I always like to begin the show with a wisdom quote, and the one today that seemed fitting is actually by Ayn Rand, my name’s sake here. And she says, “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.” I like this idea of envisioning a new paradigm.

So I feel good teachers from different walks of life can change our lives in extraordinary ways, and I feel they need to be honored for this. I think our educational system needs to be adjusted to make it relevant for the times in which we live, and that’s really what this episode is about today. I’m just really feeling the energy that’s here. It’s interesting. I was speaking to Steve right before the show and I’m starting to feel something come in here. We were talking actually about his spiritual awakening and my heart suddenly just started to feel so warm. I’m just going to carry on here and see what happens.

So anyway, I feel we need to be practical and learn not only to survive in whatever situations we find ourselves in, but also thrive, and true education can help us with this. I personally believe that education can be a path to liberation. So I’m not sure what’s going on here, Steve, but I’m feeling you come on board here. You’ve done so much good in the world and I’m just feeling your huge heart.

I know you’ve helped over a million low income youths from New York to China develop their own businesses. Gosh, and that’s so important for everyone, because when we become educated, when we truly can learn a skill set, it helps everybody else in our family and our community. True education helps us learn to think for ourselves and opens possibilities. What it should not do is put us into financial debt, and maybe we’ll talk about that. But everyone has their own life, purpose, and mission. And with some help, we can discover what that is.

So, I think what I’m going to do is just go ahead and introduce my guest. I had a little thought just before this. I had a little thought about sitting in a math class when I was a kid and wondering if I was ever going to use algebra again. I liked math, but it just didn’t seem practical. And I remember a history teacher complaining about the fact that he made $17,000 a year, and that was the 1970s. But I remember dividing that up quickly in my mind and thinking that $1,400 a month wasn’t that much to live on. And here we have these teachers who influence our whole lives.

So I don’t really understand this. It seems to me in a new paradigm teachers would be incredibly well-funded. But this gets us back to the show again, because if my math teacher had said, “Well, let me teach you how to run your own business and make money so you can be financially free,” which is what this show’s about, I think I would have sharpened my pencil and started taking notes.

So anyway, it’s always occurred to me that we should be learning how to balance our checkbooks and manage debt and how to obtain a mortgage and a business loan.