Order of Man - Being a Good Man VS. Being Good at Being a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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

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

00:00:10.480 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,

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

00:00:28.740 the host and the founder of this podcast, The Order of Man and the movement. The movement that

00:00:33.860 has literally spanned the entire planet. It's my goal to give you the tools and the guidance,

00:00:38.600 direction, focus, clarity, everything that you might need to step into the roles that you are

00:00:43.480 fulfilling as a husband, father, business owner, community leader, coach, whatever facet of life

00:00:48.560 you're showing up. I want to give you everything that I can to help you and me and everybody else

00:00:52.780 who might be listening to this show, everything they need to be able to be more effective and

00:00:56.900 productive with what it is they're trying to accomplish as men. So I'm glad you're here.

00:01:00.440 I'm glad you're tuning in. If you don't already know, this is the third show that we do every

00:01:04.880 single week. We also have an interview show, which is every single Tuesday. I'm interviewing guys like

00:01:10.660 Jocko Willink, Andy Frisilla, Grant Cardone, Tim Kennedy. I mean, the list is just incredible.

00:01:16.320 We've had some amazing, amazing men on the podcast and I'm extracting their experience and their

00:01:24.740 knowledge and their information and then imparting that upon you each and every Tuesday. Then we've

00:01:29.120 got our Wednesday show, which is Kip Sorensen and I, and we field questions from members of our

00:01:35.140 Patreon page, which is patreon.com slash order of man from our Facebook group. And also from our

00:01:42.020 exclusive brotherhood, the iron council. And then, like I said, a minute ago, you've got this show,

00:01:46.380 which is your Friday field notes. You get to listen to me and my thoughts and ideas from throughout

00:01:50.900 the week. And I've got an interesting one for you today. Kind of a thoughtful one,

00:01:53.780 something for you to consider and ponder. And really what I wanted to address is some of the

00:01:58.520 differences between being a good man and being good at being a man. Now, when you hear that,

00:02:05.460 you might think, well, there's not much difference at all. And I think maybe if you're looking at it

00:02:09.140 from the surface, that may be true. But if we spend any amount of time thinking about that,

00:02:14.340 then I think it becomes evident that there is a difference and we probably ought to be striving for

00:02:20.920 both. So I'm going to talk about from my perspective, what that means. And the reason

00:02:24.840 I wanted to bring this up with you today is because I'm reading a, a really good book called

00:02:30.100 manhood in the making by David Gilmour. And this conversation in this subject was broached,

00:02:35.960 not from David Gilmour himself, but from somebody else that he studied. I'll get into that in a minute.

00:02:40.840 His name is Michael Herzfeld. I've also heard this concept from Jack Donovan. I know a lot of you

00:02:46.420 guys listening have, have heard my interviews with Jack and probably follow Jack, uh, who has some

00:02:52.420 amazing and incredible insight into what it means to be a man and how he shows up. But I thought this

00:02:58.000 was worthy of talking about and discussing the differences. But before I get too much into that,

00:03:04.420 I want to just give you some framework for what it is we're talking about. So there's a quote that

00:03:09.440 I'm going to read here. It's from the book, the poetics of manhood by Michael Herzfeld.

00:03:14.660 And what he says is in Glendiet idiom and Glendiet is the term that he uses to describe a tribe.

00:03:22.640 And I wish I could tell you where they were from right offhand, but he's studying this tribe and

00:03:26.380 studying a lot of things about this tribe, but specifically, uh, masculinity and femininity

00:03:31.020 and how men and women show up in their roles. And what he says is in Glendiet idiom, there is less

00:03:36.120 focus on being a good man than on being good at being a man, a stance that stresses performative

00:03:43.360 excellence, the ability to foreground manhood by means of deeds that strikingly speak for

00:03:49.920 themselves. So that's what he's talking about. That's what he's focused on is the difference

00:03:54.460 between quote, being a good man and quote, being good at being a man. When I think about being a

00:04:01.560 good man, I think about somebody who possesses a set of virtues, whether it's honor and character

00:04:09.020 and integrity and that has the right motives that are driving them. And certainly, certainly,

00:04:14.180 I think that's important, but I also believe in a way that this can be very subjective being a good

00:04:19.500 man. And what I've come to believe and realize is that the definitions and the words that we use

00:04:25.460 are not fixed in time. They, they change and they evolve and they are redefined over time.

