Changing Lives Through an Army of Normal Folks | Coach Bill Courtney

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Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. You are about to hear one of the most emotional, the most engaging, compassionate, connected, powerful conversations that I've ever had on this show.
Coach Bill Courtney is well known for his time as a head coach in Memphis at a local high school that was documented in the Oscar winning movie, Undefeated, which came out back in the early 2010s. Now, Coach Bill has created a podcast, a community, a not-for-profit around the idea of this, an army of normal folks in which Bill tells stories of everyday people doing the work on the ground to help their communities improve.
He's connecting individuals from around the country and around the world who want to support these types of organizations and making real progress. And the stories he tells, guys, I had tears streaming down my face during the show.
You'll see it if you watch on YouTube. It is incredible.
It is powerful. And these are the kind of messages that we need to spread.
So if you're not someone who normally hits that share button, do so. If you don't want to share this episode or the show, go to Bill's work.
Go directly to his podcast and share his work. This is powerful.
This is the kind of stuff that changes lives. It was such an honor, such a pleasure to have Coach Bill on the show, and I know you are going to enjoy this conversation.
If this is your first time here, would love for you to subscribe wherever you listen or watch. And if you have thoughts, if you have comments, if you want to connect with Bill, I highly encourage you to do so.
I appreciate you for listening to the show. I love you for listening to the show.
Let's get on to Coach Bill. Bill, I am so excited to have you on the show.
I knew who you were from the movie Undefeated, and I knew a little bit of your story. But I'll be honest with you, when I dug into what you're doing now with Army of Normal folks, I just, that's what really lit me up.
I mean, I have a million different things to ask you, but I love this idea. So maybe just give me the, when you, when this first hit your face, right, first hit you in the head and you're like, Ooh, there's something here.
What, what was that moment? What was that moment where this idea hit you in the head? Honestly, it didn't hit me in the head. If you want to know the truth, it hit my producer, Alex Cortez, in the head.
And here's how it went.

Hi. Honestly, it didn't hit me in the head, if you want to know the truth.
It hit my producer, Alex Cortez, in the head. And here's how it went.
I do a lot of interviews. I do a lot of speeches.

And, you know, from the movie and my book, Against the Grain, Alex was just a dude who was interviewing me. And about, I would close to two years ago, um, he was doing an interview for, um, his radio show, um, which was called our American stories.
Um, and he, and it was one of those days, you'll know what I'm talking about is one of those days where something happened in the news cycle that was really obvious, right? But if you watched Fox report on it, and then you watch CNN report on it, it was like two completely different things actually happened, you know? And then the GOP people in DC started, you know, having their conversations about it and the Democrats started.

And again, it was like it was obviously what and I wish I could remember what it was, but I don't.

But it just, one more of the infuriating misinformation and how, you know, an obvious situation can be completely tilted 19 different ways to satisfy a certain narrative that had to have fit a certain way of thinking, regardless of the obvious situation. And it just was bothering me.
And so that just happened that day as a back story. Alex is interviewing me, not about that, but just interviewing him about undefeated against the grains, some other current events.
And in the middle of it, I said this to the question, what do you think is going to fix the division? And I said, you know, there are areas in every city in our country where you drive over a viaduct or you drive down the street. And when you peer over the edge of that viaduct and you see all the poverty and the disenfranchisement and the despair and the loss, you think, good Lord, don't let me have a flat tire here.
Because that's the place you don't want your car to break down.

But then as you safely do pass by and you're past your fear of that area

and your recognition of what that area is, and you think to yourself,

man, somebody ought to do something about that down there one day.

As if that sentiment matters. And it doesn't.
And my suggestion is we tilt that rearview mirror to the left about 15 degrees, look ourselves in the face and say, but you know what, maybe I can do something about that one day, because the government has proven woefully inadequate. The people on Fox and CNN, using big words that nobody understands, aren't fixing anything.
And if we want to be truly honest with ourselves, there is enormous amount of power and thusly wealth as a result of that power garnered by people in DC and New York who garnered that power and wealth by fashioning narratives about obvious stuff that divides us. And I'm just sick of all of it.
And in answer your question, Alex, I think it's going to take an army of normal folks, just us, guys like you and me that see areas of need and quit relying on them, the proverbial quote, them to do something about it and maybe get our hands dirty and jump in. So I said that in the interview.
Six months went by, didn't think about it. Alex calls me back and he says, hey, Bill, I can't quit thinking about what you said in our interview.
And I was like, oh gosh, did I cuss? What's he talking about? And he reminded me of what I just told you. And he said, do you really feel that way? I said, yeah.
He said, I want to start a national show where we will do the work finding normal people all over the country doing the very things you're talking about. And let's highlight them since the national media won't.
And let's, in doing that, grow an audience that is the army of normal folks and use these stories not only to entertain and tell the stories and bring light to great stories going on, but also to literally grow the army inspired by one another story, cross these divides, cross these narratives and tell the government in New York, we don't need you. We can fix this without all your BS.
And I was like, that sounds cool. Okay.
So that was it. That was a year ago.
And within four weeks, we were in the top, you know, 10 or 20 in the nation on podcasts. And we have done nothing but grow and grow and grow since then.
And Iron Light Labs up in Chicago with Alex is the producer and Iron Light Labs up there does all the artwork and music and all that.

