Being Amicable with Your Ex, How Proactivity Sets You up for Success, and How You Know You're Following God's Path ｜ ASK ME ANYTHING
Episode Stats
Summary
On today's episode, the brother and sister duo of the sit down with Kip Sorensen. Kip is back from his moose hunt and talks about his hunting season and what he's up to now.
Transcript
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You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly chart your own path.
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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.
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This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become.
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At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
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Mr. Kip Sorensen, what's up, brother? Great to see you.
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Yeah, a little bit here and there. We did the moose hunt, and I actually did a podcast with Brecken on that one.
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So that was a success. Did you see the pictures on that?
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Well, and we talked about it a couple of weeks ago, how you saw a bull, I think, on day one.
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I passed it up, and then you're quiet day two, and I'm like, oh.
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Yeah. Yeah, that's hunting. So we did that, and then I was in Minnesota,
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and I went out there a little early to spend some time with my friend and get the hunt and everything
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and stands and blinds set up. And we had the chance to go pheasant hunting and duck hunting.
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Duck hunting is something I've never done before. That was a lot of fun.
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And then we did our annual whitetail hunt there in Minnesota. I was able to shoot two does.
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I was actually really proud on those does because both of them were really, really good shots.
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One of them was the best shot I ever made on a deer. And then I think the second to last day
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is one of my last sits. I had a really nice buck come in, and he was kind of trotting through a
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food plot, and I was trying to get him to stop, and he wouldn't stop. And I finally got him to stop
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right in my shooting window. I'm like, oh, perfect. So I drew back right as he was kind of
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trotting about to come into my shooting window, and I stopped him right in that window. And I aimed
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and shot, and he was a little further back than I would have liked, but I shot. And because he was
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further back, the trajectory of my arrow arched up a little bit. So it ended up hitting a branch
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and just hit that branch and skimmed off and flew over his back. And that was the only chance.
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I think it was, yeah, it was the only chance I had a buck at while I was out there. And unfortunately,
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I missed. So, but we still had a good time and the freezer is full, so we can't complain about that.
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No, especially, I'm sure that moose, like that's going to be like a couple of years of meat.
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400. I think it was like 420 pounds or something like that of meat. So it's pretty awesome. Yeah,
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So yeah, now we're just basically kind of hunting around here and checking our cameras. And
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well, obviously, you know, Brecken got a turkey because you and I were with him when he shot that
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turkey. Yeah. So it's still deer season until the end of the month. And then we're already planning
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out what we're going to hunt next year. So it's all good. Yeah. I love it, man. Love it.
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Well, should we get into some questions today? Yeah, let's do it.
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Uh, so last week we had talked about some in the iron council and we did, we're doing that again.
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Uh, we had some leftovers that I thought were pretty good questions that I felt like I wanted
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to get to. So Sean did a good job holding down the fort while you were away. I think last week,
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or maybe that was my fault. Cause I had to change the time, I think. So either way. Yeah. Anyways,
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I'm sure it was great. Let's get to it. It was great. Cause I listened to it. So
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it was great. My, my part was great. His was questionable. All right. This is from Landon
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Van Overbeek. And that's a joke, by the way. I mean, I know you guys know that's a joke,
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but Sean just does a tremendous job. All right. Yeah. Landon Van Overbeek from a battle team
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velocity. By the way, also guys, I promise I am going to get to some questions here. Uh,
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this is from the iron council. If you guys don't. So when I talk about battle teams,
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these are, uh, groups of men, uh, 10 to 15 men who are all working together on a weekly,
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even daily basis to hold each other accountable to goals and objectives. So if you're interested
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in some accountability, uh, a program, the tools, resources, then check out order of man.com slash
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iron council. And we're opening about 30 days from today. So get on the waiting list on that. All
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right. For real this time, he says, what is your opinion? Speaking of hunting on the use of
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crossbows during archery season? Do you feel it's quote unquote fair for anyone to use them?
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Should there be regulations on who IE above a certain age or disability, or do you think there
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should be a complete separate season for crossbow season? Uh, I don't, I actually don't care. I
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really don't. It's very interesting in the hunting community because you have rifle guys, you have,
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uh, muzzle loader guys, you have archery guys. And then if you want to take it even further, you can
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take, uh, traditional bows. And then you want to take it even further. You have primal bows and
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hunting, which is equipment that these guys make themselves. And then you have cross, but like,
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and, and it seems to me, everybody's like, well, you know, this is the best way to do it. If you
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were a real hunter, this, and you were a real hunter that, I don't care if you want to go out and you
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want to harvest a deer, maybe you want to take your kids out and you want to do this. I mean,
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a rifle is a great option for that because it increases your odds of being able to go out and
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harvest an animal. So that's cool. Uh, if you want to shoot a bow, I shoot a compound bow.
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If you want to do that and you like the challenge of it and the thrill of it,
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cause it is more challenging. There's no doubt about it. You have to be closer to an animal.
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Um, you have to be more precise in your shots. There's a lot more, um, I would say dynamics
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to the way that you shoot. Yeah. Smaller margin of error. Then that's cool. And, and,
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and I think you should do that. Uh, regarding a crossbow. Yeah, I, I get it. If you're disabled
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or you're injured or a lot of guys end up as they get older, they have shoulder problems. And so they
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can't draw back a traditional bow or a compound bow that is. And so they move over to a crossbow.
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So I think that's cool. Um, or even a, even a younger kid, really cool with a crossbow.
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Brecken's first hunt he did in Texas on a deer was with the crossbow and he shot a pig with a crossbow.
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Uh, but I actually don't care. I don't, I don't think it matters. Just do what you want to do.
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And if your state regulates it or doesn't regulate it and you think it's wrong or right,
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work, work with fishing game, work with DNR in your state to, to be an advocate for what you're
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looking for. But I don't think it makes it, it's not any, it's not any easier than shooting with
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a rifle. I think it's easier than shooting with a bow, but easy to me, isn't really that big of a
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deal. So just do what you want, follow the rules, do what you want and advocate for what you think
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is right. And it doesn't, I'm not going to judge that too many hunters do. Yeah.
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What I'm hearing Ryan is pick your battle. And if you want something more challenging,
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then do the thing that's more challenging. And if you don't want to do something that's challenging
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and you want to hire a success rate, then shoot with a gun and it's agnostic, right?
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I was going to say, I would actually really like to harvest an animal, whether it's a deer or a pig
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or something with a crossbow. Cause that's fun. You know, it's just another, it's another,
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it's another weapon. It's another, another skill. I see nothing wrong with it.
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Based upon your understanding, states see that as the same thing. Archery is whether it's a compound
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Not all, I don't know offhand, but if I had to make an educated guess on it,
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some states probably see that one in the same, most states probably see it as different.
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And you would have to be over a certain age or having some sort of qualified
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medical condition or disability. Yeah. If I had to, again, I don't know the rules because I've
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never really looked into it, but if I had to make an educated guess, an assumption on it,
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that's, that's what I would say. Got it. Interesting. Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm doing questions.
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You're reading the questions. Yeah. Yeah. This is actually kind of nice. I just want to sit back and
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listen. All right. So this is a bit of a long one. This one comes from Ryan O'Hare. He says,
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my 15 year old had some friends spend the night this last weekend. Several of them left at one
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point to go acquire fireworks. One kid had some stashed at his house. They came back empty handed.
