5 Life Lessons Every Man Should Learn

gentlemen what is going on today my name is ryan mickler and i am the host and the founder of the order of man podcast and movement guys if you're new today what i need you to know is that we are championing the cause of masculinity uh there's many elements of society including frankly the government uh that don't want men to be men they don't want men to be masculine they don't want men to act like men they don't want men to do what men do and it's my job to give you the tools and resources and conversations that you need because you know as well as i do that society is in need of strong capable bold skilled masculine men and uh as these individuals and the powers that would be continue to undermine and dismiss and attempt to dismantle what it means to be a man uh it's our job to make sure that we do what we need to do to be able to serve others and that's what that's what it actually means to be a man is to be in service of others you can see here on my hat i've got the logo order of man and right here protect provide preside your job as a man is to protect provide preside now i wanted to share one thing with you or quite a few things actually with you today uh as i talk about an event that transpired last weekend it was my 40th birthday so i'm going to share with you a couple of lessons that i've learned not over the 40 years but i would say over the past six years that i wish i would have known uh earlier so i'm gonna get to that in just a minute before i do if you would and you want to share what we're doing here and you want to support what this movement is all about and i need your support uh then if you would please just leave us a rating review if you're listening to this on pandora or spotify or itunes or stitcher or soundcloud wherever wherever you're listening to this podcast if it's on youtube whatever just go in leave a rating and review let people know take a screenshot of this episode because i'm going to share some very valuable information that again i wish i would have learned earlier more men need to hear this guys your brothers your cousins your fathers your the boys that you're mentoring on on your sports teams or maybe it's colleagues and co-workers or employer employees men need to hear your neighbors they need to hear this stuff because what they're hearing is garbage it's filth it's nonsense and again as i said earlier it's an attempt to undermine masculinity at every step and this is the antithesis of that this is how we combat that level of thinking that has permeated the school system permeated academia permanent permeated the medical community uh and now we see it into uh corporations and society and culture at large so with that said let's get into a couple of lessons five in particular that i have really really honed in on over the past six years and i would i will preface by saying this that at 40 because again my birthday was was last week over the weekend at 40 i never thought i'd be this old first but and it's not that old but it i never thought i'd get to this point that i'm in the best position that i am or ever have been in my entire life physically mentally emotionally i'm satisfied and ha not satisfied but i'm happy i'm happy with where i am i'm fulfilled and and i know a lot of guys aren't experiencing that i know that because i hear from you you guys send me messages on instagram or you shoot me an email and those of you who have my number will shoot me text and i know what it's like i know what you're experiencing i know what you may be dealing with i know the hardships that you're struggling with i know the relationship that you're in might be on the rocks or worse i know that your physical fitness is declined drastically from where it's been in the past i know the bank account is suffering like i know you guys are having a hard time and others are not but i've been there and it isn't until the last six years where i've learned these lessons that i began to dig myself out of the hole that i had created you know it's very easy for us to say and and i think a large part of of culture would have you believe that you're a victim and that everything that's wrong in your life is the result of somebody else's uh wrongdoing or or slight against you and there might be some truth to that but you know as a grown man those excuse excuses that you have expire whether you came from a broken home or you were abused or uh any number of things that could have happened a shitty hand that you may have been dealt in life and that's just part of the deal you know not everybody's gonna have the perfect hand and you got to play with what you have but too many men are blaming it and assigning that responsibility over to somebody else and what i would encourage you to do is take responsibility and that doesn't mean that you have to overlook people's faults or you have to bring people back into your life that may have harmed you that's not what taking responsibility is responsibility is just taking ownership of your path moving forward and i wish i would have taken responsibility earlier and i wish i would have learned these lessons earlier so with that said number one the first lesson that i would suggest to you is that you have to plan out every single day it is incredible to me how many men excuse me i have something stuck in my eye here that's why i keep checking my eye i don't know what's going on but it is incredible to me how many men don't plan out their days they have no strategy they have no plan of attack they have no priorities listed and documented they they have no system in place whatsoever