Mike Lombard

Caroline: [00:00:00] Welcome to This Week in Trucking, the podcast that tells you what you need to know about the freight market for the week. My name is Caroline.

Caroline: And if you want to know more from real trucking business owners and professionals, subscribe to our channel so you never miss out on one of our episodes.

Caroline: Today, we have Michael Lombard,

Caroline: president of Lombard Trucking.

Caroline: Michael is an over the road truck driver and business owner. He is an accomplished triathlete, fitness trainer, and trucker health advocate. Thanks for being here today, Michael.

Mike: Hey, thanks for having me. Really appreciate you bringing me on. Appreciate that. That intro real quick. I do just to not confuse any drivers. I did. I had gotten off from over the road back at the end of summer 2023, but I still own the business. However, and I still have my CDL and the days of driving are always never really that shut. But appreciate you having me on. I got a lot of fun stuff to talk about.

Caroline: Absolutely. Let’s talk about that. So I understand that trucking is something that runs in your family.

Mike: Yeah. So interestingly enough, I didn’t coin the name of Lombard trucking. What’s awesome about the story of Lombard trucking is where it started [00:01:00] it, the original Lombard is actually. Probably one of the first motor carriers in the country. This is my going back to my grandfather’s grandfather Nicky and his brother, John, who sorry, Nicky and his brother Joe Lombard, who were immigrants from Italy who came over.

Mike: They said settled in Connecticut into Waterbury, Connecticut, finally 1904. And they had two horse and carriages, which they would Pedal ice with and deliver luggage and do a bunch of stuff. And eventually with two old trucks in 1923, they incorporated as a motor carrier and throughout the entire 20th century from 1923, they became one of the largest motor carriers in the Northeast. They had terminals from Baltimore to Maine. They were. They were in business all the way up until they were bought out in 1984. So my grandfather was an owner of Lombard and he was a driver. He drove for 30 years from Lombard and I grew up with him, his stories, his influence his knowledge and his wisdom. And the reason why Lombard eventually had been sold is that they were a victim of. The motor carrier act of 1980, which was deregulation and my family’s company was a teamster [00:02:00] affiliate and It had just driven them to a point of selling they sold the north pen transfer in 1984 and north pen transfer folded in I believe 1991 but yeah, that’s the i’ve got a great picture too, especially for anybody who’s watching on video It’s a great shot again.

Mike: Think about this photo before drones, before tripods,

Mike: the doors before the days of social media to capture that image in the seventies is very

Mike: difficult to do. And it just goes to show how common and how often you would see those trailers if you were any, anywhere in the Northeast and being a part of it, having that name has actually, it’s been so Amazing to see as I’ve gotten to know and network within the industry because there are people and drivers, especially from the Northeast who remember the name, who remember the yellow trailers, who remember the green trucks. And it’s come up going to the Mid America Truck Show. It’s come up going to Broker Carrier Summit. People who have asked me, they said, are you related to, to, to Lombard from Waterbury? And so it’s an honor to have done it. It’s an honor to have also followed. And in that in that direction wise.

Caroline: So what made you want to go into trucking yourself?

Mike: [00:03:00] So what had happened with me was like a short story about my career is I was in the Marines for 2008, 2012. And when I had gotten out, I had gone to school after I graduated school, I ended up working a sales job for 2 years and I was just unsatisfied with it. And I ended up working in a warehouse for 3 years.

Mike: And at that warehouse, we had a rack, we had a rack truck and a box truck. I was primarily on a forklift, did a lot of inventory stuff, did a lot of inventory control, inventory management did a lot of Oh, like open order reports, a lot of stuff that had to do with the operation, but mainly on the forklift little bit in the box truck made some deliveries, especially right around, like before, like leading up to COVID timeframes.

Mike: But in the job we called LTL carriers often I talked to our central distribution guy. Who would, who drove a tractor trailer down from New Hampshire. And so I was, I talked to drivers a lot during the day and just the, that seed got planted and funny enough on the internet, ever since I made a Twitter account, my name’s always been Lombard trucking.

Mike: So it’s something I’ve always had that name, follow with me. So it’s always been this idea [00:04:00] in my mind. And in, in 2019, my wife and I had pl started to plan to move to Texas and I had just said this is what I’m gonna do when I move. I’m going to, I’m gonna get outta the warehouse. I’m gonna get my CDL, I’m gonna give this a shot. I’m gonna go over the road, follow, follow along with what my family did and see where that takes me.

Caroline: That’s awesome. That’s so interesting. That’s a symbolic family momentum, let’s say, or family history then turned into a literal career for you. So tell me what kind of truck did you drive? I know you still have your truck. And what kind of loads were you hauling back when you started your company, your trucking company in 2019?

Mike: I was a company guy with Pam transport role with them. That was drive van. And then I ended up finding a job with a small carryout of Northwest Arkansas called R and R solutions. Who’s a fantastic outfit.

Mike: When it comes to trucking companies, I’d say I always love highlighting them because how they run their business is great. They also do more than just trucking. They’re also involved in a lot of 3PL and. And project management with I. T. stuff and then they just also happen to have about 25 trucks where they also move freight for their [00:05:00] customers. And they were, they’re just a, they’re that like, small carrier that can’t really find online that treat, treats their drivers really well. And through them the kind of idea of getting my own truck started because yeah. A good friend of mine who I went to high school with he saw what I had been doing He saw how much I had been, you know doing really Especially in regards of like how I was staying in shape over the road and he had asked me he said You know if you if you had a truck right now could you run that business and I was like I could I was like, but I don’t have the money So we

Mike: ended up going in together at the beginning of 2022 to give this a shot.

Mike: He’s let’s do it Let’s try to really revive your family’s company. Let’s get it done. And I, what I ended up doing was I contracted on with the carrier. I was a company driver for, cause they were small. They used to lease on owner operators often, and it’s something they hadn’t done for a while.

Mike: So they said, let’s do it. Did that for all of 2022. If. Anybody who’s listening remembers 2022. We remember that it was I came in as fuel started to be on the go on the rise.

Mike: And I’d say rates still stayed like somewhat [00:06:00] steady. But when it came to fuel, that was probably the first uphill fight. So it was Where rates were still okay. I’d say the price of fuel, made a wash of any sort of gold rush that

Mike: a lot of other people were able to come in on. And again, I didn’t get into a lot of people who got their own trucks around that time period, especially after COVID had begun in 20, in 2020. Like the only reason I really wanted to even have my own truck, and the only reason why I wanted to do this had everything to do with family, with honor, with like tradition. I, something I believe that are values that are like forgotten and slept on in this country, considering.

