The Freight Pod
The Freight Pod is a deep dive into the journeys of the transportation and logistics industry’s brightest minds and innovators. The show is hosted by Andrew Silver, former founder and CEO of MoLo Solutions, one of the fastest-growing freight brokerages in the industry. His guests will be CEOs, founders, executives, and leaders from some of the most successful freight brokerages, trucking companies, manufacturers, and technology companies that support this great industry. Andrew will interview his guests with a focus on their life and how they got to where they are today, unlocking the key ingredients that helped them develop into the leaders they are now. He will also bring to light the fascinating stories that helped mold and shape his experiences.
The Freight Pod
Ep. #65: Matt O’Mara, CEO & Founder, Whimsy Intermodal
In this episode, Andrew welcomes Matt O’Mara, CEO and founder of Whimsy Intermodal and Whimsy Trucking. Matt’s journey into the transportation industry began in 1994 when he worked as an owner-operator for a trucking company. When that company was acquired and its drivers let go, Matt seized the opportunity to start Whimsy Intermodal in 1996 and hired many of those drivers. Today, Whimsy has about 50 company drivers, 145 owner-operators, and 150 trucks.
Andrew and Matt also cover:
- Whimsy’s organic business growth and unique capability in handling challenging freight, the importance of finding consistency, and Whimsy’s focus on execution, including how they add value beyond transportation.
- The significant challenges Matt ran into of implementing new TMS systems in a legacy company, the importance of team buy-in, and the eventual success of digitizing and going paperless, including leveraging AI for order entry and real-time driver coaching.
- Treating drivers with respect and providing robust support as the key to retention, highlighting the reason why Whimsy has a waiting list for owner-operators.
- The importance of transparency, leading by example and avoiding hypocrisy, and the critical role of communication, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness in leadership.
- Current market conditions, the lack of impact from Chinese New Year, potential tariff effects, and the critical need for robust infrastructure and processes.
Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.
*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more.
A special thanks to our additional sponsors:
- Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more.
- Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today!
- Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***
Hey FreightPod listeners. Before we get started today, let's do a quick shout out to our sponsor, rapido Solutions Group. Rapido connects logistics and supply chain organizations in North America with the best near shore talent to scale efficiently and deliver superior customer service. Rapido works with businesses from all sides of the logistics industry. This includes brokers, carriers and logistics software companies. This includes brokers, carriers and logistics software companies. Rapido builds out teams with roles across customer and carrier sales and support, back office administration and technology services.
Andrew Silver:The team at Rapido knows logistics and people. It's what sets them apart. Rapido is driven by an inside knowledge of how to recruit, hire and train within the industry and a passion to build better solutions for success. The team is led by CEO Danny Frisco and COO Roberto Lacazza, two guys I've worked with from my earliest days in the industry at Coyote. I have a long history with them and I trust them. I've even been a customer of theirs at Molo and let me tell you they made our business better. In the current market, where everyone's trying to do more with less and save money, solutions like Rapido are a great place to start To learn more. Check them out at gorapidocom. That's gorapidocom.
Matt O'Mara:All right, we're back.
Andrew Silver:Welcome back to another episode of Freight Pod. I'm your host, andrew Silver. I am joined today by Mr Matt O'Meara, the CEO and founder of Whimsy Intermodal Whimsy Trucking Intermodal whimsy trucking. This is our first foray into the intermodal world and it's no time like the present, with the current tariff chaos going on and all the impact that that will have in imports and the intermodal business, and we will get there. But I want to go through your whole story. I know you started as a truck driver and started your own business and have grown it to this very successful company. So there's a lot for us, I think, to learn, even in just the 10 minutes I spent and this is the first time we've ever met or spoken but in the 10 minutes we just spent chatting before the episode started, I wish I'd been recording the whole time. So I think there's going to be a lot of good nuggets today. Welcome to the show, matt. How are you doing?
Matt O'Mara:Very good, very good. Thank you, andrew, I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So take me all the way back. How'd you get into this business?
Matt O'Mara:All right, I was a mover, I guess, and in the moving business we were busy May through October and then October through May. We would do industrial moves, office moves, things like that, because not many households were moving or whatever. I had to get into some other business that was more consistent. There was too many ups and downs you know now we call that what White glove delivery, mm-hmm, yeah, but I mean I've done industrial rigging, all those things that go with that, office moves. And then, as I said, I had to get into something more consistent and I got into hauling containers. For as an owner operator and, um, I had, at the same time I would tell the dispatchers, give me all the container, all the dispatch. Nobody, nobody wants right, um, and so I I've always, always, uh, been successful at turning lemons into lemonade so became an owner-operator.
Matt O'Mara:A company that I was working at got bought out. The company that bought them didn't want any company drivers, so I took over a ton of these trucks and a ton of their best drivers, and that's how I expanded for multiple trucks. We did garbage too. We held waste transfers so we'd go to transfer stations with our open top walking floors and pick up garbage and take it to the landfills and pump it off into the landfill yards. Reason being is garbage mail fuel these things move every day, right Containers usually. So I just needed to get into a more consistent business. Turned out, I was pretty natural at leading drivers Probably one of the reasons.
Matt O'Mara:my father was a labor relations guy for Illinois Bell for many, many years. He knew what it was like to be boots on the ground, talking to the people that really are accomplishing the work, and so people just started falling in and, uh, working with me. The team grew right, just organically. Uh, how old were you when you?
Andrew Silver:how old were you when you took over the the 10 trucks and drivers? So it was like 27 yeah, that's young to be kind of making that big of a commitment. Why did you feel like that was the time and you were ready, fearless or stupid, fearless and stupid. Or fearless or stupid. I started my company at 27 and I was fearless and stupid, yeah, so you might have been an or.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, so yeah, you have to be. You know, I had nothing to lose.
Andrew Silver:And when was this 96?
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, 1995, 94, 93. Actually, Wimsy was incorporated in 96.
Andrew Silver:There was a lot of work that we did before.
Matt O'Mara:Whimsy actually was an incorporated carrier and why containers?
Andrew Silver:Why intermodal?
Matt O'Mara:I have no idea, just was what was in front of? You, I guess you know I truly believe that you can't press things and you have to let you know, like take advantage of the opportunities that come to you. So I guess at the time that was probably my best opportunities.
Andrew Silver:And just for context, for the audience, because we're going to walk through the whole story. But what does the business look like today in terms of like, its size and what you guys focus on? You know, intermodal versus over the road story. But what does the business look like today in terms of like, its size and what you guys focus on?
Matt O'Mara:you know, intermodal versus over the road so one of the most difficult things that uh actually is when you're a legacy company, been around a while, right, um, and you're in a more advanced world. Biggest thing for us was uh digitizing, going paperless. I want to say, 12 years ago I uh we signed a contract with the tms system and we tried to implement it. I didn't have the right team team members to help me implement it, so that we had to, we had to cancel that. Eight years later we started uh with trinium and uh, same thing.
Matt O'Mara:I got a lot of resistance from everybody on the team, failed again. And then the last time um we got trinium, I hired a whole nother team that didn't even know intermodal. So I had to teach them intermodal. They were all just techie uh, data analysts, all these type. Um teach them all intermodal why the other guys are dispatching. And then my idea was just to merge the teams, but there was a lot of conflict to end up losing the original dispatch team, moving these guys into dispatch and then hiring a whole other set of guys to retrain.
Matt O'Mara:And so finally it was I don't know June of last year that we finally went paperless and embraced the whole TMS system. Yeah, so those things are very difficult to overcome when you don't just start out as a tech company. What we're really good at, though, obviously because containers or freight are much like water, and you know this it's going to take the path of least resistance. So if you can create a nice flow, uh which is what we do right same day, next day it always amazed me when uh amazon said they're gonna have two day delivery or next day delivery and then same day delivery up at whimsy. We've been doing it since 1996.
