On today's episode, we have Thor on the show. Thor has been in the power line trade for over 40 years and is still involved in the trade today. He has been around the business for a long time and has a lot of experience in a variety of different trades. In this episode, Thor talks about what it takes to be successful in blue-collar work and how you can make a decent amount of money doing it. He also gives some tips and tricks on how to get started in a new trade and what to look for in a potential apprenticeship. Thor also talks about the benefits of being in blue collar work and why you should consider it as an alternative to going to college or getting a degree in some other field. Thor also shares some of the challenges he has faced in his career and what he's learned along the way. If you're interested in getting into the powerline trade, this episode is for you! I hope you enjoy this episode and that it gives you some insight into what to expect in the future of the trade and how to make a six-figure income in the blue collar industry. Enjoy, and spread the word to your friends and family about what you're doing well in your trade! -Dawson and Thor! Check us out! Have a question or suggestion? Tweet me or a suggestion? and we'll get it on the next episode! Timestamps: 5:00 - Thor: 6:15 - What's your favorite trade? 7:30 - How much money you're making? 8:20 - What do you make? 9: What is your day job? 10:00 11: How much does it take you get? 13: How do you like it? 14:30 15:40 - What are you looking for? 16:40 17:15 18:00 | What is a good day? 19:30 | How much do you need to do? 21:40 | What does it look like? 22: How does it bring you feel like you're going to be? 26: How can you make money in the field? 27:00 / 22:30 Do you want to make it better? 29:30 What kind of work? 30:30 Is it a good deal? 32:30 How much is it better than that?
00:05:36.000I met Myron a few years ago, and we worked together for a little while, and it was a real pleasure coaching and mentoring young men, and it's still very satisfying to me to this day.
00:05:48.000No, and we're happy to have you, man, so that you can impart your wisdom on the people, because the thing is that you're still involved in that trade to this day, right?
00:05:57.000Now, I'm not out there flying or climbing the towers or the poles, but I am working with quality control on the invoicing for several hundreds of men that are doing that construction now, and so I'm kind of in the twilight of my career.
00:06:38.000But that's also why I do the coaching today and the podcasting is kind of reach out and reclaim some of that.
00:06:44.000Yeah, and I just want to make the audience very well aware that you're very successful, done very well for yourself.
00:06:52.000You're also an entrepreneur, and you really don't have to be doing this, but you really enjoy helping people out because you've already made your money.
00:06:59.000You did it a long time ago, but you enjoy giving back to the youth, helping guys find another way to make money, earn a living, an honest living, where you can make quite a bit of money as well doing it.
00:07:10.000I think, especially with these Gen Zers, they asked young men, hey, what's the job that you want to do?
00:07:17.000And that's actually a problem, because the reality is, not everyone has the charisma, not everyone has the ability, maybe not everyone has the resources, etc., to blow up on the internet.
00:07:31.000So people need a more viable way to earn an income and get a skill set that will actually be able to allow them to get into something.
00:07:38.000And then, hey, like I said before, you can get into this trade, make some money, and then start a side business or whatever.
00:07:42.000And you've been able to do that yourself.
00:07:44.000I can tell you a little bit about that.
00:07:46.000When you get into a skilled trade like this or a craftsman trade, if you're frugal with your money, you can really leverage that.
00:07:54.000I know we all talk about side hustles today, but I'll just describe how I got started on that and how that made me into a very secure position where I'm at now.
00:08:12.000I'd already been a journeyman for several years.
00:08:15.000Fortunately, through modern reconstructive surge, I was able to come back fully with very small, you know, inconveniences today.
00:08:22.000But I trained myself on how to do websites, and I taught myself how to draw pictures.
00:08:29.000And I leveraged that into an online retail business for power linemen and ran that business for a long time.
00:08:37.000But I also saved money from being a power lineman, working overtime.
00:08:41.000When we work overtime, we get paid double time.
00:08:44.000Took that money and I also bought Well, let's just say half a dozen houses and paid them off and went into real estate as well over the course of the next 15 years.
00:08:55.000So with those two businesses in place, I was also able to leverage that into certain investments, which I see that Myron's along the same journey now.
00:09:07.000So it's smart to do things like that because if you have issues Later in life, you never know what's going to happen to take something away.
00:09:15.000At least I always have this skilled trade to fall back on in some capacities, whether it's consulting, training, or actually doing the labor.
00:09:24.000So let's start first with your current trade and your expertise, which is a power lineman.
00:09:30.000For the audience that might not know, can you describe what a power lineman is, job duties, and how you get into that field and what they could expect to earn per year?
