Order of Man - 5 Obstacles and Answers to Starting a Business

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

00:00:06.000 When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time.

00:00:10.460 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong.

00:00:15.500 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.

00:00:19.740 At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:00:24.680 Starting a business is extremely hard work. Now, I know there's a lot of people on the socials, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube,

00:00:32.480 all these entrepreneurs telling you how easy it is to start a business and why this is the best time.

00:00:36.860 And all you have to do is open your doors and all you have to do is sell a product.

00:00:40.220 And some of that has some validity to it, but it's harder than you think.

00:00:45.300 And I'm going to be real with you because I've had some success in business.

00:00:49.200 I've had some failures in business. And I think it's very important that we be honest with each other

00:00:54.760 about what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. I do believe that it's the best time to start a

00:01:01.360 business. And I do believe that there's plenty of opportunity out there for you to start a

00:01:05.880 lucrative side business or side hustle, if you want to call it that, or even a full-time career,

00:01:11.680 if you have a desire, an inclination, and the ability to do so.

00:01:16.120 But there's some things that you need to be very, very aware of, because if you're not,

00:01:21.180 you're going to fall prey to the Instagram gurus who tell you how easy it is.

00:01:25.100 And you're going to end up spending a lot of time, money, energy, and resources on something

00:01:30.440 that's destined to fail. So today I'm going to talk with you about five things that I've learned

00:01:35.160 over the past nine years and running the order of man organization and with my own registered

00:01:40.620 investment advisory firm for financial planning prior to that. And then I'm going to talk with you

00:01:45.260 about five solutions that you can consider when starting your own business. Now, guys, before I

00:01:50.840 get into that, I do want to mention, speaking of businesses, one business that I'm a huge advocate

00:01:55.960 for, uh, and friends of mine over at Montana knife company. Now these guys make knives for hunting for

00:02:03.620 culinary. I believe they're coming out with a tactical line very soon. Uh, they're incredible knives.

00:02:09.060 And the best thing about them is they are made in America. I love that. I support American made

00:02:15.340 businesses like origin, uh, like Soren X and also like Montana knife company. So if you're looking

00:02:21.980 for a great knife and you want to have something that's going to work in the field, if you're hunting

00:02:27.420 or work in the kitchen, if you're cooking, then look no further than Montana knife company.com.

00:02:31.540 And then when you check out, use the code order of man, all one word order of man at checkout,

00:02:37.720 because you're going to save some money when you do. And you're also letting them know that you

00:02:41.500 heard about them here. So it supports them. It supports us. And you'll have a great knife in

00:02:45.880 the process. Again, Montana knife company.com use the code order of man. All right, guys,

00:02:51.100 let's jump into this. Number one, I'm going to talk about the pitfalls first. So the first pitfall

00:02:55.980 or maybe not even pitfall, just thing to be aware of that a lot of people don't talk about

00:03:00.160 is that it's going to take a lot of time and energy upfront and it becomes more efficient

00:03:08.040 the longer that you do it. I want you to imagine for a second when the most inefficient time for

00:03:15.340 a plane to take off, let's say a plane is departing LA and it's flying to New York. What is the most

00:03:22.400 inefficient element of that flight? Well, it's the takeoff. It has the most fuel, which means it's

00:03:28.480 the heaviest. It's trying to elevate. So it's fighting gravity and wind and other natural forces

00:03:34.940 that are at work against it. And it's inclining. So it's the most inefficient time. And it's trying

00:03:40.600 to get up to a cruising altitude of, let's say 35,000 feet. Once it gets to 35,000 feet, the plane

00:03:46.540 levels off. They're not fighting friction as much fuel is being burned. So the plane becomes lighter.

00:03:52.820 They get into jet streams, which help propel and push. There's a lot of efficiencies that happen

00:03:58.740 after you get past the initial takeoff. Well, the same thing is true in your business. It's very

00:04:04.380 inefficient. It's very challenging. It's very frustrating in a lot of ways. When I started

00:04:09.380 order of man. Now look, let me back up again. The Insta gurus will tell you, burn the boats,

00:04:14.280 march into your boss's office and tell them to F off and burn, burn, burn the bridges and, and,

00:04:19.780 you know, go out and do your own thing. Look, if you can do that, all the power to you.