Mike: And just in my own personal opinion, I think that’s the kind of stuff that built this country in the first place was like small business through family, through tradition. And so that’s why I wanted to do it as like this noble gesture of of bringing something back of honoring my family.

Caroline: so you weren’t getting into it thinking, Oh, this is,

Caroline: though your primary motivation wasn’t, Oh, I’m gonna get rich so fast in the next year, six months.

Mike: even driving a truck or getting a truck, I would have never gotten it in the first place. There’s [00:07:00] just, I, with where I was at that point with almost being 30 years old, it’s like I had enough connections to where if I really wanted to level up and at my old job at the warehouse, I was offered a promotion to run a store and warehouse in North Jersey.

Mike: And I could have very much funded it. Follow that career path, which had a decent trajectory. But again, I wasn’t, I didn’t feel satisfied. It wasn’t feeling fulfilled. I wasn’t feeling like this is what I was being called to do. So if money was the true, if money was what I was getting after even today, there’d be. We wouldn’t be having this conversation. There’s a whole myriad of things that I could be involved in and invested in, especially with connections I have that I wouldn’t do. So yeah, it had nothing to do with it. And I didn’t know any of that was going on. I didn’t know anything about the market or that there was this gold rush and that there was like a lot of people coming.

Mike: I didn’t know. I didn’t pay attention to that. All I paid attention to when I was driving was You know, basically the crux of what I do is has everything to do with driver fitness. Like I stayed locked in. I was lasered in that. I didn’t really know anything about rates and this and growing a business and doing this and having a fleet that wasn’t even, it wasn’t even remotely on my, it wasn’t in my [00:08:00] algorithm, so to speak.

Mike: What was in my algorithm was truck in the job. And I posted a lot of content about fitness. That’s basically what I did. But when I, yeah, when I guess when I got my truck the 1st freight, I started hauling to go back to your original question. It was, I continue to do fan with them and got sidetracked off 2022. But then at that point, this is when Granted, I’m not in the truck anymore, but I value 2022 so much because of what I learned about about running a business and it got me so involved and so much stuff. So I had a podcast show that I started just to tell my story and through doing it, I wanted to get more and more involved.

Mike: So I started talking to more drivers and I myself just. Went out and just started talking with everybody I can. And I made so, I built so many relationships with other drivers I met online. I started going to events. I started doing so much more, just sinking my teeth into it. And I learned so much. And through that learning, I ended up making a pivot at the beginning of 2023.

Mike: I had left R& R Solutions and then I leased on with Warren Transport. I said, okay, if I’m, because the idea is obviously get your own DOT number at a certain point to get [00:09:00] your own authority. That’s like the higher end goal. So that way you can actually start building. So I was like, I’m going to lease on to Warren transport.

Mike: They have a specialized division. They do open deck with RGN step deck, that type of freight. That’s something I had been yearning to really do. I had heard the money, like I had heard that the money there was, definitely better than sticking with drive van

Mike: and a friend of mine recommended me.

Mike: So it’s being a 2023 lease sign with Warren and things went really well. I can’t lie moving open deck freight, it was definitely a jump in what the, in what those rates paid was moving a lot of over dimensional, a lot of John Deere tractors combines, to the port of Baltimore, a bunch, those are great.

Mike: Those are great reloads, bringing something from Waterloo, Iowa out to the port of Baltimore, and you’d actually get reloaded right out of the port and you’d take it back to North Dakota. You were always moving. It was a great work life balance because doing open deck, that type of stuff wasn’t expedited. So it’s not like you were

Mike: just running and gunning all the time.

Mike: And it’s really, and when you’re oversized, you have different, you have permits now and you can’t drive between certain, you can only drive a daylight hour. So like you’re able to really chop up a good schedule, do an open [00:10:00] deck and things work on an, a pretty good trajectory all the way up until about May of 2023.

Mike: So for a good, almost six months, I was riding pretty good. Things were going well. I had one minor mechanical issue, but other than that, and that was in February and I was able to get that fix up in Maryland, but like one minor mechanical issue. But then when I was in a truck stop in Iowa, I had gotten backed into

Mike: I was parked. I had my curtain shut. I was eating. And all of a sudden I started hearing crunching on my front end, which is, Pretty what? Pretty nuts.

Mike: Because I was and I flipped open the curtains and luckily it wasn’t coming straight back into me. But and it totally crunched like the whole front corner, the truck was drivable, but it’s Severely in violation, like

Mike: that you couldn’t, if I just kept rolling, like I did, I couldn’t continue to roll.

Mike: I made the delivery because you have a certain amount of time to do that. So if I made a delivery, I was driving up to Thunder Bay, Ontario, I delivered two huge conveyor belts. That will go out in the great lakes and I made that delivery. And then I got a reload in Illinois. I had to come all the way back down.

Mike: And that went back down to the Rio Grande Valley. And then I had to get my truck fixed because [00:11:00] like at that point, driving like that, you’re just praying for, you’re just praying to get pulled into scale houses and things are different when you’re doing open deck you’ve got to take care of, you’ve got to take care of your equipment that much more.

Mike: I understand that there’s guys with van, you could duct tape stuff. You could probably, you could really fly under the radar if you’re doing van, but when you are oversize.

Mike: And you’ve got banners on, you’ve got permits, there’s you’re running, you’re just, and especially when you’re contracted to a carrier it’s not just you’re looking out for, you’ve got to look out for their numbers too you’ve got to look out it’s their DOT that’s on the side of your truck, and it’s in my eyes, it’s disrespectful to be running around with ragged equipment.

Mike: That you’re just like trying to piece together, but again when you are oversized, you’re running a risk of just getting messed around with more when it comes to dot and scale houses. So I had to get a fix. I was down for, nearly a month. While I was down, I did. I I worked, I checked IDs at a bar.

Mike: I was door dashing, but I also got my I had gotten a personal training certification because I knew at that point, I really wanted to lean into driver fitness. This whole thing I’ve been talking about, what I’ve been harping on, what I’ve been preaching about, because the whole time I had been over the road, [00:12:00] I’d also been very dedicated and diligent.

Mike: And especially with running when it came to not just staying in shape, but running. Running. And at that point, I had, and up until that point, right up, right when my truck went down, I had ran in five, I ran in five marathons as a truck driver. So I was very big on this idea of, I think that driver health can change the industry.

