Hire Truckers Podcast

00:01 - 00:21
Aaron Craddock: Welcome to the Hire Truckers podcast, the show where we dig into the world of driver recruiting and the future of trucking. I'm your host, Aaron Kradoch. Each week, we bring you industry insights, conversations with top leaders, and lessons in growth and leadership to help you build stronger fleets and better recruiting strategies. So a little bit of a disclaimer for the show today. I want to

00:21 - 00:27
Aaron Craddock: be clear that the thoughts I share today come from me personally, like my personal story. They do

00:27 - 00:47
Aaron Craddock: not necessarily represent the views of our team, our clients, our sponsors of any of our incredible guests we've had on the show. So today, so I haven't posted on social media in over a week, and I've really been processing and I've been busy traveling. And yeah, just really didn't know what words I should say and I've really

00:47 - 00:52
Aaron Craddock: been praying through it. But yeah, my initial reaction to

00:53 - 01:18
Aaron Craddock: Charlie Kirk being assassinated or murdered was just shock, out of the gate. Just did that really just happen? And the first flurry of messages I got right after he was shot, was like, everybody pray for Charlie. And some people were chiming out on the messages hey, regardless of your views, politically or otherwise, like just pray for Charlie Kirk. And then some people jumped in and

01:18 - 01:20
Aaron Craddock: were like, yeah, you know,

01:20 - 01:32
Aaron Craddock: with millions of people praying, he might come through this. And, you know, then I Googled and searched, which I don't don't recommend the video of him being hit. And,

01:34 - 01:37
Aaron Craddock: I just I kinda knew that it was over.

01:38 - 01:52
Aaron Craddock: And I was still praying, but the news came out a few minutes later that he had passed. And just radical honesty is like one of the things we lead with in all my companies. And that's why I wanted to do the show today,

01:53 - 01:58
Aaron Craddock: just to be radically honest. And so I've cried several times. I'm pretty

01:58 - 02:05
Aaron Craddock: sure I've cried daily. Yeah, and it's okay to be sad and to process. And then a little bit of fear, just because even though I have

02:05 - 02:07
Aaron Craddock: a limited platform, I have a platform and

02:07 - 02:20
Aaron Craddock: I do share with people and share my views. And yeah, more than anything over the past few weeks and a couple or a few days, I've felt just an urgency to just speak what I believe, like what I think

02:21 - 02:23
Aaron Craddock: is truth. And so that's a

02:23 - 02:28
Aaron Craddock: little bit what you'll have today, truth, challenge and hope to bring unity,

02:29 - 02:32
Aaron Craddock: through my message. And so a little

02:32 - 02:36
Aaron Craddock: bit on my background. So I love Jesus and so that's where

02:36 - 02:51
Aaron Craddock: I pivot from. But I also have friends of a bunch of different backgrounds. I lived in Thailand for nine months. Actually there I studied Buddhism under the top, one of

02:51 - 02:56
Aaron Craddock: the founders of the largest Buddhist sects in the world, the Dalmakaya Buddhist sect.

02:58 - 03:00
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, so we spent a lot of

03:00 - 03:12
Aaron Craddock: time at a university there in Bangkok and just had some great conversations about why he believed what he believed. And we looked into Hinduism and Buddhism, multiple different things.

03:12 - 03:21
Aaron Craddock: And as we wrapped up that course, and this was I think, eighteen years or so, I'll have to go back

03:21 - 03:23
Aaron Craddock: and check my math. I wrote my paper for the class.

03:23 - 03:32
Aaron Craddock: We had a final wrap up paper that all of us did. I wrote my paper on absolute truths and just the concept of like,

03:33 - 03:37
Aaron Craddock: if this is a desk, like that I have right here in front of

03:37 - 03:45
Aaron Craddock: me, like that is my belief. And it's either true or it's not. That doesn't mean if you believe it's not a desk, it's

03:45 - 03:58
Aaron Craddock: not a desk. And I could be wrong that it's a desk, but that there is a standard of truth and some different arguments and apologetics on that. And just my view on morality and my biblical worldview. And he wrote on the paper, and again, we have a great relationship.

03:59 - 04:20
Aaron Craddock: You can disagree with people and still have good productive conversations. And so he wrote on my paper, like absolute truth is dangerous. That was the only comment on the entire paper. Absolute truth is dangerous. And we had some conversations after,

04:21 - 04:39
Aaron Craddock: and I agreed. Like if I believe what like if what I believe is true, that we've all sinned and deserve eternal separation from God, and Jesus is the only way, and that He's God that came down to earth, and if that's true, it is dangerous.