00:04:24.900 That's not how I did it. That's not how most of the guys that I work with and talk with have done

00:04:29.840 it. The most successful people in the world don't, they don't do it like that. Okay. What they do is

00:04:36.200 they leverage previous opportunities to create new opportunities for themselves and they do it in an

00:04:41.660 intelligent way. So an example of that might be somebody like Cam Haynes. Cam Haynes worked for,

00:04:48.380 I don't know exactly. No, I think it was a utilities company in Oregon for decades and now

00:04:56.040 he started his own podcast. So you might look at it and say, well, you know, like he just came out

00:05:00.020 of nowhere. No, he was working with the utilities organization for decades while he was building his

00:05:06.040 movement, building his social media profile, building clout. And then when that got to a level,

00:05:11.120 he was able to step away and I don't know his financials, but he was able to step away and probably

00:05:16.320 create something that was even more lucrative than it was before. But don't for a second,

00:05:20.560 believe that that guy just burned the bridges, burned the boats and, and, and told his former

00:05:25.600 employer to F off and, and just took this, you know, leap of faith. That's not really how it worked.

00:05:31.060 You know, you look at guys like, uh, even former military members who start podcasts, start

00:05:36.820 organizations, start movements, start, uh, speaking careers. They're leveraging their previous

00:05:42.660 employment in the, in the military in this case. And they probably got a retirement. They've probably

00:05:48.620 got a pension. They've probably got money coming in. Maybe their spouse works. And so it looks like

00:05:53.520 they're just taking this leap of faith, but they're not guys. When I started order of man,

00:05:58.760 I was working two hours in the morning and then I would go to my quote unquote, real job, financial

00:06:03.800 planning. I would do that work. And then I'd come home. I'd see my wife. I, I spend time with my kids.

00:06:09.640 I do dinner and then I put the kids down and then I would do another hour or two in the evening.

00:06:14.100 This is what's required to start a business. You have to sacrifice and it takes time to get it up

00:06:20.580 and running. And you have to realize that it will. And also I would suggest to you that it's going to

00:06:25.000 be a season. It's not indefinite. Again, when I started order of man in 2015, I did that for about

00:06:31.340 a year, maybe a little longer before I sold my financial planning practice and then did the order of

00:06:36.680 man thing. Now, some people might say, well, there's your leap of faith. It is a leap of

00:06:39.620 faith, but I had income coming in from the sale of my business. I didn't just shut off the income

00:06:45.640 stream because I had kids and a wife and responsibilities. Okay. I'll say it as bluntly

00:06:52.700 as I can. We're not going to be dumb about this, even though the instant people will tell you to

00:06:57.160 be smart about it. Okay. It takes more time and energy than you think. Realize it's a season,

00:07:03.600 communicate with the people, your wife, your kids, whoever might be affected by the season you're in

00:07:08.000 and get after it. All right. Number two, additional costs continue to accrue. I'm noticing this now,

00:07:14.060 you know, as our organization and our movement grows, there's new technology, there's new resources,

00:07:18.820 there's new social media things. And all these other companies want a little piece of the pie,

00:07:23.320 your pie. I'm not saying it's bad or it's wrong. I'm willing to invest in my business because it's an

00:07:28.700 investment, which means that I have the anticipation of a return. So I'm okay with that. But you also need to

00:07:35.100 know that things add up, things get expensive. All right. There, there, there's new technology.

00:07:41.740 We use social media. We use different platforms to administer. We have some backend programs. We have

00:07:51.000 email stuff that we're using. We use ConvertKit that I pay for. There's costs associated with it.