to be able to attack their day and make it effective and you know what's interesting is even without a plan you might be somewhat effective you might have a good day you might have a productive day but if you don't have a system in place not only is it gonna happen less frequently you don't know how to replicate it and that's very important i learned this lesson long ago uh when i was getting started in my financial planning career as i would work on my presentation skills and my my first sales pitch that i would i would talk with potential new prospects with and one of my trainers said hey you know even if you just get it right you just wing it and you get it right the problem is you can't replicate it you can't go to your next meeting and do the same thing in the next meeting and do the same thing in the next meeting and do the same thing and it wasn't until i replicated the process that i could actually evaluate it to see whether or not it worked and that's the beauty that's part of the power of having a planning system that you're using every single day so that you can go back at the end of the day and decide with with some level of objectivity whether or not the day was productive and effective for you because if not you're going to base it on your feelings oh yeah like i feel like i got a lot done or i don't i don't feel good about what i accomplished or you know maybe who knows like it seems like i did a lot well you might be moving a lot but really are you really even moving the needle you know you might be very active but activity doesn't always equal prudence and so you feel like well you know i've been busting my ass all day or all week and so like surely i must must be in a better position and yet you're still fat you're still broke your relationships still suck so you were busy but you were busy doing the wrong thing so my first point that i wanted to make with you guys today is that every day has to be planned now i don't care what it looks like for you i've got a system that i use and i've made it available to the guys that tune in i'll talk to you about that in a minute uh but i don't care if it's a piece of paper if it's a google calendar if it's a free app that you have on your phone or any number of other individuals like jocko or andy priscilla or whoever it may be that you follow and they have a planning system and you've decided to incorporate that cool that's great the biggest thing for me is that it works for you so i just want to reiterate if it's my plan or somebody else's plan or your own plan or a combination of all of the above great but do it now the planning system that we use is called the 12-week battle planner we've got it in journal form which is the one i actually happen to use the most because i like being able to write it down there's something powerful for me and not punching away on my phone but writing it down but we have the uh the paper version and then we also have uh the app the digital version which you can find at 12weekbattleplanner.com 12weekbattleplanner.com and i'm not going to drone on about what the planning system is i've it's like beating a dead horse i've talked about it over and over and over again uh if you're just tuning in to the podcast just go back and anytime that somebody asks a question on one of her asks me any things or or talks about productivity or systems we always talk about the battle planner so it's there but again number one lesson over the past six years up until me right now being 40 years old is that you've got to plan out every single day and by the way one last thing on that and then we'll move on this doesn't end just because it happens to be saturday or sunday or whatever your weekend days are it doesn't mean that you don't get to plan i mean i guess you could you have the right to not plan but what i see a lot of guys do is they'll they'll go hard for three four or five days because that's what the task requires and then they think the weekend is like kick up my feet drink a bunch of beer slack off don't do my workouts don't foster and nurture the relationships that i have and just take it easy and then they take three or four steps back for every one or two steps they're taking forward use the weekend in your days off to recharge and relax and rejuvenate and and maybe re-prioritize and strategize but don't slip don't lose ground on the weekends ever don't ever do that you should be constantly marching maybe a little slower maybe a different pace on the weekends but you're still moving the needle still moving forward still doing your plan even though it may look different than what a monday or a wednesday might look like okay all right number two learn from the absolute best learn from the best now i am in the fortunate position that i have at this point interviewed over i want to say it's right around 350 highly highly successful men okay these are guys like granger smith who we just had on stephen runella ethan sipley david goggins jocko willink andy frasilla tim kennedy john eldridge if i do this i always leave people out and i don't want to do that because of the 350 men that we've had on the podcast they've all taught me something and in a lot of ways i feel like i'm the greatest recipient or beneficiary of the work that we're doing here because i'm the one who actually gets to have conversations with these guys and i realize not everybody's in that position it isn't luck you know some people say oh you're lucky you get to talk to these guys it isn't luck it's fortune you know i'll say there's some fortunate a series of fortunate events i happen to be born in the greatest