Everybody is Bill Courtney with the Army and normal folks.

Welcome to Shop Talk.

Number eighty one.

All right, what players were number eighty one?

Bill?

Oh gosh?

An eighty one?

I'm is there a famous one I should know?

Yeah, there's a couple eighty one I don't know.

Randy Moss, oh gosh, Torell Owens Wow, Tim Brown Wow.

And Kobe scored eighty one points in a game which I forgot about and is crazy.

Yeah, and it was real late in his career.

I think I think he was good, but yeah, I don't know.

All Right, Well, there's eighty one.

We're going to keep doing that.

He also became Catholic before he died.

He also what became Catholic before he died?

Proud Catholic moment.

Really, Actually, we should tell Kobe's story would be a good Shop Talks turn around story.

Okay, well now we got now we got three upcoming.

His redemption story is pretty wild.

I do want to hear that you don't know what?

No, don't blow.

It was like shooting on his wife, like, well, I know that I don't know them show.

Yeah, I only know the black mom but bad part.

Yeah, oh yeah, there's a good story there.

Okay, well we'll hear it.

But let's do a shop talk.

It's never too late, It's never too late.

Today Alex is going to talk about the contribution gap and what we're doing about it.

So, uh, you're gonna have the distinct pleasure of Alex's voice right after we returned from these brief messages from our generous sponsors.

Okay, everybody, welcome back.

Shop talking.

No Brady one in honor of I think I think we're gonna make an honor to Islance.

It was a bad, bad man, that guy could play.

I loved him.

In just a second, you're going to get your fill of mister Cortez as he discusses the contribution gap and what we're doing about it.

We still cannot discuss who we've been acquired by, but when we do discuss it, it will be exciting.

And with these people who have acquired us, I've spent a lot of time with this new team thinking about the future, and they work with this great researcher called Todd Rose from this group called Populous, and he's got this fascinating research that seventy percent of people say they want to contribute in their communities, but only thirty percent feel like they actually are, So that is a massive contribution gap in the country.

I think you've you've talked about that before, maybe with you.

I don't know how much we've talked about it on the show or not, but.

Yeah, but basically, everybody wants to do something, but very few do or feel like they can.

Yep, And so all that's what we are trying to solve against with an army and normal folks.

And kind of our two future strategies to solve against it is to number one, build the leading entertainment platform about service, which is a crazy vision.

And so how I talk about it these days is if you're familiar with Cody Sanchez, she's kind of the boring businesses person and she's completely crushing that space.

Arthur Brooks is well known as the Happiness guy and owns that space.

People like Jocko Willink and David Goggins are kind of the Discipline is Freedom type people, and yet surprisingly there's no one who really owns the service space and the public consciousness.

So there is a big opportunity there for us, as an army of normal folks to achieve that, and it's not ultimately just to achieve it for that end.

The real end of it is to make contribution easier for people in your community.

And then the second one is to build the leading service club in America.

What to build the leading service club in America?

The local chapters.

So we want to build the Quantas, the Optimist and all those.

Well, I don't know if you want to say we overcome.

We can work with all these people.

Yeah, I mean, come on, build.

It's not a competition.

No, we're doing We're doing it for you.

I was I know that.

I was just letting you speak to it.

God, they're just so politically incorrected or comes out of your mouth.

Yeah.

But actually on that point, like Rotaries lost one hundred thousand members in the last twenty years, Quantas lins jc's and even outside of that, like church membership as a client, you know, massively, like this whole space of associating with other people.

I really Rotary and Jackson, Tennessee or a friend of mine, they he's member, and it reminded me of how valuable.

You know, it's once a month meeting they get together, but they do try to do good things for the community.

But the point is they are community you know what I mean.

I mean, they're catching up with each other, they're you know, I mean there.

It's sad that so many people have fallen have fallen out of those social networking clubs that seek to do stuff in their communities, and they're doing great work.

Like I don't know if we've mentioned this in a shop talk, but the listener the other day who emailed us who's part of a Kawanis club in Louisiana, and you heard the sleep and Heavenly Peace story, and then they built thirty three beds for kids, you know, so in their community without them.

So I mean a lot of these chapters are doing incredible.

I think it's important to remember that the Rotary Club was instrumental in stamping out polio ye childhood bolio back long ago.

I mean, their goal was to eradicate polio from the world, and they pretty much money, they pretty much achieved They pretty much achieved it.

Yeah, so why wouldn't it be something we continue to invest our time and effort in.

But the point is we will have hopefully we're working hard to grow organizations like that too.

Yep.

So those are our two strategies, and those strategies are both working against what we've outlined is the three barriers to contribution.

So the first barrier I call disillusionment.

So right now, fifty two percent of Americans say we can't solve our country's problems.

And so if you believe that, what you do is you withdraw from the public square.

You watch Netflix, you go on vacation with your family, you go to the Old Miss Game, you go if you can play golf, all these things like, hey, if we can't solve our country's problems, might as well go do what I want to do.

I've got mine.

And even if I did this beautiful thing for one kid, who cares, because we're still screwed in mass right.

So it's very understandable that people feel disillusioned right now, you know, with where we're at.

But what I've.

Always loved about your original message, Bill, when I interviewed you, is the message of an army and normal folks.

If each of us just do what we can together, we can actually solve almost all of our countries problems.

And so that message has an opportunity to transform that disillusionment into empowerment.

So obviously we're doing that through the show each week.

The second barrier to contribution I call the high cost of service, and so people feel like they're too busy.

I can't make a weekly commitment to do something in my community.

I can't make a weekly commitment at the exact same time.

Another example I love is there's twelve thousand nonprofits in Memphis.

How is anybody supposed to sort through that and figure out what to do?

There's twelve thousands, there's twelve thousand, and even just take a smaller example like Oxford, Misissippi, there's about twenty effective nonprofits there.

