 Okay, so I think we're live now. This is the first Facebook live. I've done using Zoom here on my Facebook profile. I am so excited about today's conversation. I'm with my own career coach, Marty Namco. The first time that I encountered him was when he was being interviewed on our local Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area NPR station. And he was talking about career work and he was bringing in some ethical views about it. And I thought, wow, this guy's different. And then I started listening to his radio show. He has a radio show on the other Bay Area NPR station, KALW. The radio show is called Work with Marty Namco and it has a podcast. It's on podcast as well. I highly recommend it. It's one of the more entertaining podcasts that I listened to. He talks mostly about career, the future of work, how people can find their life's calling or at least do work that is contributory to society and makes them happy. He even talks a bit about business and marketing because a lot of people's career, like mine, is about marketing our own brand. And so it's wide-ranging, but one of the things that he doesn't get to talk a lot about in that podcast is his political views because that show is really about work. So I think in today's hour, hopefully, we'll start touching on some of the political views that I've heard him talk about elsewhere or just a little bit on that show and I've always really enjoyed. It's outside of our typical liberal Bay Area echo chamber. So I think that's gonna be challenging for some of you, but I think it'll be thought-provoking at the very least. So let me say a little bit about Marty and then we'll go into the first topic. Marty is an extraordinary career coach. He has almost 30 years of experience doing career coaching. In that time, he's worked with about 5,000 clients. Is that right, Marty? And... 30 years of experience and there could be 30 years of bad experience in a row. So... Well, I doubt it because I've experienced you myself and you are sharp and caring and I think you're right on with how you serve people. And one of the things I love about Marty's coaching is he's so ethical. I'm in the coaching world for almost 10 years and there's a lot of unethical behavior in the coaching and consulting industry. Marty is one of the ethical ones. He doesn't try to get his clients, and might I say addicted to him and going week after week for years and years and years. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, but he is so ethical. He's saying, you know what? I'm gonna help you the very best I can even in just a few sessions and I want you to be empowered and be able to stand up on your own and do the best you can without having to hire me. But of course, it's actually helpful. He doesn't keep his clients away, but he actually, Marty, you told me this confirm. Marty turns away more clients than he accepts at this point because of how much word of mouth business he's getting. And I, well, here we are. And I'm promoting him without any kind of financial arrangement just because I believe in his work. So Marty, thanks for being here. I really appreciate you spending your time with us. My pleasure, and I better not suck after that introduction. We'll see. Let's see what the audience says about this. So thank you for those who happen to be watching live. Really grateful to have you here. Those who are watching later, please do comment below. And along the way, it's so exciting for me when I see you comment on any reaction you have to what I'm saying or what Marty's saying. Please say, hey, I'd really like that comment when you said this, even a few words or I have a question about that. So the first question I have for you, Marty, that I think everyone will find interesting is I want to ask you about the future of work. Given that you're a career coach, you have counseled thousands of people in all walks of life and you don't only work with people in the Bay Area, you work with people all over the world from corporate leaders to nonprofit leaders to solopreneurs, schmucks like me. You've worked people of all levels in their career. And given that you've been interviewed so much about work and jobs, obviously society is going through a major restructuring of what work is. People don't usually stay with one company for decades now, like in the General Motors days. So let's start with that conversation. Where do you see work going? What do you see that us, that societies has to do to make work work for all of us? What do you see us individuals needing to do as well? So anything you'd like to address on that? In the recent years, I've been obsessed about this because I really do see the roboticization of work in part because of technological advances that are ever accelerating, but partly because the cost of hiring an American has grown so enormously. We all feel good and viscerally about the idea of Obamacare and paid family leave and rights and wrongful termination and workers comp and Medicare and Medi-Cal, all of which cost the employer a fortune. And especially when the media is telling us, you know, the employer, especially corporate America sucks, you know, employers as much as possible automate, part-time, temper offshore, and that can only accelerate. And so there's going to be an end of work except for stars and except for super menial work. So what individual can do is one of two things. If you are not entrepreneurial, I really do think the last bastion of good work is likely to be in the government because while they already are starting to part-time and temp jobs, still most government jobs, and remember it's millions of layers, city government, county government, regional government, state government, federal government, they hire lots of people, most of them full-time with benefits, lots of holidays, vacation days, et cetera. So if you're not entrepreneurial, that would seem to me a wise thing. Get yourself in. Once you're in, you get preference for other jobs. Get in. If you are entrepreneurial, I'm a huge fan of what I call simple, not-or-surable small businesses. Things like, for example, a flower cart next to a busy train or bus station in installing or removing real estate, four by fours from for sale and homes that are for sale because those can't be off-shored and I know that those are not statusy, but ultimately status is the enemy of contentment. We have a lot of people who are fancy doctors and lawyers who are miserable, sitting in their 4,000 square feet, drinking their third vodka or getting high on their ninth joint. So those two things, simple, scalable, ethical entrepreneurship, a chain of those flower carts in the light, or a government job if you're not entrepreneurial. Interesting. Okay, so I wanna touch on what you said earlier about, and maybe I'm paraphrasing this too much, but corporate America, business, large businesses, see people, their employees' labor as a cost to be minimized. Not as, you know, the people in my audience are all good-hearted people. We believe that businesses can change the world and blood lift people's lives. That's not how the vast majority of businesses think, right? Like, I think, okay, when I give a job to somebody, I am giving them the dignity of work. I'm helping them practice their skills. They're contributing to, you know, kind of teamwork. We're building something bigger than any one person can do alone. But corporate America is trying to say, let's get rid of as many people as possible so that we can have more profit because people, they have sick days. They're lazy sometimes. So talk about