Juan Carosso - At Your Best as a Carpenter

Copyright 2018 by Juan Carosso

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Brian Peterson

Cover photo credit iStock

ISBN: 978-1-5107-4393-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-4400-4

Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION

I want to dedicate this book and the entire At Your Best Playbook series to my parents: Dolores and Giovanni (Juan) for their courage, hard work and perseverance in the pursuit of our familys American Dream. For me, it has always been about family first and Ive been blessed with a great son, Adam, of whom I cannot be prouder. I am so grateful to have my sisters and brothers supportone of whom, my brother Hector, I particularly want to thank for being so instrumental in helping me turn this AYB Playbook into reality. Finally, I want to thank my beautiful wife, Ginny, for being my one and only; for inspiring me throughout this At Your Best journey; and for all our wonderful years together. I look forward to the rest of our American Dream.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE AMERICAN DREAM IS ALIVE AND WELL

My parents brought our family to the United States from Argentina in 1963 in search of the American Dream. With hard work and perseverance, my parents provided my four sisters, my two brothers and me the building blocks on which to pursue and realize our own dreams. The most remarkable thing about my familys American Dream story is how unremarkable and commonplace our story really is. Tens of millions of examples of our story exist among native-born and immigrant Americanspast and presentwho rose beyond their original circumstances to build a fruitful life for themselves and their families.

There is no other country on Earthother than the United States of Americawhere an individual or family can start with nothing and expect solid, good odds that they will realize their own version of the American Dreamas long as they work hard, get an education, learn the skills that are in demand and persevere in their pursuits.

The definition of American Dream can mean many things to people but it usually comes down to:

Personal Freedom

Opportunity of Choices

Building a Better Future for Yourself and Your Family

Achieving Your Goals and Dreams

I truly believe that the American Dream is still very much alive and going strong. However, I also believe that most people may not know how to put together a plan and then execute it to get themselves on the path to fulfilling their own American Dream. They also may not know that the Skilled Trades offer a wide array of tremendous opportunities. One of the tried and true paths to attaining ones Dream is by pursuing a career in one of the Skilled Trades, as my father did.

I am convinced that if given a realistic plan that clearly lays out what it takes to build a successful career in one of the Skilled Trades, along with how to build a successful small business in that trade, people will act. With such a plan, an individual will have a starting point, along with a breakdown of additional resources and the milestones to shoot for to get from Point A to Point B, and so on until they reach their goal. That is why I wrote this and the other books in the At Your Best Playbook series and launched the www.AtYourBest.com website.

I absolutely believe that you are At Your Best when you have a game plan. Let At Your Best be the foundation for your own personal plan, your starting point and your path to your American Dream.

INTRODUCTION

THE SKILLED TRADES AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

Today, there are over 6.5 million unfilled yet well-paying and fulfilling positions in the United States in the Skilled Trades. These positions remain unfillednot because there arent enough people available and interested in having a secure, well-paying job, but because there are not enough people with the skills, attitude and experience required for these positions. This is what is called The Skills Gap: the difference between the available jobs requiring specific skills and the available people with those skills to do those jobs.

Over the last decades, a misguided view has taken hold in our society that minimizes the importance and opportunity represented by careers in the Skilled Trades. Despite reality, a career in the Skilled Trades has come to be seen as a sort of consolation prize as compared to a career of sitting behind a desk with a four-year college degree. The time has never been more right to do away with this shortsighted, highly detrimental perspective and get back to appreciating the fact that the Skilled Trades are the foundational building blocks of our countrys quality of life.

The Skills Gap is at its widest ever and, unfortunately, it is expected to continue widening in the future. Be assured that we will all feel the growing impact of this Skills Gap. However, for you, this is an enormous and potentially life-changing opportunity. Whether the US economy is growing or stalling or contracting, your personal economic picture will always be better, relatively speaking, as long as you have a set of skills and experience that are in demand in your local marketplace and throughout the country.

The Skills Gap is real. The lack of good people building long-term, fulfilling and well-paying careers is real. In a matter of a few months during 20172018, the US economy went from a state of high unemployment levels to one that public officials and the media call full employment levels. Still, there remain tens of millions of people who are unemployed or underemployed, while The Skills Gap continues to widen. Those still on the sidelines or in jobs that do not utilize their potential have an opportunity that is real. The opportunity for you to future-proof your life and that of your familys by entering the Skilled Trades is real. The opportunity for you to earn a secure, comfortable, middle-class income for the rest of your career is very real.

The objective of this At Your Best (AYB) Playbook is to provide you with a high-level, play-by-play approach to enable you to take advantage of what that Skills Gap can mean to youa path to securing one of those well-paying and rewarding positions in the Skilled Trades. This AYB Playbook is intended to provide you the most comprehensive resource available to help you through each step of building your career and launching a small business as a carpenter. Throughout it, you will be directed to other important resources that can provide you immediately actionable information to learn even more about a critical topic. My hope is that this AYB Playbook will become your plan of action for building and securing your American Dream so that you can be At Your Best .