Navigating the Future of Work and Education on Holistic Leadership

Welcome back everyone here to the holistic leadership podcast. This is Jeffrey Roche, and doctor Travis Hern, and we are so excited to have you, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, Thank you for being here and thank you for listening. We are so excited today because we have, Brandon Vasid with us. Chief Partnership Officer and Global Head of Learn Work Innovation at Kaplan. And, Brandon, so good to have you and and, wanna talk a little bit who Brandon is first, and then we'll we'll jump right in. Brandon, leads, Kaplan's work, serving universities and employers. Leveraging the organization's highly diversified global educational offerings and insights. Brandon's mission is to help US higher education and employers adapt, grow, and thrive. Prior to Kaplan, Brandon was the global head of public sector at Gallup, serving higher education, government, and foundations. In that role, he led dozens of groundbreaking studies and consulted with hundreds of higher education leaders. Brandon also as an entrepreneur, was the founder and CEO of outside the classroom, one of the country's first successful ed tech companies, which was acquired by Everfly, in twenty eleven. Its flagship online courses on alcohol abuse and sexual assault prevention have been taken by more than ten million college students. Brandon is an internationally known speaker and author on education and workforce development. He has published more than one hundred articles and key noted more than two hundred conferences. He was named a LinkedIn top voice in education and is a frequent contributor for forbes dot com. There's so much more to Brandon's bio, but we're gonna jump, right in. Brandon, thank you for being here with Travis and I. Really appreciate, you know, you giving this time and I know our listeners are gonna be in really for a treat because you have a lot to share as it relates to the future of work and education, in pretty much every industry. So thanks again for being here. I appreciate the invite looking forward to to speaking with you guys as well. And, you know, we can we can dive in. I'm glad I'm glad you stop when you did because any more reading a bio starts to get really uncomfortable. Well, let's we're gonna jump right in. So I wanna ask you, obviously, as a, as we noted in your bio, you are a regular contributor, and someone I follow, regularly on LinkedIn. Particularly when it comes to anything around education and future of work. You, I'm curious though to get your thoughts because obviously we're we talk a lot about leadership We talk a lot about education and certainly health care on this podcast, but we also talk about people. And I'm curious from your perspective, when you look at the work you do, with higher education and employers, where do you think we're at in terms of meeting the needs of today's workforce as well as the future? Here's what I'll I'll I'll start by saying. First of all, there are certain employers in higher institutions that are very much on the cutting edge of where we need to be. Right? This isn't a problem in terms of, like, we don't have some best practices out there, or we we have no vision of what the the future, could hold. There are definitely pioneers out there pioneering this. What we haven't done is we haven't brought it to scale. Right? And and that's true. If I just look at, you know, employers as their own category, that's true. If I look at higher ed as its own category, but it's especially true as we look at this precious space, where where they're both working together. Right? And that's the area where I I still think we have a ton of work ahead. It's also the area that I think is the most exciting areas. I think about my work at Kaplan and even the work I was doing at Gallup, the the favorite space that I like to occupy is that gray zone between employers and higher ed institutions because I think that's where all the action is. And now let me just kinda quantify that a Right? I've been blown away by a well, I spent a lot of time looking at a lot of data, but I've been blown away by a few really poignant data points that that have guided my work and thinking over the last several years. One is, a study that IBM released where they were surveying global talent managers and hiring leaders asking about how much time they, have to spend training, upskilling, or reskilling employees to ensure they remain relevant. And, the the short of it is that in a a five year span, the most recent five year span of this, survey that went from three days a year to thirty four. Wow. Right. Like, this is like ten x explosion in the reporting of hiring managers, talent managers on what it takes to ensure human beings are relevant in their workplace. Right? And so you sit back and you realize that that few employers are able to handle that type of growth and the need of upskilling, reskilling training, whatever terminology we we we kinda wanna apply there. And and so they have a monumental challenge at the same time that we, especially in the US, have a global a global talent shortage. We have a US talent shortage, and and we also have a global talent shortage that employers around the world are fighting for. And, and so what happens in that case is you you can't do hiring the way you used to. Right? Like, for example, everybody, you know, has job