Skills Canada Series - Season 4 - Episode 8 with Carter Kokot

The CWB Association is proud to continue our collaboration with Skills/Compétences Canada on this special podcast series, where we will highlight the training, passion, and dedication,showcasing the road to WorldSkills Team Canada from the competitors, trainers, experts, and everyone involved as they prepare to head to the World Skills Competition in Shanghai, China,on September 22-27, 2026.

Every vehicle is a new challenge waiting to be solved which sparked a lifelong passion for Carter Kokot that led him to WorldSkills Team Canada to compete in Automobile Technology on the world stage. In this episode, Carter discusses the value of critical thinking and problem solving, and the dedication it takes to compete at the highest level. Carter also reflects on his goal of becoming a Red Seal and Lexus Master Technician, while encouraging the next generation to pursue a career in the skilled trades with confidence and determination. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the CWB Association Welding Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Hua. Let's flip up the lid and spark some conversation. Welcome to the CWB Association Welding Podcast. We are proud to continue our partnership with Skills Competence Canada, where we will be highlighting the Team Canada World Skills Champions. Well, they're not champions yet, but they're getting there. Today we'll be having a very exciting conversation with Carter Cocot. How's it going, Carter? Going well. How are you? Good. Did I butcher your last name? Yeah, no, you're good. I'm always worried because people say my last name wrong all the time. Yeah, no, you're all good. So, Carter, when did your love? Well, actually, let's start here first. What is your trade? My trade is uh I'm an automotive service technician.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Okay. I think it's skill 33. How did you like dive into that trade? For me, my like I got a love for cars, and it started, it's been around for a long time. Like I grew up working on cars with my dad in the garage, and uh it kind of grew from there. I decided that was gonna be my path, so I went to school for it at State, and I did a two-year diploma program there, and it's been my career now for the last two years. So oh wow. So your dad is in the trade. My dad was in the trade as a technician for a long time, and then he became an instructor at State in Calgary. So I had him as my I was lucky to have him as my teacher. And uh I was just gonna ask you, did you have him as your instructor?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

And you did. Yeah, it was my first year instructor. It was a great time, it was a cool experience. So, yeah, you you and your dad must get along then. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I don't know if I could learn from my dad, and you know, like sometimes we

Falling In Love With The Trade

SPEAKER_00 1:35

butt heads when I was growing up. Yeah, yeah, not the same for you. Yeah, no, it's been it's it he's great. Yeah, he's he's my biggest supporter. So cool. So you already knew you wanted to get into the automotive industry, right? How did you get involved with skills?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

When I was going through state, it was something that they kind of pitched to the students. So my first year, my dad, he he goes out and he does some uh judging, he helps out with the skills in uh Edmonton, our provincial skills, and he's like, You gotta go do this, you gotta go try it out. And I had no idea what to expect. I was like, I was kind of unsure, I didn't know, and I was like, Yeah, give it a try, right? First year, give it a try, I go out there, and it was way bigger than I expected. Like, even just at the provincial level, it was massive compared to what I thought it was gonna be. And I I loved the competition, I love that the people who I was there with were like also like had a huge passion for the trade. Like sometimes you meet some people going through school or at work who just do it for their career, like not the love of it. But yeah, when you're at skills, everybody who's there is like the same level of passion as you do. So the people I met were great.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. So what do you think separates, you know, like a good tradesperson from a good competitor?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

I think you really gotta want it. I think it's it's it's not just that there's a lot of people who are great at working on cards and they're great at what they do. But I think if you have the passion for what you're doing and you want to take that to the next level, which becomes the competition part of it, then it's it's extra work, right? You're not you're not out here getting paid for it. It's

Discovering Skills Competition Culture

SPEAKER_01 3:05

you gotta just love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, exactly. So how long have you been involved with this? How how many years now have you been competing?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I've been involved with skills. I did three provincial competitions, so I'd be three years, and this is going on probably my fourth year doing skills stuff. So wow. Two national competitions. This attending this is my third. So I've been doing this for a long time now. Feels like feels like a long time for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, cool. So, what is what is a typical week for you training, you know, towards worlds?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