Matt O'Mara:You know, we deliver containers the same day that they arrive, we deliver them the next day. We always used to say it's funny, because as the railroad kept reducing the amount of time your container could dwell at the rail yard, we say it's going to be like an airport. Right, you have to be there when your your container arrives. You know, sit by the curb, wait for it, get your container arrives. You know, sit by the curb, wait for it, get your container and then leave, eat it. So we haven't gotten to that point yet, obviously because there's just not enough drivers for the amount of containers flowing in currently. So that was a big obstacle to, I mean, many times. It just shows that, as a leader, right, I didn't. Third time was a charm.
Andrew Silver:In terms of getting the technology implemented in a way that people would use it.
Andrew Silver:I mean, that's an interesting point that I don't think some of us leaders do a good enough job of is understanding the importance of the implementation and the buy-in and needing to have champions who support the idea of moving on to this new technology, because you and I, or you as the ceo, can go see the latest. You know, you can go meet with trinium and be like man. This would make my life so much easier because you see the problems from 30 000 feet. A lot of cases, you see like you know all the errors that can happen and mistakes and lost paperwork and this, and that the people on the floor doing the actual work they're just like used to what they're used to. I mean, they're used to whatever it is 40 keystrokes they have to do, or you know they put this paper in that pile and this paper in this pile and they don't care necessarily that you think it's going to be easier. They know what they know and often there's a disconnect between the person up top who sees how the problem can be solved and the people at the bottom who are actually doing the work, and it's just important for there to be some type of connection there made or you will have one or two failed attempts.
Andrew Silver:I'm curious, like you know, as you think, about how you made it work the third time. What, what was different? I mean you mentioned hiring and having to basically rehire the whole team. I mean, is that kind of the central factor, or were there other things that maybe can be learning? Learning points for for others who will go through something similar?
Matt O'Mara:yeah, I mean, can you imagine like scale, like ch robertson, yeah, going through the same legacy things? I mean that, you know, people don't talk about it, but it's monumental and it's exactly like you say. You need the people to buy it. Um, you know, now everybody. Oh, you know, I went from average age was 48 and up, so now my average age is 36 and below. I'm an old fart and it's amazing, because I was like, yeah, nobody's really going to understand how all the nuances of the intermodal world because you know, it's just as bizarre as the world that we live in. Most of the time, the do's, the don'ts'ts, you shouldn't have stuff, and and, and. Then, when you put a process, and you put a million and ten processes in, and there's going to be a million and eleven that you didn't think of, right, so, uh, yeah, I mean, I still love it, though no-transcript, like the exception, is the rule.
Andrew Silver:So you know you might solve a hundred problems with automation, but you missed the hundred and first you missed the hundred and second you missed the hundred and third. And those are the three that are going to get back to your customer. And customer doesn't give a crap how many things you automated. They care that this order got screwed up. And they didn't know in advance, because you know your process wasn't clean enough. Yeah, so well, we're.
Matt O'Mara:We're at the point now, uh, where the driver doesn't leave the either the receiver or the shipper without sending the BOL or the POD. So the customers are getting their BOLs, their PODs, within 30 minutes of signing. So, you know, these are the important things like being in the business a long time, you can add all the tech you want. The other thing is tracking, tracing on time. You know these. These are the things that, uh, that people want to partner with you for right. Um, if, if you can, I can tell you where my driver is, or I can give you access to where where my driver is for your particular load, and you can see that and you get all that documentation. And we do, uh, you know, we do a lot of niche. Uh also, uh, reefers, triaxles we've been doing it for so long. We have a lot of equipment and we have the infrastructure.
Matt O'Mara:A lot of times, uh, whenever you talk about the vc everybody wanting to get in you, you got to have an infrastructure, you got to have processes.
Matt O'Mara:There's so much that can go wrong. Freight brokers everybody fights for the owner-operator, but the truth is we've got a waiting list for owner-operators because we give them the support that they didn't even know they needed Support, being they have all of our facilities to stop at, go to the bathroom, get things fixed, wash their hands, take a break. You know these are the things that drivers need not need but deserve. So when you give the proper support, you're going to get a following. You know that and that goes. You could add all the 951 million things, but you know, then you have to train all the drivers on how to use everything right at the same time and uh, obviously it's, it's easy, but for some guys it can be a little frustrating. If you don't give them the proper support, uh, they're going to want to quit. Like I always say a lot of times in this business. It's amazing to me, because everybody complains.
Matt O'Mara:You know, intermodal business, one of the things shippers and receivers would always say is they don't call, they're always late, and we started with pre-pulling containers so that we didn't have to sit at the rail or the depot that day and then come up on the excuse on why we're late get the box clean it, that's what we do. Uh, we don't care if you're paying or not. Uh, 95 of any export, we do that. Uh, one of the mechanics or an employee at whimsy will blow it out or clean it, check for holes, all of those things, because we know dry runs are a big issue. Who you know who wins in a dry run? Nobody, it's just a. It's a loser, right? So, uh, the thing uh, all these cheaper carriers can't do is they can't find ways to take out things that cost people money, right?
Andrew Silver:our only add value is when I can save you money I can't find ways to take out the things that cost people money. Will you explain that I missed that point for my audience?
Matt O'Mara:okay, um, dry runs. Like. You show up with a container, uh smells, it's dirty, it's got a hole in it, customer don't want to load it. Who are they gonna blame immediately? They're gonna blame the carrier, right, if we show up with an inferior container. But if you're ordering, uh, just a general purpose container, then there shouldn't be an issue. Then you have. Then. Then you have now this point of contention where you shouldn't have brought this container. Well, well, the driver doesn't get to pick. He goes into a yard that's stacked full of containers and they have to put the best one on, and then we have to work with it or get out of line, go back in anger. People get a different one out, right, generally, as long as it doesn't have a hole in the sides of the floor, we can clean it. That's what we do. Those are the things that I am trying to explain. Cost somebody money or a relationship, because you either have to split it or find a way. I always say it's not what happens, but what you do after it happens.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, no, it's interesting because that would be a challenging thing for someone to look at and say, okay, well, we're spending an extra half hour, hour of someone's time cleaning this every time and so we have like a 1% rejection rate or even less percent rejection rate, leading to zero or 1% of dry runs, comparing to maybe a cheaper alternative carrier who's like I'm not going to spend the hour cleaning it, and they have a 5% dry run rate or 5% rejection rate.
Andrew Silver:Like it's hard to do the math and necessarily correlate that to savings, but like I can generally just appreciate your thought process of I'm going to do everything in my power to put my customer in the best position to win and like to reduce the chance of a load getting missed or or you know, a load getting rejected, a trailer, a container getting rejected, right, and those are the things that I I I actually do. I understand now with that explanation, I appreciate it and those. That's a perfect example of a little thing that, like a really high quality provider is going to do that you know, on paper it looks like they're spending extra money but because you don't necessarily see it in the profit of, like you know, fewer dry runs, but your customers are happier with you because your service level is going to be higher and, at the end of the day, like that's what matters, right.
Matt O'Mara:Well, you're probably pretty close on the analytics of the failures, or whatever the case may be. But at the same time, what I would just like to remind you is if the customers needs to make a sale and today's the cutoff right, and now they're not going to make the cutoff, uh, maybe the customer then cancels the order. You know you're not going to meet my terms of delivery, so it triggers. It's in my life, it's. It's never one thing, right? Uh, if you don't understand cause and effect, then you're going to get clobbered. You're just going to get clobbered because you don't understand.
Matt O'Mara:If you fail on that, then that creates that. Now that forwarder, that book, that trucker now looks like a clown because now the shipper's freight ain't going to make it. And the same thing as far as the condition goes. If you're going to a third party warehouse and they're responsible for the freight to get to Australia properly, they don't want to load any kind of inferior container and their idea of an inferior container is much different than the carrier's idea of an inferior container. So you have the customer that's buying or shipping the freight. You have the warehouse that's going to be loading the freight. Then you have the carrier that's coming to pick it up. These are the points of contention that you know either make or break you with your relationships with your customers.
Andrew Silver:Are you looking to grow your brokerage? Are you struggling to land new customers in these challenging market conditions? Look within so many companies that tender you freight throughout the domestic United States also have business coming out of Mexico. A year ago I understand why you might not have seen that freight as an opportunity, but today Cargado exists and that means any load coming into or out of Mexico is now an opportunity for you to support. In just over a year I've been able to see Cargado go from ideation to launch to rapid growth. It's amazing to see how many logistics companies have been able to use Cargato to expand into Mexico to grow their business. Cargato is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies who are moving freight into and out of Mexico.
