The College Lie: Why a Degree Isn't the Price of Success

Speaker 1 ? 00:00

So you were probably told that uh like a lot of people that college is the price of success. Well, my guest today never paid it, and he has spent 20 plus years proving that belief wrong. And that's what we're going to get into today. So welcome to the Real Jason Duncan podcast. I am your host, Jason Duncan, and every guest on this show is here for one reason. They used to believe something that turned out to be wrong. And some of them figure it out on their own and some of them had to get knocked flat first. But either way, by the time they sit in this chair across the internet on that microphone, they now know the difference between what's real And what is it? Because the most dangerous and damaging lies that you carry are the ones that you're most certain about. And the ones nobody ever questioned in front of you, the ones that look like success or or look like virtue or look like the obvious way the world works. That's what this show is about. The gold is the lie. And every conversation we have here is about finding it. So the lie that my guest believed that we're going to be talking about today is one that Uh it's one of the most universally distributed lies in the world. Parents repeat it, high school counselors enforce it, every campus brochure. is built on it. It has been running so long and so loud that questioning it questioning it still feels uh irresponsible for most people, but not here on this show. They say things like uh go to college. That's where success comes from. Or without college, you're starting behind. And here's what that belief actually does. It hands the definition of readiness over to an institution. And it says Someone else gets to decide when you're qualified. It teaches people to wait for permission they already have. The cage looks like opportunity. It's handed to you by people you love. And who mean well, and that's what makes it golden. So my guest today walked out of that cage, then he spent twenty years building things that made the cage look absurd. So let me tell you who the guest is. My guest founded Nashville K-9 in 2005. He's been recognized by Bloomberg as one of the world's greatest canine training facilities. He's built ten companies, maybe more than that. I will have to ask him for sure, but built a bunch of companies across multiple industries. And he's authored two books, including The Success Code, his most recent one. He's the only civilian in the state of Tennessee to complete a police-mandated SWAT canine school recognized by the National Tactical Officers Association. He commands canine units for multiple police departments. As a volunteer, by the way, he doesn't get paid by the he doesn't take a paycheck for them. Uh and his TEDx talk hit forty-two thousand views in just two weeks. He flies helicopters, he flies airplanes, he competes in triathlons, he raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for make-a-wish. His name is Ali Hemyari. Ali, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 ? 03:03

Thanks. Thank you, Jason. Thanks for having me. It's always an honor and a pleasure to be one of your guests.

Speaker 1 ? 03:08

Well, uh, you've been on the show before. I think you were back uh at I can't remember what episode number you're on, but you've been on before a couple of times actually. Um we're we met through some um through some organizations here in Nashville and You've been an impressive, impressive man ever since uh I've met you. And uh, you know, before we get rolling into what we what we're gonna get into, I t I told the people listening that you came to this show ready to talk about a lie that you used to believe And that lies that going to college is what makes you successful. And you built uh t is it ten companies? How many companies have you built

Speaker 2 ? 03:45

Well, uh right now we're managing 10, um, but well over 10. I don't know, probably over the years, probably close to 20 at this point, but currently it's ten

Speaker 1 ? 03:57

So you've got these multiple companies that you've started. Um you've commanded law enforcement units, you've built, you've been on a TEDx stage, and and none of that, none of that required a college degree. So I want to start right there. Where did this belief come from for you about college is not necessary? And how did it go or how deep did it go before you started questioning it?

Speaker 2 ? 04:22

No, growing up, I think, as a child of the eighties, nineties and in in college in late nineties, early two thousands. It was just the next step. So you graduate high school and that's that's what you have to do. And it's a spicy one to investigate right now because There are some professions that require that type of education, both undergrad undergraduate and then advancing from there, such as medicine. practicing law you know, practicing law, architecture. So there there are certain professions that have that requirement and it makes sense But for everybody else, I don't buy it. And and I'm an educated man giving you this testimony. Uh I think that There are really driven people that will end up stifling that drive by remaining in educational institutions. that ultimately from my perspective now create laborers. And so if you want to be a laborer in the workforce, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to be a an entrepreneur, there aren't that many universities that offer really intentional entrepreneurial programs. They are now, maybe they are advancing through it now. But when we were growing up, you and I were growing up, that didn't really exist.

