17: Attracting Millennials with Company Culture

Company culture is a buzzword that is tossed around constantly especially where millennials are concerned. However, creating a culture that attracts and retains millennials is a lot harder than you may think.

Forest Shoults is an Outside Sales Representative at EJ (Promoted). EJ is a company based in East Jordan, Michigan. The company is a manufacturer and distributor of iron construction castings and infrastructure access products worldwide. In 2007 the company was awarded the National Utility Contractors Association Associate of the year award.

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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

The Transcript - Attracting Millennials with Company Culture

00:05 Amanda Hammett: Hey, this is Amanda Hammett, and this is the Millennial Rockstars podcast.

00:09 AH: Alright, so today's rockstar is Forest Shoults. Forest works for a company called EJ, which is a family-owned company that you probably have never heard of, but you definitely have benefited from their products, because they create those manhole covers that are so important in city infrastructure, along with a bunch of other things that you definitely need when building a city. So as I mentioned, EJ is a family-owned company, and Forest actually shares with us a pretty funny story about when he was initially interviewing for his job at EJ and how that family culture that they have permeates through all of their employees and was very pivotal to him taking that role. So tune in and check out what Forest has to share.

00:54 AH: Hey there, and welcome to this episode of the Millennial Rockstars podcast. Today, we have a very special and young rockstar. We have Forest Shoults. Forest, welcome to the show.

01:06 Forest Shoults: Howdy.

01:08 AH: So Forest, you were nominated. I actually spoke at a conference in Houston, and you were nominated by one of the attendees that I was speaking to from your company. And he was like, "Oh my gosh, I have the perfect person that you need to speak with," and of course, that was you. So tell us a little bit about you, Forest.

01:27 FS: Oh man. Well, man, I am young. I guess you could say as far as in my workplace, I think I am the youngest that I've met so far within the company. We went to a sales meeting back in February, and at the time I was 25, and there was a 10-year margin between me and everyone else, so I was like, "Oh my gosh. What have I gotten into? Much older people around me." But no, I guess a little bit on the personal side, I'm 26 years old now. I was born in Texas, in East Texas, and since then, I have moved I think 13 different times.

02:12 AH: Oh wow!

02:13 FS: So I've lived in multiple different states. I've actually lived in Mexico. When I graduated high school, my dad got the call to go to Mexico to be a missionary, and I had a choice to make whether I was gonna go to college immediately after high school, or whether I was gonna go to Mexico and maybe take a year off to do some non-profit work down there, so I decided to take the plunge and moved to Mexico. I didn't speak any Spanish at all. I walked in there like a clueless gringo. But [chuckle] it worked out. Luckily when we got down there, we were able to connect with some teachers that ended up teaching us Spanish from the most basic kindergarten level Spanish, so I learned Spanish. I got to work with some of the most impoverished people that probably in the world while I was down there. We worked in doing water filtration systems for them down there.

03:18 AH: Oh wow.

03:19 FS: Believe it or not, I actually traveled with a mariachi group in Mexico 'cause I'm a singer, so that was something I did on the side. [chuckle] Not a lot of people pick that up whenever [laughter] I tell them.

03:37 AH: I did not see that on your LinkedIn profile.

03:39 FS: No.

[laughter]

03:40 FS: Yeah. So I was going, "Hey, no profiling. Listen, everybody can do it." But no, so I had a lot of fun while I was in Mexico. Had a lot of adventures while I was down there. It really opened me up as a person. I was, believe it or not, I was much more of a, I guess you could say introverted person, but going to Mexico kind of opened me up, and to the adventure of life, and so I really enjoyed it.

04:05 AH: That's awesome.

