Episode 118: Glass Half Full: Why Perspective Matters in Trucking

This week on the Keep Trucking Personal podcast, Tyler Kivi shares a simple but powerful challenge: stop looking for reasons to complain and start looking for reasons to compliment. After spending the summer connecting with drivers face-to-face, Tyler noticed a pattern... people tend to fall into one of two camps. They're either focused on opportunities and gratitude, or they're focused on problems and frustration.

The truth is, everyone in trucking faces the same challenges: freight markets, fuel prices, weather, regulations, and the daily demands of the job. What often separates the happiest people from the most frustrated isn't their circumstances, it's their perspective. Tyler discusses how negativity spreads, why encouragement matters more than we realize, and how a simple compliment can have a lasting impact on someone's day.

Whether you're a driver, dispatcher, mechanic, manager, or leader, what we focus on grows. Choose opportunities over obstacles, gratitude over complaints, and help make the trucking industry a better place for everyone.

Transcript

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Welcome to Keep Trucking Personal. I'm Tyler Keevey, a third generation trucker. My purpose is simple. Make sure the definition of trucking doesn't get lost in the culture this industry is drifting toward. This podcast is about real stories, the hard lessons, and the standards that built this business long before apps and algorithms. If you believe trucking is more than freight and it's responsibility, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. My name is Tyler Keeve, and I'm your host. This summer has been a little bit different for me because I've spent so much time in Duluth per my typical summer, right? I'm usually in Kentucky, but this year spent all this time in Duluth, and I still have a couple more weeks, but there's so much that I've been able to accomplish, and I've been able to spend a lot of time talking with drivers, meeting every single new driver, speaking with every new driver. I mean, that is my focus point. That is the most important part of any trucking company, is your team members, especially your drivers. And spending more time talking to the people that make this company go every day, I've really enjoyed it. And one of the things I've always believed is that the leadership happens face to face. You learn a lot when you spend time with people and you hear their stories. You get to tell your story, you get to find common ground and build a relationship. That's what Keep Trucking Personal is all about. But you also hear their frustrations and you hear what motivates them. It's a two-way street. Very dynamic. But something has really stood out to me this summer. The conversations have been very bilateral and almost extreme, right? And I think this is maybe true in all trucking circumstances. Uh, really, with anybody you meet, swing through some a truck stop or a shipper and speak to somebody. But I'll either meet people with really positive things to say, and they'll go above and beyond and give compliments, and it's fantastic, right? Because that's something that you don't get to hear very often. But there doesn't seem to be much middle ground. I'll either go from complimenting to negative. Like there's two spots here. It's not just one or the other. They're either complaining or they're complimenting. And it really got me wondering: has trucking become that way? Are we becoming an industry where you're either happy or you're miserable, you're either optimistic or you're negative? I mean, grateful or frustrated, where are you on the spectrum? And if there were a middle, where is it? Because either someone gets you for a minute to just say, hey, I'm really happy, I enjoy what I'm doing. You know, of course there's things that they can improve, but they're really happy or they enjoy what they're doing, or you go to the other side of the coin and you get to shake that person's hand, spend a couple minutes with them, and then they have things that tell you right away that frustrates them. Maybe it maybe it could be some with the truck, it could be something with the market, could be something with pay. I mean, the list goes on and on. And I know everyone shares both sides of the coin, but the thing that's unique is everybody's in the same freight market. We're all paying the same fuel prices, the same weather for the most part, right? Territorial, if you're in the same area, you're dealing with the same weather as that other driver, the same regulations, right? We don't give one division or one driver more special privileges than other. Everyone's on a lateral playing field. We all have the same challenges, right? Flathead brings its own level of challenge: tarping, strapping, chaining, hot, cold, windy, um, you name it. All of those are the same. You could consider it a level playing field. But one driver's always talking about opportunities, and the other driver's talking about problems. One is focused on what is working, they're doing amazing things, they're accomplishing wonderful. I mean, they're doing deliveries clean, no damage, they're on top of it, they're putting down the miles, their