9 Jobs That Actually Pay Well If You're Starting Over In 2026

These are nine jobs that actually pay well if you're starting over and by the end of this video I promise at least one of them is going to fit your exact situation. Some pay over $200,000 a year, some pay less, some you can start in under six months, and some way faster than that. And this is coming from someone who's spent the last decade studying which careers actually pay, building businesses, and helping people restart into work that they don't hate, with over a thousand people that we've personally helped land jobs to show for it. So when I tell you these pay, I'm not guessing. And the pattern that I see over and over from people who restart fast and actually make money is the smart ones don't chase whatever's trending, they chase the jobs that nobody else wants to restart into. Because that's where you have the leverage instead of the employer. So I'm going to walk you through all nine, what they pay, how to get in, and how fast, and every numbers from real sources like BLS, Glassdoor, real people telling you what they make, with receipts on the screen, and no made up AI salary nonsense. So if you appreciate content like this let me know by gently cheers in that like button and let's jump into it right now. Okay so let's start with the landman and this is where you research courthouse property records and negotiate minimal rights leases so that energy companies can legally drill, or build wind and solar, or any other number of things that energy companies do. And it's a six-figure paper trail job that most people only know from the TV show. Now there's a great breakdown from Variety where the co-creator of the show Landman, a guy who actually worked on oil fields, explains what real landmen do all day. And he was actually once an oil roughneck himself according to this article. Now you might be thinking, isn't that just a Billy Bob Thornton character? That's not a real job, right? So I found a working landman on YouTube, Stephen Hatcher, the minerals guy, and he takes the show head on and he says that landmen aren't running from cartels, they're the dealmakers who track who owns the mineral rights, and they spend most of the day doing research and working the phones, not out in the field. We are not running from the cartel right now, we're going to meet a landowner, right? And landmen are the dealmakers in oil and gas. But Shane, as an oil boomer bust, wouldn't I just be starting over again in five years? Well, there's a whole thread in the landman community where somebody asks exactly that, and a working landman answers that he gets calls from bosses looking for people all the time. And Glassdoor puts the average landman around $112,000 a year going up to $147,000 per year. So yeah, lot of opportunity here. This is a job where you have to have the mental side of things down. You really need to know the industry, you need to be smart, but at the same time, once in a while, you need to be able to get your hands dirty too, and go out in the field. And there's just not a lot of people who have those skills. And these are the types of jobs that are going to be very safe in the age of AI. YouTube and building your personal brand just got 10 times easier, and nobody's talking about it. And the reason it got 10 times easier is because of AI, and specifically Cloud AI. And that's what we're going to be talking about in this week's live training that we're doing. Click the link down in the description in the pinned comment below. I will be there, I'll be answering questions before, during, and after. We'll also be giving you an AI that's designed to help you pick your niche if you don't have one in the first place, or if you already have one, it's going to help you make it 10 times better. So we worked very hard on this AI, people absolutely love it. We've literally gotten hundreds of comments from people that love it, so you do not want to miss out on it. And if you're watching this in the future for whatever reason, or it's already past the time of the live training, still click on that link, because we will be having more live trainings in the future, and you will be the first person to know, because it'll put you on a wait list for that. But with that being said, it's completely free, no reason not to attend. Click that link in the description in the pinned comment below, and I'll see you on the other side. Okay, so number two is going to be a catastrophe insurance adjuster. So after hurricanes and hailstorms, you deploy into disaster zones, and you get paid per claim that you close, and independent CAT adjusters can earn a year's income in one bad storm season. And there's a Day in the Life video from a working catastrophe adjuster that shows exactly what deployment looks like. Now you might be thinking, per claim pay sounds like feast or famine, what do you eat between the storms? So here's the reality, straight from the people who train these adjusters. The season ones don't sit idle. When the big storm slows down, experienced adjusters pick up daily desk claims, water damage, theft, auto, etc. all year round. It's mostly the first year adjusters who feel that feast or famine swing before they've built relationships with the firms, and by year two it really evens out. Okay, but Shane, how do I get started with no experience? Glad you asked. Well, there's a whole channel called Insurance Adjuster 101 that walks you through it. You can take a one to two week course, get a state license, sign up with an adjuster firm, and you're on the roster. Now just to be very clear, of course