00:09:40.000So power linemen is an offshoot of the electrical trades.
00:09:44.000It's the oldest of the electrical trades.
00:09:47.000It was formed in the late 1800s when electricity was built, and they started with the electric light bulb, and they wanted to put power everywhere to get electric lights.
00:09:59.000It's the reason that the electrical unions were formed before there was any electrical unions, because one in two linemen would be killed on the job by the time he was 30 years old.
00:10:10.000And that statistic had sustained all the way into just before World War II. So it was a tough go at it back then.
00:10:21.000The unions formed, we got safer, we understood electricity more, and we were able to build these lines and get power everywhere.
00:10:59.000And because the injury rate, you know, we do have defibrillators, we have the EMT training, and our injury rate is higher than police and fire combined, and they outnumber us by only 61.
00:15:37.000Or the best way to do it is to obtain a commercial driver's license and or other certifications, such as a crane operator certification, heavy equipment operator certification.
00:15:49.000All of these are trades in amongst themselves, but it gets you in a position where you're extremely valuable and you'll get into an apprenticeship much, much faster.
00:15:58.000So once you've done that, you can do that and apply and get an apprenticeship that way through the unions such as the IBEW locals.
00:16:08.000They all offer training programs, which while you're training, they pay you as well.
00:16:13.000And then the other way is to go to one of the national lineman college schools, which you can earn an associate degree in science by going to these schools.
00:16:24.000And they also prepare you, learn the language of line work, the tools, the equipment, they get you the certifications too.
00:16:31.000Many of them will loan you the money to go to school and then do a job placement.
00:16:54.000But anyway, those are some of the ways you can get in by trade school, by application to local utilities, municipalities, or the local unions, probably the highest paying jobs and they get the best training.
00:17:07.000But if you don't know where to start, that would be the places to start.
00:17:15.000And then I didn't know that having a CDL or a crane operator license, all these other things will set you up to be, I guess, have a higher likelihood of being hired as a power lineman.
00:17:24.000Like, do these other, like, skill sets translate into being a power lineman?
00:17:28.000Or does it just look good on your resume?
00:17:39.000You have to have a hazmat endorsement.
00:17:41.000Some of these boom trucks that lift 200 and 300 feet in there or even 50 feet in there are considered digger Derek Crane, so you've got to be certified in that as well.
00:17:49.000So just to actually be a journeyman lineman, you'll need those certs anyway.
00:17:54.000The advantage of it is it makes you more marketable because you have these certifications when it comes to becoming an apprentice.
00:18:02.000That means the companies that are out there don't have to pay for your training because you've already done it.
00:22:59.000You could take the test on your own, but now who do you apply to, right?
00:23:03.000You could drive from anybody like a UPS or you can drive for heavy equipment where you're actually delivering the heavy equipment.
00:23:11.000If you want to become a heavy equipment operator, the first thing you have to do is get a CDL. So a CDL is the basic license that you would need to get into the trades that require heavy equipment, large trucks, any sort of commercial vehicles that are larger than a pickup truck.
00:25:00.000You can make quite a bit of money doing it, it's just that there tends to be this negative stigma that you can't be very successful doing it.
00:25:08.000And the reality is that a lot of you guys aren't cut out to be entrepreneurs, a lot of you guys aren't going to be influencers, and this is a fantastic field to go into to make a good amount of money, and then if you decide down the road you want to pivot and become an entrepreneur, like Thor did, like I did, etc., you'll have the ability to do so because you have some capital behind your goddamn name, and you can start off correctly in your entrepreneurial ventures.
00:25:26.000Thor, so okay, so we talked about the CDL. So you can get one for somewhere between, you said $25,000 to $4,000?
00:26:21.000You can drive local and probably work normal shift hours.
00:26:24.000Probably won't be as much money, but you can start doing that.
00:26:27.000So that's a really, really quick way, and it's probably the fastest way to get into the trades.
00:26:35.000But really, what you would do is just type in, you know, commercial driver's license school in my area in Google, and there's going to be a ton of them pop up.
00:27:13.000And I guess this could be good for our audience, right?
00:27:17.000Has there been a drop in people working these jobs?
00:27:22.000I always hear about people saying, oh, we can't find employees.
00:27:26.000We can't find people that want to do this type of work.
00:27:29.000There's quite a bit of demand for these jobs, whether it's a plumber, HVAC, etc.
00:27:33.000With the explosion of people of going to college and wanting to be influencers and all this other bullshit and trying to make money online.