pay is there, and then the other is focused on what isn't working. My pay isn't there, I had to claim this and that, and you start to wonder is it the perspective that's given us this difference? The same industry, right? All the things I had said earlier are the same, but it's a different perspective. That's like merely the foundation of this podcast. I want people to understand that this is a perspective game. The challenge is always going to be there. And I think a lot of it comes down to which lens are we going to look through. You can look at a rainy day and complain. I find myself guilty of that all the time. I'm not preaching from a pedestal here. I'm I'm just making the obvious known. Or you can be thankful you're getting the chance to work, right? You can focus on the customer who is difficult, or the lens of the ten customers that treated you well. Which one are you going to pick, the one or the ten? You can focus on the one thing that went wrong, or the hundred that went right, or the thousands of miles that went right. And it's the situation doesn't always change. It's the lens, right? So the way you're looking at what's in front of you and how you handle it. Because trucking's never been easy. Let's be honest, this industry has never been easy. And from a leadership chair, I don't know that it ever will be easy. And I'm not claiming that it should be. There's always tension. There's always going to be push-pull. But the older drivers listening understand that. There were difficult times 20 years ago. There were difficult times 10 years ago. And there are difficult times today. Every generation of trucking has had its challenges, and there always will be. So if we're waiting for trucking to become perfect before we're positive, we're going to be waiting a really long time. Because complaining is so easy. Anybody can do it. Anybody can do it. It takes no effort. It doesn't take any discipline. Honestly, it doesn't even take experience. It takes no leadership. All you do is point out what's wrong and make it a big deal. And let's be honest, there will always be something wrong. I don't care how well your company takes care of its maintenance, you may break down. I don't care how well the route was planned out, there may be construction. I don't care how smooth the load plan was supposed to go, there may be disruption. There's always going to be something. But here's the problem, complaining doesn't really solve much. It just spreads it. Spreads negativity. And like I've talked on previous episodes, who you surround yourself with is what you'll look like. And so if you're partnering with a group of drivers that are wanting to fall into this bucket of complaining all the time, what do you think your mind starts to do? Do you think every time something actually does go wrong that you're like, hey, it's okay, we can overcome this? Or do you think it's, uh, we gotta complain, point fingers at somebody, maintenance didn't do this well, operations didn't do this well, safety didn't do this well, somebody didn't call me back right away. What is it? What is it? Because the one negative attitude can impact an entire shop. You can have a bunch of mechanics, and the one mechanic can ruin it for everybody else. You can have six drivers that talk often, and maybe five of those six are really positive, but that sixth driver is gonna be the outlier. You're going to know it. You can think of it right now if I were to ask you, and you'd say I know exactly who that was. The same is true in an office setting, same is true in a small division or a fleet, a family. I mean, we hear enough stories about families all the time, you can see where I'm headed. But what if we spent as much time as we do complaining, complimenting? Think about that. Flip that word around. So instead of complaining, we're complimenting. How often do we just want to point out what's wrong? Like I said, I'm guilty here as well. This happens to me, and I'm wanting to challenge everyone because it's my own personal challenge right now is stop complaining and start complimenting. How can I help? That's what our mind should do. Let's not compare to how often we point out what's right or wrong, or we know. I think that's where this game heavily weighs in trucking, is everybody thinks they know the most. And so if you know the most, that gives you the authority to complain. Right? Like I've listened to enough of the news, I know everything about politics, or I listened to it, I've been to enough trucking companies, I know enough of what can happen. Now let's just compare all of the things that we take with the authority that we think we have and complaining, and what if we were to point out what's right? When was the last time you thanked a mechanic, a dispatcher, a planner, a customer, another driver, your mechanic at a shop that's not ours? I mean the list goes on. Even let's just say a broker, you're on the phone, do you know what killing somebody with kindness and doing the right thing and being positive can do? When's the last time you recognize someone and said, hey, thanks for doing a good job? We get so complacent when we're working one-to-one with our team that we often just expect. Now expectations are important, but do you