that a little bit. It's becoming, there's always been a tension between your employer and employee, which is why the rise of the union movement. But it's accelerated because never before has the media replaced its role as a reporter of the full range of responsibly held positions to really an advocate that really says that corporations suck. And that has radicalized a large part of the population. Even people who would normally be considered moderate or conservative, they say, you know what? And essentially my employer is my enemy. I'm gonna, they would fire me as soon as they could. And so I'm gonna give them the least I can get away with. And so there is this increased tension between employer and employee. Not to mention the cost, as I said, of hiring. Though there are sort of many factors that are resulting in not only corporations, but even government and nonprofits hiring temps in part time as possible. I mean, universities are the ultimate hypocrites in this regard. In their classes, they talk endlessly about the importance of treating labor fairly. And then yet, and even the most valued people on their, who the university's employee, the faculty, they hire as many as possible, part time and temp. So they don't have to pay them a lot. So they don't have to give them all those benefits. And they have less risk of awful terminations. So there's a tremendous tension in all sectors, not just corporations, but the reason the tension is so great in corporations is that the media has absolutely inflamed the public about viewing corporations as monsters. Oh, interesting, okay. So how do you feel about the movement for socially responsible businesses? So you might be familiar with this organization called Beacore, which is trying to bring a, you know, and I have somebody who's watching Nikki Paava, hi Nikki, who is a lot more knowledgeable about the Beacore than me. So Nikki, you can share anything. But it's the idea of bringing higher values and almost institutionalizing higher values in business, not seeing employees as a cost center to be eliminated, but as, well, as important assets to be developed. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, certainly every employer who wants to make more profit views good employees as people to be developed. That's why they offer so much training. I was a consultant to a number of corporations, including the Gap and Genentech, and they pay me damn good money to go and do training for their employees. And it's in the bottom line interest. But when they feel that employees are really just, you know, kind of just mailing it in and just doing the minimum. And there really is this kind of resentment of management. You know, how many people call my radio, so they're, my manager sucks, my boss sucks. You know, there's a trend is that employers are given additional reason to not want to treat employees with kid gloves even more than before. In regard to social responsibility, corporations have been because of so much media attention. Every corporation I'm aware of has a corporate responsibility or foundation. They're, you know, all kinds of efforts to try to make, you know, to be as responsible as they can. And I certainly can understand that from an emotional and human standpoint, but where there is always another side and the other side is this. I am a huge fan of voluntary charity. I went all the teachers and social workers and others invest in, say, Apple computer because they want to have money for their retirement or to send their kids to college. When the media pressures Apple into giving more to the foundation and investing more, that's less, that is forced charity. If I wanna give to charity, that's my choice and it's great. But if I invest in Apple, if the media is forcing the corporation to do more for the poor or do more for social responsibility, that's an additional forced charity. So I'm not so convinced that ultimately, if we really care about freedom, if we really care about giving people choices and really being pro-choice, I'm not convinced that the hammer that the media is imposing on companies to devote evermore to quote social responsibility ultimately is wise. Okay, this is really good. I'm glad you're getting into this because you are already sharing a view that probably a lot of the people in my audience haven't thought through and maybe disagree with on the surface, which is, in other words, we good-hearted liberal people believe that there should be more redistribution of wealth. Corporations are so rich, they could afford to make less profit for their shareholders and spend more of that money giving to their foundations, doing employee wellness programs, et cetera, et cetera. So I, first of all, I wanna say that having listened to your radio show for years now, you are not a Republican Tea Party conservative, no way. I mean, you're here in the Bay Area just by virtue of osmosis, you've gotten a lot of the liberal values in you. But I would say you are a, and you probably would say yourself, you're a moderate and you are a, you like to question what everyone seems to accept without having thought through. And so I think you equally criticize, you're equally good at critiquing the left as the right. And I think your critique makes us think of our positions more thoughtfully. So, okay, I also have been coming to see that really if we can create in society, truly what we all want, like you said, is more freedom for every soul to have the, dare I say, to muster the love within themselves to give that love to others rather than saying, no, you have to give your love to this person or corporation, you have to give your benefits to such and such. Of course, corporations are not people, even though there's some laws that say otherwise. So say more about this redistribution. So, okay, I'll give you one example where maybe you and I would agree, is there's a movement towards universal basic income these days. Those of you who don't know, it's basic income. If you go search the hashtag basic income, you'll see lots of articles about this. But the idea is instead of the welfare state with all these different benefit organizations and having to evaluate people on whether they're worth giving welfare to, why don't we just cut all that bureaucracy and give a certain amount of money to every citizen. That would actually raise everyone above, hopefully above the poverty line. And some people might say, I'm gonna work a lot less because I've got basic income and I could do more creative activities in the world. But so isn't that redistribution as well and why would that be different? So actually, I'm presupposing something. What are your thoughts on redistribution of wealth versus meritocracy? I think that's a common sort of dichotomy or debate. I think a guaranteed annual income is obviously an example of redistribution, but it's one I do support, especially in the era of fewer and fewer jobs. So the perfectly well-intentioned people who work hard or bright or whatever, there's simply not gonna be enough work to go around. And we're all, everybody, conservatives and liberals have a humanitarian side. Nobody wants people starving in the streets or living in poor houses like in the Kenzian times. So I think that it is perfectly appropriate to have a guaranteed income and I'm in favor of it. That said, redistribution in general is I am very much against. There's already tremendous redistribution that goes on. 68% of the federal income tax is paid by the top 10% of earners already. We could tax the top 10% at 100% and it wouldn't make things equal. The