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Not sure why, probably because they used them all on the way back over. And they were asking if they
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could make napalm. Having just finished fight club, that's what we're studying in the iron council this
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month. I had a myriad of thoughts racing around in my head. I ended up telling them that if we lived
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out of town and had some land, like I grew up, that we could blow some stuff up, but that I didn't want
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them blowing stuff up in our backyard with neighbors all around. I think that's reasonable. He says,
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what are some good activities that I can help facilitate that would give these boys an opportunity
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to scratch this primal male itch? Something that we won't tell the mothers, but that also won't lead
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to felonies. I'm sure I can find some land to use, but also some in-town activities would be good
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too. A potato gun came to mind because there is some engineering, chemistry, carpentry involved.
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Also be careful because those are not all legal in every place that you live. I'd love to have
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a chunk of ideas that I could help execute with other dads over time. Any ideas that could be
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covert service projects like guerrilla gardening. I don't even know what that is, but it sounds cool.
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All right. So yeah, I mean, potato gun, I would say Tannerite is awesome. If you guys have never
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used any Tannerite, which if you're not familiar and any man listening to this should be familiar
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with it, it's an explosive. And so you can go out and find some land and you can go shoot it and it
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goes boom. And it's awesome. Uh, another thing you could do is you could actually have a fight club.
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Like you could have these boys fight with some rules, uh, or, or wrestle or do jujitsu. And that
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might scratch some of that itch too. My, my oldest son, he's 14 when they were in Utah a couple of weeks
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ago, uh, went to a party and they have boxing gloves and they were just doing boxing matches at the
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party. And I saw some video of my son. Some of it looked good. Some of it did not look so good,
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but it was hilarious. And you know, yeah, bloody noses, things like that. Big deal that that's a
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way to scratch. I think that primal itch a hunting is a great opportunity to do that. Um, and then just
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exploring, just going out into the wilderness and exploring and, you know, picking up rocks and
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fishing and finding animals and throwing rocks and skipping rocks at the lake and things like this
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are such a huge, huge way to productively and in a healthy way, scratch that itch, if you will.
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Yeah. The one thing that comes to mind is being, being a little unreasonable, you know, kind of doing
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the thing that like is not safe or seems too difficult to do that you would normally not do. Right.
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That's part of what this is. And, and I can't help but think back when I was a kid, how many times I'd
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be backpacking with my brother and they would go, Hey, like we were in Narrows, you know, Narrows and
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Zions. And it's, you know, it's early evening. And my brother goes, we're middle of Zions, like these
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huge, tall cliff walls. And he goes, let's see if we can see the sun before it goes down.
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Hmm. I'm like, looking around. I'm like, I don't know if that's possible. He's like, let's try.
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And so we're scaling up some sketchy wall. You know what I mean? And it was this big challenge
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or if it's backpacking and go, let's try to get that peak. Are you serious? Yeah. Let's try it.
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Or let's go snow camping when it's negative 10 outside. This sounds crazy, right? Let's do it.
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It's, it's those adventures. It's the challenge. It's the thing they probably normally want to do
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that is kind of the itch, you know? And, and there's a lot of controlled ways to doing this,
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you know, like at first I thought make pipe bombs, but that's probably totally illegal.
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You probably shouldn't be doing that, but yeah, get a, get a black powder rifle and, and talk
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through what's happening in that black powder rifle. That's pretty awesome. Actually, if you think
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about it or create a candy cannon or whatever, you know, so there's, there's lots of ways, but it's,
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it's in this space of like, this is something that we normally want to do. It's something that
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seems extreme in their minds. There's a, let me see if I can find this.
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There's a guy on YouTube that my kids follow. I'm going to have to find out who it is.
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And he, the guy used to work for NASA. And so he's, he's, he's brilliant. He, I think he's an
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engineer or, or some scientist or something. I don't have to find his, his name, but he makes
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all kinds of cool stuff on, on YouTube and like projects. And some of them are explosives and
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something like, it's really cool. So I'll have to find that guy's name. I'll shoot, I'll shoot them a
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message while we're, while we're talking today and see if I can find it before the end of this podcast.
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Cool. All right, cool. Um, let's go to, this one comes from Rick Vernick. He says as a quality
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manager in aerospace dealing with the quote, post COVID world has its challenges. People are leaving
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the industry in droves and we are slow to hire and retain. This leaves me to take on more and more
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people's jobs in my role. I'm going to put a pause on that. And I'm going to say something that Jocko
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would approve of good. Cause I already know, I think this is being framed as something negative.
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And I think there's a frame where this is positive, but let's keep going while I believe
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in extreme ownership and doing the best job possible. My management calls out the few things
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I can't get done versus all the ones that I do in a given week. So I would be proactive on that.
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We'll talk a little bit more about that versus reactive. I'm feeling on a downward spiral and out of
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control. There are very little resources to offload to, and the deadlines are starting to come and go.
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It's beginning to really affect my life outside of work and unsure how to handle it. I'm hard work
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and responsible, but feel I'll be a scapegoat. Nonetheless, you might, that's why we're going
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to talk about proactiveness. Where do I draw the line between an extreme ownership and letting go as
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my plate is beyond full more than one manager slash man can handle. Thanks for all you do.
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Okay. So the reason I brought up being proactive is if you're going to leave it to your managers
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to critique your work, they're going to critique your work. That's what they're going to do. And
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that's what, isn't that what you do as a man? Like when things are moving along, what do we look for?
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Well, we look for the problems first. We always do, whether it's your relationship or the way that
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your wife is doing something or the way your kids are doing their chores or the way they're talking to you
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and your wife, like this is what we do. We always look for the problem first. So why would it be any
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different with an employer? So what I would suggest to you is that instead of being reactionary and
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waiting for your employer to come and say, Hey, now look, I gave you all this, these projects and you're
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not getting it done. You get out ahead of it. So what does that look like? Well, I would make a list of all of
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the projects that you're working on. And I would, I would prioritize them. Hey, here's the 10 big
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projects that we have. Here's what I think is important. And then I would go to your direct
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supervisor. And I would say, look, here's the 10 that you've tasked me and our team with.
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This is the priority as I see it, but I don't, I don't have the luxury of seeing the entire picture.
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So is this correct or is this not correct? Now, what you do is once that manager gives you a
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priority based on the way that he sees it, you have to manage expectations because that might
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not be happening right now. And so their expectation is, Hey, I got you everything.
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What's the problem? Well, the problem is they're not seeing it the way that you see it and you're
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not seeing it the way they see it. So how do we manage expectations? Look at the priority and say,
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if you're my manager, Kip, I'd say, great. I really appreciate. Sounds like pretty much on the
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same page with a couple of little tweaks. Do you mind if I come back to you in the next two days
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by Wednesday and give you a timetable and an expectation that you can have of me and my
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department? I just want to make sure that we're managing expectations, that we're hitting what
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you need to have hit, but that we're also being very reasonable in, in what we can expect in getting
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all of this done. And of course, I think, you know, if you're a reasonable person, you're going to
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say, yeah, sure. Wednesday. So now you come back Wednesday that gives you time to think about it,
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that disengages you from the situation. So you're not reacting or responding emotionally,
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like you might be tempted to. And you come back to your manager and you say, now, look,
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we've got these 10 projects. Here's the priority. I feel like in the next 30 days, we can get these
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three things done. I really do. I think the next three are probably going to take 60 days. I think
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the next three are probably not even feasible this quarter based on X, Y, and Z. But if we had
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X, Y, and Z, then we could bump these up and we could probably get these things done.
