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Episode 86: Praxis - A college alternative with Mitchell Earl
200 Plays4 years ago
Want to enter the workforce with momentum rather than debt? Want to do “big things” but need clarity on your interests? These questions may strike a chord with you, your child, or a young person you influence. This episode is all about rethinking the cultural norm of college being the next step after high school.
Tune in as we meet with Mitchell Earl, the COO of Praxis, a one-year program dedicated to helping people achieve their dream job through a combination of curriculum and apprenticeship. Learn the behind-the-scenes about how mentorship can help you get your foot in the door to land your ideal career position.
What you’ll learn: The “why” behind this unique approach, what the Praxis program looks like, and the future of Praxis.
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Transcript
Introduction to Uncommon Life Project
00:00:00
Speaker
Are you finding you just can't get enough of the Uncommon Life Project? We've got just the solution for you. Go to our website uncommonwealth.com and you can click on resources and get your own book for you to explore all of the ways that you can start going down your uncommon path. We hope it really helps. Let's get back to the show.
00:00:21
Speaker
Everyone dreams about living an uncommon life, but how we define that dream is very different for each of us. And for most, it's a lifelong pursuit. Welcome to the Uncommon Life Project podcast. We're going to introduce you to people who are living that life or enjoying the journey to get there. We're going to also give you some tools, tricks, and tips for starting or accelerating your own efforts to live an uncommon life.
00:00:46
Speaker
A life worth celebrating and savoring. Please welcome your hosts, Brian Dewhurst and Philip Ramsey. Hello and welcome everybody to another episode of the Uncommon Life Project, where I'm your host, Philip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Thank you for tuning in yet another time. I think it's crazy how many people actually listen to this. I'll be walking around like, oh, we just heard your podcast. Thank you. I think that's one.
Financial Education and Unlocking Potential
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Speaker
It's just important to say. Yeah.
00:01:12
Speaker
Your time is precious. We really feel like it is. At the end of the day, we're advisors who want to educate you on all the options that you have so you can take the right course of action to get you and achieve your goals. But what we really love to do is unlock the true potential that you have inside of yourself with your own money.
00:01:29
Speaker
It's a little bit different. It's uncommon. That's why we called it that. And the uncommon life project is we're trying to give you tips and tricks, just like our co-host says in the beginning to try to get you down this uncommon path. Today we have an amazing guest on the show. I can't wait to get in. I think we're going to be best friends at the end of it. Kind of like all
Introducing Mitchell Earl from Praxis
00:01:48
Speaker
of our guests. All right. So it's Mitchell Earl.
00:01:52
Speaker
The one and only. The one and only. We're not doing a bio. We're done with the bios. The bios. Everyone hates it. No one wants to write one. No one wants to read it. It's awkward. The company works for is Praxis. Here's why we love this company. One, because we were referred to it by a mutual client. They know Praxis. They know us. They know our core values. But what Praxis does, if I was going to just boil it down,
00:02:17
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is try to help individuals who are trying to figure out what they want to do with their life, give you a college alternative,
00:02:24
Speaker
to get you into your dream job. Apprenticeships are huge, entrepreneurial spirits, and I know that you guys have all listened to the Junior Achievement podcast we did. It's kind of like Junior Achievement, but when it matters most, when all these people are wide-eyed and thinking, oh my goodness, do I go to college or do I not? And Junior Achievement ends at a high school level, and this is post-high school.
00:02:49
Speaker
This is a post-high school alternative or not the alternative. Like this should be one of the main options, I think. And that's what we're going to get into. All right, Mitchell,
Mitchell's Journey and Apprenticeship Value
00:02:56
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did we do a good job on Praxis U? Tell us your family, give us a little bit about yourself first so our listeners know you.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah, no, thanks for introducing us. Thanks for the enthusiasm about what we're doing and the invitation to join you today. I'm excited to be here, as I always am, to talk about what we do, but also excited about the work you all are doing, taking an uncommon approach to finance, helping people bet on themselves, unlock their true potential in different ways, which is just, as the show title suggests, uncommon today.
