THE Cambridge Connection - Episode 34

I’ve got plenty of videos for you. Perfect. Can’t wait. All right. So, this show obviously is about prosperity, and I pulled up an infographic because we’re going to have a guest on today that’s talking again about our youth.

So I pulled up infographic, and basically the headline was, you can understand why poor people stay poor and the rich get richer, and I’m going to read each one to you and get your thoughts, because you counsel people all the time, and this is about empowerment. So let’s talk about these bullet points and see what you think. Okay. All right. Number one, blame other people for their lack of money.

Blame other people for their lack of money? Correct. This is why the poor get poor, stay poor, and the rich get rich. I’m not sure I’m going to completely agree with that one. Okay.

I mean, there’s opportunities for everyone, but some people might get better opportunities than others, so I’m not so ... I wouldn’t blame anyone else. Perfect. And again, you’re going to have varying opinions on this, which is why I’m bringing it up. They believe money is for greedy and selfish.

Nope. I don’t believe that either. Okay. They exchange their time for money. Yes.

They are consumers, not savers slash investors. No. No. This is where I think we can kind of ... This is budget, right?

Yes. This is about budgeting. Yes. If you’re going to be a saver and not a spender, you have to budget. Correct.

You have to journalize your spending each week, each month, to know where the money’s going so that you can take a hard look at it and see if you’re having trouble investing in 401k, investing in investments, saving money for a rainy day, six months of all your bills and savings. Which is very difficult, but again, as you mentioned just previously, it’s all about budgeting, journalizing and tracking, and finding areas you can cut back on. This is where convenience, right? Carpooling. This comes up again and again when gas goes up, is carpooling an option?

Most people typically don’t want to do it because they’ve gotten used to being in their car, taking their own trips, doing their own thing, getting to work, having their coffee in the morning. Right. Stopping at- There are places to cut. You have to just say, are we going to keep going down this road where expenses are going up? If so, time to tighten the belt, time to look at the budget, time to look at spending and see where we can cut.

Agreed. All right. Last two. They don’t get financial education. I agree with that.

Not everybody has financial education. Absolutely. That’s why this show is about that, and again, another great topic today, talking about our youth and why it’s important. Lastly, they max out their credit cards. I see that daily.

Some of the consumers I speak to have legitimate reasons, whether it be medical, home repairs, car repairs. Then there are those with the store cards, with the Victoria’s Secret, Forever 21. Buy now, pay later. Let’s not talk about that. But yeah, that’s something that you have to look at what you owe, who you owe, and why you owe, and ask yourself.

The buy now, pay later, Justin Bieber tickets, you can get on a firm through Ticketmaster for $500, $600 a ticket at the casino. Is it a necessity? Yeah, and there are savings platforms out there where they don’t charge fees. Exactly. So you’ve got to shop around a little bit if you’re going to make a plan, which I know you did.

Introducing todays guest topic

Yes, I did. You’ve got to make a plan. Of course. So we’re going to take a quick break, but before we do, special guest Jeffrey Glaze, which is the council president for the Boy Scouts of America. Again, a lot of these topics, if you ask me, if we can teach our youth how to handle this before they get into real life, a lot of these things that you could question come from you’re an adult now, things happen, maybe it’s a health problem, maybe it’s a job loss, maybe it’s a car transmission that crashes.

Something out of your control. Correct. Right. So our youth, how do we get them when it’s not tangible yet, when they’re not working for the money, when they’re not having to pay rent? How do we do it in our youth?

We’re going to get into that a little bit with Jeffrey Glaze. We’re going to take a quick break. This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back. Spring is here, and it’s a great time to clean up your debts with a debt management plan from Cambridge Credit Counseling.

Ad break and guest introduction

Reduce your credit card interest rates and lower your monthly payments. Call Cambridge Credit Counseling today. 1-800-CAMBRIDGE. Baby, baby, baby, all right. We’re back with The Cambridge Connection here with my Justin Bieber co-pilot fan, Tina Marie, who’s happy to introduce our special guest, Jeffrey.

I’m sorry, do you want Jeffrey or Jeff Glaze? If you’re mad at me, it’s Jeffrey, but normally it’s Jeff Glaze. Okay. Kind of like mom when she uses the middle name too. Right.