There's a lot of different routes people go through getting ready for worlds, and I think for me, I I still work full time. I'm employed at Lexa Royal Oak in Calgary. So for me, my training involves just my day-to-day. Like um my boss and my my uh foreman at work are lucky that they just get to give me all the garbage work and all the hard stuff. So that's good to get me ready for skills, and then uh I like to go to SAIT and my trainer Harley at SAIT. We do once or twice a night, we meet up and we run through some stuff together.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

So, what kind of stuff specifically have you been working on? Because you do get a like a bit of a hint as to what you're going to be doing at World. So, what kind of stuff are you working on?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Uh, for automotive, the section is broken down into about I think six to eight different categories, so different stations. So, we'll go through them. We kind of break down our training schedule as as such. So, maybe the first week we'll do we'll train for maybe a couple weeks on transmissions or on engines or body electrical, or so it kind of depends on where we're at in our schedule.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, no, it does. Um, so there's a few different avenues, a few different subjects that you gotta study. Yeah, is there is there one that you're really shine at?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

I really love the diag, and I think that's like there's all the different aspects of cars that in the competition, and they're part of the they're part of the trade and part of your career. And for me, the competition part gets fun when you really get thinking, when it really is like that problem solving that you have to have. Yeah, and it's it's in every station a little bit for sure. But when you got a car and they they give you an engine, it does not start, and all of a sudden you fix it and it does, it cranks. Yeah, and then you gotta figure out why it's not starting when it's cranking, and then it's runs, but it runs poorly, and then you got so I love the problem solving, I love the diet.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

I'm gonna need your help. I bought a 1990 Volkswagen uh Corado, and uh yeah, it used to run, now it doesn't run. That's a Volkswagen story, man. Volkswagen issues, yeah. So um, is there something that you think you need to work on for your skills?

SPEAKER_01 5:36

I think right now we got four months out till Shanghai. So it's really just refining those refining those points. We've done some had some really cool opportunities

Training While Working Full Time

SPEAKER_01 5:45

throughout the past year where I got to do a training event in in France. So they invited me to go to France and compete in their national competition in Marseille. Very cool. And it was a good opportunity to kind of see where I'm at. So put me under put me under pressure, the time change, so it was a good set the baseline and then kind of see like what needs work, where I'm doing okay at. Yeah. So right now we're just kind of refining a few things for sure. So your skills are there, you're pretty confident. What about time management? Time management can be a struggle because a lot of the stations they design them to be kind of endless, where like if you're good enough, you can just keep going and keep going. So there's not a lot of people who are finishing the stations. It's more of like kind of see what's worth the most points and where you can where you can do the best at getting the most points while you're working through a station. So the time management's probably the hardest part, and that's what we're working on.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because you don't want to be, you know, getting hung up on something that's you know worth very little and you're spending all your time on that one issue. 100%. Yeah. But the diagnostic, that's a that's a really interesting one. I'd I you know that's a tough one, right? So absolutely. Yeah, can you can you get into some of the specific things that you do to diagnose like a an engine that's not running? Man, I there's like there's so many things.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

I'd love to go in and run through a scenario, and it's like for me, once you're say you're getting a car and it's and no crank, no start, you gotta just be running through all the checks, right? And then it's for me, it's building that process so that I have the steps to just rinse and repeat if it's a different car. But the problem is it's every car is different. Who knows what kind of cars we're gonna be working at in Shanghai, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Like that's the biggest fear is that's another question is that you know you're working on North American vehicles right now, right? What happens when you go over there?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

I you don't know. That's all the unknowns, right? So I'm hoping we're gonna do a we were invited to do a training event in Shenzhen in July. Okay, and I'm really hoping we kind of get an idea of what we're gonna be looking at, what we're working with there. So yeah, but that's that's the thing, is every every different brand's got their own service information, they got their own way of wiring stuff. At like the base core parts, car's a car, right? Yeah, but some of the little things that can change how you're looking at it, how you're diagnosing it, could be a huge factor in the competition, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah, absolutely. So, like, are you using any kind of diagnostic tools like computers to do this stuff?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Uh depends on the station, right? So sometimes they'll allow us to have a scan tool, maybe uh you get a snap-on scan tool. And a lot of times, if you're given a scan tool, it's not gonna work, it's gonna be like, ah, no communication.