00:27:38.000People don't want to go ahead and do these blue collar jobs anymore.
00:27:42.000So has there been a mass opening in these jobs?
00:27:44.000And is this a good time to get in now?
00:27:46.000So I would think there is, but I don't know for sure.
00:27:49.000I can only speak to where I was involved with the power alignment.
00:29:55.000So this may be an underrated trade, but back in Barbados, I've seen people come from nothing, buy a lawnmower, a wee whacker, buy some gas, and they cut lawn.
00:30:38.000So that's really interesting you say landscaping because there's a lot of them here and you need to understand not only how to do your job, but traffic control, permits, all that stuff.
00:32:11.000I mean, if you jump in and you're a carpenter assistant, it might be on that lower end, around 40 or the average, but you become an apprentice and you get into finished carpentry, particularly if you're willing to travel to these construction sites, these massive ones that they're doing, yeah,
00:32:27.000you can start to see upwards of 100K easily.
00:32:29.000And you could probably do all of that within a year if you're a hustler.
00:32:33.000Look, Thor, I want to work smart, not hard.
00:32:36.000I want the easiest trade possible to make money, work overtime, and get out.
00:33:54.000It's a philosophic difference, you know.
00:33:56.000I don't like that saying because I want guys to actually, you know, put their best effort forth because they'll see rewards far quicker if they work hard.
00:34:06.000Because people say all the time, I want to work smart in trades, but all my friends that do trades, they work really hard.
00:34:12.000But they were overtime, sacked the money, then they invested after the facts.
00:34:15.000So working smart comes after the fact, like you said before.
00:34:36.000Yeah, I mean, like, hell, on Friday, like, after we did our show, right, we went out for, like, almost two hours and just, like, trying to figure out how to, you know, do the IRL streaming thing, like, you know, but we had to go out there and, like, test it out at five in the morning after doing three other shows, so it's like, or two other shows.
00:35:14.000You can get into welding really cheap because there's lots of YouTubes that go through the certification process.
00:35:20.000You just need access to a welder and then you need access to someone that will test you.
00:35:26.000And so you can get really good at welding just watching the YouTubes, learning about the gas mixes, the different metals, things like that.
00:35:33.000I actually have a welding rig in my garage Yeah.
00:35:54.000It has a next-to-nothing cost for welding certifications, starting with CERT-1.
00:35:59.000Rod, rod, rod, and then they'll go with wire.
00:36:02.000Then they'll go to TIG. Each one is a semester-long class, and they offer the tests and all that.
00:36:09.000If there's a welding supply shop anywhere around, go ask those guys.
00:36:35.000All of these companies that do freight all have welders to repair their trailers, their trucks, they have fabricators, every one of them, that work at night repairing those trucks because those trucks wear out.
00:36:49.000And welding can make really good money.
00:36:52.000And if you want to jump out and do welding on these oil rigs or you want to be a roughneck, that's really good money.
00:36:59.000But, I mean, you're going to be gone for a little while.
00:37:01.000But if you're willing to go where the work is and just make the money and focus on it, that's another good career is being a roughneck in one of these oil states.
00:37:08.000Will having CDL increase your likelihood of landing a welding gig as well?
00:37:13.000Absolutely, because they need guys to be mobile, and some of them need to take a commercial truck that's over 26,000 pounds.
00:37:23.000It has all the generators, the welders, the gases on board so that they can mobile weld.
00:37:29.000So the CDL, once you have it, it's really, really, really worth it because you can maintain it easily just for, what, every four years you've got to pay a re-up.
00:37:41.000And if you decide to get a HAZMAT certification, you can double your salary.
00:37:47.000That's a little extra schooling, but that's just some of the things you could consider.
00:37:51.000Now, someday we're going to have robot trucks that deliver freight, but it's not going to happen real soon because those guys that have the CDL, they're going to transfer over to these other trades that require them to drive trucks that are never going to be automated.
00:38:14.000So if you guys got questions, man, super chat them in, rumble rant them in, whatever you guys want to do, fnfsuperchat.com or rumble rant them in.
00:38:20.000I know some of you guys have issues with being able to rumble rant them in, so we gave you the other option.
00:38:24.000Whatever you choose is easier for you.
00:38:27.000So it seems to me, Thor, as if the CDL is basically the springboard.
00:38:32.000That's the first thing you should do to get into this, whether you want to be I mean, hell, a plumber, a welder, a power lineman, crane operator, whatever it may be, the CDL is where you start.
00:38:43.000And I didn't realize, I mean, I know for some of you guys, oh my God, $2,500 is so much money.