Mike: I think that I could change the industry through movement. So I’d gotten my certification. My truck got fixed. I went back out. I had full intentions. I’m trying to make a comeback, see how it was. This is peak season for stuff like open deck and farm equipment,

Mike: but peak season was not really what it was.

Mike: I just found.

Caroline: kidding.

Mike: And I found myself hemorrhaging money.

Mike: And at that point, it’s like I had to make a decision. If I was 23, I probably would have starved it out more and just kept grinding because the lifestyle was still something that was desirable. But at this point, I’m 33, I have a house and where things were genuinely okay with another stream of income.

Mike: It’s just at what point, if I just keep doing this, at what point am I doing what’s best? For my family [00:13:00] where am I just going to keep on this same trajectory for another year? And then where am I at in another year? Am I looking for another truck? Am I going to have the money and now looking ahead?

Mike: It’s 2025 if and my truck is still on the road. I had sold it to a gentleman who’s still driving it I know that the truck would have made it I don’t know if he’s had any mechanical issues, but just seeing where things have gone since I had gotten off the road You know I’d be in the same exact spot

Mike: with a page with a paycheck that wasn’t that wasn’t the most respectable.

Mike: And again, I wasn’t looking to make boatloads of money. If I was able to, if I was able to come home 1000 bucks a week to the driver to where if I wasn’t in the truck and I could pay somebody 1000 bucks a week, perfectly fine. But at a certain point, when it’s when it can’t even get to that level, and there’s plenty of weeks from it’s Oh, it’s fine.

Mike: I’ll just skim off the top, get groceries, Give it back to the account, but at a certain point like am I going to be 36 37 and still on that same timeline and I didn’t get in the business to just get a job and I didn’t get it like I didn’t get a business get into business to just have a job and I didn’t get in a business to just Remain the status quo like eventually I was [00:14:00] I would have liked to have grown And without the revenue you can’t really grow

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. Cause you say, at the very beginning, it was more about tradition. It was more about, your family keeping on the family history and being a part of that. I do think that a lot of people go into the business. Like you said, just to buy a job for themselves without actually understanding that they’re actually starting a business instead.

Caroline: But then you pivoted over to really full time going into advocating for truck driver health. Can you talk about how, what has your fitness journey been?

Caroline: You obviously are an accomplished athlete. Did that start before you were trucking or was there some moment while you were driving a truck that, that you said, Oh, I really need to work on my own fitness.

Mike: Yeah. There’s a couple pivotal moments that kind of took place in it because it is, as you said, it is a journey.

Mike: So there’s a couple different starting points at where it went and how I felt along the way. But yeah what I will tell you is especially what you said on people who come in for that money, I just wanna touch in on that [00:15:00] quick like it is, net trucking is just like any other business. There is this business. Misconception that this is some, could be some sort of residual income type generator, and it’s just wildly untrue. There’s no such thing as passive income or residual income. It requires, you can, there is nothing you can do. There, there’s no way. It is impossible. No matter what somebody on YouTube says, it is impossible to make money without working. You have to, unless you are invested in certain stocks that pay some sort of whatever. And you’ve gotten to that point, but

Caroline: Yeah. But you had to do something to get those stocks in the first place.

Mike: Bingo. There’s no, I just always want to put that on the record. There is no, I’m going to buy five trucks, hire a driver. If you think you could just hire a driver and then you’re good, you’re just going to get this passive income. Keep that driver for three months

Mike: And then we’ll see, so you’re going to always have to keep doing it, but to go into the health thing, because yes, I got off the road and the summer, 2023, three days later, I was at coaches training at orange theory fitness, but I made a promise that I was not going to leave the industry altogether.

Mike: I still had my show. I still had everything I was going on. I [00:16:00] still had gone to the mid America truck show. I’ve gone to these events to talk about this. I’ve helped coach drivers, so I wasn’t going to abandon it, but to go Early on in the journey. I was still in the warehouse in 2018 when I started to make change. What had happened was, I was recently engaged. I lost a good friend of mine later that fall of 2018, a gentleman I’d served in the Marines with. And that was like a, that was like a big wake up call for me. And again, at the time I had been working, like I was like, Mainly a forklift operator, not to brag on that certification.

Mike: I know it’s very sought after certification forklift operator. And that’s when I started turning things around. And this is the reason why I talk about why this is important, because I think this is important for anybody who’s looking to make a change is I started with. And that was just getting myself back into getting exercise.

Mike: I had joined a gym, so regular daily movement. I didn’t really change my diet. I didn’t really change anything, but that’s the first thing I did. And I started doing that. And at that gym, I had a coach who cared like for lack of better, he cared. He was your friend. He was a coach. He was a leader.

Mike: He was the owner. And in a, on a lot of ways, he, Put himself [00:17:00] out there and he didn’t even really do a lot, but all he did was care in a sense of building a relationship with me. And then over time, he started to be like, Hey, what’s your diet look like? So it became getting this habit of movement. And then he started talking to me about food and then it just things started progressing. Now, when I made the decision to start driving, I lost a decent chunk of weight, but I still wouldn’t say I was like, super fit. So to speak, it’s not like I was anywhere close to what I am. Now, I wouldn’t have been close to running any of the races I had done when I started driving before I got on the road, was I in shape like, Relatively around the average level of where I was at, but I was in no way in shape for any sort of marathon running. And while I was getting ready to go over the road, I’ve read the David Goggins book can’t hurt me. And that was like another hard pivot. That at that. ’cause at that point, I knew I was going into a career that could have undone some of the progress

Mike: that I had made. And and I read this book because it, and that’s the thing, when it came to the job as I was in CDL school, you learn about the hours of service when it’s you think you’re not [00:18:00] home, what does exercise look like for me at that point? But after reading the Goggins book, which really gives you, it really gives you the. It gives you the no BS reason how and why you can find time, no matter where you are, depending on what your job is. And it has to be unconventional. And at that point, I, there was a key that turned in my brain that said, Oh, I not only need to try to stay in shape, like I need to be an outlier. And so when I, from the moment I got in the truck, I said I, it running became the answer because I know that, It’s as long as you have shoes, you could do it anywhere. There’s no real excuse whether it’s just running in circles or if it’s, wherever I’ve gone, you can go on some of my old TikTok videos, you could see it’s anywhere.

