FXRefreshed - Episode 15 - Helping Truck Drivers Prolong Their Lives and Reducing Expenses with Mark Manera

Welcome back to the FXRefreshed podcast! Today, Mark of GreenShootsFX speaks with Mark Manera, found of The Trucking Fitness Company. They discuss:

• Struggles with trucker's health
• Fitness in the logistics industry 
• Influences on the entrepreneurial spirit
• The financial payoff in investing in trucker's wellness
• And more!

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About GreenShootsFX: GreenShootsFX offers a fresh approach to international payments by leveraging cutting-edge technology, with near market rates and providing dedicated support to meet your cross-border payment and collection needs.

About The Trucking Fitness Company: The first online program that helps trucking companies develop happier and healthier drivers for ZERO cost to their bottom line. 

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to another episode of our podcast, Effect's Refreshed, where each time we catch up with industry professionals from the world of supply chain. Today we met with Mark Minera, founder of the trucking fitness company, where he is single handedly saving the lives of tens of thousands of truckers you enjoy. Why don't we think about just diving straight in? So you founded the trucking fitness company and you've done that really, I think, at a young age. So being a entrepreneur and found in your own business at such a young age, I think he is. And we put it in perspective. You're way younger than me. So anybody that's even remotely younger than me is young. So I want to I want to get a bit of a better understanding of what made you go into the, I guess, the fitness world because you have a you have a doctorate in. Physical therapy, so you not many are not yet in December, I'll be graduating from physical therapy school with my doctorate of physical therapy degree, right. OK, I am humbled to be in your presence even prior to knowing that. So so you had that kind of background, I guess, in in either fitness or physical therapy and you could have taken it anywhere. But you've chosen to go into the trucking industry. So you've clearly identified that there's a there's a need. But I'll let you throw that into your own words like why, how and why are we here today? Yeah, I mean, you want the long or short version. Dude, I have hours to write, right. So you have story. So, you know, I kind of from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I grew up I'm in I'm in St. Louis, Missouri, born and raised. And I grew up with parents and almost frankly, every everyone family, parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents are in the medical field. And both parents of mine are optometrist eye doctors, and they both own their own clinic. And it kind of was one of those mindsets. I grew up as I was. I'm going to be I want to go into the medical field and I know I want to do my own thing. And so I think that that was a huge advantage for me, just kind of growing up with that mindset and just kind of be like, OK, well, it's like kind of non-negotiable. I'm just going to do my own thing and grow it. I saw firsthand the yeah. The struggles at times, but the pros way, way outweighed the negatives in my eyes growing up, watching my parents do it. And, you know, I, I actually grew up playing baseball. And then when I got into high school burnout, plus realizing I'm not going to be the next Babe Ruth or I guess Albert Pujols for the St. Louis people and realizing that I was putting a lot of time and effort into baseball, realizing that the thing that I really enjoyed the most was when we were in the weight room. So I actually quit baseball and got really into Crossfade and lifting. And I actually competed in Cross like a pretty competitive level in the St. Louis area and really got into that and really got that really sparked the love for fitness and health and wellness. And around that same time, I started at Maryville University for physical therapy. And that is kind of where I said, hey, you know, physical therapy is a great place to kind of check off the bucket list of medical field, check off the bucket of I love fitness. I know I can do something with that. And I got super into coaching, personal training. And actually just about a little over a year ago, I was on one of my clinical rotations for physical therapy school and I got the opportunity to work firsthand with truck drivers. And I just got to really see the struggles and, you know, the pros and cons of being a driver. And one of the biggest cons was really missing firsthand the struggles that a lot of drivers have with their health and how much that no one, you know, affected really why they were in the clinic in the first place. And also the systemic problems that caused, you know, from a being there for for their family and just having a high quality of life. And, you know, when I talked to them, there was really a identity and a mindset of, well, I'm a driver, we're just not healthy or we can't we can't exercise very healthy. I'm a trucker. And so that really inspired me to go and do some research and look into some statistics. And the problem that I saw from the statistics and the data and just the numbers behind driver's health, that, along with the first hand experience working with the drivers, really said, hey, I need to go and create something to help these drivers. And that is kind of how I started the trucking fitness company. Wow. That's that's pretty impressive. The fact that you I mean, taking some of the some of the earlier come and say the fact that you. It's probably no surprise that you were going to move into at least some kind of medical physical practice, given that many of us, I guess, following in the footsteps of our parents and the influences that we have around us, but to know that you wanted to do your own thing vs. maybe be jumping into corporate America or maybe going into a hospital or a