During this week’s episode of the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett is joined by Troy Austin, podcast host of TalkCDL the Trucking Podcast. During this conversation, Jeremy and Troy delve into the critical role of CB radios for truck drivers, discussing their life-saving potential by alerting drivers to road conditions. They also explore the content creation process for their podcasts, emphasizing the importance of engaging and relevant material for their listeners, the necessity of CB radios at Oakley Trucking for communication, personal stories of the impact of CB radios in the industry, and more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Troy’s background in truckingMeeting Troy Austin (1:24)
- Starting the TalkCDL Podcast (2:46)
- Family and trucking legacy (4:10)
- Content creation and motivation (6:41)
- Promoting the podcast on Facebook (11:37)
- Networking and sponsors (14:41)
- Finding and creating content (16:13)
- Audience engagement and improvement (19:29)
- The importance of quality content (19:56)
- The role of CB radios in trucking (23:13)
- Advocacy for CB radios (29:51)
- Connecting with Troy and TalkCDL (32:23)
- Final thoughts and takeaways (33:07)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.
Transcription
Troy Austin 00:12
See, these are I think one of the most important tools that a truck driver can own. I don’t care if you don’t like the foul language when there are men, okay, put up with it. It’s going to save your life. And I’ve had truck drivers say, I’ve been driving for 2 million miles, and I turned my CB off 10 years ago, and I haven’t had an accent. Well, good for you. Praise the Lord. Man. You didn’t have an accident. But I’m going to tell you something. The majority of people that don’t ever see me are gonna find trouble Sunday, because they don’t have that warning. I’m serious. Traffic up ahead of construction, how to get around things. I know Google’s a great tool. I do know that. Okay, but it can’t warn you for a couple seconds there. It can’t
Jeremy Kellett 00:53
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business, and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley Trucking, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner-operators and their families by giving them up-to-date information concerning Oakley Trucking and the trucking industry. From business advice to safety updates to success stories. Also to give an inside to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. Hey folks, welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. This Jeremy kellett director of recruiting at Oakley trucking is coming at you from Louisville, Kentucky, where it is all about trucking. We are here amongst everybody that knows anything about trucks. And if you’ve never been to Louisville, Kentucky at what we call Matt, I recommend you put it on your bucket list to come see all the things associated with the trucking industry. It’s just a fantastic place to do it. Always helpful stuff, always great people to talk to here. It’s just something that we do every year. And we encourage everybody to come out and check us out at Mass Louisville, Kentucky. So when you’re at a place like this, you get to meet a lot of people talk to a lot of people and I have found a gentleman, Troy Austin with talk CDL and he’s got a lot of same interests that Bruce Oakley has, in our trucking company as we were talking before about helping owner operators be success successful helping truck drivers be successful. And that’s something we always lock when we find somebody like that. So, you know, I invited him to come sit down with me and talk about actually his podcast that he has, which, you know, it’s been around a while and Troy appreciate you sitting down with me and visiting and kind of putting you on the other side of the table that you’re in maybe not used to all the time. But talk about your podcast, if he would introduce himself to our listeners. Well, like
Troy Austin 02:46
you said, my name is Troy and I am the host of toxic ETL. We started the podcast nine years ago. Wow. Yeah. And we’ve had other hosts on but the main co host is Ruth Ann, which would be my wife. Good. And so you know, she shouldn’t have lost her apartment and should have brought her here. She’s here. But she’s watching the booth right now. Yeah. So wait, no, she’s great. You know, she’s great on the podcast because she was married to a trucker myself. And, you know, what drove. I drove a truck for many years. And I always tell people that behind every good truck driver is a strong woman. It takes a strong woman to be married to a truck driver. Ruth Ann was one of those ladies that raised the kids if something needed to be fixed. She picked up a hammer and swung the hammer and did what she had to do to keep the family going while I was gone because I was over the road. Yeah. So you know, when we started the podcast, we finally got her on. She was a natural. Where y’all from? Well, originally, we both are from Schofield County, Pennsylvania, which is a little coal region in the Northeast. And we moved to Florida 24 years ago. And we haven’t looked back; we’ve just been doing the Florida thing. You know, once you move to Florida from Pennsylvania or any cold state, it’s hard to
Jeremy Kellett 04:10
go back and we’re here wondering why we didn’t do this sooner. Probably. Yeah, absolutely.
