Episode 68 - From Battlefield to Boardroom: Tyler Schmoker's Insights on Work and Warfare

In this conversation, Kevin Davis interviews Tyler Schmoker about his background and experiences in the military and corporate world. They discuss the challenges of the public sector, the balance between public and private sector organizations, and the impact of automation on the future of work. The conversation explores the changing landscape of work and the need to redefine traditional roles and expectations. It discusses the generational differences in work ethic and the importance of bridging the gap between the older and younger generations. 

The conversation also delves into the value of education and degrees, as well as the need for companies to promote an entrepreneurial mindset. It highlights the role of technology and automation in improving efficiency and creating a better society. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of providing access to opportunities for individuals to discover and develop their talents.

Takeaways

The public sector faces challenges in terms of accountability, ownership, and incentivizing performance.
The private sector often promotes innovation, growth, and ownership through incentives and rewards.
Automation can be beneficial in reducing costs and improving efficiency, but careful consideration is needed to ensure ethical and responsible development.
Demographic decline and collapse in developed countries pose challenges for the workforce and require innovative solutions. The traditional concept of work and roles needs to be redefined to adapt to the changing landscape.
There are generational differences in work ethic, and it is important to bridge the gap and understand the motivations of each generation.
Education should be reimagined to provide more options and opportunities for individuals to pursue their passions.
Companies should promote an entrepreneurial mindset and leverage technology to improve efficiency and productivity.
Access to opportunities is crucial for individuals to discover and develop their talents.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
03:02 The Challenges of the Public Sector
12:00 The Balance Between Public and Private Sector
32:08 Redefining Work and Roles
33:18 Generational Differences in Work Ethic
34:23 Opportunities for Education and Redefining Success
36:11 The Value of Degrees and Societal Constructs
38:06 Letting the Next Generation Figure It Out
40:12 The Importance of Optionality and Multiple Revenue Streams
41:18 Promoting an Entrepreneurial Mindset in the Corporate World
44:05 The Value of Trade-Based Education
48:22 Leveraging Technology and Automation
53:41 Automating Jobs and Improving Society
58:59 Access to Opportunities and Finding One's Talent

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Transcript

0:00
Welcome to maxed out man helping you
0:06
become the man you were made to be hey guys this is Kevin Davis from the
0:11
maxed out man podcast today I'm going to be here with Tyler smoker um and uh
0:17
before we get started I want to remind you go to max out man.com find us on all the socials we're doing free challenges
0:22
courses coaching uh we have supplements we have all sorts of stuff so feel free to go over there and help us pay for
0:28
this thing this podcast so hey Tyler is a retired army combat arms senior
0:34
non-commissioned officer that's a that's that's a big one uh former paramilitary
0:40
adviser and strategic projects consultant to Fortune 500 companies he's worked in the corporate security
0:45
strategy project program management and Technology tiger Tyler is an avid Alpine
0:51
climber super excited to talk about that to an endurance athlete he's also a founder and principal at Winsley LLC a
0:59
high perform perance coaching Consulting and advisory Services firm uh when the
1:04
going gets tough the tough choose Winsley is the tagline there so hey man thank you so much for coming on board
1:11
I'm super excited to talk to you um you know I'm a I'm a huge fan of the military my daughter-in-law is in the
1:17
Army currently deployed actually and um so it irritates her when I tell her
1:24
thank you for your for your service but thank you for the service you provided
1:29
to our country and you know it's it's something that I think a lot of us take for granted so I know you're retired and
1:35
all that but I really appreciate that um well thank you for your support thank you for for your
1:41
support so hey this is super interesting like you have this like the you know even with that bio it's a huge resume um
1:49
super interesting to me and you know this conversation can go wherever it wherever it will uh but I'm super
1:56
interested just kind of knowing your background what that Adventure looked like how you got to where you are now
2:03
and kind of you know what what you spend most of your time doing you know in the present sure so um I'm originally from
2:12
kind of your neck of the woods I would say uh so I grew up in rural North Dakota family farm so grew up working
2:20
kind of high school the whole bit and then you have the decision to make are you going to stay in farm and labor or you going to run off and do something
2:27
else so um I you know as a young man that didn't have a whole lot of money and wasn't quite ready to go to college
2:34
or anything like that and I signed up for the Army so I was in the United States Army five days after I graduated
2:40
from high school and you know joined pre 911 and then things changed on 911 and
2:48
so pretty much the totality of my nearly 21 years of service was pretty busy um
2:54
as far as operational deployments and training and those types of things but I had a little bit of a unique pip
2:59
pipeline in that you know I made a decision after my first active duty enlistment um to go into the National
The Challenges of the Public Sector
3:05
Guard so I could go to school and continue to serve on a part-time basis and the reality was that given the
3:12
operational Tempo it was pretty much full-time anyways for about the first nine years that I was in uniform um and
3:20
trying to get in semesters here and there and then eventually saw an opportunity to do paramilitary work I'd
3:27
seen where you know with like the Iraq war into Afghanistan to a ler extent you
3:33
know I'm sure that back during that time you heard a lot about the the Dick Cheney connection to like Cal halberton
3:40
and KBR and Blackwater and the privatization of the war business and and so as a young Soldier you know out
3:48
in those operating environments I of course saw that as well both on the services side and then on the paramilitary side and you know I thought
3:55
to myself well that's something that looks pretty interesting so I had a little bit of a high hybrid career and that I was a National Guard person and
4:03
eventually in the reserves but a lot of the time I was getting excused absences or I was doing my one week in a month
4:10
and two weeks a year I was doing those in large blocks so I could get the credit for the time and support my unit
4:17
and then they were willing to excuse my absences so when I wasn't there on a part-time basis I was basically off
4:24
doing the same thing in in a different set of clothes and working as a paramilitary overseas so kind of an
4:30
interesting background where it gave me some context in continuing to leverage
4:36
skill sets that I'd learned in the military um and support you know US Government activities and at the same
4:43
time I started to get a better sense for um the business of operations and cost
4:50
considerations and contractual considerations and client relationships and a lot of those other things that I
4:56
think a lot of military folks that stay in full time they get out at their 20 years or or 20 plus years and they have
5:04
to learn all those things so I had a little bit of a soft landing and that I was able to kind of blend those things
5:10
together and then from there it evolved to where I got into corporate security work um working for a large Global firm
5:17