Mike: You could find a road anywhere. So I didn’t know what weights would look like the gym, but running’s free, you could do it anywhere. And at that moment, it’s when running really changed my life. And that’s when I, that’s when things started to double down. So like when I had gotten in the truck is when my. Actual health journey, took off so to speak it literally there was an upward trajectory from there and that was like a huge moment because [00:19:00] not only because beforehand, I was just like I just need to not be fat. But then after from the moment I got my CDL, it was, I need to be the absolute best I can possibly be.

Caroline: Yeah. Yeah. Which is it’s almost ironic because I think the opposite happens to a lot of people when, if you start, you were working at a at a warehouse, which is a relatively

Caroline: active job, right? You’re not sitting in the same place. For eight hours straight, right? You’re getting up, you’re moving, you’re going from one end to the warehouse to the other, I wouldn’t call that exercise, but I’d say it’s a pretty active job, right?

Caroline: Whereas you get into trucking and now you’re sitting most of the day. And even more so potentially than an office worker like me, which I sit most of the day, but I can at least, get up and move around whenever I want to. There’s standing desks there’s different, there’s really not that alternative for drivers.

Caroline: So talk to me through a day to day as a driver and how you can maintain a healthy [00:20:00] lifestyle with everything that’s working against you as a truck driver.

Mike: Absolutely. I love diving right into this topic and you can do there’s starting with 1 thing is always key. So whether it’s through whether it’s through food or movement or other lifestyle habits starting with that 1 thing is important.

Mike: I always like to start with the food 1st, because for some people, that’s easier than getting in the movement. Because of just where your mental health is at. So if the first thing you ever want to do just to start getting on the healthy track, like if you’re a truck driver is you can immediately stop drinking your calories by switch, by switching to, by switching your diet, that one thing alone, if you’re a soda drinker or if you drink, sugary beverages, if you can make that one switch. Where, because for some people, they might drink one to one to three or four cans of soda a day, whatever it might be full sugar, monsters, full sugar, red bulls. If you can immediately pivot and cut those out, you’re talking about cutting thousands, possibly thousands of calories

Mike: a week out of a diet.

Mike: And if you do that. You’re going to see a number on the scale start to change. You’re going to probably sleep a little bit [00:21:00] better. You’re probably going to have a little bit more energy. You might not crash at that right there. That’s just, and that’s again, that’s with an asterisk because not everybody does drink that a lot of drivers do just stick with like coffee and water, which good respect, but if you just switch to diet. Or you switch to sugar free Red Bull or Celsius, or I’m wearing the polo, a super coffee beverage, or something like that doesn’t have is loaded with sugar and added sugar. You’ll see an immediate change, but both after that asterisk, like if you’re already doing that, then the next best thing you can do is immediately start incorporating daily intentional movement.

Mike: Now, what is daily intentional movements? Another just way of saying exercise, but a lot of people get misconstrued. They think exercise is, Oh, I have to go to the gym. I have to, you have to go somewhere or you need to kill yourself on a workout to do this. Like you need to be doing 60 minutes of high intensity interval training and doing this crazy stuff and powerlifting. Not true. Your number one weapon and your number one weapon for body fat loss. Is walking, which walking is also known as zone to cardio. Is your heart rate warming up just enough to where what it’s primarily burning for your energy is your fat [00:22:00] stores. And so that walking, what can you do in a day to day is, this is incorporated in how you start your day with your pre trip.

Mike: Parking further away from the entrance, you get your steps in early, but then at the same time, we have these hours of service and purpose. And then we have the general lifestyle of the job. So you do have to take a 30 minute break. What are you doing on it? 30, there’s 10 minutes right there. You can use for walking now, say, and free.

Mike: And again, There are plenty of times and I know this and drivers know this too. When it comes to the hours of service, you are not always on a schedule of driving for 11 down for 10 and then driving again. That’s on that’s really not the way it is because in no point because if I drive and I’m 20 miles from the receiver and then I, and I park at three in the afternoon and it doesn’t deliver until 6 a.

Mike: m. Why am I gonna at my 10 hours start my clock and drive to the receiver? That’s closed. So we all know that’s not really the case with how the hours work. But again, so maybe you have a little bit longer of a 30 minute break at the same time. If you only have that 10 hours, if all you have is a 10 hour break, you [00:23:00] have 45 minutes where you can be moving. And then for those other 15 minutes, you can go take a shower, you can cook your dinner and I’ll get into some more of the food and what they can do for what they should be eating over there in a minute, cook your dinner and still get eight hours and be rolling at after those 10 hours. And there were plenty of days where I had to do that, but other places to get movement, and this is very slept on and I did this all the time, but especially for dry van people or reefer, because I know reefer does a lot of sitting time, shippers and receivers.

Mike: I have thrown my headset on. Twitter spaces are gone, just gone live to, to have conversations and I will just walk up and down the length of the truck, or I’ll walk down the line like all the lines of the doors, or I’ll do left right there. And I’ve gotten in 3 miles of walking

Mike: just for waiting to get loaded and unloaded.

Mike: If you are, Sit like you have to really budget your time. It’s like when you have to look at how you’re spending your time. And, I don’t like, I like being very welcoming to this, to the idea of fitness and stuff. But I know these drivers have the time because they’re on tick tock and they’re in the comments.

Mike: They’re on twitter there. If they’re [00:24:00] able to engage. In comments and post their own content, then you also have the opportunity to get out to move your body. And the reason why, and I, and the reason why I’m so hype on this has everything to do with it has nothing to being fit as a driver in reality goes beyond just yourself.

Mike: And this kind of goes in the philosophy of it. Maintain it. Because the thing is when it comes to being a trucker, I absolutely love it. I’m honored to say I was one when I look at, when I look at videos from like the Canadian freedom convoy from years ago, like that, there’s so many there’s so many things about being a trucker that I’m proud of beyond just the family because it’s an honorable job.

Mike: But a lot of people are doing it because they love it. And but you also do need the paycheck you’re trying to provide for your family and maintaining your health is the number one way you can also be there for your family. You’re already not there if you’re over the road. So if you’re choosing to live an inactive lifestyle, if you’re choosing to put the wrong things inside your body for food, you’re also, you’re willingly choosing, okay, I’m going to remove years [00:25:00] off of my life. I’m going to remove, Energy that I can have when I’m home with my family and then put myself and then I’m also going to put myself at a higher risk for chronic diseases that when I’m in the twilight of my career, I could lose my D. O. T. Card. I could have a medical incident over the road and then you can become a burden or you could become a loss to your family.

