John Westhaver
Courageous Leadership
Hope - Courage - Power
M 250-514-5143
E John@JohnWesthaver.com
W www.JohnWesthaver.com
Twitter: @johnWesthaver
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnwesthaver/
"You are not what happened to you. Be POWERFUL in the face of any circumstance!"
John Westhaver
John Westhaver
Courageous Leadership
Hope - Courage - Power
M 250-514-5143
E John@JohnWesthaver.com
W www.JohnWesthaver.com
Twitter: @johnWesthaver
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnwesthaver/
"You are not what happened to you. Be POWERFUL in the face of any circumstance!"
John Westhaver
John Westhaver. Welcome to the Dawg On-It Trucking Pawedcast. Show how are you? My friend, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. That's a sick little kids, but with some colds. But other than that, I'm doing, I'm doing good little bit of lack of sleep, but I'm fine. Well, how was the weather in Vancouver, Victoria, Victoria, the weather here in Victoria is it's reading today, but we're above zero. We've been above zero pretty much all year so far. What's what's nice about Victoria is we don't get a lot of snow. Well, I'm just going to say nice, but also the downside. You don't get snow. You, You moved from new Brunswick, correct? Yes. So you're used to snow. Oh yeah. I love the snow. Love the snow. W what's it's funny as, as a, as a burn survivor, as somebody that as you can see, my hands are, are been damaged by the fire. So when your skin is damaged from the fro for burns or complication limits here, you don't have great blood supply. So being in a place where it doesn't get really cold, it's nice because they get to work with the hands outside. My hands don't get dry as much as they used to, but I miss the, the outdoor activities and the snow like snowmobiling and sledding and skating and all that fun stuff. Oh, John, I can tell you, I don't miss anything about winter. I wish I did miss all of winter, but God bless you. If you love winter, huh? That's get John. I know you are a safety advocate and that's why I've asked you onto the show, but this all started in what? 1994. Yeah. So 94, I was involved in a car crash, April 29th, 1994. I was involved in a fatal car crash being three of my friends. Three, two of two of my friends were high school seniors, the grade 12 with knee as well. And our friend had graduated. We were out of a Friday night drinking. Our driver was sober and ended up losing control of the car because I was speeding. And because of the crash, I sustained burns to 75% of the body. And three of my friends died and that crash not only impacted me, but it impacted the community. And so being a teenager was, was tough enough being a burn survivor on top of that was, it was challenging. So overcoming, you know, the challenges that are, that come along with being a burn survivor, but also on top of that, you know, the challenges of dealing with the loss of three friends, it was something I would say is something of a nightmare per se. They were re re you know, in reality sort of thing. And I, I was living my life getting back into kind of life mode, I guess. I never ever thought I would actually get into speaking. And it wasn't until I moved to Victoria in 2000 that I started thinking about speaking. I got involved with the firefighter part in front of Victoria here in Victoria, BC worked with the peer support group for burn survivors and started thinking about getting into safety and talking about speaking and, you know, reaching out. I had some people around me saying, you know, you should share your story more. And I ended up getting involved with the insurance corporation of British Columbia and approach them in 2001 had a few meetings with them. And we kind of created a partnership in the beginning, worked with them a little bit in the beginning and kind of went off on my own for awhile. And then in 2008, I became a full-time partner with them and the road safety program that we offer to high schools. So I talked to high school students about road safety and what it's like to overcome a fatal car crash in hopes of having youth think about their choices. Not, not only when they're in the moment of the choice, but beforehand, so that they can, they can start preparing for those choices. And I've been doing that for, I've been speaking now for 19 years. Love to, I do love making a difference with youth it's, it's nice. It's, what's powerful is, you know, when I get a message from a parent saying like, like my child just came over and they never talk about their day at school and they just spent 30 minutes talking about you and the impact that you've not only made on them, but their friends, when you get parents that reach out to you and share that, you know, you're making a huge difference in the world. Well, and so what I was going to say, you're making a huge difference with teens, but Today you're speaking to truck drivers and I don't honestly, and I'm not trying to make sleight of truck drivers here, but where you're really talking about a decision making process and about the way to make correct decisions and truck drivers, unfortunately, on a regular basis, sometimes they