question is also, is the world better off when things are more equal or where we do in fact redistribute more oil either a free market or redistribute more resources to the greatest, most to the more capable who are more likely to cure our diseases, to be wise leaders, to build bridges that don't collapse. And an example of that is gifted in the last 30 or the last 50 years have been defined by redistribution. Even in Democrats or Republicans, even when Bush favored no child left behind, it was all about redistributing education dollars and resources to the least among us, to the lowest achievers. In the 50s, the dominant model was we wanna put extra resources to the extended discretionary to our best and brightest, which at that point was simply to compete with the Soviets which I am kind of a world citizen, I don't really care about that part particularly, but it certainly resulted in greater sciences, greater medical discoveries, et cetera. Well now, since the great society in 1965, Lyndon Johnson following up Kennedy's original vision for that, and even through, as I said, no child left behind which is the Bush initiative, there has been a tremendous redistribution of the poor gifted program, programs for the intellectually gifted have been eviscerated or eliminated or expanded to be called gifted and talented and includes everybody including dancers. And so the result is that, and it's unbelievable how little money goes to the gifted and bright. You watch, you go to the elementary schools especially. We now have mixed ability classes so that literally developmentally disabled children behave behaviorally violent kids and gifted kids are all the same class who come to America as well as native speakers of English which creates an untenable situation for the teachers and the teachers because they have been so brainwashed into the idea of redistribution, spend most of the time on the low achieving kids. So the achievement gap remains as wide as ever and yet what we're doing is stultifying the bright. The only reason that it hasn't gotten even wider is we've taken away resources from the bright. So the bright, if you go into any classroom today in the elementary schools and most public schools, you're going to see bright kids stultified and bore tremendous waste of potential. And yet despite all the redistributed efforts in the low achievers, the achievement gap is as wide as ever. So I am not except for the humane basic redistribution of a guaranteed basic income, I am much more in favor of rewarding merit and that includes being against reverse discrimination which is in the real world, how affirmative action often not always plays up. Wow, okay. So there's a lot to unpack here and I think what you've said is probably in disagreement with some of the people's views that are watching this. So let me ask you some devil's advocate questions. So you're not saying that the untalented, the development disabled, they should be just not in the education system. No, I'm saying that. No, you're not. The proportion and amounts of the resources and they get, why they get 15 times as much as the gifted kids, which is crazy. Yeah. The title for the country. Okay, so this is interesting. So yeah, I could see, I mean, just even in a, let's say there's a household of three kids and as a parent, obviously, the one who is developmentally or behaviorally challenged is gonna get most of the attention because they're causing all the ruckus around the house. Whereas the one who is quiet and does what he or she is supposed to do is kind of left alone a lot more of the time. That's the sort of macro scale. That's what's happening is what you're saying. The problem with that of course is that the, there is this assumption that liberals have that, oh, they'll do just fine. The gifted kids will do just fine. Right. So many bright and just even average and above average and gifted people who don't succeed. We all know brilliant failures and the gap between what their potential is. And if we gave them the personal attention, the mentorship, the after-school programs or whatever, they could achieve so much more, but we put almost all our resources into the lowest achievers. Every in the battlefield, every medic knows that there is a limited amount of resources and they're trained to devote as many resources possible not to those who are the sickest because they may well die and all those drugs and blood transfusions or whatever may not do any good, but to those with the greatest potential to profit. We don't think twice about it in that context, but in the more macro context of society, we're fine about spending 15 times as much on the lowest achievers who have demonstrated all the way from preschool through high school, very limited ability to learn. And we nor, really nor, especially at the elementary school, gifted kids in creating, we create brilliant failures. Wow. Fascinating. I, yeah, I can see your point and I think it's worth continued discussion and Laura mentioned special ed in this state is cut first. No, that's a lie. Actually, I think Laura is in New Mexico, maybe? Anyway. I'm sure where she is. Yeah. I happen to teach, I've taught special ed in the graduate schools. Public law 94-142 mandates that the one thing that cannot be cut is special ed. That's why I jumped on that. Special ed cannot be cut no matter what happens to average kids or gifted kids that my wife's the superintendent of schools in Napa County and she's our just special ed in addition. That's the one thing that cannot be cut and there's a wonderful example of that forced redistribution. Wow, interesting, interesting. So one thing I've heard you say, I want to ask you about anything similar to this idea is you are a global citizen and you say, you know, I don't care. I want to care as much about the child in Malawi as a child in urban Oakland, right? Absolutely. They are the same of equal worth, right? Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with you on a cosmic level that they are of equal worth and they're both absolutely worth raising and helping. But I'll challenge you here and share some of my less known views on this is that I think we can do the most good for the people that are just below us in terms of their experience, their resources. So for example, I think I can help a fellow, you know, solopreneur, coach, person who has just a few years less experience. I agree. I could help that person a lot more than I could help that child in Malawi or wherever because I can't even, I can barely relate to that child. And so my thought is this, what if we all helped the person that was just before us and it wouldn't that chain help everyone, you know, help everyone, period in a much more relevant way? Well, there is a here conflating to things. Absolutely, I agree with part of it, which is, of course we're best in a position to help the person who's just a notch below us. Whether we're a math tutor, if we're a math genius we're not going to do a good job of teaching somebody who can't add because we can't begin to relate to that person. Yeah, then we'll get frustrated and they'll think they're stupid, you know. Absolutely. But that's very different than even somebody who lived next door to me, you know, the kid in the multi-generational poor who is born to parents who are, let's just say not great parents in a bad neighborhood who are not very bright, who have poor impulse control and all the rest of it. There are, despite the fact that they have the privilege of an American education while where there are differences in truth class