An Army of Normal Folks - The Pyramid That Explains Almost Everything

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

In this Shop Talk, Coach Bill dives into one of his favorite topics, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs! An Army of Normal Folks diving into Maslow's pyramid is one of the most important things you can do too, as it reveals how people truly flourish and how you can help empower the most vulnerable Americans to do so at increasingly higher levels. ARMY ACTIONS Subscribe to the podcast and rate & review us! Signup to join the Army, visit NormalFolks.org Follow us on social media @ArmyofNormalFolksJoin or start an ANF local service club at https://normalfolks.org/service-clubs/ Take The 10 Level Challenge, "the hero's journey for service at 10LevelChallenge.org   Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, everybody. It's Bill Courtney. Welcome. Hold it. Did I say I'm with an Army and Normal folks? You're okay. I think we and they know. We're good. Okay. This is Bill Courtney. You just said it. Well, I am now. Okay, this is Bill Courtney with an Army Normal Folks. Welcome to Shop number 112. Welcome into the shop, Alex. Thanks, Bill.

Welcome into my shop, Alex. Whatever. It's my shop. Okay. The Army and Normal Folks thing was your idea and everything. but shop. This is my shop. Rent free, baby.

Rent free. That's it. Shop talk number 112, the pyramid that explains almost everything. Do you know, could you know what it's about? I was, that's weird that you asked. I was just about saying. Don't say it. Don't say it.

I have not prepped this at all. I think I know what this is about. But the listeners and I are going to be, this is going to be revealed to us together. right after these. But first, what happened 112 years ago. Well, okay, we could do that after the messages. We never do, but. We can switch it up, it's my shop.

Sure, okay. All right, we're going to have brief messages, and then we're going to come back after that and talk about the 112. Then we're going to the pyramid. How's that? That's good. Okay, right after these brief messages

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We need to know, Alex, what happened 112 years ago. So the year was 1914. Yeah. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Really? Which led to World War I. Yeah, that's... And kind of a crazy thing.

I once heard from a relative that our distant relative way back was his driver. Really? Is that crazy? Lucky your driver didn't get capped, too. Yeah. Oh, no. World War I begins. The Panama Canal opens.

Holy smokes. That would have made sense because we gave it back to Panama after 100 years, which was about 12 years ago. It revolutionized global shipping by eliminating the need for shifts to sail around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. Oh, the Panama Canal, I read something about it. I won't recall the numbers, but its influence on the world's gross domestic product was greater than any single thing in the history of man.

Have you been there? No, I have not. Yeah, it would be cool to do one day. It would be. The Christmas truce, have you heard this story before? I don't even know what it is. Yeah. December 1914, thousands of British and German soldiers spontaneously stopped fighting along parts

of the Western Front. They exchanged gifts, St. Carol's, and according to many accounts, even played in formal soccer matches. It's one of history's most enduring reminders of shared humanity amid war. I love that story, but then it's so horrific to think then the next day they went back shooting at each other. How do you do that? I don't understand. It's weird out there. It is weird out there. Okay. That's it. Let's roll. All right. Chap talk number 112, the pyramid that explains almost everything. have you ever noticed that when someone's life starts falling apart, it's usually not because just one thing is wrong. Maybe they lose their job. Maybe they can't pay the rent. Then that

creates stress at home. Their health starts to suffer. They withdraw from friends. Pretty soon one problem is turned into five. Well, the opposite of that is also true. Sometimes one act of kindness doesn't just solve one problem, it's solving several. Provide a child a bed. Now they sleep better. Now they pay better attention in school. Now their parents sleep better too. Because someone's mentor and they don't just gain advice, they gain confidence, hope, someone who believes in them.

It turns out that our needs are connected. Back in 1940s, a psychologist named, Abraham Maslow tried to explain this with a simple idea. He believed and by the way, yes, I know all about this. I know you do. That's why I did it. Right. He believed the human beings

have different kinds of needs and they tend to build on one another. Before most of us can chase our dreams, we usually need a safe place to sleep. Before we can become the best version of ourselves, we need people who love us and believe in us. Whether his model is perfect or not, I think he stumbled onto something really important.

