273 | "When Should I Do a Training or Degree Program?" with Paul Zelizer
This week on the pod is our montly solo episode with Paul Zelizer. Paul is the Founder & CEO of Awarepreneurs and the host of the popular Awarepreneurs podcast. He's also been a coach for social entrepreneurs and conscious business owners for more than 15 years.
Interview with Paul Zelizer on When Should You Consider Getting a Degree or Certification?
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SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you can hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app that helps people learn how to have positive impact or values based business. Thank you so much. Today, it's time for our regular monthly solo episode with me Paul Zelizer, the founder of Awarepreneurs and a business coach for conscious business owners for almost 15 years. Our topic is, “When Should I do a Training or a Degree Program?” Now over the years, I've been asked this question many dozens of times, and it happened again, in the past few days, whether that's something like a formal graduate or undergraduate degree, let's say an MBA, or somebody's thinking about getting some training in leadership, or a more training oriented program, like a coaching certification, or some kind of training in a modality, or in some sort of entrepreneur skill set? Does it make sense? The top level answer is that the answer that I always start with is two words. It depends. And I know sometimes that's hard to hear, because we want a simple yes or no, but it really does. This is such a big question. And there's so many unique scenarios that I can't give you a more across the board answer, but when I can give you I'm gonna give you seven questions today that you can ask to help unpack your situation. And does it make sense. So most of these are going to be fairly kind of left brain or more, you know, assessing your situation with a logical mind, I also want to make room for the intuitive parts of ourselves as human beings. This isn't just X's or O's, I want to say that some of this is about what's your inner guidance, your inner compass suggesting, and I want to make room for that. So that's something I value. And for me personally, I both tried to balance what the inner wisdom and my Yeah, my wise self is encouraging, and also just do some good analysis of the situation, and balance those two. So the first question I want to encourage you to play with is, where are you on your career journey? Are you somebody who's just getting started, you're in your early 20s, maybe you just came out of college or high school or something like that. And you don't have a lot of experience, in which case, some kind of a training program that you can point to can help differentiate you from other people in the space, versus somebody who's been in the workforce for quite some times, and might have both some formal training already, as well as informal training and experience or less formal, more like certificate programs plus job experience, you might get more return if you're earlier in your career. Or if you're earlier in that kind if you're doing a pivot, and you're earlier in that kind of work. And you can point to something that says, hey, this training or this degree program prepared me to do this work, it can help you come out of the gate stronger compared to somebody who is in a similar place in their career, but doesn't have this certificate or this training program or this degree. So that's number one. Where are you in your career journey? The second question I have for you to consider what kind of formal or informal training do you already have? For instance, I'll give you a set an example for my own situation. So I have a master's degree in counseling as well as a bachelor's degree in psychology. So I know a lot about, you know, humans in the change process. And when I was in the inquiry of pivoting from community mental health, to doing more business coaching and working in the values based impact based business space, should I get a coaching degree? That was a big question for me. And when I did the analysis, I already had many years of, you know, first college four years of four years equivalent. I did it a little faster than four years, but that's another story for another time. And a two years master's degree that two years master's degree included about four times as much coursework in terms of hours and supervision, an internship and practicum than your average coaching degree. On top of that already had training and certification and things like motivational interviewing, which is a fabulous change process tool was actually developed here in New Mexico. And I can't even remember when in the mid 90s, I was certified, but it was quite some time ago. And that's a pretty many people who do coaching, are using motivational interviewing tools and techniques. And I had already been doing that for quite some time. So in my case, I decided not to go ahead and get a formal coaching degree because I had already had a formal plus lots of years, I had worked with over 5000 people in my mental health career, both in individuals in group settings and training settings, just didn't feel like I was going to get a lot of value and already had a master's degree, I instead did some help in some supervision and read some books. One of them was called the therapist as life coach. And I thought about how to and got support around how to leverage what I already had said of spending, you know, five figures in getting another certification doesn't mean it's right. But I just wanted to give you an example of doing an assessment of your formal and informal training that you already have, might help you get a sense, would this training or this degree program that you're considering, be something you look back on and say this was a wise choice that I that I did this? Or whether you look back and say, you know, that was money and time? I'm not sure I got a lot of return from. The third question is, what kind of support or safety net Do you have? If you're somebody who doesn't have a spouse, or a family that has resources that can support you or help contribute while you're going towards this degree or certification program? Like do you have a full time job that pays? Well, I know some people who are in the corporate space, and they like learning, they make good corporate money, and they have several graduate degrees, they just love to learn and combining these different knowledge bases, with which they were able to do a deep dive because they were in a corporate setting and or other scenarios, they had a spouse, and the spouse can make them, you know, honey, I got this right, like you go do a deep dive, we're good. Don't worry about the money, you're gonna really take this and rock that's going forward. But if it takes you a couple of years, where you're not earning that much, or your corporate, like I said, and you're doing this, because you really enjoy it and you like having number of training and degrees, then it might be a very different answer, than somebody who doesn't have a lot of savings doesn't have a corporate job, maybe their business, if they're