers. If they solely relied on people clicking, like then, they wouldn't have as much money as they have today. I mean, I just saw a commercial for Mr Beast's Taco Bell line, right, like, that's smart. Like they're out there creating other lines of income. So, if you have a, I'm sure at some point, whether they wanted to admit it or not, they either learn business the hard way, which is by losing millions and millions of dollars, or they had people that run all that stuff for them, or in their spare time, they took a class or they read a book yeah but somehow they downloaded that knowledge that would help them.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to start a business because I don't want to be broken five years if youtube goes away.
Speaker 2:Do something just to gain additional information so I'm a big, big proponent of self-education. Reading books, I think, is non-negotiable. The things that you learn, I mean, if you read, for example, how to win friends and influence people, if you read, uh, seven habits, if you do these simple things, I promise you, uh, jabari, uh they're. I'm reading those books later on in life, right Like, I read them obviously several times now, but I'm going. If I had known this right here, these seven habits, or just how to win friends and influence people and not friends, that's not really what the book's about. I don't need more friends, that's not what it's about. But if I knew how to apply that in the workplace, oh my God, the places I could have gone. And and so I think about that, I go. You know, this is what is so critical to invest in yourself. And it's so simple because we're talking about a 10, $15 book that you just or library, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Find it online Find it online exactly and these libraries, by the way, I'm finding out, there you basically get a library card and you can get the digital version of it.
Speaker 1:Oh nice.
Speaker 2:And then you can actually keep that digital version forever or give it back, but it's unlimited. You have so much access. Oh nice, it's crazy. I even talked about this in the past, where I would say say that if you can invest even a small percentage I used to say 10%, whatever, but backing yourself in your own education, whether it be a seminar, whether it be a mentorship program, whatever it is just set that aside for whenever you need to take that class, and I don't mean a traditional class, but it could be going to a Tony Robbins thing, it could be going to an Eric Thomas event.
Speaker 2:Hell, coming to one of my events when I'm ready you know, and come learn something and just be around like-minded individuals pay for that education in other ways. That is going to be. It's going to be amazing. So, yeah, I'm a big believer in that. I'm also really careful to, because I've had this conversation with a young man and he was basically saying hey, you know, Zuckerberg is a college dropout. I said, well, well, I'll say it well pause pause. First of all, pause. Let's pause for a second. He dropped out of harvard. Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So slow down. Yeah, I know there's legacy I know.
Speaker 2:I know there's legacy admissions etc. I don't know if he was one, but he was still at harvard, yeah, so if you are dropping out of harvard, you're not a dumb ass. You had to just been there in the first place. Same thing with Gates. Gates is a genius, his IQ is very high and he's been programming If you read his story and if you read Outliers with Gladwell, where he was and the opportunity that he had where he was doing programming since he was like 11 or 12 years old. And, yeah, if he decides to go to college, but he's been doing programming for 10 plus years, yes, of course he can drop out of college. He can teach the class.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so it makes a big difference. He's wasting his time in college.
Speaker 2:Exactly so when we talk about, you know, when I talk to young kids, it was just like, well, you know, so-and-so dropped out. I'm like, well, look at their situation, Look at yours. You know what are you going to be doing, but of course, again, I'm not advocating college, right?
Speaker 1:So I'll tell you right now I've got a friend. I didn't mean to cut you off, I have a friend, I'm not going to say this person's name, joe.
Speaker 1:We'll call him Joe. Joe works for one of the largest insurance companies in the world. Joe is a very degree. They believe that he does. Joe attended university. Joe did not finish university. Joe's degree if he would have gotten one I don't think would have helped him attain the job. I think he was just smart enough and savvy enough to get in on the ground floor and he just busted his ass and worked his way to the top. Now am I advocating for people getting fake degrees or lying about whether or not they have a degree? No, I'm not.
Speaker 2:But to my point, you don't necessarily need to have a college degree to work at a larger company. Obviously, you went to school you finished.
