Adjust Fire | FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
193.85864
Summary
In this episode, Ryan talks about adjusting fire and why it is so important to learn and apply it in your life. He talks about his experience in the military and how it can be applied in your everyday life.
Transcript
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.
00:00:10.500
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
00:00:27.340
and I am the host and the founder of this podcast and the order of man movement. I want to thank
00:00:32.100
you for joining with us, for banding with me in the mission to reclaim and restore masculinity.
00:00:38.500
If you're following along on YouTube, I want to give you a special thanks. I just got our YouTube
00:00:42.720
creator award. I believe it's called the silver button, which means that we hit effectively
00:00:48.500
100,000 subscribers, which I think right now we're at about 126 or 27,000 subscribers. So
00:00:55.480
the YouTube channel continues to grow. And I'm appreciative of those of you who have subscribed.
00:01:01.240
If you are listening to this, as opposed to watching it on YouTube, then I would suggest
00:01:05.820
you go check it out over there as well. So you get to see my, my, my face, my beard, me. I'm not
00:01:11.980
sure if that's a, that's a benefit or something that actually detracts from the message itself,
00:01:17.200
but you can check it out at youtube.com slash order of man guys. I've got a good one lined up for
00:01:22.460
you today. I'm going to talk with you about adjusting fire. I'm going to give you a little
00:01:26.800
bit of a background into what I did in the military and talk about why it's important to you and why
00:01:33.480
it's critical that you learn the concept and apply it effectively in your life, especially in times
00:01:38.340
like we're dealing with now with the coronavirus fallout and all the chaos and the variables and
00:01:44.780
the uncertainties and the unknowns. So we're going to get to that in just a minute. And speaking of
00:01:50.680
just fire, I want to mention my show sponsors and my friends, more importantly than my sponsors,
00:01:55.780
it's my friends. These are good people. These are people that I train with jujitsu and spend time
00:02:01.640
with, go to lunch with, and that's origin Maine. They've made some big, big pivots in their company
00:02:07.340
over the past several weeks from making denim and boots and rash guards and geese and all the other
00:02:13.700
things that they're doing to shutting down some of the lines of, of production and switching them
00:02:19.180
over into the personal protection equipment. They're making face masks and shields for hospitals
00:02:25.420
and first responders. And then of course the masks that they make as well for your everyday use,
00:02:31.080
which I've got one right here. Again, if you're on YouTube, you can see it. I don't have it on,
00:02:36.740
but you can see it's actually pretty cool. So there it's there it's the fabric they use for the rash
00:02:42.240
guards. It's got a pocket inside that you can put another filter in. And then of course,
00:02:47.140
it's got this string here that you can wrap around your ears. So not a hundred percent effective
00:02:51.960
solution, but better than nothing. And if you need some face mask and you want to support an
00:02:56.740
organization that is a hundred percent made in America and doing great things in the midst of
00:03:01.180
what's going on in society right now, then go check out origin Maine as in the state Maine,
00:03:06.320
M-A-I-N-E originmaine.com. Check it out and you won't be disappointed and you'll be supporting a
00:03:12.120
great company and great people. All right, guys, let's get into the conversation today. We're
00:03:16.600
talking about adjusting fire. Now I got to give you a little bit of background as I get into this,
00:03:21.080
my, my experience in the military. I joined the military when I was 17. I was a senior in high
00:03:28.580
school and joined the national guard really with the goal of paying for some schooling. And also,
00:03:34.360
you know, I had a call to patriotism and wanted to serve and wanted to step up and do my part in
00:03:40.100
society. And I was very happy that I did. And I had joined an artillery unit in Southern Utah.
00:03:45.260
And specifically what I did was in, uh, uh, fire direction control. So it was my responsibility to
00:03:51.160
take, uh, enemy information, uh, and Intel that we'd received, send it down to our howitzers and
00:03:57.480
then give them the information they needed to, uh, fire upon and effectively destroy the enemy.
