Wyoming Trucking Association Keynote Speech

A Note Before You Read

Back in May, I had the opportunity to deliver this keynote at the Wyoming Trucking Association’s annual convention — a room full of people who keep America moving. We talked about a question that’s shaped my life and work: Who do you want to be when you grow up?

This message is for every business owner, leader, and team member working to attract and keep the right people — especially in blue-collar and skilled trades industries.

Below is the full written version of that talk. If you were there, I hope it helps you revisit what spoke to you. If you weren’t, I hope it sparks something fresh for you and your company.

Thanks again to @Wyoming Trucking Association for the opportunity and for the work you all do every day to keep goods, people, and communities connected.
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Wyoming Trucking Association Keynote

Opening Question

I think the question really comes down to this: Who do you want to be when you grow up?

Think back to when you were a kid, or a young guy or gal. What was it that you wanted to do? Who did you want to be?

I’m going to share a couple of stories to illustrate this idea — this concept of “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” — and what it means for us now.

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Personal Stories

The Archeologist Dream

One of the first things I ever wanted to be was an archaeologist. I remember watching Sesame Street — they found this aluminum ball, painted gold, and treated it like a treasure. In that moment, I thought, That’s what I want to do. I want to look for treasure. I want to find things like that. If that meant being an archaeologist, then that’s what I was going to be.

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Professional Soccer Player

As I got a bit older, I really started to love the culture I found playing traveling soccer — the experience of being on a team and working together. It didn’t mean I had to be the best; it meant I had to play my role. So in fourth or fifth grade, I decided I wanted to be a professional soccer player. And I really loved that pursuit — while it lasted.

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Professional Skiing

In middle school, I decided that professional skiing would be my career. I loved the progression, the pursuit, the drive — always trying to push and innovate my own skill set. Professional skiing was the goal.

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Business Ownership and Skiing

In time that changed – I decided that I wanted to own my own business, and ski.

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The Mantra: Cool People, Cool Projects
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While I was in high school, I started making ski movies, and through that I realized I wanted to build a culture I could be proud of, a culture my grandma would be proud of. I wanted to be able to tell her anything I was up to and know she’d approve of it — or at least not strongly disapprove. I’m not exactly sure where that came from, but it was, and still is, my north star.

To embody that goal, I came up with this simple mantra: Cool People, Cool Projects. It’s become a guiding light for me, in life and in my career. It’s the single most important phrase that pushes me, pulls me, and drives me forward.

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Living the Dream

Looking at my story, I’ve been living out my most current and ongoing dream: owning my own business and skiing. I helped reopen Antelope Butte Ski Area up in the northern Bighorn Mountains. That project took about ten years, and along the way, I learned how to fundraise and work with a non-profit board to get the place back open.

Over the years, I’ve built a number of businesses, and each one has taught me something new. My primary focus today is Only Co. — a Business Building Company. We help industrial businesses grow, optimize their workforce, and develop their leadership.

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The Universal Question

Back to the main question: Who do you want to be when you grow up? I believe we all ask this question — and so do the people we hire. Maybe they don’t think about it every day, but if you spend time with your people and really start asking them questions, you’ll see they have a dream for their life. They’re on an arc, just like you are.

We all ask, Who do I want to be when I grow up? And right alongside that, Am I doing that today?

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Today's Talk: Retention

So today we’re talking about retention. And there are two sides to retention. First, you have to keep good people — but you can’t keep them if you don’t first attract them.

Retention is also a double-edged sword in another way. Do you really want to retain everyone? Or are there certain people you’d rather not keep around? We can all think back to people we’ve worked with over the years — maybe on the customer side, maybe on the employee side — and thought, “I’d rather not retain that relationship any longer.”

That’s the crux of it. Retention is an important goal for every business. You need people to be there. You need commitment, longevity, and stability. You need people to do the work, and you need people to lead the people. You need predictability and consistency.

But if retention isn’t about keeping everyone, then we have to counterbalance it with attraction. Who do you actually want to attract? Who do you want to be drawn to your company?

And when you think back to my story — or your own — it’s worth asking: Who do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want your company to be when it grows up? Where are you aiming? Where are you pointing?

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Workforce Challenges

Assuming you’ve been able to attract people you want to retain — or that you’d like to attract people you can retain — it really comes down to a few key things in today’s workforce landscape.

The labor market has flipped, and it didn’t happen overnight. It shifted decades ago. Employers no longer have all the control. People have options, lots of them. They’re not lining up around the block for your “Now Hiring” signs anymore.

