Order of Man - 10 Ways to Win With Your Kids

00:00:00.000 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart

00:00:05.000 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.460 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is

00:00:17.080 who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.800 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan

00:00:27.500 Mickler, and I am the host and founder of this podcast and this movement, The Order of Man.

00:00:32.180 If you've been with us for any amount of time, you know what we're all about. If you haven't

00:00:35.420 been with us for any amount of time, like this is your first time listening to The Order of Man

00:00:39.480 podcast. Guys, this is about becoming a better man. I don't care what area of life that you're

00:00:44.640 showing up in. If you want to be a better man, this is the podcast for you. We are interviewing

00:00:49.880 guys like Jocko Willink, Andy Frisilla, Grant Cardone, Tim Kennedy. The list goes on and on

00:00:55.960 when it comes to the quality and caliber of men that we are interviewing, all with this

00:01:00.580 goal in mind. We want to give you the tools, the resources, the guidance, the direction,

00:01:05.400 the conversations, the wisdom, the experience, the practicality, however you want to look

00:01:09.420 at it to, again, help you become a better man. Now, I know society in general seems to

00:01:13.980 be dismissing this idea of masculinity and what it means to be a man. We are not here at

00:01:18.760 The Order of Man. We are focused on giving you all the tools that you need to show up in

00:01:24.080 your business and your community. And specifically today, I want to talk with you about showing

00:01:29.320 up in your family, specifically with your children. Now, last week on the Friday Field Notes, I

00:01:35.420 talked about 20 different tips, 20 different strategies for winning with your wife. Today,

00:01:40.960 I want to talk with you about 10 tips, 10 strategies for winning with your children, because I believe

00:01:48.020 that there are very few things that are as important to you as a man and your family and your community

00:01:55.640 and posterity and society in general. And that is you showing up the way that you need to show up for

00:02:01.940 your sons and your daughters. So I'm going to talk with you all about that today. And I just want to

00:02:06.860 get right into the show. And this is very timely because as of the release of this podcast, I am in

00:02:11.940 the mountains with 19 other men with their sons doing our first father-son event. It's called

00:02:18.560 Legacy. It's a three and a half day experience in the mountains of Southern Utah. Our very first one.

00:02:23.260 I hope it's going well. I'm sure I'll be able to report that it was a huge success next week. But as I

00:02:28.780 was thinking about and doing the final preparations and everything that we have to do to get everything

00:02:32.600 in order for the Legacy event, I thought, man, what a great topic to address. Because again,

00:02:37.920 there's a lot of questions about how to be the best father possible. We get these questions in

00:02:43.080 our Facebook group. We get these questions on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. I mean, wherever

00:02:47.940 you're showing up here with the order, man, these are the questions that we're getting about being a

00:02:51.880 better dad. So I want to jump into these tips because what I have seen guys is there's so many

00:02:56.720 men who for whatever reason are so willing to step off of this pedestal of fatherhood. And that's

00:03:04.940 exactly what it is. It is a pedestal. It is a high calling, one of the highest callings that a man can

00:03:11.220 have in this life. And look, if you're not a father yet, or don't ever plan on being a father,

00:03:17.380 you still have an opportunity to be a father figure, whether that's coaching kids in the community or

00:03:24.160 helping employees or whatever that may look like. There's opportunities for you to father girls and

00:03:30.500 boys. And I think you ought to take advantage of that. So again, whether you're a father or not,

00:03:34.520 this is going to be a great episode because it's going to articulate very clearly what our role is

00:03:39.360 as men who are passing on our knowledge and expertise and experience to future generations.

00:03:45.800 All right. And these guys that I'm telling you about who are willing for whatever reason to

00:03:49.380 step off this pedestal are in essence, stepping down a notch. And what I see is they want to be

00:03:56.800 friends, simply friends with their kids. And look, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with

00:04:01.620 being friendly with your children, but that's a huge distinction between that and being your kids

00:04:08.520 as bro. And that's what I see so many dads want to do is they just want to be friends and they want

00:04:13.260 to be buddies. That's a lower tier of responsibility than this high calling of fatherhood. And for me,

00:04:20.760 I want to step fully into the role that I can, so I can take care of my children and allow them to go

00:04:25.720 out into the world and be self-sustaining human beings. That is my job. And I take it very seriously.

00:04:32.400 And so I thought I'd share with you 10 tips. Now, this isn't of course an exhaustive list,

00:04:36.840 but I think it will give you some insight into the way I view fatherhood and hopefully give you one or

00:04:41.520 two or three or 10 pointers that you can incorporate into your life when it comes to raising your sons and

00:04:47.540 daughters. So let's jump into this number one. And this is the ultimate tip, I believe. And

00:04:53.080 everything else I'm going to talk about, the nine other steps fall in line after this. In fact,

00:04:57.540 it's a subcategory of this number one topic. And that is that your job as a father is to render

00:05:03.640 yourself obsolete, period. Your job as a father to sons and daughters is to put yourself out of work,

00:05:11.120 is to create an environment in which your children can thrive and learn and grow and develop. And then

00:05:18.140 eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, leave the nest and go out into the world and produce

00:05:25.020 and have families of their own and start careers and add value to their communities. That is your job.

00:05:31.520 And I'm going to talk with you specifically about how to do that and these other nine steps. But I

00:05:34.880 think if you can't wrap your head around the foundational principle that your job is to put

00:05:39.520 yourself out of work, you're going to have a very difficult time doing these other nine steps.

00:05:43.560 That is your job. Now it's not always fun. It's not always fair. And frankly, that's not even really

00:05:49.340 that pleasant of a thought to think about. I don't really envision a day wanting to be obsolete in the

00:05:55.820 lives of my children. And there's a difference between being obsolete and then being wanted.

00:06:00.580 I want to be wanted. I want to be part of their lives, their adult lives. I want to be part of my

00:06:04.600 grandkids' lives if and when that time comes. But I don't want to have to be needed in order for my

00:06:10.880 children to thrive. So step number one, render yourself obsolete. Now that we got that out of

00:06:15.760 the way, let's talk about these next steps. Number two, and this is a very close second. I put these

00:06:20.180 in order for a reason. Number two, model the man. Guys, model the man. And this works perfectly whether

00:06:26.680 it's boys or daughters or both. Model the man. Your job as a father to boys is to model the type of men

00:06:33.300 that you would like those young boys to be. Your job as a father to daughters is to model the type of man

00:06:40.160 that you would like your daughter to eventually be with. That's it. I know that's oversimplifying

00:06:46.500 it. I know there's a lot more to it, but we have got to show up as an example in our children's

00:06:51.800 lives. It's not enough to say, do as I say, not as I do. We have to do. There has to be congruency

00:06:58.560 between the things that we say about this life and the way that we operate and the things that we're

00:07:03.960 actually doing. Emerson, I believe, I believe it's Emerson has a quote. He says, what you do

00:07:10.680 speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say. Guys, your kids are watching you. They're modeling

00:07:17.560 your behavior. They're acting like you. They're saying the things that you're saying. They're

00:07:22.040 viewing the world. They're interacting with other people the way that you do. If you can't recognize

00:07:26.800 that, you just aren't engaged. Stop and just take a second and watch your kids listen to what

00:07:33.340 they're saying. Watch how they behave around other kids and other adults. And you'll see very clearly

00:07:38.420 that they act and sound a whole lot like you. Number two, guys, model the man. Number three,

00:07:46.300 and Jocko talked about this in the podcast that him and I did a couple of weeks ago,

00:07:50.080 is that you have to make things fun. All right, we're going to talk about discipline and structure and

00:07:55.260 all that stuff here in a minute, but you've got to make life fun. If it's not fun and engaging,

00:08:03.040 how are you ever going to expect to engage your kids? Like if we expect our kids to go into the

00:08:08.420 school system and sit down and shut up and color within the lines and do what they're told and read

00:08:12.040 and do book reports for eight hours a day in school, is it any wonder that they're going to be bored and

00:08:18.940 frustrated with the whole educational process? Go out and make things fun, experience life,

00:08:24.640 do things differently, go look at bugs and dissect frogs and go on vacations and have trips and

00:08:30.920 just make life fun. And I'm not saying that should come at the expense of discipline and structure and

00:08:36.800 guidance and all the other things that we'll talk about here in a minute. But man, I just think we

00:08:40.280 need to infuse a little bit more energy, enthusiasm, excitement into their lives. And this might be as

00:08:46.840 simple as going to the park and swinging on the swings or jumping on the trampoline or taking them

00:08:50.700 fishing or whatever your thing is. Include them in on that. Go have fun, go experience,

00:08:56.920 go adventure. And I think you're going to be infinitely more connected to your children.

00:09:01.100 And it's going to tie into some of these other tips that I want to talk with you about.

00:09:04.460 Number four, and this is kind of at odds with what I just said, is there's got to be

00:09:08.560 discipline and structure. Now you can go have fun. You can go experience life. You can go do all the

00:09:14.040 fun and wonderful things that you want to do together as a family. But you also have to have some

00:09:18.060 discipline and structure. Your kids need to know how the family operates. One of the phrases that

00:09:23.580 we use in our home is that Micklers do fill in the blank or Micklers don't fill in the blank. There's a

00:09:30.300 very clear standard and expectation as to the way that we as Micklers behave. And I articulate that to

00:09:38.160 my children every single day. We talk about it and I reiterate how we behave, how we show up,

00:09:43.660 the things that we engage in, the words that we use. And I also do the opposite. The things that

00:09:48.240 we don't say and do and talk about and experience. Guys, it's important that they know where the lines

00:09:53.520 are. It's important for children to grow up with healthy boundaries. There's this really odd trend

00:09:59.540 in society that says, let your children dictate everything. Let your children decide who they want

00:10:04.900 to be and how they want to show up and make their own decisions. Look, at the end of the day,

00:10:09.620 kids are dumb. All right. And when I say that, I'm not saying they're not capable of being intelligent

00:10:15.680 or exercising wisdom. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is they don't have enough life experience

00:10:21.700 to make their own decisions. There's studies out there that suggest that the brain isn't fully

00:10:26.140 developed and functioning for boys in particular until their mid twenties. So if you're allowing your

00:10:32.800 children, your five-year-olds, your eight, nine, 10, 15-year-olds to dictate how they're going to live

00:10:38.620 their life, are you kidding me? They don't have enough experience. They don't have enough

00:10:43.600 knowledge. They don't have anything to measure their decisions by. They haven't experienced enough

00:10:48.180 to know if they're making the right decisions or not. And any parent who says that I'm going to let

00:10:52.540 my kid do X, Y, and Z and let them make their own choices is completely delusional and frankly,

00:10:58.360 irresponsible as a parent. Your job is to raise them within a set of parameters that you feel and you

00:11:05.840 have identified as being important. And if you're not doing that, you're being selfish because you

00:11:11.240 don't want to have the difficult conversations with your kids that need to be had about the lines

00:11:16.300 in which we as human beings operate. I want strong, virtuous, independent, educated children that will

00:11:23.120 go into the world and make an impact on their own independently. But I also want them to know what's

00:11:27.900 acceptable behavior. What is not acceptable behavior? Because when we teach them those things,

00:11:33.040 like Jocko says, through discipline comes freedom. When we impose our own set of limitations and

00:11:39.780 standards and exercises and practices that we will engage in, then we create the type of freedom that

00:11:45.480 most people frankly don't have because they eat all the food they want to eat. They do all the

00:11:50.700 activities. They sleep with whoever they want and they engage in any behavior because heaven forbid

00:11:56.080 somebody tell them how to behave or what parameters to operate within. So number four, teach your

00:12:01.740 children discipline, be disciplined and show them guidance and structure. Number five, allow them

00:12:07.360 to feel the full weight of the decisions that they're making. And of course, this is going to

00:12:12.160 change and vary based on how old they are. If they're two years old and they hit their sister with a little

00:12:17.440 toy truck or something like that, obviously you're not going to allow them to feel the full weight of

00:12:22.020 their decisions because they're two. I mean, that's just how they behave. Okay. But within reason

00:12:27.860 and appropriately allow your children to feel the consequences of their actions, don't step in and

00:12:34.780 rescue your children all the time. They need to know that there's consequences, both positive and

00:12:39.540 negative. And if you strip away all the negative consequences of their poor choices, they'll grow up

00:12:44.660 believing that they can do whatever the hell they want without any repercussions. Are you kidding

00:12:49.200 me? I mean, that's a, that's a recipe for disaster. You want your children to win, allow them to

00:12:55.680 experience the consequences of the choices they make. If they cheat, if they lie, if they steal,

00:13:01.220 if they get into fights, if they do whatever it is that they're doing, that they shouldn't be doing.

00:13:04.380 And they're operating outside of the parameters that you as a father and your wife, their mother have

00:13:08.900 set. They need to feel the consequence of those choices. And on the flip side, if they do things

00:13:15.980 great, if they do things wonderful, then they should experience those consequences as well.

00:13:20.180 They need to understand that for every choice they make, there's an outcome that comes with it.

00:13:25.700 Allow them to feel the weight of it. Number six, I think we're on six. Number six, rough house with

00:13:31.620 your kids, rough house with your kids, boys and girls, rough house with your boys, because it develops

00:13:37.760 strength. It develops character. It develops them understanding the boundaries of how to

00:13:44.940 be physical with another boy or another human being. Uh, it there's so much good that comes

00:13:51.000 from this. And on the other side of this, when it comes to rough housing with your daughters,

00:13:54.700 I believe that this is good as well. I had a, uh, Dr. Warren Farrell on the podcast and he talked

00:14:00.400 about his book, the boy crisis. And yes, we were talking about boys, but we got talking about daughters

00:14:05.480 and he shared something fascinating with me that I hadn't previously considered. And that is that if you

00:14:10.020 can't show your daughter attention and affection and love in a constructive, healthy, appropriate

00:14:18.320 manner, that she may grow up believing that the only way to get attention from males is to use her

00:14:24.480 body and sex to do it. It's a really fascinating discussion. It's a really fascinating subject.

00:14:30.360 And I believe that it's true. I want my daughter to know that she's enough. I want her to know that

00:14:35.260 she's special. I want her to know that I care about her outside of her feeling like she has to

00:14:40.500 be sexual in order to garner my attention or any other boy's attention. And when we rough house with

00:14:46.040 our children and we engage specifically with our daughters, they start to understand the healthy,

00:14:51.040 the healthy relationship between men and women without having to turn to sex for that attention.

00:14:56.920 Among other reasons, of course, they're going to develop strength. They're going to develop

00:15:00.940 character. They're going to understand those boundaries. Same things I talked about with the boys.

00:15:05.260 So rough house. Number seven, don't do things for them that they can do on their own. Don't do

00:15:12.100 things for them that they can do on their own. Look, if you're trying to quote unquote, help your

00:15:16.220 children by doing everything, doing their chores and handling their business and the kid gets in a

00:15:20.760 fight and you call the principal and you handle all of their issues, you're robbing them of the

00:15:26.560 benefit of learning from their mistakes of learning, not even from mistakes, but just learning from

00:15:33.640 experience in general. If you don't ever allow your kid to tie a shoe and you get them those little

00:15:37.840 Velcro shoes until the time they're eight, well, they never learn how to tie their shoes. And I know

00:15:42.020 that might be a small example, but if you're doing it in that situation, you're certainly doing in

00:15:45.660 other situations. If you're doing all their homework for them, or you're showing them everything they

00:15:50.340 need to know in order to complete that assignment, you're robbing them of the opportunity to learn

00:15:53.640 and grow and develop. I remember when I was younger, I would do book reports and just projects

00:15:59.260 for school. And I would turn to my mom and I'd say, mom, how do you spell encyclopedia? And she

00:16:05.560 would say, go look in the dictionary. And of course that's before we had computers. So we actually had

00:16:09.340 a book called the dictionary. So she'd say, go look in the dictionary. And I'm like, mom, just tell me,

00:16:14.360 just tell me what you don't know how to spell it. And I taunt her a little bit, hoping that she would

00:16:17.580 tell me. And she's like, I know how to spell it, but in order for you to learn how to spell it,

00:16:21.200 you need to figure it out. And she would never give me the answer. And it was so frustrating,

00:16:25.360 but I know exactly why she was doing it because she wanted me to experience the learning opportunity

00:16:31.300 that comes from looking up a word, another small example, but I think you guys understand the point.

00:16:36.880 Don't do things for your children that they're fully capable of doing on their own. All right.

00:16:42.060 Number eight, create experiences. It's easy when you're a parent to want to provide all sorts of

00:16:51.200 toys and opportunities and things that you didn't potentially have when you were a child.

00:16:58.840 It's easy to do that. And we get so consumed and inundated in this consumer age that we live in.

00:17:07.140 I mean, you look at Christmas and the amount of toys and everything else that our kids are getting

00:17:10.560 and how much we buy and how much we throw away and how much we waste and all of that stuff. Frankly,

00:17:15.200 it is a waste because toys break and they become outdated and these products and these items and

00:17:22.620 everything that we purchase become obsolete. It's just the nature of it. And certainly you need some

00:17:26.720 of that, but I would say more than the products, more than the items, it's the experiences that you

00:17:34.060 can create for your kids that won't go out of style. They won't go out of date. They'll always be able

00:17:38.540 to draw back on those memories. Some of my fondest memories when I was growing up is camping and going

00:17:43.940 on vacation. And these weren't elaborate things for us either. These were very inexpensive ways

00:17:48.640 for us to go engage with nature and life and everything that this amazing world has to offer.

00:17:54.380 And when we can't go out and create those experiences because we don't have the money to

00:17:57.780 do it or because we're too poor, because we're buying all these products we don't need and these toys

00:18:02.200 that they will get bored of in the next 24 hours, we don't give ourselves the opportunity to take

00:18:07.960 our kids out into the mountains or take them to the lake or take them fishing or take them hunting

00:18:12.060 and just experiencing life in general. There is so much out there. And most of us live in these

00:18:17.840 little bubbles of our current homes and our current neighborhoods and never explore what else this

00:18:24.340 world has to offer. If you want to do your kids a service, you'll find ways to create experiences and

00:18:30.200 create memories for your kids. And then number nine, and this ties in really nicely, creating experiences,

00:18:35.980 but also looking for teaching opportunities. You're looking for teaching opportunities at every moment

00:18:42.080 that you can, because what your job is, is to make connections between the realities that your children

00:18:48.020 are experiencing and how that actually applies to what I would call real life, or we can just call it

00:18:53.360 when they become adults. Give you a prime example of this. This was probably about a year ago,

00:19:00.100 maybe a little over a year ago, I took my oldest son into a local shop. And I'm not going to throw

00:19:07.160 this individual under the bus, but I took my son to a local shop and I needed servicing on one of my,

00:19:13.860 we'll just say one of my items. I needed servicing on one of my items and I brought it into the shop

00:19:18.580 and the guy at the shop was so rude. I mean, blatantly rude and disrespectful and essentially just

00:19:28.380 turned away my business and said that my business wasn't good enough for him. And as I walked out

00:19:34.900 the store, I turned to my son and I said, son, I want you to remember this moment, because this is

00:19:41.920 the exact opposite of the way that a, you treat people and be the way that you run business.

00:19:50.560 This is not how Micklers conduct themselves. And I walked out the door. Now, when I walked out the

00:19:55.820 door, we sat in the truck and we talked about the experience. We talked about how negative was.

00:20:00.560 We talked about how my son felt about the experience, what he felt when he heard this

00:20:04.880 man talk the way that he did. And we made the connection between that experience and how we

00:20:11.240 show up in life. There are so many teaching opportunities and this requires margin.