Speaker 1 ? 05:47

Yeah. I as a matter of fact, I had uh one one of the employees I remember having years ago. uh had graduated from I think it was Belmont, which is a local private university here in the Nashville area. Actually a really good university by the way, with a d with a master's in entrepreneurship. And out of all the people that work for me, he was the least entrepreneurial of everybody. That wasn't mean he was a great employee. Yeah. But if in terms of taking risk entrepreneurially, So I think you're I think you're onto something. I think that there are certain um fields that require a higher level of education. I think for the most part all of us would agree that if we're going in for brain surgery. We want that person to have gone through a lot of school. We want them to know what what they're doing. But but if we're trying to get our HVAC unit repaired or we want to get our dog trained or we want to, you know E even we want to get on an airplane with some bu pilot who is who is really skilled, none of that requires someone to have gone to advanced degrees and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a plaques hanging on a wall. Now I'm looking here in my office. I've got my bachelor's degree plaque, my master's plaque. You said you're an educated person.

Speaker 2 ? 06:56

That's what is the University of Tennessee for marketing and finance. Yeah. And so I'm not saying some of that didn't help in real life, but it didn't help to the magnitude of investing into four years. uh of an undergrad to spill over. You know, I I had a professor one day I was taking a um a literature class It was a requirement for the undergrad degree. And he's I remember him saying midway through the course, you know, one day you're going to use this. And I can look back and honestly say, I've never once used it It and it I don't think that the idea of university is bad. Obviously young uh professionals um or or just students in general need and ability to balance their social life with some responsibility. But outside of that, I really don't see The advantages.

Speaker 1 ? 07:54

Yeah. Well here's what I want to understand. So at some point, you know, you're you're operating at a very high level. You're building Nashville K9. Earning credentials and law enforcement, demonstrating competence and domains that are genuinely hard to fake. I mean you're doing things that's hard to fake. What but the cultural message running in the background is still telling everybody they need to be enrolled somewhere first So what what were you, Ali, what were you telling yourself during that gap? I mean, did you feel behind or had you already started to see through it?