00:07:58.080 And now there's costs associated with people having, having people manage it because I can't do everything

00:08:03.840 that needs to be done on my own. And so I have to bring other people in who are experts in these

00:08:08.760 departments so that I can pay them to do a good job in those areas. So costs accrue. And you need

00:08:15.940 to be very aware of that. You can run something very streamlined, very minimal as far as investment

00:08:21.100 goes for only a period of time. But if you want to grow it, there's additional costs, additional

00:08:25.580 sacrifice that needs to be made. And again, I'm going to get into solutions here in a minute, but I want

00:08:29.980 you to understand there's additional costs associated with this. I'm not trying to dissuade you from

00:08:34.460 starting a business. I'm just trying to be honest with you because all these other quote unquote

00:08:39.080 influencers are not being honest with you about what it takes. They're lying to you. They're telling

00:08:44.640 you it's easy. They're telling you all you need to do is start a thing that you're excited about.

00:08:48.760 And then, you know, all of your wildest dreams will come true. Well, they won't. You'll probably

00:08:53.120 miserable for a time, or you'll have seasons of being miserable is how it goes. So I'm going to be

00:08:58.540 honest with you about it. Number three is that you're going to make mistakes along the way,

00:09:03.740 right? You might feel really good about your movement or your business or your service or

00:09:08.820 your offering and everything's going well and things are wonderful. And then all of a sudden

00:09:13.080 you do something dumb, maybe not even dumb, maybe ignorant. And there's a difference.

00:09:18.020 Dumb is doing something you know you shouldn't do. Ignorance is doing something you didn't know you

00:09:21.920 shouldn't do. So you're going to have a lot of ignorance about your business, about sales,

00:09:27.700 about marketing, about hiring people, things that you would never even consider. I'll give

00:09:32.140 you a couple of examples. Uh, my first book, sovereignty, the battle for the hearts and minds

00:09:36.560 of men, the, um, the distributor went out of business straight up, just bankruptcy went out

00:09:42.740 of business. And I lost three quarters of revenue that had not been paid to me because that business

00:09:48.800 bellied up. That was expensive. Now it worked out in the long run. Cause I took my lumps. I took my

00:09:54.140 hits. I lost some money and I made a better decision moving forward and now have rights

00:09:58.580 to my own book for distribution, which is exactly where I wanted to be in the first place.

00:10:03.000 But that's what happened. And I didn't know that that could happen. I didn't anticipate that

00:10:08.160 happening. I wasn't aware of that happening. And so I got hit with it. I've also done other things

00:10:12.960 where I've bought thousands of dollars worth of merchandise that I couldn't sell. I got hit with a,

00:10:19.300 uh, a copyright. I should say it this way. I almost got hit with a copyright infringement. They,

00:10:24.080 they sent a letter to me and asked me to not sell that because it was so close to their brand.

00:10:29.840 And they were right. It was, uh, that was ignorance. And so, you know, thousands of dollars

00:10:34.680 worth of merchandise that basically became expensive house cleaning rags, that stuff happens

00:10:41.300 and you have to be aware of it and you have to anticipate it and know that if it happens,

00:10:45.380 it's not the end of the world. It's just as my friend, Pete Roberts with origin says tuition

00:10:50.820 payments and you have to pay the tuition. I don't want to pay tuition, but it's the cost of doing

00:10:55.980 business. Number four is I'm trying to figure out how to communicate with all sorts of different

00:11:01.660 people. I know what I'm driven by. I know what I'm inspired by. I know what speaks to me. I know

00:11:07.100 how I like to hear things or how I want to move forward, but not everybody in my organization

00:11:12.460 is exactly like me. Now our vision and our values and our mission may be aligned,

00:11:17.080 but they may be driven by something else. For example, I've got a couple of guys in

00:11:21.900 order of man and iron council that I've hired. Great men believe in the mission wholeheartedly.

00:11:27.020 I've never doubted that. They're very data driven. I'm not a data driven guy. I'm more of an intuitive.

00:11:32.460 So if I see something, it sounds good, feels good, feels right. I'm going to go for it.

00:11:36.940 These guys are like, well, hold on. Let's look at the data first. I'm like, nah, screw the data.

00:11:40.100 Just go for it. So there's some friction from time to time with me and these other men.