00:39:33.000I mean, I used to recommend guys to do this all the time that wanted into trade schools, because some of these trade schools cost, you know, $20,000, $40,000.
00:39:42.000Some of them do, and you can get it paid for.
00:41:23.000Is it, so, being a crab fisherman, because you said it's very dangerous, and you had mentioned that there's a lot of mortality, high mortality rates compared to, like, you know, police officers.
00:41:32.000Like, how would you, what, falling overboard?
00:41:37.000Well, they get injured mostly because there's heavy equipment rolling around on the deck, crab pots, rope snapping, things bashing into them, hard hats falling off, getting head injuries.
00:42:18.000If I'm not mistaken, you're like fishing very...
00:42:19.000No, there are fishing on every coastal city.
00:42:23.000There is a commercial fishing situation.
00:42:26.000Here in Southern California, a lot of guys run up to Alaska, but in the off-season, they do really well by getting a license to fish Dungeness crab, snow crab.
00:42:37.000So they can fish locally right here in the ocean.
00:42:41.000It's very fertile, and it just depends on what you're going after and what license you can get.
00:42:46.000Remember, it's all regulated, and they've got to license themselves by the state fishing game to do so.
00:42:53.000It's pretty competitive, but any of these coastal cities that has ports where these boats dock, man, you could just go down there and watch them come in.
00:43:02.000They always need somebody to do something.
00:43:04.000If you're willing to work for free for a few days here and there, it's your foot in the door.
00:43:07.000In fact, you might have to do that almost like an internship.
00:43:13.000That's one of the big ways of getting in if you're not born into it.
00:43:20.000And you said they can go to one of the docks and just start scrubbing the deck for a bit and just kind of get their way in and then eventually hopefully get invited into the crew about a year later or whatever if they do what they're supposed to do.
00:43:55.000You know, camaraderie, being a good guy, being, you know, pleasurable to be around Paul's, like not being a pain in the ass, being helpful, being useful.
00:44:03.000Like, these are all things that are very important because at the end of the day, it's a team, you know?
00:44:07.000So you don't want to have a, you know, negative...
00:46:01.000Joaquin goes, Hey, Fresher Fit, thank you guys for motivating me to get in shape and go to the gym, make more money, and be more charismatic.
00:46:06.000I appreciate how all of these things will help me be more attractive towards women.
00:46:36.000I'm in Maryland, but there are opportunities to earn 100K no experience in the oil industry.
00:46:40.000Also looking to invest in Brandon Carter's program to become a fitness trainer.
00:46:44.000Bro, handle your trade first, and then once you get that handled, then you can go ahead and figure out how much time you have and then get into the side hustle of being a personal trainer as well.
00:46:53.000But Thor, what do you think about that?
00:46:56.000He says he's 21 with a CDL with a hazmat, so okay.
00:47:02.000You know, before you lock yourself down anywhere, Go to where the work is.
00:47:06.000I mean, one thing that's really valuable to all of us is time.
00:47:11.000And the more time you don't go to where the work is, where you can make the most money, you are missing out on that compound effect of having that money in your pocket now.
00:47:30.000So they're across the entire nation every year.
00:47:33.000Type into Google somewhere, power linemen rodeo.
00:47:37.000So linemen, when they become a journeyman and they get to the top of their skill, they compete in various events to show off their skill in front of the public.
00:51:23.000Much in the same way, you're going to need to go to companies that do electrical work and apply for a job there, start out as a helper, become an apprentice.
00:51:31.000Also, there is the IBEW, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
00:51:59.000Now, another quick way to electrician, HVAC, and some of these skills that I just mentioned in the medical fields, you guys realize it's going into the military.
00:53:03.000For a lot of guys, it's better than getting a degree in fucking business and then You know, you get some, like, stupid, you know, regular job, like some desk job, making 50k per year, but you have hella debt.
00:53:17.000And worst case scenario, let's say you want to do a business, you get the money from your actual trade, save it up, like what Thor did, put into real estate or whatever you want to put into.
00:53:26.000So that's a W. Think about the math for a minute as colleges propose today.
00:53:32.000Come out of college, you owe $100,000.
00:53:34.000And then you've got to start making it and pay that back.
00:53:38.000Now, if you go to one of these trade schools and you do it right, you could get Mike Rowe to pay for it.
00:53:42.000Then you get an apprenticeship making between $60,000 and $100,000 right out the gate because you're going to where the work is.
00:53:50.000Let's just say you saved $25,000 per year.