make poor, You know? So how do you make, or how do you talk to people about making good decisions? That's a great question. I actually just did a talk in November. So I'm, I'm not only a high school speaker. I don't just talk to high school students. I'm actually upping my game or alternative my game a bit. I'm actually doing corporate talks as well. So I'm talking to organizations and companies who are on safety, but also, you know, truck drivers as well, because it's not just teens, it's everybody, I'm a 45 year old adult. I drive just like everybody else. I'm like a truck driver. You know, I don't drive truck, but you know, I'm the age. So I know what people are dealing with. You know, I'm in the same space. I did a talk in, in November to a road safety coalition out of Texas. And it was, it was an opportunity for me to really work with this industry. And what else, the things they shared was like, it was good to have a story behind the safety message because often, you know, safety advocates, they talk about safety from the, the procedure per standpoint. And what are the protocols and safety? What are the gears you want to wear it, you know, keep safe, but they don't often hear from somebody who's been through something, you know? And so that's where I come into play. I can talk about road safety from the standpoint of, this is how it's going to change your life. This is what you're going to have to deal with when you are involved in a fatal crash or when you're involved in an incident. And so when it comes to truck drivers, you know, you guys are the, you know, maybe overused, but it's the backbone of society today. Getting goods from here to there sort of thing. You'd getting things delivered. One of the things that we don't realize though, is there's more stress on you. Now. There's more pressure on you to get your dilute, your goods or services, your, your, your product delivered on time and people relying on that. And when you're not in a place you're supposed to be, you know, you've got the dispatcher calling you, Hey, why are you? Why aren't you here? And you're ready. Hey, look, I'm in the queue. I'm sitting a mile down the road at a truck stop because I haven't gotten the go ahead to get my truck loaded. Or you go to in your, in the dock and your, you got your truck backed up, but so-and-so, doesn't have the paperwork to unlock your truck. So you can't even get it unloaded because a forklift operator on his lunch break and nobody's communicating. So the stress of, of getting, getting your delivery, your goods delivered on time. So, you know, that stress adds to adds to your drivers behavior. So it changes how you drive. So now you're, you've been backed up and, you know, it's, it's Thursday afternoon and you just want to get home for them weekend. And so you light little, you, I push it just a little bit more than you normally would, or, you know, digital log books are different nowadays than the old log books where you had stopped and like, Oh man, how's my math today. Am I going to be able to view my, my log book properly know? So it's like, there's all kinds of different things that you guys go through that we're not even privy to. Plus you're on a highway with a huge trailer behind you and you gotta be safe. You know, it's, it's your responsibility, you know, to be safe out there. And you could have other drivers that are, excuse my French jackasses, you know, on the road, but what are, how they are, your primary thing is safety, you know? And like you guys are dealing with so much stuff and, you know, and you know, I think the biggest thing in safety is having your managers on board with safety. Like, what are the stuff that you guys are going to be, need to be challenged with? You know, and the run of a day, like how, like, what are the, I say break guys, what are the breakdowns that in your, in your workflow that's going to cause you to overlook safety? You know, when it comes to four 30 on a Friday, you know, when you're in your you're two hours out from home, do you push it, you know, to, to get home? Or do you, do you take that regulated break that you're supposed to take so that you get the rest? Are you Sure you've never been a truck driver because you seem to understand a lot of the stresses and the breakdowns in the workflow that are pretty typical. Well, I've worked in industries that have truck drivers. So, you know, I used to work for an organization that delivered fuel, so fuel company. And so it's, you know, I know the dispatch side of things, events what I know, you know, it's all, it's all human, it's the human condition, like what we're all dealing with in this. And then it's like, like it just, you know, to speak to safety, you have to put yourself over in the other person's world, like re and really get like, what is it like for so-and-so? Cause you can't just say, these are your, these are your protocols. This is, this is your list of safety things, you know, do this, this, this, and you'll be safe. Well, not everything's on there, not everything's on there. There's things that you're going to have a breakdown and you're gonna get frustrated the road because you can't reach a