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Lessons Worth Passing Forward
What you will discover below is more than just another book. These are all designed to pass along the Lessons Earned through experience.
Over the past three decades, I have worked in transportation, recruiting, operations, leadership, military service, workforce development, and driver staffing.
Along the way, I have made mistakes, watched others make mistakes, and witnessed organizations spend thousands, sometimes millions, of dollars solving the wrong problems.
- Those experiences became lessons.
- Those lessons became frameworks.
- Those frameworks became books.
I never set out to become an author. I started writing because I kept seeing the same challenges repeated over and over again.
- Drivers struggling with career decisions.
- Recruiters who chase activity instead of results.
- Leaders who try to solve retention problems with recruiting.
- Companies are continuously replacing drivers without understanding why they were leaving.
- New supervisors are promoted without ever being taught how to lead.
The same problems kept appearing under different names.
The books below were written to help uncover hidden causes and provide practical guidance applicable in the real world.
- Not theory.
- Not motivational fluff.
- Not generic business advice.
Pen2Paper and I make these books available through Amazon. Click on the individual book links to be transported to Amazon. They are designed accordingly based on the information provided. Their offerings range from Kindle eBooks, paperbacks, and hardbacks.
If you are interested in Bulk orders for staff, drivers, or an event, please reach out to us, and we have options we can work with you on to the best of our abilities.
Real lessons from real experiences.
A Learning Journey
Why I Continue to Write
I believe knowledge loses value when it stays locked inside one person's experience.
- Every lesson learned should become a shortcut for someone else.
- Every mistake should become a warning sign.
- Every success should become a roadmap.
Writing allows me to pass forward what thirty years of transportation, recruiting, operations, military service, leadership, and workforce development have taught me.
- Some readers will use these books to improve a recruiting process.
- Others will use them to strengthen leadership skills.
- Some will use them to build more stable organizations.
- Others will simply avoid making a costly mistake.
If a lesson in one of these books helps someone make a better decision tomorrow than they would have made today, then the book has accomplished its purpose.
A Personal Note
Every book listed below reflects a simple belief:
The problems we see are often not the problems we have.
Whether the topic is leadership, recruiting, driver staffing, workforce stability, or professional development, the goal is always the same: Help people see what is beneath the surface. Because once you understand the real problem, better decisions become possible, and better decisions create better outcomes.
The official workbook to support the Professional Driver's Performance Playbook and the workforce stability system.
THE PROFESSIONAL DRIVER'S COMPANION WORKBOOK
This workbook is not about writing; it's about operating with discipline. This 6-month companion workbook is designed to help drivers take control of their daily performance through structured awareness, consistency, and execution.
Inside, you will:
- Track your daily decisions and habits.
- Identify patterns that impact performance.
- Improve time management and communication.
- Build consistency behind the wheel and beyond.
- Strengthen long-term career stability.
Drivers who use this workbook will consistently:
- Make better choices.
- Communicate earlier and more effectively.
- Reduce avoidable mistakes.
- Build a stronger professional reputation.
This is not about being perfect. It's about being consistent. Fleets that support structured driver development build more stable, predictable operations.
The official playbook for driver performance, decision-making, and workforce stability system.
THE PROFESSIONAL DRIVER'S PERFORMANCE PLAYBOOK
The Professional Driver's Performance Playbook is the strategy behind consistent performance, better decisions, and long-term stability in today's demanding freight environment.
This is not just theory. This is a practical system, built on real-world experience, to help drivers take control of what they can control.
Inside, you will:
- Understand the industry and your role.
- Build the right mindset.
- Strengthen time management.
- Master communications.
- Protect your safety, equipment, and reputation.
- Grow your career and earnings.
- Support stronger operations.
This Playbook provides the strategy. Pick up the Journal to help you track your daily performance.
The three numbers quietly destroying trucking profitability and how fleet leaders take back control.
WORKFORCE STABILITY
Most trucking companies are not failing because of effort. They are failing because they are operating without full visibility into the numbers, quietly controlling their business.
- Every empty truck.
- Every failed hire.
- Every unprofitable mile.
It all connects.
In this executive transportation brief, transportation professionals and Workforce Stability advisor Edward D. Smith break down the three numbers that silently determine whether fleets stabilize or
struggle:
- Seat Gap Costs.