00:03:32
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A little bit about me, I am COO of Praxis and have been in this capacity for the past couple of years. We bought the business in 2020, right at the beginning. But funny thing is I'm actually a former participant of the program as well. I went through it in 2015, 2016. I became close friends with the founder very early on around that same time.
Rethinking College and Debt: Praxis as an Alternative
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So company was still relatively new at that point.
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But I was out of college. When I went to college, I was dead set on going to medical school. I was the smart kid. That's what everybody told me, you got to be a doctor or a lawyer or work in finance and this very limited career path. And so when I got into college, it all became a lot more confusing. I got involved with a very early stage startup through when I was just starting college, and that kind of opened my eyes to this whole other world.
00:04:26
Speaker
I stayed with them until I graduated, and by the time I got out, I was like, oh my gosh. I see this entirely other side of the world that I never knew about as a kid of being able to take an idea and go be valuable to other people. I want to be involved in that. I want to do business, but the problem was I came out of college with
00:04:47
Speaker
very little tangible skills or know-how. And it was like, okay, well, I don't know how to go break into business. What do I do? I guess the only option I have is to go back to school. So I set my sights next on going
Praxis Program Details and Benefits
00:05:01
Speaker
back to law school, getting an MBA. And in the meantime, I just went and took whatever jobs I could find. I worked in
00:05:07
Speaker
financial planning for about a year, and then I worked in- Yeah, you did. Yeah. Then I worked as a legal aid for estate planning and tax advising attorneys as my next job after that, trying to save up for law school. That next move, I worked for economics think tank, putting on conferences across the country, and that's when I met the founder of Praxis.
00:05:33
Speaker
This is kind of a pivotal point in my story and also kind of like why Praxis is so personal for me is he asked me a question that nobody had ever asked me. He said, what makes you come alive? It wasn't the question of, hey, what are you studying? What do you do for work? What are you majoring in? It was this different question. It was kind of caught dead in the tracks because
00:05:55
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That question leaves so much room. It's not asking for permission. It leaves so much room for the opportunities and possibilities. And I was like, oh my gosh, I've never really thought about it that way of what is my life about chasing down the things that excite me? Or is it more me trying to like, you know, fit it as a square cog into this like round hole world? And so for me, I was like, oh my gosh, dead in my tracks. He challenged out there for me. He said,
00:06:22
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You seem like an ambitious young adult who seems interested in ideas, who's a hard worker. Why would you go back to school? He's like, give me one year. If in one year, if I can make introductions to you, to entrepreneurs, business owners, people who are doing things that excite you, and one year from now, you don't have more clarity and direction about where you want to go, then go back to school because it'll always be there. And I bet hook line and sinker, I was like, you know what?
00:06:52
Speaker
Heck yes. What's the worst that can happen? So a week or two before law school, I picked up the phone, it's like, I'm not coming. And pretty much the rest is history. I mean, there's lots of other twists and turns there, but that was kind of the beginning of like, oh my gosh, if you bet on yourself, there's this whole other world out there. Yeah. And we talked a lot, we have a lot of content on college and this topic, actually the genesis of our book,
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was because Philip and I were speaking to high school seniors, and they're just the constant question is like, well, what do I do with my money? And so we were just trying, we got to have a really simple four step process. And that was kind of the
College Debt vs. Apprenticeships
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genesis of the book. But you know,
00:07:34
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College planning, and I think we meet with a lot of people, you meet with a lot of people, and a lot of people, you know, I would say parents 45 and under, they say it jokingly, like, well, I don't know if college is gonna be the way it was for us in 18 years or 15 years, it's gonna be different, but no one's presenting like that tangible alternative.
00:07:53
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So I want to be super clear about what praxis is because you are an alternative that I think is very tangible. The value proposition is insane and it's very easy to sink your teeth in. And then the last thing you just said, one year is very palatable. If you go into college and you miss, and they're saying now, what is it like? Maybe this is like 60% of the kids change their major and end up going like five years. More than that.
00:08:21
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It's ridiculous. I think it may even be as high as 70 or 90% major up to three times. And like the amount that even work in a field related to their major is in the 20th percentile. So we're talking like it's really an effective precursor to the career path you want to go.
