Speaker 1: Everybody, it's Bill Courtney. Welcome to shop Talk number fifty five.
Speaker 1: Welcome into the shop, Welcome in Alex.
Speaker 2: Thank you Bill.
Speaker 1: How was a dentist?
Speaker 2: My teeth are still here?
Speaker 1: Are they clean?
Speaker 2: I mean the problem is how much I like cigars,
Speaker 2: tea and coffee. Yeah, I'm never going to have great teeth.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a lost.
Speaker 1: Costs dmy cavities. No. Oh, well do you get the
Speaker 1: gold star today? Yeah. We're going to talk about a
Speaker 1: letter that was sent to us by a listener, which
Speaker 1: thank you, And the title of shop Talk number fifty
Speaker 1: five is we are not what we do, we are
Speaker 1: who we are. Right after these brief messages from our
Speaker 1: general sponsors, all right, everybody, listener and Army member Andrew
Speaker 1: Maui spelled m aue and we think it's Maui, but
Speaker 1: we're going to go with Maui like Hawaii Andrew Mauie.
Speaker 1: I'm going to read the really thoughtful letter he sent
Speaker 1: us and then comment on it for shop Talk fifty five.
Speaker 1: Hey there, what you're building with the Army and normal
Speaker 1: folks is more than a podcast. It's a movement of
Speaker 1: everyday people realizing they're equipped to make a real difference.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to be even a small part of that. Andrew,
Speaker 1: We're honored to have you. I'd love to offer an
Speaker 1: idea that I could believe, that I believe could spark
Speaker 1: meaningful conversation on a shop Talk episode, Andrew, here you go.
Speaker 1: The concept we are not what we do. We are
Speaker 1: who we are. So often people define themselves by their
Speaker 1: job title or by the skills they've learned. I'm a welder,
Speaker 1: I'm a nurse, I'm a single mom, I'm a retired vet.
Speaker 1: With those things may describe what we do, they don't
Speaker 1: capture the fullness of who we are. And when we
Speaker 1: lose a job, transition out of a role, or face
Speaker 1: the season of change, that fragile sense of identity can crumble.
Speaker 1: But what if we help people see that their true
Speaker 1: value comes from not what they do, but from the
Speaker 1: core of who they are, That their character, faith, compassion, wisdom,
Speaker 1: and even their ability to listen or love deeply, that
Speaker 1: these are just as critical as any learned skill. I
Speaker 1: believe that as each person in the Army begins to
Speaker 1: understand their identity and their gifting, not just their abilities,
Speaker 1: but the things they were uniquely designed to offer. We
Speaker 1: become more resilient, more united, and a more powerful force
Speaker 1: for good. When we stop seeing ours is just tools
Speaker 1: and a system and start seeing ourselves as career carriers
Speaker 1: of purpose. Everything changes. We lead with authenticity, We serve
Speaker 1: without burnout. We show up not just to check a box,
Speaker 1: but to bring light into the world around us. I
Speaker 1: believe this message will resonate with your listeners and strengthen
Speaker 1: the movement you've already begun. Thanks for all you do
Speaker 1: to shine a light on the value of normal folks.
Speaker 1: You're changing more lives than you know. Gratefully. Andrew Mawley,
Speaker 1: who is the director of something called Reciprocal Aid Network
Speaker 1: for Crisis and Hazards, which I assume you need to
Speaker 1: look in to find out what that is. Alex.
Speaker 2: I know he and I have been talking about a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Well what is it.
Speaker 2: You're gonna put me on the spot and butcher this
Speaker 2: all right? So he is a first responder responding natural disasters. Sorry, Andrew,
Speaker 2: I know I'm gonna butcher this lightly. But the problem
Speaker 2: when a lot of these disasters happen, like say, church
Speaker 2: volunteers show up and unfortunately they're forced to turn them
Speaker 2: away because they don't have the right certifications. So it's
Speaker 2: actually a really cool idea of a nonprofit to train
Speaker 2: volunteers like in advance of these disasters so that they
Speaker 2: can then respond a lot of it's like logistics, I'll.
Speaker 1: Train big Awl with his barbecue cooker. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: he could actually show up and not get turned away
Speaker 1: and have to park it twenty yards away or whatever
Speaker 1: he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean all as example, he would convince them
Speaker 2: through barbecue to let him through.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: Not ever, not everyone's going to be a persuade for
Speaker 2: some of his big out there.
Speaker 1: So Andrew, thanks, I do have some comment. First of all,
Speaker 1: really deep thoughts, really good thoughts. And I do have
Speaker 1: a couple of comments, which is really what you said
Speaker 1: in the middle of this, which is people often defind
Speaker 1: themselves by their job title or by the skills they burned.