04:05 FS: So I kinda made a commitment to myself. I spent a year down there, and then came back to Dallas to go to school, and actually went to music school when I arrived back in Dallas, 'cause I wanted to be a music minister in church, which I have been to this day. I'm a worship pastor and I'm also a youth pastor as well. So I went there then I ended up going to Dallas Baptist University where I got my bachelor's degree in Business Administration, and I kinda cheated because I got a minor in Spanish, even though I already speak fluent Spanish. I just loved it, I wanted to go back through it again. And I worked for Apple for five years while I was in school, which was awesome, 'cause they paid for my tuition, and I got to meet a lot of really cool musicians. The guy that actually produced the song that I wrote, which you should go check out. It's on iTunes and Spotify. It's called "I Love You Back."

04:57 AH: I what?

05:00 FS: It's called, "I love you back."

05:01 AH: Okay. Alright, we'll put a link to that in the show notes for you.

05:04 FS: Awesome, awesome, thank you. I went down and I recorded it in Brazil actually, in Portuguese, and I also have a version of it in Spanish as well.

05:15 AH: Well, aren't you just a surprise.

05:19 FS: Oh man, it has been an adventure. It was fun. That was fun. It was a long process, but after I graduated school, I needed to find a job 'cause music doesn't exactly pay the best. And it can.

05:35 AH: It can.

05:36 FS: Who knows, someday I might break out, and I don't know, become a singer full-time, but for now, I got a job with a company called EJ, East Jordan Iron Works is the name of the company, and believe it or not, they've been in business for 135 years.

05:54 AH: Yes. They've been around for a little while.

05:56 FS: Yes, they know what they're doing.

05:58 AH: They do.

05:58 FS: They've been around, yeah. That's one of the things that kinda attracted me to the company, is that, how in the world could it still be running and family-owned after that long? They must be doing something right. So anyhow, so I came to work for this company and presently, I hold an outside sales representative role, where I cover all the territory from Dallas, Fort Worth, down to the Waco area, out into New Mexico. So I get to see a lot of asphalts, a lot of adventures out there on the road, but I love what I do.

06:36 AH: That's awesome. Sounds awesome.

06:37 FS: That's me, that's me in a nutshell.

06:40 AH: Forest, for those in the audience that don't know what EJ does and sells, can you tell them a little about... Just real quick, what they do or sell.

06:48 FS: Yeah, so East Jordan Iron Works initially, they started out in East Jordan, Michigan. And they cast manhole rings and covers, and as time went on, they kind of developed into... They had a broader range of castings, that they did. So they do valve boxes, valve box covers, they do fire hydrants and valves. So a lot of your infrastructure that you see that goes in before people come in and put houses in, we build a lot of that infrastructure that goes under it. So EJ actually went from being just an American company to... They're now worldwide. So they're all over the world providing infrastructure. And one thing is people are always gonna need sewer, they're always gonna need water.

07:47 AH: Absolutely, I don't think that that's going away any time soon. [laughter] Absolutely.

07:52 FS: Yeah. Lot of job stability in this business.

[laughter]

07:55 AH: Yes, very good, very good. So I know that you mentioned earlier that you've only been out of college and with EJ, for what? Two years? Is that what you said, almost two years?

08:05 FS: Yes, yes, yeah, I graduated in 2016.

08:09 AH: Okay, so, but despite that, you did have five years of work experience at Apple before you graduated from college, which... That was, I'm sure, fantastic experience. So I'm sure at this point you've discovered there are probably some things that have worked for you so far in your career. Can you tell us about one of those things that's worked for you?

08:31 FS: Yes. When I was working at Apple, it was always like this... There were two different types of people that I worked with there. And there were those that saw the position as kind of being like a monotonous, "Oh, I come in every day and I'm the guy that fixes phones and gets yelled at." And then there is the other type, that comes in and it's like, "Dang, you don't know who you're going to meet today or what's gonna happen." This guy came in one time with a computer and it had a bullet hole in it, and somebody had shot a hole through it. And I'm like, "What? Can you explain that? How did that happen?" So...

09:15 AH: I don't think that's gonna get the warranty.