Andrew Silver:If you move Mexico freight or are planning to reach out to Cargato today at cargatocom, that's C-A-R-G-A-D-Ocom and I assume or maybe I should ask but one way to navigate that challenge and the challenge being a third party making decisions around quality, that's kind of out of your control is to limit the number of kind of inconsistent warehouses that you are going to picking up or dropping up out of and trying to keep as much consistency in your network as possible. So you know, you know 80%, 90% of my freight I'm picking up and dropping off at the same places all the time because you understand their rules, you understand what good looks like versus if you're just on the spot market. Every day, and every day you're going to a new facility and every day you're engaging with their new rules. You don't know what they think good looks like. And I'm curious like in your world, what percent of your business are you running as like consistent lanes, consistent facilities, versus playing in the spot market where there's a little more risk of kind of going into the unknown?
Matt O'Mara:So all over the board, to answer that question, we've got customers that have been paying the same thing before COVID, through COVID and after COVID, so they don't even know what everyone people talk about. You know the whole thing. They don't understand. They're like I don't know, wimsey provided us the same service, blah, blah, blah. You know, maybe they had to pay detention at the rail for congestion or whatever. You know these things. But as far as price goes, to answer your question, I want to go to every facility. You know yeah, do we have.
Matt O'Mara:We have plenty of customers over our 29 years of existence that we've been going to for a good long time, whether it's a drop or pull or a live load. Everybody understands. I always say know what you sign up for, right. So everybody knows what they signed up for and those incidents. Like I said, we'll move 200 containers a day and I have to answer emails and talk to people about two moves that went bad.
Matt O'Mara:So when you talk about right, showing up with a good container or what the rejection figure is, I want a zero rejection. That's my goal, uh, and my drivers. They need to understand what our expectations are, right and and so when they do show up, and then you and they get rejected. And then they I get a picture of it and they say, well, you know, I want to get paid for this. I say, yeah, how can you, how can I get you paid for that, right? Well, you didn't even open the container because there's, there's contagion, uh, you know, uh, there's, there's times when drivers don't do their jobs properly. So, um, that's why we have, we set a certain standard. Uh, andrew and um, it needs to be adhered to it. It needs to be, uh, better each day, right, I mean every day, I tried to be two things a better person and less of a hypocrite, right? Those are the two things I aim for every day and they kind of go hand in hand. So, you know, I like to offer as much transparency as possible. At the same time, I would appreciate transparency, right? So, those, that's just the way that goes. And you know, like I said, I want to go to every shipper. I don't care, you know, if they don't have a bathroom or they don't want to let the driver in the bathroom, then we're going to put it in the notes, you know. Tell the driver to stop before he goes there and get to the bathroom, I found that I can't change people, that I have to just work in the parameters of the challenges that I'm given, and so we just try to understand those, make notes and do things, not cry over and over again about things that nobody's willing to get down and dirty and change.
Matt O'Mara:Pet peeves are these people go on linkedin and talk about the lines at, uh, norfolk southern or waiting time or all these things and paying for lifts and all all that goes with that and and you should have known what you were signing up for, right, uh, and I call it's just part of the game where we call the rail the belly of the beast. You got to get into the belly of the beast to understand how it works. Uh, we, we have a, a terminal by every rail. Um, for that reason, right, we want to be able to service the rail and the customer.
Matt O'Mara:Um, I'll 97 of the carriers in the chicagoland area. They, just they. They want to get a piece. They're a piranha looking for a piece and they and they'll shout out any price. But we have a nice mix for a reason, right, fifty-some-odd company drivers and 145 motor operators or whatever. I've always had that nice mix. When you go into downturn. You know, maybe some of the owner-operators that aren't so good haven't been following the safety as good. Blah, blah, blah. You know they need to be. You know, let go Cold Huh.
Andrew Silver:I was saying cold like let go. Yeah, that works.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, you never want to do that, I mean right, but I mean you have to be flexible. Uh, I've I've learned one thing, and that is expect the unexpected, uh, and, and you're still not even prepared for it.
Andrew Silver:so so you're speaking my language there's. There's so much gold in what you just said. Um, I don't even know where to go with it, but I'll start with. I can certainly appreciate your focus on transparency and also the idea that you can't control how vendors, customers, warehouses are necessarily going to play. They get to make the rules to their own game and it's your job to either agree to those rules and play the game or or not.
Andrew Silver:You don't have to, but choosing to just be transparent about those rules is the only way to do it, and whether it's putting a note in about there's no bathroom, so go to the bathroom ahead of time, or you know where we used to run into a lot was like detention things and my philosophy was like, yeah, I want to pay driver's detention a hundred times out of a hundred, as long as it's deserved, as long as they were on time and they did what we agreed to. If we said, you know, if the, if the facility pays after two hours and that's what we agreed to then pay them after two hours. But there were some facilities, produce locations and such that didn't want to pay at all, and there were some facilities that we'd said, okay, you know what they're not going to pay. We'll agree to pay after three hours, and you know what you do. You put it in the notes, you say it, you speak it to the company before you agree to the load, and they agree to it or not.
Andrew Silver:And the worst case, though, was when they wouldn't listen and then they wouldn't read the notes. Listen and then they wouldn't read the notes, and then, after the fact, they'd be like why am I not getting detention after two hours? And it's like, well, this is what we agreed to on the load. Like, if you needed more money, you should have put it in the in your, you know your, your line haul rate on the front end. I can't control how everyone else behaves. All I can control is how I behave within the rules of the game, and then I communicate those rules effectively to whoever I'm working with, and that's just to me. That's, that's freight one-on-one, and and unfortunately, it's a differentiator. It really probably shouldn't be, but I think guys like you and I wouldn't have been able to build businesses the way we did, or if if there weren't so many players that didn't operate that way. To give you something to be better than.
Matt O'Mara:Right, so and and and you said it right there. I don't know how many times I heard a driver tell me I was in line, waiting at the window for 15 minutes, and then they punched my thing. It was seven, oh one. We have a you know agreement and obviously we not if you work with a broker or somebody that you don't work with on a consistent basis. But we have an agreement of a 15-minute leeway, right, we would rather them be 15 minutes early than 15 minutes late, obviously, but what we do is educate the driver.
Matt O'Mara:You want to be paid, you want to do all these things? Well, guess what? Someone at that dock is waiting for you to load your container at that time that you agreed to be there, and so you need to be there before that. And I don't want to hear that you waited 15 minutes in line before they could get up to the window. If you know that, you should either tell us that you're there and you're waiting in line and we pull up your GPS and send the message to the customer. Right? This business has always been about communication. 99.9% of anybody's problems is a poor lack of communication, and you know what I get in my life all the time Poor lack of communication and I think, only because I demand better communication and I just. You know you don't ever get what you want, but you take what you get.
Andrew Silver:It is the way to win, though I mean it's it's a simple concept Can be hard to execute because you know people got a lot of things there. You know the average rep is probably navigating 10 or 15 accounts, or in your case it's 20 or 30 drivers, whatever it is. So I get how things can be lost in the shuffle and a chaotic business, but you know all. So I get how things can be lost in the shuffle in a chaotic business, but you know all you can do is set fair expectations and try to hold people to them. I am curious, though. You know you made a comment around be less hypocritical. We talk about that a little bit and like what? Just your leadership style in general. I want to get into Matt, matt the leader, for a bit.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah Well, I've never asked anybody to do anything that I wouldn't do, so as far as that goes, I'd probably, you know, a hundred times more hands-on than your typical, you know, CEO. So what was the? What were we looking for here?
Andrew Silver:I was asking about your leadership style. I mean, you mentioned to be less hypocritical and I'm just as a guy who grew up or worked as a driver, so you've done the job, but now you became a CEO of a pretty large company. You've obviously been very successful and I'm just curious how you go about leading. You mentioned transparency.