size in Oakland is smaller than in Arunda. People don't realize it because the attendance, the daily attendance of people who show up actually in class in Oakland is much lower. People don't realize that. That's what counts as what the real body's in the classroom, not the phony statistics get reported. We're in Malawi, the poor kid has never been even exposed. You know, I think, you know, I'm a particular, when you talk about people who are not away, the people of India and China have for thousands of years had a culture that valued education. So they both selected in terms of who they're romantic who they would have children with. Intelligence was an important characteristic they chose from in terms of a husband or wife. So over a thousand years you have these people with a culture and the genetic pool of the values, intelligence and achievement. But because of the poverty, for example, in India or Pakistan or Bangladesh, they get limited exposure. So, but they have those values and they have those genetics. So if I give a dice, I go, am I flying to Bangladesh? But a dollar that I donate to those people in Bangladesh may do more good. That's right, that's true. The ones who've had all the privileges already here in America. That's right. So let us invest in what is likely to yield, as I said, with the medic, the person with the greatest potential to profit, not with the greatest deficit who has already had an amazing amount of resources. Do you know that since the Great Society, the United States has spent 22 trillion dollars to try to close the achievement gap. From Head Start, which by the way, the Obama administration study found does not work to today's $7 billion over the last eight years that President Obama allocated specifically for the quote, lowest performing schools that are Washington Post headline this month said made no difference. It's been 22 trillion dollars trying to help the least among us. Let us help those who've not had 22 trillion dollars spent, but who have a culture and a genetics and everything else, countries that have tremendous potential. Look how in such a short amount of time, China and India have absolutely become our serious competitors for the world's jobs. Interesting, okay. So actually I have two things that I wanna address. One is it makes me think about outsourcing. I mean, even in my own business, okay. So in my business, I always advocate for people to go for my clients and my audience. I always say, hey, you know what? If you need some graphic design done, if you need some website work done, you know, yes, you could hire someone else in the Bay Area or in the United States or in Canada, wherever you are and you would pay that person $30 an hour or $50 an hour and they would do that work for you or there's somebody in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India who would be grateful for $5 an hour and they would do just as good, maybe even better work for you than someone next door to you. And of course, a lot of people are up in arms saying, George, how can you, with someone with liberal and good heart of values issue, how can you be in favor of outsourcing? Now we're sending all our jobs to overseas. Okay, so my opinion, of course, is that listen, the $5 or $30, $50, $500 that I spend on that freelancer in India is gonna make tremendous benefit for their family way more benefit than that same $500 I spend with my next door neighbor here in the Bay Area. Yes, it's not as good for my San Francisco economy. I agree about that. It's not good for the local economy and there's a multiplier effect and all that stuff supposedly, but the multiplier effect in India, I'm a global citizen as well. I think all of us should, why are we so nationalistic? And no, Americans, well, this is what Donald Trump says. America first. Very much against Trump that way. Isn't it racist and isn't it jingoistic and false patriotism, say America first? Why do I not have as much solidarity with someone in England, China as I have someone in Oakland? It's racist or elitist for me or it's jingoistic of me to do that. We want to invest our money where it's gonna make the biggest difference. I wanna tell you a brief story. As part of my charity work, I wanted to create a webinar, not a webinar, kind of a video on how to help teachers in today's mixed ability classes, like I talked about where everybody's gonna say all kinds of kids in the same class, how can they meet the needs of gifted kids in that mixed ability class? So, I looked into having, you know when I was whiteboard explainer videos? Yes. I had that done. In America, they wanted 2,024, six minutes, 2,02500. I went to a website that is, like I don't remember it was 99 designs or whatever. I found a little company in the Philippines who did it for 900. Yes. I would not have done that. I would have run in a cheap video with me just talking face to camera if it was $2,000. But because I could get it for 900, I ended up doing a much higher quality video which has gotten 30,000 views, which is a lot for some of them, which I'm not a marketer, as well as you know. 30,000 views, so I helped a hell of a lot more people. So not only is it racist to focus on America first, you actually will do a bigger difference with your charity or your business if you look at the world as your potential pool for who to hire, not just America first. Yes, yes. Yeah, I totally agree with you. So, okay, so there's a lot of directions we can go with this. I wanna ask you about, actually, let me just take a moment. Does anyone, oh, there is a question here in the comments. So anyone have any questions from Marty? I mean, I have lots of questions, but please feel free to comment. One of the questions from Laura is, what about socially conscious corporations like Patagonia, REI, those kinds of folks? Do you wanna say a few words about that? Do you, are you in support of that? Do you think we should advocate more for that? Yeah. That's what I'm saying, I said it earlier. It's forced charity. Right, right, right. So the Patagonia, if they take 20% of their money and they give it to the poor, that's forcing me to donate to their charity of choice and therefore reducing my, not only in my forced charity, because I'm investing in them, but I'm forced to invest in the charities they feel are appropriate. If in fact, let's say a company like Cypress Semiconductor, that does none of that. They're one of the few that doesn't, how was the foundation? If I then have my, let's say, and I'm going because 20% of my money is not given away, which is what Patagonia does, that money will get either reinvested in the company to create better and new products, which benefits everybody, or returns me to the shareholder. And now I can either, I can afford a lot of things, I'm not poor, but if I'm like most teachers and social workers or whatever who invest in their mutual fund or whatever, I now have money to afford to send my kid to college. I have money to give to charity. I have money to afford Medicaid. Let's get real. Many people in this country, because they are struggling, have to cut their medication in half so they can make it go further. If I am forced, if I'm a Patagonia employee, and if I'm a Patagonia employee, I'm gonna get stock options. If I'm forced to you, Patagonia gives money to whatever charity is the platypus is in Patagonia. No, I may not be able to afford my medication, or I have to maybe decide between tomatoes and more toilet paper when we, or at minimum, I'm not able to save as well. So I have more respect for the company that doesn't force