Order of Man - Adapt and Overcome ｜ 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

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

00:00:10.440 You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.240 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

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

00:00:27.480 and I am the host and founder of this podcast and movement that is Order of Man. Guys,

00:00:32.060 we are literally spanning the entire planet, and I couldn't be more honored that we are in this

00:00:37.320 battle with you. And make no mistake, it is a battle. It's a battle to reclaim and restore

00:00:42.240 masculinity. And I say this quite often, that we live in a society that seems to be increasingly

00:00:48.360 dismissing this idea, but let's forget about that for a minute. What I'm talking about when I say

00:00:53.280 battle, it's a battle with ourselves. It's a battle to step up more fully as protectors,

00:00:58.520 providers, presiders. It's a battle to overcome what I have called the natural man who's lazy,

00:01:05.220 who's immediate gratification, who wants the results without the effort.

00:01:09.520 This is the real battle, is how we overcome ourselves and how we improve ourselves and make

00:01:15.260 ourselves more capable of stepping into the role as father, husband, business owner, community leader,

00:01:21.140 each and every day. And what I'm going to talk with you about today on this Friday Field Notes

00:01:25.280 is exactly that. It's about adapting and overcoming. It's about anticipating that we

00:01:30.240 may have changes that come up in our lives. And it's about creating the frameworks and the mindsets

00:01:35.540 and the strategies for being able to overcome those changes, to be able to thrive in the face

00:01:42.220 of adversity and an ever-changing landscape that is our lives. So I'm going to get into that here

00:01:48.000 in a quick second. Before I do, let me mention my show sponsors and of course my friends. And this

00:01:54.140 is Origin Maine. Now these guys do rash guards, geese, lifestyle apparel. They are coming out with

00:01:59.920 a denim line here fairly quickly. And I am apparently on the short list of the first to receive a brand

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00:02:11.660 they do their supplemental lineup with Jocko. It's the discipline, the joint warfare, the Malk,

00:02:17.340 the Super Krill, all of the supplements that I've added to my nutrition and exercise and just

00:02:22.900 wellness regimen, if you will. So if you're interested in stocking up with Malk, Super Krill, 0.82

00:02:29.860 joint warfare, discipline, new rash guards, new geese, then head to originmaine.com as in the

00:02:36.720 state Maine, originmaine.com and use the code ORDER, O-R-D-E-R at checkout. And you'll get a

00:02:42.720 discount there again, originmaine.com and the code ORDER at checkout. All right, guys, let's get

00:02:48.140 into this. I titled this conversation, Adapt and Overcome. Now, those of you who were in the military

00:02:55.240 probably are familiar with this term to some degree, but I think everybody understands what it

00:03:00.560 means when I say adapt and overcome. Look, the reality is that each and every one of us are going

00:03:04.740 to be faced with changes in our lives, changes in our relationship, changes at work, changes physically

00:03:11.600 within our own bodies and mindset. And every time we interact with the world around us, whether

00:03:16.780 that's some sort of outside circumstance or another individual or something has been done

00:03:23.400 unto us deliberately, intentionally, or even not, then we have an opportunity to respond in

00:03:29.740 one of two ways. One is to maintain the current course. And sometimes that's appropriate. And

00:03:35.400 other times it hinders or it impedes our ability to grow and expand and get over that obstacle that

00:03:40.820 we may be facing. That's option A. Option B is to grow, to learn, to evolve. It's to adapt,

00:03:48.620 is to find another way, a better way. And it's about improving yourself each and every day in the

00:03:53.600 face of these challenges. Because what I've seen, and I deal with this on a daily basis when I talk

00:03:58.420 with thousands and thousands of men from all over the planet who are dealing with some changes in

00:04:02.880 their lives is that it's amazing to me how quickly some of these guys will crumble, absolutely crumble

00:04:13.100 at the slightest sign of adversity. And I get it. It's easy to want to go that route. It's easy to

00:04:21.260 let outside circumstances dictate your behavior. It's easy to feel like you're helpless or you can't

00:04:28.580 do anything because the odds are stacked against you, whether they are or not, you may feel that

00:04:32.940 way. And if you crumble, then really how manly are you behaving? I mean, that's boy-like behavior.