different states are different, different regions are different. This is something that I highly recommend that you look up on AI, just tell it where you're from and ask it what you need to get started. And a lot of these adjusters, like Daniel the adjuster, build a following on top of the work and they make money that way too. Just like it says here on his channel, learn how to be a claims adjuster, equipment reviews, tips and tricks, firsthand knowledge of the industry from a pro, new content posted weekly. So obviously he's going to recommend different tech, he's going to help you get in, and there's many different ways you can monetize by doing that. And that's on top of the $82,000 to $129,000 a year that you can make just from the job itself. All right, next is the organ procurement coordinator. So when someone becomes an organ donor, this nurse gets paged. And it's often in the middle of the night to manage the donor in the ICU, coordinate with transplant surgeons, and sometimes physically fly the organ to the hospitals where it's needed. And there's a day in the life video that follows the whole thing from the pager going off to the recovery, and it's pretty intense. Now you might be thinking, if I became a nurse to save patients, I couldn't spend every shift working with families on the worst day of their lives. But here's the reframe. And this is straight from registerednursing.org. Every single donor a coordinator manages can save up to eight other lives. And a lot of the people doing this job are burned out ICU and ER nurses who say it's the most meaningful work that they've ever done. But no, you need years of specialized training to even touch something like this. Well, not the way that you'd think. Most coordinators come straight from the ICU or the ER where they already have critical care skills. The organ procurement organizations train you on specifics once you're in the door. And this is a position that makes really good money, about $83,000 to $136,000 a year, according to Glassdoor. And if you're coming into this from a healthcare background, there's something that you need to understand. The clinical expertise that you already have is worth a small fortune the second that you put it in front of an audience. As an example, take Nurse Julie here from our community. This is the nurse behind Nurse Julie Autoimmune Energy. She had years of deep clinical knowledge and no real way to turn it into views. And she'd even tried the generic online marketing advice floating around out there, and it was way too basic to ever scale. Then she made one video, How to Take Berberine Properly, and it crossed 70,000 views. And it pulled in more than 2,400 new subscribers and ran it over 100 times her world average. And she just started in our community very recently, and she's not alone. Take Nurse Jen. This is another nurse in our community who came in as a total beginner, and in her own words, she said she hadn't dipped her toe into YouTube yet. And she built her entire channel around one thing that she already knew, which is healthcare navigation. This is something that she was helping patients with on a day-to-day basis. And she just did it, but she recorded it with a camera, and now she's absolutely crushing it. She's got three different videos over 600,000 views, and she's making a full-time income from her channel. And these are numbers that most creators grind for years to hit, and she did it off the knowledge that was already in her head. So if you're stepping into a role like this from healthcare, understand this. This could just as easily be you. And also, this isn't just healthcare careers. There are countless different examples of people in our community and tons of different careers out there that have started YouTube channels and made really good side incomes from that. And some of them, it just replaces their full-time income, and some of them, they launch an entire business from it. There are literally countless examples, and I'm gonna be going over all of them and exactly how we help them do it in this week's live training, which is completely free, and you can access by clicking the link in the description and the pinned comment below. I will personally be there presenting it, and we'll be giving you an AI that helps you pick the right niche for you. Or if you already have a niche, dial in your niche so that you can stand out. All right, here's another one, The Tanker Man. In this one, you're a certified mariner responsible for loading and unloading fuel and liquid cargo on barges, and it's a Coast Guard credential job that you can work your way up to from deckhand, no college classes required. Now, there's a Day in the Life of a Tank Person video that shows the actual job, the hoses, the watches, all of it. And you might be thinking, being stuck on a barge for weeks away from my family sounds miserable. Well, there's a guy named Tim, and his channel's Tim Batsy, and he posted The Life of a Tanker Man on a bunker barge in New York City, and he explains it's two guys, 12-hour watches, splitting the grocery run, and one of the deckhands grew up on an island with no bridge and no car, and he says that if you can get along with people on an island, you can get along with people on a barge. But you're pumping thousands of gallons of flammable fuel in one mistake, and you might become the news. And that is exactly why the pay is what it is. Crowley, one of the biggest marine employers in the country, spells it out. A tanker hand isn't a deckhand with a hose, it's a licensed position that needs extra credentialing, specifically