IAM1180- Founder Positions Students for Their After High School Success

Dr. Jim Etter served 22 years in the United States Marine Corps where he had a tour in Vietnam, two Purple Hearts, and served as a Naval Flight Officer, Top Gun Graduate, and Naval War College Graduate and served as the Operations Officer of a Marine Fighter Squadron. After he retired from the US Marine Corps as a Major, Jim went on to found American Military University and American Public University, a leader in online education with over 90,000 active students. Jim acquired the 40-year-old Citizens High School in 2017 and has expanded it from a correspondence school to one of the leading online global high schools offering more than 300 online courses with students throughout the US and over 43 countries. He recently launched the High School FLEX Diploma program which puts the student in charge of tailoring their High School diploma for their High School success.

• CEO Hack: (i) Finding out how to put myself out of business (ii) Observe-Orient-Decide-Act Loop
• CEO Nugget: Inquire, be forward-thinking, and don't fear failure
• CEO Defined: Freedom and being in charge

Website: http://citizenshighschool.com/

Facebook: Facebook.com/citizenshighschool 
Twitter: @CitizensHS
Instagram: citizenshs
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/school/citizens-high-school-inc/
TikTok; citizenshighschool

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Transcription

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00:00 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:19 – Dr. Jim Etter

The key is, is that you know, don't take counsel of your own fears. Just get out there and do that. But watch what you're doing. You don't want to make a lot of mistakes that are going to drive you out of business. Don't be afraid to do something silly or to do something different. You know, that type of stuff. You know, we were talking about, you talked about change earlier. If you want things to stay the same, you better change.

00:47 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Jim Eder of Citizens High School. Dr. Jim, it's great to have you on the show.

00:55 – Dr. Jim Etter

Good. Glad to be here.

00:58 – Gresham Harkless

Excited. Super excited to have you on as well too. You're doing so many phenomenal things. And what I wanted to do is just read a little bit more about some of those phenomenal things so everybody can see and hear about all the awesome things that you're doing. So Dr. Jim served 22 years in the United States Marine Corps, where he had a tour in Vietnam, 2 Purple Hearts, and served as a Naval Flight officer, top gun graduate, Naval War College graduate, and served as the operations officer of a Marine Fighter Squadron.

Thank you for your service. After he retired from the US Marine Corps as a major, Jim went on to found American Military University an American public university, a leader in online education with over 90, 000 active students. Jim acquired the 40-year-old Citizens High School in 2017 and has expanded it from a correspondence school to one of the leading online global high schools offering more than 300 online courses with students throughout the US and over 43 countries. He recently launched the online high school flex diploma program, which puts the students in charge of tailoring their high school diploma for their after-high school success. Dr. Jim, great to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:03 – Dr. Jim Etter

Yeah, sure. Hopefully, I can talk a little bit anyway.

02:06 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, you have so much great experience. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So I know I touched on it a little bit when I read your bio, but I wanted to rewind the clock. Hear a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

02:18 – Dr. Jim Etter

Yeah, I don't have a big background in that type of thing. I just, you know, my CEO story was, especially with the university, I started the whole thing in my basement on the picnic table. So that was just a pure entrepreneur-type thing. I didn't even know how to spell university or, you know, accreditation. And so work through all that. And anyway, that got me into the education business. And the reason I started that is I just, my background in the military, even though I was in the fighter community, I had some education.

I was always thinking about education. So I was a self-educator myself. So anyway, so I did that. And then in 2004, I sold all my interest in the university and all that type of stuff. It was a public company, a good success story. And then started this, but I've just got this thing that I see, I love to build learning architectures. You know, I like to solve problems. So that's what I do. And I apply this in the education world. So that's what I'm doing now. So I say I take my shape and relationship to the needs of the learner.

So whatever the learner needs, That's what I try to do is I try to just take my shape. The organization takes its shape around that. So it's different, and I have the ability to do what I want since I'm the owner. And if I can think of it, hell, I can do it. So I put that all through the staff in our community. And so, I'll just say, if we can make it work on a whiteboard, we got a chance and that's the whole key.

03:41 – Gresham Harkless

I absolutely love that. And there are so many kinds of valuable nuggets we can kind of take, you know, from, you know, what you just said. And I think so many times we can get lost in like the sauce, so to speak, and that realize that if you can write it on a whiteboard, then there's a way by which you can kind of go about, you know, and create that.

I think so many times being so focused on the people that we're serving, We can often get in and fall in love with our service, our product, and what it is that we're doing, but we forget that we're being a solution. And I love how you said that learning architecture because when we realize that this is the solution that we're providing for this problem, it helps us to be a lot more focused on like, how do we serve? How do we provide that impact? How do we build a better mousetrap? How do we create what's on the whiteboard and bring it to fruition? So I love that you have that as such sounds like a strong underpinning and everything that you do.

04:25 – Dr. Jim Etter

Yeah, I just'm a firm believer that you know, I got this expression. I don't I don't I don't bet the farm. I just bet the garden, you know, that type of thing. So I just try to find these little places that you can be successful in and just go ahead and push it out. Yeah, it may turn into a big farm and all that kind of stuff for the analogy, but the key is that, okay, figure out how to do the garden first and then, boop, and then you can push it out.

