Launching Your Full-Time Career in Our Part-Time Economy

Jason Hartman hosts President of Crown Financial Ministries and author of The LEAP, Robert Dickie III. They go through how people can improve their lives without the trappings of bad debt. Robert discusses the old, dying economy and how to transition out of it. He introduces the MOOC education concept and how people can get access to free education. He goes through the impact of technology on all aspects of society and in the workplace.

Announcer 0:01
This show is produced by the Hartman media company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit Hartman media.com.

Announcer 0:12
Welcome to the Solomon success show, where we explore the timeless wisdom of King Solomon and the Bible, as it relates to business and investing false prophets and get rich quick schemes are everywhere. Let’s not be distracted by these. Instead, let’s go to the source, the eternal principles that create a life of peace, power, and prosperity. Here’s our host, Jason Hartman.

Jason Hartman 0:41
It’s my pleasure to welcome Robert Dickey the third, he is president of crown financial ministries. You’ve probably heard of them. They’re big and has served as a decorated Air Force officer and CEO of an international company. He’s the best selling author of the leap, launching your full time career in our part time economy. The new book, Love Your Work for practical ways you can pivot to your best career. Robert, welcome. How are you?

Robert Dickie 1:06
Oh, it’s great to be on your show today. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure

Jason Hartman 1:09
to have you. So when we talk about some of the principles that crown financial ministries teaches, and just some general life principles, whether they be biblical or non biblical, it certainly makes sense for one to invest in oneself. Right? I remember many years ago, Earl Nightingale of the late great, I guess, successful loss for I’ll call him Earl Nightingale. He had so many wonderful stories and wonderful pieces of advice. And one of them was, don’t be the person sitting in front of the empty fireplace and saying, Give me heat. And then I’ll put in some wood you’ve got to put in the wood first, right? Tell us how this relates to your philosophies and your books.

Robert Dickie 1:52
Well, you know, I’m really passionate about what we’re doing at Crown financial ministries, and our mission is to teach total Life stewardship, we really got our start with talking about the stewardship of our finances, personal finances and getting into debts and budgets and so forth. But we’ve really branched out into total life stewardship, to understand how we can be the steward of all things, not just personal finances, but our career or life, our business, because ultimately, I think that’s how we’re going to be judged. You know, Matthew 25 gives a very clear depiction, that, you know, we’re going to be judged based on lordship stewardship and generosity, how we live our life. And so I’m very passionate about helping people have success in their career, but steward their career to be able to really live their life in alignment with their values, how God created them, and not just that they can have financial success, but they so that they can have impact in the world around them and help others and so that’s really the the central theme and focus in both of the books that I’ve written. Fantastic. You know, we hear people a lot of times throwing around the stewards poured. So I’m wondering if you could just take a very quick moment to define that. It can be a very complex word. I mean, there’s a lot of organizations that will use it. But stewardship, if you think about it impacts every single aspect of life. Whether you are a Christian, whether you are a believer or not non believer, everyone wants to have stewardship principles. We want good stewards in government. We want good stewards of our economy, a husband and wife, you have to be a good steward of those relationships. stewardship is really taking the either positions of power and authority, the relationships that you’re in, maybe the resources that you’ve been given anything that you have been entrusted with, in really ensuring that you are using it for its best value and not for your own personal good, your own personal gain. So, I mean, it goes into the stewardship of, as I’ve said, the economy if you’re a leader, and you’re in charge of running a government position, in charge of leading people That is a very important stewardship role. We’re in charge of the stewardship of natural resources in our environment. And so I think stewardship is something that encompasses every single aspect of life. And we want to be able to teach folks how to be a great steward of whatever position that they’re in, and whatever resources that they’ve been entrusted to oversee.

Jason Hartman 4:20
Okay, good. So let’s talk a little bit about money and investing in business and careers, you know, all of this area of life, our financial and professional lives, what kind of things do you cover in the books? And what do you want people to know?