00:08:43
Speaker
Well, let me land that plane. I think the one year is so palatable. Like it's like, yeah, I can give one year and see if this works. I just love that. It's not the gap here. It's intentionality to see if it's absolutely. So here's something that I think Brian says so much. And he's like, why is the norm to go into debt and go try to find yourself? Like, why is that the norm? Like, and we talk about risk tolerance all the time. And we all know the younger you are,
00:09:10
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there should be a higher risk tolerance. Is that true or not? And everybody in this whole industry would be like, well, that's true. Well, well then why aren't we teaching that to be higher risk tolerance betting on yourself than to go in these colleges and like go into assume all this debt.
00:09:25
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and have no idea what you want to do to try to find yourself. I love Brian's always like, why is that always the first response? And when I heard about practice, I was like, yes, like, and then they get out of college and they're like, well, what comes first experience chicken or the egg experience, right? You know, or like, I don't have experience, but I want, I have all this like knowledge and college too, you're working a job. Typically, you know, maybe you're working at the student union or a local, like it's hard to find a job in what you actually want to do on top of doing college.
00:09:55
Speaker
So that's the other part I love about your program. And I think we should kind of get into maybe more of the nuts and bolts of,
Praxis Partnerships and Real-World Experience
00:10:02
Speaker
I just had this analogy in my head. I got to share it. Maybe this is harsh. So I'm in a caveat. Here we go. But you know, I was like, parents that smoke with their kids in the car, I feel like is like child abuse personally, because it's just like, we know that it scientifically hurts your children.
00:10:17
Speaker
parents that send their kids to college and get them into 50 or allow them to get into 50, $100,000 a debt is on that same vein for me. But we don't talk about it like that. Like it is that harmful to your child, physically, emotionally, the stress to carry that debt, these payments, all this stuff. Like we've got to almost start talking about it with that kind of a weight in my opinion, or it's not gonna change.
00:10:42
Speaker
Yeah, so let's pivot to what your solution is. Sorry. Yeah, I'll carry it a little bit further on that analogy because I think I'll say, yes, it is harsh, but it's also there's some truth to it. But one of the things that I have to do is sometimes you got to cut parent slack. You got to cut these younger ones. They just don't know. The cultural narrative is so strong.
00:11:10
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And people, you know, it happens at different, you know, you see it at different socio economic levels, you've got the really, really like, we're upper class, there is this intense pressure, pressure to go to college as sort of this finishing school experience, it's what you do, you can afford it. And then on the lower end of the rung, it's, it's, this is my way out. And that's a really deep psychological
00:11:36
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That's a hard thing to break because that's the route that you see. The problem is
Cultural Shift and Future of Education
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in the great big middle class and the diminishing middle classes,
00:11:46
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nobody has a better approach. It's, well, if college is not the most practical route, I don't really know what else. I can be a plumber, I can go into the trades, and that doesn't seem really intellectually stimulating to me. And even though it sounds better, it seems better from a financial standpoint or like going out and getting real, real experience now, I still don't feel like there's a better option for me that helps me do something
00:12:11
Speaker
that gets me closer to my full potential intellectually. And that's the problem. And it's not just about, hey, you should do practice. There's not a dialogue that helps people go through that conversation objectively of like,
00:12:27
Speaker
What else can I do? There's the default to college, unfortunately. Right. And so the smoking analogy, we're going to go to that. And I'm associating that with debt, not going to college. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's good. But what I would say is the parent doesn't know how bad it is to smoke in the car. And there was a point where the parent just smoked in the car and nobody knew. So it's almost to that level. They don't know how bad it is.
00:12:50
Speaker
But like that's our job is to try to educate them on like, Hey, this might be, there's other solutions, not just going through it. So practice. Okay. You want to go through the nuts and bolts with it. I want to go into a different direction. Let's go nuts and bolts. No, because I'm going in a different direction. Go ahead.
00:13:05
Speaker
What is it? Well, yeah. Well, you kind of alluded to it. It's a one year program. So like, let's, I want to make it very tangible for our viewers of what it is and the value proposition, you know, quickly. So yeah. So practice is an apprenticeship program until 12 months. We take people from, you know, I, I'm not sure what I want to do, or I know I want to start a business someday, or, or I just want to go get my, my career started. We take them from that point, help them build some skills, help them begin to build their, you know, build their network.
