Why Education is Freedom, According to Former Blockbuster CEO, Jim Keyes

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]We're the adults in the room. If we can't provide content that will be more stimulating for young people, shame on us. Technology, as scary as it is to some, has the opportunity to elevate human learning at rates we've never seen before. [music] Welcome to Two Cents, an opinion-driven podcast about work, money, and the messy reality of being an adult. I'm Hannah Williams. [music] >> And I'm James Daniels. On today's episode, we're going to be talking about the power of education. We have an excellent guest. I know a lot of our millennial listeners are going to freak at the fact that this man is the former CEO of one of our favorite brands.

[00:00:37]Today, we're talking to Jim Keyes. Jim is a business executive, entrepreneur, and author who's led not one, but two Fortune 500 companies. He served as CEO of 7-Eleven from 2000 to 2005, where he drove major global growth and innovation, and later CEO of Blockbuster. Woah, woah. During one of the biggest industry disruptions in history, the shift to digital streaming.

[00:01:01]Today, Jim is chairman of Key Development LLC and author of the book on this table, Education Is Freedom, where he argues that education, not just in school, but throughout your life, is the ultimate tool to opportunity, adaptability, and success. Jim, welcome to Two Cents.

[00:01:19]>> Thank you for inviting me. We love to play a game with our guests called Spare Change. Great. Clock set. Ready?

[00:01:25][snorts] Go. What was your dream job as a kid?

[00:01:28]Astronaut. Fill in the blank. I waste the most money on airplanes. How much do you make?

[00:01:35]Uh nothing. Remote work or in office? In office. What's the first thing you do or buy with a surprise $10,000?

[00:01:44]Ice cream.

[00:01:45]>> [laughter] >> Lots of it. What's your most memorable money fail?

[00:01:50]>> [sighs] >> Investing in Blockbuster. Ooh. Fill in the blank. Money can't buy happiness.

[00:01:56]What was your first paid job?

[00:01:58]McDonald's. If you went to college today, what would you study?

[00:02:01]Liberal arts. What's your worst money habit?

[00:02:05]Airplanes. I know the answer to this.

[00:02:07]Would [laughter] you rather have a first-class flight or a five-star hotel?

[00:02:10]I'd rather fly myself to a five-star hotel.

[00:02:13]>> Oh.

[00:02:14]What's your biggest money flex?

[00:02:16]Uh buying and selling companies.

[00:02:18]What's a money habit you swear by?

[00:02:22]Investing in yourself. Excellent. And that's learning 60 seconds.

[00:02:27]>> 60 seconds. There you go. I know it flies, doesn't it?

[00:02:30]>> Yeah. Can we do it [laughter] again?

[00:02:32]You've been coached. Aw man. All right.

[00:02:35]Well, thanks for playing spare change, but now we'd love to hear your two cents. What is your hot take? Ooh, the serious stuff.

[00:02:43]>> Mhm. My hot take. My hot take is, and I've been traveling all over the world, is that humanity [clears throat] is on the verge of world peace. Mhm. And here's why. We use such a small very small portion of our brain, and we're learning now with neuroscience how much more we can actually do and learn. Yeah. Technology, as scary as it is to some, has the opportunity to elevate human learning at rates we've never seen before. So, if you get to the root cause of all issues that humanity face faces, most of it is rooted in fear. Mhm.

[00:03:26]Correct. Somebody's going to steal from me, take something from me, take my country, conquer me, fire weapons at me, whatever.

[00:03:34]>> Take my job.

[00:03:35]>> Take my job, and all of that fear causes a very human, but very caveman-like reaction. It's the fight-or-flight thing that causes Yeah. fighting. It causes In fact, an ancient philosopher once said, "Ignorance leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. It's a very negative cycle for humanity. And we've seen it time and time again. For centuries.

[00:03:58]>> Mhm. For thousands and thousands of years we've been trapped in this repeat cycle.

[00:04:03]>> Pattern.

[00:04:04]>> Yeah, all rooted in fear. So, if we can truly harness the power of technology to individualize learning so that the machine can teach you >> Mhm. the way you're responding and learning fastest and accelerate that level of learning, imagine a world where we have truly 100% literacy across the globe. Wow. Possible. Yeah.

