Outage on the, the last video. It's ok though. Give me a chance to take a break. So where we left off, I, I think you should watch that if you haven't because I'm not going to preface this at all. Just pick up um where I left off, I was talking about a repeated presentation I gave at a high school a
couple of years in a row about career prep. And we were discussing where I would pull them and ask them how many people knew what the average income was in, in the United States or how much health insurance cost or uh car insurance. And everyone was always clueless including the teachers um because the
teachers would come as like an assembly and um it was always shocking to me, you know, and this was, this was in place of a career preparation class. I was asked to come in and give a guest lecture and uh I did that for a few different topics. So um if you want to help your kids develop the desire to
persist through the difficulty of attaining a good career, one of the best ways is to help them see what the price tag is for the standard of living that they enjoy under your roof. It's very, very sad when Children, especially Children in, in upper or middle class homes, when they get out on their own
and end up in a life where they have to live a low income lifestyle because their parents didn't sufficiently prepare them to replicate their success. And like I said, in the other video, the other part of this video, um don't assume that them doing the same things you did will yield the same result
because times are changing and it's harder today, which means they will rely even more on your example and your ability, your wisdom, your ability to help them design a quality life, knowing what you know. Now, uh I would definitely not traverse the same path um that I did even though it's turned out
, OK, for me, um I would, I don't recommend that to my kids and I hope that they uh choose better paths. And the reason is it worked out for me just fine, but um the world's different today and that that's not a path that makes sense today. So that it sort of it has an expiration date because things
are changing so quickly. And then the question also comes down to how often you point out the examples of others. Uh So you should point to yourself and say this, this, you should do this, you shouldn't do this, but you should also do the same with other people. Life provides us with a rich array of
examples for, for better and for worse. And you should help your Children see that. I think people shy away from this. Maybe they don't wanna be judgmental or um maybe they don't want their kids to repeat to the people what they're saying. And so here's, here are a few points on, on those um expected
items of pushback. One about being judgmental. This is a big topic, but to judge means so much more than, than how we've reduced it in modern English. Um But it, it's not separated from judgment in terms of good judgment. So if your task is designing and implementing a plan for the life of your Children
, you absolutely have to exercise judgment, right? And you can't call something better without calling something else worse. It's, it's differentiation, it's splitting something into two categories, at least maybe a continuum. So you have to have examples of what's bad in order to have examples of what's
good. Now, why can't you just use generic examples and not be specific, not name names? Um I got in trouble once for writing a book and uh the person who had a problem with it, he said, I actually agree with, with uh most of what you wrote in this book and I don't really have a problem with anything
you wrote except the fact that you named names and I explained to him, uh, the whole reason why I did that, it was very intentional was if you try to, um, if you're trying to persuade people to see something that they don't already see and you talk about it generically, they will artfully dodge any potential
improvement that they could have had from what you're saying. And the reason is it's not attached to real people and they'll say things like, well, nobody believes that. So if you're telling your kids, hey, um, if you don't wanna live in a van down by the river, then you shouldn't get an art degree.
