Everything Goes in Cycles, and the Blue-Collar Trades Are Back

I was a lousy student.

Barely graduated high school with a C-minus average.

Bottom of my graduating class.

My buddy sitting next to me at the ceremony opened his diploma holder and found nothing inside.

They let him walk but he had to go back and take a class he failed in summer school.

So I guess the company you keep and all that.

Based on the model for success in life, I was kind of screwed.

I was not college or university material based on my grades.

I was rejected from the US Navy and Air Force for asthma.

Which meant it would have been a joke to apply to the Army or Marines.

So I was a lost and confused kid playing dollar-dollar-five-nine at Puck’s Alley because I did not know what else to do with my life.

Then I made the smart decision to start over in Los Angeles.

Which, by chance, led to me getting a job as a fire alarm tech.

That made me aware of the inside wireman apprenticeship.​

I took the test. I passed the oral interview. I got in.

That gave me a career that I was sometimes embarrassed about.

Making more money than my college-educated classmates at hapkido.

Without the school debt looming over my head.

My apprenticeship was paid for via the dues we paid with every hour of work.

So I had a career that topped out when I retired at the age of fifty-six, almost five years ago now, with roughly a $175,000 annual income when I worked a full 2,000-hour work year.

A monthly pension.

An annuity account that I do not touch and keep letting grow.

Medical insurance.

And a happy quality of life.

Back in the day, blue-collar work was looked down upon.

I cannot tell you how many casual conversations I have had where at some point the look of surprise appears when they find out that I am only an electrician.

And the fact that our intelligent conversation, they could not imagine coming from a construction worker.

I learned to get over it.

And I learned how and when I do the same thing with other people.

We all have our ignorances and prejudices.

But now, there is a resurgence of need for qualified, skilled tradesmen.

And if you are struggling to figure out what to do with your life, that is a strong option.

The Cycle

Everything in life goes in cycles.

Generations ago, trade work was how most people made a living.

Then the cultural narrative shifted.

College became the path. White-collar work became the ideal.

Blue-collar work became what you did if you could not do anything else.

And for a while, the world needed more people with degrees and fewer people with wrenches.

The system worked. Until it did not.

Now we have a shortage. A massive shortage.

• ​Electricians​
• ​Plumbers​
• ​Welders​
• ​HVAC techs​
• ​Carpenters​
• ​Outside Linemen​

The people who keep buildings standing and power flowing and water running.

The infrastructure is aging.

The people who built it are retiring.

And there are not enough young people learning the trades to replace them.

That is where opportunity lives.

In the gap between what the market needs and what the market has.

​Mike Rowe has been shouting about this for years.

Through Dirty Jobs and the Mike Rowe Works Foundation, he has been trying to wake people up to the fact that there are millions of dollars in scholarships available for people willing to learn skilled trades.

And that the American Dream is alive and well in the jobs most people overlook.

He is right. I am living proof.

What I Earned

When I left construction in 2020, my total compensation was roughly $175,000 per year.

That included my paycheck.

But it also included insurance, pension contributions, annuity contributions, and other benefits that most people do not factor in when they look at their own income.

Union work paid me a great standard of living working only forty hours per week.

I often took weeks or months off at a time.

I do not think I ever worked a full 2,000-hour work year.

I kept my spending in check and lived a good life.

That allowed me to not only work but also to pursue the other things that are important to me.

Martial arts. My marriage. Travel. Reading. Building systems. Learning.

I was not grinding seventy-hour weeks to survive.

I was working forty hours and living well.

That is the pattern most people miss when they dismiss trade work.

They see hard work and they assume it means miserable work.

It does not.

The Prejudice

Back in the day, people looked down on blue-collar work. And some still do.

I have had countless conversations where someone finds out I was an electrician and the look of surprise crosses their face.

They thought I was something else. A business owner. A consultant. Maybe even a professor.

Anything but a guy who ran conduit and pulled wire for thirty-five years.

And then they realize we have been having an intelligent conversation about philosophy or business or martial arts and they cannot square that with their mental image of a construction worker.

That prejudice goes both ways.

I have caught myself making the same assumptions about other people.

The guy with the degree must be smart.

The guy without one must not be.

The guy in the suit must be successful.

The guy in Carhartts must not be.

None of it is true.

But we all carry those biases until we test them and find out they are wrong.

Mike Rowe talks about this.

The idea that we have pushed an entire generation toward college and away from the trades based on a narrative that says one path is better than the other.

When the reality is that the path depends on the person.