Diagnostics Mindset And Better Process

SPEAKER_01 8:25

W that's usually how it goes, right? You're like, oh, we got a scan tool, great. And it's like, oh, can't connect. You're like, oh, all right, we're going down that route. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

And then how much time do you spend trying to connect? And like, what are we wasting here?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah, for sure. So it's uh I'm not really sure what to expect at Worlds. I know it's gonna be a whole different level of the competition that never seen before, and uh I'm really looking forward to kind of see the challenges and struggles and everything about it for sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

While we're on vehicles, how are EV vehicles, electric vehicles, uh coming into your trade? Or like do you compete with EVs as well? Yeah, we we have an EV station.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

They re it's kind of new to kind of new to the skills. They're pushing a heavier push for an EV station and uh more EV incorporation. I'm sure in Shanghai that's that's a huge part of the Chinese vehicle market is the EV vehicles. So to me, it's not a big a big stress factor. They're they're honestly sometimes simpler to look at than a gasoline engine, right? Yeah, because it's a battery, a motor, an inverter, and that's it. It's like to me that they're honestly a little bit more in terms of drivability faults, there's less drivability faults you can have with an EV vehicle, so it's not a big concern of mine.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

There's only so many components, yeah. Yeah, so you have been doing a bit of training though, like you have to be some a little bit of an electrician as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

It's it automotive is an everything trade. You're learning, you're learning how to do it all. So I took a it was a one-week night EV course at State, and my trainer Harley Bradner, he runs this course, and it was it really ran me through everything. And like EVs, you cover them in a week, and it's uh beyond that, it's just brand to brand, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So yeah, true, true. Um so leading up to going to worlds, is there something that you're worried about? Are you like a nervous guy, anxious guy?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

You know, I I'd like to say that I wasn't an anxious guy until skills started. I think there's there's just so many unknowns that it sometimes it gets to you, but I think the biggest thing for me is just not been putting pressure on myself to in terms of where I stand afterwards, I just want to go and have a good time, meet meet cool people and uh enjoy the challenges that I'm faced with. I think that's that's why I started doing this, is because I love the the problem solving and the diagnostics. And so I think if I go there and see some cool challenges and solve some problems, I think then that's a win for me.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

That'll be it, yeah. So is there like anything specific you do to get rid of the nerves? I mean uh trusting in your training is the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah. That does keep coming up a lot. You hear that a lot? I do hear that a lot, yeah. And that that's really it has to be that because once you're there, there's nothing else you can do, right? You got those two hours to do your station, and no one's there to help you, right? So it's you just gotta trust in what you've what I've been training on, what everyone's been training for. I think that's the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Because if you doubt yourself, you're just you go down a rabbit hole, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, yeah, that that can happen. Has there ever been that moment for you, like maybe just regional or national, or has there been a moment where you like, man, I screwed up, and then you just like had a moment where you couldn't just push through, or I've definitely found some struggles.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

I've definitely found some struggles where I have my diagnostic path that I you know that works for me. Everybody's got their own way of thinking. I think that's that's there's not one right way to do something, usually, right? There's so many different ways you could look at a problem and go down to figure it out. And I was competing in Edmonton actually just a few weeks back, and

