00:06 You know, I shared the space with Rosie O’Donnell when she was in her early 20s and David Spade when he was just a kid. And I was even on the same bill as Robin Williams at one time when he was just starting out. And everybody knew that he was the star. Everybody knew that he was just going to be who he turned out to be, just the most fabulous. I mean, and a great guy, too. And I made a lot of money and I squandered a lot of money and I drove fancy cars and lived in the big mansion and finally one day I woke up and I was 50 and I needed another job so I got my commercial driver’s license.

00:41 Welcome to Six-Figure Trucker, the podcast where we share advice on how to be successful in trucking and have fun while doing so. We’ll share stories, news, and advice on how to earn six figures in trucking. And we’ll speak to guys and gals that are already doing so. Let’s get to the show. Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker, which of course you know is brought to you by Norton Transport. I’m your host, John Madewell. And this is a space, if you join us each and every week, you know, that’s where we lift up the truck driver, which is not always the case in the country, but this is a space where we elevate and celebrate the drivers and we talk in and out with the drivers about life on the road, off the road, their hobbies, their passions, what driveaway has done for them, some of the challenges they’ve faced, some of the successes they’ve had. We try to roll all that together here for you on the Six-Figure Trucker. And we got a very special guest here with us this evening this week. Philip Burge Jr. Philip, how are you?

01:41 I’m doing fantastic, thank you.

01:44 Where are you, Philip? And have you been on the road this week? Or did you take off for the 4th of July or what was your week like?

01:51 Well, I was busy as I always am. You know, if the wheels ain’t turning, I’m not earning. So, I try to keep those wheels going as best I can. And after a couple days at home, sir, my wife kind of looks at me like, “What are you still doing here? Why aren’t you up out on the road?” So, yeah, I took I worked a half week for y’all. I delivered a nice truck in Nashville, Tennessee, and I stopped after my shift. And maybe I had a cocktail or two, but I won’t go into detail on that.

02:24 What’s your favorite cocktail?

02:25 Oh, I’m a Guinness beer drinker. I’m an oldfashioned and I like drinking an old number seven Jack Daniels mixed with a little bit of Coke for some extra flavor.

02:36 Oh, you’re a brother from another mother, man. I love Kennes. I think it’s my favorite beer. I think it’s the best beer out there. I’m a bourbon guy. Just a straight bourbon guy. But that’s good to hear. I mean, it’s a well- earned cocktail, I’m sure, out there on the road.

02:48 Oh, yes, sir. It’s a nice refresher at the end of the day. And nothing better than finding a location with a bunch of fellas or a bunch of pretty girls and having an ice cold Guinness to finish your day.

03:03 I gotcha. You know, let’s talk about that life on the road. I was thinking about this before we got recording. We’ve talked to a lot of drivers, but give us the real skinny from a guy that’s got so much experience like you do. What is life like on the road? Is it lonely? Is it boring? Or is it energizing? What is it for you? Well, for me I enjoy the freedom of the road. I like looking out that big windshield at America and I enjoy the solace because I’ve got seven children and I got still four of them still at home and I got a pack of dogs and I have a large home and a big garden. So, for me, being actually on the road is kind of my respit from the trials and tribulations of staying at home.

03:48 Gotcha. Now, you’d made a mention to us before we got you have a collection of sorts.

03:54 Well, I haven’t been so lucky in love. I’m on my fourth wife, but you know, you figure how many guys have bought four wedding rings. And how many guys are lucky enough to fall in love four times? That’s the way I like to look at it. Got no regrets. And I think after trial and error, I found the perfect wife. And she’s from Mexico, so she understands the value of hard work. And I have children from age 10 all the way up to 28 and I love them all and they all called me on Father’s Day. So that was probably the greatest day of my life.

04:26 That’s awesome. That is awesome. You strike me definitely as a guy that’s a half full guy. Half full glass, not a half empty.

