BeTempered
BeTempered
BeTempered Episode 32 - From the Field to the Boardroom: Bill Courtney's Journey of Leadership and Legacy
Discover the inspiring journey of Bill Courtney, the acclaimed President and CEO of Classic American Hardwoods and celebrated high school football coach from the Oscar-winning documentary "Undefeated." Bill joins BeTempered hosts Ben Spahr and Dan Schmidt to share his powerful personal story of overcoming a challenging upbringing in Memphis and how mentorship through sports led him to a life of purpose and success. We explore how his passion for coaching and child psychology at Ole Miss laid the foundation for his thriving business career while continuing to uplift young athletes and communities.
Venture into the world of innovation with the legacy of Kimmons Wilson, whose creation of Holiday Inn revolutionized the hospitality industry. Through personal anecdotes, we uncover the secrets to his success and reflect on the profound lessons of hard work and determination. The episode also shines a light on the dedication and transformative impact of coaching inner-city youth at Manassas High School, revealing the rewards of resilience and the relentless pursuit of greatness.
Join our conversation on societal change and personal growth as we tackle media manipulation, political engagement, and the importance of community involvement. We emphasize building character through adversity and the power of forgiveness and unconditional love in empowering youth. With insights from Bill Courtney and other inspiring figures, this episode motivates listeners to take meaningful action and contribute to an "army of normal folks" striving to make a positive difference in the world.
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Speaker 3:Welcome to the Be Tempered Podcast, where we explore the art of finding balance in a chaotic world.
Speaker 3:Join us as we delve into insightful conversations, practical tips and inspiring stories to help you navigate life's ups and downs with grace and resilience. We're your hosts, dan Schmidt and Ben Spahr. Let's embark on a journey to live our best lives. This is Be Tempered. All right, everybody. Welcome to the Be Tempered podcast, episode number 32. 32. Hard to believe. It is hard to believe. We're rocking and rolling right along today. Um, we've got a, an amazing man, uh, who's done some amazing things. And a little intro on bill courtney. Bill is the president and ceo of classic american hardwoods, a lumber company that employs 120 people. He also has a has been a volunteer high school football coach. He's been a head football coach. He he's wrote a book called Against the Grain. He's the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary called Undefeated. He gives speeches to packed audiences across the country and he lives in Memphis, tennessee, with his wife, lisa, and their four children. Everybody, welcome, mr Bill Courtney. What's up? Welcome, coach.
Speaker 4:Bill Courtney.
Speaker 2:What's up?
Speaker 4:Welcome coach. Hey, you forget, there's only my kids. You know, I've been on Ellen DeGeneres and all these TV shows.
Speaker 3:She just left the country not to cut you off.
Speaker 4:I know she hauled ass. I was on Kelly Clarkson last Thanksgiving. I've done, you know, all of that stuff and my kids remain wholly unimpressed, which is just fine. But when I was the voice of Madden, that's when they got excited and I'm like all this other stuff and that's what matters to you kids. Lisa raised them poorly.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty, pretty convinced. Oh, that's awesome. Part of our Be Tempered podcast is when we interview people. We like to kind of get some groundwork of their story when they were younger and you've got a pretty unique story that kind of led into all the things that you've done throughout your life. So if you can give us some reference back, you know your childhood and kind of talk about that growing up, so, uh, born in Memphis, born and raised hang on, I'm sorry, sorry, the weather's changing and it's killing me.
Speaker 4:Um, born and raised in Memphis, dad left home when I was four. In fact, he died about seven months ago and I got a call, you know, probably three or four weeks after his death, to be informed he was dead. So that was. You can imagine what that relationship is, which is basically non-existent. Mom worked hard. Mom loved me and cared for me and did the best she could, but made a number of poor decisions regarding guys. So she was married and divorced five times. My fourth father, after drinking about a handle of Usher scotch, took out a pistol one night and shot the house up and shot at me. I had to dive out a window to survive that evening.
Speaker 4:So how I grew up was a lot of trauma, frankly, a lot of dysfunction, a lot of trying to understand where I fit in the world. I lettered in six sports in high school. My athletic director said I was a triathlete, I'd try anything, and really the men in my life who helped mentor me, in the absence of a positive role model in my home, were my coaches. And so I went to Ole Miss and the only reason I went to Ole Miss was I got a scholarship to go to Ole Miss. And now that I've gone to Ole Miss, I love Ole Miss. I don't mean to say it like it was a stepchild, but it was just first time I ever saw the campus was when I checked into my dorm room and I wanted to be a child psychologist, and so I was a dissertation away from my doctorate and was coaching football and teaching school for a living after I got my undergraduate.
Speaker 4:And you can see this is as good as it gets, and I mean this is bad as it is Doesn't just happen. This took hours and it ain't real impressive. And while teaching and coaching, I ran into a slap dime named Lisa just gorgeous. And in the South, have y'all y'all ever been fishing, y'all fish at all? Oh yeah oh yeah, all right.