EV Stations And Unknown WorldSkills Cars

SPEAKER_01 11:55

they had a body electrical station set up, and I had a way I wanted to go. There was a no communication, and I kind of done some diag, and I had a route that I wanted to follow, and I wasn't allowed to take a panel off to do some measurements. They didn't want me to disassemble from there, right? And it kind of just threw off my it threw off my game. I was like, I had a way I wanted to go, and then when I wasn't allowed to go that way, it kind of kind of shook me up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And I wasn't able to get to the problem in time. Oh, okay. So it kind of drove me nuts, but it just highlighted another point to work on, right? So that's right. Now we're doing some stuff. Like I showed up this morning to judge a station, and my trainer and my expert are like, nope, you're doing it. So they threw me for a loop there just for fun, right? So we're just trying to do some more like surprises, different things, just kind of change up so that way I'm not looking at stuff in one route, right? One line of thinking.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Yeah, don't get tunnel vision. Absolutely, yeah. The tunnel vision can really lead you down the wrong path. Yeah. Is there anything interesting you're doing in your training that will like guide you away from that?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

I think I think sometimes it's just a matter of like I'm doing something, and then my trainer's like, no, don't do that, right? Try to figure it out somewhere else, right? Just just to he knows I can figure it out that way. So try finding another way, right? So he knows that there's knows there's multiple ways to do it for sure. So really it's just surprises and different things, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:17

So being a competitor, you must have like a pretty good support system around you, like you've got your trainers and stuff, but you know, like how do you how do you afford to do these things or you know, take these trips?

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Skills Canada and Skills Alberta has hugely stepped up for us, especially the Alberta competitors. I know Skills Canada allots us budget and uh funds, and they'll they'll even help us find more money if we need to. But Skills Alberta is hugely stepped up for a lot of the Alberta competitors. Like, I've the funding has not been a difficult issue for us. And I've gone on a trip to France for 10 days and competed there, and I'm gonna be in Shenzhen in July. And yeah, so it all this training has been no issue.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Skills Alberta's that's amazing because you wouldn't you wouldn't want to have to worry about that on top of worrying about the competition. Yeah, absolutely. Right. What is a skill you think has improved for you in your trade throughout training for all of this? I'd like to think I improve everywhere. I I think it's in terms of just competition-wise or yeah, just like not well, yeah, competition-wise as well. Like you you've become you know a more confident person, but like with your biggest thing, yeah, with your mechanical skills. Like, is there something that you weren't very good at that now you are confident in?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

I think I think for working on cars, the biggest thing you you have is that confidence, like you were saying. Yeah, I'm going down the right way. Yeah, I trust in what I've done. Like, it's so much

Pressure Management And Avoiding Tunnel Vision

SPEAKER_01 14:40

less uh sitting there digesting information and more just doing going after it, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So have you traveled quite a bit? Like you you mentioned you went to France and stuff, but before doing skills, were you a traveler? Had you been outside of Canada?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Before skills, I you know what me and my family were more, we could do a lot of camping, do a lot of road trips. I hadn't been outside of North like Canada, US before skills started. Yeah, so like longest flight I ever did was that one to France, and that was the longest flight before that was to Vancouver. So it was uh it was a pretty uh it was a pretty cool experience. That was my first time leaving North America, so I just blown away by it for sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

That's really cool. Yeah, another side of skills that people don't really think about, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:23

It's absolutely the benefits are like just the experiences you gain doing skills, even even if you don't end up on the world level, maybe you're competing in a year where you know that's not a world's competition year. Don't feel like it's not for anything. Like the people you get to meet, like you go to Regina and the year prior was in Quebec City. Yep. And like just the people you meet, the places you get to go see, like we went and see a football game in Regina. That was pretty cool. And it was like went to go see the riders. I'm from Regina. Yeah, so yeah, I I remember last year's an awesome year. It was a great year, it's fantastic. Yeah, I think I think it's worthwhile, even at the provincial level, the people you go and meet, it's gonna be something you'll remember for the rest of your life. And I think so. This experience has been yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

So, how is Team Canada as a whole? Like you mentioned, like you have friends and stuff, like how does it feel traveling to you know wherever, yeah, and and like just sticking it out as a team?