00:53:55.000In four years, you have $100,000 in the bank.
00:54:10.000And that's why I say go to where the work is.
00:54:12.000And then you can take a look and your life will get much easier because that's part of the law of compounding.
00:54:18.000And so you're really at a disadvantage coming out.
00:54:23.000Of a college with a degree, even a STEM degree that you owe basically a mortgage on.
00:54:28.000That is going to prevent you from doing a lot.
00:54:32.000Now you won't get the prestige, but if you think about that and you do the math over the course of 20 years, you're going to make millions more.
00:55:23.000He says, would hazmat endorsements on a CDL be good for this to get paid more, or does that matter?
00:55:28.000It's always good because like the tanker endorsement gives you more options should they need to even transport water to a construction site.
00:55:36.000If you're working through the union, you're going to get a premium because you have that endorsement.
00:55:43.000You know, they can't just get anybody, especially if they're going in an environmental area and they got to transport water because they got to keep dust down.
00:55:50.000So you're very versatile if you have these endorsements, even though you're a journeyman lineman.
00:55:55.000A good example of this, let's take it that you got a crane cert.
00:56:00.000A call from the union goes out for a journeyman lineman that needs to be able to operate a crane.
00:56:05.000They don't want to hire a separate crane operator.
00:56:07.000They want him to do line work and to operate the crane.
00:56:09.000He's going to get four to five dollars an hour more and he'll get a per diem for doing that because he has a cert.
00:56:17.000The same if he has human external cargo training.
00:56:21.000What that is is having education on how to work off of the skid of a helicopter.
00:56:27.000If he understands how to use a Faraday suit and do barehanding, he can command a premium.
00:56:33.000You guys have seen the History Channel where they show the linemen climbing out from a helicopter, all that sort of stuff.
00:56:40.000Those guys get paid not only high time, they get paid extra danger wages, they travel to the work, they make a lot of money if you're willing to do things like that and get those certs.
00:56:50.000So extra shirts always help, even in CDL. You're able to demand more.
00:56:55.000You basically diversify yourself from the entire rest of the workforce.
00:56:59.000Obviously, if you're a power lineman and you have a certain cert, they're going to go with you versus hiring a contractor or something else like that.
00:57:07.000It puts you in a very good position to be able to negotiate for more money and make more.
00:57:20.000He goes, Thor, I will be finished with welding school in July.
00:57:23.000Is there any opportunity for me to make 60 to 100K right out of school, and would it make sense to continue welding gates and dog kennels for my family fence business on the side as well?
00:58:36.000And then I think the other big thing, too, that I want to draw attention to that you've mentioned multiple times throughout this podcast, Thor, is the willingness to move.
00:58:44.000A lot of guys are comfortable where they're at.
00:58:46.000They don't want to leave their hometown.
00:58:47.000They don't want to leave their parents, whatever it may be.
00:59:39.000So, my friend, I think also the other thing, because the second question is, should I continue doing dog kennels and gates for his family business?
00:59:48.000Does it make more sense for you to travel, get another welding job that might pay you more?
00:59:52.000Or maybe even less, but the cost of living there is lower, versus what you would be making staying at home with your parents, welding there, and doing that side hustle.
01:00:00.000You need to figure out what makes more sense, and the only person that can really crunch the numbers is you.
01:00:05.000But what I would say is, see where you can maximize the profit and then go there, based on what Thor said.
01:00:23.000It's ghetto and you stay in a dorm, but they will feed you, give you trade training, and if your focus gets you into an apprenticeship that pays you with a union.
01:01:56.000Yeah, any tips for starting as an electrician?
01:01:58.000So he did exactly what you actually just said, Thor, as far as working for the company, starting off helping out, and then becoming an apprentice, etc.
01:02:06.000Yep, I'm going to give you the best tip ever for that because you're becoming friends.
01:02:13.000Buy used tools as long as they don't invalidate your safety.
01:02:16.000You know, if you have to buy a harness or something like that, you can buy it used as long as you know that it meets current safety standards.
01:02:25.000If you're going to buy body belts, you're going to buy your clients, you're going to buy your screwdrivers, buy them all used.
01:03:01.000Here in California, all the safety equipment is paid for here.
01:03:04.000Some of the tools you really need to be really good, you're going to have to, their hand tools, their instrumentation, you'll have to fund on your own.
01:03:16.000Then he also said real estate as far as investing.
01:03:19.000Bro, focus right now on getting your electrician license, becoming an electrician, making six figures per year, then we can have that talk about you getting into real estate.