Speaker 4:Well, the last thing you want to do is light into a 25 pound slab on six town test, right? Instead of reeling, you're chasing. You're trying to find that fish and get a net around it, because if you pull it all, you're breaking that line and that slab and that slab you may be fishing three years before you find that thing, right. Well, that's what it was like when I married Lisa. She was the 25 pound slab and I was a six pound test. I didn't know how to let her off the hook, so we just started having kids.
Speaker 4:So I had four years and those four kids in four years kept Lisa around. And when you look like me and you light into a slab, you do all you can. And with four kids and trying to get my doctorate and making $17,000 a year as a teacher and a coach, it didn't work. So I had to leave that profession and get into the private world to start making money, and that's really worked out well for me. I've been very blessed, but my passion has always been coaching. So in the state of Tennessee you can be what's called a certified non-faculty football coach if you go take a bunch of classes. That's not like a dad that helps out, that's like a coach that helps out. That's like a coach that any high school would have. You're just not on faculty if you get all this stuff.
Speaker 4:And so I continued, while growing my business and raising my family, to coach. I've coached 33 years, so I've had this kind of weird dual life and I didn't get my doctorate because I'd run out of time and run out of money. I didn't get my doctorate because I'd run out of time and run out of money, and so you know, all of this is to say that coaching is a passion. It is also my way of giving back and it is deeply ingrained in me because of what I don't know where I'd been, given the way I came up without the men in my life that coached me, and so I see that as an opportunity to employ my passion and my talents in a place of need and uh, and I enjoy it, and so that's kind of my story about where I came from and why I have this weird run a business life and coach life, and there it is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty awesome. You know you go through all those trials and tribulations as a kid, but we've had many people on here that have had similar stories where coaches have have left that mark on that child. And so, from all that, you go to college and you come out and you're coaching. Um, some point in time you decide to college and you come out and you're coaching. At some point in time, you decide to make the jump to be the head coach at Manassas.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, real quick. So people don't understand. I started my business in 2001 with $17,000 and I'm in manufacturing. You can't start a manufacturing with seventeen thousand dollars. Nobody told me you couldn't, so I thought you could, but you really can't, and so I was just looking for industrial property that was cheap. Well, in Memphis North Memphis is the the area that after Dr King was killed here in 1968. And this was a thriving area. It had Firestone, caterpillar, international, harvester, dupont, heavy industrial, a lot of good blue collar jobs. Well, after the rioting and everything that went on for years here, this became a desert, and so there's just a massive area back in 2001 of all these industrial properties that people would give away. So that's why my business is here because I had no money. I needed industrial property. It was cheap.
Speaker 4:Manassas happens to be three quarters of a mile from where my business sits. So it's just. I started my business in a crappy, dilapidated, cheap area and because I'm having to pour my time into my business, coaching's probably not going to happen. And then this odd school I'd never heard of in the middle of this dilapidated area, who had no resources and no coaches, reached out and said would you come coach us? And because it was close and convenient. I did so very careful to understand I didn't go to Manassas to save anybody. I went to Manassas to coach football, because it was convenient given that time in my life.
Speaker 3:Wow, yeah, that's awesome. So what made you go to that dilapidated area? Was it because that's all you could afford to do?
Speaker 4:That's it, that's it. I needed to start a business, I needed heavy industrial property and there was this property that had been sitting empty for 20 years, that had a trap house on the corner of it, that the first thing I had to do was chase everybody out and tear it down. My first month, you know, 40 yard dumpster, garbage dumpster, roll off dumpster, 130 of those left this property. That was my first month. Just get all the crap. Oh yeah, it was. It's just, it's, it's ridiculous. But yeah, so here I was. Didn't think I was going to be able to coach in this school with 17 kids on the football team whose previous 10 years record was four wins and 96 losses says, hey, will you coach us? And I'm like sure that sounds great. So there it was.
Speaker 3:You're a glutton for punishment.
Speaker 4:Listen again. You grow up fat and redheaded. You just get used to it.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. So how are you generating income? Seventeen thousand dollars goes into this property, you get rid of all this trash and you're dealing with all this stuff. How are you making money?
Speaker 4:by hook and crook. Um, I, I, uh. I reached out to a company and a family I knew in Virginia, told them a kind of a fresh approach to an old industry, the hardwood lumber industry that I wanted to take, and they believed in me and loaned me a million bucks and I paid them back in 18 months and I just started doing. I mean, kimmons Wilson is the founder. Kimmons Wilson is a guy from Memphis who took his. He was a builder and he took his family to Savannah back in the late fifties six kids in a station wagon and was really frustrated because back then the highway system wasn't as developed as it was now and there were two types of places to stay either five star, like Ritz Carlton's, or something that looked like the Bates Motel, the roadside things. That's where you had a choice and a normal family couldn't afford the Ritz Carlton, couldn't afford the Ritz Carlton. So when you pulled up to the Bates Motel you didn't know if you were going to get a swimming pool or not, a bed or not, towels or not, a TV or not, or maybe get stabbed in the shower, because that apparently could happen as well. And on his way back he kept thinking it's ridiculous. They're building this interstate system. Families are going to be traveling more, but the common man driving the Ford needs to have a place where he can go, that's always the same and clean and everything else. And so he had this neat idea and he called it the Holiday Inn. And this Memphis guy built the first Holiday Inn in Memphis, which became the Holiday Inns, which is now the Marriott, the Hilton, the Holiday Inns, which is now the Marriott, the Hilton, courtyard, everywhere any chain you stay started as an idea of Kimmons Wilson here in Memphis. That was the Holiday Inn.