Speaker 1:You got your four-year degree. Did you go any higher? Did you get a graduate? I knew why I was there. I was at that university to run track at that university. Right, if I happened to come out with a college degree, that was great. The biggest thing that I learned in college was how to influence people, and I say that because-.
Speaker 2:And that was by sheer exposure, or was that some kind of class that you were taking that?
Speaker 1:was because I didn't want to go to class anymore, but I knew that I had to get a good enough grade in order to graduate. So I think it was my junior year I instituted the uh, no alarm clock rule. So whenever I woke up, if I made it to your class, I made it to your class.
Speaker 2:And then I really messing with the athletes that much.
Speaker 1:There, there was, there was some of that right.
Speaker 1:There was. You know, I'm not going to lie about that. There was definitely some of that. There are rules, but rules are not written in stone. If you're able to communicate with certain people that have the power, they can change the rules. I feel like the generations that are high school and early college now. I feel like a lot more of those kids are wanting to do their own thing or start their own thing, and you don't need a college degree to start your own thing. You may need the information or the college degree to help you maybe get that start, but if we keep using that plumber example, I mean you don't need a college degree to be a plumber to then own your own plumbing business. Correct, maybe the vocational school will help you there. Right, and even if you don't want to own your own business, I mean you can still be a damn good plumber or a mechanic or some other trade and still make 100K plus a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean it's funny because it's like you skip out in college. You come out of high school for the next four years. You go out and you work and you start making six figures versus your buddy who goes to college. Who's now what?
Speaker 2:three hundred thousand dollars in debt right, that's the part that's making 60k a year and spending so much like a whole decade, two decades to pay it all back and then 30 of your paycheck, after taxes, is going towards paying back the university and maybe it's just being in that environment in Atlanta. So many people here with money like there are successful that are not necessarily college educated.
Speaker 1:A lot of them are. They're starting their own businesses. They're doing their thing. They're just kicking ass and they're doing it.
Speaker 2:But they're not content creators and they're not doing some silly ass dance. They're not waiting for that lottery to hit in terms of like oh, I got picked up by this label, whatever they for that lottery to hit in terms of like oh I got picked up by this label, whatever. They're just creating businesses and they're doing amazing things, and I'm seeing this decline in higher college education. I'm almost applauding it in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how many times have you heard this sentence? Hey, yeah, this is what I'm doing right now, but really I'm a, and then it's a slashy right. I am a this slash, this slash, this slash, this right, because they know of all the things that they're doing, one of them is going to take off right, so they have their multiple streams of income. And I'm not bashing college. I think college is right for a lot of people, but it's also not right. My wife right now. She's a doctor and she has six figures worth of student loans to be paid back still.
Speaker 2:High six figures. I didn't know that about her. Yeah, did your mother force you to marry her? Because you're marrying this one.
Speaker 1:Well, you know MDs and non-MDs. You know they feel a certain way towards non-MDs.
Speaker 2:That's funny. I've had this discussion with several people. We look at AI and a lot of people are terrified, Even though I've had this discussion with several people. We look at AI and a lot of people are terrified, even though everyone's using it. Everyone's using it to some degree. I use it quite a bit, but people are looking at what's coming. To me it's very much like what was happening in the late 90s early 2000,. When the internet was just the dot-com era.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like in 97, 98, well earlier than that really. But yeah, it's like, you know, in 97, 98, well earlier than that really. But when it really boomed was like when everyone's on the Internet, even if they had dial up, people were terrified of what this thing was going to do. So now robots are going to replace us and everything else. Well, now you have AI, which is certainly capable of replacing a lot of people, Correct, we just replaced.
Speaker 2:We had five account executives at our company that were making calls to clients, to homeowners, rather to try to book inspections for the sales reps to go out and meet with those people, and they all got replaced by one AI bot who can have a very intelligent conversation, not be stumped, even when you throw her. I want to see her a curve ball and handle. We were asking these reps to make 250 calls a day. Right, she's capable of making 5,000 calls a day because she can call for five different companies at once. So be on five different conversations and she's just the one thing and there's no complaint, there's no calling out, there's no lunch break.
