How To Be Successful Without A College Degree With Mitchell Earl

 Thinking about preparing for your kid's future in terms of tools is a very bad way to go about planning. Instead, a better way to think about it is like how can I create an opportunity for them in the future? How can I create this opportunity fund? Don't try to pigeonhole this opportunity fund into a specific tool. There are tons of different financial vehicles out there. All right, everybody. One of my favorite episodes upcoming right here, Mitchell Earl. Welcome to the show. So many things that we can talk about. I want you to give just a recap on who you are again, praxis, how you're destroying the college education traditional system. And yes, I'm very proud of having you on because I think there's a lot of things we can talk there. We're also just going to talk about why 529 plans can be a ripoff and a bad idea. And we're just going to chat. You're one of my favorite people to talk to. So thanks for coming on the show for a second time. Yeah, I'm always excited to catch up with you. And it's a pleasure to be on the show since I'm probably one of your top listeners on Spotify. I'll let you know when my Spotify rap drops later this year. But to give you kind of the background, COO, a company called praxis. It's a year long apprenticeship program for entrepreneurial young adults who want something more than the traditional college experience. We are literally brick by brick trying to pull down the establishment and not really, I could say that kind of tongue in cheek. But there are so many young adults that they want something more. They don't want to be in debt up to their eyeballs till they're in their fifties. They want sort of that optionality and control over their fate and future. And that is very much sort of the idea behind praxis is like, what's the most practical way to go break out into the real world and get started strong. And so I get to have a lot of fun talking about the ideas we're going to talk about today too. Like with young adults and their families is they're trying to evaluate that decision. And you know, a big part of what you guys talk about all the time is like being more intentional about going and building their lives and careers. It's interesting. We talk a lot about efficiency and I see college just like everything else is a decision. There's a decision with different opportunity costs tied to it. And one of my the lens that I see the world through is like, OK, if you want acts, what is the best way, the most efficient way looking at your time, your resources and other aspects of your life to get that. And I mean, I think the last time we chatted, I mean, the college is for some people and like you guys aren't trying to say like you're the cult alternative for 100% of people. But I think we we can take a look at just the system. You look at the inflationary, which actually isn't college now on the same level as inflation like every year upon year. And so and you look at that and say, OK, OK, that doesn't make a ton of sense. And there's reasons for that, i.e. the government loaning money and allowing, you know, colleges to just jack up their prices. But then what are the real results people are getting? And that's what I look at it through. I'm not emotional about the college experience. It's like you're you're sacrificing four or five and sometimes six years of your life. And are you getting a it's got to be a crazy rate of return when you fact in time. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And so it's something that I think surprises people when I say this sometimes. I actually think like student debt can be one of the most efficient ways to finance your college education. Now, I say that with a big caveat like one, you better know what you want to get out of college and that thing you want to get better be sufficient to cover the debt, the opportunity costs, not just financial opportunity costs, but the opportunity cost of your time, your foregone earnings, your foregone experience, all of those different things that you could go do instead sort of all at once. But more importantly than just sort of the debt factor is one of the things that I think is dangerous about student debt, even for the people who know what they want to do. And so let's talk about like your typical STEM path doctors, lawyers, accountants. So there's there's kind of two problems here with with most of these one, you're not just going to stop at a bachelor's degree. Most most of these career paths where higher education makes sense. You have to continue up to a point that that's probably on the low side, you're probably like 150 to $200,000 in student debt. So like you need to make a lot of money in order to carry that cost. So there's there's that aspect. But number two, it forces plan lock. And when I say plan lock, what I mean is like, the more debt you take on and the more debt you take on, the more debt you take on, the more debt you take on. And the more time you invest in this, there's sort of this like mounting pressure to that the plan works out and that you don't get bored with the plan. You don't just like drop out of your second year of medical school with $250,000. And you're like, well, now I'm ready to go figure out what I want to do with my life because it's not be a doctor. It's like, well, now you have $250,000 of bad debt. It could be good debt if you're actually capturing those higher earnings. But in the instances where you don't actually fulfill sort of the path that you started on, which can be, you know, in some cases for, you know, specialized