Getting into the trucking industry the right way.

:Breaking Into the Trucking Industry the Right Way – What It Really Takes

Thinking about getting your CDL and starting a career in trucking?In this episode of The Trucker’s Radio Podcast, host Stacey  Yearout takes you on a no-BS, deep dive into what it really takes to break into the trucking industry the right way.From choosing a legit CDL school, to spotting the warning signs of a scam, to what kind of training you actually need to stay safe and successful — this episode lays it all out straight.We’re talkin’ about pre-trip inspections, mental toughness, CDL mills, bad contracts, what questions to ask trainers and schools, and the truth behind what separates the pros from the people just playin’ trucker.Whether you’re just getting started or helping someone else find their lane, this is the roadmap you’ve been looking for.✔️ Real talk from a 30-year veteran
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Transcript

Dolores 0:00

"You’re tuned in to The Trucker’s Radio Podcast where real talk meets the open road. Powered by Sabren Group LLC, we’re bringing you raw, unfiltered truth about life behind the wheel the struggles, the success, and everything in between. Hosted by seasoned driver and industry coach, Stacey Yearout a man who’s been there, done it, and still rolling strong. Today’s episode: Getting Into Trucking the Right Way. If you’re thinkin’ about gettin’ your CDL or just started out this one’s for you. Welcome to the Truckers Radio podcast. Today we got a gentleman from Florida named Thomas. Welcome aboard Thomas. Hey Stacy, thanks for having me on. Looking forward to talking a little bit about my experience getting into truck driving and, anybody that's interested in becoming a truck driver. Hopefully by the end of this. Episode, you'll be able to have some insight of what to do and what not to do if you're looking to get a CDL and hitting the highway. Good deal. Thomas, can you tell us a little bit about your experience where you at right now in the trucking world? Started back in 2017, so I think I'm, well into my eighth year in the trucking industry. I've done everything from being a company driver to team driving to, leasing a truck and diving a little bit of the, I guess you could call it owner operator side, so hopefully I've got good amount of information to provide. Now, if there was some things you'd go back and change, what do you think that'd be? Doing a little more research and, picking a better company to start with would be, something I'd change instead of just going with the first option. That's kind of a tough question, man, because I really, looking back, I think I did everything. In a pretty good way. I can't really think of anything to change. Because if I did look back and change something, then I never would've met Daniel. Never would've met you and all that stuff. I mean, I don't know, man. What do you feel like that set your trucking career what part of the training process do you feel like, really diving into a lease purchase agreement because I was fully responsible with. The truck, all the maintenance and running the loads to make a paycheck. I had full control of whether I succeed or fail. That's good information right there because in the truck and the industry, we can be a company driver or some companies actually run a pretty legit lease. There's some definitely some hard leases that's super hard to make money. You kind of gotta redefine print and look at all your accessorial costs and everything before you jump into that lease. But there's definitely some good lease options out there. I know there's some owner operators screaming at me right now saying, no, no, no, but you know what? I've seen people make a lot of money and it's just, you gotta be. Tuned in, you gotta be a businessman. You gotta tune that truck to make that money. You gotta watch your fuel mileage, you gotta watch everything and know your operating cost. Eight out of 10 truck drivers out there couldn't tell you what it cost to run that truck down the road. When you ask them, lease drivers and you gotta start somewhere. Exactly. Not everybody's got, 20 grand to go throw down on a truck at the dealership. Then you gotta find a company to lease on with or get your own authority. It lets you dive right into the business side of trucking and really gain that knowledge and experience. And it also lets you know before you marry a truck full time. Whether this is really for you because not everybody's cut out to be an owner operator. That's why we still have a whole lot of company drivers. Not everybody's an entrepreneur. Not everybody wants to go out and manage all their own expenses in a manner to where sometimes, you could make more money by managing your own expenses. But if you're not any good with money, company driver may be your best option. But it allows you to pick that up, learn those ropes before you go jump into the deep end of the pool. Exactly. I think I had, at least a year and a half of experience being a company driver before I dove into a lease purchase. And you definitely wanna read the fine print. No money down, no credit. Check, walk away, lease you give'em a truck back and walk away is your best bet. You don't want to put money down and get locked into a contract you can't get out of without buying it out or something like that. You gotta do