Order of Man - Balance is a Verb

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.

00:00:10.440 You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who

00:00:17.160 you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,

00:00:22.720 you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Nickler.

00:00:27.540 I'm your host and founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement, and I want to welcome

00:00:31.580 you here. I know last week's Friday Field Notes was a replay from, I believe it was about a

00:00:37.600 year ago. I had some things going on in my life and some things that I've been working

00:00:42.240 through on a personal and relational front that I want to make sure I poured my heart

00:00:47.260 and soul and attention and energy into. And I'm still doing that, and I will continue to

00:00:51.760 do that. And that actually ties nicely with what I want to talk with you about today,

00:00:56.840 which is this concept of balance, specifically this idea of work-life balance and how difficult

00:01:03.180 that can be for men, especially high-achieving men, guys who want to thrive, guys who want

00:01:08.940 to win, guys who want to go out there and make a difference. And then also equally, if not

00:01:14.140 hopefully more so, want to lead their families and want to serve their wife and serve their

00:01:18.620 children and walk hand in hand with their wife through this thing that we call life that

00:01:24.440 becomes increasingly difficult as we start to realize the objects of our desire.

00:01:33.820 Because along with the success that we achieve, we also have more opportunities that are presented

00:01:40.860 to us. Some of those righteous and worthy opportunities and some aren't that are designed

00:01:46.120 to tempt and distract from what it is we truly want. And we're constantly wrestling with this

00:01:51.540 idea of giving the right amount of time and energy and attention and resources to our professional

00:02:00.700 lives and also our personal lives. So we're going to talk about that. Before we get into that,

00:02:05.280 just want to mention my friends over at Origin USA. Now this is a company that's a manufacturing

00:02:11.240 company that is making everything in America. All of their products, goods, services, 100% sourced

00:02:17.040 and made in America. And they're bringing back American manufacturing. They're going to be

00:02:21.560 releasing their hunt line either, either they released it this week or next week. I've been

00:02:26.140 a little out of the loop because of this work-life balance thing I'm going to talk with you about

00:02:29.040 here in a minute. But it's coming up very quickly. If you want to know about it and you want to be

00:02:33.080 notified when they go live with their brand new 100% made and sourced in America hunt line,

00:02:38.200 go to originusa.com slash hunt, originusa.com slash hunt. Good friends of mine, obviously sponsors of

00:02:46.920 the show, but I believe wholeheartedly in what they're doing and I want to support them. And I

00:02:50.900 think you probably do as well, including America. All right, let's talk about this. I titled this

00:02:55.920 balance is a verb. And I titled it that because I think that most of us tend to believe intuitively

00:03:03.280 that balance is some place. It's like a noun, right? We, we, we arrive at this place of balance

00:03:11.400 when we equally distribute or not even equally, but we distribute our attention, time, energy,

00:03:18.440 and resources exactly perfectly based on what our objectives are. That isn't true. And the reason

00:03:26.880 that isn't true is because the minute you feel like you're hitting strides and you're distributing

00:03:32.160 your resources in the correct allocation towards the things that you want, something happens,

00:03:37.600 right? A fire shows up at work and you have to put that fire out. And so now you have to neglect

00:03:43.300 your family or something happens within the family dynamic that now all of a sudden you can't focus

00:03:49.880 so heavily at work and you've got to pour more energy, time, resources, et cetera, into your family

00:03:54.180 life. And you thought you had it all figured out. At least I've been there. I thought I had everything

00:03:59.320 figured out and it turns out that, well, I don't. And so you need to reevaluate where you're putting

00:04:06.820 all of those resources. And that's why I say balance is a verb because it's not some place

00:04:11.540 that we achieve or some final destination, but it's an action that we take on a daily basis based on

00:04:20.380 internal and external factors that we're confronted with. So the best analogy that I've been able to come

00:04:27.460 up with is I want you to imagine for a second that you're either surfing or snowboarding or maybe

00:04:34.520 skateboarding. Most people tend to believe that if balance is this perfect distribution, that

00:04:40.920 eventually we find the perfect formula that we can just step on the surfboard or the skateboard or the