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Can we have access to these resources? That might be more people. It might mean a tool or an investment.
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And the manager is going to say, no, you can't have that. And you're going to say, well, then
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look, I understand we're in tight times and weird times and bringing people on. I'm just telling you
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without the team, it's just not going to happen. That is a much better approach than just sitting
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back, waiting for the hammer to fall and hoping you don't become the scapegoat of all these
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projects. Now you're out ahead of it. You're being proactive. You're showing initiative.
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That's a really, really positive way to look at it. And plus, you're going to feel good because
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you're moving the needle and you're being assertive like a man is. So that's what I would suggest.
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Stop being a reactionary. Stop waiting for the world to happen to you. And you go exert yourself
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and do this in a positive way that serves your upline management.
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The only thing I'm going to just add a little extra value here is focus on what you need to do
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to establish trust as well. It is quite amazing what freedoms and what success and accelerated
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progress you'll make when there's strong trust between you and quote-unquote your manager.
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And I think you need to own that. And so look for areas to establish trust. That's primarily three
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ways, by the way. Overcommunication of how are things going? How are things progressing
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throughout that entire process that kind of Ryan's talking about?
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The second is you have to be consistent, like wicked consistent. So you can't do this. Oh,
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here's my priority. Here's my updates. And you do it for like a week. And then you stop doing it
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because you don't think it's going to be valuable. Now you're untrustworthy. And I know that sounds
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extreme, but you're inconsistent. So now I don't know what to expect of you. So you have to be wicked
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consistent on your communication and how you show up. And then third, establish a relationship.
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That way, the stronger my relationship is with my employer or the stronger relationship I have with
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Ryan, the higher probability is that we're going to trust one another because he understands my
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character and my competence. And it's genuine, right? If we genuinely have a strong relationship,
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I'm showing up from the perspective of, Hey, I know that you're doing whatever's possible to make
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this work and don't rely on just these communications. So be consistent, overly communicate and make
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sure you have established relationship. That's going to help along with everything that Ryan just
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said. Awesome. Cool. Very good. I was listening. I was just trying to pull up that name because I
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told you guys I would pull up that name, that YouTube guy. So very cool. All right, let's go to
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Chase Kimball. He says, Ryan, in your separation with your wife, did you encounter a lot of negative
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comments and lack of support from your family and friends? I'm in the middle of a divorce with my
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wife and it's amicable. We have decided that we work better as friends without getting too much into
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detail, but it seems that people around us are causing more drama than the two of us are. My wife and
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I are happier with how our relationship is going and get along very well. I've been trying to distance
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myself from everyone's projections, but find it hard not to do anything about it. I feel stuck in
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how little I can react to the comments. How should I go about talking to these individuals,
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especially the family members? Okay. So, all right, there's a lot to this. I don't know who
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the family members are. If they're her family members, there's probably not a whole lot that you
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can do. I don't understand all the ramifications of your dynamic, but it's not like you can go to her
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parents and say, Hey, stop thinking or talking ill of me. It's just the reality. If it's your family
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members, I think you probably should go to your family members and say, Hey, look, I know my wife
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and I are going through a challenging time and we're, we're divorcing. And this is hard on everybody,
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the kids, us, it's hard on everyone. And one of my boundaries though, is that you're not going to
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speak ill of her, even in the midst of what's going on. You're not going to speak ill of her.
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And also you shouldn't speak ill of her to your family members. Cause then you're giving them
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permission to do the same and especially around your kids. So make sure that what you expect of
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your family members is the same expectation that you have of her. And when your family members start
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to talk and they're probably, if it is your family members, they're probably doing it for the right
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reason because they love you and they want to protect you. But you need to tell them, Hey,
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I want to have a working relationship with my ex-wife. I still have feelings for her in some
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capacity. I still care about her. And she's still the mother of my children. And we're going to have
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a healthy relationship and you're not going to undermine that. That's a boundary that I have.
00:22:35.340
And then you put your foot down on that. Now I would also talk with her. I would sit down. It sounds
00:22:42.140
like you guys are amicable and I would sit down with her and I would say, Hey, listen, you and I are
00:22:47.980
amicable. We're working on this. It sounds like this is going to be a better solution.
00:22:52.340
I have some concerns and my concerns are, is that there's some negative talking about me.
00:23:01.760
And I would ask that you stand up for me in those situations. You know, you don't have to,
00:23:07.720
you don't have to throw yourself under the bus, you know, but that you, that you shut that down
00:23:13.400
because it's important to me, especially as it relates to our kids. I could care less what your
00:23:18.180
family thinks of me, but it's important for our kids. And I don't want the relationship with our
00:23:23.080
children to be undermined. And so it'd be really important for me if you would be willing to do
00:23:28.000
that. And I want you to know that I will never speak ill of you. That if my family members or
00:23:34.640
friends are speaking ill of you, that I will defend you, that I will shut that down because it's also
00:23:41.360
important to me that I lift you up, especially in the eyes of our children. It's, it's just
00:23:48.400
communication. That's all it is. It's communication. And you can't probably communicate with her family
00:23:54.460
members the way that you can with yours. So you need to ask her to do that. And if you're amicable,
00:23:58.920
like it sounds like you are, then you have a good working relationship. I would actually think
00:24:03.640
she'd want to do that as long as you frame it in the right way.
00:24:11.660
Just the biggest thing is, I know it's a cliche and it's a cliche because it's, it's real.
00:24:17.720
It's like, I think Gandhi said it is be the change that you want to see in the world.
00:24:21.440
Right? So if, and I think this goes for a lot of men who are in separations and divorces,
00:24:27.060
especially the ones that are nasty. Like I understand there's frustration. I
00:24:33.460
understand there's anger. I understand there's probably a lot of questions about what is
00:24:38.260
happening. I know that it might seem unfair and all of that might be true. And so what,
00:24:45.780
what, what, what road do you want to take? Do you want, even though all of that might be true,
00:24:51.820
do you want to be angry and bitter and contentious and hostile towards each other,
00:24:58.340
especially if there's kids involved? Like, do you really want that?
00:25:03.280
Yeah. What will that give you? What will that give you? What will it give her? What will it give
00:25:07.340
your kids? Like, what is the, what is the end result? Misery for everybody.
00:25:12.680
Yeah. And you might say, well, you don't know. Cause my wife's a bitch. I don't,
00:25:16.060
you're right. I don't, maybe she is. And maybe you are too though.
00:25:20.420
And maybe you can begin to change and you can decide, you know what? Yeah, I'm angry and I'm
00:25:30.120
frustrated, but also I want to have a working relationship with this woman because our kids
00:25:37.520
are involved because I still do care about her because I want her to be happy. And so you put
00:25:42.860
your ego away and you put your pride away. I'm not saying you have to be a simp or a beta or any of
00:25:48.080
that kind of stuff. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, if you want to see that change
00:25:52.320
in her, then that's got to start with you. And it probably won't happen overnight because she
00:25:59.200
probably won't believe you because she doesn't trust you. That goes back to what you were saying
00:26:04.860
earlier. So if all of a sudden you do a complete 180 in your personality, she's going to think,
00:26:09.400
what's this guy's angle? What's he, what's he angling for? What's he jockeying for here right now?
