Special Bonus Episode - Intro to the One Big Thing and Cut Throat College Planning Podcasts!

In this special bonus episode, we take a moment to introduce you to NQR Media's other incredible podcasts in the One Big Thing and Cut Throat College Planning.

When we started Ditch the Suits back in January 2021, we had no idea how many people we'd reach or if anyone would care to listen - and here we are, voted the Best Podcast of 2023 by Quill Inc. and our show being recognized in several different top Podcast blogs. We are truly honored!

These awards and accolades revealed that listeners and other media outlets appreciated our in-your-face messaging.

In January of 2023, Travis and Steve launched NQR Media. NQR Media desires to be the main go-to for aspiring podcasters and avid podcast listeners. We have since produced two other amazing shows in the One Big Thing, hosted by our very own Steve Campbell, and Cut Throat College Planning, co-hosted by Kayla Record and Hector Lopez.

If you like the tone and messaging of Ditch the Suits, then you won't want to miss these two incredible shows!

For more information or to listen to these podcasts, please visit https://theonebigthing.buzzsprout.com/ and https://ctcp.buzzsprout.com.

You can also watch all of NQR Media's podcasts on our YouTube Channel at https://youtube.com/@NQRMedia.

______________________________________________________________

Looking for additional content that can help you get the most from your life? Check out Unleashing Leadership with Travis Maus, premium bonus content from Ditch the Suits Fans, at https://unleashingleadership.buzzsprout.com/

Thanks to our sponsor, S.E.E.D. Planning Group! S.E.E.D. is a fee-only financial planning firm with a fiduciary obligation to put your best interest first. Schedule your free discovery meeting at www.seedpg.com

Ditch the Suits is produced by NQR Media. NQR also produces the One Big Thing Podcast with Steve Campbell.

You can watch all episodes, as well as other great content produced by NQR Media through their YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/@NQRMedia

📧 For more information or to get in touch with us, visit https://www.ditchthesuits.com/ or email us at info@ditchthesuits.com

👍🏼 You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at @nqrmedia

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ We'd also love for you to subscribe to this podcast and leave a 5-star rating and review

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Welcome to Dips the Seats, a movement awakening and opportunity for you to start getting more from your money in life. I'm Steve Campbell. With my amazing co-host, Travis Moss, we're going to share industry insights nobody wants you to know about, so buckle up and enjoy the episode.

Speaker 3: 0:38

Welcome to special episode of Dips the Seats. Steve and I are very excited to bring you another big announcement actually two big announcements today. To help us with this, we've got some special guests today. We've got Hector Lopez, kayla Rekard our first two guests ever. It's kind of emotional Golf clap for everybody.

Speaker 4: 0:59

No pressure.

Speaker 3: 1:01

We get requests all the time for Dips the Seats and they're like oh, I would be an awesome guest on your show. We're always like have you ever heard us have guests? No, you wouldn't be. We don't interview people on our show, but here we go. We're going to interview you too, because you are that special and I think that you have something really great that we're going to share with people today. So, kayla and Hector they have just released an absolutely fantastic podcast called Cutthroat College and we're going to dig into that today and today's format totally different. Steve's here. He hasn't talked yet. Steve, are you here?

Speaker 1: 1:41

We're here, folks, don't worry. I'm coming.

Speaker 3: 1:46

I'm taking Steve's role. I'm the MC today. I'm going to do a little bit of the interviewing because Steve is actually not here for Dips the Suit. Steve is here to represent his new podcast, the One Big Thing, and to share us everything One Big Thing and get us into that today. So I'm really excited that, steve, you get some of your own space here to talk about what you've been working on and to bring that forward to people. All right, so I gave away the announcement. The big announcement is we've got some new podcasts. We're very, very excited about them. I think it. What's the saying, what's our saying?

Speaker 1: 2:20

It's see how you guys stage this right how to get the most from your money in life.

Speaker 3: 2:23

Most from your money in life. Yeah, we're super excited about this. We've, I think, brought together some really good content for our listeners. That's very similar in tone to Dips, the Suit, the same tone that's driven us up to top 3% of podcasts in the world. I think that the One Big Thing and Cutthroat College are in the same vein there. I think that they're really what they're bringing forward and how they're bringing it forward is really powerful, and I couldn't be more excited about that. So let's start by talking a little bit about who everybody is, because we all have a commonality you all three of you put up with me on a daily basis.

Speaker 2: 3:02

It's true, folks. That's the commonality, it's our cross to bear.