[00:04:29]United States today, 31%.

[00:04:32]>> Wow.

[00:04:32]>> Fourth graders reading at a fourth grade level. Wow.

[00:04:35]>> Imagine if we had 100%. Not just here in the United States, worldwide. Mhm. Could we get humans instead of responding Mhm.

[00:04:44]>> to each other with our caveman brains, Mhm. instead use what I call the aviator brain? Mhm.

[00:04:51]Use your critical thinking skills.

[00:04:53]>> Mhm. Use your knowledge to bypass that fight or flight thing.

[00:04:59]>> Mhm. And instead, understand where each other are coming from, eliminate fear, Yeah. and figure out that collectively we can all accomplish more. Wow. What kind of education do you mean? I I think we were talking a little bit about technology before our listeners, how would this apply to them? Are we limiting it to the GED? Are we looking at college skills based? Is there a limit?

[00:05:22]>> Yeah, step one, learn to learn. It doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter where.

[00:05:26]Be a sponge. Be curious and just learn to learn. There's nothing that can't be learned. Right now, these little crazy devices, Mhm. put into context, I grew up with a set of borrowed encyclopedias.

[00:05:40]>> Mhm. That was it. Yeah. Mhm. My mom brought them home from the grocery store free with a bag of groceries.

[00:05:46]>> Cool. And that's all I had. Now, compare that to the ability to at your in your hand >> Anything. have access to virtually unlimited learning, unlimited information. We could provide the best tools to every human being on the planet if we put our minds to it. So, I I just I just think that it's possible for us to to harness the power of technology in that way to overcome our fear and to elevate our our our learning. But, >> now here's the but, the big but. And and I don't mean to burst anybody's bubble, but here's the practical reality.

[00:06:26]We're thinking that this is true, and technically it's true. Mhm.

[00:06:30]But, as a guy who had as many as a million employees directly or indirectly reporting to me through the course of my career, how do you think we select those employees? Well, we have a big pool of resumes for any given job.

[00:06:44]>> And someone has to go through those resumes and weed them out.

[00:06:47]>> Mhm.

[00:06:47]Some go here, some go here.

[00:06:50]Well, in the future that's going to be done electronically.

[00:06:53]>> Yeah. AI? AI. They're just going to scan right through it.

[00:06:56]>> So, if you don't have a degree, now, you may be the smartest person in the world. You may be the best entrepreneur in the world. But, let's say you're an entrepreneur. You could say, "Well, I don't need that. I'm not going to go get a job anyway. I'm going to be an entrepreneur."

[00:07:08]>> Mhm. You're still going to need to raise money. Yeah. Mhm. Very first thing a banker is going to say when you go in to raise money is, "Where did you go to school?" Mhm. When a guy like Elon Musk says, "You don't need to go to college."

[00:07:19]Mhm.

[00:07:20]I I It was a waste of money.

[00:07:21]Or Peter Thiel says, you know, "Just go be a developer." People who have been wildly successful during a period of time when when technology was booming and they didn't arguably need a degree because everybody was succeeding in a different time against a very fierce competitive pool out there, you're going to need it.

[00:07:43]>> You're probably going to need it for practical purposes. Yeah. So, separate the Can you be learn everything you need to learn? Mhm. Can you get a job? Can you borrow $100 million for your startup company?

[00:07:56]Might be very helpful.

[00:07:58]>> Yeah. And one last thing, I think it's up to us. We're the adults in the room.

[00:08:02]Mhm.

[00:08:03]If we can't provide content that will be more stimulating for young people, shame on us.

[00:08:11]>> Yeah. If all they have is cat videos and we're not using those devices to reach them with educational content, >> Yeah, in between those cat videos, you get some informational educational things and we absorb it.

[00:08:23]>> Exactly. Exactly. I even learn from the cat videos. Absolutely. I do too.

[00:08:26][laughter] I love it. So, what is the return on investment you think for traditional college today and how is that changed?

[00:08:34]Yeah, I think traditional colleges I I've seen numbers that are between 15 and 18% return on investment. When we make an investment in a company, we run a discounted cash flow on the future earning stream from that company.