dispatcher and they can't make the decision for you. And then you're going to be like, you know, or let's say you're between two major cities in the back roads of no, who knows where, and you run a flat, you know? And so it's going to take forever for the service guide to get to you to even change a tire if they're able to on the side of the road. Yeah, no, there's, there's all kinds of stress as a driver and I, you've got a really good concept of it. And then today we can just add on one more thing, I think, and that's Covid, which is for all of this, but Covid, I know I find myself the first several months were for the audience when you're a watch, this we're recording in February, but it's been almost a year now of COVID stress. And it's finally getting to me, I think it's getting to all of us. I can't imagine being a truck driver right now, having to all of the stresses that are normally associated and then add Covid on there as well. If you could give a driver a tip, just one tip for handling stress so that they make the right choice when it comes to safety. Yep. Can you say something about how to make the right choice? Well, it comes down to, you know, what are the impacts of your choices? And when you look at who's impacted, when you make a poor choice, you know, around road safety or, or anything you look at who's impacted and that helps you make better choices. So say for example, you know, you're, you're the, you're the father or the mother, and you're the breadwinner and you are a truck driver and your family's relying on you to, to bring home the bacon per se, and some in you make some poor choices and it costs you, your, your driving license or your, your ability to drive. You now have lost that ability to provide for your family or say, for example, you've got small children and your poor driving habits caused you to be in a collision or an incident of crash that a child is killed. You know, that impacts you, that impacts the rest of your life. You know, and if you think about how your choices that you make every single day, how they impact other people, it helps shape how you make choices in the space of COVID. We, you know, dealing with everything on top of this, like, like number one, like, look after your mental health, like, what are you doing? You know, for yourself, are you getting enough rest? Are you getting uninfectious as are you are, you're fueling your body with food or in a while enough. And if you're having a bad day, you know, are you talking to people? You know, you're talking to the right people that can support you in this, because the biggest thing is you're not alone. There are people out there to support you. And when it comes to mental health and trucking, like a lot of times we, we have this notion that we are tough. We're Bulletproof, we're strong, we're men, and there's some women out there that are drivers, but you know, we're the, we're the tough industry. You know, people look up to us and we don't, we don't show fear. We don't show weakness. Well, that's a, that's a barbaric thought, you know, it's a self-serving thought and in today's age, day and age, like, you know, we're all in this together. You don't have to prove your, your strength by, you know, being able to do things all by yourself. If you are struggling, you know, reach out, you know, when you are stressed out and you're trying to deal with things by yourself and, and you're not managing it. Well, the people that are closest to you are impacted your kids, your wife, your husband, your, your, your partner, your, your family, your parents, your everybody you're in, you're in your space. They're impacted because they see you. It was funny because I did some work at myself a few years ago. So personal growth work. And I come to this realization, Hey, I'm a real asshole. Sometimes I'm an arrogant asshole sometimes. Sorry, I, I apologize for the swearing, but it was like, I didn't really got that. I was like, and I said, you know, so some people in my life, like my family and friends, like, you know, sometimes I can be real asshole at times. I feel like John, really, you're just getting this. Now we just, just let you go off on your thing. You know, it's just, you know, why, why even bother sometimes, like, it's hard to communicate with you sometimes because you go on your soap box. Are you going, you know, you're, you're, you're in this mode and it's like your kids, especially your partners. They know when you're dealing with something, you may think you're hiding it when you're not, they know you, John. I just read a very unfortunate story in the, like, I get most of my news on the CBC, the digital thing. And there is a huge influx of babies coming into the ER in Canada. Now that have injuries that that baby could not have cost. And they're putting it down to the stresses of COVID and the parents and everything else. Yeah. It's just, I hear ya. And I think So that I can speak to them because I've got twins that are 22 months old and, and when your child and only one, but two, when your children are crying and they're frustrated and you're at your widths and you're tired, you're exhausted, your tired and