Order of Man - 5 Biggest Lessons Learned in 2022 ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

00:00:04.960 your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.400 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

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

00:00:22.620 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Michler.

00:00:27.700 I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome here today

00:00:32.280 and welcome back. Glad you're here. I believe, yes, this is the last show of the year and I thought

00:00:41.440 I'd share with you today five of my biggest lessons learned and hopefully I can implement some new ways

00:00:48.960 of living my life and also hopefully it serves you and that's the point of the podcast. We want to give

00:00:54.780 you all of the tools and the resources and conversations that you as a man need to thrive

00:00:59.540 in your role as a husband, father, business owner, community leader, coach, mentor, friend, brother,

00:01:05.460 et cetera. So I'm going to share these things with you in a minute. I also want to let you know that

00:01:09.780 the Iron Council is still open. It's open for the next couple of days. So we're coming down to the

00:01:15.440 wire as far as our last enrollment period as we roll into 2023. Now, a few questions that I've got

00:01:21.400 is what does the Iron Council entail? You can go watch a quick video at orderman.com

00:01:26.560 slash Iron Council. We've got the question of when it closes, which is the end of this year.

00:01:33.460 So December 31st, when is it going to be open next? It won't be open until springtime

00:01:38.240 of next year. So these are some of the questions that we get the other questions like discounts and

00:01:44.880 can I get a free membership and that sort of thing? No, we ask all of our members to invest in

00:01:49.440 themselves the same way as their brothers next to them are. So hopefully we'll see you inside.

00:01:54.920 This is a great accountability tool. It's a great opportunity to band with other men who are connected

00:02:01.140 with you, who want to have you win, who you want to have win. It's just a good way of connecting men

00:02:07.260 together and succeeding on all fronts. So check it out at orderman.com slash Iron Council.

00:02:13.060 All right, guys, let's get into my lessons learned. These aren't the only lessons I've learned,

00:02:18.920 hopefully in 2022, but these are a few of them. Number one is that I need to remain vigilant in

00:02:27.180 all things. It's very, very easy for me personally. I'm just speaking for myself here and I know it

00:02:35.620 might sound selfish. It does when I say it, but my intention is that hopefully somebody is not going

00:02:43.480 through the same thing, but if they are dealing with the same things I am, that this will give them

00:02:47.760 some tools to be able to deal with it. But I need to remain vigilant in my life because I've realized

00:02:52.580 that when I do have success and there's a lot of areas of life that I am fairly successful in,

00:02:58.780 that it's easy for me to rest on my laurels. It's easy for me to assume that I have things figured out.

00:03:05.920 It's easy for me to assume that I can just put certain facets and elements of my life on autopilot

00:03:12.900 while I focus on others. And the problem with doing that is I end up neglecting projects, tasks,

00:03:20.860 assignments, and people that are important in my life. So I have to remain vigilant towards all of

00:03:27.800 the things, my family, my business, my finances, my fitness, my health, every aspect of my life,

00:03:34.860 because if I don't, things will fall through the cracks. There is no autopilot. There's no way for me

00:03:40.040 to set it on cruise control. It requires all of my attention, all of my energy, which also

00:03:46.240 simultaneously forces me to consider how I spend my time and what commitments I make versus what

00:03:53.760 commitments I choose not to engage in. So I have been a lot more selective because I want to remain

00:04:00.200 vigilant with the things that are important in my life. I have gotten a lot more selective with what

00:04:05.920 I say yes to. And I have gotten a lot better at saying no to the things that A, I don't want to do

00:04:11.640 and B, the things I know that I can't commit to because I have other obligations. And it isn't always

00:04:18.780 about what I want to do. There are things in my life that I do that I don't want to do because it's

00:04:25.160 important. That might be certain things with my family that I do because it's important to them.

00:04:30.920 And so it's important to me. It might be charity. It might be these things that I don't always feel

00:04:36.980 obligated or overly excited to do, but I do them because I want to be a giving person who adds value

00:04:42.480 to his family, his friends, his community members. And so it's not just being selfish. It's being

00:04:49.480 selective in how I spend my time so that I can dedicate it to the commitments that I've made.

00:04:55.620 I actually think it's more selfish to say yes to everything because you don't want to say no to

00:05:02.220 people and then drop the ball with him. That's selfish. It's selfish to, for example, if I'm going

00:05:08.560 to pull an example out of my hat here, to volunteer to sit on the board of directors for a charitable

00:05:16.520 organization if you know you can't dedicate the time that they need. Now, you might be thinking,

00:05:22.440 well, you know, I'm being selfless. I'm serving. I'm helping this board. I'm helping this charity.

