Become a Force Multiplier | FRIDAY FIELD NOTES
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Summary
A force multiplier is a man who is able to think big picture, who's able to get beyond himself, and impact more people than he could if he thought he had to go at it alone. It's the antithesis of the lone wolf mentality, the guy who believes that he has to do it all, or believes that if, "you want it done right, you must do it yourself."
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart
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your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
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You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life. This is who
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you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done,
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you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler.
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I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast. Welcome here and welcome back.
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Today, I want to talk about becoming a force multiplier. A force multiplier, if I can say
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that correctly, is a man who is able to think big picture, a man who's able to get beyond himself,
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who's able to impact more people than he could if he thought he had to go at it alone. It's the
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antithesis of the lone wolf mentality, the guy who believes that he has to do it all or believes
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that if, quote, you want it done right, you have to do it yourself. We're going to talk about how to
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empower others. We're going to talk about how to make sure other people are buying into your vision
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and your mission, and they have the tools and resources they need to thrive, but also for you
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to help you expand your mission and your contribution to the world. So, I'll get to that in just a minute.
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If you want to know more about this topic, you can check out my book, The Masculinity Manifesto,
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How a Man Establishes Influence, Credibility, and Authority. I talk quite a bit about becoming a
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force multiplier in that in some roundabout ways and some direct ways as well. You can also check
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out our free Battle Ready program, which is a series of 17 emails over the course of 30 days that
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are going to help you define your vision, cast your vision, think about tactics and objectives you
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want to complete over the next 90 days and really gear you up for a powerful, powerful 2023. We got
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to think about that now. What we do now is what's going to determine what December and January is
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going to look like in our lives. So, with that said, let's talk about becoming a force multiplier.
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Now, I very first heard this concept, this subject, when I moved here to Maine,
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I had the opportunity to spend some time with Border Patrol on the northern border of Maine,
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and they talked about the concept of becoming a force multiplier or having assets and technology
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that would allow them to expand their capabilities above and beyond just the agents they had at their
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disposal. So, there were cameras, fencing is a force multiplier in the border patrol world,
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helicopters, different technology that they have available that will allow them to cover a wider
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range and be more proficient in their objective of securing our borders, even though they may not
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have the adequate manpower to do it. It's a very, very strong concept. And I thought about how it might
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apply in our own personal lives. We have so much that we want to do, so much that we want to accomplish.
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We have our family, we have our business, we have our own personal pursuits and desires,
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and it seems like more often than not, we don't have enough time throughout the day to accomplish
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all that we want to accomplish. If we could just have a few more hours, and I would argue that even
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if we did have a few more hours, we probably wouldn't get much more done if we didn't learn
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the concepts that I'm going to share with you today. So, becoming a force multiplier is getting
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outside of yourself, getting out of your own way, and really leveraging the tools, the people,
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the assets, the technology that you have available and at your disposal to accomplish more in your
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life. So, let's talk about this. These are not in any particular order. Number one, you have to drop
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your ego, right? All of us are emotional creatures. All of us, especially as men, want to be propped up,
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want to be lifted up. We want the accolades. We want the notoriety. We want the recognition that comes
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with doing everything on our own. And we don't want anybody else to get the credit. We don't want
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anybody else interjecting. We think that if we want it done right, that we have to do it ourselves,
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and nobody can do it as good as us. And those are all very ego-driven concepts. They're ego-driven
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ideas and ideologies. And they're dangerous because you're only one man. You only have 24 hours in a day,
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and you can't get more hours, but you actually can. And the way that you get more hours out of the day
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is you start to empower other people to do things that you shouldn't be doing.
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Now, there are things you should be doing. Relationships, your fitness, your health,
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finances. There are things, of course, you should be doing, but there's other things that you can have
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other people do, and that's going to help you recapture the day. So, a small example,
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we're getting ready for an event right now. It's called the main event. And downstairs are my four
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children. And they're all working on different parts of the business. My oldest son is filling
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orders right now from our store, which you can find at store.orderatman.com. So, he's doing that.
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My youngest is wiping down with wet wipes the seats, cleaning the seats off and the chairs for the
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event. My daughter is doing some vacuuming and picking up leaves and debris and dust that was on the
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floor from our last event. And my second son, because he's technologically driven,
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is setting up the sound system. I trained him how to do that. He's setting up the sound system.