postings where a bachelor's degree is required. Most of the employers that have made the most headway on, diversity in their talent pipeline have had to say things like bachelor's degree optional no longer required. And, and that's not the only way to solve for that problem, but that's been one of the most, you know, kind of profound in terms of solving for it. Then if I look at the higher ed side of the equation, I mean, my goodness, US higher education has been shelling enrollment numbers now every year since two thousand. We hit peak enrollment in degree seeking programs in two thousand eleven. It has been down every year since, and we still haven't even hit the opposed demographic cliff of the coming of age eighteen year olds where, you know, that's gonna slide fifteen percent between twenty twenty five and twenty thirty. So it's possible we'll see enrollment declines in higher ed degrees seeking programs for twenty straight years before it plateaus and turns back up. Right? So Look, we we got a lot of work to do. The future, I believe, and I'll just end on this statement, is a world a decade or so from now. Where none of us will be able to tell the difference between an educational institution or a place of employment because there's so much work integrated learning happening at that educational institution. And there's so much learning integrated work happening at your place of employment that it's hard to say. Well, is this is this an employer in academic institutions? Is this a school or a place of work? Like, that would be my hopeful vision of future, and some of that data that I started out with kinda bears it out, the big critique of higher ed in schools right now is we're not producing graduates who are work ready. So, you know, that that is the biggest critique. And then, you know, you've got employers who see an increase of three to thirty four days of annual, you know, training required to keep people relevant. Like, we're all swimming in the deep end of the pool. And and and we could help each other with, you know, with with, a a life raft that we all get into. Yeah. Brandon, that those those stats are are scary. And, like, as me, I'm I'm the hybrid Like, I I spent a lot of years studying how hybrid and remote work, impact leadership, impact organizations, impact higher ed, So when you take a look at those stats, those statistics, and you and you peel back this this kind it's not it's not a the surge. It's a it's a relooking at. There's a lot of organizations of business and higher education institutions that have gone to a hybrid remote, environments. How do you see that impacting those numbers now and and also in ten years from now? Look, there's there's pros and cons as we know, to hybridity, to full in person you know, on-site or fully online. I mean, there's there's pros and cons across the board. I think it's becoming more and more clear. That hybridity on hole is winning out. Right? There are still gonna be some work situations where it's very difficult or impossible to not be there physically. We all understand that. Right? But but but on hold if you look at the things that have happened since pandemic. We have seen continued growth in student preferences for fully online education at all levels and globally. We've seen continued stickiness of hybridity in the workplace. Right? Even data I was reading this morning, you know, about a third of offices are back to, you know, in full in person, work, which is, which is, you know, not not saying a lot. Right? And, And and where am I hopeful? It's that, you know, you look at access and equity across this spectrum or the ability to scale, right? Two things we've talked about and that in those data points I shared, our issue is that isn't that we don't have examples that we haven't scaled them. Right? And and when you think about what, you know, hybridity creates, it's more opportunity. So let's just talk about internship. Something I I fret over a lot. Because only a third of college graduates leave college having had some kind of internship. And then you say, well, what percent of them had a paid internship versus an unpaid one or or, you know, a low paid internship that they could barely make ends meet, you know, It DC where I outside DC where I live, right? It's a very expensive city. There's internship opportunities here, but you can't afford to come live in DC for those internships. Unless you can afford to. Right? And so we we we know the students that are advantaged by in person internships in expensive cities like New York or DC or San Francisco, the reality is that for employers that have now started to do, you know, remote or fully online internships, They've opened up a much more diverse pool of talent. They've opened up student opportunities for students who wouldn't otherwise be able to physically get there. They're able to vet more students. They're able to give them a whole host of really important work projects. So it stretched us to kind of rethink our models and retool a little bit. And it's not to say that any of that has to come at the cost of in person opportunities. It's just we're we're opening up more access and and more creativity as a result of having that as an option. So I'm a big fan of hybridity in terms of how the work, modern day workplace is using it. And I think, you know, with college universities too. And it's even simple examples, like there