Meet Dynamite Don—a character who taught me one of life's most critical lessons: the power of being ADAPTABLE. He remains one of the most compelling figures I've ever known, a man whose significant mental health challenges coexisted with an unwavering loyalty and a deep sense of honor. The thing to understand about Dynamite Don is he got the nickname because he thought people were trying to blow up his truck. Don suffered from fairly serious mental illness and being on the road by himself for weeks at a time did not help the matter. His wife stayed home and later on helped me to understand what Don was going through. I assumed based on his age that Don had served in Vietnam like my uncle had many years before and so many of our young men come back just not quite right in the head with all kinds of undiagnosed mental illness and trauma.

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David Park was a person of considerable depth, a quality I came to appreciate only after getting to know him on a much more human level. Initially, my perception of David was shaped entirely by his reputation as a problem driver at the terminal where I worked. His personnel file was thick with several write-ups, and it was common knowledge that the dispatchers openly disliked him due to what they perceived as his poor attitude—a sentiment that, unsurprisingly, was mirrored by David's own negative view of the dispatch employees.

Here's what happens when communication breaks down COMPLETELY: Over time, their professional relationship had deteriorated into a relentless pattern of negativity and mutual distrust. The verbal exchanges that did occur were far from positive; in fact, they were consistently corrosive. It was not uncommon to hear them yelling at each other over the radio, a constant state of conflict that had unfortunately become normalized background noise until a critical incident demanded my direct involvement.

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We are living in a moment of unprecedented velocity. The world is not just changing; it is accelerating. Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of employment. Social media algorithms are rewiring our attention spans. Global supply chains are fracturing and reforming in real-time. The New World is a place of infinite connection yet profound isolation, of limitless information yet scarce wisdom. It is a world where the ground beneath our feet feels constantly in motion.

In times of such vertigo, the instinct is often to look for the newest tool, the latest app, or the most cutting-edge hack to keep up. We are told to disrupt ourselves, to "move fast and break things," to constantly upgrade our operating systems.

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