Seeking Solo Otr

I wish I were better at expressing these concepts. I work hard at it, but it often falls flat. I know it helps some people who come along later and encounter these conversations. I keep banging away.

You're amazing at expressing the key concepts for success. No one does it better. In fact, you have always been far more eloquent and sensitive than I have when teaching someone the things they need to know. I've put a tremendous amount of time and effort into improving my delivery, and that inspiration came from yourself, Kearsey, and so many of the Moderators and long-time contributors here.

The challenge we face is that so few people have been properly taught what it takes to be successful and feel fulfilled in their lives. They don't understand that 80% of it is psychological. Attitude really is everything. The discipline you have, your work ethic, the relationships you build, the humility it takes to be willing to listen, the fierce responsibility you must take for the outcome of your endeavors - all of that stuff is critical to success in any area of life, but it stems from your mindset and rarely is it taught properly. I know I never learned any of that in school. In fact, I learned most of the important lessons in my life from reading books, playing sports, and being in business.

The things we teach here at Trucking Truth are so completely foreign to people that they often become very angry or defensive. To them, we sound preposterous. How could we have the nerve to say that someone should earn their position in life or focus on making themselves better? Who are we to say that a person is responsible for their own success and can't blame the company if things don't go their way? How dare we say someone's time isn't valuable, but only their productivity is?

I'm fully confident that we have a quiet, invisible army of followers reading everything we say, taking it all in, and using it to build an awesome career and an awesome life for themselves. The people we hear from most often are those who are upset by the poor start they've had to their career or are shocked and baffled by what we teach. Only when they're truly upset do they feel compelled to come out of hiding and speak their minds.

Those very people are a blessing for us, though. They give us the opportunity to teach. They challenge us with their misperceptions. They force us to explain in great detail our philosophies and back them with real-life experiences.

I feel truly sad for people like Concept because he has maybe a 10% chance of being in this industry a year from now. He won't make it. He'll fall prey to the misperceptions he has and the terminal rats will only reinforce those misperceptions. Before long he'll decide trucking is the wrong career to be in even though he may have turned out to be an awesome driver who cherished his years on the road.

We'll help anyone who is open-minded and willing to listen, and I believe there are plenty of them reading this right now. If it wasn't for "Concept" and his misperceptions we wouldn't have had such a great opportunity to help those who are eager to improve themselves and get their career on solid ground.

I wish I were better at expressing these concepts. I work hard at it, but it often falls flat. I know it helps some people who come along later and encounter these conversations. I keep banging away.

You're amazing at expressing the key concepts for success. No one does it better. In fact, you have always been far more eloquent and sensitive than I have when teaching someone the things they need to know. I've put a tremendous amount of time and effort into improving my delivery, and that inspiration came from yourself, Kearsey, and so many of the Moderators and long-time contributors here.

The challenge we face is that so few people have been properly taught what it takes to be successful and feel fulfilled in their lives. They don't understand that 80% of it is psychological. Attitude really is everything. The discipline you have, your work ethic, the relationships you build, the humility it takes to be willing to listen, the fierce responsibility you must take for the outcome of your endeavors - all of that stuff is critical to success in any area of life, but it stems from your mindset and rarely is it taught properly. I know I never learned any of that in school. In fact, I learned most of the important lessons in my life from reading books, playing sports, and being in business.

The things we teach here at Trucking Truth are so completely foreign to people that they often become very angry or defensive. To them, we sound preposterous. How could we have the nerve to say that someone should earn their position in life or focus on making themselves better? Who are we to say that a person is responsible for their own success and can't blame the company if things don't go their way? How dare we say someone's time isn't valuable, but only their productivity is?

I'm fully confident that we have a quiet, invisible army of followers reading everything we say, taking it all in, and using it to build an awesome career and an awesome life for themselves. The people we hear from most often are those who are upset by the poor start they've had to their career or are shocked and baffled by what we teach. Only when they're truly upset do they feel compelled to come out of hiding and speak their minds.

Those very people are a blessing for us, though. They give us the opportunity to teach. They challenge us with their misperceptions. They force us to explain in great detail our philosophies and back them with real-life experiences.