medical kind of practice here in the States. So why did you know that you wanted to do your own thing? Like, why did you. Because that's you know, that's a that's tough to I mean, I know like I'm like in my late 40s and starting a business and a business I know well. And it's not easy. Yeah, no. I mean, I'm definitely definitely agree with that. It's not easy at all. You know, growing up I, I every time it snowed in St. Louis, I was leading with my friends, going and knocking on people's doors and shoveling snow for money. We realized that if we had a set price, we didn't make as much as when we just when we knocked on the door and we said, hey, you pay us whatever you feel comfortable is. And we're like 12 year old year old and they're handing us 50 bucks for, you know, taking the snow off of their driveway. And so, you know, there's stuff like that growing up. I just like I just was interested in. And when I got into personal training and coaching at this gym in St. Louis, I actually started with some social media stuff and growing a social media account. And with people watching some of the tips and tricks I was posting, they started asking, hey, do you do online coaching? And so that sparked me to start actually my first company that was called New World Training and Rehab. That was one on one personalized coaching for truck or not truck drivers. Oh, my gosh. For CROSSFIREs and weightlifters and stuff like that. And kind of got me in the door of being more entrepreneurial and wanting to start the online stuff. And then I was kind of running that and I was I was enjoying it, but I didn't feel like I was really making a huge impact in the world. And something that I really, along with my entrepreneurial spirit, I feel like I'm I'm someone that needs a mission and really gets motivated and inspired by that mission. And I feel like I was kind of floating waiting for that calling and waiting for my mission to just go all after it. And when I had those experience with truck drivers and seeing the struggles that they had in seeing how, hey, I understand the online health and wellness world. I know and I have a background in physical therapy. I know what these guys and girls need. Now let me go and transfer and build something super special and put this mission driven attitude towards driver's health and creating something really special for the trucking industry. And so that's that is that's really the motivation. And what wakes me up in the morning before, you know, early and keeps me up late at night. So, yeah, that's awesome. And I think the fact that we have we have a significant shortage of truck drivers right now. And as you're probably aware, and I'm going to guess that many people are not leaving Harvard with 200 grand worth of debt, thinking I'm going to go and stay in a truck. So we need to encourage people back into the cabs and we need to maybe not just do that, but maybe prolong the time the existing truck drivers before they before they think about retirement or even thinking about just jumping out in the game together, because the life expectancy of a of a trucker is significantly less than than than the average for an entrepreneur. So. Well, you know, I I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there and I kind of look at it as a balancing act of like. So number one, I think there's a fundamental problem with the identity of who and what a truck driver is. And I think that is one of the things that no one is causing a Harvard grad. And we can even bring it down to, you know, Harvard, maybe a little aggressive, but a normal citizen in the United States is not waking up and saying, men, I want to be a trucker. I think that if you know society and people recognize no one, how technologically verse and how adventurous trucking is as a career, how much money can be in there and just the opportunities are in the supply chain and logistics in general, I think that that identity needs to be changed because not all truckers are, you know, old, smelly, overweight white guys. Right. And that is the mental image that I had about truck drivers before I got into trucking. And so one of the things with, you know, changing the health. Health and wellness of drivers is I'm trying to help mold the new identity of a truck driver, and I think that my, you know, my mission number one, you know, it's not going to solve the whole problem, but it's a piece of the puzzle that really pushes the industry forward. And on the other hand, on the other side of the balancing act is, you're right, the average age of a truck drivers, 54 years old, truck drivers, as well as the whole, have a life expectancy 16 years less than the average population. So when you have that all the work of a working group of people, plus a decreased life expectancy, I mean, if you are just waiting for them to fall off, not be able medically have to retire, unfortunately, you see people dying of heart attacks. And obviously that's not the majority of people, but you see those in the news and. What I'm trying to do is, hey, how can we extend a driver's career to show them that the impact of spending 20 minutes today goes a lot further, and yet you might lose a little bit of time today. But the impact that five extra years in your career could have and the hundreds of thousands of dollars you're leaving on the table because your body can't handle the career for as long as you'd want to work. And just also being able to help the economy, because I think it's seventy one percent of goods in the United States is transferred by a truck. And if we don't have those drivers to do that, that means that your Wheaties that you eat for the morning and you bought from Wal-Mart, that price is going to go up because it cost more for the company to get it there. And so I really look at this as the supply chain. So, so many different layers, so many so so, so many different things moving all around. And I think that driver's health is just one of those areas