An Army of Normal Folks - One of the 5 Most Painful Days of My Life

Episode Date: September 27, 2024

For our latest "Shop Talk", Coach Bill on having to lay off 45% of his employees and the company's character that was their saving grace.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with An Army of Normal Folks, Shop Talk Number 25. Nope, you didn't hear anything else. It's Shop Talk Number 25. Today we're going to talk about character and I'm going to share with you one of the most trying times in my life and how we dealt with it. Maybe as an example to what I mean when I talk about character. And we'll do that right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. So y'all, this is Questlove, and I'm here to tell you about a new podcast I've been working on with the story pirates and John Glickman called Historical Records.

It's a family-friendly podcast. Yeah, you heard that right. A podcast for all ages. One you can listen to and enjoy with your kids starting on September 27th. I'm going to toss it over to the host of Historical Records, Nimny, to tell you all about it. Make sure you check it out. Hey, y'all. Nimini here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast

for kids and families called Historical Records. Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. -♪ Flash, slam, another one gone. Fast, bam, another one gone. The cracker, the bat, and another one gone. The tit, but a cap, there's another one gone. Each episode is about a different inspiring figure from history, like this one about Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl in Alabama who refused to give up

her seat on the city bus nine whole months before Rosa Parks did the same thing. Check it. And if you came with me, did you know, did you know I wouldn't give up my seat? Nine months before Rosa, he was Claudette Goldman. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records,

because in order to make history, you have to make some noise. Listen to Historical Records on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon.

Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two, season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? And this season, we're taking a bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba,

and the piñucolada from Puerto Rico. So all of these things, we thank Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the 9th century BC. BC? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Kultura podcast network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for

everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiral'd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture,

you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12 episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre. And I'm your host Santos Escobar, the emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar. Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.

Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Kultura podcast network on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you stream podcasts. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America. I mean, he was never early to bed

and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called a coiffure a la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody, go Courtney. Shep talk number 25. Is that a bell? Oh my gosh. One more bell. talk 25 yay we're a quarter of a century there that was unbelievable audio visual editing alex thanks so much for that i don't know what you're being paid, but it's too much. Okay, character. So you've heard me say if you've seen the movie Undefeated, if you had it, I'm going to say it now.

Football doesn't build character, it reveals it. That really can translate to this. Tough times don't build character. Tough times reveal character. What I mean by that is, you build your character by surrounding yourself with tenets and fundamentals that build a proper foundation to lead your life. And then when the world hits you in the mouth, that's the opportunity to reveal your character or lack of it. And no matter how much work you've done, there are going to be moments that test you more than others.

And I just want to tell you about a story from July of 2006 that I learned that very valuable lesson all too well. My company, Classic American Hardwoods, was in trouble. The profit and loss statements for June showed that we lost $111,000 that month and the numbers for July were likely to be even bleaker. Prior to June, we had never posted one month in the red and I started my business in September of 2001 10 days before the World Trade Center and Despite all of that I'd never not made at least a dollar and been in the black every single month

Since the first month I was in business until July of 2006 since the first month I was in business until July of 2006. Most people think the housing crisis was seven or eight, but when you're the lumber business, you're kind of a leading economic indicator of building in times to come. So July 2006 was when it hit us in the face before it hit most everybody else in the face. Orders had slowed to a trickle and really they weren't coming at all. To those of us in the lumber industry, we knew a recession was coming before the smart people in DC did and even when we tried to warn them they wouldn't listen. I laid in bed the night I reviewed the June statement I kept wondering how

I could figure out how to tell Lisa and our kids that I'd failed them because I knew we were going broke. I thought we were going to have to leave the house that we loved. I also worried about what kind of job I was going to find in the worst economy of a lifetime. I'd be damaged goods to say the least I ran my own business in the ground. In addition, I wouldn't be able to coach football anymore because I'd no longer be my own boss and be able to set my own schedule. I didn't know where the kids were going to go to school. Would my players feel abandoned?

I mean, I would if I were them. I even went as far to start thinking about my goodbye speech and lecturing them one last time about the values of characters, not how you say your successes but I hear any of your failures and now I was being tested in that very thing then it suddenly hit me what was I thinking how could I utter a word about character while laying in bed feeling sorry for myself and wilting under the pressure some Some shining example I was, I guess I needed to live what I was preaching. So at three in the morning,

I literally jumped out of bed for as much as a 260 pound guy can jump. And over the next five or six hours, I sat at the kitchen table crunching numbers. I'm serious. I was searching for every dollar, every way to save as many positions as I could without sacrificing the whole company. I took a short break for church, I guess hoping for some divine guidance and I assure you a ton of prayer. And then I would turn to the table for another five or six hours. By Monday morning I'd come up with, this is still hard for me to say, with 54 jobs that I had to eliminate out of a workforce of 120.