00:04:32.660 And so I think this idea of being a quote, good man could potentially morph into something that

00:04:39.120 actually is not a good man at all. And that's why I think this distinction is very, very important

00:04:44.240 because who's to say what a good man is, right? Is, is a good man, somebody who protects and provides

00:04:50.520 and presides like we talk about, or is a good man, like some people would have you believe somebody

00:04:55.960 who toes the line and does what quote unquote, they're supposed to do. And I think we're indoctrinated

00:05:01.360 from a very, very early age to toe the line, to do what we're told, to sit down, to shut up,

00:05:07.240 to color within the lines and, and be good, be nice little boys. And don't tap into this idea of

00:05:13.980 masculinity that can be used to produce effective outcomes for ourselves, effective outcomes for

00:05:19.760 our families and our communities and the people that we care about. And then what's interesting to

00:05:24.400 me is that we have this whole group of people that reject this idea of masculinity. They mock

00:05:33.080 and they ridicule and they belittle and they put down and they treat it to try to redefine what

00:05:37.240 manliness and masculinity means. And then we have another subset of people and maybe even some overlap

00:05:42.000 of people who say, where have all the men gone? Is there really any surprise that when you demean

00:05:49.080 and you put down and you mock and ridicule and do all the things that I'm talking about

00:05:53.280 to little boys and you indoctrinate them into the way of society and strip away all that makes them 0.98

00:06:00.320 men, that it's going to be increasingly more difficult to find. The other challenge that we

00:06:05.880 run into is that our young boys are being raised by women. If you look at the rate of follow this 1.00

00:06:12.300 homes, it is increasing, which is unfortunate because now we have boys and girls, frankly, who are growing up

00:06:17.880 without a permanent father figure in their lives. And then when these little boys and girls get out

00:06:22.720 into school, who are they learning from? Well, they're learning from women and frankly speaking

00:06:27.160 and bless their hearts, the female teachers of the world, they cannot, and a mother cannot do this 1.00

00:06:32.640 as well, fully teach a man what it means to be a man because she has zero experience in regards to

00:06:38.860 what it means to be a man. Now, some people will fight me on this. Oh, it's not about being a man

00:06:43.940 or being a woman. It's just about being a good and decent human being. Sure. Of course,

00:06:49.320 a woman can teach a boy how to be a good and decent human being. They can instill character 0.91

00:06:54.140 and all of these other virtues that we would consider a quote unquote, good man into a boy.

00:06:59.780 But there's certain dynamics, certain ways that generally speaking, boys operate, uh, certain

00:07:06.100 levels of hormones and chemicals coursing through their veins that cause them to not only think

00:07:11.840 differently, but behave differently and learn differently as well. And so if we're asking

00:07:16.620 women to raise our boys, it's going to be a recipe for disaster because now we're asking our boys to 1.00

00:07:24.320 subdue, subdue what it is that makes them men in the first place. And women will say, Oh, we just don't 0.88

00:07:31.400 understand boys. And men will say, we don't understand women, obviously, because we don't fully know and

00:07:37.220 realize what it means to be a member of the opposite sex. And that's why it's so critical, 1.00

00:07:42.900 so critical that young boys have a permanent male influence in their young lives. So they can help

00:07:49.420 foster and usher and develop this raw masculinity that's coursing through their veins into not being

00:07:55.300 a good man, which could be defined by society, but being good at being a man. And when I hear that,

00:08:01.780 that second component, being good at being a man, I think more of not virtues necessarily,

00:08:06.820 but I think about the actions and I think about the behaviors. And if we look at what men are

00:08:12.620 traditionally supposed to do, it's to perform, it's to serve, it's to protect, provide, and preside.

00:08:20.900 I've been talking about this for four years. Can a good man do that? Sure. But it requires something

00:08:26.280 more than just to be honest and in integrity. It requires a skillset. It requires a man to develop

00:08:34.200 some toughness and some grit and some hardness. And I think the narrative that we're hearing in

00:08:40.040 society today is that we shouldn't be those things, that we should shun those things, or that somehow,

00:08:45.340 if a man possesses strength and grit and toughness, resiliency, resolve, aggression, even violence,

00:08:54.100 that maybe he's wearing a mask. But I'd have you consider that it's not a mask to be who we are.