00:04:45.760 snowboard and distribute our weight front to back, left to right exactly correctly. And then we never

00:04:51.980 have to pivot. But if you've ever surfed or skateboarded or snowboarded, you know that in

00:04:57.000 order to get onto the wave and stand up and ride that wave or to get from the top of the hill down to

00:05:03.860 the bottom of the hill, you're going to be presented with a series of circumstances. It's going to be the

00:05:10.840 forces of the water or a mound in the snow or a tree that you need to move out of the way or another

00:05:17.980 surfer that happens to cut you off on the wave. There's a lot of external factors that frankly are

00:05:24.720 beyond our control. And so what do we do when we're faced with one of those factors? Well, if you're on

00:05:29.180 the snowboard, you lean, right? You lean left or you lean right. You turn towards the hill, you turn away

00:05:35.000 from the hill, you lean back, you lean forward, but you're constantly moving. It's a series of thousands

00:05:41.320 and thousands of little adjustments in your hips and bending the knees and leaning this way and leaning

00:05:46.680 that way and putting your arms up to stabilize. And if you do it correctly, you don't wipe out

00:05:52.380 and you make it to the bottom of the hill. Or if you're on the surfboard, you ride the wave

00:05:57.640 successfully and you drop off the board and you paddle back out there and you do it again.

00:06:02.340 This is life. Life is going to throw us all sorts of curve balls. We're going to be tempted with

00:06:08.360 things. We're going to have marital issues. We're going to have a hard time communicating with our

00:06:15.020 spouses. We're going to have issues at work. Somebody's going to try to harm you or your family.

00:06:22.680 Maybe there's a medical condition. Maybe one of your kids is going through a rough time and has

00:06:27.300 self-confidence issues. Perhaps you got into a car accident or there's a lawsuit or potential

00:06:34.760 bankruptcy and financial troubles. I mean, I don't mean to be all doom and gloom here,

00:06:39.320 but the reality is every single one of us has faced at least one, if not all of these circumstances

00:06:45.240 in our lives. And if we think that, man, if I just put the right amount towards my kids and I just put

00:06:51.720 the right amount towards my wife and I just put the right amount towards my business, then I'll be

00:06:56.620 happy. Then I will have unlocked this door to success and fulfillment. It isn't like that, guys.

00:07:05.640 Balance is a verb. It's something that you do on a daily basis. So how do you decide?

00:07:10.040 Well, I think first and foremost, you have to know what your objective is and you have to know

00:07:14.280 what your priorities are. If you're surfing, if we're going to take that analogy and you're surfing

00:07:18.260 and you want to successfully ride away from where you are to the shore, that might be a little

00:07:23.300 different than if you want to do some tricks or something. I'm not a surfer, so I don't know.

00:07:29.180 Or get in the barrel of the wave. Again, I'm not a surfer, so I don't know.

00:07:35.360 But you have to know what your priorities are. Is your priority your family? Is your priority your

00:07:40.740 work? Should be both. Probably it is to some degree. But a priority is like, what is your

00:07:45.760 priority? What is number one? And frankly, I've lost sight of that over the past couple of years.

00:07:52.260 Certainly throughout the rest of my life, I've lost sight of that. And I've had to pay the piper

00:07:58.240 on some of those things. But I don't want that to happen. So the first thing for me anymore at all,

00:08:04.340 and I don't want that to happen for you. So the first thing that we need to do is really determine

00:08:07.360 what it is that we want and what our priorities are, and then how we're going to show up. Because

00:08:11.220 we can't really come up with a course of action on a day-to-day basis, or even have some sort of a

00:08:16.520 litmus test to measure our daily actions against what it is that we actually want.

00:08:24.800 So if I know I want my family to be my priority, I'll give you an example.

00:08:29.180 This coming up weekend, we have our Origins Immersion Camp. It's a week-long jujitsu camp.

00:08:35.980 And I do what I call a pre-immersion dinner. So every Saturday night before Sunday is when

00:08:41.140 immersion camp starts. Every Saturday night, I have some of the guys over and order a man and

00:08:45.040 iron council to my place, and we have dinner. So we set this up. I invited about eight, nine,

00:08:51.460 10 guys over. Most of them were able to make it, and it was going to be great. Come to find out,

00:08:56.960 my oldest son has a scrimmage. Okay. So now I have a decision to make. Balance is a verb, right?

