A paradigm shift

Well, it’s been just about four years to the day since the whole world lost its dang mind. I remember it pretty vividly: my wife had a leadership event for her MLM in San Antonio, and after it was over, we decided to head down to Corpus Christi for a few days. It’s only about two hours from San Antonio, and the kids had never seen any ocean water before.

While we were eating the complimentary breakfasts and scoping out the chocolate chip cookies at the Hampton Inn in Portland (I highly recommend this place, btw; very clean, and the pool was nice 👌🏻), CNN was on, and they were talking about an outbreak. I wasn’t paying attention, but it was somewhere out on the periphery of my mind.

But a couple of weeks after we got back home, it was front and center on the world stage. Now, this email is not about the absurdity of the collective response to the ‘Vid.

Instead, let’s look at how the world changed. More importantly, it revealed a lot. A lot about the condition of the human mind and the human spirit. And it ain’t that great…unless you are an opportunist. Then I think it is FANTASTIC.

Remote work

The first thing that we all remember was the shift to remote work. Man, it was weird but it was also awesome. See, my job at the time was an in-person one. I was the manager of an airport for the U.S. Army.

But even with that job, we went to a split shift where only one person was in the office at a time. The others would sign in via Teams and do whatever it was we were supposed to do.

Now, I tried to leverage this time into it being a permanent thing. We had proven it could be done, but the old guys in charge wouldn’t bite off on it. If they had, I would probably still be there.

A lot of companies are trying to reign remote work back in, but that genie is out of the bottle now, so getting it back in will probably prove difficult. If you don’t see remote work for the obvious opportunity it is, there is probably no helping you.

And yes, some companies either want to shut it down or have shut it down, but there is still a ton of opportunity for remote work.

A quick cursory check on Indeed shows over 30k remote jobs listed. Will you be a fit for all of those? No. But you only need one.

So, you land one fully remote job, which will most certainly not require an actual 40+ hours of work per week, and then you build. Maybe you never leave the remote 9-5, and that is fine! Solopreneurship is not for everyone. Heck, a lot of days I still wonder if it is for me (it is; I’m unemployable at this point).

Build a strong foundation

I am not teaching my children how to do what I do. In fact, they really don’t like to be on screens much at all, so it’s not even a temptation.

What I am teaching them is how to maintain cars & houses, how to build structures (I’m learning as I go because I am not a carpenter), and how to raise and care for animals.

Since the State of Kansas pays for vocational training for high schoolers, I am going to probably make my sons pick a program at the local trade school. It will be something timeless like diesel repair, carpentry, electrician, or plumbing. One of my biggest regrets was not doing this program when I was in high school, and I have no idea why I didn’t.

We are entering an era where people are basically helpless. Drive around town before Christmas and look at all the signs for holiday light-hanging services. From my memory, those didn’t exist 15-20 years ago except for maybe the truly wealthy. But not for middle-class neighborhoods. The dads just went out and Clark Griswold’d it.

Why does all of this matter? This ⬇️

The bar is SO LOW. And it is going to get lower over the next decade or so. If you have a functioning brain and a winner’s attitude, the world is your oyster.

What does sending my kids to trade school have to do with this? Options. And to teach them to be self-sufficient. If you can professionally build a house or wire a house, that confidence lends itself to everything else in life. Plus, it can save you a ton of money, and then EARN you a ton as well. The sky is the limit when humanity is basically helpless.

Also, if you want to be a little less helpless, you need to work on additional streams of income. I’d start with Upwork, and I’d start that journey by reading my book on the matter.