The Trade Gap

Why Every American Should Learn a Skill

After losing my white-collar job for the first time last year I found myself at a crossroads. The economy was trash and I was having difficulty finding a new job. Weeks turned into months and eventually we ran out of all of our cash reserves and started liquidating assets.

Realizing that getting a new gig in my existing field of AI may not play out, I had to lean on the few hard skills I had acquired in recent years to make ends meet. Through taxidermy and trapping I was able to pay the bills for a few months and keep our heads above water until I finally landed a new job at the 11-month mark.

The whole experience made me realize how fragile knowledge-work is and how undervalued trade work has become in our country. In the aftermath, I pursued night school to get a basic welding certification and have started my journeyman electrician apprenticeship to ensure that I am never without a profitable and practical in-demand skillset in case the knowledge-worker rug is ever pulled out from under me again.

It also made me chew on the question ‘Why?” Why was my generation pushed away from trade work and into the “college or bust” mentality—one that is fraught with debt and limited opportunity? In a sickening realization, I began to see the forrest for the trees that our generation had been lied to and we now have a generation of well educated, debt-laden, and skill-less people.

So, I have turned all of my research into a new book titled, “The Trade Gap: Why Every American Should Learn a Skill.” It’s currently being shopped around to a handful of publishers and should see the light of day sometime in 2025. In the meantime I have created a landing page and skills guide for other knowledge-workers who want to explore what trades may be valuable for them to learn!

Go check out the www.thetradegap.com and sign up for a high-rez version of the PDF.

Knowledge Worker Skills Guide