00:13:33
Speaker
and help them go land their first professional opportunity so in the first six months we take them through a curriculum through live workshops through coaching calls basically help them build up their portfolio of skills and experiences help them connect with with growing businesses across the country until ultimately they land a full time job.
00:13:52
Speaker
Once they start working for six months, we continue to coach them, make sure they transition into that first professional experience smoothly. They have everything they need to succeed. Then they graduate. The best part about it, though, is our tuition is only $12,000, so our participants
00:14:08
Speaker
as a rule, they always end up earning more than the cost of tuition before they graduate. So they're going out into the real world, that first step with momentum, rather than crippling debt around them. It gives them more optionality. It gives them some experience, some better context, but confidence and capability to go navigate their careers.
00:14:29
Speaker
And I think I read somewhere, it was like $50,000 is the average salary when people graduate your program. Is that correct? Am I pulling that out of the sky or is that true? Okay. So how sweet is that? Like I got three kids that need to, I almost think like this, this, you should do this before you even go to college. Here's why. And Brian and I are huge on mentorship. So the guy that was like, just pulled you aside and like basically just.
00:14:52
Speaker
presented this offer of like, give me one year. Like kudos to him. Kudos for you to listen. But like that's what I think people are missing is mentors
Career Clarity and Self-Directed Learning
00:15:01
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to help them. Like this is a profession that you really want to get into. So then you go into college. If you see that that's important and you have the end goal in mind, and maybe that mentor starts pouring into you and has some responsibility as well to make sure you get through college because they're like telling you to go to college.
00:15:18
Speaker
But like, I love this would be the first thing to try to find yourself and what you're good at. Because the world or the way that people think, and especially when you're young, that's just what you do is like, how much am I going to get paid? I want to be an accountant. Lord help us. Phillip should not be an accountant.
00:15:33
Speaker
I want to pull back one thing because you said something. I was like, oh, that's totally a compliment. Thank you. You said, well, yeah, I was smart. I need to be a lawyer, doctor or financial services. And I was like, oh, if you knew how dumb I was. So anyway, thanks for that. So this is what I want to say because you said I bought the business. Like, is this a franchise or is this just something that you can buy? Like what, what did you buy? And obviously you had a great experience. That's why you wanted to buy it. But like, how did you get into this?
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah, so actually, when I chose not to go to law school and do the MBA route, I went and apprenticed to the CEO of a fast-growing accounting company. We were building accounting technology at the time. And so I came in as employee number 20-ish, and I basically became his right hand. And this was all through my apprenticeship as part of Praxis.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I came in right before the company raised a Series A and the company blew up like it took off and for, you know, three and a half years.
00:16:33
Speaker
I got a front row seat to how to build a business, how to grow a business, how to hire, how to fire, how to forecast, how to plan, how to fundraise, how to, you know, all of the things that were kind of what I was originally looking for when I thought I need to go back to law school or an MBA. And so three and a half years later, I walked out with, you know, an MBA basically in the real world that I'd gotten paid to learn directly from the CEO. Kind of valuable.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, kind of at the perfect stage of a business. And so I reached that point where it's like, I know I want to go do my own thing. I don't know what that is yet. I know I have skills now. I know that I have a lot of value to bring, but I'm not really sure what's next. And so I was still very close friends with the founder and CEO of the company. And they wanted to launch another software company at the time, kind of in the same niche. And so I jumped ship to come help and launch that. And basically,
00:17:31
Speaker
out of Praxis, they launched another business and they had a great thing going with Praxis with the apprenticeship program. But the CEO and founder was going a different direction on a new venture. And it's like, we've got this great business, somebody needs to take over. So the CEO and I, who are close friends, and he's been on the Praxis team since very early on, we kind of like perfect storm, like right place, right time with the right experience. And also just like,
00:18:01
Speaker
Both of us had been customers of this business. It was like, this is the thing for us. This is the next step. We just had the opportunity to step in and take over this business that both of us were raving fans of already while the CEO and original founder went
School Collaborations and Job Market Challenges
00:18:21
Speaker
his other direction. It was like a passing of the torch.