and supporting Fortune 500s and sitting in boardrooms of some of the biggest
5:22
companies in the world and and helping them with their unique challenges and then eventually I decided to spin it off
5:28
and and do on my own so I bring a lot of that you know strategic military plus
5:33
Fortune 500 knowhow now um to entrepreneurs and smaller to midsize
5:39
businesses at at a price tag that they can afford yeah that's a I mean it's really
5:47
crazy first of all you know you oftentimes and and kind of I'm I get the
5:52
uh behind the curtain view of the army um you know because of my daughter-in-law but a lot of times you
5:57
think of the army as like extreme ex rigid um you know only one way and and I
6:04
I like how you described your career because I think it shows really that you
6:09
know it's it's not quite as you know it it is run like a business probably run
6:14
very poorly in terms of a business standpoint but I but I think that that that does show that there is kind of
6:21
this different pathway um that can be taken in that scenario yeah I mean it's I I say it all
6:28
the time that um the U the United States Army is if not the oldest perhaps one of
6:35
the oldest functional corporations in the in the country's history and so you take those good aspects of it and then
6:42
you know again I saw early on enough that I needed to start upping my business IQ and my business Acumen and
6:49
relationship and really just considerations around profitability and operating efficiencies that I think well
6:57
leaders in the Army aren't in intentionally being wasteful I think just by bureaucratic design it does lend
7:04
itself to waste on occasions because none of it's your own and when you don't own anything you don't take care of it
7:10
quite as well as you would take care of your own thing it's like a a rental car you know they're shot after 100,000
7:16
miles because everyone drives them like a rental car right so um yeah I really
7:22
dove into that did a lot of my course study on that in college as well just really looking at kind of the Paradigm
7:28
Shift between um um military inherently military and governmental activities and
7:34
the privatization of that and to kind of use one of the earliest examples of that it's it's looking at the US Postal
7:40
Service and and FedEx and now you could even amplify that and say looking at the Amazon model it's like well how do we
7:47
find that right balance in organizations and and taxpayer dollars and how they're
7:53
being spent and and how it's serving us and and sometimes it's a matter of really what a lot of businesses space
7:59
and especially like smaller businesses that are experiencing growth and and attempting to scale you know one of the
8:06
buzz phrases or terminologies that's used now as the consideration around build versus buy right do you hire a
8:14
headcount to come in do you build the software yourself to meet your specific needs all those things or do you look
8:20
for something that's off the shelf whether it's you know bu you know paying a subscription for a tier one SAS
8:26
application to do your billing and your invoicing and your bookkeep keeping and all of that automated or in the case of
8:32
services is it better to bring on an FTE that might cost you $200,000 a year you
8:38
know all benefits in or is it better to bring in a guy like me on occasion that maybe there's an hourly premium on it
8:44
that's a little bit higher than having an FTE but if you only need me for three weeks you only need me for three weeks
8:50
so those are just kind of some of the considerations in that pendulum that swings between public and private sector
8:55
I think yeah and do I mean do you feel like that because you have way more
9:01
experience than I think probably most do and you're you're on the business side looking you know you kind of look at it
9:07
from a business standpoint is that really the problem that we have in the public sector like the US Postal Service
9:14
is a great example you know we had this postal carrier here at our place and we run a business out of here ship out of
9:20
here and she just got fed up with it and quote unquote retired but because she was literally
9:26
like the only person in this small town post office that actually cared about what she did and is is that one of the
9:34
big things in the public sector is that there really isn't there's there's no ownership of what of what it is they're
9:40
doing and there's no real you know we have like this multi-level hierarchy and
9:46
you know maybe the very the very top fourstar guy is in charge and the buck
9:51
stops with him and all that but almost everybody else below him is is kind of not a true owner of whatever process
9:58
they're doing well and even then is is the fourstar general or the you know the head of a
10:05
division within the private or within um the government services or the public sector do they really own it not really
10:13
I mean at the end of it they have guarantee on you know a pension or whatever it is
10:20
so I want to be very careful in how I word it um having the government's listening
10:28
right you know well well but but but more so having been on on both sides of the coin so I
10:34
don't I don't want to diminish I don't want to diminish the intent or the intent or the the the
10:44
drive or the passion of people who are in the government services who are doing it the right way and and and you know
10:51
keeping taxpayers dollars at at front of mind because I think that there are a lot of people who are really dedicated
10:56
that are I'm going to look at this not from an IND idual person perspective but more of a systems perspective when you
11:03
look at a public sector and a private sector organization I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were
11:11
talking about this and and really it was well put it's that the government sector
11:18
has a monopoly within their SE uh sector in in by and large I mean some of that's
11:24
changed especially within like distribution so you have like DHL and and and Amazon and and ups and all these
11:31
other things that uh compete with the postal service but it's not inherently a
11:38
competitive activity which means that you get folks that will stay within the
11:45
public sector and it's really a matter of it's more tenure based and minimum
11:51
requirements based so as long as you meet X requirements that are defined for promotion to the next pay grade or
11:58
whatever or next position yeah of course there there's there are components of of
The Balance Between Public and Private Sector
12:04
of Merit to that but it's not the same as in the the private sector where okay
12:10
you know you have to politic to move up and you have to do these different things and you have to generate revenue and you have to have profitable revenue
12:16
and all those other things which the companies incentivize people to have that sort of growth um and and so they
12:24
incentivize them through positions and esteem and then also the material value and company cars and expense cars and
12:31
all this this other stuff whereas that doesn't necessarily exist to the same
12:36
extent within within the public sector right so the private sector does I think
12:43
prompt Talent a little bit more and and competitiveness that doesn't exist and to a larger extent and and this is where
12:51
you know I don't want to upset people but even when I was still primarily military in nature I was um in my career
12:58
path I was a student of um you know geopolitics and public policy and all
13:04
those types of things so you almost look at at like capitalism and communism right as examples and so with the like
13:12
with the Communist idea it was well we want to make sure that everyone has
13:18
access to these essential Services which is good you want everyone to get an education you want everyone to have accessible Healthcare you want everyone
13:24
to have adequate housing food all of those basic needs the problem was there wasn't that much above that so you
13:33