Speaker 2 ? 08:26

So uh it's a funny question. And those that know me really well will testify to this, but in college I ran a marketing company that catered to college students. And part of that marketing company was funneling the masses to different bars on the University of Tennessee Knoxville Strip at the time. And so like if Buffalo Wild Wings was, for example, one of our clients, uh, on Mondays they were slow, we would funnel all the students that were of legal age to that bar and restaurant to patronize it. Uh or patronize it rather. And so there was uh an amount at the door that we would take. There was ten percent of the bar that we would take. And um and that was part of the marketing. And so at a young age, you know, I'm out there hustling, having this side business to pay my way through college, and I'm understanding Then I haven't even graduated and I'm making a ton of money off of college kids. And all I'm doing is funneling them to different restaurants and bars on their slow days. That's a part of the entrepreneurial world that I don't know is understood. And I do question some of the professors, not all, but some of the professors and What creates an entrepreneur? Have you been an entrepreneur before? Do you know what sleepless nights are like? Do you know what it's like to uh work really long days for months, not just four or five days a week, but for months seven days straight, taking financial risks. Uh that that's the part that are those professors really delivering that kind of message? And trading the short-term paying for the long-term gain. And when I was in school, they didn't talk about any of those kind of things. You went through standard business courses like accounting and you understood a little bit more about assets and liabilities on a macro scale. You studied economics, macro and micro. But really getting into, hey, this is how you have to apply for a business license. This is how you have to form a corporation, whether it's an LLC or or however way you're going to um format, they don't talk about any of that kind of stuff. Now maybe nowadays they have caught up to teaching a little bit of that. But if you want to be a real business owner, I don't know if it's gonna get that. So here's what happens. Then we get Okay, well you gotta go to get an MBA for that kind of stuff, right? You need a master's of business administration to be able to learn how to be a really successful person. And I will give a good personal story and I will not name their names, but I had a couple MBA grads From or they were in the NBA program at Owen at Vanderbilt University. Obviously, Vanderbilt recently just got labeled as an Ivy League. Really? And so they had started yeah, recently. So they had started a company that made dog treats for dogs. And they said, hey, can you team up with us because we want to prove our theory? And so they created these streets. Our dogs found them to be not very palatable. So right off the bat it wasn't really working because the dogs didn't like the treats. And they would sit down, meet with me once every probably two to three weeks. Uh I would imagine as a prerequisite for the MBA program. To uh validate what they're doing, and they would show me graphs and spreadsheets. And I would tell them, I'm going to name them two random names, John and Raymond. I would say, John, Raymond, you have this all wrong. What you guys need to do is go knock on doors. Go to boutiques, see if they will take your treats, and they would sell them for you Because showing me 50 charts and performas of what it could be doesn't make it a viable product. You don't have anything. All you have is this idea, you clearly a disproven idea on our dogs where the dogs don't find it palatable. And then your hope based on performance and charts is that this is going to market really well and you all are going to become millionaires, if not billionaires, at some point. But they disagreed with me vehemently that no, you're wrong. The MBA program teaches us this. And I would say within three years. Of our frequent meetings, that whole thing went belly up. They were tired of making treats in their ovens at home. Um, they were revising the treats, they were trying to get traction, but the hustle wasn't really there. And what the MBA program, in my opinion, taught them is if you put together all of this suit stuff You'll be successful, but what they needed was the operator side. And that's where they were lacking. They needed the the deep experience

Speaker 1 ? 13:29

Well if we want to be if we want to be fair in this conversation, would be would we have to admit that maybe even with your example, you know, you got a degree in marketing and finance. And you had a successful company doing marketing in college, is there at least some admission that, yeah, okay, I learned a few things that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do? I guess w would you admit that?

Speaker 2 ? 13:55

Yeah, you know, I think that where college really helped on the undergrad side was years three and four, not years one and two. If the whole track could be a four years of intentionality like that I think young professionals would be a lot more s successful. They would have a deeper understanding instead of taking the basics of Like I had to take a biology class and a chemistry class. And I'm not saying that those aren't valuable, but they have nothing to do with my profession. um other than uh you know understanding the anatomy of dogs but y you know what I mean like dissecting A baby shark doesn't really help with my field of work.

Speaker 1 ? 14:41

Why do you think they do that? Why do you why do you think they make us take English again or a foreign language again if we want to be a uh a writer, if we want to be an artist, or if we want to be an entrepreneur. Why why are colleges doing that?

Speaker 2 ? 14:54

That is a curious question. And at some point, you know, they're so institutionalized within themselves, they keep Breeding more and more professors that are institutionalized, that nobody steps outside of academia and thinks to themselves, am I really doing these kids a disservice? Or do I have to follow the protocol that this education system has set for me and I have to fall within these walls, otherwise I may get in trouble. I may lose tenure for Going outside of those boundaries. But how remarkable would it be if you took somebody who is a real entrepreneur to teach a class? uh or a real business owner, maybe not an even an entrepreneur, but somebody who has acquired a business and they they ran it, they understand it, they these are the metrics you need to understand. These are the margins you need to understand. This is what it's going to be like managing multiple personalities of employees. Right? One of the more difficult parts.