Matt O'Mara:You mentioned your two theories a man on the person like michael michael jackson said, it starts with the man, the mayor, and what I mean about that is I can't, I can't tell drivers to do the speed limit. If I'm not going to do the speed limit in my car, right, if I'm going to drive reckless in my car, then I, I can't, I shouldn't be, be, uh, the ceo of a transportation company, because you should expect the same thing from yourself as you would your drivers or your dispatchers and the dispatchers, like we talked about, if you've got a facility where you're sending a driver in, don't not tell him because you think he's not going to want to go. Tell him everything you possibly can so he understands what he's signing up for. That way he can't go oh, this happened or that happened, blah, blah, blah. You're like, well, you know I kind of filled you in on.
Matt O'Mara:You know some of the nuances of the facility, but that's I mean in your everyday life of being a hypocrite. You can't, you shouldn't criticize people, which I've spent my whole life and it's inbred into me. You criticize people but you're no better, right, you just need to be better. And if you're not going to fix the situation, then don't talk about the situation. Or if you're going to talk about it. Talk about resolution instead of just word about it, right, instead of just worried about it, right? You know, successful people are successful because they solve problems, they solve issues, they solve solutions, they communicate. Otherwise you can't.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, I mean that all resonates with me. It's funny because you remind me of a story with one of my owner operators. You know I was a carrier rep. How old I'm? 35. I guess 17 years ago for a few years and just loved it.
Andrew Silver:I worked mostly with owner-operators just because they were more fun to deal with. And there was a gentleman, peter Achukwu, and his wife Catherine was his dispatcher. They were from Nigeria, they had emigrated to the States, they lived in Marietta, georgia, and this guy used to run all over the Southeast for me on these coke loads and whatever. But I used to do these company meetings at Molo where every couple of weeks I'd bring I would usually be the speaker but I would just talk to the team about whatever was on my mind and sometimes I had guest speakers. I brought a shipper in and I wanted to bring an old driver and so I brought Peter in and we hadn't done a load together in 10 years but we're still friends and I just asked him to talk about you know why we were successful together and like what he appreciated about our relationship and what he said to our whole team was he was like the reason that I would always work with Andrew and why I appreciated our relationship more than other brokers is because, no matter what, he told me the truth about a load and he would sometimes call me and say, listen, peter, I need you to go pick up this load at Coke in Atlanta and I know you hate the place because this one facility was really tough and the person who ran the facility was not necessarily nice to people and and he knew we were going in without an appointment and he was going to be waiting for a while to get loaded. But he's like I just loved that you didn't hide that, you didn't like avoid telling me it. You didn't say that it was a first come, first serve. You told me straight up this was a work and we were going to be waiting for a while and we were going to have to deal with the person that we didn't like making us wait. And he's like that's why I loved our relationship, because I never had to worry about you hiding something from me, and I got that from what you just said and I can certainly relate to it.
Andrew Silver:So I think that's a lesson for anybody in our business to learn is like there's two ways to deal with with these issues. One is to kind of deal with it Now. The other is to deal with it later. You deal with it now, but being upfront with your driver and say, hey, this is what's going to happen and yeah, maybe I'm paying an extra a hundred bucks or 200 bucks to someone to get deal with. To deal with it. Dealing with it later is me telling the guy it's first come, first serve, go ahead. And he gets there. He realizes there was a missed appointment. Now he's pissed at me, he's waiting and who knows what happens from there. He threatens not to deliver unless I give him an extra 500 bucks. He never works with me again. So you either deal with it up front or you deal with it on the back end, and 99 times out of 100, dealing with it on the back end is going to be way worse than just dealing with it.
Matt O'Mara:It's going to be very contentious, not good. No, your way is much I would say 100% the way it has to be and it's fair. I always say you know. They always say that you know there's a driver shortage, driver shortage.
Matt O'Mara:You know there's always been a shortage of treating drivers properly. If they want to reword it that way, that's the way they should word it. But drivers will go and they're happy to work at a good place as long as it's treated fair and communicated to fairly. So you know, those are the things that we talked about, this off camera. Um, in my early years, you know, people were like oh, broken serpentine belt or whatever, why a driver wasn't going to show up or whatever. I would rarely be transparent, say you know, the driver you know had a personal problem. We had to find a fill in. Whatever you know, just be honest about it. There's no reason to make up any lies about why you're not. I always tell employees I don't have to hear why you're not going to be in. You're not going to be in, it's not going to help us and whatever your excuse is, it's not. It's not going to benefit me either. I mean, if you're not here, you're not benefiting the team. That's all that matters.
Andrew Silver:So yeah, the other thing you said I wanted to hit on was around judgment of others or criticism of others, and it reminded me of this is a problem I've had and, you know, I think I could.
Andrew Silver:I think I could look at my tenure as CEO at Molo and see the hypocritical behavior at times where, you know, I preach the importance of treating our people well and treating each other well.
Andrew Silver:And then my emotional reactivity led to, you know, me blowing up at an employee because we screwed this up or that up, and it wasn't necessarily their fault, but I was just too emotionally reactive and so like it was certainly hypocritical, but in in in now, years of therapy I've, I've been, I got a good lesson and that lesson was our judgment of others is a reflection of how we feel about ourselves and that is something that has really hit home for me, because you know whether it's a judgment that's like something significant of you know someone screws something up and you're like this person's an idiot, or or it's like little things I mean little micro judgments when you're just, you know, walking your dog and someone else is walking their dog the same direction as you and it you realize that's going to make your dog, you know, act as act a fool and you're like, why is this person walking? I mean it's a stupid thing to get upset about, um, but my point is just, I think it's. I think being a little more introspective has helped me realize like these judgments I have are are not really about the other person as much as they are about, maybe, insecurities I have about myself or, um, just things I feel about myself that that need need work. So I don't I don't know if you've ever heard that saying, or if or if you can connect to it at all or relate to it.
Matt O'Mara:Well, I do. I, I believe everybody that I come in contact with uh, you know, helps make me a better person. Uh, whether they're a better person or not, um, you know, I find it sometimes it it the more difficult people or more difficult customers for me are, the better customers for me to deal with. Uh, only because I understand that there you know things that they go through. Like I get 900, you probably had the same thing, but you get 900 emails a day of nothing that you want.
Matt O'Mara:And you're lucky if you get one email that you're looking for a day right, I mean, we always celebrate the little wins, you know, getting a new lane, a new customer. We don't have a gong to bong, but I mean, you know, if we did, then everybody would be running to it all the time. It's you know, and I remember listening to I read a LinkedIn post of yours about COVID and you know I've been thinking about the. You know COVID, and it was a scary time here because you know, you guys, as freight brokers and everything, you're not really right on the ground and everything. And in the beginning, everybody's. You know, oh, you know, no, no, masks aren't needed, because we didn't have any masks Because, you know, china was too busy filling China's orders of masks. So I was around and everybody had you know, given out bandanas or whatever right, and then it became mandatory that you couldn't go anywhere without a mask and it was, like you know, now that you have masks available, so you've got to buy them.
Matt O'Mara:So that was a multi-billion dollar business brought up right out of COVID, right, all the PE stuff, the PE stuff. So, um, as your point is, uh, some of our, our capacity is spot market, right, you know, that's just the way it is. Uh, we do spot market and we had, you know, contracts and and you're, you're, you're in, you're on contracts with people, um, but what I've really found now, uh, last two weeks, a lot of things are getting held up on the rail, no pickup numbers because of customs issues. Nobody's really talking about it right now, but it's going to be a thing where things before were clearing a lot easier, right, I mean, uh, but now a lot of customs issues that we weren't experiencing until the last two weeks.
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Andrew Silver:So I don't know segue into that but yeah, no, let's, let's segue into that. I'm curious, I wanted to get into that, so I appreciate you bringing us there. It's always easier when the guest does the segue for me, so I don't have to get creative or be awkward. But yeah, you know, from what I've seen um online on on twitter and and linkedin and such, it looks like we're getting to the tipping point of a massive fall off for imports. And you know, then, rail activity, intermodal activity, have what are you seeing? Boots, boots on the ground. Have you seen that or do you see it coming? What has business looked like in the last kind of three months? Was there a big pull forward of inventory being brought in to avoid the terror of chaos? Or talk to me a little bit about that.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, so that's the first thing everybody was talking about when Trump was elected, right, was you know? We want to pull all this forward and I'm thinking there's not enough time, there's no way, there's not enough time. And then I reverted to his first term and the same thing, if you remember, happened. Right, I got a short memory, tell me. Well, they pulled the imports forward again. Did he threaten tariffs the first time around? Yeah, I got a short memory Tell me.