were a lot of students who valued that the traditional residential campus. Right? This is this is a particular archetype of student that values that. And even among that group of students, who were eager to get back to campus and classrooms. The vast majority still, for example, wanted their, lectures for their class is to be recorded so that they could watch them later. Or you know what? Today, it's a really nice day. I'm just gonna go to the beach. And if that's videotaped I can catch it later. Yeah. That's funny. I did my I had to do my internship in the marine course. I think it was a little bit different, but after after leaving after leaving that, I I joined the intelligence community. Right? And and and a lot of that is out in DC and seeing those opportunities come up as like a GS four or five that are internships that are paid, but, like, I'm gonna have to live with eight of my friends in Alexandria or Tyson's corner in order for that. So that's something that I had not thought about before was these internships that are now hybrid and remote models work. Or that I mean, that's that's a that's a whole new world. So, yeah. Thank you for that. You know, and it's interesting, Brandon. You say that because it brings me back memories to my college internship on the hill. And, I always tell people if I didn't have a friend you know, whose mother owned a place in Arlington, Virginia, who gave me a sweet deal of two hundred dollars a month. You know, and people are like, wow, two hundred dollars a month in Arlington, wouldn't have been possible. And and, you know, after that internship, I thought, well, I'm gonna work on the hill. Until I learned at the time it was twenty six thousand dollars a year, to work on the hill. So, you know, not that it's gone up that much either. So, you know, it's a whole different situation. But I appreciate you sharing that. Brandon, you have, obviously demonstrated a strong commitment, throughout your whole career, in many ways focused on developing a highly skilled future workforce. You talked a little bit about this, in in in answering some of the, in the dialogue with Travis as well as kind of the first, point we were talking about. But I'm curious if you were talking and and obviously you do this regularly in your work, if you're talking to an employer today, And you're also talking to higher education. As somebody who's worked in both industry and in higher education, interesting dynamics, what do you do and how do you help them understand and really bridge that gap of coming together to solve what we know are some of the most challenging issues when you consider the dynamics, the cultures of the two very distinct industries. IE, in this case, obviously, Travis and I are very different industries, but we we can bridge a gap. Obviously, he's been in military. He's been in tech. You know, he has a doctorate. But we also can understand what it's like to bridge and come together. Not all industries have that opportunity. How have you done that? Well, first, there's an urgent need. Right? You know, higher ed, is suffering. I mean, not not all of higher Right? We've we've got some institutions that are doing just fine, thrive in this environment, but the, you know, I I gave you the the, you know, the kinda high level numbers. I mean, higher ed's been on a decline. Gallup just reported last week that confidence in higher education is now at an all time low. I mean, there's just there's a lot of of headwinds in front of higher ed. And with employers, you know, I touched on a little bit, but I'll just I'll just expand on it. Right? The the human pie and the United States is not growing. Right? Birth rates are down near historic lows. Immigration rates, near historic lows. Right? Our population demographic is just not growing in any way, but we have employers, not just for profit, but nonprofit government employers, who are still trying to grow, right, and can't grow because there just aren't enough people or there aren't enough people skilled to fill the jobs that they're looking to fill. Right? And so anyway, the the first galvanizing point is that that we have urgent need. Employers have urgent need to grow And that is about talent, you know, acquisition and talent retention and training and, you know, growth and development. And higher ed really, you know, needs to get to a place of, greater relevance because that's it's losing relevance ground. Right? Like, I'll use the relevance word. And so so there's there's common need from that perspective. And then what I usually try to do is I try to make the case and this I understand oversimplifies many complex issues, but I make the case that if I'm talking to a combined audience of higher ed and and, you know, employer leaders. It's not always corporate, but we always use corporate as an example. Right? It's that you both want the same thing. And what do I mean by that? We all want in a person in a qualified candidate in a student or a graduate, somebody who is both broadly educated, and specifically skilled. Okay. So what do I mean by that? Well, you know, the classic example of broadly educated would be the liberal arts degree, right, thinking about the liberal arts. Now the term has a bad brand because, of course, you've got Although we're not talking about politically liberal in its definition, when you say liberal arts, you can't hap hap, you know, you can't