Speaker 3: 3:09

But yeah, so we're all at seed planning group together, trying to help people get more out of their money in life, helping them with financial planning A little bit different role for everybody, though, and so, for those who don't know, who are maybe just jumping into this episode seed planning group one of our primary sponsors for Dips, the Suit and really all of our shows also happens to be our day jobs. This is what we do to try to bring more to people, to try to also be an outlet for things that we're passionate about, so I thought it'd be really great, though, to get a little bit of background from each of you. Maybe what has brought you to this group all on its own? So I don't know, steve, you want to take the first one.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Hey, partner, can I just say good job. Right, it's not easy. It's not easy to be an office show, but kudos to you, partner. For those of you who don't realize, travis and I have actually been business partners for over the last six plus years. We kind of grew up working in the same community as young professionals. We used to actually work at rival businesses and I always liked the way that Travis carried himself. And when he had started seed planning group, it was just the right place in my life where I was getting a little bit burned out in my corporate job and wanted a fresh start. And so I connected with Travis and I could tell, if you're a listener of Dips the Suit, he's a visionary in the way that he thinks. He is always pushing the envelope, doing things differently, and what I realized is that he needed somebody that could help tell the story that was kind of trapped in his brain and so entered my opportunity and calling in life to come alongside Travis. The vision when we met together was what if we had the ability to totally transform the financial services industry by really helping individuals get the most from their money in life, where it's not about commissions or sales but it's about doing the right thing every single time. So we started on this crazy journey seven years ago with just a few of us that worked at seed planning group, and since then our business has just grown exponentially, not just with clients, but with staff members. We've reached new locations.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Ditch the Suits, though, kind of came from this crazy concept of him and I, during the middle of COVID, having to record videos for our clients that couldn't come into our offices. So he and I recorded 72 videos every Monday, wednesday and Friday and didn't even realize it was setting the stage for the fact that we had this idea one day of what if we actually reached even more people not just our clients with this message. I wonder if there's more people that'd be interested in it. So Ditch the Suits was a concept. We didn't know anything about podcasting. We YouTubeed how to start a podcast and in January of 2021, we created this creative outlet for him and I to be able to help individuals from really all over the country have the kind of information that we think that they were desperate for.

Speaker 1: 5:49

But in my day to day, I'm the head of our new business here at seed planning group. I have the honor and privilege of going out and speaking to individuals from all walks of life, and a lot of the material that you hear on Ditch the Suits come from the conversations that we have with individuals every single day. They have real life concerns, so it's an honor and privilege to represent a seed planning group in that capacity, getting to know many of you as listeners. But then since then, these podcasts have become creative outlets for each one of us on this call today, as colleagues, to really share our hearts mission, which is to encourage people, whether it's life, whether it's college planning, whether it's about money to give back, and I think that's the heart behind all of us. It's just we have a microphone in front of us to do it, so it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 1: 6:32

Never would have thought 10 years ago, when I went to school to be a teacher for social studies, that I'd be hosting an award winning podcast with you, good sir. But here we are. That's not quite right. That's not quite right. Not only do we have one podcast, but then we'll get into a little bit later here as I talk about the one big thing. So just really excited to bring this information all of you today.

Speaker 3: 6:52

So let's get to Kayla for a second and, like little backstory and Kayla, here I actually did a shout out for you, kayla, on unleashing leadership which for those listeners who don't know it. That is the extra content for Dits the Suits, and so basically, as Steve says, we put me in a closet, we lock me in a room and basically I just go hog wild for about 15 minutes a day, and then we let me back out.

Speaker 1: 7:15

It's your case.

Speaker 3: 7:16

Yes, it helps balance me out a little bit, but I had a shout out for Kayla, because she is the what if girl. She is actually not the what if girl, but the how might we women that has, I would say, in my career, one of the transcending kind of, I guess, met the breakthroughs that I've had, and it stems from Kayla and Kayla's work and Kayla's positivity and this whole how might be things. So so that's the intro to Kayla. Kayla, what do you got for us? What do you want to tell us about?

Speaker 4: 7:49

Thank you. Well, I am the weird bird in the mix of, like all the beautiful dogs. I am the one. I came here what about? Five and a half years ago? And when I first met you, travis, it was because I brought up questions and I just kept asking questions at a community meeting that no one else was asking.