Andrew Silver:Well, they pulled the imports forward again. Did he threaten tariffs? The?
Matt O'Mara:first time around. Yeah, yeah, but he didn't follow through on it. No, he didn't. Biden left some of them in place, got it, but in any event, we didn't experience a Chinese New Year, okay. We always experience a Chinese.
Andrew Silver:New.
Matt O'Mara:Year. Yeah, chinese New Year is the second through the fifth.
Andrew Silver:It starts and goes two weeks and it generally affects our business for about six weeks, right, and what is it? A shutdown for four days there that leads to weeks of impact here, I think it's more than four days.
Matt O'Mara:It's usually when people leave their job and go start. You know, when they come back from holiday or whatever, they go back to another job or a different job. I don't know how it all works, or whatever, they go back to another job or a different job. I don't know how it all works, but I used to tell you that it was always march and april. Right, we were looking for seed loads, firework loads and all that to to make up for those type of things, because that's when you know, we get the hybrid. Seed loads would come in, firework loads start right after the first of the year. Talk about firework loads too. If this doesn't resolve out, nobody's, everybody's gonna be uh having drone, uh fireworks this year, because fireworks come from china. So, um, you know, maybe trump will take them off the list, I don't know, but in any event, uh, yes, I feel like they did pull it forward. I feel like there was no Chinese New Year. I don't know. I'm not going to say this. From my point of view, this is the Chinese New Year now. Right Now, they've shut down.
Matt O'Mara:We normally experience a slowdown. We haven't. I know everybody on the ports are talking. We do a lot of crosstowns. Uh, we move east coast uh rubber wheel containers to the west coast rails and west coast rubber wheel containers to the east coast, uh, so we go in and out of the iowa interstate csx ramps, the ns ramps, the cp ramps, the bn ramps and the CP ramps, the BN ramps and the UP ramps, just doing cross towns, making connections. Those had not slowed down. We're still experiencing the same volumes. We were really leaning on five or six quarters to last quarter of last year, fourth quarter of 2024, things started looking better. Uh, this first quarter was, uh, booming great first quarter. Second quarter in the year was going to look great right. Um, so we don't know, we haven't. Uh, I feel like last time I did a podcast was with Paul Paul.
Andrew Silver:Paul.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, and that was whatever 30, 32, 30 months ago, whatever, before it dropped off the first time, right?
Andrew Silver:Oh man, are you an indicator? Are you a tipping point? I don't know. On your podcast, oh God, I hope you and I don't uh send send the imports off or uh drop off, uh the freight so, uh, everybody, you know the sky is falling.
Matt O'Mara:I do know we haven't experienced it. Uh, it's may 1st. I grew, uh, I spent some time in Hawaii, so it's May Day. I remember May 1st in Hawaii when I was 12, I was wearing a tea leaf skirt and doing hula. Today, because it's a big thing in Hawaii May 1st, oh, wow, that's a big deal. I didn't know that.
Andrew Silver:I learn something every day. Aloha to all my Hawaiian friends Aloha to our Hawaiian audience. I will, after we are done recording, I will check how many listeners we have in the state of Hawaii. I can see that stuff. I can see where people listen, so hopefully we get a few after this episode. When all your friends see that you're on the show, yeah.
Matt O'Mara:Well, all my friends from uh uh, kielike or Kamaaina, I mean uh.
Andrew Silver:I'm not, I'm not going to try to repeat those, those words, but uh, or locations, Um, I'm curious, how does, like you know, when your team boots on the ground, or your drivers I'm sure they pay attention to what's going on in the media, Um, and they see, you know what looks like the sky potentially falling in the near term. How do you kind of navigate that as a business, Like as a leader and as the CEO, how do you think about communication and what kind of operational changes you might make if there is a big fall-off coming? How do you kind of navigate it?
Matt O'Mara:fall off coming. How do you kind of navigate it, uh, okay, well, we were. We were constantly hiring new drivers. Since january 1st, we were putting on maybe two drivers a week. Okay, uh, it was maybe three weeks ago. I, I asked diana to pause. I don't even know hires, even though we have a list, uh, for company drivers and owner operators. Just ask her to pause, uh, because that's the first, the best way to piss off your current drivers that keep hiring drivers in a downturn, right? So, um, uh, we sent a blast out an email to all the drivers that not make any unnecessary purchases. Advise them to pay attention to the news Again, you can't just be transparent with your customers, you have to be transparent with everybody in the industry, 100%.
Matt O'Mara:Sometimes, when you're over-transparent, then people obviously then worry more than they should. Right, stress comes from the unknown and then when people don't know, then they're stressed out. Um, I always like, take it day to day, right, because you know from being in business that, um, it's. It could be like uh, you remember the gilligan's island? You go on a two-hour tour and you could be end up on an island, right, you've never heard of g Gilligan's Island. You go on a two-hour tour and you could end up on an island, right? You've never heard of Gilligan's Island.
Andrew Silver:I've heard of Gilligan's Island and I've certainly seen an episode or two, but I was probably 10 years old so I can't. The reference is hard for me to relate to well, but I do understand what you're saying, yeah well, you don't know what you're in for.
Matt O'Mara:Right, the day could start out and then you know it could just turn into an avalanche of shit. Um, you know, or you could have a good day and everything goes well and everybody's happy and upbeat, like every day here at whimsy yeah.
Andrew Silver:So so your point is, you know, lean into communication to everyone, yeah, and be cognizant of the fact that, yeah, I mean uncertainty does create fear, because I've. There were a couple instances where I remember leaning extra hard into communication, and one of them was at the beginning of COVID, um, when I was calling it. I remember my I still have former employees that give me shit Cause I was calling it COVID, um, I mean, we just didn't know anything about it, but I do remember one of the things I said was listen, let's just focus on what we can control, which is our service and execution for our customers. This feels like something that no one will ever forget, so let's make sure that they don't forget the way we took care of them. Focus on what you can.
Andrew Silver:And then the second thing was when we were selling the company and six months in advance, we knew we were doing a deal, but I thought we were actually going to do a private equity deal. I think I remember telling my team I was like we're going to go raise a bunch of money because we think it's the right time and there's like a 90% chance we'll do it through private equity, but like 10% chance it's a strategic partner. But we were like let's communicate as proactively as possible with people so they know. And for that six months I kept updating people, even the point of letting them know we were being acquired before it was done with a publicly traded company. We just had to be careful about what we said. But my thought there was kind of to your points like, okay, this me telling them is going to create some fear and maybe they're going to be people who proactively quit or take another job because they're worried about what will happen. But I'd much prefer I'm the one telling them all along the way versus the day it happens. There's a news article saying that Molo's been acquired and they haven't heard a word from me. I just feel like I'd rather own that narrative and be the one communicating so they know exactly what I'm thinking, why I'm thinking it and why we're making the decisions we are, because at the end of the day, I think it's so much easier.
Andrew Silver:Something I've learned is it's so much easier for us to have compassion for others than it is for ourselves. And that's just a general point. But specifically to this, I bring it up because when we communicate effectively, people realize we're human and they realize. Listen, you might be the CEO, but you're just like a lot of other people on the team, showing up every day, trying to do the best you can with what you got. And yeah, you've got a bigger weight on your shoulders because you're making decisions on behalf of 200 drivers and all your employees. But when you're communicating proactively and transparently, you're proving that like you're just doing what you can with what you got. You're sharing, you're making decisions based on the information you have and doing it with everyone's best interests in mind, and that's, you know, that's our job as the CEO right?