09:17 FS: No, no, it was not covered under the warranty. Now, there was the one that had... There was a snake inside of a computer once. It was dead.

09:28 AH: I don't need to hear that.

09:30 FS: Yeah. That one wasn't covered either. But I think that one thing that's really helped me in my career has been to see every day as an adventure and a learning opportunity. And it's taken away from what could become a monotonous, job situation, which ultimately can become really toxic. A lot of my millennial friends fall into that mistake. And I don't wanna speak too soon about this unless you're gonna ask a question later on about this, but I was actually just mentoring a guy who's close to me, who is working kind of a job that's not really one that you would be... It's valet job and he's like, "Man, I don't have any experience and trying to get into this next position." And I told him, I was like, "Man. Every job that you could have is a gateway to another job at some point." It's a learning opportunity and it's all about how you perceive your job, and how you're gaining experience, and how you perceive what you're learning about your job. 'Cause you're gonna interact with people and that's one of the most crucial aspects of getting a job and developing in a job, anywhere.

10:44 AH: Absolutely.

10:46 FS: So that's one thing that's really worked well for me.

10:48 AH: That's really good. I think that that's a really good outlook to see on things, because you're right, every job has its times where it's a little, can be a little monotonous. And you wonder, What is this really... What is this really doing for me? But to look at it as a learning opportunity, absolutely. When I go and look at my career, I'm a little further down the career path than you are, but when I go back and I look at all of my experiences from day one to today, it's been amazing to see the past three, four, five years, how everything from the first day, has kind of magically collided into this career I now have. So it is what it is, it's a learning experience, it's a great way to look at it. Alright, so with that, having that learning experience, I would imagine that you've also discovered a few things that have not worked for you.

11:41 FS: Oh yeah.

11:42 AH: So to tell us just one of those.

11:45 FS: Okay, so on the same note of what we just talked about.

11:49 AH: Okay. [chuckle]

11:50 FS: Is the flip side. I think that there is a subjective monotony and I think there is an objective monotony.

11:57 AH: Okay.

11:58 FS: I think there's certain types of people that just don't fit in a particular job, because it's... Like I could not be an accountant. That's just, there's no way, and nothing against accountants out there. Honestly, we need you guys, the world would not turn without accountants. But I could not be an accountant. What makes me tick is being able to get up every morning, and I get to go meet new people every day, or I get to see people that I've known, I get to catch up on what's going on. And that could seem daunting to some people. Some people are like, "Wow. You go and you meet new people every single day, and you have to go in and you have to get products specified, and you have to go work deals out and show some prices, and that's kind of intimidating."

12:48 FS: For me, it's an adventure, and I love that stuff. But for me, it's really hard for me to be confined to like a desk and be sitting down, and just answering emails and answering phone calls. So the challenge for me is there is a subjective monotony. I could probably find some sort of adventure out of that, 'cause I had to do that for six to seven months beforehand, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. I don't wanna throw that out of the gun. One thing that I've talked to a lot of millennials about that I mentor, 'cause there's actually a couple of them that I mentor at this point, coming out of college and getting a job, is sometimes you have to suffer the monotony in order to move to the next step.

13:38 AH: Yes.

13:40 FS: It's tough, but you're not gonna get your dream job out of a box. It doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes it can happen, sometimes people get it.

13:50 AH: That's the exception though, it's not the rule.

13:53 FS: Very much so, very much so. Or you could be like my girlfriend who, she's a photographer, and she's very successful now, but it didn't happen overnight. And she works for herself. She had to build her business, she had to build her brand, and it's taken her about a year but now she's got it rolling. But it took a lot of sacrifice. And in my case, I had to go up and live in Oklahoma for six to seven months, in a place I didn't know, with people that I didn't know, and to be honest with you, it wasn't my favorite place to live. There wasn't really anything to do, there was no nightlife, there was no...

14:35 AH: There was no mariachi band to travel with.