your research. I offer. Owner operator and lease driver consulting. I got a free 30 minute consultation. I look at everything. I look at your lease, I look at what you got going on, and I'll just tell you, can I help you or can I not? Are you in a bad lease that. You're just drowned in, or can I make you more profitable and get you out of this hole and teach you how to make real money? We offer 30 minute sessions. We offer an hour sessions. It's up to you. If you go on our website, the truckers radio podcast.com, fill out the little. Consultation thing, they're on the last page. Contact and send me an email. Tell me, Hey, how'd you, I'm interested in the consultation. I'll give you a call and we'll go over a few things and, we'll talk about everything there. But we do offer that here. Thomas, what else do you think you would do in the trucking industry? Do you just feel like you're who you are today because of the experience you had in trucking this industry? And being a truck driver, it definitely is gonna shape you and mold you into a totally different person than who you're when you first came into it. Best best way I can describe it is freedom. You are your own boss out here on the road. You're the captain of your own ship and you play your cards you can become pretty successful. Well, being your own boss, and really, you're always going to answer to somebody or you don't own your own truck, you're going to answer somebody, you're gonna answer to DOT, you're gonna answer to the customer if you're all freight. You can't just go out here and just be a wild card and say, Hey, I want to do my own thing. That's one of the things that I hear the most people say, Hey, I want to go get me a truck. I wanna go get my own authority and I want to do my own thing. And honestly, in the trucking industry. You gotta do what you gotta do, not necessarily what you want to do. And when you buy off that 2,800,$3,000 a month truck payment, trailer payment insurance, primary liability, all that, man, those bills don't just say, Hey, I know you're on vacation, man. That don't happen. That's not gonna work that way. You gotta be responsible. Industry standard you need when you're a company driver. You get so many days for so many out. I think that sucks. Don't get me wrong. You're away from your family and everything, but sometimes this is depending on where you live. This is the best option. It's what you get. It ain't no different than the guy in the military. He sometimes that cat's away from home for a year at a time. Ain't no different than a guy working construction and working out of town. I mean, there's people that just gotta go that extra mile to make a living to support their family. And if you can put food on the table and a roof over somebody's head and take care of your kids and your kids is going to school with clothes on, which is always a plus, shoes on their feet, sometimes this is just a business you gotta be in to do it. I think all becoming a truck driver is very similar to joining the military. If you think about it, you're away from home for extended periods of time. You're out there grinding, making money to provide for yourself or your family and loved ones, so. And you gotta look at it, you know it. It's similar to a deployment. You're gonna be out four to six weeks and then you'll be home for a few days and back at it, and you're gonna be in that cycle. And it's just, that's how the industry is. Unless you take some local job, which there are a few out there that you can be pretty successful at and make good money, but you're gonna start at the bottom of the food chain. They're gonna give you bad routes, long hours. I mean, they're gonna work you to death to make that money. I think one of the most important parts to entering in the trucking industry is really interviewing this school. What path you're going to take into the trucking industry, because that's super important. You gotta look at it like this. The way you put in the training is the way you're going to grow because that's roots. You're putting down roots there. And if you don't develop good enough roots to grow from, you're always going to be unstable. And going through the right school, asking all the right questions, making sure you've got, if you call a school up and say, Hey, you'll be behind the wheel less than 40 to 50 hours for our whole course. That's a huge red flag. That's a big no no. Preferably you want one-on-one to one or two max per instructor. When you get a company that says, Hey. You're gonna have four plus to a group. Hey, you're barely going to get any seat time and you're going to end up coming out of that school with probably three to four hours, if you're lucky. A road time behind the wheel into a trainer's truck, and you're not going to know where to start. You're gonna be super nervous, you're not gonna be confident. And this is where a lot of people goes from. I've seen it a million times. I trained for years and I really took a lot of pride in training you know what? I put a lot of good students out on the road today, and I'm proud of that because I took pride in doing what I'd done. And when I seen a guy that wanted to learn, that enticed me to want to teach, and if I got a guy on the truck that, just didn't want to hear anything, he got the old trust mule status. You don't wanna learn. I guess you're just going to drive and