doctors, it could be 15 years before you start capturing those earnings that actually justify this debt burden. It's very unlikely that at age 17 or 18, you know what you want to do at age 33. So every year you you know, you're going to be able to do that. Every year you you better be buying in more to sort of this plan that you start down if that's the route you want to take. And that's that's sort of the that's sort of the un unmarketed dangers to the average like young achiever like myself who I felt I kind of felt pushed down that path because I had good grades and I was, you know, ambitious and, you know, ambitious kids go on to become doctors and lawyers and accountants and finance people and like sort of all these plans that sort of kind of creates this like self perpetuating narrative about college and the value and like the necessity of student debt and anyway, there's there's millions of rabbit trails we could go down there but all in all if you're not going to be smart about the debt or you don't know what you want to get out of it or it's not it doesn't have a high enough return like just don't do it. It's not the most efficient way. We should create a plan lock calculator. And I think there's there's a video that could be built around that whole concept because I love that and even even if you're ambitious, like what what's the value of potentially taking a gap year and trying something different and you're saying like you're not going to regret spending a year doing an internship learning all these things it's like it's not like what's the worst thing that can happen, you know, and you might just be better prepared for the college experience. But for some people, they're going to realize like, Oh, I don't actually want to do this and thank goodness. I didn't spend 15 years my life and and feel obligated obligated for the rest of my life to do this thing that I'm making a decision really it's not even 18 it's 16. And so it's like it is it is crazy I I actually know someone that dropped out of med school, and, and they had zero regrets but they're still paying the consequences of that they're happier. But I think if they were listening to this right now they would be nodding their head. And so I think that's a good fit my brother's actually a good example of he took a gap year went and did a lot of like mission opportunities. He came back realize that college was just not a good good fit went the tech route and then is ultimately a an instructor in the in the and so that's a air force he's probably going to kill me. Sorry. But like so that is the that's the whole like, that's beautiful. And and and he didn't know at 18 that that's what you want to do but time around quality people allowed him to be in a situation to make a better decision. Yeah, absolutely. And that's so that's one of the sort of like the methods to the madness that I talked to a lot of young adults about is like, you know, if you don't know what you want to do one of the first things you should aim at is clarity. And this is true not just for you in your life after high school but this is sort of like every area of your life. If you don't know like gather some information review it try and make a plan. Just go get started. You know, don't don't sit there and dawdle and not take action because that's that's actually in many cases a worse decision but just go try some stuff. And if you can validate things that make you want to continue exploring that path and to invalidate things that you absolutely can't stand. Like your goal is clarity. Try some stuff, cross some options off and then refocus but but don't don't commit to a plan that has a cost that you can't reverse if you change your mind. That's the dangerous part. I love it. I love it. So many so many things that I want to ask you but where do you see college going in the next three to five years. Do you believe that kids that are being born this year are going to even do college or what what shifts do you see happening in the big grand scheme of thing as it relates to the college higher education higher education. Yeah, that's a really fun question because I think that this will be a fun reflection is fun thing to reflect on in like five years and 10 years as this plays out and every year I kind of make my predictions about what's going to happen and I see a few different things happening. So one interesting observation is there are just so many different smart people and I'll pat myself on the back on this I guess but like there's so many different smart people like tackling this problem higher education and the way people pay for education and sort of that whole path of and it's not just college it's also like everything about how you raise young adults and prepare them for the real world so that's K through 12 it's you know there's tons of things going on about like school vouchers and things and homeschooling and so sort of like education all across the board is is under investigation people are starting to question is there a better way are there alternatives that we should that we should implement and so that's that's the most exciting part is there's all this different sort of chaos going around and a lot of people trying to innovate. Not just the actual education but the financing to so I think in the next decade we're going to see a lot of different options. That's the most exciting sort of prediction I'm making is sort of this this marketplace of different options as opposed to you know right now most kids if you're not homeschooled most kids go to private school or public school and then after that