Speaker 2:She just dials and dials and the feelings aren't hurt because you don't know how many calls I would field from my reps, who would call me and just say I'm just like getting peed up. Today. Customers are so mean. Customers are saying this and you can tell there's emotion because, again, we are human, so they're getting hung up on. Someone's telling them to go get a real job. You fucking suck. Blah, blah, blah and they need to pause. They'll tell me I need a break, I need to stop for like an hour. Come back to this. Then they'll call me and be like I don't know if I can get back to this today. Robot has zero feelings.
Speaker 1:Exactly, it does not give a shit.
Speaker 2:I heard I listened to one call where someone says wait a second, are you an AI? She fucking lied, dude. It was insane. I have the recording. I was like wait a minute, can you do that? Take it over, and I own this thing. And I'm going to wait a minute Cause because she, she thought for half a second and she says no, sir, I'm a real person, just calling to see if we can help you get an inspection and get your roof inspected bye-bye. And I'm she gonna. She goes on with the script, so she goes it's thursday or friday, best for you. She goes right back to closing and I'm like wait, he just slides to the goggles, so you're a real person.
Speaker 2:She goes absolutely with a smile and I'm like holy hell you know it's a different thing when the programming can be autonomous to because it's self-learning to to the point where it can actually lie. I have a pretty nice version of it, but it's still not what, like, giant companies would own. You know what I mean? Or what the government would own. You know what I mean? Yeah, or what the government would own, and this is what this thing is doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's going to take a lot of jobs, it's going to replace a lot of people, especially when you know, in areas that are very dominant and it comes to industries where black people um have a lot of jobs service industry, food service, things like that. These things are becoming more automated, more and more. I can't remember the last time I went into McDonald's and talked to a person I just push a few buttons, just wait for my food to come out, and they yell a number.
Speaker 2:True, right, but now you're reducing the amount of people that need to be there. How is this going to impact our community and people overall in regards to them going to school, if a lot of the jobs are going to be replaced by AI anyway?
Speaker 1:What you're going to see is an even greater reduction in college and university admissions, because everyone's going to start a business that's going to rely on AI.
Speaker 1:So it's like you're telling me that I can create an entire workforce. I can spend X amount of dollars on this program that can write my business plan, that can run the business for me and I just make sure that I do the upkeep. So I don't need to go to college, I don't need to wake up at 8 am, I can just go hang out with my friends and I just keep checking my bank account and I just make sure that the money keeps going into my account.
Speaker 2:You need to have a hell of a plan in order for that to happen.
Speaker 1:You just sell some shit.
Speaker 2:Online, just online, like you, just figure out what's the hottest thing, sell that. Well, you don't need to figure that out, the AI is going to figure that out Because, well, even to that right, I'll create a prompt. For example, someone else will create a prompt and what I get back is 10 times better than what the other person gets back. Because if what goes into that prompt, you can't just be airhead and just be like AI, hook me up, you know, do this and just give them some kind of vague answer. You'll still get something that's better than what you would have come up with. But if you're really granular with it and you really break it down and give them details and you just break this thing really, really, really down, you can get some incredible responses no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Think less and less. Do you remember the 30 years ago? If you didn't know how to spell a word, what you had to do?
Speaker 2:yeah, go to the dictionary. You had to go look it up in a dictionary, but I know how to spell every word, so I'm good 1993 1994, spelling bee champion.
Speaker 1:But I mean like there's a lot of stuff, like there's skills that you don't need to necessarily have anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like uh, cursive? No one writes in cursive anymore because everyone thinks then in print, because people don't write letters, they just write emails.
Speaker 2:So sad.
Speaker 1:It's like multiplication table. When is that going to go away? It's like why do I need to know how to memorize? Do it on my phone, Right.