And iHeart picked us up and started distributing us. And we've been doing this for a year now.
And our goal is just that, to inspire everyday, average, normal people to put aside all the preconceived notions they have about one another. And let's see if we can't change the country and quit waiting on them who are purposely anchored by enormous power and wealth dividing us.
I love that. I couldn't agree with your sentiment and the foundational idea behind that more.
Frankly, I run, I have a core of other podcasters that are just friends, right? And we share ideas. And the reason that we all do it is for that exact reason.
The reason I do this show, it's not the same mission, but it's, or the idea behind it is trying to tell people's stories in a way that doesn't divide us, right? I'm so, you know, the podcast episode that actually kicked my show off and sent me to kind of the next level was an episode that I did with a dear friend who I tend to skew a little more conservative. He's a little more liberal Democrat, but we're like best buds.
I mean, I love this guy to death. I'd run down and give him my shirt down in New Orleans if I could run that far.
And we did a podcast episode called How to Disagree with a Friend About politics and still love each other. And that show just went crazy because what we were trying to show everyone is that we can discuss things and we can disagree.
And that ultimately, and this was my hope though, it ended up happening was we're trying to solve the same problems. We all see the same things and that we can learn from each other how to get there.
But we can't learn from each other if we're following the politicians and the mainstream media that you just outlined because it is not in their best interest to do that. They do not get reelected.
They do not get campaign dollars. They do not get clicks in advertising if they're not hyper intentional about creating fear and anger and dissent and division.
And you just cannot trust the stories that come out of them any longer. And it's why this podcast movement in general has taken off so much of my opinion in the last five years.
And I just – I couldn't be happier that you guys are doing this. So my question out of that little diatribe is what does it mean to be part of that army? You hear that message and you say, oh my god, I need to do something.
I need to get involved. What are the first steps someone can take? What does it look like being part of this army of normal folks? So if you listen to the show, you will hear this at least twice a month, maybe more.
And you will certainly hear it on Shop Talk. Army of normal folks releases every Tuesday, which is a guest interview long format, usually broken into two or three episodes on that one guest.
Then on Friday we release shop talk, which is a quick 15 minute snippet about a, uh, current event. If you listen, you will.
And one of those two things each week, hear me say this, the magic happens when passion and discipline. And when I mean discipline, I don't mean following the rules.
I mean, ability when passion and discipline intersect with opportunity, you do not have to be part of some massive 501 C three. You do not have to be part of the smart, pretty people.
You do not have to be elected. You do not have to be part of some NGO to have massive effect on another person's life or another group of people's life.
You simply have to be passionate about a discipline and have that passion and discipline intersected opportunity. I just interviewed a guy who was suicidal and, um, uh, dealt with addiction and got over it.
And, um, he ended up putting a quick YouTube video out of him dancing and it got three and a half million views. And now he has 1.2 million followers on Instagram and like 1.6 on Tik TOK.
And he is a UPS driver and he is called the dancing UPS man. And he goes around and finds people who look down and he dances and puts a smile on their face because he knows when he was sitting on the edge of his bed with a loaded gun in his hand about to put in his mouth, a smile would have saved his life that day.
And so his goal in the world is to put smiles on people's faces. He's not part of anything.
He's just a normal dude that has a passion for dancing and really is good at it and sees opportunity every day when he sees down people. And when he's delivering a package and he sees a down person, he'll put on some ice ice baby and do some stuff you wouldn't believe.

You can look at him on Instagram and TikTok, the Dancing UPS Man.

That guy from a girl who was dealing with bulimia and all kinds of issues.

Her father had lost everything gambling.

She'd just gotten a job in Philly.

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And she ran past a homeless shelter because her therapy was jogging. And she ran past a homeless shelter for a couple of weeks.
And one time they yelled down at her, hey, is all you do all day is run around. And she screamed back up, is all you do is sit on your ass on the front porch all day.
And then they started kind of barbing, but friendly barbing. When she looked up on that porch, she saw her father in her mind's eye.
She decided, those people need some exercise. So she went up there one day, knocked on the thing and said, I want all your homeless people.
I'm going to start a running club. And the curator's like, homeless people don't jog.
They don't run. And she said, give me a chance.
She got six guys, made rules about not being late and all of this. And she said, you know, if they can learn the discipline of being on time, getting off their rear end, fighting through because running, you can't cheat.
You got to, you know. Anyway, she started a thing called Back on My Feet that has 20 chapters now all over the country, which is running clubs for the unhomed, for the unhoused, and they have gotten over 6,000 people back on their feet, not literally running, but back on their feet with full-time jobs and full-time housing, all because she had a discipline and a passion for running and saw an opportunity.
Every single story is like that. So what does it mean to be part of an army? Figure out what you're passionate about, what you're good at, find an opportunity, and fill the hole.
Why do we not take action in this way? Fear. Will people think I'm weird? Will people think I'm stupid? Is this part of the world unsafe to go in? But the big one is this.
Who am I? Who am I? What can I do? You know, what, what can I really make some measure of change? And the answer is absolutely. You know, Plato said, the penalty for not involving yourself in politics is you end up being governed by your inferiors.
Likewise, I would say the penalty for not involving yourself in culture and society is you end up losing it. We are afraid of a culture that we are unwilling to fix, then we get what we deserve.
Where does that fear, like what, is that intuitive? Is that human nature, do you think? Or has that been instilled in us? I don't, you know, we're clannish people. We've been clannish people since the advent of humanity.
And if you look and think and vote and act like me, you're safe. If you don't, I'm, I've got, I'm, I'm, I'm a little fearful of that.
And then we exacerbate that fear by CNN and Fox and the divided, uh, government. We have a Pew research.
I'm going to mess these numbers up a little, but you'll get the idea. Pew research.
I actually wrote a column on this that somebody picked up.

Maybe it was USA Today. I can't remember.
But anyway, Pew Research reported, and Pew Research is, they're good. And so they reported that like 80% of us recognize that depending on which news station we watch, we know the content we're getting is slanted toward our political view.
We also, Pew Research also found out that the same, about the same percentage of beliefs that we know about the information coming out of politicians' mouths. We also know about the same amount that the information we get on social media is tainted.
Okay? So we know we're being divided. We don't trust the news source, and we know social media is not to be trusted.
Yet the same people admit to spending over three hours per day, either on social media, on TV, or listen to the same stuff on the radio. So here's the paradigm.
We know it's crap and we know it divides us, but we feed ourselves with it three hours a day. And if you stay awake, normally about 12 hours a day, 25% of our waking hours, we're feeding ourselves with the stuff that we know divides us.
It's like we're addicted to it. So one, I do think we're born in it.
I think we're clannish. I think human beings have an innate clan mentality to them.
But then the second of our question, I think we're also feeding ourselves with this clan mentality, even when we know it's bad for us. And my belief set is this, I don't, I don't know much about you.
Okay. I don't know how you vote.
I don't know how you worship. I don't know how you vote I don't know how you worship I don't know how you I don't know how you love I don't know who you love I don't I don't I know what color you are so okay but most you know does it really matter who you love what your sexuality is how you, who you worship, what you look like, or what you come from, if you're doing something extraordinary for other people in your community? If you're doing something extraordinary to serve people in your community that aren't as fortunate as you, regardless of what you look like, how you vote, who you love, or any of that other stuff, I can celebrate you.
And likewise, if I'm doing the same thing, regardless of all that about me, you can celebrate me because we can celebrate one another's humanity. And if that creates a foundation where I can celebrate and I can, I can buy into you because of what you're doing and you can buy into into me from what I'm doing.
Now we have a foundation of mutual respect and admiration and trust that we can now then have non-threatening civil conversations about the stuff that matters, and we will find commonality. an army of normal folks using their discipline and their passion where it meets opportunity and finding out

about one another and celebrating one another and joining one another in community around the stuff that matters then creates a foundation that we can break down all these stereotypical crap that's dividing us. There's the goal.

I coach a lot of entrepreneurs.

And one of the first exercises that I do with them, whether it's in person or virtual, is I have them open up their Instagram and just start slowly scrolling through it.

That's great.

I love that.

Yeah. My, you know, knowing how social media works, right? Everyone says, well, social media feeds you negative stuff.
No, social media wants you to stay on the app so they can feed you ads that people pay for. So the only reason that they would feed you some negative story or political story or combative story is because you're spending time on it.
So if you look at my Instagram, it has two things. It has motivational business stuff because I'm a sucker for a good Michael Jordan quote or whatever, just like anybody else.
And it has how to coach 10-year-olds baseball because I love baseball. I play baseball in college a little after.

And now I coach my sons.

And so I have – so if you look through my Instagram, there's literally two things that comes through, right?

And none of it is political stuff.

So half the time I don't even know what's going on.

I didn't even find out that Trump got shot until the next day.

I didn't even know.

I didn't even know.

I didn't even know he got shot.

I found out the next day because then I got – I woke up to a text message.

Hey, did you see this crazy shit about Trump?

And I was like,

Thank you. I didn't even know.
I didn't even know. I didn't even know he got shot.
I found out the next day because then I got it. I woke up to a text message.
Hey, did you see this crazy shit about Trump? And I was like, I didn't even know. Cause I, I just, I don't, it doesn't come through for me because of what I spend my time on and where I put my focus.
And what I just heard you say is what you focus is on is who you become. And if you focus on your family, if you focus on your community, if you focus on positive change, then that's what comes back to you.
And what I try to combat so much in the work that I do in this podcast and the people that I have on and the stories I try to share is starting to move away from this cultural self-orientation that somehow has just been baked into our interactions in a way that like, if I don't go get mine, then everything's going to be taken from me. And, you know, what I hear you describing is a path to start to break that, that I think cultural virus down.
And, you know, I, I don't, you know, I think it is, it is, it's going to take a million, 10 million, a hundred million. I wanted to say knife cuts, but that sounds very negative, you know, touch points, interactions that, that change that.
And, you know, I, I, I don't mean to, to, to Bogart here cause I'm supposed to be interviewing you, but I had this really interesting interaction with my son the other day is 10 years old. He's very inquisitive little kid.
He kind of watches every single, the little one could give a shit what I'm doing. The older one watches literally every move that I do.
And, um, so the older ones like watching me and we were just kind of moving through something. We were at a gas station or whatever.
I can't remember what we were doing, but I smiled to the woman when I held the door. And then I walked in and I said hello to the person getting a drink out of the cooler next to us.
And then I, you know, I was chatting up with the, with the person who checked us out and walked out. And my son was like, why did you, you smiled at every single person? And I was like, yeah, why would I not do that?

Like, I don't want them to have a bad day.

You know what I mean? Like what I want, you know, what if that smile means something to them? Maybe it means nothing. But what did it cost me? It cost me nothing.
And that's the part that I struggle with in how, what are the words, actions, and this is really the question back to you that that get us in a mind frame where we can kind of get out of ourselves a little bit, a little more intentional in our interactions with people. Is there something that you recommend or someone that you know that has a good philosophy on this or a quote or something that can kind of, we're we're just so wrapped up in our day-to-day lives that we forget that like a smile from you through this screen could change my entire day, you know? And if we could, the more we do that, that spreads, that, that spreads a positive virus, a positive, a positive virus throughout versus this negativity that we feel all the time.
I don't know, man. I mean, maybe it's a little old school and hokey, but I think the golden rule still applies.
Yeah. You know, I mean, just do unto others as you would like done unto you.
How hard is that? That is so old school, time tested and applicable today as it was whenever it was written. And I love what you're saying.
Likewise, you know, if you have a child with autism that's being bullied at school. Think about, for those of you listening who have children, think about how your basic instinct, your most primal basic instinct, is to love and protect your child.
Imagine the gut-wrenching feeling you have sending your kid away from your protective cocoon every day to a place called a school where you know they're about to live in agony because of the bullying. Imagine the difficulty.
And we had guests who's really beautiful teenage autistic kid was ostracized and bullied and not included in anything who at 17 year old killed herself. Oh, and her name was Aaron.
and her father told me, and I will try not to get emotional saying this,

but her father told me, you know, Bill, if she had one friend, she'd be alive today. One.
Two days later, they're sitting in Aaron's bedroom because they've got to clean all this stuff out now. Their daughter's dead.
And they're sobbing and holding each other and trying to just figure out how to get through the next day. And in that moment of despair, their passion and their discipline overtook them.
And they said, we don't ever want this to happen to any more parents like us, if she only had one friend. And so they started an organization, and on her, their daughter called Erin's Hope for Friends.
And the first time, it was eight kids in their community, and all they did was reach out to parents who had children with autism, and they picked out a night, and they brought them together, and they had Cokes and snacks and video games and

music. And they said, Hey, have a blast.
We're leaving. And the parents got the hell out of there and they let these kids do what kids want to do.
Hang out, be buddies. And then they started these things called, I think they're called e-houses or whatever.
Anyway, now there is errands, E-houses,

E-clubs, and errands.

Anyway, there's thousands

of Anyway, now there is Aaron's E houses and E clubs and Aaron's in any way. There's thousands of autistic kids who have places to go twice a week all over the country as a result of this.
This is just another one of our stories, right? Aaron's Hope for Friends. And if somebody in the middle of the most desperate time in their life, losing their child to suicide, who they knew was getting bullied and they just desperately couldn't do anything to help her, um, can find a way to help other people.
We all can. And it's, it's simply, it is really simply how would I have liked to have been helped? How would my daughter have liked to have been helped? You know? And so it is, it's just, it's to me, it is that simple.
It is just having the temerity

to get out of your comfort zone and out of your bubble. We see opportunity every day.

And we also know what we're good at and what we like to do. It's just having the temerity

to employ, to spend a little time and employ that passionate ability where need is. And if you, like you said, you talked about touch points, but if we had a hundred million people, a third of our country doing that, what would our culture look like today versus what it does? Because we can't wait.
No, there is no waiting. Who is going to come save us? Yes.
The government, CNN and Fox? We know that's not going to happen. And we all sit around hand-wringing about, look at the division, look at the disintegration of culture, look at where our society is going, you know, what's going to become of us? Well, here's what's going to come of us.
We were started by we the people. We can be fixed by we the people.
It's just, do we have the same courage and foresight that our forefathers did? They were fighting the British. We're fighting ourselves.
All we got to do is break it down and understand that we still have all the power, liberty, ability, passion, energy, and opportunity today that we did two and a half centuries ago. We just have to have the willingness and the temerity to address it.
And I believe with everything I am, a literally army of normal folks engaging in culture, breaking down stereotypes, working hard for one another, using passion and discipline to employ it in areas of opportunity, genuinely fixes this country. So how do we inspire those messages? We tell them every week, every single guest leaves their personal information.
So if you're in a literal thing that happened, you're in Scottsdale, Arizona, and you hear a story about a guy in Memphis who's working to properly help grow the black middle class. You like that? Connect with each other and then bring that guy to Scottsdale and do it in Scottsdale.

And that happened this month.

It's connectivity. It's inspiration.
There's always safety in numbers. So it's encouragement.
and it's taking back our culture and our narrative

from the people who were incented by power and wealth to divide us.

I wrote this article called How to Keep America the Greatest Country on Earth. and in it the crux of my argument is that while most people quote and this is not

uh any context on what you said, but

we the people most often, to me, the most brilliant part and the core message of that document is

actually this, the paraphrasing, obviously, to form a more perfect union. What our founding

fathers gave us was our mission in that sentence. We the people, yes, right? It's about the people.
However, they gave us our mission, the continual improvement of the union. And it is through these micro actions that we take on an individual basis, as your term, common folk, that, you know, everyday folk, that it's these actions that are so important.
And to me, it's a difficult thing because life is tough. It is complicated.
The world does seem more confusing and faster paced than ever before. Obviously, I've only lived since 1981.
So I can't,

you know, for most of some of those years, I was a child and had no idea. So I can't say beforehand whether life was more hectic or not.
But my understanding, my reading, talking to people, this is most likely the most hectic, most fast paced, most confusing time that in the existence of our species. And the only way to break through that is through these little micro actions, through these little positive touch points.
And like you said, this is the part where I think people get hung up and I'd really like your opinion on it. When I talk to people about these things, oftentimes they feel like if they were to do something, if it doesn't create some massive improvement, then what's the use, right? And, you know, I give, you know, I take a portion of what I make through my business and the various ways that we generate revenue.

And I give it to this small veterans charity. I didn't serve.
I wish I did. I almost did.
I didn't. I ended up getting a baseball scholarship and chose that life instead.
But these guys just have a store that basically veterans in our community get to come down and they get allocated a certain amount of credits, call it, every month, and they can come down and shop for what they need. And they sign up for the program and they, you know, there's certain stipulations, but as long as you fit whatever the criteria is, you know, you know, most of it, a lot of these people are homeless or, or near, near homeless and they get to come in and they get to shop for stuff and they don't have to pay for it.
They get to allocate a certain amount and depending on what they need and whatever. And the amount that I give them is not like, you know, it doesn't like make their year, but it's like, you know, I'd said to my, my friends, like, you know, what, you know, geez, why, why do you do this or this? And I just was like, I don't know.
What if what, like you said, one person is going to be hungry this month and my 2,500 bucks that I give them, or, you know, something depends on what it is, allow somebody to freaking eat. And, and I'm not, that's not like a, I'm not trying to say that I'm perfect.
Cause I'm certainly not. I certainly we could do more, but it's like, why? I just, I guess I'm not trying to say that I'm perfect because I'm certainly not.
I certainly could do more. But it's like, I guess I'm looking for and maybe we just don't have the answer and you've given it.
And maybe the answer is probably in the various episodes that you've done of your show is like, what is that statement that someone like me? So I finished this show with you. I mean, I started crying about the story.
I'm completely inspired by you, your mission, and Alex and what you guys are doing. Like what is, when I get pushback or someone who doesn't understand this concept or maybe just is caught up in themselves, I guess I'm looking for the words or the concept that I can give to them to kind of crack them open, to turn their brain a little bit.

If someone's listening and they're like, yeah, I hear Bill.

And man, he sounds like a great guy and love what he's doing.

But what's that word, that concept, that idea that we can put in front of them to just crack them open a little bit and maybe get them to do something?

First, tell Aaron's family that one person would have made a difference just hear that okay um second to your initial thought that you know if it doesn't make some big splash, it's not worth getting involved in the first place. Um, you know, um, tell Aaron's family that tell, tell Aaron's family.
Um, and I know this sounds like a shameless plug, but I dare you to listen to any three episodes of An Army of Normal Folks and not see the answer to your question.

I dare you.

A double dog dare you.

Triple dog.

I'll make a bet.

I'll do anything.

Because honestly, your question is a really fair one. I was asking that of myself when this started.
All right. I, please remember, I don't find the guest.
I don't do the production. I don't add the music.
I don't do the artwork. I don't run the social media.
I'm the host, right? And I'm the host because something rolled out of my mouth that sounded interesting and they built a show around it. Okay.
But I got to be honest with you. I was also, you know, on the fence.
Does this really make a difference? Hey, Alex, can you give me the thing, the thing we just did for Shop Talk? Does this really make a difference? Ironically, before we got on, I just recorded next Friday shop talk. Okay.
Yep. So I'm going to give you some stuff.
Yeah. Um, um, but I, I wondered, right.
So here you go. Um, two listeners have joined Casa where they advocate, advocate for foster children in the legal system, a Haitian orphanage, which is called a place of hope.
Haitian orphanage now is adopting the model of another show we did called sleep in heavenly peace. Whose volunteers have built 140,000 beds for kids without them in the United States.
These Haitian orphanage has a woodworking shop.

So now Haitian orphans without families are building beds for Haitian children who have families but no beds. that orphanage pump went out and it's the only pump to provide

clean pump and generator to provide clean drinking water

for an entire area of Haiti. We put a call out to the army within two days, $27,000 was raised.
And this whole place has lights and clean drinking water because people just listened in. um uh this a member of the army meaning someone who subscribes the army started running with the homeless through the atlanta chapter of back on my feet which i told you about he's reached out to sleep in heavenly peace to volunteer with them he's donated to meet several requests on care portal another thing we had and he is now supporting a future superhero and friends, which is another episode.
Um, Tommy Norman, who was one of our first guests is considered the Michael Jordan of community policing in North Little Rock. Bill just want to say thanks for the hope.
I reached out to your guest officer, Tommy Norman, after your episode and to my amazement, he called me back like you said he would. We talked about my daughter who's facing addiction, and I almost lost her.
I genuinely think he saved her. Army wrote about my thing on Mike Rowe, inspiration.
An Oklahoma listener named Jim Pina is replicating the model of another guest, Big Al Holden Secret Families, and they will now give 10,000 gifts to 2,000 kids whose family can't afford Christmas on Christmas Eve. Premium member Pastor Donald Fry has talked about several episodes in his sermons.

As a result, his church is involved in a number of activities that have been highlighted on our Army of Normal folks.

And he even preached on a thing called Don't Be a Turkey Christian based on a billboard we had in Times Square and my appearance on Kelly Clarkson's show talking about this.

It goes on and on and on. None of this is big.
None of it. Did you hear everything I said? There's nobody here who started some massive organization.
But these are, to your word, touch points all over our country. What if we had 100 hundred million of them? Think of what our culture looks like, how different we approach and think about and appreciate one another.
And Army of Normal folks, we the people making differences every days where they can. Your passion, your discipline, your ability at areas of opportunity, not in massive ways but in small ways just with massive volume changes all of it and this is proof we've been on there 10 months dude love spreads you know it does it's contagious it's contagious i didn't even mean to have that list it just the timing happened to be that we did that today, but there you go.
I appreciate it. I, um, I, I, I'm, I'm moved and, and inspired and, and, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's funny, you know, you hear these stories and you start questioning your own contributions.
You know what I mean? You should, I do. I, it is so true.
When I interview somebody and they go through their whole thing, I find myself inspired every interview. And then I think to myself, damn, Bill, you could do more here or you could, I mean, hell, this thing's costing me money because every other week I'm donating to something I never heard of because the guest inspires me.
But you know what? I don't miss it. Yeah.
You know, and, um, man, I, now I'm going to brag, but there's two of my kids work in DC, believe it or not. And there's a kid up there.
I'm not going to use any names. There's a kid up there who is really, really bright, um, and has an internship in DC goes to the university of Alabama.
I don't know what the exact word for what he has is, but he slurs and drools a little when he speaks and, um, he doesn't walk particularly well. He, when he was a baby, he was afflicted with something that causes him to have motor function issues.
But cerebrally, he's 100% there. Now, this guy is in D.C.
on an internship by himself. Do you think he's making many friends? Do you think people are really engaging with this guy in DC? Um, one of my daughter's friends noticed this guy walking in the rain and pulled up next to him and shared her umbrella and walked him and got to know a little bit about him.
And yesterday he celebrated his birthday in DC with my daughter and her daughter's friend and 17 other people all around him and had a birthday party for him. And he said his first birthday party, anybody ever threw for him.
Now, look, what? That's not anything. That's not an organization.
That's not anything. It's just normal folks being passionate about someone, not as advantaged as they are, seeing an opportunity of need and filling it and changing this kid's life.
He doesn't even want to go back. He's going to stay in D.C.
now and work for a nonprofit serving people, writing a grant request because one person was simply kind to him. We can change this country if an army of normal folks will break through all the noise, use our passion and discipline and airy need and fill it.
And we're telling those stories and through those stories, trying to inspire more and more people to do the same. Guys, I hope what you hear in the stories that Bill is telling, because this is what I'm hearing, is it's one moment.
You can change the course of someone's life. Right now.
That's what I'm hearing. Today.
Right now. Where do you live? I don't even know where you live.
Upstate New York, Albany area. Okay.
I guarantee you, I don't know how big Albany is, I can guess. I guarantee you there's 5,000 people right now in your town in serious distress.
Many more, but yes. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
It would not take much to change one person's life today. Yeah.
A hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Um, I want to, uh, change topics slightly, same vein, a slightly different question slightly different question as we get towards the end here because something that's very near and dear to my heart is sports and the coaching of sports. And as I've gotten involved in the coaching of youth sports, I have been very disenfranchised by the way I would compare how I was coached as a youth to how kids today are coached I did I did an episode on it yeah yeah in particular so my kids play travel baseball they love they love baseball and they they both enjoy it and they play other sports too.
I don't, I am not a, you pick a sport, certainly not at eight and 10 in any, you know, the younger one plays football and basketball. The older one just plays basketball and baseball and then does all kinds of camps and shit.
They do all kinds of stuff. That's great.
And I do coach both of them as an assistant, but I have seen things that I just don't remember seeing when I was a kid. And I was a pretty aware kid.
I wasn't, you know, I was pretty, pretty aware of what was going on. My dad coached me and I had all kinds of different coaches and it was, it was a different era.
You know, my high school football coach one time shoulder pressed me by my face mask. For getting a 15-yard late hit penalty.
You deserved it. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
And that's the funny thing. You know, the funny thing is, you know, so I tell these stories to my kids because I want them to understand where I come from, right? Because, you know, my whole message to them is outcomes don't matter.
Attitude and effort is all that matters. It's attitude and effort.
There will be a time in your career if you continue down this path where outcomes matter, but today it's attitude and effort. And, you know, and I share some stories with them how, you know, like I had, I played for an American Legion post when I was coming up, that was like the best travel ball in the area was American Legion.
Same here. Yeah.
Same here. Legion post.
And I loved being part of that community. It was great.
They would host us and the guys would come in and it was, it was awesome. And they would come to our games a lot of times.
It was, it was a wonderful experience, but I'd had my third base coach would be smoking a cigar. And my first base coach would be, would be ripping heaters down at first base as he's giving signs with his other hand.
And, um, and I told them, you know, and, and I just explained to them how, how we were, we were, it was very direct, but honest and sincere and caring, but, but gruff and direct and, and to the point. And, uh, I shared with them a story about how, you know, I was younger, whatever.

We were losing to this team. They were talking trash, and I came up with two guys on.
I hit a home run, and I pimped the home run. I shouldn't have.
I'm not advocating for that in any way, but I did. And the moment my foot hit home plate, I expected my teammates to be there.
It was the head coach of my baseball team who literally picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, walked me to the dugout and threw me into the dugout. Right.
And I sat there and I looked at him and I was like, yeah, I deserve that. That was my mentality.
Right. And today it's completely different.
I mean, if you look at them wrong, they start crying. And so let me get to my question.
Sorry, that was a lot of context. My question to you is more what I have seen today and what I would love for you just to comment on however you feel fit is the parents today have taken over in a way in which it feels to have so much of these sports have been corrupted by adults, by the parents off the field, by coaches who are either hell-bent on winning or hell-bent on making their kid the starting shortstop, number one hitter, you know, whatever, all these different things.
And I just struggle with this so much. And I'd just love for you to talk a little bit about it with all your experience, what you see and what may be a solution or a path to start to break free of this, or even just very personally to me, how I can continue to coach my own kids and the kids on my teams to become, you know, I just want them to love the game and appreciate it and enjoy it and and and be the best versions of themselves you know what just kind of open-ended where wherever you want to take that it's revolting it makes me want to throw up hey what's the uh alex what's the episode i think we did a shop talk on parents and kids and sports.
Do you know what episode that was? Yeah. About a month and a half ago, we did a shop talk episode on this very thing.
Um, I'll find it and have it linked up in the show notes for everybody. So I'll make sure that that's in the show.
I wish you would. It's a, it's a, it's a shop talk.
I can't, do you remember the title? See if you can find it, and I'll tell it to him because he's going to link it to the show. It's revolting, and it's gross.
And ultimately, we're robbing the kids of what the experience should be, which is long after the days of playing football and baseball are over, what you learn on the baseball field should serve you and your family and your business and in society and the way you approach life, all of it. And if pimping a home run is the basis of who you are, well, you're going to suffer those consequences one day.
And in my opinion, your coach was easy on you. Yes.
On May 23rd, there is a thing called that we titled flagging parents for parental interference. got it um Um, which will give you my real, and I've got, I've got a few stats in there that are, that might be helpful, but the bottom line is, um, helicopter parents, people who want to live, relive their high school hero days through their kids, people who didn't have high school hero days that want to live vicariously through the successes of their kids, all of them make me want to vomit.
So what do I do as a coach? I have a pre-whatever meeting, a preseason meeting. And look, honestly, I am one of the most competitive human beings you've ever want to see.
And I expect to win every game and want to win every championship, state, whatever. And I know in travel ball, you're recruiting kids a lot, right? So I think coaches are oftentimes afraid that they may lose their two or three best players if they put their foot down.
And then if that is the case, you are therefore, as the coach, part of the problem too. I would rather coach a bunch of five, six level talent kids that are nine, ten character kids, then the exact opposite.
Amen. And that goes along with parents.
So I have preceding meetings, and I lay it out there. And if parents don't like it, I invite them to understand that the door was not locked when you walked in, and you're welcome to get the hell out.
But do it now, because I'm not playing. But if you stay, your kids will learn the value of character, commitment, integrity, discipline, teamwork, leadership, and most importantly, grace.
If they stay, they're going to learn those things. And along the way, they're also going to become better at this particular discipline, whether it's basketball, football, or baseball.

My leading mantra is, I have never seen a coach hit a home run.

I've never seen it.

I've never seen a first base coach throw a no hitter.

I've never seen a coach turn a double play.

They're in the dugout.

Players win games.

Not coaches.

Not parents.

Players.

Players win games.

Coaches win players.

And how does a coach win a player?

Does he care about me?

Is he holding me accountable because he's an asshole?

Or is he holding me accountable because he wants me to be a better human being?

Do I have a clear understanding of where I am on this team and why I'm on this team and how to improve and move up in the batting order or get more reps? And what is this character and commitment and integrity and all these basic fundamentals about? I tell all of my teams and all of my parents, we can be progressive, and I don't mean politically progressive. We can be a progressing, evolving, growing society without abandoning the core principles that got us here in the first place.
And long after the days of playing the game are over, it is those very core principles

and that foundation that will lead to a meaningful life with your family, with your spouse, with your

children, in your business, and in your society. And I am far more concerned with your kid being

a production of the this football team. So I'm going to coach that stuff, and I'm going to win my players.
And along the way, we're going to teach the X's and O's, and then I'm going to go let the players win the football games because that's what they do.

Now you stay the hell out of my way.

That's it.

And if I lose some good kids and some good families, I lose them.

I'll coach up what I got. But I believe so strongly in that coaching ethos that I've let many walk before.
But I'll tell you something else that happens. Charles Barkley was being ribbed by Shaquille O'Neal one day when Charles Barkley's daughter turned 16.
And they were like, hey man, you have guys coming over. You know, they're ribbing Barkley about having a daughter about to be taken out.

And Chuck said, you know, I've got the answer. I ain't worried about it.
They're like, what? And they said, well, the first one that comes over, I'm going to invite him into the living room. I'm going to sit him down right there, and I'm going to offer him a glass of tea or water while she's getting dressed.
I'm going to be very polite. And then when he stands up to shake my hand, I'm going to beat his ass to a pulp

before he ever even sees my daughter. And they're like, why? And he said, because when he gets back to school, we're to get around.
We're to get around. Ain't nobody going to call my daughter.
We're to get around. You know, it's funny metaphor to the truth is word does get around.
So if you set this foundation as a coach for your program, you may lose people the first year or so. But what happens is people start talking up the difference and the kids that you lost or the parents that you lost because you're not putting up with that crap.
There's umpteen hundreds more that want their kid to be part of it. And what you end up doing is creating the proper culture and you start attracting the proper kids and the proper parents.
And then it's not a problem. Word will get around.
Bill, this has been an absolute pleasure. I couldn't thank you enough for sharing all the stories that you have and your insights.
I appreciate the hell out of you. We are going to be pushing here at this show and the venues that I have.
We're going to be pushing what you guys are doing a lot, not just through the release of your episode, but out through our other channels as well, because I think you're doing God's work. And whether the people listening believe in God or not, I do.
And I think that this is incredibly important to the culture of our country. So I just

thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate the support and let's keep in touch.

Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look easy.

Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or

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