Unlocking Careers Without College | Lawrese Brown

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How Alternative Pathways Lead to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment

Today we challenge the traditional “college-or-bust” mindset by exploring viable career paths that don’t require a four-year degree, such as apprenticeships, boot camps, and vocational programs. It emphasizes the importance of empowering students with practical information to align their true interests with sustainable career opportunities, enhancing self-esteem and informed decision-making for future success.

Is college really the only path to career success?

In this compelling episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, host Bill Sherman speaks with Lawrese Brown, author of I Don’t Have to Go to College: Discover Well-Paying Jobs that Don’t Require a Four-Year College Degree. Lawrese  passionately challenges outdated ideas about success, advocating alternative pathways like apprenticeships, boot camps, and vocational training.

Originally, Lawrese targeted her message to parents, aiming to reshape perceptions about college as the only route to financial stability. However, she discovered parents often held strong, traditional beliefs about higher education. Shifting her focus directly to students opened powerful conversations. Today’s youth, she found, are eager for practical guidance and alternative routes aligned with their true interests.

Lawrese reveals how crucial it is for students to trust their instincts, choose careers based on personal values, and recognize multiple forms of intelligence beyond academics. She argues that greater awareness and visibility of non-college paths will empower students, improve self-esteem, and encourage more fulfilling career choices.

This episode pushes listeners to rethink the “college-or-bust” narrative and advocates celebrating individual paths to success.

Three Key Takeaways

College isn’t the only pathway to career success. Alternative routes like apprenticeships, vocational training, and boot camps offer viable, fulfilling opportunities.

Targeting the right audience matters. Shifting the message from parents, who often hold traditional views on education, directly to students can open doors to meaningful conversations and greater openness.

Empowering young people with practical knowledge of alternative career paths encourages informed decisions, higher self-esteem, and more aligned, fulfilling careers.

Lawrese Brown emphasizes the importance of crafting your own unique career path, a message echoed by Tony Martignetti in his episode on personal leadership journeys. Check out Tony’s insights for more on challenging conventional thinking. Together, these conversations inspire you to redefine success on your own terms, driven by passion, curiosity, and genuine fulfillment.

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Transcript

Bill Sherman In thought leadership, you need to carefully choose your target audience. If it’s too big, no one will listen. But even when you define your audience tightly, it’s possible to have a very large potential audience for your ideas. My guest today, Larice Brown, author of I Don’t Have to Go to College, is on a mission to challenge outdated narratives about career success. She’s helping students, parents, and educators. re-imagine the transition from school to work, uncovering alternative pathways that lead to financial stability and fulfillment. In today’s conversation, we discuss how to shape an idea for your audience, how to challenge established norms, shift perspectives, and create new opportunities. I’m Bill Sherman, and you’re listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Let’s begin. Welcome to the show, Lawrese.

Lawrese Brown Thank you, Bill. I’m looking forward to this conversation.

Bill Sherman So one of the things that I want to start exploring with you is writing a book and then rewriting. for two different audiences. But before we go there, I want to ask you the question, who did you write for initially, and what was the book?

Lawrese Brown So initially my current book, I Don’t Have to Go to College, Discover Well-Paying Jobs That Don’t Require a Four-Year College Degree, was targeted at parents. And it’s largely because I came from it from, people talk about the theory of change. And in my mind, I said, okay, well, the information I was finding based on research that was like, okay, if students go to college, how do they get an ROI on the amount of money that they’re spent? So it was really this, okay, who’s spending the money and also who is most invested outside of the student in their, this student, this child going to college and it was their parents. And I really targeted them from this perspective of, well, how to sell them on, your child can be economically successful without you paying this amount of money. And it was heavily steeped in research from the perspective of. There’s a number of students who graduate from college who end up underemployed and disproportionately they were black and Latino or other underrepresented students. And so really it came from the perspective of if this, if parents knew, and specifically if parents in these demographics knew, would they make different choices? And when I tested that, the answer was, well, maybe, but I had the same struggle that most people have or that many people have trying to get parents. They’re so busy, how do you get them to show up? When I tested it with parents, it was evident that certain parents who already were open-minded towards, well, my child has shown that they have a career in technical interest. My child wants to do welding. My child’s interested in construction. They already were sold, but the traditional parent felt like, you know what, college, a four-year college specifically was their only path. Even if they didn’t go to college, it was, that is the American dream. That is the pinnacle of what my child can accomplish. And so once I got that feedback, I said, okay, maybe this is not the best way to get the change or to at least get the open-mindedness I’m looking for in this space.