created societies then through capitalism and again I haven't studied it deeply but you know as a as a casual
13:39
Observer it looks as though there's not really an incentive to do more so
13:44
there's not really an incentive to innovate or succeed and okay once you've
13:50
met the minimum viable product that's pretty much where people stay and so that's what I look at when I see like a
13:57
communist or uh system is that people are doing just enough to
14:02
have minim minimal viable product but then over time as the system atropy you
14:08
end up with okay well they're supposed to be providing adequate housing and adequate health care and and Collective
14:15
farming and all these and then it all starts to suck and the reason it sucks is because no one takes pride in
14:20
ownership if you're a farmer working on a collective farm and it's not your farm you're doing minimal viable product
14:28
because you're never going to own it you're never going to be more than just the farmer you're never going to grow your farm you are a worker on someone
14:34
else's farm so that's the danger of those systems
14:39
where there is no Pathway to ownership and without a pathway to ownership you
14:46
are pulling a lever in someone else's organization and someone else's machine
14:51
whereas within the private sector you can be in situations where if you work
14:57
really hard you hit sales numbers or you exceed sales numbers if you're in a well-functioning
15:02
organization that stuff is rewarded because they want you to do more of that
15:07
and they want you to amplify that activity so they can grow the business they can overtake competitors they can
15:13
do all these things granted capitalism's got its own share of problems too when you get into where we're a totally
15:19
consumption-based economy and like in the American experience we reached a point where we kind of stopped building
15:26
stuff and we let other people build our stuff and then we just started building
15:31
spreadsheets for the stuff that someone else was building for us and when we look at it it's like what do we really
15:37
have if the light switch goes off my spreadsheets are gone and it's like I never existed so now when you look at De
15:45
globalization and and some like the changing trade relationships with with
15:50
Chi China and and um Global instability with um like the Ukraine war it's
15:57
creating a trend now to where we're moving back to reindustrialization and onshoring some
16:03
of those manufacturing capacity and some of those things that we lost and granted
16:08
a te a phone a smartphone that's made here in the United States is probably going to be a lot more expensive um than
16:15
you know before we reindustrialize it might be a two or $3,000 phone but at
16:20
the same time if we have low unemployment we have jobs that people want to work and it's not the $15 job
16:28
hour jobs that you know a lot of people don't want to do and then you have people that have better jobs saying well
16:33
people just don't want to work anymore well people don't want to work for do sucky jobs that's what they don't want to do so let's so let's leverage our
16:41
Innovation and our technology knowhow to where we can automate some of that stuff that we don't have enough people for
16:48
already you know we have a $400,000 or 400,000 worker deficit now and with
16:55
demographic collapse that's going to be like 900,000 within the next 20 years so it's like
17:01
let's automate and innovate our way out of those crappy jobs that people don't want to new do that are easy to automate
17:09
and let's create more skilled jobs and even if that means we have to pay $3,000 for a phone that used to cost a, if
17:16
people are making a good living it works itself out at least that's my opinion I'm sure some economists would disagree
17:21
with me but yeah I mean I I'd love to delve into
17:26
that more because I think it's first of all this is a different direction than I thought this would go which is awesome but um I was thinking as you were
17:34
describing no like I I love it it's super interesting to me I say on this podcast a lot like a lot of these
17:39
conversations for my own edification and I'm just great that other people listen along because I think it's very educational entertaining and we'll wrap
17:46
it back around but um the I it the thought occurred to me that the
17:51
government literally invented the everybody gets a trophy mentality uh and that's kind of you know
17:59
that that really deinen devizes most people in order to do things because in
18:05
the private sector you know I'm an entrepreneur been an entrepreneur for 25 years so I'm almost solely responsible
18:11
for and sometimes it's good sometimes like last night I'm not sleeping as well as I did the night before um but like I
18:18
am incentivized because I own what I'm doing I own the procedure I own the tasks and I own the rewards and even as
18:25
an employee when I have employees I can incentivize my employees to to take ownership of that through monetary
18:31
rewards and through you know um emotional rewards and and growth and and
18:37
all those things recognition for recognition for esteem all of those things basically you're you're playing
18:43
to the maos hierarchy of needs right I mean that's what drives that's what drives people right and some of them
18:50
waight different levels of it more heavily it yeah yeah and I think the challenge
18:57
with the whole everything everyone gets a trophy thing is that you're not you're rewarding something you're
19:03
giving a reward for something that didn't require any work right which is which is counter I think everything we
19:10
are as humans right because we're built to work but then if we get rewards for not doing any work even the minimum then
19:17
like then we're we're deinen diviz and so it's like I don't have to do anything
19:23
to get this so why would I do that and I think that that culture exists in a lot of different ways uh so but I you know I
19:30
don't really know the answer to that other than to stop giving everybody a trophy and actually go back to keeping
19:36
score right right well yeah I mean that can certainly exist whether it's through different legislation or or to a much
19:44
larger scale the government systems that are in place within a country and really that's even true within corporate
19:50
structures in the private sector if you have something that really has no semblance of
19:56
accountability and it's BAS basically a flat reward structure which is basically
20:03
you get a stien in a ration I mean that that that's not really a performance
20:08
Rich environment I mean you might have rare people within that that are so intrinsically motivated that they're
20:15
going to do their best all of the time no matter what I think that that exists on every corner of the world but there's
20:22
a higher probability and you start to look at the middle of the bell curve and the people that aren't on that Leading
20:27
Edge of being a self starter a lot of people are just going to do the bare minimum they're going to go home and and
20:34
and that's it right yeah 100% And to your point about
20:40
automation I think that's what McDonald you know McDonald's is always the the Forefront of of um Innovation and
20:48
Automation and you know that's how we got to where we are with that but I'm sure you've seen I think they're called
20:53
Cosmic MC um the these new automated this new automated restaurant that they have
21:00
which essentially is AI powered has one or two employees running the entire store there's no dining room um it's
21:07
basically take out I think or drive-thru but I you know and I think
21:13
that that's to your point about automating I'd love to hear your thoughts on that but one of the things that I found so so genius as a marketing
21:19
guy is that they have spun this from a marketing perspective because they've taken something that would ordinarily be
21:26
like oh we're replacing humans and they've created It's like got this very
21:31
sci-fi futuristic theme around it they literally wrapped what would normally be