Speaker 2:That very, very. You know it's a slippery slope man. It's really scary. Like that we are to me, like the brain is like a muscle, and I'm no expert on this, but I do believe that if you don't exercise it, you lose it.
Speaker 1:What's a muscle?
Speaker 2:I like facts. I like learning about things that I don't know about. Biggest pet peeve I have is people saying the wrong words, using the words in the wrong context misspelling shit you know putting in apostrophe S, when you meant plural instead of possessive.
Speaker 2:Like dumb shit, like that. I'm like, do we even care? It's just, do we not even care anymore? And it comes across that way. For me it's like well, ai will fix it, like, and I can just tell it what to do. And now you can read. You can kind of like read something and know you didn't write this. This is all AI.
Speaker 1:And then you've got Elon with the Neuralink thing. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 1:So they're implanting chips in people's brains to help them.
Speaker 2:All right, hang on, hang on pause. Is this going to be one of those conspiracy theory? No, no, no. This is true.
Speaker 1:Like they've already started doing this. Like you, people's brains To help you do what you can store information. You can use it to move a mouse. They've already implanted chips in people's brains to help them control computers, even before Elon. This is like quadriplegics, or people that have been paralyzed and they can't use their hands and legs right Gotcha.
Speaker 1:So, like Stephen Hawking Well, that was really more of just using his eyes to move the mouse on the keyboard that he was looking at. But there's chips in people's brains this is nothing new where they can think and it'll move the mouse to where it needs to go, as they're looking at a screen to get things done, to communicate right. So the next level is okay. Now can we store information in a chip that is also retrievable by the brain? So if you need to know what 847 times 3,654 is, 37.
Speaker 1:Close. You just missed it, it was 26. You know that that chip will be able to do the calculation for you and then give you that answer.
Speaker 2:You just think it and boom, it's there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the next level of where that's going. But then to your point, if you're merely just having to rely on the chip, then you're not really using the full capacity of your brain to derive that answer. And we're, and we're barely using what?
Speaker 2:5%, 3% of our brain now anyway, right so?
Speaker 1:we start relying on the chip, and now we're down to like a half a percent.
Speaker 2:I can see this having benefits to, like you said, someone who is, you know, totally infirmed, and they're using that because they maybe have robotics parts and now they have the thinketh and they can lift their arm, stand up, walk about things like that. I could see that, but I don't need it to remind me of what the capital of Colombia is.
Speaker 1:But I mean, what's the difference between having the chip in your brain and having the chip in your phone? One's faster, a big difference. One's faster, you're still not knowing it. You're still going to your phone. Today you're going to your phone. So by having the chip in your brain, it saves reach in your pocket. Pull out your phone, unlock it, because no one wants their wife to see what's really in their phone I do yeah, okay talking about? You know about that secret phone?
Speaker 2:anyway, uh but no, but you're still retrieving the information from an external device see, but when I look at anything and you know my wife will tell you this too like I'll look at shit that she's not interested in, just like okay, I don't need to know this, right. So I'll look at something, I'll find information, but I retain it. I retain it so much that I'll go back and tell her and she's like that's not interesting to me. But that's the difference.
Speaker 2:If it's just stored, yeah, but it's not really in your memory. It's just stored as a retrievable type of thing that you can pull. It doesn't stretch the brain, it doesn't help you with knowledge, it's just there from a memory bench you can just pull from anywhere right.
Speaker 1:So then that goes back to what is knowledge. Is knowledge because you memorize, or is knowledge because you can regurgitate it? Because of both? Well, if I can regurgitate it because I'm retrieving it, then I'm still sound knowledgeable yeah, take that chip off and you're pretty much a fucking dummy well, if I take a drive, a nail spike through your head. You're gonna be a dummy too, man, you're it's two different things. You're killing a whole machine, the person, person.
Speaker 2:It's different, like I don't know, like, are you saying that you'd be down with me? Sounds like you'd be down for it.