Speaker 4:I had lunch with him before he died and by that time he was a billionaire and I was at an FBO called Wilson Air. And I'm sitting at a table having lunch with him and literally looking through a window at his Lear jet sitting out there that he's about to go hop into. And then in the conversation he said, bill, you know, after talking to you, I think you have an opportunity to possibly um have some success in your life. And he said but I would you like to know the one thing you're going to have to fully understand to be successful. And I said, yeah, I mean that'd be like telling Elon Musk today. No, I really don't want to hear what you have to say. So I said yes, and he said I just want you to understand, you're going to have to work half the day and I'm like hell, I'm in Billionaire playing half the day. How do you do that? And he said yeah, bill, it doesn't matter if you work the first 12 hours or the second 12 hours, just work half the day. And then he looked at me and he said the Lord asked you to rest on Sunday. So 12 hours times six is 72 hours. That's the minimum. And he said I want you to think about this.
Speaker 4:The government says that an average workday is eight hours. Therefore, an average work week is 40 hours, because they say five days is the average workweek. And he said and that is great and that works for the vast majority of the people in the country and I have no problem with it. But I need you to ask yourself why in the hell do you think you deserve to be and live an exceptional life if you're only willing to work average? So, as a very young man, my work week became 72 hours, not 40. And that has not changed to today. And so, yeah, it was a lot of work in the business started and coaching a football team and raising children who were two, three, four and five at the time, and all of that. But if you employ your passion, your discipline and you're really willing to outwork everybody else, you can find success. And that's kind of my story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that, what awesome advice you know. I never had, uh, someone like that. Explain that to me, but I did grow up on a farm.
Speaker 3:And so yeah, on a farm there there's not a you don't clock in and clock out, especially when you're raising livestock. You know, I mean it's. You got to go when you got to go and it's every single day. So when I got, I went to college and I got out into the real world and people were talking about you know, get to work at eight and you're done at four or whatever it is. I didn't understand that, and so I was in the corporate world building houses for a couple of years in Cincinnati, ohio, and when I decided I wanted to own my own business, I come back and quickly realize that running your own business is just like being on the farm. You know it's. You got employees, you got customers, you got all these things you got to do, and if you think you're going to do it in eight hours, you're mistaken.
Speaker 4:So it's interesting You're just getting warmed up at 40 hours. You're just hitting your stride right there, that's right.
Speaker 3:So you're working, you're growing this business, and then the call comes to come down the road to coach these inner city kids. Talk about that and the challenges that you went through, because I just I just watched. I watched it years and years ago and then on Friday I got home early and I got the kids together Five kids got them together. I said, hey, we're going to sit down and watch this documentary again. And they all sat there and were just engulfed, uh, like the millions that have seen it. So talk about Manassas and that experience.
Speaker 4:It's important to me that people understand that undefeated filmed the seventh year, my last year, um, when I got there. Like I said earlier, there are 17 kids on a varsity football team and their previous 10 years record was four wins and 95 losses. If anybody's out there listening to me ever played football, they may remember what a suspension helmet is and what a suspension helmet is is. It's a plastic shell with kind of a padded donut right on the dome of that sits on the dome of your head and it has three nylon straps that go to points on the inside of the helmet. And so a suspension helmet is. It literally kind of suspends on your head and has two jaw pads that come around. They were used in the 70s, they were outlawed in the 80s and in 2001, when I showed it to Manassas, they were still wearing them. That should tell you how little equipment they had. They had no football field. They practiced on the outfield of a softball field, so you could practice in about a 30-yard area if you wanted to lay out some semblance of a football field.
Speaker 4:And beyond all of that, the demographics are fewer than 50% of the people from New Chicago, smoky City and Greenlaw, which are the neighborhoods that the kids go to Manassas from, fewer than 50% have an operating vehicle. Less than 3% of people actually own their own home. Less than 2% have a college degree. 40-something percent don't even have a high school diploma or a GED equivalent. But, most importantly, an 18-year-old male from those three neighborhoods is three times more likely to be dead or incarcerated by his 21st birthday than is to have a job or be in school. So it's just loss everywhere you look. It's just loss everywhere you look. And sadly, back in the 60s these were very, very proud middle income black neighborhoods supported by the jobs at Caterpillar International, harvester, firestone, all of those type of places. But after Martin Luther King was assassinated here and all of the troubles the city had for two years after that, all of those names left and I mean they went and it left pockets of deserts around the city that the city is still struggling to reinvest in and reinvent. The city's done a really good job the last decade and a half, but there's still so much work to be done, at any rate in 2001,.
