September 19, 2025 • 13 mins
For Shop Talk, we dive into yet another column from Andrew Peters. On the magic that happens when we ask for help.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, nice people. You're gonna do this every week. Hello,
nice people. This is Bill Courtney's Shop Talk. Welcome to
the shop. It's good to be in as long as
you keep up the scoopball act. Yeah, and it's Bill
Courtney with an army and normal folks. It is shop
Talk number seventy.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You run a business, goofing off like this.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Listen, you've had me reading stuff and doing stuff now
for four and a half hours. I'm delirious. Okay, all right,
Shop Talk number seventy. A couple of weeks ago, I
think we did a just last week, No, because oh
you're right, geez. A couple of weeks ago. Yeah, a
couple weeks so. We did one for did something Andrew
(00:48):
Peters on his substack, which you can find at Andrew
Peters dot substack dot com. And it was about the
standard today it's about asking for help, which I can't
wait to read to you because I have lots of
thoughts about this.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We actually did another one on asking for help. Remember
that data that Evan Pinberg shared. We don't like doing it,
but people who end up asking they actually like end
up doing it. They're actually depriving other people of the
opportunity to.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Help, Like, that's it. The depriving that other people the
opportunity to help is the big part. We so so
often won't ask for help because we think we're infringing
on somebody or putting someone out. But the truth is
you're eliminating the opportunity for another person to actually do
something for you. So in a weird way, that not
(01:38):
asking for help. If it's if it's a legitimate need
for help, and it's it's uh uh, if it's legit
need for help, and it's what's the word I'm looking for? Anyway,
by not asking somebody for help, you're depriving someone of
being able to serve. So it's kind of selfish sometimes. Anyway,
(02:02):
This is not about that. This is another take on
asking for help. It kind of is about that. Okay,
well it's not just about that. It's another take on
asking for help, and it's Andrew Peters Shop Talk number seventy.
Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, all right, everybody,
(02:37):
welcome back, Shop Talk number seventies. Ask for help, Andrew
Peters and a substack, which you can find at Andrew
Peters dot substack dot com Here we go. I started
cutting hair in college, not because I was trained, but
because I was broke, curious, and had a few brave friends.
That's actually pretty funny. It began in the bathroom of
Dodds Hall on the Miami University campus. I called it
(03:01):
the bathroom barbershop. I wasn't technically allowed to run a
business out of my dorm, so I accepted mandatory donations
from my clients, a pair of clippers, a desk chair,
and the naive trust of guys who needed to clean
up before a date or first night. At first run,
I wasn't great at first, but I got better, and
over time something else showed up in those makeshift barbershop moments. Honesty,
(03:26):
you learn a lot with clippers in your hand. Guys
open up when they know they're stuck in a chair
for twenty minutes and can't make eye contact. They tell
you what's actually going on in their world, or when
they're getting pedicures like you. Well, that's also true, and
I guess barbers and bartenders are kind of similar, and
that people just start talking to I guess they open
(03:50):
up their lives to strangers because they happen to be
a barber. Or bartender, but on pedicures, I typically just
shut my eyes and fall asleep, so I don't talk
to anybody anyway. We'll pick up Peter because Alex so
rudely interrupted. Oh come, they tell you what's the here?
(04:10):
Excuse me for talking while you're interrupting, all right, So
they'll tell you what's actually going on in their world
relationship STYLETS hopes they haven't said it out loud yet.
It's like therapy minus the couch. And I got hooked
not just on the craft of cutting hair, but on
what happened in the chair. I've never stopped cutting these days.
I cut my friend's hair in my pantry, rumor garage.
(04:32):
Some nights it's for a big meeting. Sometimes it's my
daughter sitting still while I gently angle cut off their
split ends. I cut the boy's hair on his son
wakes la cross stream, mainly ensuring buzz cuts don't look
like terminal diagnosies, and some of the high school toolers too.
(04:52):
Usually right before big game, we crank music, talk trash,
and pass the broom between cuts. It's part ritual, part refuse.