00:18:25
Speaker
That's the same guy who, you know, who the CEO and founders, the same guy who gave me that challenge years ago of give me one year. And so it was really cool opportunity to just right place, right time. But, you know, if you believe in that kind of thing, I kind of more think like if you do good work,
00:18:43
Speaker
And, you know, you keep your head down, you keep working hard and you keep optimistic, like those kind of opportunities will find you in life. And that's sort of what happened for both of us. And so we're really excited to be at the helm now and really excited about the future, especially in the in the landscape of the times we're in now when you're looking at like college and young adults and all because everyone's focusing on value. I want value from it. So let's say you have young Philip in your in your program.
00:19:13
Speaker
And so how do you place young Phillip? Like obviously I'm quirky and weird. And so you do your assessments, I'm sure, right? I'm not speaking for you. So like, what do you do to try to figure out what I'm good at? And then how do you place me in a place? Do you have like multiple companies that you normally put people with or like, oh, this Phillip guy, there's no company out there that's gonna match this poor kid. So do you go make that relationship? I'm concerned, like I'm confused.
00:19:39
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, it's a great question. So it's actually a little bit different. So, you know, I would say a lot of the traditional thoughts about higher education are, hey, you come and you pay this institution, they're gonna, you know,
00:19:51
Speaker
They're going to give you all the things you need. You have to follow their rules and do that. Our process and really philosophy is much more about self-directed learning. We take every apprentice, if you will, through a curriculum, but largely, it's less about us assessing them and telling them, hey, here's what you should do, and more so about us facilitating that discovery process.
00:20:14
Speaker
I tell all of our apprentices and their parents when I'm talking to them about, you know, before they make the decision to apply for a program is like, our goal is not, you're not going to come out of our program knowing, hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of your life. What you can expect is we're going to help you make the strongest start possible.
00:20:33
Speaker
Your career is a discovery process. It's something that as you get out into the real world, you gain experience, you gain context, you gain confidence, you're going to identify more opportunities that help you get closer. But our goal is to help you make that start. So as far as the placement process goes,
00:20:51
Speaker
it's kind of an extension of that same philosophy of self-discovery. We're going to help you identify opportunities. We do have business partners all over the country, very easy for us to make those introductions, but we also want to teach you a new way to think about identifying and creating opportunities for yourself. We have a proven process that we have perfected over a better part of a decade now to go out and get
00:21:17
Speaker
attention from employers and basically get your foot in the door. Whether you have a degree or not, whether you have the experience or not, if you can go get attention by leading with value, you're going to have a much better shot of having an opportunity open up for you.
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm just laughing because this is truly my life. I did an internship at Dowling Catholic with Dr. Jim Dottle, and
Praxis' Impact on Careers and Value Proposition
00:21:41
Speaker
it was a leadership internship. At the end of that summer, he's like, Philip, I really want to help you get the best jump into this deal. He pooled all the network of the students at Dowling Catholic.
00:21:53
Speaker
And he was like, let's go talk to the biggest, highest, the most influential people that we know from our student population. So we talked to like Meredith Corporation, ING, ITA Group, Abbott Laboratories. So it was like really strong companies.
00:22:12
Speaker
And like, that's exactly what they did. Like, I want to introduce you in a level, in a place that like, I'm almost vouching for you. Does that make sense? Like, and hey, it worked out great. Cause one of those companies, I actually, I'd say two of those companies I work for later in my career, ITA group is where I started. And then I moved to Abbott Laboratories later. So I mean, I was, I was doing practice for four years of college. No, what was I doing? Oh heavens. So like, I love this. I mean, I just love this.
00:22:41
Speaker
12,000 is a lot for some families, right? And it's a fraction of what a lot of families are looking at to paying though. So, you know, caveatting that, but like, you're a for-profit business is what I'm gathering. So unlike, you know, a state university or something like that, you know, how do people, what are their options to paying the tuition, so to speak?