Speaker 1:Oh, a hundred percent Really. I wouldn't forget anything, I wouldn't need a calendar.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. You can probably just start going into your emotional side of the brain and just start taking things like sadness away and altering your mood and changing whatever you need to.
Speaker 1:That's a possibility as well. It's not just a possibility.
Speaker 2:If you could do what you said, then you could do that.
Speaker 1:Well, it depends on where the chip is implanted and what parts of the brain it's affecting, right? Because there's going to be different parts of the brain that affects certain things like emotion or intelligence or, you know, being able to store information. So if you have a chip that's merely there to compute things and to store information and not to mess with, you know, my dog just died, so I want to not be sad anymore. Make me happy Now you're. Now you're messing with some serious stuff at that point, yeah.
Speaker 2:We just went down to them. You know this is crazy. I just I love AI. I'm interested in what it can do and how we can grow our business and how we can just overall help people. But I know that, just like any other tool, it's going to be used for a lot of good. It's going to be used for a lot of bad shit. But I mean that. But in terms of, like, how it impacts the younger generation coming up and what their future looks like, in regards to school in regards to their path towards a certain career.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean, there are things that I know AI will never replace, at least not in my lifetime. So, for instance, I'm not interested in watching a AI robot golfer. I might be interested in that, because it's all just made up anyway, I mean Marvel, anyway, I mean, yeah, but like there's this AI bot, well, it's not AI, just a robot.
Speaker 2:They hit the perfect golf shot every time. It a robot. They hit the perfect golf shot every time. It's a machine, it's just a swing. It's a certain you know path that that golf club takes and it's always, it's always going to be a great shot. I don't care about that. I'm never in a million years going to sit there and watch it and go oh, I'm rooting for you know, tin man over here, like no if everybody was tiger woods, no one watched the pga.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah, because we want to see winners, we want to see losers, because we want to feel better about ourselves. Exactly.
Speaker 2:So there are things that can't be replaced. So I think that the right path for our youth is to focus on figuring out what they want to do and figure out the best path is, and also think about the future, because is that job going to be viable or is this something that can cost your employer 10 times less to outsource it to a robot and have it done?
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this, stefan what advice would you give to young black individuals on how to really, you know navigate their educational and career decisions, you know, in the context of the rapidly changing technological landscape?
Speaker 2:For me. So number one it just goes back to what you said earlier is to figure out what you want to do. And if you don't know what you want to do, then maybe the right path for you is go to college, because you're at least exposed to a good environment. You're exposed to other people whose really sole purpose is to better themselves and just get educated, so at least, if nothing else, you're there. I used to always think that people who went to college and took liberal arts that was just 13th grade things- that people who you know went to college and took liberal arts.
Speaker 2:That was just 13th grade.
Speaker 1:Yep, you know, you really weren't doing anything.
Speaker 2:You don't know what you want to do yet, but at least, yeah, you're just exposed to it. So, if nothing else, it gets you there while you figure it out, because, again, you don't have to have it figured out completely. I think it goes back to something we've talked about before, where we say what is your end goal? What do you want to do? Right, and not necessarily in terms of and I'll talk about this real quick too not in terms of, like, what is your passion? Like, where do you want to be? What does your life look like in 15 years, 20 years, 10 years and to a 18 year old, that's an eternity. When you tell them, oh, 10 years from now, they're like oh, my God, like I'll be bald and old and wrinkled.
Speaker 2:I'm like nah, bro, 10 years you're going to blink and it's going to be here, right? I think to me personally and people disagree with me when I say this I think that it matters more how you want to live your life, who you want to be, what you want to have, who you want to have in your life, where you want to travel, where you want to live. I think all that shit is more important and you, once you know what that is, now figure out a path there. I think that the advice that most people give is what are you passionate about? And go do that thing, because you get the results and that works for a lot of people. But the reason I disagree with it is because I'm not passionate about shoveling.
Speaker 1:Well, let me, I'll just do a crazy example. Right, I'm not passionate about shoveling.
