Bharani Rajakumar & Chris Gardner | The Role of Good Jobs in the American Dream

Matt Bahl:
Welcome to emerge everywhere. And if you’ve listened to this podcast before, you’ll know I’m not Jennifer. Tasha. My name is Matt Ball. I’m vice president, head of workplace financial health at the Financial Health Network, and I work closely with Jen as we advance opportunities to improve the financial health of America’s workforce. I’m going to be guest hosting a few podcasts over the summer and into the end of the year, focusing on issues and challenges facing America’s workforce.

What are the ways in which we can work together to improve the financial health outcomes for working people all across the country? So join me as we dive into conversations exploring the world at work.

Welcome back to Emerge Everywhere. Today, I’m proud to present my conversation with Chris Gardner and Bharani Rajkumar. Chris is an entrepreneur, single parent and bestselling author. His most famous book being The Pursuit of Happiness, which was ultimately made into a critically acclaimed film starring Will Smith. Virani is the CEO of transfer, an economic development and education platform pioneering the use of virtual and augmented reality to simulate on the job training, helping prepare students and workers with the training they need to succeed in good paying, in-demand jobs.

We recorded this live at the jobs for the Future Horizons conference in Washington, D.C. in this conversation, we talk about good jobs, financial health, and creating new opportunities for the next generation of America’s working people. But we also talked about the American dream, its past, its present, and its future. Join us as we walk down this road together.

Super excited to be joined today by Chris and Bharani. Two people who need no introduction. We really want to dive in today talking about good jobs. What does it look like? How do we help develop more? How do we get people engaged and their own career journey and success? Chris, I want to start with you. you’re well known in part for the movie where Will Smith played you during a short period of your life, the pursuit of happiness.

Catch us up on what you’re doing now. Talk to us about permission to dream and the work that goes around that.

Chris Gardner:
First of all, thank you for having me. I am right now, at this point in my life, doing what I feel is some of the most exciting things in the world. And they’re not about me. I am spending the majority of my time working in public education with young people that have made a decision and an investment in themselves, and I’m doing this work because I believe in some of the most important work in the world, and is a direct response to one of the biggest issues facing businesses globally, which is the recruiting and retention of talent. And I had a nice plan. I had a very nice, easy plan. And then I met this young man. and he has a vision I have, which is bigger. I had a plan. He has a vision and a technology and a platform that I didn’t have. So we’re now spending our time collectively in trying to help make this all turned of investment Human capital.

Matt Bahl:
Yeah, I love I love that phrase. And yeah, the investment in human capital.

Chris Gardner:
Yes, sir.

Matt Bahl:
And Brian, I want to bring your your voice in here and tell us about your story. How did you end up on this couch and working with Chris?

Bharani Rajakumar:
Yeah. So I met Chris through a mutual friend, and they met back. Kelly. And so, we, Well, I think what’s really interesting about, Chris, this story is that it resonates with people from all walks of life. So, like millions of other people, I saw the movie Pursuit of Happiness and many times was deeply inspired. So when Matt calls me up, I say, hey, Chris has found out about transfer and he wants to talk to you. And I was like, oh yeah, thrilled beyond thrilled. And, you know, we were a couple of kind of threads that that are similar. So, Chris, in his book, which, you know, if you’ve not read it, you should read it. It’s it’s even better than the movie. you know, he had a lot of challenges in his life. You know, he’s bullied. early on, he had to make his way, in the world without a college degree that a four year degree and myself, I watched my parents raise a family of four, $35,000 a year. We live in a neighborhood where, you know, drug dealing happened every single day. and so when I met Chris for the first time, I was completely blown away by his work ethic because, and let’s face it, he could be retired on a beach. and this incredible leopard, you know, printed shoes. He does aren’t in the room.

Chris Gardner:
Yeah. This is not being televised.