me into charity, as long as they're ethical. And again, I hate the tobacco industry. I would never invest a penny in tobacco industry under any circumstances. But I'd rather invest in a company that is, I'm investing in a company, not forced charity. So I have more respect for a company that doesn't do a lot of charity. And I do my own. I give a fair amount, but I don't wanna be forced to give to their charity. Yeah, now this is really good. And I'm glad you're saying these things because it's again, it's outside the echo chamber of what most of the people watching this typically. People are shocked that 59% of college educated women voted for Donald Trump. They're not what retardates. Why? Because we in the echo chamber don't begin to understand that their autocracy is a viable position. Whereas for a million years, now 50 years now, from John Kennedy to Lyndon Johnson all the way through to Barack Obama and would be Hillary, all she cared about is redistribution to the poor, minorities, women, the disabled. And the 59% of college women outside of the echo chamber said, you know, I don't think that redistributing to the least among us is a formula for enabling America to succeed. Or to look the other way when illegal immigrants come here who are disproportionately the poorest and those who are not doing well in Mexico or they wouldn't come here. Yeah. All that 59% of college women, even though he was disgusting and groping women saying bad things about women, they said, you know, it's more important that we vote for meritocracy than more redistribution to the least among us. We can't echo chamber and think that they're just idiots because they're not all idiots. Some of them are, but some on the left are idiots too. Of course, yeah, they're just idiots and all spectrum of the political isles. Okay, so just to be clear, you're not a fan of Donald Trump. I'm not and I didn't vote for him. Yeah, but certain positions that he has that may be wise at this point in history, that is a replacement of this extreme redistribution. As I said, you know, 68% pay 10, the top 10% pays to spend the income and all of them school resources and job training resources, everything, you know, all the incentives go to the have nots. There may be a time that his foundational belief in meritocracy may be a better thing for America, but I hate his hubris. I hate his protectionism. I hate his behavior toward women. I hate, I'm very pro-choice. I'm very pro-gay marriage. Very anti-materialism. So I hate a lot about Donald Trump, but there are two core foundational beliefs, both his belief in meritocracy over redistribution and we have become a paper tiger. In the last 50 years, since Lyndon Johnson, we are a kumbaya, peacenik foreign policy and the world laughs at us because we draw lines in the sand that we don't take seriously. Oh, I'm backing away from that. And it may be at this point in time that we need temporarily somebody who's going to restore a sense that America's not a paper tiger. So I have mostly again feeling about Donald Trump. I think he's got to lose a loose cannon, but I do have to, I do support two of his foundational beliefs. Okay, this is really good. And I just, to be clear about those of you who don't know Marty, you know, you are one of the more ethical, again, I can say ethical coaches that I've ever met. In your own business, you don't charge an arm and a leg. I mean, with your 30 years of experience, you could be charging $2,000 an hour or $1,000 an hour. And I'm not kidding you, I know people who charge that much who only have five years of coaching experience, $1,000 an hour, an hour. And Marty, can I mention how much you charge right now? It's on your website. Yeah, I mean, Marty charges $175 an hour right now. And I'm a little bit embarrassed because I charge $150, and he has, you know, 20 more years of experience than me. And Marty is incredible, excellent in our career coaching sessions. And so you're not about, you're totally not about the money when you're serving people. And so that's, yeah. I'm interrupted, I'm sorry. Sure, sure, sure. Of course. Listen to the word 175 an hour. It actually sounds like a lot, but the people think about people are making $10 an hour and $15 an hour. Of course, no career counselor can work 60 hours a week. All I really care about is they make a solid middle class income. I make about a hundred thousand a year, that's all. And that's all I need to live because I live frugally. I don't believe in materials. And there's my lefty side. I buy very little, I don't, I'm not a consumerist. So the hourly rate sounds like a lot, but my total income is about a hundred thousand, which is simply kind of a solid middle class living. I don't, and that's my liberal side. I really find it offensive when people have three yachts and two mansions and a comfy home here and all that. I don't need any of that shit. And I've given, I'm giving 100% of my half of the community property to charity. I'm worth a lot because I've not been materialistic and I've invested wisely. But I, you know, I am a big liberal and I think that I think it is, I laugh at people who wear Rolexes and buy new Mercedeses and who have fancy houses and leave all their money to their children who are either gonna become what I call the trust fund, maybe mentality, like welfare mentality and screw it around. I'm leaving all of my money to charity because I believe that is ultimately wise and that is super liberal. But I have very conservative views about social programs because my PhD is actually in evaluation of innovation. And all those attempts to close the achievement gap have not worked, including Head Start as I said earlier, even the Obama administration's meta-evaluation of Head Start shows that it does not work despite the fortunes that have been spent of our tax dollars. Thank you for that. And I, well, the reason I mentioned the people who charge $1,000 an hour and more is that, no, 170 fights, the hourly rate is completely, to be evaluated, it's completely needs to be put in context of what other people of similar, in the profession is charging and you're charging way less than someone of your experience could. But okay, so back to meritocracy, achievement gap, et cetera. What do you say to the person that is, okay, the word privilege, the word privilege is huge. I mean, I have some friends of mine whom I love who are all day long, they're saying. Male privilege, white male privilege. Yes, white privilege, male privilege, Bayard privilege, name it, you name it. So what are your thoughts on that? Privilege is usually earned. Sure, the people who talk about privilege all the time talk about people born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Yes, so it's a multi-generational privilege is what usually what they bring up. But it's not at random. Okay. Many people who are today, quote, privileged, their parents work their ass off to become privileged. You're Asian, and I think about all the Asians that came to this country, dirt poor, they were visibly different from a white person as are the African-American. And yet in one generation, despite Japanese and German camps, due by being Vietnamese, both people, they did not predominantly go on welfare. They did not join gangs predominantly. They did not choose school and fool around and twerk on the tables like so many other kids do. They worked their ass off. And they said, no business beneath them. They ran Korean grocery stores. They worked in factories in the bad neighborhoods. And in one or two generations, I am proud to look at an