Maybe you’ve worked hard, or followed the “right” path, and yet you still feel restless or stuck.
Sometimes it takes a layoff, a setback, or a voice inside to make you question whether you’ve really “made something” of your life. If you’ve ever wrestled with that tension, I understand.
I know what it’s like to feel unsure of the next step, because I’ve lived it. But I also know there’s a way forward. Over the years, I’ve learned how to take setbacks, uncertainty, and even failure and turn them into growth. My path hasn’t been straight, but that’s exactly what’s given me the perspective and tools to help others who feel caught in that same tension.
My Story
I was a kid who grew up in an atmosphere of anger. I didn’t like being home. My dad always seemed to be angry about something, and he directed this anger toward my mom, my sister, and at me. So I figured out how to escape.
One means of escape was to spend time, lots of time, at my friends’ homes. One of my friend’s parents even started to refer to me as their adopted son. I was very grateful for these safe havens.
Another means of escape was to get on the road and just drive.
I got my learners permit when I was 15 and my license the day after I turned 16. After that, I drove to get away. The destination didn’t really matter. I just wanted to be somewhere other than where I was, so I drove.
Like the night I drove three hours to get a Round Table pizza. There was a location just 7 minutes from my house, but that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t craving Round Table. I was craving escape.
That’s how I learned to live life. One drive, one job at a time.
Once I was able to drive, I also found that work was a way to escape. At first, it was just manual labor and provided me with enough money for gas and pizza. But that was ok by me. It kept me out of the house.
I got my start with a local contractor who did high-end kitchen and bathroom remodels. There was always a fair amount of demo work: pulling toilets, breaking out tile, carrying old cast-iron tubs down narrow flights of stairs. It was hard work, but it was worth it.
When I was young, it didn’t really matter.
Until I graduated high school.
Once that happens, people start expecting you to have a plan. Basically, how are you going to “make something of your life?”
The obvious answer was college, but neither myself nor my family had the money to put me in a four-year school. College was not something our families had ever experienced. None of my grandparents or either of my parents had gone to college. My dad barely graduated from high school. Education was just not something my family valued.
But the broader culture at the time did seem to value higher education. A college degree was a basic requirement for success. And to be a first generation college graduate was a noble pursuit. Anything less was a mistake that was sure to lead to failure and disappointment.
So, I enrolled in the Fall of 2003, taking classes a few days a week. I lasted three months.
My friend’s mom, the one that called me her adopted son, told me the electrical contractor she worked for was hiring a shop clerk. It was an entry level job, but it could lead to an electrical apprenticeship. The only other detail she told me was that the job would involve driving.
“I’m OK with driving,” I responded with a big grin.
It only took a few months for my boss to see my potential as more than a shop clerk, and he suggested that I enroll in the apprenticeship.
I spent the next few years learning the electrical trade doing mostly new construction work. I built homes, schools, libraries, water treatment plants, and bridges. It was hard work, but it was rewarding. I was learning, and earning, constantly.
Every so often someone would question me about choosing to work in the trades and would say, “You oughta go back to school.” So, shortly after I finished my apprenticeship, I decided to quit my job and go back to college.
Once again, I lasted three months. And once again, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. This time though, I had a net worth of roughly $12,000 – all due to my prior employment.
The money went as fast as it came. By the end of nine months I had blown through every bit of my savings and accumulated a fair amount of credit card debt.
I panicked. I stopped opening the bills that came and just stuck them in a drawer.
Finally, I was approached by a man at the church I attended. He had an electrical business and offered me a job – which I took immediately.
But there was also growing discontent.
For the next four years, I worked as an electrical technician covering an area of roughly 2,000 square miles.
Some of the jobs took three hours, some took three days, but relative to the multi-year, multi-million dollar investments I’d worked on previously, they were small jobs.
But the problems we solved were big. The building has no air conditioning. There’s no water pressure on the top floors. Power problems are wreaking havoc on our servers. When those are your problems, they are really big problems.
Those were comfortable years that went by quickly. I was growing, advancing. Not only professionally, but personally as well. I got married, paid off my credit cards, and even joined the board of a non-profit.
Then it collapsed.
One day, my boss called me into his office. “Jay, I can’t afford to pay your wages, I have to lay you off.”
It wasn’t my fault that the work had slowed. It wasn’t my fault that my company had collapsed. But, I had chosen this. I hadn’t listened to those who said, “You oughta go back to school.”
I had passed on opportunities to actually “make something of my life.” Instead, I chose this.
I panicked. I had been married a little over a year, and my wife was four-months pregnant with our first child. To finally find security, I thought I should get out of the trades.
My path hasn’t been a straight line.
I looked at tech jobs, warehouse jobs, admin jobs.
My resume was good enough to get me a few interviews, but once they saw the type of work I’d been doing, I was passed on.
I had heard that sales was a common path to management, so I took a job answering calls from contractors all over the US who needed electrical parts, fast. I didn’t enjoy speaking on the phone, but I was polite, and considerate, and I knew the product very well. That was enough.
Soon, I was learning again. Not just about electrical components, but about aspects of business finance, marketing, and IT. It was clear that I was a person with potential and I advanced in the company. But the old, familiar restlessness I had struggled with my whole life returned.
As my four year anniversary approached, I felt like I was on a long stretch of uninhabited highway with one big, neon sign reading LAST EXIT.
If I was going to take all my new knowledge, new skills, and new growth and use them to land a job where I could finally “make something of my life,” I had to do it now.
And then, it happened. Call it a slow dawning. The truth was, I actually had made something of myself. That’s right. I’d spent my entire career working in the trades and if I worked just a little longer I could realize that everyman’s dream… to retire by 40 and then do whatever I wanted.
What may surprise you is that I didn’t end up retiring. Not because I couldn't, but because I didn’t end up wanting to.
I found that the industry I had built my career in was a good one. Reliable and affordable electricity is a basic need of modern society. It’s a core component of healthy and prosperous communities. It’s good work. So, I stopped looking at the industry as a blemish and I stopped trying to hide the fact that my entire professional life has been spent in electricity.
I’ve built my career on solving the kind of complex, messy problems that don’t come with instructions. My years in the trades have shown me how to think big-picture, but never lose sight of what needs to happen today. I’ve learned to lead people, build processes, and turn vision into reality.
Thanks for taking the time to learn more about me. Remember, you don’t need to change what you do to become who you want to be. Grow where you are, like I did, and own it.
Your story doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s — but you do have to own it. If you’re ready to take that next step, reach out and let’s talk.