Bharani Rajakumar:
But I looked into permission to dream. Right? And, I saw what he was doing is he was looking to inspire millions of young people who were probably born before the movie was even made. and what I was focused on, you know, now I had optimism, even though, you know, we grew up in a tough neighborhood as my parents came here to live the American dream. Right. And if not for them, definitely for their kids. So no matter how hard it was, I always had this optimism that in America, you could become anything and you could be successful. So I ended up having a successful career working at a bow track in West Bank. And, what I knew is that career mobility was not available to everybody because the middle school and high school that I went to were 90% African-American. And if you were in the magnet program, you got all the love and the attention, all the kudos, all the good, you know, at a boys. And if you were not in the magnet program, good luck to you. So, transfer is essentially a, a tech company, a workforce development company where we focus on helping get everybody on a career pathway to upward mobility, using virtual reality, where people can put on the headset, try a variety of careers, find one that fits with what they’re interested in, and then get a job that pays well.

So when Chris said, hey, I’m due a permission dream, we immediately kind of figured out, like, wait a minute. Instead of doing this separately, we should figure out how to work together.

Matt Bahl:
Chris, I want to come back and maybe just mark it for us. It’s really key. And it’s a permission to what you’re trying to accomplish.

Chris Gardner:
First of all, I cannot answer that question without talking about my mom. Please do a little give or self permission to train. My mom was the daughter of a robber 1930s and 1940s Louisiana. There was nothing in her world that I can visibly or could articulate to you, other than to say she gave herself permission to try. Audrey was she would be the last person in the history of our family to ever be cut. Now, that might have sound like a big dream to folks today. A lot of us think about dreams. We think about stuff money, toys, influence. I will say to you, that was a very big, bold, beautiful, very American dream. As a matter of fact, the last time she walked out of the cotton fields of Louisiana, she was pregnant with me. And she said, my child will never be a cotton because one woman gave her herself permission to dream. I was allowed to go from being a sharecropper to a shareholder because one woman gave herself permission to dream. I went from 400 years of picking cotton to four decades old wall Street. So part of my generational responsibility personally now is to open up the doors and prepare those coming be behind me and give them permission to dream. And it’s always so cool when I can share with a group of young people, all for a second. Let me make sure we got this right. Oprah Winfrey and I are the same age, same zodiac sign, and went to the same elementary school. How do we know the next Chris Gardner of the next Oprah or the next Bernie is not coming or going out of these same school doors all across America right now?

The truth is they are. My job is to let them know that they can’t. So this whole idea of permission to dream what can be needs to be as much a part of the conversation as what cannot be. There’s no shortage of folks telling you what you cannot do. I’m saying let’s talk about what can be. We’re talking about career paths that will allow you to create generational wealth. And there’s no student loan debt.

Matt Bahl:
Yeah. I was struck. I mean, your story is inspirational for a number of reasons, but one of the things that strikes me about this listening to you speak is you’ve talked about your journey and the sacrifices your mom made, the dream she had to give you, the opportunities to pursue that. You spent four decades on Wall Street. When I hear you and Barney talk, I’m not hearing about finding the next generation of Wall Street bankers. Some may be. I’m hearing about preparing the next generation for a meaningful career. The ability to provide for their family, to give back to their community. So, Barney, what problem are you all solving? How are you trying to solve it? What are the mechanisms you’re doing to try to address these challenges?