00:04:40.420 Children see obstacles and hurdles and they continue to do the same thing over and over again. It's been

00:04:45.780 said that that's the definition of insanity. Or they crumble, they run away, they tuck tail and

00:04:51.420 run. They're scared and they're frightened. And yet we see this in boys and girls. And when it comes to

00:04:58.260 men, we sometimes aren't willing to acknowledge that maybe perhaps we've done the same thing.

00:05:03.960 So today's podcast and today's conversation is five strategies that you can use in your life to

00:05:10.420 not only recognize that change is going to happen in your life, but to be able to embrace the change

00:05:15.660 that inevitably will come up. And as I talk about embracing change and adapting and overcoming,

00:05:21.500 before I get into the five strategies, one thing I want you to know is this is exactly

00:05:25.060 what we're talking about in our brotherhood this month. It's called the iron council.

00:05:29.760 And each and every month we have a topic. This month is about embracing change and we break it

00:05:34.400 down into weekly categories. And then we're having conversations on that specific category for the

00:05:39.980 week. How do we recognize change? How do we know what we need to do in our lives to overcome that?

00:05:44.760 What skills and tools and frameworks do we need to develop and articulate in order to be able to

00:05:50.060 more fully adapt and overcome some of these situations? How do we teach other individuals,

00:05:55.100 whether it's people that are in the walls of our home or we're coaching or mentoring or we work

00:06:00.760 with? These are all elements that we're talking about within the iron council. And the other couple

00:06:05.120 of components that are very, very important in the iron council is we're not just talking about it.

00:06:09.240 Guys, it's not enough to talk. Talk is wonderful. Having civil discourse is important.

00:06:14.520 Debating these ideas is critical, but unless we're actually doing and we're implementing the ideas,

00:06:20.940 we're implementing what we learn, we're implementing what we're being taught,

00:06:23.920 then it's actually not moving the needle to help us become more capable and proficient as men.

00:06:29.220 So in the iron council, we issue challenges each and every week that are designed to push and test

00:06:35.060 you further than maybe you did before. And it's this pushing and this testing that allows you to

00:06:40.940 become somebody new entirely. And the last component of the iron council that I'll share

00:06:45.860 with you now, and then I'll get into this, these five strategies is the accountability. Gentlemen,

00:06:50.980 you've got to have some accountability in your life, whether that's accountability to yourself.

00:06:54.700 And I would say that's the highest tier of accountability or accountability to a loved one

00:06:59.080 or a friend, or in this case, a battle brother, another man inside the iron council who has agreed

00:07:04.760 to hold you accountable and has agreed to be held accountable. And you know that these are high

00:07:10.500 achieving men who have big goals and big dreams and big aspirations that are working towards those

00:07:15.680 things. They want to accomplish those things. And in turn, they want to help you accomplish those

00:07:19.720 things. So if you're interested, head to order of man.com slash iron council, order of man.com

00:07:25.180 slash iron council. All right, let's get into this. I think what we need to know first before we get

00:07:30.780 into this strategies is, is understanding and wrapping our head around this idea of embracing change and

00:07:35.640 adapting and overcoming and is realizing that it's just part of life guys as part of life. And it's

00:07:40.960 a great part of life. It's the growth part of life. It's the thing that makes us better. And yeah,

00:07:46.480 it's easy to coast and it's easy to, to, to be in the default mode and just coast as things are.