Speaker 4:That's where Manassas was. Manassas was one of the two schools in the city started for African-American kids. The other was, btw, on the south side of town, isaac Hayes, went to Manassas. There are doctors and attorneys all over this country who graduated from NASA. It was a very proud school again up until 1970. And then everything changed. White flight happened, middle class black flight happened and what was left was a desert.
Speaker 4:And so we show up there to try to coach a football team and it was clear that we weren't just going to be coaching football, we had to coach. You know, fundamental tenants and values of character and commitment and teamwork, integrity, the dignity of hard work, the value of showing up on time, all of these things. And so we started coaching and the movie undefeated documents our last year, because coming up to that year we went from 17 kids to 30 kids and, anyway, year six we got up to 75 kids on the team. We were nine and one. Um, we had kids, uh, starting to do things a different way. And then Undefeated documents that last year with a group of about 20 kids, eighth graders that, uh, five years earlier convinced to stay in their community and come to Manassas, and that that undefeated documents that those eighth graders senior season there last year. After all this work we've done to grow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's amazing and I got a couple of questions to ask you from that with just watching it again on Friday with my kids, because there's a couple scenes in that documentary, one with Chavis. You know I look at that kid. You know Ben is heavily involved in our area in the youth peewee football program. He and I both coach some youth basketball. Our kids are, you know, middle school, high school age, so we see some of this.
Speaker 3:Now we're in rural America, right, we're not seeing what you saw in that urban environment, but there are some things that are some similarities where you got some kids that continue to get second, third and fourth chances and a lot of parents are like why, you know, why would you continue to? You know, to give this kid a chance, um, with all the things that he's done? So when I, when I watched that again on Friday and I see Chavis, and it's just I mean I at the end of it, I mean I'm in tears watching this whole thing because you, you watch what he was right, the kind of kid that he was, which was not his fault, right, that, that was the environment that he was in. And then you see this man, which is you who shows this love, this compassion. I mean, there's times there I don't know how you did it, I don't know how you kept it together. Talk about Chavis and that story, because I think his life has changed a little bit from where he was, because of you from where he was because of you.
Speaker 4:Chavis, as a ninth grader, was a freak athlete. He was riding around in a car with some boys from the hood, got pulled over, there was a whole bunch of weed and a whole bunch of guns in the car and he went to jail youth penitentiary. So he played week four, his freshman year, and had 11 tackles at middle linebacker as a freshman. And then I'm getting kind of stoked up thinking this guy's going to be the real deal. And then Monday I'm like Chavis isn't in practice. Tuesday is not a practice. And finally I'm like where the hell is Chavis? I can't find him. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 4:And one of the kids said he's locked up. That was it. He's gone. And then he comes back to me his junior year after doing two years, and he is now just a much. And he was already a pain in the ass as a freshman. Now he's perfected the craft of being a pain in the ass. That's what youth penitentiary does for you. But guys, I was Chavis my freshman year in high school. I got into yet another fight and back in those days, when they'd had enough of you, they didn't send you to the principal's office, they sent you to your coach's office, and that was a hell of a lot worse than any principal.
Speaker 4:So I always headed to my coach's office Coach Spain, and I knew I was about to get laced up. And I sit down there and he looks at me. He's like what is your problem again? And I'm like coach, I'm just angry. And he said look man, I know what's going on in your home, I know what you're dealing with and I understand why you're angry. But you got to quit acting out on it. You got to grow up. And he said look man, I want to give you a picture, two pictures. I said look man, I want to give you a picture, two pictures. I said, okay, and he said back then I was Billy.
Speaker 4:He said Billy, nobody can blame you for being pissed off and hurt. And here's what it's going to look like. You can be exactly like what's pissing you off right now and be that environment which is where you're headed, with the constant fights and the constant issues you're having. And this is what life's going to look like by 30,. You will probably have a substance abuse issue, alcoholism or something else. You will likely have lost at least one, if not two, jobs. You will be divorced and you will have a child or two out of wedlock, which is the very thing you say you hate worse than anything in the world. That is where you are headed if you just become the environment that you hate so bad. And he said or you can make a choice. He said you can be a rock that dysfunction breaks itself on. You can stick your heels in the dirt and decide I am not going to be that environment and that environment is not going to break and ruin me. And he said you've been shot at. He said you've been beat on. You've moved from apartment to apartment. Nobody can blame you for being angry and frustrated, but you're old enough now that you can make the decision. You're going to be enveloped by and become that, or you're going to be a rock that that crap breaks itself on. And it's a choice you got to make so fast.
Speaker 4:Forward to me seeing a guy like Chavis. I felt him man. I mean, I knew and he wasn't a sociopath, he was just an angry kid. And so when I had one-on-one conversations with him and he would bawl and tell me the truth about how deeply angry and frustrated he was. And look, man, when you're six foot 180 as a freshman and six one 200 as a sophomore and you're pretty much a dude and a bad-ass. You've got this shell that looks like a man, but inside you're still a 15, six year old boy.
