Trucking Nation Podcast: Resolutions, De-Stress Hacks, & Deadline Reminders

How are you Trucking Nation? Being away for 2 weeks is too long, but I’m back and have a wonderful show for you today. Now let’s start with my trademark intro.

If you don’t know, you will know now – I’m Misty Noel, your Trucking Nation Podcast Hostess. Whewww what a title 😉 For my first show of 2015, I chose to tackle some important topics for my dearest Trucking Nation like stress, anxiety, and the always important health issue. New Year’s Resolutions are first up, then a few news article reviews from Truckload Authority, and a good ol’talk on video cameras being used in cabs to collect data. Video data is going to be a very important topic coming up here real soon in the trucking industry if it isn’t already.

New Year’s Resolutions
Have you given up on making New Year’s Resolutions? Don’t do that…you can always keep your resolutions, and I have some great advice on how to achieve each one. Well most of them anyway, we all break a few, right? In the podcast I go over the history of resolutions, and wouldn’t you know it, they are not something that was recently created by money-hungry marketing firms! Most of my resolutions deal with getting healthy and then there is: I’m not going to be late for work, I’m going to watch the sunrise and set every day I can (you never know when you won’t get that chance anymore) and my last one is to just be more positive and enjoy life. We only get one life to live, and in 2015, let’s rock it.

For the best resources on being a healthy trucker, head on over to healthytrucker.net. They are the best for workout videos, recipes, and advice to changing bad habits. It’s one of my favorites and I highly recommend it if getting healthy is one of your main goals this year.

Dealing with Stress & Anxiety As A Trucker
For the latter half of the show, it’s time to chat about some de-stress hacks and dealing with anxiety as a trucker. When I was researching, there weren’t really and de-stress hacks that would work for a trucker. I mean I highly doubt a trucker will light a few aromatherapy candles and lie down and put on a lavender eye mask. It is a highly effective way to de-stress, but c’mon, truckers aren’t going to believe it. So I created some great de-stress hacks just for you Trucking Nation. Here are my favorites I mentioned:

• Count backward from 20
• Hum We Are The Champions by Queen
• Take a walk
• Find a happy place
• De-Stress ball

Then we move onto the topic of Anxiety. I personally have really bad anxiety and in my research, I found there really isn’t a lot of talk about how to deal with anxiety as a trucker. Your surroundings are constantly changing and you deal with so much on the road and no one has really addressed this topic. You might even have anxiety issues and not even realize that is what it is. So I go over some great ways to decrease anxiety and what to do during an anxiety attack when you’re out on the road.

January Deadline Reminders
There are a few really important deadlines for the end of January. First, you have your 4th Quarter IFTA due by the end of the month. You can get it done right now over at ExpressIFTA.com.

If you don’t want to deal with it and would rather have a professional handle your IFTA filing, Truck Services of North America is exactly who you need to call. I talk about this business all the time on my show and that is because they are so great. They can take care of everything you need to stay compliant including UCR, IRP, every authority under the sun, trip permits, IFTA filing, startup packages and so much more. Check them out, give’em a call, and I promise you won’t regret it.

The other big deadline is a tax one. W-2s and 1099s are due to recipients by the end of the month. If you have employees and non-regular employees that you need to file 1099 online and W-2 online for, you can take care of it all on ExpressTaxFilings.com Everything you need to file W-2 online and 1099 is there and it will only take you a few minutes.

Alright Trucking Nation, I believe I’ve gone on long enough. I have a lot of great things planned for 2015; fingers crossed I get to go to MATS and report and post all the trucks, competitions, demonstrations, presentations, just all of it. Thank you so much for listening to the Trucking Nation Podcast and for supporting little ol’me as your overly-positive hostess. Remember you get what you give in this world, so try and be kind and enjoy the ride. I will talk to you all next week – Misty Noel.