Speaker 4: 8:12

And you know, I've come from an area and background where the shackles were on me, so to speak, in a sense of higher ed Limits what you can say, limits what you can do, and I saw all these problems from students financial problems, financial decisions. I have a very single tearful conversation I had with my family for like probably eighteen years Of awful decisions I made. Like all of those things, I never had a way to be able to get to the solution or put the right people together, because everyone believed hierarchy or Degrees or all of these prestigious things were the ones that you had to go through. You had to follow a chain of command, you had to wait your time and build your way up, and if there was a problem you don't really need to find an answer. But we can go back to how we just always did it. And my question was always. Well, if it's a problem and it's been done that way, it's not going to get fixed. So why are we not addressing and finding a new way to solve problem? And you know, over the years I did a lot of extensive training on asking questions, which is silly as it sounds. I actually got in trouble all the time in middle school for asking too many questions and then I learned there's an art to actually asking questions. So to all of my previous teachers, I'm sorry for driving you insane, but I actually make a living now asking questions.

Speaker 4: 9:39

So the part of that is just working with Travis and working with this group and seed planning group. When I came in it was just let's ask all the questions and find out. How might we do it, how might we do it differently? How might we put a different person in the room to ask a different question? How might we look at our programs differently? How might we redesign the way that students learn, or don't learn, about financial decisions when they're in high school? And how might we create a nonprofit so that there's no shackles on me and no shackles on our services and be able to really get to the root of a problem without having to go through Years of arduous. Just let's follow higher ed, let's follow chain of command, let's follow your degrees, all of that. Let's just put the right people in the right place. We'll train them to ask questions, we'll teach them new ways to do it and we'll do it as quick as we can and learn from our errors and rebuild from that and improve.

Speaker 3: 10:36

So you know Me, you. What did you say that you? Steve knows I can't do the quotes right. I can't ever keep them. Did you see you were not ducking a flock of doves? Yes, is that pretty much what that was pretty much yes.

Speaker 2: 10:52

The weird bird, I think it was.

Speaker 3: 10:54

I remember that meeting at the community group and they, like they were looking at you with daggers in their eyes like, first of all, I think that might have been like the first meeting you had come to so you're filling in for somebody I was there and you're giving these ideas and they hated it for it. I'm looking at you like I love this. This is awesome, do it more, do it more. And you know, I realized right there, I in my head, I think I said it out loud too. Later on I said you know, our community cannot afford to lose somebody like you, somebody who's actually asking the hard questions and looking for solutions. And so I think it's interesting, as we circle back around here to Hector Is we don't read, this doesn't look like a traditional finance company. You know, we didn't bring, we didn't parade in the investment people and the CFP's and all the financial gurus. Here we've got a branding, the master branding here. And Steve, we've got the how, what, how might we woman, kayla question ask her. And now we've got the creative guide, hector.

Speaker 1: 11:52

So Hector, wait can I just say before Hector goes.

Speaker 3: 11:55

No, you can't.

Speaker 1: 11:56

For those of you who don't realize. We've mentioned Hector once or twice on this suits, because for a good year there, hector was actually our sound Behind the scenes guy and now he's got his own podcast. So, hector man, let the people know who you are.

Speaker 2: 12:13

So definitely, I'm still the sound behind the scenes guy. I've just added to that. And yeah, I'm a part of a podcast with Kayla. Yeah, my journey to seed planning group was very interesting.

Speaker 2: 12:28

It starts with my friendship with Steve when I was in college. Steve and I were attending the same church and Steve he's like an older brother to me and he really just wanted to find a way that we could work together. So he asked me to intern with him at Seed and I did in college because I needed to fulfill a credit. So I did and it was great internship. It was three months. I did some branding things.

Speaker 2: 12:58

It was fun, it was a good time, but it wasn't really my thing. I was more so part of the art side of school, so interning at a financial company just didn't make sense. So after college ended I was substitute teaching for a while, trying to find some jobs in the graphic design field, and couldn't find anything. But Steve was overloaded with work and needed some help. So he asked me to jump on board and I did Fast forward to where we are. Now. I am the behind the scenes guy doing all the editing, the sound, the branding, along with being with Kayla on Cutthroat College Planning. So it's been a journey, but it's been a fun one.

Speaker 3: 13:39

So, on the sound guy stuff, hector is doing his own show because he's trying to get away from my show, because we all are. Yes, I'm the too loud guy. My microphone right now is about 17 feet away from me.

Speaker 2: 13:55

We can't figure out why he's so loud all the time.

Speaker 3: 14:01

I have a powerful projection. That's all I can say. So it starts with a commonality. We all have this common work. Basically, we've all come together as a planning group Very, very, very different skill sets, perspectives on things, but I would say that the commonality there is that we all have a passion for growing personally, professionally, and we really want to help other people do so.