Speaker 1 ? 15:59

I I of course I I you know my my backstory. I was a eighth grade American history teacher for four years before I became an entrepreneur. Um and one of the one of the things that I came to a conclusion about, a soft conclusion, but but pr but but not a hundred percent, but I'm you know, conclusion about is that all these classes in middle school and high school that we make kids take, like science or algebra or calculus or whatever, you know, we're making them take these these things that they're thinking, man, I want to be uh I I I want to install gutters for a living, or I wanna I want to be a dog trainer like you, or I wanna be uh I want to be a coach, or I want to be a public speaker. Or whatever. Why do I need to learn algebra? Why do I need to learn it? And s and the teachers, well, you use this someday. And you're like me. Like, well there there's never been a day I would use the Pythagorean theorem. I don't even know like I don't even know what that is, but I remember having to learn about it. in school. But there are some people, and this is this is my theory about this. The conclusion I have, Ali, is that some kids Would have never even considered going a certain route had they not been exposed to something that they wouldn't, in their natural state, have ever had the proclivity to go look at. So a kid who becomes a math whiz. might not have ever become a math whiz if we'd have just sent him to a Montessori school for twelve years and said play with blocks in the corner until you figure out what you want to do in life. Now that's not a slam against Montessori, by the way. That's just an example of how how crazy some of this could be That that's been my conclusion. Now, but what you're saying, and I think I I want to clarify this for the audience, what you're saying is that college, not general education. But college for the most part is a waste of money because college is forcing us to take Greek and Spanish and advanced math classes when that's not gonna be part of my my profession. Am I hearing you right? Is it what do you think about that?

Speaker 2 ? 17:50

That's right. Yeah, I I completely agree. On the high school side, it's all necessary. And even within high school, you can advance. I went to Hume Fogg, which is an academic magnet. It's consistently ranked one of the top high schools across the nation. And uh you are selected based on a lottery pool of both state testing and your grades. And within that school, we had several genius level people, lots of perfect SAT and ACT. uh test takers and ultimately a uh a lot of my class had become very successful post graduation of high school I would say the majority of everybody, I don't know, 97-98% went to college at least for an undergrad, and then from there, you know, some had advanced beyond that. My thing is somehow we need to compel universities to change the structure of their instruction to hone in on Ideas that students are genuinely focused on. And so if it is business, really teach them business. Spend four years teaching them business. If it's broadcasting. Spend four years making them the best Toastmaster speaker that they can be to be on TV or on the radio Or be a podcaster, right? But let's really limit their time to building that success for them rather than forcing them into electives. One of the electives I took was ice skating. And the only reason I took ice skating was because that's where all the girls were.

Speaker 1 ? 19:33

Right?

Speaker 2 ? 19:34

How productive was that for me in real life? Uh you know, I asked you.

Speaker 1 ? 19:38

Is your wife an ice skater?

Speaker 2 ? 19:40

No, no. And she's gonna murder me for having this conversation because she has a doctorate. And she was an educator. Uh but uh but you know, uh and I'm not saying withstanding the professions that require the advanced degrees. But the by and large the general education we can tweak that to be better to make better young professionals. And I think that outside of the United States, universities in Germany do a better job of that Or in the Scandinavian countries or in the Middle East or in the Orient, they do a much better job of really focusing on, you want to be an engineer? We're really going to dig into engineering stuff. But but here in the States, uh at least in my limited experience, attending a a big SEC school Uh I I did not find it to be that useful. I'm not saying I didn't have some advantages, but I don't know if four years worth would have given me that unfair advantage in the marketplace with, you know, finance and marketing from the university level.