The chair is still the same, so is what happens
in it, which brings me to the gym. Five or
six mornings a week. I meet up with a k
B four, JB three to one and Dandy, a Ragtag
(05:14):
pirate crew for an early morning workout session, along with
a few other friends. Most days we go to the
CrossFit Symmetry gym, but a couple of times a week
we flipped the scenery and we work out a math
place or over at JB three to one's. My garage
gym had had good energy, different equipment, and just enough
space to work. We'd bounce between the two spaces, mixing
(05:35):
it up depending on what we were working on, and
over time it wasn't just us using the space. My
wife started hosting a Saturday morning boot camp fourteen women,
loud music, full sound. My kids have gotten older, teenagers,
now high school athletes, they and their friends start lifting
to the garage became kind of a crossroads park gym, park, clubhouse, park,
(05:57):
community hangout. Sense Eve even showed us how to execute
a roundhouse kick on Saturday night. It wasn't just mine anymore,
it was ours. So we decided to expand it, not
for machines or more gear, but to make more room
for the people. For what the space had become and
when the extra equipment arrived, I considered taking the Peters family.
(06:20):
Try it in true method, gut it out yourself with
no forethought and consider how to do it easier after
you're done. Or I could have paid a crew to
some set it up. But something in me said, don't
do it this time. This one should be different. So
I asked the guys for help, and they showed up.
There's something sacred about grown men building something together, something
pretty rare. It wasn't just labor. It was laughter, a
(06:43):
shared meal, problem solving, standing back to admire a new
cross member. That signified progress. It felt like being on
a team again, like being part of something. I used
to think that asking for help was a weakness, that
if I just worked harder, i'd earn respect. Sometimes I
still do, but asking isn't a weakness. It's an imitation.
(07:06):
It's how you let people in. It's how you remind
yourself you're not meant to do this life alone. That
gym build out wasn't just a project. It was a
reminder that people want to show up, that trust is
built and shared effort. And it struck me that what
we built there side by side, sweaty and sore. Wasn't
all that different from what I've been doing for years
(07:27):
in a barbershare. In both spaces, people let their guard down,
they talk, they pitch in, they laugh, They belong, the clippers,
the weights, it's all just a backdrop. What matters is
that we're doing it together, that we're showing up for
one another, not just with words, but with hands and presents.
Everything good, gym's team's friendship. Businesses get better when you
(07:50):
stop trying to do it all yourself. So that's when
that's what I'm sitting with this week. Ask for help,
not because you can't do it alone, as it's better
when you don't. That's beautiful, that's well written. That's that
gum good. And it isn't just about what we talked
about at the top. It's about something deeper, which is
(08:12):
by asking for help, you create a small community of
people that grow together, work together, learn together, and share together.
And I think it's interesting how he started with why
he cut hair in the first place to make money,
but why he continues to cut hair is because of
the camaraderie, the humanity, the conversation, all of it. And
(08:37):
by asking for help and bringing somebody into your orbit
you attain the same things. And best of all, say summarized,
it's so true. We're not meant to go through this
life alone, and by asking for help you are no
longer solo. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Any thoughts, I mean, the camaraderie have often thought about,
Like I once worked on a play campaign and like
for a year you were just like living life with
a governor's race with like these fifty people. And it's
such a unique experience that I think you've probably experienced
it with football and obviously with Sigma Nut or for
people who've served in the military, there's this brotherhood that's
(09:16):
unlike anything else.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
It's true. And the thing is, you can't engage in
that kind of activity and be successful without asking people
on that team for help. You just can't. You won't
be successful. Also, oftentimes think maybe it's our egos sometimes
that keeps us from asking for help. But I genuinely
(09:40):
believe a lot of times people don't ask for help
is they just are afraid they're inconvenience in someone else.
And the weird thing is the very person you're asking
for help that you think you may be inconveniencing. They
are in need of that connectivity just as much as
you are. We all have very similar goals, fears, and
(10:02):
ambitions and dreams. And just because you're the one that's
in need of help this time doesn't mean you're not
going to be asked the one that's asked next time.