00:09:02.960 Okay. So do I do the thing with the guys? I mean, I committed to doing that. Do I do that with

00:09:12.780 the guys? I invited them all over. I told them we were doing it. Some of them have created plans.

00:09:16.780 Or do I do the thing with my son? Well, what's my priority? It's my son. My priority is my family.

00:09:24.440 So I made the not so difficult decision, and it really wasn't a difficult decision to make.

00:09:29.860 I made the not so difficult decision to call up the guys and say, look, guys, I'm sorry.

00:09:35.700 I have a conflict. I didn't realize it's my son's scrimmage. I'm not going to miss that if I'm here

00:09:41.160 in town at all. I want to be here for that and available for him. And so we got to pivot. We're

00:09:47.540 going to do a Sunday morning early lunch, and here are the details. Okay. That's balance, right?

00:09:56.220 It would have been nice to be able to distribute equally my time and attention and energy, but that's

00:10:00.260 not what life presented me. Life presented me an opportunity to watch my son play football,

00:10:04.820 so I'm going to take advantage of that opportunity. And then I'm going to make that my priority.

00:10:12.340 But I know what it is. And again, I've lost sight of that. I don't want to make any qualms about that.

00:10:18.840 I don't want you to think that I have this all figured out. I don't want you to think that I'm

00:10:22.520 better at this stuff than you, or I know more about it than you. I mean, I might know more about

00:10:29.600 some things. You might know more about some things. I struggle just like you guys do.

00:10:35.520 But when I implement the things that I'm talking about with you, my life is just better.

00:10:40.440 It's just better. So again, the first thing is know what you want so you have something to measure

00:10:45.460 your actions against. And then you evaluate, right? You're going to know. I was in Hawaii several

00:10:50.060 months ago, and I had this planned for a year. Well, my daughter had her dance recital that got

00:10:56.660 scheduled after my Hawaii hunt. And unfortunately, I made the wrong decision.

00:11:02.880 I went to Hawaii. I stayed in Hawaii. And I didn't come see the recital. And I felt really

00:11:11.300 guilty about that. I felt really bad about it. In fact, I still feel guilty about that.

00:11:15.860 I bought her flowers. I had the flower shipped to her the day of the recital. And I did what I could,

00:11:21.780 but I think I should have made a different decision. Not I think I should have. I should

00:11:26.180 have made a different decision. And it's painful in a way. It doesn't maybe sound like it's a huge

00:11:32.960 issue, but it's painful. It hurts that I didn't do the right thing in that instance. And that's okay.

00:11:39.500 None of us want to feel pain. None of us want to experience that. But it is okay that I feel that

00:11:44.340 because now I remember that when my kids have a thing, I want to be there for them.

00:11:52.180 And so that evaluation of, does this feel right? Sometimes we as men don't really tap into our

00:12:00.000 feelings. We're very logical, I think, by nature, more so maybe than our fair counterparts. And so

00:12:06.720 we're logical about it. Well, she'll have more dance recitals. And I can catch the video. And I've

00:12:11.840 had this planned for so long and this makes sense. And if I didn't come, I'm wasting all that money on

00:12:17.200 the travel. I mean, there's a lot of considerations that we can rationalize, but I think we ought to

00:12:22.080 tap into, excuse me, our intuitive nature. And I'm not saying your feminine side or being overly

00:12:29.860 emotional. I'm saying tap into your intuitive feeling side of things and realize that if you have

00:12:35.680 a feeling that you should do something, maybe that's something to consider. Hey, I really feel like

00:12:41.660 I want to be there at my daughter's recital. Okay. Well, you ought to take that with some weight

00:12:47.400 and really consider that maybe that's what you should be doing. Okay. So we prioritize,

00:12:53.900 we come up with an idea of what we want. We evaluate our performance. Hey, how did you feel

00:12:59.060 about switching the thing from the guys to the next day and going to your son's football game? Well,

00:13:04.040 I know I'm going to feel good. I know that was the right decision. How do you feel about missing

00:13:07.900 your daughter's dance recital? Well, you know, I feel bad about that. Okay. Now I know. And I'm

00:13:13.940 going to remember those feelings, the positive vibes and the negative vibes and all of that so

00:13:17.420 that I can make better decisions moving forward. And then we make those decisions, right? So we

00:13:23.260 prioritize, we evaluate, we make our decisions and we do the best we can.