And that a skilled tradesman can make as much or more than most college graduates without the debt and with better job security.

I lived that.

I watched my classmates at hapkido graduate from college and take jobs making $40,000 or $50,000 per year while carrying $60,000 or $80,000 in student loans.

Meanwhile I was making $60,000 as a third-year apprentice with zero debt.

By the time I was a journeyman, I was clearing six figures.

And I never stopped learning.

I just learned on the job instead of in a classroom.

The Opportunity Now

The cycle has turned.

There is a massive shortage of qualified tradespeople.

Electricians, plumbers, welders, HVAC techs, linemen.

The people who keep the world running.

And the shortage is only going to get worse as the current generation retires.

That means if you are a young person trying to figure out what to do with your life, the trades are one of the best bets you can make right now.

High demand. Good pay. Job security.

And in many cases, paid apprenticeships instead of student debt.

I am not saying it is easy.

Trade work is hard.

You work with your hands. You work in heat and cold and rain.

You get dirty. You get tired. You solve problems in real time with real consequences.

But it is also deeply satisfying.

You build things that last. You fix things that matter. You see the result of your work at the end of every day.

And you earn a living that lets you live well without sacrificing your entire life to the job.

What It Takes

If you are considering the trades, here is what you need to know.

• You do not need to be the smartest person in the room.
• You need to be willing to learn.
• You need to show up on time.
• You need to work hard.
• You need to take direction.
• You need to be humble enough to admit when you do not know something and ask for help.

That is it.

That is the bar.

And if you can clear that bar and stick with it, you will have a career that pays well and gives you options most people do not have.

I worked forty-hour weeks.

I took time off when I wanted to.

I had medical insurance and a pension and an annuity.

I retired at fifty-six with enough saved that I do not have to worry about money.

And I did all of that as a guy who barely graduated high school with a C-minus average.

The trades gave me that.

Not because I was special.

Because I showed up and did the work and kept showing up for thirty-five years.

The Union Advantage

I was a union electrician. That matters.

Union work comes with protections and benefits that non-union work does not always have.

Apprenticeships that are paid for through union dues instead of out of your pocket. Health insurance. Pension. Annuity.

A contract that sets your wages and working conditions so you are not at the mercy of whoever hired you.

Not every trade is unionized. And not every union is the same.

But if you have the option to join a union apprenticeship program, take it. The training is better. The pay is better. The benefits are better. And the job security is better.

You can find a list of labor unions in the United States on Wikipedia.​

Look at the trades.

Electricians. Plumbers. Pipefitters. Ironworkers. Carpenters. HVAC.

Find one that interests you.

Apply for the apprenticeship.

Take the test.

Show up for the interview.

Do the work.

That is the path. It worked for me. It can work for you.

Why I Am Sharing This

I am not sharing this to brag.

I am sharing this to give you an option you might not have considered.

If you are a young man trying to figure out what to do with your life and the college path does not feel right, the trades are a real option.

A good option.

Maybe the best option depending on who you are and what you want.

Even if you're not a young man, when I was a 22 years old 1st-year apprentice there were a couple of guys in our class that were in their 40s.

We used to give them shit all the time, all they said as the mature adults they were, they were going to be making more money when the 4 years were up (we were the last of the 4 year apprenticeship, it's now 5 years.) and in 20 years, they were going to have a pension and annuity that they didn't have before.

If you are stuck in a job you hate and you are looking for a way out, the trades are hiring.

The shortage is real.

The opportunities are real.

The pay is real.

If you are tired of being told that the only path to success is a degree and a white-collar job, the trades prove that narrative wrong.

Every single day.

I built a good life as an electrician.

I made good money. I had good benefits. I had time for my family and my training and my hobbies.

I retired early. And I did it all as a guy who was supposed to be screwed because I could not hack it in school.

The trades gave me that.

And they can give you that too.

If you are willing to show up and do the work.

The cycle has turned.

The blue-collar trades are back.

The question is whether you are willing to take advantage of it.

⚔ The Dojo Drill

Today’s training:

The Elimination Drill

What one habit is quietly sabotaging your life?

Remove it this week.

📚 Leader’s Library

Book I recommend this week:

​​​Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink​

Why?

Because if you don't take ownership for your life, you are giving your power away, making you weaker, more stupid and less successful.

P.S. Know a martial arts gym owner who’s stressed about money or student numbers?

Do them a favor: send them to The Leader's Dōjō, my website where I help owners get more students and keep them longer with simple systems.

One forward from you could change their gym: The Leader's Dōjō​

Chuck