An Army of Normal Folks - The Standard, Or How You Do One Thing

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

For Shop Talk, Coach Bill dives into a powerful column from Andrew Peters that's titled "The Standard, Or How You Do One Thing". It'll move you to reflect on how you do everything in your life! Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, everybody. It's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks. Welcome into the shop. How do you like that intro, Alex? That tells me you're getting delirious and you start switching it up like that. Well, you never know. How you doing? How's everything going? It's going well. It's always weird because we're recording these like three or four at a time. So it's kind of hard to like comment on the present moment where we're not living. in the present three weeks out why don't you come on over to the counter put your elbows on it how's that that work that's that's the that's the that's the 1940s radio version of shop talk uh today shop talk number 68 is um i don't know what is it about what are we going to call this i think i put a title in there the standard or how you do one thing right yeah okay shoptop The Standard or How You Do One Thing?

It's vastly interesting. Number 68, Bill. That's what I said. ShopTot number 68. MLK was shot and killed, and RFK was shot and killed. That's right, 1968. That's sobering. So, Shaptop number 68, the Standard, or how you do one thing right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.

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Win the tech search at Lenovo.com. AI experiences with the ThinkPad X-1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors, so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush, parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then, at 6.33 p.m., everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Apparently, the explosion actually impelled metal glass.

The injured were being loaded into ambulances, just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, and it was here to stay. Terrorism. Law and order, criminal justice system is back. In season two, we're turning our focus to a threat that hides in plain sight. that's harder to predict and even harder to stop. Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I had this overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call. I said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick. I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation. And I just wanted to call on and let her know. There's a lot of people battling some of the very, you're saying things you're battling and there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation,

a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran and he actually took his own life to suicide. One Tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. I don't have to go to any more funerals, you know.

I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In sitcoms, when someone has a problem, they just blurt it out and move on. Well, I lost my job and my parakeet is missing.

How is your day? But the real world is this. different. Managing life's challenges can be overwhelming. So, what do we do? We get support. The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have mental health resources available for you at loveyourmindtay.org. That's loveyourmindtay.org. See how much further you can go when you take care of your mental health. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas. September 19th and 20th. On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams.

Ed Sherron, Fade, Chlorilla, Jelly Roll, Chon Fogarty, Lil Wayne, L.L. Cooljay, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCray, the Offspring, Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. All right, welcome back, everybody. I won't say hello. deep voice because it freaks Alex out. So we're going to talk about the standard or how you do one thing. Andrew Peters and his substack, which you can find at Andrew peters dot substack.com, the standard or how you do one thing. Rachel and I were both out of town for a couple of days this week for business and one of our kids made an easy decision, sleep in, skip training. It wasn't just any training though it was the lacrosse academy he had self-selected fully committed to and told me he was all in

that's in quotations he was all in for the next day yesterday he did show up when i got home late last night i heard him call out dad he wanted a chat and i was happy to after a fist bump and a hug he told me what happened in that moment i felt tempted to give him an out it's been eight a m to 1250s p.m. five days a week all summer. Good Lord, 8 a.m. to 12.15 p.m. All summer. That's a lot. Five days a week all summer long. Not how most kids choose to spend their summer break. The commitment has been there, but before I could speak, he added this little gym. The coaches at the academy had made sure he knew that they knew he had chosen sleep over showing up. No yelling, no therapeutics, just a clear signal across multiple coaches. We have. We

told the kids who say they're all into a standard, and that decision didn't meet the standard. It's rare in life to find people, coaches, bosses, even friends, who will actually hold you to the standard you set for yourself. It's uncomfortable. It's so much easier to let things slide, to make allowances, to tell ourselves, this one doesn't matter. But when someone looks you in eye and says, in effect, this is not who you said you wanted to be. It will change you. There's a phrase I've heard a dozen ways over the years. Nick Sabin, the goat of college football coaching, calls it the standard. Others say, how you do one thing is how you do everything.

Either way, the meaning's the same. You don't get to pick and choose when you're being your best. The standard is the standard, whether the moment feels big or small, whether anyone's watching or not. Listening to him tell me the story, I was and am so grateful for the men who run the Cincinnati Lacrosse Academy for creating the kind of place that calls a kid to a higher standard for themselves and for those around them. Not just for my kid, but for my friend's kids who have chosen that path and even for myself, because it reminds me that my own standard gets fuzzy in certain

places, especially when the moment seems small. This morning, we had a five-minute finisher in our gym. The Pirates and I, and among other things, we had to complete 50 push-ups, I kept a up a decent pace, but when J.B.31 yelled over how many petas, I was tempted to say 40, although I knew I'd just completed 37. But in the ask was the opportunity, I grunted 37 and finished the next three. This morning, as we were walking up to the house for coffee post-workout, I saw my bike thrown casually into the flower bed. No malice, no grand statement, just lazy placement by the kid who'd ridden it. Do you remember that at all with your kids, Bill? No, I wouldn't put up with it.

But it was enough to make me stop and think about the same conversation I've been having with my kids for years. The life you choose to lead is reflected in the smallest, easiest decisions. Where do you put the bike? What happens to the grocery cart after the bags are in the car? What does on time mean? How do you speak to the person who can't do anything for you? Because how do you do one thing is how you do everything.

I don't think it's about perfection. If so, then I'm screwed. It's about consistency. It's about refusing to compartmentalize my efforts, my attitude, and my commitment to only one domain of my life. I think it's about keeping my promises to myself, even when there's no scoreboard, no audience, and no direct consequences. I've been reminding myself this week that nobody drifts into a life lived at a high standard. You set it. You keep it.

You start over when you miss it and you do it again tomorrow. The standard isn't someplace you visit. it's the place you choose to live every day. Wow, do I agree with every single thing that he wrote. Time is an interesting one to me. He mentioned it. Because the hands on a clot are really a scientific actuality. And if I say I'm going to be somewhere at Picay,

I'm eight. I kill myself to get there at eight. Now, there's not times that I've late or missed or whatever. Everybody makes stakes, but it is a standard that you get where you're supposed to be on time as best as you possibly can. And if something's 10 minutes away, you don't leave 10 minutes before. You leave 20 minutes before because, as my football used to coach, you say, early as on time on time is late um and it is it's a simple standard but if you think about it it's actually rude as hell and selfish to make somebody wait on you because you just didn't have the decency to leave on time or to show up when you said you would um to me it even says a lot about your character time something as simple as time should be a standard um service should be a

standard. The way you approach everything should be a character-driven standard. And to your question, my kids got ripped if they let their stuff out because I'm a knee freak and one of the standards around my place is you can use anything I have, but put it back where you got it. And if you don't put it back where you got it, you will never, ever be allowed to use it again. And that's the reality. And I'm still that way about that. I just, I think it's, rude and I think it's selfish and I think it's ridiculous to use somebody else's something and they do not return it the way you found it or in better condition than you took it. It's just ridiculous. It's like if you borrow some, in college, I remember borrowing

people's car and I always would make sure there was at least at much, if not more gas in it when I returned it than when I got it. Some jerk borrowed my car. one time and I didn't even check the gas gauge and two miles down the road I brought out of gas because there's jackass ran a whole quarter tank out of my gas tank and didn't have the decency to fill it back up that's kind of a standard um so anyway I really appreciate all of this content what's your standards so three things come to mind somebody once told me the story like hey if you move your golf ball at all you're going to hell like look if you're well hang on now not if your for some agrees that you can roll the golf ball with your club it's making a point if you're willing to cheat a little bit in that case are you going to cheat in the rest of your life right how you probably and that's his point how you do one thing is how you do everything that's a really good point that's right that is absolutely right like showing up time putting stuff up caring enough about somebody else's stuff if if you do those little things that way you're probably

going to do them on the big things it's good another story actually i was talking to my kids about this the other day um so one of my friends is friends with michael jordan and they had offered for me to caddy for jordan one day are you kidding me and my dad said no why because i had football practice that day your dad's right because i had made a commitment just like this and sophia was like why didn't you like blast him or say no and i'm like he's my dad i didn't have a choice like we're more importantly your dad is dead nuts right it's right it's uh my friend got to do it instead and got a thousand bucks and the experience of catting from michael jordan well he's probably a loser today go ahead i think my third thing is i'm also reminded of this uh have you heard of the america's cup

it's the sailing world championship so dennis connor is one of the famous coaches from it yeah it's not a sailing thing i mean it's yachting and they got these huge crews and they these things fly across the water. But, like, actually, I interviewed somebody who won the America's Cup and their team practiced, like, every single day except three days in the year. I mean, literally, like, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Christmas Eve. Like, I mean, they were...

Yeah, and so Dennis Conner's crew had this line that they ought to be committed for their commitment to the commitment. They ought to be committed to jail for their mental institution for their commitment to the commitment. And it's no wonder that guy's won more America's Cups than anybody else, because that's the standard. That's how they approach it. Yeah.

It's good stuff. All right, everybody. Good writing from Andrew Peters. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, pretty good stuff. You know, but Andrew's pretty sharp guy. All right, everybody. That's shop talk number 68, the standard, how you do or how you do one thing.

I kind of think the subtitle should be how you do one thing is how you do all things. But I kind of get what he's getting out there. But everybody get it. We've got to have a standard in our life, how we approach everything. And wouldn't it be magnificent if the standard for all of us was to employ our passion and our discipline and areas of need and serve in order to lead? If that was a standard, our entire culture changes. If you like this episode of Shop Talk, please rate it and view it.

You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfokes.us. Send me ideas for shop talk, send me ideas for an army of normal folk, or just reach out, send me an email. And I will respond. Join the army at normalfolks.com. What else? That's it. We're good. Okay. That's it. We're good. Until next week, do what you can. That's shop talk number 68. Ah, come on, why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

Still using yesterday's tech, upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, ultra-light, ultra-powerful, and built for serious productivity, with Intel core ultra-processors, blazing speed, and AI-powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at Lenovo.com. Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X-1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors,

so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device. December 29th, 1975, LaGuardia Airport. The holiday rush. Parents hauling luggage, kids gripping their new Christmas toys. Then everything changed. There's been a bombing at the TWA terminal. Just a chaotic, chaotic scene. In its wake, a new kind of enemy emerged, terrorism.

Listen to the new season of Law and Order Criminal Justice System on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast. Here's a clip from an upcoming conversation about how to be a better you. When you think about emotion regulation, you're not going to choose an adapt to strategy, which is more effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier. Denials is easier. Complex problem solving takes effort. Listen to the psychology podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

get your podcasts. It's important that we just reassure people that they're not alone and there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast Season 2 takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. One Tribe, save my life twice. Welcome to Season 2 of the Good Stuff.

Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In sitcoms, when someone has a problem, they just blurt it out and move on. Well, I lost my job and my parakeet is missing. How is your day? But the real world is different. Managing life's challenges can be overwhelming.

So what do we do? We get support. The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have mental health resources available for you at loveyourmindtay.org. That's loveyourmindtay.org. See how much further you can go when you take care of your mental health.

This is an IHeart podcast.