What Your Young Adult Can Do After High School and Stories from the Degree Free Launch Program (DF#144)

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:00]:
Teenagers and young adults are not taught what options are available to them. Over and over, what comes up is that, oh, you're not going to buy a college degree, go into the trades or go into the military. That's it. That's all they're given. They don't know that they can get into tech. They don't know that they can get into HR. They don't know that they can get into sales. They don't know that they can get into craft work, which is different from trade work.

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:24]:
There's just so much that they don't know is open to them.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:33]:
Aloha, folks, and welcome back to degree free. We have a bunch of surprises for you this week. I have a surprise guest in the studio this week, and the surprise guest is the cohost of this show.

Hannah Maruyama [00:00:48]:
Tada.

Ryan Maruyama [00:00:50]:
So we have a bunch of stuff to get into. We are gonna be talking about where Hannah has been and why she hasn't been on the podcast. We're gonna be talking about a bunch of other things. But before I get into that, I did wanna say, if you have any questions, we are going to be doing a q and a question sometime soon. So if you go to ask.degreefree.coforward/question, and that's question singular, not questions, plural. If you're to ask dot degree free dot c04 slash question, you can go there and you can ask us your question, and then we will answer it live on the show for you. And make sure to go there. Make sure to ask your question.

Ryan Maruyama [00:01:29]:
I wanna start with something. We literally got into a fight or as close to a fight as you and I get about the episode that we were supposed to do a few weeks ago. And I've alluded to it already, and I told people to subscribe and make sure that they have notifications on and all those good things so that when that episode comes out in a year, they are notified. I just thought it was hilarious and I've mentioned it already, but I wanted to talk about it with you because it's just a testament to how dumb the idea was and how dumb we were as people. Not to say that I've improved that much as the years have gone by, but I'm not as dumb as I was back then.

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:16]:
And to clarify what he means by the idea was not the idea to do the podcast, but the fact that it was a seasonal thing that only comes once a year.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:24]:
Exactly. Once again, we will have that episode out for you, and I will tell you right now the week that it's gonna come out. It is gonna come out from March 9th to March 15th, and I believe

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:36]:
2025. 2025. Mark your calendars, everybody.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:40]:
I believe that is Sunday to Saturday, sometime in that time frame. And I promise you that even if we're not doing the podcast anymore

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:49]:
We will still do this episode.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:51]:
We will still do this episode. And it will only be released during that

Hannah Maruyama [00:02:56]:
Unlimited edition.

Ryan Maruyama [00:02:57]:
During that one week. So even if we decide to stop this podcast for whatever reason, which I don't think we're gonna do, but We will return. We will return to this feed March 9th to March 15th. So make sure to be subscribed and make sure to mark your calendars for that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:11]:
Oh, man. Sorry, folks. It was my fault. I was too tired to do it, and it needs some energy. It's a good episode. So like I said, not to drive hype, but next year, mark your calendar. It

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:21]:
wasn't just that after the trip that I got back from the death trip, I'll call it, that I got back from I got really sick. It's kind of my fault too. If I hadn't got sick, we would have done it. But, anyway, I have a lot of stuff that I wanna get into. I actually have, like, a lot of stuff that I've gotten into. I just got back from another trip. You and I did a couple of death trips, unfortunately.

Hannah Maruyama [00:03:44]:
We're calling them that. They're the trips that you take before someone passes away in your family or right after they do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:03:49]:
We've had a few of those. That was crappy. Then after that, the only trip that I actually had planned was another one that I just came back from. I went on a little bit of snowboarding trip with my family and that was fun. And then I was able to go to San Francisco, and I was able to see a bunch of friends and have a lot to talk about from that trip. I was able to meet Drake Porter live and in the flesh. So that was really fun. For those of you who don't know who Drake Porter is, I definitely suggest that you pause this right now and you go back and listen to his first episode, episode 63, and then his second episode, episode 1 something.

Ryan Maruyama [00:04:30]:
Go to degree free dot c o four slash podcast and there's search for Drake Porter and it'll pop right up. His first two episodes We talked and we were able to do a bunch of things. I'll tell you what we did and and the things we talked about. One of the things I'm excited for is that Drake is going to come back onto the podcast sometime. We talked about him coming on a little bit more regularly even. I know that he's a fan favorite here at the degree free podcast. I'm a big fan of his as well, so I am really, really looking forward to that. And I hope you are too, so make sure that you're subscribed and make sure you go to YouTube, guys.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:04]:
There are, like, thousands of people that listen to this every single week, and we have, like, 10,000 YouTube subscribers.

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:11]:
It's because a lot of you are not on YouTube. You gotta get on there, and then you gotta subscribe to the pod on YouTube.

Ryan Maruyama [00:05:18]:
Yes. Exactly. And because we are gonna be starting to do more content there that may not be released on the RSS feed on this podcast feed, just because it would be more visuals and things like that. So make sure you go to YouTube and make sure you subscribe, notifications, all of that stuff. I wanna ask you the first question. How have you been?

Hannah Maruyama [00:05:39]:
I've been pretty good, and I've been extremely busy because I've been working on getting our launch program launched. That has been a more than a full time job, but also some of the coolest work I've ever done in my life ever. It's so fulfilling. It's so amazing. And it's been such a privilege to work with this age range for this goal, because nobody else is working on what we're working on. And it's just been really awesome. So I have a bunch of stories for you guys about what I've been doing with the launch program.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:13]:
That's awesome. And that's what I've been telling the viewers and the listeners here is that you've just been really busy and not that the podcast isn't a priority. A lot of people look at our TikTok and they think, oh, 400, whatever, 1,000 followers that we have. And then they look at the YouTube and they look at the body of our work for that with the podcast and be like, oh, you guys are just content creators. That's what you guys do. Like, that's how you make your money. No. That's not how we make our money at all.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:38]:
Like, I've been very candid about this podcast and about, I wouldn't say economic failure that it is. Let's call

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:46]:
it labor of love instead.

