Am I Overvaluing Myself—Or Being Overlooked?
Sitting With the Discomfort When You See Your Job Posted for More Than What You Make You’ve put in the work. You’ve built experience, taken…
Category: Employment Success
Ego, Energy, and Ears: Learning to Listen in a Loud Job
This career is loud. Sirens. Radios. Yelling over roaring engines. The constant beat of urgency. What’s the real noise? It’s the stuff in your own…
Will Your Bending Break Your Best People?
Every manager has them—the employees who always deliver, handle challenges without drama, and can be trusted with the “mission critical” tasks. It’s natural to want…
When Being the Goat Becomes a Lot
In every organization, there’s a quiet truth: the better you are at your job, the more people lean on you. You’re trusted. You’re capable. You…
Is It Time for Universities to Welcome the Trades?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the students who start college full of hope, only to leave before finishing. Maybe they discover the traditional…
Teaching Entrepreneurship in the Trades
Skilled hands can build just about anything—homes, machines, entire systems. But when it comes to building a business? That’s where many tradespeople hit a wall.…
Financial Literacy Is a Skill
When we talk about skills in the trades, we usually mean things you do with your hands: installing wiring, fixing HVAC systems, laying tile, tuning…
Welcome to “The House”
You survived the academy. You earned the badge. Now comes the real test: stepping into your new family. Every shift has its own rhythm. Its…
Why Do So Many Trades Businesses Fail?
They start with promise. A skilled plumber opens their own shop. An HVAC tech builds a client base. A contractor takes on bigger and bigger…
The Hidden Risk in the Trades: Why We Need Stable Skilled Trades Businesses
We often talk about the skilled labor shortage—but there’s a quieter, equally urgent issue hiding in plain sight: the instability of trades businesses themselves. Electricians,…