Um They'll say, well, maybe someone got an art degree and they make good money. I remember this is not a contrived example. I remember once seeing an argument as to why an art degree was an OK investment. And they said, well, there's a person at this one super fancy museum who, um, has an art degree
and it actually got them the job and they make lots of money. Well, you know what they do, they're, they're mass spectrometers specifically, which is a chemistry profession. Uh It's a specialty. In fact, it's like radiology is to general practice, practice physicians. And um there's only one person effectively
who does this in the entire world. And so, yeah, great. It worked out for them. But are you gonna plan your life based on the need to be one out of 7 billion people? Right. Like that's, that's way worse than planning your life around an NBA career or an NFL career. Good luck with that. Right. So, um
, you have to point out specific examples because otherwise you're opening the door for them to think that, well, maybe it's just an exception. It's not, you know, maybe that only happens with particularly bad people or evil people or stupid people. And you say no, uh, your cousin, Bill, he did that
and you know him, he's a good dude. He tried, he's not, you know, on meth and that happened to him and you say, oh shoot, well, maybe it happens to regular people and maybe it would happen to me. And so, and of course it's good to point out good examples. I, I don't think I have to argue about that but
you need to say, hey, you know, our neighbor, uh you know how they um I don't know, invested all their money on that factory and the factory burned down. Maybe that's not a good idea. So that one's contrived. But you have to point to people that are real and say this is what really happens when you do
Xy and Z and for good and for bad. And um as far as being worried about that, getting back to the people, I have one simple rule when it comes to talking about other people. I never say anything about anybody that I don't, I haven't already said to their face. And so if I criticize someone to their face
, I have in my mind uh permission to use that charitably in any context from that point on. So I don't go out of my way to say, hey, let me tell you what this person did or that person. But I have, there's, this is probably too nuanced to bring up in this conversation, but we'll talk about this in some
other time how important it is to point out good and bad, including in real people. And, um, there's that, that doesn't mean that you're just raking them through the mud or anything else. But it, it's really important because most often, uh the people that do the greatest damage to someone are the ones
that are closest to them and they do it through enabling them in their bad behavior by, by being complicit witnesses who also stay silent. And anyway, that, that's way too big a topic to bring up here. So I probably shouldn't have done that, but I don't like editing videos. So we're, we're gonna leave
it. Um I'm not sure how per persuasive that was, but I, I strongly believe that it's necessary to show kids what not to do. And in order to do that and to do that with real examples and in order to do that, you have to be willing to call people out on their mistakes to your kids and part of the training
, you should impart to your kids is how to deal with that sensitively. They shouldn't just go and say mom said that you dad said you're a bozo. You know, and that's, and we're not talking about calling people bozos. We're saying, hey, um, that person never got the oil changed on their car and then it
blew up one day. Right. That's just a fact. And, and if that person's reasonable, they'll, they would join in if they're in the conversation and say you should listen to him. He knows what he's talking about. I'll tell you, you know, I had a, we have friends over once and we, we go back a ways with these
folks. I really like them. And, uh, their kids were sort of later high school years and we're all sitting on the couch and this is, I told my friend, uh, another friend recently, I said, I said I wouldn't fantasize about spending more time with me because this is kind of long distance friend. I said
, I don't think that would go the way you imagine people really struggle being around this all the time. It's a lot to take on. And, um, here's an example of that. So I'm sitting there with this, the friend that I was telling you about, uh, his family, him, his wife and his, I think two of his kids were
there. But later in high school kids, and I said to the guy, we'll call him Joe, I said, Joe, I'd like to give some advice to your kid here. Do you mind if I just speak from the heart? He leaned back in his couch, on the couch, is my couch. But he, he leaned back in his seat and, uh, he smiled and just
is like, please do. We had a captive audience. And so I was like, hey, uh, you wanna be a teacher? Let me tell you something about that. Why do you want to be a teacher? And we got into this conversation? And yeah, anyway, um, so you've got to point out examples of others. Uh In that case, I was actually
pointing to myself in the teacher conversation. I said this is not gonna go the way you think it's gonna go and I'll tell you why. Um All right. So you help impart the desire to your kids. You also uh train them, you help them get onto the track of preparation for the, the outcomes that you design, hopefully
jointly design because like I said, in the other video, the more you involve them with this, the better because then not only are you helping them see where you're coming from and everything else? So you're showing them how the sausage is made so that they can apply that process to everything in their
life as they go forward. It's, it's, you're teaching people how to fish instead of just giving them the fish. Um So with preparation, you want to help them understand or discover what's required for that career. And maybe you need to look into that yourself unless you're just duplicating your own career