Some of this is driven by a few big factors:

• The birth rate has declined, so there are simply fewer people available to fill all the open positions.
• Retirements are happening, or about to happen, putting even more strain on the system.
• And for blue-collar and skilled trades, there’s been a decades-long push for four-year degrees, sending a message that working with your hands is somehow less valuable or not a worthy career path.

Put together, these three forces - the college bias, retirements, and declining birth rate - have a constraining effect on your ability to attract people. The pool of potential workers is getting smaller and smaller.

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Getting Over the Hump

So how do we get over this hump? As I shared my story above, maybe it sparked some reflection on your own. At the end of the day, your ability to attract great people depends on your ability to tell a powerful story. Show people what you’re about.

The available labor market wants to join companies with a bright, bold future. As leaders, we have to speak that future into existence. We have to lead. We have to communicate clearly where our companies are headed.

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The Four Cornerstones

Today’s workforce demands:

1. Purpose Behind the Work

You must ask yourself as the leader of your company – “What are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish? Why does this matter in the world?”

These are important things to get clear when you're trying to attract great people.

2. Stability

Questions the potential employee is asking – “Is this job going to be around? Is it going to help me live my lifestyle? Is it going to help me have a family? Will working here help me accomplish my goals and my dreams?”

Building your company is probably not the number one dream, or ambition, of your employee. However, they do have hopes and dreams and desires that are number one. They have a vision for who they want to be when they grow up, and they want to see that the stability and the purpose that you provide are going to help them get there.

3. Belonging

As a business, are you presenting a compelling story? Are you creating an environment where people feel like they fit in, they're valued, and that their labor is respected?

4. Opportunity for Growth

As a potential employee they are asking– “Will I be able to get better? Will I be able to go somewhere with this company?”

These are the four things that you need to be thinking about when it comes to attracting great people and retaining great people: purpose, stability, belonging, and growth.

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The Story Challenge

Having grown up in Wyoming and worked closely with companies in blue-collar industries — from skilled trades and manufacturing to field service, construction, trucking, and oil and gas — I know firsthand there are incredible careers to be found in these businesses. They’re the backbone of America and a huge part of Wyoming’s culture and economy.

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But what I’ve seen time and again is that these companies often struggle to tell a story that truly draws the right people in.

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A Players: The 90/90 Rule

Attraction and retention go hand in hand. It’s not just about keeping anyone — it’s about keeping the right people, the ones who will help us reach our goals.

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I won’t go too deep into this right now, but at a high level, it comes down to this: you want to retain A-players. And if you want to keep A-players, you have to attract A-players in the first place.

What’s the definition of an A-player? You’ll hear a lot of different takes on that, but the best one I’ve come across is this: an A-player is someone who aligns with your values about 90% of the time. They’re not perfect, nobody is, but they really do line up with how you make decisions, why you make them, how you treat people, and how you run your company.

What I’ve found in this blue-collar, skilled trades space is that these values are very real — they’re there — but they’re often not written down, clarified, or kept simple enough to be useful. And sometimes there are just too many of them. You really should only have three or four core values, because you want people to actually use them to make decisions every day.

So, an A-player hits your values 90% of the time. And the other side of it? An A-player also hits their key performance indicators, their benchmarks, their productivity — 90% of the time. It’s what I call the 90/90 rule.

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The Challenge of Attracting A Players

Now, here’s the thing: A-players aren’t usually out there looking for a job. You’ve probably noticed this. They’re typically well compensated, respected, trusted — sometimes even beloved. Companies don’t push these people out the door. They’re not on the hunt.

That’s why, if you want to attract A-players and ultimately keep them, you need to tell a compelling story, consistently. You never know when that great person might start looking around.

And beyond that, you need a compelling story because it gives you the power to persuade someone great to join your team. If you don’t have a story, you don’t have the power to persuade.

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The Power of Stories

Now, thinking about stories for a second, let’s get real practical. We’ve all heard the word “story.” You hear people like me get up here and talk about it. But at the end of the day, as people, we are storytellers.

If I ask you how your day’s going, you’re going to tell me a story. If I ask what you think about a piece of equipment, you’ll tell me a story. If I ask what you think about someone on your team, you’ll tell me a story. Stories help us make sense of things. They give us meaning, purpose, and perspective to understand the world.

And you all are actually darn good at telling stories. We sit around after work, maybe have a beer, and we tell stories. We go home, talk to our spouse or our kids, and they ask, “How was your day?” We tell a story. Do we share every detail? No. Do we leave things out? Of course. We look at our audience and decide what to share and how to share it.

Storytelling is not new. It’s as old as time. It’s parables. Jesus used stories to drive a point home.