Speaker 2:Well, let me. I'll just do a crazy example. Right, I'm not passionate about shoveling manure. I'm not passionate about that. Nothing anyone could say or do no, I don't care. Who's giving the speech could make me want to go. Yes, this is awesome, I want to go, do it. Right, give me a thousand dollars an hour. I just became real passionate, right? So my point is you don't have to find something you're passionate about. You need to be passionate about where you want to be. That's what you need to be passionate about. Then pick a vehicle to go there and unfortunately, there are a lot of different vehicles. It may not be something you want to do.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're lucky and you can, you can marry the two. Where you have something that you're good at, that you like doing, you enjoy, you can be passionate about it and, oh God bless you. It makes money because you could do meal prep, for example, and be passionate about that because you love to cook and that's a little side hustle, but it's only making you like $200 a week and you're spending a lot of time doing it. It's extra money. That's great, right, you still have your. You know your nine to five. But if you're doing this and it's taking you an extra 15, 20 hours a week to do this, and you're making $200 a week doing it. Is it really?
Speaker 1:It's not there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not a great vehicle, right? So it's not so much. What am I passionate about? Again, I always go back to I'm passionate about living a life where I don't owe nobody shit. I create and build to again use Jim Rohn's illustration here create an impenetrable armor financial armor around my family. That's what I'm passionate about. Name the dumbest job in the world that I have zero interest in doing was paying me what I need to do to get there. I go do that job. So that's, that's, that's my advice. My advice is to focus on that Now. With that comes the education that you need. So, if you're looking at, there's a shortage of dude. Just yesterday perfect example I had the HVAC guy come here because I don't know if you noticed a little chilly in here, but-.
Speaker 2:It's always cold in here. Yeah, I had this dude come through here. I was like hey, dude, my shit's not working like it should be. Can you come check it out? It took him two weeks to get here.
Speaker 2:Right now, of course, like you know, because they are so busy, you know, so you can get someone. You can just like make a phone call. I wanted you know because of where we live. We had to have gas be delivered. We wait over a month. So there are a lot of things that you could be doing, that you're going to have people who are seeking you out and want and need, desperately need your services. Are you willing to go do those jobs? Because obviously supply and demand. If there's a shortage then you can charge more, not to gouge people, but obviously that would definitely raise the price overall for everyone. I say focus on finding something that works, that pays you, so you can go live the life you want to live. And, um, for now I say, uh, kick your passion aside. You can develop that shit later on and worry about it later.
Speaker 1:That's what I did when I left college. I was like I'm going to do all the shit that I always wanted to do, and then I did. Then I was like just started slowly working my way towards that and then it turned into I'm tired of working for other people, making them rich and they can just dispose of me whenever they don't want me anymore. So now I had to start my own business in order to get where I want to get.
Speaker 1:But for young folks, I will say before you go to college, if you know where you want to be and you have access to someone who's doing that, talk to that person, figure out their path and then, if it makes sense to replicate their path, then do that. If you're unable to do that and you're unable to gather information whether that be reading or seeing videos or whatever it is on how that person got to where they are, and you're just clueless on how to get there, yeah, I think that next step of higher education is probably going to be your best bet, because it gives you many different paths and then you can figure out okay, let me try this one, Let me try this one, let me try this one. Oh, okay, I know I like this one.
Speaker 1:And then you can just figure it out that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yesterday we went out, my wife and I, and we met with our oldest daughter and our oldest son, and we were having a conversation and the advice she gave our oldest daughter was continue to educate yourself in the field that you're in right now. She just got into life health, auto insurance. She just got into the insurance business. Now that she's in that business, it's so critical that you become the subject matter expert. You spend so much time learning continuous education.
Speaker 2:No matter what field you end up picking, take it seriously enough that it's not just well, I need to get this basic certification just to get in. Now that I'm in, I'll just do my job. You want to keep learning and keep reading more about it. If there are conventions to go, to go there. If there are some webinars that you need to be part of, you need to be on top of that. You want to get to where you are earning as much as someone can earn in that field, and if that's not good enough, then you move on. But all those skills are not lost. They transfer over to the next thing that you're doing. So I think that's that's something I would definitely impart on them as well.
