The Courage to Create: Building the Future of LTL with Curtis Garrett
The Courage to Create
Innovation rarely begins with perfect conditions. More often, it begins with curiosity, learning, and the courage to take the first step. Neuroscience shows that when we embrace new experiences and challenge ourselves to learn, the brain forms new neural pathways, strengthening our capacity for creativity, problem-solving, and growth. Every small step forward literally reshapes the brain, turning possibility into progress.
This season is a tribute to Fred our mascot whose inspiration came from our CEO’s grandfather and to every person who has ever started with nothing more than an idea.
I Love Learning Podcast, S4 EP8: Curtis Garrett
What if the biggest thing standing between you and your next great idea isn’t a lack of knowledge or experience, but simply having the courage to begin?
In this episode of I Love Learning, I sat down with Curtis Garrett, an entrepreneur and innovator who is helping transform the less-than-truckload (LTL) freight industry through education, technology, and collaboration. What I loved most about our conversation wasn’t just what Curtis has created, but how he got there. He described his journey as one of “incremental courage.” Rather than having everything figured out from the beginning, Curtis spent years learning, asking questions, making career moves, and following his curiosity. Sometimes that even meant taking a pay cut to pursue opportunities that helped him grow.
As a learning scientist, I love this perspective because we often think innovation begins with one big idea. But more often, it starts with noticing something that could be better and being willing to do something about it. Curtis recognized opportunities to make the complicated world of LTL freight more accessible, which led him to create Understand LTL and help develop technology solutions like rateHero and ShipTest. Through these efforts, he’s bringing people together, encouraging knowledge sharing, and challenging the way things have always been done.
One of my favorite takeaways from our conversation was that creating something meaningful doesn’t always require reinventing everything. Sometimes innovation is simply connecting existing ideas in new ways, asking better questions, or making small improvements that lead to something bigger. Curtis’s story also reminds us that learning and innovation don’t happen in isolation. They grow when we’re willing to share what we know, listen to others, and collaborate.
Whether you’re leading a team, building a business, or sitting on an idea you’ve been afraid to pursue, I hope this conversation reminds you that you don’t have to have all the answers before you begin. Courage often grows through small decisions, and those decisions can lead to meaningful change.
Check out this week’s episode:
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