All right. Special guest, Jeff Glaze, the council president from the Boy Scouts of America. Jeff, welcome to The Cambridge Connection. Great. Thank you.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a singing introduction. That was cool. Yeah. Kind of impromptu all the time. Right, Tina Marie?

That’s how we are here. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining the show because the way the world is right now, there’s nothing more important right now than paying attention to our youth and investing in our youth. Before we get into your current role and the Boy Scouts of America, can you tell our listeners about your career and what got you to where you are? Sure.

Jeffs scouting background story

Well, I grew up in Westfield and Boy Scouts actually, I think maybe it’d be a little bit too traumatic to say it saved my life, but it certainly had a huge impact. My mother was an alcoholic. My father was a workaholic. Growing up, a friend of mine showed up one day in a Boy Scout uniform and I asked him what that was and he said, come on down to a meeting. I found a group of people that welcomed me in, that were very positive.

I had a great scout master, which is the adult leader that led our group and that really inspired me to set goals and to become the person I am today. I was very fortunate. I was fortunate to be able to go to college and I did go into my father’s business here in Westfield and took that over about 30 years ago and now I’ve actually sold that company and gone on to another one. So I’ve been fortunate to have a successful business career, but I have to attribute lots of that success to what I learned in the Boy Scouts. So I’ve been a volunteer with the Boy Scouts right along during all of that time and I’ve probably served in every position that you can.

In our consul, a consul is the area that we serve, which is basically area code 413 in Massachusetts, the four western counties. And so we are here to help today’s youth. That’s incredible. And again, special hat off to you for investing all your time. And again, we’re going to talk about leadership a little bit here, but you had that opportunity by learning through others leading you to get to the point that where you were.

And that’s why organizations like this are so important to help cultivate our youth taking these leadership roles and helping to be able to foster other kids and other people that they hang around with to follow those same principles. Sure, absolutely. And I think that the concept of taking personal responsibility for your life, for setting goals, for living by the Scout Oath and the Scout Law and applying those every day is really, really important. And it has a big financial implication. So people who understand how to manage their money, I mean, we have a personal management merit badge where a Scout learns to keep the budget for their household for three months.

History and structure of Scouts BSA

It really exposes people to proper management of their money and proper goal setting and doing the right thing and being responsible for themselves. And if everybody was like that, we’d be much better off in our society, as you guys well know. Hey, Jeff, could you give us a brief history of Scouts BSA, the target market and our footprint in Western Mass? Boy Scouts of America started in 1910. It came from England where it was started in 1907.

And today we serve in Western Mass, the four counties in Western Mass, and we serve children from kindergarten through age 21. It’s all co-ed. So we have boys and girls throughout. And these are, each program is age appropriate. So for instance, Cub Scouting is our program, which is K through 5th grade, and it is largely an after school program where they have activities.

They go on little field trips. They explore things. A lot of it is very STEM related. And in Cubbing, there is not so much on personal finance as there is in Scouts BSA. Scouts BSA is for age 11 through 18, and that is for boys and girls who are, you know, as they grow up and appropriately, we give them more opportunity to lead their units and we train them in leadership and how to set the goals for the unit and what they’re going to be doing.

And even as a 11, 12, 13-year-old, they’re having real life leadership experiences. As you know, we do camp and we hike and we do all kinds of different things. We train kids in first aid. We train kids in many different aspects of communications, setting the example, how to lead in a difficult situation, how to assert yourself. Sometimes people are shy and they need to have some help with getting out in front of it.

So we teach all of those things over a period of years. And as we do that, those experiences compound on each other. So when you end up with a 14, 15, 16-year-old and hopefully they make it to Eagle Scout, which is our highest rank, it’s really setting them up for the future, for being successful in their lives, both fiscally as well as emotionally and with goal setting and starting off in careers. So a lot of our work is, for instance, the merit badges that they earn. There’s over 160 of them.

There’s entrepreneurship. There’s personal finance, as I mentioned. There’s citizenship in the community, citizenship in the nation, all kinds of great experiences for them to learn a little bit about stuff that they might end up becoming in their career. So we have a law merit badge. We have merit badges for chemical engineering and all kinds of different topics.

