Episode 126: Hard Work Still Wins in Trucking

Trucking can be a great career, but that does not mean every load, route, or week is going to be easy. In this episode of the Keep Trucking Personal podcast, Tyler Kivi talks about the hard work that comes with being a professional driver and why some of the most challenging moments on the road can also be the ones that build confidence, experience, and resilience.

From changing schedules and difficult loads to weather, equipment issues, permits, and unexpected delays, drivers are constantly asked to adapt. Tyler shares why staying calm, communicating, preparing, asking the right questions, and owning mistakes can make all the difference when the pressure is on. Over time, working through those situations gives drivers something valuable: proof that they can handle difficult things and keep moving forward.

Hard work should never mean accepting unsafe conditions, disrespect, or being taken advantage of. It does mean recognizing that a tough day or a tough week does not define your career. For drivers willing to keep learning, preparing, and showing up, those hard days can help build the skills and confidence that set great professional drivers apart.

Transcript

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Welcome to Keith Trucking Personal. I'm Tyler TV, a third generation trucker, and my purpose is simple. Make sure the definition of trucking doesn't get lost in the culture this industry is driven 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. Hey guys, welcome back to Keep Trucking Personal. My name is Tyler, and I'm your host. The last couple episodes have been kind of prompted by a lot of questions I've received recently, and a lot of them are around SAP drivers or substance abuse program drivers and what that means to get a job. And then obviously people asking a lot of questions with interest into trucking, which is fantastic. And so I kind of gave my approach if you do not have your class A CDL, how I would go about getting it. But the next question that or maybe undertone that I pick up on a lot is the hard work that goes into trucking. Okay. And it's not fake hard work, and we're not talking about how busy we are type of work. And we're not, I'm not trying to make everything sound harder than it is. I'm talking about doing the work when it's inconvenient. And trucking gets a lot of flashiness about how easy trucking can be if you look at other companies and their advertisements. Sometimes I'm even guilty about it, right? I try to paint a prettier picture than sometimes what trucking is. And this is not to scare you, this is to ground you. This is to bring you back to what the fundamentals are of trucking. And this is when doing the work when the pressure is on. I've talked about that in many episodes because it's the truth. It's the truth in trucking, and it's doing the work when you're tired and doing the work when nobody's giving you a trophy for it. Because I think sometimes we've started to convince ourselves that everything should be comfortable. And just take a minute, if you're listening to this and when you're scanning social media tonight, look at the ads. Everything is going to be targeting you to tell you how easy it is, how easy this is. And I get asked all the time, how fast can I get into heavy hall? How easy can it be made? And the truth is you have to work for it. It's the hard work because we think everything should be convenient and everything should bend around us. And trucking just doesn't work that way if we're being honest. Life doesn't work that way either. We know that. And sometimes you're built under pressure. In trucking, I've seen so many people persevere when a pressure gets hot, the kitchen gets hot, everything gets going, and they're forged under that pressure. And trucking was never supposed to be soft. And I want to be careful when I say that, right? I'm not saying trucking should be miserable, not at all. I just want to make sure that companies take care of their drivers. And I want to make sure that we improve equipment, communication, home time, safety, the quality of the job. There's so much that we should be improving. But the difference between making a job better and expecting the job never to be hard, that is the difference I'm talking about here. Because trucking is hard sometimes. And the weather doesn't care how you feel, and the freight doesn't always go to your plan. The dispatchers don't always make the right decision. Maintenance, things break, and sometimes delays happen and traffic happens and schedules change, and all of a sudden you need home time, or somebody else needed home time, and everything had to pivot, and it's a team player. You're going to be tested in this game. And somewhere along the way, I think people started treating an uncomfortable moment like something must be wrong. Like, whoa, this isn't right. I had my plans changed two, three times. Something must be wrong. What's going on? They're almost in a paranoid state, or they're they have anxiety from maybe what happened previously. And sometimes nothing is wrong. Sometimes the work that we're