Has your child decided what they want to be when they grow up? Consider trades!

What did you want to be when you grew up?

So growing up I wanted to be State Police or on the SWAT team. I always thought those guys were the coolest!

What did your parents do?

My mom was an assembly worker for 19 years at Simplex. The original founder of Simplex was the inventor of the time clock! Then he started making wall clocks and eventually got into manufacturing Fire Alarm devices. Mom died at 37 years old from a brain tumor and I was 13. My dad worked as an asbestos abatement foreman for a big company leading construction sites with 50+ workers all performing demo work and removing asbestos.

Tell us about your journey in school and finding out what you wanted to do with your life?

At 13 years old, I lost my mom to a brain tumor. I was forced to live with my dad, in a house that i only ever visited ever other weekend since I was 2 years old. I was never good at school and knew i didn’t want to go to college. I had heard about this school that you only had to go to academics 2 weeks a month and the other 2 weeks were in a trade. Sign me up!Growing up i always like the animatronics and the makeup in the movies so i thought cosmetology was going to be for me. I soon realized what cosmetology was all about and i couldn’t picture myself doing French tips, French braids and manicures for the rest of my life. I failed out of plumbing. I had a few friends go into electrical, so I chose electrical. High school was not easy! I ran away twice, held a high C and D average for grades, had summer school sophomore year for electrical, was suspended every year except senior year. By the end of my senior year, I knew I had to smarten up as mom was gone; I didn’t talk to my dad and I lived in the breezeway of my aunts house.

Why do you want to talk about parents who work in TRADES in your work?

So this book IS NOT to talk about the parents. This book is to educate the kids about the trades. Educate the parents about the trades. Get people talking about other options besides for college. When i was young I had no clue what an electrician was, what a carpenter was, what a plumber was… I just knew i wasn’t good at school. Little did I know that being a visual and kinesthetic learner is what made me excel in the trades. When you are so consumed with judging a fish on the way it can climb a tree i think this is when we get lost in society. Not everyone is made for college, not everyone is made for the trades. My mission is just to educate and plant the seed in a young child’s mind that these are careers.

Talk to me about practical skills and why it’s important for kids to know these skills?

I think after 20 years of being an adult (after graduating high school) 10 years of owning my own electrical company, 15 years of being married and 13 years of being a dad.

Here are some practical skills that can apply to everyone:
Listening with no intent to reply, just listening
Being patient
Deep breathing
Being empathetic
Allowing yourself to be vulnerable
Telling your story in the service of others
Communication
I think our biggest disappointments in life come from having the wrong expectations
Mindset
Positive thinking
Negotiation
Selling
Marketing yourself
Cash management

How do you think your kids would describe you?

Tough, hardworking, never giving up, leader, not afraid to fail, loving, always doing something.

What does legacy mean to you?

15 years from now the person that held my hand while I took my last breath on this earth is telling a stranger that, “Josh was a hardworking, passionate, loving, devoted husband and father. He was so passionate about getting kids involved in the trades because he knew that’s what allowed him to continue on after his mom died. He knew his mom would be proud of him. Now look at the movement he has caused around this country. So many more people are getting involved with the trades because of Josh, his books and his story. So many lives have been influenced and changed because Josh spoke wisdom into them and helped them realized they had everything they always needed all along.”

I still get people 24 years later that come up to me and tell me how great my mom was, how much she used to make them laugh and how proud she would be of me! 24 years!!! That is a legacy! People won’t remember what you bought, or what you did, but people will always remember how you made them feel!

Buy the book here https://amzn.to/3BkXFas