Robert Dickie 4:36
Well, one of the main things to start is to let folks know that there is a old economy that is dying, and there is a new economy that is being born. And we’re at this very important inflection period between the two. And it is causing a great deal of stress and friction for a lot of people, especially those who are not kind of clued into what’s going on. And so people are being disenfranchised in their work. There’s a lot of folks mean, there’s surveys that say up to 80% of people go to work every day and they hate what they’re doing. There’s folks that are fearful of the future, they see that jobs are being offshored jobs are being automated companies are downsizing. And there’s this feeling of Well, what’s around the corner? Am I going to be able to take care of my family? Am I going to be able to have a future? And so I want I try to spell out in both books, here’s what’s happening in the global economy, and then backing up and say, Okay, now what do we need to do to have success, because there’s new rules that are being written. And if we play the game, by the old rules, we’re not going to have success, we’re gonna have failure, and people need to be able to take time to invest. There’s new rules for a new game. And being a steward of our careers being a steward of our talents. One of the things that we have to do is we have to invest in continued education, continued skills development, and if we do that, There is massive opportunity in this new economy. People don’t need to be fearful people can be excited. But we have to look in slightly different places because the jobs and the opportunity are not going to be in the same places that they were in the past. So those are some of the key focal points early in the book that I try to help people navigate. Okay, so where do we look, you talk about looking in some different places, you know, and I just want to make a comment here, that I think listeners should be very careful of this idea of education. Because in concept, it is certainly good. I mean, education is critical, especially in a changing economy, but there are so many ripoffs out there in the world of you know, certainly the college system, the university system has become an epic rip off. I mean, these are like these is like a left wing brainwashing cult that charges massive fees and slaves people into massive amounts of debt, and it happens in adult education. too, you know, there are a lot of these career schools, these unaccredited, universities and so forth, or, you know, they’re sucking off the trough of federal aid and putting people into debt. And I think

Jason Hartman 7:11
we got to be careful of where we look, don’t we maybe more than ever?

Robert Dickie 7:15
Absolutely. And so I am not an advocate that says, oh, guess what every single American kid that’s graduating from high school needs to go and get a college education. I think the next big bubble that we are facing as a nation is student loan debt. And we and that’s part of the old game that I’m talking about

Jason Hartman 7:33
$3.2 trillion dollars worth trillion with a tea. It’s huge.

Robert Dickie 7:37
Got it. And so we have brainwashed kids to think that to get the American dream, they have to go to college and they go in without a plan. They saddled themselves up with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt. They’re graduating with degrees that many times are not enabling them to have success in the new economy. And then we’re working at Starbucks and McDonald’s, there’ll be a slave for the rest of their life. So that’s not the type of education Talking about being a lifelong learner, there’s ways for us to acquire new skills. Now, look, there are some people who will go out and they’ll say, Look, my goal, I feel like God has gifted me, I am passionate about being in the corporate America, I want to go have this corporate america job on this, you know, fortune 500 track. And if that’s what they want to do, it is almost a requirement to have a degree from an accredited institution, maybe an advanced degree. I’ve talked to many CEOs who Thankfully though, I think the tide is turning a little bit when Google came out and said, you know, we don’t care if you have a college degree. I mean, there is some you see some cracks in this Finally, certainly taken a long time, but it has changed. It’s not the 1980s or 90s anymore, right? You’re exactly right. And what’s changing that is I talked about this in depth in the book, but we’re having an education revolution and at the center of this revolution is this concept. Now give me an acronym here. It’s a MOOCs him O C stands for massive open online course. This is revolutionizing it’s democratizing education. The Best Colleges all over the world are taking their courses where kids are spending on campus 10s of thousands of dollars to attend, you can now go out to a website, you can take the exact same course you can actually get accredited, you can get certifications for free. Okay, so tell it that’s

Jason Hartman 9:25
critically important because I did not know that there was accreditation. Certainly there’s a lot of ways to learn iTunes University, the Khan Academy and a whole bunch of others. You can become brilliant sitting in front of your computer screen with an internet connection, and highly highly educated. But there’s no accreditation like what are you going to do with this stuff? No one will believe that you did it. How do you do accreditation with that? Because it seems to be really not that the information is inaccessible. It’s the accreditation is a scam. It’s this monopoly not so many More. This is something I don’t know

Robert Dickie 10:01
about. Tell us. Yes, let me let me tell you about your three websites in particular, I’d like your listeners to go research, edX, Coursera and Udacity. Now, let me tell you about specifically Udacity. Now all of these websites that I’ve just mentioned, you can go out and you can take finance courses, economics, courses, history, photography, and nanoscience data science, any course that you could take at a major university in America, you can get on these websites from the best schools, Harvard, Yale, University of Michigan, Virginia, Caltech, Berkeley, you name it, it’s on there. Now, here’s what’s so interesting. It’s the exact same professor, it’s the exact same course. And you can audit it and it can be completely free. Now, if you want to get a certification, if you want to get a certificate that says, Look, I’m Bob Dickey, I started this course. Here’s all of my coursework. I passed every single one, and at the very end of it, get a little certificate of completion. You can pay anywhere from 25 to $65 for that certification slip. And then what they’ll do is they will check your progress throughout the course to make sure that you’re actually who you say you are, that you’re actually doing all the work. And what’s happening is people are taking these courses. They’re getting certified for 2535 60 bucks. And then they’re taking that certification into employment offices, and they’re getting hired Google in particular, and a lot of other big companies. Friedman, I forget the goodness, I forget the gentleman’s first name, but one of my favorite authors and I’m just having Milton,