realize how far complimenting someone goes? And when's the last time you've had a compliment? Might be easier to put it through that perspective. When's the last time you complimented someone because they did a good job? Not because you had to, not because I have this checklist in front of you, but because they've earned it. Because you've noticed, because it mattered. We all need encouragement. And that's one thing I've learned this summer. Spending more time around people in the trucking industry is everybody is carrying something. Everybody has something on their back that's weighing them down. It's every single person. You spend enough time talking to somebody and get to know them on a relationship level, you will know that there's somebody in their family, whether it's them, their immediate family, maybe they're a distant family, but somebody's hurting and it's carrying weight on them. It could be financial stress, could be mental stress, could be physical stress, could just be the challenge of the job that has them stressed. There's so much that goes on. But what if you encouraged somebody, you complimented them, you told them thanks for doing a good job, you appreciated them, and you put it through that perspective and tried that for a full week and see what a compliment can do versus criticism. See what a compliment can do versus complaining. And this is totally my perspective on life, but I truly look at things as the glass is always half full. Now don't misunderstand me. This isn't about pretending problems don't exist. Problems are real. Issues need to be solved in the standards, you guys, they matter more than ever. Accountability matters. But we can solve problems without becoming negative, you guys. We can be realistic without becoming pessimistic. We can acknowledge the challenges while still being grateful, and that's what I mean by being a glass half full mindset. You don't have to pretend. We know that there's challenges, we know that there's opportunity for improvement. Honestly, we challenge ourselves every day to do better than that. And I'm talking from an internal perspective, but doesn't mean I'm throwing things out to the wayside. It's true. We recognize it. And so here's my challenge for the week for you. Catch yourself. Every time you start to complain, every time you get ready to call somebody, every time you get ready to shoot them a text with a negative complaint, pause. Ask yourself, what's one thing going right? It's harder than it sounds, right? This recipe is always easier said than done, but what's one thing going right? Who's one person that I can think? What's one thing I can appreciate? Because the truth is what we focus on grows. That's the truth. That's the one thing you should take away here. Where you put your mind, what you focus on, grows. You can either be hung up on something and be focusing on negativity, and that will be what grows. And in 10 years, you're going to be doing the same thing, the same spiral, frustrated with yourself, frustrated with maybe your job, frustrated with all this stuff because you just kept finding what's going wrong versus what's going right. What's the one thing you can appreciate? Just think about it. Spend that second, spend that minute, and say, well, how can I flip this even? Maybe you have some criticism, but how can I deliver where I'm positive about an opportunity, not a negativity? Because if you keep focusing on problems, you're going to keep finding problems. Focus on opportunities, you'll find more opportunities. Think about that. Which one do you want? What does everybody want for their life? It's they want more opportunities. They want them to come to them. The people that focus on opportunities are the ones who get it. And so this beginning of the summer has reminded me of all of that. Like I said, it's been very distinct. Either someone's very up and positive or they're down and negative. And I just haven't seen a lot of middle, like common ground where it's been, hey, you know, here's some things we can improve on, blah, blah, blah, just real clean cut. It's always been high or low. And the people who seem the happiest in trucking don't necessarily have the easiest jobs, you guys. They don't have fewer problems. They're still in the same game we are, like I said earlier. They've simply trained themselves to see more of what's good. Let's stop looking for reasons to complain and let's start looking for reasons to compliment. Let's build people up, let's recognize good work, let's encourage each other. Because this industry, you guys, listen to me, it needs more of that. And honestly, so do we. So do we as leadership. That's the burden we wear in leadership, is often time everything we hear is negative. That's just how it works. Just take a chance to thank somebody in leadership at your company, wherever you're at, manager, your coworkers sit next to you, just take a chance, compliment them. Let them know that they're doing a good job. Thanks for listening to Keep Trucking Personal. And until next time, be safe. Appreciate you tuning in. If you got value out of this, subscribe and send it to someone who takes pride in the job. We're not just moving freight, we're shaping the culture. Catch you on the next one.