So that’s what Scouting is about today. And I think Scouting is more relevant and more needed in our society today, really, than at any other time, because there’s so much out there. There’s 150 channels on television. There’s the internet. There’s gangs.

Electronics and scouting recruitment challenges

There’s all kinds of terrible things happening where kids have to make decisions at an earlier and earlier age. And the mission of Scouts BSA is to help young people make ethical choices in their lives. With all of that said, before the pandemic, youth participation in many things has declined. And again, statistically, my feel is that the electronics age has really become responsible, where you have kids getting iPhones or Androids when they’re eight, nine, ten, or an iPad to just sit there and play games all day. So can you speak to that a little bit about what the challenges are for recruiting Scouts?

And even if there was any impact during the pandemic? Sure. Well, let’s go back about 10 years. I would have to say about 10 years ago is when we started to see the electronics really coming on and, you know, kids sitting on couches operating with their thumbs. And that certainly is, you know, something that we have to battle against.

But four or five years ago, we decided if you can’t beat them, join them. So we actually use electronic devices in everything from orienteering, you know, GPSs to video games. We have a video game development merit badge. We have other merit badges that are technically, you know, related. But Scouts today don’t actually do much paperwork.

It’s all on their device. So they file for all of their advancement, keep all of their records, you know, in the cloud, accessed through their digital devices. So they’re learning the appropriate ways to use a digital device and how you can professionally use that, you know, both in your Scouting career, but then eventually, you know, in their work career. We’ve really tried to adopt the digital world. Well, that is the way of the world now.

So I think that’s amazing. And I think that’s very important. There are pros and cons to it, right? There are pros and cons. And obviously the cons of it are kids not doing these activities, learning to be leaders, exercising, etc.

Fresh air. So we’re going to take a quick break. And then if you could stay with us, we’ll kind of get into a little bit more of the challenges and the great benefits of this. And then, of course, we’d love our listeners to know how they can get in touch with you or how they can be involved with the Boy Scouts of America. So we’re going to take a quick break.

Tina Maries co-pilot introduction segment

This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back. Hey, y’all. It’s Tina Marie. And you might know me as Gordon Oliver’s co-pilot for The Cambridge Connection every Saturday morning.

What you might not know is that I’ve known Gordie for a really long time. And as a certified credit counselor at Cambridge Credit Counseling for over 20 years, I am thrilled to join Gordie every week to share and chat about real people with real financial problems along with many success stories both myself and all of the counselors at Cambridge Credit have been a part of. We know it takes a village of support and inspiration if someone is struggling financially. So it’s nice to know if that person is you, that you’re not alone out there. m.

right here on WHMP for The Cambridge Connection. Because Gordy and I, we are here to help you have a better relationship with your money and hopefully make you smile. Right, Gordy? Couldn’t have said it better myself, Tina Marie. Welcome back, everyone.

Helicopter parents and personal responsibility

This is The Cambridge Connection. I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with my co-pilot, Justin Bieber lover, Tina Marie, and our special guest, Jeff Glaze, the Council President for the Boy Scouts of America. Jeff, again, thank you so much for joining us. Your work is so important and what the Boy Scouts do to help create leaders from our youth. Just nothing really more important, especially in a world that’s kind of going sideways right now.

Absolutely. Well, listen, thank you for having me on. And, you know, we were just talking a little bit about the impact of electronics and how kids have to face that as another complexity in their lives. But I’m going to add one on top of that. Cell phones and digital devices allow parents to communicate with their kids much, much more than before.

And I have to tell you, one of the things we have to battle is helicopter parents. Kids will go to summer camp and you’ll see them walking around and they’re talking to their mother or their father continually and they don’t have the chance to go to summer camp and completely unhook, disconnect from their lives and just be kids and take in the experience. So, if anything, I think the digital devices have increased the control of digital parents and helicopter parents in terms of, you know, kind of another challenge that kids have. There’s a fine balance there, too, because even in just dealing with going through elementary school, middle school, junior high school, you don’t want parents not to be involved, right? But you don’t want them to be overly involved either.