00:26:13.520
But if you do it for days, months, years, all of a sudden it's like, oh, okay. Let me,
00:26:20.800
let me take a brick off the wall. The wall that she's put up between you and her to protect
00:26:27.040
herself. That's why she's done that. I don't, I don't think it's, I mean, yeah, there are some
00:26:33.240
vindictive women out there just like there are men, but I think for the most part, it's a wall
00:26:38.780
they've put up to protect themselves. It may not be appropriate, but that's what they feel like.
00:26:44.340
And you can begin to help her take those bricks down from the wall. If you act appropriately.
00:26:49.580
Anyways, that's my thought. I keep looking at you. We're still going on me.
00:26:55.840
Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt,
00:26:59.060
there we go. No, Matt. Holy cow. Matt Mattucci is how I would say that. There we go.
00:27:03.580
So in Bedros's new podcast, he talks about the difference between struggle and discomfort.
00:27:10.900
The differences are very well defined, but I am struggling to understand how to be uncomfortable
00:27:16.580
in situations instead of struggling. So in a difficult circumstance, how do you prepare to
00:27:22.840
be uncomfortable and not struggling? I will update this comment when I find an example and he hasn't
00:27:29.200
updated the comment. So, uh, all right. So the difference, I don't, I don't know Bedros's
00:27:35.900
definition, but the way that I look at it is if you're drowning in an, in the ocean and you,
00:27:42.760
and you've got the waves and the tide and you're like flailing around, you're struggling and it's
00:27:47.540
unnecessary. But if you had a life preserver, it would still be challenging. Or if you knew how to
00:27:55.700
tread water, or if you knew how to swim, it would still be a difficult, challenging circumstance,
00:28:01.180
but you wouldn't be struggling and, and it wouldn't be unnecessary in your head. That's what it is.
00:28:07.520
Right. Okay. So the way that I would suggest that you get good with being uncomfortable versus
00:28:16.200
struggling is having the tools and the skillset to deal with whatever you might encounter.
00:28:25.520
So I'm trying to think of an example now too. If your friend says, Hey, let's go run a marathon.
00:28:33.140
You're really going to struggle. If you've never run more than five or six miles, you're,
00:28:38.460
you're going to struggle and you might actually hurt yourself.
00:28:40.920
If however you decide that, Hey, you know what? Hey, thanks for the invite for the marathon.
00:28:47.680
I'm not going to run it with you next week, but in January, if there's one, I can commit to that.
00:28:55.160
And now you go get yourself uncomfortable. I'm going to run. I'm going to study. I'm going to
00:29:00.980
research. I'm going to look at the proper way to run, how to strike, where to strike on the ball of
00:29:05.880
my foot versus my heel. I'm going to practice. I'm going to get the right shoes. I'm going to,
00:29:10.060
I'm going to hydrate myself. Well, I'm going to fuel myself correctly. And all of that is going
00:29:14.440
to be really uncomfortable because I'm not used to it. And then that way, when we go run the marathon,
00:29:18.900
I'll be in a pretty good spot to be able to complete that without putting myself in unnecessary
00:29:23.740
risk. This is interesting. Yeah. Well, I mean, I, what's the objective of this question?
00:29:31.780
I don't, I don't know. I mean, is it to just make sure that I'm not struggling and, and, and I,
00:29:40.260
I understand the distinction between the two. One, one scenario that came to mind is I'll give you an
00:29:47.120
example because we have to do it at least once. Right. So from a jujitsu perspective, if I don't
00:29:54.220
know what I'm doing on the mat and I show up at a gym and someone's going all out, I I'm getting
00:30:01.420
destroyed. I'm struggling, right? There's a lack of competence. That's part of my training. And I'm
00:30:07.300
just, I'm flailing, right? Like I'm, I'm just trying to survive and it's a mess. That's, that's one
00:30:14.900
distinction. The second distinction is I have been training for a while and I'm putting myself in bad
00:30:21.920
positions, but I'm uncomfortable and I'm choosing to be uncomfortable, but I know that I'm safe. I
00:30:30.660
know that I'll be okay. Like there's some confidence in how I'm showing up. You know, the, the other
00:30:36.660
analogy that came to mind is like, you know, if I were squatting, right? So let, let's say I was going
00:30:43.420
to squat 500 pounds, right? That's a struggle. I'm probably going to get hurt. I'm going to, my form is
00:30:48.900
going to go bad and some bad might happen. Uncomfortable would be me putting 200, maybe 150
00:30:55.820
on the squat rack and doing it for 40 reps. Highly uncomfortable. My legs are burning. I want to quit,
00:31:04.300
but where, where's the struggle? It's a mental struggle, not that of a physical one. And so I think
00:31:11.840
that, I think maybe I'm just coming around and saying it a different way. It's like, there's a level
00:31:16.200
of, of preparation and, and confidence that comes with avoiding struggles in life. But then I can't
00:31:26.100
help, but think of Goggins and you say, well, Goggins, you doing some crazy pushup challenge or
00:31:31.000
running a hundred miles. Was that a struggle or, or is that just your mind being uncomfortable? And his
00:31:35.960
response was my body could have gone more and it was just in my head. And my body is capable of so
00:31:44.520
much more than I actually gave it credit for. So maybe there's just us coming to the realization
00:31:49.200
and not mentally quitting and thinking that it's a struggle when reality, it's just uncomfortable
00:31:54.780
and we're capable of so much more and believing in that. And then making sure that we have some
00:31:59.840
skill and confidence to bypass the struggles that might show up in life.
00:32:04.320
As you're saying this, I'm just trying to make this more simplified. Here's, here's what I would say.
00:32:09.360
And we can flesh this out a little bit, but I think using these definitions, struggle would be,
00:32:15.920
you would be in harm's way. You'd be at the risk of, of, of bodily or psychological injury.
00:32:26.940
So I'm trying to think of another struggle. Maybe it's addiction or relationship issues.
00:32:33.200
And it might be uncomfortable what you're trying to do, how you're trying to improve your life,
00:32:38.420
or you might be struggling so hard that you're contemplating suicide. Okay. That is not healthy.
00:32:45.780
Like you need to get help. You need to figure it out. You're struggling unnecessarily. And now you're
00:32:52.000
in danger psychologically or physically you're in danger. That's a problem. Okay. Versus discomfort.
00:33:01.420
I think discomfort leads to action because when you're uncomfortable, you don't want to be
00:33:08.240
uncomfortable. So you could, you could go one of two ways. You could get yourself out of the
00:33:11.640
environment. And if it's just a little discomfort, but the, what you're doing is good for you,
00:33:17.140
then you should not get yourself out of the environment. You should stay there, stay there
00:33:19.880
and learn to deal with it. If it is dangerous, then get yourself out of that environment.