Human flourishing doesn't happen all at once. It happens one need at a time. Maslow pictured these needs like a pyramid. At the bottom are physical needs, which are food, water, sleep, shelter. It's hard to think about your life's purpose if you hadn't eaten in two days. It's hard to focus in school if you spent the night on the floor.

It's hard to dream big when you're simply trying to make it to tomorrow. That's why organizations like Sleep and Heavenly Peace matter so much. They're not just building, delivering beds to kids without them. They're creating the foundation that makes everything else possible for that kid to flourish. The next level of Maslow Hierarchy and Eads Pyramid is safety, a safe neighborhood, a stable job, reliable transportation, health care, knowing your lights will still be on next month. When those things disappear, fear takes over. And fear has a way of shrinking our world. We stop taking risk.

We stop trusting people. We stop thinking about tomorrow because today feels uncertain enough. That's why Habitat for Humanity doesn't just build houses. They create stability. Organizations that help people find jobs don't just increase incomes. They restore security. When people feel safe, they begin to look beyond survival. Then we arrive at what I think may be the most overlooked.

level of the entire pyramid, belonging, family, friendships, neighbors, a church, a team, a community, dare I say a club. We were never designed to do life alone. There's a reason loneliness has become one of the greatest challenges of our time. We can have thousands of followers online and still wonder whether anyone would notice if we disappeared. Most of us don't need another dead-gum app. We need a friend. One of the reasons I believe so deeply that our local service clubs aren't just about serving. They're about belonging. You stop being someone who volunteers once in a while. You become part of an army. You start recognizing faces. You start knowing names. You start celebrating birthdays, helping each other move, showing up when life

gets hard. Service becomes the excuse. Friendship becomes the gift. Above belonging becomes esteem. That's a fancy psychological word for something pretty simple. People need to know they matter. People need to know they're capable, that they have something to contribute. One of the greatest mistakes we can make is assuming people only need our help. Most people also need our belief. Think about the best coach or teacher you ever had or boss.

They probably didn't just teach you something. They convinced you that you could do something you didn't think was possible. That's what esteem looks like. It's dignity, its confidence, its purpose beginning to wake up. Finally, Maslow talked about self-actualization. And by the way, this one's huge. That's becoming the person you are created to become. That's someone who uses their gifts, growing your character, doing meaningful work,

living with purpose. But here's the part that I find fascinating. Near the end of his life, Maslow realized he may have stopped too soon. He began writing about another level, something beyond even the tip of the pyramid, one he called self-transcendence. This idea was simple.

The happiest, most fulfilled people weren't just becoming the best version of themselves. They were helping someone else become the Vest version of themselves. Remember, I'm a psychology major. I studied this, and as I read this all the way through, I start to think about, I've evoked Maslow's hierarchy needs and interviews before, right? And as I read this and go back through it, and I haven't done it in years,

transcendence is where the world changes in my mind. So the happiest, most fulfilled people weren't just becoming the best version of themselves. They were helping someone else become the best version of themselves. When I think about the people we've interviewed on this podcast, I see that over and over and over again. None of them seem obsessed with themselves. They're obsessed with someone else's flourishing. And maybe that is the secret. Maybe the purpose of climbing the mountain or ascending the pyramid.

isn't simply to stand on top. Maybe it's to reach back down and help someone else get up there with you. I think that's what an army of normal folks really is. Some of us are helping meet physical needs. Some create safety. Some are offering friendships. Some are building confidence.

Some are helping people discover purpose. We're all standing on different parts of the mountain, reaching for the people below us. And here's the beautiful thing. You don't have to help everyone. You just have to help someone. And every action you take helps someone take another step. So here's my challenge this week.

Think about one person you know, simply one person, and ask yourself, where are they on the mountain and what do they need? Then ask this question. What's one thing I can do to help them take the next step, to ascend just one more little bit up the mountain, up that pyramid. Because changing the country doesn't happen

through one giant leap. It happens one step at a time. One relationship at a time. One need at a time. One normal folk, you doing what they can. One person. One step at a time.