Bill Sherman So you then talked about having to rewrite that book for a different audience. Where did you switch to? And what impact did that have on the book?

Lawrese Brown I didn’t switch directly to students. So I had a group of interns that I was working with and I was getting their feedback actually on a little bit of the parent version, but just the data that I had been collecting. And what they helped me do was the students helped me hone in on how to give them the language they needed to make the decision for themselves. So two things, I originally, again, from the economic standpoint was interested in parents, but I was up against parents natural blockage. Like, okay, four-year college is the pinnacle. One of the things that’s different about this generation is that they are more open-minded. So the immediate advantage I had was I’m already talking to people who are looking like I’m open to four-year college, but I’m also open if that’s not the best path for me and I can find other pathways. So I didn’t have to do any convincing. It was more like, take them on the journey of exploration. And so when I pivoted towards students, they were very clear in the information they needed to make their mind. And it was mainly, I don’t know what jobs. Well-paying jobs are available for me anyway, and like most of us they want to do jobs They care about and so that’s when the book really flourished The first part of course was a conversation about if you don’t go to a four-year Let’s talk about two years apprenticeship boost camps other paths That you can go to after high school, but then the meat of the book is truly What are your interests and helping them align their interests their hobbies right whether it’s gaming or art or health? How do we align those to industries with in-demand jobs so that they can see, oh, this is a family sustaining career for me?

Bill Sherman Thank you, Lori. So I wanna go another layer into this conversation. This core idea that college isn’t a necessity for every student. As you said, parents have bought into this story, right? There’s a lot of institutional momentum encouraging people to go down the path of college. How did you- come to be an advocate for alternatives. Why is this a piece that’s passionate for you that you talk about?

Lawrese Brown So two things, in my own story, you know, my parents, they were born in 1951 and they were like, you know, if you go to school and you work hard, you’ll be successful in life. And I did that, I took that to heart. So I focused on being academically successful. I was eighth grade co-valedictorian. I went to boarding school. I graduated Gettysburg College, magna cum laude. And then I went job hunting and I was like, wait a minute, there’s more than this. And even more, I got to do a comparison of myself. and other members of my class who I knew didn’t have the same academic achievements that I did, and they still landed great jobs. And so that first started knocking at me a little bit. That’s like, wait a minute, this idea that my success or post-secondary success, the most decisive factor is academic achievement, it started to rattle me a little bit, right? I was like, that’s not entirely correct. And then the other factor in that was this like blooming, blossoming, I can see this mushroom cloud in my head, like this almost volcanic conversation about student loan debt. And then when I really dug into it further, this idea, the idea of ROI on college. And not just like, again, that can be, that can get nuanced and complicated very quickly in terms of like your loans and your interest rates. But I think it, but when I fundamentally broke it down, it was like, you’re making an investment in your future and it’s presented, we all know that statistic. if you go to college, you on average will make a million more in your lifetime. And then I started to dig into that and I was like, well, who, how do you get that million more in your lifetime when many students are picking majors that are where that lead to underemployment, meaning they’re not going to get a bachelor level job, right? So some of the liberal arts majors that at one time were more celebrated when there was a smaller group of students who a smaller pool of college students, but certainly among the millennial generation where you know, there was an increase in students who’ve gone to college and there’s much more talent competing. You don’t have that same advantage that you had before. So just picking a major or saying I went to college doesn’t automatically mean higher earnings. Then I looked at it again from my own demographics. When again, I looked at underrepresented students and I was like, well, or low income students, whether they’re rural or from urban areas who are presented as this is your path to economic mobility for yourself and sometimes even your family. and you look at the data and low-income students are the most likely to end up paying more for college and then also the most likely to end up underemployed. And so then that conversation, right, coupled with like, wait a minute, academic achievement is not the most decisive factor, which is important to note also because that’s the form of intelligence we tend to put on college and certainly the mark I went through life with, I was like, oh, I am intelligent. So it was breaking that down in the right ways to say, wait a minute, there are multiple forms of intelligence as we know, and people shouldn’t be discriminated against because academic learning is not the type of intelligence that they have. So that was one piece. And then the other piece of it was, if this is about economics, which increasingly the path to go into college has been promoted as, then we have to talk about other pathways. We have to talk about opportunities that don’t require a four-year college degree. that still lead to family sustaining wages and also continued growth opportunities.