you go to college or you go to trades or you're a loser. That's like the narrative that's not what I believe I think there are already cool things you can do instead but that's sort of the narrative. I think I've already started to see this in the work we do more and more people are just they're not buying into that narrative anymore right so as far as college goes I wouldn't be surprised if there's some contraction. So colleges that have a history of being a lower signal lower quality signal on the job market especially ones that have high prices so think of your like think of your like bottom tier quality expensive private schools. Yeah they're probably going to not there's probably not going to be as many of them in the next five to ten years. I could see there being more universities as well. I could see like sort of the market expanding and and there being a lot more options and sort of this race to the bottom in pricing just to respond to you know consumer demand and also like declining enrollment numbers. I think that if the government decides to step in and burden all of us taxpayers with everyone's student debt bill that could also spur on some radical change it could accelerate a trend. And then I think at the top of the market like college is going to get more expensive for like a select group of Ivy League and right schools that have a clear path to a not not to a job but to a specific sort of status tier. Yeah like they're going to continue to go up and there's a person that he's slipping my name but I want to get on the podcast and he does college like ROI different schools and he it's interesting because like if you can get into Harvard. It's actually you could you could argue that that's a great rate of return versus what you said like you you pay just the same amount of price for a no name school that's super expensive. Yeah yeah good good luck trying to make that rate of return. Yeah a lot of a lot of things you said are like I 100% agree. Do you see the government bailing out student debt like I had that even Biden didn't like didn't do that and you'd think that would he with his kind of agendas that would be something that he would want to pursue. I honestly and the probably least qualified person on the planet to make predictions about what the government does. I don't watch the news. I try to avoid it all together and I just assume the worst possible worst case scenario thing is going to happen and and I try to plan for that. You know like especially as you look at the world right now we're like in this period of hyperinflation that's you know depending on what source you look at it's it could be like two digits different. I think that if college you know if student debt is forgiven that's and that's that's the solution we don't stop lending we just forgive this tranche of loans that's a really bad outcome like you're not solving the problem you're you're just you know shirking responsibility from these you know this subset of borrowers that's not a good solution. If they don't forgive it. I imagine this issue just continues to come up especially if there there is not if something isn't done to curb increasing tuition and more and more student borrowers taking on five to six figures of debt to go pursue majors and paths that just do not economically make sense. Hundred percent that that's actually probably the riskiest path when you think about it as sort of this macroeconomic scale now we're just creating all these debtors and that's you know that that's a very. That's not a society I want to live in. No no and you and you goes back to your concept of plan lock even let's take doctor out of it. You just go to a regular school you find yourself sixty thousand dollars in debt and now now you can't fall like you can't follow your quote unquote dreams because it's interesting it's like I kind of make fun of the art degree but if you love art there's actually like it's two thousand twenty two. Like there's a ton of ways to make money and like I find myself wishing I knew more artists because I've been an entrepreneur like I could use your help so hit me up but it's like but if you're already strapped you're not able to make money. You can potentially take that risk or say yes to that job that's like has potential and because you are already locked in you got to pay pay that and so it's just it is it's very interesting and I think we could speculate and talk all day long. Is there any is there any final thoughts that you have around college before we shift to like the five twenty nine plan and how people are saving for college. Yeah so kind of my final thought here is you know what I what we're building a practice kind of represents this idea manifested in a different way is that. I honestly believe this idea that you're coming out of high school and you go directly into college especially in a world today where technology is completely upended most sectors and continue to do this like it's a bad. It's a bad sequence of events that we have come to accept is sort of the normal route people take right. We'll put the argument on the shelf whether college is good or bad or effective or not for a second. The fact that people are delaying experience and going out and trying different things and exposing themselves to this just like incredibly vast marketplace of opportunities and ideas that's the dangerous thing. And I think that you know more people you know they didn't the accepted path was that you know for your first four years out of out of high school you just go try stuff you get work experience you save some money you do that. And