make me money. And I hate to sound like that, but what I got to give. It's priceless. I've been out here 30 years and if you don't want to listen, I'm not gonna twist your arm, but I've got students out here that was like a sponge, and those cats are still out here today. And some of the most successful people driving up and down the roads, owner operators, got multiple trucks, the whole nine yards. And you gotta realize when you start out from the day you open the door to the school. You're putting down roots and the best roots you can put down during that school, the bigger you can grow. You can be the little sapling in the front yard, or you can be that big ass, live oak out there with strong roots that can grow up. And you could move mountains, man. You can be that guy out there pulling that monster load across the country, oversize. I mean, but you gotta put down good roots to get like that. You gotta learn. You hit a lot of really good points there. It really, it's up to you. I mean, you gotta want it, you gotta wanna become a truck driver. You gotta want the lifestyle, the freedom, making good money seeing the country. It's really up to you. And when you get to that trucking school, if you're gonna succeed. A lot of the people you encounter, like once you come out of trucking school and get into the training side of the company and you really get out there and start running loads, you've gotta listen to your trainer because they wouldn't be training if they didn't know what they're doing. At least we hope so. And in some cases, I'm not trying to diss anybody. I do see some companies putting guys out there that's barely been driving. As long as they have been six months, I really do not approve of that because at that point you're still trying to figure things out yourself. I really don't look too highly upon companies like that. We tend to call those CDL meals and I would not personally recommend a company that way. It's up to you to do your homework and make sure you've got yourself a good company and a good school if you go that route. If you go through a school that is offered and sponsored by a trucking company, they're not all bad. Just because a company pays for your school don't mean they're all bad. There are certain schools that's got reputations, they have a reputation for a reason. Listen to'em. Just be careful. The entry point sometimes is definitely sculptures your future in the industry out here. You can definitely grow. This is a very rewarding industry if you go at it the right direction. When I broke into the industry, things was a whole lot different. I started in the mid nineties. I really didn't get the training that these cats get nowadays. I mean, even a CDL mill probably got more training than I got. I was just kind of thrown in, oh, you got a CDL, here's the keys, here's the load, and go get it. I just had to figure it out, but I wouldn't take that back because that's what made me who I am today. Having to learn the school of hard knocks. Dig it out. Learn, the mistakes. And we all make mistakes. I don't sit here and talk and tell people, Hey, you need to do things this way because I just never made a mistake. This comes from trial and error, life out behind the wheel. I spent a lot of miles over the years behind the wheel of that truck. I've owned companies, multiple trucks, my own authority. I've owned brokerages. I've sit in multi-level, different seats from different angles. I know what it's like to be over here trying to dispatch the trucks out. You got a guy, man, I really don't like that load. And then you got a dispatcher sitting over here saying, Hey, and that's all we got. And you don't, sometimes the miscommunication. Causes flared, tempers and everything. And people don't always understand until they've sit and wore both hats, and that's something I feel like that I have a lot of experience in, doing is wearing multi-level hats. I pulled oversize, I pulled chemical tankers, I pulled flat pit, I pulled reefer, run the produce trails. Apples outta Washington. You name it. There ain't much in this industry. I haven't done. Otherwise I probably wouldn't be sitting here trying to talk to you about how to do things the right manner. Thomas, me and him goes back a long ways. A friend of mine trained Thomas and we've been back and forth over the years, kind of sculpture and his path along the way. I just wanna see everybody do good. And that's what it all breaks down too. Nobody wants to get into this industry to fail. But sometimes it happens without the right training. Your pre-trip, I feel like is a huge thing. You need to be doing it every day. Every single day. Practice and preach. Pre-trip, man. Eat, breathe, and sleep. Pre-trip. You can't just get up, get a cup of coffee, crank the truck and go down the road because you didn't do a pre-trip. You don't know. Your tires are inflated, your airlines aren't leaking. You still got good brake chambers and you're not leaking oil. I mean, these are crucial. You don't wanna be going down Mon Eagle and you were running low tire pressure and have a blowout halfway down the downgrade. Then how are you stopping that truck? Not to mention, a lot of people don't understand, audible air leaks. There's a reason that's to shut down a fence because if you got an audible air leak and you're running a lower air pressure than what that piece of equipment