where I'm going to do my part to be a part of the solution and create something for the trucking truck drivers that is really specific to their problems and pain points. Right. So you're absolutely spot on with regards to the potential increase in the price of of goods in the US. And I had a conversation not so long ago with a life. I've had a few conversations with businesses, but what about me specifically? But one is coming to mind where it it was cheaper for the business to import from Europe than it was to truck from I think it was Utah down to the southern states. And the relative price of the goods are pretty much the same. So you're buying in euro from Europe, but the relative to the dollar value of that versus the dollar price in the US was roughly the same. It was the transportation cost that dictated that the company was going to buy from outside of the US, which I think is absolutely nuts, especially when you know that adding another week or two onto the transport time as well. But even that delay wasn't a deterrent. To to pay to paying more. Yeah, I mean I mean, that's absolutely crazy, right? And it showed that example right there shows just the the effect that that driver shortage and the inability for freight to be moved at the rate that it needs to be moved and how it is actually costing people money. And you know, what I see right now is, you know, I talked to trucking. I talked to people at trucking companies all the time. And I talked to, you know, a ton of recruiters and also a retention specialist. And, you know, one of the things that a recruiter has told me is, you know, right now it's all of the because of the driver pool, so small, so much smaller, and the amount of drivers who are qualified to move the freight that needs to be moved is so low, they're shifting all of their not all their focus, but a majority of their focus on how can we retain the drivers that we already have. Because every time they have a turnover to get a new driver that's qualified, trained and ready to go, it costs them about six to ten thousand dollars per driver. So if we can put some money towards yeah, I mean, isn't that expensive? And so if we can. So you've got a driver that if you've got a company that is two hundred drivers say they have a retention rate of 25 percent. Right. And that's actually a pretty good retention rate in trucking, which is sad, too. Yeah. They're losing they're having to pay almost what that's 50 50 trucks, 50 truck drivers, six to ten thousand drivers. They're spending so much money every year just to keep their fleet the same size. Yeah. And so what we're really trying to do is find a position. And we work with trucking companies and we also work with truck drivers specifically. And we're trying to find a ways how can we create a Win-Win situation for the trucking company and give them the ability to help their drivers be healthy and happy on the road, which we really think all comes down to their physical and mental health. A lot of it comes down to that. Right. And so that's what we're really trying to provide for drivers and trucking companies. Yeah, I think it's such an a very valuable point that not just the physical side, but the mental side as well. I mean, if you are physically fit, doesn't necessarily mean say that you are mentally fit, but it's going to help you vs. you know, especially if you're just sitting in a cab for a prolonged period of time. You might say, I'm going to be very cautious. I will say this, but you might have a maybe a low level of self-esteem because you can sort of feel that your body's rotting in a way and you're probably thinking there's no way out of this, this, this this spiral, as it were. So getting yourself physically fit is definitely going to be able to help with the the mental side of things as well. Yeah, I mean, I look at physical and mental health there together. If one falls off, the other one's probably going to be coming shortly. And I think the self-esteem thing, it's I don't think you have to walk a fine line. I don't think it's a I don't think it's outside the norm of if someone is a truck driver who's been driving for 10 years and in those 10 years, they've gained one hundred something pounds and now can barely get into their truck climb up, you know, it would take a TED lasso type of person to not have a little self conscious and be upset about what they are, you know, what the state of their health is. And I think for me, when I talk to drivers, I kind of see two different ways. And number one, I think, you know, you kind of hit the nail on the head that trucking is not a super physical job, but it's very mentally taxing. And when you're mentally taxed after driving a long time, it's really easy to say I'm going to exercise tomorrow or say, hey, that greasy, you know, triple cheeseburger looks really good. Right? And so it's really easy to fall off and just kind of keep that ball rolling instead of making those healthier options. So what we're really trying to do is, hey, how can we how can we just give drivers the easiest entry point into exercise? So exercises that they can do in their truck right outside of their truck, even if they're local drivers, are on home time workouts they can do at home then from a nutrition standpoint. Hey. I want to eat at fast food restaurants every once in a while, a lot of drivers can't control that. They have to eat at McDonald's or the truck stop for most meals. Let's not put our focus and get down on yourself about the fact that those are the circumstances and constraints that you have to live by. Let's put the focus on what you can control, which is, hey, what what meal option you pick at those places and some other small habits that you can develop that help you from overeating, help you from snacking all day when you're in the truck. And so what we do is we give drivers restaurant guides to help them build help them pick the healthiest option at any fast food restaurant or any restaurant