Bill Sherman Thank you. That’s a really nice, in-depth answer. I want to flip and ask this question. What sustains you in this conversation? What is it that motivates you to get this idea out there, to speak to parents, to speak to students, to have this conversation? Why?

Lawrese Brown I used to think, I used to be arrogant but I’m saying that’s all I can say candidly. I think, you know, being academically, my academic achievements made me arrogant. And as one of six, I have five brothers and sisters and I was proud of going to college. I was the fourth born, but the first to go through like high school and college all the way through and It was great, people celebrated me both externally, but also in school, I got a lot of opportunities from it. But it really blinded me from the reality that most adults don’t go to college and still live successful lives. Like it put me in this bubble and it gave me this type of arrogance or specific type of thinking that I knew the path to be successful. And if more people just knew about that path and followed that path, then they would too. And as I matured and lived life and met different people and then also took stock of my own siblings and their success, I said, wait a minute, Larisa, I said, you’re wrong here, right? Or you’re limited here, or you’re, this is arrogant, right, to believe you know what is best for everyone to do simply because it fits you. And I think if we zoom out, that’s really the message that we’ve had for the, I mean, since the eighties, that the best path anyone could take. is to go to college, that is going to work out for you, regardless of what your interest is, regardless of what you want to accomplish in life, that’s the path you should have. So when I bought this book to students, that’s the response that I got. It was like, thank you. We don’t hear people, our counselors, our teachers, and sometimes even our parents tell us that we are allowed to celebrate our success or to claim success if we haven’t chosen the four-year college path. And so that brings me. Joy, and also brings me a sense of fulfillment for students to say they feel like, they see me as an advocate of them.

Bill Sherman I like that word advocate because you’re opening possibilities. And I’m thinking even back to my educational experience, there was a conveyor belt that basically went along. You do well in one grade, you go to the next grade, and then you just sort of stair step along, right? And it’s designed to pull you through. And as you talked, I was thinking, going… For much of my educational experience, there wasn’t a conversation other than, where are you going to college? It was expected. And so with that, I look back and say, would I have made different choices if I knew different options? Right? No. Right. I’m a kid of the late 80s going into college, so… Like that messaging was in full flower at that point that, you know, going to college was the way forward. But if you look at the social contract, like you talked about, where you do everything right, you’re going to have success because you have this piece of paper that doesn’t necessarily play out in the real world that way. There are no straight paths.

Lawrese Brown And that formula we sell people, you just go do this and do that? No, no. I love what you said, that social contract. I think that’s really what changed for me is this is a little bit of a pivot, but even beyond students having the option of whether they can go to a four-year or not go to college, even when they make the transition to work, it’s challenging for anyone who’s taught that your hard work. is the most decisive factor in your success to take a moment to say, to kind of recalibrate and say, listen, I’m not telling you not to work hard. Your work ethic counts. Your academic achievement counts. Your qualifications count. And still other factors count as well, right? Whether or not you have connected with the right person and that person sees value in you and wants to give you an opportunity. that counts whether the timing and maybe some you came into an organization right at the time that someone was there a long time and they exited and so you were right there and at the right time and you got it right or a range of things go into how we excel or not especially in the workplace and in life and while it’s important to have that accountability to yourself to continue to take feedback and improve your technical interpersonal skill sets There’s more than that.