00:07:53.200 I mean, that that's easy. That's mediocrity. That's complacency, but you're never going to improve

00:07:58.440 unless you learn how to handle the inevitable change that's going to present itself. So number one,

00:08:04.400 and write these down if you can, and then refer to them often internalize these things. I know a lot

00:08:08.880 of you guys are probably driving or maybe working out or on a run right now, but write these things

00:08:13.280 down as you can. Number one, embrace change, just embrace it. That's the mindset, right? If you're

00:08:18.560 always running away from it and you're trying to maintain this perfect state of homeostasis,

00:08:23.920 these things are going to wreck you when they come up, when your wife says you're struggling in

00:08:27.700 your marriage, you're going to, you're going to feel like it's some catastrophic cataclysmic event

00:08:32.680 that's coming up versus understanding that the dynamics and relationships change. And how can you

00:08:39.040 improve those things? Or if you, your boss comes to you and says that, that he wants to promote you

00:08:44.100 even, or, or that he has to lay you off because of the economy or some other outside factor. I mean,

00:08:50.580 there's all kinds of things that could happen in any given day that are going to potentially derail

00:08:57.680 us or create new opportunities, but we won't see them as opportunities. Even the good things that's

00:09:02.780 scenario. I said, where the boss wants to promote, I've seen guys be concerned with that. It sounds

00:09:08.220 crazy, but I see it all the time. That's because we haven't learned to embrace change. And rather than

00:09:13.800 looking at it as something positive and something that's good for us, we instead want to run from it

00:09:19.760 because it represents what a threat. And this is psychological evolutionary hardwiring that anytime

00:09:26.280 there's some sort of change, whether it's in our physical environment or something that we just

00:09:31.100 perceive to be, that's a threat that could potentially derail us. So it seems to me that

00:09:36.320 human beings would rather have inferior results if they're predictable than superior results that are

00:09:43.600 unpredictable. I think that's evolutionary hardwiring. So number one, embrace it. Know what's

00:09:49.000 going to happen. Know what's going to take place. Embrace it for what it is. Realize that it's growth.

00:09:54.280 And then you can move into number two, which is how do we reframe this?

00:09:58.240 Reframe it. Reframe it from being a negative. Reframe it from being a pain in the ass, which

00:10:03.180 quite frankly, it might be. Reframe it from being something that is destructive or challenging or 0.97

00:10:10.320 going to push you a little harder than maybe you want to be pushed into something that is exciting.

00:10:17.620 Something that is motivating. Something you recognize as being able to propel you forward.

00:10:22.580 Something that will inevitably present a new series of opportunities that were not available before

00:10:29.240 because you were in this state of complacency or on the tracks without being able to get off and

00:10:34.520 take advantage of some of these opportunities. So guys, when things happen and look, even if it's

00:10:39.400 something that from the surface you consider to be a negative, look at it as an opportunity for new

00:10:45.720 things, new stimulus, new growth, new progress, new opportunities that have not yet been presented to

00:10:51.960 you, that you will now be able to step through that door into some unknown and unforeseen event

00:10:56.920 that will take you further than maybe you ever imagined you could have gone. But you're not going to be

00:11:02.040 able to capitalize on those opportunities if you don't number one, embrace it. And number two, reframe it

00:11:07.760 as not something scary, not something to be avoided, but something to be understood, something to be

00:11:17.160 embraced, something to be excited about. When you get to that mindset, you won't be afraid of change.

00:11:24.000 Sure, it'll be uneasy and it'll be uncomfortable, but you'll be excited about it because new opportunities

00:11:29.700 are going to be presented to you. Number three, anticipate that things are going to come up.

00:11:34.640 If you're planning, whether it's planning in your relationship, planning with your fitness,

00:11:38.920 planning with your diet, planning at work or a project or a task that you may be working on,

00:11:44.140 as I'm sitting right here in my desk right now, I've got my lineup for my son's baseball game tonight.

00:11:48.420 If I'm so rigid in my planning process that I'm unable to or incapable of anticipating that life

00:11:56.640 doesn't always go according to plan, I am going to get destroyed when something goes wrong.