Jason Hartman 11:37
Milton Friedman, Milton Friedman love them. Yeah,

Robert Dickie 11:39
it’s great or no, I’m sorry if this is Thomas Friedman from the New York Times, and he just wrote a book titled, thank you for being late. And he chronicles the MOOC revolution in there as well in at&t has developed all sorts of courses with Udacity and people can go out there, take those courses get certified and they’re being hired by Google at&t in the top companies all around the country. Here’s what’s happening. We’re developing a new meritocracy around the globe where big businesses are no longer really looking at your credentials. Hey, do you have a college degree? Do you have an advanced degree? They’re asking, do you have the skills that we need for us to be successful in new economy? And if you do, then they’ll hire you. So as you said early on, you said there the old system, education system has cracks, it has fissures, it’s it is dying, just like the old economy there. They are under stress right now, because of this new revolution that’s taking place about time just like the music industry, they’ve been ripping people off for decades. And it’s about time that people have consumer choice, that their monopoly and and what they’re really doing is leeching off the taxpayers because ever since the government started ensuring student loans in the 70s, the price of college tuition has increased massively proportionate to inflation. It is a scam people it is a scam. You know, these colleges are being marketed like resorts. It’s just absurd, you know that they’re marketing their cool gym facilities and, you know, food courts. I mean, go to any city where there’s a university and the college in that city is one of the largest landowners and real estate investors. It’s This is absurd. It’s gotten so far off their mission. It’s completely ridiculous. But anyway,

Jason Hartman 13:24
yeah. Okay, so other than griping about the way the system works, and that we’re thankful that it’s changing. What other tips do you want to share with people?

Robert Dickie 13:33
I think that this highlights something that’s very important for people understand. Technology is changing everything. If you think that there is a sector out there in the economy that is not going to be impacted by technology. If you’re a mid career professional or a late career professional, and you’re saying app, this might be happening in transportation with Uber, or it might be happening. You know, Airbnb is disrupting the hotel industry, and you think it’s not going to happen to you your heads in the sand. In every single industry is going to be impacted by technology and software and the in these new advancements, can you give us some other examples of like, I mean, we’ve seen those industries. I mean, can you imagine the world’s largest hotel company doesn’t own any real estate. That’s amazing. That’s Airbnb. I’m talking about the world’s largest individual, like taxi type transportation company doesn’t own any cars. So

Jason Hartman 14:22
that’s amazing. I mean, that’s, it’s an amazing time, for sure. Is there something we’re not seeing maybe another industry that’s gonna I mean, certainly, like you say, everybody’s going to be impacted. And it’s for better or worse. It’s great for people who are flexible, who adapt quickly who can withstand change, but you know, if you have any thoughts or predictions on that, so we can see it coming better, feel free to share them.

Robert Dickie 14:45
We just talked about how the education industry which is almost impermeable, and now that that is being rocked at its very foundation, wonderful care is is changing. There’s new services where you’re going to be able to have basically an Uber Doctor, doctors are moving away from the health care system because of just the crazy regulations. They’re saying, you know what, I’ll come to your house,

Jason Hartman 15:06
they spend all their they spend spend all their time doing paperwork and dealing with insurance companies. And, you know, Obamacare made that a lot worse. Fortunately, that’s going to change get repealed or replaced, or, you know, something’s gonna happen, obviously, under the new administration, but yeah, it’s a disaster.