Bill Sherman If you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a five-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcasts. So let’s expand the lens a little bit. We’ve talked about the book. We’ve talked about what motivates you. How else are you advocating this message? How are you reaching your target audience of students?

Lawrese Brown Social media, which I need to get back on, but I don’t say this. So social media, especially TikTok, was an opportunity to hear what students had to say and to respond. And so a couple of things. One of the things I did on social media on a TikTok account that I have at Larice is I would take students’ questions about not going to college. And largely what I found, some student, again, had already explored CTE, but some of the questions were, Well, if I don’t go to college and I stop at high school, what kind of jobs am I gonna get? Which to me, we realized it woke me up to the assumptions, like these hidden beliefs we have about students who don’t go to college, or anyone who doesn’t take a four-year college path. It just means, oh, you stopped at high school. And it’s opening people up to realize like, no, there’s apprenticeships, there’s boot camps, there’s two-year programs. Have you thought about the range of ways that you can continue your education that are not at a four-year college or university? So that was one piece. And then that theme? just kept coming back up again from students and parents that was like, well, if I don’t go to college, what are some jobs that I’m interested in? How to help expand their lens in that direction based on their interests. So social media has been an exciting place. I plan to go back and knowing that, or I should say double down and focus, but knowing that the biggest obstacle students face when it comes to barriers to non-college path is awareness. I recognize I need some partners in that space who will help me expose students. to jobs that don’t require four-year college degrees. One thing for me to say it, it’s another thing visually for students to see it and have a chance to visually explore what it would be like to do the job or even to see how that type of job, whether or not exists in their local city.

Bill Sherman And I think that’s an interesting piece that ties nicely to the concept of thought leadership, because when I talk about thought leadership, I often use the phrase making the invisible visible. And so that’s exactly what you talked about is how do we make these options visible to students so they can say, Oh yeah, I can see myself in that role. This one’s not for me, but this one over here is, I want to learn more about that. So, I want to give you a magic wand for a moment here. You have a core passion and thought leadership. What impact do you want to make? How would the world change if your message was heard more widely?

Lawrese Brown more students would trust themselves, and I want to be clear, because trust is one of those words that can be ambiguous, but more students would make choices that align with what they actually wanted to do versus what they feel like they need to do or have to do based on the pressures they get from, again, students, parents, teachers, or even each other. That’s the biggest challenge that I’m up against and is the idea that you only get to claim success. one way. So it would look like more, you know, ideally higher levels of self-esteem, but I think that even for people can feel broad. I think it, I know it would look like more self-awareness around how people make decisions, how students make decisions, more consciousness of their values, their values being what they’re prioritizing. Some people do prioritize money. Some people prioritize flexibility. Some people prioritize building relationships that’s also in the book, so that recognition of because I value, because I know I value relationships, this is what I’m prioritizing and what I’m pursuing and also recognizing that that will change. There being our respect for individualism, especially recognizing that even from an economic standpoint, this utilitarian thing we all do, we’re like, it’s useful to me. Therefore, Bill, it must also be useful to you. Now, doesn’t exist, right? Like it’s, it’s not, it’s. Of course, we’re looking for like-minded people, but how do we build a framework? How do we simply accept that people can do things that are different from us and still, it’s still valid, even if we don’t get it, right? Even if we would never do it. Even if we were like, oh, like, that makes me like, I’m gonna use, like, that makes me uncomfortable. You know, like that, there’s something to being at peace with people making choices, especially around their career. where it makes sense for them and it doesn’t have to make sense for us. And I would love that for students because if you can, you hear these stories about, I wish I had trusted myself from everyone as they get older. This is the moment that I trusted myself. So imagine if we could cultivate or students could cultivate that trust in themselves, whether it’s intuitive or simply from a greater consciousness about what they care about earlier. I think I believe that would translate into. you know, greater fulfillment, but also, you know, I think there’s some other societal things people are grappling with as they’re looking for their purpose or just trying to navigate what later on becomes personal failures because they felt like they made choices that other people wanted from them but that they didn’t want for themselves.