14:37 FS: Exactly. There weren't any Spanish speaking people there. I felt away from home. So the challenge for me was balancing that okay, I gotta make this sacrifice to come up here and do this, but with the next step in mind, so thinking like this is just a stepping stone to where I wanna be. Ultimately, this is what I wanna do.

15:03 AH: That's good...

15:04 FS: I just had to, keeping that perspective.

15:06 AH: I like that. I like that you kept that objective in mind, "This is what I have to do now to get to where I want to be." So, how did you recognize that... Okay, you were asked to move to Oklahoma and be there for... How long were you there?

15:22 FS: I was there for eight months.

15:24 AH: Okay, so you were moved to Oklahoma for eight months. You didn't love it, but you did it every single day, and you proved to the higher ups or whoever you had to prove yourself to, that you could make it, and then eventually come home, or come back to Texas anyway?

15:41 FS: Yes.

15:42 AH: Absolutely.

15:46 FS: It was a challenge, it was a challenge. And I wanna add this, I know this is probably not important, in my interview, heading up there to take the position, my car broke down, like 15 minutes away from the interview, like my car committed suicide completely on my way up there. And so I was like, "Is this a sign?" [chuckle] I'm like, "Is this the right thing to do?" But it was. And one of the things that I know is my boss actually came and he picked me up there, and he took me back to the interview, he's like, "Don't worry about it, it's not a problem."

16:17 AH: I need a clarification point here. So you called in before your interview?

16:23 FS: Yes.

16:25 AH: You're unemployed at this point, correct?

16:27 FS: Unemployed, yes. Not an employee.

16:29 AH: And you called him and you say, "Hey, I'm on my way, but my car broke down." How far were you from the office?

16:35 FS: I was probably about 15 minutes away. It wasn't too far down the road but...

16:41 AH: And they came and got you?

16:44 FS: Yes, they did, they did. I was thinking in my mind like, "Well, this is a likely story. He's 15 minutes late for the interview, says it's broken down, of course he is."

16:54 AH: Did he offer or did you ask him to go? I'm just very curious how this came about.

17:00 FS: I didn't ask him. They said, "Hey... " It was actually the branch manager, it wasn't even the lady who was interviewing me at first. The branch manager himself came and picked me up at my car.

17:11 AH: That's amazing, that is not a usual circumstance, I will say that.

17:17 FS: Yeah, no. Lucky me.

[chuckle]

17:19 AH: Alright, so we talked a little bit about you've encountered some stumbling blocks along the way, besides your car, and you've managed to get through those stumbling blocks. But when you're thinking about Forest, who had not worked really a day in his life yet, when you think about the ideas that you had in your head about the workplace, what a career was like, what the working world was like, how is that different from what you're facing now? Or how did those views change? Did you have any reality checks that were like, "Oh yeah, this is not what I was expecting"? Tell us.

18:00 FS: I think my perception of my ability to be able to do the job that I have was not... I didn't have the level of confidence that I could do the job that I have now that I can do the job, now that I'm in it. Does that make sense?

18:16 AH: It does.

18:17 FS: Like beforehand I kind of saw the sales manager position would be really daunting, but rather I think people, especially millennials, underestimate themselves substantially and the abilities that they have. And that kinda goes back to, I think, a perception of your experience with people. Before I didn't see myself as a very social person, but you don't have to be a super extrovert or extremely social person to be successful necessarily. You just have to be... Here's a quote that I can live by and it's really enhanced my work, is, and I don't know the name of the guy. You can maybe look up later "There is no such thing as an interesting person or thing. There only exists an uninterested person."

19:26 AH: Really? I've never heard that. I will look that up though. That's very good.