Speaker 4:Your, your emotional maturity is not kept up with your physical maturity, and so oftentimes we look at the outside of someone and think well, they're grown, they ought to know better, but we forget that what's inside is still very much in development, and that's where Chavis was, that's where I was at one time, and so every time he acted out, I had to hold him accountable. You can't excuse bad behavior, but I'd never wanted to cut bait because that would just make me common, because everybody else in this kid's life had cut bait. Um, what would be uncommon for him would be to someone who say I'm going to love you unconditionally and never give up on you. No, I'm going to hold you accountable, I'm going to bust your ass. We act like an idiot, but I am not going to cut bait on you. I am going to be consistent. I am going to be the rock that your dysfunction breaks itself on, and I'm going to believe that you have the ability to come around.
Speaker 4:Every night I pray to my God to ask forgiveness for the things I've done that day. That is the only day I can wake up, the only way I can wake up the next morning and approach the day and and it's because I'm failed and I make mistakes, and I think and do things and say things I really regret, wish I hadn't, and, and so every night I lay my head down on my pillow and I ask who I think is the creator and the ruler of the universe to forgive me for the things that I've done. And the weird thing is, as you start developing a relationship with God, you start to really accept that forgiveness and cleanse yourself and feel redeemed so you can hit the next day in stride and ready to roll. And the other thing is you almost come to expect that forgiveness because it's a promise that you believe in. And so when I do that every day, when I accept and expect forgiveness and redemption from who I think is the creator and the ruler of rune, reverse.
Speaker 4:What kind of hypocrite and asshole would I be to not give that same grace and forgiveness to another failed kid, another failed human being? So when you ask, how did I do that with Chavis? It's not how, it's not why, it's because it's required. If that's the population of folks you're going to work with. It's just part of the job you hold, accountable, you tutor, you work with, you unconditionally love. You never give up. You'd be a rock that the dysfunction breaks itself on and you trust that that grace and redemption over time will eventually reveal itself in the evolution of a young man who's just hurting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's amazing. Talk about Chavis now. What's he doing now? What's his life like?
Speaker 4:He's got three kids, he's gainfully employed and he started a thing called the north memphis steelers youth and mentoring program and he has three ages of football teams and three ages of cheerleaders. Over a hundred kids in it and, uh, on the back of every single one of their jerseys it says school first. He requires kids to have a C average or better to play. If not, they come to practice and they engage, but they can't come and play in games, and three of his teams have won national championships. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:How does that make you feel?
Speaker 4:I'm so proud for him, I'm so happy for him. He also has a thing on Tik TOK called we, not me TV and he goes around in his spare time and record stuff happening in the deep inner city that is positive and his whole idea is to say to ever to the world y'all should look up on Tik we, Not Me TV. He's trying to say to the world don't let all the pop culture, national media tell you that all us black folks in the city are doing nothing but bad. The vast majority of what's going on in the city is good and I'm going to show you. And he runs around and post videos of all these people and all this engagement, the inner city of kids trying to get it right.
Speaker 3:Man that is. That's awesome how powerful of a story you know, especially relating it to your life and showing these kids how how much you care because you were in that position, and then to see the success that he's had. And I think what Chavis is doing now is kind of a microcosm of America. What we hear and what we see a lot of times from the media is negative, this negative that especially coming out of the election cycle right, and it's actually. There's so much good. I mean you're doing it now with your podcast, an Army of Normal Folks. We're trying to do the same thing with Be Tempered. We're trying to get these stories out that there's so many more positive than negative. But this world tries to show us through social media and through the news outlets that it's not because the old motto is negativity sells, bad things happen and that's what people want to see. I think that's not the case.
Speaker 4:I think it's changing. I will tell you and I hope, if your listeners hear one thing I say today, this is really what I hope they hear, and I say it repeatedly on my podcast, on both Army and Normal Folks and on Shop Talk. We have to start to understand that, because of social media, because of cell phones, because of all of the technology available to us, and now AI, which is introducing a whole nother level of mess we're going to have to deal with. We have to understand please hear this with. We have to understand, please hear this.
Speaker 4:Cnn, cnbc, fox, newsmax, the whole conglomeration of national media, as well as Facebook, tiktok, twitter, x, whatever all of that is. They are a subset of society that are incented by an enormous amount of wealth and power to craft narratives that divide us and scare us. Because if they can capture somebody's heart and mind through the algorithms that they have, and they know that these narratives scare you and divide you and make you retreat to your corner of the boxing ring, you will retreat to other people who think like you, and then they got you because you're going to continue to tune in to what they have to say, because that's the only solace you found in this fear, from these narratives that they've crafted to divide you, and it doesn't matter if you're far right or far left, if you're a CNN person or a Fox person, they are all doing it. There's an enormous, an enormous amount of power and wealth in dividing, scaring and getting you to continue to tune into their narrative. We have become drunk addicted to this crap as people. Dc is the same thing. My third child, my son, is the youngest chief of staff in the United States Congress for a sitting congressman. So I'm not saying all people in DC are bad. My daughter is part of a works for a funder. I've got two of my children work in DC.