00:09:02.100 It's a mask to pretend or to subdue who it is we are. So rather than talking about masculinity in

00:09:09.760 this negative context, I think we ought to be looking at it in a positive context. How can we

00:09:13.620 utilize the tools and the gifts and the skills and the abilities and the inherent biological makeup

00:09:18.700 inside of men to produce the kind of outcomes that we desire for men to be the types of fathers that

00:09:24.680 they need to be, for them to be the types of husbands, for them to be community leaders and

00:09:28.540 business owners and all of the things that we talk about on a daily basis. And that requires

00:09:33.280 a skillset that requires a man to go out into the world and to harden himself and to toughen himself

00:09:39.980 and to put himself in difficult and demanding situations and build up the toughness and the

00:09:45.700 resiliency to overcome the trials that he will inevitably face. And also that he will be tasked with

00:09:52.160 in emergency situations, in natural disasters and active shooters type situations. Nobody turns to

00:09:58.920 the woman. When things hit the fan, nobody turns to the woman and asks for protection, ask for shelter,

00:10:05.900 ask for guidance, ask for direction. Who do they turn to? They turn to the man. And if we can't learn

00:10:11.600 how to be good at being a man, if we haven't developed those skillsets in ourselves, there will be

00:10:17.520 nobody to turn to. And we will become weak and cowardly and pathetic and eventually trampled 0.99

00:10:24.800 under whatever that natural disaster or emergency or active shooter situation looks like. So guys, 0.99

00:10:31.060 please understand. It's very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that I just need to be a good man.

00:10:36.940 What does that even mean? Yes, you should be noble. Yes, you should be honorable. Yes, you should have

00:10:43.940 good intentions and there should be goodness and kindness in your heart. Of course, we want those

00:10:48.620 things, but we also need a society of men who are good at being a man. And what does that mean

00:10:54.380 specifically? That means that you learn how to do three things, protect, provide, and preside. So let's

00:11:01.560 break these down a little bit more. And then we'll talk about how this might fit into the context of

00:11:05.720 being good at being a man. So first one, protect. Guys, we have to be strong. We have to build up

00:11:13.840 the physical strength, the mental fortitude, the emotional resiliency in order to face these

00:11:20.500 difficult situations that we will. If you cannot take care of yourself, if you cannot lift a car

00:11:27.440 hood off of your wife in a car accident, if you cannot defend your home, if you have not fortified

00:11:35.300 your domain, how are you ever going to be able to protect yourselves and those that you're tasked

00:11:41.000 with protecting? I see these guys who are weak and they're cowardly and they're pathetic and they look 1.00

00:11:45.680 for everyone and anyone else to do what they should be doing to develop and harness the skill sets that 1.00

00:11:52.320 they should possess. Guys, go out there, learn martial arts, learn how to defend yourself, learn

00:11:58.160 situational awareness, protect your domain, protect your work environment, consider yourself the protector,

00:12:04.160 the guardian, the warrior of your space and those that you have a responsibility for.

00:12:08.440 This is part of being good at being a man is being a protector, being somebody who when things go

00:12:14.560 wrong, they look to you because they know when you've proven time in and time out that you can

00:12:20.380 be somebody who is relied upon in difficult and demanding and scary and even violent situations.

00:12:26.000 That is your job. And if you aren't doing those things, then quite frankly, you may be a good man.

00:12:33.380 You may be really nice and you may be somebody who gets along with other people like we've all been told

00:12:39.520 to do, but are you doing your job? Are you performing the way that you need to perform? And as Michael

00:12:46.960 Hertzfeld says, is it about performative excellence? I would argue that if you can't protect yourself and

00:12:52.720 other people, then no, you aren't able to do those things. So go out, enroll in a martial arts class, learn

00:13:00.620 about situational awareness, learn how to see what's going wrong, learn how to fix and treat wounds and

00:13:07.540 medical emergencies. These are all areas in which we can improve our ability to be good at being a man.