Speaker 3: 14:27

And so that has and I just want to get this out into the open too, before we get further in this, because I'm sure it'll probably come up at some point that's led into not quite right media Inc, which is the spin off essentially of our marketing from seed planning group into a separate company. That, as Steve was saying, we started to create a voice during COVID and we thought, boy, we really need to bring this to more people, we need to help people put in context some of this stuff that they're hearing so that they don't make these financial decisions that are really hurting themselves. And that evolved over time too. It wasn't just finance, it was just also balancing your life, and so much of your life is impacted by money and finance or discussions or discussions you're not having with your spouse and all that kind of stuff. So it turned into something bigger, I think, than just money.

Speaker 3: 15:23

And then that has now branched out into these other shows, but they're all based, they're all kind of hubbed in. We call it NQR for short, nqr media, which is, let's just call it, our platform, and I just wanted to do the what's gap on that. What's so great about that? And so I thought maybe, steve and Hector, you guys could talk about from your heart a little bit, where you see NQR and the equation here and where we're going with that.

Speaker 1: 15:48

Yeah, I'll take a stab and then you can follow up. That's really twofold, as we've been growing seed over the years, we've been really pushing into new markets, reaching new people, as Hector said, being overwhelmed with the amount of work. That's just because we're helping more families. You get to a certain point in business where you might need to begin to outsource work because it's beyond your skill set or what you have the ability to do. So over the years I have interviewed various people from different advertising agencies, marketing agencies, and what I struggled with is we were more passionate about our why and what we were trying to do, and they weren't getting what we were actually trying to accomplish. It just felt like, man, these scenarios are going to cost us a whole lot of money and we can't even verify if we're going to get any results from what we're trying to do. And so what I found is that this frustration was common with a lot of smaller businesses. So that was kind of on the marketing side. There was frustration there.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Well, at the same time, our podcast, itch the Suits was starting to grow to reach new people. For the first two plus years we never really told people hey, you can just call us if you have questions. Because we couldn't. And so we wanted to have a place where we could host Itch the Suits and have a platform where it was okay to tell people hey, if you need help, give us a call, our team's going to help you. And so Itch the Suits was kind of the first show at this company called Not Quite Right, because everything that we've done, from each one of us that Travis has brought into this big picture, has always asked how might we and what if? And push the envelope for let's not do it for everybody else. Why? Because we're not really quite right, and you could take that as one of two terms, not quite right being we're not right in the head or not quite right. We're pretty frickin' rebellious and we don't care how other people have done things. We are going to challenge the status quo and do it differently.

Speaker 1: 17:30

So Not Quite Right has become this kind of call to arms platform for all of us to say I gotta believe that there's other people out there that could use kind of what we've had to stumble through and figure out the hard way doing things without a blueprint. I guarantee you we could take kind of the way our thought processes and how we've project and how Kailas come alongside of us and helped us put together plans to help other businesses, other podcasters, other influencers, people that want to have a voice but are maybe disenfranchised with the options out there and I'm sure there's some good advertising firms I'm not saying that, but people want to know that there's somebody that understands that the story they may have may make them feel like an odd bird, you know, surrounded by doves. There's a lot of people like that.

Speaker 1: 18:14

So Not Quite Right has become truly this platform that has now given rise to each one of us to really speak to, I think, maybe our passions and what we love doing in life, whether it's in dish sussuits, helping people understand hard financial concepts in really tangible ways, or my show, which we'll get into, or just Kayla and Hector's background, talking about college planning and the ins and outs of what's being involved.

Speaker 1: 18:38

We're talking from a space of we've all been through these things and help people understand. So Not Quite Right has really become, as you've seen on YouTube, it's our new 401k platform or YouTube platform. It's where we host all of these shows. So sometimes we get confused on which actual job we're doing. We're in and out, but Not Quite Right, as you've been trying to hear us say on dish sussuits and especially on our other shows is really just a media company that's housing these podcasts and hopefully to cast vision down the road future podcasts for those of you that have a voice and want to say something. So, hector, I don't know if that kind of brings anything home that you wanted to share along those lines.

Speaker 3: 19:19

I think you left Hector like an inch, come on out. Hector, come on out.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Travis, I'm glad you said that, because that was coming for me too. I mean, this is why Steve's on two podcasts. Right, he does a great job articulating any thought that he has to the fullest extent. So, yeah, I don't have much to add to that, steve. But I do want to mention something that Travis said earlier is the tone. The tone of NQR is what we're trying to emulate in all these podcasts and everything that we do marketing. It's the tone of being rebellious and going against the grain and doing things and asking the questions of how might we to go against the norms of these companies that are, or organizations that are, just doing the same thing over and over and not seeing results. So one thing to expect with NQR anything that we do and we were talking about this in the meeting today it's how do we emulate this rebellious idea that is full of truth and bring that to the people? So that's one thing that I would say Wow that was good, full of truth.