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The Problem with Industrial Stories

What I’ve found is that the stories industrial businesses are telling are often pretty weak. They struggle to connect emotionally with people who are even just a little outside their immediate circle.

Sometimes I think folks hold back from telling their story — or telling it powerfully — because they want it to stay real. They want it to be true, to reflect their values. And in this part of the country, and in businesses like yours, those values matter: integrity, authenticity, accuracy. There’s also a lot of humility. Telling too grand of a story, something too big or too inspirational, can feel uncomfortable.

It can feel like, “Is this really going to help my business? Is it worth the time to define my story — to get clear on our mission, vision, and values, to write it down, to create content that actually tells it?”

I’m here to say: it does pay off. People are drawn to remarkable companies. They’re drawn to companies that are out doing things — dreaming bigger, accomplishing more, trying instead of just sitting back. A clear, compelling story pulls people in.

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You Are Cool

I can tell you this: the majority of the people in this room are driving their businesses forward. That’s why you’re here. You want to get better — iron sharpens iron. You’re here to learn from each other, learn from these breakout sessions. You’re innovating. You’re pushing your businesses ahead. You’re not just sitting back.

You build amazing things. You solve tough problems. You give people careers, stability, and opportunity. And when I look back at my own story, that’s what I want too — to work with good people on great projects. The things you’re doing are cool. The things you’re building are cool. The way you go about it is cool.

You all are some of the coolest people I know. But too often, when I look at your stories from the outside, they’re not compelling. They feel dated. They don’t capture the strength of your leadership or the power of your culture. They might tell a little bit here and there, but they don’t really show the story you’re living.

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The Curse of Knowledge

It’s really hard to do because your company’s story is personal. It’s close to you. And when we’re really close to something, we often have a hard time seeing the nuggets of gold in it. We can miss what makes it unique or different or better than someone else’s. That’s the challenge — it’s the curse of knowledge. We often say, “You can’t see the label from inside the jar.”

So I’m here to remind you: your story is powerful. The story you can tell is significant, compelling, and persuasive. Taking the time to build a brand story that attracts A-players gives the next generation of workers something more — purpose, stability, belonging, and growth.

You’ve got to tell that story. You’ve got to do a little convincing — nothing crazy, not a giant leap — but you do need a story strong enough to get the right people in the door.

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Building A Player Culture

Once you have them, you’ve got to surround them with other A-players. Retention depends on your ability to build a culture that A-players want to be part of — a culture that doesn’t tolerate B or C players.

The fastest way to push an A-player out the door is to surround them with people who underperform, cut corners, or don’t live the values. We’ve all seen it. We’ve all experienced it. It’s no fun — and it’s definitely not cool.

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Closing Thoughts

As I wrap this up, I’d leave you with a few things. Come back to that question: Who do you want to be when you grow up? What’s that dream — and are you in pursuit of it? Who do your people want to be when they grow up? What’s the story they’re telling themselves about their career, about their job?

Are there things you need to change about how you treat people, how you coach, how you guide? The experience inside your walls needs to be consistent. It doesn’t have to be perfect — no company is — but you do have to be intentional. What are you doing to clearly attract A-players?

You make some of the coolest stuff in the world. You keep things moving. You provide the bedrock for society. Think about it: at some point, everything in the world was on a truck. That’s pretty darn cool. So what are you doing to present a message that’s just as cool — one that reflects the people and the culture you’re building?

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The Path Forward

The ones who take this message seriously — who decide to spend the time, effort, and money to define their story and build a compelling message that attracts A-players — those are the ones who win. They surround those A-players with other A-players, and then they keep them. And those are the companies that become the most profitable, the most innovative, the most stable, the most predictable.

When you have a higher percentage of people aligned with your values, your mission, your vision — and they’re out there every day with a strong work ethic, being productive — that’s the 90/90 rule in action. The more of those people you have on your team, the more competitive you’ll be, the stronger your company will be, and the better business you’ll build.

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Final Questions

This is what it all comes down to: Who do you want to be when you grow up? Who do your people want to be when they grow up? Where do you want to take this business? And how are you treating your people along the way?

Are you doing everything in your power to persuade A-players to join your company — and everything in your power to build and maintain a culture where A-players want to stay and thrive, surrounded by other A-players? Because you don’t want to retain everyone. The ones who don’t fit your values or who aren’t productive — you want them to move along.

But it starts with you being clear that you want to build a strong culture of A-players.

And it’s possible. There are people out there looking for great careers. People looking for purpose, stability, belonging, and growth. And you have what it takes to give them that.