21:37
a a detriment and they're like oh come to our very cool futuristic you know restaurant and forget the fact that no
21:44
humans are here right so I think that that's but that seems to be where we have to
21:49
go well we have to I you know I think the argument I mean it was a few election
21:56
Cycles ago but I remember there was a lot of discussion about the automation
22:02
cliff and so they're worried about truck drivers right is kind of the big ones it's like learn to code was the big
22:08
thing it's probably 10 years ago now right but they need to learn to code right because you know all the
22:13
self-driving trucks are going to put all these truck drivers out of business I mean the reality is that when we look at our systems um and I'll get to the the
22:21
biggest one at the end but shipping our stuff around the country is super expensive and it makes
22:28
stuff more expensive for consumers we should be leveraging our waterways more we should be leveraging rail more and in
22:34
and in instances where we have to use self-driving for the lower risk parts of
22:40
a trip that aren't The Last Mile in complex Urban settings but it's getting
22:45
stuff from Fargo North Dakota out to you why can't that be self-driving right to
22:51
where it lowers the consumer cost and and so that's one component of it and
22:56
the other component is developed countries need to get over the
23:02
myth about where people are losing their jobs because the reality is as I said a
23:07
little bit ago we already have a 400,000 worker deficit on jobs because
23:14
the largest gener the largest the largest generation in American history
23:19
the Baby Boomers they're in the midst of retirement now about half of them have retired and the other half of them are
23:26
on their way out and a lot of those folks just because of you know economics Etc you know they maybe delayed their
23:33
retirements but they're now reaching a point where they're going to divest they're not going to be part of the
23:39
major consumption part of the economy anymore people don't buy as much when they retire they're going to retire go
23:45
where they're going to go and enjoy the rest of their life and it opens up positions now you have to think about
23:50
that though Gen X generation is a much smaller generation so they can't even
23:55
fill those POs positions in its true form and you have to consider that a lot of gen xers like I consider myself an
24:03
elder Millennial or a young gen xer depending on how you slice it or dice it
24:08
but a lot of us yeah you guys are like the multiple personality generation because no one knows when no one really
24:14
knows what the millennial time like I'm a I'm a full on gen xer so mine's a little bit better
24:20
defined yeah so I kind of fall in the middle and then i' probably a little bit of a skew of where I grew up makes it
24:26
lean a little bit more Gen X or than m just because of like social dynamics but
24:32
the the point is that you know you have you don't have enough people in the
24:38
upcoming generations and so again this is this is like a real numbers problem so when I hear people say and and it
24:44
turns into a generational argument in a sniping contest in a lot of cases about
24:50
who's lazy who's entitled who ruined the planet all of this and we could go in circles on and on and on depending on
24:56
who the audience but at core the reality is there aren't enough people to do all
25:01
the things the way that our system is currently built there aren't a lot of gen xers there are more Millennials but
25:08
there aren't very many Zoomers or gen Z at all and so like I'm a big listener of
25:14
of Peter Zion he's a geopolitical strategist and he talks about a lot about demographic Decline and collapse
25:21
within developed countries and a lot of developed countries are at different phases of either demographic de deine as
25:29
in the case of the US meaning we don't have enough people to do the stuff we need to do within our current system um
25:36
and then there are countries that are in demographic collapse meaning that they're at more of a risk of you know
25:43
they have a middle class that can no longer provide cheap labor and now they have consumption and you they just can't
25:49
keep up and they're really not going to have enough people like China's an example of a country that you know with
25:54
one child policy that really hobbled them to where they don't have enough working adults to
26:01
do all the things that they need to do so you see a lot of that manufacturing capacity out of China it's not terribly
26:08
technical yet because they're a communist country and because there's a certain level of prot uh protections
26:14
that doesn't necessarily support Innovation and and and before we were
26:19
talking about performing at above the minimum viable product so you have a lot of people that are performing they're
26:25
pulling their lever lever and doing minimal product but maybe on that factory floor somewhere there's an
26:31
entrepreneur who could have come up with you know a life-saving technology and I feel like at least within our society we
26:39
have some potential to do that so you know I was getting to my point that you know a lot of gen xers younger gen xers
26:46
like me and even older or you know true gen xers and then Elder Millennials a
26:51
lot of us with you know the Catalyst of the pandemic have decided it's like what am I doing am I waiting to get laid off
26:57
at a place that I worked for nine year nine years or 10 years and you know I like some of my clients I don't like
27:03
some of the other ones maybe I like my boss maybe I don't so a lot of us because the barrier of Entry is now
27:09
lower to where you know I can get a no code website pretty easily I can develop a social media presence that gets me a
27:16
lot more hits every day than a lot of company websites can hope for in a month why can't I market for myself I can get
27:23
a stripe account I can do my own invoicing and billing so the bar barrier for entry is much
27:28
so now we have we have Gen X or excuse me baby boomers that are exiting the
27:35
workforce um from some of these larger corporations and the generation that's supposed to replace them got sick of
27:41
waiting right so we started our own businesses now and now we're doing our our own things and then we have this
27:48
younger generation that's coming up that they have their own different values and and it's not purely around money it's
27:54
around purpose and are they doing work that you know supports social you know
28:00
support supports social Equity um access you know success all of those types of
28:07
things community- based companies that are that are supporting the Ben of humanity so it's I see automation as a
28:16
good thing as long as we kind of keep a handle on how we're developing generalized AI because the last thing I
28:23
want is a you know is a AI That's strapped to the Boston Dynamics robot
28:28
with a machine gun on it that's a lot smarter than me of course I think that's like the worst case scenario that
28:33
everyone's afraid of when you have ai that now has a hardware instrument to
28:39
decide hey you know the these meat robots they're a lot dumber than us and
28:45
they continually screw things up maybe we so we want to make sure that we're engineering on the AI front and even as
28:51
we're automating jobs so that it's for the betterment of humanity and at the
28:57
same time the finite amount of people that we do have we start really treating
29:02
them like the rare earth resource that they truly are and instead of say
29:09
instead of saying well this person doesn't they just don't want to work anymore because they don't want to do a $15 an hour job well no they don't but
29:16
they're also a rare resource so let's develop them and let's get them into roles that work so maybe instead of
29:22
having a a crew full of $15 $20 an hour people at a McDonald's working you have
29:28
one person in there that's running maybe they're making 100K and they're making a good living