help but have a general population that acts very negatively, like viscerally negative to that name. Right? So you're at college, it's a liberal arts institution. My first advice is come up with a better term in liberal arts. Right? Like, there's other ways to describe it short of a bad brand name that don't throw out the baby with the bow water. Right? Like, the the the baby is a is an important, piece to understand. But the the reason why we've traditionally valued a liberal arts degree is is because we do believe it's one of the best forms for broadly preparing somebody for the unknown. Right? How do you, you know, develop a skill set for critical thinking for, you know, knowing how to be a skilled collaborator for I mean, all these attributes that are much better words than liberal arts. Right? Describe what it actually does. And and so So here we are, right? We want candidates that are broadly educated, but we also need them to be specifically skilled. And so, yeah, I I want an English major, but I want them to have a designation in cybersecurity. And if I'm an employer, you know, Travis working in the department of defense industry in any form whatsoever, you know, cyber security. I mean, you've gotta have cyber security designations to work on any number of projects. So so I don't care what you majored in. If you don't have your CIS, you're not working on this project. Right? And And so, you know, we've created this silly argument in the academy, you know, of of it's either the liberal arts or its careers, or it's the liberal arts or vocational, right? Or and and it's just such b s because we want the same thing. Right? We want both. It's not an either or. It's a both end. Every employer I talk to says, Yeah. You know, I actually want a student who's broadly educated, but I also need to, you know, what whatever. Give give me your example. They also need to know data science. And do data science, you need to know Python. And if you don't know Python, and I gotta train you on it, I'm they're not ready. Right? And so, great. You can give top graduates from our best universities. They don't know Python. They're not they're not gonna be, you know, performing in a data science role, which has been the fastest growing job in America for, you know, five years straight on LinkedIn, right, in terms of White Hot jobs. So, and and then I think here's where we make the mistake on the other side. We're big to promote skill development now. Right? Like, hey, get a certificate, get a, you know, a short form, you know, whatever x y z, I'm a big believer in that, but why should that come at the cost of not also helping that person be broadly educated, right? I mean, we still need skilled communicators. We need people to be able to write. You know, I I want somebody to write an RFP to win a new business project, like I I need somebody who is very good at at writing and articulating a case, being a good technical writer. Right? There's all kinds of things there. So What we've we've done is we've shot ourselves in our own foot by by assuming that these things are too you know, totally different things. Right? They are not mutually exclusive. I want liberal arts colleges to have have graduates leave with a degree and an industry recognized credential. And as we think about industry recognized credential training, how can we weave some of the best elements of a college degree into it. You know, I'll use this example, the best course I've ever taken on leadership. Was a course taught through Shakespeare. It was a public policy class that I took as part of a bachelor's degree program, But here's my question. Why does that have to be the domain of a bachelor's degree? Why couldn't I take that course on leadership and weave it into a career technical training program. Right? I mean, we just we need to blow the doors off of this either or. It's a both end conversation in in the second I get down that path, I get employers engaged, and I get hired institutions engaged, and they go, we can do this. Brandon, that, but that's, like, that's the combination That's it's it's the it's a broadly educated but highly skilled workers that that need to be fine tuned, and that's gonna eliminate that data point that you gave us in the beginning from the days that it takes to train an onboard employee down to much, much, much shorter. And when I kinda dig into leadership research and I dig into the certifications, I'm gonna as well. So it's like, if you don't have a of the the fifteen different acronyms behind your signature block, like, no one's even gonna open your email. But it's just when when it when it comes to leadership, I mean, you can speak on this a little bit. When it comes to getting pro and you talked about promotion based on certifications and different things like that, How do you see the leadership training that is getting that is getting put out there in both, you know, the education super higher ed sector as well as the inside the, the business world. It has and and, and, really, how does mentorship play into that? That's kinda my bridge to much broader mentorship conversation. Well, look, on the mentor part, you know, you go back to one of the big a moments that I had in my life that there were, you know, there were I'll I'll try and singly describe it because it was the same, moment. It happened in two very different forms. Right? One was, you know, when