Indian American, a Chinese American, a Japanese American, a Korean American and look at what amazing stories. Now, of course, there's exceptions. That's not privilege. That's earned. Whatever privilege exists is earned. And that's true of the Jews, who despite being my parents are both Holocaust survivors, had no education, no money, nothing but the scars of Holocaust tortures. And my father ended up working in a factory all day and all night at minimum wage and saved up and didn't spend and didn't get drunk and learned English because he knew if he didn't learn good English, he was always gonna starve. And he ended up running a successful small business. My father was father to me and I went to the cheapest public college, but now I am proud of it and they can be proud of it. Privilege is generally earned and it offends me that we denigrate people's intelligence, hard work, the lay of gratification because it sounds good to talk about intersectionalism and privilege. No, most privilege is earned. Even the kid born in a silver spoon. That father, I was just watching a special on Cornelius Vanderbilt. Now he did some disgusting unethical things and I'll never support that. But even the children who were born of the Wolf's, the New England type who had had a, they worked their asses off. Most people who I know are worth millions work 60, 70, 80 hours a week. They don't go home at five o'clock and say, I got my government job checks coming in. They don't sleep worrying about their workers, about their products, even though science of America, it's not privilege implied that it comes at random. Most of them work their asses for it and if their children benefited, just like we don't degrade a parent for taking care of their children and providing good opportunity for their kid, we should not denigrate people who are successful as quote privilege because most of them earned it. Wow. You know, I think about my wife's family. When she was growing up, her dad was a cook on a, some kind of industrial shipping boat. And for years, while my wife grew up and my wife's mom was working from home manufacturing something from a factory. I don't remember what it was, some typical consumer item. And my wife was placed in a cardboard box to play by herself for her childhood. I mean, they didn't have time to like play with her and all that stuff. And now my wife, she has a, she grew up poor with very little, besides just whatever in the public, New York city, public education. And now she has a graduate degree. She is so smart. She has her own business. She's successful. Now, compared to me, I have to say, I grew up, I mean, okay, the word privilege. I grew up with a dad who was a CEO. He had hundreds of employees at one point international business. Was he given that or did he earn? No, he earned it. He earned it. His father was so poor. They were so poor that when my dad grew up, he wore the socks until most of it, most of the bottom was worn out. He only had the tube part of the socks. And he would still wear that to school because he was embarrassed. He didn't have other socks to wear. So my dad grew up dirt poor and he became a CEO and was highly successful, right? You grew up as any parent who does good for their kid. You have had, quote, advantages because your father killed himself to go from poverty. When liberals call it privilege, it dismisses all of that hard work your father did. That's true, that's true. Now, so then how do you feel society should treat the kid who grows up in the, you know, in tough neighborhoods with very little? In the end, whatever benefits accrue from reverse discrimination are outweighed by the lack of merit. That gifted child, rich or poor of any race who gets nothing because we feel sorry for the least among us. In the end, society is worse. That kid doesn't live off his potential. We have worse pride, we have worse service and there was anger. Part of the anger in the society is the sense that this hardworking, smart person gets nothing or gets his parents' taxes taken to give to those who are screw-ups in class and carry knives and are violent and don't learn well and whatever. Ultimately, that's unfair, merit. And I don't care what your race is, I wanna be really clear. If anything, I'm more excited and happy when it's an African-American who wants merit. I'm happy about that. Ultimately, nothing is a pure go to a pure bed but society is better. Net, net, net when we use merit, when we eliminate barriers, people of all races but we don't redistribute to them thereby taking from those with the greatest potential to profit to give to people who don't. Your father, I guarantee, was not the beneficiary of any of the redistribution. Neither was my father. My father really, really did. He worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week his whole life and never complained, never went to Holocaust and Memorances, never burned down cities when a judgment and when a police officer shot a Jew, he didn't burn down any cities. Not to mention that in every one of those cases in Baltimore and in Ferguson and in Oakland, in every case a significantly minority jury found the cops 100% of the time not guilty but they rushed to judgment. We say we value the Constitution innocent until proven guilty but we look the other way in the media fans of flames of people burning down cities in advance of even the court of law. That is what's behind the misguided privilege mindset and the media fanning the flames of it. Interesting. Okay, so I wanna ask you one more question about this and then I'm gonna turn to the skill of time effectiveness because I think that's part of the whole merit question but okay, so we just the new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Right. Okay. Let's see, look, people aren't even aware of their biases. Betsy DeVos. Right. You know, that predisposes everybody to, that's not what an interviewer should be doing. Okay. What is your view on it? Because you have a graduate degree in education so you've- The evaluation of education in Berkeley, I'm not saying it to brag other than that I know what I'm talking about. I actually taught in the graduate school of education in Berkeley as well as Cal State East Bay. We have had an experiment in union, teachers union driven public education with multiple layers of amazing layers of bureaucracy. I know this better than anybody because my wife's superintendent of schools. There is a city and a county and a state and something called SELPA, Special Education Regional Districts and the federal government and foundations. My wife is a Marion, my wife is a very, she's not as aggressive as me at all. She's much nicer than I am. I'm good, but I'm not nice. She is a very nice and smart person and is reasonably assertive. And she's a Marionette. There is very little that even she can do because there are so many of these, she's governed under so many often contradictory and overwhelming rules governing what one can do in education. And the unions do dominate what teachers, it's the only field where after two years you have your job for life unless you rape a child for being metaphorical. That cannot be in children's interests. So it was real and the achievement gap is as wide as ever and give the kids, you talk to any even bright kids in high schools or schools, even bright kids say they're bored. Everybody's bored. And you look at the new common core curriculum, part of some of the crowning achievement of public education, stuff that nobody cares about and needs to know, talk about elitist. Why does anybody who can't balance