But you know, it's just tough. An entrepreneur in education is different. There are a lot of barriers, especially at the high school, and at the college level, but there are especially a lot of barriers because change is not the big thing in education. That's not, you know, we've had the same learning architecture for hundreds of years and the dynamics of the workplace and the learning place and life place is changing so much that you need to be the education system that you work with needs to be something different than I say.

I make an analogy about a big bucket of water. You know, whatever you stick into a bucket of water, whatever it takes, it knows how to take its wrap itself around you. That's what an education system needs to do. It has to have the ability, you know, every human in the United States, in the world has the same fingerprints, just the same. So they need the same, so they need individual learning architectures too.

So if you have a system that can't do that, there's got to be traditional stuff that you do and you have to operate in the box, but Oh my gosh, you have to be able to service your customer, whatever it is, not just education, but and so I get all excited about that. So I'm always trying to figure out what are the needs and a lot of times you just don't know, you gotta figure it out. And most of the time they can tell you, they don't tell you, but they don't know you're telling that they're telling you. So it's different.

06:04 – Gresham Harkless

Would you consider that to be what I like to call your secret sauce? It could be for you personally, or the business, or a combination of both. But isn't that ability to like we talked about the water meeting people where they are that that ability to adapt it according to somebody's circumstance, but also I think their interest in the things that they do best. Do you feel like that's actually a part?

06:20 – Dr. Jim Etter

Yeah, I guess the secret, so I just want to go that is it is just your ability to, for a business, for an entrepreneur, is your ability to take your shape, to change. You need to change to meet the needs. And so an example would be, you know, there's a huge challenge. So that's what I try to do I try to look at some of the large challenges like high school dropouts. Okay, how do you? So we have a program but it's not out yet but it's coming it's called rise out don't drop out, you know, that that type of thing.

So, how do you, you know, you have to figure out why are people dropping out? So if you want to give them the same thing that they're doing now, they don't like school anyway. It's not like they don't like learning. They just don't like going to school. That's different, totally different. So if you understand that concept, then you can create a learning architecture that fits those individuals who need that kind of a thing, and you put them in charge of their own learning if they desire. Now, if they don't have desire, yeah, they're not gonna get in charge.

So the mechanics of doing that, that's what we do is to try to understand it, to create drag and drop type stuff that you can do as a student and do it quickly. If you wanna do something on a weekend or you wanna do it in a group, you don't have to study by yourself. You can do lots of learning in groups and on social media, but you need to have a vehicle that captures that and makes it academically sound. You can't just give them stuff. You know, it's not basketball, you mean that kind of stuff, but it's different.

So like in high school, I don't mean to get too much, but what kind of math do you need? You know, what do you want to do after high school? Well, it should dictate what the hell your high school curriculum should look like. So if you need business math or computer math, or you need to give 3 years because you're going to go to North Carolina State or someplace like that, I don't, we just, you just tell us what you need. We plan that out and then You build your degree program that fits your needs.

So if you want to go to Harvard, you want to go to a career, you want to do that, that's what you do. And public schools try to do something like that, but they have a challenge. So we don't want to replace public schools. What I want to do is augment every student that wants to do whatever they want to do, and it works for them. So that's what I'm trying to build, is that type of learning architecture. And that's the secret sauce to that is, okay, if thinking was easy, a lot of people would do it, you know, and so you got to think, and you got to get it on the whiteboard, you got to look at it, you got to, and then you got to test it real quick.

And look at look at and then he didn't put it out there. The nice thing is you put it out there and somebody says, I don't like that. Okay, what don't you like? So you learn from what they tell you, they take exactly what they need. I want something that does XYZ. Okay, we can do that. Thank you. You know, thanks for the help. So that's how I think, live, drink, eat, all. That's what I think about. That's what gets me up in the day. That's my secret sauce is just thinking, you know, about how to solve the challenges of the learning architectures for other people and providing an environment for that.

09:02 – Gresham Harkless

I appreciate you sharing that. And so I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:14 – Dr. Jim Etter

Oh, I just like to think inquiry. His play, my thing is that I'm not afraid to inquire about anything. I go down a lot of rabbit holes, that kind of stuff. So for me, I mean, all the stuff I talk about the gardening, all that kind of stuff. But I guess that for me, that is that, you know, you're, whatever business you're in, somebody out there is trying to put you out of business. They are, and they're trying really hard. It may not be specific, but they're trying. But The person who should do that is you.

You should be trying to put yourself out of business. And when you do that, that's when you change. As soon as you find out how to put yourself out of business, change it because if you don't, you're gonna get out of business. You're gonna get strategically dislocated. That's what's gonna happen to you. So, and then you look at the history of all the big guys and that, you know, and IBM and all the stories like that. But it's really that I want to get into this, but I have this thing called an OODA loop I live by.