00:11:44.900 They're not bad guys. It doesn't, doesn't mean they don't believe in what we're doing.

00:11:48.960 It just means that they see things differently. And I value that even though it's hard for me to

00:11:53.240 wrap my head around and challenging because it has this friction at times. I value somebody who's

00:11:59.020 aligned with my mission, but sees it in a different way because they're going to help shore up my

00:12:03.800 weaknesses. But that means that I need to be able to expand and open up and broaden my horizon

00:12:10.060 for my ability to communicate with individuals like this. I can't shut those people down. And

00:12:15.040 I have a tendency of doing that because I think their way is not wrong, but not ideal because

00:12:20.040 I'm only seeing it through my lens. You're going to work with good people. You're going to work with

00:12:25.440 data driven people. You're going to work with assholes at times. You're going to work with

00:12:29.620 hard chargers. You're going to work with people who are driven by things that don't even appear

00:12:34.400 relevant to you at all. And you have to be able to do it all. You have to be able to see it from

00:12:40.280 their perspective. Again, I'm going to give you some solutions here shortly, but I want you to be

00:12:44.140 aware that you're going to have to work with some people. I was talking with my daughter the other

00:12:48.660 day and she was talking about somebody that she had met and she said, you know, I don't really like

00:12:52.180 that person. And I said, no, I understand. Like, but we have to be aware that we're going to be

00:12:58.840 around people that we don't always like. And so part of growing up and maturing is learning how to

00:13:04.120 get along with all sorts of different types. So it's, it's a challenge, you know? And so does my

00:13:12.040 daughter not be friendly with, you know, the neighbor or, or does she like, she has to navigate

00:13:18.920 that a little bit. And it's my job as a father to help her, but it's also our job as entrepreneurs,

00:13:25.080 business owners, employers to recognize this is somebody that I just don't like and doesn't need

00:13:29.880 to be part of our organization. Or is this somebody who just sees it differently? And I need to work

00:13:35.100 with them in order to propel our mission forward in a way that I could not do on my own. And then the

00:13:40.100 last point I want to make before I start getting into solutions, because up to this point, we've done

00:13:43.560 10 minutes of griping and telling you how bad it is to start a business. And some of you are thinking,

00:13:47.320 why would I ever do this? So I'm going to get into some solutions. But the last point I wanted to make

00:13:52.340 is that there's a challenge in making sure that you're continually growing. I think I said it on

00:13:58.620 another Friday field notes or an ask me anything that you're either growing or you're dying. And I

00:14:04.100 believe that's true. You're either moving forward and propelling and getting better, or you're falling

00:14:09.700 behind and you're losing ground. There's plateaus in your business. There's even worse than plateaus.

00:14:14.800 There's dips where things look like, Oh man, this thing has run its course. I've gone through this over

00:14:20.280 nine years. This thing has run its course and maybe we're done here. And instead of throwing

00:14:25.100 in the towel, you need to have the mental and testicular fortitude to say, you know what,

00:14:29.380 I'm going to keep driving forward. I'm going to change a few things to ensure that we continue

00:14:34.580 to drive forward, but I'm not going to plateau. I'm not going to dip. I'm not going to fall under it.

00:14:38.900 I'm not going to fall behind. I'm going to look at new ways of growing. I'll get into solutions

00:14:43.820 here in a minute, but new ways of growing so that I continue to improve and get better.

00:14:49.240 Markets change. Consumers change. The landscapes change. Technology changes. Social media changes.

00:14:56.800 Buying habits change. Presidents change. The economy changes. Everything around you that even

00:15:02.320 is uncontrollable changes. And you need to be able to ebb and flow, weave and bob as those outside

00:15:09.160 factors change. If you want to have success and continue to growth in your business. So those

00:15:13.980 are the problems. There's, there's an infinite number of challenges, but those are the five that

00:15:17.700 have really stood out to me. Again, what does it take to get up and running additional costs accruing,

00:15:23.640 making mistakes along the way, having to learn how to communicate with all sorts of individuals,

00:15:28.860 and then making sure that you're not plateauing or dipping. So what do we do about it? Well, number one,

00:15:34.980 again, what does it take to get up and running? Well, you have to recognize that you're in a season.

00:15:38.440 That's it. You're just in a season. It takes time. And so as we talked about that analogy of the plane

00:15:43.640 taking off, it's not efficient at first, but it will get there. And so we have to have a little

00:15:48.820 faith and you have to have a little strength. And again, fortitude to be able to recognize that,

00:15:53.660 Hey, this is going to be a crazy three months or six months or nine months or a year, but you can

00:15:58.440 have a plan and you can bear down when you need to bear down, recognize that you're going to need to

00:16:03.520 do it hard at first. And then it will get easier. I won't say easier. It will

00:16:08.260 ease up your time constraints. But one thing I want you to be really aware of is you, and I said

00:16:13.040 this earlier, you have to be able to communicate with the people who will be impacted by the

00:16:17.360 decisions you're making. If you're starting a business and you're not communicating with your

00:16:21.000 wife about how many hours you're going to put it in the morning or the evening, she's going to get

00:16:25.560 very frustrated very quickly. And not only do you have the business to grow, now you have a contentious

00:16:30.800 wife and that's going to be a problem for you. So you need to communicate with her.

00:16:35.680 If you can't coach your son's team, like you always have, or you can't go to all of your

00:16:40.560 daughter's dance recitals, like you have in the past, then you need to be able to clearly articulate

00:16:44.700 why that's the case and when it will change. Don't assume that they're just going to come to

00:16:50.000 the best conclusion about you being gone. Oh, you know what? Dad's gone. Cause he's starting a

00:16:54.360 business and we're really proud of him. And I'm so grateful that he puts food on the table and puts

00:16:58.880 a roof over our head and it works so hard for us. That'd be wonderful if our kids and our spouses

00:17:03.400 always believe that, but they don't always believe that. A lot of the times it's, well,

00:17:08.680 dad's selfish and he's only doing this for him and he doesn't care about us anymore. And that's not

00:17:12.580 the case, but it feels that way if we can't communicate it with the people that we love

00:17:18.760 and care about. So make sure that you're communicating and then also make sure you're

00:17:22.840 honoring your word. If you say you're going to be done at Friday at 5 PM, then you better be done

00:17:28.240 at Friday at 5 PM. If you say you're going to take all day Saturday to go play catch or go on a run

00:17:34.500 or go on a hike with your kids, then you better be done on Saturday and go play catch or go on a hike

00:17:39.680 or a run with your kids. Being an integrity that way will, I was going to say, give you the leniency.

00:17:47.080 I don't like saying it like that, but we'll afford the opportunities to double down when you really

00:17:52.160 need to get to work. Number two, I said additional costs accrue. So the, the, the anecdote to that is

00:17:58.360 planning ahead for costs and maybe even consider not taking a bunch of money out of your business

00:18:04.140 at first. Now, look, you might have aspirations to start a movement, start a business, start an

00:18:10.420 organization that serves people. But also if it's a business, you want to make money. Let's not pretend

00:18:14.480 that isn't a money-making venture. And we can talk all about what money means. And we have in the

00:18:19.940 past and we should talk more about that. But what you need to know is that maybe you shouldn't be

00:18:24.300 taking money out of the business and sucking all the blood out of your business. So it can't thrive

00:18:29.340 and grow. Give it a chance to, to build, to develop, to sustain itself. If you can't do that, then you're

00:18:39.120 going to kill the thing before you even get it, give it a chance to, to lift off and to grow and develop.

00:18:44.760 Also look for low capital ventures. You know, when I started doing merchandise, I was selling

00:18:49.800 one piece at a time using drop shipping type stuff where somebody would come in and order a shirt and

00:18:56.180 then it would be printed. And then they'd send that shirt one at a time. And it wasn't more expensive

00:19:00.900 for the consumer, but it was more expensive for me than it would be to order 500 shirts, for example.

00:19:08.180 But I had to do that at first because that was a low cost way for me getting merchandise out there.

00:19:13.140 And gradually I've taken it on. I was, I hired a distribution center to take care of orders and

00:19:19.760 supplies. I brought that in house. There's things that I've done over the course of nine years that

00:19:25.540 have become more, again, efficient over time, but I'm looking for low cost ways to sell merchandise

00:19:32.120 and products and services and offerings. Even now, if I have a new shirt, I'll put it on a pre-order

00:19:38.080 and I'll go promote it to our audience. And those individuals will buy those shirts before I even

00:19:44.500 have to pay for them. And I could potentially have 50, 60, 70% of the capital covered in pre-sales

00:19:53.940 before I even have to pay for the shirt or the hat or the merchandise that I have. This is just smart

00:20:00.520 business. And of course I inform my customers, this is a pre-order. It's going to take a little longer

00:20:05.620 than you might normally anticipate. And they're okay with that if I'm being honest with them about

00:20:10.080 it. But this is, you have to be creative in low capital environments. So you can sell things without

00:20:16.900 having this like $10,000 bill or this $100,000 bill that's going to be difficult for you to pay.

00:20:23.160 Just be aware that if you're a vampire of your business and you suck all the blood out of your

00:20:28.780 business because you want to buy the new car, the take your, your wife on a vacation or, you know,

00:20:34.860 live this lavish lifestyle. Well, you're killing, killing the goose, right? You've got that, that,

00:20:41.080 that story of the golden goose and it lays golden eggs. And you know, some people will just go ahead

00:20:46.420 and take, take the goose and kill the goose. It's like, well, no, protect the goose, take the eggs as

00:20:51.920 they come. But the goose is, is the value, not the egg itself. All right. Number three, I said that

00:20:59.200 you're going to make mistakes along the way. I talked about book distribution. I talked about failure

00:21:04.000 and merchandise. The antidote to that is working with coaches, following people, going to events,

00:21:10.340 building entrepreneurial friendships, asking them powerful questions. What's been your biggest

00:21:14.580 pitfall or what lessons have you learned or where did you misstep and where did you mess up and

00:21:19.000 what, how expensive was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it? The more you can attend

00:21:24.040 events and invest in yourself by hiring coaches, attending events, building entrepreneurial friendships,

00:21:28.780 and then listening to people who are qualified to give the advice, the better off you're going to be

00:21:33.460 right. They've done that. If, for example, you're listening to this podcast, if I'm telling you,

00:21:39.060 Hey, be aware of, uh, you know, doing merchandise that's already been done. And then you're going to

00:21:45.280 have 2000, 10,000, a hundred thousand dollars worth of, of inventory that you can't sell.

00:21:50.940 I hope you listen to that. So you don't have to do it yourself. The adage is smart people learn from

00:21:55.800 their mistakes. Wise people learn from the mistakes of others. You have mentors, you have coaches,

00:22:00.040 you have conferences, you have emails, you have podcasts, you have books, you have entrepreneurial

00:22:03.880 friends, befriend them, listen to them, invest in them, go to their conferences, read their emails,

00:22:09.600 listen to their podcasts. They're telling you what to do. They're literally giving you a roadmap,

00:22:14.240 go to the library, go to Barnes and Noble, get on Amazon. I don't care. Get the consume

00:22:19.520 that information and then apply it. So you're not learning the same dumb mistakes that those people

00:22:26.040 made that I've made in my career and my 10,000 or whatever dollar expense or cost or lesson is

00:22:34.000 going to cost you nothing. Learn from me. Don't learn from yourself. Uh, number four, I talked about

00:22:40.740 learning to communicate with all types. Uh, the anecdote or the, the answer to that is that

00:22:45.980 recognizing that all people are not like you and just having a little bit of grace and understanding

00:22:50.940 and realize that not everybody sees it the same way. I think it's very important that you find

00:22:55.180 people who are aligned with your mission, aligned with your objectives, aligned with your goals.

