An Army of Normal Folks - We Are Not What We Do

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

For Shop Talk, Coach Bill reflects on Army member Andrew Maue's email. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney. Welcome to Shop Talk number 55. Welcome into the shop. Welcome in Alex. Thank you Bill. How is the dentist? My teeth are still here. Are they clean? I mean the problem is how much I like cigars, tea and coffee. I'm never going to have gray teeth. It's kind of a lost cause. Do you have any cavities? No. Oh, well, you get the gold star today. Yeah.

We're going to talk about a letter that was sent to us by a listener, which thank you. And the title of Shop Talk number 55 is, we are not what we do, we are who we are. Right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. Campers who began the summer in heavy bodies were often unrecognizable when they left. In a society obsessed with being thin, it seemed like a miracle solution. But

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one of the things we'll be covering on everybody's business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chafkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek Smith. Every Friday we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, Sports Reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull, we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain.

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Dan Flores The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores, and brought to you by Velvet Buck. This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian, Dr. Randall Williams

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Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, everybody. Listener and Army member Andrew Maui, spelled M-A-U-E, and we think it's Maui, but we're going to go with Maui like Hawaii. Andrew Maui, going to read the the really thoughtful letter he sent us and then comment on it for Shop Talk 55. Hey there! What you're building with Army of Normal Folks is more than a podcast, it's a movement of everyday people realizing they're equipped to make a real difference.

I'm honored to be even a small part of that. Andrew, we're honored to have you. I'd love to offer an idea that I believe could spark meaningful conversation on a shop talk episode. Andrew, here you go. The concept. We are not what we do. We are who we are. So often people define themselves by their job title or by the skills they've learned. I'm a welder. I'm a nurse.

I'm a single mom. I'm a retired vet. With those things may describe what we do. They don't capture the fullness of who we are. what we do, they don't capture the fullness of who we are. And when we lose a job, transition out of a role, or face a season of change, that fragile sense of identity can crumble. But what if we help people see that their true value comes from not what they do, but from the core of who they are? That their character, faith, compassion, wisdom, and even their ability to listen or love deeply, that these are just as critical as any learned skill. I believe that as each person in the army begins to understand their identity and their gifting,

not just their abilities, but the things they were uniquely designed to offer, we become more resilient, more united, and a more powerful force for good. When we stop seeing ourselves as just tools in a system and start seeing ourselves as career carriers of purpose, everything changes. We lead with authenticity, we serve without burnout, we show up not just to check a box, but to bring light into the world around us I believe this message will resonate with your listeners and strengthen the movement. You've already begun

Thanks for all you do to shine a light on the value of normal folks. You're changing more lives than you know gratefully Andrew Maui who is the director of something called reciprocalciprocal Aid Network for Crisis and Hazards, which I assume you need to look in to find out what that is, Alex. I know, he and I have been talking about it a little bit. Well, what is it? You're gonna put me on the spot and butcher this. All right, so he is a first responder,

responding to natural disasters. Sorry, Andrew, I know I'm gonna bush with this slightly. But the problem with a lot of these disasters happen, like say church volunteers show up, and unfortunately they're forced to turn them away because they don't have the right certifications. So it's actually a really cool idea of a nonprofit to train volunteers in advance of these disasters

so that they can then respond. A lot of it's like logistics. So like train Big Al with his barbecue cooker. Yeah. So that he can actually show up, not get turned away and have to park it 20 yards away or whatever he does. Yeah. I mean, Al is example.

He would convince them through barbecue to let him through. That's true. Not everyone's going to be as persuasive as this big out there. So Andrew, thanks. I do have some comments. First of all, really deep thoughts, really good thoughts. And I do have a couple of comments, which is really what you said in the middle of this, which is people often define themselves by their job title or by the skills they've earned. I'm a welder. I'm a nurse, I'm a single mom,

I'll keep adding, I'm a stay at home mom, I'm a retired vet, I'm a salesperson, I'm a podcast host, I'm a football coach. Or as Rich DeVos, the founder of Anway would say, people say, I'm just a garbage man and put the word just in there. That's really a good point. I'm a ditch digger.

I'm just a ditch digger. I'm just a podcast producer. Oh, that's what you would say, right? But the point is, it's really well taken, Andrew, that too often we define ourselves by what we do and not who we are. And fundamentally who we are needs to be, I'm a person who is a welder. Or I'm a welder for a living, but I'm a father and a husband, and I volunteer at my church or synagogue or whatever. And I

know it's a little bit of semantics with regard to that but the most important thing that Andrew said I think is if you look at it through those that lens what happens when you lose your job? What happens when you retire? What happens to stay at home mom when the kids go off to college and the nest becomes empty? If you are defined by what you do when the seasons of life change, then you have lost your identity.

Conversely, if you identify yourself as much more meaningful and deep things than what you do for a living or what you do with your days, then when the seasons of life change, you're fundamentally equipped to handle that change. So here's my story. If I gave you a million dollars and $ thousand dollar bricks and stacked them up, they'd be about four feet high.

