“What Do I Have to Do to Be You?”
A couple years ago, a pest control tech came out to the house.
We were talking for a bit — normal stuff.
At one point he paused and asked a question I wasn’t expecting:
“What do I have to do to be you?”
It caught me off guard.
And I gave him a terrible answer.
Something like, “I just got lucky.”
That’s not wrong. Luck plays a role.
But it’s not the answer he was really asking for.
What he meant was:
How do I move forward?
How do I build something better?
How do I get from where I am to something more?
And I didn’t give him anything useful.
That stuck with me.
Because there are real answers to that question.
One of them is the skilled trades.
Not as a backup plan. Not as a second option.
As a real path to steady work, good income, and long-term growth.
But even that path has a barrier at the start.
A student can do everything right and still get stuck before day one.
That’s the part we can fix.
VBCTF isn’t about handing anything out.
It’s about making sure someone who’s ready to move forward actually can.
In a way, this is a second chance at answering that question better.
Not with words.
With tools.