talking about here is just hard. It's hard work. It's not easy. And there is so much value, though, in that hard work. Think about almost anything worthwhile in your life, you guys. Getting in shape. I talked to so many people, which is fantastic, that are excited about personal health and creating a personal journey that helps them become more fit. And that could be joining a flatbed team. Or maybe you're already on a flat team, but you want to take it to the next level, and that's eating better, or personal training type coaches. There's health coaches out on the road, and there's people that I've been able to connect with that have so much value to bring to others. Having a family and raising kids is hard. And building a business, if you're running a truck and you have a side business or your family business that you're helping complement, just being a great professional is hard, right? The difficulty isn't always a sign that you're doing something wrong. Sometimes the difficulty is exactly what's developing you, and we need to see it for what it is. You don't build that strength by never carrying weight, right? The pressure has to be on you to get stronger, to get better, to pursue bigger opportunities. And you don't build that character by avoiding every situation that puts pressure on you. And so you can see where I'm headed with this, right? Like a lot of drivers, a lot of times when something goes wrong or the pressure gets hard, they think something is off and they start to look for alternatives. You have to realize sometimes the pressure is what makes you. And that's the same thing, for example, with steel, right? Steel doesn't become stronger by sitting untouched. It goes through heat. It takes pressure, it takes work. Process changes it. And I think people are a lot like that. The difficult load, that oversized load, that permit, that tart, that wind, the straps, maybe the 20 chains that you didn't expect, maybe the trailer type that the customer ordered is not the right one. So you have to make do. The situations that make you think differently than you're used to, and the mistakes that you have to own. That's one of the most important things is having the humility to sit down and say, I made a mistake. Let me bring it forward instead of trying to mask it with a description that says, hey, somebody else caused this mistake. Sometimes just owning it is the fastest way to success. Get that weight off your back. And there's that week where everything seems to keep happening, everything at once. Something happens here, and now this is happening at home, and now your car is having an issue. And those moments will and can make you bitter, or they can build you. And the pressure itself doesn't decide. It's you and your response that decides. And I've seen and been able to attest to so many drivers who get better under pressure. And you can usually tell the difference when you're speaking to an experienced professional driver and someone who hasn't quite yet developed that mindset when the plans fall apart. And when everything is going right, almost everybody looks good. The truck is running. I haven't been in the shop for three months. The customer has the freight ready and the forklifts are waiting to load me. And the weather's been beautiful. I haven't had rain, snow, ice, you name it. And this load has been easy. Maybe I've done the same type of freight five times in a row and I'm just doing well at it, and everything is going great. And then it happens. And then what happens when everything isn't going like that? You get to the ship and the load isn't ready. The weather is coming down, cats and dogs, and the route's changed, or operations pulls the plan and changes it. And now what? Some people immediately get angry. They start to call and say, What's going on? Why is this changed? Why did I have a plan and now you pulled it? You know, you start blaming the shipper, or you'll never go into this place again, or you start saying things that you didn't mean to say or you wouldn't normally say, but because you're getting some pressure on you, you start to lose control, maybe, and all of that affects you. Or the other driver, right? Start asking good quality questions, maybe some facts. What do we know here? What do we need to do next to make sure that I hit this plan or to make sure I hit my miles or to make sure that this works for me? Who needs to know? Who should I update here? Hey, something happened and I need to have an emergency plan. Who needs to know? How do we solve this? Like asking those simple questions and then answering the question out loud. That will make the situation a whole different animal. And it's not that you're just pretending it's easy. You just learned how to operate under pressure. Ask the questions, be simple, stay calm and cool. And that's a skill. I know these things sound rudimentary and super basic, but it's the truth. That's a skill. Being calm and cool and collective under pressure, you can persevere. Knowing and recognizing when things are getting hot and knowing how to handle it, you can persevere and you can build resilience after that pressure, after