04:39 - 04:45
Aaron Craddock: And so I agree with that statement. And then a little more context. So I was

04:45 - 04:58
Aaron Craddock: actually gonna go to seminary, you're like, You're in trucking, you're in business. What are you talking about seminary? And so I had already gotten accepted to Golden Gate. I wanted to be around different cultures, different ideas, and so I wanted to

04:58 - 05:01
Aaron Craddock: be in San Fran at Golden Gate. I had

05:01 - 05:11
Aaron Craddock: already been accepted, was ready to do that after undergrad, and had lunch with a Muslim friend of mine. And again, I hang out with people from all different backgrounds and really want to

05:11 - 05:20
Aaron Craddock: hear why they believe what they believe and what's truth to them. Like what is their truth and what is truth? And we can chat through it. And he gave me

05:22 - 05:39
Aaron Craddock: just a really good argument about how if I wanna reach the world and some of the unreached areas like can do that through business. And so, yeah, so that's actually made a change. I was like, I'm gonna get my MBA. And a number of years later did after working a while, go

05:39 - 06:07
Aaron Craddock: back and get my MBA. And that's what he had campaigned for. So it's just a good example of conversations with people and perspectives, even if they aren't what you believe, can be super valuable. Like I'm so glad I went the route of business and get to build different companies and things like that and still love Jesus and be light in the different industries I'm in. And so that's a

06:07 - 06:13
Aaron Craddock: little bit of context. Like my story has been altered by people of different faiths, different beliefs. I hang

06:13 - 06:17
Aaron Craddock: out with people of all different backgrounds, beliefs, things like that.

06:17 - 06:30
Aaron Craddock: But I do believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. And transition. So Charlie Kirk lived with boldness, and not for himself, but for his faith and his family and for truth.

06:30 - 06:36
Aaron Craddock: And so that's what I aim to do. Just live with boldness, build business with boldness. How can we

06:36 - 06:50
Aaron Craddock: 10x improve different aspects of the trucking industry, personal development world, etcetera? That's like, let's be bold. I also value my family and the biblical view of marriage. For us, I can just speak to

06:50 - 07:03
Aaron Craddock: my story. Yeah, it's just been powerful. I remember when Lauren and I first got married, we had our first arguments on our honeymoon. And I had read all these marriage books and you know, thought it was

07:03 - 07:07
Aaron Craddock: gonna be easy and it has been anything but easy.

07:07 - 07:14
Aaron Craddock: But what it's done, which you see in the Bible, is it's made us both grow less selfish.

07:14 - 07:39
Aaron Craddock: How can we serve each other better? One of the analogies I like is serve 100%, like never without expecting anything. It's not fiftyfifty in a marriage relationship. It's each person striving imperfectly for serving a little bit. The reason I wanted to do this podcast is to be bold, but then also one of our values at all the companies I've built, just a core value is radical honesty.

07:40 - 07:52
Aaron Craddock: And that's in life and in business. And that means, you know, saying the hard things to teammates, like when it's uncomfortable, and sometimes celebrating a competitor when they innovate.

07:53 - 07:58
Aaron Craddock: Like we don't have to tear down other peers in the space.

07:58 - 08:05
Aaron Craddock: Like there's more than enough business in driver recruitment, marketing and technology that we don't, yeah, we just don't have

08:05 - 08:19
Aaron Craddock: to do that. And I have noticed a trend that I'm encouraged by is just there's more encouragement in the industry and people rooting for each other and less scarcity thinking than when

08:19 - 08:20
Aaron Craddock: I entered the industry

08:20 - 08:31
Aaron Craddock: fifteen, sixteen years ago. And we don't lose by celebrating others. Like we grow stronger as an industry when we

08:31 - 08:35
Aaron Craddock: tell the truth and encourage innovation. And so radical honesty does have

08:35 - 08:39
Aaron Craddock: a cost, right? It might be lost business. You know, for Charlie,

08:39 - 08:41
Aaron Craddock: it cost him his life. For us in transportation,

08:41 - 09:02
Aaron Craddock: it might just be criticism, rejection, business loss. But if we want real unity in the industry, we must choose truth and compassion. And so I wanna go into just in the spirit of radical honesty. Again, I gave the disclaimer at the beginning. The gospel like radical honesty is rooted in God, like the creator.

09:03 - 09:18
Aaron Craddock: The things we see around us in nature that he created. And then just to go into some different scriptures. So Romans three twenty three says, All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And again,

09:18 - 09:41
Aaron Craddock: back to my Buddhist professor, like that, that's kinda dangerous if that's true, if there's a consequence for that. And and then Romans five eight, but God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And tying to Charlie Kirk's message, like, often reminded people that Jesus Christ, creator of

09:41 - 10:06
Aaron Craddock: the universe, came down in human form. Like, that's radical honesty. God didn't sugarcoat our need for him. He sent his son to die so that justice, mercy, and forgiveness could be possible. And then the next thing I wanted to talk about is radical honesty plus radical love equals true unity.

