Dana and Mattress Mack recognize bus drivers and the good they bring to their communities.

Dana hangs with Jim Mcingvale and recognizes bus drivers and the good they bring to their communities.

#houston #busdriver #busdriverlife #buses Gallery Furniture

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm at a gallery furniture and today I'm going to
talk to Mac about how to motivate bus drivers. Yeah,
we'll talk about it. So keep listening, Mattress Mac from
baby to betting to blessing. Now, we found out that
Lamar Little League is going to the Little League World Series,
so we thought we'd go out to gallery furniture focus
a little bit on baseball. Where did you get this chair?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Mac? Well, I went to Atlanta for the World Series
a couple of years ago and the Astros are playing
and they had the chair like this dedicated to Henry Aaron.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
So we do a lot of vision of the Amish people.
So I had the Amish guys buy all these bats
and make this baseball chair. It is amazing. It's a
home run.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
It is it is, it totally is now. I mentioned
on Sunny this morning that you were invited out by
conro isd brilliant move on their part to motivate bus
drivers who have probably one of the most thankless jobs.
But yet if you had a bus driver that you
remember and loved so much, I know they really can
start your day and your day in a very positive way.

(01:02):
But it's a tough job. So I was wondering if
you would share a little bit of the advice that
you gave to the bus driver so all of Houston
could hear it.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah. First of all, I was amazed there was four
hundred people there, so wow, a lot of bus drivers
are great people, great crowd, wonderful auditorium at the College.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Park High School there in Conroe, so in the Woodlands.
So we talked about First of all, I wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
To thank all those best drivers for a tremendous job
they do.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
You know, we don't realize they get up but when
it's dark.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
And they drive through all sorts of you know, the
horrendous traffic we have all over the area.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
So they're in it every day, and they've.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Got those little darlings like how I was when I
was seven or eight years old in the bus. So
I had to say thank you to those drivers because
number one, they do a tremendous job.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
And then I my daughter Elizabeth and I are huge
fans of this guy named Bruce Perry, one of the
world's premier trauma experts and.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Especially child trauma, and he said, the most important.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Thing you can do for a child is not necessarily
motivate them or encourage them, but.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Just to be present, to be there. And that's what
those drivers are. They're there every day.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
They're consistent, they're smiling at those kids, and they are
a you know, some of those kids, they're like this
child that I'm mentoring here. They have a life we
could only we could only imagine, and that bus driver
may be the only stable person outside of their teacher
in their life.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
And that bus driver smiles to get there in the morning.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
That means it says that kid, I care about you,
You matter, your life matters, And that those bus drivers
do a tremendous job. Obviously they have to control the
bus kids kids doing the right thing, but that the
kids know that they care about them. So kudos to

(03:03):
bus drivers and conro hisd all over the area because
it's the first adult they see every day other than
their parents, and the last adult. And for a lot
of those kids, you know, they haven't had a meal
since lunch at school, and it's a big deal to
get picked up by the bus. And it's consistency their lives. Too,

(03:24):
many of their lives are devoid of consistency. The bus drivers,
mister consistency, Miss consistency.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
That is a great point, and I never thought about
it that way. I was feeling empathy for bus drivers
because of how rude some kids could be, completely disregarding
them as human beings, and I know sometimes they're just forgotten.
So if you were to talk to we understand the
consistency part of the bus driver. But if you were
to talk to kids, so many kids like Bryce and

(03:52):
look up to you, Mac, what would you tell kids
about the bus drivers that maybe you know they're watching
now and they're like, you know what I'm I never
even thought about them, is like a human being who
is providing a real service to me. What would you
share with the kids?