And together, if we had millions of people doing that for one another, that's just not how we help people survive. It's how we help people flourish and therefore society flourish as a result of a group of people flourishing. That's the power of an army of normal folks. Love it, Alex. I'm so glad you brought up Maslow hierarchy needs.

Yes, I studied it over and over again. The first time I was ever introduced to the idea was in a class taught by Dr. Ken McGraw in developmental psychology. Dr. McGraw was one of the country's foremost developmental psychologists and researchers. He actually wrote the textbook that was used across psychology departments across the United States that we used. So I was being taught by the professor who wrote the textbook on developmental psychology, and he spent a few days, which in college, if you spend more than two lectures on one thing, It's on Maslow Hauricay Needs, and he really encouraged us not to just learn the science behind it, but to think about how to apply it in our own lives.

And if we became psychologists one day, which obviously did not in our practices. And I do believe it is, I really wish everybody would just Google Maslow's hierarchy needs pyramid and look at the levels that Alex had us chair today and look at the levels. And it makes just so much sense that you can't self-actualized. You can't feel good about yourself if you don't have food. And you certainly need food and water before you need shelter. But without shelter, you're worried about every day. So how can you plan and think about the future of your life if you don't have shelter?

And the hierarchy of needs, it just goes up the pyramid until you reach the tip top. And if you do all of, if you're able to satisfy all of those needs, you're self-actualized, a fulfilled human. And if an army of normal folks can help folks ascend that pyramid, I think there's some science behind the fact that we can help society improve. And make sure we're all the way up on the top of ourselves. There's a quote I love that you can't give which you don't have. Yeah, that's true. So first doing it yourself too. It's good stuff, Alex.

I have nothing to add, do you? I just had a question. Where did you do your grad program? I know, I don't even finish, but did you take this from him at Old Miss or your grad program? So at Ole Miss, this is back then, it was a little different than it is now. You could take 500 level classes if you got through your undergraduate in time, and those 500 level classes were basically the first level of master classes. And then when I came home to Memphis after graduating and had those,

I enrolled at the University of Memphis and started on my master's, then I'm at Lisa and the wheels came home. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I just never knew where you actually did the grad school. I just learned something new about you. It was Memphis, but it was a short stint because I had the first levels from Ole Miss, and I started at Memphis.

And then actually the school I was teaching at, I was the assistant football coach and was doing the school at night for the most part, some weekends. And the head coach quit maybe 10 days before our first game. And here I am a 23-year-old college graduate as assistant football coach. The principal came to me and said, we have no time for a search here, our head coach. And at that point, I was like, I cannot do all I'm doing and be responsible for this whole football team. So I finished classes intending to go back after football season, but I met Lisa during football season, and that was that.

And you self-actualized with coaching and Lisa. That's true. I completely did. So that's it. All right, everybody, y'all really, Google Maslow's hierarchy needs to think about it and think about where you fit and what you need to do for yourself, but also think about one person in your life that you can help ascend that pyramid,

ascend that mountain. It's good stuff. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with friends on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, join the Army at normalfokes.org, join or start one of our local service clubs, take the 10-level challenge, buy our merch, look up Maslow's hierarchy and need,

do anything that you can to help us grow an Army and Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney, that's Shop Talk number 112. Until next week, do what you can. What's up, fam, it's sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from together. We're breaking down the biggest headlines, the viral moments,

and the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. From game-changing performances to culture-shifting conversations, we'll give you our takes, our debates, and a few laughs along the way. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports. On the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse.

The world gets crazier, and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. Do you know I just found out who Sidney Sweeney was? If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. I'm Yamanika, and I'm out.

Listen to You're the Problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jake Brennan, and on the Disgraceland podcast, I explore the wild lives of rock stars and unbelievable true crime stories from music history. These are the stories you haven't heard, the kind you'll end up telling someone else. Like the time Paul McCartney spent in a notorious prison or the bizarre crime Lady Gaga is accused of, or that time Blondie's Debbie Harry escaped Ted Bundy.

Listen to Disgraceland on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Raiders of the Lost Podcast, we explore cinema like no one else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the Jaws Shark. Didn't always work, came with its own problems. That's what made it great. The cast of Obsession.

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