01:03:28.000But for now, focus on making money in your trade, guys.
01:03:30.000I wasn't focused on real estate until I got into this and then I was like, okay, into the entrepreneur world.
01:03:35.000But I focused on being really good at my job first, then I got into the real estate after the fact.
01:03:40.000Become really good at what you do and then you invest.
01:03:44.000Lazyville Slugger goes, I did 21 years as a block brick stonemason in a very rural area.
01:03:48.000Been installing auto glass for the last eight years and also I have my level one welding certification.
01:03:53.000I make between 70 and 80k a year doing all of these trades.
01:04:52.000You know, I would take the skills that they offer.
01:04:59.000I kind of always, guys get in trouble where they're waiting for something and something good's offered and then they start to think, well, if I just wait, I'll get this really good thing.
01:05:10.000And they start to turn into something better than it actually is because they're thinking about it, thinking about it.
01:05:15.000You have a good offer in front of you.
01:05:19.000As long as you're not involved in some kind of term contract for tools or length of time, you can leave when the other opportunity comes up.
01:05:26.000You need to be a bit Machiavellian about getting these jobs.
01:05:30.000One of the nice things about my trade is once you're a journeyman, you show up to a job, you're getting paid well, but management's treating you like a piece of shit.
01:06:24.000Tradesmen like Thor, but we brought somebody in that is.
01:06:26.000And trust me, guys, we'll be doing this probably recurrently because I think this is something that's very important that not enough podcasts talk about, especially big ones, to help you guys out.
01:07:12.000And I wanted to bring him on earlier, guys, but I was trying to bring him in studio, but obviously he has some things that he has to handle over there in California.
01:07:19.000So we'll probably do it remote and give you guys the value.
01:07:47.000What do you think, Thor, as far as specific to nighttime?
01:07:49.000I actually think fabricating is probably a good place to go, and I'll tell you why.
01:07:55.000Out here, with all the construction, they have a lot of concrete delivery services, and at nights when they do all their servicing and repairs to the vehicles.
01:08:06.000Something like that could work, because the night shift would be where you would end up, even as a helper, and you could get your foot in the trade that way, fabricating, truck repair.
01:08:15.000They do all their mechanic work at night, so that's another thought, maybe becoming a diesel mechanic.
01:08:20.000Doing because they need those trucks during the day.
01:08:23.000Delivering concrete out to the construction sites.
01:08:26.000So that's a way to add a second job that has some skills in it at night while you're working your other job during the day.
01:08:35.000So hopefully that'll stir some ideas with you and propel you forward.
01:10:06.000And you're not controlling anything except your life.
01:10:09.000And for people looking in, it looks like, you know, you really got your shit wired.
01:10:13.000Controlling is you don't have any of that shit wired, so you're telling everybody else to do stuff for you in an effort to either inflate your worth or to, you know, make up for the weaknesses that you have.
01:12:27.000I think it's either four or six, but if you do that, I know it's not the best, but VA Medical can save you millions of dollars over your lifetime.
01:12:38.000If he ain't medical, that's a big one.
01:12:39.000I think he might be scared of dying, but you could do other jobs in the military, right?
01:12:42.000Yeah, I mean, you know, we gotta go into infantry, but, like, you know, I get it, too, because with, like, the global conflict, what we got going on right now with certain countries, you know what I'm saying?
01:13:33.000The military can offer him medical training Such as a physician's assistant or something like that would make a ton of money, and they'd pay for all the training.
01:13:43.000So he could satisfy that need to be a very compassionate person, which is a good thing, actually.
01:13:48.000And they would teach him the discipline so he could exercise those skills in his civilian life.
01:15:05.000If your cost of living is consuming your salary, you got to make changes.
01:15:10.000You might want to go minimalist, but you need to be stacking away 20 to 25% of your net income into your savings all the time until you have at least, you start with three months salary, you earned a six month salary.
01:15:24.000Once you get to 10 months To 12 months of salary in the bank, you can take 50% of that, put it down on a house, buy it, and then you can rent it out so it covers the rest of the mortgage, gives you a little on the side, and that's how you start.
01:17:52.000However, if you do that and you didn't do any of the certifications that I told you about, there'll be a stack of applicants that are sitting above you that have those certs.
01:18:02.000So you want to get into that stack and you want to get close to where they're going to call you for an interview because they're calling a lot of guys, but they're calling the guys that already have those certs because that saves them a lot of of money to their contractors that they send these guys out to work for and it saves a lot of their training time because they're funded by the union and they don't want to spend their money.
