Order of Man - Are You LARPing Your Way Through Life ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

00:00:04.980 your own path. 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. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.220 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.780 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler,

00:00:27.600 and I am the host and founder of this podcast and the order of man movement. I want to welcome you

00:00:32.520 here. And if you've been around for any amount of time, I want to welcome you back. I've got a very

00:00:38.260 important message for you today. I feel like all of my messages are important, so I don't know that

00:00:42.100 I even need to say that. I guess I'll let you be the judge of whether or not it is. But before I do,

00:00:47.300 let me get into a little bit about what this movement is all about for those of you who are

00:00:51.800 joining us for the very first time. And I realized there's a lot of you. We continue to grow. And I

00:00:55.340 look at the download numbers and how many people are tuned in and how many people are following

00:00:59.440 along on the socials. And we're experiencing some phenomenal growth. So I really appreciate you

00:01:05.040 guys sharing, continue to share, leave the ratings and reviews. It goes a long way in promoting what

00:01:09.220 it is we're doing a little bit about what this podcast and movement is all about guys. It's my

00:01:13.940 mission to give you everything that you need to reclaim and restore masculinity. We live in a

00:01:19.600 degenerate world. The conditions that we are experiencing and will continue to experience

00:01:27.100 are deteriorating. Families are falling apart. We see violence. We see criminality. People are

00:01:34.740 dissatisfied. We're seeing suicide and depression rates that are continually increasing. It's, it's,

00:01:43.220 you know, there's a lot of things to be hopeful about, but there's a lot of things to be concerned

00:01:46.840 about. And I want to address some of those concerns. And I think the best way to take that

00:01:51.220 approach is through strong, bold, capable men as leaders of their families and their businesses

00:01:58.480 and their communities. And that's what we're doing here on the podcast. And that's part of what we do

00:02:02.720 here through the Friday field don'ts, which is me just riffing some ideas that I've been thinking

00:02:07.240 about. And as I was thinking about what I wanted to talk with you about today, I was reminded

00:02:11.760 of, uh, an experience. This was probably a year or two ago when we lived in Utah where our house was,

00:02:19.200 uh, I would come home from work, my financial planning practice, and I would drive home this

00:02:24.700 specific way. And I, I drove by the community center of our, of our city, uh, every day on,

00:02:30.100 on the way home and about once or twice a week, as I would drive by, uh, I would look over to the field

00:02:36.940 by the community center. And I would see these young boys, uh, and they were getting dressed up

00:02:42.080 in medieval night stuff like warriors. You know, they had their big foam swords and some of them

00:02:50.180 had helmets and they had their full dress and garb and everything else. And, and, uh, one day I pulled

00:02:55.540 over and watched them for a minute because I was wondering what they were doing. Uh, and I talked to

00:03:00.500 somebody there and they said, it's called LARPing, LARPing, which I had never heard before. I'm like LARPing.

00:03:06.200 What in the world is that? Well, come to find out LARPing stands for live action role play.

00:03:13.080 So what these boys were doing is they were role-playing as medieval warriors. And again,

00:03:18.940 they were dressed up in their battle gear and they had these big foam swords and you know,

00:03:23.860 that, that, that's fine. I have no problem with that. I'm not even, I initially I made fun of it

00:03:27.740 because it's kind of funny, but whatever, if that's what they're doing and they're having fun and

00:03:31.800 they're not causing any trouble and, uh, you know, they're, they're connecting with other boys.

00:03:36.940 That's, that's a good thing, but it's not a good thing if we take it to the extreme and the extreme

00:03:44.720 I'm talking about is that there are many grown men who are quote unquote LARPing their way through life.

00:03:52.280 They're, they're, they're living a role play as opposed to living their own life.

00:03:59.500 They're pretending they're other people. They're pretending that they're better than they are.

00:04:04.000 They're doing the fake it till you make it type thing. Uh, they aren't playing for real. In fact,

00:04:09.660 they think this is some sort of a game. Uh, and it's very immature. It's not immature of these young

00:04:15.660 men who are out there doing that. It's immature. When you have a grown man who has a family and has a

00:04:20.920 business, uh, and has responsibilities and obligations, not to take it seriously. And instead

00:04:26.140 to LARP his way through life, to role play his way through life. Now, how do I know this is the case?