around the truckstop. We help them build healthy meals at the truck stop. And then we also really take a habit based approach and say, hey, you know, what's one actionable step that you can do today that will just kind of get the ball rolling and help you kind of check the box and start doing something in the right direction. Right. So you're not you're not just about the exercise only portion of it. It is about the nutritional value as well. So let's give you something that's going to get the heart pumping. Let's also guide you towards a healthier lifestyle, a healthier eating nutritional lifestyle as well. It's it's not just one. Yeah. You know, so I I've had a lot of conversations with drivers about that same topic. And, you know, the the common thing, people say, well, you can't you can't work out a bad habit and stuff like that. And what I when I when I say to that is I say this, you know, number one, they've done a couple of studies. And one specific one is they they did a survey of I think it was just over one hundred thousand drivers and they found that 70 to 90 percent of the drivers have not exercised in the last six months. And what I think is a lot easier starting point for drivers is instead of focusing on trying to cut out bad food, cut out this cut out, that is how what can I add to my day and physically check off that I did it. And I think exercise is a great way to do it. And what I also think from an exercise standpoint in this goes back to fitness. This goes back to the physical therapy side of things is exercise has this weird effect. And I, I don't like the word holistic because I think it has a bad meaning sometimes and kind of Hulahula, whatever you want to say in the fitness industry. But it has this holistic effect on your lifestyle where you exercise and then all of a sudden the grilled chicken looks a little bit better than the triple cheeseburger or, you know, an extra hour of sleep. Sounds good because you need to be rested for your workout tomorrow or other ASPE. It has an effect on other aspects and makes your life healthier, even though you're not focusing on those areas. And that's why I really think we take an exercise first approach and help drivers exercise. Yeah, I've I've seen something very similar in my entire life. My entire career has been office based and probably for a good portion of that time you are you could potentially be working long hours and you can easily get get into the mindset that I'm super busy. I've got a lot that I need to get done. I know I'm going to be sitting here until five, six, seven, eight o'clock in the evening. And if I take an hour out to go and exercise, then that means I'm going to be leaving at nine o'clock. Whereas the actual reality is I found and it's I know it's easy to say and it's difficult to get into the habit of it, but I found that if I could just take actually take an hour so I wouldn't have a lunch hour for many, many years because of that belief. Right. Of of it. You know, I want to get home early, but by taking an hour just to go and exercise, I, I then go into the habit of doing this at least once. Sorry, at least every day, take an hour, go to the gym and then actually become more productive in the afternoon. And so it's kind of like counterproductive to what you think is going to happen. But it really does make a difference, like having a mental break as well from from what you're doing. And that physical aspect of getting the endorphins flowing as well just gives you a fresh perspective in the afternoon and gives you more energy in the afternoon as well. So I, I completely agree. And, you know, I want to come back to the the office, you know, comparison of office work for truck driver. But, you know, I think before we go into that topic, you know, I think, number one, a lot of people feel like it's selfish to take out take time to exercise because they're going to be away from their family. What I say to that is No. One. The most immediate response that you're going to get from exercising is a clear head and more energy. Yes, you're wasting energy. You're not wasting your burning energy and calories exercising. But it has an effect of makes you more energized and pumped up. You know, think about the going on a 10 minute walk. Your mind is clear, right. And you're ready to go. And what I also think is, you know, I look at it from a what people say it's I can't be a little selfish if I didn't go, you know, if I went exercise and took that time for myself. And I kind of flip it on the other hand and say, I think it's selfish. If you do not care, take care of yourself and put the burden potentially in the future of your health and your well-being on your family. And 30 minutes today is going to mean nothing in the long run compared to, you know, the last 10 years of your life. You're completely dependent on your family to take care of you because you didn't take that 30 minutes today. And, you know, you kind of talked about the office worker and their truck driver. And I think that there's a ton of relatable. You know, they there's a lot of sitting. There's a lot of, you know. Opportunity for bad eating habits and bad, you know, going out to restaurants and stuff like that, and the thing that I say that's different about trucking is when you get done with your office work, you get to go home to the same house every single day. You get the opportunity to get in a routine of going to the same gym, go to your workout routine, go home. You can feel at home. And all of this in trucking, there's just a lot more barriers that kind of get added up that make it really easy for the drivers to to lose that habit or to say, no, I'm not going to exercise. And so what we've done is really spent the time to, you know, learn those pain points, learn the things that drivers struggle with and try to take away as many of them as possible to make it as easy for them. So, hey, I'm in the new place every single day. I don't know if I have access