166： Why Men Should Compete ｜ Jake Thompson
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Summary
Jake Thompson, founder of Compete Every Day, makes the case for utilizing healthy competition as a critical factor in improving our lives. In this episode, we talk about why competition is so important, why executing to failure is so powerful, and why losing does not necessarily equal a loser.
Transcript
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Competition is such a critical component of our journey to develop masculinity and manliness.
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It's too bad that it's often viewed as unnecessary and even an antiquated way of
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operating by much of society. Heaven forbid we hold ourselves to a high standard and teach our
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children to keep score. My guest today, Jake Thompson, founder of Compete Every Day, makes
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the case for utilizing healthy competition as a critical factor in improving our lives.
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Today, we talk about why competition is so important, why executing to failure is so
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powerful, why losing does not necessarily equal loser, and why men should compete every day.
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time. You are not
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easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who you are.
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This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call
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yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and
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founder of this movement and this podcast, The Order of Man. This is a show, obviously, if you don't
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know by now, about being a better man. So we are interviewing the world's most successful men,
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New York Times bestselling authors, entrepreneurs, athletes, warriors, scholars. If they've got an
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interesting message to share and they're succeeding and helping other people succeed, my job is to
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bring them on the podcast, ask them powerful questions, get powerful answers, distill that
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down so you and me and everybody else can learn a little bit more about what it takes to succeed
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as fathers, husbands, business owners, community leaders, wherever it is you are trying to step up
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in your life as a man. I've got a great one on competition today. I think there's a negative
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connotation around the word competition, and I think more and more people are dismissing this
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idea of competition, but I've got some interesting conversations coming up with Jake today. We'll get
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to that in a minute, but before I do that, I do want to make sure that I thank you right off the bat.
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I want to thank you for the reviews in our Facebook group. And by the way, guys, if you aren't in that
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Facebook group, you can head to facebook.com slash groups slash order of man, we've got 45,000 guys
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over there, but in the Facebook group, I asked for ratings and reviews on the podcast. You guys
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came through in such a big way. And I want to tell you, I appreciate you taking a couple of minutes
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out of your day to leave a review. If you haven't done that already, very simply, I ask that you do
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this. You get this podcast for free. There's nothing that I ask you to do, trying to add value to your
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lives. If you would return a favor by leaving a review and a rating, let us know what you think
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about the show. And of course, the biggest thing for that is it just helps us get the message out.
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And I think the more men who hear this message, the more we learn about being better men,
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the better off that our families are going to be our businesses, our communities, every aspect of life.
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So please again, make sure that you write us an iTunes rating and review. It goes such a long way.
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I read every one of those and all of them are appreciated. The other thing I wanted to make mention of
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is our show sponsor, but more than just being a show sponsor, these guys are friends of mine.
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We have conversations, we text back and forth, we give each other a hard time. And I was thinking
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about this. I am 37 years old. I had to think about that one for a minute, the older that I get,
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and I'm not considering myself old, but I have noticed that my joints are getting a little bit
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sore after my workouts that I'm recovering a little bit slower than I used to, especially as I ramp up
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my workout regimen with CrossFit and starting strength and the other things that I'm doing.
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And I've noticed a big, big improvement in my life through some supplements that I use through
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origin main. I use Jocko's joint warfare, the super krill and the pre-workout discipline.
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So if you guys are looking for some supplements, and again, these are supplements, all right,
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this is supposed to supplement a healthy diet and a healthy workout regimen. Of course,
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if you are looking for a supplement, I highly, highly encourage that you go check out what
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warfare. It's the super krill and the discipline. Of course, they've got a lot more over there.
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Go check it out. Origin main.com slash order of man origin main.com slash order of man.
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And then make sure that you use the code order or D E R at checkout. If you use that,
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they've got training gear as well, compression, pants, geese, things like that for Brazilian
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jujitsu again, origin main.com slash order of man and use the code order at checkout.
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That's enough. That's all I've got by way of announcements today. I had mentioned that I've
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got Jake Thompson on the show. I met Jake last year at an American dream. You event in Fort Sill,
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Oklahoma. That's actually where I went to basic training. And I had the privilege of hearing this
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guy speak about the power and importance of competition. And I knew that I wanted to have
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a deeper discussion with him about this concept, because this is something that I think a lot of
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society bucks, this idea of competition, that word again, it seems to have this negative connotation
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around it. But I think that, you know, as well as I do, how powerful competition can actually be
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in a world that likes to take it easy and even shy away from keeping score. Jake is somebody who is
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encouraging more people to do it through his organization, compete every day. And also as a
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speaker, an author and a coach. So guys sit back, if you can take notes, this is going to be a powerful,
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powerful conversation, something that you can incorporate into your lives, something that you
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can incorporate into the lives of your children and those you have a responsibility for. And I think
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we're going to be all better off when we learn to harness the power of competition.
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Jake, what's going on, man? Glad that you are on the show today.
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Man, me too, Ryan. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
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Yeah, you bet. It's been a long time in the works. We actually, we were at Fort Sill together
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for American Dream U. I actually had Phil on the show about a month or so ago. And so I'm excited for
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this as well, because I was really blown away with your presentation and what you had to share with
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the soldiers that we met there and your story. So I think this is going to be a great
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conversation, man. Thanks. I'm excited. Likewise, I've been following your stuff for a while. So it
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was a great opportunity to get connected in person. Yeah, definitely. And you know, I think even with
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what you guys are doing, I think it's so, so important in society today. And for those guys
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who don't know, you are the founder of Compete Every Day, which we'll talk a little bit more about,
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but I just want to extract that word compete because I think society in general, and I think this is
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probably a relatively new trend because when I was in school and I imagine you were much the same way
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is competition was important, especially for boys, especially with sports, because we learned so
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much about life through competition. But I think anymore, the trend seems to be going away from
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let's not compete. Let's not keep score. That's mean, or it'll hurt people's feelings. So I'd really
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love to hear your perspective on this word and this idea of competing. I hate participation trophies.