that weight's been piled on you, and you learn how to handle it. And then the things that come after that is confidence. And one of the things that I think people miss about hard work is the confidence. And when you repeatedly do difficult things, that's why some drivers pursue heavy haul so much. They love the challenge. You start to trust yourself. You say, hey, I've done this before, I've been in this situation before. I've come up to a turn that I can't make and I figured out how to navigate it collectively and calm and I did the right thing. Or, hey, something happened and I know how to handle this. Or it's just big, large, cumbersome, or maybe it's your first time crossing the mountains. And then the second time you start to understand you've been here, I can do this. Maybe it's your first time in crazy traffic. The second time you start to say, hey, I understand what I can do here, I'm proved. And when you can see a continuous how it improves, or how you start to build resilience and how you get that experience and how you learn to have that confidence and you walk into that situation. And you know that that one problem isn't going to define the week. That's confidence saying you can handle this. And it comes from the evidence behind you. It comes from that paper trail. And it says, I've done hard things before. I can do this one too. It's confidence. You have the confidence. And so here's where I think we need to challenge ourselves a little. Sometimes we have developed a soft and squishy mindset around work. And if everything isn't exactly how we want it, we assume something is wrong. Okay. And if someone challenges us, we think we're being treated unfair. And if the day gets difficult and hard, we immediately start looking for an exit. And that's a dangerous way to build a career. If you keep pulling that exit handle after three months at every job, when are you going to start to build consistency and confidence in your abilities? You know, when are you going to start to do that? Maybe you need to do your homework before you jump. Maybe you need to start talking to a company well before, well in advance. Start to learn about what they do, follow their company, see what you can learn about them and see what kind of people they are. That way, when you make this change, you have confidence coming into it. Because if we run into difficult things continuously, eventually you never develop the ability to handle it. So if you keep running from difficult things, you're never going to be able to handle it. And I don't want that for our drivers, I don't want that for our leaders, I don't want that for myself. Okay. Hard work defines you. Now, this is not about being taken advantage of or the limits being pushed, right? Hard work does not mean accepting disrespect. That is not where I'm headed at all. It doesn't mean ignoring unsafe conditions. It doesn't mean allowing people to take advantage of you. The difference between being challenged and mistreated, there's a big difference, right? What I'm talking about today is the healthy struggle that comes with doing something meaningful, doing something hard, the discipline, the sacrifice you have to put into it, the inconvenience, the perseverance, the different types of scenarios you get put into. And that's where, once again, perseverance will help you win. This job has so much to offer, and there's so much. But I know and I believe if you come into it with the right mindset instead of saying it's going to be easier every time, it's going to be easier every time. Yes, maybe changing jobs with your experience makes that position easier. But I think we're lying to ourselves if we keep looking for the easy button, we keep looking for what's less, what's this, and then in six months you regret that decision and you start to say, hey, it's not adding up. That's because we came into it with a false mindset and there's nothing that aligned. And now you're looking for another job instead of accepting that the work will need to be done. And that's the perseverance because the talent matters and the experience does matter, and the equipment matters, and opportunities they matter. But I tell you what wins over time. The person who keeps showing up, the person who keeps learning and is willing to learn and can take advice, the person who takes the hit, adjusts, and gets back after it understands that the hard days will come, but it doesn't mean you need the exit ramp. And the person who doesn't need everything to be perfect before they perform, the person becomes hard to beat. You become one of a kind, you stand out. That's the simplest way I can put it. Someone asks me, how do I get into heavy hall? I'm telling you, this is a recipe right here. This is a simple recipe that will work at any company. This does not have to be a Kiwi. This isn't proprietary to us. This recipe will set you up for success. You will stand up and people will see it. And it's so simple. It's so simple, it's right there. Because when everyone else is waiting for the easier conditions, yeah, you can see where that's head. And if you're the one that's waiting for the easier