I was when I was an undergraduate student. I went I went to a a fantastic top ranked university, Duke University, but it wasn't really until late in my junior year. That it just all kinda, like, turned on. Right? Like, I went to every class. I never missed a class. I did my homework assignments, but my grades and my level of, like, deep intellectual engagement at Duke University, where, you know, way on the lower end of the scale through the first two years there. Right? And it and it wasn't until I had a professor who, you know, tapped me on the shoulder one day after class and was like, look, you can do a lot better than you're doing. You know, you're gonna come see me, every Tuesday and Thursday morning at seven AM, and we're gonna start working on And I I was kinda like okay. Right? And and and that was one of what happened to me in that year, two or three other key faculty members who, reached out to me proactively in a mentoring way that was beyond the lecture in the classroom. And, you know, I mean, it was they pushed me. They they, you know, they demanded more out of me, but they also invested more in me. Me. And the difference between my second half at Duke and my first half was a hundred percent about that mentorship. Right? I didn't have any of it in the first half. And and I got a an incredible life changing dose of it in the second half. And it it showed up my GPA. I mean, if you looked at my GPA first two years versus second, you know, just the it was a night and day difference. Right? So that was my personal experience with with that. Right? And then when I was at Gallup, I one of the studies I'd led was the, Gallup Purdue index, which was the largest study representative study of college graduates in US history, and the and the the the two big takeaways from that study were that the game changing aspects of college right, were about really two fundamental things. Work integrated learning opportunities, and mentor or relationship rich experiences. And so there were a few things that went under those two headings, Travis. Right? But but basically, you boil it down. It was relationship rich, and work integrated and in that relationship rich of all the items in that study, the single most important one that, you know, the odds ratios were, you know, double to triple. If if you had this experience, the likelihood that you were engaged in your work thriving in your well-being, making more money. I don't care what outcome you looked at, was whether you said you had a mentor who encouraged your goals and dreams. Right? Like that is the haymaker of all haymakers of the college experience. And so when I saw that study, I was like, oh my god. Like that was the literal quantification of what happened to me and my personal experience. The difference between me not getting much out of a place like Duke and me getting a ton out of a place like Duke was all defined in that relationship mentoring thing. I'll just say this segue. Right? I think fundamentals of what makes for a a successful college experience are the same fundamentals of what makes for a successful work experience. Right? And so, well, what's what's the equivalent? It might not be a faculty member who's a mentor, but it's somebody who has a manager that acts more like a mentor instead of a manager. Right? And you you think about the difference. Anybody who's had a job or multiple jobs. Right? They can relate to this. Like, We've all had a bad manager. We've all had good managers. And when you've touched the difference between the two, I mean, it's a game changer. You're like oh, you know, I want more of that. And now I know what that looks like or what that feels like. And so, you know, I think the fundamentals are the same. You have managers, in the workplace who are great mentors who take the time for that, who value that. They are trajectory game changers for one's career Same thing for faculty who take the time to do that. But now we step back and we say, what incentives and rewards do we have in place? That that really, you know, galvanized more of that happening. And the answer is we really don't because, of course, in higher ed, the traditional way that somebody gets to tenure, we've got an expression for it, publish or perish. Right? There is not a tenure track for mentoring or meandering. As a as a simple example. And then when you look at managers, right, most managers in a business are tasked with the P and L leader ship of that unit, right? Are you, you know, the revenues in and the expenses are down? And, but you're also expected to be a great mentor to the people report to you I'm sorry. It's really hard to do both of those. It's really hard to find somebody who has the talent to do both of those in the same human being. It's not impossible, but it's really hard. And so, you know, I've started to think about a model wherein both higher ed and education in general, and in, the, you know, our places of employment. There's there's a teaming of that role. Right? So I have a subject matter expert and an instructional expert. Or I have, you know, like, teaming and teaching. Right? The best courses I've ever seen. That was one of the answers was you had a subject matter expert. It might not have been a really good teacher but they're the world's expert on this particular topic. Right? And then you partner him or her with an expert in instructional design and