00:33:23.340
Or you can actually take action to improve yourself. So I know like in, in this, this happens
00:33:32.780
a lot in spirituality. I hear people pray sometimes or, or their conversations with God and they'll
00:33:37.740
say, God, please, you know, lighten this load. Please like take this from me. I can't deal with this.
00:33:42.540
And I understand that I've prayed for things like that, but I think the better prayer is
00:33:49.200
help me find the strength to be capable of dealing with this. Like make, make me stronger,
00:33:59.440
put me in situations that are going to fortify me where I can be a better man than I was before,
00:34:06.540
not by lightening my load, but making me more capable of handling even greater challenges and
00:34:12.720
strife and adversity. And that's, I think what we want as men not to run away from, to use your
00:34:19.780
barbell analogy, not to put two plates on, but to figure out how you can be capable of putting three
00:34:25.760
plates on next time. And so that's what discomfort does. It drives you to action, hopefully productive
00:34:33.900
action. Struggle is unnecessary and could be dangerous. And maybe the value of this distinction
00:34:41.040
is to make sure that we don't put ourselves in a position of struggle and, and knowing when to draw
00:34:47.040
that line. Is that maybe the intent? Sure. Yeah, it could be, but again, I don't know Bedros is
00:34:53.680
framing because they're just words. Yeah. Somebody else could hear this and say, well, you know,
00:34:58.220
struggle to me means X, Y, and Z. Well, okay. Like it's the concept that we're after, not the word that
00:35:03.720
we choose to use. Yeah. All right. Let's drive on here. Oh, by the way, I figured out that guy,
00:35:10.640
I sent a message to my kids and I figured it out. Your kids actually text you back.
00:35:18.980
She texted me back. Does that not happen to you? No, only if they initiate the text.
00:35:24.940
Okay. Well, they don't love me. They texted me back. They must not. All right. So the guy's name
00:35:28.620
is Mark Rober. So it's, um, R O B E R his 22.8 million subscribers on YouTube. Uh, so I'm just
00:35:37.720
8 million subscribers. That's why that's awesome. So I can't remember who asked the question, but
00:35:43.880
he's got some great stuff. So the one I'm just looking through a few here, he just, he created
00:35:48.740
a squirrel maze. So this to the squirrel to get to food, he has to actually go through this maze.
00:35:54.660
That was cool. Beating five scam arcade games with science. And he's got the thumbnail is like this
00:36:00.940
hydraulic fist or something on his arm and he's punching a punching bag with it. Uh, a secret
00:36:09.120
hiding office or a secret hiding room behind a fake office. Uh, the world's largest t-shirt cannon
00:36:16.500
and exploding glitter bomb, which is hilarious because these people will, you know, those people,
00:36:22.760
especially during Christmas, they'll steal packages and off your front porch. Well, he
00:36:29.020
would put, he would put packages on his porch, but have this exploding glitter bomb. So when
00:36:35.060
people steal it, they'd get in their car and they'd open it up and it would do a fart spray
00:36:39.460
and a glitter bomb and just destroy their car. Hilarious. Uh, awesome. So yeah, world's tallest
00:36:48.800
elephant toothpaste volcano. He's got some really cool stuff is all I'm saying. So there might be
00:36:54.280
some ideas. Yeah. That's funny. All right, man. Let's move back to the iron council questions,
00:37:00.020
but we're to your questions. Now. Uh, I went through all the questions we had from last week
00:37:04.460
that we didn't get to. All right. Sounds good. All right. Greg Ray with today's economy and housing
00:37:09.620
interest rates. What are your thoughts on buying now and refinancing after rates go down or wait for
00:37:15.100
things to turn around? We have a house that we'd go on market, which could be tough to sell because
00:37:20.020
of the economy. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, personally, I wouldn't buy a house right now
00:37:24.380
just because of inflated market prices. I think we're, we're kind of seeing the top of it. And
00:37:30.000
some of those pricing is coming down. The market's easing a little bit. So I don't know that I would
00:37:34.520
buy a house right now. I was talking with a real estate agent a couple of days ago, his son's on
00:37:38.280
my son's football team. And we were talking about it and he was saying interest rates are
00:37:42.700
seven plus percent. I'm like, Oh my goodness. I mean, you're talking about refinancing. What
00:37:47.240
I don't, unless you know something, I don't know what, how are you going to refinance to something
00:37:51.540
more advantageous than what you currently have? I don't know what your current rate is, but
00:37:56.220
I think what he's saying is buy houses now while they're cheap and interest rates are high
00:38:00.820
and then refinance, like hopefully in five years when interest rates drop back down. So take advantage
00:38:06.600
of the housing. Is housing cheap right now? I don't think so yet. I think it might
00:38:12.260
end up doing that, but I don't think, I think it's still inflated. So, I mean, that might
00:38:18.520
be what he, what he mean or Greg means, but I don't, I haven't found anywhere that the pricing
00:38:23.700
is, is favorable for a buyer. That's for sure. For a seller. Sure. And a lot of people are
00:38:29.900
tempted in markets like these to sell, which is fine. You know, you could, you could pull
00:38:34.000
a lot of equity out of your place and make a nice little profit on a, on a property that
00:38:37.920
you may have, but just remember you have to replace it if you're living there.
00:38:40.700
Yeah. So you might be selling inflated, but then you have to go buy inflated. So if it
00:38:46.960
were me in this situation, ideally I would potentially sell a property and move into
00:38:53.980
another one that I already owned until the market became more favorable. And then I would
00:38:59.340
scoop up properties with all of the proceeds that I made from that big sale on the property
00:39:04.140
that I have that I sold. I think a lot of the times we game this, like we, people game
00:39:10.400
finances so often. It's like, well, you know, here's what I hear a lot. Well, I'm going to
00:39:16.180
buy this, this new vehicle because I get better gas mileage with it. And so it'll, it makes
00:39:22.640
sense. Okay. No, that's not what you did. What you did is you wanted a new vehicle because
00:39:32.100
it's, it was an emotional decision. And then you backfilled your emotional decision with
00:39:38.360
faulty logic. So if we were to go through the actual numbers, you'd have to drive like 200,000
00:39:46.700
miles a year for you to recoup the cost in fuel efficiency. Now, some people can do that. I've
00:39:54.420
got friends who are on the road a lot and where you look at the numbers and that actually makes
00:39:59.920
sense, but that's the exception. That's not the rule. So let's just make sure we're all
00:40:05.020
making smart decisions, logical decisions, not emotional decisions backfilled with faulty
00:40:12.360
logic that happens a lot. And I'm not saying Greg is, I think that was Greg. I'm not
00:40:16.660
saying Greg's doing that. I'm just saying, be cautious of doing that because that's a trap
00:40:20.140
we fall into quite often. All right. Drew Sains, in regards to a service-based business
00:40:25.920
and you're a service provider, how do you build in margin? In my case, I'm revamping my business
00:40:31.720
and aren't at a level to bring on support for client delivery and want to ensure my numbers
00:40:36.860
are solid when I get to that point. Full capacity, not in a full capacity though, was a comment that
00:40:44.880
he made. I think you're probably better to answer this question, but here is one thing
00:40:50.160
I would say. I would test. Personally, I would test. I would see what the market was willing
00:40:56.960
to pay. So you increase your prices over time and see where the threshold is. Does that make
00:41:06.100
So maybe you start a little lower than you would think. And where do you start? Well, I think
00:41:09.280
you look at industry competitors, you look at what other people are charging. You look
00:41:14.820
at for similar products, maybe not in the same space, but similar, what people are willing
00:41:19.480
to pay for. And you look at ways to add additional value that isn't real cost intensive for you.