00:22:59.560 I have all sorts of guys in the iron council who will push and poke and prod and give ideas and

00:23:04.520 present counter arguments to just about everything I share. But I know these guys are aligned with our

00:23:09.720 mission. And so it doesn't bother me. In fact, I welcome it. I encourage it. I like it because it

00:23:14.540 helps me see things from a perspective that I could not see on my own. And the other suggestion I would

00:23:20.180 give to you here is that if you recognize that somebody has an aptitude for something, what you

00:23:24.480 want to do in business is you want to get the right people in the right places. I've got a guy,

00:23:29.900 Reese Carter. He believes in our mission. He believes in what we're doing. He's been in for years. He's been

00:23:35.780 part of this and helping us grow him. And I always don't, don't always see things the same. He's very

00:23:40.460 data driven. I'm very intuitive driven. Um, and so he helps us in a very specific role inside of the

00:23:48.220 organization because that's what he has an aptitude for. That's what he's good at. I've got Chris Gatchko

00:23:54.160 who runs our events. Well, he used to run large events for hotels and other conferences and conference

00:24:00.820 centers. And so this is an individual who knows how to plan logistically. I don't know how to do that.

00:24:05.560 He's aligned with our goals. He's aligned with our mission. He believes in what we're doing. And

00:24:10.060 therefore I don't have any doubt about his motive, even though we don't always see it perfectly.

00:24:16.120 He's got the experience there. I've got another guy, Steve Baumgartner. He just started doing some

00:24:21.420 more of our operations management. I'm not good at that stuff. Again, very intuitive. I love being

00:24:27.140 front facing, talking with you guys, communicating, sharing ideas and concepts and thinking about what the

00:24:33.360 future holds. And he's very strategic in how we implement some of the vision that I've considered.

00:24:39.280 We don't always see eye to eye. You know, when he says something, I'm like, I don't even know what

00:24:43.240 you're talking about. And he's like, what don't you get? But I know that he's aligned with what we're

00:24:48.360 doing. I believe that he's aligned with that. And I know that he is a different skill set than me.

00:24:54.340 And I'm very happy to have him aboard. I'm working on getting the right people in the right places based

00:25:00.160 on their aptitude, based on their skills, based on their communication styles. And that has proven

00:25:05.180 to be very valuable to the business, the organization, even though it's hard and confronting

00:25:11.940 and challenging at times. And the last point here, guys, is I talked about continued growth.

00:25:17.320 Here's what I've realized. And here I think is part of the solution is understanding that,

00:25:22.760 or at least knowing that what got you here to this point may not necessarily get you to that point.

00:25:29.200 So you might hit a certain level of revenue and then cap off. Okay. Well, that's it. That's all.

00:25:35.580 If you keep doing things the way you've done them, you're just going to stay there. And you might be

00:25:40.200 comfortable with that. And if that's the case, okay. But if you want to take it to the next level,

00:25:44.680 then you have to do something different and you have to be open to something different.

00:25:48.960 So you have to think outside the box. You have to, to my previous point, hire coaches, mentors,

00:25:54.900 other people, bringing people in who can do certain things that you can't do as well on your own.

00:25:59.200 And invest in that. And again, it's an investment. You're not just throwing money at the thing.

00:26:04.080 You're investing in people. You're investing in systems. You're investing in processes. And the

00:26:08.820 difference between just throwing money at it and investing is that an investment has an anticipation

00:26:13.880 of a return. If you invest a dollar into a thing, then I want $10 back or a hundred dollars or whatever

00:26:21.600 it might be. But I'm investing in people. I'm investing in systems. I'm investing in technology

00:26:26.460 because I believe it will yield a return for us. And you know that when I've incorporated that

00:26:33.400 into my business, it's paid off. It's always paid off when I bring the right people in,

00:26:39.140 when I bring a new technology, when I think outside of the box, when I think a little bit

00:26:43.540 differently and, and, and do it that way. The last thing I would say is something that I call

00:26:48.620 distinctive emulation. So what you can do is you can look at what other people are doing.