04:33 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I’m fortunate. I’m almost 65 and you know in this job, John, you know, I there’s really no limit to it. I try to eat well and I try to get enough rest, which of course is very hard for truckers. But I really think that I could do this for another 10 or 15 years long as my eyesight holds up and my body holds up. But the work, you just got to pay attention. You got to be off your phone. You got to pay attention. Your logs got to be ready. You got to be what I would tell young drivers is be prepared to be stopped. So when you’re stopped, you have everything out and you be super polite to the officer and 99% of the time they’ll just let you go in a matter of moments cuz you’re ready.

05:20 You know, we’ve been doing this show for quite a while and I’ve never heard that expression, but it’s a great one. Be prepared to be stopped—

05:26 Right? Have all your ducks in a row.

05:28 That’s great advice, man.

05:30 That’s just it. You know, have your ducks in a row and realize that every small town you come into, you’re going 65, but now you’re at 40 and you got to drop down quickly cuz there’s a peace officer waiting at the end of the town and waiting at the beginning of the town just to write through that ticket because they need to fill their coffers.

05:49 Yeah. Be mindful of that every town you go through. You’re exactly right.

05:53 Absolutely.

05:53 That’s sage advice right there. Now, when we said that Philip, do you go by Phil or Philip?

06:00 My family called me, my close family called me Phil, but my friends and my associates called me Philip. But hey, I don’t care what you call me as long as you don’t call me late for dinner.

06:12 There you go. There you go. You probably have picked up here that Phil Philip is a funny guy. And you’ve got some you’ve actually made some money being funny. Is that right? Well, I made a little bit and I made a lot of friends doing standup on the West Coast. I’m originally from San Diego and Los Angeles areas and back in the roaring 80s when money was flowing and everybody was getting rich. There was a lot of opportunity for young comics. So I did a circuit and I had a lot of fun and I had great nights and then I had nights where I just fell on my face.

06:45 That’s tough. I mean to be a stand-up comedian I would imagine that’s tough. It’s a hard job because everybody’s, you know, everybody’s in their early 20s or early 30s. And if you don’t make it by the time you’re like 24 or 27, then the road just gets longer and longer and longer. So after many years of doing standup and doing commercials and those types of things, I just I needed a new job. So I pivoted as they say. And I was a business owner for many years on the West Coast and I made a lot of money and I squandered a lot of money and I drove fancy cars, lived in the big mansion and hung out with you know the stars and then finally one day I woke up and I was 50 and I needed another job so I got my commercial driver’s license.

07:36 Gotcha. Now I want to kind of go back to your stand-up comedian life there. What kind of material did you do? Well, I tried to do topical material on things that were happening at the time. So, you know, of course, Ronald Reagan was in office then. So, we did a lot of Ronald Reagan jokes and I tried to be a clean comic. You know, I didn’t swear. And that got me a lot of jobs. I could do cruise ships. I could do a lot of places that a lot of the other comics couldn’t because maybe there was their material was a little bit, you know, laced with profanity and— Yeah, I could do my show for just about anybody and be welcomed back.

08:17 That’s cool. That is cool.

08:18 And a lot of my constituents and other people just couldn’t. But yeah, it’s a real you know, trucking is hard, but I’m telling you, being a stand-up comic is much harder.

08:29 And the pay wasn’t great and there was always a promise of the next day. And you know, a few made it and most just didn’t. But, you know, I shared the stage with Rosie O’Donnell when she was in her early 20s and David Spade when he was just a kid and I was even on the same bill as Robin Williams at one time when he was just starting out. And everybody knew that he was the star. Everybody knew that he was just going to be who he turned out to be just the most fabulous and a great guy, too.

09:03 A great guy.

09:03 That guy, I mean, he can make you laugh. I remember watching him. Absolutely. I saw the same stick, same set four or five times. I still rolled off the couch laughing. It was funny. Fourth, fifth time. Guy was just funny.

09:16 Well, I Yeah, but he never His show changed every night. The whole thing about him was the improvisation, John, and the fact that he could—

09:26 He could make you laugh and he did the facial contortions and he did this all from just a genius standpoint. No, he was never taught. I’m sure he never sat down and worked with riders to go over their lines and did timing. He just— He was it. He was the best.

09:43 Yeah. Natural. Natural. Absolutely. You know, you were talking about being a standup is tougher than being a trucker. What’s it like? I mean, I’m sure you’ve had experiences where you killed it and others where you, as you said earlier, fell on your face. I mean, how tough is it to get up when you’re telling jokes and getting no laughs? Well, you need a lot of liquid courage is what you need because you need to have a couple of cocktails before you get up there. And you need to be you need to read the crowd, too. I mean, you can’t do a Disney crowd one way and then do, you know, a mechanic crowd the same way. You just have to you have to read the audience and you need a good first line to get them to accept you and acknowledge you. And if it’s going wrong, you need to pivot. You need some material you can fall back on.

10:32 Gotcha.

10:32 So, a lot of times you’ll try your hand at something, sir, and it’s just not working. It’s just not the right crowd. So, you pivot to some material. I had a regular set of material that I used that was always it was going to be a B night. In other words, I wasn’t going to kill it, but I wasn’t going to get it thrown off the stage, and I was going to be invited back. And that that’s the main thing. A lot of these clubs they the comedy store for example in La Hoya, California is part of San Diego. I mean if you didn’t do great you just weren’t called back. And back then they had the improv. There was another chain stores and they didn’t have casinos like they have now. A lot of these guys can just make their living and even old rock and roll bands. To just make their living off casino because casinos really don’t care how well you do because they just want you to bring people in because if they’ve got 2,000 people to see your show if you’re not great, well that’s fine. They’re still getting rooms and they’re still dropping money on the tables.

11:31 That’s exactly right.

11:34 So that’s what’s keeping, you know, your mid-range rock and roll bands going because they’re not going to sell enough tickets, but that’s not the point. The point is getting people in the building.

11:43 I got you. Philip Birds Jr. Here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. And as Philip alluded to, he’s been on the road a long time and I checked his profile with us. You’ve been with Norton Transport for 11 years, 5 months. And thank you, first of all, for your service with us.

12:00 Oh, you’re making me feel old now, John. Now, now you’re making— Oh, wait a minute. I am old. Right.

12:07 11 years, five months. That’s one of our most tenure drivers. And you’re in a select company there. And I looked a little deeper into your profile. You did 110 months prior to coming to Norton. So you’ve been on the road. I mean, this is a hard question to answer, but I’m sure you’ve logged millions of miles.

12:27 I’ve logged over a million and a half miles.

12:29 Wow.

12:30 Accident free.

12:32 Kudos to you, man. Accident free, million and a half. That’s hard to say. I mean, have you been able to keep those violations down to a minimum?

12:41 Yes. I the only violations I had prior were primarily I’m on I used to be lazy on my logs when it was a paper logs and a lot of times you know truckers were in a hurry and I might have been working for two or three companies at one time. So what we have those oldfashioned liar logs you know so we had a blue one for one company and we had a red one for another and a yellow one for another. And once in a while, you know, you got if you’re an hour from home, for example, you’re not going to stop. I mean, you do now, but back then, you would just roll with it and hope for the best, which is a very bad idea. When it when you’re 11 hours is up, you just need to stop. There’s too many people on the road.

13:23 Too many people on the road now that can catch you. And look at, you know, at this point, you guys are paying me good and I need this job and no one’s gonna pay me the $50 to $75 an hour that I’m making for you anywhere else.

13:37 Simple as that.

13:38 We That’s good to hear. We like to hear that. And you know, you were talking about logs. You go back far enough to back when it was paper logs and now we’re all electronic. What do you see as the pluses and the minuses when you compare the two? Well, the only plus on the paper logs is that you could cheat real easy and you could probably get away with it and you could run more miles, but also that lent to you being a poor driver because of course you’re tired and you’re stretching the limit. And if you wanted to really work it, it was difficult with the paper logs. Once you get the hang of the electronic logs, you don’t have to try and my eyesight isn’t great, you know, in my advancing years.