exhausted. There's all these stresses. You're not getting what you need normally. And your kids crying. You can't figure it out in the moment. You know, it takes a big person to pause all that noise in your head and stop it and stop listening to all the noise in your head. All the thoughts about, you know, you're making up about what's going on and how inadequate you are as a parent, how you can't do this and all this, it takes a big person to stop all that noise in your head and just be with that crying baby. Sometimes I just need to cry. Sometimes they need to get it out of their system. How many times have you gotten pissed off at somebody? And you're just frustrated and pissed off of the world and they just shut you down and they do walk away and you're still left, pissed off. And you're like, no, to get back here. I want to look for this. This, your child sometimes has energy in her system that she just needs to get rid of it. And she doesn't know how to communicate that. And sometimes I just need to cry and you just gotta be with them. You just got to hold them and give them that space, The stresses of the world today, and specifically for truck drivers, but for all of us, because of COVID are unique. And I'm sure as hell looking forward to an end of this, that I got a question for you. You know, unfortunately I wish we, we had met, I mean, we met through the internet, which is fantastic, but you're a hell of a guy website, Nikki, you, the, the question I guess, that I get from your website is the day of the crash. You wish you had spoken up. I think something along that line and yet your driver of that crash was sober. What do you mean? Yep. So I don't know you, I don't know if you've ever experienced a fatal car crash or an auto or whatever it is out there that has, when you, when you survive a fatal car crash, that impacts you not only physically, but emotionally, mentally there's survivor guilt and grief and blame. You know, that you were left behind that you or that I was left behind and I had all these thoughts and you know, why am I left behind? What did I do? This is, you know, being a burn survivor. That's the punishment for not speaking up, because as a reckless teenage guy, I knew to speak up and you not to get in a car when someone was drinking, I knew to tell her driver to slow down if they're being a jackass, per se. But like, I, I knew all these things, but that night, because I was drinking with my friends, we had a sober driver. I didn't tell her joggers slow down. Or if we did, it was like, you know, you know, you should have slowed down. Like there wasn't real, a real urgency to it. And we were just being teenage guys. So there, there there's always that I wish I would have spoken up. I wish I would've made different choices that night, but wishing now after the fact doesn't change what happened. But what it does though, is it allows me to speak to youth and people today and truck drivers today to say, Hey, this is how it impacts you. This is how the real here would impact. Or this is the real human impact. When a crash happens, this is how it, it changes your life. You know? So when you find yourself in these situations, these are the choices you're going to be faced with. So why, why try to deal with it in the moment? Why not try to deal with it before you get in the moment? Why not like work on, like, what are some of the choices you're going to be making, you know, and be proactive on it. I'm working with four other speakers or three other speakers on a pro, a new, this new program we're doing, or this program partnership, whatever you want to call it. And we're four speakers. We have over 70 years or almost 70 years of speaking experience. And we all come from different areas of safety and we all speak on different things. And it just, we're all kinda talking about, you know, safety, but it's really to, you know, we've been there, we wear the scars, we we've lived the, the challenges and obstacles that you're faced with after these incidences, you know, so we get to speak from it, you know, and be proactive about safety. You know, it's easy to, or sorry, it's an easy, it's, it's hard to try to collect the pieces and pick up the pieces and figure out things out to the fact. It's easier to take a moment before something happens and talk about it. So we're on the side of proactive safety, like, what do we need to do today so that you get to go home to your kids tonight so that your it's not just you being safe at work, but it's your whole work team to your whole company that safe. And then when your company is not safe, who does that impact? It impacts the family. It impacts the spouse and the children and the grandparents of that individual driver. And then of course it, it, it impacts everybody. Like I often think about Humboldt, the crash for the hockey team. And, you know, you look up what that impacted the bad choices that were made there. And I mean, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but if I remember it was 13 passed away and then the rest of the team was injured. But I'm also thinking about all the first responders who showed up, what they must be dealing with, you know, and