the checkbook need to know quadratic equations? Why does somebody who can't negotiate a conflict with somebody need to know the cause of the Peloponnesian War? And so Betsy DeVos, who really is against public education, I'm betting. Oh yeah. We're going to have more charter schools, more innovation and encourage the private sector. Is it possible that after 70 years or longer of a dominance of this extraordinary expenses, by the way, you don't realize this, do you know that the United States spends number one or number two in the world per capita on education? Yet our achievement is near the bottom of among all industrial nations and anybody who wants the statistics email me and I'll send them to you. We spend the most and get the least. So is it not? Actually, maybe you can email me, I'll put it in the comments of this video. And so is it not possible that a Betsy DeVos who you left that and who America or the media left that is exactly what we need, somebody who's going to be not going to be in the hip pocket of the unions, not be in the hip pocket of this enormous bureaucracy that has absolutely paralyzed our educational system. Interesting. And I'll have to say, you are both good and nice in our coaching sessions, but you are definitely much more objective and direct on interviews. So I appreciate that. Okay. So let's shift over to time effect and this is one of the topics that you enjoy talking about. And this is regarding, this has to do with merit, building merit as individuals. So let's start with that. Cause I also love to talk about time management as well, but let's start with any thoughts you have on that. You know, as a counselor, I have to pick my spots, where can I make the biggest difference with my clients? And while intelligence is not purely genetic, it's certainly partly genetic. And everybody, every study has shown that intelligence is extremely difficult to change. Intelligence is defined, yes by IQ, but it's reasoning skills, the ability to remember a lot, the ability to add it to an analyzed synthesizer. It's very difficult to teach. They have all these critical thinking courses and they really, it's very difficult. So I don't try to, I can't really improve somebody's intelligence, but time effectiveness, which is extremely important, is not probably genetic. Thinking, it comes down to, it's a very simple concept in its, in explanation, but it has profound implications for everything. Not, it's having a little voice on your shoulder all the time, asking yourself, is this the most effective use of my time? Am I getting the best benefit in is the world getting the most benefit for this use of my time? And that affects everything from whether how thoroughly, for example, I chose to not prepare at all for this interview, zero. Because I said, you know, the difference between my obsessively preparing and winging it is too small to justify the effort. If it was on NPR, I probably would spend more time. I make a judgment as to where it's worth putting more and less, and of course it applies to whether I'm going to be watching TV, going to a ballgame, going to my second cousins, third wedding in Topeka, or seeing another client, or working with you, or writing another article. Thinking about what is the most time effective way to do a given task and which tasks are most time effective in terms of what matters to yourself, to your family, and to society. Having that mindset is not genetic. That's something we can all get better at. We unconsciously very often piss away time. Instead, by being more conscious, is this time effective? Of course, I piss away time too. There are times I just want to play with my doggy. Well, and that's effective because you need to rest, you know, you need a change of pace. That's actually an effective thing to, well, some people call it self care, right? Yes, but what's interesting is you can do, I work, I'm 66, I'll be 67 years old in June. And I work 80 hours a week to this day, and you can see I have as much energy now. And I've been working my gas off all day because I'm doing a concert tonight, a show, and I've been moving furniture and doing everything. And you can see I have as much energy as a 20 year old. Because I am doing, firstly, I'm grateful for the luck of being in good health. Yes, I try to take care of myself, but some of it's beyond your control. There are plenty of people who aren't overweight and who don't smoke or get sick. So I'm grateful. That's beyond my control. You have some good genetics, yeah. I have good genetics. But I also, because I'm doing what I'm naturally good at, thinking on my feet is easy for me. It's like breathing. I'm no more stressed talking with you than playing with my dog. But if you asked me to do artwork, I'd be totally stressed because I can't draw anything. You asked me to fix anything. I'd get totally stressed. So the key is not so much work-life balance. The key is to be, when time effectiveness is doing work you're naturally good at or are very practiced at, then it's not stressful. I can play the piano all day and I'll never be stressed. But I bet you if I asked you to go play the piano, you'd probably be very stressed because it's not something that, for me it's like breathing, playing the piano. Yeah, yeah. So that's the key to talk. That's one of the keys is to get to know yourself and what activities come naturally for you that also contributes to others. And to do each task, like writing comes easily to me, but I make a secondary decision to say, how much work am I going to do in writing this article? I could be very obsessive and review the literature and it took me a minute, but I choose to do the real minimum, usually just a smart Google search and then review my own thoughts. So my typical psychology today article, and I've written now over 3,000, including a thousand days in a row, is written in three hours. I'd rather have written 3,000 articles that don't require so much research than 50 articles that require a ton. And that's what time effect this is about. So it's not just choosing the tasks you do well, but thinking about what the most, where do you get the most bang per minute? Yeah, exactly. Now, some people might argue with you in saying, spending more time writing one amazing article could actually have more impact and reach than writing 10 articles that are, you know, so-so, but. That's wrong because even if I put in a ton of effort and say I took a year to write the definitive article on one of my graphinations, it would only in my judgment be 10 or 20% better. It wouldn't make that much more different. There's a quick point of diminishing returns. After a few hours, you've reached what's called an asymptote in calculus. It's an inflection point, it's a point of diminishing returns. So the time, the actual terms of making a bigger difference, I'll make more of a difference in recognizing the asymptote, recognizing that point of diminishing returns and stopping there rather than being compulsive. It's like if you're hiring somebody to do, to frame a door for you in your house, the guy who's gonna focus on down to the hundreds of an inch, it is gonna take you three, could take him three weeks to do it and charge you three times as much and he's fixing far fewer doors. Whereas if he only went to a 16th of an inch, you could do 20 doors. So it's important to know where you, the point of diminishing returns comes. Yeah, and one more thing, and I wanna give you a chance to say anything else too, but what do you say to the person who says, well, yeah, I would love to be more effective