Robert Dickie 15:22
So every single industry is being impacted by these changes. Here’s something that I have found extremely interesting. And so for if there’s folks out there that are either entering the workforce or maybe mid career, and they’re saying, you know what, I’d like to pivot, I’d like to do something different. I see that in my industry, it might be dying, or it’s under stress. And I’d like to get into that fast moving current Warren Buffett always says, find a way to invest in the fast moving currents where you’ll be taken along. Here’s an industry of just a few years ago, it was I think it was about 2009 2010. The Harvard Business Review said this is going to be the sexiest industry of the new century. And at the time, there was not one college in America that was training people for these new jobs. And it’s data science. With the proliferation of wearable technology and chips being an everything, data is exploding. And companies want to be able to mine it and analyze it and have predictive analysis, not of the past, but also of the future. These are certifications that you can get on those websites I just mentioned edX, Coursera, Udacity, but nano science, data science data analytics, john hopkins university has partnered with Udacity, the University of Washington has partnered with Udacity and creating some of these courses. And these are the ones that Google in particular is monitoring. Graduates of these programs, who are getting certifications are getting contacted by Google and getting offered jobs. So if someone’s wanting to pivot and look at a fast moving current to get into anything regarding data and data analytics is the rage right now. Friend of Mine is a director at the University of Virginia. He said, Bob, uh, we just started our program a couple years ago. We have kids that are in the program, they haven’t even graduated, and companies are contacting them and giving them hundred thousand dollar plus offers to leave the program and start right now.

Jason Hartman 17:18
That’s what’s happening. That’s how desperate these companies are for talent. But you know, speak to that accreditation issue if you would just for another moment. I mean, are the people that are getting these online accreditations? They’re not really on par with a college graduate with a I mean, it’s not the same thing is it? I hope it is. But you

Robert Dickie 17:37
know, absolutely. These are most of the people who are utilizing these websites are mid 30s professionals, and for whatever reason, they either said I don’t want to go back and spend $100,000 on an MBA or a master’s degree, or I don’t have time, or I want to gain some education in non traditional ways. And so and I can’t say I blame him Yeah, and they’re having success. Here’s an interesting story, that toughest engineering course at MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arguably one of the most prestigious engineering programs in America, they took their toughest engineering course. They put it online in a MOOC, the first time they are ever going to do it. They had 60,000 people around the world register for that course. Okay. At the end of this course, the top 60 or so, folks who finished the course top grades, were not MIT students. They were people that were taking this in Europe, in the United States and Africa. They were sitting at home that, you know, one of the top graduates of that course, was a 16 year old kid in Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. They’re like, Who is this? He had like perfect scores. He ended up getting a full ride offered to MIT and the next year he enrolled. So that’s what’s kind of happening. It’s when you take these courses You’re not taking them with just kind of average, folks. I mean, some of the best people are going to be on those courses taking that MOOC with you. And so I think

Jason Hartman 19:08
you talk about a bell curve. I mean, you always, you know, people used to go to prestigious universities like Harvard to because the bell curve was harder. They were competing with really smart people because of the admissions requirements. But here, it’s a self selection process. It’s beautiful. It’s just beautiful.

Robert Dickie 19:25
Well, the people who are taking the time to enroll in these classes, there’s a lot of initiative that comes with that, right? Yeah, exactly. They’re pre selecting. They’re saying, I’m a hard worker, I have initiative. I’m at the top of my game, I want to get better. And so you’re able to build a network, you’re able to have friendships, because they have online message boards. And so these people work together. It’s a revolution, Jason that we’re at just the very, very beginning part of it, and it’s going to radically change everything, the top minds, the folks who are watching this, they’re saying this is great and the reason why is because in the past, the best Education in the world was walled off for a very select few. And this is democratizing education for everyone. It’s now available for people who have an internet connection in Kenya and Somalia, Malaysia, Indonesia, it does not matter where you are, it does not matter about your personal resources. If you have a good work ethic and you have initiative, you can get the best education in the world for free, as long as you have an internet connection.

Jason Hartman 20:25
Well, Bob, it is an amazing time to be alive. I always say that it’s an amazing time to be alive. And this really is wonderful. So get out your website and tell people where they can find out more about you.

Robert Dickie 20:36
Well, I do a lot of writing and blogging on my website at Robert dickie.com. My last name is spelled di ck IE Robert dicky.com. I also have a free ebook download if you are listening, and you’d like to learn more about MOOCs in that whole revolution that’s taking place and you’d like to take some courses and figure out how to upload those certifications on your LinkedIn account. You can download my free book on my website. It’s MOOCs, and I love chatting with people. So if there’s anyone out there that’s listening that would like to have a conversation, ask questions, I engage with my readers and listeners all the time.

Jason Hartman 21:12
Wonderful. Well, Robert Dickey, the third, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing this wonderful information. We appreciate it.

Robert Dickie 21:18
Now, Jason, it’s always a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on your program. And I just wish all of your listeners the very best.

Jason Hartman 21:26
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