00:04:02.480
So that was my job generally, uh, just to give you a quick overview. Now I'm telling you this because
00:04:08.420
occasionally we would miss the targets that we were aiming at. Uh, and if we miss those targets,
00:04:14.940
then we needed to fire more rounds, more volleys and effectively destroy the target. And we would
00:04:21.000
call in an adjust fire when we needed to do that. So they would take the old information that we gave
00:04:26.160
them the information that didn't apply. Uh, and then we would call an adjust fire, give them their
00:04:31.820
corrections and they would fire again. And hopefully we, we were effective that second time around.
00:04:36.240
Uh, I'm telling you this because what I learned in the military about adjusting fire is very,
00:04:41.500
very applicable to you, uh, to every man who might be listening to this, uh, in, in their life,
00:04:46.940
especially as things change and priorities shift, and there's new variables and new equations. And
00:04:52.880
look, we're, we're in the midst of that right now. Many of you listening are furloughed and you're
00:04:57.940
being laid off and now you're at home and your priorities have changed. And some of your objectives
00:05:02.500
have been tossed around and man, it's just hard to, to make the necessary corrections, uh, to,
00:05:09.360
to your battle plan, to the things that you want to do in life. So I'm going to share with you,
00:05:14.520
knowing that we had to make those adjust fires when we missed a target, I'm going to share with you
00:05:19.480
three, uh, primary reasons why we would miss a target. And then I'll share with you how that
00:05:27.140
applies exactly to your situation and what you can do in your life to now adjust fire as well.
00:05:32.840
So there's three reasons. All right. Number one, the first reason that we may have missed, uh,
00:05:37.000
our, our enemy target initially is because we received bad intel. So we had a unit that would
00:05:43.960
observe enemy troops and enemy movements. And then what they would do is they would call that into us.
00:05:49.320
And they would tell us the coordinates. They would tell us all about the enemy position and
00:05:53.500
the troop movement and what type of enemy it was and what type of vehicles and equipment,
00:05:57.140
et cetera, et cetera. And then we would take that information and we would calculate it and do
00:06:01.560
what we did. I can't get into all the specifics of that. And then we would transfer that information
00:06:06.100
down to the guns, the guns would fire. And therefore that's how it worked. So if we got bad intel,
00:06:12.880
which happened occasionally, maybe the coordinates were wrong. Maybe the observation was wrong. Maybe the
00:06:18.860
report was sent incorrectly. Then it's very possible based on bad Intel, not having all the information
00:06:25.880
accurate and correct, that it would be obvious that you could potentially miss the target. So
00:06:30.500
that's number one, bad Intel. And I'll circle back around to that in a minute. Uh, number two,
00:06:34.980
the second reason why we may have missed our target is because the enemy moved. So where the enemy was
00:06:42.360
is different than where the enemy is now. And that tends to happen, especially if you're dealing with
00:06:48.220
an enemy convoy or, or a troop movement. And so, because the enemy moved, we shot where they were
00:06:54.420
not where they are now. And we missed the target. So that's the second reason enemy movement, the target
00:07:00.740
moved. The third reason is operator error. So maybe that information was received incorrectly.
00:07:08.420
Uh, maybe, uh, a radio operator heard something different than what was actually real. Maybe
00:07:13.760
some information was input wrong. The calculations weren't done correctly, but there's a thousand
00:07:18.980
or more reasons that the Intel, or excuse me, that there could be operator error. But those are
00:07:25.300
primarily the three reasons that we would miss a target and therefore have to adjust fire. And this
00:07:31.140
is primarily what's happening in your life. If you're not hitting your targets and you're not
00:07:36.180
accomplishing what you want to accomplish, then it's safe to assume that it probably falls into
00:07:41.500
one of these three reasons. So let's break this down and talk about how this applies in your life.