SPEAKER_01 16:16

I I think it's pretty cool. I think it's cool to have you have a whole bunch of people who understand each other. Sometimes it can be hard doing this and talking to some people about it because they don't fully understand maybe what's going on or what you're doing. But I know that with Team Canada, I got 25 other guys who are they're in it with us, right? They're we're all in it together. So to have somebody you can talk to about some struggles, and maybe, oh, your family doesn't understand, or your work doesn't understand what you're doing, and so it's I think it's really important that we have each other and we got a kind of a close, uh, close group going on.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, that is really cool. It doesn't matter what trade you're in, you're all going through the same struggles. Absolutely, yeah. And there's something about being part of Skills Competence Canada is that you're passionate, you're here for a reason.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah, yeah. We all have that same love, even though our trades are all different, the love for our trades is the same.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Yeah, yeah. Do you ever feel, you know, in your community or your surroundings that there's like uh like you know, that's the the conversation comes up a lot about gatekeeping, you know. Like, are is the older generation sharing information that you need to like do your job properly? In the automotive industry? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

I'm lucky to work with the group I work with. I think you like everybody's got their own wealth of knowledge, and where I work, everybody's

Funding Support And Travel Opportunities

SPEAKER_01 17:35

happy to share. Like, we have uh a couple guys at my shop who are their lifetime Lexus technicians, so they've been there since the day one, and their their wealth of knowledge is so valuable and it's passed down to all of us. So I nobody's gatekeeping, at least where I'm from.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

So that's good. I I'm really glad to hear it because like I I strive to share my knowledge, right? But some people they just you know they don't they're not teachers, they don't have the patience for it, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Um, so you're working at Lexus. Yeah, is Lexus your favorite car? What's your favorite car?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

What's your favorite brand? And the favorite car question. I I struggle with that. I and I'm a guy who's got four cars at home, and I just, you know, for me, I it's kind of whatever's like piquing my interest at the time, right? I struggle to have the favorite car question for sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

No, that's fair. That's fair.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

The Lexus brand itself is a fantastic brand. I think what they do for their their guests is like is how a car company should be ran. I think it I think they do a great job.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Good, yeah. For myself, like what are these four cars you got sitting at home? Oh man. Looking to get rid of a few.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I have a uh Chevy Tracker. Yep. I got a Mazda protege, Honda Civic, and a Tureg, Volkswagen Turek. So that's that's the troublemaker.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

So you all you also have Volkswagen problems.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah, that thing's got problems.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

They just do things so differently.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Oh man, they make it so over-engineered, right? For the time it was so many features, but right now, dealing with the features, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Too many. Oh, yeah, yeah. I I can commiserate on that one for sure. So headed to China, are you are you worried about the jet lag? Are you worried about the food? Is there something that's that's got you uh peaked a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I'm pretty excited for the food. As long as my stomach should hold up just fine. So I'm pretty pretty excited for the food. The jet it's gonna be a long flight. I think that's I think it'd be great if we could get there even earlier. I don't know. Yeah, but I knew off the top of my head how many days we get there prior to the competition. I just know it's not enough, right? You're gonna feel that jet leg for a little bit. But I think the biggest thing I I noticed when I went to France was you got that adrenaline. Like you get there and the competition starts. You you're gonna crash at the end of the day, but that adrenaline, you ride that out through the competition pretty good. You don't feel the you don't feel the jet leg, right? Yeah, yeah. Once you start out high, yeah. Yeah, you just ride the adrenaline out. But I think the biggest biggest thing for me is four days of competition and like four full days. I think that's

Team Canada Bonds And Knowledge Sharing

SPEAKER_01 20:05

new to all of us. Wow. Yeah, get into that because I thought it was only two days of competition. It's four days in Shanghai. So I think for all of us here used to two-day competitions, it's it's gonna be a lot. I think by the end we're all gonna be pretty beat. Yeah, it's gonna test your your mental and physical side. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

And the weather's gonna, I'm sure it's gonna be hot there. It's gonna be humid there. So crazy. So, do you have any set plans when you get back from China? Like, you're gonna I tell everyone this, like, you're gonna win gold, right? Yeah, you got you got it. That's the plan, right? So when you get back, what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 20:40