01:18:24.000They want to train you the basics, but if you got some of this yourself, you're very valuable to take on one of these apprentice classes.
01:18:30.000They do three to four of these classes a year and that's a group of about 25 guys on each class.
01:18:51.000Man, guys, we're giving y'all, bro, we need some goddamn fire emojis in the chat or something like that because we're giving y'all a lot of sauce.
01:18:58.000I don't think there's any other podcast that's going to bring somebody on and answer your guys' question like this live on air that you guys can actually go ahead and ask.
01:19:43.000It was called the Gracie Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy.
01:19:46.000My instructor went on to form and the UFC. And so six years of that, I opened a little Brazilian jiu-jitsu school where I was at and ran it for four years.
01:19:58.000Those are money losing operations, guys, when you're doing it on the side.
01:20:01.000You either do it full-time or you don't.
01:20:03.000I'm just telling you by experience, those are hard and they eat a ton of time from you because you end up doing everything.
01:20:10.000You can't hire enough people to do what you need.
01:20:12.000That's a nice fantasy to have, but listen to the experience.
01:20:15.000I spent thousands of dollars setting that thing up, and I loved every minute of it.
01:20:19.000I even had some students that were top 10 UFC fighters back in the mid-2000s that came from my school.
01:20:26.000And while I enjoyed Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I eventually ended up stopping at From injury and it's a nice side hustle, but I would recommend something more proficient like, I don't know, consulting or something that takes less time.
01:21:23.000Are you prepared to operate in the red for a while?
01:21:25.000Are you prepared to operate where you're not making any profit and you might even be losing money?
01:21:30.000A lot of you guys are not okay with that.
01:21:31.000So think twice before you think about opening up a gym, guys.
01:21:34.000There's other ways to really leverage that interest and hobby or that passion that you have where consulting is fantastic, like Thor just said, or doing online coaching where you're teaching people.
01:21:45.000Online, how to get in shape or how to do something.
01:21:48.000I mean, with martial arts, it's a little bit different.
01:21:49.000You might have to meet them one-on-one for that or any combat training.
01:21:52.000But opening a gym, guys, especially as a part-time gig, as a side hustle, I don't think that's a thing that you could do as a side hustle.
01:22:00.000It's going to be your full-time thing.
01:22:30.000No, and I'm glad that we had this conversation because I think a lot of people, that's a dream for so many people, it's like to open a gym.
01:22:36.000And guys, it's not as easy as you guys think, man.
01:22:54.000Because people want to go to zoo culture all the time and, you know, Meet them and everything else like that, and it's an influencer-friendly gym, kind of like Christian Guzman, but these guys all built platforms before, and the gym is in their predominant mode of making money.
01:24:06.000I don't want to get too much into it, but No, no, no.
01:24:08.000That's actually a fantastic point that you mentioned.
01:24:10.000They're already doing something extremely lucrative where it doesn't matter that they're redlining or in the red for their gym business because they're able to write that off as a loss and that counts against their real income from their real business that actually is profitable.
01:24:49.000We don't have to go there, but I don't want to go down the rabbit hole, but you should be starting to buy your property with land trust at some point, right?
01:24:57.000Yeah, so I'm going to start putting my stuff under trust.
01:24:59.000I have a holding LLC, but I'm going to put that under a trust.
01:25:14.000W Show, my wife and I decided to pull the trigger and start looking for our second property in San Diego.
01:25:19.000We plan on renting out our current townhouse even if it's at break even with the current mortgage so we'd own regardless in 20 to 25 years.
01:27:35.000Particularly if you're in construction and you're doing those services that require contracts and you're going to bid hard money on things, even cost plus contracting requires a contractor's license.
01:27:52.000I doubt there's a study out there, but I'm sure that there is a correlation with the decline of men going into blue-collar jobs and the pussification of society here, probably.
01:28:00.000Blue-collar jobs tend to be hard labor, require strong minds to work in all conditions, weather, fatigue, teamwork, critical thinking.
01:28:06.000If I had to put blue-collar workers in a box, I bet more often than not...
01:28:09.000They are men who would fight more often than freeze or take flight.
01:28:16.000Real Trill Mike goes, I'm an IBEW 595 apprentice.
01:28:22.000Make 70k as a second year apprentice and top out at 130k as a JW. Biggest challenge for anyone going into the trades is being able to control their attitude.
01:29:09.000Or the other way to do it is to call a heating and air conditioning service company and make applications as a helper, to be a helper of an HVAC technician.
01:29:20.000See if you can pick up a job that way and go to school later.