, which for reasons I've already shared probably isn't a great idea, but it might be, then you probably need to do some research and what's the best way to figure out what it takes to get into something. Talk to someone who's already there who's successful at it, not just the person who's struggling
and then you want to see if there's some sort of fast track. Now, you can't get something for nothing in life. So when I talk about a fast track or shortcut, I'm not talking about, hey, there's a marathon but I know a way to run it in one mile. I'm saying something like, hey, most people take five years
to train for a marathon. I don't know that that's a statistic I'm making this up. Um But I know a way you can successfully train for it in six months. And so you can do your first marathon in six months instead of waiting five years. And this is a uh an apt metaphor because with career preparation specifically
, the way everyone does, it is pretty much the worst way you could possibly do it if you start really early, which you can't do in public school because no teacher is going to have prolonged contact with your kid uh through many years. Unless something very bad is going on. But as far as normal teacher
relationships go, um as to their parent, you're the one, there might be a, a parent of a friend who might have this role, but a, a father, a mother, an aunt or an uncle or grandparents, something, maybe an older sibling, a mentor relationship over years to help craft this person's life, uh specifically
in career choice. That's, that can't happen in the normal public school paradigm. Not to mention that a public school teacher is probably the last person in the world. You want to have that role. What the heck do they know about life? And if you're a public school teacher, I'm not trying to insult you
about this. But uh look at your training and make a case to me that somehow you have the wisdom to know what generates success in life. Uh outside of it, you might be a very successful teacher and the world needs a lot more of those. But can you really advise someone on their career, what career they
should choose if it's not teaching and how would you even advise them in that if you don't know what the alternatives are and what they're worth and what they cost? So you need a wise person who has um uh also has life experience to help guide someone through that. And if you're their parent, you're
the the primary person who's going to do that. So there may well be a faster way. If you start at a younger age, there may be a much better way to get there. So I can tell you, for example, as a former computer science professor and a current computer science professional, a child that starts programming
around six or eight or even 10 or 12 who continues doing it, doing real projects and spending maybe three hours a day, one hour a day on average on this, by the time they're 18, they will be a far better programmer than anyone who just goes to school and gets a four year degree or even a master's degree
in computer science. There will be a far better programmer and guess what? They never had to spend any money on a degree. They never had to take any of those funky gen ed credits where they get indoctrinated with garbage. Um, they never had to have the opportunity, cost of spending maybe the best four
years of their life wasted in a classroom learning topics from someone who's definitely not the best person in the world to teach them while the best person in the world probably made free online videos where you can just watch it in your house. Right. So anyway, um, try to find the fast track to help
them do it and maybe, maybe it's not some big, big thing. It's just, well, maybe we can spend a couple minutes teaching them extra math each Thursday after school, it doesn't have to be some huge thing. The little things are often the big things and then like all else that we've discussed in this two
part video, you have to ask yourself, what can I do now? What can I do today? What can I do this Thursday? What are we gonna do over summer vacation that has to do with career prep. You have no idea the impact that these little things can, can have. I'll give you a specific example of this. So uh in
, in my current field, um we are designing software for chemists and uh specifically chemists who use mass spectrometry. And uh at one point recently, we were thinking about a prospective trip that I would take for business to go visit a few labs, mass spectrometry labs. And uh right from the beginning
, I was thinking about how I could take one of my Children along because one of the potential career paths I think he would be that would, that would work really well for him is becoming a mass spectrometers. And um there's a lot more detail to that. But the point is on this particular trip, what I had
hoped to do was was make it real for him. So he could see real people. Remember how I told you about the importance of living examples. He could meet real people who do this for a living and see that they're mortal beings. They're not, you know, um, demigods or something. Um, and they're not fictional
either. Right. They're real humans and if this human can do it and this human seems normal in every other way, maybe I can do it too. I was floored. Um, the first time I met some sort of professional up close and personal. I was probably 20 let's, let's say I was 20 years old, maybe 19. Um, and I was
in college. I was, I was a junior in college. I just finished my junior year in college and I got my first full time job in, in uh and programming and I was working at a hospital in a radiology department. So I worked very closely with the radiologists. And so I'd, I'd go to their room that they were
all in a big room, dark room, uh reading the, the images, analyzing the images that they look at. And I got to know these people and we were all on a first name basis and um except the old Codger, they all wanted to be called doctor. But the younger people, you know, just call me Gene. Ok. Hi Gene. And
I thought to myself, wow, these are real people and I thought radiologists were demigods, you know, like, oh, you have to be really, really, really special to be a radiologist. And um, a lot of people probably think that about maybe not programmers these days, but I got that all the time as a professor
. It made me feel terrible and I was thinking if you only knew, um, so these are real people and when they meet real people it can change. So, so what can be done today? Maybe there's a business trip that you're gonna go on and you could break down walls with that if you bring a kid along or, um, that
, that might even seem like a big thing. But like if you're going on a family trip for vacation, is there a museum along the way that has something to do with what or a factory that gives tours or whatever? It can totally open up possibilities. I, once, um II, I had a friend who worked at a wood mill
and he invited me to come with the kids that the kids could see it like as a field trip. And uh I think I was more excited about it than they were and when we went because I had no idea what to expect. I, I just, I love talking to people that have uh experiences outside of my own or seeing things I've
never thought through or know anything about. And, um, it, it amazed me. It, it, I just, it blew me away. It was such a surprise how that all happened in there, how that works. And, uh, you never know things like that can totally change a kid's trajectory. But, but it's not gonna have a kid's not gonna
organize a trip to a wood mill, right? Or have the connections to make it happen because it's not like there's just a general public enter here for tours. Right. It's not Disneyland. So, um, think about what you can do today. Ok. That went kind of long. We'll try to make these a little shorter. So, but
we could, we could do this for anything. But now let's talk about person's character, their morals, the quality of person that they become question is what kind of person do you want your kid to be as an adult as a, in terms of character? Right? We talked about what job they might have, what about their
character? And this is another one where I don't know any parents who'd be able to say anything except, well, I hope they're a good person. I hope they do. What's right? I hope, you know, whatever. No, no, no. Like tell me a story about this, this future adult kid of yours, right? Like, like you could
, you could write their obituary. That's a, that's a good test to see if you have a vision of what this person's gonna be in life or yourself. Could you write an obituary and then you look at that and you compare it like a map. So what, what's the map of their character that you're shooting for? And
then once you have that written down and if you need help with, with these sorts of moral questions, it's it's, uh you could think of situations and how you would hope that they would act. So let's say he, he, here's just, just spur of the moment off the cuff. Um, when they're 50 years old, they have
a business opportunity where they could either retire for life at a reasonable standard of living or keep working and double that, keep working for the next 20 years and double that. What would you like them to choose? And why? Because I would like my kids to retire and spend that time with their family
or doing other things for other people, not just making money. And so you could go through situations. What if, what, what do you want them to do if they have the opportunity to cheat on something and make lots of money by doing it and they would never get caught and they know that what would you like
them to do and why? Or if, um, you know, they see a homeless guy in the street and he needs something and how would you like them to react to that and why or whatever? Right. Um, how hard are they willing to work? That's a character question. How, how strong can they be for other people when everyone's
going through something hard? How long are they gonna push into something that's uncertain before quitting, et cetera? Right. How tired can they be and still act pleasantly to other people? How much darkness can they experience and still walk in serenity. So like all these other things, you have to help
them have the content, but also the desire to obtain it, you have to help them make a plan to get it and the place to start. And all these is, are you an example to them and whether you are or not and whatever changes you're gonna make to be better at it. The other question is, can you find and connect
them to other examples? Maybe you know, these people and that's very powerful. But even if you don't, there are many uh sources that you can better curate than they can, you can go find a biography on someone and read and read it and then say, hey, Ted, I, and hopefully Ted's your kid because if it's
a random person, this would be weird, Ted, I read this biography and uh I think you'll really like how he handled himself in this one situation and you should read this too and if you're frequently inviting them to do good things and then they taste the fruit and see that it's good. They'll be like,
sure dad, whatever, I'll read it. Um Or sure mom, uh if you're frequently recommending garbage to them, they're gonna push back or say, roll their eyes and say, yeah, whatever dad or, you know, you're, you're uh suggesting some wonderful example of a guy that never quits, but you quit all the time or
you're like, oh, I read this book from this ultra marathon runner and he's just, he's just pushing the limits of human production and you're £400 overweight, you know, they're not gonna really, now, if you lose extra weight or you start running or you put things back together that are a little out of
sorts. And then you recommend a book, then that's great. Especially when they're like, hey, hey, Ted, and hopefully your name's Ted because otherwise that'd be awkward. Hey, Ted, I see. You lost tons of weight. Good for you. How'd you do it? I'm a little overweight myself. Oh, here's how I did it. I
read this book and I did everything it said. Cool. I would give that a read, you know, or they'll say, oh, is that available in a pill where I don't have to do anything? Uh People are funny uh And don't overlook examples that, that maybe aren't used as often or as uh extensively as they should be like
scripture, right? Scripture is a great place to learn things for good. And uh it's a, it's a, it's replete with examples of people who did it, right? And people who did not and all in between. OK. Um Yeah. So sharing, I'm gonna just get drill down on that. So sharing stories from the scriptures with
your kids is a wonderful way to teach them how to be better people. It just, you have to help them apply context because maybe they don't understand how, what the king of Israel did thousands of years ago applies to uh how they should spend their time today. But you can help them with that. Again, the
, this is all about the difference you will make as a parent compared to if you weren't there. Our final practical example is uh with family, specifically your, your child, the future family of your child. So spouse selection is something that I've said a lot about and I'll say even more about later
, believe it or not, there's more and one of the reasons that uh I've delved so deeply into this, there are many reasons but one is to help give you material so that you have more ideas to share and maybe even content if that's appropriate, you can share links to things and maybe that's easier for you
or more effective for them. But this really is something that people should be thinking about early on. Now. I haven't disclosed where I got all these ideas from in this slide show. But um I am quick to observe, I pay attention to other people and anytime I see something better than what I have, I steal
it, I steal it and I make it my own. And I mean that in the best of ways I incorporate into my own character and beliefs, the things that I see around me that are better than what I have. And I do this tenaciously. So this particular example, I've learned uh a lot about this topic from other people and
also analyzing unsolved problems that I see uh around me. But I know a person who does this and when he unfolded, he's a father, he has kids. And those kids range in age uh from very young to the age where now we're seeing fruits of his approach. And I was so impressed by his attentiveness to this and
I think that his approach can get be tweaked and improved upon. But, but I just, I was, I was floored by this. So he has paid attention his whole adult life. From the, from the minute, I don't know the minute from his, the moment when his oldest child was very young, uh he began paying attention to his
friend, groups, group, his friend group and their Children. And he intentionally curated the people he spent time with based on the prospects their Children were for good friends and potential spouses for his Children. And I say good friends first there because that's the one where you get something
out of it no matter what. And then when you talk about spouses, all of a sudden, there's a lot of choice and a lot of things that can change and a lot of whatever, but you just sort of, you curate the environment where better things can happen, right? It's like stocking a pantry, you're not cooking dinner
, but you're making it possible to cook many good dinners. The specific ones you just, you're choosing for a bunch of good options and if all you have is a pack of ramen, you're, you're not gonna have some luxury item for dinner. Right. Although you can dress up ramen quite a bit. That also depends on
the other ingredients that you have. So you should absolutely take time to think about what the ideal spouse would be for your child. They are not going to have the tools to design that for themselves. And I think out of all the things they have to figure out in life, this will be the greatest ratio
of being ill prepared to um the greatest importance. So it's the most mismatched thing in terms of their preparation. If you weren't around to help them versus how much their choice matters. It, there's nothing that's gonna matter more than this as far as any decision that involves other people and yet
they will be the worst prepared for this than all the other decisions they're gonna make. And that's because not only are they bombarded by garbage from the world they also have um are going to be bombarded by tendencies that cause preferences that don't lead to what's best they're going to pick based
on things that are really bad criteria. They're not predictive of what they're after or what they should be after and they won't know that because it takes about 40 years of life at a minimum to figure that out. And usually the people that know most about what makes a quality spouse are the people who
are way down the road where it's too late to do anything about it in their own life. So, out of all the folks that ought to mentor younger people on spouse selection, parents should be first in line and again, going back to an earlier slide, this absolutely should include, hey, these are things that
I do not like about your father. These are things or ways in which I wish your mother was different and they should also of course, include the good stuff, but you need to understand that your desire as well intentioned as it seems to uh whitewash the quality of person. Your spouse is, it needs to be
outweighed by the benefit that could be provided by linking negative experiences that your child has seen or experienced that comes from you or your spouse to their own future choices to avoid that. Do you understand that is worth so much more than your fake uh illusion that you're trying to sustain
of your spouse? Which by the way, I'm pretty sure that if you're talking about these things with your kids, they already see through that. So hopefully, that's a compelling argument for you. Now, I'm not saying bash the snot out of your spouse in, in front of your kids. That's not, of course, not literally