Bharani Rajakumar:
Yeah. So I think, the question that Chris always gets is, is the American dream dead? And I think that we both feel very strongly with lots of other people, that the American dream is very much alive, but it’s not yet accessible to everybody. And that’s really what we’re focused on. So Chris, as platform or as motivational speaker, you know, I am you know, I’m not too tall and I don’t have as good a fashion sense as you can tell but for me, you know, my my focus is, was on the technology, because that’s what I understood. Right. And so we use, virtual reality because, you know, as we say, a transfer, you can’t see what you can’t see. And so we want people to put on their headset and see a different vision for themselves. So for instance, we started in manufacturing skilled trades. You know, something that a lot of people don’t know a lot about. You know, people would think that, hey, chat about manufacturing. They think you talk about smokestacks and steel mills. And when you go visit some of these manufacturing facilities today, I mean, an automotive plant, it’s like 90% run by robots. And so there’s a job, an automotive plant where you are a robot doctor. That’s kind of a job that you think is in the future, right? But the other really cool thing about this is jobs pay 50 to $100,000 a year. No college degree required. And for people who, you know, didn’t necessarily have a uncle or an aunt or someone they kind of hooked them up with a high paying internship or something like that. It’s it’s a viable pathway to a job that pays for one k health benefits. I mean, these are things that our target demographic don’t even know that they can have.

Chris Gardner:
Let me ask you a question. Yes, sir. You stand in this hotel. I am. What floor you on?

Matt Bahl:
I’m on the 11th floor.

Chris Gardner:
Do you take the stairs of the elevator?

Matt Bahl:
Oh, I definitely take the elevator.

Chris Gardner:
The people that repair, maintain and construct the elevators make 180 grand a year. And no student loan debt. And you cannot outsource that, right? The elevators, the escalators, the people movers at the airports. You make it 180 grand a year. We just found out we have gotten our first batch of young people in New York City accepted into the training program with the International Union of Elevator Constructors, local number one, in New York City.

We found out and got the final confirmation on the 19th of July. You know why that’s important to me. Why? Because we celebrated Juneteenth. Juneteenth. We acknowledge the past. July 13th is about creating the future. Now somebody need to say amen. Amen. Because we’re going to take a collection up in here. We had church up here today, right? We got our first batch. And let’s stay with me on this just for a second. You a good job. Run through the numbers on that. You start off making 180 grand a year. You do that for a full career. 30 years. That means you retire a multimillionaire. Salaries, wages, health care, retirement insurance for one K annuities. That all adds up. That’s one young person, $6 million. But if we get ten young people onto that career path. Help me out here. Okay? Is that $6 million?

Bharani Rajakumar:
Sounds like 60, but.

Chris Gardner:
You do a hundred times. That’s $600 million. You do it a thousand times. That’s $6 billion. Now we’re talking about some real money.

Matt Bahl:
Yeah.

Chris Gardner:
Okay. And again, to do this to help our young people who’ve already made the decision, a lot of the people we’re talking to at career and technical high schools, they’ve already made the decision. I don’t want to go to college. They made that decision. That sir, is a business decision. I will submit to you. That’s making an alternative investment.

Both of us coming from Wall Street. When we talk about returns in our previous lives. Short term, six months or less return. Right. Long term. A year in a day. But when we start talking about making alternative investments, we’re not looking to see a return for six, seven, eight years into the future. And I got to tell you, man, we’re tremendously excited. I’ve gotten a call. Said it would be screwed. Coming up next week. to make sure that they know they are our first round draft picks.

Matt Bahl:
I love that idea. I mean, I’m an old millennial and first generation college student. Dad was a laborer. Mom was a home health aide. And the story that I was told, the dream my parents had was, we’re going to send all four of our kids to college. That was the dream. And we went to college, and we all left with soul crushing student loan debt.

And so and then you look at some of these Pew data, you look at other data. Scott Galloway’s published this in his book America 100 charts. And you actually see Americans moving away from the belief in the American dream. And so how are you all revitalizing that spirit? How are you all bringing the next generation to improve people’s lives, both from a curbside but at the financials network?

We want people to live financially healthy lives, to have the retirement they need, to have the insurance. They need to have the wages that allow them to support and sustain a family. How do you challenge and bring and bring back into the American spirit? That type of thinking, which if you look at generational data, seems to be declining.