I feel truly sad for people like Concept because he has maybe a 10% chance of being in this industry a year from now. He won't make it. He'll fall prey to the misperceptions he has and the terminal rats will only reinforce those misperceptions. Before long he'll decide trucking is the wrong career to be in even though he may have turned out to be an awesome driver who cherished his years on the road.

We'll help anyone who is open-minded and willing to listen, and I believe there are plenty of them reading this right now. If it wasn't for "Concept" and his misperceptions we wouldn't have had such a great opportunity to help those who are eager to improve themselves and get their career on solid ground.

Brett, please tell me you banned this person that was the OP of this thread. I love y’all WAY too much to put up with this person disrespectin y’all. I owe this forum my life and I wouldn’t be the driver I am today if it wasn’t for Trucking Truth.

You seem to be wanting a lot. I dont know what company you work for and if there any additional pay for activities. As a driver with no experience your not worth a whole lot. However if you keep your license clean after a year you could write your own ticket.

I'm getting ready to get my truck at Roehl. I've completed 1 month of cdl school and a month of OTR training. I'll give you an idea of what I'll be making. Keep in mind I'm a flatbed trucker and actually work for a living unlike them door swingers. Lol. Just kidding.

I'm starting at 0.425 cpm. I get an additional 0.1cpm for every mile incident free. I get $16 every time I touch a steel tarp and $25 for lumber tarps. If I go into NYC its additional money. If I do a border crossing its additional money. If I'm stuck at a customer 2 hours past my appointment time I get detention pay.

We also have different tiers of pay you can earn based on performance. As a flatbed driver if I run hard I'm looking at possibly 2600 miles a week.

I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion. Let’s just do some actual thinking.

How can I possibly make “awesome money” with a pay of 29cpm? It has nothing to do with my performance. It’s simply **** pay.

10 hours driving = maximum of 650 miles. 650*.29=188.50 That means in the best possible scenario I make 18.50 an hour for the time that I’m on the highway. Factor in the fact that you have to spend time at drop/pickup doing papers finding,empty trailers, cleaning trailers, coupling,driving up and down grades, traffic, weather, stoplights, low speed limits, weighing and reweighing loads(because they don’t give a **** about your time and will overload you),finding empty parking spots, fueling, pre/post trips you would have to be an idiot to call it good pay let alone great. 18.50 is hardly even decent pay in itself.

My last 4000 miles I averaged 50 mph. And I drive with max speeds possible. So it’s not like I’m making 18.50 before factoring in all other factors. It comes out to 14.50 an hour for just the time that I am driving. And the last 4000 miles I did were on ideal highways with hardly any traffic. My mph still averaged out to only 50 even though I drive at 65 the majority of time on highway.

Previous to the last 4000 miles my average was only 43 mph because of traffic and weather and I was in California.

You aren’t going to convince me that I need to improve my performance because the majority of time I am waiting for loads. Dealing with other people’s bull**** and I don’t get paid for any of it. I’m basically waiting to get onto the road so I can finally start earning some **** pay.

Work hard on increasing your reliability, productivity, and establishing a great working relationship with your dispatcher. One full year of that and you'll realize how misguided your concerns about CPM rates are now.

I can't stress how critical it is to understand this. You want to make big money because you have big goals. That's awesome. That's how it should be. Now to achieve those goals, focus on what you must do to become the best truck driver possible.

Over time, your pay will be equal to your awesomeness. Becoming awesome takes time. It won't happen in your first year. You can become very good by the end of your first year. You can become excellent by the end of your second year. It will take 3 - 5 years before you gain the experience and knowledge it takes to consistently perform at an awesome level.

You'll get there if you keep your focus on becoming the best you can be. Don't lose sight of the fact that you must consistently reach the highest performance level in order to reach the highest pay level.

Should’ve done your research here. These guys/girls are always truthful about the fact that you don’t become a trucker to get rich. Btw, stop comparing yourself to McDonalds worker or whatever. It doesn’t help the situation at all.