[00:08:48]So, if we do that with our education, we would say, "Okay, how much will I make with this degree versus without this degree?" And on average, it's a lifetime improvement of something between 1 and 2 million dollars for the average person.

[00:09:04]Wow.

[00:09:05]>> High school, college. Here's another scary number. Wow. 8 and 1/2 years life expectancy. Now, why is that?

[00:09:12]>> Yeah. Well, it's because lifestyle. When you're making $2 million a year more over the course of your life, you have better health care, better dietary habits, etc., etc. Your lifestyle is less stressful, etc. Wow. People don't take these things into consideration.

[00:09:27]So, it's an investment that pays dividends not just for 20 years, it's the rest of your life. I've stood in front of audiences of 1,000 people and said college is less expensive today than it was in 1980.

[00:09:37]>> Wow.

[00:09:38]>> go, "No, that's baloney." Yeah, yeah, simple. Three things. Number one, I sit on two college boards. We have something called a discount rate.

[00:09:47]>> Mhm. No one talks about the discount rate.

[00:09:49]>> Yeah, I was going to say something, never heard of it.

[00:09:51]>> No one No one's heard of that. Every college board member knows what a discount rate is.

[00:09:56]>> Wow. The average student doesn't pay $80,000 a year because they have a billion dollar endowment. And that billion dollar endowment goes toward giving scholarships to half of the the population that goes to that school.

[00:10:09]>> True. So, if you came over from China and you have a rich family cuz they're sending you to school in the United States, you're going to pay $80,000. But if you grew up a poor kid in Massachusetts and you apply to that school, you're going to pay maybe $20,000 cuz you're going to get subsidized.

[00:10:24]>> Yeah. So, the discount rate at most of these four year institutions is on average like 40 to 60%. Wow. And that's not counting, you know, external scholarships as well.

[00:10:37]>> Thank you. That's number two. Sorry.

[00:10:38]>> [laughter] >> No, that but that is That is. So, third, availability scholarships. There weren't billions and billions of dollars of scholarships available, to your point.

[00:10:47]Today, not only are you starting, let's say 50 versus 80 or 40 versus 50 versus So, you not only is it technically on a dollar per dollar basis cheaper between those first two things, but then the access to scholarships is huge.

[00:11:02]>> Yeah, it's going to take it further down.

[00:11:04]>> number four? Yeah. Okay. 35 cities in America have free college. Yeah.

[00:11:09]Community college.

[00:11:10]>> I went to community college. I'm a very proud community college graduate.

[00:11:13]>> It's a great start and and a lot of people start with two years, they get an associate's degree, and they transfer to a four year school where now all of a sudden they've cut their tuition cost in half. This is something that is not mainstream information. And if it was, far more students would be going to school. If we lose the intellectual horsepower Mhm. in the United States, We're going to be that's going to present a national security issue, a global competitiveness issue, Mhm.

[00:11:42]and the probably the most important issue, the basic take need to take care of our fellow humans and to set the example for the rest of the world. So, what do you say to the listeners that are dealing with, you know, debt, unemployment, or degrees that they're not using? Or someone who feels as though their education didn't set them for >> Yeah.

[00:12:02]>> Yeah, it happens. It happens out there. It's It's like anything else. Sometimes we make bad choices. And And it's I See, I don't think any degree is a bad degree, >> Mhm.

[00:12:15]but sometimes we don't use that degree to our full capabilities. Stuff happens. And And And let me give you an example. And I'm going to put this in company terms, not personal terms.

[00:12:29]But it's the same. We load up with debt sometimes, Mhm. company or a person.

[00:12:35]Mhm.

[00:12:35]And then happens. Mhm.

[00:12:38]I joined Blockbuster in 2007. Mhm. We had a billion dollars of debt. Mhm.

[00:12:43]I was making great progress in taking it to digital. Mhm. And then the whole world collapsed in 2008. Lehman Brothers fell.

[00:12:52]Yep. It's no different than somebody having a whole bunch of student loans and then you get fired from your job.

[00:12:57]>> Right. Whether it's personal or whether it's business, we have a choice. We can either be the victims, Mhm. say, "Woe is me. I took on too much debt. Now I'm screwed."