Bharani Rajakumar:
So I would say we as a company don’t have to do that. What we have to do is we have to connect them with the employers that are doing that. So there are some great employers out there that, you know, as I mentioned, they are providing employees. I mean, I talk we’re talking about apprentices here, right? You can finish high school, enroll an apprenticeship program with a reputable company, for example, an electrical contractor, and start contributing to your follow on K right away. Start, taking advantage of health benefits right away. And I think, I’m speaking for myself here, but I would say as an immigrant, one of the reasons why people flocked to this country in droves is because of safety and security. And so it’s not necessarily you know, about getting rich per se, but it’s about being able to have a home, raise a family. Or if you don’t want to raise a family, maybe you have your pets, maybe you have your your, your cousins, your nephews, your nieces. But being able to be part of that immunity. I mean, like you said, you know, before, you were in a, in a job where it kind of felt like a grind.

Right. People come to America because they want to be able to dream. And that dream can include certainly a career pathway, but it also includes the things you do outside of work. Spending time in your hobbies, developing yourself as a human. And so I think when it comes to having a good job, a good job is going to give you the opportunity to kind of shoot for the stars and work as hard as you want to, but also the ability to earn a livable wage so that you can take care of your loved ones and your friends.

Chris Gardner:
Let me add something to that different perspective and look at that. I need to be very, very clear when I use these words. American trained. We’re in this space now where every word that you say can be weaponized and politicized. When I talk about this American dream, I’m talking about the definition is given to me by my mother, who said to me every day, son, you can do or be anything. And I believed it. And it’s very important to share with you what she did not say. She did not say that you can have anything. She did not say you could buy everything. She did not say that. You guaranteed a shirt order entitled to anything. She said you could do or be anything. And for me, man, that was an even bigger statement.

Because if you could do or be anything, all this other stuff will come. And when I’m with these young people and they ask me, Is the American dream still possible? I share with them, yes it is. I’m living it everyday, but I also just did them. You got to know something. You got to know that because of globalization and technology, the American dream has gone global.

And the people that you’re now competing with are not in your classroom because of globalization and technology. The people that you’re now competing with a someplace all around the world. And while you are of being young, enjoying yourselves as your perfectly entitled to do, you got to know the people that you’re competing with are some place grinding. They’re practicing their network, their rehearsing, their researching.

And right there, that’s what’s going to make the difference between whose side is the front of the tech and who’s side is the back of the tech right there. So the American dream is alive, but it’s gone global. So we’ve got to import our greatest export skills. USA is the largest gathering of young people and high schools, technical and vocational high schools and community colleges and the United States. And they invite me to come and speak to 15,000 teenagers that have been drinking three Coca-Cola all day, and you got five and. Whoa, do. And you walk on that stage mean there’s an energy level. You got to bring an a message. You gotta keep a real tight bow. You got five minutes was our message. Skill sets. Committing to becoming.

Matt Bahl:
World.

Chris Gardner:
Class, creating generational wealth and the magic words. No student loan debt.

Matt Bahl:
I’m so glad you brought up the student loan debt, because we are at 1.7 trillion. we’ve crossed the $1 trillion in credit card debt. we have seen skyrocketing costs for housing, health care, transportation, socks and computers are cheaper than ever before, but that’s about it. And so, as you all think about going into these high schools, working with these companies, how are you bringing this vision that you both have articulated? Right? This vision of the American dream is achievable. It is worth pursuing. It is worth doing. It is worth finding your path.

Bharani Rajakumar:
In America, we, we are capitalist. We believe in capitalism. Or at least a lot of people do. and right now there is a there’s a big disconnect because there are jobs out there that will pay a family sustaining wage, but not everybody knows that they exist. And, you know, for those who are or are listening, you’re not in the room, but, there’s a passionate room here, people in workforce development.