Speaker 4:One of my favorite mantras Plato said that the penalty for not involving yourself in politics is you end up being ruled by your inferiors. We have to be involved in politics or else we are going to be governed by a bunch of idiots. So I'm not saying we shouldn't engage, but I am saying that DC, the narratives that come out of DC if you'll look at why Fox and CNN constantly have the talking heads from DC on their show is because they're using the names and the personalities in DC to further those scary narratives to divide you that then they make money and power off of. We have got to understand that is, unfortunately the reality of the world, and it's all based on algorithms. They know how to find you, to scare you and to pull you into their camp, and then they will sell advertising because they know you're going to be tuned in.
Speaker 4:So once we start understanding that we are all being treated like a bunch of freaking sheep divided by this, this new way of media, if we would just have the temerity to say I'm not buying it anymore, I'm not, I'm not going to be a sheep, you're not going to lead me around like there's a hook in my nose and I'm going to start looking at the world for what it is.
Speaker 4:So, the world for what it it is is this. 95% of us, regardless of the way we vote, the way we love, the way we look, the way we worship, all just want the same things safety, happiness, a little bit of, a little bit of something for our kids, the ability to go on some vacations. And although we may have different ideas about how to reach those goals, we are not that dissimilar and I just think an army of normal folks is the answer to what ails us right now. But that doesn't happen until we, normal folks, finally raise up and say I'm not going to be a sheep, I'm not going to be some animal with my hook in my nose, led into these corners of desperation to line somebody else's pocketbook and to give them power over me. I'm going to take power of my community, of my society, of myself, and I'm going to engage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's powerful.
Speaker 4:Very powerful.
Speaker 3:I um man, I have so many thoughts in my mind because I'm I'm thinking about your path for coaching to owning a business, and then, all of a sudden, this podcast thing comes into fruition and we have a similar, similar.
Speaker 4:That didn't even supposed to happen, but yeah, you're right yeah, so you.
Speaker 3:But so how did that happen?
Speaker 4:because it's not like you don't have anything else to do so after the academy awards I started speaking all over this place. Then I wrote my book against the grain and more speeches and so a lot of interviews like this one I've done probably a thousand of them at this point and this dude named Alex Cortez comes to interview me and he asked me some questions and along the same lines of some of the stuff we're talking about now. I was really irritated that day and I said you know what? Every city in the country Memphis and every city in the country has that area where when you pass by, you're like please don't let me have a flat tire here, I don't want my car breaking down here, these folks are going to mug me, right, we've all had that feeling. In fact, movies highlight it. Think of National Lampoon's Vacation when they take the family road through East St Louis, right, yeah, that scene, well, that's ingrained in us. And then when we pass by those areas and we look over the edge of the viaduct or we pass by that neighborhood and we peer down the road and we safely pass and we exhale and we think as we look down and we see the poverty and the dysfunction and the abject despair in that area that scares us. We think to ourselves man, somebody really ought to do something about that one day, as if that sentiment matters. It doesn't. And my suggestion is we cock that rear view mirror to the left about 15 degrees and look ourselves in it and say you know what? Maybe I should do something about that one day, because government's proven woefully inadequate. These jackasses on CNN and Fox, they're not going to come down and do anything about it. In fact, they want that to scare you, so they can continue to draw you in, so they can continue to garner power and wealth from you. It's just ridiculous. So I said that in an interview.
Speaker 4:Alex shows back up six months later and says hey, man, you really feel that way. And I said sorry, I don't even know what I thought, maybe I used a really bad word or something. And he recounted what I just said to you and I said yeah, I feel that way. And he said I want to start a podcast called An Army of Normal Folks, where you go out and interview the people that did cock the rearview mirror 15 degrees to the left, the stories that we don't hear, the stories that counter all the negativity that come out of the national media, and I want you to tell their stories. They will be well-produced because that's what he does, he's a producer. They'll be well-produced and they'll be entertaining but hopefully inspirational and maybe over time we can continue to draw people in and literally grow the army of normal folks through telling these stories.
Speaker 4:And I thought, all right, how long does that take? And he said you know, an interview a week we'll release every Tuesday and famous last words. I said sure, that shouldn't be any big deal. Now I know it's a lot more than just two hours a week, but before we released we created three.
Speaker 4:We were very fortunate that, uh, the, the head of production at I heart knew of another project I'd been involved in, heard I was messing around with the podcast and called. We sent her the three that we produced and not released yet and she said yeah, we want to put you. So I heart picked us up. So we're distributed by our heart. We're on their national, whatever their distribution channels are. And we released about a year and a half ago and within a within two months we were top 10 on the Apple and it's gone really well. And so every Tuesday we release another episode of An Army of Normal Folks just telling the story of normal people doing extraordinary things to help their little communities, and there are all kinds of stories from every walk of life you can imagine. And then on Friday we released Shop Talk, which is about a 15 to 20 minute little vignette on me answering questions about current events or tenants or fundamentals from our listeners, and so that's it. That's how I got into it.