to a gym. OK, great. Well, we're going to give you a workout so you can do in your truck just outside of your truck. OK, but do I need to, like, lug around a gym? Do I need to get a bunch of kettle bells or something like, nope, we're going to give we give all the drivers we work with, all the equipment they need. Right. And then just really helping them make it as easy for them to stick with it and not you know, they talk about a lifestyle change. And I think in trucking, a lifestyle change is much harder than a normal for nine to five person. So what we've really tried to do is, hey, how can we build our program that fits into their current routine instead of making them flip 180 degrees and say, hey, you need to change everything around. Right. So let's let's get into the weeds in a bit about what what are these programs like? What do they consist of and how long they typically run for? Because what we don't want to have is somebody thinking, oh, shit, you know, exercise. I don't have the time to take a break, let alone do an hour's worth of exercise. But we're not talking about an hour's worth of exercise. Right. We could be talking about what might be 15, 20 minutes. You mentioned 30 minutes just now. So it's not really a great deal of time when you think about how long you in the cap for how long a days vs. just taking thirty minutes out of eight to to refresh and to work on your fitness. So I want to I want to touch on like what's what's the typical timeline for our time period that drivers would would do. And you know, what are these exercises look like. You also mentioned equipment like I'm keen to understand, you know, what kind of equipment does somebody need? Yeah. So so when a driver signs up or when we work with a corporate client and one of their drivers get into our app, we're it's an app right on their phone. And the first thing they do is they fill out a quick questionnaire. And what that does is that gives us information to go in and no one place them into a program that fits into where they want to exercise. So, like I said, do they want to work out in their truck? Do they want to work out right outside of their truck or are they home often and they want to work out in their house? Right. Then we also personalize it based off of where their current health and fitness levels at. Right. If I am a truck driver and I'm sitting here and I'm in pretty good shape, I maybe I just need a little bit more guidance on, hey, what can I do when I'm out on the road? I need a completely different program, maybe not completely, but I just need a different I need a different program, a different skill level. Then a driver who's been driving for forty years has diabetes, is one hundred pounds overweight and hasn't exercised since high school. Right. And so we place them into a personalized program based off of those criteria. And every day what those drivers get is they get a personalized what we call truck fit workout, which is around twenty minutes long, so it can fit into their mandatory break that they have to take every single eight hours. Or it can fit really easily before they get driving that day or even after they get done driving that day. Then what we also do is we have what we call an exercise of the day takes less than even three minutes, maybe five minutes at the most. And it's just one exercise. And we we've got videos and written instructions on exactly how to do all of the exercise for both workouts. And it's just that says that this isn't the easiest entry point of, hey, this is step one. If you're having trouble fitting something in, everyone's got five minutes that they can do something. It doesn't require you to go anywhere. What our mission and when I thinking about building this program is how can a driver exercise anywhere at any time? Right. They've got they're waiting for the carrier to, you know, put another load on the truck. Perfect. Let's get a workout in there. There's a bunch of different opportunities. And with the with the equipment thing, you know, I think a lot of drivers struggle because they're trying to get into like a twenty four hour fitness or the YMCA or something like that. And, you know, semi trucks are a little tougher to park than, you know, my Chevy Equinox when I'm. Going over to, you know, when I'm going to the gym, so, you know, I think it's awesome if driver can get to the gym, but I don't think it's required in an art program. It's definitely not required because we help drivers and we give them all a resistance band, six ounces. They can mush it up and squeeze it into any place in their truck. Super easy to store and take anywhere. And that's all the equipment they need and it gives us that. Plus body weight exercises gives us a ton of variety. So they're not doing the same exercise every single day. And they also get a little resistance because I think that's important from a physical therapy standpoint. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's amazing how versatile the resistance band is from not just necessarily from a cardio perspective, but also strength training like that. Resistance can be like enough that you can struggle and actually really put in a good point. A good workout says the man hasn't actually exercised since high school. Oh, come on, come on now, seriously. Oh, geez, I know, I know. So that kind of like leads me when I say I have an exercise in high school. I used to play soccer at a relatively high level and I used to be super fit. And then then I stopped and I didn't go back to you know, I went to I was going to the gym frequently for a period and then stopped for many, many years and then went back again for for a short while. But like in actual like regular exercise, I'm afraid to say, yeah, I'm embarrassed and ashamed to say I've just fall off fallen into that trap. Exactly right. I'm kind of like now, especially when you again building your own business, you feel like you've got to put so much time and effort and