because you're handling dangerous cargo. And the high bar is the whole reason why the job pays well. And according to Glassdoor, it pays about $83,000 to $146,000 a year. All right, next is a locomotive engineer. This is where you drive freight trains for railroads, and it typically has paid on-the-job training, and you're usually starting as a conductor, no degree, and union pay that climbs past $100,000. Now, there's a full day in the life of a Norfolk Southern engineer named Douglas Bonner that shows the actual job. Now, you might be thinking, railroaders are on-call 24-7, 365, and that lifestyle wrecks people. Well, the on-the-call is real, I won't sugarcoat it at all, but here's what railroaders get that almost nobody else does. They get their own federal retirement system that replaces social security, and per the Railroad Retirement Board's own numbers, career railroaders average about $4,300 a month in retirement versus $1,800 for average social security check. That's nearly two and a half times more, so they have really good benefits. But can you really walk in off the street with zero rail experience? Well, that's actually the hiring model. There's a video of a Norfolk Southern engineer training a new guy right in the cab on company time, and the railroad's higher conductor trainees pay you while you learn and promote to And locomotive engineers make about $71,000 to $115,000 a year. And like I said before, they have really good benefits, especially in retirement. All right, next is the building automation technician. And this is another one that most people, of course, have never heard of. And basically, you program and troubleshoot the computer systems that run a building's heating, AC, lighting, and energy. And it's kind of like a hybrid IT, but also trades job at the same time. And of course, there is a massive shortage, thanks to the smart buildings and data centers that are coming out left and right. And the YouTube channel Johnson Controls has a day in the life of one of their control techs that shows the actual work. Now, you might be thinking, sounds like you'd need both an IT degree and an HVAC license just to touch this. Neither, actually. There's a video showing a tech wiring and programming a real building controller, and it's low voltage wiring plus basic networking, no refrigerant work, so no EPA or HVAC license, and no computer science degree either. And that's exactly why companies like Johnson Controls, Simons, and Honeywell hire green techs and train them on the job, because the shortage is just too bad to require degrees. But is there actual demand, or is this a niche job that's only available in like three cities out there? Yeah, there's a ton of demand. Every hospital, school, campus, airport, and office tower already runs on these systems, and they're only getting more and more complicated. Plus, there's an AI data center boom that is adding thousands of new buildings that legally can't even operate without a controls tech keeping them running. And Glassdoor has this position making about $61,000 to $94,000 a year. All right, next is going to be an NDT technician, which is basically non-destructive testing. And basically, you're going to be using ultrasound, X-ray, and magnetic testing to find invisible cracks in bridges, pipelines, and aircraft before they actually fail and cause a disaster. So think of it like an MRI tech, but for infrastructure. There's a working technician named Brent Moulton featured in a series on YouTube called This is NDT that shows what the job's really like. Now, you might be thinking, I've never even heard of this, so how the heck do I get certified for it? Well, here's the part that surprises a lot of people. You can get hired first, then certify. And with a lot of these jobs that I talk about on this list, sure, it does depend on where you live, so definitely look it up on AI or Google. But a lot of the times the companies are so desperate for these people that they will literally just train you, and a lot of the time they'll actually pay you to train you. So a company brings you on as a trainee, you log supervised hours, and you test up to level one, then level two, and the whole path is months of logged hours, not a four-year degree. But a $70,000 average isn't exactly pays well. And NDT techs make about $55,000 to $91,000 a year. So yeah, pretty good stuff and really good pay as well. All right, next is going to be a rope access technician. This is where you're going to repel off of skyscrapers, which is pretty cool, basically like Mission Impossible, and also bridges, wind turbines, and oil rigs to do inspections and repairs that would otherwise need scaffolding. And the entry certification takes about a week. And there's a channel that only talks about becoming a rope technician. And this channel's videos talks about the things that you need for the reassessment gear interview with people who are currently working as rope technicians themselves. Now you might be thinking, dangling off the side of a building for a living? Absolutely not. And I know it's counterintuitive, but this is one of the safest ways to work at height ever invented. Every tech is on two independent ropes, on two independent anchors, a working line, plus a backup that catches you if anything fails. And the numbers back it up. The IRATA, the body that governs the trade, logged over 33 million working hours in a single year. And 61% of all reported incidents had zero injury. And according to Glassdoor, the rope access technician makes about $47,000 to $71,000 a year. But there are other positions that are