country in the world i happen to be born to a mother who loved me and who made sure i got what i needed physically mentally and emotionally so that i could be productive as i became older i have all of those things that were outside of my control and i'm fortunate and grateful for those uh but i also created this you know i i've put forth a lot of effort i think we've done a total of 700 plus podcasts now which means that if they average i would say maybe an hour to an hour and a half let's just for easy math say say it's a 700 podcasts for an hour on average i mean that's that's a lot of hours if you think about it that's a lot of one-on-one time with again the most successful men in the world what an incredible opportunity now just because you may not have that same opportunity doesn't mean it's there and it doesn't mean that there aren't people in your circle or just outside of your current circle who could help you grow and develop and teach you things and mentor you and guide you and instruct and coach they're there now one thing i will say is that those people are not necessarily going to go out of their way and trip over everything to find you to track you down to teach you what it is you need to know it would be nice if it worked out that way but it doesn't you need to show some level of assertiveness just with my podcast people don't reach out to me occasionally i'll have somebody occasionally i'll have somebody who's who i really want to have a conversation with reach out but very rarely does that happen no i need to be the one taking initiative because this is my goal this is my ambition this is my desire and if you have a desire to learn from the best people you possibly can then that's on your shoulders and you need to look at who's in your circle you need to play the the kevin bacon game the six degrees of separation you know maybe you want to get to your ceo but you don't have a direct contact well maybe somebody can link you up or maybe you want a connection into a particular organization or company and you have a friend who might be able to make a personal contact for you well you're the one that has to reach out you're the one who has to be creative about how you're going to add value you're you're the one who has to pitch that individual that i want to spend time with you or that i want to have a conversation with you uh and and i want to learn from you you're going to have to do that but also the barrier to entry to these individuals has never been lower not only do they offer their products and goods and services that you can purchase and buy whether it's coaching or events or conferences or whatever that looks like memberships masterminds etc etc but you can get direct access to their inbox on instagram or twitter or facebook start following these individuals comment like post share add value to their life and when the time is right then you might ask a question and it's not every question by the way i get that sometimes people will reach out and say hey ryan i have a question and they'll proceed to share this this novel that just based on my time constraints i can't possibly get to but if somebody reaches out and says hey man i've been following you for a long time and this is an individual who i acknowledge and i recognize and i know that they've interacted and engaged with me and they asked me a very short poignant question yeah i try to go out of my way to answer those questions and help those individuals because i believe in the the the law of reciprocity right if i share a new share and everybody else is putting good out into the world then that will be returned to you but guys wrap your head around the fact that we don't know it all right we aren't as good as we think we are we don't know everything there is to know there's always somebody who's better smarter faster quicker more intelligent more creative more successful and that shouldn't be a threat to you it shouldn't be a threat that somebody's better than you in fact if anything you should attempt to make that person an ally and that's what i've done that's why we're successful because i've made these 350 men allies of myself and our movement and in return they're willing to impart and share with me but i'm open and receptive to it and i take initiative to get it done so again we have number one plan out every single day number two learn from the absolute best they're around you just gotta take the initiative uh number three over the past six years i've poured myself into a cause greater than myself and maybe more accurately than say i i've poured myself into a cause is that i've created a cause it's always been there but i've identified it and then i've created solutions to the problems that i see in society specifically regarding masculinity the way as we we as men generally and typically are viewed in much of culture and the way that we feel about ourselves and i acknowledge that as a problem because that is something that i dealt with so instead of just me focusing on me which at some points we have to right we have to get right first before we can expect to go out and help and share and lift and encourage other people but this is a cause greater than me and if i was doing something else i would want this cause to continue if i wasn't around if i died today on my drive wherever i was going i would want this cause to continue it's that important to me now some people say you know well ryan you're making money doing this yes i am and i've never made any qualms about that i don't feel bad about that i i don't think there's any sort of uh guilt of mine associated with that