Speaker 1 ? 20:50

Well I want to ask you in just a minute what you wish someone had told you. 20 years ago about all this. But before I'm gonna let you ponder that, but I'm gonna talk to the audience a little bit about something. If uh if you're listening right now and you're a business owner and you've ever thought about what it would take to sell your company. Or even just get yourself out of the day-to-day. I have a free live training this week that you need to attend. It's called What to Fix Before You Exit. In 60 minutes, I'm going to walk you through the biggest mistakes founders make that kill their company's value and what buyers are actually looking for before they write a check. You can register for free at What2Fix. before you exit. com. That's what to fixbefore you exit. com. It's free, it's live, and it's going to change how you think about your business. Now I want to talk about our sponsor for today's show, and that is dub. If growing your business with personalized video outreach is on your radar, and it should be, because this is 2026, and you need to be thinking about that, you need to know about dub. Dub is the video sales platform that I've personally been using since 2018. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I use it nearly every single day because Dub makes it easy to record and send videos that stand out in a crowded inbox. I mean we all get too many emails and most of them are just crap that we don't read, we just delete. But but what if you got an email that had a personalized video right in the email with a clickable call to action? Like that's what they do. And dub gives you real-time analytics that tells you exactly how your videos have performed. So if you want to try this out for free, you can head over to the real jasonduncan. com. Slash dub that spell D U B B and you can learn more and get started. And you get fifty percent off your first two months if you sign up And we really appreciate Ruben and Darius and the guys at Dub. They've been great sponsors of our show for a long time. But go to the real jasonduncan. com slash dub. All right, Ollie, so um we're gonna talk about the the moment that you wished you'd had 20 years ago. So 20 years ago Somebody could have come along and said, hey, here's what you need to know about education and the importance of college. What do you wish they would have told you?

Speaker 2 ? 23:00

I think what I wish they would have told me is both sides of the equation. So one side of the equation, to be fair to the collegiate side, is You'll always have something that if you needed to fall back on, you could. Right? So uh Over the last probably close to 20 years, it has been a prerequisite to apply to larger companies to have an undergrad degree And so there is a good fallback for having undergrad education is that it gives you that leg up that maybe another applicant wouldn't have had. But I wish that somebody would have broken it down that way for me. Was that it's not a mandatory that you have to go to school because I see a lot of people with advanced degrees working as You know, bankers uh working in the uh high finance side, uh in various capacities. That may do well, six-figure incomes, and then the guy who comes and services the ACs at my house is making $250,000, $300,000 a year. Never went to college But was very handy, works hard, understands the grind, and is killing it. And so, or the mechanic that works on my cars. You know, I think that nowadays, if you go to any auto dealership in a metropolitan area, most of their labor rates are going to be north of $200 per hour. And so if you're fixing a Jeep and you're making $215 an hour labor, or the dealership is, a big chunk of that's going back to you to be a master at your craft of working on a Jeep. And I don't know why that's been so dismissive over the years that those people are for some reason inferior to somebody who has an education because One person wears a suit, makes a hundred thousand, and the other person work makes two hundred and fifty, three hundred thousand but wears a mechanic uniform. I just don't view it that way.

Speaker 1 ? 25:17

Well, you know, as I said at the beginning, you're you're the only civilian in the state of Tennessee to complete the police mandated SWAT canine school that's recognized by the National Tactical Officers Association. And every other person in that school earned their seat through institutional law enforcement channels. So the tension that we see here is that the school was built for civilians. No credential, no job title, no institutional pathway got you in. The work got you in. And that's not supposed to be possible inside a system that's designed around credentials. So when you walked into that SWAT school as the only civilian, what did you have that the system said you were supposed to be missing? And and what did the credential guys have that turned out not to matter once that training started?