00:05:28.380 Well, if you can't be there, then all you're doing is filling a seat that somebody else could

00:05:32.680 have filled who can actually be there and be present and give more than you can presently give.

00:05:38.640 So let's not fall into the trap of believing that we're being selfless when we step into these roles.

00:05:43.780 It's actually more selfish to do so. Selflessness, a better way, I think, in this situation is to say,

00:05:52.540 no, I am not going to do that. I would like to do that. That is important to me. I can donate money.

00:06:00.240 I can contribute in different ways, but I'm not going to do that because I know I can't commit to

00:06:04.840 the time that you need. That's a better response than committing to doing it and then dropping the

00:06:09.300 wall. So remaining vigilant has been very, very crucial for me as we wind down 2022 and wrap up

00:06:16.300 2023. And I've taken a deep inventory of my life and I've decided to place heavy emphasis and focus

00:06:23.320 on certain areas that I have attempted to set on cruise control and eliminated other aspects of

00:06:28.880 my busyness altogether. Number two is that I have an addictive personality.

00:06:35.080 I feel like I've always danced around this issue. I feel like I've always known that I have this

00:06:44.160 personality, but it really came to a head in 2022. And I've explained it on this podcast and on social

00:06:50.780 media that I was battling alcoholism for the last couple of years. And I feel so much better.

00:06:58.120 Let's see, August, September, October, November, December. So five months sober now. I feel better.

00:07:06.620 I feel lighter. I'm in better shape. My energy levels are higher. I'm able to give more energy to

00:07:13.140 things that are important to me. I'm able to remain more vigilant as I was talking about in point one

00:07:18.780 because I've realized that my addictive personality and nature doesn't generally serve me well. It can.

00:07:28.440 I'm going to talk about that here in a second, but it's very easy for me to latch onto a behavior in

00:07:33.200 this case, drinking and getting drunk to, well, number one, I just become addicted. I think that's

00:07:39.620 the personality, but at the root of why I chose alcohol is because it allowed me an escape. It allowed

00:07:46.640 me to detach to a degree from the pressure and the weight of life. And this ties into point number

00:07:59.060 one, I was doing so much and I felt like I had to be everything to everybody and I could never shut

00:08:04.820 off my mind. And the only way that I could figure it out was to drink. And when I was drunk, it was

00:08:11.160 great to a degree because I didn't have to worry about that. Now I created a whole another set of

00:08:16.460 issues that I'm working on, but, uh, yeah, that was my, that was my escape. And what I've come to

00:08:23.980 realize is rather than turning to alcohol, which is literal poison that I was putting into my body for

00:08:29.880 years, that I could simply learn to say, no, I could simply learn to set up some boundaries. I could

00:08:37.860 simply learn to focus only on the things that were important to me and let the rest go and not feel

00:08:44.180 like I was the one that had to carry all of that weight, but my addictive personality is still

00:08:49.780 there. And I need to be very aware of my ability to focus and, and have some, some real focus on a

00:09:00.560 task versus it becoming a problem with target fixation. Like this is the thing I'm going after

00:09:05.500 and I'm going to leave a wake of collateral damage in my path. And I'm going to go wholeheartedly

00:09:09.360 into this thing at the expense of everything else. So I need to realize, and I, and I have,

00:09:15.780 and I will continue to realize that my addictive personality can be a real menace in my life,

00:09:21.880 but it can also be a real value add. If I learned to have healthy boundaries set up,

00:09:28.040 if I learned to direct my ability to focus towards productive outcomes that serve myself and the people

00:09:35.760 that I care about, and that I need to be very, very aware and very cautious of allowing negative

00:09:42.800 behaviors or beliefs or things creep into my life because I will latch onto them and I will

00:09:51.820 go all in on those things. I don't dabble. I never have in any aspect of my life. When I started talking

00:09:57.440 about alcoholism, I had a few people ask about, have I ever tried to regulate it within moderation or just,

00:10:03.340 you know, not get drunk, just have a few drinks. I don't do that. It's not my personality. I'm not

00:10:10.060 going to dabble even in the bad things. If I'm in, I'm in 100%. So complete avoidance is important for

00:10:17.760 me. So I'm learning that. Number three is trying to have a heart of service. I feel like most of my life

00:10:30.080 has been selfish. Most of my life has been for selfish pursuits. I think I've convinced myself

00:10:37.500 and maybe even others to a degree that I'm doing it for other people. And, you know, I certainly have

00:10:43.460 in aspects of my life, but a lot of, a lot of the last several years have felt as I go back and review

00:10:51.960 and think about the way that I've shown up have been very selfish. And, uh, in, in, in the wake of

00:10:59.340 me coming to this realization based on some difficult conversations with my wife and people

00:11:05.340 closest to me about my alcoholism, I've realized that I have been selfish. And I also realize that

00:11:13.460 I have been feeling down because of some past choices and decisions I've made.

00:11:21.340 And what has got me feeling better is now taking that information and giving it to you,

00:11:27.820 sharing it with other people, um, talking with other people about what they're going through

00:11:31.980 and figuring out a way to serve others. Somebody asked me on the, ask me anything, uh, just a couple

00:11:38.240 of days ago about, uh, how to, how to get over it when you're feeling down. Well, the best way to do

00:11:44.160 that is to have the heart of service to serve other people, to get so consumed and helping people with

00:11:50.300 what they, they need and what they have and what they don't have and how you might be able to add

00:11:55.020 value to their life that you don't, don't actually have to focus on what you don't have or what you're

00:12:02.320 doing wrong. Now we do need to focus on that to a degree. I'm going to get into that in point

00:12:06.140 number five, but man, this heart of service, I just feel better. I'm sorry for the banging and

00:12:12.440 clanging going around. Um, in fact, I'm going to probably stop and pause this video and then come

00:12:16.760 back and start it back up. Once I tell my boys to stop bouncing around upstairs. All right, guys,

00:12:21.780 I'm back. Sorry. I had to take that quick break to get after my son who was banging around with the,

00:12:26.420 uh, he got a little basketball hoop that he has on his door upstairs and he was up there

00:12:31.420 doing that. So I had to tell him to stop while I was on a podcast. Anyways,

00:12:35.820 I was talking about having this heart of service and how through serving others, I felt better

00:12:41.460 about myself. Uh, and, and frankly have been able to get over a lot of the, uh, the decisions that

00:12:47.840 I've made in the past that have hurt people, um, by, by rectifying that situation and trying to serve

00:12:52.420 others. Uh, no, excuse me. Number four is I've had to get better at enlisting the help of other people.

00:12:59.400 A lot of you guys have messaged me and, uh, suggested, uh, that, you know, you heard a

00:13:06.300 change in my voice or a change in my tone over the past several months, not for the better.

00:13:12.080 Uh, but that, uh, you could tell something was, was wrong. And obviously I've, I've talked a little

00:13:18.680 bit about that with the alcoholism and there was a lot of things wrong that I'm working to rectify and

00:13:22.880 correct. Uh, but in the meantime, I've realized that I have good people around me that I have

00:13:31.060 cultivated those relationships. They believe in me. They, they are influenced by me. Uh, they want

00:13:36.780 to serve and I have not allowed them to do that because of my own vanity and my own pride. And I,

00:13:43.840 and I've realized that as we, as men struggle, it's okay to accept help from somebody. It's okay

00:13:51.620 to accept their contribution or their service. Uh, too often we, as men don't, because we think

00:13:58.760 if we do and we can't handle it on our own, that we're weak. Well, I've got news for you. We can't

00:14:04.400 handle everything on our own and you're not meant to, because if you could handle everything on your

00:14:09.780 own, then there would be no reason to build relationships with important people, your wife,

00:14:15.120 your kids, friends, colleagues, coworkers, clients, you would not have a need for them,

00:14:19.960 but this is the beautiful way of building community that, that God has created for us

00:14:27.380 in that you are inadequate. You don't have it all figured out. You aren't perfect. And neither is

00:14:35.820 anybody else around you, but in those imperfections, we realize that we need other people around us,

00:14:42.380 that there might be elements of their life that they can help you with, that you cannot help for

00:14:47.620 yourself. And isn't that a beautiful thing? I mean, isn't that the point of, if we're talking

00:14:52.100 about a marriage, a marriage, if you could do it all on your own, you wouldn't have a need for her,

00:14:58.160 but you can't. And so you find a woman, hopefully, and this is the goal here. You find a woman

00:15:03.820 who doesn't complete you. I wouldn't use that terminology, but you find a woman who is strong 0.96

00:15:10.020 in the areas where maybe you lack and she can help. And you, you develop a partnership,

00:15:14.320 a romantic partnership where you're intimate with each other and you care about each other

00:15:18.320 and you serve each other and you help and you challenge in healthy and constructive ways

00:15:22.540 so that you both get better. That applies to a romantic relationship that applies to a business

00:15:28.920 relationship, a client boss, or excuse me, an employee boss relationship, a client

00:15:34.020 solutions. I can't even think of the term, but you know, if you have a client, you know,

00:15:39.960 obviously there's, there's gotta be a partnership. Both people have to be served.

00:15:44.060 And what I've realized is that I have not allowed other people to serve because I wanted to be the

00:15:51.180 one who had it all figured out. And as I let go of my ego and I allowed other people in my life

00:15:57.420 and I allowed other people to step up, there was some instances that I've been pleasantly surprised

00:16:02.080 with their performance. And I feel proud because I created the space for them to do that. But if I

00:16:07.660 occupy all of that space, what room do they have to grow? What room do they have to try? What room

00:16:16.440 do they have to struggle? And through the struggles come the lessons. Well, they don't because you're

00:16:20.900 hogging it all. And so I've had people step up within our organization. I've had people step up

00:16:26.460 in my personal life and I have opened my arms and I have embraced it and I have accepted it.

00:16:33.980 And by the way, who am I to reject the gift of somebody else? If somebody can serve in some way,

00:16:42.900 because I talked about this at point number three, the heart of service. If I want to serve other

00:16:48.560 people, who am I to deny the desire that other people have to serve me? If my wife wants to do

00:16:58.320 something nice for me, I need to create the space so that she can do that. So she feels pride in that.

00:17:03.740 If my kids want to give me a gift of either their time or their attention or their words or a present,

00:17:10.880 who am I to say your gift is not good enough for me? If I have a colleague or a coworker,

00:17:16.440 or even a friend who says, Hey man, I'm here to support you. You've been struggling with

00:17:19.840 this particular thing and I know you're struggling. Let me come see you or let me pick up the slack in

00:17:27.240 your business or let me handle this aspect of things. Who am I to say no? I want to serve

00:17:34.280 because I know how I feel. And who am I to deny that opportunity from somebody else? Enlisting the help

00:17:41.820 of others has felt so good to me over the past several months because I needed the help. I truly

00:17:49.200 did. I did not realize I needed it, but I did need it. I needed the help. They needed to serve

00:17:55.600 and through us fulfilling both of those things, we found solutions to our problems. And the last thing

00:18:03.580 here guys is that I've learned to, and I am learning to, I will continue to learn how to process my deep

00:18:12.060 emotional baggage. And there is a lot. And I didn't realize how much there was because I suppressed

00:18:18.860 it. I pushed it down. I hit it. I, I medicated with alcohol. Like there, I did a lot of different

00:18:25.400 things so that I wouldn't have to bring up past issues that, that were concerning for me or that

00:18:30.860 were hard for me to deal with. And the, the thing that I've been able to do lately is journaling,

00:18:36.720 writing down. And I talked about this on a previous Friday field notes, uh, with remaining or, or, uh,

00:18:43.640 the pathway to emotional sovereignty. I believe that was last week, but I talked about the power of

00:18:48.200 journaling and documenting and writing these things down and, and keeping track of why I'm feeling the

00:18:54.960 way I'm feeling and starting to uncover those and asking those questions. And when I feel triggered

00:18:59.440 emotionally asking myself, why am I upset right now? So for example, earlier in this video, you guys

00:19:06.460 may have heard the bouncing or the banging upstairs. My son was upstairs in his room, bouncing his little

00:19:11.440 basketball three, four months ago. I may have unloaded on him. I may have yelled at him. Why, why, why am I

00:19:18.400 so upset? Why does that upset me so much? This time I went up there and I said, Hey, who's up there? And he

00:19:24.280 said he was up there. I said, I need you to stop bouncing the basketball because I'm on a call. And he's like,

00:19:29.300 Oh, okay. Thanks. Or, Oh, okay. Well, and I said, thank you. And that was it. I wasn't mad. I wasn't

00:19:35.240 angry. I wasn't upset. I wasn't triggered by what he was doing. I don't think he was out to get me,

00:19:39.380 but four months ago, I would have thought that. So what's changed processing my emotions,

00:19:45.240 feeling them fully beginning to uncover why I feel the way I feel, why certain things that shouldn't

00:19:51.100 trigger me actually do what a powerful lessons it's been. Somebody mentioned, I did a, uh, Instagram

00:19:57.180 video earlier this morning about a little experience. I had getting flipped off by a guy who

00:20:02.120 wanted, who's hitchhiking. You want to ride from me? I didn't give him a ride. He flipped me off.