to my time, but I procrastinate because I'm scared of this task or I'm for whatever reason that something inside me is keeping me from being effective, from doing that effective thing that I know I should do. If it comes from fear, there are two kinds of fear, there's rational fear and irrational fear. So yeah, I'd be afraid, for example, of playing for the Golden State Warriors. I'd be like, yes, kick, you're right, right? So that's a realistic fear and I'd honor that procrastination. But sometimes there is a fear that's because, let's say I was not an experienced public speaker, maybe that fear is appropriate and I need to practice more or I need to not script it so much so I can be more natural like I'm being with you or maybe the fear is irrational and I need to fight through the fear. It's different, procrastination is a symptom, it's not the disease, it's like a headache. Sometimes the headache is a sign of brain cancer, sometimes it's a tension headache, sometimes shit happens. Or sometimes you just need to drink some water. You just water, dehydrate it, exactly. So treat the procrastination as a symptom and then decide should you forget that task, should you get trained to do the task or is it a realistic fear you shouldn't do it? Treat it as a symptom. I'm effective, but watch, you know, and one more thing about that. People who are entitled and procrastinate too much tend to feel like everything has to be pleasurable and I also think that's a liberal view. You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. It is more comfortable and more pleasant for me to play with my dog or eat or have fun with my wife than to do my taxes. But I hate doing my taxes actually. Yeah, me too. But I don't even think about procrastinating. It's not an issue. I am not, my job is not be happy all the time. My job is to be responsible. Responsible to myself, to my family and to the world. And if I'm doing generally work that I'm pretty good at, I'm gonna be reasonably content. And I do do things like doing this performance tonight at my one man show. That's fun for me. But if it's insisted I'd be happy or if it's comfortable all the time, I'll procrastinate too much. So you must get comfortable being uncomfortable. Yeah, so I wanna ask you one question but I also wanna see if you wanna say anything else before we close. One question is, okay, as a career coach, would you say to yourself, Marty, since you love doing this one man show, why don't you put your efforts into making that your living? Because statistically the chances of making a living is too small. There's millions of people who wanna be creatives and artists and musicians and poets and actors and jugglers and all the rest of it. And be paid and be paid for it. Exactly. And so only a fool takes one in a million, I mean, if you're a true, true genius, you know you're gonna succeed fine. But most people end up eating ramen and cat food. We see on the Oprah show somebody comes on and she's been or he's, but see, I was successful and became a star. You can too, follow your passion. Do what you love and the money will follow. But in the reality is for everyone who appears on Oprah, there are 10,000 you don't. Oh yeah. Following your passion as a hobby, you know, I love music and I love performing, but I'm a realist. I believe in the Bill Gates model. He made money where money was to be made in software. And then he's immunized every kid in Africa with his money. That's how you do your charity. That's what you do for fun. You don't, you make money where money is being made as long as it's effort. And I have to say, it's not like Bill Gates hated software. He had some natural inclination and interest in it. But it wasn't, it wasn't something he would do if money were no issue. Exactly. Okay. This is really good. Yeah. Is there anything else you want to say before we close this session? Two things. One is any dear listener, I know I'm difficult to listen to. One of my many weaknesses are way too intense, as well as my views being so counter to the Bay Area culture. So I thank you, any of you who have managed to listen and maybe even with an open mind a bit, you know, nobody changes radically from an interview, but even if you've carefully considered I'm honored that you did that. And then the second thing is completely optional. I've mentioned a number of things about the piano. It'd be kind of an odd way to end. Would you like me to play something on the piano to end this? Oh, please. That would be fun. Thank you. I didn't even... Oh, shit. I brought my, I'm sorry. I just brought my keyboard downstairs for the concert in my office. Maybe next time you could do that. Grace us with that. That would be fun. That'd be a very appropriate Facebook live thing. I wanna say as we close that, yeah, you know, this interview was not what, I mean, I didn't know what to expect to be honest. I knew that we were gonna get into some controversial issues. But I bet that a lot of people listening, they probably were like, whoa, you know, I'm hearing things that I disagree with and that I don't think, you know, I don't even know this guy. I will tell you, if you're still here, I encourage you to go and listen to Marty's podcast. Go on iTunes or Android or where you search for work with Marty Namco. Check out his podcast. It's one of the more fun and interesting podcasts that I've listened to. And I've listened to over a hundred podcasts by this point, different ones, different shows. And the other thing is if you prefer to read, go and check out his blog on psychology today. I'll be sure to put that in the comments. And if you're interested in getting a great career coach, Marty turns away more people than he accepts. But if you would be open to coaching you, take it because it's been very beneficial to me already. And so I wanna thank you for that, Marty. If you don't wanna say you can email me, that's what I do is you email me, tell me a little about your situation. And then I'll either see you might offer your appointment times or I'll refer you to an appropriate colleague. My email address is mnemco, Amazon Mary, and is a Nancy, E-M is in Mary, K-O at Comcast.net. The other thing is if you're a reader, I mean, I'm almost, I feel embarrassed to make people listen to a whole radio show. I have published over 3,000 articles and I picked out the 66 best book called The Best of Marty Nemco and it's cheap. I really, again, I priced it dirt cheap. So go to Amazon, look at The Best of Marty Nemco, get the second edition. It's just out this like last month. That way you can get the best of me for like 12 bucks. That's awesome. Appreciate it. Okay, there you go. Thank you. Thank you so much, Marty. And I don't know, if I can bring you back, I will and we could talk about other things. And maybe some of the folks here have questions that you'd love Marty to address next time and please do comment and let us know. So thank you so much. They hated me too much. Then you won't want to ruin your reputation, dude. Well, maybe next time we'll bring you back for some palatable topics about work or career or leadership or whatever. So we'll see. Food or something non-controversial. Food can't be controversial too. Oh, no, we would talk about something like who makes the best pizza or something. No, but then some people are gluten-free. Exactly. Well, I'm a local organic sustainable pizza that is made right, you know, vegan, of course. Yeah, that's awesome. Marty, thank you so much. And let me just stop the live stream and we'll just chat for a minute before we go. But thanks everyone.