related to that that can make more. All right, next is a drone pilot and specifically for infrastructure inspections. I know you got excited. It's a sexy career, a drone pilot, but yeah, it's typically going to be for something boring like infrastructure inspections, but something that's very valuable to society, right? So you basically fly drones to inspect power lines, cell towers, roofs, bridges, and solar farms, et cetera, replacing the guy who used to climb the tower. So the FAA license takes a couple of weeks to study, and it's not a degree. And there's a guy on YouTube named Dylan Gorman, and he said that he made $2 million from flying drones, and he looks pretty young. So he made $2 million at a young age, and he's got over 140,000 subscribers, and he literally just talks about what he does. Now you might be thinking, Shane, everybody's got a drone now. That market has to be saturated. Well, the hobbyists aren't your competition because the client isn't paying you to fly. They're paying for the data. And industrial inspection needs the FAA license to put thermal imaging, LIDAR, and mapping skills. And because so few pilots have all three, industrial gigs start around $300 an hour, while the hobbyists fight over the $200 real estate shoots. But if you just look up drone pilots in general, they make about $71,000 to $130,000 a year. But like I said, the higher paying jobs are going to be the boring ones. Now you might've noticed something about every single job that I talked about on this list. They all had corresponding YouTube channels. Some of them had a bunch of them. And all of the people making those YouTube channels are making either a little bit of side hustle income, or in some cases, a whole lot of money just talking about the careers that they already do. Sometimes they might be helping people get into the career, or helping people decide if the career is right for them, or helping people study for different certifications to get into the career, or different degrees, or helping people use different software that you have to use in order to do the job, or sometimes hardware, I think you get the point. But there's a lot of money in helping people do these boring things. And a lot of the time you can make money just helping people do what you're already doing anyways, just recording it with a camera and putting it online. And my own brother, Zach is a perfect example. He's a blue collar trades guy. He's been doing it for years. And a year ago, I helped him start a YouTube channel, just talking about his trade. And his very first video blew up, got 800,000 views. And 29 days after posting that first video, he made $214 in a single day. That's a $78,000 a year run rate. And he went from zero to a full-time income in less than a month. And just last month, he had his record month of over $18,000. And he's not special. He's just using the same playbook that I've used with people in just about every field you can think of. Nurses, IT people, welders, realtors, they're not special either. They just document what they already know. So if that sounds interesting, if you want to see exactly how to do this, that free workshop that I mentioned is happening this week. So click the link in the description and the pin comment below to check that out. And I know that 99% of you are just going to watch my free content, get a lot of value out of it, and attend my live workshops and get a lot of value out of those as well. And we are never going to end up working together and that's completely fine. I always want to give way more value than I receive. And it makes me super happy whenever I see comments and emails and DMs, et cetera, from people who have gotten results just from my free content alone. With that being said, if you're somebody who's very serious about growing and making money on YouTube, and you want to work one-on-one with us, right? One-on-one mentorship, or you just want us to do the work for you. And I know that's only 0.1 or 1% of you out there. Then we do work with a small amount of people, about five right now that we're accepting. And you can apply to work with us by clicking the link in the description and the pin comment below. It should be the second link down there, and that'll be to book a call with us. But there's also going to be a video on that page that explains exactly how it works. Now we don't work with that many people at a time. Our acceptance rate is less than 18% historically, and it's going down. So only apply if you're very serious about growing and making money on YouTube. Types of people we typically work with are going to be professionals, typically on the older side, who have a lot of experience and they want to help other people do what they already do, or they want to help other people do something that they're already good at or something that they're passionate about. Typically, it's educational content. We also work with business owners who want to use YouTube to get more leads, get more sales, and build their brand. We also work with YouTubers who are getting a lot of views, but they're struggling with monetization. YouTubers who are crushing it, but they want to crush it even harder. Or people who are crushing it on other platforms, but they want to come over to YouTube because they know that YouTube is the moneymaker. So if that sounds like you, go ahead and click that link in the description and the pin comment below to apply to work with us. And also check out this video right here where we talk about exactly how we helped my brother Zach go from zero to a full time income in less than one month.