energy into it. But at the same time, I know that taken I've just explained it by taking an hour out of a day to go for a walk, go for a jog, go to the gym, you know, just refresh the mind, refresh the body is actually going to make me more productive in the afternoon. So but it's habit forming. So you and you've just got to do it a number of times before. Muscle memory, if you will, is kicking in and you'll just get up at midday and without even thinking about it and go and do something right. Yeah. You know, and what I would say exactly right to to your point is this do you even eat is where is the easiest thing? Where's what's the easiest thing that you can start tomorrow or today in that easiest activity? Might not be an hour long. It might not. Fifteen minutes and it's 15 minutes is so much better for you in the long run than nothing or eating four bags of chips like I saw it down there. And I want to say that that trash bin is like a week out, but OK, that's OK. Yes. That's why I want to say it's it was empty last night, so. Oh, boy. That's right. Right. So here's what I'm going to do. Actually, I'm so I've because if I don't write it down, I know I'm going to forget it. So I've ran across my pad here, resistance band because I have one when I had a shoulder injury a few years back. And it really kind of nursed me back pretty quickly and got me this strength back because I had you know, it's amazing how quickly atrophy kicks in. So so I am going to get it out. And I want you and I to have a conversation outside of this podcast in a month to six weeks. And I want to I want to be able to say to you every day, I did something for fifteen minutes. Woohoo! That's my plan. That's my plan. So I'm putting down here six weeks, fifteen minutes a day. Calendar entry. Mark him, they we go that far, so I'm going to reach out to you on that stage and or I want you to reach out to me on that stage, because I because if I'm not doing it, I'm probably going to show away and pick up the phone to you. So I want you to make that that cantando. So that's why. Yeah. I think a resistance band is it's actually a really, really good, really, really simplistic tool. And to your point, it's something which you can just scrunch up sticking a glove box, you know, put in your putting you put in your lunchbox instead of a ameet sandwich maybe. All right, not like that, so so we have these so you mentioned questionnaire. So is this some of these programs, though, that it's there's an algorithm that's running in the background. So the question is filled out and then that determines what exercises you're going to do? Or do you actually see these come through and you personally tailor? Yeah, every single person who signs up for a program has a personal coach that goes and goes through their questionnaire and puts them into a personalized program. And the cool thing about our app and just our service as a whole is this is not a get in and no one's going to reach out to you. No one's going to talk to you. There's no accountability. We have accountability built in. And we have also a community of drivers that that we try to, you know, if a driver's comfortable, wants to participate and we get them in the community. And the other thing is the driver within our APA has has 24/7 access to message a coach. Any time they have a question, they can message as many times as they want, ask any questions that they have, and we're going to answer it. And we're going to give very personal advice specific to the question that you answer. And I think there's a lot of value in that. And I think there's a lot of value just from talking to drivers that they feel like there's that personal touch. And I think it's really important to me to keep that. Yeah, yeah. Nobody wants to feel like they're out there on their own. And you want to have a body, if you will, that's going to, I guess, push you along and give you them that motivation to do something without being overly aggressive, because then that's just going to put us completely off. I was chatting to my business partner earlier on today and he he referenced the UPS hiring 100000 drivers. So are you looking to connect not just with trucking companies, but other businesses as well? Because I'm immediately thinking like airlines, for example, especially when you have the like the long haul. So I'm here in Boston. So there's a flight that that, you know, there are some long haul flights from Boston for me along who flies anything above 10 hours, anything below that is a hoppa. But but there's a flight from Boston to Hawaii, for example, if you want to go west, which is still a 13 hour flight. There's flights from Boston, Boston, I believe, going out to the Middle East, which is still you're looking at like 10 to 12 hours to to get there. I think the longest flight that's that's out there at the moment is is Perth in Australia to London and I think is also New York to Sydney. So, you know, these are big, long flights where it's very easy for passengers just to sit there and watch a movie and just gorge on shit food for 15, 18 hours of being in the air. You thought that might be expanding from beyond the trucking world to to other industries, or you just feel like you got so much that you need to achieving and just this kind of industry slash demographic to start with. Yeah, you know what I what I think and something that I find and I'm very, very passionate about is I think that in the health and wellness space specifically, there's a lot of room for very niche companies to come in and solve very specific problems for industries. And I think that something that is helping us get into the trucking industry and start getting some momentum is that we are built and designed for truckers and trucking companies. And I think that in the future there's room for potentially us to expand. But I think if we expand too quickly and into different industries, we lose the magic of really solving a problem and helping the