Troy Austin 04:15
We love it down there. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 04:16
Your history is in trucking. Then you got a family.
Troy Austin 04:21
I mean, I have family. You know, we have six children, six children, six grandchildren also. Yeah. And, you know, we still have some family and I actually went to school in New Hampshire also but family in Pennsylvania. And as far as you know, trucking my whole life. Like you said, Yeah, my grandfather owned a trucking company. We were coal haulers. And I knew I was taught how to drive a truck and a cab over and just from, you know, little kid up was going on trips with my grandfather. So yeah, I’ve been in Debian and tractor trailers my whole life. The interesting
Jeremy Kellett 04:55
you didn’t have a choice to hardly do what you had to use gonna be a truck driver. Oh,
Troy Austin 04:59
you know Well, I I love the smell of the garage. The smell of diesel, the smell of the grease gun. I mean, I mean, I just grew up, you know? So around that , you know, it’s just part of my life.
Jeremy Kellett 05:12
What do y’all do now in Florida man you aspire to? Well,
Troy Austin 05:15
I mean, we work. We owned a recruiting company for a long time. And we, you know, started the podcast nine years ago and that’s become a pretty big part of our lives and Ruth fans a dance mom, you know, she’s we have one last child that’s almost out of the house. Well, who knows? You never know when I say that. But we yeah, we’re just everything in trucking. I use
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Jeremy Kellett 06:31
So the podcast, how in the world did you start a talk CDL podcast? Well, what’s the story behind it? What’s the motivation?
Troy Austin 06:40
There was no motivation. When I first started, okay, my son, my youngest son came to me and he said, Dad, you start a podcast with everything, you know, in trucking. And I looked at him, I said, What’s a podcast? You know? And so he told me and I was like, Yeah, let’s, let’s check it out. And so, you know, we went into it, and I fell in love with it, you know, creating content. And then like you said, about, you know, sharing and helping, you know, really, to me is, is a big thing, you know, you got to have something positive in it, you know, and you also got to love what you do. And so we started this, the first year or two, and I don’t think we had even really much of an audience. We really did it. But we kept it up, because drivers would write in, you know, that did hear us? And they’d say, Yeah, we really appreciate what you’re doing. You know, that was great advice, you know, and, to me over the years, what what has kept me going was drivers saying, hey, because of you, I got a CB because we were huge advocates about the CB, you know, because of you, I started a lease purchase, and I’m doing it right or because of you, I’m not doing lease purchase, I went and got my own credit and got my truck. And I’m doing it, though, the way you really suggest it. So when a driver is, you know, emails us or calls us or shows up at the show here and says, Thank you, you know, that that keeps us going. And the motivation is yet to help. And really to entertain, you know, I love entertaining. Well, it’s
Jeremy Kellett 08:13
Obviously, you’re good at it. You’ve been doing it for nine years and the podcast, I’m doing great. When is it when you get that feedback? You’re I mean, I can tell already, probably in your trucking career, you know, there’s a camaraderie with drunk drivers. And it’s hard to, I mean, you don’t want to get out of this business, you know, it’s addictive. And then, you know, you’re on this, you’ve seen both sides. I’m just saying one side has never been a driver, but I so much appreciate what they do. And, and the job that they do, I don’t know how they do it. But it is just the camaraderie with all of us to want this, this industry to be better, you know, represented better this year. Nice. So I guess the main objective of the podcast, I mean, is it? Is it just giving them good content? Or what is it that you, when you look at it, you go, Hey, I might need to tell them about it or No, I don’t need to tell them about that. Or what drives the content droid quoque.
