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Comment by alexfromapex | Hacker News Reader

Just do it. I'm planning to switch jobs from Software Engineer to General Contractor, just working on saving up capital for heavy equipment and materials. I took a great training course and now just have to pass the licensing exam. If your passion changes, just change fields, life is short.

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I think this comment gets to the essence better than anything else: passion.

Something is going to need to motivate you through the process of learning, failing, and growing in a new field. If your motivation is primarily based in getting away from what you are doing now then I suspect you have a difficult road ahead regardless of whether you change or not.

But if you have some kind of passion about what you'd like to be doing instead then you've got the most valuable compass and sail you can ask for.

This is cool. In construction? Do you plan on doing residential, industrial, or commercial? Do you have previous experience?I would love to build physical things for a living.

Yeah going to do some even smaller projects first like retaining walls and building driveways. There are different license levels and they require different levels of capital. The lowest level mainly lets you build residential and has a limit on the number of stories for buildings and the full price of the project. One cool thing I've learned so far is how complex concrete is. Eventually will ramp up to commercial after things are running smoothly but the first thing I'm learning how to run a small business and it's new and exciting just doing that stuff.

Cool, thx for the info. Best of luck with your venture! I'm sure being a technical person will come in extremely handy over and over again.

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