Bill Sherman And that becomes such a powerful question. If we had people doing what they loved or what they chose rather than trying to match other people’s expectations, if we took the burden of regret or the burden of financial consequences off of people, how would people thrive and flourish in their careers? Absolutely. They could choose. I think that’s. That’s the place where the magic wand really comes to life is the unseen possibilities that we don’t see because we’ve prescribed, if we will, a path for everyone when one size does not fit all.

Lawrese Brown No, it doesn’t. Can I tell you something? Students, I think, are finding a way to, I’ll say, take more risks, right? Because one of the things, especially for my parents, and I imagine for you, it was a linear path. You finish school, ooh, you’re 18, see you later. You know, it was like, okay. you got you got oh you’re married now go get the house right or like you’re climbing the ladder in your career great now you go get the house you know

Bill Sherman So it’s like a little board game of life that was step by step on the on the process And if you veered from it, everybody looked and went Cool, not so sure about that choice. That’s a goal

Lawrese Brown Exactly. And so the way I believe students at this, this cohort of students, Gen Z and beyond are giving themselves more space is they don’t, they have more one way before they leave. And the reason why that’s important is because I imagine when you’re 18, like my parents always say, it was like, you can’t come home unless you really were like in dire straits. And I think that having that space where this generation is home a little bit longer. gives them space to experiment, gives them space to take some risks, gives them space to say, you know what? And sometimes we don’t even like it. People are like, or you’ll see the headlines that are like, Gen Z is ghosting, or Gen Z’s work ethic is not there, right? They are saying, hey, my tummy hurts and I’m going home. And surely that is one side of it. But I think the other benefit of it is that we do, you know, at this time in work, we do need people who take risks. We do need people who are willing to innovate. And sometimes, sometimes, many times. risk-taking or trying something new, doesn’t work out immediately. You know, there’s some, so if a student does wanna be on Twitch or build a blog, that takes time. And fortunately, of course they can do that alongside work, but if they have the space and opportunity to take that kind of risk early in their career without the same overhead, then I think there’s advantages to that as well. So only mentioning that because, again, going back to perspective, whose perspective is it? It’s easy for people to knock this generation from a space of failure to launch. without seeing, well, hey, they have a chance to take some risks earlier in their career that maybe we didn’t have, and that’s an advantage.

Bill Sherman As we begin to wrap up here, one of my takeaways from this conversation is certainly in the practice of thought leadership, not only focusing on your audience, but the mindsets and the context your audience brings your assumptions here, right? So like we talked about the expectations for us going to school, right? and being excellent at that. may not be the same expectations that kids today have. And so we have to be willing to reframe, reposition, and let others question things that we’ve already assumed.

Lawrese Brown It takes a maturity, an understanding of yourself. And by maturation, I mean, just a mindset to recognize that either this too shall pass or that people have the right to view your decisions how they want. And that could be none of your business or you can make it your business whatever way, but that doesn’t mean you have to change your decision.

Bill Sherman Lawrese, I wanna thank you for joining us in this conversation today. This has been delightful.

Lawrese Brown Same here, Bill, I truly enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for having me.

Bill Sherman Okay. You’ve made it to the end of the episode, and that means you’re probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are three recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game, and thought leadership, as well as just starting out. Second, subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights. Take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you’re looking for strategy, or maybe you want to polish up your ideas or even create new products and offerings. I’d love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.