00:23:07
Speaker
Yep. So pretty straightforward now. I mean, you can pay upfront or you can finance it with one of our lending partners that we vetted. And ultimately, our graduates, even the ones who are choosing to finance it, they're walking away 30 months from the time they start a job with tuition completely paid off. That's part of the low price point, but our prices have not changed since we started the program back in 2013. So you're looking at,
00:23:34
Speaker
compared to what? And the average college tuition just continues to climb. We are committed to making it one of those things like always, always talk about this, like we want to just we want to facilitate WTF experience. Like, you know, I won't drop it here on the show, but we want people to walk out and be like, we all know what it means. Yeah, we want people to walk out like I truly want people to walk out and be like, this was a milestone for me. This was a transformative experience. I feel like
00:24:02
Speaker
If I would have gone a different route, I would not have had as awesome of an outcome. It all goes together back to the philosophy, even the price point, the tuition, the different options we offer to pay for that, and the implicit guarantee there that if you don't get a job,
00:24:21
Speaker
you don't pay for the program. And if you go through the program, you're going to earn more than the cost of the program. We are so confident in our process and knowing that if you take an uncommon route, if you take this unconventional method, if you bet on yourself, you will have awesome results. And the funny thing is colleges, they will not offer these types of guarantees. And this isn't to do their own horn. This is more so about
00:24:47
Speaker
promoting this idea that there are better alternatives than the traditional model that refuses to put skin in the game and students to success.
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah. So true. It's funny cause Brian, I just, uh, we're launching a book, like we just wrote a book and it's uncommon wealth. And the tagline is you are your best asset. Invest in yourself, invest in yourself. Like, and there's not a lot of people that are teaching that. So I just love that. Here's, so where, like, how many employees do you have at Praxis? We have five full-time employees and then a network of coaches, advisors, contractors that, you know, we've built those relationships over, you know, the course of the business.
00:25:24
Speaker
Nice. What's the future of Praxis? Where are you going? Yeah. So that's always a fun question. And I'll try not to get too lost in the weeds because it's one that, you know, how big is too big. I like to think about the best possible case, but we'd like, you know, it's, it's, it's more so about like the tangible things. And right now the top goal is like, we want to create the best possible apprenticeship experience and program,
00:25:50
Speaker
available, and we want to do that. For the right type of person, we are not trying to create a one-size-fits-all solution. I think that that's a wrong approach to higher education and professional services more. What we're trying to do is create the best
00:26:09
Speaker
ultimate experience for the right type of person. And that's the ambitious young person, the entrepreneurial young person, the young adult who says, Hey, there's got to be something else out there. I don't know what it is. I don't know how to get started, but I'm willing to bet on myself and I'm willing to work hard. And that is like all the right material, uh, that, that you need to be successful in our program program, but it's not for everyone. Right. Right.
00:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, we've definitely learned that entrepreneurship is not for everyone. You can't teach that. There's a, you know, like with kids in sports, there's the kids that kind of have that winning edge and there's the kids that don't. And you can't necessarily coach that. You can't teach that sometimes. It's like you have it or you don't have it. Not to say people can't become entrepreneurs, but there is a major mindset shift that has to take place
00:27:04
Speaker
to do this because I agree with you, there's so much ingrained in our society with college. It's interesting, I had my freshman orientation from my daughter, she's graduating middle school and going to high school and in the program, I mean, this is what you need to graduate and then they got the logos of the universities like Iowa, Iowa State, UNI and then these are the other schools, two-year schools and it's all just pointing you
00:27:31
Speaker
before she even walks in the door pointing you to that and mine. And I'm like, well, that's one avenue. I mean, it's, you know, she does kind of, I think, want to be a lawyer, so.
00:27:41
Speaker
you know, that could be a path for sure in law school. But there's also another path. And I'm just so tired of that university mindset as like plan A. I think it should be plan B. And we've never seen for the right person. I think that's always. Yeah, yeah. And I think we've never seen that gap year alternative of like, yeah, gap year makes sense, but like don't go backpack through Europe.
00:28:07
Speaker
You're not gonna find yourself there, I promise you. In terms of what you were gifted and designed to do. And this program and what you guys have built is just phenomenal. Mitchell, how do we help you get to where you want to go? Like, how can we help?