Mike: So you’re, if you’re willingly choosing to, I just can’t do it. And it’s just, yeah. You don’t need to tell me that you don’t need to have the conversation. You don’t need to tell You know yourself that you don’t need to tell anybody that you can’t just do it You need to go and look to your loved ones say I can’t do it because I just can’t do it for you Because that’s what it comes down to at that point is by not just going for a walk And not eating a little bit more protein and not just drinking a little bit more water Is you willingly saying that I’m not going to do this for you.

Mike: I’m going to choose to live this way. I’m going to choose to remove years off my life, possibly become a medical burden to you. And then also, you’re going to have, I’m going to have to depend on you. And I don’t think [00:26:00] and drivers love autonomy. And I think it needs to be said that if you don’t take care of yourself, you will lose your autonomy. quicker than if you were to remain a healthy lifestyle. And by removing your autonomy, I’m talking about going to the bathroom on your own.

Mike: I’m talking about walking unassisted. I’m talking about not having to get driven to go to the doctor. If you want your autonomy, the best way to do it. Is through personal excellence.

Mike: And that’s just going off on the philosophy real quick, because I wanted to dive into food because the number one way, because besides the movement, food matters too.

Mike: And I know that the options out there are very tough and limited with travel centers and where you’re going. And the number, and the one thing I did, especially when you had to take resets, like out when you’re over the road a 35 reset, like you can grocery shop at every Walmart.

Mike: Because it has docks and trucks can pull in. So I grocery shopped at Walmart every week. I was just with my friend Uros. He’s a truck driver. He’s, I’ve known him, I just met him in person for the first time and I’ve known him on TikTok for years. He goes into Sprouts and Whole Foods himself. He’s a little picky, but you could pull into any [00:27:00] Walmart.

Mike: And I would get, I bought myself an air fryer. Air fryer is your number one weapon because that’s where you’re going to get your protein. I had an air fryer I got from Walmart for 60 bucks. You can buy chicken breasts, ground beef, turkey, pork. So there’s your protein. They have vegetables that you can microwave. You don’t need all that much space, bags of vegetables. And then they’ve got some rice there. There’s rice cauliflower. So there’s other options. That’s where you can also buy fruit. For a cheaper price because you also have to understand is even if there is healthy food at travel centers You’re talking about airport prices

Mike: for food Whereas at walmart you’re actually getting it for a

Mike: decently affordable price so you can get your produce You can get it and you could set and you can stack yourself up if you have the microwave a fridge And an air fryer you have the three weapons and when it comes to cooking that food People think so my so when you’re talking day to day back to the original question.

Mike: So like my day to day Breakfast, so I tracked everything I ate Which I didn’t do it all the time because I eventually built habits. I was eating the same thing But I tracked everything I had on the first form health and fitness app It’s very similar to my fitness pal or like macro counting and I had that based on my activity [00:28:00] level So my breakfast was an apple banana and protein bar lunch.

Mike: I would cook up chicken thighs vegetables and rice And then dinner I would get this low carb bread that had a bunch of fiber Ground beef and like low fat Velveeta cheese slices that I made these like cheeseburgers and I would get almost 200 grams of protein a day and I’d be doing it at 2500 calories or something like that.

Mike: Something like on the lower side between 23 and 2500 calories. I had it dialed out to that extent. And people said when did you have time to cook? And again, I go back to that, that our service 30 minute break. If I was only able to take a 30 minute break, as soon as I pull that yellow tab, the chicken breast is in there.

Mike: The chicken breast takes maybe 18 minutes in the air fryer. The vegetables are the vegetables can microwave during it. The rice is there. You’re talking about 20 minutes of meal prep. I’m gone in 30 minutes. I had at a certain point. And again, this ties right into Goggins book. I had been two trucks in front of me at the fuel Island, two trucks in front of me. I pull the yellow tab. I break out the air fryer. I would start cooking as I waited in line at the fuel Island. And so that way, by the time I got fuel, lunch [00:29:00] was already done. Pull around, park, eat, walk to the truck stop, refill my coffee, get water, go to I’m gone. And people are like, Oh, that’s too much.

Mike: That’s tedious. That’s he is, it is your only option. That’s the thing. And Goggins goes into that and his book. And it, because that’s the thing, it’s just, that’s your only option. The only other option is continue to live unhealthy, be unhappy and be, and, and not be living, to your best potential. So you’re not going to get it just like somebody who has an office job. If you do have an office job, guess what? If you want to get your 10, 000 steps, you might need a walking treadmill. Does that seem normal? If you’re on camera, if people are watching you, there’s people, sometimes every time, sometimes you’re at the airport, you see the guy who’s doing pushups in the airport.

Mike: That might be the only time he could do it because maybe he’s a lawyer or he’s in calls and he’s got this when it comes to we’re not professional athletes. We don’t have the schedules built for us to do, for us to maintain levels of fitness, the way they do for us to live our best lives, our healthiest, you’re going to need to do it when it fits your lifestyle, not what it looks like on Instagram

Mike: or on magazines or anything like that [00:30:00] has to fit your lifestyle.

Mike: And it might look weird if it looks weird, who cares?

Caroline: This is really good information that you’re giving. I love the idea of changing your mindset because it’s not necessarily, if you’re deciding to become healthier or add a healthy habit into your lifestyle yeah, that’s a decision, but it’s also a decision not to do it. You’re also deciding.

Caroline: So changing that mindset, I think can be really powerful, but we’ve only really been talking about what drivers can do on an individual basis. So if you’re

Caroline: only tackling that problem, one driver at a time, which is important, we need people to serve drivers in health professions, physical trainer professions, all of that, but it’s going to take way too long to fix the overall issue.

Caroline: So if we just look at some of the facts here. So in 2015, the U. S. Census Bureau put together some data on trucking and health. It’s the most common job in 29 of 50 U. S. states. So there are millions of truck drivers, active truck drivers [00:31:00] out there.

Caroline: Some of them are local. Some of them are OTR, but most of them have to sit for most of their working day.

Caroline: And then the CDC did a health survey on 1600

Caroline: long haul truck drivers.

Caroline: Almost 70 percent were considered obese and over half were smokers. The conditions alone of the job. increase their chance of all kinds of chronic conditions like type two diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke. I don’t know that we can actually depend on individual decisions to solve that big of a problem.

Caroline: So what is the underlying issue here? Is it availability of healthy food? Is it scheduling? Is it affordability?