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:47]:
This is totally a labor of love. You and I have never seen a dime from this podcast.

Hannah Maruyama [00:06:52]:
No. We put quite a few dimes into

Ryan Maruyama [00:06:54]:
this podcast. We put a lot of dimes, and we continue to put a lot of dimes into this podcast still to this day. And so when we were thinking about, man, we are getting really, really busy, and we have all of this stuff going on with our actual business and how we actually make money. But as I've talked about on this podcast before, this podcast is very important to me because podcast is how I change my life. I mean, this is an amazing resource. The fact that you can boot this up on YouTube, on Spotify, anywhere that you get your podcast, and you can listen to this for free, and you can be a person in this room for free. It is amazing because I've gotten so much value from other people's podcasts, from all of their free resources because at the time, I couldn't pay for it. There's just no way.

Ryan Maruyama [00:07:38]:
There's no way that I could pay to have an hour of this person's time. For me. Giving that back is hugely important. But then when push came to shove of like, okay, well, this also takes up a lot of time. It doesn't seem like it sometimes. I know that a lot of people don't think so, but it takes a lot of prep work to do this podcast. Not only does it take a lot of prep work to do this podcast, but then you and I have to sit down and we have to schedule an hour and a half out of our day. And so that's 2 hours of man hours, 3 hours of man hours.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:10]:
If you and I are both in this room that we have to sit down and do this and take away from actually making money and from actually doing our jobs. That is the context behind why you disappeared for a little bit. You had to disappear because we had to make tough business decisions.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:26]:
We did divide and conquer.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:28]:
Right. Exactly. I felt like, okay, so what are we doing here and what are our goals? And now that we've gotten a little bit more of a system down, even though we're busier than ever.

Hannah Maruyama [00:08:39]:
That's true.

Ryan Maruyama [00:08:40]:
We got a little bit better of a system down. I basically told you that I think that this is a priority for people. I think that this is a priority for us, even though we don't make any money off of this. And so anyway, that was a long winded story. I'm glad to have you back. It is much, much easier to have somebody sit across from me and somebody to bounce words off of rather than just giving all of my energy to a camera. So I am very, very excited to have you back, and I think that everybody listening to this and watching this right now is also excited. So thank you for making the time.

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:13]:
Thanks for having me back on and allowing me to just pop back in.

Ryan Maruyama [00:09:17]:
So you started talking about why you left the degree free launch program. You wanted to launch it. What is the degree free launch program?

Hannah Maruyama [00:09:23]:
So the degree free launch program is a program where I'm working 1 on 1 with 16 to 20 year old teenagers and young adults to help them figure out what jobs make sense for them, the, what they want to do. And then also figuring out what potential options they have for work. So work and jobs and careers that they didn't even know existed, helping them figure out what current skills they have or talents that they have that translate into the jobs that they want to have that serve their goals, and then figuring out what they're missing and what skills they need to learn, and then giving them specific options to learn the skills they need in order to start applying for those jobs. It's a very complex, it's very labor intensive. It takes a lot of hours. Right now I'm spending between 35 40 hours per client that I'm working with, doing research, compiling reports, making sure I'm finding local resources, making sure that nothing is missed. Anything under the sun that fits their goals. And then on top of that, I also have 4 1 hour sessions with these folks in order to go over the options and narrow down options and make sure we're refining as we go through the process because the entire process builds on itself.

Hannah Maruyama [00:10:32]:
Basically what we've designed is something that is very much unique because I'm working with teenagers and young adults and their parents are very involved in the process. Number one thing I'm hearing from the parents is that there is nothing like what you and I have created and the system in this process. And I've just been running it and working 1 on 1 and getting feedback and improving the process. And then also you and I have been writing a guidebook as well, and that's been something that any spare time I have is going towards writing and refining that because we started with it being fairly short and now it's, it's a book and we've been working on that too. Just a lot over the past couple months, for sure. Yeah. It's been a busy Q1 for us.

Ryan Maruyama [00:11:13]:
It's been very, very busy in all the right ways and, unfortunately, a couple of the wrong ways, which was not great, but here we are. I wanted to ask you about some of the sessions that you're having. What are some of the interesting things that are happening from your sessions? I imagine with you being gone for so long and you being so busy that you have a few things that you could share with us.

Hannah Maruyama [00:11:38]:
Yeah, I would say the most interesting sessions that have cropped up have been the interest inventory sessions. That's the first session in the degree free launch program. And basically what that's doing is going through with these teenagers and young adults and asking them a series of questions that you and I have designed and that I'm slowly refining and adding to as the program continues. And the result of that session really is to get to the type of life they want to live and then finding jobs based on that. But first, we have to ask them a bunch of questions to suss out what it is they are actually wanting and how they want to live. Because a problem that you and I came across was a lot of these teens and young adults only can name 6 to 8 jobs total. And it's almost always the same exact jobs because of that. The options they know of are very limited and something you and I talk about a lot is the fact that they can't walk through a door if they don't know that door exists.

Hannah Maruyama [00:12:35]:
And so the fundamental problem we've recognized is that teenagers and young adults are not taught what options are available to them over and over. What comes up is that, oh, you're not going to buy a college degree, go into the trades or go into the military. That's it. That's all they're given. They don't know that they can get into tech. They don't know that they can get into HR. They don't know that they can get into sales. They don't know that they can get into craft work, which is different from trade work.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:04]:
There's just so much that they don't know is open to them.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:07]:
Hey there. I hope that you're loving this episode of the degree free podcast. We spend a ton of time every week creating this content for you. So my only ask is you take a quick second to leave a review or thumbs up on whatever platform you're on. It's one of the best easiest ways that you can support this podcast, and this simple action can help bring more people into the degree free community. At degree free, we wanna help as many people as we can thrive and succeed without needing a college degree. Your review will be a step in that direction. If you could do this small favor right now, pause this and leave a review.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:38]:
It would truly mean the world to us. Thank you. And back to the show.