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So I'll kind of kick off with that. You know, I love the fact with competition because like you said,
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in sports, it teaches us a lot about life. But more importantly, I think what it does is it
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creates opportunities for us to get outside of our comfort zone and really reveal what we're capable
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of. And really, you know, when you're in a competitive setting, you're forced out of that
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comfort that most times people cling to. And a lot of times you would never push a limit, whether
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it's physical, whether you're fitness, you're training, you're training for a sport, you're working
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out in the gym, you're running, or in kind of a life sense where you're put in a competitive setting,
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you have to dial it up a notch. And for a lot of people, they would never go to that level to that
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place unless pushed. And so that's really what I love most about it. And looking throughout history,
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I think that's the biggest advantage of competition is because it allows us the opportunity to reveal
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what we're truly capable of instead of what we think we're capable of.
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I mean, it's a great metric, right? Because if you go into a game or you go into a business scenario
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or whatever that may be, and you fall short, that's not fun, right? Nobody, nobody wants to lose.
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But the reality is, it's a great metric for you to determine, am I good enough? And you might fall
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short and realize you're not well good, go back to the drawing board and get better.
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Yeah. And it's the people that go back to that drawing board and understand because you have those that
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will throw a fit and the wine and the complain, they've been cheated, life cheated on life,
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you know, and then you'll have those that look at the competition. They didn't end up where they
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wanted to be. So they're like, cool, how can I get better? How can I improve myself so that I am
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ready and capable to take that on and when, and those are the people that are sharpened by it and
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continue to excel in all areas of life. Do you think there's a trend to compete less than there
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used to be? How old are you, by the way? 34. I'm turning 37 here in the next couple of weeks.
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And, you know, 20 years ago when I was in high school, that was not a problem at all. And I look
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at now and from my perspective, it seems to be a problem. Do you agree? Disagree?
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I hugely agree. I think you see a lot of it. I mean, it's in the media a lot about
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competitions bad for youth sports and, you know, everybody needs to win and everybody gets a
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trophy. And I think that sends the wrong message because when those kids are older, they're entitled
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that they deserve a trophy because they've been given one all their life, regardless of how good or
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bad they've done. And losing isn't necessarily a bad thing. I mean, you know this as an entrepreneur
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and a businessman, like failure is part of that process. And unless you figure something out by
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doing it incorrectly, a lot of times we don't learn. And so without competition, you're not
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ever presented an opportunity to fail, which then never forces you to be better. And you become content
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with the status quo. And I think today's society really pushes that over and over again versus this
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idea of being better than you were and putting yourself out of your comfort zone, forcing
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yourself to level up because the world society and all of us as a whole need more leaders and
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specifically to show more men that will step up and improve on who they were because their families,
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their friends, their relationships, their communities need that.
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Why do you think society pushes so hard against this? Because again, I think we're in agreement
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and I don't know. I don't know if it's a sensitivity thing or we want to make everybody feel warm
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I think we want to make everybody feel warm and fuzzy. I think people look down on the idea of
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failure and losing as that it's a complete negative. They see those opportunities of
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losing equates to a loser. Failing at something equates to a failure, which is never the case.
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Just because you lost a game, you missed a shot, doesn't make you a loser.
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It just means it didn't work out that time. How you respond to that loss, to that failure is really
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what determines more of that characteristic. I mean, the famous Jordan quote about, you know,
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he's missed thousands of shots in his career at the end of games, during games, but he still,
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the game was on the line, the greatest of all time, still is like, give me the ball,
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I'm going to take the shot because he saw it as just an opportunity.
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I think that's a really good perspective. He saw it as an opportunity. And I think in a way,
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he and other people who are successful have redefined what failure is. Failure is not
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coming up short on something you try. The way that I look at it is failure is not even trying.
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So I think the greater risk is sitting back, doing nothing, letting life pass you by,
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not acting on that business idea, not asking that woman out. Most people will do that because
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they're afraid of rejection. But I think the failure is, is not doing that stuff rather than
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doing it and being rejected or falling short. Oh, a thousand percent. You know, the author's
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escaping me now, but she worked in hospice and she talked about working with these people at the
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end of their lives and having these deep conversations. And the one theme that she saw
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is the regrets of the dying. The number one regret was these people got to the end of their life and
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they still had something left in the tank because they let all these opportunities pass them by.
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They stayed within their comfort zone. They lived the life that everyone else told them to. And then
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they get to the end of their life. Physically, they're exhausted, but emotionally,
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spiritually, there's still so much left in them and they never got to fulfill it. And it's the idea
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that baseball I love is a prime example. We were talking about that baseball hat before we got
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online. You can stand at the plate, put a bat on your shoulder, scared to death that you're going to
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strike out if you swing that bat. And so you sit there and you watch. Sure enough, three strikes go
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whizzing right by you. That bat never leaves your shoulder. Now, the same thing could happen. You could
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still strike out if you swing that bat, but all of a sudden you have a chance to put the ball in play
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to get a hit, to get a home run that you would never have. If that bat set on your shoulder the
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entire time, the cardinal sin of batting is striking out looking right. I mean, it's, you've got your K
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your strikeout, then you've got your backwards K and nobody wants that because they know they
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understand. Like you didn't even try, you didn't even give yourself a chance. You just stood there
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and watched everything. I'd much rather strike out swinging than looking. Yeah. I mean, cause you look at,
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it's funny. You look at baseball and baseball is so funny. Guys will just like slap at it with the
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bat. And you're thinking, okay, that was dumb. There's no way anything's going to happen.
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Catcher misplays the ball, throws it over the first baseman's head. The pitcher bobbles it like
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anything happens once that ball is in play. And it's the same thing in life. You just got to swing
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to put the ball in play and then anything can happen. Did, so did you play baseball in high school
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or at the college level? No, I played it as a kid was pretty good as a kid till I took a couple of
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fastballs to the face. Then I had a problem sitting in the batter's box. Then you get into high school
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and those curve balls, uh, you're swinging at those things and they're moving. Uh, no football was my
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game. I loved it. It's still kind of my first love. My first ex-girlfriend is I like to laugh because
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you always have those hard breakups with sports, but baseball I love because a lot of the nuances of life
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that are in the game. And it's so much deeper than just kind of that surface level watching.
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Yeah. I mean, it's baseball's notorious for being mental as opposed to physical. I mean,
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obviously there's a physical component, but much more mental than I think the average
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watcher or onlooker would, would realize what, so when you got hit with the balls in the face,
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I mean, was that, did that do any damage? Knocked out my front teeth. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And this was
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still, I was still young too. So knocked out my front teeth and then just psychologically, man,
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sitting in that box totally starts to play with your head a little bit. And then obviously as you
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get older, you get those breaking balls. It looks like it's coming at your head. And so you're already
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turning and trying to swing to shield your face. Yeah. Drops right in there. Yeah. Those guys that
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take those shots, you get about one a year. Those guys take shots to the head or the face at the
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major league level, man, the fact that they go back, that's blows me away because of the mental
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hurdles you have to go through just to get back in there. I mean, that ball speed at that level is
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insane in terms of reaction time. You couldn't just rub some dirt on it and keep going or what? I mean,
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what's the problem here, man? I mean, I did when I was young and then I was like, you know what?
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I like this football game a little bit better, which is funny because you think about it. I mean,
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football is from the outside looking in is a lot more violent, right? Than baseball would be,
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but yeah. Yeah. A lot more violent playing quarterback that was very cerebral for me,
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which I really enjoyed. I knew I was going to take shots and get blindsided and all that, but
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some reason it just didn't matter as much as taking a fastball to the face.
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Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, cause you kind of expected at that point, right? You're not expecting
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to get hit with a ball in the face. Did you ever watch that Randy Johnson video where he threw that
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pitch and it completely just obliterated that bird that flew in its path? Yes. One of the,
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one of the best baseball videos because it's just an explosion.
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Yeah. I mean, it's unreal. Like I think there's just a poof of feathers, essentially.
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There's a documentary on iTunes called fastball. That's one of, if you like baseball,
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it's one of the most fascinating things I've watched because it's the history of the fastball
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and it goes back to when baseball started all the way to present day. And they're interviewing
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batters and pitchers and talking about comparison of eras who actually threw the fastest fastball because
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the mound is moved and changed and sure, but it's fascinating listening to these batters talk about
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the ball and the illusion that it has when it's a hundred miles an hour versus at 90 because gravity
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takes over. You know, as soon as the pitcher releases it, that opportunity is coming at them
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and gravity is going to pull it down naturally. And so the batters are used to that. But when a guy
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throws a hundred gravity, can't pull it downward as fast. And so the batters, it looks like it's rising.
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It's playing an optical illusion on them that it's rising. And so batters swear that the ball
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rises on them at the last minute. And it's just fascinating because you watch it and you hear
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these guys talking about it. And there's so many different analogies in life that, you know,
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certain opportunities come at you faster than others. And sometimes you kind of just got to close
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your eyes and grip and swing versus like, please be a ball, please be a ball. Strike one.
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Yeah, man, that makes sense. That's crazy. I know I grew up playing competitive sports and
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I've learned so much from that, but I guess the question then leads to, I mean, you look at life
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now, it's not really a competition. Like there is no scoreboard. I can jump on the scale and I can see
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that I'm losing weight or I can see I'm putting on muscle. I can look at my bank account and realize
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that my debts are going away or my assets are rising. And I guess that's kind of a scoreboard,
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but how do you, how do you compete when it's not necessarily a competition and there's nobody who
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wants to destroy you on the other side of the field? You know, it's funny. I think it's,
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it's daily a competition with yourself. And from the negative sense, I'll say this. It's easy to
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get caught up in the idea that you're competing against all these other people when you go on
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social media, because you see, like you talked about, you know, Hey, I'm losing a little weight.
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I'm getting out of my debt. You look on social and you see somebody that's just jacked and you assume
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everything's great for them. They're perfect. They did it the healthy way. Like I'm competing
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against them. Why can't I be like that? Or the person that's flashing money in a new car on
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social media and you feel like you're losing, like instinctively something in the back of your
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head. It's like you're losing to that guy. And as men, as competitive as we are, it's very easy to
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get caught up in that. Whereas on the flip side, the real competition we've had, and we honestly,
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we always have is with ourselves. It's the idea of, did I do my best today? If I didn't,
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where did I fall short? How can I be better tomorrow? It's going into that weight room and
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being like, you know what? I did 15 squats today at 225. Let's see if I got 16 or 17 in me and
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pushing yourself just a little bit harder, you know, and how you're treating your family. Like
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this month I did great in this area, in this area as a husband and a dad, but here's where I fell
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short. Here's where I should have spent more time with my kid. And here's where I see that now.
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And so it's the idea of, can I one up myself to be better? Then it becomes a game of you versus
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you. And the beauty of that is you control that. You a hundred percent control that competition.
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Whereas if it's a me versus you, I have no influence or control on what you do, what you
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say, who you know, what skills you have, what habits you've developed. It's a game. I don't know
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the full story. And so I can't win. But with me, I know the full story. It's the thing I talk
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about when you're running a race, like your body physically cannot run at top speed. If
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you're always looking to your left or your right or behind you, a track star would take
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off out of the gate. As soon as they start looking around to where everyone else is,
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they slow down because your body is not created to run when your head and neck are twisted in
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other directions. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. So it's only by looking forward, focusing
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on your lane, on your finish line, pushing onward that you're able to run at optimal speed.
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And the same applies to our life. It's when we're focusing on ourselves, our lives, our
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lane, how can we be better and pressed onward that we're able to do our best?
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Yeah. I mean, that's a good point because I think it is a danger to look at what other
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people are doing and compare yourself to what other people are doing because you don't know
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their story. You don't know what's going on. But I, but I also think it's damaging to assume
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that what other people have is just luck. Like they just ran across. I think that's more
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common like, Oh, this guy just got lucky. So that's why he's rich or he got lucky and
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he has the perfect physique and that's why he's in shape. And I think what we end up doing
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a lot of times is discounting the amount of work to get there. So I don't think it's necessarily
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damaging to look at other people. If you're asking yourself the follow-up question of how
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did this person accomplish this feat? Like how did they actually go about having the wealth
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or having the physique or having whatever it is they have in their life? I think that's the
00:20:39.400
follow-up question that most people miss and they just assume, Oh, this guy's just
00:20:42.880
lucky. And that's very rarely the case. And that's key. I mean, what you just said
00:20:47.040
is, is a hundred percent key because if you make the assumption, you're like the
00:20:52.540
person that lost and you whine and complain instead of being like, well, why didn't we
00:20:57.080
win? Let's go study the tape. What did they do better? What can I learn from them? What
00:21:01.240
can I learn from my mistakes? How can I get better? And that's what competitors do. I
00:21:05.060
mean, the best in any sport, they study the competition. They study their own
00:21:09.380
film to see where they fell short and what the others are doing and then increase it.
00:21:14.300
And the social stuff, it's easy to get caught up in that because not a lot of people will
00:21:18.700
be authentic in how they actually got there. They don't want you to see some of the behind
00:21:23.400
the scenes, but there are people that are, that are genuine out there. And if you're committed
00:21:27.420
to being your best self and competing for that, you absolutely are going to find those people
00:21:32.680
and learn from those people because you want to see how to get there because they've gotten
00:21:37.060
there. It's the same thing that Jordan, when the Pistons used to beat the snot out of him,
00:21:41.820
if you, if you saw the 30 for 30 on the bad boys, Jordan bulked up in the off season solely
00:21:47.360
because Detroit was able to out muscle and push him around. And he came into the next,
00:21:52.940
the next season just jacked so that those big bodies wouldn't beat him up anymore because
00:21:58.460
he saw what was beating him. He saw who was beating him, how they were doing it and said,
00:22:03.140
all right, this is how I can get past them. And then he did.
00:22:06.620
This is the value in taking an objective look at yourself. Cause what you said earlier is just
00:22:11.840
because you lost doesn't make you a loser. And I think what a lot of guys will do is they'll look
00:22:16.180
at it and say, well, I lost, so I'm a loser. I have some fat, so I'm fat, lazy, out of shape.
00:22:20.940
I'm a slob, whatever. And they start identifying with that versus an objective look. Here's why I lost.
00:22:27.020
Here's why I'm not healthy. Here's why I don't have money. Here's why my relationship sucks.
00:22:30.560
It doesn't make me a failure. It's just the data, the facts and the raw data. Now you use
00:22:36.000
that information to change your life moving forward. You don't need to get so emotionally
00:22:40.160
attached to it. And I think that's the danger we run into. Yes, I completely agree with that.
00:22:47.060
On the subject of competition today, I want to talk with you about the iron council.
00:22:51.900
It's been said that what gets measured gets improved. And that's part of the reason that
00:22:56.740
keeping score is so powerful. It gives you instant feedback on your performance. I think that we all
00:23:03.360
inherently know this, but very few of us are incorporating competition and keeping score
00:23:08.380
into our lives. Once we get out of school and sports and some of those things that we're doing,
00:23:12.380
we just don't incorporate the stuff into our lives. And keeping score is actually a huge component to
00:23:16.880
what we do inside of the iron council. This is a brotherhood of nearly 400 men who are all working
00:23:22.180
together to push and motivate each other. But it goes so much deeper than that. We have a very,
00:23:27.380
very specific planning tool that will help you keep score in your own life so that you can have an
00:23:33.640
objective look at your performance so you can improve. We have challenges every single week
00:23:39.600
that are issued. We will soon be competing against each other as teams within the iron council. So
00:23:44.680
there's so many different ways for you to keep score. There's so many ways for you to compete with
00:23:49.640
other high achieving men who are motivated, ambitious, driven, just like you are. And I
00:23:55.600
don't know about you, but for me, I want to surround myself with these types of guys and those who
00:23:59.960
compete and know how to use competition in an effective way are naturally going to produce
00:24:05.000
better results in their lives. So if you're interested in what we're doing with a competition
00:24:09.620
component, but other components as well within the iron council, head to order of man.com
00:24:14.060
slash iron council. Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council. Check it out after this show.
00:24:20.220
In the meantime, let's get back to the conversation with Jake.
00:24:24.460
So let's just shift gears here a little bit and talk just briefly about your business, because I
00:24:29.080
mean, you believe so much. So in this, this idea of competition that you named your business after,
00:24:35.140
right? Which is compete every day, which is an apparel company, right? Do you guys do anything
00:24:40.060
outside of apparel? I do speaking. We've got the apparel is the main thing. And then we're working
00:24:45.020
on kind of a daily journal piece to incorporate in for that competing every day. Just that little
00:24:51.380
reminder. So give me the inspiration. Give me the motivation behind here's why I started this
00:24:56.700
organization. Here's why I fully believe in what I'm doing and why it's so valuable for people.
00:25:01.440
Yeah. So man, this was probably eight years ago, 2010, I had a consulting business. I was doing
00:25:07.480
incredibly well. I was happy on the outside of what I was building. But really, you know,
00:25:13.920
like a lot of times when we get into these vain pursuits, I was building a sandcastle. Like I like
00:25:18.920
to tell everyone, it was a great sandcastle that deep down, I was like, man, this thing's going to
00:25:23.520
wash away. I've done nothing but selfish pursuits. And at the same time, I was reading a book called
00:25:29.080
A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller. And in that book, he talks about story and the
00:25:34.740
importance of story and how the life that we live is what we tell the world that's important to us.
00:25:41.600
It's what we tell others that we value and we find importance in. And just the pieces that make
00:25:46.340
for a great story also make for a great life. And I remember reading that book and being just struck
00:25:51.620
with the idea that I was living a crap story. Like there is no reason anybody would want to be a part
00:25:57.120
of that story. And so I was like, I wanted to change it. I wanted to do something that would not
00:26:02.600
only live beyond my years, but I can make a positive impact in people. I can point to people
00:26:08.040
and say, I want to help you. Let me encourage you, which I felt I was just naturally gifted with
00:26:13.160
encouragement, leadership skills. And so I toyed with these ideas of pursuing greatness in your life,
00:26:19.000
whether it was your faith, your health, your dreams, your relationships, pursuing your best in
00:26:23.920
every area every day. And eventually the idea of compete every day is what morphed out of that
00:26:29.480
because of my competitive spirit and just being one of the most competitive people.
00:26:34.000
My friends knew that word became attractive and not in the sense of me versus you, as we talked
00:26:40.020
about, but in me versus me. And how can I compete for my faith, for my health, for my goals,
00:26:47.140
for the relationships in my life every day being active. And so I had the idea, I spent about eight
00:26:53.000
months tinkering with some different projects that failed. They didn't really ever get off the ground
00:26:57.600
until my best friend suggested I look at this t-shirt company out of Boston called Life is Good.
00:27:02.840
And he said, man, these guys have three simple words. It's a pretty standard message, but people
00:27:07.720
love it. It's built around this brand message of the power of optimism. And he said, you are pretty
00:27:12.520
passionate about this idea of getting people to compete for their life. Why not throw it on t-shirts?
00:27:17.560
So at the time I didn't know any better and put some money into a couple of boxes of t-shirts and
00:27:21.640
tanks and started selling out of the trunk of my car, talking to really anyone and everyone I could
00:27:26.260
read about this message. And so today, you know, we still print, compete every day on our shirts,
00:27:31.480
but on a lot of them we put other messaging because I found it's like going and listening
00:27:36.640
to speakers. You could go to a conference and you could hear 12 speakers say the exact
00:27:42.100
same message. They're talking about the same idea, same message, but all 12 of them present
00:27:46.260
it very differently because of who they are, what they've experienced, where they've come
00:27:50.160
from. And you may only connect with one or two of those speakers because of how they
00:27:54.580
shared their story, even though it was the exact same message and idea that every other
00:27:58.420
speaker had. And so we take that same approach in how we do apparel is we want to encourage
00:28:03.460
you to compete for your life, but also remind you that it's up to you to start competing for
00:28:08.540
your life. And so we tell that story through a number of messages and phrases so that people,
00:28:14.020
it clicks. So that with this person, this shirt's going to click and they're going to start
00:28:17.500
to realize I can be a competitor. Whereas another person, it's going to be a completely different
00:28:22.600
shirt that sparks and hits them because of where they are and what they're dealing with.
00:28:27.040
I really like this story because you're talking about selling shirts out of the trunk of your car.
00:28:31.280
And I think there's so many businesses that start that way, successful businesses that start that way.
00:28:35.980
And it's very easy for us to overlook that. Like sometimes we think, oh, this guy just must
00:28:39.960
have had a miraculous plan and the stars aligned and everything worked out. And in all reality,
00:28:44.220
like you had another job, I'm assuming. What was your other job at that point?
00:28:46.860
So I was doing marketing consulting. So I was helping at the time I had a sports team and a
00:28:52.080
telecom company that was helping with just marketing strategy, go to market, setting up
00:28:57.400
some of their basic social. So I did that. I actually did that for the first two and a half
00:29:00.980
years that I had compete because you know, 25, $28 t-shirts, I wasn't moving enough of those to
00:29:06.540
make a living. Yeah. I mean, you got to sell thousands and thousands of them.
00:29:09.720
Yeah. So we, uh, you know, we, we tried a bunch of different things. I could give a
00:29:14.240
laundry list of different failures that didn't work as we tried to refine that brand and figure
00:29:19.380
out what is that sweet spot for us until we really settled in that it's shirts and tanks
00:29:24.620
with messaging. You know, my skillsets in storytelling, let's figure out ways to tell
00:29:29.780
the same story over and over so we can impact as many people as possible and just remind them
00:29:36.740
And I think it's really easy to gloss over what you were doing before, but this is
00:29:39.820
interesting. This stood out to me as well is that you have a marketing background. So you
00:29:44.040
played to that strength to be able to build this other organization that is built around,
00:29:48.360
let's be honest, built around marketing a message, right?
00:29:51.580
Yeah. It's funny when you look at how those, if you just keep plugging how the different
00:29:55.460
stars align, because like for me, I wanted to be a sports agent growing up and wanted to
00:30:01.140
be Jerry Maguire. And I started interning at an agency in college and in grad school. And
00:30:07.000
while doing that, I taught myself graphic design, not deadly, but I'm, I'm dangerous. I like to
00:30:15.680
Teaching myself that I was like, well, you know, I don't know if I'm going to need this.
00:30:19.660
And then you flash forward a few years and I'm designing t-shirts because I couldn't afford
00:30:25.600
an outside designer or, you know, I'm doing one of these classes on writing and I, you know,
00:30:31.640
I'd like to write, but wasn't just in love with it. And now I'm writing emails multiple times a week,
00:30:38.880
And a book, right? You're doing, you're writing a book as well.
00:30:41.320
And a book. Yeah. And so you've got all these pieces that if you're constantly trying to build
00:30:46.560
your skillset and improve, it's funny when you look back five, 10 years down the road,
00:30:51.460
how pieces and stars start to align up of, man, I learned that back in 2007. And it might've taken
00:30:57.340
six years before I was using it consistently, but I'm glad I have that all because I was doing
00:31:03.780
That's a really, really good perspective. And one that I share. And I, again, I think a lot
00:31:08.680
of guys will look at it and say, Oh, just one day he decided to do this and it all worked out.
00:31:12.720
I'm miserable in my job. And how do I get out of it? You know, I even look at our own story here
00:31:16.860
with order of man, which, which has been three years now. And what a lot of people don't know
00:31:21.620
is that I actually had a podcast before this and it was called wealth anatomy. And it was focused
00:31:25.920
on helping healthcare professionals with their financial services. And I did about 20 episodes,
00:31:31.020
give or take and realized, man, I really love the medium of podcasting. I just didn't want to
00:31:35.580
continue to have that conversation, but I learned that's how I got my feet wet in the, in the field
00:31:40.480
of podcasting. And so when I switched gears, I wasn't a new podcaster when I started order of man.
00:31:47.040
And so a lot of people think that, Oh, you know, this was a big success because you're just naturally
00:31:51.840
gifted or talented. No, not at all. Like, I don't even want to hear those previous versions of the
00:31:57.580
podcast, but I'm sure they're horrible. But I took, like you said, took that knowledge,
00:32:02.920
that information, that skillset that I had developed and learned and honed and refined,
00:32:09.040
and then shifted gears and use that information and those skillsets that I had to create something
00:32:14.380
that did take off relatively quickly, but it wasn't because I had just got into it. I had been doing
00:32:20.540
it long before starting order of man. And not only that, but how much did you learn from that process
00:32:26.740
of listening to those old shows of like, okay, I sound like this here. I need to pause more here.
00:32:31.940
I need to work on like, you go back and listen to the ugly stuff and the dirty and the grimy while
00:32:37.380
you're learning it, just so you can learn to be better and accelerate. It's like, if you were to
00:32:41.460
record podcast and you just record the one time through and you push publish and you never listen,
00:32:46.880
you never edit, critique yourself, how are you ever going to get better? I mean, you'll be a little
00:32:51.600
better in terms of talking because you'll be a little more used to it, maybe less awkward on the mic,
00:32:55.740
but your presence is carried in how you learn. And it obviously knowing your show and knowing how
00:33:02.160
you speak off the mic and in front of people on stages, like that translate, that communication
00:33:08.300
translates all over back from those beginnings of those first 20 episodes.
00:33:13.220
Yeah. Yeah. It was really funny. I jumped in my, uh, in my truck the other day and Bluetooth
00:33:17.200
automatically picked up and started playing my own podcast. And my wife and kids got in the car
00:33:22.040
with me and they're like, my wife's like, you listen to your own podcasts. And I was like,
00:33:25.720
yeah, I listened. Of course I listened to them. I mean, I don't listen to hear myself talk.
00:33:28.760
Although I like that. Let's be honest. But I listened to it. Like you said, to critique it,
00:33:34.080
where did I fall short? A lot of times I'm asking myself, oh man, I really missed a question there.
00:33:39.400
What question could I have asked or what direction could I have taken this or where should I have gone
00:33:43.860
deeper and what should I have skimmed over? How could I help coach my, the other person I'm
00:33:48.260
interviewing along to get to this point or that point? So yeah, I mean, we're always looking at
00:33:52.880
the stuff and I think it's so valuable when it comes to competition is that you've got to evaluate.
00:33:57.520
We call it the after action review. Like if you're not evaluating your performance,
00:34:01.540
how do you know if you're getting better? How do you recognize what's good? How do you recognize
00:34:06.220
what's bad? You don't, unless you look at the tape, so to speak. Absolutely. Well, you talked about
00:34:11.800
some of these failures and not to like drone on the failures at all, but I am really curious about
00:34:16.480
some of the things that you tried that, that just didn't work. And you, you shifted gears from
00:34:20.320
that. Yeah, man. You know, the, the custom performance game for us was something that
00:34:24.940
was just a beating. What do you mean by that? So looking at overseas production, custom cut and
00:34:30.520
so, uh, yeah, you know, we've done some custom cut and so bras and men's shorts and we carry some
00:34:36.800
of the products, but I mean, we were looking at men's shirts and like three years ago, I was like,
00:34:41.520
I need to have like Lulu lemon style product because we wanted to go that direction. And the
00:34:46.660
more I started going down some of that path, the more I was like one from a resource standpoint,
00:34:52.180
we probably spent 10 to 20 K that was either stolen by production houses or made into products
00:34:59.660
that I wasn't going to sell cause quality wasn't there. So you have that, you have different
00:35:05.200
products or directions and programs that we tried with members. Uh, you know, we do a shirt of the
00:35:10.520
month club. A lot of t-shirt companies do. And so we've always tried to refine it. And so two years
00:35:16.440
ago we said, well, what if we just sold the same thing, but we gave everyone a gift card so they
00:35:21.720
can pick out if they wanted hoodies or shorts or things like that. And our sales plummeted in that
00:35:27.080
program. And when we started asking for feedback, it's because people didn't want the choice. They
00:35:32.160
didn't want to have to remember to get the gift card. They love the idea of the something arriving
00:35:38.120
all month. So when you buy it, it's cause we sell it around the holidays. You bought it as a Christmas
00:35:42.600
gift. You're either like the great friend that got the gift that's showing up every month all year
00:35:46.840
long or the mom or the, you know, the husband and wife. And so people like it where the choice was
00:35:51.320
taken out of it. They actually didn't want the choice to go on there. And then just from our event
00:35:55.960
side, you know, the trade show business expos and events, we've had a roller coaster experience with it
00:36:01.540
trying to figure out which ones work and which ones don't. And we've had events where we've dropped
00:36:07.160
$20,000 into total costs for the event between staff and goods and travel. And you definitely don't
00:36:13.560
make all that back. And then you have some that, you know, you put in a lot less and you end up
00:36:18.480
incredibly profitable. So it's kind of that learning game because you don't really have a blueprint.
00:36:24.700
And if you make the mistake of trying to be just like everyone else, you tend to fall into a little
00:36:31.380
more traps instead of saying, what is my brand? What are my personal strengths and skill sets? And how
00:36:38.580
can I be better in playing off of those? So I can't be the same t-shirt guy that the grunt style guys
00:36:45.740
are like that's we're different people. We have completely different personalities and brands. But if I try to
00:36:50.540
be just like them, I would fail miserably. Yeah. I mean, you get destroyed because they've got the market on
00:36:55.460
the way they look and feel and their imaging and everything else. Yeah, absolutely. And so we have to do
00:37:00.320
differently. So it's, you know, the guy is starting something. It's easy to think I got to do it just like
00:37:05.440
them because they've done it successfully. You've got to learn that it's more of a, I need to learn what made
00:37:10.760
them successful, what they did that was unique for them, how they did that, and then look at it versus how can I
00:37:16.520
be my best self through this. And the term that gets brought up for me when you talk about this
00:37:22.620
is tuition. I mean, at the end of the day, like all of those mistakes and the cost is just tuition.
00:37:27.740
It is. And people can look at it and think, oh, that's a lost cost. And it is. I mean,
00:37:31.800
let's not beat around the bush. It is. You don't want to make costly mistakes, but that's the price.
00:37:38.400
Like that's the investment for being successful that I think a lot of people overlook. They're like,
00:37:42.260
I don't want to lose money. Well, I don't want to lose money either, but I also don't want to be
00:37:46.500
complacent and I don't want to not be successful. And sometimes we've just got to invest and realize
00:37:51.320
that the costly mistakes are tuition that help us thrive moving forward.
00:37:55.900
Absolutely. I mean, you, you pay to learn those mistakes. And for a lot of people, that's the
00:38:00.300
reason they, they sit with that bat on the shoulder. As we talked about earlier, they're
00:38:04.440
scared to, to make that mistake or have the risk of that failure. But every one of those guys and
00:38:10.440
people you look up to that are successful have a laundry list of where they swung the bat and missed,
00:38:15.200
but it's only because they kept swinging the bat that they hit the home runs or the base hits that
00:38:19.760
have got them to where they are now. How do you feel like you've distinguished yourself? I mean,
00:38:24.520
apparel industry in general is so I'm sure oversaturated. You could probably talk for hours
00:38:29.360
and hours about that. How have you specifically been able to separate yourself and create your own,
00:38:35.480
your, your movement? I mean, it's essentially a movement, which is really cool to see.
00:38:39.780
Thank you. Yeah. You know, for us, it took some refining, but I think it's the idea,
00:38:44.340
you know, we started a lot within CrossFit, a lot within the fitness market. And when you first
00:38:48.760
look at the brand and people see compete, they're thinking it's in the gym. No, man,
00:38:53.920
I'm going to PR my lift today. I'm going to do this and that. And I think what's made us unique is the
00:38:58.740
more you look at our messaging, a lot of our stuff applies to the gym, but the way we present it,
00:39:04.460
the way we try to tell it and remind people it's about the other 23 hours of your life. And I think
00:39:10.720
that's, what's helped us tremendously is presenting that positive messaging in a way that a lot of
00:39:16.620
groups aren't in a clean, positive messaging, but doing it in a way that makes a lot of people think
00:39:23.160
of, Oh yeah, this could apply to the gym, but this is really about life and getting people's mindsets
00:39:29.620
shifted. And I think that's been the best part of our community is, is we've gotten a rabid community
00:39:35.260
of people that love competing. And a lot of them love competing in the gym and push themselves in
00:39:41.100
their sport, but they also have clicked on the idea of competing in life and talking to people
00:39:46.300
outside of the gym about what it means to be a competitor and choosing to be a competitor.
00:39:52.180
I really like what you said about clean, positive messaging, because I think,
00:39:55.660
especially in your market, I think it's very easy to go down a cynical path or a crude path that you
00:40:02.180
see a lot of these companies do. And you guys have kept it really clean. I imagine it's pretty
00:40:07.400
family oriented. I imagine from the outside looking in. And so I definitely appreciate that side of
00:40:12.160
things. Thank you. Yeah. You know, we've got a couple of shirts that'll throw a cuss word in here
00:40:16.660
or there, but for the most part, I've intentionally kept it clean because I see some of the stuff that's out
00:40:22.280
there and those brands, that's their message. But I want something that I have no problems wearing
00:40:27.180
in front of my kid one day or in front of my mom. And so if, if I have an issue wearing it in front
00:40:34.300
of someone else, why would I want other people out there wearing it? Because it all goes back to
00:40:39.100
that book, like what we wear just as much as how we live is what we tell the world that's important.
00:40:45.620
And so the shirt, the words that we wear on our shirt is, it's almost our message to other people
00:40:50.380
that we come in contact with that. Yeah, this is what I believe in. This is what I stand for.
00:40:55.600
And so I want to make sure that the people wearing our stuff are telling others that they're choosing
00:41:00.180
to be competitors and they're standing for that positive motivation. Right on, man. Right on. Any
00:41:05.360
other final words on competition? Why it's so important, how to be a better competitor?
00:41:11.460
Yeah, actually, if you love competition, I've got to tell you, there's a book called Top Dog
00:41:15.820
by Poe Bronson and Ashley Merriman that actually dives into the science behind competition.
00:41:22.660
And it's fascinating to talk about how men and women respond differently to competition,
00:41:29.080
not only in head to heads, but in small groups and large groups and an individual training. And so
00:41:35.160
if it's something where you're like, yeah, I mean, I get the idea of competing, but you know,
00:41:39.960
I don't really have anyone I compete against. I would dive into that book to see what the importance
00:41:44.800
is of it as a man, and then evaluate how you can start competing against yourself. And the book
00:41:50.700
talks really highly about some different aspects of that. And, you know, I just encourage guys,
00:41:55.740
like, if you're not into it, if you're kind of settling in a lot of areas, which I don't see that
00:42:01.340
from many people in your community knowing you, but if you find you're missing a little bit of that
00:42:06.220
that you might've had in high school or in youth sports or college, and you're just like, man,
00:42:10.700
I need some competition, I would set some personal goals. And then I would get a couple of your
00:42:16.240
buddies within your community and say, Hey, I've set these goals. I'm going to push myself to be
00:42:21.380
better in these areas. Will you guys hold me accountable? And then will you guys try to beat
00:42:26.320
me? So it's a fun, friendly competition with friends, but the real thing is on paper between
00:42:33.820
Yeah, I like that, man. And we'll definitely link that book up. So the guys have that as well. It's
00:42:37.320
called top dog. So very cool, man. Well, Hey, as we, uh, as we wind things down today,
00:42:41.640
I do want to ask you these last couple of questions. The first one is what does it mean
00:42:46.980
To me, being a man means being a leader and a provider for others. It means staying true
00:42:56.480
to how you were created, uh, in terms of, of who you are, what you were created to be
00:43:02.420
and being the, almost the lighthouse for others to look to, because you were created to, to lead,
00:43:09.700
not in a negative way against our female counterparts. You were created to be a leader
00:43:14.840
and to be the strength and backbone in a lot of areas. And so I think that a hundred percent is what
00:43:20.520
it means is that person that others look to as that lighthouse, knowing that they're going to
00:43:27.600
Yeah. Powerful. Powerful. Well, brother, how do we connect with you? Learn more about what you're
00:43:33.000
Yeah, I'd love to compete every day.com compete every day is all of our links on social media.
00:43:37.600
I'm most active on Instagram. If you're there and it's just life is worth competing for is my handle.
00:43:45.360
Right on. We'll, we'll link it up so the guys can find you. I appreciate you, man. It's been good to
00:43:49.160
get to know you over the past couple of months. And of course, see you speak with American dream,
00:43:52.560
you, and I'm looking forward to getting to know you better in your company and excited to
00:43:56.260
introduce the guys here that listen to your company, your organization and things you're
00:44:04.280
Gentlemen, there it is. My conversation with Jake Thompson. I told you it was going to be a
00:44:08.560
powerful one. I hope that it was as powerful for you as it is for me. And I hope you're walking away
00:44:13.740
with some ideas, some ideas and some insights and thoughts about how you can incorporate competition
00:44:19.520
more fully into your life. And if you're going to do that, you walked away with some valuable
00:44:25.140
information and insights, please leave me a review, leave me a message, shoot me a message,
00:44:29.940
shoot Jake a message. Let us know what you thought about the show. Let us know what you
00:44:33.160
thought. Let us know what you'll be incorporating. The more that I hear from you guys and the more
00:44:36.980
our guests hear from you, the more I have a better idea of what it is that you want to hear,
00:44:41.620
what's resonating, what's landing, what isn't. And then of course we can just make this a,
00:44:45.580
a better show for you. And that's the ultimate objective. We want more men listening to this.
00:44:50.480
We want more men applying this. And therefore I am open and receptive to positive and constructive
00:44:57.320
feedback so that we can continue to make this a better show. So hit us up on Twitter, Instagram,
00:45:02.600
Facebook. I'm all at order of man or at Ryan Mickler. Jake is at compete every day. Go check it
00:45:08.540
out. See what they're up to see what we're up to. Again, earlier I had mentioned the competition
00:45:13.240
component and the keeping score component of the iron council. So if you have not yet looked into that
00:45:18.260
or you're on the fence, maybe you're on the fence about it, go check it out. Give it a try. Try it
00:45:22.220
for 30 days. Learn about what we're up to. I think you're going to find that it's a very,
00:45:26.700
very powerful way to improve your life. And if for whatever reason you find that's not the case,
00:45:31.980
then let me know and we'll go ahead and release you out into the world. But I'd love to have more
00:45:37.660
of you guys there. Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council. So guys, with that said,
00:45:44.120
I'm going to sign out, we will catch you on Friday for our Friday field notes. We've got a
00:45:48.380
powerful conversation and a topic I want to discuss there. So make sure that you subscribe
00:45:52.240
again, leave us a rating and review. We cannot do this without your support. I appreciate you being
00:45:57.320
here. I appreciate the support until Friday guys take action and become the man you are meant to be.
00:46:04.360
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
00:46:09.000
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.