00:13:12.900 So that's number one, protect. Number two, provide guys. It's our job to provide. Now I realized that

00:13:18.820 there are family dynamics in which that doesn't always work. And there's been studies that show that

00:13:24.640 that actually can create some problems and strain in a relationship when a woman is the primary 1.00

00:13:30.480 breadwinner. Look, if that works for you, great. But what I'm telling you is that when things go wrong

00:13:35.040 and they might, she might be laid off or there might be an extenuating circumstance, or she may

00:13:40.200 get pregnant because you decide to start a family that it's all going to fall upon your shoulders to be 0.56

00:13:45.280 able to provide financially for the family. And if you don't have the skillset and you don't know how to

00:13:50.280 market yourself and you don't know how to communicate and you don't know how to sell yourself and you

00:13:54.080 haven't been able to advance your career, then you are falling short on what your job is when it

00:13:58.700 comes to being good at being a man. You are selling yourself short. And not only are you selling

00:14:02.900 yourself short, you're selling your wife short. You're selling your family short. You're selling

00:14:07.000 those you're caring for short when you don't do what you need to do. Now, outside of financial

00:14:12.380 provision, it's emotional provision. It's love and guidance and support and direction. It's teaching

00:14:19.300 and fostering healthy goals and objectives and habits in your kids. One example that I can think

00:14:24.720 of is next week, I'm taking my oldest son on a hunt. This is an opportunity for me to teach him

00:14:30.540 part of what it means to be good at being a man. When we go to church on Sunday, we talk about being

00:14:36.160 a good man. But when we go out into the field and we go on a hunt, we talk about being good at being a

00:14:41.200 man. We need both. Both are critical. So provision is not just about financial. It's about intellectual.

00:14:48.940 It's about spiritual provision. It's about emotional provision. And it's about your ability

00:14:54.100 to provide and to give and to do all the things that you need to do in order to give your kids or

00:14:59.120 your wife or your employees or employers or whoever it is that you're tasked with a leg up to get them

00:15:06.280 in a better situation because you were involved. Now, the last component of this is to preside,

00:15:11.620 preside. And when I talk about preside, I'm talking about leadership. All of us will be tasked with

00:15:17.600 being a leader at some point, whether that's in the home, whether that's a project at work or sitting

00:15:23.520 on a board of advisors for a charitable organization. Maybe you coach a team outside of the home, but you

00:15:28.560 will have an opportunity to lead and people are going to look to you. I already mentioned it before.

00:15:32.820 People are going to look to you when things go wrong. Do you possess the leadership qualities

00:15:39.440 and characteristics and skillset and track record for navigating turbulent times? One of the best

00:15:47.160 definitions I've ever heard of as a leader is that a leader is somebody who can help people get to a

00:15:54.560 place they never could have imagined going on their own. Guys, we are uniquely qualified. And I'm not

00:16:01.300 saying that women can't be leaders. Certainly. I know of plenty of women who are leaders in certain 1.00

00:16:05.980 capacities, but at the end of the day, people are going to look to the man. They always do. And they

00:16:11.720 always will. So do you have the skillset? Are you able to cast vision? Are you able to communicate

00:16:19.920 that vision? Are you able to make difficult decisions? Are you able to be decisive? Are you willing

00:16:27.220 to enable to see things through to the end? Are you willing to endure when not everybody believes

00:16:32.600 in you and people think you're doing things wrong? Are you able to move past that when there's

00:16:37.220 violent encounters and all of the things that we will face as leaders of individuals? If you don't

00:16:44.000 possess those skillsets, I would encourage you to find a way to develop those, to harness those

00:16:50.320 skillsets, put yourself in a, in a fire so that you can learn those things. Guys, it's critical that we

00:16:56.540 learn both. I want you to know that there is a distinction between being a good man, but you

00:17:02.520 know what? Being a good man, as great as it is, is not enough. It's not enough to simply be a good

00:17:10.800 man. You have to learn how to be good at being a man, to protect, to provide, to preside, to go out

00:17:18.460 and to perform, to go out and to do the things that nobody else is going to do. All the shit work 0.99

00:17:24.400 in the baggage and everything else that other people don't want to do. You have to be willing 0.98

00:17:28.780 and able and capable of doing those things when things go wrong and when things go right.