Troy Austin 09:19
But when I you know, as far as the content goes, you know, we’re at probably almost 800 episodes. So you’re constantly trying to often we’re once a week, okay, believe it or not. When we first started, we were five days a week. No, and we would do 90, we would do 90 minutes on BlogTalkRadio. So the first year or two if I don’t know if you ever heard a blog talk radio, hits a live podcast, you can have guests on and everything. But the problem with BlogTalk’s audio is the worst. I mean, they’re great people, but everybody would write in and go. We’d love your show, but we can’t hear you right. It’s like everybody, everything’s terrible. So flash forward, you know, to Question what drives us as far as content and everything goes, you know, we’re constantly trying to come up with things. And I try to see what current events are going on, you know, try to stay with current events, but I try to a lot of it, we try to use as a lesson to try to, you know, help somebody, like make a lesson out of, don’t get caught in this don’t get caught in that we just did an interview with a guy that had a rollover. And, you know, and getting his advice on what could have prevented that, you know, that’ll be airing soon. So we’re always trying to make it a lesson, but we’re always trying to make it entertaining, you know, and try to stay positive. And sometimes you can get used to it, sometimes it can be negative, you know, trucking this?
Jeremy Kellett 10:41
Well, you got to I mean, some of it is negative, ya know, but they need to know about the negatives? Well, that’s
Troy Austin 10:47
the tough part. You know, sometimes you’re given a positive message. And sometimes you’re saying, Hey, guys, you need to watch this. And you know, this is your fault. See, not not every fault is the trucking company, you know what I mean? And so some drivers will get a little testy, but a lot of drivers are really cool. They’ll, they’ll be like, you know, I’m glad you said that, you know, so, you know, we’ve never been a we’ve never been, I’ve never been afraid to hold back on what my true thoughts are on something. So, you know, you love us or like us, that’s what we are.
Jeremy Kellett 11:19
Well, that’s, that’s why you’ve been around for nine years. And that’s why you’re popular. And I mean, that’s the How to people find it. And he was telling me about Facebook, which I was gonna get into later, but we’ll go ahead. So it’s mainly not much YouTube. It’s all Facebook.
Troy Austin 11:37
Here we are , the Facebook podcast, because I, I’ll be honest with you. I want to say 2016. I made this video. You know, we were promoting the page spending money trying to get our podcast out there. And then we had to tell drivers, like I would meet drivers, and they go what’s a podcast? So you had to? You had to educate everybody on what a podcast was. And they go so you’re on the radio? No, it’s internet radio. So you got it. Okay, so you’re not on Sirius XM? No, we’re not. We’re not on that. This is how we do this. And so podcasting had to
Jeremy Kellett 12:15
grow. And it still I mean, I still have to explain. I
Troy Austin 12:20
i agree, but a lot of them do know, now it’s getting popular. And so I’m gonna say 2016 2017 I made this video. And I put this compilation together of people cutting off truckers acting stupid. And I titled it a truckers view of idiots. Well, I went to bed while I uploaded it at four o’clock. I’m on CDL. I went to bed. I woke up the next morning. Just not thinking. I look at the video. I’m like, wonder how many people watched it? And it said 1am I went, What’s a million? This was not even 24 hours. By the next morning, it was at 7 million. Oh my goodness, within two months, it was up to 40 million, and that the reach on the insights was 100 million households. How crazy. Well, that propelled us, because we went from 10,000 followers to 150,000 followers in two months. Wow. And so then we started being able to share things. And then everybody started writing in and we started growing. And believe it or not, you know, it’s taken us an x, we’re nine years and now we’re at 400,000 following us. And still, you know, we come to the shows, a lot of people don’t know who we are. And you know, it’s fun, sharing everything. But, you know, podcasting is like you said, you’re still trying to really promote the word podcast. Yes. And you said we’re popular, but a lot of times, people humble me McGowan. I never heard of you. Yeah. So some people say, Hey, we love you guys. And some people were like, What do you guys do? What
Jeremy Kellett 14:06
Is this? Yeah, I get that all the time. So what is y’all doing here? You know, what is this? You know, and so many people don’t know what’s just recorded. And then right, you know, you can listen to it anytime. And you can go back and listen to all the episodes. Exactly, no, there’s just a lot of great information out there that will actually do to droid, try to put out good information and always try to remind them, hey, you can go back and listen to the, you know, to a lot of great episodes that we did, which I’ve done some years looking back and some of the things that you’ve done, which is great, man. What are y’all doing here at the truck show? I mean, y’all come every year Troy we’ve
Troy Austin 14:42
been coming for the last so many years. You know, we’re basically promoting, you know, we network , we have a bunch of sponsors that you know, we’ve got sponsors like national carriers, you know, they are the big reefer company owned by National Beef. They’re one of the companies that has been with us almost from the beginning. They’ve been sponsoring us for probably seven years. We love them. They’ve always had confidence. And they always say to us, we love it when a driver in orientation says, Well, I heard about it from talk CDL. So that’s a good thing. Carter lumber is another one. They’re a lumber company. They’ve got like 100 and some locations. truck parking Club, which is here. Yep. They’re super people. Evans. Awesome. They’re growing. They’ve been with us. They’re in their second year as our sponsor, Dr. Wise is another one. So we network, you know, we’re always looking for a sponsor to, you know, just to touch on it when we first started podcasting, you know, who Mercer is, yes, great people. They sponsored us for a year when we didn’t have hardly any audience. So I feel like I owe them a plug. Because they were sponsoring us when they really weren’t getting anything back out of it. And I so appreciate, you know, people that helped us where we, you know, to get where we’re at. And hopefully, we got a further road ahead of us a
Jeremy Kellett 16:02
a little bit back to the content, because that interests me a little bit. Finding good content. I mean, it is, you get a lot of it from your listeners in some direction.