then the, the communities as a whole, that humble community, all the churches. And I mean, there was volunteers. So I, I just can't imagine the impact of that bad decision. I don't know if you read some of the stuff, but that driver had he been pulled over and inspected prior to the crash would have been put out of service because he had some major log book violations. In other words, he'd been working too much and he was distracted at the time of the crash and totally blew the stop sign. You know, it just, I don't want other drivers to go through the same thing. So, you know, I appreciate what you're saying about, you know, think about your choices is what I, what it comes down to, I think. Yeah. And it also, like if you look at that, that incident, that was a big, a big crash and it currently it shine a light on a, on an area of the trucking industry and safety industry that I think needs to be talked about more. And I think, you know, the, your safety managers and, and you and your company owners are listening to this, you know, it really becomes a part of it's all of our responsibility to be safe out there. And as a, as a company owner or a manager of drivers, it's your responsibility to make sure that your drivers are equipped and that they have what they need to be safe on the road. But also that you get, like, you understand that, that your audits stress and, and trying to make up time per se, or, or do the impossible, you know, are you thinking more of what the profit sharing of the business and delivering a product on time, or are you thinking about the safety? And then when you think about the safety, it's like, how do we be S how do we create safety in the real world that that's, that's practical? You know, w w we wanna, we want to make sure we were delivering a goods and getting things done. I'm going to say better, but it's got a, there's going to be a profitability, appropriate profitability, part of it as well. Like, there's gotta be, it's gotta be workable, you know, and if it's not workable, you know, that safety practice kind of goes by the wayside. And as a manager, you got to look like, like, how, how are we operating that, that we are pushing our drivers to limit. And then if you look at the consumer side, because the concern, I think it's the, it's also on the consumer side as well, that we look at things as well, because we live in a day and age, and this is my belief that we live in a day and age, where we want more for less, we want to pay the cheapest possible price, but get the most powerful, you know, best product out there, a service out there, but we don't want to spend money for it. And that's just the society that we live in. We, we we're, it's kind of, we know the marketing game. We, we pay less, we get more. And when you, when you live in that world, in that mindset, you know, for a company to be profitable, they've got to offer more for less. So where are they going to cut the corners? They're going to cut the corners in the production and the delivery. And so if we look at, you know, as a consumer, like, it's, it's our responsibility to start paying more for things like I like to be, you know, I like to be thrifty sometimes too, and get things for cheap price, but all on the same side, I get what I pay for. If I'm not willing to spend the proper money on something, I don't, I shouldn't deserve to get the full, the full value of a quick equivalent product of a higher print price per se. So if, as a consumer standpoint, we need to look at like, what are we going to start paying more for things so that we can actually make sure that the production and delivery side of things that, you know, they're, they're equal and these people are making your living wage and they're safe. Yeah. That's John well said, and thank you because you're right. And I'm guilty of it. I want everything for as cheap as I can possibly, and I understand trucking and the impacts of it all. So as we wrap up John last word, do you have any last tips or suggestions for truck drivers go home and kiss your kids and tell them you love them and promise them you're going to be safe. Well said, and John, let me just say this. It's been an absolute pleasure. Your contact info is in the show notes below. And I would encourage any trucking company to reach out to John. You are a professional speaker as demonstrated here, but you are a true professional. And I thank you so much. Thank you for being here, allowing me to be on your podcast and to, and to share my message and story with the, your community. You know, it's, it's an honor to be here today. And, you know, if you've, if you've gotten something from today, you know, reach out, you know, it doesn't take much time to reach out, even send me a message, like, you know, whatever, say thank you because all that makes a difference and we want to make the biggest possible difference, but just when you're out there, be safe. Thanks, John. I hope you love the show as much as I did, please leave us a, like a thumbs up a review, a comment, a rating. If it is, thank you so much. And I do really appreciate your time and join us again next week for another exciting interview.