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, you would hope so. Right, and not always the case. You're, uh, you're, a diamond in the rough and you're not. Uh, other people are, are, are more deceitful. Uh, then those things need to be kept under. You know, you know, but you did the right thing. He asked me I. He asked me 100% all the time. If you can be transparent, communicate things before it gets out, like I always said, we're going to be late. First call is to the customer. Second call is the facility. Right, you let the customer know. You don't want the customer to be the last one to know anything about their load. I'm going to be the first person that knows everything about their load, and that's how you retain supporters.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, and just make sure that you have solutions in mind as you go to that customer with the information. So the worst thing you can do is just let them know hey, this thing's going to be late with no backup plan. No, this is why or not even the why, necessarily as much as this is what we're going to do about it. Whether it's this driver fell off, I got a new guy who's going to grab it tomorrow and he'll be there at 8 am or whatever.
Matt O'Mara:Typical. You see, all these guys posted everything on LinkedIn what they can do heavy, overweight loads. All these guys posted everything on LinkedIn what they can do heavy, all overweight loads. All these things. We've been doing those for years. We do deliveries to Navy pair, we do Nate delivery. We just did some deliveries to the uh, the art Institute. So when we do these deliveries, we generally send somebody into survey, right, what's the best time, what's what directions the driver coming in? We, we plot out all these things because in this business, uh, you know it's getting different now.
Matt O'Mara:It was a lot worse before, but everybody's always set up to fail and then they fail and everybody points at the driver, the driver, the bad driver, um, and then people want to quit their jobs and, and so when you set people up to be successful and they're actually successful, then they want to stay at their job because they feel it's important that they're constantly and and you know, if you're the ceo you want to you want to see people feeling like they're winning, whether they're winning for you or the company. It builds confidence in their life. Like I always tell everybody I'm like treat customers, your supporters, how you want to be treated right. It's that. It's really that simple and you'll get better results, right? You know you want.
Matt O'Mara:You want to be told what's going on with whatever. You know first. You want to be the last person to know. You want to be told what's going on with whatever First. You want to be the last person to know. You want to be treated fairly. You want to pay a fair price. If you can pay more doesn't mean you want to pay more, right? I will pay more for better service, so I would expect that I would get more for my better service. But I always feel like we're constantly giving better service than I receive in the real world and I have to answer for the times that we don't, and it's disappointing. You know, you feel it. You're like oh, you know, I always say every time the team fails, I've failed as a leader, I failed to give the proper support, I've failed to give the proper SOP. You know, whatever the case may be, so I share that failure with my team, right?
Andrew Silver:You mentioned that you guys get into kind of the niches and you know earlier you said I mean you mentioned doing deliveries to Navy Pier, the Art Institute, and that's not your typical freight. You also earlier in the show you mentioned you have a knack for making lemonade out of lemons and it sounds like a lot of your business has been focused on kind of building riches and niches, whether it's hazardous or overweight, whatever it may be. Whether it's hazardous or overweight, whatever it may be, I'm curious one, why did you choose to chart that path for your business? And two, what kind of challenges has that created for building the right kind of driver workforce to support that challenging type of freight?
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, yeah. Well, again, we're not biased about any freight. We really make our bread and butter on volume. Like you know, people will call us today and go. You know, I got 20 containers last free day. Today. They need to deliver tomorrow. If the shipper could take them, we're going to deliver.
Matt O'Mara:Right, that's where, you know, know, we're the most valuable, but at the same time, we do oversized tankers uh, hazmat, all the things that you talk about and uh, we move tons of reefers over 100, you know, 100 reefers, probably 150, 200 reefers a um, those are things that you need support for. You need good drivers for you know, if it's pharmaceutical or mayonnaise or whatever it is, um, you know those. Those are the things that you have to be. You have to be capable of doing it. We can do high volume. Uh, you know we have a lot of customers that, uh, they have a high volume uh product and they don't want it pulled from the rail until it's coming to their door, right, and so they have 50 containers that have to go, you know, over two days that, well, not a lot of carriers are going to be able to move 50 containers over two days, right, how is your business even situated in a way where you can support such a massive like influx overnight?
Andrew Silver:I mean, it's not. You're not like brokering that right, you're using all your own.
Matt O'Mara:Yes, we never got into brokering because I didn't want to compete with my supporters. Got it.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, I see all these carriers that have their brokerages and all these things, and I felt like our position in this industry was to support however our customers want it right, they don't want us to compete against them, they want us to support them. So that's kind of what we've always tried to do is just be you know the operational end for them, the actual nuts and bolts, and execution right. The hardest part of anything is just executing. You know, when people ask you know, how do you get in your business? Well, you have to take the initiative right, and then you have to have follow through. Initiative right, and then you have to have follow through. Those are the two key ingredients is a little initiative and then tons of follow through, because everybody's going to tell you you're an idiot. They say, right, it won't work, blah, blah, blah. They give you a hundred million reasons why you're going to fail and you don't even know you're oblivious to it because you're like I'll never fail, I'm right, right, I mean, that's the way you're feeling. So I always felt like if you're not, if you're not with me, you're against me, right, and so you know you're either on my team and we're going to crush it, or I don't know and you're just somebody I used to know, because I have plenty of those people as well, right, people that knew me in the early days. They probably wouldn't say the nicest things about me, but the fact of the matter is 29 years in the Chicago intermodal market, you don't think I've seen some stuff. So I've got great experience and knowledge and wisdom and every day it becomes better because I'm still willing to learn. I'm still learning. I learned from my younger team patience, understanding, empathy, but at the same time they're excited about all the things that we're doing, like initiatives that we have.
Matt O'Mara:We have our own lifts. We use uh. We use ai for order entry, uh, ai for our cameras at our facilities. We use ai on the truck. We got ai cameras in the truck. So I actually have employees that will sit there and coach the drivers if they see him speeding in real time. Oh, wow, where you know. Uh, we're doing all those things in real time because I learned when I was 16, andrew, I had to go to court for a speeding ticket and the judge told me that ignorance was not a defense in his court and he had that defense. That means you can't say I don't know. You have to know. It's your job to know.
Matt O'Mara:So yeah, I mean if people ask if I would retire or sell. I don't know how does it feel when you sell something like that. How does it feel for you?
Andrew Silver:At Molo we built a great company and I'm proud of the work we did. We knew when to ask for help, and sometimes that meant going outside of our own company. I'm proud we built an ecosystem of trusted partners like Metaphora. When we needed differentiated industry expertise in business consulting or technology services, we looked at Peter Ryan and the team at Metaphora. They've consistently delivered value in the transportation and logistics space for over a decade for mid-market and enterprise brokers, for shippers, carriers, private equity and freight tech companies. At Molo we use Metaphor to solve problems we simply couldn't on our own. Metaphor is the only partner you should trust to help you win, whether that's doing ops and tech diligence, growing revenue, optimizing spend or selecting and building software. Go check them out at metaforanet. That's M-E-T-A-F-O-R-A dot net Not good, I mean. I think everybody's different. There are parts of it that felt really good. The financial windfall was the first time I experienced something like that. I was happy with that, but I need to be building. I was happy with that, but I need to be building and.
Matt O'Mara:I missed that a lot.
Andrew Silver:But that was the plan, that wasn't to leave. So I think that happened and it wasn't by choice. But I also think ignorance isn't an excuse, as you said. So there are probably some things I could have done contractually on the front end of that deal that would have protected me better. And then there are some things I could have done in the business after the acquisition that probably would have protected me better if I had just been better, if I had handled things better, dealt with issues better.
Andrew Silver:I was frustrated by things that I disagreed with and I didn't do a good job of navigating that in a way that made them want to keep me much longer, which is why they didn't. So you know, I think I've told people I've been out for two years and almost two months now and the first year was a lot of anger and resentment and frustration and I'm glad that has dissipated and that's gone Now. You know I've got the show, which has been a lot of fun, but it doesn't really fill my cup enough. I've thought about pushing that into. You know building a media type business. You know something to give our industry more interesting insights from people like yourself. I've got the network to keep bringing guys like yourself on the show, and you know there's maybe other ways to leverage all your insights into different ways for people to digest it. Not everyone wants to sit and listen for an hour and a half or an hour and 15 minutes of guys like you and I talking.