- Recruiting Costs.
- True Cost Per Mile.
But this book goes beyond numbers. It exposes the hidden operational instability that drives turnover, increases pressure across departments, and quietly drains profitability from trucking companies every single day.
Once you clearly understand the numbers, you will finally begin to control the system that produces them.
-Completly Updated Version-
An Executive Framework for Stability, Alignment, and Workforce Control
Recruiting Reality Check
Recently updated, Recruiting Reality Check is not a hiring manual. It is an executive risk brief. Inside, transportation leaders will gain clarity on:
- The real financial exposure of seat instability.
- Where turnover actually begins.
- How vendor incentive structures influence outcomes.
- The metrics that protect stability, and those that mislead.
- Why leadership ownership determines long-term retention.
This document was written for leaders willing to examine systems, not symptoms.
Turning Recruiting Insight Into Repeatable Performance
Recruiting That Sticks
Recruiting That Sticks™: A Retention-First Framework for Hiring, Performance, and Stability by Edward D. Smith. Providing the how-to answer of rebuilding Hiring, Restore Alignment, and Retain Drivers in A Broken System.
Turning Recruiting Insight Into Repeatable Performance
Recruiting That Sticks - Implementation Workbook
The Recruiting That Sticks Implementation Workbook is the hands-on companion to the book Recruiting That Sticks, designed for leaders ready to move beyond theory and into execution. This workbook doesn’t offer motivational fluff or recycled recruiting tips.
Harmonization Within The Transportation Industry
The Missing Key
Drawing on 28 years of U.S. Army leadership and decades of experience in the transportation industry, Edward D. Smith presents a battlefield-tested framework for transforming trucking companies. Using both military and civilian analogies, he demonstrates how recruiting, safety, maintenance, leadership, customers, and even competition all play a pivotal role in the same mission: building a company where drivers want to stay, leaders thrive, and profits grow.
-Currently Undergoing a Revision-
Begin Hiring Quality Drivers versus Qualified Drivers
Reshaping Driver Recruiting
This is an A-Z guide for a transportation recruiting department. Starting from scratch, learn how to select the best recruiters and what your recruiting department will need for success. Follow the processes for obtaining QUALITY candidates and the subsequent processes. Realize how much impact your operations and maintenance have on recruiting. There is a section on tracking your recruiting performance using KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Begin Hiring Quality Drivers versus Qualified Drivers
Reshaping Driver Recruiting Workbook
The Reshaping Driver Recruiting Workbook was designed to accompany the main book. It is great for seminars or anyone who wants a side book that forces individuals to take notes and fully immerse themselves in the issues and processes surrounding Driver Recruiting.
Skills, Habits, and Strategies of a Quality Driver
Driven to Excellence
Not all CDL drivers are created equal. Some settle for being “qualified.” The best become QUALITY drivers, professionals who earn more, stay safer, and command respect in the industry. Packed with real stories from the road, practical action steps, and easy-to-use checklists, this book is more than advice; it’s a roadmap to becoming the kind of driver companies fight to keep.
-Recently Completly Updated-
What Every Transportation Leader Needs to Know Before Choosing a Staffing Partner.
Driver Staffing
Every empty seat costs more than most transportation leaders realize.
When a driver leaves, the impact extends far beyond recruiting. Dispatch adjusts. Operations compensate. Customers feel pressure. Revenue opportunities disappear.
For years, transportation companies have turned to driver staffing as a solution. Some have found success. Others have found frustration. The difference often has less to do with staffing and more to do with understanding the workforce problem they are actually trying to solve.
Drawing upon more than three decades in transportation, recruiting, operations, business development, and driver staffing, Edward D. Smith provides a practical, no-nonsense guide to one of the most misunderstood tools in the transportation industry.
Inside you'll discover:
• Why driver staffing exists and where it creates value
• The advantages and risks of every staffing model
• How staffing companies actually make money
• Questions every fleet should ask before choosing a staffing partner
• When staffing works, when it fails, and when it should not be used at all
• Why workforce stability matters more than simply filling seats
Whether you operate ten trucks or hundreds, this book will help you make better workforce decisions, reduce costly mistakes, and build a stronger, more stable operation.
Because staffing is a tool.
Workforce stability is the strategy.