And all the growth that can come from from all
of that is really important.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So if you heard the line, if you want to
go fast, go alone, if you want to go a far,
go together.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
The other thing I think about with all this, too,
is is so many of our stories touch on the
thing is just the vehicle. So a recent episode with
nine to one Pop Pedals of Purpose, you know, flowers
are the vehicle to bring it to nursing homes and
you form relationships with these people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It's not really.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
About about the flowers at the end of the day,
it's about the relationship. Flowers are just the vehicle. The
gym is the vehicle, right in his case, the barbershop
is the vehicle, but it's not really about that. And
then the point you'll often make too, you know, if
we're building beds for kids without them, we're bringing.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Flowers to people.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
No one gives a crap what your politics are, No
one cares where your religion is. We are just human
beings in this thing together called life. And yeah, that's
what service and asking for help can do too.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, I think that's called an armor. Normal folks. Interesting,
All right, everybody shop Talk number seventy ask for help.
So I'm going to do it now at bill at
normal folks dot us. I'm asking you for help, send
me ideas of things for shop talk, or send me
(11:32):
people's stories that you think would be good for an army.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Normal folks, Beautiful writing like this, Beautiful writing like this.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, beautiful writing like this. That's great too. I'm also
going to ask you for help. Would you please subscribe
to the podcast? It helps our numbers, and as our
numbers grow, so too does our ability to reach people.
And the more people reach, the more impact we can have.
So we are asking you to subscribe to the podcast.
(12:00):
We were asking you to reach out to me with
good ideas. We're asking you to rate and review the podcast,
but only if you really liked it, because we want
good writings and what else are we asking for?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That's enough for today. You don't to ask too much.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Really, what about joining the well.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
This will have already happen. I've actually not updated you
on this yet. Oh but as an example, so our
event was Sparky Reardon will have happened when this airs.
But there's two hundred and eighteen people RSVP'd for it.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, but I have me thinking too. We've kind of
talked about this before. If there's communities where you can
get three hundred people, you know, sign up in your
community to do a live podcast recording, we could do
that in your community too and bring the podcast message there.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Especially there's there's kind of local legends like Sparky that
are just so beloved in your community. It would be
a great way to pay tribute to them too.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
See so much you can do. Ask for help that
shop talk number seventy until we see you next week.
Do what you can. We'll see you next week.
Hello, nice people. You're gonna do this every week. Hello,
nice people. This is Bill Courtney's Shop Talk. Welcome to
the shop. It's good to be in as long as
you keep up the scoopball act. Yeah, and it's Bill
Courtney with an army and normal folks. It is shop
Talk number seventy.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You run a business, goofing off like this.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Listen, you've had me reading stuff and doing stuff now
for four and a half hours. I'm delirious. Okay, all right,
Shop Talk number seventy. A couple of weeks ago, I
think we did a just last week, No, because oh
you're right, geez. A couple of weeks ago. Yeah, a
couple weeks so. We did one for did something Andrew
(00:48):
Peters on his substack, which you can find at Andrew
Peters dot substack dot com. And it was about the
standard today it's about asking for help, which I can't
wait to read to you because I have lots of
thoughts about this.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
We actually did another one on asking for help. Remember
that data that Evan Pinberg shared. We don't like doing it,
but people who end up asking they actually like end
up doing it. They're actually depriving other people of the
opportunity to.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Help, Like, that's it. The depriving that other people the
opportunity to help is the big part. We so so
often won't ask for help because we think we're infringing
on somebody or putting someone out. But the truth is
you're eliminating the opportunity for another person to actually do
something for you. So in a weird way, that not
(01:38):
asking for help. If it's if it's a legitimate need
for help, and it's it's uh uh, if it's legit
need for help, and it's what's the word I'm looking for? Anyway,
by not asking somebody for help, you're depriving someone of
being able to serve. So it's kind of selfish sometimes. Anyway,
(02:02):
This is not about that. This is another take on
asking for help. It kind of is about that. Okay,
well it's not just about that. It's another take on
asking for help, and it's Andrew Peters Shop Talk number seventy.
Right after these brief messages from our general sponsors, all right, everybody,
(02:37):
welcome back, Shop Talk number seventies. Ask for help, Andrew
Peters and a substack, which you can find at Andrew
Peters dot substack dot com Here we go. I started
cutting hair in college, not because I was trained, but
because I was broke, curious, and had a few brave friends.