Speaker 1:And she's going to have to because she's going to need that CE credit to keep her license.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's even beyond that. I'm like to me, it's like way, way beyond that.
Speaker 1:Cause that's just the bare minimum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's nothing right, you can just like all right, take a. Do you even take a class for that, or yeah, yeah?
Speaker 1:Or attend a seminar.
Speaker 2:Attend a seminar and then boom, they just give you. You don't?
Speaker 1:have to take a test on you. You were here, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you could pretty much like be asleep and you get that. So any advice for not just the youth, but even people our age. I got a good friend right now who went back to school. It was late 40s, Went back to school, basically starting a whole new career. So I told him the other day I was like dude, I'm so proud of you. I really, really can't wait for this to flourish into something big, Because we're talking like going to school, going to school hard changing careers and it's going to be such an amazing success story.
Speaker 2:So if that's the path, that's the path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say you're never too old to start something new, as long as long as it is something that you're actually going to give it your all and believe in it, right? If you're, you know, 15, you're just like, well, I'm tired of. I've been sitting at this desk for the last 25 years. I want to go sit at somebody else's desk for the next 10 years.
Speaker 1:Like you don't need to go to college for that.
Speaker 1:But if you're wanting to, whether it be do your own thing or just go into a completely different field because you now want to double or triple your income, you're never too old to do that right.
Speaker 1:You're never too old to gain that information or gain that knowledge. And as far as for the youth, you know, don't be so quick to think that I'm going to graduate from high school and I'm going to go to college and then I'm going to graduate from college, I'm going to get my master's, and then I'm going to graduate from getting my master's degree and then I'm going to go to that firm and then I'm going to get my job and they're going to pay me 85 K starting off my first year as I'm paying back the $400,000 in student debt. Yeah Right, there may be an easier path to get into that same point. Maybe you don't have that same information, but the time that you spent getting all those degrees to then get to where you were being in debt, you potentially may have just done a shit ton of internships, mentor programs, other non-traditional routes to get that same information, to not be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. It makes sense for some people. If you want to be a heart surgeon, no, take your ass to college.
Speaker 1:Take your ass to med school and make sure you do follow the correct path.
Speaker 2:I actually had a friend who had the same story. I've got a message for the young folks because his story was he became a creative director working in ad agencies and things like that, right. So he was selling alarms in the summer. So he would spend three months selling alarms in the summer and then he went and got his real job, what he went to school for, and he ended up moving to Chicago. He said his turning point was Halloween.
Speaker 2:He and his wife they had a four-year-old who wanted to go trick-or-treating and he couldn't get home because you know, he had to stay and work really late with the guy who was his boss. You know the guy that he so he's an aspiring creative director and the guy's already there. The guy had been there like 11 years and still very young dude, right. So he's looking up to this dude who's like early thirties. He's like, hey, do you ever get to go home? The guy goes. I feel the most part man Like these holidays I'm missing because I'm working late all the time or whatever, and he goes. But if you stick to it you'll make some decent money, you'll make some good money and you can have a great life for you and your family and he thought about it and he goes.
Speaker 2:I'm already making more in my summer job, going door to door selling alarms than I am at this job and my goal, you know. The lighthouse is getting to where this guy is 10 to 12 to 15 years from now and he has a horrible quality of life and making less money than I am, working 70, 80 hour weeks Right, and in addition to that he's like for me to get his job. Either I quit and move again and go to a different firm or I wait for this guy to retire. He's only 32, 33 years old.
Speaker 2:So what's the path look like? And that's when he said he went back and decided to focus totally on sales and doing this. So I mean, I'm not going to tell everyone that's the path, but I will say, if you have an opportunity to go, do the hard thing that you don't want to do and that hard thing to me is sales If you can go, do it, because it changes everything and it really kind of makes you well-rounded and puts you in a position to be really good at negotiating, communicating, being a positive influence from folks. Don't learn to manipulate people, but you can be that really positive influence, what I call being an agent of change. Then you can take those skills and you can apply them to any field, anything in the world. So if you're trying to figure it out, maybe go do that.