I came up with another $75,000 in monthly expenses we could cut. And for every single person remaining of the 120 from the 54 I'd cut, they'd all have to accept a 10% pay cut. That Monday was in the top five most painful days of my life. I was letting people go for no reason related to their performance, some of whom had been with me from the beginning. I laid off one woman in the office who had been married for three weeks. She couldn't stop crying. I don't know how we're going to manage, she said. Another woman I fired was taking care of a pregnant daughter who wasn't married. The woman's husband, meanwhile, lost his jobs

a few weeks earlier and there was just nothing I could do. Her job had been to answer the phone and I didn't need somebody to answer the phone. The automated system could handle it. I knew I was sending men home to look their wives and children in the face and say I wasn't valuable enough to keep. It was awful. I bawled driving home that night. I thought of the employees I'd let go and I thought about the ones who remained and the sacrifices they had to make for a smaller paycheck when a recession was happening. I thought of the vendors whose products and services I'd canceled all day long and how I was the first of

many to come because I knew this thing was coming and I thought you know gosh you know how many lives have I turned upside down? But on the other hand, I was grateful for one thing. We were still running. Before too long, we were black, in the black again. And believe it or not, within four or five months, with the cost savings, I was able to handle a higher a few dozen of my former workers back. Within three years, I'd restored the 10% pay cut in wages and added 5% to it. And since that day, while my industry has shrunk, our sales have

doubled. How do we do it? I think we did it by responding the right way to our most difficult challenge. While the crisis didn't build our character, it certainly revealed my company's character. It taught us a valuable lesson. We have the ability to survive anything if we're willing to make the tough choices we got to make, stand by, be honest, be kind, be graceful, work hard, work hard and and prepare for the tough times for the next tough time. So when I say football doesn't build character reveals it and when I when when I talk about the value of character, anybody can be a champ when things are going well. True character is revealed when the tough times hit. As I say in my book, Against the Grain, the true measure of a person's character is how one handles his failures, not his successes.

So as you ball up those three ideas of what real character is and how it's revealed, and you hear the story of the people that surrounded me in my business in the toughest times of all. You know, yeah, we worked harder and everything else, but I genuinely believe it was it was the character of the company and the character of the people that in it that helped us survive. And now in 2024, we've tripled our size and we do more business and we're a healthy company and many of the very people that took those pay cuts back then are still with me today making lots more than they ever made back before their 10% pay cut and a lot of the people we had to lay off we hired back and are back and i will say that all of those lives including my own and the health of this company was all made better because of character.

Because of what character is revealed and how we handle our failures, not our successes because anybody can be a champ when they are successful. What does somebody do when failure and tough times hit you? Have they built the right foundation of character to handle the difficult times? So that when the opportunity to reveal character presents itself it can be revealed in all of its splendor so that everybody can survive and prosper further after the difficult times have subsided

So as you go through your week and you think about your challenges, have you built yourself ready? Do you have character ready to be revealed? Have you built the right foundation? Is the foundation of those surrounding you proper? Because tough times are going to hit us and when the opportunity for character to be revealed hits I hope you'll be able to reveal the proper character to see yourself through the dust time so you can prosper down the road. That's shop talk number 25. If you have any ideas about thoughts or current events or anything else you'd like to hear me comment on, if I think I have value I'll comment on them. And I'll plug you as a person who gave me the idea. You can reach me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us. If you like

this episode, rate it, review it, join subscribe to the podcast, help us out, become a premium member. Join the ranks of an army of normal folks. That's Shop Talk Number 25. Thanks to our producer, Iron Light Labs. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. Hey, y'all. Nimmi here. I'm the host of a brand new history podcast for kids and families called Historical Records. Executive produced by Questlove, The Story Pirates, and John Glickman, Historical Records brings history to life through hip hop. Get the kids in your life excited about history by tuning in to Historical Records.

Listen to Historical Records on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, podcast or wherever you get so much beauty in Mexica mariachis, delicious cuis lucha libre. Join us for lucha libre behind the ma podcast in both english a

the history and cultural libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or whatever you stream podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? And like what's the history behind bacon wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria.

Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast Hungry for History, is back. And this season, we're taking a bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Seeing that the most popular cocktail is the Margarita, followed by the Mojito from Cuba and the Piñuco Nadas from Puerto Rico. Listen to Hungry for History on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church,

voila, you got straight away. They try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We think of Franklin as the dodging dude flying a kite in the rain. Benjamin Franklin is our subject for a new season with Walter Isaacson.

He's the most successful, self-made business person in America. A printer, a scientist, a founding father, but maybe not the guy we think we know. Franklin casts his lot on the side of revolution, and it's another thing that splits the family apart. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.