supposed to run. Now, you may look at it on your gauges. Your gauges may say one 20, but what is the air pressure back here? On your cans, on your tandems, they may be 80 pounds. And if you're leaking from here to there, now you're dragging your brakes. And what happens when you drag your brakes and you're going down a mountain and you're already heating those brakes up? Burn'em up. You're gonna burn'em up. Next thing you know you're gonna be on fire, and hopefully you're stopped and able to exit the truck. Sometimes that's not so lucky when you don't make it to the bottom of the hill. The accident in Colorado is a perfect example of that. Guy smoked his brakes up, glad you pointed out, run an improper equipment, didn't do a good pre-trip, and had faulty equipment and he lost it. Right. I'm glad you pointed that out, Thomas. That was exactly a very good point right there. That guy was not trained. He did not understand a lot of the safety standards. That kind of goes back there again with the CDL mills and drivers obtaining CDLs illegally that don't go through the process, that don't take the training. They put'em out here on the road, they send them across Vail what's going to happen when you don't know how to take that mountain? Because that's not a joke, man. You start down the cabbage patch unexperienced and not knowing what you're doing. That's a rough ride down that hill. I've seen it. You see it day in and day out. Dead man's pass for a reason. Your life can be taken from you out here in the flip of a switch and a lot of that has to do with how you put your roots down. This is a very good industry and if you handle it on a professional manner, not get out here and act like, some of the other. Yahoos I see out here doing things, parking, in the fuel islands, and going in to take showers and doing 30 minute breaks and come on man. You gotta like learn the real truck driver etiquette out here and learn how to survive in the world amongst other people. There's this little teeny, tiny little thing called respect people nowadays needs a healthy dose of that to get back to, when I got into the industry, man, you didn't see things like that out there like you do today. Hell no, man. I mean, we had a lot of commodity amongst drivers and everybody kind of helped everybody. If you seen a guy struggle on the back end beside of you, he didn't sit there and pull your camera out and video the guy so you could load him up on TikTok or YouTube. You got out and you helped that man. And if there was a word of advice you could teach him, we all pulled together and we helped him, and that's how you learned. That guy may say, Hey man, I seen how you set up next time. If you would pull up this way, it's set up and, and come out this way and kind of keep your structure as you come around. That guy may, he may learn something from that. He may take that and try that the next time. It is that pivotal moment that, hey, you may just made his day. You may, he may never do that again. But sitting there trying to video the guy so you can embarrass him on YouTube, man, that ain't, that ain't the truck driver away. And what people gotta understand too, is that these truck driving schools and training companies, they only have one goal in mind. And that's just to pass you for your CDL test. That's all they're gonna teach you how to do is learn everything you need to know to pass that final exam, to get your class A, CDL. All your real world experience and actual driver training is gonna happen out here behind the wheel. You're not gonna learn how to back and truck driving school. You're gonna learn how to do your parallel parking and straight line and everything to pass the test. When you get outta here and you gotta do your 90 degree alley docks in Chicago and all these other tight spots, you're gonna learn hands-on experience being out in the real world. And if you know you don't have someone there to teach you how to do it, how else are you gonna learn it, you right. Exactly. I was just discussing this with a CDL school the other day. I'm not going to call'em out and mention any names. And I looked at all of their different backing courses and they were a very impressive school. I asked the guy, I said, Hey, you ever thought about putting in the serpentine? Serpentine was a big thing back in my day when we came in. And that serpentine back was huge. It taught you form, it taught you control, it taught you how to not to over steer the truck. Spin that wheel. And backing that truck around through those barrels. And I said, Hey, you know, have you ever thought about putting that in? And the guy says, we've talked to our bosses and the bosses thought it was a great idea, but they just won't implement it. I said, well, that's a shame because that is some of the core bases of even my backing ability. There's no way to master truck driving because every single day is different. You're never gonna master this industry. You just gotta learn to be the best chameleon you can be on a day to day basis. And on the day you think that, yeah. The day you think you've got it mastered, man, you may want to take an extra day off. Don't work in this industry, man. You just gotta do the best you can do every single day. Prepare yourself for the unexpected. It's an ever changing world, and it's a great industry, but your school is your starting point. Don't get gypped, don't