00:41:26.660
Like the Iron Council, we're putting together courses and programs and making courses available.
00:41:31.600
That's not going to be real cost heavy for us, but it's immensely valuable for Iron Council
00:41:37.260
members. So the, the, the investment of being an Iron Council begins to make more and more and more
00:41:43.880
sense. But I would test is kind of what I would say and increase prices over time. And you'll figure
00:41:50.480
out where that threshold is. Yeah. Most service-based businesses, right? We're talking typically probably
00:41:56.720
time and materials, right? And so your margins obviously come down to the cost of resources and all
00:42:04.580
the support versus what you charge, right? From a rate perspective. So obviously test the market,
00:42:11.860
see if your rates are right. The other part of this is focus on intellectual property, right?
00:42:16.460
And it's interesting because if I provide service XYZ and I start getting really good at it, well,
00:42:24.580
then I get more efficient at it. And on a time and materials, I'm charging less, right? Something that
00:42:30.420
took me 10 hours now takes me five, but yet I'm not recouping and charging for the experience and
00:42:36.860
the know-how that allows me to get it done in five, right? So look for opportunities to make that
00:42:43.600
IP or intellectual property where it's like, okay, well, instead of doing XYZ service, we're going to
00:42:48.920
package that up. And now that's a fixed bid or a fixed price solution we provide. And now we get it
00:42:55.680
done in two hours because we have all the documents and the templates and everything that allows us to
00:43:00.340
be highly efficient. And now our margins get higher and higher, right? So, and there's a balance
00:43:06.780
there, but look for fixed price, intellectual property packaged kind of products where you get
00:43:12.940
the benefit of being more efficient versus charging the time and materials. And then the other thing I
00:43:18.960
would focus on is I worked for a consulting firm back in the day and we were primarily just a project
00:43:25.320
based service provider. And the problem with projects is it just ebbs and flows, right? It's
00:43:31.780
just like, we're swamped, we're light, we're swamped, and it's just inconsistent cashflow. And during that
00:43:39.380
time, we focused on having a reoccurring service that we offered on a monthly basis and then locked in
00:43:47.040
clients into like a six month contract. And by doing that contract, they would get our professional
00:43:53.080
services at a discounted rate. So I'll give you an example. Ryan comes to me and says, Hey, Kip,
00:43:57.920
we need your team to do X, Y, Z. I'd be like, awesome. We'll do that project. However, Ryan,
00:44:02.600
if you have a service contract with us already in place, you get our professional services team at a
00:44:08.820
discounted rate. Do you want to sign up for a support contract first for six months? And he goes,
00:44:14.100
yeah, for sure. So now we have reoccurring flow of cash for six months from Ryan. He gets a discount
00:44:20.200
on the project. And then we're also staying involved with that client. So we have constant
00:44:25.660
communication. So that way, next time Ryan needs help, he hasn't forgotten about us. Why? Because
00:44:30.620
we're servicing and helping him on a monthly basis. So now we're almost like foot in the door for all
00:44:35.880
future work. Yeah. I mean, the monthly, the monthly retainer or monthly subscription or whatever you
00:44:41.680
want to, is a, is a great, again, iron council, same way, monthly, monthly basis. I have a baseline
00:44:47.760
revenue. And then we have other ancillary products and offerings that are available,
00:44:52.120
but that's, that's a healthy baseline revenue. You know, as you were talking about this I was
00:44:57.860
reminded of a story I heard once and I just pulled it up because I didn't want to butcher it. And it's
00:45:02.000
called, you can call it whatever you want, ship repairman story. So, so here it is. A giant ship's
00:45:07.820
engine failed. The ship owners tried one professional after another, but none of them could
00:45:12.380
figure out how to fix the broken engine. Then they bought, brought in a man who had been fixing
00:45:17.060
ship since he was young. He carried a large bag of tools with him. And when he arrived immediately,
00:45:21.560
he went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom. Two of the ship's
00:45:26.280
owners were watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over the
00:45:30.820
old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something instantly.
00:45:35.540
The engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away and the engine was fixed.
00:45:40.220
A week later, the owners received an invoice from the old man for $10,000.
00:45:43.680
What? The owners exclaimed. He hardly did anything. So they wrote the man,
00:45:48.620
please send us an itemized invoice. The man sent an invoice that read tapping with a hammer,
00:45:55.420
$2, knowing where to tap $9,998. Effort is important, but experience and knowing where to
00:46:03.080
direct that effort makes all the difference. Guys, the reason I read that story to you is I don't ever
00:46:08.320
want you to discount your expertise. And that's what we're tempted to do is just because I spent
00:46:13.940
10 minutes tapping with his hammer doesn't mean that I get to discount because it costs me a lot
00:46:20.000
of time, energy, resources, and money. There's another thing that you need to know about abundance.
00:46:24.840
And this is very, very important. I'm going to use from the Iron Council. And we're pretty
00:46:29.000
transparent with the way that we make money and revenue and all this kind of stuff.
00:46:34.500
And if you actually want it, people like calculate it and they send it to me. They're like,
00:46:39.660
I can't believe you're making this much money. Here's the interesting thing about what we do
00:46:44.220
is that it doesn't cost me any, a little bit, but it's not proportionate. It doesn't cost me much
00:46:52.380
more to have 100 members than it costs to have 10 members, a little bit more, but not directly
00:46:59.720
proportionate. Okay. So because that's the case, people will say, well, then you should charge less.
00:47:07.080
Why should I charge less? It doesn't matter if I have 10 people or 10,000, it's still the same
00:47:14.220
value to that one individual. And it really doesn't matter what my cost is relative to what that
00:47:22.640
one individual is getting. So be careful because there's a lot of loser mentality out there.
00:47:27.960
There's a lot of poverty mentality that will say, well, you know, 10,000 times $90 a month.
00:47:34.680
Here's how much you're making. Okay. Yes. Technically that's right, but I don't need to discount
00:47:40.500
because I have 10,000 versus 10 and all the time, the energy, the experience, and people will say,
00:47:48.520
well, I could do that. Then do it. If you can do that, then you go do it, but don't let other people
00:47:55.640
discount what it's taken you to get there. I have people say all the time, things like,
00:48:00.120
well, you know, I wish I could dink around on Facebook all day. You can, you can do that.
00:48:04.920
You 100% can do that. And if you think that's what I'm doing, then I would encourage you to do that
00:48:10.540
and make all the wealth and abundance of prosperity and helping other people that we are here.
00:48:14.920
And I'm not even saying that, Sarkat, I'll help you. I will tell you what to do,
00:48:19.160
but there's a lot more that you don't see. So don't ever discount your services. And I'm not
00:48:26.420
saying physically discount. I'm saying, don't ever overlook the value that you offer.