00:17:34.720 That is your job. That is my job. That is our job as men. And look, guys, you're going to get beat up

00:17:40.200 for it. People are going to say it's toxic. It's toxic masculinity, or it's a mask of masculinity,

00:17:46.320 or that you're hiding something, or that you're being too aggressive, or that it's fragile masculinity,

00:17:50.600 and all these cute little buzzwords that people like to use because they don't appreciate what

00:17:55.620 somebody, a man, looks like when he's being good at being a man until they actually need it.

00:18:02.660 That's the dichotomy here. That's the challenge here is that when things are going great,

00:18:06.540 people don't need you and they think that you pose a threat. So what do they try to do? They

00:18:11.820 try to chain you up. They try to bind you down so that you aren't a threat to them.

00:18:16.620 But when things go wrong, there's a natural disaster. There's an emergency. There's an

00:18:22.480 active shooter situation. There's some sort of tragedy or obstacle or challenge that has arisen.

00:18:30.680 It's like these people want to run over and unleash you so that you can do what you're supposed to do.

00:18:36.620 Guys, people aren't always going to appreciate us. That's okay. A man doesn't need that acknowledgement

00:18:41.840 or recognition in order for him to have a desire to be good at being a man. He knows what his job is.

00:18:46.200 He knows what his role is and his responsibility is. And not only does he know what it is,

00:18:50.820 he has a willingness to perform and he has the ability to go out and do it as well.

00:18:57.020 So that's a big, long rant for some of the differences between what being a good man is.

00:19:03.980 And on the other hand, what it means to be good at being a man. So guys, I'd encourage you to go

00:19:09.260 check out this book. Pretty interesting. It's very academic. So at times it's dry, but it's an

00:19:14.200 interesting book. It's called manhood in the making by David Gilmore. Uh, he actually goes

00:19:18.800 in depth into some of Michael Hirschfeld's work, uh, and specifically the book, the poetics of

00:19:24.000 manhood. Jack Donovan talks about this at length quite a bit as well. So those are some resources

00:19:28.940 outside of what we're doing here. Um, I'm going to try to share some more of my thoughts when it

00:19:33.840 comes to what masculinity is. I mean, I've been doing it for three and a half years, but we're going to get

00:19:37.380 deeper. We're going to get deeper into this stuff. I've been reading a lot lately on what manhood is

00:19:42.580 throughout time and cultures and history. And I'm going to share those books with you. I'm going

00:19:47.200 to give you my thoughts and my insight. And of course the insight from the greats from throughout

00:19:50.940 history. So I'm glad that you're on this journey. I'm glad that you're on this mission. I would

00:19:55.140 encourage you to go out and look at yourself, inventory yourself. Are you a good man or are you good

00:20:02.960 at being a man or are you both? Which I think is probably what we all should be striving for.

00:20:09.200 So go out there guys, share this message, get good at doing these things, perform the way that

00:20:14.080 you're supposed to perform for yourself and your family and your community and your business and

00:20:18.140 every other facet of life. Uh, I can't tell you how grateful I am that you're on this journey with

00:20:22.800 me. These, these are things that I'm working on myself. You know, I wish I could say that I'm

00:20:26.780 perfect with these things and I have it all figured out. And as much as I think I'm teaching you

00:20:30.240 about what it means to be a man, I'm, I'm talking to myself just as much as anybody else. So I'm out

00:20:35.000 there trying to do these things and I encourage you to do the same. So with that said, we'll call

00:20:40.020 it a day. We'll call it a week. I will see you next week on Tuesday. I've got a very powerful

00:20:45.200 conversation with a friend of mine. His name is Sydney Smith. He is a triathlete. He is an avid bow

00:20:52.400 hunter, and he's also a double amputee. And the guy's story is absolutely incredible. He's an

00:20:58.800 inspiring man. Uh, and he is somebody who is also working on becoming good at being a man.

00:21:04.920 I'll leave there guys. Go out, take action, become the man you are meant to be.

00:21:10.040 Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life

00:21:14.660 and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.

Order of Man - November 09, 2018

Being a Good Man VS. Being Good at Being a Man ｜ FRIDAY FIELD NOTES

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