And that’s why we at transform actually started working with workforce development. Because, you know, a lot of time people focus on education, but you’re talking about K-12 or higher ed, usually a lot of time to talk about four year institutions. You know, two years tuitions kind of get lost in the mix. But workforce development is this kind of glue, or can be this glue that that brings everything together because they have the ability to fund training with youth, with people who are unemployed. Perhaps you were, formerly incarcerated, and now people won’t even give you a chance. A second chance. and so that’s kind of why we’re excited to work about. talk about workforce development, work with workforce partners, because they have they kind of see that that bigger vision. So the to what we want to do is bridge, the disconnect between the opportunity that exists and what people might have preconceived notions that people might have in their right.

So apprenticeships, when people think about apprenticeships, they might think about like, oh my God, that money. That’s like from the 1950s or something like that. Why are we talking about apprenticeships? We need to talk about internship. But the reality is that apprenticeships are a very viable pathway to this upward mobility that we’re talking about. You know, you heard Chris earlier say that if you are part of the elevator union, you know, you can retire by the age of 55, call it with 4 to $6 million.

I mean, that would be a lot of people’s dream. Right. and so I think part of what we do with virtual reality, right, is we enable people to put on the headset and be immersed in this environment where they get to see what it’s like to work in a automotive plant, which is highly robotic size. They get to see what it’s like to be a nurse. You know, perhaps you’re doing knee surgery. maybe you’re really interested. You know, today, around the country, we’re talking about bringing manufacturing back to America. Right? And so semi conductors are a huge part. all the technologists in every technology. Right. And so we’re building semiconductor manufacturing plants so that people can put on the headset to see what that’s like.

And so what we want to do is basically help bridge the gap between maybe some outdated perceptions that people have about the workforce and opportunity, because we live in this amazing era right now, where there are as many job openings that that, that pay well, as there are people when it’s there is an opportunity for everybody.

Matt Bahl:
And I also I would just add to that you’ve the Wall Street Journal had an article about a month or so ago talking about Gen Z, which is the generation now entering the workforce really being more open than previous generations.

Bharani Rajakumar:
Do you remember the the title of that article? Remember.

Matt Bahl:
Exactly.

Bharani Rajakumar:
It’s, Gen Z, the tool built in to about. Thank you.

Matt Bahl:
And to me it was spurred by those that but also the interesting, corollary to AI and the need for us to upgrade our power system. One of the books that my dad, gave to me when I was young, it was my grandfather’s was Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintenance. And to me, when I hear you and Chris talk, what you’re talking about is not just good paying jobs that provide for financial health, but it’s actually about providing dignity to people’s lives.

So I would actually add to the American Dream thing the defining role of dignity. People can live dignified lives. They don’t have to be the wealthiest. but they can be proud of what they do. They can look and say, I built that.

Bharani Rajakumar:
And what I gave, they contributed.

Chris Gardner:
Right. Let me add two things to both for you. I’ll never forget. I wish I paid more attention in high school. I was not a good student. I was only a good student if I was interested. But I’ll never forget. I believe it was Eleanor Roosevelt who once said the best social program ever created was a job. one of the things defining moments of my life that made me do anything and everything else I’ve ever done in my life.

I had a chance. One night I heard Doctor Martin Luther King Junior speak. It’s a matter of fact. It was the last speech he ever gave in his life. He was assassinated the very next day. He was talking to a group of municipal employees, garbageman, sanitation workers, and his message to the men, those men that night work. Whatever you’re going to do with your life, you just seek to become the best at it. I believe his exact words were, if you’re going to be a garbage man, you should seek to become the best garbage man and sweep streets like Shakespeare, wrote poetry. And right there, I made the second most important decision that I ever made in my life. That decision was, I’m going to become world class at whatever I do with my life. Not good at it. Not pretty good at it. The world class said it, and I stressed to our young people in these trade and vocational schools getting this skill, learn this class, get in this train. You can become a world class it. And let’s define world class as simple as Sandpoint. There’s going to be a conversation going on. And the question is going to come up who’s the best in the business? Somebody ought to say your name. Same conversation, same question. Who’s the best in the business? And nobody says your name. Then you got work to do. Same conversation, same question. Who’s the best in the business? And nobody says in your name and you don’t care. Get out of the business.