00:04:32.480 Because I talk with men every single day who are struggling with, uh, inadequacies or, or, or,

00:04:39.880 or feelings of inadequacy. You know, they're not capable. They're not strong. They're not bold.

00:04:45.200 They're not assertive. They feel cowardly. They feel weak. They feel timid and passive, 0.85

00:04:49.820 and they're not accomplishing what they want out of life. They're living for other people's

00:04:55.260 approval. Uh, they're, they're, you know, being good little boys doing what they're quote unquote

00:05:00.640 supposed to do. And all of this is being directed by somebody else. And it's no wonder that many of

00:05:06.620 these men don't have a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment in their lives. They're not living a

00:05:13.260 truly deep and meaningful and significant life. They're living very surface. They're pretending

00:05:19.540 acting, but they aren't acting like genuine real men do. Now I'm hesitant to use the word real men

00:05:28.620 because you know, what does that mean? I understand that it can be subjective. I understand that it's

00:05:35.000 open to interpretation, but I also know that there's some universal truths about what it means

00:05:41.640 to be a man. And now how we fill these obligations and these responsibilities and these roles that we

00:05:46.660 have traditionally and historically played. Uh, there's, there's, there's, uh, I don't want to

00:05:53.140 say leniency, but there's many ways that those things can be taken care of and fulfilled, but

00:05:59.940 ultimately it's our job to be protectors, providers, and presiders. Now you can do that in a lot of

00:06:04.600 different ways, but at our core level, that is how we're built. That is how we're designed.

00:06:11.000 That is how we're hardwired to protect, to provide, and to preside, which is synonymous

00:06:17.480 with leadership. And yet most of these men are running around, LARPing their way through life

00:06:22.580 and not experiencing the results that they want. And you know, you're doing this. If you're not

00:06:28.620 satisfied, if you're not happy, if you feel henpecked, or you feel like you're always getting

00:06:33.040 passed over the, for the promotion, or you're not being taken seriously, just like I saw those boys

00:06:38.220 on that, uh, in that field by the community center, men, if you want to be taken seriously,

00:06:44.000 then you have to consider that this isn't a, isn't a game. This isn't something where you,

00:06:49.560 you have to wait for permission to assert yourself as the, as the patriarch, the leader of your family,

00:06:56.340 or as a successful employee, or the next team leader, or the next business owner, or the next

00:07:02.440 man to step up in, uh, political aspirations within his community, a city, or even the country.

00:07:09.740 And you don't have to wait for that stuff. That's what little boys do.

00:07:13.780 That's what cowards do. They wait for people to give them permission. In fact, my, my sons do that. 0.99

00:07:20.740 You know, they'll come to me and they'll ask for permission for sometimes things they don't need to

00:07:23.900 ask for permission for. And maybe I've conditioned some of that, but at the same time, they haven't taken

00:07:29.580 fully responsibility for their own lives. And any man who's again, quote unquote, LARPing his way

00:07:37.000 through life is somebody who hasn't taken responsibility for his own life, that you only

00:07:40.700 have one shot at this. We were asked a question the other day on the, ask me anything. And if you

00:07:45.840 listen to the, ask me anything on Wednesday, you probably heard it is, you know, what, what, what

00:07:49.840 are you on your deathbed? You know, what are you going to look back on your life and want it to be

00:07:53.500 about? And my co-host Kip Sorensen said, no regrets, no regrets. And if you look at and hear

00:08:02.200 stories from people who are on their deathbeds, they're what they have regrets. That's what they're

00:08:06.560 thinking about. I should have done this. I should have done that because I don't want you to have

00:08:10.160 any regrets, not one regret. I want you to live a life of meaning and satisfaction and purpose.