sign up These schools that just say, Hey man, well we guarantee your CDL in two weeks. That's a huge red flag.'cause what they're going to do, they're gonna dump you out on the road with a trainer most likely that's got 2, 3, 4, 6 months experience and you, and is gonna try to get it figured out together. And if you don't, you're going to get fired or you're going to end up making some critical mistakes. That ends your CDL career far too early. And that's, that's a shame, because you may have, with the proper training, you may have been one of the best drivers out there on the road, but it all starts from the beginning basically you've got a couple options. You can find the right company that has their own truck driving school where they'll train you, give you a job, and put you on a path for success. Or you can go through an independent truck driving school where you'll go pay them and they'll get you your CDL, and then you can go find the company to work for. Both are good options. I heard they was a school. I think they, I can't remember the name of'em. They were at Jacksonville down there. Roadmaster, I got some students from out of there a time or two that I thought were pretty daggone good. They really were. Then they were used to be a school. I'm not even sure if C was still there up at Indianapolis. They were, very well known. I think they were called C one. They've done a real good job. Teaching and teaching a lot of things, but some of the best schools that I've ever seen out here, they all utilize that serpentine back. I stand behind that when I trained, I used to carry cones and I'd set'em up out there if they didn't learn it in the school, I'd find me a lot somewhere and I would put'em through there. They didn't wanna do it. I already went through training and I said, just gimme a minute, let me show you something. And when we got done with it, about a half a day of going through the serpentine and all that, they were, astonished of their ability to put that truck anywhere they wanted to put it. And what that does, it just teaches you not to over steer it.'cause if you overs steer it in timing it teaches you everything. It's like the bones of. Backing as a hell of a tool. And I don't understand why these companies don't use this., There's so many problems they have in teaching somebody how to back all back, all wrapped into one form of teaching here and I really think they're missing boat but not using, it's such a simple thing to teach. Yeah. It may take some of the guys a little longer to get it. But what it gives'em is so much more usable than some of the other stuff that they do as far as getting back into the industry there. Thomas some of these companies, they do offer the free training. I think you started out with one of those companies and you've done very well. And in my experience, I went through a company sponsored CEL program. Basically they pay for your truck driving school. You go through trucking school, once you pass your CDL and you come out, they give you a job anywhere from six months to one year and you, work off your contract to cover the initial cost for them putting you through trucking school. And you definitely gotta do your research before jumping into a company that's gonna do something like that. Because in my experience, the one that I went through, I didn't read the fine print. And I didn't really care. I just wanted to get my CDL and hit the road. And it was great. I went through trucking, school passed, got my license, got a job with them. Problem is they didn't pay me anything. I made pennies on the dollar and I was running 3000 miles a week at least. They put me to work and that's something else you gotta think about. With going with a company like that is that they're gonna make their money back from investing in you and you gotta start somewhere. And sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. If you don't have a huge overhead with bills, debt, things like that, it can be beneficial to some people. You just really gotta watch out. And the direction that you go, you're gonna do something like that. There's a lot of good companies out there that pay very honest and put you through trucking school. Just gotta do your research. And another thing, if you find yourself in one these low education schools where they're not teaching you what you need to know. There's a lot of information online. There's a lot of things that even if you prepped yourself before you got into the school, don't be afraid to ask those questions and ask them until you get answers. Those are important to you. And if you got a question, they need an answer. And if your trainer can't answer you. He needs to ask somebody to get you the answer that you need. Don't be afraid to ask and demand education because that's what they signed up to do. Just like you signed up to run that truck for them if they trained you, money. And some of that stuff is definitely subject to, do you have a family? Can you afford to do this? Because living on the road is not cheap. You need to learn to live and be conservative and manage your money. Don't be trying to run into these truck stops. And, most of the trucks nowadays are equipped with microwaves and refrigerators and all that. You can either Uber to a Walmart or maybe stop by one that's got truck parking or something and kind of stock up on stuff to eat, you