Speaker 2 ? 26:05

Well, I think that school was really created for tenured law enforcement that had spent a long time doing police work or handling dogs. And here I come as just a civilian trainer and say, well, I want to put my dog through this same school and see what happens. The school, that school was held in Knoxville. Um there were 36 teams And I was one of six to passed. And I remember walking in and getting poked fun at. You know, I had a little female Melinois. Everybody had a big male, strong German Shepherd dog. And Uh by at the end of it, you know, we were one of six that passed. And so if you think about other industries that maybe a lot of people don't give a lot of thought to, Aviation, you do not need a degree to fly airplanes and helicopters. There are lots of commercial pilots out there flying around big airlines, Southwest, American um even International Luft Khanza, Air France, KLM, that don't have an undergrad degree. So there's a lot of capability. Yeah, a lot of capability. It's just again, I'm not knocking the institution side of it too hard. I do think it was a big lie that they told me as a young person That this is what it's going to take. And I don't think that's necessarily true. I think what is optimal is somebody being able to break that down and say, listen, you have both ways here. This is one way. This is a good fallback for you if you do go the institutional route that you can always fall back on it. I would argue, Jason, that a mechanic who's very well versed with cars My fraternity big brother never finished school. He is the shop foreman for a Ferrari of Nashville. He knows more about Ferraris than anybody else in Middle Tennessee, makes a great living, and that was What he wanted to do in his life. His fallback is going to be he can go anywhere he wants because he knows how to work on a car that not a lot of people have.

Speaker 1 ? 28:13

Yeah. So, you know, what you're what you're talking about is something that um you know, a lot of people never get to test this out because they stay inside the belief that college is the only path. And they stay inside that belief long enough that they never find out whether it was true or not because a lot of people who go to college They end up getting that degree and they stick with that thing forever and they never test it. But you have built do you you you built in some domains in your business life Where the credentials and the competence get tested against real world wor real world pressure constantly. I mean, for instance, in dog training, a dog either responds to it or it doesn't. A mission either works or it doesn't. And you can't credential your way through that, which puts you in a position to say something that most people can't, which is college is not necessary for success. That doesn't mean it can't lead to success. But your point is that it's not necessary for success and that is the lie. Is there anything else that you used to believe about this that you don't believe anymore?

Speaker 2 ? 29:17

I don't I don't think so. I think that's probably one of the biggest things and and educating people appropriately prior to going off to university of co uh or you know university or college is an important um it's important for them to do. I mean I I think for some reason they withhold that responsibility and they just guidance counselors, teachers, but they're all institutionalized. So I think their natural action is, well, we should just just encourage this because this is the natural next level and we pass them on. But You know, having uh some really good teachers that think outside the box or outside of academia and say, listen, yeah, you may need this, you may not need this, it's cool that you're here, I'm glad you're here. But maybe you can focus on XYZ while you do it. Because if you're going to be a writer, yes, all the English classes and literary classes are important for you. If you're not going to be, you do need to know how to write and read, but maybe you just want to go fly airplanes.

Speaker 1 ? 30:25

So right? Well I've got some uh I've had clients come through my um my programs and my mastermind, even some private advisor advisement clients I've had before that Eighth grade education is all they ever had. And now they're running fifty million dollar companies. So I I I would say that even if you wanted to be a writer Like I don't know that college right level writing is actually gonna make that big of a difference for someone who's really passionate about doing it because you will figure it out. I mean you can go back and look at the great American novels. and read some of those and they don't follow exactly the grammatical rules that an APA paper has to be or or an MLA or whatever those are that you have to follow. So but I want to I want to talk about your TED talk for a second. So in September of 2025, uh you delivered a TEDx talk that uh around one line said dogs don't fail, leadership fails. And that talk actually earned editors pick distinction and it got 42,000 views in just under two weeks. So your talk is about dogs. But the argument is that failure belongs to the leader, not the animal, I think kind of maps directly to this lie about college because the institution doesn't make you successful. The person leading is the one that makes you successful. And you've said a version of that to tens of thousands of people through your TED Talk without explicitly connecting it to your own cage around this idea that education is not necessary for success. So let me ask you a question. When you said that on the stage, that dogs don't fail, leadership does. Were you also talking about people or or was there something else?