then you know that's when people start you know start to go to college or do some other things like that. That's a wildly different. That's a wildly different outcome I think and I think fewer people that probably wouldn't have wanted to go to college. Fewer people go fewer people go into student debt. I think there will be some correction in that and just like the percentage of people that just like default that that's the route you take and that's that's what makes me hopeful. And the one thing that the one thing that can change in a heartbeat is if big companies change their requirements and start and by the way capitalism like hire the best person. Absolutely it shouldn't be something that we should try to convince you and the market will I think ultimately correct if it's given the right time get I want to break down a concept I've been thinking a lot about it's called value leveraging. It's my whole belief that create value and amplify that value and you'll make money but what is value well it really comes down to either a service or a product. It's like it's like what is the it's just that it's that simple as you have an input and you can create a service or a product when you think about creating work you know we're now in service standpoint because I mean entrepreneurs can create products but at the end of the day majority of people make money via service and it's either working somewhere or running a company that has leverage I. People that are a part of that company that create a service but but a lot of times when people say like what is like my job is valuable kind of stuff it's like it's I'm not talking about you as a human being but there's a difference like a heart surgeon is going to get paid a little bit different than a car mechanic and that's probably a bad example because you could be an entrepreneurial car mechanic and do well but like for sure the idea is not all services are valued the same. Is nothing to do with you it has everything to do with what the market is willing to pay for that the same thing goes. With your skill set and why you're even doing college to begin with is what what values what are what are you going to be creating in value to give to someone an employer a partnership and opportunity and you will ultimately get compensated. For the value that you bring to that that company and so it's the perception of value and so it we just have to be in that mindset of like it's not a it's not a piece of paper that's an insurance policy it's a how can I create value because if you can be of value to society and that can be marketed well. You're going to be in a really really good place and so that's the mindset if college praxis going and working for free for two years regardless of what that activity looks like if you can put yourself in a position to have that value and understand that that's how you're going to get paid. Like hopefully some lightball moments can come off and that's that's one thing I know about you you've you've had this in your mind for years and that's essentially what praxis is it's a better investment for for the time bang for your buck and for the opportunities. For a lot of people going based on the value creation. Yeah you you literally took you know words words that I've said right out of my mouth is I tell people this all the time it's all that matters when you go out in the market is it's your ability to create value and number two your ability to convince other people of value you create. If you could do those two things you're gonna have no problems you're gonna have more money and more opportunity than you could ever dream of but you have to have both you can't have just one. You gotta have both and that's a wildly different way of thinking about sort of how do I quit my equip myself for life. Yeah then you know I'll go to college because a degree will give me that signal that signal that signal does not mean what it used to. And what's cool is it comes full circle because that perception of value. There was a day that having a college degree and there's still for a lot of people it still is that perception of value gets your your foot in the door but it's 2022 or whenever you're listening to this like some things have changed and if you have a skill there's so many it's easier to get in front of the right people now than it was 30 years ago. Absolutely. Dude this fires me up I think every time we chat I like hint that you know if you need an extra investor in your business. Like I literally think do you count because I think every time I'm not even subtle anymore I'm like hey by the way if you need another partner let me know. I just love the business model and love what you guys are up to. Let's talk about five twenty nine plans and five five twenty nine plans are I mean you can break it down if you'd like it's it's a way to save money saving for college. It has a lot of restrictions and it's great if your kid is going to go to college which is awesome. But the way that it's funded the way that it grows taking that money out and never able to work for you ever again. And oh by the way if you don't go to college then you lose a lot of tax benefits and it becomes a really negative scenario. You hit me up the other day it was just a while ago and you're like hey we should wrap on this. Yeah and I couldn't agree more so I'll let you kind of break down your thoughts because you think a lot of a lot of the same thoughts as it relates to money and economics. Yeah for sure and I remember you know one of my first jobs at a college like I was I was working in financial advising. I remember like