00:20:16.060 It requires space. It requires the mental capacity to be able to make these connections for your sons and

00:20:22.720 daughters. They're not going to pick up a lot of this on their own. They're going to pick up some of

00:20:26.480 it. But if you can help formulate the connection between the experiences they're having and how this

00:20:32.560 applies to the rest of their lives, those are invaluable lessons that cannot be recreated in the

00:20:37.620 classroom, cannot be replicated anywhere. It's up to you to teach how this world works through story

00:20:46.800 and through experiences and then making those connections. And the last one, guys, I want to

00:20:52.160 share with you. Number 10 today is love your children. That's it. Love your children. And I know

00:20:59.580 that this should go without saying, but frankly, it doesn't because it's not just about saying,

00:21:04.800 I love you. It's not just about buying them things. It's about doing what's in their best interest.

00:21:13.900 It's about knowing that it's not about you as the father. It's about them as the daughter or the son

00:21:22.960 is what you are doing in any given moment, any given conversation, any opportunity that you have

00:21:29.460 to engage with your children in their best interest. And if it's not in their best interest,

00:21:34.300 because maybe you're selfish about having a difficult conversation, or maybe you're selfish because

00:21:38.760 you want them to have more than you ever had. So they didn't experience what you went through.

00:21:43.740 You can see this all comes from position of selfishness. If you love your kids, you're not

00:21:50.440 going to be selfish. You're going to have difficult conversations. You're going to allow them to feel

00:21:54.980 the weight of their decisions. You're going to have the time to be able to formulate the connections

00:21:59.580 between the stories and the way they act. You're going to have time to do all of the things that I

00:22:03.860 talked about today. And it's not always fun. And it's not always easy. We have other priorities

00:22:08.740 and we have to provide, and we have to go out into the workforce and we have our wives to manage the

00:22:13.380 relationship with. And we have so many other things pulling on and demanding our time and

00:22:17.440 attention and energy. But guys, it is so critical. And it's such a short period of time. I've got four

00:22:22.980 children. My oldest is 10. I've got eight years with him before he's out of the house and onto bigger

00:22:31.100 and greater and more wonderful things. Hopefully that I never could have imagined for him.

00:22:35.140 That's what I want for him. And because that's what I want for him, and that's what I want for

00:22:39.720 my other two boys and my little girl, I'm going to do what's necessary in order for them to go out

00:22:44.860 and experience life in the way that I think is in their best interest. Guys, this mantle of

00:22:51.640 fatherhood is such a high calling. It's such an important role in the lives of our children

00:22:56.900 and in society in general. And I hope that I always live worthy to hold that title. I hope that I'm

00:23:04.480 able to incorporate these 10 steps. And sometimes I feel like I'm the least qualified to give any

00:23:10.660 advice about how to be a good father. But every time I've gone out and I've done these things and

00:23:16.440 I've engaged my children this way, they're better off for it. I'm better off for it. And everybody

00:23:22.720 wins. So guys, I want you to go out there. If you're a father, take these things to heart,

00:23:26.760 go implement them. If you're not a father yet, these are things that you can be learning and knowing

00:23:31.080 and developing with nieces and nephews and people that you're coaching. If you're not a father and

00:23:35.680 never planned to be, there's still opportunities to serve the youth in your community. Our young men

00:23:41.060 and our young women, whether they're in the walls of our home or not, need our help, need our guidance,

00:23:46.820 need our direction. And I can't think of very many things that are more important when it comes to

00:23:53.000 our roles and responsibilities as men is to take care of future generations. So guys, go out there.

00:23:59.240 Number one, let me recap these. Number one, render yourself obsolete. Number two, model the type of

00:24:04.780 man. Number three, make things fun. Number four, discipline and structure for your children. Number five,

00:24:11.460 allow them to feel the weight of their decisions. Number six, rough house with them. Number seven,

00:24:16.660 don't do things for them that they can do on their own. Number eight, create experiences. Number nine,

00:24:22.320 look for teaching opportunities and make connections. And number 10, love your children. So guys,

00:24:27.360 go out there, take the stuff to heart, take action, be a good father, be engaged with them,

00:24:33.840 implement these things into their lives, and everyone will be better served. Go out there,

00:24:38.200 guys, take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man

00:24:42.900 podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:24:47.900 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - September 21, 2018

10 Ways to Win With Your Kids ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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