14:26 So, it was difficult to get in with that 15 minute or even the 30 minute areas on those paper logs. So, now via the electronic logs, you can do it much easier. And if you make a mistake, you can go back and fix it.

14:41 Sure. That’s always—

14:42 You couldn’t you could right you couldn’t fix it with the paper logs but with the electronic logs and it was harder for some older drivers. I was working for another company years ago and I was let go because my logs were always a mess and my response was well do you want boy scouts or do you want drivers? They said we want boy scouts that that are good drivers. So that was it. I won’t mention the name of the company, but I’m on their do not hire backlist. I called a couple years ago. No, we don’t want you back. So, you’re fine.

15:15 Hey, you’re good with us, man. I mean, with a million and a half miles—

15:19 You got a great crew of people over there. I’d like to call out, you know, Thomas Van and I’d like to call out Amanda Fielding. Those have been my primary dispatchers for the last few years and Payton and some of the other fellas that have come and gone. But, you know, I’ll tell you about Norton is that I’m dealing with honest people. I’m good. I’m dealing with good, honest, you know church driven people that I never worry about my pay. I never worry about them asking me do something I don’t want to do. And, as long as you stay within the rules, you know, you’ve got a job there for life.

15:58 Well, I’ll be honest with you. You were recommended first by Thomas Vin because I was asking I said I need to find a good podcast guest and he said Philip Burge Jr. And so Thomas recommended you and then before I got in touch with you today I talked to Amanda and she said he’s solid. She said you can depend on Philip Burge.

16:17 Well, they must have got the checks that I sent him or something to make sure that that little Mida the little brides that I sent that first. So, I’m glad to hear they said that. Well, don’t be modest because I mean obviously you’ve earned that reputation in a million and a half miles you put in the road work and have done it and like we were saying 11 years, 5 months with Norton Transport. We’re very very thankful to have you on board and you know, you were talking about kind of sharing your knowledge with drivers out there and we’ve kind of touched on this topic with other drivers. There’s a network. It’s a brotherhood, a sisterhood among drivers.

16:54 Oh, absolutely. Yes.

16:55 Specifically with driveaway drivers, have you had some examples out on the road where you’ve run into other maybe Norton drivers or other driveaway drivers that may be in a jam, maybe in a pickle, maybe at a loss of what to do? Can you share a story or two with us about how you helped them out?

17:11 Well, one time not too long ago, a young man, a recent immigrant to the United States, he took a job and he didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. And he was going to Minneapolis and the load was picking up in Laredo and he just was lost. And so I took the time to show him cuz he had no idea how to how to ship these gears. He told me, “Philip, we got a big problem.” And I said, “What is that?” His name was Gustavo. I said, “Gustavo, what’s our problem?” He said, “This has got three— It’s got three pedals and there’s a big stick in the middle.”

17:48 Yeah.

17:50 I said, “Gustavo, that’s called a clutch.” And the thing in the middle is your gear shift. He said, “Oh, I’ve never seen one before.” He said, “But I promise this load.” I said, “We’re going to do this. We’re going to tape up the lower gears. I’m going to put you only in only in the high gears and just drive it like a car.” I said, ” that I said, you have no weight. You’ve got no weight. So you can start in the fifth or the sixth gear and then skip a gear and just go, you know,”

18:21 Five, seven, eight, nine. Right. Exactly. And I said, “This is illegal. Don’t do this. Make this a habit.” But I said, “Just put it into neutral when you’re coming to a stop and then just start over once you get the hang of it.” I said, “And you’ll probably get the hang of it by the time you get to about Nebraska.” And by the end of the trip, by the end of the tip trip, Johnny called me. He said, “Yeah, I made all the Minneapolis and I was able to take that tape off and I learned to drive the whole thing the whole way thanks to you after 2,000 miles. Now, now I can drive a stick shift.”