[00:13:09]>> Right. Or we can >> Exactly. Or we can say, "I can't help what the universe has dealt me, but I can control the way I react to it." Absolutely.

[00:13:21]>> And somewhere in this crisis that I'm facing Yeah. is a learning. And if I learn from this, on the other side I'm going to be better for it. I was going to say, my mindset years ago, you know, was that failure was the worst thing ever and yadda yadda and in hindsight now, a lot of my {quote} {unquote} failures at the time were the ultimate moments for me to make a pivot in my life and for [clears throat] the better. When I found out I was underpaid $25,000, I you know, I was in the gutter. I was going to I was going through my midlife crisis at the time.

[00:13:54]Midlife crisis, I felt like. But it inspired me to start our channel and that helped me quit my job and yadda yadda. So, yeah, anyone listening, do not see failures as a setback. It's just an opportunity to pivot.

[00:14:07]>> It's an opportunity to learn. An opportunity to learn. Nelson Mandela, Winnie was in prison, he assembled a group of fellow prisoners and they studied law. Wow. He came out of prison and became president of the country.

[00:14:20]Yeah.

[00:14:21]Right? And his quote that I love so much is, "I never lose. I win Yeah. or I learn." Okay, so then what's the modern-day Blockbuster mistake that you think people should avoid in their own careers?

[00:14:34]Debt. Debt.

[00:14:36]And and that comes back to that for each of us personally, there's going to be stuff that's out of our control. Yeah. Do we embrace the change or do we become the victim? Do you think that some business owners resist education and change because of pride and how do you think that they can overcome that? Yeah, I don't think it's pride. I think it's just that very human reaction. Mhm. That The man cave in them.

[00:15:02]>> Yeah, [laughter] it's the cave. It's that It's the man cave. What happens is, it you know, and any business goes through this. It's not just an entrepreneur, any business. You become successful and then you go, "Oh, jeez.

[00:15:15]Mhm. I I I kind of like this. Yeah. I don't want to screw it up." Yeah. Then you get complacent. that.

[00:15:20]>> $50 million company, but $50 million company and I built it from scratch.

[00:15:24]Well, you could be a billion-dollar company if you're able to keep up with change.

[00:15:29]If you could have a coffee with yourself on the first day you took the job as Blockbuster CEO, what would you say to that Jim?

[00:15:36]>> [laughter] >> Go home.

[00:15:41]Change your mind. It was hard.

[00:15:43]>> [laughter] >> It was a lot of heavy lifting and I >> sure. A lot of responsibility.

[00:15:46]>> of responsibility and I invested heavily because I believed so much in what we were doing.

[00:15:51]>> Yeah, yeah, and it makes sense. I think that's critical though because you have to have stake in the game [clears throat] to care.

[00:15:55]>> No, you do. No, I I I would have said, "Look, dude, this is going to be really hard. Prepare, but stay the course because you'll get through this.

[00:16:03]And don't forget it's not personal.

[00:16:07]Business is not personal and if you let it be personal, then you become the victim.

[00:16:13]You can't be the victim. You can't blame others. You've got to accept accountability, responsibility to truly lead.

[00:16:21]And sadly, a lot of people don't do that. Yeah. And it can work in the short term cuz you can generate a lot of fear. I think it can work in the short term cuz people will fall in line. Yeah, and they'll be vulnerable to fear. Misery loves company.

[00:16:36]>> Right, right. But if you allow that to happen, then you'll be on that short-term path. And remember the old game of king and king of the hill that we played as kids?

[00:16:48]Well, no one ever stays on top of the hill cuz everybody's out to get them.

[00:16:51]Exactly.

[00:16:52]>> If each of us takes responsibility for developing our own critical thinking skills and elevating our own level of intelligence as humans, then collectively we will be so much better off and collectively it is possible for humanity to rise above the levels we are now.

[00:17:10]Yeah, we have to work together. Did you see the Easter message from Artemis 2?

[00:17:16]When we're up here looking back at the planet Earth, it's the most beautiful thing we have ever seen.