29:36
right and I mean how do we like and I I love pretty much everything you said but
29:42
and and because the real problem and like you said we can get in kind of these generational Wars and you're lazy
29:49
live with your parents and all this stuff and granted there's you know housing short we we're a huge housing
29:54
shortage right now too which is you know it it's it's not necessarily greed I do some real estate stuff but it's not
30:00
necessarily greed that's driving the prices up it's because we don't have enough homes you know that supply and
30:07
demand as aspect of it but with this younger like the Zoom generation Zoomies
30:13
and or Zoomers I guess is what they're called and gen Z and and in that group if they're all as a conglomerate in a
30:21
mindset of you know these like I want to have self-fulfilling jobs like when we
30:26
you know like as genxers right like our first job was in fast food we did the menial jobs it was a right of passage
30:33
and it was just part of it we developed work ethic we developed understanding on uh of community and uh strategy and
30:41
working together and all of these things if we have now a generation that is not interested in doing that not that they
30:48
won't if they have to but not necessarily interested in that like how do we bridge that Gap you know I and
30:54
understand what you're talking about where you have a but that's like a one to 13 one to 15 person running a shop
31:01
that still leaves 14 people that may not be able to do a job how do we you know in your opinion how are we bridging that
31:09
Gap well I think we definitely have opportunities for education and really redefining education and how we pursue
31:17
that you know I did a I posted on LinkedIn recently and the post did extremely well which I'd like to say I
31:24
was surprised but I kind of knew it would strike a cord but it was was about I I was I was going to bring this up by
31:31
the way I was going to bring that up okay so and and and if you're watching this you
31:37
can see I've got my degrees hanging on the wall behind me so I came from a generation where I was like you have to
31:42
go to college I came from a family that didn't have degrees and so as you have to go to college you have to study hard
31:47
you have to work hard in high school you have to go to college you have to do all these things so like even when I joined
31:53
the army it's like well you should just go to college instead it's like well that really wasn't an option for me but then it an option for me later on so
32:00
then I was going between deployments overseas having semesters interrupted for training and deployments and all
32:07
this other stuff so between undergrad and grad school it took me about 10 years to get it all done so really you
Redefining Work and Roles
32:14
know probably three to four years longer than it really should have because of you know government funded camping Tri
32:21
trips that were were interrupting that right but so I did a post about this and
32:27
I said you know I'm you know it's it's kind of a danged if you do danged if you don't situation where you know I work so
32:34
hard you know I the government funded some of my education some of it I still had to pay out of pocket and there's a
32:39
whole lot of Sweat Equity because I still had to to do the work to get it done but I posted about these degrees
32:47
that I worked so hard for and was a kind of a driving focus of pulling myself out of poverty and working really hard and
32:54
not getting a lot lot of sleep and stuff for a lot of years and you know well I'm waiting to get
33:00
into those executive roles that the generation prior to me had because they're delaying their retirement
33:06
because you know we're in a recession and all these other things and then you get sick of waiting so to start my own
33:12
business right and now to the younger Generations than me in the middle as an elder Millennial or a young gen xer is
Generational Differences in Work Ethic
33:21
oh degrees are worthless they don't mean anything and interestingly enough a lot of the people who say degrees are
33:26
worthless are folks who don't have degrees so and and I know that that's not entirely true and I know that a a
33:33
degree alone doesn't make someone smart or it's not a sole metric of whether or
33:38
not they're going to be successful or not but I got a lot of response on that post and a lot of feedback on both sides
33:44
it's like oh degrees don't mean anything it's a waste of time or yes they show that you have some level of commitment
33:50
or work ethics so I think that that's just one of those examples of societal constructs that is very generous ation
33:58
and I think at some point you're not really going to beat the argument you state your piece about it and and then
34:03
you move on so I know that you know if one person looks at my background the degrees might be a point of legitimacy
34:10
and maybe they'll want to work with me because of that and then on the other end of it maybe it's like oh this guy wasted a bunch of time and money on
34:17
stuff that doesn't matter when he could have just been an entrepreneur so there are really those two sides of it and I
34:22
think the broader discussion outside of me then is that at some point we just have to let
Opportunities for Education and Redefining Success
34:29
the next Generations start figuring it out for themselves because there were a lot of things that every generation
34:36
that's working within the country right now have done you know well at you know whether it's the Boomers whether it's
34:42
gen xers um Millennials gen Z Etc but with each
34:48
generation I think that we've consistently gotten a little bit more conscientious we've gotten a little bit
34:54
more faster and we've gotten a little bit more effici right in terms of technological Savvy
35:01
and leveraging Technology to do things so even though it's a like a generation remov
35:07
for us and we look at Zoomers it's like it's easy to say oh they just want to play video games and be lazy all day I
35:12
mean the reality is if they're figuring out ways to mechanize and automate some of those things that we thought had to
35:18
be a 40-hour job then good on them as far as I'm concern let's take care of our society let's take care of our
35:24
families let's take care of the environment and who cares how we did it at that point if we're kind of meeting
35:30
some of the high points of of a well functioning society and if it means that we have folks that get on a keyboard for
35:35
three hours a day and then they have time to take you know six weeks of vacation a year then I applaud that
35:44
generation yeah I mean it's not necessarily a bad thing right I think I think the challenge is as a com as a
35:51
country you know making sure that the ones that have figured that out are leading the ones that haven't figured
35:57
that out and lean more towards the I don't want to work at all I do want to sit in my basement and play video games
36:04
all day because I'm addicted or or whatever and you know obviously that's a that's a relatively small percentage I
The Value of Degrees and Societal Constructs
36:11
think depending on who you ask you'll get a different answer to that but to your point about doing um you know
36:17
getting a degree I actually have two degrees and I did work in my field uh in the I I have a degree in exercise
36:23
physiology and I did work in that field and I kind of I'm adjacent to that field now but I think the irony something that just
36:29
occurred to me as you're speaking about this is that as the older Generations I almost think we try to make that
36:36
decision for young people which just perpet perpetuates the problem you know
36:42
overall because like if I I didn't come from this I didn't come from this kind of thing and I didn't treat my kids this
36:49
way one of my kids is a paramedic went to kind of what would be a trade school but she's in Premed now so she's she
36:55
actually wants to be a neuro surgeon or study neurology and so she went that direction