And I would imagine in the scouting upbringing, a lot of the teachings are skills that the kids need to be engaged in and focused in if they’re constantly distracted by texting. Yeah, it must make it pretty difficult. Yeah, that could cause a less effective result. Sure. And they’re not learning how to manage themselves.

Their parent is calling them up every 10 minutes. Did you do this? Did you do that? A few years ago, my daughter went to college and she had a boyfriend and I visited her on campus and her phone goes off and it’s the boyfriend’s mother asking if Jimmy had done his homework and he had not sent it to his mother. I take it Jimmy wasn’t responding, huh?

Exactly. So she’s going through the girlfriend, who is my daughter. And I was astounded. I mean, I wouldn’t check my kid’s homework. I mean, that’s the whole idea of homework is so the teacher finds out whether the kid knows how to do it.

So if parents are doing the homework and controlling the children, no wonder they get to their early 20s and they don’t know how to take responsibility for themselves. It’s a completely uncharted territory for them at that point, where we in Scouting want them to set their own goals, want them to become independent, and want them to be able to be successful on their own in their lives without depending on parents. You know, Jeff, you bring up a good point. I have a 29-year-old daughter, and maybe I’m a little bit guilty of what you’re talking about because I swear she just learned how to make her own doctor’s appointment. Exactly.

Yes, you are guilty. Guilty as charged. I am guilty. She actually said, I have to call and make an appointment. Can’t I just go online and book the appointment?

I said, I don’t think so. Right. And I think that’s another theme that in our society is a challenge to people taking personal responsibility for the fact that parents are so controlling and they think that they’re doing a good thing. You know, you have people, they’ll say, well, my kid is in sports, and we’re going to drive him to the sporting event and he’s doing his homework or she’s doing her homework in the car on the way, and then we’re going to drive to the next one and they’re going to change their uniform in the car, and then they’re going to go to, you know, McDonald’s or a fast food place on the way. And then you turn around and you say, well, are you doing a good job for your kid, really?

And is your kid going to become a professional athlete? I mean, what level is your kid at? But people think if they keep their kids busy, then they are successful as parents. So the content of what they’re doing is absolutely worthless to the kid. The kid is learning how to ride in the back of a car and change uniforms and rush around and just listen to people yelling at him all day.

And that is not teaching personal responsibility and, you know, being able to grow on their own. I officiate lacrosse junior and high school level. And you just know by the stigma of officials, the things that they observe, you can always know that there’s going to be two or three parents that are just living vicariously through their kid. And, you know, their opinion, you could tell it is very aggressive because they have intentions of them being a professional athlete in their own mind, you know. And I think you’re setting an expectation with the child and the parents that if I do more of this, you know, my child is going to become a professional athlete.

And the percentage of people that actually make it is so small. And then look at all these people, like former football players, you hear stories about these NFL guys, five years after being out of the NFL, they’re penniless because they didn’t learn anything along the lines of personal management and how to save money and how to plan for the future. They just know how to, you know, carry a football. And that’s just another case in point. And I would say, you know, anxiety and depression are huge problems.

We’re talking about mental health issues, but between the devices and all the information that’s going through kids’ minds, you know, being out in nature and learning skills, I mean, the confidence that that brings, I would have to believe could quell some of that anxiety because the world’s kind of a crazy place, especially right now. And you know, having these skills that the Boy Scouts teach help with confidence, help with leadership, help with just a totally different approach. Five or six years ago, I was with my wife. We were at the movies and I got a phone call, and it was from one of our Scout professionals. It was nine o’clock on a Saturday night, and big emergency.

And so I stepped out of the theater, and there were two kids who were part of a Boy Scout group, and they had gotten lost, and the Boy Scout leader couldn’t find them and had reported them missing to the state police. So this was up in North Adams, and we have local people on the ground. We called our local people to help with the search. 30, they found the kids. Well, yeah, the kids had gotten lost.

That’s true. They had gotten separated from their units somehow, which they shouldn’t have. But they had pitch camp. They had a campfire. That’s how the helicopter found them, because of the heat signature.

