ABOUT ME

NONE OF THIS WAS THE PLAN.

My name is David Palmisano.

I have a Bachelor's degree in Music from Wayne State University.

Naturally, I became an over-the-road truck driver.

Because apparently the logical progression from jazz harmony, theory, and improvisation is pulling a 53-foot refrigerated trailer across America while listening to a GPS pronounce small-town names like it's having a neurological event.

My career path doesn't look planned.

It looks like somebody hit SHUFFLE.

THEN THE DMV CALLED ME.

Before I ever drove professionally, I went in for my CDL written testing.

There were five written tests.

I took all five at the same time.

And passed all five on the first attempt.

Apparently that wasn't normal.

I know because afterward, a woman from the DMV actually called me to congratulate me.

She told me nobody had ever taken all five together and passed every one of them in one shot.

Think about how unusual your behavior has to be before the DMV calls you to say they're impressed.

The DMV doesn't congratulate people.

The DMV makes you take a number, sit underneath fluorescent lighting until you lose track of the Gregorian calendar, and then informs you that the document their website specifically told you to bring is somehow unacceptable.

Getting a congratulatory phone call from the DMV is like getting a birthday card from the IRS with twenty bucks in it.

For one brief moment...

I made a government agency happy.

I should've retired undefeated.

INSTEAD, I WENT TO TRUCKING SCHOOL.

I finished #1 in my class.

Then came the examinations.

I passed my pre-trip examination on the first attempt.

I passed my road test on the first attempt.

No retests.

No second chances.

No "come back next Thursday and let's never speak of what happened here today."

And during the pre-trip examination, I completed the school's entire tractor-trailer combination inspection in the fastest time in the school's history.

The whole rig.

Tractor.

Trailer.

Complete combination.

Apparently the assignment was:

"Demonstrate your knowledge of the vehicle."

What I heard was:

"There is a school record. Destroy it."

Everyone else was taking a CDL examination.

I was qualifying at Daytona.

Properly mounted and secured.

Not cracked, bent or broken.

No abrasions, bulges or cuts.

Next.

By the end, I think the instructor was less interested in whether I knew the pre-trip and more interested in whether I had discovered a cheat code.

Five written tests.

Pre-trip.

Road test.

Everything passed on the first shot.

#1 in the class.

School record.

At that point trucking school wasn't really an educational experience.

It was a speedrun.

AND I DIDN'T TEST IN AN AUTOMATIC.

For my CDL road test in Punta Gorda, Florida, I tested in a Freightliner with a 10-speed manual transmission.

A real 10-speed.

Clutch.

Gearshift.

Gear selection.

Actual mechanical negotiations between the driver and several thousand pieces of metal that occasionally have different opinions about what gear you're supposed to be in.

There was no D button.

The truck didn't offer to take care of the transmission while I concentrated on selecting a podcast.

I earned an unrestricted Class A CDL.

So yes, I can drive a standard transmission.

I'm not a steering-wheel holder.

I don't make a religion out of it. I'm not sitting at the counter at Denny's explaining that automatic transmissions destroyed America somewhere between participation trophies and avocado toast.

I just believe in something very simple:

If you hand me the keys, I should be able to drive the truck.

FIVE YEARS LATER...

I've now been driving OTR for five years.

I've earned virtually every endorsement under the sun—hazmat, tanker, doubles and triples.

At this point the back of my CDL looks like I unlocked the expansion pack.

And since entering the industry:

Zero violations.

Zero late deliveries.

Zero accidents.

Zero tickets.

All while maintaining one of the top performance records in my company.

That performance has been recognized in the company newsletter for 27 consecutive months.

Twenty-seven.

Straight.

At this point I'm not being featured in the newsletter.

I'm part of the furniture.

If this keeps going, they're going to have to list me between the masthead and the privacy policy.

THERE'S A REASON I'M TELLING YOU THIS.

And it isn't because this is secretly my application to become your designated driver.

It's because those accomplishments explain something about me better than any biography could.

I have a problem with leaving things alone.

When something interests me, I don't want to merely know how to do it.

I want to understand it.

Then I want to get better at it.

Then I start measuring things.

Testing things.

Questioning assumptions.

Finding weaknesses.

Changing variables.

And generally taking the entire subject considerably farther than any reasonable person asked me to.

Music did that to me.

Trucking did that to me.

And eventually...

my own weight did it to me.

I WASN'T TRYING TO BECOME AN AUTHOR.

I wasn't trying to build a brand.

I wasn't sitting in a Freightliner staring thoughtfully across the interstate thinking:

"You know what America needs? My thoughts."

America seemed to be functioning reasonably well without them.

I was trying to solve my own problem.

Unfortunately, I attacked that problem the same way I attack everything else.

Study it.

Question it.

Test it.

Measure it.

Find what fails.

Change it.

Test it again.

Most people figure out how to lose weight and buy smaller pants.

I apparently require chapters.

I started documenting what I was learning.

The notes became a manuscript.

The manuscript became a book.

Then came an audiobook.

Then a website.

At some point I looked around and realized:

Wait a minute.

Am I an author now?

This is concerning.

I have a music degree and a CDL.

Nobody should have given me publishing software.

SO WHO AM I?

Depends what day you catch me.

Musician.

Truck driver.

Author.

Professional overthinker.

A guy with a bachelor's degree who can discuss jazz theory, drive a 10-speed Freightliner, haul hazmat, and then spend an unreasonable amount of time analyzing something he found at a truck stop.

There is absolutely no respectable career-development seminar that recommends this sequence.

But there is one thing connecting all of it:

I like mastering things.

If I'm going to learn something, I want to understand it.

If I'm going to do something, I want to become good at it.

And when I encounter a problem everybody else has simply accepted as normal...

I have a tendency to start taking it apart.

Sometimes that gets me a congratulatory phone call from the DMV.

Sometimes it gets me a school record.

Sometimes it gets me into the company newsletter 27 months in a row.

And apparently...