Speaker 1:And anyone's all about work-life balance, depending on what you're selling.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You may not start till 10 AM. You may finish when the business is closed at 5, 6 PM, right? So I mean you're working a quote unquote half shift when everyone else is working a full shift, but you're making just as much, if not more. Exactly, and everybody else working less.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. I mean there's different paths that everyone can take and for the older guys you know guys my age I definitely encourage them to be involved in more mentorship. That's my path, at least, that's really what I believe in. You know, you can't make someone do any of that, any of that stuff, but I don't know. I just feel that it's a duty that we have, especially again in our community. We talk about the world in general, but we talk about the black community because that's where it's needed the most, I feel like mentorship and the other ethnic groups. It's a given.
Speaker 2:I hear these stories all the time, where people are talking about their success stories and they had great influences. My pastor was this, my coach was this and all these different people. It took a village and they were all there. Mom and dad had great friends that were successful and all these influences were there and they were able to go to Mr So-and-so's home and learn from this person, learn about real estate, when they were 14 years old. In our community it's not as common In your 20s. This is when you go and try it all, man. Go do it all. It's not time to party. We, oh man, cause I made that mistake. Once I realized I wasn't going to go to school straight after high school, I was just like, oh my God. I was thinking about this. What am I going to do with all this free time? And it was stupid, it was useless. I've wasted the time. I don't think any time in reality is ever wasted, because I think it was meant for me to learn what I needed to learn.
Speaker 2:But yeah, if I saw a young man the age that I was then doing the exact same thing, I'd pull him aside and be like dude, what are you doing, Right?
Speaker 1:Well, I had a job, but they got me fucked up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had me fucked up, but it's like no, go explore, go try it all, go fail yeah, because you're going to fail anyway, right, 100%. But in your 20s, before you have a family, before you're concerned about all that shit, it's the perfect time for you to go and risk it all and work as hard as you're ever going to work in your life, lose some friends over it. That's my honestly, that's what I truly, truly believe. You're not going to remember 90, 90% of them anyway. Nah, no, exactly.
Speaker 1:Those are my thirties, my twenties. That was that happened in my thirties. As far as, like, actually starting to grind and really work was my thirties. No-transcript. Like your routine, like what time do you wake up, do you exercise, do you have a calendar? Like what are the things that you do? So that way, you know, maybe if I just start regimenting my life and start modeling it after people that are successful, I may stumble into into something that I want to do today.
Speaker 1:You know where I can be successful, and if you're unable to do have that conversation with that person and you just lost, then yeah, I think college may be the thing for you, because it'll. It'll open you up to a number of different paths that are out there. That you can fail, yeah Right, because it's college. Like you're not going to ace every class, because there's even some classes you like, some classes you love and some classes you're like I'm never doing this shit again. Yeah Right. And so then, once you start to really dial down what it is that you love, then just keep going down that road and eventually, if you, if you stay at it and you're disciplined, you're going to get there.
Speaker 2:Dope. No, I love it, man. So I think this is a perfect segue, because next week I'm bringing in a couple of guys who are mentors to a large organization. You have a hundred black men of the cab, you know, heading out there today. I'm going to check them out. You know there's a lot of that. I think more of it is needed, correct. So I'm excited to have those conversations with those guys. Join us again next week, every Monday here at Manhood Matters. Please follow us on all social media outlets, at Manhood Matters Podcast and if you'd like to send us an email and be part of the conversation, don't hesitate to do so at manhoodmatterspodcast at gmailcom. Appreciate you guys. Talk to you next week. It's been a while since we've been counting. You've backed the nation. You guys talk to you next week. It's so important. Yeah, I still miss you. That's all I can say. And look at the camera.