just can't live out of these truck stops, it's super expensive and the next thing you know, there's no money to send home to take care of the wife and the kids. And you get frustrated and you end up quitting and going back home and going back to work running the forklift or whatever you was doing before you left. That's another way to fail if you go at it in a manner you don't think about managing your money that first six months, it's going to be rough especially if you're working under really your first year. Yeah. The first year's gonna be rough. Now some companies, there are a lot of good training companies out there that will allow you to lease a truck. I suggest at least trying to get into a company truck for, a minimal of six months if you can. And you can go over into a lease and probably make a lot more money. You can accelerate your money if you know how to do the lease. And like I said, we offer consulting. Most generally, I can bring somebody up to where they can make a pretty decent living. I've taught a lot of people how to make some money in this industry. My way is pretty foolproof. It's not super hard to do and you can learn, there's just a lot of things, corners you've got to learn when you jump into a lease truck because these companies ain't going to tell you.'cause if you haul their freight for free and they get their truck payment paid and all the above, they really don't care. Whether you take any money home or not, they're going to let you keep hauling their freight for free. They don't have to come outta any money to stick in your pocket. Hey, doesn't phase them one bit. So you gotta look at it like walking into a casino. It's a high risk, high reward scenario, and if you have a solid strategy going into it, then you could walk out doing pretty good. Exactly, and you ain't gonna buy it off the risk of buying a truck. I mean, there's people that, maybe their mom and dad drove, coming up and they've had a lot of inside input. Hey them guys that do just fine. They got their support system at home. They got mom and dad. That's probably been an owner operator for 20, 30 years, theirself. More power to jump right straight in and go grab you a truck. Once you learn how to drive,'cause you know you've got everything you already need. But there's a lot of people don't have that, they don't have that support system at home that, mom and daddy teach'em the ropes or anything like that. They're out here all alone. And then the great big world and you can find yourself eating by any sausages out of the truck. But you can also make some really good money. Being a lease driver in the same time, if you do it right and it ain't about looking cool going down the road, it's about business. And, and that's the way you gotta look at it. You gotta have some business sense, responsibility. You gotta be good with money. Have a good grasp on the industry before I suggest jumping into that. Which, here we can kind of help with that. We keep our costs down. We don't really try to charge people an astronomical rate. We realize, hey, y'all got to eat too. And I like to see people do good. I like to see people make money and that's what we do. I started this. Podcast mainly for that I'm a mental health and family coach and I help people with a lot of different issues. I founded Sing Group, I work a lot across the board with rehab and multiple different levels. And I thought, hey, I'm gonna bring this to the trucking industry.'cause this is one of the most underserved industries in the country. That's one of the reasons we're doing that here and I've got a lot of knowledge in the financial and taxes and, you name it, I've been in this, in, I've been majority of this industry. I've been employed for myself, and if there's something I can help somebody with, that's why we're here for you can go to our website, the truckers radio podcast.com, build out the contact information. I'll get back with you as soon as I can, and. We will see what we can do for you. Thomas, he's been very successful here. We've got a lot of other students out there over the years. That's done super well. Something else. I want to touch topic on here with you, Thomas. Tell these guys a little bit about how to operate. In the truck and going into trucking, how to prepare your wife or your girlfriend for what you're fixing to go do, because this is a big thing that people do. They get in, they jump in, Hey man, I'm gonna go be a truck driver, and they don't prepare. The little woman at home, a week goes by, two weeks goes by, three weeks goes by, a month goes by. Both of y'all crying on the phone, wanting to go home. This breaks many new truck drivers right out the gate. It breaks'em, and especially I believe it's one of the highest industries out there with one of the highest divorce rates along with military and police firefighters. But the thing about it is, is if you go into this industry with your eyes open. And you're both on the same page and you're working toward a goal, and everybody's a team player in that goal, you kind of know what to expect. You're young and you're probably recently married. You got kids. You gotta go into this with a plan. You don't want to go into this looking to be a total career of an over the road truck driver for the rest of your life. You may want to get a couple, two, three years experience out over that road, and then start