If I said I want you to stand on that million dollars and if you can stand on it for three minutes without it collapsing under you, you can get the million dollars. You may try, but there's no way you can stand on that. The national trophy, if we take the whoever wins the national championship in football this year and say listen next year you're gonna win the national championship again guaranteed if you can just stand on this trophy for three minutes or stand on this football for three minutes. You might try, you might bounce yourself for a minute, but eventually it's going to break or topple out from under you and you're going to fall. Same thing if I put a plaque on

an edge. So the idea here is maybe before you move on a listener emailed us exactly on that topic the other day. It's funny you bring this up because you briefly went through that riff in the Markle Arkoosh episode. Here and see what this guy, I've been meaning to incorporate this at some point. Well, I guess we're about to do it. Yeah, we're here.

During one of your recent, this is from. Doug Hobson. Doug Hobson. During one of your recent podcast episodes, you mentioned standing on a stack of bills that would equal a million dollars. That brought back a great memory for me. When I was in my late 20s, my manager at the time shared a note attached here. You're mentioning that triggered my idea for a shop talk. I've carried this paper photo I couldn't attach

in my wallet for 30 plus years. And when people are throwing figures of millions, billions and trillions around, I pull this out and school them in the in the differences in each of these. We got it up here. Okay, a million dollars tightly bound thousand dollar bills would produce a stack four inches high. A billion dollars tightly bound and thousand dollar bills would produce a stack about three inches high. A billion dollars tightly bound and thousand dollar bills would produce a stack about three feet high. A trillion dollars tightly bound and thousand dollars bills would produce a stack nearly 63 miles high.

That's crazy. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Doug. 63 miles. Yeah. But here's the deal. If you tried to stand on those metaphorically

Well, literally if you tried to stand on the trophies the money whatever it's gonna collapse so the point is You cannot stand on accolades you stand out stand on fortune You cannot stand on fame because both literally and metaphorically, if that is the foundation that you choose to stand on, eventually it will collapse and you'll fall flat on your ass. That's just the truth. on or identified by what you do for a living just like fame fortune and accolades if that is the foundation of who you are eventually it will collapse and you'll find yourself on your ass conversely if we define ourselves by commitment character integrity the dignity of hard work service grace

working on building a legacy, finding ways to engage in our community. If we define ourselves by those things, and that's the foundation of who we are, then as a season of life changes, and as our jobs change, or as our station in life changes, or when we lose our money or make more money, or we gain fame or lose fame, or gain fortune or lose fortune or any of it. If you build your foundation on those core values and tenets, then you're able to handle a change in the season of life, a change in your financial situation, both positive and negative, a change in the season of life, a change in your financial situation, both positive and negative, a change in how you're viewed by society, both positive and negative. So the

whole point is when you build a proper foundation on the right things, then you aren't defined by what you do, what you have, or what others say about you. And when you do that and you serve to be a member of the Army of Normal Folks, you have a proper foundation to find success for you and for those you seek to serve. So Andrew, your points are well taken. I think it's a it's a great, great shop talk topic and I appreciate you sending it our way. Alex, you got anything to add? A negative example that's interesting. A couple years ago,

I read this article on Michael Jordan. So when he retired, he basically said like, I've lost all meaning in life. There you go. I mean, I couldn't believe that he said it out loud. I mean, I've lost all meaning in life. There you go. I mean, I couldn't believe that he said it out loud. I mean, it's one thing to think in your head, but he was actually like, I... Because he was defined by basketball and a pair of tennis shoes.

Yeah. And for him to have felt like he's lost all meaning in life when he was married, he had children and he had all the money in the world and he was still empty and hopeless. It's because his foundation was built on something that's going to go away eventually for all of us. It also reminds me of this great Jackie Robinson quote, a life is not important except in the

impact it has on other lives. So if you define yourself in terms of your impact on other lives is what success is. And that's from Jackie Robinson, who could have defuncted himself by a lot. Or David Brooks writes about this and he calls him the eulogy of virtues. So when you get to the eulogy of your funeral, no one's like, man, that guy was so rich.

What a great guy. He really was rich. I mean, it's, what do you actually want to be praised for at your eulogy? Actually, Bill Prest was a really good friend of mine and He died some years ago and his son-in-law actually gave the eulogy and he is the one where I heard the quote by Albert Pike That said what you do for yourself in this life dies with you what you do for another Lasts forever and remains immortal

with you what you do for another last forever and remains immortal which is interesting because Bill Breasted owned a business and had lots of success in his life but you're right that's not what they talked about they talked about a service so so there it is we are not what we do and by proxy we are not what we've earned and we are not the fame and we are not the fortune that we build we are not what we do we are who we are and we are who we are by virtue of the foundation and the basic fundamentals and tenets that we build our foundation with so that we can handle success, failures and changes in the seasons of life. That is Shop Talk number 55 55 if you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review it

join the army at normal folks dot us subscribe to the podcast and Consider becoming a premium member there and we should also add as we mentioned last week you do any cool acts for others Mention on social tag us. We'll share it. Yeah all those things and if you have any good ideas for shop talk as you see Email us If we think we have something to offer we'll talk about it If not, we'll definitely respond either way that shop talk number 55 We should tell them how to email you bill at normal folks dot us. They'll let normal folks dot us All right. We're leaving the shop. Take it easy. Bell ringing Music

Camp Shane, one of America's longest running weight loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie. Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early

and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways,

from tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chaston. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Open AI is a financial abomination, a thing that should not be, an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. And I'm gonna tell you why on my show Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why open AI along with other AI companies are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job.

I'm also going to be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better Offline on the iHot Radioio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater podcast network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today.

Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.