Hard Work

Work  Hard

Freightliner’s team run smart preaches being smart about how we run our businesses. They are right. We need to be truck smart, and drive and properly maintain the right truck. It is wise to be fuel smart, and minimize our fuel costs. Making smart business decisions can make your life easier. Making the wrong decisions can make it harder.  Being health smart is the most important of the four pillars. We should all pay attention to the four pillars.

Work hard. That is my fifth pillar. Everything I have achieved in life I have earned through hard work. When I look around at successful people, there is a common thread. They work hard. Yes, there are some exceptions. Some athletes are born with great abilities. They tend not to last. Many of them go bankrupt just a few years after their playing careers. The successful ones work at their games. My favorite football player of all time is Walter Payton. His hill workouts were legendary. Michael Jordan was as competitive in practice as he was in games. Truly great players take pride in their work ethic.
This blog was going to be about bringing my truck home for the first time. When I looked at the cover photo of the truck sitting in front of my house I changed my mind.  We get a lot of compliments on our home. It really is just a simple 42 foot by 28 foot home with an attached garage. We did work within fiscal constraints. When we built our home, I got home every other night. Roxanne who is a teacher and an EMT and was home every night. She stopped at the site and swept the floor every night so we would not have to pay the contractor for it. We stained all of the logs. We hung the insulation. I wired the surround sound system in the great room.  We cleared the land. My favorite story though was stopping at the site and seeing a strange truck. I introduced myself. He was the concrete guy and was complaining about his laborer having a sore back and could not work. Therefore he could not lay the foundation. I was off the next day so I asked if it took any skills or brains to be a laborer. He said and I quote “Any idiot can do it.” I told him that he just found his idiot. That’s right I helped lay the foundation for the house.

I see too many drivers who want to work less after they buy a truck. When drivers ask me about becoming an owner operator I ask them how hard they are willing to work. I tell them that they have to work at least as hard as they do as a company driver. They will put in the same hours on the road, plus manage their business.  Every successful owner operator that I have ever meant is a hard worker. Maybe as they get into their fifties they coast a little after the “hay is in the barn”.  At this point in my life I do have some “hay in the barn”. People ask me about retirement. I just can’t imagine doing nothing. It isn’t in my blood.