00:28:22
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, always spread the word is great, but if you have parents or clients or young adults out there in your network that are asking those kinds of questions like, hey, what are my options? Those are the types of people I want to have conversations with on a daily basis. I mean, I think you make a good point that college shouldn't necessarily be the plan A. I don't necessarily know that practice should be the plan A. What I think should be the plan A, and this goes,
00:28:49
Speaker
out to all the parents or clients you have. Plan A is getting clarity. As a young adult, getting clarity about, hey, what are my options? What are the things I'm interested in? What is the right next steps given the farthest result or outcome that I can see as desirable to me? For some young adults,
00:29:10
Speaker
maybe going to college is the right decision. You already know at 18, I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. Like, you know, maybe you'll get there faster going this way. Maybe you could go intern. There are definitely more cost-effective ways to do it, but plan A should be, go get clarity and go get started. And that could be at college. It could be working the trades. It could be doing practice. It could be going and getting a job, but don't go put yourself into a, you know, a situation where you're now bearing the cost, very high cost of,
00:29:39
Speaker
not knowing what you wanted and being strapped down with that cost for years and years and years. I think spreading that message is probably the best way you can help us and the people out there is just telling people, hey, go find clarity first and figure out the most efficient way to do it once you have that clarity.
00:29:58
Speaker
What, we've kind of, we started partnering with Junior Achievement a little bit. We've sponsored an elementary school and their curriculum runs out, but they're very geared to partner with schools, volunteers, you know, to kind of embed into the school district. What's your relationship or let's say a parent?
00:30:21
Speaker
is like, man, I wanna get my high school involved with this. So when that student's meeting with the guidance counselor or the people come in from Iowa State or Iowa, which is great, like again, I think a lot of great things happen at those universities, please don't hear that. I went to Creighton University, had a great experience, all that, I think is for a lot of people. But what is your inroads into kind of the public school setting as an option that junior, senior year as you're kind of planning that transition?
00:30:51
Speaker
Yeah, we always love to have those conversations or do workshops for schools or for any time we can get a captive audience of young adults. We have partnerships with
00:31:03
Speaker
different homeschool organizations, which I think is kind of a more natural fit where you have a self-directed learning experience. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that a lot of schools across the country, they measure their success by the attrition rate. How many of my graduating students have certain test scores and how many are then matriculating to college?
00:31:28
Speaker
That's not, unfortunately, for those administrators that have to measure themselves by that. Even if they want to explore other options, usually they have funding tied to those metrics. It can be somewhat of a sticky situation to go and try and create formal partnerships with institutions, but the best thing that we can do is just get
00:31:50
Speaker
get information in front of them, have those conversations. We like working with any student who wants to work hard and wants to go an unconventional route.
00:32:01
Speaker
I want to ask one more question because I know we're kind of getting the end of things here, so I want to go quick. I want to flip the tables a little bit because we're hearing a lot in the news and we just actually heard this from a client the other day. He actually owns and operates some Dairy Queens and we met at a Dairy Queen.
00:32:21
Speaker
the inside was closed, but the drive-through was open and we're like, hey, what's going on? And he's like, I can't get people hired to work here to even handle the inside traffic. We can only handle the drive-through traffic with the people that we have staffed. And he's offering people almost 15 to $20 an hour. And they're saying, no, we're an employer, we're looking to grow, we're looking to hire. How do employers partner with Praxis to find that next generation?
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they can always just come to our website or can shoot me an email, Mitchell at discoverpractice.com. I love to have those conversations. You know, I will be completely honest though, we look for a certain type of business and the type of business we're looking for is, you know, we want an environment and business that's growing fast somewhere where when it's your first job, you can walk away with that. Knowing how a business works, you have the opportunity to grow, expand your skillset. I love it when it's a,
00:33:17
Speaker
when it is in proximity to a founder or not entrepreneur, especially. So like, let's use that Dairy Queen example. I don't think working at a Dairy Queen as a register staff would be something any of our Praxis participants would want to do because they have more potential
00:33:35
Speaker
that can be unlocked and more valuable skills by the time they come out of a program. Now, being the right hand to that Dairy Queen operator who wants to expand his franchise from one location to five locations, that's the caliber of opportunity that we are looking for for our participants.