18:53 Man, that’s a great thing to pass along to give him a life skill behind the wheel. I mean, you know, kudos to you for that.

19:01 Well, and also, you know, he didn’t want to disappoint you guys either.

19:04 Yeah.

19:04 I mean, kudos to kudos for him. He could have easily said, “Well, I can’t drive this and I quit.” But, you know, he had a family to support and he had commitments and he made a commitment to Norton Transport that he was going to deliver this truck.

19:18 Mhm.

19:18 So, you know, I was able to help him get out the lot—

19:22 And get him down the road, but he was the one that figured it out—

19:26 For the remaining, you know, 1980 miles.

19:30 Yeah—

19:30 He figured it out. So, and I’ve seen him on the road since and he thanked me again. But, you know, unfortunately, we don’t see a lot of manual shifts anymore. It’s a kind of a rarity these days.

19:41 Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

19:42 But he was able to do that and I’ve had plenty of Norton drivers help me out in a pinch. Like the time that my airbag went bad and somebody knew how to fix it by bypassing one of the lines on the bottom and doing a daisy chain to make that thing power up. I mean I can’t tell you the number of drivers that there’s a driver that used to work for your named Mr. Presley and he was a Marine. So this guy was probably 10 years older than me. He looked 20 years younger than me. Didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. And he just climb he’s climbing up the truck like it’s a monkey, you know, and you know, he was just amazing.

20:20 And I asked him how long you been doing this and he said he’d been doing it for 30 years.

20:24 Wow.

20:24 And so he is kind of my idol. And he must have weighed maybe a buck 75. He was six feet tall. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on the guy. And what an amazing driver.

20:35 Just a picture of health right there. And a great driver. Picture of hell. Yeah, I look at myself in the mirror, you know, I hold up pretty well, but man, this guy was a real deal. Was a real deal. And he might still work for you.

20:47 Now, talking about Philip’s experience here, I was looking at your credentials tanker, doubles, triples, right-hand, manual. There’s basically nothing you can’t drive.

21:00 Yeah. Plus, it’s got five wheels and one of them is a steering wheel. I could probably drive it.

21:06 Now, you’ve been driving, let me do the quick math, 110 months. That’s 10 years plus 11. So, you’ve been driving more than 20 years.

21:16 I’ve been driving about 18, correct? I did my tour and working for a mega carrier. I worked in the oil field for two years up in Oklahoma where the only thing stopping that Canadian wind was that barbwire fence. I worked doing sand here locally in East Texas just driving a sand truck. You know, I drove for Fredo. I pinched in at my local school and drove the school bus for a week because the school bus driver was sick and they needed a school bus driver. So we ran down and got my passenger endorsement and you know I took off a week from going over the road and did that for my children.

22:00 That’s cool man. That’s cool. Fredo, that’s what Plano, Texas. Is that home base for them?

22:06 I live in Palestine, Texas, which is in the eastern part of the state. It’s a little town home of Adrien Peterson, the great running back.

22:13 Oh yeah.

22:14 From the Minnesota Vikings. This is his hometown. And just a great little town. It’s almost 200 years old and I live in a 150 year old home. I live in a an old Victorian home with three acres behind it. And when I have free time, you know, I got to cut the yard. I still cut it by hand. You I still I’ve got a mower, but I push it. It doesn’t have the assist or anything. I do that to stay in shape. And I work in the garden and I enjoy a cigar and a whiskey on my porch, my big wraparound southern porch and I wave to my neighbors and they all come by and drink my whiskey because they see the truck out in front of the house.

22:54 You still push Mo 3 acres?

22:56 No, I’m pushing I’m cutting about an acre and a half. The front yard I cut is about a half acre in front and I cut about maybe an acre in the back and the rest of it is just pecan trees. So I’ve kind of let the pecan trees grow up and I have children. I have a lot of kids. So I mentioned I’ve had a lot of wives and a lot of kids. So I got some 17-year-olds in the house now. So they’re doing some of the things that maybe I used to do but not doing as much of anymore.