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And now here I am in my office doing this work, doing a podcast. We are a force multiplier. I'm
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not down there doing that work. I think probably I could do most of it better than they can, but that
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would be my ego talking. And that gets in the way of allowing us to do more and to accomplish more.
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Number two is we have to empower others. So, once we identify that our ego is getting in the way
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and that we want all the praise and the accolades and the notoriety that comes from doing it ourselves,
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we have to now empower other people to do that. So, how do we do that? We train them. We teach them.
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We care about them. We celebrate when they win. We let them take credit where it's due,
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of course. We let them participate in the accolades and the notoriety and the things that come from it.
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And we create a team. We give them the tools and the training and the resources. We give them the
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opportunities to thrive. Now, they might fail and that's okay. It's bound to happen, but we can train
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them. We can coach them. We can educate them and we can lift them up and prop them up. But guys, as men,
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if we want to be forced multipliers in the world, we need to empower our spouses, empower our children,
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empower our teammates and employees and colleagues and coworkers and friends and other people.
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It's the old adage of teaching a man to fish versus giving him a fish. Of course, if you teach
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and not only teach, but invest in your people, they're going to be able to do a better job.
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I have a couple of people that work for me in particular that help with our email newsletter,
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which you can find at orderman.com. And also, so that's Ron Inman. And then we also have Chad
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Robeson who does the podcast editing and video production. These are guys who do a wonderful job.
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And I've told both of them explicitly, if you need a course, if you want to take a program,
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if there's an investment you need to make in a technology or a course that you want to make
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available to yourself, just let me know what it is and I'll pay for it. I'll cover the cost of that
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because two reasons. It makes their job easier, which means they're going to put out better quality
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content that helps me and it helps you guys. And it also helps them. If at some point they
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stop working with me and they go on and do bigger and better things, I don't care. In fact, well,
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I do care. I care that they have that information and that working with me for a period of time
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made their life better. And they could take what they learned from me and go out into the world and
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do something completely different. That's how we empower people. And when you empower people that
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way, they're going to work harder, they're going to do a better job, and they're going to help
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contribute to your mission. Number three, we have to consider that it's our job to render ourselves
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obsolete. I talk about that in my new book, The Masculinity Manifesto, but it is your job to put
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yourself out of work. I specifically think about this in the context of my children. I really want my
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children to be able to thrive and be independent and self-reliant regardless of what I do and how
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I can contribute down the road. Now, I always want to be wanted. I want to be enjoyed being around,
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but at some point I need them to be able to go out on their own and have confidence that they can do
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that. We need to put ourselves out of work. And we do that by dropping the ego, by empowering other
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people. And the last component is to train to replace. Train people to replace you.
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You don't want to be doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again for the
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next 10, 15, 20, 30 years. I hope that you want to get better. And I hope that you want to improve.
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But here's the thing. And I notice this a lot in the career arena is guys won't replace or train to
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replace themselves because they think that they don't have anywhere to go. Let me flip this on
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its head. What if the reason you aren't getting promoted or you aren't excelling or graduating or
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improving or getting better is because your higher-ups, your boss, don't have anybody to replace you?
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If on the other hand, you decide, well, I'm going to train these individuals to do my job really well,
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you think they're going to replace you. That's a scarcity mindset. Now they might because that's what
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you're doing, but all you're doing is giving yourself an opportunity for upward trajectory,
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upward momentum. And some of you guys might be saying, well, that's not available in my career
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or my company. It may not be, but I promise you, if you can be one that empowers and trains other
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people, other opportunities are going to present themselves where you're going to be able to step
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into. And you're going to be able to do that confidently because you know you're not leaving
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anybody high and dry. So if you have a colleague, a friend, a client, a coworker, whoever it might be,
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never be afraid of training them to replace you. Now you might not be needed in that job anymore
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because that other person can do it, but that gives you opportunities to do something bigger,
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better, grander, and helps you evolve into new things. You might even create a new job for yourself
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as a trainer within the entire organization. Guys that train other people, they are indispensable
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because there's not very many of them. So there's a book, I think it's called So Good. Let's see,
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by Cal Newport. So Good They Can't Ignore You, Making Yourself Indispensable. Seth Godin, I believe,
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wrote another one called Linchpin. Guys, these are great books on the subject of training other people
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and being so good that other people can't ignore you. All right. The next one, this is very important.
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A lot of people overlook this. Observe people's strengths. Observe people's strengths. When they
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say things, when they do things, when they exhibit some behavior, look for their strengths. I'll give you
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a great example. Brandy, she does a lot for us here at Order of Man. She does our podcast scheduling.