Mike: affordability?

Caroline: Is it culture?

Caroline: What

Caroline: do you think is the underlying or the combination of underlying issues?

Mike: think is the underlying or the combination of underlying? Like the crux of my argument for why I talk to different brands and [00:32:00] businesses About this issue and I love that you cited the cdc study because those are the data points I pick up and I do Want to have you should definitely look up the london bus study before you say because the london bus study is one from the 50s where they determined why bus drivers, lived why bus Like the people who punched tickets lived longer than the driver had everything to do with walking.

Mike: And so we’ve known this since the fifties and I bring, and I brought that up. I gave a great presentation to Hayes County bus drivers about this because it was a bus study and just the idea that the guy who punched tickets lived longer because why? And so we’ve known the issue. Like the issue has been known since the fifties because chronic disease is still very new chronic disease is something that’s really only been around since kind of the industrial revolution since the, like the turn of the,

Caroline: people are living long enough to get those issues.

Mike: It, and their lifestyle is what causes it. We’ve got we are a car dependent society. Our jobs don’t require daily movement. So to speak

Caroline: labor,

Mike: they are. Chronic diseases are called diseases of civilization. Heart disease only exists because of lifestyle. But what you said, what is the cause?

Mike: You’re [00:33:00] right. Cause I say this a lot. Cause a lot of people, especially certain drivers I talk to or other people in the space, they’ll say it’s up to, they look at these stats and they’re like it’s up to the individual. Like it’s all they really preach about this individual autonomy.

Mike: And, again, I talked about autonomy. It’s it’s up to them to make this conscious decision. Like it’s their fault. Like it’s always, it’s their fault to do it. And I know I just said if you’re not choosing to live a healthier lifestyle, like you’re choosing, I know, I’m aware of what I just did, but we have to look at when you peel the layers, the onion back and you go down deeper, there’s a reason why they’re not choosing To, to do these things and it has everything to do with the culture, but in the culture, because once again, as you said before, a lot of people may start the job healthy and become unhealthy. And a lot of it has to do with it’s, it has to do with the entire culture of the industry. Like we’re talking like when people ask me my mission, I say, my mission is changing the culture of health and fitness in the trucking and transportation industry. And that culture change comes through, which I’m going to ask you this or I did this at broker carrier summit.

Mike: I led a presentation [00:34:00] where I asked people what the number one reason they think was for obesity. I said, what do you think the number one reason for obesity is? And they listed things that lead to obesity, like a sedentary lifestyle or poor eating choices. They listed all those things. But the true reason for these things are All boils down to one thing, and I’m gonna ask you this question because it makes sense.

Mike: Did you this morning? Did you smoke crack this morning by chance?

Caroline: I did not.

Mike: Perfect. How come?

Caroline: Probably because of the socioeconomic and cultural background that I was born into.

Mike: Okay, perfect. So that’s a prime example. But in that reason what you have because of the background, which you’re born into and for most people, they’d say they know it’s bad for them. What it can lead to education. Education. You are educated to the point to which, the risks associated with doing crack or anything.

Mike: I

Caroline: I don’t know those risks. I generally, I understand that it is bad, but yeah, I would say definitely it’s exposure. I’ve never known, or I [00:35:00] don’t know if I know of anyone. In my entire life that has ever done drugs like that

Mike: Exactly. And it’s a lot of it has to do with education with knowing that’s,

Caroline: who you’re surrounded by,

Mike: Who you’re surrounded

Mike: by definitely matters too, but who you’re surrounded by also may lack certain education. And I don’t think that the industry does a good job of educating people to the point of the points that I just took.

Mike: Which are this job will remove 16 years off of your life. You have double the rates of chronic diseases, other people, and it’s not driven home enough. And now, so it’s not educated in general. And and I

Caroline: Because who would take that job?

Mike: exactly who would take it?

Caroline: No one would take that job if they actually understood and internalized those consequences.

Mike: Because especially because in. In retrospect, everybody knows everybody does know about this health issue. When you talk to him, they’ll be like, yeah, I know. They’ll be like, yeah, I feel that way. Especially when you talk to people outside of the industry, they know, but it’s not talked about because these issues when it comes to chronic disease, [00:36:00] when it comes to the idea of 16 years being taken off your life is it’s slow death. It’s a slower death. It’s not being the vic, it’s

Mike: not vi It’s not like violent crime. It’s, yeah.

Mike: It’s not a, this is a, this is something that happens over time and you don’t see it all at once. And the, the truth of the matter is heart disease didn’t start, doesn’t start in your fifties.

Mike: It starts in your thirties like it started. It doesn’t, it is starting right now. Whether you like it or not and but people think it doesn’t start until maybe you’re in

Caroline: until they’re diagnosed

Mike: they’re diagnosed

Mike: like that must be when it starts because but if they knew, but if everybody knew and everybody knew that heart disease starts in your thirties and your lifestyle in your thirties is going to dictate that you’re right.

Mike: Nobody would do that. Nobody would do the job. But people need to do the job.

Mike: People like to do it that. And in certain aspects, like the money is definitely very much worth it. So what do we do? It’s got, this is the number one way to change the culture is it has to come from the top down. We can’t just, we can’t definitely can’t just go out there and tell drivers.

Mike: Oh, just follow lumbar trucking on tick tock or go follow euros.

Caroline: Except do those things, definitely do those things,

Mike: [00:37:00] not

Caroline: but it’s not gonna be the full solution.

Mike: solution. Just, Hey, go look at this guy, do that peace out. No, it has to come from a the top down of instilling that change. Like people need to be like the leaders of companies, the people who own motor carriers, and really you can’t, but you can’t really put this in the book.

Mike: Ballcourt of a small motor carrier. This needs to start from the leaders of the transportation industry, the people who love calling the shots, the people who are members of the ATA, who love lobbying to the government for things. These people who consider themselves leaders, they go on LinkedIn, they call themselves thought leaders. If the, these people are the ones who need to be at the forefront. Of this. And so I’m talking about the mega fleets. I’m talking about large brokerages. I’m talking about everybody from the top down needs to have a wholesale realization that this is these are people. These people are employees. We need to start seeing them.

Mike: We need to see these employees for the people that they are, and we need to start treating them as such. And we need to start having a system of Built around their longevity and built around keeping [00:38:00] them healthier, longer and happier for more than just, and this is just goes beyond moral reasons.