trucking industry, the trucking industry, grow and develop and develop that new identity, like we talked about earlier. And, you know, there's four million truck drivers out there in North America and 85 percent of them are overweight, one in seven have diabetes. And like you said earlier, as a whole, they have a life expectancy six years less than the average population. Right. And so I think that it would be a disservice at this time in our company to try to expand and go towards different markets because there's just so much room and opportunity in trucking specifically. Right. Right. And so just thinking about even then where you can take this within this industry, you know, Anthony perty I believe from. Yeah, from Chuck Pork. So like, yes. Getting together with with with a company like Anson's, which is also at Beiste, which is also online, is again a young guy entrepreneurial. So to have I can see like you to kind of say, I don't want for something. I can see you two coming together because he has the the map of the US truckstops. So when you have a driver that's looking to go from point A to point B like they can with him. Figure out, well, where do I want to go this like safe parking that has the amenities I need and when I get there, boom, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to use this app to find my location and we use this app to actually keep me alive. Yeah. And I think that I, I love that. And I think that's kind of part of our strategy of like how we grow into this industry is because I think there's such a it's such an industry wide problem that if drivers are unhealthy, it really affects everyone. And I think that to solve this problem, it's going to take an industry wide solution. And partnerships with not only trucking companies, not only, you know, insurance companies, but trucking schools and, you know, companies like Truck Park, like you are right. Truck parking truck, park parking truck parts, companies like that. And I think that, you know, there's not only the ability to be very creative and creative and creative with the way of, hey, how we get this out to drivers, but also just from a mission standpoint, building that army to go up this uphill battle that we're going after, I think is is very powerful. Right. And you mentioned earlier on so so these these are tailored programs. So you have a I guess a fitness coach or a lifestyle coach that's that's supporting you. How are you finding these individuals as well? Because I guess they're not are they working for the company or their independence, but they're providing their level of expertize and support for your for your clients? Yeah. You know, I've got a I've got a good background, like I mentioned, in the health and fitness world. And we've been able to the work. And right now I'm the main coach. And working through all of that, we had some interns who come on and help us out. But as we grow, I think that will definitely be one of the, you know, a little bump in the road of finding the right fit that understands the trucking lifestyle, but also understands the evidence based health and fitness side of things, too. Yeah. And so what do we want to take the company? What is what is next? We know we want to stay certainly in this line for the next X number of years. There's no need to necessarily branch out to other industries. So where can we take it with regards to the trucking industry or the logistics industry maybe? Yeah, you know, I see us in three to five to ten years. I'm not sure how long it's going to take being the name that come being the company that comes to the front of everyone's mind when they think about driver's health. And I think that comes from working with company trucking companies, from, you know, the small 10 to 20 driver companies all the way up to the FedEx. And I don't think it's I don't think it's impossible for us to get to one of those, what they call mega carriers. And I think that's where we start getting more mainstream and really chipping away at higher numbers of drivers. Because you know how I look at the businesses, I really look at what we're doing as a direct to driver product. Right. So we we work with drivers through you know, we do social media. We're building our brand and everything. We've got a lot of drivers who come in individually, maybe their owner operators doing their own thing or their company drivers on their own. And what I what I look at when I look at a trucking company from a business standpoint is I just see trucking companies as a vehicle to get more drivers into the funnel and really make a larger impact because it's a lot easier to hit one hundred drivers at once if I sign a company and try to get them into our program versus convincing one hundred individual people from social media. Yeah, and hitting some of those larger trucking firms, like you mentioned, maybe a UPS or a FedEx for them, the cost savings now become. In the hundreds of thousands, if not in the million kind of back range, so that's not a small number, and especially when when you companies that big to have shareholders and they're looking for every conceivable way that they can shore up the bottom line. That's not a small number, right? Retaining driver's retaining employees, which is, you know, there's obviously there is a cost to it, as you mentioned earlier on. But it's the time element of it which is also a cost to trying to backfill positions. And what we do is we work with trucking companies for free. And how we do that is we we work with trucking companies and partner with them and we offer our program to their drivers as a payroll deduction benefit. And I think there's a lot of benefit to that because, number one, it's a Win-Win situation for the trucking company. But also, number two, I think there's a lot of psychology in the driver physically having some skin in the game from a retention of the program standpoint in our program, because I think it's it's three dollars a week. They spend