23:27 I want to circle back there. You said you enjoy a cigar and a whiskey there. I just finished a cigar. I just finished a cigar before calling you and I’ll have another here before the evening’s finished. What kind of cigar do you go to?

23:39 You know what? I’m a Titans guy. I’m a Titans or a Philly blunt. I’m looking for a dollar stick. I’m not the high flulutin Tommy Bahama, you know, Cuban cigar type. I wish I could, but you know, with the prices being what they are now, I got just used to the cheap ones. And I guess I’m just going to stick with them. Once in a while, a friend will bring me a nice one from El Salvador or Nicaragua. And those ones from Nicaragua are great because they’re all done by the old Cuban expats. They taste exactly the same and the same type of tobacco and they’re hand rolled just like they were in Cuba.

24:19 Yeah, you’re spot on right there. I mean, when you look at the cigars that come out of Honduras, Dominican, Nicaragua, a lot of, like you said, a lot of the families from Cuba just moved when the embargo came about. They just moved and started up operations there. And you get fine cigars from those countries.

24:35 You sure do. I don’t really taste any difference. And when I retire one day or when I win the lottery, sir, I’m gonna buy a case of them and I’m gonna call up my buddy Thomas and I’m gonna send him half of them. So—

24:49 There you go.

24:50 Well, Philip—

24:51 We all can, you know, we all dreams are free, right?

24:54 Dreams are free. Dreams are free. Now, you told us about that network where you’ve been helped and you’ve helped others. Now’s a good opportunity to help some who may be on the fence about deciding whether they want to move into driveaway or not. Give it to them straight. What would you say to somebody who’s thinking about moving into driveaway?

25:16 Well, I’ll tell them one thing. The key is how the heck you going to get out or where you’re going to go to. Don’t just take the load. You got to know where you’re going. You got to do your due diligence. I recommend working for a second company in case you know something happens. Like with one company, there are no mirrors. The mirror factory in Mexico burned down. So that company didn’t have any truck company didn’t have any trucks for two months.

25:39 Oh yeah.

25:40 So make sure you have a make sure you have a backup one and try to be looking ahead. And the key is really the travel out. I recommend to drivers, I use Frontier Airlines. I buy what’s called a Wild Pass. And a lot of the Norton drivers do too now. I see them all the time. It cost $500 to $600 for the whole year. And you can fly for taxes normally between 15 and $25 to anywhere you want to go. And that is the key to this job is being able to drop off, find another load where you’re at. And when you run out of loads, be close to an airport and fly back to an area where you know you can find a load like Jaci or Dublin, Virginia or since I’m in Texas, there’s tons of loads down here in Laredo, San Antonio, up in Dallas and Denton. I take a lot of loads from Denton to Tulsa and then I picked up a school bus in Tulsa. There’s lots of them now. There weren’t for a while. You get your pick. You take a nice load, make $1,000, go to the east coast, fly back, be in Laredo the next day.

26:44 Yeah. It’s all about minimizing your expenses and expanding your profits.

26:48 It is. Stay out of the Denny’s, stay out of expensive hotels, stay out of places going to suck your money. When you come home, you want to have money in your pocket. It’ll make your wife real happy. Come you come home with money in your pocket, she’s real happy to see you. You come home broke, she’s not going to be quite so happy to see you. There you go. Money in your pocket. The happy wife, happy life.

27:09 Happy life. That’s it. But I tell you, the freedom from this job, John, is a is the key to the job.