Bharani Rajakumar:
Speaking right. I want to add that so. Well, Chris and I, there’s a lot of schools we ask people what they want to become, and one of the most popular answers is that they want to become a business owner. Yeah. And so what people don’t know about the jobs that we’re talking about today is that they offer a viable path to becoming a business owner, because if you become.

Chris Gardner:
You get the skill.

Bharani Rajakumar:
Because if you become the best electrician, you become the one that people call the other electrician, you have an opportunity to build your own business. Yeah. And that’s why I think it’s exciting. The article that you cited from the Wall Street Journal, one of the most exciting things that popped out from that article was that for the first time that I’ve ever heard of, you know, I was born in the 80s, but for the first time that I’ve ever heard of, parents were actually proud that their kids were going into these professions. And the reason that they were proud is because their their kids were not just getting jobs, but they weren’t coming back home to live with them.

Matt Bahl:
I’m going to be world class. I’m going to be world class. Are reading this note. So we are here, recording at horizons, presented by Jdrf, where there are North Stars to get 75 million people into quality jobs by 2033. So barony can transfer, play a role in attaining quality jobs.

Bharani Rajakumar:
Well, so I think there are a lot of quality jobs out there. Good thing is we live in America, right? And we have a a functioning economy. So for example, you guys hear about the AI boom. Well, guess what you need in order to fulfill the AI boom, you need data centers. So in Alabama, for example, they offered face. Metta is for, building a giant data warehouse. And that’s going to put about 4000 people to work just building the thing. Right. And so I think the role that we would love to play with Jfrd with, you know, partners, AI skills USA, we work with the Boys and Girls Club, with all of our partners. Workforce development is to help connect the dots to say, these are jobs.

They’re coming online now let’s work in the high schools, in the two year colleges, in the unemployment offices and bring the pre apprenticeship program there because it can happen digitally in rural America or urban America. It can happen everywhere. And let individu choose what they want to become. Let’s stop telling everybody that they all got to learn coding. But they all got to learn this. They know how to do that. They all got to go to college. I mean, let’s let them see in the options that America has to offer and let them choose for themselves what’s the best fit for them.

Matt Bahl:
I mean, Chris, I’m going to give you a chance to top that. And I think you’re up for it.

Chris Gardner:
Well, let me say one. Please do just add two. Appreciate it. One of the most important things that I learned I must do is encourage our young people to look at all the options in your backpack, look at all the options. It’s not just college, right? There’s another option that never gets discussed, which is military service. Now, I personally, anything and everything I’m doing in my life right now, I’m doing because I got the opportunity to serve in the U.S. military, and I took everything that I learned in the service with me and the rest of my business and my personal life.

Okay, so that’s an option that’s in your backpack that a lot of folks don’t even look at, right? But this whole idea of what can be done, I’m the wrong guy to talk to about what cannot be done. I’m the wrong guy. The first thing that I do when I go into these schools with these young people is like, when we go to these big JF conferences, you want to know who are the speakers, where, where their expertise and where they go to school, where their credentials. And when I stand in front of high school juniors and seniors all across the country, I and to read my resume abandoned Joe foster care bomb and president never met my father. Domestic violence survivor. Sexual assault survivor. Never went to college. Veteran, homeless single parent, entrepreneur and black. And I said black last because I got this free man. This the original package right here, right. And when you go through that, you know what happens instantly. You closed the gap, the generational gap. I’m 70 there 70. You close the gap and they get becomes a bridge. And that is where we are strategically right here on this bridge to show you how and provide the technology and the platform that will allow you to pursue.

Matt Bahl:
I’m out and on that. Preston Virani, thank you so much for joining us on emerge. Every word. The financial health movement will only be successful if everyone comes to the table. Emerge everywhere is proud to be sponsored by us back a long time champion on this journey. Thanks for tuning in to this special edition of Emerge Everywhere, powered by the Financial Health Network.

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