Troy Austin 16:13
I do some Yeah, some, some people will say, Hey, will you talk about this? And then, you know, sometimes they’ll say, Hey, will you talk with this? I’ll be like, did you miss last week’s episode? But, you know, I’m constantly reading Trucking News, you know, and constantly, you know, watching regulations, you know, like, for example, the speed limiter thing is a huge thing. So that’s a big topic, you know, hair follicle testing is coming up. So, you know, so you can find content from federal regulations to driver habits, you know, to the most dangerous roads in America, you know, we’re always trying to be creative in that respect to where we’re not constantly because I don’t know how you are, but like, we found ourselves in ruts where, hey, you know, I look back at last seven episodes, and I keep talking about, you know, you know, the clearing house and you know, that’s got to go, it’s got to, if I was a listener, see, that’s the one thing that I do is put myself in their place. If I was listening, and I heard the same subject five weeks in a row, you know what I’m gonna be like, you gotta be boring here. keep me entertained. That’s, that’s my thing. So I’m always trying to put myself in their shoes. And I’m always watching, I’m always listening. You know, I talked to trucking companies all weekend, sometimes trucking companies will give me content, they’ll tell me a story about what happened with a driver, I’ll be like, what a use that this week, I don’t get to put that on. A company once told me, Hey, we were doing orientation this morning. And one of the drivers had a condom taped to his ankle with urine in it, that he must have brought. Exactly. And unlike, I’m gonna use that. It’s like, I’m gonna tell drivers drivers, you cannot put a balloon on your stomach filled with your wife’s urine and think you’re gonna pass a drug screen because the temperature is going to be way off. And so you know, I’m trying to I made it into some positives or so stay home. If you got drugs in your driveway. You know, don’t show up in an orientation. Please don’t drive a truck. And don’t drive a truck. Hi,
Jeremy Kellett 18:14
I’m a galley. It’s crazy. Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s stuff that gets out there. I mean, I, you know, just by looking and listening to some of your podcasts, they’re, they’re, they’re all beneficial, you know, information. And it’s, and I like the way you say it, you put yourself in their shoes, just, you know, loop is this something that will hit them that you think they should know that I would want to know exactly that I try to do the same thing. Because there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of stuff out there that a lot of podcasts, just the grab what they can just anything, you know, there’s their goal is to get views, then, yeah,
Troy Austin 18:50
I tell people all the time, because people say I started a podcast, and then I stopped. And what they’re looking for is views and numbers. And I tell people, I was two years into it without anything. So you gotta love it. And if the other thing is you have to be willing to put your heart on your sleeve and let the world see you like you in the raw. And that’s really where if it’s coming from the heart, people know that your podcast and your content and everything has come from the heart. And they can see if you care or not.