teaching. Right? Now you've got a whole different ballgame. What if we had managers who were there was a manager of the P and L, the business unit, you know, fundamentals, and then that person had a partner who focused on the mentoring of that team. I, you know, I don't know that we can put all that responsibility on one person's shoulder in either one of those examples. You know, Brandon, it's such an interesting perspective. Right? Because, I mean, having served on the cabinet at two colleges, I was always amazed at at at the true lack of infrastructure that many colleges and universities, including Ivy's, place on student support and career engagement. And to your exact point, it's it's assumed, right, that What you hear is, oh, well, the faculty should be doing that, academic advising. And, you know, look, we all have faculty that I don't think I would ever wanna take a piece of advice from. And the reality of it is is faculty are also phenomenal people. And and I think, you know, there's a good call to and what I heard you say too is that if you're if you're a leader in a higher education system today, you better really look at whether you have truly invested in mentorship. And Travis has heard me say this when I was a student at Merabian University, you know, the six oldest. So, you know, Duke is far far, far young, compared to Meridian. As doctor Grigsby, our college president would say, You know, we one of the things that was interesting about my experience as a student was Chris Gardner came to our campus. And I will never forget it as a student leader. He looked at every student leader in the room with the college president. It wasn't doctor Grigsby at the time. It was a different president, but he said, Do all of you have a mentor? And then he looked at the college president, and he said if if anyone, as they answer this, does not, you have failed. In fact, you and your entire cabinet and your faculty and everyone on this campus has failed their ultimate duty and responsibility. And Fortunately, I had my mentor, and my mentor was in the room, who was our DNIS student development, who's now gone on to be a college president. And, as we were leaving that night, Chris Gardner looked at him and said, we've got to change this. And higher education. Now this is two thousand eight and we still haven't. Right? And so they're they're the good call to action, but I think the other call to action that you shared is around employers. Employers aren't doing it either. I mean, nine times out of ten, they're not really embedding mentorship. They're not embedding coaching. They're getting their surveys. They're doing their employee engagement surveys, but really they're not acting on it. And they're not intentionally doing the work that's required. Then you wonder why in health care we have burnout, the way it is. And so, really interesting, callout. We are close to the end of time, but I wanna give you, a chance to answer a question that I think is pretty poignant, on this topic because you've covered all all of what we really wanted to. But, systemically, you're a student of public policy. And so, going back to your public policy roots, in a brief amount of chance, I wanna give you a chance to just comment on this If you look at federal and state, we fund education and workforce development separately. We've got a department of labor, we've got a department of education. Some states have combined it, but but generally most states still fund it differently. Very different pots of money. Very different funds. I'm curious from your perspective, what should be done to solve that? Because at the end of the day, we also are seeing a lot of politics played with education. You can have what they wanna call critical race theory. We can't diversify campuses. I mean, you name it. We're getting into a lot of interesting times. And I'm not gonna ask you about the recent Supreme Court decision because that would be a long conversation. But What what should be done there? Because it, to me, systemically, we've got some challenges when we talk about building a future ready workforce when we still have fragmented systems. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, that, you know, there are, you know, massive potential reforms needed, you know, in the process of reforming. Right? How many you know, how many things get well executed or, you know, fall through the cracks. That's a whole other ballgame. Right? So we could be moving in the right direction, but there's, you know, still not Not not feeling, that way. But, you know, look, I I was intrigued, you know, Jamie Marisotis book, right? He, he floated this idea of merging the apartment of labor and education. There's a lot of devil in those details. I love the concept. Right? Because it goes back to this this you know, the vision I'm hopeful for for the future and hopefully the not too distant future of, you know, what I think of as, as the, you know, the fusion of learning and work. Right, the merger of learning and work that what I believe fundamentally is most needed in schools and colleges is to make it more relevant, right, making it more relevant is about drawing, you know, work integrated type examples into the perspective. That could project based learning. That could be long term projects. It could be internships. It could be co op. There's a lot of different ways to accomplish it. Right? But