That's actually pretty funny. It began in the bathroom of
Dodds Hall on the Miami University campus. I called it
(03:01):
the bathroom barbershop. I wasn't technically allowed to run a
business out of my dorm, so I accepted mandatory donations
from my clients, a pair of clippers, a desk chair,
and the naive trust of guys who needed to clean
up before a date or first night. At first run,
I wasn't great at first, but I got better, and
over time something else showed up in those makeshift barbershop moments. Honesty,
(03:26):
you learn a lot with clippers in your hand. Guys
open up when they know they're stuck in a chair
for twenty minutes and can't make eye contact. They tell
you what's actually going on in their world, or when
they're getting pedicures like you. Well, that's also true, and
I guess barbers and bartenders are kind of similar, and
that people just start talking to I guess they open
(03:50):
up their lives to strangers because they happen to be
a barber. Or bartender, but on pedicures, I typically just
shut my eyes and fall asleep, so I don't talk
to anybody anyway. We'll pick up Peter because Alex so
rudely interrupted. Oh come, they tell you what's the here?
(04:10):
Excuse me for talking while you're interrupting, all right, So
they'll tell you what's actually going on in their world
relationship STYLETS hopes they haven't said it out loud yet.
It's like therapy minus the couch. And I got hooked
not just on the craft of cutting hair, but on
what happened in the chair. I've never stopped cutting these days.
I cut my friend's hair in my pantry, rumor garage.
(04:32):
Some nights it's for a big meeting. Sometimes it's my
daughter sitting still while I gently angle cut off their
split ends. I cut the boy's hair on his son
wakes la cross stream, mainly ensuring buzz cuts don't look
like terminal diagnosies, and some of the high school toolers too.
(04:52):
Usually right before big game, we crank music, talk trash,
and pass the broom between cuts. It's part ritual, part refuse.
The chair is still the same, so is what happens
in it, which brings me to the gym. Five or
six mornings a week. I meet up with a k
B four, JB three to one and Dandy, a Ragtag
(05:14):
pirate crew for an early morning workout session, along with
a few other friends. Most days we go to the
CrossFit Symmetry gym, but a couple of times a week
we flipped the scenery and we work out a math
place or over at JB three to one's. My garage
gym had had good energy, different equipment, and just enough
space to work. We'd bounce between the two spaces, mixing
(05:35):
it up depending on what we were working on, and
over time it wasn't just us using the space. My
wife started hosting a Saturday morning boot camp fourteen women,
loud music, full sound. My kids have gotten older, teenagers,
now high school athletes, they and their friends start lifting
to the garage became kind of a crossroads park gym, park, clubhouse, park,
(05:57):
community hangout. Sense Eve even showed us how to execute
a roundhouse kick on Saturday night. It wasn't just mine anymore,
it was ours. So we decided to expand it, not
for machines or more gear, but to make more room
for the people. For what the space had become and
when the extra equipment arrived, I considered taking the Peters family.
(06:20):
Try it in true method, gut it out yourself with
no forethought and consider how to do it easier after
you're done. Or I could have paid a crew to
some set it up. But something in me said, don't
do it this time. This one should be different. So
I asked the guys for help, and they showed up.
There's something sacred about grown men building something together, something
pretty rare. It wasn't just labor. It was laughter, a
(06:43):
shared meal, problem solving, standing back to admire a new
cross member. That signified progress. It felt like being on
a team again, like being part of something. I used
to think that asking for help was a weakness, that
if I just worked harder, i'd earn respect. Sometimes I
still do, but asking isn't a weakness. It's an imitation.
(07:06):
It's how you let people in. It's how you remind
yourself you're not meant to do this life alone. That
gym build out wasn't just a project. It was a
reminder that people want to show up, that trust is
built and shared effort. And it struck me that what
we built there side by side, sweaty and sore. Wasn't
all that different from what I've been doing for years
(07:27):
in a barbershare. In both spaces, people let their guard down,
they talk, they pitch in, they laugh, They belong, the clippers,
the weights, it's all just a backdrop. What matters is
that we're doing it together, that we're showing up for
one another, not just with words, but with hands and presents.