looking for something a little better. You know something, you can be home with your kids, but sometimes you gotta take that sacrifice and understand it enough to get through it and hold it together as a family. A husband, a wife, and everything to get to a sweet spot that you're trying to get to. That was kind of, it's very difficult to balance and that's the key word there. You gotta have a balanced schedule. You both have to understand what you're getting into, what it's gonna be like. And the biggest thing is run your time and make time to come home. You gotta have consistency two weeks out, two days home, or four weeks out, four days home. And the biggest thing is communication. Keep in touch. You gotta keep that communication going and you gotta make it home and it's not. Something, it's not gonna be easy. It's really not. There's gonna be good weeks, bad weeks, but the main thing is just strong communication and understanding for what you're getting into and making home. I don't think a lot of these recruiters really fill you in when you sign on to do the school. You're going to be gone pretty much nonstop for about two months, if not just a little bit more. If they tell you you're home every weekend, they're full of shit. Exactly. They're not, you're not going to be, especially through the training process, you know, once you get settled into your own truck, all that, and then you're on a two week regiment. Yeah. Okay. I can understand that. But during this training process, you're gonna be out and understanding that you don't look at it like going bootcamp. You're gonna be gone 12 weeks at least. Exactly. And if there's trust issues in a relationship, man, this may not be the industry for you. You gotta trust each other. You can't be going up and down the highway wondering what your wife's doing or them wondering what you're doing and arguing and fussing and back and forth down the road. Man, you can't be doing that. You know when I got in the truck, and I'll be honest with you, man, that was the days when they had the phone by the table. You had calling cards. Nobody had cell phones. You called your wife once a week to make sure she knew you were still alive besides getting the paycheck. We didn't call home every day., In the world of the cell phone, you can communicate, you can FaceTime, you can be on the computer on Zoom. There's so many ways to communicate and be a part of each other's life, day in and day out. Nowadays, a lot of this shouldn't even be an issue. I wished I'd have had a lot of that back in the day. It's just. Technology is unreal now. you can almost be kind of sitting on the big TV watching, talking back and forth. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. I remember back in the day, I called my wife once a week. That's all we did.'cause everything was so expensive. Calling cards was expensive. No, we wasn't making any money. Money was a, was a rumor. We just trying to survive, trying to get experience to go to the next level. I think I started out in this industry at like 22 cents a mile. And I you had to run crazy to even make a$600 check, of course, back then we didn't have paid parking and, if you bought fuel, you didn't ever pay for a cup of coffee. That was just the way it was. I remember the first time I ever was charged for a cup of coffee. I liked to die. I was so mad. I left a cup of coffee sitting there on the counter. I was just, I was beside myself. I mean, how dare you? I just bought$300 worth of fuel and you're charging me for a cup of coffee. They said, yes, sir, we are. I was mad and stomped by ass back to the truck. Tore out of there grabbing gears, the industry definitely changed. It's turned into a whole lot of different ways. I mean, you can't eat outta these truck stops. You gotta learn how to be sufficient, make sure you keep groceries on the truck, snacks things. I mean, you go in and try to buy a candy bar of a truck stop, you could have bought 10 of that same candy bar in Walmart for the same price. You just gotta be prepared. You gotta have a plan and a budget. You gotta be smart with money, right?'cause you know you're gonna crawl before you walk, once you get done and you get through your learning and your school of hard knocks you can really get up and make yourself a real good living. But you gotta pay your dues, you gotta get your experience.'cause there ain't nobody going to take you in with a bunch of accidents, a bunch of tickets. Because all of these things, when you get out in the real world, if you didn't do your pre-trip and you're running down the road with a flat tire and you pull into the scales, man, that DOT guy, he's going along to have talk with you and you probably ain't gonna like it. When you start getting enough of this on your record, nobody with any benefit is going to hire you. Now you gotta start trying to clean your record up and you just put yourself behind. If you keep yourself a good record, good head on your shoulders, learn everything you can learn, find the oldest guy in the truck. Stop and try to, if he's willing to talk to you and act like a civilized human being. I know there's a lot of older truckers out there that tend to scoff a little at the new guy, but I kind of believe in trying to help the guy learn what he needs to learn. That way I ain't gotta worry about him backing into my truck in the middle of the night. It