it's how do you, how do you kind of, you know, bring those issues into real world, light, and application And then, of course, we've talked about it in the workplace. Right? Like, one of the, you know, top things that that we want in the workplace from our employer is learning and growth and development. You know, that is at the very, very top of our human needs list in, in terms of what what it means to have a good job or to wanna stay in that job or work for that organization. And so, so I I think the, you know, the examples where we can pull policy levers that help us understand that these things shouldn't be totally disparate entities. Right? You know, thinking about, you know, for for Pell students, for example. If we were really smart, we wouldn't just give them financial aid support for tuition and housing and whatnot. We'd also give them a stipend that would come with them to an employer who brings them on as an intern. So I hire a Pell eligible student as an intern, and there's dollars that I can tap into that come with that individual, right, to make sure they get a valuable work integrated, learning experience. And by the way, you know, you look at the odds ratios of having a job upon graduation, double your odds of having a job if you had an internship. During college. Right? So it's not a guarantee, but it is a game changer. Right? And so again, you know, as a college or university, I would make it a graduation requirement. I would build it into every program. Humanities, stem, I don't care, right, that there is an internship. Right? We have partnerships with employers that are providing that. We are giving academic credit for that. Right? And so again, that's a micro example of giving academic credit for an internship, building programs where I know students are gonna get paid, especially the students who we know can't afford to live in DC, right, to, you know, take an internship. There might be a really great opportunity for them. So I think if we go back up at a level. Right? I actually see a lot of hope through state based thinking right now. You know, federal government gets a lot of money, but at the end of the day, most of that money is deployed at a state level. And so I think where we're gonna see some breakthrough, are gonna be examples at a state level fact, you know, there's there's nothing to report on this other than it was news last week. I noticed, governor Whitmer announced a new, department in the state of Michigan. And I forget the full title, but it it has like lifelong learning in it. And and the vision was that it's gonna be pre k through adult learning, you know, not just k twelve, higher ed department of labor, all in it, you know, so who knows where that goes? But that's a relevant example from the last seven days in the news where somebody is thinking about not not those as disparate entities but as a continuum. Right? And, you know, there's gonna be a lot of ways that we can kinda tighten that up as a continuum, but I think those are the those policy steps that are headed in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah, Brandon. I I know this there's no there's no question attached to this, but, like, it's super refreshing to hear that this entire conversation entire conversation about equipping students to join the workforce and and helping education and the workforce bridge that gray area, that gap. And then, like, using mentor be able to do that is a huge thing. And I love what you said about that and then the policy stuff. So, yeah, I just greatly appreciate your input. This is this has been enlightening, on my behalf for sure. Brandon, I wanna thank you, for joining us too. I wanna remind all of our listeners here on the holistic leadership podcast that you can connect easily with Brandon on LinkedIn I would highly encourage anyone to follow, his his, conversation, his thought leadership on anything around future of education and future of work. I know I am always enlightened as as Doctor. Herndon just said he was. I also, you know, would encourage everyone to engage, with Brandon because he's doing some incredible work, across this country, with higher education and industry. And Look, we've gotta bring them together. As I say in my industry, it's all about Eds and meds. Travis probably has a different thing, but to me, it's Eds and meds all the time. There's no other industry more important than education and health care. And so, really appreciate your time. Appreciate the dialogue and and, really encourage everyone to connect with you and, Travis, any closing parting thoughts on your end? No. Just, Brandon, if if we're working people find you. I know we can find you on LinkedIn. Is there anywhere else? People can find you, people can get older. That's pretty much it. I'm not I'm not real big in any other social media platforms, LinkedIn. I've I've invested time energy in. I write, you know, forbes fairly frequently as a contributor there. So, you know, check check Forbes articles and, and LinkedIn. Those are, those those are the key places. And, thank you both. I I enjoyed being, part of this conversation. Thanks a lot for inviting me. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, and we'll talk soon. To our listeners. Look forward to another episode of holistic leadership podcast, and, we look forward to your continued engagement. Everyone have a wonderful rest of your day.