00:07:46.760
And then we'll talk about what you need to do about it. So the first reason is because we received bad
00:07:52.200
Intel. Well, guys, you're not going to have all the information at hand. If you're trying to
00:07:56.700
secure a promotion or, uh, ask a woman to marry you or to pick up a new hobby or an activity or improve
00:08:04.900
your physical fitness or your nutrition, there is so much information in the world that it's hard to
00:08:11.440
decipher which information is best, what's accurate, what's inaccurate, what's going to apply to your
00:08:16.980
circumstance or situation. Have you got all the pertinent information together? And if you're making
00:08:21.940
decisions in your life based on inaccurate data, then it's probably safe to assume that you're going
00:08:28.340
to miss the objective. You're going to miss the thing that you're after. So what do you do about this?
00:08:33.580
You look to the experts, right? Is very, very important that you find people in your life who
00:08:41.580
are experiencing the exact type of results that you're after or, and, or have produced those types
00:08:48.440
of results for other individuals because they know they have the information. They've been through the
00:08:54.000
course. They've been through everything that it is you're going to go through. And they can now teach
00:08:58.940
you that and they can show you where to step and they can show you how to act and they can show you
00:09:02.800
what resources you need. And they can show you how to get what it is that you're after.
00:09:07.600
But if you're not open and you're not receptive to new information, you're not paying for coaching,
00:09:12.240
you're not investing in yourself. You're not going to courses. You're not reading books and listening
00:09:17.120
to the podcast, then you're just winging it. And you know, you might actually hit the target,
00:09:21.980
but it's going to be luck if you do. And if you do hit the target that way, congratulations,
00:09:31.420
you hit the target, but now you can't replicate the results because you don't know how you got them
00:09:35.660
in the first place. So what we're looking for is systematic results in our life. And you have to
00:09:41.240
evaluate, why did I not accomplish what I wanted to accomplish? Maybe just, maybe you didn't have all
00:09:47.760
the information at hand. Therefore start to acquire new knowledge, new information, look to
00:09:53.320
those who, uh, who have gone before, who know this stuff, who have seen what you're about to see,
00:09:58.820
who have stepped into all the mistakes and all the pitfalls you're about to step into and learn from
00:10:03.720
them. It's been said that a smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes
00:10:10.180
of others enlist other people into your battle. And you're more likely to have accurate Intel.
00:10:15.760
Therefore you're more likely to hit your objective and your target. All right. The second reason that
00:10:21.120
you might miss your objective, again, whatever your objective is, is because the target moved.
00:10:29.240
Now this is very, very applicable in a lot of our lives right now. You were on this, this path,
00:10:35.900
maybe it was a career path and you were on track for a promotion. You were going to get a raise or you're
00:10:40.680
starting a business and you were going to get, get this big order. A lot of things could be going on
00:10:45.400
right now. And then all of a sudden we're hit with a global pandemic, something that not very many
00:10:50.740
people predicted and your priorities change. You know, the, the, the promotion. Now you're just
00:10:57.240
worried about keeping your job, let alone trying to secure a promotion, let alone trying to start a
00:11:02.960
business. Maybe you're furloughed, maybe you're laid off. And so now you have time at home and you're
00:11:08.620
not knee deep into your career. Things change guys. Priorities change. External circumstances
00:11:15.000
move. Internal circumstances change. What was a priority is no longer a priority. You begin to
00:11:20.960
see things differently as you get older and you mature. And the things that were important 10 years
00:11:25.660
ago are not the things that are important. Now you need to be able to adjust quickly. You need to be able
00:11:31.940
to adapt. You need to be able to recognize that what was once important to you is no longer important.
00:11:39.360
And by the way, this doesn't make you a quitter. Understand that, that if you've decided I'm no
00:11:44.360
longer going to pursue that thing, whatever that thing is for you, it doesn't mean that you quit.