37:02
the other one just they were both homeschooled but the other one just decided it wasn't for her she went for
37:07
like a semester and I was totally okay with that like let's take the and we took the entrepreneurial approach what I
37:12
call the entrepreneurial approach education and I even did this in my own uh when I went to college like I never
37:19
went to class I have great retention I would just figure out what needed to be on the test I learned the material I
37:25
took the test and I graduated with like a three .9 something um and so like I
37:31
actually I took that path of least resistance like what's the bare minimum to learn the material and get the degree
37:39
but one of the things I see now is that we we can I think hopefully as Society we're seeing more trade based education
37:47
being valued again you know there's you know micro talks a ton ton about this uh
37:53
we spent several years in in my world around um well ERS Fabricators painters
37:59
plumbers all this stuff so I kind of live in that world too and to realize that Ai and automation is still a long
Letting the Next Generation Figure It Out
38:08
ways out from being able to walk in your bathroom look at what's there and get
38:14
underneath the toilet to fix your problem right like so we're still going to need those those kind of jobs um and
38:21
so I think that that but but I I was just thinking that like we're we're doing a disservice as the older generation
38:28
by continuing to tell young people that get out of the parents basement just go to class even though you're going to go
38:34
for three years and have no idea what the hell you're doing and and just do it
38:40
right right well then also you know the the term that I think every gener we
38:46
it's almost like a a running joke at this point but it's the when I was your age right it's like when I was your age
38:53
kind of tends to be a little bit discouraging to the Next Generation and it's and it's no different than
38:59
being a corporate leader or a military leader or a government leader at some
39:05
point you need to get out of the way and let people do for themselves and not
39:10
necessarily getting out of the way in your position although sometimes I think there's a time for that as well
39:15
sometimes people just need to move on to the next thing and if they've atrop in a role but but get out of people's way
39:23
enough so they can kind of figure out what it is that they want to do and I think that as a society even from where
39:30
the point where we're bringing up our kids and we're developing our young people and getting them into the workforce and training and mentoring and
39:35
developing them if we can get better at doing that I think we're going to see a
39:42
lot less people that are in their mid-30s to early 40s saying oh I'm I'm
39:48
quitting an executive job because I absolutely hate it and I don't want to be here and I'm going to be an entrepreneur and I'm going to start
39:54
marketing it on social media because that's at a Breakneck rate you can't you can't look at the LinkedIn feed and not
40:01
see that that happen so you have to look at what's the root cause of why that happen well in a lot of cases people
40:07
were forced into career expectations that they didn't really have within their own heart and in their own mind
The Importance of Optionality and Multiple Revenue Streams
40:12
for themselves and they did it for 20 25 years and then they looked at themselves
40:18
one day and said the world has changed and what am I doing
40:24
right yeah this this is this is supposed to be fun and I and I almost think in
40:30
the corporate environment if we could figure out a way to allow employees to
40:36
be entrepreneurial as an employee you know we max out man with what we do here we
40:42
primarily Focus like I'm an entrepreneur we focus a lot on entrepreneurship and business owners and that kind of thing
40:48
however we also recognize that not everybody first of all not everybody
40:53
should be an entrepreneur and not everybody is equipped to be one even though everybody thinks they're equipped
40:59
to be one or everyone calls themselves an entrepreneur when they don't really want to do something else right there's
41:05
that tendency like I'm just an I'm an entrepreneur it's like no you're just unemployed um right but like if we could
41:13
figure out in the corporate world how to help people to have an entrepreneurial Spirit um with honestly all the bad
Promoting an Entrepreneurial Mindset in the Corporate World
41:20
things that come with being an entrepreneur right like I have the security that someone else is paying me
41:25
being able to be productive being able to take ownership a and all of those aspects of being an entrepreneur because
41:32
again and you know I'm in in a lot of different Industries and I always try to point out like you're not necessarily an
41:39
entrepreneur you're just a small business owner in in that case or you're an employee and and that's totally fine
41:46
right like you're providing for your family you're happy you don't have to then like go off the deep end with
41:54
entrepreneurship but I I wonder if there's a way for us to bridge that Gap and get that into our corporate
42:00
culture so you know I think that there's definitely benefit for individual
42:06
workers and aspiring professionals through whatever Channel they decide to
42:12
take in their life whether it's public service um private sector or or an entrepreneur business
42:19
owner optionality is so important to have and have those things that you do outside of the thing that you do like
42:25
you know again I I use Link quite a bit because that's where we met right um connected through Linkedin but you see
42:31
it all the time where um people at least who are perceptually successful you know
42:38
some cases maybe you can't validate that but there's a lot of discussion around how having multiple revenue streams and
42:45
and really having optionality and I agree with that wholeheartedly and so
42:51
you know I even liken it back to my own military experience to where even when I talk with other milit folks they're like
42:58
you kind of have a weird background because I was dabbling and figuring out ways to do part-time between different
43:04
things but it was a way for me to stay actively engaged within my career to
43:10
where you know I could do a couple different things and have a change of scenery and I was still supporting both of those you know whether it was
43:16
paramilitary and then pure military operations and then also being a student so always having like two or three
43:23
things going at one time I think is super important and now I'm glad that you brought this up too Kevin about
43:30
companies and corporations getting more accustomed to the idea of promoting an
43:36
entrepreneurial mindset and also entrepreneurial activities within their
43:42
organization because I think if you go into an or orientation of of any Fortune 500 they're all going to say they want
43:49
you to have an Innovative entrepreneurial mindset they want you to be a self-starter and then as soon as
43:54
you're an influencer on a social media platform and you're getting more you're getting more pings than the company
44:00
website is then there's going to be someone who has a problem with it's like what are they doing all day are they're
The Value of Trade-Based Education
44:05
an influencer and are they selling something on the side does that mean they're selling it when they're supposed to be working and all these other things
44:11
come up it's like sure there's a potential risk for that because again the barrier for entry to be a person of
44:19
influence and effectively Market something that's independent of a large organization is more possible than it's
44:26
ever and through the power of social media in particular and then backed by so many subscription based backend
44:34
systems that are available so you don't have to have a $100,000 Oracle subscription to R run your business and
