When Joe first walked into my office, I saw exactly what he wanted me to see: a scruffy, rough‑around‑the‑edges biker type who looked like countless other hardworking drivers I had employed over the years. He presented himself as someone who knew the road, understood the job, and could be counted on to deliver. In those first conversations, Joe seemed competent, reliable, and straightforward. I made the classic mistake of accepting that surface presentation as the complete truth.

The lesson here cuts both ways. Yes, I was wrong about Joe, but not in the way most people might assume. I wasn't wrong to give him a chance or to see potential in someone others might have dismissed. I was wrong because I stopped observing, stopped questioning, and assumed that my initial positive impression told the whole story. The rule isn't about becoming more suspicious or more judgmental. It's about staying perpetually curious, recognizing that people are complex and often contradictory, and never assuming we have someone fully figured out.

Meth Addict Kenny was exactly what his nickname suggests—a man deep in the grip of addiction to crack cocaine and methamphetamines. When our organization recruited and hired Kenny, I'll admit something that goes against my usual approach: I was immediately judgmental. And unfortunately, my worst fears came true.

Randy was silent for the most part—hence the nickname that would stick with him. We never found out exactly what happened to his vocal cords, but based on the scars we could see, we could only imagine what that man had been through. His voice, when he did speak, was shallow and scratchy, making communication a challenge that most people didn't want to deal with.

But here's what I learned that first day: I like to talk. Randy barely had a voice. We made for a dynamic duo. While others saw someone to avoid, I saw someone who needed a fair chance. This wasn't charity or pity—it was simply refusing to judge a book by its cover. It was treating people the same no matter what, managing them with the same standards and expectations, completely ignoring the things that make people different to find common ground.

Meet Dynamite Don—a character who taught me one of life's most critical lessons: the power of being ADAPTABLE. He remains one of the most compelling figures I've ever known, a man whose significant mental health challenges coexisted with an unwavering loyalty and a deep sense of honor. The thing to understand about Dynamite Don is he got the nickname because he thought people were trying to blow up his truck. Don suffered from fairly serious mental illness and being on the road by himself for weeks at a time did not help the matter. His wife stayed home and later on helped me to understand what Don was going through. I assumed based on his age that Don had served in Vietnam like my uncle had many years before and so many of our young men come back just not quite right in the head with all kinds of undiagnosed mental illness and t

David Park was a person of considerable depth, a quality I came to appreciate only after getting to know him on a much more human level. Initially, my perception of David was shaped entirely by his reputation as a "problem driver" at the terminal where I worked. His personnel file was thick with several write-ups, and it was common knowledge that the dispatchers openly disliked him due to what they perceived as his poor attitude—a sentiment that, unsurprisingly, was mirrored by David's own negative view of the dispatch employees.

Here's what happens when communication breaks down COMPLETELY: Over time, their professional relationship had deteriorated into a relentless pattern of negativity and mutual distrust. The verbal exchanges that did occur were far from positive; in fact, they were consistently corrosive. It was not uncommon to hear them yelling at each other over the radio, a constant state of conflict that had unfortunately become normalized background noise until a critical incident demanded my direct involvement.

Last time we talked about planning carefully, and how life will kick your door in no matter how good your plan is. Today we're going one step deeper. Because once you make your plan, you've got to actually pull the trigger. You've got to decide. And then you've got to own it.

Rule 7. Make decisions, be accountable, and hold others accountable. Simple to say. Hard as hell to live.

Let me start with a truth that I've learned the hard way, over and over, for my entire career. Logistics is brutally complex. And so is life. Both of them will chew you up and spit you out if you walk in without a plan. That's Rule 6. Plan carefully. Because logistics and life itself are so complicated, so full of moving parts, that if you're not planning ahead you are already losing.

And I don't mean scribble a couple notes and call it a day. I mean real, deep, three moves ahead planning. The kind that separates the people who build something from the dumbasses who wonder why everything keeps falling apart around them.

We've covered a lot of ground so far. Communication. Empathy. Adaptability. Finding real value in your relationships. And today we get into one that's honestly the most personal one for me, because I've lived it, I've screwed it up, and I've fought my way back to it more than once.

Rule 5. Take care of yourself mentally, take care of yourself physically, and never stop trying to improve yourself.

Now I want to be straight with you right out of the gate. This is the rule most people nod along to and then completely ignore. Everybody knows they should eat better. Everybody knows they should move more. Everybody knows they should manage their stress. And yet look around. We are, as a country, a mess. And in the transportation world? It's worse. A whole lot worse.