Answer extracted from the Forum Focus podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What are the three main paths to acquiring wealth that a carpenter should consider?
The three paths to acquiring wealth are real estate, owning your own business, or investing in the stock market. Each offers distinct advantages depending on your circumstances and risk tolerance, but they all require intentional strategy and sustained effort to generate lasting financial growth.
For most tradespeople, real estate stands out as the most tangible option. Sawyer chose this path early in his carpentry career, purchasing his first house while still working as a union carpenter and apprentice. This decision proved foundational—he continued acquiring properties throughout his years in the trades, building equity that later became the financial foundation for launching his own construction company.
The stock market represents a more hands-off approach to wealth accumulation, requiring less direct involvement but demanding discipline and long-term commitment. Business ownership, meanwhile, offers the highest potential upside but demands active management, personal risk, and the willingness to navigate economic downturns. Sawyer discusses this decision-making process in detail in the episode, describing how he evaluated all three options before committing to real estate as his primary vehicle.
The key insight here is deliberation: rather than drifting into whatever opportunities surface, Sawyer explicitly chose his path after reading about wealth creation and considering which option aligned best with his skills and circumstances. His approach to breaking generational poverty through intentional wealth strategy is covered throughout the podcast.
"Leveraging the relationships that we have built and maintained over these 11 years has been the key to growth."
Cordell Sawyer — Founder of Sled Rock Construction. Sawyer grew up in University City and worked as a janitor while studying wealth creation. He became one of the first apprentices to complete the carpenter's associate degree program through Balls Park Community College and worked as a union carpenter for 10 years before founding Sled Rock Construction in 2009 during the recession. He invested his carpenter wages into real estate, using that equity to fund his construction business.
Real estate as a wealth path carries particular relevance for tradespeople because it directly leverages earned income and builds tangible assets. Unlike the stock market, which requires capital to sit invested and grow over decades, real estate generates immediate utility—you live in or lease the property while equity builds. For Sawyer, this meant he could use his carpenter's wages to finance down payments, then use property appreciation and rental income to fund his transition into business ownership by 2009.
The timing of that transition illustrates another advantage of real estate: when the building economy collapsed, Sawyer had accumulated real estate equity that he could leverage to launch Sled Rock Construction. His story of combining real estate wealth-building with entrepreneurship during economic crisis is detailed in the full conversation. Business ownership opened access to high-value projects—including work on the Missouri Botanical Garden Visitor Center and the multi-year Queenie Tower demolition project—that individual carpentry could never have achieved.
What Sawyer's experience reveals is that these three paths are not mutually exclusive. His real estate holdings funded his business; his business success likely enabled further investments. The practical starting point for most tradespeople mirrors his own: real estate offers the clearest entry point because it converts monthly wages directly into owned assets, and those assets can then be leveraged for business capital or further investment.
Reading and deliberate choice as the foundation
Sawyer's wealth journey began not with an inheritance or windfall, but with a book on generational wealth that outlined these three paths. He read it while working as a janitor to support his family—circumstances far removed from privilege. The critical move was not luck, but conscious selection: evaluating which of the three paths made sense given his position as an emerging tradesperson, then executing that choice consistently for years.
This deliberate framework matters because many tradespeople never formally consider wealth acquisition at all. The podcast explores how education and intentional planning transformed Sawyer's trajectory from poverty to business ownership—a shift that started with reading and thinking, not with higher credentials or family connections.
Key takeaways
- Real estate, business ownership, and stock market investing are the three primary paths to wealth; tradespeople should evaluate which aligns with their skills and capital access.
- Real estate offers the most tangible entry point for tradespeople because wages can be directly converted into property ownership and equity accumulation.
- Business ownership requires accumulated capital and carries higher risk, but can generate significantly higher returns than wages or passive investment alone.
- Deliberate strategy matters more than circumstance—reading about wealth creation and making an explicit choice about which path to pursue separates wealth builders from wage earners.
See also
What role do changing political leadership demographics play in motivating organized labor to address diversity in construction?
For the first time in Missouri state history, the two economic engines of the state—St. Louis and Kansas City—are led by African-American leadership, creating new momentum for organized labor to address workforce diversity and inclusion in construction.
How should contractors and unions approach hiring women and people of color to ensure genuine inclusion rather than superficial compliance?
Contractors must place women and people of color in supervisory positions, not just entry-level roles, to create authentic inclusion and demonstrate genuine commitment beyond compliance optics.
What concrete example demonstrates the impact of early career entry in the electrical trades on economic mobility?
A young man who entered the electrical trade at age 18 purchased his first house by age 21, demonstrating how early entry into skilled trades can accelerate economic mobility and wealth-building opportunities.