00:48:31.740
I working for myself for over 15 years, I can't count how many times I was like,
00:48:38.500
there's no way the client's going to pay this much, right? There's no way. And in hindsight,
00:48:43.700
I laugh at what those rates were and what I actually thought was too expensive. Like I never
00:48:51.800
overpriced myself ever. It's usually always the opposite to your point. And there's a big difference
00:48:57.540
between a relationship with a client that's willing to pay your premiums versus a client that is
00:49:04.700
stingy and working from a scarcity mentality. Those are the worst clients.
00:49:13.700
Yeah. The project is less efficient. We will not get done as fast. They constantly push back.
00:49:21.940
They become red tape in the process. They generate huge inefficiency, right? Like no joke. It's like
00:49:28.220
a red flag for me when I hear a client go, oh man, your guys' rates are too high. Could we discount?
00:49:32.480
I'm like, you're not our client, right? Like we need the client that says, hey, we're willing to pay
00:49:39.000
whatever necessary at the high rate to get the best services possible. I don't want the client,
00:49:43.460
that goes, let us micromanage you through this entire process so we can reduce the cost as much
00:49:48.180
as possible. They actually will double the timeline of what it will take to actually complete a project
00:49:53.200
because of the lack of trust and the scarcity that they have.
00:49:57.460
Well, not to mention, you know, if you could take on one client and make, you know, five times the
00:50:05.080
amount. So you're losing money, but it's not just money. It's your, your time. You know, if I could
00:50:13.460
work with one client and make out here, here's how it's it. I would rather work with one client and
00:50:19.220
make $10,000 than five clients and make 2000 on each of them. Like that's just, I mean, that's just
00:50:26.280
common sense. Now there is a risk to that. And the risk is you lose the one client.
00:50:29.580
Yeah. So there is that risk, but that's why you go pick up five or 10 clients at 10,000 and not 50
00:50:36.780
at, you know, 2000, whatever the math is there. Yeah. Boy. All right. Ryan, uh, Umagat, Umagat,
00:50:46.340
sorry, Ryan from an, from a man of faith perspective, when at a crossroads or faced with a tough decision,
00:50:53.660
how do you know you are listening and following God's path and plan as opposed to acting out on
00:50:59.460
your own emotions or even out in direction or direct rebellion to God's plan? It can be hard
00:51:05.820
to discern God's voice from our own desires. And God may even remain silent on purpose from time to
00:51:11.260
time. I would say that if you are only reaching out to God, when you need something, it's going to
00:51:20.480
be more likely that you're doing life on your own. If you're only asking, then how do you know?
00:51:28.980
You don't know him. So imagine this, imagine, um, imagine a stranger that you have an interaction
00:51:39.560
with. Maybe it's a prospect or a new client or, you know, a waitress at the, uh, excuse me. I can't say
00:51:47.840
waitress, a server at the, at the restaurant. You have an interaction with somebody you don't know.
00:51:54.620
And that person is behaving a certain way and you're interpreting that behavior. That's what we
00:52:00.800
do. And you think, man, that person's a real jerk. Okay. Now let's take the same scenario. And that
00:52:07.980
server is your wife and you guys are struggling financially because you just got laid off
00:52:15.800
and she just had a miscarriage and she's at work trying to make ends meet knowing that she just
00:52:24.900
lost her baby. Are you going to say she's a jerk? Her behavior might look the same from a casual
00:52:32.240
outside observer, but are you going to think the same thing? No, of course not. Cause you understand
00:52:37.960
the context of what's happening. And if anything, you're going to be more gracious. Maybe you leave a
00:52:44.100
larger tip. Maybe you're kinder than you would normally be. Right? So you, because you know that
00:52:50.000
person. And so I would say the same thing with this question about God, if you're only going and God's a
00:52:57.100
stranger to you, then odds are you're misinterpreting his message or his lesson. But if you know him
00:53:08.680
and you pray to him and you read scripture and you go to church and you're around other people who are
00:53:16.420
intimately familiar with God and he's an integral part of your life, then when these challenging and
00:53:23.420
difficult circumstances arise, you lean on your knowledge of him, then it's probably more likely
00:53:31.600
that you're following his path and not your own. Yeah. I actually always struggle with these
00:53:38.280
questions. Cause I, I think, I don't know, I, I, I fall in the path that, that I think our creator
00:53:47.060
kind of sits back and, and, and lets us learn our lessons, you know, and that there's, there's little
00:53:52.700
disruption, you know what I mean? To the flow of things and, and probably to a fault. I know that.
00:53:57.800
Um, but, but one, one thing I would consider is, is in line with his plan. And if it's not, then
00:54:08.580
why would you even ask? You know what I mean? Like, is this plan? I know, but plan AKA, is it about
00:54:18.180
like the service of other individuals or is it about you? And, and the probability is if it's just about
00:54:26.040
you, he's probably indifferent, but if it's about serving other individuals, it's about a greater
00:54:33.940
good. It's about something beyond yourself. Then, then those, those have different weight in my mind.
00:54:41.320
So I used to up until even relatively recently, wholeheartedly agree with that,
00:54:47.960
but I'm trying to see if things a little different. I don't know that he's indifferent.
00:54:52.680
Hmm. It's just that kind of, yeah. Yeah. It's just that he may not answer you the way that you
00:55:01.040
want. Let me give you an example. When I was young, um, before internet and computers,
00:55:06.700
I remember I'd have to work on a school project, you know, write a report or something on
00:55:13.100
alligators, whatever. And I would ask my mom, mom, how do you spell alligator?
00:55:18.560
And she would say, instead of spelling the damn word, which I knew she was fully capable of
00:55:24.540
spelling the word for me, she would say, go look it up in the dictionary. And we actually had to
00:55:30.860
look it up in a dictionary or the encyclopedia. Like we had to open a book. This is crazy. Open a book
00:55:38.220
that had like a through C words. And we'd have to like go through and find it and then figure out
00:55:44.420
how to spell it. And it was so infuriating. I'm like, mom, tell me how to spell alligator. She's
00:55:48.860
like, no, I I'm like, cause you don't. Yeah. I would try that. Right. I'm tempter. Well, because
00:55:53.180
you don't know how to spell it. And that never worked because she didn't need to prove anything
00:55:57.320
to me. Yeah. And, and so she said, no, I'm not. I want you to know how to find it and figure it out.
00:56:03.920
And so inevitably I'd have to go look it up. And, but that's our relationship with God.
00:56:10.200
So like, God, please help this woman love me, or please help me get this promotion or please help
00:56:17.180
me, whatever. And you don't get what you want. You don't get the promotion. You don't get the
00:56:22.420
woman. You don't get whatever. And you're like, oh yeah, see, there's no God. Like you couldn't,
00:56:28.900
how powerful are you? You couldn't even give me what I wanted. And so you tempt him and he doesn't
00:56:35.820
answer. Cause he doesn't need to prove anything to you. And then you fast forward your life 10
00:56:41.100
years or 15 years or 20 years. And you're like, man, I'm really glad that God didn't answer
00:56:48.820
that prayer the way I wanted him to answer it. Cause I would not have what I have right now.
00:56:54.600
If that were the case, he knows just like my mom knew how to spell. He knows our plan is imperfect.
00:57:01.900
Perfect. And that sucks actually, because we're not as in control, but I don't think he's indifferent.
00:57:08.020
It doesn't sound like you actually think that either, but yeah.