00:08:19.920 And I want you to get rid of the trivial BS that has consumed so many men and distracted them

00:08:27.240 from the real issue, from the real problems, from the real challenges, from the real mission and

00:08:36.260 purpose that they have to be a protector, a provider and a presider. Now, something else I thought about

00:08:42.580 as I was watching these, these boys LARP is they were all dressed up as warriors.

00:08:50.540 And it's funny because I see a lot of grown men who have a desire to be warriors. And I'm not talking

00:08:57.220 about warrior in the literal sense. I'm talking about the mindset of a warrior, excuse me, strong,

00:09:03.220 bold, capable, assertive, mission-driven, capable of leadership, capable of administering

00:09:09.060 righteous violence if needs be, but having intensity and having the strength to follow

00:09:16.000 through and the conviction to be able to do it. A man of character, a man of integrity,

00:09:20.280 a man of virtue. That's the warrior mindset. And so many of us want to be warriors. I just want to

00:09:26.600 be a warrior so bad. And that's what you tell yourself. You listen to this podcast, you listen

00:09:31.940 to YouTube videos and you get all hopped up and hyped up. You listen to Goggins and Jocko and all the

00:09:37.120 other inspirational people that you do. And you feel hopped up for a second. And then when you get

00:09:40.920 out of your car, you walk into the house and you let your children or your wife rule the roost 1.00

00:09:45.280 or like you let your boss treat you like shit and, and abuse you, not physically, hopefully, 1.00

00:09:55.580 but abuse you, take advantage of you because you're incapable of that warrior mindset. 1.00

00:10:02.300 mindset. And so what do you do? Like these young men who are LARPing on the field that day, you

00:10:07.220 pretend, you pretend, you lie to yourself. You say that you're doing better than you really are.

00:10:15.220 You tell yourself you're tougher than you are. And all the while, you know, deep down inside

00:10:20.920 that you're not doing the things that you know you should be doing. So how do you overcome this?

00:10:25.700 How do you overcome this? How do you begin to step into the warrior mindset that you actually

00:10:31.960 are built to step into and not pretend like many of you have for so long?

00:10:39.680 Number one, you've got to understand that it's going to be the mission that drives you. Now,

00:10:46.040 some of you say, how do I find my passion? Guys, I did a whole episode. It was either a week ago or

00:10:50.960 two weeks ago about uncovering or developing or articulating your passion and your mission.

00:10:56.620 But here's what I would say for now, get passionate where you are, whatever you're doing, be the best

00:11:03.300 at it. If you're, if you're a janitor at a high school and you're sweeping floors, then those floors

00:11:08.760 ought to be fricking meticulous, not a speck of dirt to be found. The way you organize your,

00:11:15.660 your closet of tools better be neat and orderly and systematic so that you can be the most effective

00:11:22.360 and the most efficient that you could possibly be. If you're called to lead a team, then you better

00:11:29.880 pour everything that you possibly can. Even if you're not overly excited about it, you better pour

00:11:34.620 everything that you possibly can into being the best team leader that that organization has ever

00:11:40.420 known. Invest in yourself, learn how to communicate, learn how to cast vision, experiment, learn to

00:11:46.900 delegate, do all the things that you already know. Good leaders are doing. Don't wait. Don't wait until

00:11:54.060 the perfect set of circumstances arises for you to step up to the plate, step up to the plate right now.

00:12:03.420 Leadership isn't a title guys. Now it might give some sort of perceived authority. And so people

00:12:08.840 recognize you as the quote unquote team leader or boss or fill in the blank, but leadership is

00:12:16.100 significantly more than the title you may have been granted. And you don't need a title to act like a

00:12:22.880 man. You need to actually start acting like a man. And what's interesting and ironic about this 0.92

00:12:28.620 is as you become passionate and masterful and excited and deeply involved in your current work,

00:12:35.360 whether it's at home, whether it's at home in the career path, charitable organizations that you

00:12:40.680 belong to, as you get excited and passionate and masterful at this craft, doors will start opening

00:12:47.240 for you. Doors will start opening for you. It's like the key to unlock the door is you being passionate

00:12:53.860 with what you have. You have to prove to God, or you might look at it as the universe or karma,

00:13:04.300 or I don't know what, however you look at it. I choose to look at it as God.