, but I mean, character wise, that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying uh charitably. Um But, but honestly, inventorying what's good and what's bad and um if your spouse is a good person, they would want you to do that because they will care more about the welfare of their Children than they do. Persisting
what they know is an illusion about their own self image, right? So, um that's that. So how does this boil down to uh the categories of content, search and worthiness? OK. So let's start with content. There are things your kid needs to know to have the tools to make good decisions in this category. OK
. They need to know the list of criteria for what makes a good spouse and that is gender specific by the way. So that needs to be laid out to them because they will only pick up pieces of that in their own experience. And maybe those pieces aren't even prioritized correctly. So helping them map that
out and improve the accuracy of their model is really important. And uh I already mentioned that that people's preferences, their natural preferences are gonna tend towards things that are less than ideal at the age where they have to make these decisions. They're, they're going after all the wrong things
. And so what do you do today to help them in those two categories? So maybe they're eight years old or 12 years old today. And so you're not gonna launch into some deep, deep, deep stuff. But what's a small chunk that you could give them right now? Right. So, like if you're, if you're working in the
garden and you're 10 years old and, and, uh, you're with your parents and you're pulling weeds, one of your parents could say, hey, Chuck, um, there's a lot of work, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And you say, well, how much harder would this be if it were just you, it would be really hard. Yeah. Well, this
is one reason it's so important to find a spouse that knows how to work hard. And guess what, when we're out here doing this you're getting used to working hard and you're gonna learn how important it is and when you meet the right person, they'll be able to benefit from your ability to work hard and
if they're the right person they'll see that and they'll appreciate that. Oh, cool. You know, or they'll go dad more likely. Right. But they will hear you, dad. Um, ok. What about the search? This is where the example of this guy I know comes in, um, at a very young age he started making decisions. He
even, he told me they decide where they're going to make trips as families based on contacts he has over the years so that they can get their families together and he's, he's really trying to pair them up, you know, and again the, the level of control is not like he's like this is the person you shall
marry, but it's just the social groups. He's curating social groups and then kids pick from the pool, um, or somewhere else. But it's obviously what he's doing is making the right thing easier to do, the better thing, easier to do that should be called out in general. That's, that's part of a parent's
purpose is to make the right, the best thing easier to do um or clearer, to choose stronger motivation to do. Um There's a a grammar error here, but do you and your child understand the timing that leads to ideal outcomes. What do I mean by that? Um This is something that can definitely be done often
and early, but you have to teach kids the ideal timeline for choosing spouses, which again differs depending on the gender of the child. But um they need to know because this, I'm gonna start thinking about it once I graduate from college is a recipe for disaster. In both cases, you need to work on yourself
. This feeds into the next point which is being worthy. How do you teach your child about who they need to be to qualify for the person they want? And this doesn't seem to be thought about very often today. I'm not sure why, but um you need to understand the the equivalent of what you're looking for
in your gender and rise to that level and you they're going to need parents help in designing and walking that path. They're not going to be able to just spin it up out of thin air. It takes an extraordinary person to do that so that the odds of that are very low, they need your help. You could flip
that around and say this is a wonderful place where parents even normal parents can contribute tremendous value by, by helping kids advance their understanding of who to look for where and when to find them and um who they need to be to qualify. Ok, let's wrap this up. So in conclusion, I want to explicitly
invite you to take some time over a weekend or something, carve out an hour or two early in the morning and consider sincerely consider, use your brain what you can do to better architect your Children. Uh these things that I've given you, you can use as a starting point, but go nuts, maybe, maybe you
go in a really different direction. The, the point isn't exactly what you do. It's, it's uh what you're doing at a high level and more importantly why you're doing it. So I encourage you to think about how you can help design a career path for your kids, how you can help design a family plan for them
. Um And I'm not saying how many kids they should have uh when they have kids is a good thing to help teach them about. But mostly who they're picking, uh, as a spouse. Why they wanna get married in the first place. What, what that is actually all about and, uh, how difficult it is to find a person worth
marrying, all that good stuff. Ok. And, and also help them to be different and better. That's sort of the overarching idea here. Teach him the truth about people and about the world because what they're being shown with other influences is not correct in either of those categories, teach them what matters
, what doesn't matter. And by how much in each case, teach them to work hard and smart. If you do these things going full circle here, you're going to be headed this way instead of this way. If you don't do these things, I promise you this is the path that you're on. OK. So I hope that's helpful. Take