00:11:50.360
It just means that you pivoted and give you an example. When I started podcasting, which was roughly
00:11:55.640
six years ago or so ago, I had a previous podcast called wealth anatomy. And the podcast was all
00:12:01.860
centered around a financial advice for medical professionals. That was what I did in my, my
00:12:07.440
previous life is as a financial advisor. So I realized within 15, 20 episodes that I love the
00:12:14.480
medium of podcasting, but I didn't want to continue to have that financial conversation. I wanted to have
00:12:19.700
a broader, deeper conversation specifically about what it means to be a man. Hence order a man was born.
00:12:25.780
It was hard for me. I had to really wrestle with the idea that I was no longer going to do this other
00:12:32.080
podcast called wealth anatomy, because in my mind, I had equated me stopping that to me quitting,
00:12:38.260
not to me pivoting. And that's really what I did. I didn't quit. I didn't throw in the towel. I didn't
00:12:44.280
certainly waste all of that time. I learned a lot of valuable information about how to, how to interview
00:12:49.440
people and the technology and the, the, the things that I needed, the resources that I needed to tap
00:12:54.800
into in order to have what it is that I wanted to have, which was, which was the podcast. So
00:13:00.900
I pivoted and I started order a man in March of 2015. And here we are a little over now,
00:13:07.220
five years later. And it's amazing what we've grown to and how we've evolved and how we've
00:13:12.520
changed and how many hundreds of thousands of not millions of people we've impacted through the work
00:13:17.340
that we're doing. But I never would have experienced that if I wasn't willing to adjust based on where
00:13:23.120
my new objective was guys, it's okay that you mature. It's okay that life changes. It's okay
00:13:28.680
that priorities change. It's not okay. If you don't evolve as those things change and you just
00:13:34.480
keep firing on the same position, hoping that you're going to accomplish something big and great
00:13:39.240
in your life. You're not. And even if you do accomplish some form of success, you are certainly
00:13:45.120
not going to be satisfied and fulfilled with it because it's not even the objective. It's not even the
00:13:50.120
target. That target has changed. It's moved on and you need to learn to evolve and grow and move with
00:13:56.580
the changing of those objectives and targets. Now, the third reason is operator air. All right.
00:14:03.480
You got the right information. The enemy is still there, but you messed it up. You screwed up.
00:14:09.360
This happens all the time. Every day I mess up every day you mess up. And what most men do is they
00:14:15.660
will overlook what the mess up was and what they need to do to fix it. So they'll put the blindfold
00:14:21.760
on and they'll pretend like everything's fine. And they'll try to bury it and their head in the sand
00:14:26.300
and keep going on and keep moving. Look, you're not going to hit your target. If you keep messing up,
00:14:30.740
if the calculations are wrong, but you will, if you learn what those mistakes are so that you can
00:14:37.340
correct them. And that's the point of understanding and identifying mistakes. The point is to figure out
00:14:44.100
where you messed up so you can rectify the situation. It's not to dwell on it. It's not to
00:14:49.940
identify yourself as a, as a loser or a failure is to say, okay, well, here's exactly what I did.