Mike: We’re talking about, we’re talking about safety reasons. We’re talking about longevity of your own business reasons. It goes beyond for me, this is a moral case. We leaders in the industry needs to be doing this because it’s the right thing to do, because we’re talking about the lives of people.

Mike: But if you really want to get, if you really don’t care about that’s not your, if you really don’t care about it, then, I’ve, I have further questions

Caroline: I have other things to say to you that I won’t record,

Caroline: but,

Mike: There’s safety issues because if you like, and I talk about this all the time with a lot of people, you just mentioned the rates of chronic disease when it comes to things like diabetes, stroke, heart disease.

Mike: If the average age of this industry is in its fifties, and these rates of chronic disease are double that of the U. S. working class population. We need to realize as not only an industry, but as a society that those people are driving right now. Next year, 16 year old next to your family of four in the minivan.

Mike: And it’s and it’s not a knock on the driver, but it’s do you want that? Do you want that possible risk? When I [00:39:00] spoke at broker carrier summit, whenever I speak at these events, I will always have people tell me about a family member or friend who had a stroke behind the wheel. Does that sound like something that’s. We want, does that sound like the career, imagine if that was our police, if our police and firefighters where they had these like inherent risks and I know firefighters might have risks of lung issues. I get that. But imagine if our police were just having strokes on the job, like regularly, like

Caroline: of the bus drivers that drive your kids to school.

Mike: Do we want that? Is that what we want?

Caroline: Yeah. And the obvious answer is no. Now I remember the I had a meeting with a gravure. Who’s our, he’s one of the founders at Bob tail C COO. I was on a call with him once and he said, Hey, hold on. Sorry. Pulled out his phone. He was doing something said, Hey, sorry. I had to order my dad dinner. Cause his dad’s an OTR driver and he was at a truck stop and didn’t have.

Caroline: Access to healthy food. And he said, I got to send my dad dinner on DoorDash because otherwise he won’t

Caroline: eat healthy. So what do you think truck stops or community health [00:40:00] organizations, maybe local governments, state governments could do to make healthy food and physical activity more available to drivers?

Mike: A lot of it, it’s a good question because that’s exactly what I’m trying to do is as I’m a part of it. It’s part of why I’m wearing this. It’s part of why I’m wearing this polo. This is a company I’ve worked with. That’s been trying to get in front of this issue to of getting their product inside of travel centers because there are better for you energy option. And it has everything. I said, this has everything to do with the leadership. It needs to come from the top down. I think there needs to be some sort of, there needs to be a grassroots way, whether it comes from carriers, drivers themselves to actively communicate that they did, because if you go on Tik TOK, they don’t want the food that’s in the truck stops.

Mike: They truly don’t want it. The only reason why it’s being bought is because it’s there. So what that tells me, so people will be like supply and demand, they keep buying it. And it’s they keep a gun to your head. You’re going to buy food. Like you’re going to eat the food. That’s, it’s just a way

Caroline: Or just like you haven’t eaten in five hours and you end up at a truck stop and the only thing to eat are pizza and corndogs and what am I going to eat? I’m going to eat pizza [00:41:00] and corndogs because that’s what’s available to me.

Mike: And so I, I raise and a lot of people say it’s this uphill battle, but I raised the moral argument to travel centers and I’ve talking to people. I’ve talking to people. I went to the ambass conference and I had these conversations with people with independent truck stop owners who are very sympathetic to the cause, but we have to come to a certain point in society where. I and this is the argument and this is, I’ve talked about it on my show is when it comes to the better for you options for, food or beverage out there is when it, because it all comes down to money. That’s the true reason why this problem exists is it’s all money related of who’s paying who pays for the real estate, all the shelving space and a travel center has everything to do with money.

Mike: If say I create a drink that’s just as good as Coca Cola, but it has no sugar, which there are plenty of those options. Coca Cola pays top dollar for the shelving space. Like the McDonald’s the Taco Bell, whoever these restaurants that are in these truck stops. They are paying to be there, but at a certain point again, this is where leadership comes in.

Mike: This is where that top down action has to happen is we [00:42:00] have to get to a certain point to where we don’t allow it anymore because they’re killing people. And I rate, and I talked about this once in my show and I make this. And this is to anybody out there listening who thinks that I’m a fool and that this can’t be done is we need to look at this.

Mike: We’re talking about a, when we talk about changing the culture. In the 1830s, Great Britain outlawed slavery and they were, they were the 1st country to outlaw slavery. What that did. When Great Britain outlawed slavery, it. Tanked their GDP. It tanked their GDP. Great Britain had to bail out all these companies who now had to pay for labor. So when you look at it from the outside, looking in banning, outlawing slavery was bad for the economy. People lost money. People lost their jobs. So you would in an economic sense. It was a bad thing. Do we? Do, does anybody think that great Britain should have kept slavery? No, because owning humans is immorally wrong, but it hurt the economy. So I, that same conversations gets carried when it’s just if you kick out McDonald’s, if you kick out all these foods, if you kick out all the poison that they have in there, if you kick this all out, then [00:43:00] people are going to lose money, people are going to lose jobs. It’s not going to be good, but that means that we’re going to be helping save lives.

Mike: So just like how outlawing slavery saved lives. And was, and is clearly the better in the morally correct decision to do, then also moving in a direction that moves to re, regulate how these products are distributed to the general public is big. And I think it starts, I think it starts with the travel centers getting involved.

Mike: I think it starts with that leadership, but I think, it’s not out of the realm of possibility of saying that this is a conversation that. State and local governments should be involved in because we’re talking about the health of we’re talking about the health of our nation. We have an FDA.

Mike: We have the USDA. We have organizations that screen and do all this stuff for what food does go on the shelf. The conversation needs to happen somewhere. I don’t have the answers. So like I just wanted to give my long form philosophy on the issue. I don’t have the answers of how, but what I know I will do is continue to keep talking about it and keep raising awareness about it and keep talking about this mission and this idea, because the only way [00:44:00] to find the answers to these problems is by having these conversations.

Caroline: Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. So let us know what is it that you’re working on next and what do you want people to know about lumbar trucking?

Mike: Yeah, absolutely. So one, one thing I have on the rising, cause I always talk about driving because I was just with a friend of mine, my friend euros the other day, and I drove with him to make his deliveries. It’s always great to be, back behind the wheel. It’s fair. It’s very cool. So it’s great to be on top of things and you can see everything, but I have this idea and I want people to reach out to me if they’d be interested, but I am a coach.