Speaker 3: 20:19

Bring it to the people, yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:22

I had not much to play with, but it's good, thanks.

Speaker 3: 20:29

I think when it encapsulates everything that you two said, was that everything that we've experienced as we've been building this thing is it's always been packed. Every time somebody's coming off at a services or we've saw services, it's always been packaged and it was never about us. Yeah Right, but we were told what it was. You know, this is really what you're looking for, it was like no, I know what I'm looking for.

Speaker 3: 20:52

You're just not giving me what I'm looking for. So it's always been not quite right. And so what we're trying to do with the tone of all the shows and the topics is how do we shed some light into these areas of our lives that can help us maybe make better decisions or get over, you know, whatever's holding us back, or something like that. So you've got money right, just straight up finance, that's the suits. Then you've got leadership. That's unleashing leadership, you know, and just kind of like what's driving you from a leadership and management perspective, and you know the daily inspiration to get up and get going. Then we've got Steve's show. And so Steve's show, the one big thing. Steve, I'm not going to steal any thunder, because I know you can bring the thunder by yourself, so let's turn this over to you. Give us the rundown. What's the reason for the show, what's your why on here, what's demographic you're targeting, what are you covering and how can somebody get in on this?

Speaker 1: 21:53

Yeah. So, as I'd mentioned, I would have never imagined a decade ago that I'd be hosting podcasts. But you know, when I'm not at work, I'm a father. I'm a dad. I got four kids under the age of seven. Life doesn't stop when I leave an office or I close my laptop. Actually, it starts in many other ways.

Speaker 1: 22:12

And so, trying to navigate in your mid-30s how to be the best parent, how to be the best spouse, there's not always a blueprint, like with what we're building in business. And what I've come to realize, especially overdoing this job at Seed over the years, is that, yes, money may be something that people have angst about, but it's really just how to be a human being. And so for almost a decade, as part of new business development, I've always grabbed coffee with strangers and asked them about their story and talked to them and encouraged them and gotten to know them. Who would have known that that was really going to be the foundation to get to the one big thing today, which was to create an interview style podcast where I just get to do what I've done over coffee for years, but with guests from all walks of life. So the one big thing podcast is all about helping you move the ball forward by having very real, practical insights, not in the inspirational way that sometimes podcasts can leave you with, this whole idea of like just be better, just try harder. That's not helpful when you feel like you're trying as hard as you can, right, you really want somebody to say like here's a life hack, here's a different way of thinking about something, here's something that I did that led to real change in my life. And have guests come on that don't just share with you the high watermarks of life or how successful they are, how many people they've reached, but share those real life lessons along the way, the struggles, the behind the scenes that maybe nobody saw.

Speaker 1: 23:37

Talk about your marriage, talk about being a parent, and really our demographic is truly 30s and 40 year olds that are in the pursuit of trying to grow professionally and personally, but want to know that they're not alone. And maybe their struggles or their anxiousness that they're not alone, even if they're successful in their job, maybe they're struggling as a parent and get to hear from somebody else oh okay, somebody else is going through this too and I'm not isolated. So the one big thing we've been releasing episodes since the beginning of June. My wife was my very first guest where we talked about marriage and parenting is hard. And since then, every other week on Wednesdays, I've had literally guests from all walks of life Peloton instructors, media gurus, podcasters, everybody in between and it's just been very cool how organic these conversations have all happened, meaning that we always have kind of an outline of kind of hey, let's, here's where the show could go, but there's been so many, like Hector said, truth bombs that have come out in those conversations that I never discuss with guests that just it's authentic. You know, let's go deeper into that. Let's talk about loss, let's talk about struggling as a parent, and it's just been a very cool outlet for me to be able to encourage those guests.

Speaker 1: 24:52

And this is the last thing I will leave you with. I say this on my show quite a bit, I'd gotten to a point where I was overwhelmed with trying to help run the business with you cast vision here, trying to be a dad to my kids, trying to be the best husband to my wife and just feeling like, am I failing? And I was in my car one day by myself and just feeling the weight of all of these expectations and roles that I played and what I realized was man, if I want to get out of this, I probably got to give away the single thing, which is what I need the most, which is encouragement, and so I felt that there had to be other people feeling what I did. And what's been cool is, through all these episodes now I have perfect strangers from all over the world reaching out to me after every episode saying how much these episodes have helped them, and what's been cool is that now, because of NQR, if they have interest in other areas of their life financial planning or they got kids in college I have an easy introduction to other shows with passionate people that are going to share honest truth with them too.