Speaker 2 ? 32:06

Yeah, there would well there was certainly a deeper connection in there as well. And uh So some people picked up on that. You obviously did. Some people didn't. The idea was to advocate and champion dogs, but at the same time understanding the responsibilities in your day-to-day life of how you can champion and advocate um your friends, your e everything. Don't just the way you live your life. And uh and that was the platform I had to be able to make that impact in a very short amount of time. And so I'm I'm gr grateful that you picked up on it. But but yes, you're right. It's it's really up to you. It's up to you to do whatever you want to do and getting over that hump. or the fear of failure is the most important part of this. I related it to animals because a lot of people will make the excuses, well, you know, I slept in, I couldn't walk my dog, or it's raining outside, or it's too cold, or it's too hot. And And so, you know, for people like us, high achievers, we don't buy into any of that stuff. Throw on a raincoat, go walk the dog, right? You're gonna get wet feet, so what? And And I I think that that's that whatever it takes mentality is ultimately what makes somebody successful. And you have to switch that on. Instead of being your brain is always in survival mode. It's how we are wired. And we've got to recondition the brain to say it's okay to step outside of this comfort zone in order to be successful. Remember, trading the short-term pain for long-term gain, which is the converse of American society, where most people want short-term gain, but they endure long-term pain.

Speaker 1 ? 33:54

Yeah. Well let's uh I I wanna I want to talk about how we would fix this problem just between two guys talking over a microscope. Like if we if we think about because this is where we're gonna start closing the show down. We're gonna I want to bring it to a point. Um I if we look at the problem with the lie that's been told to s millions, multi-millions of teenagers coming out of high school. You gotta go to college, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college. Yet the evidence from the perspective of people like you and me, who've been successful at entrepreneurs, you know, went from nothing to millionaire status and everywhere in between. And we look at college, even as somebody like me and you who have degrees on the wall that I can point to. Like I have a bachelor's degree in ministry and a master's degree in education. both helped shape what I do today as a as a business coach and entrepreneur, but don't have a direct correlation. How would we how would we fix the educational institution? Let me give an example of one thing that I think you and I talked a little bit about, but we didn't name it specifically. You said years three and four were the most important because those are years you actually started doing the thing that you wanted to do. In your case, it was marketing and finance. Where years one and two are wasted on stupid English and math classes that don't necessarily have anything to do with what you're doing. Now, please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying English is stupid, math is stupid, but in the context of the conversation. So would you agree that one way we could fix this is to say, look, if you know what you want to be, you know what you want to do, like here's a program, it's gonna be two years of absolute grindstone, and you're gonna get an education that's worth something. versus go for four years and heck man you'll figure it out after the first two years of partying and throwing up every weekend like you'll be fine. What do you think?

Speaker 2 ? 35:39

Yeah, I I I think you're right. I think if we really focus those four years into the um In the direction that the student wants to go, I think you'd have a just a far greater success rate. And again, other countries do that. I don't know if um It's the institution I attended that just didn't do that, or maybe they're doing it now. Um, but generally, yes. I I think that that would be the way to fix it

Speaker 1 ? 36:10

Yeah. Well and and what what do we know is the underlying reason it won't get fixed? Money. Like universities and colleges, the insane I I haven't done the stats I don't know what the stats are. Somebody listen to this will probably send it in to me, but like what tuition was then when we were in college versus what it is now per hour. I think I went to Lipscomb University, which is right here in Nashville, another private institution, and I remember the per hour cost was $194 per hour. When I was there and I started in 1993, and I thought that is the most insane number ever. When I went back in 2007, I think it was 2007. To work on my master's because I got my master's from there. The uh the per hour cost was over six hundred dollars. I don't know what it is today. I it's I'm assuming it's in a thousand dollar range. Until they fix that. There's too much money for them to give away, don't you think?

Speaker 2 ? 37:04

Uh I would argue that that's one component of it, and the other component of it is We have a bunch of overeducated people that gain tenure by living in the education system, but haven't been practitioners in the real field And these are the people that are championing and compelling and um really pushing the youth. But they haven't done it themselves. I mean how many over educated derelicts do you know, Jason?