Andrew Silver:But at the end of the day, what I'm realizing is I miss the grind, I miss the stress. I mean I miss feeling like your back's against the wall. I miss feeling accountable to 500 employees that we need to make something happen in the next few months and grow, or else we're not going to be able to keep all these employees or hire more of them. I miss that stuff a lot and I'm young, so I've still got the energy and I'm playing a lot of pickleball, if I'm being honest. First it was a lot of golf. I've transitioned to a lot of pickleball because Chicago golf weather is not year-round, but I need more to do and I'm sure there are people that will listen to this and say, man, touch some fricking grass. Like I would pay to be in your position of not necessarily working and yeah, it was great for a while, but I miss it. So that's my two cents. I don't know how you would spend your time if you sold, but probably some golf, I would assume.
Matt O'Mara:But I'd golf myself to death? Yeah, no, so you assume. But I'd golf myself to death, yeah, no, so you know, people always ask that. You know, I never thought about it. I always thought I'd just be that crazy old guy to push the broom in the shop. And they're like, yeah, let's see, I don't kind of talk to him, he's angry.
Andrew Silver:So he owns the place, but leave him alone. If you talk to him, he might make a decision at this point.
Matt O'Mara:He's 85 yeah, so I don't, I don't know. You know that actually would probably scare me then.
Andrew Silver:But after talking to you I'm even more frightened now I mean, does it fill your cup every day to show up to work?
Matt O'Mara:it, it does I, you know, uh gives me my purpose yeah, talk to me about that.
Andrew Silver:What, what about it? What about it fills you up? What about it gives you purpose? Uh, just you know um.
Matt O'Mara:What about it gives you purpose? Just, you know, seeing everyone interacting with everyone. Coaching I do a lot of coaching now. You know that's rewarding. I never had a mentor. I always had people I looked up to, but I never had a mentor. So, you know, I would like to mentor some, you know some young people, and that's what I'm doing here and that's important.
Matt O'Mara:I, you know I don't know how that is for you I get asked to be on boards and stuff at all the time and I'm like you know I don't want to sound, you know, like you know, I'm all whimsy, right, if I'm going to spend time, I want to spend time with a driver dispatcher. You know I, I go up with guys and play golf on the weekends. I'm all. I'm all in on my business and my people, you know. So when we have meetings, it's great to see you know the drivers. I don't, I mean we have. It's great to see you know the drivers. I don't, I mean we have.
Matt O'Mara:It's. It's disgusting. I got like 40 care packages in the other room for drivers for driver appreciation week and they just never got here a paramount prospect and we didn't obviously do a good job getting them delivered to them. Um, but uh, you know, at the same time, I I want to celebrate drivers every day, not just one week, because I, you know, I was a driver, I am a driver. Um, a lot, a lot of people don't understand. Uh, you know, it's like anything else you do in life. Or if you're sacrificing time away and you're at menlo, well, those are you, that's your work family, right?
Andrew Silver:So you have a work family and then you have a normal family, and then so, uh, that would be like losing part of my family yeah, I mean, I resonate with everything you said because I think, ironically, one of the things there's two things I missed, probably the most um, one of which was the little interactions with people every day. They didn't have to be this grandiose. Let's sit down for an hour and let me teach you how to be great. None of that nonsense, but just running into people as they're doing their job and just giving them a little bit of support and seeing that they appreciate that, letting them know that you know that Smithfield or Kroger or Aldi really appreciates them. Like when I would get notes from those customers saying, hey, you know, taylor Krug is a stud, he's killing it on my business. And I could go tell Krug hey, krug, missile, you're crushing it. I just heard from Smithfield they love you. And like the smile you get from that like those are the things that I missed. Those are the things that fill my cup being able to create like I always thought we didn't, like people would be, like you created so much opportunity for us. It's like, dude, we, we opened the door and you had to run through it. And like you did all the work, you deserve all the credit I miss.
Andrew Silver:I miss that Like I miss that a lot. The other thing I miss that a lot. The other thing I miss is selling and being in front of customers and feeling like you know, I think that a CEO who hasn't sold is never going to be as good as a CEO who has, who hasn't sold for their supper, because you just you have to know how hard it is to actually put the food on the table. I don't believe in anyone who's going to set expectations for people if they haven't done that job. And to have a CEO who comes from a finance background and they're like we need to hit these numbers, we need to grow by 30% this year.
Andrew Silver:It's like, bro, you've never sent an email 40 times in two years to someone and not got a single response until the 41st. You've never called someone 15 times over the course of six months and been hung up on 14 of them before they finally gave you five minutes of their time. So don't talk to me about 30% growth until you've sat in that seat and done that, and that's just my take. But I missed that. That is what got there. Like you mentioned, you know you get a hundred emails that you don't want you get. You know, maybe you get one email you want. There was nothing I loved more than seeing that email come in as a response from from a potential customer who I'd reached out to and, like that, caught me more excited than anything, and I missed that a lot, right right, you have supporters, customers.
Matt O'Mara:when they give you the gratitude, you have to share it with everybody, because everybody's sharing this shit, right? Oh man, we shit every day, all day long. So to get back to that, though, I yeah, I always say I'm a whale hunter, right, I kill the whale, and then everybody's got to dice that thing up. So we're, you know, know, probably not the best thing to say for peter, and I'm not killing any. I'm not killing any, it's a hypothetical whale. I'm killing or slay a dragon. You know, I have a couple customers that I always tell them I go, I don't care how big and nasty and how much fire he shoots, you know, I'll slay a dragon for you.
Matt O'Mara:It doesn't matter and actions speak louder than words. A lot of my young Zs they don't know isms, so I make them tell me isms all the time and I give them isms that they've never heard, because you know, that's just. It creates a smile. Yeah, you know, those are the kind of things that make it all worth it, right? You know, everybody acts like the business is so bad and it rags you out. And it only rags you out is if you're not properly preparing and constantly adjusting. Properly preparing and constantly adjusting, doing the necessary things to keep the pain away or keep the pain at minimum.
Matt O'Mara:So you know if you're not doing the proper things, like everybody's asking me.
Matt O'Mara:You know what do you do about the terrorists and this and that you don't know what happens until it happens, right, if I'm correct and we're going through the Chinese New Year, we're going to have a part of May and part of June. That's going to be slow, right. How long it takes, I don't know. I never thought it was about tariffs. Everybody thinks it's about tariffs. Everybody thinks it's about tariffs. It was really about China wanting to get the yuan this be the dollar traded across the world. Right, that's what we're fighting for now. It ain't nothing about it. You know, they've been robbing us of our peas, everything for years, and everybody went along with it.
Matt O'Mara:You know, and I don't want want to say nothing, but it seemed like the other side was in with you know, whatever side that is, but the last thing we want dangerous waters, you're chartering I, you know, I just want freedom and liberty, like I was told and, and this country's given me all of that, and I'm very, uh, appreciative for the state of Illinois and this country and everybody that's in it. So it's my duty to defend this country. For no other reason, it's for the fruits that has brought my family and all my many families connected to me. I think the world's way too more entitled and it should be a lot more appreciative of the little things that you do have. Right Started appreciating the little things and then you know you can graduate to appreciate the better thing, bigger things in life.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, I mean that comment and the one you made before about you know running a business and how you know.
Andrew Silver:essentially, what you're insinuating is perspective, is everything and perspective is reality perspective is reality, perception is perception is reality but perspective, like you know, you talk about getting so stressed out and and when I think about my tenure as a ceo, it's like there are times where I was very happy and like my cup was filled every day with the little things, like I said. But there were also times where I was miserable and I was angry, know, emotionally immature and and, frankly, like I, just when I look back at it, it's like it's it's all in our control to make the decision of how we perceive the world and how we perceive our situation. You and I were both and are incredibly fortunate to have the positions we've had. You have, I had, with an incredible workforce of people who show up and bust their butt every day to make our businesses great. And, yeah, if you just focus on the five emails you got with issues and you let those issues cloud how you see the world, you're going to be angry, and I, you know.