Speaker 1: 25:53

So if you don't have to be only in your 30s and 40s, but if you're looking and you enjoy podcasts you enjoy interview style podcasts you can check out the one big thing that's available on every podcast platform. But I just want to thank you, travis, truthfully for giving us all the opportunity to do things beyond, which is our actual day-to-day jobs, and to have these creative outlets, and you've never made us feel bad about that. You've actually championed all of us to push those envelopes and to push our creative vision for each one of us, and we're helping a whole lot of people in the process. So do you partner? Just thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this.

Speaker 3: 26:32

Geez, I feel like you're asking. You're going to ask me for vacation or a raise or something after all that?

Speaker 1: 26:37

No, I'm going on vacation. Don't worry about it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 26:39

That was. That was very, that was very powerful of things. I'm joking aside, you know, and I think one of the things that one of the points that you made there is, if you really want to feel successful, if you really want to feel good about yourself, the path of doing that is through helping others. Yeah, like that's the medicine, you know, you figure out a way to unlock something good in somebody else. That's where the satisfaction comes from. My best days, when I go home, it's because somehow we unlock something in somebody. It could be a client, could be a coworker, could be an employee. It's just, you see, somebody figure out that they don't have to be perfect. You know what I mean? That this is something that we're all working towards. Nobody's there yet. If you were there, you know you're already work completed, there's no point anymore. So we're always trying to move in advance.

Speaker 3: 27:37

So that is a perfect lead in to Hector and Kayla. I'm gonna steal a little bit of your thunder first, and the reason why I'm gonna steal a little bit of your thunder is because I begged and pleaded and I saw the golden that this program, this platform that you're building, this the whole I'm sure you're gonna talk about. I hope you'll talk about bootcamp a little bit, like. Everything that you're doing to me is one of the greatest things I've ever been able to be a part of and to be able to build this platform and to be able to get the two of you on this platform, kayla, to be able to pull out your life's work there and start to figure out how to share that with the world is so intense. And what I like about this so much and then I'll shut up, I promise but what I like about this so much is this is about families and it's about the relationship between parents and kids.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Yes.

Speaker 3: 28:42

At very critical point in their life, where parents are trying to connect with their kids, and the kids need real life, honest, truthful, like information from somebody that they can trust. It's not mom or dad right.

Speaker 1: 29:03

Like they need that.

Speaker 3: 29:04

They're desperate for that source, and mom and dad are desperate for some way to be able to help them and connect them with it. And that's it. I'm gonna be done now. I'm just gonna let you guys get into it, because you're gonna say it way better than I just did.

Speaker 4: 29:18

No, that's, it's still. It's an honor to Travis, so thank you. I, just when I came to you, I remember I had so much just curriculum and random pieces of work from almost 15, 20 years in higher ed and different jobs and odds and ends and I was kind of just putting it on a back shelf. And you've pushed me past to see my fears, to move up, to challenge me, and we've really put everything our heart and soul into building this program. The curriculum you get a plug for the bootcamp. That's the actual program where I teach the students hands on to go through it.

Speaker 4: 29:55

But the podcast part of this is it is it's about that dialogue with the families. It's helping the kids and the parents. Because at this point, if any of your high schoolers were like I was, my parents came to me and said what are you doing for school? And I said I'll figure it out, or my friends know best. Or my mom said you need to stay close and I went nope, I'll go to LA or New York City. I want the big city.

Speaker 4: 30:22

I had no idea how to make those decisions and I can't tell you how many years of challenging decisions or tearful calls I had or conversations I've had between parents and children and it's very hard to connect. And being that outsider, having worked for higher ed and knowing the business side of it, where they're capitalizing, where students are assuming they're getting really, really great guidance and why isn't someone just telling them their freshman year of college that this is not the good choice for them, or their degree won't make them money, or it's okay? Their guidance counselor tells them you can change your degree nine times. That's fabulous.

Speaker 2: 31:04

Don't do it.

Speaker 4: 31:05

If you're a parent, exactly Nine times you're changing your degree, your kids changing their degree, they're adding how many thousands and thousands on top, and there's no guidance, there's no conversations, and so that's what we wanted to bring to the world and to bring to our platform is how do you have these conversations, how do you ask the questions? And if you're the parent of a teenager going through it and you're getting one word answers from your kids, what do you want to do? I don't know. Where are you going to go? I don't know. Do you need anything? What's your timelines? No, we're fine, and you're just not getting responses from them.