10:07 - 10:30
Aaron Craddock: So it's not that we're honest. I think there's a proverb that says like, A righteous man will even have his enemies be at at peace with him. So we can communicate in a way that's respectful. Like not fake unity that avoids truth, but unity built on Christ and love and grace. Like it's not by doing all the right things.

10:32 - 10:44
Aaron Craddock: Love and grace. Another thing, the gospel is just family values. So Charlie spoke often about marriage, family and living faithfully in these roles.

10:45 - 10:47
Aaron Craddock: That resonates deeply with me.

10:47 - 11:13
Aaron Craddock: Like the biblical view of marriage isn't just tradition, it's God's design for human flourishing. And with God's design, and this is gonna seem completely crazy, like I'm praying for the alleged murderer and assassin, Tyler Robinson. And again, that's what we're called to do. And so while I didn't agree with everything Charlie said or represented, he's human. He's gonna make mistakes.

11:13 - 11:14
Aaron Craddock: You know, it was

11:14 - 11:17
Aaron Craddock: a tragedy that he was killed. And I'm praying for him and

11:17 - 11:49
Aaron Craddock: his family, but at the same time, Tyler Robinson, who will likely get the death penalty, yeah, my heart just breaks for him. And I really am praying that he will come to know Christ and repent. And Jesus said in Matthew five forty four, But I say to love, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So again, I'm just imperfectly trying to live out these things that I believe are truths. And that's not easy.

11:50 - 12:10
Aaron Craddock: The gospel calls us to, if the grace is big enough for me and all the things, the areas I've sinned and messed up in, then it's big enough for him too. That doesn't remove justice, But it reminds us that no one is beyond redemption. And so how does this apply to trucking?

12:10 - 12:28
Aaron Craddock: So in your company, tell the truth about recruiting challenges, business challenges. Tell the truth when you're talking with your drivers. That's come across in quite a few shows as an incredible recruiting tactic to just tell the truth to the drivers about the position. And that means telling them the good things, telling them the challenging things.

12:29 - 12:36
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, all those things. And then also in your leadership. So we're all a

12:36 - 12:38
Aaron Craddock: leader, like regardless of whether you

12:38 - 12:40
Aaron Craddock: have positional leadership, we may be a leader in

12:40 - 12:46
Aaron Craddock: our family, we may be a leader in management on the team, we may lead our peers, we

12:46 - 13:05
Aaron Craddock: may lead our bosses, our families, we're all a leader. And yeah, in your leadership, just celebrate your peers, celebrate other people. Scarcity kills progress and like honesty and encouragement fuel it. So

13:05 - 13:12
Aaron Craddock: that's why I'm such another reason I'm such a big believer in honesty and encouragement. And then in your faith, as

13:12 - 13:37
Aaron Craddock: I don't often enough talk about what Jesus has done for me, don't shrink back. Stand courageously for truth in a culture that often rejects it. So in closing, Charlie's death is a tragedy. But his legacy doesn't end there, doesn't end here. His faith and his family values live on.

13:37 - 13:41
Aaron Craddock: I just think about his wife and little kiddos

13:41 - 13:53
Aaron Craddock: and how they won't be raised with a father. And that's just hard, hard to even think about. Hit super hard as I have a young family with a five year old, two year old, and six month old, all boys.

13:53 - 14:06
Aaron Craddock: Yeah, having the united family, mother and father, I think is super, super important when raising children. And the gospel will always offend some.

14:06 - 14:25
Aaron Craddock: And so, I was even hesitant to record this, but that same gospel also saves, deems, nights, and calls us to live with radical honesty. That's in business, that's in our families, it's in our faith, it's all connected.

14:25 - 14:43
Aaron Craddock: And so I invite you to just pause, pray. If you don't know God, ask Him to self to reveal Himself to you. Pray for Charlie's family, and examine your own hearts. Are you living with radical honesty? Are you sharing what you really believe?

14:43 - 14:48
Aaron Craddock: Are you willing to stand for truth even if it costs you something?

14:48 - 14:50
Aaron Craddock: Yeah. So that's it. I know it's a shorter episode, but I

14:50 - 15:01
Aaron Craddock: wanted to get on here and share what I believe is truth. And I hope you understand I come with a spirit of love and humility. And I could

15:01 - 15:09
Aaron Craddock: be wrong, but that's just what I believe. Thanks for listening to this special episode of the Hire Truckers podcast. If today's message encouraged you, share it

15:09 - 15:16
Aaron Craddock: with a friend in the industry. Be sure to subscribe and never miss a future episode. Thanks.