Speaker 3:And I still don't know what the hell I'm doing. Well, I'm right there with you. We didn't. I heart hasn't picked us up. So we're, we're working to get there. But my question to you, because it sounds like we're kind of in the same boat with the podcast thing, not really knowing where it's going to go, what it's going to do, but what do you? Where do you see it going with you, with the army of normal folk?
Speaker 4:man, alex the producer. He books the guests, he flies them to Memphis, he feeds them, he puts them up, he does the editing, he adds the music. I mean, he's the guy that does the real work and, candidly, this was his idea. That came off something I said, right. So I'm the host and I'm the guy that ends up saying stupid things that people laugh at or maybe, on occasion, once a month, say something, maybe poignant. I will tell you what he believes and everything he has believed so far has come to fruition. So I'm going to continue to work with him on this ride. He believes that we can set up army of normal folks chapters in different cities, that that the podcast can not only continue to be a podcast but kind of morph into a movement. And the movement is this we're not starting a need in their community about. And the episode then provides a blueprint about how to do the work in that certain discipline and how to be successful. Every one of my guests leaves their personal contact information so a listener can hear the blueprint of how to be successful and then talk to the architect of the blueprint. So the excuse of I'd like to be involved, but I don't know how and I don't know how to start. We're eliminating. Because you do know how to start, because here's a blueprint and you do know who to talk to, who's already done it once, and they walk you through how to start it in your neighborhood.
Speaker 4:And so the idea is to start chapters of an army of normal folks where people are just exchanging ideas and their own passions and their own philanthropic work and learning about one another.
Speaker 4:Because here's the thing I don't care if you're black, white, latino, asian, gay, straight, male, female, christian, hindu, muslim, I don't know All of the little categories, none of that matters. If you're doing something extraordinary for someone who's not as fortunate as you, as you're in your community, I can celebrate you, regardless of how you vote, how you worship, how you love or what you look like, and you can do the same for me. And if, from that foundation, we can have a mutual respect and appreciation of one another, well, now we can talk about race and creed and politics and things, but do it in a much more civil, non-threatening way, because we're coming from a place of mutual respect. So Alex believes that we can create chapters of an army of normal folks, not to do anything other than to exchange ideas about philanthropic things, grow to respect and appreciate one another and then, with that respect and appreciation, start maybe even tackling some other issues that are eating at our society and our culture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's how real change happens, right? I mean, that's how you know everybody talks about we need to change the world, we need to change the things that we see and the things that we do. And you're right, you can talk about it all you want, but until you find those people who have actually been successful at making and creating change in a positive way, it's just talk.
Speaker 4:And sharing their best practices. So if you listen long enough and you become inspired and you see the needs and communities and you have a passion for it, now you have the best practice right at your fingertips to employ in your own neck of the woods.
Speaker 3:Yeah for sure. So, being raised how you were, you were influenced by your coach. You were influenced by the man with the holiday ends. You become a coach, you become a business owner. I think I know the answer to this, but I want to hear it from you. What do you value most in your relationship with others?
Speaker 4:Wow. Honesty is paramount. I don't care about bad news, I just want honest news. I don't think marriages last without blatant honesty, candor. I don't think relationships in business last without honesty and I don't think interpersonal relationships last without honesty. So I think I value the most is honesty.
Speaker 4:The second is safety, and I'll tell you something Lisa taught me we were in our late 20s, early 30s. No, we were in our early 30s. I'd started to make a little money in business and you gotta remember where I came from. I never really had a great dad example and we never really had any money. So, as a father and a husband, I've got my family in a four bedroom house on four acres with an ice yard. Lisa's driving around a car where everybody has a seat. My kids are in good schools. Nobody has to worry if there's going to be food in the kitchen on the 30th. Nobody has to worry if there's going to be food in the kitchen on the 30th. Nobody has to worry if the lights are going to be on on the 27th, 8th, 9th. Nobody has to worry if the government check for the cheese is going to show up on the 15th or 16th.
Speaker 4:Things that were my reality and I'm like I am awesome, I'm the greatest dad and husband of the place of the planet. These people I got four kids and a wife and these folks got all of it and man, isn't my family safe? And meanwhile I'm working 15 hours a day, I'm coaching five, I'm in and out of the house, I'm running like a wild person. If Lisa, the kids need me for a conversation, catch me when you can have any idea what a wife really wants in the world. And I said no. And she said wants to be safe.
Speaker 4:And I said you're safe, look at the house, the food, the things. Because, nah, dude, emotionally safe, I don't even know where you are half the time in between your ears and I don't feel you, and that was one of the more valuable lessons in my life. So when you ask what I respect and appreciate in relationships more than anything else, trust and safety, but I mean emotional safety. I want to be safe enough with the people that are close to me that I know I can tell them anything or hear anything, and it will be met with not acceptance. If I say, hey, you know, and I say something that's just awful, that doesn't mean someone that says, oh, that's okay, because honesty is. That's not okay, but it's safe. It's emotionally safe that I will always be met with unconditional love.