going through all the rigmarole like you've got all these financial products and I remember being told how great five five twenty nine savings plans are and like this is part of your balanced breakfast as a you know somebody building your financial portfolio. You've got to have this five twenty nine plan and you know I didn't think much about it at the time especially as somebody who had just come out of college and I had no student debt because I paid for college with scholarships so I didn't think about it much then. But then as I got older you know and especially now what we're doing I encountered more and more people who their parents were sold this you know I'll say it because it's this show this false bill of goods with five twenty nine plan. They could be effective in some certain circumstances and this goes back to what I was saying about plan lock earlier like five twenty nine plans my most negative take my biggest sort of contention with them is this idea of plan lock and it's not you locking yourself into a plan. It's you locking your kids into a plan and and you know it doesn't have to necessarily be used for college sort of five twenty nine plan in general is a is a special education savings vehicle it allows you to make after tax contributions into a plan those contributions grow tax free. But the caveat is if you use the gain for anything that is not deemed by the federal government or the state government that governs your plan as a qualified education expense not only are you going to be taxed on that gain you will also be hit with a ten percent penalty. So that that part is what freaks people out about five twenty nine plans they think it's great because OK you know especially with rising tuition costs over the past twenty to thirty years parents are like OK I need to outpace the increase in tuition how am I going to do that well I'm going to make contributions to this this plan. That grows tax free hoping that you know we're going to have this amount of money you know Bobby and Susie can go to they can go to college for free because mom and dad have already taken care of it it's going to be fine. What they don't account for is hey maybe my kids don't want to go to college or maybe my kids want to go do something maybe they want to go travel the world as as their education so my first kind of point here that I make is that. Thinking about preparing your you know preparing for your kids future in terms of tools is a very bad way to go about planning instead a better way to think about it is like how can I create a an opportunity for them in the future how can I create this opportunity fund. Don't try to pigeonhole this opportunity fund into a specific tool there are tons of different financial vehicles out there and I think when you're when you're betting on an uncertain future especially from a finance financial standpoint you absolutely don't want to pigeonhole yourself you want to have control you want to have optionality you want to have liquidity there are things that are sort of like inherent to making this blind bet on an unknown future for your kids. That's that's point number one. Love it dude I 100% yep. Point number two and this is the part where you know for your listeners who already have 529 plans and for you know people who even advisors who sell these things all the time. Very few people know about this aspect of it because your contributions to a 529 plan are made with after tax dollars. You can use your contributions any way you want with no penalties no taxes you can take up to your total basis so you put $10,000 in it grows to $20,000 you can take $10,000 out you can use it for whatever you want there's no taxes there's no penalties obviously not a CPA I'm not a tax attorney like go go consult you know your plan administrator go talk to somebody about this make sure you're doing good record keeping but you have more credit than you have to pay for your taxes. I think that's the control that I think is perceived and I think that's by design to that. You feel locked into this plan like people don't you know the same thing with like qualified retirement plans is you want to sort of create this perception that those dollars are walked in forever there's no way out. And even if you want to liquidate the complete plan like you can do that there's a cost to it there's you know taxes or a penalty or as I like to think about it there's a fee for doing it but you're not paying taxes and the 10% on the the whole number it's just the game just the game. Yeah, that's that that right there. Not everyone knows. So, most people do not know that and again like I've been doing this for a long time and I had to take a refresher crash course to remind myself about this and that's such a critical distinction. You know it is important to me because I don't I run a program that is not a college and we don't want to be an accredited organization I think college is a bad product I want to create something better. But I also you know I recognize that there's a cost if a family has been making contributions to this plan and a young adult wants to go pursue something that's not an accredited expense I think families they sit down and they rethink the calculus they're like hey I I have these plant these dollars their earmark for college and I can't pull them out to go finance my kids you know education even if that's not college I can't help them. These dollars can only be used for college and that's not true. You can pull them out and you can you know you can set your kid up for success. You know go talk to your professional about this don't just don't just write off that you can't use the funds like it's your money use it when you need it as a commercial say. Right. 