Everything good, gym's team's friendship. Businesses get better when you
(07:50):
stop trying to do it all yourself. So that's when
that's what I'm sitting with this week. Ask for help,
not because you can't do it alone, as it's better
when you don't. That's beautiful, that's well written. That's that
gum good. And it isn't just about what we talked
about at the top. It's about something deeper, which is
(08:12):
by asking for help, you create a small community of
people that grow together, work together, learn together, and share together.
And I think it's interesting how he started with why
he cut hair in the first place to make money,
but why he continues to cut hair is because of
the camaraderie, the humanity, the conversation, all of it. And
(08:37):
by asking for help and bringing somebody into your orbit
you attain the same things. And best of all, say summarized,
it's so true. We're not meant to go through this
life alone, and by asking for help you are no
longer solo. It's good stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Any thoughts, I mean, the camaraderie have often thought about,
Like I once worked on a play campaign and like
for a year you were just like living life with
a governor's race with like these fifty people. And it's
such a unique experience that I think you've probably experienced
it with football and obviously with Sigma Nut or for
people who've served in the military, there's this brotherhood that's
(09:16):
unlike anything else.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
It's true. And the thing is, you can't engage in
that kind of activity and be successful without asking people
on that team for help. You just can't. You won't
be successful. Also, oftentimes think maybe it's our egos sometimes
that keeps us from asking for help. But I genuinely
(09:40):
believe a lot of times people don't ask for help
is they just are afraid they're inconvenience in someone else.
And the weird thing is the very person you're asking
for help that you think you may be inconveniencing. They
are in need of that connectivity just as much as
you are. We all have very similar goals, fears, and
(10:02):
ambitions and dreams. And just because you're the one that's
in need of help this time doesn't mean you're not
going to be asked the one that's asked next time.
And all the growth that can come from from all
of that is really important.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
So if you heard the line, if you want to
go fast, go alone, if you want to go a far,
go together.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
The other thing I think about with all this, too,
is is so many of our stories touch on the
thing is just the vehicle. So a recent episode with
nine to one Pop Pedals of Purpose, you know, flowers
are the vehicle to bring it to nursing homes and
you form relationships with these people.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
It's not really.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
About about the flowers at the end of the day,
it's about the relationship. Flowers are just the vehicle. The
gym is the vehicle, right in his case, the barbershop
is the vehicle, but it's not really about that. And
then the point you'll often make too, you know, if
we're building beds for kids without them, we're bringing.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Flowers to people.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
No one gives a crap what your politics are, No
one cares where your religion is. We are just human
beings in this thing together called life. And yeah, that's
what service and asking for help can do too.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Yeah, I think that's called an armor. Normal folks. Interesting,
All right, everybody shop Talk number seventy ask for help.
So I'm going to do it now at bill at
normal folks dot us. I'm asking you for help, send
me ideas of things for shop talk, or send me
(11:32):
people's stories that you think would be good for an army.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Normal folks, Beautiful writing like this, Beautiful writing like this.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, beautiful writing like this. That's great too. I'm also
going to ask you for help. Would you please subscribe
to the podcast? It helps our numbers, and as our
numbers grow, so too does our ability to reach people.
And the more people reach, the more impact we can have.
So we are asking you to subscribe to the podcast.
(12:00):
We were asking you to reach out to me with
good ideas. We're asking you to rate and review the podcast,
but only if you really liked it, because we want
good writings and what else are we asking for?
Speaker 2 (12:11):
That's enough for today. You don't to ask too much.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Really, what about joining the well.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
This will have already happen. I've actually not updated you
on this yet. Oh but as an example, so our
event was Sparky Reardon will have happened when this airs.
But there's two hundred and eighteen people RSVP'd for it.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
That's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, but I have me thinking too. We've kind of
talked about this before. If there's communities where you can
get three hundred people, you know, sign up in your
community to do a live podcast recording, we could do
that in your community too and bring the podcast message there.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Especially there's there's kind of local legends like Sparky that
are just so beloved in your community. It would be
a great way to pay tribute to them too.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
See so much you can do. Ask for help that
shop talk number seventy until we see you next week.
Do what you can. We'll see you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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