The Gift of a Legacy

For "Shop Talk", Coach Bill pays tribute to his late friend Bill Prest, and it's 12 years after his death. Now that's a legacy which outlasts how much money he made. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
This Shop Talk number twenty one. Today, we're going to
talk about legacy. In my book Against the Grain, I
have a whole chapter dedicated to legacy. It's called the
Gift of a Legacy, and in it I talk about
an old friend of mine named Bill Prust, and I

(00:28):
talk about something that happened actually at his funeral that
has really shaped my vision of legacy. So Shop Talk
number twenty one is going to be about the gift
of a legacy as it pertains to my old buddy,
Bill Prest, and we'll jump into that right after these

(00:50):
brief messages from our general sponsors. Everybody, it's Bill Courtney.

(01:15):
I want to talk about legacy. Bill Prest was a
guy that I met when I first got into the
lumber business as a wet behind the ears twenty six
year old. He was a marine, he was a father,
he was a husband. His family had owned a huge
manufacturing facility for many years in the wood business, and

(01:39):
after retiring from that, he went to work running a
division of a lumber company I once worked for, and
he kind of took me under his wing. Funny thing
about Bill Prest is he used to eat onions raw
like Apple's. I thought it was the most disgusting thing
I ever saw. And he always explained to me, Oh, Billy,
I'm a texture eater. Still don't really know what that means.

(02:00):
I wish he was alive today so I could ask
him about it. The second thing is he always carried
a briefcase on all the out of town sales trips
who went on. He had papers and stuff in it.
But one of the other things he always had, and
it was Scotch and tang, and he would in a
hotel room mix up some tang and fifty to fifty,

(02:20):
spour scotch and tang together over ice and have a cocktail.
And he called it an orange whip. Phil Prest, what
a man. It's a good friend. When I broke from
that company and started my own, he showed up about
two weeks later with a bag of barbecue sandwiches and
sat down and told me, I'm really really proud of

(02:42):
you and happy you started your own company. I'm rooting
for you. It's going to be tough. His sport meant
a lot to me at the time, because there's no
guarantee we would last beyond the first year. Rarely did
a week go by that he wouldn't stop by the
office and share some word of wisdom, some encouragement, and
occasionally an orange whip. After I got on my feet

(03:08):
and got going, Bill Double retired still spent some time
messing around, trading a few things in the business. He always,
on Thanksgiving and Christmas cooked turkeys and Boston butts and
would take them to all of the nuns in the

(03:28):
cathedrals living around the city, so that he knew that
on Thanksgiving they had a homemade turkey and a Christmas
had a Boston butt. Nobody ever knew he really did that.
He just ran around gnawing on onions and drinking orange
whips and delivering that stuff to the nuns, just because
he was a kind guy. Certainly, he had children and

(03:52):
family that revered him and loved him. He had a
life in the Marines that mattered to him. And there
wasn't anybody that ever met and interacted with Bill Press
that wasn't better for it. But even with all of that,
it was at its funeral that I was left with

(04:13):
a lasting notion that I still carry with me today.
His funeral was held at a large cathedral in Memphis,
and the place was packed, and I mean packed standing room, Oni,
and it was big. His son in law walked up

(04:35):
to the lectern and I listened, and I witnessed this
outpouring of affection from his son in law. The number
of people he had a positive effect on just blew
me away. As I said, Bill served as nation as
a marine, and he served his community. At one point
in the service, his son in law quoted somebody I'd
never heard of, Albert Pike, a nineteenth century freemason. Words

(05:00):
have resonated with me ever since. The quote is what
we do for ourselves dies with us, what we do
for others, and the world remains and is immortal. I
went home that day and kept thinking, when my body
is lying in a box some day and people come

(05:20):
to pay their respects, what are they going to say
about me? I was probably too early to ask those
questions at that time. This is twelve years ago, but
I'm starting to ask those questions and myself more, what
is my legacy? Lisa and I've bought a bunch of stuff.

(05:46):
We've done a good job in business, and as a result,
we've saved some money. And have a nice house, and
one day I'm gonna croak, and then Lisa's going to croak.
I'm certainly gonna croak for Lisa. And when they do,
my legacy that I've built through this business and whatever
else I've forgot will be divided up amongst my children,

(06:07):
and they'll spend it and use it, maybe leave some
of it for their children, and then it's gone. Because
it is true what I learned at Bill Prest's funeral,
what I do for myself in this life does die
with me. So is that our legacy or is it

(06:28):
more about what we do for the world and for others?
Because see, that does, in Albert Pike's language, does remain immortal.
It does last forever. Bill Prest is gone, He's been
dead twelve years, but here I am still talking about
the things he did for others that still inspire me

(06:50):
to this day. That's his legacy, not his business acumen,
not the money he left behind or the house or whatever.
It's him. It's his essence, it's his service. What's your legacy?
Will it die with you? Once the attic of your

(07:15):
errors is full and they put some of that stuff
you bought on their lawn and sell it for five
ten twenty bucks at a yard sell one day. Is
that your legacy? Or is it your service? Is it
what you're doing for your community? Is what will be
left behind in your memory? Guys? Albert Pike's right, Bill

(07:40):
Press emulated it, and I want you to hopefully think
about that as you go on through your life. Ask yourself,
when you're laying in a box one day, what will
they say about you. They won't talk about the money,
They'll talk about the goods you've done or the lack

(08:04):
of it. Think about leaving a proper legacy, folks. That's
shop Talk number twenty one. And if you enjoy this episode,
please share it with friends and on social Subscribe to
our podcast, rate and review it. Join the army at
normalfolks dot us, even consider becoming a premium member. There

(08:26):
all of these things that will help us grow an
army of normal folks. If you have ideas for shop talks,
current events, tenants, or anything else he thinks worthy of discussing,
email me at Bill at normalfolks dot us. And if
I think I have anything of value to add, you

(08:46):
can have your own personal shop talk from my mouth
to your ears. Think about the legacy that you could
leave behind as a member of the army of normal folks.
Join us and help us thanks to our producer, Iron
Like Labs. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.