00:12:02.740 Who was it that said, I think it was Mike Tyson, maybe even somebody before that said, 0.57

00:12:06.520 everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the face. Because we're all going to get punched in 0.50

00:12:11.140 the face, whether it's the baseball game this afternoon and maybe somebody doesn't show up or

00:12:16.100 somebody injures themselves to my wife and I had a conversation that we were struggling with some

00:12:20.880 things within our relationship, whether it's something at work or the economy or a bankruptcy or

00:12:26.160 a medical condition or an illness that you or your loved ones might be dealing with. All of us are

00:12:30.340 going to get punched in the face. And I think it's probably more accurate to say get punched in the 0.97

00:12:35.180 nuts because sometimes it feels like that. And if our planning is so formulated and so rigid that it

00:12:43.240 can't not break, but bend, flex a little bit to what potentially could come up, then again, we're going

00:12:50.900 to be completely derailed and completely destroyed. If on the other hand, we anticipate that changes are

00:12:55.860 going to come up. The relationship isn't always going to be as glorious and grand as it is right

00:12:59.160 now. Business isn't always going to be perfect. The bank account isn't always going to be where it

00:13:03.540 needs to be. Sometimes I may have to go into debt. I might have to deal with an injury. I'm nursing an

00:13:08.300 elbow. Well, it's just soreness right now. And so I've had to change my training. But if I was so

00:13:15.720 rigid, what would I do? I would continue putting unnecessary and undue pressure on my elbow, which could

00:13:21.340 potentially exacerbate the problem, make it even worse, not make it better. So guys, look at your,

00:13:27.980 well, the areas in which you operate in your life, your family, your business, your community,

00:13:32.760 your fitness, your bank account, every facet of life that you can consider and ask yourselves when

00:13:38.140 reviewing your plan and your strategy. And by the way, you should have a plan and a strategy.

00:13:42.720 Ask yourself, am I too rigid? I'm going to throw in different variables. If this happens,

00:13:47.600 how would I adjust? If that were to happen, how would I tweak my plan?

00:13:50.420 Again, there's a strategy known as red teaming. And this is usually used in the business and

00:13:55.920 corporate world and probably even I would say military and LEO world is that when a new strategy

00:14:03.360 or an idea is presented, then there's a specific designated team to come in and try to wreck that

00:14:10.900 idea. And what it allows you to do is it allows you to see all of your blind spots and all of the

00:14:15.980 things that you didn't think could happen in a close to real world scenario so that you can plan

00:14:22.220 accordingly for those contingencies and those problems to come up. But if your planning is so

00:14:27.500 one dimensional that it only works in the perfect set of circumstances, I saw this all the time in

00:14:33.040 the financial planning field. People would come in with their quote unquote financial plans that some

00:14:37.480 other planner had put together and they'd ask me to review it. And I'd say,

00:14:41.360 it looks wonderful if everything works perfectly, if the market continues to grow, if you continue to

00:14:49.340 get the highest rate of return, if you somehow miraculously pick the perfect stocks over the

00:14:55.160 next 30 years, if there's no economic downturn, if there's no political threat to your economic

00:15:01.680 well-being, if you're not laid off, if you're not injured, then yes, this plan is perfect.

00:15:05.780 But if we have to actually use it in real life, where crappy things happen, then this is not a good

00:15:14.180 plan because you haven't built in any contingencies in that plan. So the challenge here for point number

00:15:19.680 three is to look at where you're showing up and look at what potential threats exist and plan

00:15:26.400 accordingly so that you may deal with those if and when they come up. All right. Number four, always be

00:15:33.760 ready. Always be ready. Always be ready. I was on a trail hike just yesterday with my family. And

00:15:44.540 there was a gentleman, he was running up the trail and he passed us probably, I would say three or four

00:15:49.740 times. He was running up the trail and down, up and down, up and down. And on the way down, he was

00:15:54.520 slow and he's taking big breaths. And I said, Hey, you're, you're getting a lot of laps. And are you

00:15:58.780 training for something? And he's like, Oh, I'm just getting ready for the season. I'm like the season,

00:16:02.820 like, like the running season, the hunting season. He's like, Oh no, just being outside

00:16:07.680 and beach season. I just want to get the, you know, the body and I just, I want to look good.

00:16:11.340 And I mean, I commend him. He's, he's up doing work. That's more than a lot of people can say,

00:16:15.660 but at the same time, it was kind of fascinating to me. It's like, and it's not just him. It's me too.