00:13:09.260 You have to prove that you're capable of handling the next thing to come along.

00:13:14.360 And if you're just role-playing and you're pretending and you're faking it, and you're

00:13:19.520 just passively waiting for something to happen, you're not proving to anybody or anything that

00:13:24.780 you're capable of handling more. Prove it. You want to have more money? Prove that you can handle

00:13:31.200 the money you currently have. You want to have a deeper, more significant relationship with your

00:13:36.340 wife? Prove that you can actually handle that. Second thing, go get physical guys. 1.00

00:13:45.140 Go get physical. I'm not talking about starting fights. I'm talking about

00:13:49.200 working out, training, exercise, running, physicality, use your hands, use your back.

00:13:56.440 Back. We have, we have these sedentary lifestyles and in many ways it's good. It's nice. I mean,

00:14:01.680 I'm sitting in a, in a, in a climate controlled room right now with all the lighting and all the

00:14:06.280 technology and everything else. And I'm sitting in here behind a desk on this computer using

00:14:11.340 technology to communicate to you. I'm not saying this is wrong. I'm just saying, if all I ever do

00:14:16.940 is just kind of hunch myself over a desk and, and do the work on a little digital keyboard,

00:14:22.620 like I am right now or behind a camera, of course, I'm not going to feel like a man.

00:14:29.060 I'm going to feel like I'm faking it. I'm going to feel inadequate. And in many ways I am,

00:14:33.340 but you know where I feel the best when I'm not faking it, when I'm exercising my, my body and my

00:14:40.000 muscles and air is coursing through my lungs and the blood is flowing and pumping and, and I'm,

00:14:45.160 I'm competing or I'm grinding against weights or I, you know, I'm training martial arts with another

00:14:52.220 man who's doing the same thing. And we're pushing on each other and exerting our own will on other

00:14:57.600 objects or other people where it's appropriate. I don't think I need to throw that disclaimer in

00:15:02.180 there, but go get physical. I can assure you that if you learn to become physical and you learn to

00:15:09.620 exert your will over other people and other objects, again, when it's appropriate, I'm not

00:15:15.820 saying to go punch a wall or punch a human being just because you want to take out some aggression,

00:15:19.800 but where it's appropriate, then I can guarantee you that when you get back into the office or

00:15:25.020 whatever life has to offer you, you're going to feel more manly. And you're actually not only

00:15:30.560 going to feel more manly, you're going to be more manly. You're no longer role-playing. You're

00:15:36.140 stepping into the warrior mindset and you're going to feel good about that. And you're going to develop

00:15:40.680 confidence. And then it's going to become this snowball because the more confidence you earn,

00:15:45.200 the more that you're willing to exert yourself, the more that you're willing to put yourself out

00:15:50.080 there, the more that you're going to stop pretending and actually step into the life that has been

00:15:55.680 waiting for you, waiting for you to prove yourself worthy of earning. So get that warrior mindset going,

00:16:06.420 get physical. And the third point that I'd offer you is get around other men.

00:16:11.840 You know, as I watched these boys LARP on that field, I initially made fun of it, but then I

00:16:18.700 thought, you know, these are other boys. They're playing with other boys. They're learning. They're

00:16:24.700 growing. They're laughing. They're being physical. Like in many ways, they're doing a lot of good

00:16:29.140 things. So I'm just using this as an analogy, but even in my own life, when I went at this alone,

00:16:33.800 guys, I struggled. I struggled. Men aren't made to do this on our own. We're social creatures.

00:16:43.520 And for hundreds of thousands of years, we've been organizing in tribes and packs and gangs

00:16:48.620 to improve ourselves, to solidify our positions, quite literally, if we're talking about defending

00:16:55.500 ourselves and our families and loved ones and to advance our own cause and our own mission.

00:17:00.540 Now, some of you will say, yeah, well, you know, I just don't have anybody near me. That's not true.