Most people see that speaks to the fact that there's a bunch of bloody do goods yep, as micro would say, But how effective are they as a bunch of disconnected you know, veins.

What would it look like if it became this United army?

Well, and so take those twelve thousand bloody do goods.

They don't have most of them, don't have enough of an army in normal folks behind them.

That's right.

So if you look at that big contribution gap you know of forty points, right, imagine you're able to close the contribution gap and you have an army activating behind these nonprofits.

How different would things look now?

Sense?

And so how we're we're trying to lower the cost of service, and so the way we're doing it through the storytelling each week to inspire people like people like you are doing interesting stuff like this, you can do this too.

They're no different from you.

And then I really love your line that honestly has become the basis of a lot of our work.

Is magic happens when your passions and your skill sets needed opportunity.

And so even outside of the models, that's a pretty good line.

I made that up like that, except you keep screwing it up.

Still, I'm trying to convince you you guys have seeing discipline, because then you've got to define discipline, which is a waste of time.

You should say discipline is the correct word.

I know, but the cleaner way to say it is your passions and your skill sets.

Or maybe people should learn what's yours dictionary?

You know, but they think about the other discipline.

That's why you got to define it.

Okay, passions and skill sets.

Okay, maybe skill sets.

I don't like skill sets, that's too.

Skill set fills.

Passions and passions and abilities skill set.

Yeah, we'll figure it out.

Okay, okay, but go ahead.

So I'm glad you like it.

So you glad you like it so much that you sit here and pick it apart.

What a buddle.

It's so important.

We got to figure out the best language for it.

You're right, we did, go ahead.

Come on, you take things seriously in your business, They say, seriously.

You don't build an eighty million dollar business by not taking things seriously.

I got lucky.

Yeah, okay, cool, and oh yeah, we get a wrap.

Soits so.

Even outside of the stories that we're telling, you know, we've told probably one hundred and twenty five different models, that's not going to tell everything.

And so people can reflect on their own of what are your passions, where your skill sets, and where can you take action in your community?

And then two the local chapters.

Much of this work is designed to lower the cost of service.

So the idea of a giving circle, right, if you don't feel like you have a lot of time, you can still join the giving circle.

You don't feel like you have a lot of time, you still show up on a Saturday once a month and serve with us building beds for kids without them or with Habitat for Humanity and helping build houses, you know, for low income people.

And what's cool about that is they're actually involved in the building too and have sweat equity in it.

And then the easy buttons, you know, so we're that's the last component of the chapter of giving people vetted service opportunities.

So if you basically take that twelve thousand number in Memphis, what if we can win it down to one hundred, you know, the most effective nonprofits?

And I don't think we've had an opportunity to talk about this.

I've started using some new language.

What if our local chapter leaders can act as a service concierge.

You have all that's interesting.

You have a hotel concierge.

You know, we have travel agents, all these other kinds of concierges.

But what if, you know, the local chapter leaders can meet with the army members and members of the chapters and ask them, hey, what are your passions, what are your skill sets?

And then here's one to five opportunities that you can serve your community using those.

That's interesting because a lot of people have passion, a lot of people have abilities, slash skill sets, discipline, and a lot of people have the desire, but they don't know how or where, And if they could go to a place that has vetted different opportunities and help match ability, interest, passion, and skill set with vetted opportunities, that could be that concierge work could be a catalyst to really exploding engaged service.

We should be trying to make service as easy as possible for people.

It is kind of the goal.

And so honestly, I think I've fallen into this trap and maybe you have built too, like when we started the podcast in this movement, like we want to see successful and we want it to grow as much as possible, and it's easy to lose sight of like who are we actually serving?

Like that's the point of this all and everything we should be doing, whether it's the storytelling or the chapters, should really be designed around how are we going to make service easier for people?

To make sure we're really serving the customer, you know well in that way.

And so the final barrier to contribution is computing priorities.

So we're competing with everything else.

You're competing with the oldness game, and you're competing with the concert, and you're competing with the vacation you're competing with golf and Netflix and all these things, and I think life.

Yeah, and so I think, especially with the chapters, if we can build a person family like tribe that makes service just as.

Rewarding or more rewarding than those other activities.

I don't like the word tribe, but I get it.

Yeah, tribe feels tribal.

No, it feels I don't know, weird, but I get what you're saying.

Yeah.

So anyway, that's what we're doing.

That's the plan.

This is how we are trying to close the contribution gap and make service easier for people who we an army normal folks.

Met you the team, okay, and we invite you to join in this effort.

When do we get to talk about the team, I don't know, probably like a month, Cliffhanger, Yeah.

There's a big team, but we can't talk about the team yet.

Whatever.

Well, I want to talk about the team.

I think it's it's about it's about Yes, it is.

Honestly, I think it's exciting for you.

It's an exciting thing for all of us.

And so yeah, anyway, this is meant to be to the one person listening to us right now, right for each individual listener listening, there's an invitation to be involved in helping to build the leading service club in America and help you to build the leading entertainment platform on service.

And the bottom line is, Alex, there is a contribution gap.

The data shows that we've recognized it, but instead of just sitting about it, we really are trying to do something about it.

And we're trying to do something about it in a well thought out, fashioned way that does not feel artificial or forced, and is enjoyable and easy to join in on.

So stay tuned, because an army and normal folks shop talk, Me and Alex and the unmentioned team that you get to find out about one day down the road, not too distant future are very very serious about understanding the contribution gap and closing it so we can grow this army and normal folks and change our country.

That's it.

We gotta wrap.

That's it, we gotta wrap that shop talk number eighty one, eighty one And on Earth, trell owens, you said, that's right.

Our troll owns.

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Really appreciate you joining us.

We'll see you next week.