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She helps me with logistical planning and travel. She helps me keep things organized.
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She does an incredible job. Well, the reason that she started working here with us is because I
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recognize how good she is with connecting with other influential people. I recognize that. I
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acknowledge that about her. And I asked if she would help do that here. And she said, yes.
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Now her role has expanded and grown into different capacities. But the point I'm making is that you have
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to look for where people exhibit strengths and then to go back to a previous point, empower them to step
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into that. Because people are going to be happy, more satisfied, more fulfilled, more productive if
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you find out what their strengths are. And then you give them opportunities and you empower them to
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utilize their strengths. It's going to be a win-win. They're going to win because they're going to feel
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better. And they're going to be more fulfilled. You're going to win because they're going to be
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more productive. And whatever your mission is, is going to be accomplished faster or greater than
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you previously thought possible. And the people you're trying to serve are going to be better off
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because they're getting a superior product than what they could have got before if you were so worried
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about only doing it yourself. So look for people's strengths. And then as a corollary to that,
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look for opportunities in your life, your business, your family dynamic, any facet of life where you can
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start plugging these people in and letting them go, giving them the reins. You don't need to hold
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the reins and micromanage. Let them have the reins, let them go and make your course corrections along
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the way. And guys, the last one, and this is huge. This one doesn't have too much to do with people,
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but more to do with technology. You need to create systems in your life using calendars, using technology,
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using emails, whatever systems you can create. Notebooks, there's online note systems. The one
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I use a lot is Evernote. And then I also use one that's available on my phone, but use these systems
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that are available to you. If you do something and you're doing it regularly, whether it's sending out
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an email that you send the same one over and over again, or some sort of podcast or audio or video
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production, create a system, go into Word and do a point by point. Step one, step two, step three,
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step four, step five. And why do we do this? Well, number one, it's much more efficient if you have a
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system because all you have to do now is follow the system. Okay. Number two, you can begin to identify
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which elements of the system are working well and which elements of the system are not working.
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So you can experiment with new elements that are going to help that become a much more efficient
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system. Number three, as I said earlier, in empowering and training other people to replace you,
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now you can give them that system that you created and you can say, here's what I do.
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A great example, Chad, who does our audio and video editing. I mentioned him earlier.
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When he started doing that, I sent him documents and a video that showed exactly how I personally do
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the podcast editing and video production. Now he's taken that and he's tweaked, he's adjusted,
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he's made some changes to it based on his workflow, based on his knowledge and expertise. And that's
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wonderful. Again, empowering him to be able to do that and not micromanaging the situation,
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but it started from a system and he knew exactly where I was coming from. He knew exactly what I was
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looking for. And then he took it and he ran with it. Guys, create systems, use technology,
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invest in other people, invest in yourselves, invest in that technology. Whatever you invest,
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we'll come back to you over and over and over again. This is some of the ways, not all of the ways,
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but some of the ways that we become force multipliers for good in the lives of the people
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that we love and we care about. And even in the lives of the people that we're just trying to serve
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our businesses or our missions and organizations and nonprofits and everywhere else, guys, you need
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to be a force multiplier. You cannot possibly accomplish it on your own. You have to do it with
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the help of other people, other tools. And as a bonus, what I would say to you, and this has been
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true in my life, you can take it or leave it, but having God in my corner, working to learn more
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about him, learn more about the gospel. And admittedly, I haven't always been as spiritual
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as I would have liked. These are things I'm trying to figure out, but there is already a system in
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place. And knowing that he's in my corner and knowing that I can utilize a system, the gospel
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that's been created and try to implement more of that into my life has been instrumental,
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instrumental. And again, I don't want to make any qualms about it and tell you that I'm an overly
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spiritual man or that I have this thing on lock. I am personally trying to figure it out, but I'll
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tell you having that in my life has been very, very powerful. And I'm trying to find more of that as
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well. Okay. So there's a bonus for you. Maybe the greatest bonus. All right, guys, that's what I've
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got for you. You need to become a force multiplier. I hope that helps a couple of resources to do it.
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Again, the masculinity manifesto, which is our book that just came out several weeks ago. You can check
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that out wherever books are sold. And then also our battle ready program, which is at order of man.com
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slash battle ready. All right. There you go, guys. There's your marching orders. We'll be back next
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week until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be. Thank you for
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listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man
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you are meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.