00:17:05.700 That's not true. So how do you find the men who are interested in what I'm talking with you about

00:17:10.480 right now? Go to the gym, go train martial arts, go to the firing range, join a hiking club,

00:17:18.660 like go where these guys are and insert yourself into the environment, insert yourself into the

00:17:25.040 conversations. And you're going to find other men, however you want to look at it, a band, a pack,

00:17:30.740 a tribe, a gang, whatever, whatever term you want to use there. You're going to find these men

00:17:34.760 who are going to hold you to task. That's what I want. It's not always comfortable,

00:17:41.940 but comfort is like a LARPing activity. I want discomfort for the right reasons, by the way,

00:17:50.520 I want to be uncomfortable because that means I'm learning and I'm growing and I'm pushing and I'm

00:17:56.560 getting better. And I feel good about that. Even if I don't achieve the levels of success that I

00:18:00.900 want to have guys, I don't want you to fake it through life. I hate that phrase. In fact,

00:18:07.880 fake it till you make it. I understand the sentiment. I get it. Cause not any one of us

00:18:13.840 are exactly where we want to be. So do you fake it? No, I don't think you fake it.

00:18:18.040 I think you ask good questions from the right people. Find a band of brothers.

00:18:23.960 You hire mentors and coaches, you get physical and you begin to do what men do.

00:18:31.220 So if we have young men who are listening to this, who, and I, and I get a lot of emails like this,

00:18:35.020 Oh, you know, Ryan, I just don't, I don't feel like a man. I didn't have a father figure in my

00:18:38.340 life. What do I do? You find that man who can be that individual. Or if you're an older gentleman

00:18:45.120 and you know, you've, you've never been around other men and you're surrounded by women,

00:18:51.040 you're maybe you didn't have a father figure in your life. The answer is still the same.

00:18:56.840 Go be physical, adopt and embrace the warrior mindset and find a tribe or a gang. That's going

00:19:03.120 to help you become the man that you have the capability of becoming.

00:19:07.160 We can't play the game anymore, guys. And that's what a lot of you are doing. You're playing a game.

00:19:17.280 And in many ways, you're playing the game not to lose. I just hope, I just hope I'm not the last.

00:19:23.700 Come on guys. We want to be the first. We want to be the best. Not out of some sense of ego or pride,

00:19:31.400 but so that we can serve other people. We can serve ourselves, certainly, and our wives, our

00:19:35.640 children, our neighbors, our colleagues, our coworkers, our communities, our country.

00:19:42.400 We need to be the best. And that's going to take you stepping out of this boy-like behavior of

00:19:47.740 pretending and faking your way through life and actually doing the work required.

00:19:52.720 That's what this podcast is about. We've been doing this now for six years. When I started it six

00:19:58.240 years ago, my goal was to help men bridge the gap between what they know and what they do.

00:20:02.840 So now, you know, if you didn't already know, and you might already know now, you know,

00:20:06.600 so what I'd like you to do this weekend is to turn the podcast off, to turn the TV off,

00:20:14.740 to not drink the alcohol, to not sedate yourself with the pornography,

00:20:19.920 to stop LARPing your way through life and actually get in the game, to do the work,

00:20:26.220 figure out what it is, and then get to work and let me know on the socials, how it's going.

00:20:34.280 What did you do? What did you learn? What, how did you improve? Where'd you find your band of

00:20:38.460 brothers? What martial arts are you training? How much are you lifting all these things? What's the

00:20:44.620 warrior mindset to you? How did you embrace that? How did you adopt it? What exactly happened in your

00:20:48.980 life that allowed you to become more of the, uh, the warrior that you're meant to be. All right,

00:20:54.480 guys, get after it and report back. We'll be back on, uh, Tuesday of next week. We've got a couple

00:21:01.240 very, very powerful interviews coming up. So stay tuned, make sure you subscribe, leave a rating and

00:21:05.880 review. And until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.

00:21:10.960 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:21:15.420 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

00:21:24.480 We'll be right back.

Order of Man - October 02, 2020

Are You LARPing Your Way Through Life ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript