I met a guy who started a concrete business that affords him winter in Belize. By concrete business, I mean actual concrete.

He started it two years ago; a blue-collar trade he learned through hard work, and a company he started through ingenuity. No college, no rich parents, and not only does he make more than most of us reading this post, he spends 4 months a year in Belize!

This guy read the industry, saw an unfulfilled need in the market, and had the courage and wisdom to realize the "everyone must go to college and have a white collar job" was not true or right for everyone.

Whatever the career path is that everyone's preaching, that's the path of most resistance. It's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

There is no more valuable skill than reading a market; understanding the supply and demand, what's valuable and what's not, how to ignore conventional wisdom, and create an offering people want and need in a niche.

Anyone looking down on blue collar people, this guy's gonna be laughing his way to the bank on a beach this winter while all of us hunch over our desks.

Travis Chambers is Founder and Chief Media Hacker at Chamber.media.  This piece originally appeared on LinkedIn.