Speaker 3:So honesty and safety. Great answer. If you could have a conversation with one person, living or deceased, who would it be and why?
Speaker 4:Christ and, um, um, I why is? Because, um, I would love to know um, what it was he did between when he was born and he started. He started his Renaissance. I just would love to know what was going on when that cat was 13,. Because, if he was here, well, because of why? Because if he was human, which he was, and he experienced human pain and emotion and suffering and doubt and fear, which he did, you know what was that like when he was 13 and 12 and 11? Nobody tells that story. It's not there, and I really would like to know, because I know where I was at that time and I just I wonder what his human emotion was at that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great answer. Well, as we land this plane, are there any closing thoughts, any words of wisdom, any Bible verses, things that you live by on a daily basis when things get tough? I mean, I know you're a man of faith, I know you say your prayers in the evening, but is there a quote? Is there something somebody said to you that pushes you through those difficult times?
Speaker 4:you through those difficult times, yeah, and I mean it's an undefeated um. But I truly believe, um, that tough times don't build character, they reveal character. A lot of people say, ah, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And you know the tough times, they show your character. You know football shows character, you know whatever. I think that is just a crock.
Speaker 4:I think what builds character is the work of your daily walk, making sure you have a foundation of commitment and dignity, integrity, honesty, hard work, and you build that foundation so that when the tough times come and hit you in the face, that's your opportunity to reveal the character, to reveal the, the, the gumption that you've built. So I don't think tough times build character, I think tough times reveal character. I think the work you do along the walk of your life is what builds character. And so my belief set is every day when we wake up and suck oxygen into our lungs, we have yet another opportunity to exact some positive measure of change on this world, to help somebody that is not as fortunate as us, and to build into our human psyche the very fundamental values and tenets that are going to carry us through life. And then, when we're hitting the nose which, if you get through life, you're going to be hitting the nose plenty, whether it's hitting the nose in personal relationships or business, or the sickness or death of a child or a spouse or whatever else, evil is going to beset you in this world.
Speaker 4:That if you work to build that character, when those things hit you, you have a chance to reveal what you've worked on your whole life to build, and I think that is just nothing more than an opportunity. Reveal what you've worked on your whole life to build, and I think that is just nothing more than an opportunity. So I would say you know, if you want to be part of an army of normal folks, put aside your preconceived notions, try to relinquish yourself of the fear and the loathing that has been created in you by social and national media. Quit being a sheep, go to work on yourself and then look for opportunities to reveal your character in places of need, because the world is full of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great advice.
Speaker 3:I got to tell you, um, from from me doing Ben and I doing this podcast over the past eight months or whatever it's been.
Speaker 3:I go to the YMCA every morning with my kids at five in the morning and we're in there working out and we've got some you know, some local followers or whatever. And there was one episode where we were talking about how podcasts have really helped Ben and I through some difficult times where you hear stories like yours and like Jason Koger, who's someone we had on last week, who's a double amputee, bilateral arm amputee and he came up here from Kentucky and did some hunting last week and we had an in-studio. It's somebody you need to get on your podcast and I'll share his information because he's an unbelievable story, unbelievable dude. But anyways, I'm at the Y working out and a guy comes up to me and I don't know him and he says, hey, I was listening to the last podcast and you were talking about the Ed Milet show and the John O'Leary show and John Gordon and all these guys that you listen to, but he said there's one you're not listening to and I said what's that? He said it's an army of normal folk and I said what's?
Speaker 4:that he said it's an army of normal folk and I was like, okay, well, I'll listen to it. So I, when I get home that that morning I pull it up, and so I've been a listener since, and that was a couple months ago. So that that's what spurred me to reach out to you, and it's pretty awesome to have you're listening. And look, dude, we are all just folks trying to do a little bit of good and make our mark, and so I'm honored that you invited me and I really do appreciate the time and you sharing my ideas with your listeners and I'm glad you're listening. You know, the more of us trying to inspire folks to think about life a little bit different and do it a little better, the better, and so I'm, I'm all in with you guys.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we appreciate that. How can people find you if they want to find you?
Speaker 4:You can go to coachbillcourtneycom if you want, you know, find out more about me, which you must not have much to do on your day. Find out more about me, which you must not have much to do on your day to do, but, um, the undefeated is on Amazon. Prime against the grain is available, amazon, or wherever you buy books. And um, obviously, wherever you listen to your podcast, you can listen to an army of normal folks and you can go to normal folks, dot us, to learn more about, uh, joining the army, subscribing to the podcast or looking at all our past um guests and all that. So, coach, bill bill courtneycom, uh, normal folks, dotus and army normal folks for the podcast and the movies on Amazon prime and the books on Amazon. And if you can't find me from all of that, then you just were not meant to be right.
Speaker 3:Well, coach Bill Courtney, we again thank you for your time. I know you're a busy man, it's very obvious, and, uh, it's greatly appreciated that you came on here with us.
Speaker 4:Man, I appreciate you having me, and, to you and your families, happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas.
Speaker 3:Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah, same to you. Have a great day. Everybody, go out and be tempered.
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