00:20:05.940 It's kind of funny actually, because he felt entitled. Um, anyways, I started to do that video

00:20:10.860 and somebody had commented, you look lighter. And I don't think they were talking about my weight,

00:20:16.380 my physical weight. I think they were talking about my presence, my persona. And I feel lighter.

00:20:22.800 I don't feel burdened down with everything that I was burdened down with before guilt and alcoholism

00:20:28.080 and poison in my body is, which has been purged from my body. And now I'm exercising and I'm, I'm,

00:20:33.580 I'm working the, the emotional baggage that I have, and I'm exploring it and uncovering it and

00:20:38.860 figuring it out. And I feel lighter. I feel better. And I show up more fully and more effectively for

00:20:43.760 myself and for other people. It's been a very painful Q4 to put it mildly of 2022.

00:20:50.420 2022. And as we move into 2023, there might be some residual pain that I'm going to need to deal

00:20:55.340 with. But I feel like through these lessons, uh, I've begun to make it more manageable and not just

00:21:02.540 managing it, but actually working towards solutions that are going to last not for the next 12 months,

00:21:07.620 but for the next 12 years, the next 20 years, the next 40, hopefully years of my life.

00:21:12.440 So those are the lessons that I've learned and I have plenty more, and I'm sure I'll need to let

00:21:20.460 learn these lessons over and over and over and over again. But being aware of the lessons that we've

00:21:27.100 learned helps us to come up with solutions, not short-term fixes or temporary band-aids like

00:21:33.020 alcoholism, for example, but real solutions to our real challenges. So what I would challenge you to do,

00:21:38.500 if you've not done this already is to go to Walmart or jump on Amazon and buy yourself a blink

00:21:45.580 notepad. And every day I want you to write in it. And I'm not going to really give you any prompts,

00:21:51.460 give you a couple ideas, but you can figure it out. Write down what you're grateful for,

00:21:56.120 write down lessons that you learned, write down the way that you feel about an experience that you had,

00:22:01.340 write down where those feelings come from. If you're feeling triggered, write down why you're

00:22:05.920 feeling that way. If there's a lesson that you learned, jot that down. If there's a lesson you

00:22:09.660 want your kids to learn at some point, jot that down. If you had a memorable experience or day,

00:22:14.620 write that down. If you had a horrible day, write that down, purge it, get it out. So you can begin

00:22:19.120 to process it. Do that. Think about also, I would say, write down the lessons that you've learned

00:22:25.340 so that you can begin to process, not just the lesson, but the solution. So here they are again,

00:22:30.700 guys. Number one is that for me, again, these are mine. Hopefully they serve you is that I need to

00:22:35.720 remain vigilant in all things. Number two is that I have an addictive personality and I need to remain

00:22:41.720 not only vigilant about that, but direct that towards productive and healthy outlets. Number

00:22:47.020 three, that I need to stop being so selfish and begin to develop even more so a heart of service.

00:22:54.640 Number four, enlist the help of others. I don't have it figured out. I'm not supposed to have it all

00:22:59.980 figured out and I am not anybody to deny somebody's opportunity to serve me or anybody else. And number

00:23:05.940 five is I need to continue to work on processing deep emotional baggage so that I can let that stuff

00:23:13.300 go and I can move forward with a clear conscience. That's what I've got for you today. Sounds like

00:23:18.100 they're bouncing around again up there. So might need to get a little bit more stern, but we'll get it

00:23:21.720 taken care of. Guys, I appreciate you as we capped out 2022. We had a phenomenal year, best year we've

00:23:28.160 ever had from the amount of listeners, the amount of downloads, the amount of iron council members,

00:23:33.760 the impact that we're making, book sales. I mean, you name it on this front, things are firing on

00:23:39.540 all cylinders. We're going to continue to innovate. We're going to continue to put good information

00:23:43.900 out into the world. I'm going to continue to serve you and give you the tools I think will help.

00:23:48.680 I'm going to continue to get better. And I feel like as I work on my own self-development that I can

00:23:54.360 naturally and inevitably help you work more efficiently and effectively on yours. So we

00:23:59.100 will be in a couple of days, 2023. So guys, let's keep getting after it. Let's do the work

00:24:06.220 that we need to do. Let's think about the lessons that we learned from 2022 and let's make 2023 our

00:24:11.900 best year ever. We'll be back next week. Until then, go out there, take action and become a man you

00:24:17.800 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take

00:24:22.440 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order

00:24:27.000 at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - December 30, 2022

5 Biggest Lessons Learned in 2022 ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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