Hannah Maruyama [00:13:42]:
Basically what we're doing is designing this process to make sure that one, their goals are clear or as clear as they can be. And then they know what options fit their goals so that they are picking work in a fundamentally different way from the way schools teach us to pick work.

Ryan Maruyama [00:13:58]:
I wanted to hone in on that vocational creativity piece for a second because that piece is so crucial, especially for young adults, but also for just everybody. And we've seen that when we help job seekers or career changers try to change careers. I say it all the time, but how can we hit a target that we don't know exists?

Hannah Maruyama [00:14:19]:
And something I wanted to isolate here too, is that you specifically invented the concept of vocational creativity folks, Ryan defined and named that entire concept. So when you hear it out in the wild, because it's becoming something now that is, is in the language of people that are talking about the future of work, Ryan invented that methodology and that exercise. It's been so interesting to apply that to these young adults and realize that they are so limited because they have not been taught how to think about work and how to think about opportunities.

Ryan Maruyama [00:14:49]:
It's insane to say, but, yeah, you can go back to the very first few episodes and we go over how I created it and why I created and everything like that. And it's crazy to see other big publications use that word. Those two words that I created and strung together for the first time and was like, that's insane. You know, who am I? I'm just some dude with a microphone.

Hannah Maruyama [00:15:11]:
And you and I have been saying that the whole time as the language that we're using to reclaim this educational territory has been starting to be used in the mainstream. It's pretty wild to see that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:15:21]:
It is a problem. If you are graduating from high school or if your child is graduating from high school and they only know 8 jobs. And the reason why it's a problem is because realistically speaking, those are the only jobs that those people are going to go after now. So how do you hit a target that you don't know exists? You can't. You won't. It's not possible. They're going to try to do one of those 8 jobs. And if those 8 jobs are whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever, and they all require college degrees and they all require a lot of schooling or and a lot of debt, Well, then that's what they're going to go and pursue first because that's all they know.

Hannah Maruyama [00:16:01]:
This is such a huge point to drive home. If you're limiting the options that students know about. So if they are limited in what the paths they know they can take, and then of those paths, most of those paths require them to purchase degrees and to purchase multiple degrees and to purchase degrees that are very expensive or do not have good return on investment. Now, what is going to happen is 4 to 5 years in when they finally finish their bachelor's degree, they're going to be unhappy and or stuck and their options are to cut bait and then go buy another degree, which is what a lot of people will do is now they go buy another bachelor's degree or worse. They'll continue further up the track into something that is not going to be able to pay their loans back and people get very trapped, which is part of the reason why you and I started working with this age group, because we realized that they have an outsized advantage if they can avoid the student debt trap early on, especially right out of high school. If they have any idea of any other options, they can use the fact that they know that there are other ways to try and test. And then if they do want to go into something that does legally require them to have a degree to get a license, they can do that, but they can be sure. And also having them be older and away from this urgency of, oh, you have to commit.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:18]:
You have to fill it the fast way. You have to buy the loans. You have to sign stuff. And just funneling them and shoving them right into the academic industrial complex. It's so much better for them to have time to breathe and just be sure if they're going to go that direction anyway. So pretty much everyone benefits. There's actually no one that doesn't benefit from this. I'm working with 1 girl right now who is sure she wants to be a nurse.

Hannah Maruyama [00:17:41]:
She is sure she's done the shadowing. Her sisters are nurses. She is positive that she wants to go into that line of work. And she had narrowed down at least nursing. And so for her, obviously, I'm not going to tell her not to buy a college degree. It's not my job to tell people not to buy college degrees. It's my job to help her figure out what she's going to pick and how she's going to pick. And if that's going to suit the type of life she wants into the future.

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:04]:
And that has been really rewarding to see that the method that we've designed also helps people that do want to go buy college degrees, but it helps them make that choice fully informed with clarity, with direction and knowing why they're going to do that and what the result is going to be.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:21]:
It's not our job to convince you to go or not to go to college. It's not our job to stray you away from the job that you wanna do. If, like, if that's truly the job that you wanna do and that is part of our job is figuring out whether or not that is actually what you want to do. That is part of our job that is within the scope of our work. But then if that is the case, then you and I are gonna help them figure out how to get there the most efficient way possible, the one that requires hopefully the least amount of time and the least amount of debt and the least expensive

Hannah Maruyama [00:18:52]:
Correct.

Ryan Maruyama [00:18:53]:
Way to get there. One of the things I did want to say, and I just wanted to tie a bow on the whole vocational creativity thing, was, like, just from my own life. And for those of you that haven't listened, I think it was 135, episode 135. You can go back and listen to that. It's something like why hard work doesn't matter. And I basically talk about making sure that you are in the right vehicle and making sure that your hard work in the right vehicle is what matters. Right? Like that's really what matters. But if you're working hard and you're working on the wrong things, it just doesn't matter.

Ryan Maruyama [00:19:24]:
Thinking back to my own life and thinking about how the lack of vocational creativity has really hurt and stifled my own career, if you look, my goal was always to be successful. My goal was always to retire by 40 In order to retire by 40, you need to make a lot of money. It was always to make a lot of money. I didn't care what I did. And if you look at my goal, become a firefighter and retired by 40 was never in the mix at all. It was always just retired by 40. So I needed to make a lot of money. And because I didn't know a bunch of jobs out there, I did the job that was right in front of my face.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:00]:
I was a dishwasher at a local restaurant, and then I moved up the chain there to where I became a server at 18. And I was making the most money in the restaurant. That's because I lacked vocational creativity. Now if you look at somebody else's story, somebody that I just met and somebody that we've had on this podcast before, so you should be familiar with it. And I mentioned him earlier in the podcast, if you look at the trajectory of Drake Porter's career, Drake Porter is I think he's 8 years younger than me, maybe. And the trajectory of his career was completely different. Big portion of the reason why is because he was vocationally creative. He understood the different types of jobs that were out there at a young age, how he knew and how he was exposed to those types of things.

Ryan Maruyama [00:20:44]:
We've talked a little bit about when I met him in person. I'll ask him when we have a background on the podcast. For context, for those that don't listen to the episode, which is a mistake, you gotta go back and listen to the episode 135 that was with me, my myself, and episode 63 with Drake Porter and the second one with Drake Porter as well. He brought the heat on that one too. Drake is a product manager at Meta, and he makes lots of money. I don't know if he wants me to tell you exactly how much money he makes now. We got into it, but I think that's personal. But I think on the episode

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:15]:
On the first one.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:15]:
On the first one, he did tell us, and I think it was, like, $285,000 or something like that or or 300 something $1,000.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:22]:
And that was a couple of years ago.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:23]:
You can use your imagination to figure out which way his compensation has gone since then. But like I said, I don't want to give it away because I don't know if I'm able to.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:31]:
But yeah, everybody should go back and listen to that episode because it will make you feel like you can run through a wall after you listen to it. It's just very emboldening. It's very empowering. The mentality that he has is extremely useful for everybody that is trying to find a job. And it doesn't matter how old you are. Doesn't matter if you're 16. It doesn't matter if you're 46. Go listen to that episode.

Hannah Maruyama [00:21:49]:
It's super useful, super actionable, and goes into specifics about how to do it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:21:53]:
Now, just talking about your sessions and talking about the actual work that you're doing, what are some of the coolest jobs or coolest educational opportunities that you've been finding for people?

Hannah Maruyama [00:22:05]:
Oh, my gosh. This is such a good lesson too, for vocational creativity. I've had people write in and ask me how I got the job that I have and the job that I have being running the launch program. I made it, I created it. I made it up. You know, there's no official job that you can apply for. It's just creation And the coolest finding and researching these individual options is the coolest thing I have ever done in my life.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:29]:
Can I interject for a second? Yes. Because I was having a conversation with somebody. He's a really good friend of mine. I can't say what he does, unfortunately. We have known each other from day 1. We were bussers at a restaurant together, and this was after I was a waiter. I went back down to being a busser at another restaurant. And him and I were bussers together, and we worked there for years together.

Ryan Maruyama [00:22:51]:
And now I just saw him on this most recent trip, and I explained to him what we're doing. We've been in contact for years, so he already knew, but we were talking about it. And then he asked the question and this is a good question. Why you, why us to do this program and to help people the way that we're doing it? And it's a fantastic question. It's a question that I have asked myself a lot. What is it that differentiates ourselves from everybody else out there? The truth of the answer, I mean, obviously, I can give you the political marketing answer right now. I could say, oh, well, because we've done this, this is the results, this, this, this, this. Okay.

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:32]:
Sure. Let's put the marketing away for a second. I'm just not here to BS anybody. Why us?

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:37]:
Do you want me to answer? I want

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:38]:
to sure.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:39]:
Yeah. Because we're doing it

Ryan Maruyama [00:23:40]:
because we're doing it. Yeah. Why us? Because we're doing it. That's it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:23:44]:
And this is such a good lesson. People, you don't need permission to do things. You just need to do them and you need to do them well and you need to do things that people need done. And that is how you develop and make change. That's how people develop new technology. That's how they develop new methodologies. That's how people write books. It's how they create anything.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:03]:
You just have to do it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:05]:
What's hilarious about the whole thing for me personally, I can't talk about what he does because they're still in stealth, his company. But it's a big company. It's already massive. They're funded by billionaires. He showed me the photo of the people in it in a company meeting, and there there's a lot of people there that you might recognize hitters in this company already. Whether or not I believe that it's funded by billionaires or not, I think I do because the salary requirements is absolutely enormous. I would ask the same thing of why the owners of this company to do this thing. Well, because they're rich.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:40]:
They don't have the expertise in the field that they're in. They don't have the hardware or software or whatever. They don't have the tools to do it. They're buying all those things. Why these billionaires? This is a completely different thing than how they became billionaires.

Hannah Maruyama [00:24:56]:
Well, you can have capital or you can have skill.

Ryan Maruyama [00:24:58]:
But well, that's what I'm saying. Is it why them? Well, because they're doing it.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:01]:
Yeah. And you can hire people that can do it, or you can train yourself to do it. You don't have to ask permission. Exactly. And I get that question on TikTok all the time. You see it. You see it, but people say, how are you qualified to do this? And I'm like, because I'm doing it, and I'm good at it. That's why.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:13]:
That's how I'm qualified to do it. And when you and I talk about papered mindset, it's that. How are you qualified to do this? Because I'm doing something that no one else is doing. It's useful to people and it helps them accomplish their goals. That's why me.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:24]:
I'm not saying any of that to try to sell anybody listening to this. What I want from all that statement in actuality, I should think we're gonna lose sales by saying this. You're gonna be like, these guys don't know what they're doing.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:37]:
They're so completely unqualified. Yeah. Who accredited you? Oh, wait. It's myself. Yeah.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:41]:
Exactly. The reason why I'm bringing this up to you listening is because I want you to have the permission to do whatever it is that you want to do.

Hannah Maruyama [00:25:51]:
Yeah. If you're waiting on it, there it is.

Ryan Maruyama [00:25:52]:
Exactly. You don't need permission from anybody to just go and do whatever it is. If everybody had that mindset of why me of what makes me uniquely qualified to do that, then nothing would get done.

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:10]:
Yeah. If you self eliminate based on, well, I don't have the qualifications. If you don't do things because you don't have the qualifications, you will never have the qualifications. And this applies to people, even the by multiple degrees and have to get licenses. This applies to surgeons too. If you never cut somebody open because the first time you've done it, you will never get to the point where you are proficient. That's just how the world works. That's just how life works.

Hannah Maruyama [00:26:33]:
And so for those of us that are not trying to do things that require expensive degrees and legal licenses to do them, the reason that we're highlighting this is because if you are waiting for permission to do the thing that you think you'd be good at or think you could build or think people need stop waiting. This is it right here. Go do whatever that is and be really good at it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:26:50]:
I didn't want to take all of your time and to take that tangent out. It was just really important, and I felt like it was really important because when he said that to me, I went immediately into the marketing answer. Like, I went immediately into, well, look at the results that we've had and look at all of the content that we've made and look at all of the people that we have access to and look at all of the other things, whatever, whatever, whatever. Three sentences in. This doesn't make any sense. There's no reason why us other than the fact that we are doing it. That's it. And I think it's important that other people know that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:24]:
Yeah. I

Ryan Maruyama [00:27:25]:
think it's important for whoever is listening to this, who's thinking about doing whatever it is in their life. K. Look. It's time. You can do it. Getting back to what we were talking about, like, what are some of the coolest vocational or educational options that you found for people that you're helping?

Hannah Maruyama [00:27:42]:
Coolest ones, most unique ones I've found was someone who generally knew about cybersecurity as an option, but thought they had to go to school for it and ended up with internet of things, automation specialist instead. That one is super niche and also allows them the opportunity to build their own business, which was very cool because this kid that I'm working with is a self starter, hard worker, has sales experience, is going to be successful at whatever he does. And that's something I've actually been talking to some of the parents about as well is telling them, Hey, when you bring me a kid that you've raised in this way, and this is why I have such a problem with colleges, colleges, white label kids that are likely to be successful. And this is the thing This kid is going to be successful because of who his mother raised him to be. That's why he's going to be successful. It is the way that she raised him and the work that he's put in himself. And if he went to a college, the college would say, oh, it was the purchase of our 4 year degree that did that. But no, it's his work ethic and the way he was raised for him.

Hannah Maruyama [00:28:39]:
Just having the direction and having the title that he's going after is helping him immensely. He's still going through the program. So I'm about to create his career curriculum, which is the last step of the program, and give him where he's gonna learn the actual hard skills he needs. But he's now got his plan narrowed down, and he knows where his other skills translate into this field.

Ryan Maruyama [00:28:58]:
So for those people listening, what is an Internet of things automation specialist?

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:03]:
That's a really good question. The Internet of things is how all of the devices that are hooked up to wifi talk to each other. So home automation is becoming something that's really common. It's like your thermostat, your robot vacuum, very cool.

Ryan Maruyama [00:29:22]:
And so for an example, I'm guessing it would be like when you come home and you press the garage door opener that's connected to wifi. It can then turn on your garage light. It can then turn on your living room light. It can turn on your TV and put it to whatever station, whatever Spotify channel that you want. Then you could turn on the blender and start cooking your meal.

Hannah Maruyama [00:29:46]:
It can lower your thermostat.

Ryan Maruyama [00:29:47]:
Right. Lowering your thermostat Now that you're home and then you like it a little cooler, but you don't wanna spend money in the summer. So then it's at 75 and you like it at 69. So you're just like, yeah. Okay. Well, let's move it down because I came home. You're talking about that, right?

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:01]:
There's also a really cool application for people who have disabilities, who can use the automation to make their lives easier. So it's a very interesting field. Very cool. Growing can help elderly and disabled people as well as enable him to grow his own business or get a W2 job, which is super cool.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:15]:
What's interesting about that is I know that the title is very much new Internet of Things and you needed it to be Wi Fi enabled. But I'm thinking back to I don't know if you've ever been in, like, rich people's houses back in, like, early 2000.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:33]:
The blinds.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:35]:
Right. And then they have, like, one universal remote

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:38]:
Yes.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:39]:
That controls everything.

Hannah Maruyama [00:30:40]:
It's that, but it's your phone now.

Ryan Maruyama [00:30:42]:
Right? Exactly. It's the conditionals as well, which makes it automation too. I wonder if it's a new title, a new application of an idea that's been around for a long time. Now that we have the technology for all of this things to talk to each other, and then we have a backend to then handle the actual conditionals of it all, then now that it's like a real career. It was a career before, but now it's advanced much further.

Hannah Maruyama [00:31:09]:
I would say that that's accurate. This is the evolution of that exact thing. The other three that I found that were extremely cool as far as vocational options for different kids that I'm working with. So horology

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:21]:
Excuse you. That's this This is a family program.

Hannah Maruyama [00:31:24]:
No. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Well, it's not now because you're making jokes like that.

Ryan Maruyama [00:31:32]:
Just jokes, folks.

Hannah Maruyama [00:31:33]:
Anyway, folks, watchmakers. Okay. Watchmakers are still a thing. There are specific watchmaker schools where you can go to learn how to make these things work and repair them. So freaking cool. And the person, the individual I found this for is really into Legos, really into like amazing at just putting together, you know, all these complex, and this is such a good fit for her. I was giggling when I found this option, because I was like, this is perfect. She's going to love this.

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:02]:
It's in her target income. It's in her target ability to make money and to work where she wants to live. It's just beautiful. I love it. And I'm so stoked about it. And then another option was a kid who came to me with a goal to make money and did not want to work inside. Those are the criteria. And I'm like, perfect.

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:18]:
That's super fun. Love that. But also didn't necessarily want it to go into a trade like plumbing or electrician, and also had an interest in forensics. So again, fits target income, fits life goals of not wanting to work inside ever and salvage dive school. Again, so freaking cool, but it gets them all as PADI certs. And then also gives him the background to work for a forensics department to do crime scene diving, which is really cool.

Ryan Maruyama [00:32:43]:
Yeah. Those are really cool options, horologist and salvage diver. Let me ask you a question though. With these young adults, would they have found these careers by themselves? Would they have found these paths by themselves?

Hannah Maruyama [00:32:57]:
On the custom career curriculum roadmap review. That is the last call that I do. The last session I do with the teen and young adults that I work with, their parents are on the call And according to every parent I have talked to thus far, they say no, they never would have found these things. They would have never known these things existed. And the other thing is that, especially for those in creative fields too, that's one. So another example is there was a kid I was working with who she ended up in a character design school from this online school called School of Motion, which is like the gold standard for rigging and character design and 3 d animation. These parents are being told that their kids have to go to college in order to learn how to do these things. And they do not.

Hannah Maruyama [00:33:37]:
In fact, some of the best options for those and most accessible are actually online. And the parents, again, even down to the job title, but also down to the educational options I'm giving them, they just go, I never would have known this existed. That's the thing I keep hearing over and over again. And that to me tells me how important what we're doing is. They say that we never would have found this. We would have never known how to even look for this and that we are the only ones doing anything like this.

Ryan Maruyama [00:34:04]:
You're saying something offline about how you found something at this person's school or something like that, that they didn't even know about. Talk to me about that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:34:14]:
Yeah. So one of the things that I've noticed is that parents and students or young adults do not know how to find options around them, like local options. And this story really speaks to this because the parents of this client that I was working with 17 year old girl, she's going into a medical field and and I helped her improve her concept. This is not the student who's going into nursing. This is a different student who's going into, physical therapy. And we found a lower risk way for her to do that and are trying to use her high school time well in order to lower the cost and get her relevant experience before she goes into these fields. So talking to her parents, I said, Hey, I know that I always ask the high school and the County that the client is in because sometimes there's local government programs. There's free money.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:00]:
There's options. There's grants. There's partnerships with local high schools and vo tech programs. There's so much stuff that is just not well publicized. It's not well marketed, and parents are not aware of it sometimes within their own high school. And when I was talking to another parent about this, he asked me, oh, do you want the number to the guidance counselor for the high school? I said, no. Because the guidance counselor is not gonna know. I have to look from the outside in.

Hannah Maruyama [00:35:20]:
I can't look from the inside out because they have a limited ability and just knowledge to look for these things. But this is a good example. 17 year old girl, I got her the name of her high school. And when we were going through a career curriculum, I said, hey, did you guys know that her high school, which actually has one of the best built out, dual enrollment vocational training programs I've seen thus far with these high schools. But I said, Hey, they have a nurse aid program that's covered through her high school. Like she'll graduate with the experience she needs to get an entry level job to start on the career roadmap that I designed for her. And the dad just looked at me and said, I had no idea that that existed. And I was like, wow, that alone was so valuable to us.

Hannah Maruyama [00:36:04]:
That's a good example of why this is such an individual process for these kids. It's so important to go through individual by individual and it is worth spending the time. And that's something I've questioned is like, Oh man, is there a way that we could expand this and make this more accessible? But it really does take the individual time to go through and do this stuff and shoot emails to companies, and ask if they can shadow, and see what opportunities are there in their local area. Because it's very much something that parents don't have a good resource for that. Even people in schools who are supposed to be doing that don't have good resources for either sometimes within the school, the programs that they have aren't even well known among the parents. It's wild, even parents that are looking for them, which I feel like is just a, maybe more of a commentary on school marketing than anything else.

Ryan Maruyama [00:36:49]:
That's amazing that you were able to find a resource that was at this person's high school that they didn't find themselves, which is also a testament like, hey, you need to look at the resources that are available to you. I'm not even just talking about schools. I'm talking about whatever programs or whatever community things that you're involved with.

Hannah Maruyama [00:37:13]:
Yeah. Any programs or government grant money or government funded programs are just terrible at letting people know that they exist. They're just really, really bad at it. There can be stuff that's regional. And that's why it's so hard to teach people to look for it because it can be dependent on your region or your city. Or if there was a crisis in your area recently, sometimes there's other grant money lying around. You just never know where to look for it, which is why everyone has to look individually.

Ryan Maruyama [00:37:35]:
I wasn't even talking about government things. I was just talking about more locally outside of the scope of our own work. We wouldn't do this for you because we don't know where you go. And this is I'm not gonna ask you where do you go grocery shopping or anything like that. But for you at church or if you know people in your community that does x, y, and z, and your child wants get into y, you could ask them, does your company have any resources for people my age that are thinking about getting into the industry? A conversation that I was just recently having with a recruiter, it was in the automotive industry, and what they were saying is that they're having trouble recruiting talent, especially for mechanics. That type of work is very specialized and whatever whatever. What they said is that they have a college intern program and the college intern program, what they're finding is that the results are poor. So the people that come in, like, whether or not they stay, whether or not they're good, whatever metrics they gauge off of poor, they're not good.

Ryan Maruyama [00:38:34]:
What they've doubled down on and what they're doing more of is they're reaching out more to high schools to create high school internship programs to get the direct pipeline of, hey, we can teach you a skill immediately after high school, during high school. And that is the pipeline that they're trying to get to because they have a fully built out college pipeline and vocational schools, community college as well. That's also included. It's a big pipeline they have, but the results are subpar and they're just like, wait a minute. We did a test in a high school market and we found the results are way better. And so we're going to double down on that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:14]:
That reminds me of something. I just saw Tesla gave half a $1,000,000 I think to DeVail High School, which is up near Austin. And they did that. It's a direct training program to funnel to the Gigafactory that's over there. And it's a high school that they went to because of the exact same thing. The automotive industry you're talking about is a totally different company, totally different market than Tesla and then Texas. I just saw that in the news and I noticed that they were doing that and that I believe is why. And it's so funny because you and I said that we said, and we predicted college graduates.

Hannah Maruyama [00:39:50]:
They're going to go around you. And it's literally happening in front of our eyes where the apprenticeship and the on the job training is just going directly around the graduating class. They're like, now we'll just go to the 17 year olds.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:01]:
Yeah. And I think, well, a lot of it has to do as well with people that go to college. They don't see themselves doing that type of work. What's interesting is even though they did that type of work to get the grade or to get the credit for the internship class of which they've taken that class for, if that makes sense. You know what I'm saying?

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:18]:
Yeah. Yeah. I do.

Ryan Maruyama [00:40:19]:
It was good enough for them to get college credit for, but it wasn't good enough for them to, like, do a career for. A lot of it, I'm assuming, has to do with selection bias and then some cost. I mean, I'm going to college. I'm not going to be a mechanic or I'm not going to be a x whatever with my hands. I'm going to college. I'm smart. And then if you look, well, I'm going to college. Why would I then go and do that? Because I'm smart.

Hannah Maruyama [00:40:46]:
It's sunk cost. It's also the debt burden they carry, and maybe it won't pay them enough. But the irony being that many of them, as we just saw with that study, that 1 in 4 college graduates is making less than 30 2 ks a year, 10 years out of school. So the reality is most of them, 1 in 4 of them, 25%, at least of them are going to be making less than they would otherwise than they would otherwise. If they just went through one of those training programs, which is wild. And again, this is where we get people that just write off and say, oh, it's just the trades. It's not just trades folks that they're pulling people. These on the job trainings, not only is there the opportunity once you're in a company to work around in that company and move around and learn trained where they're making more than 25%, at least of college graduates.

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:34]:
If not more than many of the college graduates. It's so interesting to watch people behave in that way when it just doesn't really make any sense, but that's where sunk cost fallacy is really illogical. That's why they continue to buy degrees, even though they don't get the result that they're looking for. Same thing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:41:49]:
I don't want to take up your whole day. I don't think of everybody else's day. That's listening to this, but just to kind of wrap up a little bit, what are some of the parents saying that we work with?

Hannah Maruyama [00:41:57]:
That is one of the more rewarding parts of it too, is just on this final call is seeing the relief and the excitement, the relief at the lack of stress, and now having a laid out plan and also the excitement of the child and then of the parents, because their child is now excited for what they're going to do, as opposed to being overwhelmed and frozen and stressed out. So this is the parents of the high schooler who I found the nurse aid program for her at her high school. It was really cool to just see one, her just stoked. Oh, okay. I'm going to do this, this, this, and this. Awesome. And then her parents also being stoked because they see that she now knows what she's going to do. If this option doesn't work.

Hannah Maruyama [00:42:43]:
Okay. Then we go to this one because we're accounting for all of these things and making sure they have a laid out plan and then option A, option B, option C. So, okay. If this, then this, and if this, then this. And it's amazing to see how bright and how the future opens up to them and how her last year of high school now, she's going to breeze through because she's not stressing about applying and getting into colleges and what FAFSA am I going to and how am I going to she doesn't have to do any of that. It's done already. She's got a plan. Her cost is laughable because of what I found.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:16]:
Her cost is laughably less than what a college degree would cost her in time and in money. And it is amazing because she's going to be able to do what she wants to do in the way that she wants to do it and make the amount of money she wants to make without ever having to deal with any of that stuff that is going to be stressing out the rest of her graduating class. And that seeing her feel that. And then also her parents feel that same relief and that same excitement was really cool. And they just keep telling me the dad was just saying like, you guys are the only ones doing this. There's nothing else like this.

Ryan Maruyama [00:43:50]:
What's crazy is that they weren't the only people to say that.

Hannah Maruyama [00:43:54]:
No. Every single parent so far that has come to our review sessions has said that to me. And it's pretty crazy to hear the exact same phrase come out of all of their mouths. It just tells me that what we're doing matters a lot because nobody else is doing it.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:07]:
Yeah, absolutely. Which is why we're doing it because we see a massive need in the market and we are filling

Hannah Maruyama [00:44:14]:
it. Seeing the amazing result that we're getting from doing that work and creating this process. It's just so freaking cool.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:21]:
Yeah. And from my perspective, and we've talked about this before. I don't know if I've ever said this on air before or not. I think I did in the firefighting episode. I'm pretty sure that I did. But if I haven't, this could be the first time. And but for those, I used to be a firefighter. You can go back and listen to the reason why I stopped doing firefighting.

Ryan Maruyama [00:44:38]:
I'll put all the links to have all the shows that we've mentioned at the show notes degreefree.coforward/podcast. When I was thinking about quitting being a fireman, the reason why I became a fireman at the beginning was purely monetary. It was completely a calculated decision, and I'm very honest about that. It wasn't because I wanted to save people's lives or I wanted to be the notoriety or anything like that. It was because I could work 10 days a month. Granted, those are 10 days that you're, like, working working. So I'm sleeping at the station and I'm not sleeping. And I'm gonna

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:08]:
say you're not sleeping at the station.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:10]:
Right. Woke up

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:11]:
at the station all night.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:12]:
Woke up at the station. People, a few people would be like, oh, you sleep at work. I feel like, no, no,

Hannah Maruyama [00:45:16]:
no, no.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:16]:
Well, I didn't. Some people do, but then I also said, we don't get paid to sleep. We get paid to wake up. It's not even just all night. It's just, yeah, we get paid to wake up. We don't get paid to sleep. That's a differentiator there. Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Ryan Maruyama [00:45:29]:
What I was saying is that I thought I retired by 40, and I said, okay. Well, firefighting would give me a good job so that I could get paid a good amount of money, and then I would have all the time to work on whatever businesses that you and I were gonna work on because by that point, we were already entrepreneurs. We had been for, like, 4 years. We just didn't have the idea yet. We were still trying a bunch of things, and I was like, okay. Well, 10 days a month, I have 20 days off, then I could try other things. And it's a union job, and then after 30 years, I could retire. And, if it all doesn't go to plan, I could just retire and I could take the pension.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:00]:
Okay. That was the idea of going behind it. But then when I actually got into the role, when I actually got into the job, I realized, man, I love helping people. I loved it at my core. Me, I was just talking to one of my friends I was in San Francisco with. We were hiking and we were talking, and he was just like, you miss firefighting? And I was just, every day, man. Like, every single day. He's like, wow.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:23]:
Still? It's like, it's been like 3 years now, every single day of my life. And I wasn't expecting that. Like, I wasn't expecting me to miss it because it was always my goal to retire by 40. So I knew that if I were to hit that goal, I'd probably stop working, but I fell in love with it. I fell in love with helping people. It's addicting to help people. It's going a real big tangent here, so I apologize. But the way that I thought about it, I'll come back to the point in a second was that when people were calling 911, they weren't calling 911.