00:26:52.880 Like there's other people in the podcasting space. For example, Larry Hagner with that edge,

00:26:57.820 Connor Beaton, man talks, Brett McKay, art of manliness, Jordan Peterson, Jordan Peterson podcast,

00:27:03.180 Joe Rogan podcast, um, modern wisdom podcast podcast with Chris Williamson, keep hammering

00:27:08.320 collective with Cameron Haynes. Like there's other people doing things that are similar to us.

00:27:13.500 I can look at what those individuals are doing and I can emulate them. Notice I didn't say copy

00:27:18.680 because if I try to do what Cam or Chris or Joe or any of these other people are doing,

00:27:23.420 it's going to come across as disingenuous because it is, those guys aren't me and I'm not them.

00:27:28.400 And this is why I call it distinctive emulation because I'm going to run whatever they're doing

00:27:33.900 through my own filter, through my own mechanism, through my own delivery.

00:27:38.240 So we're going to emulate what other people are doing, but we're going to do it in our own way with

00:27:42.280 our own spin and our own flair and our own personality. And then it becomes authentic.

00:27:46.180 Then it becomes genuine. Then people can begin to see that, Hey, this is a good idea, but man,

00:27:51.700 I can see that this is something Ryan's really behind. He's not just copying other people.

00:27:56.520 Do it your own way. Think about what other people are doing that is successful and do it in your own

00:28:01.280 flavor. I hope that helps you guys. I'm not, I'm not trying to make it harder for you. I'm not

00:28:06.880 trying to tell you not to start businesses. In fact, I want you to start businesses. I think you

00:28:11.080 starting an organization, a movement, a business, a product, a service, an offering

00:28:14.500 is the path forward, not only for yourself, but for your community, for your family, for this

00:28:20.560 country. I want you to start businesses. I just want to be realistic about what it takes because

00:28:26.320 the last thing I'd want is for you to start a business because some schmo on Instagram told

00:28:31.040 you how easy it was and they lied to you and you started a business and you wasted a bunch

00:28:35.240 of time, money, energy in starting the business. And then you failed because you didn't even give

00:28:39.780 yourself a chance to do it right because you weren't told the truth. The truth is starting

00:28:44.260 a business is rough. And I have to ask you, are you up for it? Are you up to the task?

00:28:49.940 If you are, I believe in you. I believe that you can do it. But if you're being honest and

00:28:53.660 the answer is no, then don't start a business. Pour into your current business. Pour into your

00:28:58.900 current career. Pour into the things that you're doing right now and make that the best you can

00:29:02.820 possibly be. And if that changes in the future, then we can look at starting entrepreneurship

00:29:06.300 or something like that. But for now you need to know it's rough. There are solutions. There is

00:29:10.980 a path forward, but it takes a lot of fortitude, grit, resiliency, investment, heartache, heartbreak.

00:29:17.180 That's what entrepreneurship requires. And I think you can do it, but let's not lie to ourselves and

00:29:22.640 tell us that, tell ourselves it's easier than it is. That just sets us up for failure. All right,

00:29:27.540 guys, if you have any other thoughts, lessons learned, things that have been hard for you, ways that

00:29:32.340 you've overcome to them, please let us know. This is a community order of man. And inevitably when I

00:29:37.740 wear this hat, I always have people tell me that in, I don't know what dialect, but in Africa, OOM

00:29:45.400 means uncle, which I kind of like, I didn't know that when I did this hat, but I kind of liked that

00:29:50.500 uncle. All right, guys, I hope that served you. If you want this hat, by the way, you can check it

00:29:56.380 out at store.orderofman.com. Again, check out Montana knife company.com use the code order of

00:30:02.120 man. And then, uh, we're going to be doing a lot more emailing, uh, getting our information to you

00:30:07.220 guys that way. So if you're interested in hearing more about some insights that I had to share

00:30:12.280 updates on podcasts and updates on new merchandise, new events, things like that,

00:30:17.140 you can go to order of man.com and get signed up for our email. All right, guys, I'll be back next

00:30:23.260 week. Until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:30:29.160 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:30:33.740 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - February 23, 2024

5 Obstacles and Answers to Starting a Business ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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