Speaker 2 (04:06):
You know, the thing we could all do is get
on the bus and give them a pound of the
back stay thank you for taking care of me every day.
When those kids see that bus driver, they know they're safe.
That's a big deal. We don't think about that. We
don't think about being saved, we don't think about being nurtured.
We don't think about having somebody who cares and looks
after us. Even if the bus driver is correcting the

(04:27):
kids is for their safety, for their own goods. So
I'd say thank you for that bus driver every day,
for being there. And as Mark Frayne once said, ninety
five percent of life is showing up those great bus drivers.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
They show up every day.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I love that idea. Wouldn't it be great if the
kids just started off the school year because they're watching
you now going up and saying thank you, asking the
bus driver's name and saying thank you for being there
for me every day.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
Yeah, maybe take the bus driver and apple or an
orange good morning. Hey, and us parents can do it too.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
We can give the bus driver a little treat as well,
and and.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Think about it, all these parents wouldn't be able to
go to work every day and do all these things
they have to do if it one for knowing that
my child is secure on that bus.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Who's respond for that that bus driver.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
We have to give the bus drivers more credit and
more power this year into it.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Absolutely absolutely bus driver.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
That And you know we learned as they were cutting
bus routes last year, we learned how important bus drivers
were once they took them away.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Right. Yeah, if any of us want to criticize about
the bus drivers, go.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Drive it bus for a day exactly.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
I told my husband he would be an amazing bus
driver Stern. But funny, I swear, I think the kids
would love him and these two bus drivers that I met.
She said, Dana, No, it is the hardest job in
the world. But yet they're gonna go be bus drivers
again this year with big smiles on their.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Face, looking because they love those kids.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
That's why they do it. They can get the job playing.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
The same amount of money other places, but they love
those kids deep down, and that's what those kids need.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
You know that somebody cares about me. That is awesome.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Was there a question period where they could ask you
questions Mac yesterday as you kind of gave them a
pep talk.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
No, they had a full schedule, so they got me
in there and I gave my pitch about the temporpedig
mattress and they laughed about that, and I went on
and did the speech. But it was very motivating to
me to see all those people and realize how hard
they work, in how many hours they put in.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
You know those big o' yellow buses are. It's hard
enough for you and I to drive to work.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Imagine driving forty kids in that bus with all that
responsibility every day.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Now, Mac, I just had an idea. You know, you
give away mattresses for our military, for our first responders.
You know, if you think about it, bus drivers really
are first responders. I think maybe one day you might
want to have a mattress giveaway for the first I
don't know, ten bus drivers.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
That'd be a good idea.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
We're giving away mattresses this weekend Austin where you give
away four hundred mattresses Logovis to high School from seven
into eleven on Saturday at Logovis to High School to people.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
Now, what will be the purpose there? What's the giveaway for?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Well, that's for all those people who got their house
that got flooded. You know, they're sleeping on the floor.
And my friend doctor Bruce Perry says that when you're
going through tremendous trauma, whether it's first to re second,
third to be trauma, the best thing you can do
for yourself is sleep. But it's also the most difficult
thing you have to do. It's difficult to go to
sleep when you're going through trauma, and it's triply difficult

(07:26):
to go to sleep when you're sleeping.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
On the floor.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
Well, well, Mac, as usual, you're always giving to the community.
We appreciate you. Never thought that.

Speaker 4 (07:35):
Mac.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
When I wanted to come out yesterday, You're like, no,
I'm going to give a pep talk to the bus drivers,
And I thought that's genius. So I'm so glad you
shared your perspective on the importance of bus drivers. Is
there a bus driver that maybe stands out in your
life when you were a kid that you remember the.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Bus drivers yesterday, conra isd they made my day. They
really brightened it up. Bus driver that I remember. I
got to think about it.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
That one My mother took me to school the whole time.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Okay, so she was the bus driver, and I'm sure
she I bet that's what I'm sensing about your mom.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
She'd say, boy, I'll give you something to cry about.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Well, you know a mom of six kids, right, Yeah,
she had no time for your shenanigans.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Matt, I love it.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Will God bless you again for all you do. And
each time I come to Gallery Furniture, I learn a
little bit more about the man behind this amazing place.
And thank you for all you do giving back to
the community and getting those bus drivers to feel fired up.
It's going to be an excellent year for them.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Thanks Dana.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Thanks to all the bus drivers for getting the kids
to school every day.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
Amen,