00:57:12.200
Well, and what's fun on what's fun about this is to drive this thought home.
00:57:18.040
Your mom's spelling alligator for you doesn't help you learn how to spell alligator.
00:57:25.080
But you figuring it out does. Right. And, and the perfect prime example of that is the fact that
00:57:31.420
that's why the Bible is whittled with parables because you need to figure out the meaning
00:57:38.940
because there's a big difference being told something versus you figuring it out. Right.
00:57:44.860
And a quote that came up on my Instagram actually yesterday or earlier this last week, late last
00:57:50.700
week from Dale Carnegie. And I think it's, it's relevant to this. It says, you cannot teach a man
00:57:55.900
anything. You can only help him find it within himself. That's how we learn. We don't learn
00:58:03.280
because Ryan told me X, Y, Z. I learned because he said some things and I had to internalize it and
00:58:09.280
think through it. And then that becomes wisdom and knowledge. Before that, it was just intellectual
00:58:14.920
understanding or logic. And those are two drastically different things. And thus the
00:58:20.740
reason for parables. So that way we could have a, a different connection to that knowledge by coming
00:58:26.960
to that realization on our own. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's the knowledge versus wisdom.
00:58:33.980
You know, you can have knowledge of something without being wise. Cause I think wisdom is practical
00:58:38.340
application of knowledge. Yeah. It would dig in. We can always tie it back to jujitsu. I could,
00:58:44.920
know how to do a Kimura. Like I could know all of the steps, all of the ways that the proper
00:58:51.100
technique, I could know all of that. I could even know, I could even know Kip when you're going to
00:58:55.960
do it to me. I can know. I'm like, Oh, he's trying to go for a Kimura because of how he's positioned,
00:59:00.660
how he's got my arm. I know that. And yet I can't defend it or I can't submit somebody with it
00:59:06.560
because there's nuance to the game that you need to do it enough to realize. And by the way,
00:59:12.120
just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work. You need to go back to the
00:59:19.180
drawing board. Cause you might be missing a crucial step. I hear that a lot. Guys are like,
00:59:23.080
Oh yeah, I tried to start a podcast, but it didn't work. Really? Podcasting doesn't work.
00:59:29.500
You're, you're, you're telling me that podcasting doesn't work.
00:59:34.200
Like how can you look me straight in the eye and say that in all a guy who's created a very,
00:59:42.920
very successful podcast that podcasting doesn't work. It's not that it doesn't work. It's that
00:59:47.920
you're not doing something correctly, which is okay, but it's not an opportunity to throw in the
00:59:52.820
towel. It's an opportunity to learn and grow and develop and figure out that one little key thing
00:59:56.580
you might be missing. I don't know. It kind of deviated from the question, but at the end of the
01:00:00.580
day, I think if you know, God, you're more likely to be following God. If he's a stranger to you,
01:00:05.740
how do you know? How do you know if you're following his plan or not? You really don't
01:00:09.740
because you have nothing to compare it to. Yeah. All right. Last question. Is that cool?
01:00:15.240
Yeah, sure. Let's do more. Brandon Ballard, what are some strategies for dealing with burnout in
01:00:21.860
groups or activities that have brought you joy in the past, but now you are finding them less engaging?
01:00:26.880
Yeah. I saw this question beforehand. I have a very easy answer. Elevate yourself in the group.
01:00:35.900
Stop being a bystander. Stop being a participant. If something brings you joy or has brought you joy,
01:00:44.480
here's the thing. I don't know. When he said this, I kind of wondered if he was talking about
01:00:48.220
the iron council a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, totally. My thought too is like,
01:00:53.120
I'm on a battle team. It's not as engaging as it used to be. Yeah. Right. And I don't know if that,
01:00:57.660
but we're just assuming that, but I read it. I'm like, oh, I wonder if he's talking about the iron
01:01:00.760
council. He says strategies for dealing with burnout in groups or activities that brought
01:01:04.420
you joy in the past. Now they're monotonous and less engaging. The answer is to get engaged
01:01:11.480
and not just for your own benefit, but for the benefit of other people. So if you see something
01:01:17.020
in the iron council or other activities or groups that you belong to that brought you joy,
01:01:21.260
it might not mean that they're joy less. It might mean that you have, you have graduated
01:01:28.000
past participant. And now your new role is not simply to participate, but you to serve other
01:01:37.280
people. It's like you get to this peak and you're like, oh, this peak is beautiful. And then you stand
01:01:41.920
there. Have you ever gone on a big hike? You were talking about Zion. Angel's Landing is a great hike
01:01:45.620
in Zion National Park. And you hike and you go up the switchbacks and you go up the little narrow
01:01:49.500
trail and you're holding onto the chains and you get to the top and you're like, this is beautiful.
01:01:53.400
Well, how long is a beautiful four? Half an hour?
01:01:57.960
And then you're like, yeah, I get it. A lot of rocks up here and it's high. Like I'm ready to go down now.
01:02:04.460
Why? It's beautiful. By any objective standard, you get up there, you should be proud of it.
01:02:09.360
It's a challenging hike. It's pretty scary. And it's beautiful. And yet after a half an hour,
01:02:15.040
you're like, all right. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. You have gone past casual observer or casual participant
01:02:24.060
and you should be graduating into the guy that now helps somebody else.
01:02:32.060
Hey, you know, this is missing, but I think it could be added. And here's one thing we can do.
01:02:36.460
And if we did this, I think it would improve engagement. And there you're going to find an
01:02:40.680
entirely new meaning of your battle team, of the iron council, of your work, of your relationship,
01:02:47.580
of your church congregation, of your school board, of your football team that you coach,
01:02:53.160
an entirely new dynamic that you are unlocking. If you get over the idea that everybody else is just
01:03:00.140
there to serve you. And maybe your new role is now to serve other people, which is pretty exciting.
01:03:08.000
So look at it that way. Sure. Love it, man. All right. So we covered a couple of things. Yeah.
01:03:18.000
So I see we're going to open that up here in the coming weeks. So to get connected and to learn more
01:03:24.800
about the iron council in preparation for when we open that up, go to orderofman.com slash iron council
01:03:29.640
holidays are coming up as well. So if there is swag that you're wanting to get yourself or another
01:03:35.380
brother or your son, or if you're the spouse that's listening and you want to get some swag
01:03:40.380
for your husband, go to store.orderofman.com and get those orders in before the holiday season rush.
01:03:46.400
And let me make a plug on one thing that's big right now is we have signed copies of my newest book,
01:03:51.040
the masculinity manifesto. And we also have, I think a few more copies of our exclusive edition,
01:03:57.600
which is a custom leather bound journal over the book, custom leather bookmark, a personalized note
01:04:05.360
card from me. And those are available as well. It's all at store.orderofman.com.
01:04:12.280
Perfect. And then to connect with Mr. Mickler on Instagram and Twitter, go to at Ryan Mickler
01:04:17.600
and stay connected that way as well. Right on. Thanks, Kip. Appreciate you guys. Great questions
01:04:22.480
today. Keep them coming. We'll keep answering and we'll keep going. We'll be back on what day?
01:04:29.280
Friday. Friday. And until then guys go out there, take action, become a man you are meant to be.
01:04:35.380
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:04:39.820
to be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.