19:31 FS: It's awesome. It really changes your perspective. It's caused me to on a daily basis, not necessarily see myself as having to be fully the best person that could be in a job at that very moment, but always being in a state of, "How can I learn how? How can I soak up knowledge? How can I improve myself in the position that I'm at now?" and then ultimately be able to pass that on to the next person that may be coming in next. So for me, it's understanding, "Hey, I may not have all the answers, but I can definitely find out and I can definitely learn to the best of my ability. And I think that's one of the biggest things that employers wanna know, is that you are the type of person that's gonna be like a sponge and you're gonna be soaking up and actually learning and not just a conduit for stuff to pass through.

20:33 AH: Absolutely, I would agree with that wholeheartedly. So, tell us a little bit about... You mentioned already the branch manager at EJ right now in the whole interview debacle, but is there anything that your company has in its culture, or in your specific office that is a perk or a benefit or just part of the culture that really keeps you engaged than wanting to do a good job?

21:05 FS: There's a lot at my job that really creates almost like a family environment within the team.

21:13 AH: Okay.

21:14 FS: And I know a lot of companies are scared like, "Okay, we can't get too close, because if we're like a family, then it might be a conflict of interest." What's really cool about my team is that we're not on an individual commission basis, it's a team commission basis. And...

21:34 AH: Interesting.

21:35 FS: We're broken up into different territories, so I cover South Dallas down to Waco out to New Mexico; two of the other salesmen cover the northern part, and we have a technical salesman who helps all of us out whenever we need to go into engineering firms and present for civil engineering firms or present to city engineers or city managers. So we all just work together, as a team, and it just flows. There's no competition between any of us on the team. We talk on a regular basis and we share what's going on. It's one of those things that I feel when I worked at Apple... Well, it wasn't necessarily Apple. I just think it's a millennial thing, that we like to text a lot more, and I'm okay with that. That's a great fast way to communicate. But one thing that I have learned, is the art of having a good phone conversation with these guys, and they're all 20 years older than me. Everybody on my team is, and I'm not kidding, is 20 years older than me. And they know how to have good phone conversations.

22:52 FS: And so I think a lot of people that I know nowadays are kinda like, "Why don't you just text me? Why do you have to call me?" It is a lot of value that happens in having a good phone conversation. So we stay very well connected; that's a perk I think I have, is I feel like I have so much trust built up between my team because we talk on a regular basis, and it's so light-hearted, there's no pressure like, "What have you been doing today?" like, "You've been accomplishing something? You probably sleep... You're a salesman, you probably slept in the day 'til 11 today." That's a perk I think for me. Another perk is we get tuition reimbursement which is awesome. They provide us with a truck, a brand new one every year, obviously it belongs to the company but we get to drive it around. They pay for your gas, pay for your food. So as far as the being taken care of as an employee, I feel like it's a great, great position to be in.

24:00 AH: That's awesome.

24:02 FS: Yeah. Yeah.

24:02 AH: That's awesome. I can definitely tell that there is definitely a spin towards family, just from just the story about the interview and the branch manager coming to get you. I was trying to think when you were telling that story, I had a similar situation happen on my way to an interview when I was young, fresh out of college, and it was not the same end results, let's just say that. [laughter]

24:33 FS: Wow.

24:34 AH: So I called as well, but it was just like, "Alright, well, too bad."

24:40 FS: Sorry. Dang. Their loss, right? Their loss.

24:42 AH: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So it just wasn't meant to be, but I think that that's a really good and positive thing for you. And it seems like the older sales reps are also maybe pouring into you a little bit as far as helping and teaching and guiding because they obviously probably have a little bit more sales experience than you do.

25:02 FS: Oh, and wealth. Some of these guys have been in sales... And just to put some of this into perspective for you, when I say a wealth of knowledge, some of these guys have been working in the same position for... When I say same position, were working for the company for 30 years, 40 years.

25:19 AH: Yeah.

25:20 FS: And that's longer than I've been alive.

25:23 AH: Yes it is. Yes it is.

25:27 FS: Man, I tell them all the time, I'm like, "Man, you know I was not born yet whenever you started working."