because we add value to the marketplace and in exchange i i ask that people partner with us and sometimes that means they pay for a product or a good or the iron council or whatever and sometimes not sometimes and then in exchange for that then i add value to their lives i don't feel bad about that but that said that doesn't take away the fact that it's a cause that it's a movement that there's a mission there's a purpose behind this protect provide preside it's to reclaim and restore masculinity and there's a lot of facets to this and there's a lot of ways and angles that i can address this and approach this and and deal with this but when i don't feel like doing things elements of the business whether it's emails or a particular podcast or podcast notes or any number of things that i have to do to keep the the wheels turning it's the mission that drives me forward and it compels me it's why i wake up in the middle of the night with ideas and thoughts and i have to have a notepad by my nightstand because if i didn't all these ideas would be bouncing around in my brain and i'd never get any sleep and instead i put a notepad by my my my my bed on my nightstand and if i wake up in the middle of night which i often do i'll just lean over write down that idea or that person i want to connect with or that strategy or that way i can add value to people's lives because it consumes me in a good way it very easily could go south if i became obsessed at the point where i came at the expense of my other obligations and responsibilities but it consumes me and because it consumes me it also compels me and drives me to do the things that need to be done to forward and advance the cause of reclaiming and restoring masculinity but what is yours you know what's what's your cause greater than yourself i'm reminded of some books i have over here on my my desk uh john eldridge the author of wild at heart and several other books of course sent me it looks like three or four copies of his newest edition his improved edition of wild at heart because we just did a podcast that one's coming out soon and john has one of my favorite quotes and i believe it's in that book wild at heart and the quote is this deep in his heart every man longs for a battle to fight an adventure to live and a beauty to rescue let's forget about the adventure and beauty i've talked about plenty of that that's important but let's forget about that for a minute a battle to fight deep in his heart every man longs for a battle to fight and what's your battle traffic arguing with your wife over petty nonsense or is it something more significant is it something deeper more meaningful does it give purpose to your life does it motivate you and compel you and inspire you and if not i get it for most of my life i would say for 34 35 years i didn't have that and so i was doing work that was good but it wasn't greater than myself which is funny because i think about that i have personal friends who are in the same line of work that i was in financial planning and they feel about financial planning the same way that i feel about what we're doing here and what that tells me is that the cause greater than ourself doesn't always have to be the same every man has his own battle to fight mine wasn't helping people with their finances but i have personal friends who feel the same way i do about this work with their work and that's great and they should pursue that and that should be meaningful to them and it should drive them to do great things all right number four uh i've looked frankly speaking number four i wrote down here is that i have set my [ __ ] detector to sensitive not that i'm trying to be sensitive not like safe spaces and microaggressions but that i've said i've set my [ __ ] meter to sensitive that i don't deal with drama that i don't that i don't do things i don't enjoy or at least won't lead me to some level of joy you know there's things that i have to do throughout the day that i wouldn't consider adding joy to my life like answering emails for example doesn't add joy to my life but it leads me to joy because it means that i get to connect with you guys and answer your questions hopefully make connections uh add value and enhance your life in some way and so me punching away typing emails isn't my favorite thing it isn't joyous for me but it leads to a level of joy based on the cause greater than myself and also i don't have time to entertain a-holes and there's a lot of them they're not the majority but there are a lot of them and they're very good at getting to you and it's like the friday field notes i did last week i believe it was with tending your field you gotta weed that stuff out of there those weeds are constrictive they're gonna they're gonna ruin your crop they're gonna mess with what you're trying to create and that's why i set my [ __ ] meter to sensitive at the first sign of drama at the slightest little hint of somebody being a jerk or an a-hole done i don't have time for it i don't need it i don't want it in my life i've got too many good things going i've got too many obligations and responsibilities to deal with it and as i'm hitting 40 years old now over 40 40 in one week that that went fast and if i lived to average life expectancy i don't exactly know what it is but it's got to be around around i would say 82 83 somewhere in there maybe i'm about i'm about the 50 mark i'm about halfway there and i don't have time to do things that don't enhance my life and some people will interpret that as being selfish it's not always selfish because i actually find value in serving other people you know