Speaker 4: 31:43

Then how do you get the tools and how do you align them to what they need? And who can ask those questions in a non-bias way or a non-confrontational way, and just this outside perspective where they will listen, and I can't say how many times I've had parents tell me that they've had the same conversation and never got the same results with their kids, because it's your kid and your kid will shut down, and just it's so much easier to have those conversations from an outside perspective and to walk the students through the process of really what is the game, where are the areas? Where are the red flags? How are you really going to choose the largest financial decision of your life right now? And why are you not considering traits Like why are you not considering the things that you should be aligning to your skills? And if you don't know what you're good at, then let's figure it out.

Speaker 4: 32:37

I have resources to help you learn to identify yourself and self-reflect and go through the skills assessments and understand what you should be looking for, because there's thousands and thousands of options out there. So where do you begin?

Speaker 2: 32:50

Yeah, kayla, what's the sorry to interrupt you there, but I want you to give the listeners that statistic we always read off in the beginning of our episode.

Speaker 4: 33:00

We have statistics.

Speaker 2: 33:06

We read it off, we read off the statistic in the beginning of every episode. We say 80% of high school students.

Speaker 4: 33:12

They choose their careers, they choose their colleges based on their friends. So I always joke. Parents, how well do you like their friends? Because I chose mine, based on my friends too.

Speaker 2: 33:24

It's true, this is true. This is a little back and forth that we usually do on Cutthroat.

Speaker 2: 33:27

So we're getting a little sneak peak right now, but we want to take the listener, and the listener can be anybody.

Speaker 2: 33:33

The listener can be a student, it can be a parent, it can be faculty of high school, but we primarily direct this toward parents, because parents are the ones that are gonna get on their students about everything that we have to say. And we want to take the listener through the journey of preparing for life after high school. It is called Cutthroat College Planning, but we do want to never eliminate the option of trade school, because we know how important it is and we know how much it's been overlooked. So we start off with campus tours, we get into figuring out the best way to go about applying and getting scholarships, applying and getting into schools, and then what to do once you get into college too, like we don't just leave you there. We go over things to make sure that you have a correct budget, to make sure that you're on track with all your courses, to graduate on time all sorts of things we go through on Cutthroat College Planning.

Speaker 4: 34:28

And we do it in like you were saying Travis, in that tone with the NQR, in that honest, just behind the scenes kind of tone. My experience is about 15 years working in high red previously before joining seed planning group, and it's all of that experience, of the stuff that they just they don't want students to know because they're capitalizing. They're making money on the kids staying in college making bad decisions. They're making money on students going through this funneled process. If they can just get them in and keep them there the longer they choose to change a degree, whatever it is, they're going to benefit where it's a very different world. When you come from high school and as a high school student, your teachers are not financially benefiting from that right there. They're not benefiting from you making bad decisions. They're getting you to move you through.

Speaker 4: 35:19

They're building you up. Your coaches are getting you to the next step, the next level. They're still behind you and I'm not to say that your colleges are not behind you but at the end of the day, they still have a bottom line they're answering to and the decisions sometimes are very difficult. If you're an athlete and you get a full right scholarship, that sounds fabulous. Trust me, I know, I've been there. What happens when you're injured? What's the backup plan Like? You are basically essentially purchased and you know if you've been purchased and you break, what happens? You buy another. So it's those conversations, it's those tools that we're using and incorporating throughout each of our episodes, so that parents and students are equipped and they understand. What should you really be asking? What do you need to know? What are the side things that they're hiding from you that you could actually cut out a year and a half of your college from, so Can I just say this?

Speaker 1: 36:15

can I just say this Travis real quick. I think the thing that binds our three shows together you started this on digital suits, I'm gonna steal it from you is peeling back the onion and looking under the hood of how these things actually work.

Speaker 3: 36:28

I think you merged two different. I think you did a Travisism.

Speaker 1: 36:31

That was definitely two different quotes but, the reason being is on our digital suits. We don't claim that you should not pursue the greater things in life, but you just gotta understand the rules of the game so you don't get duped or hoodwinked. You gotta know the questions to ask. Kayla just told you that, if you're not aware, college and universities are a money-making machine. So if you don't know how they make money, you could be the one holding the bag. But the other part is in my show.

Speaker 1: 37:01

Marriage and parenting is really hard, but it's really worth it. So all of our shows we don't tell you just stop pursuing these things, but there's a better way of how you should pursue these that's healthier, that gives you a better lens for how to look at things and have real practical insights that can help you move the ball forward, get the most from it by taking these things and wherever you do. That is totally up to you. But we want to tell you, as Hector said earlier in the episode, the truths that maybe other people aren't willing to share with you, because we've gone through this, we've figured this out, we've talked with other people and we want to bring it to you. So again, travis, I'm going to turn it back over to you, but these shows would not exist if it wasn't for you pushing each one of us on here to tell the world what we do on a day-in-day-out basis to help inspire and encourage people. It's just three very different platforms that are actually all interconnected in very many ways.