00:13:30.420 One of the hard parts for me about life is there's just not enough time and energy in my own personal

00:13:39.940 life to do everything. I would love to do everything, but I can't. And so we have to be

00:13:45.880 good at making decisions that are the right decisions. And very often we're going to be presented

00:13:53.480 with two good decisions, two decisions that we could even justify or rationalize. And yet we have

00:14:03.220 to choose one. We have to make the choice, but I would contend and suggest, and I'm speaking to myself

00:14:12.020 just as much as I am to you, is that we make the right choice. And I think we know what the right

00:14:20.120 choice is. And we try to, again, justify, excuse away, rationalize, come up with excuses as to why

00:14:31.960 we didn't make the right choice. But I think inherently and intuitively, we all know what

00:14:37.100 the right choice is. Now, remember, these are micro decisions. Some of them are macro decisions,

00:14:42.580 but these are thousands and thousands of decisions on a daily basis. How do I spend my time? How do I

00:14:47.080 spend my energy? What's the first thing I need to do? Who needs my time and attention? Tap into your

00:14:52.480 people. How's your wife feeling? How are you feeling? What are your kids experiencing? How do

00:14:59.520 they view you? Do they view you as favorable? Do they have resentment and animosity towards you?

00:15:08.540 What about your clients? Are you neglecting them or your boss or your work? I mean, all of it's

00:15:13.300 important, but really try to tap into the way other people are feeling and maybe even to a degree,

00:15:19.100 attempt to put yourself in their shoes. And I think you're going to have a better time with work

00:15:22.100 life balance or a better phrase, I think is just understanding that balance is a verb. It's something

00:15:29.620 that we do on a continual basis, micro adjustments day in and day out. And then we can look back on our

00:15:35.320 lives or our day or our week and think, you know, I did this week pretty good. It wasn't perfect.

00:15:41.240 I fell short in a lot of ways, made a lot of mistakes along the path,

00:15:46.940 hurt people along the way, neglected responsibilities that I had both personally

00:15:53.100 and professionally. But today I did pretty good. This week I did pretty good. This month, this year,

00:16:01.920 I did pretty good because I realized that it's a daily process. It's a minute by minute process

00:16:10.120 of continually balancing, shifting, adjusting, reprioritizing, evaluating, and making good

00:16:18.340 decisions all the time. I know I'm not giving you a lot of advice that I haven't shared before. It's

00:16:24.120 just something I want all of us to consider. Are we balancing? Is it the act of balancing or are we

00:16:30.520 trying to find the balance? I think finding the balance is significantly harder and maybe even

00:16:36.960 impossible compared to the act of balancing. All right, guys, I hope that helps. If you have

00:16:44.060 other commentary, thoughts, ideas, questions, considerations, other topics you'd like me to

00:16:48.780 touch and hit on at some point, message me on Instagram. That's where I'm most active. Although

00:16:53.600 I haven't been very active on there because I'm trying to balance and be more present and available

00:16:59.340 for my family as opposed to getting bogged down on my phone and these other things.

00:17:02.680 So hit me up there, shoot me an email. Remember, Origins got their new huntline dropping quick.

00:17:08.280 We also have a merchandise store. I've got an Order of Man hat on right now. You can check it out,

00:17:12.680 this hat and other hats and shirts and battle planners and all the things at store.orderofman.com.

00:17:18.880 All right, guys, that's all I've got for you today. Go out there, take action, and become the man you

00:17:23.380 are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast. If you're ready to take charge

00:17:28.500 of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at

00:17:33.260 orderofman.com.

Order of Man - August 19, 2022

Balance is a Verb ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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