25:33 AH: Alright, don't rub it in now. [chuckle] Come on.

25:35 FS: But I respect the knowledge a lot, and that's one of the things... I would say this to millennials, my fellow millennials, whenever you get into a position, don't expect them to always have everything laid out for you. 'Cause I came from Apple where I was a spoiled kid. Apple literally has the best training programs in the world. They will train you so well to do what you need to do. And that's not to say EJ didn't necessarily do that, EJ just does it differently.

26:12 FS: When I came into the position, this is hilarious, so when I came into the inside sales position, I walked in and I was so excited, I was like, "My first day at work." And the office manager said, "Well, there's your desk." And I was like, "That's my desk, okay. What do I do?" And she's like, "Well, you pick up the phone when people call and you write quotes." It wasn't that bland, she helped me, but I kinda felt that way when I first got there, I was like, "Where's my... " When I got to Apple, they took us away from the store to this nice hotel, and they had this very skilled trainer who came, then we did shadowing, reverse-shadowing, and they taught us all these steps of service, and it was very well polished.

27:05 FS: So I got to EJ and I was like, "Man, I'm gonna have to put together just a list of questions and figure out from the people around me, what I need to accomplish, and I need to set goals because I thought to myself, "This is no high school job. This is a big boy job, so I'm gonna have to step up to the plate and probably ask some questions to get trained on how to do this position." So that's exactly what I did and what I realized was, the team around me was super ready to jump in and give me help and advise me, and give advice, and that's how I learned so much, oh my goodness. So, here I am now.

27:57 AH: That's great, that's good to know, good to learn. Okay, so tell us a little bit about this. When you were looking to get your job at EJ, what was it that made you stand out, what was it that made them willing to drive 15 minutes to pick you up when your car broke down before the interview?

28:20 FS: Oh man. I think that... I do speak Spanish. And there is a large customer base that they have... An increasing customer base that needs a Spanish speaker. So that was one thing that really stood out was I'm very multicultural. I can relate to a lot of people, I have been in multiple different countries, and so they really liked the fact that I get along very easily with a very broad range of people. It's just something that comes naturally, and that kinda stemmed from being an Apple as well. When I worked at Apple...

29:00 AH: Oh yeah.

29:00 FS: I helped the President of Mexico, the ex-president Mexico once, Felipe Calderon...

29:04 AH: Really?

29:05 FS: I was like, "Why are you here, without bigger security detail?" [chuckle] But I was glad to help him out myself. But anyhow, I was exposed to a lot of different types of people. And another thing that really stood out that they liked at the position I was at is that I was able to handle escalated situations. Apple actually trains their employees very in-depth. It's like deep psychological stuff. I can say that now that I don't work for them. But they teach you what's called the Apple Steps of Service.

29:45 FS: Alright, I'm gonna try and get this. So, it's, Approach with a warm welcome, that's the A. Probe which is ask questions, position a solution. Listen, and end with a fond farewell. So that was the sales side that I learned, which just literally ingrained this sales process into me. But they had another one that was the three A's which is acknowledge, align, and assure. If you have an angry customer that comes and they're like, "Ah! My phone!" They throw it down. And you say, "Well, yep, that's a broke phone. That looks really bad. Man, I hate to see that your phone broke." And they say, "Yes, and I had these pictures of my wedding that my brother filmed with my iPhone." In the back of your mind you're probably thinking, "Why did you film your wedding with your iPhone and not save this stuff?"

30:47 AH: But you don't say that.

30:49 FS: No, you don't. That's part of the training. You align with the customer, "Man, that iPhone needs to be fixed. We gotta figure out everything we can do." That's part of the assure, you assure them. I think that one of the things that my boss was reassured of was the fact that I had a really extensive history of dealing with really escalated situations and repairing... Kind of my deal at Apple was I was repairing relationships with customers and turning them from demoters into promoters of the company. It was just kind of a mindset that I had whenever dealing with the company's customers. So that was attractive to them. And the fact that I graduated with a business administration degree, I have a focus on marketing was also... I feel like it was attractive to them though, not as important as the other things.