Jeremy Kellett 19:22
They can tell Absolutely, they can 100% even if they don’t see you, they just hear you. They can tell you Yeah, I’ve been yelled at
Troy Austin 19:29
But trust me, there was a time where I would cut Ruth an awful lot, you know, as we’re talking and people would write in and go stop cutting your wife off. I mean, they were mad. I’m like, I gotta because if you don’t listen to your viewers, you know, you’re not going to improve. So your audience will help you with content. They’ll still help improve you if you listen to so that’s what you got to do
Jeremy Kellett 19:53
Have you ever had drivers on? Oh, yeah. All the time. Oh, sure.
Troy Austin 19:56
No, well, not all the time. I mean, we have drivers that call in and they’ll do interviews with us. And then there’s, there’s, there’s a lot of times where, you know, people want to get on and I just, you know, you know, it’s it is, you know, if you feel creative and you’re in the mood to do it this way or do it that way, it’s just I just go with how I feel. Well, there’s
Jeremy Kellett 20:16
there’s, I mean, that goes without saying there’s a lot of them that don’t like the pivot. There’s a lot of recordings and never have, I was gonna say that we did instead. Okay, thank you. That was after he comes after you do it, then you’re like, Yeah, I don’t know. That’s not really the direction I was headed.
Troy Austin 20:32
I had a driver call in super guy. But he was so excited. And I’m trying to give him a recording. And he’s bouncing from subject to subject to subject. And I’m like, Dude, you got to slow down, man. And then after I played it back, I’m like, we’ll have to do this again. I can’t put this up. i He’s really nice. I’m gonna bring him on. I love the guy. I’ve had companies call in. And all they’re really wanting to do is almost like an infomercial. And I and I’m like, Dude, I can’t, I’m not doing infomercials, drivers will, they’ll write in and they’ll say, I’m giving you a bad rating, because you’re boring. I had a German, a German truck to ever call me from Germany, because we have a lot of people from all over the world that email us, you know, Australian truckers, everything. And so we had a German trucker call. And he did this interview with us. He was a really nice guy. But everybody here was writing in saying next time, I would rather hear somebody scraping their nails on a chalkboard than that interview you did. And I thought that day, I’m never going to stick up for something that I thought was boring. I’m never going to compromise and stick to content that I don’t like. So you just have it if it doesn’t make the cut it doesn’t make the cut. So when people call in I say you got it. Don’t be boring, or you won’t make the cut. And I tell them that all the
Jeremy Kellett 21:45
time. Yeah. That’s good, because you don’t want to put that out there. There’s content right there that we get. We get in situations like that too. And we’re kind of struggling to get the right content. We’re down to the wire and might not have anything for next week. But you know, we try to find something really good. I’d rather not put out anything, put out something I agree 100% Oakley Trucking is 100% Owner Operator company. We specialize in Hopper, bottom and dump and pneumatic drivers. We provide the trailer free of charge and you provide the truck. We have a large customer base that reaches the whole United States as well as parts of Canada. Our owner operators live anywhere from Texas to North Carolina to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and everywhere in between and we get them home weekends. We take it seriously when you join Oakley trucking because we need you to be successful. Oakley offers great benefits and a competitive mileage base. So you know that when your wheels are turning, you’re generating money. No matter if you’re loaded or empty. We understand that you want to make a good living and that you make our living. We only take on independent contractors and to be honest with you, we are very particular on who we lease on. You must have a good driving record, good work history, and a clean, dependable truck. So if you’re interested in Oakley trucking or just want some more information, you can go to Oakley trucking.com. Listen to our weekly podcast, the Oakley podcast and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Before we wrap it up here. You mentioned a big advocate for CBS. However, tell me more about that.
Troy Austin 23:13
Oh, well, you know, again, you know, for example, you know, I know a lot of trucking companies, and one in particular, and Texas I’m very good friends with. He told me he’s the director of recruiting. He said, Troy, half the guys that show up here don’t even own us. And he said that Newt, and I’m not picking on new truck drivers. I mean, we were all new truck drivers at one time, we all had to get our start. But I talked to some of the new guys. And they’re like, oh, I don’t want to hear the trash on there. I’m like, it doesn’t matter. Turn the squelch down, turn and turn your volume up, put your music on. And then if somebody’s trying to warn you, at least you’ll come over and then you can tune into them. And they’ll be like, well, I’ve got apps for that. And I said, Listen, there is no app in the United States or in the world that’s going to warn you of something that just happened five seconds up the road that could save your life. And I promise you someday, that’s going to happen and you’re going to in fact, I have drivers call me and tell me Listen, I was in an accident. And then after listening to your podcast, I got a CB. I wish I would have had one. When I got into that accident. You remember the big pile up in Wyoming? So they could warn people? Yeah, do you remember that and people will try. They’re on the CB and they’re saying slow down. They’re all piling up ahead. They’re piling up us back it down. Eastbound or westbound back it down, back it down. Well, nobody backed it down. And they’ve got this video of truckers just slamming into each other. Well, you know, if you would have known five miles back you could have just said I’m pulling over to it’s gonna be crazy down there. So Seabees are, I think , one of the most important tools that a truck driver can own. I don’t care if you don’t like the foul language there. You’re we’re men. Okay, put up with it. It’s going to save your life someday. And I’ve had chuck to ever say, I’ve been driving for 2 million miles. And I’ve not turned my CB off 10 years ago and I haven’t had an accent. Well good for you, praise the Lord. Man. You didn’t have an accident. But I’m going to tell you something. The majority of people that don’t have a CB are gonna find trouble someday. Because they don’t have that warning. I’m serious. Traffic up ahead. Construction how to get around things. I know Google’s a great tool. I do know that. Okay, but it can’t warn you for a couple seconds there. It can’t Yeah, we
Jeremy Kellett 25:35
We actually know when we lose people on a couple several every week and we have that’s part of our checklist. Do you have a CB in your truck? Really? Yeah, that’s part of our expectations is you need to see be in your truck Wow. So we make sure that they have it some of them have just bought a truck and they come to us we even have a CB guy that in the in the town there that we have on speed dial he has to come out in the evening you know right before orientations over and get them equipped for the CB two knows, hey, get in everything. Yeah, our reasoning is a little bit different than yours. Because ours is you got to talk to shippers and receivers. Yeah, that’s true. In the bulk business that we’re in, you have to be able to talk to shippers and receivers on a CB and that’s the reason we, you know, require them to have him but so we’re doing our part. Yeah,
Troy Austin 26:27
no, I’m glad you are. I’m actually gonna mention that on my podcast, how you guys have a requirement differs, even how many trucks there’s Okhla than 109. And it’s all owner at all. That’s amazing. I mean, I’m surprised that owner operators would show up without a CB Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 26:46
I mean, some of them do hell at least because we’ve had to make it part of our checklist. Wow. Because they’ll show up and, you know, like you say, maybe not, maybe not young guys, but maybe for the first time we do a lot for the first time on our operators. So they, you know, might not may not know that they need it yet, but they need it for the business. You
Troy Austin 27:04
I know, it’s not just all about safety. The Seabees greet each other for camaraderie. I remember driving, you know, from state to state and you get with another driver that’s going to be running the same way. And you got a conversation going to keep you awake. You know, the CV has so many advantages. I don’t know what the only disadvantage of a CV is if you have sensitive ears to bad language.
Jeremy Kellett 27:28
Seabees have been in my life since the early 80s. And I’ll tell you this sad story here. When I was 1617 I guess it was and I had a pickup. I had what your model was ahead of me 2200 miles to pick up though. Oh, I remember shortbed a little truck. Oh, yeah, Russia had that slide and back glass, you know, and I had my magnetic antenna, I put on the top of it. Run my cable through my back last mseb mounted up here. We’re in May with a couple of buddies and you know, we’re from a small town and we get on those Seabees and we could talk after school and at night on the weekends. Or even the top off. My mom had a bass set up. She called it a bass and it was a big Oh, I know what if she had one of those microphones that you squeezed right here. It’s got a big head on top. And she could talk to that thing and she could talk. We could talk to each other if you wanted to. But she would get on if you ever heard of skip land. She would get on skip land and talk to people in other states like a ham radio operator through the CB. I don’t know how it would do that. But I always remember her you know sometimes being on Was she
Troy Austin 28:47
a ham operator? Yeah, ham radio and it’s like you have to be licensed. You could talk from state to state.