00:16:19.600 It's everybody. We, we train specifically for certain events that are coming up and we certainly

00:16:24.260 should. If we've got a marathon, for example, you should probably train specifically for the marathon.

00:16:28.100 But my thought is, is that if we're operating from a position of, I'm only going to be ready

00:16:32.640 in this little box before a particular event or circumstance arises, well, what happens if that

00:16:39.720 circumstance or event arises before we were training for it? So my thought is always be ready.

00:16:47.580 You know, a lot of people, here's another context. A lot of people will save money for a big purchase,

00:16:51.700 like they'll save money for a car, for example. And whether they get it or not, I mean,

00:16:56.880 that's not really the point. The point that I'm trying to make here is that what if, you know,

00:17:00.380 they, the transmission on their previous vehicle went out before they had saved money?

00:17:04.620 Well, then they'd have to go into debt in order to secure a new car or pay for that transmission.

00:17:08.720 So my thought is, well, you should have been saving the whole time, right? You should have

00:17:13.240 been saving money the whole time. You should have been training the whole time. You should have been

00:17:16.380 reading books the whole time. You should have been getting out of bed early the whole time.

00:17:20.260 You should have been putting the right fuel into your body the whole time.

00:17:22.900 Guys, we can't operate in these little micro climates that are, you know, 30 days or 60 days

00:17:31.020 or 90 days long. And we're training for a particular event. You should be ready at all times because you

00:17:36.880 never know what's going to happen. You never know what's going to arise. And if you're not ready and

00:17:42.120 that negative encounter or situation, or even a positive opportunity comes up, you aren't going to

00:17:47.080 be ready for it. You aren't going to be able to A, avoid a negative situation or B, step into a

00:17:53.340 potentially positive situation because you haven't been doing the work required every day, day in and

00:18:00.120 day out, not for the next 30 days for the beach body, not for the next 60 or 90 or 120 days, but for

00:18:05.640 life. So guys, when you hear the strategies that I'm presenting to you right now, this isn't something

00:18:11.060 I'm telling you to do for 30 days or 90 days or 80 days or whatever the magic number is. If you need

00:18:16.120 that to get jumpstarted by all means, if you need it to be new year's for you to get jumpstarted and

00:18:22.220 that propels you forward, then by all means take advantage of it, but don't lock this stuff in for

00:18:27.700 a short period of time. Commit to doing things that you know are good for you. Reading, diet, exercise,

00:18:34.160 hobbies, all of these types of things, commit to them for life, for life. Not going to do this for the

00:18:42.280 year. I'm going to do this forever. And when you do, you will always be ready for what will

00:18:47.540 inevitably rise. It's not a matter of if it will come up. Something will come up. The only thing we

00:18:52.920 don't know is when and what exactly will be. But if you're always ready for it, you're always ready

00:18:58.840 for it. And point number five, last point today, guys, is create a plan of action. Create a plan of

00:19:04.900 action. The plan of action is not going to be perfect. All right. Things are going to come up.

00:19:08.540 They're going to derail. That's the whole point of this adapt and overcome conversation that we're

00:19:13.380 having today. But you've got to have some baseline plan of action. And here's the point I really want

00:19:19.360 to make in this context is that when something does arise, don't self-destruct. Do not self-destruct

00:19:32.360 and do not compound the problem. When something comes up, don't make a rash decision and do something

00:19:43.300 emotionally charged and driven that ends up putting you in a position worse than the position

00:19:49.920 you were in before. I have done this. I have made very snap, quick, emotional decisions,

00:19:55.180 and it makes the problem worse. Take a step back. All right. Something happened. My wife came to me and 0.95

00:20:01.800 she said, we're having struggles in our marriage. Or I looked at my bank account and I realized that

00:20:06.180 we're in the red. Or my boss said, hey, we're going to do your quarterly review and you aren't

00:20:12.140 performing the way you need to perform and we might have some layoffs coming up. Stop. First line of

00:20:18.000 action. Stop. Breathe. Take a step back. Disengage from the moment for a second. Regroup. Rethink.