Speaker 1: I'm a welder, I'm a nurse, I'm a single mom.
Speaker 1: I'll keep adding, I'm a stay at home mom, I'm
Speaker 1: a retired vet, I'm a salesperson, I'm a podcast host,
Speaker 1: I'm a football coach.
Speaker 2: Or as a rich to oust the founder family would say,
Speaker 2: people say, I'm just a garbage man, you're just in there.
Speaker 1: That's really a good point. I'm a ditch digger. I'm
Speaker 1: just a ditch digger. I'm just a podcast producer. Oh
Speaker 1: that's what you would say, right. But the point is
Speaker 1: it's really well taken Andrew that too often we define
Speaker 1: ourselves by what we do and not who we are,
Speaker 1: and fundamentally who we are needs to be. I'm a
Speaker 1: person who is a welder, or I'm a welder for
Speaker 1: a living, but I'm a father and a husband, and
Speaker 1: I volunteer at my church or synagogue or whatever. And
Speaker 1: I know it's a little bit of semantics with regard
Speaker 1: to that, But the most important thing that Andrew said,
Speaker 1: I think is if you look at it through those
Speaker 1: that loans. What happens when you lose your job, what
Speaker 1: happens when you retire, what happens to stay at home mom,
Speaker 1: when the kids go off to college and the nest
Speaker 1: becomes empty. If you are defined by what you do
Speaker 1: when the seasons of life change, then you have lost
Speaker 1: your identity. Conversely, if you identify yourself as much more
Speaker 1: meaningful and deep things than what you do for a
Speaker 1: living or what you do with your days, then when
Speaker 1: the seasons of life change, you're fundamentally equipped to handle
Speaker 1: that change. So here's my story. If I gave you
Speaker 1: a million dollars and ten thousand dollars bricks and stock
Speaker 1: them up, they'd be about four feet high. If I said,
Speaker 1: I want you to stand on that million dollars, and
Speaker 1: if you can stand on it for three minutes without
Speaker 1: a collapsing under you, you can get the million dollars.
Speaker 1: You may try, but there's no way you can stand
Speaker 1: on that. The national trophy if we take the the
Speaker 1: whoever wins the national championship in football this year and say, listen,
Speaker 1: next year, you're gonna win the national championship again, guaranteed.
Speaker 1: If you can just stand on this trophy for three minutes,
Speaker 1: or stand on this football for three minutes. You might try.
Speaker 1: You might balance yourself for a minute, but eventually it's
Speaker 1: gonna break or topple out from under you and you're
Speaker 1: gonna fall. Same thing if I put a plaque on
Speaker 1: an edge. So the idea here is maybe.
Speaker 2: Before you move on. A listener emailed us exactly on
Speaker 2: that topic the other day. It's what you bring this
Speaker 2: up because you briefly went through that riff in the
Speaker 2: Marko Artcruise episode here and see what this guy I've
Speaker 2: been meeting incorporate this at some point.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess we're about to do it. Yeah. During
Speaker 1: one of your recent part this is.
Speaker 2: From ug Hobson, Doug Hobson.
Speaker 1: During one of your recent podcast episodes, you mentioned standing
Speaker 1: on a stack of bills that would equal million dollars.
Speaker 1: That brought back a great memory for me. When I
Speaker 1: was in my late twenties. My manager at the time
Speaker 1: shared a note attached tier you're mentioning that triggered my
Speaker 1: idea for a shop talk. I've carried this paper photo
Speaker 1: I couldn't attach and my wallet for thirty plus years,
Speaker 1: and when people are throwing figures of millions, bans and
Speaker 1: treions around, I pulled this out and schooled them in
Speaker 1: the differences in each of the years we got it
Speaker 1: up here. Okay, a million dollars tightly bound thousand dollar
Speaker 1: bills would produce a stack four inches high. A billion
Speaker 1: dollars tightly bound and thousand dollar bills would produce a
Speaker 1: stack about three feet high. A trillion dollars tightly bound
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars bills to produce a stack nearly sixty
Speaker 1: three miles high. That's crazy. Yeah, okay, thank you, Doug,
Speaker 1: sixty three miles Yeah. But here's the deal. If you
Speaker 1: tried to stand on those metaphorically, well literally, if you
Speaker 1: try to stand on the trophies, the money, whatever, it's
Speaker 1: going to collapse. So the point is, you cannot stand
Speaker 1: on accolades, you stand out, stand on fortune. You cannot
Speaker 1: stand on fame because both literally and metaphorically, if that
Speaker 1: is the foundation that you choose to stand on, eventually
Speaker 1: it will collapse and you will fall flat on your
Speaker 1: That's just the truth. Likewise, if you stand on or
Speaker 1: identified by what you do for a living, just like fame,
Speaker 1: fortune and accolades, if that is the foundation of who
Speaker 1: you are, eventually it will collapse and you will find
Speaker 1: yourself on your ass. Conversely, if we define ourselves by commitment, character, integrity,
Speaker 1: the dignity of hard work, service, grace, working on building
Speaker 1: a legacy, finding ways to engage in our community. If
Speaker 1: we define ourselves by those things and that's the foundation
Speaker 1: of who we are, then as a season of life changes,
Speaker 1: and as our jobs change, or as our station and
Speaker 1: life changes, or when we lose our money or make
Speaker 1: more money or we gain fame or lose fame, or
Speaker 1: gain fortune or lose fortune, or any of it. If
Speaker 1: you build your foundation on those core values and tenants,
Speaker 1: then you're able to handle a change in the season
Speaker 1: of life, a change in your financial situation, both positive
Speaker 1: and negative, a change in how your views by society,
Speaker 1: both positive and negative. So the whole point is when
Speaker 1: you build a proper foundation on the right things, then
Speaker 1: you aren't defined by what you do, what you have,
Speaker 1: or what others say about you. And when you do
Speaker 1: that and you serve to be a member of the
Speaker 1: army and normal folks, you have a proper foundation to
Speaker 1: find success for you and for those who seek to serve. So, Andrew,
Speaker 1: your points are well taken. I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's a great, great shop talk topic, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: you sending it our way. Alex, you got anything Dad.
Speaker 2: A negative example? That's interesting. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: I read this article on Michael Jordan. So when you retired,
Speaker 2: he basically said, like I've lost all meeting in life.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I couldn't believe that he said
Speaker 2: it out loud. I mean, it's one thing to think
Speaker 2: in your head. But he was actually like I.
Speaker 1: Because he was defined by basketball and a pair of tennishes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for him to have feel like he's lost all
Speaker 1: meaning in life when he was married, he had children,
Speaker 1: and he had all the money in the world and
Speaker 1: he was still empty and hopeless. Just's because his foundation
Speaker 1: was built on something that's gonna It's going to go
Speaker 1: away eventually for all of us.
Speaker 2: It also reminds me that's great Jackie Robinson quote. A
Speaker 2: life is not important except in the impact it has
Speaker 2: on other lives. So if you define yourself in terms
Speaker 2: of your impact on other lives is what success is.
Speaker 1: And that's from Jackie Robinson, who could have found himself
Speaker 1: by a lot.
Speaker 2: Or David Brooks writes about this and he calls him
Speaker 2: the eulogy virtues. So when you get to the eulogy
Speaker 2: at your funeral, no one's like, man, that guy was
Speaker 2: so rich at what a great guy he really was rich?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's what do you actually want to be
Speaker 2: praised for at your eulogy.
Speaker 1: Actually, Bill Prest was a really good friend of mine
Speaker 1: and he died some years ago and his son in
Speaker 1: law actually gave the eulogy, and he is the one
Speaker 1: where I heard the quote by Albert Pike that said,
Speaker 1: what you do for yourself and this life dies with you.
Speaker 1: What you do for another last forever and remains immortal,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because Bill Breasted own a business and
Speaker 1: had lots of cess in his life. But you're right,
Speaker 1: that's not what they talked about. They talked about a service.
Speaker 1: So there it is. We are not what we do,
Speaker 1: and by proxy, we are not what we've earned, and
Speaker 1: we are not the fame, and we are not the
Speaker 1: fortune that we build. We are not what we do.
Speaker 1: We are who we are, and we are who we
Speaker 1: are by virtue of the foundation and the basic fundamentals
Speaker 1: and tenets that we build our foundation with so that
Speaker 1: we can handle success, failures, and changes in the seasons
Speaker 1: of life. That is shop Talk number fifty five. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review it. Join
Speaker 1: the army at normal folks dot us subscribed of the
Speaker 1: podcast and consider becoming a premium member there.
Speaker 2: And we should also add, as we mentioned last week,
Speaker 2: you do any cool acts for others mention on social
Speaker 2: attack us, we'll share it with all those things.
Speaker 1: And if you have any good ideas for shop Talk,
Speaker 1: as you see email us. If we think we have
Speaker 1: something to offer, we'll talk about it. If not, we'll
Speaker 1: definitely respond to either way. That's shop talk number fifty five.
Speaker 2: We should tell them how to email you bill it
Speaker 2: normal folks dot us.
Speaker 1: They'll normal folks dot us. All right, we're leaving the shop.
Speaker 1: Take it easy.