if my neighbor was hung up and we needed to take care of their yard or their weeds or mow their lawn we would do that and that gives me a sense of fulfillment and purpose and meaning so it's not always a selfish endeavor there's ways that you can serve other people but also uplift yourself and edify what it is you're doing and how you feel about who you are so think about where that meter is for you do you tolerate it what's the adage you you encourage what you tolerate or do you cut it out ruthlessly to go back to our crop analogy if you have weeds and vines growing all over your garden and your plants and your vegetables are you just going to leave them there and say oh you know i think a little bit is okay or if or if you went to the doctor because you were feeling sick and your body wasn't doing well the doctor said hey you know you have uh some some cancerous cells in your body you know that you can live you can function right now but it's going to get worse and he said uh yeah i'm okay i guess i'll wait till it gets worse no you're not gonna do that you're gonna be ruthless about ripping that stuff out of your body ripping that stuff out of your garden and yet we spend so much time in our everyday lives with careers and people and relationships and conversations that just rot our souls cut that stuff out set that [ __ ] meter to where it needs to be set and then listen to it and act appropriately you'll be so much more satisfied and you'll have more time to do the other things like plan and learning from other people and engaging in a cause greater than yourself and the last one here guys is that at age 40 years old now i'm very comfortable with who i am and i haven't always been that way i i've always struggled with confidence issues i've struggled with issues of fitting in or or even exerting myself and putting myself out into other situations where other people were i think in inherently i tend to be a more secluded individual which might sound like a shock based on the work that i'm doing now but that's because a cos greater than myself i realize it's so important i got to put myself out there but i i was dubbed when i was in the the final years of elementary school and into middle school i was dubbed the hermit the hermit crab or i think it was just the hermit i can't even remember anymore but i think it was just the hermit because i i wouldn't come out of my shell you know people would invite me to go do things whether it was a party or an outing or an activity or this or that or even after the football game you know let's go do this thing and i'm like i don't want to do that and so i i was dubbed the hermit uh and i never really fit in like i never really felt comfortable fitting in i was never you know the cool kid none of that and then for years and years probably even decades of my life i spent time chasing around other people doing what they were interested in trying to get their approval and their validation of me and it was exhausting and the more i did it the more uncomfortable i was with myself like i wanted to fit in and the more i tried to fit in the more out of place that i actually felt and at age 40 i finally feel like well i feel like i don't need to fit in actually i was going to say fit in but i actually it's it's different it's i don't i don't have the desire to fit in i don't need to be like everybody else i don't need this person's approval or that person's acceptance or this other person's validation i don't need it i'm satisfied with where i am so how do you get to that point by winning battles with yourself that's it it's by winning battles with yourself because if you don't win the battle of getting out of bed when you say you will or don't win the battle of going to the gym or don't win win the battle with your diet choices and don't win the battle with other temptations that may come into your life and you don't win the battle with the negative self-talk and and the activity that you know you should be taking and you don't win the battle with executing on the plan that you've created you're gonna feel like a loser and and i think that that a lot of culture these days would tell you that well you know like you should just accept that you feel like a loser because you're you're overweight and you're fat and you're out of shape and well you should just accept that no you you shouldn't accept that why would you accept something that is less than you know you're capable of and then we wonder why so many men are depressed and and anxious and suicidal well there's a lot of reasons but i think one of the big reasons is that they've started to buy into the lie that they're just supposed to be satisfied with being 50 or 60 pounds overweight or that relationships just suck you know like marriage is hard and everybody goes through a divorce and you know this is this is the way it is and and when when you hit the seven year itch in your marriage then you know you've kind of hit that that max and just this is life and you're supposed to work in a cubicle and force somebody else in an office space for the next 40 years and you get your little pension and your retirement package and like you know this is life i'm not gonna settle for that but when you resign yourself to that is it any wonder why you feel like garbage no go win battles with yourself when the weaker lazier more pathetic version of yourself says now we should sleep in shut it down when that i call it the natural man when that natural man tempts you to do something you know you shouldn't be doing shut it down and instead do something else what you're you're you're elevated