Blue Is the New White: The Best Path to Success No One Told You About—Until Now

by Josh Zolin

Becoming successful in today's America is simple: graduate high school, go to a good college, and get a white-collar job. That path is going to lead you to the biggest paycheck and the best opportunities. Right?The truth is, some of the most lucrative jobs out there are blue-collar jobs-yet society pushes the perception that being an auto mechanic, plumber, electrician, or construction worker somehow indicates a lack of success. A career in the skilled trades was once regarded as a good, honest profession. Now, we discourage young people from pursuing those careers in favor of racking up massive student loan debt and pursuing professional careers that may not always play to their strengths.In Blue Is the New White, Josh Zolin shows that success doesn't have to mean a college degree. He discovered this firsthand, rising through hard work from a technician at his dad's small business to the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. There is more than one path to a stable career and a great financial future; in this book, you'll learn just how many opportunities await you in places you never thought to look.

190 pages, Paperback

Published May 17, 2019

Reviews

[Stephen Stilwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A college degree is not necessarily the only path to success; high school students don’t understand how lucrative a career in the trades can be. These careers are thought of as unworthy, but there is actually a lot of room for growth and opportunity. Pursuing a career in the trades also allows young adults to succeed without a great deal of debt. The whole skilled trades industry: electrical, plumbing, HVAC, refrigeration, construction is growing, but the profession itself is dying. People are retiring faster than entering into the industry. For every five people that retire, one comes into the business. So that’s creating this dynamic where it’s making it difficult for companies to grow at the pace that they could if they were able to find the talent that would facilitate that.

There exists a very large gap in the skilled trades. People don’t realize plumbers, electricians, and technicians can pull in six figures a year; they’re under the impression that technicians are making $15 or $16 an hour. The people who practice a trade for 5, 10, or even 20 years become exponentially better paid than a first year apprentice; these jobs truly scale because there is almost no one at the top of these professions who are complete masters. The best people in the world are all getting too old and retiring at a ratio of 5 to 1; for every 5 people who permanently retire, only one person permanently pursues a career in the trades. Everybody seems to focus on this idea that the trades are dirty. When in reality you’ve got entrepreneurs, salesman, managers, and people parallel to the trades that own software companies specifically serving the trades; they are not these dirty careers that we most often perceive them as.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every parent of a highschooler should read this short book about career in the trades. So many kids are coming out of college with a mountain of debt and no way to pay it back. As someone who works in an industry that actively recruits blue-collar workers in the HVACR industry, I can attest that there’s a huge shortage. There are unlimited opportunities without a college degree! Certainly there’s nothing wrong with obtaining degrees.— I have three — but it’s not for everyone and we need to stop telling our young people that they must go to college.