Mike: I do still coach. At Orange Theory Fitness doing group fitness, and it’s really helped me expand and how I’ve built relationships with people and how I can coach different individuals of all different demographics, whether they’re senior citizens or wherever they’re at in their life. And so that’s been great, but I’ve had this idea of where I would be a coach with a driver.

Mike: On the road and I’d go with them and I changed it. It would be like the YouTube video would be like, Lombard changes driver’s life in 3 weeks. And I’d go out with a guy and we’d live the lifestyle

Mike: and we’d like, and we’d change

Caroline: I’d watch that in a [00:45:00] heartbeat.

Mike: and it’s and so that idea is lurking and I want to try to talk with people about how I can make that happen. But essentially what I’m doing now. So I also work full time with truck parking club. I know controversial, maybe to, people talk about paid parking,

Caroline: We need a whole other episode to talk about that.

Mike: we’ll need a

Caroline: Maybe we’ll bring you on for another episode on truck parking.

Mike: which I’d be more than happy to talk about, especially because being somebody who hauled oversize, like paying for parking is something you can’t, really get out of.

Mike: Also, if you’re looking to grow your business and you want to add trailers and you can’t afford land. You have a cheaper option instead of leasing land and stuff like that. But yeah, again, we can talk about truck parking and hold on because I’ve gone on local news twice. I’ve gone on local news 3 times and national news just to just talk about parking and driver advocacy.

Mike: So I can always talk on the issue. But essentially what I’m working on now, besides like my full time job and the coaching is I’ve been again when I got off the road. I, it was tough. It’s very tough transition, no matter how it’s great to be home. My wife was really, is really glad to have me home.

Mike: Definitely need to be back at the house, but I knew that coming off, [00:46:00] if I was going to keep myself within the industry in any aspect, whether it’s through content or through coaching, whatever I was trying to do, I knew I needed to double down on. Who I am, the brand and the mission and I’ve looked back at my family’s company.

Mike: And so my family’s company set the standard for what trucking was in the 20th century. They were, they changed the trucking industry into the, what it was during its heyday. These were the best paid drivers with pensions and benefits, and they were home very often and they, drivers spent their careers there 30 years, so they set the standard.

Mike: So I knew that if I was going to be something or do something, I needed to set that same standard. And so that means I needed to double down on who I am on the Lombard name. And I needed to go one more. I needed to go a little bit further than what I was doing. And I knew that marathons weren’t going to be it. And so that’s why I just started. I slowly started, getting into the triathlon world because that’s where I was going to make my mark. I think that getting involved in that sport, a new sport, getting into it and seeing how far I can go in a short amount of time would [00:47:00] really help. And through. All the triathlon training and building a good friend of mine, Jeremy Raymer, who’s the owner of driver reach. He started a nonprofit called project 61, which is aimed at raising awareness and getting education and resources to drivers in the transportation industry, all about this driver health thing. So along the way I’ve decided to partner with him. I went from. Zero to full Ironman in less than six months. I did

Mike: my first triathlon in May of 2024. I went to Ironman Florida on Memorial day, 2024. I did a, I did an Olympic distance triathlon and I went to Ironman Florida on November 2nd as a finisher.

Mike: And I finished off 2024 as a bronze status, all world athletes. So I placed very well in my age group for doing

Caroline: Wow. Congratulations.

Mike: A fireman. So I, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to truly make a solidification that I am, I’m not only here, I’m here to stay. I’m an athlete and I’m going to be, I’m going to be a damn good one as time progresses.

Mike: And what I do with athletics and what I do is I’m trying to make this [00:48:00] cultural change through movement. So a lot of what I’ve been doing. Along the way where we’re trying to get the industry in on project 61. I’m also having conversations with brands out there like super coffee like ghost energy i’m trying to talk to anybody who’s in the health and fitness space And to tell them about why they need to get in front of this because if we want this change It needs to come from outside the industry too.

Mike: So I talked to other brands involved in the health and fitness space You To their marketing teams about why they need to be talking to drivers. I go over these stats, but I also tell them at the same time that not only are you developing a product and you have a brand that would be very open to drivers for them to making a lifestyle change. You, you are also looking at an entire market share of over three and a half million people for your product. So again, There’s a win to this. There’s a win at where we’re currently at, where we’re currently at with the available options out there is it’s a lose. But as more brands involved in the space, I think get involved and come out and say, we [00:49:00] know that this is an issue.

Mike: There’s a driver health crisis. We have a product that helps with it. Not only does that business win, but they’re also win from a moral perspective. They’re going to win from a marketing perspective because they’re actually get their product to people who need it. And want it. So those are just all things I’m doing.

Mike: So I’m out building relationships with anybody I can, who wants to help on this mission training for my next iron man in Texas, in the Woodlands April 26th really trying to build a brand over at truck parking club. And again, just further develop and change lives as I’m coaching. That’s in the short when I’m up to,

Caroline: So what I’m hearing is that you have a lot of free time on your hands, Michael.

Mike: oh yeah, nothing, but it’s fine. I’m on here talking to you.

Caroline: That’s awesome. I really do appreciate you having,

Caroline: taking

Caroline: the time to talk to me. to us. This is a really important issue and I hope that we can hit you up in another couple of months, maybe even sooner to talk about truck parking, but in another couple of months to talk about driver health, see what’s changed, what’s evolved and what you’re seeing.

Caroline: Hopefully we can say that things will have

Mike: we can say [00:50:00] that things will have changed. Dr Mark Manera is making serious headway with off shift the name of his company’s on my tri suit because I respect everything that he’s doing. So I’m proud to have him on there. There are so many wins being stacked in this space that I think in, in 2023 2022, the, like these, like we’re looking at a definitely different landscape in this driver health space now to where and there’s a lot that’s been going on outside in the media overall with health that a lot of people are paying attention to with what’s in our foods.

Mike: I think a lot. I think there’s a really good wave of attention coming to these issues. And I think what I think is really great is I think that there’s an opportunity for the transportation industry to lead the way. From the front and also doing it because being in the place they are of being the industry of saying Yep, we’re fed up with it, too.

Mike: We’re ready to make that change So there have been some great wins over the past year. That is good, but they’re so long [00:51:00] road ahead

Caroline: I’m glad that we were able to leave on a hopeful note. Thank you again, Michael. Check out Lumbar Trucking and all that he’s working on in the many links that he’s going to send us for our description in the description below. And I hope everyone out there has a great day. Drive safe.