Speaker 3: 37:55

Yeah, when you look at how all these come together and so how this is all started, just as you came out of seed planning group right, it was our voice talking about challenges and situations that people were dealing with, really revolving around money, starting with the pandemic, and that turned into so Ditch-of-Suits came out of Seed Planning Group and has now turned into not-quite-right media, which then spurred off unleashing leadership which is focused on our professional lives really and our personal and professional growth, and so that's got a lot to do with money and it's got a lot to do with your career and when to retire and all those other things, your identity and all that stuff. And then we've now got the one big thing which is really, I think, the middle of our lives. Right, it's the heart of our lives. It's trying to figure out how to be an adult, trying to figure out how to have a family, trying to figure out how to rely on your spouse and the people around you. And in a world of hyper social media and everything, where we're being bombarded with the way things are supposed to be, well, sometimes the stories about people who have overcome and the real life stories not the putting the makeup on type of stories, but the actual, real. You're seeing it raw. This is really how somebody's life is. That matches really well with what we're trying to do with Seed Planning Group, what we're trying to do with Ditch the Suits and this journey right, and then on top of that you've got one of the most devastating I say devastating, that's such a powerful word, but I think it's true College has become a devastating financial issue.

Speaker 3: 39:44

It has become, and my perspective on college is if it's too expensive, stop paying it, it'll get cheaper. But so what are you going to do? Take an entire generation and not go to school, right? So it's not that simple and it's very hard and it's a huge financial thing. It's a huge thing that can come in between a parent and their kids. Parents want their kids to be happy. They want their kids motivated at least to go to school and those types of things. So that's a huge part of our financial lives too. If you get that wrong and the parents take on too much debt, they can be saddled with that for the rest of their lives. Or if they don't take on the debt and the kids get it wrong, the kids can come out with a nursing degree and $200,000 in debt. You're never going to be able to pay that off, and so how do we help those? You can still get the nursing degree, but maybe not get the $200,000 in debt type of thing right. Like, how do we help people have a better experience with that? And all this, too, is like you said. These are examples.

Speaker 3: 40:43

We're not just getting up here and lecturing people. We're actually trying to bring solutions and I think so often we don't listen to our spouses and we don't listen to our parents. If somebody on the street, if you overheard at a cafe and somebody says this is a really good idea, you go home and be like honey guess what I heard today? Or mom, guess what I heard today? And they're like yeah, I told you that 10 times. So it's being able to put these voices together and all these different areas about living a better life and making better financial decisions and giving ourselves more respect right, and understanding how to put ourselves in perspective to everything happening around us. That's back to that whole thing that you brought up, steve. Really is you help yourself by helping others, and I think that that's what we're doing.

Speaker 1: 41:30

So let me leave you guys as listeners too. What do we do from here? There's a couple of maybe assets that can help you, as we had mentioned on YouTube. We'd love for you right now, as you're listening, pull up your browser, go to YouTube, look up NQR media, hit that subscribe button. You will see all of these shows mingled in as they're released. You'll be able to watch along with us, share it with friends. If you're an Apple user, you can actually look up NQR media's channel on Apple and just follow that channel. That way, as new episodes for cut through college planning the one big thing and ditch the suits come out, you can listen to those.

Speaker 1: 42:06

As we told you in a special episode, Travis has worked extremely hard on the premium content of unleashing leadership. We would love for you, for $299, to go support his vision a month of casting leadership. It's worth it, folks. What I can tell you is all four of us are committed to being the best version of ourselves. Sometimes life feels a lot like fixing the airplane as you're flying it, but that's exactly where we're all supposed to be is to be able to communicate outwardly what we are learning in real time ourselves and hearing from all of you. What I would encourage you all to do is we're real human beings just like you. Reach out to any one of the four of us. Let us know how this has impacted you. Ask us any questions. We're real people. Ask us topics that you'd love to hear about. That's a lot of where our conversations come from.

Speaker 1: 42:57

Stay close to NQR media. Save it on your browser, because whatever show you find yourself in, I think that there will be real life takeaways that can help in this season of life. But be willing to share these resources. Travis, thanks for giving us the space on this special edition of Ditch the Suits to share the vision of NQR. Thank you again for giving the three of us a creative outlet to help inspire people too. As we say on our show, get the most from money and life. Money's a big component, but if we ignore the life component, money's worth nothing at the end of this thing. We really want to help you maximize life. We all get one shot. I think NQR can be a flagship brand and outlet that can help you whatever phase of life you're in.