44:40
have an Erp I mean you pay a $12 a month for square and you're sending out invoices and you're doing direct pay and
44:47
all this other stuff and so I think companies need to get accustomed to that idea
44:53
that individuals that are talented and driven don't need you as much as they
44:58
did 10 15 20 years ago because if they're truly that Savvy they can figure
45:04
out the back end and scale that on their own and in a lot of cases they can Market more effectively so I think that
45:10
companies that are going to be more successful as the gig economy starts to
45:16
grow and the idea of having side hustles and multiple revenue streams starts to grow and they want to have and retain
45:24
Talent particularly in like mid-management and executive roles who I mean they're limiting themselves from a
45:30
certain part of the talent pool that's just like no I'm going to keep my social media I'm gonna sell this thing on the
45:36
side I'm gonna do coaching on the side whatever it's like and and there's going to be people that's either gonna be you
45:43
can like it or lump it and and in some cases you know you have people you know like me who eventually exit VP roles
45:50
because I want to have a little bit more creative freedom to do what I want to do so companies that are going to be
45:57
forward looking in that regard and maintaining a broader talent pool I
46:02
think that they're going to be more effective at incentivizing some of those side efforts obviously they need to they
46:08
need to protect their own business interests and they can't have things happening that are contrary to their business within employment agreements
46:15
and all that type of stuff but dog on if you've got an influencer that works for
46:20
you and there's an opportunity for you to incentivize them dropping your brand
46:25
occasionally and saying hey I work here and they're great we went and did we did a litter pickup in the park today that's
46:32
going to get a lot more hits than your website's going to get visits in a month most likely it's like so why don't you
46:38
take advantage of those things was gonna say I was say the exact thing right like
46:45
if I got dude if I if I've got an employee that happens to have a million followers on Instagram and she or he
46:53
happens to you know the there there is an adjacent demographic that fits our
46:58
business it's like all right so here's your salary here's your commission oh by the way we'd like to hire you as an
47:05
influencer as well to rep the brand that you happen to work work for and like
47:11
dude if you're because they're so afraid of that you know and and granted you know maybe you have an influ maybe you
47:17
have someone that's an influencer in cosmetics you know she's doing makeup tutorials and stuff like that and and we
47:23
sell break parts you know like it's it's a it's a little bit of a it's more of an adjacent thing but if you say okay who
47:30
buys break parts um men like they there're may be an opportunity there to then say okay well
47:38
could you would you be willing to do this kind of content for us um that would be adjacent to your own influencer
47:44
brand adjacent to our brand and be mutually beneficial and know by the way we'll you know add a bunch of salary to
47:51
to what you're doing I I think to your point one of the things that we figured out during the pandemic some of some
47:56
companies figured this out and some companies just completely blew it right like we had this work from home culture
48:03
people were still very productive and then so many companies they're sitting on like you
48:09
know 50,000 $100,000 a month leases on a big building that they fig some of them figured out hey we don't need this which
48:16
actually kind of hurt the commercial real estate market and you can kind of see how that happened but other companies were like Well everybody's
Leveraging Technology and Automation
48:23
coming back to work 40 hours a week and if you don't you're fired right like so that's uh that's
48:29
definitely not you know you can see how these companies are just so it's like
48:34
steering a cruise ship versus steering a dingy and and it seems like we're just
48:39
very slow to react well and by the end of it you're going to have a situation where no one's
48:44
going to work in an office maybe we won't see it in our lifetime but that that is going to happen you know you
48:51
know this is we get pretty woo woo on this but we are we are emerging on a
48:57
singularity like at some point we are going to be at a singularity and I don't don't want to make it sound like I'm a
49:03
foil hat person but if you think about it for context now in the information age I mean we're essentially
49:09
non-integrated Androids now we have our phone on us all the time we have a supercomputer that we're tied to and
49:15
some of us more than others particularly those of us like you and I who are in the multimedia space we have times we
49:21
want to make sure we want to push out content we're using that for our client funnel we're communicating with them on
49:26
emails I do 99.9% of my Consulting in billable hours it's as a remote type of situation and
49:34
so I mean I'm effectively a cyborg already I I need my phone every single day and if my if my phone goes down it's
49:41
not because I'm a teenage kid and I'm on social media non-stop but I do leverage social media as a strategic
49:47
Communications enabler and then I'm also using a lot of other business tools that allow me to do things that you know a
49:54
consulting firm couldn't have done with five or 10 people 10 years ago and so that's just kind of the reality of the
50:00
situation and the way that we office and House people are no different there's you know for again for the rest of our
50:07
lifetimes for sure there are going to be jobs that are like fi require fine human motor skills and those types of things
50:13
but let's get to a point where we're actually automating the things out that just really suck that nobody wants to do
50:20
instead of having it be a finger pointing battle about people are just lazy and don't want to work anymore and
50:25
when I was your age it's like some of these jobs just suck and as the richest country in the world there's no reason
50:31
that we shouldn't automate some of those jobs out if we have a job that takes 10 people to do but we can automate it down
50:37
to where it's one person with Automation and that person's making $100,000 a year
50:43
and but PS by the way the numbers show it we don't have enough people to do all those jobs anyway like if we keep
50:49
talking about people just don't want to work anymore when the numbers are clear that there aren't enough people it's an exercise and insanity
50:57
right yeah 100% yeah and it's um it's just a crazy time for us to live in and
51:04
a crazy time to know like where we're going and and like what our ideology is
51:10
around work and I think for the most part as humans I think we're designed to produce we're designed to work and so
51:18
finding out figuring out how to take people from where we are now which is kind of in this weird
51:24
transitionary generation to where is like oh well I can get rich on social media doing my makeup or I could go work
51:30
in a job that sucks and and you know and which one would you choose like most people would not choose that but yeah I
51:37
mean I have my phone on me all the time it's on do not disturb right now but you and I are are meeting for the first time
51:43
and having a a great conversation over the internet right voice over IP and and
51:48
all of those things and it's funny because I I literally all day yesterday I was building funnels I was doing zap
51:55
year I was connecting kajabi and go high level and and I'm you know go high level
52:01
is a is a SAS obviously or it's a service and I'm using it with new AI
52:08
technology so that it can actually be my call Setter for a book a call funnel and
52:15
I don't even have to do that crap right like it gets all the way to the end until that person actually gets on the