man i haven't thought about what it was called but but i would say maybe you're like your elevated version of yourself or your future version of yourself maybe it's a contract with a future version of you so you're you're trying to decide you've got you've got these choices that you can make at the end of the day do you sit down and grab a beer and sit your ass on the couch for the next three hours that's what the natural man would do because he's tired and he's lazy and he's pathetic and he just wants to relax or do you negotiate with the future version of yourself get him involved in the mix and say what would the future version of steve or john or joe or ryan do and that's the guy i want to listen to not the natural man the future version of myself and that guy would go play with his kids that guy would drink a bunch of water instead of the beer that guy would turn the tv off and go have conversations with people that's what that guy would do so let that guy get involved and when he does you're going to start to feel comfortable about who you are and your desire and your need to fit in with everybody else is going to be irrelevant i i know that i'm a little quirky i know that i can be a little strange to other people at times i know that frankly i have a hard time relating with other people and they have a hard time relating with me at times i can be relatable sure but by default i i'm just kind of this quirky individual as of as as we all are we're all like that everybody's like that it's just a difference of whether or not you feel and by the way the the people that want others or that others want to be around are the ones that have embraced some of those quirkiness and and attributes and things that you have going on that's the that's the irony of the thing is it the more you try to fit in the less you will but the less you try to fit in the more comfortable you are because you win those battles with yourself the more other people want to be around you it's kind of a cruel irony but it is what it is okay so guys there's my five lessons that i learned again not in 40 years i would say in six years and they have been in invaluable in my life over the past five six years as we've grown order of man and i've grown my family and we've moved across the country and we've started other businesses and engaged in new hobbies and activities and interests these have been invaluable let's let's recap number one plan every single day yes even the weekends number two learn from the best they're around you you don't have to start a podcast to learn from the best if you want to cool i commend you and i encourage you to do that but there's other people in your circle that might already be in your circle that you've never reached out to or might be just outside of your circle and if you were a little bit creative and took some initiative you can find out who those individuals are and connect with them uh number three find a cause greater than yourself it's gotta be bigger than yourself because there's gonna be some crap you're gonna have to go through and if it's not bigger than yourself you won't go through it you'll sit on the sideline number four set that [ __ ] detector to sensitive don't deal with the drama don't deal with the baggage don't deal with the jerks don't do it don't do things that don't bring you joy or again at least lead to it set that uh that that detector to sensitive and then number five begin to get comfortable with where you are who you are how you're showing up and you do that by shutting down the natural man and winning the battle uh with the the the elevated man or the the future man the future version of yourself okay all right guys as we sign off a couple of things uh check out the battle planner we've got this in the storestor.orderman.com if you want the written version if you're more interested in the battle planning app on both android and apple devices you can go to 12 the number 12 12 week battle planner and you can download that there's a free version and an upgraded version also if you're a member of the iron council the battle planning app is included in your membership so if you're on the fence about that get off the fence maybe that's lesson number six no sitting the fence make some choices choose a side pick a side make the choice get off the fence and so if you're on the fence about the iron council join the iron council not only are you going to have the accountability in the brotherhood the camaraderie but you're also going to have access to the battle planning app other than that leave a rating review share with other people what you're listening to and and what you're getting value from share with me shoot me a message instagram is the best place guys really trying to blow up the instagram account right now i think we're at 80 i don't know 86 85 000 somewhere in there uh let's hit that hundred thousand mark and uh we can do that by sharing reposting taking screenshots mentioning commenting engaging with me let's blow this thing up culture needs it society needs it uh and it's and it's up to us you know we're we're men when things go south people look to us so let's not wait until it gets bad or catastrophic let's deal with it now and we do that through the mission and the cause of what we're doing here to reclaim and restore masculinity all right guys we'll be back next week until then go out there take action and become the man you are meant to be

Channel: Order of Man

Views: 317,997

Keywords: order of man, manly, masculinity

Id: OwvLUNmnRw8

Length: 32min 20sec (1940 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021