Jeremy Kellett 28:53
I don’t know. Okay, now she just had it set up in the house. We had it hooked to a big antenna. Oh, yeah. I ran up the side of the house. You know, and I mean, it was something so your mom got you hooked on CBS? Yeah, that was funny. Yeah,
Troy Austin 29:06
no see, real quick story. I had the magnetic mount like you were talking about. I forgot it was on my car and I went into a carwash and it grabbed a CV and it literally snapped the coax crack right off. And I’m like, I pulled out and I looked back and there’s my CB Hey, or my antenna hanging and the cable was wrapped around the roll. Oh no, it was one of those ones you drive through Yeah, just rip it off that was added to that into that well yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 29:39
It’s Bullough the car kept going. Let them figure it was
Troy Austin 29:43
embarrassing but like
Jeremy Kellett 29:45
look great. I like that. That’s something maybe not everybody knows about you see be advocated by locking.
Troy Austin 29:50
Oh, yeah, absolutely. That’s one of the things well, it’s safe. You know, it’s to me, it’s all about safety out there. You know, I tell drivers all the time, the most important load you’re ever gonna build Over is yourself when you get to your family and make sure you do them. We did an episode yesterday, the average number of people every day in the United States that dies is 123 a day 123 will die today on average, over 40,000. You know, and if you’re out there a couple weeks at a time, your odds are increased and at least seeing this stuff. So be careful.
Jeremy Kellett 30:25
Be careful. Yeah, absolutely. What’s the future look like for talk CDU?
Troy Austin 30:28
You know, there’s times where I’m like, You know what, I? I want to sell it, but I don’t know, I mean, there’s times where you’re like, man, every week, I gotta come up with content, because we hardly ever miss when we come to this show. Right before we came here, we put out an announcement and we said, Hey, we’re gonna wait till April 1, put out our next because we’re going to be gone in a couple weeks. And I ended up putting one up anyways, the other day, you know, I did an interview with Elijah. And on the speed limiters, I thought this is great content. I’m just gonna stick it up there for him. So I did, I didn’t miss a week anyways, you know, so we hardly ever miss a week. And even when we’re going on vacation, I’m not. One thing I will tell you about content. I don’t like banking things, you know, a lot of podcasters they do three, four in the bank just in case. I don’t like doing that because I like to keep current. And so if I’m giving you something that I recorded four weeks ago, that I maybe should have been putting stuff on there that I knew about this week. Um, I’m doing you a disservice. I believe that’s the way I look at my art podcast. So it’s a lot of work, man. It’s a lot of work putting your heart out. Well, you know that you create content , you know how it sells? Do I get tired after nine years? i Yeah, you sometimes do. But like I said, the ones thanking you and saying hey, great. We love you guys. We had a guy show up yesterday. His wife baked this cake here at the show. Wow. And it was professionally done like an unbelievable group and put a picture up. So stuff like that says you should go there. I’m like, Yeah, you know what? We’ll keep it for the cake.
Jeremy Kellett 32:16
I don’t blame you. Well, man, I appreciate you sitting down joining thank you and talking about your podcast. What’s the best way for people to tune into it? You
Troy Austin 32:23
Now, we’re on every platform. Spotify iHeartRadio Apple is the big one. Just hired to talk CTO talk cdl.com Every episode is right there. You know, it’s worth it, when you search trucking podcasts, you know, we’re one of the ones that come up, you know, and, you know, tune in, let us know if you like it if there’s anything we could help you with. You want to message us on Facebook. You know, any? We’re not hard to find. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was my pleasure. I really enjoyed, you know,
Jeremy Kellett 32:58
Good stuff, too.
Troy Austin 32:59
I really appreciate being on somebody else’s podcast.
Jeremy Kellett 33:01
Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Opie podcast. We appreciate everybody and all the comments you send us and be sure to check out top CTO. Great, great company, great guy, great podcast that they do. Check them out. See what you think. Appreciate it. We’ll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Oakley podcast: trucking, business, and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show on the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience, so if you’ve got a question, comment, or just want to say hello, head over to our website, theoakleypodcast.com, and click the “leave a comment” button. We’ll get you a response soon and may even share some of the best ones here on the show. We’ll be back with a fresh episode very soon. Thanks for listening.