[00:17:22]And we look down and we don't see wars and and nations and borders, we see this beautiful planet with humanity that are just like us. We're all in this together. We have some listener advice submissions from some of our audience members. I have a manager who has been pushing a direction on a creative project that I really disagree with.

[00:17:42]Should I push back and how so?

[00:17:45]Ah, good question. Here's the deal. At the end of the day, and I had this question come from a cadet at West Point.

[00:17:53]Yeah, it was I I had the privilege of speaking at West Point literally literally about 3 weeks ago.

[00:17:59]And a cadet raised the question. I was shocked to hear this. Okay. In a military environment.

[00:18:04]>> Yeah, definitely not from the military.

[00:18:05]>> I know. What do I do in a case where I've been given direction and it is against my values and my beliefs.

[00:18:16]That's so relevant right now.

[00:18:18]>> know. I know. Hard hard question to answer. And so I said, "Look, I'll give you an answer from a corporate perspective.

[00:18:24]>> Right. Not a military I'm not a military guy, so I can't. But it still does apply. We all have a responsibility if that direction is illegal, truly violates values of humanity, we have a responsibility to push back.

[00:18:42]But there's only so far you can push back against the boss. Right. At the end of the day, it might be his company or company.

[00:18:48]It might be that they are the boss and that you're the employee. What are you going to do?

[00:18:53]Then you have a choice.

[00:18:56]Do I go along with this or do I leave? As I've faced those in my career, and I have.

[00:19:04]I've made that choice that I'm either going to go against that direction >> Mhm. but tell them don't do the passive-aggressive thing. Right. I am going to go in a different direction and as CEO of the company that was a choice I could make versus a board member who was one member of the board. Or if it was something that truly was against the law, I also had the choice to leave. Now, here's the trap that we get into for that listener. If you need the job so much that you are willing to violate your own values, then your fear, your caveman brain is kicking in. Yes. Because if your values are that strong, then you have to have the confidence that you can succeed in another environment that will appreciate those values. Absolutely.

[00:20:00]Absolutely.

[00:20:01]>> Yeah. I just thought of something that might be helpful to anyone listening in terms of anxiety. The difference between fear and overwhelm. And that anxiety is really a fear-driven response. I've been asking myself recently when I feel like I get a little overwhelmed, I'm like, "Am I overwhelmed or is this fear?" And I think that is a very important thing to ask yourself when you might be in that position because it it can make a big difference to what direction you go.

[00:20:29]You know, I've been I've been studying neuroscience because basically it's a computer and it's got 86 billion neurons firing electric impulses just like a computer. And it fires off of patterns.

[00:20:38]Yes. So, it will return to the same patterns that you came out of the box with unless you reprogram it. Right. So, here's a way that your audience can reprogram anxiety or fear. Sit down, take a deep breath, write down five things that are bothering you. And then one by one by one figure out how to solve those. It's called meta cognition. Mhm. Meta cognition.

[00:21:02]>> Meta cognition is kind of a new thing that is you're hearing more and more about it. Basically, it's our ability to understand our own thoughts.

[00:21:11]And to talk to ourselves.

[00:21:13]>> Yeah. And be able to say, "Okay, before you freak out over this, what are you really worried about?"

[00:21:19]>> Yeah.

[00:21:21]Yeah, get into the root of it.

[00:21:22]>> Yeah. And And what they're saying, the scientists that are now studying metacognition are saying some of the most successful people in the world aren't necessarily the smartest people in the world. They're the people that are able to manage their own thoughts.

[00:21:33]Yeah. For the second listener advice we have, "We live in the city and my husband wants to move into a larger apartment. I don't think it makes much sense for us financially, but I do think we'd be happier in our marriage if we had more space. What's your advice?"

[00:21:50]>> [laughter] >> That's a tough one.

[00:21:53]Happy wife, happy life.

[00:21:54]>> Yeah. That's what I'd say.

[00:21:56]>> Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:21:59]Um That's a tough one. Um more space isn't always the answer any more than more money is. You know, I live in a big house now and uh and it was remodeled not long ago.

[00:22:10]And then I lived in a little condo, three-bedroom condo for about 6 months and I thought, "Why do I have all that room?"