00:20:30.040 Restrategize. Come up with an action plan. Come up with an order in which you're going to operate and

00:20:36.380 attack this situation that you're dealing with. Very rarely in life, unless we're faced with a threat,

00:20:43.960 a violent threat or a natural disaster or some sort of crazy emergency, are we going to need to make

00:20:50.100 these very snap, rash decisions? Usually, it's going to be a situation where we can disengage,

00:20:56.420 even if it's just for an evening or an hour. Disengage. Go back to the drawing board. Get your

00:21:03.160 paper out. Get your computer app or program out. Get out a whiteboard and get chalk and get a marker

00:21:08.600 and start writing out. Okay, here's the situation. Here's what I know. Here's the reality. Here's the

00:21:14.660 resources I have. Here's what resources I need. Here's what I want to accomplish. Here's what other

00:21:19.140 people are doing when it comes to trying to overcome this task. Here's what I think I should do

00:21:24.860 and start strategizing and coming up with a plan of action so that you can go into this thing equipped

00:21:31.100 as possible in order to thrive and excel and succeed in the face of a change that, like I said before,

00:21:38.360 will inevitably come up. As I know it's hard, when I look at my own life, for example, I am a creature

00:21:45.300 of habit and change, whether it's something from a day-to-day schedule, a client reschedules and needs

00:21:51.160 to bump something back a half an hour to something significantly more catastrophic like a medical

00:21:56.560 condition or something happened to one of our kids or a layoff, some of these other much more

00:22:02.900 catastrophic events. Regardless of what they are, our ability to adapt to these situations and more

00:22:09.600 importantly to be able to overcome these things will be the measure of who we are as men. I know a lot

00:22:15.940 of people like to talk about what makes a man a man and what he thinks and but look guys or what

00:22:22.380 anatomy has. Look, here's what it means to be a man. Your ability to take action and more specifically,

00:22:28.260 your ability to produce the type of results that are going to lead you and those you have an

00:22:33.320 obligation and responsibility for to a better place than they are right now. That's what it means to be

00:22:39.200 a man and if you can't learn to adapt and overcome to shitty situations and look, life presents all kinds

00:22:45.440 of them, then you are not being as capable as you are and you should be as a man. That's why people are

00:22:54.000 looking to you. That's why your wife follows you. That's why your kids look up to you both literally

00:23:01.340 and figuratively. That's why your co-workers are engaged with you and influenced by you. That's why

00:23:07.000 people like you. That's why they want to be around you because they know you're a leader. They know

00:23:11.720 you're steadfast. They know you're resolute and when things go wrong, they know that you can be the one

00:23:17.340 to be counted on to get those other individuals through something that they quite frankly aren't able to do

00:23:23.580 themselves. You are to be the pillar. You are to be the rock. You are to be the standard that gets

00:23:29.020 people through those difficult times and our ability to adapt to these situations and to overcome

00:23:35.640 them is what makes us men. Guys, that's all I've got for you today. I hope that you have a great

00:23:40.820 weekend. I want you to take some of what I've shared with you today, specifically taking a look at your

00:23:46.080 plans within each of every facet of life that you're showing up as and ask yourselves what could

00:23:50.960 possibly go wrong. Play devil's advocate on your plan a little bit and then create some

00:23:55.820 contingencies and strategies to continue to adapt and overcome should something derail

00:24:00.540 your current plans. Guys, go out there. Get after it. Learn to adapt and overcome. Learn to lead

00:24:07.660 effectively. I'm so honored to be in this battle with you. I couldn't do it without you. I would ask

00:24:13.200 as we part today that you share this podcast, that you share this message, that you leave us a rating

00:24:18.020 and review, that you invite people into the Facebook group, that you consider joining our

00:24:22.480 brotherhood, the Iron Council at orderofman.com slash Iron Council to talk more deeply about

00:24:27.600 embracing change and to engage in the challenges and accountability that we have built into the

00:24:32.580 program. I'll let you get going for the weekend, guys, but go out there, take action and become the

00:24:37.040 man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take

00:24:42.360 charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the Order

00:24:46.960 at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - April 05, 2019

Adapt and Overcome ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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