And they were cooking their dinner and getting ready to bunk down for the night because that’s what Boy Scouts do. , etc. And to them, it was like, hey, it’s just another day camping. Important survival skills for sure. So Jeff, if parents or grandparents are listening, and they have children between the ages of six, say, through 21, what do you propose they should know?

How to get involved with scouting

Well, it’s really pretty easy. org. If they go to that website, it’s very easy. It will ask them what age group they’re looking at, and they put in their zip code, and it will tell them about the scout units that are in their area. And I always suggest to go and visit, you know, visit two or three of them and, you know, get to know them.

A lot of times kids will see their friends there. They’ll recognize kids from school. But also you get a sense for the style of the leaders and what they do. I mean, we all follow the same program, but certainly the different leaders have different styles, and there might be one that you like better, you know, better than another. So that’s the easiest way to do it.

There’s also a phone number, 413-594-9196. That is our office for the Western Mass Council. And if they just give us a call and tell us what they’re looking for, we can point them in the right direction. I think that in making choices for your son or daughter, it’s just important to understand what the expectation can be, the result of what would happen. And the result in scouting is a person who is self-reliant, who can set goals for themselves.

They will be able to build a successful life for themselves in whatever way they do. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. We have to develop our next group of leaders, and obviously this program is phenomenal. Thank you so much for joining us.

We’re going to take a quick break. This is Gordon Oliver with The Cambridge Connection. We’ll be right back. Scouts BSA is a coeducational leadership development program for boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 21. Scouts BSA has various programs, such as Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, and Career Exploring, which provide programs in an age-appropriate way to develop young people’s self-reliance, understanding of themselves, those around them, and develop their leadership skills.

Closing thoughts and sign off

Scouts BSA serves over 2,000 youth in Western Massachusetts and over 2 million youth across the United States. If you have young people in your life who could benefit from increasing their self-confidence, goal-setting, developing leadership skills, and enjoy having fun outdoors, then scouting might be for them. org. Welcome back, everyone. This is The Cambridge Connection.

I’m your host, Gordon Oliver, here with, once again, Justin Bieber-lover, Tina Marie, my co-pilot. Okay, Gordon, you are absolutely correct. I am a Belieber, but let’s just set the record straight. I was in Minneapolis, actually, to visit Paisley Park. I am an all-time Prince fan.

I’ve seen Prince in concert, and I’ve always loved Prince growing up. I’ve always loved Prince. And speaking of that, with our youth, they’re going to have things that they are getting involved in and learning to love, like music, outdoors, sports, et cetera. Junior Achievement, the Boys and Girls Club, the Boy Scouts. We’re going to look for a Girl Scouts representative as well to come on and talk about that program.

So in order to have financial wellness and wisdom and stability, you’ve got to live a little bit, and you’ve got to manage money and deal with it. And the best that we can do to promote programs that teach people self-responsibility, leadership, financial awareness, financial literacy, I mean, these are important topics, and we’re going to have more and more segments and conversations around investing in youth on this. And our guests, they come from all different organizations, and it’s very interesting listening to each one’s perspective. And interestingly enough, if this is about unity, right, if we could collaborate with all of these organizations and try to come up with an ironclad way, indoctrination is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but we’re all indoctrinated anyway. We’re indoctrinated from our parents.

We’re indoctrinated from school. We’re indoctrinated from lessons we learn, content, material. So the good news is that there’s many organizations dedicated to it, and it will continuously improve. That’s why pros and cons of the electronic age. It helps in many areas, and then, of course, there’s some dark sides of it that have to be dealt with over time.

So these organizations that invest their time, just an incredible investment in our kids. Yes, and it takes a village. It takes a village. That said, my quote of the week, college graduates spend 16 years gaining skills that will help them command a higher salary, yet little or no time is spent helping them save, invest, and grow their money. Vince Schorb.

A special thanks to Jeff Glaze, the council president from the Boy Scouts of America, for joining the conversation. I want to give a huge thank you to Leah and Lisa, our producers. As you see, we have great experts on this show and on the horizon as well. com, click on podcasts, or you can find us wherever you listen to your favorite podcast shows. org, and if you need help with your unsecured debt, feel free to call 1-800-CAMBRIDGE.