00:14:56.460
It didn't produce the results that I wanted. And here's where I messed up. And here's where I didn't
00:15:01.640
commit fully or didn't do the activity or the work required. And because I didn't do that, I didn't
00:15:06.780
produce the desired result. It's that simple. Now, speaking of all this, what needs to happen in order
00:15:13.300
for you to identify operator error is you need to a be tracking it, right? If you're not tracking
00:15:19.980
what it is you're doing, the amount of sales prospecting calls that you're making, uh, the
00:15:25.940
conversations that you're having, the amount of work and effort that you're putting into your income
00:15:31.320
and your expenses, whatever your objective is, your, the amount of weight that you're lifting and
00:15:35.440
how often you're doing it and how fast you're running and all of these things, regardless of what
00:15:39.920
your objective is, if you're not tracking it, you'll never be able to know if what you're doing
00:15:44.620
is working and effective or not. And even if you do hit your target, and I've heard a lot of people
00:15:49.340
say this, well, I accomplished what I wanted to. Yeah. But what if you tracked it and you look for
00:15:55.020
ways to do it more efficiently? Imagine getting out of debt that much quicker. Imagine securing that
00:16:01.200
promotion in two months instead of six months. Imagine fixing your marriage now, rather than waiting a
00:16:08.040
year for it to go bad and you to go through a separation and, or a divorce. Imagine you starting
00:16:12.900
a business today and it growing over the next year, as opposed to you just waiting, hoping that things
00:16:19.360
were going to work out. This is what I'm talking about. You need to be able to track this stuff so
00:16:25.300
that you can see what is efficient, and then you can improve your efficiencies and your processes and
00:16:30.800
your systems along the way. So a, you have to be tracking it and B you have to review it. This is the,
00:16:37.540
this is the idea, the concept of an after action review. So at the end of every encounter,
00:16:42.780
engagement process, system, conversation, et cetera, you're going to go back and you're going
00:16:47.800
to review the work that you did and the results that it produced, the work that you did and the
00:16:53.280
results that it produced. And if you produce the desired result, you're going to find ways to do it
00:16:57.740
more effectively and efficiently. If you didn't produce the desired result, meaning you didn't hit
00:17:02.100
your target, then you're going to adjust fire. You're going to figure out where you messed up and why
00:17:06.980
you messed up. Maybe it was operator error again, and you're going to correct the behavior. And then
00:17:11.560
you're going to fire again, which means you're getting back into the battle, back into the fight,
00:17:15.300
doing the work and trying to achieve that objective again. So an after action review consists of
00:17:22.200
the following five questions. Number one, what did I accomplish? What did I accomplish? Did I hit the
00:17:30.000
target? Was the enemy destroyed? Did I set out to do what I wanted to do? And that means that you
00:17:36.580
actually have to have an objective, right? So there actually has to be something you're working
00:17:40.120
towards. Number two, what did I not accomplish? Maybe you didn't hit the objective. Maybe you
00:17:45.220
partially hit the objective and now you need to double down and figure out how to destroy that
00:17:49.920
target completely. But what did I not do? Number three, what did I do? Well, now these are the tasks
00:17:57.320
and the projects and the processes and the systems and the activities and the behavior and the mindset
00:18:02.240
that went really well in order for you to accomplish your intended objective. Maybe you
00:18:09.240
communicated well, maybe you had all the resources, maybe you got all of the Intel correct. Maybe you
00:18:14.960
executed very well. You put in all the effort and you worked hard towards that objective. That's what
00:18:20.380
you did well. So write this down, document this. I have a lot of these field notes everywhere. I,
00:18:26.200
I mean, I've got just a few right here. I've got a couple there. I've got my planner here. I've got
00:18:32.080
these things everywhere because I'm documenting always what's working and what isn't so that I can
00:18:36.240
go back and review it. So that third question is what did I do? Well, specifically get a specific
00:18:41.140
as he possibly can. The fourth question, what did I not do? Well, again, this is not to dwell on it.
00:18:47.800
This is not to internalize yourself as a loser or a failure or a piece of crap. This is just for you to
00:18:53.800
get some objective information and some feedback on what you didn't do well so that the next go
00:18:59.720
around, you can fix it. You can adjust fire and you can make the necessary corrections and be better
00:19:05.040
moving forward. The fifth and final question of the after action review is what am I going to do
00:19:11.340
moving forward? What am I going to do moving forward? I know what I did. Well, I know what I
00:19:16.240
didn't do. Well, I know what I got done. I know what is yet to have been completed. And now what am I
00:19:21.120
going to do about it? This is the adjust fire. All right. There was the target. There was the enemy
00:19:25.740
we messed up or the target moved, or we got bad Intel. All of that's been rectified and fixed. And
00:19:30.260
now I got to fix it. I got to re-engage and I got to fire again and hopefully hit that target and that
00:19:36.280
objective. Like I meant to the first time. It's a very, very simple framework. It's a very simple
00:19:41.900
mindset. It doesn't always mean that it's easy to implement, especially when you're not used to
00:19:46.880
adopting and including this in your planning process. But if you wrap your head around the
00:19:52.240
idea that it's okay, that you miss occasionally, it's going to happen. Don't internalize it to be
00:19:58.120
something that it isn't. All it means is that you failed and you've got to take another shot.