[00:22:18]>> Right. But I'm back in the big house now. So, we've got a In fact, I'll give you one thing that you can share with your listener.

[00:22:24]Listen to George Carlin who has a great spot on stuff. The only reason we even have a house is cuz we collect stuff.

[00:22:33]>> Yeah, we collect stuff.

[00:22:34]>> Yeah. And then once you've got your house or your apartment, you get more stuff. And then pretty soon you you like need a new apartment for your stuff, not for you.

[00:22:44]Yeah. For more stuff. And then you go out and you rent a storage unit to store your stuff cuz you don't want to throw stuff away. Yes. And then you need a bigger house even for more stuff. And then at some point you die and then your kids don't want your stuff.

[00:22:57]>> [laughter] >> You've accumulated all this stuff through your entire life. So, I guess net net my answer is get rid of your stuff and stay in the small apartment.

[00:23:07]>> Yeah. I think that that's great advice.

[00:23:09]Yeah, great advice. Especially if you're not, you know, financially set up to get a bigger place. Yeah, yeah. Amazing.

[00:23:16]Well, thank you so much for joining us, Jim. Where can people find you? Where can they get your book? What's the name of it? Uh the name of the book is called Education is Freedom. I have a copy here.

[00:23:26]The future is in your hands. Yeah. On the cover is the difference between perspective, which is what the astronauts have >> Yes. versus perceptions, which are those things that derive our our fear and our reaction, right?

[00:23:42]>> explaining that.

[00:23:43]Yeah, and in here is a road map, I call it my road map the three C's, change, confidence, clarity.

[00:23:49]Uh it's the road map that I've used um to be able to free myself of insecurity, fear >> Wow.

[00:23:57]and accomplish virtually anything. A must-read. I definitely >> Uh available on Amazon. Uh you can also find it on my website at jameswkeys.com.

[00:24:06]Yeah. Um or if you want some fun you can check out my Instagram or TikTok sites at jkeys, k e y e s, at jkeysauthor.

[00:24:17]Yeah, you're dabbling with the content creation.

[00:24:19]>> I'm having fun. Well, thanks for joining us and having fun on our podcast with us. Yes, this is really refreshing. I definitely learned a lot. I definitely will be passing on the knowledge that I learned from you to other people. Yeah.

[00:24:31]Thank you.

[00:24:31]>> Thank you. That was amazing.

[00:24:33]>> Uh agreed. Honestly.

[00:24:35]>> I first of all need to devour this book pronto, stat, but also such an important conversation because I can't tell you how many comments I've read on our videos when people talk about their education and oh my gosh, they're in debt, they have so many student loans, education's not worth it. And then also a lot of pitting of trades against the four-year traditional degree.

[00:24:58]>> exactly what I was going to bring up. It feels as though we've created division amongst the working class, you know, it's whether you went to college or did you decide to do a trade?

[00:25:07]>> If we approach everything from the mentality of I'm learning and I'm trying to be a sponge, that is good. You're setting yourself up for success.

[00:25:14]>> Yeah, that's literally what I was going to say and I mean like in the fact that, you know, education is so important that so many people take that and go, "Well, only certain types of education or learning only certain types of ways."

[00:25:28]You know, he brought up the fact that you have a phone Mhm. that can teach you pretty much any and everything that you need to know.

[00:25:34]>> Yeah.

[00:25:34]>> So, why not use that to the best of our abilities to make sure that you are personally getting taught the way that works best for you? Yeah, and one thing honestly that did surprise me is I have not really heard anyone in his generation be pro-phone in the school.

[00:25:50]>> Very surprising.

[00:25:51]>> I that is that that really took me by surprise, but when he explained it, it's like Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:25:56]>> yeah. Why would we take that away from them? They're learning differently, but we'd love to hear from you. What are your two cents? Be sure to comment below if you're watching on YouTube or listening on Spotify or Apple Podcast, and let us know what were your takeaways. What do you agree with, disagree with, and what would you like to hear next?

[00:26:13]>> And make sure that you subscribe to Two Cents on all social channels if you haven't already.

[00:26:17]>> I'm Hannah Williams.

[00:26:18]>> And I'm James Daniels. This is the Two Cents [music] Podcast and we'll see you next time.