condition, or you just see what we just talked about, the person that has perseverance that wins over time, you will know who's going to win that race. And so just again, remind yourself that one bad day is not a bad career. One bad load, one bad week doesn't mean the company has it out for you and they don't care. It's not that way. And it's so important in trucking that we understand that because momentum can change in the snap of a finger when you're out on the road, and you should not think that that everything is unraveling and you need a new career. You can have that bad day, that bad week. It's not going to ruin you. It doesn't mean you have a bad company. They do care about you. And you guys, I see too many people make permanent decisions just based on that temporary frustration. Sometimes you need to get through the difficult season before you can see what it taught you instead of pulling the exit handle. Not every tough day deserves a resignation letter. And I know as drivers, if you're listening to this right now, there's probably been several moments where you're like that load, if I get one of those again, it's done. If I get this route, it's done. If I get something that doesn't align with maybe what I had just said, it's done, and doesn't deserve a resignation letter every time. Just hold on to that, take a deep breath, and let's take another attempt tomorrow. Because that pressure is going to reveal your foundation. It's going to reveal whether you're built on sand or the rock. And it's going to expose your habits and the skill sets you've built and it's going to show your preparation. Give you an example. I've had people in the permits, you know, we do a lot of oversized, and you'll see somebody get into a situation and you start asking questions. They had plenty of time to review their permits. It's not an if, it's a must, right? Those are things when you're in that type of movie freight that's oversized, over-dimensional, and has permits. You must prepare and read your permit. You can't wing it. And it's very easy to uncover that when someone has a situation or they're off-route or this and you start to ask questions. It exposes that preparation. You can't hide it. All right. You can't blame somebody else. You can't hide it. It's going to expose your attitude, which follows right after that once you start to point fingers. And it's going to expose what you really believe, right? You don't believe the hard work or the preparation. You start to look for the easy button. And that shows what needs work. Okay. It's not a bad career. You just have to work on it. Maybe you need to communicate better. Maybe you need to prepare more. Maybe you need more patience. Maybe you need to toughen up a little bit. That's what nobody likes to hear, especially truck drivers. I'm just being honest. I'm in the same boat. I don't like when somebody tells me something, but sometimes it's necessary. And when my dad gives me hard criticism, sometimes I want to brush it off, but I have to understand that it will happen. Trucking is not going to be easy. It's hard work. It's growth that comes after it. Being in the pressure forges you and it brings you out stronger out the other end. And so here's my challenge this week. When something gets hard, don't immediately ask yourself, how do I get out of this? How do I how do I get out? I don't want to do it. Give it to somebody else. Move on. Exit button. Ask yourself, what can this build in me? What am I going to gain? Maybe you're going to earn and build patience. Maybe you're going to build some discipline that you've never had. Maybe it's a new skill and it's going to be hard in the beginning. Maybe it simply proves to you that you are capable of more than you thought. You're going to be astounded when you see afterwards what was accomplished. And the strongest people I know aren't people who've had easy lives. The strongest drivers I know aren't people who've had perfect trips every single time. They've been tested, they've made mistakes, they've dealt with the pressure, and they keep moving forward. So don't be afraid of the hard work. Don't be afraid of the pressure. You have and must respect it, learn from it, let it sharpen you. Because easy doesn't always build anything. And if you're looking for that, you're going to be chasing something that you will not be able to catch. But hard work, you know, this sounds simple. This sounds like stuff my grandma used to say to me. It sounds like stuff my mom still says. But hard work applied consistently over time can build something incredibly strong. And I tell myself that all the time because trucking is hard work. You can't lie to yourself. In leadership, I can't lie to myself and expect this position just to be easy and squishy quishy, things just flow and nothing ever goes wrong. That's not the case. And I'd be lying to myself. I have to accept it and get ready for the pressure. And don't fold when that pressure comes. You have to get forged and understand how to withstand that pressure. So thank you for listening to Keep Trucking Personal. 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.