It's called an Observation Orientation Decision Action loop. And you make observations, you orientate to it, you make a decision and you act. And if your loop is this big, somebody else's is this big, they're gonna strategically dislocate you in business. They are or in anything. And so that's what happens is that they don't wanna change, but you need to be out there observing and orientation and making decisions and acting differently.

And you need to do it as quickly as possible if you're a business because everybody else is trying to do the same thing. They don't know what they're doing, but they're going to try to put you out of business. So that's how I think in terms of that. And I sort of rapidly do that until I talk fast sometimes but I also think fast, you know, I like it's like a pottery reel if you can think of it move your hands and change the shape just like that you should be able to change now to have a business to be able to react to the market that way that's exactly what you want to do you know whatever it is whether you're making pizzas or either don't make an interest to make it but you just sort of have to think like that.

11:05 – Gresham Harkless

I love that, that hat. And so I want to ask you now for what I call CEO nugget. So this could be more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:19 – Dr. Jim Etter

I go back to the couple of things I've said are inquiry and just being forward thinking. And don't be afraid of failure. I mean, when I say don't be afraid of failure, you don't have to fail a lot, but you always fail forward and all that kind of stuff. But the key is that don't take counsel of your own fears. Just get out there and do that. But, but watch what you're doing. You don't want to make a lot of mistakes that are going to drive you, drive you out of business. Don't be afraid to do something silly or to do something different. You know, that kind of stuff, you know, we were talking about, you talked about change earlier, you know, if you want things to stay the same, you better change.

11:51 – Gresham Harkless

I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Dr. Jim, what does being a CEO mean to you?

12:01 – Dr. Jim Etter

I want to say to me, it's besides the state of being in charge and all that kind of stuff, it's just freedom. I can go anywhere I want here. And then being the CEO of a company allows me to say, okay, that's sort of dangerous because I can do anything I want. And so if I end up doing the wrong thing, but so for me, the CEO has the power to do that. But also at the same time, you have to think through the kind of thing that you want to get done and project out, okay, what's the end product going to be?

And so that's what that whiteboard is all about. But that's what CEO means to me not that I can dictate stuff to everything else, but I can go anywhere I want. I can try anything I want to do. And that's if you can do that as a side business or in your business or any, that's the whole key. And if you don't do that, in some business you're lucky, you may be, it'll last for 100 years and you won't be 100 years old. But in other places, it needs to change. And being a CEO, you're in charge of that change.

12:55 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. Absolutely.

12:57 – Dr. Jim Etter

Yeah, you're in charge of making that change and then executing it.

13:01 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I absolutely love that because I think so many times we forget about that kind of like the impact we can make and I think we sometimes forget that the impact happens you know between our ears and the things that we're able to see manifests a lot of times comes from thinking and you know, Shays of thinking to Grow Rich was actually coming to me as well too, because once you start to think it, you start to see that you can achieve it.

And if you have an organization or a business or whatever it might be, you are able to kind of manifest those thoughts, those beliefs, that vision, a lot of times through that business in so many different ways. So Dr. Jim, truly appreciate that definition. And I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do was just pass you the mic so to speak just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you are working on.

13:45 – Dr. Jim Etter

Yeah for us just like Citizens High School you know it just put that citizenshighschool.com is where we have it but our website doesn't tell the story. Just to let you know, we are just bringing the school out. So there's a lot of things that I talked about here that are going to be outcoming attractions in the next 3 or 4 months. We have a lot of innovation and partnerships with some pretty large global organizations that have to do with different kinds of learning architecture.

I'll just close with this for me, if education or I just go high school, I'll call it education, education 1.0 is resident-based learning, and 2.0 is what we're doing now, distance learning and accommodation. What does 3.0 look like? That's where I'm going. That's where I'm trying to get at. So I'm focused on that. So take a look at us 6 months from now is where we will take a peek at it because that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get into the future somewhere that's different, you know, and then also that it works, you know, it's not just have something different. That's great. But I don't want to build an Edsel.

Remember that car I mean it was maybe a great car but I want something that works. So, it's just a lot, a lot to think. It's like going back in time with a laptop or what we have right now. Go back to the 1960s, and try to explain this. Okay, so if you think of something that's over the horizon and different, that's what you have to deal with. You have to deal with, how you get this to become part of the conversation. And it works for you. Otherwise, they're just gonna push away from it. You won't be able to deliver. I mean, you'll be able to execute. You'll be in the jungle somewhere and nobody's listening. So it's different.

15:25 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, we'll definitely have the links and information in the show notes. I appreciate everything that you're doing and you're building and reminding us of that innovation and how to showcase that innovation. We definitely don't wanna be presenting triangles to people who only know squares without being able to kind of communicate that as we kind of talked about earlier.

I think when you start to see and think about the innovations we are even using right here today to try to think about that, you know, years and years, you know, in the past, is something that we should be doing now. And that's how you truly innovate to see above that horizon, above that hill, above that mountain, and be able to take those tiny bets in order to get there. So I appreciate you of course, for doing that to remind us of how important that is, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:06 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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