08/04/2026
Spent a couple of days at a business meeting for our industry. Wow! Learned a lot at the 2 day meeting and then Saturday night we did something special. The people putting on the meeting had reached out to about 6 different restaurants trying to find a place to accommodate, what was originally supposed to be about 50 people but ended up being about 60 people. Nobody had the space or was willing to help. They finally found a Mexican restaurant willing to take us. This was planned days in advance, maybe even a month. We wanted to do something special for them, so we all put cash together. We paid for the bill with cash and then tipped all the people that waited on us, cooked for us, everything, $1600 cash! We made their night but ours as well. How great that felt!!!
We now go back to our meeting place to listen to a guest speaker. Umm, ok, this guy was Amazing, Influential, and Inspirational! Maybe you've heard of him, Ben Newman? If you haven't, search him and go find out his story. This was all in the first day.
On day two, we got down to business again. Everybody feeling great and then we were asked about doing something special again. We had money still left over and they wanted nominations to donate the rest of the money. Once couple nominated friends of theirs that were going through a rough time with their 6 year old and cancer. He had been through many surgeries already. There was a Go Fund Me account set up for them to help with all the bills from the hospital. The account was trying to raise $12,000. It was currently up to $7200ish I believe. Let's make this short, by the time we were done donating the cash that we had left over and then people added more cash and reached out to others and then there was a private donation of another $3000 and the 3 guys that were putting on the class each donated $500/ea .....in the end we were able to get them up to, I believe it was $19000. Unreal the difference that we all made in someone's life, again! The amazing people that I have met in my industry are like no other. I don't know another industry that tries so hard to help people, not just in bad times but also tries to help each other grow and be successful. I've been very fortunate and lucky to have met some of the best people in the world and what's crazy is that we're all competitors but yet, friends and want success for all of us.
Now that these two days are done, it's time to get back to the grind and push even harder!
Off to Nappanee, IN for the rest of this week. Time to wrap some box trucks.