Speaker 1 ? 37:36

Not quite a lot.

Speaker 2 ? 37:37

I knew a lot of, right? And so I think that university should be probably pickier that, yes, you can go and live in school for a long time and earn your way up to professorship and tenure. But if you don't go out there and practice it, how effective are you? Are you real or are you a fraud? I would argue you're a fraud I had a great advertising teacher in college that she spent the majority of her life in the advertising field. And that was one of the most memorable classes for me, is that that was a lady who was a true practitioner. But The rest of my teachers didn't have that. My uh my accounting teacher was always a teacher. She had never even done real accounting. So when you think about, well, I'm a business owner and I got to be able to deduct certain expenses. That really wasn't included in our teaching. It was the fundamentals of accounting of assets, liabilities And that's what we need to change is universities should get broader and accept real business people to be professors, not people that have amplified their resumes. by degrees and have joined boards just to pad the resumes.

Speaker 1 ? 39:03

Well Ali, I've got two things I want to give you the opportunity to talk about before we finish up. I I want you to state your lie in the most passionate way possible. And we could use this to tell the world what you believe now is true versus what you used to believe. So I want you to give that opportunity to state that. I'm not going to interrupt you. You state it the way you want to state it. And then I've got two more questions to ask you and we're going to finish up.

Speaker 2 ? 39:28

I believe that look let me let me take a second to think about how I want to deliver this. One of the biggest lies that was told to me at a young age was that it was mandatory to go to college just to become successful. And that's not the case. I think that trade schools, you can become very successful doing that and universities that put together robust entrepreneurial programs that would really push people out of their comfort zone, I would buy into that style of education.

Speaker 1 ? 40:09

Speaker 2 ? 40:19

Yeah, well you can follow us at on uh at Nashville canine. Um I have a good couple books that they should go and purchase. Discipline and the success code gives you a good roadmap on how to be successful And you can follow me on LinkedIn as well. But I'm pretty visible. I'm out and about. Would love to talk with you. I'm a keynote speaker as well. So Look at my TEDx, the one that Jason was just talking about. It's pretty impactful.

Speaker 1 ? 40:47

Yeah, and we'll have uh we'll have the show in the show links. We'll have links to how you can get in touch with Ollie. And uh and and Madeline, my producer, is listening right now. Maybe she can go ahead and put in the note in the show notes that we can put the link directly to the TEDx talk there as well. All right, last question, Ali. Um Uh you know, what what do you want the world to know now that what you wish you knew then? And it could not it might be related to what we've been talking about, but what do you know now that you wish the world knew?

Speaker 2 ? 41:17

Well, I think that pressure I I see the evolution of of young business people and young professionals. And they have accepted this lie to them currently that we need work-life balance. And I think pressure, even manufactured adversity, is going to be important in their growth into successful young adults. And so forget the lie of work-life balance. Get out there and grind it so that when you have a family, that you are able to take it easy then But as a young person from the moment you either graduate high school or you graduate college to your mid-30s, you better hustle if you really want to be successful And seven days a week, grind it out. If you're a spiritual person, take your Sunday off. But six days a week, you better be working 12 to 14 hour days and erase that whole fallacy That work-life balance needs to be in play. Get out there and grind it, and then when you have your family, you'll be able to have that work-life balance.

Speaker 1 ? 42:27

Ali, it's uh it's it's good to know you, man, as a friend. Thanks for coming back on the show. Appreciate you sharing this insight with us today.

Speaker 2 ? 42:35

Yeah. Well thank you. It's an honor and a pleasure, and thank you for for having me, Jason.

Speaker 1 ? 42:40

That's a wrap on today's episode. If today you saw a bar on your cage that you hadn't noticed before, why don't you send this episode to somebody who needs to see theirs? The gold is the lie. And as always, I am your host, the real Jason Duncan, and Jesus is King. We'll see you next time.