is only how you look at it. You can sit there and make fun of him and act like you were born in the front seat of a truck if you want. But we all was there at one point in time or another. Y'all, I gotta start somewhere. Exactly. You do, man. And I understand. It goes from one extreme to the other, but we all came from the same place. We all gotta learn. And like I said earlier, everybody's so quick to jerk the camera out, the phone out and video somebody doing something, man, go help the guy put the damn phone down. Go help that guy. You know that video you're making really ain't going to make you any popular, if, maybe if you set the phone up there and videoed yourself going out there and helping the guy. You might get a few more likes or whatever it is you're trying to get. There's a lot of niches that you can get into in this industry. Tankers, hazmat, doubles, triples, pasture school buses that can accelerate your money. Tanker, I feel like is some of the best of the best. You really gotta pay attention to what you're doing, but it's, it defines. A professional CDL driver. Now that man rolling down the road in that tank, he's hauling some of the most volatile chemicals they are out here on the road, and he needs to be very well educated. I feel like at least, the doubles, triples, I mean, those guys, man, that's a little above the average. You've gotta know what you're doing. Hazmat. There's so many other things, you know, the sky's the limit with this stuff. Don't think just, oh, I'm gonna go get my CDO and I'm gonna be another truck driver. Hey, have goals, man. When you put a goal out there, make it reachable. When you reach that goal, set you another one. And when you accomplish that, hey, I want to go a little bit higher. I wanna do this. That's how you grow. And once after a while, you become a pretty decorated driver and the more feathers you got in the hat, the more money you can ask for. And I feel like your biggest player in succeeding and failing is gonna be the company that you work for. If. You get into a company and they're not providing that opportunity for you to grow and gain new experience doing other things like hauling containers or flatbed, tanker, et cetera, then maybe you need to find a different company. Exactly. And that's, that's a good thing. Not everyone's gonna start with the company that they stay with. Most likely, um, probably 5%, maybe less. I'd say probably even less. Start with the company that they stay with. I mean there's some high profile companies that take, companies outta their warehouse and so forth, and they train into the industry. My ass off to that guy that got chose to be trained. By one of these high profile companies because you got to skip a whole line of BS that you're going to get the best of training. It's gonna be tough. I would suggest pay attention to every single thing those people'cause they're going to have the best schools, the best learning, the best chance of survival, and the best pay. Most likely those guys are gonna set you up. For success right out the gate.'cause you gotta think these high profile companies when they're actually getting your CDL and you're going to be a long-term driver for them. They're not trying to invest into somebody that's going to fail. If you have the opportunity to go with or get into one of those programs, hands down, jump on it because your entry point into that. The level of CDL right there is unheard of. You just gotta be at the right place at the right time. They are certain companies that do that high profile companies and they start you out at some of'em are starts out six figures a year, and that takes a lot of experience to build yourself up to six figures a year. It can be done. But you are going to get a lot of BS before you get there, so if you have the opportunity to start, hey, by all means, I'd jump on it. And the reason these companies do that is because they need you. They're making that investment into you, hoping that you're gonna ride with them long term. Exactly. And I'll be honest with you, you get into one of those companies like that's a high profile company that trains you and get your CDL, where would you be going? Because they really ain't too many other lofty positions to be had besides some of those top companies. That grass ain't always greener on the other side. So be careful before you listen to, oh, we're so much better and every company wants to blow up their program and make you think they're the best of the best until you get there. And then that recruiter ain't nowhere to be found. It is a large industry, A lot of scam, a lot of things that's not always told right out the bat. You gotta ask a lot of questions, learn the questions you need to ask that. That's a big thing. And it depends on where you're going, what you're doing. Do your research, do your homework. Don't be afraid to ask questions like I tell everybody. There's no stupid question. Always ask questions. If you don't know you, there's no other way to learn. If you're steppin’ into trucking, do it the right way with the right mindset, the right training, and the truth about this lifestyle. Make sure to follow the show, share it with someone coming up in the industry, and check us out online at www.TheTruckersRadioPodcast.com where real talk meets the open road. Until next time stay safe, stay sharp, and keep it between the lines."