100% and there's intention because how many people potentially listening or watching this are literally think that's like dead money because one of the things I love how they they they pitch it is like if you don't go to college your children can go to college and stuff. What does that what does that literally say or like you could pass it on it's like no if grandma set up a account for me that's my money man like I'm not I'm not giving it to my other cousin that's going on to higher education. But what what you're saying is like it's not as bad as we we think about it and you wonder why Wall Street and a lot of these people kind of share like share that because they want as much money kept in their control so they don't want you to cash out the money by the way financial advisors don't want you to cash out that money because that's less. Absolutely. That's for them to control so it's it's one of those things where what what we're saying this is not financial advice if you're going to sue anyone sue Mitchell don't sue me okay he's the one speaking but like literally we're just trying to get you start thinking differently. Yeah. And we're saying if you do have a 529 plan. Yeah it's not super ideal on taxes and 10% penalty like if you had to go back. Like over you could do it differently but remember we're like talking on the game. So it's just like so it's like we have to perspective and what is the opportunity cost of just keeping your money dead and account that you really can't touch versus investing potentially in your early years in your life that create a massive opportunity to take you to the next level. Yeah and so. There's one more insidious point I have to make and this is this is this is. This is pure evil in my mind on a certain way that this is set up. So if you have a 529 plan. Or grandma has set up a 529 plan or maybe your parents and your grandparents did you're going to college you are applying for financial aid at an institution. Your ability to pay tuition is factored into that decision about financial aid. Your ability to pay. So they're not looking like if you have that 529 plan you have a higher ability to pay than the other person who have to report it. You have to report that you have to you have to go and and again this may vary by colleges but a lot of colleges financial aid offices they are now evaluating that so like literally your parents maybe they were scrimping and saving and they they're like not really well off but they you know putting you through college was a priority to them. And so they they put this nest egg aside or maybe grain parents or whatever. And now you are a less likely to be qualified for maximum financial aid because you have that asset. I think that's kind of crazy. Like first of all I think that there's an argument to be made this probably like merit based financial aid. There's some kind of like different calculus that should be applied to that in general but I think that that's that's another thing that you need to factor into your plan. If college is the plan. Especially if you know that his parents like hey I know my my kid at one years old he's going to go to college for sure so I'm going to plan for this like factor this in. Yeah like there you know you were talking about efficiency earlier this has a dramatic impact on your you know your son or daughter's ability to go get financial aid and university based scholarships things like that like you might want to factor that in. That's something you want to know. Not that this shows all about pitching our services but funny you don't have to report life insurance. No you don't. Which is which is insane to me and a strategy that some people do is they'll intentionally do a one lump sum Mac because it's like this how crazy it is like you have a million dollars in the savings account you put it you make a contract which is almost dollar for dollar in a policy. Now you don't have to report that and you're saying that if your money's in a 529 plan which is you're doing all the right things for college that that has to be reported which I think it pure evil is this is a definitely a word that you've used but it's a it doesn't make sense and it's like sets you up for for less less efficiency because you take that same person and one person gets a way better access cheaper access to college than than the other and it just shouldn't be that way. Yeah for sure and I'm glad you brought the life insurance thing up to like because when you think about you know like like dividend paying whole life whole life insurance. You think about like products like real estate and you think about student loans and like there's there's probably this model and I've tinkered with this some of like absolute maximum efficiency for financing college and it's it doesn't have to necessarily be these products but I like these products where you are funding a life insurance policy as a way to buy real estate. Repay those those policy loans buy more real estate and pay those policy loans and do that for the you know for the first 18 years of your kids life and then if they want to go to college now you've got you've got this asset plus you've got cash flowing assets in addition to that and now if they want to go take out student loans like you have created such an incredible efficiency for them that also gave them complete optionality they didn't have to go to college. There are way more efficient ways to do this then dumping it into a tool that is earmarked for sort of this subset of options. It's it's funny because optionality is like a great word and if you are going to college and that's like what you're going to do and you can get cheap money from student loan. Take it even if you have access to money or have cash like it's the opportunity cost because it's like are you really in debt if you could pay that off I would say no you're just creating more options. But you're totally right a lot of people are not in the space where they're choosing their they're they have to make a decision and as a result they might make a less favorable decision for them. So man I love this do you have any other points you want to make on 529 plan. I think I've spoken my I've spoken my truth here. Yeah so I mean number one the opportunity like fund lack of control like just the overall with the talking point that that I do a lot of times you know you're not going to be able to make a decision. You mentioned about 529 plan it's like it brutal right but then the other the other thing is number two don't buy into the lie that all that money is locked up and you're going to get penalized 10% on the whole thing and taxes it's like. No it's like really in the grand scheme of things it's not ideal but we're we're we're talking about gain here and so let's just get your money back that's you know that's that's on the table and so don't feel like you're locked into. Doing something because grandma funded it and her whole dream was for you to go to college and then the third the third deal is financial aid you could actually be putting yourself back potentially because this is an asset that you need to report. And there's so many other strategies if you're going to go to college make sure to work with someone to take a look at your situation because it can make a massive difference on how you pay for things in the efficiency there. But I think the overall picture is just taking a step back and asking the question like give yourself options. It's interesting you write about this a lot on Facebook I don't know if you take friend request but I love following just how you thought processes and you talk a lot about options and control. And there's there's a value there's a rate of return that we need to put on having more control and an unknown future versus less control. Absolutely yeah no it's it's it's something I think just people discount their own control and optionality their agency over their life in the first place and I think buying into this sort of this narrative that there's this there's this preset. Conventional path and that's the only way you can take and there aren't there aren't allowable deviations from that path it discounts your power to turn your life into what you want it to become. It's just not true. And this is why I love having conversations like this like it's all about you know reclaiming that agency and exploring your options and taking more control and you know making your life a little bit more of what you want it to be in a little bit less of what you don't want it to be. Yeah yeah I I'm looking forward to this because every time we get to chat it's going to give a parent a grandparent or someone in the college age. A little bit more ammo to potentially do what they want to do or have another conversation so make sure to live intentionally and have lean into tough conversations because going back to my new favorite word plan lock which is two words is is like yeah let's let's let's think about that think about with the end in my life. I'm not going to be too much of a mind because early on like our early years are way more valuable than our later years from a economic standpoint and so you can't even measure your life on a year to year because a 61 year old is different than a 21 year old. Not I'm not again this is don't take this personally but from an economic value totally different. And so just know that early on we really really have to think really critically about what we do. Absolutely. So how can people plug into what you're doing support what you're up to and if they have somebody maybe you're listening to this and you're like I want to learn more about practice how do they how do they just take the next step. Yeah for sure so if you've got just general questions hit me up over email Mitchell at discover praxis.com if you're genuinely interested in learning more about not only practice and our apprenticeship but sort of this idea of how do I go break into the real world without college how do I succeed and build a more interesting intentional future without sort of taking the traditional conveyor belt. We've got an awesome email guide and series available discover praxis.com slash better wealth. You can check it out there and always happy to field questions. Amazing man. I am someday I might have an opportunity to be a partner but until then I'll be your ultimate ambassador and we're on we're on the same mission helping people be more intentional so appreciate it man. Always man it's been a pleasure. I want to thank you for watching till the end if you enjoy our content please like share subscribe it helps other people find our channel and we really really appreciate it. I also want to let you know that we have this thing called the better wealth efficiency quiz and our goal is to give you a wealth efficiency score in less than three minutes and really highlight and get you to start thinking about the potential inefficiencies that you have in your life so you haven't taken the quiz. Go check out it'll be the link below check that link out take the quiz and then let us know your score.