already an entrepreneur isn't thriving, they don't have a lot of family support, the safety net is less in that case, just pay attention to that none of these by themselves are gonna like be the answer. But when you start to stack these questions up with each other, then I think we can get a pretty good sense. Is it a good fit for your scenario? Or is this might be something that might be a nice to have, but not a need to have. And or maybe this isn't the right time, maybe it's time to wait a little bit and see about moving the needle because you have a lot of resources already in your toolkit to use those, get some more revenue, and then circle back around to this question. The fourth question I want to invite you to ask is what's your endgame? You know, what's your goal? What are you're trying to work towards? And how might this training program or degree, you know, contribute to that or less, as you start to like, let's say you got this training program, you got this coaching certification, or you got certified in some modality, where you got this degree, like, feel into it, let's say a couple of years from now, your two years post certification or two years post having this degree? Like, how does your gold where you see your business going? The impact you want to have? How might this influence profitability? How might this influence in terms of clientele? Are they likely to say, wow, this really helps me trust you more? Or is it a situation in my case, for instance, most people aren't asking whether I have a formal coaching degree, and if they do I explain what I've explained earlier, and people say, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense. And I trust this person. So where are you trying to get? And how would this training program or this degree, either help or not be
Paul Zelizer 09:38
so relevant to where you're trying to go? certain cases, let's say, if you want to do something with law, you know, you have to be a lawyer, if you want to, or at least you don't have to be, you're gonna have a lot more there master's degrees and other things, other ways of learning about law, but you're gonna have a real competitive advantage if you're doing so. I'm thing with entrepreneur, social entrepreneurs and law, and one person has a degree, another person doesn't have a law degree. Obviously, that's a scenario where, if that's your goal, it really is going to help other scenarios, not so much what's true in your case. So I want to just pause for a minute, I've got three more questions for you, we're going to come right back to those. But before I do that, I just wanted to let you know that I do strategy sessions with people who are trying to figure things out on their social entrepreneur journey, like, does it make sense for me to get a training certification, or to do a degree program, that's not the only thing we could focus in on, I also do a lot of marketing strategy. I do a lot on pricing, I do things on helping people find product market fit. And I love those strategy sessions, because you don't have to sign up for a long coaching program and commit yourself to six months and five figure coaching fees. This is a one time ask several key questions 123 key questions will dig into what's going on in your scenario and help you find a what's the right path forward for your situation, and then three to five action steps that are really going to help you move the needle in a clear and really strong out of the gate kind of way of doing business. And I love those strategy sessions, because people come out of them so much clearer, really tend to move the needle more quickly on their goals as a social entrepreneur. So link in the show notes, you can find out more Paul zelizer.com. And let's keep moving on. So the fifth question I want to invite you to take a look at are what are the expectations in your space? In certain, let's say in climate tech, right now, there are a lot of tech companies, Facebook just laid off a bunch of people, I'm sorry, it's called meta now Twitter does laid off like half of its workforce, there's a lot of people in the tech space that are looking for new jobs. And a lot of people in the climate tech space are saying, hey, come take a look at climate tech. There's a lot, it's a growing area where things like social media sites are contracting, and its base that's likely to just keep growing, because look what's happening in our world. So if you're in the tech space, there's going to be certain kinds of expectations of maybe having engineer training or computer science training, right? That's a really clear norm for somebody who's in the high performance, technology space, and in other situations might be less clear. So what space are you trying to grow in and to have more impact, and to increase your profitability in? And what are the norms in that space? Let me just say, if something like that isn't clear to you, let's say you don't really know, I've not been in the climate space. And I'm moving into that, like, people are encouraging folks who've been laid off from these big tech companies to do this is a great place that you might want to do some informational interviews, or just meet some people reach out on LinkedIn or find there were networks of let's say, in this case, climate tech entrepreneurs, climate solutions, it's sometimes called where they're gathering and see if there are some people who would be willing to do a 20 minute informational interview. And this can be one of the questions you're asking. So if you're moving into a new space, and you're trying to figure out does it make sense or even if you've been around a while, but that's something you never really thought about? See if you can find some people who are well established in that space, do an informational interview about what they do in the space and how long they've been in and what they like about what some of the challenges are, and then ask them about what kind of training or degree programs really help somebody thrive in that space. So the sixth question I have for you is, how is your self esteem the inner aspect of this and or like any sort of imposter syndrome that you might have. And over the years, again, I've been in this space coaching entrepreneurs in one flavor or another for 15 plus years now. And I'll see some people will go from training program to degree program, thinking of a client I worked with, who had three graduate degrees, advanced degrees on top of their undergraduate training, and still really struggled to move forward and was thinking about a training program on top of three graduate degrees. And quite a few I can't even remember at this point, how many training programs modalities and certifications and different kinds of technologies that they were certified at their work. It was when we did an assessment it was off the charts how much this person had both formal and then more certification type, educational experiences. that part of their resume would have been so long, like super impressive. And yet this person felt, you know, they had a lot of reluctance. And other training programs were really seeming attractive to them, even though they were in a financial