Completely forgetting about your credit card debt, or even your mortgage, for any extended period of time sounds like an amazingly stupid decision. Ignore compound interest at your own peril.
Agreed about the issue of compound interest, but everyone's case is different. I think that's all he's saying: "Take the time to be unemployed and figure out what you want to do. Three years of CI is less important than knowing what you want to spend your life making money at."
Now one might argue that this decision should be made prior to going to university in the first place...