Gary Buchs -- longtime Overdrive contributor, former owner-operator now turned business coach for a myriad of both new and more experienced owners -- knows well of what he speaks with regard to the notion that first-time small business owners are like as not to fail that first time out. There's a reason he's where he is today after a successful owner-operator career, after all -- his first foray as a young man in agriculture didn't go quite so well.

Initial failure doesn't mean, of course, that the drive to success stops in its tracks, and what he’s finding this week in that regard on-site at the Walcott Truckers Jamboree in Iowa is the principal subject for this edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast.

"In this country, I don't see us ever losing that drive to become that small owner of a business," Buchs said. "It's our culture."

Buchs spoke to several recently former owners who'd "gotten a truck, had an accident" or other mishap that put them out of business "because of the hardship." But there they were, back out at the truck show, "with the personal instinct and drive to pursue that path again, acknowledging the mistakes they made."

Going to annual gatherings all around the nation just like the long-running Walcott Truckers Jamboree at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, Buchs added, can "give you the motivation to get better, and we learn so much."