31:47 AH: Right, absolutely. Especially doing what you do, I think it's important to have that skill of being able to assure people and understand where they're coming from. 'Cause city planners, bless them, not always the easiest people to deal with, and they shouldn't be, they should not be.

32:04 FS: No. They can be very moody sometimes. You gotta be careful. [chuckle]

32:09 AH: A lot of things riding on their shoulders. A lot of things are riding on their shoulders so I get it, I get it. Is there anything that you wish companies knew about hiring younger employees? Is there anything you wish that they would do better?

32:26 FS: I wish that companies would dig deeper into searching for more meaningful leadership experiences that millennials have had.

32:36 AH: Give me an example.

32:40 FS: For example, I think that a lot of companies base salaries and pay based off of your... Maybe not as many nowadays but I've seen a couple and I have friends that have had a couple that they get based their pay based off of their education. That's what is their ticket to getting in the door to certain places. Rather than a company taking time to really ask specific honed questions related to leadership experiences and areas where this person might be a champion leader that could be a huge asset to the team that they have. I'll give you an example. There's a guy that I work with that is one of the top salesmen in a global... This company's a global company. And he's one of the top salesmen. The guy never graduated college. And he actually started working in the foundry in one of the finishing crew grinding the castings.

33:42 AH: Really?

33:43 FS: He is one of the greatest people persons that I know as far as relating with customers and generating new sales, being able to get specifications with cities, phenomenal guy. His name is Larry Stinson, I gotta give him a shout-out. He's the guy that's trained me to do what I do. The guy never got a bachelor's degree. Actually, part of the requirements for my job, not knocking EJ at all, I love them, they did a great job, is that you have a bachelor's degree but they made an exception for him. Thank goodness that they did because he's one of the best in the company.

34:23 AH: Alright. I like that, I can get behind that. I can stand behind that. I think that's awesome. Especially now that college is expensive to get through.

34:34 FS: Exactly. I think that's definitely increasingly a problem. I talk to a lot of people nowadays that are... Some very intelligent people. My girlfriend, for example, I'll give you an example with her. She's very smart, but she just didn't have the money to pay for the school that she was going to. So she just decided to start her own business. Now she's making almost as much money as I have or as I'm making right now doing her own thing. I don't know.

35:09 AH: Yeah, I get it, I get it. I also mentor a lot of millennials, younger millennials, and I have one young lady that I've mentored for I don't know, maybe five years now off and on. And she is getting her bachelor's degree because her family thinks that education is very important, but she's paying for everything herself, and it's taken her seven years. She works full time and goes to school full time, but she pays. She's taken no loans, no nothing. She's paid every penny. That's a lot, that's a lot. Anyway, alright, well Forest, this has been fantastic and I think that we've learned a lot of really interesting things, not just about you, but about Apple and about EJ and their family philosophy on the workplace, which is really kinda cool. It's very cool actually, but thank you so much for being on the show. Is it okay if anybody from our audience wants to reach out to you on LinkedIn?

36:11 FS: Certainly, yeah. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, or you have any questions about EJ, or you just need advice. I'm here.

36:21 AH: You're here? Alright, cool. So I'm gonna include a link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes, but I will also include a link to your song, "I love you back" on iTunes and Spotify. I'll include that as well, but again, thank you so much for being on the show and thank you for tuning in.

36:38 FS: Awesome.

36:39 AH: Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the Millennial Rockstars podcast. If you are looking for even more information on millennials and some free resources, visit my website at amandahammett.com. The link is below. It's amandahammett.com. There you can download a free millennial employee engagement guide that will give you all kinds of tips and tricks on how to keep those millennials engaged on a day-to-day basis because we all know that millennials who are happy at work, are more productive at work.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

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