27:15 In other words, you don’t have working for a mega carrier, you’ll never get off the road. Their job is to keep you driving for three months at a time, you know. And the key with this is the flexibility and have fun with it. I mean, have fun with the job, right? I mean, you can go anywhere you want to go. It’s a big country. You can see everything. I will say this, it does take, do not tell the young drivers to be discouraged. It takes a little while to figure it out. I think I went broke the first six months, but I knew John that this had a future to it. And once I learned the whole thing, then it be it became much easier. But don’t be discouraged, you know, but just the key is to you know, keep your head up. You’re going to take some hits once in a while. You’re going to take a job, it’s not going to make as much money as you want, but look, most jobs are only two or three days and then you’re in another one—

28:04 Right? There’s always tomorrow. There’s always tomorrow. You know, you said something before we got started here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport and you used the phrase balance in my life and you certainly have touched on that, but kind of expand that out. How with the freedom and the I guess the choices you get in driveaway, how that helps the other aspects of your life. Well, for me, as I’m getting older, John, really about four to seven to maybe eight days on the road is enough. When I was younger, I could probably stay out 10 10 days to two weeks. But right now, you know, I’ve got teenagers at home. I’ve got 10-year-old sons still, even at my advanced age. You know, I have a wife I’d like to keep because I was on the road too much and, you know, that drove some of them away. And, with this job you could pick where you want to go. Normally Norton Transport is very flexible about when you pick up when you deliver. But it’s important to it’s important once you make a commitment John to keep that.

29:05 In other words, if you say you’re going to deliver on such and such a day, deliver on that day. Say you’re going to pick up, pick up on that day. Now, there’ll be times where you won’t be able to do that because you don’t control the travel. But just let your dispatcher know. Let her know or let him know that you’re running a day earlier, you’re running a day late, or you might be delivering a day earlier or a day late. And also you’ll get a nice little bonus if you pick up and deliver on time that performance bonuses can be up to $100 which you know buys a week’s worth of groceries.

29:34 Absolutely. I mean the bonuses we do offer about being on time particularly if you were running from say Texas to Maine or a long run Texas to Seattle wherever it may be. Those long runs I mean per mile bonuses they add up.

29:49 They sure do. They sure do. And they’re helpful in this economy that we’re living in right now. You know, every dollar counts. And you know, I work for the money, but I also work because it keeps me busy and it keeps my mind active. My father was a wealthy attorney in Los Angeles. He was a multi-millionaire and he worked up till he was 90 and he still had over 200 clients at age 90.

30:13 Wow.

30:13 And he finally had to right because he loved to work and he loved their company. And look, if you’re a wealthy investor, you don’t want to talk to a 22-y old kid just out of college. You want to talk to somebody that’s managed your money—

30:25 For 50 or 70 years.

30:28 And he enjoyed his job. And you he was a World War II vet and he was a hero. And he was really my best friend. And a lot of the things that I do in my life, I try to think about my father and—

30:40 How he would what—

30:42 Yeah. What would he have done? What would he have done exactly? And you know as a Christian I always try to ask myself what would Jesus do also? You know what cuz you’re going to be confronted every day with choices and you know you’re not always going to make the right choice but you got to make a choice but always do what feels right. You’re you’ll know it’ll be in your heart. It’ll tell you what the right thing to do is. And doing driveaway is a fun way to do it. I plan on doing this for almost 65. I plan on doing this for another 10 years. I might have to slow down and do a little bit less work, but you know, it’s something I know how to do. I can’t see going back to working for a mega carrier, and you know, I don’t really want to lift 50 lb boxes onto the back of a UPS truck.

31:32 So, this it’s a good fit for me right now. John—

31:35 That’s great to hear. Philip Birds Jr. Thank you so much for being on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Love the conversation, man. And it flew by. And just an interesting person you are and again, thank you for your 11 years and 5 months with Norton and we look forward to another 10. Thank you very much. Don’t fire me. I need to work.

32:01 Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton Transport. Norton Transport is a driveaway trucking company that customers can rely on. It offers excellent independent contract driving opportunities to professional, courteous, and qualified drivers that can provide the kind of service we deliver. If you’re interested in learning more about Norton or just want to subscribe to the show, check out Six-FigureTrucker.com. That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.