I'm sure the the relief, the decompression afterwards is gonna be like sure like nothing else, especially working towards this for it's gonna be over over a year by that point. I think it's gonna be the decompression's gonna be pretty big. Um just relax. It's not gonna, I'm sure it's gonna feel a little weird, right? Not having that on my mind anymore. Yeah. But I think it'll be nice. I think you know, just not have to worry about it, not to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

Yeah, take some time and just not think about anything. Absolutely, right? So, on the other side of that, would you be interested in being a trainer or becoming an expert and helping the next generation of skills competitors?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

I know for sure this is uh this is a community I want to stay a part of. So I know following years, we have net nationals next years in Calgary, I believe that's right. So I'll be there to judge in or anything they need me for, right? Helping out, training.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

So it'd be cool to see another Albertan uh technician go to worlds in the following years, but I think it's a it's a community I'm gonna stay a part of, and so I'll be there for events from from here on out for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

That's really cool, man. Um what would you say to uh a young person that's out there right now who's thinking about going into the trades but doesn't really know how to get started? That's a good question. Because like not everyone, you know, you you were fortunate. Yeah. You were exposed to the trades. It was at home, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Yeah, absolutely. So I I kind of had an easy an easy way into it. Being my dad's a teacher and uh I had already done car stuff. It wasn't like it wasn't a big change for me. Yeah. I think if there's something, honestly, if there's something you're like, yeah, that might be fun. Go apply. There's you know the the demand for

Advice For Newcomers To Trades

SPEAKER_01 22:30

trades, jobs, is there for almost every trade I know, almost every industry. I'm sure welders, I'm sure trying to find a job or even get into a shop as a helper and see if it's the environment you want to work in, I'm sure it's not too hard to find a job. Yeah. You gotta be able to, you gotta be able to move, you gotta look like you know what you're doing somewhere, and just keep working, like whether you're sweeping or anything, just move with a purpose and you'll get a job. I'm sure it's not too bad.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, the work ethic is a big one, right? Like honestly, anyone can be taught, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

But if you're not there to work, then you gotta have a smile when you're neither holding the broom or whatever it is, right? You just you gotta be there to work, you gotta show up on time. Biggest things, right? Yeah, be there on time, always be there, and uh just do whatever they ask you to do. And I'm sure a lot of places are happy to hire you.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Absolutely, you gotta pay your dues sometimes. Absolutely, yeah, you gotta pay your dues. That's okay. So, is there an experience that you had throughout all of these competitions that you were really, really proud of yourself?

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I think I think honestly, I'm just proud of myself for doing it. I think sometimes it's easy to not do the hard things. It's easy to say, no, I'm not gonna go and do skills, and you know, I'm not getting paid to do that. I think just going out and doing the hard things is where you really grow and you see cool, like you do cool things. If I never went out that first time, I wouldn't be here, right? And so that was that at the time it wasn't a big thing because it was just I was just going to the provincial competition and kind of seeing it out, but doing the hard things takes you to the cool places, right? You got the hard things in life are what's worth doing. Absolutely. You gotta step out of your comfort zone, right? Oh, this has been a huge step out of my comfort zone. Like being on a podcast, like they're making us do interviews. I hate all of that. That's not for me. I'm not a big media guy, and so there's a lot of been a lot of stepping out of my comfort zones for sure. Yeah, so but you know what? It's been worth it. Yeah, absolutely. Afterwards, you're proud of yourself. You did the hard thing. It wasn't that bad in the end, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:25

No, absolutely. So, like, you know, to the young people out there, step out of your comfort zone. If you're interested in something, find a way to try it. Absolutely. You know, getting your hands on something is very important, right? Trades are are your hands. You're working with your hands, your mind, your body, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Well, this has been awesome.

Pride In Hard Things And Closing

SPEAKER_00 24:45

Yeah, it's been great. Well, thank you very much, Carter, for being my guest. My pleasure. And uh thank you. Thank you for tuning to the CWB Association Welding Podcast as we continue our partnership with Skills Competence Canada. We wish Team Canada the best of luck in Shanghai, China as they head to World Skills. So uh stay tuned and uh make sure you follow and subscribe, and uh, we'll see you on the next one.