Ryan Maruyama [00:46:55]:
They had the worst day of their life. Something's happening. Their grandmother's dying. Their house is on fire. They just got into an auto accident. They're stuck in a car, whatever it may be. You're having the worst day of your life and you're not really calling 911. You're calling me.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:09]:
That's how it ended up becoming. It was my duty to show up and get you out of your situation, to bring order to chaos, whatever chaos is happening in your life at that time. And so I remember the conversation that you and I have had very vividly about quitting and about deciding to do something else. And I told you, and I said, look, I'm on board with it. I I think it's going to be a huge shot to my life and share a little bit to my ego. I mean, a lot to my ego probably. And it was, but the thing that is absolutely necessary is that we have to help people. We have to help people in some material way that we, we can see lives being changed because that is what I'm giving up.

Ryan Maruyama [00:47:51]:
I'm giving up helping people. I'm not some selfless Saint or anything like that. Like, not that I don't care about you listening to this or anything like that. And I obviously do, but, or

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:00]:
you would be doing

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:00]:
it. Right. Right. I obviously do. It sounds so selfish because it is. I like to help people because it makes me feel good. I'm selfish. It makes me feel good to do that, you know? And if we can all make it a little bit of money on the along the way, that's amazing.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:13]:
It's not like when I was a fireman, it's not like I didn't get paid. Even though I didn't need the job, I mean, you know, you were there.

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:18]:
Yeah. We were running the business that was very successful.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:21]:
Right. Exactly. I I didn't need the money if, in fact, being a firefighter stopped me from making even more money.

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:26]:
Right. Right.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:26]:
But it's not like I didn't take the money even though I didn't need it. You know what I mean? I still took the money. Yeah. I'm not a saint.

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:31]:
Yeah. You

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:32]:
know, but the helping people was incredibly necessary in everything that we do going forward and because it materially changed my life. And so it's important for me going forward to materially change other people's lives. And this work that we're doing is changing people's lives. It's changing the trajectory.

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:54]:
Of their entire lives.

Ryan Maruyama [00:48:56]:
Of their entire life.

Hannah Maruyama [00:48:57]:
Yep. But just watching their lives open up is it's an honor. It's a privilege. It's so unbelievably important and watching the 1 on 1 attention and the care and attention to detail for each one of them. That's what they really need. That's what they need. And it's becoming obvious that that's what they need because of the result that they're getting out of going through the program. I keep using the word so freaking cool, but it's so freaking cool.

Hannah Maruyama [00:49:22]:
And I'm having the time of my life doing it with these kids. It's just super fun. And I realize now after talking about this, we should probably tell you where you can sign up for this because people are going to ask us. So if you're the parent of a 16 to 20 year old, or, you know, the parents of a 16 to 20 year old who is struggling with being pushed off the college cliff, their kid feels like they have to go, or if they just don't know what to do after high school, or if they have a bunch of options and they're not sure which one's right, or if they don't know what they want to do. That's all of the, the demographics that I'm working with. It helps all of them because it's designed to take their individual needs and their individual wants and their individual goals into account and help them open their world up and then narrow it back down to get an actual plan of what they're going to do and where they're going to learn it. But if you fit any of that parent of 16 to 20 year old, or, you know, the parents of 16 to 20 year olds facing this decision, degreefree.co/launch. And that is how you apply for the program.

Hannah Maruyama [00:50:16]:
The way that works is if you send in an application for the program, then I will jump on a call with you, meet you, meet your child, talk over what you've tried, where their head's at, make sure that this would be a good fit for them. And then we go ahead and go over the program specifics, how it works, all the reports, all that kind of stuff. And that is how it works. So if you want to do that, or you know somebody who could really benefit from it, degreefree.c0forward/launch, and I look forward to meeting

Ryan Maruyama [00:50:42]:
you. Yeah. And I'll put links to everything that we talked about at the show notes, degreefree.c04/podcast so that you can go and just click links there. It's a little bit easier. YouTube, all the links are in the bottom of the video. But, yeah, once again, if you're a parent of 16 to 20 year old or you know parents of 16 to 20 year old, degree free dot c04 slash launch, or you can just send them, share this episode with them so that they can see what the program's about and see what we're up to and see if this is a good fit. And like Hannah said, if you have any questions or anything, I definitely suggest signing up and applying. That's the best way to do it because you're at the end of the application, you're going to set up a meeting with 1 of us, and we will walk you through what it is, the goals of your child, and then

Hannah Maruyama [00:51:25]:
Specific needs too.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:26]:
Specific needs, and then more about the program and answer any questions that you have. So if you have questions, the best thing that I suggest you do is to just go there and apply for the program. Once again, before we leave, if you have any questions, go to ask.degreefree.c04/question. You You can ask your questions there. We have a lot of great episodes coming up. I have a lot to talk about from my trip to San Francisco. I have a lot to talk about with future guests. You and I have a lot to talk about.

Ryan Maruyama [00:51:59]:
We have our kanban board for this thing is huge, and we have a lot of things that we wanted to talk about, headlines in the news and other things that we've been up to. Definitely subscribe, everybody. I don't ask for it very often or maybe in the ad that I do that's, like, 6 months old that I have to, like, make a new ad for, but I'm just, like, lazy. And once again, we don't make any money off of this. So, yeah.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:20]:
Just That was a great ad.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:21]:
Yeah. Just truth telling.

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:22]:
That and stuff.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:23]:
Just truth just truth telling here. And so subscribe, make sure that you get the notifications every week when these come out. We have an amazing, amazing lineup coming for you folks. And I think that's it for this week. And we got anything else?

Hannah Maruyama [00:52:39]:
That's all for me.

Ryan Maruyama [00:52:40]:
Awesome. Until next week, guys. Aloha.