52:20
phone with um someone about doing coaching calls with us for example and
52:26
like that's the perfect opportunity how many people would I need to do would need to have back in the day without
52:32
using you know ad-based funnels that drive these you know it and right now
52:39
and I'm going off a tangent but like we're using Facebook Insta insta uh forms so a customer can fill out that
52:46
form they go into go high level go high level will pre-qualify them based on a
52:51
survey kick that back to Facebook and then Facebook will will pre-qualify that
52:56
person and create a custom audience for me to improve how well my ads do to
53:02
reach the right people like it's just but it's all AI it's all automated I don't have to do any of that by hand
53:09
right right yeah that's exactly right so you're you're leverage you're leveraging technology you know to use a military
53:16
term as a force multiplier where you have where you you don't have an adequate force of people or troops or
53:23
employees or Executives you leverage technology where you can and then where
53:28
those things where you still need those soft skills that's when you have a discovery call right and where you need
53:33
to have that human touch you still have that so it's not that I'm suggesting that we should just go to the Matrix
53:39
where we're all in a pod and it's sucking our energy to do things it's it's more of a matter of let's let's
Automating Jobs and Improving Society
53:46
leverage engineering and technology and Innovation as it was intended for the
53:52
betterment of humanity so that we can all live more comfortable lives lives
53:57
and and to your point you know I think most people inherently want to do a good job doing something that they want to do
54:04
and they want to be rewarded for that so I think for a lot of people it's not a matter of oh they just want to sit in
54:09
the basement and and never move out of mom and dad's house I think it's a matter of how do we present or at least
54:19
advertise the opportunity to think about what those things are so that each person can find that thing that they
54:25
want to do like it's it's always kind of weird like you know when I look at like High Level Sports just say it's figure
54:31
skating for example not I'm a big figure skating fan but we'll use it as an example you know I often think to myself
54:38
about how you know there's probably someone in a country that maybe is even
54:45
in a hot climate right and maybe they don't have access to that but maybe
54:50
they're the most talented figure skater in the world and it's unrealized and and
54:56
lot of and you know I'm not particularly talented at anything either so I think maybe I never found that thing that I'm
55:02
a savant at but I think that it's exciting the potential to have access to
55:09
more people to explore what that thing is for them because I think if everyone is
55:15
finding the thing that they're whether they're an elite athlete or thought leader or professional and or Visionary
55:24
the more people total on the planet that find that thing the more efficient we
55:29
get and I think also the more conscientious we get if we have people in the right roles whether it's dealing
55:34
with like geopolitical policy people with the right Vision but also the right temperament maybe we have a few less
55:40
Wars maybe a few less people suffer maybe everyone has food those types maybe there's less waste so that's the
55:47
exciting prospect for me is showing you know what this big world and even what like the digital world is unlocking for
55:54
us all in terms of access because I can tell you before social media you know you and I never met we never have this
56:01
discussion that doesn't happen I happen to see a clip from one of my connections that was on your show it sounded cool I
56:08
checked you out and I said this is a guy I'd like to talk to I reached out here we are doing it yeah yeah and that's I
56:16
mean that's honestly I say this all the time on the podcast that's been one of the best things about doing this podcast
56:21
is get to have literally conversations with people all over the world that I would never get an opportun to have on
56:27
all levels you know from trades people to you know people that have run multi hundreds of millions of dollars of
56:33
companies and and it's just super fun to have that connection and and like you were saying there could be some
56:40
seven-year-old in Sahara Africa that is as a brilliant mind right
56:47
and is just on the cuss you know could be with the right set of
56:52
circumstances create something that will change the entire world right and and
56:57
that globalization and that connection that we have and honestly there's a bit of an altruistic look at that now and
57:05
something you know until now I don't I really wouldn't think about it in this way but it it can like all of this
57:12
connectivity can help take that kid and and create Global change just from those
57:18
that one individual and then you multiply that times Millions right to have those
57:23
connections yeah absolutely I mean I think about my own instance now you know a lot of people look at yes I'm i' I'm
57:31
fortunate on the global scale that you know I grew up I grew up a man which
57:36
gave me access to some more things I grew up white which gave me access to some more things that's just the way
57:41
that Society has been um and I grew up in the United States and but at the same time relatively speaking I grew up
57:48
pretty rural pretty poor didn't have a lot of access so I was able to find out about programs that I had and then
57:54
slowly expand that Horizon and it's my hope that you know everybody
58:00
everywhere has that access to explore and hopefully find the thing
58:05
that they're going to be best at because I think the more people we can help find the thing that they're going to be best
58:11
at because everyone has a talent the better the world will be yeah I love I love that and I think
58:18
honestly that's a great place to kind of wrap up this discussion and you know I don't I don't know that we decided that
58:23
we're we were going to have a have a discussion on global economy and and the work environment and all that but it's
58:29
been it's been super interesting uh I actually have a list of things I wanted to talk to you back so I'm gonna I we're
58:35
gonna have to have you back on on another episode but I think that this is I think it's super interesting and you
58:41
know honestly I think bridging that divide between you know old guy like me I'm 51 gen xer you know like back in my
58:49
day we didn't do these things uh both my kids you know learned work ethic from me
58:55
and work really hard and they they're but they take an entrepreneurial approach to life and so I feel like that
Access to Opportunities and Finding One's Talent
59:01
that that kind of bridges that but I want to people like you then continue to help Foster that not only people older
59:08
than you older than me too but then the younger generation and help to bridge all those goals and uh Hey how do we
59:15
find out more about you obviously we're going to go to LinkedIn but how do we learn more about Winsley and and everything you're doing yeah LinkedIn is
59:22
the best place for me and Winsley I'm running lean and mean right now I honestly haven't even had a need for a
59:28
website yet so until I have a need I'm not going to invest the capital in it so that's just kind of a sign of of
59:34
Changing Times to be quite honest with you or I guess if one day LinkedIn gets aggravated and Boots me off then maybe
59:41
I'll have to polish up the uh email list and and get a website but for now that's
59:46
the best place to find me okay awesome well Tyler I really appreciate your time
59:52
in I appreciate everything that you're doing right now and uh I look forward to having you back on we'll we'll talk
59:58
again yeah thanks so much Kevin I'm looking forward to it if you're looking to really maximize
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