01:30:33.000Yeah, it seems like he's going to get it or they're giving it to him or he has control of it to some degree if he's asking this question.
01:30:39.000If it's paid off and it's generating cash, why wouldn't you just sit on it for a while and then use the cash as a down payment for something else?
01:30:49.000Put a mortgage on it if it's a good cash flow opportunity because when you do that, now you're spending some of that cash flow and paying that mortgage off and then you acquired another mortgage and you're starting to pay that off with the cash flow there.
01:31:01.000Unless you do the math right, what's the point?
01:31:04.000You have two mortgages, or you have one, and it's generating cash, and you use that as a down payment to open the other one on that property.
01:31:13.000I understand completely the need to use other people's money to get this thing going.
01:31:19.000It just depends on your level of risk.
01:31:22.000What I did is I would pay half down on these things, and then I'd work to pay them off, and then the cash flow I'd save until I had another 25%, 30%, and then go buy another one.
01:32:07.000So not only am I got a 30-year note that I'm carrying and another company handles it for me, if I needed the cash, I could just sell it within a week.
01:32:16.000So I became a bank on at least a couple occasions.
01:32:21.000And then for that guy that asked that question, you can also do a home equity line of credit, bro.
01:32:24.000That way you can pretty much open, you know, you'll have the equity in that home.
01:32:29.000You could tap into about 70 to 80% of it.
01:32:31.000Yeah, you got to pay a small fee to keep that line open, but if you really want to sit there and buy other houses, whatever, that's another way.
01:32:36.000And then you can replenish that once you close on that house.
01:32:38.000Aviles goes, tried asking last week, but show ran out of time.
01:32:42.000Can you give advice on getting published pitfalls or struggles you found in solutions?
01:33:41.000He said he has a bad driving record and he's only had his regular license for three years.
01:33:45.000How would that affect his journey to getting a CDL? So, he understands a little bit about CDL. You can only have four points on your record, so you won't be getting a CDL until those points are four below.
01:33:58.000So they don't want bad drivers as a safety thing.
01:34:01.000So if you don't have that, you're going to have to struggle until they all have a time limit and they all go away unless you have a drunk driving.
01:34:09.000Now you're going to have to try to get that expunged.
01:34:50.000Topshade goes, my FNF gents, what's good?
01:34:52.000My question, so Thor, I'm currently a director of a company that involves a rare craftsmanship, plumbing, electrician, and carpentry, but I signed a non-compete, so can I own, so I can my own.
01:35:36.000And then we're going to read a few more of these guys and close out.
01:35:39.000I own an HVAC company and I hire people that don't know anything in the field starting at $20 an hour here in Illinois and a lot of states.
01:35:45.000So you don't need to go to school or get a license to work with a company.
01:37:35.000I will say this, being in probably the most communist state that we have and working with some of these union guys, it's not as bad as you think.
01:37:45.000There's guys that think like us inside there that do push back silently.
01:37:51.000So if you don't want to do it because of political reasons, you can go to a right-to-work state, no problem.
01:38:53.000In most of these unions, the books are open for memberships to see.
01:38:58.000Yeah, sometimes they have a list of people they want you to vote for that you would hate, but you don't have to be a political activist to join a union or to work another angle at it, and you can get the money now.
01:39:11.000So in certain circumstances, like in California, being nonunion is going to be extremely difficult as a power lineman to even compete.
01:40:34.000After the Marine Corps in the 04 moved to North Carolina, became a fireman for 16 years, worked at three different fire departments, a captain for one, made 175K per year by 29.
01:41:19.000It sounds like I have to make an assumption.
01:41:23.000To get in the union, they're going to make you do a four-year apprenticeship again, so you're going to lose some salary.
01:41:29.000If that's the case, then maybe you need to go somewhere where carpenters make more money with the skill set that you've earned.
01:41:38.000If the union is offering you really good training and you can tighten your belt and at the end of that apprenticeship you can double your salary as it is now, Then it might be worth it.
01:41:48.000Especially if you can get a traveling card and once you have attained that certification and that journeyman status, you can go somewhere else where the actual high paying work is.
01:42:01.000I didn't mention that before, but something called a travel card.
01:42:04.000Where a lot of these unions are international and if you pay the extra dues for a travel card, you can sign books where all the high paying jobs are.
01:44:05.000I live with my mom and I produce, and I'm a produce clerk at BJ's.
01:44:09.000I've been hesitant to getting into HVAC, but I'm interested in getting that high-income skill to fund my side hustle music industry, independent artists.