Andrew Silver:I just started reading this book it's in my hand now because I wanted to read this quote Emotional Intelligence and it's like the first kind of quote in the book from Aristotle Anyone can become angry, that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way. That is not easy and it just shows the power of managing your emotions in a way that allows you to be very in control. And, you know, anger is not a bad emotion, it's a natural emotion that we all feel. But how you navigate anger, how you navigate stress, that's what matters. And to be, you know, an explosive angry person who comes down on their team all the time because little issues left and right, that's what matters. And to be an explosive angry person who comes down on their team all the time because little issues left and right, that's who I was at times. That's a bad leader.
Andrew Silver:But to be someone who allows themselves to feel anger and then navigate it in an emotionally mature way, where they don't just spout off and realize like okay, these issues happen, well, let's take a breath, let's figure out what the solution is like you pointed to earlier, successful people are people who focus on solutions, who create solutions, not people who, just you know, get stressed out and blow up and create more problems for themselves, whether it's resentful employees who don't want to help them or customers who see the dark side of them that they don't, you know, want to do business with whatever it is. You know, just it's I. These conversations, especially with strong leaders who really run successful businesses, I always point me back to realizing like we are always in control of our perspective If we, if we, if we have the fortitude to be, and doing so in a mature way, is the difference between being a good business leader and being a bad one.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, well, you know that's something they don't teach in school. So I don't know if you're a bad leader of your just first time leader. Okay, cause I felt the same way. I was the same way the day-to-day grind. You want to be a great person, you want to be a good person, you want to do all these things, but you let all this build up on you and then you react. Like you said, I would like to see him teach three things in school emotional intelligence, common sense and self-awareness. You teach every child that and we're going to have a world that's crushing it, right? I mean, those are the most important, I feel, and you can then decipher all the things that come at you on a daily basis.
Matt O'Mara:So I wouldn't say you're a bad leader, because that would make me a bad leader because I behave the same way Very reactionary and that's because we weren't taught, uh, emotional intelligence. You have to either learn it or don't right, you learn it from interaction in the world, uh so and and self awareness.
Andrew Silver:You learn it through self-awareness.
Matt O'Mara:You have to be willing to look in the mirror.
Andrew Silver:But I'm just. You know, the only reason I'm able to say the things I am is because I was willing to look in the mirror. I could have ignored it all and been like screw you, I'm a great leader. I built one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. I can say that.
Andrew Silver:I could say I, I, I, me, me, me, I did this. Look at the numbers, you're wrong, I'm right, but it's probably are true. But I think it starts with the self. You can't get to the emotional intelligence if you don't, as you said, go to the self-awareness first. You have to be willing to look in the mirror.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, it's enlightening when you do, when you do Like I said, I feel happier than I ever have in my life when you can be transparent, say all the things that you want to say, obviously within good taste or whatever the case may be. But it's very liberating for me now, like, I get frustrated when people can't tell me how they really feel. That's that's just uh, that's very depressing for me. You know, if you, you can't tell me an honest feeling I'm a grown man, honest feeling. You know, when I, when I finally meet people, they're like oh, when I first met you, I didn't like you, you know, and it turns out you're a nice guy. Well, I was always a nice guy, right? I mean, obviously my first impression wasn't good, right? Then I had other people like oh, you know, you scare me. I'm like oh, I'm like 5'10". I'm not even that tall. Why am I scaring you? You know, and I guess you know, I'm like the mean mug.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, or I have this like Darth Vader aura when I walk into a room. So, but no, no, no, so, um, but no, I'm just like you, right? I love pickleball. You know, I love playing golf. Uh, these are things that I enjoy. Um, I love freight, I love being in the business. Do I get my, you know, do my ass handed to me? Yeah, I, you know, I, I go home all the time, you know, wow, I was um, but you know, then we make up an ism and we make up a saying, or we go hey, remember that time when this happened, or, you know, that's part of life, just living over here, you know, where. You know, I hope to someday be like Han Solo. You know, maybe I'm moving freighters from Mars to here or something, I don't know.
Andrew Silver:That'd be great. Yeah, I would love to see that. Well, listen, this has been awesome. Um, I don't know if I've got anything left for you. Um, anything else you want to touch on before we go, other than you and I need to commit to a golf around a golf in the near term yeah, that'd be great, do you?
Matt O'Mara:you have a handicap.
Andrew Silver:It's not good but I'm a 16-9 right now. I did just make the playoffs with my member guest in Cabo with my partner. He carried us, but we made the playoffs. It was fun. Alternate shot shootout we came in fifth place out of like I don't know 70. There were 11 flights of six teams, so 66 teams Not bad.
Matt O'Mara:Would you say you learn a lot from playing golf with somebody.
Andrew Silver:I think you can learn a lot about a person from playing golf with someone, and for a long time I was someone that you learned. I was a very angry person for a while. Um, to be a bad golfer and an angry golfer who like breaks their clubs is just stupid. And I say that as someone who is looking in the mirror and was that person.
Andrew Silver:I've developed a way more carefree approach to it, because it's a really hard game and it's not something you just get good at by playing all the time, which is another thing I think some people maybe can get better. I mean, you can improve incrementally by playing a lot. But as someone who had a bunch of free time and played a ton, my handicap dropped from like a 21 to 16, 17,. But I still suck in my mind and you need to go get help. You need lessons. There's a lot of things about my game that need to improve. That's why I'm playing a lot more pickleball, because pickleball I just started playing and I've gotten really good just by playing a lot. And it's just. You got good hand. I had a hand coordination. Yeah, I got good hand.
Matt O'Mara:I, I got good hand I so when I was a kid, ball with my dad all the time at the Y on Northwest Highway, and you know that's just that little hard ball. You ever play handball. So I played I've never played handball, yeah. And then racquetball and now you know pickleball. So yeah, you learn. I always like to go out and golf with somebody because you really you know you get a good feeling for that person, right, how they're at a kid, whatever.
Matt O'Mara:For me, when we talked about that, you know I'll be a better person Driving home. I let everybody in front of me, right? I go into a building, I open the door for people, I open the door for people, I'm going out of my way. But naturally, just to be that way, right, you have to set an example all the time. You can cry about this person, that person, but if you're not constantly working on yourself to be better, you're not going to get better. So, yeah, I like to spend a little time every day trying to focus on how I can be less of a hypocrite, better leader, and being a better leader just goes with it.
Matt O'Mara:You said at the beginning support, encouragement, those go a long way. And then I don't do it enough to show your gratitude. Hey, I know I find now nobody gave a shit, right. When I was younger and I was busted in the business, somebody said hey, you know you're doing a great job. You keep up and keep it up there. You're so stupid. The trucking business is terrible, blah, blah, blah. And now I get yelled at if I'm not giving out enough accolades. So that's another thing. Right, I have to constantly go. Hey, thanks, I appreciate everything, you know.
Matt O'Mara:You know, business in may or may not drop off. You know, like I said I'm I'm anticipating May, june, chinese New Year, otherwise there's not going to be a lot of stuff for the kids to go back to school, or it's all going to be a lot of stuff for the kids to go back to school, or it's all going to be from indonesia or, you know, bangladesh or whatever. And and that's scary, right the the world and I don't think is that are going on right now with uh, pakistan and india going, you know having a you know border dispute or whatever they're doing over there. That's, that's scary. You know what's going on in the world. We need more people to uh have less hate in their heart.
Andrew Silver:Yeah, that's a topic for another day, um, but I'm with you. It'd be great if we could figure that out. Um, listen, this has been awesome. I really have enjoyed having you on. I usually ask people at the end for some advice they'd give, but you just gave it in the last five minutes and it was really good sound advice for how to just be a better person, not just better leader.
Matt O'Mara:Yeah, don't eat yellow snow.
Andrew Silver:Don't eat yellow snow. We'll end with that. Don't eat yellow snow, Listen. Thank you so much to our audience. This was a great episode. I'm sure you all know that. If you've gotten to this point and if you want to learn more about Whimsy, reach out to Matt O'Mara on LinkedIn or find him online Whimsyintermodalcom. Whimsyintermodalcom for all your Midwest intermodal needs. Thanks, Matt. Thank you, Andy. Great talking to you. Appreciate it. Have a good one. See you guys. Thank you.
