On Wednesday morning our Silver Creek Area CEO class stepped inside Jung Truck Service, Inc., and it felt less like a visit and more like being let into someone’s story.

We were welcomed in with muffins, water, fruit, and stress trucks on the tables, and a reminder right away that this wasn’t going to be a formal presentation. If you had a question, you asked it. If something sparked your curiosity, you didn’t wait. That set the tone for everything that followed.

Bruce Jung, a second generation owner who now owns the business 50/50 with his brother, started sharing, and somewhere between talking about the business and his life, it all started to blend together. Courtney, his daughter and the company’s safety director, jumped in throughout, and you could feel the dynamic between them…not just coworkers, but family who have grown up in this together.

Bruce talked about his dad buying the company with two trucks and a second mortgage on their home. Turning part of their family room into an office. Just trying to make it work. You could picture a young family in the middle of it, not knowing how it would turn out, but all in anyway.

And then he said something simple that stuck. They were always in survival mode. “We’ve got to make it work.”

There was a moment that stayed with me. He talked about his early years as an owner of the company …long days, little sleep, missing time at home, and how his wife Cathy Jung, carried so much of that so the business could grow. He didn’t try to clean it up or make it sound better than it was. He just said it. And sitting there, I think our students felt that in a different way.

Courtney shared from a completely different place, but it connected just as much. She talked about starting there at 14, filing papers because she was bored, and now leading in a role where people depend on her every day. But what really stuck was when she talked about balance.

There was a time she would’ve said, call me anytime…3am, weekends, whenever. And now with two babies, that answer is different. That balance changes depending on the season you’re in. It was such an honest moment, and not something students always get to hear when people talk about business.

But the part I keep coming back to is something Bruce said almost in passing. The worst word in their company is “no.”

Not because everything is easy. Not because they have all the answers. But because so much of what they’ve built came from saying yes first and then figuring it out.

And I couldn’t help but think about our students sitting there.

Because that’s exactly what they’re doing right now. They’re building businesses without having it all figured out. They’re stepping into things that are uncomfortable. They’re saying yes, and then going back and trying to solve it.

You could see it clicking for some of them in that moment.

And then we walked out into the shop and warehouse.

It was one of those spaces that you don’t fully understand until you’re standing in it. The size of it, the movement, everything working together at the same time. It gave a whole new perspective to what we had just heard. This wasn’t just a story anymore…this is what it turned into.

As we were walking through, I kept thinking about those two trucks and that family room office. And then looking around at what exists now.

That gap between the two isn’t luck. It’s years of showing up, figuring things out, and a whole lot of yes along the way.

Thank you to Bruce, Courtney, and the entire Jung team for opening your doors and sharing your story with our students. It meant more than you probably realize.