00:20:03.040
And that other shot has to be based on new information, something new. Otherwise you're
00:20:07.880
just going to produce the same result. All right. So let's recap this again. We're talking today about
00:20:12.980
adjusting fire. When things change, external circumstances change. There's a global pandemic
00:20:18.120
or a kid breaks his arm, or you go through a divorce or are dealing with a bankruptcy or some
00:20:23.000
debt issues or a health crisis. You're going to have to adjust fire. Your priorities are going to
00:20:29.260
change. Circumstances are going to change. Don't beat your head against the wall and continue to do
00:20:33.780
the same thing, hoping that you're going to produce the desired result when the external and internal
00:20:38.760
circumstances have changed. We're talking about adjusting fire along the way. Men are good at
00:20:44.480
adapting. Another way of looking at this is adapting and overcoming something we hear quite
00:20:48.700
often. Adapt, overcome, adapt, overcome. I call it adjust fire. All right. The three primary reasons
00:20:55.140
why you may miss an objective that you're after is number one, bad Intel. So you got to shore that Intel
00:21:02.100
up. You got to get all the necessary information that you need to be able to make better shots.
00:21:08.360
The second reason is your objective moved priorities, change, external circumstances change. And if
00:21:15.760
they move and change, then you need to adjust and move with those things. So you can continue to hit
00:21:21.080
your objectives. And the third reason operator error, you messed up somewhere along the way.
00:21:25.820
You weren't as committed. You didn't participate in the activities. You didn't do what you were
00:21:29.860
supposed to do. It's okay. Regroup, figure out what was the thing that went wrong, the variable
00:21:35.940
that was off and then fix it. Adjust fire, get back in the battle and hit those targets. So I hope that
00:21:42.180
helps. I hope that serves you really glad we're in this battle together, especially now. I mean,
00:21:46.160
I'm seeing firsthand because I received messages and emails and texts from you guys talking about
00:21:51.140
how important this work is. It's crucial that we understand what it means to be a man. It's crucial
00:21:57.560
that we take the frameworks like I'm sharing with you today and others that I've shared over the past
00:22:01.200
five years and implement those in our lives. So we can produce the desired result, the thing that
00:22:06.780
we're after and desired results for other people. We have an opportunity and frankly, an obligation to
00:22:12.120
serve other people, our children, our wife, our neighbors, our community, our friends. And there's
00:22:17.520
no time like today in the history, well, not the history, but this is certainly a big milestone,
00:22:24.280
if you will, a test to see whether or not we are capable of serving and helping others and being
00:22:32.080
the men that we have the opportunity to become and the opportunity that we need to step into because
00:22:38.880
other people are relying upon us. So I hope this helps adjust fire along the way, guys, make your
00:22:43.580
necessary corrections as we deal with this coronavirus fallout. And let me know how it's going. Hit me up
00:22:49.100
on YouTube or Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all at Ryan Mickler, and let me know how it's going.
00:22:56.920
Again, thank you for being in this battle with me. I'm looking forward to seeing your progress as you
00:23:00.960
implement the strategies I share with you. All right, guys, we'll be back next week for the interview
00:23:05.380
series. And then of course, the Ask Me Anything with Kip Sorensen. But until then, go out there,
00:23:10.460
take action, become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:23:16.080
If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be,
00:23:20.460
we invite you to join the Order at orderofman.com.