more on roller dogs going down the street than they would on this program. And what I think that I think there's just a lot of benefit for the drivers having to put some money into the program because they take it a lot more seriously. You know, for me specifically, when I get something for free, I definitely don't I don't take it as seriously. It might sit in my inbox for a lot longer than if I pay 15 bucks a month for it. Right. I'm going to use that. Yeah. And so that's where I think that we have the ability to scale up into these bigger trucking companies because we're trying to give them a win win situation and we're trying to give them an industry leading wellness program for literally zero cost to their bottom line. We don't force them to we don't force them to pay anything. And so, you know, if you're FedEx, if you're a larger trucking company or if you're just a, you know, a mid to smaller size trucking company and you want to give your drivers, you know, these types of benefits, I don't see how this is not this is a Win-Win situation. You have no skin in the game. It has no effect on you. You don't have to try to convince the drivers that, you know, I think any trucking company can look at their fleet and they probably have a portion of their drivers that even if they had a drill sergeant yelling in their face every day, they're not going to do a wellness program. And what I've seen is that from a mission standpoint and just a, you know, momentum standpoint is it's exhausting trying to fight the drivers who, you know, are never going to use it and try to convince them to use it versus the approach that we're going after is let's put all of our energy into the drivers that want these types of resources that are motivated to make a change in their health and wellness. And let's help, you know, let's help them get and achieve their goals. And then the other companies, the other drivers at the company see that. And we they start trickling into. And so that is kind of our pitch to the trucking companies is, you know, we want to instill this program and give your drivers this benefit for zero cost to you guys. Yeah, that's a great that's a great attitude. And you can only help those that want to be helped. Yeah, really. At the end of the day, I mean, it kind of. Morally, ethically makes sense to try and get everybody try and maybe even still encourage those that are putting up some resistance, but you don't want to spend your whole day trying to convince one individual to to take 15 minutes out of their day to actually do some exercise. So focus on those that really do want to take you seriously and get involved with it is a better use of your time. So so I love it. Is there anything that we haven't covered today that you think that might be pertinent? I think we covered a lot of ground. We talked about the program. We talked about like how you got into into it. But more importantly, we talked about the program, the fact that it's not onerous on on anybody really to to get involved. You're working with trucking companies. You're keen to continue talking to trucking companies, individual truckers as well. Obviously, you can sign up directly and and we know where you want to take the business. But is there anything in particular that we that we haven't covered? Do you think, you know, I'll end it on this? You know, specifically, you know, first to the drivers is something is always going to be better than nothing. And even if you take some inspiration from this and you go do your own exercise program or you go on our social media, you can find us at the trucking fitness company are all social media and you get inspiration from maybe an exercise video we post and that helps you get some exercise in your daily routine. That's all I care about. You know, if you want to sign up and get a little bit more guidance and accountability and want to sign up for a program, you can find us a trucking fit, dotcom truck, INFP itte dotcom or just Google search the trucking fitness company and sign up. I'd love for you to be a part of it. If, if, but the more what I'm more, you know, you know, care about more is you doing something and you're starting to make a change in your health and wellness. And you go from a to the trucking companies, you know, we're seeing a driver shortage and we're seeing trucking companies trying to figure out, number one, how can they how can you retain your fleet and keep them healthy and happy and behind your wheel? Because that's how you make money. And from a recruiting standpoint, how can you differentiate yourself? And I can tell you from talking to a lot of companies that a majority of trucking companies do not offer any health and wellness benefits that are specific to their drivers. And a 30 a 30 day drinking water challenge is not a health and wellness benefit that's going to make a huge change for drivers health. So what I am reach out to us. Right. Same website. You can come to us. I'm Mark Minera on LinkedIn. If you want to find me some medium and let's figure out how we can build a culture in your company of health and wellness is a priority. And really, you'll see no one there's no hits your bottom line from the beginning, but from a decreased health insurance, decreased work comp, increased retention, you're going to start seeing savings just from giving your drivers the ability to be a part of this benefit. Yeah. So trucking companies, you have nothing to lose, right? You have everything to gain. So I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, it's a market man. I'm this is actually a perfect time because I have a eleven year old golden retriever who is tensing heavily Saorview or anybody hurt that that. She is so on that night, my friend, I'm going to let you go and we'll catch up soon, I hope, and certainly we're going to catch up in six weeks where I hope to report that I'm a little bit healthier also. Well, thank you for having me on. I meant. Thank you. Bye bye.