00:33:51
Speaker
people like, you know, you want to go be in the action and not just have kind of a, you want to be a player mindset. Absolutely. You want to be a player, not just, you know, somebody on a really good team. Okay. Here's my last two questions. Cause we could talk all day. All right. Uh, and they're fun questions. Uh, so I'm going to give you like a serious one and then we're going to do a fun one. Cause I like to just get your personality. Okay. If you were going to boil down winning in one word, what would it be?
00:34:17
Speaker
Oh man, that's a tough one. I think my immediate reaction is like, you know what? You got to get clear about the results you want and not the results you feel like are expected of you. And that for me, I think is kind of the path to freedom in life. And for me, that's what winning means is like you get to that ultimate freedom, but it looks a little bit different for all of us. And so it's getting clear about the results you want.
00:34:43
Speaker
and then defining the routes or the tactics to go achieve that result. But unfortunately, too many people get caught up in the tactics before they're clear about where they want to go. And often, that's what gets you off course. Okay, my last one, fun one. You're invisible for two weeks. What do you do? Where do you go? You're invisible. No one's seeing you. Where are you going?
00:35:07
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Well, assuming that I'm not, I can like shirk off all my work responsibilities in the day-to-day for a while. I think that, you know, that would be such a cool opportunity to go be a fly on the wall under the houses or the offices of all the big thinkers or people that I would want to learn from. Think of it as like kind of a free pass apprenticeship for two weeks. Awesome time to just observe people in their element that I think are doing excellent work and learn from them.
00:35:36
Speaker
Okay, so who? Where are you going? Oh, man. Right now, there are probably a handful of different people who are doing different real estate investing that I love. I would love to go observe the day-to-day operations of the people who run bigger pockets and different guests that they've had. I think some other thinkers that I'm really fascinated by right now, like Jordan Peterson, Nassim Talab,
00:36:03
Speaker
Not to be like, so like rah rah, what's the most populous philosophers of the day, but anybody who is writing and creating content that's like trying to do different work. You're always welcome in our office. Yeah. Maybe you guys, people are taking an uncommon approach. I always like observing and learning from them. Right. Okay. How do our listeners get more information about you and Praxis?
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah. So we are, we actually have a page up specifically for your listeners discover praxis.com slash uncommon wealth. They can go there. They can download a free book called forward tilt, um, that, that our team has written as well as, um, get a little bit more information about our program guide. And then the last thing as, as a courtesy, you know, for, for all of your listeners who are already subscribing to the ideas of how do I live an uncommon life? We'd like to offer a thousand dollar tuition scholarship to anybody who goes that page.
00:37:00
Speaker
If they apply to the program and are accepted, we'll automatically apply it to their tuition. Oh my gosh. That just gave me chills. Thank you.
00:37:08
Speaker
Mitchell, that was amazing. Mitchell, thank you for all you're doing. Gosh, thank you for just investing in yourself and investing in others. And that's one of the things that we really talk about is this uncommon life is if you are impacting others, that's the key thing. Not this whole wealth thing, not this mask, all this wealth. How many people are you actually impacting? Brother, you're doing it. I'm super grateful to even just have this time with you. Thank you for everything you're doing. Keep going. I don't say this. We don't say this a lot.
00:37:41
Speaker
I think you're one of those people and this is one of those projects we should check in on like a year from now, two years from now. Because like Philip said, you know, this is so important. Our country is in a point of flux. And I think we've gotten away with some of the things that made us successful as we were. And I think you guys are on the front lines of that with the next generation. So
00:38:03
Speaker
It'd be fun to touch base with you guys in a year, 18 months, and see what's going on there. Yeah, we'd love that. Thank you guys. It's been an honor and glad you invited me on the show. Absolutely. You've been listening to the Uncommon Life Project. I've been your host, Phillip Ramsey. And I am Brian Dewhurst. Until next time, go be in common. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.
00:38:23
Speaker
That's all for this episode of The Uncommon Life Project, brought to you by Uncommon Wealth Partners. Be sure to visit uncommonwealth.com to learn more about our services. Don't miss an episode as we introduce you to inspiring people who are actively pursuing an uncommon life.