situation. And also the impact, their inner calling was saying, hey, like, it's time to get to work. They were looking at several other training programs. And when we unpacked it for this person, she said, Hey, this, you know, when I'm really honest, there's some impostor syndrome here. And I'm like, I have what I need to move forward. But I'm scared. Soon as we got there, okay, now we knew how to work with it. It was honest, it was real, doesn't mean she never does a training program ever again. But we could see that this tendency to feel, you know, uncertain, and to doubt herself was contributing to oh, let me go do another training program and get another thing I can hang on my wall when it really wasn't going to move the needle very much, or maybe out at all, because she already had an incredibly impressive training and educational part of her resume. So might this be playing a role? Or like, No, this is like a real skill set that I think we'd really move the needle, how much of its that how much of it is yeah, there is some nervousness and I might have some impostor syndrome. Secret, I think we all have some of that. I remember when I was coming from mental health, into even though I had a really strong working with humans on their goals, skills, over 5000 people I've worked with over 15 years. Soon as we got into a conversation about business and entrepreneurship and leadership, I had a lot of impostor syndrome. Even though I had some great training that I could apply, once I got some help thinking about how to do that still took me quite a few years to feel like I found, you know, my feet found my ground that I could stand on and be in these conversations, and not put myself down, for instance, because I didn't have an MBA, or something like that, that I might consider, I could have easily, you know, leaned on the story, that because I don't have an MBA, and somebody who does would do a better job. And therefore, I should go get an MBA. And really, when I was reinventing myself, I had been a social worker, and was getting divorced, and a six year old kid, and, you know, I needed some help learning some marketing skills and some other skills, and I got that kind of training. But to take, you know, the equivalent of two years and get a second master's degree in business just wasn't a wise choice, I needed to like, get the leaner version of the skills I need, leverage what I already had, and start bringing in some revenue in a way that I can support my family, it was a better fit for where I was, but the imposter syndrome was strong. And I really had to like, identify and get some help with that. So that it didn't sort of grab the wheel and drive me in into an MBA program. When it hasn't been essential. It hasn't. I don't feel like I failed my clients, because I don't have that not sure what helped me help them as much as the training that I have, plus some really nuanced coaching and learning experiences around again, things like marketing, other entrepreneurs skill sets, that one doesn't need an MBA. And you could even say, unless you picked a very particular MBA program, many MBA programs wouldn't even touch some of the things that entrepreneurs need to know. So think about that. Part of the things is how might self esteem in any imposter syndrome issues that you might have? Be factoring into the conversation?
Paul Zelizer 18:48
The last question I want to invite you to consider as you're deciding, do you want to do a training program? Or might you want to do another degree? Or a degree is what kinds of social capital might this program open up for you? I recently saw some research that was floating around that about 80% of all college professors in the United States are trained by the, you know, upper echelon, the top 20%, of college and university programs. And you can imagine who some of those, you know, institutions might be, certainly and if it was an entrepreneur business, you can imagine Harvard Business School or Stanford Business School or etc, etc, right? In certain fields, certain institutions are very well known. And if you're coming from the lineage of that institution, then you get unequal access to social capital as well as other forms of capital. Very classic example of this. Specially true for white men who go through some sort of formal business training, you get access to capital way more often. And that's an example of the negative repercussions of this social capital, our social networks give us access to resources. And there are times where it makes sense to take part in a training program and accelerator, I know quite a few entrepreneurs who already have a pretty good sense of some of the materials one would find in a traditional accelerator program. But by taking part in that program, you get access to the networks, that that accelerator can open up for you, including investors and potential board members. And just folks who can bring in skill sets and knowledge and make referrals with one phone call or one email that might not otherwise open up for you. So sometimes it makes sense to consider going into a training program or something like a accelerator or even getting a degree, graduate or undergraduate. Because the social networks that open up for you are really strong. And this is something to just try to assess as best you can. I've had people say, Well, how do I know if that's true? Paul, you might want to reach out and ask the organization ask that coaching school that accelerator that, you know, social entrepreneur, academic program, whatever it is, you might ask them about, you know, what kinds of social capital the kinds of networks does? Do the graduates of this program? Get access to formal and informal? And can you give me any stories? Or maybe you could talk to people who've graduated from that program? And ask them very specifically about this question. So if you take those seven questions, which again, are a little more analytical and logical? And then go back to that first thing I was saying about? What is your intuition saying, you know, have you had any dreams? Are you hearing yourself, as you're saying out loud, maybe to a friend or two mentors, you're describing your situation? That's inquiry? Should I do this? Or should I not? You know, what are you noticing coming out of your mouth, and sometimes that can be a mirror to what is engaging our attention at the deepest level. So don't just, you know, look at the X's and O's, we definitely encourage people to pay attention to inner wisdom as well. And when you combine these questions with looking at, how might your intuition be guiding you think you could find yourself with a whole lot more clarity about what might be the best answer to it depends in your situation. So that's what I got for you today. If you have any questions, or you'd like to, you know, contribute something that I didn't talk about, I'd love to hear from you. We love listener suggested topics and guests and or feedback on the topics that we do, you can go to the AWARE printers website and go to our contact page, please send in your thoughts, your ideas. And before we go, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you are working for.